Mr. DECHENE:

Mr. Chairman, I would ask the privilege of the floor for a short time in order to bring to the attention of this committee of the House of Commons a matter which is of great importance to a large number of people in the northern part of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. This,

may I assure the committee, is not simply a matter of local interest, nor has it anything to do with any political party or political agitation. In order to bring out this matter in detail I shall have to speak longer than I should have liked to at this stage, but I hope that hon. members will bear in mind the fact that during this session I have been very sparing with their time and- have at no time delayed the proceedings of the house. This is not a new matter, and it does not constitute a new programme. In order that I may be strictly in order I would instruct the Clerk to withdraw from the order paper resolution No. 8 standing in my name.

At times during the last few years I have placed the details of this programme on the record. During the years of prosperity in western Canada,- the period from 1926 to 1929, plans were entered into by the two large railroad companies whereby transportation facilities would be provided for the northern parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan and eventually into British Columbia. This would have provided another ojitlet to the western ocean. In order to save time I shall not go into the full details of these undertakings, nor shall I recite all the possibilities of the country to be served and the advisability of the Canadian National and the government, working in conjunction with the Canadian Pacific, putting through this undertaking. I know that in the past, hon. members have heard reference made to railway lines in western Canada which parallel one another: Reference has been

made to railway construction which involved the expenditure of public money but which has not proved to be a paying proposition for the taxpayers of this country. The lines I am going to speak about would not parallel any other lines. They would serve one of the finest and most productive sections of this country, as well as other large areas of Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

Because of the undertakings that were entered into at that time, not hundreds but thousands of new settlers poured into the northern parts of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. They went in there because thejT believed that contracts had been entered into for the construction of the lines mentioned in the resolution I placed on the order paper and to which I have already referred. If at this late stage in the session I seem to be delaying the proceedings at all, let me repeat that I do so because I realize that it is my duty toward these people as well as to Canada as a whole. This programme would help to increase the production and the prosperity of that great country. Besides farming, lumber-

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ing, fishing and mining, there are many other possibilities of development which would be brought about by the provision of transportation to the far north.

One of these lines would extend from Prince Albert to'the north country to join at Lac La Biche with the North Alberta railway running to Fort McMurray. This line would run through the treasure-trove of our north country. It would join farther west at 'a point on the Slave river, or perhaps north of Slave lake-I do not know just where-with the other branches of the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific into the Peace River country.

In 1927 and 1928 and 1929 an important part of this programme was started. I am sorry if I have to burden hon. members by mentioning places which may seem strange and foreign to them. However., I assure them that this is not a local matter; it is something that is of vast importance to thousands of people and to hundreds of square miles of country. At a point, named Ashmont the line coming in from Edmonton branches off in a north easterly direction. The construction of this line to the St. Paul district, where I live, would carry it down to what is known as the Cold lake country. It could then continue through Saskatchewan and down to St. Walburg.

An agreement was made at that time: between the two railway companies-I know' this is history-that the C.P.R. would construct a line from Prince Albert to and through Meadow Lake down to a point south of the Beaver river on the Canadian National, and then from that point on to Beaver Crossing they would have running rights over the Canadian National for a distance of fifty-five miles. Then both railways were to build north of the Beaver river in a northerly direction through the country I have just mentioned to the Lac La Biche region, Athabaska and the Peace River district.

I am sorry the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) has just left the chamber. Yesterday, and many times previously, I have heard him plead for more public works in order to provide employment. He has suggested a programme of public works in order to carry us through the period of transition when our factories are transferring from war work to peace time activities. If he is afraid of unemployment I can show him a spectacle which I believe will prevent him from ever again referring to a matter of this kind in the future. I would direct his attention to the record of the party to which he belongs from 1930 to 1935.

