1927-04-07

NATURAL RESOURCES-WESTERN PROVINCES

[Stage Direction]
Hon. ,1. W. EDWARDS (Frontenac-Adding-ton):	Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to present a further petition, this time from Ontario, requesting the return to the prairie provinces of their natural resources without restrictions.

Mr. J. C. BRADY (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to lay on the table a petition from the farmers and settlers, belonging to the Farmer

Questions
Institutes of the Francois-ootsa country, for the opening up of a spur line from Stella, on the main line of the Canadian National railway, to the foot of Francois lake. It is signed by over two hundred people.



LEAMINGTON COUNCIL-RESOLUTION

Mr. E. J. GOTT (South Essex):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of presenting to the House a petition from the town council of Leamington, Ontario, praying that the parliament of Canada-


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order. Is it a resolution?


Eccles James Gott: Yes.


Hewitt Bostock: The hon, gentleman is
out of order.



ALBERTA COAL-FREIGHT RATE

Mr. T. H. CAYLEY (South Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to lay on the table a petition signed by Abram Searls and a large number of others praying for the establishment during this session of a freight rate on coal from Alberta to Ontario.



DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL REVENUE

[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister-for the Minister of Customs and Excise) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 2S1, to amend an act of the present session intituled:	"An act respecting the Department of National Revenue."
Mr. GARDINER:: Explain.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: Mr. Speaker,
in the absence of the Minister of Customs (Mr. Euler) I might explain to the House that this bill is simply for t'he purpose of restoring part of a previous act that was unintentionally repealed through having been inadvertently omitted from the bill creating the Department of National Revenue, when portions of former statutes were being retained'.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



QUESTIONS

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk).

Mr. EVANS:: How much money wras paid to the Canada Weekly Printing Company, 325 Logan avenue, Winnipeg, during the fiscal years ending March 31, 1923, 1924, 1925 ad 1926?


Hon. Mr. RINFRET:: Department of the Interior
June 7th, 1924, advertisement in Swedish
Canada News, $18.
Department of Immigration and Colonization
1922-	23	
Nil1923-	24	$6,756	881924-	25	
8,366	481925-	26	
2,880	00


POST OFFICE CLERKS-GRADE 6
Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: 1.	How many clerks are engaged in grade 6 and lower grade post offices who are paid their salary by the government?
2.	What are the names of grade 6 and lower grade post offices where postal clerks are paid their salary by the government?
3.	How much would it cost the country if the salaries of postal clerks in grade 6 and low^er grade post offices were raised to the level of grade 7 and 8 post offices?
4.	Will the government legislate this year to raise salaries of postal clerks of grade 6 and lower grade post offices?


Hon. Mr. VENIOT:: 1.	437 postal clerks.
2.	Amherst, Belleville, Brandon, Brantford, Brockville, Charlottetown, Chatham, Chicoutimi, Collingwood, Cornwall, Fort William, Fredericton, Galt, Guelph, Kingston, Kitchener, Lethbridge, Lindsay, Medicine Hat, Nanaimo, New Westminster, Niagara Falls, North Bay, Oshawa, Owen Sound, Peterborough, Port Arthur, Portage la Prairie, Prince Albert, Prince Rupert, St, Catherines, St. Hyacinthe, St. Thomas, Samia, Sault Ste. Marie, Sherbrooke, Smiths Falls, Stratford, Sydney, Three Rivers, Truro, Woodstock, Yarmouth.
3.	Immediate cost approximately $36,360.
Eventual cost approximately $48,480.
4.	Not a matter for legislation; salaries of postal clerks are fixed by Civil Service Commission.


THOMAS J. MCMULLEN.
Mr. HANSON:: 1.	Has Thomas J. McMullen, postmaster at Canterbury Station, New Brunswick, been dismissed?
2.	If so, when and for what cause?
3.	Were any charges laid against him of any character? If so, what were they and by whom were they laid ?
4.	Was an investigation held? If so, by w-hom and when?
5.	Has John B. 1 icpow received a temporary appointment as acting postmaster at Canterbury Station?
6.	Is the government aware that the said John B. Depowr is an undischarged bankrupt?


Hon. Mr. VENIOT:: [DOT]
1.	Yes.
2.	By order in council of March 26, 1927- on account of active political partisanship.
3.	Charges were made by C. Lundau, M.D., Andrew Depow, James B. Grant and Everett
Question as Order jor Return

C. Gould that postmaster acted as a political partisan, especially during the last federal election.
4.	Yes-by Commissioner H. C. Ramsey, barrister of Bathurst, on the 3rd March, 1927.
5.	Yes.
6.	No.


JOLIETTE POSTMASTERSHIP
Mr. CAHAN:: 1.	Why is the appointment of a postmaster to fill the vacancy at Joliette, Quebec, being delayed ?
2.	In filling this vacancy will a preference be given to a veteran of the late war?


Hon. Mr. VENIOT:: 1.	On instructions from the Postmaster General.
2.	Permanent appointment wil be made according to provisions of the Civil Service Act.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. PRICE:: 1.	Were the following postmasters and postmistresses, in the province of New Brunswick, dismissed,-*
Jos. A. Arseneau, Inkerman Ferry; Michael Murphy, Lobster Beach; Henry Aubie, Free Grant; Jos. J. Haehey, Ste. Rosette; Louis A. Doirion, Sheila; David J. Murphy, Black Rock; Etienne Landry, Waugh; Dilas Cormier, Ste. Anne du Bocage; Fred Theriault, Grande Anse; Angus J. S. Branch, Burnsville; Mrs. Annie Chalmer, Belledune; Mrs. Rose Barry, South River; Francois Landry, St. Regmond; Richard Doucet, South Bathurst; R. S. Haehey, Middle Ste. Louise; in the county of Gloucester, Maxi-milien Poirier, St. Philippe; John L. Peacock, Great Sliemogue; Neri Boudreau, Boudreau; Fidele Melanson, Upper Abougoggin; Mrs. Mabel Russell, Newton Heights; G. 0. King, Killam's Mills; in the county of Westmorland. David Vautour, St. Theodule; Thaddee LeBlanc, Petite Chockpish; Mrs. Lilia M. Steeves, Birch Siding: J. C. Daigle, Grande Aldouane; Theo-time D. Leger, Renaud's Mills; Antoine Cormier St. Lazare; Josepr H. Bourgue, Cocagne Cove; Kent County. Mrs. Rose Legere, Legere, County of Northumberland; and WIfred Savoie, Selwood, Restigouche County?
2.	If so, on what respective dates were the dismissals made?
3.	In what year were each of the above persons appointed?	_
4.	Who recommended his or her dismissal?
5.	On what charge?
6.	Was an investigation held?
7.	If not, why?


Mr. HANSON:: May I speak to No. 14?


Hewitt Bostock: It is not debatable. It stands as an order for return.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is just what I am objecting to, Your Honour.


Hewitt Bostock: Well, if the hon. gentleman wishes to make an explanation he may do so.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I happen to know as a
matter of fact that the department has all the information ready, and the question does not call for an order for return.


Hewitt Bostock: It is the privilege of a minister of the crown to answer a question by stating that it stands as an order for return


Peter John Veniot: May I say to my hon. friend, Mr. Speaker, that the department has not all the information ready. It was only about fifteen minutes ago that I looked' over some papers for information required from my own county. The complete information will not be ready until to-morrow.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That on Saturday, April 9th instant, and every Saturday thereafter until the end of the session, the House shall meet at II o'clock in the morning and that in addition to the intermission at six o'clock p.m., there shall also be an intermission from one to three o'clock and the order of business and procedure shall be the same as on Fridays.


Hewitt Bostock: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


Robert Gardiner: No. I desire to protest against this motion.


Mr. GUTHRIE:: It is only a notice.


Robert Gardiner: I do not suppose my
protest will do any good, nevertheless I wish t-o make it. I think that the House at the present time is working to the limit of the endurance of hon. members, and in view of the importance of the legislation that has been recently introduced, I think we should have at least one day in the week during which we may have an opportunity of scrutinizing this legislation. In the past there has frequently been introduced into the House, just a few days prior to prorogation, privilege legislation which has proved detrimental to the interests of the people, and the motion now before us may possibly be the means of such legislation going through on this occasion. Last Friday night there came before the House a measure in which the farmers of western Canada are very much interested. I refer to the Grain Act Amendment. The government has contemplated this legislation all session, and only now has it

Saturday Sittings
gone through. It has for its object the restoration to the farmers of very important property rights which had been taken away from -them. We appreciate the fact that the government was anxious to see these rights restored to the farmers, but what I am pointing out is that the legislation went through the House on Friday night without protest. It is now before the Senate, and I am afraid it will not receive there that consideration which it deserves unless reasonable time is given in which to study it. At all events, if this resolution carries, I suggest to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) that when we do sit on Saturday we rise at six o'clock.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Let me first
say to my hon. friend, in regard to legislation at present under consideration in the other chamber, that the government certainly has no intention of pressing its program in such a manner as to endanger the enactment of any measures that have gone from this House to the Senate. If we have to sit for a considerable time longer than most of us expect to be obliged to, we will see that every opportunity is given the other house to deal in a perfectly satisfactory manner with -the legislation before it. As -to the motion itself, my hon, friend knows, the purpose is, if possible, to have prorogation take place before the Easter vacation. If we sit on Saturday morning, afternoon and evening we shall make considerable progress and be in a position then definitely to determine whether or not we can arrange for prorogation early next week. I would ask my hon. friend to let the motion pass, and if we find during the afternoon on Saturday that we are all exhausted we can then move that thfe House rise.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Otherwise we
might continue to sit in the evening.


Hon. J. W. EDWARDS (Frontenac-Addington):: I wish to register my protest
against sitting on Saturday, even if we have to sit here other days until one or two in the morning, as we have done before. I am in entire accord with the hon, member who leads the Progressive group (Mr. Gardiner) in what he has said and in the reasons he has advanced. They are reasons which should receive every consideration. It is n.ot in the interests of good business that this House should sit on Saturday.


An hon. MEMBER:: Why aot?


Mr. EDWARDS (Frontena ;):: Why not?
I will give you one reason why I do not
think it is desirable for the House -to sit on Saturday. I can see the possibility-I will not say the probability, but certainly the possibility-of millions of estimates being rushed through on Saturday night when there is a very slim attendance. I am just as anxious as anyone else to see the session come to a close next week, but merely for the sake of attaining that end I will not agree to something that may result in passing hastily through the House millions of dollars of estimates. It would be better to sit until next summer than do that.
Mr. G; R. GEARY (South Toronto):	I
wish to associate myself with the hon. member for Frontenac-Addington (Mr. Edwards). At the moment there is a most important bill before the railway committee. Many of us would like to attend that committee but we desire to be in the House at the same time, and this frantic endteavour to clean up business at any cost, in order to get away at a certain fixed date, is not conducive to sound legislation or to the proper conservation of the interests of the people. We should not allow ourselves to be stampeded into rushing through legislation and passing estimates without adequate consideration merely because we desire to prorogue at a given date. There is, I know, a strong desire on the part of everyone to get away as soon as possible; we all share that feeling. Nevertheless, it is a ridiculous spectacle for this country to witness this House, after a session of but two months conducted in an easy manner, passing legislation hurriedly and disposing of the business without full consideration because suddenly, a few days before prorogation, we decide to clean up everything. The House and the committees are meeting simultaneously and hon. members are anxious to be in both places, but this is impossible. If we desired to do so, we might clean up all the business of the House in a couple of days, and I do not know why the country should not conclude that parliament ought to be able to convene at the first of any month, have its committees and the House meet at eleven o'clock each day, sitting simultaneously, adjourning at two o'clock in the morning and thus dispose of the business of the country at the end of the same month.


An hon. MEMBER:: So we could.


Mr. GEARY:: An hon. gentleman says, so we could, but that is not my idea of how the business of the country should be considered.


Hugh Guthrie: The suggestion for Saturday
sittings originally came from me. It would
Civil Service Salaries

meet my convenience either to sit or not to sit on Saturday, but I leave myself in the hands of the House. Hon. members who protest against the motion must remember that in every session for fifty years Saturday has been appropriated during the last week or two, and I think the same thing is true of morning sittings.


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: That does
not make it right.


Hugh Guthrie: I do not think it has
been any great inconvenience in the past to sit in the morning and have the committees meeting at the same time. As I say, however, it will suit my convenience either to sit or not to sit on Saturday, and if the House desires to continue for a week, two weeks, three or four, I shall be content. I do not believe that we should rush business through at the end of the session; we should fully consider every measure that comes before us. But the bills which have gone through the House this year with little or no debate are bills which were discussed to the fullest extent last session, and there would be little use in repeating those debates on this occasion. There is, I admit, some change in the personnel of the House, but not a very great change, and it has been the consensus of opinion that measures which were passed last year and which failed to receive the royal assent should not occupy too much time this year. We have therefore economized time in that respect. Having made the suggestion originally for Saturday sittings, I rise now merely to say that either arrangement will suit me admirably.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In view of
what my hon. friend has said I suggest that we allow the motion to stand until to-morrow and in the meantime see if an agreement cannot be reached among all parties.
Motion stands.



DRUMHELLER MINE WORKERS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Edward Joseph Garland: I wish to direct the attention of the administration and in particular, of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Heenan)-possibly the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Forke) will be interested also-to the following telegram I have received :
E. J. Garland, M.P.,
There are about two thousand mine workers out of work at present in the Drumheller valley. This has caused great distress and we would urge upon you the necessity for parliament taking immediate action to relieve the suffering of these men and their families which fMr. Guthrii*. ]
is growing more intense each passing week in any possible way you may determine.
A. Parker, President,
II. Smith,
Secretary Local No. 59 United Mine
Workers of America.
I refer this telegram to the Minister of Labour in the hope that he may be able to find some means of assisting these men in their distressful circumstances.


Hon. PETER HEENAN (Minister of Labour):: The department has a man on the job right now investigating conditions.


Edward Joseph Garland: In Drumheller?


Peter Heenan: Yes.


Edward Joseph Garland: (Bow- River): What is the object of the investigation? Has it any relation to this distress?


Peter Heenan: When we get an application we always send a man to investigate the conditions.



CIVIL SERVICE SALARIES


[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
George Reginald Geary: At
page 1767 of Hansard the Secretary of State (Mr. Rinfret) made a statement with regard to civil sen-ice salaries. I have had a communication by telegraph from people interested in this matter outside of Ottawa, who state that the exceptions to the proposed increase practically destroy the benefit of that raise, and I would1 be very glad if the Secretary of State could tell me if he has anything in mind with [DOT]regard to the point raised1 by this message.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I am sorry, but I was speaking to
the Clerk of the House when my hon. friend began his question. Do I understand that it relates to the postal clerks?


George Reginald Geary: In the statement of my
hon. friend with regard to civil service salaries a number of exceptions were made.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: To which exception does
my hon. friend refer?


George Reginald Geary: The point is that interested persons outside Ottawa have communicated with me, stating that the exceptions practically destroy the benefits of the proposed raise and that so many people are affected by the exceptions that the increase is by no means general throughout the service.

Employment oj Disabled Veterans


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: When we take up the
amount in the estimates to cover this increase we will have a full discussion, but I may say to-day that the underlying principle of the revision is to grant an increase to every civil servant in either the inside or outside service, both temporary and permanent, with the general exception that those classes which have received some increase since 1924 would get only the difference between the increase now granted and that which they have been receiving since that date.


George Reginald Geary: Then has the minister anything in mind in regard to a change in the proposed basis of revision, or does what he stated previously stand with no possibility of a change?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: That is the proposal made to the House, but when in committee we deal with the revision of salaries I will Very cheerfully consider any suggestions which may be made.


Mr. TOLMIE:: Does that include railway
mail clerks?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: The suggestion will have to come from someone else.


Hon. R. B. BENNETT (West Calgary):: I am in the same position as the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Geary). I have received a number of telegrams and letters with respect to this matter, and my understanding was that the whole question of salaries might be discussed when the House went into committee on the supplementary estimates which would deal with this matter, and that there would be no restrictions imposed on any discussion which might then take place.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: That is exactly the case.



RAILWAY MAIL CLERKS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
George Reginald Geary: I
would like to ask the Postmaster General (Mr. Veniot) a question.


Hewitt Bostock: Order. The hon. gentleman has already spoken twice on the orders of the day.


George Reginald Geary: These are matters which have been referred to' me, Mr. Speaker; I do not ask them of my own accord. I would like to ask the Postmaster General if he will give an answer to a question which comes from London and which arises by reason of an accident which occurred the other day in which certain railway mail Clerks were injured. My correspondents desire to know if the fact that railway mail clerks are engaged in a
hazardous occupation will have any effect upon the civil sendee salary revision as it affects their class. I would also ask when the new schedule will be presented to the House.


Peter John Veniot: I will read the question in Hansard and prepare an answer to-morrow.



EMPLOYMENT OF DISABLED VETERANS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. J. F. WHITE (London):: I would like to ask the Postmaster General (Mr. Veniot) if he has anything further to communicate to the House with regard to tlhe question I raised yesterday concerning the right of amputation cases to take certain civil service examinations?


Peter John Veniot: I may say to the hon. gentleman that yesterday I asked for a conference between representatives of the Canadian Legion and several of the officials of the department. They had a very lengthy discussion yesterday afternoon and a statement of the result is now being prepared. I have here merely a synopsis of what occurred, which I would' not like to give to the House until I have the full notes prepared together with the result, in order that I may lay them before the House. If I gave these few notes now they might lead people astray.


John Franklin White: Will that statement be given out within a day or two?


Peter John Veniot: I hope to be able to give
it out between now and tomorrow.



FIRST NARROWS BRIDGE

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. J. A. CLARK (Vancouver-Burrard):: I would like to direct the attention of the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Elliott) to a telegram I have received from a public body in the city of Vancouver, asking for information as to the position of the government with regard to the First Narrows bridge. What decision has been arrived at with regard to its location, its plans and construction, and are any contracts likely to be made?


Hon. J. C. ELLIOTT (Minister of Public Works):: The matter is under consideration,
and nothing definite has been settled.


John Arthur Clark: Is an early decision likely
to be arived at?


John Campbell Elliott: Yes; I think I can say that much.

Pilotage in British Columbia


John Arthur Clark: Will the minister make a
statement before prorogation.


John Campbell Elliott: I am afraid: that may be
impossible.
UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF-MANITOBA On the Orders of the Day:


Mr. A. A. HEAPS (North Winnipeg):: I
would like to ask the Minister of Labour (Mr. Heenan) if he has received from the provincial government of Manitoba any request to grant unemployment relief on the basis on which that relief was granted last year?


Peter Heenan: Yes.


Abraham Albert Heaps: May I ask the intention of the government in that regard?


Peter Heenan: The government has not had time to consider it; the request was only received last night.



PILOTAGE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA WATERS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. L. J. LADNER (South Vancouver):: 
Hon. P. J. A. CARDIN (Minister of Marine and Fisheries):: I have no information in regard to this matter, but I will inquire and give my hon. friend an answer to-morrow.



COLD STORAGE PLANT AT HALIFAX

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. H. B. SHORT (Digby-Annapolis) :: The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) is not in his seat, but perhaps one of the other ministers can give me some information with reference to an article which appears in the Halifax papers regarding an agreement entered into between the government and some other parties with reference to the construction of a cold storage plant at Halifax. Can any of the members of the government give us any information in that regard?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hon. members seem to
forget that they have an opportunity of presenting any of these questions to the government by having them appear on the order paper. They have only to write them out and hand them to the Clerk. A question such as the one just asked may be answered satisfactorily in that way. The ministry cannot be expected to answer offhand innumerable questions with regard to messages which have just been received by hon. members of the House, and I submit that the House should sustain you, Mr. Speaker, in your endeavour to restrict unnecessary and innumerable questions being put on the orders of the day. Let them be placed on the order paper and they will be answered in the regular way.


Harry Bernard Short: But, Mr. Speaker, this is a question-


Hewitt Bostock: Orders of the day.



INSURANCE ACT, 1917, AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. A. ROBB (Minister of Finance) moved that the House go into committee on Bill No. 50, to amend the Insurance Act, 1917.
Motion agreed to and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
Sections 1 to 8 inclusive agreed to.
On section 9-Power to invest funds in stock of other Canadian insurance companies.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Does the minister think
that desirable?


Mr. ROBB:: 
Richard Bedford Bennett: It is like the investment by banks in the stocks of another bank. That is what it gets down to. It is really doubtful as to whether or not life insurance companies should own shares in another life insurance company. It has been held always to be a bad policy for banks to own shares in a competing bank. I only mention the matter because I was not able to be in the committee when the bill was being considered. I think this involves a matter of extremely doubtful policy.


Mr. CAHAN:: An explanation was given
before the committee which seemed to me fairly satisfactory. That was that it enabled Canadian companies to take an interest in the shares of a British company, for instance, and thereby secure business through that British company in which they owned shares.


Richard Bedford Bennett: This applies not only to British companies but to foreign companies.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: If it. were a British or United States company I do not think the same objection would apply. Perhaps "foreign" is too broad, but it must be a foreign company which is licensed to do business in Canada. In the committee I listened to the discussion and to the arguments which were brought forward by the representatives of the insurance companies, and it seemed to me that they were at present labouring under a disability which this legislation might help to remove. That was my impression from listening to the long discussion.


James Alexander Robb: It is pointed out that in Great Britain fire insurance companies are permitted to invest in, or carry as assets in their statements, the stock of other fire insurance companies. In the United States this practice has, as a rule, not been permitted, but in some states of the union such an investment is allowed. I think the committee considered this provision very carefully and we might well allow it to pass.


Mr. RYCKMAN:: On this point the committee, I think, was unanimous. The situation is that a British or a foreign company has, with respect to Canadian business, an advantage over the position that a Canadian company has in the reverse case, and the committee was inclined, therefore, to put a Canadian company on the same basis as a British or foreign company. I may say that the legislation was asked for especially by two. of the oldest Canadian companies-one, the British American, operating, I think, for ninety-three years, and the other, the Western, operating for something like seventy-eight. It was pointed out to the committee that if either the British or the Western companies desired to exercise the privileges that British and foreign companies have it would be difficult for them to do so. They were required to wind up any company which they might acquire by control and to do business in roundabout ways through an underwriters' agency. The committee, in a word, thought that all companies licensed to do business in Canada should be on the same basis.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I listened with a very
great deal of interest to what the minister said and I do not at all agree with him because this permits a Canadian company to do, not what the hon. member from St. Lawrence-St. George and my hon. friend from Toronto have said, but to hold shares in any other Canadian company. Now that means just what has been condemned so strongly heretofore in this House-one insurance company acquiring shares in another company. The result is that you have all the evils that have been denounced from time to time with respect to control and directorate. If it were limited to British or foreign companies I could quite understand the point made by the hon. gentleman, and I am familiar with the cases referred to; but when you empower Canadian companies to acquire shares in other Canadian companies you open the door to a condition which should not prevail with respect to insurance even though it be limited to fire insurance.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: When the 'bill was in
committee before, attention was drawn particularly to the words underlined:
Or of any British or foreign company licensed under this act to transact such business in Canada.
I did not hear any discussion with regard to the authority of a Canadian company to invest in the fully paid shares of any other Canadian company.
Insurance Act


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is not 16 per cent of its capital; it is 15 per cent of its assets, which is a different matter.


James Alexander Robb: I will have the matter looked into in the other chamber.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The clause will be
carried on division because I am wholly opposed to it.
Section agreed to on division.
Sections 10 and 11 agreed to.
On section 12-Minimum amount of assets.


Richard Bedford Bennett: This touches the question of investment of insurance companies.


James Alexander Robb: It meets in a measure the
objection raised by my hon. friend in regard to clause 9.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 13 agreed to.
On the preamble.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Before the bill is reported, a question was put on the order paper yesterday by the hon. member for Toronto Northeast (Mr. Young) with respect to a decision of the Supreme Court of Ontario holding ultra vire3 of this parliament certain sections of the Insurance Act. This decision more or less fallows the view expressed by the Privy Council in thie reciprocal insurance case and allied cases. There is another question which I conceive to be of great importance. Has this parliament the right legally to authorize a life insurance company to appropriate to its shareholders any part of the profits derived from the investment of premiums on policies belonging to policyholders? Is this not a matter, 'being one of property and civil rights, purely within provincial jurisdiction? Is not the section which has been in force for such a long time, by which earnings from the investment of premiums on policies shall in part be made applicable to dividends to shareholders, wholly beyond the jurisdiction of this parliament? This is a matter which requires the closest consideration in view of the exception that, by legislation now before the House, is being made to the general rule.


James Alexander Robb: I will direct the attention of
the Department of Justice to the observations of my hon. friend. Of course the best lawyer in Canada does not expect that I am going to enter into a controversy with him on such purely legal questions.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Such flattery as that does not answer the question. I would disclaim that at once.
[Mr. Cahan.J


[Stage Direction]
Preamble agreed to.
Bill reported.
Mr. ROBB moved the third reading of the bill.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Carried on division.
Motion agreed to on division and bill read the third time and passed.



POST OFFICE ACT AMENDMENT


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from April 1 consideration in committee of Bill No. 259, to amend the Post Office Act

Hon. Mr. Veniot. -Mr. Johnston in the chair.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Has the Postmaster General received protests against this?


Peter John Veniot: Yes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Would the minister be good enough to indicate the intention of the administration with respect to them?


Peter John Veniot: When this bill was in committee before, I gave an explanation of it. Since then I understand that many telegrams have been received from what is known as the smaller daily newspaper associations in several parts of Canada. There are about twenty-five interested in sending out these telegrams. They are not opposing a reduction of the rate, but they are asking that the reduction be deferred until they have an opportune of laying before the government their claim for the establishment of what is known as a zone system, that is basing the rates on newspapers on the distances of their circulation. They further state:
We favour a zone system whereby a great saving would be effected to the Post Office Department. It is fairest all round.
In 1920 when this act was being amended increasing the rate to one and one-half cents per pound in regard to certain classes of printed matter, the same delegation appeared and asked that the zone system be considered. It was very fully considered in 1920, and the decision reached was that such a system would not be practical in Canada owing to our sparse population. Since receiving this telegram and knowing that a number had been sent to other hon. members, I went fully into the matter with officials of my department and we still stand by the result of the decision reached in 1920.
These gentlemen who are protesting state that they are to meet in convention on the 4th and 5th of May. If when they meet at that time they will present any stronger

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reasons for the establishment of a zone system than they presented in 1920, the department will take their representations into consideration, and if their claim is a just one and if we can put it into force without affecting too much the revenues of the department, we will prepare something in the form of an amendment to this legislation and bring it before parliament next session. I see no reason why the bill as it is now before the House should not pass because it will not affect adversely the parties who are objecting. No matter what investigation may be made at the present time along the line of establishing a zone system, it would be absolutely impracticable in Canada. They have no such zone system generally throughout the United States. They have a zone system in the congested districts, but there are no sections of Canada so greatly congested in population that the zone system would work advantageously here.
I may say further that I have received a letter approving of this action that the Postmaster General is about to take. It is addressed to the hon. Minister of Finance from the Canadian National Newspapers and Periodicals Association, affiliated with the Canadian Press Association, and says:
On behalf of the members of the Agricultural Press Association of Canada, the Magazine Publishers' Association of Canada, and the Business Newspapers' Association of Canada, all of which are affiliated with this association, I wish to express our appreciation of this proposed legislation, which presages a welcome measure of financial relief and leads us to hope that when the whole case of the periodical publishers has been dealt with by the government. we will have reached a parity of production costs with our foreign competitors.
Since they refer to their foreign competitors, let me say for the information of the House that I am of the opinion that something should be done to-shall I say-protect our publishers in Canada-


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is a good word.


Peter John Veniot: -to protect our publishers from the influx of American newspapers and American periodicals Which are to-day flooding the whole country. Since this bill was introduced, I have taken up this very matter with the various officials in the different branches concerned with newspaper postage and circulation, and during the recess a thorough investigation will :be made with a view to devising some scheme by which we can give greater protection to our newspapers and periodicals in competition with American publications.


Mr. MARCIL:: Is it not a fact that the
bulk of American publications do not come into Canada through the mails, but by express, over which the Post Office Department has no control at all?


Peter John Veniot: I am not in a position to
say yes or no in answer to that question, because I have only begun an investigation into this matter, but should they come into the country in that way, of course, it might be difficult for us to regulate them. I do know, however, that a very, very large quantity comes through the mails.


Charles Marcil: I have mentioned this
matter before, but I think the opportunity is good again to call the attention of the Minister of Finance to the fact that these Sunday and Saturday papers published in the United States and coming in here are largely advertising mediums, and not newspapers a.t all in the real sense of the word. For instance, a newspaper with fifty pages will probably carry about forty pages of nothing but advertising matter. Why should not the government of Canada receive a revenue from that advertising? If you do not want to penalize the literature that comes into this country, why not put a tax on the advertising carried by these newspapers, because for the most part they carry nothing else but advertising matter, which is circulated throughout this country to the detriment of Canadian manufacturers and Canadian industries, and helps to foster American ideas throughout the country in the households and wherever these newspapers go. If we cannot prevent the introduction of this literature, we ought at least to tax this advertising scheme, because three-fourths, if not seven-eighths of the whole thing is advertising pure and simple. This matter has been brought up several times before, and I hope the Minister of Finance in conjunction with the Postmaster General will see that a revenue is brought into the exchequer by placing a tax on the advertising columns of these papers.
A movement is on foot in the United States at the present time to reduce the size of these papers, because it is well known that the advertisers do not get the benefit from this advertising that they think they should get, for the ordinary man when he picks up a newspaper of forty or fifty or sixty pages has not the courage or the time to scan through the whole business, and he will simply look at the sporting or literary section or any other section in which he is interested, and throw the rest away. It is a waste of paper and a waste of time, and so far as we
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here are concerned it is a waste of revenue. I think in this sixtieth year of confederation the Minister of Finance and the Postmaster General would be well advised to get a revenue at least from this influx of American publications, if we can get nothing else. It would be another step in fostering a Canadian spirit in Canada, because we would not then be flooded by the ideas and ideals which come in here from another country, some of them very acceptable to this country, but a great part of them, I am sorry to say, should not be accepted by us.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I do not wish to take the time of the committee but I would suggest that the Minister of Customs at the present time has it entirely within his discretion, by giving a proper definition to certain items of the tariff, to place a tax on all magazines which bring advertising matter into this country. I think if he will look carefully into that and take the legal advice of his officers, he will find that the matter is entirely in his discretion at the present time.


