1961-04-14

WELCOME TO PRIME MINISTER OF GREECE AND PARTY

Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, we have today in the gallery a representative, the Prime Minister, of an ally of Canada's-Prime Minister Karamanlis of Greece. He will already, by the reception accorded to him by the members, realize the warmth of our feelings toward his country. He is accompanied by his wife as well as by the foreign minister of Greece, Mr. Averoff-Tossizza.
Yesterday we had the opportunity of discussing together matters of interest not only to our two countries but, as well, to the strengthening of the bonds of NATO and the assurance that Canada in the days ahead will be able to meet its responsibilities as it has since the date of the formation of NATO. In this connection it is well for the house to note that he has joined with the viewpoint of Canada in believing that it is most necessary, at the earliest date convenient, considering the preparation that must be made in order to achieve the greatest success, to have a meeting of the heads of state among NATO leaders. It is a necessity, having regard to the situation in NATO and in the international field as well.
We welcome him for himself and for the contribution he has made to the stability of his own country. We welcome him as the representative of a member nation in that organization of which I have just spoken. We welcome him for the contribution to and the heritage of culture that his country has given not only to the western civilization but to democracy and its principles throughout the world. We welcome him as the leader of a nation which has given much to Canada in the thousands of immigrants from that country who have come to us and joined in the building of Canadianism, and in the contribution which, in every part of Canada, is made by people of his race.
Therefore, sir, I draw your attention to the fact that he is here, and I again welcome to this country a true friend, an outstanding statesman, one whose dedication and whose
country's dedication to freedom and democracy makes stronger the NATO organization and freedom itself everywhere in the world.


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Bonavisia-Twillin-gate):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my hon. friend, the Leader of the Opposition, whose absence I greatly regret-an absence that is quite unavoidable-I should like on behalf of our friends to join with the Prime Minister, whose every word I echo, in welcoming the Prime Minister of Greece and those who are with him as visitors to this country today. While I regret the absence of the Leader of the Opposition, it is perhaps not unfitting that a representative of the greatest sea-faring people in the new world should welcome this representative of the first great sea-faring nation of the old world.
If I may be even more personal and recall my youth in the bush in northern Manitoba, one of the most distinguished of the citizens of that community was an immigrant from Greece, whose family were honoured in that community then and are honoured still today. All of us remember from our school days the warning timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, but no one who sits in a free parliament fears the greatest of all the gifts of the Greeks to the world, the idea of selfgovernment, and for that we are eternally grateful to the people represented by the prime minister who is our guest today. Nor shall we forget, sir, that it was the language of Greece which was the vehicle for the spread of the religion most of us profess in Canada. We remember too how Greece fought and suffered for freedom in the dark days of the war. We remember that from the days of Byron to the days of Harry Truman, modern Greece has been on the frontiers of freedom. We are happy that Greece, which has perhaps historically the greatest claim to be the champion of freedom, as the Prime Minister has reminded us, is an integral member of that society of free nations, the North Atlantic alliance, which all of us, I trust, want to see strengthened in every way possible in order to meet the difficulties with which we are faced in the free world of today.


Mr. Hazen Argue (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I join with the Prime Minister and the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate in adding our words of welcome to Canada to the

Inquiries of the Ministry Prime Minister of Greece. The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, who is very often at sea, was probably more appropriately at sea this morning in many of the remarks he made.
We acknowledge that the Prime Minister of Greece, our guest today, was himself instrumental in bringing about peace and independence to the island of Cyprus. The Prime Minister has associated the Prime Minister of Greece with his own views on certain aspects of the NATO organization. We do not agree with all of his comments in that particular regard, but realizing that Greece has done so much for the development and independence of free institutions of the world, we do welcome her prime minister.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. George H. Hees (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River asked me a question regarding export financing. Since the answer is of necessity rather long, I wonder whether I could have the permission of the house to place it on Hansard?


Mr. Speaker:: Is the house agreeable to the minister's request?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
[Editor's note:	The answer referred to
above is as follows: ]
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River asked a question concerning export financing. In reply I wish to state that following my announcement in the house last November 25 on export financing, two new institutions have been established for this purpose. They are the Export Finance Corporation of Canada Limited, a private institution wholly owned by the nine chartered banks, and the export finance division of the Export Credits Insurance Corporation, which is a government agency.
The Export Finance Corporation, using private funds, will finance exports for periods up to five years. The charter of this corporation provides for a subscribed capital of $50 million, with the right to borrow 10 times this amount, for example, up to $500 million, to finance exports from Canada. I understand that to date only $10 million of the subscribed capital has been paid in and the Export Finance Corporation is therefore in a position to borrow and undertake financing up to an
[Mr. Argue.l
amount of $100 million. This amount will of course increase as larger percentages of the subscribed capital are paid in.
The Export Finance Corporation has only recently commenced operations and I am not in a position to give information on the amount of export financing which it may have undertaken. It is my understanding, however, that it has not undertaken any substantial amount of export financing as yet. I would like to emphasize that the Export Finance Corporation is a private corporation which will undertake financing for periods not in excess of five years and that no public funds are involved in its export financing operations.
The export finance division of the Export Credits Insurance Corporation is the government institution which will handle the government's export financing program. Two hundred million dollars is the sum available for this program under the present provisions of sections 21 and 21A of the Export Credits Insurance Act. In so far as the government is concerned, the basic principle of its export financing program is that the government is now in a position to finance the export of capital goods for periods ranging from five to fifteen years, or longer, at rates of interest approximately equal to those being offered by major competitors. Government financing is, however, available only for capital goods having a high Canadian content (eighty per cent) minimum and which are intended for use in economically sound projects in creditworthy countries wherein it is reasonable to expect continuing foreign sales.
Although the export finance division has been in operation only for the past three months, Canadian exporters have already applied for extended term financing for 18 projects for transactions in 11 countries, to a total value of approximately $213 million. All such applications are considered by an interdepartmental committee known as the committee on export finance, which determines, in the light of the principles and procedures regulating government export financing, whether applications should be submitted to cabinet for approval. Of the $213 million of applications thus far received, $52| million have already been judged suitable for submission to cabinet and the remainder are receiving careful examination. I would like to emphasize, Mr. Speaker, that Canadian exporters are in a position to bid for this potential new business amounting to $213 million solely by reason of the establishment of the government's long term lending program.
In conclusion, I would like to state that although there is no direct relationship

between the government's winter works program and the long term export financing program, it is a fact that economic and employment considerations within Canada are an important criterion for determining whether or not an application for export financing should be granted.



URANIUM


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: I should like to address a question to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister give the house any information as to why the United Kingdom-Canadian talks with regard to the uranium contract apparently have been postponed? Can he assure the house that Canada is still insisting that Britain buy 12,000 tons of uranium?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, there is nothing I can add to what has already been said. The question of uranium is still being considered. As I said yesterday, when a determination is made as to the identity and personnel of the group which will go to London with a view to further discussions, the house will be fully made aware of it.



INQUIRY FOR RETURN


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: I wonder if I can repeat a question I asked of the Minister of Public Works the other day and ascertain from him whether it is going to be possible for him to bring down a return of the correspondence with the government of Prince Edward Island with regard to the proposed causeway. The minister will realize that the subject is of even greater interest than it was when I asked the question.


Hon. D. J. Walker (Minister of Public Works):: I am delighted to be able to say that yesterday I received the consent of the premier of Prince Edward Island to table this correspondence. I am sure the interest which the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate is taking in this matter can do nothing but good.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I hope so.
14,	1961	3659
Inquiries of the Ministry TRANSPORT



RICHELIEU WATERWAY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Maurice Johnson (Chambly-Rouville):: I should like to address a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Is the minister ready to make a statement in answer to a question I asked the Acting Minister of Transport on Wednesday, April 12, with respect to the Richelieu waterway?


Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I seem to have received this question by a series of delegations; however, I will take the question as notice.



VANCOUVER ISLAND CAUSEWAY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I have another question I should like to put to the Minister of Public Works. Can the minister assure us that any plans he may have on the shelf for a causeway to Vancouver island will be unveiled before May 29?



FISHERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to the Minister of Fisheries. My question is based on the great interest of the fishermen of the Pacific coast in the report entitled "Licence Limitation, British Columbia, and Method of Economic Fisheries Management" by Professor Sinclair. I am informed that the union has asked for extra copies of the report to service all its locals as well as its executive and has been unable to obtain them. Would the minister give consideration to the printing of additional copies of this very important report so that those particularly concerned in the industry can obtain extra copies, for which they are quite willing to pay?


Hon. J. A. MacLean (Minister of Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, a relatively limited number of copies of this rather extensive report were printed. We thought our estimated number would be sufficient for the purpose. However, I believe the union to which the hon. member has referred requested approximately 200 copies. We have not been able yet to furnish that particular organization with that number of copies because there has been a greater demand for the report than we

Inquiries of the Ministry anticipated, from a great many organizations directly or indirectly interested in the fishing industry. We will do the best we can in furnishing some additional copies.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. Would the minister care to comment on an article in this morning's Globe and Mail by Bruce MacDonald to the effect-


David James Walker: May I interpose to say that I have not read the article, and would not care to comment on it.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I will put my question anyway and then the minister can decide whether this important statement is worthy of comment. The statement is that Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation is considering the placing of $750 million in mortgages on the market. I ask the minister whether this is under consideration.


David James Walker: Mr. Speaker, in connection with our vast problem of creating employment for Canadians and also creating new homes for as many Canadians as can afford to buy them we have all kinds of matters under consideration, and I can assure the hon. member that included among them is the creation of a secondary mortgage market so that mortgages may be more readily available to the public and may be exchanged just as bonds can be exchanged. This matter has been under consideration for some time, and if and when any decision is reached which has the sanction of the cabinet I will be very happy to make an announcement to the house. (Translation):



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Samuel Boulanger (Drummond-Arlhabaska):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Agriculture. Early this week, I inquired when he would be able to announce his department's policy with regard to price stabilization for farm products, and more particularly for dairy products. I have had no answer yet. Yesterday I read in the press that farmers are anxious to get this answer.


Could the minister tell us when he will make a statement with regard to price support for dairy products?
(Text):


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I am not in a position to make any announcement at present, and I do not know when I will be in a position to do so.



PUBLIC BUILDINGS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether he has been able to ascertain the date on which it is proposed to let the contracts for the extension to the wheat board building in Winnipeg.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Speaker, I believe there is a question relating to this subject on the order paper and I am requesting information about it. As soon as I have it, I will make it available.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Flynn in the chair.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT

[Stage Direction]
308. Departmental administration including Canada's share ol the upkeep of the international bureaux at Berne and Montevideo, $2,174,216.
Mr. Fisher:: Last night, Mr. Chairman, my theme was the perfect Postmaster General that we have in Canada at the present time.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Douglas Mason Fisher: I wonder why the Prime Minister should want to hire John Fisher away from touting Anaconda Brass or Niagara Finance when he has this advertising genius in the ranks of the cabinet. We know from the last paragraph of his speech yesterday that his department has moved into a state of perfection, within no limits. It seems to me we now have a minister who is at a level from which he can move on to greater and greater responsibilities, perhaps to a more important department.
For that reason I should like to draw to the attention of all hon. members of the committee a speech made by the Postmaster General, to which I referred last night and which was reprinted in a publication entitled "Vital Speeches of Today", dated March 1, 1961, in which the minister makes a statement on

United States-Canadian relations and sets out Canadian government policy in this very important field.
I say again that I am afraid he is such a perfect Postmaster General we may not have him much longer as such. He will be moved to greater and more expansive realms. If he should move into a field in which he could devote his tendency to the hard sell, rather than the soft sell, I would imagine he would be selling the doctrine of free enterprise and the new frontier that has been announced by the Prime Minister.
This is interesting to me, because the Post Office Department has quite an odd interest in free enterprise and in supporting free enterprise. One of the things the Postmaster General indicated last year, apparently as a result of some questions I asked him, was that every three or four years the Post Office Department makes an analysis of its operations from the point of view of costs. We have an indication in the speech he gave yesterday that the increase in parcel post rates is the result of one of these investigations. This investigation revealed there was a deficit in connection with the operation, so the rates were increased.
Last year the Postmaster General indicated in information he gave me in reply to question No. 34 on the order paper, which concerned the estimates of loss or profit on second class mail, that during the fiscal year 1958-59, based on the department's calculations, the estimated excess of disbursements over receipts amounted to $21,690,000 for newspapers and periodicals. The revenue in that particular year was only $6,189,125. In other words there was a disparity of some $15 million. We have had no indication in the annual report or in the minister's speech as to whether or not this loss has continued. We know that certain subjects have been considered by the royal commission on publications in this connection.
I must come back to this theme of free enterprise and the part the Postmaster General and his department are playing in supporting free enterprise in this country. I wonder how many members of the house have ever heard of the Siftons, the McConnells, the Thomsons or the Welds, and have ever considered that they were poor people. Are the McConnells, the Siftons, the Thomsons and the Welds in this country poor people? I think the answer is of course a ringing "No". No one needs to be told of the tremendous fortune, at least in terms of assets, that Roy Thomson has built up so that now he is a colossus bestriding the whole publishing field, not only in Canada but in Great Britain. Yet the minister and his department
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have helped to subsidize these free enterprises of the Thomsons, the McConnells, the Siftons and the Welds.
I give one example in connection with the second class mailing rates. The postage rate, supposedly, in Canada has been kept low on second class publications because they wanted low subscription rates for the farmers. The three biggest publishers of farm periodicals in Canada are the McConnell interests of Montreal, with the Family Herald and Weekly Star; the Sifton interests of Winnipeg, with the Free Press Prairie Farmer, and the Weld family of London, Ontario, with the Farmer's Advocate. I would say that the McConnells and the Siftons probably rank among the wealthiest families and interests in Canada. A great deal of their wealth has come from their publishing empires and from these fantastically successful and very able publications, the Family Herald and Weekly Star and the Free Press Prairie Farmer.
In the light of this kind of wealth I wonder how much longer we have to go on subsidizing not only the farmer, who benefits by cheaper subscriptions, but these wealthy men. It seems to me that we need a real analysis carried out here. If I had any idea that the McConnells, the Siftons or the Welds were about to go to the wall and were near a state of bankruptcy; if I thought Roy Thomson was in a state of collapse financially, I could see why we should continue to give these low postal rates. But this is not true as far as I know. We have had no indication that these big empires of commerce are shaky. As a matter of fact they seem to be getting bigger and better.
Yet their main publications, and certainly I think the publications that probably bring them in the most income, are among the ones that are piling up this terrific deficit for the Post Office Department. I think the minister will acknowledge that there is in Canada a special rate for daily newspapers having a circulation of less than 10,000 a day. What publisher in Canada owns the most daily newspapers with a circulation of less than 10,000 a day? Some poor, struggling fellow who is trying to get along? Are there many of them who are still trying to keep their heads above water? No; it is our friend Roy Thomson.
The Kamloops Sentinel has an estimated circulation, according to the latest figures, of approximately 6,500; the Kelowna Courier 5,100; the Nanaimo Free Press 8,100; the Penticton Herald 4,800:	the Moose Jaw
Times-Herald 7,900; the Prince Albert Herald 6,800; the Barrie Examiner 8,100; the Kirkland Lake Northern News 6,200; the Orillia Packet and Times 5,700:	the

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Pembroke Observer 6,600; the Woodstock Sentinel Review 9,600 and the Quebec city Chronicle-Telegraph 5,600. These are all newspapers with a circulation of less than 10,000 a day; they are owned by Roy Thomson of the Thomson interests, and they all have a special rate. To me this is one of the most insidious forms of subsidy. It is the kind of subsidy that goes to a free enterpriser who is always shoving free enterprise down our craw.
We have a Thomson paper in our area. Recently it has shown some marked improvement in certain ways in my opinion. I follow the Thomson newspapers fairly closely, and one of their favourite lines is attacking the C.B.C. and the Canada council by advocating the throwing out of such subsidies and saying these agencies are wasting the taxpayers' money. We have a deficit of $20 million in one branch of the Post Office Department- it is not quite a deficit; it is an estimated deficit-and among the prime beneficiaries in Canada is the Thomson chain.
I would have some sympathy for the Thomson papers if they were carrying the odd story or writing the odd editorial on the fact that the Post Office Department is losing money on second class mail. But you do not get that. Instead you get this constant war of attrition against the C.B.C., the Canada council and the C.N.R., these profligate wasters of the taxpayers' money.
This is the kind of insidious inconsistency in the free enterprise approach upon which I should like to hear the minister speak. Are we still subsidizing the poor farmer in bringing him this wonderful information which he obtains from the daily newspapers or the farming publications, or are we subsidizing the McConnells, the Siftons and the Thomsons? I would like an answer to that question.
While I admire the self-made man who can go ahead and build himself a fortune and an empire, not only here but in the world itself, I think we should look at the situation very closely if part of that wealth is accruing in an indirect way by means of subsidy from the Canadian taxpayer. I think it is only fair, in terms of the critique that these gentlemen and their newspapers themselves apply. For that reason I think we should know more about the estimates of the Postmaster General and the costs of delivering this periodical mail.
I know this matter is confused by a fact which is, in a way, a much more important issue. I refer to the fact that at the present time we are not only subsidizing the McConnells, the Siftons, the Welds and the Thomsons, but Time magazine, Reader's Digest and

all the other United States publications that come into this country at a fantastically low rate, considering weight and distance carried, in comparison with Canadian publications.
As I say, the one problem tends to dwarf the other, but no person can look at the information given to me and realize the importance of this matter. I would like to put this information on the record, but the Postmaster General remarked his letter "personal and confidential". This was a letter he sent me on July 27, 1960. It was a four page letter which I appreciated; it was full of information on this very point.
However, the Post Office Department is losing money on carrying second class mail. The Postmaster General has the figures here to substantiate this statement. They are especially losing money on carrying United States' periodicals. As I remember from the figures given to the royal commission, the 45 leading United States magazines have a circulation in Canada of over 61 million, while the eight Canadian magazines that are in comparable fields have a circulation of a little over two million. Therefore there is no question about it, the United States publications have a great advantage over comparable Canadian publications since they are generally heavier and carried further.
However, I still insist that as much as we hope this will be corrected by the royal commission, this is no excuse at all for any longer giving subsidies to men of such substance who control the farming publications and these daily newspapers with a circulation of less than 10,000.
The argument can probably be made, do you want to put the poor people in Prince Albert in the situation where they can only get news about the Prime Minister at a higher price, because this would mean higher priced newspapers? All I can say is that we do not know what profits Mr. Thomson has made from the Prince Albert paper or any of these other papers. It is none of our business. But we assume that he has done very well, because he started with a small radio station in Kirkland Lake, moved to a few newspapers and now has a chain across Canada, some in the United States, he is going down into Africa and he almost sewed up the periodical market in the United Kingdom.
I do not believe money is created magically, or the resources for this kind of empire. It came from somewhere. Where did that money come from? I think we have to assume that it came from the little people in Prince Albert, Kelowna, Woodstock, and so on. If this is the case, I think we deserve a check on the particular aspect I have raised. How much

