Hon. Howard C. Green (Minister of Public Works):

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to announce that at the request of the city of Windsor the federal government and the province of Ontario have agreed to undertake jointly a rental housing project in Windsor, pursuant to section 36 of the National Housing Act.

The project is in the final planning stages at the present time and will consist of approximately 200 three and four bedroom row housing rental units. This development is the fourth federal-provincial project in' the city; the previous projects produced 325 residential lots on which two rental housing projects have been constructed, producing 421 rental housing units. The cost of the project will be approximately $2,401,000, which will be shared 75 per cent by the federal government and 25 per cent by the province, or by the province and the municipality.

Tenders are expected to be called February 3 and work on the project will commence toward the end of the month. The project will provide immediate employment for about 100 construction workers, and as the units progress this figure is expected to rise to about 300.

Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources):

Mr. Speaker, I have a very pleasant task to perform this morning. Through you I should like to draw the attention of the house to the fact that we have in the gallery this morning six representatives of our northern people of the Eskimo race. These six young men are on their way to Great Whale River from a vocational training course at Leduc, Alberta, where they have learned to operate and maintain the heavy equipment that will be so necessary in the northern development program of Canada in future years.

I think we are all aware that here we see evidence of the shifting of the way of life

of one civilization to another civilization in the short space of a generation. This is their first time to have seen us in operation at the stage of evolution we are in. I think all hon. members will join me and you, Mr. Speaker, in wishing them good fortune and good luck in their future endeavours.

Hon. Sidney E. Smith (Secretary of Stale for External Affairs):

Mr. Speaker, I propose to make an announcement which I am sure will interest members of the house. For some years now Canada has been one of the largest contributors to the United Nations relief and works agency for Palestine refugees. As you know, Mr. Speaker, this is a body established by the United Nations, and it has had the task of providing food, shelter and medical care as well as educational and rehabilitation facilities to the 930,000 Arab refugees who left their homes as a result of the hostilities which accompanied the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and 1949.

Opinions differ about the way in which the problem of these refugees should be settled, but there is general agreement on the need to assist them in the tragic plight in which they find themselves. UNRWA supplies its relief services to these unfortunate people at the amazingly small cost of $30 per refugee per year, but for some time the financial difficulties of the agency have been growing more and more desperate, despite very generous contributions by several countries, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom. Relief services, as I have already informed the house on an earlier occasion, are at subsistence level and recently have had to be cut, and the whole rehabilitation and educational program will have to be abandoned unless more funds are forthcoming.

I need hardly say that maintenance of this rehabilitation program is essential if there is ever to be a solution of the refugee problem. We informed the United Nations some weeks ago that our regular annual cash contribution of $500,000 would be made as usual for 1958-1959, subject to parliamentary approval, but the Secretary General of the United Nations is still appealing to all members of the United Nations to increase their contributions if they possibly can.

External Affairs

The government has accordingly decided to seek parliamentary approval, in supplementary estimates to be presented to the house in due course, for a special additional contribution to UNRWA for this year; and that contribution, subject to parliamentary approval, will be $1,500,000 worth of Canadian flour for the refugees. This represents about 20,000 tons of flour or approximately one million bushels of Canadian wheat.

We hope this substantial contribution of flour will encourage other countries to increase their contributions to UNRWA. Indeed, some have already announced such increases in response to the appeal of the Secretary General of the United Nations. I am sure the house will approve of this proposal. UNRWA and UNEF, the United Nations emergency force, in both of which we are interested, are important aspects of the efforts of the United Nations to establish conditions of peace and security in the Middle East.

Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of the Opposition):

Mr. Speaker, I may have a question to ask on the orders of the day, but may I say immediately that we on this side strongly support this generous and realistic proposed action on the part of the government.

Mr. Alistair Stewart (Winnipeg North):

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to say that the minister will have the complete support of the members of this group in this action which is not only generous but wise. One of the most serious difficulties in the Middle East is this problem of the refugees, and I am glad to see that their misery is going to be mitigated to some extent by the generosity of the Canadian people.

Mr. Solon E. Low (Peace River):

Mr. Speaker, I should like to assure the minister of our support for this proposal. I am particularly glad that the support is to be given to the refugees in the form of Canadian flour from the surplus we have and, second, that an effort is being made to rehabilitate these refugees. That has been the weakness of the whole situation right along. Any help that UNRWA has been giving has been mainly on a maintenance basis. I would strongly urge the minister to let UNRWA and the United Nations know that any further assistance we give should be for the purpose of rehabilitation.

Mr. Smith (Haslings-Fronlenac):

Mr. Speaker, we are informed that this contribution of flour will release funds that would otherwise be used for food, to the end that some rehabilitation program can be reestablished this year.

On the orders of the day;

Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kooienay Wesi):

Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs arising out of his announcement in connection with the Canadian donation to the United Nations works and relief agency. Can the minister inform the house what ratio of local currency to the dollar value of the Canadian donation of flour is released for rehabilitation in the area?

Mr. Smith (Hastings-Frontenac):

Mr. Speaker, I will take that as notice. I am unable to reply at this time.

Mr. Pearson:

Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs another question arising out of his statement, which perhaps he would care to take as notice. How much repatriation and resettlement has taken place among the refugees during the last 12 months?

Mr. Smith (Hastings-Frontenac):

Mr. Speaker, I cannot give any figures, but my impression is that very little has taken place. I received this information at the United Nations.

Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Trade and Commerce):

I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, relating to an article in Maclean's magazine of February 1, written by Mr. Blair Fraser. I intend to refer to page 37, where a false statement occurs. It appears that this statement derives from an earlier similar false statement which appeared in the Hamilton Spectator of November 27, 1957. I should like to relate the two articles together and deal with them now.

In the Hamilton Spectator of November 27 there is an article written by Milford L. Smith, business editor of that newspaper, in which these two paragraphs appear, both of which are incorrect:

The Canadian trade delegation's proposal that British mills export tinplate and sheet steel to Canada brought protests today from Hamilton steel manufacturers that employment here would suffer.

This statement, Mr. Speaker, is incorrect. The Canadian trade delegation made no such proposal. A second statement, also incorrect in part, reads as follows:

Trade Minister Churchill was quoted as saying Canada now imports only one-tenth as much steel from Britain as it does from the United States-

Up to this point that statement is correct. The false part of it follows:

-and that there is a market in Canada for both sheet and tinplate.

That is incorrect, Mr. Speaker. I never made that statement.

In Maclean's magazine there occurs this paragraph on page 37.