1964-05-25

Mr. Speaker:: May I be permitted to make a short announcement. Hon. members may be aware that the Canadian conference on the family, which is sponsored by His Excellency the Governor General and Madame Vanier, will meet in Ottawa from June 7 to June 10. It is the intention of the Governor General to invite the heads of religious denominations in Canada to attend and participate in a special religious observance as part of the opening ceremonies of the conference, to be held on the grounds of Government House on Sunday, June 7.
In recognition of this significant meeting, June 7, 1964 is being designated by the government as "family day". I am sure that all members of this house, and indeed all Canadians, will join with me in wishing the conference every success and in paying this tribute to the important unit in our society, the family.



UNITED NATIONS


Mr. Speaker:: If hon. members will permit me I should like to recall to the attention of all hon. members that tomorrow at ten o'clock in the morning a joint meeting of all hon. members of the Senate and the House of Commons will be held in this chamber in honour of the secretary general of the United Nations, His Excellency U Thant, who will deliver an address.



LORD BEAVERRROOK


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Leader of the Opposition):: If the house would allow me, I should like to make a reference to the birthday of a great Canadian. I refer to the 85 th birthday anniversary today of Right Hon. Lord Beaverbrook, a Canadian who served in the cabinet of the United Kingdom in the first great war and again in the
20220-224J
second great war; a man who has given leadership not only in our country but in the United Kingdom and in the commonwealth.
Too often we wait until the passing of our great men to pay them tribute. Tonight a dinner is being held in the city of London in honour of this man. One need only recall that in the darkest days of the second world war he was minister of aircraft production and later, of supply, to indicate the depth of gratitude which we owe to him, and which freedom owes to him, for the contribution he made.


Right Hon. L. B. Pearson (Prime Minister):: Perhaps I might be permitted to associate those of us on this side of the house with the words which the right hon. gentleman has just uttered in connection with the 85th birthday anniversary of Lord Beaverbrook.
No Canadian-born citizen has made a greater impact on his times, I think, than has Lord Beaverbrook both in the land of his birth and, if I may call it so, in the land of his adoption-certainly he has made it his own-as well as in the commonwealth of nations. We think at this time of the great services which Lord Beaverbrook rendered to the United Kingdom and to the commonwealth in two world wars, particularly in the darkest days of 1940 as a member of the war cabinet of the United Kingdom. We wish him many happy returns on his birthday.



PRIVILEGE


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: rise, Mr. Speaker, on a somewhat unusual point of privilege. Recently I moved that an order of the house do issue for a copy of all petitions sponsored by the Nelson chamber of commerce signed by residents of Kootenay East and West urging immediate ratification of the Columbia river treaty, received by the government since January 1, 1964.
On May 13 I received a copy of sessional paper 98c which contains certain correspondence and petitions with a total of 3,746 signatures attached. While many of these signatures are those of persons not resident in Kootenay East or West, they are the signatures of Canadians. However, I wish to bring to the attention of the house and of

Broadcasting Inquiry Report the Prime Minister that the petition also contains the signature of one A1 Cappone of New York, and that this name should be deleted from the list of petitioners since I did not ask for petitions from United States citizens.



LIBRARY OF PARLIAMENT


Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to lay before the house a report in English and in French from the committee of both houses on the library of parliament with respect to certain promotions, reclassifications and alterations in rates of pay of employees of the library of parliament.



BROADCASTING


Hon. Maurice Lamonlagne (Secretary of State):: Last year, Mr. Speaker, my predecessor, the present Minister of Transport (Mr. Pickersgill) decided, as a preliminary study for a redefinition of official policy concerning broadcasting, to ask three persons, that is, the chairman of the board of broadcast governors, Mr. Andrew Stewart, the president of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Alphonse Ouimet, and the president of the association of broadcasters, Mr. Don Jamieson, to examine, from their personal point of view, what is the Canadian policy on broadcasting at the present time and to indicate the points on which they agreed and the aspects on which they could not agree.
These gentlemen, who have now completed their study, have given me a joint report as well as three individual reports. I am ready to table copies of those reports, with the permission of the house.

While the work done by the so-called "troika" will certainly prove to be most useful, the reports show quite clearly that there are still important areas of disagreement. Because of this situation, because of the complicated and urgent issues raised by Canadian broadcasting today, and in order to end present uncertainties, it has been decided to establish a committee on broadcasting whose terms of reference will be as follows: To study, in the light of present and possible future conditions, the purposes and provisions of the Broadcasting Act and related statutes and to recommend what amendments, if any, should be made to the legislation; including an appraisal of the studies being made by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation of its structural organization; and including an inquiry into the financ-

ing of the C.B.C., into C.B.C. consolidation projects, into the relationship between the government and the C.B.C. in so far as the administration and the financing of the corporation are concerned, into the international service of the C.B.C., and into the various means of providing alternative television services, excluding community antenna television systems; and to report their findings to the Secretary of State with their recommendations.
During the course of its study it is expected that the committee will carefully consider the four reports which I am tabling today, and that it will maintain close contact with Dr. Andrew Stewart, Mr. Alphonse Ouimet and Mr. Don Jamieson, who have acquired a long and valuable experience in the field of broadcasting.
The committee will be comprised of three members, as follows: Mr. Robert Fowler, Mr. Marc Lalonde, Mr. Ernest Steele. This will be an advisory committee to the Secretary of State. It will proceed with its important work as quickly as possible in order to present its report and recommendations at the beginning of 1965. When the report has been received and made public, the government intends to introduce appropriate new legislation and to refer that legislation to a parliamentary committee for detailed study and consideration.
The advisory committee will not study th'e subject of community antenna television systems. The B.B.G. and the Department of Transport have already made such a study and on March 19 made joint recommendations to the government, which hopes to make known its policy on cable television within a short time.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, the announcement made by the minister represents, I think, the general viewpoint of the house and the country as to the need of an investigation into the C.B.C., particularly by a committee of parliament. The terms of reference he outlined may require to be reconsidered. I had no advance information in this connection, but I feel that the general ambit is rather too narrow and that if an investigation is to take place and full consideration is to be given to the whole problem of broadcasting the widest possible field should be available for investigation.
The minister mentioned that he was going to table the recommendations of this committee as well as the observations made by the individual members of the committee. I feel this matter is of such importance that copies should be made available to all members of the house. This is a matter of transcendent interest not only to members of the house but to the country as a whole. The

mere tabling of copies does not make possible that type of examination all members should be able to give to this question.


Mr. D. M. Fisher (Port Arthur):: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition seemed to indicate in his comments that this committee would be concerned primarily with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I did not take that out of the minister's announcement because I felt that it was only there he was being specific. If we are going to consider the purpose of the act, and recommend amendments to the act, it would seem to me that the review must touch private broadcasting stations and the whole picture of their relationships.
We certainly feel that the three people chosen, most of whom are well known by members, are able and fair and capable of doing an excellent job. The minister specified that one of the responsibilities of this committee was to make representations concerning the relationship of the government and the C.B.C. in an administrative and financial way. There has been an expression of opinion, Mr. Speaker, in this house within the last year that one of the things that needs to be reconsidered is the relationship between parliament and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is obvious that the minister has decided not to include that matter within these terms. It would seem to me that this is still something upon which we need an indication of govern-men policy, and which will not be solved by the report of the committee.
We feel that the exclusion of C.A.T.V. from the committee study is a very wise move. It is obvious, Mr. Speaker, from the controversy that is developing in the United States, where you have the broadcasting networks and the C.A.T.V. people joining in a monster national battle, that a decision will have to come very soon to determine the community antenna television problem; otherwise it may be too late and we will have a really disastrous problem on our hands.


Mr. R. N. Thompson (Red Deer):: We welcome this announcement that has been made by the Secretary of State. I think such a committee as he is proposing is long overdue, because the whole relationship of broadcasting and telecasting is something which needs to be studied carefully. I believe there is so much interest across the country in this particular situation at this time, centring specifically on the C.B.C., that these four preliminary reports assume such an importance they should be included as an appendix to Hansard. In this way not only the members of the house but the population as a whole would have them available for study. I suggest that to you, Mr. Speaker.
Broadcasting Inquiry Report
We realize that this is not the time to enter into a debate or even a detailed discussion of this matter. However, the importance of the control of television, and the responsibility of those who control television and radio, must be studied very carefully. During the last week end I had an opportunity of studying in detail the methods the government of West Germany have adopted in this regard. I suggest to the Secretary of State that these important documents represent preliminary work that has been done. We give our support to this study and trust it will reach the objectives we all understand must be met now.


Mr. Gilles Gregoire (Lapointe):: Mr. Speaker, the motion just introduced by the Secretary of State (Mr. Lamontagne) is somewhat to the effect a committee of three members should be appointed to study the report of another committee of three members. It is a committee which will study what has already been studied by others.
Will the representatives of the C.B.C. thus avoid appearing before a parliamentary committee? Also the Secretary of State did not explain if this is a way to prevent the C.B.C. officials from appearing before such a committee. This is what we would like to know. In my opinion, the statement of the Secretary of State is rather vague on that point.
We had proof in the past that it was helpful when representatives of crown corporations heard the views of members of the house. For instance, I could mention the case of the C.N.R. and T.C.A. which brought about improvements in their organization in the last two years following suggestions made by the representatives of the people when their spokesmen appeared before those committees.
Mr. Speaker, I suggest that representatives of the C.B.C., as well as of other crown corporations, might be well advised to appear before a parliamentary committee so as to obtain some recommendations from members of the house. As a matter of fact, this could at least improve some of the aims of this crown corporation.
That is why we believe that the Secretary of State should elaborate further on the decision he has reached and tell us exactly what are the objectives of the new committee and whether that procedure will exempt the C.B.C. from appearing before a committee of the house.



On the orders of the day:


Robert Norman Thompson: Mr. Speaker, my question is to Your Honour

Broadcasting Inquiry Report and relates to the statement made by the Secretary of State. I should have asked it before but did not have the opportunity. Did I understand that it was agreed that these four initial reports would be attached to Hansard as an appendix?


Mr. Speaker:: I am advised that these reports are very bulky and consist of a great number of pages, and that it would involve considerable effort to say nothing of the expense if they were appended to Hansard. Furthermore it could very easily delay the printing of Hansard. In the circumstances I am wondering whether the house would not be well advised to leave matters as they are.


Robert Norman Thompson: Would they be available to the members of the house?


Mr. Speaker:: If the house so orders that can be done, but it would take unanimous consent. Does the house give unanimous consent to the printing of these reports?


Some hon. Members:: No.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, instead of
having the house decide, would the Secretary of State agree to distribute copies to members of the house as I suggested earlier?


Maurice Lamontagne: It may take some time, Mr. Speaker, but we will do our best to produce the copies as soon as possible.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question stemming from the report tabled by the Secretary of State? Could the Secretary of State tell us whether this new committee of three members, set up on his instigation, will prevent the establishment of a special committee of the house for consideration of the current business of the C.B.C., which is a crown corporation?


Maurice Lamontagne: Mr. Speaker, there is no incompatibility whatsoever between the two committees. However, the C.B.C., as I indicated briefly a moment ago, has already initiated a complete inquiry in its administrative structure, which requires a considerable amount of additional work.
Moreover, the establishment of the committee I have just announced will add to the work load of the authorities of the C.B.C.
Finally, certain questions dealing with technical details and basic policy will have to be settled by experts and by the government, before they are examined in greater detail by hon. members.

For all those reasons, the government does not intend to propose the establishment of a parliamentary committee during the present session.
However, as I said before, when the new legislation is introduced in the house by the government in 1965, we intend to recommend that such a committee be set up and that it be given specific terms of reference so as to be able to play as useful a role as possible in the field of broadcasting.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, then could not the Secretary of State appoint a special committee of the house that would study the C.B.C.'s deficit or the C.B.C.'s budget, as it has done in the case of the C.N.R. and Air Canada?


Maurice Lamontagne: Mr. Speaker, I think that question does not come within the purview of my responsibility.


Hon. Theogene Ricard (Si. Hyacinihe-Bagoi):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to put a supplementary question to the Secretary of State. Does the answer he just gave apply to the question I asked him three weeks ago?


Maurice Lamontagne: Would the hon. member be good enough to repeat his question?


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: My question was this. When does the Secretary of State propose to set up a commission on the C.B.C.?


Maurice Lamontagne: I think the hon. member's question was answered today.



QUESTIONS

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. Knowles: In each of the last ten years, how many employees of the Canadian National Railways have been retired (or laid off at the retiring age) without being awarded any pension at all?


Mr. Pickersgill:: The management of the Canadian National Railways advises as follows:
The only employees who would be retired from service at age 65 without qualifying for a pension would be those with relatively short service who elected not to contribute to the pension plan. There is no normal requirement to maintain this type of statistics, and to extract the information from the individual service records would involve considerable time and expense.


MAINTENANCE OF PRIME MINISTER'S RESIDENCE
Mr. Horner (Acadia): 1.	What was the cost of operating and maintaining the Prime Minister's official residence at 24 Sussex dnve for the years 1961, 1962, 1963?
2.	What was the cost of redecorating the cabinet room in the centre block?
3.	What was the cost of refurnishing offices in the centre block in 1963?


Mr. Deschatelets:: 1. 1961, $13,499.05; 1962, $12,786.51; 1963, $9,108.55.
2.	$6,455.80 including furniture.
3.	Not possible to give information requested since all requisitions for House of Commons include centre and west blocks and no breakdown is available.


SUBMISSIONS RESPECTING WOOD BUFFALO NATIONAL PARK
Mr. Horner (Jasper-Edson): 1.	Has the government received any submission from the government of the province of Alberta with regard to Wood Buffalo national park in the last 12 months and, if so, what is the nature of that submission?
2.	What does the federal government intend to do about it?


Mr. Laing:: 1. Since my statement given in the house on April 15, 1964, I have received from the Speaker of the legislative assembly of Alberta, Hon. A. J. Dixon, a copy of a resolution passed by the legislative assembly of the province of Alberta on April 9, 1964, urging the federal government to return to the province of Alberta the control and ownership of that portion of Wood Buffalo park lying within Alberta's borders.
2.	I have informed the Speaker of the legislative assembly of Alberta that the government is not prepared to return to the province of Alberta the entire portion of Wood Buffalo national park located in the province of Alberta because large sections of this area are required for national parks purposes. I also informed the Speaker that the federal government is prepared to consider the possibility of an exchange of lands, transferring portions of Wood Buffalo national park for park lands in the Cypress hills region of Alberta so as to maintain the total amenities offered by the national parks to the people of the province of Alberta and Canada. I have asked the Speaker for early discussions with the government of the province of Alberta.


RECOMMENDATIONS OF JOINT INDIAN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
Mr. Howard: What action, in detail, has been taken with respect to each of the following recommendations of the Joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on Indian affairs:
Questions
"(a) The act should provide for a term of office for band councils of not more than three years with one third of the members elected each year.
(b)	All band members, who are otherwise qualified, should be allowed to vote at band elections and on any other matter affecting the band if present on the reserve when the election is held.
(c)	The chief should be elected by the band members rather than from the elected council.
(d)	An oath of office for band council members should be required.
(e)	The Indian Act should set out specific duties and authorities of the chief.
(f)	The act should provide for filling a vacancy in a band council as soon as possible after the vacancy occurs.
(g)	There should be an extensive educational program to acquaint band councils with the Indian Act and regulations and with council authority.
(h)	It should be the definite policy of government to move toward more self governing bands and to this end more bands should be given control of their revenue funds.
(i)	There should be a decrease in ministerial and governmental authority with a concomitant increase in band council authority.
(j)	Bylaw authority under the act should be combined and additional powers granted.
(k)	To assist elected band councils in local self government, per capita grants on an unconditional basis should be made."?


Mr. Badanai:: (a), (b), (d), (e), (i), (j) and (k). These recommendations would require legislation to implement with relevant changes in existing provisions of the Indian Act. A review of the Indian Act is proceeding as quickly as sound and thorough consideration will permit with the objective of submitting appropriate amendments.
(c) To restrict the election of a chief to a majority vote of the electors would require changes in the Indian Act, as it now provides under section 73(3) for the election of the chief by a majority vote of the electors, or by a vote of the elected councillors from among themselves.
(f)	In accordance with the provisions of section 77(4) of the Indian Act, a special election may be held to fill a vacancy when such vacancy occurs in a band council more than three months before the date when another election would ordinarily be held. The general practice is to hold such special elections in consultation with the band council concerned.
(g)	The development of Indian leadership is carried on with the co-operation and assistance of provincial governments and university extension departments. Sixteen leadership training courses were held in 1963-64. These were attended by chiefs and councillors and other real and potential leaders on the reserves.
The purpose of these courses was to train those who attended in order that they might increase their competence in the field of leadership in reserve activities. Although the content of the courses varied depending on the wishes of the trainees, subjects covered

Questions
were frequently concerned with recognizing problems, planning and taking action to solve these problems, methods of communication, public speaking, understanding the community and its economic and human resources, knowledge of Indian affairs branch administration and existing programs, federal, provincial, and local resources that are available and how to obtain this assistance when required.
(h)	The department is already moving ahead in this field. Progress is dependant upon the readiness and ability of Indian bands to assume the additional authority and responsibility which may be conferred under the Indian Act. Since 1959, 76 bands have been granted permission to control, manage and expend in whole or in part their revenue moneys.


RECOMMENDATION OP JOINT INDIAN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
Mr. Howard: What action, in detail, has been taken with respect to the following recommendation of the joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on Indian affairs: "An Indian claims commission should he established to hear the British Columbia and Oka Indian land questions and other matters, and that the cost of counsel to Indians for the two land questions specified above, be borne by the federal treasury"?


Hubert Badanai: Action is being taken to establish an Indian claims commission. On December 14, 1963, Bill C-130 "An act to provide for the disposition of Indian claims" was given first reading in the House of Commons. The bill was subsequently sent to Indian bands, Indian organizations and others for study and comment with the objective of introducing a new bill with such changes as might be required as a result of consultation with Indians and others. Also see Hansard page 3433.


TRANSPORT DEPARTMENT CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS, GUYSBOROUGH COUNTY, N.S.
Mr. Armstrong: 1.	Were any construction projects undertaken in Guysborough county, Nova Scotia, during the 1963-64 year by the Department of Transport and, if so, from whom were tenders received in the case of each project, and in what amounts?
2.	To whom were the contracts awarded?


John Whitney Pickersgill: 1 and 2. Construction
projects undertaken by the Department of Transport in Guysborough county, N.S., during 1963-64:
(1) Construction of two single dwellings at Ecum Secum, N.S. List of tenders: Stevens & Fiske Construction Ltd., Fairview, N.S., $43,641; MacDougall Construction Company, New Glasgow, N.S., $44,724; Nordbec Construction Inc., Rimouski, P.Q., $45,800; Al-
IMr. Badanai.]
bert E. Whidden, Antigonish, N.S., $49,468.30; Eastern Contracting Ltd., New Glasgow, N.S., $49,910; Malach Roofing & Flooring Limited, Windsor, Ont., $51,990; Continental Construction Co. Ltd., Dartmouth, N.S., $64,675.20; Cameron Contracting Limited, Halifax, N.S., $68,240.
Contract awarded to: Stevens & Fiske Construction Ltd., Fairview, N.S. Lowest tenderer.
(2) Construction of one-four bedroom dwelling, two-three bedroom dwellings, combined fog alarm and radio beacon building and concrete light tower, demolition of old building at Country Island, N.S. List of tenderers: Eastern Woodworkers Ltd., New Glasgow, N.S., $104,000; Cameron Contracting Ltd., Halifax, N.S., $117,757; Nordbec Construction Inc., Rimouski, P.Q., $131,800; Continental Construction Co. Ltd., Dartmouth, N.S., $137,583.
Contract awarded to: Eastern Woodworkers Ltd., New Glasgow, N.S. Lowest tenderer.


ABITIBI, QUE., COMMEMORATIVE STAMP
Mr. Laprise: Since 1964 is the fiftieth anniversary of Abitibi, and since large scale festivities will be held to mark the occasion, does the Postmaster General intend to issue a stamp to commemorate this anniversary?

Answer: No. It is considered desirable to continue the established precedent of issuing stamps to commemorate the important anniversaries of only the provincial capitals.


ARDA PROJECTS, QUEBEC
Mr. Latulippe: 1.	How many AHDA projects are now underway in the province of Quebec in co-operation with the government of that province?
2.	What AHDA projects are underway in the constituency of Compton-Frontenac?

Answer: 1. 104.
2.	There are no ARDA projects underway in the constituency of Compton-Frontenac.


CONTRIBUTIONS OF BOOKS TO DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Mr. Latulippe: 1.	Does Canada intend to follow the example of Sweden in inviting private or government organizations, university associations or public organizations to unite in offering books to countries in the process of development?
2.	Will the government study the possibility, after communicating with the Swedish international assistance agency, of creating a similar organization in Canada, with a view to participating in such a program?

3.	Would the government be willing to assist religious organizations by way of postal privileges or special tariffs for the shipment of school books to countries in the process of development?

Answer: 1. The Canadian government offers books to developing countries at present. For instance, Canada has given fairly large collections to national and university libraries in African countries in the process of development on the occasion of their independence. Books are also distributed to such states under the program of book donations administered by the Department of External Affairs. The external aid office has a program for the distribution of technical, legal and academic books to developing countries. The government constantly encourages the work, in Canada, of voluntary organizations which look after foreign aid, including the distribution of books overseas.
2.	A certain number of Canadian organizations, such as religious orders, branches of the I.O.D.E., schools and Overseas Book Centre, 151 Bloor st. west, in Toronto, have already undertaken to choose and repair books which are sent to libraries and interested institutions in developing countries.
3.	More information would be needed for us to give proper consideration to such a proposal.


POLITICAL REFUGEES
Mr. Laiulippe: 1.	What Is the present number of political refugees in Canada?
2.	From what countries do they come?
3.	How many have expressed the desire to move to other countries or return to their country of origin?
4.	How many have expressed the desire to become Canadian citizens?
5.	What was the cost to the Canadian government during the past year of employees assigned to assist these refugees?
6.	What was the total cost to the Canadian government during the past year of caring for these political refugees in Canada?
Questions
7.	How many protests has Canada received from countries from which these refugees came?


Hubert Badanai: The answer to all parts of the hon. member's question is unknown. Immigration records are not complete respecting the total number of persons admitted to Canada who might be regarded as refugees within the usual meaning ascribed to this term. Since the end of the second world war, it is only possible to identify approximately 242,000 such persons. The main groups comprising this figure are 165,000 displaced persons,
25,000	stateless persons, and 37,000 Hungarians who fled Hungary because of the crisis in 1956. In addition, there are thousands of other individuals who were not specifically recorded as refugees upon arrival in Canada but who for political reasons left or were forced to leave their countries of origin and, being reluctant or unable to return, migrated to Canada.


WOOD BUFFALO NATIONAL PARK
Mr. Thompson: Has the government of Alberta made application for the return to provincial jurisdiction of that portion of Wood Buffalo national park within the province of Alberta and, if so, what action is being taken by the federal government towards this request?


Arthur Laing: Answered by reply to question No. 779.


FEDERAL RENTAL OF SPACE, AMHERST, N.S.
Mr. Coates: What is the estimated total cost to the federal treasury for the rental of space from private individuals or concerns at Amherst, Nova Scotia, for the fiscal year 1964-65?


Maurice Lamontagne: 


$23,130. ARDA PROJECTS, SASKATCHEWAN
Mr. Southam: What projects under the Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act have been approved with the province of Saskatchewan since January 1, 1964, giving the location, date of approval, and the cost of each project?


Mr. Sauve:: 


DETAIL INFORMATION RE QUESTION NO. 984
[Stage Direction]
Date approved	Description of project	Location	Total shareable cost	Total federal share1964	$	$Mar.	6	Compiling of geological maps for an evaluation of groundwater reserves	Southern Saskatchewan	15,786	7,394Feb.	11	Soil and water conservation flood control project	Souris conservation and development area 50 miles southeast of Regina	192,172	96,086Jan.	30	Research-to extend the program of groundwater studies and further provide basic data on groundwater movement and recharge	Province of Saskatchewan	365,940	182,970Mar.	19	Alternate land use-Macrorie community pasture-to acquire and develop submarginal agricultural lands	Rural municipality No. 285	185,400	112,700Mar.	19	Alternate land use-Good Spirit community pasture-to acquire and develop sub marginal agricultural lands	Rural municipality No. 274	712,665	397,332Mar.	2	Alternate land use-Cookson grazing co-operative-to develop submarginal agricultural lands	Northern fringe area of province	21,050	10,525Mar.	2	Alternate land use-Cabana community pasture	15 miles southeast of the town of Meadow Lake.	60,500	30,250Mar.	2	Alternate land use-Hatherleigh community pasture-to develop submarginal agricultural lands	Northeast of Cutknife	97,700	48,850Mar.	2	Alternate land use-Jackson Lake community pasture-to develop submarginal agricultural lands	10 miles northeast of Debden	82,100	41,050Mar.	19	Alternate land use-Rengough community pasture-to acquire and develop submarginal agricultural lands	Rural municipality of Bengough	430,500	271,000Mar.	4	Alternate land use-Perceval community pasture-to develop submarginal agricultural lands	Municipality of Silverwood	67,500	37,916Mar.	19	Alternate land use-Krudor community pasture-to acquire and develop submarginal agricultural lands	Rural municipality of Redberrv	230,500	134,750Mar.	19	Alternate land use-Walpole community pasture-to acquire and develop sub marginal agricultural lands	Rural municipality of Martin	90,000	53,500Mar.	19	Alternate land use-Neudorf community pasture	Rural municipality of McLeod	96,500	57,416Mar.	4	Alternate land use-to establish the Lampard grazing co-operative	West shore of Big Quill lake	8,850	4,425Mar.	25	Alternate land use-Mareau lake community pasture-to acquire and develop submarginal agricultural lands	Bjorkdale and Kelvington rural municipalities.	84,000	45,000Mar.	25	Alternate land use-Lizard Lake community pasture-to develop submarginal agricultural lands	30 miles north of Biggar	89,600	44,800Mar.	25	Alternate land use-Whelan fodder project-to acquire and develop submarginal lands	Northwestern part of settlement	47,000	23,833Mar.	25	To continue the soil capability for agriculture research program during 1964-65..	Various locations within province	28,000	28,000Mar.	25	To undertake an accelerated soil survey program in the pilot rural development research region during 1964-65	Census district 16	8,000	8,0003526	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Questions

Mr. Lalulippe: 1.	Will government specialists in forest entomology and pathology participate in the seminar on insects and diseases harmful to forests, to be held in England from July 20 to July 30 and, if so, what are the names of the specialists, what work does each do for the department, and who will lead the delegation?
2.	What contribution will Canada make to this conference?
3.	Is Canada a member of the international union of forestry research organizations and, if so (a) since what date (b) how much does such membership cost this country (c) what have been the main Canadian contributions to this organization?
4.	In the Department of Forestry, who is responsible for Canadian participation in this organization?

