Mr. HARTT:

Who else was supporting you?

Mr. MacINNIS:

I oppose the principle of the communist party that the end justifies the means. This is not a new principle historically. I maintain that the means used to achieve any purpose-

Mr. FERGUSON:

May I ask the hon. member a question? Do you support the views of David Lewis and the co-author of that book "Make This Your Canada"? Declare yourself yes or no now in this House of Commons.

Who are you?

Mr. MacINNIS:

Of course I support the views expressed in the book "Make This Your Canada." If you do not like them you do not have to support them.

Mr. FERGUSON:

We know you for what you are.

You do not know anything; you never did.

Mr. HARTT:

In the name of human rights.

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order. Hon. members will realize that it is one of the duties of the Speaker to protect freedom of speech in this house. Hon. members realize also that it is not necessary to pass a bill to have freedom of speech in this house and they will permit the hon. member who has the floor to carry on with his speech.

Mr. MacINNIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I will do the best I can. I was stating that I was opposed to the principle of the communist party that the end justifies the means, and I said that was not a new philosophy in history. I maintain that the means used to achieve any purpose will have an effect on those using them. We cannot use bad means to achieve even a good end without ourselves being debased in the process. I should like hon. members to pay particular attention to that, because in our political activities in this country bad means are used to achieve what some people may at the time consider to be good ends. But as I say, we cannot use bad means without ourselves becoming debased in the process.

Criminal Code Amendment

I wish to make one thing quite clear so that even my hon. friends over here will be able to understand it. I believe that today the'communist party is the greatest menace in the world to human peace and freedom. It is filling the world with fear and foreboding and distrust. If there is anything worse than that, I do not know what it is.

Having said that as clearly as I possibly can, I want to go on to say that I am opposed to this bill. In my opinion it is the embodiment of the principle and philosophy of the communist party. It adopts the principle of the communist party that what you do not like you suppress. We are not going to overcome the evils of communism by adopting the methods of communism into the laws of our country.

Remember that this bill proposes to outlaw the communist party, not because they have committed illegal acts but because they have ideas which we do not like. That is implicit in the bill. They are being outlawed as political opponents. It is true that all political opponents are not to be outlawed at once under this bill; but I should like to point out, as was mentioned many times in this house yesterday, that if we adopt the principle of this bill it may be but a beginning. It should be observed that the communist party itself does not abolish or liquidate all its opponents at once. It takes them one at a time, but ultimately the point is reached where every party but the communist party is liquidated. Once we embark on a policy of suppressing or outlawing organizations or associations of people because we do not like their ideas, where shall we end? Where will be the limit to our suppressions?

The bill mentions the Communist Party of Canada and the Labour Progressive Party of Canada by name, but it also includes others. I quote from the bill which I have before me:

. . . and any association, society, group or organization having similar aims or purposes are declared to be, and shall he deemed to be illegal organizations . . .

Mr. LaCROIX: Provided that a superior court of criminal jurisdiction has expressed the opinion that the association is an illegal one.

Mr. MacINNIS:

I know that the bill provides that if, upon a reference submitted by the governor in council, a superior court of criminal jurisdiction expresses the opinion that the association is illegal it may be outlawed, but I submit that no party in this country, unless it is guilty of overt acts, should be outlawed just because a court has expressed an opinion as to its aims.

I was going to draw attention to the proviso which the sponsor has just mentioned, and which modifies the sweeping provisions of the bill except in so far as it applies to the communist party and the Labour Progressive party, but the section being bad in principle it cannot be made acceptable to a democratic people by a modifying proviso. I know of no democratic country which is not plagued today with its quota of communists, but I know of no democratic country at the moment which has legislation such as we are now being asked to put into our laws, legislation which is contrary to democratic practice and democratic traditions. What is needed in this country is not a law to make illegal parties and ideas that we do not like, but that we should as quickly as possible improve the quality-I emphasize that, improve the quality-of our democracy by abolishing social inequities and making our economic democracy as pervasive as our political democracy. That is what this parliament has to do, and when we do that I have sufficient confidence in the common sense and good judgment of the Canadian pbople to be satisfied that we shall not need any repressive laws such as this bill would put into effect.

