1961-02-24

[Stage Direction]
Third report of standing committee on veterans affairs-Mr. Montgomery.
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Flynn in the chair.
National film board-
251. Administration.
Production and distribution of films and other visual material, $4,988,112.
Mr. Pitman:: I just want to say a few words about the national film board from a particular point of view. I think we in North America have a somewhat peculiar view of public agencies. We tend to regard them as likely to be havens of inefficiency, waste and mediocrity, filled with time servers. Indeed, one hears it suggested that they are the last harbour of retreat for incompetence.
In the national film board we have a government agency which derives its revenue, certainly in part, from the government, and which is responsible to parliament and therefore to the people of Canada. We know that its work could never be carried on by a commercial company, yet it is amazing to what extent this agency pays for itself. It sells its services to the extent of nearly $1,500,000, and its rentals amount to well over $500,000. Thus we must remember, when we consider the work of this agency, that parliament is not paying the whole shot.
Part of the work of the film board is to provide services for other departments of government. For example, if the Department of Agriculture or the Department of Trade and Commerce want a film made, the film board is asked to make it. I think one of the most heartening aspects about this government agency is the extent to which it has gained the confidence and won the enthusiasm of the people of Canada. One thing to be noted is that this is an example of a government agency which is not cold and impersonal, as we in North America tend to think government agencies should be. I think it is significant that this agency has gained an unique place in Canadian life, and because of this it has been able to distribute its films at only a fraction of the cost which a commercial
company would have incurred, since there are a large body of people who are willing to give their services to the board simply because they regard its work as being important to the community.
As a result of the wide distribution of the films made by the board, over 15 million people in this country have seen them either through school programs or community programs. The importance of the work of the film board to the departments of education can, in fact, hardly be rated too highly. If we include those people who have seen national film board productions by means of television, then of course the number would run into almost countless millions.
Another legend which seems to persist in North America is that the work of government agencies seldom rises above mediocrity. But, as was pointed out last night, perhaps the people of Canada do not realize the number of awards which the national film board has won by reason of the excellent quality of its work. The fact that the board has won seven of these awards throughout the world is something to be noted. It might seem that with regard to this aspect of our national life we just do not know how well our agencies are doing. We have discovered how to make films with a distinctive Canadian style. Canadian films are known because of the way they are made, and I think this shows that the flavour of Canadian life can be expressed through the medium of films. Through the films of the national film board developments in Canada have been made known in other parts of the world. This would indicate that the expenditure parliament is making on behalf of the board is worth while. I hope this will be an indication of what the role of government enterprise can be. Here is a public enterprise that is not competing with private enterprise but is giving business to and supporting private enterprise, and at the same time is making a tremendous contribution to Canadian life.
Here we have an example which shows that we can have an esprit de corps, a justifiable pride, in a public agency. Certainly the films of the board are produced with the highest degree of technical excellence. To the extent that the board changes the public image of government agencies, it is performing a remarkable service in Canada.
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Mr. Muir (Lisgar):: Mr. Chairman, the minister will recall that when parliament was opened by the Queen in 1957 the national film board filmed the proceedings. I am wondering in how many places throughout Canada this film has been shown and if it is still being shown throughout the country.


Mrs. Fairclough:: Mr. Chairman, while we are locating those figures for the hon. member, perhaps I may be permitted to make a brief statement. Hon. members will notice that for the fiscal year 1961-62 the national film board estimates show an increase of $287,258. The major factor is an increase of $166,395 for salary revisions and merit increases to the board's personnel. Other increases in the operational vote are $50,000 to provide for an extension of the board's production activities, and an increase in Canadian distribution costs of $14,848 resulting from the appointment of two additional district representatives, one in British Columbia and one in Saskatchewan. The sum of $17,254 will be required for additional service and wage increases to members of the Canadian corps of commissionaires. The acquisition of equipment vote shows an increase of $18,416. The balance of $20,345 covers a number of small items.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
252. Acquisition of equipment, $172,380.
Ellen Louks Fairclough: I still have an answer coming for the hon. member for Lisgar. The reply to the hon. member is that there were 464 bookings in moving picture theatres in Canada. The picture is being shown in the schools of Canada; it is shown in every part of Canada.


George Robson Muir: I want to thank the hon. lady for giving me the answer. The reason I asked is that I have had many inquiries from the schools regarding the procedure of opening parliament. I would hope that this film would be shown extensively throughout the schools in Canada.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I might add it is available on request.


Mr. Taylor:: Has the national film board ever attended any international sporting event in which Canada has participated, and taken pictures of some of our Canadian athletes participating in those games?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I am told that the film board has never taken actual pictures of international competitions in which Canadian athletes participated abroad because they have never purchased the right to take those pictures, but the board does have pictures of sporting events in Canada. There is a


film which is in course of preparation-it is on the program for this year-which will deal with preparation for competition in the Olympic games.


John Russell Taylor: Just by way of further comment, I know that throughout the country there is keen interest in getting copies of films of such events as the skiing championships at Squaw Valley in which Anne Heg-gtveit participated. These films, if readily available, could be shown in schools throughout the country and I am sure they would be much appreciated. My point is, can consideration be given to the national film board at least making an effort to take pictures of some of our stars at some of these future international events in order that in due course those films may be shown here and thereby encourage other amateurs to participate as well?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: The film board will be very glad to consider this suggestion.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Public archives-
319. General administration and technical services, $716,268.
Mr. Brunsden:: Mr. Chairman, last evening your predecessor in the chair very properly suggested, since I had included books with art, that I should defer my remarks until this particular vote was reached. I should like to say, sir, that last evening's discussion on art was most illuminating to those of us who have had little opportunity to become more than casual observers in that particular field. Some excellent addresses were made; it is not my intention to single out any one in particular, but it was a cultural evening and was well worth while.
Under this particular vote I should like to speak very briefly on the national library. One of the compensations of being a new member of parliament is the access one has to the parliamentary library, the national library, if he so wishes, and the librarians. To those of us who come from far places the contacts we make are most valuable. As an aside I should like to pay a brief tribute to the parliamentary librarian and his staff. They are always most helpful. Like the rose, I am afraid they blush unseen; nevertheless we appreciate them.
I tried to say last night that my previous knowledge of the national library was very fragmentary. I was told at one time that there were two countries in the world without national libraries, Canada and Ghana. I have learned since that Ghana now has an admirable national library and I have also

learned-one learns constantly in Ottawa- that we have the nucleus of a very promising national library in Canada.
My plea is that the promise may be fulfilled. I think it was John Ruskin who once said that books are divisible in two classes, books of the hour and books of all time. Our national library and our archives are concerned with the books of all time. We have made a start, but we need a great deal of development if the national library is to come into full fruition. My information is that there are approximately 400,000 volumes under the control of the national library. It is interesting to note that this represents one book for every 45 Canadians. To me this is pitiful when we think of the tremendous sums of money we spend in other departments which have nothing to do with the development of the Canadian mind.
The national librarian has a very difficult task. He and his staff are working in cramped quarters. They are handicapped in their endeavour to expand the facilities of their organization by not having sufficient room in which to operate. We talk and have talked in the house for the last few years about the creation of a physical green belt. We are building a glorious national capital. My plea is for the creation of a green belt of the Canadian mind, and I hope the day is not far distant when parliament will see to it that in our physical green belt there is built a national library capable of housing the tremendous store of wisdom that has come down to us through the ages and which will enrich not only our own lives but the lives of future generations. Incidentally, I note that the next generation is well represented in the galleries this morning. Generations yet unborn will profit if we establish our national library on the basis on which some of us conceive it should be established.


Mr. Pickersgill:: Mr. Chairman, I was only too happy on this occasion to defer to the hon. member for Medicine Hat who began the remarks he has made this morning on another item in the estimates, and who has made what I think is one of the most useful contributions that have been made to our debates in this session of parliament. Without any reservation whatsoever I should like to congratulate the hon. member both for what he has said and for the way in which he has said it.
It does seem to me that we are taking altogether too long to provide the building which will house the national library. It is a very fortunate thing that for the past few years, since the National Library Act was passed by parliament, we have at least been accumulating some of the books that we
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration ought to be accumulating. I must say that I never before thought of the statistic the hon. member for Medicine Hat gave us this morning when he said that the 400,000 volumes belonging to the national library would represent one book for every 45 people in Canada. I must say I do not think that is one of the statistics I would be proud of, and I doubt if it will be put in that blue book of facts which has been published recently and which is probably not in the national library.
The plain fact is, of course, that until the national library has a real physical home it cannot expand in the way we would like to see it expand and the way it ought to expand. Until it has a proper physical home there cannot be the proper differentiation between the functions of the national library and the functions of the parliamentary library which it would be desirable to make both in the interests of efficiency and economy as between the two institutions. I do feel that it was desirable to let one of the supporters of the government have the initiative that is usually taken by the opposition on the estimates, in the hope that the observations made from this part of this side of the house might not fall on deaf ears but, coming from a supporter of the government, be received a little more sympathetically than otherwise would have been the case. I only wish that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance were not otherwise engaged at the federal-provincial conference so they could have been here to listen to what was said by the hon. member for Medicine Hat.
We do know, of course, that the site for the new national library is now occupied by No. 1 temporary building on Wellington street, which ought to have been torn down by this time. By doing so this energetic Minister of Public Works, who does a lot of talking about providing winter work, might provide a little more work this winter so the government could then proceed at once with the building of the national library. This should be done. I know the hon. lady can only use her influence with her other colleagues, that the decision will be made by the government as a whole, and particularly those members of the treasury board, on the initiative of the Minister of Public Works. At least we have the opportunity here of saying something about it, and I do hope, when the estimates of the Department of Public Works come up, the hon. member for Medicine Hat will urge the Minister of Public Works to get on with the job. From the way the hon. lady is nodding her head I think he will have her support in the cabinet, where there are secrets which she cannot reveal to us except by the expression on her face.
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Ellen Louks Fairclough: Possibly I might say a word about this subject. I agree with that which has been said and I thank the hon. members for their support. I too am disappointed that we have not been able to get ahead with the building before this, but possibly now that spokesmen in the house have expressed themselves I will have a little more support.


Mr. Fisher:: Mr. Chairman, I would like to take a somewhat different approach to that which has been taken in this debate so far. I feel that one should always be careful when speaking from a position of special knowledge, though I hardly claim as a librarian to have particularly special knowledge, but one of the points I would like to bring to the minister's attention is something I have noticed while making certain contacts with people. That is that when we have encountered historians and other people who work at the public archives, we find unstinted praise for the administration in the steps that have been taken and where expansion has taken place. Dr. Lamb, the national archivist, also happens to be the national librarian.
I cannot say I get the same reaction as I go around and encounter librarians and other people dealing with books. By this I do not mean that the criticism is nasty or vicious. I think everyone in the library profession appreciates Dr. Lamb's stature as a scholar, but there is a very definite feeling among librarians that the great ability which he brings to his role as archivist detracts from the part he might play as national librarian.
I was very appreciative, as I know were many people in the library profession, of the fact that the Prime Minister saw fit to appoint a trained librarian for the library of parliament. I have no comments to make about the person appointed, but the fact that we now have this recognition would, it seems to me, lead to the next step of the library profession in its move for recognition, and that is to have a national librarian whose training, background and interest is in libraries.
I cannot emphasize too much the favourable reaction to the work of the public archivist in the way he has expanded the types of service offered both in the library and in the manuscript sections. The microfilm facilities and that sort of thing are excellent. I think the scholarity community, especially in the fields of history and associated subjects, are very fortunate.
I would not like to suggest that the reason we have not a national library building on the way is that we have a man at the head of the public archives and national library who is in a dual function. I do not think


this is a factor, but I think librarians and people who are interested in books and the creation of a national library centre would feel somewhat happier if we had a national librarian separate from the archives.
I know this is possible. I can imagine the hon. member for Greenwood being prepared to argue that the main thing is to have a man who is a good administrator and yet has a sense of cultural values and an over all good education. I agree that this summation would apply very much to Dr. Lamb. The fact is that today there is no antithesis in library work respecting a person of a high education or intellectual status or scholarly attainments, but it is also a fact that more and more the whole organization of things in library work, as it tends towards increasing documentation, is a very specialized administrative field.
I think one of the greatest problems our society is running into lies right in this field of documentation and library work, how we are going to handle the great many records that are piling up in so many fields. I am afraid the national library is going to have a rather narrow collection, say in the field of natural science or applied science, but I am sure we can count on the national research council to provide us with a national library service in those fields. This raises the question as to what the fields the national library is going to cover and whether it is going to be primarily a documentation centre or will attempt to be the kind of large institution that has a basic collection of books in all the various fields.
I suggest that we might be 10 or 15 years behind the times if we aim to erect a huge institution built around a massive book collection. I think in Canada the emphasis should be upon keeping control of the records and books, building up a service of interchange of books, a cracker jack reference service and, through documentary control, keeping on top of all the flow of information that is pulsing into this country or in the country or about the country from anywhere in the world. That is perhaps the main challenge.
I suggest that it is into this field of specialization that librarians are moving more and more. There tends to be a picture in people's minds of a librarian as a man who reads books and book reviews and who can talk knowingly about general books that may be in a collection. As a matter of fact the best librarians-and I think we must acknowledge that the best librarians are mostly Americans -are in one sense extreme specialists in understanding techniques. I refer to punch-card techniques, I.B.M. machine techniques, the

whole business of control and making available information. The institutional kind of national library that is envisaged by many people could, I suppose, be built by a collection of one million or one and a half million volumes.
I wonder what the direction would actually be. We have a collection in Washington today of around the 15 million mark. There is a collection of between eight million and ten million books at the British museum. I have been in the Bodleian library in Oxford. At the time I was there they thought they had between five million and six million books, but they had fairly well lost control of this collection in terms of having it really available to users. The collection at Oxford that was actually available to users through catalogues and ready reference was at that time in the neighbourhood of only one million volumes. I am speaking of ten years ago.
The problem in these larger libraries is quite often, how do you get the service? I know at the Bodleian library you sometimes had to wait an hour or more for a book after you had discovered whether they had the book you wanted and where it was. The British museum is another case in point. I made inquiries there and found they had a magnificent collection and a wonderful service for scholars. They go out of their way, especially in reading room privileges, to help anyone who has a serious scholarly intent. Yet so little of their massive collection is really available. When you see the size of the collection that is available, you understand why this is so, because it is so massive.
The hon. member for Medicine Hat raised the point that we have 400,000 books within the scope of the national library. I do not know too much about the details, but I would doubt whether the national library has available in its present quarters more than 50,000 books catalogued and available. It would seem to me the main thing the national library has done, and we must give credit to the people who originated this, is that it has built up in effect a union catalogue of holdings of most of the academic libraries in Canada. This is what I mean by a type of documentation service, in other words the library acting primarily as a clearing house.
It seems to me that one of the things we are not really crystal clear about when the new building is launched is the range of the collection within the building, how big it is going to be. I think anyone in library work realizes that the initial cost of a book is really nothing in the long run if you have an institutional library. There is a changing pattern as to when the costs of storing a book match up with the costs of
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration buying the book, classifying it, cataloguing it and putting it on the shelf.
In recent years, with the cost of heating and staffing institutions, this point has crept down and down until I think it is recognized by most people in university library circles that within ten years after you put a book on the shelf it has cost you as much to keep it there as it did to buy it and make the preparations to keep it. In other words the space and storage problem is a gigantic one.
If anyone thinks the flow of books is a constant thing they should go and look at some of the books available at the library. They should look at the national library Canadiana, and they will see that in the field of publishing, as in almost every other field, we have a growth potential that has been almost constant. One of the other difficulties about this growth potential and the growth rate has been the fact that publications have tended to vary so much in their format. There is all the mimeographed and other material with which hon. members are familiar. We are moving further and further away from the conventional idea of the book as a hard covered thing, and this raises great problems with regard to storage. It is easy enough to perpetuate the life of a hard covered book, but what do you do about mimeographed briefs, paperbacks, pamphlets and other things which are accumulating so rapidly today and which take so much time to catalogue?
For these reasons I think the concept of our national library needs to be reiterated in terms of the job that library is going to do, and I would suggest that the almost ceremonious conception which many people have of the national library may be already out of date in terms of the use we may possibly have for it. I know it would be very stirring to have the kind of building to which you could take a class and go into a marble hall something like the printing bureau in Hull and see illuminated manuscripts on display. Perhaps we could get Magna Carta and some of the other exhibits of that kind which are on view in the British museum in London and display them.
A service of this kind is one which reminds children of their heritage, but does it really do anything for the serious person who wants to read and study? Does it really do anything when people are able to say we have that big pile of a building filled with a collection that is worth up to a million dollars and still growing, but we are not too sure what that collection is going to be used for and what direction it is going to take. I cannot emphasize too strongly the proliferation of material and the specialization in the field
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Archives, on the other hand, seem to me to be a much simpler proposition in terms of their use both by scholars and by ordinary people. They seem much closer to our history, our traditions and also to our future. The question here that interests and intrigues me, of course, is, for example, the length of time which must expire before records become free and open. For example, I am very much interested in the former member for Port Arthur. If I am ever in a position in the next decade or two to undertake the work, and if I have some available time, I would like to tackle a book or biography of this man. What about the records that he has turned over to the national archives? I quote this as an example. When are these documents to be available?
I think there is another problem which this government, particularly, has not faced; that is, giving some indication of what the members of this government plan to do with their records when their administration ends. We have never had a real definition of what is privy to a minister of the crown and what becomes, eventually, part of the public record and how long documents must form part of the public record before they are open to the scholars. I know that in Britain generally they have a 50-year rule. Sometimes this is waived, and at other times the material is held for longer than 50 years. Again, this is something in the field of public archives I should like to know something about as, I imagine, other scholars would.
There is an increasing interest which I encounter, and which I am sure other members encounter, in genealogy in this country, and here the national archives offers a service especially in connection with earlier census records. I wonder whether the archives or the national library or the national library reference centre should have this chore. I myself, again through personal interest, would like to know more of what could be done through a government agency, either the archives or the national library, toward building up an ability to trace descent not only here but in liaison with other countries. I know a problem which one of my relatives had was that of trying to trace relatives in England because of the variation in the records as between parish records before 1826 and records of births after 1826, which are usually kept in Somerset house, London. One day the Minister of Finance and I were talking and we discovered we probably had certain relationships in common two or three generations ago through families located in southern Ontario.


It seems to me that as we get older as a nation this type of tracing will attract more and more interest. I know the United States in this respect is far ahead of us in its feeling for history and looking back on family records of the past. This is an extremely important phase of reference work in the United States, and I think it is going to become much more so here. I should like to know what plans either the national archives or the national library may have to provide this particular service. I am not suggesting they are not doing a good job now, but it seems to me one can be quite positive that the demand is going to increase and that is going to mean more cost to the government. I should like to know what plans are being made for setting up a permanent service, with perhaps some definite central authority and some publications which explain how to go about the study of genealogy in Canada.
I had some specific questions I wished to ask, but in case other members may want to make some general remarks on this vote I will conclude and come back to the specific questions later.


Mr. Macdonnell:: I have a few brief comments 1 should like to make on this item. I should like to associate myself with what the hon. member for Bonavista-Twil-lingate has said about what we owe to the hon. member for Medicine Hat for bringing this question up. I do not think we have taken this seriously enough in the past. I have listened to the speech of the hon. member for Port Arthur, who obviously has a considerable knowledge of these things and has devoted careful thought to them. From my own experience I can say something about the dominion archivist. I know something of the extent to which he has diligently pursued historical documents and private documents which are known to be of historical interest.
My particular reason for rising is to say that I know the minister is sympathetic, and I feel that as a result of this sympathy we may be able to get this matter advanced. I understand there is no committee which is seriously considering this question now. I was greatly struck the other day on reading a book by Dr. Cyril James, president of McGill University, on a recent visit he made to Russia, and it almost frightened me to learn from his report that education in Russia is being taken much more seriously than it is here.
I asked myself some very serious questions. It was interesting to read that in Moscow, Shakespearian plays are often produced and are very well attended. Reading the other things Dr. James had to say, I was led to wonder if we are still continuing the pioneer instinct which built up this country but which

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did not make us feel that libraries are one of the practical or more important things in life. I am wondering if we have reached a stage where we have to do a lot of rethinking.
We have found that part of the reason for our present unemployment situation is that we have not trained our people well enough. That to me raises the whole question of broadening education. Therefore I wanted to make my small contribution this morning in the hope that those who know more about this matter than I do may be enabled to deal with this question, which has come to have an urgency and practical importance which we have not been inclined to attribute to it in the past.


Mr. Macquarrie:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to make a few brief comments. I was most impressed by the felicitous remarks made by the hon. member for Medicine Hat, and I agree with him wholeheartedly in what he said. More surprisingly, I found myself in almost complete agreement with the hon. and learned member for Bonavista-Twillin-gate, although I thought the hon. gentleman was a bit irreverent when he spoke about a certain blue and white book because we know, of course, that historic truth should always be cherished.
I think we must urge upon the minister the pushing forward of the structural aspects, shall we say, of the national library; but, like the hon. member for Greenwood, I would rather concern myself at this juncture with the public archives in the study room of which I have spent many hours. I am tremendously impressed with the great work Dr. Lamb and his associates have been and are doing. It is extremely important that a good job be done in the national centre, because many scholars have often found that in the smaller areas throughout the provinces there is a regrettable lack of facilities of an archival nature. Therefore leadership must be given at the national level, and Dr. Lamb and his staff in my opinion are giving that leadership in a splendid way.
I quite agree with the hon. member for Greenwood on another point. I think it is sadly true that we Canadians are not an historically minded people. Probably we are not very education minded either. Perhaps this is a hangover of the frontier spirit which causes us to look upon some of these things with the eye of the Philistine.
I think of the dearth of writings concerning our great men which was mentioned by the hon. member for Port Arthur. When we leave the west end of this building we see a fine painting of Canada's fourth prime minister, Sir John Thompson, a man uniquely
qualified for leadership and who in his short career made history as an outstanding statesman, yet we find no work written about him other than what was written in a eulogistic way shortly after his tragic passing in 1894. There are, however, Thompson papers, which though not ample should, of course, be more widely and intensively used. There are two aspects to this type of situation. We must collect the papers of these great men, and we must do more about having historic research made upon them.
I believe the hon. member for Port Arthur is quite right in expressing concern about the restrictions on the records. If I had any criticism to advance with respect to the public archives of Canada I would say that they err on the side of being too restrictive with respect to the records. In that respect I feel they compare rather unfavourably with the United States in these matters. It is not every public man, of course, who like the late Mr. Arthur Meighen will leave his papers and say, "Here they are, unrevised and unrepented; so they stand for my lifetime and after". I believe that scholars should not be held too long from the papers of the men who made history. We must encourage those who are bringing about the opening up of the records of our past. I think it is up to us as national legislators to contribute in every way we can to the furtherance of this important measure.
There is one point I should like to commend to the minister. I think the study room in the archives, the one that is open 24 hours a day every day of the week, is a most splendid institution. I have often been troubled in visiting various parts of the country to discover, when I have arrived for a long week end, that I cannot have access to the records at all because everything is closed. The example set by the public archives in Ottawa is most commendable.
Before I resume my seat I should like to say once again that the staff of the public archives are most competent and courteous. While I do not believe the staff is large enough or that their facilities are adequate I would like to say on the basis of my personal experience over many years that they are, under the circumstances, doing a most excellent job and I commend their thoroughgoing devotion to the minister.


Walter George Pitman: Mr. Chairman, would the minister tell us whether the historical collection which is to be found in the archives building on Sussex street comes under the estimates relating to the public archives?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Mr. Chairman, I did not catch the name of the collection. To what collection does the hon. gentleman refer?
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Walter George Pitman: The historical collection which takes up three or four rooms is the collection to which I referred. Does this come under the estimates for the public archives?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Yes, Mr. Chairman, that is quite correct.


Walter George Pitman: I wish to say a few words about this collection. I think it is very important in that it is unfortunately the outward expression of the archives to the Canadian public. I believe there is perhaps a confusion of purpose in this building. I think archives are concerned with historical documents and should remain so. Perhaps the collection in the Sussex street building should concern itself with a display of documents from Canada's past in a tasteful and conservative-with a small "c"-way. In this way it would perhaps better serve its purpose than in its present form. At present a number of historical objects of an unrelated and incongruous nature are grouped together.
The national library and archives in Washington, D.C. provide a good example of what can be done in this field. I hope the minister will allow me to criticize in this area. I have supported other areas under her jurisdiction, and perhaps she will permit me to criticize this area. I have never seen a more incongruous or ill-assorted collection of paraphernalia in my life than exists in the historical collection on Sussex street. That was my impression on first visiting the building a few years ago with a group of young people. A historical collection with some kind of pattern, theme or continuity would make a better impression on the minds of young people than a confused collection. I realize that this is an infinitesimally small part of the work of the archives, and I appreciate the tremendous work that is being done in other areas of its jurisdiction including the work it does for scholars, but unfortunately the historical collection is what most Canadians see when they go on sightseeing tours in Ottawa.
For purposes of illustration let me refer to one of this group of rooms in the Sussex street building in which the historical collection is housed. In one room I found a replica of the Vimy war memorial, the colours of the militia of 1775 in an incredibly filthy case, a model section of Ottawa showing improvements-obviously the model was old and the improvements have been executed- a model of the parliament buildings, a model of a ship, the T.T.S. Lady Nelson, a model of a boat used in an Arctic exploration by Stefansson, a great mass of Indian and Eskimo material and a collection of photographs of early generals and lieutenant governors. There was absolutely no pattern whatever.


One of my colleagues has suggested that the collection comprises historical junk, but I would not go that far. I would say, however, that it does not give a clear picture of what the archives does. On the basis of a visit to the historical collection I am sure no young person would have any idea of the clarity that characterizes most of the work of the archives behind the facade of this confused historical collection.
It can be done. When I visited the archives I was interested to note an exhibit of Canada 200 years ago. There you have an example of a display which has a theme. You can follow this theme. You can see very clearly something of what Canada was in 1759, at the time of Wolfe and Montcalm and the siege of Quebec. I would bring this to the attention of the minister. I do not think the outward expression of the archives is of the best. I would hope that possibly something much more acceptable could be put forward to the public of Canada when they think of the Canadian public archives.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Mr. Chairman, possibly I can deal with the remarks of the hon. member for Peterborough first. The miscellaneous room to which he has referred is intended to touch upon names and events which are familiar to school children. Experience has shown that it is very successful for that purpose. The other room to which the hon. member has referred has been refitted. It had been intended to refit the first room, but it has been such a popular one that they have left it for the time being.
A number of comments were made here this morning, and I thank hon. members for the serious consideration which they have given to this subject.
With reference to some of the remarks made by the hon. member for Port Arthur, I might say that the functions of the archives and the national library dovetail to a degree. That makes it quite natural that one person should head the two departments. Since I believe the hon. member has left a rather unfortunate impression with the committee I may say that no one has been more insistent on the need for an early start of the new building than the national librarian. I know the disappointment he feels over the fact that the building has not been made available with the required space. Owing to lack of space the library has not been able to begin the collection of periodicals and other serials on a large scale.
The other considerations which the hon, member mentioned are being kept carefully in mind by the national librarian, but I should tell him that no attempt at all is planned for a huge, all-inclusive, comprehensive library. As a matter of fact the

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national research council and the defence research board together, we feel, are filling adequately the needs of science. I may say we have watched the services of those two boards and considered the way in which techniques should be extended to the social science fields in particular with regard to the library. The national librarian is very well aware of that and of the complex body of materials referred to as documentation. I might just add that the library purchases consist almost entirely of reference works for a basic reference collection; that is, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, bibliographies, indexes, and so on.
Another field in which purchase has been made is that of books relating to Canada which are published abroad. Then there is a selection of current books published in Great Britain, France and the United States that appear to have fairly long term value for reference purposes. Special purchases are made when the opportunity offers, and I might mention a purchase of which we are very proud which was made recently, namely that of the Scholes music collection. As hon. members may know, this is a particularly fine nucleus for a music library, a collection made by Percy Scholes, who was not only a very fine musical scholar but a historian of note. We are most fortunate in having this collection in the national library.
In addition, I might just add that all our acquisitions do not come through purchase; many rare books and collections have come to the library either by request or gift. The Howe papers have been referred to by two hon. members. I might tell the committee that those papers are still the property of the estate at the present time, and although we have hopes, the conditions of access have not yet been determined. I do not know how many members of the committee realize that the archives is open 365 days of the year, 24 hours a day. Scholars may investigate to their hearts' content there, having made arrangements with the archives for research which they wish to do, at any hour of the day or night.
One other matter was touched upon, on which I should like to make comment. I refer to the comments with reference to establishing and making available service in the field of genealogy. This is a very expensive service, and most libraries and archives have had to curtail such service owing to the costs. At the present time the archives searches census returns up to 1871, old land records and early military records. 1 might add that the archives itself does thousands of searches every year.


Douglas Mason Fisher: The hon. lady said that I may have left or created an unfortunate impression. I think she must refer to the suggestion that because Dr. Lamb is not a librarian but is merely an archivist-that is, in the professional sense of the term-he has not pushed as hard for the national library as he might have. I am afraid this is an impression which I have encountered among some librarians, especially those at a distance from Ottawa. I would not like to feel that I left that impression, because I can just imagine it was quite a bit of heartbreak to Dr. Lamb when the national library was not proceeded with.
I should like to make a couple of comments upon the genealogy service. The minister has indicated briefly that it is a very expensive service. I am quite aware of this, and also of the fact that many people tend to think that if they fire off a letter to the government service or even to their member of parliament they should be entitled to a great deal gratis. I know I had a letter the other day from a man who evidently wanted me to provide him with publications totalling in value around $60 or $70. Evidently he just assumed that this was a government publication and that he could get it. But I think we must spell out more publicly, that is to say by way of public relations in the face of increasing demand, just what can be provided in genealogy terms because, with respect to so many people in Canada, once you get back several generations you have to move overseas. There should be some kind of attractive plan to make that type of publication available to our people who want to trace sources in England and in other countries in Europe from which so many Canadians seek their ethnic trail.
We have had a big hassle over the census form this year; we have incurred an expenditure of $170,000 to provide forms so that we can take care of the sensitivities of one group in this country, and it appears we may have outraged some of the feelings of another group. To answer the question in the form is going to require our chasing the ethnic trail on our fathers' side, and I know how difficult it is going to be; but the irony is that as Canada gets older and we become more stable, more and more people are going to be interested in tracing back their ancestry, and I just thought that in finding one's way through the maze of genealogy this particular agency, either the archives or the national library, would be able to give a great deal of help in at least setting out sign posts.
The minister has indicated that the national library is interested in documentation, and I should like to give a specific example. I have been bothered that the Canadian library association has to go before the Canada Council to get a grant to produce
2402	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration the Canadian index, which I think the public archivist or national librarian will concede is a most important reference tool. I think he will also concede that it is typically Canadian and cannot be sold on any remunerative basis to cover the total expenses.
For the last several years it has been supported substantially by the Canada Council; yet we have been told by the head of the Canada Council, both the late Mr. Claxton and Dr. Trueman, that there is no intention on the part of the Canada Council to make this a continuing thing, that the set-up of the council is not such as to permit a whole block of its funds to be gradually nailed down for recurring expenses. This is a popular form of documentation and indexing, but it is immensely useful and at the same time there is no possibility of the service becoming selfsustaining. It is very much a public service.
What contribution can the national library make to this particular indexing; and, since this is a Canadian indexing service, why should it not be the kind of responsibility that the national library undertakes? In essence Canadiana is performing this function for the more permanent kind of publication and the Canadian index of periodicals is, of course, our means of keeping up to date with what is going on in all the periodical publishing fields in Canada. If the national library were to undertake this kind of chore, which seems to be properly within its function, I suggest that it should expand the index so that it will provide the kind of over-all service in the publications field that is not being provided at the present time by the Canadian library association.
The minister has said that the duties of archivist and national librarian dovetail very naturally. In an administrative sense this seems reasonable. I would assume that Dr. Lamb is primarily an administrator, but the point I was trying to make to the minister was that librarianship has become an extremely specialized field. In the field of documentation there is a complexity and a growing experimentation, I might say, in an effort to keep on top of records, and this is one of the outstanding developments of our times in the academic and research fields.
I suggest that the function of the archivist is much different, because archives by their very nature are confined in the main to records of the past and, in the present day, confined properly to public records of the past. While there are common problems in respect of cataloguing, indexing and control of these things, I suggest that librarianship has become more specialized, and that is why I personally feel that the whole field of librarianship would gain through having as


head of the national library a man who was a librarian and who was at the administrative pinnacle in that particular field.
The last point I wish to touch on in these remarks has to do with the suggestion of the minister that the conception of the national library collection has already been well worked out, and there is to be no overlapping in the field of science with the defence research board library or the national research council library. This is fine in that particular area, but I should like to know what is being done about the collections in other Ottawa offices. One of the problems that drives me up the wall as a user of the library of parliament is that when you go there and want a technical book on a specialized subject the library does not tend to have it. It has what I think is a pitiful collection in the economic field, particularly in connection with our resources in the field of forestry and allied fields. If you will take a ruler I think you will find that the books in the field of forestry cover 48 or 50 inches in the library of parliament. This is all the information that is available when we go looking for something to help us to deal with the problems that arise and try to help these industries.
This is all very well as a criticism of the library of parliament. You can go there and ask for a book in this particular field. They say that the forestry branch has an excellent library in this field and that they will get the material for you. I will concede that it does seem unreasonable to place within the library of parliament a specialized or extended collection on forestry and all these other fields for the use of maybe 265 members of parliament or a fraction thereof when just seven, eight or nine blocks away there is a magnificent, well indexed collection on forestry in a library staffed by people who know its contents intimately.
The very same criticism applies to the national library and its scope. Dotted across Ottawa we have these various government libraries. The economic research branch of the Department of Labour has a fairly extensive collection. In fact its collection in this field is a topnotch one. The Department of National Health and Welfare has a good collection. Fairly strong efforts are being made to keep these collections up to date and on a continuing basis, and to provide current reference service to the administrators. Service is also provided to the general public and members of parliament.
As a consequence of these departmental libraries in Ottawa, the spectrum of knowledge is fairly well covered. I will not say it is completely covered, but there is this coverage. What sort of overlapping are we likely to get in the national library? Is there

a plan to take much of the older material from these collections and put it in the national library? The minister suggested in her reply that the concentration was going to be in the field of social sciences. What does she mean by "social sciences"? Just how embracing is that? For example, is Canadian literary history a phase of social science? What kind of collection of novels is planned for the library? Is the library going to concentrate upon Canadian publications, or is it going to be concerned with the best that has been thought and said in the literary field?
I should like to know whether the national library is going to specialize in the collection of federal and provincial records and publications, or is it going to collect those of the commonwealth or of the world generally? Is it planned to have a supply of the "Congressional Record" on hand? Is the national library going to take over responsibility for the collection of all United Nations publications? I should like to have these questions answered in order to have some idea of the collection that is going to grow in the building we are going to have some day.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: In answer to a couple of the comments of the hon. member, I might say that ever since the library came into existence in 1952 it has published the Canadian index of periodicals and documentary films. I think the hon. member regretted that there was no such publication available. It has been published every year.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Not by the national library.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Yes, by the national
library.


Douglas Mason Fisher: The Canadian index of periodicals?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: The annual Canadian index of periodicals and documentary films has been published every year by the national library since 1952, when the library first came into existence.


Douglas Mason Fisher: What publication is it that is issued by the Canadian library association and supported by the Canada Council?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: The Canadian library
association compiles and puts out monthly mimeographed editions. The national library puts these together into a comprehensive index which is an accumulation of the monthly editions.


Douglas Mason Fisher: While I am concerned with the Canada Council paying a considerable part of the cost for this particular service, my question was directed to why this cost was not taken over completely by the national library. I am sorry I missed recognition of
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration that part so far as the cumulative publication is concerned, but I realize, as I am sure the minister does, that the main cost concerns the actual indexing proportion. The cumulative portion is mainly printing, and the charge is not great. If it is not the case that a very large contribution is being made by the national library, I would like to know how much more it would cost for the national library to take over this complete service.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I cannot make an estimate of the additional cost. This is a matter that can be considered and possibly will have to be considered one of these days, but at the present time the information is not available. This whole problem covers a wide field involving many considerations, and I do not think that in a short space of time I can enumerate them all. If the hon. member would like a report in this regard I would be glad to have one prepared.
I might add also, with reference to his comments regarding the information being scattered around, that it is all catalogued, as he probably knows, in the union catalogue which is the key to all the libraries and the books therein. I was wondering as a result of some of the remarks the hon. member made whether he has ever visited the national library.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Mr. Chairman, the reason I would like to know very definitely the role the national library thinks it should play is that we are going to have the Canada Council before the public accounts committee in a few weeks, and I feel that the Canada Council is trying to keep its recurring expenditures and grants as low as possible. If it is seriously considered that the national library could fill this role, it would then follow that there would be more Canada Council money available for scholarships and other things.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I think the best solution to this problem is for the hon. member to consult the national librarian. I understand he has never done that. If he would make an appointment to call on the national librarian I am sure he would be glad to supply the hon. member with the information that is available, and I am sure this would serve his purposes.


