Manitoba Hansard — 7 March 1960 (Sitting 35, 26th Legislature, 2nd Session)

26-2-35

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

Legislative Assembly Of Manitoba DEBATES and PROCEEDINGS Speaker The Honourable A. W. Harrison Volume IV No. 35 March 7, 1960 2nd Session, 26th Legislature Printed by R. S. Evans. Queen�s Printer for the Province of Manitoba� Winnipeg

DAILY INDEX Monday, March 7, 1960, 2:30P.M. Introduction of Bills: No. 106, St. Boniface Charter (Mr. Desjardins) • . . . • . • . • . . . . . . 1279 Third Reading: Bills 42, 60, 61, 67, 70 .•.............••• .••...••. .•.. �. ........ 1280 Second Readings: Bill 43, re Election Act (Mr. Lyon) . • . . . • . . . . • . • . . . • • . . . • . • . • . • 1280 Mr. Paulley . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • . . . • . . . 1281 Mr.

Roblin . . . . . . . . . . . .. • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . • . . • • . • . • . . . • • • • . . . . . • . 1283 Bill 77,,re Hospital Services Insurance Act (Mr. Johnson, Girnli) . . • . . • • •• ••• • 1284 Bill 78, re Mineral Taxation (Mr. Witney) • . . . . • . • . • . • • • . . • • . • . • . . • • • • • • . • 1285 Bill 81, re Legislative Assembly (Mr. Roblin): Mr. Carnpbell; Division • • • • • • . 1285 Bill 88, re Municipal Act (Mr. Ridley): Mr. Prefontaine . • . . . . • . • . . . . . • . • • • . . 1285 Bill 90, re Soldiers' Taxation (Mr.

Ridley) ••..• : •.• ••.•... ... : . • . . • . . . .. • . 1286 Adjourn-ediSebate, re Rules of Assembly (Mr. Lyon): Mr. Prefontaine • • . • • • • . • . . . • 1286 Mr. Roblin . . • • • • . . . • . . • • . . . • . . . . . • . • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • • . . • • • • . • . . • • • . 1293: Mr.

Paulley • . . • • . • . • • . • • • . . • . • • • . . • • . • • . • . • . . • • . . . • • . • . . • . • . . • . • . • 1297 Division •.•.•..... •.•.•.. .•. •.•..•.••.•. -. .. . ....... . . ..... . . ... .. 1298 Committee of Supply: Public Utilities: Administration • • • • • • • • . . • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1299 Tuesday, March 8, 1960, 8:00P.M. Order of Business • • • . • • • • • • • . . • . . • • . . . . . • • • • • • • • . • • . • • • . • • • • • • • . • • • •.. • • . • • • • . 1349 Wednesday, March 9, 1960, 2:30P.M. Announcement re Education: Mr.

McLean .. .. . .. .. • .. . .. .. .. .. . .. . . . .. .. . .. .. . . 1351 Committee of Supply: Public Utilities . .. . . . .. . . . . .. .. . .. .. . . .. .. • . . .. . . • .. . .. .. 1352 Public Works: Administration • . . . • . . . . . . .. • . . . . • . • • • • • .. • • . . . • • . . . • . . . • . . 1373

THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2:30 o'clock, Monday, March 7th, 1960. Opening prayer by Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: Presenting Petitions Reading and Receiving Petitions Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees Notice of Motion Introduction of Bills. The Honourable Member for St. Boniface. MR. LAURENT DESJARDINS (St. Boniface): Mr. Speaker, I would like to move, se conded by the Honourable Member from Carillon that leave be given to introduce a Bill No. 106,

an Act to amend The St. Boniface Charter, 1953, and that the same be now received and read a first time. Mr. Speaker presented the motion and following a voice vote declared the motion carried. MR. SPEAKER: Orders of the Day. The Honourable Minister of Agriculture. HON. GEORGE HUTTON (Minister of Agriculture)(R ockwood-lberville): Mr. Speaker, before the Orders of the Day I would like to make a statement, a very brief statement that I think is of importance to the farm community.

And now that it is clear that the Federal Gov ernment is unwilling to give assistance to prairie farmers in the form of deficiency payments on wheat, oats and barley, it is apparent that a fresh opportunity has arisen to consider ways and means of providing immediate cash assistance to Manitoba farmers in the way that is more closely tailored to the particular interests of this province and that would prove to be more ac ceptable to the Federal authorities.

With this end in view, I would like to announce to this House that the Government of the Province will consult immediately with the farm organizations ofMan itoba in an effort to. find an acceptable formula that will enable us to present new proposals for cash assistance from the Federal Government at the earliest possible moment . MR. SPEA KER: Orders of the Day. . HON. GEO. JOHNSON (Minister of Health & Public Welfare)(Gimli): Before the Orders of the Day I would like to answer a question which I took as notice at the last sitting of the House concerning a general distribution of an

article on fluoridation to all the members of the House. Investigation shows that the statement which the honourable members received referred to an

article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal by a Doctor Costain and I just wish to in form the House that this

article has been refuted a subsequent letter to the editor in the same journal, and is also not acknowledged, but is refuted by the World Health Organization. And in view of that I have much detail which I could convey to the honourable members but I think it would take quite a length of time to do so properly, but I would be only too willing to do so if the honourable member who asked the question would like me to p:.1rsue it further. Thank you. HON. J. B. CARROLL (Minister of'Public Utilities)(The Pas): Mr.

Speaker, before the Orders of the Day I would like to lay on the table of the House a return to an order of the House in the name of the Honourable the Leader of the CCF Party. MR. D. L. CAMPBELL (Leader of the Opposition)(Lakeside): Mr. Speaker, before the Orders of the Day are proceeded with I'd like to ask some questions of the Honourable the First Minister in his capacity as Prmrincial Treasurer.

These questions arise from a report in the Saturday paper which indicated that the Government of the Province had been borrowing money in Canada and I'd like to ask the--Pm assuming that the report is correct--and I'd like to ask the Honourable the First Minister if in the selling of the debentures of the Government of Manitoba this was done by public tender or by other arrangement; and secondly, I'd like to ask the amount of the borrowing and the interest-cost to the Province of Manitoba. HON. DUFF ROBLIN (Premier)(W'Olseley): Mr.

Speaker, it is correct that the sum of $15 million was borrowed by the province last week. It was done through our fiscal agents not by the tender system and the rate to the Province of Manitoba is about 6. 2% cost--6. 2 to five. I haven't got the exact figure because there were two maturi.ties in there and depending upon the amount taken up in either maturity there is a slight effect on the cost to the province. MR. CAMPBELL: .•..•. a supplem entary question. Could the Honourable the First Minister get the rate for us and inform us the effective cost to the province on both issues? March 7th, 1960 Page 1279

:MR. ROBLIN: Yes, Sir, that information can be obtained but it will not be available for a matter of some days because we have to get the returns in from the various sellers and compile the information. But it certainly can be made available. MR. SPEAKER: Orders of the Day. . MR. GILDAS MOLGAT (Ste. Rose): Mr. Speaker, before the Orders of the Day I'd like to bring up a subject of somewhat of a lighter vein to the House. We all know that the great Canadian Championship on curling is taking place now in Fort William.

I'd like to advise the House that there's also been another great event in curling taking place this morning when the members of this party challenged the members of the government side, and defeated them round ly in a game that was finished just an hour ago. I hesitate to even reveal the score, Mr. Speak er, out of due deference to my honourable friends across the way--! will leave that up to them. I would say that our group would gladly challenge the CCF group and treat them to the same. MR. KEITH ALEXANDER (Roblin): Mr. Speaker, before the Orders of the Day I'd like to thank the Honm1rable Member from Ste.

Rose for not mentioning the score. The only comment I have to make is that "lucky in curling, unlucky in politics". MR. CA MPBELL: Mr. Speaker, I would like to add a comment to what the two honour able gentlemen have said. As o:J.e who watched part of the game, I would say that not only were the government forces defeated roundly, but squarely. MR. RUSSELL PAULLEY (Leader <;>f the CCF Party)(Radisson): Mr.

Speaker, this is very, very interesting to me as Leader of our group here in the House and as is the case in so many other factors dealing with life in Manitoba, we accept any challenge that is issued to us either in the field of politics or on a sheet of ice. On behalf of our group we accept the challenge of the Honourable Member for Ste. Rose, and I feel sure that in due course I will have the pri vilege of--like he had today--of announcing that one of us was roundly trounced. :MR. A. H. CORBETT (Swan River): Mr.

Speaker, I would like to inform the House that the rink that represented this side of the House was not a truly representative rink. I think there was some "political skulduggery" went on in the selection of this rink, and I can quite as sure you that we can select another rink particularly from the northern part of the .province that will trim any one of these after they decide who's the best one. Mr. Speaker, the debate does -' prove that it's a slippery game. MR. SPEAKER : Orders of the Day Committee of the Whole House. MR. W. B. SCART H, Q. C. (River Heights): Mr.

Speaker, I beg to move, sec.onded by the Honourable Member from Winnipeg Centre that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a Committee to consider the following Bills: No. 42,

an Act to amend

an Act to incorporate St. Charles Country Club; No. 60,

an Act to incorporate The Mani toba Federation of Agriculture; No. 61,

an Act to incorporate The Corporation of the Synod of Manitoba of The Presbyterian Church in Canada; No. 67,

an Act to incorporate Elmhurst Golf and Country Club; No. 70,

an Act to incorporate Ste. Rose General Hospital. Mr. Speaker presented the motion and after a voice vote declared the motion carried. MR. SPEAKER: The House do now resolve itself into a Commi.ttee of the Whole House, and would the Honourable Member for St. Matthews please take the Chair? Sections one to ten,

preamble, title of Bill No. 42 were read and passed; sections one to 14,

preamble, title of Bill No. 60 were read and passed; sections one to 16,

preamble, title of Bill No. 61 were read and passed; sections one to 16,

preamble, title of Bill No. 67 were read and passed; sections one to 14,

preamble, title of Bill No. 70 were read and passed. MR. CHAIRMAN: Will the committee rise and report? Call in the Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole House considered Bills No. 42, 60, 61, 67 and 70, and directed me to report the same without amendment and ask leave to sit again. · MR. W. G. MARTIN (St. Matthews): Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, seconded by the Honourable Member for St. James that the report of the Committee be received. Mr. Speaker presented the motion and following a voice vote declared the motion ca:r;ded. Hon. Sterling Lyon (Attorney-General)(Fort Garry) presented Bill No. 43,

an Act to amend The Election Act for second reading. MR. LYON: Mr. Speaker, I don't think there is too much comment that is needed on these amendments. They are self.:.explanatory; they would purport to reduce the maximum time Page 1280 March 7th, 1960

(Mr. Lyon, cont'd.) •. from the issue of a Writ to nomination day from 45 to 36 days and the minimum time from 30 days to 21 days. The subsequent amendment would permit the Chief Electoral Officer to begin the machinery for the taking of the--for the reading of the machinery I should say for the election at any time he deems it to be expedient, and in any case, no later than the issue of the Writ of Election. In speaking to this proposed amendment, Mr. Speaker, I think it would be of interest to the House to have some comparative figures from other provinces and indeed from this pro� vince in the past.

In 1940, in Manitoba, the maximum and minimum times were 35 days and 25 days, that is from the issue of the writ to date of nomination; the time between the nomination -and election was then ten days, so that in effect you had a minimum of 35 days, a maximum of 45 days. That situation remained until 1949, when it was altered. The time between nominati on and election was extended to 14 days, from ten to 14 days, with the result that the minimums were then changed as well.

The maximums and minimums were changed from 35 to 45 and from -- 25 remained the same in the case of the minimum but the time from issue of writ 'till election, the minimum time then became 39 days by virtue of the lengthening of the time between nomination and election day.

