1930-02-27

Mr. SPEAKER:: I have the honour to
inform the house that I have received the following letter:
That the honourable Messieurs Aylesworth (Sir Allen), Buchanan, Cliapais, Donnelly, Farrell, Green, Hatfield, Horsey, Legris, Lewis, McDonald, McLean, McLennan, Pope, Raymond, Robertson, Sharpe, Taylor, Todd, White (In-kerman), and White (Pembroke), have been appointed a committee to superintend the printing of the Senate during the present session, and to act on behalf of the Senate as members of a joint committee of both houses on the subject of the printing of parliament.
Dear Mr. Lemieux:
As the Speaker of the House of Commons and the good friend of my husband, will you please convey to the Prime Minister and to the Bouse of Commons my sincere appreciation of their motion of condolence which you forwarded to me.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth W. Robb.
Also the following letter:
(Translation)
Hon. Rodolphe Lemieux,
Speaker of the House of Commons,
Ottawa.
I beg of you to accept our very sincere thanks for the tribute paid to the memory of our late and dear member, whose demise has created among us an irreparable loss.
Madame G. D. Morin and her eons Guy and Marc. St. Pie, February 24, 1930.



LIBRARY OF PARLIAMENT

Hewitt Bostock: I have the honour to inform the house that a message has been received from the Senate informing this house:
That the honourable the Speaker, the honourable Messieurs Aylesworth (Sir Allen), Beaubien, Chapais, Gillis, Gordon, Griesbach, Hatfield, Laird, Lewis. Logan, McDougald. McLennan, Poirier, Taylor, Turriff and Wilson (Rockcliffe) have been appointed a committee to assist the honourable the Speaker in the direction of the Library of Parliament, so far as the interests of the Senate are concerned, and to act on behalf of the Senate as members of a joint committee of both houses on the said library.



PARLIAMENTARY RESTAURANT

Hewitt Bostock: I have the honour to
inform the house that a message has been received from the Senate informing this house:
That the honourable the Speaker, the honourable Messieurs Hardy, Logan, McMeans, Sharpe, Tanner, and Taylor have been appointed a committee to assist the honourable the Speaker in the direction of the restaurant of parliament, so far as the interests of the Senate are concerned, and to act on behalf of the Senate as members of a joint committee of both houses on the said restaurant.



MAIN ESTIMATES FOR 1930-31

[Stage Direction]
A message from His Excellency the Governor General transmitting estimates for the financial year ending March 31, 1931, was presented by Hon. Charles A. Dunning (Minister of Finance), read by Mr. Speaker to the house, and referred to the committee of supply.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. LUCIEN CANNON (Solicitor General) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 13, to amend the Representation Act.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.


Mr. CANNON:: The purpose of this bill, Mr. Speaker, is to combine in a single electoral district the Yukon territory and the Northwest territories, the latter not now being included in any electoral district.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



PATENT ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. FERNAND RINFRET (Secretary of State) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 14, to amend the Patent Act.
He said: There are two amendments in this bill, the first of which deals with the length of time within which a patent already filed in a foreign country which has an agreement with Canada may be filed in Canada. The other amendment allows the production as evidence of a certified copy of the foreign patent in order to save time and expenditure. I may say that both these amendments have been suggested by the judges of the Exchequer court.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

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

Hewitt Bostock: I have the honour to inform the house that a message has been received from the Senate informing this house: [Mr. Speaker.l
IMMIGRATION FOR 1928-1929 Mr. SPENCER:
1.	How many immigrants came to Canada during each of the years 1928 and 1929?

Questions
2.	What were these people iby nationality, occupation and religion?
3.	In what provinces were they distributed according to the three categories mentioned above?


Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: Questions


CANADIAN FARM LOAN ACT-APPLICATIONS
Mr. SPENCER:: 1.	How many applications have been made for loans under the Canadian Farm Loan Act up to December 31, 1929, by each of the provinces taking advantage of the act?
2.	How many of these applications were successful, by provinces?
3.	What was the total amount of loans made
in each province?


Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	British Columbia	 809
Alberta	 2,646
Manitoba	 Ill
Quebec	 1,530
New Brunswick	 495
Nova Scotia	 221
2.	The following applications had been approved as of December 31, 1929:
British Columbia	 238
Alberta	 781
Manitoba	 16
Quebec	 92
New Brunswick	 255
Nova Scotia	 82
3.	Loans were granted in the following amounts as of December 31, 1929:
British Columbia	$	697,900
Alberta	 1,543,100
Manitoba	 ' 48,800
Quebec	   218,100
New Brunswick	 396,550
Nova Scotia	 121,600


Mr. ESLING:: 1.	Since the organization of the board, how many applications for farm loans have been received from British Columbia?
2.	How many applications have been granted?


Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	879.
2.	266. .


MIDDLETON, N.S. POST OFFICE
Mr. SHORT:: 1.	Is the government considering the acquisition of an old shop building at Middleton, Annapolis county, Nova Scotia, to be used for a post office and public building?
2.	In the event of the government acquiring such shop building, what disposition will be made of the lot of land at Middleton acquired some years ago as a site for a public building?


Mr. ELLIOTT:: 1 and 2. The suggestion has been made that the government dispose of the property acquired a few years ago as a site for a public building, and purchase the property known as the Elliott building. No decision has been made, and the matter is still under consideration.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. CLARK:: 1.	What has been the total expenditure to
date on the following harbours:	(a) Fort
Churchill; (b) Port Nelson?
2.	What has been the total cost of construction of the Hudson Bay railway to date?
3.	What has been the total cost of equipment for the Hudson Bay railway to date?
4.	What has been the total expenditure to date on (a) Air reconnaissances relating to navigation in the Hudson bay; (b) All other investigations relating to navigation in the Hudson bay?


CHINESE AND JAPANESE IMMIGRATION
Mr. BLACK (Yukon):: 1.	How many Chinese and how many Japanese of each sex were admitted to Canada in each year since March 31, 1924?
2.	To what provinces of Canada were each destined on entry and how many of each?
VANCOUVER HARBOUR COMMISSION On the orders of the day:


Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the
government whether lor not there is any truth in the report now being circulated in Victoria and Vancouver that the Vancouver harbour commissioners are turning over their harbour development work as it concerns design, construction and engineering, to a contracting firm on a cost plus basis rather than to handle it by tender as heretofore. Apparently this matter is of considerable interest and should be brought to the attention of the house.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: The Minister of Marine
and Fisheries (Mr. Cardin) unfortunately is not in the house at the moment, but I am sure he will be pleased to give my hon. friend a reply as soon as he returns.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker in view of the
statement of the Prime Minister regarding unemployment insurance, which he made yesterday to a western delegation, will the federal government take the initiative in calling a special conference to consider this problem?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Perhaps the hon. member
would intimate what that statement was.


James Shaver Woodsworth: As I understand the statement, it was to the effect that the federal

War Pensions-Mr. Church
government was very much concerned in the matter of unemployment and believed that one of the solution's was a system of unemployment insurance and that the government would be willing to take any steps possible towards bringing about an understanding between the provinces and the federal government. I want to know if the government will be willing to undertake the calling of a special conference so that this matter can be expedited.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My recollection is that a special committee of this house considered this question last session and brought to the house a report to the effect that unemployment insurance was necessarily a matter with which provincial governments rather than the federal government would have to deal. I think I expressed the view yesterday that in my opinion a system of unemployment insurance would be a constructive way to deal with the unemployment problem, to which system not only the employer and the governments concerned would contribute but the worker also. If the provinces make a move in this matter and it appears that the federal government can be of assistance in helping to bring about uniformity as between the provinces of any plan proposed, or can cooperate in other ways in any discussion on the subject, we shall bo glad upon invitation to take the matter under consideration.



PORT NELSON POST OFFICE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. K. AINtDEIRSON (Halton): Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Postmaster General if he has decided permanently to close the post office at Port Nelson, and if so, why?
Hon. P. J. VENIOT (Postmaster General):: This matter was brought to my attention this morning by means of a report received from the district superintendent. The nearest post office to Port Nelson, one which is of greater importance, is only one mile away, and it is reported that prior to the closing of the post office at Port Nelson a number of people had obtained postal boxes at the other office. The report intimated that it might not be in the interests of the service to keep this office open, but I will ask for a further report on the matter. Difficulties arose at Port Nelson in connection with the administration of the office and the postmaster was requested to hand in his resignation, but the closing was only temporary.


Mr. ANDERSON (Halton):: Would the
minister let me have a copy of the report which was sent in?


Peter John Veniot: I have no objection to
letting the hon. member see the report, but I do not think it should be made public, as it is of a confidential nature.



WAR PENSIONS


[Stage Direction]
The 'house resumed from Wednesday, February 26, consideration of the motion of Mr. Peter McGibbon (Muskoka-Ontario):
That, in the opinion of this house, any exsoldier who has served in any theatre of war, who applies for a pension or an increase of pension and submits evidence or an opinion from any reputable physician or surgeon in Canada, stating that his disability is directly or indirectly attributable to war services, the onus of disproof shall be upon the Board of Pension Commissioners and that unless the same be disproved a pension shall be granted to the said applicant in accordance with the schedule at present in force under the regulations of the Board of Pension Commissioners.
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Toronto Northwest) :: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. McGibbon) brought before this house a most important question, one which 'has been before the house since the great war of fifteen years ago. Fifteen years now separate us from the great catastrophe, that is a long time in the life of an individual. During such a time memories fade. We have forgotten all about the returned soldier. I am very sorry to see that this country treats the returned men who fought the battles of civilization in such a shameful manner.
On the border df the city of Toronto, are the York townships and in my own constituency, is the Christie Street hospital, and I have never seen before such conditions as exist in Toronto among returned men. Every day I meet seven or eight of these returned men who have been before the pension board, that magnificent board which has treated the soldiers in such a shabby way. In my opinion, this board has failed all along the line. I recall one man who was before the board a short time ago, who came to me and told me that he had' 'been to his family physician a doctor who had treated the family for three generations and who knew what was the matter with him. Several of the family had died of the same trouble.
When this man was accepted into the army in 1915 his record shows that he was physically fit. When the pension board say that he was

War Pensions-Mr. Church
a pre-war disability from a chest affection, what were the doctors doing away 'back in 1915 when they accepted him? Now, after fifteen years their memories have failed and the family doctor is dead. These physicians on the pension board, when a man comes before them, try to do him out of a 'pension on technicalities. This man has done no work for three or four years. He has a wife and some small children. I was in his house a short time ago and there was not a chair in it; the bailiff had come in and taken everything away. The man appealed to me and after a good deal of trouble I got him a position as an hotel elevator man. Niow be writes me that he has to quit work next month because his state of health is such that he cannot work further at that job. The bailiff will be called in again and his wife and children will be thrown out on the street. I have never in my life heard of such a condition of affaire in a country like Canada. Fifty years from now the people of this country will be ashamed of a record such as 'this. I could name hundreds of similar cases and there are thousands of cases where pensions have been refused.
Yesterday the debate on this question was conducted on a high plane. The house is proud of the gallant returned soldiers and medical doctors who took part in it. Public opinion is at last coming to the point where it will compel an issue on this problem. In 1923-24 the opposition proposed in committee to give the pension board wider latitude in dealing with these claims, the same latitude as any arbitrator would have, but the government of the day would not listen to the proposition. I believe the country now wants a drastic change in connection with the letter and the spirit of the Pension Act. The Minister of Pensions wants this resolution referred to a committee. The government are very fond of shunting responsibility on to committees and commissions. I remember two years ago how the opposition protested about the change in the Department of Soldiers Civil Reestablishment when the government were taking soldiers' pensions away from that department and linking that branch up as a sub branch with the Department of Health, giving it the magnificent, high-sounding name of Department of National Health and Pensions. The government's idea was to tack it on as an appendix to some other department. If there is any problem that should have a separate department, it is the care and treatment of these disability cases. According to the report brought down yesterday, the figures are as follows, as of the 31st March 1929:

Disability	 54,620
Dependent	 20.002
Total	 70,622
The total pension liability amounted to S37,185,000 as against $35,583,000 the previous year. Not satisfied with that, the government closed up the employment bureau. There are thousands of these men walking the streets in Toronto, and in my opinion the lucky people are those who are dead and buried in France rather than those who have survived and have to put up with present economic conditions.
In his London speech the Prime Minister, speaking of soldiers' pensions, said:
If the situation is not adequately met we must go over it again until we meet the situation in a way that will be considered fair by the majority of the people.
General Sir Arthur Currie commented on this speech in Montreal and I agree with what he said. This is what Sir Arthur Currie said the following day:
I know the Prime Minister is sincere in his sympathetic attitude toward the returned soldiers' plea for a change in the letter as well as the spirit of the Pensions Act. I believe his remarks will receive widespread endorsement and approval. It will be the duty of the returned soldier organizations to lay an intelligent appreciation of the situation before the Department of Pensions and to indicate the manner in which the Pensions Act might be revised.
If that is so, why not adopt this resolution, because it covers about 30 per cent of the whole story? Hundreds of pension appeals are pending. Put this resolution into the form of a bill and make it an act of parliament to-morrow if necessary. In the meantime, give the board an interim appropriation to work on. That is the quickest way to deal with the matter, instead of waiting for two or three months for something to be done.
I believe the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Clark) suggested a joint committee of both houses to deal with the problem. The time to take care of these disability cases is now, and not next May, June or September when the minister will probably be away in the country. I do not blame the ministers, but they have a habit of being like Caesar's army: during the recess they are on the march over Europe and all the rest of the globe. The people who cannot get any relief in the dog days are the returned soldiers. I endeavoured to get in touch with the Minister of Pensions last summer, but he was away at the coast. What is everybody's business is nobody's business.
It is disgraceful that we should leave the care and treatment of the returned soldiers

War Pensions-Mr. Church
to poppy day funds and to tag days. Last fall in Toronto they had a tag day for the returned men and $29,000' was collected; a second appeal yielded another $25,000. The people are sick and tired of raising those funds for charity for men who fought for their country. This is an advertisement that appeared in a Toronto paper on the 22nd December last, appealing for clothes for men who had had their cases dismissed by the pension board.
Poppy Fund Appeal
Again there is found to be urgent need of clothing to assist many war veterans and their families through the winter. Wanted particularly are:
Shoes.
Suits.
Rubbers.
Overcoats (men's and children's).
Underwear.
Any who have any of these to donate are asked to communicate with the Poppy Fund, 15 Queen's Park, telephone Kingsdale 8721.
All I can say is that it is a disgraceful situation that advertisements like that should appear in the daily press of the largest soldier city in Canada. I have seen this clothing coming in and some of it is in a very unsanitary condition. The returned men and their wives and families should not have to put up with such a state of affairs. These soldiers whose claims for disability pensions have been dismissed are in the absence of action by parliament hunting for work. I know some of the local doctors and they have been before the board. Some of these doctors waste hours upon hours of their time appearing before the board. The hearing before the pension board is almost like a meeting of the county court or the general sessions of the peace or the assizes, when you consider the way in which the pension board conduct the case. The culprit is brought before them and the family doctor is there. You would think he was just a third-year medical student to hear the way he is talked at by the men on this pension board.
The pension commissioners have a nice cushy job here in Ottawa while they deal out these decisions against the returned men, and they are only guessing in the majority of these disability cases. It would be far better to abolish the board altogether. There will have to be a housecleaning soon because the soldier organizations and the public generally are demanding it. In my opinion, the board should be abolished and their duties transferred to the county court judges. In that way the veterans' organizations and citizens' committees would be able to come forward and give evidence at local centres and get evidence. Manj' doctors do not understand how a great
many of these soldiers ever got into the army, but the men were told that they were all right and were sent overseas, where their disabilities were aggravated, and now 15 years after the war the pension board in its majesty declares that these men did not get their disabilities through war service. Many of these disabled men are physically unable to work, and they should be taken off the labour market altogether and given a pension equal to that paid some of the civilians.
Talk about a returned soldier getting a job-he is given a petty job in the post office at Christmas, and if he is over twenty-five years of age he cannot get a job. Did you ever hear of a soldier being appointed to the Senate or to the Supreme court? No, the returned men get the pick and shovel jobs, and you do not need to cast your eyes very far around this building to see the rotten treatment some of the returned men are getting. That was shown by a file that was brought down for my hon. friend from Kingston City (Mr. Ross), showing that the returned men are in the priority in this building.
The time has come for a change. There has been more talk about a lady entering the Senate since the session began than has been heard of the treatment of Canada's hundred thousand soldiers. If you want to do something for the returned men or for their dependents, why not appoint to the Senate the Silver Cross women or the widow of a soldier who fell in the war, or a mother who lost three or four sons in the war, and we have many of them in Earlscourt in Toronto. Why was not a woman of that type summoned to the Senate? No, the soldiers are summoned to a pick and shovel job; that is all they would be summoned for.
The duty of the returned soldier organizations now, I suppose, is to come to Ottawa and lay their cases before the committee. How can soldiers appeal now to the pension board and how can they get the money to pay their travelling expenses and hotel bills? I do not know. How can a returned soldier who is out of a job get forty or fifty dollars to come to Ottawa and hang around here for two or three days while his case is waiting to be heard? He might stay here till doomsday before he got justice done in the matter of a pension. There was a case in St. Thomas of a young man called Tom Payne. Tom Payne is dead now, and he was given a large funeral at St. Thomas, but the pension board are still alive. Many of the reputable doctors in the county of Elgin knew the man, knew he was an honest and decent fellow, as fine a soldier as ever went to the front. His case was in all the western Ontario newspapers,

War Pensions-Mr. Church
and in spite of the fact that many reputable doctors testified in his behalf, Tom Payne died practically in the poorhouse. Tom Payne may be dead, but the doctors who gave the decision in his case are alive, and it is the duty of this house to deal with them when the act is revised.
Talk about a tag day for the returned men! You do not have a tag day for Vincent Massey, to raise funds to pay his salary and the expenses of his embassy. You do not have a tag day for Mr. Marler-excuse me-for His Excellency our Envoy Extraordinary to Japan, Rt. Hon. Mr. Marler. He was a former member of this house, and as chairman of the *pensions committee he ruled out of order the motion which was proposed a few years ago for amending the Pension Act to make it more elastic. I cited case after case, and I have had hundreds of cases in the Toronto district of men who have been done out of a pension. Mr. Marler said that if the amendment went through it would cost the country millions and millions of dollars. We can spend millions and millions of dollars on breakwaters, but not enough dollars on the returned soldier. We do not have to have a tag day to pay the salary of Mr. Massey or Mr. Marler, but the soldiers have to have a tag day to raise sufficient funds to put an advertisement in the newspapers asking for clothing for soldiers and their families and to get underwear. I am surprised the health officer in the city of Toronto does not stop it. The conditions are not generally known because some of these local organizations are stuffed with a few Liberals at the top, and they are trying to protect the government all the time. There will not have to be a tag day when the cabinet departs for Europe this fall. You talk about maritime rights. The government does not think any more about maritime rights than it does about soldier rights. I have already brought to the attention of the house the case of fifteen disabled men who were out in a storm on the great lakes, and who had to be rescued by American boats. These returned men were working on a grain boat bringing the grain down the lake on its way to the seaboard, and it was upon American sirens and American boats that they had to depend for saving their lives. But for the Americans they would have gone to the bottom of the sea. That is what Canada's status on the great lakes amounts to.
Then there was the case of those returned soldiers who were over in China. They did not get any pension. The matter was brought up in this house, and the government was asked what it was going to do for the protection of these men. All the government did

was to send a cable to the Prime Minister of Great Britain pointing out that these Canadian subjects had been seized by the revolutionaries in China and were going to be put to death. The result was that they were released immediately. Such is status.
To my mind it is disgraceful that we should have to have tag days and voluntary campaigns to help the war veterans, especially after all the promises that were made to these men when they enlisted. They have never received from the federal government the consideration which they deserve. I believe the citizens of this country should be taxed to help the returned soldiers and the families of those who did not return. They should be given work and their lives and that of their families should be made comfortable.
There was the case of a Scotch woman with six children in York county. They went hungry and cold all through November. This soldier had the month before been turned down by the pension board, although his family doctor said that his sickness was due to war service. Here is a typical story of a distressed veteran:
Clad only in a pair of overalls and a dilapidated pair of boots, a man walked into the office of the Poppy Day fund yesterday and told a story to an official of the organization that helps the distressed.
Many stories are poured into the ears of sympathetic workers, tales of poverty and hunger, of absolute want, but the story that came slowly from the lips of this man was one which brought the machinery of charity into instant motion.
The story was of a sick wdfe and six children, the oldest 12 years old and the youngest three months, who at night sleep on the bare boards of empty rooms because there are no beds.
They shiver in the cold of raw November nights because there are no blankets.
They go hungry because food has not entered that little flat on Burleigh avenue in York township for many weeks.
Harry Evans, a war veteran without a job, was the man who in desperation went into Toronto to ask aid of the Poppy Day fund. He had previously gone to East York township council he said, and had been told that no aid would be given to any destitute families before December 1.
"I suppose they thought we could fast that long," said Evans.
There is not a stick of furniture in the Evans home, if home it can be called. There are four walls and a roof, nothing more.
Several months ago Mrs. Evans went into the hospital. There was no one to look after the young children, so Evans went to the neighbours and succeeded in getting them to look after several of them. The home was broken-up. The little pieces of furniture were stored away in a warehouse. Then Evans lost his job.
When his wife, still weak, came out from the hospital several weeks ago, she found bare walls and destitution in place of the home she had left.


