Manitoba Hansard — 62 Page 1097 (Sitting 43, 26th Legislature, 5th Session)

26-5-43

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

Legi s la tive Ass em bl y Of Man it oba DEBATES an d PROCEED INGS Speaker The Honourable A. W. Harrison Vol. Vll No. 43 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, M�rch 27, 1962. 5th Session, 26th Legislature Printed by R. s. Evans, Queen's Printer for. the Province of Manitoba, Wlnill.p�g

THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2: 30 P. M., Tuesday, March 27th, 1962. Opening Prayer by Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: Presenting Petitions. Reading and Recei ving Petitions. Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees. Notices of Motion. Introduction of Bills . Committee of the Whole House. HON. GEO. HUTTON (Minister of Agriculture) (Rockwood-Iberville): Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, seconded by the Honourable the Minister of We lfare , that Mr.

Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole to consider the fol lowing proposed resolutions . (See Resolution introduced by Honourable Mr. Hutton on Monday, March 26th, 1962 -- Page 1042 of Hansard. ) Mr. Speaker presented the motion. MR. SPEAKER: Are you ready for the question? MR. RUSSELL PAULLEY (Leader of the New Democratic Party) (Radisson): Mr.

Speaker, before the question is put, may I draw to your attention that this is Tuesday and, in accordance with the rules of this House , that the order of business shall be after routine pro ceedings, which you have just announced, namely, the presentation of petitions; the reading and receiving of petitions; the .presentation of reports; notice of motion; and introduction of bills; that in accordance with the rules of this House as listed on Page 10 of the rules which govern this House,

Section 2 of Rule 19 states this: "The order of business for the considera tion of the House day by day after the daily routine shall be as fo llows: " It then goes on, Mr. Speaker, to list government days; namely, Monday, Wedne sday, Thursday and after 5:30 PM on Friday. Then the second sec tion deals with the order of business on Tuesdays and before 5:30 PM on Fridays . In our rule No. 19, subsec tion (2) , it states that: "Tuesday and before 5:30 PM on Friday shall be Private Members Days.

The Order of the Day shall be written questions, motions other than government motions, private bills, public bills and orders other than government orders; following that, government motions, government bills and orders." I respe ctfully suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the motion that has just been proposed to you that this House go into Committee of the Whole is a government motion and should not be enter tained by Your Honour due to the rules as listed in Rule 19, as I have listed to you, and that the proper procedure for today should be, after the routine orders have been dealt with as you did, Mr.

Speaker, the List of Procedure as listed for Tuesday and before 5:30 PM on Friday; and that the motion of the government as proposed by the Honourable Minister for Agriculture to go into Committee of the Whole House should not be acceptable to Your Honour until we have finis hed with the business listed under the names of the private members of this House. HON. DUFF ROBLIN (Premier) (Wolseley): Mr. Speaker, I would l:ike to make a com ment on the point of order raised by my honourable friend because he does raise a nice point.

I must agree with him that we had some question in our own minds as to what the correct pro cedure would be to fo llow and so we took the trouble to examine this with the officials of the House to see what the correct procedure to fo llow would be, and it is our opinion that the motion that the Order Paper has printed correctly sets out the order of business that we should follow. Now I think that in substantiation of that paint I would l:ike to refer to my honourable friend to a similar occurrence which took place on February 17th, I believe, 1953. February 17t h was a Friday and -- (Interjection) -- pardon?

We ll the point that my honourable friend is making here has to do with whether or not a resolution in Committee of the Whole stage, such as we have at the present time, should take the present place subscribed to it in the Order Paper before the Orders of the Day or afte rwards.

Well I think that there is some pretty clear precedents here from 1956 when we were dealing with a resolution in connection with the Royal Commissi on on Liquor or the investiga tion into liquor, and if I were to rehearse the sequence of events I would info rm the House that on the 15th, which was a Wednesday, a resolution was dealt with to go into Committee of March 27th, 1962 Page 1097

(Mr. Roblin, cont•d. ) .• .. • the Whole before the Orders of the Day to deal with the proposal that the government at the time then made on the liquor question. It was not settled on that oc casion and the Comm ittee sought leave to rise and report progress which was done , and on the next day, February 16th, the Com mittee again was convoked in the same way as is being done today.

So I think if we deal with the fi rst point, the proper way of dealing with the adjourned business or the suspended business in the Comm ittee of the Whole is to have it revert to its position on the Order Paper that it occupied before , so that it appears on the subsequent day in that place, which is exactly the same procedure that was followed in 1956 and is being fol lowed today. But my honourable friend raises the other question as to whether on Private Members Day, Committee of the Whole consideration involving a messa ge from His Honour· should be dealt with before the Orders of the Day.

I think that the precedent of Friday, February 17th covers that particular point, because on that occasion another resolution dealing with a matter to do with the Liquor Commiss ion was brought in on a mes sage from His Honour before the Orders of the Day, on a Friday, which is a private memb ers day in which the usual private members rules apply. So I think that as far as precedence is concerned , for what that's worth, we have a pretty clear example.

I think that probably the ba sis for the de cision on the P!'evious occasion probably was subsection (3) of Rule 20 on Page 11 where it says: "where business other than a motion on the Order Paper is under consideration when the House adjourns fo r the day, that business shall, Without motion to that effe ct, stand over until the next sitting day when it shall be taken up at the stage at which its progress was interrupted by the adjournment.

" Now I think that that Rule 20(3) probably is the one that led the Clerk of the House and the House at that time to deal with the Liquor Resolution the way it was handled; and I also think that the precedent of Friday, February 17th, in connection with the Comm ittee of the Whole stage on a resolution, similar to what we have here, was also well taken. On that basis , I think we're probably in order in proceeding as suggested in the Order Paper today. MR. PAULLEY: Mr.

Speaker, if I may speak again to the point of order, may I fi rst of all respectfully suggest that, since the dates that my honourable friend has listed, there has been a complete review of the rules and regulaUons controlling this House and that we should only deal with matters of precedents since the time that the Committee on the Rules of the House met. Because if I recall at that time , it was a general understanding of that Committee, of which I was a member, that with the revision of our rules of this House that precedents in the past would not govern the rules that we have at the present time.

I would ref er, Mr. Speaker, in all due respect to the remarks of the Honourable the First Minister, when he is dealing with Clause 21 that he should take under consideration subsection (2) before he takes under consideration Clause (3) which states -- Clause (2): "that where a motion on the Order Paper is under consideration when .the House adjourns for the day" -- if you recall yes terday evening, Mr.

Speaker, you adjourned the business of that day -- "that que stion shall, without' a motion to the effect, be firs t on the Order Paper of the next sitting in its proper section, after orders to which special precedence has been assigned. " 'I respectively suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is the clause that you should take under consideration; that we are now in a day dealing with special precedence and that is the prece dence of dealing with motions other than government motions. If this was another day, Mr.

Speaker, as yesterday was , when we were carrying through ordinary government business , then I would suggest th.at my honourable friend the Leader of the House would be perfe ctly cor rect in referring to Clause (3), but such is not the case . We are not continuing discussions on government orders. This is a day set aside for the purpose of dealing with private members' resolutions and I respectfully suggest to you, Mr.

Speaker, on the Point of Order, that the Honourable the First Minister and yourself, and particularly yourself because you are the governing individual of this House , should take into consideration subsection (2) rather than subsection (3) in respect of these orders. MR.

ROBLIN: If I may be allowed to comment on what my honourable friend has said, if he seeks a precedent that is more recent than the one I have quoted, then I will refe r him to Friday, March 24th, 1961, on which occasion, before the House went into other business it dealt with, under the heading ''Introduction of Bills", it dealt with this resolution with respect to a messa ge from His Honour and in the Com mittee of the Whole Stage , so there is that other Page 1098 March 27th, 1962

(Mr. Roblin, cont'd. ) .••.. precedent. But I don't think I would like to rest on the precedent; I think I would l:ike to rest on the clear

interpretation, as I see it, of the rules that we have . Now with respect to Rule 21 , Clause (2) , it will be seen that the suggestion there is that the question shall, without motion to that effect, be first on the Order Paper of the next sitting day in its proper

section -- and here' s the

part I wish to draw attention to -- "afte r orders to which special precedence has been assigned" -- after orders to which special precedence is assigned -- and Clause (3) then deals with Orders to which special precedence has been as signed. But the point that I think I would l:ike to stress to you, Mr. S]:e aker, in ruling upon this , is that until we enter into the Orders of the Day, the quest ion of precedence does not ap ply. It has always been our custom that before we enter into matters on the Orde rs of the Day, that we deal with the Commi ttee of the Whole stage either with bills or resolutions .

Now that's the P,oint that I want to rest on. The point that I want to rest on is that before the Orders of the Day, that is before we get to government business or private members business, we deal with the Com mittee of the Whole Stage on bills or resolutions . That is exactly what we're asking the House to do today and that is , I think, the correct order of business for us to follow. MR. PAULLEY: Mr. Speaker, if I may be granted the privilege again, may I refer you and my honourable friend to subsec tion (2) of Rule No. 19 of this House .

"The orC:er of the business for the consideration of the House day by day after daily routine shall be as follows " -- and then it goes on to list what it shall be on Tuesdays and before 5:30 on Friday. While the point that my honourable friend raised can't be debated, I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that Rule 19 overrides-the proposition that we have here before us . The reason that I suggest this, Mr.

Speaker, is that if the contention of my friend the Honourable the Leader of the House was established as being corre9t, then it would be within the premise of the government to so arrange such resolutions on Private Members Day that would, in effect, prevent any private member's resolution comi ng before this House for consideration, and I would suggest that that would be a violation of the principles of democracy; wherein we have set aside in the Rules of this House, over the years, an opportunity for private members to draw to the attention of this House grievances and resolutions which in the opinion of the private member are in the best interests of the people of our fair province.

Again I say, Mr. Speaker, if the arguments of my honourable friend the Leader of the House were correct and substantiated, it would be quite within their power, using the method that they are attempting to use on the Order Paper of today , to circumvent on any Private Members Day the opportunity , which should be ou rs in a democracy, to raise ques tions and propositions for the consideration of this House. I respectfully suggest to you, Mr. Speaker , that you take this matter under advisement.

I respectfully suggest to you that you consider for this day, and I respectfully ask the govern ment to agree with me because of the importance of this whole matter, that tb.ey withdraw their motion to go into Com mittee of the Whole to di scuss a resolu tion, which is questionable, and we have raised the ques tion as to whether or not it is in order in the first place . My honourable friend the Leader of the House did tell us yesterday that the resolution that we were considering in the House of the Whole yesterday was not a resolution that was going to lead to the introduction of a bill.

I respectfully suggest to the Leader of the House and to you, Sir, that this present mo tion of the Honourable the Minister of Agriculture be withdrawn and let us take a look at it. I'm sure, on reflection, my honourable friend the Leader of the House who is a good democrat, who be lieves in the democra tic procedure in legislation, on reflection and consideration of the point that I have raised, could not but come eventually to the conclusion that I am raising at this time; and I ask him, and I ask this House , not to proceed as suggested by my honourable friend. The fact of the matter is, Mr.

Speaker, we have two resolutions before us on this motion to go into the Com mittee of the Whole House . We debated for six hours yesterday, rightly or wrongly, the first resolution. I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, arrl to this House, that this de bate could go on for another six hours, and there is a second resolution which is going to be proposed to us , if the proposition of the government to go into the Committee of the Whole House is adopted. This could take another six hours -- (Inte rjection) -- Oh yes, it could.

Oh yes, my friend the Attorney-General, let us have a firm understanding now that the resolution that you were proposing for consideration in the Com mittee of the Whole House is not going to be adopted without a debate . So I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that if this became, or continues March 27th, 1962 Page 1099

(Mr. Paulley, cont'd. ) .•... as a practice in this House , this Tuesday which is sacred, or should be sacred to the private members of this House for their resolutions and their bills, will be thrown to the winds . I appeal to you, Mr.

