1935-03-12

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Right Hon.   S@: Yesterday the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) asked me a question in regard to the page numbers in connection with the journal of the League of Nations which he had before him. I think perhaps the hon. gentleman had the wrong publication. The information which he seeks is as follows:
In reply to Mr. Pouliot's question on the 11th March, Hansard, page 1704, it might be explained to him that the texts of draft conventions and recommendations adopted by international labour conferences are not printed in the official journal of the League of Nations but are to be found in the official bulletin of the international labour office where, on page 121 of the issue of the 31st July, 1928, he will find the text of the convention concerning the creation of minimum wage fixing machinery.



BUTTER PRICES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. ROBERT WEIR (Minister of Agriculture) :: 

WESTERN POULTRY MARKETING

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Robert Weir: In reply to a question asked by the nun. member for 'Macdonald (Mr. Weir) on March 6, I have the following information with reference to the vote on the poultry scheme in the three prairie provinces:
Alberta
In favour-	Per cent	Total votesVotes. . .	. 12,635	62.5	Poultry. .	. 958,064	63.0	Against- Votes. . .	. 7,587	37.5	20,222Poultry. .	. 563,367	37.0	
Saskatchewan
In favour-	Per cent	Total votesVotes. . .	. 27,749	63.4	Poultry. .	. 1,828,692	62.8	Against- Votes. . .	. 16,012	36.6	43,761Poultry. .	. 1,081,884	37.2	
Manitoba
In favour-	Per cent	Total votesVotes. . .	. 6.070	24.3	Poultry. .	. 433,800	24.7	Against- Votes. . .	. 18,931	75.7	25,001Poultry. .	. 1,324,688	75.3	
88,984
In addition to the above ballots the following were received which due to some deficiency cannot be considered valid:
Alberta. . . .	1,407
Saskatchewan..	2,582
Manitoba. . .	1,264	5,253
94,237
Due to the remoteness of certain small post offices it is possible that a few ballots may still be received, but we have estimated that this number should not exceed 100.
Based upon the number of producers as estimated from the census returns for 1931, the percentage of producers who voted is as
follows:
Alberta	 33.3
Saskatchewan	 48.3
Manitoba		64.2
In reply to the other question by the hon. member for Macdonald, as to whether or not the scheme would be put into effect I should like to say that in view of the fact that the supporters of the scheme appealed for support on the basis that the plan would not be put into effect unless carried by at least 66J per cent of the voters, the scheme will not be put into effect in any of the three provinces.
RAILWAYS AND SHIPPING On the orders of the day:


Mr. R. W. GRAY (West Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, would the Minister of Railways and Canals indicate when the special committee on railways and shipping will be convened?
Hon. R. J. MAlNIIO'N (Minister of Railways and Canals): Mr. Speaker, in order that it would not be thought that we were in any way holding up the proceedings of the committee I discussed the matter only a few days ago with some hon. members opposite, asking them when they would like to have the committee meet. As a matter of fact there is not much with which it could deal at the present time. The report of the Cana-
Civil Service-Dismissals

dian National Railways has not yet come down, and I was informed this morning that it will not 'be down for another ten days. Until that report arrives there is not very much with which the committee could deal. However I shall be glad to call it or to see that it is called at the desire of the members of the committee themselves, for that matter.



ALASKAN HIGHWAY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Right Hon.   S@: Mr. Speaker, one day last .week the hon, member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) asked a question regarding a press dispatch which made reference to a bill in the United States Senate regarding the proposed Alaskan highway. The information I have gained indicates that a bill to the effect mentioned was passed by the United States Senate on February 25. It requested the president to negotiate with Canada an agreement for the survey, location and construction of the highway, and to make a survey of the route in cooperation with the dominion government. The bill has not yet been passed by the House of Representatives. The President of the United States has not yet made any representations on the subject.



NORTH SASKATCHEWAN BRIDGE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. CAMERON R. McINTOSH (North Battleford):	Mr. Speaker, on Thursday,
February 14, I directed a question to the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Stewart). The question regarding a press dispatch which the building of a bridge over the North Saskatchewan river at a point called Ceepee on the Jasper highway between North Battleford and Saskatoon. The essence of the question was as to whether or not this project would be included in any government public works program. The minister answered that I would have to await legislation which might be brought down, or that he would make a statement when the estimates for the Department of Public Works were before the house. No legislation has been brought down and no statement has been made. May I ask the minister if he could add anything to the statement he made at that time?
Mr. STEWART (Leeds):: As the hon.
member knows, no provision has been made in the main estimates for this work, and the supplementary estimates are not yet prepared. No bill has been drafted under which any provision would be made for this work.



CIVIL SERVICE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. W. McPHEE (Yorkton):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to refer to a question asked by me on March 6, and appearing at page 1464 of Hansard, referring to the removal of civil servants. My question was:
How many civil servants have been removed from their positions since the present government came into office by: (a) dismissal; (b) superannuation; (c) death; (d) other causes?
The Secretary of State indicated on that occasion that the term "civil servant" was defined in the Civil Service Superannuation Act, and upon that occasion he quoted the definition appearing in chapter 24 of the revised statutes. I find, however, upon looking into the statutes that while "civil servant" is defined in chapter 24, the Civil Sendee Superannuation Act, a further definition is given in chapter 22 of the revised statutes of Canada, namely The Civil Service Act. In chapter 22, "civil sendee" is defined as follows:
(a) "civil service" means the civil positions and' employees in and under the several departments of the government of Canada, and in the offices of the Auditor General, the Clerk of the Privy Council, the Governor General's Secretary, the Public Archives, the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada, the Civil Service Commission, and all other civil positions under and persons in the civil employ of His Majesty, but not including the members of any commission or board appointed by the governor in council.
I should like the Secretary of State to give a return based upon the definition appearing in the interpretation clause of chapter 22 of the Civil Service Act.


Hon. C. H. CAHAN (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows that the definition he has quoted would include all temporary employees, whether they be employed only a few days, or otherwise. That is why I called his attention to the section quoted, because I wanted to know whether he wished temporary employees to be enumerated in the return he desired. However, I shall see the return is tabled according to his present request.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. Sir GEORGE PERLEY (Acting Prime Minister) moved the third reading of Bill No. 8, to establish an unemployment and social insurance commission, to provide for a national employment service, for in-

Unemployment Insurance
surance against unemployment, for aid to unemployed persons, and for other forms of social insurance and security, and for purposes related thereto.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister of Justice (Mr. Guthrie) has an amendment to move.
Hon. HUGH GUTHRIE (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, I move:
That Bill No. 8 to establish an unemployment and social insurance commission, to provide for a national employment service, for insurance against unemployment, for aid to unemployed persons, and for other forms of social insurance and security, and for purposes related thereto be referred back to the committee of the whole with instructions to amend' section 33 of the bill by inserting the following subsection immediately after subsection
"(2) Proceedings under subsection (1) of this section may at the instance of an employed person be instituted by the commission on behalf of such employed person."
Amendment agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Morand in the chair.
On section 33-Civil proceedings by employee against employer for neglect to comply with act.


Mr. NEILL:: Would you read the amendment that is proposed, Mr. Chairman?


The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Morand):: It is moved that this bill be referred back to committee of the whole with instructions to amend section 33 by inserting the following subsection immediately after subsection (1):
(2) Proceedings under subsection 1 of this section may at the instance of an employed person be instituted by the commission on behalf of such employed person.


Sir GEORGE PERLEY:: Mr. Chairman, in thinking over this matter, which was discussed very fully the other day in committee, I have come to the conclusion that the sections of the act are quite sufficient and strong enough to make sure that the contributions from both the employer and employee are properly gathered in, taken care of and handed over to the commission.
I would draw the attention of members of the committee to the provisions of sections 18 and 34 which should ensure at all times that the necessary stamps will be actually affixed to the books so that the money will be available to the commission. Section 18 gives power to the governor general in council to make regulations regarding the preparation and issue of the stamps. It also gives power to the governor in council to make regulations effecting the payment and collection of these contributions by means of stamps, and power 82582-103
also to make regulations prescribing in great detail the time and conditions under which these stamps may be affixed or impressed. Furthermore paragraph (c) of subsection 2 of section 18 provides the widest possible power of inspection that can be thought of and for the delivery up of unemployment books and everything of that kind in order to make sure that these stamps are properly affixed in accordance with the law. In fact, the commission can go as far as they wish to make sure that the stamps are placed on the books week by week.
Then if hon. members will refer to section 34 they will see that it provides sweeping powers for the inspectors. I do not see how those powers could possibly be made any wider, and I feel that this section is a great safeguard to the employees in order to make sure that their contributions go into the proper channels.
Then by subsection 2 of section 31 very stringent provisions are enacted for the punishment of any person, whether employer or employee, who does not comply with the act. As a matter of fact, as I read subsection 2 of section 31 the employer would be liable to a fine of $50 or imprisonment in gaol for three months for every offence that he committed under this act; for instance, if he kept back 25 cents of the stamp money that he collected from his employees and did not put the stamps on the books, I take it that for every such offence he would be liable to a fine of 850. So as I see it, there is nothing more that can be done to make sure that this money goes into the proper channels.
Now coming to the section which is under review, section 33, I take it, Mr. Chairman, that anyone who has examined the provisions of the bill which I have cited this afternoon will agree that everything possible is done to ensure the carrying out of the provisions of this bill and the regulations made under it. Fines and imprisonment may be meted out to any employer who does not properly carry out the provisions of the bill. It seems evident to me that the successful enforcement of this proposed act depends entirely upon the carrying out of these provisions, which are so broad and so stringent.
Coming more particularly to subsection 1 of section 33, as I said to the committee the other day, an examination of the debates on the British bill discloses that the working of this provision has been going on in England since 1920 without any serious objection. It would appear from that, that it is seldom necessary for workmen to try to avail themselves of this civil right which is given to

Unemployment Insurance

them by the British act and by this section. In other words, as I understand this section, if some offence is committed the employer, just the same as the employee, is liable to fine and imprisonment and to all the penalties under this act. The commission must see to it that the regulations are strictly enforced, and then no difficulty will arise; but should one arise, the workman has the right of civil action as well. It is simply right that is given to him in addition to all the provisions and conditions that are inserted in this bill to make sure that the employer turns in the money as he is bound to do.
I say to the committee that I have looked over this bill carefully since the discussion the other day, and in my opinion it is all right as it is, but in deference to the arguments that have been put forward by some of the members of this house it is our desire to make this bill just as free from defects as possible, particularly when it comes to safeguarding the interests of the employee, for whose benefit, after all, this bill is intended. I have therefore talked it over with some of my colleagues and we have come to the conclusion that it would not impair the effective provisions of the bill for enforcing payments if an amendment were made in accordance with the one that was suggested by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Guthrie) when this bill was referred back to the committee for the purpose of inserting this provision. I suppose the amendment had better be moved by the Minister of Justice.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: Mr. Guthrie moves:
That section 33 of the bill be amended by inserting the following subsection:
"(2) Proceedings under subsection (1) of this section may at the instance of an employed person be instituted by the commission on behalf of such employed person."


Mr. E. J. GARLAND (Bow River):: Stripped of all unnecessary verbiage, this amendment simply suggests that the employee, under subsection 3, may ask the commission to take action to recover as a civil debt the amount that the employer has failed or neglected to pay over and which he has already collected from the employee. Now, in my opinion this proposed amendment only, in the most meagre and indeed almost utterly minute fashion, meets the objections to which the acting Prime Minister refers. Our objections to section 33 are principally twofold. First, it definitely implies a loss of benefit to the employee in the event of default on the part of the employer to pay over the amounts collected by him from the employee, and we say that under no circumstances should an employee, who in good faith has paid over his contri-

bution, be rendered liable. Once the default has taken place, once the employer has neglected or failed to make payment of the amounts paid to him by the employee, there should be no responsibility whatever on the employee to bring suit; that responsibility should rest solely with the commission itself. So that on both these grounds the proposed amendment fails utterly to meet the claims made by hon. members on this side of the house who have addressed themselves to the discussion of this section. I see no value particularly in this amendment, other than that it does give the employee, after he has suffered a loss to which he should never be submitted under the bill, the right to ask the commission to bring suit so that the commission may recover moneys already due to the commission itself. It is a perfectly absurd provision. The amendment proposed from this side would have cleared up the whole matter, and if the government had been sincere in its wish to protect the interests of the employee and to insist on the obligations of the commission, it would have accepted the amendment we suggested.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
Bill reported.
Sir GEORGE PERLEY moved the third reading of the bill.
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Leader of the Opposition):: I noticed in one of the local papers of Saturday an article which Stated that a division was expected on what the article termed the constitutional angle of the measure, referring to this particular bill with respect to unemployment insurance. One of the headings of the article reads:
Report Liberal leader will move unemployment insurance bill be referred to supreme court.
The article itself says:
The government is certain to reject Mr. King's suggested amendment ...
-giving certain reasons. It goes on to say:
Likewise it was reported that several Liberals intend to speak and also vote against the bill on third reading.
I would not call your honour's attention to this particular article were it not for the fact that I have seen similar articles in the press in other parts of the country, all intended to create the impression that the Liberal opposition is determined if possible to thwart the enactment of this and other measures of social legislation by raising the constitutional issue whenever opportunity presents itself, and that we intend to divide

Unemployment Insurance
the house on that score on the third reading. Before the bill was introduced at all I did make clear that from our point of view it would be preferable in every way that the question of the competence of this parliament to enact social legislation being introduced should be settled in the first instance by obtaining an opinion from the supreme court. We believed that had that step been taken and a favourable opinion secured we might have proceeded with a greater sense of security in dealing with this legislation, knowing that	when it	was	enacted
it would be enforceable.	But I took
care when the bill itself was actually brought in not to discuss that aspect of the matter more than was necessary, and other members on this side did the same When the bill was in committee I did suggest an amendment to the effect that the opinion of the supreme court should be obtained. I did that in committee because it was a less formal stage; and I thought it was necessary to have on record somewhere, in a formal way, the vieiw of the opposition as to the desirability of obtaining an opinion in advance if it were possible so to do. But having done that I now feel that I have placed myself on record in a manner which can no longer be open to question or doubt, and it is not my intention to move any amendment on the third reading. I do wish however at the present time to make a statement which once and for all will put clearly before hon. members and the country the exact position of the Liberal opposition towards this social legislation. What I have to say, in order that it may be set forth as concisely and exactly as possible, I have thought well to reduce to the form of a statement which I shall read with care. I wish to make it clear that what I am saying now in reference to this unemployment insurance measure has reference also to the eight hour day bill which we were discussing yesterday and will have reference as well to the bill with respect to the minimum wage, of which there is notice of a resolution on the order paper. Our attitude is the same towards all these measures.
This may be an appropriate moment at which to make a general statement with respect to those measures of social legislation being introduced by the government, which, under judicial interpretation of the distribution of powers between the dominion parliament and the provincial legislatures, we believe to be beyond the legislative competence of this parliament.
Where we hold the opinion that it is not competent for this parliament, without pre-92582-103}
vious amendment of the British North America Act or by agreement with the provinces, to enact certain of those measures, we base our opinion upon past judicial decisions, as well as upon judicial opinion. We assert the view we do because it is the view which, until the present year, has been held by the provinces and the dominion alike, and believed to have been unanimously held by members of both houses of parliament.
We are now, for the first time, being informed by the government that it has been advised by the law officers of the crown that recent decisions of the privy council justify the opinion that the legislation in question is within the competence of the dominion parliament, in other words, is intra vires, where formerly it was held to be ultra Vires. The Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) has given what, in his opinion, are additional reasons why the legislation should be so considered.
We still believe that in a matter of such importance the best method of relieving uncertainty, of avoiding unnecessary disturbance of business, and of determining jurisdiction in accordance with our national tradition, is by taking an advisory opinion from the supreme court, or by a constitutional amendment. The government must assume sole responsibility for adopting a more arbitrary and uncertain procedure.
The Liberal party approves the principle of the social legislation thus far introduced and desires to see it in operation. We refuse to be manoeuvred into a position of opposition to this legislation. We refuse, also, by voting against the legislation, to raise directly an election issue of provincial rights.
The sole responsibility for raising the issue of provincial rights rests upon the present administration by its subordination of constitutional propriety, and the long-run objectives of national unity and cooperation, to considerations of party strategy. We believe the attempt of the government to make a controversy over provincial rights a major issue of the coming elections would, if successful, endanger the unity of the dominion.
All legislation is subject to the determination of its validity by the courts. It is certain that the validity of the legislation in question will be determined by the courts, and, in the last resort, by the judicial committee of the privy council. Its validity cannot be determined by this parliament; neither can it be determined by the result of a general election. Least of all, can legislation that is ultra vires the dominion parliament be made intra vires by either the assertion or the assumption of authority on the part of the government.
Unemployment Insurance

If the privy council declares that the jurisdiction in any of the measures submitted rests with the provinces, it can only be transferred to the dominion by a constitutional amendment. It is for this reason that we believe that the government, some time ago, and certainly before introducing the legislation, should have sought a determination of the question of jurisdiction, and, if such were required, obtained the necessary constitutional amendment. We leave it to the judgment of hon. members of this house whether, in the eventuality of the present legislation being declared by the privy council ultra vires of this parliament, the path of constitutional amendment has been made easier by the arbitrary procedure adopted by the government.
If parliament possessed the jurisdiction, we would vote for the measures of social legislation thus far introduced. The position at present, therefore, is -that by the conflict between what is now given, as their opinion, by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Guthrie) and the Prime Minister, and what in previous years was expressed as their opinion, we do not know that parliament does not possess Ihe jurisdiction. That, as the Prime Minister himself has said, can only be determined by the decision of the privy council on the particular legislation. This is the safeguard provided by our constitution against the arbitrary appropriation by the dominion of provincial powers. We propose, therefore, to vote for these measures, subject to this continuing constitutional safeguard, which is implicit in the provisions of our federal constitution, and which cannot, by any form of words, be evaded by the present administration.
May I add that were we to vote against any of these measures, simply because of the belief we entertain on the score of jurisdiction, it would be made to appear that we are opposed to legislation as set forth in the terms of the labour convention and general principles associated with the League of Nations and incorporated in the conditions of peace, whereas, at the national Liberal convention in 1919, the Liberal party accepted in their entirety, in the spirit in which they had been framed, and in so far as the special circumstances of the country would permit, the terms of the labour convention and the general principles associated with the League of Nations and incorporated in the conditions of peace.
For us to oppose these measures would also be to adopt a course at direct variance to that which we followed when the Liberal party was last in office, at which time the Liberal
[Mr. Mackenzie Iving-1
administration bad already begun negotiations with the several provinces with a view to the enactment of similar measures, and, I might add, when the Liberal party introduced and had passed through the House of Commons the act respecting old age pensions.
An altitude of opposition to these measures might, moreover, suggest that we were not favourable to uniformity of legislation with respect to such matters as unemployment and other forms of social insurance, maximum working hours, minimum wages, "sweating," and the like, whereas, when in office, we sought to effect a national minimum of industrial standards in the only way, short of a constitutional amendeiment, which it was believed was possible to effect that end, namely, by agreement between the provinces, effected as a result of conference.
An attitude of opposition might also suggest that we were unfavourable to a constitutional amendment, which would permit of the establishment, under federal authority, of a national unemployment insurance scheme, and a national minimum of labour standards. The direct apposite, of course, is the case. We have repeatedly urged that the British North America Act should be so amended as to confer upon this parliament, subject to essential safeguards, the necessary authority to enact such measures of social legislation as may be in the national interest.
We do not propose to permit the adoption by the government of a method which, for the reasons mentioned, we believe will prove to be ineffective to place us in a false position as to our aim and desire to achieve, by the only method which we believe to be effective, a purpose upon which all hon. members seemingly are now agreed. That method we shall yet pursue, and that aim w'e shall yet attain, when the inadequacy of the method now being adopted with respect to social legislation has been made apparent, and is proven to be insufficient to serve the government's professed ends with respect to its measures of social legislation and, what we believe to be, the government's real purpose in introducing the measures in their present form, at the present time.