Douglas Mason Fisher: The minister made the point that I had never consulted the national librarian. There are a tremendous number of people whom I think all members of parliament would like to consult, but it is very difficult to get around to them all. I feel that members make an attempt to focus their attention on questions and suggestions in so far as the expenditures are concerned, and

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration I suppose primarily we should be interested in cutting them down. I was not trying to suggest, as my earlier comments will show, what in effect might be a cutting down of the whole thing by creating a grand institutional library. I am quite pleased to hear that this is not being conceived. If I can break it down more particularly to Ottawa libraries, I know there is a union catalogue; I also know that libraries are growing all the time, and that union catalogues go out of date. It is a large job keeping them up to date.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: The hon. member is quite wrong. This catalogue is kept up to date all the time.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Yes, I know that the catalogue is kept up to date all the time, but I was going on to say that this takes considerable time on the part of the librarians both in regard to storing the books and in having the index prepared. What I am trying to get from the minister, and I would appreciate a statement from her not at this time but in the future perhaps in letter form, is how the libraries in the public service in Ottawa are going to dovetail in with the national library. I am not speaking in terms of a catalogue that will be kept by the national librarian, but in terms of the actual coverage and placing of books. Because we have a national health and welfare library, will everything in that field be primarily the responsibility of that department and not that of the national library except in so far as indexing or cataloguing is concerned? Will this also apply to the Department of Justice library in the supreme court building, which I understand tends to be a growing one? I would like to know what the liaison is in this field which prevents duplication.
The point that intrigues me is that if these departmental libraries build up their collections in a good way, as I assume most of them are doing, they finally will reach the stage of competition with the national library in terms of its collection because, as I suggested earlier, the government of Canada in its libraries is covering almost the whole spectrum of publications except perhaps in the literary or historical field.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman:: That completes the estimates for which the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is responsible. We now go to the Department of Agriculture, vote No. 1. This vote will be found on page 4 of the blue book; the details are on page 93.



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
Administration branch-
1. Departmental administration, including advisory committee on agricultural services, $991,098.
Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Chairman, in presenting the estimates of the Department of Agriculture for the fiscal year 1961-62 I should like to point out that the summary and the details of services reflect certain organizational changes which have taken place.
During the past year responsibility for the Canadian wheat board and the board of grain commissioners was transferred to the Minister of Agriculture. Also during the year the forest biology division of the research branch was transferred from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Forestry. The total to be voted to the Department of Agriculture in these estimates is $122,202,953. This includes the amount required for the board of grain commissioners, which is $6.5 million.
There is, of course, no estimate provision for the Canadian wheat board. However, the amounts shown as authorized by statute include $49 million for payment of carrying costs under the Temporary Wheat Reserves Act and $920,000 for the provision of interest free cash advances to western grain producers. These items were previously carried in the estimates of the Department of Trade and Commerce. The amount to be voted, plus that authorized by statute, comes to a total of $172,181,953. The corresponding figure for 1960-61, as shown on page 2, is $205.7 million.
This latter includes the figure for the present fiscal year for the board of grain commissioners for carrying costs of wheat reserves and for advance grain payments. It does not include the amount voted in 1960-61 for the forest biology division. The amounts and details shown for 1961-62 and 1960-61 are therefore drawn on a comparable basis and reflect the requirements for and expenditures on the activities now conducted under the Department of Agriculture.
The committee may be interested in a broad break-down of the $122.2 million among the main categories of departmental activities. The amount required for research is $28.8 million, which is 24 per cent of the total. The administration of legislation requires $32.4 million, or 28 per cent of the total. This covers the wide range of legislation administered by the department, including the grading of farm products, animal and plant health, the Canada Grain Act, the Prairie Farm Assistance Act and the Agricultural Stabilization Act. For rehabilitation, which includes P.F.R.A. in western Canada and

M.M.R.A. in the maritimes, $27.2 million is required. This is 22 per cent of the total. Grants and subsidies require $31.2 million, which is 25 per cent of the total.
The main item in this category is freight assistance on western feed grains, for which $20 million is provided. Included in this category also are quality premium payments on hogs and cheese, lime assistance, grants to fairs and exhibitions and to agricultural organizations. The balance of the vote, some $2.6 million, is required for departmental administration, which includes the economics division.
The committee will note that the amount to be voted in these estimates is $40.5 million less than that granted for the 1960-61 fiscal year. The figure for the present fiscal year, however, includes supplementary estimates to date, the largest item in which was the $42 million for western grain producers' acreage payments. Excluding that amount, these estimates show an increase of $1.5 million over the amount provided for the year ending on March 31.
It will be noted in the details that there are increases in some votes and decreases in others. The largest category of increases is for salaries, which are higher by $7.6 million, due mostly to increases in salary rates. The actual staff increase provided for next year is the equivalent of 73 positions, which is six tenths of 1 per cent of the present staff total. The next largest increase, of almost $2 million, is in the vote for construction of works under land rehabilitation. This is accounted for by greater activity in the construction of the South Saskatchewan dam. In fact $2.6 million more will be required for that project in 1961-62 than was required in 1960-61.
I may say that construction of the dam is proceeding at a satisfactory pace, and on schedule. Stage 1 of the embankment has been completed and stage 2 is nearing completion. Work is proceeding on the downstream diversion tunnels. Contracts will be let shortly for the upstream diversion tunnels and for stage 3 of the embankment.
I think I need not take the time of the committee at this stage to go into details of individual items of expenditure. I know that many hon. members of the committee will be interested enough to discuss these subjects under the respective votes. I do wish to say a word about farm income. In any analysis of farm income in recent years it soon becomes apparent that after the war we were in what can be described as a sellers' market. This was the period of reconstruction in Europe; this was the period of the Korean war. Since about 1953, and possibly starting with the calendar year 1954, we have entered
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into a buyers' market. Our Canadian industry and Canadian farmers are now faced more than ever before with the crash of competition.
I thought the committee might be interested in seeing just how we were making out in increasing farm income in this period of the buyers' market, or this competitive period which we are now in. I have put together some figures obtained from the dominion bureau of statistics. These figures give total cash income, which does include supplementary payments by the federal government.
I am going to read these figures by calendar years. Perhaps some hon. members will wish to copy them down, so I will read them slowly enough for that to be done. In 1954 the total cash income was $2,378 billion; in 1955 it was $2,384 billion; in 1956 it was $2,647 billion; in 1957 it was $2,575 billion. If one adds these figures together and works out the average, the average total cash income for farmers in Canada for those four years, the first four years of the buyers' market, comes to $2,493 billion. The figure for 1958 was $2,873 billion; the figure for 1959 was $2,808 billion; the figure for 1960, which is not yet final from the D.B.S., was $2,861 billion. If you add the last three figures you will find that the average total cash income for each of those years was $2,847 billions.
Therefore the conclusion which can be derived from this analysis is that during each of those three calendar years there was an increase in the total cash income to the farmers of Canada amounting to more than $350 million. I think this does indicate in some measure the efforts of the government not only to stabilize farm income but to increase it.


Mr. Argue:: May I ask a question at this point? Does the minister have any figures or statistics showing the increases in the cost of production over the same period of time?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I will deal with that later on when I deal with net income.
The full picture cannot be appreciated until we examine how many farmers there are. There has been a steady decline in the farm population for many years now, so I will give the figures of the number of farmers and then relate them to income. In 1954, in round figures, there were 594,000 farmers in Canada. In 1955 there were 584,000; in 1956,
575.000	and in 1957, 565,000. If you average the number of farmers in those four calendar years the figure comes to approximately
580.000	during that four-year period of the buyers' market. In 1958 the number of farmers is estimated at 555,000. In 1959 the figure is
546.000	and in 1960, 536,000. If you average the number of farmers during that three-year period the figure is approximately 545,000.

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Now, if one takes the average number of farmers in the first four years of this seven-year period of the buyers' market and divides this income among those farmers, the figure of cash income for the years 1954 to 1959 inclusive is $4,303. If one takes the numbers of farmers for the three-year period 1958 to 1960 inclusive and divides the income for the same period among those farmers, the income per farm comes to $5,214. Therefore, comparing the four-year period 1954-57 with the three-year period 1958-60, there is an increase in cash income amounting to $911 per farmer.
It is obvious that this increase in cash income per farm is due, first of all, to the efforts which we have been making to increase farm income and, second, to the fact that there is a smaller number of farmers. By placing these two sets of figures in juxtaposition one can draw, I think, fairly sound conclusions.
Having put on record those figures which deal with total cash income, I should like now to deal with this question which has puzzled farmers for 25 years, namely why it is that farmers do not receive what they call a fair share of the national income. It is not too easy to find some group in our economy which is comparable with the farmers. The only group I can find which seems to give us some basis of comparison comprises those who are engaged in unincorporated non-farm business. So, from the dominion bureau of statistics labour force survey, I am going to put some figures on the record which I think will show how we are making out in our deliberate policy of seeing what we can do to bring farm income up to a fair share of the national income.
The figures I intend to quote now are net farm returns per farm. In 1954 the figure was $1,792. In 1955 it was $2,376. In 1956 it was $2,836, and in 1957 it was $2,133. Adding and averaging, one gets a figure which shows that during this four-year period of the buyers' market the net income of farmers was $2,284. But one should compare this with the income of non-farm unincorporated business. In 1954 non-farm incorporated business received, on the average, $2,883. In 1955 the figure was $3,162; in 1956, $3,341; in 1957, $3,351. The average for this period received by non-farm unincorporated business was $3,184 as compared with $2,284 by the farmers. Put as a percentage of farm income, and relating this to the net income of the non-farm unincorporated group, the farmers received 71.7 per cent of the income received by a reasonably comparable group.
Looking at the figures for the years 1958 and 1959, net farm income in 1958 was $2,891 and in 1959, $2,643. Naturally, we have no

figures yet for 1960 and we shall not have those figures for some time, but those two years I mentioned give an average of $2,767. Non-farm income has been increasing as well in the last two years. In 1958 it was $3,563 and in 1959 it was $3,619, or an average for those two calendar years of $3,591. Expressing these figures as a percentage of net farm income, as related to non-farm income, the percentage for the last two years is 77 per cent. Therefore during the last two calendar years of the buyers' market as compared with the four previous years of the buyers' market, farm income as a percentage of nonfarm income for a comparable group has risen from 71.7 per cent to 77 per cent.
I have been looking at the figures for the first three quarters of 1960. I suggest that when the figures are finally calculated for the calendar year 1960 they will reflect this same upward trend in percentage. Therefore, even though the gradual gain in farm net income as compared with non-farm net income is obvious, it indicates that at the rate we are going it will take about ten years to bring farm net income up to the same percentage level of non-farm income. I put these figures on the record to make clear just one fact, that I do believe we are closing the gap, and this was our intention.
I think it is necessary for me to point out that when one analyses the farm income of this country product by product and region by region, it soon becomes clear that the most variable area is the prairie province area. It soon becomes clear also that the most variable commodities in rate of return are the grain products of western Canada. Therefore it is clear that any government in charge of the selling of wheat, oats and barley has as a first duty to press forward in every way possible to increase the sales of western grain.
I need not tell a committee composed of hon. members knowledgeable with respect to the relationship of eastern and western agriculture that if western Canadian grain is not sold in export markets, the pressure on farmers in every part of the country grows. Therefore it is in the interests of farmers in every part of Canada to closely examine the efforts of the government in the selling of grain in the export market. I do not intend to make any predictions as to what the final total sales will be during this crop year, but I do intend to say something about the efforts we are making to sell grain. I am of the opinion that a good deal of credit goes to my colleague, the present Minister of Veterans Affairs, for the efforts he made through the wheat board in making direct contact with our main customers and in moving into what I call the new market areas

to establish the preliminary contacts to make known the type of wheat we have and its particular qualities that would be an advantage to those countries if they used it. This means there has to be a concerted sales effort. In addition to the general approach of the salesman, we must have a concentrated attack on all the problems that are associated with the selling of this product.
It has become very obvious, I believe, that if we are to continue to sell our flour and wheat in some areas of the world we are going to have to exert every effort at all levels to establish flour mills in those countries and provide the bakeries and demonstration units that must be associated with them to get the maximum consumption of bread in countries that have not used bread before.
We are in full course on this program. It is not going to be easy, because we have competitors in the sale of grain all around the world who have the same idea. We have individual promoters in various countries that are actively seeking the same type of opportunity as individuals or groups. However, it will be of interest, I know, for the committee to be aware that we are in full course on this policy ourselves.
Another point I should like to mention in this connection is that it is now very obvious that there are other things for which wheat can be utilized besides the traditional product, bread. It is no secret that thousands of years ago wheat and barley were used as a staple diet not in the form of bread. In many countries of the world where the tendency to turn to the use of the new product, bread, is slow, it might be possible for us to sell wheat ready for human consumption closer to the natural form.
I want to close off in the next few minutes after making known to the committee what we are doing with respect to another aspect *of our sales efforts. Starting January 1 we set up under the Canadian wheat board a technical services and market research division, the objectives of which are as follows:
1.	To assess at first hand the raw material requirements of the wheat consuming industries in all the potential and actual wheat importing areas of the world.
2.	Where it appears likely that Canadian wheat or flour may be used to advantage in such markets, to work with the consumer industries to the end that they become aware of the advantages that can accrue from the use of such wheat or flour. In areas where the consuming industries are already adequately aware of the advantages offered by the use of Canadian wheat, to maintain close liaison with industrial and government technical personnel to ensure the maximum dis-
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semination of technical information and know how, concerning Canadian wheat and flour.
3.	To establish and maintain technical liaison in the areas of grain handling, wheat breeding, quality assessment and milling and baking in those countries which export wheat, or which could become exporters of wheat, of a type potentially competitive with any of the various grades of Canadian wheat.
4.	To establish liaison with government officials and scientific personnel in underdeveloped countries which might develop in time a bread eating habit. To offer assistance, in these areas, in the establishment of cereal laboratories and in setting up quality criteria.
5.	To write, edit, translate and publish such bulletins, pamphlets, press releases, etc., as appear useful in support of the objectives listed under item 2.
At the head of this new division we have a topnotch cereal chemist, a young man. We have as his assistant an expert on Canadian milling. Serving under them will be four or five younger men with multilanguage ability who will learn the techniques of Canadian milling and the chemical properties of our grain and will be able to deal directly with these countries in their own language to make our present and potential customers aware of how they can use Canadian wheat to better advantage. I think this is the type of thing a corporation would do in selling its products through familiarizing the consumers with the best uses of the products it has available.
I thank the committee, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to run over the normal hour of adjournment for a few minutes. If hon. members will bear with me for another few seconds I will conclude these remarks.
I cannot, as Minister of Agriculture, let this occasion pass without expressing to the committee and to the country my deep concern and anxiety over what would happen to our growing wheat export sales if there were a major rail strike at a critical time during the movement of grain to tidewater, particularly on the west coast. The consequences to the western farmer would be nothing short of catastrophic. I appeal to labour and to management to approach their responsibilities in the full realization of the public interest involved.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 2.30 p.m. (Translation):
Mr. Boulanger:: Mr. Chairman, following the remarks made before the lunch recess by

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the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hamilton), when he submitted his department's estimates, I wonder what will be the reaction of the Canadian farmers and, particularly, the farmers of my province.
He quoted figures about the net income of farmers in order to prove that their position in 1960 is better than it was in 1954 or in 1955. But he made no mention of the cost of production index, nor of the spread between production costs and prices of agricultural products; he did not mention farm markets, imports, exports, nor did he refer to the question of butter, hogs and eggs. He did not deal with the Agricultural Stabilization Act, particularly with regard to western grain, in spite of the promises made in 1957 and in 1958.
The minister said that in the main estimates for 1961-1962, certain items had been transferred to the Department of Forestry and so on, and that the estimates of the Department of Agriculture showed an increase of $1.5 million for the fiscal year beginning April 1, 1961. The main items he mentioned refer to research, where the increase reaches 24 per cent, to administration, with a 28 per cent increase, and to expenditures resulting from subsidies, which went up by about 25 per cent. He added that the cost of implementing the rehabilitation and irrigation program has increased by 25 per cent.
It all looks very interesting when only increases are mentioned. But he did not deal at length with the decrease in certain items. However, we shall have the opportunity to raise this matter while these estimates are under consideration.
In the field of agriculture, as well as in the fields of trade, finance, taxes, unemployment and several others, the over-all situation is such that the farmers are losing confidence in their government and, what is more serious still, are losing confidence in their profession. Who would not lose confidence after the fabulous promises made in 1957 and in 1958 by the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) and his candidates when comparing them to the actual facts?
We recall the promises made during the 1957 campaign by the Prime Minister himself when he said in Toronto:
We shall provide farmers with their fair share of the national income by a price support policy for farm products which will be related to cost prices.
And he added:
(Text):
Parity not charity.

(Translation):
During the 1957 session, which preceded the 1958 election, the government saw fit to introduce a bill aiming at the passage of an act for the stabilization of the price of agricultural commodities.
The preamble of that act was of course very promising; it read as follows:
Whereas it is expedient to enact a measure for the purpose of stabilizing the prices of agricultural commodities in order to assist the industry of agriculture to realize fair returns for its labour and investment and to maintain a fair relationship between prices received by farmers and the costs of the goods and services that they buy, thus to provide farmers with a fair share of the national income:
Therefore, the government-
However, after the 1958 election, we saw the government repudiate its promises. Here is the evidence. When, on February 23, 1960, the Liberals moved a non-confidence motion which was in accordance with the preamble of the Agricultural Stabilization Act, 172 Conservative members voted against the motion. In doing that, they voted against their own legislation, against the principles incorporated in that legislation the object of which was to provide farmers with their fair share of the national income.
There are several signs which show that farm income went down in 1959 and 1960, as compared with 1958, the year we were obtaining the full benefit of the legislation passed by a Liberal government.
Mr. Chairman, I will now give figures which do not tally with the ones presented by the Minister of Agriculture this morning, although they are from the dominion bureau of statistics. I quote:
As a matter of fact, the cash Income from the sale of farm products, including payments made under the different acts providing assistance to western farmers, totalled $2.8 billion in 1958, $2,786 billion in 1959 and $2,783 billion In 1960.
We have therefore a continuing reduction of income, in spite of all the legislation passed since 1957 in an effort to stabilize farm income.
If the supplementary payments that are provided under the legislation passed in favour of the western farmers are substracted, we find that the decrease is in the amount of $160 million.
As a matter of fact the cost to the Canadian taxpayers for meeting the commitments under the farm legislation was $77 million in 1960, $22.1 million in 1959 and $60.1 million in 1958.

Moreover, while the farmers were receiving less for their products, they were not paying less for the commodities and services they bought.
The Minister of Agriculture should have told us what has been the increase in the case of commodities and services bought by the farmers these last years.
If we take a basis of 100 for the period 1935-39, we see that the index of goods and services purchased by the farmers in 1956 was 247.6. It went up gradually and in 1957, it was 255.9, in 1958, 259.9, in 1959, 269.5 and, for the first three quarters of 1960, it was 274.4. That means that since 1956, this index has gone up by 26.8.
Let us take now the index of agricultural products sold on the farm. Using the same basis, we see that in 1956, that index was 234.6. It went up in 1958 and in 1959 but went down again during the first 11 months of 1960 to reach 234.7 or nearly the 1956 level.
Therefore, we see that the cost of goods and services purchased by farmers has gone up while the sales price index of farm products is at the 1956 level.
How many times have we heard that the Conservative government would give the farmers the share of Canada's wealth to the production of which they co-operated?
But what is even more serious is the fact that the government and more particularly the Department of Agriculture has just announced in the farm review for January 1961, that the 1961 income would remain at the 1960 level.
When will this government keep its promises? When will it give parity, not charity? When will it put back in each farmer's pocket the $120 that the Liberal government took from him in taxes each year?
Now, I should like to quote what the Minister of Agriculture stated recently to a group of dairy farmers of Canada at a meeting held in Vancouver.
I want to quote these few words to show how the statements of the Minister of Agriculture in this house can differ from the ones he makes elsewhere.
Here is what he said:
(Text):
The purposes are, first of all to take out the ups and downs and to stabilize prices; the second purpose, in so far as products consumed in Canada are concerned, is to use this as a platform on which we can begin to build up the returns to agriculture so as to give them a fair share of
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the national income or, in other words, moving towards parity of income. This is not charity- this is using the legislative power to give the farmer some of the protection that the other segments of the economy have had. You all know what I am talking about.
The working man has the protection of provincial legislation which sets the minimum wage. He has the protection of the tariff for the goods that he produces for the home market. He has the protection of unions if he works in an organized industry where the union bargains to make sure that he gets his share of the national income. The farmer has not got this kind of help. The businessman also has the protection of a tariff if he is producing for the home market. He has the right to set his own price on the basis of cost, plus a reasonable return. The farmer cannot do that and outside of a few places and commodities where the marketing boards have been used as a bargaining agency the farmers, generally speaking, cannot secure that type of protection.
So what the government has done here is to take advantage of the fact that the federal government is concerned in the future of interprovincial marketing. We have tried to build into the system that act which for the first time is beginning to attack this problem of instability of prices, and to use prices as a device to support and, if possible, raise income.
(Translation):
Since 1957 we have been hearing remarks of that kind from our ministers.
What do they want to say? After the results achieved in farming in the last four years, the remarks of the new Minister of Agriculture today should amount to more than so much hot air. Indeed, the minister should have told the producers to what extent they will have to contribute toward economic activity in the years to come.
Mr. Chairman, I would now like to address myself to the situation of feed grain deliveries in the eastern areas during the summer, until the closing of navigation. We learned in the newspapers that from August to the end of the navigation season, in the harbours of Montreal, Quebec city, Baie Comeau and others, a number of ships were waiting in line for two, three and even four weeks in front of elevators full of grain, particularly wheat for export. Those ships could not unload their cargoes, and there was no feed grain on the eastern markets.
In the meantime, our farmers were having all sorts of difficulties in getting supplies, and when they could get them they had to pay a high premium. Now, this shortage of feed grain on the eastern markets, was due to a decision of the Canadian wheat board to ship only export grades to eastern ports. Incredible losses of the order of $1,000 to $3,000 daily were suffered by ship owners, not to mention the loss suffered by farmers

Supply-A griculture
who saw their operating costs increase on account of the higher prices they had to pay for their feed grain.
Although the oats crop will be considerably increased this year over last year, the Canadian wheat board charged 84J cents a bushel for October oats, compared with 60 cents a bushel paid to western producers, at Fort William.
The feed grain requirements in the eastern areas amount to more than a hundred million bushels a year; and from October to the end of the navigation season, close to 50 million bushels must be shipped to fill the requirements for the winter months. There is not much publicity about this 100 million bushel eastern market, but when a few million bushels are sold abroad, the publicity machine of the Department of Agriculture starts rolling at once. Because of the lack of interest shown by the Canadian wheat board and the government, the eastern farmers will have to pay $300 more per carload for moving their grain than it would have cost them if that grain had been moved by ship at the proper time.
Another consequence the farmers will have to bear will be the one resulting from the discriminatory policy carried out by the board and the government since a decision was made last December 28. May I recall the words used by the Prime Minister himself in a speech made in his home town of Prince Albert, when he said: "From now on, the western mills may also buy their oats, barley and wheat in their own provinces, directly and on the open market, at lower prices than those asked by the board for the domestic market in the east."
Unfortunately for the eastern farmers, he stressed the fact that his government was not taking any position which might be the slightest cause of trouble for the board.
With these words, the Prime Minister gave a blank cheque to the grain mill owners, allowing them to organize for integration. Indeed, with the considerable amounts which they have at their disposal, they will build chicken ranches, pig farms and even packing plants and ultimately take over from the farmers in this country. Then, they will be able to pay their own price for their grain without considering the wheat board or the grain producers.
It is strange that the prairie farmers, who always supported the Canadian wheat board,

should have asked for an authorization to sell their grain without being subjected to the regulations of the board. Since then, they get prices 50 per cent lower than they were getting through the board. Today, they are selling their surplus to the grain mills, to other elevators, to other livestock producers, or else they have to increase the number of their animals to use up their grain.
I should like at this point to deal with two particular areas of the province of Quebec which are affected by feed grain prices, the lake St. John and Chicoutimi areas.
I deplore the fact that the hon. members for those two regions are not in the house to learn of the situation which prevails there.


Mr. Grafftey:: There are not many Liberal members in the house at this time.


Mr. Pigeon:: This matter should also be of interest to the hon. member for St. Jean-Iberville-Napierville (Mr. Dupuis), and yet he is absent.


Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Chairman, Canada's subsidy legislation contains rules that are detrimental to certain regions. I will explain how that is so.
To show the difference in transportation costs paid by the farmers who buy grain, I have chosen two points equally distant from Quebec city.
A freight rates analysis shows that the rate between Quebec and Roberval, a distance of 188 miles, is 36 cents. On the other hand, for the same distance, or almost-189 miles -from Quebec to Bic, the rate is 32 cents during summer and 42 cents during winter, or an average of 37 cents.
At this time, the rates between Roberval and Quebec, and Bic and Quebec are identical, to a cent or so, but when we take the grants that are paid towards grain transportation, we notice that the Roberval area receives 43 cents per hundredweight while the Bic people get 67 cents in summer and 68 cents in winter.
Mr. Chairman, that enables us to see the difference between the grain rates in two areas equally distant from Quebec city, and it shows that the lake St. John farmers are at a disadvantage.
Mr. Chairman, I could quote other figures for the towns of Normandin and Mont Joli, which are located respectively at 219 miles and 217 miles from Quebec city, as well as

figures for Chicoutimi and Mont Joli which are located respectively at 228 miles and 217 miles from Quebec city.
Mr. Chairman, I suggest that the minister should make a survey of the freight rates and tell us in a not too distant future what he intends to do in order to give justice to the lake St. John and Chicoutimi farmers.
In fact, those farmers should be treated on the same basis as those of the rest of the province of Quebec.
The farmers in both these areas have accepted huge sacrifices to remain on the agricultural map of the province of Quebec. They have kept abreast of technological advance, improved their farms, set up cooperatives, and particularly a co-operative packing plant which made it possible to process on the spot meats to be distributed in the area. They have invested millions of dollars, and if their situation does not improve soon, it will become untenable.
It is only with great efforts and sacrifices that those farmers have been able to establish organizations which are the pride of the area.
If they are to preserve the millions of dollars invested in their organizations, it is logical that the government play its part now and treat those farmers in the same way it treats the other farmers in the province.
What I feel can fairly be asked on behalf of the farmers in the province of Quebec is this:
1.	The same grain transportation grants for farmers of Saguenay and lake St. John areas as the grants now being paid to the farmers in the other parts of the province.
I wish to point out that transportation costs have increased from 25 cents per hundred weight in 1939 to 66 cents, while those in western Canada did not increase correspondingly.
I think the responsibility to make up for the C.N.R. deficits does not rest with the farmers of Quebec, and especially not with those in the Saguenay and lake St. John districts.
2.	That the co-operatives, the mills and the farmers should have free access to the feed grain market of western Canada, on the same basis as the western mills. That they should not be compelled to negotiate with the Canadian wheat board.
In the United States, the grain trade is free. The producer may sell to the government or on the market. That is why he can compete with the Canadian market, specially in the poultry field.
(Text):


Edwin William Brunsden: Would the hon. member permit a question?
90205-6-153
Supply-Agriculture


Samuel Boulanger: No. After I have finished. (Translation):
American corn is sold for more than 10 per cent less than the Canadian corn number 5, in spite of a custom duty of 8 cents per bushel and the absence of any transportation grant.
(Text):


Charles Edward Rea: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.


Hazen Robert Argue: Let him finish.


Charles Edward Rea: Does the committee unanimously consent to the hon. member continuing?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
(Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank the members of the committee for allowing me to complete my remarks, and I can assure you that I shall be rather brief.
If the government does not want to agree to a free market, let there be increased assistance to transport of grain to the east, in order that producers may be on the same footing as those of the prairie provinces.
3.	A representative of the east, qualified to explain and defend the eastern farmers interests, should be appointed to the executive of the Canadian wheat board.
4.	A grain transport co-ordinator should be appointed to look after supplying eastern farmers at the proper time, so as to spare them the extra cost of rail transport during winter.
5.	Demurrage cost on cars which are not unloaded 48 hours after their arrival should be removed, as is the case for cars remaining on the tracks at Fort William.
Since the Conservative government has been in power and prior to the ministerial reshuffle last fall, the fate of agriculture in Canada has been in the hands of a prime minister, of a minister of agriculture and of a minister of trade and commerce, the three of them representing prairie provinces. Their dream, and that of the present Minister of Agriculture, was to make of Canada the paradise of farmers. They have made promises but they have not kept them. If we look at agriculture today we realize that the small farmer did not get the promised parity, but merely charity.
(Text):


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, when the hon. member was attacking the Canadian wheat board I wondered about this one fact. Does the hon. member think that

Supply-Agriculture
the Canadian wheat board has any control over the marketing of oats and barley in eastern Canada?


Samuel Boulanger: I know that when farmers in the east want to buy grain they have to go to the wheat board and pay about twice what feed mills are paying right now in the west.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I think the hon. member may have misunderstood my question. I wonder whether I could be permitted to correct the record at this time. The Canadian wheat board has nothing whatever to do with the sale of domestic grains in eastern Canada. This is a function of the private grain trade, which includes the co-ops in Quebec. It is their responsibility to buy oats and put them into terminal elevators to sell to the eastern farmer.
The wheat board has a part in so far as it is the board's grain moving through channels to export, but so far as domestic grains are concerned the wheat board has nothing whatsoever to do with them east of Fort William.


Samuel Boulanger: When farmers in the east buy oats, barley or wheat, why do they pay twice what the feed mills in the west are paying right now?


William Heward Grafftey: That has nothing to do with the question.


Edwin William Brunsden: Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question? He has deplored the lack of a free market for grain. As I followed his remarks, he was speaking in a national sense. I should like to ask him if it is his belief, and the belief of his party, that the Canadian wheat board should be abolished.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, I am a little surprised that the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska is not rising quickly to reply to this very important question, since he is of course considered the official spokesman of the Liberal party-


An hon. Member:: He is No. 2.


Hazen Robert Argue: -on agricultural questions. My hon. friend, the No. 2 man, is something of an interloper.


An hon. Member:: The hon. member for Essex East is No. 1.


Hazen Robert Argue: No, the hon. member who has just spoken is No. 1. It is just that he gets pushed around once in awhile by the soya bean expert, the hon. member for Essex East. I listened with a great deal of interest this morning to the speech delivered by the Minister of Agriculture. There is certainly a great difference between the kind of speech made
[Mr. Hamilton (Qu'Appelle) .1
by the present Minister of Agriculture, and its manner of delivery, as compared with those made by the long term minister of agriculture of the former administration. This morning, the Minister of Agriculture spoke in quiet and deliberate terms. One would almost have thought one was listening to a very elementary lecture on economics as they affect the agricultural situation. The former minister of agriculture, of course, always spoke in a very loud voice, with great energy and with a glass of water in his hand. He fortified himself very frequently with water as he kept making his points.


Mr. Harkness:: Which former minister?


Hazen Robert Argue: I am referring to the minister of agriculture in the former administration. I said "the long term minister in the former administration", and I referred to the Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner. As for the present Minister of National Defence, I would not wish to go over the experience he had as minister of agriculture, but he was not a water drinker. The present Minister of Agriculture used a great many statistics this morning. The former minister, the Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner, was a master in the use of statistics and he used a great number of them whenever he spoke. But I think the present minister has put the former minister to shame. I think my friend Jimmie Gardiner would look like a backrow student who had just entered kindergarten compared with a professional like the present Minister of Agriculture as far as the use of statistics is concerned.
One would never think this was a minister speaking for the Conservative party which used to talk in such eloquent terms about parity prices, a fair share of the national income and an improvement of the farmer's position, or that he was the spokesman for a party which used to talk so eloquently on behalf of the small farmer. Now things have changed. What we got from the Minister of Agriculture when he opened these important estimates was not a review of the government's agricultural policy nor a projection of the prospects for agriculture in the years to come but, rather, a discouraging review of very deplorable conditions in this industry. The most significant figures which the minister used, in my opinion, were those which reflected the decline in the number of agricultural operators and they showed how quickly the small farmer is being pushed to the wall under this administration, as he was under the former administration.
I was surprised that the present Minister of Agriculture did not review this thing which they used to call the farmers' charter of rights, known about the country as Bill

237, under which farmers were to get this parity of income and receive by way of deficiency payment technique the kind of support prices for which they have been asking for so many years.


Edwin William Brunsden: On a point of order, the hon. member for Assiniboia has used two terms-"pushed to the wall" and "parity prices". I should like to have definitions of those two terms.


Charles Edward Rea: That is not a point of order.


Hazen Robert Argue: Some members around here learn slowly. The odd one never learns at all.


Some hon. Members:: That's right.


Hazen Robert Argue: Under this great charter of agricultural rights the farmer has not been faring well, and I think it was significant that the Minister of Agriculture did not refer in his discourse this morning to the effect of the prices stabilization act upon the prices which have been paid to the farmer. I was, of course, for many years a sharp critic of Mr. Gardiner because the average prices established under this legislation were not payable, as some of us felt they should be, directly to the producer, or they were not guaranteed to the producer. Instead, they were paid to the packing companies and the farmer had to deal with the packing companies and do what he could to get from them the established floor. The deficiency payment technique has provided little assistance to agriculture producers because there is no certainty about the way in which the legislation operates. There is no certainty that a farmer who receives less than the stated average national price will recover his losses. As a matter of fact, his chances of recovering those losses are very poor indeed. No deficiency payment has been made in respect of hogs, yet in at least three months, February, March and April, prices less than the stated national average were received by producers who marketed hogs in those months and such people have in fact incurred a very distinct loss which they have no hope of recovering.
This type of so-called support has been used in connection with the marketing of eggs and as in this field I suggest it has been a very dismal failure from the standpoint of the producer. If, as the present Minister of National Defence used to say, one of the purposes of this type of support was to reduce production at times when there appeared to be a surplus, then it has been successful. However, the reduction has been brought about by paying very low prices to 90205-6-153J
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producers and by providing nowhere near the national average price for all the eggs farmers have sold.
I have in my hand a report from the Department of Agriculture showing egg prices paid to producers on a Tuesday of each month at Regina and this shows that in January, 1960, the average price for grade A large eggs was 16 cents. In February, it was 15 cents, in March 26 cents, in April 29 cents, in May 24 cents. These are the lowest prices that have been paid at that point for a great number of years, perhaps since the war years. If one takes these prices for the year and averages them, one finds that the average price for grade A large eggs is approximately 29 cents a dozen. Yet in 1956, the last full year before this government came to power the average price on the same basis was 38 cents a dozen.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Have you got the figures for the balance of the year?


Hazen Robert Argue: I have to be fair and say there was a deficiency payment made. According to the Canadian federation of agriculture bulletin it works out at 2.4 cents on the average for the year. If one takes that 2.4 cents and adds it to the average I have put on the record today one finds that the producers have lost six cents a dozen or even more under this kind of support policy as compared with the prices they were paid in 1956. The whole point I am making is this. Under the present policy followed by the government there is no floor, no certain assurance-


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, would the hon. member-


Hazen Robert Argue: I have the floor and I intend to keep it until I have concluded my remarks. The minister may then ask all the questions he likes. I was saying that under this policy there is no certain floor under eggs or hogs. It is the rough average method with the deficiency payment technique which may result in no payment being made even when prices are below the floor or there may be a tiny payment as was the case with regard to eggs. The present government is a Conservative government-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


William Heward Grafftey: Progressive Conservative.


Hazen Robert Argue: It has its own philosophy. It is a belief in the free market system. The government has followed that belief consistently. It has dumped hogs and eggs on the competitive market without a floor. There is no indication that step by step other products that have been stabilized for a long time

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will not be put on the open market at great expense to the agricultural producer.
I think it was significant that the minister made no reference to butter. According to the hints we receive there will be some changes, and butter will be subjected to the deficiency payment technique. If that technique is applied to butter, I hope it will be used only in conjunction with a floor price and not as an average price so that the producers of butter may have a certain guarantee instead of this nebulous, will o' the wisp assurance that is contained in the so-called prices stabilization legislation.
I offer no objection to this as a policy so long as the government does not lower the return to the producers by putting butter in the same category as eggs and hogs, thus helping to bring about the ruination of the butter producer.
There have been some agreeable indications in recent days of additional sales of wheat being made to certain countries of the world. These are welcome and I hope these additions to our regular markets may be maintained.
I believe the minister will agree that some of these sales, and particularly the sale to China, was in the nature of a windfall or extraordinary sale. China faces a famine situation and is unable to buy from the United States the grain she requires. Because of the famine condition and the attitude of the United States with respect to the sale of commodities to that country, Canada was successful in making sales in that market. I am pleased about those sales, but a great deal more must be done to bring about increased grain sales if we are to have any hope of adequate sales on a longer term basis. What has been going on is not so good as to give the government great cause for joy. I have in my hand the last published statistical summary of the board of grain commissioners, dated February 15. It shows overseas clearances of wheat this year to date to be 141 million bushels as compared with 138 million bushels last year, a moderate improvement. Examining other sales, we find that the sale of barley has dropped by an amount greater than the increase in wheat sales. Barley exports have been reduced from 20.6 million bushels to 6.2 million bushels.


Mr. Speakman:: What is our surplus of barley?


Hazen Robert Argue: If one takes the overseas clearances for all grains to date this year one finds they have been 157.3 million bushels as compared with 167.6 million bushels last year, a total aggregate drop of 10 million bushels.

The minister said the situation was not satisfactory. This year it is even less satisfactory than last year in terms of our accomplishments to this point.
It has been said, and I think accurately, that grain is sold through what might be called a pipe line and that in order that a producer at the extreme end of the pipe line may feed his grain through, the grain obviously must come out at the other end. There is a very accurate relationship over a period of time between farmers' marketings and sales of Canadian grain.
Farmers' marketings are reflected with some variations in the quotas that prevail. The quotas prevailing in western Canada today leave much to be desired.


James Stanley Speakman: Thanks to the grain
handlers' strike.


