Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: I desire to table the text of the convention between Canada and the
Hong Kong Prisoners

United States of America for the avoidance of double taxation and prevention of fiscal evasion, which was signed at Washington on March 4, 1942.



HONG KONG

[Stage Direction]
TREATMENT OP MILITARY AND CIVILIAN PRISONERS BY JAPANESE On the orders of the day:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, the United Kingdom secretary of state for foreign affairs made the following statement in the House of Commons at Westminster to-day in reply to an inquiry regarding the treatment of military prisoners and civilians by the Japanese army at Hong Kong after its capitulation:
Out of regard for the feelings of the thousands of relations of the victims, his majesty's government have been unwilling to publish any accounts of Japanese atrocities at Hong Kong until these had been confirmed beyond any possibility of doubt.
His Majesty's government are now in possession of statements by reliable eye witnesses who succeeded in escaping from Hong Kong towards the end of January or early in February. Their testimony established the fact that Japanese army at Hong Kong perpetrated against their helpless military prisoners and civil population, without distinction of race or colour, the same kind of barbarities which aroused the horror of the civilized world at the time of the Nanking massacre of 1937.
It is known that fifty officers and men of the British were bound hand and foot and then bayoneted to death. It is known that ten days after capitulation wounded were still being collected from the hills and Japanese were refusing permission to bury the dead. It is known that women, both Asiatic and European, were raped and murdered and that one entire Chinese district was declared a brothel, regardless of status of inhabitants.
All the survivors of the garrison including Indian, Chinese and Portuguese have been herded into a camp consisting of wrecked huts without doors, windows, light or sanitation. By the end of January 150 cases of dysentery had occurred but no drugs or medical facilities were supplied. The dead had to be buried in a corner of the camp. The Japanese guards are utterly callous and the repeated requests of General Maltby, the general officer commanding, for an interview with the Japanese commander have been curtly refused. This presumably means that the Japanese high command have connived at the conduct of their forces. The Japanese government stated at the end of February that numbers of prisoners in Hong Kong were British 5,072, Canadian 1,689, Indian 3,829, others 357, total 10,947.
Most of the European residents, including some who are seriously ill, have been interned, and like the military prisoners are being given only a little rice and water and occasionally scraps of other food.
There is some reason to believe that conditions have been slightly improved since date on which the eye-witnesses, whom I have quoted, escaped, but Japanese government have refused their consent to visit to Hong Kong of a repre-
sentative of protecting power and no permission has yet been granted for such a visit by representative of International Red Cross Committee. They have in fact announced that they require all foreign consuls to withdraw from all territories they have invaded since the outbreak of the war. It is clear that their treatment of prisoners and civilians will not bear independent investigation.
I have no information as to condition of our prisoners of war and civilians in Malaya. The only report available is a statement by Japanese official news agency of March 3 stating that 77,699 Chinese have been arrested and subjected to what is described as "a severe examination." It is not difficult to imagine what that entails.
I am sorry that I have had to make such a statement to the house. Two things will be clear from it, to the house, to the country and to the world. The J apanese claim that their forces are animated by a lofty code of chivalry, l>ushido, is a nauseating hypocrisy. That is the first. The second is that the enemy must be utterly defeated. The house will agree with me that we can best express our sympathy with the victims of these appalling outrages by redoubling our efforts to ensure his utter and overwhelming defeat.
That is the end of Mr. Eden's statement. I am informed by our high commissioner in London that on the basis of information so far received, United Kingdom authorities agree that of all the reports of specific atrocities received1 to date none are alleged to have been committed against Canadians, but no reports show that in so far as general treatment of prisoners of war is concerned Japanese have made any differentiation between Canadians and other British troops.
Words cannot begin to express the sense of outrage and the feeling of bitter resentment to which this announcement of Japanese atrocities at Hong Kong is certain to give rise among civilized! peoples everywhere, and nowhere more than in the different countries of the British empire and in the United States with which Japan is at war.
Retribution for barbaric behaviour of the kind will follow in full measure in due course. Meanwhile, numbers of Canadians, both soldiers and civilians, in Hong Kong and in other parts of the far east, are now and will continue for some time to be at the mercy of the Japanese forces. Remembering this fact, it is of the utmost importance that no act of vengeance should be permitted or taken against persons of Japanese origin in our country, since any such acts might be made an excuse for acts of retaliation upon Canadian soldiers or citizens in the orient.
I may add that the Canadian government, in conjunction with the governments of Australia, India, the United Kingdom and the United States, have been and are making every effort, both through the countries which are protecting their interests in enemy coun-

Hong Kong Prisoners
tries and through the International Red Cross, to get into personal touch with prisoners of war and others. The object of all these inquiries is twofold: to secure all possible authentic information, and also to bring such measure of relief in the nature of medical supplies, food and personal comforts as can possibly be arranged.


Hon. R. B. HANSON (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, the facts related by Mr. Eden and detailed to this House of Commons will shock the whole world. But they will help us to renew our determination to end forever those systems of government under which such atrocities and barbarities are permitted to occur. I should like to express this further thought. Reprisals are unthinkable to those of us who believe in the Christian way of life; and I would sound a note of warning-that reprisals against Japanese nationals in Canada must not be contemplated. Let it never be forgotten that there are still Canadians and British in the hands of the Japanese foe.


Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: I should like to add a word to what has already been said. I am sure the recital we have just heard has filled each one of us with horror. The day must come when the officers and governments who have been responsible for these atrocities must be brought to the bar of justice and dealt with in a fitting manner.
I too would join with the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson) in expressing the hope that however much our people may be provoked against the Japanese, nowhere in Canada may there be any untoward act which would, as has already been said, give an excuse to the devilish men who are wreaking this kind of treatment upon those who are simply carrying on their activities both military and civil in war time in a fitting way. I cannot help thinking that the civilized world, which is shocked now,' ought to have been equally shocked when similar outrages were committed at Nanking. That, however, is in the past, and I join in the expressions of horror and resentment expressed by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.


Mr. J. H. BLACKMORE (Lethbridge):: In times like these it is easy for us to be unwise. The all-important thing for us to keep in mind is this, that because of mishaps, misconceptions and mismanagement in the past the British empire has allowed itself to become so weak that these things have been made possible. We are suffering from the results of our past mistakes. We cannot in any way
atone for them, or extricate ourselves from the difficulties into which they have plunged us, by making others. The thing for us to do is to keep our minds calm and to concentrate with all the power of our being on the things we can do to retrieve ourselves from the disaster into which we are plunged. Certainly one of the things we should not do is indulge in any untoward act toward any national of Japanese origin in this country.


Mr. A. W. NEILL (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, may I say a word in the circumstances? I should like to ask the leaders of the first three parties who have spoken whether there has been the least suggestion from anyone in British Columbia, or in Canada, that we should take any action against Japanese which would invite retaliation or which could in even the faintest degree be comparable to the brutalities about which we have heard. What we have tried to do is to get the government to take steps, before it is too late, to protect our wives and children in British Columbia from atrocities that may come upon us.


Mr. G. A. CRUICKSHANK (Fraser Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I agree that the problem before us is a serious one, and I agree with what has been said by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the leaders of the other groups. But I do wish to point out that members from British Columbia almost unanimously have tried to impress upon the government this very fact about which they have spoken. My information last night at 11 o'clock was that only some 700 Japanese have been moved from British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, that is not good enough. As the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill) has pointed out, some of us have our wives and children or families out there. We want to impress upon the government what the situation is. So far the government has not taken it seriously enough. It is not that we are advocating reprisals. But the government must bear the responsibility, and it is a most serious responsibility, if they do it well. We do not advocate reprisals; we deprecate them, and will do everything in our power to prevent any. But the government must wake up to the seriousness of the situation.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I might say a lot
more than I have, but I want to ask a question, which I am entitled to do, on the orders of the day-and I am more serious than I have ever been before with respect to anything I have said in this house. How many Japanese have been moved from the province of British Columbia since December 7?
Merchant Shipping


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I was informed only at noon to-day that about 1,000 have been moved. I can assure my hon. friend that both the security commission of British Columbia and the department of government which has to do with this matter are leaving no stone unturned to see that eveiy possible action is taken that will make for the security of the people of British Columbia.



MERCHANT SHIPPING

[Stage Direction]
SINKING OF VESSELS OFF NOVA SCOTIA COAST On the orders of the day:
Mr. CLARENCE GILLIS (Cape Breton South):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services. As a member for a Nova Scotia coast constituency I want to ask whether reports are correct that several cargo ships have recently been sunk within sight of the Nova Scotia coast, and what steps are being taken to protect this coast and ships plying along it.
Hon. ANGUS A. MACDONALD (Minister of National Defence for Naval Services): I have just received notice of my hon. friend's question. In reply to the first part of it I can say it is true that ships have been sunk not far distant from the Nova Scotia coast. As to the second part, namely, what steps are being taken to protect this coast and the ships plying along it, I do not think that that is the sort of question to which a detailed public answer could be made. All I can say to my hon. friend is that steps are being taken, and that every facility at the command of the naval service and the Royal Canadian Air Force to guard our coastal waters is being used.



AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS

[Stage Direction]
WAR EXCHANGE TAX AND PRICES OF FARM TRACTORS On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. G. WEIR (Macdonald):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Gibson), which I take to be of some importance in its general application. I have here the serial number of a tractor which was sold to a farmer in August, 1940. Under protest the purchaser paid a tax on this tractor of $70.80. I have as well a letter from an officer of the Department of National Revenue which states that this tractor was cleared through customs in April, 1940, and as such would not be subject to the war exchange tax. I have also the serial number of a second tractor that was purchased in 1940 and on which a tax of S66.20 was paid. I am not certain of the date on which this second tractor was cleared IMr. Cniiokshank.l
through customs, but I think it was early in the spring of 1940. I have also on my desk an article printed in a local newspaper which in effect states that some companies, or at least a company, imported large quantities of farm implements before the imposition of the war exchange tax. These implements have been kept in stock and apparently the policy has been practised of adding the amount of the war exchange tax to the price of the implements.
I would put my question to the minister in this way. First, has the department any knowledge which would lead it to believe that the practice just referred to has been followed by any farm implement company or companies? Second, will the department take steps to determine the correctness or otherwise of the assertion made? Third, if this tax was added to the price of the machinery, was the money so collected paid to the treasury? Fourth, if the tax was collected and not paid to the treasury, will the department take steps to (a) secure the money so collected for the benefit of the treasury, or (b) require the implement company or companies to reimburse the purchaser the amount of the tax so collected?


Mr. SPEAKER:: f have already referred to the fact that questions are asked on the orders of the day which should be placed on the order paper. We have an illustration this afternoon in this question which is not capable of being answered at the moment. I think hon. members must take into consideration that these questions, important though they may be, should be placed on the order paper. I would prefer that the minister should not reply to the question.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. F. D. SHAW (Red Deer):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. I regret that the circumstances are such as to have made it impossible for me to give him notice. Is it true that a strike of employees in the Montreal plant of Canada Bread1, a company which is supplying many of the military camps, has taken place? If so, would the minister make a statement in this connection? Have any steps been taken to investigate the hours of labour and the rates of pay prevailing in the Ottawa branch of Canada Bread?


Georges Parent: This question is in the same category as the one just asked by the hon. member for Macdonald. It should be placed on the order paper.

Wheat Board Act



PRAIRIE FARM ASSISTANCE ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) moved the second' reading of Bill No. 14, to amend the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, 1939.
Richard Burpee Hanson: We understood that Bill No. 13 would be called first.


Mr. GARDINER:: We just want to advance this bill to the second reading and then we will call the other bill.


Mr. LACOMBE:: I have an amendment to move.


James Garfield Gardiner: The arrangement was made that the three wheat bills would all be brought to the stage of the second reading and then we would be able to discuss all three at the one time. This bill has now advanced to the stage where it can be moved for second reading. It is not my intention to make any remarks with regard to it other than I made in my speech the other day on Bill No. 12. I am moving that this bill be now read a second time and when it is read the second time in this house it will be referred to the agriculture committee.


Liguori Lacombe: I move, seconded by the hon. member for Gaspe (Mr. Roy) that all the words after-


Georges Parent: It is moved by Mr. Gardiner that the bill be now read a second time.


William Gilbert Weir: In order to carry out the understanding that was agreed to, I move the adjournment of the debate.
Motion agreed to and: debate adjourned.



CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, March 9, consideration of the motion of Mr. MacKinnon (Edmonton West) for the second reading of Bill No. 13, to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act, 1935.
Mr. E. E. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) made his statement on this bill I moved the adjournment of the debate. I wish now to make a few references to this measure. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) has stated that by arrangement these three measures are to be more or less considered at the same time, so that any reference I may make to Bill No. 12 or to Bill No. 14 will be quite in order.
At the outset I should like to register a protest, as I have on former occasions, against the bringing down so late in the season of measures affecting the agricultural interests in western Canada. The farmers will have to change their programmes more or less to meet the provisions of the measures that will pass this house. This is March 10. Seeding will be taking place in another two or three weeks. Last year it was May before we finally decided on the regulations with respect to the wheat acreage reduction. It is hardly fair to ask the farmer to change his whole programme a few days before he starts seeding.
I believe that Bill No. 14 and Bill No. 12 could be proceeded with with considerable haste. Bill No. 13, the one I am speaking to particularly now, deals with the matter of price. As the farmer will not be affected by the provisions of this bill until next fall, I think we should take considerable time to consider it in committee. I do not think it is necessary that this bill should be reported back from committee as soon as the others. In committee we should have a good deal more information than we have had about this whole problem of wheat marketing, prices, and so on.
I think we are all agreed wheat is the chief commodity produced in Saskatchewan. In that province we have what might be termed a wheat economy. If you will consider the part that wheat plays in our national income you will realize the importance that should be attached to it. Only about five per cent of the national income goes to twenty per cent of the population of Canada who are depending on agriculture in western Canada. I think you will realize that there is something wrong. I hardly think I need state my position again. On many occasions I have gone on record in this house, and I think it is well understood just where I stand. I think I can say that my position is such that I have been the greatest champion of the producers of western Canada in this house. For fourteen consecutive sessions I have been a greater champion than any other member from western Canada.
It was very interesting for me to listen yesterday to the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Ross) make the somersault that he did. I recall that last year he supported 70-cent wheat, but yesterday he would not stop at 90 cents. No, sir; he would not establish the economy of western Canada on a basis of 90-cent wheat but would go up to $1.25 a bushel. I hope that when this bill comes back from the committee he will still be of the same mind and give that price his support.

Wheat Board Act

However, he wound up by saying that he would support these measures which the government brought down yesterday.


Mr. REID:: He is just outbidding the others.


Ernest Edward Perley: Of course he is, and I hope he backs it up when the time comes.
Agriculture in this country entered the war in 1939 at practically an all-time low. It had taken a count of nine and was in no condition to stand the count of ten and a knockout. But if we compare the state of agriculture in Canada with agriculture in the United States in 1939 when we entered the war, it will be realized that agriculture in the United States entered the war in a much better condition than we did in Canada, and has been dealt with more generously since. The United States are still continuing to look after agricultural producers in that country. I have a report here from Chicago, dated March 3 of this year, which states that the Commodity Credit Corporation of the United States has insisted- that there shall be no further sales from the "ever normal" granary. They are not worrying about their surplus.
Great Britain, too, has been looking after its farmers. I have a report here from Liverpool stating that there will be an increased price of 161 cents a bushel to the British farmer to encourage production in that country.
I recall, as will other hon. members, that in 1935 during the discussion on the Canadian Wheat Board Act which we are amending to-day, Right Hon. R. B. Bennett made the statement and produced figures to show that western Canada had produced in the preceding six years six billion dollars of new wealth, and he added that a country or any part of a country which was capable of that great production was a country worth saving. I hurl those. remarks across the floor of this house to-day and say that the possibilities that exist in western Canada of producing a vast 'amount of new wealth annually makes it a country well worth while saving.
In western Canada we must stick to our wheat economy; for if we in the prairie provinces undertook instead to produce live stock to our full capacity, agriculture in Ontario and possibly throughout Canada would be ruined. So I say that we must not replace our wheat economy in the west by any other production policy.
I have one or two suggestions to make. In view of the present critical stage of this war and of what is taking place throughout the world, I submit that speculation on the stock and grain exchanges should cease immediately. Indeed it should have ceased when the war started. Costs of production,

transportation, marketing, and every other feature of our price structure affecting the agricultural life of Canada, should be maintained as near to normal costs as possible, so that the greatest efforts on the part of our producers can be exerted at the least possible expenditure. As to retail prices, instead of talking so much about a ceiling, the government should put retail prices, or a great number of them, back to where they belong until parity is brought about with the prices of farm products.
The Minister of Agriculture yesterday made a clear-cut statement and gave a detailed review of the situation of agriculture. He went on to speak of the prices of cattle, hogs, butter, eggs, cheese, and so on, for all of which I commend him, although the credit is not due to him alone. There is a war on; there is a demand for these farm products; our western farmers promptly responded to that demand, and a great deal of the credit is due to them. Certainly with a war on prices must advance and have advanced.
The minister also reviewed farm income in Canada. He said-I hope he is right in his mathematics-that there will be a considerable increase in 1942 in individual farm incomes. In connection with his Bill No. 12, he stated that he was endeavouring to hold the acreage seeded to wheat this year around the twenty million mark. I think that is quite a reasonable figure, because with the increase in summer-fallow last year and the decreased acreage seeded to wheat, it is only reasonable to expect that we shall not exceed twenty million acres in wheat this year. If we have an average crop from that acreage it is quite possible that there will be no difficulty in absorbing all the wheat that will come on the market.
The minister also referred to vegetable oils. He emphasized the importance of encouraging the producers of stock, cattle, hogs and so on, in order that animal fats might be available. I shall leave any further reference to that part of his remarks to the hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris), who sits immediately in front of me, except to say that the hon. member for Danforth was about four years ahead of his time in the suggestions he made to the government about vegetable oils, and I claim that I was about three years ahead of my time in many of the suggestions I advanced with respect to the price of wheat and what our wheat policy should be.
May I refer briefly to the farmers' delegation which visited Ottawa in the early part of February last? They made a very reasonable presentation of their case, and their recommendations were undoubtedly fair. I have here a copy of their brief, but I shall refer to only a few paragraphs.

Wheat Board Act
First they referred to farm income. They showed that during the period from 1926 to 1929 farm income in the three prairie provinces amounted to $530,000,000. Since that date and up to last year there was a very considerable reduction in farm income, and they estimated that with a reasonable return in 1942 there might be only $338,000,000 of farm income in the west. They also pointed out that owing to the importance of wheat to Saskatchewan that province had probably suffered most from the decrease in farm income, and to emphasize the importance of wheat to Saskatchewan they showed that while for the year ended July 31, 1941, there was a cash income from all farm products in the province of $180,000,000, seventy-one per cent of that amount, or $129,000,000, came from wheat. That emphasized the importance of wheat in relation to farm income in Saskatchewan.
They also pointed out in. their brief, very fairly, I think, that this government dealt with war industry on a cost-plus basis and a fair return on the capital invested, and they considered that the farmer should be treated in somewhat the same manner. I think that is only a fair request.
Then they point out, what I believe also Is reasonable, that too much emphasis is being placed on the fact that we have these carryovers every year running between four and five hundred million bushels. Because too much emphasis is placed on that, I believe the pool was right in calling it to the attention of the government. Then the pool suggest a one dollar initial price, with a participation which would bring it to a parity, whatever that might be. I think they were reasonable in asking for that. They concluded by stating that if their recommendations were accepted by the government, as regards the segregating of the 1942 crop and the setting of a reasonable price, it would be unnecessary further to restrict the wheat acreage in the west, but that the farmer would govern himself accordingly and would have an opportunity of running his own affairs, so to speak.
Other organizations from western Canada have been making representations to the government, I have here the brief presented by the grain trade-the North-West Line elevators association. These gentlemen go a little further than the pool, because they ask for $1.02 net for the farmer. It was interesting to me to read that, because I recall how strongly, when they were down here in 1935, they opposed the Canada wheat board act as we were framing it then, and threw difficulties in the way of Mr. McFarland for two or three years while he was attempting to support the market; they had no regard for any policies 44561-75J
of that kind. Yet now they are asking for $1.02 net to the farmer. It will be interesting to see whether the government will listen to them. I believe they have some friends in the cabinet.
Another very important document which I have here is the resolution introduced by the Saskatchewan government and passed by the legislature which is now in session, endorsing the representation which was made by the delegation of 430 who attended here in February. That, too, is interesting. It may be significant that the premier of Saskatchewan thought it necessary to fly to Ottawa and muster the Liberal members from that province. He did not see fit to call in any other western members of parliament, but he got together the Liberal members; apparently they had been kicking over the traces. He came down here and assisted the Minister of Agriculture; they went into caucus half a dozen times-I know there was a lot of movement around here-and they backed up their minister; at least they put a little intestinal fortitude into him. It would have been interesting had the minister recited to this house some of the discussions which took place with the wheat committee of the cabinet and the price control board. I understand that the minister threatened that if he did not get his way- and I am glad he is taking this attitude now- he might come across here and present the case from this side of the house. I do not know whether we would have agreed to take him in; however, knowing some of those from western Canada who were associated with him, and watching what has gone on in this house, I do not think we would have wished him to bring over to this side any of the other hon. gentlemen opposite.
I have here however a statement of the hon. gentleman in 1939, when, on May 5, speaking in this chamber in support of Bill No. 83, he quoted Professor Hope of Saskatchewan university to show that the farmer should get 95 cents net on the farm in order to meet the farm debt in western Canada and to carry on in a normal way. I see that now, two or three years later, he is coming around to that idea, but he does not go as far as he did when he suggested that it should be 95 cents net to the farmer.
I also have here statements made by the minister in October. There is a long report in the Regina Leader-Post of October 9 and October 14, wherein, speaking in western Canada, he assured the farmers that they were going to get a lot more for their wheat under the 1942 policy. But I am not going to read these statements, because he would challenge their accuracy; he would say that the press
Wheat Board Act

had misunderstood him and put a wrong interpretation on the language he used

 because that is what he usually does. But the statement is there.
When the delegation of 430 farmers came here in February they thought, from what the Minister of Agriculture said from time to time, they were going to get dollar wheat. They asked for a parity price; and that is what we want. I have here the Searle index, showing that, taking the year 1913-14 as the index year, 147 items stand at 151 and wheat stands at 58. Surely we will admit that there is something wrong there.. We want the parity price; that is what the pool asked for.
If you will add all the bonuses which the farmers of western Canada received during the crop year 1941 to the price received for the 1941 crop-I have here the figures tabled by the minister in answer to certain questions which I put on the order paper-you will find that the government have paid out some $36,000,000 on three particular bonuses. A considerable amount is yet to be paid, however, on that income bonus which was to be disbursed in December. It was to be a Christmas present, but all of it is not yet paid. But, giving the minister credit for all that, there is no way that he can use mathematics to make the farmer of western Canada-who knows-believe that he has received a dollar a bushel for the 1941 crop. They are not all fools out there, by any means, and you have to use some different system of arithmetic to convince them that they have received that much. Especially' is that so-and this is an important thing which has not been taken into consideration in the discussion-if you allow for the estimated loss which the farmer has to sustain on the lower seeded acreage. Six or seven million acres less was seeded to wheat last year. If you estimate that at ten bushels to the acre at fifty cents a bushel, there is a loss of $30 million. There is no allowance either for the extra summer-fallowing of this land; and as the minister, who is a farmer, knows, it costs considerable to summer-fallow.
The farmers will do their part, as they have done in the past, but they should be given a fair price and left to carry on their business according to their own arrangements and their individual methods of farming. Last year many farmers were paid to do things which they would have done in any event. I may just cite my own case. I had' planned to summer-fallow so much, a lot more than I needed to do under the bonus system, but that is what I intended to do. And I know many other farmers who had1 planned to put their farming on a fifty-fifty basis and were paid for doing so under this system. I do not think they wanted that.