George Halsey Perley: The right hon. gentleman has put forward a carefully prepared statement of his case in regard to this bill, but I am not a lawyer and therefore do not propose to discuss that memorandum. But I wish to say this ;to the country and to my right hon. friend: This matter has already been thoroughly discussed in this house, and the position of the government was put forward by the Prime Minister (Mr. MARCH 12, 1935
Unemployment Insurance
Bennett) himself in no uncertain terms at the time the resolution was originally introduced. The answer to what my right hon. friend has advanced will be found in the report of the debate of that day.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order. The debate is closed.


Mr. SPEAKER:: The hon. member may go ahead.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Am I in order, Mr. Speaker?


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Yes.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I think I should like to congratulate the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) on having so successfully negotiated a very sharp corner.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not know Whether my hon. friend is referring to what I am trying to do for him. I might raise the point that the debate is closed because the leader of the government who introduced the motion has already spoken, but I hope my action in not raising that point may result in my hon. friend having his chance to go ahead.
control. Under this bill he is to be compelled to pay a premium, but he may lose his right to benefit, and even under the amended form he must take the initiative and may still be liable to loss. I do not think that is fair. I do not want to traverse the ground that has been gone over again and again in the discussion in committee, but I beg to move:
That Bill No. 8 be not now read a third time but that it be referred back to the committee of the whole for the purpose of amending it by striking out subsection (1) of section 33 and inserting therefor the following:
"Section 33, subsection (1):
"Where an employer has failed or neglected to pay any contributions which under this part of this act he is liable to pay in respect of any employed person in his employment, or has failed or neglected to comply, in relation to any such person, with the requirements of any regulations relating to the payment and collection of contributions, this failure or neglect on the part of the employer shall not be taken as reason for loss in whole or in part of the unemployment benefit to which the employee would have been entitled under this part of the act, and the commission shall be entitled to recover from the employer as a civil debt a sum equal to the amount of the contributions which he collected or failed or neglected to pay to the commission."


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Out of order.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Well, we will not go into that point of order. The leader of the opposition suggested that the position had been almost unanimous in the house that social legislation of this kind was a provincial matter. I think the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) the other day made the statement that I myself had taken that position. Some years ago I acquiesced in the report of the committee on unemployment insurance simply on the ground that the law officers of the crown had stated that the matter was provincial in character; that is all. But again and again I have stated that I thought that any body that had the right to negotiate peace treaties had also the duty to see that those treaties should be enforced.
But it was not for that purpose that I rose at the moment, but rather to move an amendment. Some of us feel very strongly in regard to section 33. It may not be a matter of prime importance, but it does seem to me that it is a matter that involves a very substantial measure of injustice to the employee. The amendment which was carried and has now been incorporated in the bill it seems to me does not meet the situation at all. It merely means that now the commission may act as attorney for the employee, but it still leaves the employee with a possibility of loss through conditions over which he has absolutely no


Mr. GOTT:: I was paired with the hon.
member for Kent (Ont.) (Mr. Rutherford). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I would remind the house that some time ago we decided that in declaring pairs we would start at this end, go down the government side, then come back to this end and go down the other side.


Mr. MacDONALD (Cape Breton South):: I was paired with the hon. member for Colchester (Mr. Urquhart). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. COWAN:: I was paired with the hon.
member for Hants-Kings (Mr. Ilsley). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. CASSELMAN:: I was paired with
the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Howard). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. SPENCE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Northumberland (Mr. Fraser). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. PETTIT:: I was paired with the hon.
member for Kamouraska (Mr. Bouchard). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. SMOKE:: I was paired with the hon.
member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. WRIGHT:: I was paired with the
hon. member for South Huron (Mr. Golding). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.

Unemployment Insurance


Mr. BEAUBIER:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. Ahearn). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. ANDERSON (Halton):: I was paired with the hon. member for Toronto West Centre (Mr. Factor). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. MERCIER (Laurier-Outremont):: I
was paired with the hon. member for Toronto South (Mr. Geary). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. MERCIER (St. Henri):: I was paired with the hon. member for West Hamilton (Mr. Bell). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. SANDERSON:: I was paired with the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I was paired
with the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett). Had I voted, I would have voted in favour of the amendment.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: I was paired with the
Minister of Justice (Mr. Guthrie). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. McINTOSH:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Kennedy). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. BUTCHER:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Burns). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. MacMILLAN (Mackenzie):: I was
paired with the hon. member for North Huron (Mr. Spotton). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. IRVINE:: I was paired with the hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr. Simpson) Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. DESLAURIERS (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Shefford (Mr. Tetreault); had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. FAFARD (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Levis (Mr. Fortin). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Sir EUGENE FISET (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. Gordon). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. BRASSET (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for St. Ann (Mr. Sullivan). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. JEAN (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for East Simcoe (Mr. Thompson). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. BEAUBIEN (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Baribeau). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. GAGNON (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Boulanger). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Edward Joseph Garland: Before the bill is voted on for the last occasion I think it my duty, in view of certain statements I made in committee and certain motions I then proposed, to discuss it once more on third reading. I do not propose to take any more of the time of the house in the matter than is absolutely necessary. The report of the dominion child and family welfare office for December last states:
With all that there is of encouragement in a picture that, for four years, has stood in almost unrelieved darkness, there are still certain incontrovertible challenges-
I ask hon. members to listen to these figures: -at least 200,000 heads of families, probably more, are still receiving unemployment relief, and over 20,000 able bodied, employable men are in relief camps, with perhaps 25,000 to
30,000	men temporarily engaged in relief works. There are probably 25,000 more single or homeless men idle in their own communities. There are an unascertained number, at least not lees than 200,000 youths and girls from, say, sixteen to twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, who are idle, unemployed, and receiving relief either in their homes, or as "single persons."
The agency believes that the cost in cold dollars amounts to something over $1,250,000 a week, and that it continues to exceed the railway deficit. That is an interesting comparison.
Ontario's costs alone exceed $2,250,000 monthly, and the city of Montreal is spending at the rate of $1,400,000 per month. The cost in character and morale cannot be measured.
That was in December. According to that report there were some signs of hope, but when we come to the report published on February 27, we find this:
Though up to early December, 1934, relief totals contrasted encouragingly with those of 1933, since about the third week of December there have been indications of a sharp upward movement continuing in volume until at the end of January some of the largest Canadian cities seem to be in danger of equalling their extreme peak load of February-March, 1934.
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It would seem a safe premise that there are not less than 500,000 to 525,000 persons now unemployed, and in receipt of relief, making with their dependents a total of not less than
1.350.000	recipients of public unemployment relief, quite apart from the great load of dependency from all other causes. For example: Old age pensioners, of whom 90,000 received aid, mothers' allowances going to
14.000	mothers and to 40,000 children.
This number will be almost	entirely
unaffected by unemployment insurance provisions for at least the next two years.
To anticipate any benefits under the bill the employee must not have any further opportunity for the use of his talents, and in addition he must also be in a position to contribute to the insurance fund for the minimum period before he can take any advantage provided in the measure. The welfare bureau points out, further:
The proposed measure excludes, in its present stage, the seasonal and casual employments subject to heavy lay-offs-an estimated number of 860,000 wage-workers. In addition, however, to this group and the 1,700,000 eligible for insurance, it should be recalled that Canada has roughly 1,350,000 more persons gainfully occupied-employers, merchants, workers on their own in industry, agriculture, business and the professions, not at all contemplated as insurable. Of these, 728,000 are farmers,. Thus 1,700,000 of the gainfully occupied population will be eligible for insurance, and a total of 2,260,000 not covered by any such measure.
That, Mr. Speaker, constitutes one of the chief objections to the measure. But there are many others. We are told that this bill is the keystone of the arch of the great social reform program, and that without this measure the rest must fall. This is bo be the supreme measure, indicating the extent to which this government, under the leadership of the Prime Minister is prepared to go to change the conditions, to reform the conditions, ini Canada and thereby curtail the present conditions of misery and poverty in the midst of plenty about which the Prime Minister spoke in his radio speeches.
We are told that this bill is based on the British bill. I say that if it is, then it is based on a bill twenty-five years old. It is a quarter of a century behind, as a matter of fact, in most of its provisions. At this point' may I state, in comparison, that the bill before the house provides for nine waiting days before any unemployed benefits may be drawn by unemployed persons. The British bill requires only six waiting days. Then, the British bill supplies unemployment insurance benefits to a widely extended field of people engaged in seasonal occupation. This bill does not apply to any seasonal occupations.

The original British bill sought only twenty-six contributions from the employees, and the present British bill, in spite of extensions which have been made, seeks only thirty contributions. On the other hand the Canadian bill requires forty contributions. One would assume that having this difference, namely the British bill asking for thirty contributions and the Canadian bill for forty contributions, the benefits under the Canadian legislation would be greater and extend over a longer period. But such is not the case. Not only does the Canadian employee coming within the ambit of the bill have to make forty contributions, or ten more than are made in Great Britain, but when such person 'becomes unemployed he receives only seventy-eight days or thirteen weeks unemployment benefits. On the other hand, the British legislation provides for benefits for one hundred and fifty-six days. That would seem to indicate a very wide difference between the two measures.
Then there is a further point. As I pointed out in committee of the whole the British bill provides that persons who for at least two years have been in receipt of disability pensions for disablements contracted during the late war, and who by reason of such disablements fail to satisfy the statutory conditions requiring thirty contributions, need only prove payments of ten contributions. Under those circumstances they are brought within the operations of the measure. I asked this government to make a provision in the present bill whereby disabled ex-service men might be in a position to qualify with something less than the full number of contributions required from other persons. In other words, I asked the government to carry into this legislation those privileges which have already been recognized in many other fields of parliamentary legislation both here and in the provinces respecting ex-seTvice men. The government has not seen fit to do so. Again I must say I am sorry; I wish they had come part way towards meeting us along some of these lines.
In short, the Canadian bill is limited in its application. It is so inadequate in its benefits, and so rigid in its restriction that it would be the height of absurdity to describe it as a reform measure. There is no element of reform within it. Before I have concluded my observations I believe I shall have proved my statement, and I indicate further that the bill does not provide benefits for the unemployed

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equivalent to the relief which in most cases they now receive, and without any contributions.
I believe I have shown that workers employed intermittently will not benefit; disabled pensioners will not benefit, and a vast host of occupations are not even included under the operations of the act. For example, seamen, airmen, longshoremen, bankers and insurance clerks, domestic and civil servants, teachers, policemen, fishermen-


Miss MACPHAIL:: Nurses.


Edward Joseph Garland: Yes, as the hon. member for Southeast Grey has suggested, nurses-all these are not included.
An unemployment insurance bill to-day does not meet the problem; it cannot even approach it. As a matter of fact an unemployment insurance bill-this present one for example-will have and can have no effect unless we rise out of this present collapse, then enter another period of employment only to collapse again. That is the only circumstance under which an unemployment insurance bill can bring any real benefit to the great masses of the workers throughout the country.
Then, there is no definite provision in the bill against sickness and invalidity. Every hon. member knows that both of these disabilities are reasons for unemployment; indeed, they are important sources of unemployment. These, under the bill, are left to the provinces. Yet, if the contention as to the validity of this measure be correct, there is no valid reason why provision should not have been made in the bill for extending unemployed benefits to those people who are unemployed as a result of invalidity or*sickness. Probably more in normal than in any other times unemployment results from these two causes. As was pointed out by one of the official labour organs only recently, physical incapacity is doubly penalized, because under the bill periods of unemployment due to sickness of the employed person are not counted as part of his unemployed time. They will not be entered up as part of the forty weeks qualifying period. As I said earlier, even the Lloyd George bill of years ago went farther than this measure, did mare and charged less.
Where the bill refers to an employee being discharged for "misconduct," and an employee is so discharged, he is disqualified from coming under the benefits of the bill, and I submit that in the absence of a definition, and a very rigid definition, of the term "misconduct" that provision can and will be abused by unscrupulous persons. I can imagine a bullying foreman or a ruthless employer very readily
discharging a man and charging that he was guilty of "misconduct" when actually all he had been guilty of was attempting to organize the workers in that particular industry. It is not the first time that men have been fired for that, and it will not be the last time under the present system. Therefore there is in this bill itself in that phase, as well as in others, a wide field for abuse.
I am not going to deal to-day with the position in which my friends to my right find themselves. I have a good deal of sympathy for their viewpoint, but I do find it difficult to understand why, after having proved utterly and absolutely and completely to their own satisfaction that this measure is unconstitutional, that it is not within the legislative powers of this parliament to enact, they propose to support the measure. That is beyond me. But that of course is their business, and I am not quarrelling with them for their attitude because I assume that they are just as sincere as we are in the matter.
I now come to this point, Mr. Speaker. If the benefits under the bill are to be no more than the benefits nouT procurable as the result of a definite right on the part of the unemployed to relief, then of course this bill falls by the wayside so far as any advantage is concerned. The maximum benefits procurable under this bill for an adult employee who is the head of a family with a dependent wife and three children amount to S45.60 per month. That is the maximum that can be drawn, and that is after the employee has made forty contributions spread over a period of two years, and after he has complied in every way with the regulations.
Now I turn to the present scale of relief in Canada, the relief that is provided for the unemployed as a matter of right by the cities of Canada, with the aid of the province and of the dominion. The city of West-mount, Quebec, pays $46.29 per month for a family of five. That is more than the benefits provided under this bill. The city of Oshawa, Ontario, pays $45.48 per month; the city of Kitchener, Ontario, $49.37; Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, $47.85; Brandon, Manitoba, $47; Calgary, Alberta, $53.70; Toronto, Ontario, $54; Winnipeg, Manitoba, $50.99; Edmonton, Alberta, $53.70; Regina, Saskatchewan, $47.50. Those are hurriedly selected. They cover the chief cities of Ontario, one city in Quebec, and the rest are in western Canada, and in all these cases the present relief allowance is greater without any contribution on the part of anybody, than the maximum benefits provided under this bill. Cannot you see the ridiculousness of proposing a measure like
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this as a reform measure, as even a measure of relief? I submit to you, sir, that the effect of this measure will be to tend to reduce the amount of relief now being paid in cities to the unemployed, especially in the case of families. It will be used as a lever by which to drag down the scale of relief rather than to help it. That will probably be the chief objectionable feature of the enactment itself.
There is another matter. I have already brought it to the attention of the committee, but I must bring it to the attention of the house now on third reading in order to complete my case.
There are many industries in this country, and some of them coming under this bill, which have now reached the very bedrock limit of unemployment in the industry; in other words, they cannot continue operating with less men than they have now. The depression during the last five years has brought them to that point. In those industries the prospect of unemployment is at its minimum. I was discussing this matter some time ago in regard to one particular industry, which happens to be in the city of Toronto. At the present time its staff consists of thirty employed men. The employer in this case stated that in his opinion he did not think the normal expectancy of unemployment would be more than two at most.
Mr. MacN'ICOlL: Would the hon. gentleman please give the name of the company?


