1926-06-16

INDUSTRIAL AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

[Stage Direction]
Mr. C. R. McINTOSH (North Battleford) presented the second and final report of the select standing committee on Industrial and International Relations, as follows:
Wednesday, June 16, 1926.
The select standing committee on Industrial and International Relations ibeg leave to present the following as their second and final report.
In the House of Commons on March 17th, the resolution, "That in the opinion of this House a wage sufficient to provide for a reasonable standard of living should constitute a legal minimum wage" was referred to the select standing committee on Industrial and International Relations for examination and report.
Your committee has held several meetings and made a careful examination of the said resolution, having regard to the labour provisions of the Treaties of Peace and the jurisdiction of the Dominion parliament, and the provincial legislatures. Six witnesses in all were examined. The witnesses who appeared before your committee and the subjects respectively dealt with were:-Assistant Deputy Minister of Labour, Gerald H. Brown, who traced the history of minimum wage legislation in Canada and the contribution the federal Department of Labour was trying to make to the effective solution of the many problems arising in the realm of labour in (the Dominion; W. Stuart Edwards, Deputy Minister of Justice, who gave a legal opinion on the question of jurisdiction involved in the resolution under examination; C. W. Bolton, statistician, Labour department, who took up the question of family budgets considered from the point of view of living wages; Margaret S. Gould, Research department of the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees, who further continued the discussion in a specific and detailed manner on family budgets; Albert Hewitson, departmental superintendent, Canadian Colored Cottons Limited, Cornwall, Ontario, who made a statement of the wages and conditions existing in a typical Ontario factory town; and Dr. J. W. MacMillan, Chairman of the Minimum Wage board, who exp.ained minimum wage administration.
The labour principles embodied in the Treaty of Versailles and the other Treaties of Peace recognized the well-being physically, morally and intellectually of industrial wage earners. They are nine in number, the third of which is "The payment to the employees of a wage adequate to maintain a reasonable standard of living as this is understood in their time and country". The latter clause of the Peace Treaty was explained by Gerald H. Brown, Assistant Deputy Minis-

ter of Labour, when he gave evidence to the effect that "The labour part of the Peace Treaties opens with the declaration that if we are going to have peace in the world it must be based on social justice, and there must be a world-wide acceptance of reasonable living and working conditions, and that the principle which is enunciated in the Peace Treaties, and the principle which has already been endorsed by Canada through its acceptance of the Peace Treaties and its approval by Parliament and ratification by proper diplomatic authorities on our behalf constitute ac, ceptance of the idea of minimum wages".
The evidence presented by Dr. MacMillan showed that the principle of the minimum wage as applied to women was working out most satisfactorily. His words, "The very convincing appeal which the Minimum Wage principle makes to the world, is of this nature; it is an assertion of the preciousness, or if you prefer sacredness; the supreme sacredness of human life- the right of the worker to live from his work". Dr. MacMillan further states that if the principle has been applied to women workers and found satisfactory there is no reason why its scope should not be extended to men. He says, "There seems to be no reason why if this principle is good for women's wages, it should not be applied at least to some classes of men's wages, as a provision that the proper type of law should first be passed and then that the proper type of administration of this law should be applied. It is to be noted in this connection that the British Columbia Legislature at its last session passed a minimum wage act for men applicable to most phases of industrial activities, and that the board appointed to carry out the act is now engaged obtaining data and evidence to enable it to fix (the minimum wage for the lumbering industry, the first industry to be dealt with.
The evidence of family budgets given by Mr. Bolton and Miiss Gould showed the items of family expenditures and the cost in Canada of such budgets. The evidence also showed that some workers in Canada are receiving less than will enable them to adequately maintain this standard. Such an injustice is manifestly unfair and unbusinesslike inasmuch as it costs the country much, involving, as it does, an excess of unrest, ill-health and crime.
It was stated by the Deputy Minister of Justice that according to the British North America Act legislative jurisdiction in regard to minimum wages is vested primarily in the provincial legislatures. He also quoted section 132 as follows: "The Parliament of Canada shall have all powers necessary or proper for performing the obligations of Canada or any provinces thereof as part of the British Empire, towards foreign countries, arising out of any treaty between the empire and such foreign countries". Commenting on this he said "There can be no doubt that where Canada has entered into an obligation by treaty-and in that connection I mean an association with the empire of course-r-within the meaning of section 132, which I have just read-I do not think there is any doubt but that parliament has power to legislate for the purpose of carrying into effect the provision of the treaty". This opinion goes to show that the British North America Act by no means conlt'erniplated industrial problems of t(he kind and scope to which Canadians to-day must adjust themselves.
Your committee accordingly recommend (a) That a conference of provincial and Dominion representatives intimately an touch with labour conditions throughout Canada be held in the near future to consult as to the

Peace River Election
best means to be employed of giving effect to the labour provisions of the Treaties of Peace; (b) That 10,000 copies of the present report and the evidence upon which it is based be printed, these to be distributed by the Department of Labour, and that Rule 74 be suspended in connection therewith.
All of which is respectfully submitted,
Cameron R. McIntosh,
Chairman.


Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to
move to-day the motion which has stood in my name for some days:
That notwithstanding the report of the Clerk of Petitions the petition of James Arthur Collins presented to the House on the 27th day of May, 1926, be read and received.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Before my right hon.
friend rises to speak on this motion I would like to get the ruling of Your Honour as to whether the motion can properly be entertained by the House. As I understand the matter the prayer of the petition is identical with the one which was held to be of a character which could not be received by the House. , If that be the case, this petition is in the same category.


Arthur Meighen: All I need contend is
that there is certainly no rule which prevents the House from deciding itself whether a petition be read and received or not, and that is what this motion says.


Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice):: So far as I can ascertain from instances in which similar petitions have been presented to this House, in each of those instances of which there are two, only one of them being in the records of this House, His Honour the Speaker has ruled that the petition should not be accepted for reasons given by him in his ruling. Therefore it is for Your Honour to decide whether or not this -petition should be received, subject of course to an appeal from your ruling as was done in regard to a similar petition a couple of weeks ago while I was not here.
Hon. GEORGE H. BOIVIN (Minister of Customs and Excise):	If I understand the
matter correctly it has already been decided by the Examiner of Petitions and, I think, ruled by Your Honour that the essential part of the prayer of the petition presently before -the House and about to be considered in the debate on this motion is identical with the one refused by Your Honour a few weeks
previously. If that be the ease the present motion is nothing but a renewal of the appeal taken by the right hon. gentleman himself against you-r ruling when it was first made. I ask myself if this second appeal from a ruling of the Speaker in the form of a motion is in order. I beg to remind Your Honour of the well known passage in both Bourinot and May which says that a matter which has once been deBhted and discussed, which has once been decided by the House of Commons, cannot be revived for debate or discussion during the same session. In my humble opinion the motion which is now before the House is merely a request that the House itself decide that your ruling was wrong; in other words, that the House vote again upon -a matter upon which it has already voted. I claim that that is not in order.


Arthur Meighen: The ground I stated first is the ground upon which I stand, namely, that there is no rule which prevents the House from deciding whether a petition be read and received or not. Moreover this petition differs from the other petition in two very important respects. It sets out a ground which was not set out in the other petition, a ground which goes to the very root of the judgment given by Your Honour in respect of the other petition, namely, which discloses, if it can be supported, that this parliament has not relegated to the courts, but on the contrary has forbidden the courts to try such a question as is raised in this petition, has disarmed and disempowered the courts so that, we cannot go there and present the evidence essential to establish our case.
That ground is recited in this petition; it was not in the other petition. I cannot emphasize too strongly the fact that not only does it go to the heart, but it is the heart of the whole problem for the reason that we have nowhere else we can go. Further the petition asks that this House review the conduct of its officers and that the House apply such remedy as it sees fit, the remedy not being specified in the petition. Surely such a petition could be received; but beyond 11 that my contention is that a motion to read and receive a petition is in order. Any motion is in order in this House; I do not know of any motion that is not in order. An hon. member can move as he desires. The Speaker certainly can rule on the form or matter of the petition, but a member has the right to move anything he desires whether it is before the House or not. If it is not, he can put it before the House by a motion.
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Mr. SPEAKER:: I have carefully studied
this question since the motion appeared on the order paper and I will now give the decision which I have reached. In this case the Right Hon. Mr. Meighen has the right to make a motion that the petition be received, which is the common form of motion in regard to public petitions, and it could also be made as a matter of privilege. The right of petitioning the House is an old and established principle to be jealously preserved.
A distinction, however, must be drawn between petitions relating to matters of public interest and those relating to controverted Elections. In the former case, the right of petition is unimpaired. In the latter, it is clear that a petition complaining of the undue election of a member and questioning the right of an hon. member to his seat, cannot be received by the House, as such a petition is in conflict with the letter and spirit of the statutes respecting the trial of controverted elections. The House in this case has no jurisdiction to interfere.
The amended petition in this case has two distinct requests. The first relates to the conduct of certain electoral officers, and is unquestionably within the jurisdiction of the House. The House retains its power over its own officers, and will receive a petition that prays that the House of Commons will investigate the conduct of the Chief Electoral Officer, the deputy returning officers, or other officers, in any particular.
The second request is essentially a different matter, and a very serious proposition, that such officers shall be authorized to take such action as may be requisite to secure the return to the House of any one of the candidates at an election. There is here involved, in another form, the same controversial question as to an election which is now pending before the tribunal established by law for the decision of such questions. Parliament has never entrusted such duties to its officers. By statute the judges are to decide such matters.
Part of this prayer is within the jurisdiction -of the House, and part beyond that jurisdiction. It seems to be a case where the House cannot afford any practical relief, or investigate the complaint except in a limited degree as respects its own officers. Such a petition may be ordered to lie on the table on the ground that the relief prayed for is partly within the power of the House, though not likely to be afforded.
It is for the House to judge and determine whether this petition should lie on the table and thus become one of the permanent records

of the House. The House has always maintained the undoubted constitutional rights of the people to complain of grievances, and to pray for their redress, but while that is so, the House itself must take into serious consideration the question of devolving upon its officers such large responsibilities as are involved in the prayer of this petition.
I have asked the House to take this responsibility, notwithstanding that I have already ruled that the petition as first presented though differently drafted was not receivable, not because I believe that ruling to have been wrong, but for the reason that I find in Black-more's Speakers' Decisions, 1857-1884, a case somewhat similar to that now in question. At page 238 there appears a ruling by Mr. Speaker Brand from which I quote:
In the event of a special report from the Public Petiitions committee,-
I may observe here that in the British parliament there is no officer corresponding to our Examiner of Petitions, but there is a Public Petitions committee.
-in reference to a petition, the House, not the Speaker, decides whether it should lie upon the table.
I need not enter into details, but after a lengthy debate Mr. Speaker Brand said:
It is for the House, and not for me, to judge and determine whether the petition now under the consideration of the House should lie upon the table, and thus become one of the permanent records of the House. The House has always maintained the undoubted constitutional rights of the people to complain of grievances, and to pray for their redress; but that right may be abused, and the question for the con_ sideration of the House now is, whether the petitioners in the present case have not abused the right of petitioning, which they undoubtedly possess.
This is the only point on which the House is called upon to declare, and for that reason I leave the responsibility to the House.


Arthur Meighen: I regret very much that owing to the action of the administration the culmination of the present question has been so long delayed, and I add to that a regret that because of my owrn absence-


Hewitt Bostock: May I interrupt the righr hon. member? As the debate proceeds it is possible that frequent reference will be made to the contents of the petition. The ordinary usage under the rules in the British House of Commons-there are precedents on the point-is for the petition first to be read by the Clerk of the House. See Blackmore's Speaker's Decisions, page 235, a ruling by Speaker Brand in the Tichborne case. Perhaps the hon. member for Wtest Calgary (Mr. Bennett) would move that the petition be read by the Clerk.

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On motion of Mr. Bennett the Clerk Assistant read the petition as follows:
To the Honourable the members of the House of Commons in parliament assembled.
The (petition of the undersigned, James Arthur Collins, of Chisholm, in the province of Allberta, lumberman,
Humbly sheweth:
1.	That an election was held on the 29ith day of October, A.D. 1925, for the electoral district of Peace River, to elect a member to represent the said electoral district in the House of Commons of Canada.
2.	That the candidates at the election were: Donald Macbeth Kennedy, William Archibald Rae, and your petitioner, James Arthur Collins.
3.	That Edward Henry Sheppard was the returning officer at said election, and on the 26th day of November, A.D. 1925, declared the said Donald Macbeth Kennedy duly elected to represent the said electoral district in the fifteenth parliament of Canada.
4.	That pursuant to the provisions of the Dominion Elections Act, in that behalf, a recount of the votes cast at the said election was held from the first until the eighteenth days of December, 1925, at the city of Edmonton, by His Honour Judge Mahaffy, and at the conclusion of said recount the said judge certified that 3,986 votes had been cast in favour of Donald Macbeth Kennedy; 3,944 votes had been cast in favour of William Archibald Rae; and 3,969 votes had been cast in favour of your petitioner, James Arthur Collins, and directed that the said Donald Macbeth Kennedy be declared elected to represent the said electoral district in the fifteeth parliament of Canada by a majority of seventeen votes over your petitioner.
5.	That on the second day of January the said Donald Macbeth Kennedy was gazetted as the member returned for the electoral district of Peace River to serve in the House of Commons of Canada, and he has taken his seat in such House of Commons.
6.	That on or about the 26th day of February, A.D. 1926,. proceedings under the Controverted Elections Act were taken by one John B. Page against the said Donald Macbeth Kennedy, but no suioh proceedings have been taken by your petitioner, or by anyone on his behalf.
7.	That at the said election, the said electoral district of Peace River was subdivided into 298 polling divisions, number four of such divisions being known as Brule Mines poll.
8. At the final recount by His Honour Judge Mahaffy, as aforesaid, showed that at Brule Mines poll, being poll number four as aforesaid, twelve votes were oast in favour of Donald Macbeth Kennedy and 127 votes in favour of William Archibald Rae, and twenty-one votes in favour of your petitioner.
9.	That at least 111 electors voted for your petitioner at Brule Mines poll, No. 4, aforesaid, but through the action of the deputy returning officer, one Peter A. Robb, and other persons, to your petitioner unknown, ballots were fraudulently manipulated to produce the result mentioned in the next preceding paragraph of this petition.
10.	That on or about the 18th day of January, 1926, the said Peter A. Robb, deputy returning officer, aforesaid, was charged before the Honourable Chief Justice Simmons of the trial division of the Supreme Court of Alberta.
"For that he, the said Peter A. Robb on or about the 29th day of October, A.D. 1925, at polling division No. 4 at Brule Mines in the province of Alberta, at an election held under and by virtue of the Dominion Elections Act for the election of a person to serve in the House of Commons of Canada in and for the electoral district of Peace River, in the province aforesaid, did fraudulently destroy a number of ballot papers used by voters at the time and place aforesaid.
And also for that he, the said Peter A. Robb, on or about the 29th day of October, A.D. 1925, at polling division No. 4, at Brule Mines, aforesaid, at an election held under and by virtue of the Dominion Elections Act for the election of a person to serve in the House of Commons of Canada in and for the electoral district of Peace River, did fraudulently put into the ballot box, used in connection with the said poll, papers other than the ballot papers which he, the said Peter A. Robb, was authorized by law to put in the said ballot box.
And also for that he, the said Peter A. Robb, on or about the 29th day of October, A.D. 1925, at polling division No. 4 at Brule Mines in the province of ALberta at an election under and by virtue of the Dominion Elections Act for the election of a person to serve in the House otf Commons of Canada in and for the electoral district of Peace River in the province of Alberta and being a deputy returning officer at said polling division No. 4 did fraudulently put otherwise than as authorized by the said Dominion Elections Act, his initials on the back of papers purporting to be, or capable of being used as ballot papers for the said election," to which said charges the said Peter A. Robb pleaded, "Not guilty."
11.	That the trial of the said Peter A. Robb commenced at Edmonton, Alberta, on Monday, the 29th day of March, 1926, before the Honourable Mr. Justice Walsh of the trial division of the Supreme Court of Alberta and a jury, and at the conclusion of the said trial on the first day oif April, 1926, the said Peter A. Robb was found guilty iby the said jury on all the three charges aforesaid (as amended at the said trial) and was sentenced by the Honourable Mr. Justice Walsh to imprisonment for [five years in the penitentiary at Prince Albert with hard labour, for each of the said offences, such sentences to run concurrently. A certified copy of the proceedings at the said trial accompanies this petition.	.
12.	That the evidence of a number of electors who voted at Brule Mines poll No. 4 aforesaid was given at the said trial referred to in paragraph 11 hereof; that in giving their evidence the said electors stated for whom they had voted and thereby established that the said Peter A. Robb dad fraudulently destroy a number of ballot papers used by the said electors, that he, the said Peter A. Robb, did fraudulently put into a ballot box used at the said .poll, papers other than the ballot papers/ which he was authorized by law to put in the said ballot box, and also that he the said Peter A. Robb did fraudulently put otherwise than as authorized by the said Dominion Elections Act his initials on the back of papers purporting to be or capable of being used as ballot papers for the said election.
13.	That absolutely essential evidence available t.o your petitioner to establish the fraudulent manipulation of ballot papers at Brule Mines poll No. 4 aforesaid is necessarily that of the said electors who voted at such poll and gave their testimony at the trial of ithe said Peter A. Robb.
14.	That said electors who voted at Brule Mines poll No. 4 aforesaid cannot under (the law be permitted to give evidence as to how they voted at the said election in proceedings under the 'Controverted Elections Act or in any legal proceedings other than in criminal cases.
15.	That consequently there is no tribunal in the Dominion of Canada with power to make the inquiries necessary to establish the facts alleged in this petition or with jurisdiction to provide the remedy for the wrong which has been done your petitioner other than the House of Commons of Canada.
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16.	That the fraud and irregularities complained of herein were the fraud and irregularities of an officer or officers of the House of Commons of Canada committed prior to, at and subsequent to the taking of the vote of the electors and the closing of the said Brule Mines poll No. 4.
17.	That the fraud and irregularities of the said officer or officers deprived your petitioner of his seat in the House of Commons for said electoral district of Peace River, your petitioner having at the said election held on the 29th day of October for said electoral district received more votes than did either the said Donald Macbeth Kennedy or William Archibald Rae.
Wherefore your petitioner prays that the House of Commons will investigate the conduct of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, the returning officer for the electoral district of Peace River, Edward Henry Sheppard aforesaid, the deputy returning officer, Peter A. Robb aforesaid, and such other officer or officers as may be necessary in connection with the establishing of a polling place at Brule Mines poll No. 4 aforesaid, and the talcing of, the counting and recounting the votes cast at such poll in the electoral district of Peace River aforesaid, and that such Chief Electoral Officer, returning officer, deputy returning officer or other officer or officers be directed to take such action as may be requisite and necessary to secure the return to the House of Commons of the candidate who secured the greatest number of votes cast by the electors of the electoral district of Peace River on the 29th of October, 1925, aforesaid, and for sudh other and further relief as may seem meet in the premises.
And your petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
(S) Jambs Arthur Collins.
Witness:
Lyda S. Roche.


Arthur Meighen: I was about to express
my regret that, due to absence, I was not able to move this motion as soon as I should like to have done. It is a motion which peculiarly calls for immediate decision. Hon. members will recall the debate which took place in this House some days ago. Inasmuch however as that debate was merely on' the point of order, it was not one which had been thoroughly prepared in advance and such as hon. members are entitled to before taking the responsibility of so far-reaching and serious a decision as is involved in the rejection of a petition of this character. In the course of that debate, however, some consideration was given to the state of our constitution and practice as related to inquiry into matters affecting an election or post-election proceedings under the charge of officers of parliament. Several authorities were quoted with a view to showing that parliament had disrobed itself of jurisdiction not only to inquire into any matter that had some connection with an election, but of jurisdiction to receive a petition praying for relief in respect of injury brought about by officers of parliament.
The cases recited narrow down to a very limited number, and naturally they are all of a date subsequent to the passage by this parliament of our Controverted Elections Act. As everyone is aware, prior to the passing of 
that act in 1873, as prior to the passing of the British act at an earlier date, election petitions, that is to say, petitions going to the very character and method of the conduct of an election, were tried by special committees of this House and of the British House respectively under formulated rules. This process in course of time became not only burdensome but inappropriate, and in Britain, as here, legislation was passed which relegated this duty to the courts and for the most part, if not altogether, empowered the courts to discharge the duty so relegated. The case quoted first of all was some ruling as to the receipt of a petition which at the present time we do not need further to take into account, but which really had no relevancy to this case at all, as I will later show with the utmost plainness. Another case was quoted which showed that parliament would not consider an appeal by a litigant in a controverted elections case to have the House of Commons reverse the judgment of the court. I never for a moment would question the propriety of that decision. It also has no relevancy to this case whatever.
Then came what is known as the Baird case in 1887, and to this I hasten because it is really the controlling factor of this whole problem, and a proper understanding of the speeches made in this House in connection with the Baird case will indeed enable hon. members who come to the question dispassionately to arrive at a conclusion upon this motion and the proceedings which should follow this motion with little or no difficulty. Very able addresses were then presented to parliament, some of which have been quoted; hon. members of the Liberal party of that day argued with great ability that parliament had not relegated anything to the courts save such things as theretofore had been tried and disposed of by committees, that there were many things that parliament disposed of without the committees, and that consequently these were still within the purview of parliament. I do not need to review the discussion on that phase of the matter; I only emphasize the fact that most of the discussion took place on that point. I take the view, which I be->'eve to be thoroughly upheld by the Baird case, that parliament has not, to express it exactly, emptied itself of jurisdiction in this matter at all; I take the view that parliament has not emptied itself of jurisdiction in respect of any election matter or any matter affecting the right of a member to sit in this House. What parliament has done is to make it the duty of the courts to exercise that jurisdiction; the courts have been empowered to do so and consequently, as expressed by

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Sir John Thompson in his argument on the Baird case in parliament, the task and duty was relegated to the courts. That being so parliament should not itself re-exercise that right. With Sir John Thompson's words in that respect I am in complete accord, and hon. members will later see why I take such pains to emphasize this point.
I pause to remark, although I do not need to establish it to justify or indeed compel, so far as arguments can compel, this House to pass this motion, that the point itself is of consequence as being very closely related to the merits of the motion now before parliament. I want to read the words of Sir John Thompson in this regard, and it is to be noted that his language was very carefully selected indeed. He says:
As soon as the question has been decided as to the qualification of the person so returned, the conduct of the returning officer or the number of votes which were received, the conduct of the candidates and every other question connected with the election or with the conduct of the returning officer has been relegated to the judiciary, and the House has always declined to exercise its functions and its power to interfere.
The implication is plainly that the power still remains, but that its exercise would be a wrong constitutional practice. I need not go further than that in support of the statement that parliament has relegated to the courts not only the duty but the power to try any matter connected with elections save as to the qualifications of the elected candidate. So far as parliament has done that I do not argue that parliament should re-assume that jurisdiction. In a word, so far as the courts have power they should act, but the courts certainly have no power in respect to the qualifications of candidates; they are given no special facility so to inquire, and wherever else the courts have not power undoubtedly parliament has not only retained jurisdiction, but parliament is bound to exercise that jurisdiction. I surely do not need to further emphasize that conclusion. I take it for granted that no member of this House would for a moment sit content, with the conclusion in his mind that there was a wrong arising out of an election which the courts had no power to right and indeed no power to hear evidence upon, and which was therefore a wrong for which there was no remedy whatever. May I put that again to the House? Is there an hon. member who, after he has been convinced that there is no tribunal with power to hear and decide it save parliament, is going to still vote that parliament shall not so decide?
The point which I intend to emphasize and indeed upon which I intend to dwell altogether
is one which was brought up in the later course of the debate on the point of order, but which I regret to say was not referred to by Your Honour in your judgment. It is a point which not only goes to the heart of this question but is the whole heart of it; it is the beginning and the' end. If the wrong complained of by Mr. Collins in the petition read at the table of this House is a wrong into which we have empowered the courts to inquire and as to which we have empowered the courts to hear evidence and give a decision upon, then I would not be standing before this House and asking parliament to reassert its old right and re-exercise the jurisdiction which was relegated to the courts. The duty is upon me, then, to show that in respect of the wrong complained of by James Arthur Collins there is no court in the land with power to inquire into it or decide upon it, and if I show that surely I have convinced all that every member who votes to throw out the petition of Collins votes to embalm in permanency a gross and cruel injustice, because he so votes knowing there is no other tribunal empowered to provide a remedy.
What is the wrong which is alleged in the petition as having been done Collins? I would like his petition to be included at this point in my address; I do not want to delay the House by reading it as it has already been read.
To the Honourable,
The Members of the House of Commons,
In Parliament Assembled.
The petition of the undersigned, James Arthur Coliins of Chisholm, in the province of Alberta, lumberman-
Humbly Sheweth:
1.	That an election was held on the 29th day of October, A.D. 1925, for the electoral district of Peace River, to elect a member to represent the said electoral district in the House of Commons of Canada.
2.	That the candidates at the said election were: Donald Macbeth Kennedy, William Archibald Rae and your petitioner, James Arthur Collins.
3. That Edward Henry Sheppard was the returning officer at said election, and on the 26th day of November, A.D. 1925, declared the said Donald Macbeth Kennedy duly elected to represent the said electoral district in the fifteenth .parliament of Canada.
4.	That pursuant ito the provisions of the Dominion Elections Act, in that behalf, a recount of the votes cast at the said election was held from the first until the eighteenth days of December, 1925, at the city of Edmonton, by His Honour Judge Mahaffy, and at the conclusion of said recount the said judge certified that 3,986 votes had been cast in favour of Donald Macbeth Kennedy; 3,944 votes had been cast in favour of William Archibald Rae and 3,969 votes had been cast in favour of your petitioner, James Arthur Collins, and directed that the said Donald Macbeth Kennedy be declared elected to represent the said electoral district in the fifteenth parliament of Canada, by a majority of seventeen votes over your petitioner.
5.	That on the 2nd day of January, the said Donald Macbeth Kennedy was gazetted as the member returned
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Ernest Lapointe: What does my hon.
friend mean by the evidence attached?