I should like to ask the minister what further orders in council, if any, there are going to be to carry out this policy. The minister said yesterday that in connection with Bill No. 13 there would have to be a considerable number of orders in council. We should know what they are. The bill only makes two verbal changes-one is from "seventy" to "ninety", and the other adds the word "mills".


James Garfield Gardiner: The statement I made yesterday was to the effect that in addition to the bill there were orders in council providing for such things as the setting of the floor for coarse grains.


Mr. MacKINNON (Edmonton West):: Copies of those orders in council are being prepared and I believe they are ready by now. If not, they will be ready very shortly for distribution,


Ernest Edward Perley: That is fine. We shall have them when the bills are in committee. I submit that when we are through with the bills this year that should be final, and the farmers should know exactly where they stand. Perhaps I may be asked why I say that. AVell, I have here an order in council, PC. 9201, dated November 27. This is interesting to eastern farmers. The final order in council with regulations with respect to bonus wheat acreage reduction wras made some time in May-on the tenth, if I remember rightly. The farmers had to have their summer-fallow done by the first of August, if they were to follow the principles of proper husbandry. This order in council dated November 27 indicates that there were amendments to the orders in council of April 30 and May 10, deleting the definition of the term summer-fallow and giving a new definition to the effect that summer-fallow means the cultivation or management of fallow land in such a way as to conserve soil moisture or prevent soil drifting, or both. Now, on November 27 if a man could convince an inspector that he had allowed his farm to grow weeds in order to prevent soil drifting he was considered to have complied with the regulation with regard to summer-fallowing. That was not fair to the man who did 'his summerfallowing in May, June or July and had it done on the first of August. If many farmers had known that this definition existed they would have altered their work considerably.


Mr. McNEVIN:: Perhaps that was in an area where they could not properly summer-fallow. Perhaps it was drifting.


Ernest Edward Perley: I maintain that if a good many farmers had known of the existence of this definition they would have altered their operations.

Wheat Board Act
As to cost of administration, I will not go into that at the moment. It would take too long. The costs of administrating the bonus provisions are out of proportion and it only serves to set up a huge machine. May I refer the 'house to a return brought down for the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas), No. 153A. I suggest that eastern members get this return and look it over. The Minister of Trade and Commerce made an interesting statement in which he set out the difficult circumstances that had to be coped with. He referred to a representation that had been made to him and the recommendations that had been taken into consideration, the result being this bill, No. 13, changing one word and adding another. He referred to the
400,000,000 bushels which would 'be the carryover this year. That iwas the amount indicated, or thereabouts. He gave a fair statement, but there is a great deal that he did not tell us. There is a great deal of information that we shall require when this bill goes into committee, and I trust the minister at that time will be prepared to put all the facts before us.
The report I have in my hand, which was tabled a few days ago, is not up to date by any means; it goes up to the end of the crop year 1940. Reference is made to the liabilities in connection with agents, $145,000,000- that is, the grain exchange. I am referring, I may say, to the wheat board report tabled by the Minister of Trade and Commerce. It also refers to the carrying cost, the storage charges. This we wish to have in detail instead of as it stands, so that we may have a comprehensive idea of the whole situation.
. The minister read a wire that had been sent to the grain exchange on the morning of the fifth, which practically froze the price as of March 5. I have the wire here but I will not read it into Hansard. In my opinion, that wire was the death knell of the exchange -or to put it another way, it was the death certificate. All that is needed now is the permit to bury, because in my opinion events will show that to be the case. We are told that the trades will be cleared on the basis of that closing, March 5. There will be no further trading in cash wheat or futures on any other basis. If there is not, why will the exchange members-if they are buying wheat-have to hedge it? The government guarantees to take it to July 31 on that basis and therefore there is no further need for hedging. The minister has practically closed the exchange by that wire and I certainly do not believe that there will be any further use for it.
I was going to refer to certain questions answered by the minister in a return tabled with respect to certain carrying charges, storage charges. I asked some questions with reference to McCabe Brothers of Port Arthur. I wanted to know, for instance, what rent they paid. The answer was, $67,900 last year. I asked' how much storage the government had paid that company for storing grain there. The reply is that there is no information. Does the minister regard that as a reasonable answer to put in a return that is tabled? Does he not know how much storage they paid McCabe Brothers for grain stored in their elevator? If he does not, then I suggest he will have to find out.


James Angus MacKinnon: I do not think that was the question asked.


Ernest Edward Perley: The question was:
What amount of storage fees were paid to the said McCabe Bros. Grain Company, Limited, for grain stored in the said elevator during the years 1939, 1940 and 1941, and by whom was this amount paid?
The answer was "No information". That answer is about as sensible as another I have with respect to the advisory committee of the wheat board. The minister says that the information with respect to the recommendations they have made should not be given in the public interest. What then is the use of the committee? The government should take the whole thing over. When the war broke out in 1939 representations were made by the British authorities to close the exchange, and three or four months after that the minister in Canada said that representations had been made to have it continue open. I claim that the system employed now by the British cereals import committee is such that the grain exchange has nothing to do with the selling of our wheat or with delivering it to Britain. I will ask the minister: Who represents us, or who is forwarding agent for the British cereals import committee in Montreal? Who represents the British ministry of shipping in Montreal? What-part do these different men play in the export of our wheat? Who represents the cereals import committee in Canada?
I make this statement, that the wheat board at Winnipeg is working in a dual capacity and represents the cereals import committee. The minister if he likes can explain the working of it. I state further that the announcement made in this report- the minister boasts that they sold 120,000,000 bushels at one time, 100,000,000 again and
150,000,000 bushels-would indicate that the cereals import committee, buying wheat in that quantity, sufficient for eight months'
Wheat Board Act

supply, or six months, do in effect set the price, so that the government here have nothing to do with it. The price they pay sets the price for the period. However, we shall get information in that regard.
I have here a question which I should like to have answered. How is the wheat board going to settle with the exchange? We should have some information on that point. It is suggested that it will be on the basis of the May and July close and the cash close of March 5. We want to know exactly where the board stands and why it is necessary to settle. Is the board short or long? We want to know the exact position and we cannot get it in a statement such as this. We shall have to get it when we go to the committee, and that is why I say that this bill, if any bill is held up, is the one that should be looked into very closely. I should like the minister to be prepared to give us a great deal of information when the time comes.
I recall, Mr. Speaker, that when we were discussing the wheat board bill in 1935 the present Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston), then sitting on this side, said he would not allow the bill to pass until Mr. McFarland and other gentlemen were brought here to give evidence. I say now we want the chairman of the wheat board, representatives of the grain exchange and of the clearing house, and others; we want to get all this information.
Someone may ask what I would do, and to settle that question I will say what I would do. I would close the exchange. I would confiscate the wheat now held by the open trade, not at any of these prices or any future prices but at the prices they paid for it. I would confiscate the coarse grains they hold, the oats they bought last fall at 20 cents a bushel and all the other coarse grains. Then I would set a parity price for wheat and I would pass an order in council providing that no one could deal in wheat at less than a dollar a bushel. I would go further; I would commandeer the best business brains of the grain exchange-and they have some there- for the duration of the war at least to assist in carrying out this policy. I would take over this grain and issue participation certificates to the. farmers who sold to the open trade last fall. That could be figured out very easily; they have a clerical staff who could do that almost overnight.
My time is slipping along. I make the statement, Mr. Speaker, that the wheat pit at Winnipeg is a joke, serving no useful purpose in war time. I have here the report of Judge Turgeon, who conducted an inquiry into the grain trade, in which he states that even in

peace time it is doubtful whether the exchange serves any useful purpose and suggests that the wheat board is the only way to carry on. Certainly the exchange serves no useful purpose in a time of emergency. When this matter comes before the committee I am going to read this report to the members who come from the east, and I think they will be greatly enlightened when they really learn about this open market in Winnipeg.
I come now to the price of 90 cents for wheat, and the prices for oats and barley. I think those prices are pretty fair; but if they do not represent a ceiling; if the open trade should advance these prices after July, where will Mr. Gordon, the price controllers and the Minister of Agriculture get off at their next meeting? That is something I will leave with the minister for his consideration.


James Garfield Gardiner: I did not catch the question.


Ernest Edward Perley: I have not time to repeat it; it is just too bad if the minister cannot listen. I think the brief presented by the pools was reasonable. I have stated some of their recommendations, and I might add that it gives me considerable satisfaction to see the government taking these steps. They opposed my resolution year after year, asking for a price of 90 cents; they opposed my motion in 1938 for a long-range price of a dollar a bushel over a ten-year period, though I showed how it could be done and quoted some figures which I have not time to repeat now. Yesterday the hon. member for Moose Jaw spoke on this matter-I was about to say "the minister" for Moose Jaw. You know, Mr. Speaker, in making up an imaginary cabinet members of the press gallery selected the hon. member for Moose Jaw as minister of agriculture; but after hearing him yesterday, and after listening to the Minister of Agriculture, I do not think his name would appear in another cabinet made up by those gentlemen. In 1938 I gave wheat prices back to 1890, and showed that the average price for the last thirty-six years, exclusive of war years, had been S1.03J, while for the fifteen-year period from 1920 to 1935 it was $1.15$. I further advocated that we should place coarse grains under complete control of the board, and that we should have supervision of the' exchange and reduced handling and carrying charges. I would go so far as to say that those carrying charges could be reduced to one-quarter of the present rates, and I believe the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly) will go at least half that distance with me.

Wheat Board Act
I made those suggestions in 1938 and repeated them in 1940. I have before me a copy of a speech I made on November 18 of that year, suggesting a price of 90 cents. You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that on March 26 last the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn)-who I regret to say is critically ill to-day-moved, seconded by myself, the adjournment of this house to discuss this allimportant question of agricultural policy. Speaking at that time I advocated1 increased prices, a processing tax of 50 cents, and storage on the farm. I am glad that this suggestion has been followed to a certain extent, and I hope that when the bill comes back from the committee that provision will be included this year, as it was last year.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that if the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Trade and Commerce had been on the job a little earlier and had brought to bear that influence which apparently some of the western members have brought to bear, we could have done very much better, and could have followed the recommendations of the pools. When this bill goes to committee we are going to ask for certain information. The income of western agriculture should be maintained in balance with the national income, because the wheat economy of western Canada must be maintained. As I have already stated, I believe the ideal system of handling wheat is through a national wheat board with full control over all human food grains, either manufactured or unmanufactured. That would be going quite a long way, but I think it should be done. Then I would have a processing tax, even on coarse grains; for I venture to say that a processing tax of 10 cents on oats would not add very much to the cost of the little bit of rolled oats you get in your plate up here in the restaurant every morning.
These are all matters which should, come before the committee at the proper time. I intend to try to secure certain information. I hope the minister will be frank and give us the information we require, even if it should require the attendance of witnesses.


Mr. T. F. DONNELLY (Wood Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I want to say a few words-


Liguori Lacombe: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order.


Georges Parent: The hon. member for Wood Mountain has the floor.


Liguori Lacombe: I submit respectfully that I have risen in my place this afternoon three times in an attempt to get the floor, and I have an amendment to move.


Georges Parent: The hon. member for Wood Mountain has the floor now.


Thomas F. Donnelly: It is not my intention to delay the house very long in connection with this question of wheat, because we will have ample opportunity to deal with the matter when these bills go to committee. Every hon. member from Saskatchewan is interested in the wheat question. We are interested in it for several reasons. First of all, Saskatchewan grows more wheat than any other province in Canada. The second reason is that the whole economy of Saskatchewan is built around wheat. We may, in fact we do, grow other things; we indulge in other forms of agriculture, but our chief agricultural product is wheat.
Let me illustrate what I mean by placing on record a few figures. In 1940 all farm produce of Saskatchewan was valued at $173,000,000, while the value of wheat alone was $132,000,000; in other words about 76 per cent of our agricultural activity was devoted to the production of wheat. In 1941 our total production of agricultural products was valued at $180,000,000, while that of wheat products alone stood at $128,000,000, or 71 per cent.
I would emphasize, too, that there are certain portions of Saskatchewan which can grow nothing but wheat, and there are other areas, such as park lands, where other farm products are grown. But on the great open plains, where most of the wheat is grown, there is no other activity, and there is no other crop we can grow except wheat. When we cannot grow wheat, we cannot grow anything at all. Recause of that, those of us who are members of the house, and happen to live in that area are interested in wheat and in every angle of the question as it presents itself to us.
Since 1929 the wheat problem has worried the House of Commons. Every year we have looked forward to legislation of one kind or another. It has become a hardy annual. Every government has brought down legislation of some kind, but it has been only temporary, effective from year to year. That has been the procedure since 1929.
When the war began in 1939 we in western Canada, as wheat growers, thought that all our difficulties were solved. We thought, "We are through with them now. All the wheat growers' problems will be solved." But we soon found out that this war was not like the last one; it was absolutely different. There was no demand for our wheat. Instead of our wheat problem growing less and less, it has grown greater and greater. The export of wheat to the markets of the world grew smaller and smaller, and each year since the
Wheat Board Act

war began we have seen our wheat piling up more and more, until at the present time we have a large surplus,
Canada has in sight now something like
480,000,000 bushels. We expect to have a carryover of about 400,000,000 bushels. But that is not all there is in the world to-day. We expect the carryover in the Argentine will be about 234 or 235 million bushels, in Australia about 162 million bushels, and in * the United States 610 to 6S0 million bushels. These make in all about a billion and a half bushels of wheat which we expect to have at the end of this crop year.
In our best exporting years we never exported more than 800 or 900 million bushels, and in many years of late we have not exported more than 500 million bushels. In fact in the last few years it has been less than 500 million bushels. It will be seen at once that we have in sight now what may appear to be all the wheat we shall be able to export in the next three years-two years, anyway. That is the problem which we must face; it is the one which confronts the wheat growers at the present time.
Naturally we ask ourselves what would happen if the government were not supporting the price of wheat. If all this wheat were to be thrown on the world's markets, where would the price go? Why, it would likely be worse than it was in 1932, when John I. McFarland was handling the wheat problem for R. B. Bennett. That was the time when it went down to 38 cents Fort William, or 19 cents at the farm.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That was before Mr. McFarland began, or when the grain exchange ceased to support the markets. That was the cause of it. The government had to come to the rescue.


Thomas F. Donnelly: But Mr. McFarland was there, handling it at that time.


Mr. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: That was before the Perley policy.


Thomas F. Donnelly: They were not listening to him then. I ask the house this question: What would happen to our wheat if the government were to withdraw its support? In guaranteeing, as it has, the initial payment to the farmer of western Canada, the government has been doing useful and helpful work. It has cost a large amount of money. The minister told us the other day that the maintenance of the prices for the crops of 1938, 1939 and 1940 had cost $79,900,000. I suppose by this time, with the added interest, it will have reached $80,000,000. That was the cost for those three years.
In dealing with the wheat problem there are three questions we should ask ourselves, ques-

tions which are of grave importance. First of all it is essential that the man who has wheat should receive a price which will assure him a respectable living. The man who has a crop of wheat should have a price from the government or from someone which will assure him a reasonably decent living. There is no doubt about that.
The second point is this. The man who cultivates land and then through an act of Providence receives no return from it should be protected. Providence may step in, and it may develop that either through climatic conditions such as drought or hail, or through a plague of insects such as grasshoppers, saw-flies or cut-worm, through no fault of his own the farmer may lose his crop. Those farmers should be looked after by the government, and in some way a living should be provided for them. It is not the farmer's fault that he has no crop. In my opinion he is more deserving of the sympathy of the government and the people generally than the man who has a crop who at least has something to show for his labour.
The third point to consider is this: What is the government going to do with the wheat when it is delivered? Where are they going to sell it? Where are they going to store it? How much will they pay for storage? These are matters which must be borne in mind when we are dealing with wheat.
Having in mind the three points I have enumerated, I should like to refer to what the government is doing for wheat growers in the present year and' what it proposes to do in the year to come. First of all let us consider the year 1941-42. What has the government's legislation been? First the government has guaranteed an initial payment of 70 cents a bushel, with an additional participating certificate. This is the same provision as was made last year. I am not satisfied with that price; I was not satisfied with it last year. I said at that time that because the cost of living had increased between 10 and 15 per cent the price should be raised to the same extent, up to 78 cents, 80 cents, or somewhere in that neighbourhood. I said that we are entitled1 to that increase in price. I say it again. Labour is getting the increase; why should not the wheat grower receive the same consideration? If 70 cents was a right and proper price two years ago, then 70 cents is not a right and proper price to-day. That is one of the reasons for discontent in western Canada. The price is not quite high enough.
But there are other reasons for discontent, and they are far more important. One hardly ever hears it mentioned, but let me tell the house that in western Canada we have had

Wheat Board Act
one of the worst crop failures in years. So far this year we have marketed only 165,000,000 bushels of wheat, and we expect our total marketings will not go beyondl 200,000,000 bushels. Last year we marketed 455 million bushels. There is quite a difference. The reason for the discontent is the crop failure we had this year in western Canada.
There is another reason-the low grades. These are the things we should look into. In my district, for example, practically all the wheat is combined. A farmer will go out and start his combine to-day and haul his wheat into the elevator and get No. 1 northern for it. During the night rain falls and washes the wheat and when he next goes out he finds this Thatcher wheat has bleached. This is a rust-resistant high grade wheat, but it is apt to bleach. He finds that he can get only No. 2 northern, for that. If there is another rainfall, when he goes out again he finds he will get only No. 3 northern or No. 4. I have received only No. 4 for wheat grown in the same field from which I took wheat that graded No. 1. Nothing had happened to the wheat except washing by rain. I have asked some technical men about this bleached wheat and they assure me that as far as milling or baking qualities are concerned, it is just as good as any other wheat. This man is a member of the grades standard board and he tells me that whenever it meets he has asked that this matter be considered, that this wheat should not be given such low grades. Because of the low grades of wheat this year the average price received by the farmers has been 49 cents Fort William, whereas a year ago it was 52 to 54 cents. The lower grades of wheat caused the lower average price.
That is one thing the government has done. In addition, the government has asked the farmers to market on a quota basis. This is one of the most helpful pieces of legislation we have, ana there has been very little criticism of it from the farmer. They say it is too bad that they did not have it during the good years. They contend that it has taught them how to finance. Previously they hauled their wheat in the fall of the year, received their money, spent it, and then when the spring came around and it was necessary to seed they had to borrow money. They say they do not want to see this quota system done away with; they hope it will be continued.
The next thing the government did was to institute a system of bonuses. The first of these is the Prairie Farm Assistance Act which has been in operation for three years. This is one of the most popular pieces of legislation for the farmers of western Canada that this or any other government has placed on the 44561-76
statute book. Outside of the Liberal members, however, it has received scanty support. It has received nothing but adverse criticism from the majority of members of this house, apart from members of the Liberal party. The fact of the matter is that many members went home to the west when this legislation was put through and said that the government would never pay, that it was done only to fool the public, to get their votes. Then when the payment was made, they contended it was done just to fool the people, that no more payments would be made. When the last payment was made they contended that the farmers would never have got it if they had not come down here and raised such a storm and so forced the government to pay. I heard statements like that. I have received hundreds of letters praising this Prairie Farm Assistance Act and asking that it be kept on the statute book, that it be enlarged or extended. The farmers ask that it should not be done away with because it is the only thing they have to help them. Have hon. members ever stopped to think that even with the small crop last year and the low grades, there is no relief in western Canada? Why? It is because these bonuses have been paid and have been evenly distributed among our farmers so that they are able to get by.
There are two schools of thought in western Canada with regard to this wheat question, and I shall deal with them in a moment.
I come now to the wheat acreage reduction plan. The Prairie Farm Assistance Act will cost the government something in the neighbourhood of $15,000,000. Under the wheat acreage reduction plan the government pays S4 per acre for each acre taken out of wheat and put into summer-fallow, and $2 per acre for every acre put into coarse grains. That will cost the government between $25,000,000 and $35,000,000. I understand that $25,000,000 has been paid out.