longer are these special rates on agricultural publications and publications with circulation of less than 10,000 or less to be carried on?
I did want to make some complimentary remarks about the employees of the department as well as about the minister. The thing I like about post office employees, and I can say this because I would not say it about very many civil servants, is that they have a lot of militancy and fibre. They have great solidarity. I was delighted to read in this morning's paper that the representative appearing before a house committee took a very strong line on collective bargaining. I enjoy reading the Postal Journal of Canada. It is about the most forthright of all the publications put out by the civil service associations. I must pay the minister at least an indirect compliment by saying I have seen no falling away since he took office in either the militancy or the self reliance or the fibre of the employees. More power to them, and I wish more civil servants had the same attitude as the majority of postal employees.
There is one other aspect of the general question on which I should like to hear the minister's comments. A publication appeared recently which contains a great deal of information on public administration in Canada. It is really an editors' job by Hodgetts and Corbett called "Canadian Public Administration". Included in it is a very fine article by a former senior civil servant of the department, Mr. Turnbull, entitled "Decentralization in the Post Office". This essay was first published approximately six years ago and it indicates that decentralization was already taking place in the department with a promise that it would bring better controls, reduced costs, and so on.
The question I should like to ask the minister in the light, I was about to say, of the bragging-or perhaps I had better call it the complimentary way he has looked at the operations of the post office since they came within his grasp-is whether some of these advances have come about as a result of this policy of decentralization which followed the Woods Gordon report of six or seven years ago, and about which Mr. Turnbull has written. I mention this because I think the minister may in all modesty want to give some credit, if not to his ministerial predecessor then at least to some of the senior civil servants under the former government who might have set up changes the benefits of which are now being reaped so brilliantly, or so forcefully, or in such a hard sell manner by the present Postmaster General.
There is one other point with which I should like to deal. It is a more specific point, and one on which I should like to have some information from the Postmaster General. I
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should like to know what steps he has taken to stop the development of football sweeps and lotteries of all kinds in Canada. I have brought this matter up before. The two Toronto evening papers, the Toronto Telegram and the Toronto Star, carry, every Wednesday I think it is, the results of a certain football pool in England. I am no legal expert, but it seems to me those pool results indicate- and this I know because some of my friends are involved-that a good many people are playing the football pools in England, and they may or may not be using the mails. I am fairly certain they are, and I think I know how they are getting round the provisions against doing so. The point is that neither the Toronto Telegram nor the Toronto Star would be carrying these excerpts of information if they did not know that there was an interest, and a substantial interest in what is, according to the minister's own actions, an illegal enterprise in Canada. I should like to know from the minister, since his officials have gone to the trouble of opening the mail of some of those little people who are playing the football pools in England, whether he is considering doing anything about stopping the passage by mail of those newspapers which are carrying football pool information.
I refuse to believe that this information, carried regularly every Wednesday evening, giving the winnings and the ratios for the various parts of the pool, is given because Canadians have an altruistic interest in it. I suggest the information is carried because it is known that Canadians are playing these football pools. I believe we should be allowed to play them. That is my personal stand, not a party position at all. If the minister is going to be consistent, what is he going to do about this publication in newspapers, which go through the mails, of information on illegal activities?
I cannot myself make out whether this information is inserted as news or as an advertisement. I have written to one of the newspapers on the point and received no reply. I asked the correspondent of another newspaper to check, and he told me he had received no reply. We do not know whether this information is an advertisement or news. However, I suggest that the regularity with which this information is inserted is something the minister should investigate if he is going to run around opening the mail of the little people who play the pools.


Mr. Drysdale:: Would the hon. member permit a question? The hon. member indicated that he was giving his personal expression of opinion concerning these football pools and not an expression of party opinion. If we had a Canadian lottery in Canada I think the problem would be obviated, and

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I was wondering whether the hon. member could speak for his party and indicate whether they are in favour of a lottery in Canada.


The Chairman:: I would have some objection to the nature of the debate being changed.


John Andrew W. Drysdale: On the point of order, the hon. member has been complaining about the fact that information useful to people who are playing football pools is passing through the mails. I was suggesting that if we had a Canadian lottery the difficulty would be obviated, because those who are now playing the Old Country football pools would then be in a position to play them in Canada. I was trying to find out, since the hon. member has given his personal opinion, whether or not his party is in favour of a Canadian lottery.


Douglas Mason Fisher: I can only refer hon. members to what X think was an excellent speech I made about a month after the house-


Some hon. Members:: Oh.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Well, this is not a time for modesty. If I am going to play in the Postmaster General's league I have to adopt some of his tactics.


An hon. Member:: You do not know where your party stands.


Douglas Mason Fisher: I know where the party stands. The party has not got a stand on lotteries. If the hon. member wants to know, what I have tried to do is to see that the party has a stand.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I wonder if the hon. member will permit me to ask him a question. Since the hon. gentleman says this is no time for modesty, does he not think he should address the committee as "my fellow Canadians"?


Douglas Mason Fisher: Well, as a fifth generation Canadian-I sometimes wonder whether it is worth mentioning in this house. I think I had better let it go. I have one last and rather serious point to bring to the minister's attention. It is a rather ticklish thing, and since it involves in a sense birth control and religion I am sure it may get some attention from the press.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Douglas Mason Fisher: I think it probably will, but I want to point out to them and to the minister that I should much prefer the press to give some attention to the problem I brought up earlier, which is that these free enterprises are being subsidized by the taxpayer in an indirect way.
IMr. Drysdale.]
However, on the other subject, I have received two letters of protest from women in my constituency to the effect that they have received, through direct mail, solicitations from a firm in Winnipeg that they should buy contraceptives. This advertisement is perhaps not as shocking to me as it would be to the women who receive it but it is certainly shocking enough, if one has limited knowledge in this field. It is certainly not the kind of information that should be coming into the home. It results probably from someone acquiring a mailing list. This particular one was addressed by name to a person in my own city of Port Arthur, and includes a price list with a sort of decorative statement about the merits of the various gadgets that are offered, leaving very little to the imagination. It includes a most peculiar little statement, which I will read:
Should this be contrary to your beliefs kindly accept our apology and disregard this advertising. Please feel assured it is unlikely that you will hear from us again.
How do you know you will not hear again in this regard? This is an advertisement from only one firm dispensing this particular kind of contraceptive. If you look at newspapers, such as the Family Herald and Weekly Star, you will find in the classified section all kinds of this type of advertising. What will happen if this type of thing leads to a massive assault upon Canadian householders? What can the Postmaster General do to protect people from receiving this kind of information which stresses that these things are designed solely with regard to health but happen to have, I think it is commonly agreed, a more practical objective?
I suggest that this is something that should be investigated. I certainly object generally to the amount of direct mail that householders receive. I know as politicians and members of parliament we probably receive more direct mail than any other group of people in Canada, which is perhaps as it should be, but why the ordinary householder should be bombarded in this way is something I do not understand, especially in regard to subjects as personal as this. It seems to me that the post office should consider whether the circulation of this kind of information falls within some part of the Criminal Code which makes it illegal. If an individual writes for this kind of information in following up an advertisement appearing in the newspapers that is quite all right, but to receive this kind of information out of a clear blue sky is something of a different nature.
This particular advertisement came from Twin Cities Sales of Winnipeg but, considering the many companies in Canada in this field, if they all follow this type of advertising, using

mailing lists or telephone directories, the post office will be faced with a very serious problem. I would like to know what the minister feels his officials can do in this regard, or what advice they can supply those people who receive this kind of information. I might point out to the minister that this advertisement is designed in such a way that individuals will open it. It advertises a saving of from 35 per cent to 75 per cent.


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


Mr. Ricard:: Mr. Chairman, like my colleagues in the house, I listened closely to the brilliant statement made yesterday by the Postmaster General, in which he reported on the operations of his department. I think he deserves to be commended. There is no thought of flattery in my mind, but I think he and his department certainly are to be admired; so, contrary to what the hon. member for St. Denis (Mr. Denis) did last night, I should like to pay tribute to the minister and his staff on behalf of my constituents.
The minister knows I am sincere in making these remarks, because he knows better than anyone that I do not always agree with the decisions that are made, but he has a duty and a right-in fact he has no choice-to follow whatever course he thinks is best. I commend him for it, and I bow to the decisions he has to make from time to time, even though they are not always to our satisfaction.
Ever since he took over the Post Office Department, we have seen a number of improvements in postal services.
Let me remind you of a few improvements which have been achieved in my constituency. My purpose in mentioning them is to recognize the integrity, understanding and impartiality which have always been displayed by the post office staff.
I would mention, for instance, a service which is certainly very much appreciated by the people of St. Hyacinthe, and particularly those of Douville; the Douville section, in suburban St. Hyacinthe, now enjoys daily letter carrier delivery service, except on Sundays. This is also true of the Jolibois section of the city of St. Hyacinthe which also enjoys the letter carrier delivery service, thanks to the understanding of the minister and his staff. Representations for those services had been made in several instances under the former Liberal administration, but had always been
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turned down because of the unbending attitude of the then minister, who would never recognize the needs of the people of St. Hyacinthe.
The same service has also been extended to street sections which previously were not served. The post office people have realized that those taxpayers should not only pay taxes, but should also enjoy the services provided by the department.
Thanks to the understanding of the Postmaster General and his officials, it was found possible, following representations from yours truly, Mr. Chairman, to go ahead with the setting up of five new sub-offices in the city of St. Hyacinthe. The rural mail service was also extended, not only in my constituency but also in Richmond-Wolfe and in a number of other neighbouring constituencies.
The hon. member for St. Denis complained yesterday about the cost of maintaining postal services. He forgot, probably because of his merely occasional attendance in this house in the past years, his own lack of action and that of his colleagues representing rural constituencies, who particularly failed to discharge their obligations as they might have done.
Of course, when the minister extends his services it will cost something. Therefore, there may be an increase in expenses in certain sections.
I also noted yesterday, Mr. Chairman, that the hon. member for St. Denis (Mr. Denis) starred in a show which might be called a burlesque, the like of which had never been witnessed before in this house. I noticed- which is really surprising, and also pitiable -that the Liberal opposition had made a rather sad choice when selecting its spokesman on such significant questions as come under the Post Office Department.
During the 70 and more minutes that the hon. member for St. Denis had the floor, he only piled up nonsense upon nonsense, fallacy upon fallacy, inaccuracy upon inaccuracy-


Paul Léo Maurice Johnson: Exaggeration.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Exaggeration upon exaggeration, as my good friend from Chambly-Rouville (Mr. Johnson) so rightly said.
He tried hard to sow in the public mind the idea that the present minister did not carry out his responsibilities as he should, and he also threw some suspicion on all civil servants in the Post Office Department, in a way which was unworthy of a member of this house.
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Mr. Deschatelets:: That statement is false, and you know it.


Mr.   Hicard@: One of the prompters is starting on the job. That is exactly what he said, because, and I am referring here to the official record, page 3635, where it can be seen that the hon. member for St. Denis expressed himself as follows:
What did he do with that money?
The hon. member for St. Denis was speaking of the Postmaster General.
Is this not, Mr. Chairman, an implication that these sums have not been properly used?
He also tried to maintain that the service given by the Post Office Department is not as good it was under the former Liberal administration. That is completely false and everybody knows that the present Post Office Department is giving us a service not only better than what we had previously in Canada but also better than that of many other countries.
He also tried to say that there were now more complaints than before, whereas the opposite is true.
When the Liberals were in power, Mr. Chairman-as the minister told us yesterday -there was an average of 123 complaints in a million letters, whereas under the present Postmaster General their number has fallen to 94 only.
The hon. member for St. Denis had the cheek to say, Mr. Chairman, that there has been patronage in the Post Office Department.
It is indeed surprising, Mr. Chairman, to hear in this house a Liberal member speak of patronage, and I shall show you, on the basis of evidence, that if there has been any patronage, it was in the days of our predecessors.
When they came into power in 1935, they deprived 535 postmasters of their jobs overnight.
(Text):


Mr. Graffiey:: Shame.
(Translation):


Mr. Pigeon:: Scandalous.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: As evidence of the patronage prevailing under Liberal rule, Mr. Chairman, I shall give you a very concrete example of what happened in those days.
Mr. Chairman, I have here copies of official documents concerning the appointment of a postmaster in my constituency; this was under a Liberal regime, that is in 1946. To Liberal members who claim there never was any patronage under a Liberal administration, I suggest that they listen carefully to what I am going to read.	[DOT]


Mr. Tardif:: This is all ancient history.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: It may be ancient history but true nevertheless. And something tells me this is going to hurt my hon. Liberal friends.


Paul Léo Maurice Johnson: It is going to hurt the redskins.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: 
Mr. Denis:: Not at all.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: And the letter continues:
As I said above, when these gentlemen wish to have Mrs. Poudrette permanently appointed, they only have to advise me and you may be sure I will be pleased to take the necessary steps.
Sincerely yours,
Armand Cloutier, M.P., Drummond-Arthabaska.
Mr. Chairman, here is the last letter I intend to read. It is dated May 28, 1946:
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Ottawa, May 28, 1946
Mrs. Gaston Poudrette,
St. Eugene of Grantham,
Drummond Co., Quebec.
Dear Madam:
I regret to advise you that Mr. Remi Duguay will shortly be appointed permanent postmaster in your community.
I wish to tell you, dear Madam, that I was forced to take such a step by a group of citizens of St. Eugene parish who insisted on such a change. I deeply regret that inconvenience for you; however, I wish to tell you that if you ever need my services I shall always be at your disposal. The same goes for your husband and your father Mr. Forest.
Sincerely yours,
Armand Cloutier, M.P., Drummond-Arthabaska.
And it is claimed, Mr. Chairman, that there was no patronage under the Liberal regime which preceded us. At this stage of my remarks I should like to ask the hon. member for St. Denis-and if I am wrong he may correct me-how it comes that his nephew was appointed postmaster in Berthier by the Liberals.


Azellus Denis: That is true.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Chairman, are we to understand, from what he says, that such appointment was made properly or improperly? The hon. member for St. Denis could certainly have told us yesterday.


Azellus Denis: Mr. Chairman, does the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot want me to reply to that question?


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: You made your remarks yesterday-


Azellus Denis: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot is asking questions, but he does not want us to reply.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member may ask all the questions he wishes when I am through with my remarks.


Azellus Denis: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member asks questions but he does not give us the opportunity to answer them.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: He prefers to use innuendoes; it is his way of going about it.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I am surely not using innuendoes. Do you claim that these are mere insinuations? Would you go so far as to question the signature of one of your former colleagues?


Azellus Denis: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order.

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J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: You are revealing your true colours.


Azellus Denis: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order-


William Heward Grafftey: Truth hurts.


Azellus Denis: Mr. Chairman, I have no objection to the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot asking me questions. However, I feel that when this hon. member puts questions to the member for St. Denis, he expects to get answers. Since I am ready to answer his questions, the hon. member should give me a chance to do so; otherwise he should withdraw his questions.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: You will have a chance in a minute to answer all the questions.


Azellus Denis: Mr. Chairman-


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for St. Denis will have an opportunity to answer all the questions he wants once I have resumed my seat.


Jacques Flynn: Order. I would point out to the hon. member for St. Denis that it is a well-known public speaking device to make statements under the guise of questions.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Chairman, it has not been only since the Conservative party came to power that the Postmaster General and other ministers have been forced to take disciplinary measures against employees not doing their duty or violating the rules applying to them. In this regard, a well deserved tribute must be paid the present Postmaster General for having done his duty according to his conscience. Is it not a fact that the first postmaster or the first postal employee to be dismissed after the election of the Conservative party was so dismissed as the result of a complaint or recommendation from a Liberal member?
That is how the minister goes about discharging his duties. Therefore, instead of showering abuse upon him, and directing all kinds of innuendoes, as the hon. member for St. Denis did yesterday, we should be taking our hats off to the minister and telling him that he is fulfilling his duties to the satisfaction of all.
I wish the person who was in the gallery yesterday and was so amused by the act of buffoonery being put on by the hon. member for St. Denis, were here today and gave other members the same publicity he gave to the clowning of our friend from St. Denis. But this man is here only when it suits him. I therefore appeal to his colleague who I feel [Mr. Ricard.}
is more imbued with a sense of duty towards his obligations and is more capable of following the dictates of his conscience rather than being beholden to a party.
And now, Mr. Chairman, I urge all hon. members in this house to make constructive criticism and refrain from following the example set by the hon. member for St. Denis.


Samuel Boulanger: I should like to put a question to the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot. He did not say anything about the 90 per cent increase in rates for parcel post; I wish he would give some explanation in justification of that increase.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Chairman, it is no part of my duty to discharge here responsibilities that belong to the minister personally. I am not the Postmaster General and I know that he has all the necessary qualifications and knowledge to justify his stand, and I am sure he will give complete satisfaction to anyone who might want information.


