1962-01-22

FINANCE


Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table copies in English and in French of two reports, the ninth and tenth, relating to reference No. 125 on textiles, which I received from the chairman of the tariff board while the house was in recess. These are the final reports pursuant to reference No. 125 and complete the board's review under this reference. I am also tabling transcripts of the evidence presented to the tariff board at its public hearings.
The ninth report covers batts and batting and coated or impregnated fabrics. It was released to the public on November 3, 1961. The tenth and final report which deals with hats, caps and related products was released on November 14, 1961.



SWEEPSTAKES


Mr. J. F. Browne (Vancouver-Kingsway) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-2, to provide for the establishment of a hospital sweepstakes board.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



COASTAL FISHERIES PROTECTION ACT


Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-3, to amend the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act (twelve mile fishing zone).
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



BILL OF RIGHTS


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Bonavisia-Twillin-gate) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-4, to amend the Canadian Bill of Rights.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The purpose of this bill, Mr. Speaker, is to end a very real discrimination which exists in the laws of Canada at the present time, and to remove the possibility of having the citizenship of any Canadian citizen taken away. It is the same bill as I introduced at the last session and arises out of a particular case, a very worthy case, that had come to my notice.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS


Frank Howard: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-5, to amend the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



APPLICATION OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING TO CROWN AND EMPLOYEES

Frank Howard: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-ll, to amend the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act (application to civil service).


John Whitney Pickersgill: Explain.


Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, the bill seeks to apply the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act to Her Majesty, and consequently to the civil service of Canada, except those provisions relating to strikes and/or lockouts, and provides a system whereby the report of what would be known as a conciliation board would be presented to parliament in sufficient time for parliament to deal with it prior to the next budget.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



INTEREST ACT


Mr. E. Nasserden (Rosihem) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-6, to amend the Interest Act (finance charges).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Edward Nasserden: The purpose of this bill, Mr. Speaker, is to make mandatory the giving of information regarding the amount of

Proposed Legislation
charges on a credit debt and also the proportion of such debt which that constitutes per annum.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



AMENDMENT TO PLACE CEILING ON INTEREST RATES

Mr. Hazen Argue (Assiniboia) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-8, to amend the Interest Act
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time. RAILWAY ACT



AMENDMENT RESPECTING MAINTENANCE OF ABANDONED LINES

Mr. W. H. A. Thomas (Middlesex West) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-7, to amend the Railway Act (abandonment).
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



PROVISION FOR APPLICATION BY TRUCKERS TO TRANSPORT BOARD ON COMPETITIVE RATES

John Ferguson Browne: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-9, to amend the Railway Act.


Mr. Benidickson:: Explain.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Explain.


John Ferguson Browne: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this amendment is to provide that representatives of the trucking industry shall have the right to make application to the board of transport commissioners for disallowance of a competitive rate when they consider that such rate has subjected motor vehicle operators to undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION ACT


Mr. Speaker:: By unanimous consent of the house a bill may be introduced by another member at the request of the member in whose name it stands. Has the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Habel) unanimous consent to introduce this bill?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. J. A. Habel (for Mr. Boulanger) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-10, to amend the Financial Administration Act.
[Mr. Nasserden.l


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


Joseph-Alphonse-Anaclet Habel: Mr. Speaker, I must say that this bill is exactly the same as the one introduced last year. Its purpose is to enact that all documents referred to therein be printed in both languages.
(Text) :
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



CRIMINAL CODE


Mr. Frank McGee (York-Scarborough) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-12, to amend the Criminal Code (capital punishment).


John Whitney Pickersgill: Explain.


Frank Charles McGee: The purpose of this bill is precisely the purpose of the similar bill which was introduced in the last session.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



AMENDMENT WITH RESPECT TO WATER POLLUTION

Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kooienay Wesi) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-13, to amend the Criminal Code (nuisance).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: The purpose of this bill is to give effect to certain proposals eloquently advanced by the Prime Minister when he was a member of the official opposition for the effective control of pollution in interprovincial rivers.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



AMENDMENT TO ABOLISH IMPOSITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

Frank Charles McGee: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-22, to amend the Criminal Code (corporal punishment).
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



AMENDMENT RESPECTING USE OF TRADING STAMPS

Frank Howard: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-24, to amend the Criminal Code (trading stamps).
Motion agreed to and bill read the first
time.

Proposed Legislation
REPRESENTATION ACT	HOUSE OF COMMONS ACT



AMENDMENT TO INCREASE ELECTORAL DISTRICTS IN NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

Mr. Erik Nielsen (Yukon) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-14, to amend the Representation Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



CANADA GRAIN ACT


Mr. Reynold Rapp (Humboldl-Melforl-Tis-dale) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-15, to amend the Canada Grain Act (rape-seed and mustard seed).


Mr. Mcllrailh:: Explain.


Reynold Rapp: The purpose of this bill is the same as the purpose of the measure I introduced at a previous session. The act requires a provision for new grading to bring it up to the standard that is needed by our exporters and by buyers in foreign countries.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



CANADA ELECTIONS ACT


Frank Howard: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-16, to amend the Canada Elections Act (age of voters).


William Moore Benidickson: Explain.


Frank Howard: This bill merely seeks to allow electors to vote in Canada at the age of 18 as compared with the age of 21.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



PROVISION FOR DISTRIBUTION OF NAMES OF CANDIDATES

Frank Charles McGee: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-34, to amend the Canada Elections Act (campaign contributions).


John Whitney Pickersgill: Explain.


Frank Charles McGee: Mr. Speaker, the specific purpose of this bill is to require the returning officer in each constituency to place in the hands of the electors immediately following the nomination of the candidates, the names of the candidates, the names and addresses of their official agents, in order to encourage campaign contributions on a broader and more democratic basis.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.
26207-1-3i



AMENDMENTS RESPECTING INTERNAL ECONOMY COMMISSION

Frank Howard: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-17, to amend the House of Commons Act (internal economy autonomy).


George James McIlraith: Explain.


Frank Howard: The commissioners of internal economy are, apparently, appointed by virtue of the provision of section 16 of the House of Commons Act which provides that there shall be four members of the cabinet plus yourself, Mr. Speaker, to deal with expenditures of money relating to the House of Commons. I understand that this system was originally designed at the time of confederation because of the difficulty of transportation over the distances which many members had to travel in order to get to Ottawa. It was presumably felt that members of the cabinet, who were likely to have their homes in Ottawa, could attend to this work more conveniently.
However, the situation at the moment is that the cabinet itself, by virtue of its majority of four to one compared with Your Honour, has control over monetary and financial matters affecting the House of Commons and it would seem to me that this is not a desirable thing. The bill seeks to remove those provisions in order that the commissioners of internal economy might be selected by the house itself.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



AMENDMENT RESPECTING HOLDING OF BY-ELECTIONS

John Whitney Pickersgill: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-20, to amend the House of Commons Act (election writs for by-elections).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The purpose of this bill is to uphold the rights of parliament and the electorate by laying down definite prescriptions so that by-elections for vacancies in this house will be held within a reasonable period of time.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



FINANCE


Mr. L. J. Pigeon (Jolielte-L'Assompiion-Monicalm) moved: for leave to introduce Bill

Proposed Legislation
No. C-18, respecting the printing of negotiable instruments in the English and the French languages.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



SMALL LOANS ACT


Hazen Robert Argue: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-19, to amend the Small Loans Act.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Hazen Robert Argue: The purpose of this bill is to reduce the maximum interest rate on small loans from 2 per cent per month to 1 per cent per month.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



AMENDMENT REQUIRING STATEMENT OF TRUE INTEREST RATE CHARGED

Hazen Robert Argue: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-23, to amend the Small Loans Act (advertising).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Hazen Robert Argue: The purpose of this bill is to make it a provision in the law that the simple interest shall be stated in advertisements in connection with small loans.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



PENSION ACT


Mr. Jack McIntosh (Swift Current-Maple Creek) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-21, to amend the Pension Act (judicial appeal).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


John (Jack) McIntosh: In brief, the purpose of this bill is to provide that an applicant who has had an unfavourable decision from the commission may appeal to the courts of Canada.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



CANADIAN SOVEREIGNTY


Mr. Speaker:: I am informed that the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Allard), who is unavoidably absent, has requested the hon. member for Richmond-Wolfe (Mr. Dubois) to introduce this bill for him, which he may do by unanimous consent of the house. Is it agreed that he may do so?
[Mr. Pigeon.)


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. V. F. Dubois (for Mr. Allard) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-25, respecting the sovereignty of Canada.
(Translation):


John Whitney Pickersgill: Explain.


V. Florent Dubois: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to give recognition to the sovereignty of Canada by having a holiday called Sovereignty Day and to adopt a distinctive national anthem and national flag.
(Text):
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



INDIAN ACT


Frank Howard: for
leave to introduce Bill No. C-26, to amend the Indian Act (liquor rights).


John Whitney Pickersgill: Explain.


Frank Howard: This bill, Mr. Speaker, seeks to place native Indians on the same footing and with the same rights and responsibilities with relation to liquor as everyone else in the nation. It provides further that the right to be in possession of liquor on an Indian reserve shall be the subject of a plebiscite of the members of the particular band.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



BANKRUPTCY ACT


Hazen Robert Argue: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-27, to amend the Bankruptcy Act (wage earners' assignments).


William Moore Benidickson: Explain.


Mr, Argue:: This bill provides that, where an individual has credit obligations which he is unable to meet at the moment, procedures may be applied for the regular retirement of those obligations, which procedures would protect the individual from unconscionable and unnecessary repossession of his chattels.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA ACT


Erik Nielsen: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-28, to amend the British North America Acts, 1867 to 1960, with respect to representation in the Senate.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to take a step toward curing a most unsatisfactory and frustrating situation that exists in the other place at the present moment.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



CANADA FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES ACT


Frank Howard: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-29, to amend the Canada Fair Employment Practices Act (age discrimination).
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



LOTTERY


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-30, to provide for a Canadian lottery. (Translation):


John Whitney Pickersgill: Explain.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to provide for the establishment of a Canadian lottery, the proceeds of which would be used to increase family allowances. (Text):
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



FLAGS OF CANADA


Mr. Speaker:: Has the hon. member, who states that he has authorization to present this bill for the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger), leave of the house to do so.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. J. P. Deschaielets (for Mr. Boulanger) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-31, respecting flags of Canada.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



BROADCASTING ACT


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-32, to amend the Broadcasting Act (human rights abuses remedied).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.
Proposed Legislation


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to protect legitimate free enterprise against the monopolistic instincts and practices of publishers who own radio stations.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



NATIONAL ENERGY BOARD ACT


William Howell Arthur Thomas: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-33, to amend the National Energy Board Act (drainage works).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


William Howell Arthur Thomas: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is the same as that of a bill introduced at the last session. The purpose is to make pipe lines operating under federal charter subject to provincial drainage laws in the same way as pipe lines operating under provincial charter.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



AERONAUTICS ACT


Mr. John Drysdale (Burnaby-Richmond) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-35, to amend the Aeronautics Act.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Explain.


John Andrew W. Drysdale: I should like to thank the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate for his avid interest in this matter, and I hope he will support the bill when it comes forward. The purpose of this bill is to provide a central Canadian aircraft registry in order to record the title to and all encumbrances against Canadian civil aircraft. Provision is made for registration according to nationality in order to comply with the provisions of the convention on the international recognition of rights in aircraft. By providing a central aircraft registry according to nationality, Canada can then become a signatory to that convention.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



WAR SERVICE GRANTS ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Veterans
Affairs) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. C-36, to amend the War Service Grants Act.
[Stage Direction]
Proposed Legislation
John Whitney Pickersgill: Explain.


Mr. Churchill:: The purpose of the amendment is to extend that date through which the War Service Grants Act will be in operation.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



VETERANS INSURANCE ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Veterans
Affairs) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. C-37, to amend the Veterans Insurance Act.
William Moore Benidickson: Explain.


Gordon Minto Churchill: This explanation is similar; the amendment will extend the termination of the act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



CORPORATIONS AND LABOUR UNIONS


Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Justice) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-38, to provide for the reporting of financial and other statistics relating to the affairs of corporations and labour unions carrying on activities in Canada.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



MERCHANT SEAMEN COMPENSATION ACT


Mr. C. W. Carter (Burin-Burgeo) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-39, to amend the Merchant Seamen Compensation Act.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Explain.


Chesley William Carter: The purpose of this bill is to enable an orphan to live in the home of his guardian or foster parent and still retain eligibility for full benefits under the act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



CIVILIAN WAR PENSIONS


Gordon Minto Churchill: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the

following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Civilian War Pensions and Allowances Act to permit the payment of allowances, similar to those provided for veterans and their dependents under the War Veterans Allowance Act, 1952, to surviving former members and to certain dependants of deceased members of a number of civilian groups of Canadians who made outstanding voluntary contributions to the war eifort during World War I and World War II under difficult and dangerous conditions.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Gordon Minto Churchill: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency.
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Children of War Dead (Education Assistance) Act to clarify the definition of "student"; to extend the benefits under the act to certain classes of children; to extend in certain cases the education-assistance period; to extend in the case of particular students the age limit at which all benefits will cease; to accept a student for assistance under the act where his education has been interrupted by ill health or other good cause; and to increase the rate of allowances.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Donald Methuen Fleming: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Farm Improvement Loans Act to provide for the making of guaranteed loans during the period July 1st, 1962 to June 30th, 1965, and to establish four hundred million dollars as the limit of guaranteed loans that may be made during the new loan period.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Donald Methuen Fleming: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Fisheries Improvement Loans Act to extend the period during which guaranteed loans may be made to the 30th day of June, 1965.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the order: Government notices of motion:
In committee of the whole-The following proposed resolution:-
That it is expedient that the Houses of Parliament approve the universal copyright convention signed by Canada in Geneva in 1952 and protocol 3 thereto, and that this house do approve the same.
Mr. Speaker:: The next item in the name of the Secretary of State appears to have a typographical error in that the words "in committee of the whole" are inserted before the resolution. Would the Secretary of State wish the leave of the house to have these words struck out and proceed with the matter now?


Hon. Noel Dorion (Secretary of State):: Yes.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed that the words "in committee of the whole", may be deleted from this item?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to section 2 of standing order 21 this government notice of motion stands transferred to and ordered for consideration under government orders at the next sitting of the house.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of ihe Opposition):: I should like to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs if he can make any report to the house on the dangerous dispute between the Netherlands and Indonesia in regard to part of New Guinea, and whether he thinks there is a reasonable chance of successful mediation of this dangerous dispute?


Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Leader of the Opposition that this is a very dangerous situation. We have been pressing for negotiations, as various other countries have. At the moment I am not able to say whether or not there will be such negotiations, but I think the longer action is delayed the more chance there is of something being worked out to settle this dispute.



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State for
Inquiries of the Ministry External Affairs. I am sorry I have not been able to give notice of the question. In view of the excellent position in which Canada is to assist United Nations organizations by providing personnel for purposes of education in French speaking Africa, is the minister in a position to make any comment on the request of UNESCO for assistance from Canada to the extent of $900,000?


Howard Charles Green: Our aid is channeled to other governments; there is an arrangement between Canada and the respective countries although some of it goes through the United Nations agencies. At the moment there has been no provision made for the payment of $900,000 through UNESCO.
I should mention that we do have many different types of assistance for countries in Africa, including the commonwealth scholarship plan, as well as the plan for aid to French speaking African countries, and there is the special commonwealth aid program for Africa under which we are paying $3.5 million per year. There are various plans of that type under which we give aid.


Hazen Robert Argue: Could the minister say whether a request was made for this by the UNESCO organization and, if so, did Canada make a direct reply.


Howard Charles Green: I would have to check the files to find out if a request was made. In any event, there has been no provision made for payment of that amount.



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Maurice Bourgei (Levis):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. He will recall that on June 21 last he promised to furnish his report on the Northumberland causeway in the near future. Is the minister in a position to present that report now?


Hon. D. J. Walker (Minister of Public Works):: Since that time many matters have intervened which make it impossible for me to reply to the question at this time.


Maurice Bourget: Can we expect the report to be presented to the house before the dissolution of this parliament?


David James Walker: If my hon. friend can tell me the date of dissolution I might be able to answer that question.


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I ask the minister whether he is making the investigation personally?
36	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry Mr. Walker: That question does not beget a reply.


Mr. H. J. Robichaud (Gloucester):: In view of the reply given to the hon. member for Levis that in effect the minister was not prepared to table a report on the subject of the Northumberland causeway, is he prepared to table a preliminary report on the same project which was made available to the Prime Minister prior to his visit to Charlottetown on December 6 last?


David James Walker: No, Mr. Speaker. There was no official report at that time.



IMMIGRATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Hellyer (Trinity):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Can the minister inform the house as to the findings of her investigation into allegations that sums of money have been paid out by Greek immigrants to private individuals in order to secure their entry into Canada?


Hon. Ellen L. Fairclough (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration):: I did not catch the first part of the question, Mr. Speaker, but I think the hon. member was asking whether an investigation was under way. If that is the gist of the question then the answer is yes.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: My question was whether the minister will present her findings. Does she have anything to report?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I am sorry. The investigation is still in progress.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Has the minister received complaints to the effect that entry of immigrants from Italy, who had previously been denied entry, had been expedited by payments to the Paragon travel agency in Toronto?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I have no such report and if there is anything in my department it has not yet reached my desk.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Does the minister intend to seek the aid of the R.C.M.P. in the investigation?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I would be glad to entertain any proposal the hon. gentleman cares to make in that regard if he will give us sufficient information to proceed.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. A. Winkler (Grey-Bruce):: I should like to ask the Minister of Finance whether he is in a position to inform the house whether any decision has been reached regarding current import quotas on textiles and other goods.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Negotiations looking toward agreement with respect to 1962 export quotas have been under way for some time with representatives of the Japanese government.



REQUEST FOR APPOINTMENT OF ROYAL COMMISSION ON BILINGUALISM

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: should like to ask a question of the Prime Minister. In view of the widespread interest and concern being expressed throughout the country with respect to the question of bilingualism in Canada would the Prime Minister consider appointing a royal commission to examine all aspects of the subject?


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: No, Mr. Speaker.



INQUIRY AS TO VOLUNTARY QUOTA ON CRUDE EXPORTS TO U.S.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hubert Badanai (Fort William):: I should like to ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce to inform the house whether representations have been made to the Canadian government to obtain a voluntary quota system with respect to the export of crude oil to the United States?


Hon. George H. Hees (Minisier of Trade and Commerce):: I am not aware of any such request from the United States administration.



INDIAN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to ask the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration whether there are any negotiations going on at the present time, to her knowledge, respecting the sale of the Sarnia reserve?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Although from time to time rumours reach my office, to my definite knowledge there is nothing at the moment.



POSTAL SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Azellus Denis (St. Denis):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Postmaster General. Has the Postmaster General any comment to make in regard to the report in this morning's Gazette to the effect that
6.000	letters had been discovered lying for two weeks in a forgotten mail box?


