1963-11-05

Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege affecting the hon. members of this house. My question of privilege is on two grounds, and refers to a statement made yesterday by the Minister of Justice with reference to Mr. Banks.
My first point of privilege is that the minister misinformed the house with reference to the issuance of a warrant and the date of a warrant for Mr. Banks' arrest. My second point of privilege is that the minister said it was against public policy to disclose those facts. In answer to my point of privilege yesterday and to questions asked by the Leader of the Opposition, myself, the hon. member for Medicine Hat and the hon. member for Winnipeg North, the Minister of Justice, when pressed after several questions, replied as follows, as reported on page 4354 of yesterday's Hansard:
Well, Mr. Speaker, a number of those questions have already been answered. The charge was laid in Montreal. It was laid against Mr. Banks. It was laid on October 23, and on October 31 search warrants were issued arising out of these charges. In so far as the last part of the question is concerned, I do not believe it is in the public interest to give that information.
Now, Mr. Speaker, let us deal with the facts. Since listening to the Minister of Justice yesterday I have had the courthouse records checked. I say that with regard to the major point on which we sought to get information yesterday, the question of the date, the Minister of Justice misinformed the house.
Here are the facts, as gained from searching the courthouse records. On October 23 an information was laid by Joseph MacLeod, R.C.M.P., that Ernest Paul Carsh, Eldon Richardson alias Jack Richardson, Hal Banks, and Jack Caspar of California and other persons unnamed did conspire to commit bodily harm.
May I pause here. Several days ago we asked to be told the date of the alleged offence. The Minister of Justice stated it was around August, 1957. According to the charge it was a continuing offence from January 1 to August 31, 1957.
28902-5-280i
And now we come to the most important point. According to the answer, the search warrant was issued on October 31. On what date was the warrant for arrest issued? This may seem to be quibbling about time, but time is of the essence when a man such as Banks is at large charged with a criminal offence. On October 23 a warrant was issued for their arrest. Search warrants were issued by Judge Trottier for the homes of Carsh, Banks and Richardson and for S.I.U. headquarters. In brief, on October 23 a warrant was issued for the arrest of Banks. In other words, at the time Banks was here on parliament hill there was a warrant issued for his arrest, but it was not executed.
As to the other warrants of October 31, let me explain the circumstances briefly. On that date search warrants were issued. For what? They had nothing to do with the conspiracy charge. In this regard I say the Minister of Justice misinformed the house. On October 31 search warrants were issued. No charges were laid. They were in respect of the alleged violation of section 268 of the Canada Shipping Act, enticing to desert. Involved as subjects of the allegation were 16 sailors of the motor vessel Franquelin, Montreal registry. Nothing was found at Banks' home. In other words, at the time the charge was laid on October 23 there was a warrant issued for the arrest of Banks. The Minister of Justice left the impression that this warrant was not issued until October 31.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Pickersgill:: Read the statement as you read it before.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I am listening intently to the hon. member, but I would remind him this is not the time to make a speech. Please try to present your question of privilege as concisely as possible.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I am sorry if I have been sent down the wrong path, Mr. Speaker. My question of privilege is that the minister misinformed the house about the date. He said the charge was laid on October 23 and that on October 31 search warrants were issued arising out of this charge. We ask why Banks was not arrested. I point out once again that there was a warrant in force for the arrest of Mr. Banks contemporaneously with the laying of the charge.


Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Minister of Justice):: I doubt very much whether the point the hon.

Question of Privilege
member lor Bow River has raised constitutes a question of privilege. However, whether it be a question of privilege or not, I feel that what he has said should be answered.
I say at once that I did not misinform the house. I think what happened was this; the hon. gentleman did not read correctly the information which I gave to the house and he misinterpreted, either willingly or unwillingly, the information which I gave yesterday and prior thereto.
Let us see what the facts are. On Thursday last, when I rose to answer a question put by the hon. member for Ontario, I stated that a charge had been laid against Banks in Montreal for conspiracy to commit an assault occasioning bodily harm to Captain Walsh. That charge was laid on Wednesday, October 23, 1963 and not on October 31, as my hon. friend said a moment ago.


Some hon. Members:: No.


An hon. Member:: He did not.


Lionel Chevrier: That is the only charge that has been laid against Banks to date, although other charges against Banks and certain other officers of the S.I.U. arising out of the Norris report and the recent illegal strike are being considered.
At the same time that the charge was laid against Banks, similar charges were laid against men by the names of Richardson and Carsh. On Friday, November 1 and Saturday, November 2 search warrants relating to such charges and to possible conspiracy to contravene the Canada Shipping Act were executed upon various premises, including Banks' residence and the S.I.U. halls in Montreal, Toronto and Thorold. In some instances the search warrants were taken out at or about the same time that the charges were laid against Banks, Richardson and Carsh, and in some instances just before the searches were executed.
Warrants for the arrest of Banks, Richardson and Carsh were issued contemporaneously with or immediately following the taking and swearing of the informations relating to the charges. In the case of Banks such warrant, I have been informed by the special crown prosecutor, was executed at two o'clock this afternoon and Mr. Banks was put under arrest at that time.
These warrants were not executed immediately upon being taken out.


Some hon. Members:: Why?


Lionel Chevrier: My hon. friends ask why, and I think they have a right to know why. That arises out of the question put by the hon. member as to why the warrant was not executed when Mr. Banks was here on parliament hill. It is my recollection, though I may be wrong-I will have to check-that

they were not issued until after that time. They were issued some days later.
In answer to the question which was put, the first concern of the government in the matter of the strike was to get the men back to work. Having got the men back to work and having got the ships and the grain moving, the next concern of the government was to keep the men on the job on the ships. I thought, rightly or wrongly, having regard to these circumstances, that when the trustees were entering upon their duties as trustees of the union I should not, when one department was acting in one direction, attempt to interfere with the duties of those trustees. That explains the reason we did not proceed. I did not consider it would be good timing at that time. As minister I was bound to take into account the whole situation, and with all respect to members of the house I have taken that situation into consideration.
Having regard to the fact that the matter has been disposed of in so far as the arrest at least of one person at two o'clock is concerned, I should think, Mr. Speaker, that that disposes of the question of privilege.


Mr. Speaker:: In view of the general interest in this matter I have allowed the discussion to go on a little longer than is perhaps justified. However, I am sure hon. members will not object if I call to their attention Beauchesne, fourth edition, citation 104, subsection 5:
As a motion taken at the time for matters of privilege is thereby given precedence over the prearranged program of public business, the Speaker requires to be satisfied, both that there is a prima facie case that a breach of privilege has been committed, and also that the matter is being raised at the earliest opportunity. If he is not so satisfied he may allow the member to make a statement with a view to ascertaining whether or not a prima facie case can be made out. The right of making complaint of a breach of privilege is open to any member of the house, and, even if an individual member alone is affected, is not confined to that member.
Then if we go to citation 113, which it may be useful to recall at this time, hon. members will find the following:
Members often raise so-called "questions of privilege" on matters that should be dealt with as personal explanations or corrections, either in the debates or the proceedings of the house. A question of privilege ought rarely to come up in parliament. It should be dealt with by a motion giving the house power to impose a reparation or apply a remedy.
Then it goes on, and the point at issue is this, and I quote from the same citation 113:
But a dispute arising between two members, as to allegations of facts, does not fulfil the conditions of parliamentary privilege.
It seems to me that those words apply to the present situation almost word for word.

I am sorry, but I do not see a prima facie case of privilege in the matter raised by the hon. member.



ANNOUNCEMENT OF SALE TO POLAND

Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that on behalf of the government of Canada I have this morning signed a long term wheat agreement with the government of Poland. In connection with the negotiation of the agreement it has been my pleasure to welcome to Ottawa Mr. Trampczynski, the Polish minister of foreign trade. Mr. Trampczynski, who I am pleased to say is in the gallery this afternoon, signed the agreement on behalf of his government.
The agreement is for a period of three years, during which Poland will purchase and Canada will supply 1.2 million metric tons of Canadian wheat, that is about 44 million bushels, for shipment in the following quantities: In the first year of the agreement, 400,000 metric tons, of which a minimum of 200,000 tons shall be shipped between the opening of navigation and July, 1964. In the second and third years of the agreement a combined total of 800,000 metric tons in such yearly amounts as the buyer chooses, provided that the quantity purchased in each of these years shall not be less than 300,000 metric tons.
Purchases under this agreement will be facilitated by the extension of credit arrangements under the Export Credits Insurance Act providing, as has been customary in all the transactions with Poland, for payment over three years. Poland has been a regular customer for Canadian wheat, having made its first purchases in 1955 under credit arrangements. Since that year Poland has purchased wheat from Canada annually, and these purchases have totalled 73 million bushels. The important new agreement signed today is evidence of the desire of both governments to provide for the continuation of this trade on a regular basis.


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Qu'Appelle):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of all Canadians I should like to join with the minister in welcoming the minister of trade of Poland to our country, where he put into formal arrangements the long term agreement covering the continuing trade that has been going on for a number of years.


Mr. Pearson:: Since 1955.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: However, I would like to make one or two observations, and the first is that this is the second occasion we have had such an announcement made outside the
Sale of Wheat to Poland house. It is understood that when parliament is in session, announcements like this should be made to the members of parliament first, but the minister is new and I know he has to learn.
The second point I want to make is that I trust and understand from the announcement, although it was not too clear on this point, that the price arrangement will be the traditional one, namely that the price will be set during the term of the first contract and each succeeding contract will be negotiated at the price existing at that time.


Mr. T. C. Douglas (Burnaby-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure all hon. members of the house and the people of Canada generally will be pleased that the Canadian wheat board has been able to secure another agreement for the sale of wheat. The prairie farmers are now receiving the benefit of the long years they struggled to get a wheat board as the sole marketing agency for handling their grain.
If anything were needed to prove the value of such an agency, I think the events of recent months have gone far to do that. I believe it was Winston Churchill who once spoke about the new world setting out to redress the balance of the old.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It was Canning.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I think in our case the communist world is setting out to redress the financial imbalance of the western world, and we can be very thankful that the large purchases from east of the iron curtain are going to help Canada move this year toward a balance of payments.


Mr. H. A. Olson (Medicine Hat):: Mr. Speaker, this is another of the wheat deals that have been announced in the house recently, and we are happy to see a further sale of 44 million bushels of Canadian wheat. It is worthy of note in this particular case that the arrangements between the Canadian government and the Polish government back in 1955 actually set the stage for credit arrangements that have been so useful to the Canadian wheat board.
There is just one further thing I wish to mention at this stage, and that is that there is a problem in eastern Canada respecting feed grain. I hope the minister responsible for announcements by the Canadian wheat board, and others across the way, will take this matter under consideration at once, refer it to the committee on agriculture and colonization, and get that committee active so that we may make certain there will be adequate stocks in position, and at a reasonable price, for the ensuing months.

Sale of Wheat to Poland [Translation]	PUBLIC SERVICE


Mr. Real Caoueile (Villeneuve):: Mr. Speaker, this new sale of Canadian wheat to Poland gives proof that several countries are interested in securing some of this important wheat production we have in Canada.
It seemed to me, as I heard the Minister of Agriculture make the announcement with respect to the agreement signed this morning between the Polish government and the Canadian government for the sale of 44 million bushels of wheat, that he could also have informed us of a meeting between himself, the officials of his department and eastern farmers with a view to reaching an agreement with eastern farmers for selling wheat to them under similar terms.
There is another very important point. When the Minister of Agriculture meets delegations made up of visitors from foreign lands, he could perhaps take this opportunity to point out to them that we have in eastern Canada surpluses of apples, potatoes, wool and lumber. We even have gold and copper we could export, and then steel, milk and foodstuffs. Why not offer those buyers, at the same time, the things that are available in Canada?
I am merely urging the Minister of Agriculture to consider the field of agriculture not only in terms of wheat but also in terms of Canadian products in general.
We sincerely approve of this new wheat sale to Poland, but, as I said, the same opportunities should be given to eastern farmers.



On the orders of the day:


Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint John-Albert):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce arising out of his statement on the sale of grain to Poland. He said that this grain would not be shipped until the open season. Is there an inference that maritime ports are to be scrapped the minute summer comes? If not, will the minister give every assurance that maritime ports will take part in this grain activity all year round?


Mitchell William Sharp: I can certainly give assurance to my hon. friend that we will need all our ports operating at full capacity from now until the Russian contract is filled. Thereafter I would hesitate to be definite, but I would say that the prospects are much better now than they have been at any time in the last six years.



GLASSCO COMMISSION


Hon. Maurice Lamonlagne (Presidenl of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, recently I promised the hon. member for Danforth and the hon. member for Calgary North that I would make a statement this week with respect to the implementation of certain recommendations of the royal commission on government organization. The government's intentions have already been made known with respect to the development of a common procurement agency, as recommended by the royal commission, and the realignment of duties and functions affecting the printing bureau. This present statement covers a considerable number of additional recommendations on which decisions have now been made.
The additional recommendations of the royal commission which have now been approved cover a wide range of subjects dealt with in the first three volumes of the report. They include recommendations dealing with financial management; personnel management; purchasing and supply; transportation; telecommunications; printing and publishing; the "make or buy" problem; legal services; economic and statistical services; public information services; education services; health services; lending, guaranteeing and insuring; post office; and other services. As the full list of recommendations now approved, including those covered by this latest decision, is relatively long, numbering more than 60, I wonder if the house would agree that instead of reading them all I might table the list. My office will be ready to provide this list to all those hon. members who may ask for it. An opportunity will be presented, in the consideration of the estimates for 1963-64, to discuss the details of these recommendations if any member wishes to do so.
I should point out, of course, that this list does not by any means represent all the recommendations made by the royal commission under the headings I have mentioned. It does represent those recommendations which the government, under the procedures it has established, has been able to review to date, and with respect to which the government has indicated its agreement in principle. Having accepted them in principle, the government will now work toward their implementation.
The process of review of the recommendations of the royal commission is continuing and, as further decisions are made by the government, the house will be informed from time to time.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the house give consent to the tabling of this list?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, when the hon. gentleman assumed the position of President of the Privy Council and took over the administration of the bureau of government organization, it was felt by many that he had little enthusiasm for the recommendations of this commission. Today we have had a list of generalized items, but it is impossible to say how far the government has gone. On its face it appears that the purpose for which this commission was set up, namely to bring an end to waste, extravagance, duplication of services and red tape, has been lost sight of by this government.
The hon. gentleman mentioned that some 60 items are dealt with. Those will have to be studied. Having regard to the experience of the past it may be a list barely touched in any way. I can only say that on the basis of the experience we have had, this government is giving but lukewarm support to the recommendations which were made, which were designed to bring about the changes I mentioned a moment ago as well as to end the governmental administrative jungle that has accumulated through the years and has mushroomed since the second world war.
It is now clear, on the basis of the experience we have had, that except for minor changes the commission report in the main is going to be pigeonholed. These items which are referred to are, generally speaking, the insignificant recommendations. There are some recommendations which naturally will not be accepted, but I would say to the minister that in mentioning that 60 cases have been considered, from the experience we have had to date the dribbles have been proceeded with by the government but the major reasons for the recommendations and the recommendations themselves have been neglected.
However, we will have an opportunity of looking over this list in detail when the estimates are before the house. In the meantime I think Canadians as a whole will feel that this is just another example of 60 days of promises without carrying those promises into effect. What has been done is merely to touch the edge and to pretend that the recommendations are being carried out.


Mr. D. M. Fisher (Port Arthur):: Mr. Speaker, the minister's statement was almost useless to us in that he did not give us any kind of framework on which the government is approaching this matter. He has given us a list. We will have to look at the list to see whether it contains anything significant. He gave us no indication as to what estimates
Implementation of Glassco Report will be affected; I suppose these changes will apply to almost every department. Does this mean that we will have to hare from one department to another on the estimates in order to find out what is going on, or is the government prepared to make some provision when discussing the estimates to enable us to quiz the President of the Privy Council and Mr. Davidson, who is advising him, and get the picture once and for all of all the changes relating to this royal commission? That is all we have to say at this time.


Mr. R. N. Thompson (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, we are glad to see that the government is taking some action toward clearing up the accumulated government jungle which has gathered during the last few years. We hope that this is a sign of better things to come.


Mr. Gilles Gregoire (Lapointe):: Mr. Speaker, I think it requires quite a stretch of the imagination for us to be able to congratulate the government following the statement just made by the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Lamontagne), since it was devoid of meaning and had no other purpose than to announce something about which we had not been previously advised. It had to do with some sort of reform.
We would rather wait before offering our congratulations, since before throwing bouquets, we want to know why. Otherwise, we might be inclined to throw in the vase also.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order to suggest most respectfully to Your Honour that the attention of the house be drawn at an early date to the rules respecting comments on motions.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I would also rise to say that statements made by ministers might very well be avoided altogether if they do not contain more information than this.

On the orders of the day:


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the President of the Privy Council. My question arises out of the list that he tabled today. Can the hon. gentleman assure us that in making these changes in government organization there is no conflict with the right of collective bargaining which the government has undertaken to give to its civil servants? In other words, is there liaison between the

Inquiries of the Ministry bureau of government organization and the committee studying the question of collective bargaining for the civil service?


Maurice Lamontagne: Mr. Speaker, that liaison exists at present, and I am not aware that any conflict has arisen out of the implementation of these recommendations.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State and ask him whether the article in today's Ottawa Journal by that eminent reporter Richard Jackson-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John George Diefenbaker: I am glad to see the general applause in that connection-that salary increases are in the works not only for Alphonse Ouimet but for the whole senior executive echelon of the C.B.C. is correct. The report goes on to say that $35,000 or $40,000 will be the salary, and that this matter is before treasury board. Is that correct?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I do not have the advantage, as does the right hon. gentleman, of advance copies of the Ottawa Journal, so I have not yet had a chance to read the observations of that eminent friend of the right hon. gentleman. The right hon. gentleman reminded us yesterday that in asking and answering questions we should obey the rules. One of the rules is that a question cannot be asked or answered with respect to the accuracy of newspaper stories.


John George Diefenbaker: Then I ask the hon. gentleman this. Is it not a fact that there is before treasury board a proposal for an outrageous lift in the salaries of the head of the C.B.C. and other officials?


John Whitney Pickersgill: As you reminded us last Thursday, Mr. Speaker, adjectives like "outrageous" are out of order when questions are asked. Of course there is no suggestion before treasury board of any outrageous increase in anyone's salary.



