1964-05-15

PRIVILEGE


Mr. R. N. Thompson (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of personal privilege. The purpose of my point of privilege is twofold. The first is to draw to the attention of the members of this house and the nation the fact that on Sunday, the day after tomorrow, our good friends, citizens of the free, independent, indivisible and inalienable nation of Norway, celebrate the 150th anniversary of their constitution and declaration of independence.
The Norwegian constitution is one of the oldest existing constitutions of the world and its worth and fundamental, democratic basis have withstood the test of time with only minor change. In fact it stands as an outstanding document guaranteeing the basic human and civil rights, freedom of speech and press and the just rule of law. The constitution of Norway had a dramatic birth on May 17, 1814, in the shadow of events centring around the fall of Napoleon, the result of European power politics, democratic currents of enlightenment and national awakening.
This historic milepost in the history of Norway and democratic parliamentary government will be of much interest to Canadians as we look forward to our own centennial in just three years, and even before that time the repatriation of our constitution to Canadian soil. This being Citizenship day, I am sure the thousands of loyal Canadian citizens of Norwegian stock, a number of whom are in this house, share my own keen interest.
Actually the history of Norway's government goes back more than a thousand years, the country having been unified under a monarchy about 900 A.D. This brings me to my second point. During recent months the veteran Norwegian explorer, Dr. Helge Ingstad, has unearthed definite evidence that the first European settlers on this continent were the Norwegian Vikings, the best known of whom is Leif Ericson, who some 500 years before Columbus settled on the northern tip of Newfoundland. The "Vinland" of those 20220-209
early settlements described in Nordic history has now been verified to have been near the fishing village of L'Anse aux Meadows, near Belle Isle. The foundations of the first buildings, their design, the metal tools and nails have provided archaeological proof that the first colonists of Canada arrived here approximately 550 years before the first French or English colonists. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, having regard to these historical facts, I suggest that the government give consideration to declaring May 17 a national holiday to be known as Leif Ericson day.


Mr. Speaker:: Out of respect to the origin of many of our fellow compatriots I did not stop the hon. member, but I have serious doubts that this is the proper time for that type of question of privilege.



MR. FAVREAU    REMARKS IN DEBATE BY MEMBER FOR JOLIETTE-L'ASSOMPTION-MONTCALM

Hon. Guy Favreau (Minisier of Jusiice):: Mr. Speaker, I must rise on a question of privilege involving the conduct and reputation of all hon. members.
Yesterday, during a speech on a motion introduced by the hon. member for Pontiac-Temiscamingue (Mr. Martineau), the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm (Mr. Pigeon)-


Righi Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Leader of fhe Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I ask whether, a statement having been made last evening, the minister can rise now on a question of privilege which should have been raised at the time. I have had this same order made against me on occasion. In other words, a question of privilege cannot be the result of afterthought with a full night to think it over.


Righi Hon. L. B. Pearson (Prime Minisier):: Surely the hon. gentleman is entitled to raise a question the morning after a statement is reported as having been made to this house. This is the first opportunity he has had to read Hansard which would confirm what he believed had been said in the house. Surely to prevent a question of privilege being raised so soon after the statement was made would be stretching the rules indeed.

Question of Privilege


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, in this regard I would draw your attention to an occasion in the parliament of 1962-63 when a point of privilege arose under circumstances similar to those relating to the one being raised now. The then minister of justice raised a point of privilege and the present Minister of Transport (Mr. Pickersgill) immediately got up and interjected that the then minister of justice had had an opportunity a half hour earlier of raising a point of privilege and, therefore, he was too late. This was the opinion expressed by the present Minister of Transport when he was a member of the official opposition, and it was accepted by the Chair and accepted by the government of the day. I would put it to Your Honour that a point of privilege on a statement made in this house, and heard by the members in this house, must be raised at the time and not the next morning.


Hon. Paul Martineau (Ponliac-Temisca-mingue):: Mr. Speaker, I should also like to set forth my views on the question of privilege raised by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Favreau). Mav I point out to Your Honour that the minister was in the house yesterday when the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomp-tion-Montcalm (Mr. Pigeon) made his statement and that he even protested, but he did not rise on a question of privilege or propose a motion.
Therefore, I submit to the house that it is too late


Guy Favreau: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that if the hon. member had referred to Hansard this morning, he would have realized that a question of privilege could not have been raised yesterday, that it could be raised only this morning.
At page 3276 of Hansard we see that, right after the incident about which I am raising a question of privilege the Deputy Speaker announced that the time allowed for the debate then taking place had expired.
I refer to page 3276 of Hansard of May 14, 1964, right hand column, at the top of the page:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to provisional standing order 47, subsection 2, I must advise hon. members that the time allotted for consideration of this motion has expired, except for two five minute periods, one for a minister speaking on behalf of the government, and one allocated to the mover of the motion who will close the debate.


It is obvious that the first opportunity when an hon. member affected by the charge made yesterday by the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm could rise, was at the beginning of this morning's session, and that is what I did immediately-


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Not at all.


Guy Favreau: -all the more so, since it is when reading over the text of yesterday's official report that it can be seen that if he had not misunderstood the meaning of some words, the hon. member for Joliette-L'As-somption-Montcalm, having had the opportunity to read over what he had said, would probably have withdrawn his remarks, which is what I intend to ask him to do after I have given the following explanation-


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: No, no, Mr. Speaker, not at all. I rise on a point of order-


John George Diefenbaker: The minister cannot go on like that, Mr. Speaker, because we have raised the objection that privilege cannot be raised at this time. He has answered himself. He was in the house. He rose on a point of order. If he does not know the rules, he should. It is too late now to have a second thought and a second point of privilege, and I ask for your ruling, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I think it is almost elementary that the Chair has at least to hear the reasons put forward by any hon. member as to why he thinks he has a question of privilege before the Chair can reach a decision. That is why I was listening to the minister.


John George Diefenbaker: Well, now, Mr. Speaker, I very seldom rise to suggest that Your Honour give reconsideration to a matter, but the minister says he has a question of privilege. That question of privilege he had last night. He now admits that. He says he was present but he did not have an opportunity to raise it. A reading of the record indicates that he had the opportunity; and certainly questions of privilege, as Your Honour has pointed out very strongly and definitely, are not to be moved unless they come strictly within the rules.
There is no rule that allows anyone in the house, having looked the matter over and considered it for several hours, having been in the house last evening between eight and ten o'clock, and having been present when the statement was made, to have a night to think it over and now say he rises on a

question of privilege. I am asking Your Honour to make a ruling as to whether you are going to decide that matters of privilege can be raised by anyone who, being in the house, does not challenge the statement at the time by privilege, and then subsequently decides he is going to do so.
That is the essence of the matter. To allow the minister to go ahead and place his statement before the house would be in effect to allow him to present his whole argument, and then have Your Honour determine whether or not it is a question of privilege. My point is that there cannot be a question of privilege raised at this time, and I am asking a ruling on that.


Lester Bowles Pearson: On that point, Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that questions of privilege have been raised-and some were ruled out of order-dealing with statements that sometimes have been made days before in the house, and in view of the fact that this question of privilege may require a motion to be made which could not have been made before, surely you are not going to prevent the minister explaining his point of privilege.


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct Your Honour's attention to a precedent of only a couple of weeks ago. On Monday, April 27, the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Girouard) made a statement in the house, of which I think all hon. members are generally aware. Shortly after he had made that statement I, being in the house at the time, said this:
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I should like to enter a caveat, because after we have had a chance to read what was contained in the statement made by the hon. member for Labelle, some of us may want to raise a question of privilege tomorrow and move the kind of motion which was just suggested.
The next day, April 28, I rose at the opening of the house on a question of privilege and referred to what had been said the day before, which I had by then had an opportunity to read, on the basis of which I moved a motion for reference to the committee on privileges and elections which was allowed, debated and passed unanimously.
I submit that though there is a slight difference in that the Minister of Justice did not enter a caveat last night, there is great similarity between the two cases, and what the hon. gentleman is seeking to do today is exactly what I sought to do on April 28; that is, to raise a question of privilege at 20220-209i
Question of Privilege
the first moment after there has been an opportunity to read the actual words which had been uttered.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Donald Maclnnis (Cape Breton South):: The minister told us there was no opportunity to raise this matter last night, and he referred to the half hour between 10 p.m. and 10.30 p.m. taken up by special questions. I call his attention to the fact that the allotted 30 minutes was not completely taken up last night, and that the house rose at 10.25 p.m. Had the minister been present he would have had an opportunity in those remaining five minutes to raise this question of privilege. As to the hon. gentleman's statement that time was not available, he would not have known about it because he was not present after ten o'clock.


Mr. Speaker:: I think at this stage I might clear up the point which has just been raised by saying that the period allotted between 10 p. m. and 10.30 p.m. is for the purpose of dealing with three questions raised by three hon. members. If those hon. members do not utilize the full time of 30 minutes, the remaining time lapses. The 30 minute period does not allow for the raising of other points.


Mr. Bell:: Is Your Honour ruling that we cannot bring up a question of privilege between 10 p.m. and 10.30 p.m.?


Mr. Speaker:: That particular question is not before the house. We have plenty to deal with at the present moment.


Mr. G. H. Aiken (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: I should like to make two comments on the point of order. First, with respect to the remarks of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, may I say I feel he has proved the very point I was trying to make. In the case to which he has referred there was a caveat entered. At the very moment when the incident occurred the possible question of privilege was drawn to the attention of the house. It was afterward followed up, as I think the rule really intends. Furthermore, what the minister raised last night was point of order. If he had felt there was a question of privilege he could have raised a question of privilege. Instead, he apparently felt at that time it was only a matter of procedure.


Mr. J. A. Habel (Cochrane):: Mr. Speaker, about this question of privilege, I should like to draw your attention to page 3276 of Hansard where you will find that just after the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm said this:

Question of Privilege I am not at all surprised at what happened at the government caucus, because I know very well the habits of the Minister of Transport since he has been sitting here.
I got up from my seat in order to raise a question of privilege. The Deputy Speaker did not even give me time to put my question of privilege and called me to order. It was my intention, therefore, to rise immediately on a question of privilege yesterday afternoon.


Hon. Gordon Churchill (Winnipeg South Centre):: The subject which the Minister of Justice is attempting to raise, Mr. Speaker, was a matter of debate yesterday. At that time charges were made and denials were made by the Minister of Justice. If a question of privilege is allowed on this issue we will be faced in the future with subsequent questions of privilege following debates in this house, where we are quite accustomed to charges being made and denials being offered. The Minister of Justice had every opportunity, and took it, yesterday in the debate to speak against the statements made by the hon. member who had the floor at that time. As I have said, he took that opportunity, and surely he cannot now raise a question of privilege on something on which he has been reflecting overnight.
If this is permitted, Mr. Speaker, there will be no end to questions of privilege based on previous debates. It is during the debate that answers are given to statements made. If the Minister of Justice had wished a withdrawal at that time, he could have asked for it. As I read Hansard the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm made a certain statement and the Minister of Justice denied that statement. This happens all the time in debates in this house, and the matter rests at that point.


Paul Raymond Martineau: Mr. Speaker, there is just one other point I should like to raise further to the remarks made by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre. It is that the Deputy Speaker who was presiding over the deliberations last night has already ruled on this question. I have before me the French report, which reads as follows:

I cannot see the good it will do to keep up this debate any longer.

Now, "sous cet aspect" was referring precisely to whether there had been a breach of
[Mr. Habel.l
the rules by the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm. The Deputy Speaker went on to say that each hon. member had to accept the word of another, and that was the end of it. So that the matter, having already been ruled upon, becomes chose jugee, or res judicata, and I think that is another reason why the minister's question of privilege is not receivable at this time.


Mr. Fisher:: Carried.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. If I may say so, this question is not without a certain amount of difficulty, for the Chair at least. I have to decide whether this is the proper time to raise a question of privilege and I should like to make reference to two authorities; first of all to our standing orders of the house, wherein we find that standing order 17 says:
Whenever any matter of privilege arises, it shall be taken into consideration immediately.
Then I refer to Beauchesne's fourth edition, citation 104, paragraph 5, which is probably well known by this time. It says:
As a motion taken at the time for matters of privilege is thereby given precedence over the prearranged program of public business, the Speaker requires to be satisfied, both that there is a prima facie case that a breach of privilege has been committed, and also that the matter is being raised at the earliest opportunity. If he is not so satisfied he may allow the member to make a statement with a view to ascertaining whether or not a prima facie case can be made out.
It was obvious this morning that, not having been in the chair at the time the vote was taken, I had to listen to at least a short explanation from the Minister of Justice. On the other hand, I understand the matter was debated fully yesterday, a vote was taken by the house and the matter was disposed of. The minister, I am informed this morning, was in the house last night and did have the opportunity to raise a question of privilege immediately, but did not do so.
I regret very much being obliged to come to the conclusion that the motion should not be made or received at this time. In view of standing order 17 and the fact that the matter was discussed fully yesterday and a vote was taken, I must say that in my opinion there is no question of privilege.


Mr. Gilles Gregoire (Lapointe):: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, and not on the question of privilege raised by the Minister of Justice. On several occasions since the session started, there have been questions of privilege put by hon. members on the government side, as well as from the Conservative and New Democratic parties. They had

the opportunity of voicing their opinions on those questions of privilege. The question I am raising today is to the effect that we, in this corner of the house, have tried to air our views, and that it seemed as if a barrier had been erected at a certain spot up to which opinions were considered, while this consideration did not reach down to our benches.
I wanted to submit this question because it has happened repeatedly since the session started.


