1935-02-26

Hon. J. D. CHAPLIN (Lincoln) moved:: That the standing committee on banking and commerce be empowered to sit while the house is sitting.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JEAN FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata):: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, and purely as a matter of procedure, may I bring to the attention of the cabinet ministers page 109 of the votes and proceedings for February 8. They will see on that page something to which I shall direct their attention.
Whereas the eight hour day convention appears to have lapsed since 1921 is it the intention of the government to proceed with the bill based on such convention? This is stupendous, but it lapsed fourteen years ago.


Right Hon.   S@: In answer to the hon.
member for Temiscouata may I say this matter will be brought to the attention of the Prime Minister, and the question may be asked when the resolution standing in his name is before the house.
SALE OF BUTTER On the orders of the day:


Mr. J. A. MERCIER (Laurier-Outre-mont):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir). Yesterday the minister gave a complete answer with regard to charges to the effect that adulterated butter was being put on the Montreal market. Has the minister any further information he could give the house to-day?


Hon. ROBERT WEIR (Minister of Agriculture):: Only this, that our chief inspector has been instructed to get in touch with the organization which made the statement to see if they can give any information which will enable the department to make any more thorough investigation than has already been made.
PUBLIC WORKS PROGRAM On the orders of the day:


Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Quebec East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the minister of Marine (Mr. Duranleau). In the law passed last year concerning an expenditure of $40,000,000 for public works it is stated that tenders must be asked before works are proceeded with. I should like to ask the minister if tenders for the harbour works of Quebec are being asked publicly, by way of the newspapers, or are they asked only from private firms.


Hon. ALFRED DURANLEAU (Minister of Marine):: Mr. Speaker, in connection with those public works of the Department of Marine, tenders have been asked) from a certain number of private firms. In some cases, as many as ten firms were invited to tender.


Ernest Lapointe: Why not public tenders?


Alfred Duranleau: Because, as the house was told last session, these were relief works, and we thought it was better to have-

League of Nations


Mr. NEILL:: Relief for whom?


Alfred Duranleau: The government and my department thought it was more advisable to have the work done by local contractors so as to relieve unemployment in the locality.


Ernest Lapointe: Is it not a fact that only the friends of my hon. friend's party have been asked to tender?


Alfred Duranleau: My hon. friend from Quebec East is entirely wrong.



LEAGUE OF NATIONS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Right Hon.   S@: Yesterday the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) asked a question about the withdrawal of Paraguay from the League of Nations. In reply I would say that the government has been informed that Paraguay has given formal notice to the secretary general of the League of Nations of her intention to withdraw from
the league.	,
The hon. member for Temiscouata inquired what stand had been taken by the Canadian government in the matter. No stand in the matter has been taken by the government of Canada nor by the government of any .other member of the league. Under article 1, section 3 of the covenant "any member of the league may, after two years' notice of its intention so to do, withdraw from the league, provided that all its international obligations and all its obligations under this covenant shall have been fulfilled at the time of its withdrawal."
It will be noted that withdrawal from the league cannot in any case take effect until two years after notice has been given.


Jean-François Pouliot: Thank you very much.



NORTH BATTLEFORD ENUMERATORS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. CAMERON R. McINTOSH (North Battleford): Mr. Speaker, I have a question to direct to the acting leader of the government. Under the Dominion Franchise Act assented to July 3, 1934, the government appointed a dominion franchise commissioner. The commissioner then appointed registrars for the 245 electoral districts in Canada. The registrars in turn appointed the necessary enumerators to record the electors for voting purposes throughout Canada. Correspondence received from the North Battleford constituency-
Mr. SPEAKER:: I would ask the hon. gentleman to put his question.
[Mr. Duranleau.l


Mr. McINTOSH:: I am just coming to it, Mr. Speaker.


An hon. MEMBER:: Make a speech some other day.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I am not making any speech at all.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Order.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I was stating, Mr. Speaker, that correspondence received from the North Battleford constituency states that many enumerators have not yet beeen paid for services rendered. Now my question is this-


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I would ask the hon. gentleman to make the foundation for his question as brief and as much to the point as possible, and then put his question.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I am endeavouring to do that, Mr. Speaker.


An hon. MEMBER:: Without any circumlocution.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: My question is this: Since money is scarce and debt-collecting legislation is the order of the day, will the minister investigate the matter and see that all enumerators not yet paid for work done months ago shall be paid forthwith?


Right Hon.   S@: I will have inquiries made.


Hon. C. H. CAHAN (Secretary of State):: As a matter of fact, on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I may say that the franchise commissioner is not appointed by the government, and the present commissioner was not appointed by the government. He was appointed by this House of Commons.