Edward Joseph Garland: No, for
obvious reasons I have been asked not to do so. The normal expectancy of unemployment in that industry is two at the most. Now I give the figures in that case, and by the way the same results will follow in many of the smaller and more stable industries, especially in the case of industries that are not particularly subject to great fluctuating periods of unemployment. In this particular case the employer's contribution for each employee will in the forty weeks amount to 810; the employees' to $10 apiece; the government's to $4 for each employee, or a total of $24. Multiply that by the number of the men, 30, and you have the sum of $720. That is the amount paid into the commission's trust fund. Now if two of the employees become unemployed, it will be iwo years, or at least eighteen months, before they will be eligible for the benefits. We will assume that two years from now is heTe, and that the two men have become unemployed. They may draw maximum benefits only for seventy-eight days, or thirteen weeks. That amounts to 13 multiplied by 6 multiplied by 2, or $156. That is the maximum they can

draw, but there has been contributed $720. That leaves a surplus in the fund of $564. Now there are many industries in that position.
But that is not all. Hon. members should remember that during that seventy-eight day period when these two men were drawing relief, the other twenty-eight men and the employer and the state were continuing to make their weekly contributions so that at the end of that period of benefit these two men were now definitely out of unemployment benefits and on "relief," as it is called, of the city because they are no longer eligible to the benefits. You will find that in the meantime the sum contributed has been increased by $218 during that seventy-eight days, so that at the end of that seventy-eight day period1 there is in the fund as a result of that single industry's contributions a total of $782, and only $156 has been paid out. Of course the plan may be actuarially sound. I have no doubt whatever that it is after giving those figures, but it is actuarially sound in the same way as life insurance companies and other insurance companies are, and in my opinion most of the insurance game on this continent is a grievous racket at the expense of the great mass of policyholders, and some day that will be admitted by this house too. It is even being admitted to-day in places where there is perhaps not so much prejudice in the matter.
Further, Mr. Speaker, since the unemployment benefits under this bill are not as great as the scale of relief now provided in the chief cities of the country and wherever labour is organized, and since it is admitted that the scale of relief now granted is still so low that adequate cultural development is impossible under it, therefore adequate cultural development is impossible under the provisions of this insurance measure. Not long ago I quoted to this house a statement of Ramsay MacDonald's in which he pointed out that in 'Great Britain and throughout the world there would be millions of workers who would never be employed again, and he called them "human scrap." That is the position in which these people will be even under the operation of this act; they will still be human scrap.
There is occurring throughout this continent and in other countries a new form of sickness which is coming more and more to be recognized by medical men. Some call it "depression shock" and others have different names for it. I gave to the house when in committee a quotation from the report of one of the medical doctors on social work in England, and I was glad to find that his opinion and mine in this regard had been

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corroborated toy the findings of the child and family welfare body of Canada. Let me quote from a recent speech by Miss Charlotte Whitton:
In the field of child health, it is very difficult to form any accurate conclusions because undoubtedly the effects of deprivation and mal-nourishment are retarded some months or even years in their evidence, beyond the actual time of the occurrence of those conditions which cause them. For instance, some of the most obvious costs of the health aspects of the food blockades during the war became fully apparent only with the adolescence of the children, who as infants, and in the pre-school age, were exposed to the resultant lack of many of the essential foods.
And yet this measure provides for a benefit allowance that will not amount to much more than five cents a meal.
Canadian public health authorities appear unanimous in fearing an accumulation of the deficiency diseases, especially tuberculosis, and in fearing also that these results will only manifest themselves too late for argument, as to the need of careful health and' dietary considerations in the calculation of our relief budgets. Many of the health authorities express the belief that malnutrition and similar deficiency diseases exist now and are increasing. ... As the depression has continued, certain trends are developing that will undoubtedly prejudicially affect the health and wellbeing of the child and family. Hospitalization services on a pay or semi-pay basis are being less utilized, while free hospitalization is facing increasing demands. The same process is taking place in the use of medical and nursing services.
This next passage I direct particularly to the attention of thie house with all the emphasis I can because it is an extremely serious feature:
Undoubtedly, however, the gravest effects of present conditions are round in their gnawing corrosion on the structure of home and family life. Probably never before has there been, over a short period of time, such a general lowering in the standards of living throughout the dominion. No home has been immune, and from the wealthiest to the humblest in the land there has been a forced adjustment to meet decreased income. In one, it may have been four instead of five new motor cars a year, and in another the elimination of the quart of milk a day for the children, but a shifting and adjustment have been universal, throwing hundreds of thousands of families and of children on that verge of destitution, fear and insecurity where, we must remember, a portion of our families always cling precariously in the best of times. . . . One of the subtle but quite definite costs of such conditions, especially to a democracy, seems to have been overlooked-the rebuff to courage and initiative and the stunning of independence and resourcefulness involved in a prolonged period of complete reliance on social aid, and complete submission to administrative control over the minutest details of life, during that time. "Pauperization" it has been glibly called in description of
some aspects of its results; "loss of morale" in another. Devitalization would not seem too strong a term to apply to a gradual process through which nearly ten to fifteen per cent of the Canadian people receive each week from the public authorities or private charities, minute instructions as to what they are to eat, with the food prescribed in exact rations for fixed periods; just where they are to live and at what cost and under conditions in the arrangement of which they barely enter;
' whether they are to have wood, coal, gas or electricity; dress and undress in darkness or in light; have new or renovated clothing, and when, where and how much; go to a doctor or clinic for sickness or take some prescribed drug of general value. This entire subversion of a large part of a free and independent people, notable for their energy, courage and resourcefulness, to almost complete regimentation on a basis of mass treatment is to my mind the most serious, the most pernicious, likely the most permanent, but presently the least perceived of all the unfortunate effects of continued unemployment upon Canadian character in the future.
Some lion, members may say, "You are defeating your own case, because here you are seeking to justify an increase in benefits under an unemployment insurance scheme by disousing a condition which has arisen as the result of charity or direct relief." As a matter of fact I am using it to support my claims, because under this bill the measure of benefit will be so low that there will have to be continued the system of rigid regimentation of the unfortunate unemployed so that they may get the largest amount of sustenance possible out of the meager allowances provided them.
Before I conclude I will propose an amendment, because in my opinion no contribution should be sought from the employee until the worker in this country is receiving an average wage at least amounting to the equivalent of the health and decency budget set out by the labour bureau of Canada. That budget surely is low enough in itself, providing as it does for health and decency and not for any luxuries, and it stands at SI ,339. Therefore no one earning less than $1,339 should be expected or asked to contribute to any unemployment insurance scheme, whether he is insurable or not. My reasons for that contention have already been given the house. The earnings of all wage earners in Canada are, for males, S927 and for females S560. Think of it. In 1935, in the Dominion of Canada, those are the earnings paid our workers in face of the vast wealth the country has produced and can still produce, with our tremendous resources of material, plant and equipment and our gigantic power reserves. We have the equivalent of 73,000,000 men in electrical power alone, ready to produce goods for the Canadian people; at the pulling of a
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lever or the pressing of a button, this power is ready to go to work ceaselessly in the production of goods. Yet the average earnings of all men gainfully employed in Canada is only $927. A condition of that kind is a disgrace to any system and to any country. Frankly, the measure as it now stands requiring employees and employers to contribute, means simply, as I have already stated, a general decrease in the immediate volume ' of purchasing power, lessening to the extent that it extracts contributions, at least for the time being the amount available for the purchase of goods. It takes the funds in the case of the employee directly from the very person who will consume and needs to consume at once.
The principle of noncontributory insurance is being more widely recognized, and it is not the anomaly that some hon. gentlemen would try to make it appear; after all it depends on the extent to which the non-contributory feature is extended and how the funds are to be raised. My proposal to the government is this, that in connection with financing an unemployment insurance scheme and all the rest of this social legislation that is called reform, and which can be reform and of value only to the extent that it increases the mass purchasing power of the people, they should finance the scheme by an issue of currency directly backed by the national wealth of Canada. If they do that, they will succeed in increasing the volume of purchasing power without increasing debt or taxes and without reducing in any sphere the amount available for investment or for the consumption of goods that will be produced.
The United States have been considering this problem for some time, and it may be of interest to the house to know that unemployment insurance in that country without the requirement of any employee contribution was recommended to the president's committee on economic security by its advisory council in a report published on December 16 last. Since that time this proposal has been made part of the president's program. A joint state and federal unemployment insurance scheme without employee contribution is now. as a result of the advice of the advisory council, part of the program of the President of the United States. But I continue the report
The survey advocates a federal-state unemployment insurance program, with the imposition of a three per cent tax on payrolls, beginning in 1936. . . . The advisory council rejected a plan providing that employers and employees each contribute to the insurance fund, and by a nine to seven majority accepted the three per cent tax on payrolls on the ground that it would be passed on to consumers

and the beneficiary would pay his share on the tax that would be attached to the article he purchases.
And so forth. The unemployed ex-service men of Canada have written to me under date of January 22 as follows:
Dear Sir:
At the regular general meeting of this association held on Thursday, January 17, I was instructed to request that when the question of unemployment insurance comes before the house, you will press for this form of insurance to be non-contributory, and that you will solicit all possible support from your colleagues.
I now turn to Great Britain. In 1932 a royal commission on unemployment insurance was appointed in Great Britain and there appeared before that commission the trades union congress general council. In this discussion many references have been made to the trades unions of Great Britain; they have been used as an excuse for certain parts of the bill and they have been used as justification for it. They cannot be used as justification for the contributory feature because the trades union congress general council said this to the royal commision:
Unemployment is a national and international problem resulting from the industrial system under which we live. The workers are not the authors of the system but the victims of it and, unless the community so organizes its resources, as to provide work for every willing worker, the unemployed, as the reserves of industry, are entitled to maintenance. There is no real difference in principle between unemployed workers who are equally available for and capable of work.
Note this.
It has not been found possible to operate a system of unemployment benefit on an insurance basis.
That is the considered opinion of the trades union congress general council in Great Britain and they so stated it to the royal commission. Their view was:
The cost of maintenance of the unemployed should' become a direct charge on the exchequer.
Just as I am contending.
The workers' and employers' contributions should be abolished and they should not, except as taxpayers, be burdened with the cost of unemployment.
That makes it clear that the British trades union congress stand for the noncontributory feature. I therefore move:
That Bill No. 8 be not now read a third time but that it be referred back to the committee of the whole for the purpose of amending it by striking out the words ''every employed person and" in subsection. 2 of section 17 of the bill.

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Hon. R. J. MANION (Minister of Railways and Canals):: If I understand aright the amendment and also the speech of the hon. member, the effect of the amendment is to make the insurance noncontributory, and for that reason I rise to a point of order on two different grounds. Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, paragraph 813, states:
When a bill comes up for third reading a member may move that it be not now read a third time but that it be referred back to the [DOT]committee of the whole for the purpose of amending it in any particular.
This is not amending it in any particular; it is amending the whole principle of the bill, the principle of the bill being contributory unemployment insurance. That is the first ground on which I oppose the amendment.
Then paragraph 551 of Beauchesne states, and this is a well known rule in this house:
It is a fundamental principle that no resolution or amendment to increase a charge upon the people can be moved with the Speaker in the chair; it must be initiated in committee by a minister acting on behalf of the crown.
If this is noncontributory insurance; in other words, if those insured do not contribute, then the government will thereby have to contribute to a greater extent than is provided under the present bill, and therefore it would be a charge upon the crown and cannot be proposed by a private member. On those two grounds I submit that the amendment is totally out of order.


Edward Joseph Garland: On the point of order, it does seem strange to me that this very amendment in these very terms was already moved by me in committee of the whole, and it was not then ruled out of order but was voted upon. The government had a majority of only five on that occasion, and I wonder whether this action is taken because they are afraid of their majority on this occasion.


Robert James Manion: The hon. gentleman should stick to the point of order.


Edward Joseph Garland: My point is that since the amendment was allowed to stand as being in Older in committee of the .whole, I fail to understand why it is not in order now on third reading.


Robert James Manion: It was not questioned then.


George Halsey Perley: It seems to me
that the argument of the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) is rather extraordinary. If he did move the amendment in committee and nothing was said about it, that does not make it in order according to the rules. Perhaps someone was not listening, or
there was a lot of noise in the house at the time, and therefore it was not considered. I support my colleague for both of the reasons given. I claim that this amendment really negatives the whole bill. Paragraph 400 of Beauehesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms distinctly prevents such an amendment being moved. Then in the second place, it is quite evident that the amendment involves a charge on the exchequer of the country. The hon. gentleman himself has said that the government ought to pay a larger amount and the employee should not pay anything; if that does not mean a further charge on the exchequer-


Edward Joseph Garland: No, that is not what I said.


George Halsey Perley: I understood the hon. gentleman to say so, and in fact his amendment is such that the employee would not have to pay.


Edward Joseph Garland: That is correct, but the rest is not.
Sir GEOiRGE PERLEY: If the employee is not to pay then the exchequer must pay more.


Edward Joseph Garland: Not necessarily.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


George Halsey Perley: Well, the hon. gentleman has already spoken. If the employee is not to pay anything the exchequer must pay more, which makes the amendment involve a charge on the people of this country. My colleague has already mentioned one paragraph of the rules which prevents any amendment of that kind being made by a private member. Further than that, paragraph 568 says:	.
The Governor General's recommendation to any resolution involving a payment out of the public treasury must be formally given by a privy councillor in his place at t'he very initiation of a proceeding, i.e., as soon as the motion has been proposed for the house to go into committee on the resolution.
Therefore I submit that the point taken by the Minister of Railways is correct and that this amendment is entirely out of order.
Mr. ANGUS MaoINNIS (Vancouver South): I contend that the amendment is quite in order. In tlhe first place it is not contrary to the principle of the bill. The principle of the bill, if we are to follow precedents that have arisen in this house, is that of unemployment insurance. When we were discussing the central bank bill we tried to move an amendment providing for a
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publicly owned and controlled bank, and we were told by both sides that that was not a principle of the bill, that the principle of the bill was the institution of a central bank. Using the same logic the principle of this bill is unemployment insurance.
Then as to the point that it involves expenditure of public money, the proposed1 amendment does not say anything of the kind; it says only that as far as the employee is concerned it shall be non-contributory. Where the other contributions are to come from is no concern of the mover of the amendment-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Mr. MacINNIS:: I am speaking to a point of order, that is what we are concerned with. It does not necessarily follow that there must be a contribution from the crown. As a matter of fact the contribution should come from production. Consequently we may say, as far as the mover and seconder of the proposed amendment are concerned, that our purpose is that the contributions should come from the employers, or out of industry. For these reasons I contend that the amendment is in order.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I have given the matter
some consideration, in anticipation of an amendment being moved, having followed the remarks of the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland). To my mind there is no question whatever that the amendment is out of order. So far as concerns the first point raised by the Minister of Railways and Canals I do not think it necessary to rule on that, but the authorities are very clear, as all hon. members will agree that no private member has the right to introduce an amendment which would have the effect of augmenting taxes or charges on the people. That is clear from paragraph 551 and following paragraphs of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms. The matter is also quite clearly set out in a short paragraph in May's Parliamentary Procedure at page 511 where it is stated that:
No motion can therefore be made to impose a tax, save by a minister of the crown, unless such tax be in substitution, by way of equivalent, for taxation at that moment submitted to the consideration of parliament; nor can the amount of a tax proposed on behalf of the crown be augmented, ...
It seems clear that if the benefits under the bill are to remain the same the charge upon the crown must be augmented if the amendment of the hon. member for Bow River came into effect. Therefore I rule that the amendment is out of order.


Mr. G. D. STANLEY (East Calgary):: My views are very considerably at variance with those expressed by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland). I have supported this bill and still support it because it is an insurance bill. Under it there is to be a three way contribution to a fund, and by reason of such contributions benefits are to be paid from that fund. It is an insurance proposal, presumed, as has been so frequently stated, to be on an actuarial basis; certain benefits in return for certain contributions. The hon. member for Bow River found himself in a rather peculiar position. He voted for the principle of the bill, and by doing so intimated' to the house and through the house to the country that he was in favour of the insurance principle on which the bill is based, that he believed in contributions being made towards the insurance fund and under certain conditions benefits being paid therefrom. Then he found himself arguing that upon this insurance measure there should be superimposed relief measures, so that those who are not making any contributions to the fund should be taken in and granted benefits for which they had not contributed. It is I suppose distinctly popular to contend that from this or any fund contributions should be made for the benefit of those who are unemployed and on relief in our country. There is no question in the world but that measures should be provided to take care of those who require relief, who are unfortunately in a position that they cannot sustain themselves and their families. But when one endeavours to attach to an insurance bill relief measures which belong to some other phase of governmental undertakings he is doing something which would defeat the very purposes o.f the bill. The purpose of this bill is to provide insurance facilities whereby benefits may be extended to men and women employed in industry in this country. Hence the hon. gentleman argues himself into this position, that from the contributions which men who are employed in industry-associated with others, that is the government and the employers-make to a fund, should be taken the relief which is justly due to tfrose who are unemployed and in distress. In other words he says that the men who are paying contributions into an insurance fund, presumed to be on an actuarial basis, should be taxed in order to relieve the. treasuries of the respective authorities whose obligation it is to care for them, and the burden placed on the backs of the contributors to this insurance fund. That is a most untenable position. If there is anything that would condemn this

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bill, anything that would render it absolutely futile, it would be the endeavour to place upon the backs of the men who are employed in this country the responsibility which be* longs to the people as a whole.


Edward Joseph Garland: I rise to
a question of privilege. The statement of the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Stanley), quite unwittingly I am sure, is not accurate. I did not make any such proposal. I proposed that the employed in Canada under this scheme should be relieved of any cost.


George Douglass Stanley: Perhaps the hon. gentleman will allow me to make my address. He made a good long speech.


Edward Joseph Garland: Do not
make misstatements.


George Douglass Stanley: The hon. gentleman
stood up in his place in this house and registered his vote on the second reading of the bill, accepting the principle of the bill. By doing so he pledged himself before this house and the people of the country to support the principle of the bill, and the insurance principle was the principle for which he was voting. But no sooner had he done that than he proceeded to introduce what he considered was a vote-catching proposition. There is no question in the world about that.


Edward Joseph Garland: That is
pretty cheap. I would expect that from the hon. gentleman.