Samuel Boulanger: I know perfectly well that the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot is not the Postmaster General and that, having no responsibility whatsoever, he can say anything.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Mr. Chairman, I have just heard the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot make one of his usual wild speeches. He congratulated the Postmaster General for the $13J million deficit which was announced yesterday. He commended the Postmaster General for having contributed to unemployment through the introduction of mechanical devices and automation. And he said he was quite satisfied with that situation.
I noted some words he used in his speech, such as: clownery, stupidity, misrepresentation, inaccuracy, exaggeration, imprudence and patronage.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I had no choice, I had to use
those words.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: He voiced the complaints of the Union Nationale and the Tory party. Now, I do not intend to follow in his steps. The member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot, as I said had accustomed us to that kind of wild and rather ridiculous speech. There is in his constituency a bogey-man roaming around, frightening children, telling them that their catechism may be taken away from them.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Nothing surprising in that.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: All those who come from those parts are rather used to his blunders. I would not make too much of it.
Now, for my own remarks. Mr. Chairman, we heard yesterday the speech of the Postmaster General which was as cold as a tombstone, which might have been delivered by a large corporation executive, which had no warmth at all nor human touch. Fortunately, the hon. member for St. Denis followed with an extensive study of the department.
I wish to congratulate the hon. member for St. Denis not only for the objective criticism he made of the administration of the Post Office Department, but also for the constructive suggestions he offered. If I wanted to give a piece of friendly advice to the minister, I would suggest that he not take too lightly the suggestions of the hon. member for St. Denis, but that he consider them seriously, that he weigh them carefully, and I am inclined to think that, should he implement the suggestions made yesterday, it would really be to the advantage of the department he administers.
Mr. Chairman, I was elected in 1953 to represent the constituency of Maisonneuve-Rosemont in this house, the same year as the Postmaster General. I have seen him in action as official opposition critic from 1953 to 1957, and I remember that he used to criticize relentlessly. His criticism was often unfair and always very bitter. I am sure that today the minister would like to strike out of Hansard certain pages containing the speeches he made between 1953 and 1957. Today, he realizes that he was lacking in experience and that most of the time he was talking through his hat and making many irresponsible statements. After four years in power he realizes that the Post Office Department is made up of human beings, that there is no such thing as perfection this side of heaven and that, in his department especially, there is the constant possibility of error because year in and year out employees handle millions of documents and letters. That is what we used to tell him from 1953 to 1957, in reply to his gibes and that is what he is now learning at his expense.
As the saying goes, "as you make your bed, so you must lie on it". Well, the minister has made his bed with bitter and irresponsible and often baseless remarks, so he should not be surprised today to find the mattress rather hard. I must say he has certainly deserved our criticism, though our remarks are free from the bitterness he used to display.
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A good Postmaster General must at the same time be a good administrator. He should be able to honour his pledges, and also display great humanity in his relations with his staff. The Postmaster General, a good administrator? I want to be fair with him. I only ask him to prove it. He has been Postmaster General for four years now and he has not yet done so. A man who is true to his promises? I have before me four or five clear cases of promises he made while he was sitting on this side of the house. In the four years that he has been Postmaster General, he has done nothing to keep the promises he made at the time. A man who treats his subordinates humanely? Well now, every single time he has a chance to do so,' the Postmaster General shows a positive eagerness to experiment with this, that, or the other thing. He would like Canada to take the lead in mechanization, in automation. We are left with the impression that his dearest wish would be to operate his department without the services of any employees, by using machines only, with perhaps only one man to push buttons, providing that person would be himself, the member for Notre Dame de Grace. That is the impression we have.
In this regard, I would tell him that we are not in a favourable period for experiments of that kind. If he does not yet know it, we are now going through the worst unemployment crisis ever experienced since the Conservative or Tory depression of the thirties. This is no time to try to find means of getting rid of employees. On the contrary, it is a time when we should be seeking ways to give jobs to as many people as possible, and see that the government sets the example in this respect.
But before dealing with this matter of mechanization and automation, I wish to make a few comments on certain particular topics. For instance, first of all, the operations of the post office savings bank. On page 48 of the minister's report, we find that the number of depositors has steadily gone up from year to year since 1958. We remember that, when the minister was sitting on this side of the house-the official record is there to show it l16 it was preposterous to maintain that post office savings bank because, he used to say, it was unnecessary competing with the chartered banks. "The banks are able to provide all necessary services to the public; that post office savings bank is therefore useless , he used to say. Well today the banks have increased their services to the public. Therefore, if this was true between 1953 and 1957, it is even more so today. Today, we can drive over to a bank even at night

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and make a deposit. And if the banks have so increased their services to the public, it is all the more reason why we should now do away with those savings banks which, according to him, were useless between 1953 and 1957. However, according to his report, he tells us that the question is still under consideration. He acts just like his other cabinet colleagues and, when a problem arises, he shelves it and says: When the time comes, we shall inform the house about it.
I am asking him to tell us in the course of his remarks, whether he still believes that savings banks should be abolished. Does he feel that they should be maintained or does he not? Were the criticisms he made from 1953 to 1957 simply for political or election purposes? This is what we would like to know.
Mr. Chairman, there is another problem that held by attention. It is the work done by casual employees and flying squads commonly referred to as "call girls'' by some postal officials. This is the point I wish to make. In view of the present serious situation, I would ask the minister to see that widows are employed on those flying squads, and as for casual workers, to see that his department give work to needy widows and unmarried women. He must also make sure that workers taken on are really in need of work. As far as casual workers are concerned, I trust that he will see that priority is given to persons with dependents, in order to ease, as far as possible, the distress of our citizens in a time of unemployment.
Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for St. Denis raised the question of thefts that are so often committed in post offices. If I am not mistaken, the report mentions that the number of these thefts is on the increase. I must say that I, for one, was the victim of one such theft. I have here a letter dated from Raw-don on October 19, I960, and signed by the manager of the Canadian National Bank of Rawdon. This is what he tells me:
Dear Sir:
A cheque, bearing your signature, payable to G A. Perreault, from St. Emile de Montcalm, for the sum of twenty dollars and forty-nine cents ($20.49) has been lost or stolen during a theft committed on the postal truck on August 23 last.
This shows that the improvements that the minister thought so easy to bring about while sitting on this side of the house have not been made.
What I find more serious in the complaints that the Postmaster General was voicing when he was in the opposition is that he was then suggesting that neither the postmaster general nor the previous government were taking
[Mr. Deschatelets.l
enough care of the moneys taxpayers entrusted to them. But today, he is in charge and the thefts have increased. I will not be as cruel as he was to the late lamented minister, Mr. Cote, or the past minister, Mr. Lapointe, but I shall ask him to take the necessary steps in order to try and improve the situation. I would make him this suggestion: I understand that the sub-offices trust the royal mail trucks with sums of money to be delivered to the main office. I wonder if that is not a direct invitation to robbery.
I am wondering whether the moneys from sub-offices could not be deposited in the banks so that the funds could then be transferred by cheque?
I ask him to pay particular attention to this suggestion which, I think could bring good results.
Now, the minister said, trying, I suppose, to lessen his responsibility, that thefts in general have increased in Canada in 1960. On this point, I have an article published in the Montreal Star for January 6, 1961. We find that in the Montreal caisses populates the number of thefts were fewer by two than the previous year, simply because the caisses populaires now have an effective system of protection.
It might be a good thing if the minister inquired into the methods being used by the caisses populaires to cut down on the thefts of funds.
Mr. Chairman, between 1953 and 1957, the minister was often heard on the subject of twice daily deliveries of mail in urban areas.
He has now been heading this department for four years and nothing has been done. That is another unkept promise, one gone with the wind.
He used to say then that large cities are not to be likened to small peaceful villages, and that the department was bound to give full service to the taxpayers who are paying for it.
Let me ask him today whether he has gone back on the promise he then made, more particularly to the voters in Notre Dame de Grace.
The absence of the twice daily delivery service is hard to believe. Soon he will have to face his electors and the question is bound to come up.
I would ask the minister whether or not he was serious about this matter when he

was in the opposition. I ask him today to answer.
The hon. member for St. Denis raised the question of scooters or mailmobiles. He both stated and proved that this vehicle is depriving 19 men of a job. The minister tried to justify their use. I thought I might read in the house a letter I have here-naturally I cannot identify the person who wrote it- which gives an accurate picture of the services rendered by these machines.
(Text):
These machines are known under the name of pushmobiles as hardly a day goes by without one of them having to be pushed or towed in. The worst of the lot-


Mr. Hamilton (Notre Dame de Grace):: Mr. Chairman, would the hon. member identify the person who wrote this letter? (Translation):


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Mr. Chairman, the minister realizes full well that I cannot reveal the name of the person who signed that letter.
However, I am going to use it just to show the usefulness of those machines. I think the minister should be the most interested person in this matter.


Jacques Flynn: It is against the rules to read a letter without revealing the name of its author.
The hon. member might possibly say that he has secured an opinion in that regard, without however reading the letter; but he may not read a letter without indicating where it comes from.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Mr. Chairman, I accept your ruling but, before the estimates of the department are passed, I shall memorize this letter; I think I may have an opportunity to read it to you.


Paul Léo Maurice Johnson: You will never have enough time.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: . . . without being obliged to reveal the name of the person who sent it to me.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I should like to refer to a system which is very close to the heart of the Postmaster General, mechanization and automation.
(Text):
Right after the next federal election the story of the administration of the Postmaster General will be written. It will certainly be a sad story, if not a bedtime story. Anyway it would be summed up in two words; "an era of mechanization" in the postal services.
At this time I should like to establish that it is far from being proven that such mechanization has a real, practical economic value. As I said previously, in this period of urgency I think the Postmaster General should endeavour to use other means of running his
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department than trying to establish a system which has the result of putting people out of work. I should like to mention here an article which has appeared in Le Soleil of December 16, 1959, in which Mr. E. Arthur Racicot, a doctor of physics and mathematics at the University of Toronto, had this to say: (Translation):
*-machines should be built to meet the requirements of industry; it is not industry that should be adjusted to the possibilities of a machine.
And the speaker went on to say:
I may be naive, but it seems to me that the business of a real administration is to control the progress of a company in order to make it efficient.
(Text):
As far as mechanization in the postal service is concerned, it may be that the automatic facing up of letters could render a very good service, but as far as the electronic sortation of letters is concerned the situation is somewhat different. I understand that a large sum of money has already been spent on research work in the post office laboratory in Ottawa. I believe it amounts to nearly $2 million and the project is so far, I am told, only at the stage of experimental installation.
There was an article in the Financial Post stating that this machine is being developed by Canadair Limited in Montreal with a view to a number of similar machines being ordered for installation in post offices. I should like the minister to give us more details about the plans he has in mind concerning the installation of these machines.
I was saying a few minutes ago that it is far from being proved that the installation of these machines-and I refer particularly to machines for the electronic sortation of letter mails-will have a real economic value, because every letter would have to pass through a coding machine manually operated. An invisible code is placed on each letter. This takes time and training, and I think an experienced sorter could sort a letter himself as fast as an operator could code a letter. Between 40 and 50 per cent of the letters mailed at a city office are for delivery in the city of origin. Therefore to code all the letters is a useless task, especially if, as anticipated, they could be processed by a machine which would automatically face them up. Of the balance, of approximately 50 per cent or 60 per cent, I think nearly 80 per cent are destined to the larger cities. These could readily be sorted without the necessity for any coding. Therefore this expensive installation is really being developed to take care of approximately 10 letters in every 100.
I am saying this so that the minister may review his plans for mechanization in the light of the testimony of an expert. What I

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am saying now will be on the record, and if, as I think will be the case, mechanization at this time is recognized to be a failure the minister will have to take responsibility for it. (Translation):
Now, Mr. Chairman, in closing my remarks, may I again express to Post Office Department employees my appreciation for their unfailing kindness and courtesy. I believe that the way they handle the mail deserves commendation and that postal employees are entitled to congratulations.
They may well be the country's best servants. I also know the morale of postal employees is quite low and I am very sorry for it, but I ask them to keep on working, to be patient, and to continue suffering in silence because soon I hope, a radical change will take place at the head of their department, which will be of benefit not only to them but to all of Canada.


Paul Léo Maurice Johnson: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont who is usually polite, would perhaps allow me to ask him a question. I heard him just now refer to the flying squads of the Post Office Department in Montreal. I would like to give him a chance to clear up a point. Since he is a very able and successful criminal lawyer, as I am told and am prepared to believe, he must surely be familiar with the meaning of the term "call-girl". It might therefore be appropriate if the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont were given an opportunity to assure us that he certainly did not want to imply by this word that postal employees use this word in any derogatory or abject sense with reference to the women who serve on the Post Office Department flying squads. It would surely be regrettable if some people thought this was what the hon. member had in mind. If he cares to answer the question, I will ask him this: "What does he mean by this term "call-girl"?


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. member for Chambly-Rouville for asking that question. I did not think the matter needed clarification. It might be necessary for certain puritans. However I know he is not one, but since he is speaking on their behalf, I will say this: They are ladies, women who work after having answered a phone call.
Now, the term "call-girl", rightly or wrongly, is popular at the present time in post offices; it obviously has no basis on facts, there is no harm in its being used that way and as postal employees have so little opportunity to laugh a bit and enjoy themselves, I think that this designation can still safely be used with no harm to any one.


Paul Léo Maurice Johnson: I think the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont does not mean-


Jacques Flynn: Order. The hon. member for Edmonton West-


Mr. Lambert:: Mr. Chairman, it is not my
intention to refute in any detail the criticism made by certain members of the official opposition about the operations of the Post Office Department, because others are more qualified than I am to do so.
However, I should like to say that, in listening to the criticism made by the hon. member for St. Denis (Mr. Denis), I had the impression that in some parts of his speech, especially about patronage, I was listening to a speech on sin by the devil. I could also make other comments about his remarks on mechanization and automation, as well as about the remarks made by the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont (Mr. Deschatelets), who asked that mechanization be discarded and that some devices used in post offices be removed in order to guarantee employment.
Well, if that were put into practice, I think we would go back to the horse and buggy era, or to the full use of labour.
(Text):
There is only one small thing I would like to suggest to the minister. First I would acknowledge that, contrary to what has been said about the morale of postal officers throughout the country, in my particular region I enjoy a very favourable relationship with them. I have received the utmost courtesy from them, and certainly none have complained to me as to their positions. As a matter of fact the situation is rather to the contrary. I have had very laudatory letters about the administration and consideration that this government has given to the postal employees.
The one point I would like to bring to the minister's attention is to suggest that in the regulations which are now interpreted as being in force in respect of direct carrier service to new subdivisions, perhaps a different principle should be applied. Some years ago when I moved to a new subdivision, and I was one of the first there, I had to wait ten or 11 months for postal service, and was highly incensed about what I felt was a rather high and mighty attitude in respect of postal delivery service taken by the department. It seemed to me that the service was provided the citizens of this country through the beneficence of some benevolent power and one had to petition and finally, if all things were done according to the regulations, perhaps postal service would be furnished. When I indicated that I

felt that the Post Office Department might be interested in our affairs in the same way the milkman, the newspaper boy, the baker and magazine salesmen were, who after all do not run a greater risk of falling down a drainage ditch or a sunken excavation for a sewage system, these excuses of regulations were given to me as to why services could not be provided until a red carpet was practically rolled out for the postman.
May I say in all fairness that I think there has been some adjustment in this regard, and that the regulations are not now so stringent. I would point out, however, that when people move out to new subdivisions they move there permanently and are not likely to try to escape or run away; and if the milkman, dry cleaner, baker and newspaper boy find it possible and convenient to get around, not only by machine but on foot, in areas where streets and fully completed sidewalks do not exist-after all these subdivisions are not built exactly in swamps or quagmires-perhaps mail service could be provided a little sooner than has been the case. I know there are the group box systems which do provide welcome relief from the full application of the restrictions, but I suggest to the Postmaster General that this matter could perhaps be reviewed so that somewhat more rapid service could be provided in the urban subdivisions. I am particularly interested in this problem because the area in which I live is one of the fastest growing urban areas in the country, and I have received many complaints and met with many difficulties in this regard.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Chairman, may I call it one o'clock.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 2.30 p.m.
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Chairman, I listened with great interest to the minister's speech and I noted with what pride he dealt with the achievements of and the developments in his department. As a matter of fact, while he was speaking I could not help but have several Shakespearean couplets run through my mind. I cannot take time to deal with those which came to mind except to say he did remind me of Henry V addressing the troops before the battle of Agincourt; and I paraphrase: "Here we come; here we fight; here we stay to fight again another day".
However, Mr. Chairman, I think it is a truism to say that the minister is a minister
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of socialist enterprises. I was glad to note how proud he was to be the minister of such a department, one of the most successful departments of the government because there is so little controversy as to policy. If only that principle could be applied, say, to the department of the Minister of Public Works, what progress we would make in this house.
When the minister was speaking I expected for a moment or two to see another halo descend around another member of the cabinet. I have seen a picture of one around the Prime Minister and I thought possibly the Postmaster General was likely to have one descend on him. However, while he was speaking the door of memory was held ajar. What a contrast between the minister of today and, shall I say, the ordinary member of almost yesterday who held up the estimates of the Postmaster General for two days almost single handed. We sat close to one another. I heard his every word and witnessed his every action, two days of caustic criticism of the Post Office Department for failing to have twice-a-day mail delivery. I do not think we yet have twice-a-day mail delivery across Canada. His captious condemnation of departmental administration and what I thought at that time was his callow, ceaseless carping on the details of the departmental administration, about which he apparently knew very little, come to mind.
However, we now have a symbol of democratic evolution. We have a demonstration once again, so often found in British history, that with the descent of the mantle of office come responsibility, understanding and appreciation.
Before going on with my further remarks, I must say that I appreciate the minister's prompt and courteous attention to any matter or complaint that I have brought to his notice. I cannot help but remember, though, that on one occasion he was a bit snappy with me. Later, when he found out I was right, he came and told me so; he wrote me and told me that I was right and I appreciate it. I tell him quite sincerely that all is forgiven.


William McLean Hamilton: Thank you; I have so much humility.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I must also express my appreciation of the work of the Ottawa district staffs throughout the country and even of the humblest employee. When we are discussing estimates like these we must remember that this department functions only as a result of co-operation between the top and the bottom, and even the humblest employee carrying the mail and doing these

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other tasks, which are necessary to perform this great service, is from the democratic socialist point of view-I do not know whether it would be from the point of view of the Minister of Public Works-performing, as the minister is in his position, an equal and necessary service for the state.


David James Walker: Perhaps I had better retire. I came in this afternoon out of great respect and admiration for the hon. member for Kootenay West. I wanted to hear his speech but apparently I am drawing his fire. I would just like to sit quietly and hear him perform. It is not necessary for the hon. member to address his remarks to me; because in due course he will have two or three weeks in which to hold forth on my estimates.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I appreciate the minister's comments. We shall look forward to that opportunity in due course, but I made the remarks because of the smile on the minister's face. I thought he was agreeing with me.


David James Walker: Good will.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I do suggest, as I think any fair person who has had any association with the Post Office Department realizes, that in recent years there has been a great improvement in morale. There was a period at one time when I and others considered that the morale of the postal employees was pretty low but there has been a general improvement owing to improvements in administration and working conditions and also improvement in the relations between the officials at the top and the humblest employee at the bottom, which means a great deal. I hope the minister will give every consideration to the needs and proper requests of a devoted and loyal staff throughout the country with respect to salary increases, working conditions, pensions, seniority and things of that sort.
I want to say a word or two about the annual report of the minister's department. First of all, let me say that I think it is most attractive. It is well organized as far as material is concerned, its format is excellent and it is well written. In my opinion a report of this type is an example to some other departments so far as the drafting is concerned. Anyone can read this report and get a general understanding of how the Post Office Department functions, and as far I am concerned I have no hesitation in giving all credit to the persons who compiled the report and to the printers. It is an excellent report. If by any chance the Postmaster General had a hand in this matter I will include him in my congratulations.