Arthur Meighen: Because all the proceedings in the court are attached to the petition.


Ernest Lapointe: I rise to a point of
order, then, because under the rules of the House no document of any kind can be attached to a petition.


Arthur Meighen: I am not particular
about the word. It accompanies the petition to this House. All I need to bring to the attention of parliament now is the averment in the petition.


Hewitt Bostock: If there was an appendix to the petition, it was not brought to my notice. Bourinot, page 235, states positively that no appendices are allowed with petitions.


Arthur Meighen: The appendix is not essential to the case at all.


Ernest Lapointe: That would have been
a reason to reject the petition. The petition could not have been accepted with an appendix.


Arthur Meighen: Then we will say it
has not an appendix; we will say it has been operated on for appendicitis. We know, though, that the petition which has been read at the table avers that this fact has been judicially found at the Brule Mines poll. We know it also because I hope in a matter
of this kind we take judicial account of the verdicts of our judges and the records of our courts. We know that 111 voters voted at that poll for Mr. Collins.


Ernest Lapointe: We do not know that.


Arthur Meighen: I do not want to retort
to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) as his understudy the Solicitor General (Mr. Cannon) did to me yesterday. I would only suggest that his statements would be more appropriate after I am through.


Ernest Lapointe: If my right hon. friend
will agree with me, we will never interrupt each other in the future.


Arthur Meighen: I w'ould not say that.
I suggest that it take the form of questions. I am quite prepared to submit to any interruption of the minister so long as I am accorded the like courtesy by hon. gentlemen opposite when I interrupt him.


Mr. MARCIL:: Would the right hon. gentleman allow me a question? I understood him to say a moment ago that there was no appeal from the decision of the recount judge.


Arthur Meighen: There is nobody doubting the decision of the recount judge. There has been no appeal from the decision of Judge Mahaffy. The petition avers that at this poll, 111 voted for Collins. They gave evidence to that effect in a criminal prosecution against the deputy returning officer. This deputy returning officer was one Peter A. Robb. Charges were laid against him as set out in the petition, three charges in all, included in which is the allegation that he took 111 votes, that 90 of them he threw away, that he substituted in their place 90 votes for William A. Rae, and brought about the result found by Judge Mahaffy in the recount. This was the charge against Robb. This charge was tried in the criminal courts, and Robb was found guilty of all charges alleged against him. He was sentenced to five, three, and three years, respectively, in the penitentiary of Alberta for the offences so committed. He appealed against the judgment of the court on, I may say, purely technical grounds, but that is not pertinent. He lost his appeal. The court sustained the finding of the prior court wholly, and altered the sentences only technically, reducing two of the concurrent sentences from five to three years, the ultimate result being that the sentence stands at five years for the three offences, and Robb stands now irreversibly guilty.
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What this offence means hon. gentlemen will grasp at a glance. It means that an officer of this House, how selected I do not need to inquire-suffice it to say that, acting as he was, he was an officer of parliament

committed the crime of theft of the mout sacred thing in the possession of any citizen, committed it in 90 cases, substituted ballots himself for the goods he stole, and because he did, he placed the candidate Donald Macbeth Kennedy in advance of the candidate James Arthur Collins, and Mr. Kennedy sits in this House now as the result of the theft so committed.
I have cited these circumstances so that the House will understand the enormity of the subject matter which is before it.


Mr. HEAPS:: Is it not possible that in another part of the riding a similar condition may have prevailed, only the votes went the other way, and so offset what occurred in this case?


Arthur Meighen: Peace, River Election
judgments will be reversed on appeal-that in a civil proceeding, in a proceeding questioning the return, no witness will ever be allowed to say how he has voted.


Mr. FORKE:: Just for information, would
the right hon. gentleman give us some idea why it should be so absolute in the one case and not in the other? The two cases seem to be similar.


Arthur Meighen: All I can say in answer to the very pertinent inquiry is to give the reason given by the judges in the Supreme Court, namely that parliament in its wisdom declared that witnesses should not be required to answer and that behind the action of parliament was the necessity in the interest of public policy that the secrecy of the ballot be maintained. The judges have held that parliament has ruled that witnesses be not required to answer in order that the secrecy of the ballot may be sacred, not in order to protect the witnesses. Because of that reason which the courts have declared to be behind the action of parliament, they will not in any civil proceeding hear evidence as to how any individual has voted.


Mr. MacLEAN (Prince):: Would evidence given at the first trial under oath be allowed at the second?


Arthur Meighen: Evidence in one trial is never allowed in the other even though in the other, if it were initial evidence, it could come in. But as in the initial trial it could not come in, it never could come in by importation. I do not find fault with the question being put.
I am sorry to have to argue at such length before the House what appears to be law, but we cannot understand the far-reaching and momentous subject which we are called upon to decide unless we understand fully the state of the law on the question. I revert to the proposition which I advanced in the early part of my remarks, namely, that it is inconceivable that hon. members would vote to cast the petition of Mr. Collins into the waste paper basket and tell him curtly to go to the courts for his remedy when they know they have tied the hands of the courts and prevented them from hearing Collins' evidence. Are hon members to say to Mr. Collins: Go to the courts, when they know he will be told by the courts that he cannot give his evidence there?


Mr. WARD:: Does the law as it stands forbid an elector to give evidence if he so desires?
TMr. Meighen.]


Arthur Meighen: Absolutely forbids him.
I believe I have established that whatever else parliament may have done, whatever other questions they may have relegated to the courts and empowered the courts to hear and decide, this is one they have not. The inference would appear to be that the intention of parliament is that the courts should investigate the conduct of the election in every respect until the ballots are in the ballot box and the ballot box closed, in a word until the conduct of the election gets into the hands of officers of this House. If parliament had intended that the courts and the courts alone should review the conduct, honest or dishonest, of those officers, parliament would have empowered the courts to hear the essential evidence to enable them to make that review. Parliament has disarmed and disabled the courts from hearing the essential evidence without the production of which Mr. Collins is absolutely helpless. Parliament having done so, I ask this House:	Is parliament to say with a sneer to Mr. Collins: We have nothing to do with the matter:	Go before this powerless court. The government which will take that responsibility casts an aspersion upon its motives and certainly will stand forever before the people of this country as more interested in office than in right.
In all the cases, in every address, emphasized I admit much more forcibly and frequently in past years by Liberal speakers, very able and eminent Liberal lawyers in this House, emphasized though on both sides, it is declared that parliament has never for a moment relegated to anybody the question of the conduct of its own officers. Whatever parliament may have done in the way of empowering the courts to examine certain classes of conduct of its officers, undoubtedly parliament has never stripped itself of the power to examine, act upon and correct wrongs done by its officers. For hon. members to argue that parliament has not only not empowered the courts to. inquire into the conduct of an officer in an election but has utterly stripped itself of power when it knows the courts have none, is simply to argue the absurd. No hon. member can justify a vote against this motion, against turning Mr. Collins from the door of this House where he seeks relief, until he is able to establish that under the law as it is to-day Mr. Collins has somewhere else to go.
On that I rest my appeal to parliament and I rest it with some confidence. I cannot conceive of the Minister of Justice, for whom as a man I have very great respect, leading this House to turn a deaf ear to the appeal

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of Mr. Collins when the Minister knows that Mr. Collins, though he may go to the courts, is bound to be refused redress there for the reason that they cannot hear his evidence. Consequently with much confidence I appeal to parliament to assert the jurisdiction it absolutely and undoubtedly has, a jurisdiction which I contend it has in all respects as regards elections, but which it should not exercise wherever it has empowered the courts to exercise the same. I ask parliament to reassert that jurisdiction in this case when the House knows that it not only has not em-pow'ered the courts to act and to give the remedy but has absolutely disabled them from doing so.


Ernest Lapointe: Mr. Speaker, this question came up practically in the same form some time ago when it was not my privilege to be in the House on account of illness, but I have taken the trouble to read the debates that took place at the time. I have read also Your Honour's ruling with which I entirely agree. The same petitioner has sent in a new document wdiich, according to the usual custom and practice, has been examined by an officer of this House who has reported as follows:
The Clerk of Petitions has the honour to report that he has examined the following petition, viz.:
Of James Arthur Collins of Chisholm, province of Alberta, lumberman; praying that the House of Commons will investigate the conduct of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, the returning officer for the electoral district of Peace River, the deputy returning officer, and such other officer or officers as may be necessary, in connection with the establishing of a polling place at Brule Mines, poll No. 4 aforesaid and the taking of, the counting and recounting the votes cast at such poll in the said district of Peace River, and that such Chief Electoral Officer, returning officer, deputy returning officer or other officer or officers be directed to take such action as may be requisite and necessary to secure the return to the House of Commons of the candidate who secured the greatest number of votes in the said electoral district of Peace River on the 29th of October, 1925, and finds that:
The prayer of this petition consists of two parts viz,-(1) That the House investigate the conduct of certain officials in connection with the election of a member to represent the constituency of Peace River in the House of Commons of Canada, held on the 29th October, 1925.
(2) That the House direct the proper officers to take such action as may be necessary and requisite to secure the return to the House of Commons of the candidate who secured the greatest number of votes cast by the electors of the said electoral district of Peace River on the 29th October, aforesaid.
The form of this petition and its contents so far as the first part of the prayer is concerned are within the requirements of the 75th rule, and refer only to such matters as are within the right and competency of the House to deal with, should the House desire to do so; should, however ,the course suggested in the second part of the prayer be taken by the House it would apparently have the effect of authorizing other
persons to exercise a power which the House has already delegated by statute to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts.
Apparently the first part of the prayer of this petition is only of a preliminary nature leading up to the main request as contained in the second part, consequently the prayer, considered as a whole, brings this petition within the ruling of Mr. Speaker Lemieux given on the 6th May last, in a somewhat similar case, which ruling was subsequently sustained by the House on appeal, viz, that a petition which prays for any action to be taken by the House that might involve in any resipeot an interference with the provisions of the Controverted Elections Act, chapter 7, R.S.C., 1906, cannot be received.
Under these circumstances I have therefore the honour to report that this petition should not be received.
Now the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) moves that the petition be received notwithstanding this report of the officer of the House, and Mr. Speaker leaves the House free to decide the question. May I first call the attention of the House to the fact that if I had cared to do so I might have raised a point of order to the discussion by my right hon. friend of what he claims to have been the proceedings held before a criminal court in the province of Alberta. The only way in which this House is seized, or can take cognizance, of such proceedings before the courts when they relate to an election, is through a report of the judges appointed under the law to inquire into these matters when such report is submitted to the Speaker.


Arthur Meighen: That is true with relation to controverted elections, but my hon. friend will admit, I think, that the judge in a criminal case in which an accused is on trial under indictment is neither directed nor empowered to submit any report to parliament. So that there is no way of getting the facts here.


Ernest Lapointe: Quite so, and we have
no proof of anything apart from what is stated in the petition. I can understand that the petitioner might attach to his petition a copy of the evidence as an appendix, but under the rules of the House the petition could not have been accepted. However, I do not quarrel with my right hon. friend for having discussed the matter.
In the first part of his argument-and this simplifies and facilitates my task-the leader of the opposition has admitted that, since the change in the law relating to controverted elections, this parliament following the precedent established in Great Britain has delegated to the courts the power and the right to inquire into election matters. Undoubtedly there is some difference of opinion in the matter of interpretation, but my belief, which is founded upon good authority, upon the
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authority in fact of all constitutional authors who have dealt with this question, is that parliament has reserved to itself only what it has not expressly delegated to the courts in these matters relating to elections. Parliament has reserved to itself the right to inquire as to whether a proper person has been returned in answer to the writ Of the House-whether a person who is qualified under the law to occupy a seat in the House has been returned to parliament.
This question has been extensively debated and while I do not intend to quote any speeches I may give some of the names and pages in Hansard of different years to show what- views have been advanced in this regard. Apart from the question whether a person duly qualified has been returned to parliament, all matters affecting the election itself, the way in which it has been conducted, illegalities, frauds or anything else connected with the election, have been referred and properly referred to the courts of the land both in Capada and in Great Britain. I Should like to quote here from the English authors Leigh and Le Marchant:
Questioned-
That is the same word as appears in our own law.
Questioned means questioned by election petition, by persons having an interest in raising the question and wishing .to vindicate their own nights, and does not take away from the House of Commons their authority to decide on the eligibility of a candidate, in the event of a felon, a minor, or a woman being returned.
Those were the old days before our sisters obtained the right to sit in parliament. Surely no one will contend that my hon. friend from Peace River is either a felon or a minor, or, if the restriction were applicable in these days, a woman. The words of the statute are easily interpreted; they are not broad; they are not general in their meaning; they are not vague: from the passing of the Controverted Elections Act no election shall be questioned otherwise than in the manner provided by the act itself. When election petitions were inquired into by a committee of thi3 House, the same safeguards, the same guarantees existed for protecting the members returned to parliament against vexatious proceedings. For example, no petition could be received without a deposit of one thousand dollars accompanying the petition. And in respect of questions arising under the Corrupt Practices Act-an act which has never been taken advantage of since its incorporation until the present session in the case of the Athabasca election-the right is given, after the expiry of the time for the filing of election
[Mr. Lapointe.^
petitions before the courts, to petition the Speaker to order an investigation for the appointment of a commissioner or commissioners to inquire whether corrupt practices were engaged in during the election questioned. There again the same guarantee against vexatious proceedings exists, and the gentlemen who signed the petition this year during this session of parliament, asking for an investigation into the Athabasca election, were obliged to forward at the same time to the Clerk of the House, a deposit of one thousand dollars; otherwise their petition would not have been accepted.
Does my right hon. friend mean to say that merely because some man declares in a petition that votes given for one candidate had been registered in favour of another, therefore the procedure enacted by this parliament is set aside; that that does away with all the safeguards and all the guarantees which have been properly inserted in the statute for the purpose of protecting men who are duly returned to this parliament against vexatious proceedings.
Now my right hon. friend bases his contention-and it is also the argument set forth mainly in the petition-on the fact according to him and the petitioner, which I do not dispute, that the witnesses could not be forced or even allowed before the courts to state for which candidate they registered their votes. That is perfectly true. Although the law only says virtually that no witness can be forced to declare anywhere for whom he voted at an election, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that this means also that witnesses can not be allowed to declare for whom they voted. If you look at the various sections of the act, Mr. Speaker, you will find that parliament has taken good care to declare, and it is the animating principle of its various provisions, that the manner in which a man has voted is a secret, that it is his sacred right to vote for whomever he pleases and nobody is entitled to know how he voted. This is for the protection of the voter. The courts have decided that it should mean also that he cannot even be allowed to say for whom he voted. My right hon. friend read that part of the judgment of Mr. Justice Strong, and the other judges took the same stand. But what is the reason why they threw it aside? Justice Strong said:
It is no answer to this to say that secrecy is imposed for the benefit of the voter and that he can waive it, for I hold secrecy to be imposed as an absolute rule of public policy, and that it cannot be waived.

Peace River Election
Well, Mr. Speaker, if this is ruled by the Supreme Court and by the other courts because they consider it a question of public policy, surely the same public policy would apply to the deliberations of the Privileges and Elections committee as to the proceedings before the courts.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman not admit that the very same questions have been asked and compelled to be answered before the Privileges and Elections committee?


Ernest Lapointe: No, Sir, I do not admit
that.


Arthur Meighen: They have.


Ernest Lapointe: If it is a question of public policy-and my right hon. friend himself said it was; it is the only ground for his petition-dhall he claim that the public policy will disappear when this petition is submitted to the Privileges and Elections committee? Shall he claim that if a witness before that committee refuse to answer when asked for whom he voted this parliament would have the right to force him to answer? No, Sir, parliament would never have that right, because not only the statute but public policy-the ground on which my right hon. friend as well as myself base our argument -will exist there as it exists before the courts. And let me tell my right hon. friend that, after all, what was done when the inquiry on controverted elections was transferred from parliament to the courts was simply to change the judges; the rules were the same, the procedure was the same, and. as I said before, the deposits which must accompany the petition were the same. The tribunal is changed because it has been found not only in this country but in England and elsewhere that the judges of the high courts of the land are better qualified and better fitted for deciding election matters than parliament, where we have some partisanship in our dealings.
Now, Sir, so far as this petition is concerned I desire to read what Mr. Speaker Blanchet said when he gave a ruling on February 15, 1881, in the Bagot election case, because the same question, as to whether the petition might be received, was then raised before him. I am quoting from page 325 of Speakers' Decisions of the House of Commons of Canada, and I ask every member to listen to these words:
If the petition should be received it would then be competent for any imemiber ito move that it be referred to a committee; and if such a -motion were agreed to, 14011-291
the various allegations in the petition would constitute the order of reference by which the committee would be governed in its proceedings. In this way a door would be opened to the indiscriminate reception of petitions attacking generally the return of members, though not governed by any of those formalities necessary even in those times when the House possessed full jurisdiction over controverted elections. To grant the prayer of the petition would be to violate the general principle which lies at the basis of all the legislation adopted by the English parliament since 1868 and of the Canadian parliament since 1873, that the court alone should adjudicate on matters of controverted elections. When 'the law has been proved to be inadequate to provide a sufficient remedy in any case, then parliament has always come forward, as the various statutes in amendment of the act of 1874 prove, and passed the legislation necessary in the premises.
The principle which guides parliament in such cases can be understood by reference to a statute passed in 1876. When no petition charging the existence of corrupt practices has been presented under the act for the trial of controverted elections, then twenty-five or more electors of a district can sign and present a petition in which they state that corrupt practices have prevailed-
That is what was done this session in the Athabasca election.
-or that they have reason to believe that such practices have extensively prevailed at an election; but that petition must be accompanied by a solemn declaration under the statute in that behalf, signed by the said electors stating that their allegations are true to the best of their knowledge and belief. They must also deposit with the accountant of the House of Commons a sum of one thousand dollars. That petition must be presented within sixty days after the publication in the Canada Gazette of the return of the election if the House is sitting, or df parliament is not sitting, within fourteen days after the next meeting of 'parliament. Even in this case the House does not take cognizance itself of the allegations set forth in the petition. It may only present an address to the Governor General praying him to cause an inquiry to be made in such matters, and accordingly a commission of inquiry is issued with such powers as determined by statute.
All the reasons alleged by	Mr. Speaker
Blanchet in the Bagot case of 1881, I believe, apply	to	this case.	There is no one of	themwhich	cannot be set	forth in this case as	wellas in the Bagot case, and I claim that for this House to receive this petition would be to go back	to	the days	when partisanship	andpolitical spirit were the principles animating these decisions by the committees of parliament	on	petitions concerning elections.	We
are all human; I do not dlaim that I am any better than anyone else. I am a partisan; I believe that the Liberal party has always worked for the benefit of Canada, and I am not ashamed to say so. I am a party man; I do not think many members of this House are not party men, and when this thing is over and the issue is not before them every one in his own mind and conscience will agree with

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me that it was wise and proper to have these matters investigated and decided by judges, instead of being made questions of politics before committees of this House.
May I be permitted now to read just a few worlds from Bourinot and from May. Bou-rinot, in the third edition, at page 221, says:
The Controverted Elections Act provides that all elections shall be subject rto the provisions o>f the act, and shall not be questioned otherwise than in accordance therewith. The courts bave full jurisdiction over petitions complaining of an undue return, of undue election of a member, of no return, of a double return or of any unlawful act by any candidate not returned, by which he is alleged to become disqualified to sit in the House. Since 1894 three petitions calling in question the right of a member to his seat have been presented to parliament, but not allowed to proceed further.
Then he proceeds to enumerate the cases, and at (page 225 continues as follows:
We may come to the following conclusions from the proceedings of the Canadian and British Houses of Commons since the passage of the acts delegating to the courts jurisdiction over the trial of controverted elections: that there is no instance of a contested election having been tried, or an election return disturbed in the Commons House of either country, but that the leading members on both sides of the House-
I wish to call particular attention to this.
-have expressed themselves most emphatically against returning to the old system, and in favour of adhering strictly to the provisions of the new laws; that the provisions of the Controverted Elections Act apply to the questioning of returns by election petitions only, and does not supersede the constitutional jurisdiction of the House in determining questions affecting the seats of its own members, not arising out of controverted elections;- that the House has always the power to inquire into the conduct of its own returning officers, and to punish them if they are adjudged guilty- I
I wish to emphasize the words of Bourinot apearing on page 226:
-that it is always regular to receive a petition setting forth a grievance and praying for remedy, provided it does not question the return of a member within the meaning of the Controverted Elections Act.
This petition against the return of the present sitting member for Peace River cannot be accepted by the House under the authorities just quoted.
Some comments were made the other day owing to the fact that the officer of the House charged with the duty of receiving the petitions, examining them and reporting, had made such a report. On this point may I quote Bourinot at page 343:
la the House of Commons every petition is deposited in the journals office, in charge of an officer, whose duty it is to see that it is properly endorsed and in accordance with the rules of the House-in the ca^p of any irregularity, he will state it to the House, and rule that the petition cannot he received.

At page 584 May, speaking of petitions,
says:
A .petition relating to an election but not questioning the return of the sitting member may properly be received.
If this petition had not questioned the right of the present member to sit in this House it should be received, but as the whole prayer of the petition is that an adjudication should be made by the committees of this House as to who may sit, this petition cannot be received.
Now, Mr. Speaker, may I invite hon. members to read the following authorities as to the powers of parliament with regard to election petitions. Let them read the speech of the late Hon. Edward Blake, whose authority no one will question, at pages 807 and 808 of Hansard of 1875; let them read the speech of the Right Hon. R. L. Borden at page 3702 of Hansard for 1901. I think I have dealt sufficiently with this matter to show that the only authority, under the law as it is to-day, to deal with a petition in which the right of a member of parliament to his seat is questioned is the courts of the land indicated by the Controverted Elections Act. In this case there is no suggestion that the hon. member presently occupying his seat in the House is not a proper person to occupy that seat by way of qualification or otherwise. The only matter in dispute, if there is a matter in dispute, is one connected with the election itself, and under the law and under all the authorities every matter connected with the election must be left to the courts of the land to decide.


Hon. R. B. BENNETT (West Calgary):: I shall endeavour to discuss this matter with the least feeling and the greatest freedom from party passion possible. This is the high court of parliament, and as the high court it has been appealed to by a petitioner who claims that, by reason of the manipulation of ballots, he has been deprived of a seat to which he is entitled because a larger number of electors voted for him than voted for any other candidate. That is his position. This high court of parliament has on its legislative side divested itself of certain of its jurisdiction, and it has committed to the courts certain power and authority which it previously had the right to and did in fact exercise. That is the position at the moment.
The first question is, has this high court of parliament divested itself of the right to inquire into the subject matter of this petition? The answer to that has been so fully given by the right hon. gentleman who leads this party that I do not propose to do more-

Peace River Election
than say this:	It is apparent from a perusal
of the authorities, as well as by mere reasoning that would govern a man in arriving at conclusions that this high court of parliament has not divested itself of the right to inquire into the circumstances attending this election. That is clear. Why? First, because there is no jurisdiction in any court of law to award Mr. Collins the seat which has been stolen from him. That is No. 1. Secondly, there is an old rule, as old as 1703, and I make apology for quoting from this precedent which is known to every lawyer and layman, that wherever there is a wrong there is a remedy. That observation was made by Chief Justice Holt in the case of Ashby against White, an action brought for damages by an elector against a sheriff who had not permitted him to vote. That principle laid down in 1703, that where there is a wrong there is a remedy, is a principle that has been applied without interruption in every court under the British flag since that time.
The second ground is the ground to which I propose to direct my attention for a moment. Is there a wrong here? And secondly, is there any remedy provided by law for that wrong?