George Douglass Stanley: My hon. friend has
argued himself into that position; not only that, he has voted himself into that position; he has placed himself on record in this house as taking that position, and that is the position in which he stands before the unemployed workmen of this country to-day. I do not think it unjust to point that out. When the hon. gentleman found himself in that most paradoxical position he certainly had to square himself, so he proceeded to try to eliminate the contributions from the men; he proceeded to say that this bill should not be supported, that it should not become law because it is not as good as the British bill, because it is twenty-five years behind the British act. It is true that when the British workman becomes unemployed he is given unemployment insurance. When he becomes ill he receives sickness insurance. When he reaches a certain age he is given old age insurance, and when he dies his widow receives widow's insurance. That is quite correct, and I wish that situation obtained in Canada. But the fact that Great Britain
is ahead of us in connection with social insurance and that Great Britain has gone forward in regard to measures of this kind more than Canada has surely is not a reasonable argument why this parliament should not proceed to enact at least the first stage, which is this unemployment insurance measure.
Is there any argument against it? The hon. gentleman very well might have said, "Let us start with this and as rapidly as possible bring in the other measures." He might even have argued that at this session of parliament we should proceed to bring in the legislation which would grant the benefits extended to the workmen in Great Britain. That would have been an argument, but the fact is that we are considering one measure, an unemployment insurance measure, and by our votes in this house we must determine whether we propose to take this first step and provide the unemployment benefits which are contained in this bill. For the life of me I cannot see the force of the argument that because Great Britain gives something more therefore we should not give anything at all.
The hon. gentleman has brought in the question of relief measures. Personally I cannot see that this question arises in connection with this bill. The hon. gentleman also said that this was the sum and substance of the reform program, but he knew very well that he was making an exaggeration that was hardly fair. This measure speaks for itself; it is an unemployment insurance measure based on certain very definite principles which are thoroughly understood by all the workmen of this country. They know exactly what it means; it is a contributory insurance measure against unemployment. The hon. gentleman went a step further and quoted the amount of relief given in various municipalities in Canada, intimating that one city pays so much, another city so much more and so on. That is not the question at all. The hon. gentleman knows that this measure provides certain benefits in return for certain contributions. If he had wished to do so he might very well have argued that the contributors to this fund should be asked to contribute more than twenty-one cents or twenty-five cents a week, and that because of the larger contribution they should receive larger benefits. That argument would have been quite sound from that standpoint but taking this as an insurance measure the principle of the bill is that for this contribution, which is to accumulate in a fund, certain 'benefits will be extended on an actuarial basis. In connection with these
Unemployment Insurance

benefits the use of the words "relief measure" I think is unfair. This is not a relief measure at all; this is an insurance measure which extends benefits to workmen in return for contributions they make together with the employer and the state. Whether those benefits equal the amount of relief provided in the city of Ottawa or the city of Calgary is entirely beside the question. That is not the point at all. If Calgary or Ottawa see fit to contribute to the relief of citizens who require relief, that is their own business and that is another consideration entirely. When a workman, by reason of the contributions he makes, is entitled under his contract to certain benefits the question of whether he is wealthy, whether he has saved his money or whether he has spent it does not enter into the situation at all. He has a contract, signed, sealed and delivered, under which he can claim certain benefits definitely stipulated in the contract.
That is a very different thing from a consideration of the relief which is extended to a family who happen to be in dire need and who, as a result, receive certain assistance from the municipality in which they live. A man works week in and week out, month in and month out, and by reason of his contributions he is entitled to certain benefits when he becomes unemployed. That is very plain, and I do not see how the word relief can be mixed up with this question at all. This is an actuarial measure which does not undertake to give a dollar for fifty cents. No insurance measure can do that. The hon. gentleman spoke about various life insurance companies in this country exploiting the public. Those were not the words used, but in substance I believe I have indicated the correct meaning. I know nothing about that particular phase of the matter, nor does it enter into the present situation. This is an insurance measure by which the government of the state handles the finances at a minimum of expense, and pays out on an actuarial basis benefits to those who are entitled under the contract.
Then the hon. member introduced the matter of relief, and spoke about the relief extended under the insurance legislation of Great Britain. If one had the time to go back over the history of that legislation he would have these general conclusions borne out: First, that the 1911 measure was actuarially sound, but that in 1920 upon the return of the soldiers there was imposed upon the measure the question of relief. People who had not made contributions and were not contributors under the act were given relief from the fund. That was a violation of the principle

of unemployment insurance. When we read the 1927 legislation we find that much of that difficulty was removed, and if I understand the 1934 measure it would seem to indicate that they have gone back to a straight insurance proposition.
The fact of the matter is that the insurance measure in Great Britain was almost wrecked because they violated the very insurance principles behind the 1911 measure. Had not the treasury of Great Britain come to the relief of the insurance fund to the extent of hundreds of millions of pounds there would have been no unemployment insurance for the workmen of that country. One of the important principles in any unemployment insurance scheme is that there shall be contributions by all concerned, not simply for the purpose of obtaining the money but for the moral support and sympathetic assistance such action gives to the administration of the measure. One of the greatest dangers facing any unemployment insurance scheme in Canada would be the dissemination of an idea that down here in Ottawa there is a bottomless purse, and that all one ihas to do is to dig in and get his money. That view would wreck the insurance undertaking. If the government of this or any other day conceives the idea that it can pay out under an unemployment insurance scheme moneys away beyond the contributions which should be made, then at that moment it is undertaking to wreck the whole insurance arrangement. There must be behind any successful scheme the moral support to which I have referred. I would emphasize the necessity of undertaking to impress upon the minds of our public men, our representatives in parliament, employers in industry, employees in industry, organized labour unions and others, the fact that this is an insurance measure, that it should be continued on an insurance basis, and that benefits should be paid to the unemployed under the contract contained in the act.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Stanley) has attempted to draw a sharp distinction between an unemployment measure and a relief measure. I quite concede that theoretically that may be done, but I should like to impress upon the hon. member and other hon. members that in practice we have a right to judge any particular measure in the light of the unemployment situation now existing. The hon. member for East Calgary said: "If Calgary chooses to make a relief contribution to the unemployed, that is their business," and he says that is a matter distinct and different

Unemployment Insurance
from any measure which the dominion government may pass. I wonder if it is necessary once more to 'remind the hon. member what his leader in Calgary on June 12, 1930, was reported as saying:
This is a new country and there is no excuse for unemployment in Canada if a government does its duty.
Later on he said:
After all, no man who has a heart can see the mothers and children without clothes or food without emotion, however hardhearted he may he. What are we going to do about it? I say to you my fellow citizens, my fellow Canadians, speaking to the larger audience, I am convinced this problem has now ceased to be local and provincial, and has become national in its importance.
Then later:
I propose that parliament shall formulate a definite plan for permanent relief, and that parliament shall deal with this national problem and provide amelioration for the condition in order that next winter Canadian people may not be facing the crisis that is upon us without having a remedy at hand.
That was in 1930. It is now 1935, and we are quite justified in using the Prime Minister's own words, and asking "What are we going to do about it?" Again and again this session hon. members in this corner of the chamber have urged the government to bring down relief legislation. That has not been done nor is there any indication that a relief measure will be brought down.
Under the circumstances I say the hon. member for Bow River is quite right when he suggests that the present measure does not begin to meet the unemployment problem. I shall refer to the figures he quoted from the statement issued by the board of governors of the Canadian council of child and family welfare. It states:
Thus 1,700,000 of the gainfully occupied population will be eligible for insurance, and a total of 2,260,000 not covered by any such measure.
It seems to me that is a very serious situation. The hon. member for East Calgary states that the bill undertakes to provide for periods of unemployment of men and women employed in industry. Yes, it does provide for some 1,700,000, but it does not provide for 2,260,000. Surely, that is a serious situation. Referring to the figures in the pamphlet already quoted by the hon. member for Bow River, I find the following:
It would seem a safe premise that there are not less than 500,000 to 525,000 persons now unemployed, and in receipt of relief, making with their dependents, a total of not less than 1,350,000 recipients of public unemployment relief, quite apart from the great load of dependency from all other sources.
That is the situation. The British bill is supplemented by an assistance measure; if this bill was supplemented by an assistance measure some of us would feel a great deal better about it, but no assistance measure such as that now in operation in Great Britain is being enacted, and so I think we have a right in discussing this particular measure to ask how far it covers the case.
People must be kept alive. I think that might be taken almost as axiomatic. We cannot allow people simply to starve, although some of them are coming perilously near that condition. I noticed in the Montreal Daily Star of February 26 this news item:
Sickness and unemployment have caused nine suicides in nine days in greater Montreal. This was shown this morning in morgue records.
In the next issue of the Montreal Star, that of February 27, there is reported the tenth suicide that of a man who had been unemployed for six months and was in ill health. The coroner rendered the verdict of "suicide while in a state of mental depression." Such tragedies occur among those who are not able to stand the strain, and are some little indication of the suffering and hardship and despair which are being experienced by great masses of our people to-day.
What are we going to do about it? That is what the Prime Minister asked five years ago. He replied that he proposed that parliament would bring in a definite measure, but parliament has, not done that during the past five years, and this year again we have no definite measure at all.
My 'hon. friend from Bow River (Mr. Garland) by his amendment would suggest that we extend this measure in some way until it becomes equal to the emergency, and that could be done only by what has been called noncontributory unemployment insurance. As I said on the second reading of the bill, I frankly recognize that that phrase, "nomcon-tributory insurance" may be somewhat of a misnomer, although some large corporations who do not insure in the regular fire insurance companies lay aside a certain sum to provide *against fire, and they frequently speak of that provision as the carrying of their own "insurance." So we have some little precedent even for that term. But I do not care what term you use. The principle is that in some way or other these unemployed people should be systematically provided for. It is obvious that that cannot be done through an actuarial scheme under which the employee himself makes a contribution. I think my hon. friend from Bow River was right when he pointed out that wages are so very low to-day that



BET1SED EDITION

[Stage Direction]
Unemployment Insurance
[Stage Direction]
this scheme involves a hardship even on those who are at present employed. He was quite right when he pointed out that this measure meets the needs of only a small group of workers, and meets them in only a very, very inadequate degree.
But what about those whose needs are not met at all? That is the important question before us to-day. Personally I regret that the rules of the house do not permit our having a vote on the very important question whether we should make some provision along the line of noncontributory unemployment insurance.
May I -point out the enormous losses that are now being incurred through unemployment? Again and again in this house we have had members point out the heavy cost of the strikes that have occurred from time to time and which have to a certain extent impeded industry, but, according to the census figures given by the Prime Minister on Fe-bruay 18, strikes account for only -04 per cent of lost time, illness for 5-74 per cent, temporary lay-offs for 12-56 per cent, and no jobs for 80-26 per cent.
Mr. REID:: Is that in this country?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes, I was quoting from the census figures as given in this bouse by the Prime Minister on February 18. Bas' ing an estimate on the average income, and on the census figures as contained in the Canada Year Book at page 770, there is an income loss by the wage earners through having no jobs and through temporary lay-offs amounting to nearly $400,000,000 a year. That is an astonishing situation-$400,000,000 a year actually lost through unemployment and temporary lay-offs. I am not so sure that the hon. member for Bow River might not very well have argued that if we could save that $400,000,000 a year we would not need very much in the way of unemployment insurance, and if there was an occasional unemployed man he could very easily be taken care of. The problem is not simply that of taking care of the lost time of a portion of our population. It is a bigger problem than that. It is taking care of the needs of the people during a period of extreme depression when very large numbers are out of work. That, it seems to me, is the responsibility of the state.
I shall vote for this bill, as I did on the second reading, because it seems to me that on balance it is to the good. In so far as it may help a small portion of our people in a very inadequate way, it is to the good, and I

suppose to that extent one is justified in voting for it. Further than that, I hope it is, as the hon. member for East Calgary indicates, a first step. It is a certain recognition of responsibility on the part of the government to provide for unemployment. As such I welcome it and I will vote for the bill also because of that consideration, -but I want it very clearly understood that those of us who do vote for the bill for these reasons do not believe that at is at all adequate to meet the very pressing needs of our people to-day.
Mr. J. R. MaciNlOOL (Toronto Northwest) : Mr. Speaker, hon. members in the far corner of the house have to-day, as they did when the bill was before the house recently, made many statements that should be set right before the question is put. il want to refer for a moment to the remarks of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) -who spoke of the unemployed who are not covered by this bill. I have in mind, Mr. Speaker, what the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) said when he was speaking on this bill. On being asked whether this bill would -cover those who are not working, and who therefore would not come under an unemployment insurance -measure, the Prime Minister said, if my memory serves me aright, that he had in- view a measure to alleviate that situation, and in view of that statement I cannot understand why the two members who have spoken from the far corner of the house to-day continue to refer to those who will not be covered by this bill. Representing a large industrial riding, and as one who for a long time has been associated with industry and with many thousands of workers, I believe I can speak for the average worker as much as the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland), who I understand represents a purely agricultural riding. My life has been spent among many thousands of workers. What the hon. member knows about the problems of the worker I do not know; perhaps he knows a great deal but at any -rate I represent an industrial riding and he does not. He says that the bill can have no effect at present. Yesterday I remained in Toronto to visit industrial institutions, and I visited five large -concerns, primarily to discuss with them the effect of the eight hour day bill; but in the course of my remarks in that connection I discussed also the problem of unemployment insurance. Let me tell the hon. member -for Bow River and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre that they are not speaking for the average worker employed in industry when they denounce the present unemployment insurance bill.

Unemployment Insurance
Mr. WOODSWORiTH: The hon. member will remember I said I was going to vote in favour of it.


Mr. MacNIOOL:: I am glad to hear the
hon. gentleman say that. I can assure the house that the average worker in industry sincerely hopes that this bill will be enacted as soon as possible, so that a year hence, if he is unfortunate enough to be thrown out of work, he will benefit. I believe that is the attitude of the large majority of them.
The hon. member for Bow River referred to the police, and to teachers and ministers. Well, the position of the policeman and of the teacher is entirely different from the position of the man engaged in industry. I know that policemen have been ill for six months in the city of Toronto and have received pay from the treasury, and I think they should receive it after having served on the force a certain length of time. The same applies to school teachers, and I do not believe that the average clergyman is not taken care of by his congregation if he is ill for a time. But the position of the worker in industry is altogether different. When he is laid off his pay stops.
The hon. member for Bow River used almost every adjective in the dictionary in denouncing this legislation; he used the words ridiculous, pernicious, weak, ineffective, hopeless, ruthless. If he had had the dictionary before him he might have drawn a few more adjectives from it. He tried to denounce the bill by saying that the man on relief receives more than he would under the unemployment insurance provisions. But there is a difference. The man on relief does not receive cash; he receives vouchers for supplies-at any rate that is the way it is in Toronto-for food and clothing and perhaps an allowance for rent. Under the unemployment insurance measure, on the other hand, he will receive cash.
I dislike the hon. gentleman's denunciation of manufacturers, whom he describes as ruthless. I know a great many manufacturers and I can assure you that the very great majority of them are right-thinking, sympathetic men who do not by any means come within the category of the hon. gentleman's denunciation. I repeat, I dislike the hon. gentleman's almost constant hostility to employers of labour. Those who employ large numbers of men deserve support and not constant denunciation; I do not understand why anyone should call them ruthless, and one name after another.
I understood the hon. gentleman to say that no unemployment insurance act is
solvent. He is entirely wrong there. The British act, now operating under the amendments made in 1933, is solvent as proved by the fact that it is returning to the British government twelve and a half millions a year to pay off the loan which the British treasury advanced to take care of what was commonly called the dole; and it is expected that within forty years the whole of the five hundred millions or more will have been paid.
The hon. gentleman also tried to compare the British act, with all its various amendments, to this legislation, but he does not appreciate the fact that the British act of 1911 is by no means the same act as the British act as it is in force to-day, because it has been subject to many minor and major amendments. My hon. friend's comparison in that respect is therefore not fair. I would point out to him that the Canadian bill compares very favourably with the compulsory contributory acts which are in operation in the eight countries that have passed such legislation. Only two nations, Bulgaria and Italy, have a lower commencing age limit than is proposed in the Canadian bill; in these two countries the commencing age is fifteen years whereas in Canada it is sixteen. But several other countries that have adopted unemployment insurance legislation have fixed the limit at a higher age.
The hon. member also referred to the conditions of benefit. He said that the Canadian employee has to make forty payments in two years. Well, in Bulgaria and Germany the worker has to make fifty-two payments in two years, so that the Canadian bill is better than either of those so far as that is concerned, and the unemployment insurance act in Germany is generally conceded to be a fairly substantial and satisfactory piece of legislation. He also referred to the period of waiting in Canada, which is nine days. Well, in Poland it is ten days; in Germany, fourteen; in Queensland, fourteen; in the State of Wisconsin, fourteen; under the Nema, electrical interests, plan it is fourteen; and under the Rochester plan, both operating in the United States, it is also fourteen days. So that the hon. gentleman has not been fair to the Canadian people in making that comparison.
My hon. friend also referred to the amount of money to be received by the unemployed worker with a wife and three children, but I would point out to him that what the worker in Canada will receive is greater than the amount paid in any other country apart from in the United States under the Nema and


Eccles James Gott: I was paired with the hon.
member for Kent, Ont. (Mr. Rutherford). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Robert Weir: I was paired with
the hon. member for Melville (Mr. Motherwell). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. JOHNSTONE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Willow Bunch (Mr. Donnelly). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Robert King Anderson: I was paired
[DOT] with the hon. member for Toronto West Centre (Mr. Factor). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


James Houston Spence: I was paired with the hon. member for Northumberland, Ont. (Mr. Fraser). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. TUMMON:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Hochelaga (Mr. St-Pere). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. BOWEN:: I was paired with the hon.
member for Assiniboia (Mr. Mackenzie). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: I was paired
with the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. Munn). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


John Angus MacMillan: I was
paired with the hon. member for North Huron (Mr. Spotton). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


George Halsey Perley: It is hardly
necessary for me to say that if I had not been paired with the hon. member for Bona-venture (Mr. Marcil) I would have voted for the motion.


Arza Clair Casselman: I was paired with
the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Howard). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


George Hamilton Pettit: I was paired with the hon.
member for Kamouraska (Mr. Bouchard). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. WILLIS:: I was paired with the hon.
member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


George Washington McPhee: I was paired with the
hon. member for Regina (Mr. Turnbull). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I was paired with the
hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Kennedy). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I was paired
with the right hon. the Prime Minister. Had I voted, I should on this occasion, have voted with the Prime Minister, namely, for the motion.