Without any doubt the efficiency of the department has been increasing over the years, resulting naturally from the expansion of the department, from experience and from changed circumstances, particularly the use of motor transport in highway service and things of that sort which make it possible for the department today to provide services that would not have been economic 10, 15, 20 or 30 years ago.
I think efficiency has been improved as a result of greater departmental diversification into more branches and the decentralization of the administration which I have noticed going on in recent years with respect to various facets of the department's operations and with respect to area or geographical administration. I think that the closer you can get the administration to the persons who are being administered the more satisfactory and efficient the administration is likely to be.
I wish to say a word or two about the engineering and development branch which has to do with buildings, equipment and things of that sort. I have read the report very carefully in that connection. When the minister replies to the various speeches that have been made will he assure the committee that there is no overlapping or duplication with the Department of Public Works? I should like him to define clearly for the benefit of hon. members the relationship between the engineering and development branch of the Post Office Department and the Department of Public Works. I notice that the Minister of Public Works is listening very attentively and I am pleased.


David James Walker: Just for old friendship's sake.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I am interested in this matter because I know that, according to Parkinson's law, there is a tendency to build up branches and for duplication and overlapping to occur. I mention this matter because I have noted one or two things and have had one or two things brought to my attention.
We will say that a site is being chosen or alterations to a building are being considered by the engineering and development branch of the Post Office Department and naturally by the Department of Public Works at the same time. It has been drawn to my attention that an official of the engineering and development branch will visit an area and then later an official of the Department of Public Works will visit the same area. If there is any correlation between these departments I suggest it would be a good idea to have the two officials visit the sites or the buildings together.
Because it is the people's money that is being spent and because it is the local people who are directly concerned with the new

building or improvement, I also suggest that the local authorities should be consulted, whether it be the municipality or, if there is no organized community, a responsible body like the chamber of commerce or in certain cases a trade union or some other local organization. It is very irritating to local people to wait anxiously for years for the erection or the improvement of a building and then to read in the local paper that so and so from the Post Office Department visited the area in connection with the matter last week, or so and so from the Department of Public Works did so. Therefore I suggest that, if possible, these officials should visit these sites together and that there should be consultation with the local authorities or with the appropriate local organizations.
I have had it brought to my attention by quite responsible people, in fact on occasion even by supporters of the Conservative party who very often consult me in my riding, particularly about the Columbia, that these officials come and, as it were, steal away in the night unsung, unheard and unknown until the people read about their visit in the local paper. I should like the minister to explain the relationship between this branch and the Department of Public Works.
There is another branch mentioned in the report which was established in more recent years. I am not quite sure whether it was set up under the administration of the present minister although I think it was commenced before he became the lord almighty in this department. I refer to the public relations branch which is a very useful one. I have met members of the staff of this branch at various larger centres when they have been engaged in presenting an excellent exhibit and giving out information that created a better understanding of the administration of the department and how it functions. However, I have a suggestion to make in this regard, and I may say I am in a rather bright mood today. I had a good sleep last night.
I suggest that the officials would be well advised to visit the smaller places in my constituency. They have gone to places like Ross-land, Trail and Nelson-very important and nationally known centres-but many of the smaller communities have not had the benefit of this service. If it is possible, I suggest that these officials should visit the smaller centres where many people congregate for certain annual local events such as fairs and events put on by women's institutes. I am a great believer in getting the co-operation of the women's institutes in things of this sort because in my experience I have always found the ladies a great spur to understanding and action. In passing I might mention the important Inonoaklin valley fair held at
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Edgewood which draws people from a large area and which would be a very suitable centre for such activities. Then there are the Nakusp women's institute fair and the New Denver and Kaslo fairs. These fairs, in conjunction with those at Nelson and Rossland, are on a circuit. They all run consecutively during the month of September. I suggest it would be very easy indeed to have the officials who go to the Kootenays make the rounds of all these fairs. In that way they would inform a large number of people. At the same time the exhibit would be a nice contribution to a small fair. You will find that in the smaller places people pay a lot of attention to these things and are interested in them. So I make that suggestion to the minister in the very best spirit.
I have got to begin now to turn nasty, shall I say. I want to mention the question of patronage. Mind you, I give the government great credit in many respects for resisting the claims of those who would like to return to the days of patronage. I consider patronage an evil in a modern democratic society but I realize the difficulties. This matter has been brought to my attention even by some Conservatives and also by veterans and other citizens and I should like to mention one example. In fact, it is the only case in the minister's department that has been brought to my attention since I have been a member. I said I would raise this matter in the chamber. It is in connection with the appointment of a person to the post office in Trail.
I understand these appointments come under the civil service. You must remember that in Trail, as in other places, we have capable men and women, unfortunately including some members of the Progressive Conservative party, who are unemployed. The wife of the campaign manager of the defeated Conservative candidate was appointed to a position in the post office. Her husband is the principal of the high school, I am informed, and I understand he receives a good salary. I am not questioning the right of anyone to work, but under these circumstances it is most irritating to veterans, widows and young men and women who are seeking employment to find someone appointed to a position like this, particularly when the people are under the impression it was a political appointment. I should like the minister to inform the committee if there was a civil service examination in connection with this appointment. If there was, would he give us the names of the persons who wrote the examination and their marks, because there has been considerable criticism of this appointment. I said I would bring it to the attention of the minister.
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In my opinion, patronage is something that should not be tolerated. I know all the weaknesses of human nature and it is very easy to drift into this situation. I give great credit to the former minister of public works for resisting all the pressure that was brought to bear on him in this connection. He is a man of great character and he stood against it. A party that stands against patronage benefits from that stand because you might please one person by a political appointment but you would create a great deal of dissatisfaction. I believe also that anyone who practises patronage under present day circumstances should be ashamed of himself.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I am glad to hear the shouts of "hear, hear" from the government benches opposite me.
Another matter to which I should like to direct the attention of the minister concerns the appointment of casual employees to the smaller offices. I understand that these people are paid by the department. I have had a number of associations, women's institutes and veterans' associations, bring this matter to my attention. I understand the veterans' preference is not being respected with regard to these appointments. I do not know whether or not this preference applies directly to these casual helpers, but these casual helpers usually end up on the permanent staff. I am speaking of post offices in which there is a postmaster and anywhere from two to five employees.
One instance which was brought to my attention concerned a person who was not a citizen and who was appointed as a casual employee. At the same time there were quite competent people, such as non-pensionable widows, who might have done the work. I do urge that consideration be given to this matter. When the minister replies, I should like him to inform me as to the basis on which casual employees are appointed to the smaller offices where, apparently, the postmaster is left on his own to make the selection and make recommendations. I should like to know whether or not, after these people are appointed, they come under the terms of the Civil Service Act or if any consideration is given to the veterans' preference.
I want to mention the buildings. I read something in a newspaper a day or two ago to the effect that Mr. Grosart had recommended that communities wanting post office buildings or public buildings should get in touch with their local Progressive Conservative Association. If he did that, he ought to be ashamed of himself, and I have no hesitation in saying so.


Mr. Speakman:: Where did you read that?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I have the newspaper up in my office, and I will ask another hon. member to deal with it later. In so far as public buildings are concerned, I usually listen to the representations of the chambers of commerce, the municipalities and other organizations. I can truthfully say that I make it a pracitce never to ask a minister to consider any such representations until I, personally, have visited the area and been convinced, in my own mind, that the building was essential. I have followed this practice throughout the years. I have been very fortunate in having this non-partisan spirit accepted in that respect. The chambers of commerce, women's institutes and municipalities have all respected men-not me personally because some of them think I am a bit odd-as the representative of the constituency. I believe that any lack of respect for a member's office disregards the principle of democracy and shows a lack of respect for the principles of democracy. I trust that Mr. Grosart's recommendation is not accepted by the communities or by the members of this house.
I want to say a word or two about stamps. I have quite a number of constituents who are very keen philatelists. In fact, any letters that come from foreign countries have to have their stamps removed carefully and I apportion them out every so often. As a matter of fact, my secretary and I have a sort of monthly circuit that we follow in apportioning these stamps. Not long ago the Trail Smoke Eaters won the world hockey championship and I asked the minister, at the request of the local people, if he would consider overprinting a northern development stamp or some other stamp as a means of celebrating this important victory.
This is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the city of Trail. It was most interesting that the Trail Smoke Eaters, a team composed mostly of smelter workers, should win the world's hockey championship for the second time. The minister said he had looked at the fire brigade stamp, and that was not appreciated by some of my constituents. Some of my philatelist friends in Trail have sent me this stamp issued by the government at Geneva celebrating this victory, yet the government of Canada does not even consider it worth while issuing such a stamp. Then, again, I have three stamps sent by other philatelists-I will send them over to the minister if he will promise to send them back because they must be returned-issued by the Soviet union to commemorate the winning of the world hockey championship by their team in 1957. I have told my constituents who belong to various philatelic societies, as well as the hockey fans, that I would raise the matter in the

house again and ask the minister if he did not think we could do as well as the Soviet union in recognizing the achievement of a great hockey team like the Trail Smoke Eaters.
I wish now to deal with one or two local issues. There has been in the city of Rossland a lot of interest with respect to the proposed new post office building or the alteration of the present one. The citizens generally are very favourably disposed toward the present site because it is central. Rossland is a city built on the side of a mountain, so one does not have much scope with respect to a site. The citizens are interested in maintaining the post office at the present site. I should like the minister to say what has happened to date in respect of the improvement of the present building and what the department is proposing. The village of Fruit-vale, a prosperous and growing community in a beautiful valley south of Trail, also has a great need for new post office facilities. The village council, rotary club, chamber of commerce, women's institute and all the other community organizations are very anxious to see a new post office building erected in Fruitvale to meet the needs of this expanding community. I should like the minister to inform the committee what is being done in this connection. He mentioned that the matter was being investigated and wrote me to that effect. I appreciate that, but for the information of my constituents I should like to know what is the state of affairs at the present time.
I must say the building of these small post offices was an excellent idea. The buildings are a credit to the Post Office Department and the Department of Public Works, and they are appreciated. Small federal buildings in small communities intrude the personality of the government of Canada into these small communities. I think this program has been very worthwhile and I am glad to hear that other hon. members agree.
I have heard number of people mention that Canada is so vast that many local people are perhaps hardly conscious of the services and importance of the federal government of Canada. I think it was an excellent thing when the department decided to erect these small buildings in the smaller communities to a greater extent than ever before.
I want to mention one or two other matters. I have been asked to bring to the minister's attention the necessity for improving the ventilation in the Nelson and Trail post offices. Trail is the warmest part of our constituency because of our topography. Trail is located in the bottom of a valley and sometimes becomes very hot in the summer months. That 90205-6-233
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post office requires particular attention in this regard. I suggest that air conditioning be installed, or that there be an increase in the number of fans.
With respect to the Nelson post office- and I have been all through it and talked to the various people about it-there is still an unsatisfactory state of affairs with respect to ventilation owing to the lint that comes from the sacks which arrive there. I think it is the centre in which the sacks are opened, and then they are redistributed to other points and taken by mail carriers to various parts of the constituency. However, there is still some complaints about the amount of lint that is floating around in the air. I have no experience of this, although I have visited the post office, but I am told it is quite inconvenient at times and I bring this matter to the minister's attention.
We appreciate the rural mail services. I like the approach to these services and the changes suggested. I notice that the minister has had the local people sign a petition in order to express their wish for this or that service in respect to the arrival time of mail. I think this is an excellent suggestion. It gives the department an opportunity to accurately assess local opinion and determine whether these people would like the mail to come in at a certain time or later. I appreciate that being done, and so do the people.
At the Nakusp post office a petition was signed regarding whether the mail should come from Nelson at a certain time or later. Many people thought this was all right. Some were in favour of one time and some were in favour of another. The majority were very emphatic in one direction. But the point is. they were consulted. They felt they were consulted, and they were.
I think this is an excellent way to solve many of these problems that arise in local communities, where perhaps one or two people are listened to who are not always giving the department the accurate public opinion.
The residents in the Inonoaklin valley have asked for a daily mail service. The minister is looking into this matter. It is a growing community and I trust this question will receive favourable consideration.
I will cease at this point, Mr. Chairman, and look forward to the minister's reply. In the meantime I shall sit here and watch his beaming countenance with interest.


James Stanley Speakman: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say that I do not give much credence to the statement made by the hon. member who has just resumed his seat. The hon. member's statement was that the article about

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patronage appeared under the name of the national organizer of the Progressive Conservative party.
The hon. member asked that a stamp be printed to commemorate the Trail hockey team. I should like a stamp to be printed to commemorate the Lacombe Rockets who are at the moment sweeping their way across Canada in the intermediate championship series and I hope will be selected to represent Canada in the world hockey championship games next year.
My remarks on this item will be brief, but I could not let this opportunity pass without expressing, on behalf of the people of the Wetaskiwin constituency whom I have the honour to represent in this house, their very great pleasure and appreciation in the increased and improved post office services which they have enjoyed over the past three years.
These improvements have consisted of a great many things, but in a rural area, of course, the most important is rural delivery. New rural routes have been established, existing routes lengthened and the service increased from twice to three times weekly. There has been a general improvement throughout our rural services. As an hon. member said yesterday, mail is one of the most important services that people receive anywhere.
Improved post office facilities are being provided, and I would say to the minister that the people of the towns of Calmar and Devon appreciate being provided with the post offices which are now nearing completion. In addition, the proposed new building for which tenders have now been called in the town of Lacombe will be very much appreciated by the people of that town and the surrounding area.
When the new corner mail boxes are placed around the city the residents of the city of Wetaskiwin will express through me their appreciation of the minister and his department. I refer particularly to our senior citizens and the busy housewives, many of whom at present have to walk over a mile to post a letter.
Wetaskiwin is a growing city and is spreading out quite far. With one post office almost in the centre of the city it means a long and arduous walk for many of its inhabitants.
Unlike my hon. friends in the opposition I am not too concerned or fearful of the deficit in the operation of the minister's department, and I do not think the people whom I represent are fearful about it either. We realize that improved services cost money and we are willing to pay our share of those

costs in return for the vastly improved services which we have obtained over the past four years.
Mr. Chairman, I could not close my remarks without saying a word about the Post Office Department employees in my constituency. Perhaps, unlike my hon. friends and colleagues from urban and suburban areas, in my rural constituency I know every employee of the minister's department and count them among my friends. I wish to express to them my personal thanks and appreciation for their devoted and efficient service to their patrons.


Mr. Tucker:: 
Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a few words to congratulate and thank the minister, as well as the staff of the Post Office Department, for their devotion to the Canadian people.
I should like also to thank his office staff, including Mr. Guy Caron who politely replies to our letters or telephone calls, when we are in need of information.
I should like also to draw the attention of the house to the fact that a letter carrier service will soon be inaugurated in Repenti-gny and Charlemagne, a service which will be very helpful to the people of that part of my constituency.
For many years such a service was expected. Thanks to the co-operation of the Post Office Department, that service will become a reality and the people of my constituency will be on the same footing as that of Montreal.
I should like to emphasize the present situation at the Joliette post office. The staff there is cramped for space, on account of other services which are already set up there. The city of Joliette is growing, and the staff is cramped for space in the post office. In my opinion, the Department of Public works should consider the possibility of enlarging the post office and of increasing its staff.
The possibility of increasing the number of postmen to better serve the city of Joliette should also be considered. Thus, the hours of work could perhaps be reduced and better working conditions be provided for postal employees in Joliette.
I congratulate the government which, since it has been in power, has issued several commemorative stamps that illustrate very well our national history.
Such initiative emphasizes among our young people and the whole Canadian population the names of those who have worked for the greatness of our country.
That is quite a constrast with what used to be done formerly, when stamps were issued to illustrate, for instance, the Rocky mountain goat or some similar thing.
I hope that, in future the government will issue a commemorative stamp at least once a month to illustrate a phase of our national history. I understand that, for a good many

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years, the Post Office Department has had great difficulty in stopping the flow of foreign lottery tickets.
If, some day, the Criminal Code were amended to allow lotteries in this country, we would at the same time avoid the spread of foreign lottery tickets in Canada.
Mr. Chairman, those were the remarks I had to make, and once again I wish to congratulate the employees of the Post Office Department who are devoting themselves constantly in the interest of Canada.
(Text):


Paul Léo Maurice Johnson: I have a question to ask the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Mont-calm.
(Translation):
Could the hon. member for Joliette-L'As-somption-Montoalm tell me whether the Joliette post office to which he referred is the same post office which was estimated to cost $152,000, and which actually cost $400,000 at the time Mr. Georges-Emile Lapalme was the member for Joliette?