Answer: 1. Yes. The following specialists employed by the federal government will take part in the seminar on insects and diseases harmful to forests, which will take place in England in 1964:
B. M. McGugan, associate director (entomology), forest entomology and pathology branch, Ottawa; V. J. Nordin, director (pathology), forest entomology and pathology branch, Ottawa; R. M. Belyea, chief of forest entomology and pathology laboratory, Fredericton; R. Pomerleau, chief of forest pathology research, forest entomology and pathology laboratory, Quebec; L. T. White, chief, forest pathology laboratory, Maple (Ontario); W. A. Reeks, chief, forest insect laboratory, Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario); F. E. Webb, chief, forest entomology laboratory, Winnipeg; G. P. Thomas, chief, forest entomology and pathology laboratory, Calgary; R. R. Lejeune, chief, forest entomology and pathology laboratory, Victoria.
The delegation is under the joint direction of Mr. McGugan, in charge of the entomological personnel, and Mr. Nordin, in charge of the pathological personnel.
2.	The delegates of the forestry department will take part in the general discussions on the threat caused by the intercontinental dissemination of forest insects, and tree diseases, as well as on the means of lessening that threat, and they also have written the various briefs listed hereafter:
Repercussions of Tree Diseases on Forest Production in North America; Intercontinental Spreading of Forest Pathogenic Agents; Possible Dangers Resulting from Root Diseases; Forest Entomology in Canada; The Role of the Forest Entomologist.
3.	The Canadian members of the international union of forestry research organizations include the forestry departments of several Canadian universities, the Minister of Forestry and some other research organizations. (a) The forestry service of the former
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department of the interior became a member of the international union of forestry-research organizations in 1932. (b) The yearly fee is $30. (c) The main contributions of the Department of Forestry to this organization include its representation in the standing committee, the participation of officers of the department in the studies of technical sections dealing with various aspects of forest management, for instance, fires, soils and forestry types, tree diseases, insects and forest products, as well as the presence of its delegates to the meetings of the congresses which are held periodically every three or five years.
4.	The participation of the forestry department in the studies of the international union of forestry research organizations is the responsibility of the deputy minister of forestry, as well as that of the directors of the three research branches of the department he may delegate.


WOOD BUFFALO PARK
Mr. Kindt: What progress has been made in negotiations between the federal government and the provincial government of Alberta with regard to the return of Wood Buffalo national park, in whole or in part, to the province?


Arthur Laing: Answered by reply to question No. 779.


VACATION LEAVE CIRCULAR, TRANSPORT DEPARTMENT
Mr. Howard: 1.	What has been the response from each air service establishment or station to whom R.D.A.S. circular No. 3/64 (File 1802-1) by T. G. How, regional director, air services division, Department of Transport, was issued?
2.	With reference to the circular, tabled by the Minister of Transport, which states in part, "It has been drawn to our attention by a recent suggestion that some stations may still be considering seniority only in arranging their vacation leave schedule.. .While we do not intend to attempt to control annual leave programs, at the same time if the arrangement we have outlined is not being followed now we would strongly recommend that it be adopted", what steps have been taken or are contemplated if this so-called strongly recommended arrangement is not followed?
3.	Under what authority did Mr. T. G. How issue the said circular and was it issued with the knowledge or consent of any of his superiors?
4.	Are any steps being taken to countermand the said circular, and, if so, what steps and initiated by whom?


John Whitney Pickersgill: 1. There has been no response from air services establishments and stations to whom regional director air services circular No. 3/64 was issued.
2. The administration of local leave programs is left to the decision of local officers in charge within the broad framework of direction.

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3.	Subject to the provisions of the Civil Service Act and civil service regulations, the deputy head is authorized by the Civil Service Act, section 63 (4) to administer leave programs. This authority has been delegated to regional directors, air services, in relation to those employees under their jurisdiction.
4.	No steps are being taken to countermand the said circular.


INVITATIONS TO FORESTRY MINISTER, SKEENA CONSTITUENCY
Mr. Howard: Has the Minister of Forestry been invited to attend any function or visit any place in the electoral district of Skeena for 1964, and, if so, with respect to each such invitation, by whom was the invitation given, for what function or purpose, at what time or times, and has it been (a) accepted or (b) declined?


Maurice Sauvé: No.


INVITATIONS TO NORTHERN AFFAIRS MINISTER, SKEENA CONSTITUENCY
Mr. Howard: Has the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources been invited to attend any function or visit any place in the electoral district of Skeena for 1964, and, if so, with respect to each such invitation, by whom was the invitation given, for what function or purpose, at what time or times, and has it been (a) accepted or (b) declined?


Arthur Laing: Yes, an invitation was extended by the city of Prince Rupert to officiate at the opening of the new city hall which was previously a federal government building and to attend a civic dinner in honour of the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources and as guest speaker. This invitation was accepted and carried out on April 30, 1964. An invitation was also received from the Kitimat chamber of commerce to attend the 33rd annual convention of the associated chamber of commerce of central British Columbia being held on June 4, 5, 6, 1964. This invitation was declined due to previous obligations.


INVITATIONS TO PRIME MINISTER, SKEENA CONSTITUENCY
Mr. Howard: Has the Prime Minister been invited to attend any function or visit any place in the electoral district of Skeena for 1964, and, if so, with respect to each such invitation, by whom was the invitation given, for what function or purpose, at what time or times, and has it been (a) accepted or (b) declined?


Mr. Davis:: The Prime Minister received an invitation from Mr. G. Harris, chairman, convention committee, Kitimat chamber of commerce, to be guest speaker at the annual convention of the associated chambers of

commerce of northwest British Columbia and southern Alaska on June 5 or 6,	1964.
Declined.


PEMBINA RIVER FLOOD CONTROL REPORT
Mr. Jorgenson: 1.	What were the terms of reference for the study of flood control and water conservation on the Pembina river by the international joint commission?
2.	When is the commission expected to complete its study?
3.	When will the report be available?
4.	Has an interim report been submitted?


Mr. Martin (Essex East):: 1. The commission is requested to determine what plan or plans of co-operative development of the water resources of the Pembina river basin would be practicable, economically feasible and to the mutual advantage of Canada and the United States, having in mind: (a) domestic water supply and sanitation; (b) control of floods; (c) irrigation; and (d) any other beneficial uses. In the event that the commission finds that these criteria can be met, it is asked to make recommendations to the two governments concerning a specific plan or plans.
2.	The international Pembina river engineering board set up by the commission to carry out the technical studies under this reference is expected to report to the commission in December of this year.
3.	On receipt of the board's report, the commission will consider the terms of its report to the two governments. Normally, this would occur after public hearings in the area.
4.	No.


PUBLIC SERVICE SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS
Mr. Orlikow: 1.	Has the new policy regarding security investigations promised by the Prime Minister last session been established and, if not, how long will it be before it is ready?
2.	If it has been completed and approved, have its terms been made known to the employees of the government and their associations?
3.	Will a copy of the policy and its regulations be tabled in the house?


Lester Bowles Pearson: 1. Yes.
2 and 3. The terms have been formally communicated to all government departments and organizations. It is not customary to send directives such as this to employees or associations, nor are administrative directives normally tabled in the House of Commons. The directive is completely in line with the statement of policy and procedures announced in the House of Commons on October 25, 1963.


NORAD BRIEFING TEAMS
Mr. Lambert: 1.	Under what authority do teams composed of officers of the U.S. air force or army and of the R.C.A.F. travel in Canada to address meetings sponsored by service clubs, chambers of commerce, etc., for the purpose of featuring the NORAD story?
2.	Are any of these NORAD briefing teams composed entirely of R.C.A.F. officers?
3.	Who is responsible for the expenses of such briefing teams?
4.	Has consideration been given to using R.C.A.F. personnel exclusively for such lectures and demonstrations in Canada and, if not, what are the reasons for such a decision?


Mr. Hellyer:: 1. Under the authority of the joint Canada-United States North American air defence command.
2.	No.
3.	Since these teams originate out of NORAD headquarters, U.S.A.F. aircraft are usually used for transportation. Pay and allowances of the members of these teams are paid by their respective services.
4.	Yes. However, to illustrate that NORAD is an international command both Canadian and American military personnel are used for all NORAD briefings both in Canada and United States.


ARDA PROJECTS, NEW BRUNSWICK
Mr. Flemming (Vicioria-: Carleion):
What are the 25 ARDA projects In the province of New Brunswick?


Maurice Sauvé: 4001. Advisory services to farmers in farm woodlot management.
4002. Soil and water conservation, under the New Brunswick land improvement program to promote the development of agriculture in those areas where a good potential for development exists within delineated pilot areas during 1962-63.
4004.	Alternate land use, acquisition of marginal land for forestry purposes at Lincour and the re-establishment of 15 families.
4005.	Soil and water conservation, under the New Brunswick land improvement program, as outlined for project 4002, within delineated pilot areas during 1963-64.
4007.	Alternate land use, acquisition of 48 acres of marginal and submarginal farm land in Northumberland county to develop Sandy Point provincial park.
4008.	Alternate land use, acquisition of 8.4 acres of marginal and submarginal farm land in King's county to develop Pine Grove provincial park.
4009.	Alternate land use, acquisition of 30 acres of marginal and submarginal farm land in Gloucester county to develop Val Comeau provincial park.
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4010.	Alternate land use, acquisition of 34 acres of marginal and submarginal farm land in Gloucester county to develop Belledune provincial park.
4011.	Alternate land use, acquisition of 60 acres of marginal and submarginal farm land in Queen's county to develop Waterborough provincial park.
4012.	Alternate land use, acquisition of five acres of marginal and submarginal farm land in Kent county to develop Jardine provincial park.
4013.	Alternate land use, acquisition and development of 850 acres of marginal and submarginal farm land in King's county as the Buckley settlement community pasture.
4014.	Alternate land use, acquisition and development of 540 acres of marginal farm land in Sunbury county as the Gilbert's Island community pasture.
4016.	Research, residential adult education study in association with P.E.I. and N.S. (projects 2018 and 3022) to examine the need for residential education facilities and resources and to develop a plan to establish centres for continuing education if a need is shown.
4017.	A study of the north shore region of New Brunswick to provide background information for use in future rural development programs in the area.
4018.	Management and administrative coordination in the New Brunswick pilot rural development research region.
4019.	To set up a rural development leadership training seminar as part of the New Brunswick pilot rural development research region program.
4020.	To accelerate the soil survey and interpretation of soil capability for agriculture in the New Brunswick pilot rural development research region.
4021.	To develop a soil capability inventory of the agricultural lands in the province.
4022.	A comprehensive study program for the New Brunswick pilot rural development research region.
4023.	Research, serial photography of the settled areas and adjacent portions of the New Brunswick pilot rural development research region.
4024.	Soil and water conservation, to undertake emergency river bank erosion control works where substantial acreages of agricultural lands are threatened.
4025.	Alternate land use, to acquire eight acres of marginal and submarginal cultivated farm land for a public recreation area on highway 11, between Bathurst and Tracadie.
4026.	Soil and water conservation, to assist in the development of controlled water areas

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for multipurpose uses. The project is limited to rural ponds where the total cost does not exceed $3,000.
4027.	Alternate land use, to acquire and develop marginal agricultural land as the Botsford Westmorland community pasture.
4028.	Soil and water conservation, under the New Brunswick land improvement program, as outlined for project No. 4002, within delineated pilot areas during 1964-65.


EXCLUSION OF ALEWIVES UNDER FISHERIES ACT, N.B.
Mr. Crouse: For what reasons did the Minister of Fisheries make a special order under section 29 of the Fisheries Act, excepting from the operations of that section the taking, selling or exporting of alewives in the county of Gloucester in the province of New Brunswick?
Answer: To permit utilization of alewives for reduction to fish meal. The operation provides income to fishermen where, because of the depressed state of the pickled alewife trade, no other outlet for disposal exists.


NATIONAL PARK, QUEEN'S COUNTY, N.S.
Mr. Crouse: 1.	How much money has the federal government contributed to date toward the establishment of a national park in Queens county, Nova Scotia?
2.	What projects are planned for 1964-65 and 1965-66 which will provide employment in developing the park?
3.	How much money will be allocated for developing these projects?
4.	On what specific date does the government estimate a start will be made on developing this tourist attraction?


Arthur Laing: 1. To date, approximately $1,000 has been spent by the federal government.
2 and 3. Ground survey work is planned for 1964-65. Planning for 1965-66 and the following years is still in progress.
4.	Assuming that the land can be transferred by the province later this year as expected, it should be possible to start major work early next spring.


TERMINATION OF FLYING TRAINING, PENHOLD, ALTA.
[Stage Direction]
Question No. 1,067
Robert Norman Thompson: 1.	When will the present flying training program at R.C.A.F. Penhold terminate?
2.	Is the government presently formulating plans for the use of the training and airport facilities at Penhold after the Harvard flying training program terminates, and if so, how soon is it expected that such policies will be announced?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: 1. It is expected that the present flying training program will terminate in the spring of 1965.
2. Studies are being undertaken in respect to the possible future use of the facilities at Penhold. As these studies must be co-ordinated

with the over-all reorganization plan for the armed forces it will be some time before any decision is taken.


COUNT DE LA BOULARDERIE HISTORICAL SITE
Mr. Muir (Cape Breton North and Victoria): 1.	On what date did the historic sites and monuments board hold its last meeting and when is the next meeting scheduled to take place?
2.	Will the historical importance of the Count de la Boularderie settlement on Boularderie island be on the agenda at that time?


Arthur Laing: 1. October 28-29, 1963; the dates for the next meeting have not yet been fixed.
2. Yes.


MASTER OF FISHERIES PATROL CRAFT &quot;SCATARIE II&quot;
Mr. Muir (Cape Breton North and Victoria): 1.	Who is the master of the fisheries patrol craft Scatarie III
2.	Where is his residence and what are his qualifications?
3.	When was he appointed?
4.	What are the qualifications required as master of the fisheries patrol craft Scatarie II?
Answer: 1. The Scatarie II is not a fisheries
patrol craft.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	Answered by No. 1.
4.	Answered by No. 1.


ARMED FORCES RECRUITING
Mr. Rynard: 1.	How many enlistments have there been in the armed forces during the months January, February, March and April of this year?
2.	What amount of money has been spent on advertising for recruiting purposes during January, February, March and April of this year?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: 1. January, 728; February, 754; March, 696; April, 697.
2. The recruiting advertising program is planned on a yearly basis with the value of advertising placed for the first four months of this year being as follows:	January,
$25,033.47; February, $45,657.91; March, $69,249.89; April, $19,540.89.
These monthly amounts are not related directly to the number of enlistments in a given month.


TRANS-CANADA HIGHWAY BRIDGE, GRAND FALLS, N.B.
Mr. Flemming (Vicioria-Carlelon): 1. On the trans-Canada highway, has the location of the bridge across the Saint John river at or near Grand Falls, Victoria county, New Brunswick, been determined and, if so (a) what is the approximate location (b) is this location east or west of the town of Grand Falls?

2.	What is the estimated cost of this bridge?
3.	Will the estimates for next fiscal year include an item to cover the cost of this bridge?


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: 1. Location of bridge has not yet been determined.
2.	Not yet known.
3.	Federal payments to the provinces in respect of trans-Canada highway construction are provided by the statutory appropriation under the Trans-Canada Highway Act.


ADVERTISING REVENUE, STATION CJBC, TORONTO
Mr. Cowan: What was the division of the advertising revenue of radio station CJBC Toronto, in the month of April, 1964, between advertising in the French language and advertising in the English language?


Maurice Lamontagne: I am advised by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that all advertising revenue of station CJBC for the month of April, 1964 was from advertising in the English language.


LEGAL DIVISION, EXTERNAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT
Mr. McNulty: Is the government giving consideration to the implementation of the recommendation by the Glassco commission to effect certain modifications in the staffing of the legal division of the Department of External Affairs in order to build up a core of specialists in international law. and, if so, how soon can action on this matter be expected?


Mr. Mcllrailh:: The Glassco commission's recommendations contained in the report on legal services have been under study by a committee of officials established under the auspices of the bureau of government organization. No decision has yet been reached by the government with respect to the commission's recommendation relating to the legal division of the Department of External Affairs.



BILINGUALISM COMMISSION


Mr. Ormislon: Will the Prime Minister inform the house if the royal commission on bilingualism and biculturalism intends to travel abroad this summer and, if so, to what countries and for what purpose?


John (Jack) Davis: We are informed by the cochairmen of the royal commission on bilingualism and biculturalism as follows: the royal commission on bilingualism and biculturalism does not intend to travel abroad this summer.


Mr. Bell:: How about the following summer?



PORT ELGIN, ONT.  DEMOLITION OF OLD TOWN HALL

Mr. Loney: Have tenders been advertised for the demolition and removal of the old town hall on the
Inquiries of the Ministry
property purchased by the federal government for the construction of the new proposed post office in Port Elgin and, if so, who was the successful tenderer and what was the amount of the tender?


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: No. Demolition will be included in the contract for the new building for which tenders are expected to be advertised very soon.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. Mather: 1.	To what is attributable the major increase in commercial failures recorded in 1963 under the bankruptcy and winding-up acts?
2.	What was the estimated total liabilities of such business failures in 1963 and 1962?
Return tabled.


GRANTS TO RESEARCH SCIENTISTS
Mr. Flemming (Victoria-: Carleton):
What government grants, awards and amounts were given to research scientists, together with amounts, projects and other information, during the fiscal year ending March 31, 1964?
Return tabled.


FEDERAL EXPENDITURES ON FISHING INDUSTRY
Mr. Danforih: What is the total amount of federal money paid out to the fishing industry in the province of (a) New Brunswick (b) Prince Edward Island (c) Nova Scotia (d) Newfoundland (e) British Columbia, for the years 1961, 1962, 1963, in the form of (i) grants, subsidies, loans for fishing boats, gear, nets, etc. (ii) grants, subsidies, loans for fish processing plants, facilities for bait, cold storage, etc.?
Return tabled.



CANADIAN FLAG


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Robert C. Coates (Cumberland):: Mr. Speaker, on May 21 I posed three questions to the Prime Minister, two of which were answered. The Prime Minister gave no reply to the third question, which does not appear in Hansard. However, I feel that it should be placed on Hansard in the context of the three questions I posed. In effect I asked the Prime Minister why, in view of the fact that there was a great demand for a national referendum, he continued to endeavour to impose his own personal design on the Canadian public.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether a petition has

Inquiries of the Ministry been received from the national leader of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire requesting a plebiscite or referendum on the question as to whether the red ensign should be maintained or an alternative should be considered. If so, what has been his reply to that resolution?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I have received a good deal of correspondence on this question, Mr. Speaker, and I am not certain whether a communication has come from the Ontario branch of the organization referred to by the right hon. gentleman. But I will look into the matter at once.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, is there any foundation for the rumour that the Prime Minister and the government have decided that a referendum will take place on this subject, so that Canadian unity will not be bifurcated or even fragmentized by strict adherence to what is becoming generally known as the Pearson pennant?


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a supplementary question to the Prime Minister. Is he aware that a petition was sent to the Leader of the Opposition by the Conservative members of the province of Quebec asking him to accept a distinctive Canadian flag without insisting on a referendum?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Pigeon:: Not two flags.


Mr. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is based upon a release over radio station CKNW in New Westminster of a wire story from Ed Murphy of the press gallery that the new Canadian flag design would be a single red maple leaf on a plain white background. My question is, will the Prime Minister take the house into his confidence, since Mr. Murphy attributed his source to a highly placed government official?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for-


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was about to rise to answer my question as to whether his office has leaked this information. I think the house is entitled to a reply.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Of course, Mr. Speaker, under the rules I am instructed not to answer questions which inquire whether statements made in a newspaper are correct. Nevertheless I do not mind telling my hon. friend that this story is purely speculative.


John George Diefenbaker: Possibly now, Mr. Speaker,
I could get an answer to my question. Has the Prime Minister decided now, or is he giving consideration to having a referendum on this question, rather than endeavouring to push this pennant down the throats of the Canadian people?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Port Arthur.


Douglas Mason Fisher: My question is not on the flag, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: I have a supplementary question on the flag, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether the Prime Minister could indicate whether the resolution on the flag, if there is to be one, when introduced will be one of the items to which he referred on May 15, as reported at page 3304 of Hansard, when he said:
Circumstances or developments may make it necessary or desirable to add to the list I have given, and the additions may require priority over existing items either now on the order paper or on the list I have given.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, Mr. Speaker, that will be one of those items.


Gerald William Baldwin: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Would the Prime Minister indicate whether it is his view that considering the importance the government attaches to this matter, when debate is once entered into it should continue without being interrupted by other government legislation, and that each member wishing to make a contribution should have ample opportunity to do so?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I think that is a very reasonable suggestion, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. H. Russell MacEwan (Piciou):: I have a further question on this matter, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether the Prime Minister has received a communication from the premier of Newfoundland stating that he would only accept a distinctive Canadian flag if the red ensign or the union jack, or both, remain equally the flag or flags of Canada.


Lester Bowles Pearson: No, Mr. Speaker, to my knowledge I have received no such communication.


Mr. Marcel Lessard (Lake St. John):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence-


Mr. R. W. Prittie (Burnaby-Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister received the views of the premier of Nova Scotia on the question of the flag?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Only in so far as they were communicated to the country in a speech to the Canadian club in Montreal a few weeks ago.


Mr. W. H. A. Thomas (Middlesex West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a further supplementary question for the Prime Minister. Since we in Canada have adopted the principle of opting out, could consideration be given to permitting municipalities that wish to do so to opt out of the proposed flag legislation?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. P. V. Noble (Grey North):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct this question to the Prime Minister. Did the Prime Minister communicate directly or indirectly with the Queen by any means with respect to the red ensign or any other proposed flag?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I think I should tell the house that I have, in an informal way, informed the Queen, through her private secretary, of the intentions of the government in this matter, without of course asking for the Queen's advice, which would be unconstitutional. As a matter of courtesy it was surely desirable to let the Queen know what the intentions of the government were in this matter, and that has been done.


An hon. Member:: Why didn't you tell the hon. member for Hull (Mr. Caron)?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I do not want the Prime Minister in any way to go into detail, because the Queen would not get any more information than the house has received, I suppose-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: -but would the Prime Minister say when it was that he communicated with the secretary of Her Majesty the Queen?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I have not the exact date in my mind, Mr. Speaker. The first communication was a good many days ago, and there has been one since that time.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says "a good many days ago". Does that mean more than a month ago?


Lester Bowles Pearson: No, Mr. Speaker.


Erik Nielsen: A supplementary question, sir. In answering my previous question the Prime Minister indicated that the story was speculative. I wonder if he would also tell the house whether it was speculative when Mr. Murphy quoted the source of his information as a highly placed government official.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I do not think that question is in order.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Robert Carman Coates: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question that goes back to the matter of the flag. I wish to ask the Prime Minister whether he would assure this house that our Queen will not be involved in what is rapidly developing and deteriorating into a partisan political matter, the matter of the selection of the design for the flag.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, that danger occurred to me as I listened to certain questions in the last five minutes.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Robert Carman Coates: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether that danger did not occur to him when he made his speech to the Royal Canadian Legion?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. This is a statement, not a question.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Could he assure the house that once the government has given the country a distinctive national flag, which will be flown on the parliament buildings, he will never allow another symbol remindful of a foreign country to be flown beside the national flag?


Percy Verner Noble: I should like to ask the Prime Minister a question supplementary to the one put to him a while ago. Did the right hon. gentleman not mislead the House of Commons on Thursday when he answered "no" to the question whether he had sent a telegram to the Queen with regard to the red ensign?


John George Diefenbaker: I wonder if the Prime Minister has taken a vow of silence with respect to questions asked him in the house. I know he could take that stand, but I ask him now-


An hon. Member:: Intelligent questions.
Another hon. Member: Quack, quack.


John George Diefenbaker: Don't dishonour the ducks. I ask the right hon. gentleman now whether the communication made to the secretary to the Queen was by telegram, or whether it was a communication sent by the Governor General. I ask this only in view of the fact that the Prime Minister gave such a definite answer the other day.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The exchange of views was both by telephone and by telegram, and the Governor General was informed.

Inquiries of the Ministry CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION



WITHDRAWAL OF FILM RESPECTING PRIME MINISTER

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Douglas Mason Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Prime Minister a question with regard to the Pearson film. It arises out of the answer he gave last week when he said "We on this side of the house do not censor films". I want to ask the Prime Minister, if this is the case, why the film was screened before his government advisers, and was there an opinion as to whether these advisers liked the film and felt it should go to Mr. Reeves Hagan of the C.B.C.?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I realize the great interest in this matter, but is this question a vital, urgent one that requires to be answered today?