War Pensions-Mr. Speakman
Unable to satisfy the claim of the warehouse company for storage money the family lost its possessions.
The youngest child, the three-months-old baby has been fed mainly on sugar and water for several weeks. Mrs. Evans and the other children have had to depend on what the neighbours can afford to give them in the way of food.
There is only one small case that the Poppy Day fund has to look after until the country wakes up and treats its veterans properly. If this man were one hundred per cent fit he could get a position, but no employer wants him. I have tried, in hundreds of cases to get some of them work, and I know that employers of labour will not take returned men suffering from war disability; they want younger men, men physically fit, of course there are many many exceptions. I see my good friend from Parkdale (Mr. Spence) in his seat. He has a lot of these cases; the returned soldiers appeal to his good nature.
In my opinion our duty is to back this resolution first of all and then bring in a bill to give effect to it, and so start the Board of Pension Commisisoners at work. I admit that this is not a local problem. I am talking of the condition of our returned soldiers from the day the war closed. The time is ripe for action, and I hope this resolution. will be adopted to-night or to-morrow. Indeed, I think this house can be engaged in no better work for the next two or three days than along the lines of the resolution. If necessary we should be prepared to sit here for a week and adopt the resolution of the hon. member for Muskoka (Mr. McGibbon), and put it in effect at once so that some action may be taken to alleviate the distress of our returned men. We have had pension committees before. These committees are appointed every session, they bring in a report in the dying days of the session, and in the meantime our soldiers suffer. We have had fifteen years of this talk, and the soldiers cannot live any longer on honeyed words. From what I can see of the cases before the board the disabled soldier's own family doctor in effect is not to be trusted as to a soldier's condition although he alone understands the case.
I represent a soldier city and have spent a great deal of time on these cases. I think the returned soldier has been used in a disgraceful manner. I can take you to fifty or sixty houses in Toronto where you can see this state of affairs with your own eyes; and seeing is believing. Having seen these cases by night and by day, by winter and by summer, having noted the intolerable condition of the houses, the ill-clad children, the half starved struggling wives, all I can say is,
I am not any too proud of the way Canada has used its soldiers. The people do not expect Canada to adopt the attitude of "a dead beat" towards these men. They made a contract with the government of Canada, and that contract should be carried out in its entirety.


Mr. ALFRED SPEAKMAN (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, there is perhaps no more opportune resolution than the one now before the house presented by my hon. friend for Muskoka (Mr. McGibbon), dealing as it does with what is perhaps the greatest problem which confronts this country and this parliament in its relation to our returned men; the problem of those men who, incapacitated at the present time, are unable definitely to prove the attributability or the continuity of disability which is called for under our present pension legislation.
This problem has been growing upon us year after year, and those of us who have been following this work rather closely have recognized, I think, that the peak of our pension expenditures has not yet been reached. We are discussing to-day the man who was discharged Al, sometimes because he was in good health, and. frequently, as has been said by others, because in his overwhelming desire to get out of uniform and return home he waived the physical examination which was his right and left the army to return to civilian life. What do we find ten or eleven years after? During the interval those men have been trying to carry on, they have been fighting a losing battle against increasing ill health, against the approach of premature old age. As I have viewed the cases which I have met personally, and as I have reviewed the history of the returned men of this country, my opinion has grown and strengthened that that premature old age is just as definitely a war disability as an amputation case, a gunshot wound case or a shellshock case.
The question has airways been, what can we do for them? Two years ago, Mr. Speaker, during the session of 1928, a resolution was placed upon the order paper recognizing the same problem as is recognized to-day by my friend for Muskoka (Mr. McGibbon), and intending to meet the condition in a somewhat similar method, although differing in some cases. This resolution leaving out the preamble, simply stated:
Therefore be it resolved that this house is of the opinion that the government should consider the advisability of introducing during this session of parliament-


Alfred Speakman: I put that resolution upon the order paper myself, but unfortunately owing to there 'being no more private members' days the resolution itself was not dealt with. It was brought up and discussed, however, in the committee which de-ailt with those matters, as it will deal with those matters again.
I was pointing out, Mr. Speaker, that this problem is one which we have recognized for some years as a growing and increasing problem, and at that time I, in my own way, as is the hon. member for Muskoka in his way, was endeavouring to give recognition to the problem. The hon. member for Muskoka is now suggesting some method by which he might meet it and solve it. We find those men during those ten years, as I have said, fighting a losing battle, with growing i'll health, with increasing disability, with lessened capacity for finding employment possibly upon the labour market of the country. We find them attempting then, under those handicaps, not only to maintain themselves but to maintain their wives and their little ones, and today many of them have to recognize, as we are recognizing, that the time has come when they can do this no longer, and when they have reached that point, as they are reaching it, and when they 'appear before the pension commission in an endeavour to be relieved under the provisions of our Pension Act, they find themselves confronted with what is an almost insuperable obstacle, that is, the difficulty after a lapse of ten or twelve years of proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that their present condition is a direct result of their war service, of proving that continuity of ill health, that continuity of disability which is demanded at the present time. Many of 'those oases I have known personally. I presume that every member in the house has met with them, cases that would rend one's heart, cases of men who are lying on their beds of pain, incapable of moving hand or foot sometimes, and yet unpensionable. We are not speaking to-day for the man who is pensioned.
I think that Canada has dealt fairly, and has dealt generously, in her pension provisions for those who may come under the provisions of that act. But we are speaking of those who are outside of the Pension Act and who

cannot at the present time be brought in. Those men then, having reached the end of their tet'her, being unable to carry on any longer, come and present their case, and as I have already stated, and as we all know, they fail to prove their case under the statute as we have it to-day.
As I understand it, this resolution is an endeavour to put into effect what has always been the intent of parliament, that in such cases where a doubt exists the man himself shall have the benefit of that doubt. Personally, Mr. Speaker, I doubt whether any resolution can so change the administration, can so deal with administration, as to ensure any such thing. So long as discretion is left with any board that board must be, and will inevitably be, in a position to use that discretion; and it may be used for the men or it may be used against them. So I think what we are endeavouring to do now is to frame the statute in such wide and liberal terms that under the provisions of that statute those cases of which we have spoken may be dealt with. Most of us who have had some experience in dealing with the problems of our returned men have come, I believe, to this opinion, a firm, unshakeable opinion, that very few men who saw service throughout the length of the war, or who saw fighting service in the active areas of war, came home without leaving something behind them. They may have left a limb; they may have left, in some tangible form, some part of themselves, and they can be dealt with and have been dealt with. But they came home leaving behind them something else, something intangible, something that no doctor can lay his finger on, and yet which we know was there and is now gone. They left behind them their youth; they left behind them their fighting energy, their nerve forces, partially at least, and as time goes on that vanished youth results in premature old age. I meet myself to-day younger men than I but who as far as all active purpose is concerned, as far as efficiency is concerned, physical strength, initiative, nerve force, are old men. What can we do for them? Nothing under the Pension Act as it stands to-day. We find- and again I am stating my own opinion, but I think it is the opinion of every member of the house who has come in contact with those cases-that in coming through that grim furnace of war something has been burned out, and it is because of that that we speak now of the burned out man. That is, his experience, his privations, the exposure, the suffering, the nerve strain have removed something from him, have taken away from him the power to resist disease, and have made

TFor Pensions-Mr. Speakman
him more susceptible not only to premature old age but to any disease to which civilians themselves are susceptible.
It is my opinion-and I think again I am voicing the opinion of every side of the house 

that so long as one of those men is unable to maintain himself, seeing his family suffer privations around him, then the debt which this country owes has not been paid. That is accepted. I think that that is the general opinion of every member here and, I am certain, of the overwhelming majority of the citizens of this country. And now we approach the task, having come to this point, having recognized the problem, having accepted the obligation, of seeking about for some method by which we may discharge that debt. We are seeking now for the best possible method of dealing with those cases without simply throwing the gates open and saying to everybody, come in, we will pension you because of service and not because of disability which you have incurred. And, Mr. Speaker, to my mind, we have got to be careful at that point. We are not attempting to reward men for the service which they rendered. The service was incalculable, it is beyond reward, and, under the terms of our Pension Act we are making no such attempt. We are attempting to make up to them the losses-the physical losses, the lack of ability to earn their own living; we are trying to make up to them, in some way, for the losses which they sustained and not for the service they rendered.
Right here, Mr. Speaker, I see some danger in the resolution as framed, for under the terms of the resolution the pension commission itself ceases to exist as such, as a registering body. I am simply giving my interpretation. The resolution states that on receipt of a statement from any reputable physician or surgeon who expresses the opinion that the disability under which the man is at present suffering is the result of his war service, a pension should be granted.


Mr. McGIBBON:: Unless it is disproved
by the Board of Pension Commissioners.


Alfred Speakman: I am coming to that.
In other words, prima facie the opinion of any surgeon or physician is sufficient to give any man a pension. Then, as the hon. member for Muskoka rightly states, this shall be done subject to the proviso that if the Board of Pension Commissioners, after a lapse of perhaps ten, twelve, fifteen or even twenty years can disprove the case beyond the shadow of a doubt, then of course no pension shall be paid. In my opinion it will be just as difficult and impossible to disprove a case 2418-s
as it is at present to prove it, and as a matter of fact, in actual practice I think in nine cases out of ten it will simply substitute the physician or surgeon for the Board of Pension Commissioners, and pensions will be granted upon the statements of doctors.
I am not prepared to say that that is altogether a bad thing, but I do say it is going further than I think parliament is desirous of going at present, and sympathetic though I believe myself to be towards returned men it goes further than I am prepared to go at this time. I hardly think we should wipe out all restrictions and leave the matter simply to the judgment of any doctor with regard to the attributability of the disability to war service.
The principle expressed in this resolution is absolutely sound. The benefit of the doubt and the presumption should be in favour of the returned man; he should not be called upon to prove what cannot be proved; he should not be asked to show continuity during this lapse of years, when the very nature of the matter and the fact that he has been carrying on under his own steam without appealing to the pension board makes that impossible to prove. The very thing which we honour in him brings up the insuperable obstacle. The man who has appealed to the pension board year after year, who has camped on the door-step and pressed his claim in and out of season, establishes the continuity which is demanded under our present statute, but the man whom we are trying to reach now; the man above all others for whom we should care and help; the man who did what he could as long as he could do it, leaves that gap and the continuity breaks down. I am satisfied that we must change our statute in that respect; we will have to bring in ordinary common sense when we consider the possibility of a man establishing his claim. I would go even further than that; I would go as far as I was prepared to go in 1928. I would be prepared to say that when a returned man is incapacitated and perhaps financially bankrupt, with neither means nor physical strength remaining, he should be pensioned without any further question being asked.
I have no intention of speaking at any length upon this subject. We have considered it, we have talked about it, and I think the time has come when we should get down to brass tacks and see what we can do about it. There are two obvious lines which we must follow, I think; there are two weaknesses which we must do away with. One of these weaknesses is brought up in this



War Pensions-Mr. Speakman
resolution. We must make it possible for the men who deserve pensions and who are now unable to prove their cases to be looked after, and we must provide for hospitalization and medical treatment for those who need it. It has been suggested that in going as far as we are suggesting we will throw upon the communities a great and intolerable burden. Well, quite apart from the moral aspect of the case, we will do nothing of the kind. If a man is unable to earn his livelihood while he is lying there helpless, his wife and children without a bread-winner, what happens? The municipality, the province, the neighbours, the community must take care of those people. We are not establishing a new burden; we are simply designating the proper authority that shall take care of these cases more efficiently, more fully, and more decently than they can be taken care of at present. In addition, what is perhaps of equal importance, in placing the onus directly upon this parliament we are removing from the man the stigma of charity which rests upon him when he has to appeal to the municipality or the province for relief, and we are giving him and his dependents what he is morally entitled to, recompense for his sufferings and assistance in his incapacity.
The main thing, as I see it now, is that in this resolution and in all that has been said during this debate, we are giving recognition to the problem. That is the first step. We must see that there is a problem; we are accepting the obligation; we are seeking for the method by which we can discharge our debt, and we are definitely setting ourselves to tlbe task of meeting that obligation. I believe-and again I am merely expressing my own opinion-that it would foe better if this resolution, having been discussed, went to the committee without a vote. My reason for that statement is this:	Sound though
the principle may be, in some ways there will have to be some modification of this resolution for the sake of the men themselves and for the proper functioning of the act. For example, the resolution states that not only applications for pensions but also applications for increased pensions dh&ll be dealt with in this way. Now can a surgeon or a physician deal with an application for increased pension unless, as I suggest, the Board of Pension Commissioners is simply wiped out and its place taken by these medical men? These weaknesses seem apparent, and I believe that the resolution could be put into effect, better by a discussion in the committee which is to be formed and which I hope will foe 'composed of sympathetic men who are 'trying to do the right 'thing, as has been the case in the past.

I have worked on that committee, not so long as my friend from Muskoka but as long as I have been in parliament, and I desire to say just a word about it. Over the doors of that committee room, metaphorically speaking, we have written these words: "Abandon politics all ye who enter here." During the years I have worked on that committee I think every member lived up to that motto, and from any word spoken or any action taken in that committee room I should not have known to what parity any member belonged. I believe that is one of tihe finest tributes which could be paid to the committee. Therefore with such men looking into 'this question, I think the hon. member for Muskoka could trust them as I trusted1 them two years ago to deal fairly with the problem, to strengthen these weaknesses, and to put into effect the principle which is desired, and I think more good would foe done the men themselves than if we simply voted on the matter here in the house. I am heartily in support of the principle, and certainly if I am on the committee I will do my best to see that the principle is very fully embodied in legislation.
I do not think it is necessary for me to say any more; I have outlined the problems as I see them and have suggested ways of meeting them, and having done so, I simply leave it to the good sense of the house to act as they will.


Mr. W. G. ERNST (Queens-Lunenburg):: Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to detain the house at any length, but I rise to speak because I have ihe same fault to find with the resolution as proposed by the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. McGibbon) as has the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Speakman).
The principle of the resolution is sound, but unfortunately some of the phraseology is not such as will commend itself to the majority of the members of the house, and before I resume my seat I propose to move an amendment in the following terms:
That all words after the word "house" in the second line be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
"in all applications for pension where disability or death is proved such disability or death shall be presumed to have resulted from and to he attributable to military service unless and until the contrary be proved.
I am prompted to move this amendment by the discussion which has taken place during yesterday afternoon and to-day, and 'by a consideration of the temper of the house in dealing with this question of the returned man, more particularly the returned man who is entitled to a pension. I am not approaching this question in a spirit of politics, tot be-

War Pensions-Mr. Ernst
cause I feel, as does the speaker who has just taken his seat, that we are not doing justice to the man who is entitled to a pension. The principles which underlie the pension law were very admirably stated yesterday by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Thorson), and I am going to venture to restate some of the propositions which he cited. But before I do this, and in order to make my amendment a little clearer to the house, I want to read the definition of ''pension" as given by the act. This definition reads as follows:
(m) "pension" means pension on account of the death or disability of a member of the forces and includes addition to pension, temporary pension, additional payment, final payment or any other payment made by the commission to or in respect of any member of the forces;
We approach the problem of proving a claim for a pension in exactly the same manner as we approach the problem of proving any other claim. In order to be entitled to pension a man has to prove, first, military service; second, the disability; and, third, to connect that disability with his military service -the burden of proof is upon him. The purpose of the amendment is to place that burden of proof upon the pension authorities, they must prove that such disability did not result from military service. Yesterday the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) said that this was a new and startling principle, but it is not new either in common law or to the parliament of this country. In common law we have what are known as presumptions of fact-we have had them from time immemorial-and in this parliament we have what are known as presumptions of fact created by acts of this parliament. One example in that regard is the Customs Act. Under the provisions of that act relating to smuggling, if liquor or any other smuggled commodity is found in a person's possession, the burden of proving that that commodity was not smuggled and that it was lawfully imported falls upon the person accused. That is an act of the parliament of this country, and that provision is equally as drastic as anything proposed in the present amendment. Consequently in proposing this amendment, I say that it does not introduce to this parliament any new principle.
Then it will be urged that it will open the door to abuses, but I do not feel that that objection is sound. To urge that is only to say that the majority of the returned soldiers are dishonest, and I, for one, refuse to believe any such thing. Of course there will be exceptions, there will always be the man whom we have known as the leadswinger.
We have that class of man now and will have him under any legislation we will enact, but as the act stands at the present time it does not do justice in a large number of cases and something must be done to remedy this condition.
I offer this proposal simply in the spirit of something which may tend to make the Pension Act of this country much more workable for the returned man. It will be urged, of course, that it will increase the cost of pensions. Well, Mr. Speaker, in the implied promise made to the man who went overseas, the cost was not reckoned in dollars and cents, and I do not believe that at this late date, twelve years after the struggle is all over, we should come down to a niggardly basis in dealing with him.
As stated, this amendment introduces no new principle, but is designed to meet that class of case about which the house has heard so much during the two days of discussion. Instance after instance could be given where a man is really morally entitled to a pension, but who cannot get it, because he is unable to supply that connecting link between his military service and his disability. The records may be lost and the doctor who may have examined twenty, thirty, forty or fifty cases a day, cannot remember having attended him. Furthermore, the evidence in some cases is scattered to all points of the globe and can be collected only at great expense. All that the resolution asks is that the country should bear the expense of disproving, instead of the man bearing the expense of collecting the evidence.
I commend this amendment to the house as being a solution of one phase of the problem which presents itself in relation to pensions. I do not think that this alone is going to solve the problem, because I think we are going to have the same difficulty which was encountered in the old common law courts. If the court adheres too strictly to the letter of the law, the act will have to be applied as a remedial act. We will have to build up in the pension law a kind of equity jurisprudence where justice will be done instead of adhering to the strict letter of the law. I think the board will have to be given discretionary powers, so that they may try the cases on their merit, according to the dictates of their conscience, and I believe such powers will do something to solve another phase of the problem of pensions for the returned soldier.
I could give instance after instance which would be cured by this proposed resolution if it were enacted into legislation. At the present moment I have in my desk the file of a

War Pensions-Mr. Gershaw
man who is to-day a nervous wreck, unable to support his wife and his family, and yet he cannot obtain a pension because he cannot connect by direct evidence his disability with his war service, although there is a moral certainty that such is the case. This proposed resolution as amended would permit that man to obtain a pension. That case is only one of hundreds and hundreds of like cases from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
I ask the hon. member w7ho moved the resolution to accept this amendment in the spirit in which it is offered. It is not offered in the spirit of party conflict, but simply to provide a solution for the problem which presents itself to this country and to this house.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, seconded by Mr. Ross (Kingston), I move:
That all words after the word "house" in the second line be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
"in all applications for pension -where disability or death is proved, such disability or death shall be presumed to have resulted from and to be attributable to military service unless and until the contrary be proved."


