1962-11-08

Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the house that I have received from Hon. Mr. Justice R. S. Furlong and Hon. Mr. Justice H. A. Winter, both of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland, the two judges appointed for the trial of a petition pursuant to the Dominion Controverted Elections Act, a certificate of judgment in the matter of an election in the electoral district of St. John's West, Newfoundland. The certificate is as follows:
In the Supreme Court of Newfoundland
In the matter of
The Dominion Controverted Elections Act
and
In the matter of the election of a member of the House of Commons for the constituency of St. John's West, holden on the 18th day of June, 1962.
To the honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons:
We, the undersigned judges, appointed to try the above petition, do certify:
Following the trial of the petition we determined as follows:
1.	The respondent, Richard Cashin, the member whose election was complained of, was not duly elected or returned,
2.	The election of a member to the House of Commons for the electoral district of St. John's West holden on the 18th day of June, 1962, was void.
Such determination was made and filed in the registry of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland on the 25th day of October, 1962.
Now after the expiration of eight days from the day we gave our decision we hereby certify to the honourable the Speaker that our decision and determination is as set forth in paragraphs numbered 1 and 2 above and we append hereto
(a)	a copy of the notes of evidence;
(b)	Copies of our individual reasons.
Dated the 5th day of November, 1962.
R. S. Furlong Chief Justice H. A. Winter Judge.
I also have the honour to inform the house that pursuant to section 69 of the Dominion Controverted Elections Act, chapter 87, Revised Statutes of Canada, 1952, I have issued my warrant to the chief electoral officer to make out a new writ of election for the said electoral district.



PRIVILEGE


Mr. H. M. Batten (Humber-St. George's):: rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. On the order paper there are two items under the name of Mr. Cashin. These items are question No. 310 dated October 17, and notice of motion No. 48 dated October 22. May I ask for the unanimous consent of the house to have these items continued under my name.


Mr. Speaker:: The house has heard the request of the hon. member.


Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Is it not the practice, Mr. Speaker, to drop such questions and reintroduce them in the name of the hon. member who is taking them over? If that is done, I suggest that the one dealing with the forestry corps be reworded, because it cannot be answered in the form in which it is now.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it, then, agreed that they shall be withdrawn?


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Bonavisfa-Twil-lingate):: If I may say a word, Mr. Speaker, I think if there is not unanimous consent they automatically come off the order paper. All my hon. friend requested was unanimous consent, and that does not seem to be forthcoming.


Mr. Speaker:: They are withdrawn.



COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
Mr. W. M. Howe (Wellingfon-Huron) presented the first report of the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines and moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Mr. G. H. Aiken (Parry Sound-Muskoka)
presented the first report of the standing committee on banking and commerce, and moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
Direct Lending for Housing HOUSING

Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, on November 2 I informed the house that the government would ask parliament at this session to amend the National Housing Act to extend by two years the expiry date for partial debt cancellation on loans made to municipalities for sewage treatment projects.
Today I should like to make a brief statement concerning the direct lending activities of the federal housing agency, Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, under section 40 of the act.
Hon. members are aware that this section authorizes the corporation to make any type of loan that may be made by an approved lender under the act, where in the opinion of the corporation a loan is not available to a satisfactory applicant through an approved lender. The maximum amount of funds authorized for direct lending by the corporation is set by parliamentary vote and on September 29, 1961, parliament increased this amount to $2 billion from $1.5 billion.
Government policy concerning direct lending by the corporation is subject to continuing review, and changes are made from time to time as market conditions and other considerations warrant. Current policy ensures that any creditworthy prospective home owner anywhere in Canada is able to obtain National Housing Act financing for new construction. Furthermore, direct loans by the corporation are also available to builders where the houses have been presold to satisfactory purchasers but loans are not obtainable from approved lenders.
The effect of this policy is twofold. It extends the home ownership facilities of the National Housing Act to all of Canada, and ensures that the corporation's direct lending to builders will not contribute to the creation of a surplus of unsold houses in any community. Including loans to limited dividend companies for the construction of low rental housing projects for families and elderly persons of low income, the corporation financed 23,628 dwelling units in 1961 and an additional 12,761 units up to October 26 of this year.
The house will recall that in October of 1960 special assistance was given to builders in the form of direct loans, not subject to the presale requirement, to permit construction of display houses as an aid to their merchandising programs. A total of 2,215 loans were made for this purpose.
Representations have been made to the government that the special assistance given

to builders in 1960 in the form of direct loans for display houses be repeated this year. The government believes that this step would again be particularly helpful to smaller builders outside the metropolitan areas and would provide additional employment opportunities during the winter months. We are also advised that construction of one or two display houses during the winter months is a most effective aid to builders, since prospective purchasers are thereby given the opportunity to visit sites and examine prototypes of new models.
The government anticipates that demand for loans for the construction of display houses will not exceed 2,000 units. Accordingly, Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation has been authorized to make two direct loans, not subject to the presale requirement, to any builder anywhere in Canada with respect to applications received prior to January 1, 1963.
It is anticipated that this will be of assistance to builders everywhere, but particularly in smaller communities where the assistance of conventional lending is not as readily available as in the larger communities, and so will be of assistance to employment generally.
I might say, Mr. Speaker, I expect to make a further announcement on housing policy in the near future.


Mr. J. R. Garland (Nipissing):: Mr. Speaker, the house will welcome the announcement just made by the Minister of Public Works. All of us are concerned at the fact that housing starts are at a very low level at the present time, even below the corresponding figures for August and September of last year. Therefore I think the minister's announcement is timely and is better than letting the matter drag on. This is the proper course, but it also points out the danger of the government, in fact of any government, turning on and turning off the tap of mortgage funds, and points out the need for the broadening of the source of supply of mortgage money for this purpose. I hope we shall have an opportunity, in the debate following the introduction of this legislation to pursue the matter.


Mr.  A. B. Paflerson@Fraser Valley: Mr. Speaker, I should like to express our appreciation of the statement made by the Minister of Public Works with respect to these provisions of the National Housing Act. We are all aware of the continuing need for adequate housing for our people across the nation, and we are convinced that we ought to make it possible for each and every one who so desires to own and occupy his own dwelling. I believe this

policy will contribute in this way. It will also, as was pointed out, enable the construction industry to continue operations through the winter months. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, we are very happy that this statement has been made this afternoon and we would welcome any similar statements regarding these matters.


Mr. Reid Scott (Danforlh):: Mr. Speaker, in commenting on the minister's announcement I would just like to say that the announcement we heard this afternoon will be about as helpful to the housing industry of Canada as a peanut is to an elephant.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Reid Scott: It is a very, very small step.


Mr. Argue:: More peanuts.


Reid Scott: None the less, it is quite true. The real solution for the housing problem in Canada is not in making more high interest money available. We are still not getting into the area of great demand for public housing; that is, low cost houses, houses people can afford to buy. The National Housing Act has turned into the national hoaxing act, in that the people who are able to buy houses under it are not the people who need houses in Canada. This is a very small step, and it is not going to do very much for the housing industry across Canada.

On the orders of the day:


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: wish to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works, based on the statement he made to the house a little while ago. If I heard him correctly he said that these amendments to the regulations or the legislation would provide loans for Canadians everywhere. Does that mean that residents in communities which are without sewage disposal systems at the present time will now be able to obtain loans?
Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Public
Works): What it means is that the new policy would apply everywhere. The disposition in any particular case will of course depend on the assessment of the applications that may be made.
(Translation) :



AIR TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Laurier):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport.
Inquiries of the Ministry
In view of the statement made recently by the chairman of the air transport board and that which the minister made yesterday, in this house, to the effect that the government does not intend to change its policy on civil aviation, does the minister feel that it is in the interest of the country as a whole to have a policy which allows three foreign air lines to fly from Canada to Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, while neither T.C.A. nor Canadian Pacific Airlines are given the same right?


Hon. Leon Balcer (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, in the first place, I stated yesterday that we did not intend, for the moment, to change our policy concerning T.C.A. and Canadian Pacific Airlines. Now, I am not saying that there will never be any change or that we will not change our policy a little later. I am simply saying that we are not contemplating any change for some time.
As regards the case brought up by the hon. member for Laurier, I wish to say that we made representations to the American government in order to obtain an amendment to the bilateral agreement concluded between the two countries on that matter.
I agree that our efforts should be aimed at obtaining from the United States an amendment to that bilateral agreement. In fact, a Canadian delegation went to Washington last June and discussed the matter with American authorities.
I wish to assure the house that we shall continue our efforts to obtain a change in that field.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a supplementary question to the minister. Does he not feel that before making representations to American authorities, it would have been better not to grant the right in question to those three foreign airlines?


Léon Balcer: Mr. Speaker, since this is a bilateral agreement between two countries, both parties concerned must approve any change made to it. I do not doubt that our Canadian airlines are interested in obtaining as many privileges as possible and in carrying the greatest possible number of people; I am convinced that they would be delighted, but before they can obtain that concession, the consent of both parties is required since this is a bilateral agreement.
(Text):


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether I could also ask a supplementary question. Is the
1408	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry minister now in a position to table the text of the speech made by the chairman of the air transport board?


Léon Balcer: Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, there is no text.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Hazen Robert Argue: Fortunately.



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. C. Douglas (Burnaby-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the right hon. Prime Minister. In view of radio reports that India may be forced to withdraw some or all of her forces from the Congo because of Chinese aggression on India's northeastern frontier, will the Prime Minister assure the house that Canada will offer to the United Nations sufficient additional Canadian forces to ensure that the peace keeping activities of the United Nations can be maintained?


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: The government has received no request from the acting secretary general of the United Nations to send additional troops to the Congo. As the house knows, the Canadian contingent in the Congo is made up mostly of communications troops, with some administrative personnel. There has never been any suggestion that Canada should supply combat troops in the Congo.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. S. H. Rideout (Westmorland):: Mr. Speaker, I have received strong representations from the local council of the civil service association at Moncton, and I should like to direct a question on the matter to the Minister of National Defence. Is it correct that approximately 20 employees are to be laid off as a result of the proposed closing of the Scoudouc detachments of No. 5 supply depot at Moncton, New Brunswick? As this will cause terrific hardship to the families involved, could this action be postponed until spring?


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think if the hon. member had ended his question at the point at which he asked the minister whether he had the information, it would have been more in order.
[Mr. Pickersgill.I


Hon. D. S. Harkness (Minister of National Defence):: I do not know what the situation is in this particular case, but a question was asked along these lines yesterday. The situation is that a considerable number of specific projects are coming to an end, and casual employees who were employed on these projects are, naturally, not being continued in employment, their jobs having disappeared.



HEALTH AND WELFARE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Haidasz (Parkdale):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the alarming news released yesterday by the dominion bureau of statistics that there had been a 91 per cent increase in the incidence of infectious hepatitis among the Canadian population in 1961, can the Minister of National Health and Welfare tell the house what steps have been taken to prevent the increase of this disease in Canada?


Hon. J. W. Monleilh (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: It would be necessary to go into some detail in order to answer that question, so I will take it, if I may, as notice.



RADIOACTIVE FALL-OUT    REPORTED BIRTH OF DEFORMED BABIES IN ALBERTA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Jay Waldo Monteith: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Notre Dame de Grace asked a question about a reference in the Montreal Gazette of November 5 to a report to be made public soon suggesting there had been an increase in deformed infants born in Alberta due to radioactive fall-out.
We have consulted the provincial authorities with regard to this matter and understand that no such report is contemplated. The province is, however, co-operating with a special expert committee set up following the federal-provincial conference of August 17 to develop improved methods of birth registration with a view to ensuring that they reflect deformities in greater detail. This project is now under way and will, we expect, provide a more accurate assessment of the situation than is now possible.



MARITIMES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. J. MacEachen (Inverness-Rich-mond):: 
Hon. George C. Nowlan (Minister of Finance):: As the hon. member knows, I think, this is a matter which has been under consideration and review for some considerable period. It is not something which has arisen within the last few months. Certainly it is under review, and I will advise the hon. gentleman and the house of any decision.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. H. A. Thomas (Middlesex West):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. Can the minister say when the deficiency payments on the 1961 sugar beet crop will be made?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Since we have dealt with questions in connection with the wheat board and have directed matters of that nature to the order paper, I think this question should also go to the order paper.



REQUEST FROM ONTARIO FOR INVESTIGA- TION INTO INDUSTRY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. H. Addison (York North):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. Has the minister of agriculture for the province of Ontario directed any request to the federal government for an investigation into the fluid milk industry?


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Agriculture):: I do not believe there has been any formal request to date.



STATEMENT ON STAFF HOLIDAY ON REMEMBRANCE DAY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre asked me this question on November 2:
Inquiries of the Ministry In view of the fact that Remembrance day is to be a holiday given to civil servants on November 12, will it also be a holiday for employees of this house?
I have looked over the records of the past since 1947, and I find that parliament has been in session over November 11 only three times. They were in the years 1949, 1951 and 1957. The house sat on November 11 in 1949 and 1957. In 1951 November 11 fell on a Sunday, and the house sat at the usual time on November 12. I therefore take it, on the basis of past experience, that the membership of the house has generally felt that it was quite appropriate that the house should sit on Remembrance day, particularly the day following a Sunday.
As to what the results will be if the house sits on November 12, as I trust it will agree to do following the usual procedure, the full staff of the house will be required on duty. In that case I am informed that there is a general provision for time off for the regular staff of the house in lieu of work performed on days when the public service is given a special holiday.


Mr. J. A. Byrne (Kootenay East):: I should like to ask the Prime Minister if it would not be appropriate, in line with other business practices, to pay the staff time and a half or double time for this day on which they work when everyone else is enjoying a holiday.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. gentleman is greatly interested in this regard. However, may I point out that this apparently has always been the practice. The course we are following is one which was followed by the preceding administration while the hon. member was a member of the house.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Does the Prime Minister not believe that we are advancing in our thinking?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. This discussion is now getting into an argument or debate, and this is not the time for it on orders of the day. I recognize the hon. member for Bellechasse.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Mr. Speaker, this was simply in response to the Prime Minister's question. I have a question for the Minister of Justice.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: I have recognized the hon. member for Bellechasse if he wishes to have the floor now.

Inquiries of the Ministry (Translation):



REQUEST FOR FRENCH ANSWERS TO FRENCH QUESTIONS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
['Mr. Speaker, I have nothing to add to the statement made by the Prime Minister a few minutes ago.\n(Text):']
Mr. Gerard Perron (Beauce):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister. It concerns all federal departments and is of interest, at the same time, to most members of the house, particularly those from the province of Quebec.
Can the Prime Minister tell the house if the government has taken a decision on the question asked by the hon. member for Belle-chasse (Mr. Dumont) on November 1, as to the possibility of obtaining from the various federal departments replies written in French to questions submitted in that language? In view of the fact that we often have to duplicate those replies to send them to the interested parties, who do not understand English, we are somewhat at a loss. Has a decision been reached on that matter?
(Text):


John George Diefenbaker: I shall have this matter looked into.


An hon. Member:: Be kind to him. Pet him a little.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. We could hear the reply if hon. members listened rather than talked.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. gentleman for again bringing this question before the house. As he knows, this government has gone further than any previous government in assuring the bilingual nature of the House of Commons.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think there is a tendency to have interruptions if replies are not kept brief, and it should be remembered that those who applaud loudest sometimes think better when they pause to reflect. If hon. members will give an opportunity to have the reply heard perhaps there will be less encouragement for exchanges across the floor.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I thank you for what you have said, and I do not intend to take any lecture on free speech in the House of Commons from the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill).


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


John George Diefenbaker: I would say that the matter will receive full consideration. I was

endeavouring to explain the reason, but the hon. gentlemen opposite take strong objection to my doing so.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think we will get into a further debate if we continue.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a question of privilege. Since I appear to have offended the Prime Minister, I apologize.



[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hubert Badanai (Fort William):: 1 have a question for the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In the absence of the minister I would ask the parliamentary secretary to take note of it. My question is based on this week's issue of the Financial Post in which there is a report that Italian and Canadian businessmen are protesting Canada's absence from the 1962 Milan trade fair in which 44 countries participated, including leading industrial nations such as the United States, Britain, France and West Germany.


Mr. Fleming (Eglinion):: Order.


Hubert Badanai: Canada was not among the eager contenders for a share in the growing markets of Italy and Europe.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Hubert Badanai: The question is, why not?


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is a very good
question.


Mr. Speaker:: I suggest to the hon. member that he is asking the minister or his parliamentary secretary to comment on a newspaper article in which certain views are advanced. I should think if the hon. member were to reword his question appropriately for the order paper, he could get the desired information in that way.


TRANSPORT
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister. I am sorry that I did not have an opportunity to give him due notice. In view of the fact that further applications have been made to the board of transport commissioners for the abandonment of still more railway lines on the prairies, will the Prime Minister give the house and the country the assurance that these abandonments will be halted until the whole question has
140S

been reviewed and some policy evolved to compensate those who are adversely affected, and to ensure that adequate grain shipping facilities will be available for the prairie farmers?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. This matter has been the subject of questions and representations on a number of occasions in the past, and I have indicated that the whole question should be discussed, either in general or so far as individual lines are concerned, with respect to the order paper. Generally, if a question of policy is indicated, it would be done in that way without advancing all the arguments that might go with it.


Hazen Robert Argue: I wonder if I might rise on a point of order.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order-


Hazen Robert Argue: -and say this. A few days ago, in answer to a question by myself exactly like this one, the Prime Minister said he had it under discussion and would make an announcement to the house.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If the hon. member for Bumaby-Coquitlam is rising on the same point of order I will recognize him first.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: With great deference, Mr. Speaker, I submit that if the government are not prepared to make a statement of policy on this matter, they ought to say so. However, the fact that this matter has come up for discussion previously does not bear on the subject, in view of the fact that more recently further applications have been made to the board of transport commissioners and this could mean that a dozen or two dozen communities will be deprived of railway services. This matter is of growing importance. The situation may be that since the previous questions were asked the government has come to some conclusion and has some announcement of policy to make. I therefore submit that if the government is not ready, it is the prerogative of the government to make that statement and not of Your Honour.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I simply wish to observe again, as I have done on other occasions, that this kind of argument purporting to raise points of order on Your Honour's decisions with regard to questions is completely out of order and is not countenanced by the rules. There can be no point of order on a decision of Your Honour as to whether or not a question is appropriate on the orders of the day
Inquiries of the Ministry because, by the custom and the practice of this house, Your Honour is the sole arbiter of that question.
Yesterday Your Honour referred hon. members to certain other citations if they wished to bring Your Honour's general conduct and decisions into question, something which I doubt very much.
However, I recall very well and very clearly the days from 1945 right up to the present, that it was understood and accepted by members of the house that the opportunity to ask questions on the orders of the day was an interruption of the proceedings. We meet here in order to discuss an agenda which is on the order paper. By custom it has been recognized that questions of urgency may be allowed on the orders of the day, and by custom it has been recognized that the Speaker decides whether or not a question is of sufficient urgency to warrant the interruption of the business which we are here to discuss. By custom that has been recognized for many years, until just recently.


Mr. Rouleau:: Is that what you said when you were in opposition?


Edmund Davie Fulton: It is precisely what I said when I was in opposition, and it is precisely the position which Speakers of the house took when I was in the opposition, which position I respected.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I will produce a hundred precedents to the contrary.


Edmund Davie Fulton: If the Speaker said a question was or was not appropriate to be asked on the orders of the day that was the end of the matter, and these interminable points of order were not raised on matters which did not involve questions of order at all. I only mention this matter because it seems to me that the house should not, by raising so-called points of order-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Liberal closure by yelling.


Mr. Speaker:: If the minister will speak to the point of order, if such did exist in the original instance-


An hon. Member:: This is not a school.


Mr. Speaker:: -I think he should be heard, if the minister will limit his discussion to this particular point.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I think that is what I was doing.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Edmund Davie Fulton: The position that I suggest to Your Honour and to the house is that no point of order arises on a decision of Your

Inquiries of the Ministry Honour as to whether or not a question is appropriate to be asked on the orders of the day.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I simply want to say two things on this matter. It seems to me that the question which was asked was urgent because of a very important matter known to be before the board of transport commissioners, namely the application to abandon a line or a number of lines, I am told. On the other hand, it is well known by the house that the royal commission on transportation has recommended the abandonment of 8,600 miles of branch lines, on payment of a large subsidy. So it is only natural that any hon. member who may be affected by a question of this nature in his constituency should want to know whether the policy of the board is going to be continued or whether the government is going to bring down legislation to determine the matter one way or the other.
With respect I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the point was well taken by both the hon. member for Assiniboia and the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam as to the urgency, in the circumstances, of obtaining an answer to an important question.


