TRADE AND EMPLOYMENT


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to
table copies of proposals for expansion of world trade and employment which were communicated by' the United States government, together with the text of a financial agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States, as signed at Washington on December 6, 1945, and related documents. These are in printed forms.
In connection with the tabling of these documents there is a brief statement I should like to make.
Trade and Employment

These proposals have been prepared for consideration by an international conference on trade and employment, which the United States government suggests should be convened by the united nations organization for the summer of 1946.
The government of the United States has proposed that all countries should concert their efforts in the sphere of their international economic relations, with a view to expanding the volume of world trade and maintaining high and stable levels of national employment. The specific suggestions for achieving these ends, set forth in the document which is now being tabled for the consideration of members of parliament, deserve our most careful study, for no country has a greater interest than Canada in the realization of these objectives.
Members of the house will recall that in withdrawing, on November 12 last, such tariff changes as had been incorporated in the budget resolutions the Minister of Finance stated that "within the last few days we have been given substantial ground for believing that the prospects of early international action for the reduction of tariffs and other barriers to world trade are considerably improved." The documents I am tabling to-day indicate that in the four weeks that have intervened, material progress has been made and that what was then a mere hope or expectation has become, to quote from the joint statement by President Truman and Prime Minister Attlee, "agreement on the broad principles of commercial policy for which the two governments will seek international support."



LABOUR CONDITIONS


Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):: I have just dispatched the following wire to the management and employees of the Ford Motor Company of Canada, also to Mr. Addes, international secretary treasurer of the union at Detroit:
The reply of the Ford Motor Company to the formula proposed by the union was received this morning. I have asked Mr. Greig to furnish a copy to Mr. Burt at Windsor this morning. In its reply the company pointed out the difficulties in the way of adopting the formula presented by the union including the fact that it would be impossible to find an arbitrator who could accept the responsibility on a time limit basis and particularly when it is the company's view that the selection should be made from the membership of the Supreme Court of Canada. Both the Honourable Mr. Daley and myself do believe that it would be difficult to bring about arbitration on a time limit basis and after giving the situation very serious consideration and because of the urgent and imperative necessity of getting the

employees back to work we urge that the proposal made by the Honourable Mr. Daley and myself in our letter of November 27 be again put before your membership by referendum vote.
Both sides have now agreed that in calling men back to work seniority rules shall prevail as far as this is possible under the circumstances. If the Departments of Labour of the dominion and Ontario governments can be of assistance in the supervision of such vote we shall be very willing to arrange such assistance.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. NICHOLSON:: How many employees of the Department of Agriculture holding:	(a) Bachelor's degree;
(b) Master's degree; (c) Ph.D., are found in each of the following salary classifications- (1) less than $1,000; (2) $1,000-$2,000; (3) $2,000-$3,000; (4) over $3,000?


Mr. GARDINER:: (a)	Bachelor's degree-1. Less than $1,000, 1; 2. $1,00042,000, 287; 3. $2,00043,000, 358; 4. Over $3,000, 96.
(b)	Master's degree-1. Less than $1,000, nil;
2.	$1,00042,000, 60 ; 3. $2,00043,000, 113; 4. Over $3,000, 47.
(c)	Ph.D.-1. Less than $1,000, nil; 2. $1,00042.000, 10 ; 3. $2,00043,000, 41; 4. Over $3,000, 62.


CO-OP IMPLEMENT COMPANY-RAW MATERIALS FOR MANUFACTURE OF FARM MACHINERY
[Stage Direction]
Mr. THATCHER;
1.	Has the wartime prices and trade board received a request from the Co-Op Implement Company, Winnipeg, for an allotment of raw materials to allow it to commence manufacture of farm machinery?
2.	If so, what action has been taken?
Mr. MAYHEW:: 1.	Yes.
2.	During the period that raw materials were under strict control all farm machinery manufacturers submitted their requirements of iron and steel to the administrator of farm and road machinery and municipal service equipment who in turn arranged with the steel controller of the Department of Munitions and Supply to approve the orders on the steel producers. Under this arrangement all requests for allotments of iron and steel made by Co-operative Implement Company Ltd., Winnipeg, were pro-rated along with all other implement manufacturers and supplied by the steel producers.

Questions
With the termination of the war certain restrictions were removed and the steel controller was no longer obliged to approve steel mill schedules.
Malleable castings are currently produced for the farm implement industry under the direction of the priorities officer of the Department of Munitions and Supply on recommendation of the administrator of farm and road machinery and municipal service equipment of the wartime prices and trade board. Requests made by the Co-operative Implement company are pro-rated on an equitable basis with all other implement manufacturers and are being produced and delivered.


COAL SUBSIDIES
Mr. GILLIS:: 1.	Were any subsidies paid by the government on imported coal consumed at the Globe and Mail Newspaper Publishing Company of Toronto from 1940 to the end of 1944?
2.	If so, to what amount?
3.	Were any such payments stopped, and why?


Mr. MAYHEW:: 1.	Under the definition of "consumer goods", authorized by wartime prices and trade board during the period from April 1. 1943 to April 30, 1945, imports of United States bituminous coal and coke used for the heating of buildings or to provide customary and necessary service for such buildings (with certain exceptions) were eligible for subsidy consideration. As subsidies were paid to the dealer importing the coal and not to the end-user, Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation Ltd. has no record as to what subsidies were paid on coal consumed by individual concerns. Furthermore, were the information available, it would necessarily be withheld on the grounds that, in accordance with government policy as stated from time to time in the House of Commons by the Minister of Finance, it is not considered to be in the public interest to give information as to subsidies paid by Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation Ltd. to individual concerns. (Ref. House of Commons Debates No. 47, dated April 24, 1944, page 2281.)
2 and 3. Answered in one above.


PURCHASE OP TORONTO PROPERTY
Mr. FLEMING:: 1.	Has the government purchased property on or near Summit drive immediately north of Loretto abbey and east of Yonge boulevard, just outside the city of Toronto?
2.	If so, from whom was the property purchased?
3.	What is the area of the property and w'hat buildings are located on it?
4.	What price was paid for the property?
5.	What use is intended for the property?


Mr. GARDINER:: 1.	Purchase has been authorized and is now being completed.
2.	A. L. Ellsworth, Esq., Toronto, Ontario.
3.	(a) 23 acres, (b) Buildings on property comprise one large, three-storey, brick and stone residence; one "H" shaped, two-storey structure used for classrooms, offices and staff accommodation; greenhouse; one small summer house; and one pumphouse.
4.	S100.000.
5.	Permanent R.C.A.F. staff college.


PARLLAMENT HILL-ROADS AND SIDEWALKS
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	What is being done to clear the sidewalks and roads on parliament grounds this winter, and who is responsible for this work?
2.	How many men and inspectors were engaged daily in snow removal during the recent snowstorms ?
3.	Does the government clear the snow from in front of all government buildings and crown property in Ottawa?
4.	What modern equipment and plant have they for this work?


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: 1.	(a) Ploughing, shovelling and hauling of snow; (b) federal district commission.
2.	One hundred and one.
3.	No.
4.	Five motor truck ploughs, three tractor ploughs, two power graders, one bulldozer and five sanding and snow-hauling motor trucks. During large storms, five additional snow-hauling motor trucks are hired.


VETERANS' LAND ACT-PURCHASE OF LAND IN ONTARIO TOWNSHIPS
Mr. MENARY:: 1.	How many farms did the government purchase for the Veterans' Land Act in the townships of Minto. Maryborough, Peel, Arthur, West Luther, East Luther, West Garafraxa, Erin ?
2.	What was the average purchase price in each township?
3.	When will these farms be available to
veterans ?


Mr. TUCKER:: 1.	Purchase completed of 9 farms.
2.	Minto, $4,500; Maryborough, $4,800; Peel, $4,025; Arthur, -; West Luther, $4,800; East Luther, -; West Garafraxa, *-; Erin, $3,800.
3.	Five of the farms have already been disposed of to veterans. The balance are available now.
Questions


BRITISH COLUMBIA SECURITY COMMISSION- C. VV. VOLGER
Mr. MacINNIS:: 1. Has C. W. Volger at anytime been employed by the British Columbia Security Commission?
2.	If so, bow long was he so employed?
3.	What were his duties with this commission?
4.	Is he still in the employ of such commission?
5.	If not, when and how were his services terminated, and for what reason?


Mr. MITCHELL:: 1.	Yes.
2.	From April 1, 1942, to October 16, 1945.
3.	April 1, 1942-carpenter, Hastings Park Centre. August 1, 1942-construction foreman, Slocan Project. November 16, 1942-construction foreman, Tashme Project. October 1, 1943-log scaler on wood fuel operations, Tashme Project.
4.	No.
5.	Employment was terminated by written notice of October 9, 1945, under authority of the commissioner of Japanese placement and effective October 16, 1945. Services were dispensed with upon the recommendation of the supervisor of the Tashme Project, Department of Labour.


INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL
Mr. COLD WELL:: 1.	Has the government of Canada signified its adherence to the agreement setting up the international military tribunal, which was signed by the representatives of United States, France, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, on August 8, 1945?
2.	If not, under what conditions will the trials of persons accused of military atrocities against Canadian nationals be conducted?


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: 1.	No.
2.	Trials of persons accused of violations of the recognized laws and usages of war are being conducted in the European theatre by Canadian military courts convened pursuant to the War Crimes Regulations (Canada) by the general officer commanding the Canadian occupation force in Germany. Cases against particular accused are presented
- to the United Nations War Crimes commission, and if a prima facie case is found to exist, the accused is placed by the commission on the list of war criminals. Moreover, before trial the charges are required to be approved by the Judge Advocate General or his representative.
A military court has been so convened for the trial of Brigadefuhrer (Major General) Kurt Meyer, former commander of the 12th SS Panzer division (Hitler-Jugend). Meyer will stand trial on seven charges having to do with murder of forty-eight Canadian prisoners of war during the fighting in Normandy in June, July and August, 1944. Meyer's trial began at Aurich, Germany, on December 10, 1945.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. MacINNIS:: 1.	How many naturalization certificates have been revoked in the period September 10, 1939 to August 15, 1945?
2.	What was the nationality of the persons whose naturalization certificates were revoked?
3.	Has any action been taken to deport such persons to their country of origin?
4.	If so, how many such persons are to be deported and what is the nationality in each case?


CIVIL SERVICE-MERCHANT SEAMEN
Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Do merchant seamen have preference in the civil service?
2.	If so, since when, and what is such preference?



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Mr. BURTON:: For a copy of all correspondence, bills of sale, applications and other documents in the possession of the Department of 'the Secretary of State, the custodian of enemy alien property and the soldier settlement board, received since the beginning of the war to date, in connection with the sale of N.W. J, section 2, T.P. 41, range 24, W. 2nd, in the province of Saskatchewan.


Mr. MARTIN:: Mr. Speaker, in acceding to this motion it is understood that it is done with the usual reservations.
Return tabled.



DOMINION ELECTIONS-MELVILLE, SASK.

Mr. CASTLEDEN:: For a copy of the evidence given at the public inquiry into the alleged irregularities of poll 50 in Melville constituency during the 1945 general election.

Business oj the House



SERVICE PERSONNEL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JOHN BRACKEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I had a question which I wished to direct to the Minister of National Defence, but in his absence I saw the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie) just before entering the house and he thought that lhe could answer it. In view of the fact that representatives of Canadian newspapers were not permitted to board the Queen Elizabeth when she docked in New York harbour last week, with thousands of returning Canadian soldiers and airmen aboard, will the government take steps to gain permission for representatives of Canadian newspapers to board ships arriving in New York harbour with returning Canadian service personnel aboard?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Obviously I am not in a position to state that Canadian correspondents were not permitted to go aboard the ship. Certainly if others were permitted to go aboard, Canadian correspondents should have been granted the same permission. There may be some important regulations that govern in this matter. The government will look into the matter at once and I shall ask the Minister of National Defence to make a reply later.


John Bracken: That is satisfactory.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Bracken: I have a question to ask with
respect to unfinished business at this late date in the session. One has to do with the Canadian flag. I understand that when a reference is made to a committee and the committee's work is not finished, the reference lapses. Is it the intention of the government to reorganize the flag committee next year in conformity with the recommendation of the committee?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The answer is yes.



EXTRADITION-ARRANGEMENT BETWEEN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Bracken: There is one other item of unfinished business about which I wish to ask a
question, namely, the extradition treaty. Is it the intention of the government to give the house an opportunity to discuss the report of the committee dealing with the extradition treaty. Perhaps the Minister of Justice can answer.
Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Minister of Justice):	I understand that the committee
has heard evidence and is reporting the evidence and recommending that the government give further consideration to the treaty and protocol, but that has not yet been done. There will not be, I understand from the report, an opportunity for the house to discuss the matter at this session, but the evidence taken and the recommendations of the committee will, in accordance with what I understand to be the practice, be considered by the government, whose decision will be announced as soon as it can be reached if the house happens to be then in session.


John Bracken: There is no thought of
making provision for discussing the report at this session?
Mr. ST. LAURENT:	No, I do not think
there will be any opportunity for doing that this session. I think it desirable that consideration be given to the recommendation of the committee before making it the subject of discussion leading to a decision.
Mr. HACIvETT: May I ask the Minister of Justice if it is not the policy of the government to afford to the house an opportunity for discussion of the subject matter of a treaty before it is made? I shall not read into the record the attitude of the Prime Minister as set forth in Hansard of February 8, 1932, volume 1, page 46, in which he stated most emphatically that it was the position of the government-


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order. The question of the hon. gentleman should be brief and to the point.


Mr. HACKETT:: I will ask the minister if it is not the intention of the government to afford an opportunity to discuss the question of this treaty before it is renegotiated.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: The policy of the government has been exhibited by its conduct in connection with this treaty. The protocol was signed and then the treaty and protocol were submitted to the house for its consideration before ratification. Then the matter was referred to the committee on external affairs, where evidence was taken. As I said a few moments ago, a decision has not yet been made by the government on the report of the
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committee. As soon as a decision is reached on the report of the committee, it will be announced.



WAR EXPENDITURES COMMITTEE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: May I follow the question asked by the leader of the opposition with a supplementary question. The War Expenditures committee has met very seldom and has not proceeded very far with its inquiry into public expenditures and the activities of the War Assets Corporation. Is it the intention of the government that the committee shall die, or is it to be continued during the recess? I understand that that would have to be done by the issue of a royal commission, but I am not sure.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I cannot say of my own knowledge, but I am informed that the committee intends to recommend that it be permitted to sit again next session. If that recommendation is made by the committee it will be carefully considered by the government.



MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN SECOND REPORT OP STANDING COMMITTEE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. C. GREEN (Vancouver South):: May I direct a question to the Prime Minister? There has been a motion standing on the order paper for several weeks having to do with one of the earlier reports received from the committee on external affairs. Could the Prime Minister say whether an opportunity will be given to conclude that debate? It will take a very short time and it is, I think, of great importance to the future successful functioning of the committee.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I should think an opportunity ought to be given, but I imagine it will be the part of prudence to reserve the opportunity until towards the latter part of the session.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

[Stage Direction]
91. Departmental administration, $170,499.
Mr. SMITH (Calgary West):: I wish to call to the attention of the minister a situation which exists, I think, peculiarly in

Alberta and which I think should be remedied, certainly not later than the next session. Out there, still being under the Northwest Territories Act, on a charge of murder the defence is allowed but six challenges. The crown on the other hand have six challenges and-I forget the number-it is thirty or forty "stand asides", at least that is the expression which has come to be used. The net position is just this, that if a man is charged with murder and a jury is being selected he can object to only six people, while the crown on the other hand is able to eliminate about fifty. Now it may be said that both have an equal number of challenges, but as the minister well knows, a "stand aside" is equivalent to a challenge so far as the person on the panel acting on that jury is concerned. I have had personal experience of this within the last six weeks or twelve months. In the case of a man charged with murder I used my six challenges, and then the crown simply went ahead and selected those jurors that they sought. I am not suggesting that there was anything wrong in what crown counsel did; he is an able man and a close personal friend; but I do say that that is a situation which in my judgment is simply crying for a remedy. I do not think that any member of the committee, knowing the seriousness of the crime with which such a man is charged, would wish to put him at any disadvantage whatever. The whole scheme of our administration of justice is that every consideration should be given to an accused person.
It may be that this is something in respect of which the provincial government should be consulted, although I do not think so. It is something over which they have no jurisdiction. I know they would expect to be consulted with respect to numbers of jurors and things of that kind, but I can think of no reason why they should expect to be consulted with respect to the number of challenges. In short, I am asking that we be put in just the same position as the other provinces and come under the criminal code with respect to challenges and selection of jurors in general.
Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Minister of Justice): I can assure the hon. member of my full sympathy with the object he has in view in the remarks he has made this morning. I give him the further assurance that his suggestion will be carefully .considered, and if it is found that it is something we can do at once it will be attended to. If it should be felt that the attorney general of his province should be consulted, we will do that.

Supply-Justice


Arthur Leroy Smith: Thank you.


Mr. REID:: Some short time ago the
Minister of Justice made a statement regarding penitentiaries, to the effect that when a riot or disturbance took place in a penitentiary the request had been made to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation not to broadcast the information throughout the country. Anyone who has had to do with penitentiaries or has made visits to them realizes that in the various penitentiaries there are radios; these men are listening to what is going on, and the report of a disturbance or riot in one penitentiary does affect or might affect others. But it was reported in the press the other day that, the new appointee to the head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had said: Despite what the Minister of Justice or the department has requested, we will broadcast any riot that takes place throughout the country. I know there is a tendency to set up bureaucratic bodies and say to parliament: Hands off; no political interference. That is [DOT]all right, but to my w'ay of thinking there is a new danger arising in this country, of setting up dictators in charge of boards and bureaux who are defying the very will of the people. Here is the first that has arisen, and I am asking the Minister of Justice to take note of the statement of the chairman of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, who says in effect that whether it is in the public interest or not, he as chairman will broadcast these things, and the Minister of Justice can go to the dickens. It is time this parliament, which is the voice of the people, resolved that this new dictatorship should not be allowed to go much farther than it has gone.
Mr. ST. LAURENT:	I think the hon.
member is under a misapprehension as to this new dictatorship." Mr. Dunton was appointed chairman of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and he communicated with me the other day to inform me that at a meeting of the governors a resolution had been passed to the effect that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation could not refrain from broadcasting all news which was available to the newspapers and to the other broadcasting corporations. The resolution of the governors has been received, and there has been no opportunity as yet to give it consideration. But I should not like the impression to go out that this is a one-man decision of the new chairman of the board; and I can assure the hon. member that the resolution of the board of governors will be given careful consideration.


Mr. MacNIOOL:: With reference to the
reclamation of prisoners sent to penitentiaries in Canada, a year ago I had an experience with a young man who had been committed to one of these institutions. I will not say which one, because that is neither here nor there; they are all in the same boat as far as that is concerned. Before being sent to prison he had worked in a butcher shop, and his mother was anxious that he should learn something more about butchering while in the penitentiary. I wrote to the warden conveying that request to him. Later I read an article in one of the publications put out in Toronto -I believe it was Hush. At any rate, it was one of those publications that do some good. I do not know how Hush got hold of the information, but there was an article about this young man not having been given an opportunity to learn the butchering trade in the penitentiary. That was the first I had heard about his having been turned down.
I remember well some years ago the minister's predecessor, the Hon. Ernest Lapointe, brought in a bill, and he said that without penitentiary reform he could not remain minister of justice. He said the situation was intolerable. Following that speech I myself went over to England to study prison reform, particularly with reference to the Borstal system. I studied the system as it existed in the prison near Leeds. I believe it was at Leeds that the Borstal system was organized. I learned that the system had done fine work. I should like to find out what programme we have for prison reform or for the reclaiming of prisoners in our penitentiaries. I am not one of those who believe that prisoners should be released indiscriminately. Possibly there are some who cannot be reclaimed, but I believe that there are many who can. What is the department doing along the Borstal line or in any other direction looking to the reclaiming of prisoners?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Apparently, in spite of the fact that the hon. member is a constant attendant at debates in the house, he must have nodded when the amendment to the Penitentiaries Act was being debated and when it was passed in this house a couple of weeks ago. On that occasion the matter was gone into fully-


John Ritchie MacNicol: I remember that.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: -and an amendment to the Penitentiaries Act was put through to enable the government to appoint at once one commissioner to do the preparatory work of implementing as far as possible the Archam-bault. report under the jurisdiction of the
Supply-Justice

federal parliament. I said then that it was hoped there might be an opportunity during the dominion-provincial conference to discuss carrying it even farther than could be done under the jurisdiction the dominion now has over penitentiaries.
With respect to the case the hon. member mentions, I am sorry I am not a reader of Hush, and I do not know anything about it. But even under the present set-up it is the aim of wardens to see that training as effective and appropriate as possible is provided for those who are interned under their charge. I should be glad if the hon. member would give me the particulars in the case he mentions, because it would appear from what he says that something has gone wrong. I should like to have the case investigated and brought to the attention not only of the warden of the penitentiary in question but of the wardens of all penitentiaries in order to make them more careful in applying the policy, namely, of doing the best we can in the way of training and rehabilitation for convicted persons.
I hope that ere long there will have been selected a competent person to take on the job of going as far as possible with the implementing of the recommendations of the Archambault commission. It was not possible to do that during the war because of the shortage both of material and of man-power, but we have now reached the point where I hope both competent man-power and building material required for the purpose of carrying out these very commendable recommendations will be available.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Do these recommendations envisage some such programme as the Borstal system?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: The Borstal system could not properly be installed by the federal government, with the limited jurisdiction it has over penitentiaries. One of the purposes in trying to get a proper person as chairman of the commission is to have someone who will visit the attorneys general and discuss the situation in each of the provinces with a view to having all the governments do, in that direction, that which will be of benefit to the Canadian public by more effective rehabilitation programmes in dealing with persons who happen to fall by the wayside.


Mr. FLEMING:: The matter I wish to
refer to arises out of the observations of the hon. member for New Westminster. There is another side to the question he has raised. He complains of some display of dictatorship on the part of the general manager of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with

regard to the broadcasting of information relating to riots and other troubles in the penitentiaries. The other aspect of the matter is this. Although this sort of news has been appearing in the press regularly, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, through its facilities, arranges with the Canadian Press to carry that kind of news along with other news, apparently some directive was issued by the Department of Justice to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation instructing them to discontinue broadcasts of the kind1. I would respectfully invite the Minister of Justice to state what form of directive or instruction was issued by his department to the broadcasting corporation in connection with the discontinuance of broadcasts of news of that sort. I should like later to make a comment on it, but that information is due the house and the Canadian people because there has been some misunderstanding and a good many questions are being asked by the public as to the circumstances under which such directive or instruction was issued by the Department of Justice, to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: No directive or instruction was issued by the department to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It so happened that when the matter arose I took it up with the manager of the corporation. For the reasons that I put before him I obtained his compliance with a request that he ask the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to refrain from broadcasting that kind of news at the hours when the news broadcasts are allowed to be received in the penitentiaries. There was no directive; there were no instructions; there is no ground for alarm. It was a request that was made, and at the time they considered that the reasons for it were sufficient to justify the granting of the request. The board of governors have come to a different conclusion and the matter has not been further discussed.
When the request was made the staffs of the penitentiaries were as much restricted as it had been possible to make them because we had given leave of absence to large numbers of guards and others who wished to enlist in the armed forces. At that time I felt that it was a reasonable request to make, and the then manager of the broadcasting corporation felt that it was a reasonable request to accede to. The matter was mentioned here the other day when we were discussing the penitentiaries bill. It immediately raised a hue and cry and a storm of protest about the censorship that was to be exercised over the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The governors in

Supply-Justice
solemn session passed a resolution that they would not submit to that. That resolution has been received and has not yet been considered. That is the whole story so far.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Would the minister
indicate what the policy of the department is likely to be now in view of the stand taken by the board of governors of the broadcasting corporation? I am not pressing this in any carping way, but since the matter has implications that may be more far-reaching than one is inclined to realize the committee might properly ask the minister for some indication of policy in the matter. It is indicated that the board of governors of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation have asserted their right to continue these broadcasts notwithstanding the request from the minister. What policy does the minister propose to follow with reference to this matter and similar broadcasts of information?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: The minister and the department propose to do their best to maintain order in the penitentiaries. The minister and the department know from experience that when news of trouble in one penitentiary penetrates into another it is disturbing. Now, as to what measures we shall have to adopt to prevent that cause of disturbance, no decision has yet been reached. It may be that we shall have to have some kind of filtering or monitoring system to prevent news that would be the cause of disturbances in the penitentiaries from getting in there. The simplest way seemed to be to prevent it from going on the air, but apparently there is strong objection to that method being adopted. Wre are certainly going to try to find some method of preventing that cause of disturbance in the penitentiaries.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I do not want to pursue the matter further, but I hope that some method can be worked out by the Department of Justice for doing what is necessary to preserve proper discipline within the penitentiaries without its becoming necesary to ask the broadcasting corporation to refrain from putting over the air waves information that is circulating freely in the press. I do not agree with the view expressed by the hon. member for New Westminster that it is evidence of dictatorship on the part of the C.B.C. when they assert the right to put over the air waves information that is published freely in the press. I rather think that in a situation of this kind the board of governors are to be commended for their determination to see that the same freedom exists on the air waves as exists in the press in the matter of the
distribution of news. It is not evidence of dictatorship on the part of the C.B.C.; it is evidence that the C.B.C. appreciates its full responsibility to the public, regardless of whatever request may be received from the government. I think it is evidence of independent judgment in these matters on the part of the C.B.C. andi an unwillingness to yield meekly to a request from a minister of the crown. It is highly important that in the broadcasting of news that the freedom of the C.B.C. be preserved, just as we want the freedom of the press to be preserved in regard to the printing of news.


Thomas Reid: In answer to the hon. member (Mr. Fleming) may I say my chief reason for bringing the matter before the committee at this time was not to show that the C.B.C. or the manager was not attending to any directive or not paying attention to any directive, because I know that that body has been set up as a body independent of parliament. What I was objecting to was the request itself and what lay behind it. If the governors of the C.B.C. would investigate and speak to the wardens of the penitentiaries they would find out the truth. The warden in New Westminster told me that every time the news of a disturbance in a penitentiary comes over the air he has to put on extra guards. He can sense the feeling of the convicts and has to take extra precautions against trouble that may arise because that news has come over the radio. If the C.B.C. had looked into that matter and made an inquiry they might have taken this stand. While the minister has no right to give any direction to us and no right to expect that we will take it, the matter is worthy of attention.
When I mentioned the word "dictatorship," what I had in mind, and what I was objecting to, was this. I do not know whether the hon. member is aware of what we have been up against. We have many boards to-day, and when we think we have a real injustice and go to them they say: "We do not care about that; parliament has set us up as an independent bod}'." When we go to the minister and mention these things he says: "Do not speak to me; I have nothing at all to do with that; parliament has set up that particular body"; and so we are drifting and losing our democracy and freedom. There are hundreds of other instances of the kind. I shall have something to say about the C.B.C. and what they are doing when we come to the appropriate item.
I just want to draw the attention of the committee to the fact that in this country we are drifting away from democracy and
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losing our freedom. The members who represent the people are being ruthlessly shoved to one side by members of these boards.


Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: There were two or three questions I wanted to ask the minister, but with regard to the last matter just mentioned I think the minister acted somewhat indiscreetly in communicating with the general manager. He could have achieved the purpose he had in mind by filtering out those portions of the broadcast which might cause disturbances in other penitentiaries. I was glad to hear the hon. member for New Westminster speaking as he did. He simply reiterated what we on this side of the house have been saying for a long while-that surely the only risk that some of those bureaucrats run is your welfare and mine in some of the decisions which they make independently of parliament. Their decisions affect one's goings and comings, his spendings and earnings, and parliament continues to sit on matters of supply.
What I rose to speak about was something that the minister mentioned the other day. I realize the difficulties. In Canada to-day we have a definite crime wave, as they have in the United States.


Humphrey Mitchell: And in Great Britain, too.


John George Diefenbaker: In Great Britain, too, as my hon. friend says. It is becoming very serious. The multiplication of robberies with violence by men who commit murder warrants serious consideration. When men carry revolvers, pistols and the like they go out prepared to commit murder. I was surprised when I read the other day the extent to which revolvers and pistols are legally held by Canadians. The extent of what I call an evil-excepting where the carrying of guns is absolutely necessary-is appalling. According to the last registration there are over 222,000 revolvers legally owned in this dominion. This means there is a great bank available for thugs and desperadoes to be able to put themselves, by means of theft, in possession of the instruments of their profession. While I am far from advocating the use of unfair or strong-arm methods, I for one cannot see the need for that number of revolvers in this dominion, available, as I said a moment ago, as a bank to potential wrongdoers.
What consideration, I ask the minister, has been given to ostracizing the revolver and pistol in this country, removing them from the hands of all except those who require them and will properly guard their possession?

The prospect facing us is fearful, when week by week, in spite of heavier sentences, robbery with violence is so much on the increase. These men cannot operate without revolvers and pistols. Shotguns are of no use to them at all because they are too easily seen. The onl}' order in council I know anything about in this connection, and I obtained this information from the Department of Justice, is the one that was passed on July 23 last having to do with the regulation of weapons being brought back to Canada as war weapons, mementoes and war trophies. Has the minister given consideration to stringent legislation, or, if we have not time to pass such, legislation at this session, an order in council, to banish the revolver as an instrument in the hands of people in this country, other than those who require it?
The situation in the old country, as the Minister of Labour stated, is most serious. 'The same can be said of the United States where, though their position is different from ours because of state rights, they are contemplating measures to take away from potential murderers their instruments and the insignia of their profession, as it were. I Should like very much to hear the minister speak on this. I realize that he has given a great deal of thought to it, and anything he might propose I am sure would receive support right across this country. We do not want to see anything approaching regimentation; we are all in agreement on that, but this is not a case of regimentation. It is a case of the safety of the state in time of peace.


John Thomas Hackett: Poison in the hands of babies 1


John George Diefenbaker: Yes. It is really (regulation necessary for the protection of society. A situation such as we face to-day demands drastic action. Punishment will not keep these people from the commission of crimes of violence and murder: Possibly the heavier the punishment, the more inclined they will be to commit murder when cornered, with the instruments at hand. I ask the minister what consideration has been given by his law officers to drastic interference with private rights, if you will, in the interests of the state.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: The speech the hon. member has made and the answer I am going to make will bring to the department _ an increase in the flood of protestations against legislation to confiscate all small arms, coming from a very large number of perfectly respectable Canadian citizens. Some weeks ago the

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matter was mentioned in the house, and the impression got abroad, possibly not erroneously, that the law officers of the Department of Justice were preparing a draft for an order in council to be in effect until the end of the present session of parliament, to be accompanied by legislation introduced in the house to make such provision permanent. While I do not want to refer to the previous debate we had on the emergency powers bill, and perhaps I should not have mentioned it at all, I can at least say that the tone of the discussion in this house has been such that I think it is wise to abstain from the exercise of powers under the War Measures Act or similar legislation as much as may be compatible with a proper regard for the real interests of the Canadian people. The rumours that got about were to the effect that an order in council was being prepared to come into effect at once, and to be followed by legislation, the order in council to have no continuing effect if parliament did not enact the legislation.


John George Diefenbaker: Put it on the statute book immediately.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: That gave rise to a flood of letters and telegrams from respectable people against that kind of violation of their freedom and property rights. The matter was given consideration, and the information I received was that before the war there were some 222,000 registered small arms and that there must be all of twice that many in the country at the present time. Some of these are held for perfectly legitimate purposes, in the hands of banks, trust companies, messenger companies and the like, and a very large proportion of them are war souvenirs and trophies. It was felt that an order of this kind would mean confiscating things having a value of some millions of dollars, according to present market values, for such arms, and that it would not do to go that far at this time.
I can say to the hon. member that the commissioner of the mounted police is much disturbed over the situation and, as I had occasion to say here the other day, his officers are discussing the matter with officers of the attorneys general of all the provinces. The criminal code calls for registration, and that registration is a matter of joint federal and provincial administration. That series of discussions is going on and an endeavour is being made to find some practical method that would appear to be acceptable to the majority and that would not be so drastic as to confiscate, from a large number of men who have risked their lives for this country and have been fortunate enough to return, things to which they attach considerable sentimental value.
The situation is a difficult one, and I hope to have a recommendation not for council but for this parliament at as early a day as possible. It was found that it would not be possible to bring in a bill to amend the criminal code at this session, with any hope that it might be dealt with as it would deserve to be dealt with. I hope to have one at an early day, and to be able then to give the house the results of these discussions that are going on now in various parts of Canada as to what seems to be the reasonable thing to do for the protection of the public. No one will quarrel with the hon. member's suggestion that we should remove from the custody of potential murderers any small arms they may have, but that is perhaps a little like trying to remove from the penitentiaries the danger of disturbances arising of news about other disturbances elsewhere by preventing such news from being broadcast to the rest of the Canadian citizens. That may be too drastic a way to achieve the result that is sought.


John George Diefenbaker: What is the alternative to expropriation, say with compensation?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: One thing that is being considered, which is really not an alternative, is the tightening up of the registration and then making subject to confiscation everything that is not registered.


John Thomas Hackett: Could the owners of these weapons be called upon to deposit them for a period of five years?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: That suggestion has not been considered, and I do not know that it would be looked upon as being much more satisfactory to the returned men than taking them away altogether. As I say, we are considering tightening up the registration system and making it obligatory to notify the police at once, if a small arm gets out of the possession of the registered owner. It would then be subject to confiscation. That would be easier as it would be quite proper to regard anyone who had a small arm which was not registered' as not being the right kind of person to retain it. I would see no objection to confiscating everything that had not been so registered within a relatively short time. You could say to the individual: You were given an opportunity to keep this thing by complying with the law; you did not do it, and you are *being punished individually for having committed an offence in failing to comply with the requirements of the law. To go out at once and pick up all these things regardless of the character of the person having them, regardless of how he acquired them, without
trviBiD xditiok
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any personal regard at all, would seem to me a pretty harsh procedure affecting a number of good1 Canadian citizens. It may be that the situation will develop in such a way that it will have to be done, but it would be regrettable to have to do it. We hope it may be possible to arrange something that will be reasonably efficient without going that far.


Mr. McKAY:: Mr. Chairman, I have several observations to make on our penal system, and I think this is as good a time as any to make them. I notice there is another items on branch administration, but I had proposed to give this talk some time ago, and I feel that what I shall put before the committee is worthy of some consideration at this time. I have no apologies to make for taking up the time of the committee, because penal reform is a matter of major importance.
There is no doubt that the most effective method of dealing with young offenders, and we have plenty of them, is the application of the Borstal system which is used in the United Kingdom. The Archambault. royal commission report advocated the adoption in Canada of the principles of this system. During the war years no attempt was made to implement many of these recommendations, especially the one with regard to Borstal institutions. The war was generally accepted as an adequate reason for inaction on the part of the government. However, now that the war is over I submit that there is no further reason for delay. A careful examination of the 19-15-46 estimates under the services enumerated for the penitentiaries branch does not disclose any item that indicates any real attempt to implement the important recommendations made in the report of the royal commission, especially those with regard to Borstal schools. It has been suggested, and rightly so, that this federal capital has a high rating as a last resting place of royal commission reports.
The royal commission to investigate penal reform in Canada cost this country $108,719. It is the opinion of sincere students of penology, men who are not cranks but scientists and practical sociologists, that that report is one of the most noteworthy pronouncements on penal matters ever made by a responsible body in this country. The work was thorough, the calibre of the men on the commission was of the highest order, and the cost was not excessive provided that something is done about reforming our prison inmates. Otherwise the public may rightly assume that this expenditure was a waste of public money.
I submit that for every day that this nation delays in making the necessary reforms for

the proper rehabilitation of the convicts in our prisons, it is paying dearly in wasted dollars, repeated crimes and unredeemed human life. The failure to modernize and to humanize our penal institutions is poor business. This country spends millions to perpetuate a system of crime schools. Because of their very nature our prisons fail to rehabilitate and reform the young offender. We are creating a criminal class by schooling them in the practice and technique of crime. Institutions such as we have fail to correct or cure; they are an expensive liability. According to United Kingdom and Canada year books, the rate of crime in this country as compared with England and Wales is four to one. Our crime convictions increased three hundred per cent between 1901 and 1935, and they are still increasing. Adult convictions per hundred thousand in Canada in 1900 were 109, but by 1940 they had increased to 452 per hundred thousand.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Are those convictions for crime, or do they cover convictions for violations of traffic laws and so on?


Eric Bowness McKay: Those are penitentiary
offences.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Does the hon. member assert that those are convictions to penitentiary terms?


Eric Bowness McKay: They are major convictions. If the sentence exceeds two years the man goes to the penitentiary, but these are still major crimes. Most of these are recidivists.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Is the hon. member sure he is correct?


Eric Bowness McKay: Absolutely correct.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Is the hon. member
saying that the statistics he is giving are of persons convicted to serve terms in the penitentiary?


Eric Bowness McKay: This information is taken from "Penal Institutions", by Topping. That is the statement made by Mr. Topping, who is a much greater expert in this field than L am. Most convicts are repeaters or, as they are called, recidivists. Three out of four males admitted to our penal institutions in 1943 and 1944, according to this same authority, had been previously convicted1 of crime. That is roughly seventy-five per cent.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Has the hon. member figures pertaining to the results of the inquiry into the Borstal system of preventing repeaters?

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Eric Bowness McKay: Yes, and I will give that information as I go along. Obviously, if these figures are accurate, and there is no reason to believe they are not, we are failing to reform our criminals. In 1925, 1,702 of the inmates in our penal institutions had been convicted three or more times, but by 1936 this figure had risen to 8,060, an alarming increase of almost 500 per cent. This should be a matter of serious concern. It does not matter whether they went to gaol or to a major penal institution under federal jurisdiction; the fact remains that the increase has been 500 per cent.
Penologists are alarmed, too, at the increase in the number of youths who are committed for breaches of the law. In 1931 there were 1,324' offenders between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one convicted for indictable offences, just five times the number in the United Kingdom, with four times our population. In 1943 according to the Canada Year Book, 53-3 per cent of our prison inmates were under thirty years of age.
Our penal institutions are costing this country millions of dollars. Apprehending the criminal and the maintenance of police and law courts cost many millions more. Tables have been compiled to show the cost to the country of 188 repeaters, selected from a group of 8,000 of these unfortunates. The number of convictions against these 188 was 3,434, or an average of 19 per person; 2,636 were major convictions, which cost an estimated $18,005 per prisoner. There were 798 minor convictions registered, which cost an average of $948 per person. The average cost of keeping each prisoner was $1,463 for gaol and reformatories, and $5,984 for penitentiaries. Without reckoning the loss to citizens occasioned by the crimes committed or the funds devoted to the relief of dependents or the economic loss to the nation because of the incarceration of these individuals, these 188 repeaters cost the country in gaol and reformatory costs, $264,876; penitentiary maintenance, $1,083,254; and cost of convictions, $3,258,960, or a total of $4,607,090, which amounts to an average cost of $25,453 per repeater, and at the same time prevention and welfare agencies spent $10 per head to aid or redeem these unfortunates. Surely we are penny wise and pound foolish.
Furthermore, costs are increasing; for according to the 1942 report of the superintendent of penitentiaries it cost $1.98 per day in 1941 for the maintenance of each prison inmate, and in the next year, 1942, the cost had risen to $2.18 per day. Last year the estimates of this government show that in 47696-211i	,
the province of Ontario alone, for the maintenance of judges and law courts, which are a part of the machinery of justice for the handling of criminal cases we spent $5J million.
Why do wc have repeaters? One of the main reasons is that inmates are still permitted to mingle with one another-the youthful offender with the seasoned criminal. Furthermore the opportunity of educating and training these inmates is denied because they are unable to take that training under the conditions prevailing in our institutions at the present time. And the result is that when these young people come out of our penitentiaries they are not equipped to maintain themselves. Much of the training that is required is denied because of the inadequacy of accommodation in our prison institutions. I suggest further that it may be because of the lack of trained personnel to train and advise these young people.
In reply to a question which I put on the order paper the Minister of Justice replied on October 31 to the effect that 137 changes as recommended by the royal commission had been implemented. But these changes were mostly of a minor nature and to ease the hardships of some prisoners does not change the punitive and repressive nature of our prison regime. One major recommendation, the installation of the Borstal system, has not. been acted upon.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: And cannot be acted upon until there is some change in our constitution.
Mr. McKAY; The failure to act promptly on this particular recommendation means that young people are still leaving our prisons worse members of society than when they entered. This is a severe indictment of our system but wholly justified by the results.


Arthur Leroy Smith: They were not very good members of society when they went into those institutions.


Eric Bowness McKay: No, they were not. To permit the young offender to associate with the hardened criminal has brought disastrous consequences. This is well illustrated in an editorial which appeared in the Winnipeg Tribune on July 23, 1944. I shall not take time to read it, but the editorial refers to a young girl who was convicted of a minor offence, driving a motor car at an excessive rate of speed. When she got out of prison she made the charge that the gaol was a school of crime, and she claimed that from the knowledge she acquired while there she is now
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acquainted with the hang-out of criminals in Winnipeg and could get in touch with half a dozen dope addicts in twenty minutes.


An hon. MEMBER:: Did she give that information to the police?


Eric Bowness McKay: Yes, and the police are investigating.


Arthur Leroy Smith: What institution was that? Was it Portage la Prairie?


Eric Bowness McKay: I believe it was. It takes a lot of time to answer questions, Mr. Chairman, and I do njot wish to take up too much of the time of the committee.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I am backing you in what you just said.


Eric Bowness McKay: 
John Thomas Hackett: I preface the few remarks I wish to make with regard to the occupation of judges by asking the minister if he is in a position to say how many judges appointed by federal authority are at present engaged in work on commissions or in any other work outside the pursuit of their ordinary judicial duties, and if he can also give the same information for the past five years.
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Mr. ST. LAURENT: I have not that information. I know there are some judges who have been appointed to commissions. Some of them have completed the work they were asked to do and some have not. I presume I could get the information, but I am sorry to say I have not got it here.


John Thomas Hackett: I would like to suggest to the committee that the practice of appointing judges to commissions where the questions at issue are not judicial-they are sometimes social and frequently tinged1 with politics- has been indulged in not only by the present administration or by the one which preceded it. Both major parties have resorted to this practice, and it is because I believe that the practice is an improper one that I wish to draw it in a particular way to the attention of the minister.
This morning we heard the Minister of Labour refer to the possibility of appointing a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada to compose a conflict between capital and labour which for several months has baffled all agencies which have attempted to compose it. It is true that the Canadian people have great confidence in their judiciary, and it is well that it should be thus. But I submit that the continuation of this practice will undermine, and I am sorry to say that in my opinion it is already undermining, the respect that our people have for our judiciary. I shall refrain from mentioning particular instances, but there is no man who is familiar with the administration of justice in Canada who cannot, within his own personal experience of the last few years, pick out instances in which the judiciary has been drawn into controversies which were far from being judicial, controversies which in the result have tagged this judge as one favourable to capital, this judge as one favourable to labour, this judge as favourable to one political party and this judge to another, this judge as favourable to one fiscal or financial theory and this other judge as favourable to an opposite theory. This I think is highly reprehensible and regrettable. We have a number of institutions in the country of which we are very proud, and of none are the Canadian people more proud and more justly proud than of its judiciary. The practice of taking men away from their judicial functions to hold a semipolitical problem in abeyance, pending the formation of a policy which may prove a solvent for it, is highly unfortunate. It not only results in the deterioration of the respect that Canadians have for their judges: it delays the administration of justice. Judges

taken away from their duties are not replaced and the administration of justice frequently suffers.
I am confident that the minister is aware of many such instances, and it is quite probable they have been drawn to his attention. Judges are frequently not unwilling to accept these additional tasks because it sometimes affords them an opportunity for increasing a remuneration which in my opinion is entirely inadequate. If our judges received a compensation which enabled them to live on a plane commensurate with the importance of duties they perform, it is quite possible that the temptation to take on this additional extra judicial work would not be as great, and it might enable the members of the judiciaiy to resist the temptation to augment in this way their totally insufficient salaries.
I therefore ask the minister if it is not possible to put an end to this practice, which has, as a direct result, the slowing down of the administration of justice in all jurisdictions and the exposure of the judiciary to a loss of reputation for impartiality which is so essential to the maintenance of the administration of justice on the high plane on which it has always been in Canada.


Arthur Leroy Smith: In a moment I am going to disagree with many of the things that the hon. member for Stanstead has said. You see, there is some independence in this group over here. First I want to make a suggestion to the minister in connection with this revolver and pistol business. It may be foolish, but it may have some merit. Can we not help the situation by having complete restrictions, or at least tightly drawn restrictions, on the sale of ammunition? We have all these guns in the country, and it seems reasonable to suppose that in a comparatively short length of time the ammunition that a man brought back in his pocket will be exhausted through target practice, shooting sparrows, or something of the kind. Unfortunately some of it may be used on ourselves. But in any event within a limited time surely it will be exhausted. My information is that revolver ammunition is of a specialized kind. I take it the idea is that a man who has some crows on his farm may have a shot gun or a rifle, but he does not need something that he can pack in his pocket and probably use on his neighbour. I think that is at the bottom of the whole business. A revolver is not much good if you have nothing to shoot from it.
May I now come to the views expressed by the hon. member for Stanstead. He seems to take issue with something I said in this

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house some time ago, when, we were dealing with labour. I want to make it plain that my views in that connection are based on this broad principle, namely, the rule of law. Everything that we have in the way of protection of the individual has been obtained by enforcing honesty in business transactions. After all, laws are nothing more than the codification of good sense and good morals. That is all they are at any time, and all that this country has accomplished, at least socially. What does it rest on?	It rests
broad-based on the rule of law. That is the main reason why in labour matters I did suggest an appeal by either party from a board of conciliation to a judge of the supreme court. I go further. Do not worry; I give my hon. frietnd credit for the finest intentions in the world. He is a man of great capacities and long experience. I know quite a number of judges, and I say that in my view they do not accept these assignments with any idea of an increase in income, because all they get is a living allowance. Let me put it in this way: in the province from which I come that is the situation. Why do they do these things?
I do not think they like these assignments, but they do accept them as a matter of public duty. Say the hon. member for Stanstead and I have a lawsuit, and I go before the hon. member for Lake Centre who some day will be the chief justice of an important part of this country. Suppose I lose my lawsuit to my friend over here; my first reaction will be to damn gently the hon. member for Lake Centre. That is just human nature. We think he is no good. But we get over that after the first blush on losing, because no one likes to lose; after that passes the thing goes on.
What is the great value of a court of law in civil business? It is this. We hope that the judgments are right, but we know that, the judgment having been given, the business of the country can proceed. It seems to me that that is a consideration which is not given sufficient attention.
On the political side I want to say this. We will assume that in another election, were I to run, which I am not going to do, I was beaten and dissatisfied, and I had the opportunity of picking my judge. I would accept the judge who before he was appointed to the bench was of a political persuasion other than my own. Why? For this very good reason, that I know of nothing to which judges are so sensitive as the suggestion that they may have political bias. My experience, and it is somewhat broad, is that rather than have anybody think anything of the kind, and in order to be perfectly straight, they will lean
backwards in the other direction. May I go with the hon. member, though, and go with him a long way in this? We do not pay our judges nearly enough. What is the result? We will say that there are a number of people who would accept an appointment to the bench, but many of them simply cannot do it. Why not? They have a scale of living to which they have become accustomed, a family to clothe, educate and so on, and they simply cannot do it

they cannot make a quick reduction in income; let me put it in that way.
I refer to that scale of living as something which grew normally from the money they earned, and they cannot just drop down in that scale and carry on their ordinary duties to their family and friends.
I am happy to say that I had the opportunity of a chat with the Minister of Justice on this question the other day. I know he is in entire agreement with the views I have expressed. He had expressed them before in this house on two occasions.


Mr. MacINNIS:: I intended to say a few words on the matter that was spoken to by the hon. member for Lake Centre, namely, the crime wave and how to control it. I am not going to deal with the control of firearms. I realize that it is a difficult problem, because the firearms which are generally used in crimes are, I suppose, those which are not registered. The department knows where the registered firearms are and can confiscate them, but it does not know where the firearms are that are not registered.
The crime wave which has struck this country in the last year or two is not peculiar to Canada. I notice from the press that it is world-wide. In the press yesterday I saw that Scotland Yard had made an appeal to the people of Britain to assist. A few day9 ago I read that Moscow was in pretty much the same position, and the same is true of the United States. We must conclude therefore that this crime wave has developed out of the way of life of so 'many people during the past five or six years. This being so I do not think we can remedy the situation by statutes or laws or regulations. It can be overcame ultimately only by leading our people into more constructive ways of life, giving them obligations and opportunities to carry out those obligations, and in this way building up their responsibilities. In my opinion we can never eliminate crimes of violence or any other sort of crimes against society by laws and penitentiaries and prisons and police and all that sort of thing. We can do it only by building up in our people a sense of obligation to the community. In the past I think we have placed too much em-
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phasis on our rights without at the same time emphasizing our obligations. But it follows that if we are to put people in a position to lead constructive and useful lives, they must feel that others consider them to be useful and decent members of society. I know of nothing that will help a person have greater regard for his honour and integrity than to feel that other people believe in him. That is all I want to say on this point.
In regard to the controversy between the hon. member for Calgary West and the hon. member for Stanstead in the matter of judges acting in labour disputes-


John Thomas Hackett: Not only labour disputes; all extra-judicial work.


Angus MacInnis: I will deal with the labour dispute point, because it is the one with which I am most familiar. I think that generally speaking, organized labour has more confidence in a court or board presided over by an eminent judge than in a board presided over by anyone else, and we should have such courts and boards where the judges are chosen with great care. But I do not believe it would be a good policy to allow appeals from boards of that kind to any judge or court. These cases should be confined to labour courts only, and these decisions should not be referred to any judge outside that court.


Mr. PEARKES:: I can readily understand the desire of a man to retain as a souvenir a weapon he had used or had captured on the battlefield, but seldom would he wish to use that weapon after obtaining it. I suggest that such weapons could be made ineffective by any armourer or gunsmith at the time of registration, which might possibly prevent them from falling into the hands of criminals.


Mr. McMASTER:: 
John George Diefenbaker: There was one matter I wanted to bring to the attention of the minister in connection with the administration of justice in Saskatchewan. A six man jury system was brought into effect in that province about 1932 as a result of a request by the then Saskatchewan government. This change was made with a view to saving money through a reduction in jury fees. The same system was adopted in one or more other provinces in the middle west. I think it is generally agreed that the six men jury system has not worked out as satisfactorily as the traditional twelve men jury. There is something about the twelve men jury that is lacking in a jury with lesser numbers. The exercise of control by a judge is more definite in the case of the smaller jury. Tradition and experience have shown that a jury of twelve men is the ideal number. Has the minister had under consideration the amendment of the criminal code to enable Saskatchewan to return to the old system of twelve men juries? Representations were made at the last two meetings of the Saskatchewan Bar Association, but I am not certain whether those have been transmitted to the minister with a view to an amendment of the criminal code.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Dealing only with the last question of the hon. member for Lake Centre, may I say that I have no knowledge of any representations having been received from the government or the attorney general of Saskatchewan. I should not like to initiate any change that was not suggested by the attorney general, who is of course primarily responsible for the administration of justice in his province. If I may be permitted, I would suggest that the resolutions of the 47696-212
Saskatchewan Bar Association be brought to the attention of the attorney general of the province. I can assure my hon. friend that if the attorney general will in turn bring them to our attention and suggest that he would like to have them dealt with, careful consideration will be given to them.
If it is not the wish of the committee that this item should carry now, I shall have to ask that it be allowed to stand, because there is a matter of great urgency that requires my presence elsewhere. I shall endeavour to be back in the committee as quickly as possible, when I shall deal with the questions which were raised this morning and with such others as may require attention.
Item stands.



MINES AND RESOURCES

[Stage Direction]
Lands, parks and forests branch-
1ST. Branch administration, $20,000.
Mr. BROOKS:: Before the war provision was made for national parks in practically every province but New Brunswick. I understand that at that time there was some difficulty with the provincial government over the selection of a site. Has there been any consultation with the provincial government regarding a site, and are steps being taken to establish a national park in New Brunswick?


Hon. J. A. GLEN (Minister of Mines and Resources):: The matter is under consideration. The provincial government have two or three sites in view but they have not decided which one they will offer to the dominion government.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: That has been the situation for the last six or seven years. Before the war there were two or three sites under consideration, but nothing has been done as yet. Are they still considering two or three different sites, or has the matter been allowed to stand all this time without anything being done?


James Allison Glen: At the present time the provincial government is considering two or three sites. As soon as they have settled the matter we will then consider the formation of a national park.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: Can the minister give the location of the different sites in New Brunswick which are under consideration at the present time?