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: Might I ask, just
for information, whether a higher court will deal with the matter when it is still in the hands of a lower court?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am very glad the hon.
gentleman mentioned that, because I shall show, I think to his satisfaction, before I conclude that the lower court cannot under any circumstances deal with the subject matter of this petition. If it could, it would be there. That is the whole point that I desire to make in the second branch of my observations.
The first question then is, is there a wrong? Has a wrong been done to Collins, the petitioner? I think my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe), with that sense of fairness that usually characterizes him, will admit that a very grave and serious wrong has been done to Mr. Collins. The trial judge found that wrong to be of a most serious character. Since this petition was launched in this House, Robb has carried his appeal to the appellate division of the Supreme Court of Alberta, and that court gave a unanimous judgment sustaining the conviction against Robb, and during the course of the argument a matter arose which will illustrate to this House how serious the wrong is.
Counsel for Robb was arguing that there was nothing to indicate that he had been responsible for the changing or switching of the ballots, that there was nothing to connect him with the change that had been made between the ballots as they were originally marked and the ballots as they were taken out of the ballot box. Whereupon the chief justice said that unless he could offer some excuse or reason why the ballots now produced in the court, which were the ballots counted and that elected Mr. Kennedy, did not match the counterfoils that were now in that court-and they did not-it was clear that somebody had stolen the original ballots. That goes without saying, does it not? If you have a ballot and counterfoil, and the ballot you now have does not match the counterfoil, if it is longer or wider, it is obvious that somebody has manipulated the ballots, and that proof that the ballots in the possession of the court did not match the counterfoils assisted in inducing the appellate division of the Supreme Court of Alberta to confirm the conviction unanimously, and Robb has now been conveyed to the penitentiary.
So that there is a wrong; that is clear. The wrong is this: That one Robb, at Brule Mines poll, took certain blank ballot papers and marked them with X's or crosses for Rae, thereby depriving Collins of the seat to which he was entitled.
Mr. WOODlSWORTH:	Does the hon.
member argue that the court had before it evidence which showed that the ballots which should have been cast for Collins were sufficient in number to prove that the seat wa3 stolen from Collins?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I thank my hon. friend,-
for in my next sentence I was about to say that the result of the evidence which was typewritten and placed before the court was to show conclusively to the 4 p.m. court, as it had to a jury, that the result of the ballots which had been stolen by Robb, and upon which X's or crosses had been placed for Rae, was to give the seat to Kennedy, and deprive Collins of it, because had the ballots which were properly marked for Collins, on the evidence that was before the appellate division of the Supreme Court, been counted, he had a majority of upwards of 100 votes over his nearest competitor.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Am I not right
in saying that those ballots were all at one poll, that they did not cover the whole constituency?
4586
Peace River Election


Richard Bedford Bennett: I thank my hon. friend
again, because it enables me to answer a question which was suggested by an observation of the hon. Minister of Justice. Nothing is clearer than that in law the hon. gentleman who has just spoken holds his seat because on the summation of the ballots east at the election he bad a majority over his opponents. Nothing is clearer than that I am here because on the summation of the ballots it was determined that I had a larger number than my opponent. In this case the ballots were summed up, and Judge Mahaffy, the district court judge, awarded the seat to Mr. Kennedy because he decided that there were 17 more ballots cast for him than for his nearest opponent. But when Robb's conduct was investigated, and there are no outstanding charges against any other person or any other poll, it was decided that by reason of the manipulation of the ballots at that poll, upwards of 100 votes that were cast in one way were counted in another, and Collins was thereby deprived of his seat. For instance, I have in my pocket a watch which I now produce. The watch presumably was honestly acquired. If it is alleged that it was not honestly acquired, proceedings for that purpose would have to be taken. The presumption of law is that with this watch in my pocket I honestly own it. The presumption of law in the return of my hon. friend is that every officeir honestly did his duty, and hence he was legally and properly returned. The presumption of law in the Peace River constituency is that all the proceedings were legally and properly conducted, and if Mr. Kennedy or anybody else says that they were not, they must take proceedings to shift that presumption and show that that which the law presumes, namely that all things were properly done is wrong.
Now proceedings were taken at the instance of tihe Attorney General of Alberta to show that the proceedings at the Brule Mines poll were dishonest, and as a result Mr. Robb is now in penitentiary for five years. There were also charges made against the conduct *of other polls, not by Mr. Kennedy or his supporters, but by Mr. Collins. An accused named Griggs was acquitted. Proceedings were also taken with respeot to another poll and the accused pleaded guilty and he was sentenced to one year's imprisonment because he pleaded guilty. Mark you, that every charge that has been made in reference to the proceedings in Peace River has been investigated, and as a result of the investigations that were made judicially it appears that Mr. Collins' seat was stolen from him, befcaulse up-
wards of 100 ballots marked for him were taken and marked for another man and in this way the seat was stolen. When my hon. friend suggests there may have been irregularities at other points that would have brought about a different result, I am sure, with his trained mind and his experience, he will regard that, not only as not a reason but not an excuse because, until it has been determined by proper proceedings that there was anything crooked in other parts of the constituency, the law says it was done honestly, as in other constituencies where members are returned to parliament. I hope my hon. friend follows that, because it is the basis of the whole matter. It does not lie in the mouth of any man whose seat has been challenged to say, Oh yes, but if you had investigated conditions somewhere else you would have found something wrong." The answer to that is, why did he not set the law in motion and ask the attorney general to investigate the doings at other polls? If the attorney general saw fit to institute proceedings against Robb and others, it is clear and Obvious that in all likelihood he would have taken proceedings against other persons who might be alleged to have committed improper acts in that election. But none such is suggested. No one suggests, except by word of mouth, that such conditions existed elsewhere. The records of the court show that no proceedings have been taken in other places. Therefore it is dear that a great wrong has been done to Collins, the petitioner. One word as to how great that wrong against Collins may be; Chief Justice Holt, about the year 1703, dealing with an action brought by Ashby against the sheriff, White, decided that wherever there is a wrong there is a remedy. At the end of his judgment he said:
It is a great privilege to choose such persons as are .to 'bind a man's life and property by the laws they make.
That great privilege, which was supposed to be accorded the electors of Peace River, to choose a man to represent them in this parliament, to make laws to bind a man's life and property and to pass other laws, has been taken away from the people of the Peace River district by a man who is now in gaol. In other words, the seat has been stolen from Mr. Colllins, and he has been deprived of his remedy.
I am not so much concerned about the personal wrong. That wrong deprived the man who had the right to a seat in this House of that seat, and substituted another

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for him. That was accomplished by the dishonest and criminal act of Robb and other parties. That is a public wrong of such a character that- I do submit this parliament can hardly afford to overlook it. What is the remedy? The Minister of Justice has suggested there is a remedy in the courts of the country. If there is a remedy in the courts of the country then his answer is good and complete. Now is there a remedy in the courts of the country? Will any lawyer in this House on either side say that there is a remedy for the wrong I have referred to, which will give Mr. Collins his seat? I am not going to repeat the arguments which were advanced by my right hon. leader, much better than I could present them, but he made it clear that there is no such remedy The courts of the country may be appealed to for punishment of the criminal who stole the ballots, and they have been successfully appealed to and Robb has been convicted, but is there any remedy for the wrong done to Collins; that is the question-not the wrong done by Robb and the contravention of the criminal laws of the country, but the wrong to Collins in a public sense by depriving him of his seat here. Is there any remedy in the court? It has been suggested that there is a remedy under the Controverted Elections Act, and I have in my hand a copy of the petition filed against Kennedy by Page under the Controverted Elections Act. That petition alleges that Kennedy has been guilty of fraudulent conduct in regard to the election. It also alleges that he has failed to make a proper return of expenses under the act, and charges irregularity at the polls. It does not seek to award the seat to anybody else, but merely seeks to avoid the election; in other words, to bring about the 'holding of a new election in that district. That is not a remedy to Collins. That does not remedy the wrong done in a public way. The wrong that is alleged is that somebody else sits in this parliament and that the seat has been stolen from Collins, not on behalf of Kennedy, but stolen by the deputy returning officer in his effort, not to assist Kennedy, but to assist Rae and to do wrong to Collins. Mr. Kennedy does not enter into the wrong in this matter. The wrong is against Collins in favour of one of his opponents, namely, Rae, to steal the seat for Rae. That is the wrong in that respect. Let us not forget that, when you allege that the remedy in the court is ample, and that we have a right to look to
the court to set it right, what is sought in the court is the other proceeding. The remedy and the relief sought are quite different. The exact language at the close of the petition is as follows:
Wherefore your petitioner prays:
1.	That it may be determined that the said respondent was not duly elected or returned and that the said election is void.
2.	That it may be declared and found that the 6aid respondent was and is guilty of the said several illegal acts and corrupt practices hereinbefore charged, as having been committed before, during, at and after the said election by himself and by his agents and other persons on his behalf.
3.	That in consequence thereof, the said respondent may be adjudged disqualified and incapacitated of being elected to or sitting in the House of Commons aforesaid, or of voting at an election of a member of that House, and of holding any office in the nomination of the crown or of the Governor General in Canada.
And your petitioner will ever pray.
It is therefore apparent that the legal proceedings which have been taken in the courts of the country afford no relief to the petitioner, Collins. If that be so, and if it is true that for every wrong there is a remedy, what is the remedy? That is the only inquiry, and the only remedy is by a parliamentary committee-none other. Need I remind you, Sir, that this House has complete control over its own membership? Need I remind you, Sir, that this House can go so far as to expel any member of the House if it can get a majority of the House to do it? Need I remind you, Sir, that Louis Riel who once occupied a seat in this House was expelled, and the member for Lincoln >at one time was under threat of expulsion.
Need I remind you, Sir, that the mother of parliaments, the parliament of Australia and other parliaments have exercised the power of removing members from the House. That power does not come to them by statute. It is an inherent power which rests in this House to determine who shall and who shall not sit in this chamber, notwithstanding the votes of the electors. That matter should always be kept in mind. This House has exercised this power. When they say that this House has no power, I remind them of the inherent power of the House, the right to determine who shall sit in it, and it would be competent to-day, if a majority of the House so desired, to remove from the membership of the House any gentleman Who sits here. It could only be done if the case were such as to warrant its action. I am simply pointing out that the plenary power is there and the House can exercise that jurisdiction if it so desires; there is no doubt about it.
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James Shaver Woodsworth: May I ask the hon. member a question?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Aside from the question of the power of the House why does the hon. gentleman make the statement that it is the only way of having a wrong, or an alleged wrong, righted. Can it not be righted through the courts?


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is what I am
coming to. My hon. friend is very kind this afternoon because he is asking questions regarding matters which I might have overlooked if I had not the benefit of his questions. I am very grateful to him for that. It is just because there is no remedy in the courts that this is the only remedy. The criminal law has been set in operation against Robb the wrongdoer; he is in the penitentiary. The criminal law affords no remedy that will give Mr. Collins his seat. There is no civil remedy with respect to that except action through the controverted elections court which will not and cannot give him his seat. That is the point I desire to make.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Can the courts void the election?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes; but voiding of the election does not give the man who received the most votes at the last election his seat. I am sure my hon. friend's sense of fairness will govern. For instance the election of my hon. friend might be voided, but the statute says that within a certain number of days proceedings have to be taken, and if they are not taken within that number of days they may not then be taken.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If the court were of opinion that the circumstances were such that a member had lost his seat, taking everything into consideration that came before them, would the court not be free to report that circumstance to parliament?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am sorry to say in answer to the Prime Minister that the jurisdiction of the court extends only to scrutiny and to the voiding of the seat. They can report to parliament only this:	The
prayer of the petition is to void the seat. They either void it or do not. If on the other hand there is a demand for a scrutiny they can count the pieces of paper and observe the marks on them. If a wrong count has been made they can correct that by substituting for the then member the member who has the most pieces of paper marked in his favour. For instance in the West Calgary election in 1921, as will be observed from the judgment

of the Supreme Court of Canada, a count of the vote was held. That inquiry went to the Supreme Court here. In that election it was decided that ballots marked with the figure "1" or marked with a red pencil or a blue pencil or an indelible pencil should not be counted for the petitioner in that case. The result was that, although the court so recorded and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada was that had the intention of the electors prevailed another hon. gentleman would have been in the seat of the one who occupied it for the four years in question, they were powerless to afford a remedy. A report to parliament by judges cannot under any circumstance give the seat to Mr. Collins.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I know a report to parliament cannot give the seat, but the judge has the right to report to parliament any circumstance which he thinks they ought to be made aware of.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Unfortunately-and I am sure the Prime Minister will see the force of this at once-the judges cannot hear the evidence in a controverted elections case. My right hon. friend sees at once the whole trouble. He has anticipated what I was going to say.


James Shaver Woodsworth: If the seat is
voided is that not the first step in righting the wrong? There is another election and the thing is then decided.


Richard Bedford Bennett: May I put this to my hon. friend? Does he for a single moment say that it is the first step towards righting a wrong to void a seat and bring on a new election when the seat has been stolen?


James Shaver Woodsworth: It seems to be so.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Let me put this in
another way. If my hon. friend's goods have been stolen from him, if the thief goes to gaol for five years and if my hon. friend has not recovered back his goods does he think he is compensated when he is afforded the privilege [DOT] of going out and earning enough money to buy himseilf a new bedroom set?


James Shaver Woodsworth: May I put it in
this way? If I lose my watch and finally the thief is discovered, that is the first step towards getting my watch back. It may subsequently be returned to me through due process. I may have suffered the. inconvenience of losing the watch, but it is the first step towards obtaining my own again.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The first step towards
getting back the watch that was lost, not stolen, is to prove ownership of the property.

Peace River Election
In this instance that step was taken before Mr. Justice Walsh when 111 electors of Peace River went into the box and swore that they voted for Collins and the ballots came out marked for Rae. He proved his property.


Mr. SPENCER:: Would not the best way
of proving ownership of a property be to have another election?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Surely my hon. friend
does not think the best way to prove ownership of a property is to have an auction sale.


Mr. YOUNG (Saskatoon):: Does the hon.
member consider an election an auction sale?


Richard Bedford Bennett: In northern Saskatchewan that seems to have been the process and it has now moved westward to Alberta.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: Elections in
Saskatchewan 'are not conducted in the way the hon. member has suggested.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am glad my hon. friend
has offered his denial because I hold in my hand a volume that shows the statement I made was correct, and I am going to prove it in a moment. I want to deal with the question of the Prime Minister because I can see that the mind of this House is not partisan at the moment; it desires to do what is right and just, and the mind of the Prime Minister is also not partisan; he desires to do what is right and just. He suggests that the judges might report the circumstance of the ballots having been stolen and having been marked for Mr. Rae when in truth they were marked by the electors for Mr. Collins. But he forgot that the Supreme Court of Canada decided in the Haldimand case that in a civil proceeding it would be illegal and improper on grounds of public policy, apart from everything else, for those electors to give that testimony in that court. Therefore the judges could not make the report.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: But I cannot
imagine that the Controverted Elections Act was framed with a view to doing injury to anyone or to deprive parliament of having the right to redress a wrong. Section 61 of the Controverted Elections Act states:
The trial judges may, at the same time, make a special report to the Speaker as to any matters arising in the course of the trial, an account of which ought, in their judgment, to 'be submitted to the House of Commons.
I cannot conceive of a judge believing, no matter what the circumstances are, that a gentleman has been deprived of his seat and another member returned in an improper way,
not reporting that matter to the Speaker of the House of Commons so that it might be dealt with by parliament.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am glad the Prime
Minister has put it thus fairly. Surely he must realize that section 61, which enables judges to make a report, is predicated upon the report being based upon the evidence received by them. If they do not have any evidence of the stolen ballots, which evidence they cannot receive as the Prime Minister will understand under the Haldimand decision, they cannot make that report. In other words a report of the judges must be a report based upon the evidence given at the trial. That is clear. No evidence can be given at the trial as to how men voted. The Supreme Court of Canada has so held. I think it is a strange construction, but the judges say: Even though they may give evidence, we will not allow them to do so on account of the judgment in the controverted elections case. It would be an incentive to induce men to commit perjury in the heat and stress of election campaigns and under pressure of party politics. Therefore, under the decision of the Supreme court of Canada interpreting the section of the Controverted Elections Act to which we have referred, no report may be made as to how people voted. The courts can report that there are suspicious circumstances with respect to the election, but they could not report that nine, ten, fifteen, twenty or a hundred men voted one way and that the ballots were counted another, because by the decision of the Supreme Court all testimony is excluded which would go to show how electors voted. That is what I want to make clear.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The law clearly seems to contemplate that in addition to the report that may be made on the evidence it is still open to the judge himself in his discretion to make a special report. Let me read the section again:


Arthur Meighen: Report on what?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: On any matter which he thinks should be brought to the attention of the House of Commons. Section 61 of the Controverted Elections Act reads:
The trial judge may at the same time make a special report to the Speaker as to any matters arising in itihe course of the trial an account of which ought in their judgment to be submitted to the House of Commons.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The relevant words are "in the course of the trial", and my right hon. friend (Mr. Mackenzie King) has, I think, a sufficient knowledge of the procedure of the
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courts to know that any matter arising in the course of a trial must be such as has been spoken to by either witnesses or counsel and arising out of the proceedings in themselves, which in this instance would be a controverted election. Evidence in this case would be submitted to show that one hundred men had voted at Brule Mine for Mr. Collins- assuming the case to be before the courts- and that their ballots had been stolen and marked for some other candidate, and the judges would decline to receive that evidence in the light of the decision of the Supreme Court. Therefore they could make no report that would assist Collins in securing his seat. That is the point I desire to make clear. There is no remedy so far as the courts are concerned.
The Prime Minister very fairly observed a moment ago that wherever there is wrong there must be a remedy. He is right. That is why I cited the case which I submitted to the consideration of the House. What is the remedy in this instance? The remedy is by petition to this parliament, and wherever it is shown by proceedings or otherwise that there is no remedy available elsewhere, parliament, which has supreme control over its own procedure and membership, will take such action as may be necessary to rectify the wrong that has been done. Let me refer the House to the Saskatchewan case which I mentioned a few days ago. In northern Saskatchewan there was held in 1905 a certain election which resulted in the return of Mr. Tyerman, and the same thing happened there that occurred in the Peace River election. Ballots were stolen and Mr. Donaldson, the aggrieved candidate, took proceedings in the criminal courts. Mr. Tyerman was convicted and Mr. Donaldson thereupon instituted proceedings at law under the Controverted Elections Act of the Northwest Territories, believing that the statute had application in the circumstances. The court, however, decided that in the transition stage under the Autonomy Act it was without jurisdiction. Mr. Donaldson petitioned the legislature. The petition was referred to the standing committee on Privileges and Elections which investigated the matter, and examined with great care various precedents. Finally there was brought in a report prepared by Mr., now Sir Frederick Haultain, Chief Justice of Saskatchewan, at that time leader of the provincial opposition, and the Hon. Mr. Justice Lamont of the Court of Appeal of Saskatchewan, then attorney general. One paragraph of that report reads:-
That Mr. Donaldson entered a petition in the Supreme Court of the North-west Territories contest-
mg the election of Mr. Tyerman, which petition was outstanding and pending until the (twelfth day of December, 1906, when the same was dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
The finding was that there had been cast for Mr. Donaldson at certain polls sufficient votes to have elected him by a comfortable majority, but that the ballots had been extracted and marked for Mr. Tyerman who consequently had been returned. The legislature of Saskatchewan thereupon, on the motion of Attorney General Lamont, seconded by Mr. Haultain, adopted a report which recommended special action in the case. Because there was no specific remedy for the wrong that had been done, except such remedy as it was within the inherent power of a British legislature to provide, the legislature of the province of Saskatchewan resolved to call to its bar the clerk of the executive council, who was instructed to strike out of the election return the name Tyerman and to substitute therefor the name Donaldson. Mr. Donaldson, therefore, was given his seat and took his place in the House.


James Shaver Woodsworth: In that case action was first taken in the courts before the matter was brought up in the legislature. Why did not Mr. Collins take action similarly, before bringing the matter up in parliament?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The answer is clear. Collins did cause proceedings to be taken criminally, with the result that Robb was convicted. But proceedings having been taken under the Controverted Elections Act by a Mr. Page against Mr. Kennedy it was not competent for Collins to take similar action, inasmuch as there cannot be two proceedings under the same statute with respect to the same respondent. But such proceedings as Collins did take could not give him his seat, and that is the point I make.
Mr. WOODSiW'ORTH: Was it not possible for Collins to take proceedings under the Controverted Elections Act?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I tried to explain to the hon. member that Mr. Collins first of all spent much time, effort and money gathering evidence and he secured the approval and consent of the attorney general to take proceedings against the wrongdoers. Before these proceedings against Robb and other wrongdoers were concluded, Mr. Page brought proceedings under the Controverted Elections Act against Mr. Kennedy, proceedings which he has now intimated his willingness to drop, if he can. That point, however, I will not stop to discuss, because we do not wish to debate any disputatious questions. But whatever may be done by

Peace River Election
Page or Collins or anyone else under the Controverted Elections Act, the fact remains that property which has been stolen will not be returned unless this House takes steps to see that it is.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Am I to under-tand that it was not competent for Collins to take any action whatever at any time under the Controverted Elections Act?


Richard Bedford Bennett: It was not competent for him to take proceedings under that act such as would secure him his seat.


James Shaver Woodsworth: That is not the point.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It was not competent for him to take proceedings when these irregularities were discovered, because on February 24 last one Page had already brought proceedings under the act against Mr. Kennedy, and as I have already pointed two proceedings may not be brought against the same respondent with respect to the same election.


Mr. OAHAN:: Is it not clear beyond a doubt that in no election proceedings could evidence be heard such as is now before this House in the petition? Even if the allegations were not struck out by the judge it would be impossible to place one scintilla of evidence before the court in support of the petition.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I thank my hon. friend for putting the matter so clearly. I thought I had emphasized that in answer to the right hon. Prime Minister, that had Collins brought proceedings under the Controverted Elections Act he could not produce the witnesses to prove what he proved in the criminal court, because the judge in the civil court would not receive testimony as to how men voted, that testimony could be received only in the criminal court. The Minister of Justice in his speech made that perfectly clear.


James Shaver Woodsworth: But he could have
taken proceedings along the lines of the Saskatchewan case.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No. They were the
same form of proceedings in the Saskatchewan case, and if in that case they had endeavoured to ask how the men voted the same result would have followed. The reason they did not get anywhere in the Saskatchewan case was because the civil court had no jurisdiction, the transitional stage under the autonomy legislation not enabling that court to continue to deal with controverted elections, so they had to pass a new statute and establish a new court for that purpose. But
the law is 'as stated by the attorney general, that under the Controverted Elections Act no witnesses could be called and examined as to how they voted, and therefore the judges hearing the petition were without jurisdiction or power to award the seat to the man from whom it had been stolen.


James Shaver Woodsworth: It was quite competent for him to have taken action before Page did under the Controverted Elections Act.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It was competent, of
course, for him to do so, but he did not have his information; he did not have the evidence given by the electors and the verdict of the jury until after that date, and even if he had. those men could not have given this testimony.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The hon. gentleman is anxious to right one wrong. I would suggest that since none of this evidence was available to Mr. Kennedy at that time, he could not have proceeded until afterwards to right the wrong against himself.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am sure no one would
suggest that until the facts were investigated in the criminal court Mr. Kennedy had any real knowledge of what had happened. We have been fair enough to say that. But since the verdict was given, the conviction registered and Robb sentenced, not only Mr. Kennedy but all the world knows he holds the seat by stolen ballots. Of course any other proceedings, having regard to the fact that the electors could not say for whom they voted, would be nothing but a farce, as my hon. friend from St. Lawrence-St. George has made perfectly clear.
Now, if that be the only remedy, how are you to deal with it? I should like us this afternoon to consider ourselves not on our legislative side but on our judicial side-as the high court of parliament. I put this to every hon. member: The case of Collins may be your case and mine next year; how would you feel under similar circumstances? After all, justice is justice. It has been well said that it is an attribute of the Godhead. I admit we are all prone to have strong views, that our passions sometimes sway our reason and our prejudices destroy our judgment, but I ask every member of this House this afternoon to bear in mind that we are members of the high court of parliament, the highest tribunal in the land, the court that on its legislative side makes the criminal law, and that to deny this petition should be received and referred to the com-
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mittee on Privileges and Elections is to deny elemental justice to a fellow-citizen. And, Mr. Speaker, I should like to put this question to every member before he votes, as I have endeavoured to put it to myself: Would he under similar circumstances feel he was being fairly or justly dealt with if, with knowledge that his seat had been stolen from him under the conditions that prevailed in the Peace River constituency, he was not accorded the only remedy available to him, namely, the remedy of appeal to parliament? If any hon. gentleman can point out any other remedy that is available to Collins, then we have a different state of facts. But this being the only remedy, what are we to do? The hon. Minister of Justice made two or three observations in that regard that call for answer. He said: Parliament is powerless, because if we do refer the matter to the committee on Privileges and Elections, they cannot receive the testimony of witnesses, not being a criminal court. May I remind him that the mere statement carries its own answer? If it had been made by anyone less important than the Attorney General of Canada, I would use harsher words in respect to it. He said first of all: As on grounds of public policy you could not in civil proceedings receive the evidence of these witnesses as to how they voted, therefore a parliamentary committee could not. In the West Huron case a parliamentary committee received evidence and compelled witnesses to answer. Before a parliamentary committee that has been sitting during the last few weeks men have been compelled to incriminate themselves. That is the distinction between a parliamentary committee and a court of law. I remember in my first parliament seeing a man stand at the bar of this House and then sent to the tower because he had committed contempt of this high court of parliament in refusing to answer a question which he said would incriminate himself. Incrimination has nothing to do with it. Before the 'high court of parliament a man is bound to answer any question that is put to him. It cannot be used against him. In the parliamentary committee to which I have already referred men during the last few weeks have been compelled to answer questions incriminating themselves, because it was realized that it Was a committee of the high court of parliament, and therefore it could at least enforce every law that the high court of parliament could itself make. This high court of parliament has expelled men from the House, Louis Riel and others. This high court of parliament has the

right to determine whether or not Collins shall have a seat in this House, and when this matter is referred to the committee on Privileges and Elections the testimony already taken need not be taken again, the evidence was adduced before the criminal court on which his countrymen found Robb guilty. The certified evidence is there, the evidence of 111 men who went into the witness box and swore how they voted, the evidence of the ballots themselves, evidence that has been approved by the Supreme Court of Alberta on the appellate side by unanimous judgment. That judgment against Robb is predicated on the evidence of 111 witnesses. A jury of his countrymen after hearing the evidence decided that Robb was guilty. Robb himself did not dare go into the witness box. I can say that in parliament, although it could not be said by counsel for the crown in his address to the jury. Robb was convicted, and the Supreme Court of Alberta has confirmed his conviction. If parliament wants to do what was done in the Donaldson case, it can take that record with that certificate given by the Supreme Court of Alberta and read there that 111 men voted for Collins, and that their votes were marked for Rae. Then it can make a report that the Chief Electoral Officer attend at the bar of this House to amend his return and award the seat to the man who won his election as every man in this House should, by receiving the largest number of votes, but whose place is now taken by another.
Now the Minister of Justice, the Attorney General of Canada, says that a committee of parliament is powerless, and therefore there is bo remedy. Daniel O'Connell once said, " Parliament is omnipotent." Parliament is supreme in this matter. If the law has failed to make provision whereby in a case of this kind the judges could hear the evidence and award the seat, then the power of this parliament-


Mr. POWER:: I do not think the Minister of Justice suggested that parliament was powerless. He simply pointed out that we could not bring before the bar of the House for punishment a man who refused to divulge the secret of the ballot box.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think it was put in this way; I think he said that on grounds of public policy the courts had decided that under the section a man was not only not compelled to answer as to how he voted, but that he would not be permitted to say how he voted, and that the same principle would apply in the proceedings that would take place in committee. He then read the section, but surely in reading the section he

Peace River Election
must have observed that the secrecy of the ballot was limited to a legal proceeding. Therefore that argument is without strength, because it applies only to a legal proceeding and not to this parliament or any committee of parliament. In other words, the prohibition against a man saying how he voted or against his being compelled to answer is limited to legal proceedings under section 72 of the statute.