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion it should be placed on the order paper.


Douglas Mason Fisher: I will debate it at ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker.



SUGGESTED DELAY IN DEVELOPING COLOUR TELEVISION FACILITIES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (Queens-Lunenburg):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the fact that the C.B.C. operating deficit for 1962-63 exceeded $72.5 million, will the Prime Minister impress upon the board of broadcast governors the need for providing better black and white television for all Canadians throughout Canada before any action is taken in developing facilities for colour television, which would be too costly for the average Canadian and would further add to his taxes and the country's deficit?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I will be glad to bring my hon. friend's observations to the attention of the B.B.G.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Marcel Lessard: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. In view of the fact that Washington announced that next


June 25 the Canada-U.S. ministerial committee would study the defence systems of the North American continent, can the minister tell the house who will be the Canadian delegates to that conference?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Yes, Mr. Speaker, the announcement was also made here. The Canada-United States ministerial group on defence will meet in Washington on June 25. The Canadian delegation will be led by the Secretary of State for External Affairs; other members of the delegation will include the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Defence Production, the Associate Minister of National Defence and myself.


Marcel Lessard: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Has the minister planned to include members of the committee on defence as delegates or observers, if you wish, to give them the opportunity to see what will be going on at this conference?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: It had not been planned to take members of the special committee on defence to this meeting.



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON REORGANIZATION OF MILITIA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. L. Chafierfon (Esquimali-Saanich):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence and ask whether the committee on the reorganization of the militia has yet made its report to him?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Not yet. The first report is expected soon.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address my question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Will he kindly advise the house whether the United Nations secretary general has asked Canada, or whether Canada has received any direct request from the United Nations, for an extension of the period of commitment of our security forces in Cyprus beyond the original period to June 27? If so, what has been Canada's reply to this request?


Paul Joseph James Martin: First of all, Mr. Speaker, since my hon. friend has mentioned the name of the secretary general of the United Nations, may I say I am sure that all of us in this house and in this country are honoured and pleased at the fact that he is in our capital and will be addressing this parliament tomorrow morning.
There has been no formal request as yet.


USE BY PORTUGAL OF CANADIAN ARMS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I wish to direct to the Secretary of State for External Affairs a question of an urgent and pressing nature to all those who are concerned with these matters. Has the minister's attention been drawn to a statement which appeared in the Globe and Mail on May 23, attributed to a Dr. Ian Gilchrist? The article bears the headline "Women and Children Shot in Angola, Deserters Say". Two officers reportedly deserted because they had been asked to shoot women and children. The report goes on:
In Hamilton earlier this week, Dr. Ian Gilchrist, a Halifax-born doctor who operates a hospital in Leopoldville-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. What is the hon. member's question?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I was laying the foundation for my question. This doctor goes on to deal with the question of Canadian arms supplied through NATO being used for purposes such as I have mentioned, and I should like to ask the minister if he still has the same confidence in the good faith of the Portuguese government with respect to the use of these arms, supplied by Canada, as he had on December 21, 1963 when he answered my question on this subject. Would the hon. gentleman have these circumstances investigated in order, if possible, to allay the fears of the Canadian people who are concerned?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Yes, I will have the story looked into. It would be a violation of the agreement between Canada and Portugal if the story in question were true.


CANADIAN CONSTITUTION
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister. Since the proposed amendment to the constitution of Canada is the necessary next step before we go further with the Canada pension plan, can the Prime
Inquiries of the Ministry Minister say whether that proposed resolution will be on the order paper this week?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, that will depend on whether we get replies from all the provinces. Three or four replies came in before the week end and they were all in agreement with the formula put forward. I hope that within the next two or three days the other replies will come in and will be in agreement, and then we can put the resolution on the order paper.


Stanley Howard Knowles: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that the Prime Minister has already agreed that debate on the flag should be as long as members might wish it, will he undertake that the debate on this question of amending the constitution regarding the Canada pension plan will take priority?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I cannot very well give that assurance, Mr. Speaker, when I have not yet received the replies from the provinces and do not know for certain when they will all be in.


VISIT OF FRENCH MISSION TO ONTARIO DAIRY FARMS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Maurice Coie (Chicoutimi):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce?
Following a press release concerning the visit of a French mission to the dairy farms of Ontario, I would like to ask him whether the program includes such a visit to French Canadian farmers so that the visitors may have an opportunity to meet their Canadian cousins?


Mr. Speaker:: In the circumstances would the hon. member put this question on the order paper.


STATEMENT BY MINISTER RESPECTING
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Reynold Rapp (Humboldl-Melfort-Tis-dale):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of importance for the Minister of Trade and Commerce. When the minister made a statement in Los Angeles to the effect that the U.S.S.R. would never again be able to export wheat and might not even be able to sustain herself, could the minister inform the house as to the source on which he based his statement, or is the statement just his opinion?

Inquiries of the Ministry


Hon. Miichell Sharp (Minisier of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I was asked whether I had expressed an opinion. I cannot take any responsibility for what a newspaperman said I said. I merely expressed the opinion that it was unlikely the Soviet union would again be a major exporter of wheat. This was the extent of my comment at that time.


SUGGESTED EXCHANGE OF PETROLEUM
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mitchell William Sharp: May I take this opportunity to answer a question which was put to me in my absence by the hon. member for Bow River, who referred to an article in the New York Times and asked whether there was any justification for reports of negotiations between the government of Canada and the Soviet union regarding the acceptance of Soviet petroleum and other oil products in return for Canadian wheat.
I should like to assure the house that no negotiations are being carried on with regard to such an exchange. The proposal in question was a tentative suggestion put forward by Soviet officials in the course of informal discussions with visiting Canadian businessmen. A number of other Soviet commodities including birch plywood, canned fish, watches, potash, pig iron, cotton textiles, naphthalene, benzol, window glass, furs and manganese were in fact mentioned at the same time.


CONTINUATION OF POLICY RESPECTING OIL EXPORTS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Bow River):: May
I ask a supplementary question. Is the Minister of Trade and Commerce continuing the national oil policy so that we may accelerate our exports in this field to a target of approximately 800,000 barrels of crude petroleum a day, taking into account the amount we use domestically?


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


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: May I speak to that ruling for a moment? This is an important economic matter.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member knows the rules as well as I do. In particular, he knows why these rules were brought in. His question is vitally important to the future of the oil industry, I admit, but it is not so pressing as to require an answer at this time. Therefore I suggest the hon. member put it on the order paper and get a detailed, reasonable answer.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: The Prime Minister agreed to answer this question today, and I see no reason why it should be delayed any further.


Mr. Speaker:: I am unaware of that fact. If it is so, it is due to my ignorance. If the Prime Minister is ready to answer it, that is one thing. On the other hand, I do think this is the type of question which should be put on the order paper.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Then I give notice I wish to debate it at ten o'clock.


MISSION TO EUROPE RESPECTING PREFABRICATED HOUSES
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Maurice Cote (Chicoutimi):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a further question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce, regarding a Canadian delegation of 13 people sent to Europe with regard to prefab houses. Can the minister tell us how many of those thirteen delegates are bilingual, that is who can speak French and English?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I can take this question as notice, or I am sure you would prefer that it be put on the order paper.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: wish to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. Is the minister aware that a United States citizen was held in the Don jail in Toronto for 97 days before being charged with any offence? If so, has the minister taken any steps to deal with this disgraceful situation?


Hon. Guy Favreau (Minister of Justice):: I will be glad to take this question as notice. I will confer with my colleague the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and ask for a report. I hope to be in a position to answer on Wednesday.



HOCKEY-NATIONAL CANADIAN TEAM FOR INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Eric A. Winkler (Grey-Bruce):: 
Some hon. Members:: Order paper.	the question should be put on the order


Mr. Speaker:: Would the hon. member put PaPer- The hon. member is suggesting I this on the the order paper.	should get up and contradict the Speaker.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. A. MacLean (Queens):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. I regret not having given him notice. Would the hon. gentleman tell the house what is the current policy of Canadian National Railways with regard to the retention or sale of Canadian National hotels; and specifically, will he tell us whether the C.N.R. hotel at Charlottetown has been sold or is about to be sold?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I do not think there is any policy of a general character with regard to this matter. I will inquire of the management of the Canadian National Railways whether there are any negotiations in progress concerning the particular hotel in question.


George Louis Chatterton: A supplementary question. Can the minister say whether consideration is being given to the transfer of the management of any of the remaining C.N.R. hotels?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Not that I know of.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. Nasserden (Rosihern):: I have a question for the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware that eggs are selling for as little as 12 and 13 cents a dozen in country stores in Saskatchewan? Will the right hon. gentleman bring this matter before a special committee of the cabinet with a view to relieving the discrimination suffered by producers under the present regulations governing support prices for eggs?


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


Edward Nasserden: Surely an inquiry asking whether the Prime Minister would give consideration to such a proposal should not have to wait for the order paper as you



LABOUR RELATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
David Orlikow: wish to address a question to the Minister of Labour and ask him if the conciliation board headed by Mr. Justice Munroe dealing with the matter of wage negotiations with non-operating railway employees has submitted its report and, if so, when it will be published.


Hon. A. J. MacEachen (Minister of Labour):: The chairman of the conciliation board has delivered a majority report. A minority report is expected very shortly from the third member of the board. When that report is received, steps will be taken to release the two reports.



CANADIAN CENTENNIAL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Secretary of State. Can he tell the house why the builders of the monument to the fathers of confederation, in Charlottetown, have begun distributing a commemorative medal made in the United States rather than in Canada?


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



SHIPPING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Percy Verner Noble: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister propose to take early action in respect of the resolution sent to him by the city of Owen Sound in order to remedy the condition of their harbour?

Eastern Agricultural Assistance


Lester Bowles Pearson: I will have to look into that resolution, Mr. Speaker.


Hon. Walter L. Gordon (Minister of Finance) moved: that the house go into committee of supply.



LACK OF ACTION TO ASSIST EASTERN AGRICULTURE

Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Qu'Appelie):: Mr. Speaker, today is the 25th of May. Like many other Canadians I took the opportunity last week end to travel through parts of our country at this most beautiful time of the year. To my sorrow I find that the country is dividing on the subject of the flag. At a time when all our hopes should be centred upon uniting the country, this matter is now becoming a partisan issue and one, I am afraid, of a deeply emotional character.
This effort on the part of the government to force a shotgun decision on the people of Canada causes us to wonder why. I am going to suggest that one of the reasons for their great haste and the manner in which they are carrying forward this project is that they are desirous of covering up a whole series of sins of omission.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: And commission.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: People are wondering if this is not a device on the part of the government for the purpose not only of hiding the long list of promises unfulfilled, not only to cover up their sins of omission, but also to whitewash their sins of commission or to draw a red herring across the trail. They are wondering whether there is an election coming and, if it is coming sooner than parliament desires, if it is simply because a budget will have to be brought down at the next session of parliament which will involve all sorts of new taxes that will be required to get the government out of its present difficulties.
The subject of the flag is one on which we should all be tending to unite on the basis of a common pride and love not only for the beauty of our country but for those things for which we have stood and fought over the years, but we know that you cannot build up pride in any flag unless there is a record of achievement under that flag. We know that in Canada today discrimination of an economic sort exists. Whether it be among workers in factories of our great cities, people trying to build homes in the suburbs around our great cities or even farmers, as long as discrimination exists you cannot have a strong Canada and there is very little use in talking about a

flag around which we can all unite. We cannot talk about rallying the people of this nation in pride around a flag as long as this discrimination exists.
I am going to bring to light something that is not new. It is one of the sins of omission of the government which I believe they are trying to hide with all the emotional discussion about a flag. They are trying to divide Canada to hide the fact that no action has been taken with regard to this particular sin of omission.
The government has been in power for over a year. During that year we have had 60 days of decision and 300 days of retreating. We are wondering where the retreating is going to stop. We would like to see the government not try to hide these vital economic issues by dividing the country on an emotional issue such as the symbol of our sovereignty. We want the government to get on with the job of correcting these economic discriminations.
As one member of the opposition I have tried on several occasions to bring to the attention of the people of Canada the fact that discrimination does exist between the farmers in the better farming areas who have markets for their products and the farmers in other areas which are not so good and who do not have markets. Several times I have brought this matter forward in the house on behalf of the party of which I am a member. Several times other members have supported the points of view I have expressed, yet no action has been taken.
I would recall to the house that on October 14, 1963, I took advantage of the democratic opportunity provided by the rules of the house to move an amendment to a supply motion which dealt with the plight of eastern farmers. I placed on the record at that timetables of statistics from the dominion bureau of statistics and the department concerned to show the level to which a large percentage of the farmers in eastern Canada had fallen. I also included the farmers of British Columbia in my remarks at that time.
Yet on May 25, 1964, I once again have to take advantage of the democratic opportunity provided on a motion for supply under our rules to bring forward matters about which the government has done nothing, in order to direct the attention of the people of Canada once more to the matter of action to assist the eastern farmers. There is much reason to be more satisfied today that this problem is being paid more attention by the public than was the case a year or two ago. Many newspapers are beginning to recognize that as the wealth of the farming community goes, so goes the wealth of the whole nation.

As recently as today that august newspaper the Montreal Gazette tells us how the great sales of wheat to the nations of the world have begun to lift up the economy of Canada and cause it to move forward even faster than before. These great sales of wheat are not enough, Mr. Speaker, unless they are backed by a program that will deal with the trouble spots. All the Liberals can say is, what did you do when you were in power? Once again I should like them to listen to the answer.
After we took power in 1957, following a generation of inactivity by the previous government, we announced a national agriculture program in this house in August, 1958. We systematically tried to carry out that program, and with some success. It was clear that the program was working for those farmers whose operations were of a commercial character, that is farmers who could take advantage of the various pieces of legislation and regulations that we had introduced to build up their economic life. It was also easily apparent that those pieces of legislation, those various acts of the government, were not sufficient to help the farmer at the bottom of the totem pole. We introduced, therefore, the well known piece of legislation called ARDA, the Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act. This was a long range program and had to be backed up by a series of regional, short range programs to get at the pressing problems of the areas in agriculture which were not doing well. These areas in agriculture could be found by calculating the income of the farmers.
On October 14 of last year, therefore, I put on the record of the house a series of figures to illustrate where I thought the problem was most serious. At that time I pointed out that we had gone to the country in 1962 and again in 1963 with a program to meet those conditions. We had worked out as a government, I say with some satisfaction, a program which was received well in the rural areas of B.C., the rural areas of the west, the rural areas of Ontario, and yes, even in the rural areas of Quebec and the maritimes, as the number of members here from rural areas indicates. This was a program that received no particular publicity in the city areas. However, it was a sound Canadian program because we realized we could not ever build a strong Canada if some segments of the population were weak.
We were right in 1957 and 1958 in saying that agriculture had to be built up. We attempted to do so. I think we succeeded. But there is no use being complacent about success if some segments of the agricultural
Eastern Agricultural Assistance population do not share equally in the benefits others are receiving. So on October 14, 1963, I gave the country an opportunity of seeing some of the statistics, and how awful they were.
This battle is slowly being lost because of the fact that we have, as an agency of government, the dominion bureau of statistics. I have in my hand a bulletin issued last Friday, May 22, and it illustrates the reason we are losing the battle. I tried to inform Canadians that there was a problem and that you cannot build a strong Canada if some people remain weak. Listen to this statement which was issued last Friday:
Farm cash income from farming operations, excluding supplementary payments, in Canada (excluding Newfoundland) was estimated at an alltime high of $3,219.1 million in 1963, up by 2.1 per cent from 1962's preceding peak of $3,154.2 million. Higher receipts from the sale of wheat, coarse grain, tobacco, and poultry and dairy products contributed most to the increase.
This is the type of statement that is detrimental to the efforts we are making in this house to bring to the attention of Canadians a situation which is not good for the people of this country. If you go on and read the advance statement for the whole year, which was compiled by the dominion bureau of statistics, you will find they amended these figures to show that the income was up 2.1 per cent. They say that farm income is up 2.2 per cent. How can you blame the people who write our newspaper articles, who are the medium for education of our people in Canada, when they see this type of statement?
At this point I should like to go back and read the statement the minister made in introducing his estimates in this house on April 24, I believe, just about a month ago. He repeated this statement and held it up to the people of Canada as evidence that everything was well in agriculture. Everything is not well in agriculture, Mr. Speaker. What I want to do now is find out where the truth lies so that hon. members in the house will know. Let those who disseminate information disseminate the truth and not this type of meaningless claptrap.
What is the truth? Let me quote some figures that I think make sense. First of all, the Ethiopian in the woodpile in so far as these figures are concerned is the fact that they refer to net income. Net income is meaningless. It is the silliest sort of thing you ever saw, and I will illustrate that statement by dealing with the figures for the province of Saskatchewan. The net income for the province of Saskatchewan for 1961 is stated as $132 million. In 1962 the net income for the province of Saskatchewan in agriculture is stated as $506 million. Therefore from the

Eastern Agricultural Assistance year 1961 to the year 1962, farm net income, according to the dominion bureau of statistics, went up nearly four times. Nothing could be more asinine than a statement like that. In 1961 you have all the editors crying how poor the farmer in Saskatchewan is, that all he made was $132 million. In 1962 they said he made $506 million, almost four times as much, so look how wealthy the farmer is. Then everybody gets mad at him.
These figures do not tell the story, Mr. Speaker. If you go on to 1963, the last figures we have, we find the net income for Saskatchewan is shown as $603 million. Everybody says, isn't the farmer doing well? He made $506 million in 1962 and $603 million in 1963, compared with $132 million back in 1961, only two years earlier. These figures do not tell the true story, because it has been assumed that the people who read these statements are knowledgeable as to how the figures are put together, and this is not true.
I should like to put on the record, if I may, the real figures for income for Saskatchewan in those years. In 1961 the realized net income, that is the cash that goes into the farmer's pocket-and that is the only thing that means anything-was not $132 million but was $343 million. These statements that were conceived in the city of Ottawa were out by over $200 million in the case of one province alone. In the year 1962, instead of $506 million, when everybody thought the Saskatchewan farmer was wealthy, the net income was $413 million. The increased income was nothing like $506 million. In 1963, when the published statement showed the net income as $603 million, the farmers' real income was down some $43 million to $370 million. I am glad the Minister of Trade and Commerce is sitting in his seat today because he knows why the income was down last year. He knows 1962 was a good year. He knows 1963 was an even better year.
Why did the farm net income in Saskatchewan go down by $43 million last year, the best year in our history? He knows that last year he would not listen when I, on behalf of the official opposition, proposed that he take certain steps to see that grain could be moved out of the St. Lawrence efficiently. He stated he knew how to move grain; he had been deputy minister under Mr. Howe. What happened? We lost days of shipping time out of the St. Lawrence because of his failure to act. Later on I felt the shipping situation in British Columbia was going bad. He said something would be done and it would be done his way, not my way. He knows that as a result they had to turn down orders for grain through the west coast ports 

last fall. The businessmen out there showed what they could do when you went out there and challenged them. They shipped 29 million bushels in one month. This drop in farm income was due entirely to this matter of not getting the grain out of the country. So the farmers' income was down this $43 million.
I am not worrying about the Saskatchewan farmer; he knows he will get the money eventually. I am simply pointing out that on these figures of net income, which make such beautiful and wonderful headlines, they tell the city people that the Saskatchewan farmers got up to $603 million in 1963 whereas their real income was not $603 million but about $370 million, just about half.
I would like to explain how you get this difference between realized and net income. People in the d.b.s. who keep these figures are sound statisticians. They are good bookkeepers, and when a farmer earns so much money they call that gross cash income. They take off his operating and depreciation costs and then they get his realized net income, the money in his pocket. They have another figure called inventory, and when a farmer grows a big crop or raises a lot of cattle and does not sell them they add the value to his income, and according to these figures he is very wealthy yet he has not got any money in his pocket.
The next year, when the farmer sells all that surplus, since they added it on to his income the previous year they take it off this year from the money in his pocket. Therefore net income is a meaningless figure, and is only for experts in the back room. I would plead with those who disseminate information in this country to keep away from giving the net income figure. It brings bad feelings between the city and the country, and it does not give a true picture of farm income. What you want to disseminate is the money in the farmers' pocket, and that will tell the story.
Let me tell the grim story of agriculture during the last year or so. I have in my hand figures of the realized net income, in millions of dollars, as issued by the d.b.s., which stated that net farm income was up 2.2 per cent across Canada last year or, according to the revised figures in the last bulletin, up 2.1 per cent. Whether it is 2.2 per cent or 2.1 per cent, it is a fact that there was a decrease in realized net income in every province of Canada, except two, in 1963.
Let me give the figures. In Prince Edward Island in 1958 realized income was $12,579 million, and in 1963 it was down to $6,908 million. I would not want to say it is down by half, but it is getting very close to half

what it was a few years ago. This decrease has been going on every year and continued in 1963.
In Nova Scotia in 1958 realized farm income was $15,898 million and in 1963 it was down to $11,161 million. In 1962 it was down to $13,557 million, so this shows a decrease of roughly $5 million in a seven year period. In percentages, it is almost a third.
Surely there must be some New Brunswick members in the house who would be interested in knowing that realized farm income in New Brunswick last year was $12,188 million, in 1962 it was $12,840 million, and seven years ago, in 1958, it was $21,218 million. It is now down to almost half what it was in 1958. Surely this means something to somebody.
In Quebec the situation is static, because the good farmers of Quebec are building up their income while the other 40 per cent or 50 per cent, who are on poor farms, are going steadily downhill, which means that the net result is almost static. In 1958 Quebec realized farm income was $196,645,000 and it dropped to $189,822,000 in 1963. This is not a matter of satisfaction that the good farmer's income is going up while the poor farmer's is going down.
I wonder how many members of parliament from these provinces will stand up and fight for these areas that are not doing so well. These are not just statistics; these are the stories of farmers I have met and known. These are the stories of my fellow Canadians who have a right not just to have a member of parliament in this house, but to have every member of parliament concerned about discrimination against those who are not doing so well.
I could go through the list of the provinces, but let me just leave this one figure with you; that in all the provinces of Canada, with the exception of two, realized farm income went down last year, and those two provinces do not include Saskatchewan and Alberta. We went down too, but we know why we went down and we will correct that. I give those figures because this is the truth and not this meaningless gibberish that comes from the d.b.s., which is of course satisfactory for bookkeepers but should not be used by people who have not reached the mental status where they can understand these figures.
I have tried in blunt terms to put the realized income figures on the record. I do not like to make speeches which are just tearing down the government all the time. I have been quite blunt about what I think is a failure on the part of the government. These points were all brought out in previous years, 20220-225
Eastern Agricultural Assistance yet all the government can do is reply "What did you do when you were in power"? We, when we were in power, at least brought to the attention of the people how bad the situation was, and we prepared long range programs. We launched the study of those special areas in eastern Canada where the situation was very bad. The report of that study has never been published and should be made public now.
We were the ones who went into the 1962 and 1963 election campaigns with a program for building up eastern agriculture. We were the government which, in the speech from the throne in 1962, brought in a program to meet the situation, and we were the government which was thrown out of office on the nuclear issue on February 5, 1963, before we could bring our new farm program into effect. We were the ones who brought in a program that would take two or three years to implement, but we were thrown out on what I think was a bogus issue. However, the people of Canada will decide these things in due course.
I now hope that this tendency to quote net income figures, which show how wealthy you are when you are not, and how broke you are when you are not, will come to an end. I hope from now on we will be given the realized net income figures. When he looks at these figures province by province what member of parliament from Quebec, whether he sits on the government side or on the opposition side, is happy to sit here looking at those figures for the last few years? What member of parliament from the province of New Brunswick, no matter on which side of the house he sits, is happy about these figures? What member of parliament from Nova Scotia can be happy about these figures? I know these people, and I know that something has to be done.
Just to show how bad the situation is, if I could have permission from the house I would like to table these two sets of figures so that members could study them. Mr. Speaker, can I have permission to table them? One gives the d.b.s. figures on realized net income and the other gives the figures of income distribution, survey of farms in eastern Canada, preliminary data, prepared in the Department of Agriculture.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Does the hon. member wish these to be printed in Hansard as part of his speech?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Yes, that is what I ask.


Guy Favreau: I take it that the reference to this issue and the pages of the d.b.s. releases is on these figures?
3542	HOUSE OF
Eastern Agricultural Assistance Mr. Hamilton: I had not put the pages on here, but I have referred to the documents. They are not very big, about two or three pages, and it would not be too hard to find them.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it agreed?


