1963-10-15

Mr. J. E. Walker (York Centre):: By unanimous consent, Mr. Speaker, I move that the second report of the standing committee on privileges and elections presented on Wednesday, October 9, be now concurred in.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the said motion?


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I take it that consent has been given for the motion to be put and it is therefore before the house for debate. Has unanimous consent been asked for and given, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Speaker:: Unanimous consent was asked for but so far we have only the motion before us, which in my opinion has not as yet been adopted.


Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, I -ask the committee not to give unanimous consent today for the reason that there is on the order paper a supply motion with an amendment affecting the interests of agriculture. It seems to me that because of the wording of that amendment we should discuss that matter today on the supply motion and leave this other matter over until another day. Therefore I intend not to give unanimous consent.


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Secretary of Stale):: Mr. Speaker, since this report was tabled on October 9 and notice given on two occasions that this motion would be made, the house certainly cannot be said to have been taken by surprise in this matter. As early as last Friday I indicated that if possible on Monday, and if not certainly today, this motion would be made, so there was unquestionably adequate notice given.


Mr. Speaker:: It is quite true that verbal notice was given, I believe by the Secretary of State, but written notice is required. Unless there is unanimous consent in the matter I do not think we can proceed. Does the house give unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


William Arnold Peters: No.


Mr. Speaker:: Inasmuch as unanimous consent is not given we will have to proceed with motions.



UNITED NATIONS


Hon. Paul Martin (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the house that when the pledging conference is convened today at United Nations headquarters in New York to enable countries to pledge voluntary contributions to the United Nations special fund and to the United Nations expanded program for technical assistance, Canada will be pledging a substantial increase in its contribution to the special fund.
The government has authorized that we may pledge $5 million for 1964, and this increase over last year's contribution to the fund of $2.35 million in United States funds is evidence of Canada's support for the important pre-investment technical assistance activities of the special fund and for its able and dedicated managing director, Mr. Paul Hoffman. The special fund has attained only 70 per cent of its target of $100 million.
The target of $50 million for the expanded program of technical assistance was reached in 1963, and Canada's pledge to the expanded program for 1964 is being made at the same level as last year.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Leon Balcer (Three Rivers):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. Could the hon. gentleman tell us whether at the present time there are any officers of the Royal Canadian Navy, or any officials of this government in Great Britain discussing the purchase of submarines for the Royal Canadian Navy?

Inquiries of the Ministry


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Minister of National Defence):: I cannot say for certain. As far as my knowledge goes the answer to the hon. member's question is in the negative. However, I should have to take the question as notice if a firm answer is wanted.


Léon Balcer: A supplementary question. Has a contract been signed?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: No, Mr. Speaker.



THETFORD MINES, QUE.    STATUS AS DEFENCE ZONE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Raymond Langlois (Megantic):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. Is the city of Thetford Mines, Quebec, considered to be a number one defence zone in Canada?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, I do not know what a number one defence zone is. If the hon. gentleman will enlighten me perhaps I can answer him.



CANADIAN CONSTITUTION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. L. J. Pigeon (Jolieile-L'Assomplion-Monicalm):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Is it the government's intention to call a federal-provincial conference in order to revise the Canadian constitution of 1867, before we celebrate Canada's centennial?


Right Hon. L. B. Pearson (Prime Minister):: My colleague the Minister of Justice has already made a statement on that subject with which, I am sure, the hon. member is familiar. There will be a federal-provincial conference in Ottawa in November, and though it has not been called primarily for such a purpose this matter could be raised by any province which desired to do so.



SUGGESTED COMMITTEE TO CONSIDER BRITISH NORTH AMERICA ACT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Henri Latulippe (Compton-Frontenac):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister?
Does the Prime Minister expect to set up a parliamentary committee entrusted with re-shaping or amending the British North America Act, as required?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, this is not a question that can be answered on the orders of the day. There is at present no intention on the part of the government, however, to set up that committee.



HEALTH AND WELFARE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. C. Douglas (Burnaby-Coquiilam):: I wish to address a question to the Prime Minister. Could the right hon. gentleman tell us when he expects the report of the royal commission on medicare to be brought down? I believe the last time this question was asked the Prime Minister thought the report would be available in September. I wonder whether he has any later word as to when we might expect it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I do not think it is likely to brought down for a month or so, but I hope it will be available by the end of November or the beginning of December.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: I wish to address a question to the Minister of Labour. Have representations been made to the minister by the international union of mine, mill and smelter workers concerning the proposed layoff of 530 employees at the Falconbridge nickel mines on October 31 next? If so, could he inform the house what action is intended by the government in order to avert this disastrous lay-off?


Hon. A. J. MacEachen (Minisier of Labour):: Along with my colleague the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys, and my parliamentary secretary I met a delegation from this area this morning. The representatives presented a brief containing certain proposals which are now under consideration by the government.


Mr. Real Caoueile (Villeneuve):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Labour. It has to do with the situation at the Falconbridge nickel mine. Would the minister approve the gesture by labour that the men work three weeks out of four and that for the fourth week they be paid

unemployment insurance benefits? Is the minister aware of the good faith of the working men, and would he give serious consideration to this matter?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am certainly aware of the good faith and anxiety of the persons I met this morning. This is one proposal that was advanced, and it will be given very careful consideration.



APPLICATION OF SUPPLEMENTARY CONSTRUCTION AND TAX INCENTIVE MEASURES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. H. Aiken (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: I wish to address a question to the Minister of Labour. My question relates to his announcement yesterday concerning areas of high winter unemployment and the municipal winter works program. Do the newly designated areas-Bracebridge, for example- qualify for the supplementary federal winter construction program and the special tax incentive measures?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: The areas of high winter unemployment are eligible for assistance under the accelerated federal winter construction program together with the additional 10 per cent federal contribution under the winter works program. Both are intended to assist in the provision of employment.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Do the special tax incentives for new industry apply to these areas?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Not unless those areas have qualified in accordance with the criteria used for the designation of areas of slow growth.



THREATENED STRIKE OF SEAMEN'S UNION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: should like to address a question to the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of a story appearing in the Montreal Star today to the effect that the S.I.U. is planning a strike of its members as soon as the government appoints trustees under the legislation passed last week? May I ask what plans, if any, the government has made to meet this serious threat?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I had not been made aware of such information at all until I heard it from my hon. friend.
Inquiries of the Ministry



TORONTO


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Reid Scot! (Danforth): Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Prime Minister if he is in a position yet to make the statement on the winter works project for the city of Toronto that he indicated on Friday he would make on either Monday or Tuesday.
Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I have a draft letter to the mayor of Toronto which I hope to get off to him this afternoon. If my hon. friend will give me an extra day of grace I will be able to base my statement on that and give it to the house tomorrow.



MANITOBA


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Joseph Slogan (Springfield):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry. Would the minister comment on the carpenters' strike in Manitoba as it affects construction at the Whiteshell nuclear research establishment and the Pinawa townsite? Could he indicate whether any official of Atomic Energy Limited or any other member of his staff is taking any part in the negotiations to settle the strike?


Hon. C. M. Drury (Minister of Industry):: Mr. Speaker, this is a strike by the local carpenters union against one of the contractors employed by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited on the construction of the Whiteshell reactor in Manitoba. This is a dispute between a local contractor and a local union. It falls under the jurisdiction of the provincial government, and it would be inappropriate for me to make any comment.



PUBLIC SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Gerard Laprise (Chapleau):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State.
On June 26, 1963, I asked the Secretary of State why civil service competitions for the Chibougamau area were restricted to residents of that region and to those of Lake St. John district, thereby excluding the residents of my constituency.
As shown at page 1608 of Hansard, the minister replied that he would call the attention of the civil service commission to this matter.

Inquiries of the Ministry
Well, recently we received two other posters announcing positions open only to residents of the Chibougamau and Lake St. John areas.
Would the minister tell us why residents of my riding are always excluded from those competitions held by the Department of National Defence at Chibougamau?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I will be glad to make inquiries.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. D. Clancy (Yorlclon):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address my question to the Secretary of State. It has to do with the C.B.C. and the program "Night Final" on CBOT last night. It is in four parts. First, who is Mr. Howard Gray who was interviewed on October 14 on "Night Final", CBOT, Ottawa on the subject of prepaid subscriptions, with the theme that this should be extended beyond Toronto? Second, what are the qualifications that are required from a promoter to have a film sent from Toronto to Ottawa for inclusion in local news?


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Would the hon. member put this question on the order paper, please.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I do not have the faintest idea.



REPORTED STATEMENT ON PROGRAM &quot;HORIZON&quot;

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. S. J. Enns (Portage-Neepawa):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State which pertains to the otherwise excellent reputation of the R.C.M.P. My question arises out of a program produced and televised by the C.B.C. on Sunday last entitled "Horizon" and the remark to which I am alluding is this. The commentator made reference to the denial of the right of an accused to be allowed to contact his lawyer or his family at the time of his arrest. I am certain the R.C.M.P. is not guilty of any such malpractice-


Mr. Speaker:: Would the hon. member state his question, please.


Siegfried John Enns: Would the minister check with the C.B.C. and assure the house that the R.C.M.P. is not guilty of such malpractice?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. That is a question for the order paper.



FISHERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. R. Tucker (Trinity-Conception):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Fisheries. In view of the unsuccessful efforts of a private company to relieve the squid bait shortage in Newfoundland by trawling, will the minister consider making available a dragger to trawl for squid within the three mile limit off the coast of Newfoundland?


Mr. Speaker:: I suggest this is a question for the order paper.



REQUEST FOR STATEMENT ON INQUIRY INTO PRICE INCREASES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Justice I wish to direct a question to the appropriate minister. My question is based on letters I have received from indignant officials and members of various organizations and from infuriated housewives and the consequential inquietude of the member for Kootenay West. In view of the minister's answer to a question asked by the member for Lake St. John on June 13 with respect to the investigation into the increase in the price of sugar, has the minister any information to give the house with respect to government action or intention on this important question?


Mr. Speaker:: I suggest this is a question for the order paper.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Auguste Choquette (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Postmaster General.
There is, in the county of Lotbiniere, a picturesque municipality called St. Janvier de Joly, whose mayor is Mr. Andre Longchamp and the secretary-treasurer, Mr. Adrien Lambert.



IS, 1963

[Stage Direction]
I wish to ask the minister whether he has examined a resolution carried unanimously by the municipal council of St. Janvier de Joly-
Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Would the hon. member put this question on the order paper?


Auguste Choquette: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Postmaster General. Has the minister planned any changes with respect to the mail service in Lotbiniere county and especially in the St. Janvier de Joly municipality?


Mr. Speaker:: That question should be placed on the order paper.



HIGHWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: On October 4, Mr. Speaker, I asked the Minister of Public Works about plans for putting into effect the announcement he made on July 17 concerning the calling of a dominion-provincial conference on highway matters. At that time he said no decision had yet been made. I wonder if the minister could indicate to the house whether arrangements have been made for such a conference.


Hon. J. P. Deschatelets (Minister of Public Works):: I think I have already answered this question by saying that no definite plans have been made. This is a matter of government policy, and in due time I shall inform the house whether anything can be done in respect of this matter.


Frank Howard: May I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister say whether he has communicated with the various provinces, and if so which ones have not yet answered?


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: The ministers of roads or highways in the various provinces have been communicated with, and we have received all the information available. Now it is up to the government to take the initiative. As I have stated, this is a matter of government policy, and in due time I shall let the house know what is to be done.	i
Inquiries of the Ministry CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS



MASTER AGENCY PLAN


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. M. Horner (Jasper-Edson):: I should like to ask the Minister of Transport a question concerning the implementation of the master agency policy in my riding by the Canadian National Railways. Is the minister aware that there are grain box cars sitting on the sidings of these towns about which the elevator agents are not being informed by the Canadian National? Is he going to take up this matter immediately with the Canadian National in order to have that company follow the laws of Canada in the implementation of this master agency plan?


Hon. G. J. Mcllraiih (Minister of Transport):: As soon as I can get a copy of the transcript of Hansard and I can untangle the statements, I will immediately take up any question that is involved which will help move grain quickly to the seaports and speed up the shipment of grain to our foreign customers.


Hugh Macarthur Horner: Would the
minister not agree that this implementation of the plan by the Canadian National is a direct violation of the statutes of Canada?


George James McIlraith: No, Mr. Speaker.



SUGGESTED INCREASE IN FRENCH REPORTING AND TRANSLATION STAFFS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Gilles Gregoire (Lapointe):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State.
In view of the fact that again this morning complaints were made before the railways committee that the French version of the report was not available because of the delay in translation, has the Secretary of State taken steps to increase the translating, reporting and printing staff of committee reports, in order to give satisfaction?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I have brought this situation to the attention of His Honour the Speaker, as Your Honour well knows, and of the commissioners of internal economy. I think it is a very serious situation, and I would welcome from any quarter of the house any suggestions as to any effective means of meeting it, including any recommendations of competent persons who would be willing to accept positions to carry

Inquiries of the Ministry out these important functions that are so necessary to the proper working of this parliament.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. Hon. members have a right to get the French version of a report just as quickly as the English version.
We called the attention of the Secretary of State to this matter on several occasions, and every time he asked members of the house and especially members of the opposition to try to find competent people. That reply is somewhat similar to the one which was given by the president of the C.N.R. when he said that he did not have adequate staff for the translation and printing of the French version of reports. Consequently, Mr. Speaker, since I am speaking on a question of privilege-
ITextt


Mr. Speaker:: Order,' please. I think the Speaker has the floor. The point of the hon. member for Lapointe is in the nature of a complaint: it is not a question of privilege. I understand very well the implications of the complaint and, needless to say, we all sympathize with the point he is making. But there are certain factors which perhaps the Secretary of State in an effort to speed the proceedings of the house and not delay its business, did not explain.
The problem raised by the hon. member for Lapointe has been under consideration for the last two months. It was under active consideration this morning. It is going before the commissioners of internal economy within two days. It is not quite as simple of solution as the hon. member expresses. It requires increases in salaries which would be payable all the way up and down the line, and is a major renovation of the whole system.
I do not want to say anything more at this time, but I would ask hon. members to take my word that it is a very serious problem affecting the efficiency of the house, and it is under the most complete consideration and investigation at the present time.


Gilles Grégoire: May I ask a supplementary question? As leader of the house, does the Secretary of State intend to see to it that the internal economy commission, which is to meet soon, may examine the matter in the light of necessary and complete bilingualism, even if it is necessary to pay the price? Is the Secretary of State ready to pay that price so as secure full bilingualism in the house?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, if I were to express my personal opinion on this matter

I would say that I think in this, as in any other essential service, we should pay what is necessary to get competent service. That is my view, but it is a personal opinion. This is not a matter that is any more my responsibility than it is the responsibility of any other hon. member of the house. This is a matter of the housekeeping of the House of Commons. While I have a certain duty to answer these questions because we cannot question His Honour the Speaker, the matter, as His Honour very properly pointed out, is the responsibility primarily of His Honour the Speaker and the officials of the house.
I am sure that the members of the government in so far as they can will co-operate fully to see that these essential services are provided. If that is going to involve some adjustment in salaries, and if that will cure the problem, in my opinion it should be done.

On the orders of the day:


Mr. Prosper Boulanger (Mercier):: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will hear me and let me explain my point. I do ask you to be most tolerant because what I have to say might take a few minutes, and I am doing this to help the Secretary of State (Mr. Pickersgill) and yourself.
I would, first of all, like to thank you for your co-operation in the various committees, and more particularly the one where I have the pleasure-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Prosper Boulanger: -where I have the pleasure and honour to act as chairman, the railways committee. In order to show how some people, and more particularly my colleague, the hon. member for Lapointe (Mr. Gregoire), lack responsibility, I would point out that this morning there were but four members of the Caouette group in our committee. I shall name them: the hon. members for Lapointe (Mr. Gregoire), for Quebec East (Mr. Beaule), for Roberval (Mr, Gauthier) and for Charlevoix (Mr. Belanger)-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Prosper Boulanger: -even with a continuous interpretation service, they did not deem it advisable to attend the committee for more than ten or fifteen minutes.
And then they come to the house to gibe and try to say that bilingualism is not observed in our committees, or elsewhere.
I therefore raise a point of privilege in connection with this lack of responsibility; as a matter of fact, we should not give them more importance than they deserve.

Inquiries of the Ministry


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak could he tell us when his present post with on the point of privilege raised by my hon. the Department of External Affairs will come friend-	to an end?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. In as much as the hon. gentleman was mentioned-and in my opinion he should not have been mentioned- if he wishes to correct any misrepresentation that is fine, but I hope it will be very short. I doubt if it is at all necessary for him to speak.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, I think there is nothing to try and correct. The question of privilege raised by the hon. member for Mercier (Mr. Boulanger) speaks for itself and the house is in a situation to judge which one lacks responsibility. He has proved it by his few words.
Mr. Speaker, the correction that could be made would perhaps be the following one. This morning we went to the railways committee, we stayed there until eleven o'clock and we had to leave to attend another meeting. That is the only explanation; there is no other.


