Mr. NEILL:

On the point of order may I say a word? The acting leader of the government distinctly stated that his object in rising was to state something which he had omitted to state yesterday.

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Mr. CRERAR:

No.

Mr. NEILL:

Those are the words he used. Hansard will show that.

Mr. CRERAR:

That is not correct.

Mr. NEILL:

I too have something I

omitted to say yesterday. Shall I be permitted to speak again?

Mr. SPEAKER:

The debate will now be continued by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker).

Mr. J. G. DIEFENBAKER (Lake Centre):

Last evening I was dealing with a few instances of expenditures under the wartime information board. To-day I intend, after making reference to a few further instances, to deal generally with the question of information and publicity, coming as it does within the terms of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Black) and seconded by the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe), wherein it is proposed that a recommendation be made

. . . that said committee have power to investigate expenditures incurred for publicity or in relation thereto by wartime information board and by various governmental departments and boards, subsequent to March 31, 1942.

I wonder whether I could get some order-

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order.

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:

-in accordance with the courtesy I always extend to other hon. members.

I was dealing with certain salaries paid to members of the wartime information board.

I refer now to Mr. McKenna, in charge of external news distribution, receiving a salary of $5,200 a year, and to Mr. L. L. Knott, receiving $4,800 and certain expenses-

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order. There is loud conversation through the whole of the chamber. I would ask for silence so that I can follow the hon. member.

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker;-and expenses amounting to $633.25. Another official, the chief of the research section, receives a salary of $6,000 a year and

travelling expenses. There is another executive officer, whose duties relate to publicity matters as they affect French Canada, who receives $5,000 a year, with $782 expenses. Another official, Mr. Andrew, in charge of the media analysis section, receives a salary of $4,500 a year.

The situation is this, that in the first year of the war the former war information board, the bureau of public information, expended $202.672; whereas this new body has expended, during a period of a little over six and a half months, the sum of $579,000.

One would think, having regard to the tremendous increase of expenditure on publicity under this board, there would not be expenditures for publicity in other departments of government. What do we find? Practically every department has its own publicity liaison officers or press agents. According to sessional paper 216, the reply to a question asked by the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church), "How many press agents or liaison officers are there in the employ of the government or any commission or other authority connected, therewith under each separate minister?" a situation is revealed which in my opinion is totally unjustifiable. The only way in which it can be investigated and the proper savings effected is through submission of the accounts and the whole matter of publicity to the public accounts committee.

In so far as the Department of Finance is concerned the reply given is that there are three such officials, receiving respectively $5,000-together with actual out-of-pocket living and travelling expenses-$3,600 and $2,600 a year. The Department of Labour has a director of information responsible for the preparation of press material and public information, and who receives $4,500. The Department of Munitions and Supply states that it has no officers whose work is solely liaison, but it names a number of officials who are charged with the preparation of press announcements, of material for radio and screen, compiling, writing and so on, and the number of these is nine. The Department of National Defence has forty-eight persons employed on publicity work, five of whom are civilians and forty-three officers. The five civilians receive salaries of from $3,500 to $6,000 per year. The Department of National Defence for Air has forty-one such officers and officials, of whom six are civilians; one of them, Mr. Clark, receiving $6,500 and actual out-of-pocket expenses while absent from Ottawa; another, Mr. Brown, receiving $5,830 and actual living expenses; another receiving $5,800 per annum; another $4,000; and there are two with salaries of

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$3,500. Then there is the Department of National Defence, with one director and nine liaison officers. The film commissioner has three production liaison officers receiving salaries from $280 per month to $325 per month. The wartime prices and trade board has nineteen press agents.

What does all this mean? It means that during the past few months not only have publicity costs in Canada increased by hundreds of thousands of dollars, but in addition to that there are press agents in all the departments I have mentioned-and I do not think I have covered them all-whose purpose is to assist the press in giving out information to the people of Canada. Having regard to the numbers of these officials, and that many of them must be engaged in the duplication of work, and the obvious possibility of reducing their numbers very greatly if there were any investigation, I submit that there is a sufficient excuse for the submission of this matter to the public accounts committee.

We have arrived at the position in Canada where information is controlled by the government, as it must be during a time of war by censorship regulations, so as to prevent information going out which would be of benefit to the enemy. But there is further control than that. We are controlled to-day until quite often, in the reports that go out, the prime qualification seems to be adulation of the government and everlasting praise of the ministers of the crown. From these departments emanate regularly articles and propaganda, and in my opinion they can be justified only on the ground that praise of the government is to be disseminated. I suggest that if there were a proper investigation of this matter we could save, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, at any rate a very substantial amount of money. A substantial reduction could take place in every department and the result would certainly be no detriment to the government while on the other hand it would be of great benefit to Canada's war effort.

