Mr. Ilsley:

They are not limiting the construction of houses at this time at all. The limitation at the present time is physical, and is found in the present capacity of the country to produce materials.

Mr. Speaker, I have just quoted at length what was said on that occasion to illustrate that in 1945 it was suggested we could not build houses because we were short of materials. In 1957 we are told we cannot build houses because we are short of money, though we have an abundance of materials. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that by using in housing the methods we used during the war and mobilizing our credit behind the full resources of this country we could provide the lower income groups in Canada with all the houses they require on a very sound basis.

I just forgot this, Mr. Speaker: I had intended before sitting down* to bring to the attention of the minister the fact that there are certain people who are trying to do their best in present circumstances. Does the minister realize that there are small lumber operators in the interior of British Columbia who are working on a very small margin of profit and have been doing so for the whole of this year, although in a good number of cases these are efficient and well operated 96698-1621

National Housing Act

mills. Some of them, indeed, have been running at a considerable loss. At the same time there are employees in the lumber industries in the interior of British Columbia who have voted not to accept a 6 per cent increase in wages to which they were entitled under a two-year contract, in order to help keep the lumber industry going. These people have been shipping lumber to the prairies, particularly No. 1 common fir, in log lumber, two by four, two by six, two by eight and two by ten, shiplaps, sidings, boarding materials generally, at prices f.o.b. southern interior of British Columbia points-I can see the parliamentary assistant pricking his ears up as he hears me speak of this-ranging from $57.50 to $62 a thousand. I think the parliamentary assistant should be asked to find out what the lumber yards are charging to persons who wish to build homes with this same lumber after making allowance for the cost of transportation and so on.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that now is the time for an examination to be made of all aspects of this problem-the need for providing an adequate fund, sound methods of financing the cost of materials, the type of materials and the services to be provided. The average man earning a low income cannot afford to pay more than $6,000 for a home. I say that from my personal experience. I think a great deal more could be done to provide the type of house necessary to a person in the low income group. Could not some further study be undertaken, particularly with respect to the possibility of the owner-building of homes and the possibility of using more of the procedures and methods which have been used so successfully under the small holding section of the Veterans Land Act.

Mr. Ilsley:

Does not my hon. friend agree that at the present time the construction of houses is in no way limited by financial considerations? Does he not agree that it is limited purely by physical considerations?

Hon. J. L. Ilsley (Minister of Finance) moved

that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution:

Resolved, that it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide:

Then there are four paragraphs. The Speaker was in the chair and Mr. Ilsley, the minister of finance in Mr. Mackenzie King's government, stood up and said:

Mr. Speaker, I propose to make a statement to the house on this resolution while Your Honour is in the chair.

Seventeen days after Mr. Speaker Glen had ruled that the debate on that occasion should be directed to the negative-and you can bet your boots that Mr. Ilsley did not speak to the negative of his resolution-he spoke to the affirmative with great vigour and at considerable length.

Mr. Ilsley:

I said nearly $8 billion a year between

1942 and 1946, to buy goods and services, which in fact cost them on the average not quite $6-5 billion a year. If hon. gentlemen want to know how that is arrived at they can procure table 11, gross national expenditure at market prices, 1938 to 1946, issued by the bureau of statistics, which shows the personal expenditure on consumer goods and services for each of the years from 1938 to 1946; and if the amount spent had increased proportionately to the increase in prices in the first great war, the amount spent would have averaged $8 billion in those years instead of the $6J billion which the consumers actually did spend.

Mr. Ilsley:

I wish to point out that we never

devoted more than fifteen per cent of our resources to the war in any year of world war I, whereas in world war II, in some years, we devoted approximately fifty per cent of the production of the country to the war. And economists have always told me that that is the main factor in driving

prices up-the proportion of output that you shoot away and send away, leaving in the country the purchasing power that was paid out to produce it, and nothing to spend it on. That is a powerful inflationary influence. It must be remembered that in many countries where there existed no effective control, prices were going up 100, 200 and 300 per cent, and I am not talking of wild inflations such as occurred in China and other places. But if we assume that prices would have risen, and the inflationary factors were more powerful in the last few years than in the years between 1914 and 1920, much more powerful-if we assume, I say, that prices would have risen, without control, just to the same extent proportionately, year by year, as they did in the period from 1914 to 1919, then these are the results you get: the consumers would have had to spend an average of nearly $8 billion between 1942 and 1946.