Except on rare occasions, and more recently only by way of banter, I have never advanced partisan points of view in this house. I am getting too old for that kind of thing. The' needs of our country and the needs of our young people are too great and too important. These things are too great for us to meddle with them or to lose time in discussing partisan matters. A contract had been given for the construction of this line. I should like the Minister of Transport to pay close attention to what I am saying. As I say, this line was to go from Edmonton to my part of the country, Bonnyville- and district of St. Walburg in Saskatchewan, and then down through North Battleford and then into Saskatoon. But the work was abandoned. I can tell hon. members that no greater tragedy ever occurred. My hon. friend (Mr. Diefenbaker) sometimes becomes very eloquent when he speaks in this house. I do not blame him for trying to show up the failures of this government. However, from 1930 to 1935 I happened to be a member, of the legislature of Alberta. I represented the part of the country .which was to be served by that railroad. The Beaver river is not a large stream, but it extends a long way. It is the first liver north of Edmonton and Prince Albert and takes its source south of Lac La Biche, which forms part of the northern watershed rather than the Atlantic watershed. The waters of the Beaver river flow into Hudson bay. The construction of a trestle bridge over the Beaver river beyond Bonnyville was started over fourteen years ago, and it was the finest piece of work I have ever-seen. The engineer in charge told me that this was only the second time that this method of trestle building had been tried in Canada, and it was used because it gave a stronger, more efficient trestle. It was a very fine piece of work and cost a lot of money. Three cement piers were constructed over the water to enable the trestle to cross the river. A bridge across the river at that point would have saved thei farmers a long journey around, as much as fifty or sixty miles, in marketing their produce. All that remained to be done to complete the! bridge in 1932 was the construction of a relatively short span of steel, but under thei regime of the Conservative government this work was actually stopped. The trestle stands there to-day, unused, useless, extending out 'thousands of feet, still holding out a hand of despair as tragic as the hon. member for Lake Centre holds out to this house when he talks of the failings of this government. The farm-t ers of that north country have to travel all the way around the hills on the north side, and)

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then across on the other side to market thein produce.. It is a lamentable situation, am example of the sort of thing that we shall never see again in this country, all caused through a lack of *understanding of the needs of the people. I will say something that might sound a little mean. Let us hope that it was the last act of the last Tory government that we shall ever see in this country.

So the trestle stands there to-day uncompleted. Not only was the work stopped at a time when thousands of men were idle and living in despair, walking the streets and lanes and highways and by-wa3rs of western Canada as elsewhere in this country, but the contractor was paid some thousands of dollars to withdraw from the contract he had signed with the Canadian National Railways. The Canadian National Railways or the government of this country actually paid him to cancel the contract and stop the work. Today you have this situation in the ridings of my hon. friends, from The Battlefords and North Battleford. Some fifty or sixty miles of first-class graded roadbed, built at a cost of from $13,000 to $15,000 a mile, have absolutely gone to ruin. Some of it is used by the local farmers as roadways; other parts have been washed right out. A large sum of money has been lost, and the settlers in that country are hauling their produce from fifty to sixty miles to market. This is one of the works that we are asking the Canadian National Railways to resume at the earliest possible moment.

I have seen with my own eyes the settlers who are now in that country drive in there from the so-called dust bowl in southern Saskatchewan, some of which unfortunately we have also in Alberta. They left that dust bowl, not because they did not have the courage to stick it out, but because nature went back on them. Year after year they saw the drought ruining their farms and blowing them into dust. After watching that ruin go on year after year they finally had to leave that drought area in which they had settled, abandon the farms they had developed and the homes they had built, and drive hundreds of miles to more suitable land elsewhere. I can yet see the wagons of those settlers, the old * broken-down rigs, containing a few household effects, travelling along mile after mile up to that north country where land was still available-not the best, some of it, it is true, but where at least it rained once in a while. As this is probably the last time that I shall have the opportunity to address the house during the present session I should like to mention how the women struck me as they travelled with their men to their new homes in the

north. The man of the family looked brokenhearted. He had seen his life work ruined through no fault of his own, but because the sun of southern Saskatchewan insisted on shining the year round. But the woman still sat straight in the old wagon drawn by horses so lean and weak that it could travel only a few miles a day. The woman had the vision before her of a new home in northern Saskatchewan or northern Alberta and was ready to start all over again. It is up to us to see that they are given that chance after making such a tremendous sacrifice. They had a hard time. Don't I know it! They have opened up that bush country only with the greatest of difficulty, and now they are producing surprising crops, but still have to haul their produce a long distance.

