Mr. Ross (Souris):

Mr. Speaker-

Mr. Knowles:

Mr. Speaker-

Mr. Juiras:

Mr. Speaker-

Mr. Speaker:

The hon. member for

Provencher.

Mr. Rene N. Juiras (Provencher):

Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to move the adjournment of the house for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely the disastrous floods-

Mr. Speaker:

Order. This motion is moved under standing order 31, which reads as follows:

Leave to make a motion for the adjournment of the house (when made for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance) must be asked after the ordinary daily routine of business (standing order 15) has been concluded and before notices of motions or orders of the day are entered upon.

The request for leave appears to have been made at the proper time.

The second paragraph of standing order 31 reads as follows:

The member desiring to make such a motion rises in his place, asks leave to move the adjournment of the house for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, and states the matter.

The hon. member may proceed.

Mr. Juiras:

I wish to discuss the disastrous flood conditions in the province of Manitoba, covering the major part of the province and affecting the lives and livelihood of thousands and thousands of people.

Mr. Speaker:

The procedure is that the hon. member then hands a written statement of the matter he proposes to discuss to Mr. Speaker, who, if he thinks it in order and of urgent public importance, reads it out and asks whether the member has the leave of the house. I have read the written statement, and it appears to me to be in order and of urgent public importance. Accordingly, I shall read it out:

Mr. Jutras moves, seconded by Mr Viau, for leave to move the adjournment of the house for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the disastrous flood conditions in the province of Manitoba, covering a major part of the province and affecting the lives and livelihood of thousands and thousands of people.

Agreed.

Mr. Juiras:

I thank you, Mr. Speaker, and the house for giving me this opportunity of discussing a matter of great importance, and of bringing it to the attention of this parliament. Within the last three days it has become a matter of grave personal concern, because this flood affects the major part of my constituency. At the moment the greater part of my constituency is under water, and as reports continue to be received the situation grows worse. As a matter of fact my own property is now in the midst of the dirty waters of the Red river, and the last word

Manitoba Flood

I had indicated that a canoe could be floated in my living room. Compared with the damage to surrounding properties, however, that is of little consequence. The people are helpless; there is nothing to stop the rolling flood water.

A few days ago a man whom I knew well, and who was well regarded in the community of St. Elizabeth, lost his life as a result of the flood. He was just in the prime of life, and leaves a family of seven children, ranging in age from fourteen years to a few weeks. I do want to express my deepest sympathy to Mrs. Sicotte, of St. Elizabeth, and the members of the family. We have every reason to be grateful that so far only one life has been lost. As the flood grows worse from hour to hour, the threat to life becomes greater and greater.

When the flood commenced my first impulse was to go immediately to my constituency to investigate the situation, and at the same time to protect my own property. After due consideration, however, I concluded that it was my duty to remain at my post, at least until such time as the likelihood of a major catastrophe requiring my services in Ottawa had passed. I have kept in close touch by telephone and telegraph with parties in that area ever since the beginning of the flood, and according to the latest report things seem to be fairly well under control. Yesterday I called the mayor of Emerson which was the first town to be inundated, and he told me that the conditions were grim and desolate, but that the people had food, shelter and some heat. It was evident that everything humanly possible had been done for the community, and they were fairly well taken care of. As I have said, every hour the picture changes.

This morning I had been led to believe that the condition has grown worse in Emerson than it was last night. Apparently rail communication has been cut, and the telephone switchboard has been abandoned because of the high water level. I believe the Royal Canadian Mounted Police radio station in the town is keeping in touch with the outside world. I have been told that Morris is facing the same difficulty. I do not know the situation in the town of Letellier, the second town going north, but concern was expressed over the 200-foot sandbag dike which had been erected to hold back the small tributary, the Marais river. The water was lapping over the dike, and I fear that this morning it must be well over it, if indeed the dike has not collapsed under the strain.

