Mr. C. E. Johnston (Bow River):

May I

direct a question to the Minister of National Revenue. I have not given him notice of the question, so he may desire to take this as notice. Can he tell the house whether or not the application of the Dinosaur radio station at Drumheller, Alberta, has been received, and whether it will be given favourable consideration?

Mr. C. E. Johnston (Bow River):

Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys. According to press reports 82 men were laid off at one of the mines in Drumheller last week, and one of the large mines in Can-more is closing because of lack of orders. Can the minister tell the house what plans the government has in mind for increasing the markets for coal so the distressed coal industry of Alberta may get some relief?

Mr. Johnston (Bow River):

There is one other remark I want to make in regard to this clause. It seems to me it is possibly the most important clause in the bill. One of the things we in this group have been stressing all through this debate is that the farmer should be given a cost-price relationship. I immediately recognize the difficulties that exist in establishing the cost of producing an article. I believe I am right when I say that an advisory committee will be established under the provisions of this bill and will be able to make recommendations to the board and to the minister with reference to the cost-price relationship.

It seems to me that since this is the most important factor contained in the bill, some sort of formula should be adopted. When one communicates with the dominion bureau of statistics to find out what the cost of producing an article is, one finds they have not got that information. It seems to me that since this is so important there will have to be a system of records kept by the dominion bureau of statistics or some other competent body by means of which we can arrive at what would be considered a fair cost-price relationship. I wonder if the government would consider publishing each year a statement which would give the relevant facts in regard to the establishment of a cost price.

The advisory committee is going to make recommendations in regard to this, I suppose to the advisory board, which will make recommendations to the minister, and it will depend on his judgment what the decision will be because he has the ultimate authority. He must make his decision before anything becomes effective under this bill. Surely when the advisory committee makes its recommendations to the board and the board makes its recommendations to the minister, the minister has to draw a conclusion and make a decision, and at that time there must be some definite formula upon which the minister makes his decision. I think it would be quite inconceivable that when these three organizations meet with the minister, he is going to sit there calmly, hear what the advisory committee says, then what the board says, and then come to the conclusion, "Oh, well, the cost of raising a bushel of wheat I guess should be somewhere around about- oh-I think the minister told the house a few years ago 45 cents a bushel"-

Mr. Johnston (Bow River):

Mr. Chairman, I have two questions on this clause. In the first subclause does the support price apply only to top grades? If this is the case, it occurs to me that there will be a tendency to lower the grade in order to get away from the support price. For instance, it would be a rather easy thing in the case of hogs to grade them A or B rather than A-l to escape the support price, and the same thing could be true in the grading of eggs. The grading could become much more strict than it is today, and that would offset any advantages the bill might have. That is my first question, and I will wait for the minister to answer it before I present my other question.

Mr. Johnston (Bow River):

Before clause 17 carries, I wish to say a word. This clause makes it clear that the old Agricultural Prices Support Act is to be repealed, and therefore there would be nothing to take the place of that act until after this bill has been passed. Of course, it is going to be passed anyway, and the old act will be repealed.

Throughout this whole debate we have advocated a certain thing we thought should be put into the bill. We were insistent that a cost-price relationship should be established. There has been some effort in this bill to incorporate that, and although the bill does not go as far as we want to go, with the amendments that have been brought in by the government-I must say at the insistence of the opposition-I think there has been a little bit of improvement. As I say, we have opposed the measure and tried to improve it as much as we could. I think, as a result of the effective opposition from the Social Credit and C.C.F. parties there has been some improvement in it. For these reasons we will support the bill.