Mr. JAMES SINCLAIR (Vancouver North):

Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of National Defence for Air or his parliamentary assistant. This question is of immediate importance to quite a number of very gallant airmen who are now on operational leave in this country. One of the most gallant of these is Wing Commander Bill Swetman, D.S.O., D.F.C., a veteran of over sixty operational flights over Germany. He is now making speeches in the Toronto area in connection with the victory loan campaign, and he is reported yesterday as having said that "he wasn't trained to give fancy speeches but to fight. When he and others like him came home on leave after a tour of operations-they get thirty days-they wanted to spend it with relatives-not making speeches to persuade people to buy bonds." If people have to be persuaded to buy victory bonds perhaps it is better that we use men like this, who have fought actual battles in the air over Germany, rather than painted actors and actresses who fight their battles on the

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screen or in the divorce courts. I should like to know from the minister or his parliamentary assistant if men like this who are home on operational leave and who speak in victory loan campaigns will get extra leave to make up for the time they give.

Mr. SINCLAIR:

I am advocating just that, on the north shore of Vancouver harbour.

Mr. SINCLAIR:

This afternoon the hon. member for Vancouver South spoke at some length on the war against Japan in the Pacific. While I, too, am a Vancouver member, I must say that I am more in accord with the views of the minister and the hon. member for Broadview in that our job with the navy is the battle in the north Atlantic. We in British Columbia are aware of the fact that the Canadian navy will eventually fight in the Pacific against the Japanese. Having that in mind, may I ask how much of the $17,000,000 to be spent in the current year will be spent in the great harbour of Vancouver, where certainly the British navy and parts of the Canadian navy will be based at dockyards and piers, which will have to be built in advance, without detracting from the efficiency of Canadian ships in the north Atlantic.

Mr. SINCLAIR:

Is this discussion based on the needs of Canada's navy out there at the present time or on the basis of what the British navy and the Canadian navy will need when they fight Japan?

Mr. SINCLAIR:

I think the war in the Pacific will involve more than a few sheds and a government pier. I suggested the other evening that the great harbour space in North

Vancouver could be used. It is not a matter of building docks when the war actually develops out there.