Mr. F. W. GERSHAW (Medicine Hat):: 
Mr. T. E. KAISER (Ontario):: I would like to make a few observations in regard to the resolution and the real question that is before the house and the country. I realize that we are requested by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) to 'be careful in our remarks and to cull from them any vestige of what might be termed party politics. If I intrude in the domain of party politics, I wish to say that it will not be intentional on my part. I had the opportunity of listening over the radio on the night of December 4, when at London the Prime Minister first introduced this question to the people of

War Pensions-Mr. Kaiser
Canada. I observed that he selected a partisan audience to speak to. I cannot divest my mind o*f the fact that the appeal on that occasion was somewhat along partisan lines; but while I was pleased with many of the remarks the Prime Minister made, I also listened intently to the response from his audience in regard to the remarks that he made on that occasion, and permit me to say the words that received the most vociferous applause was his statement that the country should do something further and more substantial for the returned soldiers. That was to me a great delight. As a Canadian I was glad to hear the announcement, although I must say I was sorry that having observed these conditions for so many years he had not spoken in this way at an earlier date. It appears to be the opinion of returned soldiers and those among whom I have had the pleasure of mingling, that we should have taken up this question a number of years ago. It is a belated attempt. The applause of that audience indicated to me and to the Canadian people that behind the movement there is a great volume of public opinion. Wherever we go in Canada to-day, everybody is of the opinion that we should be fairer in our conduct towards the returned soldier.
As I understand this debate, our remarks are to be noted down as a guide to the committee that is to be appointed, in order that they may draft a bill that will meet the situation more satisfactorily. Upon that bill, and upon the situation as I see it, I have just one or two suggestions to make. Nothing very much was said in regard to the returned soldier until the memorable statement made by Sir Arthur Currie, to a gathering of the legion in a western city. From that moment everybody began to think of this question, particularly in regard to what has been called "the burned-out soldier". Coming from a city which is as absolutely industrialized as Oshawa, I have had occasion to observe, and I agree, that there is a tendency to-day not to employ men after a certain period of life. All the industries of to-day are looking for young men; they desire young men for many reasons. The soldiers are getting old. As has been observed to-day by one of the greatest friends of the returned soldier in Canada, fifteen years have gone by since the soldiers came back. They are very much older than when they returned and on account of their age it is more difficult and is every day getting more difficult to place them. I am one of those who stand for the principle that the returned soldier should be regarded as a preferred citizen by the Dominion, and when we frame our legislation we should keep that in mind. With that idea in
view, I submit that we should revise our old age pension scheme to provide that a returned soldier shall be eligible to receive the pension at 65 instead of 70 years of age; in other words, give him a preference of five years. Whether that idea is acceptable to the house or not, I am personally heartily in favour of it.
In regard to the dependents of the returned soldiers, those of us who are medical men have been confronted with a certain situation. We have met cases of returned) soldiers who were attacked, some two or three years after the armistice, by some trivial disease, and who were swept out of existence as their power of resistance had all gone. To-day their widows and children are in absolute need. I believe that tire dependents of the soldier who died within two or 'three years after the war should be considered somewhat favourably by the board. I have in mind the case of a man who entered the army late in life, almost at the age limit. He served two or three years in France, returned to Canada, and received his discharge without having any disability whatever, but within three months he became a victim to the influenza epidemic in 1918, and died of pneumonia, Very few people over the age of thirty-five years died in that influenza epidemic. People beyond a certain age who were attacked by the disease nearly all escaped. I shall not enter into a scientific explanation of that matter here, but I say that this particular soldier was unable to withstand the disease because his strength had been undermined by his war service. I think his dependents should be considered by 'the board. Only yesterday I received a letter from the city of Oshawa stating that his widow was in danger of being thrown out on t'he streets because those upon whom she was dependent were out of employment, and She was unable to keep up the payments on her house. A condition of that kind is not creditable to the people of this country. It is not right that 'the widows of soldiers who died a year or two after the war should be thrown on the street because they are unable to meet the small payments on their homes. I believe that cases of that kind should also be considered.
I ^llall not go into all the oases that I have in mind. Every medical man has a list of oases whiclh he desires to 'bring before the committee for consideration. I have in mind one soldier who was admitted into the army in good physical condition, absolutely free from disease, but he had never ibeen trained ito 'march; he had never been accustomed ito the drudgery of the trained
118	COMMONS
War Pensions-Mr. McLean (Melfort)
soldier, and in a few months difficulties arose because of the training, which difficulties are not covered1 by the present Pension Act. He is now about to undergo an operation which will disable him for life. His case is not covered by itihe present act. I think cases of that kind should 'be also considered.
I am prepared to support either the amendment or the original motion so that our Pension Act shall be amended to cover a greater number of cases, and so that the -board will consider the cases that we bring before them in a more sympathetic manner. We have all had experience before the board, and we know that as soon as one presents a. case, you are confronted with -the law. The board reads the -law, every line and letter of it, with a microscopic eye and the soldier stands in front of the board as though he were 'being charged in a police court with a breach of the Temperance Act or something of that sort. Unless 'his case oomes absolutely within the meaning of every word- in the law his application is rejected. A more liberal interpretation of the law is required, and more discretion should be allowed to the board. The people of my constituency expect me to speak on behalf of the returned soldier and in favour of a more liberal interpretation being given to the act as it stands, -and of its widening in order to cover tmlany cases which to-day are not covered but which enlist the sympathy of every Canadian citizen.


Mr. MALCOLM McLEAN (Melfort):: I
think it is not necessary for me to take much time at this stage in arguing that the country must take care of its returned men, because it is agreed by almost everyone in this house and the country that that must be done. The Dominion of Canada accepted willingly and gratefully the services of these men, or else requisitioned their services, and care must be taken to do justice to them. Ordinarily, had not the war occurred, it is true that many of these men would be in ill-health to-day, and would be requiring assistance from the municipality or the province, but the Dominion having accepted their services for the war, it is only fair to assume that the government is the organization that should look after them.
Having said that, I think pretty nearly everyone will agree with me that the difficulty in the past has been to find a way by which to give effect to the good-will of the people of this Dominion. Much already has been done in looking after what might be called the obvious cases. I have not heard much complaint from any returned soldier or anyone else as to the treatment meted out

to those who once were put on the pension list. Much has been done by way of widening the act from time to time, and as the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Speakman) said to-day, the end is not yet; the peak of the load has not yet come. Much has been done by including within the provisions of the act from time to time classes that had hitherto been excluded, and I am of the opinion that what is required now is so to amend and widen the act that certain classes at present excluded from receiving assistance shall be provided for.
As a layman I was somewhat surprised yesterday and to-day to listen to legal men arguing that it was a matter of widening the discretion of the commissioners. I am not prepared to argue that phase, but I do remember well that two years ago, during the sittings of the last pensions committee, the chairman of the pensions board came before the committee and gave a considerable amount of evidence regarding that phase. I do not think that anyone so far in this debate has brought the commissioners personally into this matter, and I trust that I shall not say anything out of place regarding any member of the board. I believe that every member of the committee was convinced that the chairman of the board was a thoroughly capable and conscientious servant of the public, who wished to do everything in his power for all the returned men, but the evidence he gave on this particular phase was to this effect: Parliament has passed a law; that law includes certain classes; if a man does not come within those classes, it is not in the power of the board to bring him within them. I do not think it would be a safe principle to maintain that a commissioner or any other official could take cases that are clearly without the law as it stands at present, and endeavour by violence to bring them within the law. The remedy is not to abuse or change the commissioners, but to change the law. It is a very difficult matter in some cases to meet what I believe are the just claims of many returned soldiers.
Another piece of evidence dealing with another phase of the matter dealt with at that time was that the men who had performed the longest and best service had the greatest difficulty in making good their claim, for this reason, that those who had served in Canada had never been beyond reach of medical aid and hospitalization, and clerical help was available in a sufficient degree to keep their papers in good shape. iSo in their cases it was comparatively easy to prove or disprove their claims. Those who went to England

War Pensions-Mr. McLean (Meljort)
found themselves in a slightly different position from their comrades who remained in Canada, but still they were in a preferred position compared with the soldiers who spent several years in France. In all these cases it was comparatively easy to keep a record of the disability or illness of the men and hospitalization also was comparatively easy. But, if I remember rightly, and I think I do, the evidence of the commissioners on that point was that in the case of men who had spent much of their time in France, the longer their service there the greater was the likelihood of disability occurring and the greater the difficulty of securing a medical record of their cases. I know personally many men who I believe to be telling the truth when they say they were sick at the front and were given medical treatment. One man told me a little while ago that he was under medical treatment for a certain period of time and afterwards resumed duty. Many of the men who served in France, according to their own testimony and the testimony of the commissioners, found that the hospitalization records were not kept with anything like the degree of fulness and accuracy that they were kept in England and Canada. So that the men whom this country wishes most to see given consideration for their services, not by way of reward but by way of assistance in their need, are the very ones that find it most difficult to obtain that help.
To-day there are many men who were discharged as Al, and possibly for all military purposes they were Al at the time, but there is no question at all that disability connected with their war service developed later, as I think the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Gershaw) said to-day and as other members have pointed out. It is becoming increasingly difficult for those men to continue at their normal occupations, yet they admit that when they took their discharge they thought they were all right physically. Many men have told me that in their hurry to resume civilian life they passed up some little disabilities knowing that they existed!-some did not even know that they existed-but now they need assistance. In my opinion to meet these cases the pension law must be amended and widened in its scope so that adequate provision will be made for these men.
To-day I have heard one or two hon. members discuss the cost of this proposed amendment. Certainly it will cost something for the country to take care of these men, but I do not believe that anyone in the Dominion will begrudge this additional expenditure. Certainly provision must be made that there will not be a wide throwing open of the doors
for undeserving cases. Fortunately the people of Canada have a great deal of faith in the professional classes, whether they be lawyers or doctors. I yield to no one in my respect for these professions. Nevertheless the people of Canada know, and we know, that some medical men in the past in this province and in the other provinces have deviated from the strict letter of the law and from what they themselves knew to be their moral obligation in their desire to accommodate-shall I say? -their patients. This is not saying anything against the medical profession in particular. But care must be taken that there shall be no pension scandals in this country such as there were in the United States, and when I say that I am quite sure that our soldiers, organized or unorganized, will take that position very strongly.
One thing I find has created a certain amount of friction throughout the Dominion, that some men who are apparently in good health, and who certainly are able to carry on their duties from day to day and perform fairly arduous work, are in receipt of fairly large pension payments; while other men, whom the community recognizes as not able to work at all, have not been able to obtain any pension. That apparent discrimination is due to the fact that I mentioned a few minutes ago.
While the suggested amendment to the pension law may 'increase the cost of pensions, the cost of the war is being carried by this Dominion to an enormous extent along other lines, and those men who went overseas and fought the battles of their country on a very small financial allowance found themselves returning home to pay at least a fair share, and I might say a reasonably large share, of the cost of carrying on the war that they themselves were directly instrumental in bringing to a successful conclusion. Practically all the cost of the war remains to be paid. Even if the cost of widening the pension law should be very great, this will be no reason for not incurring the expenditure in view of the tremendous amount of money that is still being paid in discharge of other liabilities.
Already several communities in which the soldiers are organized are beginning to take steps to endeavour to set up local soldier homes. That was discussed two years ago in our committee, and I believe it was the unanimous opinion that it was not a good thing to encourage the early development of soldier homes on a large scale. It has been found necessary in other countries to do so, and in course of time it may be found necessary to take similar action in Canada, but
120	COMMONS
War Pensions-Mr. White (London)
the consensus of opinion was that at the present time it was not desirable to deal with the problem in that manner. As I say, I find that in certain localities organized returned men are discussing the advisability of establishing on a small scale homes for returned men, where those who clearly are not pensionable at the present time and who possibly may not be pensionable under any legislation may be cared for. These men certainly served at the front, but their present disability is rather the result of age than of their war service and they are not able to earn a living. I do not know that that is the best solution. I am quite satisfied that as long as men are physically and mentally fit to attend to their own needs it will be better in the long run to enable them to continue in ordinary free civilian life, although it might be a little more expensive to the country.
Without taking up any further time, Mr. Speaker, I simply desire to impress these two points on the house: that the pension law must be amended in order to include those who are now shut out from its provisions; and that it is desirable to give this particular class of men who served the longest in an active theatre of the war proper care and attention in view of the fact that hospitalization and medical service were difficult to record.


Mr. J. F. WHITE (London):: Coming as I do from the city of London, headquarters of military district No. 1, a city from which a great many thousands of men were demobilized, I have had) a great deal toi do with the claims of returned soldiers, and1 a great deal to do with their demands on the Board of Pension Commissioners. Since coming to this house eight years ago, Mr. Speaker, I have had considerable satisfaction in presenting the claims of many of them in such a way that they have been recognized by the pension board. The experience that I have had has much in common with that of many others, that men came home feeling exhilarated, probably by their experience in coming home, and in the excitement of the moment were willing to take their discharge as A-l without any thought whatever of some ailment from which they suffered and which made itself felt in later years. The men who could connect disabilities with their war experience were fortunate. In many cases their disabilities were easily connected np, and those men were dealt with, as I consider, fairly by the pensions commission. The other class who were not able to connect their disabilities with their war experience have found the situation rather serious. Men have

become old long before their time. I have been struck with the number who are willing to carry on in spite of the difficulties whffch they have experienced. In fact, in industrial operations I have had a great deal to do with returned soldiers, and I have now in mind two men v'ho are losing one or perhaps two days peT week, as the result of war wound's not sufficiently serious to be given attention. But these men are suffering in their bodies and through theiir purses as the result of the war, and they will continue to pay a portion of the cost of the war as long as they live. These are men, it seems to me, who should have consideration. There is also the case of the man who may have been gassed and who for years has been unable to prove up his disability, or connect his disability with his service. Tuberculosis sets in and he dies of that ailment, and repeatedly I have had these complaints turned down as mot being attributable to war service.
The payment of $42,000,000 in pensions per year is not considered by the people of Canada to be excessive. I have heard complaints as bo the cost of administering the departments, but I have had no complaint, mor have I heard of any complaint, as to the amount of money being paid to the returned soldiers in the matter of pensions. The people of Canada, I believe, have in their memories quite fresh the promises that were made to the men before they went away, and a feeling of gratitude to them for taking up the burden of the empire.
I wish to speak for a few moments, Mr. Speaker, on a matter which was referred to yesterday by the hon. member for Labe lie (Mr. Bourassa). It is in the interests of the man who is not considered very favourably, in fact, it is the problem of the victim of a lapse of the moral standard. I have discussed this matter with men who were in France, men who have returned, and they are all sympathetic with the man who fell morally but who in the very nature of things is unable to receive anything in the way of pension although perhaps receiving treatment. His family suffers, those who have to take care of him suffer, but there is no relief so far as pension is concerned. I do not believe that our people are vindictive. I do not think that they are unwilling to allow for human frailty. Those men were young and far away from the restraints of home, and from civilization for that matter, and it is hardly to be wondered at that many of them fell by the wayside, so far as morals were concerned, and we as a people should be willing to shoulder, to some extent, their burden. I would not advocate the payment of full pension, but I

War Pensions-Mr. Evans
would advocate a very sympathetic consideration of the claims of those who have to support those men, who have to care for them, and I hope in the rewriting of the Pension Act these men will receive some tangible consideration. I find it difficult, however, to support the resolution as originally drafted. The conditions, I think, were probably too loose. We have to regard, to some extent, the national treasury, and there are those who would take an undue advantage of certain circumstances. I feel, therefore, that the mover of the resolution would agree perhaps that the wording of the amendment is preferable.
I take great pleasure, sir, in supporting the motion as amended.


Mr. JOHN EVANS (Rosetown):: Mr. Speaker, I find myself in accord with the spirit of this resolution and the amendment. I do not think that the fact of being unable to prove continuity of disability should be used against a man. I have several cases in mind of men who have suffered tremendously on that account. These men are not, as yet, receiving pensions, though in some cases they have been receiving hospital treatment. In one case that I know of the municipality has had to bear the burden. That is not as it should be, Mr. Speaker. War is bad enough, but when it seems to those men who have returned, who find themselves unable to make a living, that the country is callously looking on at their wants, and their fear of want, it makes matters still worse for them. I have taken the ground previously that when a returned man is unable to make a living, due to disability, and is unable to prove his disability after having been passed as medically fit for war service, then this country has an obligation towards him. Indeed, I have one particular case in mind that comes very close home, and it is perhaps the burned out man that is most hard to give justice to at the present time. Burned out seems to be a word that fits in here very well. I know of cases where men have carried on with their work for six, seven or eight years, and have then had to spend some time in hospital, all directly due to war disability. I think this country can very well afford to economise in other matters, and to keep the returned soldier in such a way that he will have those comforts in life to which he is justly entitled. That, I think, is something that might very well be taxed more heavily upon those who made their fortunes during the war.
While I am in agreement with the resolution and the amendment, Mr. Speaker, I wish to say with the member for Red Deer (Mr. Speakman) that I think it would have been better to have allowed this resolution to go before the committee, so that when the bill is drafted it will make liberal provision for those who are not now Al.


Mr. JOHN MILLAR (Qu'Appelle):: I
think it is gratifying indeed, Mr. Speaker, to see that a matter so important has been discussed in this house in a manner so free of party bias. I think I am not unlike other members who have taken part in this debate, as well as those who have not taken any part in it. They have all had brought to their attention many cases of real hardship and suffering because of difficulty in connecting their disability with war service, notwithstanding the fact that it seemed quite apparent to a layman at least that the disability was caused by war service. This seems to have been aggravated to a considerable extent by the fact that the appeal board appears to be overworked. I do not wish to cast any reflection upon the appeal board, but I have several cases which were entered for appeal as far back as March and April of last year and which will be heard during the month of March of this year at Regina. I take it that the appeal board has too much to do; they cannot get around the country fast enough, and I was glad to hear the suggestion that the board should be enlarged in order that they might attend to these cases with greater expedition.
I am convinced that it is the wish of the people of Canada itlhait the promise of tlhis country to t)he soldiers when they enlisted should be carried out to the full. 1 ,am convinced by these oases which have come to my attention that such has not been done. I am prepared to support drastic legislation, but. I am sorry .to say that the present proposal and amendment are so' drastic and open the doors so wide that I am not prepared to support either. It seems to me that both the original resolution and the amendment practically lift the lid off the treasury entirely as far as this house is concerned, and it hardly seems proper that we should do 'that and rely on the .pension board and the appeal board to protect the public treasury. I do not think it is any reflection upon the medical profession to say that there are some black sheep in it. I have a very high opinion of that profession, Ibut they are like other classes of men, and as a matter of fact there seems to be no restriction here at all. An applicant for a pension might go any distance to a doctor and have him state that the disability is the result of war service. I have in mind
War Pensions-Mr. Millar

also the fact that it would be a great temptation to doctors to issue certificates of this kind where they had been treating returned men for years without receiving any pay. That would fee an added temptation to give the men the benefit of the doubt and say their disabilities were attributable to war service.
For a- moment or two I should like to refer to the amendment, which is to the effect that in all applications for pension, where disability or death is proved, such disability or death shall be presumed to have resulted from and be attributable to military service. I should like to point out that the only thing necessary in such a case is for the widow to prove that her husband had rendered service overseas and that he bad died. Then, unless it could be proved to the board that his death was not attributable to war service, she would be entitled to a pension. It would be dffi-cult after twelve years, in many cases, to prove that death was not occasioned by war service, and it would be very difficult for the board to make that proof after another five, six, eight or ten years in addition.
I am very sympathetic to the spirit of this resolution and, as I said 'before, I am prepared to support very drastic measures because I believe there is a weakness in the present legislation in that it does not go far enough. However, I might say that if this were brought to a vote at present I could not support either the motion or the amendment. I was glad to hear the horn, member for Red Deer (Mr. Speakman), the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Tharson) and others state that this matter has been dealt with in a very fair manner iby former committees, with an entire absence of politics. We have no reason to believe that it will not be SO' dealt with this year, and I believe 'that is the proper courae to be taken.


