GAS AND COKE-LOW TEMPERATURE CARBON IZA-TION PROCESS

Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: 1.	What study has the government made of the possibility of using a low temperature carbonization process to provide gas and coke from Canadian coal?
2.	Has the government investigated the claims made public in the Globe and. Mail on March 5 by the patentee of the Gaunt retort?


Mr. MacKINNON (Edmonton West):: - 1 and 2. Studies of the more promising low temperature carbonization processes in operation in Europe and the United States were made by the mines branch of the Department of Mines during the period 1920 to 1930 when low temperature carbonization was :a subject of particularly wide interest. Most Canadian coals were tested on a laboratory scale at the fuel research laboratories and the Tesults of these tests were published in departmental reports. Subsequently arrangements were made to test Nova Scotia coal by one of the most promising processes developed up to that time and operating in South Wales. This test is reported in mines branch report No. 721, investigations of fuels and fuel testing 1929. The report concludes with the following statement: "In conclusion, it might be stated that it appears to the writers that in the case of the Sydney coal field there is an exceedingly good chance of converting bituminous coal into a domestic product, coomparable to the existing fuels used for heating in central Canada, economically."
The hoped for development in Nova Scootia did not materialize and the anticipated expansion in low temperature carbonization generally did not take place.
Regarding the claims published in the Globe and Mail of March 5, 1943, to the effect that excellent coke and other valuable products can be recovered from inferior coals, it may be observed that these are the general claims made by most promoters of low temperature carbonization processes and they have not shown them to be commercially practicable in Canada. Although engineers of the mines branch have kept fully informed of the development of the so called Caunt low temperature process since its inception in 1927, they have no knowledge of it being developed on a scale to enable the claims made for it to be established, r. Grant.]



TAXING OF WHEAT POOL ORGANIZATIONS

Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: 1.	What decision has been reached by the government with reference to taxing the wheat pool organizations of western Canada?
2.	Will this taxation be retroactive and, if so, to what date?


Mr. GIBSON:: 1.	It is not the intention of the government to have any change made in the provisions of the Income War Tax Act or the Excess Profits Tax Act which exempt the income of cooperative companies and associations from taxation thereunder; but, in view of opinions given by the Department of Justice, after an investigation of the facts, that certain corporations, referred to in the question as the wheat pool organizations of western Canada, do not qualify for tax exemption under such provisions, it is felt desirable that the questions of facts and of law pertinent to the liability of such corporations for tax be brought before the courts for investigation and final determination.
The Department of Justice has advised that the most practical method of getting these matters before the courts in a manner that will provide opportunity for a full investigation of all pertinent questions will be to assess such corporations, so that they may appeal from such assessments in the usual way if they continue to dispute liability.-
It is the intention of the government to make such assessments and, if appeals are made by the taxpayers, the government will be prepared to discuss with the representatives of these corporations such arrangements as may be necessary to provide that the costs of such appeals to the corporations will not be greater than would be occasioned to them by a reference to the courts by the government itself.
2.	This question cannot be answered at this time.



MOBILIZATION ACT-STUDENTS WHO FAIL IN EXAMINATIONS

Mr. LACOMBE:: 1.	In carrying out the enforcement of the mobilization act, has the government taken any steps to allow students to finish their education before being called to the armed forces?
2.	Under existing regulations of the mobilization act, is a student failing in his examinations forced to give up his studies?
3.	Will the government allow a student who fails in examinations to try again or grant him a postponement?


Mr. MITCHELL:: 1.	Yes. See section 12 of national selective service mobilization regulations with amendments up to January 28, 1943.

Questions
2.	Subject to certain conditions, including those in section 12 of said regulations a "student" may lose his right to postponement if he fails to pass any term or yearly academic examination within the meaning of paragraph (c) of subsection 3 in section 12. It is for the university, college or school authorities in question to decide whether or not such a student may continue his studies.
3.	Yes, if in the opinion of the university, college or school authorities and the district officer commanding such failure is due to circumstances beyond the control of such student and he should be permitted to continue his course of studies.



FRENCH BATTLESHIP &quot;RICHELIEU&quot;-ENLISTMENT OF CREW MEMBERS IN FIGHTING FRENCH FORCES

Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Were any members of the crew of the french battleship Richelieu, undergoing repairs in New York, sent on to Canada to enlist in the fighting french forces for transfer to Britain?
2.	If so, when and how many?


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: Under arrangements made some time ago with the United Kingdom and fighting french authorities recruits for the fighting french forces are granted transit privileges through Canadian ports en route to the United Kingdom. The Canadian authorities do not normally enquire into the antecedents of bona fide members of allied forces passing through Canada. It is understood, however, that among the recruits for the fighting french forces who have reached Halifax during the last few weeks there have been some who had previously served on the Richelieu and on other french naval vessels moved to the United States from north Africa. Concerning the number, the government have no detailed information.



CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD-LIABILITY TO CHARTERED BANKS

Mr. CASTLEDEN:: 1.	What is the amount of the present liability of the Canadian wheat board to the chartered banks ?
2.	What is the interest rate that is being paid on this loan?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	The liability of the Canadian wheat board to the chartered banks as at February 16, 1943, was stated in the appendix to the budget speech (page 42) to be as follows:-
Wheat, $91,880,239; flaxseed, $7,444,191; oats and barley, $227,257; soybeans, $1,032.
2.	3 per cent.



ARRANGEMENTS FOR DELIVERY OF 1942 WHEAT CROP

Mr. CASTLEDEN:: 1. What arrangements are being made to permit the farmers of western Canada to deliver the allotted quotas of 14 bushels per acre?
2.	What steps are being taken to accept delivery of the balance of the 1942 crop?
3.	Is there any possibility that the farmer will be allowed to deliver his 1942 crop in western Canada this year?
4. What arrangements are being made to assist the farmer in ease he cannot deliver his crop?
5.	What is the estimated quantity of, (a) wheat, (b) coarse grains, still in storage on the farms of each of the three prairie provinces?.


James Angus MacKinnon: .
1.	By increasing delivery quotas as rapidly as transportation and storage permit. On. March 13, 1943, 1,040 out of 2,108 delivery points in the west (49 per cent) were on a 14 bus. delivery quota basis; 340 delivery points (16 per cent) were on a 12 bus. delivery quota basis; 684 delivery points (33 per cent) were on a 10 bus. delivery quota basis; and. 44 delivery points (2 per cent) were on an 8 bus. delivery quota basis.
2.	Total marketing from the 1942 western wheat crop during the crop year 1942-43 are restricted to 280,000,000 bus. This quantity of 1942 wheat will be taken as storage and transportation permit. After August 1, 1943, and up to July 31, 1944, either 1942 or 1943 wheat may be delivered up to 14 bus. per. authorized acre.
3.	See No. 2.
4.	Given adequate transportation, the government's 1942-1943 programme will be implemented, If available transportation proves inadequate the government will take steps to deal with such problems as may arise therefrom.
5.	Official statistics of farm stocks as at March 31, 1943, will be published by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics on April 15, 1943.



CONSTRUCTION CONTROL

Mr. BENCE:: 1.	Who is the controller of construction?
2.	Whom did he succeed?
3.	Where is the office of such controller?
4.	Was the office of the controller of construction moved from Ottawa to Toronto?
5.	If so, on what date?
6.	Was such office moved back from Toronto to Ottawa?
7.	If so, on what date?
8.	How many persons are employed in the office of the controller of construction?
9.	Did any persons employed in this office resign from their positions after the decision to move this office back to Ottawa had been made?
Questions

10.	If so, what was the number of such persons?
11.	What was the cost of moving the office back from Toronto to Ottawa?
12.	Why was it so moved?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	John Schofield.
2.	C. Blake Jackson.
3.	Ottawa.
4.	Yes.
5.	April 25, 1942.
6.	Yes.
7.	February 8, 1943.
8.	In Ottawa, 36 including the controller; in Montreal, 3; in Vancouver, 3.
9.	Yes.
10.	Seven.
11.	No accounts have been rendered to date covering the moving of the office of the controller of construction from Toronto to Ottawa.
12.	The office of the controller of
construction was moved back	to Ottawa
because of recent developments in the United States priority system. This	made it
imperative to have closer coordination with certain other control offices now in Ottawa with a view to simplification of procedure for the general public in applications for licences, materials required	in such
*construction, and for priority	assistance
required in connection therewith.



SELECTIVE SERVICE-BRITISH COLUMBIA-CHARLES S. HENLEY

Mr. CARDIFF:: 1.	What living expenses have been paid to Charles S. Henley, special representative for British Columbia on the staff of the director of national selective service for each calendar month since his appointment?
2.	Has he, in addition, been paid any travelling expenses?
3.	If so, in what amounts for each of the calendar months since his appointment?


Mr. MITCHELL:: 1, 2 and 3.
April, 1942 ....	Travelling expenses .. 301 76	Living expensesMay, 1942 	.. 174 10	48 44June, 1942 	.. 88 60	191 01July, 1942 	.. 314 47	72 60August, 1942 ...	.. 50 50	97 54September, 1942	.. 44 90	108 70October, 1942 ..	.. 52 70	104 39November, 1942	.. 42 90	103 42December, 1942	.. 49 25	118 58January, 1943 .	.. 90 55	91 82February, 1943 .	.. 46 20	102 15Totals	
[DOT]j'Mr. Bence.]	. $1,255 93	$1,036 65



MUNITIONS AND SUPPLY-PURCHASES FROM ZEPHYR LOOMS AND TEXTILES LIMITED

['1939\t1940\t1941\t1942$\t$\t$\tS596,056\t695,160\t1,154,493\t918,99065,920\t65,469\t51,463\t41,8018,838,347\t11,894,880\t12,032,671\t13,502,174766,675\t1.093,034\t1,546,879\t1,634,93550,227\t58,052\t54,081\t68,118929,534\t879,593\t780,474\t782,907']
Mr. HAZEN:: What was the value of the goods purchased by the Department of Munitions and Supply from Zephyr Looms and Textiles Ltd., in 1940, 1941 and 1942?


Mr. HOWE:: 1940, $4,274,095;	1941,	$1,231,505;	1942,
$4,894,439. Total $10,400,039-for Canadian account.
MUNITIONS AND SUPPLY-M. & C. AVIATION COMPANY LIMITED



Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: 1.	Was any compensation paid or promised to any of the Canadian distilleries upon the discontinuance of the production of spirituous liquors by them?
2.	If so, how much, and to whom?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	No.
2.	Answered by No. 1.


MANUFACTURE OF INDUSTRIAL ALCOHOL FROM WHEAT
Mr. BENCE:: 
Mr. HOWE:: 1.	Approximately 5,450,000 gallons sold.
2.	Approximately 1,400,000 gallons.
3.	Approximately 700,000 bushels.
4.	Yes.
5.	Amherst Distilleries Limited, Amherst-burg, Ontario; British Columbia Distillery Company Limited, New Westminster, B.C.; Canadian Industrial Alcohol Company Limited, Corbyville, Ontario; Commercial Alcohols Limited, Montreal, P.Q.; Distillers Corporation Limited, Montreal, P.Q.; W. & A. Gilbey Limited, New Toronto, Ontario;
Canadian imports- Tariff
554		
554A	
554B	
554C	
554F	
555		
Gooderham & Worts Limited, Toronto, Ontario; Melcher's Distilleries Limited, Ber-thierville, P.Q.; Montreal Products Company Limited, Montreal, P.Q.; Quebec Distillers Limited, Valleyfield, P.Q.; Joseph Seagram & Sons, Waterloo, Ontario; United Distillers Limited, Vancouver, B.C.; Hiram Walker & Sons Limited, Walkerville, Ontario.
6.	Approximately 7,000,000 bushels.
7.	Approximately 14,000,000 gallons.


IMPORTS OF WOOLLEN GOODS, 1939-42
Mr. DUROCHER:: What was the value of woollen goods imported into Canada under tariff items 554, 554A, 554B, 554C, 554F, and 555, during the years 1939 to 1942, both inclusive?


James Angus MacKinnon: 1939	1940	1941	1942$	$	$	S596,056	695,160	1,154,493	918,99065,920	65,469	51,463	41,8018,838,347	11,894,880	12,032,671	13,502,174766,675	1.093,034	1,546,879	1,634,93550,227	58,052	54,081	68,118929,534	879,593	780,474	782,907



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. REID:: 1.	Has the Department of Mines and Resources made any investigations, extensive or otherwise, as to the quantities of coal and iron ore in the province of British Columbia?
2.	If so, what amounts of coking coal are estimated by the department in existence or in reserve in the various coal areas in British Columbia including that of Comox area?
3.	What amounts of iron ore are estimated by the department to be available or in existence in British Columbia?
4.	What districts are the various iron ore deposits located with, (a) the amounts of iron ore estimated in each district, and (b) the analysis of the various iron ore?
5.	In regard to estimates made by the department as to the quantities of coking coal and iron ore in the province of British Columbia how do these estimates compare with that of estimates put out by both the provincial government of British Columbia and that of private interests?
6.	On what dates were the various investigations made by officials of the Department of Mines and Resources regarding iron ore deposits and coking coal in the province of British Columbia?


James Angus MacKinnon: Return tabled.


FARNHAM, QTJE., INTERNMENT CAMP-VEGETABLES
Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: 1.	How many tons of turnips were grown at the internment camp, Farnham, Quebec?
2.	W* 1 2 3 4 5 6 7ere any other vegetables grown at that camp?
3.	If so, what kind of vegetables and what quantity of each were grown?
4.	To whom were these turnips and other vegetables sold?
5.	At what price were they sold?
6.	Did the government receive the proceeds from the sale of these vegetables?
7.	If not, who did receive the proceeds?


CONTROLLERS
Mr. BRUNELLE:: 1.	WTat are the names of all the controllers appointed by the federal government since the beginning of this war?
2.	Where is the head office of each controller and what production or consumption does he control and where are the branch offices of each controller located throughout Canada?


PACIFIC COAST WHALING STATIONS
Mr. STIRLING:: 1.	How many whaling stations operated on the Pacific coast in 1939, 1940, 1941 and 1942, and where are they located?
2.	How many ships were operated in connection with those whaling stations in each of those years?

Questions as Orders for Returns
3.	How many whales were killed resulting from those operations in each of those years?
4.	How many men were employed, (a) at the whaling stations, (b) on the ships, in each of those years?
5.	Is the government considering means for expanding the whaling industry because of the value of the meat, fat, oil and bone derived therefrom?


Mr. McLARTY:: Order for return.


Mr. STIRLING:: Is not all that information in the records of the Department of Fisheries, and would it not be quite easy to answer it as a question?


Norman Alexander McLarty: The information which was given to me and confirmed by the department was that it concerns the Departments of Fisheries, Trade and Commerce and Munitions and Supply, and the wartime prices and trade board.


TASHME JAPANESE CAMP
Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: 1.	What rent is paid for the Tashme Japanese camp?
2.	What is the assessed value of the property?
3.	What is the amount of the taxes?
4.	Who pays the taxes?
5.	How much money has been expended in alterations or additions to the permanent buildings?
6.	How much money has been expended on the water works?
7.	Were any furnace radiators installed, if so, for what purpose, at what cost?
8.	What amount has been expended for fuel, (a) coal, (b) wood?
9.	What agreement is there as to disposition of improvements of permanent buildings and water system at end of the lease?



MUNITIONS AND SUPPLY-CAPITAL ASSISTANCE TO PRIVATE INDUSTRY AND GOVERNMENT CORPORATIONS


Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: 1.	Have any payments been made or promised to the packers by way of bonus or subsidy on beef since December, 1942? If so, what are the particulars?
2.	What price does the army pay packers for beef per pound at Vancouver, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal?


PARLIAMENT HILL
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	What authority is given for the clearing of roads and sidewalks in winter around the houses of parliament and approaches thereto?
2.	Who is in charge of this work and what does it cost?
3.	Who is responsible for the dangerous condition of same?
4.	Does the government or crown accept responsibility for damages to the public who are injured or may be injured as a result?


CURTAILMENT OF GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS
Mr. MARSHALL:: 1.	What steps are being taken by departments of government to curtail the issue of nonessential and essential government publications in Canada?
2.	What publications were completely discontinued in the year 1942?


PLEBISCITE, 1942-COSTS
Mr. MARSHALL:: 1.	What is the detailed account of legal service performed by Messrs. Pender and West under treasury board minute T.202571 B., February 5, 1943, and total amount paid for these services?
2.	Were any legal advisers appointed by the government to assist the chief plebiscite officer in the dominion plebiscite taken in 1942?
3.	If so, what were their names and their salaries or other emoluments?


Norman Alexander McLarty: Return tabled.


PAY'MENTS TO CABINET MINISTERS
Mr. MARSHALL:: What amounts other than salaries and car allowances were paid to cabinet ministers during the year ended December 31, 1942, and what services were performed covered by these payments?


REPRESENTATIVES OF FARMERS ON WAR BOARDS
Mr. FAIR:: 1.	Since the commencement of the war, how many boards have been set up that directly affect the farmers of Canada?
2.	What are the names of those boards and who are the members thereof?
3.	What are the names of the practical farmers on each of those boards?
4.	What are the names of the members of those boards who have been recommended by organized agriculture?
5.	By whom were the remaining members recommended and what are their qualifications?


BONUS TO FIREWOOD DEALERS IN YUKON
Mr. BLACK (Yukon):: 1.	Will dealers in firewood in Yukon be paid a bonus per cord on wood?
2.	If so, what bonus, and on wood cut until what time?

Motions for Papers
3.	Will the government charge stumpage on wood so bonused and if so, what stumpage per cord?
4.	What proof is required of the quantities of wood on which bonus will be paid?
5.	Through what agencies will such bonus be paid, and when?


ORANGES, ETC.-IMPORTS AND SUBSIDIES
Mr. BLACK (Cumberland):: What quantities have been imported and what subsidies have been paid or remain to be paid on importations, up to March 1, 1943, on the following commodities, (a) oranges, (b) orange juice, (c) other orange products, (d) grapefruit, (e) grapefruit juice, (f) prunes, (g) any other dried fruits?


MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: For a copy of all memoranda, submissions and other documents presented to the dominion government by the western debt conference, since June 30, 1942?


PURCHASE OR RENTAL OF BUILDINGS AND OTHER
Mr. LOCKHART:: 1.	For a list of all the buildings purchased by the government, or its agencies, in the city of Ottawa and within a radius of 20 miles, since the commencement of the war, together with the following information in each case, (a) the name of the vendor, (b) the selling price, (c) complete description of the property acquired, (d) the purpose for which the property was used immediately prior to purchase, (e) the assessed value placed thereon by the city of Ottawa, (f) the purpose for which each building is used.
2.	A list of all the buildings and other space presently rented by the government, or its agencies, in the city of Ottawa, and within a radius of 20 miles, w-ith the following information, (a) the name of the landlord, (b) the purpose for which each building and other space is used, (c) the date of the first leasing by the government, or its agencies, (d) the yearly rental, (e) complete description of the property, (f) the assessed value thereof, (g) the length of the lease and whether there is a termination clause.


GOVERNMENT LIQUOR REGULATIONS
Mr. NICHOLSON:: For a copy of all correspondence exchanged between E. P. Taylor of Canadian Breweries Limited, H. W. Molson of Molson's Breweries Limited, Norman Dawes of National Breweries Limited, and the Prime Minister, since December 16,	1942, regarding government liquor
regulations.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Return tabled.


BUILDING OF ATLANTIC COAST FISHING BOATS
Mr. ISNOR:: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, correspondence and other documents in the possession of the government dated from January 1, 1941,
to the present time relating to the building of fishing boats to be operated on the Atlantic coast under the dominion government, fishing boat subsidy or any other plan.


BUILDING OF PACIFIC COAST FISHING BOATS
Gordon Benjamin Isnor: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, correspondence and other documents in the possession of the government dated from January 1, 1941, to the present time relating to the building of fishing boats to be operated on the Pacific coast under the dominion government, fishing boat subsidy or any other plan.


USE OF FARM PRODUCTS IN PRODUCTION OF POWER ALCOHOL OR SYNTHETIC RUBBER
Mr. PERLEY:: For a copy of all correspondence, memoranda, reports and other documents passing between Mr. M. M. Rosten and the Minister of Agriculture or any officials in the Department of Agriculture, or any officials in the Department of Munitions and Supply, with respect to the use of wheat and other farm products in the production of power alcohol, or synthetic rubber or in and towards the production of any article afterwards used to produce rubber.