Mr. Speaker:: In this regard I would again refer hon. members to the statement I made some days ago with respect to oral questions. Perhaps if we all reviewed those words we might have a little less discussion now. In any event, in so far as points of order are concerned I would refer hon. gentlemen to Beauchesne, citation 70, paragraph 1, which reads as follows:
Points of order are questions raised with the view of calling attention to any departure from the standing orders or the customary modes of proceeding in debate or in the conduct of legislative business, and may be raised at any time by any member, whether he has previously spoken or not. It should be realized that support of the Speaker in the maintenance of order expedites transaction of business; and the conduct of a disorderly member, if unchecked, may result in an ineffective meeting.
When I read that last sentence I am not in any way indicating that any hon. member has been disorderly. I simply refer to this particular paragraph to make sure that we understand what a point of order is.
The matter of oral questions on orders of the day is not covered by standing order. They are established as the result of a certain practice in this house. I would again refer hon. members to the tradition with respect to these questions which has existed for some considerable time, and which I am endeavouring to follow.
With regard to the point raised by the hon. member for Laurier, I will agree that


within a certain constituency it may be important to that constituency whether the abandonment of certain railway services takes place, but with the greatest respect I am wondering whether the asking for this information at this time of the day is warranted. Otherwise all hon. members could ask about railway stations or other railway facilities in their own constituencies, because to each member his constituency may be more important than any other.
On that point I suggest that the hon. member might rephrase his question in a general way without argument and we will see what it is like, and I would point out to the hon. member that opinions cannot be advanced in the terms of the question nor should the question seek to raise an argument.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that I was not inquiring with reference to a particular line. My question had to do with the fact that the board of transport commissioners, on the basis of recommendations made in the MacPherson report, is now following a policy of abandoning lines; but the same report suggested that there ought to be evolved a policy for compensation and for making sure that adequate grain shipping facilities were available. I am simply asking whether, in view of the pile-up of these applications for abandonment and the actual abandonments that have taken place, the government is ready to announce this policy or to halt abandonments until a policy has been evolved.


Mr. Speaker:: The question as rephrased is entirely different from what was put before.
Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime
Minister): Mr. Speaker, in answer to the rephrased question, which was free from any argumentative substance, may I say that the government, of course, has no control over the board of transport commissioners. That is an autonomous body set up by parliament over which no government has any control.
In so far as the recommendations of the MacPherson commission are concerned, if this house will get along with the business, that is one of the matters on which action is promised in the speech from the throne. In the meantime, while applications are being made to the board of transport commissioners, provincial governments, wheat pools and the like may make their representations to the board.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I rise on a question of privilege affecting all hon. members. The Prime Minister, in answering a question which Your Honour insisted should be a purely factual and unadorned question, cast a reflection upon this

house which I suggest was inappropriate according to the ruling laid down by Your Honour, and according to the precepts and guideposts put before us. I suggest to Your Honour that ministers should be called to order for infractions of the rules in answers to questions in exactly the same way as Your Honour calls members to order in asking questions.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Time-wasting nonsense.


Mr. Speaker:: I thoroughly agree with the hon. member, but if he will look at Hansard for the past few days and before he will see that while there has been the odd offence on the part of the ministry there have been on balance, I think, compensations on the other side of the scale.
(Translation):


Mr. Gerard Legare (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, further to the question asked by the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam (Mr. Douglas) and the answer given by the Prime Minister, I should like to direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Transport.
To the question of the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam as to whether the government intends to take steps to prevent the C.N.R. from discontinuing its service on uneconomic lines, the Prime Minister replied if I understood him correctly, that the government has no control over the Board of Transport Commissioners for Canada.
In view of the fact that the C.N.R.'s deficit will amount to $60 million this year and that the railway does not seem to be making money on any of its lines, could the minister tell the house whether the government intends to do something to stop the C.N.R. from discontinuing the operation of those lines?


Léon Balcer: Mr. Speaker, I have nothing to add to the statement made by the Prime Minister a few minutes ago.
(Text):



PILOTAGE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. C. McNulty (Lincoln):: May I ask the
Minister of Transport if he would inform the house whether a secretary has been appointed for the royal commission on pilotage.


Léon Balcer: Mr. Speaker, I know a secretary has been
Inquiries of the Ministry chosen, but I do not think an announcement has been made as yet.



SHIPBUILDING-DELAY IN MAKING PROGRESS PAYMENTS UNDER SUBSIDY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Thomas R. Berger (Vancouver-Bur-rard):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Transport relating to an urgent matter I brought up earlier this week. On Tuesday the minister said that progress payments to shipbuilders would not be made until the main and supplementary estimates had been passed. In view of the fact that the government has already obtained authority to pay the money out of the consolidated revenue fund, both this session and in the previous session, can the minister tell us why there should be any delay?


Léon Balcer: I shall take this question as notice, Mr. Speaker.



INQUIRIES OF THE MINISTRY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Mr. Speaker, I want to assure you that my question is urgent, that it is indeed pertinent and that it does affect all ridings. In view of the fact that both Chief Justice Furlong and Judge Winter have said, after hearing the evidence which resulted in the invalidation of the writ that declared Mr. Cashin elected to the House of Commons, that such irregularities no doubt took place in all the 263 constituencies, would the Minister of Justice institute an investigation to determine whether the entire results of the June 18 election should be declared invalid?


An hon. Member:: It would work against you.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Could I have an answer?


Mr. Ralph B. Cowan (York-Humber):: wish to address a question to the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Yesterday in answer to a question, the Prime Minister said that cooperation from this side of the house would facilitate the introduction of really important legislation. At the end of the day the house leader, indicating government business for today, said "the government has been sustained and it will carry on as it sees fit." Which answer was fact and which fiction?

Inquiries of the Ministry (Translation):



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr.  P. A. Boulin@Dorchester: Mr. Speaker, my question is intended for the Minister of Labour.
Does the minister intend to enter into negotiations with the state of Maine so that Canadian lumbermen working in that state may get unemployment insurance as soon as possible once the working period is over?
(Text):


Hon. Michael Starr (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, we are in constant touch with representatives of the state of Maine in connection with a reciprocal agreement as to unemployment insurance between the state and the government of Canada. We are making progress, and we hope the matter will be brought to a conclusion in the months to come.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mrs. Isabel J. Hardie (Northwest Territories):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Can the minister say whether the absence of the Eskimo delegates from the meeting of the Indian-Eskimo association in Sudbury was due to the refusal of the department to transport them by air because of the austerity program?


Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I will take the question as notice.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. In the light of the great public interest and concern, and the importance of the public understanding the issues involved, will the Prime Minister arrange for an early opportunity for this house to discuss the policy of the government in respect of the acquisition by Canada of nuclear weapons?


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime
Minister): Mr. Speaker, there will be an opportunity to discuss all these matters if only the house will get ahead with the business already before it.



INQUIRY AS TO INTRODUCTION OF AMENDMENTS TO BROADCASTING ACT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State which I trust is in strict compliance of the rules. In view of the recommendations of the broadcasting committee of last session, and of the concern of the public in this question, as well as some of the minister's officials, is it the intention of the government to introduce amendments to the Broadcasting Act this session?


Hon. G. E. Halpenny (Secretary of State):: That is a decision that the government will be making in due course. However, I feel it would be unwise to amend the Broadcasting Act during this session until the Glassco commission reports.


Hon. Paul Martin (Essex East):: May I ask
the minister if he thinks it wise to announce policy when he says the government is still considering that policy?



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Guy Rouleau: I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State, and ask him whether he would communicate with the C.B.C. to ascertain from them whether they have considered the propriety of putting up a defeated Tory candidate to comment on a vote taken in the House of Commons on Tuesday of this week, as they did on this morning's "News Round-up"?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Is there not going to be an answer to the question?


Lionel Chevrier: I rise on a point of order. The point of order is that the minister reports to the house for the C.B.C. and the B.B.G. He has been asked a straightforward question by the hon. member, and I think the house is entitled to an answer.


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member will recognize in this regard that whether a question is answered or not is not a subject for comment by an hon. member, nor is the nature of the reply. A minister may or may not wish to reply. I would, with deference to the hon. member, say there is no cause to raise a point of order in that regard. No one can insist on a reply.


Lionel Chevrier: May I point out to Your
Honour that there has been no reply.


Mr. Speaker:: As I have indicated, I do not believe any hon. member has the right to insist upon a reply.


Lionel Chevrier: I was not insisting on a reply. I was raising a point of order, and pointing out the fact-


Douglas Scott Harkness: It is not a point of order.


Lionel Chevrier: I think the house should at least let me make the point and allow the Speaker to decide.


Douglas Scott Harkness: This is the third time you have been up on it.


Lionel Chevrier: Even if it is the tenth time, I do not believe that is your business at all.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Yes, it is.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think the hon. member is sufficiently experienced to know that remarks are addressed through the Chair and not directly to hon. members across the floor. May I say here that this remark applies to both sides of the house.


Lionel Chevrier: I agree fully with that, sir. My remarks should have been addressed to you, but I was being annoyed by hon. members opposite; that is the only reason I have.
On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, I say that since the minister reports to the house for this body, it seems to me only natural that it is a point of order well taken to say that the minister should at least give a reply or give a reason why he does not reply.


Mr. Speaker:: With the greatest respect, I do not think there is anything in the conduct of the business of the house which insists a minister must at this time give a reply to some hon. member. An hon. member may think what he likes about the minister's reply, or lack of it, but he has no right to comment on it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, there is an important question of the privileges of the house involved in this particular circumstance. The C.B.C. and the B.B.G., as hon. members know, are not agencies of the government. They are responsible directly
Inquiries of the Ministry to the house. The minister is the minister who reports to the house. If the hon. member had asked the minister to comment on what they were doing, I would think Your Honour would be quite right in saying that was not a proper question because the minister is not the responsible minister, but is merely our channel of communication. All my hon. friend for Dollard did was to ask the minister if he would make an inquiry of the C.B.C. If the minister had just said yes, he would, or no, he would not, half an hour would have been saved and we would have been on to orders of the day by this time.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Again may I indicate-and I would perhaps commend to the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate his remarks of a week ago in this house in support of the Speaker with relation to commenting on the nature of replies-whether a minister wishes to reply or not is his prerogative. He may draw down the censure of members privately, but I put it to hon. members that there is no right to comment upon whether or not he replies.
Mr. Colin Cameron (Nanaimo-Cowichan-
The Islands): May I ask the Secretary of State if he can inform the house what means a member should take to convey a question to the C.B.C. or the B.B.G.?


An hon. Member:: Order paper.


George Ernest Halpenny: I suggest that the hon. member or any citizen of Canada write directly to the president of the C.B.C. or the president of the B.B.G.


Lionel Chevrier: No information for this house.



RULING OF BOARD OF GOVERNORS RESPECTING GREY CUP GAME

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Malcolm Maclnnis (Cape Breton South):: I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State, and ask if he would be willing to communicate with the board of broadcast governors and subsequently report to the members of this house on the reasoning of the board of broadcast governors when they compel the C.B.C. to carry the advertising of the C.T.V. network in connection with the Grey cup game? Would you give the Secretary of State an opportunity to indicate, Mr. Speaker, whether he is prepared to answer?


Mr. Speaker:: Order.

Inquiries of the Ministry


Malcolm MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise a point of privilege relating to a question which was asked a few moments ago. I submit that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is a national institution, financed by the people of Canada and operated on their behalf, and there are many people across Canada who are concerned that perhaps the autonomy and independence of the C.B.C., to which hon. members here refer in glowing terms, is being undermined.
I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, that if hon. members in the house are not allowed to channel questions relating to this topic through one of the ministers, then how can any ordinary citizen of Canada expect to have any responsibility for the C.B.C. or receive any information about it?


Mr. Speaker:: What is the hon. member's point of privilege?


Malcolm MacInnis: My point of privilege deals with the right to obtain information with regard to the operations of this national institution from the minister responsible for it in this house.


Mr. Speaker:: This matter has been canvassed on previous occasions and was examined again this afternoon. If the hon. member has reference to Beauchesne and other authorities he will find it is entirely up to the minister whether he will reply or not. The hon. member may form whatever opinion he wishes as a result of the minister's attitude, but that is as far as it goes.



COLUMBIA RIVER-TIME LIMIT ON RATIFICATION OF TREATY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Jack Davis (Coasl-Capilano):: I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Has the Canadian government received any communication from the government of the United States which in effect places a time limit on the ratification of the Columbia river treaty?


Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: No, Mr. Speaker.
(Translation):



INQUIRY FOR RETURN

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Maurice Rinfret (St. James):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Secretary of State. On October 15 last, I put 
on the order paper a question pertaining to the plan for a central C.B.C. building to be erected in Montreal. Will the Secretary of State answer before long that question which bears No. 63?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Next year.
(Text):


George Ernest Halpenny: I shall look into that this afternoon.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I wish to put a supplementary question to the Secretary of State. The other day he was good enough to say he would have his department compile a list of the returns that had not been made, for the information of hon. members. What progress has been made in that matter?


George Ernest Halpenny: It is being worked on now and should be ready in a very short time.



FARM CREDIT ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Wednesday, November 7, consideration in committee of Bill No. C-71, to amend the Farm Credit Act-Mr. Hamilton-Mr. Chown in the chair.
On clause 2-
Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, when this clause was up for consideration at the last meeting of the committee an amendment was moved by the hon. member for Assiniboia. I would like to say that if he will withdraw his amendment the government is prepared to move another amendment which I think will be satisfactory to both sides.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, the minister was kind enough to show me the motion that he wished to move. My understanding, in looking over the debate yesterday, is that Your Honour had not formally put before the committee the motion to which I had referred. Therefore I think it is very much in order for the minister at this time to present to the committee the motion that he has before him.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, I move accordingly:
That Bill No. C-71, to amend the Farm Credit Act, be amended by adding thereto, immediately after subclause (2) of clause 2 thereof, the following subclause:
(3) Subparagraph (v) of paragraph (a) of section 16 of the said act is repealed and the following substituted therefor:
"(v) any purpose that in the judgment of the corporation is necessary for the efficient operation of the mortgaged farm or will increase the value of the farming enterprise in respect of which the loan is to be made;"


The Chairman:: Is the committee ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Gordon Campbell Chown: All in favour-


Hazen Robert Argue: No, Mr. Chairman; I think the minister is going to make an explanation.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, I think the committee is owed an explanation. I think the committee will recall that the hon. member for Rosthern made the suggestion that in section 16 of the act, under paragraph (a), subparagraph (v), the word "more" should be put in before the word "economic", to make it read "a more economic unit". This was followed by a motion from the opposition the effect of which was that the word "more" should be put in.
I asked at that time, and we agreed, that this question be referred back to the law officers of the crown. The law officers have advised me that it would be very difficult to make this expressed intent of legal moment, and they proposed the amendment which I have put before the committee.
I submit, Mr. Chairman, that it meets the ideas expressed by the hon. members for Rosthern and Assiniboia in that the new amendment reads as follows-this is apropos the catch-all subparagraph (v) of paragraph (a). It lists the various purposes in subparagraphs (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv), and this is the catch-all clause:
(v) any purpose that in the judgment of the corporation is necessary for the efficient operation of the mortgaged farm or will increase the value of the farming enterprise-
This is the part that I think meets the point raised by the hon. members for Rosthern and Assiniboia:
-or will increase the value of the farming enterprise in respect of which the loan is to be made;
Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I think this advice from the legal officers of the crown and this expression of the clause does meet the point raised by the hon. members for Rosthern and Assiniboia.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, I think the amendment that has been placed before the committee at this time is exceedingly important. Some of us have objected throughout the course of this debate to the words used in the original statute, which said that money would be made available through the Farm Credit Corporation when it provided for an economic unit. There were some of us, this side of the house initially and later followed by the hon. member for Rosthern, who said it would serve the interests of agriculture much better if we said "a more economic unit".
It worked out like this; this is an example. If in the opinion of the Farm Credit Corporation in a certain area it required 300 acres 27507-3-90
Farm Credit Act
of land to have an economic unit, and a farmer had 100 acres and came to apply for a loan to purchase an additional 100 acres, the corporation could then say, "That is not an economic unit, so we will not lend you any money". We believe that such a loan could be in the interests of the farmer, because it would get him along the way; it would improve his position toward obtaining an economic unit.
The minister said there were certain legal objections to the phraseology "a more economic unit". We have no quarrel with this statement of the minister, if that was the opinion of the law officers of the crown. The amendment that has been brought in at this time deletes the words "as an economic unit" and merely says that the Farm Credit Corporation can now lend money-and should lend money, I take it, because this is the provision of the bill-for any purpose that in the judgment of the corporation is necessary for the efficient operation of the mortgaged farm. These are the important words:
-or will increase the value of the farming enterprise in respect of which the loan is to be made.
This is important not only because it will allow loans to be made that otherwise might be turned down, but I suggest it is of very great importance because I am certain it will receive the unanimous support of all hon. members of this committee and in my judgment it is a clear instruction from parliament to the Farm Credit Corporation to lend money to improve the farmers' position, and to lend money to the smaller farmers in particular just so long as the loan will improve the position of the smaller farmers in question.
I consider this an exceedingly important amendment. I feel it justifies the time that has been taken in committee by those on this side of the chamber, and that this should mean, since it is an instruction from parliament to the Farm Credit Corporation, a much more efficient operation of this body in the future -directed to improving the position of agriculture and particularly of the small farmers in this country from one end of the nation to the other. Since we made the suggestion in the first place, we are very happy to support it.


Mr. Nasserden:: Mr. Chairman, I should like first of all to thank the minister for the amendment he is bringing in. This matter has engaged my attention for some time. I believe this is quite an improvement on the legislation that was in effect previously. I think it will go a long way toward solving the problems of some of the smaller farmers who up to this time have been unable to secure loans from the corporation.


Gordon Campbell Chown: Is the committee ready for the question?

Farm Credit Act


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Gordon Campbell Chown: Do I take it that the committee unanimously agrees with and approves of this amendment?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Gordon Campbell Chown: Would the committee like to have a standing vote?


Mr. Peters:: Mr. Chairman, before Your Honour puts the question I have a few words to say. I have followed this argument and I am not in disagreement with it; but the remarks of the hon. member for Rosthern have given this matter a completely different turn as far as I am concerned. The hon. member for Rosthern, who I suppose has followed this matter closely, has indicated that this particular change will increase the number of loans. I, personally, fail to see how the original suggestion would have done this. It would, of course, allow some leeway by the officials in their interpretation. I should be interested to hear from the minister if the proposed change will, in fact, result in an increased number of loans.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I think I can close the subject quickly. I believe I expressed the real opinion of the government when I said a while ago that what really counts is what the Farm Credit Corporation does with regard to these things. The advantage of this amendment is that it gives a more explicit direction to the corporation, and that it is therefore likely to result in more loans being made.