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: I will gladly answer the question put by my hon. friend. His statement is true. Besides, at the time of the erection of the Joliette post office building, which has remained famous in political history, I believe that the Auditor General had strongly blamed the government for what was in fact an example of maladministration. It was even a scandal at the time.
I therefore thank the hon. member for Chambly-Rouville (Mr. Johnson) for having raised this point.
(Text):


Mr. McGrath:: I should like to again bring to the minister's attention the difficulties encountered by his department in the establishing of rural mail services. The minister referred to this problem in his opening remarks. I come from an area of Canada where two thirds of the population live in rural areas and I should like to again direct attention to the problem, of vital concern to the Postmaster General and the department, regarding revenue post offices. I am sure that every hon. member appreciates the criteria used in determining whether an area should be provided with a semi-stafled post office which, of course, is housed in a regular post office building under the management of a postmaster who is a member of the civil service.
Most of the postal services in the rural areas of Canada are carried out by revenue post offices, and very often the accommodation provided is grossly inadequate. This cannot be deemed to be the fault of the Postmaster General because, in the final analysis, the

individual conducting the business of a revenue post office must supply the accommodation, fuel and other overhead costs out of his income which is usually rather small because of the limited volume of service transacted.
The situation existing in rural Canada today has changed from that of 20 years ago because more Canadians have ready access to jet and regular air travel. As a result of this situation more Canadians are travelling to various parts of this country and the world, and in order to maintain contact with their business associates and families they are using the mail services to a greater extent. I think the time has now arrived, in this situation, for the Postmaster General to give consideration to the problem of devising some means of providing more adequate accommodation for carrying out the services of the revenue post offices.
I must confess that I do not possess the answer, but this is a very important function having to do with the transacting of government business in handling Her Majesty's mail. The service provided by these small post offices directly affects the lives and businesses of Canadians in all parts of the country. Perhaps some means could be devised wherein post offices could be provided-such as small inexpensive, prefabricated buildings-for these small rural areas in Canada which do not qualify for a semi-staffed post office. I feel something should be done so that the unfortunate situation that exists can be rectified. In my own constituency I have often witnessed long lines of people standing outside in all types of weather waiting for the sorting of mail, because the facilities provided are not adequate; perhaps just a farmer's kitchen. This problem is an acute one. I realize that one cannot expect to find beautiful post office buildings in every rural part of this country. However, I do feel something can be done to improve the handling of mail at this level. An improvement in the handling of mail in the revenue post offices would certainly expedite the service and give a tremendous uplift to the people living in areas served by this type of post office.
As an example of the situation which exists I can refer to my own constituency which is, for the most part, suburban to the city of St. John's where annually many thousands of dollars in postal revenue are, for very sound reasons, channelled by businessmen through the city post offices. They feel that the facilities provided by the revenue post offices in their villages are inadequate. One cannot expect a businessman to transact his postal

business-purchasing money orders and unemployment insurance stamps-in some individual's kitchen. I feel that the time has come for a reappraisal of this whole question of revenue post offices because the situation today is not at all the same as it was 10 years ago. I am sure that the Postmaster General in his genial and competent manner will give this problem serious thought, as he always does, and will find an answer at some early date.
(Translation):


Paul Léo Maurice Johnson: Mr. Chairman, at the risk of offending the modesty of the Postmaster General (Mr. Hamilton), and as this is my first opportunity, since my election in 1958, to speak on his departmental estimates, I am taking the liberty of congratulating him.
First of all, I have always been impressed by the human qualities of the minister and especially by the way he runs his department.
Mr. Chairman, like my colleagues, I do not wish to extend this debate unduly, but the fact remains that even though certain matters do not concern the country as a whole, they are nevertheless of importance to the people of an area or even of a riding, and it is with such matters that I should like to deal with for a few minutes.
In the matter of congratulations, I wish to thank the minister for the work done by his departmental officials, under his personal guidance, I am sure, or at least in a general way, with regard to the city of Beloeil and the vicinity. Beloeil is an interesting town on the Richelieu river in Vercheres riding, but forming part of the federal constituency of Chambly-Rouville.
Quite close to Beloeil, is the industrial municipality of McMasterville and opposite, on the other bank of the Richelieu river, St. Hilaire and Otterburn Park.
The over-all population of those four municipalities form a rather important urban area, and I must thank the minister for having given due consideration to the fact that those municipalities, even though they are independent legally speaking, depend on each other economically and socially, because they have common interests. That is what the department came to understand and that is why Beloeil, and other neighbouring municipalities, St. Hilaire, Otterburn and McMasterville, got a letter carrier service. Incidentally, Mr. Chairman, far from taking jobs away, that has meant employment for several letter carriers and several clerks in the Beloeil post office.
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J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Back home also.


Paul Léo Maurice Johnson: Of course, Mr. Chairman, there is a fly in the ointment. Whenever the department decides to organize a postal service and to classify it among the offices with a letter carrier service, certain postmasters or postmistresses may lose their job. True, the civil service commission gives them a chance to write exams and to qualify as postal clerks, but a person may, in certain cases, already be of a certain age and not be in a position to take outside work. Such is the case unfortunately of two persons in the Beloeil area, more specifically in St. Hilaire Station and Otterburn who have, for several years, devoted their energies to the postal service. I am telling this to the hon. members for Mai-sonneuve-Rosemont (Mr. Deschatelets) and St. Denis (Mr. Denis) because those persons who had been employed under the Liberal administration found themselves temporarily unemployed, being unable to accept a clerical position in accordance with the terms of the Civil Service Act. But they were postmistresses and as such they deserve to have their case examined with complete sympathy. Since positions, attractive enough but insufficiently paid, were offered them, the Post Office Department should take charge of these cases because there are technicalities which cause friction between the Post Office Department and the civil service commission.
That is one of the drawbacks of this system for which personally I have no use, a system under which we have a commission which does not take into account the requirements of the department, for the reason that it is not within the department.
It is time we ask ourselves whether it would not be better to establish an effective personnel service within each department, in order to allow each department to operate on sound business principles. One may wonder if that would not be better than having a civil service commission too prone to disregard the needs of the particular department and which, for want of more flexible regulations, prevents postmasters with many years experience from qualifying for some other work.
I take the liberty of submitting these cases to the minister. I am however, fully aware that this situation existed under the former government as it does today.
Such things will happen, and they do not involve political considerations. But still those are things which bear on citizens' careers

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and jobs, and these particular cases deserve to be considered with sympathy by the department.
It may be a good idea when the time comes to revise the Civil Service Act to take into consideration these special cases.
I would also like to talk about the situation of the postmistresses and postmasters in suboffices. In my opinion, they are asked to remain at the service of the public about eight hours a day, and they are too often paid salaries not commensurate with the time they devote to the government's service. As a matter of fact, if, in assessing the postal service we take as a criterion service to the public instead of revenue, we must consider an increase in these postmasters' compensation.
Incidentally, it may be a good idea for the minister to disregard the criticism about the deficit; it is unjustified criticism anyway. If the Post Office Department is a department at the service of the public, its efficiency cannot be assessed only in terms of deficit or absence of deficit, even more when members of the opposition criticize on the one hand the increase in parcel post rates, and on the other hand, berate the minister because he wants to reduce costs. I wonder what they are after.
There is also the case of the rural mail carriers, or contractors who distribute the mail on what is called a rural route.
Mr. Chairman, since a letter carrier service was established in Beloeil, in my constituency, I have compared the work done by a letter carrier who works so many hours and receives rather a good compensation for our area, even though there is room for improvement in the work of such contractors. I have yet to hear criticism from the letter carriers about their compensation, because if we compare the work of a letter carrier to the work of a rural mail carrier who has to supply his own vehicle, who works almost as long hours as the letter carrier, who has to give bond, and who must, in a word, prove that he is responsible and has qualifications equal to those of the letter carrier, I do not see why the government would not revise the rate of compensation, particularly with regards to the calculation of yearly mileage, which in my opinion is an important factor, at least as far as the setting of rates commensurate with the service rendered by a rural mail carrier is concerned.
I think it would be interesting if the government were to make an investigation in this regard.
Obviously, most of those who have rural route contracts do not work full-time like the letter carriers, but there again we must re-

member that a person who undertakes a contract must be available for government service several consecutive hours six days a week, which completely disrupts the balance of his daily routine. Even worse, it often happens that a carrier cannot quote on a second rural route because mail distribution on both is carried out at the same time to ensure a better service to the public. That situation prevents the rural carrier from having two contracts and thus earn a reasonable salary.
As I told the minister a moment ago, I have been happy to see all that has been done in municipalities like Beloeil, St. Hilaire, Otterburn, McMasterville. But there again a shadow mars the picture. The service has been working well enough, but the municipalities concerned are developing at such a pace that we shall soon have to consider building a new post office, I mean erecting a new federal building, either at Beloeil or St. Hilaire, for those are the two main municipalities, and the most centrally situated of that postal district.
I would therefore ask the minister to see that the officials of his department hurry up matters and, more particularly, make representations to the Department of Public Works so that a decision be made with regard to the matter. And as the service is working out well in Beloeil and the surrounding district, it might be well for the department to consider the possibility of extending such a service to a municipality like St. Bruno, in the constituency of Chambly, where the situation is about identical to that in Beloeil. For postal purposes, St. Bruno might be joined to St. Basile, and perhaps to a section of Beloeil or St. Hubert. St. Hubert is divided into various communities called parks, one of which, Croydon, has already a letter carrier delivery service, operated as a subdivision of the letter carrier service in Ville Jacques-Cartier. It would therefore be a question of organizing new postal routes from Ville Jacques-Cartier into those other sectors of St. Hubert.
Finally we have also the towns of Chambly and Marieville, which are in a similar position.
As far as Marieville is concerned, I would like to thank the department, as well as the minister, for having taken action, after considering my own representations as well as those of the municipality and of the town council, and I also want to congratulate them for deciding to enlarge the Marieville post office. Of course, some minor difficulties have arisen, but I think that the department will be able to settle things, if the new municipal

council co-operates as well as the former one. Of course, some people in Marieville should realize, that if they want their post office enlarged, the municipality must be sensible and ready to transfer or sell to the department for a reasonable price the site which it owns near the present post office, thus enabling the department to build in the most economical way.
Mr. Chairman, I would make a suggestion to the Postmaster General. I am not sure that the matter comes under his department, but I think he might do something to carry out what I am now submitting to the house. Voters in the various ridings of the province of Quebec are convinced that their representative has only 125 or 150 miles to travel to the Ottawa session, and that he has enough leisure to come home and meet them on week ends. It is often difficult for constituents to meet their elected member and unfortunately several of them do not even know that members are sitting throughout the week, and they have not the slightest idea that we are sitting seven or eight months a year. It might be worth while for the government to consider giving the members in each constituency one or two rooms in federal buildings, in post offices for instance, so that a member may receive his constituents, especially when the federal building is rather centrally located. It might be something worth trying since it happens that in some federal buildings there is always a room which is not used every day or every hour of the day by the employees of the Post Office Department. The employees of the Post Office Department, who are regularly in touch with the public, could give information to constituents wishing to meet their member and tell them when he would be available.
I already see the hon. member for St. Denis in an office in a Montreal sub-station getting information about the Post Office Department. Perhaps this might give him the opportunity to see for himself how well the Post Office Department is administered since the change of 1957 which was wanted by the public in general, whatever the hon. member for St. Denis may think.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I should like to come back to the topic of congratulations and tell the Postmaster General how convinced we are that there has been a change, even in the Post Office Department, since that famous election in 1957, when the voters gave the
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Liberal party to understand that it had not inherited the power in Ottawa from God the Father.
Mr. Chairman, for the past three years, I did not have the opportunity of taking part in the debate on the estimates of the Post Office Department because our friends opposite took all the time available in this house for criticizing.
Since I have a few minutes left before my time is exhausted I wish to make a few remarks of a general nature on the administration of the Post Office Department.
First of all, I had the opportunity, at the opening of the new postal service in Beloeil, to meet the authorities of the Post Office Department. I met people in charge of key jobs in the administration of this department for the Montreal region. Whatever the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont (Mr. Deschatelets) may think, those people could smile easily, were in a good mood and seemed quite satisfied with their lot and proud of their minister. I do not believe them to be hypocritical to the extent of telling me about their satisfaction and telling different to the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont and the hon. member for St. Denis.
I heard the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont criticize the fridigity of the Postmaster General's speech. According to the hon. member there was no humanitarian consideration in the minister's speech and he nearly added that it lacked poetry. But where he contradicts himself is when he takes the minister to task for having presented his report as if he were a chairman of a board of directors.
After all, this man is in charge of a great concern for which he is answerable to parliament in every detail. The opposition blames him for acting like the director of a great concern. I cannot understand it.
I have listened with attention to the first part of the speech made by the hon. member for St. Denis, yesterday, but I did not have the courage to listen to the second part, even after a good dinner; I just glanced through the expurgated and corrected version which appeared in this morning's Hansard.
At all events, I should like to touch upon one point of the speech made by the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont, who spoke about scooters. I wonder why the hon. member is against one aspect of mechanization which the Post Office Department might now adopt, when he demands himself a certain mechanization. Does the hon. member realize that, after having criticized the Post Office Department-because he claims that

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the staff will decrease on account of mechanization-he is proposing new improvements which mean some re-organization that might involve the dismissal of some employees?
I also note the congratulations offered by the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont, and no doubt also by the hon. member for St. Denis, to postal employees after having criticized them for half an hour. I wonder, Mr. Chairman, why the morale of those employees should be so low, as the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont claims, if not because of the unjustified criticism which is voiced against them, in order to splash the minister.
Mr. Chairman, I hope that after all those compliments, the minister will take into consideration the few remarks I made on behalf of my electors. I make my apology to the other members of the house for having taken so much valuable time and for shortening the holidays of the hon. member for St. Denis, but it was in the interests of my electors, and I believe I have done my duty.
(Text):


Mr. Peters:: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Kootenay West referred to the problem of patronage in relation to the Post Office Department. Personally I am quite concerned about this matter. Certainly the Conservative party should be concerned about it as well as governments generally if governments are going to function in a democratic manner. So far as my riding is concerned, the story has appeared in newspapers across the country that Mr. Grosart, the national organizer of the Conservative party, came to the town of Haileybury in the riding of Timiskaming shortly before the Conservative party convention and told people there, at least two of them being town councillors, that if they wanted a new post office they had better have a delegation, under the auspices of the defeated Conservative candidate, make representations. He said that this was the way to do it, and the best time to do it would be at the Conservative convention.
This statement appeared in the local newspapers and I have no reason to doubt the integrity of the sources of information. There are several people who are closely connected through marriage with the defeated candidate in that area. I am quite sure that the information was correct. It could not matter less to me, one way or the other. If the people of Haileybury need a new post office and a new post office is warranted, then I will fight to get it. I feel this would be true of the Conservative candidate who was defeated at the last election. I do not believe there is anyone who represents a riding in this country who is not interested in getting these things for his riding.

Can the Postmaster General tell me or tell the country that he will give the town of Haileybury or any other place a post office on the basis of patronage, as something in repayment of certain considerations? Will he say that a post office will be built on that basis? Is it not true that in the majority of cases where post office buildings are constructed, the department sends out people to assess the facilities that are available and the number of customers using those facilities? Is it not true also that the Post Office Department sends out inspectors to assess the cost of renting a building as compared with the cost of erecting a public building? Are those things not done on a business basis as we have been led to believe they are? If they are, then what type of service does Mr. Grosart pretend to supply to these communities by lining up the councillors who are interested in obtaining a new building for the area?
Certainly, one cannot blame these people for being interested in a new building. They are told by someone who appears to be quite close to the federal cabinet that this is the way you have to do these things. I should like to give the former Conservative candidate credit because he did tell the council he would need a resolution from the council recommending the erection of a new public building in the town to house the post office. He suggested also that before he carried their representations to the convention-I presume that is where he went because these events occurred only a couple of days before the convention-he would also want a letter from the chamber of commerce and from other interested agencies.
The article appearing in the Northern News, Kirkland Lake, March 14, states in part:
Mr. Rice recently unsuccessfully sought action from government on waterfront improvements at Haileybury. Mr. Cook-
That is the mayor of the town.
-said the government did nothing about the defeated P.C. candidate's request then.
Even in these small communities politics enters into these situations because here you have the mayor, a Liberal, arguing with two or three of the councillors who hold positions in the Conservative organization.
The council did not authorize Mr. Haskett, to forward a copy of the resolution to Mr. Peters, C.C.F. member of parliament for the riding.
This is a "beef" on my part, Mr. Chairman, because I am the only one concerned. I make this grievance in the light of the fact the people seem to have been advised to ask the defeated candidate to look after this matter. If the councils were operated in this manner,

then you would have all the defeated candidates for council sitting in the council chamber. If you do not believe that democracy works-


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


William Arnold Peters: Yes.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I thought the hon. member proposed to read from a newspaper article a statement that had been made by Mr. Grosart?


William Arnold Peters: No.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Then, what was the evidence upon which we were asked to believe Mr. Grosart had made a statement? What are we asked to believe?


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Insinuation.


William Arnold Peters: I said I had read several accounts of what Mr. Grosart had said.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Where?


William Arnold Peters: In the Toronto Telegram, the edition of March 14. Incidentally, it may be of interest to hon. members to know that at the time the editor of the Toronto Telegram phoned me and asked me to comment on this particular matter.
I am not the only one who is concerned about this incident. I find a letter appeared in the Northern News of March 17, 1961, and I should like to read a part of it. The letter is signed "Democrat" from Charlton, Ontario. I have not the faintest idea who he is, and I know nothing about it. This is what the letter says:
In an account of a recent meeting of the Hailey-bury town council published in your paper it was reported that Foster Rice was being approached to act as a go-between with the federal government in the matter of having a federal building put up in the town. There is nothing wrong about the town wanting such a building and there is a need for one, but why get Mr. Rice to act as intermediary when there is already a man at Ottawa who is being paid to look after the interests of the riding. I refer to Arnold Peters, M.P. for Timiskaming. I am sure that Mr. Peters, our elected member, is as capable of presenting the case for the town as is Mr. Rice, the defeated candidate. Furthermore, I believe Mr. Peters is as keenly conscious of the needs of the district as either of the defeated candidates. It is all very well for our politicians to prate of democracy at election time but when they deny its very principles once the election is over, it is enough to make at least some of us wonder if those who sit in the seats of the mighty know what democracy really does mean.
I underline the words, "At least some of us wonder if those who sit in the seats of the mighty know what democracy really does mean."
In the last election three men ran for office. Two of them definitely were not elected. Therefore it became obvious to even the most obtuse of the
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electorate that the one who got the most votes was the one whom the majority of the people chose as their representative.
With three or more candidates in the field, it can scarcely be said that the term "majority rule" is now applicable. Our present political set-up with the old parties fighting tooth and claw has created a situation of which the C.C.F. has been quick to take advantage. Both Liberals and Conservatives would be well advised to smarten up and stop scrapping, otherwise the New Party will slip in and pick up more of the marbles.
I do not believe the last part of the letter is relevant to this issue. I do feel, however, that the opinion expressed in the letter is shared by many people across the country.
I have never even been asked by the town council of Haileybury to give consideration to a new post office. If the town wanted a new post office, then the obvious method would be to approach the sitting member of parliament. If the town did not wish to approach the member of parliament, and this is quite all right, then I think they should appeal directly to the Postmaster General. They should make their representations to him. I will give a lot less credit to the minister than I do if I find the department does not send inspectors to the area to investigate the facilities available, consider the number of people using the facilities, and reach a decision on the basis of such an investigation.
If we have an opposition member in a riding it should make not one bit of difference, in my opinion, whether or not the sought for post office is built. The post office should be built because there is a need for it, and for no other reason. I have not asked for post offices to be built in any area where I consider the facilities to be sufficient to serve the needs of the community. It is not my opinion that we should build new post offices every two or three years in a given area. We should build post offices to meet the needs of the community and do a satisfactory job in the area. I think that is what the Canadian people want, and it is certainly my opinion.
I have heard nothing more about this matter from either the council or any other source, but I will give the minister the credit I am sure he deserves. I am quite sure that if representations were made to the Postmaster General he did exactly what I have outlined, that is, he sent an inspector to examine the situation. I am quite certain the Postmaster General will say that the decision to build a post office in that area hinges entirely on the need and the information he receives from his own officials.
I was very pleased yesterday to sit in a committee of this house and hear representations from a group of civil servants who called themselves the postal employees' association, which is an organization closely

