Mr. DIEFENBAKER:

If the minister will permit a question at this point, was any assurance given to that delegation in May, 1943, that any amendments made would first be shown to them before being embodied in a protocol?

Mr. ST. LAURENT: No, and I must say to the hon. member that no such assurance could be given. It would be contrary to the comity of nations to undertake to make public the negotiations being carried on with a friendly nation for the purpose of concluding a treaty. What assurance was given was that efforts would be made to obtain a satisfactory protocol and that of course no arrangement could-come into effect until the treaty had been ratified, and it would not be ratified until it had been publicized and there had been an opportunity for considering all such objections as might be proper to be urged against ratification. It is for the purpose of allowing such persons as may feel they have an interest in opposing the ratification of the treaty to be heard that I make the suggestion that before debating the treaty and protocol it be referred to a committee where these persons may make their representations, so that when we come to debate the merits or demerits of the arrangement it may be upon the report from the committee which will include such objections as may have been submitted.

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:

One further question. Regardless of what recommendations

Extradition of Criminals

the committee makes, the protocol arid the treaty must stand on their own feet, and there is no assurance that there will be any alteration of the protocol as between Canada and the United States?

Mr. ST. LAURENT: There is no assurance that there will be any alteration of the protocol, but neither is there any assurance that there will be approval by this house of the resolution that is submitted. Ratification is no idle formality. One hon. member suggested yesterday that no minister of the crown should sign any document until he has been specially authorized by parliament to do so. If that were to be the policy adopted, parliament should repeal the statute dealing with the Department of External Affairs and set up a committee on external affairs to administer our external affairs. The procedure is for these matters to be entered into, in the form of treaties subject to ratification according to the constitutional processes of the parties concerned. Our constitutional process is to secure in advance the assent of the houses of parliament rather than to do something of which parliament would disapprove and express its disapproval by withdrawing its confidence from those who would have done it.

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:

If the minister would allow one further question-because it is rather an anomalous situation-would the government consider any vote that would not approve the treaty or the protocol, as a vote of non-confidence?

Mr. ST. LAURENT: That is a matter that would have to be considered when the time should come for considering it. The government recommends to the house the ratification of this treaty. The house will deal with it as it sees fit, and on the result of the decision of the house the government will then have to determine what course it will follow.

Mr. JOHN BRACKEN (Leader of the Opposition):

Mr. Speaker, I understand that this matter was brought up yesterday by the Minister of Justice (Mr. St. Laurent), at which time he asked that it be referred to the committee on external affairs wdthout debate and without any statement by the minister himself. I understand that his desire was primarily to expedite the work of the house. With that objective we are in entire agreement, and as evidence of that I say now that we are prepared to forgo debate on the matter at this time. Yesterday the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling) asked that it be stood over until to-day, because he had not had previous notice that the motion

was to be considered. I would point out now that we desire to help the government expedite its measures, but we think it is a bad precedent to establish to come forward with motions or bills and ask that they be sent to a committee without a statement by way of explanation from the government. We on this side will try to limit debate as much as we can, but we think that a precedent such as this would not be a good one; so when the Minister of Justice spoke to' me to-day I suggested that it would be better procedure, when these measures come forward, that some statement should be made by the government before asking the house to send them to a committee. I think I can speak for my associates when I say that we shall expedite the matter now before us on the understanding that we are not committing ourselves for or against the measure, and that we shall have the right to take part in any necessary debate upon it later on.

Motion agreed to for reference of extradition treaty and protocol to standing committee on external affairs.

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

I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. It arises from the fact that in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta there has been a short crop this year, and farmers are., anxious to ascertain if it would not be possible for the government ,to make early payment of the participation certificates of 1943 and 1944. Is the minister in a position to give us a statement in this regard?

Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Trade and Commerce):

The hon. member for Lake Centre kindly informed me that he was going to ask this question this afternoon, and I would appreciate it if hon. members from the west generally would observe the answer, because I am quite sure that the matter is dealt with to a very considerable extent in correspondence from the west.

The Canadian wheat board has been unable, as yet, to close the 1943 crop account because of the necessity of tracing a number of shipments to their destinations, which have been diverted en route, thereby affecting the ultimate determination of the sales of wheat as either crown account or 1943 crop.wheat. The audit, of course, awaits the closing of the account. It is therefore expected that it will

Penitentiary Act

be June or July of next year before payments against 1943 participation certificates can be made.