Hazen Robert Argue: The grain handlers' strike had precious little to do with the worst set of statistics relating to Manitoba. After all, Manitoba is on the eastern side. I received a bulletin on February 22 indicating that as of February 8, 160 points in Manitoba were still on a 1-bushel quota as compared with 121 points last year at the same time. There were 153 points on a 2-bushel quota compared with 116 points last year. Last year the number of points on 3-bushel quotas and 4-bushel quotas were much higher than they are this year.
Saskatchewan, as of this date, still has 99 points on a 1-bushel quota and 661 points on a 2-bushel quota. Alberta, where one would have expected this great disaster to have had the worst possible effect, is at the moment in a better position than Saskatchewan or Manitoba in that only 6 points are on a 1-bushel quota; 168 points are on a 2-bushel quota, and 373 points are on a 3-bushel quota.
I plead with the minister to exercise every effort before the end of the crop year to equalize the quotas for grain. The minister knows as well as I do, and perhaps even better, that his area has suffered in the past with respect to delivery quotas. His constituency and mine are on the apex of deliveries, as it were. In some years we cannot take advantage of the eastern deliveries and in others we cannot take advantage of the western deliveries; we have to wait to the last. This has been difficult for producers in our part of western Canada.
The farmers' union has put forward a substantial point deserving of consideration by the minister. They ask that there be a guaranteed quota delivery. The guarantee should be such that if the wheat board is unable to take delivery by the end of the crop year then the difference could be paid

to the producer for the grain on his farm. If an 8-bushel quota were guaranteed, as was requested, and a farmer at a given point could market only a 6-bushel quota the board should be prepared to buy the difference on the farm in the farmer's storage. The board could then take its own good time in moving out the grain in the days ahead. By this method some equality would be established in the marketing of grain. I suggest that equality is needed and is long overdue.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Did we not
equalize the quotas last year?


Hazen Robert Argue: They were not too bad last year. The marketings were not equalized but less damage was done last year by this method than on former occasions, and I was very pleased to see some improvement.


Mr. Cardiff:: Improvement under a Conservative government.


Hazen Robert Argue: The hottest issue at the moment, as far as the Department of Agriculture is concerned, is this whole question of the government having allowed the feed mills in western Canada legally to buy grain at bankrupt prices and to go into a system of stealing, in a legal way, a substantial part of the farmer's normal returns from grain. I feel that this action has amounted to an abdication of principle. It has been a great mistake. Ninety eight per cent of the farmers will lose the chance to deliver this amount of grain through a quota system. The fact that 98 per cent of the farmers will not be marketing grain to the feed mills means that greater pressure will be placed upon them to go into the livestock business to an increasing extent. This means-and there is no argument about this-that the total income of western producers from grain will be lost because the prices paid by the feed mills in western Canada today are lower than the wheat board prices, and in some instances the final prices are disgracefully low.
The minister has promised to take a look at this. I hope he will take a thorough look at it, and I express the strong hope that this mistake will be corrected in the next marketing year. After all, the excuse for doing this has been that the wheat board could not police its quotas. The actions of the wheat board were upheld by the courts. The Supreme Court of Canada said that the wheat board had the right to police its quota for all mills, agreement, mills and non-agreement mills. Once the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the wheat board this government in effect repudiated the decision of the courts by saying, we are changing the rules and the feed mills will be allowed "legally" to get this grain at bootleg prices.
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Undoubtedly, this has been a severe blow to the system of orderly marketing of grain. What happened in the committee this afternoon spelled out exactly what I feared would happen. In the committee this afternoon no less a person that the official agricultural spokesman for the official opposition said it was his opinion that the grain going to feed mills in eastern Canada should be removed from wheat board control. The pressure that goes with this position taken by the official opposition, together with the natural desire of people in eastern Canada to get their grain at the lowest possible price, suggests that those of us who said this was the thin edge of the wedge that would lead to greater pressure being placed on the government to open the door much wider have been proven correct.
I am disappointed with the stand taken by the Liberal party. I think the official stand they have taken today has been a great mistake. They had better have a caucus and take another look at this subject because the people whom I represent will not be happy to learn that the position of the Liberal party opens the door-


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


Hazen Robert Argue: When I finish the hon. member may ask all the questions he likes.
I appreciate the reasons given for this action, but I think the sooner we return to the position of ensuring that the wheat board quota regulations shall be enforced on all mills in all parts of Canada the better it will be for the Canadian producer and for everyone concerned in this field.
I had hoped the government would tell us today what they were going to do to improve the income position of the farmer. I was curious to learn from the minister whether it was the intention of the government once again to pay the $1 an acre to farmers in the west, amounting to $40 million or $42 million. I would be interested in knowing whether the government intends to change the method by which this payment is made, if it is going to be made, and put it on the unit system, but there was no comment on that.
The Minister of Agriculture wound up his remarks by giving it as his opinion that a railway strike would place the agricultural producers of Canada in a very difficult position. He called on railway and management to do everything possible to avert a strike. I agree with the minister's statements. I suggest that one of the main reasons we are in this position today is the failure of the government to do anything last fall, except procrastinate and postpone the trouble. They

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said, "We will not settle it in December; we will postpone it until May 16 and then we shall have to settle it all over again," or the railways can go to the board of transport commissioners and get another hike in freight rates which are already too high.
I think the minister might have singled out management a little more in his remarks. The railway workers said, "We will accept the conciliation board report". I cannot speak for them, but I would not be at all surprised if they would accept the report today if the management of the railway companies were prepared to do the same. The minister lumps them together, although it was the railway companies which refused to settle on the basis of the conciliation board report.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Do you always support that policy?


Hazen Robert Argue: The government has a great responsibility to deal with the agricultural situation. I suggest that to do that these steps should be taken.
First, the government should exert every effort to move the surplus of grain within this country to the markets of the world and to the people who need it.
Second, the government, instead of weakening the orderly system of marketing, should maintain it and expand it.
Third, the government should give every help and assistance to the development of the co-operative movement in Canada at the producer and consumer level, a movement that I think can be of great service to the agricultural producers. To this end I would suggest that, at least for a beginning a co-operative branch should be set up in the Department of Agriculture to lend encouragement to the co-operatives in Canada.
Fourth, I suggest that it is time the government defined its income supports for agricultural producers and spelled out just how and what it is going to do to fulfil its commitments to Canadian producers that would provide them with a fair share of the national income.


Edwin William Brunsden: Will the hon. member permit a question? I did not have much luck with my questions to the official agricultural spokesman for the Liberal party. Perhaps the last speaker knows a little bit more about agriculture. He has deplored the falling grain markets in western Canada. Unfortunately for him he mentioned barley. I should like to ask the hon. member if he recalls that the province of Alberta, and Saskatchewan to some degree, lost a market for pearling barley in the Orient by virtue of a strike of longshoremen on the Pacific coast which was fully supported and ardently advocated by his party.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, that statement is another lie. It is a real lie.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Hazen Robert Argue: I do not accuse the hon. member of having lied but it is a lie to say that this political party supported that strike. We had nothing to do with the strike in any way, shape or form. As a political movement we offered no support on this issue in any way, shape or form.


Edwin William Brunsden: You endorsed it.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is not true either. That is another statement that is completely false. What I suggested was that the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Labour and the government, who have jurisdiction over such works as terminal elevators which have been declared works for the general advantage of Canada, should have done more than sit in their seats and say it was up to somebody else to do something instead of proceeding as they should have to Vancouver and trying to do something to bring the parties together.


James Stanley Speakman: Mr. Chairman, my first remarks must be, of course, to express my satisfaction and that of the people I represent with the upward trend in both gross and net farm income. The people in the area I represent are quite pleased with the trend and I think they will continue to be pleased. Like the minister, I sincerely hope for a stay in the trend of farm population away from the farms, and I think the efforts of the government are wholly bent in that direction.
The hon. member for Drummond-Artha-baska has referred to some promises made with regard to farmers and farm incomes and so on in the campaigns in 1957 and 1958. I should like to refer to some more recent promises made not by members of the government but made at the so-called great national Liberal rally. I should like to refer to the Country Guide for February, 1961. In that issue there is an article with a headline in red, naturally, reading, "Buying the Vote". The article reads in part as follows:
The Liberal rally held in Ottawa early last month may have made the party faithful who were present glow with enthusiasm, but on at least two counts it was a sad performance .. .
From an agricultural standpoint, the Liberal rally seemed to be completely bewildered and without inspiration. Mr. Pearson accused the Diefenbaker government of "failure to produce any kind of a solution for agricultural problems". Well, if the Liberals think what came out of the rally resolutions is a better guide to success than what is currently being offered, they are badly mistaken ... Promising western grain growers a parity price on their first 300 bushels of deliveries each year is not an answer to the grain problem.

The article goes on to say:
Let no one misunderstand us. We are not opposed to social advancement on a wide front, either in agriculture or other sectors of our society.
On the other hand, they do not believe in offering something which is impossible of performance. The hon. member also mentioned rather scornfully, I thought, the wheat sales which have just been completed. I might say for his information that the farmers of western Canada were very highly elated at these additional sales. He did not tell us, of course, what the relative figures were of surpluses of feed grains compared with wheat. I suggest that he should look up these figures. He will find that we do not have a surplus of feed grain but we do have a rather large surplus of wheat.
With reference to the stand of the official opposition with respect to agriculture, I go back to something which was said by "farmer Paul" as he was referred to in the Ottawa Journal last fall. The article in the Journal reads in part as follows:
Mr. Martin, beaming at the government benches as he concluded a speech, said that he might have made mistakes here and there. "I will pit my zeal and my desire"-
He said it smilingly, of course.

"to do something to assist the western farmer against what my hon. friend promised and has failed to do."
I do not look upon the efforts in recent weeks as evidence of failure when we sell over 50 million bushels of grain. In "Ottawa Report" of February 14, 1961, prepared for the Thompson publications, the hon. member for Essex East is also referred to as the "wicked fairy and his mother goose tales". I think the description is very apt.
1 was rather amazed to hear the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska speak about direct half-price sales of grain without quotas to the feed mills. I wondered whether he got his figures from the hon. member for Assiniboia or from the Martin bureau of statistics.


Hazen Robert Argue: Don't blame me for his figures.


James Stanley Speakman: In this regard I should like to refer to certain information which appeared in a newspaper recently. The prices are given that were being paid on February 16.


An hon. Member:: What paper is it?


James Stanley Speakman: 
Hazen Robert Argue: Is there any No. 2 wheat? I am wondering whether there is any No. 5 in the Manitoba district.


James Stanley Speakman: I do not know how western farmers will react to the suggestion the hon. member made with regard to eastern farmers buying directly. They might be pleased with it but it would not suit the hon. member for Assiniboia, of course.
The hon. member for Assiniboia said a lot of things, most of which I will let the minister answer because I think the minister will answer him very effectively. However, there are one or two points I should like to make with regard to the remarks of the hon. member for Assiniboia. He complained about the minister making a comparison of farm incomes when the trend definitely shows an upward movement. Why? He also complained very bitterly about the deficiency payment method used in the marketing of hogs and eggs. He neglected to mention, of course, that not only had the market been stabilized but so had production and that accompanying this stabilization there had been a very welcome increase in the price received by the producer. He forgot very conveniently that there was a surplus of over 1 million pounds of pork which has now been sold because of the action of the government, and I think this answers the hon. member for Assiniboia very effectively.
The hon. member went on to say something about the slow movement of grain from the prairie provinces. However, he conveniently forgot or just neglected to mention a certain strike of grain handlers on the Pacific coast. I want to refer to that strike because in complaining about low farm incomes and farmers being forced to the wall the hon. member neglected to mention the strike.
I shall read a statement from the Western Producer of Thursday, December 8, 1960. This is a paper which is well known by the hon. member and to the policy of which I believe he subscribes.
-in the Western Producer dated the 10th of last month, where it points out that the basic wages

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paid to the striking terminal elevator workers is $2,121 per hour including living bonus.
This is higher than the basic wage paid by any other industry in Canada for semi-skilled labour. Yet they have been offered an increase of 5 per cent which will make their basic wage $2.23 an hour. In addition their position lends itself to considerable overtime for which they get time and a half for weekdays or $3.34 per hour and double time or $4.46 per hour for Sundays and statutory holidays.
These workers refused this substantial increase, to the very great detriment of grain shippers particularly in Alberta and the western half of Saskatchewan.
The hon. member at the time this strike was in progress certainly did not come out against it, and I thought his attitude indicated sympathy and support for the strike.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is not true. That is a false statement.


James Stanley Speakman: I just said, Mr. Chairman, that I thought that, and it appeared to me that way.
I can quote another headline about which I think the hon. member is pleased. This comes from the Edmonton Journal of February 5, 1961. In big black headlines these words appear:
Feed mill policy 'legalized robbery'.
The hon. member created quite a little fuss in another part of this house-in one of its committees as a matter of fact-by referring to this "legalized robbery". I think what I have quoted on the record explains this very well.
I should like to refer the hon. member to the Manitoba Co-operator of February 16. He apparently does not read some of these publications because he has made the statement that no one supports this change in the regulations which permits these off-quota sales. This article says:
The western agricultural conference in Saskatoon last week supported new Canadian wheat board regulations permitting farmers to deliver grain to feed mills outside of wheat board price and quota controls.
Of course, my hon. friend from Assiniboia, Mr. Chairman, and his little group, as well as the political party that may result from this dreamed of marriage, have all the answers to all our problems. I will read from a little item in the same Western Producer:
As for the C.C.F. having the answers to our problems, all they could bring us is 100 per cent taxation and we would all end up as employees of the state and all freedom would be lost.
I must agree with that statement.


Mr. Winch:: I do not.


James Stanley Speakman: Of course you do not, belonging to that party.

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion I have a couple of recommendations which I should like to make to the minister and the government. I have made these recommendations before during the past two years. I should like to ask the minister and the government to give their serious consideration to the inclusion of forage crop seeds-by this I refer to clovers, alfalfas and leguminous crops-in the provisions of the Agricultural Stabilization Act. My constituency and that of my colleague from Jasper-Edson are very heavy producers of clovers, alfalfas and other leguminous crops. Having has good crops the last few years we find the farmers receiving as low as three and four cents a pound for some of their seed. I think it would be a very great boon to a rather large section of Alberta agriculture, and the Peace river, if these crops were brought under the provisions of this act.
I must, of course, make my perennial plea that the government pay the acreage payments to western producers again in 1961 on the same basis as in 1958 and 1960. I think general satisfaction has been expressed by the constituents I represent in this method of assistance which has done far more than could possibly have been imagined at the time the first payments were made, not only for the general welfare but for the economy as a whole.
(Translation):


Mr. Racine:: A moment ago, after my colleague from Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger) had spoken, I heard some members opposite say that we were numbered, that we were codified, on this side of the house. Well, for their information, I wish to tell them we are not numbered but that on this side, we are in the habit of dealing with problems which are of interest not only to us but to our electors.
We have listened to the minister with much attention. He quoted many figures and statistics. In those statistics, among other things, the figures which struck me most were, for instance, those bearing on the decrease in the number of farmers in Canada. The minister made much of the increase in gross income. On the other hand, if we take into account the decrease in the number of farmers, we readily realize that the figures he gave us are not accurate in so far as the net income of farmers is concerned, on the basis of their number.
For instance, if I understood him well, he told us that in 1958 there were 575,000 farmers in Canada; he added that, in 1959, there were only 546,000 left, which means a

decrease of 29,000 in 1958-59. For 1960, he gave the figure of 536,000, which means another decrease of 10,000.
I am sure that if those figures-
(Text):


James Stanley Speakman: I do not think the hon. gentleman wants to be unfair to the minister, who is just coming in now, but he is misquoting his figures.


Charles Edward Rea: The minister will perhaps correct him later.
(Translation):


Jean-Paul Racine: Mr. Chairman, as I was saying, if we take into account the national gross income and if we divide it by the present number of farmers, it is obvious that the per capita income has increased. However, I think we should take into account the production cost which has increased substantially.
While those figures on the decrease of farmers in Canada may help the minister in arriving at his income figure, I am sure, on the other hand, that those figures are certainly not to the liking of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) because they are probably included in the number of unemployed we now have in Canada.
I expected the minister to praise the achievements of the government. I expected, for instance, to hear him refer, as several of his colleagues have done in and out of the house, to crop insurance, to the stabilization prices act and to the Farm Improvement Loans Act. But, following a question I asked recently in the house, I found out that not one province so far has come to an agreement with the federal government about crop insurance, except one, I am told, where it is being tried in a certain area.
We also asked a question about the Farm Improvement Loans Act, and we found out that, probably, that measure has probably not yet been been brought to the attention of all farmers, or at least a great majority of them, since only a few of them took advantage of it.
We also expected, and that would have been most important, the announcement of a new policy on butter. If we refer to the Rural Co-Operator of February 14, 1961, here is what we read:
(Text):
It is understood that butter prices could be reduced 10 cents a pound to consumers beginning May 1, if the federal government approves a plan put before it by agriculture minister Alvin Hamilton.
Reports indicate that the 10-cent reduction in the retail price from the present level of around 69 to 71 cents a pound would not affect the price support of 64 cents. The plan is aimed at reducing Canada's butter surplus by making it more competitive with margarine.
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Agriculture minister Hamilton has neither confirmed nor denied the report: "I wouldn't care to comment until there is something concrete from the cabinet," he said last week end.
(Translation) :
Mr. Chairman, following the inventory made of the quantity of butter now in existence in Canada, we expected the minister to announce that policy. But he did not, probably for the reason mentioned in that article of the Rural Co-operator, because the cabinet has not yet taken any decision.
However, if we look at the statistics on December 1, 1960, we realize that there were 131,684,000 pounds of butter in Canada. It seems it would have been a marvellous opportunity and a good policy to establish at once that butter subsidy, which surely would not have failed to help decrease that inventory and encourage farmers who are dependent mostly on dairy farming.
The same policy, for instance, could have applied to powdered skim milk, with an inventory of 4.3 million pounds. The same goes for canned pork, with an inventory of 35.8 million pounds.
Apart from that policy of subsidies, another course could be followed, similar to the policy which is carried out now in the United States. It would consist in distributing to the unemployed, of whom there are approximately 700,000 in Canada, part of the farm surplus. Such action would certainly relieve their present plight.
Mr. Chairman, I was also somewhat surprised to see the hon. member for Assini-boia (Mr. Argue) being shocked by the words of the hon. member for Drummond-Artha-baska (Mr. Boulanger). I think the latter did not want to deal with a question of principle, but rather to speak in favour of the farmers in eastern Canada. Hon. members who preceded me, including the minister, scarcely mentioned those problems, and only my colleague from Drummond-Arthabaska dealt with them.
What he wanted, or rather what I thought he wanted was a lowering of the price for grain which the farmers in Quebec, Ontario and the maritime provinces have to buy.
I do not think he would want a policy detrimental to the western farmers. On the other hand, I do not blame him for his remarks, because he represents, as I do, a district which has to face numerous problems. And, like the Minister of Agriculture himself and the leader of the C.C.F., he has dealt with those issues-and quite rightly so.
To my mind, the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska proved moreover, by quoting the figures of the dominion bureau of

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statistics, that the farm income did not increase in 1960, but rather declined. To support that assertion, he quoted, as I said, figures supplied by the dominion bureau of statistics. He brought into these considerations a testimony which certainly deserves to be considered, that of the manager of the federated co-operatives, according to whom the farm income in 1960 was $1,450.
Neither did the minister tell us anything about deficiency payments. Like many other members I would have liked to get from him an evaluation of the results of this new legislation introduced by his government. Having read certain news items, we know that as far pork is concerned there has been some reduction in hog production; however, it is true that prices are kept at the same level.
As I said earlier, the minister did not deal with those problems as we would have expected.
I have here an article published in the column "Backstage" of Maclean's magazine. The author is Peter C. Newman, and the title is:
(Text):
-Maclean's magazine, "Backstage," by Peter C. Newman:
Diefenbaker's new vision-agriculture-and his new visionary-Alvin Hamilton.
(Translation):
Under that article, we see a very good cartoon of the minister-I suppose he has seen it. Here is what is said in the article: (Text):
In the east, Hamilton wants to be Johnny Appleseed.
(Translation) :
Now, the speech he made today and in which he failed to mention the problems of the eastern areas, I feel he is neither Johnny Appleseed nor the one who will be able to give encouragement to our many farmers in the future.
The article also states:
(Text):
Hamilton is confident that he can initiate his revolutionary agricultural policies at the same time as returning the prairie vote to his party. "If Alvin succeeds," says one highly placed Ottawa Conservative, "he'll become one of the top figures in the cabinet. If he doesn't, we could lose the next election."
(Translation):
Says this Tory.
The same article mentions something which seems all the more realistic now that we have just heard the minister, and I quote: (Text):
Only 12 per cent of the Canadians of voting age still live on farms. But a close study of representation in the House of Commons shows that nearly

60 per cent of its members sit for rural areas. The smashing of Quebec's Union Nationale electoral machine by Jean Lesage, and the Tories' ineffectual political handling of French Canada since the 1958 victory, have convinced Conservative strategists that nothing they can do between now and the next campaign will win back this key province. It will be mainly the support or loss of the farm vote that will decide the outcome of John Diefenbaker's next journey to the polls.
(Translation):
Mr. Chairman, I will simply tell the minister, if he wants his policy to be popular in Quebec, to suggest-and I hope he will have an opportunity to make some comments during the consideration of his estimates-a solution to the problems faced by our farmers.
I believe we are justified in bringing those problems to the attention of the minister since he himself and his colleagues did not have any qualms about making innumerable promises during the electoral campaign of 1957 and 1958. I would say to his colleagues and more particularly to the minister that this failure of the government to keep their promises will hardly help them politically, and even worse, their attitude causes the worst prejudice not only to farmers in Quebec but to those in Canada generally.
(Text):


Mr. Rapp:: Mr. Chairman, in rising to take part in this debate I should like first of all to congratulate the Minister of Agriculture on his appointment to this portfolio and to wish him success in this new undertaking.
I may also say that the farmers in Canada, and in particular the western farmers, have welcomed his appointment and judging from what has been said by them on different occasions, they expect he will do justice to this very important department.
Even when the minister was in charge of another department, the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, his contribution to the agricultural economy of this country was known and felt in this house, the cabinet, and above all in Canada as a whole. Anybody having any doubt about this need only look at the records of the house to see the truth of what I have said.
To the previous minister of agriculture, the present Minister of National Defence, I should like to express my regret at his leaving the department. He has done impressive work as minister of agriculture but has been called upon to take charge of another department. We wish him the best of luck and we know that he will also do justice to his new department.
Agriculture is a very important part of our national economy. Some people like to prove statistically that agriculture's No. 1 position has been taken over by other industries in

Canada. This may be true to a certain extent, but nobody can deny the fact that in importance it is and still will be Canada's No. 1 industry for a long time to come. If we look back on our agricultural history we find that western grain has been the life of Canadian commerce ever since our pioneers opened up the west for settlement. The purpose of the Crowsnest pass agreement of 1897 was to make it economically possible for the western farmers to produce grain in quantities large enough for the needs of Canadian commerce, and the government of that day considered the agreement to be a step in the best interest of Canada. What was true then in regard to grain produced in 1897 holds true today in regard to such grains as wheat, oats, barley, rye, flax and rapeseed produced now in the west for commercial purposes. The Canadian economy depends on commerce today just as much as it did then. This nonsense which some people talk about removing the Crowsnest pass agreement on freight charges is nothing less than an attempt to scuttle the whole of western agriculture. Let me say, Mr. Chairman, that no one knows this better than our Prime Minister, who has said on many occasions that the Crowsnest pass agreement is the magna carta of western agriculture.
While I am on this subject of the Crowsnest Pass freight rates I should really say something about the rapeseed freight charges. Rapeseed is the only grain not covered by the Crowsnest pass agreement. However, I shall reserve my comments on the subject until another occasion. Instead, I should like to say something with regard to edible oil.
As far as the tariff on edible oilseed is concerned, this indeed presents a very disturbing situation. The biggest single factor discouraging the use of this oil in Canada is the fact that Canadian crushers are allowed to crush American soyabeans and rapeseed in Canada-products which come in free of tariff-and thereby by-pass the 20 per cent tariff which is now in effect on soyabean oil and rapeseed oil. I ask hon. members to note the situation: There is a 20 per cent tariff imposed on the soyabean oil and rape-seed oil, but no tariff whatsoever on soyabeans and rapeseed. This is what is happening in the crushing industry: the Canadian crusher purchases all the Canadian soyabeans and rapeseed. He does not use any of these beans and seeds to crush into oil for Canadian consumption. He uses these to make up the 25 per cent of Canadian material in the oil and meal that he markets in Great Britain and other favoured treaty countries. The soyabean oil that he sells in Canada is made from American beans and rapeseed. In this way he entirely by-passes the 20 per cent 90205-6-154J
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tariff on the oil. In illustration of this point I should like to bring to the attention of hon. members the fact that margarine production in Canada in 1959 amounted to 152.5 million pounds. Only one tenth of the margarine made in Canada is made from oil seeds grown in this country. The rest is made from oils which come into Canada from the United States duty free.
However, I am happy to see that the Minister of Finance has announced in his supplementary budget that the tariff board is to be instructed to adjust this discriminatory tariff imposed on these edible oils.
I should like to touch on another subject coming within the scope of the Department of Agriculture, namely the price of farm machinery. As you will recall, Mr. Chairman, in the dying days of our last session this question was placed before the standing committee on agriculture so that an investigation might be made. As a member of this committee, I have been looking forward to the resumption of this inquiry. Hon. members know that one of our great problems in the farm industry at the present time is the high price of farm machinery. These prices are out of all proportion to the prices which the farmer receives for his produce and, what is more, the prices of farm machinery are constantly rising year after year while the prices of farm products remain the same or, in some instances, even go down. Is it the high cost of labour which can be blamed for this increase in the price of farm machinery, or are the high profits of the manufacturer responsible for the continued increase in prices? Alternatively, is management at fault for not making a sincere effort to put out an economic machine and hold down the cost of that machine? As a further alternative, is the high cost to be attributed largely to wasteful and expensive methods of distribution? These are questions to which answers must be provided.
I have given very serious thought to the inquiries which have been made into the price structure of farm machinery and I have followed very closely what has been said in the press and on the radio with regard to this matter. In particular, I am interested in a financial statement published by Canadian Co-operative Implements Limited of Winnipeg, Manitoba. According to this statement, the experience of the C.C.I.L. over the years has been that in relation to total sales of slightly more than $54 million there has been a net saving of $5,640,000. This saving has been made on sales which represent a very small percentage of total machine sales in western Canada. In 1959, when C.C.I.L. had a better percentage of total sales than in several preceding years, there was a saving


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Chairman, it is not my intention to speak about wheat, oats, barley, rye, the Canadian wheat board, box car allocations or deficiency payments. I wish merely to ask a number of questions of the minister relative to the agricultural situation in British Columbia and the attitude of the minister toward it.
I regretted very much the attitude displayed by the hon. member for Wetaskiwin when he spoke earlier. He is an hon. member who does not appear able to ask questions or say anything in , this chamber without putting it

on a completely partisan political basis. The hon. gentleman was never more guilty of that than when he spoke earlier this afternoon. I hope I shall not follow that procedure. Surely charge and counter charge will not assist us in a policy discussion on the agricultural estimates. What is required now is not partisan political discussion with accusations, charges and counter charges. What we require is information from the minister and if we wish to go beyond that in participating in the discussion we are free to present constructive proposals.
I shall attempt not to follow the example set by the hon. member for Wetaskiwin who was guilty of political partisanship in his remarks today. It is good to avoid following that example because sometimes we might be prone to answer that kind of attack in like manner. If I were to indulge in that type of thing today I would probably begin by telling the minister that his government is sabotaging the agricultural industry of British Columbia.


Mr.   Mc@: Non-partisan, of course.


Harold Edward Winch: However, that is not my attitude. I should like the minister to tell us if he has had time since assuming his important office to raise his eyes beyond the western prairie horizon of rye, oats, wheat and barley and look over the mountains into British Columbia? British Columbia is a mountainous province with four ranges running from north to south. Far too many people do not realize that between those ranges we have some of the most productive agricultural land on the North American continent. Admittedly, sir, I speak as a member from the urban area of Vancouver but I know British Columbia and I love it. With all due respect to every other member in this house, I say that in the Fraser valley of British Columbia, from Vancouver to Hope, in the valley areas, in the mountain ranges, from Salmon Arm, Enderby, Armstrong, Vernon, Penticton, Kelowna, to Osoyoos, we have some of the finest, fertile, productive agricultural lands in North America. This has been proven in the production of soft fruits, hard fruits and vegetables. A change has taken place over the past few years. I tried to raise this matter last session but unfortunately did not get very far with it.
I have lived in Vancouver since 1910, when I was only three years of age. I can remember the productivity of the Fraser valley in regard to berries, and particularly strawberries. Our product went around the world in the shape of jellies and jams, but that situation does not obtain today. Production is now purely for the local market. Why is this so? Because no attention has been paid
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to the buying up of our canneries and factories by people below the border and exporting to Canada their products, but selling them under the Canadian brand.
It is only a few years ago that in the area from Lillooet to Osoyoos there were 16 canneries. Last year only four were left. I have been advised of one in that area which is going to close this year and which I maintain holds a world record for the quality of its products, namely vegetables, peas, tomatoes, and so forth. Why is this so? It is because the area from Lillooet to Osoyoos is three weeks behind production in California. By the time the agricultural producers in the areas I have mentioned are set to market their products California is set to market its surpluses, and moves them into British Columbia. Certain action has been taken by governments in the past in regard to the situation, and this is the reason certain of our canning companies in Canada, and particularly in British Columbia, were bought out. The reason is simple. If the small canning companies are not there, then the producers have no market to which to sell.
I raised this matter last year in regard to tomatoes and the then minister of agriculture-I am glad he is in his seat at the moment-answered to the effect that a subsidy would be granted for the crop year but it would then cease. I still have the letter to that effect from the hon. member. Wheat, oats, barley, rapeseed and rye are important in many parts of Canada, but berries and vegetables are very important to our province of British Columbia. To the best of my information the situation in the coming year will be worse than it was a year ago. Judging from the information sent to me by growers, I am of the opinion that they are very disturbed at the situation. I say to the Minister of Agriculture, through you, Mr. Chairman, that, much as we recognize the emphasis and importance that the minister has placed on agriculture in the prairies, we would like him to take a good look at the maintenance of agriculture in British Columbia. We would like to hear whether the Minister of Agriculture has any special plans for the protection of our berries, our soft fruits and our vegetable industries. We would like to know whether a special, study will be made of the situation there on a production, canning and marketing basis.
We may be known as a lumbering and mining province but, if my memory serves me correctly, our third greatest industry has been agriculture. It has been deteriorating. I fear that it has been neglected and is still being neglected by the federal Department of Agriculture. Just because we may be hemmed in by four mountain ranges

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and 3,000 miles from Ottawa we should not be ignored. We are an integral part of Canada. I gather from this morning's newspapers that we are such an important part of Canada that if plans go through at the dominion-provincial conference we are going to lose out because of the wealth of our province.
I hope I have not fallen into the despicable line of thought of the hon. member for Wetaskiwin by asking the minister to raise his eyes above the Rocky mountains and look at agriculture in British Columbia and advise us as to present plans for the protection of agriculture in our province, in the Fraser valley from Lillooet to Osoyoos. I made a mistake. I almost ignored that most marvellous agricultural area, especially in so far as seeds are concerned, namely Grand Forks. Now that the minister has taken over this most responsible office I ask him whether a special study will be made of the potentialities of agriculture in British Columbia and whether protection will be given to that great industry?


Mr. Coates:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to join in this debate and make a few comments on agriculture as it pertains to the maritime provinces.
First of all, I should like to extend my congratulations to the minister, both on his appointment as Minister of Agriculture and on the enthusiasm he has brought to this department, which enthusiasm was so apparent when he was minister of northern affairs and national resources. I should like to say to him that I was recently in Nova Scotia and in talking with people keenly interested in the agricultural industry in that province I learned that his recent visit to the maritimes was greeted with enthusiasm He has instilled in the people of our area an outlook so far as agriculture is concerned that we like to see them have. Personally I should like to see him come back to visit our people again and I hope he will do so in the very near future.
It has become a regular custom for members of parliament from Nova Scotia to meet with the executive of the Nova Scotia federation of agriculture each year when they come to Ottawa to attend the annual meeting of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. Members from Nova Scotia have come to look forward to this annual meeting as an opportunity to get views of those engaged in agriculture in our area and as an opportunity to have brought to our attention those matters which are felt to be most pressing by the Nova Scotia federation of agriculture.

At this time I should like to bring some of the suggestions brought to our attention to the attention of the minister in order that he may be fully aware of the attitude of the federation with respect to the different aspects of the industry. At our recent meeting a number of matters were discussed. One thing that is of particular importance to me as the member for Cumberland is their views with regard to the Maritime Marshland Rehabilitation Act. This act came into operation some ten years or more ago and was put into effect to help marsh owners in our province to improve their lands throught a system of dikes, aboiteaux and dams.
When the act was brought into force some ten years ago it was indicated there would have to be an agreement between the federal and provincial governments and the farm bodies in the different areas in order that all might be aware of the importance of the projects that would be undertaken. At that time an agreeement was made between the federal government and the province that when the work was concluded the province and the marsh owners would take over the maintenance of the projects that had been undertaken. No doubt when this was agreed upon no one imagined the magnitude of the work that would be carried out under the act and in the light of that fact an agreement was reached.
Today, however, as the work draws to a close the province and the marsh bodies both see the tremendous costs that will fall upon them should the maintenance be placed on their shoulders alone. Because of this fact they have emphasized very strongly that the federal government should endeavour to phase in the maintenance work under the agricultural rehabilitation and development legislation. This would mean that those lands that have been greatly improved in value would not now have to be left to revert to their former condition, for if the federal government were to insist that the maintenance be carried out by the province and the marsh bodies that would no doubt be the result over a long period.
It is quite apparent that neither the province nor the marsh bodies can accept the financial obligations that would be placed upon them if the federal government were to insist on their maintaining the work that has been done. If we are to endeavour to keep these lands that have been tremendously improved as the result of the work carried out for the generations of today and tomorrow we must give further assistance and endeavour to phase in this work under the

new rural rehabilitation scheme. I ask the minister to give this matter his most serious consideration.
Another point I should like to bring to the minister's attention in this regard is that the headquarters of the M.M.R.A. administration are at present located in Amherst and over the period of the operation of the act a very large and competent staff has been built up consisting of people who are well aware of the problems of the area and who have created a great deal of good will in their negotiations with the marsh bodies. It is my hope that the department will give consideration to using the facilities and the skills that are readily available at Amherst to carry out the provisions of the agricultural rehabilitation and development legislation.
May I also bring to the minister's attention some other points that were emphasized by the Nova Scotia federation of agriculture with regard to which I would appreciate his serious consideration. One point they raised which I have also brought up in debates in the house has to do with unemployment insurance for farm labourers. I know this matter is under study at the present time by the Department of Labour. The representatives of the federation point out that it is a problem that has caused farmers in the maritime provinces a great deal of difficulty in attracting seasonal help. The reason is a simple one. If such people work for someone other than a farmer they are able to get stamps and to qualify for seasonal or regular benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act. If they work for farmers they are not able to obtain these benefits which are so very important to many people in the maritime provinces. I realize that the minister is keenly aware of the circumstances of our farmers in this regard.
Another matter for which they request consideration has to do with the establishment of total disability insurance to be incorporated in the terms of loans made through the farm credit corporation. In Nova Scotia our provincial agricultural loans contain a provision guaranteeing this total disability insurance. The Nova Scotia federation have recommended that this be considered by the federal government as well, and incorporated in our farm credit legislation. It is my belief that we recently have made death disability insurance available through this legislation to farmers at their discretion if the loans are not supervised, but it is mandatory if loans are supervised. I would ask the minister to give serious consideration to the placing of total disability insurance in this scheme as well.
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The Nova Scotia federation requests consideration for an increase in the support price for lambs. The federation states that the support price in the maritimes is below that either in Montreal or Toronto, and they wish consideration given to the support price being increased to bring it in line with the prices now available in those two areas.
Another matter which they wished brought to the attention of the government, but one which I feel should more rightly be placed before industry itself, is the equalization of transportation rates on farm machinery in this country. I believe an example could be made in respect of cars better than farm machinery. We know that a car manufactured in Ontario is more expensive in Nova Scotia than in Ontario, while at the same time we find that European cars come to this country and the price is the same in all parts of this country. I should think, since a large proportion of the cars manufactured in Canada are sold in the two central provinces, this problem of equalization would not be a very difficult one. A small increase in the price of cars in Ontario and Quebec would produce enough funds to provide an equal price level across the country. If the European manufacturers see merit in this scheme, I see no reason why our own manufacturers cannot take the initiative in this matter and let the government stay outside, where it should be in respect of such things.
The only other point that I should like to bring to the attention of the minister at this time is the matter of the government's policy on deficiency payments for hogs. I would point out to the minister that last year the Nova Scotia federation of agriculture supported the government when it put this policy into effect. I might therefore point out that as a result of this policy and the attitude of the Nova Scotia federation of agriculture, there has been a very substantial increase in the production of hogs in the maritime provinces. As all hon. members know there has been a substantial increase in the price paid for pork since this policy went into effect and as a result of the guidance provided by the Nova Scotia federation of agriculture, our farmers have benefited materially.
I do not think there is anything more that I wish to add at this time. I wish to thank you all for listening to my remarks.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, before the time for closing the sitting of the committee, which arrives in a few minutes, I wonder if I could get unanimous permission of the committee to have printed in Hansard two tables which will give the prices at nonquota feed mills in the last two weeks. I might explain my request by saying that

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three speakers during the debate today have mentioned the prices of these feed mills, and I think the best way to put the facts on the record would be to turn over to this committee the reports made each week by the Canadian wheat board in respect of these prices. Of course, the names of the companies would be omitted. This will enable all members, and other persons across the country, to see the type of sampling we have on these prices.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Before that request is dealt with, do I understand the minister to say
that these are figures that were procured by the Canadian wheat board and that the board stands behind them?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Yes.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I see no objection.