Harry Butcher: I was paired with the
hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Burns). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.
Mr. SEGUIN i(translation): I was paired with the hon. Postmaster General (Mr. Sauve). Had I voted, I would have voted for the third reading of the bill.


Hermas Deslauriers: I was paired, with the hon. member for Shefford (Mr. Tetreault). Had I voted, I would have voted for the third reading of the bill.
Mr. FAFiARD (translation): I was paired with the hon. member for Levis (Mr. Fortin). Had I voted, I would have voted for the third reading of the bill.


Mr. LACROIX (translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe). Had I voted, I would have voted for the third reading of the bill.


Mr. GIROUARD (translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Richmond-Wolfe (Mr. Lafleche). Had I voted, I would have voted for the third reading of the bill.


Mr. BRADETTE (translation):: I was
paired1 with the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Ernst). Had I voted, T would have voted for the third reading or the bill.
Mr. DUMiAINE (translation): I was paired with the hon. member for Lac St-Jean (Mr. Duguay). Had I voted, I would have voted for the third reading of the bill.


Mr. DUPRE (translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Joliette (Mr. Ferland). Had I voted, I would have voted for the third reading of the bill.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
Meat and Canned Foods Act

After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 28, for the relief of Mary Wynifred Bayford Bennett.-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 29, for the relief of Lillian Gulden McIntyre.-Mr. White (Mount Royal).
Bill No. 30, for the relief of Minnie Elizabeth Lyons Dafoe.-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 31, for the relief of Trevor Eardley-Wilmot.-Mr. Bury (for Mr. Bell, St. Antoine).


[Stage Direction]
Hon. GROTE STIRLING (Acting Minister of Fisheries) moved the second reading of Bill No. 25, to amend the Meat and Canned Foods Act.
Mr. NEILL Explain.
Mr. STIRLING:: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this amending bill is to make quite sure that power does exist under the statute to charge fees for inspection. There is no doubt that under section 18 of the Meat and Canned Foods Act fish and shellfish packed in cans shall be inspected. There is no doubt that under section 26 of the regulations under this act provision is made for that inspection, and there is no doubt that under section 20 of the regulations a fee is prescribed, but there is doubt as to whether there is power in the act to collect that fee. Therefore the purpose of this amending bill is to make sure that the measure contains a specific statutory provision, and that is its only purpose.


Alan Webster Neill: Mr. Speaker, when the resolution preceding this bill was in committee, at page 1438 of Hansard the minister was kind enough to indicate his willingness to send it to the marine and fisheries committee. The right hon. gentleman who was leading the government at the time, however, suggested that there was no reason for doing so, as it was merely a formal matter, but I pointed out that it goes further than that. The explanatory note in the bill states:
Section 20 of these regulations provides for a fee for inspection at the rate of one cent per case. The fee is a reasonable one, and at present covers only the cost of inspection.
One reason I should have liked to see the bill go to the marine and fisheries committee is that I challenge both those statements. I say the fee is not reasonable and that it should not be imposed at all. The fee is high, and is not appropriate. Perhaps I am repeating

something I have said previously, but the point is this. I cannot find any other raw product or semi-manufactured product in any other part of Canada in connection with which the person who produces the article has to pay a high fee for its inspection. I think an appropriate parallel would be that of lobsters. If the minister is prepared to show that the lobster people in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick pay a high fee for the inspection of their lobsters it might be a parallel case, but that is not so. The only inspection that takes place in that connection is the inspection of the canneries, which is carried on by officials paid by the government, so the procedure here is entirely different.
There are three main objectionable features to tills inspection fee. In the first place the canneries themselves appoint the inspectors. That statement may be challenged; technically, they do not appoint them but practically they do, because they recommend who shall be appointed. Is that not much the same thing? So we have the extraordinary situation of the government deciding that a certain product shall be inspected, in order to encourage its marketing and sale. I quite admit that this is necessary, but then they say to the people who put up that product, "You name somebody to inspect it and we will appoint them." This method is unworkable, as I predicted it would be, for a dozen different reasons. The next feature is that the cannery men have to pay for this inspection. Why? Do the people whose cheese, butter or meat is inspected have to pay a special fee? No, it comes out of the consolidated revenue fund, so why should the cannery men ibe mulcted to this extent? There is a further considerable tax placed upon them in this way; quite a large quantity of their tinned goods must be opened and destroyed, and that is quite an appreciable addition to the cost of packing. Under the Meat and Canned Foods Act, in connection with other canned foods such as vegetables it is the duty of the inspector to prowl around the cannery to see that sanitary conditions are all right, that the articles put up, vegetables for instance, are fresh and sound, to see that any colouring matter used is correct chemically and so on. Then in his discretion the inspector may open certain tins, but the suggestion of the act is that most of the inspection takes place in connection with the operation of the cannery.
That is not so in regard to salmon canning. The regulations tare very strict; they say that out of fifty cases the inspector must take so many, I think twelve. Out of 101 oases he must take eighteen, from 501 to 1,000 cases

Meat and Canned Foods Act
he must take' twenty-four, and so on. They must be taken out of that particular lot offered for inspection, and if the cannery happens to be doing business in a small way, not selling 50,000 oases at a time but drawing out only perhaps 100 oases, the cannery must pay dearly, because the expense is greater in proportion. One tin is taken out of each of these cases and opened, and of course the contents are a total loss. In a cannery putting up 100,000 cases the loss, according to whether he took it out in large or small lots, would run from $6,000 down to $1,100. Then, he has to pay a cent a case, and on a pack of 100,000 cases this item alone amounts to $1,000. I submit that it is an improper tax; it is not a fee. I say it is a heavy tax.
Then further, the statement is made that the fee is reasonable; I say the fee is not reasonable. I figured it out on the amount of salmon canned in British Columbia. Out there five inspectors are appointed, but only three do the work. Those three have power if necessary to call in the other two. They are paid by the case, however, and we may be sure there would not be much danger of the other two men being called in. It is only natural, human nature being what it is, to keep as much of the money in one's own hands as possible. So hon. members will understand that the fees are divided among three men, and in that way they receive sums much greater than those which would be appropriate or even necessary. For much smaller sums we could get men to devote their whole time to the work. The inspectors I have mentioned do not guarantee to spend their whole time or even a considerable portion of it; they simply agree to do the inspecting. In addition they carry on lucrative businesses. I may add there is even the suggestion that they are interested in competitive business. For the moment however we shall let that matter pass. At any rate they are acting as brokers, and are being paid on the basis of so much a case, with the result that their remuneration comes to an amount much greater than is necessary, and much greater than need be paid.
I feel this matter might be more easily debated in committee, upon which occasion the arguments I have advanced might be answered. I point particularly however to the lobster industry and to the industry connected with dry salt herring, and the inspections in connection therewith. Have the people in those industries had to pay for that inspection? No, the government inspector does that work. Then, why should the canneries, which for various reasons seem to be running in hard luck, be singled out to be mulcted first by
having an unusually large number of their tins destroyed and then by having to pay inspection fees? I believe they will be quite willing to stand the loss of tins, and possibly it would be proper to ask them to do so, but I do not know why they should have to pay this inspection fee, one which is not paid in any other parallel industry in Canada.
I suggest the minister should consider the arguments I have advanced. They may be combatable-I do not know-but so far I have not heard any answer. I do suggest however that we would do well to allow the matter to go to the marine and fisheries committee.


Mr. WILLIAM DUFF (Antigonish-Guys-borough):: Mr. Speaker, before the minister
closes the debate may I say that I cannot understand why the fisheries must be subject to all sorts of restrictions, taxes and fees. It seems to me that the officials of the department in the Hunter building must sit up nights trying to find ways and means to discourage the fishermen, the packers and the canners from carrying on their legitimate occupation. Why should there be any fees in connection with canned fish and shellfish any more than with canned tomatoes or canned peaches? Why should the department ask the house to place a fee on canned fish and shellfish? How are they going to make their decisions so far as shellfish are concerned?-because that would mean fish on the shell, not in cans. How could an inspector tell anything about them? Could the minister explain that? I am afraid hs is like other ministers who have preceded him; they do not know what it is all about. It is about time we had a shake-up in the fisheries department; that department should not continue to discourage this great industry, one more capable of development than any other industry in Canada. The officials of the department are trying to place all kinds of restrictions and regulations in the way, and the result is that people get tired of it all and will not invest their money in the industry. I say to the minister that there is only one thing to do with Bill No. 26, and that is not to proceed with it, because it is not in the interests of the fisheries. Why should there be any fee on canned fish? It is all right to have officials going around and inspecting them, but even then it is impossible to carry on a proper inspection. I don't object to the fishermen having to take out licences, but I do object to them having to pay a licence fee.


Mr. JACOBS:: It looks fishy to me.


Grote Stirling: I am surprised to hear any hon. member advance the view that an inspection of articles of trade should not be undertaken.


William Duff: I did not say that. I said
that the man who bought fish should be the man to inspect them, not some official 
appointed either for political or for other purposes who would1 not know whether a fish was good or bad.


Grote Stirling: I repeat that in the early part of his remarks the hon. member said that in any case the inspection was bad-


William Duff: No. I said it was inadequate.


Grote Stirling: -and should not be undertaken by the department. The inspection to which the hon. member for Comox-Alberni has referred is one which has been discussed and considered by the trade concerned for a good many years. Various methods of inspection have been attempted; some have been discarded, and others to which reference has been made have for the last few years been carried on, as I maintain, successfully. There is a difference of opinion on the subject; there is a difference of opinion on most of these subjects, and I quite agree with the hon. member for Cornox-Alberni (Mr. Neill) that possibly the way to thresh it out and give everybody an opportunity of being heard is for the bill to go to the fisheries committee. I have no objection to that. Everybody will have an opportunity to ventilate his views there, even my hon. friend who does not agree with inspection at all, and after the second reading I shall be glad so to move.
Motion agreed to and bill read the second time.
Mr. STIRLING moved that the bill be referred to the committee on marine and fisheries.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. GROTE STIRLING (Acting Minister of Fisheries) moved the second reading of Bill No. 26, to amend the Fisheries Act, 1932.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Morand in the chair.
On section 1-Power to prescribe fees for fishery licences.
William Duff: Will the minister explain
why there should be licence fees? Why should anybody have to pay to catch fish? Is it not bad enough to have to go out in the storms, wind and fog and everything else without having to pay a licence fee in addition before one can catch fish? What is the idea?

Fisheries Act


Grote Stirling: Mr. Chairman, fish have been caught under licence for a very great number of years, and the object of this measure is merely to make sure that a fee can be charged as it has been collected all these years under the Fisheries Act. The question arose and the Department of Justice was asked to rule on whether the wording of the act as it then was covered the case of collecting fees. It was thought wise to put it definitely in so many words into the Fisheries Act, and that is now being done in the proposed amendment.


William Duff: On what particular fisheries
will this licence fee be collected?


Samuel William Jacobs: Whales.


William Duff: Suckers perhaps.


Grote Stirling: There is a very long
list in the report of the Fisheries department. The licences issued are there explained. In the province of Quebec there are 962 licences; in Prince Edward Island, 3,318; in Nova Scotia, district No. 1, 3,918, district No. 2, 6,243, and district No. 3, 4,542; New Brunswick, district No. 1, 1,195, district No. 2, 10,689, district No. 3, 717; Hudson bay and James bay, 5; British Columbia, 15,457. They cover a very great variety of fishing including the small dragger licence, special angling permits, abalone fishery licences, and so on. The fishing is conducted, regulated and supervised under these licences by the department.


William Duff: Do I understand that these licences are for inland fisheries, for trout fishing and the like? They are not for deep sea fishing?


Grote Stirling: Yes, they cover deep sea fishing. Shall I read the licences for No. 1 district Nova Scotia? Would that assist the hon. member?


William Duff: I do not know.


Grote Stirling: They include lobster fishing licences, permits to can lobster, oyster fishing licences, certificates under sections 5355, trap net fishing licences, salmon drift net licences, salmon trap net, pound net or wear licences, special angling permits, set salmon gill net licences, gaspereau weir licences, smelt bag net licences, smelt gill net licences.


William Duff: Does t'he minister mean to tell me that for these licences the fishermen have to pay a fee?


Grote Stirling: They pay fees. They are multifarious in number. I have not a list of
them here, but they run from 25 cents for an oyster licence to S20 for a licence for purse seine fishing.


William Duff: I do not think it is fair or right that a lobster fisherman or any fisherman should have to pay a licence fee. I do not object to t'heir having to take out a licence so that the department can have a record of those fishing and the quantity of fish caught, but I do not think it is right or fair that a fisherman should have to pay a licence fee any more than the man who grows cabbages or cuts dowm trees in the woods should have to pay a licence fee. Why should the men who go out on the Atlantic or on the Pacific or on the great lakes and risk their lives, their boats and their gear have to pay a licence fee to the Fisheries department? I do not object to their 'having to take out a licence so that the department can compile statistics at the end of the year, although to my mind they are not very valuable, because they are not correct; but I do object, as I always have done, to these fishermen having to pay twenty-five cents or a dollar for a licence, or whatever fee the department charges. I want to protest against this bill as I have protested every other session in this house when the matter has come up. I do not think it is fair that these men who go out in the storms and the fog and the wind and the rain and risk their lives and bring new money into this country should have to pay twenty-five cents or any fee to the government before they can catch fish. I strongly urge the minister not to proceed with this bill but to bring in a measure that will do justice to these men who bring new wealth to this country.


Mr. MACDOUGALL:: Has not that been the case for a number of years, under your government as well?


William Duff: Absolutely, and I have always protested against it. I have always been opposed to it.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: I agree with you.


Mr. MacLEAN:: Mr. Chairman, I think that this matter goes a little further than appears on the surface. The very fact that this bill is brought in at this time is an admission on the part of the Fisheries department that they have been illegally collecting licence fees all these years. Anyone who looks into t'he fisheries regulations will see that the department is operating under regulations made by itself and not prescribed
Fisheries Act

under an act of this parliament. If the minister finds it necessary at the present time to bring in a bill to make it legal to collect these fees from the fishermen, it is only fair to assume that a great many af the other acts which the department is doing by regulation are also illegal.


William Duff: Hear, hear.
Mr. MaoLEAN: That is one of the points I tried to bring to the attention of the house last night, that the Department of Fisheries has no right under any statute of this country to lease oyster areas, and that it is being done under the department's own regulations. I contend that if it is necessary to bring in this bill at this time to legalize the collection of fees it substantiates the claim we have made all along that the Department of Fisheries is prescribing and putting into effect regulations which are not on the statute books and which would not stand in a court of law. I would like to have the minister's opinion on that question. If it is necessary to bring in legislation to cover this specific 'case, why not bring in legislation to legalize all the other acts of this department for which there is no statutory authority?


Grote Stirling: As I have already pointed out, it appears as if these fees, which have been collected for many years, have not been supported by definite words in the Fisheries Act. That is recognized and now it is being corrected. The view expressed by the Deputy Minister of Justice may be explained as follows. The amendments are made to clear up any possible doubt that anyone may have as to the legality of the action taken by the governor in council in imposing fees for certain services. In so far as fees that have been paid are concerned, they have been paid under mistake of law and are not recoverable. I understand that there are no outstanding fees which must be collected, and therefore no litigation is pending in which this doubt can be passed upon by a court. As I have already explained, the fees for these licences have been collected for many years and there is nothing new about the issuance of licences nor the collection of the fees entailed. This is to ratify what has now come to light, there being a doubt as to the wording of the act having previously covered the collection of fees.


William Duff: In what the minister has read he has admitted that the department has for many years been collecting fees illegally from the fishermen of this country, and his department through him now comes to this parliament and asks us to ratify what has been on 
its part an illegal act for a great many years. That is precisely what we can understand from the minister's language and from what he has read as handed to him by the deputy of the Minister of Justice. It seems to me, if that is true, that before the minister brings down such ratifying legislation the least he might do is to ask himself, or perhaps to get some word from those who are interested in the industry, as to whether it is the -proper thing to charge a licence fee for catching fish, any more than it is right to charge licence fees for growing wheat or potatoes, or cutting lumber, or making clothes. If the fishermen are to pay a licence fee, why should not everyone else pay a fee for carrying on business? Why should not the lawyers have to pay a licence fee to the federal government for charging the government $150 a day, as Peter White or Mr. Sommerville is doing? Why should the poor fisherman, who goes out in storms and winds to make $2 a day, pay a licence fee before he can catch lobsters? The minister has had a good deal of experience with the people of the country and he knows the hardships that apple growers, farmers and fishermen have to put up with. Why should he allow his officials, after stupidly collecting from fishermen for years a fee which they should not have collected, for catching lobsters or smelts, to come now and ask parliament to legalize the illegal acts of his own department? I am serious about this matter. I say to the minister that he should let it stand and investigate the matter and find out for himself what the feeling is among the fishermen in Cole harbour, Halifax county, or in Ecum Secum in my county, or in the county of the -Minister of Finance, or down in Cheti-camp, in the county of my hon. friend from Inverness, or in Glace Bay, in the county of the hon. -member for South Cape Breton, or in the county of my hon. friend from North Cape Breton? Why does he not find out the views of these people? We are much more interested, in this parliament, than are the officials of the Fisheries department, sitting in the Hunter building, to see that justice is done the fisherman, and I say to the minister in all seriousness that he should allow the bill to stand and -make a thorough investigation. I do not know how long he will be acting minister-I hope not long; I hope that -there will soon be an election so that we may have a change of government and have something done for the fisherman. But whether the minister is in charge of the department for a short or a long period, I say that before legalizing what has been an illegal act in his department for a number of

Fisheries Act
years, he should make haste slowly. He should let the bill stand and investigate the whole matter and inquire from the people who are interested in the business, whether on the Atlantic or on the Pacific, if this legislation is in the best interests of the fisheries.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: When were these licence fees levied on the poor fishermen in Nova Scotia? They were levied under the Liberal government, of which the hon. member was a supporter, and he had ten years in which to protest and make these pious professions on behalf of the fishermen. But he never made any protestations on behalf of the poor, suffering fishermen when he had the opportunity to do so. Now however, when he is in opposition, and on the eve of an election, he makes these pious professions with tears flowing down his cheeks. I say, he had ten years to protest against what was being done, an act perpetrated against the fishermen by the government of which he was a supporter.