Hon. W. M. Hamilton (Postmaster General):: May I just say, Mr. Speaker, that when I heard the dulcet tones of the hon. member for St. Denis I knew the house was really back in session.
This was a case of mail boxes having been removed from streets during street repairs, when we could not reach them with our trucks. The contractor who was to clear the box was informed by the post office, and through an error in the contractor's organization the chauffeur who drove the truck was not properly informed and therefore the box was not cleared.
This was a considerable annoyance to myself and the Post Office Department. I might point out that we have between 7,000 and
8.000	of these boxes across Canada, each of them being cleared several times a day making a total of perhaps 40,000 clearances. The very fact that this instance has attracted so much attention is proof that our system of control is generally satisfactory and that this is a most exceptional case.
However, it has been my experience that mistakes occur less frequently when they are punished. Since this is clearly the responsibility of the mail contractor concerned, a substantial financial penalty is being levied against the contractor and we have directed him to take disciplinary action against those in his organization who were directly responsible.
As minister, I do not take a disinterested attitude toward failures in our service, nor condone errors when those errors represent carelessness. I think this attitude may in part be responsible for the steady decrease in the number of complaints from the public regarding our service over the last several years.


Azellus Denis: I wonder if the minister could ever find anything wrong in his department which is his responsibility?


George Harris Hees: Things are different since 1957.
The Address-Mr. Pearson LIVESTOCK



COMPENSATION TO ONTARIO FARMERS FOR LOSS IN OUTBREAKS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. John Charlton (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday I was asked a question by the hon. member for Grey-Bruce as to whether, due to the increased incidence of rabies in Grey and Bruce counties, as well as other sections of the country, the minister would say if his department would again cooperate in the payment of compensation to farmers for losses of livestock from this disease?
The answer is yes. The department is prepared to continue to reimburse provinces for up to two fifths of the amounts paid by the provinces to owners of animals that have died as a result of rabies.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: May I ask the Minister of Justice whether his department has scrutinized the bill which was introduced today to amend the British North America Act to see if it infringes the bill of rights?


Edmund Davie Fulton: should not expect they have examined it yet. As I recall the procedure worked out, private bills are examined after they are presented to the house. My hon. friend will recall certain difficulties on an occasion last year as a result of a device which was resorted to in that connection by one of his friends.



SPEECH FROM THE THRONE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Friday, January 19, consideration of the motion of Mr. Rodrigue Bourdages for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session.
Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, in rising to participate in this debate I want to follow the time honoured and good custom of congratulating the mover, the hon. member for Laval (Mr. Bourdages), and the seconder, the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Browne), of the address in reply.
They would not expect me to agree with all the things they said or the arguments they

The Address-Mr. Pearson brought forward but they undoubtedly discharged their task to the satisfaction of their colleagues, and I take it that was their chief objective in discharging this honourable responsibility. I should like also to congratulate them on the skill of their brick-building with the straw that was available to them.
I should also like to congratulate the hon. member who has been appointed Deputy Speaker of the house, and I do that in a very sincere way. I feel sure that he will discharge his important and honourable function with fairness, impartiality and intelligence-those qualities, Mr. Speaker, which you have exhibited to such a high degree in your occupancy of the chair.
I should like to congratulate my hon. friend from Quebec South (Mr. Flynn), on his elevation to the cabinet as Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys, and those other hon. members who have been made parliamentary secretaries or have been given other distinctions.
The Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys must have been highly flattered by all the publicity given to his appointment to the cabinet. Perhaps, however, his satisfaction in this regard may have been modified by the realization that the attention which was centred on Quebec at this particular time was not exclusively devoted, I feel sure, to his promotion. There is no doubt that more was expected than even this important promotion -especially by the press-because of officially inspired and officially sponsored speculation.
We have in Canada today a government and a Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) who seem to enjoy giving birth to speculations and then to destroy their own speculative infants. Hence, Mr. Speaker, the fiasco of the deluxe pilgrimage to Quebec with private cars, aeroplanes and attendant officials, and all the panoply of an expectant press which is so flattering to the ego of ministers. What a circus performance that turned out to be, with a result, I think it is fair to say, that could have been achieved quietly and inexpensively in Ottawa.
What did it all accomplish, in this time of difficulties, deficits and very serious problems? The verdict of one member of the press gallery in connection with the accomplishments of this trip-the parliamentary correspondent of the Globe and Mail-had this to say when writing on January 3 of this year. I quote from Mr. Walter Gray's column:
The attendant publicity, and the Prime Minister's statements over press speculation-which the press maintains was originated by Mr. Dieienbaker himself-has left a cloud of foul air over parliament hill.
As it happened, this double-shuffle ended in a "no deal" and all the ministers sit- though perhaps somewhat less easily-on the

same front benches who were there previously. It was merely another chapter in the record of a government which prefers agitation to administration, surface excitement to sober results.
The circumstances surrounding the distribution of the throne speech seem to have been part of the same pattern-


An hon. Member:: Pessimism.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I am thinking of the delay in giving it out to the press until it was actually produced in the other place, which provoked-


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. gentleman allow a question?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, certainly.


John George Diefenbaker: The hon. member received a confidential copy in the usual way. Did he respect the confidentiality of that document, or did he make it available to others?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I received a copy of the speech around two o'clock in the afternoon on which it was delivered. It has been the custom to do that. I am grateful to the Prime Minister for that courtesy, although in earlier years I have received it a little earlier; but I am not complaining about that. I observed the appropriate security arrangements in regard to that speech.
I am now talking about the alteration of a custom to give advance copies to the press. The delay in doing so has, as perhaps it was meant to do, provoked some very startling rumours indeed.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. gentleman a simple question? Did the hon. gentleman deliver to anyone the confidential document that was handed to him?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I acted with perfect propriety in this regard, something which it may be difficult for the Prime Minister always to understand. There was a reason for this delay. This is not an important matter in itself. The reason may have been a last minute excision of a paragraph; it may have been merely the fact that the government did not get around to taking action, or it may have been a way of showing some form of displeasure at the attitude of the press. But whatever the reason, the delay did cause a great deal of speculation and this was no doubt all part of the electoral war of nerves which is going on at the present time.


John George Diefenbaker: Does the hon. member remember that Mr. King did the same thing?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I should like the Prime Minister to exercise that patience which he normally shows in this House of Commons.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. gentleman a question?


Some hon. Members:: Order.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman objects to what was done. Does the hon. gentleman remember that Mr. King did the same thing?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I am raising this matter because it is all part of the pattern of what I call the electoral war of nerves. So far, and this is perhaps what is worrying the Prime Minister, the government's assaults in this war of nerves have all been very easily repulsed and the only casualties so far have been the good name and the reputation of the government itself. The electoral battle, it will be recalled, was to have been joined last autumn over the issue of free enterprise versus socialism-an issue which, coming from this particular government, provoked only a yawn in the country. Then there was the sordid mess, provoked by the government, of the Coyne affair and the action of the other house in protecting successfully the right of an accused to be heard before the body which was being asked to condemn him by a bill of attainder.


Donald Methuen Fleming: With the assistance of a Liberal advertising agency. Who paid them?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think this time is as appropriate as any-in fact, it is more than appropriate-to remind the house that the member who has the floor is entitled to an uninterrupted hearing.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, but these interruptions do not really disturb me very much. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) seems also to be pulsating with excitement this afternoon.
We recall we were to have had an election on the Coyne and Senate issue, too, but the government soon backed away from that one in the face of an aroused and hostile public opinion.


Some hon. Members:: Oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Then there was to have been a quick dissolution of this house and a quick election on the massive program which was to have appeared in the speech from the throne. Well, we do not hear so much about that now. The evidence of declining popularity and especially the evidence of the five Ontario by-elections, two of which, in Toronto, were described by the Minister of Finance before 26207-1-4i
The Address-Mr. Pearson they were held as a "miniature general election whose influence would be paramount" was enough to-


Donald Methuen Fleming: No, no.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Oh, I have got the statement here.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I said they had been described as that.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Anyway, this evidence of declining popularity has perhaps removed the impulse to have an election on a quick dissolution. So goes the war of nerves, leaving people more bored than shell shocked. When the election comes it will be on the record of this government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I am delighted to have said something which has won the unanimous approval of this house save for those hon. members in the corner to my right in the N.D.P.-C.C.F. group who did not express their views with regard to the statement I have just made.
I do not this afternoon intend to join in the speculation about the date of the election because that would involve trying to read the mind of the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker). That, of course, as I imagine even his colleagues have found out by now, is a fruitless occupation. The most discouraging prediction I have discovered about the election date comes from the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Walker). I am sorry he has to leave the house.


David James Walker: Right here.


Lester Bowles Pearson: It was difficult to pick the hon. gentleman out among his more conspicuous colleagues.


David James Walker: Thank you.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The most discouraging prediction came, as I said, from the Minister of Public Works. His prediction would put the election off until parliament was automatically dissolved in 1963 under the provisions of our constitution.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I hear some applause for that, too, from nervous members from some parts of the country.


An hon. Member:: All Liberals.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister said in Nova Scotia last December that the delay in calling an election was due to the government's desire to fulfil all its promises before appealing to the people. That is a prediction which would mean an indefinite delay in setting an election date.

The Address-Mr. Pearson
I can understand the desire of hon. gentlemen opposite to wait. Perhaps they are delaying for the same reason as inspired Right Hon. R. B. Bennett to put off his fate until the last moment in 1935. Of course, we must remember that the Prime Minister has always placed great faith in the healing virtues of delay, as in the camouflaging magic of confusion. We on this side believe that an election should be held-that the people of this country should be given a chance to express themselves at the earliest possible date. It should be an election with the full and detailed government program placed before the people, together with a detailed national accounting, so that they would know what has been going on in the country in recent years in order that the people can decide in the light of all the facts. The sooner that comes about in the conditions I have mentioned the better for Canada, though, of course, the worse for this government.
Let me say a few words about the speech from the throne itself. It is not a very ambitious document but I do not intend on this occasion to try to deal with all the references contained in it. My colleagues will deal with some of the proposals and some of the ideas, and I shall not attempt to cover the whole field today.
As far as international affairs are concerned there is nothing in the speech from the throne, except a few platitudinous sentences, to describe the sombre and, indeed, the dangerous situation which we face in the world. No ideas are put forward concerning ways in which we might meet these dangers and solve these problems except in a general and unimpressive way. There is no recognition of the fact that the menace of communist imperialism and colonialism is as great as ever-perhaps, in some respects, greater than ever. I think we are particularly conscious of that menace today as I speak on the forty fourth anniversary of the establishment of the independent republic of the Ukraine, the short lived and tragic history of which we all know. That history surely brings home to us that while overseas colonialism and imperialism of the older type is on the way out and has almost disappeared, the kind of colonialism which imperialistic communist powers impose by moving across adjacent borders to destroy ancient civilizations and subjugate their populations is stronger and more menacing than ever. It is not likely there will be real peace in the world-creative and constructive peace- until that type of colonialism is removed, too. I have no doubt that when the time comes we shall have a full debate on international affairs at which time we shall be able to examine why, among other things, Canada's


influence in these matters has declined rather than increased in the last four or five years.


Howard Charles Green: That is a foolish statement.


Lester Bowles Pearson: If it is a foolish statement, as is stated by the Secretary of State for External Affairs Mr. Green), may I say that it is being made by many objective observers of international matters today.
I am also very conscious of the fact that in dealing with the program in the speech from the throne I cannot be sure that I am dealing with the full government program or all the government proposals, owing to the fact that the Prime Minister has introduced into our constitution a new convention-and it is a very dubious one indeed- of making his own speech from the throne after the official one has been handed down and of including in that political speech of his own things which he thinks will perhaps get more credit for himself and for his party, as coming from him, than from any more exalted or objective source. He has done it more than once and for all I know he may be doing it today. That situation makes it difficult to introduce a debate on the speech from the throne when we do not know whether or not we have the full government program outlined in that speech.
However, as we have the program outlined in that speech, its declarations contain no call to national action; they make no challenge for a national response. They do not even seem to call for an early election.
On January 20 the Globe and Mail, a paper certainly not friendly to this party but traditionally very friendly indeed to the government, referred to the speech from the throne in an editorial entitled "An Uncertain Trumpet" as one with a "curiously thin and inadequate note". What an unhappy contrast, in content, inspiration and challenge, to President Kennedy's state of the union message a few days earlier.
One commentator has likened the program in it to a budget with the dollar sign thrown away completely, and this at a time when this year's budgetary deficit is likely to be $700 million or more, when our cash deficit is likely to be well over $1 billion and when we are told by the government that this is a time of expansion and moving forward. If the dollar sign is to be thrown away completely, as this prediction has it, I wonder whether the cheque writing machines are now ready for overtime work.
In this connection, Mr. Speaker, we recall the words of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hamilton). I am sorry that he is not in his place today and I regret even more the reason for his absence. I know that he is ill.

We all wish him a speedy recovery. However, we recall his words on November 29 1961, in Saskatoon-I happened to be in Saskatoon with him on the same day-when in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix he is reported as follows:
Today Hon. Alvin Hamilton, home from grainselling trips which have taken him half way around the world, said that there would be no farm acreage payments in this calendar year. He did not attribute this to lack of federal dollars but said that the cheque machines required to roll out the barrels of money were busy with other financial details.
It was therefore left for the Prime Minister a little bit later to make the announcement of acreage payments. Of course, that is the usual procedure followed by this government. The good announcements come from the Prime Minister and the hard and harsh announcements come from the other ministers, as was the case with the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Walker) when he had to speak within a few hours after the Prime Minister had spoken-I am thinking of New Brunswick and Fredericton-and had given no indication that the bad announcement was to come shortly from the mouth of the Minister of Public Works about the Chig-necto canal.
The speech from the throne contains a lot of old stuff. There are some promises of things that were promised years ago, no doubt on the assumption by the government that repetition is reputation. A good example of this is closure. We remember the ringing statements of the Prime Minister in 1957 and 1958 about what he was going to do with closure. Now, in 1962, we have the ringing declaration in the speech from the throne that the matter is going to be submitted to a parliamentary committee.
Some of the promises in the speech are promises to talk with the provinces about doing something in 1962 or to begin talking with the provinces about doing something. Of course, the contributory insurance plan of the government comes to mind in that connection. Some promises are to pay out large sums of money on the eve of an election without saying how much; a railroad here or a railroad there; a bridge in Montreal without tolls or in Prince Albert a bridge to political resources; a ferry promised now for a causeway promised once and refused yesterday.
Perhaps the most notable thing about the speech from the throne is its omissions. Some of these notable and important omissions are explainable only by the characteristic inability of the government to make up its mind, never to do today what it can put off until tomorrow or, if a royal commission can be appointed, until a few years from now.
The Address-Mr. Pearson
Four main matters are omitted from the speech from the throne, in so far as any effective proposals for dealing with them are concerned. There is no program of action, although there are a few words, for the stimulation of economic growth, or even an indication of awareness of its necessity. Presumably-and I shall have something to say about that matter today-the government is quite satisfied with the economic growth we are experiencing at the present time. Second, there is no program of effective action to combat chronic unemployment, especially in certain areas. Third, there is no definition of a coherent policy indicting that the government recognizes the dramatic and important new trading patterns and policies that are now taking shape in Europe, and the opportunities and the challenges which these changes represent for this country.
Fourth, after two years of indecision and procrastination, confusion and contradiction, there is still no statement of an intelligible Canadian defence policy, especially whether Canada is or is not to have nuclear arms. This omission-and I should like to say a few words about it-merely confirms the shocking refusal of the government to make up its mind on defence policy, especially on the use of nuclear weapons. With all the confidential and secret information at its command, it delays, doubts and procrastinates. Yet it attacks the opposition, which has not the responsibility for policy and has never been given any of the confidential information on which policy must be based, for not finally and dogmatically laying down policy in this field. Could there possibly be a more complete abdication of governmental responsibility? The government spokesmen, when they speak-and let us remember that they speak with ministerial responsibility, each one of them-contradict each other and indeed they contradict themselves.
The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Harkness) agrees that nuclear warheads alone make sense for some of the arms we now have secured. Statements have been made confirming that these arms will have nuclear warheads, and other statements that they will not have them. Other statements have been made saying that no decision will be reached as long as the disarmament conference is proceeding or as long as there is a chance for a nuclear test ban or as long as there is no deterioration of the international situation. "We will make up our minds after these other things happen."
At the United Nations, on the other hand, reflecting presumably the view of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, Canada voted for a resolution, opposed by most

The Address-Mr. Pearson of her NATO allies including the United States, the United Kingdom and France but strongly backed by uncommitted, neutralist and communist members including the U.S.S.R., which was designed to prevent the extension of the nuclear club. This is a most desirable objective but one which is entirely inconsistent with the use of such weapons in Canadian custody or under Canadian control.
Meanwhile, Mr. Speaker, we are spending millions on weapons, some of them already in the hands of Canadian forces, which will have only a minimum of effectiveness without nuclear warheads.


Howard Charles Green: May I ask the Leader of the Opposition a question? How would he have voted on that Swedish resolution?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I will tell the hon. minister this, that if I had voted one way in New York I would have expected to be backed up by statements of my ministerial colleagues in Canada-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Lester Bowles Pearson: -and if I were minister I would refuse to take a position at the United Nations which was contradicted by statements made by my colleagues at home.


Howard Charles Green: Will the Leader of the Opposition now answer the question, please?


Lester Bowles Pearson: We are going to have a debate on external affairs.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister has not denied the accuracy of anything I have said and I leave him to ruminate over the conclusions he may wish to draw from that record of contradiction. I say that the record is one of paying millions for weapons which have no warheads at all. Perhaps they will be filled with sawdust.


George Harris Hees: How would you have voted?


Lester Bowles Pearson: We are spending millions of dollars for weapons that have no warheads and we are told that when the emergency develops we will then decide. Believe me, if an emergency develops in the way it is likely to develop the minister may not have very much time to decide. It will take 17 to 20 minutes for a missile to reach this continent. Is he going to have time then to move his warheads from the United States to North Bay? But that is the policy of the government with regard to these things. What kind of irresponsible confusion and concealment is this?


John George Diefenbaker: You have given an example of it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I know that it is almost impossible for the Prime Minister and his colleagues not to ask us what we would do because we on this side were so much more successful in doing the right thing when we were in government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I do not blame them a bit for trying to get our views, especially as they do not seem to have views of their own.
Another notable omission in the speech from the throne, which I have mentioned and propose to deal with at considerable length, is the shocking, startling mismanagement of international economic policy by the present government. We have been told and we are going to be told in this debate that the state of international trade is most encouraging, that everything is fine, that our exports are going up.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Hear, hear. An all-time record.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I was hoping for that interjection and I knew I would not be disappointed. Notwithstanding what the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) has said here and the other day in Winnipeg, our relative position in regard to export trade has declined in the last five years. It has declined notwithstanding what the Minister of Finance said in Winnipeg. We are no longer the fourth trading nation in the world but the fifth, notwithstanding what the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Hees) are telling us. World exports have increased by 21 per cent since 1956 while Canadian exports have increased 11 per cent. Are we holding our own in world trade? Is the minister satisfied with the position we have achieved in world trade, especially as our increase in the current year is due largely to the fact that we are selling so very much more to communist countries and Cuba? Is that any foundation for satisfaction?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Do you object to that?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I do not object a bit but I
do not go around making these foolish statements that everything is fine with trade and that we are going ahead beautifully.


Donald Methuen Fleming: When did you stop making foolish statements?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Well, I would have a very hard time equalling the record of the minister

in that regard. If he will just contain himself for a little while, I have some of his more startling statements in my notes and I will be glad to put them on the record.


Donald Methuen Fleming: They will be the best part of your speech.


Lester Bowles Pearson: We will see about that. It is understandable that the government should have very little in the speech from the throne about trade policy because of the confusion of trade voices in this government, especially in respect of what we should do about the European common market and parallel developments, including the application of the United Kingdom to join the common market. The Prime Minister and some of his colleagues, most recently the Minister of Finance in Winnipeg last Saturday night, I think-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Friday noon. Wrong again.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The Prime Minister has told the country that in respect of the United Kingdom's application to join the common market he is confident that the United Kingdom will protect our interests. He said in Halifax that he was confident that commonwealth trade ties would not be greatly harmed. The Minister of Finance repeated that in Winnipeg last Friday noon. This represents a very startling change, especially on the part of the Minister of Finance.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Not at all.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Well, I will now begin to quote the minister's words.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I hope you will quote them correctly because you have not been doing so for a long time.