Mr. Churchill:: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, would it be in order for me now to recount happenings going on in the defence committee?



WORLD FAIR


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Georges Valade (St. Mary):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Works and if he cannot reply, I would ask the Prime Minister to do it for him.
On October 2 I asked the Minister of Public Works what salary was going to be paid out to the new general commissioner of the world fair. On October 9 I asked the same question and the minister stated to the house that he would reply in a few days but to date we have not had an answer.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Mr. Speaker, to both those questions I answered that the chief commissioner was still with the Department of External Affairs. There is nothing changed.


Georges-J. Valade: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question?
Does the Prime Minister intend to remunerate the new general commissioner and 28902-5-228


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, the commissioner is on leave from the Department of External Affairs. He would have, I understand, a good many weeks of retirement leave in any event, and it would seem unnecessary to pay him a salary as commissioner when he is on the salary list of the Department of External Affairs until that leave expires.


Georges-J. Valade: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a further supplementary question? I should like to have the Prime Minister's answer clarified.
Does he consider the world fair's general commissioner as a federal civil servant or as a commissioner who would be free from the present government's control?


Lester Bowles Pearson: At the moment, Mr. Speaker, he is a civil servant taking on this other assignment as commissioner and giving all his time to it.



PENSIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the disquieting rumours about the effect of the campaign of the life insurance companies against the Canada pension plan, could the Prime Minister assure the house that legislation to establish the Canada pension plan will definitely be proceeded with at this session?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, we intend to proceed with legislation in this matter as soon as possible.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, would it be possible for the Prime Minister to say whether that "as soon as possible" means this session?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, it depends among other things on the hon. gentleman and all hon. members of the house and how long we take over the legislation we are now considering.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, has the Minister of Northern Affairs and National

Inquiries of the Ministry Resources the statement which he promised the house yesterday he would make today respecting the sale of substantial oil and gas leases in northern Canada?


Hon. Arthur Laing (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources):: Mr. Speaker, like my hon. friend I have been trying to get the floor for some time. Yesterday the hon. member for Yukon asked if I would make a statement in respect to the bids under sealed tenders last Thursday for oil and gas locations in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. I am pleased to inform the house that 15 permits, consisting of 752,237 acres, were sold to the highest bidders for a cash bonus consideration of $481,693.15, or an average of 64 cents per acre.
In addition, a number of blocks of permits were offered in return for an undertaking to perform exploratory work. Tenders were received on ten blocks, consisting of 74 permits and 3,854,126 acres, and the highest tenders amounted to a total of $7,919,065.02, or an average of $2.05 per acre.
The area of greatest interest was situated along the Yukon-Northwest Territories boundary, south of Fort McPherson and Arctic Red river in what is generally called the Peel plateau area. The offer by several oil companies to spend, during the first term of the permits, close to $8 million on exploratory work over and above the basic work commitment for the same period of $770,825.20, indicates a strong and continuing interest in northern explorations on the part of the oil industry.
If hon. members agree, I should be pleased to table the detailed results of the sale as part of my remarks.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the house agree?


Some hon. Members:: 
Arthur Laing: While I am on my feet, Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the hon. member that in respect to the higher Arctic islands, even though the exploratory work commitment jumps from 5 cents per acre to 15 cents per acre under the second three year agreement, that more than 41 million acres are still under permit and are being actively explored.



DISCUSSIONS WITH U.S. RESPECTING WHEAT SALES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Marlineau (Pontiac-Temiscamin-gue):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Can he tell us if his department has received from United States authorities an invitation to send a Canadian representative to Washington to discuss the policy of our two countries with regard to the sale of wheat?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I feel that the hon. member knows very well that the Minister of Trade and Commerce answered that question a few days ago.



INQUIRY AS TO IMPORTS FROM BULGARIA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Theogene Ricard (St. Hyacinthe-Bagot):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce but, in his absence, I will put it to his parliamentary secretary.
Can the parliamentary secretary give the house the list of the main products that Canada can expect to receive following the wheat sale to Bulgaria?


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

OCTOBER 15, 1963	358I



COLUMBIA RIVER


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs who, in our district, has become known as the second David Thompson because of his recent discovery of the Columbia. In view of the minister's announcement in Washington on September 6 that renegotiation could be recommenced between Canada and the United States on October 4, could the minister inform the house of the reason for the delay, and when these renegotiations are expected to commence?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, it is clear from my hon. friend's question that we may now regard him as a convert to the Columbia river treaty idea. As one who has examined this project I recognize the value of the support which he intends to give to it.
My hon. friend has already been informed that as a result of the meeting in Washington, working groups were set up for the purpose of examining the factors involved in the vital consideration of the price to be paid for the downstream benefits. One of the conditions which Canada has laid down is that, assuming all other factors to be agreed, Canada will insist on a price for the sale of the downstream benefits which would make this project self liquidating. The two working groups are examining complicated information that is vital to the ascertainment of a fair price. I welcome my hon. friend's support.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: As a supplementary question, does the minister not realize that the hon. member for Kootenay West is still opposed to the present treaty, but asked this question because of the intense suspense that many of his constituents have been kept in because of government indecision?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, this government is rapidly removing that suspense.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet may I take advantage of the occasion to answer a question put to me yesterday by 28902-5-228J
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Cameron). On October 10 the Acting Prime Minister announced that funds had been made available to the Red Cross for the assistance of stricken countries in the Caribbean. This assistance will be made available to Cuba if the examination now being made by the Canadian Red Cross into the regrettable situation in Cuba can be completed.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, as a supplementary question may I ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs whether this will be in addition to the somewhat niggardly $20,000 announced last week for assistance to the Caribbean?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, the amounts offered and announced by the Acting Prime Minister may not meet all the obligations as a result of the regrettable devastation in the Caribbean, but my hon. friend will find that his adjective is hardly deserved in the light of the initial contributions made by other countries. Canada is vitally concerned to do all it can to assist the countries that have been stricken.

The house resumed, from Monday, October 14, consideration of the motion of Mr. Gordon for committee of supply.


Mr. H. W. Danforth (Kent, Onl.):: Mr. Speaker, at the adjournment of the debate last night I was bringing to your attention the fact that during the course of the debate we had three of the main speakers on the government side dealing with the matter before us, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays), the hopeful minister No. 2 and the parliamentary secretary. I regret very much that although we were delving at that time into a question of the gravest importance to agriculture, we are speaking to the house this afternoon with both the Minister of Agriculture and the minister No. 2 absent from the house, so perhaps we will have to direct our remarks to the parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Beer).
We were very distressed indeed, Mr. Speaker, to hear these three speakers from the government side of the house each in turn devoting the major portion of his speech to partisan politics. This can do no less than inject politics into a debate of the type we are now having, and that is unfortunate for this reason. The hon. member for Peel, in his haste to make a point which was a partisan one, committed a serious error, one
3582	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking which I am sure is going to cause him some embarrassment. In criticizing the former minister of agriculture who had preceded him in the debate he took issue with a statement to the effect that an investment of $15 in fertilizer in the eastern provinces would in fact bring back a return of $100 if the fertilizer were applied to pasture lands used as fodder. This return would be brought back to the farmers in the sale of livestock. The hon. member for Peel said, in effect, that the former minister should check with somebody experienced in producing cattle, because these figures were outrageous.
Now, Mr. Speaker, it embarrasses me no end to bring to task the hon. member for Peel, who was a classmate of mine at university, because one of the things he was taught there was that you should never make a statement like that unless you have the facts to back you up. The former minister of agriculture was not drawing these facts out of a hat; he was quoting from the results of experiments conducted by the Department of Agriculture in Nova Scotia. These are the facts which the hon. member for Peel called outrageous. I submit, Mr. Speaker-


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


Harold Warren Danforth: Certainly.


Bruce Silas Beer: I think Hansard will show clearly enough that the hon. member for Qu'Appelle said that an application of $15 worth of fertilizer would return $90 to $100 an acre to the farmer in the form of beef. That is not true.


Harold Warren Danforth: Mr. Speaker, this is just my point. This is the point brought out by the Department of Agriculture. If the hon. member would care to peruse the report he will see for himself that that is exactly the statement which was made. If the hon. member for Peel would spend some time at these various experimental stations and farms I think he would be able to learn the facts as they are in this stricken area of the maritimes.
We also heard from the hon. member for Red Deer, and I must pay tribute to him for remembering in his speech Thanksgiving day. I must say also that he expressed some knowledge of the sorry plight of some of the farmers in eastern Canada. But I must take exception to the rest of his speech, because in my opinion it dealt strictly with partisan politics. He tried to vindicate his stand. Although he criticized the policies of the former government he said that he is going to support to a degree the present government; then he turns round and brings in a subamendment condemning this very

practice and indicates to the house that he will, as usual, support the government in any vote against them.
He also made the flat statement, on which I should like to take issue with him, that the former government contributed nothing to the agricultural policies of this country. Mr. Speaker, the name "Hamilton" is a household word on every farm in Canada because of the farm policies initiated by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle and the government he represented. In fact if the name "Hays" is ever known throughout Canada to the same degree I will be one of the first to laud his efforts on behalf of the farmers of Canada.
I am not going to labour the question as to what the government has or has not done. I think the hon. member for Timiskaming was very fair in his statement that the former government contributed something to agriculture but had made some mistakes as well. That is, as I say, a fair statement. He also stated that this present government may also contribute something to agriculture, and may make some mistakes as well. That too is a fair statement. But I should like to point out that from 1957 to 1962, according to the actual figures, the former government increased the average farm remuneration by 25 per cent. This is not a complacent attitude. This represents extra money in the pockets of the farmers.
After accomplishing that, the former minister became aware of the fact that this increase in remuneration was not uniform, that there were still many farmers not receiving a fair share of farm income. Thus policies were found to correct the grievous situation which existed at that time. That is why the former minister of agriculture turned to the problems of eastern Canada. That is why he advocated assistance to the feed lot operators of eastern Canada. That is why he advocated credit for farm storage, so that grain could be put into the eastern provinces and made available to those who needed it. That is why he advocated an average base mean price for grain for all farmers in the eastern provinces.
He was determined to move feed grain into the east in competition with United States grain moving by ship. He was determined to give the farmers in eastern Canada an opportunity to compete with other parts of Canada in the sale of their livestock. It was he who suggested there should be some deficiency payment or acreage payment to encourage production of livestock feed. It was he who advocated that fertilizer should be used to a greater extent in Quebec and eastern Ontario

Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking
as well as in the maritimes. These were all progressive steps intended to help eastern farmers.
We were happy to support these efforts by the former minister because we in Ontario, as in other parts of Canada, have a surplus of feed grain and, in my opinion, if we could deliver this grain to the maritimes and put them on a better competitive footing we would be most happy to do so.
I should like to deal now with the so-called policy, or lack of policy, put forward by the three hon. members who spoke from the government side of the house. I might say we found their speeches disappointing. I am sure they have done a great deal of investigating into this serious problem which faces agriculture. I am sure there are many on the government side of this house who are as anxious as we are to help the farmers.
Unfortunately it is impossible for us and for the farmers in this country generally to get any formal commitment as to policy from those hon. gentlemen who sit opposite. We heard the Minister of Agriculture tell us yesterday that income had increased and that the gross national income had gone up too. But we, as farmers, seem to be in the same position as other people; the rich appear to be getting richer and the poor to be getting poorer.
The minister told us he had a farm in the east and a farm in the west, that he had a farm of his own and that he milked dairy cattle. This is most interesting. He also told us that he had visited 32 countries and talked with various ministers of agriculture in those places. If he went to those places to learn, to observe, to study and to consult with those people, then he is to be commended. But in the light of events since April 8 the farmers across the nation are beginning to wonder whether he was, perhaps, sent to those countries in accordance with a definite government policy to keep him out of the House of Commons and, indeed, to keep him out of the country.
We heard a speech from the hon. member for Matapedia-Matane. He too made a partisan speech, but his was a little different. One received the impression that he was preaching for a call and trying to justify another bureau in this already topheavy department of government. He suggested that there should be a second minister of agriculture and that there should be a division of authority although, he was careful to add, they would all work together.
This is most interesting because in Quebec, Ontario and the four maritime provinces
there are already six departments of agriculture with the federal Department of Agriculture making a seventh. Now the hon. member's solution is to add a further department of agriculture. In passing, it seems to me that if this government was as sincere in its efforts to help farmers in eastern Canada as it professes to be, it could have taken advantage of a grand opportunity to make this clear. Hon. members opposite said they would appoint a minister of agriculture for the east. When they returned to power, with so few members from the west, everyone in Canada would have applauded them, I think, if they had appointed a minister of agriculture for the east at that time to take care of this very situation which they are so worried about today.
I was interested in one of the projects mentioned by the hon. member for Matapedia-Matane. He gave the house a review of studies which are being made in the maritimes, in Quebec and in Ontario, and said the government was looking into ways and means of helping the farmers there. There were many good points among those he outlined, but I had the feeling they were brought up in order to create confidence among the farmers of this nation, to make them feel that the. present government was going all out to help them.
One of the points the hon. member made struck me as being strange indeed. He said they had a committee set up-I cannot recall the exact words, but this was the intent- to look into all matters affecting agriculture in the maritimes. How can this statement inspire confidence among the farmers of the maritimes? In April and in the period before that date, they had all the answers. Now, in October, they are looking into the questions.
It is true that in the policy they enunciated before the election hon. members opposite did put forward many points which in my view had a great deal of merit. In fact I should like to see those proposals discussed in the house by members on all sides so that we might decide whether something of a constructive nature could be done to help those farmers of whom wTe are speaking.
A great many promises and commitments were made. In my own area, for example, we grow a large crop of soybeans. What were we told? Candidates representing the party opposite came into the area and said the farmers were entitled to a floor price of at least $2.40 a bushel for those soybeans. Subsequently they established a policy, though the matter was never debated in the house. What was it? It amounted to $2.16 for soybeans.
3584	HOUSE OF
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking
Let me give the house another example. They said the time had come to introduce a policy for sugar beets. They said that immediately after a government had been formed they would look into this question of sugar beets. Here we are, many months later-the hon. member for Red Deer said six months-and not a word has been said about sugar beets. This is why farmers across the nation are losing confidence. They looked forward to the arrival of these men. These were the men who had the answers. They were to be the salvation of the farmers of Canada. What disillusionment, what a disappointment they suffered.
I should like to discuss some of the promises which were made to the eastern farmers, the people about whom hon. members opposite now worry so much. They said there would be an increase in farm loans. I think there is some merit in this idea, but I should hate to see the program "blow the lid off" as the Minister of Agriculture described it. They blew the lid off the budget and the country has suffered ever since. I think there should be a great deal of study and thought given to this subject. They were going to increase the freight subsidy and put more crops under the deficiency payment program. They promised to increase research, to establish a higher floor price for wheat, to extend greater assistance to sugar beet and soybean producers. They were going to help the farmer. But here is the real gem. This was said by their leader, speaking in Port Arthur on March 8 last:
Another immediate change would be "changes in the nature of assistance to agriculture, changes without additional burden on our treasury"-
That says no more money in my language- "changes without additional burden on our treasury"-
-and "our farm assistance program will be more effective than the present assistance being given to farmers, but it will not necessarily add to our total expenditures".
Might I point out that a general would love a condition like this where you can charge and retreat, negotiate an armistice and protect both lines at the same time. The farmers are getting tired of these painless potions and pink pills. They want more than verbiage. They do not want to be buried under countless pages of talk, under countless committees looking for ways and means to help them. The farmers know the problems. They know the ills. They know what should be done.
We have in this country one of the finest departments of agriculture in the world. As a matter of fact it is envied by all the world. This department has made advances in agriculture that have amazed the world. This is