In 1952, there was a subsequent--another amendment placed in the Election Act, which is carried forward and is the law at the present time, whereby the maxi mum time set is 45 days, minimum 30 days, with the time between nomination and election 14 days._ So you now have effective times from the issue of the writ until the polling day, of 44 days minimum and 59 'days maximum. As you can see from the proposed amendmEnt here it w ould change that to .35 days minimum and 50 days maximum.

Now by reference to other pro vinces, we find the following situation obtains: In Ontario, they do it there by the calendar month and by the season. From April to October, not more than 60 days, nor less than 23 days from the issue of the writ, that is the date of nomination; so that in effect you have a minimum time of 37 days in the Province of Ontario between April and October. From November to March, not more than 60 days nor less than 30_days. You then have a minimum time of 44days if the election occurs between November and March.

In Saskatchewan the minimum time not more than 44 days nor less than 34 days from the issue of the writ, that is the polling day; so you have a minimum time in Saskatchewan of 34 days, maximum time of 44 days. In Alberta you have a minimum time in Alberta of 39 days, a maximum time of 49 days. In the Province of British Columbia you have no minimum or maximum times whatsoever.

In the United King dom, it will probably come as a surprise to some of the members, but if you will recall the election last year, the date of the writ of election was issued, I think the election was called for one month as I recall just speaking from memory, one month hence. Actually, the mini mum time in Britain between the issue of the writ and the polling day is 23 days.

As we know in the Canada Election Act which governs federal elections, the polling day shall be--the writ shall issue 49 days before polling day; nomination takes place on the 28th day before polling in a number of the northern constituencies. I don't think that there are too many other facts that would be of interest to the House except to say that this proposed amendment would place the minimum time in Manitoba at 35 days, the maximum time, as I have mentioned, at 50 days.

This would appear to be generally in conformity with what other provinces have been doing or are doing and certainly restores the situation to what it was in 1940.

I think it is only reasonable and logical that that could be con sidered as a forward step since in this day and age with modern transportation being what it is, the road system being what it is and being improved each year, certainly it seems that an in ordinant length of time need not be spent now on campaigning, or on preliminary work leading up to elections when we have this transporation system, and may I say as well, the communi cation system that is now available to the province. I'm thinKing of oourse of radio, television and all of the other factors which now play a very large role in elections. MR.

PAULLEY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a word or two in connection with this amendment to the Election Act. The Honourable the Attorney-General has not satisfied me one bit in connection with the explanation as to why this should be so. I think one of the basic reasons for having a rather extended period, if he wishes to use that word, from the issuance of the Writs until nomination day, is to give to all parties an opportunity to prepare for an electi on. He has given us illustrations of some jurisdictions that are less than ours, and possibly Saskatchewan as well.

But that does not justify the reduction here. As a matter of fact, Sir, March 7th, 1960 Page 1281

(Mr. Paulley,. cont'd.) .. I can see no justification whatsoever for reducing the time period from the issuance of the writs at all. Had the Honourable the Attorney-General delved a little deeper, I think that he would have fc,und that the period in 1916 or 1913 was a lot less, it's true, but that was due to the fact that in those days there was not given very much consideration to the party--and of course, at that time we had the generally the two party system-'-to the party that was in opposition.

It is all very fine for the Hono'.lrable the Attorney-General to tell us that due to the changes in methods and modes of transportation and communications that more warning is giv en, or transversely that more utilization can be made of the time period from the issuance of the writ until the nomination day. But what he hasn't told us is the fact that the government of the day in most circumstances are fully aware long before the issuance of the writs as to when nomination day will take place and when the next general election shall take place·.

I can see no justification whatsoever for a limitation or a reduction in these number of days. What has been found wrong with the present number of days? Has there been any complaint directed to the government which lead them to this reduction--and I suggest there has not been?

There is another principle involved in this Bill that I'd also wish to draw to the attention of the House, and I would like to refer to Hansards of last year where on two or three occasions in this House, the questions of the whole machinery of elections was under discussion and we had a fairly broad discussion on those points at that time. I raised the point at that time, that as the results of information that was forthcoming to myself as House Leader of this party and from complaints of many who were involved in the election that we should have a general revision of our Election Act.

And subsequently to that suggestion on June 25th of last year, Mr. Speaker, when we were dealing with the estimates of the departments concerned; another general discussion took place on the question of the Election Act. And I'm going to take the liberty of quoting a few excerpts from the remarks of the Honourable Leader of the House at that time. On page 292, the Hon ourable Premier had this to say: "Now what about it? What are we going to do? Well, I see no reason why we should not have a good look at the Election Act.

I see no reason why we should not see if we can improve it, and merely because some of our officials think that it's no worse than usual at this time is no reason why we shouldn't investigate this matter, go into the various suggestions that have been raised by members in greater detail. We'll get the officials there; we can find out any practical objections that they have run across in their experience and we can see if we can make an improvement. I would say that the government would be glad to give consideration to setting up a Special Select Committee to look into the Election Act.

I would rather think, however, that most of us would agree that perhaps it could be done at the winter session rather than at the present session due to the peculiar circumstances of our de liberations at the moment. But if the committee felt that way", and that was referring to the committee that was discussing this matter at that time, "I'd be glad to discuss it informally with the leaders of the other parties if they should wish to do that.

There's no reason why, at the next session we cannot set up a special select committee and investigate--go through the Act in detail, find out what improvements we can think of to make it better--and then we can bring in whatever changes we have for the approval of the HoLlSe in due course". And then the late Mr. Miller asked this question of the First Minister: "Would the Honourable the First Min ister prefer a special select committee rather than the standing committee which is already set up?" And the reply of the Honourable the First Minister was this: "I think I would.

I don't know offhand who is on that committee, but I would rather hope that if we had a special select committee with the party leaders on it that we would be more apt to arrive at an agreement that was generally acceptable insofar as the different groups are concerned. That is not to say that the other members of the House haven't got a right to sit on the committee or the right to be heard, because we all recognize that.

But, as a matter of securing agreement on these things, I would think it's dE1sirable that we should insofar as we can get pretty unanimous view on it, I would suggest a special select committee as the best means. That was the course follow ed pre viously and I thought it had much to recommend it at that time". Now then, Mr. Speaker, what have we before us here today? We have a Bill before us dealing with one vital and important aspect of the Election Act that has been introduced by a member of Cabinet--the fact, which in effect, makes it obligatory for the members opposite to vote for it.

What has happened in the interim to the then-thoughts of the Honourable the Leader Page 1282 March 7th, 1960

(Mr. Paulley, cont1d.) •. of the House, to the special select committee set up to view all as pects of the Election Act? What has happened with the viewpoint of having the party leaders and their representatives to consider all aspects? I suggest that it's unfair of the government to bring this Bill into this House, limiting still further as it does, the activities of the groups on this side of the House, which have not the same inside information as that that prevails on the other side of the House.

I think that is very, very vital, and I also think that by virtue of doing this that the First Minister has not.carried through what I thought at that time, if not a: pledge, a rather firm_ l,llldertaking that before the Election Act was amended that there would be set up a special select committee apart from the committee on elections and privileges to consider all of the aspects of the Election Act.

Members of all quarters in this House in dis cussion at the last session had diff erent viewpoints, diff erent complaints, diff erent constructive suggestions to make in respect of the Election Act, and I'm sure that others had the same opini on as myself, that these would be considered, all in all, before any amendments were made to the Election Act of Manitoba. I felt at that time that that was a very, very fair and reasonable approach of the First Minister and commanded him for it. And now we have before us today this Bill which is specific and deals with only one aspect. And for those reasons, Mr.

Speak er, I beg to move, seconded by the _Honourable Member for Seven Oaks that Bill No. 43 be not now read a second time but be read six months hence. Mr. Speaker put the question. MR. ROBLIN: Mr. Speaker, I feel obligated to say a word on this point because I think my honourable friend, perhaps inadvertently, is imputing bad faith to me in connection with this matter. I feel, Sir, that his complaint in this matter is not borne out by the facts.

Now I would like to say in sketching this matter is that the first thing that we should do is re call to our minds the discussions that took place I think in the last session of the House about the Election Act. At that time a number of complaints were made as to the way in which it was operating, and as a result of those complainte; I was moved to make the remarks that the hon ourable member has just read, in which I suggested that the government would not be adverse tc having a look at the Election Act and giving an opportunity for members on all sides to say what they thought about it in due course.

And some discussions took place as to the best way to do it and the honourable member has read those points. But Sir, there was no undertaking at that time that the government itself would not introduce amendments of its own that it might consider desirable in this matter--none at allf The undertaking that was given was given-was that the House would have the opportunit-y of reviewing the Election Act and in particular to deal with the complaints that had been raised by honourable members opposite at this session or at some later session. And I'm perfectly willing that it should be at this session.

And if I remember correctly this point was pretty well ventilated by the House on January 21st, when this matter of the election was up before the House and the Honourable the Attorney-General moved,- seconded by the Minister of Public Works that the select committee on privileges and elections be instructed to consider the Election Act with a view to recommending such amend ments as might be deemed necessary in order to bring the said Act in conformity with present day practice and to provide a more orderly and efficient conduct to the elections in the Prov ince .of Manitoba.

So I think Sir, that it is abundantly clear that the government has no intention of trying to back away from the statements made to the House previously that we would have a full dis cussion of the Election Act. On the contrary we moved that that should be done and that course certainly will be followed. The point I would like to make is this Sir, that in conformity with the suggestion that I offered last year that discussions were held with the leaders of the oppos ite parties and I think at that time it was made clear that we had a bill of our own that we intend ed to introduce.

I don't think there was any attempt to disguise that fact. In fact we made it clear we had a bill of our own we intended to introduce, and consulted with the honourable gentlemen opposite as to what would be the best way cf handling that bill and at the same time having this full investigation to which my honourable friend refers. Now I think that if he will consult his memory, and I sincerely hope I'm not doing him an injustice here, but my recol lection is, on the spur of the moment, that we had those discussions, and the Leader of the Op position, I believe, was there as well.

And it was agreed that we should proceed in the way that we are doing here, that we should have a resolution before the House to have this March 7th, 1960 Page 1283

(Mr. Roblin; cont'd.) .. investigation of the Election Act and at the same time we would pro ceed with this Bill that is before the House at the present time. Now I'm sure that thls misun derstanding �hat exists between my honourable friend and mine is an inadvertent one, but I'm just as convinced as he is that we have been quite fair with the House in respect of this matter. We had our meeting with the leaders of the opposition parties before the session as we said we would; we explained to them we had

an act of own own; we consulted with them as what was the best way to handle these complaints we'd had in the past, and I thought we had consent from the gentlemen opposite that we were proceeding in an acceptable way so far as they were concern ed in respect of this matter.

So I say Sir, that while I have no objection to my honourable friend moving a holst on this--it's perfectly proper for him to do so if he should v.ish--I would like to say that we be lieve that we have fulfilled our undertakings to the House and whether they're explicit or im plicit from what we said, and that we have, I think, in a straightforward manner tried to pre sent this matter in a way that would enable the members on the opposite side to deal with the points that they wlsh to raise.

And we made it clear in the consultations that we had our own bill; we consulted with them as to how we could work our own bill in with the other complaints and the agreement that I thought we'd reached was the one that the Honourable the Attorney General referred to when I read out the motion that he moved in this House on the 21st of Janu ary in this session. I can't really see that there is a legitimate complaint of bad faith or that · we're trying to deal with this matter in an improper way.

And while I intend to vote against the motion for the hoist, I have every confidence that there will be that full discussion on the .aspects of the Election Act that the House has been lead to believe would take place. MR. PAULLEY: Mr. Speaker, may I just make one point of clarification that I think the House should hear--.that I agree with the Honourable the First Minister; we did have a meet ing at which my honourable friend, the Leader of the Opposition was also present,. at which time there was a discussion of how we should handle this whole question.