Lester Bowles Pearson: If the minister will throw his mind back to his trip to Accra, I would point out that in respect of this particular matter he said there that Canada acknowledged the sincerity of the United Kingdom with regard to doing their best to protect commonwealth interests. The minister said, "But hope is not enough; good intentions are not enough". Then he talked about the slippery slope on which we were entering and he pleaded with the United Kingdom not to join the European common market because it would be bad for them and bad for the commonwealth. His words were echoed by the Minister of Trade and Commerce.
Then, Mr. Speaker, when the discordant music of this governmental anvil chorus got back to Canada and did not go over so well with the people of Canada, the government began to change its tune. Since that time
The Address-Mr. Pearson the Prime Minister in Halifax and in Newfoundland, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hamilton) over the air and also the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Trade and Commerce have all begun to sing a different tune. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that they have gone so far in this-and this is the ultimate in casuistry, if not hypocrisy-they have gone so far in trying to explain their earlier position as to argue, especially the Minister of Agriculture, that they were merely giving the United Kingdom ammunition. The Minister of Agriculture has said that by our arguments and by our objections we were giving the United Kingdom ammunition presumably to blast its way into the European common market. These ministers say now that they were putting the British in a stronger bargaining position. That is a very different position indeed from that which they took last summer and last autumn.
The Minister of Trade and Commerce may remember the speeches he once made-I suppose he is trying to forget them now-in which he said that any trading arrangement which represented freer trade in the Atlantic area would mean exposure to United States competition and that would be fatal. That, he said, is why an Atlantic trading community is nonsensical and impossible and would cause mass unemployment in Canada. Does the minister deny that he said these things?


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I should like to correct that statement. I said that it would be fatal for some Canadian industries, and I think the Leader of the Opposition would agree with that.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister has also said it would be nonsensical, impossible and would cause mass unemployment in Canada. The minister must remember he said that more than once.
At the time he was making these speeches, and this was some months ago, his colleague the Associate Minister of National Defence (Mr. Sevigny) was saying that what we really should work for is a western hemisphere free trade area including the United States of America.
Perhaps the best example of the transition from inconsistency to incoherence was given by the Minister of Agriculture during an interview in Victoria, British Columbia, at the beginning of December. This really provides comic relief. During a press conference he said that the European common market was only a European rich man's club surrounded by a high tariff wall. I shall quote from a newspaper which is most friendly to
44	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Pearson the government, the Victoria daily Colonist of December 2. This is what the minister is reported as saying:
If Britain goes in and joins this cloister, this monastery-
He had switched overnight from a club to a cloister.
-everybody will be taking in everybody's washing.
This is the assessment of this important European and world development by the Minister of Agriculture. What he calls an exchange of washing resulted in the European six increasing their trade in 1960 over 1950 with the outside world by 23 per cent, and increasing their gross national product by 6.5 per cent in one year. When this minister or any minister talks about the high tariff walls of the European market, he forgets, or perhaps he never knew, that the European common market is averaging national tariffs at the level of January 1, 1957 and, as announced, is willing to reduce that average 20 per cent on the basis of reciprocal concessions. Indeed, this objective was announced two years ago when Dr. Hallstein was in Washington. Perhaps the government does not know that the United States has already negotiated that kind of deal with the European common market for important reductions in tariffs. Is this restrictionist? I wish the Minister of Agriculture were here to reply.
Is this Canadian government ready to bargain on that basis? Perhaps we will learn something about this during this debate. Will the government be so naive as to merely sit back and hope that it can get the benefits of negotiation by others? We do not know about this, but perhaps one of the ministers will tell us something about it.
Our own position in this matter, Mr. Speaker, is the belief that we should be in the forefront of this kind of negotiation, not following behind. Perhaps I may be permitted to do something I have very rarely, if ever, done in the house in order to indicate the consistency of the position we have taken. I should like to quote from a speech I made in January, 1958, on this very matter in Vancouver at the board of trade. I said this:
In Europe, six continental countries are prepared to form a customs union to be complemented by free trade arrangements with the United Kingdom and probably also the Scandinavian countries and the rest of continental Europe.
This has almost come about.
When these arrangements are completed, there will be a tendency in some parts of this large area to aim at European economic isolationism. These countries have tried to gain easier access to the United States and Canadian markets without any substantial degree of success and they may now feel that the only other alternative is a


large economic unit of their own, as self-sufficient as they can make it. That would be an unhappy development.
Indeed it would be tragic-politically and economically-if the free world should now divide into separate economic blocs while the Soviet world remained a massive, single, trading unit.
There is increasing evidence that Soviet leaders are more and more interested in conquest by economic methods, used and controlled by the same means and for the same purposes as are the diplomatic and military arms of that government.
The west is gradually-too gradually-recognizing this major shift in Soviet policy, and the necessity of taking steps to meet it. If declarations of interdependence from Washington and Paris mean anything, they must mean closer co-ordination of our economic and scientific activities in NATO. It will not be possible, in the long run, for allies to work together in close defence co-operation and grow increasingly apart in economic conflict.
If then we do not wish to weaken the western coalition: and if, in Canada, we do not wish either to face the United States alone or become too dependent economically on it, then surely the best policy for us is to seek economic interdependence within the north Atlantic community through freer trade. A first, and important step in this direction-and one certainly, in my view, which should be given careful, sympathetic, and detailed consideration-is the United Kingdom offer of free trade with Canada.
For Canada a north Atlantic area with the freest possible trade would certainly mean a much greater export market in the United States and in Europe; lower cost of production for many Canadian industries-and lower living costs, I would hope, for Canadian consumers.
Then, I add this paragraph, too:
In short, it seems that the era of gradual tariff reductions through GATT has come to an end. We do not surely wish to replace it by a western Europe and a North America aiming at selfsufficiency. If not, then surely the best alternative, and the best way to meet the Soviet economic and political challenge is an Atlantic freer trade area to complement the European customs union and free trade zone. For Canada, is this not the best way to reduce our economic dependence on the United States while expanding our trade, maintaining our economic development, and raising even higher our living standards?
This is a challenging prospect and is surely worth serious and immediate consideration, negotiation and planning. Could there be a finer initiative for Canada?
Mr. Speaker, that initiative was not taken by this government. This initiative would have shown the way to reduce obstructions to trade between countries, not only in the north Atlantic communities but in the whole of the free world; in the first instance, with a European economic community and with the United States and the United Kingdom, if she were not in that community.
I admit that there has been some sign in recent weeks of-what shall I call it-backsliding into relative realism. The Globe and Mail of January 3 put it this way:
Ottawa tried to turn a blind eye to the common market when Britain made the first move toward membership but has now been forced to face the facts.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I hope that is so. I admit, and I am glad to admit, that on January 15 the Minister of Trade and Commerce also spoke very differently from earlier occasions. He said Canada faced here a situation which was admittedly full of difficulties and adjustments, but also offered new opportunities. It is too bad that six months ago or a year ago the government did not concentrate on the opportunities offered instead of worrying so much about the danger. We might be in a different position today if they had done that. But they did not.
As a result of their negative policy, I hope to be able to show to the satisfaction of hon. members that we have forfeited a good deal of our bargaining power in the negotiations before us.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Nonsense.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I hope that this recent declaration by the minister means a change in attitude on the part of the government. But let us look at the record which gives cause for anxiety because it shows the blindness of the government over European economic developments as they occurred and the stupidity of its policy and its attitude when it awoke.
Professor MacDonald of the economics department of the University of Toronto put it very well in an article in the Canadian Forum a few weeks ago. He said this:
That Canada should not have been prepared for the inevitable is disturbing. Either Canadian intelligence did not sense the strong change of official opinion in Britain, which is inexcusable, or the Canadan government refused to recognize it, which is irresponsible.
Well, Mr. Speaker, the conduct of the Canadian government in those days was both inexcusable and irresponsible, and unworthy of any Canadian government.
Let us look at the evidence. Let us look first at the evidence about blindness. The Minister of Finance, on April 25, 1961, as reported in Hansard at page 3979-and remember this was less than a year ago-had this to say:
Let them-
He was referring to the opposition:
-be frank enough and informed enough to talk about it-
That is, Britain joining the common market:
-as though it were what it is, something very tentative.
This, I repeat, was April 25, 1961, and according to the minister it was something very tentative. He also used the word "hypothetical" in his statement. But the minister most concerned in the United Kingdom had made it perfectly clear months previously-I think it was in a speech in Paris-that the United Kingdom was going to attempt to do this.
The Address-Mr. Pearson


Donald Methuen Fleming: You are not right there.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Where did the government get the information on which to base that kind of statement made by the Minister of Finance?


Donald Methuen Fleming: From the British government.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I shall have some quotations on that too. Now, having convinced themselves from sources of information which presumably were open to them in London, although I do not know what they were, that the United Kingdom would not apply for membership, the government's reaction when that application was made and they were actually faced with it, was one of shocked consternation, of complaint and criticism and irascible objections to it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is silly talk.


Lester Bowles Pearson: We shall see whether it was silly talk or not. I shall give some evidence on it. One reason for this reaction no doubt was that the opposition had been right on this matter and the government were proven wrong.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The opposition were never right on this matter.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The best reflection of this sterile, negative and complaining attitude of the government was shown at the conference in Accra. The Minister of Finance in the famous luncheon speech which he made at Winnipeg had this to say last Friday, and I quote from his statement on page 2.


Azellus Denis: He will deny it anyway.


Lester Bowles Pearson: It was one of the most extraordinary statements the minister has ever made, that at no time had there been anything remotely approaching coolness and hostility in our relations with the United Kingdom.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Ask the British.


Lester Bowles Pearson: He also said that we have never tried to make things difficult for the British.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Very true.


Lester Bowles Pearson: In other places, with his flair for courtesy and modest understatement, the minister had this to say:
To say we criticized the U.K. at Accra is a blatant lie.
That is one of the favourite expressions of the minister in describing statements with which he does not agree, that they are blatant lies. At times he accuses people who make these statements of nazi big lie techniques but, Mr. Speaker, if statements to the effect

The Address-Mr. Pearson that the Canadian government made it difficult for the United Kingdom government at Accra and other places are blatant lies, then practically every reporter at Accra was guilty of blatant lying. I shall just quote from some of the reporters who were present.


Donald Methuen Fleming: None of them was present at the conference. They were all outside.


John Whitney Pickersgill: One wonders whether the minister was present.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It was a closed conference, you understand.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister has said they were not present at the conference because it was a closed conference. The fact that it was a closed conference undoubtedly explains why the office of the Minister of Trade and Commerce very courteously handed his statement to the press. It was that kind of closed conference. At least that particular speech was no hidden report.
Mr. Norman MacLeod of the U.K. press, reporting at Accra, had this to say in reference to the position taken by the Minister of Trade and Commerce:
United Kingdom association with the European six-
Referring to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. I continue:
-unless it can be accomplished on terms of existing empire preferences, will mean the end of the commonwealth eventually.
I suppose that is not making it difficult for the United Kingdom, to say that it would mean the end of the commonwealth eventually. Mr. MacLeod went on to say that this was the blunt fact and the historic choice which the Canadian trade minister laid on the conference table, either the commonwealth or the common market. The minister put it up to the British in those terms, notwithstanding the fact that the prime minister of the United Kingdom had denied that such choice was required in the policy to be adopted.
The minister, according to Mr. MacLeod, then emphasized the economic disadvantages of the U.K. moving into the common market, and to make sure his warnings were made public-these are my own words-his speech, as I have said already, was released to the journalists at Accra. In that speech he also said:
There is no substitute for the terms of access we are now accorded in the U.K. market.
Does that not make it difficult for the United Kingdom? Does that make it easier when the Minister of Trade and Commerce adopts the attitude that if existing preferences are not maintained as they are now it

will mean the end of the commonwealth eventually? What a policy to adopt. What an attitude to take. In that statement he nailed the Canadian government's colours to the preferential mast-no change-and yet the Minister of Finance says there was no criticism from Canada. Are all the headlines and stories from Accra false and lying? The Gazette on September 14 carried this headline "Hees leads attack on U.K. move".


Donald Methuen Fleming: Most of the headlines were misleading.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Another read "U.K. must choose Commonwealth or bloc-Fleming".


Donald Methuen Fleming: Those headlines were very misleading.


Lester Bowles Pearson: On September 12, 1961, the Toronto Globe and Mail had this to say:
Finance minister Donald Fleming's airplane had barely touched down in Ghana, where he is attending a conference of commonwealth finance ministers, before he had started crying his familiar song of woe.
What does Mr. Fleming expect to achieve by such public breast beating? It is time that he understood that politics is the art of the possible, and that there is no sense at all in complaining
about a decision which is being forced upon Britain by sheer economic necessity.


Donald Methuen Fleming: And which Britain says she still has not made.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Then, in the Toronto Telegram of September 13, 1961, there was the headline "Tears at Accra." I repeat this was the Toronto Telegram, the source above suspicion. It continued:
Mr. Fleming should beware of creating an image of Canada as an international crybaby. Canada believes in looking after its interests, but it supports the progress of mankind everywhere.
The Vancouver Province, of September 15, carried the following:
Trade minister Hees' cry from Ghana is plaintive, primitive and pointless.
There could be no better three words than those to describe the attitude of policy of the Canadian government in this whole matter, "plaintive, primitive and pointless." The newspaper added "It must be the heat." The Vancouver Province, which is a charitable paper, had a good excuse for the Minister of Trade and Commerce because it went on to say it must be the heat.
Then there is the very responsible, very accurate, well informed and intelligent financial editor of the Gazette, Mr. John Meyer, I am sure the minister reads his article every morning, as I try to do.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Not with profit.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister says, "Not with profit". On September 13, 1961, Mr. Meyer had this to say:
The press reports from Accra, where the commonwealth economic consultative council is meeting, were discouraging ... All that is being accomplished at Accra is to strengthen the growing overseas conviction that Canadians are incapable of looking after themselves.


Donald Methuen Fleming: And he was just as inaccurate as those other quotations of yours.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, we are not incapable of looking after ourselves, but the government is incapable of looking after the nation's business.
The government is now so anxious to forget this whole sorry episode and the critical reactions to it that whenever they are reminded of it they cry "foul", "murder" or "blatant lie".


Donald Methuen Fleming: Or "Liberal misrepresentation".


Lester Bowles Pearson: But their words are on the
record, even though the conference was off the record. The Minister of Finance cannot deny that he said:
We believe that the United Kingdom is too deeply entangled ever to be able to withdraw. This is a slippery slope.
Did the minister say that, or not?


An hon. Member:: No answer.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The ministers concerned cannot deny that they took the position that common market membership would pose great dangers for Great Britain, and in the words of the Minister of Finance:
Political relationships within the commonwealth will be fundamentally changed.
The answer to that was given in London by Mr. Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, on July 31, 1961, when he said:
I do not think that Britain's contribution to the commonwealth will be reduced if Europe unites. On the contrary, I think its value will be enhanced.
Then he stated his belief that the choice between the commonwealth and the common market was a false one, and I say that the Canadian government adopted a false and dangerous policy in trying to drive that home as an unavoidable choice.
This childish lecturing and hectoring of the British is all the more amazing in the light of the government's own record in the field of United Kingdom-Canadian relations. There was the famous 15 per cent diversion which raised great expectations in the United Kingdom some years ago and which fell so flat. There was the free trade offer and the sterile response to that by this government.
The Address-Mr. Pearson There is the policy of pinpricking protectionism at a time when our balance of trade with the United Kingdom is so very favourable.
No wonder that a member of parliament and former economic secretary to the treasury, Mr. Nigel Birch, speaking at the annual Conservative conference last summer in Brighton had this to say:
The fact that preferences have been whittled away since the war has not been by our will but by the will of the commonwealth countries themselves. Look at what happened when John Diefen-baker became Prime Minister of Canada. He wanted to increase imports from Britain by 15 per cent. We were delighted. We offered him anything up to a full customs union. What happened? Nothing.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Birch was wrong.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


William Moore Benidickson: Everybody is wrong.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, of course everybody is wrong except the Minister of Finance.


Some hon. Members:: That's right.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Then came the sorry episode over the question of consultation between the United Kingdom and Canada regarding Britain's application to join the E.C.M. There was the complaint which was given so much publicity, that the Canadian government was not being told about British policy, and in particular that they were not given the full text of Mr. Edward Heath's speech of October 10 in Paris and received only a summary.
They developed this matter into a great issue, with all their normal sense of confused excitement. They built it up and they built it up and they built it up. Then the full text was made public and the crisis very quickly ended. But it did further damage to the reputation of this-


Donald Methuen Fleming: There was no crisis.


Lester Bowles Pearson: It did further damage to this country's reputation abroad.


Donald Methuen Fleming: No.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister again says no, so I am going to have to put a few quotations on the record.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes, a few more of those quotations.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, if the minister would only admit once in a while that he has made a mistake, that things once went wrong and they are trying to make them better now.


William Moore Benidickson: Impossible.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Does the hon. member-

The Address-Mr. Pearson


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If the minister wishes to ask a question, perhaps he would rise.


Mr. Chevrier:: He never rises. He interrupts repeatedly from his seat.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, I would gladly accept the invitation if the hon. member would allow a question.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Of course.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Does the hon. member say we should not have sought to obtain a full text of that speech on a matter so very important to Canada and to the interests of Canadians?


Lester Bowles Pearson: That would depend upon how much information was given to the government in the summary. If they had all the necessary information in the summary-and I will have something to say about this-


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Do you not trust the British?


An hon. Member:: They don't trust the British.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is not true.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that my speech has to be prolonged, but I have to put on the record so many of these statements because the minister will never admit that he is wrong. He is not only omniscient, but he is infallible. Therefore when he goes around saying that people who disagree with him are blatant liars, we have to put on the record of this house who are these people who are disagreeing with him.
When I say that this episode caused damage abroad to the reputation of Canada's government I am under an obligation to support that statement with evidence, and I propose to do that.
Here is a quotation from a highly respected London weekly, The Spectator, of December 1, 1961:
The publication of the full text of Mr. Heath's Paris speech to the Six makes it clear that last week's fuss was unjustified. So far from taking advantage of the darkness of the conference room to sell the commonwealth down the river, the British government appears to have stuck up for their interests to an extent that should impress even the Canadian Minister of Finance.
I charge the government with knowing this and creating this rather silly diversion of non-consultation; this affectation of chagrin and consternation, as a smokescreen to conceal their own foolishness and errors.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Silly talk.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I hope all these very profound and wise interventions of the minister are getting into Hansard. I would hate to see any of them missed. The last one was "silly talk".

If the government really wanted the fullest possible consultation and to keep in the closest possible touch with the British over their application to join the common market, why did not the government months ago-as they were requested to do-send some special representatives, or at least one special representative to Brussels to keep in touch with what was going on?
Why did not the government accept the invitation of the British government to send them a list of goods in which they were particularly interested and which might be affected by these developments, and give some priority as to the way it would affect Canada?
Why did they turn down that invitation at that time? And now, after Mr. Heath came out here for a second visit and things went off better, why is the government making a great virtue of the fact that they are sending representatives to Brussels in 1962?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Because now is the
time. They have entered a different phase of the negotiations.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I have had some experience in the world of diplomatic negotations in both economic and political matters. The time to keep in touch with the other parties in such negotiations is right at the beginning, not at the end. If it is desirable to send a Canadian mission to Brussels now it certainly was desirable a few months ago. No wonder the Financial Post correspondent in London reported on December 9, 1961 that as a result of this mix-up-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Name?