SUPPLY-UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF AMENDMENT TO MOTION OF MINISTER OF FINANCE

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday,February 25, consideration of the motion of the Minister of Finance that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to resolve itself again into committee of supply, and on the proposed amendment of Mr. Mackenzie (Vancouver).
['As the acting Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Stirling) has stated that he is willing that this matter be considered by the committee on marine and fisheries, my remarks will be very brief. I am disappointed that the minister makes the reservation that the government will not accept the principle of the bill. To me that is a straight direction to the committee in advance that the principle of prohibiting seines in that area does not meet with the approval of his department or of the government. I thought when he was going to refer the bill to the committee he would do so without any such reservation,\nFisheries Act', 'allowing the committee to decide the matter after hearing evidence, if they consider it necessary to call evidence.\nIn view of the fact that the acting minister has stated that in my address the first evening I presented only one side of the matter, let me point out that I have endeavoured to show both sides. I will state one fact to show how keen the cannery men are that only their side of the case shall be given to the minister, and nothing given to members of parliament or others who are interested. In 1931 I endeavoured to learn what the canners were doing, and, hearing that the Deputy Minister of Fisheries -was to meet them in Vancouver I made it my business to go there and sit in at the meeting. It was held on a Saturday afternoon. The room was full of cannery men. I asked the deputy minister if he had any objection to my sitting in, and he said no. But when I walked in to the meeting you should have seen the look of consternation on the faces of those canners. Their hair almost stood on end. I said: "Gentlemen, I might just as well tell you who I am. I happen to be the member for New Westminster representing the fishermen of the Fraser river, and I am interested in this industry. I have heard the fishermen s side and now I want to hear the canners\' side." One canner got up and said: "Mr. Deputy Minister, I thought this was a private meeting." It became so embarrassing that they did not know what to do. One member said: "I suggest that Mr. Reid go out of the room until we discuss this question." I went out and took my hat and coat and went off; as a member of parliament I was not going to stand waiting like a flunkey outside the door of a canners\' meeting. That is the trouble: the deputy minister goes out there and meets the canners and gets an earful from them, and they come to Ottawa and give him another earful and then he holds a meeting with the fishermen. But until such time as a deputation of the fishermen and a deputation of the canners meet together with him on common ground this matter will never be satisfactorily settled. I would welcome the bringing from the Pacific coast of representatives of the canners\' interests as well as those of the fishermen. I think now is the time that the whole matter should be gone into.\nI was very sorry to hear the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber) say: "I am in favour of this but I do not like the way the hon. member introduced it." Next time perhaps I shall consult him first when I am going to introduce a bill. But, Mr. Speaker, the fact is that if I had introduced this by\n\nway of resolution he and a few of his friends might have talked it out and to-day we would find it at the foot of the order paper and so it would never be heard from again. I knew their tricks and their manners, and I introduced it as I did so that it would come squarely before the government. I speak as I feel in this matter because the livelihood of over 2,000 fishermen is at stake; they are threatened with being driven out by the vested interests who control and own most of the seines. I deprecate the acting minister giving the direction to the committee that the government is not going to accept the principle of the bill. I urge on the members of the committee that all interested parties be brought before them so that this whole matter, in which not only the livelihood of the men but the whole salmon industry itself is at stake, shall be fully heard. I am quite willing, however, to accept the suggestion of the minister and leave my further remarks for the committee.']
Mr. R. W. GRAY (West Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, when the house adjourned last night I was about to compare the Prime Minister's radio addresses with his previous speeches during the years from 1931 to 1934 in which he had pictured in glowing terms the steady return of prosperity to the Dominion of Canada. But those pictures glowing as they were, were as nothing compared with the full-

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Gray
page advertisement of the new Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Hanson) published on the morning of January 2, entitled "Canadian Cavalcade." Hon. gentlemen will recall that it was on the evening of that same day that the Prime Minister commenced his radio broadcast. Reading that advertisement in the morning, and then tuning in the radio at night to listen to the Prime Minister's first address, is it any wonder that Canadians listened with amazement as they heard the Prime Minister of Canada in his opening remarks say: "This is a critical hour in the history of our country. The signs of recovery are few and doubtful. The signs of trouble are many, and they do not lessen." Someone listening to that broadcast and having read the previous speeches of the right hon. the Prime Minister was reminded of those words of Goldsmith:
Words of learned length and thundering sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around';
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew.
And still the wonder grew, Mr. Speaker, as his listeners heard the Prime Minister in that radio address once more denounce the dole. "I am against the dole," he said, "it mocks our claim to progress."
We awaited subsequent addresses to see just what the Prime Minister had in mind to substitute for the dole. My hon. friend from Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) last night gave some figures showing the exact number of unemployed in Canada to-day. The Acting Prime Minister (Sir George Perley) said that we should not give those figures, that it would hurt the credit of Canada; but I say to him as I say to this house that it is time that the people of Canada knew the exact state of affairs; it is time that this national government gave some leadership to the dominion, and it is much better that we should know these facts and figures and have them on record in order that the people may realize the exact state of affairs if we are going to go on having municipalities default in interest payments and provinces struggling along on the verge of bankruptcy.
In November, 1934 we had on direct relief in this dominion something over 1,000,000 people. We had in December, 1934, 1,107,000 people on relief, and we had in January of this year 1935, 1,183,962 people on direct relief in this dominion.
His listeners were amazed to hear the Prime Minister once again declare that he would end unemployment. We .listened, all of us, interested to see what the Prime Minister might bring forth to end this all-important 92582-77
problem. We have had some legislation brought down, which I have not the time to review here. We have had unemployment insurance, and it has been shown I think conclusively that it will not assist those who are unemployed to-day, and that even those who are employed will not share in its benefits until at least some two years have elapsed. We have had the question of the minimum wage and the hours of labour, but there is not anything radical in a forty-eight hour week. In my own city of Sarnia we have had for some t.wo years, in a plant employing some 1,700 men, a forty hour week and an eight hour day, and yet I hold in my hand a dispatch in the press of that city to-day showing that the relief costs of that city for unemployment have been fairly steady. They show that the relief costs in 1934 were greater than in 1933. There is nothing radical therefore or anything that will greatly take up the slack of unemployment in a maximum forty-eight hour working week.
Then we have had the question of the revision of the Old Age Pensions Act. We recall, all of us, that the Prime Minister in 1930 stated that the national government would pay the full 100 per cent of the old age pension. I grant that as time goes on it is quite possible that the Old Age Pensions Act may need some revision, but that is not legislation that is new, and do not forget, as this country will not forget, that it was the Liberal government of my right hon. leader that placed that act upon the statute books.
Then we heard the Prime Minister say that he would appoint an economic council. That is good in itself, but what in the world will an economic council do to cure the unemployment situation? Why come forward now with the appointment of an economic council when for the last four or five years the Prime Minister has consistently refused the suggestion of my right hon. leader that a national council be set up to study the whole unemployment question in cooperation with the provinces and municipalities? Then we had fully one-half of a radio speech in which the Prime Minister said that he would abolish the no par value stock. That is rather strange coming from him at a time when, only a few months ago, a motion made by my hon. friend from Last Mountain (Mr. Butcher) was turned down by this very government. But does he think that the abolition of no par value stock will help the unemployment situation or touch the fringe of the dangers which he hopes to prevent in connection with speculations in company promotions? No; these things, good as they may be, do not

