Mr. Low:

There is probably oil in the soil of Saskatchewan.

Mr. Maclnnis:

It may come out of the soil in Saskatchewan.

for this country and as placing a limit on the services and security to be provided for our people: and

(2) make no provision for increased national production through economic planning, public control of investment, public ownership of monopolistic industries, and the full and proper development and use of our resources, so as to ensure a rising standard of living and comprehensive social security for the Canadian people.

Those in favour of the amendment to the amendment will please say "yea".

Yea.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Beaudoin):

Those against it will please say "nay".

Nay.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Beaudoin):

In my

opinion the "nays" have it.

And more than five members having risen:

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Beaudoin):

Call in the members.

The house divided on the amendment to the amendment (Mr. Coldwell), which was negatived on the following division:

Mr. Low:

Never while the C.C.F. government is in power.

++YEAS

Messrs:

Mr. Maclnnis:

It may or may not. But that does not alter the situation. The people of Saskatchewan today are better off than ever they were before. If you do not believe that, compare the taxes the farmers of Saskatchewan pay with the taxes paid by the farmers in any other part of Canada.

I did not intend to make a speech, Mr. Speaker. If I had ten minutes for preparation, I could really make a good speech on what social credit is and isn't.

Question.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Beaudoin):

The

question is on the following motion. Mr. Abbott moves, seconded by Mr. Fournier (Hull):

That Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to resolve itself again into committee of ways and means.

Mr. Macdonnell (Greenwood), seconded by Mr. Green, moves in amendment thereto- shall I dispense with the reading of the amendment?

Dispense.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Beaudoin):

Mr. Coldwell, seconded by Mr. Maclnnis moved:

That the amendment be amended by deleting therefrom all the words after the words "Minister of Finance" and by inserting instead thereof the following words:

(1) indicate that the government is prepared to accept the present level of production as adequate

[Mr. Maclnnis.)

Argue

Bryce

Coldwell

Herridge

Jones

Knight

Knowles

Maclnnis

Noseworthy

Stewart (Winnipeg North)

Thatcher

Wright-12.

NAYS Messrs:

Abbott

Adamson

Applewhaite

Arsenault

Ashbourne

Bater

Beaudoin

Beaudry

Benidickson

Bennett

Bertrand

Beyerstein

Blackmore

Blair

Blanchette

Boivin

Bonnier

Boucher

Bourget

Bradette

Breithaupt

Brisson

Brown (Essex West)

Browne (St. John's West)

Byrne

Cameron

Campney

Cannon

Carroll

Carter

Catherwood

Cavers

Charlton

Chevrier

Conacher

Corry

Cote (Verdun-LaSalle)

Coyle

Croll

Cruickshank

Darroch

Dechene

Decore

Demers

Denis

Dickey

Dion

Douglas

Dumas

Eyre

Fauteux

Ferguson

Ferrie

Fontaine

Fournier (Hull)

Fournier (Maisonneuve-Rosemont)

Fraser

Gagnon

Gardiner

Garson

Gauthier (Lake St. John)

Gauthier (Sudbury)

Gauthier (Lapointe)

Gauthier (Portneuf)

George

Gingras

Gingues

Goode Masse

Gosselin Maybank

Gour (Russell) Monette

Gourd (Chapleau) Mott

Gregg Murray (Oxford)

Hansell Murray (Cariboo)

Harkness Mutch

Harris (Grey-Bruce) Nixon

Helme Pearkes

Henry Pearson

Hetland Picard

Higgins Poulin

Hodgson Pouliot

Hosking Proudfoot

Howe Prudham

Huffman Quelch

Hunter Ratelle

Isnor Richard (Gloucester)

James Richard (St. Maurice-

Jutras Lafleche)

Kent Richard (Ottawa East)

Kickham Riley

Kirk (Antigonish- Roberge

Guysborough) Robertson

Kirk (Digby-Yarmouth) Robinson

LaCroix Rooney

Lafontaine Ross (Souris)

Laing Rowe

Langlois (Gaspe) St. Laurent

Lapointe Shaw

Larson Sinclair ,

Lefrangois Smith (Queens-

Leger Shelburne)

Lennard Smith (York North)

Lesage Smith (Moose Mountain)

Little Stanfield

Low Stewart (Yorkton)

Macdonnell (Greenwood) Stick

MacKenzie Stuart (Charlotte)

MacLean (Cape Breton Studer

North and Victoria) Tremblay

MacNaught Tustin

McCulloch Viau

McCusker Ward

McDonald (Parry Sound- Weaver

Muskoka) Weir

McGregor Welbourn

Mclvor White (Hastings-

McLean (Huron-Perth) Peterborough)

McLure Whiteside

Me William Winkler

Major Wood

Maltais Wylie-167.

Mr. Smith (Calgary West):

I was paired with the hon. member for Edmonton East (Mr. Macdonald). Had I voted, I would have voted against the subamendment.

Mr. Gillis:

I was .paired with the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin). Had I voted, I would have voted for the subamendment.