Mr. G. S. RENNIE (East Hamilton):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a few remarks on this resolution, and I think from my experience before, during and after the war, I am in rather a good position to say something in behalf of the disabled returned soldiers. For some time I was commandant of a very large hospital area at Le Treport where, when we carried our peak load of patients and staff, we had some 12,000 people.
I agree with the remarks of the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Geary) and other members who have spoken from their experience overseas; the history sheet in many cases is far from being complete. All the men were anxious to get home and many of them did not tell of their disabilities in order to get

back to their families and friends, instead of going to a hospital for treatment.
Any illness must have a focus, which must be diagnosed. Trench mouth, ulcerated teeth, pyorrhea and shell shock were very common in the theatre of war and could not be properly treated because the soldier had not the necessary dental and hospital treatment, which in many cases could not be given. Therefore this focus might be carried for years and develop at a later date. Then again, many soldiers who were gassed would stay in the trenches and say nothing about it, and this would not be recorded on their medical history sheet. As a medical man, no one can tell me that a man who has been gassed is not more prone to develop bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma or tuberculosis because of a weakened lung condition, and many soldiers who are now suffering from these illnesses may trace their disabilities back to being gassed while in the trenches.
A short time ago I had a letter from a disabled returned soldier asking me to help him with his pension. He had lost an eye and part of his nose, and the last time he had been before the pension board his pension had been reduced. He was employed, but because of the loss of his eye he was unable to see the approach of a truck which ran over him, severely injuring one leg and necessitating the amputation of one foot. Surely this should be counted as a war disability and a pension allowed. Again, I had a letter from my adjutant a short time ago. He asked me if I remembered when he was in hospital at Le Treport with a gastric ulcer, and said this did not appear on his medical history sheet. I wrote back that I recalled his illness very well, and certified to it. He is not asking for a pension, but he wants to see that this illness is shown on his history sheet so that if he wished to make a claim later on he can do so properly.
Many returned soldiers are unable to get proper redress from the Board of Pension Commissioners because the hands of the board are tied. These men become despondent and we read in the newspapers every week or even sometimes more frequently that one of these men, despondent, out of work, ill and unable to get a pension, has committeed suicide. I think it is about time the question of pensions was considered in a different way. I contend that the disabled soldier should be placed in the local hospital instead of in the provincial hospital at Christie street. They are too far away from their relatives when they are placed in a central institution instead of the local hospitals where good medical and surgical skill are available.

War Pensions-Mr. Rennie
These local hospitals are inspected by government officials and the care given would be as good as that given in Christie Street hospital.
I do not blame the Board of Pension Com-misisoners, because, as I said before, their hands are tied. I feel that they are doing the best they can with the law under which they operate.
The disabled soldier has not been given a square deal and if it were not for the charitable institutions such as the Legion and other societies, he would be in very bad shape. These societies supply him with coal and other necessities, and have been doing very good work. The government should see that such legislation is brought down as will take care of the disabled soldier so that he may be comfortable before the last post is sounded.
Mr. CAMERON R. McINTOSH (North Battleford):	Mr. Speaker, the resolution before the house has been very well debated, and I am sure it has been a pleasure to all hon. members to hear the point of view of every political group in this chamber on the subject matter thereof. I should like to compliment the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. MoGibbon) for bringing the resolution forward, and if we cannot accept it in the form in which it has been presented to us, we can amend it to meet the point of view of the house and then send it on to the special committee which is to be appointed.
I am sure the people of Canada were delighted to hear the announcement which was made by General Currie when he sent word to the national convention at Regina of the Canadian Legion that this question of dealing with the returned man should be faced nationally, that the honour of Canada was at stake. Then there was the further announcement by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) that the suggestion of General Currie would be taken up and dealt with in a legislative way at the coming session of the house. These two announcements grew out of a massed public opinion which had been developing in connection with the problems of the returned man. We have amended the Pension Act from year to year, but new classes of cases are coming forward weekly and monthly. These announcements showed Canada that the time has arrived for the re-amending or recasting of the Pension Act, and to do our duty as legislators we must see that every case of disability is faced squarely and dealt with in an equitable manner.
In considering a question of this kind it may be necessary to emphasize a view presented to this house by other hon. members.
It has been said that we should endeavour to the best of our ability to keep petty politics out of all questions dealing with the returned man. That is the stand I have taken in my constituency. I believe that that is the wish and desire of every group in the house, and the wish and desire of every member in the house. I know that that is the desire in northern Saskatchewan as well as in western Canada, and I am satisfied that it is the feeling of the Canadian people both east and west. In following out that desire and putting it into legislative form we shall be carrying out in a high and noble manner the will of the Canadian people.
When we send this resolution to the special committee, its most important work will be to secure all the information obtainable with respect to the prbblem of our veterans. That information can be obtained in two or three ways. One channel of information is found in the two hundred' and forty-five members of this house; another consists of the returned men themselves from different parts of the country. These men would know the situation thoroughly and could give evidence before the committee; they could adduce all the facts in connection with cases with which they are thoroughly acquainted. Another way of obtaining evidence would be through the legionary units throughout Canada; they could act as a base of information for the house. Every source of information should be tapped so that when the committee amends the act it will be recast as fully, as carefully and as effectively as the bon. members of this house would desire.
The work which the pension board has to perform is very difficult, and I have no fault to find with any member of that board. I believe that this house should amend the Pension Act so that the board will understand that their principal work is to determine what pension should be paid. They should not be concerned with the financial side of the problem. After that has been done, then we, as members of the House of Commons, should find the money to pay the pension bill. The matter is one which concerns the national honour of Canada, and I believe that we are here to see that that work is carried out in a businesslike way.
The resolution now before the house is, in my opinion, weak in one particular, in that it does not safeguard the financial interests of the nation as it should. We are trustees financially for the people of Canada and we should be very careful in that respect. I be-

War Pensions-Mr. McIntosh
lieve we should adopt a middle course and not go to either extreme. We should see that every returned man who has a just claim for pension should receive that pension, and it should not be paid in a grudging manner.
There is another phase of this matter which deserves some consideration, one which I believe accounts to a large extent for the unemployment among the returned men, one which has helped to break down many returned men and which accounts for the fact that many of them to-day are not in the position they should be; I refer to the fact that since 1919 we have been trying to place the returned men upon the land. Many returned men have not been capable of successfully cultivating the land, and the consequence is that they have left their farms and the attempt of the governments of Canada to make soldier land settlement successful has cost the country a considerable amount of money. Considering, therefore, this weakness in our past national efforts in respect of the returned men, I was wondering, sir, whether we could not consider the establishment of what we might call a large national fund, contributed to by the federal and provincial governments, by municipalities and by all those wrho have the welfare of the returned men at heart, and thus see to it that the returned soldier, if not suited for farming, is placed in some other position in life. Why not give such men consideration in a business way? If they are adapted to retail business, to manufacturing or to wholesale business, why not give them an opportunity to go into business Life? Why drive them onto the land where they may mot make much of a success? Why mot place them correctly and so give them an opportunity to make a success of their work, thereby contributing to the development and building up of Canada in a more logical manner?
When we place a man on a quarter-section or half-section of land we have to pay out $5,000, and we then give him $2,500 for equipment and stock; in other words every man we put on the land costs us $7,500. Why not, as I have said, build up a large national fund to which the government could give leadership in the matter of financial aid, and strive to see to it that men who are not adapted for cultivating the land are given an opportunity to enter business or professional life? If that were done, I believe we would have fewer returned men out of employment tc.-diay, and more making a success of life. Nor would we be taxed to the extent we are in connection with pensions; because the minute you take a man out of the environ-

memt to which he is by nature or training adapted, you increase his chances for not making a success Of life and you thereby load the state with 'an obligation which perhaps you would not, have to meet if be were otherwise successfully placed.
I do not intend to speak much longer to this resolution. I might say, however, that when a man has gone through the experiences of war, the same law holds as in our scientific world: to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The awful experiences in the theatre of war have registered themselves upon our returned men physically and mentally; they have affected their ideals and their outlook on life. Consequently they are different men ever- afterwards, and we need not wonder when they break down five, six, ten or fifteen years later. That is only what could reasonably be expected, and when it takes place I think as a nation we ought to be prepared to investigate their cases thoroughly and strive to do them justice.
Moreover, when we come to sift the evidence in connection with returned men, it might be well to remember that just as every event in history has its roots, often sunk very deeply, in the past, so every bit of evidence *the returned man has to dig up to make his case secure has its roots deep in the annals of war history. They go 'back ten or fifteen years. That being the case it is very difficult to get all the evidence before the board. In that respect we ought to give the returned man all possible sympathy, so that when we have dealt with his case we shall have proved to the people of Canada not only that we have been loyal and true to him, but that we have faced our obligations as hon members should do in a matter of this character.
Before taking my seat, may I say that a few of the things we might pay attention to so as to alleviate the handicaps from which the returned men suffer are the following:
1.	The pension regulations Should be carefully redrafted in order to see that every returned man gets a fair dteal before the pension board.
2.	Sympathetic consideration Should be extended to every returned mian, rather than the following of a policy merely of saving or national economy.
3.	Petty politics should be entirely eliminated from the consideration of the application of every returned man for pension.
4.	Necessary changes in time limits regarding appeals against the judgment of the pension board must Ibe made.
5.	All burnt-out and broken down men must be given every assistance possible.

War Pensions-Mr. Ross (Kingston)
6.	The removal of the time limit for application for pension by widows and dependents ought to 'be seen to.
7.	Increased membership should be given to the appeal board, and the appeal board should sit. oftener in different parts of Canada than it is doing at the present time. By tihe appeal board having a large membership and by its sitting more frequently in different parts of the Dominion we shall be aided in our efforts to bring the returned men before the pension board and the appeal board and we shall thus fee better enabled to have their cases dealt with in a more businesslike manner, with justice dealt out to each man.
I would say our duty as hon. members is to consider the resolution before us as thoroughly as possible and to word it in such a way that it will appeal to a majority of the house. We should then send it on to the special committee to be appointed so that it may be considered among the many other particulars that will be placed before that committee.


Mr. A. E. ROSS (Kingston City):: Mr. Speaker, in supporting the amendment I do not believe we have destroyed or altered the policy as expressed in the original resolution. We are simply phrasing it in language which appears to us to make it more practicable. I might have very little to say on this subject had it not been for the fact that the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Millar) fears that we are in some way interfering with or destroying the influence of the pension board. This motion and its amendment do not in any way destroy or interfere with the pension board. The pension board simply administers the wish of the house as expressed by certain legislation. It cannot alter, change or interfere one iota with that legislation; it only administers the law, interprets it as it sees it. That does not interfere with the house or its committee in any way in expressing the spirit of the house in regard to the legislation that is placed before it. I would appeal to the hon. member for Qu'Appelle to change his opinion in regard to the amendment and the motion. We have a right to legislate, and it is within our province to give expression to the spirit which we believe should underly legislation for which parliament is responsible.
In reference to the particular matter under consideration I would like to draw attention to the fact that time and again this spirit has been expressed in committee meetings. We have had promise after promise from representatives of the pension board that attention would be given to these matters. That has not been done and it only remains for the
house by motion to place itself on record upon this question. I would like to take the members of the committee and of the house back to certain meetings we had where it was repeatedly drawn to the attention of the board that the simple statement that a disability had ante-war or post-war causation was not sufficient and was not fair or just to the applicant for a pension. Time and again we get this letter from the pension board: "the claim for disability has not been granted as it is considered of ante-war or post-war causation." We ask that the members of the pension board should go a little further and give their reasons why they consider it ante-war or post-war. The minister of this department and the members of the committee will bear me out in what I say, and yet the same cause of complaint persists. Within the last few months I have had six or seven cases where the board have decided that there was an ante-war or post-war causation. What we are asking is that the board should give their reasons why they consider it ante-war or postwar. None is given. We are therefore in this amendment simply asking that the boot be placed on the other foot, and that instead of the applicant for a pension having to prove his claim it will be up to the board to disprove it. Is there anything unfair or unjust in that? The board have the medical history sheets and the man's whole medical record in their hands; they can command the best medical opinion from one end of this country to the other. Why, then, should it not be easier for the board to disprove the claim of the applicant than for the applicant to prove it to the hilt, as he is now required to do? That is all this motion asks, and I think it is only fair that the board should be asked to disprove the claim rather than the applicant should be called upon to prove it.
Reasons have been given why the board is in a very much better position than tihe applicant to bring forward proof. Let me dilate on a few of them. The board may say: There is nothing in your medical history sheet showing any sickness overseas. That may be so because in the past and right up to the present time we have been legislating against the -man who wanted to carry on in tihe trenches. (Let me repeat that: we have been legislating against the man who wanted to carry on in the trenches, despite his disability. He may have had a slight disability. It may have -come upon -him at a critical moment of the war, and the soldier says to himself: I am not going to desert my comrades. So he goes to tihe regimental aid post and sees the medical officer and gets treatment from him, or maybe he goes back to a rest post for a short
126	COMMONS
War Pensions-Mr. Ross (Kingston)
time. He might just as easily have pressed his disability a little further and have been evacuated to the casualty clearing station or to hospital. Now it was impossible for the regimental medical officer at the aid post to keep records. I appeal to all those who did service, to any medical man in this house or throughout the country who was a regimental medical man. It was impossible for them to keep records. The hon. member for Fort William (/Mr. 'Manion), in his little dugout, had only a little bit of paper on which to note down and send back to the orderly officer of the day the fact that this man had taken treatment from him. He could not keep a medical record book in his little dugout, and unless the man with the disability was evacuated or went to the hospital there would :be little or no record of his sickness. So I say that up to the present we have been legislating against the man who wished to carry on, and who tbore for a time with his disability and his sickness. Then came the time when he was sent home.
I was surprised to hear one member say that we should treat them 'all alike. When these men came back from the war some had been overseas two, three and four years, while others had been over there for only two weeks. There was no difficulty at all for the mau who had been overseas only two weeks not taking his discharge, but the man who had been in the trenches for a year or more was very much disinclined to any further detention for treatment for a disability. If he complained of a disability and the least thing was found wrong with him, he could not go home like his comrades. So I say that in every case we have been making it difficult for the men to have a proper medical record, and I understood that that claim would not 'be put up against the man; that is, that the character of his discharge would not be used against him, but that a decision would be based upon the condition found upon examination at the present time. Surely we are not asking anything unfair when we simply take the boot off the returned soldier's foot and put it on that of the pension board, so that instead of the soldier having to prove his claim to the hilt it will be up t-o the pension board to disprove it. I appeal to anyone in this house if that is unfair. There is nothing unfair or unjust about it. The pension board has everything at its finger's end that is necessary to make out a case. Let me say to the hon. member for Qu'Appelle that we are not seeking to destroy the work of the pension board in any way, but it is up to us to tell the pension board what attitude we 
want them to take towards these cases, and it is up to them to decide whether the man is deserving of a pension or not.
There is another reason why this motion or the amendment should be carried. During the years that pensions have been granted, you have allowed representatives of the pension board to go to the man with a small pension and say to him: My good fellow, you had better commute this .pension. I grant you that that has not been done so much of late, but it was done for many years. Many men who were receiving a five, ten of fifteen per cent pension were told iby the representatives of the board that next year the pension would (be smaller and it would be to the soldier's advantage to commute it and take a lump sum then. There are hundreds of men throughout this country to-day with commuted pensions whose disabilities are returning in an intensified form. What does the board say to them? It says: Before we consider this case you must prove to us that your disability is greater now than it was on the day that you commuted your pension. Now who is in a better position to say whether that disability is greater to-day than the pension board itself? The medical man who attended this applicant may then have been living in Vancouver, and he may now be living in Kingston or Ottawa. How can the soldier go back to the medical man for proof that his disability is greater to-day than it was when he commuted his pension? Who is in a position to say whether that disability is greater to-day? Only the pension board. They have all the medical history sheets and everything connected with the man's case at the time the pension was commuted. All they would then have to do would be to examine the man and take his evidence, and then decide whether or not he should be put back on the pension list. That is a second good reason why this motion or the amendment should pass.
I come to the third reason. Cases have been mentioned to-day of certain disabilities and their possible connection with the war. The pension board have specialists who are advising them whether these disabilities were connected with war service or not, and the advice from these specialists differs in one section from what it is in another, and as a consequence the men are suffering. I say that the pension board should be in a position to disprove any claim if the applicant is not really entitled to a pension.
I hope that I have made myself clear in the three important reasons I have to offer why this motion or the amendment should carry. I believe that this house will consider that it

War Pensions-Mr. Brown
is not an unfair or unjust request to make on behalf of the returned men. The pension board is a strongly fortified unit. It has the evidence at its finger's end and can command the best medical opinions in evidence. It should be an easy matter for them to say whether any man's claim is good or bad. The hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion) mentioned yesterday that a man of his former regiment, now living in Kingston, had written to him in regard to his medical record. How can these men locate their officers under whom they served in order to get the necessary evidence to prove their case? It is a most difficult matter for them to undertake.
I do not think we are asking charity for these men; we are simply asking for fairness and justice on their behalf.
We are not unreasonable in asking that the pension board should assume the onus of disproving a man's statement. We are simply asking them to do what they promised to do. They might at least give reasons why they reject a case; but no reason is given beyond the bare notation: ante-war-post war. What is left for the returned man to do? He must go before the federal appeal board, but he goes there without knowing why he has been turned down by the pension board. He is, as it were, disarmed.
I am not so strongly in favour of reinforcing the federal appeal board. I do not think that the federal appeal board has strengthened the returned man's case as many thought it would. The federal appeal board, like any appeal court, can only review the evidence submitted. If one new feature is submitted at the appeal hearing, then the case must go back to the pension board. Undoubtedly if the wish of the members of all parties in this house was carried out in the spirit desired, there would never have been a reason for the federal appeal board being instituted. I am satisfied of that. I do not think we are going to strengthen the case of the returned man or make it one bit better by increasing the number of members of the federal appeal board. We had better get busy and change some of the official representatives who are not doing their duty at the present time in presenting the cases of returned men. I know an instance where the man who should have represented the returned soldier's case before the appeal tribunal, was not in a fit condition to do so. I intend to go further into the case, but I shall first notify the man that I am going to bring it up in this house.
At first I was a little hesitant as to whether we were going far enough with this resolution, but with the amendment I have seconded I believe we have placed the matter in a fair position. I do not think it is unreasonable to ask the board to do things in just a little different way from what they have been doing them. They should give their reasons for determining a case is not proven, instead of dismissing it with the bald notation: ante-war-post-war. For the reasons I have given, Mr. Speaker, I have very much pleasure in supporting the resolution as amended. There are many things to be considered in regard to pensions which we will have plenty of opportunity to discuss later on; but as to the present motion, I think I am in a position to say whether what is proposed would be fair or unfair in view of the wide experience I have had in regard to the wounds, diseases, and other troubles of oui returned men.