ENGINE WORKS AND TRADING COMPANY, MONTREAL
Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: For a copy of all telegrams, letters, memoranda, reports and other documents received from any commissioner, investigator, or any person exercising similar function, who investigated the operations of Engine Works and Trading Company of Montreal.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Speaker, the documents
referred to are confidential. An investigator was appointed to make a confidential report to determine whether or not a prosecution was warranted in this case. It was found that a prosecution was warranted; the confidential report was turned over to the Department of Justice, and a prosecution ensued. I must insist that the confidential report to myself is a privileged document.
Motion dropped.


ALUMINUM PLANTS
Mr. COLDWELL:: For a copy of all contracts, agreements and other documents in the possession of the government, dated from September 1, 1939, to the present, relating to undertakings concerning the erection of any new aluminum plants, or additions to plants, in Canada, together with any orders in council, contracts, agreements or understandings, regarding depreciation or rebates to be allowed by the government from amounts otherwise payable under excess profits tax or other tax legislation; also a copy of any agreements regarding financial aid or undertakings by the government of Canada in the erection of such plants, or any similar agreement, of which the government has knowledge, made by the company with any other government.
Labour; Conditions



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. MARK C. SENN (Haldimand): Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Labour. It is reported that an arrangement has been concluded between the minister and the government of Quebec which will enable some three hundred men from the southern counties of that province to go to the state of Maine to work in the sugar bushes there. Has such an arrangement been concluded, and if so, on what terms and conditions will these men be allowed to leave Canada? In view of the serious shortage of farm labour, will the minister tell the house what reasons actuated him and the selective service administration in agreeing to issue the necessary permits to these three hundred men?
Mr. SPEAKER:: I rather think this is a question which should be placed on the order paper. The latter part of it asks for a declaration of policy on the part of the government.


Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Leader of the Opposition):: I think Your Honour might readily allow this question to be answered. It is a matter of considerable urgency. If the question were to be placed first in Votes and Proceedings and afterwards on the order paper, by the time it was answered these men might have completed their work in the sugar bush and returned to Canada.


Thomas Vien: The first part of the question might be answered, but the lalter part, asking for a declaration of policy, should surely not be answered on the orders of the day.


Humphrey Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member gave me notice of the question. I find upon inquiry that representations have been made to the department with respect to this matter, but as yet no decision has been made.



INQUIRY WITH RESPECT TO CLOSING DOWN OF ALBERTA WELL

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. H. BLACKMORE (Lethbridge):: I desire to direct a question to the Minister of Munitions and Supply. Has the government been informed that in at least one case in Alberta an oil well which produced 576 barrels

daily of clean, frothy, pipeline oil, was cemented over and has been left closed to this present day?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The hon. member gave me notice of his question. I have made inquiries in my department and find that we have no such information.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, March 19, consideration of the motion of Hon. J. L. Usley (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Blackmore, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Coldwell.
Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I had some doubt about whether I should make a speech in this debate. I had that doubt partly because I am anxious that the debate close at the earliest possible moment so that we may address ourselves to the budget resolutions, some of which are extremely important, and the passage of which at an early date is equally important. I have been concerned, however, by some speeches that have been made in the house, not only in the debate on the budget but also in the debate on the address, particularly as to the effect they may have in the house and in the country on our measures of price control and generally on our fight against inflation.
So far as my recollection goes, no member of the Progressive Conservative party opposition, with the exception of one, the hon. member for York West (Mr. Adamson) to whom I am very grateful, has said he was in favour of our measures designed to prevent the growing and eventually the prevailing of the menace of inflation in this country. On the other hand I think it is fair to say that they have not expressed their disapproval of those measures. But they have done something which is the equivalent ; they have attacked piecemeal the preservation of the price ceiling and the wage ceiling. This applies equally to the other opposition parties and also to the utterances of some hon. members supporting the government. This being so I think it is my duty at this stage in the debate to present once

The Budget-Mr. Ilsley
more to the house the reasons for our antiinflationary policies and the great importance of administering and enforcing those policies in an effective manner.
In the budget speech I outlined the growing force of inflationary tendencies in this country. I said that the forces making for inflation are present on a large scale, and that their pressure is held in check only by the rigour of our existing taxation, by the willingness of Canadians to save on an unprecedented scale, and by our price control and wage control.
There has not been in this debate much attack upon, much objection taken to, our taxation programme-remarkably little; perhaps that will come later, on the resolutions. There has not been a serious or widespread attack on our borrowing policies. There has been some, but it has not been very great. But there has been a disconcerting tendency on the part of a fairly large number of hon. members, mostly in the various oppositions, to urge that we weaken our price and wage controls.
My colleague the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) the other night, speaking in the fuel debate, put the matter in better language than I could when he said, as reported at page 1316 of Hansard:
We have had various suggestions offered to-day for a solution of the problem. I think the one most often given was to increase the ceiling price. That is an easy solution for a great many problems, but it must be obvious to every member that if we were to adopt the practice of increasing the ceiling price to meet every problem that comes along, we should soon have no price ceiling and no price control at all, and thus be well on the road to inflation. Five hon. members of the Progressive Conservative party offered that solution. I urge them to avoid suggestions of that kind if they believe that price control is a sound policy in times such as this, because that policy can be maintained only by rigidly observing existing price ceilings. One break-through for a particular commodity invites a break-through for a number of other commodities. To maintain a price ceiling policy with frequent exceptions is an impossibility.
These attacks in individual cases have been accompanied more or less by attacks on the wartime prices and trade board and on the chairman and officials of that board, and, in some cases, on boards generally, officials connected with boards generally, and on the system which we have set up, a system which demands a certain amount of extra-parliamentary activity.
I think that in order to deal with this matter in a fundamental way I shall have to start there and explain why it is that we do have
this system; first, why it is that parliament has to delegate so many of its powers to the governor in council, and, secondly, why it is that the government has to delegate so many of its powers to boards and controllers. Why is it that we do not bring this great mass of activity into the House of Commons for discussion before it is undertaken? Why is it that we do not bring these measures before the house and deal with them by way of legislation? Hon. members must know that the reason is that in time of war the other course is essential to get action. In the last session of this parliament we sat here for six months. We dealt with a substantial number of very important measures; we could not have dealt with many more. I assume that it is not the wish of the house or the country that parliament sit here for twelve months in the year. Certainly if parliament were to deal with all the things that have to be dealt with, there would not be enough time in the year for parliament to get through the business. So far this session we have sat here thirty-seven days, and hon. members can just think over for themselves what our record of legislation achievement has been.


Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: Is that not an argument for change of the rules?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No change of the rules could possibly overcome that. It is because in war time the necessity for action is so great, the necessity for so much action, that there must be measures such as the War Measures Act under which there is a broad delegation of authority to the governor in council.
It may be asked: if that is so, why does not the governor in council assume its responsibility and discharge its duties? Why does it in turn delegate so much to boards and officials? The answer is just the same as the first answer I have given. That is in turn essential if we are to get action. During the twelve months which ended December 31, 1942, there were 11,597 orders in council passed, that is, about one thousand a month. Recommendations submitted but not passed numbered 117; treasury board reports passed numbered 88, and the treasury board dealt with 5,653 matters the record of which is found in 5,653 minutes of treasury board. The total number of recommendations to council was 11,802, or as I said, about one thousand a month.
Council does the best it can by internal organization to handle this great mass of business. Much of it is delegated to treasury board; much of it is delegated to the war committee of the cabinet. A large part of it is delegated to the wheat committee, a
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great deal to the routine business committee of the cabinet, and from time to time a great deal is delegated to special committees of the cabinet. We do our best by internal organization to meet this great mass of work, but we cannot overtake it. Therefore we have to pass orders in council which delegate to others in the employ of the government, in whom we have confidence, the power to deal with these matters. This is democracy functioning in time of war. It does not mean that the business of the country is being placed in the hands of irresponsible officials. All these officials have ministers to whom they are responsible. The ministers are part of a government which is responsible to parliament. Parliament has an overriding control upon the government, the ministers and the officials, and so far as I have ever been able to learn, there is no other way we can do it.
I say that by way of introduction, because I hear from the odd member of this house charges that parliament has abdicated its functions, that the government has delegated its responsibilities, that we are in the hands of bureaucrats and irresponsible officials, and that the democracy for which we are fighting does not exist in any real sense. I deny that entirely.
I come now to the other matter I mentioned, that is the attack or the sporadic attacks upon one particular board for which as Minister of Finance I am responsible. To hear a good many speeches in this house one would think that the wartime prices and trade board has through its chairman, Mr. Donald Gordon, framed its own policies and is administering those policies in an arbitrary and bureaucratic way without regard to the wishes of parliament or of the government. I want to say a word about that. Nothing could be further from the truth than this statement. To begin with, Mr. Gordon and the other officials of the wartime prices and trade board are continually in consultation with myself, almost every day and for many hours on some days. I am kept closely in touch with all important decisions of policy made by the board; I take full responsibility for those decisions, and am prepared to take full responsibility in this house. I do not say that mistakes have not been made, but where they have been made and when they have been made I am prepared to take responsibility for them. The attacks that are made here should not be made upon the board or upon Mr. Gordon; they should be made upon myself and upon the government, and I will undertake to defend what has been done to the extent of my ability. I think a pretty effective defence can be

offered, in the main, in regard to the record and achievements of the wartime prices and trade board.
One would think, to listen to some of the-speeches in this house, that Mr. Donald Gordon is some sort of big banker pushing around the primary producers and the small retailers just because he is a big banker. What nonsense! Mr. Donald Gordon came to this country when he was thirteen years of age, an immigrant from Scotland, without any money. At fifteen years of age he went into the Bank of Nova Scotia, and by sheer ability and force of character attained a high executive position in that bank by the time he was in his early thirties. He was so prominent, so eminent and so promising that he was brought to Ottaxva wffien he was thirty-four years of age and made secretary of the Bank of Canada. In 1938, at the age of thirty-seven, he was made deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, and it was while he was holding that position, in the fall of 1941, that we approached him to undertake this worst of all jobs, this job of administering and enforcing our price ceiling policy.
I want to point out that not since 1934 has Mr. Gordon had any connection whatever with the private banking system of this country. Since that time he has been a servant of the state; he has been an official of the bank which for two or three years was controlled by the government of Canada, and which since that time has been owned entirely by the government of Canada, not a private institution but a nationalized institution, a people's central bank. I want to make that very clear, because one wmuld think in listening to some references to Mr. Gordon that such was not the case. He was largely responsible for the organization of the foreign exchange control board, and anyone who knows anything about that organization knows that he did a magnificent job. We went to him in the fall of 1941 and requested him, almost pleaded with him to take on the most difficult of all jobs, the most thankless of all jobs, one of the most if not the most important of all jobs, the administration and enforcement of our price ceiling policy. He could have declined it. He was no job seeker. He was no suppliant for government favours. He had an assured position, of which he was making an outstanding success, but to my immeasurable relief and to the relief of my colleagues he accepted the assignment. And he accepted it as a war duty, knowing that he might fail; knowing that he might break down his health; knowing that he could not faithfully discharge his duties without incurring considerable unpopularity and resentment, He took on the

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job; and if ever a man, in the killing seventeen months since, has discharged his duty, it has been he. I have had my differences with him. Some of his officials have had their differences with him. Some members of the public have had their differences with him; but I want to say now that I have never met a man with greater honesty or integrity, with greater moral courage, with greater capacity for straight, clear thinking, with greater capacity for hard, nerve-wracking work, with greater capacity for decision or with more unselfish devotion to duty. He may not be giving everyone who comes to him everything he wants, but I am profoundly thankful, as I think the members of this house should be profoundly thankful, that we have him.
Now, what about his administration of the policy we have told him to administer? Just a word about this policy, which in its very essence must be more concerned with the main . objective, the general result, than with fine [DOT]questions of equity. So that I may not be misunderstood I want to read something which will put the matter in clearer words than I *could. This is a quotation from the minister responsible for price control in New Zealand. Our friends of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation are great admirers of New Zealand, its government and principles of that government, and I do not say they are wrong at all. Last November the responsible minister there, Mr. Sullivan, speaking about their price and wage control system, the principle of which as I understand the matter was adopted from [DOT]ours, said:
We are now at the point when, in bringing in an all-round policy of stabilization which, I repeat, is absolutely vital to-day, the stabilization of income cannot be balked by demands for concessions from any classes of the community. To peg evei'ybody's income where it is might crystallize certain inequalities for the time being, but I would point out that if inflation were left to develop and run riot the inequalities which would be created would be far more serious and far more unjust in their incidence upon the community. Thus, if stabilization brings about the fixing of wages or farm prices at their present levels, some sections of the * community may feel that they are being made to contribute more towards stabilization than others. It may be only rough justice but it will be far preferable to the complete injustice which inflation run amuck would bring about.
This expresses the thought I have in mind. The more important inequalities are ironed out, of course, by subsidies and some minor adjustments of prices; but the sort of adjustments wrhich many members of this house in their speeches have indicated they want made, would wreck the policy entirely.
A few days ago Mr. Prentiss Brown, head of the office of price administration in the
United States, referred to the insidious way in which inflation may creep upon us-by little concessions here and there; by granting this wage demand or that price increase. Declaring that if the increased wages demanded for coal miners were granted, the fight of his country against inflation would be lost. He said:
If that wage increase takes place there is nothing for the more conservative-minded labour leaders, men like Philip Murray, who has supported the present programme, and William Green who has also stood by it, to do but follow the lead and attempt to get increases for their people.
Inflation will come, not by big leaps in costs, but inch by inch, a little bit at a time, in steps that seem so difficult to stop.
He might have said "in steps that seem so easy to take," because some plausible reason or excuse can be given for nearly all concessions that are demanded. Each pressure group believes, probably sincerely, that it has a right to get what it is asking for, and says.: Surely this little bit will not cause inflation; that is only a bogey you are conjuring up to scare the people. But the trouble is, as Mr. Brown shows so clearly, that one little concession leads inevitably to a series of others. That is the way the inflationary spiral begins, and once it gets started its momentum increases. Soon there is no way to stop it, until the inevitable collapse comes.
The future of Canada is going to depend in a large degree upon whether our pressure groups have sufficient intelligence and foresight to restrain the exercise of their special bargaining power in a war-time emergency. If they do not, they may gain a temporary selfish advantage, but they will do so to the sacrifice of their long-run best interest, and to the jeopardy of the nation and the war effort.
I do not wish to quote unduly, but I should like to place on record something from the New Republic, which, as we know, is a left wing periodical. This is what it says, in a recent issue:
The farm bloc wants higher prices for food because wages have gone up. Labour wants higher wages because the cost of food has gone up. It must be clear even to a simpleton that simultaneous granting of both demands would lead only to their repetition. That is the perfect formula for blowing up the balloon of prices until it bursts with a loud bang in the faces of all concerned. And while prices were rising, the farmers would not get any more industrial products for their increased money, nor would labour get any more food.
This is really a dispute concerning the division of an amount of goods available for civilian consumption which cannot be increased, and may decrease. Neither party to the dispute can win so long as both enforce their present formulas, and both will lose in the end. The rest of the consumers lose as long as the dispute goes on.
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Now, what have been the results of price control, which has been an essential part of our fight against inflation in the last seventeen months? Well, cost-of-living index figures speak for themselves. An average of the four years 1935-39 was taken as 100. The index figure at August 1, 1939, just prior to the outbreak of the war, was 100-8. The index figure at October 1, 1941, the base period for the price ceiling was 115-5, which amounts to an increase of 14-6 per cent over the latest pre-war figure. The index figure at July 2, 1942, the date at which the cost-of-living bonus was last adjusted, was 117-9, which is 17 per cent above the pre-war figure, and 2-4 points above the figure for October 1, 1941, the base period for the price ceiling. The index figure for February 1, 1943, the latest figure available, is 116-9. This amounts to an increase of 16 per cent over the pre-war figure. This latest figure is one point below that for July 2 of last year, and only 1-4 above the figure for October 1, 1941, the base period of the price ceiling.
We have kept prices very successfully in check, especially when we consider the experiences of the last war, and when we compare our experiences with those of other countries.


John George Diefenbaker: Does the minister explain the higher agricultural prices in the United States over those in Canada as being due to a greater degree of inflation in the United States than in Canada?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Oh, yes. The cost of living has increased very much more rapidly in the United States during the last year than it has in Canada. So much so that, as the hon. member knows, it is leading to demands for increased wages on the part of labour, so that they will be able to pay the increased prices, which will, in turn, lead to the demand for increased prices for farm products, because of the increased costs of goods into which labour entered.
Someone might say: You have a cost-of-Iiv-ing index which you are holding up before us; but is your cost-of-living index a true index? That matter has been most carefully investigated. A pamphlet entitled "Is the Cost of Living Index Phony" has been issued by the wartime prices and trade board, and in that pamphlet they have shown that upon the most careful investigation it is a true index of prices. It is a much truer index of prices than would be indicated if we had a different system which allowed prices to go up all round the articles in the index. But by our ceiling policy we keep prices down over the whole field, and we have a true cost-of-living index.
To date our policy has been remarkably successful. Whether it can continue to succeed depends in my judgment upon three factors,

and upon whether three conditions are complied with. In the first place it depends upon whether the hon. members of this house-I do not think anything has been said in the other house one way or the other-and those whose views they represent, will cease their piecemeal attacks upon this measure, and will give our efforts their cooperation. I think I am entitled to ask that that cooperation be given.
You will say at once: Do you not want us to criticize? Certainly I want criticism; but I want criticism based upon some consistent and defensible principles. And, if I may say so, I think that the one piece of criticism which I have heard from the opposition which might be termed consistent and defensible criticism, was that which came from the hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Fair), when he attacked the five-cent increase on the price of meals. He attacked us for yielding. Everyone else has attacked us for standing firm. Everyone has attacked Gordon because he has not given way. The hon. member attacked him because in this matter he did give way. There is a defence for what was done. Naturally, with the great increase in the prices of beef, something which I am sure the hon. member for Battle River, among others, demanded-although I did not hear him in the house-the restaurants found themselves in an impossible position.


Mr. FAIR:: I am coming back to that, and I shall have more to say about it later on. I am able to justify my stand, if the minister can justify his.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am afraid the hon. member can not justify his interruption, though, according to the rules of the house.
But the point I am making is that the wartime prices and trade board, including the chairman of that board, have been given a job to do. It is not their policy; it is the policy of the government of this country. Therefore it seems to me that criticism, if it is to be of the highest type, should be for the way they have fallen down in the discharge of their duties-which, I may say, has been very seldom.
In the instances in which they have made minor adjustments in prices there have been abundant reasons for those adjustments. The case of the restaurants, for instance, was studied at least for six months before it was found necessary to make some adjustment. The only alternative would have been subsidies, to prevent many restaurants from going out of business at a time when restaurants must stay in business if the needs of this war population are to be served.

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The second condition is that the wage stabilization policy succeed, and the national war labour board be strengthened, not weakened by utterances of members of parliament and 'by labour leaders; for certainly if any group has everything to lose and nothing to gain by a break-down of our anti-inflation policy, it is labour.
The third condition is that our fiscal policies and our policy of taxation and the encouraging of saving shall receive the support that they deserve.
We believe that our financial policies are sound. We believe that the policy of heavy taxation and the encouragement of saving and borrowing from the people as large a proportion of their earnings as we can possibly persuade them to save is sound. It is not a particularly original policy. It has been followed by Great Britain and the United States and by the other British dominions, but we believe in the policy. There are some members of this house who do not believe in it, but I do not think we should ever forget that we are in the throes of a mighty conflict. If we are right, we certainly should be supported. If by chance we and the other governments of the United Nations are wrong about this, is this the time to try to upset the policy? It is working reasonably well and will continue to work reasonably well. I think I am justified in making an appeal to members of this house not to say anything- some things have been said in speeches here- which will prejudice the success of our great loan campaigns, especially the fourth victory loan campaign. I invite the cooperation of members of the house. I must say that I have received cooperation consistently from the beginning from the great majority of the members of this house, I think from all members of the Progressive Conservative party and from most of the members of the house generally.
Those are the three conditions for the success of our fight against inflation. I hope that those conditions will be complied with. We have a tremendous task to raise such huge sums of money, to bring in these billions and to pay out these billions, but while the task is hard it is not as hard as keeping the money good, keeping the money so that it will buy as much in the future as it has in the past. If that once begins to slip, our task of financing will be immeasurably more difficult, our war effort will be greatly impeded, and the misery among the people will be very great.
I have said nothing about the terms of the amendment or the subamendment. Nothing turns upon the details of these amendments
and there will be abundant opportunity later to deal with them on the resolutions or when the proper items are being discussed. They constitute the usual want of confidence motion in the government brought forward when the vote on any budget takes place. Personally while I am not hurrying, and will not undertake to hurry the house, I should like to see the house get to the stage of effective action as soon as possible, the kind of action that this nation expects from parliament in time of war.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: I have expressed myself in favour of the principle of price ceilings. Can the minister tell us why parity remuneration for the agricultural producer who is producing foodstuffs and who composes one-third of our population has not been placed on the same basis as that of industry and organized labour?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I cannot answer- that question until the hon. gentleman defines "parity". If he will do that I think I can answer his question.