Mr. J. H. Blackmore (Lethbridge):

Mr. Speaker, it grieves me greatly to have to hold up the house for a while, but the speech delivered on April 24 by the hon. member for Churchill (Mr. Weaver) requires a certain amount of attention and I intend to give it that amount of attention before we have another vote. This speech will be found on pages 1836 to 1842 of Hansard.

I think it would be a good thing if I were to lay down what I believe are some of the

The Budget-Mr. Blagkmore responsibilities of a member of parliament. I think the people have a right to expect, first of all, that a member of parliament shall either know something of what he talks about, or talk about only those things that he knows something about. When a member of parliament rises on the floor of this house and makes remarks the people all over the country have some right to believe that he is somewhere near right. I think that is a pretty sound principle to lay down.

According to the Parliamentary Guide of 1950, page 265, the hon. member for Churchill was educated at the Royal Military College and obtained a certificate of graduation with honours. He is stated to be a metallurgical engineer. A gentleman with such credentials certainly should be expected to know what he is talking about.

I should like to draw attention to four passages in the speech which he delivered. I shall not read them completely, but will give the first and last words of each passage and later on I shall deal with one or two of the passages in detail. On page 1838 of Hansard we find a passage commencing with the words, "My point" and ending with the words "money is worthless". There is another passage on page 1838 commencing with the words, "This statement" and ending with, "called inflation". There is still another passage on page 1838 commencing with the words, "Money is only goods" and going down to "against these goods". The next passage is on page 1839 commencing with the words, "In the same way" and going down to the words, "lose their value". I do not know to what extent I shall be able to give attention to these passages, but certainly each one needs attention.

May I draw attention to the first one I referred to which is to be found on page 1838 and which reads:

My point is that the Social Credit theorists lead themselves down the garden path by focusing their attention on money and not on production. Without production money is worthless.

Those two statements constitute a complete falsehood with regard to social credit. In the first place we do not know what the hon. member means by theorists, but if the word "theorists" is taken to include Social Credit members of parliament or members of the Alberta legislature or government, then it is completely wrong. The fact that the hon. member uses the word "theorists" will give him a way out in case he needs it. I grant that there are theorists and practical men, and I suppose there are such in the Social Credit movement as there are to be found in plentiful numbers in the Liberal party; but no responsible individual such as a member

The Budget-Mr. Blackmore of parliament at Ottawa or those whom I have mentioned in the Alberta legislature can be included in the statement made by the hon. member.

I challenge the hon. member to produce any passage in Hansard from 1936 to the present time that either proves or even vaguely justifies the statement he made in that passage. The hon. member said:

My point is that the Social Credit theorists lead themselves down the garden path by focusing their attention on money and not on production.

That is absolutely false. Social Crediters base all their thinking and all their talking and all their reasoning on production. They point out that because of the abundance we are able to produce, so much more than the people are able to buy, we have got to the point at which some adjustment has to be made in the purchasing power in the hands of the people so that they will be able to buy the production they are able to produce.

The hon. member can find that idea reiterated dozens of times since 1933. He tells us he went to hear Premier Aberhart in that year. If he did hear Premier Aberhart, and was in Alberta in 1933, then he heard the expression reiterated time and again until the whole province was like a beehive with the expression, "shortage of purchasing power in the hands of the people." And he heard, on the other hand, the bankers and all their supporters saying that we had overproduction. If we have overproduction on the one hand, then certainly we have a surplus of goods. If we have a shortage of purchasing power in the hands of the people we also have a surplus of goods. So that no matter which way the hon. member approaches the problem, his statement is absolutely false and erroneous, entirely. He should know it; and if he does not know it there is something seriously wrong with that member. He threw this false statement on the pages of Hansard before tens of thousands of people from one end of Canada to the other, something which I maintain no member has the right to do.

Let me say to the hon. member that he would have found many, many statements in Hansard giving the truth about social credit if he had taken the time to look for them.

May I refer to the first speech I delivered in the house in 1936, when I first came to parliament. That was my first regular speech in this chamber. Let me read a passage from Hansard for 1936, page 115, and see whether there is any disregard for goods in that speech. I said:

At the same time, what banks can so generously do, and lend the proceeds to the government, and charge them good stiff interest for, I submit that governments ought to be able to find some way or another of doing for themselves.

I am speaking about the creation of money. I continue:

Here is another example. Mr. A. de V. Leigh, secretary of the London chamber of commerce, in a statement reprinted in the Ottawa Citizen on June 8, 1934, makes the following statement:

"The war was paid for as to 30 per cent by actual money belonging to the people-"

Is there anyone who can see any reason why, then, the people of Great Britain should be taxed almost to death to pay for that war, when they already have paid for it?

"-earned by the people; which was invested by the people in war loans;-"

Then note particularly these words:

"-and 70 per cent of the total cost of the war was paid for by the banks very kindly making these book entries, costing them nothing except the ink, paper and the time of the clerk, and lending the result to the nation at interest. The nation owes them money in exchange for their promises-to-pay money which they have not got. Further we have been paying them interest on these promises-to-pay ever since. Interest on war loans amounts to something like five million dollars a day."