Mr. JENKINS:: In common with other
members of parliament I have received several telegrams in connection with this bill, one from Mr. J. R. Burnett, of the Charlottetown Guardian, on behalf of about thirty newspapers.


Peter John Veniot: Twenty-five.


Robert Harold Jenkins: I thought it was more; twenty-five, or whatever the number may be. This seems to be a rather important matter when we find such a number of newspapers throughout the country interested in it. I will take the liberty of reading just a short extract from this telegram:
The present bill is an attempt by some big daily to steal a march on the others. Nothing will be lost by delaying till the dailies have an opportunity of expressing their opinion, and we would urge you and all members to oppose its passage this session.
I can see no reason why there should be any hurry about this particular bill, and I was glad to hear the minister say that if the bill does pass, he will hear the representations of these men -who will be gathered together in Toronto on that particular date mentioned. I merely take up time at this moment to present the case of the smaller dailies who appear to think they are going to be oppressed by this legislation.


Peter John Veniot: Proportionately most of
those small dailies mentioned in the telegram will benefit more than the larger newspapers because the circulation of some of them is so small and they now come within the forty-mile zone provision


Richard Bedford Bennett: And they will not get any benefit from a change because they go free in the forty-mile zone.


Peter John Veniot: Yes, so they really have no reason to complain, and they ought to know it. They are not paying to-day, some of them, and they will only pay provided their subscription runs to 2,500, and circulates beyond the forty-mile zone. They have that forty-mile zone now, but they want us to establish zones all over the Dominion. It cannot be done, according to the information I have from our experts, and therefore they should not ask to delay this bill.


Richard Bedford Bennett: But the dailies are not within the forty-mile zone provision.
Mr.-VENIOT: Some of them are and some of them are not. I do not want to mention names, but I have a case right here with which I am quite familiar. This daily has only 750 subscribers, and the paper does not go outside of a 20-mile zone. They are given everything free, and yet they are complaining.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I was going to suggest to the minister that perhaps he might do this. He might provide that this section shall come into force on proclamation so that he could have an opportunity-because he would have power under the Postal Act to regulate the matter; I do not know whether he could do that reasonably or not-but it would give him the opportunity of hearing the representations by those interested on the 1st of May, and the act could be brought into force by the beginning of July in any event.


Peter John Veniot: Supposing we did that.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Then they get nothing.
But if you did agree, under the regulations of the department, I think you would have power to make those provisions afterwards.


Peter John Veniot: No, I looked into that very carefully.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Then that answers it.
The only other alternative would be to let the matter go over for a whole year.
There is another point that I think the right hon. Prime Minister might consider in connection with this matter. The formation of national sentiment is influenced by factors which are sometimes conscious and sometimes unconscious to the people themselves. When my friend from Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil) made his observations with respect to advertisements. I thought it might afford me an opportunity to say something that has been in my mind for a long time. Take a magazine such as that mentioned by my friend from

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Toronto West Centre (Mr. Hocken) the other evening, it costs at least nine cents and is sold for five cents on the street. It is perfectly clear that the advertising it contains is so very lucrative that its publishers can afford to sell their production at a half of what the white paper costs. Let us look at it. It advertises goods manufactured in the United States at much lower retail prices than we can even produce them. That is, with a population of 110,000,000 their mass production enables them to advertise various goods that the Canadian housewife uses every day at a retail price less than they can be manufactured in Canada, much less sold.
This brings about a certain amount of distrust of our whole economic system and of the conduct of national affairs. It also does much to form a public opinion antagonistic to the very country in which we live. The effect of reading those advertisements of motor cars, washing machines, canned goods and various other commodities-I give only two or three illustrations, others will occur to hon. gentlemen as I proceed-the effect of reading those advertisements-and everybody reads them-especially on the minds of young people, is to make them ask: What is wrong with Canada that I should! have to pay so much more for these things than the price at which they are sold in the United States? The result is that public opinion is being formed unconsciously and the whole national sentiment of the (country is being more or less wrongly influenced, and this in turn injuriously affects the creation of that strong feeling of Canadianism that we are all so anxious to encourage.
I do urge that it is within the power of the Minister of Customs, as my friend from St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) says, to deal with the matter, and I am confident that the co-operation of the Minister of Customs and the Postmaster General, with the Minister of Finance strongly aiding them, would bring about such results as in my judgment would have a beneficial effect not only on the revenue-I am not thinking of that so much at the moment-but, more important still, on the body politic by preventing the circulation of such magazines containing advertisements which are detrimental to Canadian sentiment, for they reflect upon the ability of Canadians with our limited population and vast area to produce goods on terms to compete successfully with those produced in the United States having the advantage of mass production and an enormous consuming market. We have talked about this for so many years that I suggest the time has come for action, and this
action will, I think, commend itself to every hon. gentleman, especially after having listened to the very able statement made the other day by my hon. friend from Toronto West Centre.


Mr. HOCKEN:: It is exceedingly gratifying, Mr. Chairman to find that at last we have one minister who appreciates the serious handicaps under which this great industry is suffering in this country.


Peter John Veniot: I am a newspaper man,
although I am not in the business now.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The owner of that paper with 750 circulation?


Peter John Veniot: No, I got sold on that.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: What the minister proposes, although not all that is necessary in view of the competition from the other side, will be some slight relief for the publishers of this country; and since he has found it good policy to make this proposal I submit there should be no objection to it from any part of the House. Our tariff at the present time is 15 cents a pound on advertising matter. We allow magazines to be imported containing 240 pages, 150 pages being advertising matter on which no duty whatever is paid. Those magazines are not in the real sense of the word literary productions. If they depended upon their literary contents for profit they could not live at all. They are primarily advertising sheets. Those 150 pages of advertising are just 150 pages of printed matter that is admitted under the tariff of 15 cents a pound.
Now, it has been contended by the officials of the Customs department that they would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to separate the advertising from the reading matter and impose the tax. Of course, that is an entirely superficial view because in the United States they do separate the two; the postal rates there are higher for advertising than for literary pages. So what is done there ought to be done here. But let us get down to the two items of the tariff that are applicable. Item 184 provides for a duty of 25 per cent on just such publications as are coming in here. Another item imposes a duitv on any literature of this kind that is unbound. Now, I should like the House to pay attention to this. By an arbitrary ruling of the Customs department made many years ago these magazines are said to be unbound. During the debate on the budget I produced one such magazine of sixteen different sections. How it can be argued that that is unbound is beyond my comprehension. Such
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an argument could not be maintained before any tribunal. If the items now in the tariff schedule were fairly interpreted according to their language, and properly applied, there would be a tariff of 25 per cent on ail these foreign publications. I submit that that is not enough, but at least it would be something worth while and would have this effect: it would discourage certain publishers who have undertaken extensive subscription campaigns in Canada. The publishers of one particular magazine have set themselves an objective of 500,000 copies a week in this country, and have engaged some of our best canvassers to assist them. Since they started the campaign they have increased their circulation 50 per cent. Now, even if the tariff were only 25 per cent, it would discourage those enterprises, and it would foe a warning to their promoters that the time may come-as I hope it will-when they will have to bear a heavier impost.
I have argued with (the Finance minister now for four or five years to get a little relief, and I am delighted this morning to discover that at least one minister, and a minister in a position to do something, is seized of the urgent necessity and the undoubted justice of giving this much consideration to the publishing interests of the Dominion. I have in mind the publisher of a certain daily newspaper which does not go into the mail to the extent of more than a few thousand, but all of whose circulation, which is a large one, is distributed by carrier in the city of publication. I find that particular publisher very active in trying to prevent this bill going through. The telegram read'by my hon. friend from Prince Edward Island cites a number of other papers which are practically in the same position. They are not paying anything, and they do not want anyone else to get relief, simply because they are not- personally interested. That is a very narrow and selfish attitude for them to take. On broad., national grounds this bill ought to go through, and there should be no objection from any quarter.


Peter John Veniot: As regards the suggestion that there is an attempt on the part of some big dailies to steal a march, let me say that there is no big daily newspaper in Canada that has ever approached me in this matter.
I have been a newspaper man myself for more than thirty years, although I am out of the business now, and I know from experience the burden that is being carried by the newspaper fraternity of Canada to-day. That burden I am attempting to some extent to relieve. When I laid the matter before the

government they accepted the policy which I am now submitting to the committee, and I want to assure hon. gentlemen that so far as I am concerned absolutely no influence' has been brought to bear on the part of any big dailies. What I am doing now I am doing on my own initiative because, from an experience of some thirty-five years in the newspaper business, I feel that this measure of relief is due at the present time.


Mr. MacLEAN (Prince):: What does the minister think of the zone system asked for in the telegram?


Peter John Veniot: It is impracticable in
Canada, and I might as well make the statement now for the benefit of our friends so that when they meet in convention they may advance the strongest arguments possible to convince the department that they are right and we are wrong.


Hewitt Bostock: This is not a party question, and I may therefore venture to remind the committee that at one time I was Postmaster-General and consequently am very much interested in the whole subject. I will not refer to the number of newspapers and reviews published in the United States which are daily and weekly invading Canada with their mass of advertising matter that comes in practically free to the disadvantage of Canadian publications. That is not the phase of the situation to which I desire to direct the attention of hon. members.
I want to refer the Postmaster-General (Mr. Veniot)-and I am in earnest in this, for I speak the mind of a large number of good citizens of Canada-ito the very strong exception which is being taken to the large number of pornographic papers, magazines and other periodicals sold in our large cities, such as Montreal and Toronto. I do not know so much about Toronto where I visit two or three times a year. Certainly, however, Montreal and even Ottawa are being disgraced to-day by the sale of these pornographic papers, which are being read by our young men and women and even children. These newspapers are on sale at every street corner in our principal cities, and w'hile I know that the Postmaster-General is not primarily responsible for their obnoxious presence I do think that he and the Minister of Customs (Mr. Euler) might get together and devise some drastic means of stemming the flood into Canada of this mass of deleterious reading matter. Every police magistrate in the -city of Montreal, in the light of investigations that have been held, has de-

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dared that convictions, especially of juvenile delinquents, can invariably be traced to the reading in the first instance of newspapers and other publications carrying pornographic news and pictures. Even in France, which as everybody knows is as free as any country can be, there is at the present time a decided movement against the purveying of literature of this sort. The other day I was interested to read that a member of the clergy in the city of Paris had passed from one street to another there, destroying as he went along all the pornographic advertising matter which came to his notice. He was brought to the court and I admired his speech in defence of what he had done. "Could I", he asked, "allow poisonous matter to find its way into the hands of children, young boys and girls, and refrain from destroying it in the interests of their morals and for the good of society?" The judge in pronouncing sentence upon the accused practically admitted that he was right, but unfortunately the purist could not take the law into his hands and so he was obliged to convict him. He fined the priest one franc. With the franc at its present value, the fine was purely nominal.
I hope the Postmaster General and the Minister of Customs will' deal with this matter in a drastic way. We must protect our youth and prevent this literature from invading our cities and finding its way into our homes. Some years ago, when Postmaster General, I negotiated with the authorities at Washington a modest treaty which to a certain degree kept this literature out of Canada, and concurrently with that treaty I made arrangements with the British Postmaster General to the same elnd. A preference was given to papers and reviews published in Great Britain; this was known as the British intellectual preference. I followed very closely the effect of that legislation, not only in Washington and London but in Canada as well, and I was agreeably surprised after a little while to observe that in the large centres newspapers and reviews of high moral character were being sold to the people. Just before the war, however, this arrangement with Great Britain was discontinued for financial reasons. I would ask the Postmaster General to study the question to see whether it may not be possible to restore that arrangement, which I can assure him was quite beneficial.
A large number of immigrants from the British Isles are settling in western Canada. They are far away from neighbours, and of course they like to read the news from home. Shall we allow cheap dime novels and pornographic papers, published in some of the western United States cities like Chicago, to cross the boundary and become the principal reading matter of these new settlers? I think these settlers would appreciate news from home, which would help keep sacred the ideals to which they were born and bred. I am only offering these remarks to the House, Mr. Chairman, in order to facilitate the task of the Postmaster General, who I hope will become a great reformer at least in the matter of Canadian literature and the ideals of the Canadian press. It is a sad spectacle to see, even here in this good city of Ottawa which is to become a great capital, tabloid papers being sold at every corner.


Mr. IRVINE:: There seems to be general agreement with respect to this bill, and I think we are all aware of the difficulties with which our publishers have to contend in order to compete with the publishers of the United States. We are also aware of the tremendous effect of literature on the public mind, and I think we all agree that there should be developed a real Canadian spirit, sentiment and outlook, and that in the creation of these national sentiments literature plays a part equal to that of any other influence. Personally I am glad that some recognition is being given to the difficulties of our publishers. There have been several suggestions made as to how they might be assisted; one is that a tariff might be placed upon American publications, while the other suggestion is that a tariff reduction should be made on the machinery, accessories and so forth used in the publishing business. I have no solution of my own; I do not know which of those two ways would be the better, but the present proposal does not raise the question of tariffs. This bill will bring about a slight reduction in postal rates, which I feel sure will be appreciated by the publishing business generally in Canada. I do not quite appreciate the point raised with respect to smaller publications; while they may not receive any direct benefit from this bill, I fail to see where they will receive any injury and I think the bill should'pass.


Mr. ADSHEAD:: I am not opposed to the
bill, but there seems to be a disposition to inject into the discussion the question of the tariff and the question of customs duties. The whole matter of the tariff on magazines is at present before the Tariff Advisory Board, which I presume to be the proper place for the consideration of such a question. I have no objection to the board considering it, but I would object to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Post Office Act

Robb) raising the tariff on magazines until such time as the case had been heard by the tariff board, and the report and evidence submitted to the House.
With regard to salacious matter in our magazines, I have no doubt that it is very objectionable, but the only way to deal with that matter is by police regulations. If these regulations are not sufficiently strict, make them so, and in that way eliminate these magazines from our street corners. That is a much better way than putting a tariff on these publications, or excluding them. If they have a criminally immoral tendency let the police deal with them. There is a section in the Criminal Code by means of which magazines of this kind may be dealt with, and if the law does not cover this matter amend the law in that respect.
With regard to the influence of American magazines upon the families of our country, I rather think we are hedging our Canadian boys and girls about with so much paternalism that they will not be allowed to choose for themselves; I do not see why our young people should not read a good many of these magazines without having their ideals affected. I have raised several boys and I have never tried to exclude American magazines from their reading matter; I think perhaps they have even gone a little too far in their ideas of Canadian independence. If we attempt to restrict their reading matter in this way, I think we will be going too far, because I believe our Canadian boys and girfs come of a stock which shows a great deal of initiative, and they should ibe allowed to exercise their own discretion.


Hugh Guthrie: I rise to call the attention of the committee to an incident which has just occurred and which I think should be noted. The presiding officer of this House has seen fit to address a few remarks to this committee and I think we should take note of the innovation. I do not know that- I draw attention to the fact by way of protest at all, because the remarks made by His Honour were very useful to the discussion and very elevating in their tendency, but the question is whether the Speaker of this House has the right to discuss any matters before the House. If His Honour has that right in this case, I do not' see why he should not have the right to discuss any matter which comes before parliament. I noticed in his remarks that he expressed the desire to facilitate the efforts of the Postmaster General (Mr. Veniot). No doubt' that is a very laudable desire, but there are members of this House who do not think this measure is

proper, and I doubt if it is within the right of the Speaker to express an opinion upon any matter before the House. His Honour the Speaker on more than one occasion has laid down the doctrine pronounced by a celebrated Speaker in England in these words:
May it please Your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, in this place but as the House is pleased t >
direct me, whose servant I am here-
I think we should note the innovation, and I do not say this by way of protest against anything His Honour said, because no one has a higher respect for the Speaker of this House than I have. While a Deputy Speaker is allowed to take part in debates in the House on non^controversial matters, I have never in my experience heard a Speaker of the House take part in any proceeding except when the estimates of the House of Commons were before the committee. I think we should take note of this proceeding, because in the future it may become a precedent and I think the Speaker in his own interest should1 be prevented from taking part in the debates of this House. The rule says he shall not take part in the debates of the House, but whether or not that applies to committee I am not going to say at the moment.


Charles Marcil: Having been at one time
Speaker of this House I am somewhat familiar with the practice as to the restrictions upon the occupant of the chair. We are all at one on the point involved that the Speaker should never take part in any debate in the House except for the purpose of explaining his own estimates. That is a well known rule of parliament. But I know that the House is disposed this morning to overlook the course pursued by His Honour in view of the motives which animated him. Mr. Speaker spoke for the youth of the country on high moral grounds, and to further the development of that sound Canadian sentiment which we are all striving to see realized in this golden jubilee year of the Dominion. I am sure that the leader of the opposition, as he himself has said, has no intention of blaming the Speaker, and I quite agree with him that it would be out of place for His Honour to take part in our discussions having reference to matters of ordinary, everyday occurrence. In the present case, however, His Honour spoke from his experience as Postmaster General, and with the laudable purpose of promoting the circulation in Canada of a larger number of British periodicals. Because, after all, we are part and parcel of the British Empire. We have greater interest in promoting the circulation

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of British periodicals in Canada than we have in promoting the circulation of periodicals from the adjoining repuhlic. I am responsible, to a certain extent, for having initiated the discussion upon this particular phase of thie matter. But toy purpose in doing so was not to prevent the entrance into Canada of American publications as such but to try and stem the flooding of this country with American advertising, which is purely a business matter.	As the hon. member for
St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. C'ahan) has pointed out, the Minister of Customs has power to exact from the publishers duties on the advertising matter ini American newspapers that come into Canada. In this connection may I say that I was a commissioner for the city of Montreal for a number of years, and in that city a medical man or professional man of any kind cannot hang out his shingle, nor can a business man exhibit a trading sign, without obtaining permission from the municipality and paying a fee therefor. Now why should this Dominion be flooded, not through the mails but through the railway service, with huge piles of American periodicals which are nothing less than vehicles for advertising-advertising which does not appear in our own newspapers, which is not of a character congenial to us, and which is not favourable to the maintenance of Canadian ideals. It was on that ground that I spoke at an earlier stage of the proceedings, and I am sure that if His Honour went a step further than he should have done, he was influenced by the motive that we should further, on, moral ground, and to the greatest extent in our power, the creation of a sound, virile Canadian sentiment, particularly among the youth of this country. We have only to look around us to' see what is happening in this country. Those hon. members who are interested in the subject may read a speech, delivered in another place this session, by the chairman of the divorce committee, in which he alludes to certain ominous signs of the times. Over 1,200 divorces, for example, granted in one year. In this matter, I am afraid, we are imitating the example of the United States, where one marriage out of seven was dissolved last year. We must be on our guard as to the effect upon our young people of certain kinds of moving pictures and illustrated books, some of which are denounced even in the United States and by churches and religious organizations of all kinds. Over there these organizations have been quite free in condemnation of papers and periodicals that should not be allowed to circulate in a decent, re-32649-129
spectable country. Some of these publications are a disgrace, they should not be allowed to enter a respectable home, and we should be on our guard lest they contaminate the morals of our boys and girls, the future citizens of our country. I feel that it is the bounden duty of the government of Canada to act in this matter, and that in any action they may take along this line they will be backed up by public opinion. We had a sad experience in Montreal in the opening days of the present year. I allude to what happened at the Laurier Palace theatre when, owing to a violation of the law, seventy-eight young children became victims of exploitation through the medium of a moving picture show. It was an event which attracted the attention of the whole world, and even His Majesty the King sent his condolences to the city of Montreal. It is true this is largely a provincial matter. But the films which are introduced into these moving pictures come through the customs and for that reason it is possible for the Minister of Customs to take some remedial action. I am sure there is no greater work we can do for this country than to purify its atmosphere, maintain a high standard of morals, and protect our young people, so that we may be able to build up in Canada a great, a prosperous and a moral nation.


Hewitt Bostock: I am in agreement with
the contention that the Speaker should take no part in the ordinary debates of the House. T3ut this morning we are in committee, and the committee is discussing an important matter, and it was on purely moral grounds that 1 raised my voice against the sale of pornographic literature or newspapers on the streets of our cities. But what is really the law on the subject? The hon. gentleman has quoted1 from Beauchesne. May I be permitted to refer him to Beauchesne under rule 33, paragraph 159. In May's Parliamentary Practice, page 333, I find the following:
Although the Speaker is restrained by usage while he is in the chair in the exercise of his independent judgment, he is entitled in a committee of the whole House to speak and vote like any other member.
I would not vote even in committee, and I take no part whatever in debate. I never speak except on an occasion like the present when I was able to offer a contribution, from the experience I had had, to the discussion of a purely moral question. May I resume the quotation:
Of late years, however, he has generally abstained from the exercise of this right. Among the earliest examples are those of Mr. Speaker Glanville. on the 4th May 1640, upon the granting of twelve subsidies to the king; and of Mr. REVISED EDITION
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Speaker Lenthall, on the 22nd January. 1641, against the "brotherly gift" to the Scottish nation. Sir Fletcher Norton spoke strongly on the influence of the crown, on the 6th April, 1780; and Mr. Speaker Grenville, on the regency question, on the 16th January, 1789. On the 17th December, 1790, Mr. Speaker argued at length the question of the abatement of an impeachment by a dissolution of parliament and cited a long list of precedents. On the 4th December, 1797, Mr. Speaker Addington addressed the committee on the assessed taxes from the gallery. The same Speaker also addressed a committee on the union with Ireland in 1799.
Then follows a long list of precedents, but coming nearer to our own time there are the following cases:
On the 4th August, 1843, Mr. Speaker Shaw Lefevre spoke in committee of supply on a point of order, and on the 21st April, 1856, in the same committee, the management and
patronage of the British Museum-*

Not a party question-
1-by the principal trustees having been called in question, he spoke in defence of himself and his colleagues with great applause. On the 9th June, 1870, Mr. Speaker Denison-
One of the great Speakers in the British parliament-
-spoke and voted in committee on the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, in support of a clause exempting horses kept for husbandry from license duty, if used in drawing materials for the repair of roads.
I repeat that I quite agree with the principle laid down by the 'hon. gentleman and by all authorities that the Speaker from the chair must not take part in the debate; that he must not vote unless there is a tie; but in committee he has a right to speak and to vote. I never speak unless on an exceptional occasion like this morning, on a nonparty matter, on a purely moral issue, and I would not even vote. I quote these precedents to show the leader of the opposition that this morning, the 7th day of April, 1927, no revolution took place in the Canadian House.


Edward Joseph Garland: I would
like the minister in charge of the bill to inform the committee as to the total weight of newspapers and periodicals moved in any given year.


Peter John Veniot: The total weight of newspapers and periodicals going through the mails in a year is 99,000,000 pounds.


Edward Joseph Garland: What is
the total revenue?


Peter John Veniot: 


Edward Joseph Garland: What is
the total cost of the service?
(Mr. Speaker.]


Peter John Veniot: $8,500,000, or a deficit of


Edward Joseph Garland: One is compelled now to approach this bill from an altogether new angle. We have been discussing it on rather high, abstract, academic grounds, if you like. Let us come down now to practical matters. According to the minister's statement, the total weight moved is 90,000,000 pounds, the total revenue, $1,500,000, the total cost of the service, $8,500,000; or a net loss of $7,000,000. That is bad enough anc it has taken place under existing rates. The minister now proposes a reduction so that the rates may be fixed at one cent instead of one and one-half cents a pound. The obvious result of that would be an additional loss of about $500,000, and for whose benefit? Do the minister and other members of the House suggest that purchasers of these newspapers are going to have this reduction passed on to them? Not a cent of it will go to them; you cannot reduce the regular price of a newspaper by a fraction of a cent. The result is that great publishing houses like that of Lord Atholstan and newspapers handling large quantities daily are going to be the gainers, and they are going to gain at the expense of taxpayers of this country.


Peter John Veniot: They will not.


Edward Joseph Garland: I hope the
minister will elucidate that denial of his in a minute. My allegation is that the rate is being reduced to a point that will entail a further loss of between $400,000 and $500,000. That loss will come out of the pockets of the taxpayers of this country and the benefits will go to big publishers like Lord Atholstan, owner of the Montreal Star. In the United States where the service is somewhat similar to ours the news rates paid by publishers are fixed at one and one-half cents per pound regardless of the distance; the advertising rates vary from two to nine cents per pound, depending on distance. I submit that this country is not in such an extraordinarily flourishing financial position that we can afford to throw away a revenue of this kind in order to benefit great newspapers like the Montreal Star that seem to be doing well enough now.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: And the Grain Growers' Guide.


Edward Joseph Garland: I have no hesitation in agreeing to have that included as a beneficiary under the bill.


Peter John Veniot: And the immense circulation in Canada of all farmers' periodicals?

Federal District Commission


Edward Joseph Garland: Certainly. But when the loss is already $7,000,000 per annum it is hard to justify a measure 'that will have the effect of increasing the loss by half a million.


Peter John Veniot: I do not wish to take up much of the time of the committee because it is approaching one o'clock and I would like to facilitate the passage of this bill, but I would not like to see it pass under any misapprehension. While there is a deficit of the amount that I have stated, it has not been brought about by the carrying of the daily newspapers. It has been brought about principally by the free newspaper postage that has been given to many of the newspaper fraternity in the Dominion of Canada. While this reduction in rate will entail a reduction in revenue in the vicinity of $400,000, I hope, and I feel satisfied that I have every ground for hoping, that the increased volume of business which we are losing now from the large dailies on account of the extra amount we are charging, the heavy cost of the rate we are charging for shorter distances, because they have no forty mile zone at all, will make up for this deficit, and that at the end of the coming fiscal year, the deficit will be no greater than it is now. At the same time we shall be granting to the newspaper fraternity justice which they have a right to obtain to-day from the government of Canada. I have gone into this very carefully with officials of my department, and I have no hesitation in stating to the committee that this reduction will not entail the deficit of which my hon. friend speaks, because the volume of business will be such that we shall meet that increase in the deficit and the deficit will be no greater than it is to-day.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: You will have a full mail car instead of a half full one.


Peter John Veniot: Yes.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: This matter came before this House a number of years ago.


Peter John Veniot: In 1920.


James Dew Chaplin: The rates in force then showed a loss to the public revenues of a very considerable amount of money and the rates were increased by the House. This reduction in my judgment is intended for the benefit of a very few people and the general consuming public will receive no benefit from it whatever. The people who are suffering from these low rates are the small newspaper publishers throughout the country. They are the people who have been hammered to death 32649-129J
by rates because this government carries mail matter practically free. Does the committee know that under these rates mail matter can be carried from, say Montreal or Toronto tc Regina more cheaply than the paper out ol which a local newspaper is printed. If you ship paper from Ottawa or Montreal to Regina or Saskatoon, the freight on the paper itself is more than the express charges upon these printed newspapers. Is that fair to the local people who are trying to run newspapers? What has been the result throughout this country during the last five or six years? The country newspaper has been going out of business simply because the government is building up the larger newspapers elsewhere. Is that good business for the country? I submit it is not. These rates are neither just nor fair and I object strongly to them.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time anc passed.

[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved the second reading of Bill No. 280, respecting the Federal District Commission.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.
The committee resumed at three o'clock.
On section 1-Short title.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Chairman, yesterday my hon. friend from Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) asked how much money had been paid out by the government to the Ottawa Improvement Commission. I find the total from 1900 to the present year is $2,665,000; in other words, an average of $100,000 a year over a period of twenty-six years.


Robert Gardiner: I understand there is
some idea of enlarging the scope of territory to include the district outside Ottawa. If that is contemplated can the Prime Minister give us any detailed information?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The commission has in mind the immediate suburbs- what might be described as territory more or less visible from the capital itself.


Robert Gardiner: Does that involve going across the river?
Federal District Commission


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, possibly improvements on the other side of the river, the city of Hull.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 2-Definitions-"Commission," "Minister."
Richard Bedford Bennett: The word "the" in paragraph (a) should have a capital "T".


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 3-Federal district commission- Number of commissioners, etc.
Hugh Guthrie: I note, Mr. Chairman, in regard to this clause that it is proposed to appoint a commission of ten members, of whom nine shall be appointed by the governor in council, one of them to be a resident of the city of Hull and the other to be appointed by the city of Ottawa. My only comment is that in the appointment of such a commission care will have to be exercised by the government that the commission is in no way political. There must be a disregard of party politics in appointing a commission of this kind. I realize, of course, that the government will in all probability appoint a majority of its political friends; I would expect that, and would not object to it; but at the same time there should be on a board of ten a fair representation of all political parties if the commission is to work harmoniously and produce the results which we anticipate.


Alexander McKay Edwards: Mr. Chairman, I should like a little further information as to the scope of the territory to be covered by the commission, having regard~to the object in view of beautifying Ottawa. I may be lacking in appreciation, but I do not just see the necessity of spending money in the city of Hull for the beautification of Ottawa. Is any information available as to how far the driveway will go along the river?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As far as I
have been able to gather from the chairman of the commission, the intention is to complete certain driveways that start on this side of the river, cross the bridge to the other side, and then connect with the roadways that run by the side of the Gatineau river and out towards Aylmer to the different clubhouses which, as my hon. friend knows, are situated on the other side. So far as I understand, this is not intended to be for the
[Mr. Gardiner.l
beautification of the city of Hull; it is rather to make in the immediate environs of the capital a system of driveways and parks which will be interlinked.