But I think--and in that I concur with the remarks of the Honourable the First Minister and I did not attempt to pass over the fact of that. But I think to give me--do me some justice that at that particular meeting the type of an amendment was not under discussion. MR. ROBLIN: Well, now I don't know about that, Sir. I'm not supposed to speak twice but perhaps-- MR. PAULLEY: No, I'm not either. MR. ROBLIN: •..... that I don't know aboat that.

I feel pretty certain--! don't want to be too positive about it but I'm morally certain of this, that we made it clear that there was a government bill coming down and how could we blend that government bill in with our pledge to review the Act aud that's the essential issue that my honourable friend raised, and I think that we did agree that the method that we followed was an acceptable one under the circumstances. MR. SPEAKER: Are yo� ready for the_ question? MR. CAMPBELL: Mr. Speaker, I move seconded by the Honourable the Member for Carillon that the debate be adjourned. Mr.

Speaker presented the motion and after a voice vote declared the motion carried; . Mr. Johnson (Gimli) presented Bill No. 77,

an Act to amend the Hospitals Services Insurance Act for second reading. · Mr. Speaker put the question. MR. JOHNSON (Gimli): Mr. Speaker, this Bill is largely correcting certain admin istrative points which the Commissioner and the staff of the hospital plan feel they require after another eight months of operation of the Plan, and therefore most of the sections deal with relatively minor amendments largely clarifying what the previous legislation was meant to convey but apparently has not, and these could be explained very clearly inJaw amendments. There is one

section here which is really a change in policy--policy matter I would say, and that is the provision for a minimum $25 fine on prosecution. There is no minimum in the pre sent Act, just the maximum, and what has happened in certain instances is that the person when prosecuted--and these are carefully screened before prosecution--that when they're pro secuted and no fine is laid but merely they are told to pay $5. 00 a month until the premium is paid, they never become insured persons, because the premium isn't paid for that current benefit period; and this has led to, in one instance two cases I have on record here of double Page 1284 March 7th, 1960

(Mr. Johnson (GimU), cont'd.) •• prosecutions. In other words, the person charged finding it more convenient to pay a $5.0 0 fine once a year than to pay the premium; that's really the main provision iri this--the

section of this Bill or the only principle in this bill whteh I would like to draw to the attention of the committee at this time. Mr. Speaker presented the motion and after a voicevote declared the motion carried. Hon. C. H. Witney (Minister of Mines & Natural Resources)(Flin Flon) presented Bill No. 78,

an Act to amend the Mineral Taxation Act and the Statute Law Amendment Act of 1959, for second reading. Mr. Speaker put the question and after a voice vote declared the motion carried. Mr. Roblin presented Bill No. 81,

an Act to amend the Legislative Assembly Act, for second reading. Mr. Speaker put the question. MR. ROBLIN: Mr. Speaker, I think the subject matter of this Bill has been thoroughly discussed both in Committee of Supply and also in Committee of the Whole on presentation of the resolution. This is the one that deals with the indemnities of members of the Legislature and with matters pertaining thereto. I don't suppose it is necessary for me to cover that ground again in detail so I'll just simply advise the House that that is the nature of this Bill. MR. CAMPBELL: Mr.

Speaker, the Honourable the First Minister has set what I'm sure is a commendable example in a lot of these discussions, that when they have been discus sed on one occasion there is no need of us. to reiterate our arguments on another occasion.

So I can follow thatexample and simply say I haven't changed my mind; I still am not in favour of the principle of this Bill; I think it is unnecessary; I know there is more than one principle in volved--perhaps with the one about the. payment of certain expenses, I could agree--but with the main principle of additional indemnity to members of the Legislative Assembly I still think it's unnecessary and unsound, and consequently I would like to just put myself on record as being in opposition.

I do not intend to put the House to_ the trouble of a division for two reasons, but if my honourable friend the Leader of the House wants to follow the practice that he has some times done, I shall be voting against the Bill. Mr. Speaker put the question and after a voice vote declared the motion carried. MR. ROBLIN: The yeas and nays, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: Call in the members. The question before the �ouse is second read ing of Bill No. 81,

an Act t6 amend the Legislative Assembly Act. YEAS: Honourable Messrs.Roblin, Carroll, Johnson(Gimli), McLean, Evans, Lyon, Witney, Ridley, Hutton, Thompson, Messrs. Lissaman, Shewman, Paulley, Prefontaine, Alexander, Scarth, Martin, Cowan, Grove, Corbett, Christianson, Wagner, Wright, Orlikow, Tanchak, Molgat, Guttormsori, Ingebrigtson, Jeannotte, Stanes, Smellie, McKellar, Seaborn, Johnson (Assiniboia), Baizley, Bjornson, Klym, Hamilton, Schreyer, Reid, Peters, Harris, Dow, Shoe..: maker, Desjardins, Roberts. NAYS: Mr. Campbell. MR. CLERK: Yeas, 46; nays, 1. !;ffi. SPEAKER: I declare. the motion carried. Hon. M. E. Ridley (Minister of Municipal Affairs)(Pembina) presented Bill No. 88,

an Act to amend the Municipal Act, for second reading. MR. SPEAKER: Are you ready for the question? MR. RIDLEY: Mr. Speaker, I don't think there's any need of a long explanation ori. this Bill. Most of the recommendations have come from the urban and the Union of M•.'nicipal ities and I would ask for it to go to committee to be gone through there

section by section. MR. EDMOND PREFONTAINE (Carillon): Mr. Speaker, I don't think there is very much that is contentious in this Bill and I say that I would like to compliment the Minister for having supplied us with so full explanatory notes. It doesn't require us to have a big book in front of us all the time to be able to see what is in the Bill. There is

section 15 that I do not understand very well--why it is proposed to eliminate a few words. I wonder if the Minister will give us an explanation now. At present, says the explanatory note "a municipality may pass by-laws for prohibiting regulating etcetera, slot machines, automatic pianos, placed in any place where the public are admitted". By the amendment the words quote are deleted. I cannot see whether it is intended that we should go into homes in order to regulate these March 7th,- 1960 Page 1285

(Mr. Prefontaine, cont'd.) .• machines and I wonder if the Minister has an explanation. If not, I will wait for the Law Amendments. MR. RIDLEY: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the Honourable Member's question. In the Winnipeg City Charter--the words are asked to be deleted here because they ·are not in the Win nipeg City Charter, so this is going to make it the same all over the urban and the suburbs. In the Winnipeg Charter they haven't got "placed in any place where the public are admitted", and this is just to bring it into uniformity with the Winnipeg City for the rest of the suburbs and the municipalities. Mr.

Speaker put the question and after a voice vote declared the motion carried. Mr. Ridley presented Bill No. 90;

an Act to amend the Soldiers' Taxation Relief Act, for second reading; Mr. Speaker put the question. MR. RIDLEY: Mr. Speaker, I think there's a very short explanation. As you know, in the Taxation Relief Act it is for those drawing total disability pensions. All this does is that if a person drawing total disability pension, when they reach the age of 70 they will still qualify for the Soldiers' Taxation Relief Act. Now they don't because of this other pension. Mr. Speaker put the question and after a voice vote declared the motion carried. Mr.

Speaker adjourned debate on the proposed resolution of the Honourable the Attor)' ney-General. Honourable the Member for Carillon. MR. PREFONTAINE: Mr. Speaker; to me this is a very important Bill. I believe this Bill, this resolution is directed straight at the Opposition. It is restrictive. It is taking away some of the privileges that the Opposition now has in this House and I believe that it strikes right at the root of our parliamentary system. Rule 27 concerns the method of bringing before this House grievances, the ventilation of grievances.

I�'s a time-honoured rule and practice that has been in vogue in Mother of Parliament for centuries and although it will not be com pletely eliminated, if we take into consideration the difficulties we have had since the new gov ernment's been in office gives me great misgivings that this will mean the elimination of this practice. . Rule 34 is still worse, as far as I'm concerned.

It limits the debate on the Speech from the Throne, which is the main debate in this House, directed straight at the Opposition be cause by practice we know that the members of the government speak very little except once last year for particular reasons on this debate. The mover and seconder speak on the first day after the opening and then the Leader of the Opposition speaks, and the Leader of the CCF Party and the backbenchers on the government side and nearly all the Ministers are silent.

It's a want of confidence motion that we discuss all the time and I say that this move is one to re strict the time that is allotted the Opposition to make their case against the government and I think it is contrary to our parliamentary system. I propose, Mr. Speaker, to quote from ex perts. I don't pretend to be one. I have read some of the experts on this problem; I have lived these rules for 25 years; and I agree with the expert that I'm going to quote from. I be lieve it is about time that we reflect seriously on our parliamentary system which is composed of a government in office and an Opposition.

I would like to try and be as brief as possible. I will speak against those who claim that the Opposition takes too much time for nothing. That after all the Government's going to win out. It's time lost. Some people want efficiency. Do it the quick way. We've had another case of that by introduction of this Bill this afternoon and I think that I'm fully justified in looking into the fundamentals of our democratic parliamentary system. I'm quoting now. from "Cabinet Government" by Jennings: "The democratic system implies an appeal to the people by contending parties supporting different policies.

Democrat ic government thus demands not only a parliamentary majority but also a parliamentary minor ity. The minority attacks th e Government because it denies the principles of its policy. The Opposition will almost certainly be defeate(l in the House of Commons because it is a minority. It's appeals are to the electorate". This is the sentence I would like you to reflect upon. "Its · appeals are to the electorate. It will at the next election ask the people to condemn the govern ment and as a consequence to give the majority to the Opposition.

Because a Government is criticized, it has to meet criticism; because it must, in course of time, defend itself in the constituencies, it must p•:lrsuade public opinion to move with it. The Opposition is at once the alternative to the Government and a focus for the discontent of the people. Its function is Page 1286 March 7th, 1960

(Mr. Prefontaine, cont'd.) . • almost as important as that of the Government. If there be no Opposition there is no democracy. His Majesty's Opposition is no idle phrase. His Majesty needs an Opposition as well as a Government. " To me this is the fundamentaJ principle support ed byJennings'L-(Interjection)--page 15. I would like to quote from R. J. Laski, page 72--(in terjection)--lt's under the

chapter entitled The Party System. "Party Government is a vital principle of representative government and then-J' MR. LYON: Mr. Speaker, I don't wish to interrupt the Honourable Member but I won der if he would be kind enough to give us the identity of that book. Laski. wrote many books on government. MR. PREFONTAINE: Parliamentary Government in England, Harold J. Laski. MR. LYON: What volume, and what edition would that be? MR. PREFONTAINE: I don't know if I can find that. I did not look for that. I'm sor ry. Commentary--! can hand the book over after a while.

It goes into--I will not read every thing--the real business of a political party in Great Britain is to get a government of its own leaders into office and if possible to keep it there. It tells us how parties go to people and hold dances, parties, receptions. It seeks to permeate the local and national press with its propa ganda, and after all this has been done we have a majority party and a minority party.

"So re garded", carries on Laski, "the functions and even the methods of a party are intelligible, but given a party in office as a government the processes of the party system are truly remark able, for they have given rise ever since the 18th century, to the idea of His Majesty's Oppositi on as an essential feature of our constitution. We have, that is to say, a government in office that is presumably trying to do its best. It is introducing measures ·which it beli.eves to be for the good of the country. It is administering the whole machinery of the state as efficiently as it can.

Yet we pay a large number of members of the House of Commons to obstruct public business as much as they can. To take the maximum advantage of the Government's mistakes, to insist that it is ruining the country, to extract from it if possible, information by which this can be proved, and to flood the electorate with propaganda intended to show that the Government, however good its motives, and even these may be suspected, is in fact doing the worst possible things in the worst possible way". I think this is the fundamental principle, that there can't be a democratic government without an Opposition. Now, Mr.