Unemployment Reliej-Mr. Gray

begin to get at the fundamentals of the situation. My hon. friend from Vancouver Centre last night quoted from the actuarial report prepared by Mr. Wolfenden in which he set out the causes of unemployment. Mr. Wolfenden, in gathering the data necessary to prepare this report, went into all the facts surrounding the question of unemployment; and when one reads the reasons he gives as the basis for his report to the Prime Minister, the reasons for the causes of unemployment in Canada, one finds that it is one of the greatest indictments of the policies of this government since its inception, and that the Prime Minister stands indicted to-day before the bar of public opinion on the strength of that report.
I am supporting this resolution, which is purely and simply a motion of want of confidence in the government, because I believe that the people of this country have lost confidence in hon. gentlemen opposite. That is evidenced not only by the by-elections that have taken place since 1932 but by the fact that the leader of the government has even lost faith in himself.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Ross Wilfred Gray: Hon. gentlemen may draw
their own conclusions, but speaking in Toronto on Saturday last the Prime Minister said that the election will come like a thief in the night. This was an address given to the young Canadian Conservative Clubs of Canada. I doubt whether the illustration was a very apt one coming from the Prime Minister to these young Canadians, but I will let that pass. The Prime Minister has always told us that he means exactly what he says. Well then, if he means exactly what he says in this statement, he is afraid to face the people in the open and will come with his election like a thief in the night. Let me say this to the Prime Minister, that the people of Canada have learned to protect themselves since 1930 and that he will not steal this election.
My time is almost up and I will not go into questions which might easily be raised in reference to what can be done towards solving this all-important problem that faces us. The Prime Minister said as recently as a week ago last Saturday that he knows the answer to the question. Speaking in New York on February 16, in an address to the Canadian Society, he made this statement:
I would find it impossible to conceive and develop a scheme of recovery and reform unless I first had definitely decided upon the answer to it.

If the right hon. gentleman has the answer, if he knows what the solution is for the problem that we are faced with, it is not contained in these radio addresses, splendid as they were from the oratorical point of view. If the right hon. gentleman has the answer-and he says he has-then in the name of everything that is just and right let him give that answer to-day to the people of Canada.
Hon. RAYMOND D. MORAND (East Essex): Yesterday we witnessed a member of the guard on the other side trying to blow a bit of fire back into the dying embers of the Liberal party. He used the bellows to the best possible advantage, but unfortunately the embers were cold, and they fell rather on useless and burned out ashes. I was rather surprised that a new leader had come forward with a policy and ideas of his own- pious wishes it would be better to say-as to how this great problem can be solved. He was unsupported by the Napoleon of the party, who I see is in his seat to-day; nor was the Marshal Ney of the party, the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe), there to support him. I wonder if it is a plan projected, that he and those who are supporting him .to-day shall parade from one end of Canada to the other appealing to those to whom his particular type of oratory and that particular type of call which he is making has an appeal, leaving free his leaders to remain with the laissez-faire class that will help them to put over the election. With that amount of fire and vim he always puts into his speeches, when he began yesterday I had hoped that he would bring some new fuel to the dying embers. I had hoped that possibly he had something to hand to the Canadian people, the unemployed of this country, something that would bring them some solace and help. But he just added another regret to that litany of regrets which we have heard from the opposition benches during the last five years.
It is interesting to read the amendment to the resolution as submitted by the hon. member. His amendment reads:
That all the words after the word "That" in the motion be struck out, and the following substituted therefor:
This house regrets that, notwithstanding the specific promises made prior to the election of 1930, and many times since reiterated, and despite the fact that extraordinary powers to deal with unemployment have been repeatedly secured from parliament, the present administration, after nearly five years of office, has not yet submitted to parliament any definite or

Unemployment Reliej-Mr. Morand
effective policy to deal with widespread' actual unemployment or distress which continues to he Canada's most urgent national problem.
I am sure that will be some comfort to the unemployed of Canada. For five years I have listened to members on the other side; for five years I have hoped that possibly, with plenty of time on their hands and with the experience they have had, they might suggest some constructive bit of advice to these on this side in working out the problems that face this country; for five years I have hoped that possibly they would hold out the hand of cooperation and of help to assist Canada in solving this great problem. But they have consistently, from the very beginning, found more solace in the difficulties of the government than in their desire to help. I heard repeated again yesterday that same line which they hope to get across to the public-the supposedly broken promises of the Prime Minister. Why, they laugh at it themselves. One could repeat it almost without notes; bon. gentlemen opposite have reiterated it so often. But it is sometimes necessary to see clearly before you can remove the beam from your own eyes. I wonder if any of the members opposite have read the platform of 1919. I wonder if any of them know what was in that platform. I wonder if any of them have read the resolution?


Mr. DUFF:: Ask the Minister of Railways.
Mr. MOiRAND: I wonder if any of them have read the resolution on labour sponsored by the present leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King)-sponsored well in a good speech, because one must remember that at that time he was preaching for a call and he made a mighty good speech. It is interesting to read just a bit of that resolution.


Mr. JACOBS:: Let us take it as read.
Mr. MOiRAiND: I am quite sure that hon. members would like to take that resolution of 1919 as read; they would like to see it buried because it brings to the Canadian people a long line of inactivity, a long line of forgotten promises that make those of the Prime Minister pale into insignificance. I am going to read just a few of them:
The committee recommends that the national Liberal convention accept in their entirety as a part of the Liberal platform, in the spirit they have been framed, and' in so far as the special circumstances of the country will permit the terms of the Labour convention and general principles associated with the League of Nations and incorporated in the conditions of peace.
Anyone reading that would know who wrote it. It is circumscribed by so manv doors
92582-77j
that one can get out of that only one in this house could be the author. I am not going to read it all.


William Duff: Yes, read it all.


Mr. MORAND:: I am sure it will make
very pleasant reading for hon. gentlemen opposite who will read it all when they have more time. The third clause

and this is taken from the platform of 1919, the platform upon which hon. gentlemen opposite got into power-reads:
3.	The payment to the employed of a wage adequate to maintain a reasonable standard of life as this is understood in their time and count ry.
4.	The adoption of an eight hour day or a forty-eight hour week as the standard to be aimed at where it has not already been attained.
5.	The adoption of a weekly rest of at least twenty-four hours, which should include Sunday wherever practicable.
6.	The abolition of child labour and the imposition of such limitations on the labour of young persons as shall permit the continuation of their education and assure their proper physical development.
7.	The principle that men and women should receive equal remuneration for work of equal value.
But this is the gem:
That in so far as may be practicable, having regard for Canada's financial position, an adequate system of insurance against unemployment, sickness, dependence in old age. and other disability, which would include old age pensions, widows' pensions, and maternity benefits should be instituted' by the federal government in conjunction with the governments of the several provinces; and on matters pertaining to the industrial and social legislation an effort should be made to overcome any question of jurisdiction between the dominion and the provinces by effective cooperation between the several governments.
That was in 1919. We have listened to hon. members opposite talk about the wonderful prosperity that prevailed under their regime. We have heard them talk about the wonderful financial conditions that existed during their term of office and about the wonderful cooperation they had with the provinces. Despite that, we find ourselves at this late stage with all of this program unfulfilled and no attempt made to fulfil it. Some attempt has been made to say that because the Senate was opposed, these schemes were not put into effect, but I can remember the welkin ringing with the phrase Reform the Senate." The Liberal party was nine years in power, but the Senate remained unreformed. When we hear hon. gentlemen opposite day after day recalling the broken promises of the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett); when we realize the condition of the country during his term of office and