James Garfield Gardiner: A total of $27,000,000 has been paid out, and it should run to about $30,000,000.


Thomas F. Donnelly: The only people who complain about this wheat acreage reduction plan are those who did not do what the government asked them to do. A lot of these people thought they knew better; they thought the price of wheat was going up and they put all their acreage into wheat. Because of the poor crop and the poor grades they suffered, when they received no wheat acreage reduction bonus they began to howl like stuck pigs. They are squealing because they think they should be getting something when they did not do what they were told to do. Those who went into coarse grains got the $2 per

Wheat Board Act

acre as well as the higher price for coarse grains. By doing what the government told them to do, they were much better off; they were able to get by.
We come to the next, the prairie farm income plan to pay the farmer for his increased cost of living. It is expected that this will cost between $15,000,000 and $20,000,000-I understand it will cost about
S16,000,000. If we take these three bonus plans together, $15,000,000 for the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, $30,000,000 for the wheat acreage plan and $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 for the prairie farm income plan, we have a total in the neighbourhood of $60,000,000. We expect to market 200 million bushels of wheat, and if we do it will mean that we have received about 30 cents per bushel by way of bonuses on an acreage basis. So it can be said that we are getting a dollar a bushel for our wheat. It is only a question of how it is to be paid, on an acreage or on a bushelage basis. This government is paying 70 cents on a bushelage basis and 30 cents on an acreage basis. I have a farmer in my constituency who farms about two and one-half sections of land and he told me that he received $9 per bushel for his wheat. He produced 300 bushels of w'heat, and his wheat acreage reduction bonus, prairie farm assistance bonus and prairie farm income bonus amounted to $2,700. There are many farmers who received more than a dollar a bushel for their wheat; I can name hundreds of them. These are some of the things that the government has done this year for the wheat grower in western Canada.
I have spoken of what was done for the man who had wheat and what was done for the man who through climatic conditions had no wheat. I now come to the question of storage. We felt that we were not going to have enough storage, and so year by year we have been increasing our storage through the last few years. On January 1, 1939, our storage capacity was 422 million bushels; on January 1, 1940, it was 424 million bushels, and on January 1, 1941, 437 million bushels. Now, on January 1, 1942, we have a storage capacity of about 600 million bushels. Seeking to obtain this additional storage the government signed an agreement with the elevator companies that they would not decrease storage charges for two years. I am sorry that was ever done. I think it should not have been done. I think it was a mistake. I think that storage charges are too high, and they should be lowered. I shall deal with that more fully later. I wish to go on now to what is proposed for this year, because time is pressing.
The government proposes to take 280 million bushels of wheat this year, which is 50

million bushels more than the government proposed to take last year. How is it that the government expects to be able to take 50 million bushels more this year? First of all, as I have said, we have increased our storage capacity; we have more elevators. The second reason is that we are exporting more wheat. From August 1 to January 31, 1941-42, we exported 111 million bushels of wheat and flour; from August 1 to January 31, 1940-41, we exported 79 million bushels. The export for t'he whole world was 154 million bushels from August 1, 1941, to February 28, 1942. That is what we have done, and that is why the government is able to take more wheat this year.
We are also to have the quota system again this year. The next thing the government proposes is an initial price of 90 cents for wheat, instead of 70 cents, with participation certificates. That is an increase of 20 cents a bushel. It is a legitimate price, on Which I believe the farmer ought to be able to make a living. I shall deal with that more fully later. We have the Prairie Farm Assistance Act again this year. We have also the wheat acreage reduction bonus, which will net the farmer $2 an acre for coarse grains, the same as last year, and cost the government about $15,000,000, and the Prairie Farm Assistance Act will cost another $15,000,000. That is worth another 10 cents a bushel to the farmer. So that the farmer is getting this year 90 cents a bushel as an initial payment and 10 cents by way of bonus, or altogether $1 a bushel, calculated in a different way. That is what is proposed with respect to wheat for this year.
In setting a price of 90 cents a bushel the government does not set a ceiling on the price of wheat,. A ceiling has been or is likely to be set for flour and bread. I think that is one question that ought to be investigated. I remember that before this farm delegation came to Ottawa they held meetings throughout western Canada, and everywhere they went they pointed out that the price of bread was 7i to 8 cents a loaf when wheat was selling at $2.50; that it was the same price when wheat was selling at $1.50 a bushel, and that it was still between 7J and 8 cents with wheat at 70 cents a bushel. So they said there must be an Ethiopian in the wood-pile somewhere, and it is time we got him out. I think the whole question of the price of bread and flour as compared with the price of wheat should be investigated. The price control board and the wheat board ought to investigate this question together and decide what is a legitimate price for the milling of wheat and the baking of bread, and then a ceiling should be

Wheat Board Act
put on. bread and flour, the finished product, leaving the raw product, wheat, where it is at the present time.
I come now to another matter. There are two schools of thought in western Canada with regard to the wheat problem. One school of thought thinks that all the assistance that is given to the wheat growers of western Canada should be on an acreage basis. The other contends that all the assistance given to the wheat growers of western Canada should be on a bushelage basis. This delegation of four hundred that came to Ottawa were all of one mind, representing one school of thought. They said that the assistance should be all on a bushelage basis. We want dollar wheat, they said, knowing that that was a popular slogan. But I have received hundreds of letters from farmers in western Canada saying: If we are going to have dollar wheat, all right, but do not do away with the bonus. There are two schools of thought, as I say. Those who think that the assistance should be entirely on an acreage basis say that two-thirds of the wheat crop of 1940 was grown on about 22 million acres. The government has surveyed and tabulated all this information and knows how much each farmer has. These people say: If you are going to give the farmers who came to Ottawa one dollar a bushel, an increase of 30 cents a bushel from 70 cents, that amounts to $90,000,000 on 300 million bushels. And if you are going to give them $90,000,000, they say, the right and proper way is to give it at $4 an acre, for two-thirds of the 1940 wheat crop, to everyone, instead of as an increase of thirty cents a bushel on wheat. What is the good, they say, of an increased payment on wheat if you have no wheat? The kind of hailstorm we have in western Canada sweeps through a strip five miles wide and will go from ten to forty miles. The man in the centre of that area who is hailed out and so has no wheat will not get a cent, but the man on the outside edge who had rain and not hail will have a better crop than usual, perhaps twenty-five to thirty bushels to the acre. If you concede what the delegation wants you will allow thirty cents a bushel, which means that if a man has thirty bushels to the acre he gets $9; if forty, $12; but the man who has no crop will have to go to the prairie farm assistance people for a grant of no more than $2 or $2.50 an acre. They ask, is that just, is that equitable, is that fair? The man who has no crop may be just as good a farmer in just as good a district, but he is so unfortunate as to be hailed out. By distributing the money on a bushelage instead of an acreage 44561-76}
basis you will be requiring the man without a crop to live on $2.50 an acre, whereas the man with the big crop will receive $8 or $10 or more per acre to help him along. Dollar wheat is a first-class thing for the man who has thirty to forty bushels an acre and thirty to forty thousand bushels of wheat, but what is the good of it to the man who has no wheat? And the man who has no wheat, or a poor crop, is as much-and more-a charge of the government as the man who has a good crop; he should be and must be looked after.
These are some of the problems we have to contend1 with, some of the things which I am continuously being written about and asked to support. The government, however, this year has taken the middle course. It has given some increase in the price of wheat, from 70 cents up to 90 cents, and it is also maintaining the wheat acreage reduction plan, which farmers can participate in, and the Prairie Farm Assistance Act for the benefit of those who have no crop. So that some of their assistance is given on an acreage basis and some on a bushelage basis; and as a compromise I am ready and. willing to support that. But I am one of those who favour the acreage basis rather than the bushelage basis, and I am not alone in that view. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle quoted Professor Hope a while ago. I, too, will quote from what the professor said, in regard to this. I refer to a statement in the national farm radio forum, prairie regional broadcast, on Monday, January 12. Speaking at that time, the professor said:
I feel that the additional money required to raise the western farm income to a reasonable basis will be better spent on additional acreage bonuses rather than by raising the price per bushel of wheat.
There are some who say, "We do not want charity; we want the price of wheat raised. We do not want these bonuses; they are charity." I may be dense, but I cannot see the difference. If the government is going to raise the price of wheat to ninety cents the money will come out of the treasury, and whether the farmer receives it as a bonus added to the price of wheat or in the form of a grant at so much per acre, it is all the same. If one is charity, so is the other.
I regretted the reference of the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Perley) to what he called parity price. If you are going to speak of parity prices I would only point out this. If you take the price of labour in 1913-14 and compare it with what it is now, you find that labour received about 154 in 1938 where it got 100 in 1914. Without a doubt, agricultural
Wheat Board Act

products, especially wheat, are away below the parity price as it was in 1913-14. But so is the return on capital. Make no mistake about that. You know just as well as I do the difference between the present time and the last war. The first loan, in 1915, for $100,000,000, bore five per cent interest; the next in 1916, another $100,000,000, was also at five per cent interest; in 1917, $139,000,000, five per cent interest. The first victory loan, $398,000,000, yielded five and a half per cent; so also did the loan of 8660,000,000 in 1918. All the three loans in 1917 and 1918 were tax free. That term cannot be applied to the loans of 1915 and 1916 because at that time we did not have any income tax. The United States began it in 1914, three years before they went into the war, but ours was not put on until 1917.
Another point should be borne in mind in this connection. If we are going to establish this parity for the farmer, capital too will want to be put on a parity. They are wide awake and looking after their interests. What about the mortgages in western Canada? What did we pay at the time of the last war? Eight and nine per cent; in some cases ten per cent. Now the rate is cut to five and six per cent. Do you want to go back to eight, nine and ten per cent? I do not think so. What we should ask for is a reasonable price rather than a parity price. I draw that to the attention of the house because I believe it is important.
I come now to the question of storage. In July, 1940, the rate for wheat storage was one-thirtieth of a cent a day. At that time the Liberal members from western Canada met and discussed the question, and we sent in a presentation to the grain commission asking that the rate be reduced. As a result it was reduced to one forty-fifth of a cent per day. As confirmation of that statement I have in my hand a press report which went out on July 28, 1940, from the chief commissioner of the Board, of Grain Commissioners for Canada. I refer to it because my statement on this matter has been disputed on the platform. The wheat pool has taken credit for this having been reduced. I quote from the press release of the board:
The annual tariff meeting of the Board of Grain Commissioners was held at Winnipeg on July 9th, when the board received submissions from the Northwest Grain Dealers' Association, Terminal Association, Saskatchewan Pool Elevators, and the Manitoba Pool Elevators, and also advanced the submission of tile Alberta Pool Elevators.
. Listen to what he says:
These submissions dealt with the maintenance of the current tariff rates.

The submissions dealt with the present rate which is one-thirtieth of a cent. He goes on:
Submissions were also received from certain western members of parliament in favour of reducing tariffs in the national interest.
He does not say anything about receiving submissions from any other elevator companies or line companies, but as a result of these submissions made to the grain commission they did reduce the carrying charges or storage charges on wheat from one thirtieth to one forty-fifth of a cent. For that reason I maintain that we western members are entitled to a certain amount of credit for it. In my opinion the charge of one-thirtieth of a cent may have been all right when our elevators were quite full for one month in the year aiid then half full for three or four months and empty the rest of the year; but now that the elevators are filled to the roof twelve months of the year one forty-fifth of a cent is too much. I suggest that it is time our grain handling charges were overhauled. I think they should be reduced. They should be cut in half. I agree with the hon. member for Qu'Appelle.


Georges Parent: The hon. member has exceeded his time.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Thomas F. Donnelly: I shall be glad if I may be allowed to go on for a minute longer. I am just about through.
As I was saying, it was all right when the farmers were receiving $1.25 or $1.50 or $2 a bushel that the rate of one-thirtieth of a cent should be paid, but now the farmer is up against it. He is having a hard time, living under depressed conditions, and these are times when everyone should bear a certain portion of the load. Why should the farmer be asked to carry the whole load?
We know that it costs about ten cents a year to carry a bushel of grain in storage. There is storage and there are other charges which bring it up to about ten cents a bushel. The visible supply for the last year, 1940, has been as follows:
Bushels
December 31	 516,000,000
March 31	 499,000,000
.June 30	 482.000,000
September 30	 499,000,000
December 31	 531,000,000
That gives an average visible grain supply of about 500,000,000 bushels throughout the year. If it costs ten cents a bushel that means
S50,000,000 or let us say $40,000,000-that is only $10,000,000 less, and what is $10,000,000 between friends. The elevators have received that, but they have also received ten or fifteen

Wheat Board Act
million dollars from handling this year's crop. Taking it in, cleaning it, loading it, diverting it, unloading and so on-all these involve charges, so that they are paid another ten or fifteen million dollars. There is no doubt therefore the elevators will be receiving in the neighbourhood of at least $50,000,000 for the handling of grain this year. On the other hand what does the farmer get? He gets less than fifty cents a bushel for 200,000,000 bushels. He will not receive $100,000,000; yet here is a man who does not do anything except handling the wheat and he is getting half as much as the farmer. These elevator charges, I repeat, should be cut in two, and the difference should be diverted to the farmer as an extra payment. I say that without hesitation. The time has come when that should be done.
The other day I picked up a financial paper and looked it over, and I found that a pool elevator with a capital of $18,000,000- $12,000,000 received from the farmers for elevator deduction and $6,000,000 for reserve- had declared a profit of $3,000,000-16 per cent. I want some of our financiers over there to tell me what they think of that. If that is not high finance, what is it?


An hon. MEMBER:: Who gets it?


Thomas F. Donnelly: I belong to the wheat pool and I have not received much of it yet. They do not pay any income tax or excess profit tax. How much did they take away from it in order to start an insurance company? They have some of my money. Can I get my capital back? You know I cannot. When I die my estate will get fifty cents on the dollar. That is what they are doing to-day. If these companies are able to make such profits other line companies can do the same and are doing the same, and therefore these charges should be cut to a reasonable amount. It is time this was done in view of the present condition of the farmers.


Liguori Lacombe: At the end of my remarks I will move an amendment to the motion of the minister. Every hand is needed on the farm, and the farmer plays an essential part in the war effort in the defence of Canada. Farmers and farm labourers and those persons employed in industries relating to agriculture should therefore not be called up for military training. Whether the farmer be engaged in the production of food, in the raising of live stock or in lumbering operations, he provides our fighting men with food, clothing and shelter. I urge that we exempt farmers from military training. If the government persists
in calling for the performance of military training, we shall soon see the ruin of agriculture in Canada.
This house is now discussing agricultural problems. It is examining a measure which I condemned last year and which I still condemn to-day, considering the best interests of the country. To reduce agricultural production in these difficult times would be a national crime. At a time when wheat flour and bread sell at very high prices, the government introduces the most disastrous laws for Canada and its people. Where are we going, Mr. Speaker? While farmers and consumers are shamefully exploited by the flour trusts, the baking trusts, the trusts of foodstuffs so necessary for producing bacon hog, butter and cheese, this government goes so far as to ask this parliament, on the one hand, to reduce wheat acreage and, on the other, to grant financial assistance to wheat growers. How inconsistent and contradictory! On the one hand the government decreases agricultural production; on the other it wastes public moneys to help those who would produce. On the one hand it smothers wheat production; on the other it pays a ransom to producers. This is a most condemnable policy. My words are too weak to brand, as they should be branded, laws so ridiculous and so anti-Canadian as these. In a country where rationing is already being felt severely; where labourer and farmer for many years have been exploited by the trusts which have dominated the policy of the government and the history of Canada, it is amazing that a government should dare introduce such laws.
Does the government know what will be the agricultural production next year? Does it know that our agricultural production has decreased-


Georges Parent: Order. I realize that the hon. member is speaking in other than his native tongue, but I must apply the rule as to the reading of speeches.


Liguori Lacombe: I am not reading my speech, Mr. Speaker; I am referring to my notes. Does the government know that to continue calling up for military training farmers and farmers' sons at this period of the year, and at any time, is to ignore completely the needs of agriculture, of the army, and the defence of Canada? Does it know that the yield of the sugar bush will be considerably less this year because of lack of help? Is it aware that this is very unfortunate, at this period when sugar is rationed? Is it aware that at present vegetable growing is in full swing in hothouses? Is it aware that the drafting of farmers and farmers' sons will bring upon this country the worst disasters?
Wheat Board Act

I know hundreds of pitiful eases of exploitation of young farmers, owners of their farms who are alone, who have been called for military training in spite of their requests for exemption, in spite of representations made by their parish priests, by their mayors and by their members. What has happened? They have been compelled to sell, at a loss, their farms and their cattle, which were led to the abattoir. I will give one of the most disgusting cases. Mr. Roland Beaudoin, from Ste. Rose, owner of a poultry farm and of an orchard in which his old father had invested all his savings, was called for military training after a postponement of two months. For many months his two brothers have been in the army as volunteers. Their father is ill, and 70 years of age. How shameful I The employees of the registrar's office in Montreal gave Mr. Beaudoin a postponement of one month to allow him to sell his farm, his poultry and his orchard. He is now at the military training camp. A few months ago the registrar's office in Montreal was selling for $500 and $600 exemptions to Roumanians and citizens of other countries now at war with Canada.
This tragic farce has lasted too long. The hour is near when immanent justice will prevail. Once more I request that the government exempt from military service farmers and farmers' sons. Consequently I move, seconded by the hon. member for Gaspe (Mr. Roy):
That all the words after the word "that" in the motion be deleted and the following sub-tituted therefor:
"this house is of the opinion that the best ways of helping agriculture are
"(a) to exempt from military training farmers and farmers' sons who are indispensable to agricultural production;
"(b) to establish in every constituency in Canada exemption tribunals whose object would be to examine the merits of all requests which might be presented before such tribunals by farmers and farmers' sons."


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: I rise to a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In the first place I submit that the amendment as moved does not come under the terms of paragraph 755 of Beauchesne, which sets forth such amendments as may be moved to second reading. In the second place I suggest that it is out of order under standing order 60 and standing order 61, paragraphs 551 and 562, because it imposes a contingent charge upon the people by establishing exemption tribunals.


Georges Parent: I am faced with another
question in connection with this amendment by reason of the fact that the hon. member who has moved it has on the order paper, under notices of motion, a resolution in the following terms:
[Mr. Lacombe.3
Whereas agriculture is essential to the upkeep of the armies and the welfare of the civil population.
Therefore be it resolved: That, in the opinion of this house, farmers, farm employees and all persons engaged in industries connected with agriculture or with war industries, should be exempt from military service and that exemption tribunals should be set up in each constituency in the country to investigate each case on its merits.
The rule is clear that no member may anticipate a discussion which may come before the house at a later date. I would not insist upon the observance of that rule in this case, because of the fact that the house has already adopted a resolution giving precedence to government business, and for that reason the resolution of the hon, member might not be reached this session. He has, in a measure, discussed it on his amendment which is now before the house. I would suggest, however, that having discussed it now, his motion should be withdrawn from the order paper.
With regard to the amendment itself, I think the rule is perfectly clear. The recommendation of the crown required for the imposition of charges upon the taxpayer is compulsory on committee as well as on the house itself. There is no exception. The inclusion in a bill of a provision authorizing the payment of public money is nothing but a statutory appropriation w'hich can be made only upon the crown's recommendation and in committee of the whole house, under the provision of section 54 of the British North America Act.
It is hardly necessary to quote any authorities in support of such a clear declaration of the constitution of Canada. The principle therein set forth is one of the fundamental tenets of British parliamentary law, and it is observed in the United Kingdom as well as in all the dominion parliaments. Sir Erskine May's book entitled "Parliamentary Practice", 13th edition, says, at page 505:
If any motion, or bill, or proceeding is offered to be moved, whether in the house or in a committee, which requires but fails to receive the recommendation of the crown, it is the duty of the chair to announce that no question can be proposed upon the motion, or to direct the withdrawal of the bill.
Paragraph (b) of the hon. member's amendment asks for the establishment in every constituency in Canada of exemption tribunals, whose object would be to examine particularly all! requests which might be presented before such tribunals by farmers' sons. It therefore falls under the rule I have stated, and I rule the amendment out of order.