Mr. J. L. BROWN (Lisgar):: Perhaps there is no subject, Mr. Speaker, on which there is more universal agreement in this house than that the present situation in regard to pensions is not satisfactory, and that it is our desire to give every possible consideration to the needs of returned men.
I should be only repeating what has been demonstrated so often if I were- to spend time in pointing out cases in which gross injustice has been done or in which justice has not been done to our returned men. It was very forcibly impressed upon my mind before the war closed, when I saw a young man who had not a scratch on him come back home completely shattered as regards his nerves, that it would be necessary for us to provide special means for dealing with those men who could not prove that their present physical condition was directly attributable to war service. That opinion was abundantly confirmed when on the thirtieth day of January last I went with a young man from my community before the appeal board and found how entirely unsatisfactory the provisions were for dealing with men who could not definitely connect their present physical condition with their war service. No doubt there are hundreds of cases throughout the country where that is so.
It seems to me that the man who in the early stages of the war lost a leg or an arm is not the same object of pity as the man who went through the four years of the hard grind and perhaps never received any external wounds that he could point to as evidence of his service. True, the man who lost a leg or an arm is to be pitied, but I believe that in many cases he is better physically, his morale is better, and he is better morally
12S

War Pensions-Mr. Brown
than many men who served through the whole four years of the conflict without receiving external wounds.
I should like m large measure to endorse what was said by the hon. member for London (Mr. White) in regard to such cases as those referred to by the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa), that we would not be making any great mistake if we were to consider these men as war casualties. In a very real sense they are war casualties. Many of these men, taken away from surroundings where they were not subjected to such temptations, very readily fell victims to the temptations that confronted them, and, as I have said, I do not think that we would be making any very great mistake if we considered them as war casualties.
Now, I do not intend to discuss this question at any great length. I think we are all agreed that something must be done to give a full measure of justice to the men who served at the front. I was glad to hear the member for Labelle express his sentiments in regard to that matter. Probably on many questions my opinions will differ very widely from his, particularly in regard to Canada's participation in the war; but whatever our views may be on that point, I believe there is a very general opinion that those who did serve in the war should receive the fullest possible measure of justice. But being, as we are, agreed on that question, the question confronting us now is that brought before us by the hon. member for Muskoka (Mr. Mc-Gibbon) in his resolution and in the amendment that has been moved by the hon. member for Queens-Lunemiburg (Mr. Ernst). The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Speakman) pointed out that the resolution as originally brought before this house practically meant that the Board of Pension Commissioners would simply be a body that would register decisions made by other persons, no matter how reputable those persons might be.
It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that there is after all very little difference, from a practical point of view, between the original motion and the amendment. I would point out to the mover and seconder of the amendment that there are certain practical considerations which it seems to me they have not taken into account. The hon. member for Lunenburg stated that we were not introducing a new principle, and he cited the analogy, or what he thought was an analogy, of the Customs Act, where men accused of smuggling were required to prove that they had not smuggled

the goods in question. In such a case no hardship is imposed upon the man who is required to prove that certain goods have not been smuggled. In the great majority of cases invoices or bills of lading would be available, or perhaps a sworn statement from the Canadian dealer who had supplied the man with the goods. Those would, in such cases, be readily available. But it is just an instance of how unsafe it is to reason by analogy. Take the other situation that we are asked to consider, where the pension board is required to disprove the man's claim. I admit all the difficulties that have been urged in regard to a man proving his eligibility for pension. I realize the difficulty that confronts him in many cases. I know that the records are incomplete. In the particular case that I took up before the appeal board the other day the records were very incomplete. I recognize all that, but the system as we have it to-day provides that the man shall prove his case to the satisfaction of the pension board. Reverse that position and you say that the pension board must prove that that man has not a good case. Let me ask, prove it to the satisfaction of whom? To the satisfaction of the man?


Mr. RYCKMAN:: The pension board.


John Livingstone Brown: Prove it to their own satisfaction.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: Uncontestaibly, of course, as the board of trade does in England.


John Livingstone Brown: That is exactly what they are doing in that case, proving it to their own satisfaction.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: They are just saying to the man: the case is not proved.


John Livingstone Brown: The resolution says they shall disprove it. Would we not be just as far ahead if we amended the act-and I believe it can be done-so that instead of shifting the onus of proof we should widen the scope, give the pension board more power, give them authority to act on evidence that is less rigid, less absolute than that required by the act to-day? It seems to me that that can be done without adopting what is essentially a new principle. You say they have the records before them, but there may be evidence, and valuable evidence, that might be given outside the records altogether. For instance, I undertook to offer before the appeal 'board-
At six o'clock the house took recess.

War Pensions-Mr. Brown
the appeal board such information as I could, and said what was absolutely in accord with the facts when I told them that I had known
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


John Livingstone Brown: Mr. Speaker, when the
house rose at six o'clock I was endeavouring to point out what seemed to be an anomaly which would be created if either the original resolution or the amendment were carried by this house. I would be the last person to seek to put any obstacle, however slight, in the way of the fullest possible measure of justice being done to the returned men; I also would be the last to raise any point which might be termed "quibbling". But, Mr. Speaker, when I raised the point that the putting of the onus of disproof on the board would seem to create, at least in my mind, a practical difficulty, I did so because it seemed to me that it would bring about a situation which might possibly create a greater difficulty than the one we are attempting to solve. Possibly, of course, on further reflection I might come to the conclusion that I have been wrong in the way I have looked upon this matter, but that is the way it appears to me at present.
This question of attributability to service always will be a difficult point. It has been a difficult question in the past and the difficulty will become increasingly great as the year.? go by. To prove or disprove a man's eligibility to pension is, in the very nature of the case, impossible with all the exactness of the mathematical demonstration. It simply cannot be done. Suppose, for instance, a man should make application for a pension and that his record showed nothing which would be conclusive either one way or the other. Under the proposal submitted to the house now, that man would come before the pension board and say, "There is a presumption that my claim is good," and there is a good deal to be said for that position. The board, having nothing beyond what appeared in the record on file, would be required to grant him a pension. How would it be possible for the board to give evidence and disprove that man's claim? Would it not be much more practicable for the board to express its sympathy for the man and say to him, "It is true that there is nothing in your record that shows that you are entitled to a pension, but it is possible that you may be able to produce other evidence to which we shall be glad to give consideration."
I mentioned the fact before six o'clock that only a few weeks ago I had accompanied a young man from my own town to present his case to the appeal board. I placed before 2419-9
this young man well before he enlisted for service. He was a strong, vigorous man, accustomed to engage in all kinds of athletic sports. He was accepted as fit; there was no reason to suppose that he was not fit when he was accepted for service, but when he came back from the war it was quite evident to every person who had known him that he had suffered disabilities. There was a hunch on his back; he was by no means the strong, vigorous man he had been. Just here I might add that for a time this young man was given one hundred per cent pension for tuberculosis. Within a month or so afterwards it was decided that he did not have tuberculosis and his pension was withdrawn absolutely, and has been discontinued ever since. The members of the appeal board simply told me that my evidence had no bearing oq the point at all, that it was not worth anything. Would it not be well, when such evidence as that is available-and I think in a great many cases such evidence would be available-to have it accepted by the pension board or the appeal board, whichever body is determining the case? Let the members of the boards be the judges as to the weight of that evidence and the reputation, if you like, of those who present it. Would that not be much better than having the board in the anomalous position they now occupy, that of being judge and litigant at the same time?
That is the way this question appears to me at the moment, Mr. Speaker. While we have the fullest possible sympathy for every returned man, we must try at least to be governed by sound principles in the matter. This is not a question of our unwillingness to assume financial obligations; I have said for years that we have not yet reached the peak of what we will be required to pay for pensions, and I do not believe we will reach that peak for some years to come. I am quite satisfied that the great majority of the people of Canada are willing to assume still further obligations in order that we may do our full duty in this matter, but at the same time, unless we are prepared to throw down the bars and say that every man who enlisted is eligible for pension-and perhaps we may come to that in time-in the meantime it seems to me that we cannot very radically depart from one of the fundamental principles underlying the pension act, and that is that the returned soldier should prove, before a competent



War Pensions-Mr. MacLaren
board, his eligibility for pension. I believe that the act could be framed so that more discretion would be given to the board than they would seem to have at present, enabling them to weigh the evidence and decide what they would accept in coming to their conclusions. There is another valid reason why we should not decide this point at the moment; and that is the giving to the returned men's organizations of the privilege of coming before the committee shortly to be set up and stating their case. I think that will go a long way to meet the claims of the men who have served at the front and who have returned to us crippled and disabled-"burnt-out" seems to be the term most used, and I cannot think of a better one-and unless it can be shown that there is some necessity for departing from the fundamental principles which underlie the act, I think it would be well in the meantime to pause and consider this matter.


Mr. MURRAY MacLAREN (St. John-Albert):: Mr. Speaker, the discussion of the past two days has been carried on in such a thorough and excellent manner that I feel I should show my interest and my sympathy with the subject under discussion. It happens that I have been in such intimate contact with disabled soldiers, that I think I should try to add something to the discussion.
The Pension Act is one of evolution and development and is largely dependent upon experience. When it has been found to fail in meeting those cases which it was our desire should be met, then an amendment to the act has been made, but it is still the widespread opinion of the people of the country, and I believe of the members of the house, that the Pension Act as it now stands fails to cover the situation. Up to a certain point it meets the situation satisfactorily, but there are many cases which cannot be dealt with under the provisions of the act as it now stands. Hence the resolution and amendment now before the house. The prolonged war, its intensity and the enormous scale upon which it was carried on, have added unusual features to this question.
As a result of this discussion, I believe the house appreciates the difficulty which the returned soldier has in establishing his case. Quite frequently the record of the soldier fails to show a disability received at the front, especially those of a minor character-the man was returned to duty and no record was made. Then there are many cases where no records exist upon the return of the soldier to Canada. In many cases the men were examined by their physicians but they were

regarded as returned soldiers and were not looked upon as patients in the ordinary sense; they were not charged fees and no record was made of their disabilities. One can well understand that the men did not have the question of pensions in their minds; they did not feel that they would require pensions. Many minor accidents were not appreciated at the time, many diseases were in the early stages and the men were not aware of them. When the development of disease forced these men to take action, they discovered the impossibility of obtaining a record. The medical officers who attended these 'men at the front had scattered all over the country, and in some cases the doctor had died. The same would apply to those doctors consulted upon their return to Canada. One example came under my observation within the last three weeks. This man is now known to have pulmonary tuberculosis. He had written to his doctor asking for a certificate but the answer had come back that he was not remembered. He made that request on several occasions and I suggested to him that he go to see the doctor personally. The doctor lived some considerable distance away, by rail, but when this man visited him he was remembered and was given a certificate. I mention that as an illustration of the difficulties which confront the men in establishing their cases. Many of these men were not so constituted as to have the question of pension in their mind, nor were they thinking of obtaining records or certificates. If that be the case, as I think it unquestionably is, and the country and the house wish cases which can honestly receive pension, to receive it, must we not endeavour to frame the act so that it will meet those cases that have failed to establish or have had great difficulty in establishing their claims?
I would refer to a group of cases which one might call -premature debility or decrepitude. By those I mean men who have had no actual injury or illness but who, after returning, have acquired an early senility or decrepitude over what one could fairly allow for the ten or twelve years since the war. While that may be a difficult task to deal with, on the other hand there are many difficult problems and provision should be made in some w.ay in the act so that as far as possible these premature old men may receive some compensation.
I believe the view in the house and in the country is to widen out the act so as to make it possible for cases to establish their claims which it is thought should be established. This may not be done in a mathematical way.

War Pensions-Mr. Ilsley
If we are looking for precision, exact proof, and ask for it, then we shall pass over many men who in every way have earned pension and should have it. We must be prepared to make it possible for them to establish their hlaims; we must be prepared to accept less rigid and exact evidence, not according to courts of law but according to what seems reasonable under the circumstances. I believe we would then enable the men to obtain justice; we would satisfy the country and we would do away with the complaint which we are constantly hearing, that when the men went overseas they were promised that they would be looked after. I do not blame the legislators in what they have done so far. I believe all the members take a different view to-day from what they did five, six, seven, or eight years ago. It has been a matter of development, of education to us, a truer appreciation of the facts. Therefore I commend the resolution and the amendments to the sympathetic consideration of the house.


Mr. J. L. ILSLEY (Hants-Iiings):: I
should like to say a few words on the resolution and the amendment. I was a member of the special parliamentary committee on pensions and returned soldiers' problems in 1928, and I gave these matters some thought at that time. In addition to that, I may say that in the town in Nova Scotia in which I live is a tuberculosis sanatorium and there are found a large number of tubercular returned soldiers who from time to time are applying to the Board of Pension Commissioners for pensions. Very often those men fail to get pensions although they have been suffering from tuberculosis for a number of years. The rule applied by the Board of Pension Commissioners to tuberculosis cases is that unless the applicant showed some sign or symptom of tuberculosis while in the service or within one year after leaving the service, his tuberculosis is not deemed to be attributable to or to have arisen during service. This is a rule adopted by the Board of Pension Commissioners for determining these cases, and I suppose they considered it was about the best practical rule that they could adopt. But the existence of the rule creates some dissatisfaction, for the very reason that has been emphasized by so many speakers during the debate. Frequently the men cannot give evidence of having consulted a physician within the first twelve months after their discharge, though often they are in a position to give evidence of having consulted a physician shortly after the expiration of that, period. That is simply one class, and, I think, a fairly large class, of cases which 2419-9J
seems to call for some amendment to the Pension Act. There are, of course, not only cases of tuberculosis, but cases of heart trouble and these "burnt-out" cases which seem in many instances incapable of definite diagnosis. I think the opinion so widely expressed in this debate, that there should be some radical amendment to the Pension Act, is the opinion that one finds throughout the country as a whole.
The whole question is what amendment either to the act or to the regulations is the best one. We have before the house for its consideration the resolution proposed by the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Mc-Gibbon) who was a member of the committee of 1928. This afternoon the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Ernst) proposed an amendment which differs from the resolution in two or three respects. In the first place, by the resolution the only persons affected were those who suffered in a theatre of war. The amendment, however, applies to everyone who was in the service. In the second place, by the resolution, the opinion of a medical man was a prerequisite to the shifting of the onus of proof, -but by -the amendment moved this afternoon there is no such prerequisite. I have given some thought to the amendment and to the resolution and it occurs to me that possibly neither will reach the class of cases that most of the members desire to meet. If w-e throw upon the Board of Pension Commissioners the onus of disproving any claim that may be made for a pension where disability exists, I suppose it follows that we shall have to add very considerably to the powers of the Board of Pension Commissioners, that is to say, we shall have to give the Board of Pension Commissioners power to question the applicant, to question the doctors who have been treating the applicant during the past few years, and perhaps in other ways to compel persons to give evidence. I think that follows, otherwise an applicant might simply come before the Board of Pension Commissioners, prove his disability, and -then, by being silent, legally compel the board to grant him a pension. I think if hon. members of the house will consider the amendment, they will see that that is its result. I fancy that there would be no objection on the part of any member -to increasing the powers of the board in that respect. They will have to have power to make investigation because the onus of disproof is thrown upon them, and if we throw the onus of disproof upon them, we must give them some power of disproof. I can see that if the board assumes the duty of
War Pensions-Mr. llsley

digging uip evidence with which to combat the claims of returned soldiers, its effectiveness is going to be considerably diminished. The board will then be, in effect, litigants in cases in which they are judges. They were not created for the purpose of combating the claims of returned soldiers.


William Gordon Ernst: Is there any reference in the amendment to the Board of Pension Commissioners being the body that would adduce the evidence? That was purposely left out. There could be an intervening body, such as the king's proctor in divorce cases. It certainly would not be the board.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The resolution in that
respect differs from the amendment, but I presume it should be the duty of some body -should it not?-to present the other side.


William Gordon Ernst: Certainly.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Will the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Ernst) suggest whose duty it should be-what body he had in mind?


William Gordon Ernst: The details would have to be worked out, but certainly it should not be the tribunal which tries the case, but some other body.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Then all I can say is that there is no suggestion before the house as to whose duty it should be. According to the resolution, the onus and the duty of disproof, if possible, is thrown upon the Board of Pension Commissioners. How would that work out as applied to these tuberculosis cases that I mentioned a few moments ago? If the Board of Pension Commissioners or some other body make an investigation, what is to prevent the pension commissioners from applying the same rule to tuberculosis cases that they apply to-day? In other words, what is to prevent the board from saying: "No sign or symptom of tuberculosis having been discovered during the first year after discharge, it has been proved to our satisfaction that- the tuberculosis was not attributable to service." What is to prevent that being done? If that is to be the case, it seems to me that as applied to this particular class of returned soldier the situation would be exactly what it is to-day. That is one objection which I think can be made both to the resolution and to the amendment.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Is that quite right?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Why not?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Does it not shift the
onus and merely create the presumption that the disability is due to service?


James Lorimer Ilsley: But the board must have some rules of proof to go by.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is mot unlike many statutes in which the onus of proof of innocence lies upon the accused. The onus of proof is shifted by the resolution, and the presumption will then be that the disability is attributable to war service.
Mr. ILSLEY-: I understand that, but the board may establish the rule that having investigated the case and found that the man had not been i'll during the first twelve months after discharge, by that fact it was proved to their satisfaction that he had not incurred tuberculosis on service. Is not that correct?


Richard Bedford Bennett: No. This is to overcome that difficulty. This resolution when embodied in a statute would make it imperative for the board to decide that the disability was a war disability unless it could be proved that it was otherwise.


James Lorimer Ilsley: But the board could say it was proved by that fact.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, that is what they are not allowed to do.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Then my hon. friend and I differ on that, because if they apply the ordinary rules of proof applied in a civii court, they can make reasonable deductions from the omission of a litigant to give evidence or answer questions.


Mr. GEARY:: What is the view of the
hon. gentleman as to the difference that would be effected by shifting the onus of proof? Would there be no difference at all?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There would be a very great difference if there were no power of investigation, but if power of investigation be given to any tribunal by this parliament, whether it be the board or some other body as suggested by the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg; if they have power to bring before them witnesses and to ask questions, the law is not made any better so far as the returned soldier is concerned.


George Reginald Geary: Unless they have that
power.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, I say "if" they are
given that power.


George Reginald Geary: Then to secure the object of the amendment, would the hon. gentleman be willing to give them that power?