Speaker, and I appeal to the Leader of the House, to reconsider the motion as proposed; to take under consideration these very vital and valid fa cts I think that I have raised in this House; because the whole process of democracy can be set aside if on Private Members Day the government, by arrangement or otherwise, can utilize all of the time for such resolutions in the Committee of the Whole House as we have here before us today. MR. ROBLIN: Mr. Speaker, I would like to emphatically reject the suggestion of my honourable friend that we are attempting by some unique ..... MR. PAULLEY: I said you could. :MR.

ROBLIN: Well, I took it as a reflection on the fact that we were charged to the ef fe ct that we were attempting to make use ..... MR. PAULLEY: Mr. Speaker , if I may interrupt my honourable friend , I meant no re fle ction at all. I was dealing with hypothetical cases of how it would be possible for government -:-I did not attribute to the present government -- but I made an appeal to them not to es tablish this. I didn't say that they were attempting to do this and I want my honourable friend to rea lize that. MR. ROBLIN: Mr. Speaker, I fe el a little better now that the charge has . . ... MR.

PAULLEY: There was no charge ..•.. MR. ROBLIN: If my honourable friend will allow me to have my little say .. _ ..• . MR. PAULLEY: Just be careful how you say it. MR.

ROBLIN: I feel a good deal better that no one is attempting to charge us with an eff ort to stifle the independent voices of the members of the Legislature -- (Interjection ) - Not yet, someon e says -- I hope that charge will never be made and I fe el confident that I may say it can never be made with justice while I occupy my present position, because I've never forgo tten, Sir, that I spent some nine years , let me say, some nine years on the opposition benches of this House -- some of it as a very junior member, a backbencher in the third row ·., on the other side -- and during that nine years I learned a respect for the regular processes of this House which nothing will ever dislodge from my mind.

I am perfe ctly sure, Sir, that there will be no effo rt on the part of any of us on this side of the House to abridge those rules. Now what are we trying to do today? Are we trying to fois t some new or unheard of proced.ure on the Chamber, either intentionally or unintentionally, that might prescribe the rights of members on the other side ? I would say that we are not. In fact, all that we are trying to do is to interpret the rules correctly beca!lse we recognize that the rules are the pro tection of the members of the :House.

The rules lay down the rights and opportunities of a member to speak on the various subjects that we discuss here and, to the best of our ability, we want to uphold those rules. What I am saying is that, as far as I can see, the clear inter pretation of the rules, which is what we go on and which must bind government. and opposition alike, is that the item that we are discussing is properly one that is entered into bef ore the Orders of the Day.

It has been entered into bef ore the Orders of the Day on every occasion, in my memory, in which a messa ge from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor has been intro duced into the House. No member can say that a messa ge from His Honour was not dealt with bef ore the Orders of the Day, whether it was for a bill or a resolution, regardless of whether it was Private Members Day or government day, because we don't get to the point as to whether it is government or private members day rules that govern until we enter into the Orders of the Day. So our

interpretation is, and I see that it diff ers from the honourable gentleman op posite, but our

interpretation is that quite clearly we are bound to propose a continuation of the Committee of Supply on this matter bef ore the Orders of the Day are entered into. That has always been our custom. It has been our custom before the rules were last revised; it is our custom now. We have never done it in any other way and that method of doing business takes place whether it's private me mbers or government day because, until we get to Orders, the regulations respec ting private members and government day do not apply. Now that's. the thing that I think the House should take cognizance of, Mr. Speaker.

If a request is made for your ruling, I submit humbly that that is the point upon which you should rule. As far as I'm concerned, I'm going to take whatever answer you lay down to us as to the Page 1100 March 27th, 1962

(Mr. Roblin, cont'd. ) ...•. correct procedure. But I feel it is extremely important that if the point is questioned that it should be disposed of because, as far as I can see, there has never been an occasion in the history of this House when an item involving a messa ge from His Honour has not been dealt with in the Com mittee of the Whole stage before the Orders of the Day, for either bills or resolutions. Now that's my clear understanding of the way we've been doing business for lo these many years and that what is being sugge sted today is simply in line with our previous practice.

I do want to revert, however, to one sugges tion that my honourable friend threw out, and that was that, in this way, private members' right to discuss their motions would be abridged. Well it is .perfectly true that every time in which we have had a resol ution to go into Com mittee of the Whole on Private Members Day, and we1y_e had many of them in the course of history, man;Y' of them indeed, to that extent it encroaches on the private members' time for that day, but that I suggest is within the ambit of our rules as well understood.

However, I think if it is any comfort to honourable members I should report this fact, that I also cannot recall a time when in the course of a session of this Legislature we left any private member's business un attended to on the Order Paper, even though we might have, before we came to prorogation. That has never been done except where we had consent. In some instances, I can recall that we reached the time for prorogation and memb ers were willing to drop private resolut ions and gave consent, but had that consent been withheld, then we would have proceeded to deal with it.

We have always disposed of private members' business on our Order Paper during the sittings of the House and I trust that will be our procedure in the future , because I believe it is impor tant that we should not leave unfinished business on the Order Paper which me mbers desire to complete. . So 1 merely say that in respect of what we do with private members, and about this in sinuation or perhaps hypothetical illus tration that my honourable friend raises that in some way or other the rights of democracy are going to be abridged by the course we are following today.

I repeat my statem ent, Sir, that I think we have to look at the Orders and reflect that this business we have now is a piece that comes to us on every occasion before the Orders of the Day, be it government business or private business, and, as such, is in order as it is ar ranged· at present. MR. PAULLEY: Mr. Speaker; if I may be granted the privilege just once more.

I ap preciate the points raised by my honourable friend, but on each and every other occasion that he has referred to that we have dealt with in com mittee of the Whole House, we did not deal with resol utions to the degree that is before us today and that was before us yesterday. I would suggest to him that the only time that we dealt in Commi ttee of the Whole before Orders of the Day were just routine matters , not resolutions of the magnitude that my honourable friend has placed before us today.

He has indicated to us on at least three occasions, if I recall correctly yesterday, that the resol ution that we are dealing with at the present time, or will be dealing with if this motion is accepted, is not a motion dealing with the introduction of a bill dealing with the expenditures of money. While I am talking on the Orders, I dismiss , Mr. Speaker , my honourable friend's contention that the business of the House in respect of private members only starts after the Orders of the Day. I think he is erroneous in that.

I think the rule that I have read out, namely Rule 19 , es tablishes that, because it sets forth in clear concise language what the Order of the Day shall be, irrespective of the terminology. Also, Mr. Speaker, while I am speaking, may I sugge st to you another error that is on the Orders of the Day for today, and I ask you to take a look at Page 6 of the document before us named, "Routine Business and Orders of the Day", where after the proper item of Orders of the Day there's an Order for Return. The next item, Mr. Speaker, deals with the adjourned debate on the proposed motion of the Honourable Mr.

Evans for third reading of a bill. I sug gest that that is placing precedence over government business on private me mbers day as well, because again Rule 19 says : "government motions and government bills and er ders should fol low" . Now, Mr. Speaker, again I say -- again I say, I think the points that I have raised for your consideration are valid.

I anticipate that we may hear some comme nts from my honour able friends the members of the Liberal Party in respect of this, and if I have jumped up on a couple of occasions on this point of order when they were about to rise, may I sincerely March 27th, 1962 Page 1101

(Mr. Paulley, cont'd.) ....• apologize to them. Again, I respectfully ask you, Mr. Speaker, could not the process of democracy and the rights of the private members in this House be scuttled as a result of such procedure as is suggested in this resolution? MR. ROBI.JN: Mr. Speaker, I think probably it's time you ruled on the matter, having heard a pretty learned exchange of views between some of us, although there may be others who want to speak. I don't want to repeat my arguments, because my honourable friend has repeated his and I don't think we are any further forwarder.

But I do wish to say that when we come to the third reading of Bill No . 51, then if my honourable friend wishes to debate the point of order on that he's welcome to do so, but I would suggest that if he reads Rule 22(1) he will find that third readings have priority on private members day just as they have on govern ment day and that that item of business is entirely in order, but I think it should not be con fused with the item that we are discussing now. We should stick to one subject at a time. If others wish to speak, well they're welcome to do so, I suppose, Mr.

Speaker, but I for one am ready to listen to your ruling. MR. GILDAS MOLGAT ( Leader of the Opposition) (Ste Rose): Mr. Speaker, when we first received the Orders of the Day this morning ourselves we immediately had the same re action as my honourable friend the Leader of the NDP, because we didn' t expect this to appear today on private members day. However, on examination and on going back over the events of the session -- the Leader of the House quoted events last year -- I regretfully must confess that on a number of other Tuesdays and Fridays already in this session we ha:ve followed the same procedure.

For example, on Friday, March 23rd we went into Commi ttee of the Whole House. On Tuesday, March 20th we did the same, so it would appear insofar as the precedents in this session now, we have followed this rule. Now on going through the rule book I must frankly confess that I think it is open to some argument. I wonder if we could not resolve this, Mr. Speaker, by referring this question to our own Comm ittee on Privileges and Elections. I think it could be considered there in that commi ttee under a question of privilege and see if we can't arrive at something.

Our con cern obviously is the same as that of the Leader of the NDP, that we would never be placed in a position where our traditional Tuesday and Ftiday private members time be taken up all on government business . I am not suggesting this is what the government is trying to do now, but it's conceivable that on some cases it could be done. This would be bad. I'm convinced the government doesn't want this to happen either, so I would suggest that we simply refer this whole question to this comm ittee; let them investigate it and study it.

If we need to have a clarification in our rule book, then we can proceed to do it and we'll know where we stand in the future. Yesterday we were not happy with the resolution that was brought in. We felt that it was out of order. We don't think it should have been brought in the way it was, however, we now have it before us and I think this would be the best solution to the problem. Let's clarify the rule, then in the future we'll know where we stand. Our concern is the protection of the two private member days . MR. ROBI.JN: Mr.

Speaker, in responding to the suggestion, may ls ay that I think there may be some merit in it. For my own mind, I believe that the rule and the precedent is quite clear. I am in no doubt about it whatsoever, therefore, I am disposed to suggest that we should have. a ruling now and proceed with the business, if the ruling is that we should carry on in the way the Order Paper lays down.

However, if there are honourable members who think that the general procedure is wrong, even though it is sanctified by custom right up to the present moment and in my opinion thoroughly supported by the rules, then I think someone should bring in a resolution to the effect that these matters should be referred to the Commit tee on Privileges. I really don't think that's the commi ttee. I think we should set up a com mittee to have a look at some of these rules . If such a resolution was brought in, we would certainly not oppose it, but we feel at the present time that we should ask Mr.

Speaker to rule on this point and proceed on whatever ruling he happens to give us . MR. E. PREFONTAINE (Carillon): Mr. Speaker, I for one have no hesitation at all in supporting the Leader of the House at this moment and I think that there is no doubt that the Speaker will rule that this is in order now, but the trouble is that we were not in order yester day. We challenged it. I support the Leader of the NDP -- I supported him yesterday; I Page 1102 March 27th, 1962

(Mr. Prefonta ine, cont1d. ) ..... support him today to the extent that, because we made the mis take yesterday, we have reached now an impasse. We have before us another resolution purporting to have a standing committee look into a situation. In the past, such matters had been handled not through a messa ge from His Honour.

Time and time again we have had com mittees appointed or jobs given to a standing committee by this House without a mess age from His Honour on contentious matters, but yesterday we started a new idea by having this done through a messa ge from His Honour, and I say that was wrong because it is a contentious matter. But the first matter, this question of the floodway and everything else, is much more contentious and is contrary to precedents in this Legislature.

We had a Cabinet Minister hav ing some .matter brought up there -- some maps brought up -- going into every possible detail, contrary to precedents again with respect to matters to be discussed after a message from His Honour. I think the mis take was made yesterday.