William Howell Arthur Thomas: I too would like to commend the minister for his action in this regard. I know his program calls for a series of amendments to this act to make it more useful and improve the service to agriculture in this country. This amendment is part of that program, and I wish to support it.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Mr. Carter:: Perhaps I may say a word, briefly, on the clause as amended. Yesterday I asked the minister if there was any agency of the Farm Credit Corporation in Newfoundland to which our farmers might apply either for loans or for advice concerning their eligibility for loans. I gathered from the reply which the minister gave that the nearest office was at Moncton, New Brunswick. I presume this office covers the whole Atlantic region.
We are doing everything we can in Newfoundland to encourage people to go back to the land and make a living at farming. We have a number of farm units in Newfoundand today which are comparable with those to be found in Nova Scotia and the other Atlantic provinces. It is clear that our farmers are at a disadvantage if they have no contact with
[The Chairman.]
any agency of this corporation and I should like to ask the minister if he could arrange for some official from the Moncton office to visit Newfoundland at the appropriate time, perhaps next spring, so that he could at least tour those parts of Newfoundland which can be reached by car and give the people any information which might be necessary, or at least to have appointments made with interested farmers who might be anxious to take advantage of this legislation.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I am glad to advise the hon. member that we are prepared to do that. We are doing it now. Advertisements will be run in the Newfoundland papers asking interested farmers to write to the Moncton office, and if any inquiries come in we will send a man to Newfoundland.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I am particularly interested in the last paragraph of this clause, where reference is made to assisting the development on the mortgaged land of a secondary enterprise not being a farming enterprise. I presume this would mean that those who have recreational or tourist facilities may borrow money with which to develop them. I wish the minister would tell the committee how the idea that an amendment of this kind was needed first arose.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: The particular paragraph referred to by the hon. member for Kootenay West is, of course, one of the two main amendments before us. In looking at agriculture as a whole across Canada, and taking into account the experience in other countries, it seemed clear to me, at least, that in many areas of Canada it was impossible for farmers to make a living in what we might call traditional agriculture. It was easy to find other opportunities for making use of their land in ways that are not considered traditional.
The hon. member mentioned recreation. Let me mention an example which I have given before in the house. If one travels down the Okanagan valley in British Columbia and sees the orchards in the fall one realizes the tremendous risk which is being run, the risk that a frost might mean not only the loss of one year's crop but the crops of four or five years ahead until new trees come into production. With this beautiful lake extending 70 miles alongside these orchards, it therefore seems a good idea to allow these farmers to take advantage of the growing demand for recreational opportunities, so as to increase the stability of their incomes. The example I have just given would apply, I think, to a great many areas in Canada. If farmers were given the means of setting up

these recreational enterprises they could add significantly to their income by turning their land to a new use.
This is a revolutionary change in farm credit, because in the past farmers have not been able to count on money made from other land uses such as forestry, recreation and wildlife, as part of farm income when applying for loans. I hope this particular section will have the support of the committee.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I wish to thank the minister for that additional information. I know we all support this section fully. The only mistake the minister made was when he forgot to mention the Kootenay lakes as he was outlining the opportunities.
I am particularly interested in tree farming. Private ownership of tree farms has been developing in Canada. I notice the hon. member for Davenport looking at me when I mention that. If a farmer has a very small operation and his tree farm represents the major portion of his undertaking, making the whole thing an economic unit, would he be able to obtain a loan under this act?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: The short answer is yes. I think there is another step which would help make the granting of a loan more secure, but I do not want to refer to it at this time because it would bring in irrelevant material.


Mr. Teillet:: I should like the minister to elaborate on the remarks he recently made. I think it is not intended to limit in any way the extension provided by this clause. In order to clarify this, perhaps I might ask the hon. gentleman a question. If a man intended to use part of his farm as a secondary landing field for aircraft, for example, would he qualify under this provision? I am trying to get at the point of limitation, if any, that the government might have in mind with regard to this clause.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I think the only limitation we have with regard to this is that the applicant must be primarily a farmer. If he gets the use out of his land for any occupation, I do not think it is up to us to decide what is right or wrong in the use of the land as long as he is making money out of it, and the major operation of the man is farming, and he has approval under this section for the loan.


William Arnold Peters: I was very much interested in looking over this act a while ago. I mentioned at an earlier stage that we greatly appreciated this change that has been made in section Civ) (a), the change which states:
-to pay operating costs and the costs of maintaining the farmer and his family for such period 27507-3-90A
Farm Credit Act
as in the judgment of the corporation is necessary for the establishment of the farming enterprise in respect of which the loan is made.
I would think the minister would have outlined this much more extensively than he has done. This is a very interesting section and one which I support very strongly because of the desire in eastern Canada for making changes from what is apparently a disappearing industry, an industry which in many cases is not capable of maintaining an economic unit. These may be dairy producers shipping to a cheese factory, a creamery, an ice cream factory or something of this nature who get cheques, small in size, and who are maintaining their farms but obviously are in difficulty economically and are having to borrow. The minister has made a number of statements in the last few years in connection with ARDA. You will remember, Mr. Chairman, that when this bill was introduced ARDA was mentioned to some extent. I am wondering whether the minister would not take this opportunity to clarify some of the problems that will be raised and some of the direction that is going to have to be given to the officials of the Farm Credit Corporation if they are going to administer this act in a reasonable manner, and in a manner which will not upset some of the agriculturists in our provinces in eastern Canada.
Those who have read the Ottawa Journal of October 31 will have noted under a heading "Dairymen may Resist Beef Plan" an article by Nelson Skuce in which a number of agricultural representatives had something to say about some of the changes that are contemplated by the introduction of this section. I should like some assurance that the corporation will not be geared to changing in a specific field. For instance, I am of the opinion that the present minister is interested in seeing a change in two particular fields in agriculture in eastern Canada, first from those uneconomic dairy units we sometimes have and second, a change in some of the areas to tree farming of some type or another, whether it be Christmas trees or more extensive bush lots for saw logs and pulp. It would seem to me that a minister who had decided that he wished to give direction particularly to Christmas trees, probably by directing the Farm Credit Corporation, could have us swamped with 50 cent Christmas trees again, or on the other hand the feed production might be encouraged to the extent of its being detrimental.
I should like to know if the minister has not in mind some regulations that will not allow this direction being given, though not by the minister as I do not think he has

Farm Credit Act
that in mind. However, I can contemplate in days to come that a minister might decide that we could change the whole economic picture of agriculture by changing western Canada grain production into something quite different. It seems to me that this is a time when possibly the minister should give us an indication of what his thinking is in this matter, how extensive are the changes he would like to see made in eastern Canada and to what extent he is depending on this act to make those changes under the Farm Credit Corporation.
The minister mentioned ARDA. There is a similarity. There is the possibility that if ARDA did not operate satisfactorily under provincial federal relationship, the relationship between the Farm Credit Corporation and the minister would be such that direction could be in this alternative way. I think that the country and particularly the agriculturists in eastern Canada are very much interested in knowing what the minister's thinking is in this particular regard.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, it would take me considerable time to put before the committee all the various thoughts I have put before the house at one time or another on this subject. If I just list some of the main principles, I think possibly this would suffice. In the first instance, as will be recalled, in my introduction to the Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act I made it very clear that agriculture needed some direction so as not to be sent into blind alleys and that the first principle of any redevelopment act should be relating what you are doing in giving an incentive for certain things to the economic return at the end of the road. That principle is inherent in our thinking behind this particular paragraph. For instance, we have made the director of ARDA one of the members of the corporation board. Here you have a man who works with the provinces, who works with all the departments in Ottawa concerning all the resources, sitting on the board of the Farm Credit Corporation. When the various policies of the farm corporation such as the amount or volume of loans going into one particular enterprise as compared to another are under discussion you can have funnelled into that board the best thinking of the provincial government and the federal government departments on the economic possibilities at the end of the road for that type of loan. Hence the relationship between ARDA and the Farm Credit Corporation is very clear.
The Farm Credit Corporation is a businesslike lending operation for long term mortgage credit. ARDA is a planning organization in

which you look at the resources available to agriculture to give higher returns to the farmers. So when an opportunity presents itself, ARDA brings its ideas forward and makes them known to the Farm Credit Corporation so it can follow smoothly behind the over-all thinking of the provincial and federal governments for opportunities for agriculture.
There is a small point in that procedure. Suppose a farmer knows there is an opportunity along a certain road, but this particular path in which he knows there is opportunity does not have immediate returns. A classic example, of course, is the man who is wanting to shift from say a dairy type of production to the beef type of production. He knows there is more money in this new type of production and the ARDA people have indicated to him, or to the Farm Credit Corporation, that the future is good for the next fifteen years in this production. However he says, "I am used to a weekly cheque; how do I live"? This section gives to the Farm Credit Corporation the right to lend money to the farmer during the period of adjustment as part of the loan so that when he gets his income for the year, say two years later if he gets started, he has been able to live during that two years of adjustment. I just use this as an example. There are many other examples of this sort of thing besides the one I have just given with regard to dairy production and beef production.


Gordon Campbell Chown: Shall clause 2 as amended carry?


Mr. Whelan:: I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture a question. He has mentioned changes in the Okanagan valley. Is there or would there be anything in this act that would provide for the people mentioned yesterday. I think the minister used the terminology of rich land in western Ontario where they have crops which may be completely hailed out or stormed out in this area. It is a rich farming area-we recognize that fact-but it is a high cost area. These people can be put out of business completely. Is there any provision in clause 2 for low interest loans to cover this type of thing?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: No, Mr. Chairman. We have the Crop Insurance Act passed in 1959 which covers the type of situation described by the hon. member for Essex South.


William Arnold Peters: There is a point I should like to inquire about in connection with this paragraph. The minister has indicated that some of these changes will be part of a fairly long range program. If the Farm Credit Corporation is going to advise as to the establishment

of an economic unit within the broader sphere of an economic farm community, I think it follows that the board is going to have to have some method of being reasonably sure that this will happen. Has the minister given consideration to the establishment of marketing legislation in these particular fields so that the Farm Credit Corporation would have some indication that a regulated market would be available?
One of the problems we have in eastern Canada as opposed to western Canada arises from the fact that while western Canadian producers in many fields, particularly wheat and cereal production, have the protection of federal marketing legislation farmers in eastern Canada in the fields which the corporation is now going to enter are left in the main to their own resources, without the benefit of marketing legislation which tends to regulate and stabilize the selling price of the particular product. If loans are going to be made for the production of Christmas trees, beef cattle and certain dairy products, then I would think we are going to have to give the Farm Credit Corporation the protection of federal marketing legislation or provincial marketing legislation in these fields or it will be very difficult for the officials of the corporation to decide whether a product is going to be an economic one for a particular area. I suggest that this can only be done if there is some supervision of the method of sale.
The minister will say, and rightly so, that marketing legislation itself would not enable the corporation to make a decision with regard to a particular price because of the forward limitation on pricing under marketing legislation, but I think this would provide some stability in the case of the products that are being suggested now as being worthy of support and justifying a farmer in changing his production in order to establish an economic farm unit. Has the minister in mind some type of marketing legislation or the assembling of provincial marketing legislation under his jurisdiction, so that there can be some assurance within a particular province that a certain commodity is a desirable one from the point of view of the establishment of an economic farm unit in a particular area within that province?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: The logic of the government's long range national agricultural policy was put before the house on August 30, 1958. After accelerated sales there was the question of stabilization of prices. Following that there was crop insurance and then farm credit. The reason for introducing these measures in that order was to do the very thing the hon. member has mentioned. It makes it much
Farm Credit Act
easier for a farm credit operation to run efficiently if prices are stabilized.
So far as the marketing of beef cattle is concerned, the floor price gives us tremendous confidence in going ahead and making loans in that field. With respect to the question of marketing groups, under the constitution these can only be formed within a province and the federal government can only provide enabling powers so that they can operate across provincial boundaries or in export markets. I agree with the hon. member's premise, but I think the answer to his question is that we can only move with respect to marketing legislation after the provinces have agreed to set up such boards and a popular vote has been held resulting in a majority in favour. Then we will provide enabling powers.


Mr. Laing:: Mr. Chairman, yesterday I asked the minister if he would give us some indication whether or not in the granting of these loans there were other factors taken into account than merely the efficiency of the farmer who might appeal for a loan. I told him at the time that I am a member for an urban riding, but I certainly make no apology for talking on this subject since I come from the province of British Columbia. In our province today we are moving in food from outside the province to the extent of $125 million a year. The minister referred to the Okanagan. I would remind him that that is the only plus area we have in the province of British Columbia so far as agriculture is concerned. We produce less of all other commodities than we consume. We do sell some $7 or $8 million of fruits each year outside the province.
The point I tried to make yesterday was that in the granting of these loans account should be taken of the supply of money for the production of agricultural goods, demand for which either within the country or in export markets is unsatisfied. In other words, these goods are wanted for export or for home consumption. I think this is particularly important. I do not need to tell the minister the difficulties he is up against in respect of dairy production and the production of grains in this country so far as the long range outlook is concerned.
I drew to his attention yesterday that I hoped money would be advanced for some of the specialty crops on a basis of priority over the advancing of money for that type of farming that is going to continue to build up surpluses within the country which cannot be consumed here or sold outside of Canada. There are a number of such specialty crops in addition to the production of northern grain seed which I drew to his attention yesterday. We export a great deal of honey,

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lor example, to the United States. Earlier in the debate the hon. member for Essex South referred to the production of frozen foods which are now going abroad to Europe and to the United Kingdom. There is the matter of poultry brought up by the hon. member for Argenteuil-Deux-Montagnes yesterday.
I would hope that the minister, rather than advancing more funds for agricultural production in those lines in which we already seem to be surfeited, would tell us that priority will be given to the lending of money in those areas where we are not surfeited. I think the minister is aware of what is going on in the United States today. The United States treasury is buying dried milk powder at 16 cents a pound. I think the minister is also aware that it is being delivered at the present time at the rate of a billion and a half pounds a year, which I believe is 750,000 tons. It is being offered freely and, if it were permitted entry, Canadians could buy it at 6J cents a pound.
We know what the conditions are and we feel sorry for the minister in his difficulty. I am quite certain that members on both sides of the house would like to give him the benefit of their advice with regard to the future, but I should like him to tell us that some priority in the allocation of these loans will be given to small farmers who are efficient in areas of production where the demand within Canada is not yet satisfied or which provide an excellent opportunity for export out of Canada.
Clause 2 as amended agreed to.
On clause 3-


Hazen Robert Argue: I have some remarks I should like to make on clause 3 which has to do with the regulations, and when I conclude my remarks I have an amendment I should like to move. I have gone over the regulations under the Farm Credit Corporation quite carefully, and I noticed that the definition of livestock included cattle, sheep and hogs and, with the recent amendment, poultry. However, there are other branches of the livestock industry which are not included in this definition. If one looks at the definition of livestock under the Farm Improvement Loans Act he finds that the definition of livestock includes horses, bulls, oxen, cows, bullocks, sheep, swine, poultry and fur-bearing animals. The definition of livestock under this act does not include horses or fur-bearing animals. I would suggest that there should be an amendment to these regulations.
One does not have to advocate a huge increase in the number of horses in the country or in the number of fur-bearing animals, to justify saying that if a good operator goes to

the corporation requesting a loan and has some valuable horses in his possession or furbearing animals, this is part of his operation and he should not be excluded from consideration in making the loan. Now, the Farm Credit Corporation may be under the impression that the horse is a kind of prehistoric animal.


Gordon Campbell Chown: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but I would ask him to help me by relating what he is saying at the moment to clause 3 which has to do with prescribing the charges which may be made against borrowers for the expenses of determination of title and registration of mortgages and other documents, and of appraisals.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, I was hoping I would be in order because clause 3 amends section 19 of the act, the section which has to do with the regulations. Section 19 of the act is entitled, "Regulations". I could have brought this up under clause 1, but I felt I would help expedite the consideration of this bill by waiting until this clause was under consideration. I might say I have discussed this with the minister and other members, and we felt this was the appropriate place where the subject might be discussed. If you should rule these remarks out of order, we could make speeches on third reading, which I take it would be in order.


Gordon Campbell Chown: I do not want to discourage the hon. member at all. I am sure if I had the whole of section 19 before me I could then relate his remarks more readily. What I am concerned about is the fact that we do not have the portion of section 19 under consideration in the bill that is before the house. It is for that reason I find it difficult to rule that what the hon. member is saying, in anticipation of the amendment he said he was going to present, is in order. Perhaps the hon. member would help me in that regard.


Hazen Robert Argue: I want to say I believe my amendment is entirely in order, and has not anything to do with horses. I brought horses up at this time because it seemed to me that this was the clause which referred to the general section of the act dealing with the regulations. I have no intention whatever, and so far as I know no other member on this side of the house has either, of dealing with this clause. We felt this was the appropriate place to raise this particular item.
I was about to say that some people in the corporation may feel that the horse is a prehistoric animal or something that should be forgotten about in the agricultural industry. I believe those people who watch the agricultural industry very closely across this

country can see very strong evidence today that the horse is coming back into its own, both heavy horses and light horses. If a farmer produces heavy horses, a good draft type, there is a ready market at excellent prices. These horses are used in the show ring, in the forestry industry and so on. There is a growing use of light horses across this country both as stock horses and as pleasure horses. Hon. members who go to agricultural fairs will see a tremendous increase in the popularity of saddle horses within the last few years. What I am saying is that horses today are animals that have a real economic value and should be included in the definition of livestock. I think this is a sort of insult to the owners of horses across this country, that they are not included. I think they should be included, and also fur-bearing animals.
I feel that if a farmer goes to the Farm Credit Corporation at a time when he owns a few valuable horses, perhaps worth $400 or $500 each, the corporation should take that fact into account when he is requesting a loan. The corporation should consider the fact that this particular farmer is producing some livestock not included in the present definition and which have an economic value.
Now, Mr. Chairman, there has been a great deal of discussion during this debate on the question of appraisal fees. I should like to deal more specifically with the regulation of the Farm Credit Corporation providing an appraisal fee of $50. There has been general objection as to the size of the fee. It used to be $10 under the old farm loan board, and it has been increased to $50. The minister is aware that this is a sore point, that it is a deterrent to farmers who want to get a loan, particularly a small loan. The minister has said that he intends to have certain changes made in the definition which would deal with this problem. I think it is much better to have the house itself deal with this problem. I suggest that there should be a change so that the farmer who asks for an appraisal of his land shall not be charged $50 but instead shall be charged $10. Then, if his application is turned down, he forfeits the $10; it is gone. If he is successful in obtaining a loan, then I take it he is in a position to pay something more than $10. We would suggest a ceiling of one half of one per cent of the amount of the loan that is granted.
This is placing a limit on the taxing powers of the governor in council and the corporation under this act. We are not saying that the fees cannot be less, but we are saying that parliament, itself, should put some limit on the appraisal fee and the initial limit should be much lower than $50. If a farmer does
Farm Credit Act
not get a loan at all, he should not be penalized by having to forfeit a substantial sum of money, namely $50. I should like to move:
That clause (3) of Bill No. C-71 be amended by substituting a comma for the period after the words "and of appraisals" in line 16 and adding thereto the following words:	"provided such
appraisal charges shall not exceed (a) $10 in the event that an application for a loan is rejected, (b) half of one per cent of the amount of the loan where a loan is made."
If the loan were $10,000 then the fee ceiling would be $50. Over and above that it would be somewhat more, even more than the present $50; but this would place a very definite limit on the amount that might be charged.
It would be of assistance to the small farmer and it would be an encouragement to people to make applications and have their farms appraised. If the minister accepts this amendment, and I hope he will, then it would provide for a smaller penalty or smaller appraisal fee for farmers who receive small loans, and would limit the fee to $10 in the event that a farmer's application were rejected. I believe the amendment will commend itself to all hon. members.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, I have to ask for your guidance and the guidance of the committee. I am not just sure of the constitutionality of an amendment being moved by a private member when it deals with the financial operations of a crown corporation. I know it would not be legitimate if the amendment dealt with expenditures of public money, and I shall have to ask for a ruling on its constitutionality.
The second point I would like to make about the amendment-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, could we deal with the point of order first, because if the minister's point of order is valid, and I do not think it is, then there would be no use in debating the amendment? What the minister is asking the committee, and the house, to do by the provisions of the bill is to give the government the power to tax, the power to fix an appraisal fee. The minister has already asked to have that done. That was in the message from the crown, but there was no limit to the fee which the board or the minister-actually it is the governor in council-might fix by regulation. All the hon. member for Assiniboia is doing is saying that it should not be more than a certain amount.
He is not asking to extend the power of the government to tax. He is seeking to limit the power of the government to tax without

Farm Credit Act
direct reference to parliament, and not only is that completely in order but it is the proper function of parliament.
To suggest that parliament has to say whether it will give the government unlimited power to tax, or no power at all, is surely quite wrong. What the hon. member for Assiniboia is saying is "Yes, we are prepared to let the governor in council fix these appraisal fees, but they must not be higher than this amount." I am sure the minister does not want more power than he needs, and I think the house would find this amendment highly acceptable. There is no doubt about the amendment being in order.


Mr. McCleave:: As I understand the past operations of the act, what is proposed by clause 3 of the bill is that there will be a certain charge placed on applicants for farm credit. Of course this is in line with the accepted procedure when one applies for mortgages. Looking at the costs as a whole, part of them are borne by the fees that are charged the applicants and the rest is borne by the treasury of the country. Therefore I would respectfully suggest that it would not be in order for an hon. member to bring in an amendment such as that moved by the hon. member for Assiniboia because it, by setting a limit, means that the treasury has to bear the deficit, and perhaps an even greater share of the costs.
In support of my proposition I refer the committee to Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, fourth edition, at page 214, citation 249, and for the purposes of my argument I refer to subparagraph (1) of that citation in which Dr. Beauchesne is quoting Bourinot:
"No cases can be found of any private member in the Canadian commons receiving the authority of the crown, through a minister, to propose a motion involving the expenditure of public money. No principle is better understood than the constitutional obligation that rests upon the executive government, of alone initiating measures imposing charges upon the public exchequer."
Then there is cited a particular case in the English House of Commons, and it continues:
"On one occasion, in the English commons, the consent of the crown was given to certain formal resolutions proposed by a private member with reference to charges in courts of law to be defrayed out of the consolidated fund. It was thought, however, that any resolution placing a charge on the consolidated fund should be moved by a minister of the crown, and the more regular procedure was thereupon carried out. It was distinctly affirmed, however, that the member who proposed the motion involving the charge was within his right when he had the sanction of the crown, but it was generally admitted at the same time that it was better, as a matter of policy, that the proposition should emanate from a responsible adviser of the sovereign."