When I went home at Easter, there was no flood, but upon investigation there seemed to be every likelihood of one. The authorities

at Bismarck and Grand Forks in the United States advised us that there was a likelihood of a flood in the district; therefore some preparations were made. I know that I prepared my house for the flood, and I believe a good many people acted in a similar manner. We moved our stock and feed to the high ground which had remained dry during the 1948 flood. A good many people moved their personal belongings to these high spots. Unfortunately the Red river and its tributaries did not follow the 1948 pattern; consequently all those places that were left dry in the 1948 flood are now under two feet of water. This has made conditions worse than if the people had not moved their personal belongings at all.

Hon. members will no doubt recall from reading newspaper reports that there was a heavy snowfall in that area at Easter. This made it all the more difficult for the people to move feed and stock to higher ground. As a matter of fact, during the weeks that I was there it was utterly impossible to enter any yard of any farm; consequently they could not move anything out before getting a bulldozer, a tractor or a snowplow to clear a roadway into the farm land. Of course there was a terrific demand on all the equipment, and that caused some delay. It kept snowing and drifting all through, and this added to the difficulty of moving out to higher ground.

When I returned here, immediately after the reopening of the session after Easter, I checked with all the federal agencies concerned to see if they were alerted to the situation and were prepared for it. I found all that could be expected had been done, and that all precautions had been taken that could be taken at the time. I also notified the government, all other members for the province, and others, of the impending disaster. The government now, of course, has promised to look into the situation. As I said, it was not entirely unforeseen. We were prepared, but we were prepared for the 1948 level, not for this disastrous flood.

To establish any comparison with what has taken place at the present time in Manitoba one would have to go back at least a hundred and twenty-five years. In those days, of course, there were no records to show exactly how many inches of water there were. But from old records we know that there was a flood about that time somewhat similar to what we are having today.

From the start of the flood the Red Cross organization was put in charge of everything connected with relief; and I think it is proper at this time that I should pay a tribute to the Red Cross for the wonderful work they are doing in that area. I think it was helpful

-and it was possibly as a result of lessons that we learned in the flood of 1948-that everything in the way of demands and requests, and everything going out, was put into the hands of the Red Cross organization. They are now functioning most efficiently. All demands and everything connected with the work have been concentrated in their hands. The provincial government, the municipal government and governments at all levels co-operate with the Red Cross and send everything that can be sent to be helpful to the people through that organization. There has been a centralization of power that has contributed greatly to getting whatever was needed out to the people who needed it. Everybody has been careful not to interfere with the chain of command. Matters have been working smoothly. I hope that this effort will be kept up-and I am sure it will-until the danger is past and the water has started to recede.

I also want to say that the army has contributed greatly, particularly at Emerson, where there were two, three and four feet of water in the streets. Some people were left stranded out in the water. The army proved invaluable in getting those people back to higher ground. The army also provided water purifiers, something which is also of great importance at any time of flood. These purifiers could draw water from the wells, even in the flooded areas, and purify it for drinking purposes. This enabled the town to keep, until a further emergency, the drinking water which had been supplied by the health department of the province.

Another thing that was done by the health department was this: they spotted a tank car of drinking water on the railway, sealed up under the authority of the Red Cross officials at the spot, so that drinking water would be available when it was really required.

Speaking of the railways, I would say that they provided box cars for the storage of personal belongings. Many people are now living in tourist coaches. There are cook cars and various cars where people can at least have food and water. Furthermore mounted police at Emerson and Morris have been well prepared from the start. They have protected property and they have installed radio communications to meet this emergency, keeping contact with the outside world through their radio station. I was glad to hear on Sunday afternoon the R.C.M.P. operator, speaking from Emerson over the radio, saying that they had all that was required to take care of the situation at that time, and that they had no particular requests to make then.