The Leader of the government tells us that he was a backbencher a long time ; that he has a great respect for the rules of the House; but he brought us yes terda y two examples to try and prove to us that that procedure adopted yester day had been acted upon before -- had been active in this House before -- but the two matters brought yesterday were not comparable to the resolution that we.got before us yes terday at all. It was a totally dif ferent question. I say that we made a mis take yes terday, and that's why we are in trouble today.

I think that we should apply ourselves to rectifying the position that we took yesterday rather than looking at this situation today, which, I believe , the First Minister is in order . :MR. ROBLIN: Mr. Speaker, !d on't knowhowm anytimesla m goingtobe allowed to speak on this point of order .

One of these times you are going to tell me that I have spoken enough and probably that point is reacP.ed, but I really don't feel I should let my honourable fr iend's allegation go unanswered that yesterday we adopted a novel procedure, because he was a mem ber of this House. in 1956 , and in 1956 the Honourable Member for Ethelbert, who was then the Attorney-General, brought in by Committee of the Whole with a mes sage fro m His Honour in exactly the same way as it was done yesterday -- the resolution in respect of the Manitoba Liquor Enquiry Commission, a matter of most important policy.

What happened in committee at that time was -- (Interjection) -- No, he didn' t. It was a resolution, and what happened in committee at that time was exactly what happened yesterday. We talked about it all day and when the time came to adjourn no decision had been reached, consequently the committee, having spoken about it until the time for adjournment came , rose and made a report just as we did last night and the following day it was brought in before the Orders of the Day as a motion to go into Committee of the Whole again to discuss the matter -- to continue discussion of the matter.

There was no bill that followed. I have it here in my hand. It was a resolution and that's precisel y the thing that happened. But, Mr. Speaker, I must apologize for deviating fro m the point of order that is under discussi on today, which is whether or not we should pro ceed in this matter and I await your decision. :MR. MOLGAT: Mr. Speaker, in view of the controversy over this, I would suggest that this be referred definitely to a committee and discussed then so we can se ttle it. In the mean time, I would strongly recommend to you, Sir, that you take this ruling under advisement. :MR.

SPEAKER: I would think that the position is quite clear here. We have on Rule No. 19 (1) where we have the presenting petitions, reading and recei ving petitions, presenting reports for standing and spec ial committees, notice of motion and introduction of bills , which go on each Order Paper each day.

After the Orders of the Day we have either government day or private members day, and it would appear that the question of dealing with Committee of the Whole, which comes up before the Orders of the Day, might be considered as routine pre cedence when necessa ry and I would rule that it is in order to propose a motion for the Com mittee of the Whole to consider resolutions which are assigned to the committee on the Order Paper . :MR. PAULLEY: Mr. Speaker, I know that your ruling is not debatable. In the interests of democracy, I respectfully challenge your ruling. · :MR. SPEAKER: Call in the members. :MR.

MOLGAT: Mr. Speaker, could I ask a question before that is done? Would it be the intention to refer this rule to a committee to discuss it? :MR. ROBLIN: He would leave it to members to bring in a resolution to this effe ct, but March 27th, 1962 Page 1103

(Mr. Roblin, cont'd. ) ••... I think it would be favourably considered depending on the terms of the resolution. MR. MOLGAT: You would be willing to do that if we bring in such a resolution? MR. ROBLIN: I beg your pardon ? MR. MOLGATi You'd be willing to have it referred to a comm ittee if we bring in a re- solution. MR. ROBLIN: •.•.• .•.•• resolution before I comm it myself. MR. MOLGAT: We shall bring in a resolution in that regard. MR. SPEAKER: •..•••... to the motion before the House is the question: Shall Mr. Speaker's ruling be confir med.

A standing vote was taken, the result being as fo llows: YEAS: Messrs. Alexander, Baizley, Bjornson, Campbell, Carron, Christianson, Corbett, Cowan, Des jardins, Dow, Ev ans, Froese , Groves, Guttormson, Hamilton, Hillhouse , Hryhorczuk, Hutton, Ingebrigtson, Jeannotte, Johnson (Gimli), Klym , Lissaman, Lyon, McKellar, McLean, Martin, Molgat, Prefontai ne, Roblin, Roberts, Scarth, Seaborn, Shewman, Shoemaker, Sme llie, Stanes, Tanchak, Thompson, Watt, Weir, Witney, and Mrs. Forbes and Mrs. Morrison. NAYS: Messrs. Gray, Harris, Orlikow, Paulley, Peters, Reid, Wag ner, and Wright. MR. CLERK: Yeas - 44; Nays - 8.

MR. SPEAKER: I declare the motion carried. Comm ittee of the Whole House. It has been moved by the Honourable the First Minister, se conded by the Honourable Minister of Agriculture, that the House do now resolve itself into. a Com mittee to consider. the motion -- MR. ROBLIN: Mr. Speaker, the motion was by the Minister of Agriculture, seconded by the Minister of We lfa re. Mr. Speaker presented the motion and after a voice vote declared the motion carried and the House resolved itself into a Com mittee of the Whole with the Honourable Member for St. Matthews in the Chair. MR.

CHAIRMAN: •....•. resolution be adopted? MR. MOLGAT: Mr. Chairman, I think there were some questions I had asked the Minister which I hoped he would have a reply for me today. One of them was the annual costs to the Province of Manitoba. Has he got that figure yet? MR. HUTTON: If you take the -- just a minute now -- if you take the total annual cost that WEl were dealing with last night of $4, 228 , 779, you get a breakdown between the province and the fede ral government of $2,3 78, 430 to the fede ral and $1, 850, 349 to the provincial government.

I was also last night asked for inf ormation regarding·f lows on the Assiniboine, the Fair ford and the Waterhen rivers . These are available in the Lakes. Winnipeg and Manitoba Board Report, Volume I, Appendix 2, as follows : the Assiniboine river flows , Table 10; the Fair ford River flows , Table 4; and the Waterhen River flows , Table 7. MR. MOLGAT: Lake Manitoba and Winnipeg floods -- what's the exact name of the re port? MR. HUTTON: The Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba Board Report, Volume I, Appendix 2. MR. MOLGAT: Regarding maintenance costs, Mr.

Chairman, these are included in the fig ures of the total annual costs . Is that correct? MR. HUTTON: That's correct. MR. MOLGA T: Could the Minister indicate how much the maintenance costs are on each one of the projects? MR. HUTTON: I think this is available in the report of the Royal Com mission. MR. J. M. FROESE (Rhineland): Mr. Chairman, I have a few questions I would like to direct to the Minister of Agriculture regarding the Pembina Dam. Is it an es tablished fact that there will be a Pem bina Dam as well as the Pembilearpam in North Dakota?

Further, will an interim report be made by the joint com mission -- apparently this whole matter is in the planning stage -- will there be interim reports and recommendations made and will action be taken on these interim reports? MR. HUTTON: The answe r to your fi rst question respecting the Pembina Dam versus the Pembilear, the reason for the study is to determine the best mea ns of developing the Page 1104 March 27th, 1962

(Mr. Hutton, cont1d .) .••.. Pembina River water resource . They may recom mend that two reservoirs be constructed and they may recom mend that only one be constructed. We don't know that. These are two alternative sites, either one or the other or a combination of two. They are also looking into the lakes area of the Pembina valley and studying the different as pects of the Pembina valley lakes, the recre ational facilities and so on, so it's too early to at tempt to determine what sort of answers are going to come out of it. If we knew the answers we wouldn't need to carry out the study. · MR.

FROESE: Will you have to wait until the study is comp leted before any action at all will be taken? Another question --- MR. HUTTON: I would suspect so, because any action that is taken will be taken jointly between the United States and Canada. MR. FROESE: One further question in this regard. I see from the paper from yester day's discussion that water will be diverted -- or we will be able to divert water from the Saskatchewan project into Manitoba through the Qu' Appelle Valley. I was wondering, will this also be made available to the Pembilear watershed or does that strictly go to the Assi niboine River ?

Can it also be directed to the Pembina River ? MR. HUTTON: Not that I know of. MR. PRE FONTAINE: I'd like to ask the Minister again whether he agrees that the Red and the Assi niboine River can be used as a dumping ground for a mixture of snow, gravel and dirt; or if he does not agree with that, whether he will stop it? MR. HUTTON: Well, Mr. Chairman, I spoke to the Director of Water Control and Con servation about this and he failed -- the engineers failed to unders tand the concern over this practice since the snow is melted and gone downstream by the time any flood threats arrive.

If you were to consider the silt load of these rivers , that little bit of dust and dirt that is mixed up with the snow is so factual as to be insignificant. They can't really see the importance of discontinuing the dumping of snow in the -- it's got to find its way to the stream anyway -- into the drainage streams and into the rivers anyway, this run-off water -- and so they're hurrying it along its way when they dump it right in the river bed itself. Now this vo uldn't stand true for dumping of obstructions and obstacles in a river bed.

This is frowned on and, in fact, The Rivers· and Streams Act forbids such action. It is the municipalities concerned who carry out this practice and, at the present time, we don't see that it endangers the ability of the channel to handle -- or impairs the chlmnel in any way in handling heavy flows. MR. FROESE: Mr. Chairman, further on the Pembina Dam. Is the government con duc ting studies of their own for this area insofar as irrigation and making the necessary pre parations once the dam is comp leted so that we will be able to carry on irrigation in the area? MR.

HUTTON: Yes, the study of the irrigation is a fundamental part of the over-all study. MR. PREFO NTAINE: I would like to say just one word with respect to my ques tion and ·the answer of the Minister. I would like to inform the Minister that I walked over one of these places yesterday where they had dumped what was supposed to be snow. I lost my rubbers in the mud and I•m telling him that it wasn't snow, it was gravel and mud. I would like him to walk over this place. I can meet him there and he will agree with me that it is not snow, it is gravel and mud, and it's sticky.

There were all kinds of rocks and things in it too, so I would like the Minister possibly to go himself and have a look at the situation. MR. D. L. CAMPBELL (Lakeside): Mr. Chairman, there are two or three questions that I would like to address to the Honourable the Minister. I'm taking as my guide the supple mental brief headed "Water Supply for South Central Manitoba. " I presume that the author of that one was the same as the author of the Benefit Cost Analysis on the Assiniboine River Flood Control and Water Conservation Project. It was Professor Cooper I think.

I'd like to ask the Minister, on Page 4 of that report, three alternative projects are considered: The Shellmouth Reservoir, with a storage capacity of 540, 000 acre feet at a cost of $7,5 00, 000; the Holland Reser voir, with a storage capacity of 630, 000 acre feet at a cost of $17 ,6 00, 000; and then the Portage Diversion, with a capacity of 25, 000 c. f. s. at a cost of $11, 500, 000. Was it the PFRA that made the estimates in all of these cases -- the same agency and probably some of the same people at least?

Well, I don't want to worry the Com mittee by having my honourable friend and myself March 27th, 1962 Page 1105

(M r. Campbell, cont1d. ) • • . • • carry on the debate about. how it is that the larger of those two ·r eservoirs will give, according to the experts, a lesser flow of water than the smaller of the two, but -- (Interjection) -- Yes, I would like to be convinced. My honourable friend says that he thinks he can convince me, and I think he probably shouldn't take the time of this Committee to do it because I'm pretty doubtful. But I would like once again �b ecause I'm going to read on to the record now from Page 5 of that same report what Professor Cooper says about that. This is a direct quote.

"Before we go into the merits of the various alternative combinations, let us discuss first some engineering features of the reservoirs. The flood control function of the reservoirs is to store flood flows and thus reduce flood stages downstream. In order to perform this function, the flood storage space must be available during the spring. The water supply functions of the reservoir is to store water during times of ample river flow and to re lease this water in subsequent years during periods of natural low river flow. In order to per form this function, the water supply storage space is normally filled up.