Lester Bowles Pearson: His name is Mr. Archer Mark. He is a Financial Post correspondent in London, and he said:
As a result of this mix-up we were branded as hostile and untrustworthy.
No wonder the Brantford Expositor, another paper friendly to the government, wrote in an editorial on November 30, 1961:
Two leading Canadians, and indirectly Canada herself, have emerged looking ridiculous from the Drew-Fleming tantrum over not getting a full text of the British statement to the Paris opening of the common market negotiations, October 10.
The report went on:
When it indulges in political grandstanding, as in the Drew-Fleming affair, the government should take care to confine the performance to home grounds and not expose Canada to ridicule in a country where we still need to keep lots of friends.
This ludicrous complaint about no consultation is all the more ludicrous coming from a government which has recently, to say the least, been very careless about consulting the United Kingdom when we have been contemplating at times economic action as a

government which affected her interests. So careless was it about consultation with the United Kingdom in connection with the air agreement that it announced the agreement before it got the approval of the United Kingdom. As a matter of fact, it has not been able to get it yet. This demand for full information and more consultation sounds especially silly coming from a government whose high commissioner, no doubt acting on instructions from Ottawa, because that is the way in which high commissioners usually operate, refused to meet with United Kingdom representatives and other commonwealth high commissioners to deal with this particular matter.


William Moore Benidickson: Another case of putting the cart before the horse.


An hon. Member:: Which matter?


Lester Bowles Pearson: The European market and the implications of United Kingdom accession to it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: You know that was denied.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Within an hour of this situation becoming known a statement was issued by a representative of Canada House underlining the fact that this had been done deliberately. That statement, I admit at once, was re-explained and denied a few hours later. The world was then told that the nonattendance of the high commissioner was of no significance at all; it was due to a previous engagement, even though this meeting had been called days earlier. The Secretary of State for External Affairs in his desire to be helpful-and he always tries to be helpful in these matters-added that the high commissioner was also suffering from a bad cold.
The attitude of public opinion in the United Kingdom at that time was expressed in Sunday Times, a reputable newspaper now under the ownership of a former Canadian- a former Conservative candidate in Toronto, I believe. That paper had this to say last October:
Nobody in London wants to quarrel-but nobody seems to be able to keep on terms with the Canadian government.
The Manchester Guardian thrust this home on November 30 when it said this:
From now onwards, Canadian views should be heard as freely as before but heeded less.
I do not think any Canadian could have got any pleasure out of reading that sentence in such a famous newspaper.


Donald Methuen Fleming: A shameful statement.
The Address-Mr. Pearson


Lester Bowles Pearson: Then, in the Hamilton
Spectator, a newspaper devoted to the interests of hon. gentlemen opposite, the following statement appeared on January 6:
The only thing we seem to have succeeded in winning was a reputation for sulking.
Let us contrast this attitude with the attitude taken toward these developments by the United States-an attitude which combined an understanding of the developments themselves with a determination, as is proper, to protect national interests-the same kind of determination as we should show. In contrast to our own negative and sterile attitude, their attitude was positive and farsighted. Consider the report of Mr. Herter and Mr. Clayton. Consider the position of the United States administration as put forward by the under secretary of state, Mr. Ball. Listen to this excerpt from President Kennedy's state of the union message on January 11; I wish we could have had something like this in the speech from the throne. He said:
Will we in this country adapt our thinking to these new prospects and patterns-or will we wait until events pass us by?
This is the year to decide. We need a wholly new approach-a bold new instrument of American trade policy.
That certainly applies to this country. Then the President went on to say, in the same speech:
Concessions, in this bargaining, must, of course, be reciprocal, not unilateral. The common market will not fulfil its own high promise unless its outside tariff walls are low. The dangers of restriction or timidity in our own policy have counterparts for our friends in Europe. For together we face a common challenge: to enlarge the prosperity of free men everywhere and to build in partnership a new trading community in which all free nations may gain from the productive energy of free competitive effort.
On November 9, at Windsor the Minister of Finance pleaded that the United States should supply bold leadership in this field. He said we were counting on it. Then, in Ottawa, after that leadership had been given by Washington, the Canadian government gave a cool and qualified endorsement of the United States plans to the United States delegates who had come here to explain what that leadership might mean, together with the policies and the proposals which would be based on it. Indeed, after that conference, when the Minister of Finance was asked whether the Canadian government had given any form of undertaking to support President Kennedy's proposal for a major reduction in world tariffs, the hon. gentleman replied as reported in the press, and I quote from the Globe and Mail:
No, no, that was not a matter for discussion. It would have been premature and inappropriate for Canada to offer such support.

The Address-Mr. Pearson
The reason the minister gave was that the matter was before congress.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Would be coming before congress.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yet within 24 hours of that statement the Canadian government issued a note on the subject of the Chicago water diversion complaining about a matter which was then before congress. How ridiculous can you get?


Howard Charles Green: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, this question of diversion was before the courts in Illinois.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I do not think that really improves the minister's position very much. It is also before the courts. Now it is before congress.
The Minister of Trade and Commerce who is referred to in the press as the sartorial star of the meeting was asked to make a statement on January 4 at the opening of the conference. He was asked whether he had anything to say about this meeting which might have been of such vital importance to both countries. Well, the minister is reported as replying jauntily: "We are theoretically against sin".


An hon. Member:: Not in practice?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I would advise the minister in his own interest to leave that word "theoretically" out in future.


George Harris Hees: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. If I made that statement, it had no connection with the impending meeting with the United States ministers.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Just another misreport.


Lester Bowles Pearson: That statement exempts the minister from one accusation but it certainly exposes him to another one. When he is confronted by the press gallery as he enters an important meeting of this kind between ministers of the United States and ministers of Canada, and he is asked whether he has any statement to make about the meeting, and replies, "We are theoretically against sin", that statement exempts him from any conscious effort to do any damage but it does not pay much of a tribute to his realization of the importance and impressiveness of the meeting in question.


George Harris Hees: Again, Mr. Speaker, I say that if I made that remark-and I do not remember making it-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


George Harris Hees: -it was not made in any connection with the impending meeting with the United States ministers.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Just on the same day.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I accept the minister's explanation without question, Mr. Speaker. However, his statement "We are theoretically against sin" might well have been applied to the communique which came from the meeting, for that is about all it contained. Therefore I say that in the course of this debate we should have from the government some statement with regard to this matter which is of such vital importance.
Perhaps I may be permitted to put on the record what we in this party said immediately with regard to the President's state of the union message. The proposal was made on January 11, 1962. We said this, and the statement was issued in my name:
President Kennedy's proposal for expanding trade is a farsighted program. It would have the active support and encouragement of a Liberal government in Canada. I believe that Canadians should be among the first to welcome such a policy, because of the great benefits that will flow from it.
The President is asking congress for authority to negotiate with the European common market to lower trade barriers through mutual concessions. We cannot tell how quickly the President's administration will be able to move on these lines. But I am sure that Canada should be encouraging the movement. Indeed, a Liberal government would have taken the initiative earlier. We would share fully in negotiations for expanding the trade with Europe of both the United States and Canada. We would also be interested in discussing U.S. proposals that would include the reduction of U.S. tariffs on Canadian products, which are an important barrier to our trade.
Above all, however, the United States proposal recognizes the need for maximum economic cooperation among the countries of the democratic world, in the face of the threat of communist expansion and aggression. Canada should be pressing forward, not holding back in these realistically farsighted efforts.
I now wish to say something about the economic situation in our own country, the domestic economic situation. The conclusion which the speech from the throne comes to with regard to that situation, the evidences of which are all around us, shows the unawareness of the government as to what has happened and what is going on.
There are more men at work, there is more trade and there is more production, they say, and the government seems to be very much satisfied with its efforts to cure the recession which for so long it refused to recognize.


George Harris Hees: Nonsense.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Of course there are more men at work. We have more men and women coming into the labour force every year, but if we cannot get more people at work from year to year, what chance have we? Of course our trade is expanding. If it were

not expanding, where would we be? However, it is expanding less than formerly, relatively speaking. Of course there is more production but the percentage of increase in production is not such as to give satisfaction to any member of the Canadian government. I shall have something to say about that matter.
In its turn the government complains that the situation is largely the fault of the press -and not only of the press but of members of the opposition-because it does not paint the true picture of the government's herculean and triumphant efforts in the field of economics. Here is what the Prime Minister said in Toronto, and these are words which should not be forgotten. On January 13 as reported in the Globe and Mail and indeed in other papers, we find the following:
The Prime Minister said the efforts of the government to improve Canada's economic position have been questioned by a servile press.
The Minister of Public Works, who is not in the house at the moment-


An hon. Member:: Here he comes.


William Moore Benidickson: He is just coming in again.


David James Walker: There is a limit to what I can take; but go ahead.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister is rather thinskinned except when he is dealing it out to others. The Minister of Public Works did not use the word "servile". However, he referred to the bias of the press-the government seems to be peculiarly worried about the bias of the press these days-and says that the bias of the press was due to the fact that it was too Liberal; that the bad reception in the country of the efforts of the minister was due largely also to the fact that the ministers were modest and inarticulate and shrank from proclaiming the achievements of the government. On December 4, in Nova Scotia, the minister said to his colleagues that they should get out and talk; sell their achievements to the Canadian people. Here is what he said as reported in the press:
The Liberals were in power 22 years and it seems that a strong Liberal bias has been built up in most of the press and the broadcasting stations...
Perhaps we Conservatives and cabinet ministers in particular have not talked enough about the successes we have had!
If they talked only about their successes, Mr. Speaker, they would certainly not have much to talk about. Then he went on to say this:
Certainly it is our duty to do so from now on.
The minister's sense of timing was not as exact or as fortunate as it sometimes is
The Address-Mr. Pearson because almost at the same time as he made this statement there appeared in the press another item to the effect that the ministers -and this was said with some satisfaction- have made 300 speeches in the three autumn months. Yet it is said they are not talking enough. They made 300 speeches in three months, and of course they were practically all political speeches. Yet it is said they are not talking enough, that it is a matter of propaganda, they cannot get the message across. Moreover, in the preparation and placement of these 300 speeches, the ministers are assisted by the largest number of personal executive and publicity assistants on the public payroll in our history. The ministers must have read the information in the parliamentary return which was made last session. This showed that on June 1, 1957 there were 39 people in this category of executive assistants, publicity assistants and personal assistants and that on May 1, 1960 there were 73. There have been some notable additions since then.


An hon. Member:: No horses.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Horses would have been cheaper than some of these people. In view of the nature of their duties, perhaps horses might have been as useful to the country. Indeed, notwithstanding the Minister of Public Works, so sensitive is this administration to the necessity of publicity and propaganda, to putting campaigning ahead of governmental administration, that one minister returned from a trade mission to Europe -he cut it short-for the purpose of a political mission at home. I should not like to say that without confirming it by the minister's own statement. The Minister of Agriculture, on November 15, as reported in the Winnipeg Free Press and other papers, said this. The minister has not denied this statement. He will accept it.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Which other papers?


Lester Bowles Pearson: The article reads:
Agriculture minister Hamilton, at the request of Prime Minister Diefenbaker, cut short his recent visit abroad and cancelled his proposed selling trip to the iron curtain countries so that he could go out on the hustings.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Which other papers?


Lester Bowles Pearson: The article went on to say:
But he cancelled that trip and hurriedly returned home arriving Monday in Ottawa. Tuesday he held a press conference. Asked why he did not go to the iron curtain countries as scheduled, he replied:-
This is a quotation from the minister at the press conference.
"When the Prime Minister came back from Japan and before I left for Rome we had a talk.

The Address-Mr. Pearson He said there were other things that were more important and asked me to cut my trip to a week so that I could get out across the country."
The minister's experience as he gets out across the country is not particularly satisfying to him because he particularly, but other ministers as well, has complained, that the press was not giving sufficient publicity to the things he and his department were trying to do. On November 30 in Saskatoon he said this, and this is a rather interesting observation from a minister:
I don't think I'll ever believe Implicitly in the truth of a news story again.
Then, Mr. Speaker, he gave an illustration to justify his disillusionment, one that was 100 per cent accurate. He said that this story had not been reported, but it had been fully reported by the Canadian Press news agency. However, undaunted at this rebuff the minister returned to the press charge in Victoria on December 2 and made this immortal statement:
There's a new type of newspaper man coming up...
who has no moral code and sense of objectivity.
The whole story of the relations of this government with the press is one of advances spurned and unrequited love. The main culprits, of course, are, however, not the press. The main culprits are the opposition. There would be no anxiety, there would be no criticism, there would be no misunderstanding at home or abroad over the Canadian government's efforts if it were not for the predictions of gloom and doom by the opposition which, as I have said before in the house, is a very flattering, if totally false, assessment of the influence and power of our words.
To show how false it is, perhaps I should put on record what I said on March 9, 1961 in this house with regard to the economic situation to be faced at that time. This surely is, at least in some respects, an answer to all these allegations and charges of doom and gloom. I said then, as found on page 2820 of Hansard:
When I talk about them-
I was talking about our problems.
-when I use the word "seriousness", I do not want anyone to think that this country will not eventually face up to and overcome those problems and once again remove that seriousness through expansion and growth. We have met very difficult and dangerous economic and employment problems before in this country and have overcome them, and we will overcome this one. But we will not do that in the way it should be done and in the time it should be done without strong, effective leadership and sound and strong policies.
Then, when we were having our debate on the budget last June in this house-and this

is evidence of the hollow falsity of these charges of doom and gloom-we were talking about the gross national product and I said to the minister that I thought he was being too gloomy and too pessimistic in his predictions. I was wrong; he was not being too gloomy or too pessimistic. He was not being pessimistic enough, according to the returns that are coming in.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That must make you happy now.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I said then that I believed that the gross national product in current dollars would be higher than that estimated by the minister. Then, Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of the year I was asked to make a statement, as leaders of parties are often asked to do, by the Edmonton Journal on the prospects for 1962. I had this to say, and this summarizes our view on the position in which we in this country find ourselves, at least economically. I said:
We Canadians can start 1962 in a spirit of hopefulness. In saying this, I am assuming that the international situation will not further deteriorate, that the awesome threat of nuclear destruction will be lessened rather than intensified. If that is not so, no one can look optimistically to the future.
Then I went on to say:
... the general climate of the world economy is good. In these circumstances, we are the masters of our own fate. There is nothing to prevent us having a good year. It depends on ourselves, on our running our national affairs and our private affairs wisely, creatively, with vigour and decision. If we do not make good progress, it will be because we waste our opportunities, not because external circumstances deny opportunities to us.
Then I added these words:
Since last spring-
The spring of 1961.
-we have experienced a normal economic upswing from the previous recession. Unfortunately, this improvement has so far been modest and slow. Fortunately, we can expect the business recovery to gain more strength this spring and summer. Competent economic forecasts suggest that our national production in 1962 may well be between four and six per cent higher than it was last year. That is a welcome improvement in our prospects. But it is still regrettably little. After a recession, we ought to do much better.
And, Mr. Speaker, we should have done much better than we have done in the last four and a half years. The government is now boasting because there is this kind of recovery. Production, they say, is bigger than ever. Employment is higher.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Leader of the Opposition a question because I am not sure I caught him correctly. Did he use the words, "after a recession we should have done much better" and, if so, is he admitting that the recession is over?


Lester Bowles Pearson: No, I did not use any words that would justify that interpretation. I said that we should have done much better during the last four and a half years.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I understood the hon. member to say that after a recession we should have done much better.


Lester Bowles Pearson: If there is any doubt in the hon. gentleman's mind, I am glad he has given me the opportunity to remove it because the people of this country know when the recession began. It began in the summer of 1957.


Edmund Davie Fulton: You said "after a recession".


Lester Bowles Pearson: Because there is this doubt in the hon. gentleman's mind, I will take advantage of the opportunity to put some figures on the record in a few moments that will remove that doubt.


Edmund Davie Fulton: What did you mean by "after a recession"?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Was the recovery we have made in 1961 a miracle? What does the government expect? Are they still living in the dark ages, in the centuries when things stayed much the same? Do they not know that in Canada our population increases every year and that therefore our gross national product must go up every year to get ahead at all? Do they not know that Canadians use science and technology, that our corporations invest in new equipment and that technological progress every year enables us to produce more?
Of course our production goes up. The question is, how much? In four and a half years of Tory government it has gone up only by 1J per cent a year on the average. Let the Minister of Finance deny that figure if he can. Of course, in some years production increases have not been as bad as in other years. Nineteen fifty nine was the best year. Production went up in that year by all of 3 per cent. The minister told us then that things were going to be fine. He was even tempted to say that he would balance his budget. But in 1960 things got worse again and, of course, Mr. Speaker, they are better now. However, each time in these cyclical fluctuations, each time this has happened, we have gone down farther than the time before and our recovery has been less. That is the long range danger to our economy in the kind of situation in which we find ourselves. Each time we do have this kind of recession we are saved from the worst consequences by the kind of social security and transfer payments that were instituted in this country under Liberal governments.
The Address-Mr. Pearson


Donald Methuen Fleming: May I ask the
Leader of the Opposition a question? Is he referring to the $6 increase in the old age pension made by him and the other "six-buck boys"?


Some hon. Members:: Forty six dollars.


Lester Bowles Pearson: That is not a very bright observation by the minister. The minister is getting a little tired and his interventions are not now as sparkling as those to which we are accustomed.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Would you care to answer?


Lester Bowles Pearson: The question is, what about this time next year? If we get the same kind of Tory administration we have had for nearly five years, then we will be slowing down again, according to the economic forecasts of the experts, and without having come anywhere near solving our basic problems. The most basic problem of all is chronic unemployment. We would be back again to the only 2 per cent increase in production which we had in 1960. What would that mean? It would mean again growing unemployment; our economy working far below its capacity; missed opportunities for the people of Canada. It would mean the loss of millions of dollars worth of production which we could have had if only there had been a government capable of asking, capable of progressive, sensible, farsighted economic policies.


An hon. Member:: You have got it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Let us see what has happened to the country in the last four and a half years, if we have it. Do these members on the front benches not know, Mr. Speaker, that throughout the post-war years with a Liberal government in office, production in this country increased at an average rate of 4.6 per cent per year? This was the average that we achieved over the whole period from the beginning of 1946 to the middle of 1957. If you take away those difficult years of reconstruction immediately after the war, the average is much higher, but to be fair I have included those years. The best this government could do in any year has been 3 per cent, which is much less than our average, and over the long period of four and a half years their average is only 1J per cent. It is about one third of our average increase during a Liberal administration.


Mr. Campbell (Stormont):: May I ask the
Leader of the Opposition a question, Mr. Speaker?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes.


