The Acting Speaker (Mr. Golding):

Order.

Mr. Gillis:

I listened very patiently this afternoon to the hon. member for Lake Centre.

Mr. Cockeram:

Why not tell us the truth right now? Tell us how many new customers you took over.

Mr. Gillis:

I am referring to the 1948 report of the power commission of the province of Saskatchewan. This afternoon the hon. member for Lake Centre merely talked at random, and gave us no authority for any figures that he put on the record. He went on and painted a picture of blue ruin as far as all these industries were concerned.

I have here the balance sheet of the industries he talked about this afternoon. It is up to date to the end of 1948, and this is also an authoritative document. It comes from the office of the chief industrial executive, Saskatchewan legislative building, where the office is located. It deals with the power commission, the operation of telephones, minerals, lakes and forests, marketing services, transportation, and so forth, right down to the insurance offices. I am not going to read all the figures that are here.

It would be too lengthy to do so, but I am going to read some of these figures for my hon. friends to the right, the free enterprisers who do not exist any more, the backers and protectors of monopoly enterprise, squeezing out the little fellows.

Mr. Cockeram:

The C.C.F. and the Toronto Star.

Mr. Gillis:

In the whole operation that my friend, the hon. member for Lake Centre, discussed this afternoon, in the whole field of industry that was taken over or established by the Saskatchewan government, there is a total investment of $35,540,504. That is the total capital investment.

Mr. Diefenbaker:

How much in power?

Mr. Gillis:

Oh, oh.

Mr. Gillis:

Just a minute; don't groan so much. There is an investment of approximately $20 million; the first figure I gave was the profit.

Mr. Diefenbaker:

And how much in telephones?

Mr. Gillis:

There is an operating profit in the power commission of approximately six per cent on the capital investment.

Mr. Sinclair:

Is the C.C.F. working for profit?

Mr. Gillis:

The capital investment in telephones is $8 million in round figures, and the operating profit on that capital investment was $1,608,368.50 or 18-3 per cent.

Mr. Diefenbaker:

They always had a profit on the telephones.

Mr. Gillis:

I do not want to deal with them all, since there are quite a few; I just want to give the over-all picture. To pick out one or two is not fair. If you started an examination of Dosco tomorrow, with all its ramifications stretching from Sydney, Nova Scotia, clear out to British Columbia, if you looked into its fifty subsidiaries one by one, I wonder how many would be solvent if they were not carried by others, where the people produce more and are exploited to a greater extent.

Mr. Diefenbaker:

I thought you believed all companies made profits.

Mr. Gillis:

Oh, no. I am going to give the other side of the picture. I said there was a total over-all investment on the part of the Saskatchewan government of $35,540,504. The profit on that over-all operation, without picking out some little weak business they are trying to develop, was $3,152,502.70, or an operating profit of nine per cent in the overall picture. I do not think my friend would

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The Budget-Mr. Gillis say that is bad business. A return of nine per cent on your investment in anything today is pretty fair, I think.

Mr. Diefenbaker:

I was dealing with competitive enterprise.

Mr. Gillis:

I will show you the picture in other provinces where they have free enterprise governments. The thing I like about the people of Saskatchewan, who are doing that job, is that they do not think they have the solution to all our problems.