James Arthur Ross: You set a base period for industry and organized labour, but you neglected agriculture.


Mr. J. R. MacNICOL (Davenport):: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to try to follow the minister other than to refer to one or two of his statements. He told us that the house has been in session thirty-seven days. I want to tell the minister that I, just as much as he, believe that I am wasting my time getting up to speak. I know that anything I can say will not alter anything that will be done in this house. We on this side of the house feel that our efforts are futile. What can we do? We have offered all that we have to the government, but has anyone on this side of the house been asked to do a thing? I have not been asked to do anything, although when war broke out I offered all I had. Is that the way to treat all this side of the house, not only the official opposition but the members of the other opposition groups? Collectively we represent a large number of people in this country. I have no suggestions to make as to what should be done. It is up to the government to tell us what should be done. We are all ready to do what we can.
I think I can speak for everyone else on this side of the house when I say that we have not been asked to do a thing. The minister has scolded the whole opposition, but I am not going to reply to that. We are in a great war and there is no time to enter into that class of argument. I do not deserve any
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scolding under the circumstances. I have offered all I have to the government, and so has everyone else on this side of the house. I feel I am just wasting my time here. What can I do?
I feel that I have accomplished a little through this house and the Ontario legislature. A few years ago I strongly recommended that this government should assist the Ontario government in starting production of iron at the Helen mine in Algoma. This government turned a deaf ear to the proposal. However, I have received some recompense for opening up the matter, because the Ontario government listened to the argument that was put up here. Their action followed the speech I made in this house, but I do not say they acted because of my speech. I am happy to be able to say to-day that the Algoma Steel Corporation are producing approximately 400,000 tons of pig-iron a year from native low-grade iron ores. They deserve great credit for doing that. I feel it is a slight accomplishment on my part.
I am not sure whether my suggestion of a year ago that we should produce more oil in this country is going to bring results. I have made two trips into the great north country and I have been told by letters, and through rumours I have heard, that something is going to be done. I hope that before long Canada will be increasing her oil production. If this should come about through action by this government-that is the only way it can come about-then I shall feel that I have played a small part in this development too.
I believe I assisted somewhat in bringing about the unemployment insurance measures. I made exhaustive inquiries into this matter years ago. I hope that what I said on national health insurance will have some effect. But outside of these items, and a few others, I feel that I have wasted the thirteen years I have been in this house.
When I was on the government side I received the same treatment as any other member sitting over there behind the treasury benches. Our opinions were not sought and we had little or no weight. I find that hon. gentlemen who are sitting where I sat for five years have little weight to-day. I have none over here with the government. It is up to the government to tell each one of us just what we can do. Every member of this house wants to aid the government. The government has many able men among its ranks. There are a lot of men in this house who have had considerable experience in business, and after all, in my judgment business is everything. It comes ahead of everything else by a long way. That is all I am going to say about what the minister said.

I am not going to deal directly with the budget proposals, unless what I say has something to do with broadening the bases of taxation upon which the finance minister will erect his taxation structure. If what I say has something to do with that, I shall feel that my remarks have some relation to the budget proposals.
For the remainder of my time I intend to refer to certain matters affecting three sections of the country, and then I shall continue from where I left off on February 10 in my proposals for improvement in the western economy. For I am convinced even more strongly than I was when I spoke previously, having received a multitude of letters and resolutions from boards of trade and other organizations and people in all parts of the west, that I am on the right course. I hope that in due time not only the three western ministers but every hon. member from the west, of whom I believe there are fifty-four will support a programme for western rehabilitation. In trying to do something for their country an easterner from the city of Toronto ought to have their support-not because it is I who propose it, but because it is for the good of their country.
I have travelled many times to the east, and perhaps more frequently into that beautiful little province in the gulf, Prince Edward Island, which is one of the richest agricultural areas in the world. There in that little island they are doing a great job, about the only job they can do, and it is what the government has specifically asked them to do, namely, to produce farm products. I am told that last year they shipped out of that small province some 17,500 cars of farm produce. But think of the jeopardy they are in to-day, with only one comparatively small ship plying between Tormentine and Borden, connecting them with the mainland. They had a larger ship, the Charlottetown, but it was destroyed. What has the government done to replace it? About a week ago the Prince Edward Island legislature passed a strong resolution asking the government to do something for the transportation service, because they realize that if anything happens to the one ship which is left, all shipments will cease until another boat is made available. I beg on their behalf that the government use every effort to provide Prince Edward Island as speedily as possible with a better transportation system than it has to-day. They were promised proper treatment in this respect when they came into confederation, but we have failed to carry out our bargain.
I pass to Nova Scotia, to make brief reference to a matter which affects our financial structure. In 1913 Ontario and Quebec were buying about two million tons of coal from Nova Scotia. I myself am a user of Nova

The Budget-Mr. MacNicol
Scotia coal and have always advocated its use. I am convinced that after the war, and it is only then that what I am asking for can be done, efforts should be made to bring into Ontario and Quebec twice as much Nova Scotia coal as was brought in before the war. I firmly believe that our provinces can be held together only by interprovincial support and a greater measure of interprovincial trade. Nova Scotia has coal for sale, or will have again. Ontario is the biggest buyer in Canada, and Quebec also consumes large quantities; they should be encouraged to buy Nova Scotia coal and so give more employment to the miners of that province.
A few days ago a committee of this house was told that some 350,000 tons of coal was imported from Seattle or some adjacent point across the border. I am not finding any fault with this; perhaps we ought to be glad to get it from anywhere. But where do you think it went? It went to the Alaska highway, perhaps to Dawson Creek and places beyond, for use in the camps of those who are building the Alaska road. Just stop to think that that 350,000 tons of coal had to pass by not far from a mountain of coal, about eighty miles west of the Alaska highway, and there is no better coal in the world. I have a piece of this Bull Head mountain coal on my desk. I picked it out myself; it comes to the top of the ground. Geologists in our own department tell us that there are six hundred million tons of it. They say it has less than one per cent of moisture, about eighty-four per cent of carbon, only fourteen per cent of volatile matter, and less than two per cent of ash. We have been asleep at the switch in not being able to supply coal from our own deposits there in the building of the Alaska highway I have been asking for two or three years that the railway and roadway on the north side of the Peace River should be extended westward as far as it can go, through to the sea. It has not been done, and that is the reason, I suppose, why coal had to be purchased in Seattle instead of being mined in northern British Columbia. There is, it is true, an indifferent kind of roadway through there as far as Gold Bar. I got over it myself. I believe that the contractors are improving it sufficiently to transport some coal to the Alaska highway from Bull Head mountain. But we should have been in a position to supply all that was required had we not been asleep at the switch. Here is one way to broaden our basis of taxation.
A word about Toronto. Last Saturday I tried to get coal there for some of my buildings, but I could not get any. I was told by a dealer that in 1939 there were 339 coal dealers
in Toronto-I speak from memory-that up to the beginning of this year the number had been reduced to 177, and that since the beginning of the present year fifteen more have gone out of business. In other words there are to-day, I assume, only 162 or more coal dealers, for the most part in a large way of business; most of the little fellows have been squeezed out. It is an outrage that these small dealers should be squeezed out of business. It is in line with what we have seen happening to the corner groceries; and everyone in this house knows what happened to the economy of our cities through chasing the corner grocer out of business. We must have the little coal dealer. It is because he is not to be found in Toronto in the numbers operating a few years ago that we cannot get deliveries. I believe there is an abundance of coal in the cities, but one cannot get it delivered. The sooner we get back to the small dealer in every line of business, the sooner this country will go forward.
I believe that people in eastern Canada should know more about the west. There is constantly in my mind the recollection of a trip I made from the city of Regina three years ago. Regina is the beautiful capital of what should be, and I hope will be, a province of smiling prosperity, but it has been so hard hit that it is scarcely possible to find language adequate to describe what its people have come through in the last few years. It is a province to which every one of us should be ready to contribute whatever he can to help it get back on its feet. I drove from Regina to Estevan, and all the way I was thinking of the late Hon. Gideon Robertson, how he told of his trip through that country in the depression days when he was minister of labour, and how the sights he saw broke his heart. I presume that the trip through those dried-out areas finally killed him. I shall never forget the fine houses and barns I saw as I was driving along the roads, but there was not a blade of grain growing. My heart did not break but it certainly bled for those people all the way through.
Then I drove north from Regina to a place called Cabri, north of Swift Current. There again I found, in a country that should have been productive, everything stripped. They had planted their grain hopefully, but at the time I was there they had no return. Therefore I am determined more than ever to do what I can do as an easterner to help that western country, no matter what the cost may be. The cost does not enter into my argument at all. Cost invested becomes a capital expenditure. When I think of what we are doing elsewhere to build up this country
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it seems to me that there is no reason whatever why we cannot help to build up the west. I see that in Quebec from $160,000,000 to $175,000,000 is being spent to build a power-plant, and rightly so. I am in favour of it. But there is no reason why we should not spend $75,000,000 to build power plants in the west too. In Ontario, under our hydro commission, we are using up to nearly 2,000,000 horse-power, and they are going to increase that by building a plant on the Ottawa river which will bring in another 400,000 horsepower. I am all for it. We have a wonderful commission in Ontario and it deserves unstinted praise not only from this province but from all of Canada. But why can we not do that for the west as well? We can, and I am going to appeal to every eastern member to support any sound programme which the government brings down that will build up the economy of the west through the development of power and other resources.
Since I made my address to this house on February 10 I have been literally swamped with letters from distinguished people, and many from old-timers and pioneers, which it was a delight for me to read. They are wonderful men. One of them must be ninety years of age, but he wrote me one of the finest letters I received supporting the argument I put up, and it was written in his own firm handwriting. That shows what the west does for a man-gives him strength even to a great old age. One gentleman came to see me. I am sorry I did not keep his name. He was interested in pulp manufacturing, and he asked me if what I had stated about northern Manitoba was a fact, that power could be produced on the Fairford river and at Meadow portage between lake Winnipegosis and lake Manitoba, if the Saskatchewan river were diverted. He told me that he was a scaler, that he had scaled all through that area around those lakes and lake St. Martin and the surrounding country, and that there was probably from ten to fifteen million cords of pulpwood in that area. Pulpwood lasts probably thirty to forty years before it rots and drops down. He asked me what I had seen of pulpwood in that area. I told him that I had seen a great deal of spruce. I told him about the possibilities of developments on the Fairford river through damming the Saskatchewan river at Flying Post and diverting its water, which would raise the water level of Cedar lake to 835 feet. Then divert it into lake Winnipegosis and lake Manitoba and lake St. Martin; in other words add the whole watershed of the Dauphin river to the Saskatchewan river watershed.
What would be the result of that? I pointed out to the gentleman who came to see me that

it would permit the storing of approximately 600 billion cubic feet of water, which would permit the Saskatchewan river water to produce power steadily 400,000 horse-power. That amount can be produced by taking the waters from these lakes and developing power first at Meadow portage, where from 60,000 to 75,000 horse-power could be developed because there is a difference of eighteen feet between the levels of lake Winnipegosis and lake Manitoba. Another 30,000 to 40,000 horse-power could be developed at Fairford because there is a difference of twelve feet between the levels of lake Manitoba and lake St. Martin. I hope I converted that gentleman to the possibilities of processing pulpwood there. He said that he could put up a pulpwood mill with a capacity of 200 tons of paper a day and the pulpwood around these lakes would keep that mill going in perpetuity. Is not that something? Why should we not do it? Why should we not assist the west in producing power in that area and developing our pulpwood resources? That is what we want in this country. We want production in a much greater way than ever before.	.


Mr. KUHL:: Where is the money coming from?
Mr. MaeNICOL: Get it in the same place that we get it to run the war. I said in the last depression that this country would find money to fight a war, and I argued strongly then that we should find the money to put men to work during the depression.


Walter Frederick Kuhl: You did not do it.
Mr. MaeNICOL: The money will come all right. I am not interested in my hon. friend's question as to where the money will come from.
Among others who commended the argument I made on February 10 was the Nipawin and District board of trade of Saskatchewan and I am very grateful to them for going to the expense of wiring me when a letter would have done. The wire reads:
Your efforts to have the Saskatchewan river utilized as a power project would be feasible and would produce an enormous amount of cheap energy. This board of trade appreciate your efforts and will support you. We are half way between Prince Albert and The Pas. We will assist you.
That is only one of many such that I have received, and I feel encouraged. I am always willing to help people who take an interest in their own affairs, and I will do all I can to help them get on their feet out there.
I also had a letter from a dear old gentleman, Mr. A. M. Mouat, who was at one time a factor with the Hudson's Bay company. He

The Budget-Mr. MacNicol
was very much interested in the programme of navigation on the Saskatchewan and he went to the trouble of sending me a picture of one of the boats that ran on the river when he was a factor in that country. The boat was called the North-West. It was not the picture I have here, but it was one like it. This picture came from another gentleman. There is a boat 202 feet long and 40 feet wide, with a draft of from three to four feet. That boat ran from the eighties until 1896 or later. Is that not proof positive that at one time .the river was navigable? It certainly was. What has happened since? Why is it not navigable to-day? I will explain that in a few moments.
Another gentleman sent me a picture of the Marquis. I was very much interested in that picture because when I was out west last summer my friend the member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) drove me down the river. He showed me the ribs of an old boat lying on the shore. They turned out to be the ribs of the Marquis, the boat on which the Toronto Royal Grenadiers went up the south branch of the river to the battle of Batoche on May 12,	1885. What a
panorama of history has come to me and to my office from those fine citizens who are thoroughly interested in the progress of their country. These pictures are clear evidence that at one time the river was navigable. I am firmly convinced that God made that river to be a great glory and benefit to the economy of the west, with power, navigation and water resources.
A word about water resources. The hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Gershaw) made a short time ago what I thought was a constructive speech with regard to irrigable land in southern Alberta. I am not going to talk about that now, but I concur in what he said, and I will add that the irrigable land can be doubled in area. I believe that the province is not using one-third of what it could use, and even if it were using all of it, the irrigable land can still be doubled in area if you have the water. My hon. friend spoke of storing some water in places suitable for reservoirs. There are many such suitable places, and I urge upon this government as strongly as I can that they have their engineers, in cooperation with Alberta engineers, make a careful survey of all the possible reservoirs in which mountain water that now flows through the Saskatchewan to the sea, doing little or nothing on its way, could be stored for use to double the irrigated land in Alberta. It is wonderful what can be grown on irrigated land which without irrigation is utterly useless.
I have a letter here on the letterhead of the Saskatchewan Historical Society, signed by George Shepherd. He writes a very good letter, supporting what I have said, and in conclusion he says:
My brother and I started in with cattle twelve years ago, 120 head of cattle and 40 areas of irrigated alfalfa kept our two families off relief during the bad years. To-day we have 200 head of white faces, much more irrigated land, are clear of debt. We are now paying a great deal of attention to crested wheat grass.
That in my judgment is a remarkable example of the results obtainable from irrigated land, though perhaps not as good as was read by the hon. member for Medicine Hat. The evidence is that where the land receiving about eighteen inches of water in the crop year, wonderful crops are raised.
We are a long way behind other countries in irrigation. I doubt if I have time to say anything about that, because I want to say a word about that country I went through, from Regina to Estevan. I have been in correspondence with a number of people who have written to me about diverting Saskatchewan river water at a place called River-hurst. I have made a good deal of inquiry into that. The Saskatchewan river should not be diverted unless the first part of the programme, namely, provision to store spring water in reservoirs is carried out first. There is plenty of water, but if you let it run down to the sea you cannot use it for irrigation.
An engineer has written me on a programme to dam the south Saskatchewan at River-hurst. I have not been there, so that I cannot talk as accurately as I should like, but I expect to be there next summer and look into it. But I have made inquiry from other engineers who confirm what this gentleman writes, namely, that a dam can be built there -that of course is an engineers problem. A dam two hundred feet high, which is not a high dam, would make a lake one hundred miles long containing 200 billion cubic feet of water, according to an engineer, sufficient to irrigate almost anything in Saskatchewan that you want to irrigate and to allow plenty of water to run down the river for the use of northern Manitoba. I am not a hydraulic engineer, and I cannot pass judgment on the details, but to build a dam there two hundred feet high and instead of pumping it over the height of land, which is only eight miles wide, boring a twenty-five foot tunnel, or two tunnels, so that the water could flow through by gravity, would be a boon to Saskatchewan. A twenty-five foot tunnel would take two thousand cubic second feet,
The Budget-Mr. MacNicol

flowing three miles an hour. Two such tunnels would provide ample water to irrigate a strip forty miles wide and seventy to one hundred miles long, all the way to Moose Jaw, and would put under cultivation land that was formerly cultivated, permitting thousands of people to settle there and develop that country. I feel sorry for that province, losing four members in the next parliament, all because its population has moved out. Give them a chance to come back.
Some one may say, what about the cost? I am not interested in the cost. It would be a capital expenditure. We can find ample money to fight a war; we can do something to keep our people on the land and help to build up the western provinces. I cannot see how we are going to hold this country together unless all the provinces are supported as they should be. I know that down east we spent not much less than $600 million on our canals and docks and dredging. So far as I can ascertain we have not done a thing for the three western provinces on this water question except the building of the St. Andrew's locks on the Red river, at a cost of perhaps $2,500,000. I doubt if the whole west, including British Columbia, has had $50 million spent on it. I am strongly in favour of our canals in the east and everything that may be required to keep them going, but I am also strongly in favour of giving the west a chance. If drilling through the height of land can be done, what a boon that would be. If that is not practicable the water could be pumped over the height of land. It would take several thousand horsepower, but the water is running there anyway.
I	see a grave problem in the west. I can see the whole of the west in the greatest danger unless some action is taken. I said a few minutes ago that up to five thousand cubic second feet can be taken out of the different rivers in Alberta that are the sources cf the south Saskatchewan to irrigate southern Alberta. I couple with that the restoration of the water by building reservoirs. What do we find to-day? Alberta can take but is not taking up to five thousand cubic second feet. Suppose it takes about three thousand; I believe about thirty per cent of the water going on the land for irrigation would be returned to the river. That would mean that perhaps 1,500 to 2,000 out of the five thousand feet would come back to the river. At present there is no replenishment from reser-

voirs as there should be. All over the world where they have large irrigation projects they have large reservoirs to restore the water. We should do the same thing; we should restore the water, and we could do it by building these reservoirs. In northern Manitoba I found all the lakes much below what should be their levels. A few years ago lake Manitoba, which is only one of the lakes forming the Dauphin river watershed, had a flow which formed a substantial river. In September of last year, however, I walked back and forth across the Fairford river at three different places without wetting the soles of my feet. I inquired as to why there was little water in the river, and the man who was guiding me replied that they had lowered the lake outlet. Of course that would be it; they lowered the reservoir, which was lake Manitoba. I also found in northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan a project under way to drain large marshes into the rivers.
So I come back to what I said on February 10. In my judgment it is imperative that this government set up a board of engineers, perhaps composed of its own engineers and those of the three western provinces, or whatever the government may decide, with authority to conserve water through the building of reservoirs, and to see to it that Alberta gets its fair share, that Saskatchewan gets a fair share and that Manitoba gets its share. What will happen if wTe do not do that? The river will lose its water, because each province will do what it likes with it. I suggest some sort of board like the Tennessee Valley Authority, which takes care of the Tennessee river for the seven states through which it runs. We could set up a board to take care of the whole water economy of the Saskatchewan river basin, and if the dominion were associated with it that would cut down the cost. Then we could develop reservoirs through navigation, at least for a goodly part of the route. In the old days the ships to which I have referred, the NorthWest, North Cote and Marquis, sailed up the river as far as Edmonton, I have a picture of the North-West unloading at the point where the town of Battleford now is located. That picture was taken somewhere around 1884. It does not show any buildings, but now Battleford has grown into quite a substantial town. The fact is that they did have navigation on that river, and I want to appeal to the government once more on behalf of western economy to do something at the earliest pos- . sible moment after the war to place the Saskatchewan river in proper condition. It may be that nothing can be done until after the war, but I repeat that in my judgment that river was given by God Almighty to be a

The Budget-Mr. Marshall
joy and a source of profit to the three western provinces. It is a great river, though its flow perhaps is not as great as it should be. It is over a thousand miles long, and at many points is a mile wide. Fortunately the spring floods occur during the growing season; and because that is so the river would not lose anything because of irrigation, since the surplus water would be available in any case. After the growing season the valves could be closed again and the water conserved. That is what they do at Grand Coulee dam and at Boulder dam, both of which are for power and conservation and irrigation.
I	do not know what else I can say, Mr. Speaker. I want to help the government if I can, though of course they may not want anyone to help them. I can only offer suggestions, in the hope that some time they may be listened to by the government as well as by the western members. I want members from the west to feel that in me they have a strong friend who is anxious to help them restore their economy. I want to do all I can for the western provinces, because I am convinced that anything we do for the west we do for all of Canada.