Grant Campbell: Would the Leader of the Opposition give us the figures for the

The Address-Mr. Pearson increase in foreign investments in Canada, the taking over of our capital resources in the same period?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, Mr. Speaker. This will keep me a little longer, but if the hon. gentleman will look at the figures he will see that our position here has deteriorated also in this regard.
What has been the cost of the inability of the government to put into effect good policies which would have made for growth during this period? This is why Canadians today are without hundreds of thousands of jobs that they ought to have, that they have a right to have and that they would have if the rate of economic progress under a Liberal administration had continued. This is why the government goes more and more into debt, and why it cannot now afford to do a lot of things the country needs.
Now, they boast that 1962 looks like a better year. Is the kind of improvement we have had this year good enough for the government? It is not good enough for the Canadian people. The Prime Minister talks about faith in Canada. I say that to be satisfied with the probability that things are going to be a bit better is not faith in Canada. It is an insult to Canada. So is complacency about unemployment and satisfaction with one of the lowest rates of economic growth in the world. The Prime Minister and his colleagues boast about recovery when our production per person in 1961 is actually less than it was five years ago. He and his colleagues think a government with a record of that kind is good enough for this country. We Liberals have higher standards, more faith, more confidence in Canada. We know, because it has been proven before this government came into office, that Canada can achieve great things and that our economy can be the envy of the world. It was and can be again, and with a different government it will be.
Nevertheless, the throne speech makes the smug, complacent claim that, thanks to the government, our economy is recovering. Well, I am glad they said that. It clears the air. The government is taking credit for the recovery we have had. This recovery has not been the kind, I should think, that would make any government proud, but let them take all the comfort from it they can. Let them remember this, if they claim responsibility for the economy at one moment, they must assume responsibility for it at other moments. If they want the people of Canada to think that because unemployment is not quite as bad as it was last year, they are responsible, then whom do we blame for how bad it was before that and still is? The record, Mr. Speaker, is now

absolutely clear. The government thinks that the state of our economy is something about which the government should boast. By its own admission, it is responsible, responsible not only for its talk but for the facts, the facts the Canadian people know. The economic slow-down, the decline in our production per person, the chronic unemployment, the lost production, the missing jobs, are all things about which the people know and are all the failures of these wasted years of Tory government. They are the cost of not growing.
No calculation is possible in terms of frustration, loss of human dignity, lessening of incentive and ambition on the part of those who have been unable through work to participate in what growth we have had. However, we may make a calculation in terms of financial loss. We find it in the figure of $900 million depletion in the unemployment insurance fund; we find it in the figure of $250 million spent as the federal share of unemployment assistance; we find it in the figure of $5 billion of goods and services lost in 1961 because of joblessness, more than $100 million a week.
May I continue the record of hard economic facts? I have been asked to put these facts on the record, and I am glad to do so. Expenditures go up and up. In the first eight months of 1961 alone, they are up 8.9 per cent. The Minister of Finance estimated last June they would be up 7 per cent. Revenues are up only 1.9 per cent, and the minister's estimate was 2.6 per cent.
Another hard fact is that while under Liberal government from 1946 to 1957 the national debt was reduced $2.4 million, under 4i years of Tory government the national debt has increased by nearly $2 billion. Do not believe Tory spokesmen who tell you over the years that the national debt has decreased per capita, because it has not. In 1957, it was $664 per person, and in March 1961 it was $688 per person. I commend these figures to the Prime Minister.
Another hard fact is that taxes have increased along with deficits. It is a Tory fairy tale to say that they have not. Those who try to deceive us on this score must have guilty consciences. The Prime Minister, of course, promised to reduce them, and we remember that promise. The fact is that since assuming office the government has increased taxes by more than $150 million each year. During the last financial year, in spite of a quarter of a million increase in our population and a huge deficit, the per capita tax rose $12 to $190. The Prime Minister said he would reduce taxes by $120 per family, but he has increased them by $36.

Then there is the depressing and gloomy succession of deficits, not one of which was predicted by the minister in the terms that actually happened, including this year's deficit-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Nor in the terms that you and your friends predicted.


Lester Bowles Pearson: -which we are told is between $600 million and $700 million; and this at a time which he has characterized as one of expansion and recovery. If we allow $700 million for his deficit this year that is the average between his low and his high. This is the record. These are the facts. This is the cost. I give the budget deficits as follows, 1958, $38.5 million; 1959, $609.5 million; 1960, $413 million and 1961, $300 million; 1962, $700 million; 1963, (?). Then there is the depletion of the unemployment insurance fund, $900 million, depletion of the special defence fund $165 million, giving the total bill, the cost of "following John", as $3,126 million.


William Moore Benidickson: It wasn't worth it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Let it be remembered that there were deficits without development, debts without growth.
Perhaps the Minister of Finance will recall his own words in June, 1958 when he said;
These huge deficits-
This was in 1958 after a period of Liberal surpluses.


Donald Methuen Fleming: And deficits.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I continue:
These huge deficits . .. carry serious implications .. . for the future health of our country.
The facts are clear, Mr. Speaker, based on the experience of recent years. They provoke thought and they require understanding as a basis for sound policy and action in order to make the country progress. But there is no awareness on the part of the government of the serious, complicated and persistent nature of our economic problems which these facts reflect. The Prime Minister and his colleagues are too busy patting themselves on the back while they drag their feet, which is a very difficult gymnastic feat.
The results of these wasted years are now shown in the government's inability even to understand the problems confronting them, which is an essential foundation for doing something about them. The reputation of Canada and the government's reputation to look after its own affairs have gone down. People travelling abroad these days are a little depressed having other people ask them what has happened to Canada. The answer is that there is nothing wrong with Canada that
The Address-Mr. Pearson a change of government won't correct. If the ministers are not aware of this situation, if they are not aware of these questions, then they are living in a fool's paradise induced by reading and believing their own propaganda.


David James Walker: You should go beyond Mexico.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Most observers abroad who ask these questions are not influenced in their judgment by party or other subjective considerations. They are not members of a servile press. They are not influenced by opposition speeches or even government fairy tales.
Remembering that people on similar missions, when they come to Canada, spend far more time with ministers of the government than they do with members of the opposition, why, unless he was sincere in his analysis of the situation after a trip to Canada, should the editor of the London Financial Times write in May of 1961:
Think back to the days when I was not alone in believing Canada to be the best-governed country in the world; when she was reaping unexpected dividends from the bleak and prospectless thirties.
Then, comparing conditions between the first and second decades that followed world war II, he speaks of:
-a Canada which was confident and sure of herself and her destiny-[DOT]
as against:
-a Canada which economically is confused and almost apologetic; a Canada which led the world in growth and which attracted capital from the four corners of the globeand is now:
-a Canada which is ranked behind even laggard
economies-
Why should the editor of an English financial journal write like this?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Because he does not know the situation in Canada.


Mr. Nowlan:: How much was he paid for it?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Are you going to blame that on a servile press? Are you going to blame the opposition?


An hon. Member:: He does not know what he is talking about.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Why should the responsible London Times feel on October 31 that it was necessary to give some reasons for the bad press Canada has had, and for the disillusionment about our country? The Times gave its own reasons, one of which was repeated and emphasized in its annual financial revue when it referred to the Coyne affairs as an "unprecedented and unseemly family squabble-a blow to the Canadian image".

The Address-Mr. Pearson


Mr. Jones:: They had the same thing in Britain in 1917.


Lester Bowles Pearson: No wonder the Edmonton Journal, a paper friendly to the government, found it necessary to write on January 10, 1962:
The consensus from other sources is that Canada's influence in international affairs is at a low ebb now.


Howard Charles Green: You are smearing Canada now.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Why did the government not do something about the situation so that friendly editors would not write such criticism?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Why should the editor of the Calgary Herald, which I understand is a paper constantly friendly to the government write on October 28, 1961 as follows:
The present government has seriously mismanaged our monetary and economic affairs, and has also done harm to our country's reputation which it will take years to repair.
I find it painful to say these things, if only for the reason that I have so many good friends within the Conservative party, but it seems to me that somebody had better start saying them.
If this government had done as much for Canada as they claim, why should the former chief of the general staff, now the president of the Toronto stock exchange, say to the Empire club in Toronto on January 11, 1962, after three months in Europe:
The British were sharply critical of Canada's opposition to the U.K.'s proposed entry into the tariff-cutting common market.. .
The open dispute between former Bank of Canada governor James Coyne and finance minister Donald Fleming caused Europeans to feel Canadians must be an immature and juvenile people.
Well, Mr. Speaker, we are not immature, but the government is.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I do not think he was giving his own opinion.


Lester Bowles Pearson: As a people we are not immature and it is time to remove that impression by mature and efficient administration of our affairs. Let us correct these false impressions which make the members of the government so angry when they are repeated.


An hon. Member:: You are the only one who is angry.


Lester Bowles Pearson: That correction will not be made by this government. Nearly five years of inept and confused administration, with more emphasis on travel and talk than on thought and action, have shown that there is little hope for this.

As the London Economist put it on November 25, in an edition which referred to the "years of disillusionment since 1957":
His-
They were referring to the Minister of Finance:
*-colleagues, even his Prime Minister, are so busy finding ingenious ways to conceal reality that even the Canadian public is utterly confused.
I do not know whether or not the Canadian public is confused, but the Canadian public is certainly disenchanted and disillusioned with the present government.
Look at the record of the past year: the Coyne affair; the policy regarding the United Kingdom and the European common market; nuclear confusion and indecision; continued heavy unemployment; the Columbia river treaty mess; the Quebec hospital scandals; the assault on the Senate.
We are told that everything is fine now. We are told that the government has carried out 50 of its 62 promises.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Three quarters of the egg is good.


George Clyde Nowlan: Who is your speech writer?


Lester Bowles Pearson: With regard to these promises, the numbers game is of course an amusing diversion. I should like to inform my friend the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) that we are all trying to help him-


An hon. Member:: He needs it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: -and there was another promise made last Saturday afternoon, to the effect that the national press club might be called "royal". However, these interesting and amusing diversions-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Do you disapprove of that?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I do not think this is a matter of such great importance that it is necessary for me at this time to express my view one way or the other. This numbers game is an amusing diversion, but the promises that really matter and which the Canadian public will not forget are these basic, fundamental promises. First, to give good, steady and efficient administration of the nation's business; second, to ensure that no Canadian would suffer from unemployment; third, to put and keep our economic and financial affairs in good order; fourth, to reduce taxes and interest rates; fifth, to reduce government spending; sixth, to eliminate waste and extravagance in government; seventh, to balance

the budget; eighth, to increase Canada's prestige abroad. Not one of these promises has been carried out.


William Moore Benidickson: That is the record.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Presumably they are included in the 12. However, we on this side of the house do not lose any of our faith and confidence in our own country and people because of the ineptness and confusion of the government of the day. We Liberals have a deep and abiding faith in our country, confidence in its destiny and hope for its future in a world at peace.
We Canadians have been facing grave problems in recent years and we will continue to do so. We criticize the government for not even being aware of any of these problems. If it is not aware of them, how can it effectively deal with them?
There are deep-seated problems. Only a fool or a blind partisan would deny this and try to give the impression that if it were not for speeches of the opposition or a few press articles, everything would be fine in this country and our people would really appreciate what a good government is doing for them.
Every fair-minded Canadian must admit that there has been economic slowdown; that there has been massive unemployment, tight money, higher prices, huge deficits. I know that these problems are complicated and deep-seated. I know that in some cases they are unique and unprecedented and that there is no single or easy solution for them.
But I also know that hard, fresh thinking is required if we are going to find that solution. What is required is action by government based on wise and planned policies, not on political illusions or outmoded ideas. Above all the people must be given a full and frank assessment of our problems, of our position at home and in the world, and they must be told what is expected of them.
With a sound and steady government- which we do not have now-with farsighted plans and policies, with leadership which puts national interest above party advantage, Canadians can solve their problems today as they have solved them in the past. Challenge, sacrifice and hard effort are all part of the Canadian tradition. Give them a chance and Canadians will, as always, be worthy of that tradition. Canadians will be given a better chance, Mr. Speaker, after the next election. May it come soon.
Mr. Speaker, I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier), that the following be added to the address:
We respectfully affirm that Your Excellency's advisers, because of their continuing failure to
The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker bring forward policies to deal with the real problems confronting this country, do not deserve the confidence of the House of Commons.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, between now and six o'clock I have but a very short time to commence my reply to the lengthy speech we have listened to, in which distortion and confusion have played so large a part. I intend to be as gracious as I can, but having listened to the hon. gentleman this afternoon I can only say that those in the Liberal party who have been saying that the greatest weapon we have is the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) have not been speaking without authority.
I have followed the hon. gentleman in the press as he has made his various speeches throughout the country. I recognize some of the words he used today-somewhat diluted in the House of Commons; somewhat more restrained than they have been in the country -and I intend during the time at my disposal to deal with some of those allegations, in particular with the matters he has spoken of this afternoon.
However, I cannot understand the leader of a great party smearing his country as he has done. We can disagree as to economic conditions but when it comes to the type of language used by the hon. gentleman this afternoon, speaking of those great days of the past I cannot understand it. May I quote for his edification-because after all, I sent out for this while he was speaking-words written by one who is recognized as a devotee of the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Michael Barkway. He does not like us, but this is what he has to say in the Waterloo Review in the summer of 1960 about those of whom the hon. gentleman has spoken so highly-the members of the government of which he was a member. Mr. Barkway says this:
I am one observer who lived through the period in Ottawa and find the memory both poignant and painful.
He was speaking of the period from October 1955 to June 1957. The article continues:
There were times in those 20 months which were shameful. They were always foreboding; a Canadian Gotterdamerung, unrealized or misunderstood by its principal actors ... By October, 1955, the cabinet was unhappy and rudderless.
You can get some great words from this article I suggest to the Leader of the Opposition. Let me continue:
Its self-preoccupation largely detached it from public sentiment. It was giving first priority to the difficult task of hanging together. In June 1957 at the end of the period covered by Dr. Eayrs' book, it accomplished the task in a manner which few of its ministers had thought conceivable; nine of them mounted a common gallows.

The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker
The writer then goes on to speak about those wonderful days when Canada had such an international reputation. Let me read this passage:
It would be valuable above all to have a complete picture of the way Canadian relations with the United States were handled. Dr. Eayrs most properly devotes the longest chapter of his book to this subject. It is sandwiched between an account of the travails of the truce commissions in Indo-China and a spine-tingling tale of Mr. Paul Martin's efforts at the U.N. assembly of 1955 to secure the admission of new members (which loses nothing of excitement by drawing heavily on Mr. Martin's own version of it).
That is what hon. gentlemen opposite want us to go back to. Let me read what Mr. Bark way has to say a little further on:
Examples of the confusion and mismanagement in this most vital area of foreign policy could fill a book. In this small compass, and with necessarily incomplete knowledge, it may be best to indicate some of the unpublished background to just three of the problems Dr. Eayrs deals with.
Mention was made by hon. members of the opposition a few months ago of the Columbia river. What did Mr. Barkway have to say about that?
The most graphic are, perhaps, the Columbia river, continental defence, and economic affairs. On major economic questions the Department of External Affairs could do little between 1955 and 1957 except to tag along after Mr. Howe.
What a picture of those latter days is revealed here. Reading on, we find this:
On defence questions it could occasionally mitigate the effects of the armed services' bargains with Washington, but more often had to salvage such traces of decency as a man may gather to himself after losing his shirt and pants in a poker game.
I am reading from one of the pundits of parliament.
In the early Columbia river negotiations it obstructed and very nearly ruined the defence of Canadian interests which General McNaughton maintained almost single-handed.
Then the article goes on to say this in reference to another question:
The worst of it, which has never before been told, is that the draft note which Mr. Pearson and Mr. St. Laurent both approved did not merely question the adequacy of the 1909 treaty: it actually said that it was not adequate to deal with the Columbia case. There can seldom have been a more timorous or unnecessary surrender.
Those were the days to which hon. members opposite wish us to return, the days when Canada's image, as a result of the attitude taken by the opposition in joining with the government in maintaining that image, was known all over the world. There was not any of this smear operation.
If the opposition want any more read I can read a number of further pages on the subject.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Go on.


John George Diefenbaker: I think I have read
enough to indicate a complete answer. Those who would like to read more will find a copy of the magazine, I understand, in the library.
I will have a word to say regarding the mover and seconder of the address- and I shall enlarge on that-but there is one matter to which I wish to refer particularly at this time. It was not dealt with by the hon. member for Algoma East and understandably so. In accordance with our Canadianization policy, one of the things we did shortly after we took office was to set up a royal commission known as the O'Leary commission. Speaking of royal commissions, there was a reference by the Leader of the Opposition to the number of royal commissions we have set up. I have not the exact figure in mind but my recollection is that we have set up some 13 and that the Liberal party in the same period of time set up 12.
Royal commissions are set up for the purpose of securing information and making recommendations which, by reason of the complexity of events, would be impossible to secure otherwise. We set up this royal commission, and in the few moments at my disposal I intend to place before the house and the country the recommendations we intend to implement. But do not let the Leader of the Opposition run away with the idea that I shall not be back at eight o'clock in order to deal with some further matters.
On June 15, 1961, I tabled in the house the report of the royal commission on publications. Since then there has been time for a mature and searching appraisal by the government, and by the public, of the conclusions and recommendations of the commission and the information and argument on which they are based.
The commission, in vigorous and persuasive language, calls our attention to the unique role that Canadian magazines play, or ought to play, in our national life. The report states:
So far as the printed word is concerned, it is largely left to our periodical press, to our magazines big and little, to make a conscious appeal to the nation; to try to interpret Canada to all Canadians, to bring a sense of oneness to our scattered communities. It is but necessary to note the veritable deluge of United States publications submerging Canadian print on our newsstands to understand the magnitude and, in the past, the impossibility, of their task.
So pervasive, indeed, is this penetration, so obviously fraught with social and economic consequences, no examination of any aspect of Canadian communications can fail to take it into account. Here, inescapably, is the stuff of national concern.
The commission then proceeds to examine the case made by publishers of Canadian

magazines that they are suffering from "inequitable competition" in a variety of forms. These forms are too numerous to discuss in any detail today.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Will the Prime Minister identify the document from which he is reading?