This picture of the situation in Emerson will give you a picture of the disaster in the

Manitoba Flood

Red river valley. When you consider that at the present time there is water well over the windows of the houses, and that most of the people had to be evacuated from the town, you can well imagine the desolate picture now presented by the town, and the great loss that will be incurred in this town alone. As you move out to the United States boundary from Winnipeg, you go through the towns of Morris, St. Jean Baptiste, Ste. Agathe, and the same story repeats itself. Mr. L. Brown reported over the radio on Saturday afternoon, speaking in the streets at Emerson, and he reported again on his way driving back from Emerson to Winnipeg in an amphibious vehicle. The way he put it was this. All he could see was water on both sides of what was supposed to be the highway which he was following, and toppling buildings and desolate isolation. This is the picture of the entire Red river valley, which is practically the entire area from the city of Winnipeg to the border and practically to Bismarck, and in Manitoba extending west right up to the Pembina hills and to the sand hill to the east.

To make matters worse-that is, worse for the people in the district-the weather has been terribly cold. Since the flood I understand the highest temperature recorded has been 45 degrees above zero. Every'now and then they have had snow. They had snow in the early part of the week; they had snow in the middle of the week, and last night I understand they had snow again, or at least last night it was a little bit further south, in the United States. One can well imagine the misery of trying to hold up dikes, working in two or three feet of water, with the snow falling most of the time. Then we must remember that in most of the homes the basement and sometimes the first storey has been flooded; consequently their means of getting heat is restricted and in some cases completely cut off. It is very difficult to live without heat in such weather at the present time. In spite of the fact that this cold weather has probably helped the situation so far as Winnipeg is concerned, and may prevent that city from getting as high a flood as would be expected from all that water further south, it has made the conditions that much more difficult for the people in the district.

When this water recedes-I hope it will be before too long, although it will be some time yet, because it is still climbing, and if any snow falls again in the south or anywhere around, it will go up again-you can well imagine the tremendous loss that these raging waters will leave in their wake in that part of the province. Most of the public works

Manitoba Flood

of course will be washed away. There will be tremendous damage to real estate. As I explained previously, although we were prepared for the 1948 level, we were not prepared for this one. I know of one farmer who had moved his cattle, his grain and his feed to a high spot, or at least one that was a high spot and a dry spot in 1948. Shortly after moving his stock, his grain and his feed, the water came over it and he had to move a second time to higher ground. By that time of course he was worse off than if he had left his feed and livestock at home, because where he was there was very little accommodation, not nearly the accommodation he had had at home; he was completely surrounded by water by that time, and could not get out very easily. I have no doubt that that experience has been repeated in many parts of the district. We can expect that the losses in grain and feed, apart from livestock, will be very great indeed because of that fact.

I want to say here that this is not just another flood. I know that in a country the size of Canada there are floods every year in some parts of it; but this is a flood that has a peculiar aspect to it. As I said before, it covers practically all of the best farm lands of the province, extending even north of Winnipeg, and from Winnipeg right down to the boundary east and west. The most densely populated area of rural Manitoba is flooded.

What I suggest for consideration is that this area did have a serious flood in 1948; but now after a lapse of two years we are faced with a much worse flood than the one we had then. Everybody will realize, of course, what this means to the local residents of these farms. They had not completely recovered from their losses of 1948, and now they are faced with even greater losses financially and otherwise, which will work a terrific hardship on them.

There is another factor that enters into it. This is an international flood. It is not a flood that is confined to Canada. It originated further south in North Dakota and Minnesota, and came into Canada, with the result that this vast expanse of water is astride the international boundary. This is a recurrence of the flood of 1948. It is true there is quite a lapse of time between floods, but still this is a recurring problem; it is happening every now and again. As a matter of fact, I went back and checked up when floods of major importance had taken place in the Red river valley, and I found that they date back to 1776. Apparently there was a flood in 1776; there was another in 1790; the next one was in 1826; then there were floods in 1849, 1852, 1861, 1885, 1897,

1916, 1948 and 1950. Therefore the lapse of time between the various floods runs 24, 36, 23, 3, 9, 24, 12, 19, 32, and 2 years, making an average of 18 years.

It has to be noted that the source of the recurring floods is outside of our own country, and south of the border, and as a matter of fact we can do very little about it. In all fairness I want to say that our United States friends to the south have made some efforts to try to prevent those floods from occurring in their country and in ours. Actually they have impressive plans now before them. They have spent $1,500,000 to prevent floods, and there is now being spent $3,300,000. There is an authorization of $12,250,000, and there is up for review an amount of $353,000. That amounts to a total of $17 million. That is the amount they expect to spend to try to control floods in the Red river.