the department that minister No. 2 is going to divide. Sir, when we hear them talk about dividing and adding to committees we begin to think about that terrible bugaboo of patronage. We have had too much experience with patronage. When I hear them say that they must increase the number of men in the department who can speak French, may I say I have no objection to men of French origin or the French tongue being taken on staff in the Department of Agriculture. But I do insist on one thing, that the main criterion for a man to join the Department of Agriculture not be the language he speaks but his ability. I do not care what his second language is if his first language is a knowledge of agriculture in Canada.
At the beginning of the session the Minister of Agriculture started to answer our questions. He was a new man faced with a large portfolio and sitting in the house for the first time, and he did make mistakes. The house laughed at times but members were laughing with him, not at him. It was refreshing indeed to have a man come in the house and not give the same old pat answers that we receive time and time again. But all at once he started to give us pat answers and to ask that any question of a controversial nature be placed on the order paper. He had had a conference with the front bench opposite, and he had got his orders. He had got the message. It was to be politics and not facts.
Yesterday we heard the minister challenge the former minister to a milking contest or to see who could plow the straightest furrow. This is reducing the efforts of the Minister of Agriculture right down to the level of a theatrical performance. It is not like the Minister of Agriculture to indulge in such things. But when you see what is going on, when you see this minister asked to take over the portfolio and he does not know whether he has the sole responsibility or whether he has to share the responsibility with someone tomorrow; when wheat sales and the Canadian wheat board are taken away from his department and put somewhere else; when he cannot stand up and give policy as it should be given, one can understand that because of his frustration, disillusionment and impatience with the whole matter he is going to be like a boy kicking a tin can when he does not get his own way. This is why he made the kind of speech he did yesterday.
After watching the Minister of Agriculture in the house since April I certainly believe he has true ability, but he has got to be given a chance. Let him lead the Department of Agriculture. Let him develop it. Let him bring before the house for the first time a government policy on agriculture, and let us

as the parliament of Canada debate this policy. Let us have a say whether it is good or bad. Let us make suggestions and amendments. Let us all get together to see if we can bring forth a real agricultural policy for Canada. Let us not tie up this man with red tape and partisan politics, as is being done today.
Why was it that the former minister of agriculture could make a name for himself and his government? It was because he was given the responsibility for the Department of Agriculture, and was allowed to discharge it and make decisions.
I think the government should introduce a policy. They owe it to the Canadian people to introduce a policy. They gave a commitment and undertaking to the nation that they would have a government farm policy and would introduce it right here in the House of Commons and in the standing committee on agriculture, if that committee is ever activated. We have been here for months and months and they talk about the problems of agriculture, but they have never activated the committee on agriculture.
Let them bring forward a policy and give us a chance to look at it. Give us a chance to study it. Give us a chance to suggest ways and means by which it might be improved. Then we would be giving the farmers of this country some hope. We would have a program then that would be the envy of the world. We would also be upgrading parliament to the stature to which it is entitled. We hear outside the house that parliament is sick, and sick it is, sir. It is sick because the opposition never have a chance to take any part in suggesting amendments or changes with regard to anything affecting the policies of this nation. We have government by decree, not by parliament.
The same thing applies so far as agriculture is concerned. We want to know what is going on. What does the government intend for agriculture? We have farmers all across the nation with large businesses who are depending on the remuneration from the sale of their crops. We want to know what the plans of the government are to market these crops. We want to know what plans they have for the eastern farmers. We want to know how they are going to activate ARDA. We do not want to be told that there is going to be one committee after another, that this or that matter is being taken into consideration, that due consideration is being given and that when a policy has been formulated it will be announced in the house. This is not good enough.
Surely the time has come that this government should stand on its feet, act like a party, act like Canadians and put before the
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking house a definite Canadian policy on agriculture, so that for the first time we can act like a parliament and represent our constituencies to the degree that we can be proud of the work that we are doing here in Ottawa.


Mr. Vincent Drouin (Argenleuil-Deux-Moniagnes):: Mr. Speaker, I should like, first of all, to congratulate heartily the former minister of agriculture, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton) who, through his amendment to the motion that the house go into committee of supply, gave us the opportunity to discuss agriculture.
I should also like to commend him for the fine statement he made regarding the problems of eastern farmers. He proved that he was aware of all their problems. He suggested some extremely interesting solutions and I wish to congratulate him for the improvement he has shown over the last year. As a matter of fact, if he had been as knowledgeable, as competent and as devoted to eastern farmers when he was minister, I can assure you that we would not be facing the same problems today.
What did he do when he was minister of agriculture in the previous Conservative government? On February 6, 1963, he placed on the order paper of the house a resolution prior to the introduction of a bill affecting the farmers, but he presented it at that time when he was sure the bill would never be passed by the house; it was the day after his government had been brought down.
All he wanted to gain with that bill was political capital. He wanted to have something to talk about during his election campaign. But the Canadian voters saw right through him and they turned out of office and for good the worst government that the country had ever known since the years 1930-35.
Mr. Speaker, Social Crediters were blamed for joining us in bringing the government down on the evening of February 5, 1963. But Social Crediters had had enough of the inefficiency of the government of that time, which had become obvious to all Canadians.
They could no longer explain to their electors the attitude they had taken and followed in this chamber until February 5, 1963. And it is not because they wanted an election. We did not want one either because we had had enough of elections. We had barely come out of an extremely tiring election campaign; but we had an objective, that is the welfare of the Canadian people. We wanted to give to the Canadian people the government they had a right to have, a Liberal government, and

Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking that is what ws did. That is why we led the previous government towards a general election.
What did the Conservatives do for the welfare of the agricultural community during the six years they were in office? They put into effect a policy of grants to win the sympathy of the farmers: grants for feed, butter and cheese. Besides, they bought surpluses. They piled up millions of bushels of grain, millions of pounds of butter, so much that, at a certain time, the former minister of agriculture was afraid.
Mr. Speaker, it is said that fear is the beginning of wisdom, but in the case of the former minister of agriculture, that does not apply. What did the then minister of agriculture do when he saw we had millions of pounds of butter and millions of bushels of grain in storage? He said to the western farmers: we can sell our grain to the Chinese, but unfortunately, we have fears concerning payment. We are afraid Canadian people will not be paid for their grain, so I ask you to endorse the Chinese and to insure, as it were, the credit we are extending to them.
His speech was not greeted by applause and he did not speak about it again.
And what did he say to milk producers? He told them: We have butter and cheese surpluses.
To those he had encouraged to increase their herds, to improve their equipment, he said: Sell your cows, we have too much milk.
Again, he was not warmly received.
On February 5, 1963, the former minister left agriculture in the worst stagnation ever known in Canada; but the following day, on February 6, he knew all the answers. During his election campaign, he said that the Liberals had misled farmers.
But, Mr. Speaker, who wants to mislead the Canadian farmer? The one who passes measures, even unpopular ones, believing sincerely that they are bound to solve problems, by getting at their very root, or the one who leads the farmers to bankruptcy while telling them that everything is fine?
Who wants to deceive Canadian farmers? The present Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays), who sells our dairy surpluses and advocates a policy of such a nature as to direct production according to needs, on the domestic market as well as on the export market, or the former minister of agriculture who, by promoting surplus production, by granting subsidies and support prices was leading agriculture to a dead end?
Who is deceiving farmers? The former minister of agriculture or the present minister who is sincerely devoted to our farmers?
Mr. Speaker, I do not entirely approve of the various things done by our present

minister; beside, I regret that he has not seen fit to do other things, which to me seemed highly desirable.
I am sorry to see that the legislation for appointing a minister of agriculture for the east has not yet been submitted to the house. The eastern farmers are waiting for the adoption of the bill, as they are impatient to make their voice heard inside the cabinet, an opportunity they have not had for a good many years.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot be pleased, either, with the priority prescribed by the Minister of Agriculture. Like the hon. member for Qu'Appelle, I feel that the top priority problem facing eastern farmers is the supply of feed grain.
Eastern farmers lie at the mercy of a group of speculators who control feed grain and who make millions by a few strokes of the pen. Those people freeze sales to boost prices. They also get a large share of the subsidies which the government has established to help farmers.
Whether a farmer produces milk or crops or whether he is a cattle breeder, he must be able to buy feed grain at a reasonable price.
That is why, in my humble opinion, the distribution of feed grain should be nationalized in eastern Canada and a crown corporation set up to control feed grain shipping, storing and wholesale selling in eastern Canada after firm contracts have been negotiated with the Canadian wheat board.
I quite agree with the hon. member for Qu'Appelle when he says that eastern farmers should have the same advantages as the Chinese, Russians, and Japanese who buy our wheat at a fixed price. However, what did the hon. member do when he was minister of agriculture to provide eastern farmers with the same advantages as the Chinese? What did he do?
The proposed crown corporation should control the shipping of grain and the government should pay the whole cost of the operation. At present, the government pays approximately $18 million in freight assistance for feed grain. If those subsidies were to cover the whole cost of shipping, they would amount to about $40 million a year. I feel that we can afford such an expense, the more so since those subsidies would contribute to the establishment of a uniform wholesale price throughout Canada, so that grain would cost the same in Halifax, Quebec city, lake St. John, Montreal, Three Rivers and Fort William.


An hon. Member:: And at Jonquiere.


Vincent Drouin: That body would control
warehousing so that it would be carried out

in a reasonable way. It is said that warehousing facilities are not adequate in the east, but there is no proof of that, I think that after a serious and scientific inventory of warehousing facilities, we would find enough facilities in the east to store all the grain needed to meet the requirements of eastern farmers.
That body would also control wholesale grain operations and be satisfied with a reasonable profit, only to help meet operation costs and not extravagant profits like the ones made by the people who now control grain marketing in the east. It could work in co-operation with the mills, which are doing an excellent job of processing the feed grain required.
The setting up of such a body would be most beneficial. First of all, our eastern farmers could depend on a steady supply 12 months a year. We could eliminate the blocking caused by speculators at the present time for price increases. Prices would go down and this would help to lower the production costs. Our milk products could face world competition. We could sell our butter, our cheese and our milk powder at reasonable prices on world markets without the government having to subsidize the manufacturing costs to the extent of 50, 60 and even 75 per cent.
I think that the savings made by the government in that way, could completely cover transportation costs of grain to the east. It could also pay for the setting up of a crown corporation to look after that government control.
Our farmers would then be able to take the place they are entitled to on the national consumer's market. We would not need those many million fowl and poultry which were imported from the United States when the former minister of agriculture was responsible for the future of our farming industry. Indeed, we may recall that in a single fiscal year, we brought in more than 20 million birds from the United States, while we had in eastern Canada producers who could have supplied the market. But, because they are paying too much for their feed grain, they are unable to meet the competition of American chickens and turkeys which are dumped on our market.
Our farmers could increase their production of livestock. We have, in the east, the best pastures in Canada. We do not suffer from drought like the western farmers.
We have land unsuitable for cultivation which is declared as less than marginal every time a survey is made. Such land would make excellent pasture for livestock.
We are unable to increase our livestock production precisely because the cost of feed 28902-5-229
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking grain is too high in some seasons of the year.
We, in the east, have the two largest Canadian consumers' markets: Toronto and Montreal. Yet, we only supply a very small percentage of livestock to those markets.
It appears that the former government wanted, by this legislation under date of February 6, to settle all its problems. However, we never saw the bill. Has the hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska (Mr. Vincent) ever seen this remarkable bill?
I remember a former government minister, the former Conservative minister, member for Three Rivers (Mr. Balcer), who came to my constituency. He claimed that this bill under date of February 6 was marvellous, that it would settle all the farmers' problems, but when the constituents in Argenteuil-Deux-Montagnes asked the hon. member for Three Rivers about the contents of this bill, he did not even know.
The policy announced by the present Minister of Agriculture, as concerns feed grain, is an improvement over the situation we experienced during the former Conservative government. I do not really consider it a solution but it certainly is an improvement.
It is not yet the ideal to which eastern farmers may aspire. Through this legislation, speculators will realize important profits on the shipping of grain. As soon as the navigation season is over, they apply the railway transportation costs, saying: "If grain is needed, it will be necessary to use railway transportation and it will cost $7 or $8 more per ton. We may just as well have it loaded now."
They are business men who are there to make profits. I cannot blame them in any way, but if they could be advantageously replaced by a government agency which would adequately perform the work that may be required of a third party between the Canadian wheat board and eastern farmers, why not?
The policies advocated by the present Minister of Agriculture are valuable but they may help speculators. Once more, speculators may be able to benefit largely from grants meant for farmers.
Should we, for all that, support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton) or the subamendment moved by the orthodox Social Credit leader? Besides, the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Thompson) himself said in his comments on the remarks made by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle and I refer to Hansard for October 14, 1963, page 3549:
To stand up as he has done today, to try to convince the house-
3588	HOUSE OF
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking
The hon. member for Red Deer is talking about the hon. member for Qu'Appelle.
-that it should throw out this government because of his own failure of action, is something that is just a little beyond understanding. Eastern farmers, particularly those in Quebec and in the mari-times, would never have turned their backs on the previous government had they been satisfied that its policies would be good to meet their needs.
As for myself, I do not feel that the Conservative policies would satisfy the needs of Canadian farmers. That is why, even though I am not entirely happy with the present farm policy of the government, I will tonight vote in support of the Minister of Agriculture who has been in office for only six months and has proved his good intentions. I shall do so in the hope that before long, we shall have a second minister of agriculture who will be the spokesman for eastern farmers within the cabinet.
I am anxious to see what position the hon. member for Qu'Appelle and his supporters will take when this resolution is introduced in the house. I can hardly wait to see what stand he will take. He will then have the opportunity to prove his sincerity and to do something other than play petty politics, which he has done up to now.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: May I put a question to the hon. member?


Vincent Drouin: Certainly.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: If I am not mistaken, at the outset of his remarks, the hon. member seemed to criticize the policy of subsidies put forward by the previous government. Would he give us a list of subsidies to encourage farmers which were abolished by the present Minister of Agriculture?


Vincent Drouin: Mr. Speaker, I merely wish to point out that the policy of subsidies advocated, established and carried out by the former minister of agriculture has led agriculture to stagnation.
I have not entirely laid the blame on the establishment of a particular subsidy and if the hon. member has understood me well, I did not over-praise the present Minister of Agriculture. I simply pointed out as sincerely as possible the present situation of eastern farmers.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: That is the reason why you approve the abolishment by the present minister of the 25 cents subsidy per hundred weight of milk; and that is why we no longer hear you, like you did last year, advocate a policy of free distribution of milk in schools throughout Canada.


Vincent Drouin: Our program extends over a four year period. The government has been


in power for only six months. If that milk distribution policy is not established in the next four years, then we shall discuss it, but you cannot doubt the intentions of the government right away.


Mr. C. A. Gauthier (Roberval):: 
An hon. Member:: Which year?


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Nineteen sixty two-sixty three.
We have today in Quebec whole areas which could be compared with any land in western Canada if they were drained.
Why did the various successive governments never give anything to Quebec, while they provided all necessary assistance to the prairie provinces?
I still have in my possession a most important document that is part of a series of questions I directed to the Minister of Agriculture so that the people and parliament would be acquainted with the discrimination against the province of Quebec.
For instance, let us consider the question of drainage. In that connection, I asked the Minister of Agriculture the following question:

How much did the Department of Agriculture pay out for irrigation and conservation of waters in Canada to March 31, 1963? Of that amount, how much was paid out in Quebec?
Here is the reply the minister gave me:
The expenditures of the Department of Agriculture under the provisions of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, for irrigation and water conservation projects, amounted to $176,487,000-
And at the end of the reply, we could read:
No part of that amount was spent in the province of Quebec.


Some hon. Members:: Shame. Shame.


An hon. Member:: How much for education?


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: For education, it is about the same story.


An hon. Member:: 4.8 per cent.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: What was being done for the east at that time? Nothing.
Mr. Speaker, the greatest difference between agriculture in the west and agriculture in Quebec can be seen in many areas. I could enumerate many of them, but I will touch on only one point before I close my remarks.
At this stage, I might open the eyes of the minister on a problem he has not even thought about. And if the minister will take the trouble to consider the remedies he could bring to agriculture to revive its lost strength, he is just at the beginning to get surprises. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I am sure that in the west, when they talk about farming a land, they mean that they have to prepare the soil for the seeding, they mean to roll back the forest to make room for wheat. At home, in Quebec, on our modern farms that is not it at all. That marvellous era of conquerors of the primitive soil has disappeared. Today, in Quebec, to return land to farming means fighting an army of financiers who were able by some feat to chase off our best farmers and leave all those large farms empty and barren, like a forest devastated by fire.
In 40 per cent of our farming areas, a deadly silence prevails because animal life is no longer there and man himself, crushed under debt and expelled by usurious moneylenders tolerated by our Canadian legislation, took refuge in the cities, in the shadow of the financiers' skyscrapers which go up at the same rate as the level of our agriculture goes down.
That, gentlemen, is the real problem in Quebec.
When one thinks there are such moneylenders completely foreign to our province who now own 30, and even 40 lots, of our best farms because an irresponsible government allowed the exploitation of the
[Mr. Gauthier.l

farmer who, not so long ago, was prosperous and the pride of our province but who today joins the line, which is already too long, of those under public assistance in our towns and villages.
Mr. Speaker, you see at once that rehabilitation in Quebec cannot be settled by the Department of Agriculture alone, but by the concerted action of the federal government and the department itself.
Is it possible that, after 300 years or more of existence, and nearly one hundred years after confederation, the federal government has not yet succeeded in determining the interest rate in Canada?
It is unthinkable for the common man, and unexplainable for us legislators in this house, to find that no government, until now, has been able to curb, by determining a limit to the interest paid in our country, the army of thieves which has spread all over Canada.
In all the other fields our legislation is very strict and that is a very good thing in order to maintain law and order.
Even in the case of petty crimes, if the thief is caught, he will be fined or put in jail. That is all right.
But tell us please when will measures be taken against the master thieves? What price did they pay all the former governments to keep quiet and what means do they still use, at the present time, to benefit from complete protection, I was even going to say the blessing, of all governments?
We demand laws. The members of the New Democratic party have presented two bills in this respect. I introduced one myself and it is still at the bottom of some drawer.
When time has come to go to the rescue of our farmers, the bills which would save them stay on the order paper of the house waiting to go and die before the banking and commerce committee, because it seems that those which cross the threshold of a committee room do not leave it any more.
Therefore, to ensure the survival of our farmers, we propose that the house should determine as soon as possible the maximum interest rates a lender may charge, retroactive to ten years ago.
Thus, the federal government would recover many farms without having to spend much, and their former owners even less.
Thieves should be locked up, whether they are small or big, and I would add, all the more so if they are big.
This is further evidence, Mr. Minister, that Quebec has specific problems in agriculture.
Mr. Speaker, before resuming my seat, allow me to say that I feel the sub-amendment proposed by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Thompson) is not justified because
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking the people have already rendered their decision on the work done by the previous government when they voted to have it sit on this side of the house.
This subamendment means nothing at all. For us, our last hope lies in the creation of a department of agriculture for the east, through which our farmers will find the necessary protection for their ambitions.