Liguori Lacombe: I regret that I have to
appeal from your decision.

Wheat Board Act


Georges Parent: The appeal must be supported by at least five members.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Not sufficient members.


Mr. T. C. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure there will be widespread disappointment throughout western Canada as a result of the policy announced by the government yesterday for the disposal of the 1942-43 wheat crop. The people of western Canada had reason to feel in the past few months that a new deal was about to come into existence for agriculture. The visit of the farm delegation to Ottawa, the excellent press notices the delegation had and the sympathetic reception they received from cabinet council all gave the people of western Canada reason to feel that probably we were on the verge of a new deal for that part of the country. I am afraid there will be a feeling now that instead of a new deal we have received a dirty deal.
When I say that, of course I am not unmindful of the commendable features of the legislation. For some months back, hon. members on this side of the house, particularly the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright) have been asking the government to put a floor under coarse grains, realizing that if we were to attempt to encourage the fanner to leave wheat production and go into the production of coarse grains, we could do so only by putting a floor under them. That is one of the commendable features of the legislation brought down yesterday.
But my main objection to the legislation is that the government is following its old policy of beating a sort of strategic retreat, like an army which holds a position until it is no longer tenable, and then when it is almost surrounded, makes a retreat to the .next position it believes it can hold. It clings to that position as long as possible, and then makes another retreat. We have had that procedure now for five or six years-a series of strategic retreats rather than brilliant offensives.


An hon. MEMBER:: A retreat forward.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: It may be a retreat forward, but It has required a great deal of pressure to get any movement at all. I ask the house to take a glimpse at what has happened. In 1935, after long years of clamouring for it, the farmers were given a wheat board, a payment of 87i cents a bushel, and participation certificates. In 1936 this government was in office; the 87J cents was cut to 80 cents, and a new personnel was appointed to the wheat board. In 1937 an order in council was passed stating that
farmers could not deliver their wheat to the wheat board, even if they wanted to, as long as the market price of wheat was above 90 cents. The same situation obtained in 1938.
Then in 1939 two bills were brought down, and we thought again we were getting some general improvement for agriculture. The first of those two bills was the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. At this point let me say just a word about that legislation. The hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly) has taken to himself, and the party with which he is associated, the credit for supporting that piece of legislation. He intimated that nobody else wanted it, and that no one else was in favour of it. That suggestion of course is absolutely inaccurate. For a great many years before it was brought down, not only members of the group with which I am associated, but I should think members of almost all groups in the house were asking for some type of crop insurance. As a matter of fact, the previous year a resolution had been passed unanimously by the house endorsing the principle of crop insurance for farmers. Therefore, when the Prairie Farm Assistance Act was introduced it was acceptable to all parts of the house. But it was brought down in conjunction with legislation which was to provide an advance or cash payment of 60 cents a bushel. Those hon. members who were in the house at the time will remember the long struggle which took place not only here in the house but in western Canada. The result was that the minister withdrew the bill, substituting for it a new one raising the initial price to 70 cents. It will be recalled that again in 1940 we received an initial price of 70 cents.
By that time the war was upon us, and there was a feeling that the price ought to be higher, and that wheat had become a more valuable commodity. I would remind the house, for instance, of the speech made with respect to the price of wheat by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) during the election of 1940. I quote from the Regina Leader Post of March 12, 1940, an article headed "Gardiner talks wheat, correcting Manion mistakes". It reads as follows:
Wheat could all be sold to Britain to-morrow at not less than 87 cents a bushel. If it were, the farmer could now obtain at least ten cents a bushel on his participation certificates.
But the present government does not think it wise to sell all the Canadian wheat at 87 cents a bushel. The British government is not urging us to do so. If they bought it they would leave it right where it is in the elevators in Canada and pay the storage on it. While it would thus remain where it is it would be entirely out of the hands of the farmers. We believe that Britain will pay us more for our wheat when she is ready to take it.
Wheat Board Act


James Garfield Gardiner: Eighty-seven cents was the price of wheat on that day.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: That does not alter what the minister said. I quote again from his speech the following in quotation marks:
"That wheat could all be sold to Britain to-morrow at not less than 87 cents a bushel. If it were, the farmer could now obtain at least 10 cents a bushel on his participation certificates. This would make his payment more than the 80 cents which was being discussed last summer.
"But the present government does not think it wise to sell all the Canadian wheat at 87 cents a bushel. The British government is not urging us to do so. If they bought it, they would leave it right where it is in the elevators in Canada and pay the storage on it. While it would thus remain where it is, it would be entirely out of the hands of the farmers.
"We believe that Britain will pay us more for our wheat when she is ready to take it for consumption in England and that the farmers would be well advised to allow the storage to be charged up to their participation certificates.
"In other words, we think we will get a better price for the wheal when Britain wants to take it, rather than by trying to force them to take it by making it a condition of anything we may do in the war."
That was the situation in 1940.


James Garfield Gardiner: Before France fell.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Yes; that was before France fell. Then came 1941. Last year, in addition to the Prairie Farm Assistance Act legislation an acreage reduction programme was introduced. Again the hon. member for Wood Mountain tries to create the impression that there was a quarrel between those who wanted to give a bonus and those who wanted to increase the price of wheat. Nobody knows better than the hon. member for Wood Mountain that that is not correct. The wheat acreage reduction bonus was brought in, not in relation to the price of wheat, not as a subsidy to the price of wheat, but to encourage and persuade the farmer to leave the production of wheat and go into the production of coarse grains or to summer-fallow for the conservation of the soil. That is how the situation stood up until last fall.
On October 18 the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) announced in a national broadcast that a price ceiling would be established which would have as its basis the prices in existence during the period September 15 to October 11. As I said in this house last fall, we in this group have never objected to the principle of control, especially in war time when such control is absolutely essential if we are to prevent the devastating spiral of inflation. But what we did ask was that any

ceiling which might be established should be on an equitable price level and not oh a price level whose basis was a twenty-seven-day period taken at random, during which period agricultural prices were lower than the general price level.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Very low.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Yes. A lot of
statistics have been given in this debate and I do not want to follow that practice, but there are one or two which I think are necessary. Taking 1926 as being equal to 100, industrial wages during the last period for which we have any figures, 1940-the 1941 figures are not available-reached an index figure of 109-6. On the other hand, taking 1926 farm costs at 120-we do not have a 100 basis for that-farm costs on October last stood at 116, four points lower. On the other hand, taking the prices of all farm products in 1926 as 100, they had dropped to 74 last October. The picture is even worse when you realize that this 74 is an average. The index for field products stood at 57, while the index for animal products stood at 101. Seventy-five per cent of the income of western Canada comes from field rather than animal products, so the index of 74 would be much lower if it is to be balanced between the two. The priceceiling period which has been accepted was a period of depressed prices for agriculture. Any attempt to use that as a standard basis as far as the western agricultural economy is concerned would be to fasten peasantry on the prairie farmer from now until the end of the war, and probably after the war.
I am sure most hon. members have looked at the comparison between agricultural prices in the 1926-29 period and the base period in 1941. I give these figures to the house merely so that they will be a matter of record. They are as follows:
	Base period	1926-29
Wheat 	
$ .771	$1.412 C.W. oats. ...	50 J	.602 C.W. barley..	621	.732 C.W. rye	m	1.001 C.W. flax....	
1.611	2.07I think these	figures show the	situation
which has faced agriculture, not only since the war but prior to the outbreak of the war. Saskatchewan is probably more dependent upon income from wheat and field products than the other two prairie provinces, and as a result of this situation there has been a spontaneous uprising of all sections of the population which have insisted that something should be done to square the deal being given to agriculture with the deal being given to the rest of our national economy. Those who try to infer, as has been inferred

Wheat Board Act
this afternoon, that this was some chicanery on the part of any group of individuals are quite beside the point. Any hon. member who listened to the delegation here in Ottawa knows that it represented all classes and) all shades of politics, that it transcended any religious group or any national or racial bonds. It was a response to a definite economic situation that had become so desperate that all classes of the population recognized that unless something was done, western economy was doomed to become nothing but a great depressed area in the heart of Canada.
Mass meetings were held1 last fall all over western Canada and1 I need hardly remind hon. members what was asked for. This will be found in the annual report of the wheat pool on page 27. They asked for an initial payment of $1 a bushel; they asked that stocks of wheat represented by the carryover should be taken off the market and held as a national emergency war reserve; they asked that from August 1, 1941, all sales of wheat should be credited to the crop year 1941-42, and they asked that the crop year 1941-42 should be declared an emergency year under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act irrespective of the market prices prevailing. It is old history that the first three things asked for did not materialize, while the fourth did.
As a result of these meetings and as a result of their failure to get any adequate response to their representations from the government, a delegation came to Ottawa. Some quotations have been given already from the brief which was submitted and I do not think it is necessary to quote it extensively. I should like, however, to remind the house of the general principles that were contained1 in that brief. First, and by all means the most important, was the request of the government to accept the principle of parity prices. That was far more important than anything else in the brief. Because one dollar stood out as an easy figure for people to trip on their tongues, they were in the habit of saying that this delegation was down here asking for dollar wheat. That was not the main representation. The main representation was that a parity price should be established for agricultural products. I should like to quote from page five as follows:
With respect to the petition itself, the first section recommends that the government should recognize and accept the principle of parity prices for all agricultural commodities. This recommendation may have been discussed by the government with the Canadian federation of agriculture and it may not now be necessary to elaborate the proposal here. We fully realize the difficulties involved in establishing an adequate base for parity prices and also that changing conditions in our agricultural production make it difficult to establish actual parity.
We also appreciate that on the generally accepted basis of 1926-29 price levels, there are certain agricultural commodities now at parity.
They continue with this statement:
The delegation would strongly recommend that no price ceilings should be established on farm commodities below parity levels, using the word parity in the sense that a parity price for farm commodities would be the price which these commodities would need to realize in order to purchase as large a quantity of other commodities now available as it actually did during a specified base period.
That was first and by all means the most important part of their representations, that the ceilings to be established ought to be established, not on the basis of the price during a period of 27 days last fall but on the basis of a parity figure to be worked out by the government's statisticians.
The second thing they asked was that in the meantime the wheat board should pay- not a price-but an initial payment of $1 a bushel for No. 1 northern, basis Fort William. I do not propose to get into a lengthy argument as to what the price of wheat has actually been. The hon. member for Wood Mountain goes through some ingenious arithmetic which hon. gentlemen opposite indulge in from time to time to show that we shall sell this year less than 200 million bushels of wheat; that we are getting $60,000,000 in bonuses, which is 30 cents a bushel, and that if you add that 30 cents a bushel to the 70 cents a bushel for wheat, you get $1 a bushel. Of course, if instead of 200 million bushels, you got it down to only 20 million bushels of wheat this year, by his figuring the farmer would be getting $3.50 a bushel; or if we had had an average crop this year of around 300 million bushels of wheat, then, with the bonus added, the farmer would have been getting around 63 cents a bushel. The thing to which I object- and nobody knows this better than the hon. member who was making the specious argument-is this constant attempt to confuse the public between the price paid for wheat and the amount paid in bonuses. It is not doing any service to the west to attempt this confusion. As I have said repeatedly in this house, the amount paid in bonus has no relation to the price paid for the wheat. A man has two patches of land, we will say, and on the one patch he grows wheat. The price he gets for the wheat compensates him for growing the wheat, a distinct national service that he is performing. His other patch of land he summer-fallows or sows to coarse grains, in response to the request of the government that he reduce his wheat acreage. The bonus is paid on this part of his land, and you cannot add
Wheat Board Act

that bonus to the price he got for the wheat he grew on the other piece of land. They are two distinct pieces of land.


James Garfield Gardiner: But he would have
grown wheat on that other patch if he had not been paid the bonus.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Certainly, but they are two distinct pieces of land, and you cannot divide his income by the total number of bushels of wheat he grows and say that that is the price he got for his wheat.


James Garfield Gardiner: But the policy said that he could not sell any more wheat even if he grew it. A maximum of 230 million bushels was set.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: You cannot
take two separate business transactions of that sort and put them together and say that that was the price he got for his wheat. The bonus is for summer-fallowing or growing coarse grains and to compensate the farmer for going out of wheat production.


James Garfield Gardiner: The farmer understands it very well.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Of course he
does, but he is being confused in this house, and the people of eastern Canada are getting the impression that the western farmer is already getting SI a bushel for wheat-a bonus of 30 cents and a price of 70 cents. He is getting nothing of the sort.
The other representation made by the delegation, on page 8 of the brief, was that the government should take the surplus wheat off the market and set it aside as a national emergency measure to meet whatever contingencies may arise after the war; and second, to apply all sales of wheat made in the crop year of 1942-43 against that crop, so that if there is any further return coming, it will go back to the farmer.
The last thing they asked was that the government should remove the price limitation which restricts them in declaring an emergency year, and that is being done by the measure cow brought before the house. They also request that the compensation provided under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act should be increased. I refer hon. members to page 8 of the delegation's memorandum, where they say:
As has already been indicated, the delegation desires to record its appreciation of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act and would urge that certain amendments should be made which would make it even more valuable than at present. In connection with the emergency year section of this act it is recommended that provision be made that an emergency year may be declared, irrespective of the market price of wheat during the three fall months. As at present consti-

tuted, the crop failure section of the act provides for certain payments to farmers when 171 townships in the province of Saskatchewan have produced an average yield of five bushels per acre or less. We would strongly urge that the compensation provided at this time is not adequate to meet present day conditions and that provision should be made to increase the present amount of this payment.
I read that because of the statement which was made this afternoon by the hon. member for Wood Mountain. He said that there were two schools of thought, one that said the government ought to assist the farmer by an acreage bonus, and another school that said the assistance ought to be on a bushelage basis. The hon. member said that the delegation who came here were interested only in the bushelage basis, that they wanted a higher price for their wheat, and he said: "That is all right, but it does not help the man who has not any wheat". No one will disagree with that statement. But, on the contrary, the delegation did not advocate raising the price of wheat at the expense of the man who had no wheat. They asked the government not only to retain the benefits of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act but to widen its scope, and said they looked forward to the day when it would be possible to extend its scope so that it would become a self-sustaining crop insurance scheme. It is not fair for members to play one group of farmers off against another and say: "These farmers want a higher price for their wheat, and to take it out of you chaps who have no wheat."
The brief in its recommendations endorses this legislation. I do not think anybody in the west would want to do away with the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. They might want to improve and expand it, but certainly not to do away with it. It has decidedly a place in our western economy, but it cannot be used as an excuse for not giving to the wheat producer the price which is necessary in order that he may continue to produce and maintain a decent standard of living.
I want to say just this as I close, that the disappointment which will be felt at the legislation brought down yesterday will be chiefly because it fails in the main to comply in full with any of the recommendations of the delegation that came to Ottawa. It complies with some, in part, as I have indicated, but it does not comply in full with the requests that were made. The main and most serious omission in the legislation is its failure to institute the principle of parity prices. The ceiling prices apparently are to continue, but no statement has been made as to whether or not we are to have a ceiling price for wheat. The hon. member for Moose Jaw

Wheat Board Act
(Mr. Ross) said yesterday that there was no ceiling price on wheat, but that is not as I read the statement of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon), as reported at page 1123 of Hansard of March 9, where he says:
The wartime prices and trade board, in the discharge of its responsibilities under the maximum prices regulations and the wartime prices and trade regulations, will have the duty of determining the price at which wheat will be sold to domestic buyers in accordance with these principles.
The wartime prices and trade board will discharge this duty from time to time after consultation with the Canadian wheat board.


John Gordon Ross: That does not put a ceiling on wheat.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Well, there is going to be some arrangement. We should know before we go into committee or before the committee on agriculture, is there going to be a ceiling or is it going to be a pegged price? Is the 90 cents a bushel payment to be both the maximum and the minimum, or will the price be allowed to fluctuate above the 90 cents without a ceiling, or will there be a ceiling? We should know the same thing about coarse grains. There is to be a minimum price for coarse grains, but already a ceiling is in existence: for instance, oats, 51 cents; barley, 64|- cents. Will those ceilings continue? Will prices not be allowed to go above those ceilings? Because, if those ceilings are to continue, it means that oats is to have a ceiling price 9 cents below parity; barley, 9 cents below; rye 35 cents below; *wheat, 51 cents below; flax being the only grain which will be above parity, and that, of course, for a very specific reason, namely that we are now badly in need of vegetable oil.
My quarrel is not so much that the initial payment under this bill is lower than we had reason to expect. The main quarrel with it is that there has been no attempt at all to raise the ceiling prices to parity, or to raise the minimum prices as a floor to prevent the price of these commodities from going too low.


James Garfield Gardiner: When the hon. member says that, he is speaking of grain only?


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Yes; I am only speaking of grain.
The second thing in the legislation which, of course, will cause disappointment is the failure of the government to have granted a larger initial payment. The feeling all over western Canada was that surely the time had come for some courageous steps to be taken in this matter. I notice that the hon. member for Wood Mountain said that after all,
whether it comes as a bonus or as a price, the treasury is going to pay it. Let us look at that statement for a moment. In the first place, for the wheat consumed in Canada there is no reason for the treasury to pay it. We have cheap wheat in this country. The milling industry and the baking industry can afford to pay a price for wheat which is on a parity basis. They have paid it before. Back in the fall of 1938 the price of wheat went over $1.40, and there was no complaint. They can afford to pay a reasonable price for wheat to be milled in Canada. Second, the only other place where we sell wheat is the United Kingdom. As to the wheat we are giving to the United Kingdom-because it will probably come within the gift of $1,000 million worth of products which we shall be making to Great Britain-I think western Canada is justified when it says that if we are going to make a gift to Great Britain of so many million bushels of wheat, that is a gift which ought to be paid for by all the people rather than by the small section who grow it. That is why it would not have been unreasonable to expect the government to have paid a dollar as this initial price.
Another thing is that no step has been taken yet, and there is no indication that a step will be taken, to remove the surplus from the market and save it as an emergency. There should be an emergency reserve. It has been said over and over again that when this war is over, food will be a weapon to reestablish peace; it will be an implement of reconstruction. All right; then Canada as a whole ought to pay for that weapon. We do not ask the people of Ontario, or the manufacturers, to make tanks for nothing as a weapon to win the war. Then there is no reason why we should ask the farmers to pay for a weapon to win the peace. If we are going to use wheat as a weapon to reconstruct the world, it ought to be paid for by the whole Canadian people rather than by the wheat producers of western Canada. We would welcome from the government some statement that the sales in this next crop year will be applied to that year's wheat, because if we do that, and if the wheat is sold for more than the initial price, instead of the extra money being eaten up in interest and storage charges there will be some chance of it going back to the producer, who certainly has a right to expect whatever remuneration is coming.
The only recommendation which has been complied with is the removal of the clause which makes it impossible to declare an emergency year when the price of wheat is above 80 cents a bushel. No steps have been taken to increase the benefits under the
Wheat Board Act

Prairie Farm Assistance Act. On the contrary, the initial price of 90 cents will shut out those farmers whose average is eight to twelve bushels. This will exclude more than half of the farmers who benefited in the last two crop years.
From the point of view of western Canada this debate is probably one of the most important which will be held during the session, because the whole price control system, if it is effective at all, will fasten price levels upon the Canadian people not for this year alone but for the duration of the war. Therefore, whatever principle is adopted 'here within the next few days is the principle which will obtain until the war is over. If the principle which we accept is that of depressed prices for agriculture, we shall impose on western Canada from now to the end of the war a standard of living which will mean poverty and insecurity for our people.
I therefore move, Mr. Speaker, seconded by the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright):
That all the words after "that" be struck out and the following substituted therefor:
"this bill be not now read a second time but be it resolved that the disregarding by this parliament of the modest representations made by western agriculture for a parity price for all agricultural products and an initial wheat payment of at least $1 per bushel for No. 1 northern basis Fort William is contrary to the peace, order and good government of Canada."
I want to say one other word before I sit down. I have listened in the few weeks we have been here to constant talking about national unity. I submit that national unity has not only a political but an economic basis; that you can only have a federation of people banded together provided they feel that they are getting equitable economic treatment; and if any section of our population, any group of producers, any particular occupation, any particular geographical location, has reason to feel that it is being discriminated against, that it is not getting fair treatment compared with other parts of the national economy, there you have national disunity, the type of national disunity which will split this country asunder.
I want to make an appeal to the government that they shall give consideration to establishing now, for the duration of the war, the principle of parity prices for agriculture-not only western agriculture, but eastern agriculture as well. Unless we do that, we shall face the possibility of dividing Canada into sections, one part prospering by virtue of government contracts and war industries, and another part becoming rapidly depopulated, lowering its standard of living, and in danger of becoming a great

depressed area, from which the more aggressive members of society will be fleeing, and where we shall have people living who stay there only because they are too poor to move out. If we allow a condition like that to continue, we are asking to have black areas in Canada which will be hard not only upon the people who live in them but which will be to the everlasting disgrace of this country.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: With respect to this amendment, I raise the same point of order as I did before. Whereas the amendment is not contrary to citation 755 of Beauchesne, I definitely suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that it should be carefully considered whether it is not an infringement of standing orders 60 and 61 and section 54 of the British North America Act, the marginal citations being 551 and 562.