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



REALIZED NET FARM INCOME IN CANADA

[Stage Direction]
Taken from D.B.S. farm income bulletins In millions of dollars
P.E.I.	N.S.	N.B. QUE.	ONT.	MAN.	SASK.	ALTA.	B.C.1958	12,579	15,898	21,218 196,645	351,012	112,391	341,804	279,804	53,2141961	6,669	14,659	13,084 186,405	325,844	119,309	343,952	279,852	57,8901962	7,157	13,557	12,840 195,411	353,838	123,331	413,910	301,864	68.8851963	6,908	11,161	12,188 189,822	394,380	123,493	370,907	236,743	63,8851963	- 249	- 2,396 -	- 652 - 5,589	+ 40,542	+ .152	- 43,003 -	- 65,061	- 5,000Compared with	1962	1963	- 5,671	- 4,737 -	- 9,030 - 6,823	+ 43,368	+ 11,102	+ 29,103 -	- 43,061	+10,671Compared	with	1958	Income distribution.	survey farms in	eastern Canada (preliminary	data)	Sales of	Per cent	Total income	Per <	cent of total income	from:farm	of	average	Farm	Off-	social	products	families	per farm	products	farm	payments	dollars	per cent	dollars	per cent	Under 2,500	43	2,800	53	33	142,500-4,999	34	4,600	78	16	65,000 and over	23	10,500	92	6	3All groups	100	5,200	79	15	6
Francis Alvin George Hamilton: The second table is from the income distribution survey of farms in eastern Canada, data which was quoted by an official of the Department of Agriculture in 1963, and this table delineates the problem. All I am going to say here is that 43 per cent of the farm families in the eastern part of Canada, that is in the northern and eastern part of Ontario and then on east to Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, have a total income-this is an average figure-of $2,800 or less; and from the tables I put on the record on October 14, 1963, you will see that more than half that income comes from income outside farms. This is total income of $2,800, out of which they have to pay taxes, look after their families and pay farm operating expenses. Of that $2,800, we see that 53 per cent comes from sales of farm produce. This means that 43 per cent of the farmers in the Ottawa valley, the northern part of Ontario, all through Quebec, P.E.I., New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have an average income from their farms, out of which they have to pay all expenses, of roughly $1,400. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that these figures show where the problem lies.
Having made those points, I would like to conclude by suggesting a program for the regions of Canada in which there is this economic discrimination. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that under the national agricultural

program that we laid down in 1958 we proposed a long range program and suggested, in the seventh point, that there should be regional programs to meet regional needs. I am going to list a regional program for eastern Canada to give some direction to the government, not with the idea alone that they should follow these suggestions but to at least give them something they can study. I know they have no ideas of their own at the moment. Their ideas do not show up, at least. Here are the ideas I put forward for their consideration. First, there should be a feed grain policy that stabilizes prices. Second, there should be a fertilizer policy that gets at this job of increasing the income of the low income farmer. Hon. members will see the importance of this by reading from the d.b.s. bulletin of February, 1964 entitled "Farm Net Income, Advanced Statement". It says:
Farm operating expenses and depreciation charges advanced from the revised estimate.. .an increase of slightly less than 5 per cent.
Then it says:
-with the more important increases being recorded for feed, fertilizers and the operation of farm machinery, including repairs.
This means that policies in respect of feed grain and fertilizer should be devised to meet this problem. Feed grain amounts to about 25 per cent of the cost of running an eastern farm, and this is the No. 1 pressing problem.

Fertilizer is growing in importance and this problem should be met head on before the opportunity goes by. With regard to farm machinery, we have heard a great deal from the Minister of Agriculture as to what he is going to do, but there has been no action.
Next is the fourth point. We need some sort of a pasture policy to get increased production off the grass in eastern Canada. Yesterday I was looking at some of these pastures and talking to the farmers about what could be done, and I know there is a very simple way of getting it done. Fifth, we need a water policy for the eastern provinces, something similar to P.F.R.A. and the programs that apply to the west. Then we need a livestock policy for the whole country, with particular reference to the east. Next, as I said when the estimates of the Department of Agriculture were being discussed, there has to be a national dairy policy, because dairy products are now produced and distributed in the whole country-in fact, they even go abroad. We should apply this national dairy policy to the regional problems which exist.
With regard to eastern feed grains, as I said a moment ago this is the No. 1 need. It costs the average eastern farmer 25 per cent of his total expenditures to buy feed grains. Last year when the government made several policy changes in the summer I told them, on behalf of the official opposition, that their policy would not succeed in stabilizing prices. The ordinary person said, "All right; let us wait for a year and see if this policy will stabilize prices". The hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska (Mr. Vincent) started to give the figures when these estimates were under discussion a couple of weeks ago. He will give the figures tomorrow, which will bear out what I have said that these prices were not stabilized and last winter there was a large jump in the last few months of winter feeding.
The standing committee on agriculture and colonization does offer us some hope in this connection and I would suggest to the government very seriously, and I think with some correctness, that if the members on that committee are allowed to act as an allparty committee, the Liberals, the Conservatives, the N.D.P., Social Credit and the Credi-tistes, something can be done in this regard.
I have looked at the composition of that committee and have measured the calibre of the men on it. We could come up with a strong program supported by all parties if the government will let the members of the committee act as members trying to help agriculture in eastern Canada. I know this question relates to the Minister of Forestry (Mr. Sauv6)
Eastern Agricultural Assistance and not the Minister of Agriculture, because the Minister of Forestry now looks after this question, but if he will give us a policy statement that the members of this committee could work in a non-partisan way, I think they could come up with an answer to these problems.
With regard to the marginal farmer, after the report of January, 1963 I gave some figures to the house on October 14 of that year, and I suggest to the Minister of Agriculture that he should let us have this report. If we have it I think some of us will be able to come forward and make some policy suggestions which will really help solve some of the problems faced by the marginal farmer. In my previous remarks on this subject last year I suggested that action be taken along educational and sociological lines, but we need the full report on this subject so that our policies can be based on fact and be made more effective.
I have almost concluded my remarks, Mr. Speaker, but I wish to wind up by saying that I do not think it is enough for the Liberal members on the other side of the chamber, when I quote these figures of low income in eastern Canada, to stand up and say, "What did you do?" That shows an empty mind and a bankruptcy of ideas. I would ask them to just remember that ARDA gets at the job on a long range basis, and they will only hinder the solution of these problems by the kind of monkeyshines to which I referred in a previous debate. ARDA will point the way a little bit, but something more is necessary. I ask the government to remember that the Conservative party drew up this program to help eastern agriculture. It helped eastern agriculture in 1962 and 1963, and we should be prepared to act upon it now.
Surely, Mr. Speaker, we do not have to draw a diagram for the government. We know they are out of ideas, but we are simply asking them to accept our positive suggestions and begin to move on them. There is no use at all saying that there are going to be amendments to the Farm Credit Corporation Act to double the amount lent from $20,000 to $40,000, and so on. This does not get at the problem of the little farmer. There is no use at all saying there will be amendments to the Crop Insurance Act, because this only helps those provinces where crop insurance is in effect; those are the only farmers who would benefit from these amendments. I ask the government not to tell us they contemplate taking some secret action with regard to farm machinery; I ask them to bring this action forward so we may consider it.

Eastern Agricultural Assistance I am simply saying, Mr. Speaker, that at this moment we should seriously consider this amendment to the resolution to go into committee:
That all the words after "That" be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
"this house regrets the continuing failure of the government to take effective action with regard to the pressing agricultural problems of eastern Canada".
I am moving this motion, Mr. Speaker, seconded by the hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska, and I have a copy here in French. While these copies are being distributed I would like to wind up by simply saying that at this time hon. members of the house should, with their vote, make sure that we are not using the flag issue as something to hide the real problems facing Canada today. It will bring more satisfaction to the workers in our cities, as I said earlier, the people in our suburbs, and our farmers, if they know that this house is moving to solve the economic problems that are causing unrest, and is not using matters such as the flag, and other matters, to cover up the real economic problems facing Canada.


Guy Favreau: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I submit that the present amendment should be declared out of order because the matter has already been submitted to the house and passed upon in the form of a previous motion, although the said motion was not worded in exactly the same manner.
May I refer Your Honour to the Votes and Proceedings of this house for Monday, May 4, 1964, page 284, to a motion that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair. The hon. member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Dinsdale), seconded by the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton (Mr. Flemming), moved an amendment to that motion in the following terms:
That the motion be amended by striking out all the words after "That" and substituting therefor:
"this house condemns the neglect of the government"-
Then the motion follows, and concludes in this manner:
"And urges the government, in the interests of national development, to take immediate action to make up for the year of neglect of this problem by forthwith:
(1)	establishing a national advisory committee on water resources to assist in co-ordinating national resource development:
(2)	accelerating the application of ARDA policies to the problems of national resource development.
Just in case an attempt might be made to argue that the first amendment put by the hon. member for Brandon-Souris on Monday, May 4 ought to be interpreted as limited to referring to the protection of water resources, I would draw to Your Honour's attention that on the same date a subamendment was 
proposed and that that subamendment dealt squarely and completely with all policies relating to ARDA, and therefore to eastern agriculture. That amendment is to be found at page 285 of Votes and Proceedings and reads as follows:
__"and practical steps in the best interests of
national development to accelerate the application of ARDA policies."
If one refers to Votes and Proceedings for Tuesday, May 5, 1964, one notes first at page 289 that the subamendment to which I have just referred is recorded as having been substantially defeated. Then at page 290 the principal amendment is also reported as having been defeated.
May I repeat for Your Honour the last part of standing order 35 of the rules of this house, which reads as follows:
No member may reflect upon any vote of the house, except for the purpose of moving that such vote be rescinded.
It is a rule of practice in this house that whenever a question has been decided in the course of a session the matter be not put again to the house by way of amendment in the same session. I should like to quote first of all citation 200 (1) of Beauchesne's fourth edition, which is to be found at page 167.
(1) An old rule of parliament reads:	"That
a question being once made and carried in the affirmative or negative, cannot be questioned again but must stand as the judgment of the house." Unless such a rule were in existence, the time of the house might be used in the discussion of motions of the same nature and contradictory decisions would be sometimes arrived at in the course of the same session.
Lastly I should like to quote citation 203 (7) of Beauchesne's fourth edition, which is to be found at page 172:
(7) Mr. Speaker Sproule on the 13th February, 1913, decided that a proposed amendment which was substantially the same motion as the member had moved on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, was not in order because "a motion must not raise a question substantially identical with one on which the house has given a decision in the same session".
For that reason I suggest respectfully that the amendment ought to be declared out of order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, before the minister sits down will he permit a question. Would he expand a little on his contention, which I do not think he has yet established, that there is an identity between the previous motion and this one? Or to be more specific does he contend that ARDA and eastern agriculture are identical?


Gerald William Baldwin: Well, might we have the amendment read to us?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. Before we proceed further to hear arguments for or against the acceptability of the motion, it might be put to the house at this time. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton), seconded by the hon. member for Berthier-Maskinonge-Delanaudiere (Mr. Paul), for the hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska (Mr. Vincent), moves:
That all the words alter ''That'' be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
"this house regrets the continuing failure of the government to take effective action with regard to the pressing agricultural problems of eastern Canada".


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, although I have the greatest respect for the government house leader I must say that I find his argument somewhat tenuous. He has indicated in reading to Your Honour the citations from Beauchesne that for this motion to be out of order it must be in substantial agreement with a previous one. If we look at the motion which was put forward by my colleague from Brandon-Souris (Mr. Dinsdale) on May 4, we see that that motion called for water resource development; and all through the motion there is reference to water resources management, pollution of national waters and, the urgent necessity for conserving water resources for the benefit of national resources development in Canada. He advocated a national advisory committee on water resources, and accelerating the application of ARDA policies to the problem of national resource development.


John Whitney Pickersgill: What about the subamendment?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: We did not move any subamendment.


Gilles Grégoire: I had one.


Guy Favreau: Mr. Speaker, I referred expressly to the second paragraph at the top of page 285 of Votes and Proceedings and I said that the subamendment referred to there was directly related and referred to ARDA policies, and that this subamendment was defeated.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, I submit that without regard to any subamendment which may have been put, whether rightly or wrongly, this present motion is dealing primarily with the pressing agricultural problems of eastern Canada. This motion has to do with dairy policy; it has to do with feed grain policy; it may have to do with cheese and cheese pricing policies; it may have to do with pasture and other matters. The question of water resources is incidental. I cannot for the life of me see how the present amendment which has been
Eastern Agricultural Assistance put forward by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton) can be deemed to be substantially in agreement-and those are the key words-with any other motion. With the greatest respect I feel that the Minister of Justice (Mr. Favreau) is really on very thin ice-


An hon. Member:: He has already fallen through.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: -in arguing that this amendment is out of order; and not only is he on thin ice, but as one of my hon. friends suggests he has burst through.


Gerald William Baldwin: He has gotten all wet.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: May I go further and on behalf of the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) say that he has gotten all wet. I do suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the amendment put forward by my hon. friend from Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton) is quite within the rules of this house and may properly be put forward at this time.


Gerald William Baldwin: I think my hon. friend from Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) has more than adequately dealt with the objection that the main motion is identical in substance with the amendment moved on a previous occasion. I should like to direct attention to the question of the subamendment, also referred to by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Favreau) as it appears on page 284 of Votes and Proceedings. I think Your Honour was in the chair at the time the subamendment was moved by the hon. member for Lapointe (Mr. Gregoire), and I think Your Honour then entertained some doubt as to the validity of this amendment, because it did not appear to fall within the four corners of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Dinsdale). In order to be relevant, the subamendment must be related to the main amendment as it appears on page 284. That amendment, as my hon. friend from Edmonton West has pointed out, was directed primarily to the question of water resources and water development. If one takes a close look at the subamendment, one finds that the real pith and substance of it was represented by the words "the best interests of national development". This was a motion relating to national development. Incidentally, it said, in effect, that national development would be stimulated by accelerating the use of the ARDA program. But the ARDA program was incidental; it was the means to be used in providing for national development.
There is all the difference in the world between national development promoted by the use of ARDA and the amendment moved by my hon. friend from Qu'Appelle, who has
3546	HOUSE OF
Eastern Agricultural Assistance devoted his speech and his amendment to the interests of the farmers of eastern Canada. If the subamendment moved by the hon. member for Lapointe had been restricted solely to this question, Your Honour would have been bound to rule it out of order. You did not do so because you related it to the broader issue of water resources and water conservation, and all the other matters referred to by the hon. member for Brandon-Souris.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, the subamendment I introduced a few weeks ago concerned mainly the so called ARDA legislation, while the amendment proposed today by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton) deals with the urgent problems of eastern farming.
Now, the government itself recognizes that ARDA and eastern farming are two different things, and that is evidenced by the fact that they appoint a minister to look after ARDA and another one, for agriculture. If two ministers are appointed, it means that those two fields are different, unless the government would be prepared to admit that one of the two ministers is useless. Then, we would admit that ARDA and eastern farming are the same thing.
That is why I submit that an amendment concerning the application of the ARDA program and another one concerning eastern farming in Canada and the application of solutions to urgent problems of eastern farming in Canada are not the same thing and are the subject matter of two completely different amendments. ARDA is concerned with certain matters and the Minister of Agriculture with certain other matters, as, for instance, the farm credit policy, which comes under agriculture but not necessarily under the ARDA program.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I think that from the government's own admission, the ARDA program and the agricultural policy, while being apparently related in certain fields, nevertheless constitute two different matters and that the amendment as moved by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle should, in my opinion, be accepted.


Guy Favreau: In order to make more precise the argument I was using a few moments ago, may I say, in reply to the hon. member-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I am wondering whether the house wishes the Minister of Justice to be allowed to speak twice to the same question. I appreciate that this is a small debate on a point of order and that perhaps the house would wish to hear the Minister

of Justice again. But if I may say something at this point, let me assure the house that the mind of the Chair is pretty well made up, having heard arguments both in favour of and against the proposition put forward by the Minister of Justice. I would be prepared to give a brief ruling on the matter if the house is prepared to hear it.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Objection has been taken by the Minister of Justice to the motion moved by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle on the grounds that the subject matter of the motion is substantially the same as one moved earlier. I am sure the essence of the motion made earlier in the session had reference to water resources. Certainly, there is a marked difference between a motion dealing with the natural resources of Canada and the motion just made by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle.
The Minister of Justice referred to the subamendment proposed by the hon. member for Lapointe at that time. I think I should mention, now, that when this amendment was proposed there was some difficulty in deciding whether or not it was acceptable. The special difficulty which the Chair encountered was that the motion had been moved in the English language while the subamendment was in the French. The subamendment referred, of course, to the words in the amendment, so it was almost impossible to decide at once whether the subamendment was acceptable. In any event, because it was felt that the hon. member for Lapointe should be given the benefit of the doubt, the subamendment was accepted at the time.
In my opinion the proposition then made by the hon. member for Lapointe referred specifically to government policies in connection with ARDA and, as has been suggested by some of the members who have taken part in this discussion, there is a difference between ARDA and general agricultural policies in eastern Canada. For this reason I feel the motion of the hon. member for Qu'Appelle is within the rules and should be accepted.


Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: I was
very surprised to learn that the amendment today would be on agriculture, because of the auspicious beginning of the statement by the former minister of agriculture dealing with another subject. I was also surprised to learn that the subject matter of the hon. member's speech has been discussed every time the subject of agriculture has been before the house for the past two years. It was a good speech in the beginning and there was a good deal to commend it to the people. But a great deal of the information and philosophy in that

speech have now been accomplished, and I think if anyone intends to move a non-confidence motion he should do it on a much broader scale.
It also strikes me as being very odd to hear someone say he wishes to make a non-political speech and a non-partisan suggestion on the basis of a non-political scheme for the economy-a scheme for agriculturists and farmers across Canada-and then in a partisan way go ahead to move a motion of no confidence. This may fit in with the rest of the speech, and maybe it becomes an amusing matter, but I doubt this because many of us know that the concern felt for agriculture is fairly fundamental across the nation; it does not apply only to eastern agriculture. Although the problems may be more pressing in that area, there is a great similarity between the problems in eastern Canada and those that have been brought to our attention by many of those representing the western farmers.
The concern for agriculture is a continuing one, and one that warrants some consideration. One matter of concern is the operations of the committee on agriculture. Since I have had the honour of being a member of that committee, and it may be a dubious honour on many occasions, the committee has discussed several very important problems. But whether the government of Canada is Conservative or Liberal we find that there is a failure on the part of the government to relate the work done by members of parliament in the committee to actual legislation.
I should like to refer to one such committee of several years ago. We heard briefs from every farm machinery company, every farm organization and from many individuals. Certainly the work done by the committee as a whole and by individual members of the committee should be commended. It was very interesting to hear members of the committee speak about farm machinery prices and point out some of the difficulties on the basis of their own experience. They knew exactly what they were talking about. They knew how to solve the problem and could offer clear and definite suggestions to improve the situation.
But what do we do? The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) gets up and says that this is one of the most pressing problems. Pressing, my foot! If it was pressing why did he not refer it to the committee this year? What has the committee got before it now? The tobacco industry. This is also a very important field, but we spent a year discussing the subject of farm machinery. I have a cabinet full of submissions made by farm organizations, the proceedings of our investigations and studies that were prepared on our behalf. We got
Eastern Agricultural Assistance half way into the matter and then what happened? I do not know what happened, but certainly no government acted on the matter. All the material we gathered has just stayed in the files in the minister's office as it has in mine. If the minister wants to do anything about the matter all he needs to do is to look at his files and he will find there are quite a number of things he can do. He does not need to go to the committee again to ascertain what they are. There are many very simple things that can be done.
We should eliminate the morass of equipment available which cannot be interchanged with other equipment. Every time a new tractor is produced it probably makes obsolete all the equipment that the older tractor drew behind it. It is a very simple thing to make the hydraulic connections the same for all tractors. If necessary we can pass a law saying that they will all be of a specific size and interchangeable. It is not hard to do. The minister wants to help the farmers to save money. This would probably save my brother $1,000 a year because of the equipment he uses on his farm.
I am sure there are many members here who operate farms on a much larger scale where the saving would be much larger. The minister knows this. He has studied this problem. But what do we do about it? Every member of the house who stands up and makes a speech like that made by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton) is drawing a red herring, like the red flag, across the problems of agriculture. The hon. member did not really make any specific suggestion. What he was doing was drawing a vision.
I could go into all aspects of the farm machinery situation. We listened to the subject being discussed for months. From the farm machinery companies we certainly heard some of the most fantastic financial reports that have come before a committee of the house in many years. If there ever was a free wheeling, international dealing bunch of financiers it is those in the farm implement industry.
What does the minister do about the matter? Does he have to sit in his seat and say he does not understand, that he does not know anything about it? Can he honestly say that he cannot stand up in the house and make even one suggestion that will help to solve some of the problems? We do not need a committee. The problem has been discussed. It would have been nice if we could have gone to Europe and seen what some of the other countries were doing. What did the Conservative government say? They said it could not be done now, that they would have

Eastern Agricultural Assistance to go back to the house and get permission. You know the old story: Put it off till tomorrow; don't worry about the bridge because we may never get there, and it will not matter whether it is up or down.
This situation has been going on for a long time. If we wanted to do something about the farm machinery problem the committee should have been continued. I have not heard the minister stand up in the house and say: Let us get the committee organized immediately. I attended the first meeting of the steering committee the other day. We all know that last year I made a real fuss about calling the committee to meet and that members of the government would not come to the meetings because they did not want the committee to meet. I do not want to have to go through that again. I can be a proper s.o.b. if I have to, but I do not want to have to be all the time. I am quite happy for somebody else to do it. But some of the responsibility falls on the minister. Every farmer in the country knows something about the problem.
There is another thing that is very simple. In the defence committee we decided that there would be standardization of nut and bolt sizes. So far as the farmers are concerned, if this were done the farmer would know he would get the right size when he sent to town for half a dozen bolts to fix his plow. They would be standardized. Now there are many different sizes being used. Many of these things will save the farmer a hundred dollars a year.
The former minister went on to talk about other problems. One he named was feed grain. What did we do about feed grain? The committee sat and received a very good education in the matter. I have learned a lot about agriculture and the wheat deal. I always said that the wheat board made the deal. The former minister said that he had made the wheat deal with China. I find out that he is wrong, too. The people who made the deal were people we did not know existed. The free wheeling grain brokers of this country were the people who made the wheat deal.
We found out quite a bit about feed grain. We got quite an education. But surely I was not elected just to be educated, Mr. Speaker. Once we have the knowledge surely we should be able to make legislative decisions on these matters. But what did we do? The minister did not even ask that the matter of feed grain be referred again to the committee so they could solve the problem of the eastern farmers in this regard. Instead, the subject of tobacco was referred to the committee. This came about because somebody in-


troduced a very dangerous, political resolution on the tobacco problem. It was referred to the committee because otherwise it might have been voted on in the house and something might have actually had to be done about it. What a red herring that turned out to be.
I am not saying that the tobacco problem is not important. It is important, but surely we should settle one problem before we jump into something else. Let us not play around with things and use them as red herrings. Is the committee simply a rug under which to sweep everything? Are we to discuss a matter for a little while and then take up a new problem and sweep the other one under the rug? The problem of feed grain could have been solved.
I have reports from farmers in this area that are in conflict with the statements we received with regard to the grain that was being held in this area for consumption on the farms last winter. I find that in the Arnprior area the price went up $7 or $8. This should not have happened, of course, because the grain was already in storage in the great lakes area or at Prescott. The minister had made provision for the storage costs so there would be no increase in the price of grain during the year. Yet the price went up $7 or $8. My colleague says that parliament did it. Parliament can only act when the minister brings matters before us. In my opinion this is where he fails all the time. He does not bring the right things before parliament. If he would give us the opportunity to do something about these problems we would settle them in a very short time because we all know what they are.
We spent a substantial amount of money on storage charges for feed grain. Yet I am told that between Christmas and the 1st of February the price of grain in the Arnprior area went up $7 a ton. If it was the fault of the handler of the grain, whether it be a co-operative or a feed merchant, let us say so. Let us put the blame where it belongs. But if there was a failure to do what was necessary to get the grain into position where the farmer could have a continuous supply at an even cost, then let us do something about that and not blame somebody else. But at least let us know where the fault lies. The only way we could have found this out would have been to have the committee continue. I ask the minister why he did not do this? Is he afraid of it?
I have never seen such whitewashing organizations as the committees of the House of Commons. I do not see how anybody could be afraid of referring anything to them. The committees get so confused, so

deeply involved, they never do come to any decision. I have sat on many committees but I never sat on one that made a constructive or comprehensive decision. These are two of the things that were suggested. What does the agriculture committee concern itself with now? I am not talking about the beginning of the session, but now, at a time when the Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson) has said we have to pass 37 new items or we do not have any summer holiday. At this time we are being asked to sit in a committee as well, so that we can get that out of the way.
There are problems in agriculture, but we should start doing something about them. I have a particular problem in my area that concerns me very much. I refer to the matter of credit, and I have heard the minister say a great deal about credit. I am not speaking about the farmer who can get credit from a bank, but about the farmer who cannot get credit anywhere. I am speaking of the farmer who has to increase his unit in order to make an economic unit that will produce enough agricultural products to provide his family with a living, and him with enough money to repay his loan. This seems to me to be the field in which the federal government must act in extending farm credit. It is in this field that they have failed. I could say they have failed for many reasons, and one of them might be the patronage that has been involved in the legal work connected with the extension of farm credit.
I do not believe this is true. On the other hand, I do not believe it is entirely without foundation. The situation is no better with Conservative lawyers than with Liberal lawyers. Both of them have been exceptionally slow in processing applications. In northern Ontario we have snow for about six months of the year and conditions are such that you cannot do the actual evaluation of properties. If the local people hold up an application and the season in which the evaluation can be made goes by, then that evaluation is delayed sometimes a year or 18 months. This has happened many times. Few of the farmers in my area are wealthy. Their farm units are small, about 150 acres. Many of them have a substandard of living on this small income. Some farmers supplement their income by working at odd jobs on the highways or in the bush during the wintertime. They are interested in developing an economic unit that will provide for their families. When they ask the Farm Credit Corporation for a loan of $2,000 or $3,000, the corporation says the loan cannot be extended because the farmer would not have an economic unit.
These farmers are living on these units and raising families. They must consider them to
25, 1964
Eastern Agricultural Assistance be economic units. One of the great drawbacks arises from the fact that the department has been valuing land at about $25 per acre. In northern Ontario clearing the land costs about $50 an acre. If it costs $50 an acre to clear land, then I think it would be poor business if that land did not become worth $50 an acre. Then, of course, one gets into the ARDA program and the question of whether or not this land should have become agricultural land, or whether it should have been developed for something else. Perhaps if the minister were to extend credit for a shorter term on small amounts, the farmers could get started and it would be of great help to the farmers.
I do not make the suggestion that I know the answer to this problem. I may be wrong in wanting to extend small loans to farmers for a shorter period of time to enable them to buy the farm across the road for $3,000 or $5,000. However, I believe the minister is wrong in saying it is not possible to do this. The committee should meet so that we could hear the experts in this field who would be able to tell us what the situation would be if this type of credit were established on a regional basis. I know hundreds of farmers in my area who would be helped by loans of $1,000 or $2,000 if this type of credit were established to permit them to purchase additional land in the locality.
I am sure the same conditions apply in Quebec. There is a similarity between agriculture in northern Ontario and in parts of northwestern Quebec. I feel that farm credit could be extended on a regional basis with better results than are now achieved under the Farm Credit Corporation. If you do not ask for $25,000 when you make an application to the Farm Credit Corporation, they think you are nuts; you are not really in the farming business and you are not working an economic unit.
I can assure you there are many workers in Canada who would like us to permit Household Finance Corporation to make loans of $10,000 to householders. If we did this, we would only compound their problems and they would owe $10,000 instead of $2,000. This would not be a good thing. If some of the farmers in my area were to borrow $25,000, they would be putting their children under a mortgage for a lifetime. I do not believe this would be an advantageous thing. It might not be desirable, and it might not meet the needs of many of my people.
I receive many letters asking me for assistance in connection with farm credit problems. These people get a heck of a lot more assistance from the junior farm loan board in Ontario than they do from the

