D R A F T – Check it.

Source:  Le Devoir, Montreal, Thursday, 22 November 1962, p. 7

“Grégoire makes a distinction between nationaliza­tion and public ownership.  La Presse, 22 Nov. 1962, p 7.

Grégoire makes a distinction between nationaliza­tion and public ownership

 
QUEBEC — The first session of the Canadian Business Congress of Laval, held this year on the theme of the future of the Canadian economy, ended yesterday morning with a squabble during the question period between the two conference lecturers, Messrs. Jean Mar­chand, general chairman of the CSN, and Gilles Grégoire, national vice-president national of the Social Credit party.

“The general assertions of Mr. Grégoire, it’s a total con­fusion”, shot Mr. Marchand, provoking a near-ovation in the audience.

“Mr. Marchand is so competent in the current system, retorted Mr. Grégoire, he has so well analyzed it, that any innovation seems like confusion to him; when invention is required he does nothing.”

The session yesterday morning bore more especially on the role of the State in the company.  It seems that the organizers of the conference had some difficulty finding an opponent for Mr. Marchand.  A month ago, they wanted to have Mr. Wallis McCutcheon, Minister without portfolio in the federal cabinet, but their attempts were not fruitful.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Réal Caouette, who took part in the debate today, had demanded that there be another Social Crediter besides himself at the conference, or else he himself would not participate, and he promised to bring Mr. Thompson yesterday morning’s debate.  Unfortunately, Mr. Thompson is “detained at the Social Credit conference of Alberta”, and Mr. Grégoire, as he avows, only learned that he would participate in the debate the night before he had to take the speaker’s platform.

M. GREGOIRE

Asserting that the basic principle of an economy must be to try to leave freedom to the individual while avoiding “l’enfermer dans les plans and yokes”, M. Grégoire proposed “planning of the thing”.

Everyone does planning, he said.  “So, I knew yesterday night that I had to take the plane this morning to come to Quebec, I set my alarm clock, I planned my wake-up.  I didn’t need the State for that.”

Mr. Grégoire made a distinction between nationalization and public ownership.  The first, according to him, is the expro­priation by the State of a company whose raw material is situated inside the limits of the country, rivers for exemple, and public ownership is the administration of this company by the State.

The Social Credit MP said he is favorable to nationalization on three conditions:  that it be a matter of a company where the raw material belongs to all the citizens of the country, that it be in a sector where competition at the level of the private company is impossible, and that it be a company whose capital is under foreign control.

But, Mr. Grégoire is opposed to what he defines as being public ownership.  Thus, he accepts that the provincial State should nationalize — or expropriate, according to his definition — hydroelectric resources.  But he would want the administration of these resources to then be entrusted to the users of the electricity by means of local distribution cooperatives and a provincial cooperative whose directors would be chosen by a sort of cooperative formula, with representatives of labor unions, the Chamber of commerce, etc.

Finally, Mr. Grégoire explained to the a expliqué aux attendees the Social Credit solution for economic problems, which consists in “removing from charter banks the power to create money and credit”, and give this power to the Bank of Canada.

“We do not want to remove a single eraser nor a single stick of chalk from the ofices of the bankers”, he however affirmed.

But “when you control the means of exchange of a product, you control the product.”

In closing, Mr. Grégoire proposed this slogan, “à la mode”: “Let’s nationalize the money, this is the key to become the master in our own home.”

Several times in the course of Mr. Grégoire’s exposé there was laughter, sometimes wheezing, throughout the audience.  Mr. Marchand involuntarily encouraged this hilarity a number of times through little gestures expressing his disapproval.

During the question period, the student delegates addressed their questions above all to Mr. Grégoire, some of them trying to put him in contradiction with himself.

One student asked him if, according to Mr. Grégoire’s criteria for nationalization, a Social Credit government in Ottawa ought not to expropriate companies like Aluminum of Arvida and International Nickel.

when Mr. Grégoire replied that nickel did not constitute a monopoly by its nature, Mr. Marchand proposed to him, in conclusion:  “Do you think that you and I could find some nickel somewhere, to exploit” and the debate ended on this light note.