Alexander McKay Edwards: I do not
wish to inject anything of a controversial character, but I may say I have heard that certain persons are interested in the other side of the river through having summer homes there. Is it the idea to make beautiful driveways up to the homes of these persons, some of whom sit in this House and have summer residences on the other side of the river? If so. I think it is extending the scheme a little too far to spend the money of the country in that direction. Of course, I quite understand that' it is very pleasant to have fine driveways in and around Ottawa, and a good deal of money has already been spent for that purpose. But there does not seem to be anything of a very definite character as to how many miles these driveways are to extend from Ottawa across the river. It is always very attractive naturally on the other side, and magnificent driveways could be made there, but for my part I must repeat what I said yesterday, and I feel like protesting for the reason that I then advanced. I appreciate that we have certain responsibilities in connection with this city, but I do not feel inclined to be silent when I find money is to be expended miles away from Ottawa in connection with these improvements, while, as I said yesterday, there are public works in other parts of the country that are receiving no consideration whatever.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Chairman, I am not aware of any member of the House who has a summer residence on the other side of the Tiver except myself. I have a summer home at Kingsmere, twelve miles from here. I say to my hon. friend that if the commission were to attempt to spend any money out of this appropriation for improving any part of a driveway approaching my residence, I would strongly oppose the attempt. The commission itself made the suggestion of a federal district including Hull. I had no thought of the other side of the river being included when I was approached by the commission to allow its work to be given this larger scope. I hardly thought an insinuation such as the hon. member has made would be voiced, and if he has in mind any other member than myself perhaps he would name him and so give him an opportunity of replying. The plan of the commission, as developed over a number of years, has had in contemplation the building of

Federal District Commission
a bridge over the Ottawa river, not in the direction in which Kingsmere lies but in an opposite direction, for the purpose of allowing motors going out to the Golf Club, the Country Club, the Chaudiere Club and other places along the banks of the Ottawa riveT, to travel through a district which would form a part of the park system. There is also a roadway up the Gatineau river where thousands of summer tourists go. That, except as far as Chelsea, is not in the direction of my residence but in another direction altogether. Let me assure the committee that I would certainly not have thought of introducing this bill or even of countenancing it had I dreamed that any hon. member could suppose that I was personally interested in the matter one way or the other, apart from seeing the capital and its immediate environs improved as far as possible.


John Wesley Edwards: I am glad
to hear that statement from the Prime Minister. He will appreciate, no one more readily than he, that where there is a difference of opinion, as is likely to exist regarding this or any other expenditure, a wrong impression might easily be conveyed. I welcome his statement so far as he is concerned in relation to the approach of the roads to his summer residence. I think he has taken the proper stand; it is one which I certainly appreciate and which I believe the country will approve. I say I am glad that he has taken that position because, whatever we may think of the advisability of carrying on this work on the other side of the river, I think it is wise, as the Prime Minister will agree with me, that no false impression should be created that the work is being done with any ulterior motive or that any particular person shall benefit thereby and, most of all, the Prime Minister of the country.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hear, hear.


John Wesley Edwards: Above everyone else, in connection with an expenditure of this kind, he should be free from any possible imputation that the money was being used for the express benefit of the property which belongs to him. I am glad therefore to have this assurance from him.
I realize that I am not very much of a diplomat; I am not built along diplomatic lines. My method of diplomacy is to go straight at a thing and not around a corner. That is the only kind of diplomacy I understand. I make my own statements direct, and I want equally direct statements from others. By following that course we can arrive at the
truth of matters and act accordingly. Now for my own part I do not like spending money across the river; it is going far afield. However, I may be wrong in that and the judgment of the House will prevail.


Mr. COOTE:: It is a little out of place
for the Ottawa Improvement Commission to go across the river to build driveways or create parks. I understand the park is not contemplated in this bill. It seems to me that where the money should be spent is close to the parliament buildings. There are thousands of Canadians coming to Ottawa who will never see the driveways, for during six months of the year the driveways cannot be used. The money should be spent in beautifying Ottawa and especially in the vicinity of these buildings. The buildings along Wellington street are certainly not an agreeable sight. First of all, Wellington street should be improved, and I hope the Minister of Finance, or whoever will have charge of the matter, will see to it that most of the money will be spent in improvements of this description and not in the construction of driveways outside the capital. We might also have a little bit spent in cleaning up the streets at this time of year. Some of the streets of Ottawa are a disgrace to any capital. Sand and dirt are allowed to accumulate on the top of snowbanks, and after the snow in the country has been gone for a month you can find great piles of ice and mud in the city. This condition exists about this time of year along .the streets within a block of the parliament buildings and it is a disgrace to the capital. The improvement commission should do something to beautify that .part of the city close to the parliament buildings.


Mr. BROWN:: I was not in the House
yesterday when the matter was discussed but to me it seems fitting that the parliament of Canada should set aside an amount yearly for beautifying the district around the capital. As regards cleaning the streets of Ottawa, surely the city council should attend to that. It should form no part of a great comprehensive scheme of this kind. With reference to the driveways, I am heartily in sympathy with the proposal. The federal district of Ottawa will not end at the Ottawa river. Ottawa is approached from the other side of the river as well as from this side, and if we are going into the scheme we should have long vision and enter upon it with a comprehensive plan. As regards the suggestion of the hon. member for Frontena.c-Addin.gton, it would be most unfortunate if, because the Prime Minister happened to be interested in
Federal District Commission

that particular section, the Ottawa Improvement Commision should be deterred from making a driveway even past Kingsmere should they determine this to be the best course. It would be most unfortunate, I say, for us to allow any such petty prejudice to interfere with the work of the commission. I hope that the suggestion of the leader of the opposition regarding the commission will be accepted, and that when the work is undertaken it will be done in such a manner as will produce something that will arouse the pride of all the people of Canada.


John Wesley Edwards: I have been in this House long enough to see hon. gentlemen change their views with a change of geographical position in the chamber. The hon. gentleman from Lisgar is one of them. He was severe in his criticisms when he occupied a place in the southeast corner of the House, but now he is on the other side his views have been wonderfully modified. He is now willing to build roads, from Halifax to Vancouver almost, if it meets with the approval of his present leader, the Prime Minister. The hon. gentleman speaks very learnedly, with his head in the clouds, about long vision. Well, it seems to me that we shall require something more than that before we get through with this proposition: we shall require some of the long green to meet incidental expenses. The hon. member is perfectly justified in taking the position he does if he wants to beautify Ottawa all the way from this point to the city of Montreal-


John Livingstone Brown: Oh no.


John Wesley Edwards: -and westerly some sixty or seventy miles, or to any extent the government may consider within the environs of Ottawa. It all depends upon what the Prime Minister and the government say. If the Prime Minister says that the radius of the environs shall be ten or twelve miles to take in Kingsmere, very well; if the Prime Minister shifts his residence fifty-miles away and says that the environs extend that distance, the hon. member says, "AH right; make your roads long enough to take in whatever place you want to improve. We must beautify Ottawa, and Ottawa is to extend one- hundred miles if necessary." I commend the hon. gentleman on his very marked change of attitude since he eat on this side of the House.


John Livingstone Brown: No change whatever.


John Wesley Edwards: He is becoming very tractable indeed.


John Livingstone Brown: No change whatever.
[Mr. brown.J


John Wesley Edwards: There is no need for any party whip where the hon. member for Lisgar is; there is no need for even a handle to the whip. All they need do. is hold it up and the hon. member for Lisgar will respond; every time they whistle they will not need a whip at all, yet he poses as a Liberal Progressive. Where does the Progressive come in? Once it was Progressive; now it is Liberal Progressive, but the Progressive is gradually dwindling away and he may as well drop it altogether.


John Livingstone Brown: I will soon have the same
honour as the hon. member for Label'le (Mr Bourassa).


John Wesley Edwards: You can put yourself in that class if you want to, but I hope to God I never will.


John Livingstone Brown: The hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) and the United Grain Growers are the only subjects on which the hon. member can make a speech.


John Wesley Edwards: The hon. gentleman has changed so often that I would not be surprised if he put himself in the same class with the hon. member for Labelle; changes come very easily to him.
I say, Mr. Chairman, that we have a certain amount of responsibility in connection with beautifying Ottawa, but in this as in other cases which I mentioned yesterday there is a disposition to spend money wholesale which in my judgment should be guarded against. What are the obligations of Ottawa in connection with this matter? Ottawa has no obligations at all. Do they receive any benefit through the fact that the seat of government is here? Look at the beautiful drives in Ottawa south; a few years ago, before the government began to spend money in beautifying the city, these drives were a series of frog ponds. What did the city get out of those beautiful drives? There are a number of splendid residences which never would have been there at all if it had not been for this expenditure. I think Ottawa is having it pretty easy; I think every government we have had has treated Ottawa pretty generously. I do not expect anyone from Ottawa to agree with that statement, because it would not be human nature; they will take all they can get and look for more; you can depend upon that every time. I do think, however, that the time has arrived when we should adopt the suggestion of the hon. member for Toronto West Centre (Mr. Hocken) and create a federal district to take

Federal District Commission
in the city of Ottawa, as is the case at Washington. If we are going to keep up the whole city, let us make it a federal district, and the sooner the better.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: The hon. member for
Macleod (Mr. Coote) referred to the streets of Ottawa. The condition of the streets depends entirely upon the civic administration, and I agree with him that in the spring the streets of this city are in a deplorable condition. During the rest of the year and especially in the summer Ottawa is one of the cleanest cities on the North American continent, but they do not seem to have a proper appreciation of the removal of snow. If we are going to undertake to keep the streets of Ottawa clean in the spring there is only one way to do it; declare this a federal district taking in Hull, if you will, and appoint a commission to govern the city. I cannot help repeating that that seems to me the logical thing to do now, instead of waiting for sixteen years, over which period it is proposed to stretch this expenditure. That might and should, in my judgment, disfranchise the citizens of Ottawa and prevent them from voting in the federal elections, and to my mind that would be one .of the best things that could happen any government. The way the Amalgamated Civil Servants hold the gun to the head of every federal government is well known to every member of this House; if a member does not know that, he has not been here very long. Let us do what they have done in the United States, create this a federal district and appoint a commission to govern the city. The citizens should pay a reasonable municipal tax, and this parliament would then undertake all responsibility for the beautification and improvement of the city. I submit to my hon. friend from Macleod (Mr. Coote) that he should get up and advocate such a commission, and the immediate creation of a federal district.


George Gibson Coote: It is too late in the session.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Will my hon. friend do
it next session?


Alexander McKay Edwards: I am sorry I
cannot agree rvith my namesake, the hon. member for Frontenac (Mr. Edwards). We must always remember that in beautifying this city we are beautifying the capital of Canada. We are proud of Ottawa; no city in Canada is more beautifully located, surrounded as this city is on all sides by scenic beauty. This bill provides that the drives for a short distance out of the city may be improved. But some hon. gentlemen think
it is unnecessary to spend money anywhere except in Ottawa. We know that hundreds and thousands of people from other countries visit Canada every year, and since Ottawa is the capital city, naturally it is the place everyone wants to visit. We want these visitors to leave Ottawa with a favourable impression because if they are pleased with this city they will be pleased with the country as well.
I do not think this bill needs any defence; this improvement commission was conceived by Sir Wilfrid Laurier many years ago, and after years of residence in Ottawa I can now say as a representative of the city that the commission has accomplished wonders. Today we are asked to support a bill increasing the scope of its activities and creating a new federal commission with an increased number of commissioners and an increased grant. I think everyone on both sides of the House should agree that it is of the utmost importance that this money should be spent in beautifying not only Ottawa but the country surrounding it as well.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Chairman, there are just two suggestions I would like to offer the Prime Minister with respect to this matter, which has been discussed so frequently that I have no intention of taking up much of the time of the House. I desire to point out the deep interest of all citizens of Canada in beautifying the capital, but on the other hand it seems to me there should be a fixed radius within which the operations of the commission would be carried on, say within ten miles or fifteen miles of the city. I think it is .an invitation to bring pressure to bear upon the commission from time to time, if the radius is not defined, and it would be greatly to the advantage of the commission if they had a fixed limit within which their operations should be carried on. It seems to me that that would relieve them from unnecessary pressure from many quarters.
My next suggestion is merely that which was made by the leader of the opposition and approved by the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown). I think the Prime Minister might well assure the House that in the selection of this commission partisan politics would be forgotten and an effort would be made as indeed has been the case in the past to secure the services of public spirited, high minded gentlemen, of whom there are so many in this community, desirous of rendering public service to the community and to the Dominion by serving upon that com-
Federal District Commission

mission. They should not be altogether men of one political faith, although probably from necessity, having regard to the frailty of human nature, the chairman would be a supporter of the administration of the day. I think an assurance of that character would make it easier for the country to accept these proposals as being in the interests of the country rather than intended to be a political move in any way.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I be
permitted to reply to my hon. friend's last point first. He mentioned that the chairman would be of the politics of the party in power. I may say that when the previous Liberal administration came into office we found that the position of chairman of the commission was held by a very strong Conservative. I took the view, and it was shared by my colleagues, that as he was a public spirited, high-minded gentleman who was serving the city well, we would make no change in the chairmanship, and during the whole time that my administration remained in office, Mr. Fraser, a well known Conservative, remained the chairman of the commission. It was not until Mr. Fraser resigned that a new appointment was made. I think that in the meantime hon. gentlemen opposite had been in office. When we came into office again the position became vacant, through Mr. Fraser's resignation, and we were very fortunate in being able to secure Mr. Thomas Ahearn as chairman of the commission, a gentleman who I am sure everyone in this House and in this country recognizes as second to none as an able business executive and a very public spirited citizen, a gentleman who will give to the capital great service in that position, a service it should be remembered that he is rendering gratuitously. On the present commission there are a number of Conservatives. The intention is to continue the present personnel in that regard, to make no change, and I can assure the House that when additional appointments are made the greatest care will be taken to select gentlemen who will be recognized as well qualified for the position and meriting recognition because of the place which they hold in the community as public spirited citizens.
As to fixing a limit of radius, I would have no hesitancy myself in doing that. But I understand from the chairman, Mr. Ahearn, that the commission has plans which relate to certain of the suburbs of Ottawa. Whether they come within the ten-mile radius or not I cannot say. I would hesitate, therefore, in this bill to fix a limit. I would point out, however, that whatever is done by the com-	,
mission is each year subject to the review ol parliament and parliament will at any time have opportunity of saying whether a particular extension is made in a direction thai would not wholly meet with its approval.
May I make further reference to a point which has been brought into this discussion with respect to my own little place in the country. It lies in the Laurentian hills over in the province of Quebec. To reach it one is obliged to travel by way of Chelsea. Now no suggestions that I have seen made with reference to improvements in Hull relate to the Chelsea direction at all. They relate to the road to Aylmer, which is an entirely different road from the one taken to go out to my country residence. So far as I am concerned, I hope that I have enough appreciation of the position of prime minister to be more than scrupulous in seeing that none of this money is apportioned in a way, that, either directly or indirectly, could be said to relate to any place in the community in which at the present time I happen to reside.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think the right hon. gentleman misunderstood me in reference to one question. I did not intend to suggest that an appointment immediately made to the office of chairman would necessarily be of a particular political faith, bnt that if necessary appointments were made they would be expected obviously to reflect, to some extent, the mind of the government that made the appointments. It was not suggested that the present appointee was selected for reasons of that character.


Charles Marcil: 
Mr. GARLAND (Carleton):: An impression seems to have been created that the government is paying the city of Ottawa a large
amount of money and that the city is not giving anything in return. We as citizens of Ottawa, are pleased to have this money spent in beautifying the capital, and we are also pleased that Mr. Ahearn has been appointed chairman of t'he improvement commission. There has been a demand that the area in which the commission should carry out improvements should be defined. I understand that we have in the city of Ottawa a town planning commission having supervision over ar. area of ten miles from the parliament buildings in all directions. I do not know whether the town planning commission is working in conjunction with the improvement commission or* not, but I am quite sure that the members of that body would be glad to associate themselves with the improvement commission in working out plans for the benefit of the city and the surrounding country.
There are some figures that I would like to bring to the attention of the committee. If the municipality as a private taxpayer, owned the amount of property that the government possesses and was assessed therefor, that assessment would represent a sum of $34,088,425. And if it owned the driveways, parks, and other properties belonging to the improvement commission, the assessment would represent a sum of $2,101,750. The amount which would be paid in taxes on these properties, if they were owned by a private taxpayer, would be no less a sum than $1,140,000 a year, exclusive of water rates. Bearing these figures in mind, I think the city is really getting the worst of the bargain. Nevertheless, the people of Ottawa are pleased that their city should be the seat of government, and that the numerous federal buildings and employees are located here. The amount of $150,000 which the improvement commission receives now is practically all taken up in maintenance and such like, so that with this increased grant there is only an additional $100,000 that can be expended. I claim that this is not enough; that the $250,,000 should at least be doubled, if not trebled, if we desire to see far enough ahead. If we held the opinion that the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) holds, this amount would be $1,000,000 instead of $250,000. The city of Ottawa receives from the government in connection with fire protection and other services, $100,000; for water the government pays to the city thirteen cents per thousand gallons up to 200,000,000 gallons, and after that it pays ten cents per thousand gallons.
When any property is taken over by the government and used for government pur-

Federal District Commission
poses, immediately the city loses the taxes on that property. For instance, nearly half a mile of property on Wellington street to the extreme west of us is a loss in taxes to the city and not of much benefit at the present time to the government. The former buildings on Sussex street gave to the city a revenue of a little over $2,000 in taxes, but when this property was taken over by the government, the city lost that amount of taxes.
I feel as a citizen of Ottawa that we have the cleanest city in the Dominion of Canada. Reflections have been made in this chamber as to this city being dirty in the spring. I have been in some other cities, Toronto, for instance, and I have found the streets much dirtier than those of Ottawa. We who live in Ottawa know that at certain times it is very hard to keep the streets clean. When you get snow one day and frost at night, you cannot clean the streets as they are able to do in Toronto which has not such a severe winter as we have in Ottawa. We have a splendid situation and everything necessary to make the capital what it should be. Tourists are visiting this city all the time. Any hon. member who is here in the recess and who comes up to these buildings will find forty or fifty cars all with United States licenses on them. It has been said that they do not travel over the driveways, but as a matter of fact they do. There is no doubt that this amount is not enough and I only wish the Prime Minister would make it at least twice as much.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 4 to 6, inclusive, agreed to.
On section 7-Powers.
John Wesley Edwards: I think the Prime Minister and members of the committee will appreciate from the wording of this clause why I was endeavouring to have the area somewhat more strictly defined. The clause reads:
Within such area or district.
The same thing occurs in several places throughout the bill, referring to the area or district. This in my judgment ought to be definite but it is absolutely indefinite. The term area or district" means nothing. IVe do not know whether it is a five mile or ten mile or twenty-five mile area.


Hugh Guthrie: In the former bill it read, "In Ottawa or in the vicinity of Ottawa" which fMr. W. F, Garland.]
was quite as indefinite, but under this bill it is only in such area or district as may from time to time be designated by the governor in council.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 8 agreed to.
On section 9.-Borrowing powers of commission.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: The chairman of the commission has suggested that it might prove advantageous to them in the matter of debentures they may issue, if the rate of interest were not fixed definitely at 4 per cent, but made a rate not to exceed what the governor in council might approve. Inasmuch as the Minister of Finance would be the one to express approval, I am inclined to think the suggestion is a wise one, and if the committee approves, I would move to amend this section by changing in the third line the words "not exceeding 4 per cent per annum" to road "to be approved by the governor in council." There might be occasions where a lesser rate could be obtained and there might be occasions where it would be advantageous to give a little higher rate in order to get certain work done within a given time.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
Sections 10 to 12, inclusive, agreed to.
On section 13-Acquisition of property.
John Wesley Edwards: Can the
Prime Minister under this clause give us any information as to the buildings in the block in which the post office is situated? Have the commission determined to tear down that block and make a park of that section? There was a rumour to that effect; I have nothing more definite than a rumour. I would like to know whether that has been decided upon by the commission or whether it is in contemplation.	.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am glad my hon. friend has asked this question because yesterday I heard him say that he understood the post office building was to be torn down. That is a mistake. There is no thought of tearing down the post office building.


John Wesley Edwards: I understood the whole block was to be torn down.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No. The
post office building will remain where it is, but the property between the post office and

Pension Act-Mr. Clark
Elgin street and between Sparks and Wellington streets will be torn down. Parliament has appropriated a sum for the purpose and that space will become an open park just in front of the east block of the parliament buildings.


John Wesley Edwards: Is it known
what it will cost to expropriate that property or
what is the estimated cost?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That has been gone into but I cannot at the moment give my hon. friend the figures.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 14 and 15 agreed to.
un section 16-Annual report to parliament.
Mr. HARRIS:: When this report comes before parliament I hope it will show a spirit of cooperation between the city officials and this commission. It is all important that the city officials of Ottawa should work harmoniously with the commission because the commission is to beautify the city of Ottawa, its first duty, as I see it, is to start right at home and clean up the situation we have closely around the buildings themselves. On Wellington street we have buildings owned by the government, and the conditions on the street and the approach .to these buildings, especially in the winter months, is something of which one can not be proud. As the hon. member for Macleod has said, the condition of the streets of Ottawa, particularly during the winter months, is really deplorable. I would suggest to the hon. member for Carle-ton, if he wants to see how a city can be kept clean, particularly in the winter months, to come down to the city of Toronto and look it over. I am quite sure he W'as not serious in his remarks with reference to Toronto, because hon. gentlemen in this chamber will bear me out when I say that Toronto is one of the finest and cleanest cities in the Dominion of Canada.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 17 to 20 inclusive agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. H. KING (Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment) moved the second reading of Bill No. 234, to amend the Pension Act.
John Arthur Clark: It is with considerable hesitation that I rise at this stage of the session, Mr. Speaker, to make extended remarks upon any subject, and
particularly to make a criticism of the administration of a department. This subject is one which has been before parliament every year since the war. For the past two years there have been serious problems confronting the returned men which have not been dealt with, despite the fact that representations have been made by the soldier organizations from one end of the country to the other that serious injustices are being suffered mainly because, in their view, the Pension Act requires amendment. So far as I am concerned.
I may say that I share their view that the Pension Act requires amendment, and I say further, and I emphasize this, I believe that many pensions are being denied to applicants because of an improper administration of the Pension Act. Regarding amendments, the Canadian Legion met during the present year at Winnipeg, presided over by General Sir Percy Lake, and they made certain recommendations, which were in turn placed before the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. There has been a very considerable period of time within which to consider those recommendations, but there has been no action taken, and in view of those recommendations I must say that I was astonished to read in Hansard an answer to this effect by the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment in reply to a question asked by the member for Westmorland:
Present pension legislation provides pensions for all disabilities "attributable to or incurred during military service" and for "disabilities resulting from injury or disease or the aggravation thereof incurred during military service.* No ex-soldier who is so disabled is denied pension.
If that is a correct statement of the facts, Mr. Speaker, I would ask why did we in 1924, for instance, introduce and pass amendments to the Pension Act-amendments which have not vet* become law? Did not the government and parliament consider in that year that those amendments were necessary to do justice to the situation that existed then, and which still exists? Otherwise, why did parliament unanimously pass those amendments? If the minister has not had time to give proper consideration to the recommendations of the Canadian Legion, why is it not possible for him to reintroduce at this session of parliament the amendments to the Pension Act which the government has considered, and which this parliament actually passed unanimously, but which have not yet become law?
I propose now to leave the question of legislation to other speakers, and to devote myself to a statement in regard to the ad-
Pension Act-Mr. Clark

ministration of this act by the present Board of Pension Commissioners. This I may say is a very distasteful task. I think all members of the House will agree with me when I say that I have been most moderate in any observations I have passed, either in committee or in the House of Commons, in regard to the Board of Pension Commissioners, or in fact in regard to any civil servants, because I have a great sympathy for their position. It has taken me considerably over one year to make up my mind that the only course which I can honestly follow is to bring to the attention of parliament the present situation which exists in this department. I might add that the task is doubly distasteful to me for another reason, and that is because members of that commission served in the war, the chairman indeed serving in the same division of the Canadian corps with me, and it is therefore doubly distasteful to me to approach this subject.
In order that I may illustrate the situation that exists, I find it necessary to deal with a specific case. I have always hesitated to do that in the past, because we are concerned here with principles rather than the particulars of an isolated case. At the same time I do not think I can do better or bring more conclusive proof as to the state of the administration than by dealing with a specific case with which I have been personally familiar since the fall of 1915, and the facts of which will illustrate my point. This is the case of private Stanley Aylett, No. 129497, who enlisted in the 72nd battalion in Vancouver on September 20, 1915. He was killed in action on September 4, 1916. Immediately after enlistment he with his wife and his mother came before me for the purpose of having determined who was to receive separation allowance. After due investigation by myself, as commanding officer of that battalion, and by Captain J. B. Pattullo, a very eminent king's counsel, we came to the conclusion that the only course to pursue was to report to the Department of National Defence-which we did on October 12, 1915-to the effect that private Aylett and his wife were separated by a separation agreement, under which private Aylett covenanted to pay his wife $500-


Mr. KING (Kootenay):: Mr. Speaker, I
rise to a point of order. The amendment before the House deals specifically with the Federal Appeal Board. It was understood that when this amendment came before the House there would be full opportunity for discussion, but I think my hon. friend is following a most unusual course, which is rather amazing to me, in attacking a body 	,	-
that has been looked upon by this House as being removed from the political field- a board that would adjudicate these cases, and on their findings the moneys voted by parliament would be paid. If we are to have a review of the various cases that have failed to secure compensation from the pension commissioners, this parliament will have to take over the board's functions. It seems to me that the line which my hon. friend is taking will be detrimental to the whole administration of the Pension Act.


Hugh Guthrie: Mr. Speaker, that is certainly not a point of order; it is a speech, and is very improper under the rules of this House.


Hewitt Bostock: Has the hon. minister
risen to a point of order?


John Warwick King: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I think it is not proper that the commissioners should be discussed and their action on a particular case reviewed at this time.


Mr. JAMES ARTHURS (Parry Sound):: Mr. Speaker, at various times the minister has distinctly stated in this House that matters relating to pensions might be brought up when Bill No. 234 was under discussion. There is no question that you cannot dissociate the Board of Pension Commissioners from the appeal board. If the Board of Pension Commissioners are doing their work satisfactorily to the soldiers and to the pub-lice, then why under heaven do we establish an appeal board at all?


Mr. RALSTON:: Why have an appellate
court of law?


Hugh Guthrie: This is a point of order


James Arthurs: This is a point of order, and the question before the House, strictly speaking, is a change in the federal appeal board. I -cannot see any reason, Mr. Speaker, why the acts of the pension board cannot be referred to so far as the appeal board is concerned, for necessarily what the Federal Appeal Board does is dependent entirely upon the course taken by the pension board.


Hewitt Bostock: Does any other hon
member desire to speak on the point of order?


Mr. GEORGE BLACK (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, as I understand, the hon. member for Burrard is urging on the House the necessity for further pension legislation, and is citing this case to illustrate his point.


John Arthur Clark: Mr. Speaker, this is a bill to amend the Pension Act. Surely on the second reading the principle of pensions gen-

Pension Act-Mr. Clark
erally can be discussed-whether or not the Pension Act is effective, whether or not under it pensions are being granted which by law were intended to be granted.


Hewitt Bostock: Does any other hon.
member desire to speak on the point of order?
The bill before the House is to amend the Pension Act by the appointment of a federal appeal board. I have listened to the hon. member for Burrard and so far have not observed that he was speaking beside the issue. I have only to remind him of the point that has already been raised in the House in regard to references to the Board of Railway Commissioners. The pension commissioners are not only an administrative body, they are a judicial body, as he will see in the act creating the pension board. They have the powers of a court of record, that is, they have judicial powers, and therefore the hon. gentleman must be very careful not to criticize their judgments, for he is then attacking them as judges, and of course he knows the rule that applies in such a case. If what he intends to bi'ing before the House concerns only the administrative powers of the board, he may proceed.


John Arthur Clark: Well, Mr. Speaker, as I said at the outset, I desire to state in moderate language the facts of a particular case in order to illustrate a principle that is before the House.


Hewitt Bostock: Supplementing what I
have already said, I find that by section 9 of the act incorporating the Board of Pension Commissioners they are vested with the powers and authority of commissioners appointed under part I of the Inquiries Act. chapter 104 of the revised statutes of Canada. Section 5 of that act declares that such commissioners shall have the same power to enforce the attendance of witnesses and to compel them to give evidence as is vested in any court of record in civil cases.


John Arthur Clark: Mr. Speaker, at this point I might observe that in an effort to bring about an improvement in the administration of this department I proposed to the minister that he should attend a meeting of the full Board of Pension Commissioners and permit me to present the facts of this case in his hearing, so that he might judge whether or not there is necessity for amendments to the act or for a change in the administration. Unfortunately the minister has not seen fit to grant that request.