Mr. Jean-Pierre Cote (Longueuil):: Mr. Speaker-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: Does the hon. member wish to put a question to the member who has just taken his seat?


Joseph Julien Jean-Pierre Côté: Mr. Speaker, as I did not want to interrupt the hon. member while he was speaking, would he allow me to ask him a question now?


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: By all means.


Joseph Julien Jean-Pierre Côté: The hon. member seems to believe that the province of Quebec has been wronged as concerns agriculture. Would he advocate a greater encroachment by the federal government upon a field which comes rather under the jurisdiction of the provincial government?


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I am very glad that question was asked because what I find funny in this house is that whenever it is suggested that assistance or support be given, government members never fail to speak of invasion again and again.
If the present government wants to break new ground, instead of invading fields where it has no business to be, let it go where help is requested, provided it is willing to do something and as long as it stays away from education and other fields which belong to the provinces.
When help is requested, which the government gives freely and generously to the other provinces, it should at least come to the assistance of the province of Quebec and hand her as many dollars as the other provinces get, if not more.


Mr. Clement Vincent (Nicolet-Yamaska):: supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Since when is land drainage not under federal jurisdiction?


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: That is just it, Mr. Speaker, when I mentioned drainage, I was thinking of ARDA. It would be very easy, through ARDA-which does not affect provincial autonomy in the least-to have some drainage done and thereby recover the fat sums of money the government takes away from us each year.
3592	HOUSE OF
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking


Clément Vincent: Mr. Speaker, I felt very proud yesterday when the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton), while introducing his motion, asked me to second him, because since the beginning of the present session I have requested time and time again that the question of agriculture in eastern Canada be discussed in this house. But since the government would not give us such an opportunity, we had to bring that motion forward in order to debate that matter of utmost importance.
Fortunately, today, we realize that the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister without Portfolio, as heir apparent to a throne which may still be some distance away in the future of our country-because they do not seem to have cleared up the misunderstanding that exists within the cabinet about the proposed post of associate minister, junior minister or even minister for eastern Canada-are interested in the situation.
We introduced this amendment in order to enable us to discuss agriculture here in the house and also to let eastern farmers know that we are concerned with their problems.
On several occasions I have raised the matter of cost prices for eastern Quebec milk producers, namely those of my area, and all those throughout eastern Canada, eastern Ontario, Quebec and the maritimes, and every time the Minister of Agriculture stated that milk prices were higher this year compared to last year.
Mr. Speaker, the dairy industry is very important in the province of Quebec, and we witnessed, a few days after the swearing in of the Liberal government, a complete disruption through the announcement of a new dairy policy for the only purpose of saving from $6 to $8 million to the Canadian taxpayers.
I am not the one who says so, but it is the Minister of Agriculture himself who did in the house, as reported on page 140 of Hansard. We can also find the statement he made to western journalists and which was published in the Winnipeg Tribune-
[Text!
Here are his words:
The net result will be a saving to the taxpayer of Canada of $6 million to $8 million.
This was the only reason that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) announced this new policy, and now the farmers of my province, the farmers of eastern Canada, are selling their milk at a lower price than they were paid last year.

The subsidy of 25 cents per 100 pounds on milk shipped to processing plants was abolished, Mr. Speaker. The assistance on the movement of cheese for export to the United


Kingdom, or the subsidy on export, has been reduced by 1 cent per pound, or from 4 to 3 cents per pound. And there again, according to the Minister of Agriculture, the main reason for this reduction was to save $260,576 to the Canadian taxpayers. His statement appears on page 571 of Hansard.
The Liberals will claim that they wanted to promote cheese production.
If the Liberal government had been responsible, it would have extended the subsidy of 30 cents per hundred pounds to all the milk used in all cheeses made from whole milk. That is not what happened.
In addition, instead of reducing from 4 to 3 cents the assistance on the movement of cheese for export to the United Kingdom, it should have granted the 4 cent subsidy to all types of cheeses made from whole milk likely to be exported anywhere in the world.
With the domestic and foreign Arm markets that we have and the existing potential of the domestic market, we could have expected a genuine policy on cheese.
It would not have been necessary to cause a loss of 10 or even 20 cents per 100 pounds of milk for thousands of milk producers in the province of Quebec and eastern Canada.
I have here, as I had the opportunity of showing the house the other day, some butter and cheese factory pay slips issued to farmers in my constituency who are getting as much as 23 cents per 100 pounds less and this, since the policy of the federal government which came into office last April has been announced.
I see that the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Agriculture is taking notes.

Until today I thought he was the only one in this department who knew anything about agriculture, but when I read his speech this morning in which he said it was impossible to put $15 worth of fertilizer on one acre of land I know now that he does not know anything about agriculture. The average price of a ton of fertilizer is around $60 and the recommendation of the government of Quebec is between 400 to 600 pounds per acre which means more than $15 per acre.


Bruce Silas Beer: Are you talking about pastures? I was speaking of the application of fertilizer to pastures.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: Is the hon. member rising on a question of privilege?


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: If you want to speak later you can do so.


Clément Vincent: When I spoke the other day the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Pepin) came back in the house and said

that the hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska was not right. I said that to make 122-J pounds of butter we need only 100 pounds of butter-fat. I said this was true and he said it was not true, that with 100 pounds of butterfat we can make only 121 pounds of butter. He said that in his riding they make only 117 pounds. But now he knows.


Mr. Pepin:: Mr. Speaker-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: Is the hon. member rising on a question of privilege?


Jean-Luc Pepin: I have no claim to be an expert in agriculture but the figures I quoted at the time-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: This is not a question of privilege. If the hon. gentleman has said something that the hon. member would like to refute an opportunity will be provided.


Clément Vincent: He said that these were the figures he got from the experts of the department which told him that with 100 pounds of butterfat only 121 pounds of butter can be made. The day after I showed him the figures from the Department of Agriculture which indicated exactly the same thing I had said in the house, between 122 and 123 pounds, so that means 122-| pounds.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: I think the Minister of Justice wants to say something about agriculture.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The Minister of Justice has been concerned with French culture.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Read his reply about the R.C.M.P.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: Order. I think the hon. member who has the floor has the right to continue his speech without being interrupted.


Clément Vincent: Mr. Speaker, as long as I will have a few minutes more in view of all these interruptions it will be all right. I raised the question in the House of Commons about the price of milk paid to farmers in my province and every time these people told me what I said was not true. I have here the answer given by the Minister of Agriculture.

We find the answer to that question at page 1246 of Hansard for June 17, 1963:


Mr. Hays:: I should like the house to know that since the new dairy policy has been in effect, the price of milk is up by 10 cents a hundred and 29 cents a hundred, higher than it has been for a number of years.
Please take note of that.
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking
And here is a second answer, by the invisible Minister of Agriculture, found at page 1382 of Hansard for June 20, 1963:
The price of milk is increasing-
-across Canada.
Even yesterday, the Minister of Agriculture told us:
You will be interested to know that right across Canada the price of milk is higher than it was a year ago and that the price of cheese is higher than it was a year ago.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I have the figures submitted by the Department of Agriculture which show that for the month of August 1963, the price of milk to cheese factories in Quebec was between $2.85 and $2.97 per 100 pounds. Those figures show also that the price of milk to cheese factories in Quebec in August 1962 was from $2.85 to $3.05 per 100 pounds, or 8 cents more per 100 pounds in 1962 than in 1963.
If we look further we see, for instance, that the price of cheese for August 1962 was
32.2	cents per pound, while the price of cheese for August 1963 was 35.3 cents per pound, or an increase-

There was an increase in the price of cheese of 3.1 cents per pound and a decrease in the price of milk of 8 cents per 100 pounds. Everybody knows-

If even though I am not a politologist- [Text]
Everybody knows that we can make from nine pounds to nine and a half pounds of cheese from 100 pounds of milk. There was an increase of 3 cents a pound in the price of cheese and this should have been an increase of between 25 and 30 cents per 100 pounds in the price of milk. This year the subsidy is 5 cents more than it was last year for milk sent to the cheese factory. Instead of receiving this increase of 25 cents to 30 cents on milk sent to the cheese factory, the farmers in the province of Quebec received a decrease. These are the final figures which were given to me by the Department of Agriculture and which have been given to all members of this house.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the same situation exists in the case of milk shipped to powdered milk factories. In August 1962-I take August as an example, but the same applies to May, June or July-the producer who sent his milk to be processed as powdered milk received $2.75 to $3.00 per hundred pounds, while in 1963, he received from $2.80 to $2.95; as can be seen, there is a decrease.
3594	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking [Text]
Now, what was the price of skim milk powder in 1962? It was $8.25 per 100 pounds. In 1963 the price of skim milk powder was $11.50 per 100 pounds. In 1962 there was no subsidy at all on casein, and the price of casein in Montreal was 20 cents a pound. In 1963, so I am informed by the government, there is a subsidy of 10 cents a pound on casein. This subsidy will go to 13 factories in Canada and will amount to $2,200,000. What is the price of casein in Montreal? It has been 21 cents a pound all summer and was 20 cents a pound last year. There has been only an increase of 1 cent a pound in the price and yet these 13 factories, of which 11 are in the province of Quebec, will be receiving a subsidy of $2,200,000. This subsidy does not go back to the farmers of my province. This is one of the reasons we have no confidence in this government, because they are not looking after the farmers of the province but they are looking after the factories in the province.

Now, Mr. Speaker, it has been stated that the Conservative party did nothing to help the eastern farmers. Those statements also originated from the other side.


An hon. Member:: Mr. Hamilton said so.


Clément Vincent: I said the other day when I spoke in the house that the price of milk was 44 cents higher per 100 pounds under the Conservative government in Ottawa. But my statement was challenged. If we consider the fact that the farmers of my constituency ship 150,000 pounds of milk yearly, this means that they received $700 more, thanks to the policies of the hon. member for Qu'Appelle and the previous Conservative government.
Here are the conditions exactly as they existed since 1953, as regards the prices of milk used in the manufacture of cheese, in the province of Quebec:
In 1953, we were in the red, that is I have written the figures in red so as to help me in my comments, from $2.23 to $2.40; in 1954, and for the month of August of each year, from $2.31 to $2.40; in 1955, still in the red, from $2.21 to $2.48; in 1956, in the red, from $2.45 to $2.76; in 1957, it is written in blue, from $2.73 to $3.00-one can see the difference at once-from $2.73 to $3.00; in 1958, from $2.87 to $3.15; in 1959, from $2.80 to $3.16; in 1960, from $2.85 to $3.12; in 1961, from $2.80 to $2.95; in 1962, from $2.85 to $3.05; in 1963-

In 1963, as soon as they come back, it goes from $2.85 to $2.97, a decrease of 8 cents.


The following is a report on the dairy products market established by the markets information section, Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, for the province of Quebec. The report shows the prices paid to the producers for grade 1 milk testing 3.5 per cent butter fat.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I should like the following document to be published in Hansard.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: Order.
Does the house give the hon. member permission to have this table printed in Hansard?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
[Editor's note: The table referred to is as
follows:]

Report on the dairy products market markets information section, Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, Ont.
Quebec: prices paid to producers (milk grade 1 testing 3.5 per cent butter fat) milk sent to cheese factories
L.	August	1953,	from	$2.23	to	$2.40.L.	August	1954,	from	$2.31	to	$2.40.L.	August	1955,	from	$2.21	to	$2.48.L.	August	1956,	from	$2.45	to	$2.76.P.C.	August	1957,	from	$2.73	to	$3.00.P.C.	August	1958,	from	$2.87	to	$3.15.P.C.	August	1959,	from	$2.80	to	$3.16.P.C.	August	1960,	from	$2.85	to	$3.12.P.C.	August	1961,	from	$2.80	to	$2.95.
P.C. August 1962, from $2.85 to $3.05*.
L. August 1963, from $2.85 to $2.97f.
* The price of cheese in August 1962 was as follows: 1st grade cheese, white, Quebec
32.2	cents per lb. subsidy: 25 cents per 100 pounds.
t The price of cheese in August 1963 was as follows: 1st grade cheese, white, Quebec
35.3	cents per lb. subsidy: 30 cents per 100 pounds.
Explanation
From 9 to 9J pounds of cheese can be made out of a hundred pounds of milk.
An increase of 3 cents per pound in the price of cheese is equal to an increase of 25 to 30 cents a hundred pounds for milk.
The subsidy was 5 cents higher per 100 pounds for milk in 1963.


Clément Vincent: Now, Mr. Speaker, so I will not have to read that report on the situation of milk powder manufacturing, I would also ask to have it inserted in Hansard.
OCTOBER IS, 1963	3595
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: Order. Does the house agree?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
[Editor's note: the table referred to is as follows:]

Report on milk products marketing marketing information section, Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, Ont.
Quebec: price paid to producers (milk grade 1 testing 3.5 per cent butter fat).
Milk for milk powder manufacture L. August 1953, from $2.34 to 2.56.
L. August 1954, from $2.34 to 2.56.
L. August 1955, from $2.45 to 2.70.
L. August 1956, from $2.42 to 2.62.
P.C. August 1957, from $2.80 to 3.00.
P.C. August 1958, from $2.85 to 3.05.
P.C. August 1959, from $2.80 to 3.05.
P.C. August 1960, from $2.75 to 3.05.
P.C. August 1961, from $2.75 to 3.00.
P.C. August 1962, from $2.75 to 3.00*.
L. August 1963, from $2.80 to 2.95t.
*Price of skim milk, pulv. grade 1, in August 1962, was $8.25 per cwt.
The price of casein, in August 1962, was
20	cents per pound.
fThe price of skim milk, pulv. grade 1, was in August 1963, $11.50 per cwt.
The price of casein, in August 1963, was
21	cents per pound.
Explanation
Thirteen commercial manufacturers of dried casein received a 10 cent per pound subsidy on casein since May 1 last. Eleven of those manufacturers are from Quebec. It is considered by the Department of Agriculture that this subsidy will cost $2.2 million to the federal treasury.


Clément Vincent: Mr. Speaker, that is the situation, even if the Minister of Agriculture repeated three times that such was not the case. Those are the figures from his own department and they are in contradiction with the statements by the minister.
The farmers in my province and in eastern Canada may well wonder why the Minister of Agriculture does not want to concern himself with Quebec and eastern Canada problems. Is it the intention to hide behind a smokescreen and say, for instance, that a minister of agriculture for eastern Canada will be appointed.
That is not what the farmers need. First, the farmers need what goes into their pockets, into their pocketbooks and you know exactly what they need. And it is our responsibility
as members of parliament to point out the problems to the government, to ask them to find solutions. That is the only thing we are asking them through this motion. If the house will support us, we are prepared to go to the farmers. Besides, I had the opportunity to visit several of them some time ago.
First of all, Mr. Speaker, it is not surprising, as the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Agriculture said a while ago.