Perhaps we should hear from the Minister of Agriculture just what the effect of the amendment would be, but as I understand it, the hon. member for Assiniboia is saying in effect that the crown may be required to pay a greater portion of these expenses.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Greater than what?


Robert Jardine McCleave: Than it would otherwise intend to do. For that reason I suggest the amendment is out of order.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: May I ask if we could have a copy of the amendment? It would be useful for us to have a copy of it.


Lionel Chevrier: There is just one thing I want to say in answer to what has been said by the hon. member for Halifax. There is nothing in citation 249 which is not in conformity with the amendment moved by the hon. member for Assiniboia, because what is being sought by the amendment is not to impose a charge. The amendment does not in any way impose a charge. In fact it reduces the charge; and to quote citation 249 as being a precedent against the amendment is quite inapplicable because it has been the practice in this house, for a long time, that hon. members may move to reduce an expenditure but not to increase it. In any event the amendment does not affect the responsibility of the government in any way whatsoever.
When he rose a moment ago the minister said something about the different effect which this might have concerning a crown corporation; but surely the fact that a crown corporation is involved does not affect the rules, as we understand them here. This is not imposing or increasing a charge, but limiting or reducing it, and for that reason I submit the amendment is in order.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Perhaps it would be helpful if we had some indication as to the division I spoke about-whether it would increase the charge on the public treasury of the country. I think that is vital.


An hon. Member:: No.


Hazen Robert Argue: There is no increase in the charge.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Some hon. member says no, but it is vital to the whole argument as to whether or not a charge is being brought in by a private member.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, I did not want to get into this argument myself but I believe there is some misunderstanding on the part of a few hon. members regarding the finances of the Farm Credit Corporation. We make provision for the corporation to lend

money to farmers at a fixed rate of 5 per cent but when the corporation itself borrows money the charges vary from time to time, and if there is any deficit in the accounts this has to be met by the treasury of Canada. I understand-I am not an expert in these things-that, as the hon. member for Halifax was pointing out, by juggling with the fees and reducing them, that reduces the charge to the farmer but it increases the cost to the federal treasury. I think that is his point on the constitutional issue. These fees amount to roughly $400,000 a year. If you reduce them, therefore, you increase the charge for which the federal treasury is responsible. I was not going to oppose it on that ground at all, but I just wanted direction from the Chair on that question.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, I would like to say a word on the point raised by the minister. If the bill that is now before us contained a provision fixing the charge, I think there would be great validity in what the minister says, because then we would be seeking to reduce the charge and thereby to increase the cost to the treasury. But there is nothing at all in the bill that says what the charge shall be. The bill says that the governor in council may fix this charge. Therefore, there is nothing in the bill itself at the present time, as I understand it, fixing the amount of the charge.
The minister is asking parliament to leave that to the governor in council. He has told us it is not going to be the $50 it now is; it is going to be something that he has not disclosed to the committee. Therefore, there is nothing in the measure before us that we are reducing at all, except the unlimited power of the government to fix any charge they like. That is the only point. The government is asking parliament to give them an unlimited power to tax and we are saying, "Yes, we are prepared to give you a limited power to tax, but only a limited power with a ceiling on it".
It seems to me, sir, that to suggest that there is some impropriety in an hon. member moving such an amendment is quite wrong. Of course, if the government wants to defeat my hon. friend's amendment, all they need do is call in their members. But to suggest that any hon. member should not have his full right to propose that the powers of the government to tax be limited would be a very extraordinary doctrine indeed if propounded in this house by the so-called restorers of the rights of parliament.


Mr. Pennell:: Mr. Chairman, could we bring this debate to a conclusion by asking whether 27507-3-91
Farm Credit Act
the minister himself is prepared to move the amendment put forward by the hon. member for Assiniboia?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, all we are trying to do is what is best for the farmer; we are trying to give him the best deal we can. I said during the resolution stage and again during second reading that the matter of appraisals was under review at the present time by the board of the Farm Credit Corporation and that they present the recommendations they have on appraisals to an advisory committee. Then if there is general approval, they are brought in. I said as plainly as a minister can say that efforts were being made to make these appraisals more equitable. Actually, Mr. Chairman, I have seen the proposals which have been put before the advisory committee and I know they are much better than what the hon. member for Assiniboia is proposing.


John Whitney Pickersgill: He is only proposing a ceiling.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: But there is a different technique for doing it, and by tying the hands of a crown corporation with an arbitrary one half of one per cent, for example, is not as good a deal in the majority of cases as the one which the Farm Credit Corporation management is proposing to the board. Since we are now debating the wisdom of the amendment, I am simply saying that I think it is unwise in our state of government, where government is so big, to try and fix everything in this house. What the chief criterion should be is, what is best for the farmer.


John Whitney Pickersgill: As decided by the minister.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I am simply putting forward now that you have to give to the Farm Credit Corporation and its advisory board some flexibility. I am not putting my case forward at all on the constitutional argument. I simply do not know what is the answer to it. I am simply saying, do not tie the hands of the Farm Credit Corporation with a fixed type of regulation such as this.


Hazen Robert Argue: It is not fixed at all.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: What is being suggested is a maximum which is not in line with the flexibility we would like to have.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, I think we are a little confused here. May I ask the minister a question that might clear up the whole matter? Has the minister abandoned his point of order? Is he willing to have the amendment settled by the committee, because if he is then we do not need to consider it further? Otherwise I think the Chair should rule on the point of order so that we know

Farm Credit Act
if it is worth debating. Then, if the amendment is ruled out of order, the debate is unnecessary. But if the minister has abandoned the point of order, as he seemed to say he had, and wants to discuss the merits of it, I am all for that; I think that is the right thing to do.


Hazen Robert Argue: You had better take the amendment.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Chairman, if I may advert to a point made earlier by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, as I understood him he said that because it was not specifically mentioned in clause 3 that certain moneys were spent from the public treasury on loan applications, therefore we could not assume that they were. I think that is a specious argument. Surely we must accept the statement of the Minister of Agriculture, who pointed out that some $400,000 in fees was raised by charges for appraisals, and who also made the statement that if certain ceilings are set on the fees to be raised, it will mean in effect that there will be a charge upon the public treasury.
I have quoted citations before and I do not wish to belabour the matter by going over them again, but may I refer Your Honour again to Beauchesne's fourth edition, citation 249, this time to the second paragraph, which I neglected to read before, of paragraph (1). It reads as follows:
"The responsibility of recommending applications for pecuniary redress or relief to the consideration of parliament should rest solely upon the executive government, who are strictly accountable for every item of public expenditure, whose especial duty it is, in the interest of the taxpayer, to oppose all unnecessary outlay, and who possess peculiar facilities for investigating into the merits of all pecuniary claims".
I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the problem we now have, if it cannot be treated in one sense can be treated in the other. Here we have a suggestion that the farmer whose application is unsuccessful should pay, I believe, $10. Perhaps as a little time has passed since the hon. member for Assiniboia moved his amendment I could read it again to the committee. The hon. member moved:
That clause (3) of Bill No. C-71 be amended by substituting a comma for the period after the words "and of appraisals" in line 16 and adding thereto the following words:
"provided such appraisal charges shall not exceed (a) $10 in the event that an application for a loan is rejected, (b) one half of one per cent of the amount of the loan where a loan is made."
I suggest, sir, that by setting a ceiling of $10 for the unsuccessful applicant, this in effect provides a pecuniary redress or a relief to that applicant and therefore, surely, comes within the admonition contained in Dr. Beauchesne's work, that the responsibility of

recommending applications for pecuniary redress or relief to the consideration of parliament should rest solely upon the executive government. I make these points for the consideration of the Chair.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Chairman, may I be allowed to make another point in connection with what has been discussed thus far? I think we must look at the true meaning of the matter which is before us. Clause 3(f) reads:
Prescribing the charges that may be made against borrowers for the expenses of determination of title and registration of mortgages and other documents, and of appraisals.
In other words, what is being sought of parliament is authority to prescribe the charges which may be made without those charges being stated. If what hon. members opposite are saying is correct, those charges might well be a thousand dollars, and it is only fair and reasonable that there should be a limitation put on them. That is why my hon. friend the hon. member for Assiniboia wanted to make it clear that the charges should be limited in the way he has suggested.
It has been stated by the hon. member for Halifax that reductions may be sought in the house, but not increases. That is quite clearly stated in Beauchesne. The citation is to be found at page 227, and it reads:
Reductions can be made in committee on the bill, but no grant can be Increased except upon recommendation of the crown.
So this amendment is not in derogation of what is being sought by the crown. Then, I should like to draw the attention of the committee to citation 265 on page 221 which reads:
No member other than a minister of the crown may introduce a bill for the reduction of duties. The government must take full responsibility for the taxation levied to provide the revenue. But the house enjoys complete freedom to make every representation possible to the government with regard to the manner in which the ministers discharge this responsibility. This duty the members may perform by moving amendments to reduce the taxes proposed by the administration.
I say that this citation is authority for the amendment which is being made, and to declare it out of order simply because of the reason given by the hon. member for Halifax would, I think, be unfair, because what is being proposed would substantially limit the manner in which this section will operate. As I said earlier, the fee might be a thousand dollars, and what my hon. friend is seeking to do is to limit it to $10.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I think the hon. member for Halifax in arguing that this amendment is out of order is basing his whole case on the

idea that this committee knows that the charge at the present time is a given amount, and that any limitation of that amount constitutes, a reduction in the revenue derived by this agency of the crown.
I submit that this committee has to deal with the bill which is before us, not just with the information given to it by the minister. The bill before us gives the Governor General in council power to make regulations prescribing the charges-not the actual cost, nor $50 per case. What the amendment put forward by the hon. member for Assiniboia does is to specify the maximum charge which may be imposed. The committee has no knowledge whether this would be a reduction in the cost of making an appraisal or an increase, because there is nothing in the bill which suggests that the charges imposed will be the actual costs, or that they may not be substantially increased. Therefore, I suggest that the amendment is in order, leaving aside the desirability of passing it which we can discuss later.


Robert Jardine McCleave: If I may, I will-


Lionel Chevrier: Return to the charge?


Robert Jardine McCleave: Yes, return to the charge and deal with the points made by the hon. member for Laurier and the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam. I should like to make three points. First, I should like to draw Your Honour's attention to the fact that the charge proposed by the hon. member for Assiniboia has received no approval by resolution. This, I think, is fatal in itself to his amendment. Then, with reference to the argument used by the hon. member for Laurier in which he quoted Beauchesne, citation 228, subparagraph 3 on page 227, may I suggest that this citation is skimpy; I do not think it can be taken from it that Dr. Beauchesne is referring to a bill such as we have before us this afternoon.
My third point has to do with the suggestion that there might be exorbitant charges made. One thousand dollars has, I think, been mentioned on more than one occasion. Of course, anyone who went into a government agency and found himself faced with such a charge as that would quickly leave it before getting hooked. That is in the nature of a specious argument just thrown into the pot.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I have one or two additional observations, which I should like to make. Perhaps Your Honour would see that it is now five o'clock and reserve the matter until the committee resumes at eight o'clock?


Gordon Minto Churchill: For the information of the committee, I may say that the Minister of 27507-3-91J
Correspondence on Surcharges Agriculture has to keep an important engagement for which he is already late, and it would be more convenient if we were to proceed to the next order of business at eight o'clock, namely the setting up of the committee on railways, air lines and shipping.


Hazen Robert Argue: Too bad that we cannot get the bill through tonight.
Clause 3 stands.
Progress reported.


Mr. Speaker:: It being five o'clock the house will proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely notices of motions (papers).



FINANCE


Paul Joseph James Martin: That an humble address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this house copies of correspondence or any documents exchanged between the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance or any other minister of the crown and officers of the Department of Justice or the privy council or any other government department or agency on the subject of surcharge and imports order, P.C. 1962-902, dated June 24, 1962, and the amendment to the surcharge and imports order, P.C. 1962-987, dated July 11, 1962, and the import control list as amended by P.C. 1962-903, dated June 24, 1962, with particular reference to the legality of such orders.
He said: Mr. Speaker, my motion has to do with the production of the opinion of the law officers of the crown on the legality of the government's austerity program, and more particularly the legality of the surcharges on imports order in council. In connection with this matter the minister had three courses open to him. He could have produced the information for which I asked. This he has refused to do up to now at any rate. I must remind him however that under similar circumstances in 1947, with regard to the emergency program of that year, he asked for the production of a legal opinion by the deputy attorney general. Alternatively, he could have refused to produce the legal opinion for which I am asking. This he has not done. Instead, he is proceeding, and with my concurrence, under standing order 47, making what was a non-debatable motion into a debatable one.
I assume that there can be no doubt that the opinion for which I am asking was written as well perhaps as oral. My authority for this is to be found in the exchanges between the Prime Minister and myself as reported at page 349 of Hansard for this session and as well at page 293. I pass over this phase of my argument with no more than the mere mention of these pages, as J am not receiving

Correspondence on Surcharges from the minister any indication that this statement is an inaccurate one. Anticipating an argument that may be made by the Minister of Justice may I say this. It is a matter of record that he agrees that the opinion received by Mr. Abbott in 1947 was an oral one.
Apart altogether from the precedents on which I am relying in this motion, I remind the house and the Minister of Justice in particular of the position which he himself took regarding solicitation of a legal opinion by the law officers of the crown on the emergency program of 1947. In that connection, as will be found in volume 1 of Hansard for 1948 at page 393, the minister stated as follows:
An opinion of the law officers of the crown has been referred to. I have the greatest respect for the law officers of the crown. I wish to make it clear that I would not be so bold or presumptuous as to set any opinion of mine against theirs; but it would be, I think, in a situation of this kind, extremely interesting for the house to see what that opinion is. In fairness to the house, the government ought to make public that opinion; it ought to bring it down in this house. We should know what the opinion of the law officers of the crown is upon which the government purport to justify this legislation.
Mr. Abbott's reply was, of course, that he could not produce it-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Whom was the hon. member quoting?


Paul Joseph James Martin: As I said, I was quoting the Minister of Justice, the then hon. member for Eglinton. Mr. Abbott replied, as I have already indicated, that he could not produce the opinion because it was an oral one. The Prime Minister, then the hon. member for Prince Albert, joined his colleague the hon. member for Eglinton of that day and, in words which will be found in Hansard for 1948, volume 1, at page 408, said:
The other day my leader said that what was done was unconstitutional. The hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) requested the production of the legal opinion from the law officers of the crown, and I think that was a proper request. Did the law officers of the crown in any way advise that it was possible for a minister of the crown, two or three weeks before the opening of parliament, to impose taxation from that date?
That, of course, I may say by way of my own parenthesis, was an inaccurate statement. The quotation continues:
I say to my hon. friends in the government of this country, that by that action they committed a crime against constitutional government in this country. And they wish us to act as rubber stamps and be accessories after the fact, by our vote now given, for conduct illegal to begin with.
Hence there is no doubt that I have as very high authority for the motion I am proposing, the support of the Minister of Justice himself, the then hon. member for

Eglinton, and the present Prime Minister that, with regard to legislation of this character, the house should be furnished with the opinion of the law officers of the crown as to the legality of measures which have been taken. I do not base my case only on this argument. However, that argument is so strong that it would be surprising if the audacious Minister of Justice would dare deny the position which he took on in 1947-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Did you agree with it?


Paul Joseph James Martin: -and which I may say he took so vehemently.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Did you agree with it?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Of course I did.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friends laugh. However, I think they cannot understand what has been said or they would not laugh. Of course I agreed with it. That is the whole case I am making here today. We say that this austerity program of this government imposing $200 million of taxes has no legal foundation whatsoever. We say that no authority is given to the executive of this country to impose this taxation with or without reference to parliament. We say that there is no legal basis for this executive action. The Minister of Justice says there is a legal basis. He says, "We have an opinion of the deputy attorney general". We ask him to produce the legal opinion. We contend that the opinion cannot be that the legislation on which the government based its executive authority had any legal foundation at all. We say that the Customs Tariff and the Financial Administration Act do not contain authority from parliament to the governor in council to enable the latter to make the two orders which make up the surcharge on imports order.
Also, Mr. Speaker, as you know-and I am saying this in passing because it is not essential to the argument as Your Honour clearly understands, I gather from Mr. Speaker's present posture-even if the surcharge on imports order was legal, and even if there is an opinion from the law officers of the crown to that effect, we say that this government should have come into parliament and should have asked parliament to ratify that program or to reject it. We say that we should not be treated in this unconstitutional way by this government. We say that even in this ex post facto manner the government ought to give us a chance of being what we will not be, mere rubber stamps. We ought at least

to have experience with the formality of decision with respect to this illegal legislation.
There is ample authority for the request we are making, Mr. Speaker. I would remind the house that in the spring of 1935 the then minister of justice, Hon. Mr. Guthrie, had no hesitation and without prodding in respect of a public bill as opposed to one involving private rights, to give parliament the opinion of the law officers of the crown. Not only did he give without any prodding the opinion of the law officers of the crown but as well he volunteered opinions on the very point in issue which had been tendered by two eminent counsel, namely Mr. W. N. Tilley, K.C. and Mr. Aime Geoffrion, K.C., on the very point. Those opinions are now to be found in Hansard for 1935, volume 3, at page 3166.
Then in the month of June-I think it was in June, 1935, to be precise-the same minister of justice, with regard to a Criminal Code amendment, volunteered an opinion which the deputy attorney general had sought, again from Mr. Aime Geoffrion, K.C. That legal opinion with regard to a public act, as opposed to a bill involving private rights and obligations, was tabled without any prodding by any member of the house at that time. This opinion will be found in Hansard for 1935, volume 4, at pages 3476 and 3477.
We have, of course, other authorities. We have the authority of May who at page 460 says:
A minister ... is not at liberty to read or quote from a dispatch or other state paper not before the house, unless he be prepared to lay it upon the table.
I argue analogically, Mr. Speaker, that the exchanges between the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fleming) and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) and the exchanges between the Minister of Justice and myself put the minister exactly in the position envisaged by May because the minister did speak of a legal opinion. He identified the source of that legal opinion, namely, the deputy attorney general. I submit that having done so he is obliged under the rules to produce the legal opinion, having already gone as far as he has in the identification I have just mentioned.
But we have as perhaps the most recent precedent in this house the action taken by Mr. St. Laurent when he was minister of justice. In May of 1942 the hon. member for Huron (Mr. Cardiff), and the present member for that constituency, moved for a copy of all opinions rendered by the Department of Justice with reference to the power of the governor in council under the War Measures Act to conscript men for service in any theatre of war. That motion will be found in Hansard for 1942, volume 3, at page 2290.
I have in my hand now the actual opinion.
Correspondence on Surcharges
Here was an order of the house directing the government of the day to table an order in council during wartime with regard to important implications arising out of the War Measures Act and the measure for conscription of manpower. Mr. St. Laurent tabled those opinions. The documents consist not only of the order but of the request made by the Clerk of the Privy Council to the deputy attorney general. There is also the reply of the deputy attorney general to the Clerk of the Privy Council and a letter from the deputy attorney general to a minister of crown, the then minister of national defence. That was in wartime; and while we are now dealing with an emergency matter we are dealing with an emergency matter in peacetime.
The Minister of Justice certainly cannot go behind this precedent. He cannot say it is a well known rule that this is a privileged position which ministers of the crown may take. There are certain legal opinions which are privileged, involving diplomacy. Those involve matters having to do with the formulation or execution of foreign policy. But certainly both the precedents in this house and the acts of ministers of the crown with regard to particular requests of this kind are very clear.
I submit to the Minister of Justice that to deny this information is to add to the suspicion that there is in fact no written opinion at all, and creates an undesirable situation.
I am not trying to place my opinion against that of the deputy attorney general. But I cannot believe that in the face of the provisions of the two acts governing this situation any serious lawyer would contend that the course taken by the government has any legal foundation. In the absence of this we must assert that the government has made a mockery of its own bill of rights.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I should like to draw attention to the very narrow limits of the debate at this point. The matter under debate is merely whether the document should or should not be produced-


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is right.