John Warwick King: I am sure my
hon. friend is not really serious. It would be a most improper procedure for the minister to take.
Mr. 'CLARK:	Does the minister say that
it is an improper thing for anyone to go and listen to the deliberations of a court? Have you, Mr. Speaker, ever heard of any court where it was improper for a spectator to listen to the presentation of a case, much less the presiding officer of a department of government? What is the use of a minister if he cannot do that? Why not do away witih the office?
This man enlisted in September 1915, and the question came up then as to whether his wife or his mother was entitled to the separation allowance. After due investigation the Department of Defence ruled that the mother was entitled to the allowance and not the wife, inasmuch as there had been a separation under a legal agreement. That agreement called for the payment of $509 at the rate of $30 a month from January, 1915. Some difficulty arose as to the amount and it was determined by the Department of Defence that, though the mother was entitled to separation allowance as the soldier's dependent, the wife should 'be given assigned pay of $20 per month; and at the time of the death of the man the wife had received all but $40 of the total amount due under the separation agreement. The agreement, by law, ceased at the time of his death. There was no longer any legal liability to t'he wife, because the agreement ended either by payment in full or by death. That is clearly the law. At the time of the man's death the question arose as to the person to whom the pension should be paid. The man left a will bequeathing everything to his mother, and this will was recognized by the Department of Defence. His medals, the cross of sacrifice, his personal effects were all delivered to the mother. The wife appealed to the department but was refused consideration except on the ground of assigned pay to satisfy the debt. The pension board however awarded the pension to the wife, declining to give it to the mother, though certainly by the amendment of 1920 they had the powier to pay the pension to the mother and to withhold it from the wife. The mother made representations to the effect that dhe was entitled to the pension inasmuch as the wife had not been living with her husband, having 'been separated from him by legal agreement which was binding and could be enforced in the courts. She made a claim to the pension. Within ten months of the death of the man the
Pension Act-Mr. Clark

widow remarried, and thereupon the pension ceased automatically, so far as she was concerned. So that from that time on the pension could be paid only to the mother. The pension board met in January, 1920, and awarded the full pension to the mother, and it was paid until 1924 when, so far as I can see from the file, in the absence of any representations the board cancelled it. Now she is receiving $15 a month which the. board have decided she is entitled to by reason of the fact that, as they have admitted, she was dependent for her support upon her son. Since that time fresh representations have been made to the board to have the pension paid in full to the mother. This has been refused on the ground that there had been a reconciliation between the wife and her deceased
another part of the city with her mothei while the man was residing with his mother. We have also sworn evidence which I will not take the trouble to read. I do not wish to detain the House at any length, but we have approximately ten sworn affidavits on this file. I will read extracts from some of them:
I, Charles R. Goodwin, of 133 Hastings street *west, city of Vancouver, province of British Columbia, manager of the Goodwin Shoe Company, make oath and say:
That the late Stanley Aylett lived with his mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Aylett, at 4612 John street, next door to my home, for some time previous to his going overseas in 1916. The said Stanley Aylett had no wife living with him at the said 4612 John street.
And so on. Here is another one from a fellow employee:
husband. Regarding that point we have on this file from a solicitor evidence which is purely hearsay. [DOT] There is the following declaration on file:
I was consulted by Mrs. Harriet Aylett, the wife of the late Stanley Aylett with reference to separation allowance from her husband, a private in the said battalion in or about the month of December 1915 and had occasion to meet both herself and her said husband and go into matters pertaining to their married life.
That they produced to me the separation agreement of January 13, 1915, and both of them advised me that subsequent to the said separation they had been living together again and that the payments had not been kept up thereunder nor was it their intention to adhere to the said agreement.
That is practically the only evidence on file against the application of the mother. As opposed to that we have the conclusive proof that the payments were made and that there was no reconciliation. There is on record a contradiction of that by another solicitor in Vancouver who makes the statement, which he underlines in red ink, that it-
-is absolutely incorrect in that it states Aylett returned to his wife and the two lived happily until the time when he enlisted.
That is the only evidence on file that the separation agreement became null and void by reason of reconciliation and cohabitation. But, as I say, there is also on file evidence which proves conclusively that there was no such reconciliation. We have letters from the man to his mother written less than two months before he died, stating that there was only $40 left to be paid to the wife and that thereafter the assigned pay would be paid to the mother. We have on file, in addition to that evidence showing that according to the Vancouver city directory the wife was living in

I, Henry James Holton, of the city of Vancouver, province of British Columbia, employee of the Vancouver Club, make oath and say:
That I was well acquainted with the late Stanley Aylett as I worked with him and was a personal friend of his.
To my personal knowledge the said Stanley Aylett lived with his mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Aylett, at 4612 John street in the municipality of South Vancouver, province of British Columbia, from January 1915, until September 1915. After that time he lived with his mother at 1004 Nicola street, Vancouver, British Columbia.
The said Stanley Aylett worked with me at the Vancouver Club and -went home to his mother's house every night after work. To my knowledge he never lived with his wife after his separation in January 1915.
In addition to those there are numerous affidavits on the same point, and the reason I stress it is that the Board of Pension Commissioners state that the only point in question is whether or not there was subsequent cohabitation between this soldier and his wife. I point out that there are on file here about ten affidavits to the effect that there never was cohabitation after the agreement; that there is the evidence of the Vancouver city directory, and that in addition an effort was made by the commanding officer and another officer of his battalion to effect a reconciliation, without avail. The man himself at all times denied that he had ever cohabited with her after the separation agreement, and in addition there is the evidence that the payments were made under that agreement and that there was complete satisfaction.
I made representations first in this matter in 1924, and I think the first letter was written by me in September of that year. From that time until the present I have been active in placing before the pension commissioners additional evidence in relation to this claim,

Pension Act-Mr. Clark
and I would like to quote some of these letters. On October 3, 1925, I wrote a letter in which I stated:
Apparently, it is the intention of the Board of Pension Commissioners to flatly refuse my request to analyze the evidence which I have placed before them. My desire is that this evidence be fully analyzed so that I will have an opportunity of supplementing the evidence which is not full and conclusive in the case. As the matter now stands I am completely ignorant of the ground upon which the board has arrived at its decision. I shall be obliged if you will let me have a reply to this letter as soon as you have had an opportunity of laying the matter before a meeting of the full board.
That letter was written to the secretary, from whom I received a reply dated October 20, 1925, as follows:
In reply I am instructed to repeat that in the opinion of the board Mrs. Aylett (widow) was entitled to pension. In consequence Mrs. Aylett (widowed mother) was not at any time, in accordance with the provisions of the statute, entitled to pension in a greater amount than fifteen dollars a month.
Then on January 11, 1926, I wrote the secretary of the pension board as follows:
I would like to examine this file at your earliest convenience.
No answer was received to that letter, and on January 20, 1926, I wrote again as follows:
I wrote you some time ago requesting an appointment to examine various files in your department, but have had no acknowledgement. As some of these cases are urgent I would appreciate it if you would give this matter your early attention.
There is a memo written on this letter as follows:
At interview to-day informed General Clark that while the board was glad to offer any information that was on file, not of a confidential nature, it could not accede to his request to examine the file. I further informed General Clark that in this matter the board was supported in its views by the Department of Justice.
Then about the middle of May I filed additional affidavits corroborating those already on file to the effect that there had been no cohabitation after the separation agreement was entered into, and in a letter under date of May 13, 1926, to the secretary of the board, I said:
As previously stated, I am anxious to present this whole matter to the commissioners at a full board meeting, but before doing so I would like an opportunity to examine the evidence contained in the file in your possession, so as to prepare myself.
No answer was received to that letter, and on May 25, I wrote again as follows:
With further reference to my request of the 13th, may I now have a definite reply thereto?
On May 31, this reply was written:
In reply to your communications of the 13th and 25th instant I am instructed to inform you that the board will be glad to hear you regarding the case of the mother marginally noted on Monday, June 7, at 11.15 a.m.
While it is glad to afford you any information in its possession which is not of a confidential nature, the board regrets that it cannot accede to your request to examine all the evidence on file. I may add that the board has the support of the Department of Justice in its policy regarding the confidential nature of information on files.
Well, Mr. Speaker, that left me in the predicament of appearing before the board with no evidence whatever in my possession, and I repeated my request verbally. When I found that it was impossible for me to secure the file for examination I had an interview with the then minister, now the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Elliott), who secured this file for me. I had the file in my room on the morning I was to appear before the board; it is somewhat voluminous, as you see. and I was not there quite at 11.15 o'clock, arriving shortly afterwards. I found two of the commissioners present; the chairman, although in the city, was not there. I asked the two commissioners how they expected me to present the merits of this case without access to the files; I asked them further whether the soldiers' adviser, who is provided for in the Pension Act, was entitled to examine the file before presenting a case on behalf of an applicant, to which they answered yes. I then asked whether a solicitor for an applicant might examine the file before presenting his case, to which they also answered yes. I explained that I was acting as a representative of the soldiers' adviser at his request; they knew that, because the soldiers' adviser had sent some of the material which appears on this file and which I had secured and handed to him. Furthermore it would be quite obvious to them that as a solicitor I would be acting more or less voluntarily in that capacity on behalf of the applicant. In addition to that I was interested, as a member of parliament, in seeing that full justice was done to any applicant, and that the administration of this department was on an efficient basis. Therefore I think that in my case there was every reason why I should have had the file in order properly to present the merits of the matter.


James Dew Chaplin: Did you not ask them if you were entitled to see the file?


John Arthur Clark: They said I was. I had had files from them in many instances in the past. I have no doubt that every member of par-
Pension Act-Mr. Clark

liament who has taken up cases has examined files without opposition. Well, when I returned from that interview I wrote this letter, dated June 7th, 1026:
Colonel John Thompson.
My Dear Colonel Thompson:
This morning I appeared before your colleagues and presented my views on the above case. They undertook to reopen the case. I regret your inability to be present, and hope that when the new precis is ready for presentation to the commissioners I may have an opportunity of perusing the same, and expressing my views thereon to the full board.
I feel satisfied that the correct and full facts in this case have never been before the commissioners, and that, if the ease is properly understood by the commissioners, there *wall be no question but that the previous decision will be reversed and a pension awarded to the widowed mother.
May I ask you to give this matter your personal attention so that the case can be finally considered at some convenient time during the present week as the session is coming to a close and I am anxious to secure a final decision at the earliest possible moment.
There appears to be no answer on the file to that letter, but my recollection is that I received a telephone request asking me to prepare a memorandum of the views expressed by me before the two commissioners. It took me some days to prepare the memorandum and an opinion on the law for them. That was sent to them on June 24, 1926, marked " urgent ", and then in my handwriting is the postscript:
I would ask that this case be considered by the board to-morrow (the 25th), if at ail possible.
I asked further:
If, after consideration of the above, the commissioners are in any doubt on this matter I would crave leave to discuss the matter further with them personally at a full meeting of the board.
I then secured an appointment to meet the chairman of the board. I found that the chairman of the board-I am not holding it against him-had not read my memorandum and was not familiar with its contents. It may be that pressure of other business made that impossible. It was a very troublesome case because of the fact that it had been before the commissioners for so many years. I then proceeded to place before the chairman of the board my views on this question, and in speaking about the delay I remarked that there had been difficulties placed in my way. On that observation he said, " That is not true ", got up and left the room, leaving me there. Of course I followed him out. On the same day, June 28, 1926, I wrote this letter:

Colonel John Thompson.
Board of Pension Commissioners.
Dear Sir,
I was just about to recount the difficulties I had experienced in this case when you flatly contradicted me and unceremoniously left your office. I did not call on you for the purpose of having a personal argument but simply to impress upon you the aspects of this case, which are favourable to the applicant, and to render you any assistance I could by reference to certain legal authorities and, at the same time, to emphasize the urgency of the case in view of my early departure from Ottaw'a and the many years that have elapsed since same was first brought to the notice of your board.
On the 11th of January last I wrote the secretary of your board requesting permission to examine the file herein. On May 13th, I forwarded two additional affidavits herein, and, also, stated that I was anxious to present the case to the commissioners at a full board meeting, but before doing so desired the opportunity to examine the evidence contained in the file so as to prepare myself.
In a letter from your secretary dated May 31st the 7tli June was fixed for hearing. At the same time the board refused to permit me to examine the evidence on file. Subsequent to the receipt of that letter I advised the secretary of the impossibility of proceeding with my presentation unless permitted to see the evidence on the file, and more particularly the evidence which I had placed there myself. I was advised that the board refused to alter its decision, and I, therefore, placed the matter before the minister, who produced the file for me about one hour before my appointment with the full board on June 7th. I attended the meeting of the board on that date, and presented my views fully to two of the commissioners, yourself being absent, though in the city.
I might add that I have had no explanation of your failure to keep that appointment. On the same day, and subsequent to the interview, I wrote you personally and requested that the case might be finally considered during that week. To date I have had no akcnowledgment from you of that letter.
Recently I was requested by a representative of your board to prepare a summary of my views on the case for further consideration. Although I had already spent approximately three hours with the board on the 7th instant, explaining my views, I undertook the preparation of this summary and have spent several days analyzing the facts and investigating the law, and on the 24th instant I forwarded this summary to the board marked "urgent", and requested the earliest possible consideration.
In my interview with you to-day I found you had not yet given any consideration to the summary and advised me that it would be impossible to do so either to-day or to-morrow'. I again emphasized my strong desire that the matter be finally settled before the House prorogued.
I do not propose to go into further details at the moment, but I once more request that this matter be given prompt consideration, and that if my conclusions are not understood or agreed with I be given opportunity of appearing before the full board for the purpose of elaborating thereon.

Pension Act-Mr. Clark
I have had no acknowledgment of that letter. I have here a letter dated June 30th, 1926, from the secretary of the board, reading in part as follows:
In the opinion of the board the question of whether the widow of the deceased soldier was or was not entitled to pension depends upon whether they lived together as man and wife subsequent to the execution of the agreement.
Now on June 30th I took this same question up with the Acting Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment, the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion) and requested him as minister of that department to arrange a hearing at which he should be present. Unfortunately it was impossible to have such a thing at that stage of the session. He did, however, secure an assurance that this matter would be reinvestigated and in a sympathetic spirit.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to draw your attention to what has been done. I have heard nothing in reference to this matter. If a decision has been reached it has not been communicated to me, neither has it been communicated to the applicant. I found for the first time yesterday that an investigation was conducted, and I will recount the nature of that investigation.
There is on the file a letter dated July 12, 1926, written to the director of the administration of the Department of Soliders' Civil Re-establishment in Vancouver, with specific instructions contained in it to interview certain people and to make a report. Although I live in Vancouver and was vitally interested in securing any information for the board and in cooperating with them in securing the true facts from 1915 to date, I never heard that the investigation was being carried on. I was not communicated with.
One of the people whom the director was instructed to interview was the widow's solicitor who has placed on file a letter and a hearsay declaration, a declaration in which he states that they told him they had lived together. That was not direct evidence at all and they were to interview him only because of this fact:
Mr. Lucas should be interviewed and informed that General Clark has quoted him to the board as stating that he, Mr. Lucas, does not remember anything about _ the case. A signed statement should be obtained from him as to whether or not he now' has reason to doubt the accuracy of his affidavit and, if so, the grounds upon which such reason is based.
I did interview the solicitor and he did tell me that he remembered nothing about the case. I see nothing extraordinary about that because his declaration is dated in 1917 and
my interview with him was in 1924, or seven years afterwards. If he did not refresh his memory by looking up the files and taking considerable time over the matter, he certainly would not be likely to remember much about it. There is nothing extraordinary about that. He did so tell me and I so stated to the board. I will however accept his evidence at its face value. It is hearsay evidence; even if everything that he states is true, it is not evidence at all.
The other people to be interviewed were the mother of the widow and the wife of a contractor. This latter woman, by the way, had made the statement that the widow had lived in her apartment house and that she always thought she was a widow; that she had never seen any man with her there. But her husband apparently had made a statement to the investigator of this department that Aylett, the deceased, had frequently or at some time visited the widow there. So far as I can see there is no confirmation of that by sworn testimony.
These were the three who were to be interviewed, but there were no instructions given to investigate the accuracy of the other affidavits which are on this file and which are probably ten in number, although I have not counted them. No instructions were given to interview those who indicated that they were favourable to the case of the mother. Apparently only those who had given unfavourable evidence previously were to be interviewed. Let me quote one or two paragraphs from these statements. This is a letter by Nellie M. Wood, dated 7th August, 1926, in which she stated:
I explained to Mrs. Aylett that the only knowledge I had respecting Mrs. Harriet Aylett-
That is the widow.
-was that at one time she did reside with her mother at Irving court, and that as I never saw her husband or any man about the premises at any time, I naturally presumed she -was a widow, to which statement I still adhere.
Then this declaration is filed:
I, Sarah A. Cusack, of the city of Vancouver, .... do solemnly declare that I have been the manageress of Shaughnessy lodge, Vancouver, B.C., since May, 1914.
This was one of the places where this man was supposed to have resided with his wife after the separation agreement. She continues :
I have a very clear recollection of Mrs. Harriet Aylett, residing in this apartment house, together with her mother and sister. I

Pension Act-Mr. Arthurs

am only too pleased to verify the fact that there is no question whatever, that Mrs. Harriet Aylett was at all times a strictly moral woman and her character was always above reproach.
She was at all times a perfect lady, but always very sad and quiet.
There is no suggestion there that the husband was ever around. I notice that in several of the reports of the investigators this man is referred to as a weak character, and it is stated that probably because he was a weak character he would be likely to write just as affectionate letters to his mother as to his wife. The facts are that no evidence has been produced from the widow that she ever received a letter from her husband while he was in France, but there are copies of very affectionate letters to his mother and these suggestions from the investigators that this man whom they had never seen was a weak character are entirely uncalled for. Before this man proceeded to France, he was one of one hundred chosen out of eighteen thousand as a guard of honour for His Majesty the King. He paid the supreme sacrifice, being killed in action in France while serving his country. He made a will in favour of his mother, a will recognized by the Department of National Defence. He wrote to his mother and apparently did not write to his wife. With this evidence as it appears on the file, I am forced to the conclusion that these facts have never been properly presented to the Board of Pension Commissioners, or they could not have arrived at the conclusion that:
There appears to be no doubt that the agreement of separation was rendered null and void by the subsequent cohabitation of the soldier and his wife.
We are surely all determined to see that justice is done, and if there are cases that we as members of parliament or as private citizens are prepared to present to the Board of Pension Commissioners, we should be given an opportunity to do so. By the way a proper presentation in detail in this case would in all probability take some hours, but I am satisfied it would disclose that the summaries of evidence prepared for the Board of Pension Commissioners to pass judgment upon were prepared by men who do not understand the analyzing of facts for presentation to a judicial body.
This file .discloses to me a situation which in my opinion calls for a very careful investigation. I was prepared to cooperate with the minister and carry out that investigation, with the minister alone present, so that he could hear my presentation of this oase in detail, and thereby avoid the publicity infMr. Clark.]
volved by bringing before this House the situation which exists, and which is in my opinion extremely serious from the point of view of applicants for pensions in this country. I shall at all times be prepared, Mr. Speaker, and I think this file will bear me out in that, to give any amount of time to elaborate on this case, or to go out and collect additional evidence for the pensions board, so that the board will have before them 'the full evidence. I urge as strongly as I can that the time has come for a full investigation into this department, and if an investigation is not made between now and next session I would suggest that an investigation might be made before a parliamentary committee both on questions of administration and as regards the amendments that are required to this act.


James Arthurs: The hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Clark) has given only one of the many cases which gave rise to the appointment of the Federal Appeal Board. If the public and the returned soldiers and would-be pensioners had been satisfied with the decisions of the pension board there would have been no necessity for the appointment of the appeal board. The minister himself apparently in this act recognizes the advisability of continuing that appeal board. He has already stated to the House that he would be prepared to give us certain figures as to the , number of appeals, and so forth.
There can be no question that many of the decisions of the pension board have not been satisfactory from the ordinary point of view, and the fact that the appeal board has been constituted, and has acted, and acted well, and is to be continued, is simply evidence that just such oases as those illustrated by the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard do occur, and have occurred.
I would ask the minister, before this bill passes, to carry out the undertaking which I think he has given the House and let us know how many appeals have been made to the Federal Appeal Board, how many of them have been successful, and how many otherwise. I think that information is essential, because such cases as have been brought before the House this afternoon surely illustrate how necessary it was to appoint a federal appeal board. I believe with the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard that the pension board have in many cases acted only on a certain amount of evidence that came into their possession and did not look for the other side of the case, and it was therefore

Perision Act-Mr. Ladner
absolutely necessary that an appeal board should be appointed. I would also ask the minister to tell us, either after six o'clock or before, as I asked the other night, how many cases have been acted on under the meritorious clause contained in the act of 1925, and how many of these cases 'have been successful. My information is that there has been very little done under that clause.
I do not wish to delay the House now, but I could bring before it cases that might appeal even more sympathetically than the one brought forward this afternoon by the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard-a case, for instance, where under the Pension Act itself it was impossible for the pension board1 to grant a pension. I am willing to admit that, but surely under the meritorious clause something should be done in these very deserving oases.
Before taking my seat I would again ask _ the minister to tell the House the number of cases that have been 'before the appeal board, and the number successful and otherwise, as well as the number of cases coming under the meritorious clause and how many have been successful and otherwise.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Mr. Speaker, I rise to say some words with reference to this bill, and particularly with reference to the general question of administration of the Pension Act. To me it is a great disappointment that in this the first session of a new parliament steps have not been taken by the government to bring down early in the session legislation for which there is the most pressing need, not only in regard to the actual cases of extreme hardship which are known to the department, but also in regard to the many cases which are not before the department and the details of which are little known. The present Minister of Soldiery' Civil Re-establishment (Mr. King) has only lately taken that post, and in my experience with him he has done everything possible to facilitate the meritorious and deserving cases, but the government generally seems to be very lethargic or indifferent in the matter of grappling with this question and taking hold of the problems which confront the returned soldiers. I myself in 1923 introduced legislation concerning amendments to the Pension Act, embodying ideas that were common throughout the country at that time and have been emphasized time and again since. During the last two years we have had no legislation of any consequence relating to pension matters. In 1925 there were some minor amendments only, and in 1926 there were none. Now we find the returned soldier organizations presenting a memorandum con-
32649- 130i
taining in the most complete manner their suggestions based on actual experience. If the government could not have presented the proposed amendments to the House this year, I think they could at least have carried on an investigation which would have advanced a solution of these problems. Just to indicate how widespread is this demand on the part of the soldiers for action I might mention that only a' couple of hours ago I received a wire from the Collingwood branch of the Canadian Legion in these words:
Have wired Dr. King registering protest against postponement of pensions and insurance legislation.	-
I stated on the orders of the day the other day, and I wish to repeat now, that in my judgment it would be a great mistake for this parliament to hurry the business of the session to a close at an early date and neglect to attend to these vital matters which should receive attention. I wish to repeat the assertion I made then, and I think I can properly do so because this is practically the first occasion on which I have addressed the House this session. I wish to repeat what I said the other day, that the men who are suffering from the ills of war, who spent their time in France in the service of the citizenship of this country and of its institutions, can now properly call upon members of parliament to spend a few days or a few weeks, or months if necessary, to deal with these urgent questions which so vitally affected them, and1 it is to be regretted that the apathetic and unsympathetic attitude which in my judgment is characteristic of the pension board seems to^have permeated government circles.
Some of these matters which the Canadian Legion have brought forward-I will not gn over them in detail-are of urgent importance. They relate to the soldier himself, to the widow, to the children, to the orphan, and to the other dependents of the soldier. They cover technicalities in the Pension Act which have made its administration contrary both to the will of parliament and the people of Canada and I do not think it would require such elaborate consideration as the minister suggests to take care of some of these more urgent matters under the present bill. I say this because these questions have to my knowledge been considered for the last four years, evidence with respect to them has been presented to parliamentary committees by soldier institutions, and there are men in the department who thoroughly understand them and realize there are technical defects which require no consideration to correct.
Pension Act-Mr. Ladner

Let me refer for a moment to a particular case which the minister has been kind enough to offer to take care of under the existing law. It is the case of James Frew. James Frew is entitled to a pension, and is now an inmate of a military hospital. The pension board, as so frequently happens, turned down his application. Under the statute he must make his appeal through the soldiers' advocate within thirty days of the pension board's judgment, and James Frew accordingly instructed that official to proceed with his appeal within a few days after receiving notice from the pension board of their refusal of his application. Through an error in the office of the soldiers' advocate, not due to the official himself, the statutory period of thirty days passed by and no appeal was made. The error was discovered' and the appeal proceeded with. The Federal Appeal Board decided, as it so often does, upon the inherent merits of the claim and awarded a pension to James Frew. The pension board thereupon exalted itself to the position of a court of appeal over the Federal Appeal Board and maintained that as the appeal was not proceeded with within the statutory period, therefore the Federal Appeal Board was wrong in its decision and the pension should not be paid. The poor man is in a serious state of health in the hospital, and he is very seriously handicapped by the lack of a pension.
I took the case up with the department, and in this respect I want to commend the minister for his kind offer to remedy the situation. Personally he is not to blame at all. I outlined all the facts to the deputy minister last year and proposed to him that there be put in the Pension Act a provision such as is to be found in the Supreme Court Act, vesting authority in the court to extend the statutory period of time in order that justice may be done. There is no discretion granted to the Board of Pension Commissioners and they are very dogmatic and dictatorial in administering the act. It would have been very simple for the department to advise the minister of this defect in the act and that the necessary power should be given to the federal appeal board to grant an extension of time for appealing or -taking other steps where good cause could be shown for the delay. But what happened? The pension board and the deputy minister refused categorically to make any suggestions for such an amendment. Then I proposed that if they would intimate to me when amendments to the Pension Act were under consideration I would bring in my amendment as a private member, but they said they did not think any amendments

would be 'considered. There is an example of sticking fixedly by a decision irrespective of its injustice to the man who by the will of parliament and the Canadian people should receive a pension.
These and other cases in the administration of the act are evidences to me of a most unsympathetic attitude and confirm the charge which I have long made, and which I repeat now, that whenever there is a question in doubt the pension board, although they have all the necessary evidence to establish the applicant's claim, -throw the burden of proof upon the applicant-the very person who is without evidence. Against these things the soldier bodies of this country object. Indeed, if they were not law-abiding citizens in some cases they would be incited almost to revolt because of the flagrant injustice of which they are the victims.
Now, Mr. Speaker, there are some other matters which should have been dealt with this session. The information is already in the department to enable the minister to come to a conclusion. Let us take, for example, the allowance to orphan children of thirty dollars per month. I refer to this because I have been asked by women's organizations connected with soldier bodies to bring it to the attention of parliament. To-day this allowance is quite inadequate for orphans reaching their teen age, because they then are more expensive to maintain than a grown person. It is suggested that the allowance should be increased to forty-five dollars per month. This of course means an increase in the pension allowance, but not to such an extent as to make it unreasonable for parliament to grant.
Let me refer to another point of administration. Under section 1 of the act dealing with the age limit on pension to ghildren it is provided:
No pension shall be paid to or in respect of a child who, if a hoy, is over the age of sixteen years or, if a girl, is over the age of seventeen years, except when such child and those responsible for its maintenance are without resources and the child is unable, owing to physical or mental deformity, to provide for its own maintenance, or where such child is following and is making satisfactory progress in a course of instruction approved by the commission, in which case the pension may be continued until such child has attained the age of twenty-one years.
I ask the House to bear with me for a moment because the interpretation of this section shows conclusively the unsympathetic attitude on the part of the officials in administering the act. The point to which I wish to direct attention is the extension of

Pension Act-Mr. Ladner
time in the advanced stages of a child's education. I have under my hand what I believe is authoritative information that approximately 98 per cent of the applicants for extended pensions under this section are refused. If the father who provided for these children had not been killed overseas, if he had not made the supreme sacrifice, he would have been here to give them the necessary education. The department's refusal was based upon a ruling which differs from the interpretation which most of us would give to the law. According to them "satisfactory progress" does not mean what it naturally would to us; it refers to those who "show exceptional ability." In other words, there is a constant effort to limit and narrow the field within which claims may be made for pensions by those who are entitled to them.
There is another question, the facts regarding which are all in the department, which it would not take the government half an hour to make up their minds upon. I refer to the matter of burial, medical and hospital services to children and other dependents. The present pensions to dependents and orphans make no provision for grave emergencies and serious illness, hospital and burial expenses. Apparently the provision is designed to take care of the minimum normal requirements, but it seems to me that it should include such expenses as I have referred to. I mention these as some of the matters that ought to be considered.
I was not present if the minister made any statement in reply to a question I asked on the orders of the day a short while ago as to whether or not the time would be extended for returned soldiers' insurance. Was an answer given to that question?


John Warwick King: Yes, on March
30, I think.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Was it a refusal?


John Warwick King: Yes; it could not be considered this year.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I do not approve of the
minister's decision, but that I suppose is a matter of difference in policy. I do commend the minister in coming to a definite decision instead of being altogether indifferent and leaving the matter in a more or less unsettled state as some of us have reason to know is done in regard to other things.
I want now to refer to two or three cases to illustrate the point I am making, that the department is unsympathetic and that their effort appears to be to avoid paying pensions rather than to favour the applicant in doubtful cases and thereby do justice. I refer first to the case of R. E. Worthington, which can best be stated by reference to a letter I have on file from this man. I quote:
To make a long drawn out story short, I was finally taken very seriously ill with an hemorrhage, gastric ulcer not a duodenal ulcer, as Ottawa thinks. The doctor was called in at 5 a.m. on November 17, 1924, and inside of half an hour I was in the operating table for a major operation at St. Paul's hospital, about six blocks away from where I live. I may say that I was not expected to live the day. However I ultimately recovered and asked for payment of the hospital account and the doctors' fees, including two special nurses. The account runs approximately $600 (only for hospital bills and M.D.'s.). I did not ask for pay and allowances of my rank (which is captain).
You will read from the enclosed letter that I should have applied for permission to the nearest military hospital. Now, Mr. Ladner, how in the world could I have had time to make such application when the whole thing was done in half and hour and in the middle of the night almost. Indeed, the attending physician said I would not reach the hospital alive, which was only a short distance away. It was a question of life and death which I think should be recognized by the medical authorities.	,
Now then supposing I had died on the way. It has been recognized and admitted in the enclosed letter that my illness was occasioned hy military service. In that case my wife would have claimed a pension for the rank of captain. Don't you think, that in such a crisis, coming on in a moment, one could not think of asking to be admitted to Shaughnessy hospital which is at least four miles from my home? Then again it is a question of getting a dying man to the nearest institution.
I communicated with the department in reference to this case and received the reply that the man ought to have applied to the nearest pension authority. If that had, been done the pension authority would undoubtedly have agreed to allow this doctor to do the operation, and the expenses would have been paid. I would point out however that the exigencies of the case were such as made it absolutely impossible for him to communicate with a pension authority. I want to be absolutely fair in these matters, especially as I know the officials experience great difficulty in administering their department. But I do not think that such treatment is fair, and the suggestion, conveyed in a letter to me, that the man knew a night or two before he was taken to hospital that there was something wrong with him, is not warranted. In the space of half an hour he was seized with this illness-this can be confirmed-and in a dying state he was rushed to the hospital. He had no time to think of formalities and technicalities. An hon. member suggests that he would not know the formalities. That is more than
Pension Act-Mr. Ladner

likely, but at any rate it is certain that he had no time to consider such things. Yet the department refuses to consider his case and reimburse him. That in my opinion, only confirms the statement that the department is unsympathetic, one might almost say heartless, in its attitude towards many of these splendid men who have suffered disabilities and illnesses in consequence of service overseas.
I want the minister to understand that in making these statements I have no intention whatever of indulging in a political speech. We are five years from an election, and in any case this matter is of great importance and far transcends the narrowness of partisan politics.