Charles Gavan Power: If my hon. friend will
permit me, I understand that phase of the situation and I think the Minister of Justice understood it also. In case the Minister of Justice did not point that out may I be permitted to say that it appears to me highly improper, if not ridiculous, for the parliament of Canada to bring before the bar of this House and threaten with punishment any individual who would refuse to divulge the secret of the ballot. That is the point.


Richard Bedford Bennett: My hon. friend has failed to observe the language of section 228.


Charles Gavan Power: I am not discussing the law.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Section 226 is as follows:
No person who has voted at an election shall, in any legal proceeding questioning the election or return, be required to state for whom lie voted.
Now my hon. friend says we should not compel these men to tell whether they voted for Collins or Rae or Kennedy, but he overlooked the fact that we are asking nothing more than that those men who have already told1 how they voted should come here and tell us again.


Charles Gavan Power: Well then, we will suppose a certain number of ballots were improperly marked as against Kennedy. Would we have the right, before taking legal proceedings in the criminal courts, to question these men before the bar of me House?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Whatever may be the right of this parliament to make an initial investigation I am not concerned with; in my judgment parliament has that power, but in this case may I direct the attention of this tribunal to the fact that we only seek to take advantage of the proceedings of the courts of this country on behalf of the man who has been injured, the courts which condemned Robb to five years imprisonment for having stolen these ballots. That is all. These men who marked their ballots went into the witness box and told for whom they voted and having sworn that,
all we now seek to do is to permit the use of that evidence in the committee, or to call these men here -who have already sworn how they voted.


Charles Gavan Power: I will just ask one more question. Will my hon. friend say that he would be prepared to move, by resolution or otherwise, that a witness be punished for refusing to answer such a question before the bar of this House?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I have no hesitation in
saying that in this case that situation could not possibly arise.


Charles Gavan Power: They might absolutely refuse to answer before the Privileges and Elections committee.


Richard Bedford Bennett: So far as I am concerned, and I can only speak for myself, I would have no hesitation in moving that they be committed.


Ernest Lapointe: That is good Tory doctrine.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, Sir; that is the
doctrine of equity and justice. That is the doctrine of public policy.


Ernest Lapointe: That is not law; that
is Toryism.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am very glad that we
in this country are not compelled to accept the dictum of my hon. friend as to what constitutes law, although for the moment we may be compelled to take his views as to what constitutes Toryism. But let me put it this way. I would not have the slightest hesitation in saying that if, before the high court of parliament-which made the law and can unmake it; it is supreme-a witness declines to answer any question as to how he voted or otherwise he should be punished, not in order that the public policy might be vindicated but that a public wrong might have an adequate public remedy.


Charles Gavan Power: May I be permitted another question?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Could the committee on Privileges and Elections investigate other alleged irregularities even though they had not hitherto been before the courts?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The Minister of Justice
this afternoon stated that parliament has delegated any matters within the purview of the Controverted Elections Act to the courts, and divested this high court of parliament of its jurisdiction. I think that is the law. But with respect to these matters that have not been delegated to the courts, those matters of which parliament has not divested
Peace River Election

itself, the inherent power and jurisdiction still remain and must be exercised in the public interest as they were in Saskatchewan and should be here if a wrong has been done for which there is no remedy.


James Shaver Woodsworth: But the Speaker
was referring to certain irregularities at a particular poll. Supposing it was brought to the notice of -any individual member of this House or of any citizen that there were irregularities at other polls, could the committee on Privileges and Elections consider such irregularities?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The answer is that this is not a remedy within the statute. If the irregularities complained of by the citizen were irregularities within the statute they must be the subject matter of judicial determination. If they were matters outside of the statute they would have to be inquired into by the committee on Privileges and Elections.


James Shaver Woodsworth: There would be no general investigation with regard to the election.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There can never be a general investigation with respect to anything. That is illustrated by the fact that Mr. Kennedy's solicitors have applied for particulars, in order that they may know wherein he violated the law. The law is based upon the assumption that a man cannot meet glittering generalities but must be allowed to deal with specific matters.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am speaking of the committee on Privileges and Elections.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The committee on Privileges and Elections is a law unto itself; if a majority of that committee decide to carry on a certain investigation within the scope of its reference they undoubtedly would have the jurisdiction so to do.


James Shaver Woodsworth: But it is limited to one particular poll.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Absolutely, it being open to Mr. Kennedy, of course, if he so desired, to prefer other charges with respect to irregularities at other points, if he knows of them. They would then be investigated in the manner provided by law.


James Shaver Woodsworth: If it were necessary to call 115 witnesses to Ottawa to testify as to how they voted, it might be necessary to call all the voters in Peace River for the same purpose.
fMr. Bennett.]


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am sure no man who has cried aloud to high heaven as has the hon. member would deny a fellow citizen the right to enjoy the fruits of his efforts when they have been stolen by someone else. Surely my friend must realize that the assertion of a wrong does not constitute either evidence or proof of it, and that until such time as there is some evidence other than the mere statement to cover up the surrender of the goods that are now illegally held, you cannot predicate an argument upon it. In this case we predicate our argument upon the sworn testimony of witnesses, not determined by us but by a jury of Robb's countrymen, who found him guilty of the offence charged, which was confirmed as I have already said by the appellate division of the Supreme Court of Alberta.
Mr. WCODSW'ORTH:	The hon. gentleman said that this parliament was a law unto itself. It seems to me the matter is still in the realm of the courts, while the -hon. gentleman is asking us to transfer it to the larger arena of parliament.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is because the law
courts have determined finally that there has been a theft of 111 ballots that Collins petitions this parliament to undo the wrong that otherwise is without a remedy. If this parliament does what was done in Saskatchewan, and Mr. Collins is returned as the member for Peace River by an amendment of the return of the Chief Electoral Officer at the bar of this House, then, Sir, within a period of forty days after that Mr. Kennedy, or any citizen, would have the right to petition the courts of the country to declare the election void, and to take from Mr. Collins his seat if he could. I desire to make that clear.
The substitution and gazetting of Mr. Collins as the member for Peace River, as he should be, would thereupon afford any any complaining citizen .the right to allege either in the courts of the country or, if necessary, in this parliament what is now alleged either by a petition under the Controverted Elections Act or by a petition to this parliament to deal with the whole situation. Let there be no misunderstanding about that. What this petition seeks in essence is this, that instead of Mr. Kennedy sitting as the member for Peace River, the man who, under the process by which we sit here, obtained his seat should occupy that seat in this parliament. That is all. Further, Mr. Speaker, there would then be accorded to Mr. Kennedy, to any citizen of Peace River, to any elector, the same right to petition

Peace River Election
against Collins as Page has now exercised against Kennedy. For forty days after Collins was put in his seat, any elector could inquire into the irregularities my hon. friend from Winnipeg complained of, under the Controverted Elections Act, and if irregularities existed, that were found to be of a criminal character such as brought Robb to the bar of justice, they too could be inquired into in the criminal courts, and if there was no adequate remedy, there could be a petition to this House, by which the wrong done to Mr. Kennedy, if any, could then be righted.
This is not a one-sided remedy. It is a reciprocal remedy. It works both ways. It affords to Mr. Collins the remedy and the right which he has won from the electors by the certificate of those who were responsible for the conduct of the election, and it affords to his opponents the same right of petition and protest against him-


Charles Gavan Power: Will my hon. friend allege
that it is sufficient for a petitioner to come before this House, saying that he cannot obtain a remedy through the courts, to have his election inquired into by the committee on Privileges and Elections?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Broadly and generally
the principle is that wherever there is a wrong there is a remedy, and if it is established to the satisfaction of parliament that no remedy has been provided by parliament itself within the law enacted by parliament, a petition could be received by parliament.


Charles Gavan Power: What is there to prevent
every election being brought before the committee on Privileges and Elections, if my hon. friend's argument is correct? According to him, the only allegation necessary would be that the petitioner could not find any remedy before the courts.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Surely my hon. friend
has not followed the petition. It makes no allegation of that sort. It alleges, and in fact it is proven and is in the records of the courts of the country, that there has been a conviction for the offence alleged. It is not mere hearsay or blind allegation.


Charles Gavan Power: But fundamentally my hon.
friend's argument this afternoon is that Collins comes before us because he cannot find a remedy elsewhere.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Let me put that again. I am sure my hon. friend did not follow me. I hesitate to restate this because it was so clearly stated by my right hon. leader.
If within the four corners of the Controverted Elections Act no remedy has been provided by parliament for an alleged offence, then parliament still has inherent jurisdiction over it. The extent to which parliament might exercise that power must always depend upon the merits of each particular case, but you never must confuse jurisdiction with the exercise of it. In the one instance, the power exists. The exercise of it always depends upon the facts of each particular case. I trust I have made myself clear.


Charles Gavan Power: I understand what my hon. friend is driving at.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Then I am sure my hon. friend is convinced.


Charles Gavan Power: No, I am not. I maintain that under my hon. friend's argument, if we create this precedent to-day, it will be sufficient for any man who complains of having lost an election to come before parliament and allege, backed by an affidavit, that ballots have been improperly marked, and then we must follow this precedent and refer the matter to the committee on Privileges and Elections. That would bring the whole matter of deciding contested elections into parliament instead of leaving it to the courts under the Controverted Elections Act.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No hon. gentleman who has followed the facts of this case could make any such observation as that.


Charles Gavan Power: That is a matter of appreciation.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Let me restate the proposition which the Attorney General of Canada has said is sound; so there is agreement upon it. If within the four corners of the Controverted Elections Act a remedy is provided for the wrong that has been done, then the courts, and not parliament, have jurisdiction. If, on the other hand, there is no remedy provided by the statute, this parliament has inherent power and jurisdiction to deal with the case, and in the exercise of that right regard must be had in every instance to the merits of the case as disclosed by the allegations in the petition.


Charles Gavan Power: In other words, my hon. friend's argument is this: It all depends on whose ox is gored.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Not a bit. It is because, Mr. Speaker, I still have a belief, a somewhat shaken belief, it is true, in the essential sense of fairness of my fellowmen-I will admit that I have had reason to doubt it at times-
Peace River Election


Charles Gavan Power: In election matters in Saskatchewan and Alberta.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am bound to say universally so far as the first province mentioned is concerned, and also as regards the northern half of the latter province, there is reason for doubting.
I still cannot believe, Mr. Speaker, that 244 members of the parliament of Canada, a governing group, speaking through its chief law officer and admitting that there is no remedy under the Controverted Elections Act for this particular case, will deny to a fellow citizen the only remedy he has, namely, the right to petition this parliament to redress his grievances. I cannot believe 5 p.m. it. If this be sound, then what are we doing? It is only necessary to carry on, on a large scale, throughout the provinces of Canada what was done in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and which did not originate in either of those provinces but came from Ontario, as we know with respect to evidence given before the Privileges and Elections committee in this House in former days-it will only be necessary to have someone rob a ballot box to ensure the return of a member who can sit here and defy public opinion and this parliament. My hon. friend the Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning), with his sense of fairness, shakes his head. What is the remedy? Name it. What other remedy is there but this House and this petition? Name it. The very fact that we are faced with this problem should in itself show hon. members where this will lead them. All you would have to do would be to go through the constituencies in a general election, say ten, fifteen or twenty, and rob enough ballot boxes-go into it on a large scale-and you would have returned to parliament men who had stolen the seats. It is admitted that we have no remedy in the court; the only remedy would be by a petition to this parliament. Then the man with the longest purse, the man who could hire the most criminals, would be able to control an election. Is t'he man who is able to hire the most desperadoes and thugs to have a seat in parliament? Are you putting a premium on rascality? That is what it means-nothing short of that. A vote to declare that Collins' petition shall not be considered by this House is a declaration that he has no remedy, and that this parliament puts the stamp of its approval upon the most brazen rascality one can possibly conceive of. The legislature of Saskatchewan voted unanimously against this idea and put Donaldson, a Tory, in a Liberal House in which there were only four 
or five Conservatives. Has this House less sense of fair play and justice than the Saskatchewan legislature?
This question must stir the conscience of every thoughtful man in the House this afternoon. I can conceive of nothing that will tend more to lower, in the mind of the public, their conception of this parliament. I read editorials in the newspapers, not all Conservative, but papers of the Liberal faith in Toronto, and elsewhere and they said, "This cannot be without some remedy." If, as has been completely shown by the right hon. leader of the opposition, supported by the Minister of Justice, and re-affirmed by myself in a halting way, these are the conclusions at which we must arrive, then let us pause before we deny the right to submit this petition to this House.
There are one or two matters that might be dealt with, but I shall not take.up time to go into them now. There have been many interruptions and I have taken a much longer time than I expected to take, but the interruptions were of the most friendly kind, because I believe in the hearts of all members in this House there is a desire to do justice to their fellow men. If this parliament, with the inherent right to expel members, is going now to say that it will not exercise its inherent power to hear the petition of one whose seat has been stolen from him, are we not doing an injustice to our own sesnse of justice?
Let me say this much to the Attorney General of Canada, the Minister of Justice; if there is "no remedy except this .petition, is it not about time parliament amended the statute so as to provide a remedy? And since no amendment will confer upon Collins his rights, let us exercise the right which we believe should be exercised, and in fulfilment and in furtherance of the exercise of our inherent power, our jurisdiction as a High Court of Justice, let us do that which is equitable and fair, just as any one of us would expect it to be done to him if he were in a similar situation.


Mr. DENIS (Joliette):: The hon. member
stated that because Page had instituted a petition, Collins was prevented from petitioning. I am not very conversant with this law, but will the hon. member give me authority for that?


Richard Bedford Bennett: What I meant by that
was that while the statute does not provide a limit of one petition, the truth is that no judges will hear two petitions when they cover the same subject matter, and that, so far as Collins preferring a petition against Kennedy is concerned, it would serve no useful purpose,

Peace River Election
inasmuch as the law provides that there may be a substitution in the event of one petitioner not proceeding. But the only effect would be to void the seat; it would not afford the remedy he is entitled to, namely, a seat in the House of Commons.


Jean-Joseph Denis: But more petitions can be preferred against him?


Richard Bedford Bennett: They are not prohibited, but so far as that is concerned the court is not going to try three or four petitions at a time.


Ernest Lapointe: All the petitions are
united and tried as one.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, consolidated.


Hon. LUCIEN CANNON (Solicitor General) :: The argument presented by the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) may be summed up as follows; has a wrong been committed, and if so, should parliament right that wrong? My remarks wall be limited strictly to my interpretation of the law as I see it. First of all, we must not forget that we have not before us any evidence whatsoever of any of the facts mentioned by the hon. member for West Calgary. He may be a very learned lawyer, and so he is, but as every hon. member in this House knows, the word of a lawyer is not accepted as evidence before any court or before parliament. I do not say this to cast any doubt upon what my hon. friend has said; I simply point out that legally speaking we have absolutely no evidence before us, notwithstanding anything that my hon. friend may have alleged.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I may tell my hon. friend that accompanying the petition is a certified record of the evidence of every witness and a certificate of the court finding the prisoner guilty.


Lucien Cannon: I am coming to that.
Whatever might have been said by the hon. member for West Calgary, or whatever might be said by any member in this House with reference to the election is not evidence and cannot be considered as evidence. My hon. friend says that accompanying the petition there is an appendix containing the evidence presented before the court in the criminal proceedings taken against Robb. I may say- and he cannot contradict me-that this appendix cannot be considered.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is not an appendix.


Lucien Cannon: Rule 75 concerning petitions is very simple. It states that a petition cannot be accompanied by any extra document or appendix. It is so much the case and my hon. friend understood the law as I state it now so well, that he removed fho appendix himself.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There never was an appendix.


Lucien Cannon: If it had not been removed the petition could not have been received. That is the law and my hon. friend knows it. Therefore when he is quoting the appendix he is quoting from a document which is not and cannot be before us. The only document we have legally before us and which can be considered in order to form an opinion is the petition itself, and I am coming to it.


Arthur Meighen: Is parliament debarred,
in carrying out its duties, from considering the records and decisions of our courts whether they are on the table or not?


Lucien Cannon: My right hon. friend is
too good a lawyer to expect me not to give him the only obvious answer. Doubtless parliament can consider judicial records, but only when they are put before it in a legal way.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Is it not the bounden duty of parliament, in considering whether or not a petition shall be received, to assume from the outset that every allegation in it is true?
Mr. [DOT] CANNON: That 'is another aspect, and I will deal with it presently. The point I am trying to make-and I think I have made it-is that actually the only thing we have before us is the petition. We do not know what may have happened in the courts of Alberta. We have heard a great deal about, it, but legally none of those facts is placed before us.
I come now to the petition. To petition parliament it is not necessary to support the allegation of the petition by affidavit. If this petitioner, Collins, had petitioned under the Controverted Elections Act or under the Corrupt Practices Act, he would have had to give an oath in support of his allegations. There is no affidavit in support of this petition.


Mr. RYCKMAN:: The hon. member does
not think Robb is in gaol.


Lucien Cannon: I am not discussing Mr. Robb; I am discussing the petition now before the House. I am pointing out that the allegations in this petition are not even supported by affidavit. That adds considerable strength to the argument made by the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) when he stated to the hon. member for West Cal-
Peace River Election

gary that he should be extremely careful in dealing with this matter because it would be laying down a precedent which would open the door to any petition with any allegations, no affidavit in regard to any of them being necessary.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: From time immemorial has
the Solicitor General heard of a petition being presented to parliament supported by an affidavit? From time immemorial has not every British citizen, on his own allegation and subscribing his own signature, had the right to petition parliament so long as he keeps within the proper limits?
Mr. CANNON-:	Certainly. The point I
am making is this that a petition to parliament need not be supported by affidavit, but according to the law of the land in order to protect duly elected members of parliament, if a man wishes to contest my election or to deprive me of my seat, he has to support his allegations by an affidavit. This is a man who wishes to deprive a member of this House of his seat; he wishes to attain through a petition to parliament exactly the same objects which he would secure from a court if he would act under the electoral law. But notwithstanding the fact that he wants a seat, that he wishes to deprive a member of the House of his seat, his petition is not supported by an affidavit as it would have to be if the application were made before the courts.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Suppose we admit that. If
the allegations of the petition are such as come within the limits prescribed for petitioning to parliament, is it not the duty of parliament to receive the petition and to refer it to the committee on Privileges and Elections, so that the very first man who would be summoned might Ibe the petitioner, in order that he might be put on oath and cross-examined as to the verity of the allegations contained in the petition?


Lucien Cannon: That is a matter of procedure, but it is outside of the argument I am now making. The hon. member for West Calgary says:	There is a wrong, and
he proves the existence of the wrong by quoting from documents which are not before us. Therefore I say that we have actually no evidence of the existence of a wrong. The allegations in this petition are not proven; the fact that a man alleges in his position so and so, does not mean that the condition referred to exists. My hon. friend has enough experience in courts to know that many allegations which appear in documents do not represent the facts.


Mr. CLARK:: Has the Solicitor General
ever heard of a petition presented to parliament with proof of the facts appearing in the petition?


Lucien Cannon: My hon. friend is not
getting my point.


John Arthur Clark: Yes I am, if there is one.


Lucien Cannon: I am not saying that the
man should support his petition by an affidavit. I do say that as he did not support his allegations by affidavit his allegations are supported by nothing at all; we have no evidence of the facts alleged in the petition or the facts referred to by the hon. member for West Calgary.


John Arthur Clark: What further support could
be given of the facts alleged in the petition than a conviction which is of record by a criminal court and the indictment set out in the case?


Lucien Cannon: At the stage which we
have now reached the records of any convictions or any court proceedings in Alberta are not and cannot be before us.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The indictment has been read.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: When the House is considering whether a petition shall be received and referred for investigation, is the House not bound to assume, for the purpose of coming to that decision, the verity of every allegation contained in the petition?


Lucien Cannon: Certainly not.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I think so.


Lucien Cannon: On the contrary the argument made by the hon. member for West Calgary was that we should assume that during an election everything is done regularly. That assumption exists as my hon. friend will admit. Why should we reverse that assumption in favour of a man we know nothing about, who alleges in a petition that things have not been done regularly?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The answer is that we are
not reversing it. We are referring the petition to a committee to hear the evidence and to consider whether it should be reversed or not.


Lucien Cannon: I submit first that we
have no evidence of the existence of a wrong.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: We have the petition.


Lucien Cannon: We have a petition, but
it is not supported by an affidavit.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It is presumptive evidence.

Peace, River Election


Lucien Cannon: It is not accompanied
by an appendix or any other document, and we have no other evidence of the existence of a wrong. That is my first point. And if I am right on that point I say that even if the petition were referred to a committee we could not secure further evidence. That is my second point. My contention briefly is this: first, there is no evidence; and, secondly, even if we went before the committee we could not secure evidence.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Why not?


Lucien Cannon: I shall try to prove that
to the satisfaction of the hon. gentleman.


John Arthur Clark: How was the criminal convicted if there was no evidence?


Lucien Cannon: -Section 226 of the Dominion Elections Act lays down the following principle:
No person who ihas voted at an election shall, in any legal proceeding questioning the election or return, be required to state for whom he voted.
That is the public law of the land. My hon. friend from West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) said that in a certain case cited some witnesses were asked by the committee to indicate for whom they had voted. I have examined the record and I see that one William Roman was examined by Mr. Borden -I presume it is Sir Robert Borden-but I would point out that this took place in 1899 and that section 226 from which I have just quoted was passed the following year.


John Arthur Clark: It was there long before.


Lucien Cannon: But even though witnesses may have been questioned by that committee as to how they voted, the fact that the committee exceeded its powers in that respect does not in any way affect the underlying principle that in all legal proceedings connected with an election the sacred secrecy of the ballot shall be respected.


Arthur Meighen: In criminal courts?


Lucien Cannon: My right hon. friend will
immediately see the distinction. In criminal courts proceedings are taken in the public interest. They are conducted, not for the purpose of collecting money, not to right any civil wrong, not to remedy an individual grievance, but to safeguard in general the well being of the public. Criminal law is for the protection of the public.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Does not the same principle apply in respect of all parliamentary investigations? Is there a single exception?


Lucien Cannon: Criminal law is administered in the public interest for the protection of the community as a whole, whereas civil courts are established merely for the settling of civil disputes as between individuals in which the general public is not interested. That is the distinction.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: And for what purpose do
parliamentary courts sit?


Lucien Cannon: Parliament sits for two
purposes: to meet new needs by means of new legislation, and to amend existing grievances by changing the law as it stands.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Did the hon. gentleman
never hear of another purpose? Did he nos hear that parliament is the highest court in the country and that it administers its law in its own discretion without restraint except such as it imposes upon itself?


Lucien Cannon: There is no doubt about
the faat that parliament is the highest tribunal in the land, but it is incumbent upon that tribunal to respect the law and not violate it. My second contention is, therefore, that even if we were to refer the matter to a committee, in view of that principle in our election law to which I have referred, that no man shall be asked for whom he has voted, we could not add anything to what is already before us in support of this petition. In the third place, I say that even if witnesses could be [DOT] heard before the committee and could be asked to state for whom they had voted, parliament would not be in a position to right the wrong if wrong exists. And why do I say that? Because parliament decided in 1873 that it would no longer have anything to do with controverted elections. Parliament took the position that it would no longer deprive any one of its members of his seat in favour of someone else, and I say therefore that even if the whole of the evidence mentioned by the hon. member for West Calgary were before a committee, 'parliament would not be able to give the seat to the petitioner.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What does the hon. gentleman mean by parliament not being "able"? Does he mean able constitutionally, within the limits of its own practice, or does he refer to the power of parliament to take such action as it might see fit?


Lucien Cannon: Parliament in a way is
omnipotent, subject to the limitations of our constitution, but parliament has divested itself of certain powers which have been delegated to the courts; and one of those delegated powers is the right to decide con-

Pence River Election

troverted elections. And is not this a controverted election? No hon. member will challenge my contention that this is simply a controverted election. What does -the petition itself say? The prayer of the petition 'asks that we should instruct our officers to take such action as may be necessary to secure the return to the House of Commons of the candidate who obtained the greatest number of votes cast by the electors in the electoral district of Peace River on October 29 last. This is simply a prayer whereby the petitioner asks us to decide 'a controverted election. We cannot do that; parliament fifty years ago decided it would not do so any more.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: The minister made his question general. I want to say I am one who would deny that this is a controverted election under the Controverted Elections Act.


Lucien Cannon: Well, I think my hon.
friend would be wrong.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: I would be right.


Lucien Cannon: There is no doubt this is a controverted election.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What is the meaning of the term?


Lucien Cannon: Technically.
Mr, CAHAN:	We are dealing with technicalities.