James Allison Glen: I have not that information at the moment, but I can get it and give it to the hon. member.


John Bracken: Under what item would aids to road construction be taken up?

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James Allison Glen: That would come under the surveys and engineering branch, item 150.
Mr, ZAPLITNY: Are permits being issued to settlers near Riding Mountain national park to cut timber for lumber purposes, and if so, what price is being charged them per thousand?


James Allison Glen: The timber in Riding Mountain national park is budgeted each year. Certain areas are set aside and for these permits are granted.


Mr. ZAPLITNY:: What price is charged to the settlers per thousand?


James Allison Glen: I have not that figure here, but I can supply it later.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Is there a uniform price charged to all who cut timber in Riding Mountain national park, or is there one price for large contractors who take a timber berth and a different price for the ordinary settler who wishes to get a permit to cut timber in the park?


James Allison Glen: As the hon. member knows, there have been two timber limits in that park area for many years. But the price to the settlers is uniform.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: This is important, Mr. Chairman, because it involves a matter of policy. According to a return that I received from the minister's department on September 11, 1945, there were in the park two timber berths, Nos. 571 and 551D, which have been contracted for by the Northern Trust company. They have taken out since 1940, according to the figures I have here, a total of over 7,000,000 board feet of lumber at a price slightly over $7,000, which works out at one dollar per thousand. At the same time the settlers and people living around the park w'ho wish to take out lumber in smaller lots pay considerably more than that. Why is there this tremendous difference? In the first place I do not think that one dollar per thousand for lumber is very good business on the part of the government. The lumber is worth considerably more than that. I should like to know why there should be any difference in the price charged to the settler who cuts lumber for himself and the price charged to the Northern Trust company.


James Allison Glen: There are two limits there that were granted long before the park came into being, and the contractors are taking off that timber. As soon as it is cleared', those areas will be taken over by the park. That is the reason for the discrimination. We cannot interfere with what is already a contract with those who purchased these limits prior to the establishment of the park. fMr. Bracken.]


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Do I understand the minister to say that the department has no power to alter a contract that was entered into before the area became a park? If that is so, it is strange, to say the least.


James Allison Glen: That is so; we cannot alter the contract.


Mr. McCULLOUGH (Assiniboia):: Is there any movement to take some provincial parks and bring them under federal jurisdiction? I have in mind Kenosee park. There has been some talk of its being made a national park. Have recommendations to that effect been made to the department?


James Allison Glen: No recommendations have been made as such. A national park can be established only on land given by the province to the dominion for the purpose.


John Ritchie MacNicol: How far does Wood Buffalo park extend into the Northwest Territories? You start passing the park on the Slave river south of Fort Fitzgerald, which is in northern Alberta. Does the park extend into the Northwest Territories?


James Allison Glen: There are nearly 14,000 square miles of it in the province of Alberta, 3,625 square miles in the Northwest Territories.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That park in Alberta comes under this department?


James Allison Glen: Yes.


Mr. GIBSON (Comox-Alberni):: Has any discussion taken place with British Columbia with regard to taking over Forbidden Plateau as a national park?


James Allison Glen: Some proposals have been made, but no conclusion has been arrived at. The provincial government is considering the matter and will submit a proposal.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Government of the Northwest Territories-
139. Eastern Arctic expedition, $75,000.
Alfred Johnson Brooks: I presume this is the expedition which leaves Nova Scotia every year to take supplies to the northern country?


James Allison Glen: It leaves from Montreal.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: The details show $200 for supplies and materials, and $65,000 for freight, express, telegrams, postage, and so forth. Do other departments supply the materials and goods sent to the northern country, or does it all come under this department?


James Allison Glen: The supplies are purchased from other votes for the different departments. This item covers chiefly the freight.

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Howard Charles Green: Can the minister tell us what plans the government have in mind for checking up and developing the resources in the Northwest Territories? There was a small vote under the war appropriation bill, "Report on resources, etc., of Canada's northwest region, $5,000," which will be found at page 554 of Hansard. One of the most important jobs which the Canadian government has, I think, is to assist in opening up the Northwest Territories. I would ask the minister to let us know what is being done in that connection.


James Allison Glen: While the vote for general administration shows a decrease of $75,000, the actual expenditures for the year 1944-45 were $372,689. It should be pointed out that there will be included in the supplementary estimates for the current year an item of $553,800 for the Northwest Territories, which will bring the appropriations to $933,485. I mention this for the purpose of informing the members that the government is making provision for increased facilities of many kinds in the territories. The moneys in the supplementary vote are being used for the following purposes:
Yellowknife Airport	 $245,000
Administration and staff buildings	140,000
Additional forest protection ....	140,000
Other improvements and facilities	28,800


Howard Charles Green: Are these in the Yellowknife area?


James Allison Glen: Yes, chiefly. In addition to these expenditures, considerable moneys from other votes of the department are being expended in developing the resources of the territories. An extensive geological field survey programme has been carried out in the Northwest Territories during the last three years, and this was enlarged during the past season. In addition several topographical parties were in the field, and every effort is being made to have the most important areas properly mapped. As well, the hydrographic service did considerable charting work on the Mackenzie river route to improve water transportation, and also completed the charting of the Yellowknife bay area in Great Slave lake. Other geodetic and legal survey parties were also in the area during the past summer. The Dominion Water and Power Bureau also carried out reconnaissance and field investigations of the power possibilities in the vicinity of Yellowknife and established a number of gauging stations on certain important rivers and streams. Hon. members will be interested in knowing that to provide for the increase in population at Yellowknife a new townsite has been surveyed.


John Ritchie MacNicol: And that is adjacent to the island?
47696-212J


James Allison Glen: Adjacent to the island, on the road to the airport. It will be appreciated that the two votes mentioned do not cover all the dominion expenditures being made to open up this part of Canada. The Department of Public Works has appropriated a considerable sum to construct a portage road from the St. Charles rapids to Great. Bear lake. The construction of this road will be completed in the near future.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That is on the Great Bear river?


James Allison Glen: On the Great Bear river, yes. Other funds have been provided by the same department to improve the Mackenzie river waterway which at present is a principal medium of transportation. An. active programme of dredging was carried out last summer on the Clearwater and Athabaska rivers. The construction of a special dredge is now under way which will be used in deepening the channel in the Athabaska delta and will be ready for use next year. Other expenditures are being made for the purpose of improving the wharfage facilities at Fort-Smith, and investigations are being carried out for the purpose of bringing about improvements in similar facilities at the principal points along the river route.
Every effort is being made by the government to lower the transportation costs into the territories. This is perhaps the most important problem that has to be dealt with. The members will recall that jurisdiction has now been given to the board of transport commissioners in reference to the water transportation in the Mackenzie river area.


John Ritchie MacNicol: They will have to cut down the freight rates.


James Allison Glen: That is the idea. This will permit a proper investigation of the existing water rates. In order to provide other means of transportation, an agreement has now been reached with the Alberta government for tht construction of an all-weather road from Grim-shaw, Alberta, to Hay river settlement on Great Slave lake.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Are they not going to rivu on to Mill's lake? My information is that at Hay river falls one route goes to the mouth of the Hay river and the other goes to Mill's lake, forty miles west of Fort Providence.


James Allison Glen: Of course that may be a matter which will be followed up later.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I know where that Grim-shaw road is.


James Allison Glen: Surveys are being made at the present time, and they will be able to start in next year. Approximately 300 miles of this
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road is in Alberta, and 80 miles in the Northwest Territories. Under the terms of the agreement the dominion and the province will share jointly the cost of construction of the provincial section, the dominion will contribute an amount not exceeding two-thirds of the cost, and the province will contribute not less than one-third. The section of the highway in the 'Northwest Territories will be built entirely at the cost of the dominion.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That is north of the 60th parallel.


James Allison Glen: Three hundred miles is in Alberta and eighty miles in the Northwest Territories. It is expected that the province will be calling for tenders for the provincial section in a few weeks and active construction work will commence early next year. It is anticipated that the road will be completed by the end of the year 1947.


Howard Charles Green: Has there been any increase in the population of the Northwest Territories? Perhaps the minister can tell us what the possibilities are of employment in that area for men who are being demobilized from the forces. Is any information available for these young men about their chances in the territory? I feel sure that Canada is not doing what she could do to develop that country. One has only to observe what is going on the other side of the north pole to learn that Russia is building large cities in an area which, I believe, has about the same climate and much the same resources as the Northwest Territories. Is the government taking any steps to try to develop northern Canada in the same way that Russia has developed northern Siberia?


James Allison Glen: The hon. member asked with regard to the increase of population. There is an increase, and it is likely to be greater in the near future.


Howard Charles Green: About what increase has
there been?


James Allison Glen: About 1,500 people more in the Yellowknife district. That may be increased considerably elsewhere. However, that is the increase reported at this time, and it is expected that there will be considerably more in the near future. So far as employment is concerned, the companies operating there are in touch with the department for the employment of men. The employment of returned soldiers is of course part of the rehabilitation plan and they will get the preference. There are many projects to be dealt with so far as the Northwest Territories are concerned. I *realize, as the hon. member has said, that Canada is looking to the territory as one of the great hinterlands which must take care of 
many of our problems in the future, more especially in connection with employment. All of these matters are being dealt with in the dominion-provincial conference. Our department realizes the seriousness and significance of development of the Northwest Territories from the point of view of all Canada. If I am strong enough to get a larger vote for next year I shall provide more funds in the next estimates for these particular purposes.


Howard Charles Green: Have any steps been taken to find out the type of development which Russia has been carrying on in Siberia?


James Allison Glen: I do not wish to say anything which might be misconstrued elsewhere. Our department has been making inquiries with regard to the matters of which the hon. member speaks, with not very great success in getting information.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Before the item carries I want to compliment the minister on what he has said. It will give a great deal of hope to the people up in that country. A few days ago I received a copy of the Blade a Yellowknife newspaper. I am sure that when I send the editor of that newspaper the copy of Hansard containing what the minister has just said it will help to allay the fears of the people in that country. The population of the Northwest Territories is now about 10,000 in the whole area around Yellowknife, Fort Smith, and the territory north from Fort Smith and down to Norman Wells and Aklavik. The paper is called the Blade. It is published by a vigorous editor, and I hope he gives the minister praise for his programme. Here is what the Blade says on its first page, November 20, 1945:
Northwest Territories Association
As announced last Saturday, the Northwest Territories Association is in process of formation.
This is potentially a great and growing section of Canada but its present potentialities and all hopes for its future may be destroyed if the Ottawa administration is not aroused from its comatose condition.
We must show those swivel-chair northerners-by-proxy that we must have a say in our own affairs.
I am sure that when the editor, John Murray McMeekan reads the Hansard which I will send him by air mail, he will see that Ottawa is now alive to the situation.
I think, perhaps, to keep Hansard right, I should add something to what the minister stated about the Grimshaw road. I have been over it, from Grimshaw to Notakewin, so I know what I am talking about. The end of the present hard gravelled road is Notakewin. From Notakewin up to Hay river, or

Supply-Mines and Resources
rather to Alexandra Falls on Hay river, is a winter road, a tractor road made during the last two or three years, thanks mostly to the Alberta government. They will be pleased, I know, that this government is now going to cooperate with them in making that a hard surface road, as it should be. At Alexandra Falls the road will divide like a V; one goes off to the right to the mouth of the Hay river, from which point, in the winter time, tractor traips will go across the Great Slave lake to Yellowknife. That is the reason it is being built. The other part of the V will go to Mackenzie river, to Mill's lake on the Mackenzie river and across the Mackenzie river on down to the town of Norman Wells. I hope the minister will keep before him the Norman Wells area too, because that is part of the Northwest Territories. I am sure he is interested in the welfare of that part of the country and in making winter transportation possible where there is none now. His participation in any such effort will allay the feelings of the people there about separation, or whatever it may be called, because I could read further articles out of this paper referring to the time of the American revolution and suggestions about this being the time for them to organize and get busy.
The reason for that road from Grimshaw is the fact that the Great Slave lake freezes solid, so much so that after the Mackenzie river opens in the spring there is no steamer transportation through Great Slave lake for two and three weeks later, because, the boats cannot get through Great Slave lake into the Mackenzie river. It is felt that when the road is completed', tractor trains going north from Grimshaw will take large quantities of supplies to Mill's lake on the Mackenzie river, and in the spring the Mackenzie river boats will take freight down the river perhaps a month earlier than they otherwise could if they had to go through Great Slave lake. The same would apply in the fall of the year. When the boats are coming up the river they cannot go through Great Slave lake because of the ice, but they could unload at Mill's lake and ship by tractor train through to Grimshaw on the Peace River road.


John George Diefenbaker: I wish to ask the minister a question in regard to YeUowknife, but before doing so I think I ought to make this observation. After listening to the member for Davenport, and in view of the experience he has had and the knowledge which he has brought to the discussions in this house, I suggest that there are many people across this country who have been awarded a fellowship in the Royal Topographical Society for much less than the hon. gentleman has done in the interests of developing the natural resources of Canada. What I had in mind was this. Yellowknife is becoming one of the large centres in the north. The people there were disfranchised in the last general election. As I understand the situation, by reason of their location they are being denied the right to exercise their vote. I know that strong objection has been raised by the people, and I trust that between now and some time in the next feiw months when electoral changes are being made the minister will bring to the attention of the appropriate department the necessity of doing something to remove the unfairness that now exists.
Mr. GiLEN: The hon. gentleman is referring to electoral representation?


Mr. DLEFENB AKER:: Yes.


James Allison Glen: A townsite has been formed in that district and they have a council, three of whom are elected by the people and three appointed by the commission of the Northwest Territories and council. The whole matter of representation will have to hi taken care of in the very near future rather than over a long period, because it is expected that there will be a large inflow of people as that area develops. NaturaUy the whole question will have to be considered in the. light of government policy.


John George Diefenbaker: What is the population?


Mr. COCKERA  M@: About three thousand.


James Allison Glen: In Yellowknife settlement itself there are about 1,500, and in the remainder of the Mackenzie district, there are about 2 500 white people. But people are coming in and are likely bo come in in much greater numbers in the future. The original townsite of Yellowknife was built upon rock, there being no ready facility for sewage disposal, but there happens to be a piece of land, near the present site, which is covered with good earth, and we have been able to create a townsite which has been surveyed. The people will live there in a reasonable degree of comfort. Altogether we are fuUy aware of the situation. We are seized of the fact that considerable expense will be involved in the future development of that district. All encouragement must be given by the department for the development of that district, because if one believes all the fairy tales one hears, it is apparently an Eldorado.
Supply-Mines and Resources


John Ritchie MacNicol: The population of
Norman Wells, Fort Smith and intervening points should be included, because they are all in that northwest area.


Mr. ADAMSON:: If the minister were a betting man I would wager that the population in the next few years will be quadrupled.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I do not wish to retard the progress of these estimates, but I want to go back to the question of the national park at Riding Mountain, because it involves policy and is a matter of great importance. It involves the handling of the natural resources of the country. I think the minister should make a better statement than he has given us. He is familiar with the situation, since the park happens to be in his own riding and next to mine, so we both have a great interest in it. I would ask him why it was that the Northern Trust company could get a contract for two limber berths wherein they could cut lumber at a price of $1 per thousand, while settlers living around the park, if they could get a permit, which is difficult, had to pay a higher price. I do not know what the exact price is at the present time, but we have some indication from a return here which gives the names of two persons who received contracts. These were Mr. Dewitt and Mr. Proskin of Sandy lake, and the contracts were entered into in 1940. They paid $4.35 for the lumber they cut, while the Northern Trust company has cut over seven million feet of lumber at a price of $1 a thousand.
Before this item carries I would like to know when these timber berths were contracted for originally and for what period of time. The minister has told the committee that the contracts were made before the area became a park and therefore nothing can be done about it now. I do not want to criticize him. He is new in the department, and no doubt there are some things which he intends to straighten out when he can. But I would point out to him that this is certainly one of the things that should be straightened out very soon, and the reply that nothing can be done about it is not at all satisfactory. After all, the forest is contained in a national park and is the property of the people of Canada. There is therefore no reason why a contract made some years ago at the ridiculous price of $1 a thousand for lumber should continue in perpetuity. I do not know how long the contract has still to run, but I suggest that the minister should move immediately to make an adjustment. If the local settlers who need the lumber badly-and they need it worst of all-cannot get a permit in some cases to cut for their requirements, why

should some big corporation have the privilege of moving into a national park and taking out seven million feet of lumber in the last five years which they sold at a very handsome price for the building of airports near Dauphin.
Some of it was probably exported. They got it for SI a thousand. Because I think it is important and pertinent to the argument
I	should like to put on the record some of the figures. To make it perfectly clear I shall quote some of the figures which were given to me in the return dated September
II	of this year. I shall include only one of the timber berths, No. 571. This berth was contracted for by the Northern Trust company. The figures are as follows: In 1940-41 they took out 2,889,606 feet at a price of $2,852.26. The committee will note that that works out. at $1 a thousand feet. In 1941-42 they took out 1,185,510 feet at a price of $1,187.16. In 1942-43 they took out 421,781 feet at $415.79. I wonder how many people tried to buy lumber in those years and. what price they paid for it. In 1943-44 they took out 507,900 feet at $507.90. In 1944-45 they took 908,839 feet at $908.82. The other berth is 551-D, and it ran at the same price.
In August 1945 I had occasion to write to the Department of Mines and Resources in behalf of some farmers who came to see me. They were seeking a permit to cut timber in an area described as Buck lake. I have the reply of the minister here and I shall put on the record that part of it which is pertinent to this discussion. He replied as follows:
I have your letter of the 4th instant, to which was attached a petition from fanners in the vicinity of Gilbert Plains, asking that some 200 acres of mature timber southeast of Buck Lake be opened up for cutting.
This matter is being taken up with Superintendent Heaslip, and as soon .as a report has been received from him I will advise you further.
I would assume that the report was not favourable and this area was not opened up. There may have been some reason for that, but in view of the fact that this company has been taking out timber for many years-I know for five years-at $1 a thousand, timber which belongs to the people of this country, and the settlers who live alongside of the park have not been able to get any. I think that a great injustice has been done. I do not think that the reply of the minister that this contract was entered into before the area became a park is good enough. The farmers who applied to get a few thousand feet of lumber will not be satisfied with that

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answer. We cannot shrug it off and pass the buck, even though it is in connection with Buck lake.
Does the Minister of Mines and Resources approve the contracts which were made with the Northern Trust company? It is important that we know whether this same policy will be followed in the future. Does the minister approve selling the resources of this country at SI a thousand feet to large corporations at a time when the farmers who are living next to the resources cannot get permits to cut timber at all?


Mr. PROBE:: A contract is a sacred thing,
is it not?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Another thing that should be brought to the attention of the committee is that the Northern Trust company do not cut the timber themselves. They have not set up a saw mill; they have sublet this contract to a saw mill which is doing the cutting, and there you see again the whole operation that has taken place repeatedly in connection with our natural resources, especially the forests. Some big concern comes along and takes out a contract on a large berth of timber at a ridiculous price compared with what people have to pay for lumber. A dollar a thousand is a ridiculous price. It is throwing our resources away.
Even then they do not go to the trouble to employ people directly to do the work, to to bring the timber out. They sublet it to saw mills. They let them do the work. They let the local people go in and get the timber out of the woods and bring it to the saw mill, and then those same people have to go to the lumber yard to buy it. A great injustice is done there.
Does the Minister of Mines and Resources intend to make an adjustment in this contract? If not, does he intend to give this committee a statement as to how long this contract with the Northern Trust company has been in force? What is the total amount that has been taken out of the national park at Riding Mountain? Will that contract be continued for any considerable length of time? I feel strongly about this; I feel sure that a great many members of this committee feel as I do. The resources of this country belong to the people, and where we cannot share them all equally we can at least give fair and equal treatment to all in making use of them. If there is any preference at all it should be given to the farmers and settlers who live next to the park and who wish to go in and take out the timber under their own power. It is a crying injustice to allow a big corporation to go in and
take out timber at $1 a thousand when local people are denied the cutting of a few thousand feet for their own use.


James Allison Glen: The hon. member must understand that these contracts were entered into prior to the taking over of the national resources by the province some time before 1930. I have not the exact date. The terms of those contracts are stated. As a dominion we are bound to maintain and uphold the terms of the contract, and there is nothing we can do about it.


John Oliver Probe: Why not cancel it?


James Allison Glen: We do not intend to cancel a contract which has been entered into, and when the cutting of timber has continued under the terms of the contract. As soon as the cutting is completed on any part of the area, that land is taken over by the dominion and becomes part of the park, but it is not possible at this moment for us to cancel contracts which have been solemnly entered into and on which the company has been working for those years. The contract will expire as soon as the cutting by the berth holder is finished.
The price that they may charge and the price that they obtain for it are matters on which we cannot regulate the company. I have every sympathy with the horn, member, and I have had the same complaints made by residents around there with regard to timber in the park. The timber in the park is budgeted as to what can be cut. The price is as stated by the hon. member; but so far as the timber berth contracts are concerned we are in this position; we have either to live up to the terms of the contract, or repudiate it. I do not think the government wishes to do that.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I am very sorry to have to differ from the minister. I cannot be satisfied with that kind of answer. In the first place the questions I asked were not answered. I want to know how long this contract has been in force, when it was entered into, and how long it has still to run. That was not answered. I also wanted to know whether the minister approved this type of contract, and whether it will be his policy in the future to continue to enter into such contracts in other places. If I may say so, with all due respect, the reply that we have to live up to our contracts, though it sounds all right, is not good enough. If we were to go back and Live up to every contract that was made since the inception of this dominion we would find ourselves in a peculiar position.
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James Allison Glen: I have not the exact date when this contract was entered into, but I think I told the hon. member that it was entered into prior to the taking over of the natural resources by Manitoba, before 1930, and thereafter they must live up to the terms of the contract. As soon as the cutting is done the contract expires. When they are finished their cutting in any portion, then that portion is included in the park, and only after all the cutting is finished will the contract be concluded.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: There is a great weakness in that reply, which is in effect that the contract may run as long as there is any cutting to be done. Offhand I do not know the size of these timber berths, and I do not know whether the minister knows it, but just let us suppose that this trust company decided to divide these berths into sections and cut only so much each year. It would be quite possible for them, through the natural growth of the forest, to continue this contract for the next fifty or one hundred years at $1 a thousand. I do not know whether the minister approves of that, but I most definitely disapprove of it; I do not think that is the way our natural resources should be handled. If the government find that the contract which has been entered into was not a wise one and is not now an equitable one, in comparison with the treatment given others, then it should cancel the contract and enter into a new one, or else give the settlers the right to use the forests for their own benefit.


Mr. FRASER:: Is the minister's department doing any reforestation in these sections or these cuttings? The minister did not mention that.


James Allison Glen: No; that comes under another vote.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: But is that being done? The minister can answer that. I just wondered if the department were doing any reforestation after this cutting is done. Is slashing permitted, or is only the mature timber being taken?


James Allison Glen: Of course all the cutting is done under the supervision of trained foresters. There is no reforestation in that particular portion, though some is being done in other sections of the park.


George Hugh Castleden: Did I understand from the minister's reply to the hon. member for Dauphin that the contract under which the Northern Trust company is taking timber out of this park lasts as long as there is timber to be cut?


James Allison Glen: Yes.


George Hugh Castleden: That is the agreement?


James Allison Glen: Yes. The contract provides that as soon as the cut has been finished that portion of the park will come back under the park administration.


George Hugh Castleden: Does that contract
cover all the park?


James Allison Glen: Oh, no.


George Hugh Castleden: Just the berths that have been referred to?


James Allison Glen: Yes.


George Hugh Castleden: And they hold these contracts in perpetuity until all the cutting they wish to do is finished, or until all the timber is cut?


James Allison Glen: I would not say in perpetuity, because the park officials are very careful to see that they live up to the terms of their contract, and also to see that the work is being done in accordance with the regulations.


George Hugh Castleden: Was this contract entered into between the trust company and the federal government, or trust company and the province of Manitoba?


James Allison Glen: I understand they are acting for some estate.


George Hugh Castleden: And they entered into a contract with whom?


James Allison Glen: The dominion government.


George Hugh Castleden: Then it was this federal government that entered into the contract?


James Allison Glen: Yes, prior to 1930. Then in 1930, when the natural resources were taken over by the province, of course it belonged to the park, subject to the timber berth licences.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: The minister mentioned the terms of the contract and said the park officials were anxious to see that they were carried out. I am not going to ask the minister to tell us the terms of the contract. I realize that would not be fair, and possibly he would not have that information on hand, but perhaps he can tell us this much. Is the contract only for the cutting of timber, or can they take out anything they wish from those timber berths? In other words, may they cut firewood and pulpwood, or anything else they wish?


James Allison Glen: I am told that it covers merchantable timber, subject to the terms of the contract.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: And what does that
involve-anything that can be sold as timber?


James Allison Glen: Surely, but in accordance with the terms of the contract and regulations.

Supply-Mines and Resources


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: If that is the case it is even worse than I thought, because it means that as long as there is anything of value to cut in these two berths the trust company has a complete monopoly for as long as they wish. That is the most iniquitous type of contract that could be conceived. I cannot imagine the minister, with his ability and his evident progressiveness, wishing to continue or even tolerating that sort of contract. It should be repudiated.


George Hugh Castleden: What consideration did the federal government get for the granting of a contract of this type to the Northern Trust company?


James Allison Glen: I have no doubt it was put up for tender at that time, though I have not the particulars with me, nor have I a copy of the agreement. But a bonus would be paid, I presume. I shall get that information and inform the hon. member.


Edward George McCullough: I should like to ask a question in connection with the granting of a timber permit. What qualifications must be possessed by a person or a corporation in order to get a permit? It seems preposterous that a company without any saw-mill equipment, for instance, should receive a contract to cut timber. I think some qualifications should be set out by the department before such a contract is given to anyone who wishes to obtain a timber permit.


James Allison Glen: The only permits now issued are settlers' permits for the parks; we are not issuing any more of the others. In reply to the hon. member for Dauphin, we are not likely to enter into contracts to give privileges to any company to carry on lumbering in the park.


Mr. BENTLEY:: I want to ask a question following that asked by the hon. member for Dauphin. Is that SI a thousand typical of all the contracts being let in connection with the timber resources of this dominion?


James Allison Glen: This contract was made over twenty years ago, and these were the terms then agreed upon.


Thomas John Bentley: That does not quite
answer the question. Is it typical of the contracts now in force, whenever made? Are there any lower than that or any higher than that, and if so how much lower or how much higher?