Speaker, I maintain that in order to do its job and be a real Opposition, the Opposition should have some rights. It should have time to criticize; it should have the opportunity that the rules should give the Opposition the chance, and we see a move now to make it more difficult for the Opposition to criticize. We hear of too much talk going on by the Oppositionr They won't win anyway. But this is a parliament. Parliament is deriv ed from the French word •rpJ.rler", to talk. --Mr. Gilbert Campion reported in the Parliamentary Survey says: "Parliamentary government has been defined as 'government by talk"'.

Or more precis ely"c ontrol of govern ment by talk". Laski says that thi.s is a talking shop--the parliament. And he says that a talking shop is the alternative to the concentration camp. And he says that a society that can discuss does not have to fight. Now, in order to talk, there must be a chance for the Oppo�;;iti on to talk arrd we are being robbed of a chance, by the move that we are facing before us at this time. And time and time again these authors, especially Jennings, says that the majority must respect the rights of the minority.

I believe that the move before us is an encroachment of these rights with respect to Rule 27 and Rule 34. May I quote also from this book--Parll.a mentary Surveys--written by different authors. There is an

article by--on page 30--by Gilbert Ca mpion. "The official Opposition is standing proof of the British genius for inventing politi cal machinery. It cannot be denied that under modern conditions, the concerted action of the Opposition is the best means of controlling a goverrrment--by criticizing defects in administrati on loudly enough for the public to take notice. This is not a particularly pleasant, if salutary, experience for Ministers; and i.t is only natural that they should be tempted to thlDk both that the Opposition abuse their opportunities, and that their opportunities are unnecessarily ample.

The facilities which the Opposition enjoy for initiating criticism on subjects of their own selecti on are dependent on technical forms and parliamentary conventions". These are the rules that we had previous to this one it seems to me, but the share of the time of the House which the government put at the disposal of a body raison d'etre is to show up the mistakes of Ministers March 7th, 1960 Page 1287

(Mr. Prefont�ine, cont'd.) .. and eventually to turn them out of office. This share of time is worth more interest than it usually receives. The least that can be said is that since it is only through the Opposition that some measure of parliamentary control survives, the uninterrupted respect for the rights of the Opposition which contemporary Government have shown"--! don't know if ours is showing that now--"which contemporary Governments have shown should be ac cepted as prima facie evidence of the soundness of their parliamentary faith". Mr. Speaker, this is pretty serious and pretty important. Mr.

A very, one of the other writers in this book, says on page 44: "Parliament is not and never has been a Legislature in the sense of a body es pecially and primarily empowered to make laws. The main task of parliament is still what it was when first summoned, not to legislate or govern, but to secure full discussion and ventilati on of all matters, legislative or administrative, as a condition of giving its assent to bills, whether introduced by the Government or by private members or its support to the executive action of Ministers, to secure full discussion and ventilation of all matters.

That seems to me the purpose of a government. And the job of the Opposition is to ventilate these views. And I could quote different statements taken from Jennings. Here is one: ''Care should be taken to leave to minorities ample opportunities for debate. The best platform to address the country is from the floor of the Hoqse". ·I want you to remember that we are speaking to the country every time we open our mouth in this House. "It is clear that in the last resort all debate is intended"--this is Jennings--"for the enlargement and persua sive of public opinion".

And again from Jennings: "The· ta-:::tics of the Opposition· are directed to the· conversion not of the govern- . ment party but of the electorate outside�' And I would like to quote finally from Laski, on page 156: "A parliamentary debate is only a part of a long, tumultuous process no single piece of which is likely in itself to be important. Most of it after all must be sober and undramatic work. The House of Commons that is in a continuous frenzy of excitement is a House that is in a succession of crises. That is usually an index to a government in office that is on the way to the grave.

What matters less the occasional great debate than the impact produced on an electoral opinion by the pattern of the whole parliament? In this sense certainly the debates have an enormous importance. What they are in themselves and hardly less what is written and said about them in a thousand articles and in a thousand speeches is the living material out of which the voters' choice is made". And then after another sentence adds this: "A democracy lives by the spoken word and what is said in print about that spoken word". This seems to me to be the crux of the whole situation.

The members of the Opposition are not necessarily try ing to convince the majority--the government--do know that they'll lose out but through the Press, th ey're speaking to the people, trying to impress the people that they have some know ledge, some ability to a certain extent and that in time they might be able to replace the Gov ernment. That's the job of the Opposition; that's why the Press itself is so important. It is part and parcel of our system. I have read theE:10yclopaedia of Parliament by Wilding & Laundry.

They tell us the difficulties centuries ago when the Press was not admitted in the House of Commons; when any one \vho presumed to print anything that was said in the House of Commons was put in gaol; no reporting was allowed at all. It took a century before the Press was admitted in the British House of Commons. Slowly but surely it became evident that our system could not function if the debates were not reported to the people; to enlighten the people; to allow them to make an opinion; and eventually press galleries were provided for the Press in. order that the debates should be reported.

And an understanding was arrived at. Certainly many MPs in the House of Commons were not always pleased with what was written in the Press. Certainly we are not always ourselves, but I might quote a statement from Wilding and Laundry, History of the Present Parliament. "Today parliament and the Press have a healthy respect for each other but newspapers are bound to report parliamentary proceedings accurately and to observe and to respect the legitimate privileges of parliament and its members". And It hlnk the Press is doing a g0od job of reporting what's being said here.

I know sometimes when I read my speeches in the Press, to me it's much better Eng lish than the English that I use on the floor of this House--much better. The majority party, the CCF Party in Saskatchewan have not been too happy with Press reports. They have started broadcasting system to allow the people to hear the speeches, supposedly made by the CCF speakers but ma::le by others I suppose al so--still going on apparently the same thing that is going on in Australia, New Zealand. But Page 1288 March 7th, 1960

(Mr. Pref ontaine , cont'd. ) •. I'm not .supporting that idea at all , not advocating it. The Press are looking for news. It's up to us to try and give them news. Sometimes our language is pos sibly extravagant and I know some members of the other side of this House use very extravagant language at times. But I would like to quote from Jennings about that. "Extravagances", says Jennings, "are of course better news than plain common sense, just as a death not important unless it is a tragedy". Now I say, Mr.

Speaker, that pa�liament depends on the majority, and opposition and reports of what's going on here to the paper, to the public. We're trying to edu cate the public all tha time but we, the Opposition, must have a chance to have our say in ord er that we should do that. There was a suggestion made the other day by the Honourable the Minister of Agriculture that instead of making a motion of urgent public importanc e, they should have gone to him--straight to him in order that the matte r would be settled without so much publicit y.

I think this is a miscomprehension of the duties of an opposition in the House- miscomprehension. This is a warfare, as between the two parties as quoted by Jennings at diff erent ti mes--a contest. Does the quarterback go to the other team in a rugby game to tell him his secrets; what play he is going to have next? Certainly not. And if this adjournment got a little publicity, it's exactly what we wanted, in order to try and alleviate as soon as pos sible the hardship to certain people. There is a great danger of Cabinet tyranny according to these authors.

And this one is--writing in the same book, Mr. --sorry, I didn't--Sir Arthur Salter. "Whatever party, " he says, "is in power, you may get a danger of Cabinet tyranny. The only safeguard is that the people generally and members of parliament of every party in particular, should have a real understanding of what Parliament and its traditi oQ.S mean for the country. And that there should be immediate protests from all sides against any attempt to suppress debate". I wish that there would be immediate protest on the move that is before us today.

And he goes on to say that "the powers of the Members of Parliament are fading away before the powers of Cabi net". There is a trend towards stronger Cabinets and less powers exercised by the MPs. And we have that in this Legislature when we see biils presented to us which leave the door wide open to the Lieutenan t-Governor-in-Council to pass regulations to do this or that. One case was .cited by the Leader of the CCF Party the other day with respect to this Metro Bill. We had the same thing with respect to the School Division Bill. The powers of the MPs and this House are going down and down all the time.

Tennyson said, according to this writer, that freedom slowly broadens from precedent to precedent. We're losing in this House, the private m embers are influ enced when we give all powers to the Cabinet. And I would like to quote one or two sentences from Mr. Salter. "I would like to suggest one barometer of the change in the authority of aM P"--read MLA here--''as such, and the executive. This is the extent to which you '11 find MPs trying to get what they want, not by exercising their legitimate influence throngh debate, through public discussion but by getting favours from individual ministers ".

The ha bit of deputations is incre asing, that's going to see a minister. Of course, at any time, and under any system, we must have deputations as a part of our system, but it is a bad sign if we find members incr easingly saying, "it is no good raising that in the House. It will irritate the Minister and make it more diff icult for him to give way if we criticize him in publi c". This is worth reading twice; if I had time I would. I'm short of tim e. But I say that it is wrong that politicians should go before the public and say, "you must be friends with the Mini ster if you want to get some roads" .

And a statement like that was made right in my own pres ence at one tim e. It is good to be friendly with the Minister of Public Worll:s if you want to get some thing. There's too much of that going on. And I say this is the place to speak and make our requests. Now I would like to come to the points before us. Rule 27--rule 27 to my mind is very. important. This is the place where we can bring grievances before the government. I thought I wouldn't quote again but I think I will just quote a sentence which is too important not to be quoted. I'm quoti ng from Laski.

"After forming a government, the most essential fun cti on of the House of Commons in our system is the ventilation of grievances. It is inherent in the nature of a democratic sys tem that any man or group of men who can persuade a member of the House to raise his grievance should have the opportunity of getting it discussed ". And then the writer goes into the history of the Savage Case; that's the story of a lady who was brought to court; was found not guilty, but after court, was severely questioned by police March 7th, 1960 Page 1289

(Mr. Prefontaine, cont'd. ) .. offic ers and that lady went to a member of the House--an oppositi on member and she convinced that member that she had not been dealt with properly; and that member adjourned the House to discuss a matter of urgent public importance. And here is how Laski tells the details.

"In the Savage Case, for example, the whole House indiff erently to party composition, was on the side of the member who moved the adjournment of the House and the temper of the Asse mbly was such that the Home Secretary had to concede the setting up of a Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure which led to a significant revision of the powers assumed by police authority". And I say that I have strong misgivings, that if we approve of a change in Rule 27 that maybe that's the end of it as far as the Opposition is concerned--as far as to its rights to bring questions of urgent public importance.

I brought one the other day as the honourable members will remember very clearly. Immediately it was opposed by two Cabinet Ministers--the Leader of the House at that time and the Honourable the Attorney-GEm era!. The Honourable the Speaker was on a spot and I didn't have a chance to read what he said.

I think he said that because of the precedent in this House, because of the present rules, he must allow me to speak, but it was stated by the two Ministers that according to the new rules, it would be very clear that the Member for Carillon would have no right to bring be- cause this was not a matter of urgent public importanc�: Now it's quite diff icult in a sentence or two to prove that you have something of public importance. Should the mem ber desiring to move make such a motion, write a full speech and hand it over to the Speaker of the House ?

I'm sure most of the members realize that I had a matter of urgent importance on that day af- ter they listened to the matter but it is diffic ult to prove it in a sentence or two. And I say that I'm afraid that this will mean that we will lose one of our prerogatives, and we have a counterpart of this prerogative in this House, the right of the Premier or a Ca binet Minister to adjourn the House to make a statement of policy.

We had a famous example of that last year on Monday, the 16th of March, when the Premier adjourned the House to make a statement of policy on the day that the Leader of the Opposition was to make his main address on the debate on the Speech from the Throne. And whaf was that statement? The repetition of what had been in the Speech from the Throne two or three days previously--a straight political speech. On the day when the Leader of the Opposition, Her Majesty's Opposition was to make his most important address. And I say that this was not proper.

