Mr. MACKENZIE:

No, it is not the intention at present. I rather think, however, that, following the custom in preceding sessions and parliaments, a further motion will be put in a week's time. The following figures will indicate the number of Mondays and Wednesdays given in other years to private members' business before they were taken over for government business:

Mondays Wednesdays

1935

i 51936

5 31937

3 61938

6 71939

8 5

So far this session we have had five Mondays, Thanksgiving day having taken away one, and we have had a total of six Wednesdays, so in that respect we are up to the average of prewar years. I think reasonable consideration has been given to the rights of private members.

Hon. LIONEL CHEVRIER (Minister of Transport) moved:

That a sessional committee on railways and shipping owned, operated and controlled by the government be appointed to consider the accounts and estimates and bills relating thereto of the Canadian National Railways, the Canadian National (West Indies) Steamships, and Trans-Canada Air Lines, saving always the powers of the committee of supply in relation to the voting of public moneys; and that the said committee be empowered to send for persons, papers and records, and to report from time to time, and that, notwithstanding standing order 63, the said committee consist of Messrs. Chevrier, Clark, Coyle, Beaudoin, Belzile, Bourget, Emmerson, Gibson (Comox-Alberni), Harkness, Harris (Grey-Bruce), Harris (Dan-forth), Hazen, Jackman, Lacroix, Lockhart, Maybank, McCulloch (Pictou), Moore, Mutch, Nicholson, Picard, Reid, Shaw.

Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):

Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the minister what the powers of this committee are to be. When a similar committee was first appointed around the year 1929, it was given the task of going over the budget of the Canadian National Railways. Since that time they have added steamship, ocean and hotel services, and now they are going to add civil aviation. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested by this country in the Canadian National Railways, in its ocean and hotel services, and especially in civil aviation services. Unless we solve this civil aviation question aright and have a proper civil aviation policy the British empire will face liquidation. When this committee was first appointed I asked whether the House of Commons was divesting itself of all public control over this great national system of railways, ocean services and hotel services-and now we have aviation services, on which the future of the British empire depends. I asked when this committee was appointed for the first time if

Railways and Shipping Committee

individual members of parliament would have the right to go before it and ask questions, and the minister replied that they would.

I have read the reports of this committee and I fail to see where there has been any proper investigation of the affairs of this railway system. The membership of this committee, like that of other committees, is made up largely of laymen, although there are a few members who know something about transportation. However, hardly anyone who has served on this committee is an outspoken public-ownership man. Many who have served on this committee have had experience in municipal affairs, but I have been unable in other years to find any outstanding supporter of public ownership who has been a member of this committee.

As to the way the committee is conducted, I may say that I have visited the committee dozens of times. The members were all smoking cigars and they seemed to be having a good time. They travel around the country a lot, but I have "failed to find any recommendations made by this committee to the high court of parliament which show that a proper detailed investigation has been made of this great public utility which is so necessary to the building up of this country and the development of its natural resources.

I warn the House of Commons that if this committee is appointed its report will be brought down a day or two before the house closes, with no time to discuss it. There will not be time to examine it as it should be examined. I notice that they are adding the consideration of expenditure relating to civil aviation. They have appointed a board to handle civil aviation. All parliament does if we pass this motion is to divest itself of all authority and hand the whole system over to boards. Who are the officers of the board? Let us look over the list of the permanent officers. Some of them have been promoted to the office of vice-president, but I doubt if they ever had the necessary experience. This is a great public utility.

You can appoint this committee if you like. No doubt it will be appointed, but the investigations by this committee in former years were practically no investigation at all of the system. I have read the reports dozens of times. It reminds me of the war expenditures committee, by which we divested ourselves of control.

Mr. SPEAKER:

Standing order 38 reads:

The following motions are debatable:

Every motion

(a) standing on the order of proceedings for the day, except government notices of motion for the house to go into committee at a later date.

Mr. CHURCH:

You are quite right, Mr. Speaker. As I was saying, we are divesting ourselves of all control over expenditures of this system.

Mr. SPEAKER:

If the hon. member admits that I am right, he should resume his seat.

Mr. CHURCH:

I have spoken on this motion every year, sir. I have objected to the appointment of this committee which takes from the control of parliament the whole policies of the national railway system.

Order.

Mr. SPEAKER:

I have been generous with the hon. gentleman, and he should resume his seat.

Mr. CHURCH:

I do not intend to allow this motion to pass without a pro-test from one who has been a public ownership man all his life. I fail to see where the public ownership principle in administration has been carried out by the system.

Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Peel):

Mr. Speaker, it is with great diffidence that I rise in view of your ruling a moment ago in connection with freedom in discussing a resolution of this kind to set up a committee. I well recall, and I am sure that Your Honour will recall, that in previous sessions not only have a few moments or a few hours been taken up in debating the setting up of a committee; we have spent as much as three or four days in such a debate. With this explanation, I should like to take two ar three minutes of the time of the house, because this seems to be the only opportunity I may have, -to place upon the record what I think is a well deserved tribute to a group of our Canadian citizens.