James Alexander Marshall: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make just one brief comment on the speech delivered early this afternoon by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley). It is this. The cost of living index has not gone up, but no one will deny that the cost of living has gone up and is still going up.
I	agree with the hon. member who has just taken his seat (Mr. MacNicol) that the government should make more use of the services and ability of members of this house. I feel that there are many ways in which we can serve to advantage in this war effort, but in my judgment the government is not availing itself of our services.
I never listen to a budget speech by a minister of finance without having my blood pressure go up anywhere from five to tw'enty-five points. This year when the minister concluded his speech with the Liberal slogan for 1943, "Work and save", I made this remark to my deskmate, the hon. member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Jaques): "If the people of Canada have not suffered enough under this unholy, unrighteous, debt-creating system, it is their God-given right to suffer some more." Perhaps I should thank the minister for having cancelled the payment of part of my income tax for the year 1942. Pressure lias been brought upon the government to have the taxes for that year cancelled in to to. That has not been done, but I understand that
fifty per cent is being cancelled. I think that is wrong, for this reason. We agreed to this tax in 1942; and if we believe that the system under which we are operating to-day is such a God-given system, then every single dollar the Minister of Finance can secure in order to run the war should be secured. However, there is still another aspect to this question. While part of my tax for 1942 has been cancelled, the debt which that money would have liquidated remains as a charge upon all the people of Canada for years to come, with at least three per cent interest added. In to-day's mail I received a letter from the chairman of the Alberta victory loan committee, asking me to take part in the forthcoming campaign. I just wonder what answer I should give to anyone who might ask me why I should go out looking for money and at the same time give my consent'to the cancellation of part of my income tax for the year 1942. It just does not make sense. We may be winning the war, but budgets of this nature make me feel we are losing the peace.
A discussion of the details of the budget is superfluous, because in my opinion it is based upon a false premise. That premise is that there is in circulation to-day in Canada only a limited amount of money, and that consequently we must budget for money. In peace time this falsity is not so easily detected, because ministers impress upon the people the suggestion that there is just enough money to go round to meet their various requirements. In war time however the situation is changed considerably. People begin to ask some awkward questions, such as the one asked by the hon. member who spoke immediately before me: Where will the money come from? That is the question we must face, and there is no use thinking we can sidestep it very much longer. Debts are growing at such an alarming rate and are reaching such huge proportions that the question must be faced. In peace time people do not bother about money problems, but in war they ask: where does it come from? Then they make the awkward suggestion that if we can get billions for destruction we surely can get a few millions for construction.
I do not wish at this time, however, to deal in greater length with the details of the present budget as it affects the nation. Rather I should like to make some observations respecting farmers' budgets, because I believe, they are as important as the national budget. I admit at the outset that to some extent the war has helped farmers, because they are getting better prices for many of their products. Some products still require price adjustment,

The Budget-Mr. Marshall
but I believe the farmer is receiving a fair price for some commodities. On the whole our farm policy has been a hit or miss policy.
First I should like to discuss the problem of farm help, because spring is approaching, and because a large percentage of the 1942 crop is still unthreshed. In my constituency a large number of men and women from the farms have volunteered for service in the active forces. I hope action will be taken to freeze on the farms the young men and women who are left, in order that they may assist in the 1943 operations.
Many farmers have come to me asking my advice, and I have told them they should organize into little groups which would meet together to plan out a policy ben'eficial to all. By so doing they would produce the greatest possible maximum effort, but I believe they will not reach anything like the amount the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) hopes to get in the coming season. I believe there will be a substantial decrease in production, because there is a limit to human endurance and effort beyond which even farmers cannot go.
The Minister of Agriculture is optimistic in his production programme for 1943. I do not share his optimism. The money which many farmers have obtained from the sale of products has been used by them to pay interest on loans, machine notes, bank loans, mortgage payments, and other accounts of the kind. Had the government formulated a policy which would have permitted these people to keep their money and plough it back, if I might use that expression, to increase their herds of cattle and their hogs, we might have been able to reach the amount of production for -which the minister hopes in 1943.
I would judge that from forty to sixty per cent of the crop is still under the snow in my part of the country. It is my opinion that threshing could have been completed before the snow came last fall, had a better policy been adopted. At the peak of the threshing season someone had the bright idea of bringing young men from Quebec to help in the harvesting. Some of them were only boys from the high schools and colleges. While they were willing and eager to do everything they could, and while one must admire their courage, the fact remains that they lacked practical experience and training. They went into the harvest fields and after a few days came back into the small villages, weary in body and soul, with their hands cut and bleeding. After resting a few days they would return to the fields and try it again, rather than allow the word to go back to

Quebec that they were quitters. An old hand at stooking and pitching bundles told me that last season was one of the toughest he had experienced. Yet someone asked these raw youths to step into the breach. It was just like sending inexperienced troops with bowrs and arrows against highly seasoned troops armed with machine guns. Someone blundered. I never heard of anyone being censured or dismissed. That is one thing that never occurs when bureaucracy is acting in a matter of that sort. The ironical part of the whole business is that we have an army training centre right in the heart of that farming community. In this centre were over 1,200 men, toughened by experience, and quite capable of helping in the harvesting of the crop. I have no doubt that if they had been allowed to assist in the work, that crop could have been saved within two weeks. I have not heard any sensible reason for not utilizing that man-power when our Canadian economy was jeopardized.
I have been a member of this house for the past seven years. Efforts have been made by members of all parties year in and year out; by every member of my own group, by every member of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and large numbers of Conservatives and Liberals, to get the government to take some sane step to solve the farm problem. We have not been able to persuade the government to do anything, and I think I am quite safe in saying that our efforts along these lines have been fruitless.
There are three questions I should like to ask and I hope to answer them before I conclude my remarks. First, who is to blame for these past muddles and mistakes? Second, why can we not find a sane, sound long-range policy for agriculture? Third, what is hindering the Minister of Agriculture? There seems to be something which prevents him from going forward.
The farmers of Canada have asked for parity prices. Why have they not received them? In the days before the war we were told that there was not enough money to carry through some of these proposals, but those days are gone. What in the name of common sense is preventing the farmers from attaining their desires? Two summers ago a petition was circulated by one of the farm organizations of Saskatchewan asking for parity prices. It was signed by more than 180,000 people in Saskatchewan and Alberta, including professional men and business men as well as farmers. The people formed themselves into little groups and elected representatives to bring the petition to Ottawa. Over 400 people

The Budget-Mr. Marshall
were elected and more than $40,000 was collected to pay their expenses. What was the result of the work done in those two provinces? My honest opinion is that there was no appreciable result.
Let us look at the situation for a moment to see why that was so. On the one hand we have the Minister of Agriculture with his very formidable array of advisers. These men and women are highly trained, they are efficient, they are expert in their particular lines of work. But they are trained to focus their minds on two phases of the one subject, that is, the problem of agriculture and the means whereby it can be financed. I believe that before the problem of agriculture can be solved the people who advise the Minister of Agriculture must forget completely and entirely the matter of finance and focus their whole attention upon the problem of parity prices. You cannot serve two masters; you cannot serve the farmer and the banker at the same time.
On the other side of the picture we have the farmer. Assisting him is a large number of farm organizations. I do not know just how many there are, but a few days ago I read in a western paper that at the recent debt conference in Saskatoon there were fourteen organizations represented. My own opinion of these various organizations is that they are inefficient, they are effete, they are lackadaisical and they love to bask in the light which shines from Parliament Hill. There are two notable examples of farm organizations with headquarters in Ottawa, and I have yet to hear of one noteworthy piece of work being done by them on behalf of the farmers of western Canada. The officials of these organizations meet in conference, they draw up resolutions which are embodied in briefs which with a great deal of publicity they present to the Minister of Agriculture and other members of the cabinet. They then go back to their offices and fall asleep for another twelve months.
What can be done about this situation? How can we as members of parliament and representatives of the people bring about a change of conditions? I think the whole trouble lies with the farmer himself. We shall have to be honest with ourselves and go back to the farmer and endeavour to have him see the situation in a different light. The first thing the farmer must do is to get rid of about nine-tenths of the farm organizations which are supposed to be working in his interest. In my judgment they are doing nothing of the sort. One good organization fully alive to the farmer's difficulties, fully conscious of his needs and problems, would be better than the whole host of organizations he has to-day.
I have in mind one particular organization, the Alberta Farmers' Union. This is a new organization which has sprung into existence during the last few months and is making tremendous strides in Alberta. It is creating considerable interest among the farmers. In my judgment the reason for its success is the fact that the officials keep very close to the farmer. This organization or any farm organization that is to succeed will have to adopt a different technique, what is known as pressure politics. I do not mean that they should align themselves with any particular party or political organization, because I do not think that would be in the best interests of the farmer or of the farm organization.
To come back to the problem which I set myself early in my speech when I spoke about the petition which was circulated in Saskatchewan. Why did a petition for parity prices, signed by 180,000 farmers, not produce the results for which it was designed? A simple answer to that question is, I think, that the wrong course of action was adopted. That petition should have been presented to every member of parliament. It should have been sent to him to read over carefully. Then, each member of parliament should have been summoned to a public gathering in his own constituency; he should have been asked to speak on the resolution to the people gathered at that public meeting; he should then have been asked if he would be prepared to support it on the floor of the House of Commons. Had the farmers of western Canada taken that course of action, they would have had approximately fifty-five members in this house demanding from the government day in and day out, that parity prices be given to the farmers. The member of parliament should have been told that he must not slacken his efforts until these demands had been met. He should have been told further to vote against the government, no matter whether he was a member of the Liberal party or not, until this demand had been met. Then would the elected representatives of the people be the real servants of the people who sent them to parliament.
Why do I speak in the way I have done? For this reason: year in and year out we have cajoled and pleaded with the government; we have threatened the government, but it does not seem to have had any effect. Consequently, this course of action having proved unsuccessful, w'e must change it. Many hon. members may think this is very elementary. But as I view the situation, hon. members must be aroused to their own perilous position. Representative democracy is being replaced by bureaucracy, and it is quite within
The Budget-Mr. Marshall

reason to expect that in a very short space of time parliamentary representatives can be dispensed with.
I had in mind to discuss other matters affecting the farmer. I wanted to say something about the debt problem, because I have had a very large number of letters from my constituents telling me of action taken by various mortgage companies, and of their eagerness to foreclose. I think I shall have to leave this matter until the government have arrived at a decision as to what they intend to do about the question of debt.
There is also the question of a ceiling on mortgages, particularly with respect to interest, I do not think the amount charged should be more than three per cent.
I should like the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), when he comes to deal with these questions, to give us some idea as to the situation which developed last summer with respect to the beef muddle. I understand that a food corporation was set up by the wartime prices and trade board, that it functioned very satisfactorily and to the benefit of the farmers, but that for some reason best known to the wartime prices and trade board and to the government, the food corporation was told to buy no more cattle, and was also relieved of the financing of the difference between export and domestic prices. Since this is a subject which affects the farmers directly I hope the minister will give us a complete outline of what actually took place last summer.
One hon. member, in referring to the budget, said that if it had been broadcast it would have given the people of Canada inspiration. I do not know what inspiration a person can get when the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) comes along and takes from him a considerable portion of his pay envelope. I see no inspiration in action of that kind. To-day we suffer from the popular delusion that the financial system is a gift from God beyond the power of man to augment, circumscribe or replace. In 1940, that year we all remember so well, when the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) called a snap election, I enunciated what I considered to be the four major tasks of any government elected in Canada. They were these:
1.	To ensure that no productive undertaking in Canada was short of credit to develop its enterprise.
2.	To take the necessary measures to guarantee an adequate supply of raw materials for war purposes-which it can do quite easily by withdrawing supplies from the market, or by rationing.
3.	To regulate prices so that they are made up solely of genuine costs plus agreed profits, profiteering being impossible.

4.	To ensure that goods which are produced are never lacking a purchaser because the public has insufficient money to buy them.
I wish to deal particularly with No. 4.
On February 23, I placed upon the order paper two questions dealing with the operations of the wartime prices and trade board. Question No. 1 was:
What financial arrangements have been made by the wartime prices and trade_ board with the chartered banks for the handling of ration coupons under order effective March 1, 1943?
Question No. 2 was:
When will the government issue coupons covering rationed commodities which will be a claim for goods without the limiting financial factors?
I desired to find out how far the government had actually gone on the road to a sane, sensible form of rationing. Here are the answers I got, which show just how stupid and asinine a bureaucracy can be at times. The answer to question No. 1 is as follows:
The ration administration of the wartime prices and trade board has arranged with the chartered banks that they shall be reimbursed for the handling of ration coupons on a cost basis. The formula for deriving this cost figure will be worked out between the banks' accountants and the comptroller of the wartime prices and trade board.
Surely that is not giving very much information with respect to the agreement which had been reached between the chartered banks and the board.
Here is the answer to No. 2:
This question relates to a matter of policy and it is not .the practice of the government to disclose policy in giving answers to questions.
Rationing arrangements should provide for a special board to secure for everybody at least the necessities of life. So far as essential goods are concerned, the ration coupons should not only be the title to purchase such goods but also be accepted in payment of the purchase price. This would ensure that no person would be deprived of his fair share of essential goods by reason of inability to pay for them. It would lower the cost of living, and thus strike at the vicious spiral of rising prices and rising wages. It would ensure a better distribution of the basis of a healthy diet. Such an arrangement would, after the war, be capable of further sensible development.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Finance one or two questions with respect to his slogan for 1943. My first question is with reference to work.
If work for all is wanted; if all want work, as we are constantly being told, and if food, clothing and shelter cannot be obtained except

The Budget-Mr. Douglas (Weybum)
in exchange for work, how is it that 1 he provision of unlimited work entails sacrifice for all?
My other two questions have to deal with that part of his slogan which urges us all to save. We are told that the correct thing to do with money to-day is to save it because that prevents inflation. Am I correct, therefore, in assuming that if everybody saves and nobody buys anything, then there is plenty of everything for everybody, although of course they cannot have it?
My next question is this. If I have to save to pay my income tax, how much must I have to spend so that my grocer can pay his income tax? If I have to save so that more money can be spent for war materials, how much must I spend so that the trade of our country can be saved?
I had intended dealing with the question of taxation, particularly the taxation of the chartered banks. On page 70 of the Public Accounts there is an interesting table. It shows that in 1916 there was placed upon the chartered banks a tax amounting to $1,300,000. But if hon. members will examine that table carefully, they will notice that the tax has been gradually decreasing from .year to year, as follows:
1938-	39	
$1,014,0001939-	40	
949,0001940-	41	
898,0001941-	42	
786,0001942-	43	
690,000
I suggest to the Minister of Finance that if he wants to find a source of revenue, here is a splendid source which he can tax. Here we have a powerful institution which creates, controls and destroys the blood stream of our country, which calls all money and credit into existence, which never possessed any physical assets in the beginning but to-day spreads its web all over the country. Yet we find that taxation has not been increased on this institution, although it has been increased on every other institution and upon everybody else in Canada. Perhaps the Minister of Finance will give me some enlightenment on this when he speaks again in this debate. I had other things to say, Mr. Speaker, but I leave them for another time.


Mr. T. G. DOUGLAS (Weybum):: Mr. Speaker, during the eight sessions that I have been attending this house I have studiously avoided indulging in theoretical and abstract discussions. I have tried as much as possible to devote myself to whatever legislation was before the house and to avoid general discussion. This afternoon I propose to depart from that practice. The reason is 72537-91
that ever since this session opened there has been a concerted campaign by the capitalist groups in this house, and by the capitalist press outside it, to launch a storm of vilification and abuse at the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. Scarcely a member has risen from either of the old-line parties who did not at some time or another in his speech refer to this group, not by its proper name, but as the "Socialist party." We have heard one speaker after another depicting the horrors of dictatorship, regimentation, bureaucracy, and the loss of democracy that would occur should the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation be elected to power in the Dominion of Canada.
To those of us who have been associated with that movement ever since its inception, it is interesting, looking back over the years, to see the bogey-men which have been trotted out and to realize that to-day some of these bogey-men are being advocated and endorsed by both the major political parties in this country. I can remember some of the social security measures that were advocated by this group-unemployment insurance, health insurance, lowering the age for old age pensions and raising the amount of the pension. I remember some of the speeches that were made in which we were told that social security legislation would lessen the incentive to thrift and remove private initiative. But to-day the old-line parties are vying with each other in telling the people how sympathetic they are toward measures of social security. I remember the bogeyman of economic planning that was trotted out. I remember a speech made by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) in my own constituency in which he told the people that economic planning meant that they would have to telephone the city of Regina to see what they could sow in the south field. Well, this government, under the pressure of war, has been compelled to do some economic planning. It is true it is not the kind of economic planning which we had in mind. It has been haphazard planning. It has been planning from the top and not from the bottom, whereas the planning we wanted was planning in which the farmers and the workers would have some voice both in the planning and in the carrying out of the plan. But this government has been compelled at last to do some economic planning.
I remember the old bogey-man that was trotted out in Saskatchewan in 1934, and one which was very hard to answer. They said that if the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation were elected in Saskatchewan there