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Morand
compare it with conditions that exist throughout the world, and when they are to-day confronted with a list of unfulfilled promises such as those I have cited, never again should we hear from the other side talk about broken promises on the part of the Prime Minister.
Yesterday I heard the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) finding fault with many of the works that had been accomplished by this government. For instance, I heard him find fault with the wheat control. I wonder whether those in the prairie provinces who were able with the help of the government to maintain the price of wheat at the point they did will welcome the criticism leveled at that piece of work. I wonder whether the railroad workers who were retained at work because of advances to the Canadian Pacific and the Canadian National will consider this was an improper spending of money in order to keep the railway shops open.
During yesterday's discussion we had a reiteration of the nine points that were submitted during the last five years, those nine points that are supposed now to be the new chart of the Liberal party. .


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Fourteen.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: Apparently there were some that the member thought he had better not name because Hansard records only nine. I think they are worth going over and bringing to the attention of the unemployed who find the time of the house being taken up in a discussion of this kind. These are the points:
1.	A dominion-provincial conference to consider the financial relations of the provinces and the dominion.
I wonder just how much help that would be to the unemployed. We have had four such conferences already and in regard to two provinces we know only too well their financial situation.
2.	That unemployment was Canada's most urgent national problem, and strongly advocated a representative national commission to coordinate all national effort and to cooperate with the provinces and municipalities in the administration of unemployment relief.
Do the unemployed of this country complain of the way in which the relief has been handled?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Yes.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: Some hon. members say yes, but that is not what my hon. friends are speaking about. They say: We want to stop unemployment; we want to give these people work. I am sure we on this side agree

with that, but I am satisfied that the relief work that has been done for the unemployed has been done as well as it could have been by any central administration. Surely those in the municipalities who know the unemployed, who are close to them, are in a much better position to take care of them than any one commission such as suggested in this clause with central headquarters could have done.
3.	That there should' be an audit by the federal government of all expenditure of public moneys.
That, to my mind, would simply help the unemployed auditors. Surely we cannot tell the provinces that their auditors, their audits and their accounts are not correct.


Mr. VENIOT:: You are doing that now.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: I am sure that again will be a great solace to the unemployed.
i. That all moneys for relief purposes should be voted for specific purposes and voted by parliament.
To me that is just threshing words.
5.	We opposed-
I have heard that expression so much since I have been here.
5.	We opposed voting public moneys in lump sums and we opposed the blank cheque-a government- policy which subsequently resulted in a colossal wastage of public money.
6.	We opposed giving to the executive the power of legislating by order in council with respect to peace, order and good government.
When I hear my hon. friend the member for West Lambton (Mr. Gray) joining in this cry of opposition to orders in council I am sure he must have in the back of his mind what is happening in Ontario, where the province has been governed by orders in council since last June, both as to matters that are ordinarily done by orders in council and even in matters of public policy.


Ross Wilfred Gray: It has been well governed
anyway.


An hon. MEMBER:: And that is some
change.


['And that is some\nchange.']
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Mr. GOTT:: It is the truth that hurts.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: During the entire speech
of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre yesterday and of the hon. member for West Lambton, did we hear a single word of commendation or praise for the work that has been done by this government? Did we hear them mention any good that came from the Ottawa agreements, any good that came from the public works undertaken throughout this whole dominion to give work to the unemployed? Did we hear them comment favourably upon the way relief was handled? Did we hear them say anything in commendation of the marketing bill, of the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act, of the Canadian farm loan board, of the eight-hour day, of the unemployment insurance measure and amendments to the Companies Act? Had they anything good to say of the work, started by
this government and now in process, of the price spreads and mass buying commission whose report is expected soon, or of the treaties with foreign nations, of the support of the wheat market, aid to the railway workers, the abolition of dumping that would have thrown our men out of work? To-day the Prime Minister and his government are amplifying this work already so well begun and are providing in the legislation now before the house and to be brought down a plan that will go still further and continue to help those in this country who are in difficulty. And what do we find? The first thing is an attack upon its constitutionality. I have heard that word ever since I came here in 1925. It won an election, I believe, in 1926 but I doubt that the people will again fall for constitutional issues.
One thing I resent is the attitude of the other side that they and they alone have sympathy for those who are in difficulty, that they and they alone are anxious about the unemployed, that they and they alone are looking for a way out. I believe that those on this side who are carrying the burden, those upon whose shoulders the responsibility falls, those who so unfairly are held accountable for conditions, have the fullest realization of what they have to do and what they should try to do, and I am satisfied that they will do it. When the people of this country are called upon to pass judgment upon these reform measures, these measures of amelioration, these advances in legislation, this progress, I wonder to whom they will turn. Will they turn to those who believe that these measures are the illegitimate children of a violated constitution, or will they turn to those who believe them constitutional and will father them and finish their work and carry this program through so that the Canadian people may resume their way towards the prosperity that they have a right to enjoy.


Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, throughout the course of several speeches we have been listening to the kettle calling the pot black or the pot calling the kettle black, whichever way one would put it.


Samuel William Jacobs: You call it red.


James Shaver Woodsworth: It is not my purpose to enter into that aspect of the discussion. The amendment presented is I think one that we in this corner cannot avoid supporting, although I say frankly that I regret having to support an amendment bolstered up by such speeches as we had yesterday. The amendment states that:
1208	COMMONS
Unemployment Relief-Mr. Woodsworth
The present administration, after nearly five years of office, has not yet submitted to parliament any definite or effective policy to deal with widespread or actual unemployment or distress which continues to be Canada's most urgent national problem.
I agree with that statement. I think we may all admit that we have not had brought forward in the last five years anything that effectively deals with this problem.


Mr. STEWART (Leeds):: Has any other country?


James Shaver Woodsworth: An hon. gentleman says. Has any other country? No. I frankly admit that no country has altogether solved the problem, but I do say that some other countries have been more successful than we have.