Now if the government is going to assert complete freedom for the Dominion of Canada, it is going to take control of such issue. It must be safeguarded, we will grant. It must be managed by men who are responsible and who are trained, men who will honestly and successfully manage that aspect of the nation's life in the interests of the people and not in the interests of any private group.

There is one more thing which must be very carefully considered, and we assume that the Prime Minister has this in mind. Up to the present time the backing for money has been gold. Men have got to the point where they virtually worship the gold standard. It is like a golden calf which they worship to their ruin, but the time must come when we will all realize that the backing of money is not necessarily gold. May I read here a statement by an eminent authority which none will presume to question, the Midland Bank, England, the largest bank in the world? Here is an extract from its monthly review, June-July, 1935.

"In the past four years the progress of ideas has been rapid-the gold value of sterling has dwindled by 40 per cent-neither the government nor the bank does anything about it, and no one is in the slightest degree disturbed, since the pound buys just as much goods and services as in 1931."

In other words, the gold standard has been gradually displaced in England as a backing for goods and services. In our country, with new machinery and scientific knowledge, a high degree of technical skill, and good organization, we can produce an almost infinite amount of goods, and we have hundreds of thousands of men in the country ready to render services; so there ought to be virtually an unlimited backing for what money we wish to produce; at least there should be enough backing to give us the money we need.

That passage alone should have warned the hon. member, if he had taken the time and pains, making him realize that the statement he was about to make was completely wrong. Then I made the following quotation:

"Stability of the value of the pound in terms of goods has replaced stability in terms of gold. At the heart of the matter is a change in the official conception of stability-internal stability is bringing us far greater benefits, in solid economic welfare, than the pursuit of fixity of exchange cpuld

conceivably yield. Clearly this change is nothing short of a revolution-it indicates an almost complete transformation of the monetary system."

And then I went on in my own words:

The social credit group in this parliament believes that the Prime Minister favours the introduction of such a revolutionary change. First, that the dominion government will take control of the issue so as to manage it for the people's welfare; and, second, that little by little in so far as it is necessary they will gradually depart from the gold standard and substitute a goods and services backing, and that such other measures will be taken as will tend to the well-being and increase of the wealth of this country.

While I was not particularly discussing the question raised by the hon. member's statement, nevertheless it is surprising how well I answered him, considering my speech was made over fourteen years before his.

I now wish to read a statement by the hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Quelch). Since we came to the house the hon. member and I have been endeavouring to carry the burden of explaining the views of this group with respect to financial problems; so that whenever we have spoken we have been pretty well expressing the ideas of the group and of the movement. The hon. member for Acadia, speaking on March 3, 1939, had this to say about the $750 million loan, as set out at page 1517 of Hansard tor that year:

Now, we fully realize that there is a well defined limit to the amount of money that can be issued in any period, and so long as it does not go beyond that limit there need not be any fear of inflation.

Mr. Dunning;

What is the limit?

Mr. Quelch:

The limit is the amount of money necessary to make the great physical demand of the people effective against the production of the country; that is to say, if you have on the one hand goods unsold and on the other hand people requiring those goods, you can give them enough money to buy those goods without any possible danger of inflation.

I believe the hon. member, if he is listening-and I have not had time to notice whether he is or not-will find in that a contradiction of what he has said. He may say, "Oh, I have not had the time to read all the speeches made by members of the Social Credit party." The hon. member has been in this house during one and a half sessions. There have been here ten members of the Social Credit group, any one of whom could have put him right. So there is no excuse, not only for his failing to get correct information regarding Social Credit concepts and policies, but for rising in the house and scattering misinformation throughout the country.

I should like now to quote from speeches delivered since the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) became leader of this group. When he became leader he also became spokesman for the group, spokesman for the

The Budget-Mr. Blackmore Social Credit movement. Speaking on November 7, 1945, as reported at page 2573 of Hansard, he said:

It is different from our present money-I am speaking, of course, of social credit money-but only in this respect, that it is issued into circulation without adding to the nation's debt. And remember that Social Crediters advocate issuing new money only when there are goods and services already in existence to be distributed by money; a dollar of purchasing power for a dollar's worth of goods and services available, no more and no less. I suggest that under such circumstances there could not possibly be any inflation.

Now let me suggest to the government that when unsaleable surpluses of goods begin to pile up on the shelves of the warehouses, as sooner or later they will because of the inherent weakness of the financial system, and when at the same time there are Canadians who need and want these goods for their own use, the government should arrange another credit expansion equal to the value of the goods to be removed, and see to it that this new money finds its way, debt-free, into the hands of consumers, starting first with old age pensioners, the blind, scholars who want to stay in school to finish their education but have not the means to do so, and the unfortunate of the country. I suggest that no Canadian should henceforth ever have to go hungry.

Mr. Pouliot:

I am interested in what the hon. member is saying, and I would ask him not to read so fast, so that we will not miss a word of it.

Mr. Blackmore:

I thank the hon. member for his interruption. However, my chief reason for reading fast is that I have quite a number of passages before me, and I should like to have them all on Hansard. The hon. member can read them tomorrow.