Charles Edward Rea: Will the committee give unanimous consent to having these figures printed in Hansard as though the minister had read them?


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



THE CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD

[Stage Direction]
Comparison of Board Initial Prices with Prices Paid by Designated Non-Quota Feed Mills Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta
		Board	Non-Quota	
Location	Grade	Initial Price	Mill Price	Winnipeg	
Wheat No. 5	95	1.25	If trucked more than 75 milesOats 1 Fd	46 *	.50	by Fed. Co-Op. producerBarley 1 Fd	75 i	.75	is charged 15c. per cwt. trucking.St. Boniface	
Barley 1 Fd	75 i	.75	St. Boniface	
Wheat No. 5	95	1.15	Oats 1 Fd	46 |	.50	Barley 1 Fd	75 i	.75	Winnipeg	
Wheat No. 5	93 |	1.00	(ex Brandon)Saskatoon	90 i	.80	Oats 1 Fd	44	.45	Barley 1 Fd	71 i	.55	Saskatoon	
Wheat No. 5	90 *	.85	Oats 1 Fd	44	.44	Barley 1 Fd	71 i	.60	Saskatoon	90 i	.85	Oats 1 Fd	44	.45	Barley 1 Fd	71 i	.55-.60	Saskatoon	Wheat No. 5	90 1	.85-.90	Oats 1 Fd	44	.45	Barley lFd	71 i	.60	Steinbach	95	1.20	Oats 1 Fd	46 f	.55	Barley lFd	75 f	.75	Edmonton	Wheat No. 5	91 i	1.05	Oats 1 Fd	42 f	.50	Barley 1 Fd	70	.70	Calgary	91 i	1.05	Oats 1 Fd	42 |	.59	Barley 1 Fd	70	.72	Lethbridge	Wheat No. 5	90 1	1.10	(No No. 5 available)Oats 1 Fd	43	.65	Barley lFd	70 i	.75

[Stage Direction]
Supply-Agriculture

[Stage Direction]
Comparison of Board Initial Prices with Prices Paid by Designated Non-Quota Feed Mills Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta
		Board	Non-Quota
Location	Grade	Initial Price	Mill PriceWinnipeg	
Wheat No. 5	95	1.25 Trucking charge 15c. perOats 1 Fd	46f	.50 100 lbs. over 75 milesBarley 1 Fd	75 i	.75St. Boniface	95	1.05Oats 1 Fd	46-!	.50Barley 1 Fd	75f	.75Winnipeg	75 i	.75St. Boniface	95	1.15Winnipeg	
Wheat No. 5	95	1.00 ex Brandon and MinnedosaWinnipeg	
Oats 1 Fd	46|	.50Moose Jaw	91!	85-90Oats 1 Fd	445	.45Barley 1 Fd	72J	.65Moose Jaw	
Wheat No. 5	911	.85Oats 1 Fd	441	.45Barley 1 Fd	72J	.60Regina	
Wheat No. 5	91!	.90Oats 1 Fd	44|	.45Barley 1 Fd	72J	.60Weyburn	
Wheat No. 5	92	90-1.00Oats 1 Fd	45	.45Barley 1 Fd	73|	55-60Saskatoon	
Wheat No. 5	90!	85-90Oats 1 Fd	44	.45Barley 1 Fd	71|	.60Saskatoon	
Wheat No. 5	90!	.85Oats 1 Fd	44	.44Barley 1 Fd	71!	.60Saskatoon	
Wheat No. 5	90!	.85Oats 1 Fd	44	.44Barley 1 Fd	71!	.60Steinbach	95	1.20Oats 1 Fd	465	.55Barley 1 Fd	75!	.75Edmonton	91!	1.05Oats 1 Fd	42|	.50Barley 1 Fd	70	.70Calgary	
Wheat No. 5	91!	1.05Oats 1 Fd	42|	.60Barley 1 Fd	70	.74Lethbridge	90!	1.10 No No. 5 Wheat availableOats 1 Fd	43	.65Barley 1 Fd	70!	.75

[Stage Direction]
Criminal Code
Charles Edward Rea: 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.
Resolutions adopted in committee of supply this day reported and concurred in.



CRIMINAL CODE


Mr. Frank McGee (York-Scarborough) moved: the second reading of Bill No. C-10 to amend the Criminal Code (corporal punishment).
He said: Mr. Speaker, before referring to the debate which took place on this subject in April of 1959, I should like to outline the approach that I wish to take in the discussion of this bill today. I should like to say something first of all about the present position of judicial corporal punishment in Canada, and say something about the report and recommendations of the House of Commons and Senate committee on capital and corporal punishment of 1956. I want also to review the latest material that has come to the attention of the public on this question, namely the report of the advisory council on treatment of offenders in the United Kingdom presented to the home secretary in November of 1960.
The present situation in Canada is that courts are sentencing people to be lashed and strapped for a series of serious and unpleasant offences. In 1956 seven people were sentenced to the lash and six to the strap; in
1957, 12 to the lash and 21 to the strap; in
1958, 12 to the lash and 8 to the strap. The latest figures that I could obtain from the department indicate that the applications of the lash in 1959 were up above the 1958 figure of 12, and that the strapping figure was down from the 1958 figure of eight. The lash in particular has been applied. Persons have been sentenced to be lashed, and these sentences carried out, for such crimes as incest, assaults on females, indecent assaults on females, rape, sexual intercourse or attempted sexual intercourse, robbery and robbery while armed.
These are not pleasant matters to contemplate by any means, but these are the facts that are before us as members of parliament and we must deal with them. Committees have dealt with them in the past and the recent committee in England which I mentioned has also dealt with them.
A committee of the house and the Senate, as has been recorded in previous debates, recommended after an exhaustive inquiry into
[The Deputy Chairman.]
this subject that corporal punishment should be abolished for any of the offences for which it is prescribed in the Criminal Code. When six o'clock was called on a similar occasion in 1959 and the debate adjourned, the hon. member for Calgary South (Mr. Smith), who was the final speaker and the only speaker who took a view in opposition to my own on the matter, had a number of things to say about it. I should like to challenge some of them and set the record straight. One of the things he said was this:
I recognize that a great body of public opinion is in favour of the intention behind this bill.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The great body of public opinion in this country is no different in substance than the body of opinion in the United Kingdom or, as I will point out later, the Gallup polls taken in 1960 in the United Kingdom. These Gallup polls indicated that approximately 74 per cent of the people of England favoured the retention of corporal punishment and an indeterminate percentage of those favoured expanding it to other categories of crime. Therefore on that account to begin with I think the hon. member misjudged the situation in Canada.
He went on to say in his remarks:
We have listened this afternoon to a great deal of maudlin sentimentality.
I should like very definitely to set the record straight as far as that particular aspect of this question is concerned. I am not motivated in any sense by a feeling of maudlin sentimentality on the question of corporal punishment. I am concerned primarily with discharging my duty as a member of parliament, to examine the facts and information available on subjects which come before us, reaching a conclusion and casting a vote or taking action to translate that conclusion into the law of the land.
It is in essence a matter of national selfrespect, as far as corporal punishment is concerned. Through the centuries and down through the years we have tried a very fascinating and dazzling variety of brutal methods of punishment. In the main they have failed miserably to accomplish our purpose, which is of course to reduce crime rates and to deal with prisoners after crimes have been committed. At the present time Canada has the great good fortune to have a Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) whose activities in the field of penal reform in my view, and certainly this is a view shared by many people in this country, represent the first important steps forward in 25 years in Canada.
Mr. Walter Stewart of the Toronto Telegram used this caption on an article when

writing in that newspaper yesterday, "Canada's prisons feel the winds of change". These winds of change, this changing attitude on the part of the penal authorities of this country is greatly to be commended. The fact of the matter is, as I said earlier, that the brutal method has in the main failed.
The advisory council on the treatment of offenders, which presented its report to the home secretary of England last November, was composed of a group drawn from men dealing with prisoners and offenders of all kinds. I should like to quote from the statement made on introducing the criminal justice bill in the English house on November 17, by Mr. R. A. Butler, the secretary of state for the home department. He said:
One of these is a V.C., who can hardly have been chosen by reason of being a "softie", and another was the chief officer of the City of London police. I mention this because I think that hon. members may want to know what the constitution of the council is. Its members include many from the professions and walks of life concerned with the prevention of crime and reform of offenders.
So this group of people, at the request of the home secretary, proceeded to examine in exhaustive detail the question of corporal punishment. The situation in England was that judicial corporal punishment had been applied for a wide variety of offences up to the time of the so-called Cadogan committee which was appointed in May of 1937.
Finally in 1948, following the failure of the bill based on that committee's recommendations, which recommendations were to abolish judicial corporal punishment, corporal punishment was abolished entirely in England. The committee at that time said:
We have been unable to find any body of facts or figures showing that the introduction of a power of flogging has produced a decrease in the number of the offences for which it may be imposed, or that offences for which flogging may be ordered have tended to increase when little use was made of the power to order flogging or to decrease when the power was exercised more frequently. We are not satisfied that corporal punishment has that exceptionally effective influence as a deterrent which is usually claimed for it by those who advocate its use as a penalty for adult offenders.
The committee went on to say that they did not limit their investigation to the law as it then stood. They considered also the possible use of corporal punishment for other offences but came to similar conclusions. In particular, they concluded that this penalty was especially unsuitable for sexual offences, which incidentally formed the bulk of the offences in Canada for which corporal punishment was applied in those figures which I mentioned earlier.
This report is of tremendous interest and I commend it to every member of the house who concerns himself with this subject. The
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committee approached the widest possible variety of sources, people like the association of chief police officers of England and Wales, and the commissioner of police of the metropolis, who incidentally declined the invitation on the ground that it was not the policy of the association or in his view the function of the police to comment on the ways in which offenders are tried and dealt with by the courts.
However, a unanimous opinion was reached by that group, the police officers. It was unanimously agreed that if judicial corporal punishment were reintroduced, the police should not be required to administer it. Other sources of information were approached. The press was informed and in fact it assisted by soliciting a large number of letters commenting on the question. This public opinion poll which I mentioned earlier, the results of which were published in March, 1960, indicated that 74 per cent of the population considered that corporal punishment should be the penalty for some offences. People like the judges of the Queen's bench division and other persons concerned with the administration of criminal law were approached and the result was that a great majority of those consulted agreed that the reintroduction of judicial corporal punishment in certain circumstances might be desirable.
There was a minority of that group who differed. The members of the magistrates association of England and Wales were approached, and a vote on the question indicated that 4,412 favoured abolishing corporal punishment and 1,886 favoured its retention. The national association of probation officers was approached and submitted their findings as a group. They indicated that 89.7 per cent of their group favoured the abolition of corporal punishment. Other sources were approached, and some very interesting opinions were put forward. I shall not go through them in any detail but some of them are of passing interest. Surprisingly, the report says:
Several of our correspondents suggested that females should be liable to judicial corporal punishment as well as males. They argued that in these days women and girls were often involved in the commission of crimes of violence or other offences for which men and boys might receive this penalty, and that therefore there was no justification for treating the sexes differently.
This view, the report goes on to say, was not shared by most of the witnesses. There were points of view expressed, and certainly I have heard similar views expressed in this country, to the effect that corporal punishment should be applied as an alternative to a sentence in prison or in a corrective institution. The theory is, apparently,

Criminal Code
that this is a cheaper method and that if our corrective institutions are overcrowded it will avoid congesting them further. Little thought, I suggest, was given to whether this punishment would do any good. The report goes on to say-and I think this is an important factor in any discussion of this problem-
A striking fact that emerges from a study of the views expressed to us is that different people reach different conclusions on the basis of the same facts or experiences.
This certainly is true not only in regard to this matter but with regard to capital punishment as well. The report goes on:
It is clear also that individual views on judicial corporal punishment are greatly influenced by emotion, often arising from personal experience.
Most people's reaction in the case of certain crimes which they regard as being particularly heinous is that those responsible should be given a taste of their own medicine. The statistical evidence is examined in great detail and, again, the case for the deterrent quality of corporal punishment simply does not emerge from the facts and figures produced. One interesting comment had to do with the stability of the persons to whom corporal punishment was applied. The report says:
In general, the more stable the personality the less harm such punishment would be likely to do.
Of course, conversely, medical witnesses were agreed that if an individual already had a substantial element of resentment in his make-up, judicial corporal punishment would be likely to make it worse. Then, of course, there is the situation that the more stable the person the less harm such punishment is likely to do. The converse, of course, is true that the most unstable people, who surely represent the greater threat to society, would be affected in the opposite way. There is further argument and discussion contained in this report, all of considerable interest, relating to the question of just how the person involved would react to corporal punishment and, in particular, the so-called younger set. The report says:
We discussed this with our medical witnesses, who agreed that while this may be true of some youths, many others, far from being afraid, would accept the risk and exploit the punishment as a means of showing they were tough and could take it. Moreover, in order to maintain their status in the eyes of their associates, many who had received judicial corporal punishment would be likely to commit further offences to show that they had not been intimidated.
This is a fact which we cannot overlook in dealing with the psychology of the gang or juvenile delinquent groups in our society.
The report, of course, inquired into various areas of the commonwealth and different

countries in the world and found that in the main there was no important movement for extending corporal punishment or, in those countries which had abolished it, any important movement to have it restored. The arguments in favour of corporal punishment as a deterrent are developed and found wanting, and corporal punishment in relation to modern penological methods fails, of course, on its first application. Every movement we have made in our penal institutions and penal methods is moving away from this kind of approach. There are a number of other matters which come into the question, one of the more important of which is the problem posed by the delay between the sentencing and the carrying out of the sentence. The report concludes on this question:
We agree that the delay is the most serious practical objection to judicial corporal punishment.
The practical question arises of who is to administer this punishment whether it is by lash, or whip or strap. The policemen do not want to do it; the guards do not want to do it and, certainly, those involved in the rehabilitation aspect of prison life would not want to be associated with an activity of this kind, for after all, they are trying to develop a more positive social conscience in the individual concerned while offering some help on the road back to good citizenship. Perhaps the solution would be to hire a public whipping man, as we now have a public hangman, who would go from place to place, as travelling dentists and doctors do in our society today.
The report makes eight basic recommendations and I should like to run very quickly through them. I would remind members of the house again, that 77 per cent of the people consulted in Britain favoured the restoration or retention of criminal punishment. This committee, having examined the facts, came to the conclusion, in spite of that evidence of public opinion, that corporal punishment should not be reintroduced in Britain, and the comment is:
If that were to be done it would be putting the clock back not 12 hours but a hundred years.
Second, the present demand for the reintroduction of judicial corporal punishment seems to be limited to this country.-
Third, we consider that, in these circumstances, the reintroduction of judicial corporal punishment could be justified only if there was a reasonable assurance that it would substantially reduce crime and afford real protection to potential victims. We think that there cannot be any such assurance.
Fourth, judicial corporal punishment is out of line with modern penal methods and would militate against the success of reformative treatment, such as probation or borstal training.
The report goes on to deal in particular with some of the practical and constructive alternatives such as the physical expansion

of institutions, equipment, teaching and training, and an increase in the police forces in the various areas with a high crime incidence. This again is a constructive, logical and practical approach to the question.
Having already delayed the house too long, I would sum up by saying that it seems to be the pattern here and wherever this question has been argued and examined that public opinion in the main favours the retention of corporal punishment, but those groups that are confronted with serious study of the question and the evidence given by qualified persons in the many fields related to criminology inevitably come to the conclusion, which forms the basis of the proposition I now put to this house, that corporal punishment should be abolished in Canada.


Mr. C. W. Carter (Burin-Burgeo):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say a few words in support of this resolution. I shall make my remarks as brief as possible because I see we have only about 35 minutes left in this debate and I am sure there are many other hon. members who would like to participate. I would not wish to deny anyone who wished to make a contribution the opportunity of doing so.
I am well aware that there is a biblical injunction which says, "Spare the rod and spoil the child". I suppose there are some who would use that as a justification for the use of whipping in connection with crime. I imagine that it is possible for some to look upon the latter as an extension of the former. To me however, there seems to be no connection whatever between the two. The one was meant to be administered by a loving parent as a corrective measure for a person who had not yet achieved the age of reason or matured sufficiently to be able to reason things out for himself. The other is administered by society as a deterrent to crime. If there is any justification whatever for the use of whipping it must be as a deterrent.
The deterrent value of whipping itself is very much open to debate. Certainly it cannot be expected to have much effect upon individuals who have not yet achieved mental or psychological maturity. Even if we accept the argument that it does deter normal persons then we are arguing that the ends justify the means. I have not been able to accept that as a general rule. There may be certain exceptions to that but I have never come across any of them and in any case I feel it is not a very strong argument.
In matters of this kind I feel we should be guided by a higher principle. That principle is inherent in our concept of the nature
Criminal Code
of man himself, the principle of human dignity. Whatever deterrent value whipping may have for normal persons it does not lie so much in the pain associated with it as in the indignity to the person who has to undergo it. Human dignity is a quality each of us brings with us when we enter the world. So long as we are rational human beings it stays with us, regardless of what crimes we may commit. It would be a very sad state of affairs if the human dignity of a person depended on the varying judgments of the people around him.
This concept in my opinion goes to the very root of our society because it marks off the fundamental difference between our democracy and a society based on an atheistic materialism, the difference between a society based on the concept of the worth and dignity of the individual as a human being and a society built on the concept that man is nothing but a mere animal. Even in the case of animals, we have laws which would prohibit the use of such practices.
As a matter of principle alone-the principle of individual worth and human dignity inherent in man as a created being-I believe that this practice should be abolished. There is nothing at all sentimental about that. It is purely a matter of principle. I think we must make up our minds with respect to principles of this kind. Either we believe certain things or we do not. If we believe that a man, as an individual being, has dignity and worth within himself then the use of whipping for any reason whatever is a contradiction of that belief.
It is these contradictions that have hindered the spread of democracy in this century. People in other nations see that we profess one thing and practise another. I welcome this bill because I believe it asserts a fundamental principle of democracy and one that should govern all our legislation and practices.


Harold Edward Winch: support this bill, Mr. Speaker, and I congratulate the hon. member on again having introduced it. I am not supporting it because of sentiment; I am supporting it on principle and as a result of 25 years study of corporal punishment. The reason I support this bill is that from my experience of 20 years as a member of the British Columbia legislature and my eight years in the House of Commons I have not found any evidence whatever to indicate that corporal punishment, either as a judicial sentence or as a disciplinary measure inside an institution, has acted as a deterrent to further crime or helped to rehabilitate the individual concerned to a social life and a social consciousness.

Criminal Code
I should like to ask all thoughtful members in this house-and I am certain that every one is a thoughtful member-to note that Canada is one of only two countries in the modern and civilized world where corporal punishment can be inflicted as a judicial sentence. Canada is one of only three countries in the modern civilized world where corporal punishment can be used either as a judicial sentence or as a disciplinary measure.
I ask hon. members who are here, thereby evidencing their interest in this bill-and I ask the hon. member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McGee) to take note of this fact-to take this opportunity to wipe out one of the most archaic sentences existing in the civilized world. This matter is one which, if studied, will positively sicken you. How many hon. members in the house today have seen the board to which a man is strapped, either horizontally if he is to be paddled, or reclining if he is to be lashed? How many have seen a man with his feet fastened to the floor? How many have seen the paddle, which is a strap with holes in it, the purpose of the holes being to perforate the flesh? How many have seen the lash, the cat-o'-nine tails, with the nine strands of nylon cord? I have. I have been in the institutions and I have seen those boards. I have seen the paddle with the holes in it and I have seen the lash with blood on it. I have seen them. How many considering this matter have seen a man whose back has been lashed so that the blood is drawn and he is put in the penitentiary hospital for 10 days? I have seen these things, sir; the paddle, the lash, the board, the blood and the back.
We in Canada maintain that we are a civilized people. We maintain in this House of Commons-and we rightfully maintain-that we are spending millions upon millions of dollars to put in institutions those who commit crimes against society, for two purposes; to punish them for their crimes and to try to rehabilitate them so that they become useful members of society. What is the experience of those who have investigated this matter of whether corporal punishment deters from crime or rehabilitates prisoners as useful members of society? May I give one experience. A few years ago I went into a penitentiary in Canada and I asked the warden if he would call into his office everyone in that institution who had had the lash or the paddle. He did. I questioned every one of those men. If my memory is correct there were 12 or 13. Of those who had had the lash and the paddle, only one said that it did him any good. All the rest said it created a sense of antagonism, of violence, of hatred, of wanting to get back, not only at the individual who

had done it, not only at the warden and the magistrate who had ordered it, but at society which allowed it to be done. That was my personal experience in a penitentiary of Canada.
What I think perhaps is of more account is the report which will be found in volume II of the three year study by the joint committee of the other place and the House of Commons on capital and corporal punishment. In the appendix to volume II will be found the report of an interview carried out by our counsel in the city of Toronto with a number of men who had received the lash and the paddle, some of them many times. Some of them had been out of an institution for over 20 years, and they were asked whether the punishment deterred or not. If hon. members will read that report they will get the answer. They will find only two who said it did them any good. They will find in the report on the others words such as these- since many of these men are now well-known businessmen in Toronto initials are used. With respect to Mr. "A" we find the following:
He considered it had done him no good. He repeated several times that the strap had no effect in controlling his conduct. He did not want to give the prison authorities any satisfaction. He had gained prestige in the institution after having corporal punishment, particularly because he did not yell.
Again, we find this:
Corporal punishment was like strapping a person every once in a while to show him who was boss; it was no way to reform a man.
Hon. members can go through the report- I have it all marked-and they will see the reaction of those who were interviewed. What is the opinion arrived at? My own personal interviews with those in the institution and the interviews conducted by the counsel of the joint committee with those who had become rehabilitated, and who had received the strap, indicate to me that it did no good.
I want to add just one more statement. I wish to relate the experience I had in speaking to a man of his reaction to receiving the paddle many years ago. He thought he did not deserve it but he got it. His reaction was, "I wanted to kill the man who ordered it, and I will kill the man who gave it to me". This man told me himself that after discharge the first thing he did was to get a rifle. He went back outside the fence, and he had the guard who gave him the paddle in his sights, and he was just within seconds of becoming a murderer. The reason he did not become a murderer was that he had forgotten to take off the safety catch of the rifle and his pal grabbed the rifle away from him.
The evidence is conclusive that corporal punishment is no deterrent to further crime.

Criminal Code
[n the majority of cases it creates a reaction which is opposed to the purpose for which the House of Commons votes money, namely to try to rehabilitate as useful citizens those who have broken the laws of society. In these modern times, from the point of view of Christianity, emotion and sentiment I say that to the thoughtful man everything points to the conclusion that Canada should now modernize its criminal and disciplinary laws and, in the interests of decency, common sense and rehabilitation, abolish the use of the lash on the back and the paddle on the buttocks, i sincerely hope that before six o'clock all present will vote to support the bill introduced by the hon. member for York-Scar-borough (Mr. McGee).


Mr. Bell (Saint John-Albert):: I should like to ask the hon. member this question. If a person is now successful in business, let us say, and corporal punishment had been administered at some time during his life while tie was in prison, would it not be reasonable to suppose that, whether or not he admitted it, this might have had some good effect in bis rehabilitation?


Harold Edward Winch: I refer my hon. friend to the evidence in which it was said by all that it iield them back so far as rehabilitation was poncerned.


Thomas Miller Bell: Who said that?


Harold Edward Winch: Of all those who were interviewed by counsel for the joint committee, only two said it ever did them any good.


Thomas Miller Bell: But would it not be reasonable to suppose that they would lot admit that it had done them any good?


Harold Edward Winch: Their evidence was all given in confidence and I would think they were juite honest in their statements.


Mr. McCleave:: Would the hon. member identify the other countries where such punishment still exists?


Harold Edward Winch: One country is South Africa, the only country in the modern world where women can still be punished in this way and under certain circumstances, such as an attack on a guard, punishment of this sort can still be administered in the United Kingdom Eor disciplinary purposes.


Mr. W. C. Henderson (Cariboo):: Mr. Speaker, I take great pleasure in seconding the motion for the second reading of this bill to abolish corporal punishment. I have lever been in a penitentiary and have never seen a whip, so maybe I am talking of something about which I do not know too much.
However, in the first world war I was attached to a group from South Africa, and I know that if the negroes in the outfit had done something wrong they were hung up and lashed. I did not see them lashed but I saw them hanging there. They were tied to a cross and their backs were marked where they had been whipped. I think this is degrading.
As far as I am concerned I do not even like to see a horse whipped, let alone a human being. In fact, I am speaking the truth when I say that in Belgium after the war Canadian soldiers would go right out on to the street and pound the drivers of big wagons drawn by Canadian army horses because the drivers were whipping the horses which were hauling the loads that were too heavy. I saw that happen three or four times. As I say, I do not like to see a horse whipped, let alone a human being. It is degrading and I cannot see how any good comes from it because it only stirs up resentment. As the last speaker said, and apparently he knows what he is talking about, a man treated in this way gets murder in his heart.
We have been raised a little differently and I think we have been too long in doing away with such punishment. We should now abolish whipping. According to our teaching it is wrong and, whether we are Christian, Moslem or whatever we are, let us get rid of it by voting for abolition today.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Speaker, I took part in a debate on a similar bill in 1959 at which time I spoke in favour of abolition of such punishment. I do not propose to review, except briefly, some of the points I made at that time because I still maintain the same views. To those who may turn to the debates of that year, may I say that I quoted from the study of the British committee into the deterrent aspects of the use of flogging and the lash. It seemed to me and to those who made that study, I believe, that there was no deterrent effect whatsoever; that a person was just as apt to be a recidivist without the lash as if he were the type to whom such punishment was administered. The figures and findings of that study may be found in the debate of two years ago.
One point I should like to make this afternoon is that whether or not we pass this measure, and I think there are others who have views they would like to express, the fact remains that the use of corporal punishment is regarded as outmoded in Canada, and that can be proved by the statistics relating to those who have undergone such punishment. In 1959 the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi (Mr. Grafftey) pointed out that in 1931 about 12.1 per cent of those who

Criminal Code
were eligible to receive such punishment did in fact receive it and that by 1954 this figure had gone down to .6 per cent. If I may make a comparison in a different way, out of 500 prisoners who would have been eligible to receive corporal punishment in 1931 some 60 or 61 did receive it in that year, whereas in 1954 only three out of a similar group of 500 eligible to receive such punishment did in fact receive it. So the shrinkage is most apparent.
I also have great faith in the approach of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) to the whole problem of punishment and rehabilitation of the criminal. If the measure of the hon. member for York-Scarborough is not passed this afternoon, I am sure we can hopefully anticipate that something will be done in the not too distant future, perhaps next session if not later this session. This is only a personal hope but I know that the Minister of Justice, with his vast depth of humanity and his great interest in the proper carrying out of his duties, will take us off the hook, for we as civilized people must surely feel rather ashamed and guilty that we are among the very small handful of nations still using such methods.


Harold Edward Winch: One of three.


Robert Jardine McCleave: One of three, says the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch), who very kindly identified the other two in response to a question of mine a few minutes ago.
There is yet another point I should like to make and as it has been made before I will not press it ad nauseam. The use of the lash or flogging is apt to put a special brand, almost like the mark of Cain, upon the person who undergoes such treatment and, as previous speakers have indicated, it is apt to turn the punished person into a criminal seeking revenge. We heard the very graphic story of the hon. member for Vancouver East about the man whose first thought upon leaving the penitentiary was to purchase a rifle-


Harold Edward Winch: Reform school; he was only 17 years old.


Robert Jardine McCleave: -and to seek revenge. It was reform school. I thank the hon. member for putting me straight. A very important aspect to remember is that we can turn a criminal who might be helped into a savage animal. The support, if any support there is, that society gives to the use of the lash I think would be in regard to very special types of cases; not only the case involving violence on another person, but more likely the case involving a criminal who has sexually molested a little child. Here, when

speaking to members of the public one does find, especially if one is a parent or talks to a parent, the greatest abhorrence of this type of person and a feeling almost perhaps without reason, so terrified are parents of this type of person in society. I believe that in this area you would find the chief support for the use of the lash. My answer to that support is that such criminals obviously are very sick indeed and have to be cured by other methods. I do not think it would deter them for one single instant to undergo this savage and mediaeval punishment.
Finally, sir, I am not going to discuss the esoteric subject of the effect of spanking upon Toronto businessmen, but the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo (Mr. Carter) quoted the Biblical injunction, spare the rod and spoil the child. I think that the rod does have its place in society; there has to be a certain chastisement offered, but that is a prerogative of the home where the very young may have certain impressions made upon them by the parents who believe in the use of the rod. I think, however, when one reaches an adult stage habits are formed, and it is too late to start meting out physical punishment upon malefactors.
For these reasons, sir, and mainly because I do not think that the lash has any practical value whatsoever, I certainly support the bill of the hon. member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McGee).


Thomas Miller Bell: Mr. Speaker, this very important subject is being brought forward again by the hon. member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McGee), and there has been considerable debate on it in the past. I feel most of the speakers have been in favour of the bill, which is against corporal punishment. They have spoken in favour of abolition I think in the same manner as those who are against capital punishment. They seem to be emotional, as are those who speak against forms of capital punishment, but they are more vociferous. Perhaps there are admittedly more today who are against corporal punishment than there are against capital punishment. Nevertheless, there are still many who do not make their thoughts known in this chamber or outside and who still feel that we should in some way retain these two forms of punishment.
I do not have definite views myself, but I do feel that some of the expressions in favour of retention have not been put forward, except by the member for Calgary South (Mr. Smith) in the debate last year. The hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch), who is a very interested student of

penology and has been for some years, has delivered his informed but emotional speech. I take exception to the example he used of the successful businessmen. They were asked in the questionnaire that was sent out by the 1954 committee whether in their opinion corporal punishment had been of any value in their own careers. I suggest very seriously, Mr. Speaker, that these now respectable citizens would not admit or appreciate the fact, just as members of this house might not admit openly that school punishment had played a very important part in their careers. So the figures in those instances again do not give the whole story. It would be interesting to have figures, and I have not seen any, in respect of those who have not been successful; those who still follow a life of crime, to ascertain whether they had received punishment or not, to what degree, and the part it played in their careers.


An hon. Member:: Look at the report.


Thomas Miller Bell: I have spent a day studying the report, Mr. Speaker, and have not seen that reference, but it may be that there are some figures which I missed. I was impressed by the evidence that was given by Colonel Basher, who appeared before that committee in 1954 and was questioned at length about corporal punishment. Two or three of the points that were revealed at that time, and which I jotted down, were significant. The statistics may have changed slightly since then, but he said this only concerned about .44 of the persons in custody. He was asked from a psychiatric point of view whether there might be a different approach now as a result of this scientific, modern trend. He said that in his opinion some individuals need this corporal punishment approach which in itself is scientific. He also went into a great deal of discussion about juvenile delinquency, which is a very serious problem.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rea):: Order. It is now six o'clock.


Thomas Miller Bell: May I adjourn the debate, Mr. Speaker.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Chevrier:: Mr. Speaker, the business of the house was announced last night and I presume it is as was then stated. I should like to bring a matter to the attention of the house leader which has to do with the pension bill. We on this side feel that we would be prepared to take that on Monday and also expedite its passage because I understand there is a clause in the bill which, if there
Business of the House
is any delay, might make it awkward for the operative clauses of the bill. I wonder if the house leader has any ideas in that regard.


Mr. Nowlan:: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the hon. member for Laurier. It is desirable to get that pension bill through.
I announced it last night as being the third matter on the program for Monday and Tuesday. It might be advisable to deal with it earlier, although I understand that it will not be technically necessary. The minister will be in Ottawa tomorrow and I will inform him of the suggestion put forward by the hon. member. It may be that we can deal with that bill with relatively short notice on Monday or Tuesday. I believe that arrangements have been made for an amendment to the bill to correct the technical situation which might arise if the bill was not passed on Tuesday. In any event, I appreciate the suggestion of the hon. member.
There is only one change, Mr. Speaker, that I will have to make in the preliminary announcement which I made last night. At that time I said we would deal with the budget resolutions on Monday and go on with the
O.E.C.D. and pension bill on Tuesday.
It has developed that due to circumstances over which we have no control the Minister of Finance will not be in the house Monday night and so the business of the house will be subject to the pensions bill. We will proceed first with the budget resolutions, as I announced yesterday, until six o'clock Monday night. Then on resuming Monday evening we will take up item No. 8 on the order paper, a motion in the name of the Minister of Transport to set up a sessional committee on railways, air lines and shipping.
If that is concluded Monday night we will then go on to No. 11, a resolution in the name of the Minister of Agriculture. I think that is a possibility rather than a probability, Mr. Speaker. Then on Tuesday we will revert again to the order of business which I announced last night. In other words, we will deal with the budget resolutions, if they have not been completed. Then, we will deal with O.E.C.D. and the pensions bill, subject to this; that the pensions bill may be advanced, as the hon. member has just suggested it could easily be, over either of those two matters.
I might point this out to the house, Mr. Speaker. Last night, in giving a preview of what might happen during the week, I mentioned the estimates of the Department of Fisheries as a matter which might come up on Friday. I have since been informed that the estimates of the Department of Fisheries

Business of the House
have not yet been called, so I suspect we might run into some technical difficulty if we dealt with those estimates on Friday.
The house leader will be back in his place on Monday and we will deal with the business of estimates for the latter part of the week.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, the acting
house leader knows we have been asking to deal with the estimates of the Department of Labour for quite some time now. This would perhaps be an opportunity to do so.


George Clyde Nowlan: That is an alternative tha1 is always before us for Thursday and Friday.


Mr. Herridge:: Mr. Speaker, the members of this group are anxious to see the quick passage of the pensions bill for the reasons expressed by the hon. member for Lauriei and we are anxious to co-operate in any way possible.


George Clyde Nowlan: Thank you. We are always grateful to receive such co-operation.


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

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

Mr. Bourgei: 1.	During the months of April or May 1960, did the Department of Agriculture invite tenders for the delivery of 300 tons of coal at Grosse lie, Quebec?
2.	If so, what was the name of each tenderer, and the amount of each tender?
3.	To whom was the contract awarded, on what date, and at what price?
Answer by: Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of
Agriculture):
1.	The Department of Agriculture invited tenders for the delivery of 300 tons of coal at Grosse lie, Quebec, on May 27, 1960.
2.	The name of each tenderer and the amount of each tender is as follows: Canadian Import Company, Quebec city, $5,649; Paquet & Fils, Levis, Quebec, $5,694.
3.	The contract was awarded to the: Canadian Import Company, price, $5,649; date, August 11, 1960.
Questions


WHEAT AND FLOUR SHIPMENTS TO NORWAY
Mr. Boulanger: Following the agreement in August 1960 with Norway regarding storage of wheat and flour, how many tons of wheat and flour have been shipped to that country, and what was the turnover since this agreement was signed?
Answer by: Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary of Slate for External Affairs):
Twenty thousand tons of flour, there has been no turnover.


FISH PRICES, ATLANTIC PROVINCES AND QUEBEC
Mr. Robichaud: 1.	What was the average landed price paid to fishermen for fresh cod in the years 1945, 1950, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, (a) in New Brunswick (b) in Nova Scotia (c) in Quebec (d) in Prince Edward Island (e) in Newfoundland?
2.	What was the average landed price paid to fishermen for fresh haddock in the same years and same provinces mentioned in question 1?
3.	What was the average landed price paid to fishermen for fresh flounders in the same years and same provinces mentioned in question 1?
Answer by: Hon. J. A. MacLean (Minister of Fisheries):
Average prices paid to fishermen for selected species, by provinces, Atlantic coast, 1945, 1950, 1955 to 1960
-	1945	1950	1955	1956	1957	1958	1959	1960
			(In dollars per 100 pounds)					
COD								
New Brunswick	.. 3.52	2.22	2.56	2.49	2.44	2.94	3.17	2.87Nova Scotia	.. 3.51	3.24	3.36	3.40	3.10	3.36	3.75	3.45Quebec	.. 4.06	2.15	2.42	2.37	2.12	2.48	2.61	2.67Prince Edward Island. . ..	.. 3.71	2.01	2.67	2.94	2.05	2.29	2.88	2.75Newfoundland	(2)	(2)	2.19	2.23	2.17	2.12	2.33	2.63HADDOCK	New Brunswick	.. 3.99	6.68	4.06	4.31	4.92	6.15	6.10	5.30Nova Scotia	.. 4.52	4.96	3.48	3.42	3.63	4.59	5.09	4.38Quebec	-	-	3.56	2.83	2.87	4.66	4.84	4.14Prince Edward Island....	.. 6.56	4.92	3.03	3.58	3.86	4.46	4.64	4.62Newfoundland	.. (2)	(2)	2.70	2.68	2.27	2.32	2.39	2.32FLOUNDERS (1)	New Brunswick	.. 2.49	2.43	2.94	2.98	2.87	3.02	3.03	2.91Nova Scotia	.. 1.76	2.92	3.19	3.32	3.22	3.26	3.39	3.49Quebec	.. 4.32	2.71	3.10	2.82	2.93	3.15	3.18	3.00Prince Edward Island. . ..	.. 1.05	1.90	3.96	3.32	3.12	3.30	3.26	3.26Newfoundland	.. (2)	(2)	2.97	2.76	2.78	2.79	2.72	2.72(1)	Includes all small flatfishes.(2)	Not available.
Supply-Items Passed
[The following items were passed in committee of supply]:


PUBLIC ARCHIVES AND NATIONAL LIBRARY
[Stage Direction]
A-Public archives-
319.	General administration and technical services, $716,268.
B-National library-
320.	General administration, $269,281.
321.	Payment to the national library purchase account for the purpose of acquiring books, in conformity with section 12 of the National Library Act, $40,000.

