Mr. STEVENS:

The Cohen case was set

out in full before the committee; the precis is on file. I cannot give the hon. gentleman the pages, but there are probably almost twenty pages of evidence in connection with that case. It was not brought before the committee for trial because it was then in the courts, and that is one of the reasons, Mr. Speaker, why I feel so intensely about this interference. Just as I said a short time ago, it presages that in the future the same influences and the same practices which have brought about the debauchery and collapse of this department will be carried on.

Mr. POWER:

Will the hon. gentleman tell me whether the Regina case was brought before the committee?

Mr. STEVENS:

No. I told the House a moment ago, and I also stated in my letter to the Prime Minister, that inasmuch as it required intimate and secret police work in order to be successful I thought it unwise to bring the matter before the committee. I gave it in confidence to the officers of the department and again I say that Mr. Taylor, now in charge of the department, acted in this matter in a most exemplary way; I have no fault to find whatever. It was not until from the Justice department political influence interfered that anything went wrong in connection with that case.

In the preparation of this report consideration was given to the responsibility of the present minister and his colleagues in regard to certain cases in the direction of which he allowed himself to be influenced by political pressure and political expediency involving

serious violation of the principles of the inviolability of the courts. Consideration was also given to the conduct of several members whose alleged importunity influenced the minister to give partial attention to particular cases. Upon these points, Mr. Speaker, the committee could not agree. The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Kennedy) refused to support a motion to report censure of the minister, and in a substitute motion restricted the action of the committee to a mere reference of the evidence to the House. As the hon. member had the deciding vote, and the Liberal members rejected both motions, it prevented the incorporation of either motion in the report. I merely make this statement in explanation of the absence of any such reference in the report.

I hope the House appreciates the fact that this report is an intensely important document; it contains a great deal of valuable constructive matter, and it also lays upon the administration certain grave duties. The question before the House is not so much if you approve of the general terms of the report, but rather if this report is a good one -as it is generally admitted to be-can this administration be entrusted with the duty of carrying out the terms of the report? And now I have an amendment to move, Mr. Speaker, which I will read, but before doing 30, Mr. Speaker, I might say that it is realiy a composite amendment made up of the two that were proposed to the committee. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Kent (Mr. Doucet):

That the report ibe not now adopted, buit that it be referred back to the special committee with instructions to add thereto the following clauses as sub-clauses to paragraph six:

"The evidence further discloses that ministerial action has been influenced by the improper pressure of political associates and friends of the minister, or acting minister, administering the department, resulting in the suspension and in some instances the abandonment of prosecutions against those charged with violation of the statutes, and in the loss of revenue to the country. Moreover, successful appeals have been made to the minister and acting minister administering the department to improperly interfere with the course [DOT]of justice between the conviction of the offenders and the execution of judgment thereon. The Prime Minister and the government had knowledge for some considerable time of the rapid degeneration of the Department of Customs and Excise, and their failure to take prompt and effective remedial action is wholly indefensible. The conduct of the present minister of the department, the Hon. George H. Boivin, in the case [DOT]of Moses Aziz, is utterly unjustifiable.

"Your committee deplores the practice, as Tevealed by the evidence, of certain men influential in public life to direct appeals, to the minister to relax and depart from the proper administration of his department for reasons of political expediency.

"Your committee is of the opinion that this practice is detrimental to the best interests of the country and

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Boivin

prejudicial to the administration of the department.

"And that the committee for such purpose be revived."

Hon. GEORGE H. BOIVIN (Minister of Customs and Excise): Mr. Speaker, upon one ground at least I am in perfect accord with the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens), and that is in expressing my thanks, the thanks of this House of Commons and, I am sure, of the people of Canada to the members of the Customs committee, without distinction of political party, for the strenuous labours that they have performed, for the close attention that they have given to their duties, and for the fairly comprehensive report which they have presented to this House this afternoon. I agree still more heartily with him in his remarks concerning the work performed upon that committee by the chairman of the committee, our good friend from St. Henri (Mr. Mercier), who presided over all of its sessions, and who certainly displayed a spirit of fairness and impartiality which had a great deal to do, I am sure, with removing the political passion and prejudice that may have been apparent during the first few meetings of the committee.