Mr. Jean Chretien (St. Maurice-Lafleche):: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege.
Yesterday afternoon, between five and six o'clock, the hon. member for Joliette-L'As-somption-Montcalm (Mr. Pigeon) raised a question during the discussion, implying that the Liberal members had an opportunity to look at the location maps during their caucus.
I submit to Your Honour-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I was absent when the hon. member made his statements. [Text]


Mr. Speaker:: Order. This is the same point. In my opinion the hon. member has no question of privilege.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I was absent when the hon. member made his statements- [Text]


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair has ruled against the hon. member.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I indicated the other day to hon. members that today I would be in a position to make a statement about government business. In this statement I intend to indicate, Mr. Speaker, what items of business the government hopes to get completed before the house can give consideration to the possibility of a summer recess. The list I have to give is somewhat long, but I hope we can make progress with these measures in the house in a way which would enable us to have a summer vacation somewhat longer than the present week end.
First there is consideration to be given to the estimates. It is certainly not reasonable
Business of the House to try to finish consideration of the estimates before any summer recess, but it would be very undesirable, of course, to have a number of departments waiting until the autumn when half the financial year would have been completed. Motions to go into supply will be made as is appropriate for bringing forward the estimates, and I expect that this will mean one more such motion before summer. Interim supply will, of course, be asked for in the ordinary way. Also in the financial field the government gives high priority to the amendments to the Income Tax Act implementing the budget proposals.
I am hopeful, indeed I expect, that we will soon be able to introduce a motion for an address to the Queen for an amendment to section 94A of the British North America Act in order to provide for supplementary benefits to widows and orphans in our pensions legislation. Legislation itself cannot be introduced until this constitutional amendment has been made. We also hope that it will be possible to take the preliminary stages of the legislation-that is the pension legislation-before summer so the bill will then be available for public discussion and for the special committee which will be set up.
We hope that amendment of the National Defence Act will be completed in this house after consideration by the committee. The bill on the law of the sea dealing with the 12 mile fishing limit is another with which we should like to make early progress; also, of course, the bank charter extension act. Then there is the legislation on the extension of family allowances and on the revisions of the federal-provincial fiscal arrangements which have already been announced. One of the early measures to be proceeded with will be the amendments to the National Housing Act which have been on the order paper now for some time. The resolution relating to the Columbia river treaty is one that it is essential to decide on before the autumn.
Next, Mr. Speaker, I would refer to a group of measures relating to agriculture. The resolution on increasing the volume of farm credit is on the order paper. We also wish to bring forward legislation on farm improvement loans; we want to establish the department of forestry and rural development, and to improve federal provisions regarding crop insurance.
The resolution in my name relating to periodical publications is another important measure that we hope to proceed with as soon as possible. Legislation relating to retirement from the Senate is waiting. And I must remind hon. members that this house

Business of the House is in a real sense in default of its duties if we fail to set in motion the redistribution that is now long overdue, in accordance with the census which is now three years old. The government will return to this legislation, it is hoped, as soon as ever we have any reason to hope that in doing so we will not delay for a long time other important legislation.
Other measures which we regard as of priority importance are the legislation for a minimum wage and other labour standards; the legislation to provide student loans, and the amendment of the Railway Act. This last Railway Act amendment is too complex a measure for us to expect to complete it before the autumn, but we would at least hope to have it, like the pension bill, ready for the committee stage before then. We also hope to proceed with two other railway matters; the C.N.R. financing bill, which is an annual one, and a measure on the capitalization of the C.N.R.
Three measures already on the order paper are the extension of export credits, important to our expanding trade; the amendment of the Post Office Act; and the amendment of the Merchant Seamen Compensation Act. the government is also anxious to proceed with the amendment of the citizenship act to ensure equality of status for all citizens. In the field of administration we attach great importance to the reconstitution of the treasury board as a separate department of government with more broadly defined and modernized functions.
In addition we have waiting several more routine but important measures. We wish to ratify I.L.O. convention No. Ill dealing with discrimination in employment, and the Geneva convention of 1949 for the protection of war victims. Then there is legislation to establish the Roosevelt-Campobello international park; the harbour commissions legislation; amendments to the Companies Act; the revised statutes bill; revision of the Interpretation Act; the Quebec bridge bill; and the Canada Shipping Act.
Mr. Speaker, this pre-summer list is not necessarily in the order in which the legislation in question will be introduced into parliament. The business for as many days ahead as is possible will be announced at the end of each day in the customary way and will be determined in the ordinary way by circumstances. But this list does give a priority importance to the present legislative program and an indication generally of the way in which the government would like to proceed and the progress we hope to make before

summer. Any later proposals to the house for a summer recess will be made, naturally, in the light of that progress which we are able to make. We have to act, of course, with a certain degree of flexibility according to changing circumstances, and the most important of these circumstances that we cannot altogether foresee is the rate at which debate in the house will proceed.
There is one other observation, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make. 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.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that what I just said will give the house a pretty definite idea of the work before it. I know we are all anxious to get ahead with that work as quickly and as effectively as possible. The government pledges its co-operation with opposition parties to that end, and I am confident that, subject always to their duty and obligation as an opposition, those parties will give the same co-operation.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, with the concluding paragraph of the statement read by the Prime Minister the opposition is, of course, in full agreement. The discharge of its responsibilities will be a consideration always before it, while desiring at all times to expedite the business of the house.
The list that has been given by the Prime Minister is of such a length-I have said this before and I repeat-that it would give parliament an idea of the meaning of eternity. Indeed, as I look over the order paper I find that after 64 days all that the government has on the order paper are the following items, and I think they should be referred to: the electoral boundaries commission measure, which has been before the house for some time; the bill to amend the Income Tax Act, which is also in the same position, of course; the bill respecting the Revised Statutes of Canada, which I am sure will not take much time at all; the measure concerning a comprehensive program of old age pensions which will not come before us, of course, until after the amendment to the constitution. This measure involves not only the original plan but twice revised versions. The government has not been able to make up its mind on that matter until very recently. The harbour commission bill is not a matter that will take much time. Then

there is the resolution regarding the Merchant Seamen Compensation Act and another resolution concerning the Aeronautics Act. As I recall there was no reference to them, although the Prime Minister may have said that all matters on the order paper will receive attention. Then there is the resolution to set up a joint committee on the pension plan. There are also amendments to the Bank Act and amendments to the National Housing Act, which are of great importance, of course. There is also a measure respecting the postal rates on periodicals. It has been before the house and strong feelings have been expressed by various members. Then there is a measure to amend the Export Credits Insurance Act. This matter will receive immediate support from the house generally in that it simply represents an expansion of the policies which we introduced. The extension and expansion of the Farm Credit Act is another matter that I am sure will not take long. Finally there is the very large and important matter involving recommendations of the royal commission on transportation.
I mention these matters because when you look at the order paper you see that there is very little on it. Before the government can expect parliament to act it has to make up its own mind, and it has not been able to do so in regard to several questions. There is one, for instance, about which I am not going to say more at the moment. However, the press today contains information, apparently leaked, regarding the flag question. According to the press this matter is going to receive the attention of parliament before the 1st of July. This is a matter of significance, and it is timely for me to mention it today because the press contains lengthy statements in this regard.
All of us are desirous of doing everything we can to expedite the business of the house, and we have done so by agreeing in the last few days to a reduction by one in the number of supply motions. That is a very material concession for us to make. We are most desirous of getting ahead, but the government must first get things on the order paper before they can be considered by parliament. That should be made clear and definite, and 1 want to emphasize that at this time.


Mr. T. C. Douglas (Burnaby-Coquillam):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has outlined a very formidable list of legislation. As a matter of fact I think more legislation was announced this morning than was contained
Business of the House in the speech from the throne. But if this is legislation which must be dealt with by the summer recess, then I think members of the house must tackle this problem. I think all of us in the opposition have a responsibility, and the government also has a responsibility. One of the ways in which the government can discharge its responsibility is to get some of this legislation on the order paper so that members will have an opportunity to study it. We have had no opportunity to see or examine most of the legislation announced by the Prime Minister this morning, and it seems to me it would expedite the work of the house a good deal if legislation were placed on the order paper at a much earlier time.
I suggest that some thought should be given by the house leaders of the various parties to the allocation of the time for the various items which are to come before us. If we are going to cover this very heavy agenda it can only be done adequately if there is some allocation of time in regard to the respective legislative matters. If some agreement could be reached to set a limit on debate at various stages I think this would help to expedite matters a great deal.
We in this party have been advocating for a long time that in view of the heavy agenda which parliament now has we should abolish the resolution stage altogether and allow legislation to come in by having a bill introduced. This would give members an opportunity to study the bill in plenty of time for a full debate on second reading and in committee of the whole. I hope the committee on procedure will give some thought to this and make a recommendation to the house soon in this regard. If we are going to get this amount of work done at this and succeeding sessions I think we are going to have to say goodbye to the slow process of having an additional debate on resolutions preceding the introduction of legislation.
The press has been speaking of legislation regarding a flag. The Prime Minister did not mention that this morning, but he did say there was other legislation which might take priority over what he had announced. It does not make it very easy to plan the work of the house if at any time other legislation which we have not even seen or heard about can be given a higher priority. While we in this party are interested in having a distinctive national flag for Canada, I want to say that we think it is much more important that we give to this country a sense of purpose and an economic climate over which

Business of the House we will be proud to have a flag fly. Instead of the government using a great deal of energy worrying about a flag, we hope that first of all they will deal with some of the important items of legislation which have been announced by the Prime Minister rather than spending, as we undoubtedly would, a week or two debating a flag, which is something that can quite easily be postponed until later this session or to next session.


Robert Norman Thompson: Mr. Speaker, the amount of legislation that has been outlined to us by the Prime Minister hardly justifies making a statement of any length at this time. However, I support some of the remarks that have just been made by the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam with regard to bringing into play procedures which will speed up the business of the house. I trust that the special committee on procedure will take the amount of business before us as a very special reason for placing their suggestions before the house soon, and I hope we will all take the hint and give them the support they need to bring in such measures, at least on a trial basis.
Without in any way taking away from the importance of other measures, I would remind the Prime Minister that there are a few very basic and important items which he announced that must be taken care of in the immediate future. One of these is the extension of the bank charters. If we do not get the legislation passed by June 30, the banks of the country will close their doors on July 2. The Columbia river treaty likewise is something we must get through before the recess. There are the supply motions as well, and the importance of redistribution calls for early action. I would remind the Prime Minister also that there is another piece of legislation about which there has been a great deal of discussion and which has been on the order paper. I refer to the legislation regarding publications. The situation as it is developing can hardly continue and we must, therefore, face this thing clearly and act quickly.
So far as we are concerned in this party, we will give complete, constructive co-operation to the other groups in this house to work out the very best way of speeding up the work in the house. Certainly, whether or not we agree that all these things can be done before the summer recess, it does point out to us that there is a real job to be done, and the only way it will be done is to get down and do it.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, we are quite happy, in this corner of the house, to see that the government introduces enough business for parliament to justify its role and pass the legislation which may be necessary for the welfare of the country.
It is quite clear that during the discussions on such legislation, there will not always be complete agreement. There will be discussions and that is the role of the opposition.
As far as we are concerned, we intend to be as constructive as possible in our criticism, to bring forward suggestions and solutions which could help to deal with Canadian problems if they were taken into serious consideration by the government.
As far as we are concerned, if that legislation has to be passed, we are prepared to extend the hours of sitting of the house and accept longer sittings in the morning and evening. We are ready to sit as long as is necessary, until July, August or September. But, one sure thing is that the Canadian people expect action from parliament.
Today, the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson) gave us a list which may seem quite long and substantial. But I think the time has come to present the lists of legislation, to introduce the measures themselves so that they can be passed, especially if they deal with the welfare of the Canadian people.
Unfortunately, practically no legislation has been completed since the beginning of this session. There was, of course, a bill introduced by the hon. member for St. Maurice-Lafleche (Mr. Chretien) to change the name of Trans-Canada Air Lines, and another short bill. We feel that, half the session being over, it is high time that the house should get down to business. If the hours of sittings are too short, let us lengthen them; if we have to sit by shifts, let us do that, but let us get on with our work.
We have been discussing the establishment of a pension plan but at the rate we are going it will never be passed. We are to consider legislative amendments concerning Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and agriculture. We are supposed to set up a department of rural development-indeed we have been considering that for two years here-or a department of agriculture for eastern Canada, call it whatever you wish, it is the same thing.
Mr. Speaker, we feel that this has to be brought to a conclusion eventually and we are ready to work as long as necessary in co-operation with the other members of the house.

On the orders of the day:


Mr. R. W. Prittie (Burnaby-Richmond):: should like to ask the Prime Minister a question concerning the list of work he gave us this morning. I wonder if the right hon. gentleman could give us another statement outlining what parliament will have to do after the summer recess.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes. There will be an equally long list of very important proposals, including the revision of the Bank Act.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Lester Bowles Pearson: I should like to table, as promised, the statement made by the Secretary of State for External Affairs to the NATO council at The Hague. This is the statement with only one or two small omissions. These omissions relate only to the foreign policy of other members and foreign personalities of the council. There are no omissions in the section concerning far eastern policy.


John George Diefenbaker: These were just interpolations while he was speaking?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes.
[Later:~\
On the orders of the day:


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: wish to address a question to the Prime Minister regarding a statement made by the Secretary of State for External Affairs at the NATO meeting, when he said:
While we have no intention in Canada of doing anything which would add to the difficulties of our friends, the realities of the situation nevertheless may require some modification of our position following the 19th session of the United Nations.
I should like to ask the Prime Minister what modifications the government has in mind with reference to our relationship with mainland China.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I think 1 ought to permit the Secretary of State for External Affairs to interpret his own statement; he will be here on Tuesday. One thing he might have in mind when he talks about the realities of the situation is that there is the possibility, at least, of a vote 20220-210
Proposed, Legislation
favourable to the seating of mainland China at the United Nations irrespective of Canada's stand on that issue.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I was aware of the realities of the situation. It was the phrase "some modification of our position" which interested me. I take this to mean a modification of Canada's position vis-a-vis mainland China. I assume the Prime Minister was consulted before this statement was made, and I wonder if he could indicate to us what modification in our policy there would be.


Lester Bowles Pearson: If there was a vote, in favour of transferring a seat at the United Nations to the Peking government, then the Canadian government and other governments would have to make up their minds whether or not to recognize the consequences of that change.