[Stage Direction]
251.	Administration, production and distribution of films and other visual materials, $4,988,112.
252.	Acquisition of equipment, $172,380.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, February 27, 1961

[Stage Direction]
Third report of standing committee on veterans affairs-Mr. Montgomery.
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Flynn in the chair.
National film board-
251. Administration.
Production and distribution of films and other visual material, $4,988,112.
Walter George Pitman: I just want to say a few words about the national film board from a particular point of view. I think we in North America have a somewhat peculiar view of public agencies. We tend to regard them as likely to be havens of inefficiency, waste and mediocrity, filled with time servers. Indeed, one hears it suggested that they are the last harbour of retreat for incompetence.
In the national film board we have a government agency which derives its revenue, certainly in part, from the government, and which is responsible to parliament and therefore to the people of Canada. We know that its work could never be carried on by a commercial company, yet it is amazing to what extent this agency pays for itself. It sells its services to the extent of nearly $1,500,000, and its rentals amount to well over $500,000. Thus we must remember, when we consider the work of this agency, that parliament is not paying the whole shot.
Part of the work of the film board is to provide services for other departments of government. For example, if the Department of Agriculture or the Department of Trade and Commerce want a film made, the film board is asked to make it. I think one of the most heartening aspects about this government agency is the extent to which it has gained the confidence and won the enthusiasm of the people of Canada. One thing to be noted is that this is an example of a government agency which is not cold and impersonal, as we in North America tend to think government agencies should be. I think it is significant that this agency has gained an unique place in Canadian life, and because of this it has been able to distribute its films at only a fraction of the cost which a commercial
company would have incurred, since there are a large body of people who are willing to give their services to the board simply because they regard its work as being important to the community.
As a result of the wide distribution of the films made by the board, over 15 million people in this country have seen them either through school programs or community programs. The importance of the work of the film board to the departments of education can, in fact, hardly be rated too highly. If we include those people who have seen national film board productions by means of television, then of course the number would run into almost countless millions.
Another legend which seems to persist in North America is that the work of government agencies seldom rises above mediocrity. But, as was pointed out last night, perhaps the people of Canada do not realize the number of awards which the national film board has won by reason of the excellent quality of its work. The fact that the board has won seven of these awards throughout the world is something to be noted. It might seem that with regard to this aspect of our national life we just do not know how well our agencies are doing. We have discovered how to make films with a distinctive Canadian style. Canadian films are known because of the way they are made, and I think this shows that the flavour of Canadian life can be expressed through the medium of films. Through the films of the national film board developments in Canada have been made known in other parts of the world. This would indicate that the expenditure parliament is making on behalf of the board is worth while. I hope this will be an indication of what the role of government enterprise can be. Here is a public enterprise that is not competing with private enterprise but is giving business to and supporting private enterprise, and at the same time is making a tremendous contribution to Canadian life.
Here we have an example which shows that we can have an esprit de corps, a justifiable pride, in a public agency. Certainly the films of the board are produced with the highest degree of technical excellence. To the extent that the board changes the public image of government agencies, it is performing a remarkable service in Canada.
2394	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration


George Robson Muir: Mr. Chairman, the minister will recall that when parliament was opened by the Queen in 1957 the national film board filmed the proceedings. I am wondering in how many places throughout Canada this film has been shown and if it is still being shown throughout the country.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Mr. Chairman, while we are locating those figures for the hon. member, perhaps I may be permitted to make a brief statement. Hon. members will notice that for the fiscal year 1961-62 the national film board estimates show an increase of $287,258. The major factor is an increase of $166,395 for salary revisions and merit increases to the board's personnel. Other increases in the operational vote are $50,000 to provide for an extension of the board's production activities, and an increase in Canadian distribution costs of $14,848 resulting from the appointment of two additional district representatives, one in British Columbia and one in Saskatchewan. The sum of $17,254 will be required for additional service and wage increases to members of the Canadian corps of commissionaires. The acquisition of equipment vote shows an increase of $18,416. The balance of $20,345 covers a number of small items.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
252. Acquisition of equipment, $172,380.
Ellen Louks Fairclough: I still have an answer coming for the hon. member for Lisgar. The reply to the hon. member is that there were 464 bookings in moving picture theatres in Canada. The picture is being shown in the schools of Canada; it is shown in every part of Canada.


George Robson Muir: I want to thank the hon. lady for giving me the answer. The reason I asked is that I have had many inquiries from the schools regarding the procedure of opening parliament. I would hope that this film would be shown extensively throughout the schools in Canada.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I might add it is available on request.


John Russell Taylor: Has the national film board ever attended any international sporting event in which Canada has participated, and taken pictures of some of our Canadian athletes participating in those games?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I am told that the film board has never taken actual pictures of international competitions in which Canadian athletes participated abroad because they have never purchased the right to take those pictures, but the board does have pictures of sporting events in Canada. There is a


film which is in course of preparation-it is on the program for this year-which will deal with preparation for competition in the Olympic games.


John Russell Taylor: Just by way of further comment, I know that throughout the country there is keen interest in getting copies of films of such events as the skiing championships at Squaw Valley in which Anne Heg-gtveit participated. These films, if readily available, could be shown in schools throughout the country and I am sure they would be much appreciated. My point is, can consideration be given to the national film board at least making an effort to take pictures of some of our stars at some of these future international events in order that in due course those films may be shown here and thereby encourage other amateurs to participate as well?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: The film board will be very glad to consider this suggestion.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Public archives-
319. General administration and technical services, $716,268.
Edwin William Brunsden: Mr. Chairman, last evening your predecessor in the chair very properly suggested, since I had included books with art, that I should defer my remarks until this particular vote was reached. I should like to say, sir, that last evening's discussion on art was most illuminating to those of us who have had little opportunity to become more than casual observers in that particular field. Some excellent addresses were made; it is not my intention to single out any one in particular, but it was a cultural evening and was well worth while.
Under this particular vote I should like to speak very briefly on the national library. One of the compensations of being a new member of parliament is the access one has to the parliamentary library, the national library, if he so wishes, and the librarians. To those of us who come from far places the contacts we make are most valuable. As an aside I should like to pay a brief tribute to the parliamentary librarian and his staff. They are always most helpful. Like the rose, I am afraid they blush unseen; nevertheless we appreciate them.
I tried to say last night that my previous knowledge of the national library was very fragmentary. I was told at one time that there were two countries in the world without national libraries, Canada and Ghana. I have learned since that Ghana now has an admirable national library and I have also

learned-one learns constantly in Ottawa- that we have the nucleus of a very promising national library in Canada.
My plea is that the promise may be fulfilled. I think it was John Ruskin who once said that books are divisible in two classes, books of the hour and books of all time. Our national library and our archives are concerned with the books of all time. We have made a start, but we need a great deal of development if the national library is to come into full fruition. My information is that there are approximately 400,000 volumes under the control of the national library. It is interesting to note that this represents one book for every 45 Canadians. To me this is pitiful when we think of the tremendous sums of money we spend in other departments which have nothing to do with the development of the Canadian mind.
The national librarian has a very difficult task. He and his staff are working in cramped quarters. They are handicapped in their endeavour to expand the facilities of their organization by not having sufficient room in which to operate. We talk and have talked in the house for the last few years about the creation of a physical green belt. We are building a glorious national capital. My plea is for the creation of a green belt of the Canadian mind, and I hope the day is not far distant when parliament will see to it that in our physical green belt there is built a national library capable of housing the tremendous store of wisdom that has come down to us through the ages and which will enrich not only our own lives but the lives of future generations. Incidentally, I note that the next generation is well represented in the galleries this morning. Generations yet unborn will profit if we establish our national library on the basis on which some of us conceive it should be established.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, I was only too happy on this occasion to defer to the hon. member for Medicine Hat who began the remarks he has made this morning on another item in the estimates, and who has made what I think is one of the most useful contributions that have been made to our debates in this session of parliament. Without any reservation whatsoever I should like to congratulate the hon. member both for what he has said and for the way in which he has said it.
It does seem to me that we are taking altogether too long to provide the building which will house the national library. It is a very fortunate thing that for the past few years, since the National Library Act was passed by parliament, we have at least been accumulating some of the books that we
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration ought to be accumulating. I must say that I never before thought of the statistic the hon. member for Medicine Hat gave us this morning when he said that the 400,000 volumes belonging to the national library would represent one book for every 45 people in Canada. I must say I do not think that is one of the statistics I would be proud of, and I doubt if it will be put in that blue book of facts which has been published recently and which is probably not in the national library.
The plain fact is, of course, that until the national library has a real physical home it cannot expand in the way we would like to see it expand and the way it ought to expand. Until it has a proper physical home there cannot be the proper differentiation between the functions of the national library and the functions of the parliamentary library which it would be desirable to make both in the interests of efficiency and economy as between the two institutions. I do feel that it was desirable to let one of the supporters of the government have the initiative that is usually taken by the opposition on the estimates, in the hope that the observations made from this part of this side of the house might not fall on deaf ears but, coming from a supporter of the government, be received a little more sympathetically than otherwise would have been the case. I only wish that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance were not otherwise engaged at the federal-provincial conference so they could have been here to listen to what was said by the hon. member for Medicine Hat.
We do know, of course, that the site for the new national library is now occupied by No. 1 temporary building on Wellington street, which ought to have been torn down by this time. By doing so this energetic Minister of Public Works, who does a lot of talking about providing winter work, might provide a little more work this winter so the government could then proceed at once with the building of the national library. This should be done. I know the hon. lady can only use her influence with her other colleagues, that the decision will be made by the government as a whole, and particularly those members of the treasury board, on the initiative of the Minister of Public Works. At least we have the opportunity here of saying something about it, and I do hope, when the estimates of the Department of Public Works come up, the hon. member for Medicine Hat will urge the Minister of Public Works to get on with the job. From the way the hon. lady is nodding her head I think he will have her support in the cabinet, where there are secrets which she cannot reveal to us except by the expression on her face.
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Ellen Louks Fairclough: Possibly I might say a word about this subject. I agree with that which has been said and I thank the hon. members for their support. I too am disappointed that we have not been able to get ahead with the building before this, but possibly now that spokesmen in the house have expressed themselves I will have a little more support.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Mr. Chairman, I would like to take a somewhat different approach to that which has been taken in this debate so far. I feel that one should always be careful when speaking from a position of special knowledge, though I hardly claim as a librarian to have particularly special knowledge, but one of the points I would like to bring to the minister's attention is something I have noticed while making certain contacts with people. That is that when we have encountered historians and other people who work at the public archives, we find unstinted praise for the administration in the steps that have been taken and where expansion has taken place. Dr. Lamb, the national archivist, also happens to be the national librarian.
I cannot say I get the same reaction as I go around and encounter librarians and other people dealing with books. By this I do not mean that the criticism is nasty or vicious. I think everyone in the library profession appreciates Dr. Lamb's stature as a scholar, but there is a very definite feeling among librarians that the great ability which he brings to his role as archivist detracts from the part he might play as national librarian.
I was very appreciative, as I know were many people in the library profession, of the fact that the Prime Minister saw fit to appoint a trained librarian for the library of parliament. I have no comments to make about the person appointed, but the fact that we now have this recognition would, it seems to me, lead to the next step of the library profession in its move for recognition, and that is to have a national librarian whose training, background and interest is in libraries.
I cannot emphasize too much the favourable reaction to the work of the public archivist in the way he has expanded the types of service offered both in the library and in the manuscript sections. The microfilm facilities and that sort of thing are excellent. I think the scholarity community, especially in the fields of history and associated subjects, are very fortunate.
I would not like to suggest that the reason we have not a national library building on the way is that we have a man at the head of the public archives and national library who is in a dual function. I do not think


this is a factor, but I think librarians and people who are interested in books and the creation of a national library centre would feel somewhat happier if we had a national librarian separate from the archives.
I know this is possible. I can imagine the hon. member for Greenwood being prepared to argue that the main thing is to have a man who is a good administrator and yet has a sense of cultural values and an over all good education. I agree that this summation would apply very much to Dr. Lamb. The fact is that today there is no antithesis in library work respecting a person of a high education or intellectual status or scholarly attainments, but it is also a fact that more and more the whole organization of things in library work, as it tends towards increasing documentation, is a very specialized administrative field.
I think one of the greatest problems our society is running into lies right in this field of documentation and library work, how we are going to handle the great many records that are piling up in so many fields. I am afraid the national library is going to have a rather narrow collection, say in the field of natural science or applied science, but I am sure we can count on the national research council to provide us with a national library service in those fields. This raises the question as to what the fields the national library is going to cover and whether it is going to be primarily a documentation centre or will attempt to be the kind of large institution that has a basic collection of books in all the various fields.
I suggest that we might be 10 or 15 years behind the times if we aim to erect a huge institution built around a massive book collection. I think in Canada the emphasis should be upon keeping control of the records and books, building up a service of interchange of books, a cracker jack reference service and, through documentary control, keeping on top of all the flow of information that is pulsing into this country or in the country or about the country from anywhere in the world. That is perhaps the main challenge.
I suggest that it is into this field of specialization that librarians are moving more and more. There tends to be a picture in people's minds of a librarian as a man who reads books and book reviews and who can talk knowingly about general books that may be in a collection. As a matter of fact the best librarians-and I think we must acknowledge that the best librarians are mostly Americans -are in one sense extreme specialists in understanding techniques. I refer to punch-card techniques, I.B.M. machine techniques, the

whole business of control and making available information. The institutional kind of national library that is envisaged by many people could, I suppose, be built by a collection of one million or one and a half million volumes.
I wonder what the direction would actually be. We have a collection in Washington today of around the 15 million mark. There is a collection of between eight million and ten million books at the British museum. I have been in the Bodleian library in Oxford. At the time I was there they thought they had between five million and six million books, but they had fairly well lost control of this collection in terms of having it really available to users. The collection at Oxford that was actually available to users through catalogues and ready reference was at that time in the neighbourhood of only one million volumes. I am speaking of ten years ago.
The problem in these larger libraries is quite often, how do you get the service? I know at the Bodleian library you sometimes had to wait an hour or more for a book after you had discovered whether they had the book you wanted and where it was. The British museum is another case in point. I made inquiries there and found they had a magnificent collection and a wonderful service for scholars. They go out of their way, especially in reading room privileges, to help anyone who has a serious scholarly intent. Yet so little of their massive collection is really available. When you see the size of the collection that is available, you understand why this is so, because it is so massive.
The hon. member for Medicine Hat raised the point that we have 400,000 books within the scope of the national library. I do not know too much about the details, but I would doubt whether the national library has available in its present quarters more than 50,000 books catalogued and available. It would seem to me the main thing the national library has done, and we must give credit to the people who originated this, is that it has built up in effect a union catalogue of holdings of most of the academic libraries in Canada. This is what I mean by a type of documentation service, in other words the library acting primarily as a clearing house.
It seems to me that one of the things we are not really crystal clear about when the new building is launched is the range of the collection within the building, how big it is going to be. I think anyone in library work realizes that the initial cost of a book is really nothing in the long run if you have an institutional library. There is a changing pattern as to when the costs of storing a book match up with the costs of
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration buying the book, classifying it, cataloguing it and putting it on the shelf.
In recent years, with the cost of heating and staffing institutions, this point has crept down and down until I think it is recognized by most people in university library circles that within ten years after you put a book on the shelf it has cost you as much to keep it there as it did to buy it and make the preparations to keep it. In other words the space and storage problem is a gigantic one.
If anyone thinks the flow of books is a constant thing they should go and look at some of the books available at the library. They should look at the national library Canadiana, and they will see that in the field of publishing, as in almost every other field, we have a growth potential that has been almost constant. One of the other difficulties about this growth potential and the growth rate has been the fact that publications have tended to vary so much in their format. There is all the mimeographed and other material with which hon. members are familiar. We are moving further and further away from the conventional idea of the book as a hard covered thing, and this raises great problems with regard to storage. It is easy enough to perpetuate the life of a hard covered book, but what do you do about mimeographed briefs, paperbacks, pamphlets and other things which are accumulating so rapidly today and which take so much time to catalogue?
For these reasons I think the concept of our national library needs to be reiterated in terms of the job that library is going to do, and I would suggest that the almost ceremonious conception which many people have of the national library may be already out of date in terms of the use we may possibly have for it. I know it would be very stirring to have the kind of building to which you could take a class and go into a marble hall something like the printing bureau in Hull and see illuminated manuscripts on display. Perhaps we could get Magna Carta and some of the other exhibits of that kind which are on view in the British museum in London and display them.
A service of this kind is one which reminds children of their heritage, but does it really do anything for the serious person who wants to read and study? Does it really do anything when people are able to say we have that big pile of a building filled with a collection that is worth up to a million dollars and still growing, but we are not too sure what that collection is going to be used for and what direction it is going to take. I cannot emphasize too strongly the proliferation of material and the specialization in the field
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Archives, on the other hand, seem to me to be a much simpler proposition in terms of their use both by scholars and by ordinary people. They seem much closer to our history, our traditions and also to our future. The question here that interests and intrigues me, of course, is, for example, the length of time which must expire before records become free and open. For example, I am very much interested in the former member for Port Arthur. If I am ever in a position in the next decade or two to undertake the work, and if I have some available time, I would like to tackle a book or biography of this man. What about the records that he has turned over to the national archives? I quote this as an example. When are these documents to be available?
I think there is another problem which this government, particularly, has not faced; that is, giving some indication of what the members of this government plan to do with their records when their administration ends. We have never had a real definition of what is privy to a minister of the crown and what becomes, eventually, part of the public record and how long documents must form part of the public record before they are open to the scholars. I know that in Britain generally they have a 50-year rule. Sometimes this is waived, and at other times the material is held for longer than 50 years. Again, this is something in the field of public archives I should like to know something about as, I imagine, other scholars would.
There is an increasing interest which I encounter, and which I am sure other members encounter, in genealogy in this country, and here the national archives offers a service especially in connection with earlier census records. I wonder whether the archives or the national library or the national library reference centre should have this chore. I myself, again through personal interest, would like to know more of what could be done through a government agency, either the archives or the national library, toward building up an ability to trace descent not only here but in liaison with other countries. I know a problem which one of my relatives had was that of trying to trace relatives in England because of the variation in the records as between parish records before 1826 and records of births after 1826, which are usually kept in Somerset house, London. One day the Minister of Finance and I were talking and we discovered we probably had certain relationships in common two or three generations ago through families located in southern Ontario.


It seems to me that as we get older as a nation this type of tracing will attract more and more interest. I know the United States in this respect is far ahead of us in its feeling for history and looking back on family records of the past. This is an extremely important phase of reference work in the United States, and I think it is going to become much more so here. I should like to know what plans either the national archives or the national library may have to provide this particular service. I am not suggesting they are not doing a good job now, but it seems to me one can be quite positive that the demand is going to increase and that is going to mean more cost to the government. I should like to know what plans are being made for setting up a permanent service, with perhaps some definite central authority and some publications which explain how to go about the study of genealogy in Canada.
I had some specific questions I wished to ask, but in case other members may want to make some general remarks on this vote I will conclude and come back to the specific questions later.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I have a few brief comments 1 should like to make on this item. I should like to associate myself with what the hon. member for Bonavista-Twil-lingate has said about what we owe to the hon. member for Medicine Hat for bringing this question up. I do not think we have taken this seriously enough in the past. I have listened to the speech of the hon. member for Port Arthur, who obviously has a considerable knowledge of these things and has devoted careful thought to them. From my own experience I can say something about the dominion archivist. I know something of the extent to which he has diligently pursued historical documents and private documents which are known to be of historical interest.
My particular reason for rising is to say that I know the minister is sympathetic, and I feel that as a result of this sympathy we may be able to get this matter advanced. I understand there is no committee which is seriously considering this question now. I was greatly struck the other day on reading a book by Dr. Cyril James, president of McGill University, on a recent visit he made to Russia, and it almost frightened me to learn from his report that education in Russia is being taken much more seriously than it is here.
I asked myself some very serious questions. It was interesting to read that in Moscow, Shakespearian plays are often produced and are very well attended. Reading the other things Dr. James had to say, I was led to wonder if we are still continuing the pioneer instinct which built up this country but which

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did not make us feel that libraries are one of the practical or more important things in life. I am wondering if we have reached a stage where we have to do a lot of rethinking.
We have found that part of the reason for our present unemployment situation is that we have not trained our people well enough. That to me raises the whole question of broadening education. Therefore I wanted to make my small contribution this morning in the hope that those who know more about this matter than I do may be enabled to deal with this question, which has come to have an urgency and practical importance which we have not been inclined to attribute to it in the past.


Heath Nelson Macquarrie: Mr. Chairman, I should like to make a few brief comments. I was most impressed by the felicitous remarks made by the hon. member for Medicine Hat, and I agree with him wholeheartedly in what he said. More surprisingly, I found myself in almost complete agreement with the hon. and learned member for Bonavista-Twillin-gate, although I thought the hon. gentleman was a bit irreverent when he spoke about a certain blue and white book because we know, of course, that historic truth should always be cherished.
I think we must urge upon the minister the pushing forward of the structural aspects, shall we say, of the national library; but, like the hon. member for Greenwood, I would rather concern myself at this juncture with the public archives in the study room of which I have spent many hours. I am tremendously impressed with the great work Dr. Lamb and his associates have been and are doing. It is extremely important that a good job be done in the national centre, because many scholars have often found that in the smaller areas throughout the provinces there is a regrettable lack of facilities of an archival nature. Therefore leadership must be given at the national level, and Dr. Lamb and his staff in my opinion are giving that leadership in a splendid way.
I quite agree with the hon. member for Greenwood on another point. I think it is sadly true that we Canadians are not an historically minded people. Probably we are not very education minded either. Perhaps this is a hangover of the frontier spirit which causes us to look upon some of these things with the eye of the Philistine.
I think of the dearth of writings concerning our great men which was mentioned by the hon. member for Port Arthur. When we leave the west end of this building we see a fine painting of Canada's fourth prime minister, Sir John Thompson, a man uniquely
qualified for leadership and who in his short career made history as an outstanding statesman, yet we find no work written about him other than what was written in a eulogistic way shortly after his tragic passing in 1894. There are, however, Thompson papers, which though not ample should, of course, be more widely and intensively used. There are two aspects to this type of situation. We must collect the papers of these great men, and we must do more about having historic research made upon them.
I believe the hon. member for Port Arthur is quite right in expressing concern about the restrictions on the records. If I had any criticism to advance with respect to the public archives of Canada I would say that they err on the side of being too restrictive with respect to the records. In that respect I feel they compare rather unfavourably with the United States in these matters. It is not every public man, of course, who like the late Mr. Arthur Meighen will leave his papers and say, "Here they are, unrevised and unrepented; so they stand for my lifetime and after". I believe that scholars should not be held too long from the papers of the men who made history. We must encourage those who are bringing about the opening up of the records of our past. I think it is up to us as national legislators to contribute in every way we can to the furtherance of this important measure.
There is one point I should like to commend to the minister. I think the study room in the archives, the one that is open 24 hours a day every day of the week, is a most splendid institution. I have often been troubled in visiting various parts of the country to discover, when I have arrived for a long week end, that I cannot have access to the records at all because everything is closed. The example set by the public archives in Ottawa is most commendable.
Before I resume my seat I should like to say once again that the staff of the public archives are most competent and courteous. While I do not believe the staff is large enough or that their facilities are adequate I would like to say on the basis of my personal experience over many years that they are, under the circumstances, doing a most excellent job and I commend their thoroughgoing devotion to the minister.


Walter George Pitman: Mr. Chairman, would the minister tell us whether the historical collection which is to be found in the archives building on Sussex street comes under the estimates relating to the public archives?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Mr. Chairman, I did not catch the name of the collection. To what collection does the hon. gentleman refer?
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Walter George Pitman: The historical collection which takes up three or four rooms is the collection to which I referred. Does this come under the estimates for the public archives?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Yes, Mr. Chairman, that is quite correct.


Walter George Pitman: I wish to say a few words about this collection. I think it is very important in that it is unfortunately the outward expression of the archives to the Canadian public. I believe there is perhaps a confusion of purpose in this building. I think archives are concerned with historical documents and should remain so. Perhaps the collection in the Sussex street building should concern itself with a display of documents from Canada's past in a tasteful and conservative-with a small "c"-way. In this way it would perhaps better serve its purpose than in its present form. At present a number of historical objects of an unrelated and incongruous nature are grouped together.
The national library and archives in Washington, D.C. provide a good example of what can be done in this field. I hope the minister will allow me to criticize in this area. I have supported other areas under her jurisdiction, and perhaps she will permit me to criticize this area. I have never seen a more incongruous or ill-assorted collection of paraphernalia in my life than exists in the historical collection on Sussex street. That was my impression on first visiting the building a few years ago with a group of young people. A historical collection with some kind of pattern, theme or continuity would make a better impression on the minds of young people than a confused collection. I realize that this is an infinitesimally small part of the work of the archives, and I appreciate the tremendous work that is being done in other areas of its jurisdiction including the work it does for scholars, but unfortunately the historical collection is what most Canadians see when they go on sightseeing tours in Ottawa.
For purposes of illustration let me refer to one of this group of rooms in the Sussex street building in which the historical collection is housed. In one room I found a replica of the Vimy war memorial, the colours of the militia of 1775 in an incredibly filthy case, a model section of Ottawa showing improvements-obviously the model was old and the improvements have been executed- a model of the parliament buildings, a model of a ship, the T.T.S. Lady Nelson, a model of a boat used in an Arctic exploration by Stefansson, a great mass of Indian and Eskimo material and a collection of photographs of early generals and lieutenant governors. There was absolutely no pattern whatever.


One of my colleagues has suggested that the collection comprises historical junk, but I would not go that far. I would say, however, that it does not give a clear picture of what the archives does. On the basis of a visit to the historical collection I am sure no young person would have any idea of the clarity that characterizes most of the work of the archives behind the facade of this confused historical collection.
It can be done. When I visited the archives I was interested to note an exhibit of Canada 200 years ago. There you have an example of a display which has a theme. You can follow this theme. You can see very clearly something of what Canada was in 1759, at the time of Wolfe and Montcalm and the siege of Quebec. I would bring this to the attention of the minister. I do not think the outward expression of the archives is of the best. I would hope that possibly something much more acceptable could be put forward to the public of Canada when they think of the Canadian public archives.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Mr. Chairman, possibly I can deal with the remarks of the hon. member for Peterborough first. The miscellaneous room to which he has referred is intended to touch upon names and events which are familiar to school children. Experience has shown that it is very successful for that purpose. The other room to which the hon. member has referred has been refitted. It had been intended to refit the first room, but it has been such a popular one that they have left it for the time being.
A number of comments were made here this morning, and I thank hon. members for the serious consideration which they have given to this subject.
With reference to some of the remarks made by the hon. member for Port Arthur, I might say that the functions of the archives and the national library dovetail to a degree. That makes it quite natural that one person should head the two departments. Since I believe the hon. member has left a rather unfortunate impression with the committee I may say that no one has been more insistent on the need for an early start of the new building than the national librarian. I know the disappointment he feels over the fact that the building has not been made available with the required space. Owing to lack of space the library has not been able to begin the collection of periodicals and other serials on a large scale.
The other considerations which the hon, member mentioned are being kept carefully in mind by the national librarian, but I should tell him that no attempt at all is planned for a huge, all-inclusive, comprehensive library. As a matter of fact the

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national research council and the defence research board together, we feel, are filling adequately the needs of science. I may say we have watched the services of those two boards and considered the way in which techniques should be extended to the social science fields in particular with regard to the library. The national librarian is very well aware of that and of the complex body of materials referred to as documentation. I might just add that the library purchases consist almost entirely of reference works for a basic reference collection; that is, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, bibliographies, indexes, and so on.
Another field in which purchase has been made is that of books relating to Canada which are published abroad. Then there is a selection of current books published in Great Britain, France and the United States that appear to have fairly long term value for reference purposes. Special purchases are made when the opportunity offers, and I might mention a purchase of which we are very proud which was made recently, namely that of the Scholes music collection. As hon. members may know, this is a particularly fine nucleus for a music library, a collection made by Percy Scholes, who was not only a very fine musical scholar but a historian of note. We are most fortunate in having this collection in the national library.
In addition, I might just add that all our acquisitions do not come through purchase; many rare books and collections have come to the library either by request or gift. The Howe papers have been referred to by two hon. members. I might tell the committee that those papers are still the property of the estate at the present time, and although we have hopes, the conditions of access have not yet been determined. I do not know how many members of the committee realize that the archives is open 365 days of the year, 24 hours a day. Scholars may investigate to their hearts' content there, having made arrangements with the archives for research which they wish to do, at any hour of the day or night.
One other matter was touched upon, on which I should like to make comment. I refer to the comments with reference to establishing and making available service in the field of genealogy. This is a very expensive service, and most libraries and archives have had to curtail such service owing to the costs. At the present time the archives searches census returns up to 1871, old land records and early military records. 1 might add that the archives itself does thousands of searches every year.


Douglas Mason Fisher: The hon. lady said that I may have left or created an unfortunate impression. I think she must refer to the suggestion that because Dr. Lamb is not a librarian but is merely an archivist-that is, in the professional sense of the term-he has not pushed as hard for the national library as he might have. I am afraid this is an impression which I have encountered among some librarians, especially those at a distance from Ottawa. I would not like to feel that I left that impression, because I can just imagine it was quite a bit of heartbreak to Dr. Lamb when the national library was not proceeded with.
I should like to make a couple of comments upon the genealogy service. The minister has indicated briefly that it is a very expensive service. I am quite aware of this, and also of the fact that many people tend to think that if they fire off a letter to the government service or even to their member of parliament they should be entitled to a great deal gratis. I know I had a letter the other day from a man who evidently wanted me to provide him with publications totalling in value around $60 or $70. Evidently he just assumed that this was a government publication and that he could get it. But I think we must spell out more publicly, that is to say by way of public relations in the face of increasing demand, just what can be provided in genealogy terms because, with respect to so many people in Canada, once you get back several generations you have to move overseas. There should be some kind of attractive plan to make that type of publication available to our people who want to trace sources in England and in other countries in Europe from which so many Canadians seek their ethnic trail.
We have had a big hassle over the census form this year; we have incurred an expenditure of $170,000 to provide forms so that we can take care of the sensitivities of one group in this country, and it appears we may have outraged some of the feelings of another group. To answer the question in the form is going to require our chasing the ethnic trail on our fathers' side, and I know how difficult it is going to be; but the irony is that as Canada gets older and we become more stable, more and more people are going to be interested in tracing back their ancestry, and I just thought that in finding one's way through the maze of genealogy this particular agency, either the archives or the national library, would be able to give a great deal of help in at least setting out sign posts.
The minister has indicated that the national library is interested in documentation, and I should like to give a specific example. I have been bothered that the Canadian library association has to go before the Canada Council to get a grant to produce
2402	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration the Canadian index, which I think the public archivist or national librarian will concede is a most important reference tool. I think he will also concede that it is typically Canadian and cannot be sold on any remunerative basis to cover the total expenses.
For the last several years it has been supported substantially by the Canada Council; yet we have been told by the head of the Canada Council, both the late Mr. Claxton and Dr. Trueman, that there is no intention on the part of the Canada Council to make this a continuing thing, that the set-up of the council is not such as to permit a whole block of its funds to be gradually nailed down for recurring expenses. This is a popular form of documentation and indexing, but it is immensely useful and at the same time there is no possibility of the service becoming selfsustaining. It is very much a public service.
What contribution can the national library make to this particular indexing; and, since this is a Canadian indexing service, why should it not be the kind of responsibility that the national library undertakes? In essence Canadiana is performing this function for the more permanent kind of publication and the Canadian index of periodicals is, of course, our means of keeping up to date with what is going on in all the periodical publishing fields in Canada. If the national library were to undertake this kind of chore, which seems to be properly within its function, I suggest that it should expand the index so that it will provide the kind of over-all service in the publications field that is not being provided at the present time by the Canadian library association.
The minister has said that the duties of archivist and national librarian dovetail very naturally. In an administrative sense this seems reasonable. I would assume that Dr. Lamb is primarily an administrator, but the point I was trying to make to the minister was that librarianship has become an extremely specialized field. In the field of documentation there is a complexity and a growing experimentation, I might say, in an effort to keep on top of records, and this is one of the outstanding developments of our times in the academic and research fields.
I suggest that the function of the archivist is much different, because archives by their very nature are confined in the main to records of the past and, in the present day, confined properly to public records of the past. While there are common problems in respect of cataloguing, indexing and control of these things, I suggest that librarianship has become more specialized, and that is why I personally feel that the whole field of librarianship would gain through having as


head of the national library a man who was a librarian and who was at the administrative pinnacle in that particular field.
The last point I wish to touch on in these remarks has to do with the suggestion of the minister that the conception of the national library collection has already been well worked out, and there is to be no overlapping in the field of science with the defence research board library or the national research council library. This is fine in that particular area, but I should like to know what is being done about the collections in other Ottawa offices. One of the problems that drives me up the wall as a user of the library of parliament is that when you go there and want a technical book on a specialized subject the library does not tend to have it. It has what I think is a pitiful collection in the economic field, particularly in connection with our resources in the field of forestry and allied fields. If you will take a ruler I think you will find that the books in the field of forestry cover 48 or 50 inches in the library of parliament. This is all the information that is available when we go looking for something to help us to deal with the problems that arise and try to help these industries.
This is all very well as a criticism of the library of parliament. You can go there and ask for a book in this particular field. They say that the forestry branch has an excellent library in this field and that they will get the material for you. I will concede that it does seem unreasonable to place within the library of parliament a specialized or extended collection on forestry and all these other fields for the use of maybe 265 members of parliament or a fraction thereof when just seven, eight or nine blocks away there is a magnificent, well indexed collection on forestry in a library staffed by people who know its contents intimately.
The very same criticism applies to the national library and its scope. Dotted across Ottawa we have these various government libraries. The economic research branch of the Department of Labour has a fairly extensive collection. In fact its collection in this field is a topnotch one. The Department of National Health and Welfare has a good collection. Fairly strong efforts are being made to keep these collections up to date and on a continuing basis, and to provide current reference service to the administrators. Service is also provided to the general public and members of parliament.
As a consequence of these departmental libraries in Ottawa, the spectrum of knowledge is fairly well covered. I will not say it is completely covered, but there is this coverage. What sort of overlapping are we likely to get in the national library? Is there

a plan to take much of the older material from these collections and put it in the national library? The minister suggested in her reply that the concentration was going to be in the field of social sciences. What does she mean by "social sciences"? Just how embracing is that? For example, is Canadian literary history a phase of social science? What kind of collection of novels is planned for the library? Is the library going to concentrate upon Canadian publications, or is it going to be concerned with the best that has been thought and said in the literary field?
I should like to know whether the national library is going to specialize in the collection of federal and provincial records and publications, or is it going to collect those of the commonwealth or of the world generally? Is it planned to have a supply of the "Congressional Record" on hand? Is the national library going to take over responsibility for the collection of all United Nations publications? I should like to have these questions answered in order to have some idea of the collection that is going to grow in the building we are going to have some day.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: In answer to a couple of the comments of the hon. member, I might say that ever since the library came into existence in 1952 it has published the Canadian index of periodicals and documentary films. I think the hon. member regretted that there was no such publication available. It has been published every year.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Not by the national library.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Yes, by the national
library.


Douglas Mason Fisher: The Canadian index of periodicals?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: The annual Canadian index of periodicals and documentary films has been published every year by the national library since 1952, when the library first came into existence.


Douglas Mason Fisher: What publication is it that is issued by the Canadian library association and supported by the Canada Council?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: The Canadian library
association compiles and puts out monthly mimeographed editions. The national library puts these together into a comprehensive index which is an accumulation of the monthly editions.


Douglas Mason Fisher: While I am concerned with the Canada Council paying a considerable part of the cost for this particular service, my question was directed to why this cost was not taken over completely by the national library. I am sorry I missed recognition of
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration that part so far as the cumulative publication is concerned, but I realize, as I am sure the minister does, that the main cost concerns the actual indexing proportion. The cumulative portion is mainly printing, and the charge is not great. If it is not the case that a very large contribution is being made by the national library, I would like to know how much more it would cost for the national library to take over this complete service.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I cannot make an estimate of the additional cost. This is a matter that can be considered and possibly will have to be considered one of these days, but at the present time the information is not available. This whole problem covers a wide field involving many considerations, and I do not think that in a short space of time I can enumerate them all. If the hon. member would like a report in this regard I would be glad to have one prepared.
I might add also, with reference to his comments regarding the information being scattered around, that it is all catalogued, as he probably knows, in the union catalogue which is the key to all the libraries and the books therein. I was wondering as a result of some of the remarks the hon. member made whether he has ever visited the national library.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Mr. Chairman, the reason I would like to know very definitely the role the national library thinks it should play is that we are going to have the Canada Council before the public accounts committee in a few weeks, and I feel that the Canada Council is trying to keep its recurring expenditures and grants as low as possible. If it is seriously considered that the national library could fill this role, it would then follow that there would be more Canada Council money available for scholarships and other things.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I think the best solution to this problem is for the hon. member to consult the national librarian. I understand he has never done that. If he would make an appointment to call on the national librarian I am sure he would be glad to supply the hon. member with the information that is available, and I am sure this would serve his purposes.