Mr. Speaker:: -and not whether under a certain act something could or could not be done. I would refer hon. members to Hansard of 1962, volume 1, page 682, where Mr. Speaker Michener, who was dealing with what then was a new matter, clearly and succinctly laid down the limitations on the debate and the house generally accepted them at that time.


Paul Joseph James Martin: There is no disagreement with you on this point, Mr. Speaker. I assure you I fully appreciate the

Correspondence on Surcharges nature of the two rulings. I have them here. One was on a motion made by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) during Mr. Speaker Michener's time. But I was saying that I believe that the anticipated action of the government makes a mockery of the provisions of its own bill of rights, let alone the bill of rights of 1689. Moreover, the government creates in the minds of members of the house and most people in the country, I think, much suspicion as to the legal position of this order in council by its refusal, to agree to the suggestion of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre that the Supreme Court of Canada be asked to rule on the legality of the order in council, which imposes import surcharges of 5 to 15 per cent.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) says in his infallible way: There is no uncertainty as to the legality of the order in council. This was the reply he gave to the member for Winnipeg North Centre. If there is no uncertainty, then let us have this written legal opinion so that there will be no doubt about the matter.
I do not know how much research my hon. friend has done on this question, but if he wants to spend some interesting hours after this motion has been passed and the house has ordered production of the opinion I suggest that he read Lord Campion at page 1957 and that he also examine what May says at page 258 in the fifteenth edition wherein he gives the exceptions to a demand for the production of the legal opinion of the law officers of the crown. My hon. friend will suggest that the Queen's ministers are the guardians of the prerogatives of the crown in parliament, but this certainly does not mean that matters of settled policy and matters of public interest should not be given to this house. Surely the legality of a public measure involving taxes is a matter that should be given to the house.
It would be different, as I say, if we were asking for the production of a legal opinion involving the interests of private individuals or associations, as Todd mentions in volume 1 at page 451. But that is not what we are asking. We are making our request with regard to a public measure involving no secrecy, no infringement of the privacy of any Canadian citizen. We are asking the government to tell us, as Mr. Guthrie did in 1935, what is the legal opinion they have got and, if it is a written opinion, to produce it. I say to the Minister of Justice that he makes a mockery of his own words if he does not feel he is bound by the request he made in 1947 for the production of a legal opinion from the law officers of the crown.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Which you rejected.


Paul Joseph James Martin: It was not rejected. As my hon. friend knows, it was an oral opinion. Perhaps by this time my hon. friend understands that it is not possible to produce, by way of a document, an opinion that has been given orally; that was the situation in 1948. My hon. friend acknowledges this because of what I said when I began, that he has had occasion to conduct some research and has found there was no such opinion.
The reason the opinion should be produced is that both Mr. St. Laurent and Mr. Guthrie did what the hon. gentleman asked us to do in 1947. For him to refuse this request clearly creates added suspicion that this particular order in council has in fact, as I asserted several weeks ago on the basis of good authority, no legal foundation whatever. If it was right, as the minister thought in 1947, for Mr. Abbott to produce the legal opinion, surely it is the right thing for the Minister of Justice to do today. We will not forget that in 1958 the Prime Minister thought it was right to produce a confidential and secret document.


Mr. Speaker:: Order; the hon. member's time has expired.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That being the case, I ask the Minister of Justice to produce the legal opinion which at this time means so much to the integrity in a legal sense of the government's austerity program.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, I am sure if the hon. member wishes to add to his remarks or if he had not completed his argument, the house would be glad to give him the additional time he requires.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am anxious to have a vote today. I think my argument was so apparent to everyone that it should be to the hon. gentleman.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I shall proceed then, Mr. Speaker. Let me, first of all, invite the attention of the house to the terms of the motion, because the hon. member has presented only a portion of the motion. This motion asks for the production of copies of correspondence or any documents exchanged between the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance or any other minister of the crown and officers of the Department of Justice or the privy council or any other government department or agency on the subject of the three orders in council. The motion is completely unlimited and calls for all correspondence and documents exchanged between any minister and any official.

Then, Mr. Speaker, just at the end, we have this, "With particular reference to the legality of such orders". You will observe that this rider does not read, "with reference to the legality of" such and such, but it says, "with particular reference to the legality of such orders." This wording does not confine the generality of the previous words at all. It is simply a demonstrative signpost. The mover wishes to make sure these particular ones are included. It is an inclusion, but it is not a confining of the general terms in which this motion is couched. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, what the house is dealing with is a motion under which the government is asked to produce copies of all correspondence and all documents exchanged between any minister and any official of the government in any department; it is just as broad as that.


Paul Joseph James Martin: With regard to the
legality-


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is not with regard to the legality, it is with particular reference to the legality. The hon. member has been very coy in adding those words. I will deal in particular with this matter of the production of documents in relation to the legality of the orders later. I draw your attention to the fact that the house is being asked now to deal with a motion completely without limit-


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I just say a word to my hon. friend?


Donald Methuen Fleming: There is a time limit here.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I do not want to interrupt my hon. friend, but I just want to say-


Donald Methuen Fleming: There is a time limit and I am pressed for time.


Mr. Marlin (Essex Easl):: Mr. Speaker-


Donald Methuen Fleming: I have the floor.


Murdo William Martin: May I say through you, Mr. Speaker, that I was trying to help my hon. friend. If he is disturbed by the word "particular" I would drop that word.


Donald Methuen Fleming: This is just what we expected. The hon. member cast his net very widely, and when it is exposed he wishes to draw it in and pretend to be so innocent about it. I say to him, out of thine own mouth hast thou condemned thyself.
The house is then in possession of this completely unlimited motion. What did I say, Mr. Speaker, about the matter of advice? If you look back at page 291 of Hansard of October 9, you will find this is what I did
Correspondence on Surcharges say on the subject, which agitates the hon. member and upon which he bases his baseless suspicions. I quote:
My first point is that we have proceeded on the advice of the law officers of the crown in the proper manner, and the advice we have is that the measures which were introduced by orders in council in June, which took effect one minute after midnight on June 25, are proper and legal; that the government had full power to proceed to pass those orders in council, and that those powers so exercised were conferred upon the governor in council by parliament. There can be no question about the validity of those orders in council.
Then, at the bottom of that column, I said this:
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, on the subject of the validity and legality of these orders in council let me say that the government has proceeded on the highest advice, and that the legality of these orders is not questioned unless hon. members choose to question the opinion of the deputy attorney general of Canada.
This was my statement. I draw your attention to it again. I did not read any opinion of the law officers of the crown. I did not say whether the advice received was expressed orally or in writing. I did not say that they had delivered a written opinion. I cited the substance of the opinion submitted to the government by the deputy attorney general of Canada. I submit that the practice the house has followed does not give any hon. member the right to say, that having been done, there should be production in the house of the full text of the opinion.
This being so, I will hasten over the first part of the matter quickly.
First, let me point out, Mr. Speaker, that in regard to the generality of the matter the point is too well established to call for even the citation of authority, that where documents are prepared for the advice of a minister of the crown by officials, they are privileged from production in the house. The house does not call for the production of them because that would break down the transaction of public business.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Why did you do it in 1947?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Hon. members opposite will have to contain themselves.


Mr. Speaker:: Order; I again caution hon. members from trying to get remarks on Hansard when they have not the floor. The rules are quite clear in that regard.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Let me take the time only to refer to several precedents in this house. On January 23, 1959, page 245 of Hansard, the hon. member for Essex East asked for a report of General Graham on civil defence. The government took the ground that the report was privileged because it was prepared by a member of the public service
1430	HOUSE OF
Correspondence on Surcharges
for the consideration of the government. The hon. member had the wisdom on that occasion, and enough appreciation for the rules of the house, not to challenge that position. He did not follow that question with a motion.
Then, one could proceed and say that on August 25, 1958, at page 2016 of Hansard, there was a motion by hon. members opposite for a copy of all memoranda and documents submitted to the minister of public works by the deputy minister and other officials. On that occasion there was a debate and the motion was defeated.
Again, Mr. Speaker, on March 12, 1956, as reported on page 2016 of Hansard, Mr. Lesage, then a minister of the government, was asked to produce a copy of all correspondence, et cetera, exchanged between the government and the superintendent of the Banff national park and the citizens of Banff. He, on behalf of the Liberal government of the day, agreed to produce the correspondence of the citizens but he refused to produce the correspondence and documents exchanged between the government and this public official, the superintendent at Banff. He said:
Such exchanges are, I believe, of a privileged character as between officials of the government. I therefore could not acquiesce in that part of the motion.
These rules, Mr. Speaker, are so well established that they should not require the citation or references. There are many others. On May 31, 1954, there was a motion by the opposition of that day for the production of a copy of a report of a committee of senior officers of the Department of National Defence, and Mr. Campney, a minister speaking for the government of that day, at page 5240 of Hansard said:
The report was prepared following extensive studies and was made to the chief of the general staff in confidence to assist the department and the government in consideration of defence policy. I submit, and I think most hon. members will agree, that in such circumstances the document is not subject to production but is privileged.
I dare not take further time to deal with the subject in relation to the general rule. It is a completely well established rule which no serious hon. member of the house would challenge.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Why did you do
it in 1947?


Donald Methuen Fleming: These bawling
mouths, Mr. Speaker, are only trying to reduce my time.
Let me come particularly to the question of the production of legal opinions rendered by those who are called law officers of the crown. Let me make this observation first, that strictly this expression, when used in the United Kingdom today, means the attorney
[Mr. Fleming (Eglinton) .1

general and the solicitor general although in practice, at least up until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, this expression as used in the House of Commons in Westminster, usually referred to the senior officials of those departments. Strictly speaking, if we were to follow the strict interpretation of the phrase, we would take it to refer to the Attorney General of Canada, but in this house we use this expression to mean the senior officials of the Department of Justice and usually the deputy minister of justice who is the deputy attorney general of Canada.
Let us here confine and direct our attention particularly to what is asked for. It is a well established rule in this house that the minister of justice does not furnish legal opinions in the house, although he is sometimes asked to, but this motion concerns the production in this house of the opinions of the law officers, the officials of the department.
Here, Mr. Speaker, we have the plainest kind of statement in Todd, the second edition, volume 1, page 576, where the general rule is thus authoritatively stated:
But it is not the practice of either house of parliament, as a general rule, to ask for copies of legal opinions given by the law officers of the crown to the executive government (or furnished to a public corporation), or cases submitted to the law officers for their opinion, nor is it customary for government to communicate them to parliament should they be applied for. A similar doctrine was laid down in Lower Canada, as appears by the reply of His Excellency Governor Gosford to an address of the house of assembly, on December 11, 1835, for copies of legal opinions, where he states that such communications were ''confidential", and "except in peculiar cases, should be held sacred." They are considered as confidential.
But it is not even usual for a minister to state to the house the substance of an opinion given by the crown law officers; though this may be done at the discretion of the government.
That is what I gave to the house, Mr. Speaker, the substance of the opinion. Campion, third edition, referring to the law officers' opinions says at page 197:
These opinions, being confidential, are usually not laid on the table or cited in debate, and their production cannot be demanded as of right but a Minister is not debarred from citing them if he chooses.
Again in May's Parliamentary Practice sixteenth edition page 273, there is this:
The opinions of the law officers of the crown, given for the guidance of ministers, in any question of diplomacy or state policy, being included in the class of confidential documents, have generally been withheld from parliament.
This is an opinion in the class of confidential documents relating to state policy.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What about the Cagleari case?

Correspondence on Surcharges


Donald Methuen Fleming: There are so many precedents on the subject, and as my time is limited I must necessarily be selective in the treatment of these citations, of which there are so many available.
Let me first of all take one from the Westminster Hansard for March 4,	1869
where Lord Cairns made a comment as follows:
The noble Earl was about to take a course so unusual-
In this case a minister of the crown was about to read an opinion and he took objection because he said it was without precedent to read an opinion given by law officers of the crown to their governments. The quotation continues:
-and in his experience without precedent, of reading the opinion given by the law officers of the crown to their governments had always been held to be sacred communications, never to be divulged to the public.
The Earl of Clarendon said he had only intended to read the substance of the opinion.
This follows in Hansard.
Lord Cairns must say the noble Earl took rather a peculiar view of what was private and confidential if he considered that he was entitled to communicate the substance of the opinion, provided only that the words of the opinion were not conveyed to the public. With one exception, where a protest was made that it should not be drawn into a precedent, the opinion of the law officers of the crown had always been considered sacred and not to be divulged.
There was further discussion on that occasion to precisely the same effect. Then on June 10, 1870, at Westminster, the attorney general of that day said in debate in the house, as recorded in Hansard:
He must say that, as a rule, it was not very convenient to publish the opinions of the law officers, who are, in fact, private and confidential advisers of the government. They gave their advice on dry questions of law and not of policy; and the government having received their opinion decided whether they would act upon it either to the full or to a modified extent. He had always understood it to be the rule that these opinions should not be published;-
Again on August 15, 1871, we have this statement from a minister;
Under these circumstances, I shall not feel justified in making what I conceive to be an entirely new and objectionable precedent by laying as a parliamentary paper on the table of the house the opinions which are now asked for.
My final citation from the Westminster Hansard is dated April 17, 1877, where the chancellor of the exchequer said:
-he took the opinion of the law officers; but he never promised to lay that opinion on the table, nor could he have done so, because it was an invariable rule that the opinions of the law officers were treated as confidential.
On the same occasion the attorney general said:
He protested against the principle that hon. members should ask for the opinions of the law officers of the crown, not for the sake of the law officers, but for the sake of the government. The law officers of the crown advised the government confidentially; and if the government yielded and granted the papers asked for, similar applications would be made in every case.
The rule is perfectly clear.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the minister permit a question?


Donald Methuen Fleming: No, I haven't the time. It is a rule well established by the practice of this house. Now, it is quite true that Mr. Ilsley on March 10, 1947, did read an opinion in this house.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What about Mr. Guthrie?


Donald Methuen Fleming: He departed from the practice and the rule. It was a matter of his decision but it does not create a precedent binding on others, and one very prominent member of the house, Mr. T. L. Church, commented on it in the house on March 27, 1947, at page 1790 of Hansard-


John Whitney Pickersgill: How selective can you get?


Donald Methuen Fleming: He drew attention to the fact that this was a very serious departure from the ordinary rule of the house. Therefore in order that the public business of this country may be transacted in the proper way, it is my submission that the house should not ask for the production of a document of a confidential nature in relation to any subject pertaining to opinions given by the law officers of the crown, in this particular case by the deputy attorney general of Canada to the government.
I have given the house the substance of the opinion. The house has been given that already, and no member has the right to say that the text of any opinion should be put before the house. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I ask the house to reject the motion of the hon. member which has no foundation whatever in the established practice of the house.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The minister's time not having expired I would like to ask him a question. What does the minister think of the precedent that Mr. Guthrie, who was Mr. Bennett's minister of justice, followed in 1935 and that the right hon. gentleman, who was successively minister of justice and prime minister of this country followed in 1942, as cited by the hon. gentleman? Does he not think those precedents lead the government and this house better than the precedents of the sixties and seventies in the British house, plus the authoritative opinion of the late Mr. Church?
1432	HOUSE OF
Correspondence on Surcharges Mr. Speaker: Order. I would caution hon. members that when they are going to ask a question they might run the risk of making a speech and therefore having their time in this debate considered to have expired or been taken up.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, this is a typical performance; the hon. member pretends to ask questions and then he smuggles in speeches. But I am happy indeed to deal with his question, if indeed it is a question at all. If he had followed what I was reading in those authoritative statements, the precedents which I drew from the House of Commons in Westminster supporting the general principles which I draw from Todd, May and Campion and which are referred to in these volumes, the hon. member need not make such a pretense of authority when he talks on this subject. He will find they are all referred to there. If he had followed what I said he would have seen that in extraordinary cases it rests with the government in such a situation to decide whether it will put the document forward or not.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Answer my question.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is apparently what Mr. Ilsley decided to do in 1947; that is what Mr. Guthrie decided to do some years earlier. But it happened, apparently, to suit the government at that particular time to lay that opinion before the house. However, that is no precedent whatever for a motion to compel the government to table such an opinion, none whatever.


Mr. Speaker:: I think the score is even. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North
Centre): Mr. Speaker, I regard this request as one of the most important issues that has come before this parliament. It relates to the question as to whether or not the executive has the power to take unto itself a right that belongs to parliament. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Fleming), I suggest, instead of quoting precedents of the last century and instead of relying on the fact that the hon. member's motion may be a little wider than it needs to be, if he has respect for the rights of parliament, should have offered to give to this House of Commons the opinion upon which the government made the decision that it had the right to pass this order in council. It should not have been necessary for any hon. member of this house to make a notice of motion for the production of papers in order to get this document.
Everyone knows there is a dispute over the legality of the order in council which we are discussing. I have not time and I would 

transgress the rules if I went into it at any length, but may I simply say that I have done a good deal of research into this matter and I am satisfied that the Customs Tariff Act does not give the government this authority. Mr. Speaker, if you will be patient and listen for a moment or two you will realize that I am on the point as to whether or not this document should be produced. It is my view that the Customs Tariff Act does not give the government blanket authority to raise import duties, and on that score this order is illegal.
It is also my opinion that the Financial Administration Act is for the administration of the finances of the country, and that the section that has to do with the remission of individual items does not give authority for a blanket remission. I say that what the government has done is invalid. There are other opinions, but that is exactly the point. There is a sharp cleavage, there is a difference of opinion. The government asserts that its order in council is valid; some of us assert that it is not valid.
To clear up this uncertainty, I requested that the matter be referred to the Supreme Court of Canada for an opinion. The Prime Minister refused to do that. The Minister of Justice said four or five times in his remarks today that he gave the house the substance of the opinion of the deputy attorney general. He did no such thing. He merely told us that the deputy attorney general said it was all right, and that if we disagree with the deputy attorney general we are casting reflections on him, or something like that. I would say that in fairness to the deputy attorney general as well as to himself and to the rights of parliament, whatever the substance of that opinion was, as an answer to the arguments that others of us are putting forward, it should be laid before parliament.
In this discussion we have had nothing but argument by assertion. The Prime Minister says he will not refer the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada because there is no uncertainty about it. Who says so? Just the Prime Minister. The Minister of Justice says he has given the substance of that opinion. One can read all the quotations from the minister to which he has referred. All they state is that the government acted on the best advice, that the government acted on the advice of the deputy attorney general. But at no point in the discussion of this matter has the government told us what arguments there were that gave the government the view that it had the authority under the Customs Tariff Act or the Financial Administration Act to pass this dubious order in council which has the effect of raising

charges on the one hand and lowering them on the other and, in effect, imposing taxes without due process of law.
I was able to get one document from the minister that has some slight bearing on this question. It is sessional paper No. 199A tabled on November 7 in response to a motion of mine that asked for a copy of the order which had on it, or attached to it in some way, something to indicate that this order had been examined to ascertain whether or not it met the terms of the Canadian Bill of Rights. I asked for this document because the Canadian Bill of Rights has in it a phrase -I am just quoting from memory-that says persons are protected from their property being taken away without due process of law.
It is our contention that $200 million is being charged to the Canadian people in this fiscal year without due process of law and I wanted to know whether this had been looked at in the light of the Canadian Bill of Rights. The document was tabled. As I say, it was sessional paper No. 199A. It is a photostatic copy of the enacting portion of the order in council, and at the bottom of the page there has been affixed, I presume by rubber stamp-what I have is a photostatic copy-a notation which says, "Examined as required by Canadian Bill of Rights". It is signed "E. A. Driedger, deputy minister of justice" and it is dated June 23, 1962.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes, I produced
that.


Mr. Knowles:: Yes, I said the Minister of Justice produced this document in response to a motion of mine. This is evidence of the fact that the order has been looked at. I think the way the Canadian Bill of Rights operates in this respect is pretty thin, but at least the order has been looked at. Here is evidence that Mr. Driedger is of the opinion that this order in council does not contravene the section of the Canadian Bill of Rights which says there cannot be taxation without due process of law. This is the whole point. We think there has been taxation without due process of law, and no argument in favour of the government's right to do what it did has been given to the House of Commons. I think the Minister of Justice should rise and withdraw his request that parliament refuse to support the motion now before us. I think he should say that he will table the required document without any further request being made. If he has not a written opinion, let him give us a digest of the oral opinion. The minister should not just say he has given the substance of it, when he has not.
Correspondence on Surcharges
As far as the terms of the motion made by the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) are concerned, it was just a debating point when the Minister of Justice said it was too wide. How many times have ministers of the crown risen, in response to these motions, and said they are too wide, but if we restrict them to such and such they will produce them, and Mr. Speaker says that the motion is passed subject to the reservation made by the minister. If the Minister of Justice had played fair with the house he would have said to the hon. member for Essex East, "You are asking too much, but if all you really want is the part about the legality of the order, I will table that".