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connected with this department. They appeared to me, unlike most other civil servants, to be very aggressive and to have taken a progressive attitude towards obtaining a contract with their employer, and negotiations in general. In fact, they sounded almost like a trade union.
It has been my contention for a long time that civil servants who want to receive the benefits to which I think they are entitled will have to act more like trade unions. They will have to do more of the work themselves and get out and fight for what they want. They must put forward their views in an aggressive manner and be willing to do something about them.
Because of the attitude of this group I asked a number of questions of people closely connected with it. I did this to find out why the post office employees are more aggressive than other civil servants. I was surprised at some of the things I learned. I am told that a civil service clerk, grade III-I am not referring to a postal clerk-has to take an annual examination if he is employed in any one of the 14 district post offices in Canada. Upon the result of this examination depends a salary increase or decrease of $150 a year. If these civil servants do not pass the examination they do not receive an increase. More than that, if they do not pass the examination they are subject to a decrease in salary of $150 a year.
Therefore, when a grade III clerk employed in any one of the 14 district post offices takes the examination, in effect the examination is worth $300 a year to him. He has a chance to increase or decrease his salary by $150 a year.
If these civil servants fail to pass two of these examinations in one year they suffer the salary decrease I mentioned. Why should a civil service employee in the post office be treated differently from a grade III clerk in any other department of the civil service.
In addition to that, I should like to know from the Postmaster General why they are treated differently from the civil service grade III clerks in the headquarters of the post office, where they do not have to take an examination. Is it less important for them to be capable, on paper at least, through examinations, in the postal headquarters as it is in the district offices of the post office?
I should like to know, and I think the committee would be interested in the answer to this question, how many postal employees have suffered salary decreases because of these examinations. Also, what saving has this been to the operations of the Post Office Department?
In northern Ontario we have always been pleased with the fact that we have the benefit

of what is called the railway postal service sorting arrangement. This means that a letter leaving Kirkland Lake, rather than going to North Bay and remaining in the sorting process in North Bay for one day and coming back the following day to Englehart, we will say-only 30 miles away-and having a trip taking several days, will be put on the train and in an hour or so will be in the next town and will be dropped off there.
This service is being conducted through a sorting process on the trains. These employees must take these sorting examinations and obtain a mark of 97 per cent or they do not receive an increase in salary.
These examinations are exceedingly difficult. They create a great deal of tension. There can be as much as $300 riding on the result of an answer given in one of these tests. I wonder whether this is any advantage and whether it increases the efficiency of the department. I wonder whether these examinations are worthwhile. If they are not, why must they be continued?
This system means that in most cases employees, particularly those connected with sorting, have to take examinations at least twice a year and continue taking them until they are 60 years of age. It seems to me this is unreasonable and is something more than we ask of any other civil service employee.
In connection with this matter I should like to know what is the Postmaster General's justification for demanding that many of the department's employees themselves purchase the sorting cards and sorting test cases. Why is it that the department does not, after making the initial purchase of test cards and test sorting cases, supply these civil servants with the means of keeping them up to date? Why does the department demand that the employee himself pay for new test cards that are continually being put into use?
I understand that a terrific turnover and change-over of services is now taking place. These employees must have this current information. For instance, if one is sending a letter to Highland Grove, for instance, they have to know that it goes to Lindsay first and then it goes through another little town before it gets to Highland Grove, or that it goes to Highland Grove before it gets to Lindsay, and the next time the trucking arrangement may be such that the letter is taken to some other place.
In each case these cards have to be brought up to date, and they have to be paid for by the employee. Not only does the employee have to take these examinations, but the machinery necessary for him to carry out his work has to be purchased by him. It is not simply a matter of skill; it is a matter of

learning and study. This study has to be carried out in his own time and with his own equipment. This is an added burden to these employees.
I do not believe this is justifiable. I believe that if we wish to keep up the standard of our postal employees the least we should do is to supply them with the equipment necessary for them to keep their card indexes up to date. I think this expense should be borne by the Post Office Department.
I am sure the minister will know what these costs would be. He will be abe to give us an over-all figure of how much this system would cost the department. If the department were to supply both the initial test cards, the test cases and the revisions which are necessary from time to time, I am sure the Postmaster General could tell us what costs would be involved.
In the staffed post offices employees get an increase automatically in the first year on the recommendation of the postmaster. The second increase of $150 is granted only if the employee is able to pass a departmental examination, and from the second year onward, the point at which the employee reaches his maximum salary with an increase of $100 a year, he must pass two examinations a year and continue to pass those examinations, in order to remain at maximum salary, for 20 years. After 20 years employees still have to continue to take one of these examinations a year until they reach age 60.
It seems to me that this is requiring a great deal more from civil servants employed in the post office than is required from civil servants employed in any other department of government. I find this system hard to understand in view of the government's claim that it wishes to see equality of treatment as among all civil servants. In this case one employee is treated differently from another even in the same classification. It seems to me that if industry asked its employees to reach and remain at a high standard of knowledge it would at least give them time to do so during their working hours, provide instructions to enable them to keep up to date and, in addition, I am sure, the materials which would be necessary.
In relation to railway post offices I should like to know how many of these offices have been taken out of operation since the period when the number of these offices was at a maximum. I notice from the minister's report that in 1957-58 there were 208 and in 1958-59 only 96. I should be interested to know what the number was in 1959-60 and the estimate for the year 1960-61.
I should also like to ask the minister what is the intention of the department in relation to highway post offices. These are vehicles
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equipped with racks and sorting tables together with other facilities needed for the sorting of mail, and a great deal of use is already made of them in the United States. In many respects they resemble closely the railroad cars designed for the sorting of mail in transit except that they have been converted for travel on the highways. We should be putting the railway sorting cars on tires, as it were, and allowing them to continue the service in those areas where transportation of mail by rail has been discontinued. I should like to draw attention to one example which is brought to my attention regularly and that is the area of Cochrane North where the service is curtailed generally. In order to reach this area from Toronto by rail one has to make two or three changes and delays take place even in the best of times, delays which affect, of course, the transport of mail as well.
Now that there is no sorting done along the route letters which are collected in the course of the journey have to be sent, sometimes, 200 miles from the source and then, in certain cases, must be returned 175 or 180 miles to the nearest village and considerable loss of time is incurred. I expect the minister has given consideration to the subject and that it will not be long before we see post office bus services travelling along the highways and before the same type of service which has been given to communities in the United States will be extended to us is Canada.
The advantages enjoyed as a result of sorting en route were, of course, considerable. They were advantages of some importance. For example, I might point out that communities along the line of the Ontario Northland Railway get at least a daily service of mail from Toronto. Yet I have been in places such as Collingwood, Dundalk in Grey-Bruce where letters have taken as long as five days to arrive. It would have been quicker to have gone to Toronto to pick them up. One of the endeavours of the Postmaster General should be, by the use of this new type of sorting vehicle, to provide a service equal to that enjoyed by townships along favourable rail routes.
I should like to mention one other matter, and it is one which affects politicians as much as it affects anybody though I believe it will concern all those who are interested in mailing through the use of a directory. I should like the minister to give a fairly extensive explanation of the means used to bring these postal directories up to date, because I am convinced that the one I use has never been revised. In that rural mail directory there are the names of people who have been dead for four or five years. In addition, there appear names of people who to my knowledge have left the country three or four

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years ago leaving their farms vacant. Every time I get a new copy of the directory I expect that at least the names of those people will have been removed but they still keep turning up. If you send letters to constituents using a rural mail delivery list you get back 25 per cent of those letters in many cases.
The situation is even worse in the urban areas where more than 25 per cent of the letters I have sent have been returned. It may be that some of the communities concerned are undertaking new zoning arrangements-arrangements which have not, to date, been completed-and this may bring in some element of confusion. However, it seems to me that in some cases as much as one third of the mail is returned stamped "address unknown". I believe the postal authorities make an effort wherever possible to deliver these letters. I am not completely in agreement-neither do I disagree-with those who say that mail from the House of Commons is considered to be second or third class material. Nevertheless I believe the volume of mail we get back is an indication of how badly the record in these directories is kept.
I am sure the minister realizes that something must be done in order to ensure publication of a much more up-to-date directory. Arrangements should be made to ensure that we get information as to changes in the areas back to the Queen's printer so that the rural directories are never more than six or eight months out of date when they are published. Some of them are a great deal more out of date than that. In many of the rural communities such inaccuracies are not excusable because the mail carriers and the postmasters or postmistresses know everybody in the area and are in a position to bring the directory up to date in a few minutes.


Mr. Batien:: Mr. Chairman, I do not want to unduly delay the passing of the minister's estimates, but I should like to make a few brief comments and shall do so as quickly as possible.
I should like first of all to refer to Post Office Department property. I am from an area which has not always had the privilege of having federal government services. Because I am from an area of that type I would imagine I am a little more jealous of these services than are those hon. members of the House of Commons who have always been accustomed to having them. I feel that, in a town or city, property that is normally called the Canada post office should be as well maintained as is any other institution in that city or town. In the area from which I come there exist a small number of large post offices which are kept as well inside as

any post office I have seen on the mainland, but considering the outside appearance of these buildings this is not so.
I recognize, as I am sure the Postmaster General will tell me, that the responsibility for maintaining these buildings lies with the Department of Public Works. However, responsibility is one consideration and interest another. I should suggest to the hon. gentleman that while he may not have the responsibility for maintaining the physical appearance of these buildings and properties I am sure he has a real interest in this regard.
On a recent occasion I went into one of our public buildings and asked an employee there why the building was well maintained inside while the grounds outside were so poorly kept. He replied that it cost a good deal of money to maintain the grounds in a manner comparable to the grounds around other buildings in the city. While that statement is perhaps true, and whether the responsibility is that of the Department of Public Works or the Post Office Department, something should be done in this regard. As a member of the House of Commons I would like to see all federal property maintained inside and out as well as possible.
I would suggest to the minister that he instruct those officials, who visit these institutions commonly known as Canada post offices, to see that these buildings are maintained in a proper fashion. I would suggest that the grounds outside should be kept in a manner compatible with other buildings belonging to the federal government. I would suggest that those areas around these post offices which are considered to be lawns, be kept as lawns so that individuals passing the property, whether they be Canadians or visitors to this country, will realize that the property is being maintained as well as one would expect it to be. Many individuals judge performance by physical appearance, and I refer not only to Canadians but also to those who visit our country during the warmer months of the year. I offer these suggestions very sincerely to the Postmaster General.
I have a few general comments to make and then will specifically refer to the northern part of my riding.
Before Newfoundland became a part of Canada in 1949 it did not have post offices as we know them today. At that time the post office services and telegraph services were combined under one department and the individuals operating these services for us were not only paid as postmasters but also as employees of the telegraph company. This situation exists to some extent today and presents a very real problem.
The individuals to whom I refer perform a service for the Post Office Department and

receive a salary in that regard. At the same time they work for the Canadian National Telegraph Company and receive a salary commensurate with the functions they carry out in that regard. I must say that some of the salaries paid are exceedingly small. I have written the Post Office Department officials in this regard and have been informed that the individuals to whom I referred were being paid on the basis of the amount of work they carried out. I then wrote a similar letter to the Canadian National Telegraph Company and was informed that the same individuals were being paid salaries by this company on the basis of the services they performed for it. This problem is batted back and forth between the Post Office Department and the telegraph company.
The minister might well suggest that instead of speaking in generalities I should present a specific case. I will mention an actual case which the minister will be able to understand. There is an assistant postmaster at Flower's Cove, Newfoundland, by the name of Calvin Whalen. He acts as the assistant postmaster as well as the messenger for the Canadian National Telegraph Company. The post office in which he is employed is responsible for distributing mail for 11 settlements and four other post offices serving a population of 2,000. This man receives, as a postal employee, a salary of $48.50 per month.
I do not know where the responsibility for this situation lies, but when I listened to the Postmaster General refer to increases in salary yesterday, I felt that I should bring this situation to his attention. I know that he will give generous attention, as he always does, to the problem I present. He is always very generous in his attention to problems I bring forward and, in saying that, I do not mean he always gives me the things I would like to have. While he does not accede to all my requests he always furnishes the reason why he cannot. In this day and age it is certainly disgraceful on the part of this federal government department to pay a salary of $48.50 per month to an individual whether or not he is working part-time for the Post Office Department and part-time for the Canadian National Telegraph Company.
My hon. friend from Burin-Burgeo as well as the hon. member for St. John's East, for whom I have a good deal of respect, mentioned a peculiar situation which exists in Newfoundland, and I refer to revenue post offices in small settlements. I realize that because of the amount of service provided by these offices as compared with that provided by the post offices in cities such as Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax, higher
Supply-Post Office
salaries than those being paid today are not warranted. However, I suggest to my hon. friend that there is just a little more to it than this.
Let us take a small community where mail is delivered twice a week. This means that while mail is delivered only twice a week, the postmaster or the postmistress has to be on duty for the whole week. I could give instances where the amount of money paid for the month's service by the post office would not be sufficient to pay a charwoman to clean up after the mail has been delivered, and yet today the postmaster has to provide premises and services and the heat and light required to operate the post office in that small community.
In the larger towns and cities, of course, the criticism I am making does not apply at all. I agree with hon. members who have spoken before me that it is about time the Post Office Department paid some special attention to the problems of the revenue post offices. As I said before, we must have a good deal of respect for the service which we are able to offer to the public. We can have respect for those services and demand respect from others only if the services we provide are respected by the very people who initiate them.
I would hope the time is not too far distant when those who operate the small revenue post offices, whether they be in Newfoundland, Ontario or British Columbia, will receive in remuneration a salary not in terms of the volume of mail handled but in terms of the responsibility which they hold in the community in which they live. In my own home city the employees of the postal department are people who have that dedication to duty about which the minister spoke yesterday. I do not think he is wrong when he says that the employees of the Post Office Department are people who are dedicated to their jobs. I think he is right when he says this. On many occasions I have reason to go and visit those people and to ask things of them. They have always been very courteous and very willing to do those things which come within their responsibility. I think those individuals are a credit to the federal service and I wish to pay tribute to those individuals in my area who are employees of the Post Office Department. I know that in many instances they have trials and tribulations which are not usual in the larger centres. They have accepted those with good grace and have given service beyond that which the department would expect of them.
A few months ago I had occasion to ask the Postmaster General what provision was being made for the landing of mail from

Supply-Post Office
the C.N.R. boats in a settlement on the north coast of Newfoundland by the name of Bartlett's Harbour. The Post Office Department has made provision for the mail to come from the post office to the jetty wharf. The mail has to be taken from the jetty wharf to the boat which, because of the local land conditions, is some distance from where the C.N.R. boat is able to anchor, about one and a half miles. I was disturbed by the fact that the man who was paid to carry the mail from the post office to the jetty warf also, in order to get the mail on the boat, had to put it on board a small motor boat and carry it another one and a half miles to get it on board the C.N.R. boat.
When I asked the minister what arrangement was made for this mail to be taken from the jetty wharf to the boat and back he said that arrangements had been made with the C.N.R., or with the authorities, which would be the C.N.R. I am asking the hon. gentleman whether he will check on that again. A few months ago when I had occasion to check on this I found out that the arrangements which the Postmaster General thought were in effect were not being carried out. I would hope that in this particular instance the Postmaster General or his officials would make sure that if arrangements have been made by the department to have this mail delivered, and if the expenses of having the mail delivered are being paid by the department, the department is receiving the service for which payment is being made.
I now come to a point that is rather a sore one with me. Yesterday, my hon. friend suggested that there was no patronage in his department. It would be a little difficult -maybe I should put it more strongly-to convince me that this is true. I do not blame the Postmaster General for this, but in the area from which I come the Postmaster General or his officials will have a lot of trouble convincing me, or the people whom I represent, that patronage is not being practised in the Post Office Department. Again I say that I am not blaming the Postmaster General for it.
I will give one instance. If the hon. gentleman would like in private the name of the place and of the person, I shall be glad to give the information to him. We have an instance of a post office inspector coming to a certain place in Newfoundland looking for somebody to take over the post office. Because they need a post office in this place one fellow says, "I will take it". He takes the post office as a revenue post office. He remodels the lower flat of his home so that space will be provided for the post office and he carries on the normal operation of

the post office in that area. All at once something happens. One night after dark the post office inspector walks in and says to the postmaster, "We are taking the post office away from you". Everything belonging to the post office is taken from one place and moved to another after dark.
Here is a man who has spent a lot of money to remodel the lower flat of his house to accommodate the Post Office Department. The cost was far greater than anything he received from the Post Office Department. I cannot agree that this is the type of thing which a federal department should be doing. If this man is to be relieved of his duties, then I think he should be told in a proper way. I asked the Postmaster General a question in the house and he replied to me that the man was relieved of his duties because his appointment was only temporary. Surely, if the man's appointment was only temporary, he should have been told of this and then he would not have gone to the expense of changing over the lower floor of his house to accommodate the Post Office Department. What the reason for this is I am not going to say, Mr. Chairman; I am going to leave that to the imagination of the Postmaster General. But I do not believe this type of operation is in keeping with the dignity that we ought to attach to any federal department.
I now come to a regional area of my province, and one with which I am particularly concerned. I refer to the northern part of Newfoundland. The northern part of Newfoundland is commonly known as the Straits of Belle Isle, an area which is in one sense rather densely populated in terms of Newfoundland settlements. From Anchor Point in the south straight through the Straits of Belle Isle to Eddys Cove east we have a population of about 2,500 people. Some time ago I wrote the Postmaster General requesting that some provision be made for the building of a post office in this area and after due investigation he replied that he thought the existing space was sufficient for any duties the Post Office Department had to carry out. I am going to read a few words from his letter. He said:
As the space available is sufficient for our needs at Flower's Cove-
However, in the preceding paragraph he said:
The possibility of erecting a mail shed to further solve this problem is also being considered.
If the space in the existing post office is sufficient to take care of the business of the Post Office Department at the present time, then there is no need to build a shed. I do not know where the Postmaster General got his

information. I have been there and I know the situation. I know he has not been there although he has visited a number of places in my riding. I appreciate his visits and I extend an invitation to him to come again. If the Postmaster General were able to visit this area, as I have on a number of occasions, I think he would agree with me that the accommodation provided at Flower's Cove to serve 11 settlements both winter and summer is not sufficient to look after the mail operations in that area.
Although I have had a letter from the Postmaster General dated November 10, 1960, stating that the facilities provided at Flower's Cove are sufficient to look after post office operations there, I suggest to him that a second look needs to be taken at the matter. I say again to him that if he were to visit this area as I have on a number of occasions he too would realize that the facilities provided at Flower's Cove are not at all in keeping with the amount of work that has to be done.
Flower's Cove is situated nearly at the northern tip of Newfoundland. It has always been the commercial centre of the area and it is now becoming the educational centre. It has always been the religious centre of the area and has always been the centre of post office operations. With the increase in population, mail service and the amount of mail that individuals receive, this post office is no longer able to look after the requirements of the people. In view of all this I suggest to the Postmaster General that he take a second look at this northern part of Newfoundland to see if he cannot do something to improve the postal service in that area so that when he comes back to parliament next year and reports on the work of the Post Office Department he will be able to say to his credit that he has done something for one of the outlying areas of Canada.