Douglas Mason Fisher: The minister made the point that I had never consulted the national librarian. There are a tremendous number of people whom I think all members of parliament would like to consult, but it is very difficult to get around to them all. I feel that members make an attempt to focus their attention on questions and suggestions in so far as the expenditures are concerned, and

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration I suppose primarily we should be interested in cutting them down. I was not trying to suggest, as my earlier comments will show, what in effect might be a cutting down of the whole thing by creating a grand institutional library. I am quite pleased to hear that this is not being conceived. If I can break it down more particularly to Ottawa libraries, I know there is a union catalogue; I also know that libraries are growing all the time, and that union catalogues go out of date. It is a large job keeping them up to date.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: The hon. member is quite wrong. This catalogue is kept up to date all the time.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Yes, I know that the catalogue is kept up to date all the time, but I was going on to say that this takes considerable time on the part of the librarians both in regard to storing the books and in having the index prepared. What I am trying to get from the minister, and I would appreciate a statement from her not at this time but in the future perhaps in letter form, is how the libraries in the public service in Ottawa are going to dovetail in with the national library. I am not speaking in terms of a catalogue that will be kept by the national librarian, but in terms of the actual coverage and placing of books. Because we have a national health and welfare library, will everything in that field be primarily the responsibility of that department and not that of the national library except in so far as indexing or cataloguing is concerned? Will this also apply to the Department of Justice library in the supreme court building, which I understand tends to be a growing one? I would like to know what the liaison is in this field which prevents duplication.
The point that intrigues me is that if these departmental libraries build up their collections in a good way, as I assume most of them are doing, they finally will reach the stage of competition with the national library in terms of its collection because, as I suggested earlier, the government of Canada in its libraries is covering almost the whole spectrum of publications except perhaps in the literary or historical field.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Charles Edward Rea: That completes the estimates for which the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is responsible. We now go to the Department of Agriculture, vote No. 1. This vote will be found on page 4 of the blue book; the details are on page 93.


DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
[Stage Direction]
Administration branch-
1. Departmental administration, including advisory committee on agricultural services, $991,098.
Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, in presenting the estimates of the Department of Agriculture for the fiscal year 1961-62 I should like to point out that the summary and the details of services reflect certain organizational changes which have taken place.
During the past year responsibility for the Canadian wheat board and the board of grain commissioners was transferred to the Minister of Agriculture. Also during the year the forest biology division of the research branch was transferred from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Forestry. The total to be voted to the Department of Agriculture in these estimates is $122,202,953. This includes the amount required for the board of grain commissioners, which is $6.5 million.
There is, of course, no estimate provision for the Canadian wheat board. However, the amounts shown as authorized by statute include $49 million for payment of carrying costs under the Temporary Wheat Reserves Act and $920,000 for the provision of interest free cash advances to western grain producers. These items were previously carried in the estimates of the Department of Trade and Commerce. The amount to be voted, plus that authorized by statute, comes to a total of $172,181,953. The corresponding figure for 1960-61, as shown on page 2, is $205.7 million.
This latter includes the figure for the present fiscal year for the board of grain commissioners for carrying costs of wheat reserves and for advance grain payments. It does not include the amount voted in 1960-61 for the forest biology division. The amounts and details shown for 1961-62 and 1960-61 are therefore drawn on a comparable basis and reflect the requirements for and expenditures on the activities now conducted under the Department of Agriculture.
The committee may be interested in a broad break-down of the $122.2 million among the main categories of departmental activities. The amount required for research is $28.8 million, which is 24 per cent of the total. The administration of legislation requires $32.4 million, or 28 per cent of the total. This covers the wide range of legislation administered by the department, including the grading of farm products, animal and plant health, the Canada Grain Act, the Prairie Farm Assistance Act and the Agricultural Stabilization Act. For rehabilitation, which includes P.F.R.A. in western Canada and

M.M.R.A. in the maritimes, $27.2 million is required. This is 22 per cent of the total. Grants and subsidies require $31.2 million, which is 25 per cent of the total.
The main item in this category is freight assistance on western feed grains, for which $20 million is provided. Included in this category also are quality premium payments on hogs and cheese, lime assistance, grants to fairs and exhibitions and to agricultural organizations. The balance of the vote, some $2.6 million, is required for departmental administration, which includes the economics division.
The committee will note that the amount to be voted in these estimates is $40.5 million less than that granted for the 1960-61 fiscal year. The figure for the present fiscal year, however, includes supplementary estimates to date, the largest item in which was the $42 million for western grain producers' acreage payments. Excluding that amount, these estimates show an increase of $1.5 million over the amount provided for the year ending on March 31.
It will be noted in the details that there are increases in some votes and decreases in others. The largest category of increases is for salaries, which are higher by $7.6 million, due mostly to increases in salary rates. The actual staff increase provided for next year is the equivalent of 73 positions, which is six tenths of 1 per cent of the present staff total. The next largest increase, of almost $2 million, is in the vote for construction of works under land rehabilitation. This is accounted for by greater activity in the construction of the South Saskatchewan dam. In fact $2.6 million more will be required for that project in 1961-62 than was required in 1960-61.
I may say that construction of the dam is proceeding at a satisfactory pace, and on schedule. Stage 1 of the embankment has been completed and stage 2 is nearing completion. Work is proceeding on the downstream diversion tunnels. Contracts will be let shortly for the upstream diversion tunnels and for stage 3 of the embankment.
I think I need not take the time of the committee at this stage to go into details of individual items of expenditure. I know that many hon. members of the committee will be interested enough to discuss these subjects under the respective votes. I do wish to say a word about farm income. In any analysis of farm income in recent years it soon becomes apparent that after the war we were in what can be described as a sellers' market. This was the period of reconstruction in Europe; this was the period of the Korean war. Since about 1953, and possibly starting with the calendar year 1954, we have entered
Supply-Agriculture
into a buyers' market. Our Canadian industry and Canadian farmers are now faced more than ever before with the crash of competition.
I thought the committee might be interested in seeing just how we were making out in increasing farm income in this period of the buyers' market, or this competitive period which we are now in. I have put together some figures obtained from the dominion bureau of statistics. These figures give total cash income, which does include supplementary payments by the federal government.
I am going to read these figures by calendar years. Perhaps some hon. members will wish to copy them down, so I will read them slowly enough for that to be done. In 1954 the total cash income was $2,378 billion; in 1955 it was $2,384 billion; in 1956 it was $2,647 billion; in 1957 it was $2,575 billion. If one adds these figures together and works out the average, the average total cash income for farmers in Canada for those four years, the first four years of the buyers' market, comes to $2,493 billion. The figure for 1958 was $2,873 billion; the figure for 1959 was $2,808 billion; the figure for 1960, which is not yet final from the D.B.S., was $2,861 billion. If you add the last three figures you will find that the average total cash income for each of those years was $2,847 billions.
Therefore the conclusion which can be derived from this analysis is that during each of those three calendar years there was an increase in the total cash income to the farmers of Canada amounting to more than $350 million. I think this does indicate in some measure the efforts of the government not only to stabilize farm income but to increase it.


Hazen Robert Argue: May I ask a question at this point? Does the minister have any figures or statistics showing the increases in the cost of production over the same period of time?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I will deal with that later on when I deal with net income.
The full picture cannot be appreciated until we examine how many farmers there are. There has been a steady decline in the farm population for many years now, so I will give the figures of the number of farmers and then relate them to income. In 1954, in round figures, there were 594,000 farmers in Canada. In 1955 there were 584,000; in 1956,
575.000	and in 1957, 565,000. If you average the number of farmers in those four calendar years the figure comes to approximately
580.000	during that four-year period of the buyers' market. In 1958 the number of farmers is estimated at 555,000. In 1959 the figure is
546.000	and in 1960, 536,000. If you average the number of farmers during that three-year period the figure is approximately 545,000.

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Now, if one takes the average number of farmers in the first four years of this seven-year period of the buyers' market and divides this income among those farmers, the figure of cash income for the years 1954 to 1959 inclusive is $4,303. If one takes the numbers of farmers for the three-year period 1958 to 1960 inclusive and divides the income for the same period among those farmers, the income per farm comes to $5,214. Therefore, comparing the four-year period 1954-57 with the three-year period 1958-60, there is an increase in cash income amounting to $911 per farmer.
It is obvious that this increase in cash income per farm is due, first of all, to the efforts which we have been making to increase farm income and, second, to the fact that there is a smaller number of farmers. By placing these two sets of figures in juxtaposition one can draw, I think, fairly sound conclusions.
Having put on record those figures which deal with total cash income, I should like now to deal with this question which has puzzled farmers for 25 years, namely why it is that farmers do not receive what they call a fair share of the national income. It is not too easy to find some group in our economy which is comparable with the farmers. The only group I can find which seems to give us some basis of comparison comprises those who are engaged in unincorporated non-farm business. So, from the dominion bureau of statistics labour force survey, I am going to put some figures on the record which I think will show how we are making out in our deliberate policy of seeing what we can do to bring farm income up to a fair share of the national income.
The figures I intend to quote now are net farm returns per farm. In 1954 the figure was $1,792. In 1955 it was $2,376. In 1956 it was $2,836, and in 1957 it was $2,133. Adding and averaging, one gets a figure which shows that during this four-year period of the buyers' market the net income of farmers was $2,284. But one should compare this with the income of non-farm unincorporated business. In 1954 non-farm incorporated business received, on the average, $2,883. In 1955 the figure was $3,162; in 1956, $3,341; in 1957, $3,351. The average for this period received by non-farm unincorporated business was $3,184 as compared with $2,284 by the farmers. Put as a percentage of farm income, and relating this to the net income of the non-farm unincorporated group, the farmers received 71.7 per cent of the income received by a reasonably comparable group.
Looking at the figures for the years 1958 and 1959, net farm income in 1958 was $2,891 and in 1959, $2,643. Naturally, we have no

figures yet for 1960 and we shall not have those figures for some time, but those two years I mentioned give an average of $2,767. Non-farm income has been increasing as well in the last two years. In 1958 it was $3,563 and in 1959 it was $3,619, or an average for those two calendar years of $3,591. Expressing these figures as a percentage of net farm income, as related to non-farm income, the percentage for the last two years is 77 per cent. Therefore during the last two calendar years of the buyers' market as compared with the four previous years of the buyers' market, farm income as a percentage of nonfarm income for a comparable group has risen from 71.7 per cent to 77 per cent.
I have been looking at the figures for the first three quarters of 1960. I suggest that when the figures are finally calculated for the calendar year 1960 they will reflect this same upward trend in percentage. Therefore, even though the gradual gain in farm net income as compared with non-farm net income is obvious, it indicates that at the rate we are going it will take about ten years to bring farm net income up to the same percentage level of non-farm income. I put these figures on the record to make clear just one fact, that I do believe we are closing the gap, and this was our intention.
I think it is necessary for me to point out that when one analyses the farm income of this country product by product and region by region, it soon becomes clear that the most variable area is the prairie province area. It soon becomes clear also that the most variable commodities in rate of return are the grain products of western Canada. Therefore it is clear that any government in charge of the selling of wheat, oats and barley has as a first duty to press forward in every way possible to increase the sales of western grain.
I need not tell a committee composed of hon. members knowledgeable with respect to the relationship of eastern and western agriculture that if western Canadian grain is not sold in export markets, the pressure on farmers in every part of the country grows. Therefore it is in the interests of farmers in every part of Canada to closely examine the efforts of the government in the selling of grain in the export market. I do not intend to make any predictions as to what the final total sales will be during this crop year, but I do intend to say something about the efforts we are making to sell grain. I am of the opinion that a good deal of credit goes to my colleague, the present Minister of Veterans Affairs, for the efforts he made through the wheat board in making direct contact with our main customers and in moving into what I call the new market areas

to establish the preliminary contacts to make known the type of wheat we have and its particular qualities that would be an advantage to those countries if they used it. This means there has to be a concerted sales effort. In addition to the general approach of the salesman, we must have a concentrated attack on all the problems that are associated with the selling of this product.
It has become very obvious, I believe, that if we are to continue to sell our flour and wheat in some areas of the world we are going to have to exert every effort at all levels to establish flour mills in those countries and provide the bakeries and demonstration units that must be associated with them to get the maximum consumption of bread in countries that have not used bread before.
We are in full course on this program. It is not going to be easy, because we have competitors in the sale of grain all around the world who have the same idea. We have individual promoters in various countries that are actively seeking the same type of opportunity as individuals or groups. However, it will be of interest, I know, for the committee to be aware that we are in full course on this policy ourselves.
Another point I should like to mention in this connection is that it is now very obvious that there are other things for which wheat can be utilized besides the traditional product, bread. It is no secret that thousands of years ago wheat and barley were used as a staple diet not in the form of bread. In many countries of the world where the tendency to turn to the use of the new product, bread, is slow, it might be possible for us to sell wheat ready for human consumption closer to the natural form.
I want to close off in the next few minutes after making known to the committee what we are doing with respect to another aspect *of our sales efforts. Starting January 1 we set up under the Canadian wheat board a technical services and market research division, the objectives of which are as follows:
1.	To assess at first hand the raw material requirements of the wheat consuming industries in all the potential and actual wheat importing areas of the world.
2.	Where it appears likely that Canadian wheat or flour may be used to advantage in such markets, to work with the consumer industries to the end that they become aware of the advantages that can accrue from the use of such wheat or flour. In areas where the consuming industries are already adequately aware of the advantages offered by the use of Canadian wheat, to maintain close liaison with industrial and government technical personnel to ensure the maximum dis-
Supply-Agriculture
semination of technical information and know how, concerning Canadian wheat and flour.
3.	To establish and maintain technical liaison in the areas of grain handling, wheat breeding, quality assessment and milling and baking in those countries which export wheat, or which could become exporters of wheat, of a type potentially competitive with any of the various grades of Canadian wheat.
4.	To establish liaison with government officials and scientific personnel in underdeveloped countries which might develop in time a bread eating habit. To offer assistance, in these areas, in the establishment of cereal laboratories and in setting up quality criteria.
5.	To write, edit, translate and publish such bulletins, pamphlets, press releases, etc., as appear useful in support of the objectives listed under item 2.
At the head of this new division we have a topnotch cereal chemist, a young man. We have as his assistant an expert on Canadian milling. Serving under them will be four or five younger men with multilanguage ability who will learn the techniques of Canadian milling and the chemical properties of our grain and will be able to deal directly with these countries in their own language to make our present and potential customers aware of how they can use Canadian wheat to better advantage. I think this is the type of thing a corporation would do in selling its products through familiarizing the consumers with the best uses of the products it has available.
I thank the committee, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to run over the normal hour of adjournment for a few minutes. If hon. members will bear with me for another few seconds I will conclude these remarks.
I cannot, as Minister of Agriculture, let this occasion pass without expressing to the committee and to the country my deep concern and anxiety over what would happen to our growing wheat export sales if there were a major rail strike at a critical time during the movement of grain to tidewater, particularly on the west coast. The consequences to the western farmer would be nothing short of catastrophic. I appeal to labour and to management to approach their responsibilities in the full realization of the public interest involved.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 2.30 p.m. (Translation):
Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Chairman, following the remarks made before the lunch recess by

Supp ly-A griculture
the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hamilton), when he submitted his department's estimates, I wonder what will be the reaction of the Canadian farmers and, particularly, the farmers of my province.
He quoted figures about the net income of farmers in order to prove that their position in 1960 is better than it was in 1954 or in 1955. But he made no mention of the cost of production index, nor of the spread between production costs and prices of agricultural products; he did not mention farm markets, imports, exports, nor did he refer to the question of butter, hogs and eggs. He did not deal with the Agricultural Stabilization Act, particularly with regard to western grain, in spite of the promises made in 1957 and in 1958.
The minister said that in the main estimates for 1961-1962, certain items had been transferred to the Department of Forestry and so on, and that the estimates of the Department of Agriculture showed an increase of $1.5 million for the fiscal year beginning April 1, 1961. The main items he mentioned refer to research, where the increase reaches 24 per cent, to administration, with a 28 per cent increase, and to expenditures resulting from subsidies, which went up by about 25 per cent. He added that the cost of implementing the rehabilitation and irrigation program has increased by 25 per cent.
It all looks very interesting when only increases are mentioned. But he did not deal at length with the decrease in certain items. However, we shall have the opportunity to raise this matter while these estimates are under consideration.
In the field of agriculture, as well as in the fields of trade, finance, taxes, unemployment and several others, the over-all situation is such that the farmers are losing confidence in their government and, what is more serious still, are losing confidence in their profession. Who would not lose confidence after the fabulous promises made in 1957 and in 1958 by the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) and his candidates when comparing them to the actual facts?
We recall the promises made during the 1957 campaign by the Prime Minister himself when he said in Toronto:
We shall provide farmers with their fair share of the national income by a price support policy for farm products which will be related to cost prices.
And he added:
(Text):
Parity not charity.

(Translation):
During the 1957 session, which preceded the 1958 election, the government saw fit to introduce a bill aiming at the passage of an act for the stabilization of the price of agricultural commodities.
The preamble of that act was of course very promising; it read as follows:
Whereas it is expedient to enact a measure for the purpose of stabilizing the prices of agricultural commodities in order to assist the industry of agriculture to realize fair returns for its labour and investment and to maintain a fair relationship between prices received by farmers and the costs of the goods and services that they buy, thus to provide farmers with a fair share of the national income:
Therefore, the government-
However, after the 1958 election, we saw the government repudiate its promises. Here is the evidence. When, on February 23, 1960, the Liberals moved a non-confidence motion which was in accordance with the preamble of the Agricultural Stabilization Act, 172 Conservative members voted against the motion. In doing that, they voted against their own legislation, against the principles incorporated in that legislation the object of which was to provide farmers with their fair share of the national income.
There are several signs which show that farm income went down in 1959 and 1960, as compared with 1958, the year we were obtaining the full benefit of the legislation passed by a Liberal government.
Mr. Chairman, I will now give figures which do not tally with the ones presented by the Minister of Agriculture this morning, although they are from the dominion bureau of statistics. I quote:
As a matter of fact, the cash Income from the sale of farm products, including payments made under the different acts providing assistance to western farmers, totalled $2.8 billion in 1958, $2,786 billion in 1959 and $2,783 billion In 1960.
We have therefore a continuing reduction of income, in spite of all the legislation passed since 1957 in an effort to stabilize farm income.
If the supplementary payments that are provided under the legislation passed in favour of the western farmers are substracted, we find that the decrease is in the amount of $160 million.
As a matter of fact the cost to the Canadian taxpayers for meeting the commitments under the farm legislation was $77 million in 1960, $22.1 million in 1959 and $60.1 million in 1958.

Moreover, while the farmers were receiving less for their products, they were not paying less for the commodities and services they bought.
The Minister of Agriculture should have told us what has been the increase in the case of commodities and services bought by the farmers these last years.
If we take a basis of 100 for the period 1935-39, we see that the index of goods and services purchased by the farmers in 1956 was 247.6. It went up gradually and in 1957, it was 255.9, in 1958, 259.9, in 1959, 269.5 and, for the first three quarters of 1960, it was 274.4. That means that since 1956, this index has gone up by 26.8.
Let us take now the index of agricultural products sold on the farm. Using the same basis, we see that in 1956, that index was 234.6. It went up in 1958 and in 1959 but went down again during the first 11 months of 1960 to reach 234.7 or nearly the 1956 level.
Therefore, we see that the cost of goods and services purchased by farmers has gone up while the sales price index of farm products is at the 1956 level.
How many times have we heard that the Conservative government would give the farmers the share of Canada's wealth to the production of which they co-operated?
But what is even more serious is the fact that the government and more particularly the Department of Agriculture has just announced in the farm review for January 1961, that the 1961 income would remain at the 1960 level.
When will this government keep its promises? When will it give parity, not charity? When will it put back in each farmer's pocket the $120 that the Liberal government took from him in taxes each year?
Now, I should like to quote what the Minister of Agriculture stated recently to a group of dairy farmers of Canada at a meeting held in Vancouver.
I want to quote these few words to show how the statements of the Minister of Agriculture in this house can differ from the ones he makes elsewhere.
Here is what he said:
(Text):
The purposes are, first of all to take out the ups and downs and to stabilize prices; the second purpose, in so far as products consumed in Canada are concerned, is to use this as a platform on which we can begin to build up the returns to agriculture so as to give them a fair share of
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the national income or, in other words, moving towards parity of income. This is not charity- this is using the legislative power to give the farmer some of the protection that the other segments of the economy have had. You all know what I am talking about.
The working man has the protection of provincial legislation which sets the minimum wage. He has the protection of the tariff for the goods that he produces for the home market. He has the protection of unions if he works in an organized industry where the union bargains to make sure that he gets his share of the national income. The farmer has not got this kind of help. The businessman also has the protection of a tariff if he is producing for the home market. He has the right to set his own price on the basis of cost, plus a reasonable return. The farmer cannot do that and outside of a few places and commodities where the marketing boards have been used as a bargaining agency the farmers, generally speaking, cannot secure that type of protection.
So what the government has done here is to take advantage of the fact that the federal government is concerned in the future of interprovincial marketing. We have tried to build into the system that act which for the first time is beginning to attack this problem of instability of prices, and to use prices as a device to support and, if possible, raise income.
(Translation):
Since 1957 we have been hearing remarks of that kind from our ministers.
What do they want to say? After the results achieved in farming in the last four years, the remarks of the new Minister of Agriculture today should amount to more than so much hot air. Indeed, the minister should have told the producers to what extent they will have to contribute toward economic activity in the years to come.
Mr. Chairman, I would now like to address myself to the situation of feed grain deliveries in the eastern areas during the summer, until the closing of navigation. We learned in the newspapers that from August to the end of the navigation season, in the harbours of Montreal, Quebec city, Baie Comeau and others, a number of ships were waiting in line for two, three and even four weeks in front of elevators full of grain, particularly wheat for export. Those ships could not unload their cargoes, and there was no feed grain on the eastern markets.
In the meantime, our farmers were having all sorts of difficulties in getting supplies, and when they could get them they had to pay a high premium. Now, this shortage of feed grain on the eastern markets, was due to a decision of the Canadian wheat board to ship only export grades to eastern ports. Incredible losses of the order of $1,000 to $3,000 daily were suffered by ship owners, not to mention the loss suffered by farmers

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who saw their operating costs increase on account of the higher prices they had to pay for their feed grain.
Although the oats crop will be considerably increased this year over last year, the Canadian wheat board charged 84J cents a bushel for October oats, compared with 60 cents a bushel paid to western producers, at Fort William.
The feed grain requirements in the eastern areas amount to more than a hundred million bushels a year; and from October to the end of the navigation season, close to 50 million bushels must be shipped to fill the requirements for the winter months. There is not much publicity about this 100 million bushel eastern market, but when a few million bushels are sold abroad, the publicity machine of the Department of Agriculture starts rolling at once. Because of the lack of interest shown by the Canadian wheat board and the government, the eastern farmers will have to pay $300 more per carload for moving their grain than it would have cost them if that grain had been moved by ship at the proper time.
Another consequence the farmers will have to bear will be the one resulting from the discriminatory policy carried out by the board and the government since a decision was made last December 28. May I recall the words used by the Prime Minister himself in a speech made in his home town of Prince Albert, when he said: "From now on, the western mills may also buy their oats, barley and wheat in their own provinces, directly and on the open market, at lower prices than those asked by the board for the domestic market in the east."
Unfortunately for the eastern farmers, he stressed the fact that his government was not taking any position which might be the slightest cause of trouble for the board.
With these words, the Prime Minister gave a blank cheque to the grain mill owners, allowing them to organize for integration. Indeed, with the considerable amounts which they have at their disposal, they will build chicken ranches, pig farms and even packing plants and ultimately take over from the farmers in this country. Then, they will be able to pay their own price for their grain without considering the wheat board or the grain producers.
It is strange that the prairie farmers, who always supported the Canadian wheat board,

should have asked for an authorization to sell their grain without being subjected to the regulations of the board. Since then, they get prices 50 per cent lower than they were getting through the board. Today, they are selling their surplus to the grain mills, to other elevators, to other livestock producers, or else they have to increase the number of their animals to use up their grain.
I should like at this point to deal with two particular areas of the province of Quebec which are affected by feed grain prices, the lake St. John and Chicoutimi areas.
I deplore the fact that the hon. members for those two regions are not in the house to learn of the situation which prevails there.


William Heward Grafftey: There are not many Liberal members in the house at this time.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: This matter should also be of interest to the hon. member for St. Jean-Iberville-Napierville (Mr. Dupuis), and yet he is absent.


Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Chairman, Canada's subsidy legislation contains rules that are detrimental to certain regions. I will explain how that is so.
To show the difference in transportation costs paid by the farmers who buy grain, I have chosen two points equally distant from Quebec city.
A freight rates analysis shows that the rate between Quebec and Roberval, a distance of 188 miles, is 36 cents. On the other hand, for the same distance, or almost-189 miles -from Quebec to Bic, the rate is 32 cents during summer and 42 cents during winter, or an average of 37 cents.
At this time, the rates between Roberval and Quebec, and Bic and Quebec are identical, to a cent or so, but when we take the grants that are paid towards grain transportation, we notice that the Roberval area receives 43 cents per hundredweight while the Bic people get 67 cents in summer and 68 cents in winter.
Mr. Chairman, that enables us to see the difference between the grain rates in two areas equally distant from Quebec city, and it shows that the lake St. John farmers are at a disadvantage.
Mr. Chairman, I could quote other figures for the towns of Normandin and Mont Joli, which are located respectively at 219 miles and 217 miles from Quebec city, as well as

figures for Chicoutimi and Mont Joli which are located respectively at 228 miles and 217 miles from Quebec city.
Mr. Chairman, I suggest that the minister should make a survey of the freight rates and tell us in a not too distant future what he intends to do in order to give justice to the lake St. John and Chicoutimi farmers.
In fact, those farmers should be treated on the same basis as those of the rest of the province of Quebec.
The farmers in both these areas have accepted huge sacrifices to remain on the agricultural map of the province of Quebec. They have kept abreast of technological advance, improved their farms, set up cooperatives, and particularly a co-operative packing plant which made it possible to process on the spot meats to be distributed in the area. They have invested millions of dollars, and if their situation does not improve soon, it will become untenable.
It is only with great efforts and sacrifices that those farmers have been able to establish organizations which are the pride of the area.
If they are to preserve the millions of dollars invested in their organizations, it is logical that the government play its part now and treat those farmers in the same way it treats the other farmers in the province.
What I feel can fairly be asked on behalf of the farmers in the province of Quebec is this:
1.	The same grain transportation grants for farmers of Saguenay and lake St. John areas as the grants now being paid to the farmers in the other parts of the province.
I wish to point out that transportation costs have increased from 25 cents per hundred weight in 1939 to 66 cents, while those in western Canada did not increase correspondingly.
I think the responsibility to make up for the C.N.R. deficits does not rest with the farmers of Quebec, and especially not with those in the Saguenay and lake St. John districts.
2.	That the co-operatives, the mills and the farmers should have free access to the feed grain market of western Canada, on the same basis as the western mills. That they should not be compelled to negotiate with the Canadian wheat board.
In the United States, the grain trade is free. The producer may sell to the government or on the market. That is why he can compete with the Canadian market, specially in the poultry field.
(Text):


Edwin William Brunsden: Would the hon. member permit a question?
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Samuel Boulanger: No. After I have finished. (Translation):
American corn is sold for more than 10 per cent less than the Canadian corn number 5, in spite of a custom duty of 8 cents per bushel and the absence of any transportation grant.
(Text):


Charles Edward Rea: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.


Hazen Robert Argue: Let him finish.


Charles Edward Rea: Does the committee unanimously consent to the hon. member continuing?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
(Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank the members of the committee for allowing me to complete my remarks, and I can assure you that I shall be rather brief.
If the government does not want to agree to a free market, let there be increased assistance to transport of grain to the east, in order that producers may be on the same footing as those of the prairie provinces.
3.	A representative of the east, qualified to explain and defend the eastern farmers interests, should be appointed to the executive of the Canadian wheat board.
4.	A grain transport co-ordinator should be appointed to look after supplying eastern farmers at the proper time, so as to spare them the extra cost of rail transport during winter.
5.	Demurrage cost on cars which are not unloaded 48 hours after their arrival should be removed, as is the case for cars remaining on the tracks at Fort William.
Since the Conservative government has been in power and prior to the ministerial reshuffle last fall, the fate of agriculture in Canada has been in the hands of a prime minister, of a minister of agriculture and of a minister of trade and commerce, the three of them representing prairie provinces. Their dream, and that of the present Minister of Agriculture, was to make of Canada the paradise of farmers. They have made promises but they have not kept them. If we look at agriculture today we realize that the small farmer did not get the promised parity, but merely charity.
(Text):


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, when the hon. member was attacking the Canadian wheat board I wondered about this one fact. Does the hon. member think that

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the Canadian wheat board has any control over the marketing of oats and barley in eastern Canada?


Samuel Boulanger: I know that when farmers in the east want to buy grain they have to go to the wheat board and pay about twice what feed mills are paying right now in the west.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I think the hon. member may have misunderstood my question. I wonder whether I could be permitted to correct the record at this time. The Canadian wheat board has nothing whatever to do with the sale of domestic grains in eastern Canada. This is a function of the private grain trade, which includes the co-ops in Quebec. It is their responsibility to buy oats and put them into terminal elevators to sell to the eastern farmer.
The wheat board has a part in so far as it is the board's grain moving through channels to export, but so far as domestic grains are concerned the wheat board has nothing whatsoever to do with them east of Fort William.


Samuel Boulanger: When farmers in the east buy oats, barley or wheat, why do they pay twice what the feed mills in the west are paying right now?


William Heward Grafftey: That has nothing to do with the question.


Edwin William Brunsden: Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question? He has deplored the lack of a free market for grain. As I followed his remarks, he was speaking in a national sense. I should like to ask him if it is his belief, and the belief of his party, that the Canadian wheat board should be abolished.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, I am a little surprised that the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska is not rising quickly to reply to this very important question, since he is of course considered the official spokesman of the Liberal party-


An hon. Member:: He is No. 2.


Hazen Robert Argue: -on agricultural questions. My hon. friend, the No. 2 man, is something of an interloper.


An hon. Member:: The hon. member for Essex East is No. 1.


Hazen Robert Argue: No, the hon. member who has just spoken is No. 1. It is just that he gets pushed around once in awhile by the soya bean expert, the hon. member for Essex East. I listened with a great deal of interest this morning to the speech delivered by the Minister of Agriculture. There is certainly a great difference between the kind of speech made
[Mr. Hamilton (Qu'Appelle) .1
by the present Minister of Agriculture, and its manner of delivery, as compared with those made by the long term minister of agriculture of the former administration. This morning, the Minister of Agriculture spoke in quiet and deliberate terms. One would almost have thought one was listening to a very elementary lecture on economics as they affect the agricultural situation. The former minister of agriculture, of course, always spoke in a very loud voice, with great energy and with a glass of water in his hand. He fortified himself very frequently with water as he kept making his points.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Which former minister?


Hazen Robert Argue: I am referring to the minister of agriculture in the former administration. I said "the long term minister in the former administration", and I referred to the Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner. As for the present Minister of National Defence, I would not wish to go over the experience he had as minister of agriculture, but he was not a water drinker. The present Minister of Agriculture used a great many statistics this morning. The former minister, the Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner, was a master in the use of statistics and he used a great number of them whenever he spoke. But I think the present minister has put the former minister to shame. I think my friend Jimmie Gardiner would look like a backrow student who had just entered kindergarten compared with a professional like the present Minister of Agriculture as far as the use of statistics is concerned.
One would never think this was a minister speaking for the Conservative party which used to talk in such eloquent terms about parity prices, a fair share of the national income and an improvement of the farmer's position, or that he was the spokesman for a party which used to talk so eloquently on behalf of the small farmer. Now things have changed. What we got from the Minister of Agriculture when he opened these important estimates was not a review of the government's agricultural policy nor a projection of the prospects for agriculture in the years to come but, rather, a discouraging review of very deplorable conditions in this industry. The most significant figures which the minister used, in my opinion, were those which reflected the decline in the number of agricultural operators and they showed how quickly the small farmer is being pushed to the wall under this administration, as he was under the former administration.
I was surprised that the present Minister of Agriculture did not review this thing which they used to call the farmers' charter of rights, known about the country as Bill

237, under which farmers were to get this parity of income and receive by way of deficiency payment technique the kind of support prices for which they have been asking for so many years.


Edwin William Brunsden: On a point of order, the hon. member for Assiniboia has used two terms-"pushed to the wall" and "parity prices". I should like to have definitions of those two terms.


Charles Edward Rea: That is not a point of order.


Hazen Robert Argue: Some members around here learn slowly. The odd one never learns at all.


Some hon. Members:: That's right.


Hazen Robert Argue: Under this great charter of agricultural rights the farmer has not been faring well, and I think it was significant that the Minister of Agriculture did not refer in his discourse this morning to the effect of the prices stabilization act upon the prices which have been paid to the farmer. I was, of course, for many years a sharp critic of Mr. Gardiner because the average prices established under this legislation were not payable, as some of us felt they should be, directly to the producer, or they were not guaranteed to the producer. Instead, they were paid to the packing companies and the farmer had to deal with the packing companies and do what he could to get from them the established floor. The deficiency payment technique has provided little assistance to agriculture producers because there is no certainty about the way in which the legislation operates. There is no certainty that a farmer who receives less than the stated average national price will recover his losses. As a matter of fact, his chances of recovering those losses are very poor indeed. No deficiency payment has been made in respect of hogs, yet in at least three months, February, March and April, prices less than the stated national average were received by producers who marketed hogs in those months and such people have in fact incurred a very distinct loss which they have no hope of recovering.
This type of so-called support has been used in connection with the marketing of eggs and as in this field I suggest it has been a very dismal failure from the standpoint of the producer. If, as the present Minister of National Defence used to say, one of the purposes of this type of support was to reduce production at times when there appeared to be a surplus, then it has been successful. However, the reduction has been brought about by paying very low prices to 90205-6-153J
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producers and by providing nowhere near the national average price for all the eggs farmers have sold.
I have in my hand a report from the Department of Agriculture showing egg prices paid to producers on a Tuesday of each month at Regina and this shows that in January, 1960, the average price for grade A large eggs was 16 cents. In February, it was 15 cents, in March 26 cents, in April 29 cents, in May 24 cents. These are the lowest prices that have been paid at that point for a great number of years, perhaps since the war years. If one takes these prices for the year and averages them, one finds that the average price for grade A large eggs is approximately 29 cents a dozen. Yet in 1956, the last full year before this government came to power the average price on the same basis was 38 cents a dozen.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Have you got the figures for the balance of the year?


Hazen Robert Argue: I have to be fair and say there was a deficiency payment made. According to the Canadian federation of agriculture bulletin it works out at 2.4 cents on the average for the year. If one takes that 2.4 cents and adds it to the average I have put on the record today one finds that the producers have lost six cents a dozen or even more under this kind of support policy as compared with the prices they were paid in 1956. The whole point I am making is this. Under the present policy followed by the government there is no floor, no certain assurance-


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, would the hon. member-


Hazen Robert Argue: I have the floor and I intend to keep it until I have concluded my remarks. The minister may then ask all the questions he likes. I was saying that under this policy there is no certain floor under eggs or hogs. It is the rough average method with the deficiency payment technique which may result in no payment being made even when prices are below the floor or there may be a tiny payment as was the case with regard to eggs. The present government is a Conservative government-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


William Heward Grafftey: Progressive Conservative.


Hazen Robert Argue: It has its own philosophy. It is a belief in the free market system. The government has followed that belief consistently. It has dumped hogs and eggs on the competitive market without a floor. There is no indication that step by step other products that have been stabilized for a long time

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will not be put on the open market at great expense to the agricultural producer.
I think it was significant that the minister made no reference to butter. According to the hints we receive there will be some changes, and butter will be subjected to the deficiency payment technique. If that technique is applied to butter, I hope it will be used only in conjunction with a floor price and not as an average price so that the producers of butter may have a certain guarantee instead of this nebulous, will o' the wisp assurance that is contained in the so-called prices stabilization legislation.
I offer no objection to this as a policy so long as the government does not lower the return to the producers by putting butter in the same category as eggs and hogs, thus helping to bring about the ruination of the butter producer.
There have been some agreeable indications in recent days of additional sales of wheat being made to certain countries of the world. These are welcome and I hope these additions to our regular markets may be maintained.
I believe the minister will agree that some of these sales, and particularly the sale to China, was in the nature of a windfall or extraordinary sale. China faces a famine situation and is unable to buy from the United States the grain she requires. Because of the famine condition and the attitude of the United States with respect to the sale of commodities to that country, Canada was successful in making sales in that market. I am pleased about those sales, but a great deal more must be done to bring about increased grain sales if we are to have any hope of adequate sales on a longer term basis. What has been going on is not so good as to give the government great cause for joy. I have in my hand the last published statistical summary of the board of grain commissioners, dated February 15. It shows overseas clearances of wheat this year to date to be 141 million bushels as compared with 138 million bushels last year, a moderate improvement. Examining other sales, we find that the sale of barley has dropped by an amount greater than the increase in wheat sales. Barley exports have been reduced from 20.6 million bushels to 6.2 million bushels.


James Stanley Speakman: What is our surplus of barley?


Hazen Robert Argue: If one takes the overseas clearances for all grains to date this year one finds they have been 157.3 million bushels as compared with 167.6 million bushels last year, a total aggregate drop of 10 million bushels.

The minister said the situation was not satisfactory. This year it is even less satisfactory than last year in terms of our accomplishments to this point.
It has been said, and I think accurately, that grain is sold through what might be called a pipe line and that in order that a producer at the extreme end of the pipe line may feed his grain through, the grain obviously must come out at the other end. There is a very accurate relationship over a period of time between farmers' marketings and sales of Canadian grain.
Farmers' marketings are reflected with some variations in the quotas that prevail. The quotas prevailing in western Canada today leave much to be desired.


James Stanley Speakman: Thanks to the grain
handlers' strike.


