Hon. F. G. Bradley (Secretary of State) moved

the third reading of Bill No. 24, to amend the Public Printing and Stationery Act.

Mr. J. M. Macdonnell (Greenwood):

Mr. Speaker, at the time of second reading it was understood that further information would be made available. That information has been made available. Particularly in view of the fact that the whole question of revolving credits is going to be dealt with in the new Financial Administration Act, I think there is nothing further that I wish to say in respect of this bill at the present time.

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Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):

Mr. Speaker, there are one or two questions that have occurred to me since we had the earlier debate on this matter. I recognize that we are now at the third reading stage. We have passed the committee stage where it is possible to indulge in the question and answer method of procedure, but I should like to put a question or two to the Secretary of State. I hope that he will be given the opportunity to reply.

From the document that was tabled the other day I note that we have been given a break-down of the amounts owed by the various departments. As at November 22, 1951, they totalled $3,788,752. That was the amount due to the printing bureau by the various departments of the government. In response to our request the break-down of that figure was given not only by departments but by various months. It is to be noted that the greater part of those arrears are for recent months such as September and October, but there are some rather large items that have been standing for a good many months. I do not think that any of us over here on this side, being reasonable people, question the delay in paying accounts that are only a month or two old. But it would be interesting to have a comment as to why some departments are paid up except for the last month or two whereas some other departments, such as the Department of National Defence, the Department of National Health and Welfare, the Department of Defence Production, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and perhaps others have accounts going right back to January of this year. In that connection, can the Secretary of State tell us whether any of these arrears are for supplies of printing which the departments refused to accept? Was any of this printing sent back because it was not satisfactory in any way? Would that be an explanation for any of these arrears? If so, I would appreciate it if the Secretary of State would tell us to what extent that is the case. I would also be interested in knowing how much of this outstanding debt is for letterpress printing and how much is for offset printing.

As I say, Mr. Speaker, it would have been easier to handle these questions had we had this document when we were still in committee of the whole. But from this side of the house we agreed to allow that stage to go by provided we could get information of this kind on third reading. I hope that the house will grant permission to the Secretary of State to close the debate, although that is not usual on third reading, in order that he might answer these questions.

Hon. F. G. Bradley (Secretary of State):

Mr. Speaker-

[Mr. Macdonnell (Greenwood) .1

Mr. Speaker:

Before the minister speaks, I should point out to the house that he is entitled to speak only once on third reading of the bill. In view of the fact that he made no statement on the motion for third reading I think I should allow him to speak now, but this will be the only opportunity that will be given to him to speak. I do not think that, on third reading, the house should take part in the kind of debate which has been carried on in committee of the whole.

Mr. Bradley:

Mr. Speaker, I have not much to add at this stage of the bill, except to say that the questions which have been asked by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre are of such a detailed nature that I could not possibly be expected to have all of them available. If he had telephoned me some time before the house met, I could possibly have obtained the information for him.

Mr. Knowles:

We really did not expect that this order of business would be reached until tomorrow.

Mr. Bradley:

As to the arrears that are of comparatively long standing, running back into last May, I am not able to give him exact information upon each one but my recollection is that, in connection with one or two, there is some question as to whether the amount should be charged to the particular department or to the king's printer's department itself. As to the question of the amount to be charged against the ordinary type of printing and the amount against offset printing, I have not the faintest idea at the moment. But I can get the information for my hon. friend at any time, if he desires it.

Mr. Knowles:

May I just say to the Secretary of State that I will place my questions on the order paper and try to get the answers in that way.

Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.

Mr. Diefenbaker:

Now that the supreme court is the final court of appeal, some consideration should be given to enlarging the scope of the grounds for appeal to that court

in order to enable citizens who have had their fundamental freedoms or rights interfered with unjustly to have a right of appeal to what is now the foot of the throne. As the law now stands, generally speaking appeals are limited almost exclusively to cases measured by money value, except in cases of leave; and leave cannot be granted in respect of matters that are primarily concerned with such fundamental freedoms of the individual as religion, speech and the like, unless in appeal in a criminal case in which there has been a dissent, or in which there is a direct conflict between the judgment of the court appealed from and that of a court of equal jurisdiction.

The law permits the continued existence of conditions that may constitute a denial of fundamental freedom, because the person who suffers personally from the alleged departure from one or other of the fundamental freedoms has no appeal to the supreme court. Now that the supreme court is the final court I should like to suggest that something should be done to assure -the right of the individual everywhere in this dominion, regardless of whether it is a matter of monetary value or not, where a great principle in the field of fundamental freedom is at stake, to have the right of appeal to that court. He has an appeal under the criminal law, as I have already mentioned. He has an appeal in matters of certiorari; but where there is a direct invasion of his rights in consequence of municipal laws he has not, even when a citizen's fundamental freedoms are denied or abridged. I suggest that consideration should be given to placing in the hands of the Supreme Court of Canada the power, by leave, to grant any Canadian who claims to have been wrongfully deprived of any one of his fundamental freedoms the right of appeal to that court. By circumscribing the right of appeal to -the extent that the court itself would be required to give leave, the abuse or unnecessary use of the right of appeal would thereby be avoided.