James Allison Glen: I have no knowledge of any lower or higher. All I know is that we are not issuing such permits now in our national parks.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Should it not be the policy of the department to do reforestation work in all cuttings in the national parks?


James Allison Glen: I agree.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I know around Dauphin the land is very sandy. I do not know how it is in the park itself, but unless reforestation work is carried on there it will be waste land in no time.


James Allison Glen: That is part of the policy of the parks branch, to carry out reforestation where there is no regeneration.


Mr. KNIGHT:: Is there any provision in the contract requiring the company to do reforestation work in that section, or is it simply a case of the company taking all the profit and then turning the stumps and sandy land back to the state, putting the state to the expense of carrying on the reforestation, as has happened in connection with many of our natural resources? I am surprised that the minister should defend this type of contract. If this is the method by which the natural resources of the country have been disposed of, I am prepared to say it is a crying shame.


James Allison Glen: The hon. member suggests I am trying to support such a thing. The very contrary is the fact. I would be against it; it is not done, and I would never be a party to it.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: I am glad to hear that.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
HI. Dominion forest service-
General scientific, economic and (administrative services, $139,895.
Howard Charles Green: Will the minister explain this item? Has his department any plans for the extension of the forestry service in Canada?


Mr. LOCKHART:: Is any concerted effort being made to have men just returning from overseas take up this type of service? We hear the usual excuse that men have not had university training and that sort of thing. I brought to the attention of the government the case of a young man. who had been interned overseas for years. During that time he madle a close study of German reforestation work, and became intensely interested in the subject. When inquiries were made if he could be employed in this type of work in Canada he was told to apply to the provincial government. If we are to provide employment we must direct men into channels in which they are interested.
. Mr. GLEN: The three votes for forestiy in this year's estimates, totalling $438,330,

Supply-Mines and Resources
cover the restricted activities of the forest service and are on a slightly higher level than the expenditures during the preceding war years. The estimates were prepared many months ago when the war was in (progress. These sums do not reflect all of the expenditures, as considerable war work was done in our forest laboratories and1 experimental stations and paid for from the war appropriation. I should also point out that there is included in the war appropriation for this year an item of $132,000 for the forest service in connection with expenditures relating to the post-war reconstruction programme.
Canada is a forest country. With a population of only twelve million people it stands in third place amongst the nations of the world in output of forest products. As an exporter of the products of forest industry Canada stands first, and her lumber, newsprint paper, and allied products are consumed in more than sixty different countries.
The forest resources of Canada are immense in size and diversified1 in character. If Canadians are to reap the full value of their heritage, our forest lands must be brought into a state of continuous production. Widespread destruction by forest fires, injurious insects and tree diseases must be controlled and the productivity of the forest soils fully realized1.
Administration and protection of the crown forests lying within provincial boundaries is, and will continue to be, a responsibilty of the provncial authorities. There is, however, a strong national interest in the welfare of this important resource. Forest industries have played a major role in sustaining Canada's available balance of commodity trade. Being on an export basis they have always been subject to the violent fluctuations of world markets. They must be placed1 in as strong a competitive position as possible. The permanence of forest industries depends on the continuing availability of raw materials. The nation cannot afford to see forests, as a source of raw materials, dissipated1. Neither can it afford to lose other forest benefits, including opportunities for recreation for our own people, the attraction of foreign tourists, the protection of watersheds, which vitally affects the hydro-electric industry and the protection they afford to agricultural lands.
It is believed that the dominion could properly assist the orderly development of the national forest resources in two directions: first, by expanding activities for which it would be fully responsible and, second, by assisting, through provision of funds, to raise provincial standards in respect of the
(Mr. Glen.]
conservation, protection and development of the provincial forest resources. Such assistance might be considered with respect to the raising of provincial standards, in protection of forests from damage by fire, insects and disease; to provide assistance in the construction of new forest roads, stream improvements and other works needed to facilitate improved forest management and the extraction of forest products; and assistance to develop recreational and other facilities for the enjoyment of the public and the well-being of our fish, fur and game resources.
The dominion forest service is already engaged in the broad fields of research, in silviculture, forest protection, utilization of forest products and forest economics. It has been proposed that these normal functions should be expanded so as more clearly to fulfil the actual requirements of the times. Discussions are in progress with respect to functions the dominion forest service might properly fulfil with respect to the protection of forested watersheds of interprovincial importance and where the protection of heavy dominion investments along other lines may be involved.
It is hoped that the estimates for the next fiscal year will make provision for expanded activities of the dominion forest service which will be necessary in the post-war years. It will be appreciated by the members of the house that pending decisions being reached at the dominion-provincial conference, it is impossible to make any statement now as to the details of increased dominion assistance towards the conservation and development of our forest resources.
In connection with what the hon. member said in regard to directing the activities of young men toward this field of service in Canada, we will, and I think everyone would desire that this should be done, direct their activities toward it; because here is an area which has been sparsely populated1 in the past and which I think offers a promising field for young men. I am hoping that the universities will take this into consideration.


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: Will the minister indicate whether a young man with only secondary school education would have any hope at all? That was definitely indicated to me by the department only three weeks ago.


James Allison Glen: The provinces are training young men for their own forest services. I do not think the question of academic qualifications would enter into it so much as the specialized education that a man might obtain in the school or college.


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: I must have been misinformed.

_____________ Supply-Mines and Resources
Mr. TOWNLEY-SMITH: What service do forestry engineers perform? Would this service include pathologists and entomologists, men who study and prevent diseases in trees and the control of insect pests?


James Allison Glen: I am inforced that pathologists and entomologists are employed in the Department of Agriculture.
Mr. TOWNLEY-SMITH: Do they come under this vote?


James Allison Glen: No.
Mr. TOWNLEY-SMITH: What is an office engineer?


James Allison Glen: He is a man. doing office work with engineering experience and background.


John Bracken: I understood the minister to say that the total appropriations for this year for this service approximate $438,000, with an additional $132,000 being provided under the war appropriations. I wish to ask what proportion of forest acreage in Canada is directly under the administration of the dominion government and what proportion is under the provinces? In other words, what is the total forestry acreage of Canada and how much falls directly under the responsibility of the federal government?


James Allison Glen: I have not the exact figures at the moment.


John Bracken: I am sure they will be found somewhere in the records of the department. Perhaps I should have got them myself. If the minister could get them for me, I should like to have them. I should' like to ask a question also with respect to the forests that are under provincial jurisdiction. Will the minister outline briefly the federal policy with respect to aiding the provinces in the development and conservation of forestry resources?


James Allison Glen: The hon. leader of the opposition knows that one of the questions under discussion by the dominion-provincial conference is federal assistance in the protection of forests. What the dominion can do depends upon the conclusions arrived at by the conferences. We realize that assistance must be given to the provinces, and that there must be coordination of dominion and provincial effort in forest conservation, but I am not in a position to say what will be the contribution by the dominion until decisions have been made by the conference.


John Bracken: The minister ought to be able to tell us what is included in the estimates. What I wish to know is the relationship between the dominion and the provinces with respect to that portion of the resources
that falls under provincial jurisdiction. I know there have been continual efforts to cooperate. However, I will not press the minister further if he has not the answer immediately available.
May I ask what is the size of the federal staff in the forestry service?


James Allison Glen: This vote, No. 141, is for the advancement of forest conservation in Canada generally. It includes cooperative undertakings in an inventory of the forest resources, investigations of forest conditions, and determination of rates of growth. In the economic fields, analyses are made of statistics secured from the bureau of statistics, provincial authorities and other sources in order that the trends of development of forest industries and of domestic and foreign markets and prices may be closely followed.
Considerable assistance has been rendered in the war effort by the personnel and services of the dominion forest service, in addition to personnel seconded to war departments.
Forest fire statistics for Canada show that for 1944 the total number of fires, 5,820, was almost 300 more than the previous ten-year average. Although the quantity of merchantable timber destroyed closely approximated the average figure, the value of the timber, young growth and other property lost in forest fires was fifty-three per cent higher than the previous' ten-year average. The total damage and costs, $7,413,055, was over $2,620,000 greater, and fire-fighting costs, $1,328,338-the highest on record-were over one-half million dollars greater than the previous ten-year average. Human agencies continue to be the greatest cause of forest fires, with forty-six per cent compared with the ten-year average of fifty per cent; railways with fourteen per cent are much higher than the average five per cent, probably due to the wartime increase in traffic, defective equipment and shortage of personnel.
The shortage of forest products has been impressed upon the general public as never before, owing to the demands for war material. This urgent demand, and especially the shortage of fuel wood, have focused attention on farm wood lots. As a result, farmers are interested in securing information on how they should manage their wood lots to make them pay and keep them in continuous production. In cooperation with the Department of Agriculture surveys of wood lots on experimental farms and illustration stations were begun in the maritimes during 1944 and it is proposed to continue and extend these surveys in eastern Canada during 1945^16.
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In general the importance of proper protection and management of woodlands has been continuously urged by the forest service. There is urgent need for a continuity of action in directing the policy and methods of forest conservation.
Much valuable data gathered at considerable expense by field survey parties has accumulated, but owing to lack of staff for compiling purposes, the results of these surveys are still unknown. Forest surveys are of value only if the resultant data gathered are compiled promptly and the findings made known. To compile data at present in arrears, and that to be collected in field work during the coming year, eight full-time compilers will be required.
The increase mainly comprises annual salary increases for permanent and temporary employees and some reclassifications of junior employees, already made, approximately $2,400; the return of one forestry engineer previously lent to Department of Munitions and Supply, $2,700; temporary appointments to vacant positions, $12,900, includes seven compilers, $7,560, replenishing of exhausted stationery supplies and necessary renewal of instruments and field survey equipment $3,400, cost of living bonus and unemployment insure ance, $2,600, and $1,200 for increased cost of travelling, transportation and sundries. The gross increase is approximately $25,200 which is reduced by a reduction of about $1,600 in wages and allowances due to changes in establishment.
The leader of the opposition asked as to the size of the staff. There are at present on the staff, as of September 3, eighty-five permanent and 49 temporary employees, or a total of 134.


John Bracken: Just one other question. The minister has told us of the huge losses of our forestry resources from fire and other causes, a matter that I am sure is of concern to him as it is to everybody else who is interested in the conservation of Canada's forest resources. It emphasizes the need for both provincial and federal authorities giving attention to this problem.
The minister has given us his estimates under three main headings: General scientific, economic, and administrative services, which is pretty general; forest experiment stations, which is more specific, and forest products laboratories. The losses in, our forest resources fall largely under two heads, fire and disease, but chiefly fire. Restoration comes largely through natural reforestation and artificial planting. Can the minister tell us how much money the department is spending on reforestation, how much on fire prevention and

how much on disease prevention? The estimates may not. be set up in that way, but these are the things which I think we should be concerned about.


James Allison Glen: The leader of the opposition may not have noticed a release from, the Department of Reconstruction regarding the newly created forest insects control board which the Minister of Reconstruction issued on November 25 last, warning of the destruction of Canadian forests by insect life, particularly the spruce bud-worm, which destruction, the release stated, has already reached the proportions of a national disaster. The release goes on to say:
The present epidemic, unless controlled, may result in the loss of 35 years' supply of raw material for paper products representing an export value of some eight billion dollars.
The new 'board is headed by E. Menard, formerly chief forest inspector for Quebec province. On it are J. J. de G-ryse, chief, division of forest insects, agriculture department, and D. A. Macdonald, acting dominion forester, mines ,and resources department. The other *members, whose 'appointment is announced today, are:
J. A. Brodie, division of forest protection, Ontario Department of Lands and Forests; Doctor Lionel Daviault, chief, Quebec Bureau of Entomology; Major-General Howard Kennedy of Montreal, vice-president, Ontario Paper Company; C. D. Orchard, British Columbia deputy minister of forests; and Doctor G. H. Prince, New Brunswick deputy minister of lands and mines.
"The presence on this board of government representatives from the provinces most seriously affected by the insect epidemic augurs well for successful cooperation between the federal and provincial governments," said Mr. Howe^ "This is the first instance in which the dominion has taken the lead in trying to organize an effective joint attack on a serious forestry problem. In view of the importance of our forest industries, *it must not be the last."
The minister stated that the first task of the forest insects control board will be to gather as quickly as possible all pertinent information in connection with the budworm plague, which has -already devastated some 22,000 square miles of forest and is present in a total of about 250,000 square miles, or roughly one-third of the accessible productive forest area of the_ nation. "The board will prepare a comprehensive programme and then will endeavour to have as much as possible of the actual work done by permanent government departments, both federal and provincial," he said. "The government will underwrite research work both here and abroad. As soon as possible, research experts will be sent to the timber countries _ of Europe to investigate the possibility of securing natural enemies of comparable European insect species which may prove effective in control measures in this country."
The leader of the opposition had another question?


John Bracken: It may be that the minister cannot answer me now, but the statement he has just made prompts me to ask

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another question. At the opening of my remarks I added the two figures the minister gave to show how much this department is spending in forest services, but apparently not all the forestry activities of the government are confined to this department. Could the minister inform the committee some time within the next day or two what is the total of the funds which are being spent by the dominion government, in whatever department, with respect to forestry? I understand that some of it is in the Department of Agriculture. It is possible that certain lines of forestry should fall there. The minister has just said that there is another item in the Department of Reconstruction for research work in connection with forestry. A question occurred to me at the time this last item was mentioned was why should a forestry item be in reconstruction; why should it not be in the forestry branch of mines and resources? But at the moment what I should like the minister to give us is the total expenditure on forestry by the government, in whatever department, perhaps by main details in agriculture, forestry branch, reconstruction. Then, I am sure, the minister could have his officials tell us later, if not now, how much the dominion spends on reforestation, on fire prevention, and on disease prevention, in whatever department.


James Allison Glen: I shall be glad to get that information and give it later.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I may be under the wrong heading, but if I am I would ask Mr. Chairman, the indulgence of yourself, of the minister and of the committee in the question which I intend to ask.
All of us here in the last month have received full-page advertisements from the Toronto newspapers with respect to coal resources. In fact a newspaper prepared an address which might have been delivered by the Minister of Reconstruction to both houses of parliament-I am not suggesting that he did it, but they prepared something which he might have done. I think that was the last advertisement I saw. What I want to ask the minister is whether his department have made investigations as to the truth of the allegations in these advertisements. They are in short these: that in Alberta, on the Sheep river, there are immense deposits of coal. We do not need to worry about the truth of that; I have seen them myself. The deposits are amazing. Some time ago they called this coal "anthracite". I notice that in their advertisements they have dropped the use of that word and are now calling it a very hard coal, and I think that that latter may be a more nearly accurate description than the one which
they formerly used. The main thing I have in my mind is this. Here in Ontario you are paying for anthracite in the neighbourhood of $16 to $17 a ton, and these people say that once they get a railroad built of some sixty miles they can lay the coal down in the Ontario area at $12.50 a ton. If that be so, it seems to me that to do this would mean a very great deal to the eastern provinces of Ontario and Quebec and also to the Dominion of Canada. I realize of course that at present a royal commission is sitting and examining the subject of coal, and perhaps it will take this into account. But all hon. members, I am sure, have received letters with advertisements from this newspaper, and I thought the minister might be able to give us some information. May I, to assist him, say that I myself have heard that from between Kentucky and West Virginia there is a very good quality of bituminous coal which can be laid down in places like Toronto and Hamilton at $9.50 per ton. If that be so there should not be a great deal of worry about the anthracite situation here.
Will the minister, now or at some convenient time while his estimates are being discussed, give the members generally the story of this coal situation?
As I say, I may be speaking at the wrong moment; and I am not asking him to reply extemporaneously; but would he give us some little discussion of Canada's coal position?- granted that that is in his department: I may be wrong.


James Allison Glen: No representations have been made to my department, nor have we been interested at the moment, in that coal question, because of the fact that a coal commission is now sitting. I did see the statement which was in the newspaper, a whole page of it, dealing with the question of coal. I am very glad to see that the Minister of Reconstruction, who knows all about this coal question, is in the chamber, and I think I will leave it to him to answer that question.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Then perhaps the Minister of Reconstruction can tell me. Perhaps he can also tell me the distinction between very hard coal and anthracite coal. I do not know what it is. I thought that anthracite was merely a very hard coal. Surely the minister and his department must have analyses of these various coals. What we buy coal for is to get heat from it and we do not want to pack water and ashes long distances, which is what we are doing now. Our old friend Mr. B.T.U. is very prominent in this connection. Perhaps the minister
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could tell us if the department has analyses of these various coals, including the deposits I have mentioned.


Mr. HOWE:: The coal referred to in the advertisement is what is called in most circles a low-volatile bituminous coal. It has a B.T.U. content of about 14,000.


Agar Rodney Adamson: What is the content of good anthracite?


Clarence Decatur Howe: As I remember it, good
anthracite is 18,000.


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: 17,500 to 18,000.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The coal in question is a deposit in Alberta. I suggest that the purpose of the advertisements-perhaps I should not impute motives-is to bring pressure on the government to develop a mine by the use of government funds. All the coal mines of the west have been developed by private funds. The government feels that there is no reason why it should develop one particular mine at government expense, particularly in view of the fact that the area served by the mine is adequately taken care of by the existing industry.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Would the minister mind repeating the last sentence?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I say that the coal mines
of the west have been developed by private industry, and in ordinary times there is a surplus of coal produced in western Canada to take care of the requirements of western Canada. It is felt that for the government to finance the development of a coal mine at this time would not be warranted by the existing situation, or the future prospects of the coal industry.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I have been told that this coal can be laid down here at $12.50, but I do not know whether any examination has been made to determine the correctness of that statement. I met a gentleman in Toronto and he wrote down the figures on a piece of paper for me, but coal is not mined simply by writing down figures on paper. There is a good deal more than that to it. I thought the Department of Mines was the proper place to look to, but I should like to know if someone somewhere cannot give us an amplified statement on the whole fuel problem in Canada. I am not going to join those who suggest that the government should build sixty miles of railway or give any other assistance unless there is a sure market and that market is not going to displace some other Canadian product. I would not for a moment advocate anything of the kind. But if it be a fact that the 
coal can be laid down here at $12.50, then it is a matter of considerable interest, particularly to the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. There is a new field opening up in Kentucky, and if they can lay the coal down at $9.50, we are wasting our time talking about it. But in the minister's department there must be someone who knows all the facts. I am sure Mr. Frank Neate, if he is consulted, will have pretty much at his fingertips the answers to the questions I have been asking.


Mr. HANSELL:: Mr. Chairman, I have risen before-


James Allison Glen: We are dealing with vote 141, which is forestry and not coal. I would not wish to have a discussion on coal now.


Ernest George Hansell: Mr. Chairman-


Arthur Leroy Smith: Will the hon. gentleman pardon me for just a second? May I ask when I may have the information I am looking for? I knew I was out of turn, but I do not know where to get my oar in.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The position is that over fifty per cent of Canada's coal is imported, and imported coal is used largely in Ontario and western Quebec. Previously coal moved from the maritime provinces westward as far as the city of Toronto and on the north line as far as Sudbury. Additional demands for coal in eastern Canada, and particularly the reduction in output, due largely to loss of man-power in the mines, have curtailed the area of markets for Nova Scotia coal so that last winter we were actually railing United States coal into Truro, Nova Scotia. That market will undoubtedly expand again, There is a subvention for the rail movement of coal, but not for coal moved by water, which ordinarily does not need a subvention. For coal moving by rail there is a rail subvention that amounts to $2.50 a ton for coal delivered in Toronto. On the movement of western coal there is also a subvention. It is my recollection, subject to correction, that a subvention of $6 a ton is required to move coal from Alberta to Toronto. Larger quantities might have been moved had a rail movement been physically possible, because domestic coal in Ontario has been exceedingly short. It has been necessary to use substitutes, providing a proportion of anthrar'te and a proportion of lower grade fuels for the ordinary household. The difficulty during the war years has been that the railways were so heavily burdened with freight that they could not handle extra traffic in coal. This winter there has been a larger movement than in previous years, which has been due to a slackening in

Supply-Mines and Resources
the movement of wheat, but unfortunately the movement of coal from Alberta east is in the same direction as the heavy movement of wheat. If it were the reverse, the movement could be handled more efficiently. The movement to Ontario has been limited owing to the fact that the railways could not handle the volume of coal which we should have liked to bring into the province, even with the higher subvention.
The position of coal is one of acute shortage on this continent and in fact all over the. world. Lack of coal on the continent is a serious threat to the well-being of the people, and its production is stepping up very slowly indeed. There is a demand for every pound of coal mined at this particular time. The long-range prospects are not such as would indicate the desirability of opening up large new sources of production in Alberta, considering the fact that it can be marketed only in Ontario on the $6 a ton subvention, which I need not remind my hon. friend is more than twice the cost of mining the coal. I suggest that the $12 rate that he saw advertised as the price for coal in Toronto would be after the government subvention had been applied to the movement.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Only $2. I do not act for these people. I do not even know them.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Surely my hon. friend was in Medicine Hat in the old days.


Mr. MACKENZIE:: And the old nights.


Arthur Leroy Smith: And we met at the Brown Derby. Does that mean anything? As a matter of fact I have read these advertisements.
Now that we are dealing with coal we are faced with another problem. The minister knows that during the war years more Alberta coal went west than ever. A good deal was used for bunkering and a good deal was used in manufacturing establishments out there. With United States coal used to haul engines on the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific, the use of Alberta coal was being pushed clear back almost to the Alberta border in some instances, and beyond Winnipeg on both lines. We know perfectly well that we cannot hold the position on the Pacific coast because the demand is not there and is not going to be there. The chief worry is to get back on these railways coming east. We worked hard for twenty years to get where we did instead of having the coal come to Fort William by water, pushing us back again. The minister appreciates my having given him an opportunity to deliver that speech to both
houses of parliament

I am sure they will read it in the other place-but we should have a statement from him.


Ernest George Hansell: Mr. Chairman-


John Bracken: Will the hon. member pardon me for a moment? We are considering the estimates of the Department of Mines. Is there any branch of the minister's department which assumes responsibility for coal?


James Allison Glen: Only so far as testing is concerned, not so far as general policy goes.


Ernest George Hansell: I am a kind man and I like to give my friends every advantage-


An hon. MEMBER:: And how!


Ernest George Hansell: -and Howe too. However, to follow along the line of discussion of the hon. member for Calgary West, the minister replied that those people who are interested in this particular coal mining area had made no representation to the government. Perhaps the Minister of Mines and Resources is trusting to his memory as applied to his own term of office. This subject is not a new one. I am quite certain that interested people have made representation over the years. I believe my hon. friend's question can be answered by the Canadian fuel board; I am sure they have all the data on this particular coal.
With respect to the campaign that is being carried on, I doubt whether the minister's reply was just 100 per cent accurate. I do not think the campaign that is being carried on is an attempt to have the government finance the mining of this coal. The problem is that there is no railroad running into this particular district. As the hon. member has already said, there is a distance of about sixty miles without a railroad. I fancy the people interested do not think they are the ones who are particularly responsible to put in a railroad. The campaign is put on to arouse public opinion in respect of this coal. It is an exceptionally good coal. It compares most favourably with anthracite. I do not know all the technical and chemistry terms which may be used in the analysis of the coal, but there is no doubt that it compares favourably with anthracite coal. If Canadian people knew that they could get in their own country coal which is just as good as any coal they can get outside this country, it would be an admirable thing if some steps were taken, perhaps by way of some assistance from the government, in the matter of building a railroad so that the coal could be made available to the rest of Canada.
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The minister is right when he says that this item should be under forestry. There was a time when there was a considerable appropriation to be voted for subventions on coal.


John Ritchie MacNicol: It is in another item.


Ernest George Hansell: Not in this department?


John Ritchie MacNicol: Not in this department
at all.


Ernest George Hansell: I do not quite hear my hon. friend.


John Ritchie MacNicol: It is not in this department at all; it is in another department.


Ernest George Hansell: I do not think so.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Subventions? Of course it is.


Ernest George Hansell: I do not think so; I think it is missing from the book. However, I may stand corrected. We used to discuss subventions on coal under the Department of Mines and Resources. If it is shifted, all right, but it does not appear in these estimates.


Mr. JOHNSTON:: Before this item passes I desire to say a few words. I can assure the minister that I will not delay this item, but when the proper time comes I intend to say a few more words on it.
There has been quite an advertising campaign put on with regard to this coal. I have a whole stack of them here. It was my intention to speak at length on them, but I do not think I shall do so at this session because the session is drawing to a close. Quite a pressure campaign is being put on in advertising this coal. What steps are the government taking to see that the quality referred to in the advertisement is correct? If the government does not come to the assistance of this organization when they take up this venture and go into a selling campaign to sell shares in this mine, it may very well be that the shares will not be worth very much because of the difficulties that have been indicated.
I think this matter only goes to prove what has been said on several occasions, namely, the necessity of establishing a national fuel policy. Certainly what the hon. member for Macleod and the hon. member for Calgary West have said, is true. It is high time that we began to devise a national fuel policy for this country so that we could use our own coal in Canada. If we have the coal here we should be using it. My understanding is that this coal could be loaded at a cheap price which would enable it to compete with Pennsylvania coal coming from the United States.

It is advertised as a high-quality anthracite, comparable with any anthracite coal we are getting in Canada.
We have endeavoured to capture a good deal of the Ontario market. Since the war we have lost a large part of that market. It is going to be quite a fight to regain it. If there is any possibility of our regaining the eastern markets by the development of this coal every assistance should be given to that end. Because of its peculiar chemical qualities, low ash content and high B.T.U.S it is said to be a good coal. If we can develop a market in eastern Canada for this coal we should go out and do so, and develop a national fuel policy for Canada.


The CHAIRMAN:: May I remind the committee that the mining, transportation, advertising and selling of coal does not properly come under this item. A limited discussion on advertising was unanimously agreed upon by the committee. I think we have now reached the limit, and I would suggest that we stay with the item under discussion.


Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: I did not hear what the minister said when he made his statement with respect to the forests of Canada. I do not know whether he gave any estimate as to the annual depletion of the forests and the annual replacement. It will be interesting to know what the position is. What is the estimated loss by cutting, by disease and by fire each year?


James Allison Glen: I think the hon. member was not in his seat when the leader of the opposition asked a somewhat similar question to that which he is now asking. I believe his question was covered by the questions that the leader of the opposition asked, and I have promised to have that information brought down.


Charles Edward Johnston: When the item comes
up, will the minister make a statement about the particular venture to which I have referred?


James Allison Glen: I rather think that is a
matter which will be taken up by the Minister of Reconstruction. It is in his department and has been there during the war. I was speaking to him a few moments ago, and he says that there is an item in his estimates which will have to come before the committee when it may be properly discussed. It does not come within the purview of the Department of Mines and Resources.