This is the Prime Minister of Canada. He made a speech in Port Hope, Ontario on March 5, 1963. Here is what he said:
The emphasis on price supports will be shifted from butter to skim milk powder-
I went back to my place and told that to the farmers. They said, "He is fooling. He does not know what he is saying". I said, "Why?", because I knew what he had said. They said, "It is impossible to make skim milk powder without making butter." One day I had a discussion with the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Tremblay). We talk the same language. I told him it was impossible. He said, "Well, we have to increase the production of skim milk powder but we have to decrease the production of butter". I said, "Sir, I am not an economist. It is all right if you sit around a table and discuss it with all the figures. But in practice it is impossible to make skim milk powder without making butter". These are the people who are looking after agriculture in Canada today. This is the reason we have so much trouble right now with the price of milk, and perhaps it is the reason for the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) not wanting to deal with this problem.

A minister stated that for this year, there was a decrease in butter production. I have here the Farm Situation in Canada for July 1963, published by his department. It said:
That decrease in the production of butter involved some 115 million pounds of milk. Since a realtively small additional quantity of milk was used for cheese manufacturing and for sale as liquid milk, it seems that milk production in May and June was some 100 million pounds below 1962.
That is what he is taking credit for. It is the department of the Minister of Agriculture which said that there were some 100 million pounds of milk less in May and June. And that is also the reason why there was a decrease in butter production.
Now, Mr. Speaker, you know the milk situation, with regard to the price the producer is paid. There are also some other most significant aspects. It has been reported that the Conservative party had done nothing for the eastern farmers. Now, last week, I read a
359G	HOUSE OF
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking statement by the Quebec minister of agriculture. You know that in Quebec, we have to increase the productivity of our soil. Our soil is acid, which means, for those who are in the know, that the pH is not high enough. Therefore, lime has to be bought. Now that is what the Quebec minister of agriculture said. It is a great pity that our two federal ministers of agriculture are not in the house.


An hon. Member:: They will be told.


Clément Vincent: The federal cabinet would consult the Liberal members? They are no good as far as farming is concerned, with the exception, perhaps, of the hon. member for Argenteuil-Deux-Montagnes (Mr. Drouin), who is one of my good friends and also probably one of the most competent in the agricultural field among those sitting over there, but they do not often ask his advice.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Clément Vincent: Thank you for your applause when I said that the government does not often seek his advice. And, moreover, Mr. Speaker, would I be mistaken-

There is not one minister in the house; not one.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: I think they resigned this afternoon.


Clément Vincent: The hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm (Mr. Pigeon) made such a good speech yesterday that all the ministers resigned today. There is not one in the house.
Well, the minister of agriculture of Quebec
said this:
Our farmers realize more and more the Importance of using limestone or lime to neutralize the acidity of their soil to increase its fertility.
It nevertheless remains concluded the minister, that insufficient lime is used in Quebec: indeed, because of the geological formation of our soil, the practice of liming is normally essential to obtain good crops.
That is a problem which exists in the province of Quebec. And what did the Conservative government do about it? In 1958- in March 1958-the ceiling of the subsidy of $1.50 a ton for lime sold to Canadian farmers, more particularly in the province of Quebec, was lifted by paying the provinces 60 per cent of the cost.
The grants paid by the federal government during the fiscal year 1962-63 amounted to a total of $2,471,280, for Canada of which $2,098,623 was paid to the province of Quebec; this represents for Quebec, of course, a total of 1,121,562 tons of lime. These were the figures on March 31 last, that is a few days before the Liberal party came to power.


What did the Liberals do? The new Liberal administration reduced that amount to $1,205,000 for the current year, that is 1963-64, which resulted into an increased expense of 50 cents per ton for our farmers who buy their lime in the province of Quebec on account of the policy of the new Liberal administration.
And no later than yesterday the Minister without Portfolio stated:
"We understand the needs of the farmers In the province of Quebec."
As far as farm loans are concerned, we have improved the Farm Credit Act. In fact, I had the privilege of being a member of the advisory committee and, contrary to the statement made earlier by the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier), during 1962-63, the Farm Credit Corporation granted an amount of $11,434,700 in the province of Quebec for a total of 804 loans; and this year, thanks to this new legislation introduced by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle, $20 million at least of the corporation's funds will help setting up some economic units in the province of Quebec.


Vincent Drouin: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member allow a question? Does he consider as a substantial improvement the amendment brought in by the Quebec government, providing for a reduction of 50 per cent in the interest charged by the federal government? Does he not feel that it is precisely that measure which brought about a considerable increase in the number of loans in the province of Quebec?


Clément Vincent: Certainly and I said so last year. In fact, if the hon. member will go to the trouble of reading the speech I made here last year, he will find that the government of the province of Quebec, under a Liberal administration, was no longer able to loan money, because it did not have any, and the provincial authorities were obliged to ask the federal government to pay them a commission in order that the federal government could come to the help of the farmers in the province of Quebec, since the latter could no longer get anything under a Liberal administration.


Vincent Drouin: May I ask the hon. member a question? Is he still talking without any political partisanship?


Clément Vincent: None whatever.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?


Clément Vincent: When I am through speaking.

Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking
Mr. Speaker, the Minister without Portfolio said yesterday that it was time to stop passing the buck, that the federal government should stop passing the buck to the provincial government, and that the latter should do the same. The minister feels that a stop must be put to that.
However, when I asked him a question about the price of milk in the province of Quebec, he immediately passed the buck to the provincial authorities, saying that matter came under their jurisdiction. In fact, the reply he gave me then can be found at page 697 of the official report for June 5, 1963.
And yet, the minister said yesterday:

We have to stop to throw the ball to the provinces and for the provinces to throw the ball to the federal government, and he said exactly this on June 5, 1963.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) said yesterday that one of the main problems affecting agriculture in eastern Canada concerned the high cost of agricultural implements used by farmers. In that matter, I ask the minister whether the present government has helped the farmer by levying a sales tax of 11 per cent on building materials, which will increase even more the cost of agricultural machines sold to Canadian farmers?
I ask him also whether the present government has reduced the production cost by levying this tax which will soon reach 11 per cent, and which the Canadian farmer will have to pay on cement, and everything he will need to improve his farm buildings as well as his cattle stalls? Is the production cost reduced by the levying of a tax on everything the farmer must use to raise his standard of living, to operate his farm in an economical way?
We must reduce the production cost in the province of Quebec, but the way the present government acts does not permit us to succeed.
Mention has been made yesterday of feed grain. Indeed, the Minister of Agriculture stated that this year, there are in the eastern elevators more grain, more barley, more oats than last year at the same date. Well, can the minister tell us who owns this grain, this barley, these oats that are now in the elevators of eastern Canada?
It is likely that the price of grain will be raised after the closing of navigation, because transportation by ship costs $4.50 per ton while it costs $13 by train.
The hon. member for Argenteuil-Deux-Montagnes (Mr. Drouin) was right in complaining of that attitude of the minister, and
I congratulate him for not accepting that new policy which, in my opinion, is entirely unfair.
Perhaps there is an improvement, but I suggest it is not a desirable one, because speculators are still there. They will probably increase the price of grain by $8 per ton instead of offering a regular price to Canadian farmers.
Japan bought from Canada, and the Japanese authorities know exactly how much the grain will cost them for eight months to come. Why not have the same thing in the east?
The bill of the Conservative government about feed grain was aimed at stabilizing the supply in the eastern section of the country, to establish price equalization, even to favour the production of grain in eastern Canada and finally to assure the stability of prices.
To that effect-and the present Minister of Agriculture is aware of that-a survey was made by the staff of the rural economy division of the Department of Agriculture. That survey concerning the problem of feed grain in the eastern part of the country was intended to give a general idea of some of the problems the government had to solve before making such a legislation operative.
Where are we, today, October 15, 1963? Are there interested people who do not want that legislation put on our statute books? Those are questions that farmers we meet ask themselves, and I also put them to the government.
Mr. Speaker, is the answer to all those questions, as the Minister of Agriculture has already stated, that this legislation will enable the federal government to save $6 to $8 million?
Should that be the case, let us remember that the farmers, particularly in Quebec, where 60 per cent of the farms bring in less than $2,400 per year in gross income, cannot afford to accept that kind of policy.
Our farmers are ready and willing to play their part, that is to say:
1.	Feed the world with quality products, at minimum prices.
2.	Contribute to the economic progress of the nation.
However, the farmers are conscious of the fact that they have a third role to play, especially this year, because in our part of the country the crops were poor. This third role is to earn a decent living.
Mr. Speaker, that is why the Conservatives moved the amendment I had the honour to second.
3598	HOUSE OF
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking Mr. C. A. Gauthier (Roberval): May I direct a question to the member for Nicolet-Yamaska?


Clément Vincent: Yes, certainly.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. gentleman who has just spoken where he collected his information in order to quote such figures, for I myself referred to the 1962-63 report published by the Farm Credit Corporation, in which it was shown that 109 loans were made in Quebec, as appears in the comparative table for the provinces. Do you have the report?-I do not have it, I sent it-


Clément Vincent: Mr. Speaker, the thing is this: the report came to me directly from the Social Credit corporation-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Clément Vincent: I mean the Farm Credit Corporation.
But you may find the answer to your question on page 835 of the official report for June 10, 1963, question No. 287.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: I would like to ask a supplementary question. Can we rely on the report published by the Department of Agriculture?


Clément Vincent: Yes.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: I hesitate to interrupt this debate but I must advise hon. members that the time allotted to the hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska (Mr. Vincent) has expired.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask a question but I do not think I have time; but I should like to speak to what is almost a question of privilege.

I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. It is almost a privilege since it concerns the honour of members of the House of Commons and mine particularly. I should like to take exception here to a certain discrimination exerted in this house against those of us who cannot milk a cow. Since the beginning of the discussion, those things have been said over and over again. There are a few of us here in the house who are interested in the problems of agriculture and, for that reason, we want to improve our knowledge in that field. It is a question of honour. And for the information of the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm (Mr. Pigeon),
I repeat it is a question of honour.
[Mr. Vincent.)

Those who have experience in farming should not try to crush us under their superiority every time we rise to speak on agricultural matters.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Go and tell the minister that.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Otherwise, it could be said that the Minister of Transport is not a good minister because he could not run a locomotive or that the minister of immigration is not a good minister because he is not an immigrant. Those comparisons might be a little silly, but I wish to take exception to the attitude of some hon. members who would like to be the only ones to discuss farming problems, and I would also like to challenge some references made about myself by the hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska (Mr. Vincent).


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Go and ask the minister that.


Jean-Luc Pepin: May I now ask the hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska a question? I should like to ask him if he is, like us, in favour of the appointment of a second minister of agriculture who would have as the assignment of rehabilitating agriculture in the east of the country, as supported by the Catholic Farmers' Union and the Quebec Federated Co-operative?


Clément Vincent: Mr. Speaker, before answering that question, I shall also like to ask one, or rather I shall answer by another question. Does the government intend to appoint an associate minister of agriculture, a junior minister of agriculture, or does it plan to set up a Department of Agriculture?


Mr. Caron:: A Department of Agriculture.


Clément Vincent: Because, in spite of all the speeches made to date, and I shall have an opportunity to come back to that, everything is quite confused and the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Pepin) knows that and he agrees.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege, I never gave my approval to what the member for Nicolet-Yamaska stated a moment ago. Obviously, I have great admiration for him and I want to say it again publicly. But he should not put words in my mouth.


Clément Vincent: On the same point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, may I-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: Order. 1 must point out to the hon. member that the time allotted to the hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska has expired. I should also point out to the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Pepin) that if he proceeds to ask questions of the hon. member who has just
OCTOBER IS, 1S63	3599
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking
spoken the time consumed will be considered his time. I call on the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge).


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. While we do enjoy a limited amount of this verbal Quebec tid-dledy-winks, we do not want to lose our opportunity to take our places in this debate. I rise to express our support for the subamendment. While I think that most hon. members will agree that the subamendment is clumsily worded, it is without a doubt intended to say that both old line parties have failed to implement policies which would result in a Canada-wide stable and prosperous agricultural economy. However, in the interests of biculturalism I trust that future subamendments introduced by the hon. and learned member for Red Deer (Mr. Thompson) will indicate a greater respect for the beauty and precision of the English language. I think that anyone reading the subamendment carefully will agree with us that it does require some literary spinal adjustment.
This debate has been infected by the same lack of constructive purpose that has characterized several previous debates this session. For members on the government side of the house and members of the official opposition to continue their pot-calling-the-kettle-black form of debate is to demonstrate a lack of responsibility which will in time undermine confidence in parliament and engender a lack of respect for members of this house. Speaking on behalf of this group I want to reiterate and emphasize the fact that we believe that, under the present circumstances possibly more than ever, it is our responsibility to deal with these matters in a constructive way. The members of this group believe that we should take advantage of this debate to discuss agricultural policies and legislation in relation to changing needs and circumstances, and believe that it is the duty and function of the opposition to advance constructive alternatives to government policies and proposals. That is what the hon. members of this group have tried to do in this debate.
Now, Mr. Speaker, Canadian agricultural policy naturally contains many unusual ramifications and diversifications. It must, in order to meet the needs of farmers from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The size of our country, its geography, varieties of climate, variations in soil and many variations in conditions present problems which can only be met effectively on the basis of members of this house having complete information and the facts with respect to the problems with which they are called upon to deal. These problems can only be met as a result of co-operation
between federal and provincial governments, between governments and farmers' organizations and other groups in the community, and the understanding and active participation of large sections of the rural community by way of giving effect to leadership given by government, and the implementation of the policies announced by government.
I have been appalled, Mr. Speaker, in listening to this debate, at the ignorance of the situation we face today, and at the lack of facts and information upon which to base our decisions on these most important questions. Therefore, I suggest that it is one of the first duties of the members of this house to become informed on all the various questions and problems relating to agriculture, such as land use, production, overseas marketing, transportation, research, farm credit, crop insurance and the relationship between agriculture and the rest of our economy. All this offers a wide field for investigation and study on the part of members of this house. I have done some reading on this question. I have always been interested in agriculture, as have other members of this group. In our own agriculture committee we try to have members undertake studies of certain questions of which they have some knowledge from experience. My hon. friend from Timis-kaming (Mr. Peters) was brought up on a farm and has had a lot of experience in farming. My hon. friend from Nanaimo-Cowi-chan-The Islands (Mr. Cameron) has also demonstrated his knowledge of farming. On one occasion he came to our ranch when I was absent, arriving at a time when there was a certain crisis in the barnyard. I can say, without exaggeration, that he attended to the obstetrical ceremonies required by an ancient cow with dignity, distinction and complete aplomb.
The subject of agriculture and its relationship to government policy generally has, of course, been the subject of considerable study and investigation by persons interested both from a scientific and from a practical point of view. I wish to quote briefly from the November-December, 1960, issue of the Agriculture Institute Review. I think the persons who wrote this article made some excellent observations on the subject of the relationship between agriculture and public policy. The article is entitled "Agricultural Legislation in Relation to Changing Need" and it was written by M. Brownstone and C. Schwartz. They are discussing public policy in its relation to farming, and this is what they have to say:
At the same time, the analysis points towards the central role which the state must play in solving farm problems in accordance with output and income criteria.

Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking
Despite the validity of this general proposition, significant advances have been made in specific instances where policies have been based solidly on careful and realistic appraisal. Unfortunately, even these advances may well be handicapped by lack of a comprehensive approach-as was pointed out in the case of resource adjustment via farm credit.
One important disability in the effort to build public policy-
They are talking about agricultural policy.
-is divided jurisdiction and its political manifestations. This aspect of our constitution has provided an historic technique for escaping responsibility and for misplacing responsibility. But this is by no means applied consistently. In farm credit, for instance, we have reasonably full expression of national interest and policy combined with ample opportunity for provincial variations. But the development of marketing policy has been replete with skilful evasive tactics leading to an hiatus every decade. And crop insurance is an excellent example of federal power being used very effectively to minimize federal responsibility and potential embarrassment on the one hand and on the other to virtually coerce the provinces into unwilling acceptance of the more onerous and burdensome aspects of such a program.
The farmer as the focus of all this remains largely exposed to the economic elements. Clearly he has not developed an effective political voice any more than he has welded together a solid farm movement. Undoubtedly Canadian farmers could gain strength if (1) they could and would unify in a policy sense; (2) they would approach their problems with greater realism and understanding of the total economy and its dynamics; (3) make greater use of their own economic organizations, largely in the co-operative form; (4) form an alignment with other groups in our economy whose basic aims are not in fundamental conflict with those of the farmer. In this manner, the farmers can perhaps offset their undoubtedly waning political influence as farm population continues to decline both absolutely and relatively. Of course, as against this we have a little prairie homily which goes something like this; "It's not the size of the barking dog that counts but the size of the dog's barking".
I think there are some interesting comments to be found in that article and I would recommend hon. members to look it up in the library.
In this group we try to make constructive proposals with regard to any of the subjects we are called upon to debate in this house. We recognize the complications and difficulties surrounding agricultural legislation and policy. We do not think it is sufficient to refer continually to the past and to say "You did this" or "You did not do that and so on". We had, in the late James Gardiner, despite all the criticisms which were made of him, a particular champion of prairie agriculture and we had in the former minister of agriculture, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton) a man who was thoroughly devoted to the cause of agriculture and who was responsible for having some good legislation placed on the statute books, particularly the ARDA measure, and the Farm Credit Act. I think there is credit due to both sides, and
[Mr. Herridge.l
criticism to both sides, as well. However we must look to the future and the solution of these difficulties will require more than just superficial debate. It will require a close study of all the circumstances surrounding the industry in all its aspects from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
I suggest that this need offers a great opportunity for the agriculture committee of this house to function as never before in order to provide a basis for sound agricultural policies. It should undertake a study of these aspects of agriculture about which many members of this house and many people in Canada know very little. I suggest that the occasion presents an opportunity for a committee of the other place to co-operate with the agriculture committee of this house. There should be some planning of this work. I give full credit to the committees of the other place which have undertaken studies of such important subjects as the narcotics problem, the manpower question and the question of land use. Some very useful and constructive work has been done by the committees of the other place which have studied these matters, and I think we should secure the co-operation of the other place in sharing the heavy burden which is imposed by the needs of the moment with respect to understanding the facts relating to agriculture. I suggest that some effort be made to plan this study as between the agriculture committee of this house and the appropriate committee of the other place. A committee should be established and it should call before it senior members of the Department of Agriculture. The first thing to know is the workings of the Department of Agriculture. I have met members of the house who have very little knowledge of how the various branches of the Department of Agriculture work and what their functions are. I think we should get the views of the senior officials on the administrative machinery of today. I believe we should have representatives of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and of the farmers' unions come before the committee to give evidence and express their opinions. We should have representatives of the fruit growers' organization, the poultry association, the beekeepers and all other farm organizations and those interested in and related to agriculture.
I think we should also get the views of the farmers' wives through the rural women's organizations, because in order to understand the problem we must have the views of all those serving agriculture and working in agriculture. I think we should ask representatives to appear from the Agricultural Institute of Canada, an organization composed of graduates in agriculture and allied sciences

who are giving considerable study to this question and have throughout the years. I think representatives of the Agricultural Institute of Canada could make a valuable contribution to the information on this very important question.
I also suggest that we should have representatives of the Canadian tree farmers association come before the agriculture committee, and I do so because in Great Britain and in Sweden and other European countries tree farming has always been very closely related to agriculture. I am talking about private tree farming undertaken by farmers and others as a part time occupation. Many aspects of tree farming are under the administration of the agricultural departments in these countries, and their agricultural organizations foster this other aspect of farming.
I suggest that we should call before the committee representatives of the tree farmers of Canada so they can tell their story as to the relationship of private tree farming to the development of the family farm, and give us their advice. I also believe we should call representatives of other groups who wish to give evidence before the committee and who can contribute something to the information and knowledge of the committee. We should also ask representatives of the cooperatives and credit unions to come before the committee and give their views with respect to co-operative marketing, agricultural credit and so on.
I know that this represents a pretty heavy agenda, Mr. Speaker, but in my view this is something that must be undertaken if members of the house are going to pay the close and careful attention to agricultural problems that is demanded of them under present circumstances. I say once again it is not sufficient to charge one another superficially with failing to do this or failing to do that.
I believe it should be the responsibility of this committee to make a report to the house and to make recommendations to the house as a result of exhaustive study of the problem. It would then be the responsibility of the government to give very serious consideration to the recommendations of the committee. I am convinced that we are not going to solve any of the vast and complicated problems that face us today unless in the first instance we get the information and the facts, and then seek co-operation between the federal and provincial governments and the organizations of the people directly concerned as well as the daily participation of those who are directly affected by the legislation that is the result of this study.
I make these few observations in what we consider to be our attempt to present some
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking constructive alternatives to the verbal fireworks that have often dominated this debate. Finally, may I say I am a modest man. I have first mentioned that the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters) has had farming experience and the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Cameron) has also had experience in various aspects of farm operations. As an ancient milkmaid I now volunteer as a person well qualified to referee the milking contest between the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) and the hon. member for Timiskaming, to which we are all looking forward.


Mr. W. H. Jorgenson (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, in taking part in the debate on the motion brought forward by the former minister of agriculture, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton), I wish to emphasize the reasoned, practical approach that he took in presenting his motion to the house. He brought to our attention a problem that deserves the consideration of all hon. members. In outlining the problem he brought forward statistics that portray in dramatic detail the fundamental change that has been taking place in our basic economy, in our basic industry, agriculture. This is a process that began a number of years ago, indeed even before the second world war, but it has accelerated within the past few years."
These changes have taken place for several reasons, because of the necessity of mechanization of our farms, because of advances in technology, because of improved land use practices, because of improved cultivation practices and the use of fertilizers, and certainly because of the tremendous competition there is in agriculture and the need to make our agriculture plant as efficient as possible. I do not think there is a group in the Canadian economy that has proceeded at the pace agriculture has in increasing efficiency of production.
But with this growth and with these adjustments have come problems. Contrary to what has been suggested by some hon. members, I do not think there is a panacea. I do not think there is one single solution. I do not think we can deal with these problems by adopting national policies applicable to all parts of Canada in the same manner. The speech of the then prime minister on August 30, 1958, emphasized this point. He emphasized that in reality there were two problems, first of all a national one that had to be dealt with by national policies and then par' allel with the national policies must go regional policies to deal with particular situations that arise from time to time. One year there may be a problem in the maritimes. Another year there may be drought on the
3602	HOUSE OF
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking prairies. Certainly no one can say that national policies can deal with such situations because they are all different, and the methods of farming are different in these areas.
I suggest there are five basic considerations that must be met in the development of an agricultural policy. First of all, it must meet the requirements of the constitution. In other words, does the federal government have authority in that particular field or is it a matter of provincial authority? Is it possible to develop policies that are the joint responsibility of the provincial and federal governments? We have such programs in effect today, and I refer to crop insurance.
Then, will these policies-and we must avoid this at all costs-result in circumscribing the personal freedom of the farmer to make a decision himself? I think this is important, that the power to make decisions remain in the hands of the farmer. Third, are these policies in keeping with the needed adjustments in the farm industry in view of the foreseeable long term trend? Fourth, is the policy flexible enough to permit adjustment and change as the need arises? Fifth, and this is academic but nevertheless important, will it do the job that it is intended to do?
I suggest to you, sir, that if we are to develop policies that are going to meet the needs of this industry it is necessary that these five basic requirements be met. The Minister of Agriculture replied to what I thought was the reasoned approach of the hon. member for Qu'Appelle. I think every member regarded his speech with some consternation and was somewhat appalled at the attitude the minister took. The statistics presented by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle, I felt, were undeniable. They were reliable and they pointed out a problem. No one has denied that the problem exists, except the minister himself. Did he seriously attempt to deal with the problem outlined by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle? No, he did not. The minister shrugged it off. This, said he, was a lot of junk. What an attitude to take. I am sure that the farmers of the maritimes, those referred to by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle, who are not enjoying the standard of living prevailing in other parts of the country, and who belong to the low income group referred to by the hon. member, are not going to be happy when they find they have a minister who shrugs off their problems and says they do not exist.


Mr. Maiheson:: He did not say that.


An hon. Member:: He did.


Warner Herbert Jorgenson: I ask the hon. member, who frequently becomes very vocal without


making too much sense, to refer to the minister's speech. He will see for himself that what I have said is true, unless he has a capacity to read something into that speech that was never put there.
The minister referred to the dominion bureau of statistics figures relating to the first half of 1963. He pointed out that agriculture income during the first half of this year was higher than ever; that it was a record. This is true. I ask him, can the government that now sits over there assume credit for that increase in farm income? I ask them, what policies were implemented when they came to power that would have materially affected the trend that had developed during the early part of the year? What policies have they implemented that would either reverse or accelerate that trend? I am sure if they are honest with themselves they will admit that nothing was done. Certainly, the 60 days of indecision produced nothing that would have affected the trend that was developed by the former minister of agriculture and the former government.
The attitude of the minister, and this was most surprising, was that to be a successful minister of agriculture, you have to milk a cow; you have to know how to put your drill in the ground for seeding and you have to know how to plow a straight furrow. I suggest, sir, that these are not the qualifications that make a good minister of agriculture. Since he is a millionaire farmer, perhaps he has had experience in milking a cow and perhaps he has plowed a furrow. I suggest to him that a more fundamental, a more basic approach to the problems of the farmer referred to by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle would be a little more appropriate at this time.
The minister suggested there were no problems. I noted that, in this respect, his speech was somewhat contradictory in comparison with the speech delivered by the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Tremblay), who was immediately rushed in to salvage something of the wreck that had been created by the reckless driving of the minister. There was an attempt to cover up the damage and get back what had been lost as a result of the incredibly stupid statements of the minister.
The Minister without Portfolio took a different attitude. He suggested that there was a problem, and he went back over the years in trying to develop his theme. I agree with many of the points the minister made in connection with these problems. First of all, the problems must be properly diagnosed, and they will not be properly diagnosed as long as we have the present Minister of Agriculture. The statement of the Minister

Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking
without Portfolio points out one of the basic difficulties we will have as a result of the attempt to divide the Department of Agriculture. This suggestion will produce some rather devastating results, when you have two ministers with views that are so far apart. One minister takes the attitude there is no help needed, while the other has the attitude that there may be a problem.
May I call it six o'clock?
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.
Warner Herbert Jorgenson: Mr. Speaker, when the house rose at six o'clock I was in the process of outlining the inadequacies and shortcomings of this government. Having barely got started on that topic, I came to the conclusion during the supper hour that to enumerate them all would take too much time. Therefore in the limited time at my disposal, during the next ten minutes I want to go on to a different part of my speech. Some question was raised during the course of this debate as to what we had been doing about the problem that was outlined to the house yesterday in the statement of the former minister of agriculture. If hon. members opposite want to know what has been done, I would invite them to examine the record. Let them examine the farm credit legislation that was introduced into this house by the previous government. Let them examine the amendments that were brought in a few years later to improve that legislation. It is interesting to note, in this connection, the difference of opinion that exists between the present minister and the pseudo minister who would perhaps have held that portfolio had he been able to win a seat. The present minister says "Blow the lid off"; the former member from Assiniboia was complaining, when the amendments were introduced, that we were making loans that were too large. This is an example of the confusion in the minds of hon. members opposite. This is indicative of the confusion that exists in their minds today and has existed for a number of years.
Let them examine the price stabilization legislation that was brought in, and the amounts of money paid out to deserving farmers in all parts of Canada. Let them examine the Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act introduced into this house by the former minister in the Conservative government. In connection with this, Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the ministerwho is still not in his seat and has not been for most of the day-what is happening in relation to ARDA. What has happened to the research programs that have been undertaken? What has been done in order to push forward the plans that were developed by the previous minister? What is happening to the programs that were started in co-operation with the provinces? We get no answers from the government when they are questioned. The minister has a rather quaint way of replying to questions. When problems are brought to his attention he tells us he is either sitting on them or he is peeking at them from some direction through some peephole somewhere. But no statement of policy has even been made by this government in so far as agriculture is concerned.
We, quite rightly I think, accuse the minister of not carrying out the programs that the Liberal party enunciated in such loud terms during election campaigns. But in the final analysis it is the Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson) who is responsible. He has tried to slough off the responsibility, weaknesses and ineptitudes of his various ministers, the fiasco of the Gordon budget, the difficulties the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss LaMarsh) got herself into.


Miss LaMarsh:: Who, me?


Some hon. Members:: Yes, you.


Warner Herbert Jorgenson: These problems concern the Minister of Agriculture and the other members of the government; but in the final analysis it is the Prime Minister who has, in my opinion, shown ineptitude, lack of decisiveness and bumbling inadequacy. What has the Prime Minister done so far as agriculture is concerned? First of all, we have a Minister of Agriculture, who traditionally has been a front bench member of the cabinet, now relegated to the back seats, and practically down to the bottom of the list in seniority. Where have they put his office in the House of Commons? Without a road map and a boy scout you could not even find it. When you do find it, when you do go in to talk over problems with him, he does not want to talk about two subjects-he refuses to talk about them at all-agriculture, and the two ministers of agriculture.
He told us a while ago, and the Prime Minister enunciated this policy during the election campaign, that they were opposed to the payment of acreage payments to western farmers. We could not understand the reason, but the Minister of Agriculture gave us a clue this afternoon when he said that $200 per farmer did not help our 50,000 farmers. Now
3604	HOUSE OF
Eastern Agricultural Policy Lacking we get some idea of which side this government is on. The minister went out west and told the farmers to reduce acreage, and in his quaint way he suggested that they should not spend all their money in one store-"Save up your dollars". They had the supreme audacity, after making the wheat sales to Russia and China, to go out west, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Sharp), to tell the farmers that these sales meant about $2,000 per farmer. In the southeastern corner of Manitoba there was a crop failure this year, and I would like to know how these sales are going to help the farmers of that area. This is an example of the misleading things they have been saying across this country for a number of years.
I suggest to the Prime Minister that he could have resolved his difficulties in so far as the Minister of Agriculture is concerned. He could have assisted himself. There could have been a vacancy created in the constituency of St. Boniface and the former premier of the province of Manitoba, Mr. Campbell, could have been brought in and could have taken his place, and they would not have had to scrape the bottom of the barrel in this way. I see that the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Martin) is listening very intently to my remarks. He is obviously impressed with the validity of my indictment against his government and is no doubt contemplating the opportunity that may one day be his to act upon the suggestions I am making at this time.
We have attempted to bring before the house a problem that is very real, a problem that affects every member of the house, and a problem that should receive the attention of the government. It is interesting to note the minister's speech of yesterday and contrast it with the voices of doom we heard during the last election crying out against such things as a stagnating economy and unemployment. The minister, as reported at page 3547 of Hansard of yesterday's date made reference to the high consumption of beef which the Canadian people are enjoying. He was attempting to illustrate our buoyant economy, and using the figures up until the end of June this year he said:
This increase must have been caused by a very buoyant economy and full employment.
What a far cry that is from those voices of doom which we heard during the course of the election campaign.
The minister made a rather interesting observation in connection with what he considered to be the number one problem in
tMr. Jorgenson.]

Canada today, namely the high cost of machinery. I ask, what has the government done to bring down the cost of machinery? 1 have seen no action on the part of the government other than to impose a tax on those who produce the farm machinery, thereby raising the cost of it. Their actions of the past come back to haunt them again on this score.
I urge every hon. member of the house to support the motion put forward by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton). It is an indictment against the bumbling-to use their phrase-fumbling, inept, indecisive, lackadaisical performance of the government, failing in its responsibilities not only to the agriculturists of this country but to Canadians as a whole.


Mr. Speaker:: It being 8.15 o'clock it is my duty, pursuant to section 4(d) of standing order 56 to interrupt the proceedings and put the question on any amendment before the house.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the amendment to the amendment lost.


Mr. Ouellet:: Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the hon. member for Matapedia-Matane (Mr. Tremblay). If I had voted, I would have voted for the amendment to the amendment.


Mr. Roxburgh:: I was paired. Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment to the amendment.


Mr. Speaker:: X declare the amendment lost.