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: May I direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. A report from the United Nations indicates that the Polish government has approached Canadian representatives to enlist support for a resolution calling for a detailed study by the Geneva disarmament committee of the possibility of creating nuclear free zones in various parts of the world. I should like to ask the hon. gentleman if such a request has been received by the Canadian government or by its representatives at the United Nations, and whether the Canadian government will support such a resolution.


Hon. Paul Martin (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: There have been consultations between members of the Canadian delegation and certain countries at the United Nations with respect to the proposal for nuclear free zones. The Canadian government has already made clear the criteria which it believes must be accepted before we could agree to such a proposal. These criteria are now being examined and the whole question will be judged accordingly.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Would the minister care tc indicate the criteria which we are setting forth as the conditions upon which we would support such a motion?


Mr.   Marlin@Essex Easl: Yes, I should be glad to indicate that the consent of the countries concerned in the proposed zones is an essential consideration.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Is one of the other criteria this, that there be an assurance that the step would not disturb the existing east-west military balance? If so, is it one which rules out Europe, Asia and the Pacific, at least?


Mr. Martin (Essex Easi):: I am sure the hon. gentleman would be the last person to suggest that considerations of this nature should not be borne in mind.



LABOUR RELATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I should like to address a question to the Minister of Labour arising out of a number of press reports this morning describing some of the activities of the trustees who are now in charge of the maritime unions. When does the

minister anticipate bringing a report to parliament so that members here may be fully and accurately informed of the progress of the administration of this trusteeship?


Hon. A. J. MacEachen (Minister of Labour):: A week ago yesterday I spoke to the chairman of the board of trustees, as I indicated I would do in a reply I gave earlier to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, with respect to the provision of interim reports to the House of Commons. The chairman of the board of trustees indicated his readiness to provide such reports, but felt he ought to get settled into his job before he undertook to make his first report. This, I thought, was reasonable.



DOMINION-PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE ATTENDANCE OF MEMBERS OF OPPOSITION PARTIES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister?
Is it the Prime Minister's intention to invite observers from the political parties in the opposition to the federal-provincial conference which will take place at the end of November, in order to make it easier for them to understand the problems which will arise in the house later on?


Mr. Speaker:: This surely is a question for the order paper.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I think this is a most important and urgent matter, as the federal-provincial conference is to take place two weeks from now and the question, if put on the order paper, would not be answered before the conference. Anyway, I think it is possible for the Prime Minister to answer when asked whether he proposes to invite observers and not whether it is an actual fact.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the hon. member has a point. If the Prime Minister is prepared to answer there will be no objection.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, the answer is no.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question? On July 16 last, I asked the Prime Minister the same question according to page 2235 of the official record, and he answered that this was a most in-28902-5-281
Inquiries of the Ministry teresting proposal, but that he had to consult the provincial governments before making any decision. Does the Prime Minister still think such proposal interesting? If not, would the reason be that he did not consult the provincial premiers?



WORLD FAIR


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Leon Balcer (Three Rivers):: Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the President of the Privy Council?
I would have liked to address him as "Sir Maurice", but this is contrary to the standing orders.
I would like to ask him whether it is the intention of the government to agree to the suggestion made by the mayor of Montreal, Mr. Drapeau, asking the federal government to pay part of the travelling expenses of Canadians who will be going to Montreal to visit the world fair?


Maurice Lamontagne: Mr. Speaker, I feel quite sure that my hon. friend will be knighted before I become Sir Maurice, particularly if I am to be knighted by those who have suggested it.
As for the second part of the question, I think it should be put on the order paper. [Text]



DOMINION-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS INQUIRY AS TO TERMINATION OF JOINT PLANS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Heward Grafftey (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the President of the Privy Council. He said, yesterday in Toronto, that the federal government should withdraw from the joint programs; could he tell the house whether he was expressing the views of the present government?


Maurice Lamontagne: Mr. Speaker, I only repeated yesterday what the present government itself has often said.



TRANS-CANADA AIR LINES REPORTED RECOMMENDATION THAT U.S. PLANES BE PURCHASED

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Mariineau (Ponliac-Temiscamingue):: I wish to address a question to the Minister of Transport. Would the minister
4396	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry confirm a report that Trans-Canada Air Lines has now recommended the purchase of United States DC-9 jet liners in preference to the Caravelles which would have been built in Montreal?


Hon. G. J. Mcllrailh (Minister of Transport):: That is a loaded question. I should be happy to give an answer on the subject if the hon. member would obey the rules of the house and put it in the proper form.


Paul Raymond Martineau: I do not know what the minister means by a loaded question. Perhaps he means he would be embarrassed to answer it, or that he wishes to avoid it. In any event I will ask him a simple, direct question. Has T.C.A. made a recommendation with regard to its acquisition of DC-9 jet liners?


George James McIlraith: I would ask the hon. member to rephrase his question.


Paul Raymond Martineau: I think the minister is being most unreasonable, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. This is no time at which to enter upon a debate. The minister was, I think, correct in calling attention to the wording of the first question. The second one in my opinion could easily be placed on the order paper. It is not so pressing as to come within the rule.


Paul Raymond Martineau: On the point you have just raised, Mr. Speaker, may I say this involves an order worth $200 million and is of serious concern to the national economy. In view of the reports in the papers I should have thought the minister would be glad to clarify the situation.


George James McIlraith: I am very happy to clarify this situation, but I will not answer loaded questions employing a technique usually found in some of our police courts. If the hon. member wishes to know whether Trans-Canada Air Lines have presented their report to the government, which is the technical evaluation of their aircraft selection committee, then the answer to that question is yes. But I will have no part in answering the other half of these loaded questions.


Paul Raymond Martineau: May I ask the minister a supplementary question, then. Does the government intend to act according to the recommendation contained in the report?


George James McIlraith: The matter has not yet been submitted to cabinet.


Mr. L. J. Pigeon (Jolielie-L'Assomplion-Monicalm):: Mr. Speaker, I think that the hon. member for Dollard (Mr. Rouleau) is in a position to answer the question of the hon. member for Pontiac-Temiscamingue.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a supplementary question to the Minister of Transport with respect to the purchase of aircraft by Trans-Canada Air Lines. Would the minister tell the house whether he intends to wait for the directors of T.C.A. to appear before the sessional committee of the house before choosing the aircraft which will be used by the air lines?


George James McIlraith: No, Mr. Speaker. As to purchases made by T.C.A., it would not be my intention that a decision should necessarily be deferred until the committee meets. I might add that I hope the committee is set up soon.


Léon Balcer: A supplementary question. I wonder if the minister could tell us whether he intends to wait for the report of the cabinet committee which at the present time is investigating the possible merger of our two major air lines.


George James McIlraith: I am not aware of any such cabinet committee.


Mr. George Muir (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, my question has been partially answered by the answer to the question submitted by the hon. member for Pontiac-Temiscamingue, but I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Considering Canada's huge adverse balance of trade with the United States, would the government give consideration to not purchasing $200 million worth of United States built DC-9 jet aircraft for T.C.A. passenger service, as suggested in the Ottawa Citizen today?


George James McIlraith: Mr. Speaker, the government in studying this matter will consider all relevant factors.



SUGGESTED CHANGE IN CHAIRMANSHIP OP BANKING AND COMMERCE COMMITTEE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. H. Horner (Acadia):: I should like to address a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the financial irregularities disclosed in the MacKay report, does the Prime Minister propose the appointment of a new chairman for the banking and commerce committee?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Surely that question is out of order. If the hon. member has any accusation or charge to make against a member of this house perhaps he would make it.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. In view of the question and the statement in reply, may I say the hon. member knows there is procedure provided under standing orders for making charges; also that the Chair is subject to those standing orders, and cannot allow a question in the form asked by the hon. member. On the other hand, if he wishes to prefer charges he knows what to do. But I believe the answer of the Prime Minister was quite correct.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of laying charges-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I think the charges are amply laid in the Montreal Star of-October 31. I should like to rephrase my question to the Prime Minister if I may. Can we take it then that the hon. member for Notre Dame de Grace qualifies as chairman of the banking and commerce committee because of his handling of certain real estate transactions and the profits thereon?


Some hon. Members:: Shame.



PENSIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. D. Hales (Wellington South):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. It arises from a number of inquiries I have had from recipients of old age assistance and disabled and blind persons pensions who are wondering whether they will receive a $10 increase before Christmas similar to that given to old age security pensioners.


Hon. Judy V. LaMarsh (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure my hon. friend is aware that I have been asked similar questions several times, and I have replied to the same effect, that this matter is up for discussion at the conference to be held on November 25 between the dominion and provincial governments.



IMMIGRATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Maurice Lessard (Lake St. John):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Can
28902-5-2814
Inquiries of the Ministry he tell the house if the officials of his department do as much advertising to attract French speaking immigrants as they do to attract English speaking ones, particularly in view of the fact that 20,000 English speaking immigrants came to Canada compared to only 2,800 French speaking ones?


Hon. Guy Favreau (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, personally, I am sure that no discrimination is shown by the officials of my department in favour of one group against another. However, if any evidence of discrimination came to my notice, I would put a stop to it. Moreover, I must assure the house that I have the firm intention of seeing to it that the same insistence is shown and the same efforts are made to favour the immigration to this country of any suitable group.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, has the Secretary of State for External Affairs or the government caused negotiations to be opened yet with the United States, or will negotiations be opened with United States concerning the ground or road communications network in the Yukon and Alaska?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend gave me notice of his intention to ask this question. On October 25 a note dated October 24 was directed to the government of the United States, through its embassy in Ottawa. In this note the government of Canada indicated that the Department of Public Works had been granted authority to negotiate directly with the state of Alaska for the rental of road maintenance equipment in order to keep open on an experimental basis during the approaching 1963-64 winter that section of the Haines road not now kept open under other agreements. Late yesterday the United States government indicated its willingness to enter into such negotiations.


Erik Nielsen: A supplementary question. In those negotiations will the representatives of the Department of Public Works present the case for the use of Canadian equipment and Canadian labour in the maintenance of the Canadian section of this more than two thirds Canadian road?

Inquiries of the Ministry SUGAR



REPORTED STATEMENT RESPECTING REASON FOR PRICE INCREASES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Skeena asked me to comment on the statement made by Mr. Arthur E. Beeby, executive vice president of Salada Foods, having to do with sugar price fluctuations. The hon. member referred to Mr. Beeby as having said in effect that "the recent series of increases in sugar prices cannot be explained on the basis of supply and demand, that there is no world sugar shortage", and that as a major Canadian buyer of refined sugar he was forced to the conclusion that the rise in cost of this staple food item on world markets did not result from demand but from speculation.
I asked the director of research in the combines investigation branch to inquire into this situation. The director communicated with Mr. Beeby and he has advised me of the following and has also obtained the permission of Mr. Beeby to disclose what I am about to say.
In his statement Mr. Beeby was not alleging any fact that in his opinion discloses a breach of any provision of the Combines Investigation Act. He also did not purport to suggest that the government can adopt any measure that can control or influence the price of sugar in the world market; nor did he suggest any step that the government might take to affect the domestic price of sugar in Canada. He stated that his purpose in issuing the statement was to warn Canadians of the fact that as a manufacturer his company is faced with rising sugar costs, which he considers Canadians are helpless to control and which will inevitably affect the price of his company's products.
This statement was reread by the director to Mr. Beeby, and he said that he agreed with it.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: May I ask a supplementary question. Since the government has not been able to secure from Mr. Beeby a policy to deal with this shameful profiteering, what does the government propose to do about it?


Lionel Chevrier: I understand that the hon. member is going to raise this question as a grievance this evening after 8.15. I have been given that indication, and if he does so I will be delighted to deal with the problem. To answer the hon. member's question, he knows quite well that the most effective way in which to deal with this sort of problem is by means of price control, and if I understand
[Mr. Nielsen.)
the constitution of this country aright that is a matter which falls under the jurisdiction of the provinces.



ARTS, LETTERS AND SCIENCES OTTAWA  REQUEST THAT PUBLIC SIGNS BE BILINGUAL

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Lucien Plourde (Quebec West):: I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister.
Could the federal government suggest to the city of Ottawa to turn its cultural policies towards practical bilingualism?
Ottawa being the capital city of Canada, would it not be advisable to have street indications and all other public signs made out in both official languages?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, in so far as it is within the authority of the federal government we will do everything we can to increase bilingualism in this country.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. A. McBain (Elgin):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Has the minister received a telegram under date of November 1 from the president of the association for the development and protection of eastern agriculture requesting immediate storage space in Montreal national harbours board elevators for
200,000	bushels of Ontario feed corn? If so, what steps is his department taking to assure eastern poultry producers and feed mill operators that adequate space will be available to store Ontario corn that is now being harvested, and thus eliminate the necessity of importing higher priced United States corn?


George James McIlraith: Mr. Speaker, unfortunately the hon. gentleman did not give me notice of this question. I have no recollection at this moment of the telegram having been received, but I will be glad to look into it.



SHORTAGE OF WATER IN ONTARIO


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Charles Lamb (Victoria, Oni.):: I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether he has done anything in connection

with the severe water shortage. I know it has become a great burden to many farmers in Ontario.


Hon. Harry W. Hays (Minister of Agriculture):: This morning at a quarter after ten I was speaking to the minister of agriculture for Ontario. He said they were right on top of this situation, but if they needed help they would call us and I assured him we would be standing by ready to help.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. R. Garland (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, on Friday last the hon. member for Yukon raised the question of a moratorium on mortgage payments for homes purchased under the National Housing Act by Falconbridge employees.
I am sure the hon. member will understand that it would not be possible to arrange a blanket moratorium on all National Housing Act mortgage payments for employees of Falconbridge mines who may become unemployed. Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation does not normally make a practice of postponing monthly payments. If a borrower is unable to make the monthly payment due to reasons beyond his control, the corporation is prepared to discuss the problem with him, and it is usually possible to make an arrangement mutually acceptable to the borrower and the corporation. Such an arrangement may involve a partial monthly payment only. The extent of this type of assistance given depends on the consideration of each individual case, and only such assistance as each case warrants is given. It is for this reason that borrowers in difficulty are encouraged to discuss their problems with representatives of the corporation.
I should like to assure the hon. member that each case will be considered with sympathy on its own merits.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In view of recent announcements concerning increased assistance to commonwealth countries, can the minister inform the house if the government has now decided to continue the emergency food program to Hong Kong,
Unemployment Measures Lacking which was cancelled by the present administration? An answer to this question was promised on July 24 last.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am sorry if there has been any delay in bringing this question to my attention. I shall take it as notice.



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Marcel Lessard: I have a question for the Associate Minister of National Defence.
There has been no mention of the proposed deepening of the Richelieu river for some time now. Does the minister, who used to be one of the promoters of that project, still care about it? What is he doing now to have it implemented in the near future?


Mr. Speaker:: This is a question for the order paper.



PUBLIC WORKS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. P. Deschaielefs (Minister of Public Works):: Yesterday I was asked a question by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre concerning my executive assistant and certain sections of the Canada Elections Act. I wish to say that my executive assistant is now taking the proper steps to file his election expenses and so correct this situation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am very glad to know that the law is going to be kept by this gentleman.

The house resumed, from Monday, November 4, consideration of the motion of Mr. Gordon for committee of supply, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Starr, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Fisher.



LACK OF MEASURES TO DEAL WITH UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr. Terry Nugent (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, last night I had completed about half my speech, but at closing time there are not nearly so many members in the house as I find now. Rather than see them all move out in such droves, perhaps I should appeal to

Unemployment Measures Lacking them in the language Shakespeare used in the first scene of Hamlet, when Bernardo said:
Sit down awhile,
And let us once again assail your ears.
That are so fortified against our story-
I shall try to keep my remarks as brief as may suit the occasion, Mr. Speaker. I think I dealt pretty generally last night with what I believed to have been the pattern of the provisions the government undertook in dealing with the problems of unemployment. In essence, I think we said that the country had been changing from an agricultural country to a manufacturing one, and that we had the attendant problem of training people, finding markets, finding money, and all that was involved in such sweeping changes. I referred to the many dramatic actions by the former government. If we refer to the subamendment we find that it reads in this way:
-and also the failure of the government to propose any plans for the fundamental economic and social changes required to deal with the chronic and growing problem of unemployment caused by automation and technological change.
I outlined, Mr. Speaker, the steps taken by the previous government, which were fundamental, in relation to the economy and the social strata of the country. Certainly we went beyond what was thought daring a few years ago. The government recognized the need to create an economic atmosphere to get private enterprise to flourish. We went beyond that. We found many fields in which the government had to give the lead, had to provide the money, had to take steps to find new ways to push private enterprise into new methods of doing things.
I would say, Mr. Speaker, that no one in this house would take me amiss if I were to say that we could add to that subamendment proposed by the New Democratic party the words "similar to the type of legislation brought in by the previous government." Considering how far we have gone, the wording of this subamendment cannot, by any reasonable stretch of the imagination, be taken to suggest socialism. We know that the concepts of government and of the needs of the country are changing so much that this subamendment merely describes the sort of bold, imaginative action taken by the previous government. I trust that all who are acutely aware of the problem of unemployment in this country will have no hesitation in backing it.
I know from having observed what has happened that a bond of friendship seems to have sprung up between the present Liberal administration and the Social Credit group. There is a strong suspicion in the house that they are going to be anxious to sustain the government. I know, on occasion, how pleased

the government has been to find that little group of friends. I do not want to burden Shakespeare with the entire responsibility for my speech, but there are some words that appear in "Timon of Athens" which I thought would be appropriate when the Liberals are considering their friends the Social Crediters. These lines are as follows:
O! what a precious comfort 'tis, to have so many, like brothers, commanding one another's fortunes.
Well, Mr. Speaker, I remember when the Social Crediters supported us, and when the New Democratic party supported us. When they thought they detected a rift in the Conservative party they thought it might be the appropriate moment to strike. They hoped that the trouble in our party might lead to further gains for theirs. They were sadly mistaken. Certainly this time I believe they must think carefully before they strike so recklessly again.
I know no member in this house can look at the actions taken by the present Liberal government and feel satisfied that any strong action has been taken against unemployment. Perhaps the words used by the Secretary of State on April 22 of this year, when the Liberals took office, were prophetic and reflected the real attitude of the members of this government. When he was asked what his feelings were, he said it was nice to be employed again after all those years of unemployment. I am sure we get the feeling that many members of the cabinet believe they have now licked their unemployment problem.
However, it is the unemployment problem of the country that requires action. Certainly there have been many dramatic experiments, shall I say, in connection with the budget. I could have said "horrible experiments". We were looking for something exciting, but we had something quite exciting in a different way. I think it was the first time in history that we nearly had a hanging after a budget. It was not just the people of this country who wanted to hang the Minister of Finance, but the Liberal backbenchers as well. I think the Prime Minister wanted to hang him, too, because of the embarrassment he had caused. There is nothing about this government that would give any hon. member of this house confidence in it, or the belief that it is capable of introducing legislation or instituting programs that are going to meet this evergrowing problem.
As was pointed out by the hon. member for Ontario, the best that can be said of this government is that they have had the good sense to follow much of our program. Whenever they failed to follow the Conservative program they did not get anything done. In so