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, may I just point out that that is precisely what I did.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes. And then the Speaker would say, "The motion is passed subject to the reservation made by the minister". But the minister hides behind what is perhaps too much verbiage in the motion of the hon. member for Essex East to try and escape giving this information to the house.
I say, Mr. Speaker, that one of the most important principles in the relationship between parliament and the executive is at stake. Whether I am right or wrong is not at issue. I hold one opinion and others hold another. The whole question as to whether or not there has been taxation without due process of law, whether parliament has been by-passed, whether the executive has exceeded its authority, whether the government has simply done what it could get away with, is before us right now. There are some historic incidents connected with this principle-do not forget King John and Charles I-and that is why I say it is extremely important. I am keeping one eye on the clock; I do not want to talk this out; I want to give the minister time to change his mind and give this information to the house.
I appeal to him. I remind him of the days when we were both sitting on the other side of the house pleading for consideration of the rights of parliament. One of the supreme rights of parliament is control over the imposition of taxation. Here, taxation has been imposed by executive order, by an order in council which many of us feel was invalid. Authority was not sought from parliament in any shape or form, nor has parliament been given an opportunity to confirm what was done. This is a case of executive action exceeding executive authority. This is a case of a denial of the rights of parliament. The answer given to us is the answer we used to get from another source: "Who can stop us?" It is time the Minister of Finance was
1434	HOUSE OF
Correspondence on Surcharges fair to the house. If he has not got this material in written form, then let him give us the substance of the argument so that the members of this house can test whether the government's argument is right, or whether the order is illegal. In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, this cloak of secrecy is, I suggest, contempt for the rights of parliament.


Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister):: I deplore what I consider to be the irresponsible suggestion made by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, possibly for political purposes, that bills or resolutions or legislation whose validity is questioned should be referred to the supreme court.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Gerald William Baldwin: I suggest that if this practice were followed it would lead to an intolerable situation. That is not the process by which they should be tested. Of course, the government in bringing down legislation from time to time must seek the advice of its proper legal staff. It must, when drafting legislation, consider their opinions and proceed accordingly. Merely because, possibly for base political motives, some hon. members want to question these opinions does not mean they should be submitted to the supreme court. An impossible situation would be created in such a case and the gears of government would grind to a halt.
There are some who take offence because the Minister of Justice went some lengthy distance back to find some of the various citations he used. I do not need to go so far back. In 1958 something was said on the subject in connection with a motion to which the hon. member for Essex East has already referred. The authority is sometimes of doubtful validity, but on occasions we may accept his words. This is the hon. member for Essex East himself as reported on page 3111 of Hansard for 1958:
I say that the government was justified in not revealing a document which had been prepared by the public service in the situation I have mentioned.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Gerald William Baldwin: I have not got too much time.


Paul Joseph James Martin: On a point of order, I am entitled to know what the hon. gentleman is referring to. That was not a legal opinion. That is the whole point.


Gerald William Baldwin: During the course of the same debate, another source which is not altogether unimpeachable, I refer to the hon. member


for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) had something to say in the form of a question. It appears on page 3121.
Does the minister think that reports and documents of this kind prepared by civil servants for the confidential use of ministers should be made public at any time in any circumstances?


John Whitney Pickersgill: On a question of privilege, I suggest that by taking that quotation out of its context the hon. member is misrepresenting the position I took. The position I took had no reference to legal opinions.


Mr. Speaker:: I suggest to the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate that what he is doing is refuting the argument put forward by the hon. member who has the floor and, perhaps, engaging in argument. An opportunity may arise for him to speak later. I do not know.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Gerald William Baldwin: Members on this side of the house will not be intimidated by the demands of those on the other side. We are entitled to debate this important issue.


Some hon. Members:: Two minutes to go.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The house has laid down certain rules for the orderly conduct of its business. They include a rule that the hon. member who has the floor is the only one who has a right to speak. Other hon. members will defer their observations until another occasion.


Gerald William Baldwin: As I was about to say, the hon. member for Essex East has obviously done a tremendous amount of research on this matter, to judge by the pile of books on his table. He has examined the records for 25 or 30 years and he has only come up with three cases-


Paul Joseph James Martin: There are others.
I only had 20 minutes in which to present my case.


Gerald William Baldwin: I am going by what the hon. member stated. I am sure that if he had found other examples he would have told us about them.
As the Minister of Justice has pointed out there are rules which have been laid down for the proper conduct of government in these cases, but there may be circumstances and conditions under which, by reason of the nature and quality of the opinions and documents proffered by the legal advisers to ministers of the crown, ministers may see fit to waive these rules and produce documents

when requested. This happens not infrequently, and I suggest the hon. gentleman has merely given us examples of occasions when this was done.
May I call it six o'clock?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Before you leave the chair, Mr. Speaker, may I raise what I think will be a non-contentious point of order? It is this. We have had no precedent for a motion such as this going over to another day. Would Your Honour give consideration to the order it will have on the order paper the next time it comes up?


Mr. Speaker:: I shall do so.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.

Léon Balcer: That a sessional committee on railways, air lines and shipping owned and controlled by the government be appointed to consider the accounts, estimates and bills relating to the Canadian National Railways, the Canadian National (West Indies) Steamships, and Trans-Canada Air Lines, saving always the powers of the committee of supply in relation to the voting of public moneys, and that the said committee be empowered to send for persons, papers and records, and to report from time to time, and that notwithstanding standing order 67 in relation to the limitation of the number of members, the said committee shall consist of 26 members.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this motion is to appoint the committee which sits annually to review the affairs of the Canadian National Railways and Trans-Canada Air Lines. This committee has served a very useful purpose in the past, and I am sure the work of this year's committee will prove to be of equal value.
The committee will have before it the annual reports of the two crown corporations for 1961, the auditor's reports on the two companies as well as the budget for each for 1962. These documents were all tabled during the last session of parliament and if this motion meets with the approval of the house I propose to ask leave formally to refer them to the committee together with the usual items of estimates.
Railways, Air Lines and Shipping
The house will have noted that the motion includes the Canadian National (West Indies) Steamships. During the years when this company was under the management of the Canadian National it was the practice to include it in the committee's terms of reference. As the house knows, the company ceased shipping operations, and consequently arrangements were made in 1959 to transfer the corporate management to the government. The remaining functions of the company are primarily of an administrative and financial nature of direct concern to the Department of Finance and the Department of Transport, and the present directors are Mr. H. R. Balls, comptroller of the treasury; Mr. C. S. Booth, assistant deputy minister of transport; Mr. C. M. Isbister, assistant deputy minister of finance; and Mr. A. Watson, chairman of the Canadian maritime commission.
The company continues to make an annual report to parliament, and its 1961 report was tabled on March 21, 1962. As the company no longer comes under the control of the Canadian National Railways, its annual report should not be referred to this committee, and I propose to move that the motion be amended accordingly. In this connection I might add that the motion which appointed the committee in 1961 did not include the West Indies Steamships.
If discussion of the company is desired, an opportunity will be given when the estimates of the Department of Transport are before the house.
By leave, Mr. Speaker, I wish to move: That the motion be amended by deleting the words "the Canadian National (West Indies) Steamships".


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, it is not surprising to me that the minister would move to amend this motion, particularly having regard to the fact that the Canadian National (West Indies) Steamships has been out of existence now for many years. It is also surprising that the minister would not come into the house with the resolution to set up this committee properly drafted in the first instance. However, that situation happened once before and the minister knows with what result. In any event, I did not rise to deal with that aspect of the matter. I rose to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is the usual resolution which comes before the house to establish the sessional committee on railways, air lines and shipping owned and controlled by the government.
It has been the practice to deal generally and not specifically with some of the matters that are likely to come before the committee. I have no intention of spending any great

Railways, Air Lines and Shipping length of time on this matter as I think the sooner we get into the committee and listen to the evidence of the chairman of the Canadian National Railways on matters affecting his line and of the president of Trans-Canada Air Lines on matter affecting these crown corporations, the better it will be. However, I cannot resist the temptation of saying that I take it there will be discussed in the committee the policy of Trans-Canada Air Lines and of the Canadian National Railways; I refer to the policy of T.C.A. with reference to its own operations and that of the Canadian National Railways with reference to its many lines. Of course, that raises the questions we asked yesterday on the orders of the day and again today indicating that it is high time the government of this country would come forward with a clearcut civil aviation policy in which Trans-Canada Air Lines is particularly interested. I need hardly tell the house that it comes as no surprise to those of us who sit here that an important official of the Department of Transport, no less than the chairman of the air transport board, would make the statement attributed to him in the press of November 7 in which he complained strongly about the lack of policy in that field.
There are a number of matters that come to mind when one discusses the establishment of this committee. When will the government make a policy announcement with reference to civil aviation? I think the time is long past when this should have been done. There have been, of course, contradictory statements, one made at Timmins by the minister's predecessor that there would be no interference in international air routes and another made by the minister himself when he announced a new route for C.P.A. almost a year and a half ago, although authority for landing rights in London for C.P.A. is still not forthcoming.
There is the very vital question of the bilateral air agreements which I sought to bring up today, which are of tremendous importance to T.C.A. and C.P.A. and about which I trust there will be some discussion in the committee. It is very difficult to understand why three and perhaps four foreign air lines should have the right to fly from Montreal to Chicago, Montreal to San Francisco and Montreal to Los Angeles while T.C.A. and C.P.A. have not got similar rights. It was attempted during the course of the question period today to say that these are bilateral agreements and that negotiations are going on with our friends and neighbours to the south in order to better our position. That may be so; but as indicated at the time, these rights should never have been given to


foreign carriers before the two lines operating in this country had obtained similar rights from the United States.
There is, of course, the very vital question of the policy of the government with reference to regional air carriers. The minister did say something about that in answer to a question and I trust that the time will come soon when, following the report of the air transport board in that respect, an announcement of policy with reference to the regional carriers will be made. There is no doubt that the position of T.C.A. has been weakened since this government took office. I say that, confident that this is so, particularly when one looks at the financial aspect of the line. In the last two years there has been a substantial deterioration in the profit and loss picture of T.C.A., and I trust that during the sittings of the committee it will be possible to get some further clarification on this point. Again, it is rather difficult for those of us on this side of the house to understand why the minister would rise in his place and announce a new international route for C.P.A. before he had even obtained assurance from the United Kingdom that landing rights could be obtained in that country.
I said at the start that I did not intend to speak for an undue length of time and I will not do so, but there are one or two matters that I think should be mentioned with reference to the railways. Canadian National Railways, like all other railways, have their difficulties in this day and age, but the position of Canadian National Railways is affected tremendously by the royal commission on transportation. I refer, of course, to the Mac-Pherson commission. That commission was established some years ago now and I well remember the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefen-baker) telling us in no uncertain terms that as soon as the commission had made its report the recommendations would not only be acted upon but applications could be made in due course to the board of transport commissioners. Again today we had an example of how, notwithstanding the statement made by the Prime Minister, applications are being made to the board of transport commissioners for the discontinuance of lines in various parts of the country while on the other hand the royal commission on transportation has recommended that 8,600 miles of railway branch lines be abandoned upon payment of certain subsidies.
I trust that after these long years of study by the royal commission it will be possible to obtain in this house some indication of policy affecting both the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific Railways in regard to the whole subject of freight rates and

freight rate making because, having looked carefully at the recommendations of the royal commission on transportation I am astounded that over a period of 15 years they mean payment by the taxpayers of this country of $715 million in subsidies. In fact, it is even estimated that the subsidies to cover the whole field over that length of time might reach the fantastic sum of $1 billion. I do not know what the government intends to do about these recommendations but I think it should soon give the house some indication of what it intends to do in that regard.
Then there are the very important recommendations concerning the abandonment of the bridge subsidy in northern Ontario as well as the abandonment of the subsidy under the Maritime Freight Rates Act. If the Maritime Freight Rates Act is done away with as suggested in the recommendations and if the bridge subsidy is done away with, there is grave danger that in those areas where the subsidies now operate the inequality in freight rates and in the freight rate structure will be far worse than it is at the present time. I think careful consideration must be given by the government before it brings down legislation on this matter as well as others that, unfortunately, I do not have time to touch upon.
One thing, however, that does impress me tremendously in dealing with Canadian National Railways matters is the terms of reference to the royal commission on transportation which were varied but which can be summarized under two heads: 1. To inquire into the problems relating to railway transportation in Canada; and 2. The possibility of removing or alleviating inequities in the freight rate structure. After having carefully read the volumes of the report of the royal commission on transportation I have grave doubts that either of these two principal purposes has been met, certainly not with the intention that the government had in mind. When the government drafted the order in council I am sure it had in mind exactly what is meant by the wording of this term of reference, but that is not what is happening in the recommendations that are being made by the royal commission. I say respectfully to the minister and to the government that the royal commission has failed to deal with those two principal purposes mentioned in the order in council.
As I read this report, and as I understand it, the failure of the recommendations to remove the alleged inequalities in the present freight structure, and the danger that that will create, leads me to believe that the inequities which will follow might be greater than those which exist at the present time. While these subsidies are fantastic in amount, there is no
Railways, Air Lines and Shipping condition laid down that these will be paid in substitution for some of the inequities that exist at the present time. The recommendations regarding freight rates, I submit with respect, are impractical in their application, unless of course the well tried principles of transportation law are to be disregarded entirely.
I come back now to the purpose of the motion which is to deal with these matters. I have mentioned about ten of them. There are far more that I could mention, but I do not believe this is the time to deal with them. I think the proper time to deal with them will be either in committee or on the estimates of the Minister of Transport. However, there is certainly a serious problem with reference to inequities in the freight rate structure which it will be expected the president of the Canadian National Railways will be called upon to deal with in committee. I trust that during the course of these discussions, or soon, the minister will be able to give the house some indication when these long awaited recommendations of the royal commission on transportation will be either implemented or ignored, so that the railways will be in a position to estimate their own needs.
I think at the moment of the Freight Rates Reduction Act and the sloppy manner in which the act was handled. I need not tell the minister about that because here we are in the month of November and the Freight Rates Reduction Act expired in April, 1962. There has been no attempt made, either before the last parliament was dissolved or since this one has been initiated, to put that act in conformity with the law. I do not know, therefore, what is happening. What about this Freight Rates Reduction Act, and the 8 per cent in freight rates reductions to which the Canadian National Railway is entitled? How are they to be paid? I do not know what authority there is from this parliament. There is no authority there to pay the railways. Is there an agreement between the government and the railways, notwithstanding the fact the law is not in operation, that the railways will be paid? The house should be told that. Canadian National Railways if it has an agreement with the government as well as the other railways, I am sure would want the country to know about it.
These, sir, are the things that I trust will be discussed in the committee. As I have said, there will certainly not be the slightest objection but, on the contrary, support for the establishment of the committee from this side of the house.
1438	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Railways, Air Lines and Shipping


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I was pleased to see the hon. member was limiting himself to generalities, even though perhaps he did go a little bit further than he himself indicated he might. He indicated that the time was not opportune for a discussion of general transportation policy. He indicated the right place where these matters should be discussed, namely, the estimates of the Department of Transport. In other words, we are getting into a debate in anticipation. There have been, I think, discussions in previous years recorded in Hansard on this particular matter with which we are dealing now. I am not trying to rule on a point of order in advance, but only perhaps to give a word of caution or draw the attention of hon. members to the fact that this is not a general debate on transportation policy.


Mr. D. M. Fisher (Port Arthur):: Mr. Speaker, I shall confine myself to Canadian National and Trans-Canada and, of course, their relations to transportation policies. I agree with the previous speaker, although I would have put it somewhat differently, that this government does not have a coherent policy in either rail transportation, air transportation or any other kind of transportation. This is one of its great weaknesses.
We have before us a motion of which we approve, that is to have the accounts and the management of the Canadian National before a select committee. This occasion, Mr. Speaker, is always one to which some people look forward. In the past, it has provided an opportunity for a review of Canadian National operations and an encounter with Mr. Gordon, if you want to put it that way, for the new members who are interested in this committee. It is a small committee and it meets in the railway committee room. Up until the last meeting of the committee it was a tradition for Mr. Gordon, the president of Canadian National, to answer most of the questions. He would explain the report and the meeting was largely in his hands.
In the past, there have been great numbers of rather distinguished members who have examined and cross-examined him. The list includes the present Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fulton) the postmaster general in the previous parliament, the former member for York West and even the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Green) who some years ago had his opportunity of examining the president of Canadian National.
Some of you may be wondering why I am mentioning the president so often. In effect, Mr. Gordon has tended to symbolize Canadian National Railways since 1950. He was reappointed last year after some delay and, if

I understand it, he has three more years to go. He will continue, therefore, to be the symbol of Canadian National and everything embodied in him will go along as it has been for some time. Some years ago some of us asked the government not to reappoint Mr. Gordon. After the last melodramatic committee meeting-someone called it a farce and others might have called it a tragedy-I announced for our party that we were through with this particular technique.
At the last committee meeting, Mr. Gordon came in in a completely different mood, Mr. Speaker. Instead of handling everything himself he had a regular bevy of officials there. We met all the fine chaps who are the senior executives and occupy the administrative positions in Canadian National. My friends across the way will be interested to know that there was not any translation system in the committee room and, as I remember, there was very little French spoken. There are 17 vice presidents of Canadian National and hon. members may be interested in knowing that not one of them is a French Canadian.


An hon. Member:: We know.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Anyway, the committee met and we had a performance. It turned out we had an Achilles without a heel, that was Mr. Gordon, and a bunch of heels examining him. Gradually, as a result of the little melodrama injected into the committee, the sympathy of the press gallery members swung to the president of Canadian National and female spectators sniffled. He retired to Montreal with a classic triumph from his melodrama. True blue Don had saved the day against the wicked M.P.'s. Since that time things have been relatively quiet so far as the Canadian National Railways are concerned. Mr. Gordon is still a very pretentious figure.
I should now like to turn to some of the things which I believe should be looked at when we examine the annual report of the C.N.R. Mr. Gordon is a thinking man, a businessman. I have here an announcement carried by the Western Producer of Tuesday, October 4, 1962, when Mr. Gordon went to Winnipeg and called for a master grain handling plan. When one hears that one has visions of grain elevators disappearing, railway branch lines disappearing, and trucks hauling grain all over the prairies.
That report scared stiff a lot of the farmers out west, and it has scared a lot of other people who wonder how far this is going to take the C.N.R. into the trucking business. Just about a year ago Mr. Gaffney, one of