The other day when the hon. member for Cariboo, speaking in the debate on the address, asked for a western outlet for the people of that country, I had a good mind to stand up and say that his programme, which was quite just, formed a part of our own. The construction of this work in the northern parts of the western provinces from Prince Albert in the province of Saskatchewan to the Cold Lake region in the province of Alberta, and in the area north of the Beaver river to Lac La Biche, would provide a new great artery of transportation in the western provinces. It is in one of the most productive areas in western Canada, where, entirely apart from agriculture, every possible resource is available. It would guarantee a western outlet and be of much assistance in developing this great new country of which I have so often spoken.

When I was a member of the legislature of Alberta in 1932 we saw with the greatest of alarm that the federal government of that day and the Canadian National Railways had lost their vision of the past and had decided not to help in curing unemployment but rather to make it worse by stopping all public works. Accordingly I moved, seconded by Mr. Falconer, the following resolution:

That this assembly regrets the decision of the dominion government not to proceed with the construction of the extension of the Bonny-ville'-St. Walburg and the Heinsburg-French-men's Butte gaps of the Canadian National Railway lines from Edmonton to St. Walburg and Edmonton to Turtleford

That under existing conditions the farmers of all that great district north and east of Edmonton have no direct access to eastern markets and are compelled to pay a back-haul on all the products shipped out and on merchandise imported into that district;

That a large number of settlers induced to settle in the districts to be served by the proposed lines will find themselves in a precarious position, and a laTge percentage of them, in need of relief;

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That we respectfully urge the dominion government to reconsider the matter and to proceed with the construction of the said lines during the coming season.

The journals go on:

The debate continued.

The motion being proposed, Mr. Speaker declared the motion carried unanimously.

But, Mr. Chairman, nothing was done. In 1935, when it was evident that the worst of the depression was over and that it was time this country woke up to the fact that we were n,ot done in this young country, I again moved a resolution in the Alberta legislature along the same lines, which will be found at page 137 of the journals of the assembly of 1935. It was the same motion except that I recited this, referring to the motion of 1932:

Whereas the dominion government and the Canadian1 National Railways did not deem it expedient to accede to the washes of this assembly and nothing whatsoever was done to relieve the situation,

And whereas the situation complained of in [DOT]the year 1932 has since been greatly aggravated by the large influx of settlers in the territory tributary to the proposed railway extensions- .

I recite that to show that we have been active all along; we have not desisted from these requests. Also let me point out that there was no politics in this, no difference between Liberal, Conservative, C.C.F. or Social Credit; it was a question of railway, communication in that great country to the northeast of Edmonton and the northwest of Prince Albert. I repeat, to drive it home, that there are immense possibilities in that area. No railway executive can tell us that this will not be a paying line. I happen to know. When I went to the committee in Edmonton, to the house, and later to the C.N.R., with petitions for the construction of that line, we produced figures which showed that the portion of the road from Edmonton northerly to Bonnyville, coming down on the Beaver river and through the town of St. Paul to Heinsburg, contained some of the best paying branch lines on the C.N.R. In 1944 Alberta led the whole dominion, even the province of Ontario, in the production of bacon hogs for export, and our district stood second in the whole province of Alberta.

I shall only briefly refer to the other part of this programme. I know that this is one of the most difficult of the proposed enterprises, but I cannot help feeling that the Canadian National Railway will repair the errors of the past by constructing a line from St. Walburg info Cold Lake, and, with the Canadian Pacific Railway, will carry on the great programme

for the opening up of a part of the western provinces where there is rain, where there are immense fisheries, where there is timber, an area which is at the head of the great waters of the north on a direct connecting link with the vast hinterland of the northwest territories clean up to Great Bear lake and Aklavik. As to this other one, I am told by some people- whether or not they are well informed-that it is not reported upon favourably by the engineers of the Canadian National Railways. I refer to the gap between that place in Alberta called Heinsburg and Frenchman's Butte, in Saskatchewan. There again, in 1931, or 1932, with the kind of government and the sort of policy which obtained in those days, this whole thing was stopped. The surveys were all made, but they would not push through the necessary thirty-nine miles', ivhich was all that was needed.