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA ACT


Stanley Howard Knowles: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-97, to provide for the British North America Act to be known also as the constitution of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The purpose of this bill, Mr. Speaker, is to make it legal, so far as parliament can provide, to call our constitution either the constitution of Canada or the British North America Act. It does this by providing that in the parliament of Canada or in any of our courts, our constitution may be referred to as the constitution of Canada. This would facilitate the widest possible use of this more appropriate title pending the day when the constitution of Canada might be our own document in every sense.
If the house and the government would like to facilitate early enactment of this bill so that the pending amendment regarding certain aspects of the Canada pension plan might be an amendment to the constitution of Canada, I would be quite willing for this to be done.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE


Mr. T. S. Barnett (Comox-Alberni):: I ask
leave, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway, to move the adjournment of the house under standing order 26

Earthquake Damage
for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely the plight of the tidal wave disaster victims on Canada's west coast who now, more than six weeks after the event, still find themselves without any prospects of proper re-establishment in the light of the totally inadequate sum of $250,000 specified yesterday by the Prime Minister as the total federal contribution to the disaster fund, which has resulted in the disaster committee having to commence making payments in the amount of only 75 per cent of the net depreciated uninsured appraised loss, an amount which has no realistic relationship whatsoever to replacement and reconstruction costs.
I contend, Mr. Speaker, that the situation of these Canadian citizens has now become so insufferable that the parliament of Canada, through the voice of the members of this house, should have the immediate opportunity of making clear to the government that this is no time to boggle over the niceties of federal-provincial relationships and responsibilities, but that human need should be paramount and should be met immediately by a payment of the order of $1 million from the federal treasury to the duly constituted disaster fund committee for disbursement to those whose loss requires restitution.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, may I point out that the pitiful contribution already announced by the government is recognition of the public importance of this matter. I submit the urgency of debate stems from the fact that no other opportunity of debate in the early future is possible under the rules.


Mr. Speaker:: I have to determine whether the business of the house should be set aside under standing order 26 to discuss a matter of national importance, sudden urgency or great need. May I refer the hon. member to Beauchesne, citation 100, subsection 8, about the middle of the paragraph, where it seems to me we find the governing words in respect of this matter. I quote:
What I think was contemplated, was an occurrence of some sudden emergency, either in home or in foreign affairs.
In the circumstances, therefore, as this matter has been under discussion in the house, and since the government, I understand, has acted in relation thereto, the matter, although extremely important and of great-


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Before Your Honour makes a ruling, may I just submit to Your Honour that the matter which the hon. member is seeking to raise is specifically the government's action yester-

day in setting a sum which he feels is totally inadequate. There was no way to deal with that action until the action was taken. The action was only taken yesterday; therefore the hon. member had no opportunity to raise the matter.
If the government proceeds on the basis of that action it will be too late to raise it later on, so it seems to me this is the only opportunity that presents itself. It also seems to me it is urgent, because unless the matter is dealt with today the government will have proceeded along the line it indicated yesterday and this, to the hon. member and the rest of us, is completely inadequate.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. member for giving me the benefit of his advice, which I appreciate. Nevertheless I must point out that the remarks of the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam seem to be more in the nature of a grievance than in support of the argument of the hon. member for Comox-Alberni, and regretfully, perhaps, I must come to the conclusion that the general business of the house should not be set aside, under standing order 26, at this time to consider this proposed motion.



CANADIAN FLAG


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Prime Minister whether the information allegedly coming from his office which appeared in the Globe and Mail this morning, and over the C.B.C., that the government has decided on the abolition of the red ensign and the substitution of a flag with three maple leaves thereon, and blue borders to the right and left, is correct; and is this the decision of the government? I think parliament should know and have the fullest information in this regard.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, the government has taken no decision on this matter. The government is bound by the commitment which it has accepted, and which was made some years ago by the party which the government represents, to introduce into this house a design for a distinctive national flag within two years of April, 1963. No decision has been taken, Mr. Speaker, about the design or the time of the introduction of the resolution in question. I certainly would not wish to take any responsibility, either personally or on behalf of the government, for some of the designs that have

been appearing, or indeed for the drawing that appeared in the newspaper this morning.


John George Diefenbaker: I would ask the Prime Minister whether he does not agree that the changing of national symbols, which after all represent the emotions of the people, cannot be brought about unless there is reasonable unanimity in the country. Otherwise greater disunity than ever will take place in this nation.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I expect that the government, and I hope parliament, will take its responsibility in this matter as the elected representatives of the people. I hope that when that responsibility is discharged by the government, all members of parliament, including my right hon. friend, will take their responsibility in regard to it.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: May I ask the Prime Minister, does he take responsibility for this emblem that appears in the paper today and which has received widespread dissemination in our country; indeed, which finds itself on a postage stamp, with tremendous explanations about to be made by the Postmaster General that this represents the unity of Canada? Is this what the government has in mind or is it not?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I have already told the right hon. gentleman only a moment ago that no decision has been made by the government as to what design will be submitted to parliament. When that decision is made it will be submitted to parliament. The members of parliament will have a chance to make their own decision and, as I have just said, I hope hon. gentlemen opposite will make that decision in a responsible way, as I am sure they will.


John George Diefenbaker: I express the hope that the government will take such action as its responsibilities demand, but will the Prime Minister answer this very definitely. Does this emblem with three maple leaves represent at the moment the viewpoint of the government, or does what we hear have no foundation, that this information came from his office?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I have already answered that question twice, Mr. Speaker.


John George Diefenbaker: Oh, no.
Inquiries of the Ministry rect that the government intends to introduce legislation regarding a flag for Canada before July 1?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I have already said that no decision has been taken in regard to the timing of the introduction of any such legislation. We are bound by the commitment that it is to be done within two years of our taking office.


John George Diefenbaker: You made a lot of other commitments that you did not carry out.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Middlesex West.


Mr. W. H. A. Thomas (Middlesex West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question in connection with the flag issue, but in view of the discussion which has taken place I think I will leave it until a later date.



REDISTRIBUTION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. Can he tell the house whether or not the Liberal members had an opportunity of looking at the new electoral maps during a Liberal caucus where they would have taken a decision themselves on this matter?


Guy Favreau: Mr. Speaker, this is absolutely false; a lie that was uttered when this was said.


Mr. L. J. Pigeon (Jolielte-L'Assomplion-Montcalm):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Mr. Auguste Choquette (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Will the hon. member kindly take his seat. That question has been answered.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: As [Translation] a supplementary question, may I ask the Mr. Gregoire: Mr. Speaker, on a question of Prime Minister whether the reports are cor- privilege-
3310

Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Speaker:: If it is on the same question, the question was illegal in the first place, and there is no supplementary.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of personal privilege. As members of the house we must make common cause with one another. A minister has laid a charge of falsehood against a member of the opposition. Therefore, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier), that the whole matter be referred to the committee on privileges and elections.


Mr. Speaker:: I take it that the matter is now settled.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, I rose on a question of privilege-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I will be very glad to rule on that question of privilege. There was no question of privilege; the hon. member misinterpreted the words of the Minister of Justice.



NEWFOUNDLAND


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Speaker, I have a question on another subject for the Prime Minister. Has the government been consulted by the government of Newfoundland concerning its intention to change the name of that province to Newfoundland and Labrador? My question arises from a report that a bill to that effect was introduced into the Newfoundland legislature.


Mr. Cashin:: That was asked yesterday. Wake up.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not see the immediate urgency of this question. I am informed it was asked yesterday, but in any event would the hon. member put it on the order paper.



REPORTED DISPUTE WITH QUEBEC RESPECTING LABRADOR

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Queens):: I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister prompted by the pungent utterances of Premier Smallwood yesterday. Have the good offices of the right hon. gentleman been re-

quested to conciliate in the unfortunate territorial controversy between the governments of Quebec and Newfoundland with respect to Labrador?


Lester Bowles Pearson: No. I am not aware of any dispute of that kind.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Thomas Miller Bell: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Justice. Since we seem to be in the mood for a week end recess, if not for a summer recess, could I ask the Minister of Justice how far the plans, outlined twice recently by the commissioner of penitentiaries for week end visits home by prisoners to their families, have gone, and when will this be coming into effect.


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



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Justice when the next interim supply bill will be introduced, in view of the fact that government will soon be running out of money.


Guy Favreau: Some time next week, possibly Wednesday; but I will be more definite about this, possibly at the end of today's sitting.



LABOUR RELATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John George Diefenbaker: Perhaps I should have communicated with the Minister of Labour before asking him now if he is in a position to answer a question which was raised some weeks ago before the new rules came into effect, namely whether he has, since that question was asked, been able to ascertain whether a "do not ship" list is still in existence. I do not wish to say anything in this regard to add to the question which was asked, but the information I have is that

people are being denied employment on the basis of this list, and being denied it by Mr. McLaughlin.


Hon. A. J. MacEachen (Minister of Labour):: When the matter was raised on an earlier occasion I was in touch with the chairman of the board of trustees, who assured me there was no such list in existence. He also gave me an assurance that every effort would be made to right any wrong which had been done to any seaman as a result of the operation of this list. As I recollect, the board of trustees proposed to re-examine the procedures which might be necessary in order to carry out the policy they had in mind. However, I will be glad to make further inquiries and bring the matter up to date.


John George Diefenbaker: I wonder if the minister when looking into this will examine the case of Jacques Savard?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I will bring the matter to the attention of the trustees.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. La-moureux in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
1. Departmental administration including the national co-ordinating committee on agricultural services, contributions to commonwealth agricultural bureaux and a contribution to the agricultural economics research council in an amount equal to the contributions of the provinces but not exceeding $50,000, $3,368,900.
Mr. Hays:: Supply-Agriculture
Purity Dairy, that if the contract with Purity was not cut the Department of Agriculture would make it difficult for that firm. Together with my colleague the Minister of Defence Production I have investigated these charges carefully to be completely sure that we had full information on this whole matter. We can find nothing to substantiate the insinuation that the dairy was threatened with some kind of revenge action. I deny it categorically.
Our investigations also confirmed that neither I nor my officials requested that the contract be interfered with. I have, however, since May 7 learned of a matter which I did not know on that date but for which I, as the minister, take full responsibility. This in no way changes any earlier statement, but I want to be sure the committee has all the facts before it. The only acquaintance my department had with this matter at all arose out of communications from Alberta on behalf of other diary interests in the area as to the basis for letting contracts of this kind and why the contract in question had been let to Purity. My office communicated with the Department of Defence Production asking for the information necessary to send an appropriate reply. These communications were requests for information and nothing more; the normal kind of inquiry which members of parliament are always receiving and replying to.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Chairman, will the minister tell us the dates of those communications, please?


Harry William Hays: I can give the dates later. The final reply from the Department of Defence Production concerning this matter was received by my office and the information contained in it passed on to Alberta by my office after April 1. By this time, of course, the contract had already run its full course from October 1, 1963 through March 31, 1964. There was absolutely no suggestion in any communications from my office that the contract should be interfered with; and indeed it should surely be obvious to everyone by now, even the hon. member for Yukon, that the contract was not interfered with in any way. It must also be obvious, therefore, to any responsible person that there could have been, and in fact were, no threats about anything.
Now, Mr. Chairman, what do all these innuendos and insinuations of interference and threats by me or my officials, presumably initiated from Purity Dairy and taken as fact by the hon. member for Yukon, finally boil down to anyway? They boil down to nothing more than a simple inquiry from Alberta to

my office and a follow-up by my office in the normal way to provide the factual information for a reply. It seems to me that in view of all this any fair minded, responsible person would admit that the information of the hon. member was incorrect.
Mr. Chairman, if the committee would agree I should hope they would listen to the Minister of Defence Production, who would clear up the other half of this matter by giving a statement at this time.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Chairman, so that the record will be complete, would the minister give the dates for which I asked, and also table the correspondence to which he made reference? I refer to correspondence from these various dairies regarding the Purity Dairy contract.


Harry William Hays: Mr. Chairman, I quoted from no correspondence. I said we had received an inquiry from Alberta in connection with these contracts. It seems to me it would serve no useful purpose to table that correspondence. The rest of the correspondence would be interdepartmental, which I understand is never tabled.


John George Diefenbaker: Does the minister say now that this was interdepartmental correspondence? A while ago he said it was correspondence received from complaining dairies in Alberta. I understood him to say it was from other competing dairies. Having referred to that correspondence, I am sure it would serve a useful purpose if it were tabled; and whether it would serve a useful purpose is not for the minister to judge. I would ask him to give us the dates of the correspondence, and I again request that he table it. I do not ask that he table the interdepartmental correspondence, but correspondence from complaining dairies.


Harry William Hays: I can see no reason for tabling the particular correspondence to which the right hon. gentleman refers. Most of the inquiries, I understand-not necessarily in connection with this matter-are made on the telephone, and that sort of thing. I do not know whether there is very much correspondence as far as this matter is concerned.


John George Diefenbaker: I will be satisfied, Mr. Chairman, as long as the minister will say that he will table any correspondence there is on this question.


Harry William Hays: We will be glad to table any correspondence we have with private individuals.