In spite of that, according to the best experts and engineers, there is every likelihood that, even with all these major projects and all this work being done to try to hold the water back, it will not be enough to control the floods. It might control them to a certain extent, but that is not a solution of the problem of these floods in the area. I ask the government to press the international joint commission to speed up its engineering report on the control of floods in the area, to try to get some action, and to explore further to see whether, if they cannot be wholly controlled, they may be partly controlled.

I take this opportunity to draw the attention of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act officials to this problem. For some time I have thought that an irrigation project could be set up at the foot of the Pembina hills. As a matter of fact I have consulted a competent engineer. I have a map which shows that there is a possibility-it has not been studied in detail -of holding at least the water coming from Pembina hills into the valley of the Red river, this eliminating some of the difficulty. I do not mean that this would prevent the floods, but it might alleviate the difficulty to some extent. The main thing to remember now is that even if it does not prevent the floods in the district, it might prevent them from rising the extra two or three feet, and if it did that it would pay for itself on the occasion of one flood. As we know, as the water rises higher and higher the damages mount in very much greater proportion. I would go so far as to say even that the last four or five feet of the flood will probably do more damage than the initial forty-foot rise. So, even if it is only a slight measure of control, it would be well worth while investigating.

I wish at this stage to draw the attention of the Canadian wheat board to a problem that will probably arise as soon as the waters recede. We must envisage now the possibility -perhaps even more than a possibility; it amounts almost to an assurance-that the entire southern part of the province will be unable to produce any wheat this year. We are now in the month of May, and the waters are still rising. By the time they recede and the land dries enough to permit cultivation, there is every likelihood that the time will have passed when the planting of wheat would be possible. We may envisage a situation in which no farmers in the district will be able to plant wheat.

This condition will naturally make a much greater demand on coarse grains seed for seeding purposes. I would expect that there would be some degree of scarcity of those grains at the present time, since much of the seed grain stored for planting purposes is probably under water today. As soon as the land dries out, undoubtedly all the farmers will rush to the wheat board or to the market to secure seed grains, and the board would be wise to prepare for that condition now. Naturally the demand will be most urgent. As soon as the land is ready, the people will want to get on it.

At this stage, of course, it is too early to assess damages. We know that in 1948 the damage ran into millions of dollars, and this time it will be well over that amount. I think it is only fair to say, therefore, that these people will need assistance. As I have indicated, everything for their immediate assistance has been channelled through the Red Cross. As the peak is passed, everything will be channelled back to the provincial government. No doubt some assistance will be given. Indeed, we have the assurance from the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent), and I am grateful to him for it, that the matter will be looked into, in conjunction with the province, to see what can be done.

At this time, therefore, I would request the government to send someone in authority out there to look over the situation, and to learn exactly what the story is in that part of the province.

Mr. Garson:

Mr. Speaker-

Mr. Speaker:

I might say that before coming to the house the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Jutras), the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Ross) and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) all informed me that they proposed to make the motion that has been made this afternoon.

I intimated that in all probability I would see first the hon. member for Provencher,

Manitoba Flood

because he had intimated to me earlier than the other two members that he would make his motion. I had to find some reason for recognizing one of the hon. members.

In view of these circumstances I believe that perhaps I should call upon those hon. members in the order in which they had seen me prior to entering the chamber. Following that procedure, I would recognize next the hon. member for Souris, and then the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.

Mr. Garson:

Mr. Speaker, I entirely agree with the reasons you have just stated for calling on these hon. members in the order indicated. However, in view of the fact that there would seem to be a number of members wishing to take part in the debate, I am wondering if perhaps the house would be prepared to hear a statement from me concerning the communications I have had-

No.

Mr. Garson:

-with the premier of Manitoba, which might shed some light upon the matter, and perhaps dispose of matters which would otherwise take a good deal of time in debate.