1440	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Douglas (Weybum)
would be no more elections. All you can do with a whispering campaign like that is to deny it. The people were afraid. The strange anomaly is that to-day in both Saskatchewan and Ontario there are Liberal governments seeking to cling to office long after they have lost the confidence of the people. I remember in the 1938 provincial election in Saskatchewan the slogan whispered from door to door in some non-English speaking districts was, "If the C.C.F. get in they will close the church." We do not hear that now. I was through some non-English speaking districts this fall, and the story has changed. The story now is, "if the C.C.F. get in they will close the beer parlours." Apparently it was estimated that there is moire sympathy for the beer parlours than for the churches, so that the story has been changed.
A few years ago the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation was not mentioned on the public platform without associating it with communism; we were accused of being communists. We do not hear that now, since the magnificent fight put up by the Russian people. Instead of that, the bogeyman now is to say that the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation is fascist. The hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) the other day-I am sorry he is not in his seat at the moment; I never like firing ammunition unless I can see the whites of their eyes-said that this was national socialism and that national socialism led to fascism. Surely the hon. member knows current history better than that. He must know that the National Socialist party of Germany headed by Adolf Hitler was not built by the common people of Germany; it was built by powerful industrialists and financiers of Germany, in order to break the socialist movement. If we ever get a fascist party in this country it will be that kind of people who will be supporting it, not the common people. The fact is that Hitler put the term "socialist" in the title of his party for the purpose of deceiving the people. If he had told the people that the National Socialist party of Germany was organized for the purpose of taking away their economic and political democracy, he would have had no support. Therefore he used the terminology of the socialists and put the name "socialist" in his title. There are many people in Canada to-day who consider that the word "progressive" has been put in front of the word "Conservative" for very much the same purpose.
This old bogeyman having been pretty well laid, a new bogeyman is being trotted out. We are being told the Cooperative Common-

wealth Federation means socialism, means regimentation, means loss of democracy. The hon. member for Swift Current (Mr. Graham), as reported at page 1171 of Hansard, said:
What he proposes as a cure for a situation which we all agree must not exist is to remove the paramount authority, namely, the government or a free parliament . . .
The hon. member for York-Sunbury not only accuses us of wanting to take away democracy but asks other hon. members to join with the two old parties who call for the return to private enterprise. It is a good thing to stop sometimes and clarify our terms. What is private enterprise? The hon. member for York-Sunbury suggests that all that we have that is good in modem civilization we owe to private enterprise. He said, as reported at paage 1358 of Hansard:
It is private enterprise which has built up and improved our economic system ever since the advent of the Christian era.
I suggest that the hori. gentleman may be a good corporation lawyer, but he is slipping badly in his history. The capitalist system did not produce the machine age; the machine age produced the capitalist system. Tire material prosperity that the world has enjoyed for the last seventy-five or one hundred years has been due to the introduction of power; steam power, then electric power and the internal combustion engine. The capitalist system or the free enterprise system-the terms are synonymous and interchangeable - was the product of the power age. The capitalist system did not produce the power age.
What is this free enterprise system? It is the law of the jungle applied to economics. It is the law of every man for himself, as the elephant said when he was dancing among the chickens. That is not a bad philosophy if, like the hon. member for York-Sunbury, you happen to be in the elephant class, but it is likely to be depressing if you are a farmer or a worker, and belong in the chicken group. Free enterprise means unrestricted competition; the race to the swift and the battle to the strong; nature red in tooth and claw.
These men talk about going back to private enterprise. We have never left it. We have had in Canada both the major line parties in power administering a system of private enterprise or free enterprise. What has been the result? We saw the fruits of that free enterprise system from 1929 to 1939. The people of Canada will not forget that. The free enterprise system produced the growth of monopolies on the one hand and poverty on the other, until the time has come in Canada when

The Budget-Mr. Douglas (Weyburn)
a small handful of bankers control our financial system. Two packing houses control eighty-six per cent of all the country's packing and processing business, and consequently they control the prices which the farmer shall receive for his live-stock products. One large firm and three smaller firms control the entire farm implement industry on the north American continent and are able to set the price that the farmer will pay, and that price is always consistently higher than the price he receives for his products. This free enterprise system produced, for ten years in this country, a state of affairs in which we had about a million people on relief, a million people who were ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-housed. When the war came we were shocked to find, as Mr. Thorson, the then Minister of National War Services said, that forty-six per cent of the men called were rejected because that depression had left physical and psychological scars which will never be erased from that generation.
Does anyone think that the farmers have forgotten that free enterprise gave them loans when wheat was $2 to 82.50 a bushel and then sought to collect payment when wheat was 23 cents a bushel; that it piled up debts upon them that they and their children and their children's children will never be able to pay? It made thousands of people hewers of wood and drawers of water and recipients of relief. Some of the young men who are flying over Germany or standing guard on the coasts of Britain or who took part in Dieppe are the same young men who rode the rods and waited in the bread lines. If the hon. member for York-Sunbury thinks that these young men are coming back to return to the .free enterprise system that crushed the life out of them for ten years, I would tell him that he is mistaken. Three or four times in the course of his speech he said: Beware of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation; they want to destroy things as they are. We do not want to destroy things as they are; we want to change things as they are, and to make sure we shall never go back to things as they were. The other day- the hon. member for York-Sunbury stood in his place calling upon the old-line parties to support free enterprise. He reminded me of nothing so much as King Canute bidding the waves go back. But they will not go back, Mr. Speaker. If the Progressive Conservative party wants to board the ship of "back to normalcy" and nail the flag of free enterprise to the masthead, it can do so; but I should like to tell hon. members that if they do this their ship will founder on the rocks 72537-9H r
of progress and will sink forever into the sea of political oblivion.
Let us now turn to this thing called socialism. Many of the people who talk about socialism have never taken the trouble to read an authoritative work on the subject. Webster defines "socialism" as:
A political and economic theory of social organization based on collective or governmental ownership and democratic management of the essential means for the production and distribution of goods; also, a policy or practice based on this theory. Socialism aims to replace competition by cooperation, and profit-seeking by social service; and to distribute economic and social opportunity more equitably than they are now believed to be distributed.
A simpler definition, and the one which Norman Thomas has given, is:
Socialism is the form of society in which the means of production, distribution and exchange are socially owned and democratically managed in the interest of all the people rather than
for the benefit of a few.
The socialists believe first of all that we must recognize the fact that in the last century the common people have become divorced from the means of production. With the development of power machinery the weaver left his loom, the blacksmith left his anvil and the carpenter left his bench. They went to work in the great factories; and as someone has said, "he who controls the means by which I live controls me". As the free enterprise system has developed, more and more the worker or the farmer has had less and less to say about the price of things he buys or of the things he has to sell. How much has the average farmer to-day to say about the price he will pay for goods in the stores? They are all set by the chain stores or cartels. How much has the farmer to say about the shipping and marketing of his produce, the price he will pay for farm implements, or the interest on his mortgage? We believe that increasingly the common people have become wage and price slaves.
What is the solution of the situation? We believe it can be summed up in tw'o words: social ownership. There has been some criticism because we do not use the term "socialism". I have no objection to using the word, provided that the man who uses it knows what he means by it. It is an all-inclusive term. There are many kinds of socialism: Marxian socialism, utopian socialism, syndicalist socialism, guild socialism, and the Cooperative Commonwealth form of socialism. We use a specific term because we believe that in the Cooperative Commonwealth form of socialism we have found that synthesis which is so essential between economic planning on the one hand and the retention of individual
1U2	. COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Douglas (Weyburn)
responsibility and individual initiative on the other hand. The other day the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Ward) said we had only two choices, either government ownership or free enterprise. We do not agree; we do not think we are restricted to those two choices. We believe in social ownership, which does not always mean government ownership. I think that should be made clear; government ownership is only one form of social ownership. Social ownership is any form of ownership in which people collectively own certain facilities for production, distribution and exchange.
Therefore we place social ownership in four categories. First, there are those things which we believe should come under the ownership of the federal government. In the forefront of those we place our financial institutions, the central bank and chartered banks, because we believe that is fundamental; then our transportation systems, communications, key industries and monopolies. Just here may I pause to emphasize the fact that this group has never advocated government ownership of any industry in which there is sufficient competition, but advocates government ownership only of those industries which have become monopolistic in character. We agree with the statement contained in the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, written by Pope Leo Xm, that "anything which dominates the life of the community should be owned by the community. ' That is the basis upon which we believe there should be government ownership of monopolistic enterprises.
Then we believe there are other enterprises which ought to come under provincial governments, such as the development of hydro electric power, the development of natural resources and things of that kind.
The third category would include those facilities which can be best owned and operated by the municipalities. There are many examples of these, such as the distribution of milk, which has been attempted in some places, and other forms of our economic process which could be beneficially owned and operated by the municipalities.
Then there is the fourth form of social ownership, namely, cooperative ownership, which we believe to be the most important of all, hence the name "Cooperative Commonwealth". In that form of ownership the people actually engaged in a certain phase of our economic life would themselves own, operate and control it. In that way we would avoid bureaucracy and give to the individuals vitally concerned the responsibility for using their own initiative and developing their own economic processes.
{Mr. T. C. Douglas.]
The other day I noticed that the hon. member for Swift Current said that he saw a certain fuzziness of mind in the members of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. I would not think that hon. member would object to anyone having a woolly head, but on one point he must have been a little fuzzy himself; as a matter of fact I wondered if the hon. member had ever read the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation programme. If he did I am sure he did not understand it, or if he understood it certainly he was misrepresenting it the other day, because this is what he said, as reported at page 1172 of Hansard:
The hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright)
. . . makes the mistake of thinking that his party is identified with the growth of cooperative enterprise. Let me say to him that I am at least a sincere friend and proponent of cooperative enterprise. . . . But the truth is that if you adopt socialism, or centre the industry of this country under government control, you do away with the need of cooperative enterprise.
I wonder if the hon. member for Swift Current ever heard of Sweden. Has he ever read Marquis W. Childs' book "Sweden-the Middle Way", a country in which they have had successive socialist governments, and in which cooperatives are more highly developed than in any other country? Has he ever heard of New Zealand or Australia, both of which have labour governments with programmes almost identical with that of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation? And in those countries the cooperative movement has been highly developed. Has he ever heard of Great Britain, where cooperatives had their birth, and where the cooperative movement found that free enterprise did everything possible to throttle it, and was finally compelled to take political action by becoming affiliated with the labour party?
We in the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation not only do not want to destroy democracy; we want the people of Canada to use their political democracy. We treasure our political democracy as one of our greatest legacies. We want our people to use political democracy to gain economic democracy. Lincoln once said that "no nation can long survive half slave and half free". We believe no nation can survive politically free but economically enslaved. Either we must use the political freedom we have to gain economic freedom, or we may do as the German and Italian peoples did, namely, be in danger of losing even the political freedom we now enjoy.
Having said that about cooperatives, may I turn to the record of the Liberal party with

The Budget-Mr. Douglas (Weyburn)
regard to cooperatives. The hon. member for Swift Current said he was a true and sincere friend of cooperative enterprise. Well, he may be, but the party he supports certainly has not given much evidence of it.
Let me give just three illustrations. About ten years ago the farmers in Saskatchewan built their own skimming plant. In that skimming plant they could use only light crude oil. They began to produce tractor fuel in the city of Regina. What happened? The next budget brought down by the Liberal government-and the minister of finance at the time was Mr. Dunning-placed a duty of one cent a gallon on light crude oil; and the point of specific gravity at which they made the duty payable was exactly the point below which the skimming plant in Regina could not operate. They could not use a heavier crude. But the heavy crude oil used by the big oil companies which had cracking plants continued to come into this country duty-free. That duty cost the cooperatives in the neighbourhood of $25,000 a year, until they built their own cracking plant. Then, when they finally built their cracking plant one of the first things to happen was that the oil controller cut them down to 400 barrels a day, despite the fact that their capacity was 1,500.
I believe they now have had their quota increased to 900 barrels a day.
Let me give another illustration of how this government has treated the cooperatives. For two years we have had allocation of cars on the prairies on the basis of permanent storage. The wheat pools have built annexes capable of handling millions of bushels of wheat, but the cars have been allocated on the basis of permanent storage, no consideration at all being given to temporary storage which has been built. The result is this: There may be four elevators in a town; the pools may be doing fifty per cent of the business, and the other three combined doing only fifty per cent. Each, however, will get an equal number of cars, with the result that thousands upon thousands of farmers who have been members of the wheat pool organization since it began operations have been compelled in the last two years to take their grain to the line elevator companies, with whom their farmer-owned organization is in competition.
Let me take a third example of the way in which this government has treated the cooperative movement. I refer to the decision of the government to tax the wheat pools in western Canada. I think most hon. members will recall that in 1930, on the eve of a general election, the Liberal government amended the Income War Tax Act so as to
make cooperative organizations exempt from taxation. Two years ago a campaign was started by a number of eastern papers, principally the Financial Post and Canadian Business, and later taken up by the Winnipeg grain exchange. For two years these papers and the organization I have mentioned, in season and out of season have demanded to know why the wheat pools are not paying excess profits tax or income tax.


Mr. GIBSON:: They asked if they were cooperatives.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Yes, it is the same thing. They asked why the pools were not paying these taxes. Article after article, editorial after editorial asked that question, until finally the government has yielded to the pressure, and the wheat pools are to be taxed. They are to be assessed for taxation under the Income War Tax Act and the Excess Profits Tax Act. Of course they will be allowed to dispute the matter in court. They will have an opportunity of being put to that expense. But I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that if the government were as sympathetic to the welfare of cooperatives as the hon. member for Swift Current would have us believe, all it would have to do is amend the Income War Tax Act so as to make sure that the exemption covers the wheat pools-if the Department of Justice feels they are not now covered by the act as it stands.


Colin William George Gibson: In other words, to make them cooperatives.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The term "cooperatives" could quite easily be defined so as to cover them, because they are cooperatives.


Mr. DONNELLY:: I will tell the hon. member about it.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: You have told a lot of people about things, but they were not impressed-and sometimes they have found out that what you told them was not right.


Thomas F. Donnelly: Sometimes you are not right, either.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The wheat pools, and the farmers who belonged to them, have never objected to paying taxes; they have never asked for special privileges. But what they have pointed out is that the proceeds, commonly called "patronage dividends," are not dividends in the ordinary sense of the word. They are not returns paid to a man who has invested his money in shares, and who may never see a bushel of wheat. These patronage dividends are in effect savings; they
1444	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Douglas (Weyburn)
are the savings which have come back to the people who own and patronize these marketing and storage facilities.


Colin William George Gibson: Does the hon. member suggest that the wheat pools, to which he is referring, come under the exemption granted in the Income War Tax Act, and that they qualify as not dealing with more than 20 per cent from non-members.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I contend that they are cooperatives and that they do come under the exemption. The minister says that they take grain, but they are compelled by the board of grain commissioners to take grain. As a matter of fact, I know that in order to retain their identity as cooperatives and benefit by this exemption the pools have offered to turn over to the government the money they have made by doing work for non-pool members. The government says to the pools, "You must take grain." Then they turn round and say, "Because you take grain, you can no longer be considered to be a bona fide cooperative organization," and they begin to levy taxes. I have been told by those who ought to know that if this assessment is made and the tax levied and made retroactive, it will cost the wheat producers of western Canada in the neighbourhood of $5,000,000. That is a tragic situation.
I ask the western members, particularly those who support the government, what they are going to do about it. If this assessment goes through and these taxes are levied, every cooperative organization in Canada from the prairies to Antigonish may be threatened.


Colin William George Gibson: There are no grounds for that statement.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: It is only the beginning. This clause exempting cooperatives has been on the statute books since 1930 and it is only being challenged now. The same people who have challenged it in the press, in season and out of season, will begin to find other forms of economic pressure that can be brought to bear upon the cooperative movement in this country. The time has come when the cooperatives must know who are for them and who are against them. If the hon. member for Swift Current and those who sit with him are, as they say, true friends and proponents of cooperative enterprise, we shall be glad to see them on their feet saying something about taxing cooperatives rather than spending their time in attacking the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in this house. We want more than lip-service.
The cooperatives will expect the Liberal members in this house to oppose this measure.

I want to tell them here and now that I know of no better way to have trouble in western Canada than for the government to proceed with this proposal. I want to tell them that before this session is over, we will give them an opportunity to cast their votes on this issue in order to show whether they stand with the cooperatives or with those who are seeking to destroy the cooperative movement in this country. We in the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation believe that the cooperative movement is the basis of economic democracy. We have never advocated regimentation or bureaucracy or state socialism; what we have asked for is that the common people, the workers and the farmers, should have an opportunity of owning, controlling and operating the facilities by which they live. We believe that the common people want that. We believe that the tide is running in, that all the reactionary cries of "Beware of the C.C.F." will not turn it back. I can think of no better words to sum up our position than those of Edwin Markham when he said:
Clear the way, then, clear the way,
Blind creeds and kings have their day.
Move the dead branches from out the path; Our hope is in the aftermath.
Our hope is in heroic men,
Star-led to build the world again.
To this event all ages ran;
Make way for Brotherhood, make way for Man.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Thomas F. Donnelly: I listened with a great deal of interest this afternoon to the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) speaking on the subject of prairie farm rehabilitation. I want to thank him for his kind remarks. I remember that in 1933 or 1934, rising from my seat a little to the rear, I referred to the necessity of making a survey of southern Saskatchewan in order to find out whether it should be farmed or not. I then advised the government of the day, which was led by Mr. Bennett, that if they decided that that section of the country was not fit to be farmed, the inhabitants should be moved out, and that if they decided that it was fit to be farmed they should show the farmers how to farm the land. The result was that the next year the government of the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett let a contract for two dams in the southern section, one at Eastend, I believe, and the other at Valmarie; and from that has grown up what is known as prairie farm rehabilitation. It has done a great

The Budget-Mr. Donnelly
work; it has been expanding and has expanded until we now have a great system of small dams and small dug-outs throughout Saskatchewan, helping farmers to raise stock by providing them with plenty of water.
The hon. member for Davenport wanted to know what he could do to help the government to hurry through with its programme of business. Well, I have been here the same length of time, namely thirty-seven days, as he has this session, and this is the first occasion on which I have made a speech. If the hon. member would do the same as I have done we should get through much quicker and transact a great deal more business. I believe that he has spoken six or seven times this session. If I take up forty minutes in the thirty-seven days I have been here, I shall have just about occupied all the time to which any one member is entitled. But if certain hon. members speak for forty minutes seven or eight times in the session, of course it takes a long time and the business does not go very fast.
I listened to the speech of the hon. membei for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) this afternoon. He seems to have a word on his mind which has been there for a number of years and which to-day he used continually. I refer to the word " bogeyman." He must have used it nine or ten times to-day. I wonder whether he remembers that he also used it away back in 1937. At that time we were trying to get some estimates for national defence through the house, but we had great difficulty in doing so. Let me quote from what the hon. member said at that time, to show that, as things turned out, he was not blessed with much of the prophetic spirit. As reported in Hansard of February 19, 1937, at page 1063, he said:
Against whom are we arming? What potential aggressor is more aggressive to-day? Oh, I know that bogeymen have been trotted out in this chamber. It has been suggested that it might be Italy, it might be Germany, it might be Japan.
What a prophet!


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Keep on
reading.


Thomas F. Donnelly: Yes, " keep on reading." I will read the rest some other time. I wonder whether the hon. member will prove to be any more correct with regard to this "bogeyman" of socialism than in his prophecy that there was no danger of war. We only wish that he had been a real prophet at that time, and that there had been no war. It is too bad for this country and for all the world that he was not a better prophet than he turned out to be. That is all I need say about that at the present time.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I ask the hon. member to read the rest of what I said.


Thomas F. Donnelly: The hon. member can read it in his spare time.


Mr. CASTLEDEN:: Are you afraid to
read it?


Mr. REID:: It is just the same kind of doctrine that we heard in 1937.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The time you were shipping munitions to Japan.


Thomas F. Donnelly: The hon. member for Weyburn made a speech a while ago and made a mess of it. Why does he not give me a chance? What kind of animal is it that does a lot of chattering?
Why are the members of that group so afraid of this word "socialism"? Out in our section of the country they are not a bit scared of it; they tell us, "That is just what we want. We are going down east and we are going to tackle these big shots, and take away their business and run it." Oh, they will come here and run all the big business in eastern Canada. I have in my hand a copy of a handbook which is distributed among the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation candidates running in Saskatchewan. It was compiled as the report of a conference held in Saskatoon and Regina on January 7 and February 11, 1933. This is what they say is their objective:
The social ownership of all resources and the machinery of wealth production to the end that we may establish a cooperative commonwealth in which the basic principle, regulating production, distribution and exchange, will be the supplying of human needs instead of the making of profits.


An hon. MEMBER:: What is wrong with that?