Mr. POWER:: It may be to fulfil a political promise.


Leon Johnson Ladner: There is no reason why
the hon. gentleman should suspect me of following his own practice.


Charles Gavan Power: That is not my practice.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I live at another end of the continent.


Charles Gavan Power: Too bad for you.


Leon Johnson Ladner: No, on the contrary it is a good thing, in view of my hon. friend's idea of political morality.
I have two or three files full of cases such as the one I have cited. There are instances m which there is merely a misunderstanding of the intent of the law, but in a large number of cases there is revealed an indifference to the condition of these men and a desire to get out of paying the money to which they are entitled. Here is the case of John S. Hunter. The record number is 505,378, the pensioner's number being 136,439. This man was injured in the foot overseas and on discharge he claimed a pension and received it. He was in receipt of the pension for four or five years but one day he got a letter informing him that it would no longer be paid. The pension was finally reduced by half. However, the man made complaint, and the reply came that no remedy was forthcoming, for the reason that at the time of his enlistment, to quote the words of the letter, "there was a tendency to flat feet." On behalf of this man I v'rote pointing out that when the pension was first granted all the evidence, including his hospital sheet, was before the pension authorities just as it was when the pension was discontinued. Not a single change had taken place, either in fact or in evidence, to cause the pension board to withhold the pension or to reduce
[Mr, Ladner. 1
it. Why did they change their minds? Did it arise from a deliberate policy to cut down on pensions? Why did they pay this man and then, on the same evidence, with the same facts and the same medical sheet, suddenly decide he was not entitled to pension? That is exactly what happened, and I have never yet received an explanation except when one of the officials stated that they may have made a mistake in the first place in granting the pension. That is a typical case, and I appeal to hon. members whether or not the representative citizen of this country would not have decided that the pension board should have given the poor fellow the benefit of the doubt rather than take away his pension after he had received it under the same law and facts for four or five years.
I mention that as another indication of the lack of sympathy on the part of those administering the Pension Act; I had intended to refer to other cases, but I wish to expedite the 'business before the House. There is the case of Sarah Louisa Atkinson, which is equally meritorius; there is the case of James Parker Fee, whose disability was attributable to war service and was so established by the medical board, but whose pension was refused; there was the case of Charles Edward Bower, and as a matter of fact I suppose most hon. members have had a number of cases of people wdio claim pensions. I have endeavoured to select those cases which from my knowledge of the facts and my knowledge of the law have the weight of evidence in their favour, and in which the pension board had no right to refuse pensions.
The charge I make against the board is the same as that made in three previous years, and I find that a great many other hon. members now have the same viewpoint. It is my conviction that the board have been in office so long and are so tied u,p with red tape that they have become unsympathetic to these unfortunate Claimants and narrow in their interpretation of the law; and that they have tended to put the onus of proof more upon the applicants. The board seem to have an unwarranted desire to save as much money in pensions as it is possible to save. I realize that those are strong words, but if hon. members could read the heart-rending letters which I have received and could visualize the homes upset and lives distressingly disturbed; if hon. gentlemen could picture the little children who, instead of being educated as their fathers would have done had a kind Providence led them safely home, must now go to work at an early age, I think it would

Pension Act-Mr. Power
20!)9
be found that the language is not too strong.
I have had widows and wives ill in health, broken in spirit and without work, come to my office in Vancouver for assistance in their claims but who have been refused pensions on the slightest and most unworthy technicalities. Many hon. members have had the same experience I am sure.


Hewitt Bostock: I do not think the hon. member was in his seat a few moments ago when I stated that in speaking of the Board of Pension Commissioners one must bear in mind that they have a double function; they are administrators in some respects and judges in others. The hon. gentleman is attributing unworthy motives to awards made by that board, and in so doing is reflecting upon the character of those judges, because that is what they are in certain respects.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I wish to conform to the rules of the House, but I am merely stating true facts of which I have personal knowledge. I do not wish to reflect upon the commission-


Hewitt Bostock: Or their motives?


Leon Johnson Ladner: I do not think I referred to their motives.


Hewitt Bostock: The hon. gentleman stated that they had refused pensions on most unworthy pretexts.


Leon Johnson Ladner: If I may repeat it, what I did say was that in the decisions given it has appeared as though the board were endeavouring to save money and to force the onus of proof upon the applicant more than was formerly done. I think that is a fair statement to be made by a member who is seeking to do his duty. I have no doubt there are many members who take the opposite view, and if so they are entitled to state their opinions as well. My real purpose in these remarks is this: I would like to see the government seriously take hold of the question of policy, and seriously consider the representations which have been made by the various soldier organizations. Let them consider the facts and suggestions, by which any reasonable man would be convinced. The case of James Frew, which I pointed out a few moments ago, is typical. Under the act there is no provision by which appeals can be made after thirty days, and there is no authority such as is given to courts to allow an extension of time where good reasons are shown. These are things for which there can be no excuse while one man rests under a disability and an injustice as is the case with hundreds at present.
I have nothing further to say on the question, but I do earnestly urge the government and the minister to take time between now and the next session of parliament to consider thoroughly all these questions and to have legislation ready at the beginning of the next session which will correct these clear defects and offer a solution to those other problems which may be a little more complicated. There may be some questions for which it is difficult to find a solution, but there are many on which a few minutes reflection or a glance of the eye will warrant decision and action. The government have a responsibility for not attending to this important matter this session, and they have a duty to look after it next session and make those changes the necessity for which is apparent to any reasonable and sensible government desiring to apply the pension as was intended and is now desired by the people of Canada.


Charles Gavan Power: It was not my intention to take any part in this debate until I listened to the remarks of the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Clark), who I am sorry to see is not in his seat. His remarks, generally speaking, had reference to one particular case, and before this high court of parliament he tried a case which has been already tried by a tribunal duly appointed by this House. In French we say, "Un plaideur malchanceux a vingt-quatre heures pour maudire son juge." The hon. member for Burrard, instead of taking twenty-four hours in which to curse his judge, brought the whole case before this House. I listened to it very attentively, and it seems to be a very complicated matter. The Board of Pension Commissioners in their wisdom, having at their disposal investigating officers; having heard from the eloquent lips of the hon. member on several occasions, and having read from the even more eloquent pen of the hon. member the whole facts of the case, have decided against him. After listening to his remarks for some time it semed to me, though I have every sympathy for the widowed mother of the deceased soldier, that the hon. member for Burrard was rather more interested in the fact that his feelings were hurt than that the pension was withheld from the person to whom he makes reference; it seems to me to be more of a case of lese majeste than a case of a really deserving character.
After having listened to him for some time I heard him say that he was very much offended because, forsooth, Colonel Thompson after listening to him-
Pension Act-Mr. Po-iver


John Arthur Clark: I rise to a point of order. That is an absolutely incorrect statement. I did not say that I was offended because Colonel Thompson did nothing. Furthermore, if I may make myself perfectly clear on the question on the point of privilege, I wish to say that my personal feelings have not been hurt at all. So far as I personally am concerned that phase of the matter has never entered into this case, and the record will show it. The record will show great forbearance on my part, a forbearance for over three years; and the only reason I have made the statement now is in the hope that I may bring this situation to the attention of the government and influence them to deal with it.


Charles Gavan Power: I have no objection to my hon. friend interrupting me for the purpose of making a correction, but he must not deliver a speech. Of course I accept the hon. gentleman s word, but X listened to the reading of a letter which he had addressed to the Board of Pension Commissioners on the day following, or some days following, this remarkable interview in which Colonel Thompson walked out-
. Mri- CLARK: The interview was only an incident.


Charles Gavan Power: -and I gathered from
listening to the letter that at the time my hon. friend wrote it he considered he had been offended.


James Dew Chaplin: And you concluded you would have been offended under like circumstances.


Charles Gavan Power: I think I would have been.
I do not blame my hon. friend. I have been offended and iby the very same persons, but I did not think it was necessary on that account to take the whole of the cases I had brought before the board and submit them to the House of Commons. The law enacted by my hon. friends opposite was brought into force for the specific purpose of taking the whole question of pensions out of politics. For that reason we have, I think, since the war, and even during the war, treated the question of pensions for returned soldiers almost as a non-political one. The Board of Pension Commissioners was formed, practically by common consent, into a judicial body. Their tenure of office was fixed at ten years, they were not to be removable except on the same grounds as those for

which a judge is impeached, and it is for that very reason I understand, Mr. Speaker, that you refuse to allow us to impute evil or improper motives to members of the board. I have thought on many occasions that it wasi my duty to rise in the House and declaim against certain members of the board. I have thought sometimes that their judgments were not sound. I might go even further in my characterization but Mr. Speaker, perhaps, would correct me. I have thought their judgments were not sound, not based on common -sense, but I do not think that this is the place in which to try cases wherein, in my judgment, they err.
Now let me follow my hon. friend from Burrard still further in his remarks. He says, undoubtedly without political bias, that my hon. friend the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment (Mr. King) should be at his disposal to go and meet the Board of Pension Commissioners. He says that when he has business with the board he has a right, in the name of the returned soldiers, to say to the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment, "You come with me''.


John Arthur Clark: Not at all.


Charles Gavan Power: If the hon. gentleman did
not say that I do not know what he meant.


John Arthur Clark: Not at all.


Charles Gavan Power: He said it was the duty
of the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment to be present when claims were made.


John Arthur Clark: -Once more, Mr. Speaker, I
absolutely contradict the hon. gentleman. That is an incorrect statement. I did not say anything of the sort. I said that I appealed to the minister on the ground of a certain condition existing in the administration of his department.


Charles Gavan Power: That he should go.


John Arthur Clark: That be should go and hear one particular case as it would clearly illustrate, as regards administration, the situation in all -cases. I would dot ask the minister to go in all cases, but simply in this particular case to illustrate the situation in r-egard to administration. That is all.


Charles Gavan Power: He asks the Minister of
Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment to go with him before the board. I-t was not right, it was wrong, it was unjust, when -my hon. friend the present minister did not go, but it was a

Pension Act-Mr. Power
very different matter when the acting minister, belonging to the party of my hon. friend himself, last June was not able to go, saying that he was too 'busy.


John Arthur Clark: I did not criticize either.


Charles Gavan Power: If my hon. friend did not
criticize I do not know what he means.


John Arthur Clark: I simply stated the facts.


Charles Gavan Power: I remember my hon. friend
waxing quite indignant and saying it was the duty of the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment to appear before that board.


John Arthur Clark: His duty to do what?


Charles Gavan Power: Saying that it was the duty of the Minister of Soldiers' Re-establishment to go with him before the board.


John Arthur Clark: In all cases.


Charles Gavan Power: The hon. gentleman did not say in all cases, he was talking of this particular case. Now if the failure to do that aroused indignation in my hon. friend's mind because the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment now sitting here did not go. surely it should have aroused, far more indignation in the mind of my hon. friend when he was wounded in the house of his friends. Let me go further. The object of this law, as I said, was to take the matter of pensions out of politics. If you are to permit the minister, the man who controls this department, to appear and to assist at the sittings of this body you will cause the impression to go out-by implication, either directly
or indirectly-that the minister is influencing the decisions of the bo-ard. To that I object.
I think it has been decided by this parliament in its judgment that the minister should not interfere with pensions. Many a time my own constituents have written to me to say: You have influence with the minister, you support him, you are on his side of the House, ask him to go before the Board of Pension Commissioners with you, ask him to write to the pension board. Never since I have been a member of this House have I asked the minister to influence the Board of Pension Commissioners in any way, but let me say that many a time it would have done some good if they had been influenced in the right direction.
There was another remark made by my hon. friend to which I think we have a right to take exception. He accused the government of shameful neglect because they had not put into force certain recommendations of the pensions committee of 1924. Surely my hon. friend would remember that the bill passed by parliament on the recommendation of the pensions committee of 1924 was defeated not in the House of Commons but in another house.


John Arthur Clark: I said it was passed
unanimously by this House.


Charles Gavan Power: 
John Arthur Clark: He did good work.


Charles Gavan Power: I thank my hon. friend for
saying that. The minister is a great influence in this government. Does my hon. friend think he will not continue to wrork for the returned soldiers?


John Arthur Clark: I think he will.


Charles Gavan Power: Does he think the minister
will not continue to work for those for whom he fought not only while he was in France but after he returned to Canada? It is unjust, unfair and highly improper, at this stage of the game when the war has been over for ten years, when for ten years we have allowed this matter to be dealt with outside of politics, for my hon. friends opposite to try to make political capital out of a few petty grievances.


George Reginald Geary: I
fail to understand why the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) has taken the stand which he has in this debate. I listened very carefully to the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Clark), and it w'as not my impression derived from anything he said that a partisan spirit actuated his remarks in any respect. He had a case which, to anyone who heard it, conveyed the impression that perhaps an injustice had been done. He used it as an example to call to the attention of this House and of the government the fact that it might be well for the government and the minister responsible to look into the workings of the pension board. I have no complaints of a specific nature to make; but one cannot be a representative of the people without hearing of cases in which, rightly or wrongly, the soldier or his dependent thinks the pension board has not done justice. These cases are so numerous that one is sometimes compelled to think there may be a general principle underlying them, and that the pension board, in the very patriotic desire to avoid any imposition upon the government, has perhaps stood so straight that it has leaned backwards.
I do not think the hon. member for Burrard was making any imputation of wrongdoing
on the part of the pension board. He was saying that the impression gathered generally from many instances in which soldiers had communicated with him-and I can assent to that from my experience-was that the pension board's mind was more directed to saving the money of the government than to taking care sympathetically of the soldiers who came before it.
The hon. member for Burrard instanced a case which comes dowrn to a very narrow point. There were two claimants for a pension, a widow and a mother who was dependent and with whom the soldier lived. There was a question of fact to be decided. The board decided in favour of the widow and against the mother. The widow has since died. I think it would be the part of generosity and sympathy for the soldier when there is no longer any dispute, not to cut off at the death of the widow, the pension as it had been awarded, but to continue it to the mother, there being then only one. applicant involved. That would have been a sympathetic way rightly or wrongly, of dealing with the matter. I am not prepared to say if that might have been done.
The hon. member for Burrard is pointing out to the minister that the feeling exists-[DOT] and I think he pointed out as kindly as he could-that the minister should keep more closely in touch with the operations of the board and the disposition of the many cases which come before it. In that I think the hon. member for Burrard was quite right. This is not a judicial board in the sense that it is dealing with litigants who are at arm's length. It is a body which is dealing with the claims of men who are prima facie entitled to recognition of their claims.
We have found men who were bad soldiers in the army; we have had poor men when they went into the army and poor men after they left. I am not saying that they are all perfect; but the great bulk of the men who served overseas and who make claims for pensions, are to be relied upon. They are men who should be treated with a great deal of consideration and sympathy and with the feeling that they are not out in the first place to get from the government anything to which they are not entitled. Rather they believe thoroughly in the claim they are making and they should be entitled to careful and sympathetic consideration. Therefore I hope the minister and the hon. member for Quebec South will not take from the remarks of the hon. member for Burrard the impression which the hon. member for Quebec South seems to
Pension Act-Mr. Geary

think is the correct one. The hon. member for Burrard has spoken for himself. As one who is interested in the matter I may speak for many on this side of the House who are in the same position as myself. We do not speak from any partisan spirit; the time has gone by for that. The Pension Act is the result of careful investigation. The Minister of National Defence is responsible for a good deal of it and entitled to a great deal of credit for what has been done. At the time he was not actively engaged in politics; he was an independent chairman of the commission; he put his heart into the work, and we think a good job was done. The work is not yet completed. The object, as I take it, of the hon. member for Burrard, as it is my object in making these remarks, is to point out to the minister that this judicial body, so called, which is not judicial in the sense that it is dealing with litigants who are at arm's length, is one that might be supervised by the minister, and that interest taken by the minister in the specific cases or in the general conduct of the board would be amply repaid by what he could learn from so doing.
In regard to the bill itself there is disappointment amongst the soldiers of this country over the action of the government in quite another direction. The Pension Act is a mass of almost unintelligible amendments. I mean that those who read the act, those who are concerned in it and are to benefit under it, are men who have not the capacity for disentangling from a mass of documents the points which may or may not affect them. It is so difficult, Mr. Speaker, to follow that act that I myself have given it up in despair many times. Through the kindness of the government last year I was given a complete copy of all amendments, but that did not make it much better. The time for consolidation, as I said last year, has more than arrived, and I had hoped that the act would have been consolidated by now. Added to that, the soldier organizations to-day are on a far better footing than they have ever been before. Previously there were conflicting groups and associations with conflicting interests, but these bodies have been welded more or less now into a smooth-working and harmonious association called the Legion, which represents properly the sentiments of the returned soldiers in this country. That Legion has a service bureau. It has men qualified to look into the questions which affect the returned soldiers, and that bureau, after looking very carefully into these different questions, made certain recommendations which in turn were submitted to and passed

by the various provincial commands and at last reached the general convention of the legion which was held, I believe, last summer.


John Warwick King: In January of this year.


George Reginald Geary: In January, then; and these recommendations were referred to a committee of the Legion, with a representative of the department present, I believe, and probably taking part in the discussion-no doubt sympathetically, because I do not ascribe to any official of the department, least of all to the minister, any lack of sympathy towards the returned soldiers. Before this committee the various recommendations were sifted out, and their work finally resulted in some thirty-eight or thirty-nine recommendations being codified into suggestions for the department to act upon. Those suggestions have been in the hands of the department for I should say one month now, but the Pension Act has not been consolidated, and none of those amendments has been embodied in amendments to the act now under discussion. I regret very much indeed, and regret in common with many of the commands, many members of the Legion, many posts of the Legion and many individual soldiers, that we are left without any action being taken this session in regard to these carefully thought out recommendations. That is a matter of great disappointment. I do not know that it would do any good to propose any of these recommendations by way of amendment. It would probably not pass the House, but it does seem to me that many of these amendments, vital in their intention and necessary to the proper and smooth working of the act, could be arranged and carried into the bill we have before us. I object strenuously to the interests of the soldiers in this matter of pensions being sacrificed to any desire on our part to close the business of the House at an early date. This matter should receive the attention of the House this session, and as far as the department can go in deciding what amendments are proper and should be made within the next day or two or within the next week, these amendments should be presented to us and embodied in this bill. I protest against the delay in looking after the suggestions of the returned soldiers, officially made and carefully thought out, and undoubtedly, in the main, suggestions which would be of great service to the department and of great help and assistance to the [DOT]soldiers who are entitled to a pension.

Pension Act-Mr. Evans


John Evans: I would
'like to say a word, Mr. Speaker, in support of the contention of the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Ladner). He related some instances of hardship amongst the returned soldiers who are seeking a pension, and I have several in mind of the same kind.
I have often thought that there was an unsympathetic attitude on the part of the department towards these men. Whether the law or the regulations are at fault, or whether the thing is general, I do not know, but I do know myself of quite a number of cases of soldiers who should be on the pension list but who cannot get on. I think a more sympathetic attitude is due these men who have once offered their lives to save this country.
I have in mind one young man who took his discharge as physically fit. He had some slight ailment at the time, simply a nodding of the head, and when he was advised to get on the pension list if possible, he said, " Oh no, I can make my way. I will get well as I go along." But instead of getting better he got steadily worse, and for the last year he has been in hospital, at the mercy of friends. He cannot get on the pension list.
I have had his case before the board, and it is now before the soldiers' representative in Saskatchewan, but there is very little hope that under the present laws and regulations he will be able to get on the pension list.
I know of another man who, with one leg missing; is still trying to make a living. He failed for over four years to get any help from the pension board. He has an artificial limb, but it does not fit very well and cannot be made to fit, and he cannot use it.
I do. hope that- the minister will take into consideration all these cases that are brought before him. I really think that a more sympathetic attitude is due to these men; in fact I have always contended that once a man has taken his life in his hands and faced death for his country, if he is incapacitated in any way his country owes him a living. I shall be glad to give the minister the names and numbers of these men if he desires them.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. R. K. SMITH (Cumberland):: Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to unduly delay the House in the brief remarks I propose to make touching this very important question of soldiers' pension legislation. I should like to associate myself with those who have alreadv spoken in the debate in their
deep regret that the government has not seen fit to bring down this session amendments to returned soldiers' legislation. I understand that- representations were made to the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment *in March last by the Canadian Legion officials and that a promise by implication, if not a definite promise, was certainly given at the time that the recommendations for amending the Pension Act then made to the government by the returned soldiers' organizations would be dealt with this session.
We often hear the remark made in this House:	We want legislation with teeth
in it-something that will be effective to cope with a situation requiring drastic treatment. The other evening when amendments to the Customs Act were before the House the government withdrew a clause that had teeth in it. Now with respect to pension legislation we have on the statute books an act with so many teeth in it that it is altogether too vicious in its operation. In certain of the provinces liquor legislation has been enacted under which the accused must prove his innocence, and he has no right of appeal from a conviction. Under the administration of the Pension Act practically the same result follows. A man goes before the pension board or the federal appeal board and must establish beyond all question that he is entitled to a pension. He is not given the benefit of any doubt-that is not characteristic of British jurisprudence in ordinary cases, and we certainly should be more lenient in dealing with returned soldiers who sacrificed so much for this country than to any other class of citizens.
The Pension Act has not been amended since 1924.


John Warwick King: 1925.


Robert Knowlton Smith: 
John Warwick King: That is to be
amended.


Robert Knowlton Smith: 
Robert Knowlton Smith: There is to be an amendment this session?


John Warwick King: Yes.

Pension Act-Mr. Sanderson


Robert Knowlton Smith: I am glad to hear it. It disposes of that point. There are however a good many other cases similar to this where injustices to the returned soldiers demand immediate amendments to the Pension Act. These amendments should not be delayed. They do not involve anything intricate and the necessity for them is well known to the government. Surely they can be introduced this year. The minister ought to make some definite statement suggesting some concrete changes, so that we might know exactly the position of the government. Such a statement from him would be highly appreciated by the ex-service men's associations in Canada. Legislation along these lines is urgently needed and we are asking the government to reconsider their decision not to bring down any amendments other than the one just referred to by the minister.
With regard to appeals to the Federal Appeal Board, I would point out to the minister that in the first instance the appeal is heard, not so much on the merits of his case as on what appears in his file. If there is anything detrimental in the file it looms up larger than anything else. This trial on files has a tendency to work a grave injustice to the man appealing and there should be some regulation to dispense with that procedure, if not altogether, at least to such an extent as would minimize the injustice which the returned men now suffer on that account.
There is another point worth touching upon and that is with regard to cases of misconduct. No appeal is allowed in such cases. I am also informed that of all the cases that have been appealed from the Board of Pension Commissioners to the Federal Appeal Board only 28 per cent have been allowed. I should like to have the minister make some more definite statement than we have so far had with regard to what the government intends doing with reference to the Pension Act and to returned soldiers legislation generally. This subject is certainly of far-reaching importance. The present conditions are a source of hardship and uneasiness throughout the Dominion to returned soldiers and their dependents and to returned soldiers organizations, and the matter is one that calls for immediate attention on the part of this parliament. Comprehensive amendments should be brought in during the present session, and I would urge the minister once more to make a clear cut statement on the subject.


Mr. F. G. SANDERSON (South Perth):: I listened , to the speech of the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) before the House rose at six o'clock, as well as to the
remarks of the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Geary) and I agree with both hon. gentlemen, one on this side and one on the other. I am firmly convinced that a revision of the Pension Act with proper amendments is long overdue. It is true that certain amendments were made in 1925 but there is room for amendments this year. I very much regret that the minister has not seen fit to bring in some amendment to the act.
This question has many ramifications, and could be debated in this House at great length. Every hon. member of this House has had a great many claims put in his hands from returned soldiers and their dependents, and if I may say so I think perhaps the great difficulties the pension board have had to deal with have resulted from several causes. When the war was over and the troops were sent home and discharged from the different military districts, many of the returning soldiers were discharged without a medical examination of any kind. I do not altogether think that the military authorities were to blame for discharging these soldiers with no medical examination, because in many cases the men themselves were to blame; they wanted 'to get out of the army and resume civil life, but they should not have been permitted to take their discharge without a medical examination. At any rate, many of them were discharged without such an examination; they have gone back into civil life and many of them, together with some who were discharged after a thorough examination, have been seized with certain diseases, or certain defeats have become apparent, which can be traced directly back to the effects of the war, and it is a very difficult matter to establish this after a few years have elapsed.
I do not want to take up very much of the time of the House, but I would like to mention one or two cases which have come under my observation in my own riding. The first case is that of a man who was a medical officer overseas; he returned from the war and was discharged as medically fit. He went back to his profession and tried to carry on, but after a lapse of a few months pernicious anaemia settled in his system and he became seriously ill. I am not a medical man and I do not know very much about that disease, but I do know that he applied to the board for a pension and was absolutely turned down, because the pension board said his physical condition could not be traced back to his war service. He protested that that was not so, and some of his friends took up his cause and went back with it to the pension board

Pension Act-Mr. Sanderson
Perhaps I am a little ahead of my story; in
the interval this officer had to go to the expense and trouble of taking special treatment in the Toronto General Hospital. His earning power was gone and he was not in condition to practise his profession; he was left with very little money and was virtually fighting for his life at the time representations were made to the pension board that at least he should be put under observation and should receive a pension if entitled to one. He went not only to the Toronto General Hospital but also to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where a specialist looked' him over. The specialist, I should say, was one of the most eminent doctors on this disease in the United States, and he certified after learning the history of the case that the condition could be traced back to the first inoculation the man had received when he entered the army. Several medical men in Toronto who examined him agreed in that view. It took us months and months to convince the pension board at Ottawa that this officer was entitled to a pension, and if it had not been for his friends who rallied to his support and gave freely of their time in placing his case before the authorities, that man would not be receiving a pension at all, simply because the Board of Pension Commissioners said his condition was not due to his war service. That was their first decision, but when further proof was offered that decision was reversed, and they said his condition could be traced back to the first inoculation he received when he entered the army.
That is one case, and I have another which, came under my observation, that of a boy from my home town, who enlisted and went overseas with my battalion. I know the history of that boy and the history of his parents and his family for years back. When he returned from overseas he was discharged from military district No. 2, which was the first mistake; he should have been discharged from military district No. 1, from which he had enlisted. For some reason or other, in the shuffle coming across from overseas, he landed in Toronto and was discharged without a medical examination. He returned to his home town and started in civil life, but in six months was stricken down with tuberculosis. After a long fight we 'had him sent to London for observation, where he died two weeks later. I contend, Mr. Speaker, that if he had received the care he should have when he was discharged from military district No. 2, he would have been taken for treatment, with the result that he would have been alive to-day. I will say, however, that after he

died we brought the matter before the Board of Pension Commissioners, who granted a pension to his father and mother, whose sole support he had been. My contention is that that boy should have been examined prior to his discharge; if that had been done he would have been under observation, and probably his life would have been saved.
I have still another case which I would like to mention, and I have in addition some letters which I received only a day or two ago. This is the case of a young married man who owned a farm in the riding which I have the honour to represent. He went overseas and was both gassed and wounded, receiving treatment first in France and later in England. Finally he came back and received his discharge. He went back to the farm and worked for a year or so and was then taken down with heart trouble. His case was so serious that the local doctor recommended that he sell his farm and give up farming, as he could no longer carry on. He has done that, and I am glad to say that now he is under observation in London.
I only mention these cases to illustrate .the fact that thousands of Canadian boys were discharged from 'the army as medically fit, and perhaps were -medically fit at that time, but through their war service and through the hardships they endured overseas their systems were so undermined that certain diseases have afflicted them which can be traced back directly to their war service. I claim that these men should get fair, generous treatment from the pension board, and that there should be no hesitancy when their cases are brought up; they should get prompt and careful attention. I have not very -much criticism to offer with regard to the Board of Pension Commissioners other than to say that the trouble with the staffs of the pension board and of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment is that there is still too -much military red tape and discipline, and not enough careful consideration. I know that many cases have been brought up where no claim exists. I do say, 'however, that every claim should -receive prompt, favourable and careful consideration, and that there should be no red tape at all in -this connection. Their claims should receive more consideration than any appeal or request that is made to any other department of this government.
There is just one other matter I want to speak of. I gathered -from the remarks of my hon. friend from Quebec South (Mr. Power)

Pension Act-Mr. Guthrie
that an hon. member opposite had stated that sometimes politics have crept in in connection with some of these claims. If I am wrong in that understanding I am open to correction.


Leon Johnson Ladner: If I may rise to a point of order I would say this: at that time only the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Clark) and myself had spoken, and neither of us, directly or indirectly, referred to or indicated that there was such a thing. The hon. member is entirely mistaken. We tried to keep politics out of the question.


