Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Defence Production):

Mr. Speaker, the only delay is in connection with compiling the list. It is a rather extensive list. I will ask that it be brought down on Monday if it is at all possible.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Fisheries. According to a press despatch in the Halifax Herald on June 20 I note that the minister was to give me the location of the scallop beds of Prince Edward Island as reported by the fisheries research board. Later on, in another dispatch, I note that a new scallop bed is reported somewhere in the Northumberland strait. I should like to have from the minister more definite information as to the location of these beds than just that they are in Northumberland strait.

Hon. R. W. Mayhew (Minister of Fisheries):

Mr. Speaker, I will see that the hon. member gets the information he desires.

Mr. Daniel Mclvor (Fort William):

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I just want to thank the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew) for his kindness, during his recent visit to Fort William, in advertising me to -the people of Fort William.

Hon. Sluart S. Garson (Minister of Justice) moved

the second reading of and concurrence in amendments made by the Senate to Bill No. 306, to amend the Combines Investigation Act and the Criminal Code.

Mr. Donald M. Fleming (Eglinlon):

Is the

minister going to make a statement with regard to these amendments?

Mr. Garson:

I do not think it is necessary to go into any details concerning them. They were all made in the banking .and commerce committee of the Senate when members of our combines investigation staff and I were present. They are all acceptable to the government.

Mr. Fleming:

The minister has been

extremely brief in his explanation of the amendments. I should like to make a comment on them, Mr. Speaker; and I may say that it will not be an extended comment.

I think it is only fair to state that, in my view, the amendments made by the Senate to this bill result in an improvement in the bill. The amendments are not as extensive perhaps as some had been led to believe or expect as a result of the discussions which occurred there and which were reported widely in the press. But so far as these amendments go it seems to me that they make an improvement in the bill.

Personally I have noticed with some little degree of interest, Mr. Speaker, the fact that four of these amendments relate to penalties that follow upon breaches of the act or the Criminal Code. It is the very point that I raised when this bill was before the committee of the whole in this house. Those are amendments which are to be found at page 16, line 4; page 16, line 37; page 21, line 16; page 21, lines 25 and 26 where in each case the words "imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years" are stricken out and the words:

a fine in the discretion of the court or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both...

are substituted.

When I raised the point in the house the minister rejected the suggestion that there should be some amendment of this kind and said it was quite unnecessary, and that the subject was sufficiently provided for already by the Criminal Code. I do not wish to obtrude personal considerations into this matter, Mr. Speaker, but I must say that it is not a little gratifying to see these four amendments made by the Senate in connection with this particular subject and also to find now that amendments of this kind are entirely acceptable to the government wherea^ a matter of two short weeks ago the suggestion was quite unacceptable to the minister.

The other principal feature of the amendments proposed by the Senate relates to the imposition of a time limit in the cases where power is given by the bill, following upon a conviction, to follow up in the case of a person or corporation convicted. We now find the Senate proposing a time limit of three years in the power conferred by the new section 33, subsection 1, of the Combines Investigation Act. Mr. Speaker, I am sure that that is a desirable improvement.

As to the other amendments made, I think in each case they can also be said to be improvements. I am glad to see that, perhaps because of the lateness of the season

Combines Investigation Act in this session, the government is ready and prepared to accept amendments even though they were not quite so ready when the bill was before this house. .

Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):

Mr. Speaker, like the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming), I shall be brief in what I have to say; but unlike the hon. member for Eglinton I do not approve of the amendments suggested by the Senate to the bill which amends the Combines Investigation Act. It seems to me that the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) was right the first time in the wording of the sections having to do with punishment for certain offences under the Combines Investigation Act. I realize that the minister can argue that the change is one more of form than of substance. I see him nodding his head to that proposition.

Mr. Garson:

There is no change in substance whatsoever.

Mr. Knowles:

In other words, the minister goes a bit further with respect to what I have just said. But it is my submission that, if there is such a thing in law, there is a change in the spirit; and I think it is a poor change to be making. When the government brought in this legislation, its assertion was that it was for the purpose of strengthening our laws against combines and that one of the ways in which our laws against combines were being strengthened was by the stiffening of penalties for offences under the act. In that vein we had at least these four places in the amending bill where it was stated, as for example, in section 32 (1):

Every person who is a party or privy to or knowingly assists in the formation or operation of a combine is guilty of an indictable offence and liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

There are four places in the bill as it went through this house where that phrase appears, that the punishment shall be imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years. In each of these four places the Senate has accepted the suggestion that was made in this house by the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) that the court should be given the discretion to choose either a fine or imprisonment. When the hon. member for Eglinton made that proposal in this house, the reply of the Minister of Justice was that section 1035 of the Criminal Code would give the court that discretion anyway; therefore, said he on that occasion, it was not necessary to indicate that discretion in the Combines Investigation Act.

I have the advantage of not being a lawyer, and it seems to me that it does make a difference when you have a combines investigation

Combines Investigation Act law which says-and it sticks out very prominently-to the judge who is dealing with it that the punishment is imprisonment. That certainly sounds to me a lot stronger-even though there is a loophole tucked away in some other law that may give the judge, if he can find that loophole, the right to substitute a fine-than wording the combines law so that it says to the judge: You can give this director of the corporation either a fine or imprisonment. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, the effect of this is to weaken in spirit at any rate the proposed strengthening of the Combines Investigation Act.

That same provision carries through in four places, as I say. When we were discussing that in this house on June 11 the minister and I got involved in a discussion over the matter, and I wanted to be sure that a director of a corporation could, under the amended legislation, be jailed if he knowingly was a party to certain offences under this act. Our conversation was in legalistic terms, but it ended in this way, as recorded in Hansard of June 11, 1952, at page 3147:

Mr. Knowles:

That is what I mean. Under the

terms of 32(1), if a director of a corporation is a party to an offence and it is proved that he knowingly assisted in the formation or operation of a combine, can he be put in jail?

Mr. Garson:

Yes, if he is convicted.

Mr. Knowles:

Good.

I realize, Mr. Speaker, that the minister may reply that it is still possible under the amended form for the director of a corporation to be put in jail; but, as I say, the change that has been made in the combines law gives two alternatives, and to that extent it seems to me that the whole case against those who commit offences under this law has been weakened. In fact, Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that when the Senate passed these amendments the other day, and if this house approves their amendments on this occasion, we are saying to directors of corporations across this country that they need not worry about the jail sentences that were hanging over them in the amended bill in case they are parties to breaches under this act, and for that reason it is my view that the bill should stay in the form in which it was passed in this house, and that we should not approve of the amendments suggested by Their Honours in the other place.