Georges Parent: I shall consider the point of order during the dinner recess and rule upon it at eight o'clock.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Georges Parent: Does any hon. member wish to speak to the point of order?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I should like to say a few words in regard to it, having given some study to -the matter during the dinner recess. The objection taken by the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie) to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) is based upon section 54 of the British North America Act and standing order 60 of this house. It is, of course, elementary to say that it is not within the power of a private member to move a resolution which involves any increased burden upon the treasury or which changes the balance of the budgetary position of the nation; and if the amendment of the hon. member for Weyburn had that effect, it would clearly be out of order. But I submit that such is not the effect of the amendment. The amendment as phrased does not seek to impose any burden upon the public treasury. The adoption of the amendment would not result in the expenditure of one dollar of additional public funds. The whole -purpose of the amendment is to suggest that the disregarding of the representations for a parity price and an initial -payment of at least $1 a bushel for wheat is contrary to the peace, order and good government of Canada.

Wheat Board Act
The- amendment must be judged by the results which would flow from its adoption. If the adoption of the resolution would result in an increased charge on public funds, or would, in other words, result in the adoption of a parity price and a payment of SI a bushel for wheat, then clearly it would be out of order under section 54 of the British North America Act and standing order 60. But I submit that if the amendment should be adopted, the result would not be the adoption of a parity price or the establishment of an initial payment of SI a bushel for wheat. Therefore it does not fall within the section or the standing order to which reference has been made. True, the amendment is in effect an expression of no confidence in the government's wheat policy, but it does not seek directly to set up an alternative to that policy, certainly not an alternative which would require the expenditure of public funds. I therefore submit that it is in order.


Major James William Coldwell: I should like to support what has been said by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson). The point of view which he expressed with regard to the amendment is the one which we ourselves hold, with the additional consideration that under standing order 75, paragraph 755, we note:
It is also competent to a member who desires to place on record any special reasons for not agreeing to the second reading of a bill, to move as an amendment to the question a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to, or differing from, the principles, policy, or provisions of the bill, or expressing opinions as to any circumstances connected with its introduction, or prosecution; or otherwise opposed to its progress; or seeking further information in relation to the bill by committees, commissioners, the production of papers or other evidence or the opinion of judges.
I do not know what will be Your Honour's ruling, and I do not know whether in that ruling you intend to discuss this paragraph; but if so, I would direct attention to "amendments" in Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms at page 321, No. 93, which deals with the second reading of a bill. There we see:
The question being proposed "that Bill No. 133, the War-time Elections Act be now read a second time."
Sir Wilfrid Laurier moved in amendment thereto, seconded by Mr. Pugsley: "That this bill be not now read a second time but that it be resolved that the abridgement by this parliament of the electoral franchise now enjoyed in any province of the dominion by any class of his majesty's subjects would be contrary to the peace, order and good government of Canada."
As a matter of fact, that amendment dealt very largely with the provisions of the bill, for the abridgements contained in the bill were
serious. They included the denial of the right to vote to conscientious objectors, to Mennon-ites, to Doukhobors, to naturalized aliens of enemy origin, to naturalized aliens whose language was that of an enemy country, excepting those who were serving in the army or the navy. So I contend, Mr. Speaker, that as far as the second part of the consideration goes, the point is quite clear under No. 93, which I have just read.
I would say further, however, that if you will look at the wording of the amendment, the governing noun is the word " disregarding " and all the words which follow it down to the words " Fort William " are words modifying that word. It does not involve the country or the government in the expenditure of any money. All it does is to complain that in the opinion of this house the government has disregarded a plea made by a large number of people. It is the disregarding of the plea that we are seeking to say something about in the amendment. Then in paragraph 558, under standing order 60, at page 165 of Beauchesne we find this:
Motions advocating public expenditure, or the imposition of a charge, if the motion be framed in sufficient abstract or general terms, can be entertained and agreed to by the house. Resolutions of this nature are permissible because, having no operative effect, no grant is made or burthen imposed by their adoption.
This very clearly explains standing order 60 and refers, probably better than anything else in Beauehesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, to the particular amendment now under discussion. We are not advocating a public expenditure, though if we were, and the motion wrere sufficiently abstract or general in its terms, it could be entertained and agreed to by the house. But clearly, Mr. Speaker, this amendment is permissible because, it having no operative effect, no grant is made or burthen imposed by its adoption. So I would suggest that in deciding this question you take these citations under consideration, and then I believe you will rule the amendment in order.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, before you give your ruling I should like to submit that the argument just advanced by the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party (Mr. Coldwell) probably would be entirely sound if the resolution proposed were not in the form of an amendment, and had no relationship to anything being discussed by the house at the moment. But I submit that the amendment is being proposed for the purpose of having an expression of opinion by this house upon the question which is before the house, and for the purpose of amending it in such a way as to have an expression of opinion by the house which, if earned, would
Wheat Board Act

result in the expenditure of money by the government of Canada. There are two phrases in the amendment which would bring about that result. The first it:
. . . this bill be not now read a second time, but be it resolved that the disregarding by this parliament of the modest representations made by western agriculture for a parity price for all agricultural products . . .
It is well recognized that there is only one method by which parity prices have been provided, since the war started up to the present time, and that has been by the voting of money by the Dominion of Canada for the purpose of making possible higher payments to farmers throughout the countiy for their different farm products. There would be no parity prices for farm products in Canada to-day if it were not for the fact that the federal treasury has been drawn upon for payments of certain amounts, in addition to that which is being obtained from the British government for food products. Then the amendment goes on to say:
. . . and an initial wheat payment of at least one dollar per bushel for No. 1 northern basis Fort William is contrary to the peace, order and good government of Canada.
I submit, if this amendment carried, relating as it does to the policy now before the house, the government would be compelled either to adopt the policy agreed to by the house or to resign. In other words, the statement made a few minutes ago to the effect that this is contrary to the policy of the government, and therefore would be a vote of want of confidence in the government, and its policy, would practically force that position. If that position were forced it would, of course, result in the expenditure of money by the treasury of Canada. That being so, I submit the amendment is not in order.


Mr. HANSELL:: With respect to the suggestion that the amendment involves an outlay of money, I submit that that is a matter of interpretation only. One might also interpret the amendment as being one which might reduce expenditures. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) in his argument is merely supposing that arriving at a parity price will cost money to the government. That does not necessarily follow.
My submission, therefore, is that the amendment cannot be out of order simply because an hon. member wishes to interpret it as one involving an expenditure of money. The amendment does not propose an increased expenditure of money. I therefore submit the amendment is in order.


Georges Parent: The question before the house is on the second reading of Bill No. 13.

to which an amendment has been moved by the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas). The amendment is in these words:
That all the words after "that" be struck out and the following substituted therefor:
"this bill be not now read a second time, but be it resolved that the disregarding by this parliament of the modest representations made by western agriculture for a parity price for all agricultural products and an initial wheat payment of at least $1 per bushel for No. 1 northern basis Fort William is contrary to the peace, order and good government of Canada."
Citation 755 in Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms reads as follows:
It is also competent to a member who desires to place on record any special reasons for not agreeing to the second reading of a bill, to move as an amendment to the question a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to, or differing from, the principles, policy, or provisions of the bill, or expressing opinions as to any circumstances connected with its introduction, or prosecution: or otherwise opposed to its progress; or seeking further information in relation to the bill by committees, commissioners, the production of papers or other evidence or the opinion of judges.
The Minister of Agriculture suggested that the amendment might involve the imposition of expenditures by the government, and that that would be contrary to the rules of the house. In his opinion this amendment did involve such expenditure, and would incur additional expenditures.
I would, however, draw the attention of lion, members to citation 558 in the same volume, which is as follows:
Motions advocating public expenditure, or the imposition of a charge, if the motion be framed in sufficiently abstract or general terms, can be entertained, and agreed to by the house. Resolutions of this nature are permissible because, having no operative effect, no grant is made or burthen imposed by their adoption.
In giving my decision I have in mind citation 755, which I have already quoted, and the practice as stated in May, 13th edition, page 390, and in Bourinot at page 509.
It seems to me well established that the terms of the amendment conform to citation 755. If one reads the amendment he will find that the resolution within it is declaratory of some principle adverse to or differing from the principle, policy or provisions of the bill. There is a declaratory principle in the amendment, namely that the bill is contrary to the peace, order and good government of Canada, (section 91 of the British North America Act).
There is no request or attempt to bring about an increased expenditure, but there is objection to the principle of the bill before us. The amendment is adverse to the principle expressed in the bill, and it differs from pro-

Wheat Board Act
visions of the bill on the basis of representations made known during the course of this debate by the western agricultural delegation.
It seems to me, therefore, it is clear that the amendment falls within the provisions contained in the rules I have quoted, and I therefore rule that the amendment is in order.


Mr. H. R. FLEMING (Humboldt):: Mr. Speaker, no doubt the ruling which you have just given will open for discussion the amendment which has been moved, along with the other bills we have been discussing, and concerning which I wish to say a few words this evening.
Barely five months ago, when making a radio broadcast to the people of Canada the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said:
Agricultural prices, with a few conspicuous exceptions, especially wheat, are higher to-day than they have been at any time during the past ten years. In cases where agricultural prices have not kept pace with increased costs of production, measures are being taken to bring about a more satisfactory relationship.
Some of those measures are now being put into effect by some of the legislation which has been brought down by the administration In my opinion, however, they are not nearly comprehensive enough. Western farmers are indeed pleased to know that the wheat board will handle all the wheat, and that in the event of any money being made in these transactions, from future wheat sales, the producer will get some share.
Western farmers will also be pleased to hear that the grain exchange will be virtually closed, something which is long overdue. It is admitted that the operation of the grain exchange, despite some possible value in its tendency toward price stabilization, in the last quarter of a century has cost western Canada many, many millions of dollars. As is well known, in some years the crop has been bought and sold forty or fifty times, and I need not tell the house to whose advantage.
There is encouragement, too, in the fact that these different bills brought down by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), the bill in the name of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) with respect to amendments to the Canadian Wheat Board Act, and the amendment moved this afternoon by the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) are now all being discussed together.
I find from the correspondence which I have had with many people throughout Saskatchewan, and in the more limited area of my constituency, that many are of the opinion that wheat comes under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Agriculture. I find that the Minister of Agriculture day in and day out is being blamed because wheat has not been
given a better deal, or because a better deal has not been given to the wheat producer. No one knows better than those of us who come from Saskatchewan how hard he has worked and how difficult his task has been. He has had to face what the hon. member of Temiscouata (Mr. Pouldot) referred to a few days ago as the boy economists. These so-called economists could not tell a cow from a horse, or a field of wheat from a field of barley. He also must deal with the financial clique, certain elments which represent the eastern interests. These are within and without the government. Many people whom one hears discussing agricultural questions know just about as much. I often think that their knowledge is based upon the ancient history of what happened to the Selkirk settlers one hundred and twenty years ago when the grasshoppers ate the lcilts off those men from Scotland.
It is most satisfactory to learn that there will be no ceiling on the price of wheat. That would have been a handicap to our whole western economy; it would have been a catastrophe. When I spoke in this house three years ago about governmental control of the price of w'heat, I pointed out that when a price was set, the impression was created at home and abroad that that was the value we placed upon a bushel of wheat, and that would be what people in other parts of the world would consider it worth. It also gives an opportunity to those who are not sympathetic to our prairie farmers to accuse Canada of holding up the price to Great Britain in her hour of need if she should offer more for wheat than the present ceiling or the present set-up of price that we use. That is one of the dangers that beset us.
I am sharply opposed to this proposed price of 90 cents a bushel, Fort William, for rvestern wheat. I have no hesitation in saying from my place in this House of Commons that the price should have been at least $1. Why all this niggardliness toward a great section of this Canadian nation? For the want of a dime, a ten cent piece, we are raising a question in the minds of the people of western Canada. Wheat has been a casualty long enough. Surely the time has come when we should take it out of the casualty list and place it in the front line so that it can go forward fighting for what we are all fighting for to-day-democracy. I appreciate fully the assistance that was given to the western farmers to help them in those days when it was difficult to find a sale for their products, when there were such large stocks of wheat for which markets could not be found. The measures now before the house do not go far enough to meet the situation that now prevails,
Wheat Board Act

The present price of 70 cents, a 'bushel, No. 1 northern, Fort William or Vancouver, gives the farmer a maximum gross return of approximately 50 cents a bushel at his shipping point. The proposed price of 90 cents a bushel will mean that the farmer will get approximately 70 cents a bushel at 'his shipping point. There can be no debate that with present costs, with general expenses and living expenses being what they are, a return of 50 cents a bushel, or even 70 cents a bushel is not enough, even if we have a bumper crop in Saskatchewan.
The Monetary Times of August, 1930, contained a survey of the cost of producing wheat, and it was shown that it cost 84J cents to raise a bushel of western wheat. The United Farmers of Manitoba carried out an investigation in 1933, and even with all the paring that they could do they could not get the cost of production below 78 cents a bushel. Professor Hope of the university of Saskatchewan has been quoted in this house on many occasions, and we have had other opinions as to the actual cost of raising a bushel of wheat. All these figures compare favourably with the average United States cost of production.
Dollar wheat would give the prairie farmer 80 cents at his shipping point, and I submit that that is little enough for the sacrifices he has endured over a long period of time and the contribution he has made, not only to the economic structure of Canada but to the whole world. There is no wheat raised anywhere else in the world quite like the wheat that we raise on the western prairies. A loaf of bread produced from Canadian wheat will contain 3,000 cubic centimeters; a loaf produced from the same amount of Australian wheat will contain 2,180 cubic centimeters, and a loaf produced from English wheat, 1,830 cubic centimeters. A loaf of bread produced from Canadian wheat stands far above the bread produced from wheat raised in Germany, France or Italy.
The domestic economy of western Canada is based upon our wheat economy, and in the main this cannot be changed. The agricultural authorities are thoroughly familiar with the factors of soil, water and climate. The Minister of Agriculture, speaking in this house on his bill, proved to the members that we had this wheat triangle. Speaking before the Canadian chamber of commerce in convention in Regina in 1931, John W. Dafoe, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press and coeditor of the Sirois report, a man who for forty years has followed the difficult economy of western Canada and who knows the situation of the prairies perhaps better than any

other living man because he has made a special study of all phases and angles, had this to say:
Check over the situation any way you like and you will come hack to this: that we have in western Canada at least 12 million acres that will have to be abandoned if not put to wheat raising, for which, under modern conditions of power farming and rapidly maturing kinds of wheat, they are highly suited.
There are about 290,000 farms in the prairie provinces. If we take an average of four persons to a farm, that means that 1,160,000 western Canadians are dependent upon farm income. In Saskatchewan whence I come, which can grow enough wheat in one year to feed all the people of Canada for five years, or all the people of Saskatchewan for fifty years, about 76 per cent of the farm income is from wheat, and that is one of the reasons why we who represent Saskatchewan constituencies-whether it be town or city makes no difference-are so much interested in the wheat economy of that province. Because of the low prices which have prevailed for the last number of years the farmers of western Canada have suffered. But low prices have beeh one handicap only. Those farmers have suffered crop failure after crop failure due to circumstances over which they had no control. They have suffered from rust; they have suffered from drought; they have suffered from grasshoppers and from frost, and because of all these things they find themselves in the position they are now in.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, that I know the situation in a great many of the rural areas of Saskatchewan as well as any other member. In the practice of my profession of medicine I have spent many years in the constituency of Humboldt, in its rural areas. I have met the people in their humble homes, and I know the hardships they have had to endure. They are a proud people. They did not want hand-outs from the government and they did not ask for them. They tried to keep body and soul together before any governmental assistance came to them in the days now past when we had1 our relief problems on those plains and prairies. The majority of our prairie farmers live in a most meagre way. They have no elaborate homes, no high-class furnishings. The hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker) the other night gave certain statistics in connection with the modernized homes that we have in the prairie provinces. The children of our farmers receive only a very limited education. Our people have gone through all the handicaps and the hardships I have mentioned and, now, what do they find? They see prosperity

Wheat Board Act
coming to the great industrial areas of Ontario, and I cannot understand how any government can afford to be niggardly in dealing with the type of men and women who have given the best years of their life to carving from out that wilderness of western Canada homes for themselves and their children.
We see in our mind's eye to-night that humble father and mother sitting alone in their prairie home, trying to keep the old farm going, with all the difficulties that go with it-all that they owe on farm mortgage, high interest rates, low prices for their products, and all the other things which have befallen them as I mentioned a few moments ago. They may be thinking of their son, and1, Mr.	Speaker,	this	touches many	inSaskatchewan. That son may be the boy you read about in the western Canadian newspapers, that boy from Saskatchewan who was shot	down over Singapore or	in	theLibyan desert or in one of the commando raids on France or Norway or over the English channel. Should we treat these people in a different way from the people of other parts of Canada? By this wheat legislation we are proposing to jeopardize not only the future of western Canada	but	the ability	of	itspeople to	help win	this	war-and	all	for
what? All for the want of a ten-cent piece as an initial payment.


Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: Then you would be in favour of the amendment.


Harry Raymond Fleming: That is my business. I did not read it over. I asked the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) for a copy, and I did not get it. I cannot answer that question until I have read the amendment.


Charles Edward Johnston: It just asks for parity prices.


Harry Raymond Fleming: My hon. friend knows all about it, so after I hear him make his speech I may change my views. After all, I am not tied up as he is to some fantastic theories of money or something like that.
In the Atlantic charter it was pointed out that the great new order would provide freedom from fear and freedom from want in those countries which have been overrun by the enemy. Surely we can do little less than to start this great new order here in Canada by seeing to it that the people on the western plains shall become free from fear and free from want.
Wage and salaried workers in Canada are now given protection to meet the increased costs of living. The farmers who are able to engage in mixed farming practices are protected under governmental policy and receive adequate compensation for the production of
live stock and dairy products. The sharply improved price of coarse grains arising from the government's policy of promoting the production of live stock and dairy products materially aids those who can successfully engage in this particular phase of farming activity.
But what about the wheat farmer, the farmer in that triangle which the Minister of Agriculture drew yesterday? In that broadcast which I mentioned in the opening part of my remarks the Prime Minister said:
Agriculture itself is a national asset which must be preserved.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether wheat farming is not a substantial part of Canada's agriculture. I ask you further, whether or not 90 cent wheat will preserve that part of our agriculture. It can be proved that 90-cent wheat is not adequate-absolutely	not
adequate.
Let me examine briefly the existing price set-up for our prairie wheat and compare it with prices of other grains.
A few months ago the Canadian wheat board, acting as administrator on behalf of the wartime prices and trade board, issued an order fixing the maximum price at which Ontario wheat might be sold in eastern Canada at SI.26 a bushel, basis delivered at Montreal. This was the highest price at which wheat was sold in the basic period between September 15 and October 11, 1941. Last January the Northwest Line ellevators' association which, as is well known to those of us who come from the farming section of western Canada, is vitally interested in the welfare of a vast number of western farmers in that area, approached the wartime prices and trade board for an adjustment of western wheat prices. The association said:
In view of the action already taken by your board in respect to Ontario wheat, and having regard to the superior milling value of western spring wheat, we feel that the ceiling price of wheat for all Canada should be not less than the price of $1.26 per bushel, basis No. 1 northern delivered Montreal. This would make the ceiling price at Fort William and Vancouver a minimum of approximately $1.15 per bushel.
I do not like that word "ceiling" in the submission of the association, but I like its appraisal of the problem being faced by the west and I like its energy in trying to get something done for our western agriculturists. It asked for wheat at $1.15 a bushel. The organized wheat growers asked only for $1 wheat as an initial payment.
We are not asking that this be based on the price of wheat and other essential farm commodities in 1913-14 or the years just prior to the outbreak of the first world war, although that is widely accepted as a fair basis. The
Wheat Board Act

government of the United States has taken the price relationship existing between 1909 and 1914 as a proper base for stabilizing current farm income, and there is little difference between the 1909-1914 and the 19131914 bases. The Searle Grain company in its valuable index, which has been quoted many times in this chamber, shows that the 1913 price of No. 1 northern wheat, basis Fort William, was 87J cents a bushel, and the cost of the essential commodities which the farmer has to buy has increased fifty per cent since that time. Therefore, to place the farmer in the same position comparatively as he enjoyed in 1913-14, the price should be increased fifty per cent. But the organized farmers of western Canada are asking only $1 a bushel as the initial payment for their wheat. I know some will raise objections to this. Some will say that to do so will increase our surpluses and that you should stop growing wheat; others will say that it is too expensive.
Let us explore briefly these two objections. Take the question of surpluses. We find on every hand that what we have is not surpluses, but scarcities." One of our great difficulties in the present war is that, so far from having surpluses, there has been a scarcity of every commodity, excepting wheat, which we have required to help win this war, and the only people who were prepared to face the issues of the world war in which we are engaged to-day were the prairie farmers of western Canada. We can certainly thank our lucky stars that we have these surpluses. It is only three years since, having carried a burdensome surplus of wheat for some years, we had to scrape our wheat bins clean, following the poor crops of 1936 and 1937. Recurrence of such a situation would be most serious. If we were now short of wheat, the government would go to any lengths-there would be no question of cost-to get the farmers of western Canada back into full production of wheat.
Surely it can be readily appreciated that food, and particularly wheat, is as important a war requirement as are munitions. Wheat can be stored for longer periods of time and at less expense than any other foodstuffs. The need for maintaining substantial reserves of wheat as an essential requirement of the war and the subsequent peace negotiations is certainly recognized.
Indeed, the need for food reserves is more than ever apparent, because increasingly large wheat and agricultural areas are being laid waste by war. Accepting wheat as necessary to winning the war, and necessary to win the peace, the government must be prepared to pay the farmer a reasonable price for pro-

ducing wheat. It pays necessary prices-whatever the price the manufacturer wants-for munitions of war. Is wheat any less important for the winning of this war than those other essentials of which we speak in connection with our war activity? Surely I do not need to reiterate the urgency for the united nations to maintain ample reserves of food as an essential requirement of the war and the peace which will follow. In this connection the Right Hon. Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain, speaking on August 20, 1940, said:
We shall do our best to encourage the building up of reserves of food all over the world so that there will always be held before the eyes of the people of Europe, including the Germans, the certainty that the shattering of nazi power would bring to them all immediate food, freedom and peace.
The Prime Minister of Canada in his radio address which I have mentioned twice before, said:
Wheat held in reserve constitutes an invaluable war asset.
!Need we, then, be fearful that giving the western farmer dollar wheat would build up our stocks too much? Not in the least, even if we had a bumper crop on the prairies this coming season, and nobody believes that we shall have, because moisture conditions all over western Canada were never worse than this year, owing to the light snowfall this past winter. Western Canada may have a crop failure just as complete as that of 1937. But even if we should have 500 million bushels as a steady reserve, we would not be too prudent. With the armies of Germany and Russia steadily moving back and forth in those great areas of Russia which have been destroyed, areas which will not be able to go back into wheat production, the day may come when we shall suddenly be asked to feed our great ally, Russia, that has been of such immense assistance to us in this present struggle.
Wre do not need to worry about surpluses because the government is protecting itself against surpluses. The farmers will not grow a surplus of wheat because the government says that the restricted deliveries will be only 2S0 million bushels. It is impossible, of course, to estimate accurately what the crop will be in 1942. But in my opinion, and in the opinion of others who are interested in the grain trade, the figures which the minister gave yesterday were the outside figures. It is our opinion that dollar wheat would not in any way embarrass the wheat board, and the government has amply protected itself by putting in the clause providing for a delivery quota of 280 million bushels.