Eastern Agricultural Assistance Farm Credit Corporation. I feel that is a disgrace because the federal government is in a position to extend credit to a greater degree than that which is extended by Ontario, where there is an age limit for the applicant.
There are many other problems in agriculture, and there are a few that the minister does not know about. There is one to which I should like to ask him to give consideration and that is the change in the cheese subsidy. He lowered the subsidy by one cent. The cheese producers, in my opinion, have done an excellent job of disposing of their own product. They seem to have been in the same position as the wheat pools, the Canadian wheat board, and yes even the minister, in connection with selling wheat. They have been able to go into the external markets and sell their products. It is gratifying to find that Canadian Cheddar cheese is at a premium of 8 cents or 10 cents per pound on the English market. I think it is gratifying to the Canadian producers, and it must be gratifying also to those who are interested in agriculture products to find that last year cheese exports to Great Britain amounted to between four million and five million pounds. This has been accomplished by the farmer in co-operation with the federal government, which has granted a subsidy of four cents. I understand the minister has dropped the subsidy by one cent.
We may be confused, and certainly the minister may be, by the problem of getting rid of surplus agricultural products. He may have been confused by the fact that we are getting rid of the butter oil surplus. I say, however, that we are not getting rid of it; we have thrown it away. It is very simple to figure out the amount of storage we pay each year. At the end of a few years storage costs amount to 15 cents, and after that, when you ship it some place and sell it for 27 cents there is no money for the federal government in such a process. I do not say that we should not give it away, but let us not get confused about it and think that we have done a good job. There comes a time when I have to liquidate my car because it is not economical for me to keep it any longer. It may be the same with our butter oil. It may be that we should not hold on to it any longer, but let us not tell everybody that we made 27 cents out of it, because we did not make anything out of it.
We can upset the balance in the dairy industry very easily by playing with one particular commodity. Over the years there was a good export market for Canadian Cheddar cheese, but we are all aware of the fact that we loused that market up in Great Britain and that it took a great deal of effort to get

it back. The Ontario cheese producers have spent a lot of their own money in Great Britain promoting the sale of Cheddar cheese, and the Ontario cheese marketing board has done an excellent job, with the co-operation of the government through the subsidy it paid. I would like the minister to stand up and justify the stopping of that one cent subsidy. That subsidy would not cost the Canadian people millions of dollars, but it does cost them $50 million to subsidize butter.
The minister has some fairly good advisers and I would like to compliment one of them, Mr. Phillips, who seems to know a great deal about the Department of Agriculture. In fact, I may say he is alone in knowing anything about it, because quite a few people in it have not been able to give information to members of the public v/ho went to the department seeking information. I believe this official could do very well if he were promoted to a top public relations job, mainly because he is willing to find out some of the problems that exist in the department, and the solutions for them.
In my opinion the minister will have to justify the dropping of this one cent subsidy. Is it not a matter of pride to him that we can export raw milk cheese to Great Britain? Is it his desire to have a price competition take place between New Zealand and Canada, so that either the importers in England will not hold our cheese long enough to give it the seasoning it needs, or the sale to them will take place on the basis of different prices over the contract year?
One of the reasons that we have been able to sell our cheese so successfully is that we have had a contract price that applied over the year, not taking into consideration the delivery date. A subsidy of four cents has brought about this situation, and I think the minister should continue that subsidy.
My father has spent a lifetime in the dairy industry in eastern Canada and he informs me that the most complex problem existing today is that we have not been able to pool milk in Ontario, and there has been a fight taking place between the concentrated milk industry, the whole milk industry and the processed milk industry. They must have an integrated relationship between their costs of production, and unless the whole industry is organized under one marketing agency this situation will continue. The minister should know this. Surely he did not drop that one cent subsidy so that he could save the money on the whole stabilization program? If he did, then I say it is a very expensive economy and one that we should not be making.

I have not made any suggestions because I do not really think that agriculture is a subject for a vote of confidence in the government. This government has not changed anything except to drop the one cent subsidy I have been speaking about. We can drift along for the next few years without improving the situation, so long as great changes are not made, and the question of confidence rests on whether or not the government is capable of giving leadership in agriculture.
The farmer has scratched along for many years and will probably be able to carry on for a few more years. The question is whether the government is able to give the necessary leadership. To date it has not, and I believe I am fair in saying that.
The Conservatives have been able to travel on ARDA for a long time. That is a very good piece of legislation, and it may be that the government is right in separating ARDA from the Department of Agriculture. ARDA is a long range program, but in my opinion it will never solve all the agricultural problems of the farmer. It is a program designed to put agricultural land back into more profitable production than hitherto existed under marginal farming in eastern Canada. It is a long range program, and the only question is what the government is going to do about it today.
The idea of ARDA was very good. I supported it and thought it an excellent long range program, but in my area it has become a political weapon. If you vote Conservative you are apt to get your cattle placed on the community pasture, but if you don't you won't. The reason is because Ontario runs the ARDA program, not the federal government. As with many things, the federal government has given it up to the province. The federal government does not believe in strong centralized government and in a strong centralized ARDA program; it believes in decentralization.


An hon. Member:: Tell it to the Tory cows.


William Arnold Peters: It has become a Tory cow in my area. As a matter of fact, I recall the story of a well known merchant in my area who brought in seed potatoes and offered them to the farmers to grow for him, but it did not turn out that way because the fertilizer costs were as much as his share of the crop. Those people now want to buy cows to put them on the community pasture, and this sort of thing is taking place all the time.
I do not really think the amendment is a question of confidence in the government. I have heard the story that the minister is a slow starter. In fact I think he repeated it 20220-226i
Eastern Agricultural Assistance himself. He is a well known international auctioneer, and in this context may I say I am always amused when a drunk stands up at an auction and tries to give the auctioneer a hard time. This also sometimes happens at political meetings, but I have never known an auctioneer to be troubled by that type of person. If the minister is a slow starter I hope he will be able to come back with the answers and provide the repartee that is necessary. The question of confidence rests on whether the government is going to take early action. The minister himself has mentioned the four things with which the amendment is concerned. He has said these are the problems that face our farmers and he has personal knowledge of them. I have personal knowledge of them, too, as has every person in this house who was raised on a farm. These problems, as we all know, are farm machinery, stabilization of income, feed grains, a pasture policy, and water conservation. We each have some knowledge of these matters. The vote of confidence will be called on whether or not in the very near future the minister is prepared to bring legislation before parliament that will solve, for the farmers of Canada, some of these very important agricultural problems.


Marcel Lessard: Mr. Speaker, we have again today an opportunity to discuss agriculture. This reminds me that on several occasions farmers in my riding pointed out that there were many references to agriculture made in this house, but that there were very few results.
I think that we have again an opportunity to deal with agriculture in our country more especially, since such is the subject matter of the non-confidence motion: the problem of agriculture in eastern Canada, that is in Ontario, in the province of Quebec and the maritime provinces.
I feel that we should admit, as stated by the former minister of agriculture, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton), that agriculture is a basic problem in Canada, since we have always been concerned with agriculture and its related problems. I feel that this is a basic problem. It must be recognized just the same that agriculture is also a basic industry and that we depend on it to a large extent.
This brings me to the main point of the discussion, namely that, in our country, agriculture seems to be the only industry in which the producer is not sure of making a profit on his product.
In general, an uneconomic industry does not survive. It disappears immediately. But this is impossible for agriculture.

Eastern Agricultural Assistance
How is it that, in Canada, an industry as widespread and long standing as agriculture, and established throughout the country, is uneconomic for those concerned, for the farmers themselves?
Why is it that the industry in general can set for its product a price including a profit, whereas the farmer, the man who produces and feeds the country, cannot set the price of its product, including in it the profit he is entitled to just like any other producer?
That of course raises a point which is related to farm organization as well as to numerous farm associations throughout the country, which makes it very difficult to unite them. Consequently, it is difficult also to get all the farmers to accept an agricultural policy that would enable them to control the sale of their own products in order to benefit from it themselves, and not leave the profit to middlemen who are not producers but just professionals in haggling and trade who benefit from the farm industry at the expense of the producer and the consumer.
I know that in the province of Quebec in particular the problem of agriculture is truly acute because the value of farms has been decreasing for a number of years. That situation is due to several factors, the main one being the steady increase in production costs.
Farmers had to face a period of automation, a rise in the prices of by-products and a rise in taxes. They had to face all kinds of increases. They had to adjust by themselves to a general increase in the standard of living, while at the same time, their income could not keep up with that general increase.
I believe that in view of the fact that farming in Quebec is quite special, because it was based formerly on the family farm, covering a small area, it must be recognized that the farm problem in eastern Canada, and in Quebec in particular, requires very special attention.
In the province of Quebec the farming industry is confined mainly to the butter and cheese production. The Quebec dairy industry is for the farmer the main source of income.
When, once in a while, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) announces with great satisfaction that he has succeeded in amending regulations in the field of agriculture to make savings I wonder who has asked him to reduce the expenditures of his department. I cannot think of a single instance where an hon. member, a group or an association in Canada brought pressure to bear on the federal government for some reduction in the estimates of the Department of Agriculture.
If there is one federal department which is absolutely necessary and which requires more money, it is the Department of Agriculture.

In my opinion, it is absolutely out of proportion to spend something like $180 million on agriculture at present, whereas defence expenditures total the fantastic amount of $1,500 million.
I can certainly assure the minister that he will never have to face reprisals in the house for having authorized his department to draw larger amounts from the national treasury if these funds are used to help our farmers. I can also assure him that he will always obtain the support of all the members of this house.
Recently, he announced certain amendments to the regulations concerning cheese and butter. This leads me to raise a point which is particularly interesting for the dairy producers of Quebec, that is the quotas which apply to them. The fluid milk producer who delivers his product as such for consumption is submitted to delivery quotas. These delivery quotas do not cover his entire production and surpluses must be used for cheese production. In that case, he is not entitled to any assistance or grant because he is allowed a quota for fluid milk. In my opinion, it would be advisable to amend these regulations and to see that farmers who are selling fluid milk up to 400 or 500 pounds are granted the same rights and subsidies for milk delivered for cheese production, because at the present time, they do not receive any assistance from the government for their 300 or 400 pounds of surplus. This is completely discriminatory and unfair, since we are not helping the farmers.
The minister reduced the assistance with one hand and he increased it with the other to induce the cheese makers to produce a better quality cheese. If it is the minister's intention, through such a policy, to encourage the production of a better quality cheese, I am all for it, and I am convinced besides that all the producers and farmers in the dairy industry and in the cheese industry in particular, agree that this objective be followed so that we get a quality production which will be easier to market. In addition, even while trying to help the farmer to do better, I think that the minister has no right to deprive him from an extra income by reducing the assistance which he offers him in another field. If he wants to encourage him to do better, let him offer him more. To reduce the assistance with one hand while increasing it with the other, does not show much discernment.
I hope that the minister will strive to adapt his policy in that respect, because I think that in the months or even the days ahead, he will have to face the general outcry of the farmers' associations from the province of

Quebec who will come here in order to make their point with regard to that new policy. I became convinced of it after reading the resolutions which appeared in the newspapers in my own area-and which were carried by the farmers' associations-dealing with the effects of that new government's decision.
We want to increase farm production, we want to make farming more stable economically; but then we have to provide markets to our farmers. We want our farms to expand and to become mechanized so as to produce more. Why? We know that according to statistics, there are surpluses already.
Mr. Speaker, it is useless to urge our farmers to increase their production if we are unable at the same time to ensure markets for their products so that they might sell them at a fair price. I feel that the Minister of Agriculture, in co-operation with the minister of trade (Mr. Sharp), should strive to find markets for farmers.
I should like to suggest to the minister that he read the reports given to the papers recently by his predecessor, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle, following his trip to China where he apparently found tremendous markets for Canadian farmers.
Everybody here knew that those markets existed. We all knew that those markets existed in mainland China and that over 600 million Chinese are starving, a great number of whom are doing without the bare minimum. It is obvious that there is a market in China for the Canadian farm production.
Incidentally, I should like, at this stage, to point out to the minister that there is room for more consumers here in Canada, as there are surely Canadians who are still not getting the three meals a day to which they have a right. I suggest that the Minister of Agriculture and his colleagues should take a sympathetic interest in our farmers, especially those who are at present suffering the greatest hardships.
You are aware of the fact that the Saguenay region, where I come from, as well as the province of Quebec, is going through hard times. It has long been said that the Saguenay region was blueberry country. Well, Mr. Speaker, I regret to say that this has not been true for a number of years.
It has been the fame of the area for a long time but it is now a thing of the past, since that industry moved into the maritimes. We even have some colleagues who are amongst the most important producers. It seems that this industry is very prosperous in the maritimes. Besides, the Saguenay has everything to revive it, if markets can be secured. There certainly is a great potential for the production of blueberries, and that
Eastern Agricultural Assistance potential still exists, but unfortunately, the markets have completely disappeared because the Canadian government has shown no interest whatsoever in that production and has never tried to secure markets. Some swindlers got busy securing control on the American markets so as to force producers, let alone pickers, as they are called in the industry, to accept absurdly low prices for their work. So it is that today, the Saguenay people are in no way interested in picking blueberries, because they know that they cannot secure a reasonable price.
I know that the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier), who represents the area, supports my remarks, because in both our counties, ARDA, which is worth-while legislation, has made every effort to revive the production of blueberries and promote their sale.
Moreover, again last week, people desirous to work in the blueberry fields were telling me: All this is very well, but where are we going to sell our production, since we have no assurance that it will be better and that we will be able to obtain a reasonable price. That is the question.
What is the purpose of producing if there are no consumers, no one who can purchase the goods at a reasonable price? That is the point and it is only when we are assured of a reasonable market price that we will be able to solve the problem of production because as such production does not constitute a problem. Advise producers to produce and forget the rest. There can be no doubt about that considering the present competition between farmers.
If the Minister of Agriculture wants millions of pounds of cheese and millions of bags of potatoes, he is going to get them. He asked western farmers to produce wheat. He told them: "Produce wheat and we shall sell it." Now that they have done so he does not dare sing the same tune. Why? Obviously because western farmers did produce a little too much and, at one time, the federal government was stuck with a surplus.
Now, if the Minister of Agriculture were to ask Quebec farmers to produce butter, cheese or any other commodity, he would be sure of getting enough to flood the world markets because the soil is good and our farmers are willing to work. In fact, they are willing to work providing they get reasonable compensation for their efforts, just like industrial workers in general and any other kind of workers.
Mr. Speaker, even though dairy production is very important in the Saguenay area, for some time now our farmers have turned to other fields of endeavour because they were asked to cut down dairy production.

Eastern Agricultural Assistance
Many launched out into the poultry industry others into the broiler industry and others still took up pig breeding. But all of them are facing exactly the same problem, the same difficulty, that is the price of the product ready for market.
On the other hand, the problem is closely related to the price of feed grains.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to point out that in the Saguenay region we are, of course, somewhat far from other big feed grain centres, but I believe we are still entitled to some consideration. For the two years we have been in this house, under both the previous and present administration, we have advocated a feed grain policy which would permit eastern farmers, those of Quebec province and especially those of the Saguenay region, to compete on the larger markets to sell their finished products.
However, this policy seems to be very complex, as, after two years' study, we recently learned from the very mouth of the Minister of Agriculture that it would only be announced next fall.
Yet, for many years the farmers have approached the federal authorities and submitted many a brief suggesting solutions for the various farm problems in eastern Canada. In fact, I am certain that the departmental files are full of briefs submitted to the minister and to his predecessor. There certainly would be some solutions for those problems in those briefs. Moreover, those briefs were submitted by people in the agricultural field, and I think that the minister should not ask the opinion of Tom, Dick and Harry but rather that of those people who-from a technical point of view, I would say-are in the best position to solve their own problems by submitting appropriate suggestions and recommendations.
They want legislation that will solve those problems and it is such legislation they want us to pass in this house; it seems that it is the very legislation which the present government, as well as the former one, wants to delay, for reasons they do not want to tell us and for which they are unwilling to give favourable consideration to the claims of the eastern farm organizations.
Their main claim at this time concerns the establishment of a feed grain agency for the east. This claim seems to me hardly excessive. Indeed, the western farmers asked for a grain board and obtained it. Since then, their problems seem to have been partially settled and their economic situation has much improved. I am not trying to say they are millionaires but their financial position has definitely improved.
The eastern farmers want a feed grain agency in order to avoid being exploited-
[Mr. Lessard (Lake St. John) .1
and I mean exploited-by the middle men, those shrewd businessmen, the professional farmers of St. James street who have never seen a cow in their whole life, who have never even set foot in a field and who, in their big well-designed offices, set the prices of goods going from the producer to the consumer.
They are the people we should expose. They have often and again been denounced, but nothing has been done up to now to correct this situation. Why? Because those millionaires, of course, manage to be heard when they lobby the government with lawyers at their side. They are stronger than the farmers.


An hon. Member:: That is right.


Marcel Lessard: Mr. Speaker, those people have a very strong voice. As a matter of fact, it was even reported in certain newspapers that there was a lobby in Ottawa, that the members of parliament were the last to be consulted in this matter and that, whenever those people came to see us, it was because all other means had failed.
Mr. Speaker, lobbying has been practised ever since parliament began, and those who practice it are unquestionably stronger than the small farmers from the back concessions. Moreover, we found out last year what millionaires and brokers could do and how influential they were. As a matter of fact, one of them succeeded after a very short visit in having an act amended. Yet no matter how many visits our farmers make they do not succeed in bringing about much change.
We saw the result of lobbying last year; we still see it today. It is regrettable that our governments cannot, once and for all, decide to treat all Canadians on an equal footing. They yield, they give way to pressures if they are strong enough; but when they are not, then they protect their own friends.
Last year, the Saguenay district farmers had to borrow over $2 million from the Farm Credit Corporation, the money being used to mechanize their farms following the government's advice to expand their farms in order to make them more profitable and increase production. But later the government told them to cut down dairy production because there were surpluses. We must admit that it is somewhat illogical as far as policy is concerned.
Mr. Speaker, the farmer who works from 12 to 18 hours a day, receives very little for his labour, if we consider the salary paid the industrial worker who has little skill compared to the farmer.
The farmer has to be a jack-of-all-trades. He must be something of a lawyer, to protect himself adequately. He must be a specialist

in all fields, and yet he does not get much in return for all those skills and knowledge. Our lives depend on him; he puts on our table the food we eat. And what consideration have we got for him? I wonder. If the farmer should decide tomorrow to stop producing, I think we would all be in a fine fix.
At any rate the problem has reached the point where, at a meeting in the Saguenay area, the farmers unanimously passed a resolution in which they threatened not to pay their taxes. Things have come to that.
Out of 168 farmers present at a meeting, 168 decided they would no longer pay their municipal and school taxes. We have reached that point, and the situation is serious.
The farmer has to pay a great deal more in taxes than the ordinary citizen. It should not be so, since his production brings him less income. But such is the situation that he has to bear the brunt of our whole system and foot the bill for all the blunders that can be made.
The Department of Agriculture is in the process of being subdivided. Some jurisdiction has been given to the Minister of Forestry (Mr. Sauve), in whom I have confidence, because he is from Quebec. Not that I want to hold against the present Minister of Agriculture the fact that he is not from eastern Canada, but being an easterner himself, the Minister of Forestry is in a better position to understand the situation.
Now, that leads me to wonder, since we have had western ministers of agriculture who were interested in grains and who worked out the grain problem, and since the present Minister of Agriculture, who is interested in livestock, seems to be working out the livestock problems, whether we will soon have a minister of agriculture directly and personally involved in the dairy industry, because then he would probably know what he is talking about and might co-operate in order to settle the problems in that field.
Since we had men experienced in other areas, I hope that before long, we will have a minister with some experience in the dairy industry.
The present Liberal government has been in power for 13 months. Of course, if we look at its record in farming, we do not find, unfortunately, a long list of achievements. I wish I could find one because destructive criticism is not interesting. I should like to make constructive and objective criticism in the light of achievement in agriculture. Unfortunately, in 13 months, even if we recognize that they had other fish to fry, that one was not done. It may be that the Liberal party had no special training in farming matters; they were undoubtedly better qualified in industry
Eastern Agricultural Assistance and public relations, but I believe and I hope that with the advent of a new minister in that field, in whom I have confidence because I think he has imagination, something will be undertaken. Will he succeed? I do not know, but I think he will undertake something and 1 have confidence because he is a man of decision.
I hope he will get his information from the proper place and that after obtaining it he will take action so that our eastern farmers can be equal partners in Canada with equal opportunities in their profession.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I should like to point out that at the present time, ARDA is the only legislation to which attention is being paid, the only legislation that seems to be accepted as a solution. It is the only one that is applied in eastern Canada at this time and incidentally, I wish to commend the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton) who was minister of agriculture when that legislation was passed. The Liberal government are enforcing it with even more energy and I wish to congratulate them, because they are trying to improve it. I think that that legislation should not be the only one to deal with the problem. There are other measures which have to be passed if we want eastern farmers to be assured of a fair return for their daily work, as in the case of other sectors of the Canadian industry.


Mr. C. A. Gauthier (Roberval):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to take the floor again on the matter of agriculture; I have already discussed the subject several times in the house and I do not know whether my remarks will have the same effect, because when one speaks of agriculture-especially along the lines of this amendment concerning agriculture in the east-one gets the impression that he is talking to a brick wall.
When one knows all the needs of the province of Quebec, I can assure you that when one speaks in the house or has correspondence with some departments, one gets the impression that for some people, eastern agriculture is not much indeed in the Canadian economy.
I listened to the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton) while he was dealing with agriculture and I pictured him with the new Canadian flag in his hand, because he first spoke of our national flag. I congratulate him because he admitted most sincerely in this house that he was in favour of a distinctive flag. I congratulate also all those who support this project, of the English as well as the French element. I somewhat blame those who look too far behind and completely forget to look ahead. I feel

Eastern Agricultural Assistance that the flag, whatever its design, for I know it will be selected by competent men, and that is why we voted for a distinctive flag, will be the beginning of the new confederation in the union of both elements of this nation.
We always had and always will have reactionaries, but the French element is the one which always moderated its pretentions and sacrificed its own personality to try and make a success of the great Canadian cause.
We wish that the English refractory element, which is still against this project, would think a little more of the nation. It wants it to be great, but in its own way. As for us, we want the nation to be as it ought to be: great, unique, and it must have a distinctive emblem. I believe that we will have this distinctive emblem in a few days-at least I wholeheartedly wish it-and I hope that the discussion on this matter will not last forever and kill such a fine project.
Mr. Speaker, I do not think that the hon. member for Qu'Appelle wanted to suggest that this question was a smokescreen behind which the government endeavoured to hide its shortcomings. In my opinion, each party had its failures, its strong points and weak points, when it was in office. It is a matter of getting rid of the bad, salvaging the little good there is and trying to do better.
In my opinion, that is a rather strong attack against an initiative towards unity which should gain the confidence of all members of the house.
We point out readily the good there was: when they were in office, the Conservatives did a lot for agriculture, especially the bill to set up a department of agriculture for eastern Canada, and ARDA. We are grateful to them and we appreciate their work. But, after passing such legislation they announced that the 25 cents premium per hundredweight of milk was to be abolished. We, from Quebec, had to swallow that much more. That measure was not good for Quebec, the farmers protested and sent telegram after telegram; they changed nothing and we had to accept that.
Now, the Liberals are in power and they also have their good and bad points. They started by killing the bill to set up an eastern department of agriculture which is essential to Quebec, and I think that the province of Quebec will never get over that.
Now, they gave us a semblance of a department of forestry. They probably compare agriculture in Quebec to a wide forest, since they transferred this minister into forestry; let us hope he may produce something for Quebec.
I am one of those who firmly believes that a single thing will save Quebec: the enact-

ment by this parliament of a piece of legislation to give Quebec a department which will directly control agriculture in that province. I discussed the matter on several occasions and I mentioned it a few moments ago; those who are acquainted with Quebec know very well that today a minister coming from the west, a minister who thinks and dreams only about wheat, cannot understand the province of Quebec. It is impossible. Let us not expect the impossible. For him it is impossible to try to understand the province of Quebec and its family farming. They say that Quebec should be modernized and its lands should be expanded.
There is one thing I do not understand: it is that 100 or 150 years ago, most of our farmers came to settle on these lands because they were rich lands, real agricultural lands. At that time the west was never mentioned. All those farmers came to establish themselves especially in the Lake St. John and the Quebec areas, saying they were settling down in the granary of agriculture.
Today, all of a sudden, that granary is being converted into a desert, according to the idea or the semblance of idea which the ministers have conceived about it in the course of the last 50 years. I wonder why those ministers have not come to see what was going on in the province of Quebec in that respect.
Besides, I notice something else. If, here in this house, the impression prevails that the Quebec lands are poor, it is perhaps due to the fact that for 50 years, there was no minister of agriculture who would go and investigate for himself the farming situation in the province of Quebec. For 50 years, parliament took pleasure in choosing ministers from the west. I bear no grudge against my colleagues. They did right, they had a majority.
But today, if everybody, if all members of the house seem willing to solve this problem-we feel they truly want to rehabilitate the province of Quebec-then let us do something, let us create an efficient weapon designed to help solve the farming problem in Quebec. I feel that the only efficient weapon is to set up for eastern Canada a department that will look after forests and mines and also land and farming.
As a matter of act, what is lacking in our province? First of all, drainage. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent to drain the land in the prairie provinces. I have not yet seen a single cent allocated for that purpose in the province of Quebec, and yet the citizens of Quebec know how much their province, especially the land in the Lake St. John and Saguenay areas, is in need of drainage.