Mr. STANFIELD:: I did not hear the
minister when he spoke about the spruce bud-worm which I understand is attacking the spruce forests of the country. Fortunately in

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that part of the country from which I come I do not think it has yet arrived. Has any step been taken to control the spruce bud-worm?


James Allison Glen: I do not believe the hon. member was here when I was speaking of the control board which had been set up for that very purpose of which the hon. member is speaking. An intense study is being made with regard to it, and, of course, the results are not yet known.


Agar Rodney Adamson: What methods are being used? Are they using a D.D.T. spray from aircraft, lead spraying or arsenic spraying?


James Allison Glen: They are exploring every
avenue. As a matter of fact in the statement I read the Minister of Reconstruction stated that some of the officers of the department may be sent to Europe to look over the situation and find out the methods wherewith to combat this disease.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Has the minister any idea how many square miles are affected by the spruce bud-worm? I understand the condition is a serious one.


James Allison Glen: I am informed we have not
yet any full information as to the extent.


Frank Thomas Stanfield: Have any of the areas been infested in the maritime provinces.


James Allison Glen: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Land, parks and forests branch-
US. Land registry-Land registry, seed grain collections, administration of ordnance, admiralty and public lands, $55,394.
Mr. McCUAIG:: I should like the minister to give a summary of the amounts outstanding in connection with seed grains, which I understand covers the period from 1914 to 1920.


James Allison Glen: The explanation of this vote
is that it has to do with the conduct of a central office of record for lands owned or otherwise controlled by the Dominion of Canada; the administration of ordnance and admiralty lands, dominion owned public lands, timber and grazing on soldier settlement lands and on military reserves; the adjustment of seed grain, fodder and relief indebtedness, and the issuing of letters patent. The over-all increase of $2,879 is due to an additional amount required for cost of living bonus, annual increases, replacement of depleted sta-tioneiy stocks, together with a small amount for surveys which have been postponed from year to year and are now urgently required.


Duncan John McCuaig: I should like to know the amount outstanding in connection with seed grains, particularly in Saskatchewan.


James Allison Glen: As at March 31 last the amount outstanding in principal was $2,525,263.99, and in interest, $3,613,841.15, or a total of $6,139,105.14.


Duncan John McCuaig: These debts go back to
1914-20, and I would say that eighty per cent of the people originally concerned have either died or left the country; yet these advances remain registered against the land. In many cases it has gone back to preemptions and rough lands, and I think this is detrimental to the progress of the country. I would take it that it costs more to keep the records than probably will ever be collected under this head, so that I strongly urge that these amounts be cancelled, because they are of long standing.


Mr. WRIGHT:: What have the collections been during the last two or three years, and what has been the cost to the government? I was going to ask those questions in order that we might have the picture. I believe these advances have been cancelled for some years. I should like to know for what years these debts have been cancelled; for what years they have not been cancelled, and the reason for cancelling in connection with certain years and not cancelling in connection with certain other years.


James Allison Glen: I could not answer that question now without a good deal of research. The net revenue in 1944-45 for seed grain relief was $111,577.85. As to the other particulars, I shall have to get a statement from the records and give it to the hon. member.


Thomas John Bentley: I believe the minister said that the collections amounted to some $111,000, while the amounts owing total in the neighbourhood of $6,000,000, of which, if I followed him accurately, more than fifty per cent was accumulated interest. As the hon. member for Maple Creek has just mentioned, the government has liens against a good deal of land occupied by people who had no connection with the conditions from which the liens arose. The small amounts that have been collected were, I believe, paid simply because the people now occupying the land are in a little better shape, due to the war and war prices, and want to get rid of those liens on their land in order to dispose of it. The statement by the minister would indicate that it is going to be difficult to recover the entire $6,000,000, and like the hon. member for Maple Creek and the hon, member for
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Melfort I would urge .the minister to give serious consideration to cancelling at least the interest. I believe the whole thing should be cancelled, but perhaps, that is asking too much. I would, however, ask him to give serious consideration to the cancellation of the accumulated interest, because it is a great handicap for people who think they have paid all their debts to find, when they ask for clear title, that the dominion government has a lien registered against their land.


James Allison Glen: I shall be glad to consider tha' question.


Mr. FAIR:: May I ask what it cost the government during the fiscal year 1944-45 to collect that total of $111,000?


James Allison Glen: The services of two clerks only.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Lands, parks and forest branch-
H6. National parks bureau-national parks and historic sites services, $1,050,000.
Mr. McGARRY:: Is there anything in the estimates this year to provide for the extension of Louisburg national park?


James Allison Glen: There is nothing in these estimates in that connection. As the hon. gentleman knows, these estimates were prepared some time ago. I have had representations made to me, and in fact met a delegation, asking that some assistance be given in connection with the maintenance and extension of this park. The matter is being considered, and I hope there may be a favourable reply to the request of the hon. member.


John Oliver Probe: When most of the departmental estimates are being considered here, my province of Saskatchewan usually is honoured more in the breach than in the observance in connection with any large expenditures. The matter of collections, however, comes up quite frequently. At this time I wish to pay a tribute to the Prime Minister of Canada for the interest he has taken in the Prince Albert national park, the only one in our province. We are less endowed with beauty spots than are the other provinces, but the Prince Albert national park, which is situated approximately in the geographical centre of our province, experienced reasonably good development during the period the Prime Minister was member for the constituency of Prince Albert. I am hoping, of course, that though he has moved from Saskatchewan to the constituency of Glengarry, his interest and that of the department in our national park will remain commensurate with the recreational needs of our people. In this park we

have quite a chain of lakes naturally well stocked with fish, which I believe are replenished to some extent by the department, though how extensive that work may be I do not know. I am sure it would delight even the hon. member for Calgary West to come and do a spot of fishing in Waskesiu lake, and we also have good golfing and beautiful motor drives. At page 319 of the public accounts for 1944 I notice that in 1942-43 expenditures in relation to the Prince Albert national park amounted to $93,636, while in 1943-44 they totalled $67,797. Since the public accounts for the fiscal year just ended have net yet been published, I should like the minister to tell me the expenditures and also the revenues in connection with that park for the year ending March 31, 1945, and also an estimate of revenues and expenditures for the current year. Would the minister indicate also what expansions are contemplated for this year under the headings of forest protection, fish propagation, tourist advertising, highways, clearings and buildings?


James Allison Glen: The estimate of the amounts to be spent in Prince Albert national park
are:
Management and clerical	 $15,900
Public services	 25,300
Stores and equipment	 11,100
Recreation	 4,900
Forest and game	 22,800


John Oliver Probe: Those are the current
estimates?


James Allison Glen: Yes.


John Oliver Probe: What were the expenditures last year?


James Allison Glen: I am informed that more than that will be spent because of fire fighting that is taking place. I have not the particulars for 1944-45 that the hon. member asks for, but I can supply them to him later.


John Oliver Probe: They will be tabled?


James Allison Glen: Yes.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I should like to say a few words with regard to national parks generally, but in particular with regard to the great belt of national parks generally known as the Rocky mountain national parks, which include Banff, Jasper, Yoho, Kootenay, Assiniboine, all that great string of parks that run along the central mountain backbone of the rockies. It may be surprising to some hon. members to know that these parks comprise an area nearly half as great as that of all Switzerland. I am one of those eastern Canadians who unfortunately

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did not know their own country until a few years before the war. I had travelled widely in most other parts of the world, but I had not been to my own mountains until 1936.
I speak in humility; but having had some experience with mountains elsewhere in the world', I think I can say without fear of contradiction that we have the greatest potential mountain playground in the world. If we will develop them we have possibilities that will rival the great Swiss Alpine resorts. I do not speak with a lack of knowledge, because I have stayed at many of those great Swiss national resorts. Therefore I should like to see this vote multiplied many times, and this should be done by next session.
In the normal pre-war winter the great resorts of Switzerland were visited by more Americans than by the people of any other country. The Palace hotel at St. Moritz at one time had sixty per cent of its guest list made up of Americans. These people had the money to spend and they went there because they could get the service they wanted. The other winter sports resorts of Switzerland were filled with Americans, British and a great number of Canadian tourists. With the Atlantic closed to ordinary tourist traffic, in fact with all Europe being closed to transocean pleasure tourist traffic from this continent, we have an opportunity of getting that business for our national parks. It is significant that Switzerland's whole economy was dependent on the tourist and hotel business.
We have a magnificent opportunity if we only act now. It will be necessary for the government to carry on most of the activities, but they should start soon. If I may speak in particular of our mountain national parks, up to the present they have been developed for two classes of people, the very rich easterner and the overnight cabin tourist. It is all very well to build de luxe hotels such as Banff Springs, Chateau Lake Louise and Jasper Park Lodge, which must charge $20 to $25 per day, but that is not the way to open up our national parks. That is not the way to provide an opportunity to the people who own these national parks to see them.
It is not enough to build a series of motor roads through our national parks. In fact it would be a hideous thing to do. The whole beauty and charm, the amazing variety of our Canadian Rocky mountains are seen only when you get off the main highways and really get into them. With all due respect to our railroads, you do not see the mountains from the Canadian National or the Canadian Pacific. You see a little more, but not very much more, from the Banff-Jasper highway. But
to really see the Rockies you have to get into them, and the only way to get into them is by horse or on your own two feet.
At the present time the facilities for getting into our national parks available to the ordinary and common garden variety of human being, whether he be Canadian, American or any one else, are extremely limited. If you go in in the summer you must go to the expense of providing yourself with a train of pack animals; you must provide yourself with a place to sleep, a tent or teepe, and with fodder; this is an expensive business. If you go in in the winter there are at the most only four chalets where you can go to enjoy the skiing.
I suggest that this government should do what the Swiss and Austrian governments did to develop the Bermese Oberland and Tyrol. This government should start in the near future; in fact they should have started already, to erect a number of shelter huts on or near the main passes, for instance north and south of the Bow river and in the vicinity of the Jasper-Banff highway and in time the Yoho district. In that way a great territory could be opened up. There is one hut in the Mount Assiniboine area, but it is difficult to get at, also the Alpine Club Hut in the Little Yoho. There is also one chalet Sunshine Lodge above Banff and Mount Temple and Skoki in the Slate mountains near lake Louise; four small chalets in the world's greatest accessible ski terrain. Mr. Chairman, the challenge is terrific. We must develop this priceless heritage. Huts should be placed close enough together, so that the average tourist or skier or mountaineer could get from one to the other without too much exertion or without undergoing tremendous expense in getting an expedition together.
What has been done on the continent of Europe is this. Huts are built within easy distance of each other. They are built in many instances with government help or with the help of some national mountaineering club or national ski club, who run the huts and take responsibility for them. I do not say that the government should go into the business of catering to tourists by providing food and shelter, but they should see to it that these huts are built so that a great number of tourists can go into the mountains.
What are the conditions at the present time? I have received word in the last week that every room available for tourists in the Banff national park is already booked not only for the summer but for the winter season too. You cannot even get the most modest accommodation for next year. It is all completely booked. I am not speaking of the
Supply-Mines and Resources

Banff Springs hotel, which I understand is to be opened next summer, but of places where the average man, not the millionaire, can go. All these are booked solid for the next year. That shows the tremendous demand for holiday accommodation by people on the American continent, arising very largely in eastern America, who go out to the Rockies and spend a great deal of time there. The demand is there; it is an extremely valuable demand; it is a demand from people who know the world and many of whom have seen the Rockies and have found there some of the best mountaineering and the best skiing the world has to offer.
I want to talk about skiing for just a moment. Skiing has become the great Canadian national sport. As a matter of fact it is a world-wide sport. I think most hon. members would find that there are vast numbers of the coming generation who now ski rather than skate. Many of them do. We used to think of skating and hockey as the great Canadian national sports, but now I think it has come to be skiing. Certainly that is so in the United States and on the continent of Europe.
We have within easy distance of lake Louise an area which for downhill running compares very favourably with the famous Parsenn country near Davos in Switzerland. When I say that it compares very favourably I mean that you have from several of the peaks surrounding lake Louise a vertical descent of from four to five thousand feet. That is essential for mountaineering skiing. The Laurentians are excellent in their way, but when you can get a run down through vertical descent of between four and five thousand feet that, Mr. Chairman, is really skiing. I assure you, sir, that once a human being has enjoyed the thrill of mountaineering skiing, nothing else will ever satisfy him to the same extent.
To develop this area several things are required. The first thing is adequate trails cut through the timber. That is not an easy thing to do. The trails, not narrow trails but twenty feet wide would have to be cut so that they remained in good condition. You cannot cut a trail straight down a mountain. You have to cut them so that the average skier can get down without breaking his neck. That is one thing that is required. The timberline runs at about 6,500 feet, and the main Bow river is at about 5,000 feet. So that there will have to be a number of ski trails cut through the lower slopes of these mountains.
The next thing to be done to develop a real skiing resort is to provide some type of ski tow. I say this with a degree of sorrow

because I thought that the average skier was an energetic person and I find that that is not so. There are energetic skiers and there are those who are not. The average human being is lazy, and if he can be lifted to the top of the mountain by a ski tow, not only does he get there with little effort and arrive without being tired, but he can get in a great deal more of downhill running and there is more time to improve his technique. In that way he gets a great deal more enjoyment out of a week or two weeks' holiday. The construction of a funicular or ski tow is essential and there are many places where it could be constructed within easy distance of the main railway line.
Once you establish that type of ski resort, you will have an opportunity to rival the great ski resorts of the world. You will have a gold mine that will make many of our gold mines, even the big ones, look awfully poor pickings. I am not speaking about something I do not know. I have seen what the Swiss did at St. Mauritz and at Davos. I have seen what the Austrians did at St. Anton am Arlberg and Kitzbuhel. I have seen how they made skiing almost pay the national debt of Austria, and how they established the famous ski school of Hannes Schneider. They attracted people from all over the world to ski on those mountains. If they can do that at St. Anton in the Arlberg, which is difficult to get to, we can do the same thing; we can attract skiers to lake Louise, but only if we provide the facilities. I suggest that we are missing one of the greatest opportunities, particularly at this time, because the continent of Europe is closed; the Americans want to go somewhere in winter and we have just the country for them.
One word more. Before we can adequately develop our mountain resorts we must have a well-trained corps of mountain guides. We are doing nothing now to train mountain guides. Hon. members who may not have skied or climbed mountains like I have may not appreciate the necessity of having a well-trained corps of mountain guides. A mountain guide is not just a man who hauls you up a mountain at the end of a rope. He is an extremely skilled technician and has to know a great number of things. On the continent of Europe a mountain guide takes three to five years to train. He knows his mountain technique; he knows his glazier technique; he knows his skiing, and he also knows his mountains. But I wish to make this very clear, that because you have a guide trained on the continent of Europe-a Swiss guide or an Austrian guide-it does not automatically

Supply-Mines and Resources
follow that he will know Canadian conditions. Our conditions are different in many ways from those of Europe. You have to train our young men. Certainly we have to borrow from the great wealth of experience of Europe, including Switzerland, Austria and northern Italy, but we have also to see to it that there are produced in Canada every year a number of guides who know not only the summer technique and the winter technique, but who also can do the things which are peculiar to our conditions, who can take a pack train into the mountains, who know about feeding and living in the mountains; and this can only be learned in the Rockies.
It is no good to go over and get a Swiss guide, admirably trained as a mountaineer though he may be. We must have a new technique, and I suggest to the minister that one of the first things we must do is to establish a school for the training of mountain guides. Why do I emphasize this so much? If you bring tourists from the plains and cities into the mountains they are going to get into trouble. A mountain is wonderful but it is also dangerous. You can fall down it; you can fall off it, and you can have parts of it fall on you. If we allow untrained and unacclimatized tourists to start off into the mountains we shall have a lot of casualties; not only that, but our tourists are not going to enjoy themselves. Living in the mountains is a science, and unless we have men who are able to take these tourists-I do not like the word "dudes", because they are not dudes who go into the mountains, but they are untrained, even though they are accustomed to European methods-they are going to get into trouble; we shall have men lost on mountains, Lost in glaciers, falling down, hurting themselves, and we shall make life a mise-ry for our park rangers who have to go out and look for them. I suggest that the government should give serious consideration at the earliest possible opportunity to the establishment of a school for Rocky mountain guides.
We have an opportunity now to develop our national parks both for winter and for summer, to build them into an asset which will rival the great Alpine resorts of the world. Europe is closed and may remain closed to the Americans for possibly two or three years. We have mot much time. We should start at once to see to it that our Rocky mountains are developed both for the people to whom they belong and for the people who will come to them and will mean so much to the economy of Canada.


Mr. McLURE:: Before hearing the remarks of the hon. member for York West, I was going to say something on the tourist trade in connection with the park attractions we have in Canada. I shall now content myself with asking the minister one question, about the beautiful national park on Prince Edward Island. Is his department considering building a highway so that tourists can reach that national park? I understood that when the park was laid out the idea of the department was to build a highway to provide easy access to that beautiful national park.


James Allison Glen: The aim of the department is to have all possible roads built which will provide access to the national parks. But at the moment I have again to give the same statement, that these matters are the subject of discussion between the dominion and the provinces as to the contributions which will be made for these roads. From a departmental point of view we are anxious that every facility and every necessary road shall be provided; it is an aim with which we are entirely in sympathy.


Mr. HARKNESS:: I most heartily endorse what has been said by the hon. member for York West, and I should like to elaborate briefly on one point. The greatest need of our national parks-at least the ones in Alberta, and I believe the same is true of other parts of Canada-is low-priced accommodation. The people for whom the parks were primarily designed, that is the people of Canada, are for the most part not able to use them as national playgrounds because of the high cost of accommodation.
I took up this matter to a slight extent with some of the officials of the department and was told that it is impossible at the present time to provide any further accommodation there because of the shortage of building materials of all sorts. I should like to urge on the government, however, that at the earliest moment-and I think it could be started quite readily next spring-low-priced accommodation, put up either by the government themselves or by private individuals, should be developed to the utmost. If ordinary building materials are not available a considerable start could be made with the logs which are obtainable right there. Unless this is done, most of the people who would like to visit our national parks and enjoy them will be unable to do so.
I wish to direct one question to the minister. Some two or three weeks ago in the veterans affairs committee we passed a resolution requesting the Department of Mines and Resources to change the regulations governing
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the letting of leases in order that veterans [DOT]may have priority. As I understand the matter, at the present time, under the provisions of the law, any lands which become available for building sites or business sites are let by tender to the highest bidder. This places the returned man at a serious disadvantage as compared with men having more money; and the tenor of our resolution was a request that those regulations be changed, for the meantime at any rate, and lands which are available or are made available for either house building or business purposes be offered to veterans before being put up to tender. Will the minister tell us whether that recommendation from the veterans' committee has received favourable consideration.


James Allison Glen: I have heard of the communication to which the hon. gentleman refers, and we are dealing with it now. We are considering what shall be done. There are some investigations to be made with regard to it, and in the very near future some decision will be arrived at.


Moses Elijah McGarry: Have any submissions been made to the department regarding the extension of. the Cape Breton national park? If so, are they under consideration?


James Allison Glen: Yes. That matter has been referred to the department and is being taken up with the province now.


Robert Fair: What is the intention of the government in connection with Wainwright buffalo national park? This was a national park until the early years of the war, and at that time the animals were all slaughtered. The park is at present populated by prisoners of war. Can the minister give any information as to what will be done in the near future as regards the use of the park?


James Allison Glen: The park is under the control of the army, and until they relinquish it to us we are not in a position to know what to do. After they have got out and it has been returned to our control, we shall decide what is to be done with it.


Robert Fair: Will it be returned to the Department of Mines and Resources?


James Allison Glen: Yes; it is a national park.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Could the minister not be more definite and1 direct in his answer to the question asked by the hon. member for Calgary East? Banff is the place where I live and where some people occasionally vote, and both those who vote and those who do not vote are anxious to know where the veterans will stand in that community. The minister has been kind enough to see me on two occasions and his officials

have treated me generously in the matter of information, but we have a situation there where, broadly speaking, there is no land available. The only thing we have is the odd lot which for some reason is put up for sale. The present method is to sell it by tender. The people are so anxious to get places that prices are paid much beyond anything we have ever known, which means that the returned man has not a chance. There is a unanimous recommendation from the largest committee in this house and certainly the one that has sat longest and given the greatest attention to the problem submitted to it. I do not know why the minister cannot give us a little more encouragement than to say that certain investigations have to be made and that the matter will be given consideration. That is, may I say, scarcely treating this grand committee with the deference due to the distinguished members of it-and that remark has no reference to myself. I am not on the committee. I personally know Banff men who are trying to stay at home and do something and they cannot do it. The department might give us a little more encouragement in that regard.


James Allison Glen: I should like to give the hon. gentleman the encouragement he desires, but it is not just as easy as he says. I understand that there are only a few lots which have become vacant. There is hope that we may get a piece of land from the Canadian Pacific, who are not using it now. A resolution was passed by the committee on veterans affairs, but the question is, what shall be done in order that the veterans may be protected? The first thought in my mind, as it is in all our minds, is that the veterans shall have the preference where it is possible to give it. When it comes to a question of private leasing, if the land were taken and1 released at an increased price we would be subject to criticism of all kinds with respect to such increased prices. So that it is not just as easy as it seems. However, I can assure hon. members that the matter will be dealt with equitably, having in mind of course the preference that will be given veterans, because none of us would get away from that.


Arthur Leroy Smith: You could
cover that without trouble by a restrictive covenant of sale.


James Allison Glen: That is one feature which
has to be considered. We are not neglecting the position. The hon. member may rest assured that I shall treat it in the manner that he would wish me to.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Does all the land surrounding Banff belong to the Canadian Pacific?

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James Allison Glen: No.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I understand that the
Banff townsite cannot be increased.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Lands, parks and forests branch-
11,7. Administration of Migratory Birds Convention Act, $50,750.
John Ritchie MacNicol: What I have to say on
this pertains also to the next two votes. I notice in the details on page 116 of the estimates that the staff that has to do with the Migratory Birds Convention Act is small. I know that the members of that staff are capable men. The ones I have met are thoroughly qualified, but their salaries are very small, the highest being $4,020 a year. I have been wondering if the next vote 148, for which there are no details, is for an extension of the work under vote 147. In this connection I wish to refer for a moment to vote 149. I have been wondering why something was not taken off vote 148 and added to vote 149, but perhaps the minister has in mind increasing the vote for the Jack Miner foundation. The whole committee knows that he was the one man in Canada who initiated this whole business. I was glad to know that the Prime Minister of this country, before the death of that distinguished gentleman, had conferred upon him, through His Majesty the King, the O.B.E. That was highly commendable and it was as it should be. I hope the department will give to the late Mr. Miner's three fine sons, Manley, Edward and Jasper, more assistance than was given to Mr. Miner in his lifetime. They are a family who have consecrated their lives and their farms to this great work and they do not get the credit they deserve. There has been opposition to them from one place and another, and I am not referring to the government. I suggest that they should be given the unstinted support of the people of this country.
Jack Miner was a wonderful man. His three sons are doing a great work. When I think of the small vote being given to them after what they have contributed I am amazed. They contribute 14,000 bushels of com a year for feeding these birds. I have seen as many as 30,000 there at one time. A grant like this, and the very small amount that they get from the Ontario government, does not begin to give them anything in return for the time they have contributed. I know for a fact that the eldest son, Mr. Manley Miner, has on several occasions refused $15,000 a year to go to the United States to set up what they have done in Canada. I know the minister is warmly disposed toward the Jack
Miner foundation. Personally I shall support him in every effort he makes to see that they get fair treatment.


Mr. CROLL:: I support what the hon. member has just said. I did not hear the minister say that he would increase the grant to $5,000. That was the amount of money that the Miner foundation anticipated they would get from the department. Does the minister intend to increase that grant?


James Allison Glen: We are dealing with item 147. I intended to say a few words on items 148 and 149, but perhaps we can take them all together. I was very much interested in the remarks of the hon. member for Davenport with regard to the grant to the Jack Miner foundation. I have had more letters from all sides of the house in connection with that matter than with regard to any other single item in the department. Every hon. member is imbued with the idea that this vote should be increased to where it was some time ago. As the committee knows, it was reduced during the war years. The representations that have been made to me are in entire accord with my own thought. When this vote comes up next year I am hoping that I shall be able to impress the treasury board to put it back to where it formerly was, namely, $5,000. I realize, apart from any question in regard to the work that is being done, that it is a source of attraction, none greater in the Dominion of Canada. I shall certainly use all the force that I have at my command to see that the amount is increased to $5,000.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: The enforcement of the Migratory Birds Convention Act comes under whom?


James Allison Glen: It is under the jurisdiction of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Since we are taking the three items together, what is the $40,000 for?


James Allison Glen: To provide for control and suppression of forest fires in the national parks, and for carrying on those activities.


Agar Rodney Adamson: When the minister is making his submission to the treasury board next year, will he consider restoring the grant to the Alpine club?


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Surveys and engineering branch-
152. Dominion astrophysical observatory, Victoria, B.C., $24,552.
John Ritchie MacNicol: Any hon. member who has visited the Labelle building must have been alarmed at what terrific damage fire could do
Supply-Mines and Resources

to this country's vast treasure house of plans, specifications, maps and reports in connection with all our lands all over Canada. I urge the minister to request the Minister of Public Works, and through him, the government, to put up a fireproof building of steel and concrete to house the map treasures of this country so that they cannot be destroyed by fire. They are precious. They have maps and drawings there that are simply priceless. I hope that something will be done in that direction.


James Allison Glen: As a matter of fact we have that on our post-war reconstruction plans.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Surveys and engineering branch-
153. Dominion water and power bureau, including the administration of the Dominion Water Power and Irrigation Acts, $251,000.
Mr. COCKERAM:: What is being done regarding the development of power im the Yellowknife district?


James Allison Glen: There are power sites there,
and we have had two surveys in the field for the last two years making investigations with regard to power.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Surveys and engineering branch-
162. Legal surveys and map service, including grant of $350 to assist in printing the publication of the Canadian institute of surveying, $290,082.
John Ritchie MacNicol: In the geographers and the people in the building to which I referred a few minutes ago, and in other buildings, the department has many men of great ability who deserve more than just "carried". This department is well blest with the officials that it has in charge of the preparation of all the reports pertaining to the topography and geography of the country. They deserve the thanks of all the members. All of us obtain many fine maps. I do mot believe any country in the world has better maps of its territory than Canada has. They are now issuing maps taken from the air. I met quite a number of their men up near the Arctic ocean in the summer of 1944. These men are doing a wonderful service. I hope the minister will convey to these geographers, geologists, draughtsmen, and the men in charge of the maps, the treasured maps of the country-I do not mean money, but ini the work that has been done on them'-the appreciation of this house for their great service.


