Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):

Hon. members will recall that on March 9 I tabled a summary of the first one hundred orders in council passed after July 1, 1948, and the first one hundred passed after January 1, 1949, and said that other summaries would be provided if members of the house wished to have them.

I now wish to table summaries of all the orders in council from July 1, 1948, to September 30, 1948. The work of summarizing these is of some magnitude, and it is being proceeded with as expeditiously as possible. As soon as the summaries can be prepared, they will be tabled.

On the orders of the day:

Mr. J H. Harris (Danforlh): Will the Prime Minister supplement his statement with regard to the orders in council that are being reviewed and of which a summary is being made? Can he assure the house that the summary up to the moment of dissolution will be tabled before parliament is dissolved? Can he say whether they can all be tabled before dissolution?

Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):

No one can give that assurance. I can assure the hon. member that they will be tabled as quickly as they can be prepared.

Mr. Harris (Danforth):

Will the Prime Minister table them as fast as they are prepared, perhaps every second or third day? These are very important orders in council.

Mr. St. Laurent:

No; I cannot undertake to do that, because I imagine it would mean tabling one at a time several times a day. If the hon. member wishes me to say it, I will say that as soon as those for one month have been prepared, I will table them. I will give him that assurance.

Mr. H. W. Winkler (Lisgar) moved

that the fourth report of the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills, presented to the house on Friday, April 8, be now concurred in.

Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):

I should like to move, as provided by the notice which appears on today's order paper under government notices of motions:

That on Monday, the 25th April instant, government notices of motions and government orders shall have precedence over all other business except questions and notices of motions for the production of papers.

The purpose of this motion is to proceed as rapidly as possible with the debate on the budget. In view of the long list of interesting speeches which have been made on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, it is hoped that the debate on the budget may be brief. I trust that we may now have the co-operation of the house in bringing the debate to a close today, or at the latest tomorrow, so that we may get into committee on the resolutions.

Judging from the tone of the debate thus far, I have been under the impression that everything in these resolutions was looked upon as good, and that if there was any criticism of them it was that there were not more of them, or that they did not go far enough. It would seem that the general feeling was that what is there is quite properly there, although some hon. members felt that there might have been more. If it suits the convenience of the house, we should like to get on with the debate as soon as possible.

When we adjourned for the Easter recess, the Minister of Public Works announced that the house would be asked to consider the resolution of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) having to do with an amendment to

Business of the House

the Judges Act to provide for a possible increase in the number of judges in the province of Quebec. Legislation to this end has been passed by the Quebec legislature, but has not yet been proclaimed. It is felt by many that serious delays are occasioned by the fact that there is more work to do than the present number of judges can take care of, and that it might be desirable to have the Judges Act in such shape that an early appointment of additional judges can be made if and when the government of Quebec proclaims the provincial legislation to which I have referred. To proceed with this resolution would require the unanimous consent of the house, because it is only at the stage where His Excellency's acquiescence would be declared; normally it could not come up for consideration until the next sitting. If there were objection to its being considered today, of course the objection would have to prevail.

There is also on the order paper a resolution dealing with family allowances; it proposes that the period of waiting required of children coming into the country be reduced from three years to one year, and provides for the elimination of the decrease in scale in family allowances resulting from the number of children in the family. This seems to be something which most parties in this house advocate; therefore it may be that the resolution can be expeditiously disposed of so that the bill founded on it could be brought down, and any debate that might arise on the principle of the sufficiency or insufficiency of the measure proposed by the government could take place on the bill. However, the government would not care to insist upon this, because it was not announced before the house rose for the Easter recess. The purpose of this motion is to make way for the budget debate. If these two measures which I have mentioned can be expeditiously disposed of, it will further the progress of their consideration at later stages.

Mr. M. J. Coldwell (Roseiown-Biggar):

While I think the house will agree with the motion, I want to say again it is regrettable that in recent sessions of parliament private members' resolutions have not been reached. There are on the order paper a number of private members' resolutions which are of importance to their constituencies and to the country generally. It is true that in the debate on the address and on the budget we have an opportunity to debate some of these matters. But many hon. members have exhausted their right to speak in these two debates, and they would like the opportunity to deal with such matters, for example, as irrigation, or the coal mining industry and a national fuel policy, which are the subject matter of a IMr. St. Laurent.]

motion standing in the name of the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr Gillis).

Before the war we used to have debates on private members' resolutions which I think were very useful. Over the past few years we have been deprived of that opportunity-with our own consent, incidentally, always; but it is regrettable that this has been done again at this session. The Prime Minister said earlier in the session that opportunities would be given later for hon. members to discuss their resolutions, but on the first day of our meeting after the Easter recess we have this motion of the Prime Minister which again prevents the consideration of private members' resolutions. It is wise that we should go on with the business of the house. Apparently there is a good deal of uncertainty in the house and throughout the country as to how long this session will continue. In spite of that uncertainty, we should endeavour to deal with some of these matters which are of importance to private members, who have few opportunities of discussing them.

While I am not opposing the motion now before the house, I offer this protest and ask that private members' days be not interfered with again during this session.

Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):

There are two things I should like to say. First of all I want to support the request made by my leader that, if the session goes on, further private members' days be not again taken away. I remind the Prime Minister that on March 25 the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) asked if we would be having private members' days, and the Prime Minister replied that after Monday-the Monday then following-there would be nothing to interfere with the application of the standing orders. Since that statement was made, there have been three occasions on which the application of the standing orders would have provided a private members' day; we had only one of them, and now the opportunity is again taken away by this motion. The Prime Minister should indicate today what the intention of the government is with respect to Wednesday of this week, Monday of next week and Wednesday of next week, and so on-if we are still here. Perhaps the Prime Minister would take advantage of this opportunity to tell us whether or not we shall still be here.

The other matter which I should like to draw to the Prime Minister's attention is this. Each time a motion of this kind has been passed by the house we seem to have omitted the calling of the orders of the day. That is perfectly understandable; today, for instance, we pass a motion calling for questions, and then for government orders which appear at the back of the order paper; and perhaps

inadvertently-or it may be because Mr. Speaker feels it should be done that way-the orders of the day have not been called. I submit that the phrase "orders of the day" applies not only to the page on which that heading appears, but also to all subsequent pages.

If this motion passes, in view of the fact that many of us have questions to ask today, will it be understood that at some stage of this afternoon's proceedings "orders of the day" will be called?

Mr. Si. Laurent:

I think it would be the desire of hon. members to have the orders of the day called before proceeding with the matters which would come under the standing orders.

Mr. Alistair Stewart (Winnipeg North) moved

for leave to introduce Bill No. 233, to declare the meat packing industry works for the general advantage of Canada.

He said: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to make that part of the meat packing industry which carries on operations in two or more provinces subject to section 53(g) of the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act. In matters of collective bargaining the industry will then be able to negotiate on a national basis, and the government of Canada will have the authority to deal with disputes in an industry whose smooth functioning is essential to the national economy.

Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.