Hazen Robert Argue: The grain handlers' strike had precious little to do with the worst set of statistics relating to Manitoba. After all, Manitoba is on the eastern side. I received a bulletin on February 22 indicating that as of February 8, 160 points in Manitoba were still on a 1-bushel quota as compared with 121 points last year at the same time. There were 153 points on a 2-bushel quota compared with 116 points last year. Last year the number of points on 3-bushel quotas and 4-bushel quotas were much higher than they are this year.
Saskatchewan, as of this date, still has 99 points on a 1-bushel quota and 661 points on a 2-bushel quota. Alberta, where one would have expected this great disaster to have had the worst possible effect, is at the moment in a better position than Saskatchewan or Manitoba in that only 6 points are on a 1-bushel quota; 168 points are on a 2-bushel quota, and 373 points are on a 3-bushel quota.
I plead with the minister to exercise every effort before the end of the crop year to equalize the quotas for grain. The minister knows as well as I do, and perhaps even better, that his area has suffered in the past with respect to delivery quotas. His constituency and mine are on the apex of deliveries, as it were. In some years we cannot take advantage of the eastern deliveries and in others we cannot take advantage of the western deliveries; we have to wait to the last. This has been difficult for producers in our part of western Canada.
The farmers' union has put forward a substantial point deserving of consideration by the minister. They ask that there be a guaranteed quota delivery. The guarantee should be such that if the wheat board is unable to take delivery by the end of the crop year then the difference could be paid

to the producer for the grain on his farm. If an 8-bushel quota were guaranteed, as was requested, and a farmer at a given point could market only a 6-bushel quota the board should be prepared to buy the difference on the farm in the farmer's storage. The board could then take its own good time in moving out the grain in the days ahead. By this method some equality would be established in the marketing of grain. I suggest that equality is needed and is long overdue.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Did we not
equalize the quotas last year?


Hazen Robert Argue: They were not too bad last year. The marketings were not equalized but less damage was done last year by this method than on former occasions, and I was very pleased to see some improvement.


Lewis Elston Cardiff: Improvement under a Conservative government.


Hazen Robert Argue: The hottest issue at the moment, as far as the Department of Agriculture is concerned, is this whole question of the government having allowed the feed mills in western Canada legally to buy grain at bankrupt prices and to go into a system of stealing, in a legal way, a substantial part of the farmer's normal returns from grain. I feel that this action has amounted to an abdication of principle. It has been a great mistake. Ninety eight per cent of the farmers will lose the chance to deliver this amount of grain through a quota system. The fact that 98 per cent of the farmers will not be marketing grain to the feed mills means that greater pressure will be placed upon them to go into the livestock business to an increasing extent. This means-and there is no argument about this-that the total income of western producers from grain will be lost because the prices paid by the feed mills in western Canada today are lower than the wheat board prices, and in some instances the final prices are disgracefully low.
The minister has promised to take a look at this. I hope he will take a thorough look at it, and I express the strong hope that this mistake will be corrected in the next marketing year. After all, the excuse for doing this has been that the wheat board could not police its quotas. The actions of the wheat board were upheld by the courts. The Supreme Court of Canada said that the wheat board had the right to police its quota for all mills, agreement, mills and non-agreement mills. Once the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the wheat board this government in effect repudiated the decision of the courts by saying, we are changing the rules and the feed mills will be allowed "legally" to get this grain at bootleg prices.
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Undoubtedly, this has been a severe blow to the system of orderly marketing of grain. What happened in the committee this afternoon spelled out exactly what I feared would happen. In the committee this afternoon no less a person that the official agricultural spokesman for the official opposition said it was his opinion that the grain going to feed mills in eastern Canada should be removed from wheat board control. The pressure that goes with this position taken by the official opposition, together with the natural desire of people in eastern Canada to get their grain at the lowest possible price, suggests that those of us who said this was the thin edge of the wedge that would lead to greater pressure being placed on the government to open the door much wider have been proven correct.
I am disappointed with the stand taken by the Liberal party. I think the official stand they have taken today has been a great mistake. They had better have a caucus and take another look at this subject because the people whom I represent will not be happy to learn that the position of the Liberal party opens the door-


Laurier Arthur Régnier: May I ask the hon. member a question?


Hazen Robert Argue: When I finish the hon. member may ask all the questions he likes.
I appreciate the reasons given for this action, but I think the sooner we return to the position of ensuring that the wheat board quota regulations shall be enforced on all mills in all parts of Canada the better it will be for the Canadian producer and for everyone concerned in this field.
I had hoped the government would tell us today what they were going to do to improve the income position of the farmer. I was curious to learn from the minister whether it was the intention of the government once again to pay the $1 an acre to farmers in the west, amounting to $40 million or $42 million. I would be interested in knowing whether the government intends to change the method by which this payment is made, if it is going to be made, and put it on the unit system, but there was no comment on that.
The Minister of Agriculture wound up his remarks by giving it as his opinion that a railway strike would place the agricultural producers of Canada in a very difficult position. He called on railway and management to do everything possible to avert a strike. I agree with the minister's statements. I suggest that one of the main reasons we are in this position today is the failure of the government to do anything last fall, except procrastinate and postpone the trouble. They

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said, "We will not settle it in December; we will postpone it until May 16 and then we shall have to settle it all over again," or the railways can go to the board of transport commissioners and get another hike in freight rates which are already too high.
I think the minister might have singled out management a little more in his remarks. The railway workers said, "We will accept the conciliation board report". I cannot speak for them, but I would not be at all surprised if they would accept the report today if the management of the railway companies were prepared to do the same. The minister lumps them together, although it was the railway companies which refused to settle on the basis of the conciliation board report.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Do you always support that policy?


Hazen Robert Argue: The government has a great responsibility to deal with the agricultural situation. I suggest that to do that these steps should be taken.
First, the government should exert every effort to move the surplus of grain within this country to the markets of the world and to the people who need it.
Second, the government, instead of weakening the orderly system of marketing, should maintain it and expand it.
Third, the government should give every help and assistance to the development of the co-operative movement in Canada at the producer and consumer level, a movement that I think can be of great service to the agricultural producers. To this end I would suggest that, at least for a beginning a co-operative branch should be set up in the Department of Agriculture to lend encouragement to the co-operatives in Canada.
Fourth, I suggest that it is time the government defined its income supports for agricultural producers and spelled out just how and what it is going to do to fulfil its commitments to Canadian producers that would provide them with a fair share of the national income.


Edwin William Brunsden: Will the hon. member permit a question? I did not have much luck with my questions to the official agricultural spokesman for the Liberal party. Perhaps the last speaker knows a little bit more about agriculture. He has deplored the falling grain markets in western Canada. Unfortunately for him he mentioned barley. I should like to ask the hon. member if he recalls that the province of Alberta, and Saskatchewan to some degree, lost a market for pearling barley in the Orient by virtue of a strike of longshoremen on the Pacific coast which was fully supported and ardently advocated by his party.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, that statement is another lie. It is a real lie.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Hazen Robert Argue: I do not accuse the hon. member of having lied but it is a lie to say that this political party supported that strike. We had nothing to do with the strike in any way, shape or form. As a political movement we offered no support on this issue in any way, shape or form.


Edwin William Brunsden: You endorsed it.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is not true either. That is another statement that is completely false. What I suggested was that the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Labour and the government, who have jurisdiction over such works as terminal elevators which have been declared works for the general advantage of Canada, should have done more than sit in their seats and say it was up to somebody else to do something instead of proceeding as they should have to Vancouver and trying to do something to bring the parties together.


James Stanley Speakman: Mr. Chairman, my first remarks must be, of course, to express my satisfaction and that of the people I represent with the upward trend in both gross and net farm income. The people in the area I represent are quite pleased with the trend and I think they will continue to be pleased. Like the minister, I sincerely hope for a stay in the trend of farm population away from the farms, and I think the efforts of the government are wholly bent in that direction.
The hon. member for Drummond-Artha-baska has referred to some promises made with regard to farmers and farm incomes and so on in the campaigns in 1957 and 1958. I should like to refer to some more recent promises made not by members of the government but made at the so-called great national Liberal rally. I should like to refer to the Country Guide for February, 1961. In that issue there is an article with a headline in red, naturally, reading, "Buying the Vote". The article reads in part as follows:
The Liberal rally held in Ottawa early last month may have made the party faithful who were present glow with enthusiasm, but on at least two counts it was a sad performance .. .
From an agricultural standpoint, the Liberal rally seemed to be completely bewildered and without inspiration. Mr. Pearson accused the Diefenbaker government of "failure to produce any kind of a solution for agricultural problems". Well, if the Liberals think what came out of the rally resolutions is a better guide to success than what is currently being offered, they are badly mistaken ... Promising western grain growers a parity price on their first 300 bushels of deliveries each year is not an answer to the grain problem.

The article goes on to say:
Let no one misunderstand us. We are not opposed to social advancement on a wide front, either in agriculture or other sectors of our society.
On the other hand, they do not believe in offering something which is impossible of performance. The hon. member also mentioned rather scornfully, I thought, the wheat sales which have just been completed. I might say for his information that the farmers of western Canada were very highly elated at these additional sales. He did not tell us, of course, what the relative figures were of surpluses of feed grains compared with wheat. I suggest that he should look up these figures. He will find that we do not have a surplus of feed grain but we do have a rather large surplus of wheat.
With reference to the stand of the official opposition with respect to agriculture, I go back to something which was said by "farmer Paul" as he was referred to in the Ottawa Journal last fall. The article in the Journal reads in part as follows:
Mr. Martin, beaming at the government benches as he concluded a speech, said that he might have made mistakes here and there. "I will pit my zeal and my desire"-
He said it smilingly, of course.

"to do something to assist the western farmer against what my hon. friend promised and has failed to do."
I do not look upon the efforts in recent weeks as evidence of failure when we sell over 50 million bushels of grain. In "Ottawa Report" of February 14, 1961, prepared for the Thompson publications, the hon. member for Essex East is also referred to as the "wicked fairy and his mother goose tales". I think the description is very apt.
1 was rather amazed to hear the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska speak about direct half-price sales of grain without quotas to the feed mills. I wondered whether he got his figures from the hon. member for Assiniboia or from the Martin bureau of statistics.


Hazen Robert Argue: Don't blame me for his figures.


James Stanley Speakman: In this regard I should like to refer to certain information which appeared in a newspaper recently. The prices are given that were being paid on February 16.


An hon. Member:: What paper is it?


James Stanley Speakman: 
Hazen Robert Argue: Is there any No. 2 wheat? I am wondering whether there is any No. 5 in the Manitoba district.


James Stanley Speakman: I do not know how western farmers will react to the suggestion the hon. member made with regard to eastern farmers buying directly. They might be pleased with it but it would not suit the hon. member for Assiniboia, of course.
The hon. member for Assiniboia said a lot of things, most of which I will let the minister answer because I think the minister will answer him very effectively. However, there are one or two points I should like to make with regard to the remarks of the hon. member for Assiniboia. He complained about the minister making a comparison of farm incomes when the trend definitely shows an upward movement. Why? He also complained very bitterly about the deficiency payment method used in the marketing of hogs and eggs. He neglected to mention, of course, that not only had the market been stabilized but so had production and that accompanying this stabilization there had been a very welcome increase in the price received by the producer. He forgot very conveniently that there was a surplus of over 1 million pounds of pork which has now been sold because of the action of the government, and I think this answers the hon. member for Assiniboia very effectively.
The hon. member went on to say something about the slow movement of grain from the prairie provinces. However, he conveniently forgot or just neglected to mention a certain strike of grain handlers on the Pacific coast. I want to refer to that strike because in complaining about low farm incomes and farmers being forced to the wall the hon. member neglected to mention the strike.
I shall read a statement from the Western Producer of Thursday, December 8, 1960. This is a paper which is well known by the hon. member and to the policy of which I believe he subscribes.
-in the Western Producer dated the 10th of last month, where it points out that the basic wages

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paid to the striking terminal elevator workers is $2,121 per hour including living bonus.
This is higher than the basic wage paid by any other industry in Canada for semi-skilled labour. Yet they have been offered an increase of 5 per cent which will make their basic wage $2.23 an hour. In addition their position lends itself to considerable overtime for which they get time and a half for weekdays or $3.34 per hour and double time or $4.46 per hour for Sundays and statutory holidays.
These workers refused this substantial increase, to the very great detriment of grain shippers particularly in Alberta and the western half of Saskatchewan.
The hon. member at the time this strike was in progress certainly did not come out against it, and I thought his attitude indicated sympathy and support for the strike.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is not true. That is a false statement.


James Stanley Speakman: I just said, Mr. Chairman, that I thought that, and it appeared to me that way.
I can quote another headline about which I think the hon. member is pleased. This comes from the Edmonton Journal of February 5, 1961. In big black headlines these words appear:
Feed mill policy 'legalized robbery'.
The hon. member created quite a little fuss in another part of this house-in one of its committees as a matter of fact-by referring to this "legalized robbery". I think what I have quoted on the record explains this very well.
I should like to refer the hon. member to the Manitoba Co-operator of February 16. He apparently does not read some of these publications because he has made the statement that no one supports this change in the regulations which permits these off-quota sales. This article says:
The western agricultural conference in Saskatoon last week supported new Canadian wheat board regulations permitting farmers to deliver grain to feed mills outside of wheat board price and quota controls.
Of course, my hon. friend from Assiniboia, Mr. Chairman, and his little group, as well as the political party that may result from this dreamed of marriage, have all the answers to all our problems. I will read from a little item in the same Western Producer:
As for the C.C.F. having the answers to our problems, all they could bring us is 100 per cent taxation and we would all end up as employees of the state and all freedom would be lost.
I must agree with that statement.


Harold Edward Winch: I do not.


James Stanley Speakman: Of course you do not, belonging to that party.

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion I have a couple of recommendations which I should like to make to the minister and the government. I have made these recommendations before during the past two years. I should like to ask the minister and the government to give their serious consideration to the inclusion of forage crop seeds-by this I refer to clovers, alfalfas and leguminous crops-in the provisions of the Agricultural Stabilization Act. My constituency and that of my colleague from Jasper-Edson are very heavy producers of clovers, alfalfas and other leguminous crops. Having has good crops the last few years we find the farmers receiving as low as three and four cents a pound for some of their seed. I think it would be a very great boon to a rather large section of Alberta agriculture, and the Peace river, if these crops were brought under the provisions of this act.
I must, of course, make my perennial plea that the government pay the acreage payments to western producers again in 1961 on the same basis as in 1958 and 1960. I think general satisfaction has been expressed by the constituents I represent in this method of assistance which has done far more than could possibly have been imagined at the time the first payments were made, not only for the general welfare but for the economy as a whole.
(Translation):


Jean-Paul Racine: A moment ago, after my colleague from Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger) had spoken, I heard some members opposite say that we were numbered, that we were codified, on this side of the house. Well, for their information, I wish to tell them we are not numbered but that on this side, we are in the habit of dealing with problems which are of interest not only to us but to our electors.
We have listened to the minister with much attention. He quoted many figures and statistics. In those statistics, among other things, the figures which struck me most were, for instance, those bearing on the decrease in the number of farmers in Canada. The minister made much of the increase in gross income. On the other hand, if we take into account the decrease in the number of farmers, we readily realize that the figures he gave us are not accurate in so far as the net income of farmers is concerned, on the basis of their number.
For instance, if I understood him well, he told us that in 1958 there were 575,000 farmers in Canada; he added that, in 1959, there were only 546,000 left, which means a

decrease of 29,000 in 1958-59. For 1960, he gave the figure of 536,000, which means another decrease of 10,000.
I am sure that if those figures-
(Text):


James Stanley Speakman: I do not think the hon. gentleman wants to be unfair to the minister, who is just coming in now, but he is misquoting his figures.


Charles Edward Rea: The minister will perhaps correct him later.
(Translation):


Jean-Paul Racine: Mr. Chairman, as I was saying, if we take into account the national gross income and if we divide it by the present number of farmers, it is obvious that the per capita income has increased. However, I think we should take into account the production cost which has increased substantially.
While those figures on the decrease of farmers in Canada may help the minister in arriving at his income figure, I am sure, on the other hand, that those figures are certainly not to the liking of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) because they are probably included in the number of unemployed we now have in Canada.
I expected the minister to praise the achievements of the government. I expected, for instance, to hear him refer, as several of his colleagues have done in and out of the house, to crop insurance, to the stabilization prices act and to the Farm Improvement Loans Act. But, following a question I asked recently in the house, I found out that not one province so far has come to an agreement with the federal government about crop insurance, except one, I am told, where it is being tried in a certain area.
We also asked a question about the Farm Improvement Loans Act, and we found out that, probably, that measure has probably not yet been been brought to the attention of all farmers, or at least a great majority of them, since only a few of them took advantage of it.
We also expected, and that would have been most important, the announcement of a new policy on butter. If we refer to the Rural Co-Operator of February 14, 1961, here is what we read:
(Text):
It is understood that butter prices could be reduced 10 cents a pound to consumers beginning May 1, if the federal government approves a plan put before it by agriculture minister Alvin Hamilton.
Reports indicate that the 10-cent reduction in the retail price from the present level of around 69 to 71 cents a pound would not affect the price support of 64 cents. The plan is aimed at reducing Canada's butter surplus by making it more competitive with margarine.
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Agriculture minister Hamilton has neither confirmed nor denied the report: "I wouldn't care to comment until there is something concrete from the cabinet," he said last week end.
(Translation) :
Mr. Chairman, following the inventory made of the quantity of butter now in existence in Canada, we expected the minister to announce that policy. But he did not, probably for the reason mentioned in that article of the Rural Co-operator, because the cabinet has not yet taken any decision.
However, if we look at the statistics on December 1, 1960, we realize that there were
131,684,000	pounds of butter in Canada. It seems it would have been a marvellous opportunity and a good policy to establish at once that butter subsidy, which surely would not have failed to help decrease that inventory and encourage farmers who are dependent mostly on dairy farming.
The same policy, for instance, could have applied to powdered skim milk, with an inventory of 4.3 million pounds. The same goes for canned pork, with an inventory of 35.8 million pounds.
Apart from that policy of subsidies, another course could be followed, similar to the policy which is carried out now in the United States. It would consist in distributing to the unemployed, of whom there are approximately 700,000 in Canada, part of the farm surplus. Such action would certainly relieve their present plight.
Mr. Chairman, I was also somewhat surprised to see the hon. member for Assini-boia (Mr. Argue) being shocked by the words of the hon. member for Drummond-Artha-baska (Mr. Boulanger). I think the latter did not want to deal with a question of principle, but rather to speak in favour of the farmers in eastern Canada. Hon. members who preceded me, including the minister, scarcely mentioned those problems, and only my colleague from Drummond-Arthabaska dealt with them.
What he wanted, or rather what I thought he wanted was a lowering of the price for grain which the farmers in Quebec, Ontario and the maritime provinces have to buy.
I do not think he would want a policy detrimental to the western farmers. On the other hand, I do not blame him for his remarks, because he represents, as I do, a district which has to face numerous problems. And, like the Minister of Agriculture himself and the leader of the C.C.F., he has dealt with those issues-and quite rightly so.
To my mind, the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska proved moreover, by quoting the figures of the dominion bureau of

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statistics, that the farm income did not increase in 1960, but rather declined. To support that assertion, he quoted, as I said, figures supplied by the dominion bureau of statistics. He brought into these considerations a testimony which certainly deserves to be considered, that of the manager of the federated co-operatives, according to whom the farm income in 1960 was $1,450.
Neither did the minister tell us anything about deficiency payments. Like many other members I would have liked to get from him an evaluation of the results of this new legislation introduced by his government. Having read certain news items, we know that as far pork is concerned there has been some reduction in hog production; however, it is true that prices are kept at the same level.
As I said earlier, the minister did not deal with those problems as we would have expected.
I have here an article published in the column "Backstage" of Maclean's magazine. The author is Peter C. Newman, and the title is:
(Text):
-Maclean's magazine, "Backstage," by Peter C. Newman:
Diefenbaker's new vision-agriculture-and his new visionary-Alvin Hamilton.
(Translation):
Under that article, we see a very good cartoon of the minister-I suppose he has seen it. Here is what is said in the article: (Text):
In the east, Hamilton wants to be Johnny Appleseed.
(Translation) :
Now, the speech he made today and in which he failed to mention the problems of the eastern areas, I feel he is neither Johnny Appleseed nor the one who will be able to give encouragement to our many farmers in the future.
The article also states:
(Text):
Hamilton is confident that he can initiate his revolutionary agricultural policies at the same time as returning the prairie vote to his party. "If Alvin succeeds," says one highly placed Ottawa Conservative, "he'll become one of the top figures in the cabinet. If he doesn't, we could lose the next election."
(Translation):
Says this Tory.
The same article mentions something which seems all the more realistic now that we have just heard the minister, and I quote: (Text):
Only 12 per cent of the Canadians of voting age still live on farms. But a close study of representation in the House of Commons shows that nearly

60 per cent of its members sit for rural areas. The smashing of Quebec's Union Nationale electoral machine by Jean Lesage, and the Tories' ineffectual political handling of French Canada since the 1958 victory, have convinced Conservative strategists that nothing they can do between now and the next campaign will win back this key province. It will be mainly the support or loss of the farm vote that will decide the outcome of John Diefenbaker's next journey to the polls.
(Translation):
Mr. Chairman, I will simply tell the minister, if he wants his policy to be popular in Quebec, to suggest-and I hope he will have an opportunity to make some comments during the consideration of his estimates-a solution to the problems faced by our farmers.
I believe we are justified in bringing those problems to the attention of the minister since he himself and his colleagues did not have any qualms about making innumerable promises during the electoral campaign of 1957 and 1958. I would say to his colleagues and more particularly to the minister that this failure of the government to keep their promises will hardly help them politically, and even worse, their attitude causes the worst prejudice not only to farmers in Quebec but to those in Canada generally.
(Text):


Reynold Rapp: Mr. Chairman, in rising to take part in this debate I should like first of all to congratulate the Minister of Agriculture on his appointment to this portfolio and to wish him success in this new undertaking.
I may also say that the farmers in Canada, and in particular the western farmers, have welcomed his appointment and judging from what has been said by them on different occasions, they expect he will do justice to this very important department.
Even when the minister was in charge of another department, the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, his contribution to the agricultural economy of this country was known and felt in this house, the cabinet, and above all in Canada as a whole. Anybody having any doubt about this need only look at the records of the house to see the truth of what I have said.
To the previous minister of agriculture, the present Minister of National Defence, I should like to express my regret at his leaving the department. He has done impressive work as minister of agriculture but has been called upon to take charge of another department. We wish him the best of luck and we know that he will also do justice to his new department.
Agriculture is a very important part of our national economy. Some people like to prove statistically that agriculture's No. 1 position has been taken over by other industries in

Canada. This may be true to a certain extent, but nobody can deny the fact that in importance it is and still will be Canada's No. 1 industry for a long time to come. If we look back on our agricultural history we find that western grain has been the life of Canadian commerce ever since our pioneers opened up the west for settlement. The purpose of the Crowsnest pass agreement of 1897 was to make it economically possible for the western farmers to produce grain in quantities large enough for the needs of Canadian commerce, and the government of that day considered the agreement to be a step in the best interest of Canada. What was true then in regard to grain produced in 1897 holds true today in regard to such grains as wheat, oats, barley, rye, flax and rapeseed produced now in the west for commercial purposes. The Canadian economy depends on commerce today just as much as it did then. This nonsense which some people talk about removing the Crowsnest pass agreement on freight charges is nothing less than an attempt to scuttle the whole of western agriculture. Let me say, Mr. Chairman, that no one knows this better than our Prime Minister, who has said on many occasions that the Crowsnest pass agreement is the magna carta of western agriculture.
While I am on this subject of the Crowsnest Pass freight rates I should really say something about the rapeseed freight charges. Rapeseed is the only grain not covered by the Crowsnest pass agreement. However, I shall reserve my comments on the subject until another occasion. Instead, I should like to say something with regard to edible oil.
As far as the tariff on edible oilseed is concerned, this indeed presents a very disturbing situation. The biggest single factor discouraging the use of this oil in Canada is the fact that Canadian crushers are allowed to crush American soyabeans and rapeseed in Canada-products which come in free of tariff-and thereby by-pass the 20 per cent tariff which is now in effect on soyabean oil and rapeseed oil. I ask hon. members to note the situation: There is a 20 per cent tariff imposed on the soyabean oil and rape-seed oil, but no tariff whatsoever on soyabeans and rapeseed. This is what is happening in the crushing industry: the Canadian crusher purchases all the Canadian soyabeans and rapeseed. He does not use any of these beans and seeds to crush into oil for Canadian consumption. He uses these to make up the 25 per cent of Canadian material in the oil and meal that he markets in Great Britain and other favoured treaty countries. The soyabean oil that he sells in Canada is made from American beans and rapeseed. In this way he entirely by-passes the 20 per cent 90205-6-154J
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tariff on the oil. In illustration of this point I should like to bring to the attention of hon. members the fact that margarine production in Canada in 1959 amounted to 152.5 million pounds. Only one tenth of the margarine made in Canada is made from oil seeds grown in this country. The rest is made from oils which come into Canada from the United States duty free.
However, I am happy to see that the Minister of Finance has announced in his supplementary budget that the tariff board is to be instructed to adjust this discriminatory tariff imposed on these edible oils.
I should like to touch on another subject coming within the scope of the Department of Agriculture, namely the price of farm machinery. As you will recall, Mr. Chairman, in the dying days of our last session this question was placed before the standing committee on agriculture so that an investigation might be made. As a member of this committee, I have been looking forward to the resumption of this inquiry. Hon. members know that one of our great problems in the farm industry at the present time is the high price of farm machinery. These prices are out of all proportion to the prices which the farmer receives for his produce and, what is more, the prices of farm machinery are constantly rising year after year while the prices of farm products remain the same or, in some instances, even go down. Is it the high cost of labour which can be blamed for this increase in the price of farm machinery, or are the high profits of the manufacturer responsible for the continued increase in prices? Alternatively, is management at fault for not making a sincere effort to put out an economic machine and hold down the cost of that machine? As a further alternative, is the high cost to be attributed largely to wasteful and expensive methods of distribution? These are questions to which answers must be provided.
I have given very serious thought to the inquiries which have been made into the price structure of farm machinery and I have followed very closely what has been said in the press and on the radio with regard to this matter. In particular, I am interested in a financial statement published by Canadian Co-operative Implements Limited of Winnipeg, Manitoba. According to this statement, the experience of the C.C.I.L. over the years has been that in relation to total sales of slightly more than $54 million there has been a net saving of $5,640,000. This saving has been made on sales which represent a very small percentage of total machine sales in western Canada. In 1959, when C.C.I.L. had a better percentage of total sales than in several preceding years, there was a saving


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Chairman, it is not my intention to speak about wheat, oats, barley, rye, the Canadian wheat board, box car allocations or deficiency payments. I wish merely to ask a number of questions of the minister relative to the agricultural situation in British Columbia and the attitude of the minister toward it.
I regretted very much the attitude displayed by the hon. member for Wetaskiwin when he spoke earlier. He is an hon. member who does not appear able to ask questions or say anything in , this chamber without putting it

on a completely partisan political basis. The hon. gentleman was never more guilty of that than when he spoke earlier this afternoon. I hope I shall not follow that procedure. Surely charge and counter charge will not assist us in a policy discussion on the agricultural estimates. What is required now is not partisan political discussion with accusations, charges and counter charges. What we require is information from the minister and if we wish to go beyond that in participating in the discussion we are free to present constructive proposals.
I shall attempt not to follow the example set by the hon. member for Wetaskiwin who was guilty of political partisanship in his remarks today. It is good to avoid following that example because sometimes we might be prone to answer that kind of attack in like manner. If I were to indulge in that type of thing today I would probably begin by telling the minister that his government is sabotaging the agricultural industry of British Columbia.


Mr.   Mc@: Non-partisan, of course.


Harold Edward Winch: However, that is not my attitude. I should like the minister to tell us if he has had time since assuming his important office to raise his eyes beyond the western prairie horizon of rye, oats, wheat and barley and look over the mountains into British Columbia? British Columbia is a mountainous province with four ranges running from north to south. Far too many people do not realize that between those ranges we have some of the most productive agricultural land on the North American continent. Admittedly, sir, I speak as a member from the urban area of Vancouver but I know British Columbia and I love it. With all due respect to every other member in this house, I say that in the Fraser valley of British Columbia, from Vancouver to Hope, in the valley areas, in the mountain ranges, from Salmon Arm, Enderby, Armstrong, Vernon, Penticton, Kelowna, to Osoyoos, we have some of the finest, fertile, productive agricultural lands in North America. This has been proven in the production of soft fruits, hard fruits and vegetables. A change has taken place over the past few years. I tried to raise this matter last session but unfortunately did not get very far with it.
I have lived in Vancouver since 1910, when I was only three years of age. I can remember the productivity of the Fraser valley in regard to berries, and particularly strawberries. Our product went around the world in the shape of jellies and jams, but that situation does not obtain today. Production is now purely for the local market. Why is this so? Because no attention has been paid
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to the buying up of our canneries and factories by people below the border and exporting to Canada their products, but selling them under the Canadian brand.
It is only a few years ago that in the area from Lillooet to Osoyoos there were 16 canneries. Last year only four were left. I have been advised of one in that area which is going to close this year and which I maintain holds a world record for the quality of its products, namely vegetables, peas, tomatoes, and so forth. Why is this so? It is because the area from Lillooet to Osoyoos is three weeks behind production in California. By the time the agricultural producers in the areas I have mentioned are set to market their products California is set to market its surpluses, and moves them into British Columbia. Certain action has been taken by governments in the past in regard to the situation, and this is the reason certain of our canning companies in Canada, and particularly in British Columbia, were bought out. The reason is simple. If the small canning companies are not there, then the producers have no market to which to sell.
I raised this matter last year in regard to tomatoes and the then minister of agriculture-I am glad he is in his seat at the moment-answered to the effect that a subsidy would be granted for the crop year but it would then cease. I still have the letter to that effect from the hon. member. Wheat, oats, barley, rapeseed and rye are important in many parts of Canada, but berries and vegetables are very important to our province of British Columbia. To the best of my information the situation in the coming year will be worse than it was a year ago. Judging from the information sent to me by growers, I am of the opinion that they are very disturbed at the situation. I say to the Minister of Agriculture, through you, Mr. Chairman, that, much as we recognize the emphasis and importance that the minister has placed on agriculture in the prairies, we would like him to take a good look at the maintenance of agriculture in British Columbia. We would like to hear whether the Minister of Agriculture has any special plans for the protection of our berries, our soft fruits and our vegetable industries. We would like to know whether a special, study will be made of the situation there on a production, canning and marketing basis.
We may be known as a lumbering and mining province but, if my memory serves me correctly, our third greatest industry has been agriculture. It has been deteriorating. I fear that it has been neglected and is still being neglected by the federal Department of Agriculture. Just because we may be hemmed in by four mountain ranges

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and 3,000 miles from Ottawa we should not be ignored. We are an integral part of Canada. I gather from this morning's newspapers that we are such an important part of Canada that if plans go through at the dominion-provincial conference we are going to lose out because of the wealth of our province.
I hope I have not fallen into the despicable line of thought of the hon. member for Wetaskiwin by asking the minister to raise his eyes above the Rocky mountains and look at agriculture in British Columbia and advise us as to present plans for the protection of agriculture in our province, in the Fraser valley from Lillooet to Osoyoos. I made a mistake. I almost ignored that most marvellous agricultural area, especially in so far as seeds are concerned, namely Grand Forks. Now that the minister has taken over this most responsible office I ask him whether a special study will be made of the potentialities of agriculture in British Columbia and whether protection will be given to that great industry?


Robert Carman Coates: Mr. Chairman, I should like to join in this debate and make a few comments on agriculture as it pertains to the maritime provinces.
First of all, I should like to extend my congratulations to the minister, both on his appointment as Minister of Agriculture and on the enthusiasm he has brought to this department, which enthusiasm was so apparent when he was minister of northern affairs and national resources. I should like to say to him that I was recently in Nova Scotia and in talking with people keenly interested in the agricultural industry in that province I learned that his recent visit to the maritimes was greeted with enthusiasm He has instilled in the people of our area an outlook so far as agriculture is concerned that we like to see them have. Personally I should like to see him come back to visit our people again and I hope he will do so in the very near future.
It has become a regular custom for members of parliament from Nova Scotia to meet with the executive of the Nova Scotia federation of agriculture each year when they come to Ottawa to attend the annual meeting of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. Members from Nova Scotia have come to look forward to this annual meeting as an opportunity to get views of those engaged in agriculture in our area and as an opportunity to have brought to our attention those matters which are felt to be most pressing by the Nova Scotia federation of agriculture.

At this time I should like to bring some of the suggestions brought to our attention to the attention of the minister in order that he may be fully aware of the attitude of the federation with respect to the different aspects of the industry. At our recent meeting a number of matters were discussed. One thing that is of particular importance to me as the member for Cumberland is their views with regard to the Maritime Marshland Rehabilitation Act. This act came into operation some ten years or more ago and was put into effect to help marsh owners in our province to improve their lands throught a system of dikes, aboiteaux and dams.
When the act was brought into force some ten years ago it was indicated there would have to be an agreement between the federal and provincial governments and the farm bodies in the different areas in order that all might be aware of the importance of the projects that would be undertaken. At that time an agreeement was made between the federal government and the province that when the work was concluded the province and the marsh owners would take over the maintenance of the projects that had been undertaken. No doubt when this was agreed upon no one imagined the magnitude of the work that would be carried out under the act and in the light of that fact an agreement was reached.
Today, however, as the work draws to a close the province and the marsh bodies both see the tremendous costs that will fall upon them should the maintenance be placed on their shoulders alone. Because of this fact they have emphasized very strongly that the federal government should endeavour to phase in the maintenance work under the agricultural rehabilitation and development legislation. This would mean that those lands that have been greatly improved in value would not now have to be left to revert to their former condition, for if the federal government were to insist that the maintenance be carried out by the province and the marsh bodies that would no doubt be the result over a long period.
It is quite apparent that neither the province nor the marsh bodies can accept the financial obligations that would be placed upon them if the federal government were to insist on their maintaining the work that has been done. If we are to endeavour to keep these lands that have been tremendously improved as the result of the work carried out for the generations of today and tomorrow we must give further assistance and endeavour to phase in this work under the

new rural rehabilitation scheme. I ask the minister to give this matter his most serious consideration.
Another point I should like to bring to the minister's attention in this regard is that the headquarters of the M.M.R.A. administration are at present located in Amherst and over the period of the operation of the act a very large and competent staff has been built up consisting of people who are well aware of the problems of the area and who have created a great deal of good will in their negotiations with the marsh bodies. It is my hope that the department will give consideration to using the facilities and the skills that are readily available at Amherst to carry out the provisions of the agricultural rehabilitation and development legislation.
May I also bring to the minister's attention some other points that were emphasized by the Nova Scotia federation of agriculture with regard to which I would appreciate his serious consideration. One point they raised which I have also brought up in debates in the house has to do with unemployment insurance for farm labourers. I know this matter is under study at the present time by the Department of Labour. The representatives of the federation point out that it is a problem that has caused farmers in the maritime provinces a great deal of difficulty in attracting seasonal help. The reason is a simple one. If such people work for someone other than a farmer they are able to get stamps and to qualify for seasonal or regular benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act. If they work for farmers they are not able to obtain these benefits which are so very important to many people in the maritime provinces. I realize that the minister is keenly aware of the circumstances of our farmers in this regard.
Another matter for which they request consideration has to do with the establishment of total disability insurance to be incorporated in the terms of loans made through the farm credit corporation. In Nova Scotia our provincial agricultural loans contain a provision guaranteeing this total disability insurance. The Nova Scotia federation have recommended that this be considered by the federal government as well, and incorporated in our farm credit legislation. It is my belief that we recently have made death disability insurance available through this legislation to farmers at their discretion if the loans are not supervised, but it is mandatory if loans are supervised. I would ask the minister to give serious consideration to the placing of total disability insurance in this scheme as well.
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The Nova Scotia federation requests consideration for an increase in the support price for lambs. The federation states that the support price in the maritimes is below that either in Montreal or Toronto, and they wish consideration given to the support price being increased to bring it in line with the prices now available in those two areas.
Another matter which they wished brought to the attention of the government, but one which I feel should more rightly be placed before industry itself, is the equalization of transportation rates on farm machinery in this country. I believe an example could be made in respect of cars better than farm machinery. We know that a car manufactured in Ontario is more expensive in Nova Scotia than in Ontario, while at the same time we find that European cars come to this country and the price is the same in all parts of this country. I should think, since a large proportion of the cars manufactured in Canada are sold in the two central provinces, this problem of equalization would not be a very difficult one. A small increase in the price of cars in Ontario and Quebec would produce enough funds to provide an equal price level across the country. If the European manufacturers see merit in this scheme, I see no reason why our own manufacturers cannot take the initiative in this matter and let the government stay outside, where it should be in respect of such things.
The only other point that I should like to bring to the attention of the minister at this time is the matter of the government's policy on deficiency payments for hogs. I would point out to the minister that last year the Nova Scotia federation of agriculture supported the government when it put this policy into effect. I might therefore point out that as a result of this policy and the attitude of the Nova Scotia federation of agriculture, there has been a very substantial increase in the production of hogs in the maritime provinces. As all hon. members know there has been a substantial increase in the price paid for pork since this policy went into effect and as a result of the guidance provided by the Nova Scotia federation of agriculture, our farmers have benefited materially.
I do not think there is anything more that I wish to add at this time. I wish to thank you all for listening to my remarks.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, before the time for closing the sitting of the committee, which arrives in a few minutes, I wonder if I could get unanimous permission of the committee to have printed in Hansard two tables which will give the prices at nonquota feed mills in the last two weeks. I might explain my request by saying that

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three speakers during the debate today have mentioned the prices of these feed mills, and I think the best way to put the facts on the record would be to turn over to this committee the reports made each week by the Canadian wheat board in respect of these prices. Of course, the names of the companies would be omitted. This will enable all members, and other persons across the country, to see the type of sampling we have on these prices.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Before that request is dealt with, do I understand the minister to say
that these are figures that were procured by the Canadian wheat board and that the board stands behind them?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Yes.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I see no objection.