May I point out that no country ever saved itself from revolution or from overthrow by oppressive laws. If oppressive laws have any merit, if they would prevent subversive methods from growing, the communist party would never have come into existence, but the fact of the matter is that the communist party grew and prospered where oppression flourished. There is only one way in which freedom can be extended. That is by extending it. We cannot extend freedom by limiting it. We have laws now on our statute books for dealing with sedition and overt acts. Let us apply these laws where and when there is need, but do not let us begin to make laws to ban ideas, because such laws just won't work.

It is interesting to note that the section which this bill proposes to add to the criminal code is numbered 98. There was a section 98 in the criminal code from 1919 until 1936, the purpose of which was to outlaw certain associations, organizations, societies or corporations. It was later repealed. I should like to read subsection 1 of the old section 98 of the criminal code, which later was repealed. The marginal note to the section is "Unlawful associations," and subsection 1 reads:

Any association, organization, society or corporation, whose professed purpose or one of whose purposes is to bring about any governmental, industrial or economic change within Canada by use of force, violence or physical injury to person or property, or by threats of

Criminal Code Amendment

such injury, or which teaches, advocates, advises or defends the use of force, violence, terrorism, or physical injury to person or property, or threats of such injury, in order to accomplish such change, or for any other purpose, or which shall by any means prosecute or pursue such purpose or professed purpose, or shall so teach, advocate, advise or defend, shall be an unlawful association.

That was the old subsection 1 of section 98. The section which this bill proposes to introduce is of a similar nature except that it mentions the communist party and the Labour Progressive party by name. There were ten other subsections in the old section 98, but the one I have read was the operative subsection. It was passed in panic after the Winnipeg general strike of 1919 and it remained on the statute book until 1936. There was considerable agitation before it was repealed. I was a member of the house at the time and I can well remember the debate.

The late Mr. Lapointe, then Minister of Justice, introduced the bill to repeal the section. I should like to quote briefly from Hansard some of the points made by Mr. Lapointe at that time. I do so because I know that Mr. Lapointe was highly regarded in this house not only on the government side where he sat but on this side as well. As a matter of fact I came to know Mr. Lapointe well before I ever met him, through hearing the late Mr. Woodsworth speak of him with appreciation. I quote from page 3901 of volume IV of Hansard of the session of 1936. Mr. Lapointe said:

I come now to another phase of the matter. Those who hold the views I hold on this question have been and are being charged with friendship towards the communistic element.

Unfortunately that continues to this day. You cannot speak for what you think is decency and democracy and liberty and freedom in a situation of this kind without being accused of being a communist. An amazing statement was made in the house yesterday by an hon. member to the effect that everyone who gave support to a certain organization was a communist or a member of the communist party. Mr. Lapointe was not a communist and I am not a communist. As I have said before, I detest and abhor everything they stand for.

Mr. Lapointe went on:

I am not a friend of the communists, and those who say that know I am not. I abhor, I hate the teachings and ideals of communism. But I want to fight them in a successful way, and I believe the way to fight them successfully is by argument, by attempting to have social justice everywhere and sound policies of administration.

He then quoted from a statement made by himself on some previous occasion, and he said:

To ensure our political stability as well as our economic stability, to victoriously repel the attacks of the trouble makers we must rely not so much on the criminal code, the officers of justice and the gaols as upon the personal dignity, the individual effort and the social co-operation which are the substance and soul of a free nation.

Could anyone put the situation clearer than it is put here by Mr. Lapointe? May I say that I agree with him; I agree with him with my mind and soul. He continued:

The adepts of the strong manner to the contrary notwithstanding ideas, whether they are good or had, cannot be billed with guns or machine guns. There must be an enlightened acceptation of the changes to make and the reforms to accomplish to take away the weapons which certain abuses and certain mistakes have placed in the hands of the enemies of order.

There again you have it. We are not going to destroy these people by sections in the criminal code. We are not going to destroy them by jails and prosecutions; we are going to destroy them only when we build a social order in which they cannot exist. It must be remembered that roses do not bloom in gutters. It is as sensible to try to destroy ideas of this kind by repressive measures as it would be for a man who wanted to clear his garden of weeds, and who, on seeing a weed growing, took a rock and put it over the weed. In a few days, instead of killing the weed he would see that the weeds had sprouted all around the rock. By suppressive measures we may think we are destroying communism, but we just hide it as the weeds were hidden by the rock; it will sprout out in every direction and we will not have the same opportunities for dealing with it as we have when it is in the open.