Wheat Board Act
As to the price, let us suppose that the deliveries will be 280 millioa bushels. Let us suppose that the farmers do turn over that much wheat, to the wheat board, and let us suppose further that all that wheat comes from the prairie provinces. Ten cents a bushel, providing for dollar wheat instead of ninety cent wheat, would cost approximately $28 million. We talk to-day in such large figures that they are absolutely unintelligible to the ordinary man on the street. I think the expression has been coined that they are "astronomical". They have become so large that one is unable to comprehend them. But we shall be spending in this fiscal year nearly $3,000 million. One can go into the argument of percentage, but it is useless, because by comparison the amount which would be taken out of the public treasury would be so small that it would be only the proverbial drop in the proverbial bucket compared with the great sums which we are expending in every direction.
There is one thing that we should keep in mind. While we are talking about what this war is going to cost, we are liable to lose the war if we lose sight of the importance of certain things-for instance, if we quarrel over a little sum of $28 million which would keep up the morale of western Canada. Would we not spend $28 million to keep up the morale of India? This dollar wheat has become almost a byword on the plains and prairies of the province that I represent in this house, and this money would not be frozen. It would immediately go back into circulation in the form of war savings stamps, war savings certificates, payments to merchants and doctors and scores of creditors whom the farmers have to pay. I have found in the farming community which I represent that nothing gives the people greater pleasure than to be able to take a little bit of money and go and pay off some of their old indebtedness. This $28 million that would be handed to the people of the prairie provinces would help them to do this, and the money would not all stay in Saskatchewan; it would find its way, as such money has always done in the past, to eastern Canada.
I am sure that the people in other parts of the dominion will sympathize with the submission that was made to the Prime Minister and his government by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. So often we hear it said, "Oh, the people of Ontario or Quebec or the maritimes would not stand for it, or it could not be put through the House of Commons." I doubt very much that that represents the attitude of the people of those provinces, and I say that from my association with members from
Ontario and from other parts of the country. I believe they are quite fair-minded and will look upon this situation in the same light as we do. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture is an organization representing the organized farmers from all parts of the dominion, and I quote the following from their submission:
All of the member bodies of this federation from western Canada are on record to the effect that the basic price for the coming year should be not less than $1 per bushel, basis No. 1 northern at lakehead or seaboard terminals. We can assure the government that opinion in Manitoba and Alberta is equally strong, and that such a request has also the support of the agricultural interests in other parts of Canada represented by this federation.
The prairie farmers are not asking for anything that is beyond the reach of this government; they are not asking for anything that is going to ruin the federal treasury. They realize as well as anyone else that the government have a tough job and that our farmers and the rural population of the country are straining every effort to ensure victory and peace to the allied nations of the world. They are also committed to action which will help in every way. There is nothing they have not done to try to bring this abouQ including a change in the method of farming. To the best of their ability they have tried changing from wheat raising to the raising of pork products. Everything within their power they have done to help to win the war and to assist the government.
Let me ask you this, Mr. Speaker: Who can estimate the upsurge of feeling that would go all through the west as a result of news that there would be dollar wheat. Suppose such news went out from this parliament; can you imagine the psychological effect it would have on those poor downtrodden people who have suffered so much? It would act upon the blood of those farmers like a tonic. But 90-cent wheat! Why all this niggardliness?-because that is the only term I can think of. Now is the great opportunity for this government. The cost would be but little more than the new price, and there would be no danger of the accumulation of new surpluses. Moreover, judging from the figures of cost of wheat production, dollar wheat would be no more than is fair.
1 hope this government will reconsider the matter. I hope they will give every consideration to the representations made by the great delegation that came here. It was not an ordinary delegation; it was not like so many delegations that come here and present cases to the government of Canada, setting forth the maximum amount that they would like to get, in the expectation of getting perhaps
Wheat Board Act

half of that amount, in which event they are well pleased. This was a different delegation. It represented all phases of thought in Saskatchewan, all phases of activity-farmers, business men, professional men and merchants. These were reasonable men, and they took the attitude that since this country was in the throes of the greatest war known to history, they would not ask for anything that was unreasonable. They asked for the minimum amount, and I have every hope that, with that keen sense of appreciation which the Prime Minister has of our agricultural problems, with that persuasive ability that characterizes the Minister of Agriculture, these two men will be able to convince the other members of the federal government, who are opposed to giving a dollar as the initial payment to the farmers of western Canada, of the wisdom of such a step.


Mr. J. A. ROSS (Souris):: Mr. Speaker, I
shall be supporting the amendment which was moved this afternoon by the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas). Had it not been moved I would have moved a similar amendment in speaking this evening. The idea embodied in that amendment is not new to this house. My colleague the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), speaking on April 8, 1941, said, as reported at page 2280 of Hansard:
I have risen to move an amendment based on the condition of agriculture. I think it will be agreed by all hon. members that in time of war the morale of this nation cannot be as it should be if agriculture is pauperized. Agriculture taken as a whole in Canada is in a lamentable condition, and it is an anomalous condition of affairs that Canada, a great producer of food, should, in a world which sooner or later will require foodstuffs, try to find means to bring about a reduction in the production of wheat. I move therefore, seconded by the hon. member for Peel:
That all the words after "that" in the motion be struck out, and that the following be substituted therefor:
It be resolved that the government should take immediate steps to create a parity of prices as between agricultural and other products in order to improve the condition of Canadian agriculture and in order that it may receive a just and fair return, and thus be enabled to make that contribution to Canada's war effort which is so desirable, and which our agricultural population so greatly desire to make.


An hon. MEMBER:: How did they vote?


James Arthur Ross: I am not sure how several members to whom we listened yesterday and to-day voted at that time. They probably voted against it.
We have listened to other speakers agitating for a higher price, including the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker), who was

very much heated in his argument yesterday evening, and the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Ross). They inserted some provisos, however, as to the manner in which they were bound to the great Liberal party and why they must follow it at all costs to the country.
I am sure many people in western Canada will be very much disappointed with this bill, for several reasons. Not only will they be disappointed in regard to the price, but they expected that this policy would be announced earlier in the year. One month ago to-day, on February 10, in this very chamber I expressed the hope that the two ministers, the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) would soon announce the wheat policy for this year. I pointed out that in previous years a good deal of this policy had been carried out by order in council, and the Minister of Agriculture interrupted to say that this year we must wait until the speech from the throne was disposed of because it would be all covered by legislation. Despite that statement by the minister, however, we were told yesterday that some part of the policy still will be implemented by order in council. I was one of those who, a year ago, greatly criticized this practice of passing orders in council, and I think I was right in so doing. This afternoon, in regard to the wheat acreage reduction scheme, an order in council concerning summer-fallow, which was passed on November 27, 1941, was quoted. I need not read the entire preamble, but the order in council provides:
"Summer-fallow" means the cultivation or management of fallow land in such a way as to conserve soil moisture or to prevent soil drifting, or both.
That was passed on November 27, 1941, with relation to the management of the scheme during the previous summer. Another order in council was passed on November 21, 1941, on the recommendation of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, with respect to the handling of wheat. So I think we should realize how necessary it is that these policies should be introduced by means of legislation.
Yesterday I listened very attentively to the statement of the Minister of Trade and Commerce on the wheat situation, and the announcement of the 90-cent price for the 1942 crop. Then we had the statement by the Minister of Agriculture as to wheat acreage reduction, the demand for feed grain, animal products and other agricultural commodities for the war effort. I should like to compliment the minister upon his statement. I do not agree with everything he said, but he had

Wheat Board Act
a big job to do and I think he is to be complimented upon the way he did it. Then, following those statements, we listened to the impassioned arguments put forward by the hon. member for Moose Jaw and the hon. member for Rosthern to which I have already referred. They coupled with their arguments, however, the statement that they were bound to the Liberal party and must follow that party at all costs. I have been rather convinced in recent weeks that this delegation of some four hundred pool farmers, dirt farmers from western Canada, probably impressed this government to a greater extent with regard to the difficulties of the western farmer than their representatives in the Liberal party have been able to do for the past six or seven years. I remember that in 1934 the present Minister of Agriculture led the Liberal party of Saskatchewan into power in that province. During the course of that campaign, in the month of June, he had distributed throughout the province a handbill promising dollar wheat. I do not know why dollar wheat is always the great issue in a Saskatchewan election, but in any event this handbill, put out by authority of the Saskatchewan Liberal Association, said:
Trade will bring dollar wheat. Dollar wheat wilt end your troubles. Dollar wheat will run your farm and pay your taxes. Dollar wheat will pay the hired help and pay your repair bill. Dollar wheat will pay your insurance and buy your wife a new dress. Vote Liberal.
My recollection is that the people of that province voted Liberal; but, as the hon. member for Rosthern pointed out last night, the debts of the people have been accumulating year by year. He did not make 1934 the jump-off date, but he did give the figures for several years since then. On May 15, 1934, May wheat was quoted at 70J cents at Winnipeg and 86 cents at Chicago, and I think everyone will agree that the cost of production and the cost of living were not nearly as high then as they are to-day. I might give a comparison of the prices of some of the
necessary farm implements, as between 1934 and 1941:
1934	1941
Two-furrow gang plough	$137	50	$155	00Eight-foot cultivator	
143	00	162	50Twenty-row double disc drill 250	50	295	25Eight-foot binder	
257	00	327	00
The average increase in these four farm implements, which are most necessary on any farm, was 18i per cent during that period. Many hon. members know of the demand for power equipment to-day. In the Winnipeg Tribune of February 26 I ran across a short article making a comparison between army
tools and agricultural tools, by Mr. Q. H. Martinson, who said:
The army tools of to-day dwarf those of 1918, just as the machinery of present day agriculture has outmoded that of twenty-five years ago. Mechanized equipment to equip a half-section farm to-day in some instances costs as much as fifty per cent more than the horse-drawn equipment needed for the farm during the last war. During the last war farmers used a horse-drawn binder; to-day he uses a combine. He hauled his grain to town with team and wagon; to-day he uses motor trucks. He ploughed with a horse-drawm two-furrowed gang plough; to-day he uses a four-farrowed gang plough drawn by a fast moving tractor. Mechanized equipment for modern agriculture is now a prime and urgent necessity.
I remember that the Minister of Mines and Resources (Mr. Crerar) who, I believe, is also a member of the wheat committee of the cabinet, spoke in Souris in 1937. He stated then that if the west could produce a good crop of wheat, all the difficulties of the farmers would be solved. Well, we have produced a couple of good crops in Manitoba since then, but I am afraid our farmers are still facing many serious difficulties, especially in the matter of debt adjustment.
The great disparity between industry, organized labour and the wheat producer has been increasing continuously. The Searle market feature of January 7, 1942, contains an article on the financial reward to wheat producers and to industrial labour, taking the period 1913-14 as the parity basis. They point out that the price of wheat now should be $1 at the average country point for No. 1 northern wheat, w'hich would be equivalent to $1.20 for No. 1 northern at Fort William. Then they go on:
. . . because the cost of the things farmers have to buy, according to the Searle index, has increased 50-8 per cent since 1913-14. But the price of wheat to-day is actually only 53 cents. Therefore the price of wheat to-day is 45 per cent below "parity", or we can say that a bushel of wheat to-day has a purchasing power of 45 per cent less than it had in 1913-14.
For the industrial worker's average hourly rate of wages, however, to have the same purchasing power as it had in 1913-14, when it was at an index number of 100, it should now be at an index number of 145 (because the cost of living for industrial labour has gone up by 45 per cent since 1913-14). But the chart shows that the average hourly rate of wages to industrial labour is actually now at 210. Therefore the average hourly rate of wages to-day is 44 per cent higher than it was in 1913-14, or we can say that an hour of industrial labour now has a purchasing power of 44 per cent more than it had in 1913-14, or is 44 per cent higher than "parity".
The wide difference in the reward paid to wheat growers and to industrial labour respectively, should be borne in mind when proposals are considered to increase the price of wheat
Wheat Board Act

to its "parity" price of $1 a bushel to the farmer at his country point, for this chart reveals that even though wheat growers should receive $1 for their wheat, industrial labour would still be receiving a much higher relative return for their labour than wheat growers would he receiving for their wheat.
The period used by the government as a basis for parity with regard to industry and organized labour during this war is that of 1926 to 1929, rather than 1913-14. On that basis of parity wheat would be worth 81.42; oats, 60 cents; barley 71 cents, and rye, approximately $1. As stated yesterday by the Minister of Agriculture, the ceiling price for oats has been placed at 51-5 cents, or approximately 9 cents under parity. The price for barley has been placed at 64-8 cents, or 7 cents under parity. There had been a ceiling of approximately 66 cents on rye, which is 34 cents under parity. There is now a floor under oats placed at 45 cents, and under barley at 60 cents.
I now turn to a press dispatch appearing in the Winnipeg Free Press of March 2. This article is written by Grant Dexter, many of whose articles have not been critical of the government. The article is headed "Increase in sale of goods and services in urban areas", and is as follows-
The rise is more marked in eastern Canada than in the prairie provinces. The increase from December, 1940, to December, 1941, varies from a peak of 21-5 per cent in Quebec to an actual loss of -2 per cent in southern Saskatchewan, 8-2 in all of Saskatchewan and 14-8 throughout rural Manitoba.
This is marked evidence of the purchasing power created in this country during war time, of which I expect to say more at another time.
May I at this point make some reference to voluntary enlistments by provinces. This matter has a direct bearing on the subject of wheat. I heard one hon. member go much further last night when referring to manufacturing. By way of proving that people in western Canada are doing their share in the war, I should like to give some percentages based on a return showing enlistments at December 31, 1941. These are voluntary enlistments for the active army, air force and navy, and are based on the 1931 population:
	Percentage of voluntary enlistments to
Province	total population Per cent
Alberta 		
Saskatchewan			 3-7
Manitoba			 5-7
Ontario 			 4-6
Quebec 			 2-3
British Columbia				 5*7
New Brunswick				 5-4
Nova Scotia	 	... 6
That is conclusive proof that these people who are labouring under such great handicaps, these western farmers, are doing their share, and that their sons and young people have done their bit by way of voluntary enlistment toward defending the nation.
Aside from food producing activities, the farmer has an important mission to fulfil. We need thriving agriculture for sociological reasons. Nations must never forget that agriculture's most valuable crop is the men and women who live by it. The resourcefulness, the self-reliance and the reserve of character that spring from working with nature and understanding her, from making decisions, from building on each separate farm a whole system of management of the soil out of the peculiar conditions that exist there, are moral assets we cannot lose without becoming incomparably poorer. I think that fact was brought out yesterday by the Minister of Agriculture when he drew the line from Morden to Saskatoon, and across to Lloydminster and down to Calgary, and pointed out that that area was chiefly and, in some cases, only fitted for the production of wheat, and that in that area provision had to be made for at least a million people. That is a factor which we as human beings cannot overlook, or lightly set aside.
Mr. G. Goddard Watts, in an article headed "An agricultural policy for Britain," points out that we need a countryside peopled by fresh rural communities in order to maintain the physical quality of our human stock. It is a tradition that three generations away from the soil will exhaust the vitality of a family, and that for refreshment and revitalization that family must leave its urban surroundings and reestablish itself in rural life. The nation which strangles its agriculture is on the way out. That is the verdict of history. I believe that in that statement there is plenty of food for thought for parliament at this time.
I have been somewhat disappointed that there has not been greater cooperation between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Commerce and producers' organizations with respect to wheat. I should like to quote from the Winnipeg Tribune an article bearing out this thought. This was written by Mr. Q. H. Martinson; it is dated March 6, 1942, and reads as follows:
To-day the farmer and technical agriculturist are cooperating wholeheartedly with one purpose in view-the improvement of Canadian agriculture. To-day the producer and technical agriculturist are stressing the need for a permanent agricultural policy with little apparent response from the dominion government, apart from the work carried on under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. However, the scope of the P.F.R.A. is restricted to only part of western

Wheat Board Act
Canada. Producers, producer organizations, technical agriculturists and other groups directly or indirectly associated with agriculture, fully realize the urgent necessity for the establishment of a long-term agricultural programme for Canada.
On July 12 last, a meeting of Manitoba members of C.S.T.A. was held at Brandon. At that meeting, a resolution urged the establishment of an advisory committee of agriculturists, farmer representatives, and others to advise the government on its wheat policy. Those presenting the resolution suggested that the government should make contact with all competent authorities and give careful consideration to suggestions and recommendations in the formation of an advisory committee. Specific recommendations entirely divorced from political considerations could then be offered the government. Despite the requests and advice of these recognized agricultural experts, the dominion government has failed to name an advisory committee and has failed to outline a programme of agricultural policy in Canada.
That is something which is much needed in Canada at this time.
Statistics were given by the Minister of Trade and Commerce with respect to surplus wheat in Canada and other exporting countries at this time. Therefore I have taken time to consider the prices of wheat in some of these other countries. To begin with, according to the Searle grain report of March 4, 1942, the price in the United Kingdom, which imports a great deal of wheat, is placed at $1,901 for the home producer. The report states:
The price of homegrown wheat in the United Kingdom will be increased by about 18 cents a bushel for the 1942 crop. The new price will be equal to about $1.90f per bushel in Canadian funds.
The price of wheat in the United States, which also has a very considerable surplus, is set out by Mr. R. M. Evans, administrator of agricultural adjustment and conservation in the United States Department of Agriculture. I was privileged to listen to a speech by Mr. Evans in the Chateau Laurier last winter. He has stated that commodity loans are made to producers who have complied with their acreage allotments. These loans are based upon So per cent of the parity price for the commodity. For wheat this has meant a loan rate of $1.15 a bushel for No. 2 wheat at Chicago. On March 7, May wheat was quoted at Chicago at $1,291. It was quoted at Winnipeg at 79J cents or a difference of 50J cents a bushel.
We have had the united requests of the western pools, western governments, municipal unions, western boards of trade and other' organizations representing every walk of life west of the great lakes asking for an initial payment of at least $1 a bushel. Some of them used the parity of 1913-14 which was $1.20 a bushel, and T have already quoted the parity of 1926-29, which was $1.42 a bushel. Reference
has been made to the proposal of the line elevators. They suggested:
(a)	An initial payment for farmers delivering their 1942 wheat crop to the Canadian wheat board of $1.22J per bushel basis one northern delivered Fort William or Vancouver.
(b)	That the government accept delivery of 350,000,000 bushels of the 1942 wheat crop on this price basis.
(c)	That deliveries and sales of the 1942 wheat crop be segregated from the carryover of past years and the carryover be reserved to meet post-war and unforeseen war requirements.
That is in keeping with the previous suggestion of that great British leader, the Right Hon. Winston Churchill, and the man who was a great figure in the last war, Mr. Lloyd George, that there should be established a surplus to be held until after the war, which surplus would prove a great talking point when many of the nations of Europe would be so hungry.
I listened this afternoon to the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly) attempt to take credit to himself and the other Liberal members for all that was worth while in the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. He said that members had gone home and made little of it, telling the people that they would never be paid under that scheme. I have no idea to whom he referred, but I know I have never heard of any member discussing that undertaking in that Way. Some time before I became a member of this house I advocated some form of crop insurance, and I think that is a step in the right direction. I will be quite frank and say that in many places, including this house, I have criticized the administration of the act. I think I was right in doing so because I believe it could be greatly improved upon, especially the administration during the first year of its operation. But it was a step in the right direction and, as the pool delegation pointed out while asking for a higher price for wheat, the scheme should be broadened so that it would be of more use to the people in the west.
The hon. member went on to refer to the 70 cents a bushel paid for wheat, and the 30 cents a bushel which was paid on an acreage basis. However, the farmer in my neighbourhood does not get 70 cents a bushel; he gets only 51 or 52 cents. Moreover, I submit that the acreage reduction bonus or the Prairie Farm Assistance Act has no relationship with the price of wheat produced. Perhaps it could not be called charity, but it is a means of providing for those who do not produce the commodity and, therefore, has no proper connection with the higher price we are asking for so urgently, a price higher than that contained in the statement given to us by the Minister of Trade and Commerce.
Wheat Board, Act

I understand that we are to have the privilege of discussing this measure in committee and I shall have a great deal more to say at that time. I do not wish to take up any more of the time of the house on the bill at this particular time, other than to state that I shall support this amendment to 'provide a parity price for agricultural products, and especially for wheat.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to speak again until these bills had gone to committee but in view of the fact that the resolution now before the house in the form of an amendment is stated in terms which do not place before the house in a proper manner what actually did take place when the farmers' delegation from western Canada was here, I desire to address a few words to the house before the vote is taken. The amendment reads:
That all the words after "that" be struck out and the following be substituted therefor:
"this bill be not now read a second time, but be it resolved that the disregarding by this parliament of the modest representations made by western agriculture for a parity price for all agricultural products and an initial wheat payment of at least $1 per bushel for No. 1 northern basis Fort William is contrary to the peace, order and good government of Canada."
The first thing to which I should like to call attention is the fact that this does not refer to the government of Canada; it does not refer to the Department of Trade and Commerce, the minister of which department is introducing this bill, and it does not refer to the Department of Agriculture. It is not a condemnation of any one of those three. It says:
. . . this bill be not now read a second time, but be it resolved that the disregarding by this parliament of the modest representations made by western agriculture for a parity price for all agricultural products and an initial wheat payment of at least $1 per bushel for No. 1 northern basis Fort William is contrary to the peace, order and good government of Canada.
I scarcely know, as a member of the government or as a minister of the department responsible for two of the bills before the house, whether I should speak on behalf of the whole parliament in asking that this parliament should not condemn itself, or whether I should speak only on behalf of the legislation itself. Probably it would be best if I were to place before the house exactly the representations that were made by the farmers of western Canada when they were here and also, as nearly as I can, the position taken by those members of the government who met the delegation. I shall try to leave with the house some idea of the understanding with which the farm delegation left Ottawa.