Charles Edward Rea: Will the committee give unanimous consent to having these figures printed in Hansard as though the minister had read them?


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


THE CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD
[Stage Direction]
Comparison of Board Initial Prices with Prices Paid by Designated Non-Quota Feed Mills Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta
		Board	Non-Quota	
Location	Grade	Initial Price	Mill Price	Winnipeg	
Wheat No. 5	95	1.25	If trucked more than 75 milesOats 1 Fd	46 *	.50	by Fed. Co-Op. producerBarley 1 Fd	75 i	.75	is charged 15c. per cwt. trucking.St. Boniface	
Barley 1 Fd	75 i	.75	St. Boniface	
Wheat No. 5	95	1.15	Oats 1 Fd	46 |	.50	Barley 1 Fd	75 i	.75	Winnipeg	
Wheat No. 5	93 |	1.00	(ex Brandon)Saskatoon	90 i	.80	Oats 1 Fd	44	.45	Barley 1 Fd	71 i	.55	Saskatoon	
Wheat No. 5	90 *	.85	Oats 1 Fd	44	.44	Barley 1 Fd	71 i	.60	Saskatoon	90 i	.85	Oats 1 Fd	44	.45	Barley 1 Fd	71 i	.55-.60	Saskatoon	Wheat No. 5	90 1	.85-.90	Oats 1 Fd	44	.45	Barley lFd	71 i	.60	Steinbach	95	1.20	Oats 1 Fd	46 f	.55	Barley lFd	75 f	.75	Edmonton	Wheat No. 5	91 i	1.05	Oats 1 Fd	42 f	.50	Barley 1 Fd	70	.70	Calgary	91 i	1.05	Oats 1 Fd	42 |	.59	Barley 1 Fd	70	.72	Lethbridge	Wheat No. 5	90 1	1.10	(No No. 5 available)Oats 1 Fd	43	.65	Barley lFd	70 i	.75

[Stage Direction]
Supply-Agriculture

[Stage Direction]
Comparison of Board Initial Prices with Prices Paid by Designated Non-Quota Feed Mills Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta
		Board	Non-Quota
Location	Grade	Initial Price	Mill PriceWinnipeg	
Wheat No. 5	95	1.25 Trucking charge 15c. perOats 1 Fd	46f	.50 100 lbs. over 75 milesBarley 1 Fd	75 i	.75St. Boniface	95	1.05Oats 1 Fd	46-!	.50Barley 1 Fd	75f	.75Winnipeg	75 i	.75St. Boniface	95	1.15Winnipeg	
Wheat No. 5	95	1.00 ex Brandon and MinnedosaWinnipeg	
Oats 1 Fd	46|	.50Moose Jaw	91!	85-90Oats 1 Fd	445	.45Barley 1 Fd	72J	.65Moose Jaw	
Wheat No. 5	911	.85Oats 1 Fd	441	.45Barley 1 Fd	72J	.60Regina	
Wheat No. 5	91!	.90Oats 1 Fd	44|	.45Barley 1 Fd	72J	.60Weyburn	
Wheat No. 5	92	90-1.00Oats 1 Fd	45	.45Barley 1 Fd	73|	55-60Saskatoon	
Wheat No. 5	90!	85-90Oats 1 Fd	44	.45Barley 1 Fd	71|	.60Saskatoon	
Wheat No. 5	90!	.85Oats 1 Fd	44	.44Barley 1 Fd	71!	.60Saskatoon	
Wheat No. 5	90!	.85Oats 1 Fd	44	.44Barley 1 Fd	71!	.60Steinbach	95	1.20Oats 1 Fd	465	.55Barley 1 Fd	75!	.75Edmonton	91!	1.05Oats 1 Fd	42|	.50Barley 1 Fd	70	.70Calgary	
Wheat No. 5	91!	1.05Oats 1 Fd	42|	.60Barley 1 Fd	70	.74Lethbridge	90!	1.10 No No. 5 Wheat availableOats 1 Fd	43	.65Barley 1 Fd	70!	.75

[Stage Direction]
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Charles Edward Rea: 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.
Resolutions adopted in committee of supply this day reported and concurred in.


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Frank Charles McGee: the second reading of Bill No. C-10 to amend the Criminal Code (corporal punishment).
He said: Mr. Speaker, before referring to the debate which took place on this subject in April of 1959, I should like to outline the approach that I wish to take in the discussion of this bill today. I should like to say something first of all about the present position of judicial corporal punishment in Canada, and say something about the report and recommendations of the House of Commons and Senate committee on capital and corporal punishment of 1956. I want also to review the latest material that has come to the attention of the public on this question, namely the report of the advisory council on treatment of offenders in the United Kingdom presented to the home secretary in November of 1960.
The present situation in Canada is that courts are sentencing people to be lashed and strapped for a series of serious and unpleasant offences. In 1956 seven people were sentenced to the lash and six to the strap; in
1957, 12 to the lash and 21 to the strap; in
1958, 12 to the lash and 8 to the strap. The latest figures that I could obtain from the department indicate that the applications of the lash in 1959 were up above the 1958 figure of 12, and that the strapping figure was down from the 1958 figure of eight. The lash in particular has been applied. Persons have been sentenced to be lashed, and these sentences carried out, for such crimes as incest, assaults on females, indecent assaults on females, rape, sexual intercourse or attempted sexual intercourse, robbery and robbery while armed.
These are not pleasant matters to contemplate by any means, but these are the facts that are before us as members of parliament and we must deal with them. Committees have dealt with them in the past and the recent committee in England which I mentioned has also dealt with them.
A committee of the house and the Senate, as has been recorded in previous debates, recommended after an exhaustive inquiry into
[The Deputy Chairman.]
this subject that corporal punishment should be abolished for any of the offences for which it is prescribed in the Criminal Code. When six o'clock was called on a similar occasion in 1959 and the debate adjourned, the hon. member for Calgary South (Mr. Smith), who was the final speaker and the only speaker who took a view in opposition to my own on the matter, had a number of things to say about it. I should like to challenge some of them and set the record straight. One of the things he said was this:
I recognize that a great body of public opinion is in favour of the intention behind this bill.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The great body of public opinion in this country is no different in substance than the body of opinion in the United Kingdom or, as I will point out later, the Gallup polls taken in 1960 in the United Kingdom. These Gallup polls indicated that approximately 74 per cent of the people of England favoured the retention of corporal punishment and an indeterminate percentage of those favoured expanding it to other categories of crime. Therefore on that account to begin with I think the hon. member misjudged the situation in Canada.
He went on to say in his remarks:
We have listened this afternoon to a great deal of maudlin sentimentality.
I should like very definitely to set the record straight as far as that particular aspect of this question is concerned. I am not motivated in any sense by a feeling of maudlin sentimentality on the question of corporal punishment. I am concerned primarily with discharging my duty as a member of parliament, to examine the facts and information available on subjects which come before us, reaching a conclusion and casting a vote or taking action to translate that conclusion into the law of the land.
It is in essence a matter of national selfrespect, as far as corporal punishment is concerned. Through the centuries and down through the years we have tried a very fascinating and dazzling variety of brutal methods of punishment. In the main they have failed miserably to accomplish our purpose, which is of course to reduce crime rates and to deal with prisoners after crimes have been committed. At the present time Canada has the great good fortune to have a Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) whose activities in the field of penal reform in my view, and certainly this is a view shared by many people in this country, represent the first important steps forward in 25 years in Canada.
Mr. Walter Stewart of the Toronto Telegram used this caption on an article when

writing in that newspaper yesterday, "Canada's prisons feel the winds of change". These winds of change, this changing attitude on the part of the penal authorities of this country is greatly to be commended. The fact of the matter is, as I said earlier, that the brutal method has in the main failed.
The advisory council on the treatment of offenders, which presented its report to the home secretary of England last November, was composed of a group drawn from men dealing with prisoners and offenders of all kinds. I should like to quote from the statement made on introducing the criminal justice bill in the English house on November 17, by Mr. R. A. Butler, the secretary of state for the home department. He said:
One of these is a V.C., who can hardly have been chosen by reason of being a "softie", and another was the chief officer of the City of London police. I mention this because I think that hon. members may want to know what the constitution of the council is. Its members include many from the professions and walks of life concerned with the prevention of crime and reform of offenders.
So this group of people, at the request of the home secretary, proceeded to examine in exhaustive detail the question of corporal punishment. The situation in England was that judicial corporal punishment had been applied for a wide variety of offences up to the time of the so-called Cadogan committee which was appointed in May of 1937.
Finally in 1948, following the failure of the bill based on that committee's recommendations, which recommendations were to abolish judicial corporal punishment, corporal punishment was abolished entirely in England. The committee at that time said:
We have been unable to find any body of facts or figures showing that the introduction of a power of flogging has produced a decrease in the number of the offences for which it may be imposed, or that offences for which flogging may be ordered have tended to increase when little use was made of the power to order flogging or to decrease when the power was exercised more frequently. We are not satisfied that corporal punishment has that exceptionally effective influence as a deterrent which is usually claimed for it by those who advocate its use as a penalty for adult offenders.
The committee went on to say that they did not limit their investigation to the law as it then stood. They considered also the possible use of corporal punishment for other offences but came to similar conclusions. In particular, they concluded that this penalty was especially unsuitable for sexual offences, which incidentally formed the bulk of the offences in Canada for which corporal punishment was applied in those figures which I mentioned earlier.
This report is of tremendous interest and I commend it to every member of the house who concerns himself with this subject. The
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committee approached the widest possible variety of sources, people like the association of chief police officers of England and Wales, and the commissioner of police of the metropolis, who incidentally declined the invitation on the ground that it was not the policy of the association or in his view the function of the police to comment on the ways in which offenders are tried and dealt with by the courts.
However, a unanimous opinion was reached by that group, the police officers. It was unanimously agreed that if judicial corporal punishment were reintroduced, the police should not be required to administer it. Other sources of information were approached. The press was informed and in fact it assisted by soliciting a large number of letters commenting on the question. This public opinion poll which I mentioned earlier, the results of which were published in March, 1960, indicated that 74 per cent of the population considered that corporal punishment should be the penalty for some offences. People like the judges of the Queen's bench division and other persons concerned with the administration of criminal law were approached and the result was that a great majority of those consulted agreed that the reintroduction of judicial corporal punishment in certain circumstances might be desirable.
There was a minority of that group who differed. The members of the magistrates association of England and Wales were approached, and a vote on the question indicated that 4,412 favoured abolishing corporal punishment and 1,886 favoured its retention. The national association of probation officers was approached and submitted their findings as a group. They indicated that 89.7 per cent of their group favoured the abolition of corporal punishment. Other sources were approached, and some very interesting opinions were put forward. I shall not go through them in any detail but some of them are of passing interest. Surprisingly, the report says:
Several of our correspondents suggested that females should be liable to judicial corporal punishment as well as males. They argued that in these days women and girls were often involved in the commission of crimes of violence or other offences for which men and boys might receive this penalty, and that therefore there was no justification for treating the sexes differently.
This view, the report goes on to say, was not shared by most of the witnesses. There were points of view expressed, and certainly I have heard similar views expressed in this country, to the effect that corporal punishment should be applied as an alternative to a sentence in prison or in a corrective institution. The theory is, apparently,

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that this is a cheaper method and that if our corrective institutions are overcrowded it will avoid congesting them further. Little thought, I suggest, was given to whether this punishment would do any good. The report goes on to say-and I think this is an important factor in any discussion of this problem-
A striking fact that emerges from a study of the views expressed to us is that different people reach different conclusions on the basis of the same facts or experiences.
This certainly is true not only in regard to this matter but with regard to capital punishment as well. The report goes on:
It is clear also that individual views on judicial corporal punishment are greatly influenced by emotion, often arising from personal experience.
Most people's reaction in the case of certain crimes which they regard as being particularly heinous is that those responsible should be given a taste of their own medicine. The statistical evidence is examined in great detail and, again, the case for the deterrent quality of corporal punishment simply does not emerge from the facts and figures produced. One interesting comment had to do with the stability of the persons to whom corporal punishment was applied. The report says:
In general, the more stable the personality the less harm such punishment would be likely to do.
Of course, conversely, medical witnesses were agreed that if an individual already had a substantial element of resentment in his make-up, judicial corporal punishment would be likely to make it worse. Then, of course, there is the situation that the more stable the person the less harm such punishment is likely to do. The converse, of course, is true that the most unstable people, who surely represent the greater threat to society, would be affected in the opposite way. There is further argument and discussion contained in this report, all of considerable interest, relating to the question of just how the person involved would react to corporal punishment and, in particular, the so-called younger set. The report says:
We discussed this with our medical witnesses, who agreed that while this may be true of some youths, many others, far from being afraid, would accept the risk and exploit the punishment as a means of showing they were tough and could take it. Moreover, in order to maintain their status in the eyes of their associates, many who had received judicial corporal punishment would be likely to commit further offences to show that they had not been intimidated.
This is a fact which we cannot overlook in dealing with the psychology of the gang or juvenile delinquent groups in our society.
The report, of course, inquired into various areas of the commonwealth and different

countries in the world and found that in the main there was no important movement for extending corporal punishment or, in those countries which had abolished it, any important movement to have it restored. The arguments in favour of corporal punishment as a deterrent are developed and found wanting, and corporal punishment in relation to modern penological methods fails, of course, on its first application. Every movement we have made in our penal institutions and penal methods is moving away from this kind of approach. There are a number of other matters which come into the question, one of the more important of which is the problem posed by the delay between the sentencing and the carrying out of the sentence. The report concludes on this question:
We agree that the delay is the most serious practical objection to judicial corporal punishment.
The practical question arises of who is to administer this punishment whether it is by lash, or whip or strap. The policemen do not want to do it; the guards do not want to do it and, certainly, those involved in the rehabilitation aspect of prison life would not want to be associated with an activity of this kind, for after all, they are trying to develop a more positive social conscience in the individual concerned while offering some help on the road back to good citizenship. Perhaps the solution would be to hire a public whipping man, as we now have a public hangman, who would go from place to place, as travelling dentists and doctors do in our society today.
The report makes eight basic recommendations and I should like to run very quickly through them. I would remind members of the house again, that 77 per cent of the people consulted in Britain favoured the restoration or retention of criminal punishment. This committee, having examined the facts, came to the conclusion, in spite of that evidence of public opinion, that corporal punishment should not be reintroduced in Britain, and the comment is:
If that were to be done it would be putting the clock back not 12 hours but a hundred years.
Second, the present demand for the reintroduction of judicial corporal punishment seems to be limited to this country.-
Third, we consider that, in these circumstances, the reintroduction of judicial corporal punishment could be justified only if there was a reasonable assurance that it would substantially reduce crime and afford real protection to potential victims. We think that there cannot be any such assurance.
Fourth, judicial corporal punishment is out of line with modern penal methods and would militate against the success of reformative treatment, such as probation or borstal training.
The report goes on to deal in particular with some of the practical and constructive alternatives such as the physical expansion

of institutions, equipment, teaching and training, and an increase in the police forces in the various areas with a high crime incidence. This again is a constructive, logical and practical approach to the question.
Having already delayed the house too long, I would sum up by saying that it seems to be the pattern here and wherever this question has been argued and examined that public opinion in the main favours the retention of corporal punishment, but those groups that are confronted with serious study of the question and the evidence given by qualified persons in the many fields related to criminology inevitably come to the conclusion, which forms the basis of the proposition I now put to this house, that corporal punishment should be abolished in Canada.


Chesley William Carter: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say a few words in support of this resolution. I shall make my remarks as brief as possible because I see we have only about 35 minutes left in this debate and I am sure there are many other hon. members who would like to participate. I would not wish to deny anyone who wished to make a contribution the opportunity of doing so.
I am well aware that there is a biblical injunction which says, "Spare the rod and spoil the child". I suppose there are some who would use that as a justification for the use of whipping in connection with crime. I imagine that it is possible for some to look upon the latter as an extension of the former. To me however, there seems to be no connection whatever between the two. The one was meant to be administered by a loving parent as a corrective measure for a person who had not yet achieved the age of reason or matured sufficiently to be able to reason things out for himself. The other is administered by society as a deterrent to crime. If there is any justification whatever for the use of whipping it must be as a deterrent.
The deterrent value of whipping itself is very much open to debate. Certainly it cannot be expected to have much effect upon individuals who have not yet achieved mental or psychological maturity. Even if we accept the argument that it does deter normal persons then we are arguing that the ends justify the means. I have not been able to accept that as a general rule. There may be certain exceptions to that but I have never come across any of them and in any case I feel it is not a very strong argument.
In matters of this kind I feel we should be guided by a higher principle. That principle is inherent in our concept of the nature
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of man himself, the principle of human dignity. Whatever deterrent value whipping may have for normal persons it does not lie so much in the pain associated with it as in the indignity to the person who has to undergo it. Human dignity is a quality each of us brings with us when we enter the world. So long as we are rational human beings it stays with us, regardless of what crimes we may commit. It would be a very sad state of affairs if the human dignity of a person depended on the varying judgments of the people around him.
This concept in my opinion goes to the very root of our society because it marks off the fundamental difference between our democracy and a society based on an atheistic materialism, the difference between a society based on the concept of the worth and dignity of the individual as a human being and a society built on the concept that man is nothing but a mere animal. Even in the case of animals, we have laws which would prohibit the use of such practices.
As a matter of principle alone-the principle of individual worth and human dignity inherent in man as a created being-I believe that this practice should be abolished. There is nothing at all sentimental about that. It is purely a matter of principle. I think we must make up our minds with respect to principles of this kind. Either we believe certain things or we do not. If we believe that a man, as an individual being, has dignity and worth within himself then the use of whipping for any reason whatever is a contradiction of that belief.
It is these contradictions that have hindered the spread of democracy in this century. People in other nations see that we profess one thing and practise another. I welcome this bill because I believe it asserts a fundamental principle of democracy and one that should govern all our legislation and practices.


Harold Edward Winch: support this bill, Mr. Speaker, and I congratulate the hon. member on again having introduced it. I am not supporting it because of sentiment; I am supporting it on principle and as a result of 25 years study of corporal punishment. The reason I support this bill is that from my experience of 20 years as a member of the British Columbia legislature and my eight years in the House of Commons I have not found any evidence whatever to indicate that corporal punishment, either as a judicial sentence or as a disciplinary measure inside an institution, has acted as a deterrent to further crime or helped to rehabilitate the individual concerned to a social life and a social consciousness.

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I should like to ask all thoughtful members in this house-and I am certain that every one is a thoughtful member-to note that Canada is one of only two countries in the modern and civilized world where corporal punishment can be inflicted as a judicial sentence. Canada is one of only three countries in the modern civilized world where corporal punishment can be used either as a judicial sentence or as a disciplinary measure.
I ask hon. members who are here, thereby evidencing their interest in this bill-and I ask the hon. member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McGee) to take note of this fact-to take this opportunity to wipe out one of the most archaic sentences existing in the civilized world. This matter is one which, if studied, will positively sicken you. How many hon. members in the house today have seen the board to which a man is strapped, either horizontally if he is to be paddled, or reclining if he is to be lashed? How many have seen a man with his feet fastened to the floor? How many have seen the paddle, which is a strap with holes in it, the purpose of the holes being to perforate the flesh? How many have seen the lash, the cat-o'-nine tails, with the nine strands of nylon cord? I have. I have been in the institutions and I have seen those boards. I have seen the paddle with the holes in it and I have seen the lash with blood on it. I have seen them. How many considering this matter have seen a man whose back has been lashed so that the blood is drawn and he is put in the penitentiary hospital for 10 days? I have seen these things, sir; the paddle, the lash, the board, the blood and the back.
We in Canada maintain that we are a civilized people. We maintain in this House of Commons-and we rightfully maintain-that we are spending millions upon millions of dollars to put in institutions those who commit crimes against society, for two purposes; to punish them for their crimes and to try to rehabilitate them so that they become useful members of society. What is the experience of those who have investigated this matter of whether corporal punishment deters from crime or rehabilitates prisoners as useful members of society? May I give one experience. A few years ago I went into a penitentiary in Canada and I asked the warden if he would call into his office everyone in that institution who had had the lash or the paddle. He did. I questioned every one of those men. If my memory is correct there were 12 or 13. Of those who had had the lash and the paddle, only one said that it did him any good. All the rest said it created a sense of antagonism, of violence, of hatred, of wanting to get back, not only at the individual who

had done it, not only at the warden and the magistrate who had ordered it, but at society which allowed it to be done. That was my personal experience in a penitentiary of Canada.
What I think perhaps is of more account is the report which will be found in volume II of the three year study by the joint committee of the other place and the House of Commons on capital and corporal punishment. In the appendix to volume II will be found the report of an interview carried out by our counsel in the city of Toronto with a number of men who had received the lash and the paddle, some of them many times. Some of them had been out of an institution for over 20 years, and they were asked whether the punishment deterred or not. If hon. members will read that report they will get the answer. They will find only two who said it did them any good. They will find in the report on the others words such as these- since many of these men are now well-known businessmen in Toronto initials are used. With respect to Mr. "A" we find the following:
He considered it had done him no good. He repeated several times that the strap had no effect in controlling his conduct. He did not want to give the prison authorities any satisfaction. He had gained prestige in the institution after having corporal punishment, particularly because he did not yell.
Again, we find this:
Corporal punishment was like strapping a person every once in a while to show him who was boss; it was no way to reform a man.
Hon. members can go through the report- I have it all marked-and they will see the reaction of those who were interviewed. What is the opinion arrived at? My own personal interviews with those in the institution and the interviews conducted by the counsel of the joint committee with those who had become rehabilitated, and who had received the strap, indicate to me that it did no good.
I want to add just one more statement. I wish to relate the experience I had in speaking to a man of his reaction to receiving the paddle many years ago. He thought he did not deserve it but he got it. His reaction was, "I wanted to kill the man who ordered it, and I will kill the man who gave it to me". This man told me himself that after discharge the first thing he did was to get a rifle. He went back outside the fence, and he had the guard who gave him the paddle in his sights, and he was just within seconds of becoming a murderer. The reason he did not become a murderer was that he had forgotten to take off the safety catch of the rifle and his pal grabbed the rifle away from him.
The evidence is conclusive that corporal punishment is no deterrent to further crime.

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[n the majority of cases it creates a reaction which is opposed to the purpose for which the House of Commons votes money, namely to try to rehabilitate as useful citizens those who have broken the laws of society. In these modern times, from the point of view of Christianity, emotion and sentiment I say that to the thoughtful man everything points to the conclusion that Canada should now modernize its criminal and disciplinary laws and, in the interests of decency, common sense and rehabilitation, abolish the use of the lash on the back and the paddle on the buttocks, i sincerely hope that before six o'clock all present will vote to support the bill introduced by the hon. member for York-Scar-borough (Mr. McGee).


Thomas Miller Bell: I should like to ask the hon. member this question. If a person is now successful in business, let us say, and corporal punishment had been administered at some time during his life while tie was in prison, would it not be reasonable to suppose that, whether or not he admitted it, this might have had some good effect in bis rehabilitation?


Harold Edward Winch: I refer my hon. friend to the evidence in which it was said by all that it iield them back so far as rehabilitation was poncerned.


Thomas Miller Bell: Who said that?


Harold Edward Winch: Of all those who were interviewed by counsel for the joint committee, only two said it ever did them any good.


Thomas Miller Bell: But would it not be reasonable to suppose that they would lot admit that it had done them any good?


Harold Edward Winch: Their evidence was all given in confidence and I would think they were juite honest in their statements.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Would the hon. member identify the other countries where such punishment still exists?


Harold Edward Winch: One country is South Africa, the only country in the modern world where women can still be punished in this way and under certain circumstances, such as an attack on a guard, punishment of this sort can still be administered in the United Kingdom Eor disciplinary purposes.


Walter Clarence Henderson: Mr. Speaker, I take great pleasure in seconding the motion for the second reading of this bill to abolish corporal punishment. I have lever been in a penitentiary and have never seen a whip, so maybe I am talking of something about which I do not know too much.
However, in the first world war I was attached to a group from South Africa, and I know that if the negroes in the outfit had done something wrong they were hung up and lashed. I did not see them lashed but I saw them hanging there. They were tied to a cross and their backs were marked where they had been whipped. I think this is degrading.
As far as I am concerned I do not even like to see a horse whipped, let alone a human being. In fact, I am speaking the truth when I say that in Belgium after the war Canadian soldiers would go right out on to the street and pound the drivers of big wagons drawn by Canadian army horses because the drivers were whipping the horses which were hauling the loads that were too heavy. I saw that happen three or four times. As I say, I do not like to see a horse whipped, let alone a human being. It is degrading and I cannot see how any good comes from it because it only stirs up resentment. As the last speaker said, and apparently he knows what he is talking about, a man treated in this way gets murder in his heart.
We have been raised a little differently and I think we have been too long in doing away with such punishment. We should now abolish whipping. According to our teaching it is wrong and, whether we are Christian, Moslem or whatever we are, let us get rid of it by voting for abolition today.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Speaker, I took part in a debate on a similar bill in 1959 at which time I spoke in favour of abolition of such punishment. I do not propose to review, except briefly, some of the points I made at that time because I still maintain the same views. To those who may turn to the debates of that year, may I say that I quoted from the study of the British committee into the deterrent aspects of the use of flogging and the lash. It seemed to me and to those who made that study, I believe, that there was no deterrent effect whatsoever; that a person was just as apt to be a recidivist without the lash as if he were the type to whom such punishment was administered. The figures and findings of that study may be found in the debate of two years ago.
One point I should like to make this afternoon is that whether or not we pass this measure, and I think there are others who have views they would like to express, the fact remains that the use of corporal punishment is regarded as outmoded in Canada, and that can be proved by the statistics relating to those who have undergone such punishment. In 1959 the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi (Mr. Grafftey) pointed out that in 1931 about 12.1 per cent of those who

Criminal Code
were eligible to receive such punishment did in fact receive it and that by 1954 this figure had gone down to .6 per cent. If I may make a comparison in a different way, out of 500 prisoners who would have been eligible to receive corporal punishment in 1931 some 60 or 61 did receive it in that year, whereas in 1954 only three out of a similar group of 500 eligible to receive such punishment did in fact receive it. So the shrinkage is most apparent.
I also have great faith in the approach of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) to the whole problem of punishment and rehabilitation of the criminal. If the measure of the hon. member for York-Scarborough is not passed this afternoon, I am sure we can hopefully anticipate that something will be done in the not too distant future, perhaps next session if not later this session. This is only a personal hope but I know that the Minister of Justice, with his vast depth of humanity and his great interest in the proper carrying out of his duties, will take us off the hook, for we as civilized people must surely feel rather ashamed and guilty that we are among the very small handful of nations still using such methods.


Harold Edward Winch: One of three.


Robert Jardine McCleave: One of three, says the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch), who very kindly identified the other two in response to a question of mine a few minutes ago.
There is yet another point I should like to make and as it has been made before I will not press it ad nauseam. The use of the lash or flogging is apt to put a special brand, almost like the mark of Cain, upon the person who undergoes such treatment and, as previous speakers have indicated, it is apt to turn the punished person into a criminal seeking revenge. We heard the very graphic story of the hon. member for Vancouver East about the man whose first thought upon leaving the penitentiary was to purchase a rifle-


Harold Edward Winch: Reform school; he was only 17 years old.


Robert Jardine McCleave: -and to seek revenge. It was reform school. I thank the hon. member for putting me straight. A very important aspect to remember is that we can turn a criminal who might be helped into a savage animal. The support, if any support there is, that society gives to the use of the lash I think would be in regard to very special types of cases; not only the case involving violence on another person, but more likely the case involving a criminal who has sexually molested a little child. Here, when

speaking to members of the public one does find, especially if one is a parent or talks to a parent, the greatest abhorrence of this type of person and a feeling almost perhaps without reason, so terrified are parents of this type of person in society. I believe that in this area you would find the chief support for the use of the lash. My answer to that support is that such criminals obviously are very sick indeed and have to be cured by other methods. I do not think it would deter them for one single instant to undergo this savage and mediaeval punishment.
Finally, sir, I am not going to discuss the esoteric subject of the effect of spanking upon Toronto businessmen, but the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo (Mr. Carter) quoted the Biblical injunction, spare the rod and spoil the child. I think that the rod does have its place in society; there has to be a certain chastisement offered, but that is a prerogative of the home where the very young may have certain impressions made upon them by the parents who believe in the use of the rod. I think, however, when one reaches an adult stage habits are formed, and it is too late to start meting out physical punishment upon malefactors.
For these reasons, sir, and mainly because I do not think that the lash has any practical value whatsoever, I certainly support the bill of the hon. member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McGee).


Thomas Miller Bell: Mr. Speaker, this very important subject is being brought forward again by the hon. member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McGee), and there has been considerable debate on it in the past. I feel most of the speakers have been in favour of the bill, which is against corporal punishment. They have spoken in favour of abolition I think in the same manner as those who are against capital punishment. They seem to be emotional, as are those who speak against forms of capital punishment, but they are more vociferous. Perhaps there are admittedly more today who are against corporal punishment than there are against capital punishment. Nevertheless, there are still many who do not make their thoughts known in this chamber or outside and who still feel that we should in some way retain these two forms of punishment.
I do not have definite views myself, but I do feel that some of the expressions in favour of retention have not been put forward, except by the member for Calgary South (Mr. Smith) in the debate last year. The hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch), who is a very interested student of

penology and has been for some years, has delivered his informed but emotional speech. I take exception to the example he used of the successful businessmen. They were asked in the questionnaire that was sent out by the 1954 committee whether in their opinion corporal punishment had been of any value in their own careers. I suggest very seriously, Mr. Speaker, that these now respectable citizens would not admit or appreciate the fact, just as members of this house might not admit openly that school punishment had played a very important part in their careers. So the figures in those instances again do not give the whole story. It would be interesting to have figures, and I have not seen any, in respect of those who have not been successful; those who still follow a life of crime, to ascertain whether they had received punishment or not, to what degree, and the part it played in their careers.


An hon. Member:: Look at the report.


Thomas Miller Bell: I have spent a day studying the report, Mr. Speaker, and have not seen that reference, but it may be that there are some figures which I missed. I was impressed by the evidence that was given by Colonel Basher, who appeared before that committee in 1954 and was questioned at length about corporal punishment. Two or three of the points that were revealed at that time, and which I jotted down, were significant. The statistics may have changed slightly since then, but he said this only concerned about .44 of the persons in custody. He was asked from a psychiatric point of view whether there might be a different approach now as a result of this scientific, modern trend. He said that in his opinion some individuals need this corporal punishment approach which in itself is scientific. He also went into a great deal of discussion about juvenile delinquency, which is a very serious problem.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rea):: Order. It is now six o'clock.


Thomas Miller Bell: May I adjourn the debate, Mr. Speaker.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, the business of the house was announced last night and I presume it is as was then stated. I should like to bring a matter to the attention of the house leader which has to do with the pension bill. We on this side feel that we would be prepared to take that on Monday and also expedite its passage because I understand there is a clause in the bill which, if there
Business of the House
is any delay, might make it awkward for the operative clauses of the bill. I wonder if the house leader has any ideas in that regard.


George Clyde Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the hon. member for Laurier. It is desirable to get that pension bill through.
I announced it last night as being the third matter on the program for Monday and Tuesday. It might be advisable to deal with it earlier, although I understand that it will not be technically necessary. The minister will be in Ottawa tomorrow and I will inform him of the suggestion put forward by the hon. member. It may be that we can deal with that bill with relatively short notice on Monday or Tuesday. I believe that arrangements have been made for an amendment to the bill to correct the technical situation which might arise if the bill was not passed on Tuesday. In any event, I appreciate the suggestion of the hon. member.
There is only one change, Mr. Speaker, that I will have to make in the preliminary announcement which I made last night. At that time I said we would deal with the budget resolutions on Monday and go on with the
O.E.C.D. and pension bill on Tuesday.
It has developed that due to circumstances over which we have no control the Minister of Finance will not be in the house Monday night and so the business of the house will be subject to the pensions bill. We will proceed first with the budget resolutions, as I announced yesterday, until six o'clock Monday night. Then on resuming Monday evening we will take up item No. 8 on the order paper, a motion in the name of the Minister of Transport to set up a sessional committee on railways, air lines and shipping.
If that is concluded Monday night we will then go on to No. 11, a resolution in the name of the Minister of Agriculture. I think that is a possibility rather than a probability, Mr. Speaker. Then on Tuesday we will revert again to the order of business which I announced last night. In other words, we will deal with the budget resolutions, if they have not been completed. Then, we will deal with O.E.C.D. and the pensions bill, subject to this; that the pensions bill may be advanced, as the hon. member has just suggested it could easily be, over either of those two matters.
I might point this out to the house, Mr. Speaker. Last night, in giving a preview of what might happen during the week, I mentioned the estimates of the Department of Fisheries as a matter which might come up on Friday. I have since been informed that the estimates of the Department of Fisheries

Business of the House
have not yet been called, so I suspect we might run into some technical difficulty if we dealt with those estimates on Friday.
The house leader will be back in his place on Monday and we will deal with the business of estimates for the latter part of the week.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, the acting
house leader knows we have been asking to deal with the estimates of the Department of Labour for quite some time now. This would perhaps be an opportunity to do so.


George Clyde Nowlan: That is an alternative tha1 is always before us for Thursday and Friday.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, the members of this group are anxious to see the quick passage of the pensions bill for the reasons expressed by the hon. member for Lauriei and we are anxious to co-operate in any way possible.


George Clyde Nowlan: Thank you. We are always grateful to receive such co-operation.


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

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

Mr. Bourgei: 1.	During the months of April or May 1960, did the Department of Agriculture invite tenders for the delivery of 300 tons of coal at Grosse lie, Quebec?
2.	If so, what was the name of each tenderer, and the amount of each tender?
3.	To whom was the contract awarded, on what date, and at what price?
Answer by: Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of
Agriculture):
1.	The Department of Agriculture invited tenders for the delivery of 300 tons of coal at Grosse lie, Quebec, on May 27, 1960.
2.	The name of each tenderer and the amount of each tender is as follows: Canadian Import Company, Quebec city, $5,649; Paquet & Fils, Levis, Quebec, $5,694.
3.	The contract was awarded to the: Canadian Import Company, price, $5,649; date, August 11, 1960.
Questions


WHEAT AND FLOUR SHIPMENTS TO NORWAY
Mr. Boulanger: Following the agreement in August 1960 with Norway regarding storage of wheat and flour, how many tons of wheat and flour have been shipped to that country, and what was the turnover since this agreement was signed?
Answer by: Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary of Slate for External Affairs):
Twenty thousand tons of flour, there has been no turnover.


FISH PRICES, ATLANTIC PROVINCES AND QUEBEC
Mr. Robichaud: 1.	What was the average landed price paid to fishermen for fresh cod in the years 1945, 1950, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, (a) in New Brunswick (b) in Nova Scotia (c) in Quebec (d) in Prince Edward Island (e) in Newfoundland?
2.	What was the average landed price paid to fishermen for fresh haddock in the same years and same provinces mentioned in question 1?
3.	What was the average landed price paid to fishermen for fresh flounders in the same years and same provinces mentioned in question 1?
Answer by: Hon. J. A. MacLean (Minister of Fisheries):
Average prices paid to fishermen for selected species, by provinces, Atlantic coast, 1945, 1950, 1955 to 1960
-	1945	1950	1955	1956	1957	1958	1959	1960
			(In dollars per 100 pounds)					
COD								
New Brunswick	.. 3.52	2.22	2.56	2.49	2.44	2.94	3.17	2.87Nova Scotia	.. 3.51	3.24	3.36	3.40	3.10	3.36	3.75	3.45Quebec	.. 4.06	2.15	2.42	2.37	2.12	2.48	2.61	2.67Prince Edward Island. . ..	.. 3.71	2.01	2.67	2.94	2.05	2.29	2.88	2.75Newfoundland	(2)	(2)	2.19	2.23	2.17	2.12	2.33	2.63HADDOCK	New Brunswick	.. 3.99	6.68	4.06	4.31	4.92	6.15	6.10	5.30Nova Scotia	.. 4.52	4.96	3.48	3.42	3.63	4.59	5.09	4.38Quebec	-	-	3.56	2.83	2.87	4.66	4.84	4.14Prince Edward Island....	.. 6.56	4.92	3.03	3.58	3.86	4.46	4.64	4.62Newfoundland	.. (2)	(2)	2.70	2.68	2.27	2.32	2.39	2.32FLOUNDERS (1)	New Brunswick	.. 2.49	2.43	2.94	2.98	2.87	3.02	3.03	2.91Nova Scotia	.. 1.76	2.92	3.19	3.32	3.22	3.26	3.39	3.49Quebec	.. 4.32	2.71	3.10	2.82	2.93	3.15	3.18	3.00Prince Edward Island. . ..	.. 1.05	1.90	3.96	3.32	3.12	3.30	3.26	3.26Newfoundland	.. (2)	(2)	2.97	2.76	2.78	2.79	2.72	2.72(1)	Includes all small flatfishes.(2)	Not available.
Supply-Items Passed
[The following items were passed in committee of supply]:


PUBLIC ARCHIVES AND NATIONAL LIBRARY
[Stage Direction]
A-Public archives-
319.	General administration and technical services, $716,268.
B-National library-
320.	General administration, $269,281.
321.	Payment to the national library purchase account for the purpose of acquiring books, in conformity with section 12 of the National Library Act, $40,000.

[Stage Direction]
251.	Administration, production and distribution of films and other visual materials, $4,988,112.
252.	Acquisition of equipment, $172,380.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, February 27, 1961