I want to remind hon. members that there is not one straight railway line in the western provinces north of the Saskatchewan river between Manitoba and the eastern market and the province of Alberta and the western market. If you look at the map you will see half a dozen lines stretching out from Edmonton, like the legs of a spider, in every direction. If you want to visit Athabaska and campaign there you have to go 150 miles away and back to Edmonton, then 100 miles out and back to Edmonton, then 150 miles out and1 back to Edmonton, then 150 miles in another direction and back to Edlmonton. There is no connecting link, there is no through, line in one of the finest productive countries iq western Canada. If we were asking for a branch line to serve the people along this forty miles of gap I might hesitate, because I would be told that there is not sufficient production in that particular area to warrant an expenditure of roughly $1,800,000. But that is not the situation. Surely the directorate and the engineers of the railway know that our farmers, right from the end of that line to twenty miles from Edmonton, are handicapped every day in the year on every hog shipped, every beef exported, every bushel of grain they carry out; that they are paying tribute to someone for the back haul from Winnipeg to Edmonton and 200 miles into that country, where thirty-nine or forty miles of construction would greatly reduce costs, and the local production together with passenger traffic would take care of the additional expenditure. I wish the minister to take note of this; there is not a word of criticism in it. I am the voice, as I know other hon. members are whose ridings have been served by these lines will be the voice, of their people, in asking for some-

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thing reasonable and' fair, and saying that construction should never have been stopped, no matter what conditions obtained in this country in 1931 and 1932.

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:

Did it go on after 1935?

Mr. DECHENE:

My hon. friend has spoken to us for seventeen hours, I think, during this session. I have sat here patiently listening to him viewing with alarm, shaking his finger in apprehension, and causing me sometimes to shift uneasily in my place because of the descriptions he gave of the terrible things this government was doing. They were hiding bdhind orders in council, there were government employees sneaking around the back yards, and so on. I have not said anything.

I took it all in. Sometimes I felt pretty badly and there were many things I could have asked him. But I held myself down. I hope he will do the same thing. I am not asking too much, am I?

After this little interlude I will resume what I was saying. For some months we have been asking for a better service on that line from Edmonton into our country, and we have got it now. Of course we knew of the shortage of materials and men; and when the war was over, a few weeks ago the Canadian National Railways-I will pay them this compliment-.took note of the situation, and now we have a daily service on this line, both to the town of St. Paul and to Bonny-ville, where I live. But in the meantime truck transportation was resumed in that country. I say this to the minister and to the Canadian National railways; if you do not build this thirty-nine or forty miles of gap the Canadian National is going to lose from 50 to 60 per cent of all the business in that country as soon as a first-class highway is built between Frenchman's Butte andi St. Paul. The trucks are willing and ready to operate in there. When I pressed some two years ago for a better service on the twenty-five mile line beyond Bonnyville to that monument to Tory efficiency on the Beaver river, an official told me, "No traffic originates in that country." They had one train a week, and he told me the number of passengers and the amount of freight which was carried by that single train. But as farmers know, when your hogs are ready for market they have to go to the market; you cannot wait a week, or you will lose possibly one or two grades, or two or three dollars a head; you have got to market them at once. Therefore the farmers

not operate the line at all you would get no

traffic, would you?" He said, "No, of course not." I venture to say that if that railway were built at a cost of $1,800,000 which is the last estimate I saw some years ago- it may cost a little more now-it would prove to be a paying proposition from the day it was finished, because the through traffic would increase by leaps and bounds.