The Hon ourable Member for Flin Flon raised a point and said that this was a most discourteous act; the Honourable Premier was cutting the feet off from under the Leader of the Opposition because there's only a limited space to be allotted to the speakers in this House. That space should have been re served for the Leader of the Opposition, not to have been taken over by the Premier of the House. And I defy anyone to read that speech again today and say that it was an important mat ter; that there were important. news in that speech that had not been told in the Speech from the Throne.

We had another statement today by the Minister of AgricUlture--another statement by the Minister of Agriculture today. Was that so important? And I'm wondering--that's a counterpart exactly of the powers of the Opposition to bring in a motion to adjourn the House to discuss a matter or urgent public importance. But I'm not going to make a motion at this time that this rule should not be changed. I'm going to plead with you, Mr. Sp•3aker , to give the minority, because you are a man proposed to watch the rights of the minority in this House.

I'm going to appeal to you that when we do make a motion to adjourn this House to consider a matter of urgent public importance that you have in mind that we have some rights in this House --the right to bring grievances before the Cabinet and that you will not rule against us . As the rule is written--it's not clear to me whether there's a right of appeal to the House on a new rul ing. We don't like, Sir, to appeal from your ruling.

We have had to in the past unfortunately, but we hope that we will not have to do that, and we hope that the Government--the Cabinet es pecially, will consider that we have some rights in this House. And there should be some place for us to bring grievances. Now coming to Rule 34--Rule 34 concerns the Throne Speech debate. It wants to shor ten that debate suppos edly to have a more efficient dispatch of business. In doing so, it will rob this House of many important speeches . When the present rule was established in 1940, it was brought to the House and there were objections to it. General G. B.

Kitchen and James A. Barrie, Winnipeg, interpreted the limits on only three adjournments as an attempt to muzzle private members . Mr. Louis St. George Stubbs said this. "Rather than discourage speaking Page 1290 March 7th, 1960

(Mr. Prefo'ntaine, cont'd. ) ••• we should encourage it in this House". And he added something that I'll repeat just for the fun of it in a sense, "particularly with regard to the great phalanx which supports the government and sits silent and eloquent as a tomb. " Anc., of course, it was passed, but I say that this is as far as we should go .. . Oh, I'm going to be told that in the Mother of Parliaments they cut it short after so many days. Well, may be, Mr.

Speaker, but in the Mother of Parliaments there are six hundred and forty odd MPs. , and they sit nearly the whole year round; and they pass their budget of billions and billions of dollars. Conditions are differ ent. In Ottawa, there are 265 members and they are voting six billion dollars, I believe that they will vote thi s year, and they are sitting nearly the whole year or five, six, seven, eight; nine months . Conditions are not the same in this House. There's no reason here to rush and change our rules and regulations.

We're going to be told, and I'm sorry that the Leader of the CCF Party is not in his seat -- we're going to be told that this present proposal is based on the Saskatchewan situation. I'm not surprised that in Saskatchewan they restrict the debate - not surprised a bit. But this is no good reason to me that we should follow suit because they've done it in Saskatchewan, it's a reason why we shouldn't do it. And I'm surprised that the Con servative Party wants to do that to us now, and limit this debate, as they are proposing.

Now I studied my Hansard for last March-- the House was opened on Thursday; on the Friday we had the mover and seconder. Now, this rule would come now on Monday - Monday we had the famous.,statement by the Premier and we had the speech of the Leader of the Opposition; oil Tuesday we had the speech of the Leader of the CCF. And I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that we will have a repetition of that, even after this rule passes because should we ask the Leader of the CCF to speak imm ediately after the Leader of the Opposition when he wants to make an amendment of the Leader of the Opposition's?

Is it fair that we should force him to speak immediately after to save. time? What time would we save anyway? I say that we'll have the same thing, two days for these two gentlemen and it is proper that we should have them.

Now, last March, on Wednesday we had three speeches on The Speech from the Throne; one from the Minister of Public Works who was the First Minister to speak on the CCF motion to have a comprehensive health insurance scheme, and he told us all about roads in Manitoba; then we had the Honourable the Minister of Education, he told us about education on the same sub-amendment of the CCF; and then we had the present Leader of the CCF Party, Mr. Paulley. On Thursday, we had Dr. Johnson who again had a very im portant speech.

He was not speaking to the subject matter at all; he was speaking about his favourite plans; he didn't mention the comprehensive health insurance plan but he had many things that he mention ed. We had lVa. Swailes who spoke at that time. Well that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight speeches, and if the present rule had been in effect at that time, the guillotine would now have started to work and it would have stopped. No more debate on that amendment. The same thing will repeat itself -- mind you the system proposed in this rule is much worse than fhe closure.

The closure system is not so bad after all, because a minister advises the House in advance that on that day when the debate comes, he will not countenance another amendment. !twill have to be voted upon, and they would have up to two hours -- 2 A. M. the next morning. But this is the guillotine system, it's not left to a member of the House to make a motion like someone like this, that the question be now pat, that the vote be taken now. This is very much worse. The guillotine -- this is very much worse, Mr. Speaker.

This says that at 10:30 ou Tuesday, according to our present day for opening the House, we will open the House on Tuesday, mover and seconder on Wednesday, Leader of the Opposition that's the first day, Thursday the Leader of the CCF; Friday, Monday; Thursday private members day. But 10 :30 on that day, that's it, the needle of the clock would say the guillotine's axe will fall; it doesn't matter who speaks .

It might be a private member speaking on a private member re solution; it might be the Honourable Member for Inkster pleading for help for the old aged peo ple; it might be myself possibly, asking the Minister of Education whether he's going to penal ize those who voted "no" in the school division plan; it might be him self, the Minister of Edu cation, saying that ii they knew what they were voting for and they're going to be penalized as long as they don't change their minds . It might be the Minister for St.

Matthews speaking about the beauties of the north, we don't know who is going to have his head chopped on private mem bers ' day. And that will be it. And I don't think that's right and proper because if we carry on opening on a Tuesday, the first gilillotine action will be on Tuesday of the next week at 10:30 -- March 7th, 1960 Page 1291

(Mr. Prefontaine, cont'd. ) ..• no option to these after the axe will fall again. I don't know who will be beheaded on Thursday ...••. MR. SPEAKER: Order MR. PREFONTAINE: It might be any one ...•• MR. SPEAKER: The guillotine is about to fall -- you've been spe aking 40 minutes. MR. PR.EFONTAINE: I'm like the cat -- I have seven lives. . ••..• to make my mo- tion; I have a motion to make. I would like to move, Mr. Speaker, seconded by the Honourable Member from St. George that the report of the Committee be not concurred in with respect to Rule 34 but that said Rule 34 remain as is under our present rules .· MR.

SPEAKER: Are you ready for the question? ••••••• continued next page. Page 1292 March 7th. 1960

MR. ROBLIN : Mr . Speaker, I bad not thought to take

part in this interesting discussion this afternoon but I feel that it is necessary to do so because an attempt has been made, ar1d I believe in good faith, to indicate that by the measures that are proposed in this amendment to the rules that an attack is being made on the rights or the functions or the duty of the respon sibility of the Opposition in a Legislative Assembly of this sort. And I, Sir, don't believe that that is true.

I spent ten years in the opposition myself and I must say that that was probably a very fortunate thing for me as a person,. because it gave me an opportunity to appreciate the force of the principles that are being enunciated by my honourable friend who has just spoken. And I want to say that I agree entirely with him in his enunciations of the parliamentary prin ciple as he has set before us this afternoon, and in particular in what he has to say about the responsibilities and rights of the Opposition in this Legislature or any other.

And I agree en tirely with him when he says that it is the Opposition's duty to oppose the government; that they have a right to be heard; that they have a right to use this Legislature as a platform to speak to the_I>_ub_!ic; that they have a right to. ventilate grievances; that they have a right to bring matters of importance before this Assembly and therefore before the public of this pro vince . I agree with that, and I don't think that you will find many people in this House who do not agree with that. Those principles are basic and aFe sound.

And I submit to you, Sir, that the policy that we are following here does not attack those principles or abridge them in such a way as to make it unpalatable or to make .it a way that makes it impo ssible for the Opposition to carry out their proper function in this Legislature . And I think, that if that is the point of view that is being taken by some gentlemen opposite that it really does not fit the facts of the matter as contained in these proposals for changing the rules that are before the House now.

Had I time to sit dowri and prepare a response to what has been heard perhaps I would speak a little more systematically about the points that he has raised; perhaps I might bring a little more force to bear on what he has said, but I'm one of those people who think that it is an unfortunate thing that in a Legislature of this sort where· there are really not many members compared to other legislatures, that we listen to a man make a speech and then we rush home and dig up the books and consult our authorities and work out an answer for him .

That• s all very well, perhaps we make better speeches that way -- but I'm one of those who think that the cut and thrust of debate -- when we have the arguments presented that is the time to hear the arguments against;. that when we have one side of the case at bat it's a mistake to go home with out having heard some effort being put forward to advance the other side of the case . And so I say to the members of the House that if I fail to do justice to the matter that is before me, I hope they will consider that particular matter.

In fact having written on the back of a piece of paper here I can hardly read the notes that I did make respecting what my honourable friend said. But I would like to say first of all that we meet on common ground, when he talks about the rights of pa rliament; when he talks about the responsibilities and the importance and the duties of the Opposition, we meet entirely on common ground. And I support everything that he has said in there but I would not perhaps choose to quote .some of his authors such as Harold J.

Laski whose last recorded utterance that registered with me was the fact that if a Socialist ever got in there would be· no need for any opposition anyway, and he'd see that there wasn't any, _and that they wouldn't have any necessity to stand up and ask for their rights because they would be eliminate<!. So I think that if my friend wil l just pursue that authority a little farther' he'll find that some of his thoughts are not quite so-compatible wiih your- point of view or·with mine. So we're not arguing about principles.

We're going to argue about the specific details contained in this amendment to the rules and to try and e:xamine their impact and their effect upon the conduct of the Legislature and particully the conduct of the opposition in this House. ' And there are just two matters that he raised and one is Rule 27 , which deals with matters of urgent public importance.

I would like to say, Sir, in respect of that matter, that this is the only Legislature in the British Commonwealth to my knowledge, and I took the occasion to enquire recently, that has a rule on urgent public importance or a rule to adjourn the House that is similar to ours as it stands at the present time. Because in our rule there is no effort made whatsoever to define the matter of urgency or the matter of public importance. It merely says that if one of the members raises this matter and gets three people to support him, then he has the opportunity to adjourn the House.

In every other Legislature it has been found by practice and experience that it does no March 7th, 1960 Page 1293

(Mr. Roblin; cont'd.) ... harm to put in a restriction respecting this matter, so that it is in cumbent upon those that want to adjourn the House in this waytoproduce ama tteror urgentpublic importance. Those words are not in our rule s; we do not talk about urgent publ ic importance. I want to stress, Mr.

Speaker, that there is a great difference between the redress of griev ances or the ventilation of grievances for which a procedure is provided than matters of urgent public imporiance, and we must make it clear in our minds that there is distinction between these two ideas, and I'll tell you what this-distinction is in a minute if you'll just hear me out. But I would say that there's a re!u. difference between a ventilation of grievances which is one of the most important duties of the opposition, and the question of urgent public importance . N9w what is being done in this rule at the present time?

We are importing into it the words, •urgent public importance' -- and where do we find these? We find these in the rules of every parli ament of the British Commonwealth of which I have any knowledge, including our own Dom inion Parliament , including the Parliament in London, and they have found that the democratic process of the rights of the opposition and the duty of the opposition are not circumscribed in a way that was unacceptable in connection with this matter by inserting those words 'of urgent public importance' . Now, why do we want it in there?