Lucien Cannon: So I think. Up to now,
Mr. Speaker, I have tried to prove: First, that there is no evidence in support of the petition; secondly, that even if this case was referred to a committee, we could not secure evidence; and, thirdly, that even if evidence was secured and adduced, the prayer of the petitioner could not be granted.
Now I come to the last part of my argument. There is no doubt that the whole strength of the argument advanced on the other side lies in the fact that if there is a wrong existing that wrong should be remedied. There is absolutely no doubt that should this parliament be convinced that there is a wrong-and I say there is no evidence of it-this wrong, like every wrong in a British country, should be righted if possible. But their argument loses strength when it comes to the point as to whether or not another remedy exists. Their argument summed up is simply this: Collins should have the seat; the only way for him to secure that seat is to prove that he had more votes than his opponents; but he cannot prove that fact before any civil court
[Mr. Cannon. 1
because the law forbids the judge to listen to the evidence. I think that is the argument in a fair way. Let us examine the law on the point. Section 58-and I am not going to take the time of the House to read it-simply says that when the judges have reached a decision they make a report, and that report is sent to the Speaker. Section 61, which is the important section so far as we are concerned, provides that:
The trial judges may, ait the same time, make a special report to the Speaker-
As to what? Is there any limitation or restriction? According to the wording of the section, the report may be:
-as to any matters arising in the course of the trial, an account of which ought, in their judgment, to be submitted to the House of Commons.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Would the hon. gentleman
direct his attention to those words, "arising in the course of the trial?"


Lucien Cannon: Those are the words I
am going to deal with. If the petitioner Collins is serious, if his friends are really in earnest and sincere, when the proceedings which have been instituted are continued before the courts-


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: But they never will be.


Lucien Cannon: Why not? This election
is contested.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Yes, but without any intention of contesting it, possibly.


Lucien Cannon: Then anyone may substitute himself for Collins.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: But only in the terms of
the present petition.


Lucien Cannon: I will assume that my
learned friend is right.


Ernest Lapointe: Such petitions always
allege everything under the sun.


Arthur Meighen: But they ask for certain things.


Lucien Cannon: Suppose I put things in
as bad a light as possible. The present petitioner does not proceed, but a friend of Collins substitutes himself and proceeds with the case. This man personally or through his counsel gets up before the three judges, alleges the facts contained in the petition, and offers to prove those facts. You tell me the judges will be bound by the law, which forbids them receiving such evidences. But is not that a fact arising at the trial which the judges could report to the House? Will my learned friend contend for a minute that it is not?

Peace River Election


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It is a	matter they might
report to	the House, but	I suggest	it is	nota matter	they would so	report in	fact,	because no	such allegation	has ever	been	reported.Mr. CAiNNON:	That is not the point;my learned friend is getting away from the argument.	.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I am sticking very close
to it.


Lucien Cannon: Yes, but keeping far
enough away not to be within the circle of the real argument.


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: There is not
any.


Lucien Cannon: My argument is this.
This is a fact arising at the trial, and it is possible for the three judges to make a special report. Therefore I say the whole basis of the argument of my learned friends crumbles. The only strong point is in the fact that there is an existing wrong, and no remedy for that wrong. I do not concede there is a wrong, but assuming there is one, under section 61 of the Controverted Elections Act there is a remedy to right that wrong, and that remedy should be resorted to.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman says that the judges might report the facts to the Speaker if Collins proceeded with this petition. Supposing his argument is right, and supposing the judges do what he says they might do, would not this House then be in exactly the same position as it is to-day?


Lucien Cannon: I am just coming to that. The judges make a special report to the Speaker; therefore a remedy exists.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: No, that does not remedy
it.


Lucien Cannon: Wait a minute. A remedy exists, I say, and I am going to prove it. The report is received by the Speaker. What does section 70 say?
The Speaker shall, a.t the earliest practicable moment after he receives the certificates and report or reports, if any-
That includes the general or special report. -of the trial judges or the Supreme Court of Canada, give the necessary directions, and adopt all the proceedings necessary for confirming or altering the return.
Therefore the Speaker, upon receipt of a report, has the power to give all necessary instructions not only to confirm but to alter the report.
14011-292J


Arthur Meighen: How in the world could he do it?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The judges report that
counsel alleged at the trial that they were able to prove that 110 additional ballots were marked in favour of one candidate. Does my hon. friend suggest the absurdity that on this report, which is the only report they can make, the Speaker will do justice by putting Kennedy out and some other man in his place?


Lucien Cannon: I have great confidence in the fairness and prudence of the Speaker. I am of my hon. friend's opinion; I do not think the Speaker would do that; I do not think he would take it upon himself to make such a decision. But if my learned friend would only read: the law concerning the matter he would see what happens then. I would like to read section 71:
The Speaker shall, without delay, communicate to
the House of iCoramons the determination, report and certificaite of the trial judges or of the Supreme Court of Canada and his own 'proceedings thereon; and, when the trial judges or the Supreme Court of Canada make a special report, the House of Commons may make such order in respect to such special report as they think proper.
Is not that a remedy?


Arthur Meighen: Would the House of
Commons then have one whit more evidence than it has to-day?


Lucien Cannon: No. My right hon. friend is right again, but we are discussing a point of law, and my argument is very simple. I say this petition should be received and that parliament should act, assuming that there is a wrong for which there is no remedy. But if on the other hand there is a remedy and if Collins can have his wrong righted anywhere else or can try to do so, let him do that first. Let him go before the courts in accordance with the provisions of the existing law and next year, if a special report is made to the House and the House is asked to decide, it will be for the wisdom and prudence of the House to take action then.
We have discussed this matter twice already. To-day I have debated it from the legal standpoint only, and in no way from a political point of view. The underlying principle in these matters is that parliament should leave to the courts the decision in all matters within the purview of the courts before we attempt to touch the administration of justice. If the citizens of Canada are to be secure in their homes; if our flag is to be respected; if our institutions are to last, legislative, judicial and executive powers must
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not overlap. Let the courts exhaust all their remedies, and if parliament then sees a wrong existing which has not been righted I have enough confidence in the Justice of my fellow members to believe that justice will be done.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I offer my congratulations to the Solicitor General for the manner in which he has discussed this question, and I can also congratulate other hon. members opposite. It may be remarkable and unprecedented, but it is a fact that this afternoon the House has risen to a high plane in discussing this question, and I think every idea of partisanship or prejudice has been eliminated.
To my mind the advantage of this discussion is that it brings before parliament and the country the high place held by this House. It is the highest court in the country; it is supreme and must remain supreme. It has the confidence of the country, and must retain that confidence if we are to avoid the two extremes of autocracy on the one hand and communism on the other. Therefore we are to-day asserting the supremacy of parliament in this respect, but in dealing with this issue parliament must abide by its traditions and its rules, which prescribe that any citizen of Canada who has a grievance has the right to apply to parliament for consideration and a remedy. Under our rules these petitions must be presented and printed in the Votes and Proceedings of the House when they do not contain matter in breach of the privileges of the House, and when, according to our rules and practices, they can be received. Therefore this elementary right of petitioning must be preserved if parliament in Canada is to occupy the same position in public opinion as that occupied by the English parliament in Great Britain and throughout the empire.
In presenting a petition the allegations are set forth over the signature of the petitioner, and from time immemorial parliament, in considering what disposition shall be made of that petition, has assumed and presumed that the allegations therein contained are true, for the purpose of determining the action of parliament as to the procedure which should be folowed.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Would my hon. friend allow me a question? If that is so, why should an affidavit be necessary under section 6 of the Controverted Elections Act, and why was a petition dismissed in 1875 by Hon. James Cockburn because there was no affidavit?
At six o'clock the House took recess.

After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Mr. Speaker, when the House rose at six o'clock I was considering the. matter of petitions to this House. Under the rules no affidavit can be annexed to a petition to this House; no appendix can be attached in the shape of letters, affidavits, certificates, statistical statements or documents of any character. I find that the practice is that if such an appendix appears, then by leave of the House it may be separated from the petition, and the petition is then considered on its merits. I suggest that the reason why no verification of the petition as such is required is that any member who presents to this House a petition which is fraudulent in its character, which is not signed by the parties by whom it purports to be signed, becomes personally responsible to this House and is dealt with by the House. In petitions to parliament, therefore, nothing is required but the signatures of the petitioners, at least three in number in case of a multitude, or one in case it is the petition of one single person, or signed under the seal of a corporation if it is a corporation that is the petitioner, and in such a case the House takes cognizance of the seal. Therefore the hon. Solicitor-General (Mr. Cannon) is in error in suggesting that before we consider this petition we must have some collateral evidence before us of the facts alleged in the petition. The petition, I suggest, must be taken at its face for the purposes of this discussion, and it must be taken at its face when the House comes to a decision as to whether or not it shall be received, and as to what disposal shall be made of it if and when it is received.
I notice in this House, as I have noticed in the courts of our country, a striking difference between the conception of a petition under the civil law and a petition under our English common law. Our English practice in the courts of Nova Scotia, in which I was first trained, is this: If a petition is presented to the court, the judge looks first most carefully into the allegations of the petition to ascertain whether facts are there alleged which should be the subject of consideration by the court, the prayer of the petition always being deemed a secondary matter, because the court reserves to itself the right to administer justice whether exactly in accordance with the prayer of the petition or not. In the courts of Quebec, where I have been practising for some seventeen or eighteen years, the attitude of the court is entirely different. There the court at once looks at

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the conclusion, and' if the conclusion is not in strict accordance with the terms of the law which might be applicable, the petition is thrown out and never considered.
One also notices that in practice under the common law and in practice under the civil law there is a different attitude of mind in dealing with the trial of cases. For instance, I will put it before my confreres from the province of Quebec educated in the civil law, when a case is presented to them, they look first at the law and see what the code says, and how far it may be applicable, and then the second consideration is as to the facts. When a similar case comes before an English lawyer he looks at the facts. He does not care anything about the law at first, but having mastered the facts, he considers what law would be applicable. Those trained by the inductive process of reasoning look at this from one point of view; those trained by the deductive process look at it from an entirely different point of view, and I think that is the reason why we differ somewhat in this House in the consideration of this matter of election petitions. But the facts alleged here must for our purposes be taken as facts; no evidence can be given here. The sole question, I suggest, is as to whether those facts as alleged should be inquired into by the House through one of its standing committees.
The hon. Minister of Justice, dealing with the law under which the trial of an election petition is held under the statute, very properly says that as a matter of public policy, parliament, in enacting that statute, has declared that no elector should be Called upon, in respect of such a petition, to disclose for whom he voted. But although that may be a principle of public policy applicable to trials under that statute, it does not necessarily follow that the same rule of public policy shall apply to every other proceedings whatsoever. We have in our criminal court, under the statute, a provision that no one who is accused of an offence and stands indicted before a criminal court of justice shall be caled upon to make admissions in regard to his commission of the offence, but that is a rule of public policy which is not applicable to many other proceedings. That a witness cannot be compelled to give evidence which would tend to disclose a Criminal act on his part is sound public policy with respect to that particular proceeding; but if that same witness is brought before other tribunals he cannot claim immunity in regard to answering interrogatories submitted to him. If he comes before a committee of this House he is bound to answer every question put to him, because
it has- not so far been declared by parliament, it has not so far been enacted by statute or made a rule of practice in this House, that a witness shall be permitted to refuse to answer any questions which may tend to discredit him, or tend to disclose the commission of a criminal act on his part. The hon. minister therefore, simply bemuse he finds by special enactment. in respect of one particular legal proceeding a provision to the effect that it is a rule of public policy that disclosures of a certain nature cannot be made in that proceeding, cannot properly or logically or consistently argue that in a different proceeding, before an entirely different tribunal, the witness shall have the same immunity or shall be permitted to refuse to answer.
The hon. member for Joliette (Mr. Denis) pointed out that under one statute with which he was dealing, namely an act respecting inquiries into corrupt practices at elections of members of the House of Commons, it was required that the petition should be verified by affidavit and that a deposit of at least $1,000 should be made in respect to that petition, and he suggested1 that the provisions of chapter 8 of the Revised Statutes applied also to a petition of the nature and character of the petition now before the House. Chapter 8 on its face shows that it was enacted to provide for inquiry into corrupt practices which are alleged to have extensively prevailed in a constituency during an election, for the purpose of bringing in all those who, have been parties to those widespread corrupt practices, and of eliciting the facts which may be presented to the attorney general of the province, in order that special criminal indictments may be preferred against those parties, and that they may be duly punished under the law. The provision that a petition in that case must be verified by affidavit, and that there must be a deposit of security to the extent of $1,000, applies only to the particular form of petition dealing with that particular form of inquiry. In this case,, however, you look in vain to find any provision by statute, or any provision by law and practice of this House, under which any petition of any kind whatever submitted to this House must be verified by affidavit or must be accompanied by certain securities.


Mr. BROWN:: What was the condition in regard to the deposit of money before parliament divested itself of the power to inquire into election protests?
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Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That condition only prevailed by statute. It was not provided for by common law. We followed the English law; where it was alleged that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed we provided by statute for a general inquiry.


John Livingstone Brown: Before parliament divested itself of the right to make general inquiry into the conduct of elections, in 1873 I think, these cases had been tried before committees of parliament?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Yes.


John Livingstone Brown: In those cases, or before that time, what were the requirements in reference to a deposit?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: On an election petition?


John Livingstone Brown: Yes.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: For corrupt practices?


John Livingstone Brown: Yes.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: 
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Toronto Northwest):: The motion before the House asks that the petition of William Collins in connection with the election in Peace River be read and received, and Mr. Speaker has ruled that the question shall be decided by the House as it is a matter of policy.
The issues raised in this petition go to the very root, of parliamentary government. They 'have a vital bearing upon serious questions which have come up in this parliament during the present session, and I submit that the allegations contained in the petition are quite within the four corners of the jurisdiction of this House. Hon. gentlemen opposite seem to think that this matter may be considered and decided by every Tom, Dick and Harry except parliament, the highest court in the land. Fortunately, however, under our British constitution, the courts are subservient to the legislature; they are the creatures of parliament. In order to interpret fully the provisions of the Controvered Elections Act, one must necessarily refer to the debates that took place at the time that act was passed, because we must read into the act what was evidently the intention of parliament in passing it. In my opinion parliament never intended to divest itself of ancient rights, prerogatives and functions which have inherent in British parliamentary government since the days of Magna Charta. The allegations of the present petition are such as cannot be ignored by this House. The party system is on trial, and upon the decision to which we come to-night on this question will depend the fate of the party system.
If such a petition as this had been presented to the British parliament I am sure no technicalities would have stood in the way. All authorities are agreed that parliament is sovereign and supreme, but the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) now tells us that parliament can afford no relief in this instance. The leader of the government (Mr. Mackenzie King) and the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) made eloquent references in the city of Toronto to the "historic principles of Liberalism". Yet the Minister of Justice declares in this House that a British subject, a Canadian citizen, may not look to the peoples' representatives in parliament to have a wrong remedied. Mr. Collins would have had 'his seat in this House had it not been for the fraudulent practices resorted to by the Libera! party to win the election. That party has employed such means in other elections as well. In the constituency of West Elgin years ago they burnt the ballots and thereby deprived the rightful member of his seat.
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I would not have spoken in this debate if it were not for the fact that in my constituency a number of voters, through the culpable negligence of the revising officers and electoral officers of the government, were prevented from voting in the last election. Now where does the right of the voter come in? What becomes of the right of these ninety voters in the Peace River district who, although they are taxed like the rest of us to support the government of the country, are denied the right to representation in parliament and to an honest ballot? It is well to consider chiefly the claim of the petitioner-and his right in this case is beyond dispute, and the wrongs he suffered are a disgrace to the party system. Indeed, had it not been for the fraud practised in the election Mr. Collins would have been sitting on this side of the House, and on that memorable night, February 3rd, when the government was supported by a majority of one they would have been defeated. But they were kept in power by that extra vote cast by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Kennedy) who had no right to give that vote or to be here at all.
But there is another question:	Is parliament going to be free; is it a free parliament or not? Are we going to have our elections honestly conducted, or are we not? I raise this question not only in relation to the petition of Mr. Collins but in the interests of 286 electors in my constituency, returned soldiers, who were deprived of the vote in the last election. These men were in the Christie street hospital, Toronto, after having fought for civilization, many of them amputation cases; and by the negligence of the revising officer who failed to sign the affidavit required under the Elections Act, every one of the 286 lost his vote. There was nearly a riot in the hospital over it on election day. These returned soldiers, maimed and wounded, had fought and were overseas in the 1917 election and many, of them could hardly move out of Ded. This would have been their first opportunity of voting since the war, as they cast their ballots overseas during the war. They were anxious to vote but could not. What is to become of constitutional government if this sort of thing is to continue? Free parliaments are a myth and the right of the subject to petition is taken away.
The celebrated phrase of the Prime Minister about "the historic principles of Liberalism" means absolutely nothing, for under the present administration parliament has been reduced to the level of a county council. Far from having the jurisdiction of the highest court in the land we might as well call ourselves a

county council if we cannot deal with this petition. The fact is that, with the present government in office, parliamentary practice and responsible government are utterly ignored. What are the people's representatfv es meeting here for if it is not to protect the interests and the liberties of the people? Ta!k about the historic principles of Liberalism! Why, free parliaments, honest ballots, honest elections, the right to petition, the right to deputize

these things simply do not exist to-day. Fortunately the people can petition and deputize in the ballot box. There is or.e means by which the people can express their opinion, and the government may depend upon it that an outraged public will show, when the time comes, what it thinks of this government and of the way it tramples oa Liberal principles. A short time ago a deputation came down to this city from Oshawa, but its numbers could not intimidate the Prime Minister. He said he was not to bo intimidated by numbers. Some day the hon. gentleman will realize his mistake.
There is a Liberalism which I respect, the Liberalism that goes back beyond the days of the Liberal platform of 1893, every plank of which was broken by the Liberal party when it got into office. As one of its leaders said, the platform was made to get in on but not to stand on. The word " Liberalism " as applied to hon. gentlemen opposite no more implies love of liberty than the word " Progressive " signifies a love of progress on the part of hon. gentlemen to my left. I admire Liberalism of the sort that inspired the freeholders of Buckinghamshire to mount their horses and ride into London town to defend John Hampden, and the Liberalism that-prompted the miners of Cornwall to rush to the aid of Bishop Trelawney. The liberalism that withstood the tyranny of Charles Stuart, the liberajism of those Cornishmen whose great spirit Macaulay has taught us to respect- that liberalism is an altogether different thing from the so-called liberalism of gentlemen supporting this government. To-day in this hon. House we have the spectacle of the head cf the government and the Minister of Justice going back on Liberal principles. What happened ninety years ago to a day to-morrow in upper Canada? In those days the grandfather of the right hon. gentleman fought for the principles of responsible government in h's attempt to dissolve the family compact. I have in my hand a book which I would commend to hon. members for perusal. It is written by Charles Lindsey, a respected citizen of Toronto, and deals with the life of William Lyon Mackenzie and the struggle for respon-

sible government in Canada. Practically the same constitutional question that we are dealing with now arose in those days, and hen. members, I have no doubt will be interested to hear this quotation:
The feeling excited in the unbiased reader's mind as he goes over this recital,-
-the recital of the way in which Mackenzie in 1836 had been treated in being deprived of his seat, expelled, then re-elected and refused admission to the House-
-will be no safe indication of the degree of public indignation aroused by this mockery of justice. During the week of the sham trial, petitions to the Lieutenant Governor were numerously signed, praying him to dismiss a House painted with the worst vices of judicial partiality; for the result had been foreseen by the preliminary divisions. On the day of the expulsion, a deputation from the petitioners waited upon the Governor's private secretary and informed him that next day at two o'clock a number of the petitioners would go to Government House in a body to receive His Excellency's reply. At the appointed hour mine hundred and thirty persons proceeded to fulfil their mission. They were received iin the audience chamber, and a petition having been presented, they were dismissed with the studiously curt reply: "Gentlemen, I have received the petition of the inhabitants."
So you see even the Family Compact were compelled to receive a petition properly presented and to consider the prayer of the petition. The Prime Minister the other day spoke of the "historic principles of Liberalism." I do not know how those principles are to be kept alive if the subject has not the right to his ballot. Certainly it is an abuse of the historic principles of Liberalism for a voter's ballot to be taken away by the officers of this House. Professor Dicey, one of the most celebrated writers on constitutional practice, in his Law of the Constitution refers to the right to the ballot and quotes from Blackstone's commentaries on the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty in these words:
The power and jurisdiction of parliament, says Sir Edward Coke, is so transcendent and absolute that it cannot be confined, either for causes or persons, within any bounds. ... It hath sovereign and uncontrollable authority in the making, confirming, enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving and expounding of laws, concerning matters of all possible denominations, ecclesiastical or temporal, civil, military, maritime or criminal: this being the place where that absolute despotic power, which must dn all governments reside somewhere, is entrusted by the constitution of these kingdoms. All mischiefs and grievances, operations and remedies, that transcend the ordinary course of the laws, are within the reach of this extraordinary tribunal. It can regulate or new-model the succession to the crown; as was done in the reign of Henry VIII and William III. It can alter the established religion of the land; as was done in a variety of instances in the reigns of King Henry VIII and his three children. It can change and create afresh even the constitution of the kingdom and of parliaments themselves as was done by the Act of Union and the several statutes for triennial and septennial elections. It can, in short, do everything that is not naturally impossible; and therefore some have not scrupled to call its power by
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a figure rather too bold, the omnipotence of parliament. True it is, that what the parliament doth, no authority upon earth can undo. So that it is a matter most essential to the liberties of this kingdom that such members be delegated to this important trust as are most eminent for (their probity, their fortitude and their knowledge; for it was a known apopthegm of the great lord treasurer Burleigh, "that England could never be ruined but by a parliamentand as Sir Matthew Hale observes, this being the highest and greatest court over which none others can have jurisdiction in the kingdom, if by any means a misgoveru-ment should any way fall upon it, the subjects of this kingdom are left without all manner of remedy. To the same purpose the president Montesquieu, though I trust too hastily, presages; that as Rome, Sparta and Carthage has lost their liberty and perished, so the constitution of England will in time lose its liberty, will perish; it will iperislh whenever the legislative power shall become more corrupt than the executive.
When the federal Controverted Elections Act was originally passed it was never intended that this House should divest itself of the power to regulate petitions and elections, and in fact the Court of Appeal of Ontario has decided that that act in Ontario does not take away this power from parliament-The election law creates concurrent jurisdiction. Petitions were presented by the electors of West Elgin, and read in the legislature of Ontario in 1903-04 even while the high court was sitting on controverted elections, and the legislature took action itself and forced the government to the country, where it suffered ignominious defeat. I should like to find out where the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) and his party stand on this question, because on February 3 there was a motion made in the House to adjourn the budget debate, and the government won by a majority of one, a majority that was supplied by the hon. gentleman who comes from Peace River, and who in my opinion did not at the time have any right to the seat in view of the irregularities that took place in that constituency last October and the fraudulent means to deprive Mr. Collins of the seat. Does the hon. member for Brandon condone what was done in Peace River by election frauds and so seat here one of his party? The government hold office to-day by virtue of the vote of the hon. member for Peace River on February 3, although the majority of the electorate of Peace River who legally voted did not approve of sustaining this government. Their only resource under the circumstances is to come to this high court of parliament for redress of grievances and relief and it will either be given or the party system is done in this country.
Eminent judges in the Old Country, such as Lord Chancellor Selborne and Lord Chancellor Coleridge, and the Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain have held that while the
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House of Commons might have divested itself of jurisdiction over certain electoral matters, it still has the right, if it desires to exercise it, to investigate, review and correct the conduct of its own electoral officers, to find if elections have been properly conducted and to ascertain if the election return made is in accordance with the law. That was the view of Sir John Thompson, who stood for Liberal principles; that was the view of Sir Louis Davies, the Chief Justice of Canada; that was the view of Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The right of petition to parliament was established in the days of John Hampden and Bishop Trelawney and in the days of the old provinces of Canada.
The petition before the House sets out that a Liberal was appointed deputy returning officer in poll 4 and that he deliberately stole the votes of ninety voters, which had the direct effect of giving the seat to Collins' opponent. Is there not one Liberal or one Progressive in the House who will stand up for the principles of Liberalism I have referred to and which brought about the fall of the Family Compact? Is there not one Liberal or Progressive in the House who will try to accord protection to every voter in the polling booth, in order to conduct honest elections? I appeal especially to those members from Alberta, because Alberta is going to have a house cleaning unless something is done to right this wrong, as Ontario had after the West Elgin Liberal election frauds.
In conclusion I may say that under the Controverted Elections Act the office of Chief Electoral Officer was created. He is a judicial and ministerial officer, a servant not of the courts but of this parliament, and directly our officer and responsible to parliament, and it is within the power of this House to summon not only that officer to the bar of the House with all the papers connected with this election, but also the returning officer for that constituency as well as the deputy of poll 4. A trial may be held right in this chamber, or the matter may be referred to a select committee of this House. It is said that the matter is before the courts, but the courts deal only with one phase of the matter. That only deals with the petition, and does not touch the robbery of the voters at the polls, the disfranchisement of ninety voters, and the government's acceptance of the benefits of the frauds and the vote of the present member. What is the use of being a free citizen if we are going to conduct elections as they are conducted? Elections thus conducted are a farce and like those in some states across the border, with

all this kind of political trickery. The Chief Electoral Officer is responsible as the head of the department for the appointment of returning officers and their deputies, and he has charge of the conduct of these elections and is responsible for all deputies. As a result of the last election the defeated candidate is sitting in this House representing the constituency of Peace River and elected by election frauds in poll 4. He has been exercising all the rights of a member of parliament while ninety men have been disfranchised and robbed of their ballots.
This gentleman holds the balance, of power in the Customs committee; he has been supporting the administration consistently; his vote saved the government on February 3 on the motion to adjourn, by a majority of one, and the government has now decided to give him protection. His vote averted a dissolution of the present parliament.
The only remedy obtainable by a voter at the polls is to issue a writ against the returning officer. I remember one case I had which was tried by the late Hon. Chief Justice Falconbridge; the returning officer refused to give a voter a ballot because his name was not on the list. The voter sued the returning officer; Chief Justice Falcon-bridge construed the Election Act and said it was negligence on the part of the returning officer, assessing civil damages of $200 against that officer as set out in the Controverted Elections Act. But the only remedy available to voters whose names are on the list, and who are robbed, as in Peace River, of their ballots, is an appeal to this House, this the high court of parliament, the court of last resort-parliament and then the people.
As I have already said, Mr. Speaker, I would not have spolcgn to-night but for the fact that I believe something should be done to protect the average voter of the entire country who goes honestly to the polls to record his vote. After all, the party system is on trial to-night; there are those within that system who have not been enthusiastic about it for some time past, but with all its faults it is the best and only system of responsible government. While it has its defects it also has its merits, and do not forget that under that system you have the free right to petition parliament-and the party system has given the empire free parliaments. Not only are the two old political parties on trial to-night but the Progressive party, having accepted the benefits of a dishonest election in which ninety honest men were robbed of their votes, must also realize that they are on trial.