In order to do that, I think I should refer to the last occasion upon which I as a representative of the government, spoke to the delegation in Ottawa. The proceedings before the delegation when government members were present were taken down by Hansard reporters, and there is an exact report of what occurred. When I was addressing the delegates just before they closed their last business meeting with the government, I made the following statement as reported on page 61:
I am pleased that at your first meeting yesterday you had the opportunity of meeting nearly all the members of the government and that in the afternoon you met all the members of the wheat committee of council, and, this afternoon, three of those members. For I consider it my responsibility to go before the wheat committee of council and also to go before the full council and submit your views presented on this occasion as I have understood them. And I may say I intend to do that. But let me repeat what I said yesterday. Do not go away from the meeting understanding because I have promised to submit your views you are going to get all that you have asked for. Your representations will be made to the whole government and will be considered by the whole government. Legislation will be necessary to effect whatever we decide to do. Any legislative bill introduced into council as a result of discussions in the w'heat committee relating to the price of wheat must of necessity be introduced by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, but it will be considered and passed on by the members of the government, and it will be the decision of the whole government which will finally rule in the matter.
I think the delegates when they left understood perfectly what the relationship was from that time on between the government and the delegation itself with reference particularly to the matter of the wheat price which was to be established in connection with this legislation. I could go on to read succeeding pages, but I shall not take the time to do so to-night. In these succeeding pages I have asked them definitely what it is they desire to have, and in these pages they have set this out. One thing they are very definite about is that they would like to have a SI advance on wheat. Another thing they are very definite about is that they would like to have an increased payment on one or two occasions during the year, to bring the entire amount received for their wheat, during that twelve months of 1942, up to what they term parity price. When I asked them definitely if they meant by parity price $1.41 a bushel, which was the average price for 1926-29, the president of the wheat pool explained to me and the delegation that they were prepared to accept what the statistics branch of the Department of Trade and Commerce would determine to be parity price. In other words, they went away believing that what they had asked for was a $1 advance on wheat, plus

Wheat Board Act
payments during the year which would bring the total payments made, following the 1942 crop and within that twelve-months' period, up to what would be agreed upon as parity price.


Richard Burpee Hanson: If .the minister will allow me, he quoted from a report of the proceedings of the meeting between the government and the visiting agriculturists. That, I believe, is a public document. We have never seen it. Will he lay it on the table?


James Garfield Gardiner: I had intended to have it distributed to all the members of the house if I could get it mimeographed. I shall have a copy laid on the table in any event.
The petition which was brought by the delegation outlines their requests perhaps better than anything else, and I should therefore like to deal with the different sections of that petition, seven in number. The petition was signed by upwards of 185,000 people of Saskatchewan. The delegation of four hundred was a delegation from Saskatchewan alone, but they had asked representatives of the farm organizations in Alberta and representatives of the farm organizations in Manitoba to accompany them. The petition was signed in the province of Saskatchewan by some 185,000 people. They were not all farmers. About one-third of the delegation which came to Ottawa came from the urban districts, and from Moose Jaw, Regina and Saskatoon the mayors of these cities came to Ottawa with the delegation. Therefore, while the delegation was not all farmers, I would agree with the hon. member for Wey-burn (Mr. Douglas) when he said this afternoon that this was a representative delegation from Saskatchewan, representative not only of the farmers but of most of the people of that province.
The first thing they asked was that the government recognize and accept the principle of parity price for all agricultural products. The first statement in the amendment that has been proposed is:
. . . this bill be not now read a second time, but be it resolved that the disregarding by this parliament of the modest representations made by western agriculture for a parity price for all agricultural products and an initial wheat payment of at least $1 per bushel for No. 1 northern basis Fort William is contrary to the peace, order and good government of Canada.
I do not expect that this house is going to disregard that request which was made by the farmers of western Canada. But whether this house disregards it or not, the government of Canada has not disregarded it nor has the Department of Agriculture nor the Depart-44561-77
ment of Trade and Commerce. Every possible consideration under the circumstances was given to that representation, and may I say that what has been done up to date with regard to most of the products with which the western farmers are concerned is not so far away from what was asked as some members would like to lead the house to believe.
For example, parity for butter, which is one of the very important products of Saskatchewan is 36-5 cents a pound. This differs from my yesterday's figure because I used the average price for 1926-29 yesterday, while this is the figure adjusted for changes in purchasing power. The price of butter is 35-5 cents a pound. Therefore at the present time there is really only one cent of difference between what was declared to be parity and the price which butter is actually bringing at Montreal at present-and prices in Saskatchewan range back from the price at Montreal.
Cheese is a-product with which they are not so much concerned in Saskatchewan, but the delegation made it very plain when they were here that they were concerned not only with themselves but with all the farmers of Canada, and that they wanted parity for all the farmers of Canada. Parity for cheese is 18 cents a pound. These and all succeeding parity prices are calculated on the same basis as butter. The ceiling price actually set for cheese-and cheese has been maintained within a cent or two of it-is 25 cents a pound. That is seven cents above parity. Is anyone in this house going to conclude that the government have paid no attention to the representations of the western delegation that we should have parity for agricultural prices when here are two of the most important dairy products which are marketed in the Dominion of Canada, one selling within one cent of parity and the other up to seven cents over parity? I am sure that the house will agree that the government did pay some attention to the representations of the delegation, and that we paid some attention to the representations which the house has made to the government from time to time.
Coming to the next one on the list, hogs, the parity price in Toronto is 11-09 cents; in Winnipeg, 10 cents. On the market in Toronto the day before yesterday hogs were selling at 11-63 cents- and parity is 11-09 cents. In Winnipeg hogs have been selling consistently above 10 cents ever since the agreement entered into last fall. Again, are we going to say that either the Department of Agriculture or the government of Canada or this house has paid no attention to the representations made to the effect that we should have parity in hog prices?

Wheat Board Act

Let me take the next one on the list, and these are all products in which Saskatchewan is interested and which it markets in great volume. Take cattle. The parity price for steers is $8.63. Steers are selling in Toronto at present at $9.90, which is more than one dollar a hundred above what is acknowledged to be parity.
That brings me to the top of the list of live stock and live stock products which are marketed in considerable volume in Saskatchewan, in western Canada, and all across Canada. But just before leaving cattle and hogs, may I repeat what I said yesterday? There is no ceiling price on cattle and hogs, but there is a ceiling price on beef and pork. What are the facts in relation to these prices? And these, after all, are the prices which control live stock prices in Canada in so far as they are controlled by ceiling prices.
Sirloin steak in 1926-29 averaged 35-3 cents. In the period which set ceiling prices the highest price was 37-2 cents, which is T9 cents higher than the price on an average during the period 1926-29. Figures for other commodities on the same basis of comparison are:
Highest price
in period Increase I
	Average	which set	above
	1926-29 ceiling prices		1926-29
cents	cents	centsRound steak ...	... 28-2	32-6	4-4Rib roast	... 27-9	35-3	7-4Shoulder roast..	... 18-9	24-4	5-5Beef, stewing ...	... 16-6	20-9	4-3Veal shoulder roast 24-4	25-0	0-6Pork fresh leg roast 29-3	31-0	1-7
I give these in order to indicate that the government has not disregarded the farmers' desire to have parity prices.
There are other products marketed from western Canada

grain products. I admit at once, Mr. Speaker, that grain products are generally speaking below what is termed parity. I also say this to the house, that this question was very freely discussed with the delegation that came here from western Canada, and they understood what the government's position was in relation to the matter.
Coming to the first one, which was dealt with yesterday, namely, flax, there was explained to this house a special order in council which sets the price of flax for the year 1942 at $2.25 a bushel. Yesterday I said that the average of the prices for 1926-29 was $2.05, and that this price is 20 cents above it. I might have gone further yesterday and said that parity was $1.96 and the price set by the government is $225. In relation to that product it surely will not be

said by any hon. member that this government and this parliament pay no attention to the representations which were made by western farmers who were in the delegation which was here a few days ago. That is the exact price which was mentioned for flax by the chairman of the delegation. But that particular item illustrates, Mr. Speaker, a fact in relation to this whole question which never yet has been placed squarely before this house. Hon. members have said from time to time that the reason why prices of wheat are not higher is that there is not a demand for our wheat. A year ago the reason why the price of flax was not higher was that there was not a demand for flax. The ceiling price was set at $1.64, and no farmer in western Canada would grow flax at present for $1.64. There would not be a production of it excepting on those lands which had been prepared for flax and which farmers were going to put into that crop whether they expected to make any return from it or not. But things have happened since last year. We have a demand for vegetable oil. We have a shortage of vegetable oils which cannot be met from any importations. We must produce whatever vegetable oils we require in addition to those which we have already imported. So that there is a demand for flax, and immediately it arose the government of Canada said, "We are prepared to pay $2.25 a bushel in order to get it grown in Canada"-20 cents more than the average price for 1926-29, and 29 cents higher, I believe, than the parity price as stated in the figures which have been prepared' for me in the department.
That brings me to those grain products for which I cannot claim there is at present a parity price in this country; they are oats, barley and rye.
In so far as rye is concerned, it is not a grain which is produced in great quantities in any part of Canada. It is grown in the west by a limited number of farmers and over a limited area, more particularly on the lighter soils. It does not concern the income of any considerable number of farmers in western Canada.
Barley and oats are much more important crops. The suggested parity price for barley is 69-7 cents, and the ceiling is 64J cents; that is, the ceiling is almost five cents below the parity price. But, Mr. Speaker, there is another point in relation to that which I wish to make after giving the figures for oats. For oats, 57-3 cents is parity and 51| cents is the ceiling. There is a difference of under six cents a bushel. Those two grains are produced largely for feeding purposes in Canada,

Wheat Board Act
and are directly related to the live stock products with which I have been dealing. I believe I would be safe in saying that at least ninety per cent of the grain which is grown in Canada in those two classifications is fed to live stock in Canada, and nearly all of it is fed on the farms where it is grown. So this price is not one which represents a return to the farmer for the great volume of the coarse grains. The prices which represent the returns are the prices of those live stock products which I have already given to the house, most of which are away above parity. I again submit that the statement made in the amendment is not one with which hon. members in any quarter of this house can agree if they are going to take the facts into consideration.
That brings me to wheat. Everyone in this house, everyone in the country admits that wheat is not at a parity price, and I believe, in spite of what has been said by some hon. members, that every member of the delegation-I would be very much surprised if any of them said otherwise-went home believing that they were not going to get all that *they asked for wheat. There is every reason why they should have believed that, and there is every reason at the same time why they should have impressed upon the government the importance of bringing the wheat price to parity at as early a date as possible. But let me repeat, I do not believe that any one of them went home expecting that they were going to get all that they asked for in relation to wheat. What else could the remark which I made to them have meant, when I reviewed to them all of these seven requests which they made, indicated to them those which we had already dealt with to a considerable extent, indicated also some which we would not be able to deal with as they had asked us to deal with them, and then said that the most important thing for which they had asked in their submission was a price for wheat; and we spent most of our time discussing that particular policy. They went away with the idea definitely in their minds, I believe, that everything that could be done for them under the circumstances would be done, though not all that they asked for would be done.
That brings me back to what I said with regard to flax. I said that a year ago there was not on the horizon a market for even the amount of flax which we were growing in Canada. I said yesterday I believed that the crushers which we have in Canada had not a sufficient capacity to crush more than half of the flax which we did grow last year- a fact which in itself would indicate that 44561-77J
those who are interested in the industrial use of flax in this country were convinced at that time that there was not a ready market for much more flax than was being grown, or they would have provided the capacity to handle that flax within the dominion. But it was not provided and has not been provided up to the present time, so far as I know.


Mr. HARRIS (Danforth):: Perhaps the
minister can explain to the house why we handled only 17,000 tons last year whereas, as far back as 1920, we handled 170,000 tons.


James Garfield Gardiner: Of course conditions
have changed entirely, and I have no doubt there has been a change in the capacity.


Joseph Henry Harris: The actual fact is that the equipment is here to handle it if we produced it.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am not going to
dispute what my hon. friend says, although the officials of my department tell me that it is not; but even if the equipment is here, everyone realizes, I think, that a year ago it was not expected that we would be able greatly to increase our production of flax in Canada and be able to get rid of it at a price which would pay the farmers. Since that time, as I said a moment ago, the whole situation has changed in relation to flax. I have said on the floor of the house before, and I repeat it here, that in my belief, if we win this war-and I believe we are going to win it-long before the war is over, all the wheat we have in Canada, or all that we are likely to grow between now and the end of the war, will be required to feed the people that must be fed with Canadian wheat. Being of that conviction, I believe that, before this war is over, wheat will be in exactly the same position as flax has arrived at during these past twelvemonths. I do not know whether it will be-during 1942; I do not know whether it will be during 1943; but I am as convinced as I am that I am standing on the floor of this house to-night, that at some time before the end of the war every bushel of wheat that is grown in Canada between now and the end of the war will be required to feed the people in Europe and in some other parts of the world.


Richard Burpee Hanson: And may we not have to give it to them?


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend1 asks,
may we not have to give it to them? That is what it may mean with regard to flax. That is exactly what it does mean with regard to hogs. When I say that we have more than a parity price for hogs now, more than a
Wheat Board Act

parity price for cheese and almost a parity price for butter, let me point out that there is only one of these three products in connection with which the government is not paying a very considerable part of the price, namely, butter. Cheese and hogs are being marketed in Great Britain-or sent to Great Britain, not marketed-in order to feed the people there at this time, and they are being financed by the government of Canada. When the day comes that wheat is demanded-


Richard Burpee Hanson: Financed
by the people of Canada.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, through the government of Canada. The government and the people are supposed to be the same thing in a democracy.


An hon. MEMBER:: Hardly.


James Garfield Gardiner: Well, they are supposed to be, and I may say it is more nearly that at present than usually. I do not know when wheat will arrive at that position, but I do know that when it does, the government will do with wheat what they have done with flax, hogs and cheese and, in another way, with butter. The government will see to it that a parity price is reached in connection with that product just as in connection with other products. I think the farm population of Canada realize that.
I have on my desk a number of letters. Yesterday letters were read and I have here letters to the opposite effect. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, they do not all come from individuals either. Some of them are from councils; one at least is from a municipal association. One or two are from pool locals in the province.


An hon. MEMBER:: One or two?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, and I could get more, but one or two from this group.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not mean I could send for more, but I could get more that are in my office. Here is one from a local:
At a shareholders' meeting of the local [DOT]elevator of the Saskatchewan wheat pool the following resolution was passed unanimously:
"That this meeting go on record as approving of the efforts of the federal Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. J. G. Gardiner, in the interests of western agriculture, as shown by his procuring certain bonuses for the farmers of the west, thereby materially helping them in their trying condition. You will accept our thanks and appreciation."
That was passed at a meeting at which they were discussing the signing of the petition that was brought to Ottawa by the delegation which was here a short time ago.


An hon. MEMBER:: Where was it from?
(Mr. Gardiner.]


James Garfield Gardiner: From Kelfield, and I am informed that the man who moved it is reeve of the municipality and prominent in the Conservative association. There are a number of these letters, and everyone of them says in effect: "We would like to have $1 a bushel for wheat, but if giving us a $1 a bushel for wheat is going to lessen the amount which has been paid to us under acreage payments during the past two or three years, then we would prefer that you retain the acreage payments." There is a reason why they say that. That reason is to be found in the results of the payments which have gone out in municipalities during the current year. Let us take the first one. I think it is in the constituency of the hon. member for Weyburn, municipality No. 8, right at the United States boundary line, almost straight south of Weyburn. There are in that municipality 267 farmers. The number of farmers receiving wheat acreage reduction was 187; the number whose payments were still pending at that time, 56. That means that out of 267 farmers, 243 had applied for payment under wheat acreage reduction. What did they receive up to that time? They received under wheat acreage reduction, $37,592; they were to receive still, under that payment, about $7,800; and they had received or were to receive under prairie farm assistance for this year, S8,986, and prairie farm income, $23,779. The total amount they were to receive under wheat acreage payments was $78,252.
The total amount of wheat they marketed in that whole municipality was 234,000 bushels. It has been stated in the house that the price this year was something under 50 cents a bushel. My figures indicate that the average price for wheat in western Canada this year, when grade has been considered, was about 53 cents a bushel; but let us take it at the straight 50-cent rate, because it is easier to figure. That would be just half the number of dollars that there were bushels delivered, or $117,000 received for wheat, together with $78,000 received under the acreage payments.
That is a municipality in which the crop was around ten or eleven bushels to the acre. Let us take one where the crop was much lighter than that, where the farmers would have had to go on relief if they had not received these payments, just as some of the farmers in the municipality to which I have just referred would have had to go on relief but for these payments. Here is another municipality which illustrates the point I wish to make; it is No. 135, over in the southwestern part of the province, just south of Swift Current. There the payments under wheat acreage reduction amounted to a little

Wheat Board Act
over $91,000; payments under prairie farm assistance will be $160,996, and the income payments made will be $47,000. So the total income there from acreage payments will be just about $300,000. How much wheat did they have? They had an average of 1-2 bushels per acre. They had not enough wheat to seed their land back again in the succeeding year, and, according to my return, no wheat at all was marketed from that area. In other words, every dollar they received in that municipality came from these different acreage payments. There is no way of estimating what was the price per bushel received by these farmers.


Mr. HAZEN:: How many farmers were there in that municipality?