far as the vote tonight is concerned, it is not a question of whether this party will vote against the government; it is a question of whether all opposition parties will vote together against the government.
I suggest they should. I know the amendment will cause considerable soul searching. However, I remind the small groups that they voted for what they thought were the interests of their parties the last time, no matter what it cost the country. They failed to serve the best interests of the country, because after that vote on February 5 last this country was saddled with this inadequate Liberal government. I am suggesting they do a little soul searching now to see if they cannot find it in their hearts to vote in the best interests of the country this time.
I should like to call once more upon Shakespeare, since his language is much better than mine, to explain the dilemma in which these small parties find themselves now. If the house will bear with me, I was not able to learn this well enough to give it without reading it. It is the famous speech by Hamlet, the soliloquy "To be or not to be," Shakespeare in a modern version:
To vote or not to vote; that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler of this house to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous government Or to take sides against a sea of bunglers And by opposing end them; to vote; to defeat; No more; and by a defeat to say we end The confusions and the many rude shocks Our economy is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To vote; to defeat;
To defeat, to fight another time; ay there's the rub; For in that fight of ballots what defeats may come When we have shuffled off this parliament Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes travesty of such a life;
For who would bear the government of the time Their terrible mistakes Their contempt of parliament The death of hope, the laws delays Their insolence in office and the spurns Of good advice that these unworthies make When he himself might order bring With a bar vote. Who would Gordon bear But that the dread of something after dissolution The next election from whose wars some will not return
Puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear incompetents
That we have, than risk others that we know not of.
I am sure, Mr. Speaker, I will get lots of good advice from various parts of the house that if I can only even borrow from language like that, then perhaps I have more future as a poet than a politician. I hope the Social Crediters, the Creditistes and the New Democratic party will all be voting with the Conservatives tonight against the government, and I may say that this matter of a mid-winter election strikes fear into the hearts of none stronger than it does into the Liberals. I had hoped at this stage to hear some advice
Unemployment Measures Lacking like Macbeth gave the witches, "Stop, you imperfect speakers, tell me more", but I am afraid my course is run.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, we have before us an amendment and a subamendment, motions of nonconfidence against the government, based on allegations that the government has produced no effective new policies or programs to reduce unemployment, and in particular to alleviate winter unemployment, combined with the further suggestion put forward by the New Democratic party that the government has failed to bring forward any plans to deal with the chronic and growing problem of unemployment caused by automation and technological change.
The amendment was introduced by the hon. member for Ontario, who in the course of his attack on the government made no mention whatsoever of current employment and unemployment statistics. Of course that was a deliberate omission, because the figures on employment and unemployment do very little to support the case against the government.


Mr. Starr:: I rise on a question of privilege. I am sure the Minister of Labour would not want that to stand on the record, because if he read Hansard he would see that I referred to the latest d.b.s. statistics showing there was a decline of 10,000 in the numbers unemployed, to 3.7 per cent of the labour force as compared with 3.9 per cent last year.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I regret if I have misquoted the hon. gentleman, but I accept his correction. Whether quoted or not, whether given in detail or not, the figures do very little to support the hon. gentleman and the case he put forward in the house yesterday.
The motion put forward by the hon. member for Ontario is an invitation to us to tell him and the house exactly the situation that prevailed in Canada when he and other members of his government left office last April. Last April, 7 per cent of Canada's labour force was unemployed. In the Atlantic provinces 14.1 per cent of the total labour force was unemployed, and in Ontario the figure was 4.5 per cent. For the benefit of the hon. member for Pontiac-Temiscamingue in the province of Quebec almost 10 per cent of the labour force was unemployed, while the figures for the prairies and the Pacific coast were 4.4 per cent and 6.7 per cent.


Erik Nielsen: Would the hon. minister
permit a question?
4402	HOUSE OF
Unemployment Measures Lacking


Allan Joseph MacEachen: No, I will permit questions at the end of my speech.
The trend has been downward in unemployment since that time, but what ought to be emphasized is that in the past six months total employment in Canada has shown a very strong advance. That is the important figure, and the most important statistic here is the year to year change. Unemployment as of September was 250,000, or 10,000 less than last year, and hon. gentlemen opposite seem to regard that as a very slight improvement. I regard it as a significant improvement, because it represents a complete reversal of the economic outlook that prevailed in Canada when this government took office. I hope to be able to say something more on this particular point later.
The statistics we have today may appear slight to hon. members opposite, but they underline two facts; that we reversed the unfavourable economic outlook, the unfavourable employment prospects that prevailed in Canada as of last April, and we improved the situation over last year.
It is true that Liberal members when in opposition introduced motions of non-confidence on the question of unemployment, but we presented those motions in periods of rising unemployment. Today and yesterday we have had motions put forward, not in a period of rising unemployment, but in a period of declining unemployment. That represents the difference between the two parties, unemployment rising under the Progressive Conservatives and decreasing under the Liberals.
In moving this amendment yesterday I hope the hon. member for Ontario will not think we will forget his performance, and the performance of his government, as they grappled unsuccessfully with the problem of unemployment throughout their whole period of office. Through this amendment he is asking us to visit with him, and with the other members of the former government, the scene of their major crime against the people of Canada, their failure to deal effectively with the problem of unemployment.
What was the performance of the former government? During that period there were excessively high levels of unemployment. Over the past five years unemployment averaged 6.6 per cent of the labour force all year around, and in that period of five years the winter rate was up to 10.1 per cent, while the summer average was 4.3 per cent of the labour force.
In the period from April 1, 1957 to March 31, 1963 the federal government, composed of hon. gentlemen opposite, paid out more than $300 million under the Unemployment Assistance Act, $300 million representing the


extent to which the unemployed of Canada were depending upon social assistance for a livelihood.
What happened to the unemployment insurance fund in that period when the Conservatives were in office? During that period the fund virtually disappeared, when the high levels of benefit payments represented the excessively high levels of mass unemployment. I do not intend to deal in detail with the benefit payments out of that fund each year, but they ranged from $385 million in 1958 to $513 million in 1961, all these figures indicating the excessively high levels of unemployment that prevailed in those years. That is the situation which this government faced when it entered office.
There have been recent improvements in the employment situation. The total employment picture has strengthened. Unemployment has decreased compared with the previous year and the prospects are that the Canadian economy will grow stronger in the months ahead. But the current labour market, with 250,000 persons unemployed, still reflects a high level of unemployment, a high level of unemployment which this government is determined to reduce, and with that object in mind has already put forward a number of major and effective programs to deal with the question. In the course of my remarks I will be referring to a number of these new and effective programs.
I point out this is a statistic which my hon. friend used to put on the record with regularity, that in September of this year employment in Canada totalled 6,565,000. Employment is greater by 180,000 than it was a year earlier. The Minister of Labour tends to be held responsible in this house and elsewhere for the whole problem of unemployment, and no doubt he does carry a full share of responsibility for this problem. But it ought to be apparent to all hon. members that a full range of policies is required to deal with unemployment, involving fiscal, monetary, trade and other relevant measures to stimulate employment and economic growth generally. I hope to be able to say more when introducing the estimates of the Department of Labour about my conception of the most effective way in which the Department of Labour can discharge its functions in co-ordination with other departments of government to deal with the problem of unemployment; but for the moment I am satisfied that the present government, in calling parliament together as quickly as possible following the election last April and introducing as quickly as possible major legislative measures to cope with unemployment, has kept faith with its determination, as expressed

to the electorate, that its foremost object on taking office would be to overcome unemployment.
Yesterday the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Starr) spent most of his time talking about the municipal winter works incentive program. In fact, the main point in his speech was that the changes which had been made by the new government had served to reduce the effectiveness of this program. He stated that the changes made would curtail the activity of those who might be usefully employed in the winter months. We did introduce new ideas into this program. We announced our intention to carry out this program at the earliest date ever. We decided that in order to reach its maximum effectiveness it ought to be concentrated within a period of six months. We decided to increase the contribution for municipal buildings under this program by $50,000 and we increased the federal payroll cost from 50 to 60 per cent in designated areas and areas of high winter unemployment. Each of these improvements is known to members of the house.
Yesterday the hon. member for Pontiac-Temiscamingue (Mr. Martineau), in referring to this program, used the words-they were not his own words in the beginning-the "anaemic child of the government".


Paul Raymond Martineau: That was the minister of external affairs.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Let us see how this child is doing under its new parents, Mr. Speaker. I have before me the forecast for the program this year, November 1, and the similar forecast for the program last year, October 15,
1962.	I want to put on the record these comparable statistics because they reveal how the child is doing. As of October 15, 1962, the applications approved were 1,450; on November 1, 1963, applications approved were 2,416. As of October 1962, estimated jobs involved 30,500; as of November 1, 1963, they involved 59,038. In October 1962 estimated man days of work to be provided, 1,650,000; this year the figure is 2,829,505. The estimated total of payroll costs last year was $25 million; this year the estimated total is $44 million. The estimated federal contribution last year was $12 million; this year it is $22 million. The estimated total cost of projects during the effective period last year was $83 million; this year it is $135 million. So these facts in themselves justify the efficacy of the improvements made by this government. They indicate the full health of the child under its new parentage, and they certainly present a strong justification for the defeat of this unsupported motion of non-confidence against this government.
The hon. member for Ontario spoke about winter unemployment. As I have indicated
Unemployment Measures Lacking already, we have strengthened and made more effective the municipal winter works incentive program, with good results. We have introduced a new bonus program, an incentive payment of $500 to the first purchaser of a winter-built house. This is a new program. The hon. member for Ontario calls it a gimmick. He said at one time in his speech that it will be ineffective, and at another time said it remains to be seen whether or not it will be effective. I believe this new experimental program will be effective. The response to date is encouraging. It will have a significant effect in increasing winter employment and in stabilizing employment opportunities in the construction industry. It is a new and effective program.
To meet the problem of unemployment this winter we have brought forward an accelerated winter construction program. This is an entirely new concept because it involves the bringing forward of projects not provided for in the regular estimates and for which justification exists on other grounds. The hon. member for Ontario asked how many new jobs $7 million would provide in this country of ours. Well, of course, he misses the point. This program does not apply to "this country of ours"; it applies to the designated areas, including 10 per cent of the paid workers of Canada, and also to areas of high winter unemployment, some of which are included already in the designated areas. These programs will be brought forward and undertaken this winter in these particular areas, and combined with other programs of the government this accelerated winter construction program will have a significant effect in reducing unemployment and in creating jobs this winter.
May I turn for a moment, Mr. Speaker, to another phase of the program of the government. We have designated certain parts of the country for special help. This is evidence of our policy to help areas in Canada most in need of help. It ought to be evident to hon. members of the house that any policy or incentive applied universally across the country will tend to make the economically strong parts of Canada stronger still. Such an approach will not help deal with areas of slow growth or high unemployment.
It has been said that this program of designation is discriminatory. Of course it is discriminatory. It is intended to be discriminatory in the sense of providing special assistance to areas of high unemployment and slow growth.
Yesterday the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher) asked that special consideration be given to programs of this type. It is because we share that view that we have designated 35 areas in Canada as now eligible

Unemployment Measures Lacking for special stimuli under a new government program. A number of specific measures to promote development in these areas have already been announced by the government. They include tax exemptions for a three year period for new manufacturing and processing industries which locate in those areas. They include accelerated depreciation allowances on new machinery and equipment and an accelerated write-off of the capital cost of new industrial buildings in a five year period. These are the most powerful tax incentives ever offered by any Canadian government to assist in locating industries in areas of slow growth. Combined with the area development agencies and the new Department of Industry, these measures are bound to have a marked effect in accelerating growth, in reducing unemployment and in increasing total employment in these areas.
Besides these fiscal measures, provision has been made for the speeding up of government construction programs during the winter months and for an increase in the federal contribution to the municipal winter works incentive program from 50 per cent to 60 per cent. In addition, we have taken steps to strengthen the personnel of the national employment service. Surely, the effective use of manpower in Canada requires a strong national employment service equipped with the resources to make its contribution felt in the development of manpower policies. The former government applied austerity to the national employment service. We lifted that austerity program. The former government failed to maintain the national employment service at its proper establishment. We have added a large number of new positions to the service. For almost two years the national employment service in Canada was "frozen", and in April of this year there were vacancies to the number of 264 positions in the establishment of the service. This is how the government of Canada was treating the national employment service at a time of high unemployment, although the government of the United States, realizing how effective unemployment service could be in combating unemployment, had increased the total complement of its agency by more than 4,000. In order to make the services of the organization more effective we have added 362 new positions to the national employment service. We think this is a sound step because it will allow us to administer the new manpower policy and to establish the new programs we have undertaken, namely the older worker training program, the winter building program, and so on. We intend to support the national employment service and we have under consideration at the present time the
[Mr. MacEachen.l
recommendations of the Gill committee, with the further strengthening of that organization in mind.
I hope hon. gentlemen opposite will excuse me if I refer to the way in which the new government has strengthened the training program for the unemployed. It is true the former government did something in this field. I recognize that. We have taken steps to make the program more effective and we have extended for a further period the capital cost program under technical and vocational training, so that many more millions of dollars may be spent in building facilities and in adding to the training of our youth for the requirements of the sixties.
Now may I say a word about the incentive program for older workers. This program was designed in an effort to combat the prejudice against the re-employment of older workers. It is a new program. It is experimental and I think it fills a real need. As we all know, it is very hard for older workers who have been out of employment for a long time to re-establish themselves. Yet many of them are highly capable and have many years of useful working life ahead of them. Given an opportunity, they could bring their valuable qualities to the job-judgment, stability, less frequent absenteeism and reduced turnover and accident rate. The purpose of our program is to make it possible for employers to take these older workers and give them, if possible, training on the job or, at a minimum, to rehabilitate them to the point at which they become competitive in the labour market. If we succeed in doing this for any person I think it is a significant contribution to his future. The hon. member for Ontario says that those in charge of policing this program are having a difficult time-that they are encountering insurmountable difficulties. Well, the program has been in effect since Friday last, and on Monday the hon. member talks about facing insurmountable difficulties. That is hardly informed criticism. The hon. member for Ontario also said the program was a gimmick. That is his favourite description of a new program which he has not taken the trouble to understand or to study in detail. This is not a gimmick. It is the use of an incentive in a definite way to meet a definite problem.
As an indication of our determination to deal successfully and effectively with unemployment I should like to refer to the supplementary estimates, estimates D, which, in total, amount to $74 million, $60 million of which is being asked for to support the programs I have mentioned. By asking for this large amount-not a disproportionately large amount in terms of the problem to be solved

-the government has indicated the seriousness with which it regards the unemployment situation.
I do not intend to deal with the municipal loan fund. The hon. member for Ontario regards this as something which will create no jobs at all. We take a different attitude. We think this program, which is now in effect, will have a significant impact on employment opportunities. It is a new program and it deserves the support of all hon. members so that it may attain its maximum effect in reducing unemployment. We have established the Atlantic development fund. Surely, a fund of the amount of $100 million to be employed wholly within four provinces of Canada is bound to have an impact on employment in the immediate future. Then there is the provision in the supplementary estimates for a contribution by the federal government of 90 per cent toward the construction of the trans-Canada highway. This has already had a marked effect on employment. It is another new program, as is the municipal loan fund.
The newest program of all to which I should like to make reference with respect to its employment possibilities is the success of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Sharp) in negotiating this large sale of wheat and flour to Russia.


An hon. Member:: We thought the wheat board did that.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Well, it has been done and it will have direct employment consequences. It is going to increase the number of men employed and the number of hours worked in the flour mills of this country. It will increase the number of men and the number of hours worked on the railways. It will increase the number of operators and the number of hours worked in connection with water transportation and handling of cargo at the ports. To some extent it will increase farm employment in Canada, especially in the western provinces. These are some of the direct effects of this particular sale of wheat and flour. The indirect effects will be substantial. Demand, generally, will be increased as a result of the increased spending power which will be generated within the economy. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that this single sale will, in itself, add at least
20,000	or 25,000 additional jobs to the Canadian economy in the next 12 months.


