1. What annual expenditures have the Department of National Health and Welfare and the Department of Pensions and National Health contributed to cancer research between the years 1925 and 1945?

2. During the past twenty years what efforts have been made either directly or indirectly by the Department of Pensions and National Health or the Department of National Health and Welfare to encourage any form of scientific research directed towards determining the cause and/or cure of cancer?

1. None. Dominion government assistance to medical research is provided through the medical research division of the national research council.

46S6

Inquiries of the Ministry

2. None, until the calling of a conference in January 1947 to discuss ways and means of developing a national cancer control programme.

1. Did the international emergency food control council recently increase the amount of sugar to the United States and Canada under the terms of the international sugar producers' pool ?

2. If so, what increase was allotted to the United States?

3. What increase was allotted to Canada?

4. What steps have been taken by the government to increase consumers' quota for this year ?

1. Yes.

2. 350.000 short tons.

3. 22,000 short tons.

4. (a) In December 1946 all canned fruits were removed from the list of rationed' foods; in March 1947 maple products were derationed; and on June 9, jams, jellies, marmalades and honey were derationed, all without any decrease in the number of coupons available to consumers.

(b) Effective April 1, 1947, the rate of validation of consumer coupons was increased from seven coupons per quarter to eight coupons per quarter (each coupon represents one pound of sugar).

(c) On June 25, 1947, it was announced that an additional three or four coupons would be validated during the remainder of this calendar year.

Mr. HATFIELD:

How much wool was there in storage in Canada on the 1st of June, 1947?

Mr. MAYHEW:

The wartime prices and trade board has no official information as to the total amount of wool in storage in Canada as of June 1, 1947. Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation Limited held in storage at that date 72,387 pounds.

Mr. PROBE:

With respect to the National Employment Service, Kingston, Ontario, how many unplaced applications for employment and how many unfilled vacancies were registered on Saturday, June 14, 1947?

Mr. MITCHELL:

Unplaced applicants:

male, 666; female, 175-841. Unfilled vacancies: male, 183; female, 126-309.

Mr. R. H. WINTERS (Queens-Lunen-burg):

I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Further to a question raised recently in the house by the hon. member for Peterborough West (Mr. Fraser), can the minister say if there is now any indication whether the Soviet authorities will without further delay grant Mrs. George Power an exit visa permitting her to be reunited with her husband in Canada?

Right Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Secretary of State for External Affairs): The only answer I can give to the hon. member's question is to make to the house a statement of the facts about this matter as they appear to be up to this time. These are the facts.

Mr. George F. Power of the Department of External Affairs was posted to the Canadian embassy in the U.S.S.R. in April, 1943. While in Moscow he met and married Miss Eleanora V. Kuznetsova, a ballerina. His wife is a Soviet citizen. She is also, because of her marriage, a British subject. The marriage was performed by civil contract on February 4, 1945, and was solemnized in a Roman Catholic church a few days later.

Mr. Power left Moscow on July 6, 1945, to return to the Department of External Affairs. Thus Mr. and Mrs. Power lived together for only five months before his return to duty in Ottawa. It was their confident hope at the time that she would join him in this country at an early date. However, nearly two years after Mr. Power's departure, they are still separated for reasons beyond their control.

Mrs. Power applied for a Soviet exit visa in February, 1945, shortly after her marriage. This application was refused in July, 1945. Since then the Canadian embassy in Moscow has approached the Soviet government six times on behalf of Mrs. Power in an effort to secure permission for her to leave the U.S.S.R. However, Mrs. Power has not yet been able to secure an exit visa and no reason has been given by the Soviet authorities for withholding permission for her to rejoin her husband.

The first approach by the Canadian embassy to the Soviet government was made in September, 1945, when Mr. Wilgress, who was then Canadian ambassador in Moscow, discussed the matter orally with Mr. Vyshinsky, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs in the U.S.S.R. Mr. Vyshinsky, in explaining the reasons for the delay, said that it was necessary for the Soviet authorities to make a thorough investi-

Inquiries oj the Ministry

gation into each application for an exit visa in order to be sure of the bona fides of the marriage before the visa could be granted to the Soviet wife of a foreigner. He added that each such investigation required some time. In March, 1946, Mr. Wilgress wrote to Mr. Vyshinsky. He pointed out that a year had elapsed) since Mrs. Power had first made her application for an exit visa and that the investigation must surely have been completed. He requested that the visa be granted without further delay. Two further approaches to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs were made by the Canadian embassy in 1946, one in July and one in November. These all resulted in the same reply-that a decision by the competent Soviet authorities had not yet been made.

On March 20, 1947, Mr. Wilgress wrote to Mr. Molotov, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Mr. Wilgress stated that, as he was sincerely desirous that relations between Canada and the U.S.S.R. should be placed on the friendliest possible basis, he trusted that it might now be possible for the Soviet authorities to grant an exit visa to Mrs. Power.

On April 5, 1947, Mr. Wilgress, in a personal conversation with Mr. Molotov, referred to his letter of March 20 and expressed the hope that a favourable decision could bo reached before he left Moscow to take up his new post as minister to Switzerland.

In the past, permission has been given on a number of occasions to Soviet women married to British subjects to join their husbands. It is true that by a decree of the praesidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. of February 15, 1947. marriages between citizens of the U.S.S.R. and foreigners were prohibited. But this cannot affect Mrs. Power's status, as at the time of the marriage in February, 1945, Soviet women were free to marry foreigners.

The Canadian government therefore considers the continued postponement of the grant of an exit visa to Mrs. Power an incomprehensible action on the part of a friendly state. There is no doubt that the marriage was entered into in good faith by both parties, that there is mutual affection, that Mr. Power is able to take good care of his wife, and that if Mre. Power were permitted to come to Canada she would, as a Canadian citizen, reflect credit both on the country of her adoption and the country of her birth. Mrs. Power's application for a Soviet exit visa is the only outstanding application for the wife of a Canadian. The Canadian government sincerely trusts that, in the interests of friendly relations between our two countries, the Soviet authorities will, without further 83166-299*

delay, grant Mrs. Power an exit visa permitting her to be reunited with her husband in Canada.

Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):

I am not sure whether the Secretary of State for External Affairs received the notice I sent him of the question I am about to ask. Can he make a statement today, or within a day or two, about the emigration of a large number of Canadian Mennonites to Paraguay and the foreshadowed emigration of a large number, some thousands, of Hutterites to the same country?

Right Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Secretary of State for External Affairs): I will endeavour to obtain all the information that is available in the departments in connection with the matter and give the hon. member an answer.