If the reservoir has to perform both functions, part of the reservoir must be allocated to flood control and part to water conservation. " That's the whole of that paragraph. I can quite understand that statement and the position of the Minister who seems to en dorse it fully, provided this is considered over a period of years. But isn't it a fact that, even in the dr.ier years , that we at least have ailough flow in the spring to fill up those reservoirs? If we don't have -- if we don't have, certainly in those years there wouldn't be any problem about flooding.

Isn't it within the competence of the flood forecasting experts to have a pretty good idea earlier than this time of the year as to what the position will be ? If, at a time like this, or somewhat earlier, they decide that there is going to be a good flow, if there's going to be any danger of a flood, can't they empty or partially empty both of those reservoirs to the amount necess ary so that they can perform a flood control function? I'm certainly not insen sible of the difference in cost, and to the extent that a major difference in cost is outlined here, then that definitely is a factor.

But so far as flood control itself is concerned, it seems to me that this report, and Professor Cooper's earlier report, hardly gives the credit that would be deserved to the experts who would be in control of these reservoirs in performing a flood func tion. Then I go on to the same point that I mentioned last night. To the extent that there's a lot of feeling that Winnipeg requires a flushing action by one or other, or both of the rivers, wouldn't the extra cost of the Holland Dam be at least partially compensated for by the assist ance that could be given to Winnipeg in this way? MR. HUTTON: Mr.

Chairman, I'm glad the Honourable Member for Lakeside brought this matter up again. I think that he said, or he had understood me to say, that you would get a lesser flow from Holland than you would from Shellmouth·. This isn't true. What I said was that you could get a minimum flow in the river of 470 ·cubic feet per second from the operation of the Shellmouth. If you had the entire Holland Reservoir, you would only increase the mini mum flow to 720. It's in the Cooper Report. The reason for this is simply the incidence of your flows.

It may take a relatively small amount of water to bring that -- suppose your graph is like this -- it may take a relatively small amount of water to increase your flow to a mini mum of 470, but your graph gets wider as you increase your minimum flow and it takes a great deal more water to give you a minimum flow of some 720 cubic feet per second. If you take the entire Holland Reservoir for conservation benefits, you would increase your minimum flow by 250 c. f. s.

If you only operate the Holland Reservoir in respect of water conse rvation or if you try to operate it -- let me put it this way -- if you try to operate·it for both flood con trol and water conservation purposes, you only have your conservation pool to draw on -- that you can count on in the dry year -- and that amount of water is about 50, 000 acre feet. This water will increase your flow from 470 to 490 -- just gives you an additional 20 c. f. s. in the river.

Now if you operate the Portage Diversion during dry periods and route it through Lake Manitoba, if you took the lowest flow on record you would have got about 64, 000 acre feet of water. You could put it into Lake Manitoba and it would amount to less than an inch on that lake. You could draw it off there again by a relatively inexpensive canal. When you try to operate the Holland Reservoir for flood control and water conservation, the water conservation benefits cost too much. The day may well come when you'll want the Holland Reservoir for Page 1106 March 27th, 1962

(Mr. Hutton, cont'd. ) .•... water conservation purposes , then it will be able to fulfill a very worthwhile function, but you won't be trying to use it for flood control, you'll be using it for water conservation. When you try to evaluate these projects as we are today, the only justification for them from an economic point of view is flood control. Therefore, you must decide on the basis of flood control which one you are going to go for. The Holland Rese rvoir is a good deal more costly.

The flood protection that it offers is not as positive -- (Interjection) -- Yes, for lesser floods it is, but for larger floods it isn't. One must remember that all of these projects must rely on benefits derived or accruing from the Greater Winnipeg area, in addition to the bene fits down .the Assiniboine Valley, to jus tify their construction. So on that basis , you get cheaper flood protection; more positive flood protection from the Portage Diversion.

When you try to use the Holland Rese rvoir for both flood control and water conservation, the benefits are so small from water conservation that you have difficulty in jus tifying it for that dual pur pose. It is true that in many years you cou ld get increased flows in the river by having the Holland Rese rvoir there because of the nature of the flow in the river, but it is quite possible that you could have a very low run-off in a spring following a period which didn't indicate that you should leave too much water in that reser voir. It's got to be empty in the spring to give protection.

For instance , who ever believed -- and it appears that the kind of weather that we are having at the present time is dissipating the flood threat this spring, to some extent, if it continues, but even now we can't tell; we don't know what is in store. Flood forecasting is only as accurate as the inform ation that we have on the weather.

It doesn •t matter how much snow you get; it doesn't matter how much water the ground absorbs in the fall; the other fac tor is the weather that you get in the spring and the whole thing hinges here , and because the meteorologists are not able to pinpoint weather and to give us accurate long term forecasts , it's pretty risky business. You're working not on estimates but "gue sstimates" in operating a reser voir and so, in order to be on the safe side, you would have to be sure that you had your reservoir pretty well empty.

Now if you get a dry year the following year you're going to get very little benefit out of that rese rvoir because you're not going to have water in it unless you get a subs tantial run-off. I had some figures here that I gave last night -- (Interjection) -- Well, just a bit of a look at it. If you were to get a year like 1915 and you get a run-off of 64, 000 acre feet, it would be pretty costly water to have a $17 1/2 million dam sitting there to catch this little bit of water.

You could catch the same water in Lake Manitoba, and by mea ns of a channel -- and this is especially true in respect to river pollution -- there are cheaper means of getting water to meet the river pollution problem than the building of the Holland Reservoir. A canal out of Lake Manitoba is estimated roughly to cost in the neighbourhood of $1 million. We haven't touched Lake Winnipegosis to the north. It covers 1 1/4 million acres. Today, Lake Winni pegosis is a foot and a half below its mean level. It could very wen be raised several feet from where it is at the present time.

A foot of water on Lake Winnipegosis would give us 1 1/4 million acre feet of water -- more than twice the capacity of the proposed Holland Reser voir and it would be, by comparison, a relatively inexpensive matter to harness Lake Winni pegosis.

Now I want to point out, however, that when you harness Lake Manitoba and Lake Winni pegosis by gravity, that water is not available to the Portage area; but what does happen, you are able then to allocate almost the total flow from Shellmout h to the downstream area includ ing Portage and south central Manitoba, and you replace those waters which would be original ly allocated to the area downstream from Portage -- you replace them by taking waters from the Lake Winnipegosis - Lake Manitoba complex.

Now it is true that we don't have detailed engineering studies on Lake Winnipegosis but we do have enough knowledge about it, through the Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba Board Report and other studies, to know that there is a vast potential here that has never been touched; and so we have to keep these ma tters in mind when we consider the costs involved in developing water on the As siniboine. MR. CAMPBELL: Mr. Chairman, I should thank the Honourable the Minister for the answer that he has given me because he certainly tries to give a lot of informa tion.

He has evidently made a great study of this and I say that quite sincerely. I am not trying to be March 27th, 1962 Page 1107

(Mr. Campbell, cont'd. ) .•... facetious at all in saying that, but he gives a great deal of in formation beyond what I asked for too, because I was trying to confine this discussion to the dams that we have been talking about and the Portage la Prairie Floodway, because I am not making any bones about the fact that I don't like the floodway and I don't think that it's the right solution there.

My honourable friend will understand that I have at least one other gentleman who is interested in that area who agrees with me, even though I am sorry to say that the valued support of the Honourable the Minister of Welfare is not aligned on my side, but another gentleman from that area· has been quoted in the press as saying that this might be a $12 mil lion flop. I haven't ever gone that far, and certainly my honourable friend knows that I ani 'not a man to say: "what's $6 million ?" I do pay a lot of attention to a difference of $6 milli on.

I have read and re-rea d and re-read the Cooper report as well as this addendum that I have mentioned a little while ago, and I know that Professor Cooper points out that southern Manitoba will not need that. storage capacity for a long time yet. But I still say, and my honourable friend mentioned a moment ago that weather forecasting is not an exact science.

It certainly isn't and it's pretty hard to tell in advance what's going to happen, but I suppose I am as much entitled to my opinion as anybody else and I have the opinion, based on reading the records of what has happened before, that we have headed into; that we're still in; and that we are going to continue in a dry cycle for awhile . I think, just looking at the flows that are given in those different studies that were made, indicate that we're in for a dry cycle. It goes up and it goes down, and I think that conservation is what should be stressed now.

Even though my honourable friend agrees with this report that this water is not needed now, I think we're going to have some smaller flows for awhile. I will leave this subject of the reservoirs by simply saying that I don't think it's beyond the capacity of men to make these "guesstimates" that he suggests, and I don't expect that they'll be right all the time, but they make them, so as to have both of those reservoirs perform more flood control than is suggested in Professor Cooper's Report.

I want to come to this other matter, the matter of conservation, because I am ready to stake the very, very sma ll reputation that I have in this area on saying that we are in a dry cycle now. We've started in it; we're going to. go into it; we're going to keep on in it for awhile; and I think conservation is very important. On this matter of conservation alone - my honourable friend the Minister says that diverting the water into Lake Manitoba is a great conservation move .

I say it is the worst conservation move that you could possibly imagine , because when you put water into Lake Manitoba you expose it to that whole area:for evaporation, and my honourable friend has given some figures already to show what a huge waterflow it re quires to raise the level of Lake Manitoba one inch, or Lake Winnipegosis as the case might _be. I realize that and I have read the report sufficiently to be fairly familiar with those figures, but I have also read the report sufficiently to be impressed by the evaporation losses on Lake Manitoba.

I don't want my honourable friend, who is a very practical man, to come back to me and say: "Well that evaporation loss takes place anyway on the lakes. " Of course, we know that. There is evaporation going on in appropriate weather all the time.

But I do say that if we are discussing the conservation of the water that is presently flov.ing down the As siniboine River,- if we're discussi ng it from the basis of conservation, and that's the basis I think we should be looking at it in the next few years, then the worst place to put it, in my judgment, is on top of Lake Manitoba, because Lake Manitoba loses, on the average, some thing in the neighbourhood of two feet per year -- per annum -- something in the neighbourhood of two feet. · Now once again , befOl"e my honourable friend rises to say that that evaporation is going on anyway -- I am not denying that -- what I am saying is that we are dealing with· a specific amount of water that is flowing down the Assi niboine River or is going to flow down the Assini boine River in any one of these dry years that I expect, and I say that the worst place to put it from the standpoint of conservation is to put it in Lake Manitoba, because there you're expos ing it to the evaporation and you're going to lose a very large portion of it.

Now then, surely that's not a conservation measure. I am more interested in conservation than I am in drain age. People have heard me say in this House, ad infinitum ·! am sure, time and time again - even in the wet cycle I have continued to repeat that we have suffered much more in Manitoba from lack of moisture than we have from too much moisture. I think that's going to be Page 1108 March 27th, 1962

(Mr. Campbell, cont'd. ) •.... particularly true in the next few years, just as it was back in 1915 and those years that my honourable friend was mentioning, and I think the order of the day should be conservation, combined with fl ood control that's true, but I think we're going to have much more worry in the next few years over conservation than over flood control. And arguing from that I say to my honourable friend that from the standpoint of conservation, which I believe to be paramount, the very worst place to put this water is in Lake Manitoba. MR. CHAffiMAN: Resolution be adopted? MR.

HUTTON: I think this is a very important matter, Mr. Chairman. The honourable member states that I am a practical man and I am going to rise to say that we're losing that water any.way. Is he trying to tell me that if we put this water into Lake Manitoba we're going to increase the annual losses from that lake? Because I can't buy that.

The only increase in loss that you will have, as I understand the matter, is in any enlargement in the surface of the lake as the result of these flows, and I would suggest that when you consider the tremendous area of Lake Manitoba, that your losses, increased losses due to an increased lake surface, will be relatively small, very small indeed compared to the losses that are taking place at the present time.

I think that from those increased losses, if you're going to be fair about it, that you would have to subtract the losses that are going to occur when you create another large surface of water by creation of another reservoir. So I must reject that argument, even though there is some truth in it. There's a measure of truth in what he says, but only to the extent that. I have indicated, and it doesn't carry enough weight to argue against using Lake Manitoba as a reservoir.