John George Diefenbaker: They include the various advantages of foreign publishers: their ability to conduct circulation campaigns in Canada as a by-product of their domestic campaigns, their control of Canadian newsstand agencies and their special postal arrangements. There has been an accelerating tendency for Canadian advertisers to place their business with foreign rather than Canadian magazines as a means of covering the Canadian market. Foreign publishers have succeeded in extending and intensifying this practice through the production of so-called Canadian editions, special editions, Canadian sections, split runs, and similar devices. While the commission does not accept all of the arguments of the Canadian publishers, it strongly upholds the general claim that present conditions of competition are unfair to Canadian magazines.
The commission concludes that a genuinely Canadian periodical press can exist only by assuring for Canadian publications, under equitable conditions, an adequate share of domestic advertising. They define a Canadian periodical as follows:
A Canadian periodical is one published in Canada, owned either by Canadian citizens or. if a corporation, by a company incorporated under the laws of Canada or of one of its provinces, and which is controlled and directed by Canadian citizens and is not a licensee of or otherwise substantially the same as a periodical owned or controlled outside Canada.
A Canadian periodical is (also) one edited in Canada by a staff normally resident in Canada, its typesetting (in whatever language) and its entire mechanical production must be in Canada and its publication must be from a place or places within Canada.
In applying this conclusion, the commission makes two main recommendations:
(1)	That periodicals containing advertising that is primarily directed to the Canadian market be no longer permitted to enter Canada from abroad.
(2)	That the deduction from income by a taxpayer of expenditures incurred for advertising directed to the Canadian market in a foreign periodical wherever printed be disallowed.
It is the intention of the government to implement the first of these recommendations; that is to say, the government proposes, in due course, to prevent the importation of periodicals containing advertising that is primarily directed to the Canadian market. This will not in any way interfere with the continued importation into Canada of the many magazines that are printed and published
The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker abroad and that carry advertising that is primarily directed to their own home markets. It will, however, prevent publishers of magazines in other countries from preparing, as a by-product, and sending into Canada, adaptations of their magazines in which they carry advertising directed to the Canadian market.
As for the second major recommendation of the report, it is the intention of the government to implement it but with an important modification. If this recommendation were implemented without a change the result would be not merely to prevent the future establishment in Canada of foreign-owned, foreign-edited periodicals, but to put an extremely heavy, they claim, burden on those which have already been established here. The latter, in that they import most, if not all, of their reading matter as a by-product of their parent magazines abroad, have an unfair competitive advantage over their Canadian competitors; and this advantage must be offset. On the other hand, they have established themselves in this country in good faith, they employ Canadian labour, and they attempt to supply Canadian readers with a specially adapted product.
Accordingly, in applying the recommendation that advertising placed in non-Canadian magazines be no longer deductible as an ordinary business expense for tax purposes, the government will introduce an important, although partial, exception. As a general rule, the recommendation will be applied, and this tax change is expected to make it unprofitable to initiate the publication of any new byproduct magazines in this country. However, there will be an amelioration in the case of non-Canadian magazines that are already, as of today, published and printed in Canada, and that are or will shortly be carrying on editing operations in this country. When Canadian advertisers place advertisements in these latter magazines, their advertising outlays will continue to be deductible expenditures to the extent of 50 per cent. In other words, half the burden proposed by the royal commission will be removed from those nonCanadian periodicals that have established their operations within this country.
Both these recommendations, that relating to imports of Canadian-directed advertising and that relating to advertising in non-Canadian magazines, are of a fiscal nature. I make this announcement now so that adequate time, in all fairness, will be given for all existing plans and contracts that are normal and reasonable to be completed.
Nevertheless, the announcement I am making at this time will give immediate encouragement to Canadian magazines. All advertisers interested in reaching the Canadian

The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker market through the periodical press will, from today, be laying their plans in ways that will give greater and more assured support to the truly Canadian publications.
The government has considered the relationship between the recommendations of the royal commission and our commercial obligations to other countries under the general agreement on tariffs and trade. The commission establishes very clearly that the issues at stake, both in regard to imported magazines that carry Canadian advertising and in regard to the non-Canadian magazines that print and publish in Canada, are not essentially of a commercial character but go into the very fabric of our culture.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: You are reading your speech.


John George Diefenbaker: Nevertheless, we are not unmindful of our international obligations and will carry forward the appropriate consultations in regard to the lines of action upon which we have now decided, with any other governments that may be concerned.
In conclusion I wish to emphasize most strongly that our proposals involve, to use the language of the commission, "no interference with editorial comment, no tax on ideas or information, and no actual interference with readership preference". Under these proposals the right of all Canadians to subscribe to, or buy at the newsstands, the magazines of their choice, will be fully maintained.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Six o'clock.


Mr. Speaker:: I hear an hon. member say "six o'clock". I take it that the Prime Minister has only a paragraph to finish. Does the house accord him leave to finish it?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


George Harris Hees: "Six o'clock" has been called.


Mr. Speaker:: I take it that the house has given leave to the Prime Minister to finish, if he wishes to do so.


John George Diefenbaker: Then I conclude with these words. Thanks to the studies and recommendations of Mr. O'Leary and his colleagues, we shall be putting before this house, in due course, measures that will offset the competitive handicaps under which Canadian periodicals have been labouring, while fully protecting the reading preferences of the public and fully preserving the freedom of the press.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I shall now deal in general terms with the subject matter of the amendment and also with the several matters to which the Leader of the Opposition alluded, leaving to my colleagues in the several departments the responsibility of going into greater detail in answering many of the generalities which characterized the remarks of the hon. gentleman. However, I do follow him in his courteous reference to the mover (Mr. Bourdages) and seconder (Mr. Browne, Vancouver-Kingsway) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. He stated that the course he followed was traditional but none the less a necessary course to be followed in the House of Commons. Indeed, the hon. member for Laval and the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway, young men in their early forties and members of this house for a number of years, discharged their responsibilities in a manner that deserved and merited the congratulations of all. I can think of nothing more difficult and no position more trying than that of being the mover or seconder of the address in reply to the speech from the throne.
The Leader of the Opposition dealt in a generous way with by-elections and the like, not federal by-elections because you will remember there were four not so long ago which the prophets in the opposition said they were going to win. They came back with one of the four they anticipated. In any event, I should like to draw the attention of the house to the attitude of the late Right Hon. William Lyon Mackenzie King as recorded by Boswell. It is interesting to read something of that mythical dissertation which was interrupted recently. I think it would be a great benefit to history if it were permanently interrupted but it is not going to be. This is just an interim break. But it is of interest in reading "The Mackenzie King Record" to see these words recorded by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill):
On August 9, the government had lost four by-elections and on the way to the Citadel from the station. Churchill told Mackenzie King he hoped "the by-elections are not causing you worry". I said I had expected to lose all.
Then Churchill explains the reason. He said:
"My experience is that by-elections don't mean anything when you come to place a really large issue before the people." At another time he referred to the by-elections as a fire started on ice, that it blazed up very much at the beginning, but did not necessarily spread ... went out after a while.

Having regard to the experience we have had in by-elections, I can only say that our personal experience in days past was that we won the by-elections but when we came to the general elections we were not so successful.
I was quite interested in the dissertation of the Leader of the Opposition regarding the cabinet, my colleagues surrounding me, and his horror at the fact that he had read some place that there was division amongst us. Well, as I look at my colleagues and down this front bench I do not see any changes since 1957. I can only say that the exaggeration that was given to recent incidents had no basis in fact and that the unity among us is, as always, strong and I know, most effective.
In any event, and I cannot quote from the work of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate because he has not got that far yet, I will be interested in finding out what is said with regard to November, 1944 in the treatise on Mr. Mackenzie King when that particular period is dealt with. I hope that those of us who know the facts as they were will find the truth set out in the volume in question, and I can tell the hon. gentleman that we in this party have never had anything like the manner in which that great Canadian patriot, Ralston, was treated in 1944 at the time he was pushed out of the cabinet.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Better tell us about Mr. Stevens too.


John George Diefenbaker: Well, as soon as the hon. gentleman is hurt you hear from him. I intend to make some general references to the speech from the throne now. Without exaggeration, I think that the Leader of the Opposition today put both feet down with boldness and imagination and on both sides of several questions. He was short on facts and long on adjectives. I am not going to follow him in his adjectival self-delusions. However, I will say this. I am going to try this evening to unravel, if I can, some of the knots of absurdity and incongruity. This speech was not one which was equal to the efforts he has made in the past. I was somewhat disappointed in it in some particulars. He was dealing with many of the things he has said over and over again from one end of Canada to the other.
He stayed away from the speech from the throne, except to make a general reference to it. This general reference did not betray the knowledge of British constitutional practice and the difference between that practice and the practice in the United States that I would have expected. After all, he had experience 26207-1-5
The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker in Washington. He endeavoured to compare the speech from the throne to the state of the union speech delivered by the President of the United States. There is no similarity whatever. He criticized the speech from the throne in that it did not have, and I borrow these words from the hon. gentleman, "bold and imaginative words." I have heard that statement over and over again, and I intend to deal with some of these bold and imaginative stands.
I have before me the Queen's speech given in the United Kingdom on October 31. I find that it is approximately four columns in length. It refers in a very matter of fact manner to some of these questions with which we are dealing here. It starts off by referring to the visits of the Queen; the welcome to the United Kingdom of the president of Indonesia; the support of the government of the United Kingdom for the United Nations; the improvement of relations between east and west, which remains the primary object of the government's policy; discusses negotiations in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; refers to the Geneva conference on Laos; refers to South Africa and the change in the relationship. Then, concerning the European trade question, it says the government will make every effort to bring those negotiations to a successful conclusion. There is a reference to certain legislation that will be introduced, and then the speech contains an omnibus section at the end to the effect that other measures will be laid before the house in due course.
This is the style that speeches from the throne have followed throughout the years in the parliament of Canada. This is not an exhortation, as is the state of the union address in the United States, to a congress that is removed from the president. This is simply a statement of the bill of fare which is to be brought before parliament.
I am going to make one or two references in general to the speech from the throne, and mention that it deals with the international situation. I do not know what we are expected to do other than put the facts before the House of Commons. Mention is made of the recommendations to work out some of the purposes of confederation and identify more clearly the Canadian nationality. Mention is made of the royal commission on publications and also of the constitutional conference which was held with representatives of the various provinces.
Then there is the question of redistribution, and I noticed the hon. gentleman stayed away from that. He made no reference to the fact that this provision would remove politics from redistribution, and I think it must have been a guilty conscience that caused him to

The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker make no reference to this fact. In regard to the economic situation, the steps that have been taken and are being taken answer his repeated question, "what has been done?" As an indication of the fact the hon. gentleman has not read this portion of the speech from the throne, I read this paragraph:
Comprehensive measures to put into effect my government's economic policies were enacted in preceding sessions of this parliament. The benefits flowing from these policies are now evident in record levels of employment, of production, and of export trade. There has been a substantial improvement since last year in the unemployment situation. As the result of the efforts of my government through its municipal winter works incentive program, notable progress has been made in meeting the recurrent problem of seasonal unemployment.
So far as training is concerned, those who are unemployed and unable otherwise to secure work can take advantage of a program that has been launched in Canada and which today is being imitated in the United States of America. This will ensure young men and women as well as older men and women of an opportunity to obtain the technical knowledge and technical training, without which employment becomes very difficult to obtain.
Then there was mention of the university grants. I am surprised that no reference was made of that. After all, during the election campaign of 1958, the hon. gentleman referred to this matter. He speaks about dollar marks being placed on promises. On the one hand he condemned deficits and on the other hand he went ahead with promises that would multiply the expenditures of this country by hundreds of millions of dollars. In that year he was in favour of a scholarship system financed by the federal government. Oh, it was going to be the most comprehensive system that was ever brought into effect in this country. Where is that scholarship system now? He has been silent about it since he made his speech in Quebec when he altered his entire plan. Mr. Lesage was not at the convention in Ottawa in 1961. He was away for personal reasons, but he is now in Quebec city. At the time of his speech, therefore, and for the first time, the Leader of the Opposition suddenly saw the light and came to the conclusion that it is most necessary to uphold the constitution. Since that time, he has said nothing more about the university courses or training or promises of scholarships.
In addition to that, he has departed from the principles that were enunciated at this meeting in January, 1961 whereby cost sharing programs between the federal government and provincial governments were to be discontinued if his party were to come into

power. It is a most interesting thing that there is no reference to these questions that were of such paramount importance in 1958 and also at the convention here in January, 1961. We still believe in the necessity of federal assistance to universities. We still believe that in the world today in the face of the challenges to the free world by the communist world and the fact that Khrushchev has said that by 1986 he will have been able to destroy the free world economically, there is a necessity for assistance to universities.
We intend, as we state, to ask parliament to increase the federal grants to universities. We increased them up to $1.50 per capita since taking office, and we intend, if parliament accedes, to make a further increase of 50 cents per capita, bringing the total to $2, and to make suitable provision in those cases where alternative arrangements are made for supplementary provincial grants in lieu of federal grants. It is interesting that the hon. Leader of the Opposition stayed away from that subject because after all, Mr. Speaker, one must be bold and imaginative. You know the new slogan with which they are littering the country, "the Liberals have the answer." They had the answer. I intend a little later on to return to this, as my hon. friend often says, in order to point out what the answers are, who has the answers, and who among them agree on the answers.
I am surprised the hon. gentleman could not have made some reference to the other place. What he did say was just a passing mention but, Mr. Speaker, I remember the day when Mr. King went forth in shining armour to reform the Senate and he got resignations signed in anticipation by the appointees. There was a great election campaign on that subject but we never heard anything more about it. You know what the reform slogan was: live Grits for dead Tories.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is our slogan for the next election.


John George Diefenbaker: We have not seen a live Grit since.


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is our slogan.


Mr. Grafftey:: Where are you going to get the live ones?


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


John George Diefenbaker: If they do not show more life than they have for the last four years we know exactly what the consequences will be. I also noticed, Mr. Speaker, that when he was talking about an election the hon. gentleman's voice was softened and became almost inaudible. We heard this talk in 1958 and

the challenges which were thrown then. Yet when we gave them an election what did they say? They cried "We don't want it". You remember the famous amendment of 1958- "Give us back our jobs." It is wonderful how history repeats itself. Today they come out with an innocuous amendment that is general enough to suit even the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate. This time there are no particulars. It is simply a generalized statement without any material basis to support it within the amendment.
So far as the Senate is concerned there are many possible suggestions as to what might be done. There is the suggestion of compulsory retirement with an age limit. There is also the suggestion that the Senate might be deprived of significant legislative jurisdiction, whatever the vestigial remains might be, with regard to money bills. There are many other possible suggestions. There is also the question of tenure. All these matters will receive consideration when the subject comes before the house, and when we discuss seriously a matter that has been of a general and widespread interest down through the years.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the Prime Minister permit a question?


John George Diefenbaker: No.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The answer is no.


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


John George Diefenbaker: The hon gentleman will remember how often that answer was given when he sat over here. That is the answer we always got.


John Whitney Pickersgill: So long as we know the answer is no.


John George Diefenbaker: I might recall, Mr. Speaker, that when I used to live on a farm in western Canada we had bears around and I remember an old farmer saying to me: "When you are out hunting bears don't allow yourself to follow rabbit tracks." I know that this will be one of the matters which will be discussed in recognition of the need for making parliament stronger, more efficient and more effective.
Now, sir, I wish to deal with the subjects in the order in which they were mentioned by the hon. gentleman. He spoke of foreign affairs and dealt with that matter at some length. I was quite interested in the views that he expressed because, after all, down through the years we have endeavoured to bring about a high degree of unity within our country on our international affairs and relations. Over and over again, when we were on that side of the house, we referred to the 26207-1-5J
The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker hon. Leader of the Opposition in eulogistic terms for the stands he took on behalf of Canada.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Especially over Suez.


John George Diefenbaker: It must be a guilty conscience. He could not keep silent. I was speaking generally, and the hon. gentleman has referred to one example. Even he could not be totally perfect. As I mentioned a moment ago we endeavored to bring about a high degree of unity and I could not understand this afternoon why he, obviously not in a spontaneous remark made on the spur of the moment but as the result of intensive preparation, went out of his way to make personal and disparaging references to this country internationally and the manner in which, inferentially if not directly, the Secretary of State for External Affairs has discharged his responsibility.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: I find that difficult to understand. That must be the new Pearson, the new Liberal party, the new image. But let me point out these facts, and I know the Secretary of State for External Affairs will have something to say in this regard. Generally speaking, I think Canadians highly regard the manner in which the minister has discharged and carried out his duties.
Mr. Speaker, in order to build yourself up in your own image you do not have to disparage others, and that disparagement-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Look in the mirror.


John George Diefenbaker: -was the one point in his speech where I felt that while it was the voice of the Leader of the Opposition, the handiwork was that of someone else.
What was done at the last session of the United Nations? The earlier initiative toward world wide research in radiation was advanced and supported. Strong objection was taken by the government of Canada to Soviet nuclear tests and efforts were made unceasingly toward securing the resumption of disarmament negotiations.
In so far as the spread of nuclear weapons was concerned, we took our stand strongly and effectively. We gave support to a policy which we ourselves advanced four years ago regarding the control of outer space. We have taken our stand against the troika principle and strong support for the new acting secretary general of the United Nations came from the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In the light of the events of the last few weeks, what U Thant has done has shown him to be an outstanding secretary general of the United Nations.

The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker
In addition to that we took our stand with regard to the question of the financing of the United Nations. I am not sure that in the days ahead, however, consideration should not be given to this question, to the end that nations that are not making their contributions should be required to come more effectively within article 19, which reads:
A member of the United Nations which is in arrears in the payment of its financial contributions to the organization shall have no vote in the general assembly if the amount of its arrears equals or exceeds the amount of the contributions due from it for the preceding two full years.
There should be no free riders in an international organization designed to maintain and preserve peace.
In addition to that, when I listened to the hon. gentleman today speaking with such disapproval of what this government had done internationally and saw the shame that came to his cheeks as he felt the loss of the international stature of Canada, I can only say that he must have gained that in Acapulco, because wherever I have gone I have found that Canada's international position is now, and has been through the years, among the first in the nations of the world.
In addition to that there is the initiative taken in connection with the world food program which brings honour to Canada. We endeavoured to bring it about as far back as December 1957, within NATO. Through the years we have continued to advocate the need for such a body, but we had not been able to achieve it until this year. The plan which was advanced by us four years ago has been altered very little. That plan has been accepted by the United Nations and under it Canada intends to make her contribution and to play her part to use that institution not only for the removal of overhanging surpluses but to alleviate human suffering.
The hon. gentleman asks, what have we done? I cannot understand his asking that question. As far as the Colombo plan is concerned, we increased the contribution from $35 million to $50 million a year, and it has been so for the past three years. We have made it effective for a period of three years.
What has Canada done? I could understand this criticism coming from someone else, but not from the Leader of the Opposition.
In answer to the question, what has Canada done, I would say, what about her contribution in the Congo; what about her contribution in the Middle East; what about her assistance in the Far East? Wherever in the world there are international organizations and Canada has been asked to take her part, she has taken her part and will continue to do so in the years to come.