An hon. Member:: In the eastern provinces?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: In all parts of Canada- in the constituency of the hon. member for Saint John-Albert (Mr. Bell) as well as of others in the maritimes, in Quebec and in the west. This is a universal program which
Unemployment Measures Lacking will increase jobs everywhere and its effects will become more apparent as time goes on.
May I turn for a moment to the subamendment moved by the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher) in which he belaboured the government for its failure to propose any plan-I omit certain words-to deal with the problems of automation and technological change. I cannot accept the view set forth in the subamendment as being an accurate description of the policy of the government and the plan which it has already made clear with respect to meeting the problems posed by automation and technological change.
It seems to me we have taken two major steps. One has been in the field of training in industry. The hon. member for Ontario admitted yesterday that very little indeed has been done in the highly important field of training employees in industry. We have increased from 50 to 75 per cent the federal contribution to provincial costs in respect of training in industry. We think this will provide an additional stimulus to undertake the basic training of employees in industry.
It is a fact that in Canada today there are persons in the labour force whose skills are becoming obsolete and who are unable to acquire new skills because they do not have the basic education to allow them to do so. We are going to do something about this. We intend to do something about apprenticeship training and about retraining so that as one set of skills becomes obsolete a new set is acquired. That will be undertaken through this program.
The hon. member for Port Arthur may not have noticed that in the set of supplementary estimates tabled recently in the house provision has been made in a vote of the Department of Labour for a new manpower consultative service. In supplementary estimates A, page 12, he will notice that the government is asking the House of Commons for a special vote to provide for the establishment of manpower consultative service to assist in and encourage the establishment of manpower adjustment by employers and workers, and to authorize payments in accordance with agreements entered into with the approval of the governor in council by the Minister of Labour with provinces, employers and workers in respect of labour mobility and assessment incentives.
The purpose of this program is to cope for the first time in any country in this way with the problems of automation and technological change. We think that in putting forward this program which has been developed in the Department of Labour we are doing something in the way of pioneering

Unemployment Measures Lacking work. The principles of the program are simple but constructive. Appropriate plans will be developed at the plant level in advance of anticipated worker displacement. These plans will require advanced research and advanced assessment at the plant level, and this new manpower consultative service will assist employers and unions where they operate in a plant to assess prospective technological change, and will assist them to develop plans in order to meet the problems posed by technological change.
A direct effort will be made with government assistance to anticipate the need and to prepare for it in the way of programs to provide employment for displaced workers. At the same time, where transfer of workers displaced by technological change is not possible within the plant or within the community, re-employment incentives of another kind will be made available.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I cannot accept the terms of the subamendment which belabour the government for its failure to deal with the problems of automation and technological change. We are taking two very important steps in this field and we think these steps will be effective and useful.
At the beginning of my remarks I stated in commenting on the present employment situation that the economic outlook that had prevailed in Canada last spring has been reversed, and that the advice available in the Department of Labour last spring projected not decreasing unemployment but increasing unemployment for September of this year. The former minister of labour, the hon. member for Ontario, said yesterday that the government of which he was a member had provided incentives to industry and that the present government is still riding on the effects of that impetus. That is an absurd contention and it ought to have been apparent to the hon. member for Ontario.
All I ask him is this: Did he ask his officials last March and April what the projections were for unemployment in September of this year? If he did he would have received precisely the same advice I received when I entered the Department of Labour, and that was that on the basis of the advice available the six month projection was that unemployment in September of 1963 would be greater than unemployment in September of 1962 and that the total advance in employment would not be as significant as it has turned out to be.
Therefore, whether we are riding on the impetus provided by the former government, which I doubt and deny, the fact is that the prospects known to members of the former government last spring called for higher unemployment this fall and a less rapid advance


in total employment. The outlook today is different. Employment over the year has increased from September to September by
180,000	and instead of an increase in unemployment as was projected there has been a decrease. That is in accordance with the advice I received on entering the department and in accordance with the facts that are generally known in the house today.
So, Mr. Speaker, I would ask hon. members to defeat these amendments because the present government called parliament together immediately to deal with the problems of unemployment and has brought forward a number of new and effective programs to do so. The policies of the new government have reversed the economic outlook that prevailed in Canada last April to the extent that there has been a marked increase in total employment and a significant decline in total unemployment. I also feel that the outlook for Canada is good. It will remain good and become stronger, provided the government is permitted to continue to implement the policies which it has begun.


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether I could address a question to the hon. member?


Maurice Lamontagne: Do you want to answer the question?


Michael Starr: I am going to ask a question, if you do not mind. In view of the programs which the minister outlined in his speech which are yet to begin, to what policies of the present government does he give the credit for the decline we have experienced in the last few months?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I did not hear the question.


Michael Starr: I will repeat it. In view of the policies he has outlined, which have yet to
begin-


Lester Bowles Pearson: They have begun.


Michael Starr: The Minister of Labour said they have yet to begin. To what policies does the minister give the credit for the decline in unemployment in the last two months?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I am glad the hon. gentleman accepts the fact that a reversal in outlook has taken place. I think the people of Canada realize they have a government that will manage the affairs of the country properly.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Michael Starr: You do not need any policies?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the hon. member rising to ask a question?


Mr. Slogan:: Yes. I wonder if the minister would add to his rosy prediction that, in the first year of Liberal government, the gross

national product will exceed the 8 per cent record of last year under a Conservative government?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the hon. member for Saint John-Albert rising to ask a question?


Thomas Miller Bell: No, I was claiming my place.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I recognize the hon. member for Greenwood.


Mr. Ricard:: I should like to ask a question, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister of Labour deny the fact that there is more unemployment now in the province of Quebec than there was in September of last year?


Mr. Caron:: He speaks for Canada.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I never deny the facts, whatever they are.


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I think I share with a good many members on this side of the house, a high regard for the Minister of Labour (Mr. MacEachen). However, I must admit I was disappointed with the speech he just made. It seemed to me his remarks were rather political and very complacent. I do not blame him for making political remarks in the house, but I do not think this is the time or the occasion for complacency. The minister repeated to us, if I may borrow a phrase of the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Starr), a number of gimmicks that had been introduced by the government or, if the minister does not like that word, a number of incentives that have been brought into effect by the government. No doubt some of these are meritorious.
He also gave us figures relating to the expansion of employment. Of course we welcome the expansion of employment. However, he did not seem to recognize that there is a continuing need for a sufficient expansion of employment to provide full employment. The question is not whether we have expanded employment, which undoubtedly we have, but whether we have expanded employment to the extent where we can provide full employment in this country for all those able to work. This I say is the objective, and in that respect at least the government has failed so far. I listened carefully to the speech delivered by the minister, and I regret that he does not seem to have answered the rather searching questions put by one member from his own side of the house, the hon. member for Iles-de-la-Madeleine (Mr. Sauve). I refer to page 4374 of Hansard, where the hon. member is reported as saying this:
The fact remains, Mr. Speaker, that even though one knows the unemployment problem, its details, its various forms, as an hon. member of the opposition mentioned this afternoon, a basic decision has never been taken, namely whether governments.
Unemployment Measures Lacking federal and provincial, should interfere in the direction of the economy.
All kinds of solutions have been suggested, all aspects of the problem have been considered, but when one reads all these reports, one is always under the impression that there was a gap at a certain time and that the government was never able to make up its mind and really step into the economic field. I think that is the crux of the problem.
We could discuss ad infinitum the causes of unemployment and the solutions we think possible, but as long as governments-
I think he included this government.
-all of them, will not make up their minds to step in in order to stem unemployment and apply a policy of full employment, Canada will experience, as she has in the past, long periods of unemployment.
I ask the minister to pay heed to the words of his colleague from Iles-de-la-Madeleine. The hon. member went on to say this, and this is the last time I am going to avail myself of his speech for the purposes of my own:
As long as we go on thinking that private enterprise can solve the unemployment problem all by itself, that important public works, unemployment insurance and assistance will be able to help the jobless for some time, we will never solve definitely the full employment problem.
It is my submission that the minister, in his speech, failed to come to grips with the problem and indicate to this house the way the government accepted the responsibility which, quite rightly in my view, was put forward by the hon. member who spoke earlier in the debate. It seemed to me that when the minister referred, as he did, to the subamendment introduced by the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher) he missed the import of it. I call attention to it. What we regret in the subamendment was the failure of the government to propose any plans for the fundamental economic and social changes required to deal with chronic and growing unemployment. The minister dealt with palliatives some of them good, some of them effective, but perhaps not to the degree he felt they were. He failed to tell us what proposals there were for the fundamental economic and social changes required, if we were to really deal with the situation.
I noticed that several other members who spoke in this debate took the opportunity presented by it to speak of the needs of their particular regions, and the problems of unemployment as they affected those regions. In this particular I want to follow the example of those who have preceded me in the debate, and take the opportunity to present to the house and to the government the urgent needs of the metropolitan area of the city of Toronto. All those needs are connected with this amendment, and if their solution

Unemployment Measures Lacking was taken seriously by the government it would put an end to the problem of unemployment where it is most acute, and that is in the large urban centres of Canada. If the government would deal with the problems of the metropolitan area of Toronto, I presume they would deal also with the problems of the other large urban centres. In so doing, they would go a long way toward tackling effectively this problem of unemployment.
What does the metropolitan area of Toronto most urgently need? It needs a public low cost housing program on a fairly large scale, a larger scale than we have ever had before. It urgently needs hospitals and hospital beds. It urgently needs rapid transit subways to deal with the burgeoning population and the expansion of suburban areas. These are not exclusively problems of the federal government. Indeed, primarily they may be the problems of other levels of government. However the leadership of the federal government is needed in each of these fields. Leadership, in these terms, would be an effective means of ending unemployment.
I suggest that the government has good reason to be concerned about these needs and should consider carefully the needs of the metropolitan area of Toronto. It was only in April, Mr. Speaker, that the Liberal tide surged over that area. When the tide had subsided there were only two hon. members, my colleague from Danforth (Mr. Scott) and myself, who survived. I would have expected a very dynamic interest in the problems of the metro area on the part of this government.
What do we find? Despite the urgent requests of the mayor of Toronto and the members of the board of control, the Prime Minister announced that the effective date of the winter works program would be from November 1 to April 30. I will not use my own words to describe that decision, but Controller Lamport of the city of Toronto, a well-known Liberal, is reported as saying that the government had ignored Toronto's special problem in setting the deadline of April 30. He pointed out that although the national figures do show a decline in unemployment, and I must say it is a very small decline, the situation is worse in Toronto than it was a year ago. Taking the figures for September, he pointed out that unemployment had increased over 4 per cent during that period.
A gentleman by the name of A. V. Piggott, who was chairman of the employment advisory commission of Toronto, a well-known businessman who has also taken a leading part in the field of social welfare, is reported in the Toronto Star of October 25 as saying

that the situation in regard to unemployment was desperate. He said that there are now 100,000 to 125,000 jobs open in Toronto but the 125,000 unemployed cannot take those jobs because the openings were all for skilled workers. I dare say that is the experience of many members of this house. People come to ask for jobs, and the only jobs the member can find are for skilled personnel. These people however do not possess the basic skills required. I ask the government to note this. Mr. Piggott said he felt a terrible sense of urgency after visiting the United Kingdom and Europe and seeing what they are doing by way of retraining workers and by way of national economic planning. Mr. Piggott said he felt a terrible sense of urgency after realizing this situation, a sense of urgency not apparently shared by the government. However, I hope this motion will renew a sense of urgency on the part of the government today.
I was saying that the metropolitan area of Toronto urgently needs hospitals. I commend to the government an article in the Toronto Star of October 30 by the science editor who said that even if we built 10 new 200-bed hospitals the metro area would still be short of hospital space. In some suburbs like North York the present picture is so bad that, instead of the five beds per thousand residents, which is accepted as the proper standard, there is only half a bed per thousand residents in that area.
I know the government is giving consideration at the present time to the urgent requests of the metro executive to increase the government's contribution to the cost of adding the urgently needed hospital beds, as the province of Ontario and the metro council of Toronto have done. I urge the government to move quickly in increasing its contribution so that the urgently needed hospital construction be got under way soon, so that not only will the urgent need of beds for prospective patients be met but that winter unemployment can be substantially reduced.
I mentioned the subject of rapid transit construction, which I say is urgently needed. This is a major work in providing and creating employment. I would like to say in respect to this that plans, of course, are already in existence for the construction of rapid transit subways in the city of Toronto. I doubt if any people but the patient workers of the metropolitan area would put up with the sort of situation where it takes them an hour, and sometimes more than an hour, to get to their place of work in terribly overcrowded streetcars. This has a serious effect on their lives, and the construction of a subway would not only give them greater leisure but would add

further social benefits in the construction that would grow up around these more adequate transit facilities.
Again it may be said that this is a problem for the metropolitan area itself to deal with; but if the federal government would call the leaders of that large area into a conference with the leaders concerned with this matter in the provincial government and say, "We will accelerate that program and make it possible for you to go ahead with the program, and thus avoid spreading it out, as happens when the resources of the metropolitan area alone are to be relied on", this would have an immediate and very valuable effect in dealing with the problem of unemployment.
I want to deal briefly with the question of housing. We do not need housing in the metropolitan area of Toronto, and in other parts of Canada, simply to provide work, but it is doubtful whether there is any form of construction, meeting the needs of people, which would have a more valuable effect in dealing with the question of unemployment.
Yesterday, the Ontario federation of labour, meeting at Niagara Falls, produced a brochure for its 1,000 delegates in which it described Canada as a backward nation in the field of public housing, and spoke of the housing blight in Toronto as the worst in the province. It went on to say:
The Toronto situation is of course the worst in magnitude and here the municipal authorities as well as other levels of government have made the biggest headlines with the minimum of results.
This is not the occasion to go into great detail on what is required in the field of housing. In the area from which I come a badly needed change of policy would provide assistance from various levels of government for the rehabilitation and saving of existing housing, thus retarding its returning to a slum condition. In many other jurisdictions such financial support is available, and it has the effect of providing employment where it is needed.
If the government is serious about dealing with the problems of this large metropolitan area, and if it is also serious in seeking full employment, then I suggest the first thing it should do is get together with these other levels of government and make the plans necessary to meet these urgent needs of housing, rapid transit, and hospitals. If it would do that, then it would solve the problem of full employment, or at least go a long way towards solving it in that particular area.
I shall conclude my remarks by referring to a statement of policy approved by another political party, the British labour party, called "Labour and the Scientific Revolution." I know some people will say we should not listen to this because it is a socialist policy.
Unemployment Measures Lacking I suggest it makes good sense and I commend it to the government and members of the house. This is what it says:
In this new age of the computer and automation, as we can already see in the United States, the consequence of accepting rationalization and labour-saving techniques, whilst at the same time rejecting the need for central planning, is to abandon full employment. In short, planning without automation equals stagnation: automation without planning equals chronic unemployment.
From now on, we must frankly face the fact that any boy or girl who enters industry during the 1960's may well find his or her skill rendered obsolete more than once in the course of working life, with the result that a choice must be made between accepting whatever unskilled job is available or retraining in a new skill...
What we must develop, therefore,.. .is a completely new attitude to technological innovation and to redundancy as well...
This will require an enormous expansion of our adult training facilities. Both in the planning of this expansion program and in creating the new climate of opinion in industry which must accompany it, the trade unions will play a crucial role.
I suggest that all the training programs we have heard of, excellent though they are, do not constitute that enormous expansion of adult training facilities which is needed to cope with this problem.
The statement goes on to say:
As the scientific revolution proceeds, the wealth of the nation will increase and we shall be able not only to raise our own living standards but to contribute much more to the attack on world poverty___
The prospect that the scientific revolution opens before us is a working life which is secure and interesting, in a society where machines are subordinate to man; a world in which hardship and suffering are progressively eliminated and the whole range of man's culture is available to enrich the lives of us all. This is the true socialist vision which, in the past, want and ignorance have held from our grasp.
I do not apologize for the use of the word socialist. I think that is an apt description of it, and that is why we are proud in this party to call ourselves socialists and claim some part of this socialist vision.
But can we in fact break through the resistance and obstacles that confront us? We are confident that we can. In our factories and workshops we have perhaps the most skilled and mature working population in the world.
They are speaking of Britain, and what they say is true of Canada.
In our schools there is still a vast untapped potential of scientific and managerial skill. What is needed to meet the challenge of the scientific revolution is not a new scientific elite but a collective determination to succeed-and a government which will liberate the nation from its present frustrations so that together we can create a new and better Britain.
I substitute the word Canada for the word Britain, and suggest these words are applicable to Canada.
The reason I and other members of my party propose to support the amendment and

Unemployment Measures Lacking the subamendment is because we do not believe the government has shown this vision and indicated that collective determination that is required to deal with the size and enormity of our problem.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: The hon. member for Sherbrooke.


Mr. Gerard Chapdelaine (Sherbrooke):: Mr. Speaker, allow me to open my remarks by- [Text]


Mr. Byrne:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the house should appreciate in view of the fact we are now discussing two amendments, one proposed by the official opposition and the other by the New Democratic party, which represents the third largest group in the house, that the members of the government should be permitted to speak to defend the government position, certainly in equal proportion to those who are speaking from the opposite side of the house.


Mr. Smith:: Order.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Surely the house must agree, if we believe in debate being anything but a complete farce, that the government must be in a position to defend its policies in equal proportion to speakers from the other side of the house. If we carry on under the proposal we have-


Stanley Howard Knowles: What is your point of order?