I have stated; and I know the Honourable Member from Lake side has heard me state that, in the future, Lake Winnipegosis and Lake Manitoba are going to be developed as a great water resource for the Province of Manitoba. I have great difficulty in understand ing anyone who says that Manitoba is short of water, because all you have to do is look at a map. We are blessed, as few provinces are blessed, with a water resource. Our only pro blem with water is to distribute it in an economical manner to those areas that need it.

The existence of the flood problem in Manitoba is actually a vehicle, if you like to call it that, for achieving a measure of water conservation that otherwise would be impractical for the province to carry out at the present time.

Although we want to combine as much water conservation as we can with these flood control measures, it just isn't practical or in the in terest of the province to spend an amount of money to create additional reservoirs for supplies of waters in an area that will be looked after for the next 40 years; to spend an amount of money which, by the year 2000, will amount to $66, 000, 000 from which we will have had n.o benefit whatsoever.

If we want to build that Holland Reservoir -- suppose we don't say that and we don't spend that money today and we set it aside, by the year 2000, when it is expected there may be justification for the building of such a reservoir, we'd have $66 ,0 00, 000 to do it with. It just doesn't make sense to spend that kind of money and get no benefit from it. If we didn't have enough water in the Assiniboine to serve south central, the areas that can be served from the Assiniboine, then I could buy tP.at argument without reservation, but we've already got enough ' water from the She'i.lmouth.

We don't need any more water until the year 2000. Why spend that money now, when there.are other areas where we could spend it and get benefits imme diately? Another statement was made by the honourable member which I can't quite buy, and that is the losses to date have been greater from too little water than from too much water. Well this depends upon the area in which you live in Manitoba.

I would suggest that in the Red River Valley, if you want to take the area from the Pembina escarpment east and in the Assiniboine Valley from Portage to Winnipeg, the area which we are trying to protect in the Assiniboine Valley, that their losses to date have been greater from too much water than from too little water, because in the heavy valley land we suffer more from reduced yields due to too much rainfall and too much moisture than we ever do from having too little. Now this isn't true of the higher land in the west.

They need water, but a great deal of this land would not benefit, very little in fact, would benefit from the Holland Reservoir -- ·very little. So I don't think that we're going to 9ure the ills or the problems cir solve the problem that the Honourable Mem ber for Lakeside is talking about by spending an additional $6 ,000, 000 for a reservoir at Hol 'land from which we're goilig to get no benefit from the areas that suffer and have suffered in March 27th, 196 2 Page 1109

(Mr. Hutton, cont1d. ) •.... the past 'from a lack of moisture. If we do want to help these people, as we do, we are much better to take those monies and spend them where we're going to get immediate benefit and real benefits that can apply to the problem that he has referred to. MR. CAMPBELL: Mr. Chairman, I was speaking of Manitoba as a whole when I made the statement that, in my opinion, that we in Manitoba had suffered more from lack of water than from too much water, and I still believe that to be true.

My honourable friend mentions the Red River Valley, and in a good part of that, what he says, is perfectly right in my opinion, that they have probably got some of their best crops in the seasons of shorter rainfall and they have suff ered from flooding on many occasions. But when you take the large southwest part of this province where people moved out in the dry year, and you take the statement that I made as pertaining to the whole of Manitoba and over the years , over the history of this province, I would stand by that statement even if my honourable friend doesn't agree with it.

Now with this question of conservation and evaporation, my honourable friend did exactly the thing that I suggested to him he should not do. I made it very plain to him that I was talking just about the water that is flowing down the Ass:lniboine. River now, or is to flow down in the future -- about that water from a conservation standpoint. I freely admit that what he said is r:lght.

I'm not advocating only the Holland Dam: I'm advocating a series of dams in different parts of the country -- the southwest needs it more than perhaps that area around Holland - dams on the sma ll tributaries and things of that sort. I'm speaking of conservation in general.

And speaking of conserva tion in general, my point was that fo r the water that is flowing down the Ass:lniboine now, or is going to be flowing down it in the futu re, that it is much better to have it conserved in a dam, or better still in my opinion, a series of sma ller dams, than to take it out to Lake Manitoba, because there's where the great evaporation takes place.

Taking that water of the Ass:lniboine as between reservoirs and spreading it over Lake Manitoba --. sure the evaporation won't be a great deal less, but the evaporation is a tremendous amount now and if you put that amount of water out on the lake, my point is you are going to lose much more of it than you use by having it in reservoirs. That's the point that I'm making and that's the point on which I say to my honourable friend that that's the worst conservation use that you could make of it. Now my honourable friend says that we're not short of water in Manitoba.

Just at the time when the press and all the rest have been talking about the danger of a flood threat, which I think does not exist at all, is a good time to be saying perhaps that we have lots of water in Manitoba. He says: "Look at the map." Well, look at the map-- (Interjection) -- Pardon? MR. HUTTON: I qualified that. MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, but you said look at the map -- MR. HUTTON: Yes. . .. MR. CAMPBELL: ..• to see that we have lots of water _:,:. we 're not short of water. That's right. But the trouble is, as he mentioned quite properly, is getting it to the places that it's needed.

These proposals of Prof essor Cooper -� and perhaps they're not even pro posals at this stage -- my honourable friend mentioned a couple of them yesterday, more than a couple, but he dealt with the Pembina River: he dealt with the Assiniboine River - that's had a good bit of treatment -- I don't think he dealt with the Winnipeg River yes terday.

These schemes that are talked about here for getting the water to the parts of Manitoba that need it -- if my honourable friend wants to talk about $66 million, let him look at the schemes that are. talked about here, diverting from the Winnipeg River or from the Lake of the Woods, or the Saskatchewan River into the Qu1Appelle -- (Interjection) -- yes� MR. HUTTON: Would you be interes ted in p.aving a rough estimate of what it might cost to bring it from the Saskatchewan River?

About $7 million is a rough estimate, and it would give you many more times the amount of water that you would get out of Holland Reservoir and it would provide the entire Ass iniboine Valley. MR. CAMPBELL: But as the report points out, not a dependable flow, because at the very time that we would be short of water that country would be short of water too. That's the diff iculty with that. particular proposal. The flow of the Saskatchewan River may be diverted from Cedar Lake through an artificial canal into Lake Winnipegosis and Lake Manitoba. How much does that one cost? Page 1110 March 27th, 1962

MR. HUTTON: I don't know. MR. CAMPBEL L: No, but if my honourable friend figure s it out on the same basis that he -- (Interjection) -- Pardon? -- (Interjection) -- Four and a half miles. That's what it used to be when we were talking about that. MR. A. H. CORBETT (Swan River) : ..... probably be 100 feet deep in spots . MR. CAMPBEL L: Well how much would it be ? And then if the Saskatchewan River is not available for these purposes, it would be technically simple -- and I notice that he says technically simple -- to divert the Churchill River into the Sturgeon-Weir River. My honour able friend is right .

It's the cost of getting these to where they're needed, and if he fig ures any of the.se out on the basis that he's figuring the $6 million diff erence on the Portage diver sion and the Holland Dam , he'll really arrive at a figu re. Then there's even another one, where for some reason all of the above water supplies are not available. Water can be pumped at the Grand Rapids site fro m Lake Winni peg into Cedar Lake, and thence flow via Lake Winni pegosis and Lake Manitoba to south central Mani toba. I'd like to have an estimate on all of these proposals.

The Minister is perfectly right, it's not easy to get the water where it's needed. My point is , don't run it out of the area where it is now, or expose it to needless evaporation -- that's not conservation. MR. CHAIRMAN: Resolution be adopted? MR. J. P. TANCHAK (Emerson): Mr. Chairman, as usual I'm just going to speak once. I do it almost every year.

I can see that this floodway around the City of Winnipeg is an obses sion with the Minister and we Will let it stay so, but despite the Minister's obsession and the government's sanguinity on this matter, I myself, and many more of us are a little worried and concerned about the financing of this Greater Winni peg Floodway. For instance, we have no fir m commitment from Ottawa as to the total cost-sharing of this huge project which will cost the people of Canada, that is the Province of Manitoba and the people of Canada, in the neighbourhood of a quarter of a billion dollars .

It seems to me that presently the government hasn't any firm commitment because the Minister told us yes terday, he said: "firm commit ment on the principle ." It seems to me that the government, or the Minister is accepting this old slogan that we say, 11A pig in a Poke", and wants everybody in this House to endorse the acceptance of this. But we'll leave that as it is . I, as a Member of Emerson constituency, am naturally worried and concerned about the resi dents who live in the upper valley of the Red River . . By upper valley I mean the area south of Ste. Agathe to the International Boundary.

It includes such towns as Emerson, Letellier, St. Jean, and maybe I should mention Morris, because I've given all the chances for the Honourable Member from Morris to speak up for his constituency. I didn't get up fi rst. I spoke up for his constituency last year and, up till now, I didn't hear him. I wonder whether he was in or out of caucus when this was being discussed in his Party. I wonder what policy, or what assistance, or what assurance the Minister.has, or can give these people south of Ste. Agathe. I don't find any. I haven't heard him mention it in the House here.

I said policy, protection or assis tance, because I think it is vitally important to us that these people have confidence in what they're doing; that they will remain on their land. A lot of them feel insecure, and especially so when we discuss the floodway here and those people seem to be the forgotten children of Manitoba. Nothing is mentioned as far as their security is concerned.

I certainly agree that it is very important to protect our great centres, large centres like Winni peg, centre of communication, centre of our great industry in Manitoba, but I think it is no less important, or is just as important to offe r some protection to the people south. These people are engaged in producing the things that we eat and in producing the raw materials which help to keep our factories going.

Now I'm most upset that what the government proposes fails to provide any protection for my constituents and also for those of the silent Member of Morris, and I'd like the Minister to give us out his policy on this. MR. H. P. SHE WMAN (Morris): Mr. Chairman, following the previous speaker, I had faith in the previous government when they told us a good many years ago that they were doing everything they possibly could and that they'd hired the best -- (Interjection} -- just a minute.

You've made your speech now, and if you knew what you were talking about you wouldn't have made the kind of speech you just got finished making. I had faith in that government to do the March 27th, 1962 Page 1111

(Mr. Shewman, cont'd. ) .•.•• best they could possibly do, which in some respects in my opinion wasn't the right thing, not only for the people of the Red River Valley but for the people of Manit oba. I have faith in this government that they are doing what is right under the circumstances for the people of the Red River Valley and the people of Manitoba. When the Honourable Member fro m Emerson mentioned the forgotten children of Manitoba I thought that for a good many years when his Party was the government of Manitoba -- (Inter jection) -- Not a bit.

I'm on a lot fi rmer ground than he was -- a lot fir mer ground under the circumstances than he ever was or ever expects to be. I can remember quite well the Party that he belongs to telling us that they had the best experts that they could get to inve stigate and study the causes of the flood and they were doing everything that they could humanly possibly do to alleviate the questions of flooding as far as Manitoba was concerned. I believed them. I believed the previous government, and I hope I never come to the stage where I lose faith in mankind the way that the Honourable Member for Emerson has done.

Apparently in his re marks, Mr. Chairman, this aftern oon, everything this governmen� is doing, or is trying to do is absolutely wrong, and I doubt that very much. I think they're sincere, just· as sincere as the previous government was in their effo rts to do what was right for the people of the Red River Valley and the people of Manitoba at large.

I would hope that he would, in his spare time, which I know he has a lot of, he must have for all the efforts that he's putting into this House - the efforts to help the people of Manitoba today - and I wish that he would, in his time, go back and read the journals since I have been a member in this House. I would hope, sincerely hope, and I wish the honourable member would -- well if he would only put one-quarter of the time that I've put in to help the people of the Red River Valley, I would wish him well if he would only put that much effort into it. MR. TANCHAK: Mr.