Another difficulty has been that of cleaning up the balance of 1940, 1941 and 1942 crop participation certificates. Many thousands of these certificates still remain unpaid because the certificates have been lost. The board is doing everything possible to make these payments to those who are entitled to them, even though the certificates are lost, estates are involved, or the parties cannot be located. It is hoped that this residue of 1940, 1941 and

1942 crop payments will be reduced to very small proportions by the time the board is otherwise in a position to commence payment on the 1943 certificates.

It is obvious that the 1944 participation certificates will have to be dealt with after the

1943 payments are made.

That will enable us to answer the letters we are receiving from the west. t

Mr. MacKINNON:

Yes.

Mr. G. E. LAPALME (Joliette-L'Assomp-tion-Montcalm):

Mr. Speaker, may I use

the privilege which was granted to some hon. members in this house in connection with the ninth victory loan campaign. I know that I am out of order, but you have.been generous enough to allow these hon. members to draw the attention of the house to the result of the campaign in their constituencies, and I request the same favour.

Your position, Mr. Speaker, does not permit you to speak of your own constituency, but I think I should do it so that your numerous friends, in and outside of this house, may learn with pleasure that'Montreal-St. Mary, where you were elected, and whose unit number is 112, came first out of all units in the island of Montreal, subscribing 178-50 per cent of its quota. Such a result certainly deserves our congratulations. But however generous they may be in your constituency, I wish to say that it could not compete with mine. Joliette is but one of the three provincial ridings of which my constituency of Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm is composed, and the Joliette unit, No. 173, finished first out of all units in the province of Quebec- including of course the island of Montreal- subscribing 198-16 per cent of its quota.

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:

What about 4(a)?

Mr. ST. LAURENT: That provision, 4(a), is a new provision to make it possible to proceed with implementing the recommendations -of the Archambault report before we are ready to appoint a commission of three persons to take over at once the administration of the penitentiaries. When I considered the statute passed in 1939 and found that it was, necessary that it be amended before being proclaimed, I also felt that it would expedite the implementing of this report if the government had the right to appoint, before being ready to set up the full commission with the full powers for which the act provides', one commissioner-the statute says one or more, but I had in mind one commissioner-who would do the preliminary things which the Archambault report so urgently recommends.

Some recommendations have been read into the record, but if we look at the conclusions which appear on page 362 of their report we find the following:

In making the recommendations contained in this report, your commissioners believe that the government should gradually embody the recommended principles in a well-planned programme. It is of first and immediate importance that legislation should be enacted to make provision for a prison commission and that the members of the commission should be appointed at once. Upon appointment, the prison commission should proceed to form well-ordered plans for selecting officers to fill vacancies. New men should be introduced into the service and the most promising members of the present personnel should be given a course of training.

It will be advisable to send a few men to the training .school at Wakefield, England, so that the British principles of administration which form the foundations of this report may effectively be imported into the Canadian system.

In one of -the specific recommendations, No. 10, on page 355, it is stated:

After careful study of the penitentiary staffs by the prison commission, all hopelessly incapable officers should be retired.

It may be that there are some hopelessly incapable officers, but I wish at this time to pay tribute to the work that has been done by those who during the war, and in numbers reduced by reason of the fact that many of them were allowed to obtain leave of absence to join the armed forces, have carried on the work necessary to administer the penitentiary system that we did have. They have done

valiant and efficient work, and I think it is only fair to them that it should be stated in this house that we consider they rendered during those years a service to the Canadian people.

The member for Calgary West (Mr. Smith) last night said something which was so tersely reported that it may give a false impression. I notice in the newspapers a statement that it had been said here that practically the only difference between the penitentiary staffs and the inmates was that the staffs were allowed to go home at night. What the hon. member meant, what I understood, and what I am sure everyone here understood, was that he felt that the staffs were not treated by the government as generously as they should be, and that in the treatment accorded them they were not much better off than were the inmates of the establishments. .

Mr. SMITH (Calgary West):

Exactly.

Mr. ST. LAURENT: I am sure that the hon. member fully agrees with me that on the whole these men have been doing an efficient job, which it was necessary to have done, under the trying conditions that resulted from the fact that many of their fellows had left their ranks to join the armed forces.