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: There cannot be a point of order on a point of order. Surely the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) knows this.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: Order. If the hon. gentleman has a point of order would he say what it is.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Mr. Speaker, in essence it means that under the schedule we are following the opposition will have twice the number of speakers that the government benches will have. There will be six, perhaps nine, as opposed to three from the government benches. I feel that that is certainly a logical point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: I recognize that there is come difficulty in being able to apportion time to the different parts of the house. The Chair is having some difficulty in this regard but I think it is doing its best under the present procedure. Until some agreement is reached between the different groups I think we will have to rely on the Chair to do the best possible. I now recognize the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Chapdelaine) .
[Mr. Brewin.l


Gérard Chapdelaine: Mr. Speaker, it is probably not too flattering for the Minister of Labour (Mr. MacEachen) to hear it said, in this house, that he was not able to explain clearly the viewpoint of his party, and by one of his own followers at that.
In opening my remarks, I would like to borrow a few lines from the famed French fabulist, Jean de la Fontaine, and to adapt them to this debate. Paraphrasing his "Animals sick with the plague", I would say:
An evil which strikes terror in all hearts, and that an irate Providence invented to punish the crimes of the old parties,
Unemployment, if its name must be known."
Mr. Speaker, for two days now, you have seen that the old parties, Liberal as well as Conservative, are fully conscious of the problem they have had to put up with and have been unable to solve once in office. We have even seen the Conservative members hold the present Liberal administration, which came into office only a few months ago, entirely responsible for unemployment-there are approximately 250,000 unemployed at present in the country.
I should like to quote, if I may, for the information of the Conservative members and their leader in particular, some d.b.s. statistics for the years 1957-1958 and so on, when the country had a Conservative administration.
In 1957, there were 328,000 unemployed in this country, that is 5.7 per cent of the labour force; in 1958, there was a small improvement, because the Conservatives worked to stem unemployment:	579,000 jobless in
Canada, that is 9.7 per cent of the labour force; in 1959 there was an improvement:
578,000	unemployed, that is 9.5 per cent of the labour force; in 1960, there were 545,000 jobless, or 8.8 per cent of the labour force; and in 1961, the grand crowning-piece of the Conservative administration, we had 693,000 jobless, representing 10.8 per cent of the labour force.
Today, Mr. Speaker, here is the amendment introduced by the official opposition party:
"This house regrets the failure of the government to introduce any effective new policies or programs to reduce substantially unemployment in Canada, and in particular to alleviate winter unemployment, so as to achieve the promised full employment as undertaken in the Liberal party election promises."
I admit that the Liberal party as well as the Conservative party committed themselves, one after the other, during various election campaigns, to settle the unemployment problem; but of two evils, I choose the lesser because I do not want to go back to that

period when-in 1961-there were more than one million unemployed in this country and the Conservative government of that time could do nothing about it.
During the 1958 election campaign, the present Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Diefen-baker) said: I will not sleep as long as there is a man out of work in Canada.
Has he slept?
We do not know that but we know, Mr. Speaker, that many people were starving while he was awake.
That is why in 1962 and 1963 the Canadian people decided to choose a lesser evil-[DOT] but an evil just the same-to put an end to the ultimate shame of living in the country with the highest unemployment rate, as reported in Quebec city's Le Soleil on Wednesday, July 17, 1963:
Unemployment in Canada reached the highest rate in all the great industrial nations, even after the United States.
Mr. Speaker, if what is found in the amendment moved by the present Conservative party is all that is offered by way of a policy to check unemployment, we will not go along with that, because neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals have found real solutions to the unemployment problem in Canada today.
Mr. Speaker, all kinds of solutions are being suggested at the present time, those contained in the Gill report and those proposed by the present Minister of Labour in his offensive against unemployment.
If we briefly analyse those cures, we find that the Gill report proposes to amend the enforcement of the Unemployment Insurance Act in order to help the workers.
One readily realizes that this is merely a measure to relieve the present unemployed but not to prevent an increase in the number of jobless.
It is one thing to find work and another to give some assistance to unemployed workers.
I would even say that in certain areas unemployment insurance is no good, because it encourages unemployment, especially in those areas where salaries are low and it is felt that it is better to draw unemployment insurance than to work.
Among other remedial measures proposed by the Minister of Labour (Mr. MacEachen) there is the increase from 75 to 90 per cent in the federal assistance to vocational rehabilitation; this is a worthy and sound solution, but it will certainly not solve the present unemployment problem, at least for several years to come.
The Minister of Labour proposes to raise from 50 to 75 per cent the federal assistance
Unemployment Measures Lacking to the retraining of workers who are threatened with unemployment. We admit, Mr. Speaker, that such a step would somewhat palliate unemployment, in that workers displaced by automation would move to another community where a job may be waiting for them but, there again, that will do nothing to change the increasing number of new workers who enter the labour market, a situation which calls for the creation of at least 200,000 new jobs every year.
In general, the other suggested cures would only fill the existing gap; they do not take into account the labour surplus which will result from the increasing spread of automation.
Those measures are what I would call poultices. They remind me of the plugs which are used to patch up rusted piping and which only increase the pressure elsewhere in the pipe which has been weakened by rust.
As long as the Liberal government, just as the former Conservative government, will not realize that a piecemeal policy is not what is needed to solve unemployment, that an altogether new policy is necessary, because the present one is no longer suited to put to work the mass of the labour force available, we will continue to be faced with the same problem.
As long as the government refuses to tackle the underlying cause of the evil which gnaws at the labour force, we will not succeed in finding means to stem unemployment, as we would hope, and as is the case now in Germany where even 74-year old women work in stores as assistants while manpower is sought from everywhere.
In France, there is a shortage of manpower.
I wonder whether it would be possible on a continent as rich as America to find means of solving unemployment due to automation.
During last night's debates, we listened to a few suggestions, one of which astonished me. It came from a Social Credit member. Let me quote an extract from the speech made by the hon. member for Quebec West (Mr. Plourde) to the effect that one measure only could solve unemployment. Here is what he said:
I hope that taxes will be reviewed in order to And out means to give a new impetus, a new development to Canada, even if this would get our country in debt for the next ten years.


Lucien Plourde: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
I want to point out to the hon. member for Sherbrooke that this suggestion implied the present system and not a protracted study which would leave the people starving under the present regime.


Gérard Chapdelaine: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member for Quebec West will allow me to

Unemployment Measures Lacking finish my remarks, he will understand my idea. I mean that this suggestion, even if it implies the present system, is bad, because it is not by increasing the national debt that Canadians will find relief. It is mostly by trying to reduce it that we will succeed. When Canadians pay less in taxes, taxes which serve only to pay interest on the national debt, taxes taken, in the final analysis, in the pockets of the taxpayers and which will deprive them, consequently, of an increased purchasing power, only then shall we be able to try really and stem unemployment.
A considerable increase in the redistribution of wealth within our country would create new jobs and even an improved standard of living.
A suggestion which bears a great resemblance to the Creditiste doctrine is the step taken recently in the United States by President Kennedy in order to reduce by 11 per cent direct income tax for the workmen and the American people. That measure will increase the purchasing power of American consumers, thus creating a demand for production, which in turn will increase employment and prevent unemployment. One is justified to wonder why there is no unemployment in wartime. The reason is that in wartime we experience an increased purchasing power, while in peacetime everything operates slowly and everybody then experiences a period of unemployment like the one we have had since the war and especially since the beginning of the Conservative administration in 1957.
The solution will only be found when measures dealing with developments in the automation century will have been understood and applied. Automation is getting more and more scientific and it will increasingly shove labour aside.
To advocate that to settle unemployment it is necessary to curb automation is false, because automation is the direct and beneficent result of the human mind in operation. In my opinion, if we curb automation, we thus curb the human mind in action.
We know that automation is the direct cause of unemployment, since it has supplanted the workers who were employed to produce what the machine now makes without them. All right. But the concern should not be that the worker will lose his job, but that as a result of his loss of income, he will no longer be able to buy the commodities that the machine will continue to produce. We are faced with this dilemma: either the machine goes on producing the goods that were produced by man in the past and that he could buy with the salary derived from his job, or we face up to the existing over production.
[Mr. Chapdelaine.l

The answer to the problem of automation is to make it possible for the workers to own the machines replacing them. In this way, man will be able to live on the goods produced by the machine which he owns, while at present, in opposition to this, production is increasing and the purchasing power is low and, according to all indications, will get lower and lower. The problem is not one of production but of distribution.
If only our present government, as well as other governments throughout the world would realize that it is not with second-class measures that we are going to solve the problem of unemployment, but by getting at the heart of the matter, that is the lack of purchasing power in the pockets of the consumers who alone can absorb the goods being produced; if only the government realized that it is not a question of greatly increasing the present money supply, if the government realized that such a thing could be done without printing money indiscriminately, as some people might have thought when somebody tried to explain the Social Credit doctrine by using the wrong terms, because those social allowances we have now might well be called dividends, then the government would be getting nearer to the Social Credit theory. But we do not believe you can provide everybody with a livelihood without taking into account the production capacity of this country.
If the government would understand that instead of leaving to the chartered banks the power they have at present to create 12 times as much money as they have on deposit in the Bank of Canada; if the government would gradually take back the power that we, Canadians, have given the chartered banks through the federal government for the operation of public services, little by little Canadians would have less money to pay back as interest on bonds and, as a result, the government would not have to levy so many taxes, which are used only to pay the interest on the public debt. The national debt has reached such a level that we have $900 million a year to pay as interest alone.
Let us just suppose for a moment that, in the country, Canadians no longer have to pay the government $900 million each year because that amount is no longer required to pay interest on the national debt, and let us suppose that the money were distributed as spending power.
That money would be left to the consumer in the form of purchasing power because it would not have been taken from him through taxes. Then you would see the Canadian economy moving again. And there would be

no need to dream up all kinds of second rate solutions to solve the unemployment problem.
I respectfully submit that these are not lunatic theories but indeed rather concrete theories forced upon us by reality and to be applied sooner or later. As a matter of fact, if we fail to do so, we will have to keep on borrowing and paying back, over periods of 20 to 30 years, for services we will have used but for which our children will have to pay because their fathers will not have been wise enough to put their affairs in order while they were living.
Mr. Speaker, I feel we might accept for the time being the measures submitted by the government. On the other hand, governments, whether Liberal or Conservative, will gradually have to reach the conclusion that a reform of Canada's monetary system is necessary if the economy is to develop normally in a country as rich as Canada.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, the question which has been debated since yesterday, namely that of unemployment, is one which follows naturally from a situation created by an obsolete economic system, by a system which is no longer suited to the present needs, and this precisely at the time when we speak of full employment, when we hear the representatives of the various political parties in this house speak of the ideal to be pursued, that is full employment, in brief, at the very moment when the number of unemployed is going up.
The hon. member who rose before me, the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Chapde-laine) quoted a little while ago figures on the number of unemployed in Canada. He said that our country had respectively in 1959, 1960 and 1961, 578,000, 547,000 and 693,000 unemployed.
Now, last week, I put on the order paper question No. 1,469, which reads as follows:

"What was the value of goods and services produced for each of the last five years?"

And here is the answer I was given:
In 1958, the value of goods and services produced in Canada amounted to $36,048 million.
In 1959, it was $38,430 million, that is $2,400 million more than in 1958.
In 1960, at the time when Canada had
547,000	unemployed, the gross national product amounted to $39,437 million, that is an increase of $1 billion over the production of the preceding year.
In 1961, when our country held the unemployment or lack of employment record, our
Unemployment Measures Lacking gross national product reached $40,511 million, that is an increase of $1,100 million over the year 1960, although the number of unemployed reached the figure of 693,000.
In 1962, without any decrease in the number of jobs, the gross national product amounted to $43,646 million, that is an increase of $3,135 million over that of the preceding year.
Here we have an instance of the economical paradox in which we live, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, at the very moment when the situation of the unemployed remains unchanged, our national production is increasing, and that, without any participation of the arms and brains of our Canadian citizens. That is the problem confronting us today. At the very time when we hear some hon. members, even ministers and leaders of the opposition or of the government, talk about their good intentions with regard to unemployed Canadians, our national production is increasing while the number of the workless remains stationary, when it does not increase.
What solution is suggested? None whatsoever. At this time there is much talk of economic planning. We have no plans, no guidance, we lack government leadership in all spheres of economic life.
There is a lack of government leadership, while we are under pressure from various Canadian organizations, which ask us to intervene in a given sector of private enterprise, in a given field of our national production. The government is urged to make decisions for private enterprise, to levy more taxes on personal initiative, so as to be able to invade sectors where it should not step in at all.
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Quebec West (Mr. Plourde) mentioned yesterday the evidence given by Mr. Snyder, president of a large American industrial concern. He even quoted the concluding remarks of Mr. Snyder:
If we do not want to be up against a terrible unemployment crisis, within four or five years-
Since the article was written on October 5, 1963, that would take us to 1968.
If we do not want to be up against a terrible unemployment crisis within four or five years, it is important that teams of sociologists and economists-
Mr. Speaker, when I see the hon. member for Matapedia-Matane (Mr. Tremblay) in his seat, I suggest to the government to mobilize the hon. minister and also the sociologists or economists who are members of the government team. I suggest to mobilize them not to let them sit in their place without offering any solution, but, as Mr. Snyder put it:
-teams of sociologists and economists to prepare drastic solutions to deal within an unprecedented problem.

Unemployment Measures Lacking
Mr. Speaker, we need drastic solutions, not bogus solutions. And what is that unprecedented problem? It is that automation will involve before long, in the United States, the elimination of 40,000 jobs each week. And we in Canada will feel the impact of that situation, even if it originates in the United States.
Mr. Speaker, it is not full employment which will offer a solution to the problem of automation, because it is evident that the more we use machinery, the greater the number of our unemployed people.
The question is to decide whether the use of machines in Canada is to penalize men, women and children or whether it should assist and serve the human person in Canada.
That is the question.
Mr. Speaker, why is it always necessary to offer the Canadian people a dish of oats as you would to horses to round them up in a corral? Why not enact legislation fitted to human needs?
Why not come up with bold solutions- and again this is where economists and sociologists would have an important role to play-since solutions half a century old can no longer meet the requirements?
This is neither 1867, 1912 or 1934 but 1963. Means of production have changed. There has been progress everywhere in the world except as far as the monetary system is concerned. In Canada and in other countries professing their respect of democracy, human rights and the right of every man to live decently in a country of his own, the monetary system has remained unchanged.
Mr. Speaker, it is our duty to create an economic context which would permit the accomplishment of the human personality and would make it possible for every human being to live his life according to his aspirations, and his talents. Then, we would see the whole of Canada achieve the high level of culture and the high standard of living sought by every Canadian.
Mr. Speaker, when the Social Crediters come up, in this house or outside, with a suggestion to boost the Canadian economy or even with something new, because we do need something new in Canada, and they maintain that the monetary system is without the shadow of a doubt what is preventing the economic recovery of this country today, they are right. Our monetary system is not adapted to the people's needs, and that is why, from one end of the country to the other, in all our provinces, we are faced with the same financial difficulties that prevent us from getting out of that rut that enslaves us.
Mr. Speaker, we are talking about monetary reform when the governments which have followed one another for the past 25 or 30

years have only been concerned with the reform of morals, institutions and private enterprise, with the interference of the left-wing and right-wing parties, the interference of the government with the people's way of life, the interference of the government with private property and private industrial planning.
Earlier, we have heard again a socialist colleague asserting that in order to boost our economy it was necessary to resort to socialism, planning, yokes and strait-jackets in Canada. We do not share that view. We believe that what exists in Canada today is not due to the initiative of the federal or the provincial governments but rather to free enterprise, to private planning which, in 1962, succeeded in creating in Canada a gigantic production of goods and services valued at $43 million. The government does not produce; on the contrary, it prevents production. And that is so true that recently it was decided to exempt from income tax any new corporation that would settle in underdeveloped or depressed areas.
Mr. Speaker, if the government does that, it is because it understands that private enterprise in Canada is now being taxed to the limit, and that is precisely the obstacle in the way of that economic development which this country needs at the present time.
Mr. Speaker, the monetary reform advocated by Social Credit is not at all mysterious.
A little while ago, the hon. member for Sherbrooke said that unemployment insurance is not much good. I agree, but when he goes on to say that unemployment insurance is an encouragement to laziness, then I do not agree with him. If there was no unemployment insurance at the present time, all our unemployed would literally starve in an immensely rich country.
Today, at noon, we heard the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) say that he had concluded a great sale of wheat to Poland. We made wheat sales to China, the U.S.S.R. and also Czechoslovakia, Mr. Speaker, but that did not create a single job in all Canada.
Why? Because, as I said, automation is the current problem. Now, as private enterprise and others in Canada use more and more machines instead of men, production will go on increasing year after year, and also the number of unemployed.
There is only one warranted and possible solution, and it is the following one: as machines, progress and science replace men at work, the government ought to order the Bank of Canada to give back to men, women and children a purchasing power which will enable them to buy what is produced by machines, progress and science. Then we will

respect the human person and at the same time machines, progress and science.
Mr. Speaker, the monetary reform proposed by Social Credit is extremely simple: to make financially possible what is physically realizable, desirable and morally good.
In that connection, a man very conversant with the monetary policies of Canada made a statement on October 24, 1963 or during the week of October 24. I am referring to a lecture by Mr. Louis Rasminsky, governor of the Bank of Canada, reported as follows in an article written by Mr. Laurent Lauzier of La Presse in Montreal:
At the beginning of the week, Mr. Louis Rasminsky, governor of the Bank of Canada, gave a most useful talk in which he explained the true role of monetary policy in the Canadian economy.
At this time when very different theories are being advocated concerning this delicate and complex question which seems to be the fundamental cause of the money crises our country has gone through, these past few years, it became imperative for this official to state the principles he follows in this field and to define the true meaning of monetary policy as an instrument to control our prosperity.
How can we speak of an instrument to control our prosperity when we have thousands and thousands of unemployed and needy families in Canada? And now we are being told about "an instrument to control our prosperity".
It must be admitted, Mr. Speaker, that the instrument to control our prosperity has unfortunately been a failure throughout Canada.
"The instrument to control our poverty" would be a more appropriate term in the circumstances.
Mr. Lauzier goes on to say in his article:
Mr. Rasminsky does not share the views of those who credit money management with a magic power, in the best as well as in the worst interests of our society. He gives it a much narrower scope. According to him, the monetary policy is not enough by itself to cure an economy beset with many ills, any more than a single medicine can succeed in restoring a sick person to health.
We appreciate this statement from the governor of the Bank of Canada. On the other hand, if the monetary policy alone is not sufficient to cure a deficient economy, what has the governor of the Bank of Canada to answer, for example, when we are asking the government to adopt more generous social measures.
What is lacking in Canada? Are we short of resources? Are we short of labour? No, we have from 500,000 to 600,000 unemployed. Are we short of brains, ability or goodwill? Mr. Speaker, we have all that in Canada. What we need, and the government is aware of it day after day, is money. We are suffering from a shortage of money and credit, from this chronic evil which prevents the
Unemployment Measures Lacking government from taking action to enable Canada to develop as it should in 1963.
Mr. Speaker, we have all that in Canada. But what is wrong, and the government realizes it more every day, is that it suffers from a chronic lack of money and credit, which prevents it from taking action to help Canada grow and prosper as it should in 1963.
And that is all Mr. Rasminsky's doing, that remarkable economist, chairman and governor of the Bank of Canada, who puts his nose into all sorts of things he does not seem to understand at all. But he can understand that monetary policy-
May contribute to correct a difficult situation-
There he admits that from 1929 to 1939, conditions were difficult for us. At that time we had thousands of unemployed in Canada, we had no social legislation, no family allowances and no old age pensions, in short we had no social security whatever, and the jobless were struggling along in abject misery at the time.
And in the years 1933-1934, when we had hundreds of thousands of unemployed, they destroyed wheat in western Canada, potatoes in eastern Canada, they threw thousands of bags of flour into the great lakes, milk into the sewers, and the same more or less happened all over Canada.
Now, at that time, the government had no solution. Yet suddenly, as if by magic-to quote Mr. Rasminsky-under the 1939 government and the leadership of the Right Hon. William Lyon Mackenzie King, they succeeded in finding millions of dollars to organize war and put Canada on a war footing overnight. As if by magic, the number of unemployed decreased and then vanished completely in Canada, as jobs were created by the war industries.
Is the situation today not equally urgent and does it not require that the problem be considered quite earnestly.
Mr. Rasminsky exclaims:
It can contribute to correct a difficult situation or act as a stimulating factor on the economy...
"Act as a stimulating factor". He admits that it can be a stimulating factor for the economy.
-when circumstances allow it.
Would the present circumstances not allow it? This is where Mr. Rasminsky forgets to state what are those circumstances.
-but it may show itself powerless and even inefficient if it is used to solve problems which are unrelated to its function.
Now, Mr. Speaker, all the problems today, and everyone knows it, are essentially financial problems.