We want it, Sir, so that the business of the House, which after all is the business of the province, is not interrupted unduly or frivol., ously as it can be ·under the present rule s -'- and if I may say so with all respect, as it has been under the present rule s -- interrupt frivolously or needle ssl y the regular flow of our business. That's why that rule has been changed in other pla ces; that's why it has been changed here in this· House .

And I'd like to say that while I will by no means pretend that there was unanimity of opinion in the committee on this, I think that we did agree in substance that we would accept the importation of these words 'urgent public importance', although the Leader of the Opposi tion will say, and quite rightly, that he had a reservation _as to the

interpretation of those words and I would not like to pass that point without acknowledging that he made that reservation. That is why those things are in there, Sir. Ari'd what about this ventilation of grievances? Take my honourable friend's case on the cows the other day, and the money for the slaughtered cattle which he thought should have been ventilated in the way that he spoke. If the House had turned him down, and I'm glad to say that we did not, I'm glad to say that we .•.. .MR. PREFONTAINE: You -- the Leader of the House turned me down and also the Attor ney-General . MR .

ROBLIN: Very good, but the House did not turn you down Sir, and there is a great difference between the Leader of the House at any time and the rulings of Mr . Speaker, and the decisions of the House. And although they protested, they did not carry their protest to the point of trying to upset the ruling of Mr. Speaker. But if they had and if our present rule had been in effect, woul d that have muzzled my honourable friend; would that have prevented him from ventilating his grievance, if he had a grievance; does it prevent people in other parliaments from ventilating their grievances in the opposition?

No Sir, it certainly does not! If he had had the patience to wait for about five minutes on that same day, there was a motion to go into com mittee of Supply , and on that motion, it was open to him to ventilate any grievance that he may possibly think of. He could have·taken that opportunity. Maybe it was a matter of urgent public importance, I'll not say that it wasn't. I wasn't here, I didn't hear it. The House decided that it was and they heard him .

But had they attempted to prevent him or had this rule prevented him as he seems to fear that it would have, he would have had the opportunity very shortly afterwards . to raise the matter on the motion to go into committee of Supply , and there's no restriction on · that motion. Any member can get up and ventilate a matter of his grievance on the motion to go into the Committee of Supply .

And can anyone say Sir, that there is -- even if this rule on the adjourning of the House to discuss urgent public importance didn't exist and that right was ban ished and never heard of, something novel and foreign, does anyone think that that seriously impedes any member of the House from ventilating a grievance? Why Sir in Committee of Supply we've covered the waterfront; in Com mittee of Supply, we've gone from chickadees to skunks and back again; we've covered every frivolous matter that could be considered -- well, now that's a st'rong statement -- I withdraw it. We have not done that.

I would n't do justice to my honour able friends if I said that. I take that statement back Unreservedly. Let me say this, that in Com mittee of Suppl y, an opportunity is available for members to ventilate any grievance that Page 1294 March 7th, 1960

(Mr. Roblin, cont'd.) •.• they can formulate in respect of the activitie s of the government. Now Sir , don't mistake me, I'm not arguing against the right to adjourn the House. I believe in the right to adjourn the House; I believe it should be maintained on the rules of this Legisla ture, but I do sey that it is not wrong to say that one can only adjourn the House for a matter of 'urgent public importan ce' . I think that is a fair rule because it is not only necessary for the opposition to do its busin ess, it is necessa ry for the government to do its business as well.

And there's really no conflict between them if we can agree on a reasonable rule, and I think that in the commi ttee we did agree by and large, with reservations about in terpretations, that it was fair to bring in a rule of this sort, that it would not strangle or muzzle or silence those who had legitimate matters to bring before the Assembly. So I refute the statement of the honourable gentleman that thi s is going to prevent the opposition from doing its duty; I don't believe it.

I've been in the opposition myself and have some knowledge of these matters : In fact1�ve been in the opposition a good deal longer than my honourable friend has and I can speak from more experience than he in that partic ular matter. He was in the House in 1936, I believe is when he entered, and he found it quite possible to amend the rules then; I suggest that perhaps it's possible to amend them today.

Well Sir, that deals with Rule 27 about u:rgent public importan ce; the ventilation of griev ances is not impeded and the fair right of the opposition to raise matters of urgent public impor tance is not impeded -- that still exists and 1 thifik that on reflection it will be found to be fair and workable as the experience of other Legislatures has lead us to beli eve. Now I want to say something about Rule 34.

Rule 34 has to do with the time that may be allowed for the Throne Speech Debate, and my honourable friend objects , that we're circum scnbing that length of time, that we're going to deprive this House of all the valuable speeches that he menti oned -- some of them were valuable, I'll have to be frank and say that -- my col leagues tell me that there is Some difference M opinion on that matter but I'm willing to call them ill valuable speeches. Well, Sir, what about it ? In 1940 when my honourable friend was in the House a principle was accepted, namely limitation on the Throne Speech Debate; he voted for it.

If he didn 't vote for it let him say so noW. He voted for it I In other words he recognized the principle then that to put a limitation on tlie Throne Speech Debate was not an unfair thing to do . He accepted the principle that a limitation on the length of time in which that debate could prevent the work of the House as far as its regular busin ess was concerned, that that limi tation was a fair thing to impose on the Legislatm'e, It was carried by a very large majority ; he voted for it.

And the House must remember that i.irttil that Throne Speech is disposed of, nothing of any impor tant nature in respect of the busine ss of House can really be entered upon. -- (Inter jection) -- Well you can't start the estimate s ·- you may be able to bring in some bil ls , that' s perfectly true, you can bring in some bil ls, and there may be priva te members' resoluti ons and perhaps I'll have to correct myself agatii and withdraw that word 'nothin g', but I would like to say that the main business of the House; which after ill is dealing with the estimates and the administra tion of the government, cannot be undertaken until this is put in hand.

Now what are we proposing to do here '1 Well, Sir, what we are really proposing to do is to see to it that instead of that debate being adjourned from day to day, instead of our assembling here at the hour of 2:30 in the afternoon and listening to one speech or maybe two and going home at 4:30 instead of sitting out the rest of our sess ion for the usual time of 11 o'clock, we are go ing to ask, by means of tliis rule, to have the members make their speeches -- we don't want to cut anybody short.

I think that if you will exatnine the time that was taken this year in the Throne Speech Debate by members of the House and add up the time that is now allotted under the new rule for the Throne Speech Debate that you will find that the length of time is much the same . So that if everybody who spoke this year, spoke under the new rule, but spoke seria tim one after another -- as the debate progressed, they would all have their say. That's very im portant! They would all have their say, and I think, Sir, that we will find that under this new rule, they will ill have their say.

Now, he says that' s the only chance the -- he says that -- he was pretty critical of me or some of my Ministe rs -- last March in 1959 of what we did then. Well we were a minority gov _ernment Sir, I guess we must have had the consent of the House to do it or we wouldn't have been able to do it . It wasn't a case of our using our brute strength to impose our will on the Legis lature because we di dll't have it within our power to do so , and I think my honourable friend will March 7th, 1960 Page 1295

(Mr. Roblin, cont'd.} ... do me the justice to say that now that we have a majority in this House , we have not used our brute strength to impose our 'IVill upon the men and woman in this Legislature . I think that my honourable friend will do me the justice to say that. I think he will , because we have not done so. It's been suggested by some that we're dragging in Com mittee. Well, maybe we have, by having agreed to discuss with my honourable friends opposite the time element with respect to that.

I've respected our understanding we have reached in Committee even though it has not been confirmed by the Hous e. You say the powers that are given to. the Hous e, and the powers of the Ministry, the powers of the Cabinet. I can't really accept any responsibility for that development; that happens to be one of the signs of the time; that happens to be one of the circumstances which modern business and modern government im poses upon us . Not something that anyone likes -- it's something that one finds all over. But what are we doing Sir?

We are taking a step which we pronounced in the Speech from the Throne that I think will go a long way towards restoring to. this House and to the private members of this House , their right and their privilege of knowing what's going on in respect of say, dele gated legislation in the field of regulation. What are we doing? We are setting up, Sir , a Com mittee on Regulations, we are going to refer the regulations that we make under the Statutes to that Committee.

It will have the responsibility of e amining those regulations and if it is found that they are wrong or anyone wants to criticize them, they're going to have the full opportunity to do so . We're not trying to shackle and circumscribe the opposition; this I think is a major step forward in restoring to them and to all private members in this House part of their ess ential powers that modern circumstances have stripped from them, if we can use that e .. pression. Be cause we have to admit the power of regulations is unavoidable in modern administration.

My honourable friend shakes his head but when he was in office, he found it necessary to move by regulation and he won't deny that. He won't deny that! We have to do the same thing but we're placing our regulations back before the House , before the members , and they can be e ,amine d. He had the opportunity to sponsor that kind of legislation when he was in office but he didn't do it. I'm not blaming him for it but the fact is, he didn't do it.

We have the opportunity to do so and we're taking the opportunity and I don't claim that this is a cure-all, but I say that this is a step that might very well prove advantageous and might very well restore to members of this House, a good deal of the power that my honourable friend complains has now left their hands . I want to emphasize that, Sir , because I would very unhappy if members of the public were to think that this government is not aware of the rights of the Opposition.

I would be unhappy if anyone thought that by these rules we are trying to circumscribe the opposition and make their job impossible, or even difficult. That is not what we're trying to do and that is not, I maintain, what these changes in the rules do . I would be very unhappy if the House thought that we were using our brute strength as a government to force down the throats of members opposite, changes in the rules which they couldn't agree with, I don't think we've done that in the Committee. I think that the Committee will recognize the fact that we were co-operative.

Oh, we had a few little spats; certainly we did and it cleared the air and we had a fine time getting those matters settled but when we came to a conclusion on the matter, I think members of the Opposition will go part way along with me if they won't go all the way, that we did show a co-opemtive spirit in meeting their point of view on some of these points that were brought forward in that Committee. There wa sn't, as my honourable friend reminds me here, that there was no recorded division in the committee although it is certainly true that reservations were .made by members .

But not to the point where they found it necessary to put a recorded vote on the minutes of the Com mittee. I don't say that critically of them and I don •t say that to try and imply that they endorsed lOO% what was put forward . That would be unfair but I will say that by and large, the results that emerged from that committee were the results of co-operation and a reasonable measure of agree ment between the members that sat on that committee itself. And they represent not just the Gov ernment but all sides of this Legislature and all shades of political opinion in this Ho use , bar one.

Now, Sir, there really isn't anything more that I can say about this matter except to say once again that we hope that we can be just as zealous for the rights of individual members as anyone else . We believe and tru st that the changes in these regulations which are contained in this resolution do not unduly or unfairly circumscribe the Opposition, that they are well within the custom and tradition of Parliament as developed not only here but within other legislatures of the British Comm onwealth and that they are something that members of this House can put Page 1296 · March 7th, 1960

(Mr. Roblin, cont'd.) •• • their names to with reasonable certainty that the rights and privil eges of Parliament are being respected in the Legislature of Manitoba. MR. PREFONTAINE: I'd like to ask one question of the First Ministe�. In view of the fact that my speech was not completed, I would like to ask the First Minister whether the word ing of Rule 27 makes it clear enough that there will be an appeal from the decision of the Speaker with respect to the urgency of a matter. to be brought for ward. MR.

ROBLIN: If my honourable friend had taken the trouble to read the rest of the rules as carefully as he read 27 , he would have found that we had specifically included in the respon sibilities of Mr. Speaker, the fact that his rulings are appealable to the H.!>use . That was not in the former rules; that was not in the fo rmer rules. · MR. PREFONTAINE: May I ask a supplementary question •••• ?- (Interjection) -- On what rule is that? MR. ROBLIN: I want to deal with this rule. My honourable friend knows they're not in the previous --the present rules.