Mr. Drury:: Mr. Chairman, with the consent of the committee I should like to add a

few remarks to what has been said by the Minister of Agriculture, as the allegations made by the hon. member for Yukon were in fact directed against an employee of the public service in my department.
Late in September, 1963, a short time after the contract was awarded to Purity Dairy for the period October 1, 1963, to March 31, 1964, my Edmonton regional purchasing office received representations direct from the trade to the effect that the contract period should be reduced from six months to three months, thereby giving the dairies an opportunity to participate every 15 months rather than every 2J years. This representation was made by a spokesman for a number of the Edmonton dairies. At approximately the same time similar representations were being made in Ottawa on behalf of the dairies, and on October 2, 1963, my regional branch head office asked Mr. McKay to provide a summary of the current milk situation in Edmonton.
As a result of these inquiries, and to be in line with the general policy now being followed in most areas of Canada, Mr. McKay was asked to discuss the matter with Purity Dairy and determine if they were agreeable to having the current contract, October 1, 1963 to March 31, 1964, reduced from six months to three months. Mr. McKay explained that as all the dairies in that area were now on the same basis, further contracts would be rotated every three months. Purity Dairy was not agreeable to this suggested cut-back, so the contract ran to completion on March 31, 1964.
On April 25 Mr. McKay became aware for the first time of the insinuations which had been made regarding this matter when he read in the Edmonton paper an account of the statements made in this committee on April 24 by the hon. member for Yukon. That statement implied that some threat had been made to Purity Dairy that their milk would be found unsatisfactory if they did not agree to terminate the contract.
On April 27, two days later, Mr. McKay called the army barracks at Griesbach to inquire whether they had made any complaint about Purity milk, this being the only source, in his opinion, from which such a complaint might have come. He was informed that no complaint had been made. He then called Mr. Trach at Purity Dairy to inquire the reason for the statement. Mr. Trach admitted that no threat or complaint had been made, but that he had assumed that if he did not agree to terminate his contract some such action would follow.
Supply-Agriculture
The reference in the press to a misunderstanding on the part of my Edmonton official is somewhat misleading. There was some confusion in the interpretation of the relationship between the provincial price control in the Edmonton area and the Edmonton municipal licensing control. Purity Dairy, when it first applied for listing in my Edmonton office, possessed a provincial licence for the Edmonton area but did not have a municipal licence to deliver milk within the city of Edmonton.
Now, Mr. Chairman, to deal more specifically with the allegations made before the committee by the hon. member for Yukon in the official report of the House of Commons Debates for May 7, 1964, the hon. member stated, as is reported at page 3017 of Hansard:
-when Mr. Trach was requested to cut his contract, that is his contract to supply milk and ice cream to stations Namao and Griesbach, he was told there were certain elements and certain people who stated that if Trach did not agree to the contract being reduced from six months to three months-
Here the hon. member quoted the exact words that Mr. McKay was alleged to have used, and I quote them again as they appear in quotation marks in Hansard:
"That the Department of Agriculture could make it very difficult for us".
I have gone into this extensively with the officials concerned, and particularly with Mr. McKay, and I can say that this statement is completely false.
Further along on the same page the hon. member went on to say:
Mr. McKay, at this particular interview of which I spoke, the employee of the Minister of Defence Production, then referred to the federal Department of Agriculture at Ottawa and particularly to the minister, that is the Minister of Agriculture: and Mr. McKay stated that he had instructions that the minister, that is the Minister of Agriculture, wanted the contract cut.
I say again that this statement is false and without foundation.
Then again beginning at the bottom of page 3017 and carrying over to page 3018 the hon. member continued:
Mr. Trach, I am informed, told Mr. McKay that in his opinion the Department of Agriculture could not break the contract nor could the Department of Defence Production, since it was in writing and properly executed. But Mr. Trach was then informed by Mr. McKay, according to my best information, that there was a group of lawyers in Ottawa looking into the validity of the contract.
Mr. McKay, during his telephone conversation with Mr. Trach, simply advised him that if he was not agreeable to shortening the contract period he, Mr. McKay, would have to refer the file to Ottawa as the question

Supply-Agriculture
of reducing or terminating a contract was actually a legal matter and was not within his area of purchasing jurisdiction. As I have already mentioned, this contract ran to its normal completion date of March 31, 1964 and it was not reduced or terminated; and as the hon. member first made reference to this contract on April 24 of this year, it is quite apparent that there was little substance to the fears which were apparently or allegedly expressed by Mr. Trach.
Then as reported at page 3018 the hon. member went on to quote a statement which Mr. McKay was alleged to have made to Mr. Trach, which reads as follows:
-"we can, in accordance with instructions from Ottawa, find something wrong with your product".
Mr. McKay did not make any such statement, and anyone who says he did is guilty of telling untruths.
Again at the same page the hon. member stated that Mr. McKay was alleged to have said the following words to Mr. Trach, and these words are in quotation marks in Hansard'.
-"I do not like to bring this up in reference to having your products declared unfit, but it is my superiors and the Minister of Agriculture in Ottawa that I take my instructions from".
This likewise is not only false but patently false. Mr. Trach knows that Mr. McKay is an employee of the Department of Defence Production. Mr. McKay knows that he is responsible to the Minister of Defence Production, and he knows he is not responsible to, nor does he take instructions from, the Minister of Agriculture. I say again that this alleged statement is not only false, it is manifestly false.
On May 7, Mr. Chairman, I stated that I would be quite prepared to get an affidavit from the Department of Defence Production employee concerned. I now have that affidavit dated May 8, 1964 from Mr. McKay. One of the paragraphs in this sworn statement I will now quote. It is the concluding paragraph, which is as follows:
Alter seeing the report set out above X was in touch with Mr. Trach and referred to the said report and Mr. Trach, on the telephone, admitted to me that I had never made such a statement to him or in any other way threatened him and that the report arose from the fact he-
-that is referring to Trach-
-assumed that steps might be taken by the department to have the approval of his establishment rescinded.
That is the end of the quotation from the affidavit. The report to which he makes reference is the Canadian Press report
LMr. Drury.]
appearing in the Edmonton Journal of April 25, 1964 of a statement made in the House of Commons.
At the time of the earlier discussion, Mr. Chairman, I asked the hon. member for Yukon, who I regret to say is not in the house today, to produce some kind of evidence to substantiate that Mr. McKay had made these statements. I now have the sworn statement of Mr. McKay that he made no such statement, and I challenge the hon. member for Yukon to produce an affidavit from Mr. Trach to the contrary effect. I regret that he has been unable to do this, and perhaps in the light of his inability to do so he will withdraw his remarks.


Mr. Hamilion:: Mr. Chairman, in view of the statements by the Minister of Agriculture and by the Minister of Defence Production this morning, and in view of the absence of the hon. member for Yukon, I should like to make one or two requests. The first is that the Minister of Defence Production table in the house the affidavit of Mr. McKay. Second, I ask we hold this matter in abeyance until the hon. member for Yukon is back in his place in the house. I think the gravity of the situation can be measured by the fact that we have so many ministers in the house here today. I for one, as an ex-minister of the department, would hope that the Department of Agriculture keeps free from any type of action which this country has been trying to move away from for several years.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I would hope, Mr. Chairman, that I can speak for the whole house when I say to the Minister of Agriculture that we have a feeling that he has tried to resist any efforts to bring patronage into his department, but that we also have a feeling that there is great pressure being applied to him; and I do not know whether he will want to speak about this pressure.
I should like to mention one matter to illustrate the type of thing which concerns me, because I have been told about some of these activities in connection with Farm Credit Corporation lawyers; and it is very clear that the chairman of the Farm Credit Corporation has not advised this sort of thing.
Now I should like to ask the minister whether he received a letter from a Mr. Nichols from the town of Indian Head, Saskatchewan, dated April 22 last, dealing with a similar type of matter which has concerned his department. I think that to keep the matter clear on the record I should read the letter, and I simply want to know what the

minister has done about the letter, which was sent to him, a copy being forwarded to me. The letter is as follows:
Dear Sirs,
It has recently come to our notice that the Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, has called for tenders to supply a one ton truck to the experimental farm at this point.
We understand that some 12 to 14 dealer names were listed for tender, but only one dealer in Indian Head, namely Campbell Sales and Service, was given the opportunity to tender.
General Motors Sales manager phoned us today, asking why we were not required to submit a tender, and the only answer we could give was that Campbell, a practically new dealer here, was a very active supporter of the Liberal party.
We have been motor dealers in this town and district for the past 47 years. Our pay roll supports a staff of seven employees and their families, averaging 16 years continuous employment. We have not required any employee to claim unemployment insurance benefits by reason of lay off in the trend of our business, and this is the first time in our recollection that discrimination has been shown in the matter of who shall, or who shall not, be privileged to tender on purchases for the government farms at Indian Head.
Yours very truly,
Nichols Garage.
Per D. L. Nichols.
My request here, Mr. Chairman, is simple. We are very anxious in this committee to make certain that the Department of Agriculture is not used to dispense patronage. There is so much trouble in many areas of farm economy that this cannot be tolerated. I am sure the minister joins me in this opinion. I have heard enough to know that he has been resisting these pressures, and I want him to know that we are backing him in this resistance. This is a case which I am sure is very small, but it does indicate that in an area where villages are small and there are not enough people in and around them to do any more than barely to keep alive merchants, car dealers, and so on, under no circumstances can the politics of a particular company influence such transactions as I mentioned. I happen to know that with this particular company its politics are one way one election and another way the next. Therefore I suggest that great care be taken to see that in the rare cases when a truck or car is to go up for tender for an experimental farm in an area such as this, all the merchants in the town are given a chance to bid. Usually, of course, the lowest tenderer wins. But in view of the statement which the minister has just made I should like to ask him whether he has dealt with this letter which was sent to him on April 22 and how he has dealt with it.
Supply-Agriculture


Harry William Hays: Mr. Chairman, I have a faint recollection of this letter. I will look into the matter but if I recall correctly the statement is not exactly correct in that a number of people tendered on this particular truck and the lowest tender received the business.
To get back to the other question, I certainly believe that the government of Canada and all governments as a matter of fact would be better off if they did not deal with patronage. Nevertheless, we all know that this has been going on for years. I think the time has come when responsible people should realize that we are working for the people of Canada, that everything should be based on merit and that we just do not need to do these things to have good government.
I am a little surprised, however, that the hon. member would raise this question. When I became Minister of Agriculture I may have got off to a fairly slow start but I can tell the hon. member I am going to end up with a pretty good department, and the farmers will say the same thing. On the 10th day of June, 1957, the Progressive Conservative government was elected and on the 21st day of June they took office. I think the hon. member should know that my investigations have revealed that action was taken 35 days later which resulted in 72 lawyers from coast to coast in Canada receiving no more farm loan board work. I found the same situation through my department.
I have seen several personal and confidential letters, but I will not table them in the House of Commons because if I have to be a member of parliament under those circumstances I do not want to be here. I do not think this should be done. I can assure the hon. member that we are working for the Canadian farmer. This is one of the reasons why we called in all the branch managers of the Farm Credit Corporation and explained to them that we were going to cut 10 days off the time it takes to service loans, 48 to 38 days. I think we have to do this. I agree with the hon. member for Qu'Appelle that the sooner we get the business of government on this sort of basis the better it will be for everybody in Canada.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I should like to follow this point a little further. Did I understand the minister to say that when he took office he found there had been dismissals of lawyers doing farm loan board work? Is he not aware that there was a change from the farm loan board to the Farm Credit Corporation? If he is prepared to enlarge on this situation, is he not prepared to say what has taken place

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since the government changed in 1963? I am going to ask him now to give us the names of all barristers who have worked for the Farm Credit Corporation, the date they were appointed and the names of those who are still doing this work.
I think the minister will find that the pressure I have been talking about, which I am sure the minister has resisted, has resulted in quite a number of changes. In my opinion the accusation should not be focused on the Minister of Agriculture but right on the department of the Minister of Justice from where the pressure has been coming. In my defence of the minister I do not want, as he does not want, to try to stop any move to improve the situation but I suggest to the minister that if he is going to go into the Farm Credit Corporation he had better open up the whole bag. If he does open up the whole bag the record will not be too good. I am talking about the time before an attempt was made to try to straighten out the situation. I am just saying that before the minister starts making these suggestions about the Farm Credit Corporation he should know what he is talking about.
With regard to the letter from Mr. Nichols, which was addressed both to him and to me, I am glad to table it. The minister says he has only the faintest recollection of the letter, but then he went on to say something was done about it. I want to know what was done about it and whether the truth is that he has no recollection or that he did do something about it.


Harry William Hays: I am quite familiar with the situation regarding the farm loan board and the Farm Credit Corporation. The farm loan board was replaced in part by the Farm Credit Corporation and the 72 people to whom I have referred were employed to service the farm loan board from coast to coast. I am referring to the whole bundle, all of them.
With regard to the second question, as to lawyers that are working for the Farm Credit Corporation I would point out that information giving their names, addresses-everything-was tabled in the house about two weeks ago.


Mr. Muir (Lisgar):: I wonder whether the minister would answer a question regarding the change from the farm loan board to the Farm Credit Corporation. I know that at that time the situation in Manitoba was that city lawyers were handling the business under the Farm Credit Act and changes were made so that lawyers in the rural areas would be

used for the convenience of farmers who were borrowing money. This has worked out extremely well and I hope the minister will not change this policy.


Harry William Hays: I do not think we intend to. All I suggested was that these lawyers were all given notice that they were no longer required.


Mr. Rheaume:: Mr. Chairman, before we interrupt the sequence I would remind the committee that the Minister of Agriculture agreed to table certain correspondence he had received in connection with the suggestions made by the hon. member for Yukon and I am wondering whether the Minister of Industry would also do the same. He made reference to correspondence he had received directly from the trade and he certainly referred to and read from an affidavit. He was asked to do so by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle and we have not had an answer. Under the rules of the house is it not necessary for him to table this document which has now become a public document and from which he has quoted one paragraph?


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: Mr. Chairman, I challenged the hon. member for Yukon to produce an affidavit supporting the allegations he made and I said I would in turn produce an affidavit supporting my denials. I would be delighted to table the affidavit I have when the hon. member for Yukon produces his.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Eugène (Gene) Rhéaume: The Minister of Industry read from a document which he alleges is an affidavit supporting his position and I insist, and I think the committee has a right to insist, that the minister table it rather than saying that if the hon. member for Yukon will step outside they will settle the matter. He read a paragraph from an affidavit which he says he has and we want to see the whole document.


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: Mr. Chairman, while I recognize that the hon. member for Yukon cannot produce his affidavit I will be glad to table mine and end this discussion.


Mr. Ricard:: Mr. Chairman, a few minutes ago the Minister of Agriculture said that he plans to try to keep patronage out of his department. I should like to ask him one question. If there is no patronage, why was Mr. Lucien Blanchette, who was on the advisory committee and who lives in La Presentation, county of St. Hyacinthe, replaced by a man by the name of Lamoureux from St. Denis Sur Richelieu? I cannot give you

the first name. For what reason was he replaced, and who recommended Mr. Lamou-reux for such a position?


Harry William Hays: I cannot reply at the moment, but 1 will have an answer for the hon. member in a few minutes.
In reply to the hon. member for Qu'Appelle, may I say that we will get a copy of the instructions that went out. These instructions, of course, went out to all people of our department. So far as I am concerned, they were to the effect that all automobile dealers were to be asked to tender for vehicles. This is the information I have at the moment, but I will probably have a copy of the instructions within the next few minutes.


Mr. Cardiff:: May I ask the minister to tell me how many lawyers for the Farm Credit Corporation in the county of Huron have been changed since his government took office?


Harry William Hays: I cannot give the exact number, but I will be glad to look it up. I believe this information was given to the house a few weeks ago when the names of all lawyers right across Canada were tabled.