Right now, Mr. Chairman, I am told that some farmers near the town of St. Paul at times have to take their hogs across the Saskatchewan river and go twenty miles away or so in order to market on the C.P.R. line south of the river, and that costs them an additional amount of money. We are losing business because of that little gap. and we should construct a line to bridge it. I apologize to the members of the committee for holding up the business. I know that we are anxious to come to the end of the session and to attend to our own business, those who ftill have some. But this is important. I hold in my hand petitions signed by hundreds and possibly thousands of people all over that country. I am sure that the minister has received those as well, as have the members for The Battlefords and North Battleford. These people are all seeking for consideration toward closing the two gaps. I now leave the matter with the committee.

May I make one more remark. I had hoped to have time to speak of the'necessity of railway development in order to ensure the development of the great far north. When you travel from St. Walburg and get to the vicinity of Cold lake you are only about sixty miles away from the Precambrian shield. There is a large lake north of Cold lake called the Primrose, which produces a lot of fish. Then there are lakes called^ the Buffalo lakes, which are just a few miles beyond. The waters of those lakes flow into Hudson bay. Precambrian belt comes right down I to within a hundred miles of my own town, and from beyond there to the boundary of the Yukon there exists wealth in such proportions that if we could and would develop it as quickly as possible, and if we used the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific jointly owned railway to McMurray to interest them in the development of the tar sands, if we could use the courage and initiative of our young men coming back from the battlefields, men who have shown tremendous courage and initiative, to tackle that north country, many of our difficulties would be over. Do not worry about them; they are willing to . go there. It is another challenge, another battle for them to win. It is the battle of peace, the battle of advancement.

272S

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I have been greatly interested- in listening to the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) speak about that north country. I remember one time when I was a boy, over forty years ago, going down the Athabaska river. When we came back we did not come in a plane as the hon. gentleman does; we had to pull our boat up and down the river with and against the current. Therefore I know that country. As a young man in western Canada I was convinced of its possibilities.

We have our young airmen who fearlessly ascended into the sky against the enemy. They and the men of our navy and armj'- are coming back by the hundreds from the battle of Europe and the battle of every other continent. They are waiting to go up there.. Let us have courage, then; let us build this means of communication and give them a chance. Because if we do so-this may look like a foolish statement, but it is not-we shall find that there is enough wealth dormant in that country at the backdoor of Edmonton to which the riding of Athabaska .is the gateway, mineral and every other conceivable resource, to enable the Minister of. Finance to close his books ten years from now and cease worrying about where we are to get the money.

Mr. HANSELL:

Mr. LALONDE:

The house decided that it *would be withdrawn.

Mr. HANSELL:

No.

*

Mr. COLDWELL:

When was the resolution moved?

Mr. LALONDE:

The Speaker read it.

The CHAIRMAN:

Order.

Mr. HANSELL:

I have no objection to the withdrawal of the motion, and I have not objected; but the house was not asked to decide on the two previous occasions, and this is the third time.

Mr. LALONDE:

On a point of order-

Mr. JOHNSTON:

The hon. member for Macleod is speaking to a point of order.

The CHAIRMAN:

There is no point of order on a point of order.

Mr. HANSELL:

I am not through with my point of order. What I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, is that if the hon. member desires his motion to 'be withdrawn, unanimous consent be given. That is all I ask. I .think that is only right, because when a motion appears on the order paper it is my motion as well as everybody else's.

The CHAIRMAN:

Order. I thank the hon. member for Macleod for bringing this matter to the attention of the committee. I should, however, point out that the resolution has not been moved, and neither the house nor the committee is seized of it. The paragraph in citation 454 which the hon, member for Macleod -read is as follows:

A resolution having been moved is in possession of the house-

This resolution has not been moved; therefore it is not in possession, of the house and the hon. member can -withdraw it at any time without the consent of the house.

Mr. BOUCHER:

I do not wish to delay the committee unduly, but I think that we as members of the committee owe it to the .personnel and employees of our various railway systems to express our appreciation of the diligent and patriotic services they have given our country, the commonwealth and the particular cause we have fought for in- the past five years. The transportation and railway Systems of Canada were really the nerve centre of our war effort in the transporting of men and materials from place to place. If we reflect we shall realize that we have passed through a very critical period1 -without any serious labour disturbances among our railway employees, without any difficulty having arisen in our country in regard to our railway systems beyond those which war may have brought about. The railway employees have worked under difficult conditions and have given excellent transportation service with inferior rolling stock and impaired or deteriorating roacjtbeds. They have undertaken their task under our policy of stabilized wage control, and they have done a noble deed' for our country.

