June 17, 1938 (18th Parliament, 3rd Session)

Mr. DUNNING:

No, I will explain. The amendment to which exception is taken is an amendment to the last section of the bill as it left this house, section 8, an amendment which provided as follows:
On and after a date to be fixed by proclamation of the governor in council, no new proposal shall be made or filed by any farmer or accepted by any official receiver in any province in respect of which the said proclamation is issued.
That was as the bill left this house. But coming back from the senate a new section 9 is added which provides to the following effect:
The said act is further amended by adding to section eleven, as subsection three, the following:
No proposal shall be received in any province later than the thirty-first day of December, 1938, except in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.
That, Mr. Speaker, is the senate amendment. The effect of it, of course, is to end the operation of the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act at the end of this year in all provinces except Saskatchewan and Alberta.
The view of the government is that it is not at all certain at this time that in all the other provinces the Farmers' Creditors
Farmers' Creditors Act

Arrangement Act should go out of business, so far as new applications are concerned, on the 31st of December of this year. The government, and I as Minister of Finance, have received representations from people in some of the other provinces that this would be unduly arbitrary so far as they are concerned, and I think that may be said particularly in respect of Manitoba. The discussion of this motion might serve to reveal the views of representatives of other provinces concerned, as to the desirability of arbitrarily terminating the operation of the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act at the end of the year in all provinces except Saskatchewan and Alberta. The view of the government is that we should disagree with the amendment.