Frederick George Sanderson: I am not referring to my hon. friend at all. I did not hear anything that he said, and I did not hear the hon. member for Quebec South even refer to him. But I did hear the hon. member for Quebec South refer to the hon. member for Burrard. I want to say that long before I entered political life I did what little I could for the returned men, irrespective' of their politics, and am still doing it. I never saw anything in the shape of politics obtrude itself into the administration of the Pension Act at Ottawa here, either under the Union government, the Conservative government or the Liberal government. But now the question has been raised I want the minister please to pay attention to what I am going to say and to take it into his serious consideration. I do not lay any charge myself because I have not the proof, and I would be loath to prefer any charge against any official unless I had absolute proof. But if one-half the stories that have been told to me, and told to other hon. members from western Ontario on this side, are true, politics did creep into the Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment in the city of London, and military district No. 1, during the elections last September. If half the stories told about the manipulations of some of the officers and some of the nurses on the staff there are true, then the minister should make an investigation and find out whether there is any foundation for these rumours. I do not know that they have been brought directly to his attention, but I am bringing them to his notice now and suggesting that in military district No. 1 there is room for investigation with respect to charges of partisanship on the part of officers and nurses in that area.
Let me say again, Mr. Speaker, that I would have been mudh more pleased if the minister had brought in his amendments to the Pension Act this session, and if necessary prolonged the session by two, three or four days, or even a week, in order to deal with them, because I think there are thousands
of cases in Canada that deserve and demand prompt attention from the minister in charge of the department. The trouble is that as the years go on we are forgetting a lot of things about the war. We are forgetting the claims of the dependents of the men who went overseas and were killed, or the claims of the men who came back maimed for life. These are claims which should receive careful attention and be given just consideration at all times.


Hugh Guthrie: Mr. Speaker, I desire to offer just a word or two upon the second reading of this very important bill. May I say in regard to the remarks of my hon. friend from South Perth (Mr. Sanderson) that he somewhat spoiled a very estimable speech with an insinuation against a body of very worthy men and women in the military district of London when he stated that while he knew nothing about the matter he had heard rumours for which he could not vouch, and at the same time insinuated that these officers and nurses were guilty of improper actions and improper conduct in the month of September last. Up till that point in his address-


Frederick George Sanderson: As a point of order I should like to state to my hon. friend the
leader of the opposition that I did not make charges, but that rumours were so serious and so grave as to merit investigation. Douht-less the hon. member has heard these rumours also.


Hugh Guthrie: That is not a point of order, Mr. Speaker, and I will not be interrupted in this irregular way. I said, and I repeat it, that my hon. friend did not make charges. What he said was that he had no knowledge of these rumours. In that case he should not have made his insinuation. That is my point. Letting it go at that, I say that in my judgment, he spoiled what otherwise would have been a very estimable speech upon this important question.
Now I think the minister to-night and during the course of this afternoon has had it very forcibly brought to his attention that the time is ripe for action in regard to the present Pension Act. Almost annually since the war this House has deemed it necessary to amend the pension law. We in this country, happily for Canada, had little experience in pension legislation prior to the war. But since the Great war we have had an abundant experience, and in the judgment of this House it has been necessary almost every year to appoint committees to consider the whole situation and amend the law where amendments were pro-

Pension Act-Mr. Guthrie

per. The last occasion upon which a committee considered the pension legislation of this country and brought in amendments was 1925, I believe. Nothing was done in that respect during the last session. Now we have come to the closing days of the session of 1927, and at this very late period the government brings down a proposal to amend the pension law only by way of appointing two additional members to the appeal board. I think the only other clause in the bill provides for a quorum of that board. Since this session opened it has been drawn to the attention of the government and of the minister week after week that the present pension law is unsatisfactory in some respects and inadequate in others. Notwithstanding all the amendments of previous sessions and all the investigations of committees of this House which have inquired into the question, there are still loopholes in our legislation; it does not cover all the cases which require attention. These facts, I say, have been brought to the notice of the minister and of the government week after week during the present session. The minister himself has informed the House that he has had requests from soldiers' organizations, I think he said to the number of over thirty, asking for remedial legislation in regard to pension matters. I think he said that his time was too fully occupied to take the matter up, or he had not time to consider these various applications.


John Warwick King: No, that was not the statement I made.


Hugh Guthrie: Some excuse of that kind-


John Warwick King: No excuse.


Hugh Guthrie: The minister can put me right when he speaks on this question later. At all events the fact remains that here, in the dying days of the session, the only thing which the government brings forward is a proposal to increase the number of officials; they offer no remedy whatever for the grievances of those soldiers who have been denied pensions under the law as it exists to-day. I do not propose to give instances, although I could, many of them in my own riding; and I do not lay any blame upon the pension board or upon the appeal board. What I blame is the inadequacy of our present law. I do not intend to cite cases, because sufficient have been cited to-night to show the necessity of doing something in regard to the Pension At-, and doing it this session. I do not think the government can successfully plead any excuse in this matter, because it has been brought to their attention too often during the present session. But here we are

in the last days of the session with no relief offered to the sufferers and no remedy proposed. One trouble with the present bill is that it is too strict in its language and too circumscribed in its application. It is almost in the nature of penal legislation. The board says that the language of the act must be construed strictly-and they may as a matter of law be right in that decision-and that they are unable to deal with many cases with which they would like to deal.
The Pension Act is in the nature of remedial legislation if ever remedial legislation was passed in this House. It should be elastic. Discretion should be given to the board. All legitimate applications should be permitted. The board in its inquiries should be given a liberty which it has not now. These matters have been drawn to the attention of the gov-erment time and time again by soldiers' organizations in Canada. The Canadian legion has passed resolutions on the subject; every member in this House, I assume, has, like myself, received copies of these recommendations, and yet the government has not moved a hand this session to relieve the situation.
We have an intimation from the minister at this late date-the first I heard of it was to-night-that the time for considering applications or appeals is to be extended. We are grateful for that information. Why a clause to that effect was not included in the present pension bill, I do not know. It may be added yet; but notwithstanding the fact that we are just about at the end of the present session of parliament, many more clauses might be added. We can hold this House in session; if the minister is prepared with his amendments, let us consider them now. To my mind it is a disgrace to allow parliament to prorogue without passing something in the nature of a remedial pension bill that will take care of a class of cases just such as those which have been pointed out so well in this House this afternoon and evening, and I am sure that the manner in which they have been pointed out must have impressed the ^ minister with the seriousness of the situation.


James Layton Ralston: Mr. Speaker, naturally I have
listened with the greatest interest to the discussion which has taken place in this chamber this afternoon and evening. Perhaps the House will permit me to say that I have had a little experience in connection with pension matters and ex-service men's problems. At the outset let me say that at least three-quarters and perhaps ninety-five per cent of the cases which I have heard cited here this

Pension Act-Mr. Ralston
afternoon and to-night could be dealt with and, if they are legitimate, should be dealt with, as matters not of legislation but of administration.
I have gone through the amendments Which have been suggested at the present session by representatives of that splendid organization, the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League, and in the forty amendments which have been suggested I do not think there is a single one which will cover one of the cases that have been cited here to-day. Primarily it is not more legislation that we need in connection with pension matters. There are only two things required: first, a tribunal which, as has been suggested, will view in a sympathetic way the legislation which it administers and the cases which come before it, and second, reasonable evidence to connect the disability, whatever it may be, with the service period.
The leader of the opposition (Mr. Guthrie) has suggested that the Pension Act is much too circumscribed. I do not know very much about pension acts of other nations, but I may remind the House that the only thing which is required in order to entitle a man to a pension is that the disability from which he is suffering has 'been not caused by service, but incurred during service. In other words if it had its inception during service, if a man were on leave in London, England, or Canada and contracted some disease, automatically under our Pension Act he is entitled to pension.


Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: For any disease?


James Layton Ralston: The hon. member for
Kingston possibly has regard to immoral cases. My hon. friend knows that the tribunal has discretion to allow pensions in such cases. The real things required are a sympathetic tribunal and the securing of reasonable evidence. I happen to belong to the legal profession. There are in this House some members belonging to the medical profession. When a member of the medical profession says that by no possibility could the disability in a certain case have been incurred during service, it is difficult under the act for a board of pension commissioners, sympathetic as they may be, or for this House or for any other tribunal, to make a different finding, unless you have some sort of act which states that regardless of when the diesase or disability was incurred, the man is entitled to pension just the same.


Leon Johnson Ladner: May I ask a question
just on that point? because the minister is an authority on this subject and we are all keenly interested in it. Has he not found that the
pension board always take the stand that the question is not one of sympathy; that they are interpreting strictly the law as written in the statute? They say:	We are not a
sympathetic body; we want to find out what the law is, and we are applying the law. Let parliament attend to the sympathetic side of the question.


James Layton Ralston: As I have said, that is the act which they administer, and I am not standing here in any way defending the Board of Pension Commissioners or the Federal Appeal Board. I am stating what are the proper requisites to the administration of the Pension Act, and that the important thing is not so much legislation as administration. I have also pointed out that the amendments which have been suggested are not amendments which cover the cases that have been cited here to-day.
We must have machinery to carry out the Pension Act. Somebody must decide these questions. It is out of the question for this high court of parliament, even possessing the ample jurisdiction which it does, to attempt to consider and to pass upon all these cases. That would not be fair to the country or to the ex-service men. Neither is it possible for a committee of this House to do this. Some machinery must be set up whereby there can be a reasonable and proper adjudication oi these claims. The Board of Pension Commissioners was established in 1917, before this government took office, and when a commission, which has been referred to to-day, came to consider the matter, it was found that three men sitting in the city of Ottawa could determine the rights of people who had been injured during the war, their widows or other dependents, and could commit the country to millions of dollars of expenditure, and that their decision was final. It was felt that that was neither right nor fair to the country or to the ex-service men.
The suggestion has been made that this government has done nothing. I am not going to make a political speech, but I feel that statement should not be broadcast without the history of the legislation being understood. What was done? An act was passed in 1923 providing for a federal appeal board. I want to tell my hon. friends who have spoken that there is no appeal in connection with the widow in the case cited by the hon. member for Yancouver-Burrard (Mr. Clark) this afternoon. Under the legislation which passed this House in 1923-and I have the bill under my hand-there was an appeal in those cases
Pension Act-Mr. Ralston

There was an appeal in every case as recommended by the commission. It was not in this House that that appeal was refused, but when the bill came back to this House it was found that the only case in which an appeal was allowed was when it had been decided that the disability had not been incurred during service.
Mr. CLARK I would like my hon. friend
to make it quite clear that there is no appeal in the case I cited this afternoon. It is purely discretionary.


James Layton Ralston: Certainly, that is what I am saying, and I am pointing out that that was not the fault of this House of Commons As the legislation passed this House, an appeal was given in every case, as to the amount of pension, as to whether a widowed father or mother was in dependent circumstances, meaning such circumstances that they had not sufficient to provide themselves with . a living, and also in the many cases which arise in connection with collateral questions. But all these appeals were cut out in the other House, and the only appeal allowed was when the decision was given on the ground that the disease or disability was not incurred during service. That was one thing that was done.
What else was done? It was found that complaint was made also that a man had a pretty stiff road to travel in connection with proving his claim for pension. He did not understand very much about pension law. All he knew was that he was sick, and he felt the war was the cause, and so the suggestion was made, and was put in the statutes of this country, that in every district there should be a man, nominated by the ex-service men's organizations and paid by the government of this country, whose job it would be to present the case of any man who went to him in connection with appeals under this act. I think that was a step in the right direction. It improved the machinery for helping the ex-service man to get his claim properly adjudicated upon.
But still there is always the question of evidence. I think I can say that there come to my desk as many cases with regard to pensions as to the desk of any member of this House except the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment (Mr. King, Kootenay). The first thing I do is not to blame the pension board or the appeal board, but to get the record of the case and look at it myself to try and find where the hole is, to see what evidence is wanting and whether there is any possibility of getting it. Then I
	*
immediately write the man or his doctor to see if evidence cannot be given to show that during some particular period after his discharge and before his disability seems to have been recognized, the man was ailing, in order to show that the disability he now has can be related more or less continuously back to the time of his service. That is always the difficulty, and it is growing as the years go on. We are now ten years from the war, and there is no doubt that every year- and I do not blame the members of the medical profession-it is harder every year for them to certify that the particular disease or disability which now exists was incurred away back there. My theory is-and this is where the matter of administration comes in mostly-that if, taking all the evidence, it is shown to have been reasonably possible that the disability which is now being suffered could have been incurred during service, that constitutes a reasonable doubt in favour of the man and the pension should be awarded. Let me put it in other words, and I know my words are not binding on any judicial tribunal:	Suppose I were on the pension
board and with respect to a given case, having read the files and heard the evidence both ways, had said: "No pension." Then if when I went home at night and put on my slippers, as we all do these days having so much time on our hands, and sat before the fire and thought over -that case and was seriously troubled as to whether after all that fellow was not entitled to a pension; if I had made a mistake, if I had a reasonable doubt that I had not done the right thing, that man it seems to me is entitled to a pension. I say you cannot put that in a statute-never; it is a matter for the tribunal which is administering the act. So I say that when we speak of the pressing need for legislation I am not so sure that any amendments will be found to be a cure for the cases which have been cited. But the commission said: "The board may err; they are only human, and the man ought to have a second chance," and so a federal appeal board was set up. The idea of that appeal board was this: We felt that the men sitting at Ottawa were too far away from the individuals concerned, that they did not get the personal touch. Many men, and perhaps some doctors, have not the ability to give a word picture of a case as* it would be presented to the pension board if they saw the man face to face. There are some things in connection with pension evidence which depend almost wholly on the word of the man; he may be unable to give any corrobora-

Pension Act-Mr. Ralston
tion; he may give a history of having been blown up by a shell when nobody was around at all. The board has then to put the test that is generally put by any jury:	Does he
look like a man who is telling the truth? Look him over and see how he is giving his evidence. What do his neighbours say about his reputation for telling the truth? Do not lay down a rule that there must be corroboration in every case, but decide it on the ordinary principles on which a jury decide a case. If you approach it in that spirit a great many of the difficulties may be solved. And so we said:	We will provide appeal
boards, and the form of appeal boards which passed this House was not the appeal board in the form in which it now appears in the statute. The appeal board this House approved was a series of district review boards; that is, the Dominion was divided into districts, and it was provided that these review boards would travel up and down and see the men face to face; the district review board would make its decision, and the case could then igo to the federal board if the Board of Pension Commissioners or the applicant felt that the decision was wrong, the Federal Appeal Board could review it. A provision was inserted in the statute to the effect that the Federal Appeal Board could not reverse a favourable decision of the district review board unless they actually saw the man, unless he waived that privilege. But a.s I say, the legislation was not adopted in that form. Instead, a federal appeal board was set up, and that federal appeal board, which is the subject of the bill now before the House, has been travelling up and down this country and has given considerable relief in a large number of cases which were thought at least by the citizens at large to be meritorious, decisions being made which are favourable to the pensioner. That is an advance. That is an attempt to provide machinery which may take care of these things. If we sit here till doomsday we cannot decide these individual cases; we must entrust them to some machinery. My view of the subject, therefore, is that our efforts should be directed to making the machinery as complete and as smooth-working and as expeditious as possible.


Robert Knowlton Smith: I would ask the minister if the present pension legislation will permit through administrative means without statutory amendment, of the reopening of a man's case in the event of the discovery of new evidence?


James Layton Ralston: No. My hon. friend will find in the bill of 1923, to which I have referred, that the legislation which passed this House on the recommendation of the commission provided that when new evidence was discovered sufficiently convincing in the opinion of the district review board a fresh appeal might be made, but that also did nol become law. Perhaps my hon. friend was not in the House when the announcement was made that the minister has under his hand now, in connection with amendments to the procedure, an amendment which permits the very thing to which my hon. friend refers, and I understand that the minister will propose that amendment as soon as we get into committee. As I have said, in my humble opinion, that our efforts should be primarily devoted to making as efficient as possible the machinery for hearing these cases. While we may bring individual cases before the House by way of illustration, we cannot get very much further with them here.
I want to remind hon. gentlemen opposite that in past years a good deal of pension legislation has been enacted and many amendments have been made to the act. The amendments that are now being proposed, and others that may be put forward in the future, will not, I anticipate, affect the principle on which pensions are being awarded-the principle that the disability must be incurred during service in order to entitle a man to a pension. I will deal in a moment with cases vi'here disability is not incurred during service and the soldier is sick and needs assistance.


Mr. McGIBBON:: Before the minister
leaves that point, does he not know that right in the country to-day there are thousands of cases that without a shadow of doubt are attributable to war service, but the disease cannot be attached to that service sufficiently to secure a pension?


James Layton Ralston: My hon. friend I hope, will not think I am coming back at him, but he belongs to the profession to which I refer, and I can only say that if there is not a shadow of doubt in those cases, and if the doctors will say so, that is all that is necessary to entitle the men to pensions.


Peter McGibbon: I beg to differ with the hon. minister. That is not the practice.


James Layton Ralston: I do not mean my hon. friend or any individual doctor. The hypothetical case he put was that in which there
Pension Act-Mr. Ralston

was not a shadow of doubt that the disability was incurred during service. Then the pension board's medical advisers or any doctor who has the honour of his profession at heart will so certify.


Peter McGibbon: I do not like to interrupt the minister but what I have in mind is this. There are to-day right in this country hundreds of cases of nervous breakdown, insanity, borderline cases, that every medical man who has had any experience at all is convinced are primarily due to war service; but you cannot get sufficient evidence to attach those cases to war service in order to entitle the men to pensions.


James Layton Ralston: I am only saying that the evidence lies in the hands of the medical man. He has to decide, not the lawyers. If the medical man on his professional responsibility says that the disease, whatever it may be, is connected with war service, and traces it back there, I do not see why a pension is not granted. But my hon. friend gives me an opportunity that I was going to take later of dealing with the class of cases in which, let us say, there is a reasonable doubt, they cannot be proved beyond a shadow of doubt to be due to war service. I refer to the exsoldier who has a breakdown. I am not saying what the policy of the government may be, but I anticipate that in this country there will be established soldier homes to take care of that sort of case. It is the only way you can deal with it. You cannot bring it under any pension legislation unless you can produce the certificate of the medical men or the evidence to which I referred.


Peter McGibbon: The medical men do
not give the pensions; the pension board decide.


James Layton Ralston: My hon. friend knows
that three out of the four members of the pension board' are medical men.


Peter McGibbon: But they are not always guided by medical certificates.


James Layton Ralston: I would not make a
remark of that kind-


Peter McGibbon: I make it.


James Layton Ralston: -about medical men. I know the chief medical adviser of the board very well, and I think he would be guided by the certificates of medical men. I think my hon. friend will agree with me that if he were sitting on a -case as judge he would insist on some reasonable connection of the disability with war service. He would not be satisfied simply by a letter stating, "I certify fMr. Ralston.]
John Jones' disability to-day is due to war service," without the medical man showing that at the -time of discharge he had been ailing or had what was -a continuous condition. My friend says "attributable to service". May I make this clear? I think hon. gentlemen understand it. -I would say, -let' us get -this "attributable 'to service" out of our minds. There is no necessity under the Pension Act to-day to prove that the disease is attributable to service. Service may not have had anything to d-o with it, but if the trouble began during service -that is enough under the Pension Act.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think in practice they -put it the -other way. I know many such cases.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am sure of it. That
is -my experience.


James Layton Ralston: I can only speak out of
my own experience, -and I assure -my friend and other hon. members that I have had many, many cases in which I could not show in any -possible way or make any suggestion that the disability was due to service; it was sufficient so long as I proved that the trouble began before discharge.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That was attributable to
service.


James Layton Ralston: No.


Sir EUGENE FISET:: You must have
received preferential treatment.


James Layton Ralston: Now, in regard to legislation. It seems to me that 1923 was the beginning of pretty constructive pension legislation. In that year the appeal board was established and the soldier advisers appointed. It was suggested this afternoon that we had not had very much pension legislation. I want to remind the House that the case which was regarded by us as entitled to sympathetic treatment, namely, the widow who had received commutation of pension on remarriage, but had lost her second husband, was provided with a pension under the bill passed in 1924, and under the same measure payments to parents were readjusted on a more liberal basis. And this somewhat unusual provision was made. A man receiving 25 per cent for some disability might die, and his death might be due to something totally outside that disability. The provision I refer to is to the effect that payment is to be made to the widow pending investigation of that case to ascertain whether the death was the result of the service disability or not, because if so the widow would be entitled to a pension for life. In the same year a retro-

Pension Act-Mr. Ralston
active pension was provided when a reversal of the decision of the board had been made. Last, but not least, the meritorious clause, so-called, was passed. It was regarded by ex-service men generally as being a very important step. That clause was supposed to make the act more elastic, to use the words of the hon. leader of the opposition, to make it possible to consider cases which would not otherwise be entertained under the act. I understand that a small number of cases have been considered. As hon. gentlemen know, the meritorious clause has to be administered by a joint board consisting of the pension commissioners and the appeal board. I think in connection with that some consideration might be given to a matter of procedure which I have in mind in order to make it more effective.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Has the minister the
figures of that relief?


James Layton Ralston: I understand there have been thirteen cases.


John Warwick King: No, eleven.


James Layton Ralston: My hon. friend from Vancouver thought that 1925 was a blank year in regard to pension legislation. He is wrong. During that year a good deal of pension legislation was enacted. For instance, there was an extension of the 80 per cent clause. It was provided that when a man has 80 per cent disability it does not make any difference what causes his death; whether he be killed by a street car or in any other accidental way, his dependents are entitled to a pension providing the death takes place ten years after discharge. Previously the period had been five years. Tuberculosis cases, which everyone has at heart, were dealt with. There are no cases which are more sympathetically viewed by the country than those of the tubercular men, and I think the Tubercular Veterans Association will agree that a long step forward was taken when it was provided that any man with tuberculosis, moderately advanced and clinically active, when discharged from the sanatarium, even though the tuberculosis might be arrested, should be entitled to 100 per cent pension to be continued for two years. That, I say, was a long step in advance. In the case of tubercular men who saw no service in a theatre of war the pension is 90 per cent. At the same session at which this provision was made another amendment was passed providing for the reopening of final payments. Provision was made for wear and tear allowance for clothing of amputation cases, namely an allowance cf $54 for these men. Under that provision a good deal of money was paid out and was
warmly welcomed by the returned soldiers. Pensions in connection with misconduct cases, particularly in relation to widows, received sympathetic consideration. Altogether, therefore, considerable progress was made in the session of 1925.
Hon. gentlemen will, I think, realize that some attempt has been made by the government and by this parliament to effect improvements in our pensions legislation. The proposals made at the present time, some of which are included in the memorandum submitted by the British Empire Service League, are largely of two classes: they extend the class of those to whom pensions are to be granted or they increase in some respect the amount of pensions to be paid. They do not change the principle upon which, generally speaking, pensions are given. I do not want to delay the House, but perhaps I may be permitted to refer very briefly to one or two matters as to which proposals have been made. For instance, a man may be receiving a pension on account of what is described as aggravation of disability due to service. Gases of aggravation apply generally only to such men as have not served in any theatre of war, except in one or two instances which I need not refer to. That is to say, any man who has served in a theatre of war is entitled to pension for the total degree of disability which he suffered at the time of discharge, notwithstanding the fact that some part of that disability may have existed before he enlisted. The theory is that if he was fit enough to be taken overseas for service he should be regarded as having been fit in every way, so that the pension should be granted for the full amount of disability from which he suffered on discharge. The provision contained in the proposals of the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League is this, that where a man dies who has been pensioned for aggravation alone-where he has not served in any theatre of war-if it can be established that the aggravation of his disability in any way contributed to his death his widow is to be entitled to full pension.
It is also proposed that there should be no suspension of a man's pension without notice to the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League. I do not think there is any need for legislation in that respect, because the department will be only too glad, I feel sure, to notify some service bureau in order that the necessary steps might be taken to present the man's case afresh before suspension of pension finally takes place.
Another matter is the consideration of the pension as part of the ex-soldier's estate. The
Pension Act-Mr. Ralston

proposal was made that any portion of a pension unpaid was to form part of the pensioner's estate if he made a will. The suggestion of the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League is that, even where there is no will, such unpaid portion of pension should be regarded as part of the estate to be administered by the Board of Pension Commissioners. A further subject of interest relates to children who are suffering from physical infirmity and who receive an allowance. According to the act the only children who may receive any allowance by reason of physical infirmity are those whose infirmity was incurred before the age of twenty-one. The proposal is, as I understand it, that if the son of a soldier killed overseas becomes infirm and is incapacitated from earning a living, even though he may be over twenty-one, he shall be entitled to a pension on account of his father's 'death. Still another proposal is to make the pension more retroactive; it is thought that the payments should be extended further back.
A vexed question which has been discussed in the House on two or three occasions is the position of the widow of the soldier who dies after discharge from the service, and who was married "after the appearance" of disability, to quote the words of the act. A great deal of difficulty arises in connection with the consideration of these words "after the appearance of disability." On two or three occasions an amendment has been passed here, but it has never become law.
I might mention now what is perhaps a peculiar case. As hon. members may probably know, a woman who has been cohabiting with a man as his common law wife is entitled to a pension; but strangely enough, under the act, if the union was subsequently made legal there may be a danger, in the event of her husband's death, of the pension being disallowed. To remove that anomaly a proposal has been submitted.
All these casses I have cited, it will be realized, are but samples, so to speak; they do not touch the cases brought forward in this chamber to-day. Upon some of them the House has expressed its opinion before, while many of them are new. Now, the question to be considered by the government or by anyone responsible for the administration of affairs is, what are meritorious cases and what are not? For example, my hon. friend from Vancouver South (Mr. Ladner) to-day suggested that this country should assume the responsbility for the burial and medical attendance expenses of the wives and dependents of ex-soldiers. That is a pretty large respon-

sibility. To me it is altogether new. The question in this instance is: would it be better to make such a provision as the hon. member suggests, and leave other cases unprovided for; or, on the other hand, endeavour to make a wider distribution of the benefits to be conferred? These are questions to be carefully considered. The minister has altogether about 200 suggestions looking to the improvement of our pensions legislation and the administration of the act, and I feel, speaking frankly as an ex-service man, that I may safely say that the government is trying its utmost to do justice by the returned soldiers. I do not think I need to express my sympathy with the returned soldiers or tell the House that I am endeavouring in every way I can to see to it that the honourable obligations of the country to the ex-service men are carried out. It is in the interests of the returned men and of the country as well that just and proper consideration should be given to all these proposals regarding the consolidation of the Pension Act, so that next year they may be submitted to a special committee of the House and thoroughly investigated with the result as suggested by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Guthrie), of a revised Pension act being enacted if need be. I think, however, it will be found that the Pension Act as we have it is drafted along the proper lines. ' It may be encumbered with amendments and possibly can be simplified, but it seems to me that we should study these proposals and in the light of mature consideration see just what new principles should be embodied in the act.


Mr. MILLAR:: Is there any remedy or
relief possible through the administration of the present act, or will there be any relief under the proposed amendments, to such a typical case as the one I am about to cite?
I have on my desk several letters, but I may refer to this one in particular because, as I say, the case is typical. I want to read three or four lines from this letter. This is from a returned soldier who has a 25 per cent disability. He says:
It's up to the government to help me out. . . if I can't get government help, I must grin and bear it.
He then refers to the cost of their relief to some one, the municipality or the government, in any case, and goes on to say:
I alone cost the government $100 every winter in relief. That's why I'm fighting for a job. I don't want it

That- is, the relief.
I want work.

Pension Act-Mr. MacLaren
Further Sown in the same letter he says:
I can in summer keep my head up, but in winter it drops. What a glorification in fighting for one's country.
Perhaps we should not blame him for being bitter.
I lost my money in the Home bank, still have $320 to come. . . Robbed of what I had, discharged a 25 per cent disability man. . . .


Hewitt Bostock: I think the hon. gentleman might better wait until the bill is in committee before putting such a long question.


John Millar: I was almost'finished. This man being in receipt of a very small pension, is there any provision under the present act or the proposed legislation for the relief of such cases?


James Layton Ralston: The only relief would
be by way of administration in connection with the provision of employment; that is all I can see in the case. As my hon. friend knows, a superpreference has been given to wounded ex-service men and a preference to ex-service men not wounded, under the Civil Service Act'. I might also say that in connection with the employment, and as his correspondent suggests in connection with relief, a man who has a pension and who is partly disabled is entitled to consideration. These are cases we all come in contact with; they are not unusual at all. They are the cases which, if the country had plenty of work, would occupy jobs running elevators and doing things of that kind. In that way these men could be absorbed, but that is not the case in Canada at present. We always have the difficulty of men who, having the amonut of their disability theoretically at least made up by the contribution of the country, still find themselves because of their handicap not in a good position to compete in the labour market.
I do not want to detain the House any longer; I only wish to repeat that I do feel this to be in the interest of ex-service men, whom I know to be very reasonable. I have met them from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the closest possible way, and I have found that when you meet them face to face and deal with their cases straightforwardly you can get the most frank expression from them, and can give them the same kind of consideration. They were and are as reasonable as anyone could expect, and the difficulty about this thing is the mystery sometimes thrown around it, as I have said, by reason of the fact that they are so far away from the tribunal which decides their cases. Naturally this is a matter in which I have an intense personal interest and it is hardly necessary
for me to say as a member of this government that I know my colleagues are in hearty sympathy with the object we all have in view, and that every endeavour will be made to put this matter in the best possible shape for further action. That wall apply to these proposals and others which have been made by different people; they will be given the most careful and thorough study, and the close attention which the importance of the subjects demands.


Mr. MURRAY MacLAREN (St. John-Albert):: The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) has made a very clear statement, and I am disposed to agree with a great deal of what he has said. There are two factors in the matter of pensions, the provisions of the act on the one hand and its interpretation and administration on the other, and I believe much misapprehension has arisen through the failure fully to appreciate the importance of both these elements. The Pension Act requires amendment, which is only natural; there is no finality to an act of this character. Pension matters are of great difficulty, and contain many abstruse points; an act of this kind naturally lacks the precision of others, because of the fact that it has to do with human disability. Therefore we must expect amendments from time to time, but however near we approach perfection the act will materially fail unless its interpretation and administration are as efficient as we can hope for.
It is a matter of common experience that a man will make an application time and time again, but his pension will be refused; finally, after a very considerable time, and after much perseverance, he is allowed a pension. Why is that? In the meantime there has been no change in the act or in the requirements, and there may be little or no new evidence presented. I think that is a point which requires the attention of the minister; he should look carefully into the administration of the act, because it will not succeed until it receives the support and proper interpretation of the pension commissioners. I have many times seen the results of the excellent work done by the Canadian Legion; they have assisted men in obtaining their pensions after long periods and after much laborious effort, but I would ask the minister why that should be necessary. I think the attitude of the pension board should be to assist men to put a claim through, rather than to make them fight for it, to decline their applications on a number of occasions and finally grant them on practically the same evidence. Again I
2078	COMMONS
Pension Act-Mr. Ross (Kingston)
suggest to the minister that he might well study the administration of this act and see if great improvement cannot be effected there. I cannot understand why men should go on being refused for many months, and finally receive their pensions. I recognize the difficulties; I realize that there may be some additional evidence presented, but in many cases I fail to see where any further evidence has been brought forward; apparently there has simply been a change of opinion on the part of the board. I do not think this is fair to the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment (Mr. King, Kootenay) and to this House, and that is the attitude we should take with regard to pensions. I think it the only correct view, because so far as this House can do so it has paid due attention to the subject of pensions and has made proper provision for the returned men.
We have had this act gone over both by special committees of the House and by a royal commission. We have had prolonged debates in this House and we have not succeeded in satisfying the many claims presented. No doubt the act has been imperfect. We should have a more perfect act, but unless there is a more reasonable attitude on the part of those who have to deal with pensions we can hardly make the progress that we otherwise would.