Mr. Creaghan:: Mr. Chairman, in commencing my remarks I should like to make a very short reference to the speech made this afternoon by the hon. member for Timis-kaming. The hon. member referred to a recent petition concerning a request for a new post office in his riding. All members of parliament and ministers receive a great many petitions on many subjects. The hon. member did not tell us how the petition came to Ottawa. I presume it could have come through the mail or have been delivered personally to the Postmaster General if Mr. Rice attended the Conservative convention. Regardless of who delivered the petition, I suggest that this incident proves only one thing to me, that the minister's door is open to all
Supply-Post Office
citizens; members of parliament, defeated candidates and the public at large.
Many congratulations have been extended to the minister, the senior officials and all other employees of the department. I have a few brief remarks to make and I do not want them to be taken as criticisms but rather as suggestions. First of all, I have received a great deal of correspondence containing criticism with respect to the loss of identity by small communities. This happens when a new rural route is established. Rural routes are generally desired by the patrons and I know they are accepted as an improved type of service. However, in almost every case when a post office is closed and a new rural route service is inaugurated communities of many years' standing lose their identity on the map. I do not know what the solution is because I understand that a rural route must start from a post office. However, it seems to me that in some cases more consideration could be given to the designating of rural routes and perhaps some formula could be worked out whereby communities that have been in existence for a number of years, communities having small boards of trade and business establishments, could continue to keep their original postal names and thus maintain their identity in the country.
Yesterday afternoon the hon. member for Middlesex West made a plea for letter carrier service for the smaller towns. At the present time many suburban areas adjoining cities and larger towns where letter carrier service is in existence automatically qualify for home-to-home letter carrier service. On the other hand, in many rural areas small post offices are closed and the people receive the advantage of rural route service which is quite comparable to letter carrier service because there is door-to-door delivery.
However, there are many smaller towns across the country, particularly in the mari-times, with a population under 5,000 or between 5,000 and 8,000, which will never qualify for letter carrier service for generations to come. This is a situation that is causing a great deal of criticism of the Post Office Department. Resentment-I think that is the best word to use-is aroused by the fact that in suburban areas there is automatic letter carrier delivery service-if the adjacent city had such service-and by the replacement of revenue post offices in the country with rural routes and thus door-to-door delivery while residents in towns of 5,000 people must still rely on a semi-staff post office and the type of service they have had for years and years.
While dealing with letter carrier service there is one other point I should like to bring to the minister's attention for his considered opinion. I refer to the extension of letter

Supply-Post Office
carrier service. In the last two or three years there have been two or three extensions of letter carrier service in the city of Moncton, New Brunswick. In some cases it took months and months after the service was approved before it was finally started and in other cases the service went into effect very soon after it was authorized.
The reason for the delay in some areas is the requirement that 80 per cent of the patrons must have letter slots, street numbers, walkways, et cetera. I know that the service cannot become effective and efficient until there is 100 per cent co-operation with respect to these requirements. However, in some cases a few citizens refuse to co-operate and consequently the majority of the patrons who wish the service must wait indefinitely for the 80 per cent requirement to be met. I suggest to the minister that the standard might be reduced to about 65 per cent, and then after a short waiting period the service would eventually be put into operation and become 100 per cent effective.
I see my time is almost exhausted, Mr. Chairman, because of the hour, but there are two points I should like to mention. I should like the minister to take a look into the delivery of mail from the main post office at Moncton to the C.N.R. terminal. At the present time there is a large C.N.R. redevelopment taking place and I suggest this is an ideal opportunity for the construction of a tunnel for the transportation of mail from the post office to the terminal building. The procedure suggested would eliminate very serious traffic congestion on main street immediately adjacent to the post office building.
I should also like to thank the minister for the construction of two new post office buildings during the past year, and urge that more and more semi-staff offices be housed in federal buildings. This is something that small communities want, and it is something to which our citizens are entitled. If you go through the country you will find oil companies erecting new service stations, and banks new buildings, and in some cases- not too many in my riding-very poor accommodations rented and occupied as semi-staff offices.
I want ot thank the minister for his attention. Notwithstanding the criticism that he has received from some quarters, he can be assured that the majority of the members, the patrons of the post office and citizens of the country appreciate the fact that last year we received excellent postal service. We know that, as a result of the debate yesterday and today, this service will be improved next year.


Mr. Regnier:: I have a few remarks to make on this item. I should like, first, to commend

the Postmaster General upon the fine service he has given to the people of Canada generally. The people of St. Boniface are quite satisfied, as are the people in the town of Transcona, which is soon to be a city, and has personal delivery service instituted as well as drop mailing rate. Many sub-post offices are to be opened in the Windsor park area of St. Boniface. Two new sub-post offices were opened this year, one at Landmark and the other at Navin. I understand that plans are being made for a large post office in St. Boniface, and probably we will receive the details of that from the Minister of Public Works.
I should like to say a word about the very small post offices, many of which do not earn more than $300 or $400, out of which the operator has to pay rent. Unless the people operating such post offices have some other source of income it is very difficult for them to continue to operate these post offices. I know that at Charleswood it was impossible to get anyone to take the post office because they were required to keep the building open, and it was neither a home nor a business place.
Last year I suggested to the minister that we issue a stamp commemorating the religious aspect of Christmas rather than its commercial aspect. I was very pleased to learn that two other hon. members have joined in making this suggestion to the minister. Since Canada is a country that is about 99 per cent Christian, I do not believe there would be any objection if the Nativity scene were depicted on the 2-cent stamp. I believe this suggestion would be well received.
The last speaker touched upon a matter upon which I should like to touch, that is, the loss of identity of some post offices. In the case of St. Boniface, it is not quite loss of identity but last year the department gave people the option of addressing their mail to St. Boniface 6 or Winnipeg 6. The city of St. Boniface passed a resolution opposing this move. I believe the premier of Manitoba has written the minister in respect of this matter and I hope the minister will do what he can to restore unimpaired the name of the old city of St. Boniface. This would be greatly appreciated because St. Boniface is the oldest city in western Canada and, in addition, the name should be retained because of its historical connotation.


The Acting Chairman (Mr. Chown):: Shall the resolution carry?


William Arnold Peters: No, I think it would be unfair to the Postmaster General to carry the resolution now. I believe he has some answers he would like to make. I would call it five o'clock.


Mr. Churchill:: Would it be agreeable to the committee to hear the minister's answers, which would be brief, and then complete the estimates of this department this week?


William Arnold Peters: Five o'clock.


Gordon Campbell Chown: Will the committee give unanimous consent to proceeding?


Hazen Robert Argue: Five o'clock, Mr. Chairman. The answer is no.
Progress reported.



PRIVATE BILLS

Mr. Speaker:: It being five o'clock, the house will now proceed to the consideration of public and private bills, the former having precedence pursuant to section 3 of standing order 15 as previously amended.



SMALL LOANS ACT


[Stage Direction]
On the order:
Second reading of Bill C-19, an act to amend the Small Loans Act (Advertising)-Mr. Argue.
John Whitney Pickersgill: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I should like to say that this bill has been standing on the order paper since November 21. This procedure allows this bill to keep its position of precedence on the order paper and precludes other persons from proceeding with their bills. 1 am wondering if the hon. gentleman should not either proceed with the bill or allow the bill to go to the bottom of the list?


Mr. Speaker:: As I understand the rules, unless the government requests the postponement of consideration of the bill it does go to the bottom of the list automatically. In this case, in the past it has been taken that the government has requested that it stand. I shall ask specifically, now, since the point has been raised.


Hazen Robert Argue: The procedure was agreed to by the whips. I realize the bill has been standing a long time but I am not prepared to proceed with it now. I hope to proceed with it next time it comes up. I was in the agriculture committee all afternoon, and I am not prepared to proceed with the bill now.


Gordon Minto Churchill: This is an instance which illustrates the desirability of co-operation on both sides. Just about three minutes ago the hon. member refused to go on with the estimates of the Post Office Department, and now he is in the position of asking that his bill stand. There is no consent from this side.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. member wish to move his bill?
Private Bills


Hazen Robert Argue: Yes.


Hazen Robert Argue: the second reading of Bill No. C-19, to amend the Small Loans Act (Advertising).
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to move this bill although, as I have said, I am not prepared for it because I did not expect it to arise.
It is a very simple bill. On a previous occasion a bill similar to this was moved in the Senate by Senator Croll. It was referred to a committee of the Senate and was given quite a thorough airing. I think it has received a tremendous amount of support across the country.
The house leader has taken a very extraordinary course this afternoon in refusing consent-


Gordon Minto Churchill: Similar to the course you took three minutes ago-


Hazen Robert Argue: -with respect to an agreement that had been reached among the whips, as is the usual practice-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think the hon. member is not in order in debating that matter. What he says may be so, but the Chair knows nothing of these arrangements and the hon. member's bill is properly moved before the house.


Hazen Robert Argue: As the record already shows, this is the reason the bill is being proceeded with at this time.
We have always endeavoured to co-operate in the arranging of the order of business of the house. It has been the practice, at any rate, that when the whips have agreed the agreement has been followed by the parties, but this has not happened with the Conservative party.


Gordon Minto Churchill: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, these personal attacks are certainly out of order and should not be allowed. If the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) is going to make personal attacks, I should have the right to reply.


Hazen Robert Argue: I wish you would.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I have already cautioned the hon. member who is moving his motion that remarks of this kind are not relevant to the bill. I would ask the hon. member to confine himself please to the issues of the bill.


Hazen Robert Argue: I can understand the sensitivity of the house leader about the breaking of an agreement-


Some hon. Members:: Order.

Private Bills


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If the hon. member does not wish to follow my ruling I shall have to ask him to resume his seat.


Gordon Minto Churchill: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I would ask the hon. member to withdraw his last remark about the breaking of an agreement. No breaking of any agreement whatsoever is involved in this matter.


Hazen Robert Argue: I do not intend to withdraw the remark, because the agreement was among the whips-


An hon. Member:: Withdraw.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Hazen Robert Argue: -following the practice of conducting the business of this house-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member who has just made the remark objected to knows the rule of the house, that if an hon. member in his place gives his assurance or word respecting a matter about which he knows, his word must be accepted.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I think you misunderstand the point. I am not saying that the house leader himself broke the agreement; I am saying an agreement existed among the whips.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. That matter has already been dealt with. As I indicated to the hon. member for Assiniboia, that is not relevant to the debate of this bill. It may be a consideration with which he is concerned, but the Chair knows nothing about that and has no part in any arrangement of that kind, nor has the house.
If the bill is properly moved it must be debated in accordance with our rules.


Hazen Robert Argue: Since there has been no denying by the minister of the agreement-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If the hon. member persists I really will ask him to sit down, because I do not intend to have my ruling flouted.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, the bill before the house is very simple and straightforward. I hope it will command not only some vocal support in the house but some positive support at this stage of second reading, when I hope a vote will be taken.
I think a bill such as this is an important measure. I think it is very important to the Canadian people that when a person goes to a lending institution to obtain a loan, or obtains money on an instalment credit plan or otherwise, the principle should be followed of setting forth in clear and specific terms the interest charges to be made.

This bill would require that in advertising there be a clear indication of the interest rate that will be charged to any prospective borrower with regard to any loan. The explanatory note of the bill reads:
The purpose of this act is to amend the Small Loans Act, so as to require any moneylender or small loans company, in any advertising in which the amount required by way of monthly or periodic payments in order to repay a loan is indicated, to state what the cost of such loan amounts to in terms of percentum per annum.
This would mean the prospective borrower would know the actual or the simple interest that would be charged on the loan.
I have placed companion legislation on the order paper. It has been debated on previous occasions. This companion legislation would have reduced the interest rate on small loans to 1 per cent per month or approximately 12 per cent per year. It was aimed at clipping the wings of loan sharks and providing a fixed limit of interest on money put out by money lenders.
However, the Conservative party are hand in hand with the loan sharks and these money-lenders and they are quite happy that these people should keep on pilfering the public. They are quite happy that these pirates in the money lending field should be allowed to go on filching the ordinary person who has to borrow money by charging extortionate rates and reaping profits that are scandalous in a modern society.
Of course, hon. gentlemen opposite do not do what the former government did on many occasions, but not all; that is, allow a vote to be taken. Instead they use the well known device which they have used consistently, of talking out a bill, of putting one speaker on after another to discuss either the pros or cons and talk it out.


James Stanley Speakman: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I do not think the conduct of the house is in any way incorporated in this bill.


Hazen Robert Argue: The conduct of the house is not incorporated in the bill, but the conduct of hon. members regarding this bill is involved here.


James Stanley Speakman: Not regarding this bill either.


Hazen Robert Argue: 1 am challenging hon. members on the government side of the house to act a little differently on this bill-


James Stanley Speakman: Talk on the bill.


Hazen Robert Argue: -than they have acted on former occasions. I ask them to act differently than they did when this very bill was moved last session, or the companion bills, as I have termed them.

Surely it is in order to plead that hon. members give this bill their support in a real sense, by standing up and voting for the measure if and when they allow such a vote to take place.


John Andrew W. Drysdale: Are we not allowed to say anything? Is it only the C.C.F. who can talk on these matters?


Hazen Robert Argue: This is a new tack. The hon. member says, "Are we not allowed to say anything?" Hon. members on the government side speak one after another, bill after bill.


John Andrew W. Drysdale: Nonsense. The C.C.F. is doing all the talking.


Hazen Robert Argue: I think the record this year is one that has probably never been equalled in other years.


John Andrew W. Drysdale: By the C.C.F.


Hazen Robert Argue: With regard to every public bill that has come up for discussion the Tories have succeeded in talking it out, with the exception of one that had to do with divorce arrangements. When other bills have come up they have talked them out, and I think a great many of them have been pretty important bills.


John Andrew W. Drysdale: Do they not require discussion, if they are important?


Hazen Robert Argue: Hon. members opposite require so much discussion and they never want a decision. They are not content with an hour's, two hours', three hours' discussion, or whatever it may be.


John Andrew W. Drysdale: Only an hour is allowed for private members.


Hazen Robert Argue: They use the parliamentary procedure that is so well known and so well established, of killing the bill-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. MacEwan):: Order. I suggest that the hon. member keep his remarks to a discussion of the bill which is before us.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is exactly what I am doing. I hope hon. members opposite will not, in respect of this bill, follow the practice they have followed in connection with others. I am asking that a different treatment be given this bill.
Hon. members on the government side of the house stand up to introduce government legislation and plead with the house for support-


James Stanley Speakman: Order.


Hazen Robert Argue: -and they talk in favour of their bills.


James Stanley Speakman: Tell us about your bill.
Private Bills


Hazen Robert Argue: It is a good bill, but I know my hon. friends will not vote for it and will talk it out. That is what they have been doing all this session.


James Stanley Speakman: Tell us about it.


Hazen Robert Argue: This is why they interrupt from their seats so frequently whenever they know they are on a-


James Stanley Speakman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker-


Hazen Robert Argue: There is no point of order.


John Andrew W. Drysdale: You are not the Speaker. Sit down.


James Stanley Speakman: The point of order I make is that the hon. member for Assiniboia is not talking about this bill at all. He is continuing to discuss the conduct of hon. members of the house with regard to bills which have been before this house from time to time, and I should like Your Honour to bring him back to the bill we are now discussing.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Chown):: I would ask the hon. member, as I have asked him before, to confine his remarks to the matter under consideration. As to the field covered by the bill, I have explained it fully to the house.


Hazen Robert Argue: I think the leader of the house made an observation. I did not hear it.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I was laughing at your silly remarks.


Hazen Robert Argue: Oh, I thought you were talking -with a face like that. However, my genial friend is a fine fellow, very good natured, good looking and so on; we shall not quarrel about that.
As I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted, this is a bill which, I think, has a great appeal in many quarters. I do not remember any legislation I have seen on the order paper in the name of a private member with regard to which so many letters and communications have been received, all of which have been in support of the measure.


James Stanley Speakman: Where are they?


Hazen Robert Argue: The hon. member asks: where are they? Well, they came from a great many organizations across the country. They came from a large number of credit unions.


James Stanley Speakman: Oh.


Hazen Robert Argue: They are very excellent organizations in my opinion although the hon. member for Wetaskiwin may not think so. These excellent organizations have sent communications in which they ask hon. members of this house to support this bill on second

Private Bills
reading. I think there is a good reason for the interest which has been taken in this matter, namely that prospective borrowers when they are being canvassed by way of advertising by small loan companies should have disclosed to them the interest rates which are in fact being charged.


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


Hazen Robert Argue: My old friend. Go ahead.


Edwin William Brunsden: Mention has been made of credit unions, and I would be the last to attack credit unions. I think they are excellent organizations. But does the hon. member realize that the rate charged is 1 per cent a month on an unpaid bill, and that credit union people like others sometimes find it impossible to meet their commitments? Take the case where a credit union lends a person a thousand dollars and he is charged at the rate of 1 per cent a month. Has the hon. member ever estimated the total cost charged on account of that loan?


Hazen Robert Argue: I presume it is 1 per cent a month. I do not know why it would not be. It is very simple. The hon. member is good at arithmetic and it will not be hard for him to calculate that simple question. One per cent a month is approximately 12 per cent or so a year and the hon. member can take it from there.
Many credit unions do not charge a rate as high as 1 per cent a month which is the maximum rate that credit unions have charged, as far as I know, by way of interest. I do know, however, that credit unions are charging 6, 7, or 8 per cent. That is a great deal less than 1 per cent per month and the credit unions are, I believe, performing a wonderful service for the people of this country. I would think that one of the reasons they are interested in the bill is so as to make it abundantly clear to Canadians what interest rates the companies in the small loans field are charging and to inform the budget of the fantastic charges which are being made by certain of the companies making these small loans.
This bill is not sufficiently comprehensive to be a catch-all covering all companies making loans or providing credit in this field but I think the principle is a good one. It is clearly within federal authority to pass a measure of this kind since it affects small loans. I hope this bill will receive the approval and support of hon. members in all parties and if it becomes law, as I hope it will, then we could go on from there to provide that all institutions coming within the jurisdiction of the federal government in this regard should set forth in a clear and

distinctive manner the simple interest which is being charged on the loans we are making.
I have had brought to my attention in the past instances of fantastic interest rates which are being charged on many contracts; interest rates on second mortgages running to 20 or 25 per cent a year; interest rates on instalment credit running between 15 and 30 per cent a year. I think the corporations which are providing loans on instalment credit should also set forth the simple interest they are charging. In the case of loans on second mortgages with heavy bonuses attached, even if the interest rate is written into the contract there should, in my view, be a requirement that the bonuses must be translated into terms of an interest rate and that this interest rate should be set forth.
Hon. members opposite claim to be wedded to free enterprise or competitive enterprise. They seem to think, or at least they say they think-often they do not act as if it were so-that government interference and government institutions should be kept at a minimum. If they are so much in favour of private institutions in this field, I ask them why they do not at least go as far as to say that those institutions must present to the public information as to the interest rates they are charging on loans.
This country today is infested with loan sharks and parasites, people living on the hard-earned incomes of ordinary Canadians by providing credit for such necessary things as furniture, automobiles for transportation, money to pay doctors and hospital bills and so on. They have taken advantage of the income situation of ordinary Canadians. They are a disgrace to the nation and, surely, the government should take action in this field. The most important action which the government could take would be to limit by law the interest rates charged by these companies. There is no question that the federal government has jurisdiction in this field and power to legislate in an effective way. The second line of defence-surely the very minimum that should be undertaken-is the passage of a bill such as this measure which would provide for the setting forth of interest rates in a clear fashion-a fashion provided by law-so that the public on accepting loans from small loans companies would know the real interest rate they were being charged.