I should like to give one other quotation from the speech of the late Mr. Lapointe.

Mr. MANROSS:

Read the whole book.

Mr. MacINNIS:

No. It would do you good if you read it. Now that you know the page in Hansard in which to find it, I hope you will go to your room and read it. Mr. Lapointe continued:

May I add that perhaps we are at fault in that regard, too, and that conditions which permit a small group of men to get together with a little sum of money, which with the help of privileges and our protective laws and insufficient social legislation became $ 15,CWX>,000 after a few years, are productive of communism.

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order. I must call the hon. member's attention to the fact that he has exhausted his time.

Criminal Code Amendment

Mr. J. A. BRADETTE (Cochrane):

Mr. Speaker, to some extent I am sorry indeed that I cannot comply with the perhaps legitimate request made by the hon. member for Quebec-Montmorency (Mr. LaCroix). However, no one can blame me, and least of all my constituents, if I take a little of the time of the house to speak on such an important private bill as the one we are discussing at the present time. I believe I would be remiss in my duty if I did not find it possible to express the opinions that I believe would be re-echoing the opinions of my own constituents. I want to preface my remarks by citing one of the telegrams that I have received during the last ten days from the Labour Progressive party of my own constituency. I shall read one of them and I shall read the answer that I gave to that telegram. It is as follows:

Timmins, Ont.

Mr. J. A. Bradette,

Parliament Buildings,

Member of Parliament for Cochrane, Ottawa.

It is an insult to the intelligence of the Canadian people that at a time when the cost of living is the highest in our history,-

That is typical of their propaganda.

-when the nation faces the gravest threat, economic chaos and depression -

Old cliches again that we have heard ad nausecon. '

-that the government of which you are a part, should indulge in a debate on the LaCroix bill which is designed as a weapon of political discrimination against a minority Canadian political party.

Poor little party!

Implementation of the LaCroix bill will not solve one of the real problems facing the people today. It will only give comfort and aid to the real enemies of Canadian democracy, the profit hogs that are gouging the livelihood of the Canadian people.

The fact that the bill was introduced by a man with well-known fascist connections should relegate it to the waste basket without delay. We demand that you register yourself in opposition to this bill and that the government get on with the real business of the nation.

For the Labour Progressive party in Cochrane.

On the twelfth day of this month I sent the following reply:

In reply to your telegram of 8th inst., I beg to state that parliament as a whole is doing right in allowing the discussion of the private bills and resolutions, like the LaCroix bill. We must realize that we have in Ottawa a democratic government in which each individual member of parliament has an implicit right to maintain his prerogatives.

Personally, although I do not agree with some of the private bills or resolutions, I shall how-

ever do all that I possibly can that such prerogatives will be maintained in a free parliamentary system.

I hold no brief for Mr. LaCroix, although I highly respect him, and I have often strongly disagreed w'ith him, but neither do I agree with your mentioning the old cliche, which is often used without reason whatever, of calling Mr. LaCroix a fascist. He is not a fascist but he is a good Canadian who expresses views, with which the majority of people may not agree at times, but no one can doubt his sincerity of purpose and his great love for his province and his country.

This is the kind of propaganda to which we have been subjected in the last few days.

By way of preface to my remarks, I should like to quote a great theologian of the Roman Catholic Church, Father Gustave Sauve, O.M.I., of the University of Ottawa, dealing with the present bill, in an article that appeared in Le Droit, an Ottawa journal on December 16, 1947. In order to be sure of my ground, instead of relying on my own translation, I will read four paragraphs of that article in the language in which it appeared:

(Translation):

A bill will be introduced in the House of Commons to ask that the Labour-Progressive party, which is nothing else but the Canadian Communist party alive and authentic, be outlawed.

