Mr. RHODES:

I hope my hon. friend

from Temiseouata will be content if he has full freedom of discussion on another item which appears in the main estimates. I have not the details before me, but as I understand it this sum is required for expenses in view of the circumstance that larger numbers of annuities are being taken out, so this sum is required to make good that increased expenditure within this present fiscal year.

-Mr. PO'UDIOT: Certainly I will agree to the request of the Minister of Finance, but I should like to direct another question to him. I should like to ask when the returns in connection with taxation will be tabled. That is a different matter, but I should be glad to have the information.

Mr. RHODES:

My hon. friend will

appreciate that I have no knowledge of the matter at the moment, but I shall be glad to make inquiries.

Mr. BOUCHARD:

Under this item may

I ask the minister if the speeches broadcast by the Prime Minister last January were printed and distributed to members of the house? By the answers given me to-day I gather that the translations of a number of addresses broadcast by the Prime Minister in January of this year were made by members of the staff of the bureau for translations, debates division. In reply to my second question, as to who gave the instructions, I am informed that the copy for these addresses was received by the bureau for translations in the usual course from the office of the Prime Minister, that being so should not any member of this house be entitled to obtain those speeches in both English and French, since they are considered official documents? Personally I have always considered them political propaganda.

Mr. CAHAN:

If the hon. gentleman's

question was answered in that way, then those translations were made by the bureau for translations. I am not the collector of accounts, but I assume that if it was a personal matter the Prime Minister would be billed for the work. This item covers printing of statutes at the printing bureau. I have no idea as to whether or not any printing to which my hon. friend refers was done at the bureau; I cannot follow every item. I do know, however, that on two occasions-as hon. members will have noticed in the reports of the printing bureau-when I have sent matter to the bureau to be printed, the printing bureau always sends me a bill and I pay for that printing at the end of the month if it is not deemed to be official work or closely related to the official work of my department. This item simply covers the printing of the annual statutes. Last year the statutes were very voluminous, but the receipts from the sale of those statutes go into the treasury. I must have a vote to take care of the extra printing that was done last year.

Mr. POULIOT:

I do not object to this

vote, but I should like to ask the minister whether, since the typesetting of the voters' lists was started, any printing has had to be done outside the bureau in connection with official publications.

Mr. CAHAN:

None at all.

Mr. MERCIER (Laurier-Outremont):

Could the minister give us any idea as to what amount comes to the treasury through the sale of the statutes?

Mr. CAHAN:

I could ascertain that amount, because I believe it appears in the annual return, if my memory is correct. Except for the so-called official list and those which go to several of the universities of which a list has been established over a long series of years, the statutes are paid for as they are distributed, and as payments are made the cheques go into the consolidated revenue fund from day to day.

Mr. LAPOINTE:

Following the answer given to the hon. member for Kamouraska do I understand hon. members of the house may avail themselves of the services of the bureau for translations? If hon. members are willing .to pay for the translations, may they ask the translators to do the work, as it was done for the Prime Minister?

Mr. CAHAN:

As a matter of fact I had no personal knowledge that that translation work had been done. I do not follow the day to day work of the translation bureau, but if that bureau receives work from any department of the government it is not for the superintendent to decide as to whether or not it is personal or official. Therefore the superintendent did exactly what he should have done under the circumstances; he put through the translation. I think possibly if the right hon. leader of the opposition or the former Minister of Justice had some text which either of them wished to have translated, and if there were time to do it, undoubtedly the translation bureau would do it for him. If it appeared that the work was of a personal nature I am sure the comptroller of the treasury would see that compensation was paid for the work.

Mr. DUFF:

It seems to me the hon. member for Kamouraska has made a serious allegation. He has stated a private speech made by a private citizen of Canada was afterwards sent to the bureau for translations, and that this country paid for the work. Does the Secretary of State mean to say that if I make a speech in English at Port Felix, Harbour au Bouche, or some other point, I may send that speech to Ottawa, to the department where the translation is done, and have it translated by the public translators? It seems to me that is a rather strange way to do the business of the country. My understanding is that the public bureau for translations paid for by the taxpayers, is to be used only in connection with public documents. Surely the Secretary of State does not mean to say that any private member could go out and get off a lot of bedtime stories or make speeches throughout the country and then send them

Supply-Public Printing

to a government department to have them translated,-even if such private member were willing to pay for the actual translation? I hope the Secretary of State will investigate the matter and find out whether or not the Prime Minister or any other member of parliament, no matter how meek or little he may be, may take advantage of the bureau for translations or the public printing bureau to have his speeches printed at cost price.

Mr. CAHAN:

As a matter of fact any translation' that was done by the bureau either in whole or in part of any addresses given by the Prime Minister was performed before any speech was delivered. In the ordinary course the bureau for translations received certain documents from the Prime Minister's office with a request that they be translated. The bureau translated them. The matter was not referred to me nor did it come within my knowledge, but the bureau acts at the request of a public department as they receive work to do from day to day.

Mr. DUFF:

The question is as to whether or not the work to which reference is made constituted a governmental document. If the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State or any other minister wished to issue a governmental document to the public it would be all right to have that document printed in English and French by the public printing bureau, or to have it go to the translators to have translations made. I understand the allegation made by the hon. member for Kamou-raska is, however, that the Prime Minister was taking advantage of the fact that he was Prime Minister to have a private and political speech made by him in a certain part of this country translated into French at the expense of the people of Canada,-although I will admit he may have been willing to pay for the actual cost of translation.

I wish to say to the Secretary of State the taxpayers are not paying translators who translate into either the French or the English language to translate speeches of private members of parliament made outside of this house. My understanding is that the translators, whether they translate into English or French, have to translate only what happens within the precincts of parliament, and not anything which may arise from a happening in Halifax, Vancouver, Montreal or the Prime Minister's quarters at the Chateau Laurier.

Mr. RHODES:

I had no knowldege of the matter raised by the hon. member for Kamouraska, and his having done so brought to me the first intimation that any such question had arisen. I rise for the purpose of

saying that the fullest information will be gladly disclosed, and that we will secure complete information. I feel quite certain that as has been the case hitherto, if any printing or translation was done for the Prime Minister he would have arranged in advance to pay for it. There was no printing; it was a question of translation. I have risen to state that the item now under discussion has to do with printing and binding of the statutes, and the moneys required therefor. Those moneys are necessary in the present fiscal year. There will be an item in the supplementary estimates for the next year; this will come down in the course of the next few days, and will provide ample opportunity for complete discussion of this matter. Therefore I hope that under the ciroumstances hon. members will permit the item to pass on the understanding that full opportunity for discussion will be available when the item comes down, as undoubtedly it will.