The wartime information board and the other departments connected with publicity should have as their aim and purpose the enlightenment of the Canadian people on the progress of the war, and the desire to arouse determination among Canadians throughout the country, to kindle and to continue to rekindle the fires of patriotism.

I examine the pamphlets that come out from time to time from the various departments and hear some of the broadcasts that are made, and I wonder sometimes if the object is not to use publicity in Canada to-day as a vehicle for the government's own

personal purposes. My hon. friends on the government side will not agree with that. Go from one end of Canada to the other, however, and listen to the conversations that take place; if there is one criticism against the government it is that too often the publicity that is being disseminated is party propaganda.

I ask, what defence has ever been given by any minister of the crown to the allegations that are common in practically the entire press of Canada, that too great expenditures were being made by the wartime information board? It comes under the Prime Minister's department, and he has never offered any defence nor made any justification of the ampunt allowed and the tremendous salaries paid. No minister of the crown has ever defended them. No minister of the crown yesterday defended the expenditures that were being made. The only defence that has been offered at all was the defence by Mr. Grierson, the general manager, in a letter written to the press, in which he said that the salaries that were being paid were in the main defensible, and that there had been a few out-of-line salary expenses but that these had been adjusted. Those who should defend such over-expenditures as are revealed not only in the wartime information board but for publicity in other departments of government as well, should be brought before a committee of parliament and not be given an opportunity of providing thereto only an ex parte defence through the medium of the press of Canada.

I will read what Mr. Grierson said in the article in question. He pointed out that he had not been in the position long, and I am not criticizing him at the moment. What I do know is that these salaries are out of line, and one would have expected the Minister of Finance to be the fir$t to raise strenuous objections to such salaries being paid in war time.

Mr. ILSLEY:

By what standard does the hon. gentleman test the propriety of these salaries?

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:

I test them by a comparison with the salaries paid men and women in the permanent civil service of Canada who are doing equivalent work. Their salaries do not compare with the salaries paid officials of this department.

Mr. ILSLEY:

That is not a fair comparison.

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:

The minister will have his opportunity to say what a fair comparison is, and that is what we want to

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find out before the public accounts committee. We want to know just why these salaries are being paid and what justification there is for the multiplication of officials in these various publicity branches in the past few months. I was about to quote Mr. Grierson:

Information will be blamed for not solving the division between some people in Quebec and some people elsewhere. ... It will be blamed, for not bridging divisions which are sometimes geographical, racial and religious, but often political.

I suggest that it is the duty of the wartime information board to arouse the people of Canada. That is its responsibility just as it is the responsibility that rests upon all of us. How do pamphlets such as I have in my hand at the moment, issued by the information branch, entitled "Nouvelles Catholiques", in any way contribute to the war effort of the dominion? How can they in any way be considered as proper matters for distribution by the war information board? To whom shall this whole matter be submitted?

The leader of the government, yesterday, when he advocated submission of this matter to the war expenditures committee, in answer to the following pertinent question by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) at page 2816-

Will the minister undertake that if the investigation of matters connected with the operation of the wartime information board is referred to the war expenditures committee, such investigation will be in open and not in secret meetings?

Replied as follows:-

No, I can say at once to my hon. friend that I will' give no such undertaking.

And a little later on

and I wish to be fair-he said this:

And you will find out, in the proper way. But there may be expenditures in connection with the operation of the wartime information board, as there would be in connection with the operation of the defence board, which it would not be in the public interest to divulge at the present time.

I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether or not the examination of the expenditures in connection with the administration of the board can, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered as not in the public interest. "Not in the public interest", has been a term, a vehicle, a medium, dragged into this chamber on so many occasions, and used as a method through which information to which the public is entitled has been denied.

Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):

That was established in the mother of parliaments, as a basic .parliamentary practice.

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:

True, as the minister has said, "in the public interest", when utilized in the mother of parliaments as an answer to a question asked, invariably suggests and demands the respect of those who receive the answer. They realize that it is not in the public interest. But to ask what justification there may be for these expenditures, and to inquire what savings could be effected, and what expenditures for publicity could be reduced after careful examination, cannot by any stretch of the imagination come within the purview of the defence that it is not in the public interest.

Again I ask the minister: Why deny members of parliament the right to examine these accounts? Why deny them the right which has been theirs for hundreds of years, namely the right to examine expenditures, the right to ask that they be scrutinized? We are offered the right to have these matters submitted to a committee not yet set up, and in any event, to a committee behind closed doors. We should have the right held by members of the British House of Commons, of having investigations in the open, where publicity has the effect of preventing those of like mind from carrying on in a similar fashion. I appeal to the acting leader of the government to-

Mr. CRERAR:

Does the hon. member want an answer to the question he has asked?