Over the years I have advocated a bill of rights for Canadians in order to assure the preservation and maintenance of our fundamental freedoms within the confines of our constitution. To assure those freedoms I have advocated either a statute or a constitutional amendment, wherein will be set forth the personal freedoms that are ours and in order to assure that wherever they are invaded unlawfully the individual shall have a right of recourse to the courts. As it is now, he has not that right. I have suggested to other ministers of justice that, in order to determine -the division of authority as

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between the federal and provincial jurisdictions, the Minister of Justice should submit to the Supreme Court of Canada a bill of rights such as was drafted by the Senate committee two years ago, with a view to ascertaining by appropriate questions what, if any, of the fundamental freedoms are within the jurisdiction of the federal parliament.

Canadians should and must have equal rights before the law. I believe that -the time has come to extend the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Canada so as to enable an individual, whose fundamental freedoms have been denied or abrogated, to have an appeal, with the leave of a supreme court judge, to the Supreme Court of Canada. Secondly, with a view to assuring the preservation of democracy within our country, thereby showing the world the superiority of democracy over its very antithesis, communism, everything should be done to maintain, develop and expand the principles of freedom and liberty, and -to that end a major step forward would be the submission to the Supreme Court of Canada of the question of the respective jurisdiction of the federal parliament and the provincial legislatures in respect of the fundamental freedoms.

The supreme court is composed of men whose contribution to the jurisprudence and the development of this country is worthy of the highest traditions of our judiciary. Its judges are in a position to maintain and protect the liberty of the subject, provided that there is a right of appeal to that court. A right of appeal that is circumscribed by financial or monetary considerations is not one that will protect and preserve the rights of the individual when his fundamental freedoms have been encroached upon.

At the same time I should like to make a third suggestion. It has to do with the right of the subject to sue the -crown. As the law now stands, the power the Minister of Justice had to deny the right of the subject to sue the crown for negligence and contract was removed last year. However, the crown in Canada continues to enjoy a position far superior to the subject and to the citizen.

In the United Kingdom the subject is a sovereign in his own right, in that he possesses equal rights with the king in the courts, subject always to two qualifications, namely that if he is a member of the armed forces he cannot sue for wrongful orders given him, and no citizen can sue the Post Office Department for neglect or for other wrong arising out of the transmission of mail.

Apart from those two limitations, before the courts the citizen has equal rights with

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the crown. And I suggest that the disabilities of the individual in his right to sue the crown which places the citizen in a position of subservience to the crown as to rights and obligations should be abolished to the same extent as in Great Britain. .

The minister will recall that within the last few weeks in the city of Ottawa, during the course of an argument in a case in the exchequer court, Mr. Justice Thor son referred to the amplitude of the rights the crown possessed. If the press report was correct, he stated that a servant of the crown could take a citizen's motor car and dump it into the river, and there would be no right on the part of the person aggrieved as against the crown, under the law as it now is.

Such an anamolous condition cannot and does not exist in the United Kingdom and should not in Canada. In the United Kingdom the subject enjoys equality with the crown in the courts of law, subject to the exceptions I mentioned before.

These are three general submissions which I make to the Minister of Justice who, I am pleased to say, has taken interest in this subject, that merits the approval of the bar of this country. I ask him to give consideration to these submissions so as to preserve, maintain and extend the field of liberty of the individual; and provide access to the courts for every Canadian; and assure that the crown shall no longer enjoy any unequal privileges over the individual, in the courts of law.

Mr. Garson:

I wonder if before my hon.

friend takes his seat he would cite some concrete examples of the lack of access to the courts or the lack of fundamental freedoms enjoyed by any Canadians about which he has spoken, in order that I may deal with those concrete cases when I reply.

I could quote many

examples. I do not wish to bring in anything that would make this discussion controversial in any respect. However, I would point out one instance which comes to our attention frequently, and that is in connection with orders in council passed by the government which deny the subject the right of recourse to the courts, regardless of illegal interferences that have taken place.

I .would mention the order in council dealing with the radium development in northern Alberta. It is all very well to say that that was immediately after the war. It provided uncontrolled power to a controller and gave him a position of superiority above the law such as no one should enjoy. It gave to him the power to do anything legally or illegally; and no matter

what he might do, the individual claiming to be wronged would not have recourse to the courts.

Before the Foreign Exchange Control Act was in the form of a statute it operated under regulations and orders in council. There was provision in those orders in council that, where an individual's rights were determined by an official in the department, there was no right of recourse to the courts to the person wronged. I have always taken strong objection to placing citizens of the country in a position of being under the direct domination of an official of the crown, without such persons having the right of appeal against unjust orders.

When the statute was passed, the Foreign Exchange Control Act, provision was made whereby the individual should have the right to proceed against any government official who did wrong in connection with the administration of the act. But with the limitation that such individual, although he is suffering loss of, we will say, $5,000, can recover in the courts only nominal damages, in other words $1, and without costs.

