Solon Earl Low
Social Credit
Mr. Low:
On many occasions during the ten years that I was provincial treasurer of Alberta I used special warrants, as we called them, to meet emergencies, things which the legislature had not foreseen, but in every single case that we used warrants we were meticulous in seeing that the legislature was provided with an opportunity to say whether it approved or disapproved of what we had done. If the legislature disapproved we provided an opportunity for the testing of the strength of the opposition against the government.
That has not been done in this case, and I think it is a matter of censure, something to which the government ought to pay attention. Having embarked on this course and found they were wrong, I do not think that the
government should continue on the course. I appeal to the Minister of Justice, who is now arguing the case for the government, to give careful consideration whether he should not turn from that course, acknowledge that it is wrong and do the thing in the right way because what he is attempting to do now, if he persists, is to lay down a precedent which will be a dangerous precedent for any government to follow in the future. As the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre said, if the government, using this as a pattern, is able to spend tens of millions of dollars, perhaps a billion dollars