An hon. MEMBER:: Name them.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Great Britain for one.


Mr. MANION:: They have more unemployed in relation to population than we have.


James Shaver Woodsworth: No, and further than that the point I wish to emphasize is that many of us do not believe that the problems are solvable under the existing capitalistic system. We say that frankly.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Go to Russia.


James Shaver Woodsworth: And we do not believe that we can justly hold either the Liberal party or the Conservative party wholly responsible for failing to solve these problems. They cannot do it under the system under which they are working. But we do say that as long as either of these parties clings to the existing system it is bound at least to take reasonable care of the citizens of this country. This the government so far has not_done. It is quite true that we are considering a provision for unemployment insurance which will help a certain limited group of people in a very inadequate fashion, but the Prime Minister himself has declared that this is not a relief policy and will not assist any of those now unemployed. Nor has the Prime Minister seen fit so far in this session to bring down any program dealing with the unemployment question. We in this corner have been patiently awaiting that program through the weeks that have passed, but there is no indication that any such statement is forthcoming. The Prime Minister has stated that he does not like the dole. None of us do. There is more than a suspicion that the government is seeking more and more to throw the responsibility for unemployment relief upon the provinces and municipalities, and that at a time
FMr. Woodsworth.]
when a good many of the municipalities are practically bankrupt. As I said the other day, I do not think we should let this parliament prorogue without having had placed before us a well thought out scheme for dealing with the actual situation which confronts us.
Sometimes I feel very weary indeed when year after year we have to bring up this question of unemployment. I think it was in 1922, some thirteen years ago, that I first introduced a motion on going into supply that something should be done with regard to unemployment, and year after year we have had to call the attention of the house to this same question. We have tried to point out the actual conditions throughout the country. We have tried to show the cost of unemployment. From time to time we have tried to analyze the economic conditions that lead to unemployment. We have tried to advance certain schemes, such as the housing scheme and others, which would seem to be a practical way of beginning to deal with this question. We have gone into the more fundamental matters and urged that unemployment is bound to remain with us as long as wre operate under this profit system. We have done all this. It is not my purpose to-day to go into the question of the constitutional responsibilities. Both sides of this house in turn have acknowledged that this is a national problem, and I think the government could not but receive support from all sides of the house if they were bold enough to initiate a thorough going national scheme for dealing with the present unemployment situation. I do not propose to go into the statistics of the matter; we have had statistics until our heads fairly swim with them. It is not statistics we want; it is action. I do not think even the supporters of the government will venture to say that there is anything before us yet or likely to come before us that will really solve this problem or affectively assist this large number of our unemployed fellow Canadian citizens.
I should like for a few minutes, if I might, to get away from the atmosphere of this house-


Mr. SPENCE:: The door is not locked.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Oh, yes; someone
says the door is not locked and that we may go. It is very easy to make a joke of these things, but I earnestly ask hon. members of this house to allow me for a few minutes to try to make them realize what is involved in this unemployment question. I think, surely, every hon. member must know of

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Woodsworth
at least some cases, among his circle of friends, of those who have been affected or whose homes have been affected by unemployment. Surely there must have been individual cases in which hon. members have become interested, where they have seen how people who have been unemployed for years have become demoralized. I can quite understand that if this problem continues very much longer we may have an even greater degree of crime than has developed in the last few years. I can understand that we are going to have a very large measure of inefficiency among the young men who have never learned to work. I can understand that we are going to have restlessness among great sections of the population that will be very serious in character. But notwithstanding this we seem to drift on from year to year. In fact it was only the other day that someone in this house referred to the people in the unemployment relief camps as being almost useless to society, suggesting that they should not have the right even to participate in elections.
I submit that as yet we have not realized just what is involved. A few months ago in the west I picked up this item from the newspaper. A twenty-one year old boy from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, seeking to board a train near Regina, fell between the moving cars and was seriously injured. This young chap apparently had a home down near Halifax. He had a sister but no mother. He had gone west in the hope of securing a job. He got as far as Moose Jaw and then tried to board a freight train. I suppose technically that is an offence against the law, yet it is the only way by which large numbers of our people can get from place to place. This young chap fell between the cars and was seriously injured. As the men came to lift him up and take him to the hospital he exclaimed, "Kill me. I am no good for anything now." The desperation of that young man is the desperation of a great many young fellows throughout the country to-day, and I want to say that if it were not for the fact that some of us had a little higher standard of living and some reserves the position of that boy would have been the position of some of our own boys to-day. I cannot look at my own boys without thinking what their future would be if they did not have a little extra help from home. There was this young man from the east, apparently, by his name, a French Canadian, trying to make his way, going to the west and now considered almost a useless part of our society. I suppose, according
to the Prime Minister's philosophy, God was not just as good to him as he was to the Prime Minister. I say that in all seriousness. I believe the Prime Minister's philosophy is an absolutely rotten philosophy. I want to say in all seriousness that if we are really reverent in our hearts we will recognize that young chaps like that have just as much right in Canada and just as much right to a full life in Canada as have the very foremost citizens of Canada.


Mr. MOORE (Chateauguay-Hunt.ingdon):: What did you know about that boy before that?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Nothing.


Mr. COTNAM:: Then you are talking
about something you know nothing about.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, I
submit that if there is a question to be asked the hon. member should address the chair.