James Allison Glen: I shall be glad to.


Douglas Scott Harkness: When the estimates of the Minister of National Defence for Air were up I asked a question in connection with aerial mapping, and as I remember it
i Mr. MacNicol.l
ho said that the aerial mapping which was being done was being done under the Department of Mines and Resources. I cannot see any details showing where anything is provided for aerial mapping. What provision has been made for aerial mapping, and what sections of the country, if any, are to be mapped in that wajr?


James Allison Glen: That was in the war vote. The sum of $650,000 was provided for aerial mapping, and it was passed by the house. Of course that is a feature of the work of the department which will have to be taken account of in the near future. As a matter of fact, at the present time negotiations are going on under the auspices of the R.C.A.F. with regard to aerial photography. They and the equipment which they have, and which they claim is probably the best in the world, will be utilized as far as they possibly can. The whole subject of aerial photography is receiving the best consideration not only of our department but of the Minister of Reconstruction as well.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Surveys and engineering branch-
163. To provide for the payment of fees of the board of examiners for dominion land surveyors, of the secretary and of the sub-examiners and for travelling expenses, stationery, printing, rent, etc. (the fees of F. H. Peters, J. E. R. Ross and R. H. Montgomery, members of the board, and A. W. W. Cole, secretary, are to be paid out of this sum), $950.
William Alexander McMaster: I should like to say a word about surveyors. In the province of Ontario north of Toronto and south of North Bay, as far as I know there are only two dominion land surveyors. The people are beginning to feel the want of these men. In the whole city of Toronto I do not believe there are more than ten, and I suggest that the minister take up with the Minister of Veterans Affairs the question of whether some of the younger returned men could not be directed' into this work. If something is not done there will be a serious shortage, and this is a profession which should appeal to men who have been in the army.


Mr. CASE:: I should like to go on record as endorsing what the hon. gentleman has said, because I know the desperate situation we face in our own community. It is now almost impossible to get a land surveyor anywhere.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Indian Affairs branch-
165. Indian agencies, $898,266.
Douglas Scott Harkness: I should like to make a few brief remarks in connection with the Indian affairs branch generally. Some time

Special War Revenue
ago the minister indicated in the house that the Indian Act would be revised at the next session, or at least that he wished to have it revised then, probably by a committee of this house. For some considerable time the Indians of Canada have been pressing for a revision of the act by a royal commission, and personally I think that would be preferable to having it revised by a committee of the house. In any event, I presume one course or the other will be followed, and the Indian Act will be revised at the coming session.
In the past the Indians have suffered under a number of injustices. I should like to mention particularly education and medical attention, When treaties were entered into with the Indians they were promised that their children would be educated, but unfortunately the dominion government has not lived up to that promise, in that adequate educational facilities in the form of schools have not been provided to look after the Indian child population of school age. On the Stoney Indian reserve at Morley, Alberta, for example, there are something like 165 children of school age. At the residential school there, with children sleeping on cots in the corridors, there is accommodation for only one hundred. I imagine the minister will state that additional accommodation is available at the residential school in the Edmonton area. This, however, is some 250 miles away; and if children were sent there they would be completely away from their families for some ten months of the year and, in addition, would be among a different kind of Indians, speaking a different language and so forth. The Indians themselves believe that the time has come when on most of the reserves they would be much better off with day schools instead of residential schools, and for some considerable time they have been pressing for the establishment of day schools. I do not know why the department has not acceded to their request in this regard, because in most cases it would be considerably less expensive than maintaining residential schools.
Another difficulty as far as residential schools are concerned is that the grant is not sufficient, I believe amounting to something like $175 per child per year. I am sure all hon. members will realize that approximately $17 per month is not enough to feed, clothe and educate a child in a residential school. As a result, the religious institutions which operate these schools have to try to scratch up the remainder of the money required, which in many cases they are not able to do, and the children do not receive the education they should.
From the medical point of view, on several of these reserves there are no hospitals. I would refer particularly to the reserve at Hobbema, Alberta, where there is not now and never has been a hospital. If the Indians there become ill they have to wait a week until the doctor, who comes from Wetaskiwin, makes his appearance. If he has a considerable number of Indians to look after he deals with as many as he can, as they stand in the queue. When his time is exhausted he goes back and those he has not seen have to wait for another week. If it is a serious case the Indian has to be taken to the hospital at Wetaskiwin, but no conveyance is provided for that purpose. In this connection I would recommend to the minister that something in the nature of a jeep ambulance, such as was used overseas so successfully, be provided for each reserve on which there are not good roads and from which the evacuation of seriously ill Indians at the present time is a difficult problem. The provision of such a vehicle on most of the reserves in Alberta would make it possible to save many lives which otherwise might be lost. The government has large .numbers of these vehicles at the present time, and I should think it would be a comparatively simple matter to have some of them transferred from the Department of National Defence to the Department of Mines and Resources and apportioned for this purpose.
On many reserves where some hospital accommodation does exist, there is no medical officer, and that is particularly the case since the beginning of the war. I should like the minister to tell us what provision it is anticipated will be made in connection with medical officers now that the war is over and that medical men will be in much greater supply than has been the case in recent years.
Progress reported.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock. SPECIAL WAR REVENUE ACT
Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance) moved the second reading of bill No. 237, to
amend the Special War Revenue Act.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.
On section 1-Tax on certain insurance companies upon net premiums.
[Stage Direction]
Special War Revenue
Mr. MACDONNELL (Muskoka-Ontario):: Could the minister give a word of explanation on this first section?


Mr. ILSLEY:: The explanatory note reads:
The tax under section 14 is based on the place of payment of the premium regardless of the residence or location of the persons or property insured: in some other jurisdictions, such as some of the states of the United States, the basis is the place of residence or location of the persons or property insured regardless of the place of payment of the premium. It follows that in some cases a premium may be taxed both in the state of origin and in Canada and, in that event, the amendment provides that the premium be exempt from tax in Canada.
The new section will deny the said exemption if the premium taxed elsewhere than in Canada is paid in respect of a policy covering a person resident, or property situate, in Canada at the time the policy was effected or renewed.
If a person is resident in the United States and pays a tax in the United States in respect of a premium, this provides that it shall not be taxed in Canada. It is to obviate double taxation of premiums.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: That was my understanding. There is a strong view that it might be desirable to have the tax on premiums paid by persons resident in Canada. I do not wish to take up time on this if there is a principle involved and the department has reached a conclusion, but it seems to me that this might be a matter which could be considered when the next budget is brought down.


James Lorimer Ilsley: We had quite an argument with the life insurance companies on that very point because they have been accustomed to having the tax on premiums paid by residents of Canada alone. They were disturbed when they found that the section really taxed payments received in Canada by persons resident in the United States. We thought they were right to the extent that there should not be double taxation. There have been many discussions between the superintendent of insurance and the life insurance companies, and there was a conference or two by myself with the life insurance companies. The amounts involved are not very great, but the superintendent of insurance is firm in the opinion that premiums received in Canada should all be taxed, subject to the elimination of the double taxation feature. Therefore we decided to do that. That has been explained to the life insurance companies and, while it may not be satisfactory to them, the main reason it is not satisfactory is that it means a change in the system they have been following over a period of years.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: In view of the fact that the department has

met them in regard to double taxation, it is not immediately apparent why the department felt it was necessary to make a specific change in the procedure if there was no question of revenue involved. There may be a deep-seated principle involved, or the minister may have felt he had to support his superintendent of insurance. I do not press the matter if the minister says there is no principle involved.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Some premiums may escape taxation entirely unless we take this course.


John Bracken: These five bills are based on the budget resolutions?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


John Bracken: There has not been much discussion of these bills on the resolution stage.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Quite a lot.


John Bracken: There was none on the second reading of this bill because we are now in committee. I was going to suggest that on each one of these bills the minister make a general statement of what is contained in the bill. We have now reached a particular section and are discussing a more or less technical matter, but perhaps the minister could tell us what is in each of these bills as they are reached.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think it would be better to give an explanation on the sections. The bills follow the resolutions, but there will be additional sections which were not covered by the resolutions because those sections can be enacted without being preceded by a resolution. I will call attention to those sections as they are reached and1 give an explanation. If I were to go over the sections in each of these bills at the beginning there would be details of a lot of miscellaneous provisions which would have to be repeated.


John Bracken: If the minister could
indicate the main purpose of each bill as it is reached.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will do that.


John Bracken: That would be for the information of the laymen among us.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 2-Furs.
James Lorimer Ilsley: This matter of the tax on furs was gone into at length on the resolution. It is a complicated matter and this bill simply carries out the resolution. I went into it one Saturday afternoon when the resolution was being discussed. What is happening here is

Special War Revenue
that the 25 per cent tax on furs is being reduced to 10 per cent, but an 8 per cent tax is being imposed on fur garments. The law heretofore has been that on fur-trimmed garments there has been an 8 per cent tax as well as a 25 per cent tax on the furs. Hereafter the tax will be 10 per cent on the furs and 8 per cent on the fur-trimmed garment.
The situation heretofore with regard to fur garments has been that there has been a twenty-five per cent tax on the fur going into the garment but no sales tax on the garment. Hereafter there will be a ten per cent tax on the fur going into the garment and an eight per cent tax on the garment, which will be somewhat less, but not much less, than the tax exacted heretofore. That is the general effect of this section.


John Bracken: The purpose being what?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There has been much complaint by manufacturers of fur-trimmed garments that there was a discrimination against them. We have argued that there was not, certainly not as much as they alleged. Nevertheless this seems to be perfectly fair. There can be no argument as to the justice of it so far as I can see. There is a comparatively low tax on the furs, ten per cent, and a tax of eight per cent on the completed garment. It seems to mark the end of the controversy at any rate that there had been between the manufacturer of fur-trimmed cloth garments and the department, and perhaps to a certain extent between the two branches of the fur-garment trade.


John Bracken: This is thought to be
more equitable, is it?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, and it is quite a
reduction too, a fairly substantial reduction so far as the furs which go into fur-trimmed garments are concerned.


Mr. HARRIS (Danforth):: The minister
indicated that this was a difficult and complicated subject; but coming from the land of Evangeline, where his province is now producing a great quantity of furs-during the last two decades the production of furs has increased by leaps and bounds-perhaps he is in a position to know more about the fur industry than those of us who come from other parts of the country where the fur industry is not so important. I am thinking of the silver fox.
There is something more in this than merely straightening out the twenty-five per cent excise tax versus the eight per cent sales tax; and to give us a complete statement I think the minister should tell us how much less 47695-213J
revenue will flow into the treasury of Canada through reducing the excise tax from twenty-five to ten per cent, and also give us some idea of what benefits will inure to those who are in the fox fur industry and the fur industry generally. The benefit to them will be measured on the one hand by the lesser revenue which goes into the treasury of Canada through this reduction of the excise tax from twenty-five to ten per cent, versus the addition of the eight per cent sales tax on the other hand, versus also clause 3 which has an effect on the balance sheet on the other side.
But first will the minister give us an idea of how much less revenue will come into the treasury?
While I am on my feet, might I make this observation? This is just one little industry in the entire economy of Canada which has been singled out in this short session to receive some consideration. I am of the opinion, and the minister will agree with me, that many scores of industries of all kinds, whether engaged in the production of furs or something else, have been asking for consideration in their own particular line. Why, then, in this short session, when we were not expecting many changes in our budget but rather thought perhaps that Canada would wait to' see what the world picture would be before we brought down a real budget, should this particular industry have been singled out?
But first let us have the facts. What will be the loss in revenue by this change in taxation?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I have not the figures and I do not think it is possible to get them. With regard to the furs that are worn as furs or go into fur garments the reduction is slight. There is a ten per cent tax on furs, plus an eight per cent tax on the fur coat, which amounts to about the same thing as the twenty-five per cent tax on the furs alone. When we were on the resolution one hon. member argued that we had made the tax higher, that we had raised the twenty-five per cent. I denied that because the officials of the Department of National Revenue say that on the whole the tax is slightly reduced. But it adds up to about the same thing.
With regard to the furs that go into cloth coats trimmed with fur, there is a reduction. It is not possible to find out what the loss in revenue would be, but it would not be a large amount. The hon. gentleman assumes that this reduction, whatever it is, goes to the primary producer. I do not know whether it does or not. When we put on the twenty-five per cent tax we intended it to be borne
Special War Revenue

by the consumer. I do not know whether that was the effect, but we fully expected it to be.
Although I have discussed this tax on furs at length, I have never yet been given satisfactory evidence that it was borne by the consumer or by the producer or partly by one and partly by the other. That is something which it is impossible to establish. It is true that producers of foxes argued strongly for the reduction in this tax, and they suggested something very much more substantial than this, but for the reason stated by the hon. gentleman, that we should not be singling out furs for substantial tax reductions at this time when we are leaving taxes alone on other products, we felt we could not do what we were requested to do, and we were not satisfied that the benefit would go to the primary producer even if we reduced the tax. I do not know that it will. I do not know who pays the tax. We intended the consumer to pay the tax. I hope that this reduction such as it is goes to the primary producer, but I do not know whether it will or not.
I think the general principle which the hon. gentleman has stated is right, and I do not want him to get the idea that something pretty handsome is being done for the fur industry.


Joseph Henry Harris: May I close my observations by making this one. Half a loaf is better than no bread, and I am hopeful that the primary producer of the furs will get the whole benefit of anything that is in this rather small item because, after all, the business is a small business or the reduction is small; but happily it goes down to that part of the world which needs a little assistance in this day and generation, namely, the maritime provinces, and I am very happy to see any little benefit going there. I hope it all goes to the primary producers in the fur industry in the maritime provinces.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think the industry is spread pretty well over Canada. I am informed that it is.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Does this include a fur known as "mouton", which is sheared sheep; that is, it is really wool; or is this confined to fur-bearing animals? I inquire because there is a large industry in my constituency, a tannery which makes this new fur known as "mouton"; that is, sheared lambskin. It makes .an excellent fur, I am told.


Mr. JACKMAN:: It is very popular in my
*district.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is covered by this item.
TMr. Ilsley.]


Agar Rodney Adamson: That would get the benefit?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes; that is fur.	,


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: I cannot yet understand this tax. I was the member who said the other night that we are paying a higher tax in this case than we were paying before; and I used the expression, referring to the payer of the tax, that the last state of that man was worse than the first. Let us look at it in the way I see it. Raw furs of a value of, say $200, go into a certain garment. On that $200 we pay ten per cent, or $20.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: When those $200 worth of furs are made into a garment, that garment, from the wholesale man to the retailer, will be worth at least-, putting it low, $500. On that $500 you place $40 tax.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: That $40 is a tax on the same furs on which you have already collected $20. Therefore we are paying $60, instead of $50 payable under the old tax. As I said the other day, the tax is raised over one per cent instead of being reduced at all. If I am wrong in that statement I should like to have the Minister of Finance tell me.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman is wrong in that he has made too high a jump from $200 to $500.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: It depends on who made
it up.


James Lorimer Ilsley: His figures depend on whether the spread is too great or not, and I am told that that is not a typical spread, and that the normal spread is such that a combination of ten and eight works out to less than $25.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: Well, it cannot work out, because a manufacturer must get at least 125 per cent for manufacturing. Take the raw product of a suit of clothes. The manufactured price of the suit is always over 100 per cent more. Let us consider one item. Supposing silver foxes are to be manufactured into a fur coat. The manufacturer pays $200 for the raw material, plus ten per cent; he has to pay that tax, or somebody has had to pay it if it is imposed. He cannot afford to put the coat on the market at less than $500, to which the retailer adds his profit afterwards. You can figure it whichever way you like, but if you give the manufacturer a profit for his work you have increased the tax instead of lowering it.

Special War Revenue


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am told that the normal price of that coat if the fur cost $200 would be $350 to $375.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: If the source from which the minister has got that information is disclosed, that man will be flooded out of business as a manufacturer inside of two days, because it is not possible.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Of course it is not
possible.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: You could not have obtained that information from the manufacturer, unless perhaps he is manufacturing boots and shoes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The officials got that information from the fur administrator. I have not gone over all these figures myself, but naturally I made many efforts to find out what the new tax would amount to as related to the old tax, and I was assured by officials in whom I have confidence that it was somewhat less than the old. It all depends on whether the hon. gentleman is right about his $500 in relation to his $200. I am told he is wrong.


Mr. LENNARD:: I should like to ask if the fur administrator was in the fur business before he became the administrator.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. That is why he knew.


Frank Exton Lennard: Is the minister sure of that?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Frank Exton Lennard: He was in the fur
business?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: Before this clause carries, would it not be worth while checking up on this manufacturer's prices? If I am too high and if the minister is too low, even if it comes in between he is still raising the tax. I did not desire to argue the point the other night; all I said was that the tax was increased. There is not a producer of furs but will state also that the tax is increased.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not agree with that. The hon. gentleman is speaking of furs at what stage? The other day he was talking about raw furs.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: The tax is on the raw fur.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, it is not; it is on the dressed and dyed furs. They are just ready to put right into the fur garment.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: Well, that is a raw fur.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: The tax is on the raw fur to start with; that is, 10 per cent. Is that not so?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No-after dressing.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: It cannot be anything else, because it is a dressing tax and a dyeing tax. That fur is taken in the raw state to the dresser, the dyer, or whatever you want to call him. Then the first tax goes on.


James Lorimer Ilsley: After it is dressed and dyed.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: Yes; but it is still a raw fur, because they take it there to be dressed. Very well, it is of the same value; the value has not increased. Supposing it was $200 in the raw state and you took it to the dresser; when you took it away from the dresser it would be $220.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, certainly; there are
dressing and dyeing charges which enhance its value, and it is to the dressed and dyed fur that the tax attaches.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: The dressing and dyeing of these $200 furs would cost about $20. Then your tax goes on the $220, which is $22. I was leaving that out because it is only small. Then it is not a finished fur; it is a dressed fur. Then it goes to the manufacturer as a dressed fur, and when it goes to him there is no tax until he has manufactured that fur. As I said before, he manufactures it into a $500 garment, and that makes your tax that much worse, because you are taxing on the 20 per cent as well, which would make it $2 more.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
William Ross Macdonald: May I ask for the
wishes of the committee in connection with these bills? I understand that the minister proposes to introduce a number of bills based on resolutions which were discussed in this committee quite recently. I understood the leader of the opposition to suggest that when each bill comes before the committee the Minister of Finance would make a general statement on the whole bill, not that the minister would make a statement on each section. I think the leader of the opposition thought it would facilitate the passing of the bills if all members of the committee were familiar with the general content of each bill.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will make that under section
1.	It will be all right to make it under the first section?


William Ross Macdonald: I think so.


John Bracken: I do not think there was any understanding. I did not want the minister to do more than outline the purposes of the main sections of the bill.
Sections 3 to 5 inclusive agreed to.
Special War Revenue

On section 6-Further articles exempted.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Would the minister explain in a few words exactly what is allowed under this 1100 exemption to Canadians returning from the United States. This refers to tariff item 703. I suppose it excludes tobacco and certain luxury articles.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Does the hon. gentleman want item 703?


Harry Rutherford Jackman: I should like to know what it excludes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Some years ago-I remember the occasion very well; I believe it was before the war-we provided for the admission duty free of goods purchased by Canadians going to the United States and staying there for at least forty-eight hours, and the limit was $100. I believe it covered practically everything.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Tobacco?


James Lorimer Ilsley: What this does is to provide for the exemption of the goods from the payment of the retail purchase tax.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: That is not the section I am thinking of.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, section 6. People were coming back and bringing jewellery or things of that kind which were subject to the retail purchase tax. They found that they had to pay a retail purchase tax of twenty-five per cent, a heavy tax which they felt was annoying. This provides for the exemption of such goods from that retail tax. They also paid a war exchange tax, which is repealed by another section.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: There is no limit to the amount they may bring back on their person?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes; it is $100.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: It means that on purchases up to $100 no charge whatsoever is paid when the goods are brought across the line?


James Lorimer Ilsley: This deals only with the retail purchase tax. The section before deals with the war exchange tax.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Does it mean that there would be no tax on the goods a citizen might bring in up to the amount of $100?


James Lorimer Ilsley: This means that there will be no retail purchase or war exchange tax.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Is there any other' tax left?


Angus MacInnis: Customs tax?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is no customs duty. There were, in respect of certain articles-I believe just tobacco and liquor-some war taxes which are not affected by this.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 7-Schedule I repealed and new.
James MacKerras Macdonnell: I suggest, with regard to section 7, which incorporates schedule I, having in it a great many items, that the minister might go through schedule I and point out any substantial changes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will give a general explanation first. The reductions in the excise tax referred to were made by order in council and are now being incorporated in the schedule to the act. While the schedule was being rewritten, it was thought advisable to bring its wording, so far as automobiles are concerned, into conformity with that appearing in the act affecting sales tax, but it was not thought that these changes would affect the construction in any way. It is intended to put the matter beyond doubt. The main point is that just as soon as the war with Germany ended, namely, on or about May 10, 1945, we felt it was necessary, in order that producers of a large number of items here might make plans for the manufacturing and pricing of certain goods, to effect certain reductions in excise taxes. Most of these taxes were put on for the purpose of discouraging production and, as well, the purchase of these goods. For instance, the excise tax on automobiles was a graded tax running from twenty-five per cent to eighty per cent. We reduced that by order in council on May 10 to ten per cent, so that automobile manufacturers could make plans with some assurance for the production and pricing of their automobiles. The first change, then, was with reference to automobiles. I have here a copy of the order in council of May 10, 1945, and the act carries out the order in council. I could read the order in council, and perhaps that would be the best course.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Possibly it might be enough for the minister to give us the rates that obtained before the reductions were made, and the present reductions.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The rates which obtained on automobiles, before this change, were as follows, for excise taxes: automobiles adapted or adaptable for passenger use, with seating capacity for not more than ten persons, valued at $900 or less, twenty-five per cent; over $900 but not more than $1,200, twenty-five per cent on $900 plus forty per cent on the amount

Special War Revenue
in excess of $900; over $1,200, twenty-five per cent on $900, plus forty per cent on $300, plus eighty per cent on the amount in excess of $1,200. That schedule of very high excise taxes is changed so that they are all reduced to a fiat ten per cent. That is on automobiles.
Take next cameras. The former rate on cameras, before this change, was: photographic films and plates, projectors for slides, films or pictures except those designed exclusively for industrial or professional photographers' use, twenty-five per cent. That is reduced to ten per cent for the same reason. The rate on phonographs, record playing devices, radio broadcast receiving sets and tubes therefor was twenty-five per cent, and that is reduced to ten per cent. Now, for a slightly different reason, a change was made at the top of page 5 of the schedule, as the hon. member will see. The underlined words are the new words. There was a change in the tax on:
Coin, disc or token operated slot machines and vending machines; coin, disc or token operated games or amusement devices of all kinds, twenty-five per cent.
It was found that the tax was being imposed on a range of articles greater than originally intended; therefore, this proviso was added. I think it may have been added by order in council; it certainly is added by this bill:
Provided that the tax hereby imposed shall not apply to coin collectors used on pay telephones, turnstiles for collecting tolls or charges, coin operated locking devices, nor gas, electric or parking meters.
That is all the schedule covered by section 7.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I do not quite follow one point there. There are a good many other items in schedule I. Do you not intend to refer to these?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Schedule I is a reprint or a reenactment of schedule I as it heretofore existed. The changes in the schedule are those which are underlined; the rest of the schedule is unchanged.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: To what extent is it contemplated that these taxes which the minister has just outlined are permanent? Are they as permanent as anything else in our tax structure? Are they in accordance with the practice which we were following earlier? I do not mean in exact details, but in a general way.


James Lorimer Ilsley: We have not any plans for changing them. You never can tell when you will change something in the budget; but we have not any plans for changing them. These were the occasion of a lot of thought as to what rate of tax should apply to this
class of articles for the time being, at least in this reconstruction period, so that we had to give them something they could count on for a reasonable period of time.


Howard Charles Green: Is this the explanation of the section? There has been quite a large group of articles exempted altogether from the excise tax.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, not in section 7.


Howard Charles Green: But apart from those in the schedule, there were many items that were completely exempted from this tax by the same order in council. What group of articles is that?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman is right. That would not appear from the schedule. There were excise taxes which were removed entirely. The order in council makes it clear. The order in council reads as follows:
1.	The excise tax on electrical or gas fixtures and appliances imposed by section 80 and by section 7 of schedule I of the Special War Revenue Act, as amended, is hereby rescinded.
There are a lot of these; it is a very long 'list; it reads as follows:
Electric or gas light fixtures, lamps and shades, globes and reflectors therefor, twenty-five per cent. The following electrical or gas appliances adapted to household use: stoves, ranges and heaters, water heaters; refrigerators, including coils, condensing units, cabinets, *boxes, evaporators and expansion valves therefor, twenty-five per cent; the following electrical appliances adapted to household use: food choppers and grinders; irons and ironers; washing machines; vacuum cleaners and attachments therefor; garbage disposal units; floor waxers and polishers, twenty-five per cent.


Howard Charles Green: These are all exempt?


James Lorimer Ilsley: All free of excise tax now.
I continue:
The following electrical appliances:	grills,
waffle irons; hot plates; roasters; kettles; chafing dishes; food or drink mixers; juice extractors; coffee makers; toasters of all kinds; portable humidifiers; curling irons or tongs; hair dryers; permanent waving machines and spacers or clamps, rods and heaters therefor; razors and shavers, twenty-five per cent.
Now I shall proceed with the order in council:
2.	The excise tax on automobiles adapted or adaptable for passenger use, with a seating capacity for not more than ten persons each, imposed by section 80 and by section 1 (a) of schedule I of the Special War Revenue Act, as amended, is hereby reduced to ten per cent.
That is the point I covered in answering the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario. The order in council continues:
3.	The excise tax on cameras, photographic films and plates, projectors for slides^ films or pictures, except those designed exclusively for industrial or professional photographers' use,
Special War Revenue

imposed by section 80 and by section 5 of schedule I of the Special War Revenue Act, as amended, is hereby reduced to ten per cent.
I also mentioned that. I go on:
4.	The excise tax on phonographs, recordplaying devices, radio broadcast receiving sets and tubes therefor, imposed by section 80 and by section 6 of schedule I of the Special War Revenue Act, as amended, is hereby reduced to ten per cent.
I think I mentioned that as well. Here is one I did not mention:
5.	The following building materials are hereby exempted from the consumption or sales tax imposed by section 86 of the Special War Revenue Act as amended.
Then follows a long list of building materials which were freed from sales tax on that date. Then section 6 reads as follows:
6.	The war exchange tax on the building materials enumerated in the preceding paragraph, imposed by section 88A of the Special War Revenue Act, as amended, is hereby rescinded.
That is not important now, because the war exchange tax comes off generally. That covers the changes, the removal or reduction of excise tax and sales tax.