I am not prepared to go quite the same distance with my hon. friend from Vancouver Centre in saying that I agree entirely with every word that the report contains, but speaking as a member of the government, and also speaking personally as Minister of Customs and Excise, I will say that every recommendation contained in that report if it is approved and adopted will be carried out to the letter so far as it is possible to do so. I regret, for instance, to see in the report among those who are recommended for retirement the name of Mr. Henry McLaughlin, surveyor of customs and excise for the port of Montreal. It is not my duty to defend Mr. McLaughlin before this House, I do not propose to do so, but as I have received a letter from him to-day, I merely ask to place it on record in order that if by any chance the amendment is carried and the report is referred back to the committee that they may consider the contents of this letter during their special session. The letter reads as follows: Hon. George H. Boivin,

Minister of Customs an4 Excise,

Ottawa.

I hate very much to trouble you at this time, but I feel very keenly the manner in which they propose to retire me. I have not been called before the committee to answer any charge, consequently I am unaware of having done anything that would call for a deoision such as the committee has rendered.

As regards the liquor samples referred to in Mr. Duncan's report, I wish to state positively that I have not received a single liquor sample during the past six

years. Before that Mr. Cote and Mr. Corbeil were in the habit of distributing before Christmas a few liquor samples to the employees.

Any orders issued by me to the officers at distilleries and other plants were always authorized by the department, otherwise I would not have issued them.

I feel that I have your entire sympathy and would like very much to retire under different circumstances, as I certainly have no objections to retiring but would like to do so of my own volition.

Yours very truly,

Heney McLaughlin,

Surveyor of Customs-Excise.

I merely place the letter on Hansard in order, as I said before, that it may be considered by the committee if by any chance they re-convene to discuss the amendment which has been submitted to the House by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre today.

The hon. member for Vancouver Centre prided himself on placing me in contradiction with some of the remarks I made on the second day of February last in answer to his unexpected charges. He has built up a very vociferous ease against me by saying that I had misled the House when I pretended that the alcohol sold to the Dominion Distillery Products Limited was for blending purposes instead of denaturing purposes. That, apparently, is the only contradiction which he has so far found in my remarks. That is the only falsehood I addressed to the House of Commons when I spoke on that famous night of February 2, 1926. My hon. friend, I think, will do me the justice of saying that on that occasion I spoke without preparation, without notes, without investigation. Mjy hon. friend took the trouble on two different occasions since the opening of this House to rise and make a special request to you, Mr. Speaker, to pass to the order of motions, to withdraw two or three motions standing in his name on the order paper, but it was without any notice that he withdrew his original motion from the order paper in order to take this party by surprise on that famous night. My hon. friend may shake his head, but I defy him to rise in his place and say that' it was not to the Clerk rather than to the House that he addressed himself in order to have his original motion withdrawn from the order paper, knowing well that while that motion was on the order paper he could not take this party by surprise, and that would have to be withdrawn before he could bring in his amendment to the motion made by the Minister of Justice.

Mr. STEVENS:

That is nonsense.

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Boivin

Mr. BOIVIN:

That night I did say that

I had sold to a personal friend, W. J. Hushion, fifteen thousand and some odd gallons of alcohol which had been stored on the barge Tremblay. Let me tell my hon. friend, and he knows it very well, that one of the reasons why the attack was made upon W. J. Hushion was because he was a former Liberal member of the House of Commons. That is where I formed my friendship with that gentleman; and I assert now, as I asserted then, that when Mr. Hushion spoke to me for the first time about purchasing alcohol, it was a revelation to me to know that he was interested in any way in the Dominion Distillers Products Limited. I ascertained it then for the first time. I went to an officer of the department to whom my good friend the hon. member for Vancouver Centre has just paid such a high tribute of praise, Mr, G. W. Taylor. He is 'acting deputy minister now but at that time was assistant deputy minister and chief of the Excise branch in the Department of Customs and Excise. I asked Mr. Taylor if we had a right to sell the alcohol. He told me that we had and he has so sworn before the committee. I asked him what would be a reasonable rate for the alcohol. He told me that he would look up and ascertain the highest rate at which alcohol was ever sold to a distillery. He examined the records. We had an offer of 35 cents, an offer made by the same corporation, in the office of Mr. Wilson in the department, but which had not been reported to the deputy minister, which had not been reported to the chief of the Excise branch, and which had not been reported to the minister. It was ascertained that on one occasion alcohol of that kind had been sold for 35J cents, and it was for that reason that I told Mr. Hushion by long distance telephone that he could not get the alcohol for less than 36 cents a gallon. I said that he was in a hurry to get it but my hon. friend pretends that could not be because he had bought 60,000 gallons elsewhere. My hon. friend admits that the Dominion Distillers had bought 60,000 gallons elsewhere for 38 cents a gallon, or two cents more per gallon than the alcohol sold by the government. My hon. friend and his papers throughout Canada have tried to make out that this government lost over $800,000 by the sale of that alcohol when he admits himself that there was a difference of two cents a gallon between the price paid to the government and the price that would have to be paid to other distillers in order to buy it from them. My hon. friend knows well that this alcohol could not have been sold with excise duty unless it was sold for potable purposes. fMr. Stevens.]