We put them in, and I suppose you'll say now that we're cir cumscribing parliament because we put thaf in. We think that the Speaker's regulations ought to be appealable to the House and if he'd read the full report, he would have seen it. MR. PREFONTAINE: •••••• ample guarantee that this ruling on urgency will be subject to appeal to the House ? MR. ROBLIN: Every rule of Mr. Speaker is appealable to the House . MR. PAULLEY: Mr.

Speaker, I don't think it would be but fair of me, if I did not say a word or two at this time insofar as this motion for concurrence in the report and the subsequent amendment in respect of the same. I might say that as the First Minister has said that we, at times, did have som� very interesting discussions on the committee. And I think it would be only fair if I were to say that when we came to the conclusion of our deliberations, that in gen eral there was agreement on the committee itself.

It's true, as the Honourable the Leader of the Opposition had reservations insofar as Rule.� was concerned and also that he did have some reservations in !'espect of Rule 34. I would say that in respect of the reservations on Rule 34, if memory serves me correctly, they were not, insofar as the general idea of having a time limit on the rule itself, that as to the length of the time and his reservation as has been pointed out, by the Honourable the Premier in respect of Rule 27, dealt with the question of Mr. Speaker deciding as to the urgency of the matter of debate.

Now I think that revolves around a very, very important concept of the duties of Mr. Speak er, which are at all times to be fair , and I think, Sir, that while we may have diff erences of opinion at times both with yourself, Sir, and those v.ho before you in that distinguished Chair, that we have had just that from the Speakers at least during the time that I've had the privilege of being a member of this body. And I agreed, as far as I was concerned as a member of that Committee, with the general contention that there should be a stricter

interpretation of the rule.

Now my honourable friend , the Member for Carillon, speaking a minute or two ago, made reference to the members opposite in the front row particularly, speaking and making long statements just prior to the Leader of the Opposition speaking in debate, I believe a year or so ago or during the term of the minority government, I would like to remind my honourable friend of another occasion when it happened to be the privilpge of the Leader of the CCF to rebut not only the Leader of the Offi cial Opposition but also the Conservative Government itself, when for about two or two and a half hours, we listened to a debate as to whether or not, the government was going to proceed on its program of flood control.

So I say that if the shoe fits on one foot, . it fits on the other one equally as much. Now then in respect of Rule 34 itself I can appreciate very much and I agree, I agree en tirely, with the concept of the duties of Opposition as enunciated by the Honourable Member for Carillon. And I don't think that in this pres ent ses sion that there has been any individual in this House who has stood up and claimed more rights for the members in Opposition than I have my self.

But when I consider all of the aspects concerned with the limitation on the Throne Speech, I could not but come to the conclusion that we were wasting too much time in the deliberations on a message fro m his Honour. It may be that our normal method of coming in at 2 o'clock or 2:30 o'clock and listening to a speech and going home fo r the first two or three weeks of the session may meet with the appeal of some. But I'm convinced that it would be far better for March 7th, 1960 Page 1297

(Mr. Paulley� cont'd.) ••• us to continue on a more uniform and regular basis. And as the. Honourable the First Minister has said that if the total length of time that we've spent this year and I think this would apply to other years too, except with the possible exception Mr. Speaker, of the last session before a general election, that the sum total of the time taken up on the Speech from the Throne would be less than will be permissible under the proposed rule.

One thing that I do agree, and I'm trying to cultivate myself with the remarks of the Hon ourable the First Minister, into having more debate in the House than simply a giving of a speech, sitting down and reading what was said and then coming back at some subsequent date with a reply. I think it would enhance the appeal to the general people of the province and would be more conducive of a better analysis of all of the problems in the province if we were to adopt more of that procedure . Now, then under the proposed rule as I see it, the subamendment will be given four da ys .

I think that is ample time for a subamendment; I think that as we're in that position at the pre- · sent time , that the members of my group -- or our group -- should be in a position to cover it as far as they are concerned and rebut within that period of time any criticisms which aren't usual, that comes from either my right or from the other side of the House . So I say, Mr.

Speaker, that in order to be fair, I must say, I think you Sir, as chairman of that Committee may agree with me although of course in your present position, you remain neutral, that as a result of our deliberations, as a result of some give and take we've come up with these pro posed changes . It is well known that so far a.S one or two points that I had myself on behalf of our group, I was not entirely successful in obtaining. But there was the give and take. And I simply say this, Mr. Speaker, that the controlling feature of the Rule 27 and the right to ad journ will rest with Mr.

Speaker and I know that all members of the House will join with me when I say that I hope and trust that Mr. Speaker will, at all times, be fair. I don't think that there is a member in this House that has sat here for the last two years but what will agree that on numerous occasions, that this particular motion was not used in accordance with the . original intent of it. And I feel that had it not been with -- and I say this in all frankness -- had it not been of the position of minority government, what we now call our established rule would never have been an established rule .

Because I recall in past circumstances that there were ·o ccasions when this rule was not adhered to to the same degree as it is now. So I say, Mr. Speaker, I'm only trying to be fair, not that I am trying to butter the Goverm:rient or the Leader of the House, because I don't think that that could be attributed to me very, very much, but I do say in all fairness that my impression of the deliberations of the Committee that in general after we had considered all aspects of this, it was with certain reservations, acceptable to all members of the Committee. MR.

PREFONTAINE: May I ask the Leader of the CCF a question? May I ask how we can make it out that there'll be four days in order to discuss a subamendment, realizing the fact that the first day will be the Leader of the Opposition, the second day will be the Leader of the CCF and then we have two days left. 1\ffi. PAULLEY: An answer to that, I think, was given, Mr .

Speaker, in my over-all general remarks that I hope we get so that we have more debate and more rebuttal and I hope that Pm able to develop during the years ahead, the honour of occupying this particular position as Leader of our party that on the day of resuming the debate which will be by the Honourable Leader of the Opposition, that I might be in a position mentally and physically to tackle both him and the Government, on that particular day so that there will be at least one day saved .. Mr .. speaker presented the motion and following a voice vote, declared the motion defeated. MR.

SPEAKER: Call in the members . The question before the House is the motion by the Honourable Member for Carillon that the report of the Committee be not concurred in with respect to Rule 34 and that said Rule 34 remain as is under our present rules . YEAS: Messrs . Campbell, Prefontaine, Guttormson, Molgat, Tanchak, Desjardins, Roberts, Shoemaker, Dow, Reid, Froese . NAYS:· Honourable Messrs. Roblin, Carron, Johnson, McLean, Evans, Lyon, Thompson, Witney, Ridley, Hutton. Messrs .

Lissaman, Shewman, Hawryluk, Paulley, Alexander, Scarth, Martin, Cowan, Groves, Corbett, Christianson, Wagner, Wright, Orlikow, Ingebrigtson, Jeannotte, stanes, Page 1298 March 7th, 1960

(Nays, cont'd.) ••• Smellie, McKellar, Seaborn. Johnson, Baizley, Bjornson, Klym, Hamfi.:. ton. Schreyer, Peters, Harris . YEAS: 11. NAYS : 38. MR. SPEAKER: I declare the motion defeated. Question before the House, resolved that this House doth concur in the report of the Spe cial Select Committee appointed by this House on the twentieth day of January, 1960 to consider Rules 9, 27 , 24, and such other rules as the Commi ttee may decide to review and which report was tabled in the Legislative Assem bly on the first day of March 19 60 . Are you ready for the question? MR. STAN ROBERTS (La Verendrye) : Mr.

Speak er, I beg to move seconded by the Hon- ourable Member for st. Boniface that the debate be adjourned. Mr. Speaker presented the motion . MR. SPEAKER: Committee of Supply. MR. ROBLIN: Mr; Speaker, you didn't put the question Sir, on the adjournment. Mr. Speaker put the question and after a voice vote declared the motion carried. MR. ROBLIN: Mr. Speaker, I beg to move seconded by the Honourable Minister of Pub lic Utilities that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a Com mittee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty. Mr.

Speaker presented the motion and after a voice vote declared the motion carried, and the House do now resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty. Mr. Speaker presented the motion and after a voice vote declared the motion carried, and the House do not resolve its�lf into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty . MR. SPEAKER: Will the Honourable Member for St . Matthews please take the Chair? MR. CHAIRMAN: Department X, Appropriation 1- Salaries . (Passed) MR.

MOLGAT: I wish to thank the 1\IIiniSter at this time for the complete statement that he gave us on Friday last, and I do not intend at this stage to cover all of the items that he cover ed at that time. I wish to limit my comments to an analysis of the work of this government in the field of television service in the parts of Manitoba not now served. Now we had some dis cussion previously in the House here on estimates last summer and also in the March 1959 Ses sion, in the matter of the Northwest Electronics extension through northern Manitoba.

I do not intend to cover all the ground that we discussed at that time. I still claim as I did then that the Government never gave the system a fair chance. I still claim that they gave these people no assistance whatever in their attempts to bring TV to the north; that the Government did not move one finger to provide assistance in this case and I say that this was wrong, that the sys tem at least had a fair chance of success, that it should have been given a complete trial and if it hadn't worked then scrap it, but nevertheless it should have been given a fair chance . How ever, Mr.

Chairman, I appreciate that that is now water under the bridge. Mind you , that type of system may still be of importance to us in the future but subsequently events changed, and that system is not what I' m up to discuss at this time . I want to discuss, however, the subsequent action of this Government on this matter of TV for the north. Now, the government has always claimed that the actions of our group when we were in power with regard to the Northwest Electronics group held up TV for northern Manitoba.

I can quote in that regard no less an authority than my honourable friend the Minister of Educ ation who, on a public platform, said that the previous Government through our negotia tions vJith Northwest Ele ctronics had delayed the extension of television in Manitoba for at least a year.

I can quote as well my honourable friend, the Minister of Public Utilities who said - and this is in discussion of his estimates of the 31st of March 1959 --"and I will go one step further and say that I believe that this experiment, this gamble that our friends have referred to has cost considerable time in this particular matter of transmitting television, because I have had at least six different companies who have come to me in the last nine months enquir ing about the pos sibility of extending television services to northern Manitoba and I submit that this particular agreement has been a hindrance rather than a help in providing that kind of ser vice to your people at Flin Flon.

He is replying at that time to the then member for Flin Flon • . Mr. Jobin. So, my honourable friends felt that we had held up television. At the same time, March 7th; 1960 Page 1299

(Mr. Molgat, _ cont'd. ) ••... they were claiming a great interest themselves in extending televi sion service to norti1ern Manitoba. I can quote for example , the First Minister who said as well during the election campaign prior to 1959 , amongst other things - "We believe that north ern Manitoba should have television. We want the CBC chain extended to Flin Flon. " Similarly in the Throne Speech which was given in this House on the 12th of March, my honourable friend said then "My government is anxious to assist in the extension of television to all parts of the province.

To this end an offer will be made to the federal authorities to provide on an annual rental basis a northern mic rowave television link. " Well in the light of these enthusiastic statements about extension of television to the north, Mr . Chairman, what has been the action of this government? What have they done to get television to northern Manitoba? What has really happened? Mr . Chairman , I submit that this has been one of the greatest cases of bungling, of mis-management, of lack of planning and foresight that this government has exibi ted yet.

And I think that if we analyze the events, that that will be proved. There were hearings of the Board of Broadcast Governors during the summer of 1959 with regards to the extension of television to northern Manitoba. I don't think the hearings were held actually at that time there was a suggestion of hearings , and various people who were interested in providing that service , started planning for what would be done.

At that time the Brandon TV station put forward a certain offer, and the offer as I understand it was as follows: That they would set up the complete system of distribution of television, provided that the Pro vincial Government -supplied through the mic rowave system of the Manitob a Telephone System, the transmission which would then be rented to the CBC for an annual rental . The Brandon offer, as I understand it, was for four stations - a station in Dauphin ; one in Swan River; one in The Pas; and one in Flin Flon. Each one of these stations would be on a separate channel .