Unemployment Measures Lacking
In all fields where industry and the government want to take action, we are faced with a shortage of money.
There is no inflation at the present time in the country, it is rather deflation which is prevailing. Our production amounted to $43 billion in 1962, compared to a national income of approximately $32 billion. That is not inflation.
Inflation would be an inexistent production and at the same time an abundant purchasing power. That would be inflation. But when I think that we have no purchasing power and a production of $43 billion only for 1962, I say that we are living under deficit conditions and that there is deflation at present instead of inflation.
I continue this quotation from Mr. Ras-minsky's speech:
In other words, the governor of the Bank of Canada admits that the monetary policy is not a panacea.
We never stated that the monetary policy could graft a new leg onto a man with a wooden leg. We know that. It is not necessary in order to grasp that fact to have Mr. Ras-minsky's knowledge in monetary matters. Our monetary policy, must be truly representative, it must reflect the goods and services produced in Canada. That is all there is to it. That is precisely what the Social Crediters have said for a long time. With all due respect to Mr. Rasminsky, governor of the Bank of Canada, Social Crediters maintain that when the government borrows from a charter bank one billion dollars for public works or for other projects, and when it undersigns bonds or debentures at 5 or 5 J per cent, maturing in 20 or 25 years, new credit is created by the banks; in 25 or 30 years, that credit must be reimbursed together with the interests, which by then will come to a greater amount than the borrowed capital. Which means that we shall have to reimburse over $2 billion for a loan of $1 billion made in 1963. Our children will probably have to carry the load of the national debt that we are creating today.
I feel that at the moment our prime duty is to prevent the existing system not only from undermining our savings, but also from burdening the future that our children will inherit in 20 or 25 years from now.
Mr. Speaker, under the present system, Canada will never be able to repay its national debt, because it is made up of a credit created by banks, added to an interest which was never created; and that is what makes up the national debt which, at the present time, is costing us $1 billion every year as indicated by the Minister of Finance when he introduced his budget-


Mr. Choqueiie:: You have been shouting that for a long time.


David Réal Caouette: And for 20 years, my dear friend, you have failed to understand. That is why we keep repeating it.


Auguste Choquette: You have been shouting that for 20 years.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I hear the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Choquette) say that we have been shouting that for a long time. I may say that the Bible has been preached for 2,000 years and there are still millions of people like my friend for Lotbiniere who go to the devil every day.
Mr. Speaker, the governor of the Bank of Canada continues:
-he recognizes that the monetary policy is no cure-all and that its impact on the Canadian economy is far from being as important as certain people believe.
It is on this point that I should like to have explanations from the governor of the Bank of Canada in order to see whether the monetary question has no impact on the economy of a nation.
When we hear about a contributory pension plan to which everybody would be a contributor, when you see that today the province of Quebec with Mr. Lesage's government has to deal with feasible undertakings and new potential as, for instance, the steel industry which would have as a corollary an automobile industry, what are the problems which the premier of the province of Quebec must cope with?
He must deal with a monetary problem exactly the same as we have here in Ottawa. It is that problem or that situation which the federal government does not dare touch, does not wish to touch and does nothing to hold in check or at least try to improve the monetary conditions in Canada.
The minister of education of the province of Quebec said: "We do not have enough money." Some 15 years ago, we heard the premier of the province of Quebec, Mr. Maurice Duplessis, state: "We are not manufacturers of taxes, we do not manufacture the money." Those words were said by the premier of the province of Quebec at that time.


Auguste Choquette: Would the hon. member for Villeneuve tell us, supposing the Social Credit theories were applied, in what proportion does he think unemployment would come down?


David Réal Caouette: In reply to my very good friend, Mr. Speaker, I say: a hundred per cent, because the financial problem would come in second place then, whereas today it is the financial problem which prevents the economy from getting off the ground.


Auguste Choquette: There will always be unemployment.


David Réal Caouette: That is right, but it would be extremely low because maximum employment would be achieved by putting into practice the Social Credit doctrine. And I know that my hon. friend from Lotbiniere understands what I mean. If Social Credit is wrong, why does not the government offer us a solution, not an unrealistic solution which does not lead anywhere, but a true solution which will contribute to create and give new strength to the Canadian economy in general.
Mr. Speaker, the governor of the Bank of Canada adds:
In that respect, the diagnosis formulated by Mr. Rasminsky is one of the most realistic ever to come out of the federal capital. Canada's true economic problem is not a monetary one, it is related to its industrial production level.
Here Mr. Rasminsky spoke either in bad faith or through ignorance, or both.
Mr. Speaker, I have just given figures showing that our national production had reached $43,664 million in 1962, and we hear the governor of the Bank of Canada say that Canada's industrial production is not high enough. Then I say that the governor of the Bank of Canada is a public liar and nothing else.
If you compare the abundance of our natural resources with the high level of unemployment we have, you must admit that the output of our economy is definitely insufficient and that it is the main cause of our trade deficit.
What is the reason of that deficit? Instead of processing our raw material in Canada and then exporting it to the United States where people would be interested in buying our finished products, we export our raw material to be processed by the Americans and then sold back to us as finished products.
It is because we have failed to face up to our responsibilities as representatives of the Canadian people that our general economy is 90 per cent under American control.
There is not a single monetary measure that can solve this problem. Perhaps not in a permanent way. But let us at least try this one and, eventually, should reforms be necessary in order to achieve this goal, we shall deal with them in due time.
The latter depends chiefly on our ability to produce more.
Mr. Rasminsky says: "Our ability to produce more".
We have from 400,000 to 500,000 unemployed people in Canada. We have capable people available for work and we are being told that we lack the ability to produce, when our production amounts, and I say it once more, to $43 billion in products and
Unemployment Measures Lacking services, and when one thinks of the number of unemployed people we have-


An hon. Member:: What does Mr. Rasminsky produce? Do you know?


David Réal Caouette: Somebody asks me: "What does Mr. Rasminsky produce?" I am wondering about this myself. Apart from the debts that we have in Canada, that is the only thing he can do.
Since his appointment to the important position which he holds at the present time, Mr. Rasminsky delivered this week his first lecture.
He should have cancelled his first lecture, since it would probably have prevented him from saying such nonsense in Montreal.
It must be that he deemed it essential to intervene at last in the discussion in order to clarify a situation which threatened to become more and more confused.
We have confusion already. We are here since May 16, 1963, and confusion is prevalent. The Prime Minister feels that all is not going well in this house, that there is filibustering on the part of the official opposition.
We are wondering what is the government waiting for to take the steps which would likely get the Canadian economy moving again.
Nobody seems to know anything. If you write to the minister or his deputy you are told that they do not know; the minister does not know anything nor does anyone else and, in the meantime, the people are burdened with a national tax budget of over $6 billion a year.
Mr. Speaker, the governor of the Bank of Canada carries on, or rather the newspaperman:
Let us hope that his message will be carefully scrutinized, by all those who take an interest in the part played by the monetary policy in our economic life.
He shows a sense of restraint and reality we are not too accustomed to see, and that should give our politicians food for thought, especially those who rely on drastic monetary reforms for the welfare of all our people.
We are among those who insist upon a drastic monetary reform, and that does not mean taking away savings or money from people who have some, but restoring a perfect balance between purchasing power, which is in the hands of consumers, and total production, which is the result of our common efforts in Canada.
We have workers, farmers, labourers, white collars, professionals, we have people from all social classes contributing to Canada's total production, whether in the form of good or services, and all those elements are required if the economic and social affairs of a nation are to run smoothly.

Unemployment Measures Lacking
But there should be no impediment to the carrying out of a major program. We, of the Social Credit, suggest at this time that this impediment is to be found in our obsolete monetary system, which no longer meets the needs of the Canadian nation. When this system is changed, reformed so that every Canadian gets his fair share of our tremendous national wealth, we shall then have discharged our responsibilities, we shall have the satisfaction of having fulfilled our duty.
Mr. Speaker, may 1 remind you that it is six o'clock.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: Order. It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.
David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, before the six o'clock adjournment, the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Choquette) asked me whether there would still be unemployment if the Social Credit theory were applied. My answer is no and this is the reason why. Because of automation, the use of machinery and the progress of science, the unemployed would no longer be called "unemployed" but "retired". That is the difference between the present system we tolerate and the application of Social Credit principles.
What does Social Credit advocate? First of all, there is a reform of the monetary system to make the Bank of Canada the sole creator of new credit and to force the chartered banks to keep reserves equal to 100 per cent of the loans they make, as is the case at present for the caisses populaires. The banks would continue to lend exactly as at the present time, but instead of creating Active loans, they would lend their depositors' money. It would be something concrete and not mere figures as is the case today.
We suggest the setting up of a credit control board responsible for maintaining a perfect balance between money supply and outstanding credit on the one hand, and the gross national product on the other hand.
To maintain this balance, we suggest that a national dividend be distributed among all Canadian citizens. This dividend would be based on the difference between production on one hand and purchasing power on the other. That would not in the least create inflation,

but would establish a perfect balance between the purchasing power and the goods and services offered and produced in Canada. The payment of a dividend does not mean inconsiderate creation of money, without limit, but rather a dividend always closely related to the difference between production and purchasing power. This would then be social dividend because it would reach every individual in Canada and would be at the service of everyone. It would be socially besides being economically just.
Because of the consequences of automation, I do not see, Mr. Speaker, any other means to reach Canadian consumers, to enable them to purchase the things they need, the goods and services produced by the Canadian people.
That new purchasing power would not only do away with inflation but would always maintain a reasonable balance between, on the one hand, what consumers need to buy and, on the other hand, what producers have to offer to the consumers.
We are also suggesting a compensated discount to allow for an increase in purchasing power which would not necessarily amount to an increase in the money supply. Such a compensated discount was actually in force during the war years when the Liberal government of the day granted a two-cent a quart discount on milk, which was given to milk consumers and paid to milk producers or distributors.
Those are measures which are really different from what we have now. Those are measures which tend to bring a smile to the faces of those who have absolutely no solution to offer to deal with the present economic uneasiness.
Social Crediters feel they have that answer, and we are convinced that if economists of the Liberal party were to take the trouble of studying the proposals made by Social Credit, our national affairs could be run much more efficiently.
In the past, the Liberals as well as the Conservatives have beaten around the bush in a pitiful way within the framework of a system which no longer suits the needs of the nation.
Should we assimilate man, force him to put up with that system, or are we not duty bound to create a system which shows some respect for the individual?
Are systems meant to punish men or are they not designed to serve mankind?
If systems must exist to serve man, it is time that we, members of parliament, those responsible, took action.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I regret to inform the hon. member that his time has expired.


Thomas Miller Bell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I wish strenuously to object at this time, before any other speaker is recognized, to the way the time has been allotted in this debate. The hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Byrne) rose in the same regard before supper and I am substantially in agreement with the remarks he made at that time. I feel we have a quarrel with the government in that we should be given an opportunity now to reply to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mac-Eachen); but nevertheless I feel it is very unfair that six members from the minor parties have been heard in this debate while only three members from the official opposition and three members from the government side have been heard. I hope you will take this into consideration in the other important debates in the future.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Mr. Speaker, the point of order-


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I intended to raise this point-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. There are two members talking and I can only listen to one at a time. I believe the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Byrne) was on his feet before the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) so if he is rising on a point of order I would ask him what is his point of order.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The point of order raised by the hon. member for Saint John-Albert (Mr. Bell) is the very one I raised earlier this afternoon, but when the hon. member says that the official opposition should have the right to answer the minister, then I certainly take exception to that suggestion. After all, it is the government that is defending itself on a want of confidence motion, and the minister was replying to the charges made by the former minister of labour, the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Starr). I submit that this is a case-


Mr. Maclnnis:: On a question of privilege-


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: -where the rules clearly provide that a government member should be heard at this time.


Donald MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of privilege.


Mr. Speaker:: Before the hon. member raises his question of privilege I think I should give the facts to the house. There have been three speakers from the Conservative party, three speakers from the Liberal party, two speakers from the New Democratic party, two from the Social Credit party, and two from the Ralliement Creditiste.
28902-5-282
Unemployment Measures Lacking


Thomas Miller Bell: We have 95 members. Surely we are entitled to more time than that.


Donald MacInnis: On a question of privilege. My question of privilege arises from a ruling Your Honour made in this house on October 29, 1963, and I wish to refer to it, as reported in the first column of page 4151 of Hansard:
There should not be a list of speakers with an order of precedence in the House of Commons.
That is citation 121 of Beauchesne. I would respectfully call to your attention, sir, that just now you referred to a list, and that list was at the Speaker's chair this afternoon when I approached the chair. The list was shown to me and the occupant of the chair at that time complained about the very point brought up by the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Byrne) and now by the hon. member for Saint John-Albert (Mr. Bell). The occupant of the chair made that complaint when I approached him about this list. Once again, the first sentence of your ruling on October 29 is:
"There should not be a list of speakers with an order of precedence in the House of Commons".
On a point of order, sir, you have now referred to a list.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: I do not know that I want to be lectured by the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Maclnnis), but he must admit that there was no suggestion of a list.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. We do have to have a certain sequence, even if I have to take the brunt of it.


Erik Nielsen: 1 should like to speak on the point of order raised by the hon. member for Saint John-Albert. I heard the statement made by the Speaker with regard to the sequence of speakers in this house. There have been three from the Liberal party, three from the Conservative party, two from the New Democratic party, two from the Social Credit party, and two from the Creditistes. This means that with less than half of the number of members of the official opposition the three splinter parties in this house have taken up more than twice the time taken up by the official opposition. It seems to me that a more proportionate distribution of time should be awarded in this house.
It has been suggested by Mr. Deputy Speaker that this is a matter for agreement among the whips of the parties in this house. With this I disagree. I think Your Honour has the responsibility of determining the order on a fair and reasonable basis according to the time to be allotted to the members of various parties who wish to speak on a resolution such as this. It seems to me that the hon. member for Saint John-Albert (Mr. HOUSE OF COMMONS
Division
Bell) should be recognized. After all, he has only 60 seconds left in which to speak. The Minister of Labour was the last one to speak on this subject and it appears to me, therefore, a spokesman for the official opposition has a right to comment on the material the minister used in his speech. To deny this right to the official opposition is to take away the fundamental right of an opposition to exercise its responsibility-


Some hon. Members:: Filibuster.


Erik Nielsen: -to oppose where opposition is necessary. After all it is an amendment put up by the official opposition which is under discussion at this time. The Minister of Labour spent 30 minutes, before the recess, in explaining the theories of his government with regard to this matter. The hon. member for Saint John-Albert should have the right to speak now on behalf of the opposition.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: The official opposition having accomplished what it set out to do, to prevent me from speaking-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The time has arrived for the Speaker to have his say. It being 8.15 p.m. it is my duty, pursuant to standing order 56, to interrupt these proceedings and put forthwith the question on any amendments which are now before the house.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the amendment to the amendment lost.
The question is on the amendment to the main motion,


Mr. Beer:: I was paired. Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. Rynard:: I was paired with the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Brown). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment to the amendment.


Mr. Peters:: Mr. Speaker, the hon. members for the ridings of Timmins (Mr. Martin), Danforth (Mr. Scott), Burnaby-Richmond (Mr. Prittie) and Comox-Alberni (Mr. Barnett) are not paired but are absent on official business.


An hon. Member:: That is for the Globe and Mail.


Mr. Speaker:: The question is on the amendment to the main motion.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I did not observe that the members of the official opposition had finished voting. I and my colleagues who have not voted would like now to have the opportunity of having our vote registered in favour of the amendment.
Aiken
Alkenbrack
Balcer
Baldwin
Bell
Bigg
Cantelon
Chatterton
Churchill
Clancy
Coates
Danforth
Diefenbaker
Dinsdale
Enns
Fane
Flemming (Victoria-Car leton)
Forbes Graff tey Gundlock Hales Hamilton Horner (Acadia) Howe (Wellington-Huron)
Irvine
J orgenson
Kennedy
Kindt
Korchinski
Lamb
Loney
MacEwan
Maclnnis
MacLean (Queens)
Macquarrie
MacRae
McBain
28902-5-282i

Division


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: On the question of privilege, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order; I must say that this is a very unusual situation. I am searching frantically for a precedent. There is a way, I think, that might be adopted. With unanimous consent permission could be granted, but without unanimous consent it would be difficult.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: First of all, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that there is not unanimous consent of the house. Second, it is incredible that 12 members could miss a vote when Your Honour called it.


Mr. Speaker:: Hon. members will realize that it is most unusual to raise a point of order during a vote and before the result is announced. Unless we have unanimous consent there is nothing the Chair can do in this situation except wait for the announcement by the Clerk.
After the taking of the vote:


Mr. Rheaume:: I wish to raise a grievance-


Mr. Cardiff:: I was paired. Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Bruce Silas Beer: I was paired. Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Philip Bernard Rynard: I was paired with the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Brown). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. Herridge:: Mr. Speaker, if I had the opportunity to vote, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. Winch:: The same thing goes for me.


Stanley Howard Knowles: If I had a chance to vote, I would have voted for the amendment.


William Arnold Peters: I also would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. Cameron (Nanaimo - Cowichan - The Islands):: I would have voted for the amendment.


Francis Andrew Brewin: Me too, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Mather:: I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. Howe (Hamilton South):: I would have voted for the amendment.
[Mr. Douglas.!



NORTHWEST TERRITORIES


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: Mr. Speaker, I wish to bring a grievance before the house at this time. Simply stated in general terms it is that as a result of the inability of the Prime Minister to establish legislative priorities, and to prevent his cabinet colleagues from intentionally denying and withholding essential information from opposition members, he has prejudiced the integrity and purpose of parliament.
I intend to document my grievance and in the course of it will lay before the house a story of patronage, a story of ministerial untruth, a story of inaction, a story of what I call 60 days of so-called decision, followed by 60 days of frenzy, followed by 60 days of subterfuge.


Mr. Macdonald:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, judging from what the hon. member has said this seems to be the same insubstantial and nonsensical grievance which the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) brought before us some two weeks ago, and I would submit to you, sir, that it would not be in order for the hon. member to continue that discussion at this time.