Here are the three closing paragraphs of this article:

Again Let us not deceive ourselves. Here in Canada the Labour-Progressive party, imbued with the genuine Marxist doctrine, is ever striving to bring closer and closer the revolutionary ideal of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. Canadian communists are the bitterest enemies of our spiritual, social and economic traditions. Relentlessly and with an amazing energy, they worm their way everywhere under the cloak of democracy; they speak soothingly and admiringly of our w-onderful country while, on the other hand they are polishing up weapons to destroy our dearest possessions.

Communism is a constant threat, an ever-increasing menace to our country. Therefore I do not hesitate to declare that it would be expedient to outlaw any communist party, provided that such outlawry be followed by strong measures with a view to putting an end to the misfortunes of the working classes; to preventing capitalism from becoming an exploiter; to giving access to private ownership to the majority of workers; to promoting all activities aimed at the betterment of the labouring class.

I am for doing away with communism by a legal decree, but do not forget that communism has its source in poverty and misery, so that if you sincerely desire to definitely annihilate it, make sure, first of all, that the people enjoy the necessary degree of economic prosperity.

May I be permitted to give a free translation of the last paragraph of this article.

Freight Rates

(Text):

I should like now to translate the last paragraph of that excellent article of Father Sauve from which I have just quoted:

Do away with communism by a legal decree, I am with you, but do not forget it has its source in poverty and misery, and consequently if you sincerely desire to definitely annihilate it, first of all, make sure of the economic prosperity of the people.

My first reaction to this bill would be to support it 100 per cent, if I followed my own personal inclinations, because I have suffered from communists in my own section of the country. In 1934, in my own town of Cochrane, I barely escaped with my life, and if three provincial policemen had not sheltered me with their own bodies I might have been killed-by whom? By people who were not even Canadian citizens although they had lived in Canada many years. But they were the pupils, the slaves of Moscow and of Russia. That is why I speak freely on this important subject tonight.

I repeat, if I followed my own passions, my own personal inclinations, I would say, by all means let us pass this legislation at once. But I must remember also that I am a Christian; I must think also as a Canadian; and I must ask myself to be logical both with myself and with my own people.

Would it be a solution of the communist problem in Canada? To my mind, it would not. It would be simply laying on a thick coat of paint over rotten timber. It would be camouflaging to some extent the real issue. If we passed such a law it might for a time lull the Canadian people into a false sense of security which would not exist after the passing of the legislation.

I have no time tonight, Mr. Speaker, to elaborate this point; but I hope that hon. members, when the bill comes up again, will allow me to continue the debate. I move the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Mr. SPEAKER:

The hour reserved for public bills having been exhausted, the house will revert to the business prior to six o'clock.

Mr. JAMES SINCLAIR (Vancouver North):

My colleagues, the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) and the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank), have already spoken in this freight rates debate, giving their views, as British Columbia members on the government side, so far as the present dispute is concerned, and I feel I should join them.

The matter of railways is, of course, of special significance to British Columbia, because we would not be in confederation today except for the promise of a railway for that province. British Columbia, after all, was tempted into confederation by the promise of the Dominion of Canada that a railway would be built to connect that province with the eastern provinces. With that promise we came into confederation, and immediately in, we began to develop our first grievance, the fact that the promise of rapid construction had not been fulfilled.

Long after the promised date for the completion of the railway, the railway had still not reached British Columbia. There followed, of course, further great land grants to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. Out of the construction of the railway in British Columbia the Canadian Pacific Railway Company got a twenty-mile belt, on either side of the line, of the choicest lands in the province and the greatest forests on Vancouver island, the greatest softwood forest in the world.

Once the railway was completed in 1886, there began our second and greatest grievance, the fact that, once completed, this railway, which was intended to unify this new confederation, was not uniform so far as rates were concerned. We were being charged double the rates of the prairies, while the prairies were charged 40 per cent more than the rates of eastern Canada.

That grievance has been an historic one in the short history of British Columbia. I first heard of it in my school days twenty-five or thirty years ago. It was impressed upon us at that time that it was because of this economic injustice that British Columbia was a province engaged mainly in primary production. We were the hewers of wood and drawers of water, and the east, because of tariff protection and freight rates, was the part of Canada engaged in secondary production.