Chairman, I am not going to quarrel with the honourable member because -- (Interjection) -- as another person -- I still consider him as friend but I don't think it is right fo r him to sit there and not ask for protection-of his own people, and I am not saying that whatever this government is doing is no good and not right.

It isn't true, because in many instances when I got up here I gave credit where I thought it was -- I am not going to -- I am not prepared to make that statement, and 1 haven't said that the floodway wasn't any good, and as far as the Honourable Member from Morris, I apologiZe to him that I disturbed his hiberna tion, and now I'd like to get an answer fr om the Honourable Minister. MR.

SHEWMAN: In answer to that remark I came up the hard way, you might say, in this wo;rld and I always was taught that silence was golden, and I can see a lot of gold in the• effo rts of this government of what they're trying to do for water conservation and flood control for the people of Manito ba. Now the Honourable Member fro m Emerson is starting to apologiZe. Well, I don't think -- I hope,_ Mr. Chairman, that I never make a statement in this House that I will have to apologiZe because when anyone starts to apologiZe !think it shows weakness. . • • • . . . • . Continued on next page Pagel 112 March 27th, 1962

MR. PREFONTAINE : If there is gold in silence I don't see much gold in the speeches of the Minister of Agriculture in trying to sell his policies to this Hou se . I would like to possibly ask the First Minister or the Minister of Agriculture what has become of the promise made in 1959 when, before the Orders of the Day, I believe, the First Minister announced his famous floodway. At that time he promised to investigate, after admitting that this would not do any thing to protect the people in the up per valley, he promised to investigate the possibilities of helpingthe people up the valley.

I asked him every year since that time what he had done - what had been done by his government, and he the first year answered, ''Well we are still look-· ing at it." Last year my question was not answered at all and I haven't heard that the people down in these vi llages of St. Jean, Morris, Emerson have been contacted as to whether they would like to have these ring dikes that were sugge sted by the two commissio ns, that might be built; dikes around these villages to protect them. Apparently they haven't been seeing these people, whether they would like this kind of protection.

At the pre sent time there's no protec tion at all. There was a letter in the two papers last week from a citiZen of Morris municipal ity in which he advocated that the rapids at Ste. Agathe possibly should be cleaned ou t, because everybody knows that there are sub stantial rapids down there at Ste. Agathe. We can see the rocks there when we pass.

We used to pass on the ferry and now when we travel on the bridge we can see dry spots there, black spots with rocks, and there is a ridge down there and this prevents the early flow of the water, and t his man who wrote the papers suggests that some thing should be done, that they might get some protection. Apparently nothing much has been done down there, and I say that something should be done, that people should be contacted as to whether they would want this type of protection. I would like to bring also. the que stion of the Ste. Agathe dike.

Now apparently the minis ter yesterday in his statement agreed that if a dike was built at Ste. Agathe as recommended by the Red River Basin Investigation, it would afford protection to Winnipeg. I don't remember if he said as much as a ·floodway wou ld, but it would afford quite a bit of protection to Winnipeg, and if he has read the report of the Red River Basin Investigation and Manning Report he would agree with me that this would afford good protection. I would like to quote from page 72 of t he Red River Basin Investigation with respect to that dike,

summary discuss ions page 71, and at the end it has this to day: "Two of the three storage reser voirs that have been investigated, the Russell and the Pembina River Reservoirs, would have only minor effects on the high flood stages at Winnipeg, the Russell and the Pembina. " It has stated before that the Pembina would afford three inches and the Russell would afford less. "The o.ther reservoir, the Ste. Agathe Detention Basin which wQuld act as a detention res ervoir only, would be effective in reducing the stages of large floods because it would control a very large proportion of the drainage area.

" - - it has stated before that it would control 95 percent of the drainage area; it WDuld be close to Winnipeg and it would afford a lot of protection to Winnipeg, and if -- I haven't got the passage here but it says that it would afford the same protection as this 60, 000 c. f. s. in the floodway. The government has rejected the Ste. Agathe Basin although it would cost $7 million and the report says that if on the water side of the dike of Ste.

Agathe instead of using rip rap we used just sod that the cost would be diminished by $2 million, so this would not be a cost ly program and it would have. a very high cost-benefit ratio. Now we haven't got a cost-benefit ratio but if it would protect Winnipeg and do just about what the floodway would do at $6 million it would have a very high co st-benefit ratio. I don't know if I should not recommend to the government right now to conserve that -- to protect Winnipeg against greater floods than the '50 flood. The Minister said in a democratic country we can't advocate such a thing, but Mr.

Chairman, the Minister said that he was asking the people around Shellmouth to make sacrifices for democracy , and he's asking now some 500 families in the path of the floodway to make sacri fices. In fact he's just passed an Order-in-Council and seized their land -- confiscated their property -- 500 families -- some two or three thousand people possibly .

They're being asked to make sacrifices; not asked, they're told they have to make sacrifices, but now if it would be possible to have that dike at a cost of $6 or $7 million and include in the scheme a promise of protection for the people down the valley which would be flooded before we used the dike -- and the experts have all stated that this proposed dike at Ste. Agathe would not be used until the people up the valley would already be flooded. I would like to quote one sentence possibly if I can -- and to show how the experts judge March 27th, 1962 Page 1113

·' (Mr. Prefontaine, cont'd. ) •••• that situation. I might be pardoned if I take a second. It's with respect to a statement -- with respect to railroad and highway crossings . They recom mend that nothing should be done there with respect to railroad ap.d highway crossings and they give you the reasons . "Openings would be left in the dike at points where railroads and high ways cross it, which would avoid the neces sity for any major relocations. Typical sections of these crossings are shown on page 14. During floods the openings could be closed by sand bags and other means.

This would prevent operation of the railroad or highway, but" -- and this is the important statement -- "but, by the time closure became necessa ry the traffic would have already been cut off by flooding to the south. It is not anticipated that, additional incon venience would be caused by this arrangement." Do you see the point? Already the traffic by railroad and by highway would have been cut off. Those who have experienced the flood of 1950, and I am sure that the Honourable Member for Morris will agree with me , that before anything happened at Ste.

Agathe there had been evacuation already at Morris , because Morris receives the water much more quickly and there's a rise from Morris to Ste. Agathe .. So be fore the dike would be put into operation at Ste. Agathe already the people south of Ste. Agathe would have been flooded. If there is a dike, possibly once in a hundred years there would be a larger flood; that's the experience of the last 100 years. The 1950 flood and no more in 100 years. Possibly they would suffer a little more but they would suffer ·anyway.

They would have been flooded prior to the use being made of the dike, and of course we would have to com pensate them , but to compensate these people once in 50 years or once in 100 years when we compare the cost of building this dike at $6 milHon in comparison to the $64 million ,. I wonder whether we should not adopt another attitude. The experts have agreed that this would do the thing but for political reasons it has been discarded. t wonder if we should not look ourselves now. It's not a question of expert opinion, it's a question of politics .

For political reasons it has been discarded, the proposal to build the Ste. Agathe dike, and we have also the Peri meter Highway which could be looked into in order to see whether we could not protect the City of Winnipeg just at the level that we are proposing to do with this floodway -- 60, 000 c. f. s. with the floodway plus some increases up to 169 ,0 00, and we could do that with the Ste. Agathe dike and the Perimeter Highway and the present· dike. So, this is worth looking into, I suggest, Mr. Chair man, rather than discarding it as a political iss.ue that's too great to face .

Now I don't know what would be the reaction of the people down in the valley, but if they studied the report, analysed what the engineers have stated and realize that they would be flooded before the dike and the passageway would be used, their situation wouldn't be much worse , but they would have a guarantee from any responsible government of complete compensation if there's adcjitional flood because of that dike. So I suggest to the Minister and to the government that this whole situation maybe should be re assessed in view of the recommendations. MR. HUTTON: Mr.

Chairman, you know it's just hard to believe your ears in this As sembly sometimes. Of all the hyprocrisy I've every heard it's for a member to stand up and accuse this government of having no thought for the people upstream on the Red River and then to turn around in the next breath and advocate a scheme that would turn the whole area south of .•.•• MR . PREFONTAINE : Mr. Chairman , I demand that he retract the word "hypocrisy". I did not suggest any hypocrisy at all and I demand that you retract these words. MR .

HUTTON: You accused this government of taking no thought for the people upstream on the Red River, and then the Honourable Member turned around and advocated a policy of de liberately flooding _these people . Now this is just absolutely ridiculous ! This government has -- (Interjection) -- MR. PREFONTAINE : •.. there are serious reasons . MR . HUTTON: This government has nothing to apologize to the people in the upper Red River Valley .

Yes, and we consider them enough to be citizens of this province , but we are not prepared to go out and flood them deliberately. --(Interjection) -- We are not prepared, and it isn't a question of politics at alL The Honourable .Member for Carillon can get up with impunity because according to my information such a scheme would not affect the constituency of Carillon. No it won't, and so with great impunity and with nothing to lose he can advocate a scheme that would turn southern Manitoba into a reservoir to protect the rest of, a major Page 1114 ]darch 27th, 1962

(Mr . Hutton, cont' d.) ••••. part of the province in respect to population . This is just completely unbelieva ble , and besides, the inf ormation in the Red River Basin In vestigation in dicates that when you go beyond a flood of the magnitude of the 1950 flood there is no protection in this dike. --(In terje ction) -- Let me read, Mr. Chairman , from page 72: "The Ste .

Agathe detention basin project at an estimated cost of $12 million would provide complete protection to Greater Winnipe g for all floods up to and including the magnitude of the 1950 fl ood,. but its effects would dimini sh for greater floo ds. The deliberate flooding of the rural areas to the south of Ste . Agathe would be a major disadvantage of this project.

The increase in the aver age annual loss to the rural areas within the detention basin area that would result fr om this controlle d flooding has been estimated to be $130, 000 and the capitalized value of this loss would form about 25% of the total cost to the provin ce . This increase in the average ann ual flood loss to the south of Ste . Agathe would be partially offset by the decrease in the average annual flood loss to the rural area between Ste . Agathe and Winni peg. It was found that for any particular flood the Ste.

Agathe dike and control work should cause little or no inc rease in the water level for the peak ·flow that flooded the international boundary , at the international boun dary" -- (In terject ion) -- No, not at the inte rnational bounda ry. "Because the maximum head on the Ste .

Agathe dike would be about 12 feet and because ofit's proximityto the Greater Winni peg area there would be created a potential hazard to that densely populated urban centre and to the small comm\]D.ities down stream from the dike, A much more thorough mechan ics inve s tigation along the proposed dikes would have to be made before a final design of this project.

But the important thing here is.that it is only effe ctive for a flood 10% larger than the 1950 flo od, " and this is also in the report: "and if that dike were every over -topped, can you ima gine with a 12-foot head and it broke loose?" These are the reasons amongst others that this project was discarded in favour of the floo dway. MR . SHEWMAN: A word in answer. to the Hon ourable Member from Carillon. About the dike -- and I will take the Town of Morris.

After the 1950 flood when we received the re ports that we have , we discussed that quite thoroughly , and to put a dike that would have any effe ct as far as protection for the Town of Morris was concerned, it would have to be all the. way from 8 feet to 14 fe et high around the Town of Morris. We discussed that with the Minis ter of Public Works of the previous government at that time, and he didn't approve of the dikes around the Town of Morris.

The dike that the Honourable Member for Carillon speaks about, I wish that he would go down south of that dike and drop in, pick any 20 fa rmers that he wants to pick and ask them what they think about the Ste . Agathe dike. I would bet him a new Panama hat -- and I look like the devil in a Panama hat -- that he would get the same answer from every one of them , "no dike." Now we have studied this thing and studied hard in the years gone by, and if you will look at the map, the elevations of the Red River V alley, you will find that there 's a spot south of Morris four .or five miles to , almost to Ste .