Mr. Speaker:: I must say I have not heard enough of the speech of the hon. member for Northwest Territories to reach a decision. It seems to me he was merely breaking into his introduction.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: Mr. Speaker, all of these items I have mentioned have worked a peculiar hardship on the Canadian north, and that is why I want to be the one who leads off the grievance period. There are perhaps some other reasons why I should. For one thing, I am a backbencher, and for another I am new to parliament. For another thing I am rather young. As a matter of fact I can still be hurt. You see, I still essentially believe in democracy.
Mr. Speaker, I am not a cynic, and perhaps this is because I have not been betrayed, or lied to, or conspired against. I have not, as a matter of fact, sold myself out. I have never had my hand in anyone's till. In short, Mr. Speaker, I have had none of those wonderful experiences that go into the formation of the kind of politician for whom the present government seems to have endless respect.
I have said that the Prime Minister has failed to establish legislative priorities, and I say there is one other person involved here too, and that is the house leader, the Secretary of State. I say that these two are to blame and the other members of the treasury benches do not have to take as much blame because it really is not their fault.

For example, I think the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys (Mr. Benidickson) if he had the ear of the cabinet and the confidence of the house leader, would have introduced legislation long before this under the Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act, and would thereby have set at ease the worries and concerns of the many communities in Canada who wonder whether or not this program is to be extended.
I know too that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (Mr. Favreau) is most anxious to bring forward legislation to establish the Indian claims commission. Indeed I was at a conference with the minister in Winnipeg when he categorically promised the Indian people that the new era was about to dawn because he would see to it an Indian claims commission was established very soon, and certainly prior to Christmas.
I think the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss LaMarsh) also would have introduced, and got beyond second reading, the Canada pension plan. I want to digress momentarily at this point, but I can assure the hon. lady I will be coming back to her later. She likes to call herself the mother of all pensions, but after listening to what the Prime Minister told us yesterday I wish to say this surely will be the longest legislative pregnancy ever on record.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I have been listening carefully to the hon. member and he has failed so far to raise any specific grievance.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: Mr. Speaker, the failure of the government to introduce legislation has worked a particular hardship on the Northwest Territories, and I propose to bring this right close to home now. As hon. members may or may not know, the territorial council of the Northwest Territories is composed of nine members, five of whom are appointed by the governor in council, and who live in the south. They serve council terms at pleasure. Four members of the Northwest Territories council are elected, and they are elected for a three year term. The commissioner of the Northwest Territories is head of the council, and is a federal government official answerable to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources.
My point is that the terms of the elected members of the Northwest Territories council expire two days from now, on Thursday, November 7. At that point, because of the failure of the government to bring forward legislation, those four elected councillors will no longer have elective status as of Friday morning, and they themselves will have no opportunity to go back to the people of the
Failure to Proceed with Legislation Northwest Territories and seek a new mandate. Similarly, the people of the Northwest Territories will no longer have elected councillors to whom to go. They will have no way democratically to express to a democratically elected representative a wide range of problems relating to Northwest Territories matters.


Douglas Mason Fisher: May I ask the hon. member a question, not to interfere with him, but to assist those of us who are interested in following on the debate. Is the Northwest Territories a specific grievance, or what is? I ask because we would appreciate co-operation from him. If he would state what his grievance is then we can plan to take part in the debate.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: At the beginning I gave a general grievance and illustrated it with the particular hardship this is working on the Northwest Territories. My grievance is that the government, through its failure to introduce urgently needed legislation and bring it forward in a consistent manner, is working a hardship throughout this country and, in the case of my particular constituency, it will result in the inability of elected councillors to go back to the people-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise a point of order at this point. I submit to Your Honour that there is legislation on the order paper, that the government has repeatedly sought to bring forward, to deal precisely with the matter which the hon. gentleman is now referring to.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am speaking on a point of order, Mr. Speaker, and I believe I have the floor. Under the well established rules it is not possible at this grievance period to bring up matters connected with another matter on the order paper that is set down for consideration at another time. Therefore, it seems to me that the trend of the hon. gentleman's statement at the present time is completely out of order and the house is entitled to know what is the specific grievance of the hon. gentleman so that we can train our minds to it. He is not entitled to make the kind of speech at this time that one makes during the budget debate or during the debate on the speech from the throne. The hon. gentleman should be called to order. I submit that the Chair should insist that he obeys the rules as do other hon. members and state his specific grievance, and state it clearly so that it can be understood by the house and replied to by the government.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, if the Secretary of State (Mr. Pickersgill) intends to live up to the commitment he

Failure to Proceed with Legislation gave this house on July 8 and subsequently, that the matters contained in Bill No. C-83 and Bill No. C-84 would be referred to a standing committee, then there is no possibility that this legislation can get through the house prior to this Friday, at which time the elected members of the Northwest Territories council lose their status. That is the fault of the house leader on the government side.
My point is that the onus is on the government to cause the legislative election machinery in the Northwest Territories to commence rolling. Nothing has been done under the existing legislation to allow for this. The chief electoral officer has not caused any enumerations to be carried out in the Northwest Territories. He has not called for nominations. In fact there will not be an election in the Northwest Territories prior to this Thursday; yet the present law calls for it. I can only suggest it is because the Secretary of State is not concerned about that part of the country.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: To take this up-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I respectfully request a ruling on the point of order I raised.


Mr. Speaker:: I am, of course, doing my best to be fair and impartial. I should like to hear further comment from the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin).


Mr. Baldwin:: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order which has been raised it is my submission that this point would apply only if it were the intention of the hon. member for Northwest Territories (Mr. Rheaume) to found a substantive motion or deal with something which would in fact anticipate legislation which it is proposed to introduce. But surely, if the hon. member is not to be permitted to deal with any matter in the form of a grievance, for the purposes of discussion, a matter which happens to be on the order paper, then the range of subject matter which he is allowed to discuss would be so curtailed as to make the use of this ancient privilege of no value at all. My submission is that it is not a grievance on which any motion will be founded; consequently the point of order which the Secretary of State (Mr. Pickersgill) has raised is not applicable to this particular grievance.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, the grievance I raised on October 22 dealt with some 1,200 matters which were on the order paper. It seems to me that the Secretary of State (Mr. Pickersgill) is indulging in his usual tactics of obstruction and

of preventing hon. members from exercising their right to air grievances.
On the point raised a moment ago by the hon. member two seats back, about not being able to raise the same grievance, there is no rule in the book that I know of which prevents an hon. member following on with the same grievance; it is still the subject of a grievance. The hon. member for Northwest Territories has raised this dual grievance: the fact that this legislation is being blocked by inactivity and failure to act on the part of the government; and the patronage which exists in several departments in the government. The hon. member is speaking on both these grievances, and I fail to see why he should not be allowed to continue.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, I gather from what the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) said that he has now acknowledged that the hon. member for Northwest Territories is about to repeat the debate which was concluded several weeks ago.


Some hon. Members:: Oh no.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I should like at this point to put before you the authorities upon which I based my original point of order. Perhaps at the same time I should deal with the authorities supporting the position taken by the Secretary of State (Mr. Pickersgill).


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: What page?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: With regard to the fact
that this will anticipate legislation coming before the house, may I make reference first, for the benefit of the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Woolliams), to citation 149 of Beauchesne's fourth edition, which indicates the rules of debate which should be followed not only in connection with the government business before the house but in connection with grievances brought up at such time as this. If I may refer more particularly to this rule, it says:
Besides the prohibitions contained in standing order 35; it has been sanctioned by usage both in England and in Canada, that a member, while speaking, must not:-
(d) anticipate discussion on a motion set down for future consideration;-
I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the matters with which the hon. member for Northwest Territories is seeking to deal are matters which are the subject matter of two motions at present on the order paper, and as such his reference to those matters at this time is contrary to the rules of debate and he should not be heard. On the second point-


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: Mr. Speaker-


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I believe I have the floor, Mr. Speaker-may I refer to citation 234 of Beauchesne's fourth edition, which deals with the question of grievances being brought up at this time.
The ancient doctrine that the redress of grievances should be considered before the grant of supplies is maintained in the House of Commons of Canada-
(2) It often happens, on the motion that the Speaker leave the chair for committee of supply, that members air grievances without moving amendments. A member may speak on railway rates, another on naturalization, and so on. Five or six different matters may then be brought to the government's attention. Once debate is concluded on one matter and another matter intervenes, members cannot again discuss the former.
I would also refer to Beauchesne, citation 148.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: What page?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Page 126, paragraph (1). Perhaps someone will explain to the hon. member for Bow River that the citations in Beauchesne follow each other numerically and that citation 148 follows 147 and comes immediately before citation 149.
It is a wholesome restraint upon members that they cannot revive a debate already concluded; and it would be little use in preventing the same question from being offered twice in the same session if, without being offered, its merits might be discussed again and again.
It is irregular to reflect upon, argue against, or in any manner call in question, in debate, the past acts or proceedings of the house, on the obvious ground that, besides tending to revive discussion upon questions which have already been once decided, such reflections are uncourteous to the house-
I submit that what the hon. member is doing, as indicated by the hon. member for Yukon-I suppose the house should be thankful to the hon. member for Yukon for having indicated it, because the hon. member for Northwest Territories did not-is that he is trying to revive, as I said at the commencement of my point of order-


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege-


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. May I suggest that we hear the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Macdonald) out and then come right back. The question is sufficiently difficult without our getting involved in who has the right to speak first. I should like to hear the hon. member finish his point of order.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I was saying, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member had indicated, or had indicated through the hon. member for Yukon, his intention to discuss at this particular time a subject matter which was discussed at the same stage of the proceedings in this house two weeks ago. That matter was very fully
Failure to Proceed with Legislation discussed at that time. If the hon. member was then in a position to speak on it he should have done so, but the debate on that matter was concluded. Hon. members will recall that this house had a very full discussion of an entirely different grievance at the same time last week. In other words, the subject matter of the second half of the hon. member's so-called grievance was fully considered by the house, and debate on it concluded. Debate on another subject was then picked up. If I may refer again to citation 234(2) of Beauchesne, accordingly that subject matter has been concluded and the hon. member cannot now make reference to it.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, if I may just reply to the hon. member for Rosedale, I think he has attempted to raise two issues which can be met very simply. Citation 149(d) states:
-anticipate discussion on a motion set down for future consideration;-
As I understand the hon. member for Northwest Territories (Mr. Rheaume) he is not trying to anticipate discussion. He is not going into the meat of this particular bill; he is simply stating that his grievance is that the government, through its mishandling of the machinery of parliament, has not yet put this motion down so that it can be discussed and proceeded with. He is not trying to anticipate discussion of the motion itself; I think that is quite plain. I do not think the hon. member for Northwest Territories is bound by what the hon. member for Yukon has said, although his efforts were very well directed.
With regard to citation 148, that it is not possible to revive a debate already concluded, a grievance is not a debate which can be concluded. There was a debate on an issue raised at that particular time; but on all these matters I submit with deference that the debate is never concluded. What was brought up by the hon. member for Yukon on the other occasion during the course of a grievance which had been introduced was not a matter which of its nature is a motion debate on which can be concluded. Consequently, this would not prevent the hon. member for Northwest Territories, even if he wanted to, which he does not, from discussing the same subject.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: If I may reply to that, Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I believe I am entitled, under the rules on a point of order, to reply to remarks made about a matter upon which I have already spoken.

Failure to Proceed with Legislation


Gilles Grégoire: On a question of privilege; on a question affecting the privileges of all members-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Kindt:: Is there going to be any order in this house or do we need to have a new Speaker?


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Withdraw.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. On the question of whether the debate has been concluded or not I, also, have read citation 234 and, as is so often possible, not one interpretation but two or three may be taken from it. There is one sentence which has not been referred to and it appears in the middle of the second paragraph of the citation:
Once debate is concluded on one matter and another intervenes, members cannot again discuss the former.
No decision was reached two weeks ago, if I recall correctly, on the matter raised at that time by the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen). There was no vote taken as far as I remember. There was not even a motion proposed. So the matter has not been concluded, in that sense. At the same time, if one looks at the end of paragraph 1 of citation 234, he will find these words:
When such motion is proposed, it shall be permissible to discuss any public matter within the powers of the federal parliament or to ask for the redress of any grievance: provided that the discussion shall not relate to any decision of the house during the current session, nor to any item of the estimates, nor to any resolution to be proposed to the committee of ways and means, nor to any matter placed on or whereof notice has been given in the order paper.
This would seem to bear out the view of the Secretary of State. On the other hand, if the debate was in order two weeks ago-and the debate did take place-it did deal with, not one matter placed on the order paper but perhaps a thousand, if one can refer to questions and things of that kind. Therefore, in the circumstances I feel the benefit of the doubt, at least, should be given to the hon. member for the Northwest Territories.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege.
I wish to call your attention on the fact that a few moments ago the hon. member for the Northwest Territories (Mr. Rheaume) also rose on a question of privilege and was not given the opportunity to speak. I myself have risen on a question of privilege at that moment and I was not allowed to speak.

Now, section 17 of standing orders reads as follows:
Whenever any matter of privilege arises, it shall be taken into consideration immediately.
That procedure was ignored twice this evening.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: If I may continue before there are any further interruptions from the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Macdonald), let me say I can assure him that as long as patronage continues I shall raise the subject on every occasion.
I wish to speak now of the serious situation whereby the Northwest Territories people are deprived of their elected territorial councillors, a situation which is all the more serious when we consider that control will now pass almost totally and completely into the hands of the federal government over even territorial matters. It means we may see a new era of patronage and a new era of carte blanche on the part of this government which has taken the position several times in this house that they know what is best for the people. I need only give as an example the statement which the minister of northern affairs (Mr. Laing) made to the effect that the Eskimo people of northern Quebec would be told what is going to happen to them, that they would not be consulted because they are, after all, primitive people.
As of Friday, when there will be no elected councillors, there will be no one in the territories who can fight for them to remedy those grievances which would normally be of a peculiarly territorial nature. There will be no councillors answerable to the people of the north, and this is all the more serious in view of the denial of information which I have experienced when attempting to find out what is going on in the Canadian north. On one hand we have a government which fails to take action under the existing legislation to ensure that there is representative government in the territories, and on the other hand they fail to bring in new legislation which would provide for it. Then they go on to deny information to the existing representative of the Northwest Territories.
I want to talk about patronage in the Northwest Territories because it ties in with my statement earlier about the federal government assuming complete power there-that we need protection from this new spirit in the north, as the hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare termed it, though I would say that the new spirit is one of blatant patronage. I would refer to an article in the Edmonton Journal naming the mayor of Yellowknife as the proposed new commissioner of the Mackenzie territory when the

Secretary of State thinks fit to bring the legislation forward. This person has been an executive officer of the Liberal party in the Northwest Territories. Speculation is rife in the Canadian north that he actually wrote the article for the Edmonton Journal. It is common knowledge in the Northwest Territories that this person is in line for the appointment.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not think this particular reference is really on the point.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: My point is this, that the federal government, since there are no elected councillors, or will be none after Friday, have complete control over the affairs of the Northwest Territories and speculation is rife that an executive officer of the Liberal party will be named to that position which will give him peculiar and total power over the residents of the north, without any elected people being there to protect them. When I asked the minister of northern affairs if any commitment had been made in this regard he said, no. But a few days ago this officer was approached to represent the Northwest Territories at the centennial conference at the same time as the already appointed commissioner of the Yukon territory was brought in to represent that area; so here we have these two people representing the Yukon and the Northwest Territories respectively. So it is a legitimate assumption for me and others in the north to believe there is a commitment in this respect. The minister of northern affairs, discussing this, said they were prepared to take recommendations from any source as to the new resident commissioner of the Northwest Territories. I want to know whether he is prepared to ask me for suggestions and to honestly and seriously consider any suggestions I have to make, since after Friday I will be the only elected person from the whole of the Canadian Northwest Territories.
I want to refer briefly to the consultants list, the list that everyone denies, the list that I, among others, have seen, because it, too, appears to be a serious matter in relation to the Canadian north. The list as I read it shows the defeated Liberal candidate in the last election of the Northwest Territories, as a consultant.


Mr. Denis:: I have yours here. I have your list. You did not complain.


An hon. Member:: Table it.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: The same person who is listed as a consultant was appointed by order in council as a paid consultant to the centennial commission. So, in effect, the defeated candidate is not only on the list the Postmaster General has, but is, in effect, a civil 28902-5-283
Failure to Proceed with Legislation servant, thereby dispensing patronage in the north. This hardly surprises any of us who read the roster of those who were invited to Ottawa recently from all over Canada, because it consisted largely of defeated candidates and their wives in the instances where those defeated candidates had gone into some kind of honest employment.
I want to refer now to something which could be described as an abuse of power. I refer to the recent trip taken by the minister of northern affairs through the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, a trip which cost the taxpayers $16,402, a heroic voyage overland to the Arctic with nothing to protect him but a DC-3 and 16 or 17 staff. I asked in my question which I put on the order paper as to the functions of the people who went along. I asked this question in all seriousness because I have seen many ministerial visits to the Canadian north during the time I have lived there. I can say this is the first time a minister of the crown travelling in an aircraft at the expense of the taxpayers has made a point of holding executive meetings of the Liberal party of the Northwest Territories which were planned and advertised in advance of his trip. I was in the Canadian Northwest Territories when we had visits from former ministers such as the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton) and, more recently, the hon. member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Dinsdale) and I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that at no time did these ministers ever hold Liberal executive meetings.