War Pensions-Mr. Arthurs


James Lorimer Ilsley: My hon. friend has not understood me. I say, if they are given that power, the result we have been speaking of follows.
These objections that I have been raising do not get us very far because they are not constructive; nevertheless I think that they should be taken into account by the house when it is considering this resolution. It may be suggested that that is not the right way to deal with this class of cases at all, and I have heard it suggested that in a certain class of cases the principle of attributability, which is the principle underlying the act at the present time, will have to be discarded, so that the very existence of disability coupled with military service will entitle men to a pension without making it necessary for any tribunal to decide whether it is attributable to war service or not. I think that some of the returned soldier organizations, if not definitely by resolution, have at least expressed themselves as being in favour of that solution of the problem as regards certain classes of cases.
All these facts simply show this, that the proper way to deal with this particular class of cases which everyone wants to deal with properly, is to have the parliamentary committee which is to be appointed this year bring before them the representatives of the returned soldier organizations. We had them before the committee in 1928 on several occasions. They are very alert, able and sincere in the presentation of the claims of their respective organizations. I also think that it would be necessary for us to discuss the matter with the Board of Pension 'Commissioners and with the federal appeal board, If we approach the matter in that way, I think we shall be able to arrive at a very much better solution so far as the interests of the returned soldiers are concerned than we can reach by debating a resolution of this kind. The method that has been followed in previous years has been the right method, the method of dealing with these matters by a special parliamentary committee. It is an effective method, a frank and searching method. My attitude towards this resolution and the amendment, unless something comes out of the debate that I do not anticipate at the moment, is that this matter should go to the parliamentary committee which is to be appointed to consider this and other returned soldier problems.
Mr. .TAMES ARTHURS (Parry Sound): During all the years that the Pension Act has been in force and the question of pensions has become a live one, there has been one bugbear continually before the eyes of the
framers of the act and of those who were endeavouring to make it more effective. This bugbear arose from a knowledge of the experience of the republic to the south of us after the civil war with respect to so-called abuses of the pension acts adopted by that country. Since the war we have had various amendments to the Pension Act. In the early stages these amendments had largely to do with the class of men who could become pensioners or with the amount of pension to be granted to them. Latterly other difficulties have arisen, and during the last two or three years the question before the public in regard to the returned man has been that which has been so frequently referred to to-day, the question whether or not a disability was incurred during the war, previous to the war, or subsequent to the man's return to civil life. Personally I believe that where a man has a disability and has served in the actual theatre of war, the pension board should not be permitted to set up the plea that it was a prewar disability. If the man was fit enough to go out and fight in the actual theatre of war it should be taken for granted that he was in sufficiently good health to enable him to carry on.
The other question is a good deal more difficult. A great deal has been said in the course of this debate regarding the man who came back, went to work and tried to earn a living, making the best of his health condition as he found it. As has 'been pointed out, many of our young men were discharged as A-l who were really suffering disability, some from wounds, some from disease. I know a young man nineteen years of age who was discharged as A-l only a few weeks after having received gunshot wounds in the lung. In that case I had great difficulty in getting this young man vocational training. He was totally unfit to go back on the farm. These cases occur from time to time. I might illustrate their nature by a case (that I have under my attention at the present time. A young man, a member of the first Canadian contingent, was wounded and gassed on the occasion when the Germans first put over gas at Ypres; he was kept in a German prison and returned to Canada at the conclusion of the war. His lung condition was not good then and has never been good since. He was pensioned at twenty per cent disability for bronchial trouble. At his own request and the request of his friends this young man has been repeatedly sent up for medical examination and requests have been made to the Board of Pension Commissioners that he should be granted' full pension. On every
War Pensions-Mr. Hoicden

occasion the reply of the board has 'been in about three words: mo further pensionable disability. They give no reason whatever for rids decision. When this young man came lome at ithe conclusion of the war he.set up \. little business for himself driving a taxi cab. 3ut gradually he has failed in health. Every->ody in ithe small town where this young iellow lives knows that he got gradually worse ind worse until he was not able to earn a dollar ait all and that during the last three or four years he has been supported by charity.
This brings up another question, Mr. Speaker: who should 'take oare of these men? Our charitable institutions are taxed to the limit at the present time, and very rightly they object to taking care of a case of this kind where ithe man is manifestly entitled to compensation for ill health that, to a layman, is clearly and obviously the result of military service.
I believe the proper course to enable the pension board to deal with these oases is somewhat along the lines suggested by this resolution. I am not particular as to the wording of the resolution; it is results we want to get. Something should be done to help out these men.
The member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) who so far as I have observed voiced the only objection to 'this resolution, admitted that in many cases there was nothing on the file of the soldier to show any reason for his disability; consequently the board would be unable to disprove the man's allegation that he was suffering from disability incurred' during the war. But I would point out to the hon. member and to others who think with him that if it is. difficult or well nigh impossible for the board to disprove the man's allegation, how much more difficult it must be for the man himself who during the intervening years since the end of the war has in many cases been trying to carry on on hiis own without any pension. It is for this class of men that we are fighting. I think the government should accept this resolution and send it forward to a committee or take other means to make it effective.


Mr. J. P. HOWDEN (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, as a civilian doctor I should like to say a word or two on this resolution. According to its terms the onus shall be placed on the Board of Pension Commissioners, first, to disprove illness in any given case, and secondly to disprove that such illness was attributable to overseas service. Without very much effort I can think of half a dozen cases of returned men who have come to my office

and who were discharged from the army apparently in perfect condition; to-day they are helpless wrecks. They are receiving no disability pension, and it is a shame and a disgrace to this country. That these cases do exist is beyond question; there are very many of them.
There is another class of cases. I know' a man who enlisted and served with the army throughout the course of the war. He was not overseas, and he was discharged in fairly good condition, but to-day he also is a helpless invalid and gasping for breath most of the time. I maintain that this man also, although he was not out of Canada, should be considered eligible to receive a pension. I am glad to say that after some considerable trouble this man was given a fairly substantial pension.
There is still another class of cases, of which I will name an example. A man of mature age, the father of a grown family, who for at least ten years before the outbreak of the war suffered from a chronic condition, enlisted in the city of Winnipeg and was sent overseas. He spent two years overseas, I think probably the best two years of his life up to that time. Since his return to Canada he has been on a pension and he has spent a good deal of his time in the hospital. I believe quite honestly and candidly that the war never did him anything but good in one way and another, because he certainly was not in the actual field of war.
' There is, sir, still another class of cases that medical men have to deal with from time to time. They come to the office and they complain of many things, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, weakness, inability to earn a living and what not, and yet when subjected to a fairly rigid examination one fails-at least I have failed on many occasions-to find any cause to which their symptoms could be attributable. I do not wish to say that these men are not sick. I certainly would be the last one to wish to see them unfairly treated, but the fact remains that to the best of my ability I have been unable to find any cause for such symptoms. Any person who has been overseas, in my estimation, should receive the most careful and sympathetic consideration of the country in respect to any breakdown, whether premature or otherwise, that occurs after his return to Canada, and I will even go so far as to say that such a person should receive a pension even if his disability were not due to overseas service. But I think this country needs to be very careful of a certain class, that is, those individuals who are probably

War Pensions-Mr. Cantley
not sick except in their own minds, and undoubtedly a fair proportion of such men appeal to medical men for certificates stating that they are suffering from one disease or another. Having in mind, as I said before, that it is necessary for the Board of Pension Commissioners to disprove the illness, and considering that, in the second place, they must prove that such illness is not attributable to overseas service, I would like to say. sir. that there is no doctor or body of doctors in the country who can say after ten years that, to begin with, the man is not suffering, if he says he is from a certain illness, and. as well, who are able to disprove that such illness is attributable to the war. It is a very big question. If a man comes to a doctor's office and says he is sick, the doctor may say: "I cannot find anything the matter with you," and when he cannot say that then I believe the Board of Pension Commissioners is in just such a position. Therefore if this resolution were adopted in toto by this house I think it would be exposing the Dominion of Canada to very heavy pension payments, because I do not believe that the Board of Pension Commissioners would be able to disprove such claims on the part of applicants as is stated here. For this reason, sir, I think that such matters require careful consideration, and should be decided only after mature consideration on the advice of eminent specialists in medicine and surgery. I am therefore not entirely in favour of the motion.


Mr. THOMAS CANTLEY (Pictou):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the members for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. McGibbon), the mover of this resolution, and the member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Ernst), the mover of the amendment, for bringing this matter before the house. We have prided ourselves a good deal on the generous way in which we have treated our returned men. Canada has pensioned about 161,000 cases out of some 215,000 casualties. I would point out that the United States has pensioned over three times that number, with a total list of casualties considerably less than those of our troops who served in the great war. Personally I have no fault to find with the Board of Pension Commissioners in so far as my dealings with them are concerned on behalf of quite a number of my constituents who have had cases before that board. My trouble is not with the Board of Pension Commissioners but with the regulations under which they act and which, in my judgment, have been much too narrow and restricted. We must
not forget that practically all the men who lived in France and Flanders during those horrible years worked under what, to use an engineering term, might be called forced draft, that is, they worked not under ordinary conditions but under wholly abnormal and high pressure conditions; they lived as long in twenty-four hours as most of us now do in a month, with corresponding wear and tear on their nerves and every other vital force of which they were possessed. The result of that is evident now in many cases. I know it will be said that men in 1919 took thew discharge claiming that they were physically fit and under no disability resulting from their war service when they themselves then knew such was not the case. In 1919 I saw scores of our men, and many from my own county, in some of the hospitals in London and elsewhere, whose only desire at that time was to get home. Later they reached Halifax within one hundred miles of their homes in the county of Pictou. Many of them, so far as they possibly could, waived or evaded the medical examination, and many of them, I have no doubt, knowingly made statements in regard to their condition which were not strictly true. Why? Simply because they wanted to get home. They were within a few miles of home and their great desire was to get there. Can you blame them? I certainly do not, and it should not be held against them to-day when they find that they are not in the condition they thought they were in at the time of demobilization.
Some reference has been made to-day in this house to the powers given to a collector of national revenue. I put it to you, sir, and I put it to the house, are not our returned men entitled to equal protection with the collectors of revenue of this country? That is putting it on pretty low ground, but these men are not to-day receiving equal treatment with the collectors of the revenue of Canada.
I would like to congratulate the member for London (Mr. White) on his courage and his fairness in regard to such of the men as were overseas who were doubly unfortunate. WTith his views I am in complete agreement. And with regard to the member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown), with whom I seldom find myself in agreement, I am glad to know that in this case he takes more the attitude of the Good Samaritan than he does of the high priest, or rather the priest referred to in the parable.


John Livingstone Brown: He always does.
13G

War Pensions-Mr. Maloney


Thomas Cantley: Well, that was the first
evidence I had of it, and I was glad to note it. I hope that the class of cases so well referred to by both those members will not be forgotten, and when new pension provisions are made, as no doubt they will be, they will provide for cases of that character. I do not intend to take up any more of the time of the house in further dealing with the matter, but I do trust that when this matter is finally dealt with it will be dealt with on broad grounds. Let us here, as the elected representatives of constituencies in Canada, agree to deal with our returned men fairly, generously and honourably in view of the fact that many of them gave the very best years of their lives to promote and uphold the honour of this Dominion.


Mr. M. J. MALONEY (South Renfrew):: Mr. Speaker, I have pleasure indeed in joining with my hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. Cantley) in offering congratulations to the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Mc-Gibbon.) and my hon. friend from Queems-Lunenburg (Mr. Ernst) in the resolution and amendment they have placed before this house. As we have been told by several hon. gentlemen, this is perhaps one of the most important subjects to come before this house for many sessions. It is a fact that in considering this problem we are dealing with a great section of our population, perhaps the most important section of this great Dominion ; I refer to the men who left this country years ago, unsolicited in most cases, to the number of over 500,000; who went to foreign shores to fight for what they believed and what we all believed to be the side of justice and right.
We all know and can hardly forget the promises which were made to those men before they left Canada. Why, sir, from every platform in this country; from every school-house; from every pulpit; at every outdoor meeting in the days of 1914 and the few years immediately succeeding, every man and woman who said a word in advocacy of the cause of freedom made it plain indeed that the boy who went forth in defence of his country could expect from Canada -when he came back, everything that it was possible for his country to give. With that promise, more than 500,000 of our sons left this country and did noble duty in foreign fields. When these boys were asked to go over the tap and bare their breasts to the German bayonets, they did not think of the days to come; they thought only of Canada, their home; they thought only of the fight they were there to make for this country in order to

see that Canada continued to exist. That being so, I believe to-day it is our duty to see that these boys receive everything that is coming to them, and a little more.
It has been said that many thousands of our boys were discharged as A-l when that should not have been done. We must remember that these boys had been over there for two, three or four years and were very anxious to get home. Whether they had been ill or disabled they were so anxious to get home that in many cases they would not appear before the board, with the result that many who should not have been discharged as being in good health came back discharged as A-l. I am sorry that such was the case; some advice should have been given to these men as to the possible result of such action. Nevertheless, they came back. Now we have a pension board, and no matter what may be said against that board, in my opinion, it is composed of honest -men who are anxious to do what is right and who are sympathetic indeed to the ex-soldiers. However, the members of this board are bound by a law which prevents them from doing full justice to the men who served overseas. The same thing applies to the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. King, Kootenay). I have found him most sympathetic indeed in connection with the few cases which it has been my privilege to bring before him, but he also is bound down; he can go so far and no further. I have in mind two or three cases from my own county. One case was that of a man who, while serving in this country as a military police officer, contracted cold and developed tonsilitis. From that, as very often follows, he developed rheumatism and eventually a very serious heart affection. That man was discharged. When he had these slight tonsil affections he was not really sick enough to see a physician and the result was that he passed along and had no medical examination, so when the time came for his application for pension to be considered he had no medical proof to offer that he had suffered from tonsilitis 'while on service. As I said, he eventually developed a very serious heart condition. A year or so ago that same man, almost a hopeless invalid, appealed to me to help him, having tried many times, but without success, to secure a favourable verdict from the Board of Pension Commissioners. Unfortunately he could not offer evidence that he had been ill during his period of service, although I am absolutely sure that his statement was quite true. Within the last two months this man made a great struggle to come to Ottawa and appear before

War Pensions-Mr. Spankie
the board personally, without an invitation and without any right or reason; he exerted himself to such an extent that to-day he is under the sod. There was a man who was entitled to a pension if ever a soldier from Canada was entitled to one, yet he is gone without having received any recognition at all, leaving a wife and four or five children practically homeless and without means of support.
Cases of that character come under our notice rather too frequently. Take the cases of those whom we call "lungers," men who to-day are suffering from some weakness of the lungs, from tuberculosis or something of that kind. Many of these men to-day are invalids simply because of the fact that they served in France, and while that condition may not have developed at the time, it was undoubtedly brought about by their service and their exposure while overseas. I will say for the minister that in one or two cases which I brought before him he showed great sympathy indeed, but unfortunately because of the pension act which is in force in this country to-day he was unable to do more than give these men perhaps two or three months' treatment in a hospital. _
I say this to the Minister of Pensions and National Health, Mr. Speaker: any man who develops a lung condition, whether or not that condition can be directly attributed to his war service, should receive hospitalization treatment, because tuberculosis can be cured if these cases are treated in time and in a proper way. I believe the minister should be given power to give these men the proper treatment.
It has been said here that the resolution of the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario goes too far -because this question is being left in the hands of the doctors. Doctors may or may not be honest, but I 'have been one for several years and I ha-ve yet to find a dishonest medical man. If hon. members of this house and the people of Canada feel that the doctors cannot be trusted in cases of this kind, I would ask that it be remembered that the very lives of many of our citizens are placed in the hands of our judges. Do we find fault with them? Surely the doctors of Canada are as hounourable as the judges, and no man would ever say a word against the honour of those learned -gentlemen.
For these reasons, Mr. -Speaker, I have much pleasure indeed in supporting the amendment to the resolution of the hon. member for Queens-iLunenburg. I would like to go mu-ch farther than the amendment -proposes, but in the absence of anything stronger I am quite satisfied to support the amendment.


Mr. WILLIAM SPANKIE (Frontenac-Addington):: Mr. Speaker, I would -like to
make a few remarks on this question. I was very glad to see that the speech from the throne made reference to our returned soldiers, and that a promise of legislation on their behalf was made. I am glad to see the unanimity which prevails amongst the members of this house. Allow me to read a short extract from the speech of the hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) the other day on this subject. He said:
A man who served in the theatre of war, who was passed as fit into the line, and came back disabled should receive the benefit of the doubt. The country should be estopped and precluded from saying that the disability was not referable to the service he gave to his country. I hope that we may still be able to prepare a measure that will commend itself unanimously to this house.
I would like to quote also a few words of the right hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King). He said:
May I say a word as .to the paragraph in the speech from the throne concerning legislation to be introduced in regard to Avar veterans and their dependents? Here let me say that I am just as anxious as my hon. friend and, I believe, as every other hon. member of -the house, to have this question kept altogether out of party politics.
Then the hon. member who leads the Progressive group (Mr. Gardiner) said:
So far as I am concerned I want to pay a tribute to all parties in this house to the extent that this matter has never been a party question; indeed all parties have combined and given the best that they had to try to solve these very intricate problems, and I hope and trust that when this matter again comes before the committee the same spirit will prevail.
There seems to -be perfect unanimity on the part of the leaders as to what we should do, and I am going to make the suggestion that Avhen this matter comes to be acted upon, the leaders of all the parties declare a party armistice. Let us get together and produce legislation which will be sane, which will be just to Canada and just and generous to the returned soldier. Let us enact legislation which will be a credit to this parliament and which will cause the name of this country to live long in history.
In common with other members of this house, I have received many applications from returned men for pensions or -increases in pensions. I investigated personally some of these cases an-d I found the facts as stated to be correct. One of these cases is now in the civic hospital in this city. He came from Fronten-ac-Addington to undergo an operation. At the outset I desire to say that I have no fault to find with anyone in connection with

TFa/' Pensions-Miss Macphail
this case, as I have received nothing but courteous treatment from the members of the Board of Pension Commissioners. This man presented himself here for an examination, he was granted an operation and is now recovering. However, he is a married man with a family of four and is drawing only fifteen dollars per month, which is not sufficient as he is utterly unable to work.
I have in mind another case, a man who has been weakened by some stomach trouble. This man has not been able to do a tap of work for eight months; he has a wife and four children and is drawing fifteen dollars per month. This amendment will provide to some extent for such cases as these.
Reference has been made to these cases being pronounced to be post-war cases, but although I have had nearly half a century's experience in the active practice of medicine, although I have consulted with the leading teachers of medicine and surgery on this continent, I know and say that it is beyond the knowledge of man to decide that the disabilities suffered now by these men were not caused by their war experience. The saying is as true to-day as when it was uttered two thousand years ago-in a disturbed mind, as in a body in the same state, health cannot exist. Is there any doubt in the mind of any lion, member of this house as to the shattered, nervous condition which could result from that terrible war? I can rely only upon what I have read or what I have been told, as I was not there, but many lion, members of this house were there and they will bear me out. Those terrible barrages which passed over their heads, aimed at the other fellow, and the barrages returned at them, their terrible experiences in no man's land, the everlasting sniping, the miraculous escapes-those things are on their .minds forever and have shattered the nervous systems of many of these men until it has affected their physical condition to such an extent that they are unable to work.
This question must be political; it is the highest form of politics. Politics let it be, but partisan never I do not wish to take up any time in detailing cases before the house to-night, but this amendment purports to show us the way-it shows us one way in which we can reach these poor fellows who are suffering at the present time. I hope, when the matter advances to the committee stage, there will be perfect unanimity on the part of the members, regardless of party affil iations.


Miss AGNES MACPHAIL (Southeast Grey):: I want to join with other hon. mem-

bers in saying that I feel exceedingly sympathetic toward the men who were in ithe war for either a long or a slhort period. All of us will, I am sure, agree that the soldiers who saw active service are breaking down much younger than men who did not see active service. Each of us has had many applications from soldiers asking for pensions, and in many cases they cannot prove that their present condition is due to the war. Attributability is a hard thing to prove, and we should so amend the law that if attributability cannot be proved, at least the benefit of the doubt or a portion of it will go to the soldier. I have cases, as have all of us, where soldiers are totally disabled and yet where we are not able to secure pensions for them. I cannot understand why the onus of proof should rest upon the sick and discouraged man. He is possibly poor; he lives distant from any centre where he could get help to prepare a case; he does not quite know how ito go about the matter and I do not think the onus of proof should be upon him.
I was not in the house all afternoon, so I cannot say just where I stand in regard to the different resolutions and amendments that have been offered, but I hope we can inject some more humanity into the present law or, if we cannot do that, amend ic in the interests of the men who fought the war. I do not take very seriously the argument that it will cost Canada a great deal, because if Canada wants war, she must pay for it. Surely we should not ask these men who fought the war to suffer financially as well as physically and mentally. They have suffered; they are suffering physically and mentally, and we who did not suffer as -they did are the ones who should pay in order that they may live in comparative safety and comfort so far as the security of their families is concerned'.
I have in the riding of Southeast Grey two cases which I suppose are typical, and I will cite them briefly. One is the case of a man who was a minister but who was a private in the ranks. He was shell-shocked, but feeling that other oases were much more serious than his, he did not. report to the hospital and carried on. That man to-day is a complete wreck, able to do no work at all. He did not apply for pension within the time set by the law. He did not want to ask the country to bear any expense for him. He tried to carry on as a minister and moved out of the province of Ontario into the province of Nova Scotia. He has quite a sized family and now we cannot even get a mother's pension for that family because they have been out of the province for a period of seven years.