William Duff: You remember Rip Van Winkle, Mr. Chairman. He slept forty years.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Twenty.


William Duff: I thought it was forty. At any rate, my hon. friend from Inverness must have been sleeping for forty years.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: You are still asleep.


William Duff: My eyes are open. My hon. friend is not fair to me when he says that I did not protest against these fees while the Liberal party was in power. I did protest while the Liberal party was in power, just as I protested in 1917, 1918 and 1919. I would point out to the hon. gentleman that this act has been on the statute books from the time of Sir John A. Macdonald; it was on the statute books under Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir Robert Borden and all these statesmen. My hon. friend must have been sleeping all these years if he can suggest that I am only now for the first time protesting against these fees on the twelfth day of March, 1935. He knows that in season and out of season I have protested, when the Liberal government was in power and when the Conservatives were in power. I have always said that the department should not tax the fishermen any more than the government taxes anyone else. I hope he will agree with me when I say that I have protested year after year, whether the Liberals or the Conservatives were in power.


Alan Webster Neill: I am sorry to disagree with my hon. friend from Antigonish-Guysborough, but there is really no need to hold up the
passage of this bill. It has been said that the government are ratifying an illegality. They are certainly not ratifying it, because nothing is being done about the past; the act is not retroactive. But they are taking for the	future	the	power to exact	certainfees for fishing licences. It has been suggested that there should not be any such fees and reference has been made to the man growing wheat, and so	on.	But the man	growingwheat is growing it on his own land and not on the	public	domain. The fisheries ofCanada	belong	to	the people and	not to
private individuals.


William Duff: They do not belong to the people; they are international waters.


Alan Webster Neill: To whom do they belong?


William Duff: To the world, to God Almighty.


Alan Webster Neill: My hon. friend can settle that with his God, but I am dealing with the rights of Canadians. Within the three mile limit they certainly do belong to the people of Canada and it is not unreasonable that something should be paid for the privilege. If we cut timber on crown property we pay for the privilege. There is another feature. This department is paying very large sums, in trying to protect the runs of fish, and so on. On the protection of the industry from United States citizens and other foreigners, for the conservation of fish and so on, the department spends enormous sums of money far in excess of the fees collected. On the whole the fees are not unreasonable, and I do not think the man who is asked to pay twenty-five cents or even a dollar a year has any great grievance about the matter; at least I have never heard any great complaint. When the commission of which the hon. member for Antigonish-Guysborough was the very able chairman, sat in British Columbia, he interested himself in having the fees cut down. The fees there were much higher than they are on the Atlantic and his action was quite proper. But this serves a useful purpose. The fishermen themselves receive an advantage because when you have a licence, you get a number; that number has to go on your boat and so forth. You cannot look after that sort of thing for nothing; it costs money. When somebody is suspected of fishing illegally, there is the number on the boat, and the fishermen can trace it right up to the Hunter building, as someone suggests, and find out who the man is. I often receive complaints about people fishing without licences, and I say: Find the number of the boat and I will trace his pedigree right to
Fisheries Act

the end. I do not think the fishermen have any great objection to this; the fees have been collected for many years, and certainly much more is spent on the fishing industry than the amount of the fees collected.


William Duff: I agree with the hon. member for Comox-Alberni that the department spends certain sums of money to develop the fisheries, for fishery guardians and so forth, but my hon. friend seems to forget that where one dollar is spent on the fisheries, twenty-five dollars or more are spent, for instance, on agriculture. If that is the case, why should there not be licence fees for agriculture? Why should a man who grows apples not pay a fee? It is claimed that the fisheries are in the public domain. Does anybody pay a licence fee to snare rabbits?


Alan Webster Neill: Yes.


William Duff: Of course not. If the Minister of Agriculture were here, I would ask him to bring in a bill to make the hon. member for Comox-Alberni pay a licence fee to snare rabbits, for I understand he is a great rabbit hunter. I object to a good deal of legislation that goes through this parliament, because I believe everybody should be treated alike. Why should the fishermen be picked out as the ones to pay licence fees? The hon. member for Comox-Alberni is the man who was complaining in my presence and in the presence of everyone here that there is not sufficient money spent to develop the fisheries of this country. Yet he is trying to make parliament believe that the fishermen should pay licence fees, because, forsooth, there are one or two or a few men poaching in the rivers of British Columbia or on the Atlantic ooast. I do not object to having poachers caught; I do not object to having boats look after the fisheries, but surely the hon. member for Comox-Alberni must realize that millions and millions of dollars are spent by the Department of Agriculture and every other department, whereas very little money is spent for the fisheries. Why should the fishing industry be picked out and the fishermen have to pay licence fees, when the farmers and every other pereon engaged in the natural industries of this country do not have to pay a licence fee? I do not believe the fishermen should be compelled to pay licence fees unless everybody in every other industry is treated alike. The minister comes here to-night with this bill, only because his officials have found out that for years they have been illegally making the fishermen take out licences and pay fees and they realize that they must pass this bill in order to cover up their tracks.


Alan Webster Neill: If I go to shoot rabbits I have to pay a fee two and a half times as great as if I go out fishing.


Mr. VENIOT:: Not to the dominion government.


Samuel William Jacobs: I do not profess to be an expert in fish. Whenever these questions come up in the house, I am perfectly satisfied to have the hon. member for Antigonish-Guys-borough lay down on my behalf and on behalf of those who are not fishermen what he considers to be the law. He did refer however to the fact that lawyers ought to contribute something in the way of licence fees to the upkeep of this country. I quite agree with him. There are different kinds of lawyers; there are ordinary lawyers and expert lawyers, those who appear before the committees of the house, and who, as I understand from the hon. member for Antigonish-Guysborough, are usually paid very handsomely for their services. I think those gentleman can be assimilated to fishermen, particularly when they fish for evidence as they have done so successfully within the last few years before the committees. I am quite willing that those lawyer fishermen, as I ma-y call them, should be brought on to the carpet and asked to explain what their salaries are per annum and be required to pay a reasonable fee which might go into the coffers of this country to help to lessen the very great deficit with which we are confronted. I make that suggestion to the acting minister, and I hope it will be acted upon. But I would ask him to see that the lawyers are divided, as I say, into fisher lawyers and those who do not fish but only sit on the bank.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: The question of this bill
being brought in arose possibly out of a little incident that occurred right in my constituency of a fisherman being fined for fishing without a licence. He protested the case and it is still before the courts. I imagine that was the start of this legislation and is the reason for its being introduced. The case has been put off from time to time, and although the man has endeavoured in every way possible to have his case heard and a decision given, so far the lawyers on both sides apparently wish to put off the case for the present, possibly awaiting some legislation of this kind. This same gentleman who was fined under the Fisheries Act for not having a licence, submitted a long list of questions which I endeavoured to have put on the order paper to be answered in the house. These questions were dealing with this very matter. One of them was:

Fisheries Act
Is clause 3 of the Fisheries Act ultra vires of the dominion parliament?
Another was:
What jurisdiction has the dominion over the fisheries in its tidal waters other than regulating and protecting same?
There are some twenty-five questions asked along the same line. I endeavoured to submit those questions, and I was told by the clerk of the house that they were of a judicial nature and could not be answered by a minister. I then sent the list of questions over to the acting Minister of Fisheries and received a similar reply from him. I may say that when I sent the questions over I asked him to refer them to the justice department for their opinion and a ruling. The reply I received from the minister was that the justice department was there for the purpose of advising the government but not for the purpose of giving a legal opinion to a private individual. Therefore in every attempt we made to bring those questions before the house and get an answer, we were blocked.
The other day at a meeting of the fisheries committee I wished to bring this matter up, and I was told by the chairman of that committee that nothing could be brought up there except matters which were referred to it by the house, and that this question had not .been referred to it. I believe if we could search the records we would find that this whole legislation developed right in my constituency where this man was fined for not having a licence. He brought his case before the courts and it is still before the courts, and now our friends find that they have been acting illegally in the matter all along and want to rectify it by putting through this bill.


Peter John Veniot: As we are on the question
of fees I should like to draw the attention of the minister to a case that has recently developed in my own county. The department evidently recognizes that until this bill goes through they have no legal authority for charging licence fees for fishing. In this case the department or some local officials of the department stepped in and made a law of their own. Notwithstanding that the department admit that they have no authority to impose a licence fee, and come to this parliament to have this bill passed, the local officials imposed a double licence fee in certain sections of New Brunswick upon smelt fishermen. For instance a man has a net and is fishing for smelts through the ice. He pays his two dollar fee or whatever it is, and when the tide no longer suits there he moves to another section. He does not take the place of anyone else, but a complaint may be lodged that
people from one section are moving to another section to carry on the smelt fishing. The local official or inspector of the district makes that fisherman pay a double fee. I know it has been collected without the knowledge of the department. I am not blaming the department for it; it has been imposed by the local inspector claiming to have authority for it under this act, but now we have the admission by the minister that they have no authority to impose even one fee, let alone two. It has been brought to the attention of the department that men refused to pay the second licence fee, and that the mounted police were brought on the ice to arrest them unless they paid it. That has happened within the last three weeks, and I call the attention of the minister to it and I want him to look into it and to reimburse. these fishermen for this second licence fee they had to pay. I have already taken it up with the department; the minister will find my correspondence on file. He will find that this practice was adopted by the local inspector in the hope that by charging a second licence fee he might regulate the fishing. If it was not right for this fisherman to move to another location to fish, why not stop the fishing? Why permit it under a second licence? But evidently the department has no authority to regulate it until this bill goes through.


Grote Stirling: Would the hon. member be good enough to give me the name of the person?


Peter John Veniot: It is not necessary; all
the particulars are on file in the department. Ask your deputy; he will produce my correspondence and the complaints received.


Grote Stirling: I shall be very glad to
have it looked into.


William Duff: The minister has not yet
explained why he is now bringing in a bill to compel fishermen to pay a licence to catch fish, whereas other departments of the government charge no fees. Why is this particular industry picked out? Why are these hard working fishermen compelled to pay fees when no fees are charged by other departments?


Grote Stirling: As has already been
pointed out, the purpose of the fees is to provide the money required for the regulation of fishing, for the provision of boats that look after the fishing and the various measures that are taken for the benefit of the fishermen of Canada. It has been carried on not only for years but for generations, and it is
Fisheries Act

certainly appreciated by the fishing industry that we should carry on that work and charge licence fees to provide the money with which to do so.


Samuel William Jacobs: What do the fees and
licence collections amount to in a year?


Grote Stirling: They range all the way
from 25 cents to S20 a licence.


Samuel William Jacobs: But what is the aggregate?


Grote Stirling: The total revenue was


William Duff: The minister's explanation has not answered my question. I know the value of having boats on the Atlantic or the great lakes or the Pacific coast to protect the fishermen; I think I am seized of that perhaps as well as he is. But why should the minister collect $39,000 in amounts of 25 cents-two bits; is that the term in the west? -from the fishermen when it is not collected from farmers or apple growers in the Okanagan valley? That is what I object to. Surely the minister does not mean to suggest that fishing is the only industry upon which money is spent for its encouragement or protection. The minister must certainly know, because he is a horticulturist himself, that we vote ten times as much money for horticulture and agriculture as for fisheries- ve3, fifty times or perhaps a hundred times as much. The minister cannot get away with the story that it is necessary in order to have those few patrol boats or a few inspectors. Isn't that stupid and ridiculous? For instance in the county in which I live they have one inspector to inspect about 30,000 barrels of pickled herring and mackerel. In the city of Halifax, where perhaps 50,000 barrels come, they have two inspectors, and the minister says that because they have ;hose two inspectors in Halifax, or one in ;he constituency of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance or one in Lunenburg, they have to collect twenty-five cents from Jim Bush at La Have so that he can catch lobsters. If you put the farmers on the same basis, if you put lumbermen on the same basis, or storekeepers, all right; let us tax everyone to death. We are taxed pretty well now; there is so much paternalism and restriction that a man cannot turn around without paying a licence either to the federal or to the provincial governments. I do not know what is going to happen; the result will be that people will not try to do any business; the fishermen will not want to fish or the farmers to grow wheat or potatoes. But when the minister says to this intelligent 
body, a committee of the parliament of Canada, that it is necessary to prescribe and collect these fees because a few patrol boats or inspectors are engaged, he is not fair to himself, let alone to this parliament. As I said, fifty times as much money is voted for agriculture-and I do not say agriculture should pay a fee; as far as that is concerned I am opposed to all sorts of taxation. But why should the minister let his officials have him bring in a bill of this kind to tax the fishermen? My hon. friend says he is not trying to legalize an illegal act, but he has admitted that the collection of these fees for many years was illegal and now he is trying to legalize it.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: Under a Grit government.


William Duff: Sure, and under a Tory government and under a Union government. We have had all kinds of governments in thisl country, and my hon. friend has supported) most of them.


Mr. GOBEIL:: You will have to form one of your own.


William Duff: Well, I think I would do better than my hon. friend would, because 1 under-1 stand that now he is anxious to join a national government. Let me say to my hon. friend from Inverness that the hon. member for Gloucester has reminded me that this fee has been illegally charged by this parliament ever since confederation, so I was right a few moments ago when I said it was done) in Sir John A. Macdonald's time.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: Then why object to making it right now?


William Duff: Because I am opposed to the fishermen paying licence fees. It is bad enough that my hon. friend should have to pay this government a licence fee of $400; it is bad enough that we have to pay $400 out of the little indemnities we receive for coming here and carrying on the business of the country. Why make the fishermen of Inverness pay twenty-five cents for the privilege of catching lobsters? If my hon. friend wants t* pay his $400 let him pay it, but I am opposed to it; I say it is all wrong. Whether it is in connection with unemployment insurance, the eight hour day, a weekly day of rest or minimum wages, unless you can bring all the people who work with their hands and their brains under the arrangement I say this parliament should not pass it, and the same thing applies in this case. Why should the

Supply-National Revenue
fishermea pay licence fees any mere than the farmers or any other class? That is my objection.
Mr. MACDOUGAiLL: Does not that fee of twenty-five cents give them some protection against outsiders coming on to their fishing grounds?


William Duff: Not at all; the licence fee has nothing to do with it. They have some bug professors down there in the Confederation building who are trying to run the business of this country, but to his credit the Minister of Agriculture would not allow them to look after the egg business. He turned them down, after the people of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta turned down the proposal. We can have the 'bug professors, the fisheries inspectors and t'he apple inspectors, but why should the fishermen be the only ones to pay fees? My hon. friend must admit that while we have perhaps fifty apple inspectors in Nova Scotia the apple growers do not pay a licence fee. It is true that they have to take out licences, but they pay no fees. Why should the fishermen be placed in a different category and on a different basis from the apple growers of the Annapolis valley?


Mr. MAODOUGALL:: I agree with my hon. friend.


William Duff: Then what is my hon. friend beefing about?


Mr. DICKIE:: I should like to say a word or two with respect to this matter. I am very much surprised to hear the argument of the hon. member for Antigonish-Guysborough with respect to fishing licences. It is only as a result of eternal vigilance on the part of the fisheries department that we have any salmon on the Pacific coast at the present time. From Alaska to the international boundary we have fishery guardians at every little cove where fish run. If it were not for that fact the fishermen would catch every fish running up those streams in any year, if they could do so. We are protecting the fishermen against themselves. I have never heard very much fault found with the licences they have to secure. They are glad to see that others are licensed, and we are expending ten dollars for every one dollar we get from the fishing industry of Canada. Fishing is not at all on a parallel with the apple industry or any other branch of agriculture. We are spending that money in order to perpetuate t'he run of the salmon. Without these licences and without supervision, which costs a good deal of money each year, I can assure you that the salmon would have been
decimated long ago on the Pacific coast. It is a fight morning, noon and night on the part of those guardians to keep purse seine men and others from going in and scooping up schools of salmon just before they ascend the streams to spawn. As I said before, the present situation is due entirely to the eternal vigilance on the part of the department, and I have nothing but good to say of what has been done by the Department of Fisheries for the fishing industry on the Pacific coats.


William Duff: I have no objection to supervision of the fisheries; my hon. friend did not get me right. I object to the fishermen having to pay a licence fee.


Charles Herbert Dickie: The man who sells ice cream pays a licence fee. Everyone pays a licence fee.


William Duff: Not to t'he dominion government. In 1922 my hon. friend joined with me in opposing the charging of fees to fishermen on the Pacific coast; he and I signed a report that the licence fees were too high. If he and I had it our way we would have cut them out altogether.