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James Shaver Woodsworth: There is before us a petition asking justice for an individual named Collins, but I should like to remember to-night that we must also do justice to the present member for Peace River (,Mr. Kennedy). I am sure1 it is not necessary to appeal to members of this House to vote conscientiously with regard to a question of this kind. Sometimes I am inclined to think certain members make that appeal a little too strongly, or put it in such a way that members who differ from them would be considered as not acting conscientiously.
Up to the present the discussion has been carried on very largely by legal 9 p.m. gentlemen. Undoubtedly in purely technical legal matters they have a training which enables them to discuss such matters, and yet sometimes I am inclined to think that they can hardly see the woods for the trees; that they are so troubled with precedents of various kinds and with legal technicalities that it is a little difficult for them to discover the main, outstanding features of the case. But in any case I would remind them that those who have not had that long legal training are nevertheless forced to use their best judgment in deciding a matter of this kind. After all, we are here, not in a law court, and we are not altogether subject to the rules of procedure which there obtain.
I listened very carefully to the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) and I could not but be convinced that the petitioner had a grievance, and, according to the evidence, was suffering a wrong that should be rectified. I think the hon. member showed that the petitioner had a right to appeal to parliament, at least according to the practice which at one time prevailed, further than that, that the present member for Peace River, if a wrong was done him would also have the right to appeal to parliament to rectify that wrong. But I cannot get away from the fact which has been brought out on previous occasions by the decisions of the Speaker and by some members to-day that the courts have been set up to do this very kind of work. I remember, as I recall history, that parliament used to do a great many different kinds of work that is now being done by the courts. It is all very well to say that there is a way to right every wrong, but the question is what is the best way to right that wrong? If I go out on the street and somebody steals my watch, I do not immediately rush off to parliament and petition parliament to get my watch back for me. I go to the police court, the regularly recognized agency for dealing
with that kind of thing, and I lay an information before the authorities, and they proceed to endeavour to recover my watch for me. According to the information given us on the floor of this House, we have had a law enacted to deal especially with controverted elections, and we have had machinery 'set up to enable us to deal with that kind of thing more effectively than it could possibly be dealt with by parliament.


Mr. STEWART (Leeds):: But suppose the hon. member's watch had been stolen by an officer of this House; what would he do then?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I presume I should do the same thing. I do not think I would proceed to lay a petition on the table here.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I think you would.


Charles Gavan Power: In that connection my hon. friend might refer to a theft that was carried out by officers of this House not so very long ago, and there was no petition about it.


Mr. McGIBBON:: Might I suggest that they did not go to the police court either?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not think there is a member of this House but realizes very clearly that any decision that could be come to with regard to a matter of this kind in this House or in a committee of this House would be decidedly affected by partisan considerations.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: No, no.


James Shaver Woodsworth: My hon. friend says, "No, no," but I am not at all sure that he is right in that. I have been long enough in this House now to know that in most of the committees the legal gentlemen divide almost always according to their party alliances in matters of this kind. I do not think there is any use deceiving ourselves with regard to this matter.


Peter McGibbon: Has the hon. member ever voted against the government since he has been in this House?


James Shaver Woodsworth: If the hon. gentleman had been in the House for the last four years he would have found that there was frequently a vote against the government, but looking at it from his standpoint, if I had never voted against the government, that would prove to the last degree the very point I want to make, that is, that we are all more or less actuated or influenced by partisan considerations. I think that must be conceded, and if some of us happen to be friends of Mr. Kennedy-and I count myself
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one of his friends-I confess it would be extremely difficult for me to be a member of that committee or to be a member of this House when his action was under review; and judge absolutely on the merits of this case. I think such considerations are recognized in ordinary legal procedure, and in selecting a jury no one is accepted who has an immediate relationship to the accused.
A good deal has been made of the phrase used by the hon. member for West Calgary _ in the House-a receiver of stolen goods. Personally I resent that phrase. I do not think there is anything like a parallel between this case and that of the man who receives stolen goods. I do not want to argue this at any length but I would simply emphasize two points. The member for Peace River was declared elected by regularly appointed officials. This position was put on him regularly and officially; that should be remembered. It is quite true that he was one of three candidates running in that election. When the time for declaring the returns came the question was, which one of these three candidates was to take his seat in parliament. There was no time for a long delay. The returning officer had to make his declaration, and he came out definitely and took the responsibility for saying that Mr. Kennedy was to be the member for Peace River.
There is one other point. I think it is clearly understood-it has been so stated in this House again and again-that Mr. Kennedy has no option with regard to serving in this House; he has no opportunity for resigning.


Peter McGibbon: Does not the hon. member recall that the hon. member for Peace River said that he would not resign if he could?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Quite so, but my point is entirely with the first part, that he could not resign if he would. He is in a position where he is unable to resign. No doubt if it were brought to my notice that inadvertently I had in my possession goods that were stolen, I would consider it my duty to restore those goods, but I submit that it is absolutely unfair to Mr. Kennedy to say that he is in any such position as that. I have not the slightest doubt, knowing Mr. Kennedy as I do, that if it were brought to his attention or he believed that he was enjoying something to which he had no right, he would immediately give it up, and I have no doubt that in due time when the legal processes, which are so slow, will work out a little bit further we shall see Mr. Kennedy
[Mr. Woodsworthl
taking suitable action. I resent the frequent use of such a phrase as a receiver of stolen goods as applied to an honourable and I say an honoured member of this House.
In the meantime, let me say that the gentleman who has made this appeal, who has laid this petition, may have suffered a wrong. He may have a grievance. He could have proceeded according to the regular lines and brought his case before the courts at the very start, but he declined to take that course. I suppose he was within his rights in so doing, but in the meantime things have moved. A great many developments have taken place since that time. For instance, I hold in my hand a very lengthy document entitled;
In the Supreme Court of Alberta Judicial District of Edmonton
The Dominion Controverted Elections Act
The Petition of John Bernard of Edson, in the province of Alberta.
Let me read a few clauses:	**
3.	That ithe said respondent-
That is, I take it, Mr. Kennedy:
-was by myself, by his agents and by other persons on his behalf, before, during, at and after the said election, and in connection with the said election, guilty of corrupt practices and of illegal practices,
And so on. Those are very, very serious charges directed definitely and personally against Mr. Kennedy.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I would like to make the suggestion that my hon. friend will notice that those allegations of corrupt practices made against Mr. Kennedy and his agents could not possibly include allegations such as are made in this petition.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not suggest that they do, but I say that this is what has taken place. Very serious allegations have been made in the Supreme Court of Alberta against Mr. Kennedy. I have read only part of clause 3. Let me read another:
4.	That by reason of no polls being held in the following polls, as defined in the Notice of Grant of Poll, dated the 15th day of October, 1925, and published by the said returning officer, namely:
Poll No. 42-Homer.
Poll No. 66-Ronan.
Poll No. 67-Balm.
Poll No. 86-Padstow.
Poll No. 282-Stinking Lake.
Poll No. 288-Johnny Dore Prairie.
Poll No. 289-Little Red River.
Poll No. 290-Hay River.
The result of the said election was affected to the extent that there wias in 'Law and fact no election held 'in the said electoral district.
Then I come to No. 8:
That the said respondent knowingly made a false declaration respecting certain election expenses in connection with the said election, and was thereby guilty

Peace River Election
of a corrupt practice under the said acts, whereby the said respondent was and is incapacitated from serving in parliament for the said electoral district, and the said election and return of the said respondent were, and are wholly null and void.
Here is another section, No. 12, which reads:
That there were grave irregularities at Poll No. 4, Brule. Amongst other irregularities ballots marked for one candidate at the said election were switched or changed or others substituted for them marked for another candidate at the siaid election.
I intended to read No. 11, which is as follows:
The said respondent did knowingly induce and persuade the said official agent to make a false declaration respecting election expenses in connection with the said election and was thereby guilty of a corrupt practice under the said acts, or recognized as such by the common law of the parliament, whereby the said respondent was and is incapacitated from serving in parliament for the said electoral district and the said election and return are wholly null and void.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that these are the most serious charges imaginable. We have been told that there is nothing in the petition before the House that at all reflects upon the personal character of Mr. Kennedy, but here we have the most serious charges against his personal character-so serious that if proven he would be disqualified from becoming a member of the House.


Mr. LENNOX:: The man who made the return is now in prison. Would my hon. friend accept a seat under those circumstances?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am not going to say what I would do under the circumstances. I have nothing to do with it.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: We know what my hon. friend would do.


An hon. MEMBER:: Mr. Kennedy had
nothing to do with it.


James Shaver Woodsworth: So far as Mr. Kennedy is concerned, he was declared elected before all the evidence came out and before any charges were made, and now he is in a position where he is incapable of doing anything else but remain here. He could not resign.


Peter McGibbon: He says he will not.


Thomas Herbert Lennox: Under the law he cannot resign.


James Shaver Woodsworth: No.


Thomas Herbert Lennox: Under the law he need not take his seat in this House. Does the hon. member approve of his sitting here?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I cannot very well see how he can resign. If he is definitely declared elected, how can he do anything else than give his services? I do not see how he can do anything else. He has taken the oath to do his duty.


Thomas Herbert Lennox: Does my hon. friend approve of it?


James Shaver Woodsworth: If I were declared elected and took an oath to do my duty in this House, and found according to the law that it was impossible to resign, I do not think I could do anything else than serve in the House. I do not see what else could be done.


Peter McGibbon: Does the oath compel
him to do his duty in the House?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I should think it
ought to.


Peter McGibbon: It is an oath of allegiance.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I have no personal reference in my statement, but there are some who think they can take the oath and go about their private business two-thirds of the time.


Peter McGibbon: Did my hon. friend read the oath before he took it?


James Shaver Woodsworth: If they interpret
their duties in that way, that is their affair, but some members take themselves seriously, and among those who take their work seriously is the present member for Peace River.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Leaving aside altogether the question as to what Mr. Kennedy should or should not do, which we all admit is a matter of personal judgment and personal conscience largely, and dealing with another point, it was an officer of parliament who declared him elected, and should not parliament take cognizance of that fact/ inquire into it and see what the remedy is?


James Shaver Woodsworth: The suggestion is
that an officer of parliament declared him elected and that parliament should deal with the case. I should say the officer declared him elected on the evidence which was submitted to him. That evidence was evidently not correct, and attention having been called to the incorrectness of that evidence, and the proper courts having undertaken to investigate the case, the courts Should settle the matter before the officers can take any action.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Is the hon. member not forgetting or overlooking the fact that it was an officer of this House who switched the ballot?


Mr. BRISTOL:: And he is in gaol.
Peace River Election


James Shaver Woodsworth: I suppose it was
an officer, if you can call every agent employed by the government an officer of this House.
I do not know that we ordinarily speak of agents-in Peace River as officers of the House.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Distance lends enchantment
to the view.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not see what
that has to do with the point I am trying to make.


An hon. MEMBER:: You do not want to see.


James Shaver Woodsworth: It is easy enough
to say that. It seems to me that is the cheapest way possible of trying to get rid of a serious question, especially when one is honestly trying to work his way through a problem which seems to puzzle a good many lawyers in this House. I would1 say that the existence of this petition of which I have read several clauses, and which is now before the Supreme Court of Alberta, leaves the sitting member in an extremely awkward position. Suppose we should take action in this House, suppose Mr. Collins should be declared elected and Mr. Kennedy no longer a member of parliament, where would he be with regard to a document of this kind? I presume the petitioner in that case would withdraw the petition. Then we would have the most serious charges made against a certain member, who would have no opportunity of answering them.


Robert Forke: That is the very reason a
member is called upon to retain his seat, because circumstances of this kind might arise: that a man who was really guilty, who was really afraid to face the court, could, by withdrawing, escape being tried in the courts for malfeasance of duty.


James Shaver Woodsworth: It seems to me
that while we try to do justice to Mr. Collins who lays the petition on the table today, we should also endeavour to do justice to our sitting member, who is protected according to this regulation which prevents his resigning until the case is cleared up. According to this statement filed in the Supreme Court of Alberta there have been a great many irregularities in that constituency. In three of 'the polls in which there were 223 voters on the list the ballot boxes were not opened at all. In one poll, with some 40 voters on the list, the boxes were not opened at all. In four polls, with some 40 or 50 people on the list-I have not the exact

number-the ballot boxes were not opened. In two polls, with some 15 or 20 on the list, the ballot boxes were not returned. There were altogether some ten polls affected, according to the statement which was given in evidence before the district court in Edmonton. Under these circumstances I think it is manifest that anybody who is fair-and our fairness has been appealed to by the hon. members opposite

will recognize that there is evidence of a good deal of irregularity in that constituency, and it is not by any means-


Arthur Meighen: What is the evidence of other irregularities that are not alleged in this petition?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I have just given the statements of one gentleman who laid charges and those statements have been before the district court. I understand that the returning officer did not receive ballot box returns from those particular polls.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. member not know the difference between charges and evidence?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I leave the hon.
gentleman to explain that; but speaking, if you will, from a legal standpoint as a layman, but as a member of this House trying to see where substantial justice lies, there is for me at least abundant evidence of very wide irregularities at those polls.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. member think there is evidence of widespread irregularities and wrong-doing by the hon. member for Peace River that is not alleged in the petition?


James Shaver Woodsworth: If the right hon. member wishes I will change the word " irregularities." I was including in the word " irregularities " the whole question of the unsatisfactory conditions of the election. I was not in that particular instance speaking of any criminal act. The very fact that in some cases ballot boxes were not opened and in others the polls themselves were not opened is evidence that a very unsatisfactory condition of affairs existed.


Arthur Meighen: What has that to do
with this case?
Mr. W00DSWORTH: It has a great deal to do with it. It has been charged that ninety votes have been switched and that Mr. Collins ought to occupy the position of member for Peace River in this House. It is quite

Peace River Election
possible, .according to the evidence that is before us, that there were other votes that might have been given to Mr. Kennedy more than sufficient to compensate for those.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: And also might have .been given to Mr. Collins.


James Shaver Woodsworth: To Mr. Collins or to the third candidate.


Thomas Herbert Lennox: If we assume for the sake of argument that there would have been a majority for Mr. Kennedy, would the hon. member approve of his sitting in this House as a member when ninety votes had been stolen?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I have already tried to answer that question. I have already said that he was declared elected.


Thomas Herbert Lennox: You are supposed to be a Christian. Be honest.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am trying to be
honest and frank in the matter. I say that he having been declared elected and according to the law being unable to resign, I cannot see what other course he can take than remain seated in this House.
Under these circumstances, with the very unsatisfactory condition that prevailed at the last election, with the fact that undoubtedly according to the evidence Mr. Collins has been deprived of votes that should have been his and on the other hand that Mr. Kennedy undoubtedly ought to have had votes which he has not received, the only satisfactory way of settling this matter is by another election. I cannot see that we are going to settle the matter if we pass this motion, have the petition go before the committee on Privileges and Elections, and if it can be proved there that Mr. Collins had a right to the seat, come back to this House, have the Chief Electoral Officer called here and Mr. Collins declared the member. I do not think that is a satisfactory settlement.
It might be fair to Mr. Collins if we take into consideration a very restricted part of the evidence we have before us. It would not be fair to the sitting member and it would not be fair to the great mass of the electors of Peace River. It seems to me that we are not going to have the question satisfactorily settled until we have another election in that, constituency. Under the present circumstances since the court has been set up, since action has already been taken in the courts and since there are before the courts
most serious charges in which the personal honour of Mr. Kennedy is concerned, I think the best thing to do is to allow the courts to take their way and long before the next session of parliament is called we can have another election and know definitely what is the will of the electors of Peace River.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Mr. Speaker, I have tried to give this matter my keenest attention. It is true that it is not an easy question to decide, but I cannot come to any other conclusion than that the law should be followed in this matter just as it must be followed in all other matters. The leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) has made a very strong plea, the foundation of which is, if I understood him rightly, that an injustice has been done to Mr. Collins. That may be true or it may not. As the matter stands now we have no evidence to demonstrate whether or not injustice has been done. If we say that no injustice has been done, no argument is possible. Therefore assuming for the sake of argument that injustice has been done, we must admit that this is not the first time in the history of mankind that injustice has been done. If the law is inadequate it will not be the first time in the history of this country or of mankind that laws have been inadequate. We all know the difference between law and justice. Justice does not always follow law and law does not always follow justice. If we should base our actions on the lines of justice which changes in the minds of each individual, justice becomes impossible. Therefore all civilized nations have passed laws, having as much as possible justice for their foundation, but in many cases it has been found that law and justice do not agree.
The Dominion Elections Act and the Controverted Elections Act are just as imperfect as all other laws. Might I cite an instance of what has happened more than once? I can cite from memory the St. Hyacinthe election in 1908-and I want the right hon. gentleman to answer this-where a member had secured a majority of the votes. The voters, acting willingly and freely, had given one of the candidates a majority of the votes; but on the recount it was found that two deputy returning officers by mistake, by ignorance, for which neither the candidate who had secured the larger number of votes nor the other candidate was responsible, instead of placing their initials on the ballots had numbered them. On account of this the votes in two polls that gave a majority to the elected candidate, the candidate having the larger number of votes, were set aside.
Peace River Election

For that reason this unfortunate candidate lost his election, the man returned being the one who had secured the minority of the votes. Was not that a flagrant injustice?-an injustice as clearly established as any wrong that may exist in the case of Mr. Collins, if there is such a wrong, which of course I do not know. Certainly it was a flagrant case, and yet it was decided that the law of the land should be observed. The interpretation of the law by the courts in that case decided that the ballots for these two polls should be set aside and the candidate who had received the minority was declared elected.


Arthur Meighen: In that case did not the candidate who lost those votes get everything to which he was entitled under the law?


Jean-Joseph Denis: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: Did Collins in this case get everything to which he was entitled under the law?


Jean-Joseph Denis: Perhaps he did
not.


Arthur Meighen: That is the difference.


Jean-Joseph Denis: But that is no
reason why the law should be changed or interfered with in one particular case; so long as the law stands it should be applied. The law may be inadequate; I am willing to admit that. And I must confess that when I read through the Controverted Elections Act it did appear to my humble judgment to be an incomplete statute. But if the law as it stands is incomplete it is the duty of parliament to improve it; we should make it complete if it is incomplete. So long as it is the law, however, surely it ought to be followed.
Now, Collins says that he has suffered an injustice and for that reason he is coming to parliament for redress. I say, however, "You may not come to parliament, because there is a specific law that deals with your case. I go further: if it is true that you have suffered an injustice, and if the law is not comprehensive enough to meet your case, your remedy does not lie in parliament.'' What is the law? Section 5 of the Controverted Elections Act provides:
A (petition may be presented to the court by any one or more of the following persons:
(a)	A person who had a right to vote at tihe election to which the petition relates.
That includes electors generally. The electors are interested in the candidate of their choice and because of that interest they may submit a petition.
(b)	A candidate at such election.

I assume, first, that Mr. Collins was a candidate; and I assume, secondly, that he was also an elector. He had therefore the right to bring in an election petition. Why did he not do so? The hon. member for West Calgary (Mr, Bennett) this afternoon in his eloquent address contended that because one Page had instituted proceedings first, therefore Mr. Collins could not do likewise. I have a great deal of admiration for the talents of the hon. gentleman but I submit he was mistaken in his law in this instance. As a matter of fact, before the close of the speech he seemed to retract what he had already said, upon a question being asked him by myself. It is in my opinion quite clear that the fact that Mr. Page had instituted election proceedings could not preclude Mr. Collins from taking the same step. I would refer the House to section 37 of the act, which meets precisely the case of several petitions being presented at the same time. This section enacts that all petitions relating to the same election shall be bracketed together and shall be tried simultaneously. It therefore recognizes beyond any question that more than one petition may be brought in with respect to the same election. Collins therefore was perfectly free to contest the election if it pleased him to do so. It would appear, however, that he did not. But even so, even if he neglected to take proceedings, his rights are unimpaired. The person who has presented his petition desires, let us say, not to proceed: under the law, if there is any reason for him to do so, Collins or any of his friends may intervene at any time. Let us see what the statute says on that point. Section 39, subsection 2, provides:
If, at the expiration of three months after such petition has been presented, the day for trial has not been fixed, any elector may, on application, be substituted for the petitioner on such terms as the court thinks fit.
It is provided elsewhere that election petitions are to be tried without delay. If the petitioner does not bring action within three months, then any elector can intervene and present a petition to the court and the court must recognize that right. Such elector may then take proceedings himself. But there is more than that in the act. Section 78 deals with the withdrawal and abatement of election petitions. Let us suppose that Mr. Page desires to abandon his petition. He cannot do so without the consent of the court; and more than that, upon his application to the court for leave to abandon the petition any elector may intervene again and take his place. Subsection 3 of section 78 reads:
On the hearing of the application for withdrawal, any person, who might have been a petitioner in

Peace River Election
respect of the election to which the petition relates,
may apply to the court or trial judges to be substituted as a petitioner for the petitioner so desirous of withdrawing the petition.
I say therefore that Mr. Collins should have contested-perhaps that is not the best word to use-the election personally. But failing to do so, he still has the right to follow up the petition of Mr. Page; and if Mr. Page does not proceed, Oollins can go ahead with that petition. Further, should Mr. Page seek to favour the elected candidate in any way, Mr. Collins has the right to intervene at any moment. It may be asked, wThat is the use of his intervening, seeing that the courts will not hear his case? -he will not be able to prove his case. That brings us to this question: If parliament in its wisdom has declared that certain evidence shall not be adduced before the courts on an election petition for the reason that it is not in the interest of public security that such evidence should be submitted, is parliament going to declare, in face of that decision, that evidence which before the courts would be inimical to public interest may be heard by parliament itself? In other words, is parliament going to say that what may not be done before the courts of justice, because it is not in the public interest that it should be done, may be done before a committee of parliament?
As I have already observed, it may be that the law as it stands is defective and does not afford the petitioner sufficient security or proper means to prove his case. All that might be true, but while the law endures we must follow it. Parliament can pass laws and rescind them, but as long as any law remains on the statute book it is the duty of parliament to respect it. In this case parliament should not receive evidence that cannot be received by a court of justice under that law.
If I understood the right hon. leader of the opposition correctly this afternoon, he said: All that could be decided on this election petition was that the election would be annulled, and if it were annulled it would be an injustice to Mr. Collins, because his right is to the seat. My answer is that section 49 of the statute provides:
On the trial of a petition under this act complaining of an undue return and olaiming the seat for any person,-
As I have already said, this law is very badly drafted. It should state specifically that it is the right of a defeated candidate to claim the seat for himself. This section says so indirectly. Therefore Mr. Collins 14011-293
had the right to contest the election and claim the seat for himseif. Having neglected to do so, is parliament obliged to come to his rescue now? I think he can still intervene on the original petition of Mr. Page.


Arthur Meighen: No.


Jean-Joseph Denis: I have a great
admiration for the talents of my right hon. friend, but I think Mr. Collins might be permitted to intervene if Mr. Page does not proceed with his petition; true, he cannot intervene now. But he should have protected himself in time, and that he did not do so is not the fault of parliament. The time for presenting a petition having expired, this in fact would be a new petition asking for something absolutely foreign to the purpose of the original petition, for I take it that Mr. Page simply asked that the election be annulled. It is an unforunate situation, but Mr. Collins made it so himself.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. member
permit this question? What in the world would have been the good of Mr. Collins entering a protest and claiming the seat when he knew that under the law he could not produce any evidence?


Jean-Joseph Denis: I think that is going a little too far. It was Mr. Collins' duty to do everything in his power to protect himself. Having done so, and having failed to get redress from the courts, he might have come to parliament and said:	This law is
inadequate, I could not get justice before the courts, and therefore I seek redress here.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. member say that before Mr. Collins should come to parliament he ought to launch himself on an obviously futile excursion in the courts, where he knows from the beginning that under the law he cannot be heard to give his evidence?


Jean-Joseph Denis: I do not for one
moment admit it is futile.


Arthur Meighen: The Minister of Justice
admits it.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Perhaps so. I do not know whether it is or not.


Arthur Meighen: That is the whole point.


Jean-Joseph Denis: I am expressing my opinion, just as my right hon. friend expressed his. But even accepting his view, what is the consequence?


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member is a lawyer and certainly is not dull of mind. Does he stand in his place and say he is not

Peace River Election

convinced that Mr. Collins would be forbidden to have his witnesses heard as to how they voted? He will not get up and say he has the slightest doubt about that.


Jean-Joseph Denis: I say it is the duty of Mr. Collins to go before the courts first of all and-


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member is dodging the question.