James Garfield Gardiner: There were 467. I have a group of returns here covering the greater part of Saskatchewan, and another group covering Manitoba and another for Alberta. They demonstrate that under the arrangements which have been made for prairie farm assistance, as passed by this house three years ago -and in municipalities such as this by far the greater part of the income is derived under prairie farm assistance-the result has been a levelling of the amount received up to about what is required in a municipality in order to make it possible for people to remain off relief; and that was the objective in framing of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. It has proven itself in the second poorest crop year we have experienced in recent years.
When the farm delegation came here they first congratulated us upon the fact that we had put the Prairie Farm Assistance Act upon the statute books, and then asked us to increase that assistance. I placed these figures before them, and after I had done so they did not repeat their request. They did say, "We want prairie farm assistance continued," and they also said they would like to have it converted into insurance. I told them there was only one reason why we did not convert it into insurance; that was the fact that we were informed that it was ultra vires of this parliament to pass legislation with regard to insurance of this kind. I believe that whole question was threshed out at the time hail insurance was established in the western provinces. We asked the federal government to establish it. The matter was looked into, it was determined that the federal government could not do it, so the western provinces established hail insurance.
When this legislation was before the house three years ago I appeared before a committee in the other place, and on that occasion the then Conservative leader there, Mr. Meighen, asked me the direct question: "Is this insurance?" I said I did not think so.
He asked, "Is it intra vires?" I replied, "I am not a constitutional lawyer, but the legal advisers in my department say that it is intra vires." He said he had some doubts about it but that they had a legal adviser in the other place, at that time Mr. O'Connor; and he turned to Mr. O'Connor and asked what he thought about it. Mr. O'Connor said he had some doubts as to whether it was intra vires, but he added, 'It is the kind of legislation that ought to be passed by some body for western Canada. I think it should be passed, and if it is ultra vires that can be proved in the courts." So the bill went through the committee with only one dissenting voice; it was passed in the other place, and became law. I told the story to the farmers who were here and said I did not think we could introduce legislation in the form of insurance, but we did intend to maintain this legislation upon the statute books for this year at least, and that as long as I was Minister of Agriculture I hoped that it would be retained on the statute books. They applauded that remark, and as far as this point was concerned they carried that idea home with them.
I give that recital in order to indicate to this house that the farmers who came here from western Canada were not misled. They were given a complete understanding of the situation, and they returned home knowing pretty well what we intended to do in connection with the various recommendations which were placed before us. Let me read those recommendations. I have dealt in full with some of them already, but I should like to place them all on Hansard. The first is:
1.	That the government recognize and accept the principle of parity prices for all agricultural products.
I have already indicated that the government had the average prices of 1926-29 as an objective. The next request was:
2.	That no price ceiling should be established on agricultural commodities below parity levels which may be established by the dominion bureau of statistics.
I have dealt with that, indicating the extent to which we have departed from it. In essence the only departure has been in connection with wheat. As to the other products, they are practically at parity, or over parity or in a position where the returns to the farmer do not come from the direct sale of the product. Then:
3.	That equitable delivery quotas on wheat should be established and continued as long as required.
In this regard I told the farmers that this was the policy of the government; that it was established two years ago; that it was still
Wheat Board Act

maintained, and that, as far as I knew, it would be maintained as long as conditions warranted. Then:
4.	That the initial payment on all wheat delivered to the wheat board should be not less than $1 per bushel, basis 1 northern in store Fort William, and that the final settlement should be made on the basis of parity prices above referred to.
I think I have discussed that point fully, but should add that it was agreed this was asked for the 1942 crop. The next request was:
5.	That the carryover of wheat as at 31st July, 1941, should be regarded as a national emergency war reserve, and that all sales made by the wheat board after 31st July, 1941, should be credited to the current season's deliveries.
That was a request which had its origin in this house. Whatever hon. gentlemen opposite may say as to who originated the idea, I think it can be truly said that it came some two or three years ago from the Liberal members on this side, and since that time it has been taken up and advocated by the pools. I explained fully to the delegation that when this request was made for the first time by the pool organizations, in August of last year, I had brought their representations back to Ottawa, but that by the time they were presented here it was found that a very considerable part of the wheat which had been marketed prior to that time had been sold outright, and that therefore anything in the way of payment on participation certificates in relation to that wheat would not benefit a very considerable number of the farmers of the west. So it was suggested by the government that instead of making a payment on that basis, in order to give greater income to the farmers of western Canada the payment should be made on the basis of an acreage income payment. That acreage income payment was estimated at 120,000,000, or exactly 10 cents a bushel on 200,000,000 bushels of wheat, which at that time we considered would probably be delivered in western Canada.
In other words, it was agreed by the government that the income from wheat was too low, partly because of the fact that we had asked farmers to reduce their wheat acreage, and partly because of the fact that there was a poor crop last year, and that that income should be increased. While we were not prepared under the circumstances to increase it by declaring all of the carryover to be a reserve, and then paying their participation on the sale price of the wheat in 1941, still we were prepared to deliver upwards of $20,000,000 to the farmers on the basis of 75 cents an acre on half their cultivated acreage. That is being done. It was explained to the farmers, and that explanation will be found in this volume
(Mr. Gardiner.]
I have before me on my desk at the present time.
Then No. 6:
6.	That suitable amendments should be introduced to the Prairie Farm Assistance Act so that an adequate and practical crop insurance scheme may be established irrespective of market prices prevailing or the number of townships suffering crop failure.
There is only one part of that recommendation which I have not explained to the house, as I explained it to the delegates at that time, and that is the last phrase of it. This has reference to the number of townships suffering from crop failure, and the suggestion that that number should be cut out of the legislation altogether. At the present time the legislation says that you must have 171 townships in Saskatchewan with less than five bushels to the acre before you can declare a crop failure area in that province. I believe the figure for Alberta is 90 or 91, and for Manitoba it is 50. The proposal here is that we cut those figures out and make it so that an area could be declared to be a crop failure area, even though it consisted of only one township.
I explained to the delegation that there is only one reason, in addition to the one I have already explained (insurance), why we based this act on the township, and that is that we wished to prevent areas, or single farms consisting of poor soil, or having farmers upon them who could not make good land grow crops, from drawing under this legislation every year. In other words, if a township averages over twelve bushels to the acre, we estimate that- the farmers in that area ought to be able to grow enough wheat or enough of other crops to get along. It will be remembered that wheat is only a barometer under this act. The payments are not made on wheat; they are made on cultivated acreage, even if there is no wheat grown on the farm at all. Wheat, may I repeat, is used only as a barometer.
So what we say to them is that if it is possible to grow an average of more than twelve bushels to the acre in a township, then the weather has been such in that township that the government should not be called upon to pay any assistance there. This means that if there were half a dozen farmers in there who, irrespective of weather conditions, are not able to grow twelve bushels to the acre, then there must be something wrong either with the land they are farming or with their methods of farming. In either case it is not something over which the farmer himself has no control.
Then, when it comes to a matter of dealing with large areas we say that if four or five

Wheat Board Act
townships were made an area which could be declared a crop failure area, it is possible in any of the provinces of western Canada to find an area of four or five townships of submarginal lands which would come under this legislation every year. So we have said that there must be a comparatively large area declared in, and that there must be within the townships themselves a low average before they will be permitted in. All of these things were explained to the delegation which was here.
After the explanation was made, a representative of the municipal association from south of the city of Regina came to the platform and stated he wished to place before the government three resolutions passed by the municipal association of Saskatchewan. One representation was to the effect that we should not allow anyone to be paid who had grown over twelve bushels to the acre on an average. I said to him that there were thousands of farmers in western Canada who grow wheat only on the best land they have, only on the best prepared summer-fallow they have, and that those men will probably always have more than twelve bushels to the acre, on a very limited acreage. The same men may have no coarse grains at all, because their coarse grains are grown on spring ploughing, and it requires a great deal more rainfall to grow a crop of any kind, as every farmer knows, on spring ploughing than it does on summer-fallow. So he might be entirely without coarse grains. His pasture may be poor because there has been no rain.
I repeat-and I stated this to the farm delegation-that wheat is only the barometer in connection with this act. Those who have said, from the other side of the house, that it is not altogether correct to say that payments made under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act are payments made on wheat, are quite right in their statement. You can draw under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, even if you do not grow an acre of wheat. As was said by someone yesterday-I do not remember who it was-one of the functions of the act is to encourage the farmer to go out of wheat and into coarse grains. That was one of the reasons why we did not tie the payments to the wheat crop, but rather tried to tie them to the total acreage a farmer might be farming.
The next request-and this is the last one -is in these words:
7. That since the future of our agricultural industry depends largely on our ability:
(a)	to conserve the fertility of our soil;
(b)	to establish production and marketing methods which, while maintaining continuity of supplies, will also prevent avoidable surpluses;
and since these objectives may involve an increasing degree of control and regulation, including international agreement, such changes should be made in our agricultural policy as may be necessary to achieve these objectives.
I said, with regard to this, that we had already been doing something with respect to the conservation of the fertility of our soil. We have done that through the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, through the encouragement to summer-fallow, through the encouragement to grow roughage in connection with some of the summer-fallow1-and this practice was criticized yesterday from the opposite side of the house-rather than having summer-fallow which would require keeping all of the soil black at all times. All these things are being encouraged to-day. And they agreed-at least no one raised any objection to my explanation-with what was being done under that legislation.
Then, with regard to the establishing of production and marketing methods-


Georges Parent: The hon. member has spoken for forty minutes.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: He was replying to an amendment.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Has he not the right to go on?


James Garfield Gardiner: I thought when I came to this point that I would probably get a ruling. I would take it that I was mistaken, and that this is not as I thought it was When I was speaking on the point of order-a vote of want of confidence. Parliament has been asked to condemn itself

not the government. So I presume it is not a vote of want of confidence in the government.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go ahead.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, my point is that I believe it was generally accepted by the group of farmers who came here that paragraph 7 in the petition was pretty well covered by what we are doing now in relation to farm production.
I believe that gives a pretty fair summary of the representations made, and what was said about them. I do not believe that it bears out the contention of this amendment which reads:
. . . but be it resolved that the disregarding by this parliament of the modest representations made by western agriculture. . . .
I think I am correct in saying that the representations were not disregarded by the government, by the departments of the government or by this house.
I have only one further statement to make. Suggestions have been made continuously since this war began that we ought to do
Wheat Board. Act

what they are doing in some other country. Only last night we had all this reviewed again and we were told that we should have an AAA in this country. We were told that we should be doing some of the things that they have been doing in the United States. I would suggest that since 1938 the United States have been trying to get their wheat acreage down. Between 1930 and 1938 they increased their wheat acreage from 66 million acres to 81 million acres, and then they evolved a policy to reduce acreage. That policy at the present time is simply this:	When a man cuts down
his acreage to the extent that the government say he ought to, they will lend him 98 cents a bushel on his wheat. They have made loans covering considerable amounts which I have in the records here. But if he does not cut down his acreage in accordance with their request, they will lend him only 49 cents on his wheat. In other words, in the United States they lend a man twice as much on his wheat if he obeys the request of the government than if he does not. It is true that this has tended to set a floor under wheat of 9S cents a bushel in the United States provided the farmer does what the government ask him to do.
In this country we have not adopted exactly the same method. We said to the farmer last year that if he did not reduce his wheat acreage, he could draw 70 cents a bushel Fort William, or approximately 50 cents a bushel at the farm on his wheat, just one cent more than he could have drawn in the United States if he had done the same thing.


Richard Burpee Hanson: On quota.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes; it was all the grain he grew on quota.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: What percentage of
United States farmers cooperated?


James Garfield Gardiner: Not a large percentage
cooperated by accepting loans. I have that information here, but I cannot give it at the moment without looking through a lot of papers. But we did not stop there. We said to the farmer that if he would take acreage out of wheat we would pay him $4 per acre if it was summer-fallowed, or 82 per acre if it were put in coarse grains and he would get the price of the coarse grains besides. We said we would pay S2 per acre on coarse grains and then, if a crop of grass were sown along with it and it were left in grass until next year, we would pay another S2 per acre which would make $4. We said that if he would sow to rye we would give him $2 per acre, and that if his land was still in rye next summer we would pay another S2 per acre.

We proceeded to get our wheat acreage reduced. This resulted in our paying out $30,000,000. Figuring on 200 million bushels of wheat, or whatever is marketed this year, this will approximate 30 cents a bushel. That 30 cents added to the 70 cents makes a dollar Fort William. There is not as great a difference between the two as some w'ould indicate, but we got a proportionate wheat acreage reduction in one year, I believe, speaking from memory, than the United States government got in all the years they have been operating their policy. They started with 81 million acres and we started with 28 million acres.


Major James William Coldwell: Did the minister not
make an arithmetical mistake when he said that dividing 200 million acres into $30,000,000 would give 30 cents?


James Garfield Gardiner: I should have taken S60,000,000. I was not covering the whole picture. It will be $30,000,000 in the one and approximately $30,000,000 in the other two. We will pay out under our bonus payments about $60,000,000, and all of them are related to wheat acreage control. That being the case, I should like to suggest to hon. members that I think it would be much better if we all went out and told the people what we are doing in Canada instead of telling them what they are doing in the United States. Despite what they are doing in the United States, the farmers of Canada have really been getting more for their wheat than the farmers in the Argentine and Australia. Of course, there are reasons for that.


An hon. MEMBER:: How much more?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have not the exact figures here, but I shall get them before we are out of committee. We have been asked why wheat is selling in the United States at $1.27 a bushel -when it is selling on our side of the line at 70 cents Fort William. I have j list stated one of the reasons. We are paying out a considerable amount of money from the treasury, and by the way they are not paying anything out from the United States treasury. A great percentage of the wheat is sold and consumed there on that price basis. Some may be purchased and put in storage under their ever-normnl granary policy, and this is true of other products as well. I repeat that we can do Canada a lot of good by telling the facts exactly as they are.


Mr. FAIR:: That is what I have been pleading for all the time.


James Garfield Gardiner: But when the hon. member rises in his place in this house he pictures them quite differently.

Wheat Board Act


Mr. AY RIGHT:: AA7hat percentage of the total income of the Saskatchewan farmer is derived from products bringing parity prices, and what proportion of his income is derived from products which are bringing below parity prices?


James Garfield Gardiner: Wheat Board Act

degree of parity as we are assisting in connection with every product that is required in abundance in the prosecution of the war, and that is all staple farm products, excepting wheat.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I do not want to break in on the applause that has greeted the minister's effort but I should like him to place that public document on the table. We have a right to have that done because the minister referred to it.


James Garfield Gardiner: This is the only copy I have, but I will have a copy made.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Would the minister lay it on the table to-night because hon. members who are to speak in this debate to-morrow will want to see it. We have a right to it.


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not think you have a right to any speech that I may deliver anywhere because I quote from it.


Richard Burpee Hanson: We have a right to it when a public document is quoted from.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is not a public document, but I am prepared to lay it on the table when I have had copies made. I repeat, it is not really a public document at all.


Mr. F. W. GERSHAW (Medicine Hat):: Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to repeat what has been stated so far in this debate and my remarks will be extremely brief. I just want to bring to the notice of the house some of the background of wheat production so that the lessons which have been learned through hard experience will not go into the discard but be of use in the future.
Long ago, in 1813, the hardy highland Scotsmen of the Selkirk clan came into this country by way of Hudson bay and settled in the Red river valley. In order to sustain life they started cultivating the land, and there started a struggle which has gone on to this present day. They came and had many difficulties to face. The winters were long and severe. The seed which they brought with them was unsuitable. The traders, the Indians and the wild animals were their enemies. They suffered from drought, grasshoppers and frost. Hardships indeed were their lot.
But toward the end of the last centuiy conditions considerably improved. They secured hardier varieties of seed. There were improved milling processes, and great railways stretched across this continent running from coast to coast. A new era seemed to have opened. People came into the west from eastern Canada, from Great Britain, from every country of the world, and westward the tide of civilization moved, through the forests,
TMr. Gardiner.]
across the swollen streams and over the great prairie region until there was land cultivated right within sight of the Rocky mountains.
In 1886 some 11 million bushels of wheat were produced. In 11)00 that had grown to [DOT]14 million bushels, and we have heard that a year ago we produced 540 million bushels. All down from those days to the present day the farmers have had to struggle for a living, so that they have not had reserves. They have no landed estate to fall back upon but must live from year to year almost upon the earnings of each year.
Their struggles were first with the railways. The farmers drove long distances to sell their loads of grain and often had to take them back home again. They had difficulty in getting permission to sell across the platform. They had difficulties in getting storage. Then, when the elevator companies came they had trouble with them over grades, weights, overages, prices, the mixing of grain and things of that kind. The Manitoba Grain Act of 1900 solved many of their difficulties, but they were soon up against new problems. Those who were handling the grain united to protect their own profits, and so those who were growing the grain were also forced to unite in order to bring their bargaining power to bear at one point in order to survive. They did unite under such men as Peter Dayman, John Miller, John Sibbald, E. A. Partridge, and W. R. Motherwell. These men were leaders in that movement. They united the farmers into organizations and even went so far as to set up their own grain company, with their own elevators and mills, in the hope of cutting out the profit of the middleman and having the members of their organization survive. This brought them into sharp clash with the grain exchange, which had then been organized, and from that day to this the grain exchange has been very unpopular among the producers.
Then we have what was called the siege of Ottawa. In December, 1910, some eight hundred people came to this national capital. They marched, four abreast, to the parliament buildings on a cold winter morning; they entered the then House of Commons; they crowded the galleries; they filled the floor of the house. The Speaker introduced some twenty of them, and they told their grievances, the grievances of that day, to the members who were crowded in the chamber wherever they could find seats. They made out a good case and they convinced the people of the east of their difficulties.
Another striking event was the bringing to the west, I believe by various newspaper companies, of a man named Aaron Sapiro. Wherever he went he attracted great audiences, because he talked to them of the simple things which they could understand.

Wheat Board Act
He tolld them of the results of the cooperative movement, how when he first went around on organization work, the children of the producers were in rags and appeared to be undernourished; but the cooperatives were started, and the next time he went around, their conditions had improved. The lesson of such experiences surely is that there must be an organization to protect the interests of the growers, that that organization must be strong, and that cooperation will give the maximum results; it will provide the producer with more nearly the value of his product than will any other form of organized effort. Surely in the future we must be guided by the experiences which were so hardly gained by those pioneers in the movement.
Until recent times it has been very easy to sell wheat. I well remember hearing a minister of trade and commerce say that our high protein content wheat would easily sell itself. But such is no longer the situation. Of the countries to which we sold wheat, some are now our enemies, others are overrun by our enemies, and our only remaining market is Great Britain, of whose purchases we have only a limited share. Therefore this government was placed fairly against the problem, would they protect and preserve the farming industry, or would they let it go into bankruptcy? If the farming industry failed, food products would not be supplied which might be badly needed in times of famine. If the farming industry failed, one and a half million people would be thrown on the relief rolls of this country.
The industry has a strong administrative organization; it is equiped with great terminal facilities at the head of the lakes; it has worked out a great transportation system. These things must be preserved; and this government decided to preserve the farming industry by support from the treasury. They supported the price of grain. As the minister has just explained, they put into operation the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. This is to some extent an insurance act. During the two years of its operation they have collected by their one per cent tax on all grain four million dollars from the farmers of Canada, and they have paid out eleven and a half million dollars. This assistance has helped a great many people, but the act is sadly in need of amending. Every day I get letters from people who are heart-broken because their bonuses fail to come through. Of course the farmers of the west are not chartered accountants, and in some cases the trouble may be due to discrepancies. But there are still farmers who have not received a bonus of any kind for the past year, and they are badly in need of it. Thus, the secretary of the United Farmers of Alberta at Retlaw writes:
We are about at wit's end to know what to do as every official surely knows about it by now.
Many people are in real desperate circumstances and it is soon time to be on the land again. . . .
Farmers still wait at post offices hoping for a payment to come and only to turn away bitter and discouraged, wishing the reduction scheme had have never been thought of.
Harry Malm,
Secretary.
I find that 90-cent price for wheat will automatically cancel the bonus which was formerly paid in cases of crop failure where the yield is from eight to twelve bushels per acre. This, it seems to me, will be a great blow to the people of the west. I want to take this opportunity to urge the minister so to amend the act that this shall not happen, because those small yields will not sustain a decent standard of living on the farm, and the Prairie Farm Assistance Act will not perform its function, will not give the help it should give, if that bracket is cancelled out.
The farmers of the west appreciate, I am sure, even the twenty-cent advance in the price of wheat. They appreciate these bonuses, although they are the cause of much heartache and disappointment because of their slowness in coming through. They appreciate the fact that speculation in grain will come to an end and that if the price of grain should go up, the farmers will be benefited. I am convinced that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) and the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) have done their very best for the benefit of the farmers of the west, and that no ministers could have done more. But I do say that even these additions will be only an instalment of what should come. They will not relieve the distress which the wheat producer is having, and they will not equalize sacrifice in this country.
Recently the war loan was floated. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) should be congratulated upon the splendid response to that loan. But what does it show? One city in the east contributed as much as two whole provinces in the west. That shows where the money lies, and it demonstrates that the pleas which we are making for improved conditions are justified.
We must remember that Canada is one of the democratic nations, one of the great nations, made great by the wheat producer and his contribution in making this country the bread-basket of the world. We are one of the united nations that are fighting against the barbarous nazis and the treacherous and ruthless Japanese, and we realize that Canada's contribution has been magnificent. We must make a balanced contribution through a programme which will defend our own shores and help in distant fields of battle, so that victoiy may come in the least possible time.

Questions
We must so act that those who are watching us in the present day, and those future generations which will look back upon what we have done, will be astonished at the greatness of our contribution. We must struggle and sacrifice and expand that contribution, and falter not-
Lest a thousand ages find us Frustrate at our highest chance,
Lest the hour of trial reveal us False to our inheritance.
On motion of Mr. Wright the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie (Vancouver Centre) the house adjourned at 10.55 p.m.
Wednesday, March 11, 1942