We thought that was beyond party politics, but today the hon. gentleman, for reasons known only to himself, dared to stand up in parliament and deprecate this country and its international position. It is beyond me to understand the particular variety of political chivalry that would impel one to do that.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


John George Diefenbaker: The hon. gentleman
laughs. I ask him, what did he mean by his statements this afternoon? Are we falling down with regard to NATO? Our contribution to NATO has been enlarged. One does not want to boast within his own country but I can say that our contribution to NATO, relatively speaking, places us in the forefront of the nations that compose that body, the greatest defence we have.
Then the hon. gentleman said that this country was against Britain. I remember when he sat over here that year after year, as he made his annual report as secretary of state for external affairs, no ordinary microscope could find any reference to the commonwealth. Our attitude to the commonwealth is that this body represents the greatest instrument for peace anywhere in the world. It covers all the continents and brings together men and women of all colours and races. It does this effectively. I will deal with further aspersions in that connection when I refer to the common market.
There was also a reference to the effect that this was the 44th anniversary of the independence of the Ukraine. We did not have to be told that. We brought that before the United Nations. All through the years the hon. gentleman did not deal with that question there.
The hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin)-I do not like to refer to him in his absence-has also discovered the problem now, because only a few days ago he made reference to the fact that the suggestion I made some time ago, that there be a resolution brought before the United Nations at its next session, should not be delayed that long but should be raised at this time. The reason it has not been raised at this time is that there were already one or two resolutions on this subject, and it is necessary to have the support of other nations throughout the world in order to bring in such a resolution if there is to be any effective action taken by the United Nations in regard thereto.
We took our stand-and it was not a popular one at the time-in September, 1960, when I had the privilege of speaking at the United Nations. After Khrushchev had come out in favour of self-determination for all the peoples of mankind I called upon him in the

name of fairness, justice and equity and in pursuance of the principles of the United Nations to make it possible for those captive peoples under his control to be given the right to self-determination. That is the attitude which this party has taken throughout the years. We are glad the need for action in this regard has suddenly been recognized in these last few months by those who for many years in the United Nations, knowing of the situation and having heard the calls of these people, never at any time raised a voice on their behalf.
With regard to east-west relations, the Leader of the Opposition has spoken of the seriousness of world conditions and he has done so with that knowledge which experience brings and which his associations through the years make possible. I think we can say that while there is at the moment a lull, nothing has taken place in recent weeks which would lead one to believe that the problems which face us in our relationship with the U.S.S.R. have greatly diminished.
The United States ambassador in Moscow is now engaged in probing Soviet intentions regarding Berlin. In Berlin the west wants certain guarantees and undertakings from the Soviet union. A basis for negotiations exists if the Soviet union really wants a settlement. Negotiations, as I see it, could ultimately benefit both sides and would certainly reduce the dangers of war which have arisen as a result of Soviet pressure on the city.
What are the factors which have caused the hot and cold tactics to which we have been subjected during the past three years? It may be the answer is that we are no longer dealing with a monolithic organization nor with an absolute dictator on the Stalin model but that we are dealing with a communist world in which decisions result from complex pressures and in which the decision of one man or one group, or even of one country, does not always prevail. In these changed circumstances we should recognize that the Soviet challenge is different from that which we faced ten years ago and that western policies must be adjusted accordingly taking full account of political and economic as well as military factors.
It is not likely that any of us need be warned against acquiring a false sense of security from the divisions, the schisms, which have appeared in the communist world, where they are known, I think, as heresies. The communist world is divided against itself today. But though they are divided among themselves they are united in one thing, and that is their unity against us. Their dispute is about means, not about ends, and we
The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker would be running grave risks if we were to base our policies on the assumption that the communist world is crumbling.
As I see the picture-and the Secretary of State for External Affairs will deal with this in detail-the task of the west today is to pursue a steady but not rigid course, watching the adversary closely but without being deflected by his Pavlovian tactics. Our aims in Berlin are clear. They are reasonable. The western world intends to maintain them, not just in the interests of West Berlin but because they have a wider significance as a test of western resolve to fulfil its pledged word. The Soviet government has before it an opportunity to demonstrate its good faith and willingness to bring about a removal of those difficulties which have separated us.
Of one thing there can be no question. The only places which become danger spots are those chosen by the U.S.S.R. or its communist assistants or associates.
The hon. gentleman mentioned the question of nuclear arms, a problem which has affected all the nations in the western world. This is a subject which I hope will be debated and discussed at length. But I want to make this very clear: there has been no dilatory action on the part of this government. We made our enunciation of policy as far back as 1959, clearly, definitely and absolutely. Since that time we have continued in that policy, and when the debate takes place on international affairs we shall deal with this matter and point out at the same time the tremendous cleavage and schism which exists on this subject within the ranks of the opposition despite the fact that in this regard the advertising represents the Liberals as having the answer. I should like to hear that answer some time expressed without equivocation. I think that anyone who has had the privilege of reading the interview one page long given by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate to the Windsor Star a few days ago, will wonder who was speaking about whom and what the policy is with reference to this and several other matters.
Now I might pass on to the next problem that is, the economic one. I must say I felt a degree of sympathy for the Leader of the Opposition today.


An hon. Member:: He needed it.


John George Diefenbaker: I believe in extending sympathy even if they think they do not need it when it is apparent that they do need it. It is an awful thing; for four long years they have been preaching doom and gloom. But they do not want that mentioned. They have gone across this country and spoken

The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker about the degradation of our country internationally and economically. What about parliamentarily? No, they do not talk about that. Do hon. members recall the reference the Leader of the Opposition made to that? He said: "Here is something about old stuff". That was about the opportunity for parliament to remove the closure procedure. He may think it is old stuff, but we who sat on that side of the house during the days when parliament was trampled on do not regard it as old stuff. He asks: "Why haven't you done it?" We are now giving parliament the opportunity to carry out that which we said would be placed before it. But what if we had not believed in the necessity of not applying closure? There have been times when everything has been done on the part of the opposition to bring it about, that which as long as this government is in power, will never be visited on the House of Commons or on free speech within this house.
I am going to refer to the economic situation. They blame us for everything today. Internationally, it was a sordid picture. Economically, where was the country going, the Leader of the Opposition asked. Well I intend to make some references to recent press statements after having dealt in general with the economic situation within our country. The detail will be filled in by the Minister of Finance and others who will follow.
The hon. gentleman blamed us today for lower productivity per individual. That was a new accusation. According to him we are to blame because men today are not producing as much as they were producing per person four or five years ago. That is how far they have gone. I have been across this country and I have also listened to Canadian people everywhere. Do you know what I have heard? Over and over again it has been said to me that this perpetual groaning on the part of the opposition, this degrading of our country, has gone beyond what is reasonable and beyond what is regarded as the proper attitude to take in parliament. We want criticism. Criticism is of the essence of parliamentary government. But that dirge they chant, that funereal appearance they assume, and that attitude of gloom they adopt for their own personal glee, are things which the people are beginning to see through in the light of what has been done and the policies that have been followed by this government.
I will refer to some of the things that have been done, first generalizing on the Canadian economic scene today. Mention was made of the fact that elsewhere in the world everything was fine. I have simply to read what the President of the United States said the other day. He has also mentioned on a

number of occasions, that since the war there have been four or five recessions. He has mentioned the difficulty of these successive recessions, each followed by a shorter period of general prosperity. The other day he also stated that this year we have turned the corner and are on the way up. The opposition picture Canada as if it were a place by itself, with difficulties not found elsewhere. One has just to read the United States press week by week. There you find out the fact that they also face a situation similar to that which we have faced in Canada. As to Canadian economic activity, the pace of expansion has accelerated as the year progressed and as the economy continues to advance most economic indicators passed their previous peaks and were still pointing upwards as the year ended. National output rose significantly in both the second and the third quarters of the year, and the indications are that this trend continued in the final quarter of 1961. The quickening rate of business activity improved the labour situation and employment rose.
I might also point out that the strength of the current expansion is evident in the new records attained in such important fields as national output, industrial production, incomes, consumption and commodity exports. These are notable achievements in view of the fact that there was a partial failure of Canada's 1961 grain crop. The upswing has been unusually strong and broadly based. The significant feature of the upturn is the broadness of its scope and the extent to which the improvement has permeated the Canadian economy. Some Canadian industries achieved record output and sales in 1961. Others operated above their 1960 level. New annual production records were achieved by both the mining and manufacturing industries.
In connection with mineral production, there was an increase of approximately 2.8 per cent. There was also an increase in gas exports. As a result of the policies of this government in making possible a national policy, we have been able to achieve new records. New annual production records were also chalked up in primary steel and wood pulp. Cement shipments were higher by 6 per cent than they were in 1960 and constituted the second highest figure on record after 1958. The gross national product amounted to approximately $37 billion and there was a significant gain between the second quarter and the third quarter. The achievement of this gain is remarkable, again I point out, when consideration is given to the $300 million or $400 million decline in the grain crop when compared with that of 1960. If we had had an average grain crop in 1961, it

would have meant an increase of about per cent in the gross national product. However, the opposition just go on, Mr. Speaker, and wail and whine.
How greatly the foreign trade situation seems to worry, frustrate and annoy them. However, the improvement in Canada's foreign trade was one of the most encouraging economic developments in 1961. At the end of the first ten months of 1961 commodity exports stood at an all-time high. Imports were moderately higher than they were in 1961 and for the first time since 1952 Canada had a surplus in commodity trade. When we came into office there was a deficit in commodity trade of some $713 million. As a result of our policies, the encouragement of export markets and the action taken by the Minister of Trade and Commerce and his officials, and those of the other departments of government, and by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hamilton) directly, the improved situation was brought about. The record level of exports was achieved largely by expanding foreign sales to countries other than our two traditional best customers, namely the United Kingdom and the United States. Sales to western Europe and Japan continued to expand during the year, and there were large exports of grain to communist countries.
I do not know what the suggestion was today on the part of the Leader of the Opposition. However, if he is criticising the sale of wheat to communist countries, I ask him to repeat that criticism in those areas of Canada which are particularly affected by the benefits that come from the export of that wheat.


George Clyde Nowlan: Or anywhere else in Canada.


John George Diefenbaker: The Minister of National Revenue says, "or anywhere else in Canada". I wanted him to get the warmest reception. That is why I mentioned those provinces that have the largest amount of wheat. I used to be told that there was an east and a west. I have not found that to be the case. There has been a desire on the part of hon. members of this house, from whatever part of Canada they came, to contribute to the benefit of each and every portion of the country to the end that there is prosperity.
I have noticed that certain elements in the press have stated that the improvement in our trade situation is due to United States economic improvement rather than to our policies. Canada's total trade-that is to say, commodity exports and imports taken together-amounted to $9J billion in the first ten months of 1961, 5.8 per cent more than
The Address-Mr. Diefenhaker in the corresponding period of 1960. Exports total $4,801 million, 7.2 per cent above the level in the period January to October 1960.
What are the facts with respect to whether or not this increase has arisen in consequence of improvement of economic conditions in the United States? In over-all exports the level over 1960 was the result of an increase of $52 million or 2 per cent in sales to the United States and of a rise of $292 million or 33 per cent in exports to countries other than the United States and commonwealth countries. I think I have said enough in this connection to indicate that because of the tremendous efforts made by this government and its departments and as a result of the legislation which the government introduced in order to encourage export sales these results have followed.
Industrial production hit a new peak. In October, 1961, it was 6.1 per cent higher than one year earlier. And so I might go on. The higher level of housing starts and increased activity in other construction fields after mid-year provided a stimulus to the building materials industries and the construction trades in general. All of these things brought about a great improvement in our employment situation.
We are not complacent about it. Neither are they complacent in the United States where their percentage of unemployment is higher than ours. They are adopting various policies to which the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) will refer during the course of his remarks. We have been facing a situation within our country where unemployment is always seasonally higher than anywhere else and, in spite of the prophecies of the opposition, we are able to say at this time that in every month during the year there has been a comparative reduction in unemployment. All of Canada's regions shared in the improvement in employment throughout 1961, compared with one year earlier.
I should also point out that while our percentage of unemployment is lower than that of the United States, further consideration should be given to the fact that in that country considerable numbers are called into the armed forces. Furthermore, the Canadian labour force has increased 10.4 per cent compared with 6.1 per cent in the United States, which indicates that we have that additional problem of larger and larger numbers coming into the labour market, greater in percentage than is the case in the United States.
I could deal with sales and review in general but throughout it bears out what I have just stated, that our policies, ridiculed, condemned, ignored today by the Leader of the
68	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker Opposition, have brought about changes that few could have anticipated a few months ago.
With regard to our relationship to the United States in defence sharing, the Minister of Defence Production (Mr. O'Hurley) deserves commendation. In joint sharing with the United States in 1961 we built up a 25 per cent increase over 1960. The 1960 figure was $112 million and in 1961 the amount was $142.6 million. That was the first time that we had a favourable balance amounting to $50 million. This does not take into consideration the "swap" deal. In addition we received $42 million in defence sharing in European countries and in Australia last year. If there only could have been the slightest suggestion on the part of the Leader of the Opposition that things were changing beneficially. But no, not at all. I wonder why he was so silent. Was it because the sole policy that the opposition has built up, the economic degradation of this country, has now proven to be ill-timed and ill-conceived?
Sir, we are no different from the United States. Here are the words of the President of the United States in his state of the union message:
At home, we began the year in the valley of recession-we completed it on the high road of recovery and growth... At the year's end the economy which Mr. Khrushchev once called "a stumbling horse" was racing to new records in consumer spending, labour income and industrial production. Moreover, pleasant as it may be to bask in the warmth of recovery, let us not forget that we have suffered three recessions in the last seven years.
Listening to the hon. gentleman today referring to recessions, you would think they were something peculiar to the present government of this country.
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
That is the course we have followed and that is the course we intend to follow on the upturn that is taking place everywhere in Canada.
The hon. gentleman is a profound reader of articles from abroad. In one or two cases he read from journals that do not have quite the wide significance that he would have led us to believe. Let me read from some articles written in Canada. There is, for instance, the Financial Post outlook on January 6.
Canada ended 1961 with business on the upbeat and with buoyant forecasts for 1962. This year's g.n.p. consensus is, should rise by at least 5 per cent to top the $39 billion mark.
Again, on October 28 the Financial Post said this:

The upswing in industrial production and profits, coupled with the current scaling down of unemployment, make it clear that the Canadian economy is well into its fifth expansion of its post-war years.
Why go abroad in order to prove what is wrong with your country? I do not understand this greater interest than ever before in papers and periodicals abroad. Charles Lynch in the Ottawa Citizen had this to say:
Canada gets glad tidings on economy. In almost every sector of the economy, except agriculture, things were humming at such a pace during the third quarter of this year that gross national product rose by 2.7 per cent.
In agriculture it should be noted there was the largest income yet, even though agriculture in western Canada suffered a tremendous loss. In the months since last May or June the price of wheat has increased by approximately 20 cents a bushel. Here is what the president of the Bank of Nova Scotia said.
The past 12 months give us much cause for encouragement.
I wish he could whisper a few of these words to the Leader of the Opposition.
We have moved from the midst of a recession into a new phase of expansion.
Then he said:
How strong the forward surge will be is not yet clear; but it is clear that 1962 will be a better year than 1961.
Then there is this quotation originating with the Prudential Insurance Company of America:
Canada's gross national product will rise 7.3 per cent to a record $39.4 billion in 1962, the Prudential Insurance Company of America says in its annual economic forecast.
And so it goes across the country in magazine after magazine and article after article I think I will have to send some of these to the hon. gentleman rather than read them in the house.


Lionel Chevrier: How about the president of the Royal bank?


John George Diefenbaker: Then, he will have some information gained in Canada about Canada rather than the derogatory articles from outside of Canada.
I am going to say a word now about the common market. I do not believe too much need be said. I should like to refer again to the slogan "the Liberals have the answer". It is a great slogan given today. It is said the Liberal party has taken a strong stand in this regard. We find reference made to Walter Gordon. He is in a position, in relation to the Leader of the Opposition, as exemplified by the phrase, "Walter, Walter, lead me to the altar". The Liberals have the answer. They had the answer from the lips of

this same Walter Gordon who said to the people of the maritimes, exile yourselves from the maritime provinces.


An hon. Member:: Wait until we get him down there.


John George Diefenbaker: Oh, he has been down there. He said, I really did not mean that. Here is what he says and he is one of the leaders, but unlike his fellow expert, Mr. Kent, he is allowed to be articulate. This is what he said on August 29, 1960. The Leader of the Opposition read what he had said. That used to be a failing of Mr. Kang's; his speeches were filled with copious quantities of quotations from previous speeches.
We will see what Mr. Gordon said, as reported in the Toronto daily Star in August, 1960. Let us remember the bold and imaginative, Mr. Speaker; decisiveness, certainty. What did the director of policy and activity of the Liberal party say? This is what he said:
We hear a lot these days about the potential effects on Canadian exports of the European common market, and sometimes, that we should explore the possibilities of establishing a common market or free trade area on the North American continent.
This was in the speech today. It was put there quietly, just inserted. What did Mr. Gordon say?
But we should think twice before concluding that the same approach would be desirable on this continent. After all, some of the keenest promoters of the common market in Europe have political union as their ultimate objective, a union incidentally in which no one of the present countries would wield a dominating influence.
The Liberals have the answer, but here is what Mr. Gordon said:
A similar approach on this continent might have a very different result if eventually it led to some kind of political union between Canada and the United States. In our case, because of our much smaller size, this would really mean absorption by the United States. This is a prospect which I, for one, would not look upon with relish-not that I am in any way anti-American-but just that I think Canada has something to contribute to this weary troubled world as a separate, independent nation with no axe to grind.


Miss LaMarsh:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: Oh, yes, they applaud what he said but they say the very opposite in the House of Commons.
Now, I come to another bold and imaginative statement. The Leader of the Opposition quoted what he said in Vancouver on January 25, 1958, calling for immediate planning for a north Atlantic free trade area. He complained because Canada dared to place Canada's position before the United Kingdom when the United Kingdom was considering entering the common market. What would they have said if we had not done so? What would the position of the United Kingdom 26207-1-6
The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker have been if they bargained for the purpose of securing for us, within the commonwealth, the best possible bargain they could? There has been no complaint on their part. They have been very glad to have our views. They have used them there for the purpose of assuring that there shall be no sacrifice of any measure of those things that bind the commonwealth together in trade. They criticize us for it today, but what would they have done?
I will tell you what the Leader of the Opposition said. He did not quote this part of his speech. After these bold words, he concluded by saying this:
For Canada a north Atlantic area, with the freest possible trade would certainly mean a much greater export market in the United States and Europe.
Then, he conceded that certain Canadian industries would have to receive special consideration under a free trade agreement. He did not elaborate further. The thing which he told us we should do and which would have to be done, is the very thing for which he criticized us, securing special consideration. You remember a while ago what they were saying, Mr. Speaker? We should join the European common market. They had never read the treaty of Rome. They did not know that only European countries could belong as members. They suddenly changed their standpoint today and endeavoured to leave the impression that the United States was going to enter into something of this kind. I will quote President Kennedy's words:
I am proposing, in short, a new American trade initiative which will make it possible for the economic potential of these two great markets to be harnessed together into a team capable of pulling the full weight of our common military, economic and political aspirations.
I personally believe this, that in the years ahead the free world will have to come closer together than ever before, economically and politically, if we are to survive in freedom.
Then, what did the president say?
I am not proposing-nor is it either necessary or desirable-that we join the common market, alter our concepts of political sovereignty, establish a rich man's trading community, abandon our traditional most favoured nation policy, create an Atlantic free trade area, or impair in any way our close economic ties with Canada, Japan and the rest of the free world.
This has been our attitude. We have done everything to encourage Britain to place the viewpoint of Canada before the community, and it has been done.
As a result of the serious decision recently taken by the council of ministers of the common market, the Six have moved from the first stage to the second stage of the 12-year transitional period leading to the achievement of their economic community.

The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker
The position of the common market at the end of the fourth year is generally as follows: The Six have reduced tariffs among themselves by 40 per cent, and eliminated import restrictions, also amongst themselves, over a wide range. They have taken the first of three steps bringing their individual tariffs towards the level of their common external tariff. They have paved the way for common transport and commercial policies. They have made appreciable progress towards the free movement of labour, services and capital wtihin their community. That is one of the principles of the treaty of Rome, free ingress and egress of labour among the countries in the treaty area; complete freedom of access on the part of labour, that is, under the treaty. They have continued to develop closer political ties.
The government of Canada recognizes the implications of the common market. We understand the political and economic reasons which led to the creation of this economic community. We have demonstrated our desire to co-operate with it and with the United States in the part we have played in the establishment of O.E.C.D. and all Canadians are proud of the fact that this organization is now under the chairmanship of the Minister of Finance.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: This, Mr. Speaker, provides me with an opportunity of replying to those who say that there has been any disagreement between the Minister of Finance and myself, that there is and has been no foundation for those rumors at any time.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Methinks the lady doth protest too often.


