Mr. MOTHERWELL:

I must be a very

poor explainer. I said we hoped to establish a similar demonstration in the province of Quebec now that the work had been completed at Finch.

Mr. LADNER:

Is provision made for that in these estimates?

Mr. MOTHERWELL:

Yes.

Mr. LADNER:

What is the plan the minister has in mind?

Mr. MOTHERWELL:

To repeat in

another province the experiment we carried out in Finch.

Mr. LADNER:

Is the place selected?

Mr. MOTHERWELL:

No.

Mr. LADNER:

What plans have been

formulated?

Mr. MOTHERWELL:

We shall be able

to proceed on the basis of our experience at Finch. We have not yet determined where the factory will be located. I suppose we will have to follow the precedent established in Ontario by starting where three or four factories already exist, and dispose of them in some way. There is no use in starting on that until we know whether we get the vote through.

Mr. LADNER:

The province is selected,

the nature of the factory is determined. What further plans has the government formulated?

Mr. MOTHERWELL:

The same as at

Finch, except that we will build the factory all at once, not in pieces as we had to do before we knew what size would work to the best advantage.

Mr. SUTHERLAND:

The minister has

now given out information, after a long series of questions, that he might well have given at the outset.

Mr. MOTHERWELL:

I have given it

three or four times already.

Mr. SUTHERLAND:

The minister has

not given it three or four times, unless within the last five minutes, so far as the transfer of the creamery at Finch is concerned. I think I have followed the proceedings tonight pretty closely, and until the hon. member (Mr. Ladner) brought the matter up I was under the impression from the statement made by the minister a little while ago that this amount was being dropped out of the estimates. Now we are informed that it is the intention to open up the plant in another place. A few minutes ago I asked with regard to the cow testing and was informed that that came under the live stock branch. Last year some $24,500 was expended for this purpose, under the item we are now passing for dairying. The minister informs the committee now that this passes into another item of the estimates. Here is a reduction of nearly $25,000 for cow testing, and another, I do not know how much, in connection with the Finch creamery, which indicates that there has been an increase of between $30,000 and $40,000 in the estimates under this head for this year. The committee would like to know what this increase is for. The items are entirely different from what they were last year if $25,000

Supply-Agriculture

for cow testing is taken out and the amount for the Finch creamery is also taken out. Does the minister propose to make up this increase in government officials? Nearly one-third of the amount last year was for that purpose. If he will tell us what the increase is for he will save a lot of unnecessary discussion.

Mr. MOTHERWELL:

My hon. friend heard the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Campbell) and two or three others raise a point as to the advisability of making our grading system uniform. I explained that we had partly adopted the provincial system and that we hoped to make that uniform. Then we have the Bacteriological office, and the new station we contemplate establishing in the province of Quebec. That is what we have iD view.

Mr. SUTHERLAND:

What will be the

estimated cost of these three activities?

Mr. MOTHERWELL:

Seventy-five thousand dollars is about what it costs for the grading now. The factory similar to that at Finch will cost in the neighbourhood of $25,000 if the same kind of building is put up. Possibly by putting it up all at one time we will save enough to offset the increased cost ol construction compared with that of twelve years ago. The cost of the Bacteriological office will be about $5,000.

Mr. SUTHERLAND:

The minister evidently is going to withdraw the last of the experimental farm stations from the province of Ontario. The province of Ontario in the past has been carrying on practically all of this work with the exception of the central farm here at Ottawa, which is for the whole Dominion, while the province of Quebec is simply dotted with experimental farm stations and demonstration farms, and now they are going to receive another one, for $25,000 of this item is to establish a school in the province of Quebec. I think it would only have been fair that the minister should have advised the committee of this when he introduced his estimates. He proposes to take this station out of the province of Ontario and put it over in the province of Quebec, where they have already lots of them, and which province is receiving ten times the amount, yes more than that, for experimental work that the province of Ontario has been receiving. The province of Ontario has been doing this work itself and paying for it out of its own provincial estimates, while the other provinces have been coming to the federal government and getting them to carry

on this work for them. Now we learn that the province of Ontario is to be punished for something, and that somebody else is going to be rewarded for something, because I cannot see any other justification for it than that. The minister has not explained why this is being done.

With regard to cow testing, there was an item of $25,000 in the Auditor General's report last year which was paid out of this vote. The minister now quietly informs the committee that this is going to be placed under the Live Stock branch and will not come out [DOT]of this item at all. Consequently there is $25,000 there. We are also given to understand that this item is to pay for a whole lot more graders than we have had in the past- govtemment officials by the score, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the minister says, "Oh, we have not got a chance to expand. Vote us more money, and we will appoint another army of officials, and that will make farming prosperous."

The minister admits to-night that the exports of butter from this country to the Old Land last year decreased by 75 per cent over the year before. Surely this is enough to condemn the system which is in evidence everywhere in this country at the present time. I would like to ask the minister what amount will be required for the payment of these additional graders to whom he has referred.

Mr. MOTHERWELL:

It just depends on whether we take the views of the hon. member for Glengarry and go ahead and grade all the butter, or whether we take the views of the hon. member for South Oxford and just chew the fat. It will cost about $15,000 altogether.

Mr. SUTHERLAND:

The minister has a very clear idea as to what he intends to do when he comes before this House with his estimates. It all depends upon what the hon. member for so-and-so or somebody else thinks about it. He will take the views of this member and that, and strike a happy medium finally, but at the present time he is in the woods. He does not know where he is, or where he is going to land. This is a new way of bringing estimates before the House. I think the minister is almost unique in that respect, and if we are going to have all the estimates dealt with in this way, we are going to have a considerable lot of time taken up dealing with them. The minister is going to find out before he spends this money what are the views of so-and-so. Evidently he understands what are the views of the

Supply-Agriculture

people of the province of Quebec with regard to the creamery which is now situated at Finch in Ontario. He thinks they are more entitled to it than the people of Ontario. Would the minister tell us whose views he is agreeing with when he does that? Is he agreeing with some hon. member of this House who has expressed the view that that should be done?

The minister knows perfectly well that the federal government are conducting practically all the experimental farm work in the province of Quebec; they have half a dozen experimental farms there, and a dozen, demonstration farms maintained by the federal government, and I do not think there is a single one in the province of Ontario, with the exception of the one on the Transcontinental at Kapuskasing, and a small tobacco farm of forty acres at Harrow. That is the extent of the experimental work this government is doing in the province of Ontario. In spite of all the apparent discrimination against this province in the past, matters are now going to be worse because the station at Finch is to be transferred to the province of Quebec. The minister says that if he agrees with the hon. member for so-and-so he is going to spend some of this money for graders of some kind, and all the committee is supposed to do is vote this sum blindly, and let the minister do with it just as he pleases. That is practically the policy the minister is adopting on this the first item in his estimates. Why does not the minister frankly and straightforwardly inform the committee what he proposes to do with this money instead of our having to drag the information out of him as we have had to do to-night? At this late stage of the debate on this one item we are now informed what he intends to do with a part of it, but as to the other part he has not yet decided. All we are expected to do is to vote the money, and if he agrees with the hon. member from some place or other he will do so-and-so, and if not he will do something else. Surely that is no system upon which to base a request for this committee to pass an estimate. The minister should know what he proposes doing with this money if we vote it. It is not his money; it is not ours; it is the money of the people of this country; they will be taxed for it and have to pay it out of their pockets, and they are entitled to know what is going to be done with it.