These stations would all have had a local studio . While the original plan, I think, was to trans mit p'rograms from Brandon and from the CBC network, there would have been facilitie s in the future for local programming. :T his system would have given complete coverage to that area, because it would have covered the four main centres, and with the towers that they were going to set up, I believe , that that portion of western and northern Manitoba woul d have had as com plete coverage as can be obtaina ble .

The further advantage which, while of no direCt conse quence to the government, I think is of substantial importance to the viewers in the area, that is that with a tower and a station in the major centres of Dauphin, Swan River, The Pas and Flin Flon , it would have meant that those residents in those cen tres at least, could have had TV coverage in view without an outdoor antennae which is a fairly substantial item of cost. _ They could have done this strictly with an indoor antennae in the same way as the people in the City of Winnipeg do. Now what was asked of the Manitob a Government at that time ?

Simply this , that through their mic rowave facilitie s, they put in the extra necessary equipment to take the signal all the way out. There was, to my knowledge and from the information given to us by the 1\Hnister, no other cost involved insofar as the Manitoba Government was concerned. The CBC were to pay for the rental of the system.

Now when we look into the situati on, and then again I can go only on limited information I must admit, beca use my honourable friends haven't given too much informa tion out on this situa tion, but it would appear from all the information I can get, that the CBC was prepared to make concessions and did make concessions. To begin with, they held up the hearings during the course of the summer to give more time for the people who were planning to make submissi ons to the CBC .

Well, then BBG find -- I am quoting ac tually from the Dauphin Herald, who in turn is quoting from the Flin Flon Daily Miner and the statement that appears on the editorial page on the 2nd of December, 1959, and this is the statement as I say, from the Flin Flon Daily Miner , saying: "In all fairness to the BBG and to the CBC , they gave a fair hearing to Flin Flon and other northern Manitoba requests for con siderati on. They twice , at our suggestion, delayed granting of the departments television licence to either Brandon or Yorkton television stations to serve the Dauphin-Swan Ri ver areas .

More than that , a team of CBC experts were sent to the province to make- a report on the situati on. Obviously it was on the basis of this report which has never been made public , that final dec ision- was reached." So I say that at least the BBG, if my honourable friends prefer that, made these conces sions. They gave more time for analysis. They didn't jump into _this i=ediate ly. They gave Pa,ge 1300 March 7th, 1960

(Mr. Molgat,c ont'd.) ••••• my honourable friends across the way ample time to prepare their case and see what they wanted to do about bringing television to the north . I think there's an other major concession that was put through by the CBC and this is an impor �ant one, if I can go according to my honourable friend's statements -- the Minister told us the other day that the usual policy of the CBC was to provide service as long as the cost did not go over between $8 and $9 per viewer or per family. I believe that was his statement .

And yet in this particular case it seems that the CBC was prepared to go up to $1 5. There again, I must quote -- my honourable friend the Minister of Education shakes his head - I must quote from the Dauphin Herald, and it says "In its submission the Manitoba Government said that the CBC policy of providing TV facilities only where the cost does not exceed $15 per TV home in the proposed areas . Areas to be served should be examined." I can only assume from that, that the CBC was considering this particular extension on the basis of $15 per home.

My honourable friend himself said here last week that it was the normal policy between $8 and $9. Now where was the .Manitoba Government during all this? The Brandon station prepared their submission and outlined what their recommendations or what their proposal was. It was the only application from Manitoba. There were no others .

Now I'm not suggesting that matters such as these we should take a strictly parochial attitude, but on the other hand when there is only one single application from this province from a firm who is now engaged in the television business and apparently doing a proper job of it in the Brandon distr ict, surely my honourable friends could have given this application some support if they were really interested in seeing TV in the north.

Wouldn't you think that they would have given every bit of support that the government possibly cou!d give to an application cy-these people, particularly when they were presenting a program that was sound and that would give complete coverage to those particular areas? Was the Ministe r at the Board of Broadcast Governor's hearing? Not to my knowledge, and for that matter -- how about his two colleagues who also are vitally concerned in this thing -- the Min ister of Education who's also the member for Dauphin and the Minister of Mines and Natural Resources who is the member for Flin Flon.

Were they taking action in this matter? Were they taking care of the demands of these people in the north and of the statements of their own government previously that they were encouraging television in northern areas. I find no cases where either or any of these gentlemen appeared to support the demands or the proposals of the Brandon station or did anything to enhance its possibilities in giving service. Did my honourable friends put any pressure on the Treasurer of the Province for some concessions to get this done?

Well, that of course I can't tell, but if they did, they certainly don't appear to have any results from it -- (Interjection)-- let me finish my speech then if you've got some questions I'll be glad to discuss them with you -- I have certain statements which I am advoca ting. Now my honourable friends can't say that they didn't know that the difficulty was cost be cause they were aware of that the Minister himself told us that last week in one of his statements here in the House.

He made two or three last week on television and this particular one's on Tuesday the first of March and he said, he was then commenting on a newspaper article, he said, "The Honourable .T. D. Carron, Minister of Public Utilities, denied Monday that the high Manitoba Telephone System toll charges had prevente d the CBC from extending televi sion ser vice m northern Manitoba. " This is his quotation from the paper . · He said, "I made no such statement Mr.

Speaker, in fact, I frankly believe that this is the reason why the service was not extended ." So my honourable friends know and knew then I presume, that the reason that this extension was not going through was that the costs that were be ing asked by the Manitoba Telephone System were too high. I submit Mr. Speaker, Mr.

Chairman, that there was no real effort made by this pro vince to bring TV to the north� I think there again, I can quote from my honourable friend , the Minister of Public Utilities when last week as well when he told us that the plan of the Manitoba Telephone System was to write off over a 15 year period the same as the television equipment and facilities are being written off on the Trans Canada system and this is considered to be the standard practice of communication systems. In other words , what my friends were prepared to do was strictly the standar.d practice , exactly what's being done everywhe re .

This , in the light of their previous statements that th ey're most anxious to get television to the north. Well I think this calls for an examination of the figures given to us by the Minister . Now there's some slight difficulty here because last week he issued approximately two March 7th, 1960 Page 1301

(Mr. Molgat; cont' d. ) .•••. sets of figures and the analysis is not made easier by that� How ever I shall take the final set that he gave us and as it was printed in the newspapers on the third of March. Now checking these figures woul d seem --rthe first thing we see is that the department , and in this regard I certainly don't think the Telephone System is the one that should be made responsible for this ; the Telephone System quite rightly has to set their opera tions on the basis of their costs .

I think the concession should be made , not by the Telephone System but by my honourable friends across the way , in view of their statements . So the offer was strictly 15 years, there apparently was no concess ion whatever made in that regard, stuck exactly to the 15-year terms . Then, the Honourable Minister told us about the interest charges and how their whole rate was set up at 22% ; he quoted us interest charges at 5.25 giving us a total cost of $75 ,5 08 . Now Mr.

Chairman, I will admit that the first year -- that is correct, that is 5. 25% of the total figure he quoted us , but surely as the debt is being paid off, the interest would decrease per year and I suggest that an average rate of interest over all this should be approximately half the total amount beca use in the first few years it would be more in the next few years it would be le ss. So instead of the $75,0 00 charge for interest I think the more correct charge taken over the length of the proposition , would be something in the order of $38 ,0 00.

Similarly my honourable friends took in the other expenditures which are fine and possibly they can be dispute d but only an expert could say whether or not they're too high and came to , on the fully protected system , a net cost of $264, 000 . Then he proceed ed to add to that an annual rental. Well Mr; Chairman, surely if the province is getting the depreciation on the equipment, the interest paid on the investment, full payment of mainten ance and operating costs , surely they shouldn't go further and expect a profit on top of that as well ? MR. CARROLL: Mr.

Chairman, perhaps I should correct my honourable friend . The first charge is for the video signal , the second charge is for the audio signal , the two are separate and distinct and quite comparable. MR. MOLGAT: Well , the way the Minister gave it to us the other night Mr . Chairman, he quoted this latter figure as an annual rental based on 5.5 0 per mile. (Interjection) . But the audio signal as I know it is there already. Is that not the time to (Interjecti on .) Well then, fine , we won't argue that particular item we can go further into it when we go on into the de bate .

In any case I certainly think that in the case of the interest charge that there should be a reduction-made, because this -- I cannot see, unless he has some further figures that he hasn't given us , how this could be so . Well then when we come to the lower priced system , the one that was not fully protected we find there again that there would be a fairly substantial saving if the interest was calculated according to what I thinll: is the proper mathematical basis. We could arrive there by taking this interest charge out of it, at a net annual cost of sometl:: ing in the order of $190 , 000 .

Now my understanding is, I presume this is correct, it was reported, and not I believe claime d by the Ministe r to be untrue , that the CBC was prepared to pay $150 ,0 00 rental. MR . CARROLL: That's not true , Mr . Chairman, they've made no such statement at any time . -- "� MR . MOLGAT: Well , then I would ask the Minist er , could he tell us what the CBC was prepared to pay. Well I submit Mr. Chairman, that that is a very important part of this dis cussion and I submit that if the CBC offer was something in the vicinity of $150, 000 ••.••• MR . CARROLL: The CBC has never made an offer, Mr . Chairman. MR .

MOLGAT: Well that's the be auty of this whole proposition , Mr. Chairman, is that we're finding out more information as we go along. My honourable friends have been very re- 1 uctant to give us figures on this before but bit by bit we 're getting something. (Interjection) . Oh yes, we were terrible , we were spending great sums of money, why, $15, 000 the First Minister said. He knew how much it cost because he had to pay it.

Well I don't know what the CBC offer was but in any case I submit that my honourable friends could have, without any con ces sions at all arrived at an annual cost of somewhere around $190, 000 , that's strictly by taking the interest on the proper basis . Now what about conce ssions ? It seems to me that in this particular case, because of the difficultie s of getting TV up there , because of the statements my honourable friends them selves have made that they wanted to get it up there , that they could have looked at an extension Page 1302 March 7th, 1960

(Mr. Molgat, cont'd.) ••••• of the time over which the equipment would be depreciated. I think it's perfe ctly fair to consider maybe an extra five years on the whole thing to arrive at some of an agreement that would be acceptable to the CBC. But no, my honourable friends stuck strictly to this. Well, now what is the situation? The Yorkton Station has had its licence given to it. It's setting up a tower on Mount Baldy which will cover as far as we can tell at this stage roughly the Dauphin, the Swan River areas .

I want to point out that by compariso:a to the offer that the Brandon station was making, I don't believe there are any local studios involved in this case, it's strictly a tower on Mount Baldy with programs coming directly from Yorkton. In other words, no possibility in the future of any local programs. That particular system will force the use of outside antennas of all the viewers in the area, as far as I can tell bee ause the distance from the tower to the bulk of the viewers, is too great. There's a question as well as to how far this system will cover.

Will it actually cover as much territory as the two stations planned for the area, by the Brandon station, that is the one in Dauphin and the one in 8wan River but that Mr. Chairin:an, is only a small part of it.

The real diff iculty'that comes up with the setting up of the station on Mount Baldy by the Yorkton station, is that it's almost impos sible now to get TV to The Pas and Flin Flon because right there midway up in the province, midway on this chain to the north, there's a chunk of the market taken right out because it's not conceivable at this stage at least, that the population that exists in those areas that a sec-. ond Station would be set up, a second commercial station could be operated as a fi nancial success in either Dauphin or Swan River, when there is already a station in the area.

It would mean therefore that someone interested in going to The Pas and Flin Flon would have to skip that very good market _...; the Dauphin a

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	26-2-35
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	26th 2nd hansardpdf 35.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	1465a364131c5bdbd4a55997b88d681b4634ef36

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