Howard Charles Green: Why is the tax retained at
thirty-five per cent on trunks, suitcases and so forth? That is a very heavy tax. There is the same tax on pipes, cigar and cigarette holders, fountain pens, propelling pencils, also thirty per cent on chocolate, candy and confectionery. That is still thirty per cent. Those are very high excise taxes. What is the reason for retaining them?


James Lorimer Ilsley: As nearly as I can recall it, the tax on jewellery, which is a retail tax, was started in one of our budgets when we imposed a retail purchase tax on a lot of articles, and we were backed off that position by representations from the trade who said that it would be much better to put the tax on some goods at the manufacturer's level than at the retail level, which we did, but we left it at the retail level on some. The object of those taxes was not to prevent the purchase of those articles. We knew that they would be purchased in large quantities. It was to get revenue. Generally speaking, the object of the taxes which I have read here was not revenue; it was to prevent the use of materials for these purposes. The articles in the list I have read used materials which were required for war purposes. I do not think we got much revenue from these things; as a matter of fact we got practically none. These taxes were designed to be almost prohibitive; but if they brought in any revenue

at all of course we got the benefit of it. The manufacture of these articles went down to very low dimensions.
That did not apply, however, to the class of articles about which the hon. gentleman is speaking. In that case it is a revenue tax, and we are not taking it off; we still need the revenue. The factories are becoming reconverted and are starting once more to manufacture the articles in the list I read; and it is pretty unsettling for them to look ahead to a reduction of the tax, perhaps a big reduction, in the next budget. It is a case where they are starting from scratch after the war, and we thought we should put this particular tax down. The matter was very carefully considered as to just what we should do there. There* was not much revenue in those cases. A great deal of revenue is lost in the removal of the sales tax from building materials, but that is not so in regard to these excise taxes. For instance, the excise tax on automobiles amounts to nothing as a source of revenue. When the time came for people to start making automobiles again, however, you would not let them start under a very high tax, because by doing so you would make all sorts of complications for yourself in a year or so.


Howard Charles Green: There is also a twenty-five per cent tax on toilet articles, preparations and cosmetics. Is that retained as a disciplinary measure, as an austerity measure or for revenue?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is a revenue tax. I think that is a proper subject of taxation. Some are necessaries, but a great many are not.


William Alexander McMaster: Has the minister considered the case of the young boy who has been given five cents and then has to humiliate himself by trying to raise another penny before he can buy a soft drink or chocolate bar. This afternoon we heard a great deal about juvenile delinquency, and it may be that the problem of raising the extra penny has something to do with that. It seems to me the government of Canada could get along without that extra cent.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Well, it yields $19,000,000.


William Alexander McMaster: I am speaking now of the tax on fruit juices, chocolate and candy. As I understand it, the chocolate bar which formerly sold for five cents now costs six cents; the soft drink which formerly cost five cents now costs six cents. This is a serious thing for the youth of Canada.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.

Special War Revenue
On section 8-Schedule III repealed and new.
James MacKerras Macdonnell: Would the minister make some comment on section 8 and the schedule concerned?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The explanation can best be made by reference to schedule III on page 6. The changes begin to appear on page 8; the words are underlined. The first change is just a correction in the name of the Department of National Health and Welfare. The second change is in respect of memorials or monuments erected in memory of members of the armed forces who lost their lives in the service of their country.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Might I refer the minister to the explanatory note facing page 2, which I do not quite understand in reference to schedule III and the effect of it. It says:
Schedule III of the act is amended to bring into effect the exemption provided for machinery and apparatus to be used directly in the process of manufacture or production of goods . . .


James Lorimer Ilsley: The explanatory note is not complete, but it deals with the main changes in the schedule. The main changes are not those on page 8; everyone would agree with those. The main changes are on page 9 and succeeding pages. For instance, the first change on page 9 relates to articles imported or purchased by certain diplomatic personages.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: What about pages 6 and 7; are there no changes there?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is no change on pages 6 and 7; the important changes begin to appear on page 9. The building materials included in the list of exemptions appear there, and on page 10 is the very important change, the exemption of machinery and apparatus and complete parts thereof to be used directly in the process of the manufacture or production of goods. That is a thirty or forty million dollar change.


Mr. GILLIS:: I should like to ask the Minister of National Revenue a question on this. I understand that this section brings in a new schedule III to replace the schedule in the old act. I had1 some correspondence, as the minister will remember, in reference to the establishment of a health centre or recreational centre or sports centre, whatever you like to call it, in connection with which it was necessary to import from the United States some $800 worth of sports material that could not be purchased in Canada. In view of the fact that this was to be used exclusively as a 47696-214
recreational centre, and incidentally as a memorial to the boys from that parish who died during this war, the department was asked if that importation could not be made exempt from tax. The minister informed me that under the old act that could not be done. I should like to ask if under this new schedule that type of equipment might be brought in under the exemption. On page 8 are specifically mentioned, among the articles that can be brought in, memorials or monuments erected to members of the armed forces, and so forth. Could that request be dealt with under the new schedule?


Mr. McCANN:: No provision is made for that. At the present time there is an exemption for hospitals, and I understand that the hon. gentleman's request is that this exemp-ion be widened to include equipment for recreational centres. As a matter of fact that was what was taken up in the correspondence to which he made reference, but the answer to his question is that what he has enumerated is not included in this amendment.


Clarence Gillis: Then what is meant when it is said on page 8, "memorials or monuments erected in memory of members of the armed forces who lost their lives in the service of their country"? Does that just mean stone memorials? There was quite a lengthy discussion in this house in regard to setting up machinery to legalize all charitable organizations across the country who put on drives for the purpose of collecting funds to establish memorials to service personnel who lost their lives in this war. I think one of the greatest memorials one could establish would be to take the children, brothers and sisters of those who made the supreme sacrifice, out of the ashes and give them a place to play. I know my conception and, I think, the conception of the general public of a memorial is that it is not just a piece of granite; I think of it as something more tangible than that. I believe that efforts being made in different communities to establish something along this line should be given consideration under the interpretation of "memorials."


James Joseph McCann: It reads:
Memorials or monuments erected in memory of members of the armed forces who lost their lives in the service of their country.
A memorial would include a window in a church, bells or an organ. I think the whole matter would be dealt with under the amendments to the War Charities Act which were passed at this session and which will come into effect when the bill receives royal assent. Under those new provisions the definition of a war memorial is pretty broad. Either in the

Special War Revenue

bill itself or by regulation it will be indicated in detail just what constitutes a memorial. That is as full an answer as I can give at this time, but I think it should meet the inquiry of the hon. member.


Clarence Gillis: Provided that it is retroactive.


Mrs. STRUM:: Artificial eyes and artificial limbs are included, and I should like to know whether it would be possible to include artificial hearing aids. Many people are terribly handicapped by loss of hearing, and these devices are expensive to buy. If they could be included under this clause it would be most helpful to these people.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Last year provision was made to put hearing aids in the same category as the other appliances mentioned by the hon. member.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That was for duty purposes, but they are still subject to sales tax.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: They are produced in Canada at the same cost as in the United States.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: Do I understand that the other appliances are free from sales tax in Canada?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Has the minister any objection to including hearing aids under this clause. I do not imagine that people wear them unless they have to, and it would seem to be putting an additional burden on them.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not wish to make an amendment to the bill now, but the matter can be looked into before the next budget is brought down. I do not know just why they have not been exempted. The only reason I can think of is that we did not believe the consumer would get the benefit. There is a tremendous mark-up on some of them, and I do not think the consumer would ever see this exemption.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Where is the sales tax applied?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The manufacturer pays it.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: If the person who bought it did not get it, the government probably would.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Howard Charles Green: Is the exemption being extended to the diplomatic corps reciprocal in every case? I notice it benefits counsellors, secretaries, attaches, trade commissioners and consuls general of various nations. The exemption is applied to automobiles, cigars, ciga-[Mr. McCann.1
rettes, manufactured tobacco, ale, beer, stout, wines, spirits and electricity purchased in Canada. Those are quite wide exemptions, and I should like to know if Canadians get the same exemptions in countries where we have ambassadors and trade commissioners?


James Lorimer Ilsley: They do in the main, but this is not strictly reciprocal. It was proposed at. first to make it strictly reciprocal, but it was found to be almost impossible to do that. There might be two or three taxes to which our people would be subject in some foreign country, and we could not just chase around to find out about these things. We would have had to apply a different rule to every minister or ambassador in Ottawa, and the last time I counted them there were twenty-three ambassadors, ministers and trade commissioners located here. We did not want to be bothered by having to apply a different taxation rule to each one of them. In the main we get the same treatment abroad, but it is not consistent in all countries. One country will tax certain things and not tax others, but I think it is true that every country makes some tax concessions.


Howard Charles Green: Does this mean that a secretary or a trade commissioner or a consul general can walk into a store anywhere in Canada and buy his cigars, cigarettes and spirits without having to pay this tax?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The word "secretary" does not mean a stenographer; it refers to a person with some diplomatic status.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Would this section apply to those persons who were subject to diplomatic immunity? That is a much narrower classification than stenographers and clerks in an embassy.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Relatively speaking, there are not very many of these people.


Howard Charles Green: Could one of these persons walk into a store anywhere in Canada and buy these articles without paying this tax? It says "purchased in Canada by any of the foregoing."


James Lorimer Ilsley: He has to buy from the manufacturer in order to get the benefit of this, except in the case of the retail purchase tax. In that case he must get a certificate to show he is entitled to the exemption.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Does this apply to trade commissioners as well?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, to trade commissioners representing other of His Majesty's governments.

Special War Revenue


Agar Rodney Adamson: United Kingdom trade commissioners would get the benefit of this?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right.


Mr. MANROSS:: I have been present in another committee, and I should like to ask if schedule I has been passed?


William Ross Macdonald: It has been passed, but I think the committee will agree to revert to it for a moment.


Park Manross: I wish to ask if the discrimination in taxation against soft drinks as compared with other five-cent commodities is to be removed?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not admit that there is discrimination. In effect, the hon. member is asking whether there is to be a revision in the soft drink tax provided by this bill. There is not.


Park Manross: There is definite discrimination because soft drinks have to sell at seven cents, while other commodities in that market sell for six cents. This difference is due to taxation discrimination.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I did not hear what the minister said about hearing aids. Are they to be exempt from the tax?


James Lorimer Ilsley: They are not exempt from the sales tax.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Hearing aids are a very important thing to a great many people. The Zenith machine is good for certain people, but it is not suitable for all deaf people and they have to buy a machine that may run anywhere from $250 to $500. Not only that, but there is the expense of the necessary batteries. A person who is very deaf uses up a good many dollars worth of batteries in a year. It is no fault of their own that they are deaf, and these hearing aids should be exempt from the sales tax. I am sure that the buyer would get the benefit if these aids were tax exempt, because the interests of the deaf are being looked after just now by a society which is closely allied to the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. The Canadian National Institute for the Hard of Hearing have found that a cheap hearing aid does not suit everybody, and that those who are very deaf cannot hear with the cheaper machine; they have to have an expensive one. I speak feelingly, because I use one of these machines myself and the tax will run anywhere from eight or nine or ten up to forty dollars.


James Joseph McCann: My understanding of the matter is that by arrangement a hearing apparatus is admitted into this country duty 47696-214J
free on the understanding that it be retailed in Canada at the same price at which it is retailed in the United States. Sales tax is not payable in the United States, and if the sales tax were removed here there would be no advantage to the consumer whatever.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: There are other articles on this list which are in the same category as hearing aids which are made exempt from the tax. Why take advantage of a person who cannot hear and tax them? They do not wear these machines for fun... They certainly give them no pleasure, but they are a necessity for lots of people to enable them to continue at their work and be economically efficient. I notice in this list other articles which are in the same category as hearing aids, for instance, artificial eyes, artificial limbs, liver extract and so forth, which are exempt. Why these should be exempt and not hearing aids I do not know.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know that I need add anything to what my colleague has said. But in the case of the hearing aid which the hon. member mentioned, the Zenith, the removal of the sales tax would not reduce the price to the consumer by one cent. I know that because I went into the matter. There was an application to enable the persons who are handling it in Canada to sustain their proper position, and it was admitted that there would not be any reduction in the price to the consumer. It may be that the tax ought to be removed to help those who are handling the article, but that would not help the consumer at all. Therefore I do not think I can recommend taking it off.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I am not talking particularly about the instrument the minister mentioned.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is the one the hon. member mentioned.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Yes, and others, but not to help those who are handling them. We have in the city of Toronto this movement on behalf of the deaf. The minister probably knows about it. It is a society closely allied to the Institute for the Blind. The people who need assistance are those deaf people who need a far better apparatus than the Zenith machine, which sells for about $40. The tax on that would not be so expensive; but that machine does not suit everybody; it does not do some people any good, and the apparatus that will do them real good runs anywhere from $200 to $500. A person who uses these scientific instruments also has to spend a tremendous amount on batteries each year. The battery charges
Excess Profits Tax

alone sometime run as high as $75 to $100 a year. There is no reason why such persons should have to pay the sales tax on these things because their deafness is not their own fault.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 9 agreed to.
Schedules I to III inclusive agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance) moved the second reading of bill No. 235, to amend the Excess Profits Tax Act, 1940.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.
On section 1-"Excess profits".
James Lorimer Ilsley: It was agreed that I should say something about the purpose of the bill on clause 1 in committee.
The purpose of the bill is to carry out the very important changes in the excess profits tax which were mentioned in the budget and in the budget resolutions. It is a little difficult to go into the matter in detail unless we take up the sections one by one. On the resolution I explained, and I think most hon. members understand, that by this budget beginning with the 1st day of January next the 100 per cent excess profits tax with 20 per cent refundable is reduced to 60 per cent. That is a short and simple way of stating it. But if it were to be stated accurately I would have to go into decimals and figures as I did on the resolution. That is what I would call the main change in the Excess Profits Tax Act.
There is a change in the taxation of sole proprietorships and partnerships. The 15 per cent excess profits tax is removed entirely; and what was 100 per cent tax, with 20 per cent refundable, becomes a 60 per cent tax in the case of proprietors and partnerships. Then a very important change is the raising of the minimum standard profits for small businesses. It was formerly provided that $5,000 was the minimum standard profit. That is, even if a small business had before the war profits of, say $2,000 or $3,000, we would consider for excess profits tax purposes that its standard profit was $5,000. That had the effect of cutting down the excess which was subject to taxation. Now, that $5,000 is raised. The formula is this, that on the profits of 1946 and the subsequent years the minimum standard profits of taxpayers be increased

from $5,000 to $15,000, and that where a taxpayer's standard profits are on January 1, 1946, in excess of $5,000 but less than $25,000, they be increased by one-half the difference between their present amount and $25,000. That is an important change which is provided for by this bill.
The only other change of substance is the renewal of the exemption from excess profits tax of the profits of certain mines. Heretofore that has been applied to base metal mines and strategic mineral mines: it is being extended in this bill to precious metal mines and to industrial mineral mines. All that is provided for in this bill. I will explain the bill section by section as best I can.


John Bracken: These bills are to carry out the announcements made in the minister's budget speech?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


John Bracken: Which were amplified or stated more specifically in the appendix to that speech?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, that is right.


John Bracken: I understand from the
minister that there is something more in these bills than was included in the resolution. Is that correct?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Well-


John Bracken: All I want to say is that if there is, perhaps the minister will point out the additional features as he comes to them.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, I will point them out.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 2-Persons liable to tax.
James Lorimer Ilsley: Here is where I yielded.


Howard Charles Green: We had a good case.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I hope I was right; that is all I can say.


Howard Charles Green: We are sure you were right.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I know that in yielding I
have allowed a lot of taxpayers to get away with a good deal they should not have got away with, and possibly made a lot of discrimination. I have just gone on the assumption that in this case retroactivity is worse than discrimination and tax avoidance-*


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Correct.


James Lorimer Ilsley: -because tax avoidance and discrimination take place here on quite a substantial scale. I have subscribed to the principle that retroactivity is worse than that, but I am not sure that it is. I have done it anyway.

Excess Profits Tax


Howard Charles Green: Will the minister explain
just how the section as changed will work?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: When the minister is doing that will he say something on this point, which I take it is dealing with the future? We have now created a situation, due to the removal of the excess profits tax against individuals, where, certainly in the smaller-scale businesses, it is much cheaper now to carry on as an individual than to incorporate. The individual pays substantially less tax. That appears to have an unfortunate bearing in one way, because, as I think the minister will agree, it is often desirable for a business to be incorporated, and there is a substantial penalty on it. I mention that, not because I want to enter into a long debate to-night, but so that it may be considered between now and the time of the next budget.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. Proprietorships and
partnerships have been claiming for years that they have been discriminated against, and I cannot tell who is getting the worst of it.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: They were discriminated against as partnerships as compared with individuals, not as compared with corporations.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No. Perhaps it is idle to go into this, but these persons who were in partnership were carrying on business as individuals, would get out their pencils and show that by the time they paid their excess profits tax, and their income tax as individuals, all of which had to be paid, they were far worse off than the man who incorporated himself and who paid just the corporation tax and on such salary as he chose to draw from the incorporated company, and they made quite a case. Now, if they are getting the breaks here the other way we shall hear from the incorporated people: that is all.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I do not propose to take the minister's time or the time of the committee. I have had calculations made, but I think it will be undesirable to go into the matter now. I suggest, however, that this is a matter which should be seriously considered before the next session.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I thank the hon. member for bringing it to my attention, and it will be considered.


Howard Charles Green: The minister has not yet explained how this change will operate. As I understand it, anyone who is exempt under the law as it stood before will remain exempt; but from the date of the budget, which was October 12, 1945, there will be a
more strict way of interpreting what is new business. Is that the sum and substance of the present provision?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, that is correct.


Howard Charles Green: Before the minister answers that I would like to point this out to him. While he may know cases where there has been evasion under the law as it was enacted last year, I know of cases where people were genuinely and perfectly honest in making their change in business, believing that they would come under the provision as passed last year. Perhaps cases of that kind would not come to the minister's attention so frequently as cases where there had been evasion. But I do not think he need have any pangs of conscience for fear he is letting evaders off by changing his legislation so that this provision is not retroactive for eighteen months.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I did not think much of the case the hon. gentleman showed me. It may have impressed him; it did not impress me. I was sorry to see that fellow let off.


Howard Charles Green: In the particular case to which I referred the person was certainly innocent. Although he might have been wrongly advised by the ministers' own officers, he did what he thought it was perfectly right for him to do. I suggest that the minister should not get the idea that the majority of business people in Canada, or even a targe group, are trying to evade the laws of the country, because I am convinced that the group who do that are small in number. Will the minister explain how the provision will work now?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is a good stiff test applied to business in determining whether it is a new business, and that is found toward the bottom of page 20. The preceding words are that the tax is not applicable to the profits of the first fiscal period of the new business or to the profits of the first fiscal period in which the said subsection 4 becomes applicable-
. . . as the case may be, unless in the case of a person who has commenced business after the twelfth day of October, nineteen hundred and forty-five, a person or persons who have a substantial interest in the business either by ownership of shares in the company that operates the business or by being members of the partnership that operates the business or otherwise, had, in the opinion of the minister, either by ownership of shares in the company that operated the business or by being members of the partnership that operated the business or otherwise, a substantial interest in a previous business of which the new business is, in the opinion of the minister, a continuation.
Excess Profits Tax

If that set of circumstances applies he does not get the benefit of the forty per cent in the first year of operations.


Howard Charles Green: Suppose a man branches out into a new type of business while he still carries on his old business. Would he get the benefit in connection with that second business?
Mr. I'LSLEY: It is very difficult to give a general ruling on that. That is what we were talking about the other night. It is almost impossible to make a satisfactory application of these words, but we could not think of any better words. There comes a point when a person is in a new business and we have a different set-up to consider. We have to take these cases and form the very best judgment we can on them, and some are turned down.


Howard Charles Green: Each case will be considered on its merits?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Howard Charles Green: If there is a change of ownership, if another person takes over the majority of the shares in the company, he will get the benefit, as I read the provision?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, that is right.


Park Manross: In the opinion of the minister, is there any standard interpretation of what a "substantial interest" in a small corporation or private business is? Take a small business that comes within a couple of thousand dollars of making excess profits. They decide that the manager holds a substantial interest, and so they add his wages to the profits of the company so as to put the company in the excess profits class. Is there any standard by which it is decided whether the interest is substantial?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, there is not. There is no fixed percentage.


Park Manross: On what basis, then, do they interpret it? I know a business where the manager owned nineteen per cent of the stock. The company was within two thousand dollars of excess profits, and the manager's salary was added to the profits, putting the company in the excess class. In other words, the company would have been better off if it had fired that manager and hired one who did not own any stock.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That has nothing to do with the amount of tax. It has nothing to do with the profits or the tax on profits.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: r should like to make one observation. I think I dislike tax evasion as much as any man living, but I hate to see another of those
[Mr. Usley.l
cases where we have resort to the opinion of the minister, which of course does not mean the minister but his officials, since obviously the minister cannot personally do it. It means some more inquisition, and I earnestly suggest that when these questions are being considered we do not assume first of all that there is a very large number of people who are trying to defraud the tax collector, though of course I know there are some. Second, I suggest that practical considerations and what I venture, without any offence, to call considerations of common sense, should enter into this matter. Perhaps a certain amount of tax does escape in the first instance; the minister lies in wait with the personal income tax and he does a pretty good job on that. I really feel that if you balanced things up and could trace it to the end-and the trail is sometimes a long one-you would be amazed to discover how little the treasury does lose, even assuming that there are some improper practices, which we might all dislike, at the outset. We would gain a great deal in the way of getting rid of these everlasting trips to Ottawa with discussions and delays, and more discussions and further delays, which really impede the conduct of business. I sometimes wonder if the department realizes the extent to which this goes on. I am not going to labour the point further. I suppose it is out of the question to ask if this could be omitted. The minister would probably say that the resolution we approved) demands that it be in. Is that correct?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know that the resolution demands that it be in.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: If it were possible to persuade the minister to leave it out I would go on talking for a couple of hours more.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: A good reason for leaving it in.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Seriously, if it could be left out, I think the minister would start something good. If the minister could get away from this business of having to sit in judgment on this man or that man it would be all to the good. I earnestly suggest that in the long run you get the money one way or another. As a matter of fact, I think there would be a good check on these fellows because, if they are really successful enough, they will get into such high personal brackets that they would suffer more in the end, which would be an end to a lot of our troubles.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I would not mind so much if they distributed their profits.

Excess Profits Tax


James MacKerras Macdonnell: The minister is getting after that too. He has not forgotten many things.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There has always been a provision under which the minister could direct distribution of profits, but it is sparingly used, if that is what the hon. gentleman means.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I think the lot of the wrongdoer is a very hard one. Does the minister think what has been happening and what he is trying to correct in what is before us now will be a lesson to the people who try to beat him by retaining surpluses here and waiting for tax reduction to come? I think they will be awfully sick of that. I ask the minister to make a beginning now. It would be a memorable day if we started to do away with these inquisitions. That is what they are. I am sure the minister does not like being an inquisitor, even a grand inquisitor. That is what it is coming to.


James Lorimer Ilsley: 
James MacKerras Macdonnell: Perhaps I am one of the people about whom the minister is talking. I am not suggesting that the minister should not have discretion. I think there has to be someone. I am suggesting that we have as few as possible to-day. I am asking if we could not lessen them. There are well over one hundred now. I am wondering whether we could not have one less. Let us clean them up. I am only suggesting that there should be as few as possible. We should try to relieve the minister and the business world of as much as possible. If I am not
estopped from moving an amendment I should like to move that the inquisition be left out and that you do not have to inquire into that.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Just what is the position if we left it out? Let us look at that and see. It would read in this way:
Unless, in the case of a person who has commenced business after the twelfth day of October, nineteen hundred and forty-five, a person or persons who have a substantial interest in the business either by ownership of shares in the company that operates the business or by being members of the partnership that operates the business or otherwise, had, either by ownership of shares in the company that operated the business or by being members of the partnership that operated the business or otherwise, a substantial interest in a previous business of which the new business is, in the opinion of the minister, a continuation.
It would be necessary for us to define "substantial", because the courts would have nothing to go by and nobody would know. There would be no finality to that. One court would say one thing was substantial and another would say something else was substantial. We would have to define "substantial". We should do that and we should-


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I did not make myself clear. I was suggesting something more than the removal of the discretion. I was suggesting that the whole of the last part of the clause be left out and that the minister do not discriminate but that he allow the business to be considered a new business for the first year and to have the 40 per cent tax allowed. I was suggesting you go back to the original clause, but I shall drop the matter now.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It would be evasion; it
would be an avoidance; it is very discriminatory. A bright man finds out that by changing a partnership into an incorporated company he can save himself a lot of taxes, or by changing a company into a partnership. And they did it both ways. They could save themselves a lot in taxes, and they are doing the same thing. They are carrying on the same business, dealing with the same customers, no change in the interest of the business at all, but by a legal form they can save themselves a whole lot in taxes. It is true they could do it under the law. Numerous taxpayers inquired around, found out they could do it, and they did it. They moved in clever circles among well-informed friends and they did it. But the other chap across the road who did not have as good an education or did not move in the same circle of friends, did not find out about it; he went on paying high taxes. That is not right.
Excess Profits Tax


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I am not going to press the matter any further. I am going to raise one more point which may be only a question of administration. There is a feeling that under the act where certain professional people were defined and, I think, more or less set out in the act, they are not subject in any way to excess profits tax to which certain others are. For instance, I have letters from brokers who suggest that their whole income comes purely from commissions; that they do not buy and sell; that their reward is purely for services rendered. They think they should be regarded as in the same category as professional men. I do not think it has anything to do with the legislation. It may be a matter of administration and regulation. I wish to raise that point so that the minister will have it before him.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I shall take note of that.


William Alexander McMaster: Is the effect of the act as drawn that you can go back to all changes in business since June 26, 1944, and unless they live up to the specifications the minister can decide that in future they will be taxable and that they will only miss the first year's taxes?


James Lorimer Ilsley: We have changed that.


William Alexander McMaster: Have the people who have escaped so far finally escaped for all time, or are they to be caught now?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It applied only to the first year's taxes.