Mr. Gordon's assistants, in a speech to the automotive transport association said:
-I want to make it clear that we have no intention of building anything like a trucking monopoly.
Not the good old C.N.R.-they are not going to get into anything big like trucking. He added:
Our business is railroading, and the Canadian National has too large a capital investment in railroading equipment ever to desert that primary investment.
That may be so, but I have been given some answers to questions I placed on the order paper, which indicate that the Canadian National is becoming a very substantial trucking company, and if this master grain handling plan comes into existence then I can see great fleets of C.N.R. freight trucks ranging all over the west.
This is something which we should inquire into very thoroughly in the committee, and we should seek to find out what projection the C.N.R. has of its entry into the trucking business. In saying this, I am not speaking on behalf of the Canadian trucking association or its associate bodies. To me it seems that association is somewhat demoralized at the present time because so many truckers are waiting around hopefully for big bids for their properties from the C.N.R., and they do not want to take too stiff a stand for a trucking business separated from railway operations.
I want to draw the minister's attention to the situation in his own province. If he reads the publication Quebec Road Transport he will see the issue is very much alive.
My point is that we have a railway which is loaded with debt and which has been borrowing more money to bring its equipment up to date, and its entry on an initial small scale into the trucking business has been developing very quickly. Yet we have been given no idea by the government or the C.N.R. of how far that trend is to continue. I think very good arguments can be made for an integrated transport system that covers the whole spectrum, rail, road, and water, but the way this is proceeding leads me to believe we should be very closely analytical of this aspect of the C.N.R. report, when the time comes.
One of the reasons why my hon. friends across the way may be interested in questioning Mr. Gordon relates to a proposal he made to the government last year that, in effect by a bookkeeping entry or a change in accounts, they could wipe out somewhere between $700 million and $900 million of the C.N.R.'s debt. In other words Mr. Gordon is like the Liberals. He is a debt free advocate,
Railways, Air Lines and Shipping and in saying that I am not in any way imputing any political partisanship to him. I do not know what his politics are. I know he was appointed early in the fifties and he has always argued to remove debt. Therefore some of our friends in the Social Credit party may find themselves not only soulmates to the Liberals but also to Mr. Gordon.
Another thing we should examine Mr. Gordon on is the question of the branch line from Ste. Anne des Monts to Matane. We really have not heard from Mr. Gordon how it was that he came to accept the role which the government gave the C.N.R. in that operation. If anyone is interested in it there is an article in the Winnipeg Free Press of March 16, 1962, headed "An unnecessary branch line-$14 millions to be wasted."
Mr. Gordon welcomed the report of the royal commission on railway problems, and in the annual report which we will be examining he responded to suggestions made by the commission. The newspapers pitched it this way, and this is from the Gazette of March 21, 1962, "C.N.R. seeks freedom to battle rivals-C.N.R. seeks freedom to fight." So, we find Mr. Gordon, like Mr. Crump of the C.P.R., talking in terms of delight about the MacPherson royal commission. A lot of people have said that the royal commission report with its recommendations relating to the C.N.R. and C.P.R. is, in effect, a document for free enterprise. This is something on which we should examine Mr. Gordon when he appears before the committee.
He wants to be allowed to compete on an all-out basis, but he is the president of an organization that is supported completely and totally by the taxpayers in terms of the capital behind it, and if this all-out competition is allowed, in the free enterprise sector which some hon. members prize so much, then it will certainly have repercussions. Indeed I have wondered about the propriety of the alacrity with which Mr. Gordon was prepared to seize on certain recommendations in the MacPherson commission report. I shall not say more than a few words about it as you, Mr. Speaker, may think it is out of order, but I believe it is a nonsensical report particularly in relation to the Canadian National Railways.
There is another fundamental matter in regard to the C.N.R. which I think should be examined.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not want to limit discussion on this matter, but if hon. members look back they will find some rulings of previous Speakers in this regard. I refer first to Mr. HOUSE OF COMMONS
Railways, Air Lines and Shipping Speaker Beaudoin, as reported at page 2441 of Hansard for March 28, 1955:
-if anyone wishes to deal at great length with a certain subject which he would like to see debated before the committee, I submit he ought to wait until the committee is set up and submit it there.
In fact that was precisely on the motion to set up this same committee. Then further on at page 2442 he said:
I think I have done my duty in pointing out that when we are setting up a committee it does not mean we should debate all the things hon. members would like to see the committee deal vith on the motion to appoint the committee.
Then in 1961, Mr. Speaker Michener had this to say as reported at page 1184 of Hansard for January 18 of that year:
I take the view, rightly or wrongly, that the motion is to set up the committee and is not a review of the whole of the matters to be referred to the committee. It is simply a request to the house, and it is for the house to decide whether a committee is or is not desirable at this time, and that is a relatively narrow field of debate.
Therefore, without wanting to restrict matters unduly, I think it would be better if hon. members concentrated on the desirability of setting up the committee and make passing references to things which may be raised in committee, but not go into general matters of transportation policy. Otherwise, if one hon. member is prepared to devote his 20 minutes or half an hour in setting up various points, and other hon. members do the same, we will then have a whole series of these points. I think the hon. member will realize what I am driving at.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I want to bring something to your attention in relation to the point of order you raised. I have here, for example, a clipping from the Globe and Mail of August 31, 1962. The heading is "Interlocking transport urged by C.N.R. head". The article continues:
A national transportation system with interlocking services was suggested yesterday by Donald Gordon, president of Canadian National Railways.
This is the gentleman who is coming here before us. He heads the largest transportation system in the country; some say, in the world. He deals in a tremendous number of affairs both in relation to railways and all kinds of shipping. I am reviewing, I believe, at this time mainly the points in relation to the Canadian National Railways, and I assure the house that I do not intend to stray away from the Canadian National Railways until I get to T.C.A., and then I hope to go into that question.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not know that we can go into all the matters that concern the C.N.R. and T.C.A. in this regard that hon. members may wish to raise. I think the

rules to which I have referred are quite clear in this respect. The motion is a narrow one, the desirability of setting up the committee; it is not the desirability of debating this or that subject. I trust we will be governed by that.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I am very strongly in favour of setting up this committee. I am setting out the reasons why, and the things I want the committee to do. For example, this is from Railway Transport put out by D.B.S., 1961 part VI, employment statistics. I want the house to look at these figures in relation to Canadian National Railways employment performance in 1961. This is the preliminary paragraph:
Railway employment in Canada continued to decline in 1961, dropping 5.4 per cent to an average 166,081 persons from 175,537 in 1960.
Then I miss a few sentences, and it goes on:
The Canadian National Railways employed an average of 92,238 persons during the year under review, a 4.1 per cent decline from 96,227 in 1960.
These drops, Mr. Speaker, in Canadian National Railways employment have not just been concentrated in 1961; this has been happening practically every year since 1955. The situation is that if the projection goes on it will mean that within a 15 year period employment in Canadian National Railways will be almost halved. This involves Canadian National Railways in the big problems of Canada, such as unemployment, automation, retraining, labour relations, and all the rest.
I know how complicated the subject is because I was involved in a dispute between one of the operating brotherhoods of Canadian National Railways and we had briefs piled high before we even got close to getting into the case in detail. One of the things this committee, I would hope, would examine much more closely than it has in the past and really arrive at a much more non-contentious answer as a result of non-contentious questions from its members to the president of Canadian National Railways, who I hope will give a clearer answer than we have had in the past, is the question as to what Canadian National Railways is doing with regard to alternative employment and retraining within its system. We would like to get further into the excuses that Mr. Gordon is always putting forward.
Mr. Speaker, I have so many clippings on Canadian National Railways that I can never plot my way through them, but repeatedly you find statements throughout the year by Mr. Gordon that the demands of labour unions are breaking the Canadian National Railways, or the new demands will mean

the end of the railway. This is probably the way, in our particular kind of society, that the head, the great manager of an organization has to behave.


An hon. Member:: Nobody else overstates their case.


Douglas Mason Fisher: The hon. member interjects and says that nobody else overstates their case. My criticism of Mr. Gordon is not that he is overstating his case in so far as labour problems are concerned; my criticism is that he does not get down to work with these union men who have relationships with his company and try to do something about meeting this challenge of unemployment, retraining and shifting people. I happen to have, Mr. Speaker, as you probably know as a traveller to the west, three Canadian National Railways divisional points in my constituency. What has happened to them in the last few years? Land values have tumbled; people with 35 years work as machinists and skilled tradesmen are out completely. Again, this kind of dislocation is something that we in this committee in the past five years have never really had a thorough, satisfactory answer to. This is one of the things we are going to be looking for, and I hope other hon. members of the house will also.
Having said that, I quite agree that in the past in the committee some of us have been too picayune so far as some of the details we have sought are concerned. I know some of us have actually got down to men working in the roundhouse at various places. But I do feel that this steady decrease in employment, this disappearance of jobs, this impact upon the workers of the Canadian National Railways, is something we must go into in very great detail.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make some remarks about Trans-Canada Air Lines. They relate partly to the kind of criticism put forward by the hon. member for Laurier. T.C.A. brings to us this year a substantial deficit in relation to its recent performance, and if it goes on as in previous years, we will hear very flatly, very directly, from Mr. Gordon McGregor the reasons for the deficit. As most hon. members probably know, he has expressed his reasons in public very recently. Mr. McConachie, the head of Canadian Pacific Airlines, tosses away these losses of T.C.A. and his own air line, saying it is just part of the jet change. All we know is that T.C.A. was doing very nicely and is now in the red. It is in the red as a result of a government policy change.
Here I would like to make a suggestion in relation to Canadian National Railways, and T.C.A. It is that for a change the Minister
Railways, Air Lines and Shipping of Transport (Mr. Balcer) stays with us in the committee, instead of making his customary presence felt at the beginning only. We are glad to see him. For a while he gives a benign air to things, and then he goes away. I would like to suggest that what we need when T.C.A. comes before us-I know the hon. member for Laurier will agree-is that the minister stay there and when we ask questions in relation to T.C.A.'s performance, the minister should give us some explanation as to why T.C.A. is losing money. If clearly it is as a result of a change in government policy, that is the time we should get our explanations from the minister about T.C.A.'s difficulties.
One of the great problems in relation to air transportation is this. Mr. McGregor told us in one of our previous meetings that despite our population of about 18 million, the core of the people who travel by air numbers roughly 50,000. That is, if you pull these 50,000 people out of using the air line, you just would not have enough to keep many aeroplanes in the air. It seems to me that one of the things we need to get at this time with regard to T.C.A.'s future is how great these deficits are going to be and how long they are going to continue, because it is fairly apparent that this country is putting out a tremendous outlay for air transportation in the sense that we have this huge plant build-up across the country of airports and terminals and all the weather services, radar, and everything else. As hon. members probably know, the Minister of Transport heads about the fastest growing department of them all in terms of staff. It is difficult to use austerity measures in such a department, and one of the reasons is that air lines such as T.C.A. and C.P.A. require a host of built-in services to which the fares collected have no cost relation at all. They do not cover them or come close to it. My argument here is that when we have a relatively small group of our population using an air line such as T.C.A. it seems to me we really deserve a review in this committee of the situation of that company now and in the future, because if the present kind of muddling goes on T.C.A. will not have any future, and it is questionable whether this other enterprise will have one either.
The C.N.R. and Trans-Canada Air Lines are operations which in the past have been labelled as socialist. One of the arguments we often hear when some of us are accused of being socialists is: Look at the C.N.R.- look at the T.C.A. with their deficits. Isn't that an argument against government enterprise? One of my friends after the 1957 election happened to be travelling with the

Railways, Air Lines and Shipping politician who created the Trans-Canada Air Lines, the former member for Port Arthur, and in their conversation the former member for Port Arthur put it very plainly that Canada only had a place for one major air line; there just was not the market or the opportunity for more. Well, this is one case where the present member for Port Arthur and the former member for Port Arthur were in agreement. It seems to me that in relation to both these crown corporations we should not conceive of them as having to be run like a private enterprise concern and show a profit for the taxpayer, but that we announce a policy on public transportation into which the C.N.R. and the T.C.A. must fit in order to give service of the kind required, and then we examine their affairs in order to find out whether they provide such a service efficiently. Some hon. members may suggest I have changed my line compared with what I was saying a few minutes ago about the immense deficits of both the T.C.A. and the C.N.R. This is not so. One can only judge deficits in the light of circumstances in which crown corporations such as these are placed by reason of government policy.
Some of my colleagues have remarks to make in connection with the annual report of the C.N.R. and T.C.A. This is one of the occasions to which those of us who were in the previous parliament look forward-an occasion on which we have a chance to meet two very able gentlemen, because whatever criticism one might direct against the presidents of the C.N.R. and T.C.A., I certainly would be the first to point out that they are men of great ability.


Mr. McGee:: Oh, oh.


Douglas Mason Fisher: I hear "oh, oh" from the hon. member for York-Scarborough. I assume from the tone of that "oh, oh" that the hon. member is suggesting I am making some kind of apology. I am not, with relation to the president of the C.N.R., but because one disagrees with a man about the way he carries out a job it does not mean one has to consider him stupid, and Mr. Gordon is far from stupid.


Mr. Lewis:: Would you apply that adjective to the hon. member for York-Scarborough?


Douglas Mason Fisher: The same applies to the hon. member for York-Scarborough. Of course, he is too nice for anything like that to be said about him.


An hon. Member:: It is getting sickening.


Frank Charles McGee: All I said was "oh, oh".


Douglas Mason Fisher: According to an academic study which was made of parliamentary records from about 1925 to 1958, the C.N.R. led by

far and away all the other topics of interest to parliamentarians in terms of space taken up in Hansard and in the Journals. Even more than the C.B.C., with programs such as "Quest", the subject of the C.N.R. has been, traditionally, of major interest to members of parliament. It is significant, too, that the railway committee room is the largest committee room we have.
At the present time, the railways are in a state of transition. This is reflected in the employment figures I have given and in the deficits we have rolled up in front of us. I would hope that we can make a transition, too, in our examination of this question and bring to that examination a deeper interest and a deeper knowledge than some of us have at the present time. For that reason I hope that this committee has a stirring and interesting time. I would say to new members of the house who are going to be on this committee that there are all kinds of records they can look at from the fairly recent past which will give them, if not ammunition, then at least questions.


Chesley William Carter: I should like to take advantage of this opportunity to call to the attention of the house the handicap which has been imposed upon the economy of my province, upon Newfoundlanders generally, and upon my own constituency by the recent curtailment of the C.N.R. train services in Newfoundland.
I hope, Mr. Speaker, you will bear with me, because if you rule me out of order there is no other way, as far as I know, in which this matter can be brought before the house or even dealt with in committee. I know from previous experience that when I have sought to raise matters of this kind pertaining to the railway service in Newfoundland in committee, the manager of the C.N.R. has always reminded me that in Newfoundland the C.N.R. is merely an agent of the government because the railway there is not the property of the C.N.R. but the property of the federal government, and the service which is provided is also the responsibility of the government of Canada. Mr. Gordon has reminded me on more than one occasion that when the government says it wants a thing done he is happy to do it, but he does not have to take the initiative himself. You may think, sir, that this is a matter which can be brought up when the estimates of the Department of Transport are before the committee of this house; but on previous occasions when I have brought up these matters on the estimates the minister has said: I know nothing about the C.N.R.; the proper way to deal with this is in the committee.

This is why I should like to bring the question to the attention of the house now, and
I	will be as brief as I can.
Newfoundland has never had a railway
service comparable to that of the other regions of Canada. We have been obliged to put up with a narrow gauge railway with all the discomforts and inconveniences that go with it. I refer to the discomforts and inconveniences that arise from lack of space, small compartments, lack of choice of compartments, and the rougher ride because of the narrow gauge, steeper grades and so on. The situation is bad enough on first class trains but on third class trains in Newfoundland the conditions are almost incredible. The lack of consideration for passengers convenience and comfort is something I believe would not be tolerated in any other part of the civilized world.
In 1949, before we became a part of Canada and when we had a population of only 350,000 and very slim resources, the Newfoundland government operated 12 crossprovince trains per week; that is to say six per week in each direction between Port aux Basques and St. John's. Today when we have a population of 500,000, an increase of 50 per cent, that service has been reduced to 10 or
II	trains per week. The 12 first class trains have been reduced to three first class trains in each direction per week. That is progress in reverse. In addition to that, in order to substitute for the trains that have been taken off, the passengers in Newfoundland are asked to travel on third class trains. A third class train is one made up of a mail car, a baggage car and a freight car with a passenger coach attached. Under normal conditions that train takes from 30 hours to 33 hours to travel from St. John's to Port aux Basques or from Port aux Basques to St. John's. In the winter months when conditions are anything but normal it may take twice as long. The people are asked to travel under those conditions with no sleeping accommodation, no eating accommodation and no restaurants along the route.


An hon. Member:: How many miles is that?


Chesley William Carter: That is a distance of 547 miles. I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to compare that situation with the service in Nova Scotia or that in any of the other maritime provinces, such as the service between Halifax and North Sydney or between Halifax and Montreal. Every province depends upon communications for its development. That is a prime requisite for economic development in any province. We are worse off than are the other maritime provinces in that we have fewer roads. Moreover, the roads which we have are of a poorer quality. We also have fewer airfields. In fact, we have only three.
Railways, Air Lines and Shipping These are located at St. John's, Gander and Stephenville. This railway service is being curtailed at the time of year when we need it the most, namely when the roads become impassable and when winter flying conditions make flying uncertain.
The point I wish to make is that this is not so much the responsibility of the Canadian National management as it is of the federal government. The federal government can determine what kind of service Newfoundland should have. I do not know why the C.N.R. have curtailed the service. It is probably because they are running on a budget. The minister can correct that situation. All he has to say to the management is this: reinstate the service as it was and we will pay whatever the extra cost is or we will make up the deficiency in the budget. I wish to point out to the minister and to the government that they have a moral obligation to maintain the railway service in Newfoundland at a level at least equalling that which we had when we entered union with Canada, as many people in Newfoundland have no other way of getting from one settlement to another and are entirely dependant upon the service provided by the Canadian National Railways. I urge the minister to take early action to have the situation corrected.
(Translation):


Mr. Real Caoueite (Villeneuve):: Mr. Speaker, a few words only about resolution No. 27-


An hon. Member:: Be a good man, Mr. Caouette, do not be unkind.


David Réal Caouette: -which says:
That a sessional committee on railways, air lines and shipping owned and controlled by the government be appointed to consider the accounts-
That committee, Mr. Speaker, will be called upon to consider and, above all, to examine very seriously the accounts relating to railways, air lines and shipping owned by the government.
Now, a moment ago, we heard the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher) talk about the government enterprise which has been operating at a loss, from year to year, for quite a while, to such an extent that we are now wondering seriously, and quite rightly so, in what boat our socialist friends are now sailing, when after asking for government enterprises, nationalization, and even state ownership, they come and tell us here that the government enterprise has failed or missed the mark, in other words, as regards services and results for the Canadian people as a whole.
I now resume the reading of the resolution:
-estimates and bills relating to the Canadian National Railways, the Canadian National (West

Railways, Air Lines and Shipping Indies) Steamships and Trans-Canada Air Lines, saving always the powers of the committee of supply, in relation to the voting of public moneys-
Since we have been here, that is since the beginning of this session, we have been getting right and left, or left and right, complaints from people engaged in private enterprise in Canada about the subsidies voted by the government to make up for the deficits of the Canadian National Railways, Trans-Canada Air Lines, and all other crown companies.
These subsidies, Mr. Speaker, are paid out of the taxes raised from private enterprise. We have, in Canada, trucking companies which give the best possible service to their customers. We raise taxes from those private companies in order to enable the Canadian parliament to make up the deficits of the C.N.R., T.C.A., and other crown companies.
Thus, we wonder where private initiative and private enterprise are respected. That is what this resolution should consider.
The 26 members who will make up this committee will have to consider the complaints of Canadian private enterprise.
It is not logical, it is not, in short, Canadian, to force private enterprise to pay taxes so as to make up the deficits of the C.N.R. or of T.C.A.
The resolution also contains the following:
-saving always the powers of the committee of supply in relation to the voting of public moneys-
Mr. Speaker, public moneys come from the consumers, the Canadian citizens, the people who are engaged in the transportation or the trucking business in Canada.
That is why our 26 members will have to make a careful examination of the situation, whether they be Conservatives, Liberals or members of the N.D.P., that is of no consequence; only Social Credit is of consequence when it comes to the recognition of the importance of private enterprise in Canada. (Text):


Douglas Mason Fisher: He is with you now. He is debt free.


Hazen Robert Argue: Oh, you are quite wrong there. (Translation):


David Réal Caouette: I realize that the members of the New Democratic party are opposed to that statement, as well as my friend, the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue), formerly a socialist, a C.C.F.'er who is coming ever closer to us, we hope. It is precisely because he shed the socialist label that weighed him down for so many years, when he sat on the other side of the house. The next one will be the hon. member for Port Arthur.
[Mr. Caouette.)