Miss MACPHAIL:: And ask the permission of the Minister of Finance.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I give that incident, Mr. Speaker, because in a somewhat dramatic way it brings before the house the essence of the problem we are facing. For a few moments I shall take the time of the house to read an article which I have had in my files for a couple of years. This article appeared in the Western Producer of September 28, 1933, and is signed by William George Rundle. I believe it is worth while to have one of these unemployed men address the house and tell us something of the problems they have to face.
I am in a relief camp. Penniless and homeless and destitute, I am one who is clothed and fed and housed by the government, and I am wondering what the -world is doing. I am one who vizualizes electrically lighted streets, glittering automobiles, theatre lights, bakery windows, softly lighted restaurants and' hears the soothing hum of conversation and the silvery peal of a woman's laughter. I am one apart and I am one of many.
Then, a little later on:
Who am I? I am a university graduate; behind me I have four years of university life and after my name I can write a degree. One of my friends-a fellow labourer-is a pharmacist, another a military engineer, another a medical student, another a school teacher-a former principal; another an artist-come to his tent and he will show you pastels, pen and ink sketches, hand engraved greeting cards and water colours of still life.
On all sides of me are men from every walk of life-the creeds and 'beliefs and religions of all nations. All nationalities, all the professions, all the trades and all the labouring divisions are gathered here.
1210	COMMONS
Unemployment Relic}-Mr. Woodsworth
We are complete. In our tent city set off in the Saskatchewan prairie we are a community to ourselves; we can cook; we can tailor; we can teach; we can fashion our own tools; we can design our own power plant and we can build it; we can lay out our own buildings and, those of us who are carpenters, can build them; we can lay out water mains and servers and our plumbers can construct them; we can fill our own prescriptions; we can keep our own accounts; we can type our own letters.
And then at a later point he states;
A train whistles in the distance. We see the smoke trailing off in the deep blue sky and we hear the rolling clink of metal upon metal as the wavering wisps of smoke trail northwards; cars hum on the highway and in our minds we hear the thud and crunching of rubber on gravel. They pass us by. We are beings who pause and' listen whilst behind the whispering line of poplars the world goes rolling by. Beyond is the life we have known;
And still later:
Above on our bell shaped canvas roofs we see slow moving grasshoppers clinging to the sloping sides and advancing to the peak of our frail shelter. Is there a lesson to be taken from the slow footed advance? Inevitably the grasshopper moves onward and upwards. Is it a sign? Are we to be patient and wait as we have waited through the years; through the first relief camp in 1931 and on to this, our third, in 1933?
He might very well have added, "Our fifth, in 1935." Then skipping a few paragraphs I read:
We are khaki clad men in army fatigue uniforms-


An hon. MEMBER:: Take it as read.
board. They hope for better things; they look for better things but for the nonce they wag their heads wisely and remain silent.
Middle aged men gather and converse in low tones, vainly and desperately seeking "the way out," attempting to formulate new policies or find the weak link in our economic armour. There is no definite bitterness. We are beyond bitterness as the hopeless days pass-with a never-ending succession of hopeless days ahead. In place of bitterness there is a thoughtful consideration of reported world conditions, of the conditions of the crops and the movements of Mr. R. B. Bennett. There is no violence but a realization that something must be done.
Eyes stray to khaki trousers, army blankets, and army fatigue shirts. Is it to last forever? Are we to be "kept" all our lives?
There is impatience-yes! Perhaps lips move in a mental addition of the month's wages at twenty cents a day. And then a hopeless shrug,
Nerves are kept well under control or else there would be heard the wild, straining cry: "Oh God! what next?"
There comes a silence, each man thoughtfully smoking, chin upon hand and staring sightlessly ahead-lantern light, sharp shadows, bronzed cupped faces and the white outline of shimmering canvas. Another day is passing and another day will soon he dawning. "Oh God! what next?"
After describing the work of the frontier college instructors, he states:
The younger men are interested and some of them attend or form classes. The majority however are "stiffs." For years they have been on relief and bitterness, like a canker, has passed and left an ever present wound. Willing but unwanted! Desire has changed to apathy and apathy to brooding and' now the days are merely units that stretch as far back as the eye can see and as far ahead as the imagination can reach.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The hon. gentleman says, "Take it as read." No, he is going to listen to this for the next ten minutes, if he stays in the chamber. I insist that this man be heard. He is the representative of tens of thousands of our fellow citizens:
We are khaki clad men in army fatigue uniforms and heavy steel-plated artillery boots, plodding to work through the shifting sand'. Our blankets are provided, and palliasses of straw, and our trousers and shirts, and socks and underwear, our shaving equipment and our towels and tooth brushes. We are numbers on a relief project, we rise, and work, and eat, and receive hospital treatment and retire to the sound of the bugle. Our day is mapped out for us. We follow definite rules. And we are numbered for equipment and record purposes.
Then in several paragraphs is contained a description of the routine of camp life. Following that he describes what occurs towards evening:
Old men congregate together. They seem satisfied and placidly look back over twenty years farming, discuss the trivial events of the day or perhaps they bend earnestly over a game of rummy, or sevens up, or a cribbage

then, as they are summoned to bed:
Is it in irony that the last post is played instead of lights out? The notes rise into the air and the stately, solemn sound sinks into each soul. Lamps go out. Voices are stilled.
The last note floats high into the air and dies m the rolling hills. We have become but a faint line of white and the prairie has folded over us, but within man upon man lies awake, ana stares stony-eyed into the darkness.
"Oh, God! what next?"
Some hon. members may have thought that I have no right to read this description in the House of Commons. I submit that there is as much sense in that article, and a great deal more insight than is shown on many occasions by what is said on the floor of this chamber. It represents a point of view that is too little heard here and which to-day I ask should be considered. At the risk of wearisome iteration may I be permitted to give another example which I 'believe fairly well illustrates the position in which thousands of people find themselves to-day. Some friends of mine whom I have known about fifteen years had come some years previously from Poland.