Arthur Edward Ross: 
John Warwick King: Was the operation for a war disability?


Arthur Edward Ross: Yes. When an
operation is performed for something, such as appendicitis, that is not a war disability, I do not think the department should at this time assume responsibility for it. There is no reason for retaining that section. The particular case to which I refer is where a man was being hospitalized for varicose veins and I believe by mistake they operated on his feet. As a result 'the man has not walked since. It is quite true that they say they found out later that the man had a venereal disease. The board had all the evidence before them at the time and they were the only ones who knew he had it, but in spite of that they operated on him. I believe that section should be struck out of the act and that in such a case the man should be given a fair show.
The Minister of National Defence stated that at the time the appeal board was created it was not an appeal board1 that was first suggested. We know that, but at the same time we know that the appeal board to-day, which has done some good work, is being hindered in its activities by one or two things. The Federal Appeal Board cannot change the diagnosis as set down by the Board of Pension Commissioners. In one 'Case we forced them to withdraw that diagnosis. It is a serious mistake that the appeal board has not the power to change the diagnosis, because uipon that diagnosis will often depend the question whether or not a man is eligible for pension. The Federal Appeal Board cannot act in that case and it cannot change the percentage. These are matters of legislation which can be remedied.
Mention has been made to-night of the tuberculosis condition. The department are aware that they have advisers who have no sympathy as regards the effect of gas upon the ex-service man. Dozens and dozens of these cases have come under my observation, and in bringing these cases to the attention of parliament I want to be a little personal. After the conclusion of the war I was offered a position on the 'pension board. I refused because I believe that after my four yeare' service and experience in charge of medical work at the front I could be of more use to the returned man off the board than on it.

I have done my best to show this House that the cases which come up for consideration will be with us until the last days of the last man who served in the war. There seems to be an idea that these cases should be wiped out. The war was a most peculiar one. The weapons employed in it had effects upon the human system that the medical profession had not had to deal with before, and the result is that there are going to arise in men conditions that would not be considered in former wars but which must foe considered in connection with this war. For years I have pointed out that there must be a sympathetic attitude, a new relation of the medical man to the exservice man, and that only those Who have had service at the front can be in a sympathetic relation towards the returned soldier because they have the knowledge and experience in regard to these cases.
There is no question that gas has left effects upon the men. Those who were at the second battle of Ypres will remember that when men who came back affected by gas attempted to return to the front, they dropped dead on the way owing to the condition of their hearts and lungs. I have found all over this country men suffering from the effects of gas. If you have a medical adviser who has never seen the effects of gas and who is constantly non-sympathetic in regard to it, the ex-service man is going to suffer. The board have advisers of that character and on that account the men cannot get sympathetic treatment. I feel that my experience and relations with the ex-service men at the front have put me into a better position than that of others who have not the same experience to deal with some of these cases. I believe, as the Minister of National Defence has said, that the whole secret of this act lies in administration and sympathy. The sections of the act and the regulations must, of course, be followed, but unless you have that sympathy you will not make much headway.
The minister and several other members this evening have referred to the sections that have been strack out of the act or changed in the other chamber. Why can we not reinsert these and send them up to the other House every year until we get satisfaction along these lines? The Minister of National Defence referred to the fact that it was easy to connect disability with service. He took the stand today-and I think if that were accepted it would help a great deal-that if the disability occurred during service the man was entitled to a pension. I would refer him to the case already mentioned where a hemorrhage occurred on service, and yet the man was not granted

Pension Act

Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
any pension or consideration, I believe that the minister is giving perhaps a little more attention now to what is being said; at one time he was paying very little attention. The matters I have brought before him, I think he will agree are all of a constructive nature, and ii the old system of having the committee appointed every year is renewed it will relieve the minister of responsibility. If every year is too often, let it meet once in two years. That would enable the members to bring before the proper tribunal cases which they feel are deserving. As to any legislative changes that I have suggested, all the minister has to do is to bring them before the House, and I can assure him that they will be readily accepted by this House in the interests of the ex-service men.


Mr. A. M. YOUNG (Saskatoon):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to take just a few moments, not because I do not think this subject is worthy of a longer time, but because everything has been well said already.
I would like to congratulate the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) for the very clear way in which he has presented this question, on which he is an expert. I must confess to being a little bit sorry that perhaps from both sides of the House things have been said which seem to have a little partisan ring to them. I have no sympathy with any partisanship in this House, no matter on which side it is, on a question of this kind. This is too vital a matter for partisanship.
I want to say another thing. When it comes to a question of the soldier or the treasury, my sympathy is entirely with the soldier. I believe that the Minister of National Defence has given us the real reason for the difficulty in this whole matter. I believe that if we had a little more sympathetic consideration by the board, a great many of these difficulties would be removed. I had occasion a few days ago to visit the board, and I made this statement, that I did not believe there was one member in the House on either side who wanted the board to interpret this act in any other than a broad and generous spirit, and not in a technical way at all. I want to state in that connection something which may reflect on the pension board or on the board of appeal, or on both; I am not concerned which.
There was a man in my riding who had a difficulty prior to enlistment. That difficulty was the occasion of an operation after enlistment during the time he was on service. Now he applies for a pension. I may say that his condition was hammer toes, one on either
foot. His toes, I suppose, are all right, but on the bottom of each foot- he has very large callouses, so large and bad that he gets around with very great difficulty. The pension board refused him a pension. He then went to the board of appeal, and they decided his case favourably. The case then went back to the pension board for action, and they took the position that because there was no medical category to which the board of appeal could refer that case, they could not act. It seemed to me the difference was the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. I do not believe the man knows really what is the cause of his trouble. All he knows is that he has trouble with his feet, that it is very difficult for him to walk, and while these two boards are arguing where the authority really lies, this man is suffering. I said to them this: In a case of that character you should, in my humble judgment, give the benefit of the doubt to the returned man and see that he gets relief. If we interpret the act in that way, we would not have as much difficulty as we have.
I want to be fair to the board. I have taken many cases before them, and I have received a great deal of sympathetic consideration. We must recognize this fact, that there are many applications for pension, there are two sides to every question, and when a man is turned down he naturally feels aggrieved.
This is not the place to cite cases, but there is one other I might mention. It is that of a farmer-I am not talking for political friends-a well, strong, husky man, a farmer before he went overseas. During his service some rash broke out on his body. I believe they call it eczema, and although I am a medical man I am not quite sure yet just what eczema is. This rash breaks out from time to time. Unfortunately the man does on occasion take a little alcoholic beverage, and he is worse after that. Apparently the pension board is going to insist that this man become a prohibitionist to see if the disease will not clear up under that cure. I do not believe that we should go to the extent of requiring a man to become a prohibitionist, no matter how good that might be. This man is suffering very much; he is a charge upon his friends, yet in spite of all he can do and all his friends can do, he cannot get a pension.
I want to compliment the Minister of National Defence on the very sane and logical viewpoint that he took. If the board will take every case into their sympathetic consideration and interpret the act in a broad and generous spirit rather than concern them-

Pension Act-Mr. Ryckman
selves with technicalities, many of our difficulties will be removed.
I am glad that the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment (Mr. King, Kootenay) is moving some amendments. In some cases that have come before me the difficulty seems to be the length of time provided in the statute during which the soldier may apply for pension. I understand the minister is going to extend the time for two years. May I say to him that if he chooses to do away with the time limit altogether so that a man suffering from a disability due to war service will get a pension, I would be very happy to support him and go the whole limit. It may have been a good thing, up to the present, to have some time limit but I think the time has now arrived when we can give fair and just consideration to all cases irrespective of time limits.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: I shall speak for but a moment, but I wish to refer to certain observations which fell from the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston). I thank the minister for his knowledge of the subject and for the information which he imparted to the House. I think, however, that when he reads in Hansard what he has stated he will find that he has left us with a contradiction, and it is this: He said: I find no fault with the pension board; I find no fault with the Federal Appeal Board; the law is there; they administer it. Later on he said: The difficulty is not one of legislation so much as of administration. Now if the pension board are required to administer the law as they find it, and if there is no fault to be found with their administration, we are driven irresistibly to the conclusion that the real fault is in the legislation.
The minister went on to say, in effect, that you could not legislate sympathy into this act. I am of the opinion, Mr. Speaker, that that is just what can be done. I think that discretion can be left to the pension board. You can have regulations, if you like, not cast-iron regulations which they are bound to follow, but well-defined regulations which they will be at liberty to break through ii they feel the case warrants it.
Living as I do in a populous district where there are many ex-service men, numerous complaints reach me. Every member no doubt is approached by many returned soldiers who have a real grievance, and the human heart goes out to these men, especially when convinced in his own mind that the justice of the case is with them. In several cases I have been firmly of the opinion that pen-

sions should have been granted. Suppose the man did not get it, there would be hearing after hearing of his application, but no relief would be forthcoming. If the applicant persevered, as happened in several cases, the board yielded and a pension was granted. Then the idea would go abroad: Oh, it is easy for one man to get relief upon his application, but the other man must fight his way through the woods until finally he takes this fortress as he took positions against the enemy. That should not be the case. I support my leader in this respect. I do think that the act should be generously amended, and I suggest that the Minister of Solders' Civil Re-establishment and the Minister of National Defence retire, and although the time is short before to-morrow, I am confident the two of them could bring in amendments which would satisfy the ex-service men and the country, and would give us at this session the best workable act possible. I conclude from the statement of the minister that we are to have amendments. That notice came late; but better late than never.
Now, with this notice before us, that in committee we are going to consider amendments to this act, I request the government to make those amendments generous so that they will meet every real case that the Minister of National Defence thinks exists at the present time. I am confident if that is done the returned soldiers will be satisfied and the country will be satisfied. There is a duty resting upon us to be absolutely fair to these men. I believe the one thought that animates every member of this House is to be sure that we do not fail to recognize any claim that can possibly be adjusted.


George Black: 
James Layton Ralston: Does not the hon. gentleman think that the amendments which the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment has announced, and to which I referred, providing for a second appeal in cases of newly discovered evidence, will take care of a great number of cases? Does he not think that that perhaps is the most vital legislation outside of removing the bar to extending the time of application?


George Black: Perhaps it is, but so far as the application for a pension is concerned I think there should be no time limit. I think the right to a pension is a continuing right. That right may not be established for ten years when the limit is nine. I do not think the applicant should be shut out by any time limit. In my view every case should be dealt with by the board on its merits as it arises and should not be hampered by any time limit. As a matter of fact I think the government last session and again this session should have appointed a committee of the House to deal with pension legislation affecting returned soldiers and their dependents, and having failed to do so, it being their policy apparently, the government should have prepared the necessary legislation without the assistance of a committee of the House. They are well equipped to prepare that legislation without any assistance from private members, for they have the Board of Pension Commissioners, they have the appeal board, they have the Department of Nationa' Defence, they have the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment with all their experienced and well-qualified staff to advise them, and I am sure that every member of the staff would be willing to devote his best abilities to that work.
Now, in addition to any suggestions that private members might make as to legislation, the government has before it, as has every member of the House, no less than thirty-eight amendments suggested by the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League. These amendments have been put forward after careful consideration and discussion by men well qualified to deal with such matters. Following the suggestion made by the hon. member for East Toronto, I would suggest
Pension Act-Mr. Esling

that the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment and a small select committee take the matter under consideration even at this late stage of the session and endeavour to bring in additional legislation to alleviate the hardships now being suffered by some of our ex-service men. I do not think any member of this House would begrudge the time necessary to enact such legislation, even though it should necessitate the continuation of this session for a number of days.


Mr. W. K. ESLING (West Kootenay):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to offer a word more directly in connection with the amendment proposed in Bill No. 234. It is to be regretted that there is not a single amendment offered as a result of the Winnipeg convention and the suggestions placed before the minister. What he offers is merely for the purpose of changing the numerical complexion of the appeal board. It seems to me that at least one of the several amendments suggested by the service bureau of the Canadian Legion might be considered in connection with the amendments to this bill. Take for instance the Soldiers Insurance Act. There is not a member of this House who has not received telegrams and letters urging that the Soldiers Insurance Act be continued. It would not require a new administrative staff inasmuch as that division of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment is already functioning. The staff is at present engaged in the payment of claims and the collection of premiums. It would seem from the reports that during the past year the soldiers' insurance division of the Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment paid 221 claims and collected premiums amounting to about $1,000,000. It has about $4,250,000 on hand, it has 20,000 policies in force and about $59,000,000 worth of insurance. All that is required is an amendment to the bill to continue that insurance machinery in operation.
I want to say a word about this amendment, the purpose of which it is difficult to understand. The minister will correct me if I am wrong in the statement that the act provides that the board shall be composed of not fewer than five and not more than seven members. The minister by his amendment asks for authority to reduce that number; he wants to provide for a board consisting of not fewer than three and not more than seven. One wonders just what this appeal board does. Take the report submitted by the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. It contains sixty pages and there is not a full line in the whole document relating 
to the activities of the Federal Appeal Board. Every branch of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment is dealt with in detail; all the accounts of the innumerable activities of the department are set forth; but when it comes to the Federal Appeal Board mention is made of it in only three instances. In one case there is mention of $150,000 for the purpose of the board; in another case there is a reference to $31,000 for salaries for the appeal board; and there is another mention of $6,000 also for salaries. But there is not one solitary reference to anything, the appeal board has done or whert. it has held its sittings; no mention is made of its activities. There are two pages in the report giving a table of contents, and you cannot find in that table any reference to the Federal Appeal Board. One wonders therefore, I say, what the board has accomplished. This board is supposed to conduct its activities in every part of the Dominion and in order to facilitate the work the Dominion is divided into eight units. There is one for Quebec, one for the mari-times, one for eastern Ontario, one for central and western Ontario, and there are four for the four western provinces. I should like to have the minister make it clear what his object is in wishing to reduce the membership of the Federal Appeal Board. Certainly it cannot be for the purpose of facilitating the disposal of the applications of men who have not had their pensions granted by the pensions board. We must naturally assume that when an appeal is taken to the Federal Appeal Board the case is a deserving one. Now what is the situation? There are eight units in which this appeal board is supposed to carry on its investigations, and in every one of these units the appeals to-day are precisely one year behind. I can cite one unit in which last year there were 1,400 appeals, of which number fifty were disposed of. If therefore there are no new appeals to be added to the list, it will take just twenty-seven years to dispose of the appeals that are before that one unit.


James Layton Ralston: What unit is that?


William Kemble Esling: Montreal. In view of that fact is there any common sense in the minister presenting such an amendment as this? When the bill comes before the committee I intend to offer an amendment to provide that the Federal Appeal Board shall consist of nine members so that it may function in quorums of three each and in that way carry on its operations throughout the Dominion with some hope of disposing of some of the applications before the poor fellows pass away.

Pension Act-Mr. McGibbon
Mr. PETER MoGIBBON (Muskoka-On-tario): I rise to put oa record some statements in answer to the observations of the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston). There is no finality to this question, nor will there be any, and the sooner parliament and the country realize that fact the sooner we shall get some legislation passed which will be satisfactory to returned soldiers. According to the answer the minister made me, it is easy for anyone to get a pension. All that is necessary is for some doctor to certify to the ex-soldier's disability having been caused by the war, and the pension is granted.


James Layton Ralston: I did not say "some
doctor"; I said the medical adviser to the pensions board.


Peter McGibbon: That restricts it very
much. It leaves it to one or two men who happen to be on the board.


James Layton Ralston: I assume that they are
honest men. If they are not they should be removed and replaced by others in whom the country can have confidence.


Peter McGibbon: I am not referring to the medical men on the pensions board; I am not discussing them. I am referring to the difficulty ex-soldiers experience in getting pensions. ' It has been the experience of every medical man after presenting evidence to the board to have it turned down without due consideration. The minister was right in the statement that the whole thing resolved itself largely into a question of administration and sympathy. Sympathy is the thing which is largely wanting. I know that the members of the board are first-rate men, but like everyone else who has spoken, I think they consider themselves a body which should protect the treasury of Canada. That seems to be the outstanding consideration to them, rather than that of seeing that justice is done the men who have served overseas.
As I said a few moments ago, there is no getting away from the fact that we have arising to-day upon the medical horizon diseases and conditions which were never known before. For example, the hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Ross) referred to the gas attacks. We have to-day, arising in the lungs, and the minister will bear me out in this, conditions of primary carcinoma which was practically unknown before, and nearly all of such cases which have come under my knowledge have been cases of soldiers who went through gas attacks. The plain assumption is that the irritation of the gas-because irritation is one of the great causes of cancer-has been the primary cause of the later 32649-132
developing carcinoma. We cannot prove it; we would not expect a medical man on any board to say that we could prove it, but it is common sense to make that deduction. Every man is more or less gifted with that quality, and when he sees certain conditions following certain causes, common sense connects them up. For instance, if you see a wreck on the shore you naturally conclude that there has been a storm. We have other diseases of the lungs which we did not know before; we have mental diseases and nervous diseases which we can hardly classify. I think the best diagnosis I ever heard made was given by a witness before the pension committee, when he said the patient was like a battery which was discharged. It is hard to put a name to a condition of that kind; you cannot do it, but at the same time every medical man and every other man will admit that there are a lot of those men who have had something taken out of them through their service which cannot be put back; they are like batteries which cannot be recharged. Then you go on to the border line of diseases of insanity. Look at the wave of crime sweeping over the country, and see how often the criminals are ex-service men. Go a little further, and see how our asylums are being filled up; see how men eight or ten years after the war are breaking down and going insane when there has never before been any evidence of insanity in their family history. These are. new conditions which I claim are attributable to war service; I admit that' you cannot connect them up and you cannot say they are absolutely due to war service, as the minister asks. You cannot prove it because it is something new in the realm of medicine, but the day is coming when it will be recognized as a fact. There is a whole list of new diseases and conditions which are rising on the medical horizon which are no doubt due to war service. These people are not getting pensions; they are disabled; something has been taken out of them which cannot be replaced, and the day is coming when that fact will be recognized. That is the reason I say there is no finality to questions of this kind. These questions are not easy;
I sympathize with the minister and with the Board of Pension Commissioners, because it is a very difficult matter and I believe it will become more difficult to administer this law with justice to the .applicants and justice to the state as the years go by.
Before I leave that point, let me remind the minister about his appeal board. I have no objection to his reducing it and I would have no objection if he wiped it out, as I

Pension Act-Mr. Cantley

think it has been useless. It has had no power, and any court without power is certainly quite useless. The appeal board, for instance, cannot change the diagnosis of any case in which appeal is taken from the judgment of the Board of Pension Commissioners. The hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Ross) made a statement which I could hardly believe to be correct; I have asked him since, and he tells me he knows it to be right. I refer to his remark that the appeal board has no power to increase a pension. Is that correct?


James Layton Ralston: They have no power to increase a pension.


Peter McGibbon: Then what power have they? The two main functions of the pension commissioners are to find out what is wrong with the man and his percentage of disability, but the appeal board can do nothing with either question. For heaven's sake what can they do; what were they supposed to do?


James Layton Ralston: Ask the people who restricted their powers.


Peter McGibbon: What I am pleading for, as I pleaded the other night, is that the minister should remove those restrictions in order to make this board function and be of some use to the country and to the soldiers. I think that is a vital point; we have a board which , can neither determine the diagnosis nor the amount of pension to be paid, so it would seem to be useless.


James Layton Ralston: My hon. friend uses the word "determine"; he does not mean that. I think he means " change ", as he said before.
Mr. McGIBBON; It is the same thing. They might be convinced that the primary board were wrong in their diagnosis and that the man had something else wrong, but they cannot change the diagnosis. They might determine that the man was receiving a pension that was too small, but they cannot increase it. For heaven's sake, what good are they? I cannot understand, Mr. Speaker, what good a board of that kind is; I would wipe it out if I could not remove those restrictions, because it is only deceiving applicants for a pension.


James Layton Ralston: I do not think my hon. friend would wipe it out.


Peter McGibbon: No; I would wipe out those restrictions and make it alive and part of the institution so that it could function.
[Mr. McGibbon.l
I would like to say just one rvord about the insurance question, because I think perhaps I did more to bring that act into force than any other member of that parliament. I claim that that act is supplementary to the Pension Act. Supposing a man comes back from the war crippled, and contracts some disease; he cannot pass a medical examination but is anxious to protect his family. What are you going to do with that man; how is he going to provide for his wdfe and children? I would be very sorry, Mr. Speaker, to see that act cease to function, because I think it is complementary to the Pension Act, and is an absolute necessity if we would do justice to these pensioners. I seriously hope that the minister will not allow that act to die, and I also hope he will remove the restrictions which prevent the appeal board from being useful.


Mr. THOMAS CANTLEY (Pictou):: Mr. Speaker, we all listened with a great deal of interest and sympathy to the remarks made by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston); I think we all realize that probably no man in this House gave as much consideration, attention and constructive effort to the act as did the minister. He said that he thought the failure was more administrative than legislative; well, hardship has occurred somewhere, and it may be that the administration has broken down. If so, that should be changed.
I fancy my experience does not differ very much from that of other members of this House. More than half the correspondence I receive from my constituents has to do with cases of this kind, and there is a feeling in the country-I am not blaming the government, I am not blaming the minister-that the situation is one that should be dealt with by parliament. Unfortunately it is not being dealt with, or if it is, only to a very limited extent. Now I think that is regrettable, and parliament should not prorogue without some effort being made by constructive legislation to meet a situation which is causing a very great deal of disquiet in the country. That there is disquiet there can be no possible doubt. The fact is brought home to me daily, or at least weekly, by the correspondence I receive; and on occasions when I have returned home I have been approached time and again, in the country and in the towns by men and by their relations seeking to have grievances redressed. I tell the minister, as well as the government and parliament, that a feeling is being aroused which should not exist in this country, and something effective should be done at once to allay that feeling.

Pension Act-Mr. Bennett


Richard Bedford Bennett: In common with most members of the House, I suppose, I have received telegrams from the Canadian Legion suggesting that I remain in my place here long enough to enable the government to deal with those amendments to the Pension Act which in the opinion of the service men are so essential to their wellbeing; and the suggestion I have to make, after listening to the very luminous observations of the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) is that he and the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment (Mr. King, Kootenay) take a day and frame such amendments as they think may reasonably meet the situation for the year, and put them in as amendments to the present bill. I do not think that is asking too much, and it would do a great deal to calm-I will not use quite as strong a word as agitation-to calm the feelings of those who have considered this matter with much care, namely, the men themselves and their representatives at Winnipeg.
I should like to congratulate the Minister of National Defence upon the very interesting statement he made upon the subject. It was characterized by moderation and clarity, and I am sure was a very important contribution to the literature upon the subject so far as this House is concerned. My experience-and I am bound to say it has been very considerable, because one is constantly being interviewed by those who are affected-leads me to conclude that the commissioners have hardened in their interpretation of the act. That is, in the early days of its administration they placed upon it a more sympathetic and broader interpretation than they now do, and there has been a steady hardening, if I may use that word, with respect to the interpretation of the act itself. That has been brought about by many causes. One has been a desire to save the exchequer from the insistent demands upon it. Another has been the feeling that at times the commissioners have been imposed upon. I know of my own knowledge cases in which, under the earlier interpretation of the act, pensions have been awarded that should not have been awarded. The Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment has seen the list that was prepared at one time in this respect, and it has caused a very great deal of feeling in the community. You see A receiving a pension and B, who feels that his claim is quite as strong, not receiving one because the claim for it was made years after the pension had been awarded to A, and there is a consequent feeling throughout the community that an unfairness has been done to B.
32649- 132i
Now, as I see it you have two classes: first, the soldier himself, and secondly the dependents. Among the dependents 'I include the wife, the widow, the mother and the children. With respect to the soldier himself there is one branch of the matter that I have not heard mentioned to-night, in connection with which there has been a very serious hardship upon the applicants. For instance, a soldier applies for a pension. Almost from superficial observation his condition is apparent to the layman. The doctor certifies as to his medical condition. He is told that he cannot receive a pension because his condition is attributable to his pre-war state of health. I have many of these cases. They say:	We cannot give1 you a pension because
upon analysis of your record of health we find that the disability of which you speak could not have been incurred during service but must be attributable to your pre-war condition. I doubt not the Minister of Health remembers some of these oases and every member of this House has heard of them. Now think of the unfairness of that. The Minister of National Defence will tell you as a lawyer that a man in private life who carried on his business in that way would be estopped absolutely from setting that up as a defence. Yet the pension board has set up that defence times without number, and has said that the applicant shall not receive a pension because his condition was not attributable and they use these words-to "war service but to his condition of health prior to his enlistment." Now my contention is that if the man's health was such that he could pass an examination and be certified as a fit and proper person to serve his country overseas it should not lie in the mouth of the department to say that his condition is a pre-war condition. I regret to say there are a great many of these cases and they have given me a good deal of worry. Not long since I discussed this matter with an imperial officer-perhaps he will object to my mentioning his name-who gave me some information with respect to conditions in England. Now as I understand it, in England parliament set up a committee of appeal composed of members of the House of Lords and they heard ten thousand cases, and if his records are correct not less than six thousand cases were favourably considered. The minister will tell you whether or not that is a fair statement of the matter because he has given a great- deal of attention to it. It indicates the frailty of humanity, the weakness of human judgment, the possi-

Pension Act-Mr. Bennett
bilities of error. Surely we can lay down this principle-that any man who has been accepted by the nation as being in fit health to serve the state cannot have it urged against him that the condition in which he finds himself after the war is attributable to pre-enlistment days.


James Layton Ralston: I think my hon. friend's case, if he will permit me, must be the case of a man who has not served in an actual theatre of war, because section 11 of the Pension Act says exactly what my hon. friend claims should be the law. I will read it:
(b) No deduction shall be made from the degree of actual disability of any member of the forces who has served in a theatre of actual war on account of any. disability or disabling condition which existed in him at the time at which he became a member of the forces; provided that no pension shall be paid for a disability or disabling condition which at such time was wilfully concealed, was obvious, was not of a nature to cause rejection from service, or was a congenital defect.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I would have thought, as the minister has said, that that clause was broad enough. I quite agree with what the minister says. I am not going to give names and multiply cases because it is quite obvious that we must rest on generalities if possible and leave particular cases to be dealt with as they arise. I would have thought that the law was broad enough if it were not for the cases that have come under my own observation. I have been unable to have them successfully dealt with because it could not be said that the condition of the men was attributable to the cause alleged, but that the condition complained of was attributable to a pre-enlistment cause, and therefore the pension was not payable. That is the position taken, but it would not be open to very much discussion in a court of law. But they go a step further. They draw a sharp distinction between those who served in a theatre of war and those who did not. The minister has stated to-night, and I took down his words, "that the right of claim arises out of service during the war." Those were his words- "service during the war".


James Layton Ralston: Incurred during service, was it not?
M,r. BENNETT: Incurred during service, the word " service " meaning the length of time that had elapsed from the date of enlistment until discharge. Under the statute that is the definition of service. Therefore if the injury complained of occurred during service, whether in the theatre of war or not, the minister and myself would say that undoubtedly the right to pension arose.

I regret to say-and there must be other hon. members who have had the same experience-that numbers of men have been unable to obtain pensions. It was only a few days before I came to Ottawa that a man came into my office and pointed out to me his condition and circumstances. He could not get a pension because they said: The condition of which you complain to-day was a condition present when you enlisted, and your present condition is entirely due to your pre-enlistment condition of health. That is a wrong attitude for this country to take. I would suggest that during Saturday my hon. friend could make the statute clearer so as to make it apparent to anyone who desires to read it that this state will not set up, against the man who has been accepted to serve- whether in a theatre of war or somewhere else, but at least in the service of the country overseas-a condition which is not in accordance with that of the medical officer who examined him for service.
During the last year or two I have seen some case3 of singular hardship. One wonders why it is that a condition was allowed to continue which made it possible for pensions to be awarded in cases where one could not understand why they were awarded, while in other cases pensions were refused where it was difficult to understand why the refusal should be made.