Thomas F. Donnelly: Socialization of the banking, credit and financial system of the country, together with the social ownership, development, operation and control of utilities and natural resources.
Everything in the heavens above and the earth beneath and the waters under the earth.
I quote further:
Q. "Does this political party consider that the objective so stated gives us a mandate to bring into operation socialism if elected?"
A. "Yes."
Then they find fault because we say they are socialists. I do not know why they should do so.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: We do not find fault.
The Budget-Mr. Donnelly


Thomas F. Donnelly: Again, in his speech the hon. member referred to the fact that free enterprise in the nineteendhirties brought the people out there to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, put them in debt so they would never get out, and so on. I live right beside the hon. member; my constituency borders on, his. It was not any legislation which caused this condition; it was because we had no crops. When they spoke of "poverty in the midst of plenty" in those times, my people used just to laugh, because the only plenty we had in those days was plenty of dust, plenty of wind, and plenty of poverty; there were no crops at all. Let me here acknowledge the wonderful way in which we were treated in those times of depression and famine by easterners, and by both governments. Liberal and Conservative administrations alike used us well, and we were thankful and grateful to them for what they did, because at that time it was an act of God with which we were confronted; we had no crops whatever. To say that such conditions arose as a result of free enterprise or some policies which were adopted at that time-well, it is ridiculous.
Let us now see what a better authority than the hon. member for Weyburn says. I have here a copy of a report of the Searle Grain company quoting from a speech of the Hon. Sumner Welles. In an address he made in New York on October 7, 1941, this is what he said was the cause of our trouble in, the 'thirties:
Many foreign countries, which had not recovered from the shock of our tariff increases in 1921 and 1922-
That is, tariff increases in the United States.

and were tottering on the brink of economic and financial collapse, were literally pushed into the abyss by our tariff action of 1930. Throughout the world this withering blast of trade destruction brought disaster and despair to countless people.
The resultant misery, bewilderment, and resentment, together with other equally pernicious contributing causes, paved the way for the rise of those very dictatorships which have plunged almost the entire world into war.
The report continues:
It merely requires to be added that Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and the Argentine, rapidly followed the example of the United States with similar high tariffs and with other obstructions to trade, and that the example then spread to almost every country in the *world.
This is the cause of the depression in the 'thirties as given by Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles.

I want to refer only to one other statement, because if I were to answer all the piffling remarks which the hon. member made here, it would take up all my time, and I wish to go on with my own speech. He refers to the fact that the Liberal government put a tariff of one cent a gallon on light crude oil coming in from the United States. I happen to know something about that. Years ago I had something to do with the' investigation concerning gasoline, if I remember rightly.


Ernest Edward Perley: We all remember that.


Thomas F. Donnelly: The Budget-Mr. Donnelly


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: It is owned by the farmers. Does the hon. member want an answer to his question?


Thomas F. Donnelly: You made a mess of your own speech; now sit down. I have here the second annual report of the board of directors-


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I rise to a point of order. Is the hon. member allowed to ask rhetorical questions?


Thomas Vien: The hon. member asks whether the rules permit the asking of rhetorical questions. All I would say is that there is no rule of tit-for-tat in this house.


Thomas F. Donnelly: I wish to refer to something that has happened to myself and several others in Saskatchewan in regard to this cooperative elevator matter. When the Saskatchewan cooperative elevators started, in order to build elevators, they took two cents a b-ushel from all the people who gave them wheat to handle, and they took over S6.000.000 for a reserve fund, amounting in all to about eighteen to nineteen million dollars. At that

The Budget-Mr. Donnelly
time they promised us that they would pay interest on it at six per cent. I have here an extract from the second annual report of the Saskatchewan Cooperative Wheat Producers Limited, dated October 12, 1926, at page 6:
The deduction of two cents per bushel for acquiring elevator facilities as provided under the growers' contract amounted, as a result of last season's operations, to $2,751,765.91. Of this amount the sum of $2,000,000 was turned over to Saskatchewan Pool Elevators Limited to apply on the purchase of the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator Company's system, and the balance for the extension of the pool elevator system in other directions. The pool holds stock in the pool elevator company for these amounts plus last year's elevator deductions used in acquiring and constructing elevators.
An account has been opened for each grower crediting him with the full amount of the deductions made out of his deliveries, and it has been decided that such deductions will, subject to the earning capacity of the pool elevator system, bear interest at the rate of six per cent per annum. Interest will be paid in cash at the end of the contract period, when a certificate of beneficial interest, covering the total deductions in each grower's account will also be issued.
They paid that for a few years, but they have not paid any since 1929. They pay no interest on their capital; they are paying no income tax, and they have taken in S18,000,000. It would be a queer thing if they did not prosper. I should like a little of that $18,000,000 myself. Thus we have this company that has taken all this money out of the pockets of the farmers of western Canada, paying no interest on it and paying no income tax, saying, " Boy, we are great business men." What a company! And they call themselves cooperatives.
Then the other evening I believe it was the hon. member for Yorkton (Mr. Castleden) who referred to the fact that we had interlocking directorates in some of our banks of eastern Canada, that certain men were the directors of banks and of other companies. That was a crime; that was almost an unforgivable sin to the people over in that corner. It is all wrong when it is down east, but it is all right when it is out west. I hold in my hand the annual report of the Saskatchewan Pool Elevator company, and as I look over it I find that the same men are directors of Saskatchewan Cooperative Wheat Producers Limited, Modern Press Limited, Saskatchewan Pool Elevators Limited, Saskatchewan Pool Terminals Limited, and so on. They take a few men from Saskatchewan, a few from Alberta and a few from Manitoba, and make them directors of the Canadian Cooperative Wheat Producers Limited and the Canadian Pool Agencies Limited. It is the same thing; these are interlocking directorates, but it is all right out there.
My time is almost gone, Mr. Speaker. I had intended to deal with many other matters, but I should like to mention just one other thing in passing. I notice that our hon. friends in the corner to my left have a tendency to compare everything that happens in this country with what is done in Australia and New Zealand. For instance, at the present time we have before a committee of the house this question of social insurance, and we find the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation group viewing the whole business with suspicion. I do not know whether he is suspicious of the legislation or of the members of the committee or of the members of the house, but those people are suspicious of everything. It must be terrible to live with men like that. They go on and say, " Why, look at Australia and New Zealand, how they manage their old age pensions. Look at the early age at which it is paid; look at the amounts they pay." That is all quite true; the old age pension is paid at an earlier age, and the amounts paid are greater. But they do not tell us that in those countries the people pay for their old age pensions, and we do not. Here it is handed to the people by the government. There they pay for it as an insurance scheme, and you have a right to do what you like with what you pay for. In this country, however, it is a gift handed out by the government, and it is free.


John Horne Blackmore: Who gives it to the government?


Thomas F. Donnelly: and I resent that sort of thing. This is my country; I was bom here, and I deprecate such talk as that. If they do not like this country; if they think some other country is better, let them go there. Why do they stay here? I hate comparisons; they are always odious, but when you do make a comparison be fair about it and tell us both sides of the case. Do not tell us only one part of it and try to make out a good story for yourselves. You are always caught in stories of that kind. Your sins always find you out.
I should like to refer briefly to the social legislation in my own province. We have more social legislation in. Saskatchewan than in any other province.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: Oh, no.


Thomas F. Donnelly: Oh, yes, we have. I come from that province, and I know whereof I speak. We have pensions for the blind; we have unemployment insurance; we have old age pensions. Of course those are in effect all over Canada, but in addition we have workmen's compensation, to which I have already referred, and also mothers' allowances, allowances for dependent children and, besides, what we call our municipal doctors. In Saskatchewan we have 107 municipal doctors; in fact in my constituency there are only three medical men who are not municipal doctors. These municipal doctors are doctors hired by the people, paid by the municipality, who do all the medical work except major operations, in connection with which they receive fifty per cent of the ordinary fee. They also carry on the health work, visiting the schools once a year, examining the children and filling out their cards, showing that a child is deficient in this or that respect; looking at their tonsils and adenoids, seeing that they are vaccinated, and so on. Why, there are eight municipalities m Saskatchewan which even pay for the hospitalization, and for all major operations too. Then in Saskatchewan we have free tubercular hospitals, by arrangement between our municipalities and the provincial government, and in my opinion we have the best hospitals of that kind and the best record of any province in the dominion. More than that, our death rate from tuberculosis has been far lower than that of the other provinces, and it would be much lower this year if we could exclude the Indians. But in my province we have many Indians, among whom the death rate from tuberculosis is very high, which keeps the general death rate higher. In addition, we have free insane asylums.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Thomas F. Donnelly: Yes, and one of those is in Weybum. In addition, our government pays so much per patient per diem to our ordinary hospitals. That payment has been as high as $1 per patient per diem, but at the present time, on account of the financial condition of the province, it is only fifty or seventy-five cents. As far as our municipal doctors are concerned, the public are well satisfied. In my district we have had them for the last fourteen or fifteen years, and would not have anything else. The municipal doctors like it. The people like it, and would not have anything else. These are some of the types of legislation we have there; but to hear some hon. members speaking, one would think that the people from Saskatchewan are half starved, anaemic, poor and ignorant, that they are just poor country cousins.


Mr. D. G. ROSS (St. Paul's):: Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the speech made by the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly). I am sorry that with certain aspects of his speech, and particularly that connected with social legislation, I cannot agree. Might I point out to him that when Saskatchewan was being formed Ontario was inaugurating or had already in force a great deal of social legislation. And, by the way, most of the social legislation in Ontario, such as that for workmen's compensation, was- introduced by Conservative governments. If anyone has any doubt about that, let him read the record and find out for himself. He will find that Sir James Whitney and the Hon. Howard Ferguson put many pieces of social legislation into force. Ontario has had much of this legislation, and I am glad to see that Saskatchewan has followed in her footsteps. Ontario was the first province in Canada to enforce pasteurization of milk, and the first province in which toxoids were used generally. Therefore I am afraid I cannot agree with much that has been said by the hon. member from Saskatchewan.
I believe a wrong impression was left by what was said a few days ago by the hon. member for Lambton-Kent (Mr. MacKenzie). What he said was, I thought, a slur on hon. members. The hon. member pointed out, among other things, that we were abusing the franking privilege, and gave figures to show the cost of franking the mail. He did not say, however, just where the abuse took place. I venture to say that if the cost of the franking privilege of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and ministers of the crown were deducted from the sum mentioned by the hon. member, it would be found that the expenditure on private members' account,-who

The Budget-Mr. Ross (St. Paul's)
use the privilege as it is their duty to use it, namely, to inform their constituents of what is taking place, would not be very great.
The hon. member who has just taken his seat referred to the wheat pools and the banks. While he was speaking I thought it might be well to place on record some figures respecting insurance companies. The life insurance companies of Canada are well organized. As I said on an earlier occasion, had it not been for them I do not know how the victory loan compaigns would have been carried over the top. The figures I have before me show that in the last victory loan the life insurance companies in Canada invested $155,000,000. That was their direct loan to the government. In war loans, to date, they have invested $450,000,000. This means-and this is the point I wish to make -that each Canadian policyholder has an investment in victory averaging $112. That is his investment in ships, tanks, guns and the like. This does not sound like the work of a monopolistic institution. Through the medium of the life insurance companies each policyholder has been able to invest $112 out of the total of $450,000,000.	*
Not only this, but it should be added that about 1,900 life insurance agents participated in the last victory loan campaign. They made 170,000 sales to a value of $57,000,000, or an average of $335 for each sale. This is the most important guard against inflation. This huge sum was over fifteen per cent of the total of $375,000,000 subscribed from other than special names and payroll deductions. These figures show that the agents got busy, went out and scratched for their sales. Let me say here and now that I give them great credit. I do not believe there is a more democratic institution in Canada than our life insurance companies, and yet my socialistic friends to my left call life insurance a big monopoly.	.
May I congratulate the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) upon his real endeavour to prevent inflation in Canada. I agree with him. We must have price control, but I think there is sometimes not enough brain power used in the setting of controls. That is what leads to discord among various factions in the country. There should be more parity in ceiling prices, and I believe that could be brought about without much difficulty.
In passing, may I refer to the statement by the Minister of Finance to the effect that the billion dollar gift to the allied countries would not make any difference to our taxes, whether we sold them goods or gave them to them. I am heartily in accord with the giving of
money to the allied countries. But when the minister says that it would make no difference whether we sold the goods, or gave them away, I must disagree. Not only that, but he pointed out we would have a cash drawer full of I.O.U.'s. In the first place, our taxes are certainly higher, and it seems to me that a bunch of I.O.U.'s backed by the credit of Great Britain would not be worthless. They certainly would have value. Britain has always paid her way, and I have no doubt she intends to continue to do so. I am in favour of giving her and the allied nations money, but I did not like the minister's statement when he suggested there would be no use in our having a drawer full of worthless I.O.U.'s.
There are many inequalities so far as taxes are concerned, but I have one particular unfairness in mind. A man may have a life insurance policy in favour of his wife. The policy may state that on his death she is to be paid $272.50 each month for twenty years. On his death succession duties are paid on a policy of $50,000-because that is the amount required to yield $272.50 monthly for twenty years. In Ontario succession duties would be paid on the amount of $32,620, because $17,380 is required to yield $100 a month. That is exempt in Ontario. ' Then we take the income tax on the interest in the income, which is determined by taking the difference between 240 times $275.50, or $66,132, and $50,000, or $16,132, which, divided by twenty, gives you $806 a year, or $66.33 a month. That is a considerable difference between the income tax on the total amount of the $275.50 a month and $66.33 a month, which is the case if there is a policy payable for twenty years certain and for the life-time of the beneficiary. Then the succession duties are deducted in the same way, but the income tax is paid on the whole amount of the monthly income, $275.50, whether it is income-or principal, just because of the difference between "twenty years certain" and "for life." This should be corrected in the budget.
I come now to a matter which I think is of great importance, the treatment of our returned soldiers. I believe about 80,000 men have been discharged from the forces. Some of these men have tried to get pensions, and I think they should have pensions. But to a great extent they are met with this one argument, namely, that the pre-war disability has not been aggravated by service. I have vivid memories of the Minister of National Defence for Air (Mr. Power) stating in the House of Commons, speaking of his experience when he was minister of pensions, that this war would be different from the last; that we would not

The Budget-Mr. Ross (St. Paul's)
take any men who were crocks; that they would all have to be Simon-pure, A1 men. How docs it come that these men who have passed the examinations are now told that their pre-war disabilities have not been aggravated by service? They were allowed to enlist after they had passed the examinations, and it just does not add up. There are hundreds of these cases. It is not the actual case that counts; it is the way the man talks when he is met by such argument. If this is the way the government is to treat these men who have come back and who should have pensions, then we will have many more reds in this country. You can hear them talking

These returned men are somewhat different from the man who has had a job and is looking for another one. They should receive different treatment when they go to a national selective service office to look for a job. These men have had service in the army and they need to be rehabilitated. As I say, there are 80,000 of them, and yet we find in the estimates only S400.000 provided for their rehabilitation, or a total of $5 each. How far will that go? In the same estimates we find an item of $6,500,000 for air raid precautions. I .agree that we should have air raid precautions, but $6,500,000 seems a great deal. I know there is considerable waste in different parts of the country, but it seems to me we should have more than $400,000, or $5 each, for these men who have come back.
As I said the other day, when these men go to look for a job in Toronto they must go to the national selective service office on Spadina avenue. They receive no special treatment; they must stand in line with other men who have never been overseas. They think they deserve a little more than the average man on the street, and I think they do. Special arrangements should be made for these men. We all know what they are like. There are some lead-swingers among them, but not many. The treatment they have been receiving at some of these national selective service offices is such that they have been calling the places the gestapo, and I do not blame them.
I agree with the hon. member for Lambton West (Mr. Gray) that our troops overseas must not be let down. We now have some idea of what the casualties will be in the fighting. How are we going to have them reinforced? Have we a balanced war effort as far as man-power is concerned? Here are some figures of the strength of our armed forces as of March 12, and also the number of those engaged in industry:

Armed forces-
Males	 655,424
Females	 20,924
Total	 676,348
War industry-
Males	 827,000
Females	 222,000
Total	 1,049,000
Navy-
Males	 55,076
Females	 1,511
Army-
Males	 437,843
Females	 9,477
Air force-
Males	  162,505
Females	 9,936
Is this the even balance we should have? On June 1, 1941, we had 1,220,516 men on the farms. Since that date 400,000 have left, so that we now have 820,516. Where have those men gone? Have they all gone into industry? They cannot all have gone into the army. How many do we need on the farm? How many should we have in industry? What survey has been made? Have we ever had the result of any survey given to us in this House of Commons? What are the requirements? How much labour is wasted from time to time by hoarding in certain industries?
We hear of certain factories where a changeover in the production line is necessary. In some instances this may take a year, and thousands of men are kept around until that is complete. They try to find work for them, but that is not always possible. Is there not some way by which national selective service could take these people and put them where they are needed? Why cannot labour be used to better advantage? Why do we have the absenteeism we have at the present time? Is it because these people do not want to work so long for the government and pay most of their wages above a certain wage in income tax? I do not believe they are as unpatriotic as that. I think they are worried over seeing so many people in some of these places that they begin to think they do not need to work. What is to be done about this? What survey is being made and who is making it? How can we have any balanced effort in this country unless we know what we want and where we are heading? Up to date, this house has never been told. What we want to know is, what is the capacity of Canada in man-power; how many people have we that can do these various jobs; and how are they to be so distributed that we shall attain a total war effort?

The Budget-Mr. Cloutier
Last year we passed bill No. 80, to amend the mobilization act, and it is in the same old place, just where the plebiscite was before we passed it. We might as well have saved our time; the bill has not accomplished anything that I know of. How soon are we to do something? Anyone who listened to the speech of Mr. Churchill yesterday know's there is a long way to go before this war will be won. The sooner we put our backs to the wheel, the better. It is man-power that is wanted in these days, and man-power must be properly used. Are we to let down our boys overseas? Are our troops over there in adequate force? Have we the reinforcements which will be necessary? If not, how are they to be provided? These are questions which must be answered. We need to know where we are going, what is our policy. Is it merely the same old policy of wait and see, and muddle through somehow?
I am not saying a word against our army overseas. They are a fine body of men, wonderfully trained, and by now, I believe, well equipped; but we must not let them down. Nor am I saying a word in disparagement of our workers in the factories, or on the farms. But guidance is needed; they want to be told what to do. However, so long as the government has no policy, they will not know; we are in the same position as we were before the plebiscite was taken. I hope the government will give us a policy which will show us where we are going and make it clear what we are to do.
I intend to vote against the "funny money" amendment because it does not mean anything. We have all the money we need just now. That is paper money. You cannot fight a war without going into debt. In other words, you cannot get something for nothing. This is your war, and mine. The only way in which it can be fought is to give up a certain amount of time, and lots of it, to fight this war. That means that you give up a certain amount of your money, or you work, or you fight. Just to put a lot of money through a printing press will not do any good; it does not require enough labour to do it.
As regards the amendment of the socialist party, I have tried to explain that finance is already mobilized and to a great extent nationalized; and, thank goodness, finance is controlled by the people who have an interest in it rather than by our socialist friends to the left.