We might get a few thousand dollars for drainage in 1965, according to a statement made by Quebec's minister of agriculture. I wrote to him recently, and about two weeks ago I received the particulars of a drainage project. Though ARDA has been in force for some time, we shall only start drainage projects in 1965, whereas the western provinces have already received more than $300 million to that end. Is that fair?
It might perhaps be said that the province of Quebec is lagging behind. Now Quebec is not hanging back in any way. But Quebec lacked, here in this federal parliament, the proper spokesmen to interpret and study conditions there. That is the only reason.
If we had had some responsible men in the Department of Agriculture, who had been familiar with conditions in the province of Quebec, I assure you that, they would, before now, have implemented projects satisfactory to the farmers, which at the same time would have very rapidly improved the yield of their land in a proportion of 30 to 40 per cent.
Today, we have the ARDA legislation my fellow member from Lake St. John (Mr. Les-sard), mentioned a short while ago. This legislation applies in the Lake St. John district in only two fields at this time: reforestation and blueberry growing. Broken and fully reclaimed land is taken and re-seeded to produce trees. After having laboured hard to reclaim this land from the forest it is now given back to what is now called tree farming.
As to the second project: blueberry crops. Everybody knows the Lake St. John blueberries. According to outsiders-of course when we live in this berry paradise we are unable to realize it-they are a real manna from heaven. I am saying that about 15 years ago it was a gold mine, because within a month and a half or two months, the people of Roberval riding could make $2, $3 and even $4 million.
The most interesting part of it was that such amounts were not taxable. I think that income tax inspectors were too lazy to visit the blueberries producers, and consequently that was clear profit.
On each dollar of revenue, one has today to pay 40 cents income tax, but just think that $1 is worth $1.40 for the blueberry picker, as blueberries are not taxable.
That is why I say that this industry is a real gold mine, because it is safe from any government income tax collector. Moreover, blueberries are probably picked at a certain hour of the day when tax inspectors are still in bed, and they do not have time to go to the blueberry patch.
Eastern Agricultural Assistance
At any rate, the blueberry program that we have today will surely do some good. But, as my colleague from Lake St. John pointed out earlier, the problem is to find a market. You may pick berries in 10, 12 or 15 fields of my constituency, if you cannot sell them, as I expect, the whole thing will be useless.
I discussed that problem with the minister of agriculture of Quebec and the answer he gave me was that the market would come later. But if the market comes two years after the first crop, because the first crop will be harvested this summer, I see no organization set up for the harvesting of blueberries because today, even if we had no blueberry field, Lake St. John is a region where blueberries grow wild.
If we had the market we had ten years ago; but alas, it was taken over. Taken over by whom? By the big financial interests, as they take over all the markets at all levels of our economy.
Ten or 15 years ago, we sold blueberries around $6.30 per 30 pounds, while last year, we had to sell 30 pounds of blueberries for the ridiculous price of $1.75.
And whose work is that? The work of those who have never picked a blueberry, who are resting comfortably in their easy-chairs in the big cities and who have succeeded in removing all competition. Ten or 15 years ago, we had 15, 20 or 25 buyers, whereas today there is only one who sets his own price. That reminds me of those Negroes the Americans were paying two or three cents a day to carry elephant tusks on their backs.
Blueberry pickers are paid ridiculous prices, with the result that 15 per cent of those who are able to go and pick blueberries no longer wish to do so. This is simply ridiculous.
I heard earlier the hon. member for Lake St. John (Mr. Lessard) say that at one time it had been a blueberry paradise. Who caused that paradise to disappear? It is the financiers who took control of the market and paid starvation wages.
Last summer, because I was under the impression that the price of blueberries had fallen on the international market, I asked someone in the blueberry business in Montreal whether the price of blueberries was higher or lower than it was ten years ago. He told me: "The price is exactly double what it was ten years ago." Blueberries are selling at twice the price they were selling ten years ago, whereas today our blueberry pickers are paid ridiculous wages for a day's work that starts at seven o'clock in the morning and ends at ten or eleven o'clock, and even at midnight.
However, many policies, such as that advocated by ARDA, can be put into practice;
3558	HOUSE OF
Eastern Agricultural Assistance if there is no marketing policies, we will experience the same consequences and our plight will be the same as in other fields.
I remember that some 20 or 25 years ago, we used to say that we were in a position to turn out large quantities of farm products and we can still say so; the only trouble is the lack of outlets. And the government who is supposed to play the part of co-ordinator should assist farmers in marketing their products.
It is a known fact that the government is in a position to do as it pleases. When the Minister of Trade and Commerce gave his attention to the finding of markets for the western wheat, he succeeded, so I ask him today to try just as hard and not only half as hard as he did to dispose of the western wheat, with regard to the eastern products because we grow there a greater variety of products than in the west. It is the responsibility of the Minister of Agriculture, with the assistance of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, to find markets for our dairy products, such as butter, cheese, potatoes, vegetables, apples, maple syrup and so on. -Let them together find markets and our producers will not be reluctant to produce.
Once again, if depression as indicated by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle, seems definitely settled in Quebec, the fault is not with the producers, but with the governments who did not support the producers' efforts to ensure reasonable cost prices and adequate markets for them. That is the reason, Mr. Speaker.
Let us cease to harass the farmer and to weigh him down with all the capital sins. Let us take our responsibilities. Let the Minister of Agriculture take his responsibilities, since he has been appointed by the government to look after agriculture throughout Canada.
Agriculture is not limited to the western provinces, it also covers eastern Canada and requests of eastern farmers must be granted.


An hon. Member:: We are not deaf.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: An hon. member says that he is not deaf, but I must say that one has the impression of speaking to a group of deaf people when one is speaking here. That is why, very often, we must speak loudly. Even at that, it will not be sufficient, since I am sure nothing concrete will result from my speech. At least, the house will be aware of our needs and I will have done my duty.
Let us stop saying that farmland is poor and no longer productive in Quebec. Our farms are just as good as they were 30 years


ago. Financial interests have taken them over and have robbed our farmers of the fruits of their labour.
Farm equipment was selling for four times more than what it was worth. Just like the farmers in other parts of the country, the Quebec farmer had to modernize his farm, but had to put up with those unreasonable demands, because the banks would not make loans to farmers on easier terms at a reasonable rate of interest. Furthermore, the banks even ceased completely granting credit to our farmers who, therefore, had to go to finance companies and borrow at a rate of 17, 18 and even 30 per cent interest, which the government was tolerating. That is what ruined the farmers and, Mr. Speaker, I know what I am talking about because I lived through it.
And if we needed a machine that was worth $100, we began by paying $400; with the interest, it cost us $600. That is the work of finance in agriculture in the province of Quebec.
On the other hand, I know that western farmers may have certain difficulties about prices, but they are less serious, because all members of the cabinet and the minister are working for them, including the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Sharp) who is trying to sell their commodities and get reasonable prices for them.
Mr. Speaker, may I call it six o'clock? [Text]



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is my duty, pursuant to provisional standing order 39A, to inform the house that the questions to be raised at ten o'clock this day are as follows:
(1)	the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomp-tion-Montcalm:

Alleged discrimination in the military college at Kingston.

(2)	the hon. member for Danforth: loss of revenue from newspapers and periodicals;
(3)	the hon. member for Saint John-Albert: transfer of manufacturing firm to Montreal.
It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Gordon for committee of supply, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Hamilton.

Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, as I was saying when we adjourned at six o'clock, the present agricultural stagnation in the province of Quebec results from lack of markets and a lack of initiative on the part of the government in order to support the efforts of our producers, who are ready to produce 25 per cent more provided their products sell at profitable prices.
I concluded by denouncing the invasion of our Quebec farms by financiers. In fact, the farmers could not borrow from the banks at reasonable rates, the amounts necessary to purchase modern equipment, and they had to sacrifice everything to financial interests so as to survive modernism. Rates as high as 20, 24 and even 30 per cent were being claimed; during that time our governments were asleep. If, by any chance, somebody woke up, it was to tell our farmers to stop buying farming equipment.
Today we have farm credit. Thanks to this farm credit, our farmers may perhaps produce more, but nevertheless profitable markets are necessary. I hope the government will understand in time-


An hon. Member:: We have also Social Credit.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Somebody on the other side says that, in addition to farm credit, we also have Social Credit. I hope that one day farm credit will fall under the control of Social Credit, and then we shall see our farmers prosperous.
At present, farm credit helps only a very small number of farmers, because with politics and patronage here like everywhere else, I may say that the future of agriculture soon takes second place, and the old greedy man quickly comes to the surface.
It is also through government action in co-operation with farmers, and not through socialization, but by supporting the individual efforts of each and everyone, thanks to private enterprise, that Quebec will be able to survive from the economic standpoint.
For instance, let our co-operatives deal directly with western producers. Let our eastern farmers pay for feed grain the same price this government sells it to red China. In brief, let us do without the financiers and help, by a protective action, eastern farmers to deal with those of the west. Let us have a price policy for eastern products. Besides, that is precisely what gave the west its high agricultural level. Indeed, the government helped western farmers by guaranteeing them
Eastern Agricultural Assistance such really economic prices which make impossible financier competition such as we have in Quebec.
When our farmers succeed in producing something, there is a rush of financiers to our farmers every fall. At this time, we have no organization which could act in cooperation with the government in order to ensure really economic prices for our farmers.
Let us set up this policy in Quebec. Let us protect farm prices and establish markets for the merchandising of their crops.
As I said, we always take example on western Canada because, especially during the last 30 years, the government has spent huge sums of money to help western producers and I say that it was a good thing. But what we did wrong was to forget the province of Quebec completely. We are not asking today to multiply the joint programs which, although they were very well received in the western provinces, are nevertheless completely contrary to the ideal of the Quebec farmer.
Special legislation should be introduced for the province of Quebec, since special legislation was enacted to help the western provinces; give Quebec an even break and help the Quebec farmer with legislation to his stature.
That is what we are asking. We are not asking for more than the other provinces have received. We are simply asking to be treated as they were. Legislation favourable to the province of Quebec should be introduced, legislation from which our farmers will benefit, just like western provinces have benefited from legislation made for them. We are asking for action based on the views and the co-operation of all our local and provincial farm organizations.
I hope that this time we are not talking to deaf ears, as in past years, and that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) will decide some day, which is yet to come, to glance towards the province of Quebec and show, at least in this parliament, that he is really the Minister of Agriculture for the whole of Canada.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. John Mullally (Kings):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to participate in a discussion of the problems of eastern agriculture. We found very interesting the remarks made this afternoon by the former minister of agriculture, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton). It did seem a little hypocritical to those of us who sit on this side of

Eastern Agricultural Assistance the house when the hon. member attached so much criticism and blame to the government and to the minister for failing to cure the ills of eastern agriculture in one year when his government was unable to do anything about it in a period of six years. I am not minimizing the problems of agriculture in eastern Canada. They are many and their roots are quite deep, as are any solutions which may be offered to solve those problems.
From listening to the hon. member this afternoon it was difficult to tell whether he was going to move a motion of criticism of this government or of the dominion bureau of statistics. On some occasions he was telling us that the farmers should pay attention to certain sets of figures which have been provided, and in the next breath he was telling us we should disregard the figures which have been provided. If the hon. member for Qu'Appelle represented an eastern agricultural riding as I do he would not need statistics to indicate to this house or to anybody else that there are serious problems facing the farmers in eastern Canada.


Mr. Loney:: Then why don't you do something about them?


John Cooney Mullally: If the hon. member will give us an opportunity we will certainly do something about them.
I have spoken on two occasions, Mr. Speaker, since coming to this house about eastern agriculture and I have not spared the government that criticism which I thought it merited and deserved. But at the same time I think it is most unusual for a former minister of agriculture-and this is the second occasion on which he has done so-to stand up in this house and move a motion of censure against this government for a situation which his government failed to correct in the six years they were in office.
Besides supplying long lists of statistics to back up his argument, which I am not disputing, the former minister took considerable time to tell the members on this side of the house that we should not go into or review the past. I do not intend to go back into the past and talk about the record of the previous government because I think that is well known; the very statistics which the former minister presented both on this occasion and on a former occasion indicate the complete failure of the previous government to give any assistance to the farmers in eastern Canada. The income statistics which he mentioned and which he put on the record on the occasion when the question was debated last fall, on October 14, clearly indicate that this is not a problem which has arisen within the last year. The minister admitted very clearly

that it has existed in eastern Canada for several years, and the statistics he quoted also indicate very clearly that his government failed, and failed miserably, to do anything about it.
I said a moment ago that the former minister cautioned us not to review the past, and I will certainly follow that advice. It is never our intention to be critical of the past, and I think hon. members on this side are to be commended for the decision which they have taken not to go into the past. We do not want to thresh old straw; we want to get on with something more concrete and talk about what this government has done for the eastern farmers and what it plans to do if given the opportunity. I think the members of the opposition have an excellent opportunity to show their good will to and their concern for the farmers of eastern Canada by co-operating with the government and letting us get on with the legislation which is on the order paper, as well as other legislation which the minister wants to bring before the house to benefit the farmers in eastern Canada.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Bring it in then.


John Cooney Mullally: We will certainly bring it in. There is already on the order paper a bill to improve farm credit for farmers everywhere in Canada. There is also other legislation, but there is not much point in cluttering up the order paper with more until we have disposed of what is already on it. I know that members in all parts of the house-I am not being critical of the members of the opposition- are concerned at the plight of the farmers in eastern Canada, and I am sure they will co-operate with the government in getting this legislation enacted so that those farmers can stand to benefit by it.


Mr. Smallwood:: We are waiting for this legislation.


John Cooney Mullally: I said there was no easy solution to the problem, Mr. Speaker. It is over one year since I came to this house, and during this past year I have thought long and deeply about this problem. I am convinced there is no easy solution. It is going to take legislation. It is going to take study, research and education. It is going to take hard work on the part of everybody to find a solution to the problems affecting the farmers in eastern Canada. But I am convinced that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) and the Minister of Forestry (Mr. Sauve), who will soon assume the portfolio of rural development, are doing a very excellent job and are doing their best to assist the farmers of eastern Canada, and indeed of all Canada. It is impossible in one year-


Clifford Silas Smallwood: Would the hon. member permit a question?


John Cooney Mullally: -to solve completely these problems-


Clifford Silas Smallwood: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The hon.
member for Kings (Mr. Mullally) has the floor.


Clifford Silas Smallwood: I was asking him whether he would permit a question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member is entitled to make his speech without interruption.


John Cooney Mullally: Mr. Speaker, I will certainly entertain a question.


Clifford Silas Smallwood: You made the remark that you had brought down so much for agriculture. What have you done for agriculture?


John Cooney Mullally: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question and I will mention two things which we have done. Other speakers from this party will expand and indicate other measures which have been enacted for the benefit of the farmers in eastern Canada. I did not open my remarks, nor do I intend to continue them, in a critical vein and I think my observations so far have been in order. I do not intend to be critical in what I say and I hope I did not convey that impression. I think that what I have said is factual. The statistics which the former minister brought before the house today indicate there is a serious situation which has not been remedied for the past several years.
I was saying, Mr. Speaker, that I am convinced the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Forestry are doing an excellent job. I was at the annual meeting of the federation of agriculture at Charlottetown earlier this year, at which the Minister of Agriculture was guest speaker. The reception he received and the complimentary remarks which I have heard from all parts of my province since that time indicate that the farmers of eastern Canada are convinced that the minister is doing everything he can to improve their situation and to better their lot. More recently the Minister of Forestry, who is now responsible for the ARDA program, visited in my province, as he did in all parts of the Atlantic provinces. He received a very warm welcome. Since that time, the premier of my province has commented very favourably on the new Minister of Forestry (Mr. Sauve) and has expressed his belief that much will be done in pursuance of the ARDA program.
Eastern Agricultural Assistance
I mentioned a few moments ago in reply to a question that I would attempt to deal with two long range actions which the government has taken so far in the interests of eastern farmers. These are the decision to create a new cabinet portfolio of forestry and rural development, and the steps taken with regard to feed grain. Attempts have been made in some quarters to suggest that the action taken in creating a new ministry cf forestry has represented a move to downgrade the federal Department of Agriculture. In fact, it has made the Department of Agriculture more important than ever. The representation of agriculture both in the cabinet and in the government as a whole has been widened by this action. It reflects the fact that our government is not a one-man operation; it does not think any one man, whether he is the Prime Minister or the Minister of Agriculture necessarily has all the answers. It also reflects the harmony which exists in our government-a seasoned harmony of reasonably minded men searching to organize government so as to reach the best possible solutions to the problems affecting agriculture in all of Canada. This government is not afraid to co-operate. It does not suffer from any delusions of omnipotence. Now, instead of a single minister trying to run everything, we have three ministers involved closely in the affairs of agriculture. It is obvious, it seems to me, that this will ensure that all aspects of agriculture are given closer attention than was possible in the past. Furthermore the special cabinet committee on agriculture, which meets frequently, sees to it that all activities in this field are co-ordinated. To suggest that the portfolio of agriculture has been downgraded is altogether misleading. The answer is obvious to all who are interested in assisting the farmers in all parts of this country: The action taken by the government in this respect is one which is bound to work for the benefit of our farmers. The steps taken to ensure much closer co-ordination of farm programs are obviously designed to benefit agriculture both in the east and in the west.
As chairman of the three-minister cabinet committee, the responsibilities of the Minister of Agriculture have actually been widened. In the meantime, the new minister of forestry and rural development has to deal, in particular with two problems which are among the most urgent currently facing eastern farmers. One of these is the cost of feed grain and the other is the question of the efficient use of land. The present government has already taken steps to solve each of these problems and further action is being considered. It is well known that steps were taken last year

Eastern Agricultural Assistance -last August, to be exact-to encourage stability of supply and price in eastern Canada, conditions which had not existed with respect to feed grain in years past. Although the action is well known, perhaps it is not as well understood as it might be. I propose, therefore, to deal with this question briefly.
The livestock and poultry producers in eastern Canada depend heavily on the prairie provinces for feed grains to supplement local supplies, particularly in the winter and spring of each year. Until the present government acted to alleviate the situation, two conditions relative to storage charges discouraged grain dealers from placing adequate stocks in position in the east for winter requirements. The cost of storage itself resulted in purchases being made for delivery as late as possible in the fall in order to avoid a portion of the storage charges in the east. Then, too, the cost of storage and the relationship of the fall and spring prices on the Winnipeg grain exchange discouraged dealers from buying more than the minimum expected requirements.
Probably a word of explanation would be in order at this point. In the fall, feed dealers, including co-operatives, assess their requirements for the winter and place orders with a grain merchant for delivery prior to the close of navigation. They try to assess their requirements until the date when the first grain vessels are expected to arrive in the spring. A grain broker normally buys only to fulfil orders already made. For example, he may buy barley from the wheat board at the lakehead in October for immediate shipment to Montreal. Let us suppose he pays $1.20 a bushel. He plans to replace his stocks in the spring by purchases at the May auction. If the grain broker had received orders from feed dealers in the east amounting to say, 95,000 bushels in the fall, he might decide to take an extra 5,000 bushels just in case he found a customer during the winter after the shipping season had closed. So, he knew his cost, his selling price and his profit on the 95,000 bushels; but on the other 5,000 he had to take his chance in the winter feed grain market. If he had made an error in judgment and found he could not sell those
5,000	bushels during the winter, he would have to leave the grain in an eastern storage elevator at a cost of one cent a bushel per month. This would mean his cost per bushel would rise from the original figure of $1.20 to $1.27 plus interest charges. In due course spring comes, and barley, at the May auction is still $1.20 a bushel or perhaps even a few cents less. The broker has to take a loss on his 5,000 bushel carry-over in order to sell

it in competition with barley bought at the lower spring prices.
This was the situation until the present Minister of Agriculture moved, last fall, in co-operation with the wheat board and through the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Sharp) to correct it. Since the grain dealer, and ultimately, the farmer, had to assume the carrying costs from the moment the grain was bought, there had been a tendency, as I have explained, to delay winter purchases until near the close of navigation. This put pressure on both supplies and prices at that time. This pressure on prices often meant that the prices of oats and barley at the time of shipment in the late fall were higher than they would be the following spring. Add to this the cost of storing any carryover grain until the resumption of navigation, and hon. members will see why no broker wanted to get caught with more grains on his hands during the winter than he could sell. It was obviously safer for him to underestimate the demand than to overestimate it. It is also apparent that when this situation produced a shortage of feed grain in eastern position during the winter, the pressure on prices was always upward. If a feed merchant wanted to take advantage of such a situation, the situation was certainly there, tailor-made for him.
Within four months of the present government taking office two definite steps were taken to relieve the situation. First, the government decided to pay storage costs on western feed grains in licensed eastern elevators, from October 15 to April 15. This, of course, encouraged the purchase of a larger supply of grain for winter storage and reduced the chances of a shortage of feed grains developing in mid-winter or later. Instead of bringing in say 5 per cent more than had already been contracted for sale the broker would bring in from 10 to 15 per cent more. In a moment I will give figures to show that most eastern feed grain dealers did bring in substantially larger amounts last fall than in previous years.
With the government paying the storage from October 15, six weeks before the close of navigation, this also encouraged an earlier movement of grain from the lakehead to positions in eastern Canada. This, of course, relieved some of the pressure on shipping space and this usually means that grain can be shipped at somewhat lower lake rates, which is another saving that can ultimately be passed on to the farmers of eastern Canada.
Besides helping the farmers of eastern Canada this new policy encouraged larger purchases of western feed grain. Brokers

who previously relied on supplies of corn from United States to supplement their winter demands in this case stocked with feed grain from western Canada. With this new program of assistance the amount of western feed grain in eastern positions on November 27 last was 60 per cent higher than in any earlier year, and at the close of navigation it was almost 50 per cent higher. There were about 31 million bushels of feed grain in eastern elevators at the end of navigation last fall compared with 21 million bushels in the same positions the previous year. This build-up of western feed grain in eastern elevators earlier in the year helped to avoid the usually higher seasonal lake rates as well.
Along with the government's decision to pay the storage costs the Canadian wheat board decided to provide for deferred pricing on oats and barley for the first time. It agreed not to set the final price on replacement purchases until the grain to be replaced was leaving the eastern storage elevator. This did a great deal to remove the uncertainty grain brokers had previously had as to the price they would have to pay for grain in the spring compared with the cost of grain in the fall.
As the figures I gave a moment ago indicate, it was apparent last November that this policy had obviously been successful in encouraging an earlier and larger movement of western feed grain to eastern storage elevators. Furthermore, in the months since then feed grain prices have remained more stable than in any previous winter.
This afternoon the hon. member for Qu'Ap-pelle (Mr. Hamilton) indicated that some members of his party would outline the pattern of feed grain prices in eastern Canada this past winter. While there may have been some increase in feed grain prices I think we should remember that generally prices for feed grain were probably higher this year than in previous years. I think the demand for grains generally brought about by the large sales of wheat tended to be reflected in increasing prices for grain generally, including feed grains for eastern Canada.
There are two matters which I feel stand to the credit of the government. They have been of benefit to the farmers of eastern Canada this year and we feel they will be a substantial benefit in the years to come. I mentioned a moment ago that the Minister of Forestry (Mr. Sauve), the minister now responsible for ARDA, had recently visited eastern Canada. In fact he visited all of the provinces of eastern Canada to discuss with officials there the ARDA program as it affects each of these provinces. We are convinced that ARDA holds very excellent prospects for helping the
Eastern Agricultural Assistance farmers of eastern Canada and I think that the government which brought in the legislation is to be complimented for doing so. But, Mr. Speaker, no matter how good a program it is, unless it becomes operational, unless its good features are put into action, the farmers cannot benefit from it. This is why we feel that having a minister who is able to devote his well known talents, which have already been demonstrated, to a program of this kind will make ARDA a really effective program which unfortunately, and I do not say this by way of criticism, we do not feel it has been up to this time.
In the province, of which I have the honour to represent one of the constituencies, we look forward to many accomplishments through ARDA and we feel that the action of the government in placing the talented Minister of Forestry in charge of the program indicates that the government is serious and intends to take those steps which are necessary to make ARDA an effective program, an effective weapon to deal with the difficulties facing the farmers of eastern Canada.
There are many other matters that could be discussed. As I said a moment ago, there is no easy solution to the problems of agriculture either in eastern Canada or in any other part of Canada; but this is particularly true, of course, of eastern Canada. Other speakers from the government party will speak about various phases of the program and various aspects of the problems, of which there are many. At the moment I think of the need for greater expenditure on education and research. I think also of the problem of marketing. I believe this is one of the real problems facing farmers in eastern Canada. With rising costs for everything that the farmer has to buy, rising costs of services and materials, and the almost static prices which the farmer has been receiving for his agricultural products it is not hard to conclude why his income is not what we would like it to be. This is one of the real problems that we all have to face.