War Pensions-Mr. Stewart (Leeds)
The other is a medical doctor from the same village. This man went overseas. He was in an ambulance corps close up to the front until he went completely to pieces and was sent to a nerve hospital in Great Britain. He remained there until the end of the war; he was taken home in a 'hospital dhip; he was put into a hospital in Toronto and he was discharged as an A-l man. He is trying to carry on a general practice but he cannot do it. He is working a few days and in bed a few, and he sometimes closes his office for a month at a time. The Tesult is that his practice is going to pieces. He is not able to work in any other way and his family suffer.
I feel that these two cases are only typical of many others and I think the members of the commons this year, if we do nothing else -and if we are to judge from the speech from the throne, we dhall not do much else-should at least see to it that we do something for the returned soldiers and that we do not ask these men to bear the misery and agony of not knowing where the meals are to come from for their Children, of seeing their children grow up without the education that the ordinary people are able to give to theirs. I think some person said that this question should be taken out of party politics. I agree; and so should all other questions.


Mr. H. A. STEWART (Leeds):: From
time to time in the course of our discussions there are presented for consideration subjects which have a local application, but the subject which we are discussing to-day is one which is truly national in its character. It is one which has the same application to all parts of the Dominion. It is one in connection with which the experiences of all boh. members are practically identical. That is disclosed bs- the discussions which have taken place in the house to-day, and in discussing this resolution and the amendment that has been moved to it, I feel that we are dealing with a subject of first-olass importance, one that over and above all others deserves our serious consideration and action at the earliest possible moment.
The principle underlying the present Pension Act is, as 1 understand it, that in order that the returned soldier may receive compensation for disability, the onus of proof is on him to show that the disability was incurred during service or aggravated by service or attributable to service. When he attempts to prove that, he is confronted with the record of his service. It appears to me from my experience that the pension board is disposed to pay too much attention to this record and to hold the applicant altogether too strictly to it, a record which is undoubtedly in many instances imperfect, a record which must be imperfect when we consider the circumstances under which it was made, where it was made, when it was made, how it was made, and by whom it was made. He brings the best evidence that he can procure in support of his case and, having done this, he fails to convince the pension board that he is entitled to a pension. He then considers what should be done and he may be advised to carry his case before the appeal board. If he docs this, he finds that the appeal board is rather hampered and restricted in its jurisdiction. He cannot adduce before that board any new evidence, and he must rely upon the evidence which he has adduced before the Board of Pension Commissioners and upon which his application has been rejected. I suggest that the appeal board have authority to receive any new evidence the applicant may be able to submit in support of his case. It is useless circumlocution to send the applicant back to the pension board with this new evidence to await their decision, and, if dissatisfied with that decision, to come before the appeal board again on this new evidence. The difficulty arises in connection with a number of cases which are perhaps on the border line, cases that have been discussed fully and intelligently by the medical men of this house. We have all had experience of such cases.
I submit that the pension board would be entitled to draw inferences from certain facts which are undoubtedly in the record in some cases, and which are proven by other evidence. Our courts draw inferences every day from certain facts which are proven, and which they say should lead irresistibly to certain conclusions. Again we often arrive at a conclusion in very serious cases on circumstantial evidence only. Men have lost their lives, have been executed by the state, when the only evidence against them was circumstantial and in face of their positive denial of any guilt whatever. As I understand the practice of the pension board, they are not inclined to give to circumstantial evidence that weight which the courts give to it, and which I submit the board should give to it. Sometimes, too, in arriving at a conclusion we are forced to adopt a process of rejection. Let us examine every theory that can possibly account for the returned man's condition. Examine his family history, ascertain his condition when he entered the service, trace all these matters
HO	COMMONS
War Pensions-Mr. Johnstone (Cape Breton)
up, and then if we are unable to find therein anything that should force us to the conclusion that his condition is due to disease in the natural course, let'us give him the benefit of the doubt and presume that his condition is due to war service. In the practice of the law we have presumptions; we have rebuttable presumptions and irrebuttable presumptions. The object and purpose of this resolution and of the amendment is to set up in favour of the disabled man a presumption. We do not go so far as to contend that this presumption is absolutely irrebuttable, but what we say is that it is a presumption, and that until that presumption is rebutted it shall stand in his favour. Surely the Board of Pension Commissioners, with all the machinery at their command, with all their experts and all the records which are open to them, should be able in cases where it would be unfair and improper to accept this presumption, to rebut it without taking a position of antagonism to the soldier, or being compelled, as it were, to be one of the litigants. To a certain extent they are in that position now, because when a returned soldier applies for a pension they apply certain tests. They have experts who examine him with a view to testing the accuracy of his story and ascertaining his true condition, and they exercise their judgment upon the facts ascertained. So we are not asking them to do anything more perhaps than they are actually doing now.
_ The amendment I think places the matter in a better position than the resolution in the first instance. It is to be wondered at, Mr. Speaker, that, with the accumulation of these cases that must have been brought to the attention of the Minister of Pensions, he has not introduced long before this some amendment to meet this type of cases. Practically all members of the house have brought to his attention cases of extreme hardship, cases in which they are absolutely convinced of the honesty of the applicant, but notwithstanding their best endeavours they have failed to make any progress because of the presumption that is against the soldier, because of the onus that is cast upon him. It is unfortunate, I say, that the Minister of Pensions has, as it were, left himself to be driven by the force of public opinion outside this house and by this resolution to take some action in this matter.
I sincerely hope that the amendment as proposed will be given effect to. It can be safeguarded. It only creates a presumption, and not an irrebuttable presumption, and it will do justice, I am sure, in a large number of cases of extreme hardship which have been awaiting the consideration of the department, and in which too often there has been al-
together too long a delay. I propose to support the resolution, and I trust that it will meet with the approval of the house.


Mr. L. W. JOHNSTONE (Cape Breton North-Victoria):: I should like to associate
myself with the mover of the resolution (Mr. McGibbon). The question that is before the house is one of the most important that has come before parliament since I have sat here during the last four years. It affects a large portion of the population of Canada and a class of people whom we might term as the saviours of our country, who in defence of our country have become, some of them, permanently disabled, while others are suffering serious disabilities. We have not as a government in any way rewarded the soldiers who have come back. Some blame the pension board; others lay the blame elsewhere. For my part I have been before the pension board with cases on a great many occasions, and I must say that I have always been treated by them with the greatest courtesy and consideration. Whenever it was not possible for them to grant the application I supported, there was always some good reason given for it. It seems to me the reason is that the power of the pension board is limited, and I think the resolution as amended, if implemented by legislation, would help the board considerably. They would be able to go further then they are doing at present, feeling that they have the people of Canada behind them.
Also, I think it would be a good thing for the pension board to travel more across the country. As a colliery doctor I have had a good deal of experience in dealing with cases of returned men and have experienced considerable trouble in getting their medical history. Colliery doctors do not always keep an exact record of their visits. Quite a number of our men who were discharged as A-l, due to their anxiety to get home, after resuming work for a short time have had to give up owing to ill health. To-day I have numerous cases of men suffering from tuberculosis, bronchitis, heart disease and other troubles which, as medical men know, are caused by gassing and other hardships incident to war service. It is very difficult for any doctor to give a complete medical history of such men. For instance, a man comes to you complaining that he has been ailing for some time; he tells you he came out of the war apparently well, but subsequently developed symptoms of lung or heart disease; you question him and find he was gassed overseas or went through a severe nervous

War Pensions-Mr. Robinson
strain which has affected his nervous system. That man applies to the Board of Pension Commissioners for a pension, he goes to Halifax, and the pension authorities there send the papers to the man's doctor to furnish information as to whether the heart or lung affection took place after the war or was present before the war. As I say, it is very difficult for a doctor to give that information; you do not remember whether you attended the man before the war, and you cannot give the board any history of his illness at the time, nor can you say that he contracted it during the war. You can only treat the man as you see him after the war. In many instances such a pension application is rejected, and I am still working on many cases of this kind. On the other hand there are men getting pensions who are not so well entitled to receive them as are others who are not getting anything.
I agree with one of the hon. members who said to-night that any man who went to the war should be rewarded in some way. When we think of the great results accomplished we should be ready and willing to grant a reward to out returned men for all they did for us.
Only to-day I received a letter from a doctor in the United States telling me of a young man whom he has been treating for a year or two. The doctor says:
His arm greatly handicaips him in his work. There is shrapnel embedded in the upper arm, which causes suppuration frequently, totally incapacitating him from work for periods of two to four weeks. He has had the opinions of some of the best surgeons in England, where he spent several months in the ai'my hospital, and also in this country, particularly in the Veterans hospital in Philadelphia. The consensus of opinion is that the shrapnel cannot be removed with safety, and that the result would be worse than the present condition due to nerve injuries that would be involved.
This condition is gradually undermining his health and he is not in as good shape as he was a year ago. This has made it impossible for him to continue his work as chemist and necessary for him to seek work that will take him out of the fumes and air of the laboratory into the out-of-doors. This work will be less remunerative for a considerable time at least, even if he should be able to keep at it continuously, which my past knowledge leads me to say with certainty that he will not.
That man has a mother whom he is trying to assist. He is getting a pension of thirty dollars a month, and he is asking for fifty dollars, which I do not think is too much to allow him. That is one case; like other medical men I could quote hundreds of such cases. I do think that this resolution as amended should be accepted by the government and implemented by the necessary legislation. Personally I am pleased to support it.


Mr. S. C. ROBINSON (West Essex):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to congratulate the mover of this resolution (Mr. McGibbon), and also the mover of the amendment thereto (Mr. Ernst). Coming from the border cities on the Detroit river where we have thousands and thousands of returned soldiers, a large number of whom live across the river, I am in contact nearly every day with these cases, and some of them are very distressing. I have in mind the case of a railroad man who is suffering from epileptic fits. He refrained from putting in an application for pension for years as it would have meant the loss of his position as switchman on the railway, for which he had to be one hundred per cent perfect. Now he is unable to find employment of any kind. At the front he was wounded in the head, and, as I said, he is now subject to epileptic fits. A good many of these cases are outlawed owing to the fact that it is impossible to get an unbroken medical history, especially from men who while they were able to work would not apply for a pension.
Later on we shall have to take into consideration the establishment of homes for old soldiers. Many of them are reaching that stage where they have no parents or other relatives to look after them. At present I have a resolution from the Canadian Legion, Windsor, to be presented at the proper time, asking the department to take this into consideration.
Another distressing case I recall was that of a man with a wife and five children. He was totally incapacitated in consequence of war service, but the poor fellow's application for pension was rejected. He appealed, but became so discouraged that before his appeal was dealt with he committed suicide, feeling assured that his wife would receive a widow's allowance as well as an allowance for the children. Four days afterwards word was received that his appeal had been allowed and a pension granted. I have heard of three or four other similar cases. Some of the cases cited this afternoon were very distressing. The pension board will not tell the wife the reason why her husband is not eligible for a pension, and rightly so, and naturally she thinks it a great hardship that her husband is not treated fairly when she sees other returned men getting pensions who probably were not over at the front any longer than her husband.
To-day our industries insist on maximum efficiency, and they will not take on men over forty or forty-five years of age. This is a great hardship to many of our old soldiers. It means that not only will there be a demand for old age pensions at an earlier age, but

War Pensions-Mr. Plunkett
more soldiers will need to be taken care of in this way. Many men have told me that they feel like broken down race horses; that they cannot work for long without quitting to take a rest-that is, so many hours a day or two or three days a week; that is all they can stand. A good many of these men have continued so far without even applying for pension. I think they are to be congratulated; they should receive some consideration when they will not apply for pension until in duty bound to themselves and to those dependent upon them they feel they must do so. I hope that this resolution will carry unanimously. I feel sure from the sentiments expressed in the house that no hon. member regards it as a political question, and it will certainly open the door to a lot of deserving cases.


Mr. D. B. PLUNKETT (Victoria, BjC.) :: No proposal, Mr. Speaker, which could come before this house would be calculated to create so much interest and have such an important bearing upon the well-being of the citizens of this country as the resolution and amende ment now under consideration. They affect the citizens in many ways. They affect the returned men and their employers. It is to the employers of this country that the government looks for taxes to carry on its system of government. In many instances in Canada business men are trying to employ returned men, but they find it impossible, owing to their physical condition, to keep them in steady employment. It seems to be one of the fatal results of the war that a returned man who makes an effort to work finds that his strength will not permit him to do so; he can work possibly part of the time, but he cannot work all the time. Taking these things into consideration, should we not make the pension board and the appeal board easier of access, the approach to them more reasonable? In talking with many of the returned men, I find they seem to feel that they almost have to gird on as much armour to go before the appeal board or the pensions board as they did in France. That does not seem to me to be the way the people of Canada expected to treat the men when they came home. What is happening to-day in many of our cities? The women of this country, through their societies and auxiliaries, are still taking care of many of the returned men. They are endeavouring to give them the comforts which the government and we, the members of this House of Commons, should legislate to see that they get. I do not blame the pension board; I hold the hon. members of this house responsible. We are the ones who make the laws, and if the pension board do not suit us we should change the law with respect to the

pension board so that comfort- may be brought to the returned men. It was not long ago hat we spoke of our duty as members. There :s not a member in the house who does not say that this is not a political issue. Why, then, do we not adopt this amendment and make it evident to the pension board and to the committee to be appointed by this house that they have our entire sympathy in enlarging this law? That is all that it is necessary for us to do. Not along ago, I believe it was in 1927, a resolution dealing with this matter was brought forward in the house and perhaps it would have been better had we adopted that resolution. Let us not make another mistake such as that. And are we doing our duty in another way? Let me quote from those lines so familiar to all of us-In Flanders' Fields:
To you from failing hands we throw the torch;
Be yours to hold it high.
Hon. members of this house, that applies to us. Are we holding the torch high to-day when we permit the women of this country in all the different cities throughout Canada to put on tag days and sell poppies to bring comfort to our returned men? Is that holding high the torch? That should apply to us just as surely as to all the citizens of our Dominion; for it was written for all.
I am in favour of the amendment.. I hope and trust that hon. members of this house will take such action as will give the lead to the committee which they appoint so that they will know that it is our desire to be generous toward the returned men of this country.


Mr. FINLAY MacDONALD (Cape Breton South):: It must, be a great source of satisfaction to see the unanimity displayed by all parties in this house in respect to their attitude towards the returned soldier. For my own part I hake a very keen interest in the returned soldier question, because I come from a county that had the unique experience of having recruiting stopped, one of the few counties, I suppose, in the whole Dominion of Canada where the recruiting officers had to be taken away in order that enough people should be left in the county to work the mines. When the war came there was one class of people in this country that responded as a man to the call of arms, and they were the miners. From the county of Cape Breton they enrolled as fast as offioers could take their names, until at last the thing became so serious that, as I say, recruiting had to be stopped. Unfortunately the miners were peculiarly susceptible to injuries that prevented them from carrying on their regular work. I have had .many cases of returned

I Tar Pensions-Mr. MacDonald (Cape Breton)
men, miners, who oonitraohed some sort of pulmonary trouble that disabled them from working in the mines. I suppose that I have had before the pension board as many applications as, if not more than, any other hon. member in the house. I must say that the pension hoard have always received those applications with consideration, but they found that theiir hands were tied and with very many deserving cases they could do nothing. One thing I am convinced of, Mr. Speaker, is that the pension board is entirely too email to do the work. The pension board should consist of at least nine or ten members, and it would be very well indeed in the reorganization of the board to adopt the suggestion of the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Clark), and have the pension board do the travelling with the appeal board sitting in Ottawa. I have in my county some three branches of the legion, and each one of those branches has a number of cases to look after on account of some defect in the Pension Act, because the miners are unable to get their pensions.
The miner returned to Canada and, like many others, he was anxious to reach his home with the least possible delay. Perhaps he had some throat trouble which did not seem serious at the time, but he found after working in the mines for a short period that the trouble had accelerated, that the gas had left its effects on him and that he had to discontinue his work. I have one case in particular now pending before the hoard, the case of a young man who was eighteen years of age at the time of .the war, the picture of health, and strong physically. He was not allowed to enlist in Cape Breton. He stole away to Halifax and enlisted, went through the war, and was wounded and gassed in France. Upon his return he tried to go to work and in fact succeeded in working for a few months.' Since then he has been working intermittently, but has been unable to get any pension and to-day finds it impossible to earn a living.
I must say that at first I had some doubt as to whether this resolution or the amendment would meet the difficulties we have all experienced. It simply shifts the onus from the man to the board, but unfortunately the board as at present constituted is the judge as to whether or not the attributafoility to service has been disproved. That was the difficulty which presented itself to me. It has been suggested that a new organization will have to be set up, perhaps a king's proctor or something of that sort, in order that a thorough examination may be made as to the truth of the statements of all applicants. However that may be, there is one fundamental principle we must remember; it is that a man who served three, four or five years overseas did not return in as good condition as he went away. As other hon. members have pointed out, the trouble may not be apparent at the time; it may develop later, when it may be almost impossible to present a legal continuity of proof tracing that disability to his service overseas. However, while the resolution and amendment are nof perfect and probably will require further improvements by the committee or in some other way, I believe this is a step in the direction of removing a great many of the difficulties which now confront the ex-service men, and I shall have very much pleasure in supporting the proposal.
Mr. ROBERT K. SMITH (Cumberland): Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Queens-Lunen-burg (Mr. Ernst), and at the outset I should like to say that I see no useful purpose to be served in submitting this important question to a committee. I would remind the house that two years ago a very efficient committee under the able chairmanship of the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) sat for many weeks and considered very carefully from every angle, the problems of ex-soldiers and dependents. That committee brought in certain recommendations to this house, some of which were implemented by legislation later, and at that time the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. King, Kootenay) made the statement that he would personally give instructions to the Board of Pension Commissioners that a more liberal interpretation of the pension legislation be made. The minister shakes his head in the negative.


Mr. KING (Kootenay):: I have not the
power to give such instructions.