Auguste Choquette: Mr. Chairman, to continue the remarks I started last week when we were considering the estimates of the Department of Agriculture, I am pleased to point out that the riding of Lotbiniere I have the honour to represent is basically agricultural and typically rural. I am proud to take this opportunity to speak on behalf of the farmers of my riding.
The federal riding of Lotbiniere includes the provincial county of the same name and several parishes of the provincial riding of Nicolet which are well known to my hon. friend for Nicolet-Yamaska (Mr. Vincent). By its essentially rural and agricultural character, the district of Lobiniere-Nicolet-Ya-maska is a typical area of the province of Quebec. Mr. Chairman, certain parishes of my riding are very prosperous but others are faced with very serious economic difficulties. For instance, out of a total number of 2,571 farms, 1,869 are economical and 702 are marginal.
According to the definition given at the time of the 1961 census, an economical farm is one which provides an income of at least $1,200.
Mr. Chairman, there are 1,869 economical farms in the county of Lotbiniere and 1,100 of them bring a gross income of less than
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$2,500. That is indicative of the alarming situation of farmers in Quebec, and in Lotbiniere in particular, because, as everybody knows, $2,500 or less is a very small gross income indeed, considering the heavy responsibilities of farmers.
Farm mechanization and farm maintenance entail quite heavy expenditures. In addition, farm credit charges and all other charges farmers must meet require a much higher income than what they are receiving now.
That is why, Mr. Chairman, I think that, as I pointed out earlier, it would be better if, instead of accusing our hon. friends opposite, the Conservatives, of having shown negligence, incompetence and inertia, while they in turn examine the statistical data of 196364, to compare them with figures of the previous years, and then tell us that the present government has also shown itself to be negligent in the performance of its duties, it would be better if, with one accord, in harmony, we were to consider objectively the farm problems in the province of Quebec, because it is becoming more and more crucial.
Mr. Chairman, during the past several years, thousands of farms have been abandoned. I think that, from 1931 to 1961, more than three million acres of land have been abandoned. The rural population has been reduced by many thousands, which explains the certain lack of interest we have now towards agriculture. Today more than ever, it is important to restore farm land and agriculture, because our young people especially seem no longer interested in those areas and farming can no longer attract them at all. And that is precisely because of the very low income the farmers are receiving.
It seems obvious, Mr. Chairman, that the present government could model itself on the pattern of the provincial government of Quebec, which has appointed a committee, a member of which is the deputy minister of agriculture, Mr. Chagnon, who is well known for his ability and experience, to study the marketing of farm products.
Mr. Chairman, that committee applied itself to inventory the total farm resources of the province of Quebec and to determine to what extent they could be marketed, because the problem facing Quebec agriculture is one of productivity and marketing.
It is known that the province of Quebec is unable to produce enough pork, beef, lamb, potatoes or tomatoes to meet the needs of its own consumers. Therefore, if our farmers were given a better leadership, if they had an appropriate stimulant resulting from a dynamic policy, they could increase

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their production so as to meet the requirements of the Quebec market, because, as I said, in several fields, production is not up to consumption within the province of Quebec.
Some thought should be given to eastern agriculture in particular because since western farmers are favoured by bumper wheat crops and enjoy many more advantages due to their fertile lands, eastern farmers often find themselves in an inferior position.
Mr. Chairman, without any intention of flattering the government, I must point out that the present administration has taken a very wise step in favour of eastern farmers by appointing a minister of rural development under a measure that will, I hope, soon be passed by the house, in order to create officially the office of minister of rural development. I believe that our achievements have exceeded our promise in that regard. As a matter of fact, we had promised during the 1963 election campaign to appoint an associate minister of agriculture. But what could an associate minister have done more than the associate deputy minister of agriculture?
We, the members from Quebec, asked the Prime Minister during a caucus to give us two ministers of agriculture. We wanted more than what we had promised in our electoral platform, and I think that the fact of having appointed a French speaking minister of rural development who, even if he is not minister of agriculture for eastern Canada, will be in a position to deal more closely with problems of agriculture in eastern Canada, because rural development is precisely the primary problem in Quebec, a great step forward.
Mr. Chairman, I feel that ARDA should be put into operation in Lotbiniere constituency and be successful. I intend to see to it that the farmers of my riding may take advantage of ARDA.
I referred a while ago to the number of farms in the constituency of Lotbiniere and I said that some were economical while others were marginal. There is in Lotbiniere some thriving parishes such as St. Edouard, St. Pierre les Becquets-with which the hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska (Mr. Vincent) is well acquainted-and St. Antoine.
On the other hand, we have other parishes where lands, without being completely uncultivated, are poor. At Val Alain, Joly and St. Frangois, it would be possible, through ARDA, to give a new direction to farming and help farmers who live in those parishes and whose income is clearly insufficient. I
[Mr. Choquette.l
feel that if a well suited program were applied, under ARDA, those parishes could enjoy greater prosperity.
Mr. Chairman, we could also use another method to restore the economy of rural regions; that method is part of our political platform.
We advocated the industrialization of those rural regions and there cannot be a better time for me to urge the Minister of Industry (Mr. Drury) to make all necessary efforts so that an industry may be established in St. Sylvestre, where the radar station will be closed. That would be in perfect agreement with the electoral program we put forward.
St. Sylvestre is another rural area and if an industry could settle there, it would make up for the losses resulting from the future closing down of the radar station that had brought a measure of economic activity to the region.
Mr. Chairman, agriculture in Quebec is affected by another very important matter, that of the exorbitant prices of feed grain and mixtures. There again, the new minister of rural development will be able to make his influence felt and show his efficiency in view of the fact that the storage of feed grain will come under his jurisdiction. And everyone knows that the problem of feed grain is closely linked to that of agriculture in Quebec.
The Quebec farmers want to pay the same price as the western farmers for feed mixtures and feed grains. Let the government pay the freight from Fort William up to the province of Quebec, so that our farmers can pay the same price as the western farmers for feed mixtures. That is legitimate.
But, Mr. Chairman, it would be necessary to hold an inquiry into the speculation which takes place. In fact, for a long time now, the Catholic farm union has been asking for a grain agency in eastern Canada. It also requests that speculation regarding the sale of feed mixtures and grains to Quebec farmers be restrained and that since a claim from the Catholic farm union comes within this problem, another problem affecting the eastern farmers, that is on every dollar of farm production, on a generalized and average basis, 58 cents only go into the farmer's pockets while 42 cents are going somewhere else, maybe in the pockets of the middlemen, speculators, in short of those who probably want to take advantage of the farm people.
I am told that in the United States, the government is considering the setting up of an inquiry in order to study that striking spread between the farmers' income and the total cost of production.

As I said, the spread is 42 cents in the province of Quebec. The government should certainly look into the situation and carry out an investigation if necessary, to find out the reason for such a wide margin.
Mr. Chairman, the dairy industry is admittedly Quebec farmers' largest industry, Mr. Georges-Henri Vermette, president of the Quebec industrial dairymen's association, who is also the reeve of the county, lives in the riding of Lotbiniere. Like the Vermette plant, the farmers of Lotbiniere do business with the Cooperative de Granby, another institution that does us credit, since it processes as much as 33 per cent of all dairy products in Canada and produces approximately 40 million pounds of cheese, that is one third of Canada's total production. As you can see, in the province of Quebec the dairy industry is really the corner stone of agriculture.
Mr. Chairman, I am informed that Mr. Vermette, president of the Quebec industrial dairymen's association, submitted a request to the Department of Agriculture. I would like to take this opportunity to support his request as strongly as I can.
In view of the fact that the dairy industry accounts for half of the farm income in the province of Quebec, I feel that Mr. Vermette was justified in requesting the Department of Agriculture to increase the number of bilingual employees in its dairy products division. I am making this representation without any paltriness, pettiness or narrow-mindedness. The director of the dairy products division is not bilingual and I make it my duty to strongly request the minister to appoint a bilingual assistant director of the dairy products division. I submit this request in view of the fact that the dairy industry plays a major role in the province of Quebec and, consequently, for farmers of that province.
Mr. Chairman, I pointed out earlier that the gross annual income of a large number of farms in Lotbiniere is under $2,500. In fact, 60 per cent of the farms in the province of Quebec have a net annual income which is lower than $2,500. Consequently, the restoration and reorientation of agriculture is imperative, and in order to permit the farmers of our province to have direct relations with the authorities of the Department of Agriculture we must intensify our drive for bilingualism so that the farmers of the province of Quebec may be understood and feel at home when they have to consult with the authorities of the Department of Agriculture.
I would not like to extend my remarks unduly. I just wanted to submit those few
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problems which closely affect the people I am representing here.
Mr. Chairman, a rather critical situation prevails in the province of Quebec; it is, somehow, an ideological storm in which our people are struggling. Yesterday, I heard the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher) ask the Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson) a question in which he expounded in thunderous words the somewhat dramatic situation of which we are well aware.
Indeed, several people in this country are trying to give to the policy of this country a trend which is not acceptable to us. The advocates of an ideology which would tear up Canada might, one day, resort to the same strategy as a man like Castro who also upheld agrarian reform?


Mr. Gauthier:: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. The hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Choquette) is hardly dealing with agriculture.


Auguste Choquette: Mr. Chairman, I am dealing with agriculture when I say that it is vital to restore our farming industry and that there have been people like-


Joseph-Alphonse-Anaclet Habel: Castro nationalized all the farms.


Auguste Choquette: The people of the province of Quebec, and more particularly our rural population, are stable and do not want tremendous revolutions. But who knows, perhaps, some day a dictator not unlike Castro, by means of a farm policy similar to his, might advocate an agrarian reform due to the fact that our farming industry is, at present, in a sorry state. It might happen, Mr. Chairman. A dictator, a rabble-rouser could raise prejudices and tell the farmers who are poverty stricken: We are going to bring you land reform measures.
That is what we want to avoid. But, if agriculture is continually losing ground in Quebec, if our farmers are constantly complaining that their revenues are insufficient, we must anticipate that at that time, rabble-rousers like the ones across the floor of this house, will stir up people's passions and will attempt to tear the country apart when we are trying to unite it.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: We will talk to Mr. Lesage about it.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Mr. Chairman, it gives me pleasure to rise immediately after the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Choquette). He was beginning to flare up, but he always came back to the same old rabble-rousing

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tactics, a charge which he frequently levels at other people. In any case, I do not wish to go along with that kind of jesting and I shall discuss more serious matters concerning agriculture because there are too many serious problems in that field. When you know farming and when you are a farmer's son,
I can assure you that it is very amusing listening to a small town lawyer discuss that matter.
When I take a look at the amount of $140,124,800 that the house will have to vote for the Department of Agriculture, it is quite natural for me, as a member from the province of Quebec, to wonder what part of that amount will go to my province, in comparison with the others.
Being the second largest province in confederation, Quebec will be called upon to pay its large share of the taxes required for the administration of that budget. Will it share proportionately in the few advantages that this budget, if it is well administered, could bring to the various provinces?


Auguste Choquette: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. The hon. member for Roberval is reading his speech verbatim. I am amazed to see a man such as he who pretends to know farming so well, being unable to make a speech without reading it, while a lawyer who is not supposed to know agriculture can make his observations without having to read them.
I ask that the hon. member for Roberval be called upon to order and stop reading a speech written by someone else. He should simply consult his notes as he proceeds, as I did myself.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Mr. Chairman, I shall accept any abuse from this little braggart; but when the member for Lotbiniere says I had my speech written by somebody else, I shall ask him to retract his words.


Auguste Choquette: I am ready to withdraw my words, Mr. Chairman, if the member for Roberval will stop reading his speech, so as to prove to us that it is really his own text he is reciting and not somebody else's.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Let the member for Lotbiniere come and see my notes, Mr. Chairman, and he will find they are in my own handwriting. He himself refers to notes. I have here all necessary books to support my remarks. I have always spoken with notes. Everybody here, and even yourself, Mr. Chairman, speaks from notes. The remark made by the member for Lotbiniere is only intended to pull down the members of the

house and increase his own stature. It is not by trying to crush others that a man proves his greatness. It is through his own intellectual qualities that a man shows what he is worth. Now, I see that the hon. member for Lotbiniere is lacking in this respect.


The Deputy Chairman:: Order. I am sure the hon. member for Roberval is well aware that the rules of this house do not permit him to read a speech. But if he is using notes to remind him of the things he wants to say, I would think he is quite in order and I would invite him to continue with his remarks.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I shall now be able to continue my remarks on agriculture.
Will the distribution of various services and subsidies be fairer to the province of Quebec than it was in the previous years? Those are urgent questions that we must ask during the discussion on these estimates. If we look at the last 30 years, they were not a success for the province of Quebec. As a matter of fact, the only increase we find in the estimates of the Department of Agriculture is the one in respect to taxes.
That is why in the last 30 years the income of Quebec farmers has been dwindling, to reach its lowest level last year.
So, we will demand more concrete action on the part of this government in order to correct a situation which constitutes rank discrimination against Quebec farmers.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson) stated, and rightly so, that Quebec should enjoy a status different from other provinces in the confederation. Now that should apply especially to Quebec's agriculture.
That is why we were dismayed when they confined to oblivion the setting up of a department of agriculture for the east, the only thing that might have given back to Quebec this status that the Prime Minister admitted it should have.
I can tell you that I am greatly disappointed with the general and vague steps taken by this government in the field of agriculture.
Far from keeping his word, and living up to his promises, the Prime Minister has been even more remiss in his duties, since he gave the administration of ARDA, established for the development of farm lands, to the Minister of Forestry (Mr. Sauve).
The member for Lotbiniere has spoken earlier about a department of rural development merged with the Department of Forestry. It is still expressed in general terms,