John George Diefenbaker: If the hon. gentleman knows as much about ladies as he does about Mr. King, then he speaks with some authority.
While Canada has co-operated with its partners I make it clear that if the strengthening of Europe were to be achieved at the expense of the commonwealth, or other parts of the free world, we do not believe it would fulfill its promise. Canadian representatives have brought these considerations to bear in the discussions regarding European integration. I can say that so far as negotiations between the United Kingdom and the Six are concerned, the British position, stated by the Lord Privy Seal, is that the British government indicated their willingness to accept the broad lines of the Rome treaty as it is, and indicated they shared the political aims and objectives of the Six. Second, the political significance of the commonwealth and its contribution to strength and stability in the world were emphasized. He, I think,

made it clear that the safeguarding of commonwealth interests was the central consideration affecting the United Kingdom's decision to join.
We represent the government of Canada. We represent the people of Canada and, lest the result of what Britain was doing were to weaken the relationship within the commonwealth, were to place us in a detrimental position together with Australia, New Zealand and other countries of the commonwealth, then it is our responsibility to place that view before the British government. I can say the British government recognizes that Britain is at the centre of a world wide trading system and is aware that production facilities have been developed in many commonwealth countries to serve the British market.
Much of British industry in turn has developed on the basis of favourable access to markets in many parts of the world and the British government has, in the face of these considerations, indicated that commonwealth interests should be accommodated. It has given assurances to commonwealth governments that this would be a crucial feature of the negotiations. This was our concern, as I pointed out a moment ago, not the attitude of trying to say to a sovereign nation within the commonwealth "You shall not do this." We were concerned with the protection of our trade. We realized how much was at stake. We consider-and the British fully understood this and understand it now-that they should be provided with the fullest information on the implications for Canada, because only in that way could the British negotiators be aware of all the factors that have to be taken into account to safeguard those interests.
When I hear hon. gentlemen on the opposite side of the house talking about Canada's stand against Britain and the commonwealth I must remind them that the foundation of the Conservative party is close relationship with the British commonwealth. That was our foundation when it was an empire and that has continued to be the foundation ever since. That is the position of this party and, despite whatever representations the opposition make to the contrary, our relations with the commonwealth are close and will continue to be so.
We hold that we are entitled to consultation and by that I mean the fullest consultation. Consultation is more than the reporting of what has been done. I have repeated on a number of occasions, and I think there has been some general support for my view, that when the negotiations have finally arrived at a point as between the United

Kingdom and the countries of the European community, then in that spirit which at all times actuates the members of the commonwealth, we should meet together in a commonwealth prime ministers' conference and there talk over the matter in the light of our common dignity and the maintenance of the strength of this body of free countries all over the world, which has so much to contribute to peace. It is naturally agreed that before the final decision is taken the fullest consultation is of first importance, and in the past I have expressed my hope that, while all the countries are not in agreement, it would be possible that such a prime ministers' conference might be held in Canada.
Since becoming Prime Minister and attending such meetings I have advocated that although most of the meetings of the prime ministers should take place in London, from time to time, but not in rotation, there should be meetings throughout the commonwealth thereby implementing the concept of the equality of each member within that family.
Now, sir, I wish to say a word on the subject of national development. That was another subject which was not dealt with today. You will remember in 1957 and 1958, when we spoke of the need to develop our northern areas. That idea and view were ridiculed as being a policy of development from igloo to igloo. I look back over that period and think of the plans we brought into effect. One has only to travel in the north of Canada to see the tremendous changes that have taken place. In the provinces we also made provision for co-operation in the provincial development of all things designed to bring about a strong economic development in every part of our country, the development of our national resources, the development of our northern regions, urban redevelopment, transportation and communication development, and a balanced regional economic development as practiced through the Atlantic provinces grants.
These are some of the things we have done, and though the opposition speak about plans not being carried out, I shall not deal with that tonight but wait to hear the hon. gentleman from Bonavista-Twillingate and hope there will be an opportunity of following him. There is, indeed, a tremendous loss to the history of our country by virtue of the hiatus that has taken place as he searches for promises. Let me point out, Mr. Speaker, that it shows they agree there is a hiatus.


John Whitney Pickersgill: What is it?


Donald Methuen Fleming: You.
26207-1-6i
The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker


John George Diefenbaker: Apparently that definition applies to the hon. gentleman who is in Newfoundland by personal adoption. They think it is a hiatus, too.
We said we would bring about the development of our resources. There is the road program in the north to allow exploration of new mineral areas, the development of the northern community of Frobisher Bay, and improved transportation and communication.
In the provinces, in addition to the road program in the north there is the roads to resources program, forest access roads and railways designed to open up the country. One of these is the Great Slave lake railway, which is also giving to Canadians an opportunity to participate in Canada's development, as is the case with the regulations for oil and mineral development in the north.
We went ahead in other provinces. There are the tourist roads in the maritimes, and in Ontario there is the federal aid to the upper Thames river project. We brought about a national policy with regard to western gas. We have aided provinces in power development. We set up a royal commission for the purpose of determining a means whereby there could be an equalization in freight rates between the various parts of our country. In development we have extended aid to the provinces far beyond anything that has ever taken place. Indeed, when one looks at the deficits, if it were not for the extra aid we have given to the provinces several of those deficits would not have taken place.
We have provided subventions for maritime coal. We have done our part to end the pollution of our vast water resources. We have built or are building, in co-operation with the provinces, various great water irrigation plants such as the south Saskatchewan river dam and another referred to in the speech from the throne, the Red and Assiniboine rivers project. We have brought about a new concept in agricultural development by the legislation known as ARDA.
These are some of the things we have brought about in order to achieve that degree of development which is the concept of our development policy. While I do not often refer to articles in detail, there is an article in the Toronto Saturday Night of January 6 which deals generally with power, railways and minerals being the key to our development.
We have launched a tremendous power policy with the assistance of the provinces. We are hoping that with regard to the Columbia river agreement between the province

The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker and the federal government can be reached so that the treaty may be brought before the present session.
I have already mentioned one railway, and there is another mentioned in the speech from the throne. As I look back over a period of 25 years visiting various parts of eastern Quebec, there has not been an election since 1925 when those opposite did not tell the people of Gaspe to elect them and they would build a railway from Matane to Ste. Anne des Monts. Here is a wonderful area to be developed, not only from the point of view of resources but also as a tourist attraction. We intend to make available to the people of that area something that has been denied them for so many years.
In addition to that the opposition ridiculed us in those election campaigns for our ideas about the north. You have only to go up there to see what has been done. I went to Inuvik and along the Mackenzie river. There is tremendous development there, almost 100 million acres being taken up for oil, minerals, gas and the like. The potential finds are now apparent. All these things are part of the development that we had in mind, so long delayed and so long derided by the present opposition when in government.
The greatest need in the years ahead, as I see it, will be the assurance of power to all parts of Canada. It is for that reason that in the speech from the throne we make provision for the beginnings of action which we hope will bring about the establishment of a national power grid in all parts of Canada. Manitoba has already approached us in this regard; other provinces are interested. My hope is that we shall make progress, to the end that in this respect Canada will not fall behind but will be in the forefront in the maintenance of such necessary things as the provision of power to all parts of our country, assuring a new equality of development in every part of our country.
There is one other matter in the province of Quebec that is receiving our attention in this development plan which covers all the provinces of Canada. That is the reference of the Richelieu-Champlain waterway project to the international joint commission. The opposition, when in government, gave this matter little or no attention from 1937 on. We felt some action should be taken and we have given serious consideration to proposals for the improvement of this waterway.
On September 8, 1961 I pointed out to the house that when the examination had been completed and a decision had been made as to the proper course to be adopted, the house would be made aware of that decision immediately. On December 18 the government announced its decision to refer this matter to


the international joint commission for study. The United States government has been informed of our desire to have this matter submitted to the commission and of our willingness to do this by means of a joint reference of the governments of Canada and the United States of America.
The nature of this joint reference is at present being considered by the various departments of government concerned and we should be in a position shortly to discuss the fullest details with the United States. At that time the house will be made aware of the progress we are making.
In the development policy for agriculture in all parts of our country, agriculture in eastern and western Canada has received every consideration from this government. Indeed, as I examine the expenditures that are made for agriculture in eastern and western Canada in connection with support prices and all other matters that enter into that field, I find that on a per capita basis there is a high degree of equality in all parts of the country.
As you know, in western Canada this year there was a serious crop failure. When we came into office we thought action should be taken to bring in cash advances. Well, the Liberals had the answer. But when we asked them to do this in 1954, 1955 and 1956 they said it could not be done. When we said that action should be taken to remove the tremendous overhanging surplus of wheat by securing markets in various parts of the world, the Liberals again had the answer. The answer was, no. When, in order to assist in removing those surpluses and to benefit other parts of the world under the Colombo plan we suggested that, to use this immortal slogan, the Liberals had the answer-it was, no.
So I could go over the picture. How did we bring about the tremendous sales of wheat? We extended credit sales of wheat to various countries. The Leader of the Opposition today speaks with that uncertainty which boldness and imagination demands but I have his statement here, made in 1958, that he thought we ought to sell non-strategic products to communist China. But they did not do it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: We made the agreement with the Russians.


John George Diefenbaker: The hon. gentleman says he made the agreement with the Russians. Then why is he implying that there is something wrong in selling wheat to China?


Lester Bowles Pearson: On a point of order, the Prime Minister has made an inference which is false and misleading. I should like to point out that I approved of wheat sales to China at a time when hon. members opposite said it meant we were being soft on communism if we approved that course.


John George Diefenbaker: What does that mean, saying "I am in favour of it but we are too soft on communism?" I want to tell the hon. gentleman this: that is one subject, softness on communism, that he should not discuss.
In every case where we asked for something to be done the Liberals had the answer, as the advertising says. The answer was, no. Take, for example, advances to farmers. All those things which have been put into effect since this government took office were approached in the same way by the previous government. The answer was always the same, and it was always in the negative. In 1958 we brought into effect acreage payments and I know what the reaction was. I am not going to harass anyone or cause any wounds to be opened but I remember the description "peanuts". All I can say is that I have travelled in western Canada and that is not what the small farmers say. All through the years there have been requests in western Canada for a fair and reasonable price approaching parity with regard to that portion of the wheat sold in Canada for domestic purposes. The sum of $40 million was made available in 1958 and again, two years later, in 1960 which in fact brought to the farmers of western Canada a price equivalent to a parity price in respect of that wheat consumed in Canada.
We intend this year again to bring into effect a similar system whereby farmers will receive the same amount as in 1960. Mention was made by someone-I believe it was the Leader of the Opposition-that the Minister of Agriculture had stated that the payment would not be made in the calendar year, that the cheque machinery was working too slowly and it would be impossible to do it. Exactly what the Minister of Agriculture meant was that we were sending out cheques to the western farmers in respect of wheat through P.F.A.A. and there would be no payment made during the calendar year 1961. There is nothing unreasonable about that statement. One thing this government has done has been to see to it that when farmers find themselves in difficulty, whatever part of Canada they live in, they receive that consideration which in the past was so often denied.
When I said a moment ago that our policy was for other parts of Canada, too, I think of what we have done in connection with tobacco. I also think of what we have done in connection with sugar. I have before me an editorial which appeared in the Chatham daily News on December 2 under the heading "New Sugar Policy is Welcomed by Growers". It reads:
Details of the federal government's new Canadian sugar policy have been made public and do not need to be recapitulated. Under this program the new support will be given to sugar beet growers starting with the 1962 crop.
The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker
The article goes on to indicate what private members can do and ends by saying that credit is due to the hon. member for Kent, Ont. (Mr. Danforth) for his persistent efforts.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: And while that hon. member is named in his own paper, the same applies to all the members supporting the government in western Ontario.
Now I come to the question of social security. Among the most important measures forecast in the speech from the throne are those relating to old age pensions. We already have in Canada four major government systems for providing for old age pensioners as well as numerous private pension plans. Therefore it is desirable that the house and the public should understand how the measures referred to in the address affect this program.
The four matters to which I refer include first, a government annuities plan, which is used by a great many individuals and groups as a foundation for their security. We propose to retain this important feature and hope it will continue in the future to be as useful as it has been, whatever additional pension measures may be introduced. The second, in point of time, is what is now the Old Age Assistance Act. Under this an old age pension is provided jointly by the provincial and federal governments to persons who are in need as determined by a means test applied by the province in accordance with both provincial and federal law. It is not generally known that this payment of old age assistance is contributed to by the federal government on a 50-50 basis. This pension looks after those who have been unable to provide for their own old age and who need a pension before the age at which the universal pension is payable.
We propose that the amount of the pension should be increased and we believe that the economic capacity of this country warrants the benefit of an increased scale for our old people who are in need. The cost of doing this will, of course, rest on the budget and, as is the case with regard to all these measures, will ultimately be met by the Canadian people through their taxes. The third of this pensions group is the old age security pension payable as of right to persons at 70 years of age without regard to need. As in the case of old age assistance, the government has reached the conclusion that it can and should ask Canadians to accord a higher priority to the welfare of older Canadians than in the past and to pay pensions on a higher scale than heretofore.
In creating a complete system of providing for retired persons which will be made out

The Address-Mr. Diefenbaker of all the measures, due regard should and will be had to the levels of these old age security pensions financed by the special levies under the act.
A fourth element which is often overlooked is provision for aid under the Unemployment Assistance Act. Under this act parliament provides, through provincial and local authorities, half the money required for the payment of what is widely termed public assistance or relief. I would point out here that if the new policy of the new Liberal party as enunciated by the Leader of the Opposition in Quebec city is brought into effect, that is the kind of joint expenditure which will be ended.
Under the Unemployment Assistance Act, parliament is now sharing in the payment of substantial amounts to old people as well as to other people who are unemployed or unemployable for various reasons.
These are the four plans for dealing with old age pensions. There are now hundreds and possibly thousands of private pension plans which have become an important and integral part in employer-employee relations in Canada. Usually these plans are financed by contributions of employers and employees. These are normally recognized under income tax arrangements which permit contributions to these plans to be free of taxes but which impose taxes if they are payable on the pension payments themselves if they exceed the exemptions on the taxpayer's income. The new feature that will be proposed to parliament will be to add to this system. It will enable the structure to be completed in addition to an increase in the amount of payments for old age pensions.
We find that there are still a good many people who wish to have greater provision made for their old age, and who are able and willing to contribute to such retirement pensions but who are not covered either by government annuities, by private pension plans or registered retirement saving plans. In order to complete the structure for old age pensions it is necessary that parliament should have the authority to enact a statutory system of old age pensions and related survival and disability benefits that would be comparable to that under the modern British and United States legislation in the nature of benefits that could be provided.
At the present time parliament's authority derives from section 94A of the British North America Act which permits it to make laws in relation to old age pensions so long as they do not affect the operation of provincial laws. This constitutional authority does not permit parliament to enact a plan which would include benefits payable under specified circumstances to the widows and children of
fMr. Diefenbaker.]
contributors or to contributors who become disabled before they are old. To extend the law in this most desirable way it would be necessary to secure constitutional authority. With this idea in mind I have written to the premiers of all the provinces asking their concurrence in an amendment to section 94A of the British North American Act. I should like to table a copy of the letter to Premier Robarts of Ontario. The text of the others is similar. If the house is willing, the letter could be appended to Hansard.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: Has the Prime Minister the consent of the house?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
[Editor's note: For the text of letter above referred to, see appendix!
In His Excellency's speech reference was made to the desirability of the new plan taking into account private pension arrangements and the need for portability of pension rights. I should like to make it clear that pension rights under this type of national plan would be portable. On the other hand, we must contemplate private plans remaining in operation. Pension rights under them should be made portable, if necessary by the passing of either provincial or federal legislation. Our plan should take these private plans into account and should not require additional contributions by those already contributing under satisfactory private arrangements.
I have taken note of the proposal made public recently by the Leader of the Opposition, or by the Liberal party, for the payment of additional contributory pensions. At this time I am not going to outline the deficiencies or the weaknesses of palatable sections which when examined are found to be hollow and shallow. However, I feel it necessary to note that the plan contemplates no change in the constitution and no extension of benefits to dependants of contributors nor to disabled contributors. We feel that any plan limited in this way would be most seriously deficient.
As I set out in the letter to the various premiers of the provinces, believing that this is something which should be done we are going to ask parliament to consider the necessary amendment. Ever since the Clark report came in we had been hoping that the provinces would be able to come to an agreement on the question of having our constitution amended in Canada or of patriating the constitution. However, while progress has been made in that regard, we now feel that what we undertook to do in 1958, and have intended ever since to do, on the basis of an amendment to be passed in the parliament of Canada is now impossible. We believe this change

should be made now. As it will take further time to reach agreement on the method of amendment of the constitution in Canada, we intend to proceed by way of an address to the Queen requesting the amendment to be made by the parliament of Westminster and have asked the various provinces to concur in that request. When we have been able to secure that amendment, over and above the old age pension paid and the increase which we intend to place before parliament, there will be in effect a pension system contributed to by the people of Canada to the end that there will be available for all Canadians, on a portable basis, pensions in keeping with their needs and also with their ability to to make payment.
First, there will be a reasonable and fair old age pension. We have shown our feelings in this regard by adding to the $6 provided or introduced by the previous government, a further increase of $9. When I proceed tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, with the concluding portion of my remarks, I shall deal with this matter somewhat further. Then there are two other matters I wish to deal with because the Leader of the Opposition covered them and I wish to assure him that all the information asked for by him will be furnished.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I just wish to ask the Prime Minister one question. I was particularly
Business of the House
interested in his reference to a national power grid. Does he believe that any power produced from British Columbia waters which is surplus to British Columbia's requirements should be made available to the rest of Canada rather than be exported to the United States?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I think that the Minister of Justice has dealt with this on a number of occasions and there is nothing that I could add.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I wonder
whether the house leader could give some indication whether or not the speech from the throne will be interrupted this week and when, if this week, to deal with the matters referred to earlier by the Prime Minister?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I do not think we need to look too far ahead just yet. We will continue with the speech from the throne tomorrow.


Hazen Robert Argue: Shame. Let us make the payments. Come on.


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


[Stage Direction]
Ottawa, January 17th, 1962.
The Honourable John P. Robarts, Q.C., M.P.P.,
Premier of Ontario,
Toronto, Ontario.
My dear Premier:
My colleagues and I in the federal government have come to the conclusion that the Canadian social security system should be improved by the addition of a plan for graduated old age pensions on a contributory basis in addition to the basic old age security pension, for all those who can reasonably afford additional provision for their old age and who have not already undertaken it under private pension plans or other contractual arrangements. We believe that a plan of this kind, which would have some resemblance to the American social security laws and the recent British legislation, should also contain provisions for the payment of benefits under certain circumstances to the widows and children of contributors who die, and to former contributors who become permanently disabled.
The British North America Act was amended in 1951 by the addition of the following as section 94A:
"It is hereby declared that the parliament of Canada may from time to time make laws in relation to old age pensions in Canada, but no law made by the parliament of Canada in relation to old age pensions shall affect the operation of any law present or future of a provincial legislature in relation to old age pensions."
The law officers of the crown advise me that this authority would permit parliament to enact a contributory, graduated old age pension plan but would not permit the inclusion of benefits payable under certain circumstances to widows and children, nor to contributors who become disabled before they are old. To extend the law in this most desirable way, it would be necessary to replace the present section with one reading as follows:
"94A. It is hereby declared that the parliament of Canada may from time to time make laws in relation to
(a)	old age pensions, and
(b)	pensions and other benefits incidental to, or conducive to the better operation and administration of, a scheme of old age pensions,
but no law made by the parliament of Canada under the authority of this section affects the operation of any law enacted by the legislature of a province in relation to any of the matters specified in paragraphs (a) and (b) of this section".
My colleagues and I had hoped that agreement would have been reached by this time on a means of amending Canada's constitution in Canada and that this change in section 94A would have been one of the first amendments made under the new arrangements. It is now evident that it will take some further time to reach agreement on the methods of amendment of the constitution in Canada and it will therefore be necessary to proceed by way of an address to the Queen, as in the past, requesting that the amendment be made by the parliament at Westminster. I am writing therefore to ask that you concur in a request for an amendment to section 94A of the British North America Act in the form proposed above.
Yours sincerely,
John G. Diefenbaker
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, January 23, 1962