John Maxwell Roxburgh: Mr. Speaker, I was paired. Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


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


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



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


Mr. Terry Nugent (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, I have a grievance this evening, and to put it in a nutshell for hon. members it has to do with the government allowing civil servants to make policy in the Northwest Territories instead of merely carrying out policy. This means that the government has abandoned its duty to control and give direction to its servants, with the result that the private enterprise sector of the economy has suffered. I am talking, Mr. Speaker, about Northern Transportation Company, which is a crown corporation answering to the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Sharp) and which is in direct competition with Yellowknife Transportation Company and Arctic Shipping Company. These two private carriers operate along the Mackenzie river and in the Arctic ocean.
I realize, Mr. Speaker, that some members may not be very interested in this subject. I would be quite willing to allow a couple of minutes for them to take their private conversations outside because I know that if I speak more than five minutes at this volume my voice will collapse. When the Northern Transportation Company was set up, it had a very simple job to do, namely that of, supplying Eldorado Mining and Refining at Great Bear lake. Originally, the supplying of fuel in the Arctic was taken on by that company, despite the fact that Yellowknife Transportation, a private concern, was already there and ready, willing and able to undertake the supply job. Many years back, under a former Liberal government, we saw the first step taken which put into the Arctic a company to compete with private enterprise and which violated the rule we have that the government should only provide these services where private enterprise is unable to carry out the needed functions.
Mr. C. D. Howe, who was a member of the former Liberal government, talked about the Northern Transportation Company in this house on several occasions. He said it was not the purpose of that company to complete with private enterprise. He made it very clear that he would have been most surprised at the suggestion there was competition between Northern Transportation and other companies, and expressed the view that Northern Transportation was merely carrying out its function of supplying government agencies in those places where private enterprise was unable to do so.
The situation today, Mr. Speaker, is that Northern Transportation and the Yellowknife

company are competing neck and neck throughout the whole length of the Mackenzie river and the Arctic ocean. As recently as this year, Northern Transportation assumed a new role in the Arctic ocean for the first time. They have gone into the business of carrying bulk oil in competition with Arctic Shipping. I submit that there is a very real grievance on the part of those shareholders in Arctic Shipping who see this trend, and who realize that unless this government stops the civil servants from trying to compete with private enterprise, then the private companies will have to fold up.
I have asked some pertinent questions of the Minister of Trade and Commerce concerning government policy. The most significant answer he gave was to the effect that Northern Transportation Company believed in operating in a businesslike way; that it would continue to improve, repair or replace its equipment as needed. This response to my question about competition indicates the businesslike way in which this company has abandoned its previous role of a crown agency supplying services which were not available, and has developed into an agency competing for every bit of business it can get from private enterprise, just as if it was another private company, and just as if it were answerable to shareholders who wanted to make a profit out of their investment.
I submit that the only reason Northern Transportation Company executives are interested in expanding that business is not to provide further service in the Arctic which cannot be provided by private enterprise, it is not for the good of the government, but is merely a little more empire building by some civil servants who like to feel that they can go to the north. I am sure that any hon. member of this house who has ever been in Canada's Arctic will realize that more than half of the total business of the area is government business, and more than half of the people gainfully employed are working for the government. These civil servants want to take advantage of their position. They want to do some empire building to build up their own name, but they forget that their duty is to the public.
The people for whom I speak are not that worried about government competition, if the government competition were subjected to the same rules and the same regulations as private enterprise. The Northern Transportation Company, in addition to having a natural advantage through its government connections, has stacked the deck. Three years ago the Yellowknife Transportation Company tried to get an L.S.M. ship into Canada. They believed this former wartime vessel could
Northern Transportation Company play a very useful role in the transportation of some kinds of goods, and that this ship would enable them to handle their business more efficiently. However, Canadian maritime regulations prohibit the entering into Canada of a vessel more than five years old. This ship was considerably older and the company was refused permission to bring it into the country. The company then built new tugs and new barges at great expense to handle the business as best they could.
The Yellowknife Transportation Company, a private company, was refused permission to bring in the boat, but this spring the Northern Transportation Company, a crown company, brought in the sister ship, another L.S.M., to Vancouver. They started refitting that boat. They knew that the maritime regulations would not permit this, but they sought a government order in council to bypass the maritime commission. I am afraid the minister's answer to me in the house the other day in which he said that the maritime commission would not allow Northern Transportation to further equip the vessel is not quite accurate. It is the vessel itself that comes under maritime regulations. We have the spectacle now of a vessel in Vancouver being re-equipped to do a job in the north, the very thing which our government prohibited private enterprise from doing three years ago. I do not know at the moment how much money the government has wasted on this project. If they are going to make Northern Transportation Company return that vessel, then we have a good grievance against them for wasting this money. Certainly, we have a grievance against the officers of this crown corporation, because not only was private enterprise prevented from doing this same thing three years ago, but the crown corporation, knowing their vessel was three times too old to comply with the maritime regulations, have decided to go ahead and bring it in anyway. They feel that they can get away with what they want.
The answers the minister has given to me in this house and in private conversation, the manner in which the head of the Northern Transportation Company and the deputy minister of Trade and Commerce have acted, indicate that these civil servants either have not told the minister the truth or he is not quite able to understand what they have told him.
It certainly indicates that the Minister of Trade and Commerce fails to understand what is going on in his department. His conversation with me indicates that they do not believe in this extension of competition between the crown and private enterprise, and meanwhile his officials continue on a course

Northern Transportation Company of action which can have no other end result but to knock all private competition out of the north and will within the next year knock out one of the two companies operating up there.
I suggest that hon. members on all sides of the house have the same stake in this matter that I have. The mere fact that the two companies which are suffering at the present time operate in the far north does not make any less serious the fundamental objection that I am sure will be taken by everyone in this house, that we have the crown entering actively into business in competition with private enterprise when there is no need for it; and going even further, taking unfair advantage. I hope some other hon. members who are aware of this problem will go a little further in this matter.


Mr. Gene Rheaume (Northwest Territories):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to add my comments to those of the hon. member for Edmonton-Strathcona (Mr. Nugent), particularly in relation to the massive program of extension and building that this crown corporation, Northern Transportation Company, has entered into in direct competition with a private shipping company in the Canadian northwest. In particular I want to point out the failure of Northern Transportation Company to make use of local people from the north on their freighting operations. There is an extensive labour pool of Eskimo and Indian people along the Mackenzie river and along the Arctic coast now being serviced by Northern Transportation Company. The policy of this crown corporation is in direct contrast to policies followed by the private enterprise operation, Yellowknife Transportation, and Arctic Shipping Company, whose policy it was to hire-and still is-Eskimo and Indian people. In fact these private firms have gone so far as to send Indian and Eskimo people from the Northwest Territories to Vancouver at company expense, where they can be taught the skills necessary to qualify them for river operation. As I say, when Northern Transportation Company embarked upon this program of expansion into the Arctic, they did not use the local labour force that was available.
The hon. member for Edmonton-Strathcona has already mentioned that Northern Transportation Company expanded after taking over a small operation from the Hudson's Bay Company. Many experts on the north have a great deal to say about the Hudson's Bay Company and its method of operation. But there is one thing no one can take away from the Hudson's Bay Company; they did make extensive use of Eskimo and Indian people in all phases of their operation. This


was particularly true in terms of their shipping operations in the Canadian Arctic. However, when Northern Transportation Company began its expanded operations this summer, the company imported hundreds of workers from southern Canada into such Arctic communities as Tuktoyaktuk, where there was already a labour pool of trained Eskimo people who had no other employment opportunities, now the Hudson's Bay Company was not operating shipping services.
I also want to point out the conflict or the apparent paradox between what the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mcllraith) tells us in this house in relation to private enterprise in the north, and statements made by the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Laing). In particular I want to refer to an article printed in the northern newspaper entitled News of the North of September 5. I might point out that the editor of this newspaper is an executive officer of the Liberal party of the Canadian north, so we must assume that everything he says is absolutely correct. He describes the visit of the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, when he told Yellowknife people:
Mr. Laing foresaw the gradual withdrawal of the government from economic fields as private industry came into the north.
However, when questioned about this in the house, the minister denied that he had made such a statement. My point is this. On the one hand the Minister of Transport tells us that it will be his policy to allow Northern Transportation Company, with all the power of the public purse behind it, to expand its operations and to compete wherever possible with private firms operating -in the north, while one of his colleagues, also enunciating government policy, says in the north that the government will be getting out of direct competition, but later in the house denies that this statement was ever made. This puts the member for the Northwest Territories in a very peculiar position, because one of the recommendations of the Glassco commission was that the operations of the Northern Transportation Company should come under the aegis of the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. At that time this recommendation seemed to have some merit, but in view of the apparent inability of these two ministers of the crown to at least get together so that they present a united front- and I use the word "front" very carefully here-and because they cannot give the house the same story, I think the people of the north have some rather serious doubts that the intentions of the present government in relation to northern development are honest.


Georges-J. Valade: Mr. Speaker, I should like to state a rather serious grievance because it concerns the attitude of the Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson) with regard to his responsibilities towards parliament.
Aware of the seriousness of my remarks and especially of the seriousness of my grievance-


Mr. F. J. Bigg (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I wish to speak briefly on the same subject.


Mr. Speaker:: I was under the impression that the hon. member for St. Mary (Mr. Valade) was speaking on the same subject, but in view of the fact that he is changing the subject I think the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Bigg) has priority.


Frederick Johnstone (Jack) Bigg: Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief, in view of the impasse in which we find ourselves. I am afraid that this question of the Northern Transportation Company is not as simple as the proposition put forward by my hon. friend from Edmonton-Strathcona (Mr. Nugent) would seem to indicate. I will agree with him that the Northern Transportation Company has had something of a monopoly on transportation into the north; but my understanding of the matter is that when it was put in by the government of that day nobody was keen on transporting into the north at reasonable rates, and it was only by a government supported company, a crown corporation, that anything like adequate transportation was available into the north.
I have also a very, shall we say, personal interest in this matter because the towns of Fort McMurray and Waterways, which have pioneered the north, rely on the Northern Transportation Company to a great extent for employment. With the cutback in the production of uranium at Uranium City these two towns have been seriously hit. It is only fair to say that this crown corporation has been looking for other contracts in order to keep the payroll adequate to support these two towns. My suggestion is that we do not try in any way to cut back the work of Northern Transportation Company, but rather that we take the positive approach of developing the north to such an extent that not only will Northern Transportation Company be occupied, but that the Yellowknife Company and other companies may be required to carry loads to the north and also on the return haul.
This brings up a question closely allied to the same point, in that it is time the government and the civil service looked into the question of co-operating with the provinces
Northern Transportation Company in a reassessment of Buffalo park. The Peace river changes into the Slave river just at the southern end of the park, and water transportation will be the life blood for any future development in the far north, and in Buffalo park itself.
I am sure most hon. members on all sides of the house know that our national parks have been set aside as playgrounds for future generations, and that they are not to be interfered with; but I am sure many hon. members are not aware of the situation concerning Buffalo park. However, knowing Buffalo park as I do, and as many people up there do, it is what might be called a big white elephant. We have set aside an area, approximately 14,500 square miles in my own district alone, which will never become a playground because of the distance from centres of population. It is far too large for anything like a game reserve, but it is extremely rich in minerals, gypsum and timber.
This area has never been properly explored because, as hon. members know, mineral exploration and development cannot be carried on in any Canadian national parks. This may be a quite correct policy for Banff, Jasper and other parks, but it should not apply to Buffalo park. It is time the province of Alberta and the dominion government got together and took a new look at the park. If they did, and if development took place, then Northern Transportation and any other private company that wanted to go into the north would have plenty to do. Instead of worrying about cutbacks in Fort McMurray, Waterways, Yellowknife and down the Mackenzie we would have the opportunity to provide jobs even for many of those who live in so-called southern Canada. I wish to thank the hon. member for yielding the floor to me.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. member for Yukon wish to speak on the same subject?


Erik Nielsen: Yes, Mr. Speaker. The problem which confronts the house on the grievance raised by the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Nugent), is indeed not so simple, as the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Bigg) has pointed out. I think the problem has arisen because of the rightly adopted role of the government during world war II of providing transportation facilities in the north, where such facilities were not available and where private enterprise was unable and unwilling to go into the north to provide them.
During world war II uranium was an essential product which had to be manufactured for the benefit of the nation as a whole. Before the accelerated development of the Arctic both for economic and defence purposes, which began during world

Northern Transportation Company war II, which has continued ever since, and was most dynamically tackled during the six years of Conservative government, transportation was a problem that required government assistance.
The long term interests of Canada demanded that transportation routes into the north be provided, yet there was not the volume of traffic, nor even the immediate potential of traffic, needed to encourage private capital to supply transportation in the variety and quantity that was necessary. The bush pilots blazed the way in the north, but what was urgently required was road, rail and water transportation for bulk goods. In fact the development of the uranium mines in the north pointed up more than ever before the requirement for immediate acceleration of the expansion of transport for the transportation of bulk goods.
At that time the federal government, and rightly so, realized the deficiency of transportation requirements in the north and its obligations in that regard, and it assisted in the provision of those transportation facilities that did in fact open up large sections of our Arctic, and even of our sub-Arctic, during world war II. I think I need only cite the Alaska highway, and of course the establishment of Eldorado Aviation and Northern Transportation, which are both subsidiaries of Eldorado Mining and Refining Company Limited. But the true role of government, as the minister of northern affairs said so often in the Yukon and in the Northwest Territories during his recent visit, was to encourage the development of private industry. With that sentiment expressed by the minister I agree wholeheartedly.
We should encourage the development of private industry, not only in mines and in farmlands, but also in the transportation field, without continuing costly government aid. This is what is happening here; because I am sure if hon. members will recall to their minds the last annual statement of Eldorado Aviation as well as that of Northern Transportation Company-but more so Eldorado Aviation-they will realize this particular operation is a submarginal one now, particularly since the cutbacks in uranium production that have appeared in recent years.
The transportation arms of both of these subsidiaries of Eldorado Mining and Refining Company Limited were set up specifically to provide transportation for the product of the government established uranium mines in the north, but instead of tax dollars being spent to provide these services, private capital should provide them as soon as the traffic flow becomes sufficient to support a privately-owned transportation network. Then, instead of money going out of the national treasury

to provide these services, money will be coming into the national treasury in the form of taxes paid by private companies operating in the Arctic.
This is not an isolated view. It is a view which is supported by Mr. Aubrey Simmons, who was the Liberal member of parliament for the Yukon until 1957, and after his defeat in 1957 became the president of Arctic Shipping Company Limited, which company of course was in direct competition with Northern Transportation Company in carrying supplies to D.E.W. line sites and things of that nature.
This whole matter was questioned in the special committee on research in 1961 when we heard evidence from Mr. Harcourt, president of Yellowknife Transportation, and Mr. Simmons of the Arctic Shipping Company Limited, and I think that Mr. Simmons made a good case. I think he was rather a good, misguided Conservative in this respect because he advocated the gradual withdrawal of Northern Transportation Company from competition with private industry in the north.
As I said before, I think the government has a proper role to play in the north where private industry is either reluctant or unable to provide investment capital to erect the framework of transportation which will meet the needs of the north and the ultimate benefit of the nation. When private industry is not willing, then the government has a responsibility to get in there and do it with the taxpayers' dollar.
Here we have a quite different situation. It was pointed up in 1961 when the special committee on research went into detail on this matter. Mr. Simmons on that occasion, when he presented the brief, had this to say.
With the growth rate in the Arctic at the present time, I submit the time has now arrived lor government to make a phased withdrawal from the field of Arctic transportation to allow private enterprise to take up a share of the burden and participate in the great adventure of development of the Arctic.
So many times in the past I have endorsed the views of Mr. Simmons, and here is yet another occasion when I am compelled to agree with my friend. Here was a man who knew the north and its requirements, and he certainly knew the inroads being made on private investment capital and private enterprise in the north by Northern Transportation Company Limited.
Mr. Simmons went on to say in the brief which he presented to the special committee on research that-
-Arctic Shipping Limited stands ready and willing to assume this responsibility. We are waiting only for the authority that must come from a responsible government source.