and does not indicate at all that any direct action will be taken for the province of Quebec.
What we need, is an organization strictly for Quebec; it does not matter whether we are given a department for eastern Canada, an associate minister or even a joint program for eastern Canada. What we need is an organization that will make a direct contribution to the economic and agricultural life of Quebec. That is why we expected in the past years the appointment of a minister of agriculture for eastern Canada.
Today the government seems to be playing upon words. But as far as we are concerned, the issue is very clear. We need an agency of our own. Let it be called a joint program. Besides, all other provinces do have specific joint programs for their particular fields. Thus, we would be satisfied with a joint program, although we are usually against such programs.
Instead of renovating Quebec farm lands, I think that the new legislation will help to renovate forests and to develop our rivers.
We had a magnificent instance of it when the ARDA legislation was discussed during the last few days, and we dealt with every waterway in Canada instead of the rehabilitation of the land.
Instead of going back to the farm or to the land, I have a feeling that, tomorrow, we will return to the bush. Anyway, as ARDA is no more part of the Department of Agriculture- but as I do not want to be out of order, I shall come back to that famous legislation when the estimates of the forestry department are introduced, as it is today the only way to get around to the land.
In spite of all these gropings on the part of the government in the field of agriculture,
I shall try to salvage a few crumbs from that plentiful budget, for the benefit of my province, by calling the minister's attention to two main points.
The first one is the creation of joint specific schemes for the province of Quebec, as we hardly can hope to get rid of those policies, which always aimed at helping the provinces which were poor once, but are poor no longer.
Second I am asking the government to amend the Farm Credit Corporation Act, in order to adjust the federal loans to the economic structures of farming in Quebec, which is not at all similar to farming in the west, and consequently cannot be subjected to the same rules.
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If we consider the joint programs of the last few years, we find that 80 per cent of that joint planning was meant for the western provinces.
More particularly in the last two years, we have been begging the successive governments to put an end to those famous schemes and give back taxation powers to the province of Quebec, so that it may revive its own farm economy.
The budget shows us that the federal government gives two kinds of grants to the provinces. First of all, by applying general programs to all provinces without distinction, second, by resorting to specific programs for each given province.
In the first case, we find that the programs are set up in very broad terms, and thus cannot efficiently apply to Quebec; and in the second case, with regard to specific schemes for particular provinces, almost every province has had its share, except Quebec, which was left out.
To convince yourselves, you should read carefully the 1962 report on these famous joint projects. I outlined the main aspects thereof in a recent speech to the house, and I then thought I had succeeded in opening the eyes of the present government, with a view to the preparation of its present estimates. To my great disappointment, nothing has yet been done, and nothing will be done this year, since the same errors appear again in the new estimates.
You have only to glance at the various items under vote No. 5 on research, amounting to $29,344,400. What will this vote bring to the province of Quebec? Taxes. As for vote No. 35, concerning fruits and vegetables, in the amount of $25,762,200, I am afraid the province of Quebec will not get the least advantage therefrom this year, in view of the dilatoriness of the provincial government in its projects for the construction of potato warehouses and cold storage.
Votes 55 and 60 prove what I said in my introductory remarks, namely that specific joint projects with some provinces or areas are the most fatal to us, and that nothing has changed in this respect.
Mr. Chairman, if we look at votes 55, 60 and 65, for which we are asked to allow an amount of $42,463,600, we can read for instance in vote No. 55:
Irrigation and water storage projects-Bow river irrigation project-St. Mary's irrigation project-South Saskatchewan river project-Buffalo Pound lake reservoir-
Those are ARDA projects.

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Mr. Chairman, if you refer to page 37 of the estimates, you will see the following breakdown of the various grants.
Community pastures-$1,375,000.
Irrigation projects, southwestern Saskatchewan -$243,000.
Re-settlement and land use.
We could get something out of that also, but the amount indicated is nil.
Supply, equipment and service depot-$728,000. Bow River irrigation project-$976,000.
St. Mary's irrigation project-$357,000.
South Saskatchewan river project-$1,274,000. Buffalo Pound lake reservoir-$90,000.
That was only meant to give you an idea of what the province of Quebec gets since the implementation of those famous joint plans.
To supervise the good administration of this act, the department appointed what they call credit advisers, supervisors and all kinds of inspectors or assessors.
It seems to me that some do not do the job for which they get paid by the minister. According to the act, the credit advisor must try to find out the best solution, in order to enable a farmer to live better on his farm, to give the proper advice which will enable the farmers who own one, two or even three farms to stay on them.
I do not think it is the responsibility of the loan adviser to tell a farmer who owns a herd of 40 or 45 milkers or three lots of the best possible farm land, to sell his farm and move to the city.
I do not know whether some employees of the department act thus through lack of local knowledge, a wrong interpretation of the act or a partisan preconceived policy, but I was amazed by some decisions or some procedures taken by those employees of the corporation.
Therefore, I am asking the Minister of Agriculture to make a serious survey in the province, and especially in the riding of Roberval, in order to find out what is wrong, whether it is the personnel in charge of the administration of the act or the act itself.
For the time being, I will not accuse anybody in particular, but I would like the minister to personally look into this specific case and to make a survey in my constituency, with the help of people who have nothing to do with those who work there today. You are bound to admit that the main purpose of the corporation is to make loans so that more farmers will keep or buy lands on which they will be able to lead a decent and secure life.
For that purpose, your department appoints credit advisers to determine the possibility 
of granting loans to farmers who wish to modernize their equipment. Now, in my constituency-for I do not know what is going on in other ridings-it seems that the inspectors endeavour to find reasons not to loan money to farmers.
Do you want evidence? Out of almost 1,500 projects, barely 100 were accepted.
We pay a staff of four or five people or even more, to turn farmers down.
I wonder if the department watches the work closely enough. I shall say nothing of the touristic trips of some small appraisers, of some high officials and even of people from the Quebec office who go about their business accompanied by their wives. If a farmer does not own a modern house, he is denied a loan; again, some farmers have friends who wish to buy their neighbour's land to extend their farms and, consequently, advise those farmers, who have been established for 50 years to leave their land. I have to press, once more, for serious investigation to be made in my riding where you might discover some pretty sights.
To conclude, I wish to point out that the general work of the investigators does not help at all the development of agriculture as a whole.
They tell us: Yes, but it is better than in previous years when barely a hundred loans were made throughout the province. If you consider the increase in salaries paid today in that field, it makes you wonder if 1,500, 1,600 or even 2,000 farm loans in Quebec represent even a step forward, because in the small province of Saskatchewan only, more than 2,500 loans are granted each year.
Mr. Minister, some of your employees, when they are working, are satisfied with very little in the field of agricultural direction. And some even have the nerve to tell us, when some farmers, who are tired of waiting, complain to us: a member has no business here, he should stay in his office.
I feel that the first duty of a member of parliament is to make sure that the funds put at the disposal of each department are properly used. In other words, Mr. Chairman, I would be greatly remiss if I did not keep my eyes open in my riding.
It is also the responsibility of a member to look for any waste even on the part of the Department of Agriculture officials and to wage a relentless war on patronage both bureaucratic and political. No one can blame a member of parliament for doing that.
If the elected representative of the people does not have the right to seek justice for a farmer wronged by employees who are not

always true to their duty, who will do it, I wonder. Mr. Chairman, I have waited a long time, I have waited patiently for months, after having been myself in certain offices in my riding, but all to no avail. As a matter of fact, it is always the same type of protectionist gimmick. That is the reason why I ask that an inquiry be held as regards the Farm Credit Corporation.
If the legislation is wrong, if it is not suitable to the province of Quebec, the minister should amend it. If the men there are inefficient, let us dismiss them and replace them by more responsible ones.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Mr. Chairman, it is always a pleasure for me, coming from such an agricultural riding, to have the opportunity to make some remarks on these estimates. I have appreciated listening to the complaints about the state of agriculture in rural Quebec. In the last day or two I spent some time looking at taxation statistics, and the records as they are available for 1960 and 1961 do reveal a dreadfully low state in that, in this huge province of Quebec, with all its cultivators and farmers, the actual taxes they pay are much less than are paid in the small and rather sparsely covered province, in terms of population, of Manitoba. Certainly I would add my pleas and those of my colleagues to encourage the minister to do something about this situation.
I want to concentrate mostly on some remarks the minister made on May 7 last in reply to what I thought was a well documented presentation in the sense that I understand documentation. The information was obviously recognizable to me and I am sure it was true. It was to the effect that, engendered by the Liberal party organization and working through the hon. member for Rosedale, the attempt is being made to ensure that in the field of legal patronage all government departments and agencies are forced to meet the requirement that friends of the government be favoured to the exclusion of others.
I want to put it to the minister that in replying to these comments of the hon. member for Yukon he did not in my view really get to the nub of the matter other than to give a general assurance that he wanted to cut out patronage in his department. He referred to the quality of the service and went on to say, as found on page 3025 of Hansard:
If the lawyers do not service them immediately and they have not got a real good excuse, then they are to be replaced. Everyone who has been appointed as a lawyer handling Farm Credit Cor-
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poration loans has been instructed to do the work quickly. These are my instructions, and it must be done on merit, regardless of politics. My instructions are that no matter what a lawyer's politics are, if he cannot cut the mustard and service these loans for the farmers, then he is to be replaced. This will continue to be our policy.
That is excellent. I would say the minister would get almost unanimous support for that statement, except perhaps from some of the Neanderthal or dinosaur areas of the country. But this statement does not say a thing about the original appointments or whether there is a list of the appointments. It does not say anything about the trend I have heard remarked upon, and I think I can see it in my own area, the tendency for legal work of government agencies-I am not shocked that it is handled on a partisan basis-to be assigned more and more into fewer hands and for there to be a concentration in the cities and larger towns rather than in the smaller places. The minister should tell us whether his instructions are that lawyers are to be hired on the spot on the basis of their known ability rather than their political affiiation. I should like to know whether that is the overriding consideration. Otherwise it seems we are just going to get, if the minister carries out what he says he intends to, a long competing succession of inefficient Liberal lawyers being replaced by other Liberal lawyers.
It has always seemed a travesty to me that the legal profession, which takes such tremendous pride in its accomplishments and what it can do, is in a sense the last bastion of patronage in this country and in a sense it provides the skeleton, if you will, for political parties.
Now, it seems to me that the tie that binds the lawyers to patronage is a very simple one. It is money. It is a gross material interest. I am not going to condemn them for that. However, they have a special position. One of the things that bothers me is that very often what prompts a lawyer to be partisan is that when the party gets into power he gets these sinecures, in a sense, cinch money for carrying out the little chores provided by government agencies.
One of the ironies I have always felt, and I know some of my colleagues who are lawyers are going to object, is that it seems to me it is usually the poorer lawyers of the community who feel it is necessary to get these sinecures, who become the party hacks and so, after an election when the party has been successful they get into that long line-up for judicial appointments and appointments to commissions of inquiry. The minister, in this particular area, sounded to me like a

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real gust of fresh air. I am delighted that he has this attitude. I want to know a bit more about how he is going to set about doing it. I should like him to be a bit more candid about the difficulties he faces. I should like to know if he has the authority from the Prime Minister, and those people who stand around the Prime Minister as advisers, such as the head of the national Liberal organization, to go ahead so we can get rid of patronage in this department and proceed on the basis of talent and competition. This is what we would like to know.
I have heard repeatedly ministers of this government and the one before, and in my reading I have seen records of other government members, get up and give assurances they were going to start things new and clean. They were not going to go along with all these old traditions.


Mr. Benidickson:: You have seen the Saskatchewan record.


Douglas Mason Fisher: What about the Saskatchewan record? Are we talking about Saskatchewan?


William Moore Benidickson: You have seen the Lloyd record?


Douglas Mason Fisher: I have just discovered that Ross Thatcher has a pal here. I did not think he had many over on that side of the house. It is a good thing to know he has one.
My point is that, in so far as government agencies that have legal work are concerned, it seems to me that this work should be allotted to lawyers on the basis of talent and competition, and that there should be a scrutiny for the purpose of being sure there is talent at work. This is the promise the minister gave us. However, just as he gave the promise, the hon. member for Yukon read into the record a communication indicating that there is an inherent policy on the part of the government-I do not say the official government but I am thinking of the Liberal party as the government-to ensure that there is complete domination by Liberal partisans of the legal work done for government agencies.
It seems to me the minister needs to tell us a bit more about where he stands in this case. I am sick and tired of the Liberal party taking the stance in this country that it is the party of administrative genius and purity, especially when we get this kind of evidence. I am willing to accept the fact that the minister is untainted by these practices. I want to know that he has the authority to do something about it. I was told by a Manitoba member that all the P.F.A.A. inspectors in

Manitoba were replaced by Liberals after the election. As a matter of fact I have an informant in Manitoba who told me the same thing.


Harry William Hays: I can assure the hon. member, Mr. Chairman, that this is not true.


Douglas Mason Fisher: That is not true; I am delighted to have the minister put that on the record.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Same old bunch.


Mr. Robichaud:: The same with the information of the hon. member for Yukon.


William Moore Benidickson: Remember the Saskatchewan record.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Mr. Chairman, if I could just rise above Ross Thatcher's buddy over there, I should like to say that the Minister of Fisheries interjected, "The same thing with the information of the hon. member for Yukon". I just want to say that the hon. member for Yukon indicated he possessed a letter and a record of some correspondence entered into by the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice affecting these agencies that come under the minister. The minister never denied that this correspondence took place. He did not say that he did not know anything about it, as I recall.
We are not innocents here. I have not heard the hon. member for Rosedale issue any denial. The hon. member for Rosedale who, the Lord knows, uses his mouth well enough at other times, has not rushed in to tell us this is wrong, that he did not send those letters. We have to assume that these are the facts, and that he did. Knowing the hon. member for Rosedale, and despite that magnificent talent of his that seems to be recognized so much by the party, I cannot believe he did this on his own authority. I know a parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice is important, but I do not believe he is that important. Obviously, this was the result of some kind of instructions from someone higher up.
It would seem to me that this being the case, we have an instance where there is a policy on the part of the Liberal party, as the government, which is in contradiction to the position the minister has given. I say, more credit to him. I was very pleased when the hon. member for Qu'Appelle went out of his way to compliment the minister upon his new broom approach to things. I should like to ask the minister, despite in a sense the clarity and cleanliness he may bring to this position through not having a past history in

politics, how far he thinks he is going to get in really creating an efficient department and doing the things he wants to do, if the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice is doing this kind of thing?
I have taken too long, Mr. Chairman, in elaborating this point but it is a worth while one and it has not been answered. I think the Minister of Agriculture might make a great name for himself in this nation just on this one point because, although I hate to try to speak in the name of the Canadian people, I am convinced they want to see an end to this petty, bootlicking, niggling patronage with which some of the parties try to go along and which seems to find a special attraction amongst the members of the legal profession who adhere like leeches to the Liberal party.


Mr. Kobichaud:: The Union Nationale.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a question of privilege.
The Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Robichaud) is addressing remarks to the house from his seat. Now if there is anyone who is often guilty of breaches as regards the patronage he has been referring to, I think he is one.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Mr. Chairman, a while ago I saw the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomp-tion-Montcalm (Mr. Pigeon) making signs like this, and I could not help thinking of the Union Nationale.