Of the contribution which has been made by other branches of our civilian population, none will occupy a greater or more glorious page on Canada's home front history of the war than that of those engaged in the various branches of our transportation services. When I say this I am but reflecting the widespread and general public opinion on this point. But it is not alone on the home front that those in transport service have done their bit. Let me take as only one example those employed by the railway systems of this dominion. It is a proud record to which railwaymen right across Canada may point when it is recorded that almost 43,000 of their number have served in the armed forces of Canada in this war. Taking as a basis the number of employees on both roads at the beginning of the war, more than one out of every four railway workers in Canada enlisted in our armed

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forces. It is doubtful if a better record can be shown by any other branch of our national activity.

While their brothers were fighting for Canada the railway workers at home performed an almost impossible task of transportation. The strain and pressure of war was nowhere felt at home more acutely than by our railway transportation systems. How they mastered the task was little less than a miracle; for in 1938-I would like the house to pay special attention to these figures, because they are next to miraculous-the railways of Canada carried 78 million tons of freight, while in 1944 the freight tonnage had jumped from 78 million tons to 152 million tons. Passenger traffic increases tell a similar story. In 1938 the railways carried 17-J million passengers: in 1944 they carried 54-j million passengers, or more than three times the volume of the last peace time year.

Let us not forget that with all the urgency and all the strain and all the pressure attendant upon war-time operation of our Canadian railways, only seven passengers were killed in Canada through railway accidents in the year 1944. The ratio of those killed and injured in railway accidents, whether passengers or not, is very much lower in 1944 than in the smaller peace-time traffic year of 1938. This is a silent but eloquent tribute to the efficiency of the railways of Canada which needs no elaboration from me.

It will be interesting to hon. members to know, too, that during the last calendar year, 3,100 dining car employees in the two great systems of Canada served en route with notable efficiencs- and service no less than nine million meals. Were time to permit, the story would go on through every branch of transportation activity to show the superb war-time job which was done.

Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar).: Mr. Speaker, I wish to associate myself and my hon. friends writh the tribute that has . just been paid by the hon. member- for Peel (Mr. Graydon) to the work of the men in charge of our transportation systems. Many of us who had to travel from time to time across this country before the war as well as and particularly, during the war, were amazed at the efficiency of the conductors, engineers, sleeping-car porters, dining-car stewards, and those charged with the responsibility of looking after railway offices and providing us with reservations. I am sure that what the ' hon. member for Peel has said is echoed by every member of this house no matter where he sits.

But what I really rose to do was to support the appointment of this committee, and I do so because of the remarks of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church). It would be a mistake if at any time we in this House of Commons, elected in a legislative capacity, were called upon to try to operate an economic utility owned by the country. The method we have adopted in Canada of establishing government-owned corporations which by statute are free from active interference on the part of members of this House of Commons is the sane and proper method of handling publicly-owned institutions. The members who are elected to this house have no right, in my opinion, to interfere with the internal management of organizations such as this, and it is our duty to see to it that politics, in the sense in which we use the term in this chamber, does not enter into the running of our railways or our broadcasting system or any other publicly-owned utility which we have established or may establish in the future. As time passes, more and more of these' great economic organizations will come under the ownership and control of the people, and they should be operated entirely apart from the legislative arm; for the two arms, legislative and economic, are quite distinct. As long as we have the right to investigate the proceedings of these organizations to see that they give the people service and do a good job, our responsibility in connection with them as elected members of this house ends. As a warm supporter of the social ownership of industry I believe that in setting up these corporations under public ownership and control, under a statute of this parliament, and making them responsible to parliament through a committee of the house, we are doing what is the only sane thing to do. It is with pleasure, therefore, that I concur in the appointment of this committee.

Mr. W. CHESTER S. McLURE (Queens): Mr. Speaker, before this motion passes I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Every province is supposed to be interested in this committee and every province is supposed to have a representative on it. I notice that eight provinces are represented on the committee, but Prince Edward Island-again -we come back to Prince Edward Island-is not. We from Prince, Edward Island are interested in this railway, and I would like to ask the Minister of Transport why that province is not represented on the committee.

Hon. LIONEL CHEVRIER (Minister of Transport):

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) as well as the leader of the C.C.F. party (Mr. Cold-

Railways and Shipping Committe*

well), for the tribute which they have just paid to the transportation workers in Canada during the war years. The tribute that each of them has paid is a well-deserved one, and unquestionably the service which these workers have rendered should be referred to in this house. When I made a statement in the house some two or three weeks ago in reference to the extension of an order in council on travel, I paid a tribute to the work being done by the railway and transportation workers across Canada. I think I should add a word now as to what is being done by the railways in the repatriation of our troops from overseas. I am sure the house will agree that what was done in that respect could not have been, better done.

The leader of the C.C.F. party a moment ago pointed to a very important feature in the setting up of this committee, namely, that parliament should retain the right to see that the internal management of the railways is not interfered with, and the proper way to make sure of that is by the appointment of a committee such as this. It strikes me that the setting up of this committee-I know the house will agree, and the motion is in exactly the' same form as in previous years-will ensure the purpose for which it is being established.

The hon. member for Queens cRlr. McLure) asked why it was that there was no representative on the committee from Prince Edward Island. The Minister of Transport is not responsible for naming the membership of the committee. That is a matter for the whips, and should they agree upon a change I shall have not the slightest objection.

Mr. JACKMAN:

May I ask the minister

whether or not the Hudson Bay railway accounts will come before this committee, as was agreed upon at the last sitting of the house?

Mr. CHEVRIER:

Yes.