Mr. Simmons was not the only one who expressed these sentiments. The same sentiments were expressed by Mr. Harcourt and other officials of Yellowknife Transportation Company Limited, which is the private company operating along the Mackenzie and in the Arctic. They were also held by Mr. Harris, the vice president of Pacific Western Airlines Limited and other officials of that air line. This is not a singular problem relating to Northern Transportation Company Limited; it also involves the other subsidiary of Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited, namely the Eldorado Aviation Company Limited. Here is a company with a DC-4, a DC-3, and a Sikorsky 55, which they had to trade in for two other helicopters because they made a mistake in purchasing this Sikorsky. It was to be used for searching for uranium, and then the demand fell off. Here are these people, in face of a declining demand in their own operations, enlarging their own air force. It seems to me that the taxpayers' dollar is being wasted on an operation like this when there are innumerable private charter companies operating throughout the north and when there is a recognized air line company, such as Pacific Western Airlines Limited, who went on record in the special committee on research in 1961 as saying that they would provide the same service now being provided by the Eldorado Aviation Company Limited, the subsidiary of Eldorado Mining and Refining Company Limited, and at less cost per ton mile. The same guarantee was given by Yellowknife Transportation Company Limited, a company which, all credit due to it, has formed itself and grown, albeit slowly because of the competition offered by this crown corporation, Northern Transportation Company Limited, and grown in spite of a government-sponsored program to limit the development of private investment in the north.
As I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, I think the government has a responsibility in the north to provide transportation facilities when none is available from private sources. But it seems to me that when private enterprise reaches the stage where it is ready to take over and maintain services which were not there when the government entered the field, it is then time for government gradually to withdraw. I say this because it is repugnant, to my point of view, for a government openly to be competing with investment capital, particularly in the north where this capital is so important, a fact about which the minister of northern affairs left no doubt during his recent visits to the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
There are several possibilities here which may meet the grievance raised by the hon.
28902-5-230
Northern Transportation Company member for Edmonton-Strathcona. One concerns the question as to what we will do with the assets of Northern Transportation Company Limited and Eldorado Aviation Limited if these companies are subject to a phased withdrawal. Again, in the committee in 1961 we had offers flatly made by the witnesses who appeared before that committee on behalf of Yellowknife Transportation and Pacific Western Airlines, that they would take over the assets of both crown companies if given half a chance. And not only that, but they went further and said by way of compromise that they would operate in conjunction with the crown-owned subsidiaries of Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited. I recall quite distinctly that Pacific Western Airlines made the offer to the committee that they would be only too happy to collaborate with Yellowknife Transportation Limited ir. providing a co-ordinated water-air servict which would be not only equal to, but better than the co-ordinated service now operated by these two crown corporations.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that in order tc understand the problem it is necessary to understand the Mackenzie river transportation complex. At the time the board of transport commissioners extended their jurisdiction to the Mackenzie river system in, I believe it was, 1946 there were just four companies in the area. These companies were the Mackenzie River Transport Company, which was a division of the Hudson's Bay Company at that time and which very recently has been taken over by Northern Transportation Company Limited at the request of Mackenzie River Transport. Then there was Northern Transportation Company Limited, the company about which we are talking in this grievance raised by the hon. member for Edmonton-Strathcona. Then there was Yellowknife Transportation Limited, which operated only within the Northwest Territories. And lastly, there was Maclnnis Products Limited, which was primarily a fishing company which had a licence to transport goods within a specified area in the Mackenzie district from Fort Smith to Great Slave lake points only.
Without going in detail into the background of these four transportation companies, I think we can leave it at this, that Northern Transportation Company Limited was originally formed by Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited to service and supply their property on Great Bear lake. Eldorado was taken over by the dominion government and became a wholly-owned crown company. Northern Transportation Company Limited, in turn, became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the crown company. The original fleet of
3612	HOUSE OF
Northern Transportation Company Northern Transportation Company Limited consisted of $140,000 worth of wooden tugs and barges. The statement recently put out by Northern Transportation indicates a rather phenomenal growth so far as these fixed assets are concerned. In 1940 Eldorado Mining and Refining shut down and Northern Transportation went into active competition as a common carrier over the entire Mackenzie river system. In 1942 Eldorado Mining and Refining reopened as a uranium producer and modern steel tugs and barges replaced the wooden vessels which had been in use. The capital expenditures of this crown company now exceed $12 million. This growth in the face of struggling private enterprise, which in the end is going to be the force which will establish efficient communication in the north, is I think beyond excuse. I would recommend to the minister of northern affairs, who I see is listening to this discussion with great interest and attention, that he very carefully consider the evidence adduced at the hearings in 1961 of the mines, forests, and waters committee. I think he will conclude, as I did, that the time for gradual government withdrawal in the field of water transportation in the Northwest Territories has arrived.
Much could be said about empire building within crown corporations. I do not intend to accuse the Eldorado Mining and Refining Company Limited of empire building because, as I have said, there was an essential service to be performed in the north in a field in which private industry either could not or would not come forward. The government acted most properly in coming to the rescue, as it should, to provide this essential service.
The time has come when we can say that Yellowknife Transportation Company can not only supply an efficient operation to provide a service equal to that now being provided by the Northern Transportation Company, but that it is capable of providing a still better service; and it seems to me to be wrong in principle that a transportation company which was established to carry ore from a mine which was set up during the war in the national interest should be allowed, after this consideration of national interest has disappeared, to expand its operation in open competition with every other water transport concern in the Arctic.
Not only that, but Northern Transportation Company is receiving preferred treatment. In all the negotiations for the D.E.W. line the only consultations which were had were carried out with Northern Transportation Company. No bids were called from private enterprise. The United States government said it needed to move so many millions of tons of material to the D.E.W. line stations. It inquired what carriers were operating and


was informed that the carrier was Northern Transportation Company. Nothing was said about other carriers in the area and the result was that the whole of the operation was given to Northern Transportation. It seems to me wrong in principle that such a state of affairs should be allowed to exist. I believe the government would save money by calling for open tenders. I recall very well, in the evidence given in 1961, the operators of the private transportation company saying they could compete and transport the freight at a price less than that being charged by Northern Transportation Company.
I found it surprising that in the face of this evidence the Minister of Trade and Commerce could say the other day that the operations of the company in the north would be not only continued, but expanded, at a time when we have a struggling company in the north which is trying to provide a service supported by private investment capital. This is an instance of the government eroding the foundations of something which the minister himself in his visits to the north praised so highly and declared we should encourage, namely the development of private capital investment. I think the government should take a hard second look at the need for the continued existence of Northern Transportation Company and of Eldorado Aviation. The latter concern is in an even worse position than is Northern Transportation in this regard, because there is a vibrant air industry in the north backed up by years of growth from the days of bush pilots to the present time. The circumstances here are different from those which apply to water transport.
I am glad to see the minister of northern affairs (Mr. Laing) in his place tonight during discussion of this grievance. I urge him to take a hard look at the minutes of the special committee on research in 1961 and do all he can to convince his hard-shelled colleague, the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Sharp), to have a change of heart. I know that the real interests of the minister are in the north. At least, if he is to remain where he is he has to convey that impression. This is one area more than in any other in which the hon. gentleman can reassure northerners of the sincerity of his belief in the principle he so often enunciated during his visit to the north last summer, namely that the northern part of this country must attract investment capital. This will not be done unless government gets out of fields which private investment capital is ready, willing and able to enter. One of these fields is transportation.


Mr. Lloyd Francis (Carleton):: 
Arthur Laing: It is my good fortune to be in the house tonight at a time when the Minister of Trade and Commerce is not here because, had he been present, he would no doubt have made a reply to the objections raised by hon. members with respect to the type of transportation provided in the Northwest Territories.
I think this has been a good debate. We are dealing here with the lifeline of the Northwest Territories. In a pioneer country-and this is a pioneer country-transportation comes first, and we are dealing in this instance with the jugular vein of transportation in the territories, namely transportation along the Mackenzie river. I think there is a certain principle to be adopted with respect to the use of public moneys as against private moneys, and I think this principle is held by my own party as well as by the party of the hon. members who have spoken here tonight. I would like to think that public money will be used only to provide a necessary service when private money is either unable or unwilling to provide that service. In such cases it is justifiable to make the required service available out of public money.
I believe the history of the company under discussion will show that it was built up to serve a need which was not met by private enterprise. Now the situation is changing, and the population is growing. However, the Northwest Territories is still a deficit area. They are a very heavy deficit area. I think the people of Canada should know that for every dollar the Northwest Territories are providing in revenue today, other parts of Canada are providing $12. That is a situation we want to reverse. It is one we do not like and we have to make certain definite plans for the future that will overcome it.
28902-5-2304
Northern Transportation Company
I think that the first requirement in a pioneer country is to have reasonable transportation. If it cannot be supplied by private capital then it will have to be supplied by public capital. I think there is an element of subsidization. Certainly there is an advance of funds in respect of the railway now being built from Grimshaw to Hay River and Pine Point. I am going to suggest to the house that in a very few years it will be one of the most advantageous railways in Canada because it is serving the Mackenzie and also serving the great Pine Point mine.
The private companies that have grown up there are rendering excellent service. I think they are expanding. I saw the other day that the private company proposes to put on a vessel to take tourist passengers down the Mackenzie. I predict it will be booked full from the first day it operates because there could be no more interesting holiday trip than a return trip on the Mackenzie river. The equipment of the private company is improving all the time. The service to the customers is better. I believe there have been some reductions in rates, although they have not been large, and this is a high rate area for a variety of causes.
In the Northwest Territories we want to develop as many mines, as many oil wells, as many industries as we possibly can so that the territories will become self-sufficient. We want to try to bring the costs of doing business in the Northwest Territories and also in the Yukon territory as close as we possibly can to the costs of doing business and the cost of labour and everything else in the area of southern Canada. Otherwise the mining properties and other properties in the north would be highgraded, only the best would be taken out, and when we finally came to develop the country it would seem to me we would have to develop it on a general subsidization plan. But if we can bring the cost of doing business in the Northwest Territories approximately to the level of that in southern Canada we will develop the country as it properly should be.
I think we are making very good progress in recent years. As I said before, the Northwest Territories are a deficit area. The people who live there should not be ashamed of that. When the Northwest Territories were fronting not many years ago the luxuriant provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan of today, there were not very many dollars around in those days in the region that now comprises Alberta and Saskatchewan. So we should not be ashamed of putting social capital into this region. I am quite certain we will retrieve that social capital only by encouraging private investment capital to go in there. We can do so in no other way. Otherwise

Northern Transportation Company we shall have a permanent situation of putting funds in there, and that is something which the taxpayers of southern Canada do not want any more than the people who live in the Northwest Territories.
In my view it is a question of balancing *out our situation at the present time. What all transportation companies require, it seems to me, is the same thing that the head of an American railroad once said railways require. He said that they require to see to it that the longest possible distance exists between the locomotive and the caboose. I think that applies to every transportation company. What we need to do is not to divide the pie between the private company and the public company but rather to increase the size of the pie.
I was in the Northwest Territories not long ago and visited Hay River. I am quite certain that hon. members who have spoken tonight will confirm that they have had a very good year on the Mackenzie river. In spite of the terrific damage to Hay River early in May, shipping out of Hay River up the Mackenzie has increased by 50 per cent over last year. The two companies, one private and the other public, have shared the business fairly well and the fact that they are in competition has probably had the effect of keeping costs down somewhat to some of the consumers.
I am sure the house would not want to see a wholly owned public or national company without private competition. I know that the people to whom shipments are made up there would not want to see that situation, and at this particular juncture the fact that Northern Transportation is operating there with public funds probably has an effect upon the rates charged by the private company.
I am concerned that the private company does not lose money, and I do not think they are losing money. With the increase in the amount of shipping on that great river, which I predict is going to be phenomenal in the next few years, I think that the private company will have the opportunity of making headway, and as a policy I would suggest that as time goes on those of us who believe in incentive and the prize should do our very best to encourage the investment of increasing amounts of private capital in the Northwest Territories. That is what I want. I think that is a prerequisite to the health and welfare of that area.
This can apply to those particular investments and activities in which the national government now takes a part. In other words, I think that as quickly as is in the public interest we should move toward a policy

that will increase private investment in that area. In my view the debate tonight has been productive of considerable good. As the minister responsible for the Northwest Territories and for the Yukon I, of course, like to see them discussed in the House of Commons.
I do say to hon. members that in the immediate years ahead, particularly on the western side of the north, spectacular and very great things are going to happen. We have problems. Social capital has to be put in there. The sooner we can retrieve it the better for all of us and it can be retrieved only by private risk capital being invested in that region.


Erik Nielsen: Would the minister permit one question? In view of his sentiments concerning the encouragement of private investment capital in the north, sentiments with which I agree 100 per cent, will he undertake to consult with his colleague, the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Sharp), with a view to calling for tenders for government freight, including D.E.W. line freight which is not now going to public tender, in order to obtain competitive bids on the part of the private operator along the Mackenzie and the government supported operation, Northern Transportation Company? If the government did that I believe they would find that the competition would bring about a lowering in the per ton rates along the Mackenzie basin, and along the Arctic coast as well.


Arthur Laing: The hon. member has asked me a question. He would not want me to get into an argument with my colleague who is not here tonight. I do not know what he said the other day but 1 do not believe he indicated he was a national expansionist, as was attributed to him tonight. I think he proposed to keep Northern Transportation Company in good repair.


Erik Nielsen: And improve it.


Arthur Laing: Of course. Improvement is necessary. Otherwise you soon slip back, when you have a bunch of steel barges; and if I were in charge of that department I would want to keep the barges improved too.


Erik Nielsen: It was the public tender policy I was concerned about.


Mr. Guy Marcoux (Quebec-Monfmorency):: Mr. Speaker, since the discussion is on the Northwest Territories and since the period provided for hon. members' grievances is drawing to its close, I should like to make a few remarks even if they do not specifically concern the matter discussed before. In fact,

I think we should recall the words spoken by the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Chapdelaine) during the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne when he said that parliamentary procedure should be amended.


Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, I had a word to add on the subject that has been under discussion. I realize there are other hon. members who have grievances to bring before the house. I merely want to underscore what the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Laing) has said with reference to northern development. The reason I have risen to add this brief word at this time is that it seems to be a strange phenomena-


Some hon. Members:: Order, order.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. member wish to speak on the same matter?


Guy Marcoux: I said I wanted to speak on the matter of the Northwest Territories, but I do not intend to repeat what was said by the minister, the other hon. members, or what the hon. member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Dinsdale), the previous minister of northern affairs and national resources, wishes to say.
I wish to discuss the Northwest Territories since that is the grievance raised at the present time and I wish, in passing, to make a little comment on parliamentary procedure which allows us to state pleasant things in this house, to make very interesting and instructive dissertations in this house and, in- so doing, to lose a lot of time since we are not allowed to embark on -another matter.
I do not wish to prevent the hon. member for Brandon-Souris from saying a few words. I just want to remind the government that, as a supporter of provincial autonomy, for Quebec as well as for the other provinces, I am of the opinion that the whole matter relating to the Northwest Territories and also the establishment of the new territory of Nunassiaq should only be settled after an agreement has been reached with the provinces.


Paul Raymond Martineau: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. With all due respect for the hon. member who has the floor, I submit that the grievance stated related to a specific point concerning public and private transportation in the Northwest Territories. Therefore, one cannot discuss things in general concerning the Northwest Territories and relate them to the province of Quebec, because then we would be
Northern Transportation Company dealing with another subject while there are other members who wish to speak on the matter at hand.
In my view, the hon. member who has the floor is out of order, and another member has already expressed his intention of speaking on the matter.


Mr. Speaker:: I must say that I believe the point is well taken by the hon. member for Pontiac-Temiscamingue. Unless the hon. member for Quebec-Montmorency can restrict himself to the subject in hand, under the rules I must give the floor to the hon. member for Brandon-Souris.


Guy Marcoux: Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your ruling and I give the floor to the hon. member for Brandon-Souris.
I only want to point out to the hon. member for Pontiac-Temiscamingue that transportation is a matter that comes also under the jurisdiction of the provinces, because there is a provincial board of transport. When transportation is discussed, it is quite a general subject, and I think one cannot be blamed for looking after the interests of his province as much as those of the others.
And now I give the floor to the hon. member.


Paul Raymond Martineau: Mr. Speaker, the last remarks made by the hon. member for Quebec-Montmorency are completely out of order.
I rose on a point of order simply to make sure that the regular procedure is followed. It is not that we are not interested in the matter raised by the hon. member for Quebec-Montmorency; on the contrary, I admit that it is a very important matter, but, in my opinion, it is not the right time to discuss it. [Text]


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: I intended to speak for only one minute, and that seems to be about all the time we have left before reaching ten o'clock. It seems to be the lot of hon. members who, from time to time, have responsibility for northern affairs to be captured by the spell of the north. This certainly has been demonstrated by the words of the minister here tonight. I suggest to him, and I think this would be well borne out by the debates we have had in this house over the past few years, that there is a need to interpret this attitude towards the peculiar problems of northern development to all the members of treasury benches. From time to time, this theme is developed in the House of Commons and it seems to me that there are those in governments, and I am not being partisan when I say this, who fail to appreciate the

Northern Transportation Company special problem of northern development which has been outlined by members who have spoken with reference to this subject of transportation in the north.
It does require the constant vigilance of the responsible minister to ensure that all the members of a government are aware that private enterprise must be nurtured and cultivated in every way possible. If it were possible in government organization, I would suggest that the minister of northern affairs, the minister especially responsible for northern development, should have under his wing in a more direct manner than he does at the moment, the responsibility for transportation problems in the north. Only he has the opportunity of familiarizing himself with this huge area of Canada which is bright with promise, and yet is still largely an unknown quantity in terms of its future potential. If there is one contribution I could make to this discussion tonight by way of concluding it at this hour of ten, it is to urge upon the minister that he urge upon his colleagues in the cabinet, the program and the policy that he has so clearly enunciated tonight.


Mr. Speaker:: It being ten o'clock, it is my duty, pursuant to section 4 of standing order 56, to interrupt these proceedings and put forthwith the question now before the house.

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 FISHERIES

[Stage Direction]
1.	Departmental administration, $461,000.

[Stage Direction]
1.	Departmental administration including federal share of the expenses of the secretariat for the resource ministers council, $1,018,600.

[Stage Direction]
1.	Departmental administration, $2,406,800.
Proceedings reported.

Gordon Minto Churchill: May I ask the house leader if the business for tomorrow is the same as he announced last night?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Yes, it is intended to go ahead tomorrow with the income tax bill and, if possible, to continue it until it has been completed.


[Stage Direction]
It being two minutes after ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, October 16, 1963