Jean-Joseph Denis: and after he has tried all other means without success, he might apply to parliament, although even then in my opinion he would be debarred from doing so because if by an election petition or by any other proceedings a man fails to secure redress before the courts because the law is inadequate, as in this case I would be ready to admit it is, that of itself does not give him a right to come before parliament, otherwise this parliament would be beseiged by men claiming redress because of the insufficiency of the law. On that ground they would claim a right to come here.


Ernest Lapointe: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: I would not have risen but for that "hear, hear" from the Minister of Justice. Does not the hon. member see the point? We are not complaining of insufficiency of the law at all. We merely say that inasmuch as the law does not empower the courts to hear the evidence, it follows that this high court, which inherently always had the power, should exercise it.


Jean-Joseph Denis: If the law does not permit the courts to hear the evidence, what is the matter with the law?


Arthur Meighen: The law is all right.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Then Mr. Collins has to stand by the law and make use of it, because the law was framed to meet exactly his case.


Arthur Meighen: He is doing so.


Jean-Joseph Denis: This is a case different in application but not in principle. He has lost the election, and he contends that he himself should have been declared elected, not his opponent. That is the case.


Arthur Meighen: He won the election.


Jean-Joseph Denis: He won the election, according to his contention.


Arthur Meighen: According to the court's finding.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Because he had the largest number of votes it does not mean he won the election. He won the election in fact just as the man I have already mentioned won his election.


Arthur Meighen: Oh, no.


Jean-Joseph Denis: In other words, if winning the election means having a majority of the votes,-


Arthur Meighen: Legally cast.


Jean-Joseph Denis: -then he won the election properly. I take it for granted that the facts have been placed before us correctly. Then, just like Mr. Morin at St. Hyacinthe, he won the election because he had the majority of votes.


Arthur Meighen: He did not.


Jean-Joseph Denis: He had the majority of the voters; not a majority of the legal ballots but a majority of the people.


Arthur Meighen: That is different.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Yes, that is different. Is not that a flagrant injustice? That is an answer to what was said this afternoon. Hon. members asked where was the will of the people. I believe the will of the people must be respected, and the majority of the people who oast their votes were in favour of Mr. Collins. Assuming that to be right, the very same thing happened in the St. Hyacinthe case and in many other cases. The law creates injustices at times.


Mr. MacDONALD (Cape Breton):: In connection with this petition would not Mr. Collins have to prove that either Mr. Kennedy or his agent was guilty of some irregularity? Can he do that? Otherwise I should think the petition would be disallowed.


Jean-Joseph Denis: I think my hon. friend is in error. Any conspiracy on the part of Mr. Kennedy or anyone else which deprives Mr. Collins of his seat can be brought out.


Finlay MacDonald: If you cannot establish it as having been done by Mr. Kennedy or by his agents, the petition is dismissed and Mr. Kennedy still has the seat.


Jean-Joseph Denis: My opinion is that if any irregularity were proved, whether by Mr. Kennedy or by anyone else, the election would be annulled. From what I understood the right hon. leader of the opposition to say this afternoon, that was his contention also, although he said it could not be proved under the circumstances. That was his whole argument, but I do not know that he said that because Mr. Kennedy or his agents did not

Peace River Election
personally commit any illegality, the election could not be annulled. I think if illegality is proved on the part of any of the officials- because these officials are not the agents of Mr. Collins or Mr. Kennedy or Mr. Rae; they are electoral officials-it will be sufficient.
I do not think that is the point at issue now. The point is that Mr. Collins says, "I have a good case but I cannot prove it before the recognized courts of justice because the law will not permit me to do so." That is unfortunate, but if the law does not permit him to prove his case how can we remedy that? Why is Mr. Collins in the position of being unable to prove his case? It is because of the particular section of the law which says that you cannot force an elector to declare for whom he voted, and since you cannot do that you must conclude that the court will never know whether or not Mr. Collins had a majority, and therefore the petition cannot be maintained. I see the point; it is very unfortunate for Mr. Collins to be in that position, but that he is in such a position is not my fault or the fault of hon. members present; it is the fault of those who passed this act.
Now supposing you proceed before a committee of this House; is that committee to set aside the law and take into its hands the responsibility Of saying, "True it is that before a court you cannot prove that; true it is that you cannot force these 111 men to declare for whom they voted; the law forbids it. Parliament in its wisdom has passed a law forbidding that, but we, a parliamentary committee, will go beyond the law and ask these people to give their evidence even though the law forbids." I do not think any committee of the House could do that; a committee of the House must follow the law, and I do not think any committee can go further than a court of justice can go. The difficulty, if there is one, is in the law itself and until the law is amended anyone who finds himself in the very unfortunate position of Mr. Collins will have to submit to his fate, because that is the law.
The point I am going to bring out now is one of form, and should probably have been mentioned earlier. I respectfully submit that this petition cannot be entertained by the House because it is not supported by an affidavit, and again because no deposit is made. Mr. Collins says, "If I could secure justice under that act I would not come before parliament, but I cannot do so." Parliament answers, "We can receive the petition, but we cannot give you any more privi-10 p.m. lege than the law gives you, and under the law you are compelled first to make a deposit of $1,000 and in the 14011-293J
next place to add to your petition an affidavit." Do hon. members realize the futility of presenting a petition to this House without an affidavit? It it were not for our faith in the word of hon. members opposite who have declared that the contents of the petition are true, that petition would be thrown into the basket. It has no meaning; it is purely and simply a declaration by somebody with no proof and no evidence in support of it. The Controverted Elections Act specifically says that an election petition must be supported by an affidavit. The reason for that is very obvious; it is that a proceeding of that kind must be a serious proceeding, and must be supported by an affidavit so that it will not be a joke and, on its face, will demonstrate the prima facie truth of the allegations. This affidavit does not here exist. Then the same law says that you must deposit $1,000, in order to prove your good faith, and in order to show that you are serious. That deposit was not made in this case. So that if this petition was received, Mr. Collins, who did not go before the courts when he should have done; Mr. Collins, who had the right himself to institute proceedings-Mr. Collins, because he has not taken care of his own interests when he should have done so, would receive better treatment before this House than the man who had looked after his own interests. I have an authority here which I quoted this afternoon. It is reported in Speakers' Decisions, by L. G. Desjardins, where at page 267 I find that on March 13. 1873, the Hon. James Cock-burn, Speaker of this House, held as follows on an election petition:
In my opinion this petition being an election peti

tion, and not having .been accompanied by the required security to answer costs, is a void petition, and cannot be made the ground work of a motion.
Therefore at that time it was incumbent upon every petitioner who wanted parliament seized of an election petition to accompany his petition with a deposit of $1,000, and failing to do that, his petition was dismissed. That law has been changed, but this provision by *which the petitioner was compelled to make a deposit of $1,000 was reintroduced in the Controverted Elections Act, and therefore we have the same law on that subject to-day that we had before. What is the ground for Mr. Collins' contending that he should be put in a more favourable position before parliament than any other petitioner has been in since confederation?
I have nothing to add, Mr. Speaker. I have been strongly impressed by the arguments that Mr. Collins may be suffering an injustice; but parliament cannot place itself
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in the position of a tribunal. The laws of the land have been passed to give justice to the suffering. It may be that the laws are not effective; they may be unjust, unwise, and it may be that Mr. Collins is suffering under those laws, but in my humble opinion we must follow the law. Mr. Collins could have claimed the seat for himself. He could have adopted many means of redress which he failed to adopt, and because he failed to adopt them, he now comes before parliament and wants parliament to constitute itself a court of justice. I am far from being an expert in this matter; indeed, I am sorry to say that I have not studied it very deeply, but speaking in a superficial way I must admit that I cannot see how and why parliament should come to the aid of this gentleman when there is a law .providing for his case. If that law is not sufficient, it is the law just the same for Mr. Collins as for everybody else, and he must submit to it. Mr. Collins can get something under that law even at this stage. He can get the election annulled. True, that will not give him the seat to which he thinks he is entitled, but he can get the election annulled, and that is about all he can get at this stage. Then another election will be held, and if the electors declare that Mr. Collins is their choice, he will be elected.


Mr. A. L. BEAUBIEN (Provencher):: 
Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Why not put him in the county gaol?

Peace River Election


Arthur-Lucien Beaubien: I think the suggestion' offered by the Solicitor General (Mr. Cannon) are absolutely logical and sound. Let the courts decide the fate of the candidates in the election in the Peace River district; then if the judges who hear the case make a report to you Mr. Speaker, and you report it to the House, let the House take action next session. I feel sorry to hear the assertions and insinuations that have been made in regard to the present member for Peace River. He is not responsible for any of the irregularities referred to in the Robb case or any other case.


An hon. MEMBER:: Nobody said he was.


Arthur-Lucien Beaubien: You will have a chance to speak when I am through. The member for Peace River has no connection with the irregularities. A number of votes are supposed to have been transferred from Collins to Rae, the result being to give Kennedy the seat. What about the ballot boxes that were never opened? How about the irregularities in the other polls? If we had a thorough investigation it would probably be discovered that there have been frauds, and irregularities in other polls. I claim that under the present circumstances the member for Peace River cannot resign according to the law, and I think that law was wisely framed. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) put the matter very tersely when he said: There are charges against the member for Peace River. If the law permitted him to resign and those charges were still pending against him, he would be placed in a very awkward position.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, if we are going to allow the fate of the members of parliament to be at the mercy of partisanship-and sometimes not any too scrupulous partisanship- it is going to create a greater injustice than would result in our refusing this petition and allowing the courts to take action to decide it.


Hon. J. C. ELLIOTT (Minister of Labour):: There are certain points to which I would like to refer before the debate closes. I feel that I should say a word in regard to this matter, partly because I think everything that can be said in defence of a member of this House who is not in a position to stand up in his place and defend himself should be stated by other hon. members. No man on either side of this House will contend for one moment that the gentleman who has been returned by the regular electoral officers for Peace River in the last election has not been returned in the same manner and by similar
machinery to that by which all the other members of the House are returned. We start out with that as a basis of our discussion. The officers appointed by the crown have found him to be entitled to the seat for that constituency, and I must say that the onus is very strongly against anyone who asserts the contrary.
What is the object of the present petition? Hon. members will bear in mind that on the 6th of May the Speaker of this House, after a very exhaustive argument, declared that the petition which was then offered to the House should not be received. The reasons why it should not be received were put very clearly by Mr. Speaker at that time. Those reasons were perfectly correct, and I submit must have carried conviction to hon. members on aU sides of the House. The reasons were that years ago this House in its wisdom decided that controverted elections, and the trial of the question as to the right of a member to hold a seat in this House, should be heard1 by some tribunal other than that made up of his fellow members in this House. Surely nobody here is going to argue that we should go back to the old law, in existence before the Controverted Elections Act was .passed, which placed the trial of any member against whom a petition might be lodged in the hand's of his friends and his opponents in this House. Nobody will argue seriously that we want to go back and make this a tribunal for trying whether or not my friend or my political opponent shall sit in this chamber or remain out of it. That is the reason why all the authorities make it abundantly clear that a petition which attacks the right of a member to hold his seat shall not be received. We can either try in this House the right of our fellows to hold a seat or we cannot. If we cannot try them, why make an abortive attempt to do so? Why receive a petition that is going to cast a reflection upon the right of any member to hold a seat in this House if we have not the right to proceed and1 try it out? Will any of my hon. friends argue that they desire to go back to the old system of having this House turned into an election court? Because that is what it amounts to. We got away from that years ago, and I submit, Mr. Speaker, with great respect, that this House is not going to take any steps which would mean a return to that old procedure. That is the reason why a petition which has for its object the trial of the right of any member to hold his seat in the House-^apart from disqualification such as has been referred to, penal offence or anything of that kind-can-
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not foe received here. When the petition is tendered' and examined by the Clerk of Petitions, the examination is for the purpose of seeing whether or not it is a petition proper to be received. If we cannot deal with it then it should not be received.
Let us consider what the object of this petition is, I ask my hon. friends who argue that it should not be received: What does this petition ask for? It is true it complains about the conduct of the electoral officers, but what is the kernel of the whole-petition? It states:
Your petitioner prays that the House of 'Commons will investigate the conduct of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, the returning officer for the electoral district of Peace River, Edward Henry Sheppard, aforesaid, the deputy returning officer, Peter A. Robb, aforesaid, and such other officer or officers as may be necessary in connection with the establishment of a polling place at Brule Mines poll No. 4 aforesaid and the taking of, .the counting and recounting the votes east at such poll in the electoral district of Peace River aforesaid, and that such Chief Eleotoral Officer, returning officer, deputy returning officer or other officer or officers be directed to take such action as may ibe requisite and necessary to secure the return to the House of Commons of the candidate who secured the greatest number of votes cast by the electors of the electoral district of Peace River on the 29th of October, 1925, aforesaid.
That means that the petitioner asks this House to try out the question of which candidate received the greatest number of votes and who is entitled to a seat in this House. It means that if the House finds that Collins received more votes than Kennedy, the officer should be instructed to make a declaration declaring Collins and not Kennedy entitled to the seat. That is exactly what this House decided on the 6th May it could not do, and that was the reason why the petition which was then presented could not be received.
When you come to size up the arguments of hon. gentlemen who argue that this petition should be received, they say that it should be received because it- asks for an inquiry into the conduct of officials who conducted, the election. It is true it asks for that; but in addition and as the main part of the petition it asks that it should be found that the candidate who received the greatest number of votes should be declared elected. That means possibly that somebody who now has the seat should be put out and somebody else put in. What was the objection before to receiving the petition? It was that it violated the rules and therefore was not properly receivable. Do my ihon. friends who argued on behalf of the petition which was declared bad on the sixth May, say that by tacking on to a bad petition some clauses which are good they are going to make the part of the 
petition which was bad on the 6th May, good now? That is what this means. It is on account of the bad parts in the petition, the parts that are not receivable, that it could not be received before. Unless the whole petition can be received, it cannot be received at all. You cannot receive part of it; if there is in that petition anything that is objectionable and cannot be received, the whole petition must be rejected.
I took care to look at the date of this petition and I find that on the outside of it is dated the 28th May, 1926, twenty-two days after the previous decision. Nobody can read this petition without realizing what the petitioner had in mind. It is quite clear, when 3'ou take the date into consideration, that the petition seeks just what I have already said

by tacking on to the objecionable part something that is unobjectionable, to get in the whole petition. That cannot be done.
A great deal has been said about the fact that in the election court you cannot try out the question of how anybody voted. The section of the act referred to is section 221, which says that no person shall be asked how he voted. What was the object of that? It was made perfectly clear by a very learned judge in the Haldimand case. I quote it in his words, which are much better than any I could see:
As to .the petitioner's claim for the seat, it must be dismissed.
The evidence of thirty-six voters to show how they had voted for Colter at polling division, No. 2, Oneida, was properly held not admissible by the learned judge at the trial.
Had the learned judge permitted the inquiry to have been prosecuted as the petitioner desired, it would have in effect disclosed not merely how those willing to tell had voted, but practically how every man at the poll had voted, because if out of one hundred votes fifty are found to have voted for A and fifty for B and the fifty who voted for A are called and expressing their willingness to tell do tell that they voted for him, it at once becomes known who the fifty were who voted for B.
Let us take another example where the majority in the election is small. I know my hon. friends are pursuing this very seriously with a view possibly to remedying a defect which they suggest now exists in the law. I ask them to consider this: Does any defect exist in the law as it now stands? Does any hon. member suggest that it would be in the interest of justice or of candidates who occasionally have to fight election contests to have the law changed1? Supposing a man is elected by a majority of five, and supposing that at a certain poll he is credited with twenty votes and thirty people come in and say: I voted for that candidate. If that were

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to be allowed, in many cases where there are not many votes in a poll it wiould be possible to get enough electors whose names are on the lists to come in and pledge their oaths that they voted for this man and he lost his seat. That is not what the legislators intended. That is the very evil which the people who framed this aict intended to avoid. The right of the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) or of any other hon. member to hold his seat should! not depend upon whether or not ten, fifteen or twenty people are willing to come in and swear that in a certain polling division they cast their votes in one way and the record would show that they had not been counted. That is the object of the law and' it is made very clear in the decision of Mr. Justice Taschereau in the Haldimand case, volume 15, of the Supreme Court reports.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Do I understand my hon. friend to suppose that the purpose of the act was to make perjury in election cases effective?


John Campbell Elliott: No. My contention is
exactly the reverse of that, and if my hon. friend were listening he would know that. The object of that section was to render perjury ineffective, but if my hon. friend had his way he would make perjury operative, for you, could get enough people to come in and swear that they had voted in a particular way and the member of parliament petitioned against would not be able to hold his seat. Indeed, no member could hold his seat under such circumstances.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Why should that principle
not apply to any ordinary civil or criminal case?


John Campbell Elliott: That is entirely a different situation, and the principle would have been made to apply to any ordinary civil case if the framers of any act relating to such a case had taken the same view of it as was dearly taken from this statute in reference to election cases. That is the answer. There is no question about it. Is the right of any member to be jeopardized by allowing fifteen or twenty men in some polling subdivision to come and swear that they voted for his opponent when he appears to have received only ten votes?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: If you are going to admit,
as a sufficient ground for excluding evidence, the possibility of fifty men perjuring themselves. why should you not exclude all evidence of corrupt practices for fear that some five, or ten or fifty men may go into the election court and commit perjury?


John Campbell Elliott: I suggest that would have
been a good question to have asked the framers of the act when it was being considered, and I venture to say that if such a question had been asked the answer would have been just what I have given.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I make the suggestion to
show the utter absurdity of the hypothesis which the hon. gentleman is building up.


John Campbell Elliott: Well, I have been
endeavouring to show, and I think I have shown, what I must say with great respect appears to me the utter and total absurdity of the position my hon. friend takes. That is the unfortunate impasse to which we come.
I wonder that the hon.'gentleman, with his sincere desire to do justice to the member for Peace River, should suggest that that hon. gentleman's right to sit in this House, or for that matter the right of any other hon. gentleman, should be jeopardized in the way I have indicated. If, however, that is the view my hon. friend takes, it certainly is in direct opposition to the. view held by those who framed the law as is apparent in the statute itself. There is no doubt. about that.
But there is another cogent reason why we should be very careful not to take the step suggested in this case. As I observed before, either we have the right to try the question or we have not. I do not think my hon. friend will assert that we have; I do not think that he and his colleagues would propose our going back to the trial of election petitions in this House. I am sure he would not contend for that. Then why on earth should they try to drag an election into this House in a way which is in contravention of the law? It is quite clear that there are certain remedies that were intended by way of appeal to this House, but I would ask hon. gentlemen, who have contended that this House might try this case, why it is that section 61 of the Controverted Elections Act was provided. Section 61 reads:
Trial judges may, a.t the same itirne, make a special report to the Speaker as to any matters arising in the course of the trial an account of which ought, in their judgment, Ibe submitted to the House of Commons.
And various other sections of the act show that what the framers intended was that election matters should not come before the House of Commons until they had been disposed of in the courts.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: My hon. friend is assuming the whole case. The report which might be made by the judge could not refer to any
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evidence before him whatsoever; it could have reference only to the suggestion of counsel that, if the law admitted the evidence, such and such things might have been proved.


John Campbell Elliott: My hon. friend is coming to the point which I should have reached by this time if he had waited. He refers to the right of the courts to ask electors how they had voted. That was not the intention of those who framed the act; it was expressly prohibited for the reason I have mentioned, The framers of the act desired that the sanctity of the ballot should be preserved, and it was undoubtedly apprehended that to allow electors to be examined in this way would be to nullify that object. Does my hon. friend suggest for a moment that after parliament had delegated to the courts the right to try election petitions, parliament should then undertake to deal with such matters? Section 226 of the Dominion Elections Act provides:
No person who has voted at an election shaLl, in any legal proceeding questioning the election or return, be required to state for whom he voted.
If therefore the courts, to whom parliament delegated the right to try controverted elections, are expressly forbidden by parliament to ask any elector how he voted, will anyone contend that parliament, having divested itself of the right to try such cases should be at liberty to put that very question to electors?
_ Mr. CAHAN: Cannot my hon. friend distinguish between the proceedings in an election court dealing with allegations of corrupt _ practices on the part of the candidate or his agent, and entirely different proceedings before the high court of parliament or its committee dealing with frauds committed by the officials and employees of parliament?
I can well understand that in relation to corrupt practices by the candidate or his agent, the court should not be allowed to inquire as to whether those corrupt practices were effective or not. But in dealing with frauds committed by an employee of parliament it is essential to ascertain whether the votes of electors in any particular polling section were given effect to or whether by such frauds as here alleged they were precluded from having effect.


John Campbell Elliott: My hon. friend still fails to get the point.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


John Campbell Elliott: Just a moment. The tribunal which has jurisdiction to try election petitions cannot ask any elector how he voted. My hon. friend suggests, however, that the
fMr. Cahan.]
parliament which created that tribunal, and thereby divested itself of jurisdiction in the matter, should still have the right to exercise such jurisdiction. Parliament has the right to inquire into the conduct of its electoral officers. In doing so there might be no great hardship, apart from the violation of the sanctity of the ballot, in asking electors how they voted, because the abuse I have suggested could not arise; a dozen men coming in and swearing they voted in a certain way would not affect the right of the member to hold his seat, because only the guilt or innocence of the election officers would be under review. All that parliament can try is the guilt or innocence of its officials. That is the reason we cannot receive this petition.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: May I interrupt the hon. minister once more? I can well understand why the statute may provide, and properly provide, that you shall not inquire into how a man voted when the issue is whether the candidate or his agents were guilty of corrupt practices, because it is utterly irrelevant to that issue if a voter is corrupted. On the other issue, as to whether the officials of this parliament fraudulently switched ballots, the issue of corruption by the candidate or his agents does not enter, and it is absolutely necessary that parliament should know whether its officials have been guilty of that fraud.	'


Mr. RINFRET:: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order, and I do so with no disrespect to the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George, for whom I have much esteem. But the hon. gentleman is allowed to speak only once on this motion, and therefore I do not think he is in order at all when every ten minutes he interjects short speeches into the argument of the Minister of Labour.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I apologize. I thought the hon. minister rather invited it by the way he advanced his argument.


John Campbell Elliott: I have little more to say on the question, Mr. Speaker. Let me refer for a moment to the point that was sought to be made out of the Donaldson election in Saskatchewan. Parliament intervened there because the province had just been formed and, as the judges made perfectly clear at the time, the courts for the trial of those actions had not then been established.
Now, Mr. Speaker, for the various reasons I have submitted I think it is quite clear that no electors coming in and swearing how they have voted should be permitted to affect the

Peace River Election
right of a member to hold his seat. The real object of this petition is the same as that of the petition which was rejected on May 6, and therefore I say it should not be received. I urge hon. members to think very seriously before they insist that parliament should again constitute itself into a court to try election petitions and the right of their fellow-members to their seats in this House.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Speaker, the vote now to be taken will register the estimation of this House of the value of decency and common justice. The debate has proceeded long, and a large number of speeches have been delivered, mostly, not unnaturally, by lawyers, but if I may again describe the character of the question we are called upon to decide, I would say it is one of the simplest, one of the plainest postulates ever laid before parliament for its verdict. There is no complication, there is nothing difficult, there is no haze; it is a matter which admits the clearest, and the simplest reasoning that the human mind could invite.
I know that members, especially able members, whether of the legal fraternity or not, can always piece together long, plausible sentences tending to bend the mind against the most obvious conclusion. I know that very often lawyers do so and have to do so in the discharge of their professional duties, when they have no case which appeals to their own sense of logic and of right. I know quite well that if a proposition were laid before this House asking us to declare that the earth is flat or that Aristotle wrote the plays of Shakespeare, there could be hon. members found here, many of them, who could tie one sentence to another, designed in the aggregate either to confuse the intellect or to bend it to some foolish conclusion. With all respect, I say this is the sum and substance of everything that has been argued against this resolution. I do not think (here i= any hon. member, I care not on what side of the House he sits, however biased he may be, who if he addresses his mind to the subject at all, can possibly vote in ignorance of the fundamental right on this motion, he cannot do so. Every hon. member, if he has addressed his mind to it at all and votes against this resolution, votes against it knowing he is doing a gross and cruel injustice which elsewhere can find no remedy whatever.
If hon. members opposite are right in all this argument they have presented, what is Mr. Collins going to do? Does any hon. member doubt he has been wronged? Nobody suggests he has not been wronged- grossly wronged. Does any hon. member doubt the people of Peace River have been wronged? Did they get in this House the representative they voted for under the law of the land?


An hon. MEMBER:: No.


Arthur Meighen: statistical statements or documents of any character whatever. Still we have been asked to listen to long dissertations on the failure of Collins to present a cheque for $1,000 and to do something else. It may be that afterwards, when this is before the committee, it may ask Mr. Collins to put up security. I am not arguing that now; up to the present he has done everything he can do, and all he is asking is a chance to proceed
It has been suggested that Mr. Collins has not done everything possible; that he should have gone before the courts; that he should have entered protest, or had someone else enter a protest. Hon. members again suggest that if he forgot to do so or was remiss or neglectful in any way he should now come in under Page's petition, and seek redress in that way. If hon. gentlemen will listen it will not take five minutes to dispose of that argument, because it is nothing but sophistry. Collins could not go before the court; he could go before it, it is true; he could go in there with the certainty of being thrown out immediately. No one suggests that he could get any further; no hon. member of this House has risen to suggest that Collins could do more than go through the obvious stupid futility of presenting his protest in court, bringing his 111 witnesses and being told to go home, that they could not be heard.
The Minister of Justice distinctly admitted -and after having admitted it I was astonished when he invited this House to vote against this resolution-that no court could hear one of these 111 witnesses; they could not say a' word. Then what is the sense of telling Mr. Collins he should have gone to court? Where is Mr. Collins in court if he cannot produce his witnesses and have them heard? He might as well go to the police court in Ottawa; we might as well tell him to go before a court in Jamaica. It is all humbug and mockery for anyone to say that Mr. Collins should have gone to court. Mr. Collins had the advice oi his counsel, which everyone in this House admits was sound, that all he could do was get into court and get out again at the instance of the presiding judge. And does the Solicitor General say that before we can listen to any petition from Mr. Collins he should first run around that silly circle when he can get nowhere, and then come back and tell us that he went there anyway even though he got no results? What is the meaning of an argument like that? Once we admit that Collins could do nothing in court why do we tell him he should have gone to court? Will anyone answer that question?
The Solicitor General says it is true that he could not have got his witnesses in the box;
TMr. Meighen.l
he would not have been allowed to prove his case, because there is no other way of proving it except by the evidence of these witnesses. It is true he could not have done that, but the Solicitor General says he might have got a report from the judge to Mr. Speaker after it was all over. He might, and he might not. The judge is not bound to make a report. Supposing he did not; and personally I do not think he would. Supposing he did not; what would be the good of Mr. Collins going there? Are we to tell him to go there on the chance that the judge may make a report to this House? Supposing the judge does report that Collins' counsel got up and asserted in court that he would like to call these 111 witnesses to prove that they voted for Collins, adding that as judge he did not allow him to do so because under the law it was impossible. Supposing the judge does that; that is all he can do. Are we then one whit wiser than before? Not at all; we have gone around the circle and landed back at the starting place.