An hon. Member:: You were going to solve it.


John Cooney Mullally: We will solve it and we have already taken steps in that direction. I say again that there are many problems. I started to deal with marketing. If the farmer could receive higher prices for many of the things he produces I think many of the problems he is facing at this time would soon disappear. I think particularly of the marketing of potatoes grown in my province. If we could receive throughout the year the price we are now receiving, around $2 for a 75 pound bag, many of the problems of the farmers of that province would be taken care of.

Eastern Agricultural Assistance
How far a government can go in solving these problems is something on which we might all reflect for a few moments. It is all very well to criticize any government for its failure to take action to solve problems affecting any aspect of our economy. But how far should a government go? How far, indeed, can a government go in finding a solution to the very vexing problems that affect agriculture in eastern Canada? I think we can certainly go much farther than any government has done in recent years in this country. I believe it would be well to reflect for a moment on what the governments of other countries do for agriculture. For instance, we might do well to compare our expenditures on agriculture with those of other nations with similar problems. We find that in Great Britain, for example, 7.5 per cent of the the national budget is directed to agricultural assistance. In the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and France the figure is 8.2 per cent while in our country it is only 3 per cent. Compared with what these other countries spend only 3 per cent of our national budget is directed to agricultural assistance. In the same line of thought it might be well to consider the situation in terms of the percentage of the total volume of agricultural production.
In Denmark, for example, an amount equivalent to 10 per cent of the total volume of agriculture production is expended by the government to assist agriculture. In the Netherlands, it is 15.5 per cent. In Great Britain, it is 25 per cent. In the United States, our neighbour to the south, it is 14.7 per cent but in Canada, it is only 8.2 per cent. Although we do spend a great deal on agriculture, in comparison with what is done in other countries it is a relatively small amount.
I have tried, Mr. Speaker, to outline some of the problems which are affecting agriculture in eastern Canada. I have indicated at least two aspects of what this government is trying to do to solve these problems. Again, I must say that this is a matter which demands and commands the attention of hon. members in all parts of the house, and not only hon. members but people everywhere. The agriculture segment of our population, the agriculture sphere of our economy, is most important to the economy generally. I think that while there is a great deal yet to be done, this government has taken active steps to help meet the situation.
As I mentioned previously, the government has indicated by way of resolution on the order paper that it intends to do something by way of assisting in farm credit as soon as parliament can find time to deal with the matter. The minister has indicated that he

would like to do, and is prepared to do something to solve the very difficult problem of the high cost of machinery facing farmers everywhere in the country. These are matters upon which the government is prepared to act. There are many others which I know would receive sympathetic attention as soon as they can be dealt with effectively by this parliament. I mentioned some of them a moment ago. As I have said, I have not hesitated to speak clearly and frankly, both in this house and in discussion with the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) and the other members of the government. I do not believe I have failed to present the very difficult problems that are facing the farmers of eastern Canada, and certainly the farmers in the riding I represent.
As I mentioned previously, if the former minister of agriculture or anybody in this house wishes to travel through eastern Canada, through the maritime provinces in particular, he will not need statistics to indicate very clearly that there is a definite problem that requires the attention of governments, of farm organizations, of private agencies or any body that is able to help the farmers. I am convinced that the present Liberal government is taking very active steps to do what is best for the farmers of eastern Canada. Our program is very clear. We are moving on that program and, with the help and co-operation of members in all parts of this house, I am sure we will move along very quickly and very effectively in solving the problems of agriculture in eastern Canada, to the benefit of the farm population in that part of the country and to the benefit of this country generally.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to give a detailed analysis of the speech made by the previous speaker, but I feel that he has taken the government at task for having botched the policies which we had set forth when we were in power and failed to keep its promises by taking the necessary steps to help farmers. During their first 60 days in power they did nothing. Yet, they had promised to help farmers.
Mr. Speaker, eastern farming is going bankrupt, the resources of our farmers are shrinking, especially under the present Minister of Agriculture. In my opinion, the government was justified in appointing an auctioneer, a man specialized in sales, because he is there to sell off farms in eastern Canada as a result of a policy of inaction followed by the government.

The income of eastern farmers is constantly declining. As an example, I refer you to d.b.s. figures concerning the net income of Quebec farmers.
For 1963, compared with 1962, the income of Quebec farmers has fallen by $5,589,000. Two thirds of Quebec farmers have an income under $1,200. Taxes increase constantly, both in Ottawa and in Quebec. The Quebec sales tax was standardized at 6 per cent, not to mention the 11 per cent tax on building materials which affects particularly eastern farmers, as well as the whole country.
Since the minister assumed office, the operating expenses of farmers have gone up unceasingly, but their income has declined constantly.
The government does not pay any attention at all to the farmers and I may tell you, Mr. Speaker, that in addition to all the problems facing the farmers, the cost of living index reached a new high in April at 135.0, that is 0.3 higher than in March, and
2.0	higher than in April 1963. The farm associations are unhappy with this government. In La Presse of April 28, 1964 I read the following:
The provincial budget does not do anything to assist the farmers.
That statement was made by Mr. Sorel, president of the Catholic farmers' union.
There was an increase in the price of milk in Montreal but it was absolutely unprofitable for the farmers, according to the Catholic farmers' union.
Land taxes increase constantly and the farmers are leaving their farms. What is the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) doing except liquidating the farms in eastern Canada, because of the present government's inaction?
Mr. Speaker, if you refer to the April 3, 1964 issue of Le Devoir, you will read this:
The Catholic farmers' union blames the federal Minister of Agriculture.
The general council of the Catholic farmers' union, at a meeting held at the Institut co-operatif Desjardins, attacked some recent statements made by the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Hays. It requested also that the Bankruptcy Act be amended to protect the farmer against bankruptcy by a processing plant.
The Catholic farmers' union criticized a statement allegedly made recently in Winnipeg by Mr. Hays who would have expressed his formal opposition to the setting up of a feed grain board for eastern Canada and would have said that the appointment of Mr. Maurice Sauv6 to the cabinet is due to pressure from some Quebec M.P.'s.
Mr. Speaker, the government is boasting at every turn concerning the appointment of Hon. Maurice Sauve as Minister of Forestry. The appointment definitely satisfies nobody. The Canadian forestry association blamed the government for having entrusted to the Department of Forestry the responsibility of
Eastern Agricultural Assistance ARDA, while its minister is unable to devote all his time to forestry products. On the other hand, the administration of ARDA is the full responsibility of the provinces. The minister will have absolutely nothing to do in that field, except asking the house to vote sums of money.
I am asking the present Minister of Agriculture to assume his responsibilities, to wake up, to attend sittings of the house more often, in order to pay attention to repeated requests from the official opposition to help the farmer of the eastern provinces who is going bankrupt.
Mr. Speaker, I would be most happy to hear the Minister of Agriculture give a single policy he has adopted on behalf of Canadian farmers, including those of the eastern part of the country.
We had excellent policies. There was, for instance the milk subsidy of 25 cents per cwt. which the government abolished. When I asked the minister a question about that he replied that the subsidy has been removed in order to save $6 million.
I say to the federal Minister of Agriculture that he must not expect ARDA to save farmers within three, four or five years. The government must act immediately and stop sabotaging the agricultural policies we have set up.
Mr. Speaker, the first 60 days of the Liberal regime were days of mourning for Canadian farmers because our agricultural policies were undermined by the new government.
Mr. Speaker, it is essential that legislation be enacted on behalf of eastern farmers, so that more feed grain-that is grain from the western provinces-be consumed, and at less cost.
To give you an idea of the present situation, are you aware, Mr. Speaker, that 70 per cent of the beef consumed in the province of Quebec comes from outside the province? For veal, the proportion is 30 per cent; for lamb and mutton, 54 per cent; for pork, 23 per cent; for poultry, 28 per cent; for fowl and chicken, 21 per cent; for turkey, 47 per cent; and for eggs, 54 per cent. I think that the situation is the same in all eastern provinces.
It is therefore urgent for the government to carry out this legislation which was introduced under our administration, so as to adopt a permanent national policy for the economic distribution in the east of western feed grain surpluses.
Such a policy is imperative, it is requested by our farmers, by the agricultural associations representing them, and it is absolutely necessary as a starting point and as a basis for a well thought out and sound agricultural
3566	HOUSE OF
Eastern Agricultural Assistance production, which will enable the Canadian farmers to act in such a way that Canadian agriculture will play a more prominent part, while making farms more remunerative.
The function of agriculture in any country is to provide food at reasonable prices and in sufficient quantities, and contribute to the general economy of the country through its exports. Up to now, agriculture in Canada has well served this nation of ours, since we can say we are well fed and that our exports of agricultural products make up 27 per cent to 30 per cent of our whole production, thus adding its share to the general economy. This legislation respecting feed grain should help in reducing substantially the production cost of a part of the main productions in our country, that is animal production. It should also enable us to export larger quantities of more completely manufactured products than is exported at the present time.
I consider that the following reasons are fundamental and that they should receive the general approval of the house.
First, and this is addressed to the government: it is important to set a policy that will allow the western farmer to sell his crop at a price which will provide him with a reasonable income from his investment and his work, without imposing too heavy a burden on the population of the rest of the country. That legislation had precisely that common point among its many objectives.
Second, if western Canada needs a permanent policy concerning the sale of grain, eastern Canada, for the development of a more profitable agriculture, also needs a large part of those feed grain surpluses to feed its herds and establish a stable and economical livestock production.
Third, some assistance had been provided in the past few years for the transportation of grain from western Canada to eastern Canada. That policy was to be renewed each year. It has rendered tremendous services to our eastern farmers, while providing a profitable market of three million tons of grain, on the average, for the western farmer.
We would like to see the proposed legislation enacted as soon as possible by the government. This legislation would be more generous and better conceived, while eliminating to the greatest possible extent all speculation on grain. During the next few years, it would favour the establishment of a larger market for the feed grain surplus of the west, while promoting a more economical, permanent and larger animal production by the eastern farmer.
I look upon this policy, which we always wanted, the perfect complement to the fine


program of farm management, conceived by our government some time ago, which we call ARDA. Our farms, which in eastern Canada are often marginal lands, should be able to use the grain thus distributed in a more economical way, in order to increase their production by transforming it profitably on their farm, and thus adding to the fertility of a frequently poor soil and promoting the better use of an often unemployed labour force on farms which are are often too small.
In the fourth place, the legislation, once implemented by the government, would have the effect of increasing the consumption of western grain in the east, and Canadian agriculture would, because of that very fact, increase its contribution to the over-all economy of this country.
To indicate how important it is, Mr. Speaker, that this raw material we call western grain be, as much as possible, consumed in eastern Canada-I would say that in the event it is impossible to do so, it would, of course, be preferable to export a raw material like grain, but whenever possible, it would be to the advantage of this country that this raw material be transformed on Canadian farms, and more particularly on the eastern farms which have excellent pasture for that purpose.
It is always profitable, for a country like ours, to export its raw materials under as finished a form as possible. Now, when Canada exports one ton of barley, for instance, the economy is being increased by an amount of about $50. But, on the other hand, if that same ton of barley is converted in the east into beef, for instance, it can be exported, provided, of course, that the product be finished, of good quality and economically produced on the eastern farms-this finished product can be exported in the form of pork or beef and yield in this way an amount of $125 or more, according to the price presently paid for pork or beef. It would appear that an investment of $8 to $12 million by the Canadian government to economically distribute this export grain in its raw state so that it can be exported in the form of finished product, would profit to the whole of the Canadian economy. In converting that product at home, we supply work for labour at a stage where unemployment is a problem and we add at least $75 per ton to the international monetary fund.
Fifth, this national policy of economic distribution of western grain surpluses in the east is a prime requirement to balancing eastern farming.
I offered to you only a few reasons, Mr. Speaker, to show the importance of adopting

as quickly as possible some legislation promoting consumption of feed grain in eastern Canada, in order to export as little as possible to other countries.
So as to help this export of western grain to the east, I submit that the government should enact some legislation in order:
1.	To establish standard and well-balanced prices throughout the east, so as not to put at a disadvantage any user of this grain;
2.	There must always be a sufficient supply available to everyone everywhere.
3.	Storage facilities large enough for the needs of eastern consumers and western producers must be provided.
4.	It is recognized that water transportation is the cheapest of all but, unfortunately, it is of a seasonal nature; consequently, it would be appropriate to decentralize storage facilities.
5.	It is to be expected that grain consumption will increase by 50 per cent before 1975.
Yet, in 1960, it totalled 400 million bushels, 241 million of which had been produced in eastern Canada and the rest in the prairies. Generally speaking, pork and other meat producers buy 35 per cent of the feed grain they use; the other two thirds are produced on their own farms.
6.	Price fluctuation in various locations and at different times obviously constitutes a great impediment to producers. It is very important and fundamental to correct such a situation.
This policy is essential to stabilize the prices of grain and assist farmers.
In addition, the hon. member who spoke before me said that the price of feed grain rises when winter or the slack season arrives.
That is one of the reasons why a national emergency policy should be developed as soon as possible in order to remedy that situation and enable eastern producers to increase their net income without affecting western farmers.
We are a little pessimistic because the government seems to be marking time and not willing to do anything. Yet, to date, the minister has received several delegations, all kinds of eastern farmers organizations, which urged him to take action before it is too late.
Canadian tobacco growers and particularly Quebec growers are concerned at the present time because of the way they are treated by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss LaMarsh).
Indeed, the minister of national health allocated a tremendous amount of money to
Eastern Agricultural Assistance fight cancer and also published a pamphlet against the use of tobacco. To date, nothing proves that tobacco is the cause of cancer. Nothing was proven on that matter and scientists are at a variance. I wonder why the minister of national health wants to destroy that important sector of our economy, the production of cigarette tobacco.
I know that other government members also share my opinion. Tobacco growers are really concerned over the actions of the minister of national health and I am sending the Minister of Agriculture an s.o.s., asking him to make us aware of his future policy with a view to giving assistance to Canadian tobacco growers.
Tobacco sales have decreased noticeably following the bad publicity made by the minister of health, and I ask the Minister of Agriculture whether he approves the statements and the amounts of money voted by the department of health in order to fight smoking.
Growers are worried, and rightly so, and surely the Minister of Finance (Mr. Gordon) is concerned also, since in 1962 tobacco sales brought in the tidy amount of about $178 million in taxes.
That is why I ask the Minister of Agriculture whether he intends to grant special votes or subsidies in order to help tobacco growers whose production represents an important factor of the Canadian economy.
I hope that the minister will give the house details which will reassure tobacco growers.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, I rise to take part in this debate because this party is seriously concerned with the question of rural life, the development of the family farm and all aspects of rural reconstruction; second, sir, because I am an old peasant farmer myself-I have lived off the land and on the land all my life and I am one of those who have always had their feet on the ground. The amendment reads:
That all the words after "That" be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
"this house regrets the continuing failure of the government to take effective action with regard to the pressing agricultural problems of eastern Canada".
Personally, Mr. Speaker, I think the amendment is in too negative terms. What are the pressing agricultural problems of eastern Canada? They are not spelled out. Surely the whole field of agriculture in eastern Canada is not suffering from particular problems. Then, does this amendment mean that the official opposition are quite satisfied with the farm circumstances that exist in western Canada? I am really disappointed, in view of the

Eastern Agricultural Assistance agricultural talent that is to be found in the official opposition, that the amendment was not placed on a more constructive basis.
Before proceeding, Mr. Speaker, I do want to say that I give the former minister of agriculture full credit for his influence in securing the passage of the Farm Credit Corporation Act. It has been an excellent piece of legislation, but it is one of the pieces of legislation that, as the result of experience, needs improving. I give him full credit for the introduction of the ARDA program. The only thing that we want to see is some action in this respect in every province in Canada. And I give him full credit for publicly supporting the policy of wheat sales to China. At the time, leading members who are now on the government side were timidly trying to criticize this policy, but when they found what the public reaction was, they beat a hasty retreat.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Not the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Thompson).


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: No. I give the hon. member for Red Deer full credit; he is positively opposed in principle to selling a bushel of wheat to those behind the iron curtain, and he stands fast on that position, regardless of what the farmers of his constituency think.


Mr. Patterson:: A complete misrepresentation.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I think I heard the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Patterson) chirping up; I think he said I was misrepresenting the hon. member for Red Deer. I will resume my seat, Mr. Speaker, and give the hon. member an opportunity to explain what I misrepresented.


Alexander Bell Patterson: I would just remark, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Thompson) rose, I believe it was on Friday, and made his position very clear on this matter, on which the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) is possibly voicing his own opinions.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, if I missed something that the hon. member for Red Deer said recently, I must say now that I may be wrong-


Clifford Silas Smallwood: You are not wrong, Bert.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: -but the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch) informs me that the hon. member for Red Deer reiterated his stand in principle against the sale of wheat to countries behind the iron curtain. Anyway we did get things lined up a bit.
I listened to the speech made by the hon. member for Kings (Mr. Mullally) and I want to congratulate him on making a constructive

speech. He did not profess that there were no problems in agriculture. He recognized there were problems in eastern agriculture and in other sections of the country and was quite frank about it. As far as his speech is concerned, the implicit almost became the explicit when he was dealing with the need for action to improve these circumstances. However, I give him full credit for making a constructive speech under most difficult circumstances, seeing that he sits on the government side of the house.
We have a most unusual situation with respect to the two cabinet ministers whose duties are directly related to agriculture. We have the Minister of Forestry (Mr. Sauve), who announced at the foundation meeting- I do not know whether it was the foundation meeting or the foundering meeting-of the exchange of ideas organization that he is a socialist. Mind you, he was careful to say that he was not a parlour or a beer parlour socialist; he said he was a thinking socialist. He is now a director of an organization which I shall call the fraternity for the intellectually elite of Canada. So we have one announced socialist in the cabinet whose duties are directly related to agriculture. On the other side we have the ultimate in free enterprise in Canada. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) is the only person I have met in my experience in Canada who has publicly announced that his family believes in the principles of free enterprise after the resurrection. I must say I like the Minister of Agriculture and admire his frankness and honesty. Do you know what I have done to recognize that fact and to pay tribute to him, Mr. Speaker? I have just instructed the people on my ranch to rename our latest Hereford bull "Harry".


Mr. Danforih:: Why?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Hon. members ask me why. I will tell them why-because he is a great free enterpriser and a most successful salesman.
This is the dilemma I am in, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure many opposition members are too. I am not sure which of these policies is going to prevail, that of the socialist half of the agriculture team or that of the ultimate in free enterprise half. Therefore I am not certain in which direction this team is going. We have been quite conscious of the fact that in recent months there has been a bit of a tug of war, and I think it is around the basic philosophy of life which each of these gentlemen professes.
Going from the philosophical to the serious, shall I say, I want to say I fully support the plea put forward this afternoon by the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters) for

greater use of the agriculture committee of this house. Agriculture is one of our great and important industries in Canada, a way of life, shall 1 say, and the agriculture committee is not used to the extent it should be to obtain information. I am not one who suggests that there is an overnight solution to all these problems. I have had a bit of practical experience in life and come from a family which has a record in that respect, and has lived under pioneer conditions. We were so pioneer and so deficient in livestock that as far as I have been able to discover to date my family was the only family which owned a travelling rooster, which it used to ship up and down the Arrow lakes in a crate on a steamer. I just give that illustration to indicate that I have been closely associated with pioneer conditions. I believe hon. members of this house can learn a great deal by providing every possible opportunity-


Mr. Ryan:: Is this a cock and bull story?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member does not realize that it is a member of the opposition who is speaking.


Sylvester Perry Ryan: I guess it is only a bull story then.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: We are not using the brains and experience of persons connected with farm organizations of this country of all types. We should have a systematic exploration on, shall I say, a commodity and a regional, geographical basis of all the problems relating to farmers, which vary from province to province and make it more difficult for one set of legislation to cover all circumstances. That is a fact which we recognize, but I would urge the minister to give consideration to making greater use of our agriculture committee.
Another suggestion I want to make is for greater use of the committees of the Senate in this respect. If there is one thing the senators can do, something which I have urged for some time, it is committee work. We are not taking advantage of their opportunity to do this kind of work without, shall I say, the political atmosphere which surrounds members of this chamber on occasion when facing an election in the near future. The Senators can approach the matter in a more objective way. They are freed from those day to day concerns about re-election and so on. I have often thought that we could use committees of the Senate to study matters instead of appointing royal commissions, as we do in many cases and at great expense. There have been some good committees in the Senate. There was an excellent committee on narcotics. There was an excellent
Eastern Agricultural Assistance committee on manpower in Canada which made an excellent report.


Mr. Douglas:: And on land use.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Yes; my leader mentions land use and I was just coming to that. This is a committee which has sat for several years and which has heard the opinions of responsible organizations across the country, accumulating a great deal of worth-while information which has not been made use of today.
To indicate this, Mr. Speaker, I should like to quote from an editorial in the Western Producer of April 23, 1964:
In 1958 the committee proposed that the federal and provincial departments of agriculture speed up their soil surveys; that a systematic land use survey should be carried out across Canada; that further studies be made of drainage, erosion and irrigation problems.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, what has been done in that regard? In that connection I would ask the Minister of Agriculture what particular interest he has taken in land use problems relating to the Columbia river treaty. The national farmers' union of Canada has been very interested in and expressed their opinions on this matter. I believe this is a subject in which the federal and provincial departments of agriculture should have cooperated, and made a most exhaustive study of the land use possibilities of the whole basin.


Alexander Bell Patterson: On a point of order.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I can see I have got his dander up.


Alexander Bell Patterson: I am just wondering whether this debate is to be allowed to develop into a debate on agriculture right across Canada. I had intended to speak on agriculture, but I suddenly realized this debate is limited to eastern agriculture, and therefore I refrained. If the hon. member intends to enter upon a general discussion of agriculture I think all members of the house should have the same opportunity.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: In reply to the hon. member for Fraser Valley, let me say I am speaking about eastern agriculture but using a western agricultural situation to illustrate my point.
The national farmers' union has been most concerned about this matter. They produced a brief some 10 pages long in which they pointed out the necessity for ensuring that supplies of water on the prairies from the Columbia are available in the future.


Alexander Bell Patterson: I wonder if we might have a ruling before the hon. member proceeds further.