Mr. ARMAND CLOUTIER (Drummond-Arthabaska) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, I would have liked to take part in the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, but I preferred leaving my elders in
politics put forth their ideas and make recommendations while I listened attentively to their speeches and their political programmes which were no doubt inspired by the feelings of the electors in their respective constituencies.
May I first of all be permitted, Mr. Speaker, even at this late hour, to congratulate the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) on having given the old province of Quebec three new French-Canadian ministers. This representation was anxiously expected by the electors of that province and you may rest assured that these truly patriotic people shall not fail to remember. I wish to extend to these three new members of the government, who have nearly all lived with us, the greetings and congratulations of the electors of the historical constituency of Drummond-Arthabaska which I have the honour to represent in the Canadian Commons.
Let the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier) be assured that our people rejoice at his appointment. While he does not come from our section and has never lived there, many of his relatives and friends are to be found in my constituency, particularly in Victoriaville. On their behalf as well as on my own I wish him success, good health and a long career.
To the hero of Mont-Sorrel and Vimy, the Hon. Minister of National War Services (Mr. LaFleche), I would state how glad my electors were to learn of his appointment, particularly in Victoriaville where he spent part of his youth and still counts a large number of most sincere friends.
As for the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Bertrand), a native son of our district, since he first saw the light of day in the charming town of Princeville, also in my constituency, we are delighted to see him occupying such a high post and we are confident that with both his colleagues whom I have just mentioned he will continue the long line of great politicians who have represented my constituency, the Dorions (l'Enfant terrible), the Lauriers, the Lavergnes, the Perraults and the Girouards, and that history will see fit to link his name with those who have been the pride of French Canada, of their province and of their country.
Since the budget debate, Mr. Speaker, offers to every member scope for remarks on a variety of subjects, you will allow me to touch briefly upon every question, for I have no intention of detaining the house unduly at this late date. I intend merely to bespeak the mind of those who in 1940 did me the great honour of calling on me to represent them as member for Drummond-Arthabaska on the highest court in the land.
The Budget

Mr. Cloutier

I have had no occasion to speak in this house since the resignation of the former Minister of Transport and Public Works (Mr. Cardin) for whom I have always had and still have the greatest admiration. A man of great culture, a fluent speaker, a great parliamentarian and a great Canadian, I wish him to know that my electors would have had him remain a member of the government where he would have scrupulously watched over minority interests through the preservation of a truly national spirit in this country. Unfortunately, without notice to the Quebec members of whom he was the leader, he resigned from the present government to become a private member. No doubt he had serious, very serious reasons for doing this.
The subamendment recently moved by the hon. member without first consulting his colleagues from Quebec has produced quite a commotion among us and we have often wondered what were the intentions of the hon. member in this connection. Personally, and especially at first, I would have been inclined to endorse at once this subamendment purporting to suspend the calling of men under the National Resources Mobilization Act.
However, after having taken the advice of my colleagues more experienced in politics, after having spoken to the Liberal leaders of my constituency and especially after having heard the masterly speech delivered by my leader, the right hon. Prime Minister of Canada, against this subamendment, on February 19 last, in which he enumerated the effects which the adoption of such a subamendment would1 have among the armed forces of Canada, as well as in Great Britain and the other dominions, in the United States and other allied nations and, above all, among our enemies, I realized that voting in favour of this subamendment would mean casting a vote of non-confidence in my leader and his government. On this occasion, Mr. Speaker, I adked myself who would be called upon to replace the right hon. Prime Minister who, upon losing the confidence of the deputation, would tender his resignation. Would it be such men as Mr. Meighen, Mr. Bracken, or the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation group (Mr. Coldwell), or the Social Credit chieftain (Mr. Blackmore), every one of whom, since the beginning of the war, has persistently advocated conscription for overseas service and criticized the Liberal government, claiming that they have not gone far enough in the prosecution of the war and that Canada should participate to the last man and the last dollar? [DOT]
I have gladly voted with the government on this occasion and I say without fear that,

at the present time, the right hon. Prime Minister of Canada is the only man qualified to prosecute the war. This fact is acknowledged by right-thinking Conservatives in my constituency.
I feel bound to make the following statement: as long as my- leader, the right hon. Prime Minister refrains from putting conscription into force for overseas service, I shall remain among his most faithful followers; however, I must say to him that if he ever gives way to the imperialists, even though they be members of the present government, or to the opposition, and puts conscription into force for overseas service, it shall be my painful duty to fight him, for I am opposed to conscription for overseas service and as a gentleman, and a man of honour, I shall keep my pledge; in other words, I shall discharge the trust reposed in me by my constituents in this respect. Doubtless, my constituents would have preferred to see the hon. member for Riehelieu-Vercheres (Mr. Cardin) refrain from obstructing the government's policy. On the other hand, had the hon. member had good reasons for moving his subamendment, I still feel that this conflict between these two outstanding figures of Canadian politics should never have occurred. After the work accomplished in Quebec during the last quarter of a century by the hon. member, to promote friendship, to preach conciliation, to establish mutual understanding between the two great races of our country, we would have wished to enjoy seeing these two great men marching hand in hand, in close cooperation, and pursuing the tremendous task they had undertaken in the footsteps of their great and revered leader, Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
Mr. Speaker, I have followed with great interest the budget speech delivered by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley). Generally speaking, this budget brings a marked improvement to the condition of the people. It remits half the liability for war taxes on 1942 incomes; it simplifies the final settlement of accounts with the income tax office through a 5 per cent increase of the deduction from wages or salaries.
The new taxes, unimportant as they are, will not affect him, if he will only tone down on alcohol and tobacco. It must also be remembered that the workers are assured by the government that the buying power of the Canadian dollar will be maintained, and thus they are freed from all material worries till the end of March, 1944. This is truly a workingman's budget, Mr. Speaker. The increase of more than 20 per cent on alcoholic beverages ensures both moral and practical

The Budget-Mr. Cloutier
results; it fosters temperance and economy, and both these things are conducive to the greater industrial and financial effort which we will have to put forth during this critical year. On this point, the civil and religious authorities from the province of Quebec willingly approve the federal government.
Canada will spend the enormous sum of nearly four billion dollars on its war effort and will contribute a billion dollars to aid the united nations this year. What classes will benefit most from the five billion dollars which the government will spend for war purposes, on food, munitions and arms, if not the farmers and the workers? The farmers in my county are prosperous nowadays as they never were before. Many of those who had borrowed money from the Canadian farm loan board have asked the board to reimburse both principal and interest on their loans.
As to the working men of my constituency, many of them who are working in the war plants of the district and who only earned $15 a week in the past, though they were glad to earn that sum then, are now earning from $75 to $100 a week. Not long ago I met a working man from my town who, during the depression had to wait six months before obtaining a job at S14.99 a week. He told me he had earned $116 in a single week; he added that he had paid $30 in taxes of all kinds, namely, income tax., unemployment tax, compulsory savings, etc., and that he had SS6 left for the week, instead of the $14.99 which he earned heretofore. This worker, a true Canadian and a real patriot, told me that, even if the government were to double his taxes, in order to preserve his religion, his tongue, his freedom of action, his freedom of speech in this countiy, he would still be quite satisfied.
I must congratulate the hon. Minister of Pensions and National Health on his vast programme of social security for the post-war period, a programme which he himself laid before the parliamentary committee on social security, whose chairman is the hon. member for Queens (Mr. Macmillan), the operation of which will cost the enormous sum of one billion dollars a year. I have gone through that report and I have been glad to see that it advocates a great deal of social legislation.
There is first a contributory health insurance proposal that would cover the whole population and would be subsidized by the central power subject to certain conditions to be fulfilled by the provinces.
Second, the report offers also to pay children allowances of $8 or $9 a month for each child or graduated according to age, without taking into consideration the family revenue, but doing away with the income tax exemptions for dependent children.
Third, there is a provision with regard to unemployment insurance. It tends to increase the insurance benefits paid to workers with dependents.
Fourth, it mentions free medical care for every one.
Fifth, maternity allowances for women workers only.
Sixth, sickness benefits with rates comparable to those of the unemployment insurance.
Seventh, increase of old age pensions from $20 to $30 a month and lowering of the age for eligibility from seventy to sixty-five for men and sixty for women.
Eighth, setting up of a new contributory system of superannuation.
Ninth, payment of pensions for total incapacity to those unfit for work.
Tenth, death allowances at the rates of $100 for adults, $65 for children and $25 for infants.
Such are, Mr. Speaker, the principal measures embodied in that social security plan.
I was glad to note that the recommendations made by my good friend the hon. member for Compton (Mr. Blanchette) and endorsed by myself concerning family allowance have been incorporated in this plan. And1 I must congratulate him on the forcefulness which he has displayed in the speeches he has delivered in this house, particularly in that of February 19, in which he so brilliantly and so eloquently pleaded for the enactment of such a measure.
As I wanted to endorse the recommendations made by the hon. member for Compton with regard to family allowances in the event of this report on so-called social security being presented after the adoption of the budget, I intended also to demand an increase of old age pensions, which doubtless had become imperative, and I am glad to find that a provision calling for that increase has been included in the report.
While I am dealing with the matter of social security, may I call the attention of the government to female labour, particularly to industrial female labour at night.
One of the most deplorable effects of industrial capitalism has been to take women out of their homes and throw them in increasing numbers into industries. Women have re-
The Budget-Mr. Cloutier

sponded, actuated in the first place by the necessity of supplementing a family income which is entirely inadequate and lured by a selfish and blind propaganda setting woman's dignity not in her role as wife, mother and queen of the home, but in the assertion of her personality, in the organizing of her own life and in her emancipation.
So, for the last three years, the enlistment of thousands of men in the armed forces and the building up of new industries have created an urgent and extensive need for additional labour and such is the need that our Canadian women are called upon to meet. Such is the terrific tax raised by modern total war. Tens of thousands of Canadian women are already serving on the industrial front.
It behooves our political and industrial leaders, conscious of their responsibilities to the nation, to restrict to the real needs the taking on of women in industrial plants, particularly in war plants. Now, far from being so, in a good many war industries, men, even of military age are being freely set aside in favour of girls who, of course, are paid less and thus removed from their home and from school, for a great number of them are barely more than children, and laid open to the moral dangers of the factory and even to many a physical hazard.
Many employers of Canadian war industries do not seem to have realized the impropriety of having women work in the night-time. Night work exposes women, and especially girls, to a multitude of physical and moral hazards, leading to the disintegration of the home.
To this very day, nations most busily engaged in the conflict are endeavouring to secure strict adherence to the provisions of the International Labour office which, for half a century, has striven to prohibit women from doing night work in industry.
For instance, in Great Britain, the employment of female labour on night shifts in factories is prohibited by law and is allowed exceptionally only on special permit.
Is it not truly deplorable, therefore, that our own country should countenance, as it does, girls, wives and mothers engaging in a form of labour which amounts to the sabotage of our nation?
I trust I may be allowed, Mr. Speaker, to read a copy of a resolution passed at the Quebec Province Catholic Action Congress, recently held in Montreal. It reads as follows:
Resolutions respecting female labour.
The following are resolutions passed by special organizations of the Quebec Province Catholic

Action gathered in congress at Montreal and are to be referred for adoption to the provincial and dominion governments:
1.	Prohibition of night work for girls and married women;
2.	Prohibition of factory work for married women with children under 18;
3.	An 8-hour day and a 48-hour week;
4.	Prohibition of too strenuous work and the lifting of too heavy weights;
5.	Improvement of sanitary and safety conditions wherever these are still below standard;
6.	The general extension of industrial social service;
7.	The creation of working conditions and of standards of supervision calculated to ensure the moral safeguard of girls and women;
All of which will serve as a protection against the abuses of female labour and as a safeguard to the family, unit of a sound nation.
Inasmuch as the same resolution was passed in the various towns of my county, I feel bound to express in this house the feelings of my electors on this grave issue.
Mr. Speaker, I listened with the deepest interest to the splendid speech delivered in this house by the hon. 'member for Shefford (Mr. Leclerc). It contained many thoughtful statements, and constituted a magnificent plea on behalf of the workers of the small manufacturing towns of the province of Quebec.
The present plight of the small town industrial worker is obviously unfair.
Wages have been frozen to the lowest level of any industrial province of the country. Had not the federal authorities acted with such speed, these workers would have been better off. The freezing order came into force on November 15, 1941. At that time, the provincial government of Quebec was considering the adoption of various orders to raise the basic wages. Notices to that effect had already appeared in the Official Gazette of the province. The orders would have been in force after three months. The federal order was enacted before the expiration of this delay, with the effect that a legitimate adjustment of wages in small industrial towns of the province of Quebec was prevented and, at the same time, a rank injustice was perpetrated. All these workers who, during the depression, could not obtain a readjustment had their wages frozen at the level obtaining during the depression. With the hon. member for Shefford, and on behalf of the working class of my constituency, I strongly protest against such discrimination and I hope the government will take the necessary steps to remedy the conditions existing at present in the small manufacturing towns of our province.

The Budget-Mr. Cloutier
Mr. Speaker, I would feel derelict in my duty, if I refrained from pointing to the house the sorry plight of weekly newspapers at the present time, especially those published in the small towns of our province and circulated mostly in rural districts.
As a result of the restriction imposed upon publicity by the government a large number of these newspapers will find themselves in a most embarrassing financial condition and may even be forced out of business. Yet, no one has contributed more generously to our war effort than our newspapers. We have in my county five weekly newspapers and I wish here to commend them for their earnest cooperation with the government during the campaigns in connection with the victory loans, the sale of savings certificates and) the Red Cross.	.
Our weekly newspapers must be maintained, Mr. Speaker. I therefore respectfully suggest to the government that they compensate for the loss in commercial publicity by a large amount of advertisements concerning the different departments of administration.
I feel it my duty on behalf of the farmers, the farmers' help and farmers' sons and of the persons employed in a part-time capacity in industries connected with agriculture to thank the government for having adopted the measure which came into force on March 23, 1942, exempting these classes of citizens from military service. This measure, Mr. Speaker, has been a real boon to the agricultural population. Here is, for example, what happened in a parish in my constituency. After that law came into force, a few citizens of that parish came to my office seeking more information and the proper procedure in the matter of getting a postponement should any one be called for military service. I explained that the procedure was as follows:
(a)	The farmer's son, the farmer's help, the farmer or part-time farm help who receives notice to pass his medical examination, must do so within three days from the date of such notice ;
(b)	Should he wish to apply for a postponement, he must apply in writing, within fourteen clear days from the date shown on the notice, to the registrar of the division where the notice originated.
In filing his application for postponement the applicant must:
1. File with the registrar of the division an affidavit stating that on March 23, 1942, he was wholly employed in agriculture or that he was employed in a part-time capacity only in lumbering, forestry, fishing, hunting or trapping;
2. File a letter signed under the seal of his parish priest or the mayor of his municipality, attesting the truth of the statements.
I must say, Mr. Speaker, that these men went to work with a fine desire of cooperation and that out of ninety persons called for military service from the agricultural municipality, eighty-eight were granted a postponement.
The difficulties which I met in connection with the mobilization act came from people who, although acting in good faith, instead of consulting me, chose to take advice from persons with political opinions different from those of our party. These individuals to whom I shall refer as petty politicians, dissuaded them from seeing me and advised them not to pay any attention to the notice. In advising them to do so, they knew that these young men who had been called for military service would have trouble with the authorities concerned and thus supply an opportunity to state that the Liberal party was not any better than their own and that we had conscription. They even went as far as to say that conscription was effective for overseas.
I had to deal with a good many of those cases, and I accompanied the young draftees concerned to Montreal so as to explain their cases to the registrar-by the way, I did all this without any compensation, to help them -whom, I must thank as well as all the members of his staff for their hearty cooperation.
I imagine that some of these young men have not yet legally applied for the deferment to which they would be entitled and who are worried and living in fear of the .military police for not having obeyed the law. I join with the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Lalonde) who, in the magnificent speech he has made in this house, has requested an amnesty for these young men who have been deceived by shortsighted politicians.
Mr. Speaker, I would have liked to tell you about the war effort of my constituency, particularly in connection with the third victory loan, but I presume that I will have a chance to take up this subject before the end of the session. I shall then speak in English so as to be understood by my English-speaking colleagues for whom I have the greatest regard and consideration.
Before I conclude my remarks, I shall say a few words about the airmen, sailors and soldiers from my constituency. Our people are proud of them. As to those who have fallen on the field of honour, I wish their relatives to be sure that we will always keep a pious and grateful remembrance of our heroes. To the family of Flight Sergeant

The Budget-Mr. Tripp
Beliveau, who died for his country, I offer in the name of the whole population of my constituency the most sincere sympathy.
I do not want to forget Corporal Cloutier, severely wounded at Dieppe, presently in the hospital. According to the medical men both his legs will have to be amputated. He is only twenty years old. What a pity to see such a young one become an invalid for the rest of his life! I am proud to tell you that this hero is a son of my county. He has been a fine representative of his race at the Dieppe raid: "Rather die than surrender." His name will never be forgotten among our people who will remember this victim of the war who risked his life for them in the defence of justice, right, liberty and honour.


Mr. J. P. TRIPP (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, may I first of all congratulate you upon your elevation to your high office, and may I say that it comes to you as a reward for service, and by the unanimous consent of the house.
This evening I should like to speak about the constituency of Assiniboia, which I have the honour to represent. My constituency is located in the southeastern corner of Saskatchewan. This was about the first portion of the province which was settled, in the early eighties, a larger number coming in the early nineties. Most of the settlers came from the two older provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Those men and women did not come out for the purpose of making money quickly and then flying away to some other part of Canada or the United States. Rather they came for the purpose of establishing homes, of securing pieces of land they might own, and with the object in view of establishing their families on other lands close by. Those early settlers homesteaded, built roads, and erected churches in which they worshipped. They organized school districts, trading centres and municipal governments. For a number of years they were a prosperous and contented people.
Then, in 1930 began a series of disastrous years. For the following ten or eleven years they suffered as possibly no other community in Canada has ever been called upon to suffer. For those ten or eleven years men and women sowed but did not reap. In the spring time they did their ploughing and seeded their land, but in the fall they never had occasion to use either binder or threshing machine. Through it all, however, they maintained their faith in their country. Most of them stayed there, and came through.
This afternoon we listened to an ably delivered address by the hon. member for

Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) who also comes from Saskatchewan. In that address he defined free enterprise as rugged and uncontrolled individualism. I think most hon. members know, and I think he knows that that definition could not be applied to the affairs of Canada for the past fifty years. For that length of time we have not had uncontrolled or rugged individualism.
He also defined a new type of socialism. I believe he called it Cooperative Commonwealth Federation socialism. I was reminded that Heinz, the famous manufacturers of pickles, pride themselves on their fifty-seven varieties. Well, I am told there are over 200 kinds of socialism, and I believe at this session we have heard nine different kinds described by the nine members of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party. This afternoon the hon. member for Weyburn defined a new kind, and went back to Sweden for his authority. He stated that his was the kind of socialism they had in Sweden. Although he did not quote from a book, he did refer to one. To-night I will quote from a book called "Sweden-the Middle Way".


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: That is the book.


Jesse Pickard Tripp: I will quote from it. At page 22 it says:
Cooperative leaders are proud that in the course of their long struggle they have never appealed to the state for help. They have been able to meet their competitors on an equal basis without seeking special privileges or favours. And yet in many respects Swedish law has worked to the disadvantage of the cooperatives and in the interests of privately owned stores. This is particularly true with regard to taxation.
And at page 23 it says:
If the cooperators are proud of their independence of the state, they are also proud of the fact-and they insist that it is a fact-of their independence of political parties.
True friends of cooperation would do well to follow this advice. I have heard it stated many times that neither Sweden nor Norway is a socialistic state, but that they have highly developed cooperatives within their boundaries, not as means of socialism but as means whereby individuals can cooperate, and can use their capital to compete with individual capital within a capitalistic country. In no way or manner could one describe the situation in Sweden or Norway as socialistic.


Mr. COLD WELL:: But do not tell the Norwegians that.