Agathe that is the bottom of the old Lake Agassiz, and when you're talking of dikes and drainage , such like, the previous governm·ent has told me this on more than one occasion, that it's almost or I would say imposs ible to help the people south of this dike that they're talking about, and I think the people realize that , that they're in the bottom of the . . • . . • . . . , but they are looking for some help from the Government of Manitoba and from the Government of Ottawa for assistance and I am safe in saying that it won't be dikes and such like, it will be some sort of an in surance scheme , and I have asked fo r that in this House to be established that would make them reasonably sure in case of another flood that there would be some help for them .

MR . MOLGAT: I would like to back some of the specific figures I asked the Minister - that was the ones on maintenenac e. Could he supply those to me now ? MR . HUTTON: I'll try and find them for the Honourable Member. MR . MOLGAT: If he hasn't got them now , Mr. Chairman, it will be all right, but I would like the ann ual maintenance costs on the Greater Winni peg fl oodway, the Shellmouth and the Portage. I think the se are very important to the discussion of the project. Also I would like to know what is the sharing of the maintenan ce cost with Ottawa. Can he give me that information now? MR .

HUTTON: I haven 't got that info rmation •. ••.•. MR . MOLGAT: Will Ottawa be sharing in the maintenance cost? Or will they not? MR . HUTTON: This is a matter for agreement . I couldn't say that . March 27th, 1962 p� 1115

:MR. MOLGAT: Is there no agreement on this matter yet, Mr. Chairman? --(Interjec tion)-- No , I am speaking now about the maintenance. I appreciate my honourable friends who told me yesterday they were presenting resolution to the House without having an agreement with Ottawa. I found that much out, to which I object very much, but now I find out that they have no agreement either on the matters of maintenance and the Minister doesn't even know apparently what the maintenance on this whole project is going to be . Rather odd ways of bringing resolutions into the House. :MR. HUTTON: .• •.••.• Mr.

Chairman, we have the figures. I just haven't got them at hand and I am not going to give him figures off the top of my head that aren' t accurate. :MR. MOLGAT: Well my friend certainly had a iot of other figures of much less impor tance to the debate than this particular one , I would suggest. MR. CHAffiMAN: Adopted? MR. MOLGAT: Mr. Chairman, I just want to make a general statement at this time. So far as our group is concerned we are not going to object to the moving of this resolution on to the stage in the House.

I want to make it very clear, however , that in so doing we reserve our right completely to vote against any portion of the whole resolution, to amend it, to do what we want with it in the House . We are only moving or agreeing to it s movement to the second stage. We're not agreeing as such to the resolution. MR. CHAmMAN: •••• passed. Resolution No. 2. HON. STERLING LYON, Q .C. (Attorney-General) (Fort Garry): Mr. Chairman, his Honour the Lieutenant-Governor having been informed of the subject matter of the proposed resolution recommends it to the House .

WHEREAS all self -governing members of the British Commonwealth of Nations except Canada have the power to amend their respective Constitutions without reference to the Parli ament of the United Kingdom; AND

WHEREAS for many years successive Governments of Canada and of the several Provinces have given consideration to the desirability and the method of amending the Consti tution of Canada without the necessity of petitioning the Parliament of the United Kingdom to enact the legislation required; AND .WHEREAS the Honourable the Minister of Justice for Canada and the Attorneys-Gen eral of the Provinces , at the· invitation of the Honourable the.M inister of Ju.stice for Canada, have since the month of September, 1960 , met in conferences from time to time with the ob ject of formulating a procedure whereby the amendment of the Constitution of Canada might be domiciled in Canada and without recourse to the.

Parliament of the United Kingdom; AND

WHEREAS it appeared that there was unanimous agreement on the desirability of establishing an amending procedure as aforesaid, and thereby achieving this important mea sure of national self determination for Canada; · AND

WHEREAS it was found possible to reconcile in part some of the divergencies in views of the Provinces and to adopt in principle for presentation and consideration by the sev eral Provincial Legislatures a draft of legislation that, if enacted by the United Kingdom Par liament, would achieve the objective desired; AND

WHEREAS as a result of the deliberations of the Conferences between the Honour able the Minister of Justice for Canada and the Honourable Attorneys-General of the several provinces, the draft of

an Act to be known as the Constitution of Canada Amendment Act set out in

Schedule A to this resolution, was prepared, embodying aJi amending procedure, and was submitted to the several Provinces for their approval; AND

WHEREAS in the opinion of this House it is in the public interest and in the interest of the citizens of Manitoba that the power to amend the Constitution of Canada should be domiciled in Canada.

NOW, THEREFORE , BE IT AND IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED that this House doth approve the principle of establishing the right of Canada to amend its Constitution without reference to the Parliament of the United Kingdom; AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the draft of

an Act to be known as the Constitu tion of C.anada Amendment Act set out in

Schedule "A" to this Resolution be referred to the Standing Committee on Statutory Regulations and Orders for consideration and that the said Page 1116 March 27th, 1962

(Mr.

Lyon, cont'd.) •••• Committee be empowered to sit and hold public hearings on the said draft Act during the present Session, and in recess , after prorogation, and to report to this House on its findings and recommendation at this session or at the next ses sion of the Legislature; AND THAT the Provincial Treasurer be authorized to pay out of the Consolidated Fund, to the members of the said Committee , the amount of expenses incurred by the members in attending the sittings of the Committee , or expenses incurred by the members in the perfor mances of duties ordered by the Comm ittee, in recess , after prorogation, as are deemed neces sary by the Comptroller-General ; AND THAT the Provincial Treasurer be authorized to pay out of the Consolidated Fund, the expenses of counsel, secretaries, technical advisers, clerks , and stenographers, to aid and assist said Committee in its hearings during the sessi on or after prorogation during re cess as are deemed necessa ry by the Comptroller-Gen eral.

Mr. Chairm an, with respect to the second resolution which appears on the Order Paper, I believe honourable members of the House on all sides will be pleased to know that I intend to deal only with those sections which relate to the financial aspects of it, namely in the operative

section of the resolution itself, the second last and the last paragraph, namely: that the Pro vincial Treasurer be authorized to pay out of the Consolidated Fund to members of the Commit tee, the amount of expenses incurred by the members in attending the sittings of the Committee or expenses incurred by the members in the performance of their duties ordered by the Com mittee , in recess , after prorogation, as are deemed neces sary by the Comptroller-Gen eral; and the paragraph that follows that.

I should just say by way of explanation that this is the customary way in which such r:esolutions are brought into the committee stage and that with permission of the House I intend to make my full statement in support of the resolution after it has received approval in committee, and with the further permission of the House , because this is private members' day , I would imagine that there would be approval from the other side if I were to suggest that I make those remarks perhaps tomorrow on government time and that this resolution might stand after it leaves committee, might stand on the Order Paper and will be spoken on tomorrow.

MR. PAULLEY: The only comment that I would make, I think that the Minister's ap proach to his resolution is the correct approach after listening for, oh about eight hours to another resolution that I can't mention because it's already been dealt with. Had the same approach been in respect of that resolution I would suggest that the business of the House would have been facilitated. I am happy as far as I am concerned and I am. sure my colleagues in this group will agree with me , are happy in the approach of this particular resolution at this time. MR . MOLGAT: Mr .

Chairman, I presume that the resolution that will be presented to the House will be identical in wording to the one that appears here . lVIR. LYON: Yes, Mr . Chairman. MR.. CH AIRMAN: • . •. . . • passed. Committee rise and report. Call in the Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has adopted certain resolutions and di rected me to report the same and asks leave to sit again. MR . W. G. MARTIN (St. Matthews): Mr . Speaker, I beg to move seconded by the Hon- ourable Member from Swan River , that the report of the Committee be received. Mr.

Speaker presented the motion and after a voice vote declared the motion carried. MR. SPEAKER: Orders of the Day. MR. LYON: Mr . Speaker, on a point of order, I believe with respect of the resolutions proposed in committee, or that went to committee, proposed by the Honourable the Minister of Agriculture and the one proposed by myself, might perhaps now be read or proposed formal ly before the House, although in my case I wish to make another submission with respect to my resolution. MR . PAULLEY: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether or not it wouldn't be proper for this to be done tomorrow rather than today.

Had they been bill s, then I think it would have been pro per to introduce the bills today, but resolutions I'd suggest to come from the committee to the House for debate I think it requires a day -- I'm not sure. MR. SPEAKER: It's concurrence you wish to move on the resolution • • • The March 27th, 1962 Page 1117

(Mr. Speaker, con t'd .) ••••. Honourable the Minister of Agriculture. MR . HUTTON: Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, seconded by the Honourable the Minister of Welfare , the resolution standing in my name . Can we dispense with the reading , Mr. Speaker ? MR . SPEAKER: It's up to the House to say •••. Agreed that we dispense with the reading? MR . PAULLEY: Mr . Speaker, I don't think that it actually has been read so that it would appear in Hans iud. --(Interj ection) -- Has it? From the Committee ? MR . HUTTON: Would you take it as read? MR. PAULLEY: Taken as read, yes . MR . SPEAKER: Are you ready for the question?

MR . MOLGAT: Mr . Speaker , I beg to move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Carillon, that the debate be adjourn ed. Mr. Speaker presented the motion and after a voice vote declared the motion carried. MR . ROBLIN: Mr. Speaker, the order would customarily be the reporting, the moving of the resolution with respect to the constitution . However, I wonde r if I may ask the permis sion of the House to have that item stand on the Order Paper, because my colleague would pre fer to introduce it tomorrow when he could deal with it properly, if that met with the approval of the House. MR . SPEAKER: Agreed?

Orders of the Day. The Honourable Member for St. George. MR . MOLGAT: Mr. Speaker, before the Orders of the Day I'd like to direct a question to the First Minist er . I wonder if he could give us the report at this time on the sal� s of the savings bonds. They've now been on the market for what, one week yesterday? MR . ROBLIN: Mr. Speaker, I can't give the House any detailed info rmation at the pre sent time. I don't have it in my possession. But I can say this, that by and large the sales are running at a rate . considerably below last year.

I don't know just what total we'll finally get but if we get half of what we got last year I think that will probably be a pretty good total, and it's possible we may not get that much. The circumstance s of the market are much chang ed. I think the main point is that the issue last year tapped supplies of money that pre viously had not been tapped. Of course , once they're tapped they' re. used up for. that_particular purpose . So that I can't give the House a figure but I do tell the House that it is considerably behind last year and I doubt that we'll make anything more than , say, $20 million at the most.

MR . MOLGAT: Mr. Speaker, a subsequent question. As I recall it last year the First Ministe r indicated that the success was an indication of the confidence in his government . I wonder if the movement this year reflects the same. MR . ROBLIN: Mr. Speaker, they were so c�rifident 1ast year that we got it all. Now we're in the position of just being able to get the normal turnov er . MR. SPEAKER: Orders of the Day. MR . DAVID ORLIKOW (St. Johri 's): Mr . Speaker, before the Orders of the Day.

Last week I asked the Attorney-Gen eral if he could arrange for some of our members to visit the Vaughan Street Detention Home. Saturday morning would be suitable to us at say 10 :30 , if that's agreeable to the Ministe r. MR . LYON: Mr. Speaker, last week I also replied to the Honourable Member for St. John' s and said that when he supplied me with a list of the people who wished to go and I subsequently had a private communication from the official opposition to this effect, when the two of them are presented I'll try to arrange a suitable time.

Un fortunately this Saturday mor ning would not be suitable , but we'll try to find some time in the immediate future which will be suitable to everybody concerne d. --(In terjection)-- •••. how big a party we have. MR. ELMAN GUTTORMSON (St. George) : Mr. Speaker , could I suggest a day other than Saturday because many of our boys are away at home on Saturdays. MR . LYON: Some of our boys are in the home on Saturday, too, so Saturday might not be too happy a day, but we'll try to work out something that meets the convenience of all of the members on the other side. MR. SPEAKER: Orders of the Day.