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


David Réal Caouette: It is a fact, he will end up as a Social Crediter.
-that the said committee be empowered to send for persons, papers and records, and to report from time to time-
-from time to time, that means not very often.
-that notwithstanding standing order 67 in relation to the limitation of the number of members, the said committee shall consist of 26 members.
Mr. Speaker, we are in favour of the establishment of such a committee. Without any partisanship, we sincerely believe that the committee could be called upon, in the general interest of Canada, for the expansion of our natural resources and for the development of Canadian culture, to find solutions which would ensure the supremacy of private enterprise over crown corporations and protect it against state control.
Once again I say that the Canadian government-or any other government for that matter-was not established to control people or private enterprise. On the contrary, the very purpose of private enterprise and man are the fulfilment of our expectations, the administration of public business in Canada.
We are for the establishment of such a committee, but we want it to be active, unlike the others we have had in the past. We want it to be progressive so that private enterprise and private initiative may be respected in this Canada of ours.
(Text):


Mr. Arthur Smith (Calgary South):: Mr. Speaker, I want to deal very briefly with two points. I am not sure whether I should describe them as items that the committee should consider but which under your ruling might not be admissible or simply say that in themselves they justify this committee, in which case you will therefore accept that they are in order. In any event, I do not intend to do anything more than pick up from where the distinguished gentleman who has just taken his seat left off in his bid for free enterprise in relation to Canada's air traffic. I find this very refreshing when I recall some incidents in British Columbia not so many months ago but I do agree with him. My views as to why we should continue to have freedom of competition between our air line systems are perhaps directly opposed to the argument that has been presented by the hon. member for Laurier when he dealt with the question

of the cost factor and whether or not this government had caused considerable financial disability to the two air lines.
He implied, as did the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher), that since we took office Trans-Canada Air Lines has had some financial difficulty as a result of our policies. I should like to remind him that at the time we took office Trans-Canada Air Lines, in fact every air line, were in the process of converting from piston driven aircraft to the new jets. I can recall certain figures for 1959 when this transition was at its height and similar air line companies were experiencing somewhat of the same problem. For example, KLM lost about $11 million, I believe, because of the transition after having shown a net profit of over $3 million the year before. Eastern Air Lines plunged from a profit position of over $2.8 million to a deficit of something like $11 million. So I think it is significant to point out that both our air lines suffered exactly the same problem in removing slower aircraft. For example, the DC-3 aircraft cost $90,000; the Viscount $600,000. Replacing these with modern aircraft like the DC-8 which is priced clean at about $5 million and equipped at about $8 million was obviously expensive business.
Then, of course, T.C.A. decided to embark on a modernization program. I agree with the view that it was one of the finest air lines in existence so far as air service was concerned but it had been suggested for some years that the line left much to be desired with respect to its ground services. They endeavoured to remedy this by introducing new facilities and new services and these additional costs have had to be borne by them in the last two and a half years. Therefore it follows naturally that these costs showed up in their balance sheets for the last two years and will show for at least the next four to ten years.
The point I want to make is simply this. Surely it must be recognized in Canada that the government's policy of introducing competition has, if nothing else, made Trans-Canada Air Lines a still better air line. I think this has certainly been established to the satisfaction of the Canadian people. By the same token it is equally true that by encouraging Canadian Pacific Airlines we have made them one of the most aggressive air lines not only in contracting for business domestically but also abroad.
I am one of those who agree on the necessity of introducing still further competition, and I suggest that the only thing required of the government is for the government to bring the two air lines together to work out
Railways, Air Lines and Shipping a co-operative arrangement considering both domestic services and international services. I see you are rising, Mr. Speaker, and you would like me, of course, to return to other points that the committee should study. I should like to suggest that in this committee-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If I may interject a word, I should like the house to come back to the motion. I think we have had, either by design or otherwise, fair tolerance on the part of the Chair which I am afraid has brought about a sort of scattered discussion on transportation policy. I suggest to hon. members that this is not the purport of the resolution and I would respectfully submit that they should consider the resolution in the terms that it is written.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask the hon. member a question?


Arthur Smith: I will certainly accept your advice, sir, and I will be happy to answer the question when I take my seat.
I suggest to the house that in examining the nature of the committee we must also review the items of Trans-Canada Air Lines' budget and the entire picture in which Trans-Canada operates in this air age which is so important to Canada. It has been suggested that the Minister of Transport should sit in on these proceedings. If I recall correctly, he has done so on most occasions when he has been able, and I am certain he will do so again. I hope at the same time we will be able to invite Mr. Davoud, chairman of the air transport board to attend the committee. I should like to see a number of air line officials in attendance such as Mr. Mc-Conachie of Canadian Pacific and others because only by examining the evidence of these gentlemen can we accurately gauge the direction in which Trans-Canada is moving and whether or not many of these statements are valid in relation to competitive air lines.
I think we must realize also that in this committee, as the hon. member for Laurier suggested, we should discuss the bilateral agreements. I agree with him, at least to this degree that in the future Canada, as we certainly did not during the period which the hon. member was in office, should negotiate in a convincing manner with the United States. We must negotiate many more routes than he has suggested. He referred to the fact that no Canadian or United States carrier serves the Chicago-Montreal route. He must also reflect that no Canadian or American carrier has a direct connection from Vancouver to San Francisco. I feel that this is a field the committee should take into consideration.

Railways, Air Lines and Shipping
I conclude my remarks with this suggestion, that this year we have an opportunity, as we have never had before, to examine these bilateral agreements, to examine the officials of the principal competing air lines, and in addition I think we should take a look at the relationship between air traffic and Canadian National Railways. These systems are going to be competing in some respects for some time for the same traffic. I hope the chairman of the committee will allow some latitude in so far as these questions are concerned.


Lionel Chevrier: May I direct my question to my hon. friend? Having regard to the fact that he maintains the present government, by encouraging competition between the two air lines has strengthened them, and in view of the fact that there are three foreign air lines competing between Montreal, Toronto, San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles, whereas the Canadian carriers have not similar rights, does he think that that kind of bilateral agreement negotiated by the present government is fair competition to either Trans-Canada or Canadian Pacific Airlines?


Arthur Smith: Well, Mr. Speaker, I could reply generally on bilateral agreements if I were permitted to do so without offending your ruling. However, I would say that it is regrettable the former government put us in the position of having to act as the poor relatives in all our negotiations with the United States on bilateral agreements; that is the short answer.
(Translation):


Mr. Robert Beaule (Quebec East):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to participate in the debate on the resolution for the appointment of a sessional committee to consider the accounts, estimates and bills relating to the Canadian National Railways and other transportation organizations under government control. I think that this government's policy in the field of transportation has been ineffective, and that is why we support the appointment of such a sessional committee.
Mr. Speaker, as far as the Canadian National Railways are concerned, and as the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher) stated a moment ago, I believe that this crown corporation interferes a little bit too much in private enterprise. As a matter of fact, after the conversion to dieselization, its directors are going in for road transportation throughout the country.
We know that dieselization has cost the Canadian National almost half a billion dollars and that this government is now faced with the deficits of the Canadian National Railways.

Now, since the directors of the Canadian National Railways have decided to engage in the field of highway transport, there is growing concern among Quebec transportation companies about the competition they have to put up with from the railways.
Mr. Speaker, I am also of the opinion that the proposed committee should carefully examine the subsidies paid to crown transportation companies, because I have the impression that in the past, members of the committee did not have the leeway they were entitled to. But the committee which this resolution aims to establish will necessarily have to enquire into the budget of these crown corporations which receive federal subsidies paid out of public moneys.
We, from this corner of the house, resolutely intend to take an active part in the proceedings of that committee to give the Canadian people information on the subsidies granted.
Our efforts will also tend toward obtaining a more adequate French-Canadian representation on the board of directors of the C.N.R. As a matter of fact, the other day I put a question to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Balcer) asking whether a French Canadian would be appointed vice president of the C.N.R., and the minister replied that such appointments came under the jurisdiction of the C.N.R. board of directors.
Now, since that company is subsidized by the federal government from the public funds supplied by all Canadians, and since the people of the province of Quebec also supply part of these funds, it seems to me that it would be fair and reasonable that French Canadians be represented on the board of directors of that company.
Mr. Speaker, a few moments ago, the hon. member for Port Arthur spoke of debt free money. Now, in my opinion, if the government had applied our principles a few years back, we would not be faced with large deficits today.
Mr. Speaker, I shall say, in closing that we entirely support the resolution for the setting up of a committee to look into the accounts and estimates of the transportation services in Canada.
(Text) :


Sherwood Hayes Rideout: My remarks will be very brief, Mr. Speaker, and mostly in the nature of an inquiry. I am wondering just how much latitude will be given in connection with the inquiry into the accounts and estimates of these companies. It is my understanding that Canadian National

Railways in the Atlantic region, the part of the country from which I come and where the railways were first established, have declared a profit for some time. This seems to me to be rather inequitable because, in effect, the Atlantic region is subsidizing the rest of Canada. We are, on the one hand, advocating a system to the maritime provinces and, on the other hand, we are taking money from the maritime provinces to subsidize other parts of Canada in so far as transportation is concerned. I have always understood this to be wrong because we cannot be both for and against something at the same time.
A great deal has been said about the elimination of passenger train service. Since this is my freshman year, I am not too well qualified to speak about the powers the various committees have, but I feel the time has come when the railways of this country should have an opportunity of discussing this matter with the grass roots politicians, shall we say, the people who are in these municipalities. These people should have an opportunity of appearing before some board or committee such as this to discuss this matter of the reduction of train service.
The board of transport commissioners has done more than anything else to impede the progress of our two great railways. I know I shall be criticized for saying that, but the commissioners go to various communities, hold public hearings, go through all the ritual, and then come back to Ottawa and say this or that will be done. The people in those communities have no further recourse but to appeal to the supreme court or to the cabinet, and both these courses are difficult. I feel that the power of the transport commissioners should be reduced in some way and greater latitude given to the committee which we are now discussing.
In the city of Moncton in my constituency, over 15,000 people are employed by Canadian National Railways, and during the past 10 to 15 years, during this transition period that was mentioned earlier, we have had about 2,000 people unemployed. In fact many of our people went to Upper Canada and other parts of the nation.
It has been said that there is no bilingual vice president of the Canadian National system, but I can point out we have over 30 top officials in the city of Moncton and none of them come from the Atlantic provinces and none of them are bilingual. In summing up, I believe closer consideration should be given to the accounts, bills and estimates relating to the C.N.R., and if possible provision should be made to invite representatives of municipalities to appear before the committee. Being in my freshman year I 27507-3-92
Railways, Air Lines and Shipping do not know if this can be done, but I believe it should be done. The ordinary people in municipalities affected by train services should have an opportunity to come before some group elected by the people, and not appointed, such as the board of transport commissioners.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, as has been the case on the part of several recent speakers, I shall keep my remarks brief so that the motion may pass tonight and the committee be set up. I wish to support the remarks made by my colleague the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher) with regard to the importance of this committee, and in particular to support his plea that when the committee deals with the affairs of the C.N.R. it will consider, among other things, the obligations of the Canadian National Railways with respect to the employment situation.
We all hear and speak of the tremendous changes that are taking place in industry right across the board, and it is said many times that we must face up to this situation. This is true for both private industry and public industry, but this is an industry that comes under our jurisdiction and we in this party hope that serious consideration will be given by the committee and the Canadian National to its responsibilities in the field of employment.
I also express the hope that when the committee meets consideration will be given to the need for further changes in the pension rules of the Canadian National Railways. We all welcomed the changes that were made last April with regard to the potential pensions of those still employed by the Canadian National, but as hon. members well know, nothing was done at that time to improve the position of those already retired prior to April 1, 1962.
A few days ago sessional paper No. 135(a) was tabled, in response to a motion in which I asked for correspondence with the Prime Minister over the past number of months regarding this question of doing something about the pensions of Canadian National employees already retired. I find it interesting to go through this file and read the letters and strong pleas that have been addressed to the Prime Minister. There is another file of correspondence with the Minister of Transport, but it is not quite as voluminous as the Prime Minister's file. On reading the replies sent on behalf of the Prime Minister by his executive assistants and various secretaries I find a paragraph like this, which I will read from just one letter. Hon. members will

Railways, Air Lines and Shipping realize that it is the same in a number of other letters. The quotation from the letter is as follows:
You mention the statement Mr. Diefenbaker made in the House of Commons in connection with increased pensions, and I would like now to refer you to a portion of the text of the speech he delivered in Prince Albert on April 28, 1962, where he said:-
And this is a quotation from a speech made by the Prime Minister in his own city of Prince Albert shortly after this year's election campaign got under way:
-And I know there are many of the employees who have retired who are asking: "What about us?" It's a tremendous problem to build an aetuarially sound pension plan. It has taken months and months, indeed years to work out a plan covering the employees that are now in service. We are devoting ourselves now to dealing with the other field, of those employees who have already retired on small pensions and who have suffered in the breaks of those years, through no fault of their own.
That statement was made in April and it has been quoted in letters sent on behalf of the Prime Minister as recently as September, but when I asked a question in the house the other day whether any action would be taken in this regard at this session, I got this typical answer from the Prime Minister:
As the hon. gentleman knows, the proper answer in that regard is that when government policy has been determined, the house will be made aware in due course.
My plea is that as this is a question of such concern to so many people, and as it is one in which the Prime Minister over the years has himself shown interest, it should not be delayed any longer, whether it calls for action by the Canadian National or by the government. Let us have that action as soon as possible and I hope the committee will deal with that matter without further delay.
I also wish to support the request made by the hon. member for Port Arthur that a clear statement of government policy be made during the sittings of the committee with respect to Trans-Canada Air Lines. I do not wish to repeat the views already expressed on this tonight, but I believe T.C.A. should have the support of the government instead of being hampered by a policy that has interfered with its progress. The government's policy should be clear and strong in support of T.C.A.
I hope the committee will have a full opportunity to examine all the accounts and bills of both the C.N.R. and T.C.A. and also to examine, using the word which the Minister of Transport used when he introduced the motion, "the affairs" of these two crown corporations. I hope the recommendations which come from the committee will
strengthen both corporations and will improve the position of the persons employed by them.


Edward Nasserden: Mr. Speaker, I think all hon. members will agree on the importance of this resolution and the committee it will set up, particularly at this time when our national transportation system is showing deficits such as we have seen in the last few years. This committee is also important when we take into consideration those difficulties now arising because of the changing complexion of community life in Canada.
I have sometimes thought that the deficit of the C.N.R. particularly has been brought about by some of the tariffs they charge on various commodities. I have an example of this which I would like to cite. I hope this question may be brought before the committee when it is set up. In my riding a number of people are engaged in the production of peas. The freight rate on peas from Saskatchewan to Montreal is such that it is prohibitive. Without going any further than that, Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that the freight rate is almost as much as half what the growers are getting for their peas. That is one of the reasons why I am very glad to see this committee being set up this year. I believe it is very important. Mr. Speaker, I have nothing further to say at this time.


Léon Balcer: Mr. Speaker, I just want to-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I must draw to the attention of the house that if the minister speaks now he will close the debate.


Léon Balcer: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all those hon. members who have taken part in this short debate for their interest in the matters concerning the two crown corporations which are going to be studied by this committee. I know that everybody wants to see these two companies as strong as possible and I am sure the sittings of the committee will be interesting and at the same time constructive. As I said earlier, all the affairs of both corporations will be discussed and I am sure the witness will be able to answer all the queries of the various members of the committee.
As far as the very special invitation which I received from my hon. friend from Port Arthur is concerned, to be present at all times at the committee hearings, I can assure him that it is a great pleasure for me to attend the meetings of the committee. The last time the committee sat I was unfortunately away when the T.C.A. report was discussed. The reason

for my absence was that I had some legislation before the house and I had to be in the house at that time. But I certainly intend to be present this year.
The hon. member for Westmorland inquired about the possibility of having a representative of municipalities appearing before the committee. I would just say, Mr. Speaker, that I have no authority over the committee. This is a decision for the committee itself. The question of who is to appear as a witness is a decision that has to be taken by the members of the committee, because the committee is master of its own rules.
I was very pleased to hear the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre express his great satisfaction for what the government and the C.N.R. have done as far as pensions for existing railways employees are concerned. As far as concerns those employees who have already retired, I can assure the hon. member that the government is giving a great deal of careful study to this matter. On the other hand, I must point out to him that the two problems are very different, and increasing pensions for employees who have already retired presents some very difficult aspects. However, I can assure the hon. member that this matter is still under very careful consideration by the government.
Mr. Speaker, I do not want to stray too far from the spirit of this motion; I know we have to deal with the formation of the committee. On the other hand, I would like to answer briefly two or three points that have been raised by my hon. friend for Laurier, in all fairness, so there will not be any misunderstanding. I do not want to answer the slogan, I would call it, of hon. members of the opposition. They always say, "Well, we need an air policy for Canada. When are we going to have a clearcut air policy?" If we have not an air policy, what did they ever have when they were in power? We have problems as far as air transportation is concerned, of course. We are not satisfied with the bilateral agreement with the United States; but we are certainly not sparing our efforts to try to correct that situation. I would remind my hon. friend that his party was in power when the bilateral agreement with France was signed. My hon. friend was complaining a short while ago that Air France had freedom rights to fly between Los Angeles and Montreal. He is the one who is complaining, and it was under his party's government that Air France got those freedom rights.


Lionel Chevrier: What about the other three?


Léon Balcer: Of course, we had to give freedom rights to Italy, but we got something for that; we got the right to land in Rome.
27507-3-92*
Railways, Air Lines and Shipping Rome, as hon. members know, is a plum so far as air transportation is concerned. This is a give and take proposition. As far as the United States is concerned, we sent a team to meet a United States delegation to deal with the bilateral agreement. They have dealt with the aspect of the bilateral agreement with regard to border air lines, and as far as long range air lines are concerned, we pleaded our case and the United States attitude was that they had to defer any decision on this matter of amending the bilateral agreement pending a report of the board of inquiry set up by President Kennedy. This report has just been handed down to the president, if my information is correct. That was the only reason we could not carry on the discussion. But I can assure the house that we are going to fight to get for T.C.A. and other Canadian carriers a better bilateral agreement between our country and the United States.


Lionel Chevrier: That has been going on for five years now.


Léon Balcer: As far as regional carriers are concerned, my hon. friend said that the prairie run was complicated, and that sort of thing, and we had no policy in this respect. We have given instructions to the air transport board to carry out a full inquiry all across Canada starting from the maritimes, all through the central provinces to the prairies and the coast of British Columbia. The air transport board has held hearings all across Canada in various areas. They have made interim reports. We have given effect to them and we have helped tremendously the regional carriers of eastern Canada. They have just handed their report to me on prairie air services. It is a very extensive report, comprising 90 pages. I can assure the house that we are giving this report most complete and immediate study. I am confident that we shall reach a solution for the prairie provinces which will be to the advantage of the carriers and of the Canadian public as well as of the Canadian taxpayers. I cannot agree with many of the opinions which the hon. member for Laurier and the hon. member for Port Arthur have expressed, but it is fairly late and I am anxious to have this resolution approved by the house.


Lionel Chevrier: Would the minister make some statement in connection with the points I raised concerning the royal commission on transportation?


Léon Balcer: Yes, Mr. Speaker. The hon. gentleman said that the MacPherson commission report, which is an important report recommending some drastic changes, has been

Railways, Air Lines and Shipping ignored by the government. Yet the hon. gentleman need only look at the speech from the throne in which it is stated that during the present session of parliament legislation will be brought down to implement parts of the recommendations of that commission.
As far as this commission is concerned, I entirely disagree with the hon. member for Port Arthur when he says it has produced a bad report. The report has been praised by railroaders all over North America, and it has been brought to the attention of the government in the United States. It is a revolutionary document which will have a tremendous impact on transportation in Canada and I can assure the house that the government has given this matter a great deal of study. Of course, it would be contrary to our practice if I were to tell the house tonight what the legislation we intend to bring forward will deal with, but I can assure hon. members that it will be brought down during the present session and that we are anxious to see it come as soon as possible.
The hon. gentleman had some remarks to make about the Freight Rates Reduction Act. He said we were already in November and that the act had not yet been extended. I would just remind the hon. gentleman that there was an election. This was the only reason why the Freight Rates Reduction Act has not been brought forward. We have brought in a similar bill every session. This bill is on the order paper, and tonight we are all ready to deal with it, so I do not think the railways and the shippers have to worry about this legislation. It is all ready.
That closes the remarks I want to make at the present time.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask the minister whether or not it is a fact that if payments are being made at the present time to the railways under the Freight Rates Reduction Act, they are not legal?


Léon Balcer: Payments are not being made at the present time. If my memory serves me well, some amounts are paid during the year when the act is in force but there is always an adjustment which is made at the end of the year, and this payment at the end of the year is always much larger than the others. That is why the adjustment is made. This year, speaking from memory, my understanding is that these payments have not been
made, but they will be made in the last month of the year after parliament has approved them.


Lionel Chevrier: No payments have been made, then, since the end of April, 1962?


Léon Balcer: No payments since the end of 1962. That is my understanding.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask just one question?


Mr. Speaker:: We are straying further away from the motion. I beg the indulgence of the hon. member-


Lionel Chevrier: I will resume my seat in a moment.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Who is running this house?


Lionel Chevrier: Since these payments have not been made since April, 1962, does that mean the 8 per cent increase is operative or that the railways are absorbing an 8 per cent reduction?


Léon Balcer: The railways have not increased their freight rates. They have simply been patient and are waiting for this act to be passed. Then they will collect their money.


Mr. Speaker:: We are getting far away. Is it the pleasure of this house to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Lionel Chevrier: May I ask the leader of the house what the business will be for tomorrow and for as much of next week as he can indicate?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Tomorrow we will go back into committee of ways and means and carry on with the resolution which the Minister of Finance had before the house last week. Should that be completed tomorrow we would deal with the business I outlined yesterday, to be found on page 1401 of Hansard-other matters pertaining to the Department of Transport.
I might say with regard to Monday that if the budget resolutions are not completed tomorrow we should naturally carry on with those.


[Stage Direction]
At ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, November 9, 1962