__________-________________Legislative ^aswubly___________________________ bushel and the night before I had sold a bin for sixty cents a bushel. That isnt why the potato prices are so low, it's dealers like this man from Second Queens paying fifteen cents less a bushel for potatoes than the going price and then he is the man that gets up and condemns, tries to condemn this Government for the low prices. Now, Mr. Dfe- fenbaker arrived here in the City of Charlottetown in 1957 and talked for some length about the price of potatoes. It was terrible; ninety-five cents a bag and he said if you people will send me four gentlemen to Ottawa and we win the Government, we will get a better price for potatoes. Some Member : Yes, they are still there. Honourable Robert E. Campbell : I am just going to come to that, Sir. Keith S. Harrington : May I ask the Honourable Gentleman a question? Honourable Robert E. Campbell : Yes, I am only too glad. Keith S. Harrington : Who was it that instrumented the policy on the Price Stabilization Board which we are now going to receive some benefit by? Honourable Robert E. Campbell : Mr. Speaker , my honourable friend, my good friend from Third Prince would just wait a few minutes, I am coming to that. And he talked about the poor person of his, there was a floor price that the Liberal Govern¬ ment in Ottawa had put on for twenty-two cents a pound. Oh, it was terrible, it was awful. He got into office and he put the floor price on at twenty-five cents a pound and, lo and behold, he took it off again and it went down to eighteen cents and the fol¬ lowing year in 1958, he put through this stabilized price that my good friend was talk¬ ing about for sixty cents a hundred at the rate of thirty-six cents a bushel for three hundred cars. Now I think it is better for you sometimes not to ask me questions be¬ cause I always try to answer them. Now, this year we are getting seventy-five cents a hundred at the rate of forty-five cents a bushel. I will agree with you it is not very much, but they are taking thirteen hundred and fifty cars at 550 hundred pound bags to the car and Diefenbaker Government, would only take three hundred cars. Now that is enough for that. In 1961 potatoes were sixty-seven cents of an average and a low of fifty cents. In 1962 they were a dollar and five cents and as low as seventy-five. In 1963 they were a dollar and eleven cents and eighty-five low, and 1964 was a good year. I think that was when the Liberal Government took office in Ottawa, but they are still there. But we got a poor price this year so it is not the Government's fault. In 1964 and 1966 they were two dollars and sixteen cents, in 1965 a dollar and sixty-five cents and as low as seventy-five and 1966 and average of one dollar and sixty cents. Now, I was asked a question to-day about the fertilizer subsidy; well my good friend from the other side, he said that I bad brought it up in the House and I sure did and what did the Minister of Agriculture say? It couldn't be done, it couldn't be done; go home to-night and read his speech and you will see what he said because lo and behold before election he put it off, in the dying moments again. My good Minister of Agriculture here, "Dauntless Dan," he carried it out and it was big help to the farmers of Prince Edward Island . Now, cattle prices are fairly good, they run from anywhere from twenty-one to twenty-five cents and as you all know, I am a cattle buyer, so I quote good prices, so if any of you fellows on the other side have cattle to sell and I can make time, I am only too glad to go and buy them from you. Hogs were a good price up until lately. But they have slipped back some. Now last year, up in , they started growing cucumbers. They grew around fifty acres and the Government paid a freight subsidy assistance of $6,996.98 and there was forty-five growers took part and thirteen growers grew an average of over four ton, twenty-two an average of three ton, eleven over an average of two and a half ton, and four under two and a half ton. Now this year, we are hoping to have on the Island around two hundred acres of cucumbers and the freight assitsance will run between twelve and fourteen thousand dollars. My good friend from the of Prince that lives in my district, he claimed the other day that it had all fell to pieces. Some Member : Does he vote for you, I am sure he does. Honourable Robert S. Campbell : I just wonder sometimes. Very quiet man too and not one thing the matter with him. —162—