Today, however, I feel quite sure that informed businessmen in British Columbia are agreed that the railways of Canada do need more revenue. They have only to look at their own businesses to find proof of that

Freight Rates

Mine is perhaps one of the largest heavy industrial ridings in British Columbia, with the shipyards, the oil refineries, sawmills, pulp and paper plants and mines; and in each of those industries which are directly affected by this freight rate increase the management know there have been substantial increases in their own labour and material costs which have added to the final cost of production of their product. In turning to the figures supplied this week by the Canadian National Railways in their annual report, anyone can see justification for the request of the railways for an increase, if not in rates as given, then certainly in revenue. On page 6 we find that in 1939 the average wage to employees was $1,566. By 1947 that had risen $816, or by 52 per cent. In other words, there was a 52 per cent increase in wage costs to the railways during the war years. The other principal operating cost of a railway, coal, climbed from $4.07 in 1939 to $7.50 in 1947, or an increase of 83 per cent.

The railways asked the board to examine their need, and they endeavoured to prove to the board that they had need of an increase in revenue. To my mind, as the minister explained this afternoon, the railway board are the only group in Canada competent to judge such matters; and after fourteen months of close study, after every province concerned had presented its case in the very best light and through the best legal and technical talent they could hire, the railway board did come to the conclusion that the railways had established need and that more revenue would be required. I contend that the individual members of this House of Commons are not in the position of the board of transport commissioners with respect to coming to a conclusion on whether there is or is not need as far as the railways are concerned. I think most of us realize that we have not the training, the time, the talent or the opportunity to give to this case the study which was given to it by the board appointed under the law of parliament to do this task; and it is significant that, aside from a slight mention by one hon. gentleman, no hon. member of this house has attacked the ability of the board to judge such a case.

However, hon. members have two or three indications which they can use as criteria. The first is the fact that there have been no increases in railway rates since 1922. What other industry or what other labour group can say they have had no increase in either the cost of their labour or the cost of production during that time? Then every year, when we have the Canadian National estimates before

parliament, this house has to vote very large sums of money to make up the Canadian National deficit. That, too, should be some indication to us that the Canadian National at least has need of additional revenue.

The third point to which I think we should pay attention comes from a rather extraordinary source. Mr. Mosher, head of the Canadian railway brotherhood, has said publicly that the railways must have this increase if they are to pay the wage increases the railway employees are now demanding. How different that is from the argument we so often hear, especially on the west coast, by labour leaders that companies can meet their demands for more pay without any increase in their price structure. Therefore I say that when Mr. Mosher, a respected officer of the railway brotherhood, makes that statement, to my mind that is significant. It has been said here that the C.C.F. are the political arm of that body, a rather broken arm one hon. member said today. If the C.C.F. are so determined that this increase should be suspended or dropped, then I think that, as the political arm of that brotherhood, they should have said to the brotherhood, "Since Mr. Mosher has said the increase is essential before we can get increases, we will also advocate that we stop the wage negotiations now in progress until some adjustment is made." So far I have not heard such a declaration. I represent two railway towns in my own riding. At Port Coquitlam we have the main yards of the Canadian Pacific in the Vancouver district, and at the town of Squamish we have the terminus of the Pacific Great Eastern. So I know some of the problems of the railway employees in trying to meet the cost of living in British Columbia; and I know I would not go before the railway employees in either of these towns and tell them they should now drop their applications for wage increases because the C.C.F. have moved a motion to drop or suspend this freight rate increase.

The British Columbia opposition is not to the fact that the railways asked for an increase and proved1 their need for more revenue. Our opposition as a province stems from the fact that this is to be a percentage increase on top of our existing inequality, the mountain differential. That, of course, is the real reason for the opposition of British Columbia. There are rftembers on this side of the house from my own province who have criticized Ontario and Quebec members for not pitching into this fray on our behalf. I do not join in that criticism. After all, this parliament consists of members from every province so that we may

Freight Rates

be able to intelligently bring before this parliament those particular problems pertaining not so much to the nation itself but to our own provinces; and if the British Columbia and western members are not able to present intelligently to parliament their special problems, they should not expect the Ontario and Quebec members to do so.

Mr. FULTON:

Must have been a powerful caucus you had this morning.