William Alexander McMaster: That is last year's taxes?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The first year.


William Alexander McMaster: The minister can go
over their cases and under the present legislation decide whether they are taxable or not? If it has been decided that they escaped the tax, are they out for all time? Suppose a company or a partnership, or whatever you like, changed their business. Because that change was made when a certain law was in force, has the minister the right now to review it? Suppose the change took place before October 12 last, but since June 26, 1944, can the minister review all these different changes?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The more restricted section which is being passed now applies to businesses coming into operation or substantially changing their character after October 12 of this year.


William Alexander McMaster: They have escaped,
then? The minister has not introduced retroactive legislation?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, it is not retroactive
legislation.


William Alexander McMaster: They have escaped?


James Lorimer Ilsley: For one year.


William Alexander McMaster: Just for one year?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Howard Charles Green: It applied only for one year, anyway.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is correct.


William Alexander McMaster: They have a status now which will make people go back and seek the right to return to their status as it existed in June, 1944. I am not so sure that they may not accomplish their purpose.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No. Under the legislation they only had the right to the forty per cent rate for the one year, the first year of their operation. After that, they had to pay taxes just like anyone else.


William Alexander McMaster: They escaped for only one year?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Would the minister
explain the proviso in the new section 3 under which a person acting in the capacity of a trustee whose income is derived from the operation of a gas or oil well is considered a corporation. That is the basis of the proviso. What is the reason for that proviso, and how does that section function?


James Lorimer Ilsley: These royalty companies, so-called, were never subject to more than forty per cent tax, and this simply continues that situation. It is a reenactment of a section which made them taxable. Years ago trustees were taxable as though they were corporations, but only to the extent of the minimum corporation tax, which is forty per cent; and this is just a re-enactment of that.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I presume this refers to the oil royalty type of business?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Then an oil royalty company is now subject to the full forty per cent tax?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, it has been for the last two or three years.


Agar Rodney Adamson: And this merely confirms the status quo, as it were?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right. It is just in here for drafting purposes. It is just a repetition.

Excess Profits Tax


Harry Rutherford Jackman: In connection with the drafting of these sections, ordinarily I can read any book or paragraph I pick up, but I find that the first sentence in section 3 consists of eleven lines, and if you go beyond the colon you add another six, making seventeen lines in all. I find it very hard to understand language of that description. Then I go on to the next sentence, and with nothing intervening at all it contains thirty-five lines. I cannot read English like that; it is too hard to understand. How the government expects the ordinary Canadian citizen to read such drafting as its brought before this committee I fail to understand. Surely something can be done to make it easier; surely this can be broken up into shorter sentences with less length given to every statement of fact. I believe it is an intolerable burden to ask the Canadian public to try to understand language like that. It is not English at all; it is a conglomeration of words.
That is the first point. The second point I wish to make is that although on page 2 there is only one resolution, or one section of the act, despite what we tried to get across to the government the last, time these resolutions were being considered; despite what the senate committee on the working of the income tax law has said, in no less than three places I see the words "in the opinion of the minister". The first is in line 26; the next is in line 44. and finally in line 49. The minister said that taxpayers would object strenuously if the law were rigid and occasionally there was some hardship suffered. I believe they will holler more loudly than ever if they do not know what the law actually is. The other day my colleague the hon. member for Calgary West quoted1 an old maxim, that it is better that nine guilty men should go free than that one innocent man should suffer. May I suggest to the minister another legal maxim which I think has great bearing here; it is better that the law should be certain than just. That is an old common law maxim, the reasons for which he will find in any good textbooks on legal maxims, such as Broome or any other writer. Business men will refuse to enter into transactions if they do not know exactly how their profits will be dealt with. That happens almost every day in the life of a business man. Personally I find very often that there is no time to find out from Ottawa what will happen if you are successful in your transaction, whether or not your profits will be all taxed away, and, as a result, frequently do not enter into the transaction. Therefore, often employment is not created. So I suggest to the minister that he give consideration to the maxim that it is better that the law
should be certain than just. Frankly I do not know what these sections mean; I have had no connection with them in business practice, and I fail to understand exactly what is meant by that type of English.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 3 agreed to.
Section 4 agreed to.
On section 5-Repeal.	Base metal and
strategic mineral mines.
Agar Rodney Adamson: I think we should have some clarification of this section. I understood from the budget that all metalliferous mines were to be included, which would take in the precious metals mines. Here again the act is complicated and difficult to understand. Are the precious metals mines included under this section, and why is the new phrase "bedded deposits" used, when I do not believe it was in the original section? Would the minister give a general explanation in language that can be understood by a layman?


James Lorimer Ilsley: This section applies to metalliferous mines and industrial mineral mines.


Agar Rodney Adamson: All metalliferous mines?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, including gold and silver.


Agar Rodney Adamson: It does not say so.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes; "metalliferous".


Howard Charles Green: Change your marginal note.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes; the marginal note is wrong, but the section is right. Look at line 44:
. . . the profits of any corporation or joint stock company derived from the operation of any metalliferous or industrial mineral mine which comes into production on or after the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred and forty-six. The minister, having regard to the production of ore in reasonable commercial quantities, shall determine which mines, whether new or old, qualify under this paragraph, and shall issue a certificate stating the date upon which any mine is deemed to have come into production. In this paragraph, "industrial mineral mine" means an industrial mineral mine that has been certified by the Minister of Mines and Resources to be operating on mineral deposits other than bedded deposits, and for this purpose "bedded deposits" include deposits of building stone.
That is the definition of an industrial mineral mine. The hon. member is interested in metalliferous mines and he need not worry about this question of bedded deposits. Bedded deposits are excluded, and bedded deposits include deposits of building stone. I understand that there are certain mines which are rather easy to start, and taking out building
Excess Profits Tax

stone would not be the kind of operation that one would need to encourage by exempting the operator from excess profits taxes. There would be no need of it. That extends to bedded deposits generally.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I understood by the resolution that there was a regulation by the department covering what is known as the tuning-up period, and that that tuning-up period for a mill would vary with the mine. I understand from this section that the minister is given discretion to say when the tuning-up period ends and the mine starts production. As the minister may know, when a metalliferous mill starts into production the circuit absorbs a great deal of the metal. This is particularly true in a gold mining circuit where metal would be absorbed for periods extending up to months. Apparently this gives the minister discretion, or it is in his opinion to say that on such-and-such a date an operation began and the period of the three-year exemption will commence from such and such a date? That is how I interpret this clause.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I did not catch the question.


Agar Rodney Adamson: The section states:
The minister, having regard to the production of ore in reasonable commercial quantities, shall determine which mines, whether new or old, qualify under this paragraph and shall issue a certificate stating .the date upon which any mine is deemed to have come into production.
That seems to be vague. I am sure the minister will administer the act in the best possible way, but this seems rather a loose way to administer an act which primarily has to do with mining. It would seem to me that instead of having a time period we should consider the return of capital. To base an exemption on the return of capital would be simpler and much more just to the operation. I may be wrong about this section, but apparently the words "deemed to have come into production" and "the minister shall determine" give the minister and his department the power to say on what date a mine shall have started commercial production. Is that so?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Then there are excluded materials such as gypsum and those which can be dug out from the surface, as it were, without requiring the sinking of a shaft.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is not quite the place where the line is drawn.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Could the minister say
where the line is drawn?
[Mr. Ilsley.3


James Lorimer Ilsley: We do not say that an
industrial mineral mine shall be such mine as the minister in his opinion considers is an industrial mineral mine. We tried to define it a little more than that. The best that could be done after a great deal of consideration was to say that an industrial mineral mine is one that has been certified by the Minister of Mines and Resources to be operating on mineral deposits other than bedded deposits, and for this purpose "bedded deposits" include deposits of building stone. I cannot tell the committee what bedded deposits are. Coal is a bedded deposit and therefore coal does not qualify.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Yet coal is definitely a
mineral.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Oh, yes, and it would be an industrial mineral if it were not excluded by the use of the words "bedded deposits".


Agar Rodney Adamson: I think it might clarify
matters if the bill contained a definition of "bedded deposits". It seems to me that there is ambiguity in this clause which will lead to heart-burnings as time goes on. In the minister's own province there is a mine producing barite, a mineral used in the sinking of oil wells. I understand that it is dug from the surface, and if this is not defined there will be a lot of heart-burnings.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is nothing that creates heart-burnings like the paying of taxes. I do not know whether barite is a bedded deposit, but they would know over at the Department of Mines and Resources. I know that barite was discussed. The barite mine in Nova Scotia is in commercial production now, and industrial mineral mines that came into production before this date are not relieved. Every consideration was given as to how to define this. If hon. gentlemen could go through some of the long sessions where an effort is made to get definitions and put the law in an exact state where it can be both clear and admini-sterable, they would see the effort that is made to overcome the use of discretionary power once in a while.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I have only one question to ask which is not as stupid as it may look to be on the surface. Does this section apply to oil wells? The section reads:
The profits of any corporation or joint stock company derived from the operation of any metalliferous or industrial mineral mine which comes into production on or after the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred and forty-six.
The privy council has held that oil is a mineral, and there is no doubt at all that the

Excess Profits Tax
drilling of an oil well is a mining operation. So that we are with you up to that point, but the next sentence refers to ore. Could the minister tell us whether the use of the word "ore" would take an oil well out of the purview of this section?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I hope so because we did not intend to have it in. We never thought we were including oil.


Arthur Leroy Smith: "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick." Cannot the minister weaken on that and help us out?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is no intention in the -world of having oil included.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I did not think so. I just called it to the minister's attention.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman has
me worried now for fear it is in there, and that I may have- to move an amendment.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Perhaps I should have kept quiet. I would have been much better off.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think it is quite clear. I do not think the Minister of Mines and Resources would certify that the mineral deposits are being operated-


Arthur Leroy Smith: The privy council held that ore is a mineral; there is no question about that. That is the only reason we have those rights in this country under the old leases. I was only trying to be helpful, but apparently I have knocked my own people.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No one ever expected the oil operators to apply this to oil wells.


Arthur Leroy Smith: No; it was my own thought.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is not intended to apply to oil wells and I wish to make it clear now that it will not apply to oil wells, even if we have to amend the act next session if any question is raised. But I think it is clear enough. Industrial minerals were neveT intended to apply 'to oil wells.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Then I am sorry that I spoke.


William Alexander McMaster: Would this apply to large corporations like International Nickel, McIntyre Mines, Falconbridge Nickel and others who are constantly looking for new mines? If they found a new one, would they come under this? They might find a mine paying 5,000 per cent in dividends. Would they come under this, and for how long?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It applies to a new mine whether owned by an existing corporation or not. The profits of that corporation have to be ascertained with reference to that separate operation.


William Alexander McMaster: I am thinking perhaps that there was some merit in the suggestion of the hon. member for York West that the amount should be limited to 100 per cent and for a certain period. A mine that may become exhausted in a short time might yield very large dividends, and as the section stands it might apply for an unlimited time.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Just during the life of the excess profits tax unless it is terminated in the meantime by parliament.


Howard Charles Green: The section provides that the minister may make any regulations deemed necessary for carrying this paragraph (h) into effect. Will there be separate regulations for the metal mines and for the industrial mines? There are many differences between the two types of mines, and I do not see how they can both be covered by the same set of regulations.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think there would have to be separate regulations. Perhaps some of the regulations would apply to both classes of mines. Regulations will have to be evolved to cover the various types of mines.


Howard Charles Green: Is there to be a tuning-up period provided for the metal mines?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Howard Charles Green: Of what length of time?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It would depend on the kind of mine. There might possibly be some kind of industrial mineral mine where they would start right in. The experience which the department has had with base metal mines and gold mines has enabled them to prescribe the tuning-up period.


Howard Charles Green: Six months?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right.


Howard Charles Green: Will the minister change the marginal note which reads "Base metal and strategic mineral mines"? It should be broadened to cover gold mines.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. I will see that that is changed, but I think it is not necessary to move an amendment.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: It can be done by instructions to the clerk.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 6 and 7 agreed to.
Excess Profits Tax
[Stage Direction]
On section 8-Where profits before deductions are $5,000 or less.
Mr. BLACK (Cumberland):: I would ask the minister if steps have been taken or are proposed to put electric energy developed under private enterprise on the same basis as regards federal taxation as electric energy developed by public utilities operating under a provincial commission? I raised this question in a previous session and pointed out to the minister the inequity, which I think he recognized, that at present exists. In Nova Scotia we are taxed by the federal government about $1,000,000 on the use of electrical energy. In the city of Montreal users of electrical energy are exempted $6,000,000 or more a year because the utility has been taken over by the province. That also applies to other places in Canada. Let me give a few figures.
The federal tax on privately operated companies amounted in the case of the Canada Electric Company Limited in 1944 to $61,087.47. I do not believe that this included income tax or excess profits tax. In the city of Halifax the Nova Scotia Light & Power company paid $558,519.86 in 1944. In the minister's own constituency the Kentville electric commission, operated under provincial commission, did not pay one cent. There is no fairness or justice in that. Private enterprise is certainly being penalized, and I feel strongly that steps should be taken also to exempt private enterprise and put it on the same basis. It is not the companies but the users of the electricity that pay this inequitable tax. Why should users of electricity in the county of Cumberland or in the county of Halifax have to pay these very heavy federal taxes when users of electricity produced by a commission operating under the province are exempt? There is nothing fair or just in that.
I might also point out unfairness with respect to telephone services. In provinces where the telephone service is operated as a public utility by the province no federal tax is paid. In Nova Scotia and New Brunswick where the telephone service is operated by private enterprise the tax applies. I have seen recent figures showing that the telephone service in Manitoba would have paid $3,939,656 more in 1944 if the telephone service had been carried on by private enterprise, and the telephone service in Alberta, $4,063,228, but they are relieved from that taxation because the telephone service is operated' as a public utility in those provinces and is exempt from taxation. But in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick they have to pay the tax. I point out again, as I have done in previous sessions, that

it is most unfair. There is cheaper capital cost when it has been supplied by the provinces on public credit.
In similar undertakings which have been built up by private enterprise, as a matter of course the capital cost is larger, because they are not able to secure capital funds to develop these generating plants as cheaply as they do where the security of the province is behind these industries. I ask the minister if it is proposed to take steps, and, if so, when, to equalize the taxes on users of electricity. In my constituency we have three private enterprise companies, and their patrons should not be subjected to these very heavy taxes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is a very big question.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: And very acute.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is not germane to this bill particularly. It is something on which I cannot give any satisfactory answer to-night. If I were announcing a policy like that there would be plenty of space devoted to it in the papers to-morrow, I can assure the hon. gentleman.


Percy Chapman Black: I brought the grievance before the minister in the house a year or two years ago.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: May I ask the minister whether the matter was brought up at the dominion-provincial relations steering committee conference?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, not so far. It probably will be.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: May I ask the minister what his attitude was with regard to those special rebates of earnings-which is really what they were-given by certain companies in Canada to their customers, when they forgave them a month's electric light bill, because it all came out of the excess profits- tax? What came out of that? That was a very odd thing to see done.


James Lorimer Ilsley: We just could not help it; that was all.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Was that a breach of agreement with the provinces?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I doubt it. I should in making a statement like that, add the words ''without prejudice", but I very much doubt whether it was a breach. I do not think that in making these agreements we covered ourselves against a contingency like that.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Are they still doing it?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think so.

Dominion Succession Duty


Harry Rutherford Jackman: May I just say to the minister, in regard to the whole matter of the taxation of corporations, privately owned and publicly owned, in the same field of business, that I think it is time we had some clarification and perhaps rectification of a matter which is serious. It is not just in one part of the country but in all parts of the country. It is not because the publicly owned plant can operate so much more cheaply, but because there is no contribution toward all the public services which must be maintained by the general taxpayer, or else because the cooperative finds that it is not subject to taxation, in competition with privately owned tax paying enterprise, it has happened this year, and it has happened for a number of years, particularly when the rates of taxation became so high, that the private company-creamery, or dairy, or bread company- had no alternative than to sell out to the cooperative; or, in the case of utilities, it very often had to sell out to the municipality. I have no objection to public ownership, and I am all for public ownership where it is more economical and where the public can get better and: cheaper service than can be rendered by private enterprise. But when private enterprise has to start with a handicap such as is imposed by taxation, the other competitor in the race having no such handicap, the race is unequal, and the result is that the revenue act is driving a great many private enterprises into the hands of either public bodies or cooperatives. The minister must find that already there has been an appreciable reduction in the tax base, because he loses a taxpaying customer, and this means that those who are still able to run in the private enterprise race must bear a heavier and undue share of the whole tax burden.
I hope the minister in the next budget will give some consideration to this matter, because I can tell him again, private enterprises all through the country are being forced out of business, having to adopt the cooperative garment or else sell out to some political body which will operate free of taxation. I think it is to his interest and to that of the Minister of National Revenue, as the tax-gatherer, that there should be some certainty in regard to this, and that the people who are endeavouring to carry on business should know they are competing on a fair basis. Let us have, on the one hand, private enterprise and, on the other, public ownership, and let the better man win.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 9 agreed to.
On section 10-Application of sections 1, 2, 3, 4, subsection 1 of sec. 5, and sections 6 and 8.
James MacKerras Macdonnell: As I read the section, it is proposed to prorate the effect of the bill according to the time when the fiscal year of the companies ends. It has been pointed out to me-I have not examined this, but this is what I am told -that when the excess profits tax came into effect in 1940, if a company's fiscal year ended after the tax came in force, the effect of the tax came down on it for the whole year, and it is now suggested that the only fair thing would be that the opposite principle should be applied. I notice that in the section as it now stands there is an attempt to prorate it, but ic does not meet the situation as represented to me.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It was apportioned when the act came in, and it is being apportioned when the taxes are reduced, so that the companies are treated fairly.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: If the minister is satisfied on that, my information is wrong, and there is nothing more to say.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance) moved the second reading of bill No. 236, to amend the Dominion Succession Duty Act.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.
On section 1.-Valuation in cases of quick successions.
James Lorimer Ilsley: The committee will observe that the bill to amend the succession duty act does not contain the provision giving effect to the first resolution under the Dominion Succession Duty Act as proposed in the budget. The proposal, which has been dropped, was to provide that no duty shall be leviable on the value of any pension or portion thereof which is receivable as taxable income within the meaning of the Income War Tax Act. Since introducing this proposal I have given further consideration to the implications of the proposed exemption, and I am withdrawing the proposal with a view to giving the problem further study. I might indicate to the committee the questions which have caused me some concern.
Dominion Succession Duty

The proposal was that taxable pensions should be exempt from succession djuty. This gave rise to the question of the treatment of non-taxable pensions. Also, if taxable pension annuities were to be exempt, the further question of whether the ordinary annuity which did not arise from a pension scheme as such should not have similar treatment, such as for example, an annuity left by a will presented itself. Furthermore, the question of life interests and their status for succession duty purposes raises itself once the question of granting exemption in respect of taxable pensions is under consideration.
In view of the far-reaching implications of the proposal to exempt taxable pensions from succession duty, I decided to withdraw this item at the present time and to review it further. I trust the committee will regard this action as reasonable in the light of the points I have raised. The bill, therefore, simply gives effect to the second resolution, which provides relief against what are called quick successions. That is the entire bill.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: The minister has stated the objections, and certainly they do not seem negligible; but it might be worth while to know what the considerations were, and presumably they were weighty, which prompted him to bring the resolution forward and have it passed.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. It was the recommendation of the Ives commission that we do just this, exempt from succession duty at the date of death the value of taxable pensions. It was clear from the recommendation that they meant pensions payable under employer-employee plans, pensions in the narrow sense; that they did not mean it to apply to an annuity left by will or a fortiori to life interest, real property, an apartment house left by a man to his wife for life. They did not mean to cover all those. They based this recommendation apparently upon the theory that the pension did not really come to the widow from the husband, that it was part of the husband's pay which he took in this way. He gets a pension during his lifetime, and she continues to draw a pension until she dies. It came from a fund built up by contributions by employer and employee, and therefore there was no real succession at all.
If that is the theory on which it is based, that theory applies, of course, to non-taxable pensions as well as to taxable pensions. Let us say that we adopted that theory and applied it to non-taxable pensions as well as to those that are taxable. Then the test of taxability flies out the window; and yet the test of taxability is the test which the ordinary
[Mr. Ilsley.J
person would apply in his own mind. That is, the ordinary person would say, "If you tax the income why tax the principal? Why put a succession duty on if you tax the income?" That is the test which most people would apply in their minds. But if that is the test it is so far-reaching that it appals me. What about life interests? The result is, I suggest with deference to the Ives commission, that their reasoning is faulty, and I do not think that the premises lead to the conclusion to which they came. I took their recommendation and thought about it a long time, discussing it with the officials, and I made up my mind that it was not very logical, but that, since they had recommended it, perhaps I would recommend it also to the house. However, when I began to think of all the implications I decided that I would not go on with it this session and I am not proposing to do so.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Does the minister distinguish between contributory and non-contributory pensions in this?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. The recommendation here applied apparently to contributory pensions, employees' pensions, pensions payable to employees who have worked for an employer and have built up a fund while doing so. They say that what the widow gets she does not get from her husband but from a fund to which both employer and husband contributed and that therefore it is not true succession and should not be taxed. But they limit that to taxable pensions and I brought it in on that basis.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I do not entirely agree with the minister. I understand that a differential is made between the pension that is a contributory one, namely, a pension in which the employer and the employee have contributed over a period of years and a straight pension that is given to an old employee on account of good service, or a retiring allowance to which he has not contributed at all.


James Lorimer Ilsley: We are not taking any action, so that the question does not arise.


William Alexander McMaster: 
James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes; that is the principle of the succession duty act.

Dominion Succession Duty


James MacKerras Macdonnell: This is a very important matter. May I ask what steps the minister proposes to take to deal with it?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Give it consideration before the next budget; that is all.


Howard Charles Green: As I understand it, I think there is some question as to whether or not that would be a succession. Suppose the husband dies and the pension continues to the widow and she has to pay income tax on that pension?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right.


Howard Charles Green: In effect, she steps into the shoes of the husband. In addition to paying that income tax, she now has to pay succession diuty. I think there is good reason for doubting whether or not there is anything passing, whether there is a succession that should be taxed. Is that not the basis of the recommendation in the report? The widow steps into the shoes of the husband?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, if I understand my hon. friend correctly, if I understand what he means by that phrase, "stepping into the shoes", that is the basis of that recommendation. The reasoning is found on page 43 of the Ives commission report, and it certainly would lead to the conclusion that we should not apply the test of taxability.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: It just strikes me that where the estate passes within five years for a second time our rates are still pretty high. I know of one case where an old gentleman and his wife drew a holograph will; both were copies of the same thing. The husband died and within two years the wife also passed away, and while the succession duty on the second party passing is going to be 90 per cenf of what it otherwise would have been except for the small relief afforded by this bill, may I ask the minister what similar provision as to percentage obtained, let us say, in Great Britain, or in the United States?


James Lorimer Ilsley: In Great Britain the relief against quick succession is confined to property consisting of land or of business, such business not being carried on by a company. The rates are as follows:	The estate duty is
reduced by 50 per cent when a second death occurs within one year, and so on.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: The same schedule.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Just the same as ours; we took the British schedule. There is no consideration for the degree of relationship. The hon. member for Kindersley suggested that
probably it would be better if we limited it to class A and class B beneficiaries; that is, to those who were related. We looked into it and decided against that, decided to leave the legislation as proposed in the resolution so that it might be left by a deceased to a stranger or by him to another stranger and still be eligible for relief. I will not go into the reasons for that, but I think they make no such distinction in Great Britain, and the rates are a lot higher, of course, in those cases. Sometimes a stranger is really as close to a person who dies as a relative. He may not have any relatives, and so on. While I thought the suggestion of the hon. member for Kindersley was a very good one, I did not think we should carry it out.


Agar Rodney Adamson: The rates may be higher in Great Britain, but they do not have the double taxation of dominion and provincial succession duties.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I meant the rates for strangers are higher than for succession to relatives. In the United States full credit is allowed against the taxes imposed on the second estate for the tax paid by the first estate on an amount equal to the value of the property when such property can be identified as having been received from the first estate or can be identified as having been substituted for property having been received from the first estate within five years. There is no consideration for the degree of relationship.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Does that mean the
amount of the tax deducted from the value of the estate on the second passing?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, that is what it does mean. Saskatchewan and New Brunswick are the only two provinces which have provisions of this kind granting relief with respect of quick succession.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: The only reason I raised this question is that the people who know how to handle their estates and get proper legal advice do not, as a rule, find themselves subject to two sets of succession duty taxes within five or ten years. A life interest is passed on to the widow by a man who may have done very well in a certain form of business, but yet has not the necessary legal experience or does not retain a good lawyer in the drafting of his will. Perhaps he leaves all of his estate to his widow, and the widow gives it to the children in a few more years. Because they are careless or have not used any care in the drawing of their will they will fall foul of double taxation at a high rate. I feel it is almost unfair to trap them like this. They should be given some
Dominion Succession Duty

consideration because, as I say, it is easy to circumvent unfair double taxation if you seek proper legal advice.


John Oliver Probe: Do you think they should circumvent it?


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Certainly.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I am seeking some advice since I have the minister here, an excellent lawyer, and his advisers. A simple person like myself, who knows nothing about succession duties, has only one will. It was made a long time ago, leaving everything to my wife, assuming that she would be fair to my children who are now grown up. Obviously I should not leave myself in that position. We happen to be of the same age. Either one of us is apt to conk out within one, two or three years of each other. When we get that eighty per cent in the third year, is it not an invitation to alter a situation of that kind which is based on love and affection, which most marriages are and should be? Are we not rather driven to changes which perhaps are not natural? I do not know whether I express myself very well, but I believe the minister understands what I mean.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I have never given it much thought, and I should like to get a little advice myself on what to do in a case of that kind. That is, you leave a life interest so that there will be only one succession?


Arthur Leroy Smith: That is right. You could avoid it in that way, could you not?


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Why not make the law
fair, so that it will not catch people who are just careless?


James Lorimer Ilsley: This makes it less harsh than it was, and, I think probably goes as far as it should go at the moment.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. MACKENZIE moved the adjournment of the house.
He said:	To-morrow morning at eleven
o'clock the Prime Minister will ask the house to consider No. 7 on the order paper of to-day, in regard to allowances to members of parliament for expenses incidental to the discharge of their duties. I believe the Prime Minister will ask that the present order be discharged and a resolution relating to both houses substituted therefor.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 10.55 p.m.
fMr. Jackman.]
Thursday, December 13, 1945.