James Layton Ralston: The board are apparently not trying to save money then?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Not in those cases. That is the point I desire to make. The time has come when something should be done to remove these anomalies. Is it not a fact that in England they found it necessary in the House of Lords to set up this tribunal? The minister has given the matter so much attention that I am sure he will remember that. I thought at one time a small committee of this House, sitting in camera in the early days of a session, might reconsider and deal with many of these pensions in the light of the added knowledge that has come by reason of our having more complete records than we had when the pensions were awarded. But that would not meet the case. What must be done is to make this act so clear in its meaning that, however desirous those who administer it may be to place upon it a hard and technical interpretation, they can not and will not be permitted to do so.
What the minister has said about sympathetic administration comes down after all to this. Men who conceive it to be their duty to interpret a statute may well be within their rights in narrowly construing it and

Pension Act-Mr. Bennett
barring out numbers of deserving cases. Other men actuated by different considerations may place upon the same words a wider and more generous and sympathetic interpretation. We know how in statutes of this character various interpretations have arisen. I suggest with some deference to the minister or ministers that the real fact is that the Pension Act to-day is being construed as a criminal statute-and I do not use the word offensively -whereas in the early days it was construed in accordance with the general principle of civil jurisprudence. We say in criminal law that the onus of proof rests upon the crown and that the crown must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. As the Pension Act is now being interpreted by the board, they have placed upon the applicant the onus of proving his case beyond a reasonable doubt just as the crown must do against the accused in a criminal case.
In a civil case the plaintiff must establish his contention by preponderance of testimony, the distinction between criminal and civil matters being "beyond a reasonable doubt" on the part of the crown in the crimnal case and "preponderance of testimony" with respect to civil matters. In the early days I think it is quite clear that the pension law of the country was administered on the principle of preponderance of evidence. There being no evidence against the case set up by the applicant, he got his pension or his dependent got it as the case might be. If I were compelled to do so, I could cite cases in which it seemed to be reasonably clear that pensions should not be awarded. But there was no counter case set up; the preponderance of evidence was that of the applicant, and that was the end of the matter. In later days, however, by the hardening of the board in the interpretation of the act, they have now compelled the applicant to establish his case beyond a reasonable doubt. I have had numerous cases brought to my 'notice-and this is part of the gratuitous service, the only service a man can do for those (yho have served in the war-in which I have found that hardening and that the attitude of the board was to compel the applicant to establish his case beyond a reasonable doubt.
In an action for negligence, as the Minister of National Defence would say, the onus is upon the plaintiff to establish the negligence and then he has to connect the negligence with the injury complained of. But the judge will always instruct the jury that, if there is any evidence from which they may infer a disregard of duty that brought about the injury complained of, the verdict must be for the plaintiff. Should some such principle as that
not govern in these cases? If there is any evidence from which it might be reasonably inferred that the condition complained of is referable to the service as a cause, the pension should be awarded. Would that be an unfair proposition? I regret to say that is not the attitude with which the matter has been recently approached.
This House owes a great debt to the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Clark). I noticed in the earlier remarks this afternoon a tendency to refer to the matter as being somewhat political in its nature, but I know there is no intention on the part of any hon. member to treat it as a political matter. Some might make remarks that might be thus construed, but none of us has a thought of partisanship or party politics in dealing with the matter. When the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard brought this subject to the attention of the House this afternoon I was a little surprised and hurt that the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power), who is usually generously inclined, should have for a moment alleged unworthy motives against the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard. That hon. member was not in the least concerned about his private or personal feelings. What he felt was that there had been a hardening of mind, of interpretation by the board, which brought about a condition which he thought should be dealt with by this parliament. Who is here tonight who does not think it was well worthy of being brought to our attention in order that we might focus our minds on the injury done in a deserving case and on the methods necessary to remedy that wrong?


Charles Gavan Power: Would the hon. member suggest to the minister or the House what remedy there is against this hardening of heart or of mind? These members of the board are appointed for ten years. What can we do? We cannot dismiss them. Why criticize them if we cannot do anything with them?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. member for
Quebec South has not exhibited the usual resourcefulness of his very fertile mind. He knows far better than I that all we have to do is to add to the Pension Act a single paragraph stating that, in determining whether a pension should or should not be granted, the principle that applies in an ordinary action for negligence might well be applied. Something of that sort is all that is necessary. In other words, the members of the board might be instructed by the statute itself that they were to apply those broad and generous rules of interpretation to which the minister so
Pension Act-Mr. Bennett

properly referred this evening, rather than those hard and fast technical rules that make for what you might call regard for high precedent, but work a very great hardship on the soldier.


Charles Gavan Power: The hon. member would
give the board greater discretion than they now have? I would refuse to do that.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I would respectfully
differ from my hon. friend from Quebec South (Mr. Power). I do not usually differ from him. But it is not a question of discretion; it is a question of imposing upon the board by statute a rule of interpretation.


Charles Gavan Power: Which they may or may
not follow.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Which they must follow or be impeached.


Charles Gavan Power: If the hon. gentleman will
move the impeachment of any member of the board, I will gladly support him.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am bound to say, Mr. Speaker, that I have not yet before me any such evidence as would warrant me in concluding that the judgment which my hon. friend has just expressed represents his very mature consideration of the subject.


Charles Gavan Power: I have thought of it for the last five years, ever since Colonel Thompson has been chairman of the board.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am bound to say that I believe Colonel Thompson to be an exceedingly fair-minded man, and I am sure the hon. member for Vamcouver-Burrard so believes, as well as my hon. friend from Quebec South.


Charles Gavan Power: He is fair-minded.


Richard Bedford Bennett: But if in any statute
placed before Colonel Thompson there is a .provision that a rule of interpretation is to be followed, I know that he is a good enough citizen and also a good enough lawyer to follow it, and therefore this parliament can easily deal with that matter.
One word with respect to the appeal board. The minister pointed out, very properly, the various stages through which the legislation has passed. We were a new country to war when we went into the conflict; we were unaccustomed to its effects and its disasters, and we placed on the statute books in the first instance a pension law that represented the best views we could obtain from other countries. We have amended and supplemented that law as a result of our own experience, largely
[Mr. Bennett.
through the painstaking and persevering efforts of the gentleman who now presides over the Department of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) when he was chairman of the commission appointed to do that work. We provided for an appeal board. Another house of parliament concluded that the provisions in the draft act were not such as to commend themselves to their judgment. I am bound to say that I was rather inclined to think they were right, for this reason:	It is important that
there should be uniformity of administration, and if you have four or five boards scattered throughout Canada, each one approaching the problem from a different standpoint and giving out different judgments, depending on the intellectual capacity and general attitude of mind of the members of those boards, you would have chaos; for the man in the east would say: "Look at the generous way in which the board has treated me," while the man on the Pacific slope -might say; "Look at the technical way in which they have treated me." It was to overcome that difficulty that when the bill -came down from the other House it contained a provision for the appointment of a permanent appeal board to travel throughout Canada and hear these cases, thereby ensuring a measure of uniformity of administration. I do regard uniformity of administration as. of the utmost importance in order 'to satisfy the -claims of those who are most concerned. I think the minister will see that there is much warrant for and,much merit in that contention.


James Layton Ralston: That is exactly what was stated in the report, that there was necessity for uniformity. The suggestion of a central board was made in order to see to it that there should be uniformity of decision, so that the pension board itself could in a case in the west, for instance, correct a decision which was not in accord with the principles under which the act was interpreted generally. The advantage of the district boards was that they would see the man at first-hand, decide quickly, and !be able to dispose of seventy-five per cent of the cases without reference to the central board.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The only difficulty being that it set up two forms of machinery, the central board in addition to the pension board, and the district boards in the military districts; in other words, the district board heard the case first, and reported to the board of appeal here, and they made a judgment. Now the essence of a -court of appeal is that it should be of at least equal knowledge we

Pension Act-Mr. Dennett
will say, and of equal intellectual capacity and power as the court from which the appeals are taken. I am sure the minister will agree that it was intended in the first instance that the appeal board should not be of a permanent character-we all realize that the pension board has come to stay for many years-but was in essence a temporary tribunal created for the purpose of bringing about the determination of the granting or refusing of pension upon evidence which they would take on the ground, as distinguished from evidence that might be presented to the pension board sitting in Ottawa. That is the general principle.


James Layton Ralston: That was why the provision was made in the recommendation that this board at Ottawa should not reverse a decision of the district board without actually nearing the man.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Quite so. That, you see, involved again two movements of the board. The district bo^rd take the evidence, and then they report here, and a reversal of the board's judgment would necessitate their also seeing the man.


James Layton Ralston: No, they did not report at all unless the Board of Pension Commissioners appealed the case.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Quite so.


James Layton Ralston: It stood unless appealed.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It involved three sets of machinery-the district board, the Board of Pension Commissioners, and the board of appeal. The other House, for reasons that I have always thought were fairly sound, concluded that if we had a pension board and a board of appeal, which board of appeal was a moving court, something like going out on assizes and actually seeing the men and hearing the cases, that would be far better than the other method. Here is a difficulty and a very practical one. You can see how difficult it is for a pension board, after it feels that it has given mature consideration to a case and arrived at a right conclusion, to change its mind merely because some other tribunal which they think is.not so well equipped in any way has arrived at a different conclusion.


James Layton Ralston: That is what happens in England.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I know, and my hon.
friend from Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. McGib-bon) has just made observations with respect to what took place in the appeal board as compared with the pension board. Let me put
this case which my hon. friends from Quebec have seen in the press lately. The appeal board decided that A was entitled to a pension. They so reported; the pension board refused to award pension, and that unfortunate soldier has gone to the courts of this country to secure a mandamus to compel the pension board to do what the board of appeal says the soldier is entitled to have done. Now that is all wrong, and it must be.undone by some method. I know the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) was dealing with the case before he went away, and I doubt not that the Solicitor General (Mr. Cannon) is now giving it his attention because it is a public scandal that a tribunal set up for the purpose of rectifying a grievance done to a returned soldier should, after a report has been made entitling him to a pension, refuse him a pension because the board did not have sufficient confidence in the court of appeal to carry out its awards. Of course the action was improperly taken, and it has given rise to a good deal of discussion. All that is wrong, and I am sure the minister will say so.
My hon. friend from Muskoka-Ontario also had in mind a case which he mentioned to me just after he sat down. He endeavoured to secure a pension for a nurse who had been refused a pension by the pension board. The hon. member went to the court of appeal on her behalf, and the appeal board said that the woman was entitled to a pension. Did she get it? She did not. Now I put this to my hon. friend. Will anything but legislation cure that evil? All the broad comprehensive rules of interpretation and the most sympathetic administration will not change the vital fact that to-day the pension board refuses to pay a pension which the appeal board set up by this parliament has said the applicant is entitled to receive. Surely we must undo that this session. Surely we must not wait until next session for it. Surely my hon. friend between now and Monday will devise a short amendment that will cover that, knowing as I do the ability and facility of expression of my hon. friend the Minister of National Defence.
I have spoken much longer than I intended, but I do press on the government, first of all, this consideration:	that in providing for
pensions on a broad and liberal basis they but express the general attitude of mind of all the Canadian people. Secondly, that under our institutions any measures involving expenditure of public money must originate with the government; therefore when we press these matters on them we do so not as a party, but
Pension Act-Mr. Price

rather as individual members of parliament who look to them to give effect to what we conceive to be the will and the wish of the people. Thirdly, that in view of the promises made and the way in which last session ended, it is not too much to suggest that between now and Monday the hon. ministers may be able to prepare such amendments as will relieve the most pressing of the grievances indicated by the soldiers themselves. I say the most pressing. I am not unfair enough to suggest that the two hon. gentlemen could meet all the various conditions in the short time at their disposal; quite the opposite, and I know they have given this matter perhaps much more consideration than any of us. I also know of the pressure of public business and the difficulty of concentrating on many problems to the exclusion of all others that they have to deal with in the public interest. I do not say that many of these recommendations cannot be met by a moderate, well-tempered and sympathetic interpretation of the present statute. I agree with the minister in that, but I do say that one or two, if not three, of the matters to which I have ventured to refer to-night cannot be dealt with in that way.


James Layton Ralston: Not one of them is dealt with in these proposals.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think the minister will agree that the suggestions are certainly such as in practice we have all come up against. I am only speaking out of the fulness of my heart. I only know what I have seen. It reminds me of the story of an unfortunate claimant for a pension. Not getting it at the first attempt, after a long time he tried again, but with no better success, and he was told that his ill health was attributable to pre-war conditions. He was a man who read his Bible much, and his temper still had not been frayed. So he told me he was like the man who in Scripture had been cured of his blindness, and on being asked about how it happened said, "I only know that whereas I was blind now I see." Said this poor unfortunate soldier, " All I can say is this, that wheTeas before I went to the war I was sound,
I now know I am a broken derelict." I thought it was an excellent answer.
These matters to which I have referred, perhaps at greater length than necessary, are matters that cannot be dealt with by any wide interpretation of existing legislation, and I do venture to suggest-not in any party spirit, for I know hon. gentlemen opposite have just as warm a desire as any other hon. members to help t'he returned soldier-that it is not asking too much to expect that 
between now and Monday, say during Saturday-when of course ministers have nothing to do but attend council where they can write these recommendations-they may be able to prepare the necessary amendments in order to give effect to the most pressing demands of the moment. With respect to this particular measure dealing with the appeal board, if in practice it has been found desirable I think the House will be the first to say the bill should be passed. As to insurance, if it can be extended it does not seem to me that from an actuarial standpoint the country is running any very great risk. The cost of management has not involved us in any very great monetary risks because there has been a fair regard for actuarial considerations in the preparation of the tables. The losses have not been greater than were anticipated, and the accumulated funds are as substantial as might be hoped for under the circumstances. In view of these considerations I join in suggesting to my hon. friends that in the short interval be^veen now and Monday they prepare such legislation as will give effect to the most pressing of these grievances.


Mr. O. B. PRICE (Westmorland):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to call the attention of the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment (Mr. King, Kootenay), to two very important telegrams which I have received. I will not detain the House by reading all the telegrams which I have under my hand with regard to the Pension Act. The first telegram is from Moncton and is addressed to myself:
Amendments to Pension Act urgently required this session in order to assist in relieving distress among sick and disabled. Your kind cooperation will be greatly appreciated.
E. L. Morris,
Secretary Riverglade tuberculous branch Canadian Legion.
I wish to point out that these boys were gassed at the front, and I am sure if the hon. minister would visit the sanatarium at Riverglade he would appreciate their sufferings. I would ask his particular consideration of these cases. The second telegram is also from Moncton and reads:
Advice received here . government do not intend to consider legislation re pensions and insurance for returned men this session as proposed to them by headquarters of the Canadian Legion. Please press all possible for government's reconsideration of this decision.
L. T. Tingley, Secretary Treasurer.
In view of what the hon. minister said in reply to the question which I placed on the order paper as to whether legislation would be introduced this session to relieve these men.

Pension Act-Mr. King (Kootenay)
who are not now covered by existing legislation, I would ask him if it is his intention yet to introduce such legislation, or does he desire to have the government stand before the people declaring that it has refused to give consideration to these really deserving cases, especially in view of the fact that millions of dollars are being spent t'o-day throughout Canada for purposes not of such import as those which have been brought to the atten-, tion of the government during this debate? The hon. minister will no doubt recognize that thousands of people throughout' the Dominion are watching to see what the government intends to do. It is up to the government to look after the returned men. They have not been properly looked after in the past. Therefore before this session closes the government should show some consideration for the boys who went to the front and for their relatives and their dependents who are in distressed circumstances.


Hon. J. H. KING (Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment):: The discussion today has, I think, been advantageous and will serve a useful purpose. It must be evident to those on both sides of the House who have listened to what has been said to-day that certain conclusions can be drawn. In the first place, the principle on which our present pension legislation is based is sound; pensions will be paid on account of disability due to war service. That is the primary principle. From the discussion this afternoon there seems to be a feeling among the members of this House that the pension authorities who administer the act are, if anything, too circumscribed within the scope of the legislation. It is difficult to make that statement and it is one that should not be made without fairly mature consideration. It is true that all of us have been interested in cases such as have been mentioned to-day. Before I became minister, as well as since, I have had brought to my attention cases in which I had personal knowledge and I felt that consideration should be given them. Some of these cases have gone to the pension board and on appeal have been rejected. I do not know whether it would be within my right or the right of any member of this House, because he happened to fail in his presentation of a case, to suggest that the machinery of the pensions board had fallen down or that the act was not being properly administered; for I think it is generally conceded, not only in Canada but universally, that the Canadian pension laws are as liberal as, if not more liberal than those of any of the allied nations except possibly the United States. Three or
four years ago a similar feeling prevailed in this House, that the pensions board was not dealing as it should with certain cases. As a result of that impression the appeal board was established and it has served a useful purpose.
There has been brought forward to-day a question, which I might as well consider now as later on, regarding the activities of the board. The appeal board came into being on October 1, 1924. There were entered 10,154 appeals of which 5,122 were disposed of without hearing, there being no jurisdiction. That left a total of 5,032 bona fide appeals, of which 691 have been allowed. There have been disallowed 2,047 while 352 are pending judgment. That makes a total of 3,090 cases considered, leaving still to be heard 1,942. These are the figures submitted to me by the department. The hon. member for West Kootenay (Mr. Esling) made the statement that there were 1,400 appeals in Montreal still to be heard. What are the facts? In Montreal 236 cases have been disposed of, while cases awaiting disposal number 4, plus 269 which are not yet ready, that is to say, in which the soldier adviser has not sufficient ground on which to proceed with the appeal. So that throughout the country, from Halifax to Vancouver, appeals have been heard and adjustments made to the number of 3,090, while there are 1,942 cases still to be considered.
Regarding legislation which might be brought down this year as suggested, a week or ten days ago I thought it would be fair to the soldier organizations as well as to the House to indicate the line of action the government would be able to take with reference to the matters that had been submitted by the Canadian Legion and other soldier organizations throughout Canada. It is true that representations were made by various bodies and comprehensive memoranda prepared and submitted; it is also true that we had the honour of meeting various officers of these associations in consultation. At that meeting I requested the presence of the chairman of the pension board, the deputy minister of the department, the assistant deputy minister, the medical director and other officers so that they might hear what the returned men had to say. We found, as we considered the various amendments, that many of them were intended to relieve individual cases or small groups; and it was pointed out by the officers who are familiar with the law that many of these cases could be dealt with by administrative means without the necessity for legislative action.

Pension Act-Mr. King (Kootenay)
With regard to tubercular veterans, whom we have heard discussed, I am sure we are all sympathetic in our attitude to these par. ticular returned men. They not only made representations, as was set out in the memorandum to which reference has been made, but they also suggested to me as minister that if it were not possible for legislation to be introduced at this session I should undertake during the recess to convene a meeting of tubercular specialists to give the veterans an opportunity of stating their case to these experts. Since that interview I have instructed the officials of the department to arrange for a convention of that nature and it will be possible for the tubercular veterans, through their representatives, to appear before the specialists this season and make a full statement of their case. Tuberculosis is one of the diseases which after the war filled our sanataria, but to-day we find these cases dwindling in number. There are some new cases developing, and the difficulty in connection with these, eight or ten years after the war, is to establish their connection with military service.
As I stated a few moments ago, it has generally been considered that our pension legislation is generous. We know at any rate that there has not been that hardening which the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) has referred to, because in the last five years our pension bill has grown from $30,000,000 to $37,000,000, showing that the bill is being extended from year to year. Now the question is whether we should hastily consider amendments to meet certain representations which have been made at this session, or whether we should deliberately sit down and in close conference develop amendments which could be incorporated into our Pension Act next session, when a proper consolidation of that act may be made.
1 propose to move two amendments which are basic and primary in their character, which are of great importance to the returned soldiers and which I think will be very acceptable to them. The first amendment extends the period in which an application for pension may be filed from seven to nine years, the seven year period expiring this year. This will give two years more in which to file these applications, and from the representations which have been made to us I am satisfied that this is one of the things the men most desire. On account of the seven year period expiring this year, I thought it desirable that we should deal with it at this session.

The other amendment has to do with the re-hearing of applications upon the presentation of new evidence, and will be of advantage to a large number of men, although it is difficult to say how many. We know that from day to day representations are being made to us in which it is claimed that the individual, although he has gone to the pension board and the appeal board and failed in .both cases, has been able to find new evidence since, but has been prevented from fifing another application. Upon new evidence being submitted which in the opinion of a majority of the pension board is sufficient, under this amendment a re-hearing will be granted and an appeal from that re-hearing will be permitted if the decision is adverse to the applicant.


Arthur Edward Ross: May I ask the
minister a question just there? Since he has found the seven year limit to be a failure, why make it nine? Why put any limit on it at all?


John Warwick King: I desire to extend that period for two years in order that that situation may be met while we are re-drafting the act next year. The veterans have laid down the principle that a soldier who has a pensionable condition due to war service should have the opportunity to make his representations at any time, which goes much further than anything we have yet considered. There is something to be said for it, however. In order that that situation may be covered for the present, I am suggesting this extension for two years-which has another advantage as well. Those returned men who have failed to file their claim will now have it brought to their attention that they are permitted another two years in which to do so, and they will be more apt to get busy and hand in their claims at once in order that they will have more chance of being considered. The longer these claims run and the older they become, the more difficult it will be for the applicant to prove his case.
I do not think it is necessary for me to continue at greater length. I believe the adoption of the amendments I have suggested and the undertaking of a consolidation of the act next year after thorough consideration and study, when the government will be prepared ito bring down further amendments, will meet the situation. The matter to my mind should be then referred to a special committee of this House early in the session, in order that all the details may be properly surveyed and scrutinized from various angles.

Private Bills
It is easy to say, "amend the Pension Act and reinstate the insurance act." This plan of insurance was adopted right at the close of the war in order to take care of a group of men who were not pensionable; they were given an opportunity of taking insurance and I think that continued until 1922. Some $70,000,000 or $80,000,000 of insurance was written, some of which has lapsed, and from that time until quite recently there has not been any great demand to open up this insurance scheme. We must remember that it is ten years since the close of the war; men who were thirty years of age then are forty today, and the insurance risk is not so good as it then was. Although it might be serviceable to some I am satisfied that it would not be fair for the government to bring in an amendment which would open up the insurance act for another period of years, with the little knowledge they now possess.


Otto Baird Price: I would like to ask the minister a question. Why not deal with that matter at this session?


John Warwick King: I think I have concluded the remarks I have to offer, Mr. Speaker. I am satisfied that if these two amendments become law the ex-service men will have been satisfied on two important items.
Motion agreed, bill read the second time, and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
Section 1 agreed to.


John Warwick King: Mr. Chairman, I
beg to move the following amendment:
Subsection (4) of section 11 of chapter 62 of the statutes of 1923 is amended by the addition of the following proviso:
"Provided that if within one year after a decision by the Federal Appeal Board upholding a refusal of pension by the Board of Pension Commissioners for Canada or one year after the passing of this act, whichever is the later, the applicant submits new evidence which, in the opinion of a majority of the Board of Pension Commissioners for Canada, establishes a reasonable doubt as to the correctness of the previous decision, the Board of Pension Commissioners for Canada shall reconsider such case, and if refusal of pension be confirmed, the applicant shall have the right of a second appeal to the Federal Appeal Board and its decision thereon shall be final and shall be binding upon the applicant and upon the Board of Pension Commissioners for Canada."


The CHAIRMAN:: This amendment becomes section 2 of the bill.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
John Warwick King: I have another
amendment to propose, as follows:
Section 13 of chapter 43 of the statutes of 1919, as amended by chapter 60 of the statutes of 1924 and by chapter 49 of the statutes of 1925 is further amended by repealing paragraph (c) and substituting therefor the following:
(c) within nine years after the date upon which the applicant was retired or discharged from the forces, or-


John Frederick Johnston: This amendment
becomes section 3 of the bill.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Bill reported.
Hewitt Bostock: When shall the said bill
be read a third time?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: At the next
sitting of the House.



PRIVATE BILLS


Hewitt Bostock: 
Mr. GEORGES PARENT (Quebec West):: With the unanimous consent of .the House, if I can obtain it, I should like to present the eleventh report of the select standing committee on miscellaneous private bills.


Hewitt Bostock: Before the report is read, by leave of the House, Mr. Johnston (Last Mountain) moves, seconded by Mr. Totzke, that the bills just enumerated be now read a first, second and 'third time, and that rule 28 be suspended in relation thereto. I may explain to the House that these bills will not go to committee; I am informed they are unopposed.


Robert Gardiner: Are those all divorce
bills?


Hewitt Bostock: Yes. The resolution is
carried by unanimous consent.


Georges Parent: Carried on division as far as the divorce bills are concerned.



RAILWAYS, CANALS AND TELEGRAPH LINES MONTREAL, OTTAWA AND GEORGIAN BAT CANAL BILL

Alexander MacGillivray Young: I beg
leave to present the tenth report of the select standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines, as follows:
Your committee have considered Bill No. 78, an act respecting the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company, and have agreed to report the preamble thereof not proven for the reason that it would be contrary to the public interest to grant the prayer of the petitioners.
Your committee recommend that the fees and charges paid on said Bill No. 78 be refunded, less the cost of printing and translation.
All of 'which is respectfully submitted.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: That in accordance with the recommendation contained in the tenth report of the select standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines, the fees and charges paid on Bill No. 78, an act respecting the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company be refunded less the cost of printing and translation.


Hewitt Bostock: Is it the pleasure of the
House to adopt the motion? Carried by unanimous consent.



CRIMINAL CODE AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. LUCIEN CANNON (Solicitor General) moved the second reading of Bill No. 239, to amend the Criminal Code.
Motion agreed to and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
Section 1 agreed to.

On section 2-Section 138 re-enacted.
Hugh Guthrie: What is this clause?


Mr. CANNON:: This is to re-insert in the Criminal Code section 138, which had been repealed.


Hugh Guthrie: The same clause?


Lucien Cannon: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 3 agreed to.
Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: I beg to
move that the clause which I am about to read be added to the amendments to the Criminal Code submitted by the Solicitor General:
1.	Subparagraph (iv) of paragraph (a) of section one thousand one hundred and forty of the Criminal Code, chapter one hundred and forty-six of the revised statutes of Canada, 1906, as enacted by section twenty of chapter twenty-five of the statutes of 1921, is hereby repealed.
2.	Any one who commits or has at any time heretofore committed any offence relating to or arising out of the location of land which was paid for on whole or in part by scrip or was granted upon certificates issued to half-breeds in connection with the extinguishment of Indian title, shall, with respect thereto, bo liable to prosecution or to an action for penalties or forfeiture in the same manner and to the same extent as if said subparagraph (iv) had never been enacted.


Hugh Guthrie: I rise to a point of order. The amendment moved by the Minister of the Interior is really Bill No. 146, to amend the Criminal Code (scrip frauds), which has been standing on the order paper since March 14 as a private bill, in the name of a member of this House.


Mr. DUNNING:: It is not a private bill


Hugh Guthrie: A public bill moved by a private member. As long as it remains on the order paper, it cannot be taken up by way of amendment or discussed. I raise that point of order.


John Frederick Johnston: Does any hon. gentleman wish to speak to the point of order?


Lucien Cannon: If my hon. friend presses
the point, I think it is well taken.


Mr. STEVENS:: It is obvious that this
amendment cannot be moved. Bill 146 appears on page 12 of the order paper as order No. 31.


John Frederick Johnston: Does the minister who moved the amendment wish to speak to the point of order?

Immigration Act-Mr. Bennett


Charles A. Stewart: All I have
to say is that there is a strong probability that Bill No. 146 will not be reached. A similar bill has at least on two occasions been passed by this House.


Hugh Guthrie: There is a point of order.


Charles A. Stewart: I am not
going to argue the point of order raised by my hon. friend, except to say this: Of course we could have the hon. gentleman drop his bill and then move it as an amendment. I do not want to take that procedure, leaving the amendments to the Criminal Code standing in the meantime. I can scarcely understand my hon. friend's objection to this,, inasmuch as parliament on two previous occasions has passed this bill. I admit it has been thrown out by the Senate. I know I cannot press this amendment if my hon. friend insists on his point of order. Of course he must assume the responsibility for blocking this legislation.


Hugh Guthrie: I understand that.


John Frederick Johnston: This is rather an intricate point of order, and I think I shall have to ask for a little time to consider it before giving a ruling.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The Solicitor General has stated that the point of order is well taken. It is the same point of order as was taken last year on the question of natural resources.


John Frederick Johnston: In Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, section 423, under rule 42, states:
A motion must not anticipate a matter already appointed for consideration by the House, such as the subject matter of a bill on the order paper.
In accordance with that role, I would , rule that the amendment moved by the Minister of the Interior is out of order.


Charles A. Stewart: If my hon.
friends insist on their point of order, I quite realize that my amendment is out of order. This is a very important matter to some of my constituents, and I had hoped that the point of order would not be raised, particularly in view of the fact that in all probability Bill 146 will not reach a stage where the consideration of this House can be given to it.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.



IMMIGRATION ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. CHARLES STEWART (for the Minister of Immigration and Colonization) moved
the second reading of Bill No. 269, to amend the Immigration Act.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, in my judgment this bill should not be proceeded with. It is a single clause bill, but it is one of great importance. Section I states:
Section 41 of the Immigration Act, chapter 27 of the statutes of 1910, as enacted by chapter 26 of the statutes of 1919, is repealed.
It deals with the power of deportation. It is said that the section will never be put in operation, and therefore it should be repealed. But it is always desirable to have upon the statute books legislation to which an appeal may be made in the event of necessity arising, and the non-use of legislation is sometimes the best reason why it should remain. Not long since in England they had recourse to legislation that was more than one hundred years old, and this statute providing for summary deportation without trial at a time of great stress and strain will not be used except where the conditions obtain to which it has reference. These conditions, let us hope, will very rarely arise in this country, but when they do arise no harm can be done in having here the machinery upon which we can rely and which we may use. Unless some good reason is given why this section should be repealed, it should remain; the fact that it is drastic legislation is not a good reason for its repeal. Legislation which it is said takes away the right of a man to trial by jury and matters of that kind is legislation that sometimes has to be used in all countries for the preservation of law and order, and that is far more important than the possible chance of its application to individuals perhaps once in a hundred years. What harm is being done by having the legislation there? There may arise a condition when it would be profoundly useful to this country. If when that condition arises the legislation is not there, we have no power to deal with the situation. Until it is shown to the House that the legislation will work an injustice in the ordinary course of events it should remain on the statute books. I submit that no reason has been given why it should be dropped at this time, and therefore, and in view of the fact that it is midnight, I move the adjournment of the debate.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend knows that on two former occasions this very amendment has been passed by parliament.
Railways and Shipping Report


Hugh Guthrie: There is a motion before the House to adjourn the debate. Does the minister not think it is late enough?


Charles A. Stewart: I am perfectly willing.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Stewart (Edmonton) the House adjourned at 11.55 p.m.
Friday, April 8, 1927