Lucien Cannon: Will my hon. friend allow
me one question? If such a thing happens is it not a fact that this matter would then be brought before the House in the proper, regular way?


Arthur Meighen: The Solicitor General says that if such a thing happens it will be brought before the House, because the judge makes a report to Mr. Speaker. What can then be done? The matter will be brought before the House then for the amendment of the law, but not to help Collins; Mr. Speaker could not help Collins. Does anyone imagine that because a judge reports that a lawyer offered the evidence of 111 men who, he claimed, voted for Collins, but could get no witnesses heard, Mr. Speaker on the face of that report would say Collins should be elected? Why it might be that Mr. Speaker would think these men would not have given such evidence at all.


Lucien Cannon: What about the House?


Arthur Meighen: The House might amend
the law later and compel the judge to hear the evidence, but that is all the House could do.


Lucien Cannon: The law says much more than that.


Arthur Meighen: The law says Mr. Speaker may amend the report; certainly he may, but he will not do it unless the judge reports there is evidence upon which it should be done, and the judge cannot hear that evidence. The whole plea has been a sort of plausible sequence of sophistry in order to get some cause for delay. Delay is just as good as vie-

Peace Rivet Election
tory for hon. gentlemen opposite; delay is victory, and one suits as well as the other. Tell Collins to go to the court; bring his 111 witnesses; put his hand in his pocket and pay their expenses, when he knows it
11 p.m. is just humbug and nonsense, and that perhaps the judge will make some report to this House, and we may amend the law. That would be a fine remedy for Mr. Collins, wouldn't it?


Lucien Cannon: Would my right hon. friend allow me one more question?


Peter McGibbon: You did not allow any questions.


Arthur Meighen: I will allow the question.


Lucien Cannon: If the House could not do more than my right hon. friend now states,
why ask its members to do what they can not do according to his own interpretation of the law?


Arthur Meighen: Certainly the House then could hear the case, just as the House can hear it now. Is any hon. gentleman going to say that we were emptied of jurisdiction by our Controverted Elections Act, but that if the fellow goes to court, goes around in a blind circle, and gets back here, then our jurisdiction is restored? Why, the thing is foolish.
Another hon. gentleman says: Collins might go to court and be denied the right to produce witnesses and get them heard; that is very true, he says, but if it is true, it is "too bad." He is ready to admit that it is too bad, "but he says that Collins must put up with it because it is the law and Collins cannot get any higher than the law; and he tries to make out that we are complaining of the law. We are not complaining of the law at all. We want the law applied; we want the law applied in the only way it can be applied. What we say is this: that if Collins has a court to which he can go and produce his witnesses, then under our constitution and practice we should not hear Collins at all; but that as regards matters affecting this House if it is true as admitted that we have not given him a court, then our original jurisdiction remains and we must hear Collins appeal. Certainly if Collinst complains of the law in that it affects only his private right and does not go to the question of the election of a member of this House-for instance, his right to a horse or a house-he cannot come to parliament and expect redress in a matter of that kind. But what Collins says is: "I was elected to your parliament; I cannot show that I was elected in any court you have provided; I have come to you, to your original jurisdiction, and I
say to you, inasmuch as you have not given me a court I can go to, I come to the high court of parliament itself, which from time immemorial has redressed wrongs of this kind." The law we argue for is this: That as there is nowhere else he can go to and produce his witnesses and get his testimony heard and get his verdict, he can come to this House. The only argument against such a claim in respect of an election is that we have provided him with a court. When that argument falls down because there is no court it must be admitted, of course, that the jurisdiction of this House still exists. I could go through cases one after the other, but nobody needs a case. Is anybody going to argue that a man cannot get redress from this parliament when there is no other place in the world where he can get redress, that he simply has to suffer under it; that if any officer of this House puts his hands in the dead of night into a ballot box and steals 111 ballots, destroys them, and plants 111 more of his own, the man who is the victim of that fraud has no redress at all? Is anybody going to say that?
Now I ask any hon. member to suggest in the mildest, the most modest way he can do so, what in the world Collins can do if we refuse this petition? What can he do? There is not a member will dare to suggest that there is any course open to him whatever. Hon. members who know that, when they rise from their seats on this vote, know that voting against this motion they deny to Collins the only redress he has, and they say to every deputy returning officer in this country: "You can go and defraud a candidate; you can rob him of what he earns; you can rape a constituency, and if you do you may be punished for it in the courts, but the candidate will never get redress in this Dominion of Canada."
Someone suggests that what we ought to be here for is for a change in the law. We are not complaining of the law. The law is sufficient. We want the law applied. We want admission to the only court that is left us.
Now it is argued:	Oh, if you did get
Collins here, he could not do anything, because if Collins came before a committee of parliament his witnesses could not be heard even there. The argument of the Minister of Justice was this:	The reason voters cannot
be heard before a court of law is that it is against public policy that a witness should be allowed to divulge for whom he voted, and if it is against public policy to allow him to divulge it to any court of law, he argues
Peace River Election

that it is against public policy to allow him to divulge it before a committee of this House. Let me examine that argument.
What I stated before was this, that we had a statute which provided that in any legal proceeding questioning the return of a member, a witness could not be heard to say how he voted, and that the reason the judges had held that, though the law said he could not be "required" to say how he voted, it really meant that he could not be "allowed" to say how he voted, was that the foundation of that statute was public policy, and not the privilege of the voter. Then hon. members argue from that, that if it is public policy to prevent him in a court of civil law telling how he voted, it would be public policy to prevent him telling it before a committee of this House. Maybe it would, but the fact is, we have not prevented it. All we have done is to prevent it before a court of law, because we deemed it good public policy. Very good. Then he cannot go before a court of law, but until this House says he cannot go before a committee of this House, he still can go there and give his evidence, and be compellable to do so. Do hon. members follow me? In a word1, the witness is not restrained at all unless he is expressly restrained by a statute. He is not protected at all unless lie is specifically protected by a statute. He is not protected and he is not restrained before a committee by any statute but only in a legal proceeding questioning a return. Nor is he restrained or protected in a criminal court-only in a legal proceeding questioning a return.
The Minister of Labour (Mr. Elliott) argued that a voter was restrained from telling how he voted for fear he would commit perjury, for fear there would 'be quite a number-someone says the majority-who could be persuaded, suborned to come before the court and commit perjury, and thereby unseat an elected candidate. Why, what does the hon. member mean? Does he mean to suggest we have passed a law in this House which declares that no man can say how he voted for fear he might lie in saying so? That is really what the minister argued. I do not know what was in the back of his head.
We said: The law stands this way. A voter can disclose his secret in a criminal court, but not in a civil court in a proceeding questioning a return. Why? Because the secrecy of the ballot is important, but it is not so important as the prevention of crime. Therefore we compel him to reveal his secret in a criminal court. But we say there is little or nothing to be gained by his

giving such evidence in a legal proceeding questioning his return sufficient to warrant letting him do so. Why? For the simple reason that everything we relegated to the courts to try in relation to elections is such that it does not matter a whit how anybody says he voted. For instance, suppose there is a charge to be tried in an election protest, that a candidate or his agent bribed a voter. How the bribed man voted is not pertinent to that issue at all. It does not matter if he voted against the way he was bribed, the election is void all the same. In a word, in all these matters relegated to the court in a civil proceeding the value of the evidence as to how the voter voted "is so slight that the importance of secrecy of the ballot was greater than the value of such evidence. But in a criminal proceeding parliament naturally has resolved that the prevention of crime is of far more importance than the secrecy of the ballot, and therefore no man can protect himself and refuse to give evidence as to how he voted. The matter is entirely plain.
Wherever a question of fraud comes up, in which it is necessary to know how a man voted in order to reveal the fraud, there should be no law protecting any witness even in a civil court from declaring how he voted, and there should be no law to prevent a judge compelling him to say how he voted. You say, " Why not then amend the law? " Very well, amend the law, I do not care, but you cannot amend it to help Collins. There was the state of the law during the 40 days wherein Collins had the right to take legal action. He had to act under the law as it was: under that law he could not give his evidence to court. He had therefore no redress. He could not get anything, so all he could do was to come to this House. We could amend the law now, but that would not enable him to go to court now. Collins has done everything it was in his power to do. The only other thing he could have done was to run a futile race around the courts, knowing he would land just where he had begun, with all his expenses gone.
Was it not the Solicitor General who suggested that the witnesses could not be heard to give evidence before a committee of parliament, because the law said that for public reasons they could not give evidence in legal proceedings? A hearing before a committee of parliament, in the first place, is not a legal proceeding. I questioned my hon. friend. " Were not the witnesses giving evidence in the West Huron case asked as to how they voted? " Certainly they were,

Peace River Election
and they were compelled to answer. My hon. friend admitted that, but what was his explanation? "Oh," he said, that was in 1897, and this law which declares they should not be compelled to give evidence was not passed until later on." But as soon as he was told from this side of the House that it had been the law for years before, he began to talk about the weather; he changed the subject. It has been the low since 1874. I have the statute here.


Lucien Cannon: This section where it is
to be found now was put in in 1900, and not before.


Arthur Meighen: Where it is to be found
now? I would like to know what the difference is just where it is found.


Lucien Cannon: It might have been in
another law.


Arthur Meighen: It is in the Election Act, and reads:
No person who has voted at an election shall in any legal proceeding questioning the election or return be required to state for whom he voted.
That is in the Dominion Elections Act passed in 1874. Thirty years after that act was passed witnesses were compelled to appear before the election committee of this House and disclose for whom they voted, for the manifest reason that the purity of an election is of infinitely more importance than the secrecy of the vote.


Lucien Cannon: I do not think we disagree on that point at all. I said that the clause was not in the Controverted Elections Act before 1900, and my right hon. friend is quoting from the Dominion Elections Act.


Arthur Meighen: This illustrates what I
said about being able to piece together sentences tending to confuse. Does it matter where it is so long as it is the law of Canada? Really I ought to thank the Solicitor General for giving such a vivid illustration of the kind of sophistry I have been seeking to expose to this House. There is the law. No man could give the evidence before 1874 in a legal proceeding, but when that law was passed and for thirty years afterward they gave evidence before a committee of the House and were compelled to do so. This disposes of the only contention made by the Minister of Justice.


Lucien Cannon: The fact that a committee would have allowed such evidence does not change the law, does it? It is a matter of interpretation and nothing else, whether I am right or whether my right hon. friend is right.
Mr. MEIGHEN':	I suggest that if there
had been any way of preventing those men in the West Huron case from giving their evidence, there were lawyers enough then on the Liberal side to prevent it. I do not think the Solicitor General would say that the legal lights of the day in the year 1897-and he knows who they were as well as I do-were not wise enough to protest, with that provision in the statute before them, if they had the remotest chance of success in a proceeding before the committee. It is a parliamentary proceeding; it is not a legal proceeding within the meaning of the Controverted Elections Act or of the Dominion Elections Act, and our practice for fifty years has shown my statement to be true. Therefore Collins could go before a committee of this House and could adduce his evidence. The committee could compel the witnesses to give the evidence. It is clothed with plenary power to do so, and that plenary power does not exist anywhere else.
The hon. member for Quebec South (Mr Power) says it will be a very dangerous precedent if we allow Collins now by petition to be heard in respect of this allegation that though elected, though he had the largest number of legal votes cast, he was defrauded by an officer of this House who stole his ballots

the hon. member says that if we allow him to come here with this petition there is nothing to hinder any candidate who loses an election in the future from coming and by stating in his petition that an officer of this House stole some of his votes, compelling our committee to hear his case. Let us inquire about that. We receive this petition and afterwards refer it to the committee. The only precedent we thus establish is this: that if a candidate avers that he got the largest number of votes, that votes were stolen from him by an officer of this House and others fraudulently substituted therefor, and refers this parliament to records of the court of the land to establish every word of his petition, then we would be bound by this precedent to receive and hear that petition. Is that a serious thing? I do not say that every time a petitioner comes and alleges, merely on his own ipse dixit, that somebody else stole his votes we should have to hear his claim, even though there is nowhere else he caj| go; I do not argue that point. But I say that when a man comes and points out official evidence of this kind to us, we cannot avoid looking at it. In this case Collins says: "There are the records of the court; these records are the property of parliament just as much as of the Canadian people. On
Peace River Election

these records I say that I was robbed of the seat for Peace River; my ballots were stolen by an officer of parliament." I say such a man can come to parliament and has a right to be heard. We can never in conscience deny him a hearing until we can point him to a court which is ready and able to hear his evidence.


Charles Gavan Power: Admitting for the sake of
argument that we can give him a hearing, on his statement of facts does my right hon. friend argue that we can turn one man out of the seat and put someone else in?


Arthur Meighen: Undoubtedly.


Charles Gavan Power: Simply because he makes
evidence that in a certain court of justice somewhere or other-


Arthur Meighen: No, no.


Charles Gavan Power: -someone misused the
ballot.


Arthur Meighen: No. He has to prove
to the satisfaction fif the committee the allegations of the petition. All he wants is the right to do so, and hon. members, one after the other, are standing up and arguing and trying to get hon. members to vote to deny him that right. The consequence of such denial is simply this, that a man, however estimable he may be, who was not elected but who is returned as elected because the returning officer accepts as true the count of a criminal although it is afterwards disclosed that the criminal made a fraudulent-return, must remain in possession of that seat.


Charles Gavan Power: Is there in the records of
the court as produced before parliament anything to show that owing to the acts of Robb, Kennedy is in the seat which should belong to Collins?


Arthur Meighen: Certainly.


Charles Gavan Power: What is it? That 100 men were not allowed to vote as they wanted to vote.


Arthur Meighen: They were allowed to
vote.


Charles Gavan Power: I mean the other way about.


Arthur Meighen: The records show that
they did vote but that our officer stole their votes from the ballot box.


Charles Gavan Power: Suppose we admit that for
the sake of argument. Is there in the petition anything to show that those votes having been stolen, Collins and not Kennedy should be a member of this parliament?


Arthur Meighen: 
Alfred Edgar MacLean: If the law has been an injustice for the last fifty years, will the right hon. gentleman tell us why it has been tolerated?


Arthur Meighen: There has been no injustice. We have not complained of the law. What we want is an application of the law.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: The right hon. gentleman states that Collins is not permitted bo take his case to the court; that that is an injustice, and that is what he is complaining of.


Arthur Meighen: Not so long as he can come before a court that undoubtedly can try his case. If Collins is not permitted to come to parliament he certainly is not permitted to go anywhere else.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: Why was the
right not given to appeal to the courts? If it was an injustice, why was it tolerated for so long?


Arthur Meighen: I did not say that it
should have been given. Perhaps it should not have been given, but the fact is that it was not given. Parliament never gave it to the courts, although it may be that we should have done so. It is not the fault of Mr. Collins that we did not; but the fact that we did not give it to the courts shows that we retained it ourselves. I do not think parliament expected its officers to steal, and certainly no parliament in the good old days ever expected that if our officers sitole the seat of a man
honestly elected, there would ever be a parliament which would deny him access to the only place open to him competent to redress his wrong.
I do not question the good faith of the hon. member (Mr. Kennedy) who sits for that riding in the votes he gives. I do seriously question his conduct in presuming to perform the functions of a member of parliament when he knows he is a member of parliament only because of the theft and fraud of another, and that other an officer of this parliament. This officer of this parliament, selected by this government, commits a fraud by virtue of which the hon. member sits in this House, and sitting in the House thus in possession of goods stolen he consistently delivers those goods by his votes and speeches to the government of the day on whose behalf they were stolen. That he does so in good faith I do not now question; but the fact is that he does so, and because he does so this government is in office to-day. There is the situation, and I venture to say it is because of that very unique circumstance that this government struggles so desperately to retam the member for Peace River in his seat. They do not do so because of affection for the hon. member for P&oe River. If they could have defeated him they would have done so. Those acting for them, though I do not say with their knowledge, tried by every device known in the realm of crime, to defeat him. No; the government's action in this respect is not out of any tender regard for the hon. member for Peace River; it is out. of tender regard for themselves, for the offices they hold by virtue of the vote of an hon. member who never was elected and who to-day sits in possession of goods stolen by an officer appointed by this government. This is the situation which confronts us now. We are told: Oh, he might resign if he could. No; he said that he would not resign if he could. He cannot resign, but that does not mean that he need sit and exercise his functions. He has no right to do so. But that is not the question now. The question is, what is to be done with the Cdllins petition? We are told that the thing will be redressed in the long run, and we have been given a good hint of that in the speech of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth). There will come a time, he intimated, when the whole question will go back to the electors of Peace River to be settled by them.


Mr. STORK:: How do you account for the theft of Skeena from myself in 1917?
Peace River Election


Arthur Meighen: I have never heard of any such theft., but some red herrings can be detected while others cannot. And this is about the plainest and the strongest smelling red herring I have ever seen. We had better dispose of the matter we are considering before we drift into something else. I must admire the judgment of the hon. gentleman, because if he did not realize how desperate the case of Peace River is, his mind would not be hovering over Skeena. We have been given a hint. I say, of the sort of justice which we may expect in this case. Justice will be done in some way or other later on by reopening this seat. Well, let us look into such a proposal.
The hon. member for Winnipeg, let us say, has been elected after a hard struggle. If he had won his honours honestly and fairly, if he received the greatest number of votes, would he like, had someone else by a crime been given the seat, to be told by the party who so sits in possession that justice would be done and that this prize which had been stolen from him he would have the right to earn once more? What would he think of that? Now, who has the right to give up the Peace River seat? Is it the hon. member who now presumes to represent Peace River? Has he the right to give it up? Is it his to give up? There may be something of benevolence, there may be something of generosity, there may be even something of wisdom in giving up what one possesses; but there is nothing but sham and pretence in giving up what one does not possess. The seat of Peace River does not belong to the hon. gentleman; it is not his to surrender. Nor is that seat within the power of this government either to give or to take away.
I have heard rumours that the hon. gentleman will get the Chiltem Hundreds; that after he has served his day and generation through this session and done his full share to keep this government in office, he will get some nominal .job in order that the seat may be thus vacated.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I rise to a point of order. It seems to me the leader of the opposition is going very much out of his way, and is far beside the question under discussion, when he begins to insinuate certain things affecting the honour of an hon. gentleman who is not even in the House.


Arthur Meighen: Needless to say there is no point of order. It would be strange indeed if every hon. gentleman could talk about the seat being vacated while I could not.


James Shaver Woodsworth: It is a point of honour.


Arthur Meighen: Honour? What did I say against anyone's honour save that the hon. gentleman was retaining a seat which he had never won, and which he is able to enjoy because of fraud? If that is an attack upon his honour I hope he takes it to himself. I contend that there is going to be no redress either for Collins or for the people of Peace River merely by opening the seat, whether by one device or another, whether by accepting the resignation of the hon. member after the session, or by appointing him to some nominal position, or by proceeding with the Page petition. None of these means will remedy the *wrongs done to Collins. Nor is it anything of that kind to which Collins is entitled. He is entitled to be where the hon. member (Mr. Kennedy) is, and then to be subject to protest if anyone wishes to lodge a protest.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The leader of the opposition said a moment ago that he had been informed or that he had knowledge that a position would be provided for the member for Peace River. The House is entitled to know where he gets that information.


Arthur Meighen: I have been informed that there is to be a nominal appointment made to effect the resignation. Will anyone stand up on behalf of the government and declare that this will not be done?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I stand up and say so.


Arthur Meighen: That shuts the door-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Take it back I


Arthur Meighen: Take what back?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: What you have said.


Arthur Meighen: I said I was so informed and I will not take that back. I accept the Prime Minister's word that this will not be done and such assurance shuts the door on that method of proceeding. Let me see if there is any other.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not know where the right hon. gentleman got his information. I never heard anything of the kind suggested.


Arthur Meighen: I have accepted the Prime Minister's word, but I am going on now to inquire into what other means may be taken. Mr. Collins has been told by the hon. member for Joliette (Mr. Denis) that

Peace River Election
he may come in under the Page petition; and that if he succeeds with such petition, the seat will be vacated. If Collins comes in under the petition of Page all that can ever result will be the vacating of the seat. But what in the world could Collins do to secure even that result? He could do nothing. He could not produce all these witnesses whose votes were fraudulently transferred. What is the good of Collins going on with the Page petition? But even if he could produce those witnesses what would be the result then? The seat would be vacated, but would that be any remedy to Collins? He is thus told, "You won the seat; you got the majority of the votes; the seat is yours all right on the official findings. But those votes and therefore the seat were stolen from you and that which was stolen from you we will now put it at stake and give you a chance to earn it over again. Is that justice to Collins? Is it? I do not hear any answer from the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth).
Someone has said it is Toryism to compel a man to give evidence before a committee of this House. Well, is it Liberalism to compel a man to do without a seat which he won? If it is Toryism to compel a man to give evidence to expose a fraud, then I stand here and boast of my Toryism.


Lucien Cannon: Does my right hon. friend think that he was a Liberal in 1917 when his party manipulated votes in many constituencies?


Arthur Meighen: We have discussed the 1917 election to the heart's content of the hon. member-


Charles Gavan Power: You would not let us discuss it.


Arthur Meighen: -and I am ready to discuss it again when it comes before the House. But when the Peace River election is under consideration those who are not afraid to discuss Peace River will stick to Peace River.


Charles Gavan Power: May I respectfully suggest to my right hon. friend-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order, order.


Charles Gavan Power: May I suggest, by way of a question, that we in referring to the 1917 election are quoting the latest precedent bearing upon the investigation of corrupt elections?


Arthur Meighen: If the 1917 elections had anything to do with this case it is a pity they were not quoted by hon. gentlemen when
they were speaking.


Charles Gavan Power: We prefer to quote them when you are speaking.


Arthur Meighen: I know the hon. gentleman does, and I thank him for the compliment. But if he were not afraid of the effect of the speech he would not want to introduce something irrevelant.


Charles Gavan Power: Does the right hon. gentleman not admit the interruption?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Charles Gavan Power: I think the right hon. gentleman-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Hewitt Bostock: There must be no interruptions unless the member who has the floor gives his permission.


Charles Gavan Power: May I have the permission of the right hon. gentleman to ask a question?


Arthur Meighen: I will give the hon. member one more chance to come within reasonable proximity to this case.


Charles Gavan Power: I always knew my right hon. friend, when he was not too angry, would be kindly and courteous to other members.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Charles Gavan Power: I am about to ask the question. Does he object to these little interruptions for fear they may hurt his argument and spoil the effect of his speech?


Arthur Meighen: I offered the hon. gentleman another chance to come within eight years of this case, but he has failed miserably. No, interruptions never hurt an argument-


Charles Gavan Power: The hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) wandered two hundred years away from it.


Arthur Meighen: -if those interruptions are pertinent. But if the present interruptions are intended to divert the argument from its purpose they will fail. If the hon. gentleman cannot interrupt with something that bears upon the subject the best thing he can do is to keep his seat.
Now, under the petition of Page, or under any petition that Collins might have entered, there could be no remedy in the world of any character whatever, for the wrong which has been done. Collins could not do anything to have the seat vacated, but if he could it would not be justice. It would not be justice to Collins. There is therefore no remedy before the courts; there is no remedy whatever outside this parliament. The only means by which this wrong can be redressed, this outrage as heinous as any ever per-

Peace River Election

petrated in the political history of this country, must be taken by parliament. The only place where the cause can be heard and the remedy applied is in this House. No hon. gentleman who has spoken opposite has dared to suggest that there is any effective remedy, indeed, any remedy at all anywhere else in our Dominion; and knowing there is no other remedy parliament purposes to inform Collins that he must rest under this vicious wrong. Is this gross outrage, this black brazen fraud which has been perpetrated in order to enable a government to sit .in office, not to be redressed? It is for the House now to decide.


Mr. MOTHERWELL:: I was paired with
the hon. member for Kingston City (Mr. Ross). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: I was paired with the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. CULLIGAN:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Ger-shaw). I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. EMBURY:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Athabaska (Mr. Cross). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.
Mr. FONTAINE (Translation). Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. Chabot). Had I voted-1 would have voted against the motion.
Mr. RHEAUME (Translation). Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the hon. member for Colchester (Mr. MacNutt). Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. DESOOTEAUX (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the hon. member for Hailton (Mr. Anderson). Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.
Mr. ST-PERE (Translation); Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the hon. member for Hants-Kings (Mr. Foster). Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. DESLAURIERS (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the hon. member for Port Arthur-Thunder Bay (Mr. Langworthy). Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King, the House adjourned at 12.10 a.m. (Thursday).
Thursday, June 17, 1926.