Mr. SMITH (Cumberland):: That is what
I understood, but I accept the minister's word. In any event, it was the opinion of members of this house that the Pension Act as it then stood should be more liberally interpreted in favour of the ex-service men.
The pension legislation of this country has been changed from time to time. First of all we had a board of pension commissioners; later on we had an additional body known as the federal appeal board. That body has not met the situation which confronts the ex-service men, nor has it been able to mete out justice to them or their dependents.
I appreciate the fact, as I think every member of the house does, that the resolution and amendment now under consideration will
144	COMMONS
War Pensions-Mr. Smith (Cumberland)
open the door very wide. Possibly it will lead to certain abuses and certainly it will be expensive; I think there is no question of that, but in my humble opinion it is the only policy that will do justice to the ex-service man. The question of cost, as has been stated several times to-day in this house, should not enter into the consideration of this matter. We have an obligation, a solemn duty to perform to the ex-service man; we must supply in pensions the physical deficiency which has resulted from his service during the war. That is our obligation, be the cost what it may, and we would fail in the discharge of our duty if in any degree we fell short of attaining that result. One of the hon. gentlemen opposite remarked this afternoon that possibly this might lift the lid off the treasury of the Dominion. In answer to that I think it might be said that we should tear the masks off the members of this house with regard to their attitude towards this problem. That is the point that appeals to me more than anything else. This is a solemn duty and obligation which we have to perform, and it will be a blot on the fair name of Canada if we do not so treat it.
What would be the use of having a committee sitting again for several weeks and bringing back to this house the same recommendations as were brought back two years ago? Unless that committee recommended the very principle involved in the resolution and amendment we would be no better off than we are now. The hon. member for Hants-Kings (Mr. Usley) thought possibly this resolution would not meet the situation with regard to tubercular cases. That is a matter of routine regulation which could be quite properly decided by a committee, together with many other similar matters, but it seems to me the question of the principle of giving the ex-service men the benefit of the doubt must be settled in this House of Commons by the members themselves instead of being referred to a committee which has certain limitations. I suppose when the committee is in operation they would call the representatives of the ex-service men before them, in order to formulate certain suggestions with respect to routine procedure, departmental regulations, and other important phases of this matter which will have to be dealt with; but to my mind the principle of shifting the onus of proof must and should be established by this house in order that justice be done the returned soldiers. Every member who has spoken expressed deep consideration for the ex-service man and his 
dependents, and it seems to me that we should get away from all these technicalities and picayune points of procedure and at least establish a principle on which the Board of Pension Commissioners can successfully work, one which will operate fairly and justly to all ex-service men and their dependents in this country.


Mr. I. D. COTNAM (North Renfrew):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with a great deal of interest to the discussion which has so far taken place on the resolution introduced by the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. McGibbon) and the amendment introduced by the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Ernst).
I feel siure that no subject which could be brought before this house at the present time could be of more interest to the people of Canada than that which is now under consideration. It has been a source of great pleasure to me to observe the unanimity of opinion which exists among the members of this house who have taken part thus far in the discussion, that the ex-service man should receive the very greatest consideration which it is possible to give him. There seems to be also the feeling that in some measure the consideration which has been given to the exservice man in the past has not fully coped with the situation. I feel certain that no hon. member of this house will be satisfied until legislation has been framed which will give the ex-service man and his dependents the fullest possible consideration of their claims. The men who served this country so ably during the trying days from 1914 to 1918 believed that this country wTas prepared to stand by them, and they must be assured that parliament to-day is fully prepared to do its part.
It is not simply a matter of measuring out a dole to the ex-service men; we should give them sufficient or even more than sufficient to meet their present needs. Every hon. member of this house who is of the medical profession-in fact I am sure I can say practically every member, whether of the medical profession or not-has met with perhaps scores of cases of men who are not receiving under the present operation of the act the consideration to which they are entitled. As far as the Board of Pension Commissioners are concerned, in common with the other members who have spoken here, I have always found them just and fair and willing to cooperate to the fullest possible extent in securing for our ex-service men everything to which they were entitled under the operation of the present act. Unfortunately that act

War Pensions-Mr. Cotnam
has become 'hedged about with a certain amount of red tape and legal technicality which has made it inoperable when applied to a great number of our ex-service men. It is my hope that legislation will be introduced, following the lines of this resolution and the proposed amendment, which will deal more efficiently with those cases which do not come under the old Pension Act.
I have in mind a man who enlisted in 1916. He went overseas as an A-l man, served in five different units in France, was in hospital for a few days during the influenza epidemic of 1917-18, and returned to duty having a discharging ear. He mentioned this trouble to one of the men on duty at the hospital but was assured that although it frequently followed influenza it would clear up. Believing this to be the case he went back into the lines, but in later years this trouble has inoreased, and to-day, as a result of that condition. really acquired on active service, he is practically incapacitated from performing the duties of his ordinary vocation. On account of the fact that there are no records to show that this disability was acquired as a result of war service, this man is deprived of receiving the pension to which he is no doubt entitled. Medical men who are familiar with this type of case are willing, on their honour, to give certificates, but unfortunately the records do not provide the necessary information to show that the disability from which a man may now be suffering was acquired as a result of war service.
I most heartily endorse this resolution and the amendment which has been moved by the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg. I feel sure that it will receive the most sympathetic consideration and will result in legislation being enacted which will take proper care of our ex-service men.


Mr. J. C. BRADY (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, when the resolution of the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. McGibbon) and the amendment to that resolution by the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Ernst) were being discussed this afternoon, I listened, as I am sure every hon. member of this house did, to the very interesting and illuminating addresses upon this very important question. Perhaps I may be permitted to give the impression which has been made upon my mind by these various speeches.
I recall an incident which occurred during my residence in New Zealand. For many years red clover would not grow in that country for more than one season. Efforts were made to have a second crop but they were of no avail, until a professor in one of
the universities discovered a remedy. To the professors in the various universities throughout the Dominion I must pay the honour of saying that they have made possible some of the greatest steps which have been taken in the progress of development, transcending even the work of this House of Commons. By examining the red clover through a microscope this gentleman discovered that the fertilization depended upon the native bee, but he discovered also that the tongue of that bee was not long enough to dip into the deep receptacle of the red clover and thus obtain the pollen to be distributed to other plants. Now, what did he do? He advised the New Zealand government to introduce into that country the large bumble bees of other countries. The result was that with the introduction of those bees the red clover became fertilized, produced seed, and laid the foundation of a wonderful growth of red clover in New Zealand.
The lesson I want to bring home is this: that the fault was not that of the red clover or of the climate or of the soil conditions; all depended for success on the tongue of the bee. I wish to make an application of that true story. We to-night in this house have before us something of great importance and the issue depends exactly not on the tongue of a bee but on the tongue of each member of the house. When we come to make a decision regarding the great body of soldiers who are not befitting by the provisions of soldiers' civil reestablishment or the operation of the pension board; when we are asked the question-and it is a question of right-are they entitled to come under the benefits of the act, we must use our tongues and say "yes" or "no".
Therefore, I want to present to-night a picture which, I think, should be presented on behalf of that body of men who are reticent and incapable of presenting their own cases before this tribunal. I am sure that everybody in Canada at one time or another has asked himself or herself why so large a number of returned soldiers are still unable to receive pensions or assistance under the provisions of soldiers' civil reestablishment or the operations of the pension board. Many books have been written and many articles have appeared in magazines giving vivid pictures of the life led in the trenches, of the heroism, the agony of mind and soul, the gradual physical, moral, social and emotional decay which make up in a great measure the story of the soldier's life in the great war. The returned soldier, as I said a moment ago, is reticent in speaking about what he underwent. He seems to despair of making one who

War Pensions-Mr. Brady

was not at the front see the first elements of that world he went through. The world the soldier went through in the great war is as incapable of explanation to those who were not there as the law of gravitation on a planet would be to one who had never seen or lived on it. The soldier's experience is not an arm-chair experience, and last evening I regretted deeply to hear what fell from the lips of one who should know more of human life and human temptation than he showed in his remarks, relative to a class of soldiers who fell by the wayside in that great conflict; because at this moment in Canada the experiences of that great conflict are still found pulsating through the arteries of the returned soldiers, loading their minds with a weight of memories of things seen, heard and suffered. The soldier's life to-day can never be what it was before he entered the theatre of war.
May I for a moment give the house a picture of what every day and every moment arises with recurring force in the minds of the men who have returned from the war? What do they see? In vision they see companions blown to pieces before their eyes. They see the crimson-streaked mud of the trenches. They see the filth, the poison gas, and they hear the unceasing din that shakes the soul out of the body into death. I wish to bring this picture to-night before the house in order to make a plea on behalf of the men who have not in their possession that personal history which is required before the present pension board.
I may be asked why it was that these men have delayed so long in presenting their cases to the pension board. In reply I would ask: Why was it that these men held together? What was it that kept them sane, that prompted them to such magnificent endurance and effort in the great war? The returned soldier to-day is lacking in that vital force which enabled him to endure and keep secret in his heart the troubles, physical, mental and spirituel, which he went through. What was that force? It was comradeship. When these men attempted to return to their vocations, the great strength and force of comradeship was absent from them. The result was that they were left with memories, with that which breaks down the spirit and the body, as it does, but to a lesser extent, even in civil life. The effect produced upon the men who returned, not wounded physically, but in many cases otherwise wounded more deeply, was often as severe, because of the tragedy through which they had passed, as if they had suffered bodily injury. I have under my hand a magazine, handed to me under one of those fortuitous circumstances which one meets with who loves

to visit the splendid reading room that is to be found within this House of Commons. There is in -this magazine an article written recently, which has made a profound impression on me, and it is appropriate that I should quote from it one paragraph. I feel that I should be demiss in my duty did I not -try to bring before this parliament the great need that exists to-day to ameliorate the living conditions of a great body of men who are not in a position to have their cases settled by the Board of Pension Commissioners, and there are many of them. Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Speaker, that the soldiers who fought through -the war did not suffer and are not suffering simply because they were not wounded on the battlefield? This book deals with a yoyng soldier who returned home after serving four years at the front. He enlisted with youths, found hopes vibrating in his blood. He left with great ambition. He saw scholarships ahead of him. He loved life; he loved nature; he loved everything. What was his condition on his return? He enters his library. He sees the things that once he knew and loved, and here are his words as he enters:
Nothing stirs: listless and wretched, like a condemned man. I sit there and the past withdraws itself. And at the same time I fear to importune it too much, because, I do not know what might haipen then. I am a soldier, I must cling to that. Wearily I stand up and look out of the window. Then I take one of the books, intending to read, and turn over the leaves. But I put it away and take out another. There are passages in it that have been marked. I look, turn over the pages, take up fresh books. Already they are piled up beside me. Speedily more join the heap, papers, magazines, letters. I stand there dumb. As before a judge. Dejected. Words, Words, Words-they do not reach me. Slowly I place the books back in the shelves. Nevermore. Quietly, I go out of the room.
That man's world, the world that he knew and belonged to, was dead to him. Is it any wonder, Mr. Speaker, that we experience a thrill when we think of the memories that lie in the hearts of the men who are appealing to us to-day to come to their rescue? Listen to this quotation-terrible are the words, but frightful are the memories, and it is essential that we should know wha.t lies in the minds and the hearts of the men who are seeking our aid to-day:
"He has been blown out of his clothes."
It is a soldier speaking to another of a companion:
"It's funny," replied his companion, "we have seen that a couple of times now. If a mortar gets you it blows you almost clean out of your clothes. Its the concussion that does it." I search round. And so it is. Here hang bits of uniform, and somewhere else is plastered a

War Pensions-Mr. Brady
bloody mess that was once a human limb. Over there lies a body with nothing but a piece of the underpants on one leg and the collar of the tunic around its neck. Otherwise it is naked and the clothes are hanging up in the tree. Both arms are missing as though they had been pulled out. I discover one of them twenty yards off in a shrub. The dead man lies on his face. There where the arm wounds are, the earth is black with blood. Underfoot the leaves are scratched up as though the man had been kicking.


Mr. THORSON:: What is the hon. member quoting from, may I ask?


James Charles Brady: I am quoting from an
English paper, the Spectator. I am trying to get before the house this simple thought, that there is a great body of our soldiers to-day' who are equally deserving of consideration bv the pensions board, by the federal appeal board, and by this government, but they are not able to come in under the law as it stands. How are we going to get them in? I heard it said during this debate that it is not possible to bring these men in under the Pension Act as it stands to-day, but I ask this house, is it not possible to make a change in the law which will allow them to come in and receive the benefits to which they are equally entitled with other pensioners? It is not a question of sending this important matter to a committee. The committee question is not one that should be considered in a grave issue. I heard it stated this evening: This is not a political question. Why should it be? Why should it be even hinted that the interests of our returned soldiers who fought for Canada and the empire should be submitted to any party or to any particular class that should make a political question of it? That should not be, Mr. Speaker, and I trust tha-t there is no intention in this house to make it a political question.
I want to bring home the fact that the psychology underlying the story of the returned soldier is one of profound importance. I shall never forget an incident in my own life. It was a simple thing that has no doubt a parallel in the lives of many in this house. I was called upon at a very unexpected moment and under the most adverse weather conditions-it was in mid-winter-to jump from my boat, going at six knots an hour in an open harbour, far from the shore line, to save the life of my child. I did not hesitate. Then, forgetful of everything, whether I wore heavy clothing or not, I jumped from that moving boat and succeeded in getting my little daughter. May I tell this house that profound truths can be sought and found regarding the major problems of life from the minor
2419- lOi
ones which concern us as individuals. What did I find, sir, when I looked around in those turbulent waters? I found myself far removed from help. I sought the nearest point of land and with endless trouble I reached the goal that I desired to reach, and I saved my child. What was the result? I did not feel any sensation of weakness, but rather joy in the fact that I had accomplished the work which I had set out to do. Let me tell you, sir, that one month later the memory of that tragedy, or at least what might have been a tragedy, was so overpowering to me that I simply broke down, my nervous system was undermined, and it took a whole year for me to recover. That was my experience. But, Mr. Speaker, what must be the experience of men who went through four years of hell at the front, who saw and took part in that terrible carnage and now are beginning to feel the baleful effects? I noticed that to-night the hon. member for Southeast Grey (Miss Macphail) seemed, as it were, to understand exactly what- the returned soldier feels when she said that many of these men to-day are old in body but young in years. Yes, sir, they are old in body though young in years.
But is it possible that we are forgetful of what took place a few years ago when our young men went out to war from a high sense of duty, when they left all that was near and dear to them? We should be grateful to them and try to solve their problems, not simply touch their minor difficulties and present them for amelioration. I think that the mover of this resolution has helped us as a body to come together and show a united front in regard to our returned men. I come from a large constituency. It is not like Toronto, or Montreal, or Vancouver. I travel thousands of miles through my constituency where returned soldiers are now established, and I should like to picture to this house the heroic struggles of those men to rehabilitate themselves in the civil life. It would surprise hon. members to know what those men are doing. The great body of men for whom we are asking consideration have had the courage to get back to civil life from the demoralizing effects of war, believing they could carry out their civilian duties as they did before the war. That being the case, why should these men be kept outside the door which, once opened, will enable them to benefit a little in this great period of social progress?
I have in mind one or two cases, Mr. Speaker, which I think are typical of the thousands which could be presented to this house. I recall a boy who left for the front at eighteen years of age. He was a university
War Pensions-Mr. Ryckman

graduate and training to become a civil engineer. Unfortunately for himself, perhaps, he was not wounded physically; but he was wounded in soul and in mind. After three years' service he came back and was given a position in a post office, the only position available, bait he could not hold that position owing to the noise in the office, which brought on serious mental trouble. Later he sought a position on the Canadian National Railways. He was given a good position, one that would have suited him admirably had he been physically fit. But what happened? After a month or two he found himself unable to retain it. To-day that young man cannot present to the pension board a medical history that would warrant the granting of a pension.
I hope and trust, sir, that this resolution as amended may meet with hearty support from every part of this house, and that once for all our soldiers' claims will receive that consideration and kindness to which they are entitled.
Hon. E.B. RYCKMAN (East Toronto): Mr. Speaker, I have no excuse to offer for intervening in this debate at 'this fete hour. I desire to support the principle of the resolution and of the amendment. I aim anxious to know wbait the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and his government hove to propose in view of What is suggested on this side of the house. This morning I picked up my newspaper and read that the United States had just appropriated an extra one hundred million dollars for pensions.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Per year?


Edmond Baird Ryckman: Per year, as I am informed. I do not think the United States had more war casualties 'than Canada. I hope it will not be necessary for us to set aside any such sum, but we have the assurance of those who have spoken on the other side that, to quote the very words, "All are agreed that something should be done." That was said by the member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown). "Something should be done." In view of what has been said on the other side of the house, I think that is a fair statement. Now what is that something? To this question I have given a great deal of consideration, the best that I could, and I want to tell the house now that there is no other thing that can be done by this house, or by a committee of this house, or by those who are interested in the welfare of the soldiers than to shift the onus of proof. I want this house to mark that; that come out of this discussion as we may, let this house resolve as it desires to do, and you will find that in the
TMr. Brady.]
interests of the soldier you must shift the onus of proof. And yet the government allow those on its side to get aip and say that this would shake the basic principles of law and evidence. How ridiculous! The member for AVdnnipeg South Centre (Mr. Thorson) spoke, and did he approve Of thaj;? Did he contradict it as a lawyer? No not a word to say. The member for Hants-Kings (Mr. Usley) spoke. Did anyone support the statement that we were smashing through the basic principles of law and evidence? No one supported it, but they did not care to correct the feeling expressed in the house by some who did not know but that perhaps there might be something in it. There was nothing.
The next thing that.was attempted was to find some fault with the resolution as it stood at first. It was not drawn by a lawyer, we are told, and there was nothing wrong with it; it was right in every particular. Then' someone objected-I think it was the Solicitor General (Mr. Cannon)-to the word "disproof" which is the proper word to use in the circumstances.


Lucien Cannon: I never did.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: Well, I accept the
hon. gentleman's statement, 'but someone over there very near to the Solicitor General was very much exercised over this word "disproof". I refer him to Murray's dictionary and to Webster's dictionary I shall not take time to go into that.
Then the statement was made-wholly incorrect-that this was a means of getting pensions by way of a dishonest doctor. Nothing in it at all. What was the situation? It was this, as stated in the resolution as it originally stood, that if a man whio had been overseas-the first point, overseas-had been in a theatre of war, had served, came 'back, was afflicted and then showed by evidence or by the opinion of a reputable doctor, which of course is expert evidence, that there was a connection between the disability and the overseas service, then he was entitled to a pension unless it could (be shown that he was not so entitled. (Suppose the (testimony was *that Of one doctor. That testimony would be met if there was another doctor who said: my opinion is contrary to that expressed by the one who has just spoken on behalf of the *returned man. That would bet balance. Then if 'there was further 'testimony it would be a question of weighing it and determining which was right, whether there should be pension or whether there should not be pension.
Take this case, and I see an hon. member in the house who is very familiar with it. There

Natural Resources-Agreements
is a returned soldier who is working in a mine. You have been interested in mines and minerals; you know this man, and you have a curio in the shape of a piece of unsmelted ore. You hand P to him; he appreciates your gift and takes it home. The mine authorities find out that he has that piece of unsmelted ore in 'his home. What is the law? The law made by the parliament of Canada is that that man is prima facie a thief until he .proves that he came by that unsmelted ore honestly. Is it fair that the l'aw should be thus in that case and unfair for the returned soldier to say to Canada: Well, you took me abroad in the war; it may be that I wanted to go, but I served you as well as I could; I came home and I am troubled by reason of what I suffered over there; the presumption is on you to show that you in your generous treatment of others should not treat me in the same way.
Oh, the cases are many. There is a member, I won't say on which side of the house he may be. He has some poker chips in his house, I have not any. Someone says he thinks there is gambling going on in that house and that men lose their money. All you have to do is to make that affirmation; the officers go to the house and find the poker chips, or the roulette wheel, and the owner of that house has to prove that it is not a common gaming house. The onus is on him; and, further, those who are in the house are presumed to be frequenters until they show that they are not. And then we are told, with a waste of much energy and gesticulation, at that end of the house, that it is a breach of the principles of law and evidence! As was said here by the hon. gentleman who introduced the resolution, the liquor act is the same way, the highways act is the same way in the province of Ontario, and there are other cases.
Suppose there is a brand upon cattle,-this will be of interest to western members of parliament,.-and that cattle is found in my barnyard. It is presumed that that cattle belongs to the owner of the brand and I have to prove how I got it. And yet so jealous are hon. gentlemen opposite to preserve the basic principles of law and evidence that they say it would be a shaking of the conscience if in respect to a soldier who had gone abroad, had served and suffered, had returned and was afflicted, it should then be the duty of the country who took him to prove that his ills were not caused by his service.
At eleven o'clock tlhe house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Friday, February 28, 1930