Some hon. Members:: Oh.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: I should have said "Conservative". Hon. members opposite can laugh but that does not change the fact that the major purpose of the minister's recent trip was to hold organization meetings of the Liberal party at the taxpayers expense. At any rate, Mr. Speaker, I mentioned earlier that we get frivolous answers to our questions and that they deny and withhold information. Let me give an example from the same question relating to this epic voyage. I asked what was the function of the staff members that the minister had taken along with him. This is what I got by way of an answer: "Mr. Cote, deputy minister; Mr. Sivertz, commissioner of the Northwest Territories".
It was obvious from my question that I was asking what function these staff officers performed on that journey. It was a very legitimate question in view of the extensive political activity that the minister and his assistant engaged in. I certainly knew that Mr. Cote was the deputy minister. I simply say that if ministers of the crown wish us to continue to place extensive questions on the order

Failure to Proceed with Legislation paper because they choose to give us frivolous answers we can do that, but on the other hand we do not want to be lectured by the Secretary of State (Mr. Pickersgill) that we are putting too many questions on the order paper. At this point I should like to say-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Read it. Gene Rheaume, Northwest Territories; Erik Nielsen, Yukon.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: -that the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Laing) has issued instructions to his staff to give as little information as possible, to dry up the sources of information ordinarily available to the elected representatives of the people. The people in charge of the particular programs we are seeking to find out about are not the ones who are answering the questions we ask in the house.
I want to refer to another example briefly. I put question No. 1,340 on the order paper as you had asked us to do, Mr. Speaker. It was a five part question seeking detailed information about the school and hostel program in the Northwest Territories. The first question was:
On what basis does the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources plan for the establishment of schools in various settlements of the Northwest Territories?
This was the answer:
On the basis of school age population.
This is a completely frivolous answer, Mr. Speaker. It is no more valid than if we had asked why a hospital was built somewhere and the answer given was "to treat sick people". If the minister chooses to have his staff dry up our sources of information, then the only thing we can do is to continue to raise these grievances.
I do not intend to bring the matter before the house tonight, but I have good reason to believe it is not only the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources who has taken this position. Another example is found in questions I have asked the Minister of National Health and Welfare. I put a motion on the order paper in June for the production of the treaty signed with the Indian people and I have not yet received it.
I have said that the Prime Minister must take the bulk of the responsibility for the situation as it now exists, and that the house leader on the government side shares an almost equal responsibility. Since this matter was raised two weeks ago, as the hon. member for Rosedale rightly points out, nothing has been done about it. We have received no apology from the government side. So far as patronage is concerned, I can only assume that the Prime Minister approves and supports the kind of thing his colleagues in the cabinet


are doing. This is the Prime Minister who promised when he took office he would excite the daring and give new promise to the timid. To date the most daring and edifying act of his cabinet has been to fire a widow from a post office in Enterprise, Ontario.
If the Prime Minister is unable to control the blatant patronage on the part of his ministers, I can only assume that with people all over Canada we will watch parliament disintegrate through the drying up of information to opposition members and that the man whom we were told could straighten out the United Nations cannot even rim his own cabinet.


Azellus Denis: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I must reply to the charge laid by the hon. member for the Northwest Territories (Mr. Rheaume) with regard to those famous lists-

-the famous consultant list they talk about so much. I happen to have in my hand the Tory list.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Table it.


Azellus Denis: I have no objection.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Read it.


Azellus Denis: I am going to read it first and I am ready to table it.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: On a point of order-


Azellus Denis: I am ready to table it.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: On a point of order, I must insist that the Postmaster General table this and any other lists he may have in his possession, if he intends to enter into debate on the very matter he is now discussing.


Erik Nielsen: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker-


An hon. Member:: You do not like it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: You can't take it.


Azellus Denis: Are you scared?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member for the Yukon on a point of order.


Erik Nielsen: My point of order is this. When we attempted to discuss the content of the Liberal patronage list of the Postmaster General we were prevented from doing so. We tried to have it tabled and we were prevented from doing so. I have heard the Secretary of State give instructions to the Postmaster General to read this list. That is what he is trying to do. Surely if the rule applies to this side it should also apply to that side.


Azellus Denis: If my hon. friends are as pure as they think they are they will not object if I talk about their own list. This list is even worse than the Liberal list-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Azellus Denis: -because there are more Conservative members on it.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.


Azellus Denis: Northwest Territories, consultant, Eugene Rheaume.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member for Lapointe on a point of order.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I think that, if the Postmaster General (Mr. Denis) wants to talk to this house about a schedule or list, it would be normal to table it.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: After reading it.


Gilles Grégoire: And, under the circumstances, I believe that it would also be proper 

as the Postmaster General would be asked to table his list or schedule too-to ask the whip of the Conservative party, who also has a list, to table the latter, so that the hon. members may see the two lists. Mr. Speaker, I think that this would be the normal procedure, and would ask you for a ruling on the matter.


Azellus Denis: Constituency, Northwest Territories; consultant, Eugene Rheaume.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order-


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I wish hon. members would assist the Chair. If they have points of order, please make them short and to the point so that the Chair can follow these various points.


Erik Nielsen: I rise, Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.


Some hon. Members:: You are next.


Erik Nielsen: I rise on a point of order.


An hon. Member:: Don't you like your name?


Donald MacInnis: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I have no difficulty in deciding between two Conservative members who both want to speak. I will listen to the first one.
28902-5-283i
Failure to Proceed with Legislation


Donald MacInnis: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member has a question of privilege, please state it and state it quickly.


Donald MacInnis: My question of privilege is that as a member of the house I am entitled to hear what is being said and if there is no order on the other side of the house I am denied that privilege by those on that side of the house.


Erik Nielsen: I raised a point of order, Mr. Speaker-


An hon. Member:: Again?
Another hon. Member: You are next.


Erik Nielsen: -which Your Honour inadvertently did not decide. The Postmaster General has risen to his feet and has done precisely that which I had asked Your Honour to prevent as a matter of order. It seems to me I am entitled to have my point of order decided before-


An hon. Member:: Before he reaches you.


Erik Nielsen: -the Postmaster General rides roughshod over the rules of the house on the advice of the Secretary of State.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member for the Yukon knows perfectly well-at least, I hope he does-that he has given me the conclusion without giving me the preamble. It is rather difficult for me to decide whether or not the Postmaster General is in order until I have heard at least ten words. So far he has not been able to say more than ten words.


Erik Nielsen: He has already read from the list.


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Azellus Denis: Northwest Territories, consultant, Eugene Rheaume, care of Progressive Conservative campaign headquarters, box 667, Yellowknife.


Erik Nielsen: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I have asked Your Honour to rule according to the rules of the house that when a minister on the treasury benches produces a document he cannot read from it without tabling it.


Azellus Denis: I am ready to produce the document. Northwest Territories-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Will the minister take his seat. Once more the hon. member has jumped to a conclusion. I am not entitled to anticipate any more than the hon. member for the Yukon is entitled to anticipate, and if we were to hear the Postmaster General for

Failure to Proceed with Legislation another minute or two I feel reasonably sure he would be about ready to table the document.


Azellus Denis: I am ready. The next is constituency, Yukon; Erik Nielsen, M.P., care of Progressive Conservative Headquarters, Post Office Box 778, Whitehorse, Yukon; consultant.


Some hon. Members:: Continue.


Gilles Grégoire: In the constituency of Lapointe, who is the consultant?


Azellus Denis: This page comes from the Tory list. I do not mean it is wrong. I do not mean that they are doing business with that. I have not got all these details in mind, personally. There are the names of members of parliament and defeated candidates, but you never put Conservative campaign headquarters or Liberal campaign headquarters. The names that are on the list could be obtained from a returning officer any time.


An hon. Member:: Or from Santa Claus. [Translation]
Another hon. Member: Say it in French.


Azellus Denis: The only thing-

Any time you want, all you have to do is put one name after the other. The only purpose of the list is to put "My dear Mr. Jones", instead of saying, dear Mr. So and So. It is a list for secretaries in order to prepare letters, and to speed up matters for the ministers to sign.


An hon. Member:: Christmas cards. [Translation]


Azellus Denis: It would be improper, for instance, to address the Leader of the Opposition this way: "My dear John". It might be improper also to refer to the hon. member for J oliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm by saying "Honourable Sir".


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I rise on a point of order. Despite the levity that seems to prevail here this evening, I do this quite seriously. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that it is now being demonstrated it is important to pay attention to the rules and practices of the house. I think the point of order that was

raised earlier this evening should have been settled more clearly. The hon. member for Northwest Territories should have been given the opportunity to speak, as he was, but he should have been called upon to be more specific as to the grievance he was raising. I sat here saying nothing but trying to give the hon. member the benefit of the doubt. At one time, I thought he was talking about unsatisfactory answers to questions on the order paper. Then, I decided he was talking about a grievance that the people of the Northwest Territories have generally. Then, he got over into the question of a patronage list, or whatever you call it, that the Postmaster General has.
Everyone knows that when a member does this, talks on two, three or four different subjects, it messes up this whole grievance period very seriously. Now, the Postmaster General has been given the floor, and quite properly. What is he talking about? Is he talking about unsatisfactory answers to questions on the order paper? Is he talking about the general grievance of the Northwest Territories and the fact that Bills Nos. C-83 and C-84 have not been proceeded with; or is he talking about the Postmaster General's list of consultants? This was the subject of a point of privilege on two or three other occasions, in spite of Your Honour's ruling at one time that there was no point of privilege. He proceeded, and I did not raise a point of order as long as he was talking merely about the alleged consultants, Liberal or Tory, in the Northwest Territories, because that seemed to be related to the Northwest Territories. Now, however, he seems to be naming the consultants, Liberal or Tory, in other parts of the country.


Lionel Chevrier: No Liberals.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The point is that we are fast getting into a debate on the list of consultants, Liberal or Tory, and that is not the issue the hon. member for Northwest Territories raised. The issue raised was the Northwest Territories, the fact that Bills Nos. C-83 and C-84 have not been proceeded with, and the resultant lack of representation for that area.
I think the confusion we are in now arises because the hon. member was not called upon to stick to a specific subject, name it and keep to it. The Liberal benches applaud, but they are compounding the issue now by bringing out the patronage list. I think you are called upon, Mr. Speaker, and it is a very difficult decision, to tell the house what it was the hon. member for the Northwest Territories really raised. When you have decided that, then if there are other members who wish to speak on that subject, they have a right to the floor next. If anyone proposes to change the

subject, he must wait until all who wish to do so have spoken on the grievance that was raised.
Really, I have given Your Honour a tall order, to try to define what it was specifically the hon. member for the Northwest Territories raised. My point in raising it is to try to emphasize that we should, in this grievance period, follow the rules more strictly.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to say a word on this point of order the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has raised. In doing so, I may say that I feel the whole house should be grateful to him for bringing us back to a sense of order and reality in this house. It is extremely important, it seems to me, if we are to conduct the business of this country as the people expect us to conduct it.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: On this occasion, I would urge Your Honour to consider very carefully what the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has said. For the benefit of other hon. members who may wish to speak on the grievance, it is important that Your Honour should define the grievance so that we will know what it is that is before us. If the grievance is the failure of the government to bring forward legislation concerning the Northwest Territories, then since a charge was made against me I am entitled to reply to it. If that was just a little buckshot and the grievance was something else, then of course I am not entitled to rebuttal. I am entitled to know, as every hon. member is entitled to know, what we are debating and have it properly and narrowly defined under the rules. I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.


Mr. Webb:: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Is the hon. member for Hastings-Frontenac rising on the same subject?


Roderick Arthur Ennis Webb: The same subject.


John Whitney Pickersgill: What is the subject?


Roderick Arthur Ennis Webb: Patronage, sir.


Mr. Speaker:: Order; has the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam some point of order?


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I should like to know just what the grievance is, so that we can proceed. If the grievance is the priority of the legislation, which is what I understood the hon. member for Northwest Territories dealt with, I should like to follow it. I am not aware that his grievance was patronage, and if it is not patronage, then the hon. member who has just taken the floor, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest is not following in sequence.
Failure to Proceed with Legislation


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please; first of all, I want to tell the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre that I agree with his remarks. This evening we were perhaps a little lenient. We were dealing with a new member attempting to raise his first point of grievance. It seemed to me that he should be given as much consideration as possible.
I did endeavour, however, throughout his talk to try to focus on the main grievance. I was unable to come to any definite conclusion as to what it was, but I do know that it was not the subject of patronage. Furthermore, as the hon. member for the Northwest Territories spoke it seemed to me that he was directing his attention more to the question of delay in bringing forward legislation concerning the Northwest Territories. This, of course, is very close to the borderline.
I think we have spent enough time on the grievance raised by the hon. member for Northwest Territories. I do think we should get on to a different sort of grievance.


Roderick Arthur Ennis Webb: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. I should like to speak. Here, we have a young widow, the mother of five children and their livelihood is being taken away from them by this government. I think it is important, sir, that we should speak on this subject tonight. I did not intend to speak on this subject tonight until an editorial was brought to my attention in which the Postmaster General stated-


Mr. Speaker:: Order; the hon. member raised a point of privilege, but he is now outlining a grievance. In the circumstances, having already recognized the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam, I think the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam has the floor.


Roderick Arthur Ennis Webb: My name was mentioned by the Postmaster General in this editorial. This is my point of privilege, and I should like to answer it.


Mr. Speaker:: Do I understand the hon. member is now speaking to a point of privilege?


Roderick Arthur Ennis Webb: Yes, Your Honour.


Douglas Mason Fisher: What is it?


Roderick Arthur Ennis Webb: My name is mentioned in an editorial in today's newspaper referred to by the Postmaster General. This editorial states, in effect, that the Postmaster General stated to the press; Why did not Rodney Webb, Hastings-Frontenac, come to me personally with a protest over the change instead of writing a letter to an official of my department? I say to you, sir, that last Thursday the Postmaster General came across the house, and followed me out into the lobby, and suggested I forget this whole matter.

Failure to Proceed with Legislation


Azellus Denis: On a point of privilege-


Roderick Arthur Ennis Webb: At which time, sir-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Postmaster General on a point of privilege.


Azellus Denis: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker.
Not only do I deny categorically the assertion of the hon. member for Hastings-Frontenac (Mr. Webb), but it is just the opposite. He is the one who said to me: "If you settle this case, I have five more, and I will let them go".


Roderick Arthur Ennis Webb: At which time I said to the Postmaster General that I had six other cases-


Lionel Chevrier: Says I to him, says he to me.


Mr. Speaker:: There is no question of privilege. This is a dispute as to facts, and under the rules we must take the statement of the Postmaster General. The Postmaster General has denied the fact as alleged by the hon. member. The hon. member has another recourse under our standing orders, but until he takes that recourse I must take the statement of the Postmaster General.


Roderick Arthur Ennis Webb: On a point of privilege-


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I would be the last to interrupt these proceedings this evening, and I have said nothing on the matters that have been discussed but I point out to you, sir, that a ruling just made by you denies equality of members in this house. A statement was made by the hon. member for Hastings-Frontenac (Mr. Webb) that the Postmaster General had met him, called him outside the house-


An hon. Member:: The Postmaster General denied that.


John George Diefenbaker: Surely Your Honour does not say the Postmaster General, because he happens to be a minister, must have his word accepted as against another hon. member? I think Your Honour might well clarify what you had in mind, because to make such a decision would not be accepted by any member of the house, that a minister's denials shall be accepted as against a private member's affirmation of fact.


Azellus Denis: Mr. Speaker, an additional proof of my statement is that nothing has been changed concerning the appointment of the postmistress in that locality.
Now, contrary to what the hon. member for Hastings-Frontenac said, not only did I
[Mr. Webb.)
make no proposal to him but the fact that there has been no change proves that what I am saying is true.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I am sure the right hon. Leader of the Opposition will understand that in the confusion of the moment it is not always possible to be as clear headed as one would like, but referring to citation 113 in Beauchesne's fourth edition I think we have the case covered in these words:
But a dispute arising between two members, as to allegations of facts, does not fulfil the conditions of parliamentary privilege. An attack in a newspaper article is not a breach of privilege, unless it comes within the definition of privileges above given, and then a member is bound to lay on the table the newspaper in which the article complained of appears.
If I may rest the case there, I suggest if we could get on to another grievance it certainly would be helpful.


Donald MacInnis: On that same question of privilege, may I draw Your Honour's attention to the same question that came up-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I have already decided there is no question of privilege. So, if there is another grievance I would be glad to hear it.



LOBBYING


Douglas Mason Fisher: Mr. Speaker, in the few minutes left I will raise a very simple grievance. It relates to the situation that exists in the other place in so far as the holding of directorships, being consultants, or being held on retainer by certain companies, particularly certain finance companies, are concerned. My grievance is that we have at present a number of items on the order paper that have been referred to committee.
We also know from past experience one of the hon. gentlemen in the other place has tried to introduce legislation that would have something to do with making interest rates more clear and with setting a ceiling on them. I think it is unfair, unsound and undemocratic that people should have the opportunity to sit in judgment, and to scrutinize such legislation before it can become law, at the same time that they are either directors, presidents, consultants or held on retainers by some of the very companies going to be affected by such legislation.
My grievance is as simple as this. I want to draw it to the government's attention, in particular to the attention of the Prime Minister, because it is time we should consider this point very seriously, that implicitly built

into our parliamentary structure at the present time is a form of special privilege or lobbying that is to the advantage of certain corporate organizations that are able to retain members from the other place on their boards of directors or as legal retainers.
I suggest this form of lobbying should be brought out much more into the open, and the government and Prime Minister should consider some kind of legislation to put very strict limits on it. This point deserves real consideration, particularly because the house is now concerned with legislation relating to consumers finance.
I would appeal to backbenchers on the government side who have taken an interest in this, and who have also given some indication that they have liaison with their cabinet and Prime Minister, to consider how far this kind of legislation is going to get when you have the presidents of finance companies in the Senate and you have some senators who are under retainer from finance companies. I leave the grievance to sit in the minds of my Liberal friends, and in the Prime Minister's mind.


Mr. Speaker:: It being ten o'clock p.m. it is my duty, pursuant to standing order 56 (4) (f) to interrupt the proceedings forthwith and put the question on the motion before the house.
Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: On division.
Motion (Mr. Gordon) agreed to, and the house went into committee, Mr. Lamoureux in the chair.
The estimates of the following departments were first taken up and entered for consideration:



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
1. Departmental administration, $1,057,600.

[Stage Direction]
Departmental administration, including Canada's share of the upkeep of the international bureaux at Berne and Montevideo, $2,083,500.

[Stage Direction]
Departmental administration, $2,068,800.
Proceedings reported.
Business of the House BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Churchill:: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the house leader to outline the business proposed for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Yes, sir, I would be glad to do that. Tomorrow we will go into committee on the legislation respecting the surcharge order. When that has been completed we will continue with the committee stage of the Income Tax Act, and when that has been completed there is an understanding among all parties in the house, I believe, that we would take the motion respecting consumer credit in the name of my hon. friend the Solicitor General, and that there would only be very brief speeches from each quarter of the house.
I hope there will be time for further business this week and there is no business, as I have said so many times this session, more urgent than the legislation respecting the Northwest Territories, which I have sought to bring before the house ever since September 30.
On Thursday evening we will take the estimates of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, and there will be another department available if that department should be completed. On Friday evening we will take the estimates of the Department of Labour, and there will be another department available if that should be completed.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Why do we not close the public works estimates?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I think the hon. gentleman has asked a very proper question. There was an understanding, or at least a declaration by the government at the time the house was good enough to extend the hours, that we would take a new department on each evening so that there would be an opportunity for every department to have some review before the end of the session, and so that hon. members would have an opportunity to bring up points with respect to every department of government. That is the reason we are following the course we are.


[Stage Direction]
It being two minutes after ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, November 6, 1963