Harry William Hays: In reply to the questions asked by the hon. member for Port Arthur, I may say that the only way in which these things can be answered and proven is through the passage of time. You can only be known by your deeds.
So far as the Pearson cabinet is concerned, I can assure the hon. member I never worked with a group of men so dedicated towards doing a good job for the Canadian people. I can only say that time will probably indicate whether we are doing some of the things that we suggested we would do, and some of those things are now in progress.
The hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot asked a question as to why we had changed one of the members of the Farm Credit Corporation advisory board. This board has ten members appointed on a rotational basis, some members holding office for one year, some for two and some for three years. The replacement we made was of Mr. Blanchette by Mr. Lamoureux, and we invited farm organizations to list a certain number of
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names of people who could serve on the corporation. This was suggested by the president of the U.C.C., and the appointment was made on that basis. I have not met the gentleman but I understand he is of outstanding ability.
May I point out to hon. members of the committee that this is the eighth day the estimates of the Department of Agriculture have been under discussion this session. This is the third day so far as the main estimates are concerned, and we spent five days dealing with the supplementary estimates. I know hon. members do not have to do this, but since we have so much on the order paper dealing with agriculture I wonder would they be agreeable to moving along so that we can go through the various votes of the department.
There is so much farm legislation on the order paper that there will be ample opportunity again to discuss farm problems. We have the Farm Credit Corporation amendments, the farm improvement loan amendments, crop insurance legislation and, in addition to this, within the next few days we hope to put the new farm machinery bill on the order paper. It seems to me this is the sort of legislation that hon. members will want to deal with fairly soon and with some dispatch, because it is important. It will be good for the farmers, and might I prevail on hon. members to help me get along with my estimates since we have already discussed agricultural estimates for eight days this session.


Mr. Vincent:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a few words on the remarks just made by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hays). First of all, he should not be allowed to leave the impression that this is the eighth day allocated to consideration of Department of Agriculture estimates since it is only the third day. True, we have examined supplementary estimates, but we had good reasons to do so under the circumstances since, as the Minister of Agriculture knows very well, that brought to light things that we might never have learned otherwise.
Moreover, neither the minister nor I were in the house in 1961. But I have been told that in 1961, item 1 as well as the other items of the Department of Agriculture's estimates were discussed for 12 days. This means that in 1961, the estimates for the Department of Agriculture were studied for 12 days, while we have now only devoted three days to them.

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Before dealing with my subject this afternoon, I would like, first to congratulate the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Choquette) whose riding is next to mine and who has somewhat established the basis of my remarks this afternoon. However, I would like to answer a few points.
For example, when he stated that during the election campaign last year, the Liberal party promised to the province of Quebec an associate minister of agriculture, this is not what I read in the political platform of his party, it is not what the farmers heard and that is not what was on the order paper of the House of Commons last year when, from May 20 to the adjournment, there appeared a resolution providing for the creation of the office of minister of agriculture for eastern Canada. Some hon. members and ministers even stated that the minister of agriculture for eastern Canada would be on the same footing as the present Minister of Agriculture.
Moreover, I should like to point out to the house, as well as to the hon. member for Lotbiniere, that what we gained with the new Liberal government was simply the loss of a parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Agriculture.
Last year or two years ago, we had a full time minister of agriculture, a minister of forestry, a parliamentary secretary to the minister of agriculture and another parliamentary secretary to the minister of agriculture.
At the present time, we only have one parliamentary secretary; he may be worth two men, but he represents only one riding in Canada. All we have gained with the new Liberal administration is the loss of a man representing the minister of agriculture and all the members in the House of Commons.
The hon. member for Lotbiniere raised another point. He said that during the years the Conservative government was in power, carelessness, inefficiency and apathy prevailed. I would not like to dwell on that this afternoon, because I would spend 30 minutes and even more relating everything which was done by the Conservative government, from 1957 and 1962. However, I shall ask the hon. member for Lotbiniere to refer to a speech which I made in this house on September 28, 1962, when I had the opportunity to do exactly what he did last year, that is second the address in reply to the speech from the throne.


Auguste Choquette: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Chairman. It is not exactly what I said.

On the contrary, here is what I said, and it will please the hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska (Mr. Vincent). I said that the Liberal members had a tendency of accusing the Conservative government of inertia, inefficiency and negligence, and that the Conservatives, in turn, were accusing the Liberals of doing nothing.
Now, what I wanted to suggest is that we cease to accuse and blame one another; that we go hand in hand in order to establish an agricultural policy in Canada, and particularly in the province of Quebec. I am sure that all the members will agree on that.


Clément Vincent: Mr. Chairman, I agree entirely with the remarks made by the hon. member for Lotbiniere at this time, but I am somewhat disappointed to see that when the Conservatives were in office, those remarks could have been applied to the members sitting on this side of the house. I recall, for instance, that during the last election campaign they came and told Quebec farmers: "If you vote for the Conservatives, subsidies on milk and consumer goods will be stopped. All measures passed by the Conservatives themselves will be rescinded." The very opposite happened. The Conservatives are now in the opposition and the Liberals are in office. We see that subsidies on milk, lime and butter are disappearing gradually, and that is not done to help farmers, but to save money for the federal treasury.


Auguste Choquette: Would the hon. member permit me a question?


Clément Vincent: Immediately after.


Auguste Choquette: Only one question?


The Deputy Speaker:: Order. The hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska has the floor.


Clément Vincent: I should like, at this stage, to make a few comments on the remarks of the hon. member for Roberval. It is not my intention to take the government's defence, but when the hon. member for Roberval speaks about the farm credit corporation, I should not like him to create the impression that there is no farm credit for the farmers in the province of Quebec. He said that 2,500 loans had been granted in Saskatchewan by the farm credit corporation, while only 1,500 had been granted in the province of Quebec.
In the province of Quebec, we benefit from the provincial farm credit board that makes loans, or made loans at least at the time when another party was in power in the province, up to $30 million a year.

Now, I would like to deal, this afternoon, with a very important subject. The hon. member for Lotbiniere admitted himself that the dairy industry is the basis of agriculture in eastern Canada.
On last April 29, the Minister of Agriculture made a statement in the house about a new program concerning the dairy industry and the production year opening on May 1, 1964, that is only a few hours before the institution of this new program.
Some time before, I had asked the Minister of Agriculture to announce this program early enough to give milk producers and dairies the opportunity to make representations if they could not accept it.
We realize that last year the government could not make that announcement before April 29 because, at that time, the Liberal party had only been in power for seven days, but this year the Minister of Agriculture should have made that announcement much earlier.
By referring to previous years I noticed, for instance, that the support price programs were announced for the years 1958 and 1959 on April 7, 1958, three weeks before the beginning of the new year. The program for
1959-	60 was announced on April 23, that is a week before the start of the new year. In
1960-	61, the program was announced on April 13, 1960, 17 days before the start of the dairy year. For the year 1961-62, the program was announced on April 20, again 10 days before the start of the new year. In 1962-63, it was announced on March 22.
Even though the then minister of agriculture was ill at the time, this program was announced in the house on March 22. And may I be allowed to point out that this program provided for a subsidy of 12 cents per pound to the consumer. It was a complete program as regards dairy products. This program was revised on April 9 and April 27, following the representations made by farmers.
This year, the program was announced only a few hours before the beginning of the new dairy production year.
What will be the effects of this new dairy program as regards our producers? It will surely not increase the already very low income of our eastern farmers.
We are already getting complaints and requests and reading in the country's farm newspapers editorials against that new dairy program which, I say it again, was announced at the very last minute to take the dairy producers by surprise and put them in an embarrassing situation.
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In 1964-65, the producer who sends milk to the processing plant for butter will get 13.3 cents per pound of fat instead of getting, through the manufacturer and the federal government, 14.5 cents. That means that the producer will suffer a loss of 4J cents per hundredweight of milk, which will be made up by an increase of 1 cent per pound in the price of butter to the consumer. Therefore, the consumer will have to pay a basic price of 53 cents per pound for butter. That new policy will result in the Canadian consumer paying $3.5 million more, without the dairy producers getting one additional penny.
In the case of cheese, the 30 cent subsidy per cwt. of milk for cheddar cheese has been removed. This loss of several million dollars will be compensated by a payment of 3.6 cents per cwt. of milk for premium quality cheese.
The other day I heard the parliamentary secretary of the Minister of Agriculture tell us for instance, that nine pounds of cheese were being produced with 100 pounds of milk. I agree. Those figures are a bit more accurate than those given to us last year on another matter by the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin).
But in the province of Quebec, only 86.8 per cent of the cheese is rated first grade, while 90.3 per cent in Ontario is first grade. The remainder of the cheese production does not benefit by this premium of 3.6 cents per pound.
Mr. Chairman, I received recently, just like the Minister of Agriculture, a petition signed by cheese producers of the constituencies of Nicolet-Yamaska, Drummond-Arthabaska and of St. Maurice-Lafleche. For the information of the house, I will read a few excerpts thereof:
We have examined the new policy concerning grants for cheese production.
We submit that to comply with the regulations established on May 1, 1964, while providing to the consumer the product which he wants, that is a fresh cheese, the price would necessarily be increased by 4 cents a pound, or the price to the farmer would be reduced by 30 cents per cwt. of milk. In either case, this would obviously be prejudicial and could entail very serious economic consequences.
Mr. Chairman, the federal government promoted the establishment of cheese factories. For instance, the first signature on the petition is that of Mr. Marcel Descoteau, of St. Gregoire. Mr. Descoteau obtained a grant from the federal government to set up his factory, and he retails all his cheese on the local market without having it classified or graded in Montreal. Since this cheese will not be classified, because the consumer insists

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on getting a fresh product, and Mr. Descoteau sells 893,000 pounds of cheese per year, this represents a heavy loss for him.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Descoteau had to boost his retail price by 4 cents a pound this week, in order to pay the farmers the price he received last year. And if you take into account the increase of 4 cents per pound in the retail price of cheese, this can only mean a lower consumption. In fact, we may wonder where we are going, since last year 1963-64, in Canada, the consumption of Cheddar cheese was 99.9 million pounds, as against 102 million pounds in 1962-63. This means that last year, the Canadian consumption of Cheddar cheese went down by 2.1 million pounds-


Harry William Hays: Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member where he got these figures from.


Clément Vincent: These figures were sent by the Department of Agriculture to La Terre de Chez Nous.


Harry William Hays: Are they d.b.s. figures?


Clément Vincent: I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, that when the d.b.s. figures are better than those of the Department of Agriculture, the government uses them. The government used to give the d.b.s. figures, but when they found that the figures of the Department of Agriculture were better, they gave those figures. This is what happened last year with regard to the price of milk. I got all the figures on the price of milk from the Department of Agriculture, and the figures are not the same as those of the d.b.s. Therefore it is only a way of saying: "Well, these figures are better and we are going to use them". I shall come back to this in a few minutes, Mr. Chairman, with regard to the price of grain in Montreal. I shall speak about that later.

Mr. Chairman, this is a petition signed by cheese producers who sell their production on the local market. Mr. Marcel Descoteau retails 893,000 pounds on the local market; Mr. Paul-Emile Dionne, 68,000 pounds; the Society cooperative agricole of St. Germain de Grantham, in the Drummond-Arthabaska riding, 800,000 pounds; the Lemaire cheese factory, of St. Cyrville, 319,251 pounds. You also find the names of Mr. Frangois Richard, of Kingsey Falls; Mr. Gerard Grenier, of Vic-toriaville; Mr. Henri Provencher, of Prince-ville; Mr. Felicien Lemaire, of my parish.

Their total production adds up to 3,202,884 pounds of cheese retailed on the local market and not classified.
This means that if the price is raised by 4 cents a pound, the consumer will have to pay an extra $128,155.36, because of the new support policy of the federal government.
Mr. Chairman, reactions are being felt everywhere. This morning, I received an issue of the newspaper La Terre de Chez Nous, the official publication of the U.C.C. The editorial was entitled:
The price support program of dairy products. And I also read this:
Would thousands of young cattle on highway 17 be more eloquent than our leaders?
Mr. Chairman, the writer of the article does not keep the exclusivity of this headline. As a matter of fact, he says:
Even if I cannot claim I thought first of the suggestion concerning the walking of young cattle on route 17, I submit it anyway.
In regard to the new price support policy, which should be designed to help farmers, instead-as too often stated by the Minister of Agriculture-of saving money for the federal treasury, here is what the editorial of the newspaper in question says, and I quote:
The firm and optimistic tone of the first sentence of the statement made by the Hon. Harry W. Hays, federal Minister of Agriculture, lead us to expect that dairy producers will be better off during the dairy year just begun.
Mr. Chairman, I thought we were the only ones in the house to realize that the Minister of Agriculture always begins his statements by a bombastic tirade which never leads to anything.
And further-
Even if the compound index for goods and services used by eastern producers in the country moved from 232.3 to 242.5 from January 1963 to January 1964.
Mr. Chairman, the minister never mentioned the fact that the prices paid by producers for goods and services increased by some ten points from January 1963 to January 1964.
As for cheese, a few days ago I asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the organizations concerned had been consulted before the announcement of this new policy. I do not question the words of the minister, but I simply read the editorial article, and I quote: The producers have not been consulted, but their claims are ignored.
And still speaking of cheese, this is what the editorial says:

Here, we do not at all agree with the minister. In order to hand out to its patrons the equivalent of 30 cents for a hundredweight of milk, a factory should have an average production of 85 pounds of cheese for every hundred pounds of milk, which means that the net would have an average fat content of nearly 3.3 per cent and more to be classified 100 per cent, Canada, first grade. If we recall that during the 12 months of 1963, the province of Quebec succeeded in having 86.8 per cent (in Ontario 90.3 per cent) of its cheese classified as first grade, and further that, during the heavy production months, the average fat content of our vats is nearer 3.2 per cent than 3.3 per cent, we have to infer that in case of conditions similar to that of 1963, the producers-sup-pliers of the cheese factories will be forced, on the whole, to accept a cut of 5 cents in their delivery price, in comparison to last year's price.
And the editorial also deals with the bonus for cheese exports to the United Kingdom. As a matter of fact, it should be kept in mind that, last year, the farm organizations in Canada asked for the reinstatement of that 4 cent bonus not only for the cheese exported to the United Kingdom, but for all kinds of cheese.
This premium was again cut by another cent, so that the way things are going, two years hence the Liberal party will have taken away completely what the Conservative government had granted during its term in office.
Mr. Chairman, I believe my time is running out, and I wish-


Mr. Winch:: May I ask the hon. member a question. In view of the fact that the hon. member is discussing an important phase of agriculture, and in view of the fact that I understand there are 129 elected Liberals in this parliament and only nine of them are here now, would the hon. member consider requesting the Chairman to rise, report progress, and request leave to sit again when there are more government members present?