John Andrew W. Drysdale: Would the hon. member permit a question? I wonder if he could clarify that point because I must say that as the bill exists it appears this applies only to advertising. I am concerned as to whether

it would be embodied in the contract, where I think it would be of more importance than in the advertising itself.


Hazen Robert Argue: I do not know which is more important but if the literature instructed people as to the interest charged the public would be perhaps more educated than if they are expected to look through the fine print of the contract. It is very difficult for members to draft a bill which is acceptable because if it is too embracing hon. members say that it is far too sweeping and suggest that it be limited somewhat. If the bin is drafted in a Umited fashion then the same hon. members suggest that it does not go far enough. In any experience with hon. members I have met frequently with the argument that a biU is too comprehensive and sweeping.
In the hope that hon. members would be favourable toward taking this minimum step in respect of the advertising and brainwashing campaign in this small loans field I have submitted this limited bill. I felt that interest rates should be stated in the advertisements regarding the loans rather than allowing the type of thing which exists today. These advertisements suggest that individuals seeking loans should come in to see John, who is a fine personable fellow who will not inquire too thoroughly into personal matters, or if the individual is extremely busy he can just telephone and a loan can be arranged in that manner. Everything is very cosy and snug with little difficulty attached. I feel this is a very important aspect of the small loans field and suggest that in the advertisements, whether they appear in newspapers, radio or television, the rate of interest in the different categories should be included. I think this would go a long way toward curbing granting of the kind of loan I think is undesirable and would bring to the attention of the general public the fact that their financial problems can very well be solved by a credit union loan or bank loan at an interest rate very much less than that charged by the small loan companies.
I realize that banks have been quite active in the small loans field charging interest rates up to 10 or 11 per cent, simple interest. I have felt that this was a contravention of the Bank Act, but in any case it is being done. I know the Royal Bank of Canada is making small loans at the normal 6 per cent bank interest rate without any additional charges or gimmicks resulting in higher interest rates.
I feel that this bill is a good bill. It has certainly attained the widespread support of
Private Bills
many organizations across the country, and I hope it commends itself to hon. members of the House of Commons.


Mr. M. D. Morton (Davenport):: Mr. Speaker, the presentation of this and a series of similar bills concerning the matter of interest on loans has brought to the attention of hon. members of this house the serious problem of protecting citizens from those who may be termed loan sharks who purposely charge high interest rates on loans. In finding a solution to this problem one must be careful not to offend the legitimate lending establishments so as to keep this money available to those individuals who require it.
In this particular bill the sponsor has suggested-with good reason-that loan companies should reveal the cost and interest rate in their advertising so that people know how much they are paying. I would suggest that the solution suggested by this bill is not as simple as it appears. Any member who has read the recent debates in the other place concerning the finance charges disclosure bill sponsored by Senator Croll will realize immediately that the solution is not as simple as the hon. member suggests. For example, his bill suggests that the cost and interest rates on loans should be set out. I thinv we are all familiar with the fact that as the amount of the loan increases, the cost and interest rate by percentage is lessened, as the basic costs remain the same. In regard to a small loan the charges seem quite high so it would be difficult to show the graduated rates and costs in advertisements. I think a more effective way of dealing with this problem is to educate individuals seeking loans to the idea of inquiring what interest rate and cost is being charged. I feel that is the time for this information to be disclosed rather than in advertisements appearing in newspapers, on radio, and on television. Unfortunately, individuals making these loans neglect to read the contracts they sign, and do not insist that interest rates be set out.
I am familiar with an incident which will perhaps illustrate what happens to individuals making purchases on an instalment plan. A young couple buying a car had fortunately made arrangements to obtain a loan from a bank at the regular interest rate. Prior to their closing the deal with the car salesman they mentioned this fact, but were informed that it was not necessary for them to take advantage of the arrangements they had made because the company from which they were buying this car could finance it at 6 per cent interest. This young couple did not read the contract carefully-sometimes I suspect that contracts of this type are not even filled in at the time of signing-and did not realize

Private Bills
until later that the contract had been assigned to a discount company at an interest rate closer to 18 per cent than 6 per cent. Fortunately as a result of measures taken, this contract was set aside and the young couple were able to take advantage of the arrangements they had previously made with the bank.
In this case I feel that the young couple, as well as the salesman, were at fault for the difficulties in which they found themselves. They were at fault, I suggest, in not reading the contract thoroughly before signing it. I would like to strongly warn individuals who are signing contracts of this kind to read them thoroughly and not be hurried into signing blank contracts, as I suspect many individuals are doing today. Regardless of the legislation we put on the statute books, we cannot protect those people who do not read their contracts and do not understand what is being done.
Judging by the various bills that have been introduced in the house and the information put before the house within the last few years by members on all sides, I would say the time has come when the whole matter of interest, the Interest Act and the Small Loans Act, as well as this proposed legislation, should be reviewed in toto. To my mind it is rather futile to deal with a bill which is trying to bring about a stopgap solution. The time has come to urge the government to send all bills concerning interest to a committee and have them properly reviewed.


Hazen Robert Argue: Let's send this one now.


Murray Douglas Morton: Not by itself. We have the Bank Act, which covers all banking, and in this act there is a proviso which says that it shall be reviewed every so many years. I would suggest that similar legislation be provided in respect of interest and all types of financial transactions which are related to interest. This legislation should be reviewed every five years or 10 years, as the case may be.
It is rather difficult for a private member to develop a series of amendments to solve this problem. The matter of financing has become more and more complicated. Even the bills presented by the hon. member contradict themselves in some ways if we were to accept the amendments as they are presented to us. As he himself has admitted, the bill is not comprehensive; it deals only with a few of the people concerned with financing. If we were to pass the measure as it stands we would be putting a requirement on certain people who lend money but we would be permitting others to advertise as they please. I would suggest that in developing one omnibus act we must also take into consideration

the powers of the provinces and perhaps have legislation passed with the consent and concurrence of the provinces. I make this suggestion because this bill deals with a field which, because of our constitutional powers, we cannot cover. We cannot deal with the matter of contracts. Under the constitution we can deal only with the matter of interest.
There is some controversy as to how far we can control charges by claiming they are interest. When the Small Loans Act was passed hon. members acted on the assumption that we could pass the legislation because it was ancillary to controlling interest; but there are many who feel that there are some doubts as to our constitutional powers to do so. I would therefore suggest that in the writing of an all-comprehensive act the concurrence of the provinces be secured in those fields where there may be some conflict of jurisdiction. Some provinces are already taking steps to deal with second mortgages and contracts in respect of financing, and where people have been misled and great injustices have been done. I do not think there is any doubt at this time that injustices have been done. There is no doubt the time has come when the whole matter should be reviewed not only for the protection of people concerned but in making arrangements for legitimate financing companies to serve the needs of the people at the present time.
Banking facilities as such are limited. They do not seem to go into the field of financing which covers instalment buying, and so on. For that reason there is a field for legitimate financing, but if this field is left uncontrolled a great deal of chaos will be created. I would urge that on the proper occasion the government bring forward legislation covering these matters.


An hon. Member:: Now.


Murray Douglas Morton: The hon. member says now. These bills should be referred to a committee. The legislation that I am suggesting would be more comprehensive than that which the hon. member has suggested.


Hazen Robert Argue: Put it on the order paper, send it to committee and get on with it.


Murray Douglas Morton: As a humble backbencher I can only make a suggestion. I hope the front bench is listening and will take more cognizance of what I have been saying than they have of what the hon. member has said in the last few years.


Hazen Robert Argue: They are listening to you. The leader of the house is listening.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Murray Douglas Morton: I am not going to admit, Mr. Speaker, that the government has or has not

listened to me. I do not presume to believe that I am that effective in debate.


Mr. More:: On a point of order, it is not so long ago since the hon. member for Assin-iboia was ranting and raving.


Hazen Robert Argue: The new prime minister. The hon. member is in the wrong seat.


Mr. Speaker:: A few hon. members are in their wrong seats. A certain amount of informality is not to be deplored but I think it is going too far, if I may say so.


Murray Douglas Morton: I thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was trying to wind up my few words by suggesting that I thought the government should consider this problem seriously. I sincerely suggest this to the hon. member for Assiniboia. Although he has brought forward these things and has permitted hon. members on all sides of the house to bring out the problems and to disclose many of the things that have been done, I will not say illegally, but unethically, now that the suggestions have been received and with the evidence that has been put on Hansard in the last few years, I suggest government would be warranted, perhaps not this session but next session, bringing forward a bill which would cover all of the defects that are now in the legislation on the statute books and at the same time permit legitimate financing to cover the needs of the people who require loans. (Translation):


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Mr. Speaker, I shall be very brief in my comments on Bill C-19. I would not like to prevent the vote being taken on that legislation, quite the contrary.
The hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) once again is submitting to us this year a very simple bill, which seems well drafted and which at all events fills a very urgent need. 1 congratulate him. It is possible that, from a purely technical or legal standpoint, it could be improved, but we are now on the second reading and what counts at this stage is the fact that the bill fills an urgent need.
At this stage, we have to discuss the principle of the bill. That is why I would not understand why some members would vote against it. I hope everyone will co-operate in order that the vote may be taken before six o'clock.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I would not like to go into any detail because I spoke about that legislation last year. We are here, after
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all, especially to protect the ordinary people, that is those who need protection. That is the object of this bill, which provides that finance companies, from now on, will have to specify in their advertisements the interest rates of their loans per year.
The hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Morton), who preceded me, made an excellent suggestion to the effect that we should completely revise our position as regards the Small Loans Act. The time has come to do so. I congratulate him for having made that suggestion, and I hope that the government will follow it up.
The hon. member for Davenport is a lawyer who is aware as I am, as well as the other lawyers in the house, that among the public, especially at present, all kinds of contracts are signed without any real knowledge of their terms; in other words the good faith of people is being abused. I think they have to be protected, and that is the object of this bill.
Now, the hon. member for Davenport says that everything should be reviewed. Well, I am going to remind him of what the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) often tells us when he presents a bill and we say to him: "Why not cover the whole question, Mr. Prime Minister?" He replies: "This is a first step. Let us make this first step and then we will go to the heart of the matter."
I feel that the legislation now before us, Bill C-19, fills an urgent need. It is a step in the right direction. Having been in the House of Commons for a few years, I feel that we must not miss one opportunity and that when a bill such as this one is presented, we must adopt it.
I hope the leader of the house will see to it that a vote is taken. If he feels that there are reasons why this bill should not be put to a vote, he could suggest that we have a free vote before six o'clock so that members may have a chance to express their views. I feel that everyone will be interested to know what members of parliament think of this most important legislation on small loans. In fact, people will be most disappointed if the house does not take a stand and if no protection is given immediately to the general public, which is so often taken advantage of by finance companies.
Needless to say, Mr. Speaker, I will vote in favour of the bill.
(Text):


Mr. Reynold Rapp (Humboldl-Melfori):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak on Bill No. C-19, an act to amend the Small Loans Act, advertising, I should like to say at the outset that I am much in favour of what is spelled out in the bill. As I understand the purpose of the bill, it is to amend the Small Loans

Private Bills
Act so as to require any money lender or small loans company to state in their advertising or in any other medium the amount of loan, the monthly or periodic payments by the borrower and also the cost of such loan in terms of per cent per annum or in terms of per cent for any length of time for which the money is lent.
As the situation is now, small loans companies or other lenders are not required to state a certain rate of interest that they intend to charge for loans or the terms of the agreement as far as repayments are concerned. I think it is very important that it should be stated in any advertising or in any agreement what the interest rate is going to be and what the terms of the agreement are.
I must say that I view with some apprehension the action of some small loans companies and also some moneylenders when they do not set forth in their advertising the interest rate and also their repayment plan. This, of course, does not apply to all small loans companies and money lenders. I want to make that perfectly clear. I do not want to leave the impression that all small loans companies and moneylenders are taking advantage of their clients because they have not advertised their interest rates and the terms of their repayment plans.
Small loans companies are performing a very commendable service in this country but for the protection of the public from unscrupulous lending agencies the government should take action to protect the public either through the proposed amendment to the Small Loans Act or in any other legislation which will achieve the same result, namely, to have the small loans companies and other lending institutions advertise their interest rates and also their repayment plans.
In the case of many small borrowers it may be the first time they have availed themselves of loans and some of these people may not be familiar with the set-up of these lending agencies. However, if the interest rates and repayment plans are advertised they may seek advice from friends or other persons familiar with this kind of business and obtain information before going to a lending institution and committing themselves to something they will regret later. From past experience in serving on a credit union board in my home town I know that an individual wanting to obtain a loan needs all the information he can get beforehand. He should know what he is faced with as far as the interest rate is concerned, the repayment plan and any other agreement to which he commits himself when he signs the contract for the loan.
Since advertising and interest rates come under the jurisdiction of the government 1

think it would be in the best interests of those people who wish to obtain loans to make it obligatory for lending institutions to state their interest rates and also their repayment plans in their advertising. I can really see no disadvantage to small loans companies and other moneylenders in their being asked to state their interest rates in their advertising. There is nothing else I should like to see done at the present time and I have nothing to add except to say that the house should give serious consideration and approval to the bill and the proposed amendments as spelled out therein.


Mr. R. S. MacLellan (Inverness-Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of Bill No. C-19 which has been introduced today is to amend the Small Loans Act in order to require any moneylender or small loans company coming under federal jurisdiction to state in any advertising in which the amount required by way of monthly or periodic payment is indicated in order to repay the loan, what the cost of such loan amounts to in terms of per cent per annum. I may say that the principle of the bill is one that I accept wholeheartedly. I think there is wide agreement among hon. members of the house that some legislation of this type is needed.
Many hon. members feel that this is not exactly the type of legislation that is required, but I am sure that they and, indeed, those of the other place would like to see this problem examined very closely and legislation of some type brought in to effect the principle set forth in the bill. I think all hon. members will agree that today more than ever before there is a need for some control of advertising in the consumer lending field.
Over the last decade or so there has been a great growth in consumer credit. We have seen the sources of financing of many of the things we buy today change in this period. There was a time when the money required to finance the purchase of household articles, automobiles and all manner of personal chattels was obtained through the banking system. Today many retailers set up the financing required for articles of this kind or the purchaser will be referred to the finance companies, the acceptance corporations or the credit union. These are the leading types of consumer credit organizations in the modern world.
Since I have mentioned the credit union, I should like to take a moment to express to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the house my own experience in the credit union work. As all hon. members know, credit is often more difficult to obtain in rural areas than it is in urban areas of Canada. The credit union has helped a great deal in this field. In my own

riding, the obtaining of credit is perhaps the largest difficulty that faces the farmer or fisherman who tries to become established as an economic business unit. In many cases, the credit that he could not otherwise have obtained has been available to him through the credit union, through the co-operation of his friends and neighbours who have joined with him in this very worth-while financing operation.
It is important also to note that perhaps the most important work credit unions have done has been in the educational field. Many people, not only in rural areas but in our urban centres as well, formerly knew very little about even rudimentary financial operations, but as a result of the operations of the credit unions they have learned a lot about what money can do, what it costs and from where it comes. It has been my good fortune for over a dozen years to be a member of a credit union and for perhaps a third of that time to have served on the credit committee of that organization. During those years I was forcibly impressed with the assistance given by credit unions to people who otherwise found the ordinary channels of credit closed to them. I can certainly say to the members of the house that any support they are able to give to the credit union movement or to the work these organizations are doing, will prove of great service to the people of Canada generally.
I have often wondered whether or not there was any way in which this parliament could give encouragement to the credit union by making funds available. The source from which the capital of the credit union is drawn is not the wealthiest segment of the population. These organizations provide credit, not only for education but for other purposes, to people who would otherwise have very narrow sources of credit.
In so far as Bill No. C-19 is concerned, my first impression upon reading it was, why should any moneylender object to setting forth the interest rate which he is charging his customers? Certainly, in so far as any other type of lending is concerned, through the banks, mortgage companies or under the National Housing Act, the interest rate is made known to the borrower. There is no attempt made to hide it from him. There is an area of financing in which interest rates are hidden, as some hon. members have said here today. I think we all know that this is true. I see no reason why we should not ask corporations which lend money in
Business of the House
the consumer field to show, in their advertising, what rate of interest they are charging. I think nothing could be fairer than that we ask the lender to tell the borrower how much he is being charged for the use of the lender's money. I wonder, however, if it might not be more prudent to have the bill referred to one of the standing committees of the house, perhaps the banking and commerce committee, for a thorough examination of the problem.
The day will come, I am sure, when we will have to invite the provincial governments to join with the federal government in enacting legislation which will cover all aspects of financing in Canada, not only consumer financing but the mortgage field as well. In view of the high interest rates charged on second mortgages throughout the country, I am sure many borrowers woud be better off if some joint effort were made by the provincial and federal governments towards the establishing of comprehensive, overall legislation to regulate financing in Canada. Certainly no such legislation could cover all aspects of the situation unless it were the result of a joint effort of the provinces and this parliament because many of the aspects of finance come under provincial jurisdiction while only a small part comes under the jurisdiction of this parliament.
I conclude by saying that, along with other hon. members who have spoken, I support the general principle of this bill. I should like to see the matter examined further by a committee of this house. I should be very surprised if many voices were raised in opposition to the general principle that the rates being charged by financing concerns should be shown in their advertising literature.


Hazen Robert Argue: You have killed the bill by faint praise.


Mr. Speaker:: Order; the hour for public and private bills having expired, the house will resume the business which was interrupted at five o'clock.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Dumas:: I wonder if the leader of the house will be able to tell us what the business will be for next week?


Gordon Minto Churchill: The business I announced last night will hold for Monday.


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