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I believe the hon. member for Lanark will join with me in saying that in his county, as well as in mine, -we have a great number of railway employees, to whom we all personally owe a very great debt of appreciation and thanks. I believe that under the estimates of the transport department it is only proper that as a member of this house I should go on record) as expressing our appreciation for the good work they have done.

Mr. COCKERAM:

Will the minister not

make a statement?

Mr. CHEVRIER:

I will make statements

as we go along.

Mr. CAMPBELL:

First I wish to commend the hon. member for Athabaska for the eloquent plea he made in behalf of the people of his part of the country, and I wish to support him in that plea. I do not think anyone in this house fully realizes the hardships people undergo when they have to haul their products long distances to town. I left the , city of Montreal when I was fourteen or fifteen years old and for the first year I was sixty-five miles from a town, so I realize the difficulties and hardships people have to endure in hauling goods such long distances. I think the railways have a duty to perform. A few days ago I heard someone on this side of the house say that what we were afraid of in future was that the Canadian National would have huge deficits as it had in the past. I should like to say something about one reason for those deficits. I have seen trainload after trainload of grain, actual wealth produced on the prairies, going east; and I have seen those same trains coming back empty. That is not a good condition, when we have loaded trains going one way and empty trains going the other way. We want two-way traffic. In order to have it we must see that we produce wealth in this country, and then we will not need to worry about our railways having deficits.

Here we have an instance, as the hon. member for Athabaska says, of a railway built from both ends and then a gap left of thirty-eight miles. It seems to me when a railway begins a project like that, the railway should be compelled to close the gap. It is the duty of a railway to complete any project it starts. In that same district there is another situation I should like to mention, and this applies pretty well all through the west. The Canadian National built its main line, and then this government or its predecessors allowed the Canadian Pacific to come in and run branch lines al'l through, taking away the traffic the Canadian National should have. That is something for which previous governments must answer.

I had intended to speak at some length on the completion of this gap, but the hon. member for Athabaska has dealt with the situation so well that I need not take very much time. I want to say, however, that these people feel they have been discriminated against. They believe they have a right to have that railway completed. If they had good roads up there it would not be so bad, but they do not have good roads. They cannot do much of this long-distance hauling by truck, and therefore they are in desperate need of this railway line. The hon. member for Athabaska stated that if this gap was not completed, highways would have to be built so that trucks could carry the freight. But 1 do not think that should be necessary. That road should be completed during the coming summer. It is only a matter of thirty-eight miles, so- it will not cost a great deal of money. The cost of a battleship or two, as someone said a few days ago, would not make veiy much difference one wray or the other, but these people feel they have been discriminated against and that now the war is over the government should get busy and see that this gap is completed.

Mr. FAIR:

I want to endorse the impassioned plea made by the hon. member for Athabaska, and to assure him and the committee that he need not apologize for taking time to present his case. The language he has used in describing the hardships of these people in the north country is not new to me, because for the greater part of the time I have been in- the west, more than thirty years, I also had to do without the services of a railway, and I do not think he has put the case nearly as strongly as it deserves to be put. If the few words I am about to say will strengthen the plea he has made, I do not think there , is any need for me to apologize for taking up the time of the committee for a few minutes. It is only in the interests of Canada and of the Canadian National that the project mentioned by the hon. member should be completed in- the very near future. It is the de-sire of the government to create jobs, and this is a good way in which jobs can be created, while at the same time it will be in- t)ie interests of the Canadian people as a whole.

Perhaps at the same time I should put in a word for the completion of another line, the Unwin-westerly line, which just prior to the depression was completed by the Canadian Pacific as far as my shipping point, and there it remains to-day. As in the case of the lines going from Edmonton in different directions, when the traffic comes to Paradise Valley it

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has to go back again and start afresh at Lloydminster. I should like to see that company extend its line from Paradise Valley also.