Mr. STEVENS:

Which it was.

Mr. BOIVIN:

My hon. friend now says

"which it was." My hon. friend just said a few minutes ago, and I defy him to deny it, that this alcohol was No. 1 P denatured alcohol exported from Canada under bond,, with the exception of three cars which were possibly not exported from this country. If there were three cars of alcohol not exported from Canada I want to say that the Minister of Customs and Excise or the Department of Customs and Excise at that time knew nothing about it. I want to say that every carload was shipped from the distillery under a bond that it would be exported from Canada and that not one of these bonds was released until the B-13 or the export entries signed by the officer at the border were returned to the department. That is the precaution which was used to make sure that No. 1-F denatured alcohol would not be sold here in Canada. My hon. friend knows that no distillery would pay excise on alcohol when it goes into the distillery. The excise on alcohol is paid when the alcohol comes out, and I stated the other night, and I repeat now, that not one ounce, not one bottle, not one gallon of that alcohol could have left that distillery for potable purposes without the payment of excise duty on it, and when it did leave the distillery without the payment of excise, it left in tin cans labelled "poison" on its way to the United States, not for potable purposes, but as No. 1-F denatured alcohol, as the hon. member says himself, for rubbing and medicinal purposes.

Mr. STEVENS:

Contrary to the regulations.

Mr. BOIVIN:

My hon. friend says, "but

once before alcohol was sold at fifteen dollars and some cents a gallon." Alcohol was once sold to the Quebec Liquor Commission, good alcohol which had been seized.

Mr. STEVENS:

Precisely the same as

this.

Mr. BOIVIN:

How can my hon. friend

make that assertion?

Mr. STEVENS:

Because it is in evidence.

Mr. BOIVIN:

I thought my hon. friend

would make that statement, and that is why I want to read a letter from the Quebec Liquor Commission. Why, all through this inquiry it has been said that the minister was not trying to do his duty, that he was trying to favour a political friend, that if this liquor had only been sold to the Quebec Liquor Commission we could have got our excise upon it. I hold in my hand a letter signed by the

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Boivin

deputy chairman of the Quebec Liquor Commission, written to my much despised predecessor on the 29th January, 1925, stating that they would not buy that alcohol because it was not fit for human consumption.

Mr. MEIGHEN:

Will the minister explain why that letter was not put in evidence and the witness produced for examination?

Mr. BOIVIN:

Order, order.

Mr. STEVENS:

The Prime Minister and

other hon. members interrupted. Take your medicine.

Mr. BOIVIN:

I think the question asked

by the right hon. leader of the opposition is a fair one. He wishes to know why this letter was not produced before the committee. Because the hon. member who received this letter was not called before the committee and also because the letter was never addressed to the department. If it had been addressed to the department it would undoubtedly be on the departmental files, but it was addressed to the Hon. Jacques Bureau when he was at home at Trois-Rivieres, undoubtedly detained there through illness. My hon. friends smile, sneer and laugh-the same hon. members who allowed Hon. Jacques Bureau to put through his estimates year after year without a single dissenting voice; the same hon. gentlemen who were willing then and there to accept his favours. All of them* are not here but many of them are present, and they are going to sneer because I said that during the past year the hon. senator had been ill and unable to attend to his departmental duties. It was a secret from no one.

Mr. MEIGHEN:

Nobody sneered at that.

Mr. BOYS:

I think the minister is quite

out of order; nobody sneered. The minister should calm himself.