Charles Herbert Dickie: Certainly they were too high, but I never stood for t'heir abolition. They have been lowered and they are reasonable to-day. I do not hear the fishermen there kicking about them at all.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Morand in the chair.
Salaries, $798,709; contingencies, $92,700.
Mr. 'GRAY:	Would the minister explain
the increase under contingencies?
Hon. W. A. MATTHEWS (Minister of National Revenue):: This increase is contained in two items, one of $10,000 and one of $8,000. The increase of $10,000 in clerical assistance is to provide sufficient funds to meet the salaries of temporary clerks appointed as a result of permanent officers leaving the service. The salaries of temporary employees cannot be paid from the funds provided for permanent employees. The increase of $8,000 in sundries is to provide sufficient funds to meet the travelling expenses of members of the headquarters staff.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Supply-National Revenue
[Stage Direction]
Salaries and contingent expenses of the several ports of the dominion, including pay for overtime of officers, notwithstanding anything in the Civil Service Act, and temporary buildings and rentals, $6,150,000.
Salaries and travelling expenses of officers of. the inspection, investigation, audit and the preventive service undervaluation services, $971,708.	.
Miscellaneous, including printing and stationery; subscriptions to commercial papers; flags; dating stamps; locks; instruments; express charges on samples; legal forms; legal expenses; premiums on guarantee bonds; uniforms for customs-excise officers; laboratory equipment and supplies, etc., $560,000.
Amount to be paid to the Department of Justice to be disbursed by and accounted for to it for customs-excise secret investigation service, $15,000.
To provide for the administration of the Income War Tax Act 1917 and amendments thereof, and authority for this purpose to create positions and make appointments notwithstanding anything contained in the Civil Service Act and the said positions and staff so appointed are hereby wholly excluded from the operation of the said act, and salary of $9,000 (less statutory deduction), for the commissioner of inome tax, $2,025,000.
Amount to be paid to the Department of Justice to be disbursed by and' accounted for to it for the income tax secret investigation service, $10,000.
Frederick George Sanderson: Would the minister
explain the increase?
Mr. VENlIOT: Under this heading I wish to direct the attention of the minister to a certain occurrence in my county. I referred to it in passing, without giving details, when the Minister of Justice had a matter before the house relating to the mounted police. At the risk of being threatened with arrest or another suit for contempt of court I shall once more lodge an attack against the mounted police in connection with their enforcement of the revenue laws of the country. Early in the session I placed on the order paper the following question:
Were instructions issued by the Department of National Revenue in connection with the disposal of the vessel Paul T seized for infraction of customs regulations; if so, what were such instructions?
The answer to that question was:
Yes, to destroy the vessel.
Then the second question was as follows:
Were instructions issued' by the said department for the disposal of liquors seized on board such vessel; if so, what were such instructions?
And the answer was:
Yes, to destroy the liquor.
I am raising no objection to the destruction of smuggled liquor or the destruction of a vessel conveying smuggled liquors into Canadian waters. I would be the last one

who would wish to protect a smuggler. Having been in the civil service for some years I understand the [DOT] difficulties under which the officials of what in those days was the Department of Customs, now the Department of National Revenue, laboured in order to carry out the revenue laws. Therefore it is not my intention, nor is it to be understood that I bring the matter before the committee with any such intention, to defend those who violate our customs laws. Later in my observations I shall deal at greater length with this phase of the matter.
Turning again to my questions I find that number three is as follows:
Were instructions issued by the Department of National Revenue for the disposal of the stores found on board the Paul T; if so, what were the instructions?
The answer was that no specific instructions were given. If no specific instructions were issued in regard to the disposal of the stores, what authority had the mounted police, acting on behalf of the Department of National Revenue, to take those stores and destroy them before the people of ithe village of Shippigan? What happened? The vessel was destroyed. Late in the fall of the year she was hauled on to the bank, away from the water and clear of the ice. When the order was issued for her destruction the other vessels surrounded her on the beach, and she had to be sawn in two and afterwards burned. The machinery on that vessel, .an auxiliary engine worth $600, they destroyed, breaking it into pieces with a maul. The ship's stores were placed in a house under the protection of the police. Those stores consisted of beef, barrelled beef, canned goods, flour, molasses and so on. Afterwards they were taken out of the house, brought to the beach and destroyed by fire in the presence of a hundred or a hundred and fifty people on direct relief. It is to this point that I draw the attention of the minister. If no specific instructions were issued for the destruction of the stores, what right had the mounted police to do that? I say they had no right to do it. If it were left to the judgment of the mounted police to do what they liked with the	stores-and
apparently it was-and they in turn destroyed these stores while people prayed that they be left so that they could be used to feed little children who, starving by the roadside, watched their destruction, then I must protest.
Having dealt with that angle of the matter let me now refer to the conduct of the officials who destroyed the liquor. The cargo of liquor was valued at about $20,000. It was taken from the vessel and stored in the home of a mounted police official in the village of

Supply-National Revenue
Shippigan. Three weeks after the liquor was stored there, supposedly his house was broken into and twenty-eight cases of the liquor disappeared. A search was made, and persons were placed under arrest, or attempts were made to place them under arrest, for having stolen the liquor. The officials never found out who stole it, but there is a deep seated suspicion in the district that the liquor was not stolen by the individuals upon whom they attempted to place the blame. When the loss was discovered the remaining liquor was moved from Shippigan to Bathurst, a distance of sixty-five miles, and stored in a bonded warehouse.
The order for the destruction of the liquor came at a time when ice had formed in the harbour. Instead of breaking open the cans containing the alcohol and dumping it into the harbour, the mounted police dumped the liquor on a dump heap in the town of Bathurst, leaving no one to protect it. At five o'clock in the afternoon-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Peter John Veniot: When hon. members hear the full story they will not laugh. Having thrown the liquor on the dump heap, some of the bottles were broken and liquor was left in other bottles and in the tin cans which originally contained two and one-half gallons. School children returning from school visited that dump heap and as a result we had the spectacle of little children, some of them under thirteen years of age, staggering in a drunken state through the town because the mounted police had not done their duty and had not taken measures to prevent any person from obtaining access to the dump heap. Their duty was not to destroy it on the dump heap, but to destroy it in the harbour. But having chosen the dump heap I say it was their duty to give some protection and allow no person near the point of destruction until all the liquor had been absorbed into the heap. That is the reason I bring the matter to the attention of the minister.
I should like the minister to understand that while I would support anything having to do with the prevention of smuggling I would not support the conduct of officers of the department who acted as I have indicated in the present instance. The minister or his officials should know that in this instance the dominion government had no legal right to take and to destroy the liquor, nor had they any legal right to order the destruction of the vessel. The vessel never was under seizure by the dominion government. The captain of the vessel indicated that his craft was in distress at a point thirteen miles from shore. He put out his distress signals, with
the result that the government patrol boat came to his aid and towed him to Shippigan harbour. He told the officers he had a cargo of liquor aboard. His hatches were sealed, and when the vessel reached Shippigan harbour the captain and his crew were arrested under a charge lodged not by the Department of National Revenue but byf the government of the province of New Brunswick, indicating that they were charged with having liquor in their possession which had not been purchased from the liquor commission. The captain and his crew were tried. The captain was condemned and confined to gaol, and the vessel became the property of the provincial government. On an appeal to a higher court the crew were freed and the captain was held responsible. Then the Department of National Revenue steps in and enters a case against the captain for having smuggled or attempted to smuggle liquors into Canada. The first case was tried before a provincial police court magistrate under a summary conviction, but the case entered by the Department of National Revenue was tried before a county court judge and jury, and the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. Their verdict was that the captain was not guilty of having smuggled liquors into New Brunswick. The vessel was beyond the three mile limit, and therefore when seized under the conditions I have described, the captain was not guilty of smuggling. I want to know why, after the charge laid by the department against the captain had been tried and disproved, and the captain had been given his liberty and discharged, the department ordered the destruction of that vessel. It was the place of the provincial government to act. Did the provincial government transfer its jurisdiction to the Department of National Revenue? It has got to the point, Mr. Chairman, where this case is going to become an international one. The vessel was a French vessel, and application is being made to the government of France to intervene in the matter and to bring the case before the authorities in Canada for the protection of its citizens. As I said before, I am not raising my voice on behalf of a smuggler. I am raising it against the manner in which things are carried on, and they are carried on in such a way that the conduct of the officials of the national revenue department has made this an international question.
These are the points to which I wish to direct the attention of the minister, and I hope he will have them gone into thoroughly. I am not blaming his department, but I do say that unless it can be shown that this

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captain violated the customs laws the Department of National Revenue had no jurisdiction and no authority to proceed in the way they did, and in so acting illegally they have brought about an international question between Canada and the republic of France.


Robert Charles Matthews: Mr. Chairman, I am
very glad indeed to hear the recital which my hon. friend from Gloucester has given. If the facts are as set forth I think the captain would have had recourse against the department in the courts, if action was taken within thirty days.


Peter John Veniot: He could not do it without a fiat, so what is the use of talking?


Robert Charles Matthews: The Royal Canadian
Mounted Police are responsible for the preventive service police work in connection with the customs and excise laws. However, they are not attached to the Department of National Revenue and are not affected by the vote now before the house. Technically, I do not think a general discussion of this nature is in order. I am always very glad to receive particulars of any case such as has been mentioned by my hon. friend, arising out of the enforcement of the customs and excise acts, and if given particulars I shall be pleased to look into any case.


Peter John Veniot: I am sorry the minister
thinks this is not in order on this item. If I had thought it was not in order I would not have brought it up at this time, but I do not see any other item on which I could bring it up. The department say they issued orders in this case, and they issued them to the mounted police, and the mounted police acted on the orders of this department.


James Shaver Woodsworth: There is another
matter to which I should like to direct the attention of the minister. A few days ago I placed on the order paper a question as to banned books, and the reply was given me by the Postmaster General that it was against the practice of the department to give the names of the books that were banned on the ground that it might help to advertise them. That seems to me to be an absurd position and one that I think cannot very well be maintained.
A few days ago I received a complaint from a friend of mine, a university professor, who had ordered some books from abroad. I do not know the names of the books, but when the books came he was informed that they could not be admitted. He asked the reason and the postal or customs authorities would not give him any satisfaction at all.

He then asked for a list of the books that were banned, because evidently the postal people had been supplied with such a list by the customs department, but the postmaster refused to give him any information. It seems to me that that is a position that is entirely incompatible with anything like real democracy, and further than that, it places any ordinary citizen in a very awkward position indeed.
Since that time I have had the following document given to me. It is signed by the subcollector of customs and excise divisions, national revenue department, Prince George, B.C., and reads as follows:
This office has received a package of books from Russia addressed to you, and I beg to advise that only the following of this shipment is permitted entry into Canada, namely; An American Worker in a Moscow Factory; The First Business Accounting Brigade; The Land of Inventors; The Moscow Theatre for Children; Moscow Old and New; Industrial Technical Intelligentsia in the U.S.S.R.; Lenin.
A card for the duty on same is enclosed herewith.
The following books which may be returned to the exporters at your expense are: Interviews with Foreign Workers in a Moscow Factory; Soviet Ukraine To-day; German Workers in a Moscow Factory; Bucher; The Man in Uniform; Our Foreign Policy; Ready for Defence; The Results of the First Five Year Plan; Report on the work of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.; Religion and the Church in the U.S.S.R.; Youth in the Soviet Union; Kolkozniki; From Stalingrad to Kusbus.
The weight of these books is two and a half pounds, and' the return postage rates are one cent per two ounces book rate or $1.32 for the two and a half pounds, parcel post rate, as quoted by the post office here. Will you kindly advise what you wish done with these and also kindly furnish us with the name and address of the exporters?


Samuel William Jacobs: Were these books in
English?


James Shaver Woodsworth: These were apparently in English; I am going entirely by the letter. My point is this. What protection has any Canadian citizen or any importer in a matter of this kind? I am not at all familiar with any of these books, but from the titles I cannot see any very real distinction between the books that are allowed to come in and those that are forbidden. The books in one list are allowed in and the others are not only forbidden but the return postage on them must be paid by the importer. It seems to me that the least that can be done is to inform the public what books are banned; then we should know enough not to import them. But when we are not informed as to what books are banned

Supply-National Revenue
and we send an order, then find that they are banned and that we are required to pay return postage, it is a very unfair arrangement indeed. Who is responsible for prohibiting this second list from coming in, and on what principle are they banned when the books on the first list are allowed in?


Robert Charles Matthews: The department has
an examiner of publications who issues orders in regard to the books that may be imported, and he prohibits those that are treasonable or seditious or of an immoral or indecent character. I do not come intimately into contact with the literature to which the hon. gentleman refers; consequently I do not know very much about it. The ramifications of the department are very wide and we do not publish a list of the books that are banned, but my hon. friend may come to the department at any time and talk with the examiner and see the list of books prohibited.
Mr. WOODiSWORTH:	I do not think
that solves the problem of my friend in the university who wrote me about this matter, nor of the importer in Prince George. It does not solve the problem for a thousand other people, because they have no opportunity of going to the department and finding out what books are banned.


Robert Charles Matthews: They can go to the
nearest collector and inquire.


James Shaver Woodsworth: They send their orders from catalogues, and then there comes a letter of this kind, which seems to me to be perfectly arbitrary. Certain books are permitted and others, which from the titles are indistinguishable from those that come in, are banned. How is the importer to know when he is not permitted to see the list of those that are banned?


Robert Charles Matthews: Before a book is
banned it is carefully examined in the department.
Mr. WOODiSWORTH: I will give another example. In the last year I have received complaints about certain literature, again from Russia. Several years ago, shortly after I had been in Russia for a few weeks, I stopped in London and ordered a weekly paper from Russia to keep in touch with what was going on there. I have not continued my subscription but was interested at the time. I have no complaint to make because my copy of this weekly paper came through without trouble, but a number of my friends across the country have written me that their copies have been held up in the mails. There is something wrong there;
52582-105*
either some over zealous man in the postal service is exceeding his authority or else the instructions given from head office are not sufficiently clear. 'Coming to my main point, I do think that there ought to be sent out some sort of list of books that are banned so that people will know. Certainly they should not be regarded as breaking the law or be put to the inconvenience and expense of returning books that are banned when they do not know what books are banned.


Robert Charles Matthews: I can only assure my hon. friend that we do the best we can in the circumstances. Someone has to take responsibility for the class of literature that comes in, and that responsibility belongs for the time being to my department. We are as generous as we can be as we are in all things, and I regret if the hon. gentleman has been put to any inconvenience.
Mr. WOODiSWORTH: This is not personal; Of have not been.


Robert Charles Matthews: Well his friends may have been. I assure him that we will do everything we can to facilitate matters for them so long as the literature comes within the law and is of a class that can be properly admitted. We do not publish the list, but if he will come to the department he will find the officers courteous, kind and willing to do everything they can to assist him.


Frederick George Sanderson: Will the minister explain the increase of $98,500, approximately ten per cent over last year?


Robert Charles Matthews: It might be cleared up if I answered item by item. The first item is an increase of $12,000, which is explained as follows. Owing to the necessity of having sufficient funds to meet increased expenditure in connection with cartage, travelling and living expenses of relieving officers, removal expenses of officers transferred, overtime, purchase of land; and sundry small items, an increase has been provided in contingencies amounting to $71,577. From this increase of $71,577 deduct the saving in salaries which has been brought about by reduction in staff, (forty-three officers), provisional promotions without salary increase and appointments to positions at lower salaries than paid previous occupants, amounting to $59,577, and this leaves a net increase of $12,000. The second item deals with expenses of investigation, audit, preventive service. The increase here is $55,010 and it is explained as follows. Twenty additional excise tax auditors; two additional stenograph*
Supply-National Revenue

ers in the audit branch; one cashier and computing clerk transferred from the staff at the port of Winnipeg to the audit branch; four
investigators of drawback claims; two customs excise clerks; four typists, grade 2; amount required to meet travelling expenses ol additional auditors and investigators of drawback claims, making a total of $71,560. That is the gross increase. From the gross increase of $71,560 deduct the saving in salaries of positions not filled permanently, and the saving in salaries of persons appointed or promoted at lower salaries than their predecessors received, amounting to $16,550, leaving a net increase of $55,010. The next item is miscellaneous, and here the increase is $60,000. The increase in this instance is due to the necessity of providing sufficient funds t,o cover our requirements in stamps and labels and for the replacement of typewriters, adding machines and cash registers which cannot be further repaired. I would 'be glad to give the details of this appropriation, but the large items are for stamps and1 labels, $300,000, and for printing, $100,000. The others are small. That accounts for the total increase of $93,510.


Frederick George Sanderson: I was in error when I said that the increase was ten per cent, because the total vote is $9,731,000. It is practically one per cent and it is a good deal of money. The minister however has explained the increase. Has he any other item than this, or does this complete his department?


Robert Charles Matthews: We have no other item in the main estimates. There may be one in the supplementaries, but as to that I do not know at present.


Samuel William Jacobs: May I revert for a moment to the question that was put to the minister by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre? Would he give us the name of the official censor in the department who passes on this literature?


Robert Charles Matthews: Mr. J. S. Roe.


Thomas Reid: There is a case I would like
to draw to the minister's attention in connection with the collection of the sales tax as affecting a small brick plant close to where I live. This small plant has an investment of some $15,000 and employs thirtyifive meet. It has had its books regularly audited for some six years, and every year after the audit it has paid the tax computed by the officials who went through its books. But two years ago the taxing officials said: "We have made a mistake and want to go through your books

again, because we believe we should have charged you a higher tax. They made two audits of the books and claimed that the brick plant should have contributed more money by way of sales tax. The company resisted the claim successfully and the matter was dropped. But last year along came officials from the same department saying: "We want to look over your books again; we are going to go through them in another form this time and probably we will find out then what was wrong with the amount which you have paid to the department." This company claims that what has taken place has amounted to persecution; that it takes about four months to make an audit, and that it is impossible to say at the moment what price was charged on the bricks sold, because as a matter of fact many of the bricks were sold on what is called a barter basis, that is, men providing labour or wood and in return getting bricks. But the company is now compelled to go out of business owing, as it claims, to the work of these officials. They say:
The utter impossibility of a small industry paying up six years' penalties and arrears of sales tax long after the government's own assessment, based on its own audit, had been satisfied, is such that we have no recourse but to go out of business and wind up the company.
Has the minister any information regarding this plant? The name is the Vancouver Brick and Tile Company, and it was located at Sullivan, a place about eleven miles from the city of New Westminster. I feed that the officials have been over officious in this regard and that there is some ground for complaint. Has the minister received any complaints?


Robert Charles Matthews: I have no personal
knowledge of this company. I may be wrong, but I am under the impression that there is an interlocking arrangement; and that we have had difficulty in getting at the facts and the proper values. I do not however say that as a statement of fact, but I should be very glad to review this case and talk it over with my hon. friend if he cares to come and see me about it. In that branch of the department we audit the books of 22,000 firms. I cannot undertake to retain in my memory the results of all these audits, but I shall be glad to look into the matter.


Thomas Reid: I understand from the company itself that protests were made to the minister's department and also to the hon. member for East Kootenay, and little action was taken regarding their complaint. Now they have gone out of business due to this.