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Woodsworth
This man and his wife were exceptionally high types of settlers. Leaving their native village in Europe, because of the glowing pictures painted in those earlier days by our immigration representatives they were induced to come to this country. They came here hoping to make a home of their own, and were settled by the authorities at a point between the lakes, as we describe it, in northern Manitoba, on land which should never have been opened for settlement. They did not know the quality of the land and in all good faith they took a homestead. Year after year after year they worked on the homestead. They sold their butter and eggs at ridiculously low prices, really below the cost of production. They waded through almost impassable roads to get to the local village. They picked stones because the country was not unlike the country we sometimes see along the St. Lawrence where several generations ago the patient settlers picked stones off their lands. Unfortunately between the lakes, when they got the stone picked after unending toil, there was no soil that was worth anything much. For years they worked. They incurred debts, do as they would. The man went out to work, leaving his wife alone for long periods, and coming back with a little money to buy groceries. At last, having piled up debts and with no income coming in, with two young children to care for, they felt they could continue no longer, and they left their farm and came to live in the city.
Again let me say that this move is typical of that of hundreds of people whom we have in nearly all our cities in the west. The man was a skilled mechanic and found a place in the Canadian Pacific Railway shops. There he set to work with a will once more to try to make a home for his family. The wife was a very ambitious and capable woman. She went out working by the day in the hope that they might more quickly make a bit of money so that they might pay off their debts and give their children a chance. I used to know her in the days when she would go out to work hard all day and at night go to a public night school where the English language was taught. She wanted to be able to talk English fluently to her children as they grew up in this English country. They worked for some years before they were able to pay off the debts which they had contracted on the farm. It looked as if they were about to get into a position where they could be independent once more.
Then came the depression. I remember the man telling me that there were only a few ahead of him on the list to be let go. The
company was gradually displacing more and more men, and for months he was afraid that his turn to be laid off would come next. Finally the time did come and he lost his job. His wife did not find it quite so easy now to get work in her line. The depression grew worse. In the meantime they had attempted to buy a house in the city. Possibly at this distance we may say that they were foolish to make such an attempt, but they had saved several hundred dollars, a sufficient amount to make the first payment, and they had that longing and earnest desire which almost every man and woman has, to have a little home of theii own, and so they bought a house and began trying to make the payments on it.
Finally the man had to go on relief work, some work provided by the city, and while digging a ditch he was injured. There was no compensation for him because he was merely on relief work. He received a very bad blow in the head. He had to go to the hospital, which meant expense for himself and his wife.
By this time, the children had passed up through high school. The parents could not afford to send them on to university or to place them in any other school, so then they were taken out of school, with no work for either the boy or the girl.
Then came greater slackness of work, and bitterness of bitterness, they had actually to go on relief. These people who had been I suppose twenty-five years in Canada, who had worked long hours, who had tried to farm, who had tried industrial life, now were driven to accept relief from the city. They did it finally because they could do no other, and besides they hoped that in some way or other they might keep this home he last effort they would ever make to have a home of their own.
Sickness added to their difficulties. The man had to go to the hospital. He returned not cured physically, but worse than that he was mentally so dejected that his mind could hardly be said to be normal. I had lost track of the family for several years, but I came across them again a few months ago when they were in this condition. It was only a few weeks after, that one morning at an early hour a trackman walking along the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks found the man dead beside the tracks. In some way he had been struck by the engine. Then came the great expense of the funeral, which is no small expense in a working man's family, especially when the people are on relief. The woman, one of the most efficient women that I have met, a woman who if brought up in another circle would be fit to occupy almost
1212	COMMONS
Unemployment Relief-Mr. Woodsworth
any position, was prematurely aged, broken in spirit. Her two children bom in Canada and to-day about twenty years of age, bright, well-trained young people but with no work to do. The girl received a few weeks' work during the Christmas rush at one of the department stores, all she has had for months, although trained to do good work.
Now, Mr. Speaker, and if it were proper. I should like almost to say, Miss Maephail and gentlemen of the House of Commons, I have recited that case to show the situation that to-day faces hundreds of thousands of our fellow-Canadians. There are just one or two points that I would like to leave with this house. One is that these people are idle through no fault of their own. There are a few lazy people-


Mr. MULLINS:: Will the hon. member permit a question?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Certainly.


Henry Alfred Mullins: Why did the United Farmers of Manitoba pass a resolution asking for the abolition of the unemployment camps It was so that they could get men to work on the farms. The trouble is you have them crowding into the cities and you cannot get them out on the land.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Order.


Henry Alfred Mullins: I ask the hon. member to please answer that question: Why did the organization which he knows very well, that belongs to Manitoba, pass a resolution asking for the abolition of the unemployment camps?


Pierre Édouard Blondin: If the hon. gentleman wants to ask a question, he will kindly do so without argument.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I cannot accept responsibility for any resolution passed by the United Farmers of Manitoba. May I say, Mr. Speaker, that it is clear that although there may be some lazy people and some shiftless people, some misfits, I think it must be conceded that the great majority of our unemployed to-day have become unemployed simply because no job was available for them. That is the outstanding fact we ought not to lose sight of.


Henry Alfred Mullins: There is plenty of work on the farms.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not intend to be diverted by the interjections of my hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. Mullins) except to say that there is not plenty of work on the farms to-day at anything like a living wage.


Henry Alfred Mullins: Oh, a good living.


James Shaver Woodsworth: No, there is not, and there is no use talking about it. The farmer cannot pay his men. I tried to get young fellows placed on farms last summer, but I found that farmers would not pay them even their board.


Mr. LAFLECHE:: What is the remedy?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Never mind the
remedy for the moment; I am pointing out the situation that exists. I quite admit that a number of these people who have been for years unemployed will shortly become unemployable; there is no doubt about that, but that is not the question under discussion. It is true that we are manufacturing these people by our present policies. But the real question is what are we going to do about the entire unemployment situation?
There is another point I want to leave with the house, and it too is incontrovertible. It is this, that the people who are idle through no fault of their own have a claim for adequate maintenance. I do not suggest that they should be sent to a farm to work for nothing and pay their own board; I do not suggest that they should be sent to relief camps-bright young fellows such as the one that wrote that article in The Producer- to work for twenty cents a day. That method is a disgrace, and anyone with any spirit in him will protest against that kind of treatment.
If the governments of the provinces and the government of the dominion, with all the resources which they have for surveying the situation, with all the resources at their command, cannot find jobs for these people, then the least that they can do is to give them adequate maintenance, a good living. I do not mean five cent meals, or twenty cents a day; I mean, in the case of single men, enough to enable them to secure three meals a day, a good clean bed, and enough to provide themselves with decent clothing so that they can hold up their heads in the world; and in the case of men with families, that they be provided, not with a tumble down shelter where they can scrape up a sort of existence, dependent upon charity for clothes and medical assistance, but some sort of pension, if you want to call it that, whereby they can draw a certain amount regularly, weekly or monthly, from the government, a sum sufficient to maintain them and their children in decency and to educate their children and give them a chance in life. I think that is undoubtedly the duty of this parliament.
You may object that we cannot afford to do that; you say that it would spoil these

