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Date: 1936-06-20
By: G.H. Williams
Citation: Letter from G.H. Williams to Professor F.R. Scott (20 June 1936).
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OFFICE OF
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION

510 KERR BLOCK
REGINA

Dear Mr. Scott:-

Mr. Woodsworth has been kind enough to send me a copy of the suggested program for British Columbia and your comments thereon. They are interesting indeed, and although they do not follow the same as we contemplate in Saskatchewan, there is a certain similarity; There are some direct questions I would like to ask and have answered.

The answer is a fairly obvious one, but in order to get it through the convention, I want it to be no question of the authority of the Province to follow out the program should it be adopted.

Anyone who has made a study of the method by which Socialism has been put into operation in Sweden and for that matter in Russia realizes that the prime factor; making for success is that of getting control of paying businesses making them state monopolies and turning the profits from the sale of those commodities into the Treasury to be used for social urposes. I am of the opinion that the policies of the C.C.F. both Provincial and Federal should be along this line;

Already Canadian Provinces have almost unanimously adopted a state monopoly with respect to the distribution and sale of liquor. mo my mind this monopoly should be extended to the production, as well as sale and distribution.

Question 1 – Can it be done Provincially without the statute being declared “ultra viras”?

Question 2 – I am of the opinion that each Province should pass legislation causing the sale and distribution of tobacco to become a provincial monopoly in

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each Province. The C.C.F. as a Federal Government should pass complementary causing the processing and manufacturing of tobacco to become either a Provincial monopoly or a Federal monopoly. Which in your opinion would present the least anount of legal difficulty from a constitutional point of view?

Question 3 – Can a Province by provincial legislation create a monopoly for a Government Board of the sale and production of electrical energy?

I would like your opinion with respect to these questions.

I wish to express my appreciation for the good work for your group are doing, and would appreciate a reply to this enquiry, at the earliest possible date, in view of the fact that our platform committee will be meeting, at an early date.

Professor F.R. Scott,
McGill University,
Montreal Que.