Supply-National Revenue
They say that there are about 60,000 invoices to go through and some 300,000 delivery slips, because the output of the plant is sold in small lots. If that kind of thing is going on throughout the length and breadth of this country, I am afraid it will shut down a good many of the plants. I should be glad if the minister would look into the whole matter and give me an answer as to what it was that necessitated three audits by these officials.


Robert Charles Matthews: I can only repeat that I shall be very glad to review the case. I cannot say anything more about it at the moment.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: May I
ask the minister if he will do the same thing in regard to the Shenahan Company of Vancouver l He will recall the correspondence. Will he either review the case or give me an opportunity of discussing it on the supplementary estimates?


Robert Charles Matthews: I wrote a very complete letter on this subject to my hon. friend to-day and sent it to him by hand. I hope he has received it.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Not yet.


Mr BLAIR:: There are many complaints
that United States firms are taking money out of Canada. I should like to make some inquiries of the minister. How many Canadians have incomes of over $50,000 a year? Hitherto it has always been over 600. This year he has reported that there are 390. I would like to know why there is this great reduction. I would also like to know how many there are in Canada who have incomes of from $200,000 to $400,000. It is felt that companies in Canada in many cases are being bled by Wall street, and some information as to the facts would be of interest; we would like to know if we are maintaining our own with the people of Wall street. It is not the desire to interfere with any individual or mention any names, but the numbers might be given of those with incomes between $200,000 and $400,000.


Robert Charles Matthews: My hon. friend is quite correct in saying that in Canada there are 390 persons with incomes of more than $50,000 a year. But how many have an income of $200,000 or $400,000, if any, I cannot say. If the hon. member will allow me I shall be pleased to look into the matter.


Thomas Reid: Have members of the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police working in conjunction with the minister's department the authority or right to set a valuation on goods
smuggled into Canada and charge duty on that valuation? Suppose for instance a man is caught with a bicycle smuggled in from across the line-this is just a hypothetical case -and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police found him with it; in such a case are they permitted by the department to place a valuation upon the bicycle and collect duty on that valuation, or should they take him before the proper customs official in order that a proper valuation may be placed upon it?


Robert Charles Matthews: Is my hon. friend speaking of the smuggling into the country of a bicycle or any other article and then its discovery by the police?


Thomas Reid: Yes.


Robert Charles Matthews: In that event I am
afraid the article would be seized and forfeited under the law.


Thomas Reid: I have two cases in mind that perhaps I shall bring up later. One was in connection with a radio; the man was haled before the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who placed a valuation on the radio and he paid duty on that valuation. I was wondering if that is a common practice.


Robert Charles Matthews: We would require to
have full particulars. There are entries running in number to two million a year in customs and excise. If my hon. friend will give me the particulars he will receive a complete answer.


Mr. GOLDING:: Have any sums been collected by the income tax department as a result of revelations before the price spreads and mass buying commission, and if so what is the amount?


Robert Charles Matthews: I am informed that
the answer is no; no amount has been collected.


Mr. BOTHWELL:: The mounted police
from time to time seize slot machines that are being operated illegally. I have a report that many of these machines have been brought into Canada without payment of duty. When a machine is seized for being operated illegally, an order is usually made that the machine be destroyed. Does the minister's department still proceed against the man who had that machine in his possession and collect the duty?


Robert Charles Matthews: I am informed that if the police seize the machine under such circumstances they destroy it.
.Supply-National Revenue


Charles Edward Bothwell: But do you also collect the duty? The reason it is seized and confiscated and destroyed is because the criminal law is being broken, but that does not affect the Department of National Revenue. If the machine was brought into the country illegally then it seems to me that whoever has it in his possession should be proceeded against for the duty that should have been paid.


Robert Charles Matthews: In that case he loses the machine, but there is no duty collected.


Charles Edward Bothwell: I ask the minister if that is a fair proposition. These machines have become a menace in various parts _ of Canada, and the police are having great difficulty in enforcing the law against them. Ostensibly the machines are for selling chewing gum or some other article, 'but frequently they are changed so as to pay nickels or quarters instead of mints and gum. I understand, that many hundreds of these machines were imported illegally, no duty having been paid on them. When they are confiscated by the police as gambling devices they are destroyed. But my point is that they are de-troyed under the criminal code, and that should not affect the right of the department to collect the duty that should have been paid. They are brought into the country in the first place as legal machines, but are used illegally. I think any one harbouring a machine^ of that kind should be responsible for finding out whether the duty has been paid before he takes the machine into bis possession.


Robert Charles Matthews: If they come in legally the duty must have been paid.


Charles Edward Bothwell: I think we are at cross purposes as to the word "legally." They are legal machines in the sense that they can be operated legally, but they are illegal when operated contrary to the provisions of the criminal code, in other words, when they become gambling devices. My point is that owing to the difficulty the police are experiencing in controlling the operation of these machines, the department khould assist by tracing every machine back to ascertain whether or not the duty has been paid, and if not, fine the individual who is harbouring it. I ask the minister to consider that question and see if his department cannot help the various police forces in Canada in that way. I believe it would restrain those who are inclined to take such machines into their possession if they knew that in addition to losing the machine they may also have to pay the duty.


Robert Charles Matthews: I can only repeat what I said before; if I have full particulars I shall look into it. We are continually following goods that have been smuggled into the country. But if any machine is brought in duty paid and then operated illegally I am afraid it is not a matter for my department.


Charles Edward Bothwell: I appreciate that, but the report is that most of these machines are smuggled into the country in the first place.


Robert Charles Matthews: That is just a general report?


Charles Edward Bothwell: That is a general report, and I would like to know if the minister has any information to give the committee in that connection.


Robert Charles Matthews: I have no information, but certainly I will investigate the matter.


Charles Edward Bothwell: These machines are
being seized by the police all the time, an odd one here and there, and it seems to me it is a matter that should be looked into by the department.


Mr. ELLIOTT:: The minister will recall
that when his estimates were before the committee a year ago there were certain questions pending with regard to the powers of the tariff board and certain rulings given by them. Have any fresh disputes arisen which have been submitted to the supreme court since that time?


Robert Charles Matthews: No.


Mr. VALLANCE:: It has been drawn to
my attention that it is impossible for a person to buy a car in the United States and import it into Canada. I should like to ask if that condition exists to-day.


Robert Charles Matthews: There is nothing to
prevent a person from buying a car in the United States and bringing it into Canada, on paying the duty, so long as it is not a used car.


Mr. DONNELLY:: What do you mean by a used car? How long must it be used to become a used car?


Robert Charles Matthews: A used car is one not manufactured during the current calendar year.


John Vallance: Then I should like to
place a case before the minister, that of a Canadian citizen temporarily in the United States who buys an automobile which he drives for eight or ten days. Then he crosses the border. Is it possible for him to bring

Supply-National Revenue
that new car, which he has driven for a week or ten days, into Canada if he pays the duty?


Robert Charles Matthews: Certainly.


Mr. LUCHKOVICH:: I should like to
ask a question in connection with this matter of cars. When I was in Chicago last Easter I saw a Chrysler car advertised for $495. When I came back to Ottawa I saw the same type of Chrysler car selling for something around $900. Will the minister explain che reason for that difference in price? What elements enter into the price of the car in Canada? If that is the same car I saw here in Ottawa I should like to buy it in the United States and bring it here, because I would save about $200 or $300 by doing so.


Samuel William Jacobs: I suggest that the minister
invite the hon. member to see him in his office to-morrow in order to discuss the matter fully.


Mr. HANSON (Skeena):: I should like to ask the minister a question with regard to the regulations issued to the collectors of customs. In the case to which I am referring a man bought a radio in the United States. It came to the customs in the ordinary way and he paid the customs duty, which I presume was levied according to the instructions issued to the collector at that port. Six months later he received a letter from the collector saying there was $40 more to pay on the radio. It seems to me that when that person bought that radio in good faith and had it shipped in the ordinary way, paying the duty demanded at the time it arrived in the country, he should not be asked to pay an additional sum six months later. I should like the minister to explain how such a thing can occur. It seems ridiculous, but I know it to be a fact. I should like to know if the customs officers can collect an additional duty six months or a year later.


Robert Charles Matthews: If my hon. friend will give me the name and the port of entry I will certainly investigate.


Olof Hanson: The port of entry was Prince Rupert. I do not know the name, but I shall be only too glad to secure it, because I know that occurred last year; the man was asked to pay an additional duty six months after he received the goods. If the minister will take up the matter I will secure the information and see him later.


Robert Charles Matthews: Certainly.


Charles Edward Bothwell: I should like to ask one other question in connection with our old friend gasoline. Some time ago the fixing of values for duty purposes was done away with. In the importation of gasoline from the United States are there any imposts other than the duty of 2J cents a gallon?


Robert Charles Matthews: There is the special excise tax and also the sales tax.


Charles Edward Bothwell: Anything else? Is there anything in the way of dumping duty in addition to the 2| cents per gallon?


Robert Charles Matthews: That would depend
upon the facts of the case, after investigation. If the gasoline is being dumped of course the dumping duty would apply.


Charles Edward Bothwell: Has the minister any record of recent imposition of dumping duties on gasoline brought in from the United States?


Robert Charles Matthews: There may have been but I could not tell without looking it up. There is no fixed value. No general action has been taken, but there may have been a particular case.


Charles Edward Bothwell: I would be able to get that information by writing the department?


Robert Charles Matthews: Yes.


John Vallance: It is not clear in my mind yet as to just how the duty is applied on a car imported from the United States. I am a private citizen of Canada; I go to the United States and buy a new car, which I run for five, seven or ten days. Then I come to the port of entry. I want the minister to tell me the duty that must be paid on that car by me, a private citizen, and if there is any difference between that and the duty paid by an importer of cars.


Robert Charles Matthews: In the instance given by my hon. friend he would pay the duty on the retail list price. In the other case, if my hon. friend is referring to a dealer in cars, the dealer would pay the same rate of duty on the list price less twenty per cent.


John Vallance: Then am I to understand from the answer given by the minister that it is possible for me, a private citizen of Canada, to import from the United States a new car that has been used for five, seven or ten days and, on paying the duty, bring it in to Canada as a new car? Can I do that as a private citizen?


Robert Charles Matthews: Yes. I think I gave that information to the hon. gentleman a few moments ago. He can do that.
Supply-National Revenue


John Vallance: Is it correct in practice? Does your department permit that?


Robert Charles Matthews: The commissioner of customs says we are doing it every day.


John Vallance: I do not like to mention specific cases, but I know of a specific case where a private citizen of Canada was not permitted to import a car from the United States. I think the minister's officials at least have knowledge of the case. It was a new car, used for perhaps about seven days before the attempt to import it into Canada.


Robert Charles Matthews: Was this a reicent case?


John Vallance: Quite recent, yes.


Robert Charles Matthews: If the member will give me the facts in confidence I shall be pleased to look into them.


Olof Hanson: A friend of mine received a Christmas present from Europe, consisting of a cigarette lighter which cost about 30 cents, or, as the invoice which I have in my possession indicates, one krone and ten ore. He received a letter indicating that the gift had been forwarded to him, and when it arrived at the customs office he was asked to come down and clear it. Before he could get it out of the hands of the customs officials he had to pay $1.76, for which I hold the receipt. How could any customs official arrive at that amount as the duty payable on an article of that value? How do they set their valuations? Is it a dumping duty or some other kind of duty?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: A Christmas duty.
Mr. HANiSON (Skeena): I should like to know how the amount would be arrived at, especially in view of the fact that the invoice was sent with the lighter, and that a receipt was given for the amount paid to the customs.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: A burning shame.


Robert Charles Matthews: I do not know what to say about that. I cannot conceive of a duty being imposed such as the hon. member has mentioned.


Olof Hanson: i can produce the receipt and the lighter.


Robert Charles Matthews: I can scarcely credit so high a duty on an article costing 30 cents. However, there are 5,500 employees in the department, and of course the human element will enter into all matters of administration. Sometimes mistakes are made. But I shall 	,|
be very glad to look into the matter, I should like to have the document the hon. member mentioned.


Olof Hanson: I shall give it to the minister.


John Vallance: In the opinion of the minister or the officials in front of him, how long has a citizen of Canada visiting the United States and buying a car there to be the possessor of it before it is considered second hand, for purposes of importation into Canada?


Robert Charles Matthews: I cannot have made myself clear to the hon. member.


John Vallance: I do not think the minister did.


Robert Charles Matthews: What I intended to say was this: My officials inform me that if a Canadian goes to the United States and buys a new car, no matter how far he may have driven it, he may bring it in upon payment of duty. He cannot, however, buy a second band car and import it. Is that clear?


John Vallance: That is not the point. Suppose a private citizen of Canada-not a dealer, but a common every day Canadian citizen-goes to the United States, buys a new car and imports it into Canada, Can he do so, no matter how far the car has travelled in the United States or how long he has had it?


Robert Charles Matthews: Provided it is a new car, yes.


John Vallance: Would the minister give me a definition of a new oar?


Robert Charles Matthews: I have given the definition twice, but I shall give it again. A new car is a car manufactured in the calendar year in which it is purchased.


John Vallance: And imported.
Mr. MEElQIEiR (St. Henri): That would apply even if the man used the car for six months in the United States?


Robert Charles Matthews: Yes, certainly. H he is in the United States and buys a car this year he may use it for six months over there and then bring it in as a new car and pay duty on it.


Mr. CAMPBELL:: Suppose he buys in the following December a car made in January, is it still considered a new car?


Robert Charles Matthews: Ilf it is a new car, that is, if be buys it as a new car.

Supply-Finance


Milton Neil Campbell: But suppose it has been used during the year by someone else?


Robert Charles Matthews: No.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: That would be a second hand car.


Mr. TOTZKE:: Suppose a ear is manufactured in December, 1934, and it is bought from the warehouse in January, 1935, would the car be new or second hand? The car I have in mind has never been out of the warehouse.


Robert Charles Matthews: I am told that that would be prohibited importation.


James J. Donnelly: I understand it makes no difference what price the private individual may pay for the car in the United States; he must pay the duty on the retail price. He may buy it at the wholesale price, but that does not make any difference 'because when he comes to the boundary line he has to pay the duty on the retail price of the car in the United States.
Mr. MATTHEW'S: Only a dealer may Obtain a dealer's discount when bringing a car in.


James J. Donnelly: Suppose I go across the line and buy a car for which 1 have paid only the wholesale price, as shown by an invoice in my possession; when 1 come to the boundary line I understand I have to pay duty on the retail price. It seems to make no difference when I state the price I paid for the car.
Mr. MATTHEW'S: You pay the duty on the fair market value as sold for home consumption.


Charles Edward Bothwell: If I had gone to California last November, bought a car in that state, and came back to Canada this month, I would not be permitted to bring it into Canada, although I had driven it those three or four months?


Robert Charles Matthews: The hon. member is quite correct.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Salaries, $293,957; contingencies, $33,026. Inspector General of Banks-
Salaries and contingencies, $22,000.
Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Is it the intention of the Department of Finance to disclose to hon. members complete information with respect to the' newly formed Bank of Canada, its officers, the salaries of the
staff, and such other information as might be deemed to be in the best interests of the public service?


Hon. E. N. RHODES (Minister of Finance):: That is a comprehensive question, involving a matter of major policy. In the past we have followed a policy of marked distinction in dealing with separate bodies, although such bodies may have been set up by parliament. I should say that it would be quite fitting and proper that the salaries of the officers named in the first instance should be disclosed. But the minutiae of the cost of management, the salaries of individual employees, how much ink they use, how much sealing wax and that sort of thing-I do not use that illustration for the purpose of making the question of my hon. friend appear ludicrous, because it is a perfectly fair question; I merely carry it to that extreme point as indicating that the intimate and minute details of the management of the bank would not I think be a proper subject for inquiry and disclosure as a matter of course. That is at the moment my reaction to the question put to me by my hon. friend, but I should like to turn it over in my mind a little furtheT before I give him an official and final answer, because it is a question of policy which should be settled on a basis satisfactory to the house and to public opinion generally, rather than one which should be permitted to become a matter of controversy as to how far we should or should not go in the disclosing of information. I would prefer, therefore, that my hon. friend should not at the moment press for a minute or detailed reply to his inquiry; before the session is over I shall be quite prepared to make a statement as to government policy in the matter.


John Campbell Elliott: Does the salary of the superintendent in bankruptcy come under Finance?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Yes, under another item.


John Campbell Elliott: The question I wanted to ask is similar to one I asked a year ago, and perhaps it will save time if I mention it now. When the superintendent of bankruptcy was being appointed it was suggested by the minister who was piloting the bill through the house that it was hoped the result of this appointment would be to reduce the cost of bankruptcy proceedings and that the creditors would get a greater percentage of their claims than they had previously been receiving. I was anxious to know if the minister could give me for the past year a statement of these amounts: What were the claims filed, the total
Supply-Finance

amounts of the assets of the bankrupts, and the amount that actually reached the hands of the creditors?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I merely called this item
of civil government to-night, Mr. Chairman, for the purpose of qualifying the department. I did not come prepared to answer questions with respect to details of bankruptcy, because that item will be called on another occasion, when, if this will be satisfactory, I shall be pleased to give my hon. friend an answer to the question he has put.


John Campbell Elliott: That will be quite satisfactory.


Albert Frederick Totzke: Has this item any relation to the comptroller of the treasury?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: That comes under another item, but I have no objection to my hon. friend putting his question on this item.


Albert Frederick Totzke: Is there anything in this
vote dealing with the comptroller of the treasury?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Not specifically.


Albert Frederick Totzke: That is under another
item?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Yes.


James J. Donnelly: Who is doing the work that was done last year by the tariff adviser?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: That is an added obligation resting on the shoulders of the remainder of the staff.
Mr. CASGRAlN:	We will take note of
that.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Miscellaneous-	...	,.
To provide for hospitality in connection with visitors from abroad, $5,000.
Mr. SPENCER:: Why the decrease in this item?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It is more in conformity
with the average amount that is required.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Wednesday, March 13, 1935