Mr. DIEFENBAKER:

The minister may answer later. I appeal to him to give to members of the house their right to have full information and the right to make examination of these expenditures. I demand it in the name of the people of Canada from one end of the country to the other who to-day are saying to us that we are not asserting our rights in failing to demand careful scrutiny of all expenditures.

Only yesterday the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) said that the responsibility for the setting up of the public accounts committee rested upon the opposition.

Mr. GARDINER:

I did not say that at all. I said nothing about setting up the committee. The government sets up the committee. I referred to the calling together of the committee.

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:

The minister said the responsibility rested upon the opposition. Only the other day the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) gave a similar lecture to the opposition in regard to another matter. To-day, so that there will be no doubt about the question, on behalf of this official opposition, and speaking with the knowledge and consent of all members in it, I demand the right to which we are entitled-the right of examination, the right to assure the people of

Public Accounts

Canada that every dollar spent shall be fairly and properly spent. We may be told that the public accounts committee, as at present constituted, has not the power to examine into these accounts. Parliament can give it that power. All we are asking is that parliament do give to the committee the right to investigate expenditures which, in amount, have been shocking to many people throughout the dominion.

Mr. HUGHES CLEAVER (Halton):

Mr. Speaker, I intend to follow rather closely the arguments which have been advanced by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), who has just taken his seat. But before doing so there is a general question which came to my mind when this barrage or attack opened yesterday afternoon. I ask the question on the floor of the house. All hon. members know that the office of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) is the one responsible for the wartime information board. We all know the Prime Minister is absent in Washington on very important duties, and I just wonder why the Tory strategists should choose this as the opportune time to launch a bitter and vicious attack upon the expenditures of the wartime information board.

Oh, oh.

Mr. CLEAVER:

Oh, just be patient. My memory went back to some months ago when, in the British House of Commons during the absence of Mr. Churchill, a dastardly attempt was made to stab him in the back. I remember too the welL-deserved rebuke the British House of Commons gave to that performance. And, Mr. Speaker, I prophesy the present performance will suffer the same deserved fate. I cannot, within the rules of this house, state that this is a deliberate attempt to stab the Prime Minister in the back; but I can say this, that I do not believe in Santa Claus, nor do I believe in coincidence. And before I forget, it will be recalled that yesterday the genial leader of the opposition (Mr. Graydon) offered gratuitously a great amount of advice to the government. May I tender a bit of advice to him, and it is this: I suggest that if he wishes to raise the esteem of the Progressive Conservative party in the minds of the Canadian people he should fire its present board of pin-pricking strategists and appoint a board of strategy whose sole and only purpose will be an honest-to-God effort to win this var.

Obviously the present amendment was purposely timed because it has nothing to do with the motion. The motion was only

the routine motion to permit the committee to have its proceedings printed, and to sit while the house is sitting. Then comes a substantive motion in the form of an amendment-and while the Prime Minister is absent. I do not think much of that kind of courage. In addition, for the benefit of the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Ross), w1k>

occasionally has much to say, I will add this: I do not think much of the personal courage-of a member who by innuendo and indirect methods attempts to undermine confidence in any war board at this time. We have not had one specific charge from one member of the opposition that John Doe is not fit for his job or is not doing his job well. We have not had one specific instance of waste. All we have had is a blanket charge that over half a million dollars is being spent in publicizing Canada's war effort and that therefore there must be waste and reckless expenditure of public money. Not one hon. member has had the personal courage to tell this house of one single specific item of waste.

Now I come to the arguments advanced by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker). In his opening remarks, with the very solemn air that distinguishes him, he shook his head and in funereal and pontifical tones stated:

I suggest that this debate has illustrated a point which we in the opposition have been endeavouring to make for a very considerable time.

Then he shook his finger at me. And he went on:

It is that ive, the members of parliament, are denied the opportunity of looking into expenditures, and we are denied it time and again.

My answer to that is not by way of inference or innuendo. I say to the hon. member that in time of war, lip service and lip loyalty are not good enough. I am going to quote to this house from the official record to show the attendance of the Conservative members of the war expenditures committee, these gentlemen who to-day rise in their places and say they are denied the right to check public expenditures. I ask that they be judged by their performance, not by their lip service. I hold in my hand the official record obtained from the clerk of the war expenditures committee, of which both the hon. member for Lake Centre and the hon. member who moved this amendment were members.

Mr. BLACK (Yukon):

If the hon. member is referring to me he is mistaken.

Mr. CLEAVER:

They were both members-of the committee in 1941.

Public Accounts

Mr. BLACK (Yukon):

I was never a member of that committee.

Mr. CLEAVER:

I beg the hon. member's pardon; I was referring to the mover of the amendment which was ruled out of order. I was entirely wrong, and apologize for my error. I refer to the hon. member for Vancouver *South (Mr. Green). Both hon. members were members of the war expenditures committee in 1941, these men who have been denied the right to check war expenditures. Let us look at their actual performance. Every member *of this house knows that we could not possibly cover our work in 1941 while the house was sitting. We had to spend many long, tiresome, hot days in midsummer and fall to complete [DOT]our work.

Mr. GREEN:

Did you get paid for it?

Mr. CLEAVER:

I shall come to that, too; perhaps that is why the hon. member stayed away, because he said he would not take the pay. Every hon. member knows that during the recess we have our only opportunity of looking after the work in our ridings and taking care of any personal business that requires attention. It is perfectly obvious therefore that an hon. member attends to committee work during the recess at rather serious personal sacrifice. In the light of those circumstances let us look at the record and forget about what they say. There were four Conservative members on the war expenditures committee of 1941. I am not going to mention any names, but two of those hon. members did not attend a single meeting of the committee during the recess.

Mr. BOUCHER:

I rise to a point of order. We are not talking about the attendance at meetings of the war expenditures committee. We are talking about the wartime information board. I submit that the hon. member is entirely out of order in quoting attendance figures in connection with a committee which is not under discussion at all.

, Mr. CLEAVER: I hope this is not being charged against my time, but on the point of order I should like to say this. As I view it, the sole issue before the house is whether we shall refer the question of the cost of operation of the wartime information board to the public accounts committee or the war expenditures committee. Is my hon. friend pressing for a ruling on his .point of order?

Mr. BOUCHER:

Yes, I would like a ruling, because I suggest the matter does not concern the war expenditures committee at all.

Mr. SPEAKER:

The amendment reads:

That the said report be not now concurred in but that it be recommitted to the public accounts committee with instructions that they have power to amend the same so as to recommend 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.

The debate has broadened considerably, and I think the hon. member is within the terms of the amendment.

Mr. CLEAVER:

As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, two of the four Conservative members of the war expenditures committee did not attend one meeting of that committee during the recess; one member was satisfied with a 50 per cent attendance and the fourth hon. member was a faithful attendant. It' is only fair that I should say the Conservative member who attended the meetings faithfully was the hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris). As to the other three, I shall let them share the honours between them.

Now, coming to the next argument advanced by the opposition against the expenditures of the wartime information board, the hon. member for Vancouver South urged very strongly that the formation of the board was totally unnecessary.

Mr. GREEN:

I rise to a question of privilege.

Sit down.

Mr. GREEN:

Don't be in such- a hurry to shout "sit down." That is all some of you do. If the hon. member will refer to Hansard he will see exactly what I did say, and it was not what he mentioned just now.

Mr. CLEAVER:

My distinct memory of that-