In effect the statute gives the citizen the right to his day in court but it is merely an ephemeral right. It means not only that he must suffer the loss of the damage directly attributable to the wrongful act, but he cannot secure his costs of action even when he is successful.

There has been a trend in the direction of providing that decisions made by governmental boards as a result of which individuals who suffer injustice therefrom are denied any appeal to the courts. I think the time has come, in order to extend the abiding principles of democracy within our country- except when the security of the state is uppermost, and when the ordinary process.es of democracy have to give place to the need of action-for a declaration by parliament that never again shall an individual's right of appeal to the courts be denied.

I thank the minister for giving me this opportunity to mention one or two instances in a purely non-partisan matter for the purpose of bringing to his attention the need of giving to the subject in Canada, for the preservation of his fundamental freedoms, rights equal to those actually possessed by British citizens within the United Kingdom.

Mr. Garson:

Mr. Chairman, the matter before the committee at the present time is whether the ceiling imposed by statute upon the salary of the registrar of the supreme court shall be raised. I do not think that even by the widest stretch of the imagination would it be possible to trace any relationship

between that question and the matters which the hon. member for Lake Centre has just been discussing. However, in view of the fact that this is a short session and it will not be possible for the hon. member to raise these matters on the estimates of the Department of Justice I am quite willing, if you will permit me, to discuss, on their merits and as briefly as I can, the points which my hon. friend has raised.

For many years the hon. member has been a great proponent of fundamental freedoms and of a bill of rights which as he says would preserve them. As I understand his proposition today, it is that in respect of the Supreme Court Act, which I am sure he will agree is largely procedural in character and does not deal with substantive law, we should provide by some amendment to that statute a recourse to the supreme court for the purpose of protecting these human rights and fundamental freedoms.

I put it to you and to the hon. gentleman that what he is really talking about is not a matter of procedural law that could be secured by an amendment to the Supreme Court Act. He is talking about a matter of substantive law. If, as he contends, the law of Canada is at present defective in the matter of protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, what is required is something which he himself has advocated on a number of occasions-a bill of rights.

Presuming that the law as it stands at the present time is defective-which I think is open to considerable doubt-I had hoped that some time I might have the opportunity of discussing the resolution for a bill of rights which has been almost permanently upon the order paper in the name of my hon. friend- it can be remedied only by some substantive provision of law which in the nature of things cannot take the form of an amendment to the procedural sections of the Supreme Court Act.

The point here is not whether the supreme court has jurisdiction to hear appeals from any courts which are junior to it. I think my hon. friend will agree that with the amendments which were introduced coincident with the abolition of appeals to the privy council, the jurisdiction of the supreme court to hear almost any kind of appeal from any court in Canada is now pretty much unlimited and that therefore we cannot meet the case which my hon. friend states by attempting to enlarge the jurisdiction of the supreme court upon appeal because they already have wide-open jurisdiction on appeal. If the law be defective it can be changed only by the

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method which I have always understood the hon. member to have been advocating, namely, by a bill of rights.

The hon. member says that he would like to have this question of whether human rights and fundamental freedoms fall within the federal or provincial jurisdiction submitted to the supreme court.

Mr. Diefenbaker:

I said to submit the draft bill of rights which was prepared by the Senate committee.

Mr. Garson:

Yes, submit the draft bill of rights which lists the various human rights and fundamental freedoms one after another to the supreme court to have that court determine which of those human rights and fundamental freedoms so listed fall within federal jurisdiction, on the one hand, or within provincial jurisdiction, on the other.

These suggestions, which my hon. friend has just now made in respect to a matter which is completely irrelevant to them, I must confess took me completely by surprise so I am not quite as well equipped to discuss them as I would have been if we had proceeded, for example, under the motion which stands in the name of my hon. friend on the order paper. I am just speaking offhand, but I should think that the supreme court would find some difficulty in deciding whether a subject like the liberty of a person fell under federal or provincial jurisdiction. The habeas corpus acts are provincial acts, for example, while the criminal law is a federal statute. I think my hon. friend will agree that the question of whether one or another aspect of the freedom of the person fell within provincial or federal jurisdiction would depend upon the substantive statute which was being considered by the supreme court at that time and it would be a matter of the greatest possible difficulty for the supreme court to consider human rights and fundamental freedoms in the form of abstract statements.

Therefore, as I said the other night and with great respect, I would be inclined to think that a much more satisfactory way of arriving at the objective which my hon. friend has in mind, if he considered any of the present protections which are enjoyed in the way of human rights and fundamental principles to be in any way defective, would be for him to introduce a private bill to amend the law in that respect. After having taken the precautions, which I know my hon. friend would take, to make sure that the matter fell within federal jurisdiction, he would then have a legal issue for presentation to the supreme court which would be much more satisfactory than the submission of the Hon. Mr. Roebuck's resolution.

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