The Budget-Mr. Tripp


Jesse Pickard Tripp: I said a few moments ago that our people are recovering. In 1941 and 1942 we had good crops in our section of the country. The other day a question was asked as to whether these people are paying their debts. I can tell the house that they are paying their debts, but they cannot be expected to pay off the debts which they incurred during the ten or eleven years when they had no immediate financial returns. I was told the other day that over ninety-nine per cent of the current debts for the last two years have been paid out of the last two crops, and some of the old debts have been paid off as well. But those old debts are too great to be paid off in one or two years; it will take a number of years to overcome the ill-effects of those disastrous years. A delegation from the western provinces recently asked this government to enact legislation which would prevent creditors from foreclosing. I think the government would be well advised to listen to the recommendations made by that delegation.
In many respects the constituency of Assini-boia is similar to other constituencies within the province, but there is one difference. We have within the boundaries of my constituency the largest coal producing area in the province. That area is located in the Estevan and Bienfait districts. The coal is found in two layers. There is an upper seam with an overburden of from twenty to twenty-five feet of earth, while the lower seam has an overburden of from 100 to 150 feet. The coal is mined by two methods. The top layer is stripped with large shovels or other machinery; they take off the overburden and then take out the coal which is then transported to tipples for processing. The deep seam is mined in the usual way; shafts are sunk, and the men go down and tunnel underneath the ground.
This coal is not a high-grade lignite; it is a soft or low-grade lignite coal. It contains about thirty per cent moisture and has a low ash content. In 1940 this area produced about 1,000,000 tons; in 1941, about 1,300,000 tons, and in 1942, the same production, In order to relieve a possible shortage of coal during this next year the government is assisting the operators in this area and will assist others in order to increase production. It is hoped to increase the production of that area by from 800,000 to 1,000,000 tons.
A report about this coal will be found in some of the offices here in Ottawa. This report was prepared by Mr. Sutherland, a noted combustion engineer, but it was put out about ten years ago and :'s now out of date.
The report states that in order to get the best results from this coal it must be combined with a coal of a higher grade, but the fact is that with the use of the newer types of burning equipment it is no longer necessary to mix this coal. During the last few years it has been proven that this coal will burn alone in the new type burners with as high an efficiency as if mixed with other coal. This production serves the southeast and south central portion of Saskatchewan and the southern portion of Manitoba. At one time this coal came into Ontario, but the fuel controller stopped this movement in recent years.
The coal is also manufactured into briquettes of high quality which are distributed widely in the southern portions of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In the manufacture of these briquettes is produced a distillate, a thick tarry liquid. This liquid contains all the chemicals, all the aniline dyes, all the perfumes and all the other ingredients to be found in German coal. But it is not used to a great extent. At the present time it is used only as a preservative of wood because of the creosote contained in the liquid. It is shipped to the lumber companies for use in the preservation of wood to be used underground.
The other day I noticed in the Estevan Mercury a dispatch reading as follows:
A huge post-war chemical industry developed through the use of great lignite deposits in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and the bordering states of North and South Dakota, was pictured at the mid-continent research conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last weekend.
Apparently that conference took place in Minneapolis, and they were considering what use could be made of these materials in the years following the war. What will likely happen will be that a new chemical industry will be built across the line, and the distillate obtained from the manufacture of these briquettes will be shipped there. My suggestion is that the dominion government or the provincial government or a combination of the two should carry on research in the district to which I refer. The results of this research may possibly attract capital, and an effort may be made to use this liquid locally.
Last week we were told in the committee room by Doctor Wallace that all industries should be located at the head of power development. The Estevan district offers tremendous possibilities for the development of power. It has been estimated that power can be produced from this coal at a price which can compete with hydro power.
The Budget-Mr. Tripp

The other day they were talking about the dehydration of foods. In the Souris valley there is a tremendous area which could be irrigated and which could produce thousands and thousands of tons of vegetables. That is one industry which might be located there, and there are hundreds of other industries, which are required in Saskatchewan.
For a moment or two I should like to discuss what I consider to be the most important-matter before this house at the present time, namely, Canada's war effort. The hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly) has dealt with this already to-night, and I can only add to the praise he gave to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King). I think our Prime Minister has given this country very good leadership during the past three and a half years, and has maintained national unity far better than any other man in Canada could have done. Last week the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr.Hanson), when he spoke in the house, quoted President Roosevelt as having stated that the most important matter before that country at the present time was the conduct of the war. Our Prime Minister pointed that out to this house six weeks ago, and in his address yesterday Mr. Winston Churchill also made the same statement. I also want to thank the members of the cabinet for the service they are rendering to the country. They have demonstrated that they are capable of doing a remarkable job. I also wish to congratulate the Canadian people upon having cooperated so well with the Prime Minister and the cabinet in developing a balanced war effort, of which we can all be very proud.
At this time I propose to talk for a while about the food production of the dominion, and to give praise to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner). It was stated recently in this chamber that our agricultural policy was not planned. But I would remind hon. members of a debate which took place here three years ago. Hon. members rose one after another to tell the minister that his policy was not the correct one. But he stuck to his policy, and events since have proved that he was right in initiating it and continuing it during the last three years. We are getting results. It is true that we have been favoured by nature, but I think our greatest result has come from the direction given by the Minister of Agriculture two or three years ago.
In 1942 Canada's total farm income was over one billion dollars. Of this sum Ontario received $344,000,000, and Saskatchewan, with over one-half the cultivated acreage of the dominion, received $220,000,000. There are probably reasons for the difference. One is, I

believe, that Saskatchewan has been in the habit of selling grain, its principal product, as grain, while in Ontario they buy grain and sell the finished article. In this direction the planning of the dominion Department of Agriculture is producing good results. Saskatchewan nowadays is not selling so much grain as such, and is feeding more. Another reason for the difference in incomes lies in our geographical situation. We are in the centre of this country, and to put our products in a position competitive with those of Ontario we have to pay considerable transportation costs, which are applicable to all our agricultural products. The story is told of an old Frenchman who farmed out in Saskatchewan. A friend came from Ontario to visit him, and remarked, "Well, Jean, you had a pretty good crop this year." "Yes," said Jean, "I had a good crop." "I suppose," said the friend, "you have lots of money now." "No, I haven't much", said the Frenchman. "Well, what became of the crop?" "Oh," said the old farmer, "de ducts got it." So the friend asked him, "What do you mean, that 'de ducts' got it?" "Well," said the Frenchman, "you have de duct so much for threshing, de duct so much for insurance, so much for elevator charges, so much for transportation-anyway, de ducts got it." That is the way with a lot of our farmers in Saskatchewan, they have to pay too much to "de ducts".
I wish to put on Hansard a few additional figures pertaining to the income of Saskatchewan :
Value of farm products
1940	 $149,429,000
1942	 189,558,000
Here is a breakdown of these figures:
1940	1942
Grains	
$109,343,000	$110,421,000Live stock	27,255,000	53,327,000Dairy products..	7,375,000	16,556,000Poultry	
2.136.000	4,834,000Eggs	
2,238,000	5,142,000
It will be noticed that the values of grains in the two years are much the same, for, although we received more for our grain in 1942, the price having been raised from 70 cents to 90 cents a bushel, we were not allowed to deliver the same quantity. Further, in 1939 there were only 470,000 hogs on the farms. This was because during the ten preceding hard years we did not grow even enough feed to raise and maintain hogs. But in 1940, 1941, and 1942 we were able to grow more grain, with the result that last year we had 1,325,000 hogs on the farms. I might point out that in this re-

The Budget-Mr. Bertrand (Terrebonne)
gard Saskatchewan is just getting into its stride, and the number will be very greatly increased this year.
These results have been achieved by hard work on the part of the farmers. Indeed, they have worked harder than ever in their lives before. Surplus labour has practically all gone; yet our farmers, when asked to raise increased quantities of food products, have gone ahead with a will and are accomplishing great results.
A second important matter upon which I wish to speak this evening has not been mentioned very often in this chamber. I refer to what will happen after this war is over. I believe all of us realize that unless we remove fears of future wars we shall not have accomplished very much. We all know what took place in the axis countries prior to the war. They were preparing for war, and therefore were not concerned with the social welfare or standards of living of their people, but were trying to remove the possible effects of a blockade when war did come. They had suffered from a blockade during the first world war and did not want to be caught again. It was not their policy to trade freely with other nations, and they are not likely to do so in the future unless all fear of another war is removed. We may talk as much as we like about rehabilitation and reconstruction, but unless confidence is restored and fear of future wars removed, we shall just be preparing for another great war in the years to come.
I have mentioned rehabilitation and reconstruction. Lately we have spent considerable time in this house in discussing social security. I should like to place myself on record as favouring an immediate increase in the amounts payable to old age pensioners. Some increase is long overdue, and I hope the government will cooperate with the provincial governments to see to it that this amount is increased.
At this point I would issue a word of warning to the so-called capitalists who believe in high tariffs and other restrictions, and yet regard themselves as shining examples of free enterprise. The real enemies of free enterprise are those who in any manner restrict the flow of goods from one country to another. The success of free enterprise is dependent upon the freedom with which goods are allowed to pass between nations. Following this war it will be our endeavour to manufacture as many goods as we are manufacturing to-day, though at the present time
we are producing goods that are deliberately labelled for destruction or to be given away. It is obvious that we shall endeavour to maintain our national income at the present rate. If we do, we shall have to find markets throughout the world to a greater extent than in the past.
Production after the war will have to be sold and paid for, and we must place ourselves in a position to sell as much as possible in the export market so as to increase that income. Our local market will not be sufficient to consume all the goods we shall produce in the years following the war. Therefore, anything that we do to restrict sales must necessarily restrict that income.
Goods which we sell in the export market are of necessity paid for by imports, a fact which is now universally recognized, so that obviously if we restrict imports by way of duties, exchange restrictions or any other means, we destroy sales. In other words, our national income is reduced.
This being a fact, why do we continue to impose these restrictions? In my opinion we should not wait until this war is over to correct this fundamental error but should start now, and the sooner the better.


Mr. LIONEL BERTRAND (Terrebonne):: Mr. Speaker, this debate accords me an opportunity of making a few important remarks since they are concerned with the press of this country, the role it fulfils and the limited objectives which it may accomplish. At this moment I am speaking as a newspaper man, as editor of a newspaper, as president of the rural' press association of the province of Quebec. I also feel that I am the spokesman of all daily and weekly newspapers, of all those publications which in, their respective districts are the true vehicles of thought, the unquestionable representatives of public opinion, the master propagandists of information.
The necessity of the press, beyond question during peace time, takes on a great importance during war time. A permanent and essential tool to the. progress of a nation, the press brings to the public the information, the directions, the facts which will enable itself to adapt its mode of living to the constant laws of evolution, to direct it toward a definite and practical object, to fulfil the numerous activities which are its share.
During war time when orders in council decrees, official statements, drafted, redrafted,
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Mr. Bertrand (Terrebonne)
amended and corrected bills are difficult to understand on account of their legal construction, the newspaper popularizes the information and makes it accessible to everyone. Only the newspaper can boast of attaining this end. It is superior to the radio, because the public, even after it has heard a broadcast, wants to see a newspaper to find out whether it understood the radio aright and in order to know more. The newspaper prevails over all meetings and conferences. Is is not by itself a permanent conference, an uninterrupted meeting grouping not only a handful of citizens, but every day uniting hundreds of thousands? A necessary visitor, it talks and converses. It narrates the facts; it brings	the news from	all	the world;	itsets forth all the situations; it explains the laws that have been debated and adopted; it brings forth explanations of debates; it says things and repeats them. Everyone wants his newspaper as much as he wants his tobacco and, if he had to choose between them, he	would choose	the	newspaper.	Anecessity	in peace	time,	the	newspaper	inwar time	becomes the	heavy artillery	of
public information.
The people want their newspapers in order to be well informed, in order to follow the events day by day, learn the progress and setbacks of the war, the actions of the nation, what it intends to do, and what it resolves. They want to know to what extent restrictions and taxes will affect their mode of living, in order to adapt it to the necessities of the moment. They are always anxious to know all details concerning an offensive, a landing, a decision taken by the government. Who can inform them more accurately than the newspaper? But does the direct information concerning the war, which is handed out to the people, satisfy its eagerness to know, its anxiousness to know, and its right to know?
I am voicing a general opinion when I say that the public would like to be better informed concerning the direct actions of the war. Would censorship be too hard on newspapers? In certain instances would the regulations be arbitrary? Or official statements be made too late and sometimes not be clear enough? In my opinion, the public is entitled to know the whole truth concerning the sinkings which may occur off Canadian coasts, concerning disasters or setbacks which directly affect our country, and it has a right to know it before the news has gone all round the world. The public will applaud the victories, and its enthusiasm will be all the greater. On

the other hand, it will accept setbacks with coolness because it will better understand, as a result of this cold truth, the meaning of the war and of its terrible evils. A quick and accurate spreading of public information relating to the war would put an end to all these rumours which develop as they go around to such an extent that at one time or another they call for an official statement, which may be true to the facts but which will always leave some doubts in the minds of the people. If all sinkings in the St. Lawrence had been announced accurately and at the proper time and place, not only would everyone have accepted the dire facts of the moment, but we would have avoided the present debate to find out whether twenty or thirty ships have been sunk. Under the present circumstances, this is a very childish game.
The newspapers are only too anxious to inform the public; it is their duty to do so. They are so well organized that from morn till night eleven million people are handed out the same news. Without the newspapers where would the war effort be? How successful would be our victory loan campaigns or our organizations dealing with national interests? Who would inform the public? Information bureaus? How many would be required? What staff would it take? The radio? I believe too great importance has been given to radio as a vehicle of public information. It is well to hear, but to read is necessary. When the Prime Minister makes his speech over the radio the public listen to him because all the newspapers have announced that he is to speak. But the next day everyone looks at the newspapers in order to read the text of his speech and to understand better everything he said. Therefore in the process of information the newspaper becomes the most important means of informing the public.
Until now has the press been considered as an essential industry? When the government rationed newsprint did it take into consideration the services which the press is giving this country? I do not like rationing, I like it even less when it is detrimental to the public health, to the progress of the nation. Therefore I do not approve this restriction. But you may say, c'est la guerre. But should the war accord a pretext to ration one of the most important war industries, public information? Should we not rather take advantage of the war to reduce the enormous and useless waste of paper which occurs in government offices and to cancel for the duration a series of publications which are

The Budget-Mr. Bertrand (Terrebonne)
not read and which very often go straight into the furnace and not to the salvage committee? In my opinion rationing of newsprint cannot be justified, especially in wartime when the public resort to newspapers more than ever and feel the necessity to a greater extent than during peace time of reading many newspapers in order to form a better opinion concerning public events.
Ten days ago the press announced that the E. B. Eddy Company would stop making newsprint, on account of the shortage of pulp-wood and the shortage of man-power for forestry work. Still, in spite of all this, enlistment goes on without- a definite general plan and without taking into consideration the essential needs of industry and of the nation.
I should like to say a few words concerning liquor advertising. On December 18, 1942, an order entitled "war-time alcoholic beverages order, 1942," prohibited from February 1, 1943, brewers and distillers from advertising their products in newspapers or magazines, or in any other way. Newspapers from British Columbia and Quebec were the hardest hit, together with a large number of Canadian magazines dealing with trade or sport and social and literary matters. On February 8 last I spoke in this house in favour of the newspapers of my province, especially the weeklies. The restrictions imposed by war upon a great number of items were responsible for the weeklies losing a large amount of local and national advertising. The dailies had wider sources of publicity to rely on, although they still faced a serious handicap in that situation; but the weeklies and the magazines, drawing more than one-third of their net national advertising from beer, wine and liquors, found themselves in a very bad position.
Speaking for the Quebec weeklies, I set their case before the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Gibson) and requested that if this advertising was to be discontinued the government should grant them compensation from other sources. The Canadian weekly newspapers association also made strong representations.
On March 2, 1943, the war-time alcoholic beverages order, 1942, was amended. This amendment permitted beer, wine and liquor firms to publish advertisements helping the war" effort or public interests. This was an improvement. But I believe that the government should also permit these companies to mention below their trade names the products which they manufacture. This amendment does not give them the right to do so. The
amendment benefits a company which makes products bearing its name, but does not benefit companies whose products do not appear below the trade name. On the other hand, the name of the product, whether it be the case of a distiller or any other industrialist, is an essential fact, especially when one knows that millions have to be spent in publicity and years of propaganda in order to have it accepted by the public.
I also wish to draw to the attention of the government the fact that United States distillers and brewers have full-page advertisements in magazines printed on the other side of the border. It is true that quite a few of these brands, advertised in United States magazines, are not sold in this country, but if the government bans liquor advertisements in this country on the ground that they incite people to drink, it should not allow this principle to be violated by indirect means. I have examined many United States magazines having w'ide circulation in Canada, and I find that quite a few brands of alcoholic beverages which are sold in this country are advertised in those magazines, because the companies which make them have branches in both Canada and the United States. I even noticed an advertisement completely Canadian in its character on the outside cover of Time magazine of March 15 last. Therefore United States companies which have branches in Canada, or Canadian companies which have branches in the United States, will assign large sums for liquor publicity in magazines which are allowed to enter this country; they will use all means at their disposal to circulate these magazines. This is highly unfair, first for Canadian distillers and brewers who have no branches in the United States and thereby cannot advertise their products, and then for the newspapers and magazines of this country who will be compelled to withdraw before these United States magazines, a few of which on many occasions publish injurious and obnoxious articles relating to Canada and the province of Quebec. These United States magazines have a total circulation in Canada of 1,118,000 copies.
I am convinced that the government is making a good war investment by voting estimates for advertising in the newspapers of the country. A well-drafted official advertisement is always read; sometimes it is cut out for future reference, and it always has direct and practical results. The daily press is of vital importance because each day it covers a large area. The weekly press, operating in a smaller area, does not hinder the work of the
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The Budget-Mr. Bertrand (Terrebonne)
larger press, but is rather its complement. If in order to inform the population of a country like Canada as to the multitude of laws arising from the war, the government itself had to print and distribute this volume of matter, often covering full pages, which the newspapers print without charge, as an information service, how many millions of dollars would the government be compelled to spend for this purpose? When a newspaper publishes a government advertisement, out of deference to its readers it also writes along with it editorial comments and remarks which create an opinion, or which give a diversified public an opportunity to form an opinion in the light of those facts.
Has the wartime information board, which this year is to be provided with an amount of $1,500,000, since its creation produced the results which the public were entitled to expect? No. Many competent persons with a thorough knowledge of journalism were successively appointed to direct this organization, and they all walked out as if they considered that nothing efficient could be effected in that bureau, as if its very existence was questionable and its organization impossible to materialize on a practical basis. A newspaper man does not stick very long to a job where his sense of initiative is paralysed. This board must be reorganized. Others have been asked to direct it. Will they be more successful? I do not think so. The press is too well equipped to expect from this organization any help in spreading its daily information, and the newspapers have too many sources of current information at their disposal to be interested in publishing re-sifted news, commonplace literature or information without local interest. In other fields of public information this bureau may be useful; but instead of flooding newspapers with literature and bulletins which are not used, it should limit its task to the radio and the movies, to a national programme in favour of unity, better understanding and a common effort. For instance, why should it not initiate a series of broadcasts on the success encountered in this or that district during national victory loan campaigns or Red! Cross drives? These addresses could be delivered by newspaper men familiar with the various districts, who would be well qualified to deal with these matters in an interesting way and with practical results. And how many more broadt-casts could be prepared to awaken the nation, inform it on various important matters, and so forth? As far as journalism is concerned, the wartime information board is groping in the dark, wasting its time, wasting the country's

money, without giving it anything in return; and the releases it hands out are nothing but a repetition of statements issued by various departments of the government.
I really believe that in order to be efficient, departmental information should be decentralized away from Ottawa, and handed over to various provincial and district organizations. In order to illustrate what I wish to say, may I be permitted to point out that the releases sent out to newspapers, especially to weeklies, by the Montreal office of the wartime prices and trade board, and signed by Henri Girard, are ideal models in the matter; they are short, precise, accurate, well written, and never encumbered with useless sentences which too often seem to come out of textbooks. Some boards and departments are in the habit of issuing statements which are too long, and thus are never published. Official information relating to a province or a district can be developed in an interesting manner, and it would be to the interest of the government to consult the various newspaper associations in order to become acquainted with their suggestions. The daily newspapers have particular needs, and they have an association. Why should it not be consulted? The weeklies of English expression also have their association, the Canadian weekly newspaper association, which has been quite useful in the past and which certainly would have interesting proposals to submit. In Quebec the weeklies also have the association of French-Canadian weeklies, which at present has a membership of approximately fifty. Their problems may be different from those of the *weeklies in the rest of the country, but they could submit serious and useful suggestions toward a common cause. May I point out that the government ignored or forgot the existence of this organization, when it did not see fit to invite it to send representatives with the group of newspaper men who visited Great Britain last September.
At present, Mr. Speaker, Canada has 110 dailies and 973 weeklies. These figures are impressive. The eighty-eight dailies affiliated with the Canadian press have a total circulation of 2,364,844 copies. I cannot give the exact circulation of the weeklies, but I believe it to be almost as high, since the weeklies, as local papers, enter into every home in the districts they serve. Without exaggerating I may state that a newspaper enters two and a half million Canadian homes out of a total of 2,660,000. This is indisputable proof of the power of the newspapers, of their importance

The Budget-Mr. Graydon
and of their superiority over all other forms of propaganda and information, even the radio. In a recent interview in Vancouver the general manager of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Doctor J. S. Thomson, stated:
Radio will never replace the newspaper. After they have heard the summary of the news, people want to know more and refer to the newspaper.
I was pleased to read this statement, -which confirms the opinions I have expressed in this speech. The newspaper is the heavy artillery of public information. It proves so every day. The services it renders to the nation are of such a nature that -they cannot be remunerated. Of course every newspaper editor has his own opinions, which he freely expressed. The freedom of the press is a sacred thing, and when it exists in a country that country can be assured of surviving. The press is a leading power, and to deprive a society of such a power would be tantamount to condemning it to die. The existence of this leading power must therefore be assured. More than any other financial undertaking, the newspapers have felt severe blows from the war-on one hand, rationing of paper, continuous increase, and a further possible increase in the price of newsprint, higher taxes and salaries, and other restrictions; on the other hand, their principal source of revenue, namely, that of advertising, has constantly been on the decrease. The government, by appropriate measures and concessions, should facilitate the task of the press at this period when it must face alone a greater amount of work together with increased obligations. Thus the government would enable it to fulfil its mission, its whole mission, namely, that of informing the public.
On motion of Mr. Graydon the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie (Vancouver Centre) the house adjourned at 10.50 p.m.
Tuesday, March 23, 1943