Eastern Agricultural Assistance


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr.   Patierson@: Is this debate to be allowed to develop into a discussion of agriculture on a nation-wide basis?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: It seems to me that the hon. member for Kootenay West is referring to agriculture generally, and maybe I could invite him to turn his thoughts eastward.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I must explain that members of this party find it very difficult to divide the agriculturists of Canada into two. It is difficult to divide the philosophy behind the proper use of land and water into two parts. There are certain aspects of the problems of eastern agriculture which are common to all agriculturists in Canada and it is in that sense I am stepping over the boundary west of Winnipeg.
Anyway, they have gone into this question thoroughly, and I am wondering whether in view of the concern expressed by the national farmers union of Canada, an organization which has, of course, locals in Ontario, the minister has given serious consideration to this subject with a view to making certain that everything is done to having these resources properly surveyed, so that plans can be made for their future use.
So as not to further annoy the hon. member for Fraser Valley who is muttering behind me-


Mr. Winch:: The hon. member for Fraser Valley wants to speak on eastern agriculture; don't forget that.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: As usual, he will be behind me. Now I will go on with this editorial in the Western Producer, because I think more use could be made of these committees.
In 1959, the committee asked that the federal and provincial agriculture departments, together with universities and agricultural colleges, coordinate their farm research programs; that extension services should be expanded, with special attention being given to "farm management" for the alleviation of problems of the small uneconomic farm unit; that vocational and technical training programs be executed in rural areas; that authorities consider a program to give more resettlement assistance to any farmer on a small uneconomic farm wishing to move to another area of employment.
I should like the minister when he replies to inform the house what is being done to give effect to this recommendation of the Senate committee on land use which was made after listening to a good number of well presented briefs.
The article continues:
In 1961, the committee recommended that financial aid be given to farmers on submarginal lands in appropriate areas "to encourage reforestation of presently cultivated farm lands"; that surveys

be speeded up on urban expansion so as to bring about more orderly development of metropolitan areas; and that the committee sponsor special studies of rural taxation, land use for future recreational needs, river and lake pollution, and loss of good farm lands to "urban sprawl".
This is a very serious problem in eastern Canada. I presume this recommendation laid the foundation for the ARDA program, and I should also like the minister to tell the house when he replies what is being done by his department to give effect to this particular recommendation of the land use committee of the Senate.
I do not intend to pursue this editorial further. What I wish to emphasize is this: Here we have an agricultural committee of the House of Commons which is not used to the extent to which it could be used to assist agriculture in general as well as the government in power. In addition, we have a land use committee in the Senate which has been doing good work for two or three years, yet whose studies and recommendations have, on the whole, not been applied by the government of the day.
I was very glad to note recently the establishment of the agricultural economics research council of Canada. If the minister had any part in this, I give him full credit for it; I understand the organization will exist partially, at least, on federal and provincial grants. I think its objectives are very well stated. These are objectives which could very well be adopted by the agriculture committee of the House of Commons as well as by the corresponding committee in the other place. A document on this subject which I have before me contains a brief statement of the purpose and nature of each of four projects. It reads as follows:
The first project will be a study of the relationship between Canadian agricultural policy and what is generally referred to as the farm problem. The purpose of the study is to analyse the objective of past and present farm policies and relates them to the programs which have been implemented to achieve these objectives.
The second project will be an economic analysis of the feed grain freight assistance policy. The study will attempt to determine where the freight subsidies actually go.
The third project is a study of the capital supply for Canadian agriculture.
This is a most necessary study.
The fourth study is designed to study the place of agriculture in the national economy-
The board also announced that all research carried out by the council will be published and made available to the public.
I would hope that members of this house can get information about the work done by this research council and that we shall have the opportunity to co-operate with these important activities both in the committee of this house and in the other place. I also suggest

that if we are to find solutions to the agricultural problems not only of eastern Canada but of the whole of Canada there must be more co-operation between federal and provincial governments. We have to secure the co-operation of the farmers organizations and more participation on the part of farmers organizations in the development of studies and the provision of information. I must say that as far as farming is concerned, very often someone who is unsung, in some backwoods district, one might say, comes forward with an idea which is eventually accepted by the majority. We should cultivate the soil of experience and knowledge which are found among the farmers of this country. I think we should make better use of the Agricultural Institute of Canada. I happen to be a charter member of that organization and I am very interested in its activities. In passing I might say to the minister that I think the salaries paid to agriculturists in Canada are very much out of line with those paid to other scientific and professional workers and they should receive some further consideration.
Then we must achieve the closest possible co-operation between people and governments. I believe in the principle of co-operation and participation. I should not say "I do": We all do in this party. This is the way in which democratic policies evolve. People like to feel they are consulted-that they are wanted- that they are part of a team. This is necessary if we are to develop an agricultural policy in this country. In addition, we must have cooperation with the press.
I want to say a few words about the agricultural press of Canada. Anyone who has been a reader of the agricultural press of Canada for over 50 years, as I have, knows that it is the most responsible section of the press in this country. I want to pay tribute to the work they have done for agriculture. I want to pay tribute to the Family Herald for the excellent articles it prints with respect to water resources and land use problems, its editorials concerning the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) and so on. I have enjoyed every one of them. I pay tribute also to the Western Producer and the press of the co-operative organizations.
This is not a press that prints only the spectacular or the thing that catches the eye. To many people I suppose this type of periodical is dull reading. For instance, a member of this house can get up and make a most constructive and well informed speech on the principles of conservation or something relating to agriculture, and you will find that most of the press is not very interested, but if one gets up in the house and
Eastern Agricultural Assistance abuses the minister, instead of complimenting him like I have this evening, it is headline news.
I refer also to Country Life published in British Columbia, and the multitude of other agricultural periodicals. I am sure if the government made a particular effort to get the co-operation of the agricultural press behind a defined policy and program they would get it without a shadow of a doubt. If we can get the co-operation I have been suggesting, and benefit from the experience and knowledge found abundantly among many people in this country, we will solve the problems of eastern agriculture and western agriculture in the near future, instead of having to repeat year after year in the house the fact that there are certain problems which remain unsolved because we have not developed the co-operation to meet them effectively. That is all I have to say, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Jean Berger (Monlmagny-L'Islel):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to point out, at the outset of my remarks which I shall make as brief as possible, that I am primarily speaking in my capacity as member for a Quebec constituency which is partly rural and partly industrialized; that kind of mixture back home accounts for the fact that our farm problem is probably more acute.
This afternoon and tonight, I heard various excellent speeches on agriculture. Some I have appreciated more than others. I have also heard some quite caustic criticisms from across, and I hope that I will not commit such a mistake. I quite agree that it is the duty of the opposition to offer criticism, but when we reach a point where former governments are criticized and comparisons are made with this one and that one, it seems to me there are certain limits which should not be exceeded.
I do not necessarily need to know if the previous government, or those preceding it, should have done more or less, because I am only concerned with finding a solution to the existing farm problem. Eastern Canada is obviously in need of assistance and it is not so much a matter of recalling the saddest phases perhaps in the farm history of eastern Canada as of trying to bring a little sunshine to clouded areas. And when I say sunshine, I am using the word in its literal as well as its figurative sense.
Many topics have been discussed today, but we know that the eastern climate is in no way to be compared with the western climate, which does make a difference as far as agriculture is concerned. Even if we had the most

Eastern Agricultural Assistance intelligent minister to look specifically after eastern agriculture, I do not think he could pull the strings which would give us the required weather when and where we need it. Those are factors that must be taken into consideration, but which seem to be criticized from certain sides. I am thinking, among others, of an hon. member I do not need to mention by name and who is very strong on farm matters. He should bring a few more new ideas instead of referring to the same old things, because he has run out of subjects of criticism. If he had done that at the time he held the required post-that is the only indication I shall give-perhaps we would have less to do now.
A while ago, it seems that the merits of the minister who is responsible today for the administration of ARDA were being discussed and, to a certain extent, even questioned. The so-called ARDA legislation is a program which, personally, I hold in high respect and the same goes for the people in my riding, the farmers themselves and those who go in for part-time farming or are involved in mining research of some kind.
In fact, we have been told that ARDA itself will be revised. In certain quarters, it was said that the responsible minister might not have the time to look after forestry. Be that as it may, the fact remains that in a riding such as mine and in other neighbouring counties, agriculture has just as many problems as forestry. Indeed, problems are often related in both fields. As far as I am concerned, I am quite happy that both questions should come under the same department. I am sure that the Minister of Forestry (Mr. Sauve), who is also responsible for ARDA, will know how to handle the situation.
It is a pleasure for me to congratulate hon. members opposite for having set up ARDA, because when somebody does something worth while, I like to say it.
What is the present status of ARDA? Before coming here, I inquired several times of agronomists, but the situation is so vague that no one seems to know what benefits we derive from the program. Explanations were given today and as a television writer who is well known in the Quebec area once said: It is not over. Other explanations and instructions will be forthcoming but, what is most important, I can promise you some action, whether hon. members opposite like it or not. It will not be a vision, a castle in the air. It is not a house of cards that the new minister wishes to build; he wants something more solid and it seems to me that one cannot help admire the energetic efforts he has made and is still making so as to obtain beneficial results with his department. That is why he 
wants to work hard and will draw his inspiration, I am sure of that, as he has done in the past, from the speeches made on both sides of the house, at least from the speeches made in French, because it would be very hard to find something in a wasteland of ideas, and unfortunately that is the main dish we have been served too often.
I was pleased to note this afternoon that sincere and serious people in the various parties really made it their duty to express to the house their worries and those of their constituents about agriculture.
To come back to ARDA, I am happy that at this very moment, the minister responsible for the administration of that act is in Manitoba. When he comes back to the house in the next few days, he will have visited the prairie provinces, the eastern provinces, the maritime provinces and also the provinces next to British Columbia.
When he meets the premiers of those provinces and discusses farm problems with them he will see in which way we may, not so much establish ARDA, because that has been already done, but improve this legislation and make it become more helpful than we could expect until now.
At this point I associate myself with the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Laver-diere), who represents the riding next to mine, who said on May 7 last, as we may find on page 3046 of Hansard:
For the good of the country, of confederation and of agriculture also, there must be an understanding between eastern and western Canada-
It is not only in the international field that a meeting is needed between east and west.
One region can help the other and each can complete the other, especially in the production of feed grain which is so urgently needed for our eastern cattle.
He had previously quoted many statistics which are found on pages 3045 and 3046 of the official record. I would rather let you read them for yourself, Mr. Speaker, than repeat what has already been said. Anybody who wants to play about with statistics, handles them as a knife with two sharp edges so that he sometimes cuts himself with the wrong edge. It becomes somewhat boring in the end perpetually to be quoting figures. With regard to the problem now under discussion and which concerns all provinces, including Quebec and the maritimes, it would be needless, I think, to quote so many statistics. It is true that our farmers' income is surely not comparable to the income of western farmers. It is also true that the previous governments-I am not saying "government"-seemed to be particularly concerned

with the western farmers, who have taken a lead of which I am not envious. I can understand their enhancing their own business.
That is why today, we must unite our efforts, the efforts of conscientious members on both sides of the house who wish to bring something to eastern farmers who, I think, were too often done wrong, did not get enough assistance and got bogged down. But the fault does not necessarily rest with the federal Department of Agriculture because in every province, there is also a provincial department of agriculture which may be even more directly responsible because they are directly in the area.
In the province of Quebec, it is clear that we had many farming problems at the provincial level.
Whatever leeway there was, an effort is being made now to make it up. It is precisely through that co-operation and following that profitable visit of the present minister, responsible for the new start in ARDA, that we shall finally have more concrete solutions and take more direct steps to assist the farmers.
Help can be given in so many fields.
Another interesting feature of ARDA is that it is not exactly centred only on our farmers. As I said earlier, it can be applied to mines, forestry and many other things, fisheries, everything that can be economic, even industry.
That is why, first of all, work is now being done in my riding as well as in my province, as in the other provinces of eastern Canada, to collect data and complete basic work, for it would be useless to go ahead with the first plan that comes to mind. That was done already, not long ago, and we saw the result. It is better somewhat to delay things in order to arrive at more far reaching and reliable solutions.
Of course several hon. members here would be able to discuss farm problems more interestingly than I can, because I never had the opportunity of looking much into agricultural problems all over Canada, not even in my own riding. But we have seen by now that our farmers had to have some income besides the revenue from their land, because they had trouble in getting along, in finding a decent income enabling them to live and educate their children and so on.
I admit all that, but we must also recognize for instance, that there could have been a somewhat closer supervision, because I think that in the east, and more particularly in Quebec, as hon. members from Quebec are more interested in this matter than others, our farmers may be more inclined to quicker
25, 1964
Eastern Agricultural Assistance mechanization so that the farms might yield quicker profit, instead of going about it more gradually.
Horses have been abandoned and, today, we have to use tractors, pick-ups and station-wagons on a farm which yields very little, because of unfavourable weather, and which cannot produce enough to ensure a steady income and especially some profit. What is the result? In a constituency like mine great difficulties have been experienced. For instance, a poultry-farmer has to work in the bush in order to make ends meet and pay for his big tractor, while he should have bought a smaller one. He is therefore obliged, during the winter months, to go and work in the state of Maine, or he has to serve on the ships of the Department of Transport. In brief, he tries to find a way to earn some money.
With the implementation of the ARDA program, a better balanced and better thought out program, with a more equitable redistribution of the tillable lands at home, I believe it would be appropriate for the serious farmer to take advantage of the appropriate help which will be offered to him by the Department of Agriculture at the federal as well as the provincial level. Then the farmer could stay on his farm and, in that way, we will not only help him but also the class of forest workers who face a yearly invasion of their field of endeavour by these part-time lumbermen, farmers by profession, who, in order to survive, are compelled to practise several other trades. Thus we would even fight unemployment if a well thought out program were put to work adequately.
That is why, in order not to waste the time of the house, I want to express again all the confidence I have in the present Minister of Agriculture and congratulate him for the work he has done.
I would like things to go faster and the eastern farmer would be delighted.
With regard to supplying feed grain to the eastern farmer, I noticed last year, like all the other members, that the Department of Agriculture had taken a big step forward. When the shipping season opened, it paid for the transportation right away to fill our grain elevators, especially to help our farmers.
Personally, I felt that that was sound but our farmers did not get as much as they would have hoped, even if prices did go up a little.
Who made the profits? I suspect that certain big companies made profits and are still making some. However, co-operatives are

Eastern Agricultural Assistance having difficulties because the price of pork has dropped while that of feed grain is excessive.
I wonder what would have happened if, for instance, the government had not filled the grain elevators? Perhaps the situation would be even worse. Of course, that is not enough but at least we got off on the right foot.
There has been a lot of talk about the effect of the price of feed grain on the dairy industry. We have within our ranks experts who can explain the situation much more clearly than I could and some of them will explain the statistics and set straight the facts which have been somewhat altered, I might say, by some members of the opposition. Figures will be given and explanations provided. Other explanations may not deal with statistics but they will be useful just the same.
In short, we surely have a lot to do yet, but it is certainly not through criticism that we will accomplish anything. As far as I am concerned, when the opportunity arises, it will always be a pleasure to express the grievances of my constituents because they do not always have the time to come to Ottawa to meet the minister and lay their problems before him. Besides, that is what I was asked to do.
But for the time being I know that at home -and when I say at home I mean, of course, in my constituency of Montmagny-L'Islet- even if we are hoping for a more vital and more specific solution, we realize that efforts are being made along those lines.
I am positive that the Minister of Forestry and the officials of ARDA are doing a marvellous job and that we will surely have better days and a sounder policy, because it will be a clearer policy, stemming from on the spot study. Instead of throwing up a big balloon to float everywhere, we will anchor it so as to derive the greatest possible benefits therefrom.
I leave you with that note of confidence in the present administration, but I will commend the government when the situation has improved, while hoping it will not deteriorate. I am looking forward to a greater improvement as soon as possible and so, I am urging the ministers concerned to continue their efforts with the help of qualified officials of the department.
I also say to our hon. friends opposite, no matter to what party they belong, that when they make proper suggestions, when they offer something acceptable, something constructive and positive, instead of only negative suggestions, then we will be happy to give them our co-operation. I see that the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm (Mr. Pi-

geon) now has a smile on his face. When he has good suggestions, it will give me pleasure to encourage him and to support him.
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry I took more time than I intended to, but it is in that spirit of co-operation with the hon. members of the opposition that I did so and, in return, I am asking for their co-operation. When they will actually give us their co-operation, that will be the day we will succeed in solving, as quickly as possible and in the most adequate way, the problem which is affecting everyone of us in eastern Canada.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, we have heard some excellent debating this evening and, as usual, the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) lit up the chamber with his sense of humour. Coming from the same city as the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays) I say with a lot of respect that when the hon. member for Kootenay West said he was going to call his prize white faced bull Harry, that is quite a compliment, because the minister will agree with me that some of the best Hereford stock is bred in the province of Alberta. I might not have gone quite that far myself, but it is still a compliment to the minister.
I was most interested in hearing the hon. member for Kootenay West discussing how the division of agriculture had been made, and in fact the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Patterson) was wondering how we people from western Canada might discuss agriculture on this amendment. I had better answer that right now. It seems to me we should have one department of agriculture and one minister of agriculture. Then we might have a healthy agricultural colony across the country because, when the wheat farmers of western Canada are doing well, they will not get into severe competition with eastern farmers who raise cattle and hogs and produce other agricultural commodities.
When one speaks critically he should also have something constructive to offer. I think the minister is a practical man, even if he believes in free enterprise after resurrection, as the hon. member for Kootenay West said this evening; but it seems strange to me that, even with one of the best contracts for grain ever made with Russia-a contract which was first made by the former government and then developed by this government-we were unable to supply the full quantities needed, or at least were unable to say to the Russian people that we could supply the full demand.
Make no mistake about it, Mr. Speaker, we had the supply of grain in western Canada. We had one of the finest wheat crops

ever, and if that grain could have been moved to the facilities at the ports, and from the ports to Russia, then probably the United States would never have signed its wheat sale agreement with Russia.
Therefore I say to the minister as I said a year ago, and as I said to the former government, some serious thought should be given by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Sharp), working in conjunction with one minister of agriculture-


An hon. Member:: If you can catch him.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I am not going to get into that. Some serious thought should be given to improving the grain handling facilities, the rail services, and the terminal elevators at the lakehead, Halifax, Vancouver and Churchill. If we have another boom, and that is likely because the former minister of agriculture has just returned from China and has some good news in that regard, we should make certain we have the facilities to be able to deliver the goods.
I am not one of those Conservatives who believe in subsidies right down the line because, after all, the law of supply and demand is the one fact that has made western Canada economically healthy. We have the demand and the supply, but we as a country boast too much about the things we have, while forgetting to put our handling facilities in shape, our railroads, our terminal elevators, and relations between management and labour, so that we can meet the demand.
Coming from the same city as the Minister of Agriculture, where he is well recognized because he was the former mayor, I say to him he has a chance to make a name for himself, if he will discuss this problem with the Minister of Trade and Commerce and have a serious discussion with the railroads. He should say to them "Look, there are three to four inches of rain on the main wheat belts in western Canada. With more rain in June and July we can look forward to another great wheat crop on the prairies."
I have heard senior members of the house tell how grain supplies used to be discussed for weeks on end in this chamber. That is no longer a subject for debate because the farmers are getting the big crops on the prairies and we have the contracts to sell the grain. But the sad situation in this country, which is developing industrially, is that apparently we cannot manufacture enough box cars and equipment to move our grain to the ports.
The gross national product increased again last year, as it did in 1962, and much of that increase is due to the fact that we moved the grain off the prairies. Wheat production is still one of the most important primary industries in this country, and the reason we 20220-227 i
Business of the House
are doing so well industrially, and the reason for the boom in farm machinery, manufactured in eastern Canada and sold on the prairies, is because the western farmers have been trying to meet the demand for their grain.
But this government of decision has not measured up to its responsibilities and met the demand created by the wheat contracts. Let us look into the situation in the ports of Vancouver and Churchill, and across the line, to see to it that we can fulfil the contracts that are ours.
I have only about a minute left, Mr. Speaker, and even though I know I will have some time tomorrow, at this point I say a very strange thing occurred when the Liberal government was elected. The first thing the Minister of Trade and Commerce did was to go out to Moose Jaw and Edmonton and there he said the former minister of agriculture made a mistake when he told the farmers to grow grain, because now they were going to have a glut on the market. That was in April of last year; but by September he was able to announce that because of the contract with Russia they should grow more grain. If it had not been for the farmers' own ambition and initiative they would not have produced the grain needed to supply Russia.
Mr. Speaker, I see it is now ten o'clock.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the hon. gentleman permit a question?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Certainly.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Does the hon. gentleman not recall it was the late C. D. Howe who made the first contract with Russia to sell wheat?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Well, if I might answer that, you know what Mr. C. D. Howe and Mr. Jimmy Gardiner told the farmers in western Canada. When the farmers had wheat piled up on their farms they said, "Wait until the drought comes and that will solve your problem."


John Whitney Pickersgill: They never said anything of the kind.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Churchill:: Could I ask the acting house leader to solve the problem of the business for Wednesday and Thursday?


John Whitney Pickersgill: It would be unwise to anticipate too much. We shall go on with this debate tomorrow and, if it is finished before the end of the day, we will go on. with the 12 mile limit, but beyond that limit I am not prepared to go this evening.
357$	HOUSE OF
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION
(Subject matter of questions debated under adjournment motion).
A motion to adjourn the house under provisional standing order 39A deemed to have been moved:



NATIONAL DEFENCE-ALLEGED DISCRIMINATION AGAINST FRENCH CANADIAN ARMY OFFICERS

Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Mr. Speaker, on May 7 last I asked the Minister of National Defence a question regarding the discrimination against French Canadians in the Kingston military college and I quote:
Is it the minister's intention to prescribe an inquiry, following the statement made by Mr. Arstae Lauziere, professor at the military college in Kingston to the effect that there is at the present time a certain discrimination against the French Canadians, as far as their promotion within the Canadian army is concerned?
Mr. Speaker, having received no answer, I asked that that question be taken up later.
I think it would be important for the government to set up as soon as possible a commission, perhaps a royal commission, on the Canadian army, with a limited period of time, in order to establish whether the quite serious charges made by the professor at the Kingston military college are true.
Le Devoir of May 12 last reproduced the statement of a senior army officer that French Canadians are not discriminated against in the army. Major General Worthington stated:
A French Canadian soldier who speaks English has the same promotion opportunities as anybody else.
We often hear such statements in Englishspeaking military quarters and, to begin with, they are quite true. Promotions are based on seniority and merit, and that simple rule applies down to intermediate ranks.
However, so that this statement may apply adequately to the problem, a few implications have to be added which show that, if there is no discrimination, there is surely some injustice.
I should like to ask the minister-one of the two ministers of national defence is probably here this evening, even if I do not see either of them now-why is military instruction only given in English and not in both languages. Second, why is only one language used as far as work, correspondence and orders are concerned? Third, the soldier must serve wherever he is sent, with all the invitations that implies to put his own language aside, since he finds himself in a


unilingual environment. I am of the opinion that the French speaking soldier should be on the same footing as the English speaking soldier. Fourth, a member of the armed forces who insists on remaining in the province of Quebec to ensure a French education for his children is considered a trouble-maker and his promotion is affected.
Mr. Speaker, I think there is some uneasiness and we are aware of it as a result of the great number of letters which we on this side of the house are receiving. This uneasiness among French Canadians is experienced in the three services. Of course, there is the royal 22nd regiment, which is mostly made up of French Canadians, but I wonder whether the Minister of National Defence could not establish other French speaking regiments or else some regiments half of which would be made up of French speaking and the other half of English speaking servicemen.
I feel it is not enough that the Laurendeau-Dunton commission will examine behind closed doors members of the armed forces who will express such a wish. In my opinion, another investigation should be conducted so as to know exactly what is going on in the armed services and to let the public know.
Serious doubts still exist in the public mind, and I hope that the Minister of National Defence, in the interest of national unity, will act as soon as possible in order to know whether or not there is discrimination against French Canadian servicemen.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I regret very much that the circumstances which have made the attendance rather sparse on the front bench opposite have also made it pretty sparse on the front bench on this side this evening. I know that the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Hellyer), and even more the associate minister, would have liked to be here this evening to reply, and no discourtesy is implied by their absence. I am quite sure that the Associate Minister of National Defence (Mr. Cardin) will take full note of the questions raised by the hon. gentleman. It would be presumptuous on my part were I to attempt to give any kind of answer. I am quite sure the minister will be prepared to deal with these questions when the estimates of the department are before the committee of supply, and I will suggest to him that perhaps he might give a written answer to the hon. gentleman in the meantime.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: I don't agree with that; he is supposed to be here.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


Thomas Miller Bell: Mr. Speaker, last Friday I asked a question of the Minister of Labour (Mr. MacEachen) in the absence of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pickersgill), so I am delighted that it is the Minister of Transport who is fulfilling all the responsibilities this evening. I asked:
In view of the closing of the national manufacturing concern of McAvity's in Saint John and its transfer to Montreal with all its facilities, resulting in a loss of more than 400 jobs, will the Atlantic development board immediately investigate and offer every assistance in this matter?
This question was ruled out of order by Your Honour, I suppose because of the lack of urgency. I suggest that this matter is very urgent because meetings are now being held in Saint John between the provincial government, civic officials and bodies, and company officers in an effort to save and possibly retain this industry, and failing this to consider possible alternatives for the plant and men. Therefore it is imperative, in my opinion, that the federal government be represented at these discussions.
This shutdown in Saint John has been one of the most serious blows which we have experienced for some time in this community. The hon. member for Charlotte has some business interests in the city and I think he will agree that this has been one of the toughest blows it has experienced in many years. Over 400 skilled men without pension are to be thrown on to the already meagre labour market. There will be little opportunity for them to relocate in Montreal. Though some may find it possible to obtain work in other industries, the great bulk of these men will have serious readjustment problems. I recognize that this is primarily a matter for the provincial government, and in all fairness I should say that they are taking an interest and are the ones who have arranged this meeting. However, at the same time the present Robichaud government has taken considerable credit for new industry in the province and have given rise to fantastic stories about great job opportunities for everyone. This closing down of a long established family industry will certainly be a lesson to them and they will think twice about making lavish claims in the future.
There is another ironic twist to this, in that we have just made plans for the completion of a large newsprint industry in the city which was arranged by the previous Flemming government of New Brunswick. It is presently under construction and will be ready for operation in ten months. But as
25, 1964	3577
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion optimistic as this is, it will not fill the hole left in the labour market by the McAvity closing.
Similarly, announcements were made in the local papers which appeared in the Toronto newspapers last Saturday that Du Pont will open a new industry there. This is the first to be located by that company in the Atlantic provinces. This is good news, but the truth is that the Du Pont mill will employ only about 12 men for their polyethylene processing.
I suggest that the Atlantic development board immediately send representatives to sit in at the Saint John meetings to obtain first hand information as to the reason this industry can no longer continue. They should examine the economics. Is it the old bogey of geography? Is it a case of freight rate disadvantages, or are there other hidden reasons? What is the responsibility of the internationally owned and controlled Crane Company who purchased McAvity four years ago and is now for some strange reason closing out their Saint John operation in favour of Montreal? It seems that everything is going to Montreal. It may be that the area development agency of the Department of Industry should be involved, and if it is felt by the minister that this would be better, it is all right with me. We are spending thousands of dollars to find out how to locate new secondary manufacturing in the maritimes. We are sending representatives all over the world-I know that some of the permanent officials of the Atlantic development board are presently in Scotland-to study methods which have been successful in other countries which have had this problem. Yet here at our own doorstep, and at the very moment these commendable efforts are being accelerated, this industry, long established and at one time the largest foundry in Canada, is shutting down. Therefore, I call on the minister to say that the federal government will send representatives to these conferences and enthusiastically assist in finding a solution to this problem, one which goes to the very core of our regional geographic disabilities in the maritimes.
I see the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pickersgill), with his great interest in the maritime provinces, is following closely, and this is one time when he has to rise to the occasion and show some sincere helpfulness in this respect.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I cannot but agree with everything the hon. member has just said about the closing of this industry, which is so important to the economy of the city of Saint John and to the economy of New Brunswick. This is one of these regrettable things; it is very hard to

Proceedings on Adjournment Motion say, without full knowledge of the circumstances, what guides these private industries in making the kind of decision which has been made in this case.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Don't you know?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Certainly, I feel it is just as much a responsibility of the Atlantic development board to do everything it possibly can to preserve existing industries in the Atlantic provinces as it is to seek new ones there. The board has been in touch with the government of New Brunswick, as it has been in touch with other agencies interested in this matter from the time the news of the intention to close this plant was first given to us. The board and its staff have offered every possible assistance. If the actual physical presence of a member of the staff at the meeting would be of any help at all, I am
quite sure one will be there and I will put this point at once to the board. But whether or not someone actually attends the meetings I can assure the hon. member for Saint John-Albert and the house that this is regarded as a very grave matter indeed. In a place like Saint John the loss of employment of 400 skilled men is a very serious blow. If there is any possible way of having this reconsidered, I am confident the Atlantic development board will do everything it can in this respect, and if that is not possible it will do everything it can to find some suitable alternative, in consultation with the government of New Brunswick, the Department of Industry and any other agency, federal, provincial or municipal which may be able to assist.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 10.17 p.m.

Tuesday, May 26, 1964