O_rders of Return . The Honourable the Member for St. George. MR . GUTTORMSON: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Page 1118 March 27th, 1962

(Mr. Guttormson, cont'd. ) •••• Selkirk , that an Order of the House do issue for a return showing:

(1) The number of automobiles owned by the Province of Manitoba and its boards and commissions .

(2) Names and positions of persons to whom said automobiles are allocate d.

(3) Who pays the cost of operating said automobile s. (4) Number of trucks owned by the Pro vince of Manitoba and its boards and commissions. Mr . Speaker presented the motion. _ :MR. ROBLIN: Mr . Speaker, I wonder if the honourable member would allow us to answer this question in the first instance by giving him the report of the Motor Vehicle Control Board. It doesn't give the information in precisely the form in which he asked it, but it does give all the information that we have readily at hand.

And I would ask my honourable friend if he would be kind enough to accept that as an answer to the return and when he has looked it over, if there is further information that he deems he requires, perhaps he would be kind enough to make a separate order and we could look at that at that time . I think that would enable him to have the information, some information fairly soon, and possibly might meet his full desires. :MR. GUTTORMSON: Mr. Speaker, I'll take the suggestion of the First Minister and if I find I need additional information I'll submit another order. :MR. SPEAKER: Agreed.

Are you ready for the question, subject to the reservation? After a voice vote, Mr. SPeaker declared the motion carried. :MR. SPEAKER: Adjourned debate on the proposed motion of the Honourable Minister of Industry and Commerce . The Honourable Member for Carillon. :MR. PREFONTAINE : Mr. Speaker, I adjourn this debate on behalf of my Leader. :MR. MOLGAT: Mr. SPeaker, now that we've reached the third reading of this bill I would like to make a few furth�r comments. I will not be long because we've had quite thorough discussion on this at a number 'of points already. Now, we of the Liberal Party, Mr.

Speaker, have taken the stand that when we're dealing with private funds it's a private matter; when we're dealing with-public funds it becomes a pub lic matter. And not only have we the right, but more than that we have the duty to know what the government is doing with these funds . In this bill the Government of Manitoba is asking for a blank cheque of $10 million. While it may be that the money is needed the House is in no position whatsoever to judge, because it has no idea how the Fund is being used; no idea what is being done with this. We are certainly in favour of business development.

We agreed orig inally to the establishment of the Fund; we think that this is desirable , but we do not agree with the manner in which my honourable friends across the way have been using this Fund. At the moment there is only one party in this House that knows how this Fund is being used. They have that right under the Act. The Minister can ask at any time for information from the Fund -- it's one of the se ctions of the Act -- and we know by what's gone on outside of this House that the government certainly has used this information. In my opinion the government has been meddling in this Fund.

The speeches made by the First Minister and others on platforms across the province indicate that they have made political use of the Fund itself, and in my op inion has gone over the responsibility and over the heads of the House. Now we'v e made two fQrmal requests through amendments for more information on the use of the Fund. On both occasions the government has used its majority to vote us down. I'd like to point out that we tempered our second request for information to something which we thought would be accept able .

In that case the members of the NDP obviously agreed with us because they voted with us on this matter. Now the present situation in my opinion is a ridiculous one . On the one hand we have the government asking for more money and yet telling the House that they're not prepared to give them any information about it. Now I would suggest, Mr. Speaker , that if the government is sincere in this matter of saying that they don't want any political interference in the Fund, then that they should show that sincerity themsel ves. There are two things that they can do in this regard.

One of them is to remove completely any control that they have--in that case over the Fund. At the moment the Deputy Minister of Industry and Comme rce is the main executive officer of the Fund. Now I want to make it perfectly clear that we have nothing against that gentleman. The truth is that he was employed as a Deputy Minister when we were in govern ment. So we ce rtainly have no complaints whatever about the individual. But, Mr . Chairman, he is the employee of this government and he is the employee of the minister in charge , As March 27th, 1962 Page 1119

(Mr. Molgat, cont'd.) ••••• long as that relationship remains , in our opinion the government is interfering with the Fund. The second one, Mr. Speaker, is that the government cease to use the information that is spun on public platforms for political purposes. Let them take their fingers out of the whole _situation and let's cease having the First Minister and any of the other ministers get up and say what good fellows they are because the Fund had advanced money. Mr.

Speaker, it seems to us that those are the two minimum requirements if the govern ment is in fact going tci insist that this is a non-political fund, and unless they are prepared to give us an undertaking on both those matters we are not prepared to vote m favour of this bill. In our opinion, as responsible members of the Legislature we simply cannot go on and give blank cheques in this way when the government is using the information for its purposes. Now obviously the government because of its majority is in a position to vote us down again, but if it does, Mr .

Speaker, I say that it's a bad day in the Province of Manitoba and a bad day inso far as democracy here . The government is taking on to itself the complete right and saying that it's above the Legislature, that it does not need to refer to the Legislature, and that it can go on on its own. We do not accept that principle. :MR. R. 0. LISSAMAN (Brandon): Mr. Speaker, I would like to add' my few words to the support of the passing of this bill on third reading, and I was particularly interested in the re ference the Leader of the Official Oppositi<;m made to the use of public monies .

He said pri vate monies were private monies in •event of a loan and public funds were something totally different. I can't find myself in agreement \vith this viewpoint on one main point, that when - we might use a comparison such as this-- w�en you rent a building the owner of the building rents the building to someone else and they hll;ve the complete use of it. As long as they live up to the obligations of the rental, why theJ;J. th�� have met conditions and the landlord has no right to interfere. Now I think this could be loo·ked at in a similar manner regardless of whether the funds are public or private.

As long as the loan is not in default it's certainly not the business of other people to scrutinize the conditi�>n of the money a:t that particular time. Now a:s far as reference to political use by the government; this has been denied except C"' <: .in those instances where the borrower was not averse to having it become public knowledge that --·.@)lad borrowed money.

When we look into the matter of the Legislature, members of the Leg islatUre;' �v ing a list of all the borrowers under this Development Fund, I ·can only see one reason for wanting the list of the lenders by the members who are raising the question, and that is that if any of the companies appeared to be in ••••.••• why then they would become the subject of public discussion, and as I pointed out in committee I would be completely op posed to this.

I would think that even supposing on� of these companies were in the slightest financial diffi�ulty and this b�came the discussion of the Legislature, then I would think that company would certainly be doomed, because n:othinlrcould wreck it quicker.

I would suggest --, that if the members of the Legislature insisted on knowing every borrower why then there's no need of setting up a board of airectors for the Development Fund, because in effect this Legis l'ature-, all the members of it; would become the board of directors, and then I suspect too - I know it would be my own personal reaction that I. woulo certainly not want to borrow money from a fund which would be frc�--the board of directors would be free to discuss publicly the ins and outs of my business.

I think this is entirely ridiculous • _ The government has {lhosen responsible men from all walks of the business life to be di:rectors--I am not just sure of the correct--whether it's the board of directors in this particular instance--chosen these members _of the board of directors from all walks of business life, and certainly these men can be de.:. pended upon because their oWn reputations will be at stake, to loan the money wisely, to be sure that it's properly secureo. Now the leader of the opposition has referred to the fact that the government must know and can know--have these names available.

Well certainly. In the Ultim_ate responsibility this must evolve upon the party in power, and I see nothing wrong with the members of the cabinet having complete accessibility to these lists of borrowers and the_ situation of various loans that are made, but there's a very different thing when you start say ing that all members of the Legislature should know all the names and the details of borrowing and so on, because there's only one reason for asking for this in my opinion, and that is so that these things could be discussed in the House--various loans.

If a company got in trouble or for anything that a member imagined or thought was wrong With that particular company Page 1120 March 27th, 1962

(Mr. Lissaman, cont'd. ) ••••• they'd become the discussion of this Legislature and all their affairs and mistakes were made subject immediately to wide-spread press releas es , sensationalism and so on. I think nothing could be worse for the Fund and a sure way to ruin it would be just to do this--the thing that the opposition groups are asking for--publishing of the lists. And as far as the board of directors, why personally I feel very strongly about this, I certainly would not want to serve on a directorate that was subject to the whims of a group of politicians. · :MR. PAULLEY: Mr.

Speaker, I just want to say a word or two as to the position of this group on the third reading of this bill . We have debated the question as to whether or not the names should be revealed of those who make loans and the matter in our opinion has been fully discussed. in the House . If I recall correctly, the other day the Honourable the Minister of In dustry and Commerce suggested that this revealing of names was not done elsewhere in gener al. I thiD.k he mentioned. one or two exceptions . I believe he mentioned that in the Province of Saskatchewan this was not done. I am sorry, Mr.

Speaker, that I haven't got the copy of Votes and Proceedings of about a week ago from the Province of Saskatchewan where the Lead er of the Liberal Party there requested an Order for Return asking whether specific organiza tions or firms had received loans from the government, and that Order for Return was accepted by the Assembly in Saskatchewan, which indicates to me that where specific information is sought in respect of individual firms , may I suggest then apparently an Order for Return is tabled in reply. At least that Was the indication from the copy of the Votes and Proceedings that I had. However, Mr.

Speaker, as I mentioned, we joined in the request for the revealing of the names, but we are not going to take the same attitude as the Liberal. Party in respect of the third reading of this bill. We realize that in the Province of Manitoba we need a Fund. We needed one for many years until this one was established whereby small industries , the tour ist trade and manufacturers might obtain a loan in order to expand or to go into business . We realize the fact on the basis of the report of the Fund itself, that it is desirable that their funds be increased, and that of course is the main purpose of this bill.

I agree with some of the ob jections, or the objections of the Honourable Leader of the Liberal Party, but I do not agree with his attitude that we should vote against this bill which will provide further funds for the expansion of industry in the Province of Manitoba which is sorely needed today to take up the slack in employment and to enhance the future of the Province of Manitoba . So I say, Mr . Speaker, as far as we are concerned we are supporting the third reading of this bill , having aired in the House our viewpoints in respect of the revealing of the borrowers . HON. JOHN A.

CHRISTIANSON (Minister of Public Welfare)(P ortage la Prairie) : At the risk of prolonging this debate I think that something should be said about the remarks by the Honourable the Leader of the Opposition. He quite disregards the fact that there are a great many borrowers in the Fund now to whom a pledge has been made that nothin.g will be revealed of their dealings with the board.

He quite ignores the fact that it is an independent board com posed of. very good and sound businessmen of the community who are performing a very valu able service for all the people of Manitoba, and I must compliment the Leader of the NDP 'for his very recent statement and for his realization of the great good that this Development Fund is doing. The Leader of the Opposition suggests that the government is using the information that comes to the Manitoba Development Fund and I suggest -- in fact, Mr .

Speaker, I state most emphatically that he has no evidence whatsoever to support his irresponsible charge that the government is using the Manitoba Development Fund for political purposes. He has been endeavouring to raise this point on many previous occasions and he has never been able to bring one tittle of evidence to prove that there is any foundation to these charges.

He knows perfectly well that any time a Minister of the Crown has appeared on the platform at the open ing ceremonies of any of the plants who have received help under the Manitoba Development Fund, they have been there at the invitation of the person who is operating that plant, and that if any information has been revealed to the press or to the public of the operation of the Fund, it has been done by the owners and by the people who have borrowed the money and not by mem . bers of the government. I think, Mr.

Speaker, that the effort that the Opposition is putting in to this spurious charge is only a very good indication of the wonderful job that the Manitoba Development Fund is doing in developing the industry in our province and of providing new jobs to the working people of our province, but it can only continue to do this, Mr. Speaker , if it's March 27th, 1962 Page 1121

(Mr. Christianson, cont'd. ) •••• allowed to continue·on the non-political basis on which it's presently run. MR . FROESE : Mr . Speaker, just for the record, I think it is worthy of the principle that the Leader of the Opposition has stressed , and that is these are public funds and that we as members should know how these funds are used

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	26-5-43
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	26th 5th hansardpdf 43.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	59255aece050bcfa8d16c0b612800435a56903d7

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