William Moore Benidickson: You are pretty thin over there too.


Clément Vincent: Mr. Chairman, last year, I had noticed, and was getting used to it, that whenever we were talking about agriculture the minister was not in the house. I have noticed it, at least on one occasion. But on several occasions, I found that in sittings of committees we were 13 or 15 Conservatives as against one or two Liberals. The hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Choquette) even told me that Liberals were not interested in taking part in an attendance contest, but only in discussing agriculture.
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That is why I was not surprised this year to And only a handful of Liberal members, perhaps eight or ten, out of 129 present in the House of Commons.
When I spoke of feed grain last March 30, I stated that the government should introduce legislation enabling eastern farmers to set up a feed grain board. The same evening the Minister of Agriculture replied that price stability was an accomplished fact.
The next day, that is on March 31, I asked a question on the orders of the day. I had to wait, one month, one week and a few days before I got a reply that I already got the day before.
Once again, I do not question the statement made by the parliamentary secretary on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture to the effect that, for instance, barley was selling for $2.30 in September, $2.48 in October, $2.45 in November, $2.42 in December, $2,46 in January, $2.41 in February and $2.43 in March. I do not challenge those figures because they were probably secured from the federal bureau of statistics, as they look better than the figures of the Department of Agriculture. If the latter had been more favourable, they would have been used.
The parliamentary secretary was speaking of the price per hundredweight paid by retailers to wholesalers for barley and oats. I have here a price list which was sent to Mr. Louis Roy, a merchant in St. Perpetue, county of Nicolet, by a Montreal wholesaler whose telephone number is 931-1881, if anyone wants to check. According to that list, on September 7, 1963, barley was selling for $2,234 per hundredweight as compared with $2.27 in October. I myself phoned a wholesaler in Montreal on January 8, 1964, to ask him the price of barley; I was told that it was $2,594, that the price of oats was $2.55 to $2.59J and the price of No. 5 wheat $3,354.
And those are price lists that retailers received from the companies which sell oats or barley and those retailers had to pay those list prices.


Herman Maxwell Batten: I regret to interrupt the hon. member but I must advise him that the time allocated to him has expired.


George Robson Muir: Mr. Chairman, in rising to take part in this debate I should first like to express to the minister our great satisfaction that he, with generous assistance from the official opposition, was able to resist the pressures of his cabinet colleagues in what was apparently an attempt to split the Department of Agriculture right down the

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middle and to relegate that department to a minor role in the affairs of the nation. I refer, of course, to the orders in council which were intended to strip the minister of his authority and which would have had the effect, had they not been rescinded, of destroying the effectiveness of one of our great departments of government. There was too much involved in this strange manoeuvre for either the official opposition or, to his credit, the Minister of Agriculture to stand idly by and see this happen. Because the Department of Agriculture has in the past played a very important part in bringing to the farming communities of the nation leadership, a measure of stability and assistance in times of stress, we believe it should continue to do so, provided it is given the opportunity by the government.
Frankly, Mr. Chairman, up to now the government has not shown the vigorous action that the Prime Minister in the election campaign promised if he were elected his government would take on behalf of agriculture. In that regard I should like to read into the record a short paragraph from an article in the April 9 issue of the Family Herald written by their Ottawa correspondent. He says in part:
It is still not clear what Mr. Pearson intends to do with the farm department-
Undoubtedly this delay is partly the cause for the Liberals' faltering record in agriculture. Since they took office, not a single piece of farm legislation has been passed by parliament. The measures that have been taken were by cabinet orders in council and these were few in number.
It may be that there is a glimmer of hope that the government can no longer ignore its responsibilities to agriculture in that we have finally had some farm legislation put on the order paper. I refer to the amendment to the Farm Credit Act.
We were also pleased to note that the minister indicated in a statement to the committee that he hoped to strengthen the liaison between the research organization of his department and the communities in which they are located. Everyone agrees that there is continuing need to stress the importance of good public relations between the scientists responsible for research and the general public. But research, to be most effective, must be made available to those individuals and commercial enterprises which can make practical use of it. Research is no more valuable anywhere than that carried out by our research stations and the experimental farms, where experiments are done under local conditions and where they can be of great benefit to the communities concerned. I think
[Mr. Muir (Lisgar) .1
most of us will agree that our agricultural scientists are the equal of any in this field in the world, and any additional efforts which the department can put forward toward assisting our farmers in the improvement in the quality of their cereal grains, special crops and livestock is a step in the right direction. There is no doubt that this is a specific area where we can improve our competitive position in the markets of the world.
The other day the minister, in answer to a question I posed to him, assured us that the government intended to bring in legislation to reinsure the provinces against losses in their crop insurance programs. We certainly welcome this assurance because until such time as the provinces are reinsured they are hesitant about extending their programs in that regard beyond a regional or experimental stage. I had hoped that this legislation would also be put on the order paper in order to assure the provinces that they would be covered for the current crop year. Perhaps the minister can give us further assurance that this will be done.
Another problem I wish to bring to the attention of the committee is of vital importance to the western economy and of great concern to the farmers of the three prairie provinces. Since it comes under the jurisdiction of the minister and is part of his duties and functions I should like to impress upon him and the committee the prime importance of the matter of railway branch line abandonment in relation to the future well-being of agriculture. I hope that as the minister responsible he insists that a long, hard look be taken at any abandonment and that it is established beyond any shadow of doubt that the public interest is protected before consent to such abandonment is given.
Because of the widespread concern in the province of Manitoba caused by the proposed abandonment by the C.N.R. of practically all their trackage south of their main line between Winnipeg and Brandon, together with additional abandonments contemplated in that area by the C.P.R., a branch line association was set up last fall which has now become province wide and has made this particular problem a part of their concern. In fact, the statement issued by the association at that time reads as follows:
The recent announcement regarding abandonment of railway branch lines is causing concern in may sections of Manitoba and concern on the part of the many interests which will sooner or later be affected by such abandonment. A part of the anxiety is due to the extent of branch line abandonment which has been indicated to date and the importance that is attached to abandonment as a solution to the problems of the

railways, especially in western Canada. It goes without saying that abandonment of branch lines should be subject to a thorough study and investigation from the standpoint of the costs of such abandonment to the individuals, municipalities and communities concerned.


Herman Maxwell Batten: Order. I apologize for interrupting the hon. member for Lisgar but I am having some difficulty relating what he is saying now to the first item of the agriculture estimates.


George Robson Muir: With great respect, Mr. Chairman, I am glad you brought this to my attention because the abandonment of branch lines throughout western Canada is going to impose a severe strain on agriculture, particularly the great grain growing areas of the three prairie provinces. Aside from what I have already said, it is my intention to relate my remarks directly to the agricultural community. I have no intention of bringing in commercial enterprises or others that may be affected by such a move.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, on the point of order, I think it should be made clear at this time, when the hon. member for Lisgar is making these remarks, that railway line abandonment has been put under the Minister of Agriculture in so far as the committee on organizing rational abandonment is concerned. Therefore I suggest that anything in connection with railway line abandonment can be properly discussed under item 1.


Mr. Mcllraiih:: I wonder whether I could be heard on the point of order. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle stated that the Minister of Agriculture has responsibility over rail line abandonment. If he will check more carefully I think he will find that the legislation has not yet been dealt with by the house and the Minister of Agriculture does not have that responsibility. It has been announced that he will have it after the legislation is passed.
What in effect is happening is that the hon. member for Lisgar in his remarks is attempting to anticipate the content of the railway legislation to be based on the resolution now on the order paper. That is the nub of the difficulty and, as the hon. member will appreciate, it is improper to answer him or discuss this subject because to do so would be to disclose the content of the legislation to the committee before it has been presented to the house. I am aware of the keen interest of the farmers of western Canada in this subject, but for that reason I suggest, with great deference, that this stage of these proceedings is not the place to discuss this very important 20220-211
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subject, and that it is a matter for discussion under item 16 of the order paper.


Mr. Baldwin:: On the point of order, Mr. Chairman, I think this should be said. I would probably agree with the minister that we should not go into too great detail. However, from time immemorial in this country the Crowsnest pass rates have been one of the basic foundations and cornerstones of the prosperity of western farmers, and I think it is notorious that the briefs presented by most of the agricultural associations and bodies of western Canada have pointed out how deeply affected individual farmers will be, because by reason of branch line abandonment many of the benefits that flow to them will be lost or at least seriously diminished in that railway line abandonment will add to the costs of the farmers. Consequently I submit with great respect that at least to the extent of a general application a member who discusses the possible effect of branch line abandonment at this time falls well within the ambit of item No. 1 and has the right to do so.


George Robson Muir: Mr. Chairman, I was not attempting to anticipate legislation. What I was attempting to do was to bring to the attention of the minister responsible the very serious effects-I am sure that as a westerner he will agree with me-that the indiscriminate abandonment of branch lines is going to have on the farming community. However, I will shorten my statement in that regard to meet the wishes of the committee. I should like to continue only to the point where I can tie in rail line abandonment with the problems it creates for the farmers. Branch lines have been, and at least for the foreseeable future, will continue to be an integral part of our transportation system. Here is where I relate the matter to agriculture. The grain handling facilities made possible by their existence contribute to one of the most efficient marketing complexes now in operation. If lines are abandoned, naturally the railways will get the grain anyway at larger centres, but by doing so they are shifting the responsibility and the cost of marshalling the grain for export to the taxpayers of the provinces and the municipalities, who will have to assume the added burden and responsibility of building and maintaining highways and roads, and particularly to the farmers who will be faced with extra storage and delivery costs.
Earlier I mentioned there was no doubt that the railways would get this grain anyway at the larger centres. However, in so far

Supply-Agriculture
as the farmers are concerned, what is lost sight of is the fact that grain can be transported to smaller elevators from the field, in almost any type of truck or trailer. Each truck or trailer can be handled just as quickly in these small local elevators as in the larger ones. Perhaps only a farmer or an elevator operator can possibly imagine the congestion at large centralized elevators during the harvest period. I assure you that even under the best of conditions, grain delivery would be practically eliminated during the harvest time, when time is of the essence. Under these circumstances, the farmer can expect not only higher delivery costs but added storage costs as well. I hope the minister will give us his assurance that before any action is taken in regard to branch line abandonment the public interest will be the first consideration.
In his opening statement to the committee, the minister was enthusiastic in his appraisal of the agriculture economy over the past year. This is understandable on the part of one whose department is deeply involved in the affairs of that industry. The rest of us would be more inclined to share that enthusiasm if there had been some action on the part of the government since they were elected that would show they understood the problems of agriculture, and that they had policies designed to meet them. Since the last election the farmers of this country have been benefiting from the groundwork laid by the former government for a long term program to assist agriculture, a long term program that was brought into being to help the farmer obtain his rightful share of the nation's economic well-being. There has been little done by way of furthering this aim by the present government over the past year, nor have any of the promises that were made to agriculture by the Prime Minister been kept. Whether or not this has been by accident or design remains to be seen, but time is running out on the election promises of this government such as the two price system for wheat and a floor of $2 for that grain. These promises, plus regional support prices for eggs and hogs are just some of the things the farmers were led to expect from the Prime Minister's statements at that time.
We know the minister has had these promises hanging over his head, and this has been enough to discourage any minister of agriculture, particularly in view of the fact he has had little assistance from his colleagues. I would point out to the minister, however, that it was he who promised some-

thing would be done about higher machinery prices. The committee set up by the former government was unable to complete its work on this problem but much valuable information was gathered which may be of assistance to the minister. No one suggests there is any easy solution, but the cost of equipping the average farm today can run as high as the price of the land itself. This makes it difficult for our future farmers to get an initial start. We will be waiting with interest anything in the way of a solution which the minister has to offer. We hope also he will be able to persuade his colleagues that the problems of agriculture are not static, but must be continually reviewed in the light of the changing needs of the industry. He can expect our full support in this regard.
I listened with interest to the debate that took place this afternoon concerning political patronage. 1 am one of those who believe that the minister is perhaps sincere in his desire to eliminate this vulgar, nasty proposition from his department. I am referring to the Minister of Agriculture, not to some of the other ministers who I have reason to believe are more politically minded. If this is the case, I can assure the minister the full support and confidence of the official opposition.
I, myself, would be quite happy to see political patronage eliminated. During the time I have represented my area I have not once played politics with anybody. When it comes to appointments of P.F.A.A. inspectors, and I have received something like 60 requests in one year, I refer them to Regina and I do not even ask the people for whom they voted. I sincerely trust that in the minister's handling of the affairs of his department, in my constituency at least, he will leave the situation that way.
Progress reported.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: Earlier this morning during the deliberations of the committee, the Minister of Industry wished to table a document. Does the house now give permission to the President of the Privy Council, on behalf of the Minister of Industry, to table this document?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Gordon Minto Churchill: May I ask the house leader if the business remains unchanged as announced?


Guy Favreau: Mr. Speaker, the business will be the same as announced, but with the follow-

ing exception. Now that I know an act respecting the territorial seas of Canada has come back from the other place I must advise the house that it is our intention to have it dealt with as the third item, that is, after the resolution preceding the bill to amend the Bank Act and the Quebec Savings Bank Act.
Otherwise the order of business will be the same as announced but, as I said earlier this morning, there will be a supply motion next week, probably on Wednesday; and on next Friday the estimates which we will take will be those of the Department of Public Works, which will be followed by those of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.


Stanley Howard Knowles: When the minister said a supply motion on Wednesday I assume he meant interim supply, which does not require a motion.
Business of the House


Guy Favreau: Interim supply.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Might I be permitted to ask the Minister of Justice, in reference to the bill concerning the territorial seas, whether it is the intention of the government to have this bill referred to the standing committee on marine and fisheries following second reading?


Guy Favreau: We will be in a position to advise the house of that on Tuesday, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Batten):: Order. Pursuant to special order of yesterday, this house stands adjourned until 2.30 o'clock on the afternoon of Tuesday next.


[Stage Direction]
It being five minutes after two o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to special order.
20220-2 lli
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, May 19, 1964