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Rinfret
people if they were given these things for nothing. I do not want to give a living to them for nothing, but I do urge that as decent Canadians they are entitled to a decent living. If we did give it to them I do not think it would take very long before we devised ways and means of finding something for them to do. That is quite proper. Every man has a right to contribute to society, but in the meantime these people ought to be kept. I do not expect that the present government is going to overturn the capitalistic system, notwithstanding all the Prime Minister has said. But if this system is one that is fundamentally sound, as the Prime Minister asserts, and only needs a little bit of reform, then the least we can do with the unemployed is to see that they are adequately supported.
Further I think we are right in throwing upon the government the responsibility of devising ways and means. This is in accordance with the very best constitutional practice. We have suggested from this comer certain things which we think would materially assist. We say for instance that there might be a very extensive housing program, which would help greatly. We say that instead of having this financed by borrowed money it should be financed through the credit of the country, without increasing interest or debt. And that is quite possible. Some one may denounce that as inflation but inflation of that sort would be a good thing for Canada at the present time. I do not mean uncontrolled inflation. If France can bring her franc down from twenty cents to four cents with advantage to most of her people, I cannot see why Canada cannot do the same with her dollar. We have pointed out further in this comer that there are certain fundamental financial changes that will have to be made. Perhaps the system will not stand the extra load that such a program as I have suggested would place upon it; but on the other hand I do not think that the system as it exists to-day will stand very much longer the strain that is being put upon it by the present government or would be put upon it by any otheT government that seeks to uphold the capitalist system. However, I do not want to get off into a discussion of these things. I think that if the government is right in saying that the people have entrusted them with responsibility-and the Prime Minister has insisted on this time time and again-then undoubtedly it is their responsibility to handle this situation. And we stand ready to do the very best we can to assist.
But I -want to come back to the plea I am trying to make in this speech, if you can call it a speech. I ask that we for a little while get away from the political game that is played here day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out, and consider the seriousness of the situation that faces us in Canada. Do you think that these million of people on relief to-day can go on as they are going now very much longer? Is there any sign of a real letup in this depression? What shall we do in the next year or two or three years? How can we expect to have these people remain loyal and few abiding? I want to know what claim this government has upon the loyality of people who do not get even enough to enable them to live in decency? I would go this far: I should like to know what claim any system of democracy has upon its citizens when that democracy does not enable them to supply themselves even with the necessities of life. I warn this house, we cannot go on in this way very much longer, and I do urge that from this time on, in this session, we give the most serious consideration to this very pressing problem.


Hon. FERNAND RINFRET (St. James):: I rise to support the amendment. I am glad to have heard the leader of the group in the corner say that he would support it. Although I do not agree with his views on capitalism and other matters, I fully agree with the picture he has given to-day of the unemployment situation in this country. I think he has given some very impressive examples of destitution amongst our people. I was sorry to see that occasionally what he said did not meet with that degree of sympathy which it should get from the house, but I am in agreement with him when he says that notwithstanding anything before the house now, unemployment remains essentially the problem that should engage our attention.
The amendment is quite concise and clear. It might be divided into three distinct parts. In the first- place, it reminds the house of specific promises made prior to the election of 1930. Secondly, it reminds the house of the extraordinary powers to deal with unemployment that have been repeatedly secured from this parliament by the present government. And in the third place, comparing these promises with the full powers that were given the government to redeem them, it reminds the house that nothing specific has been done to meet the tremendous problem that exists. We are not to be surprised that the people are so disappointed to-day in view of the lack of policy of the government in this respect. When the Prime Minister delivered his now
1214	COMMONS
Unemployment Relief-Mr. Rinjret
famous addresses over the radio at New Year's, the people regarded these addresses as an earnest effort to solve the deplorable conditions that exist at the present time, and it is not to be wondered at that, finding out that the whole program of reform on the part of the government is not for to-day but for to-morrow or next year or five years hence, the people who are unemployed feel that they have been completely overlooked in the new program.
We have on the order paper measures concerning social legislation, but what is social legislation to people who are not working? How can you interest them in a project which does not concern them and is dealing only with a condition that may arise not any sooner than a couple of years hence? There is on on the order paper a measure for limiting the hours of work, but what is that to people who do not work at all? Their hours of work are limited in the extreme and naturally a reform of this kind, even if good in itself, cannot bring any relief to them. On the order paper there is another measure to provide for a weekly day of rest, but again I ask: What does that mean to men who not only rest one day in the week but are forced to rest for the whole seven days? We are told that later on we shall have a measure to regulate wages. Again I ask:	What is
that to a man who, not having any wages at all, does not expect to benefit by this kind of legislation?
But if I have been impressed by the speech delivered by my good friend the leader of the Labour party (Mr. Woodsworth), I shall say in all frankness that I was less impressed by the speech delivered by the hon. member for East Essex (Mr. Morand). If he speaks for his party, may I for a moment dwell upon the great change in the tone of the speeches that we are having from the Conservative party to-day and those that we heard in 1930 and the first years of this parliament? In 1930 the Conservatives were claiming that the then Liberal government had done no good with regard to labour, but that if the Tories were returned to power, they alone, and sometimes the present Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) insinuated that he alone, would solve the problem of unemployment. I remember very well in one of the first sessions of this parliament when from this side of the house a motion similar to this was moved and the government was asked why they were not going on with the solution of that problem. Again the Prime Minister said: Give me health and a term of office and I will solve that problem. He was going to do it and his government was going to do it. But what

do we hear now from tho hon. member for East Essex? He says that if the government has not solved the unemployment problem, it is because the Liberals have failed to cooperate. In other words, after defeating us by contending that we could not solve the problem, this government are now trying to put the blame on us because they have not been able to achieve a solution themselves. I am not mentioning this from a strictly political standpoint as I might be accused of doing by certain hon. gentlemen, but I say that the government is at fault because not only did it disregard every project submitted by hon. members in the comer to my left and every resolution submitted by ourselves, but. it did not seek cooperation. The government claimed unlimited powers for itself in the form of a blank cheque; it told the house and the country: We do not need the opposition; we do not wish to discuss the matter with parliament; we have no regard for the Progressive party; give us unlimited power, vote that blank cheque and we will do everything ourselves. That is what took place But now we are on the eve of an election and the government says:	We did not do it
because the Liberals did not help us to do it. If this government wants our cooperation, I think the electorate is even much more anxious than is the government to have the cooperation of the Liberal party and it will prove that at the earliest possible opportunity Another claim that is made is that when we raise the question of unemployment we are obstructing the work of the house. We shall certainly hear that before this debate is over. I do not recall in all my short experience as a member of parliament and in earlier years as a member of the press gallery an opposition making such generous and complete offers of cooperation to a government as we have done this year. We have waived completely our right to take part in the debate on the address; we have waived private members' motions for a number of sittings; we are even ready to give assurance to the government that if they will not press any motion for supply, we will make it easy for them later on to get all the supply they need. What we wanted to do-and I wish to say that again to the hon. member for East Essex-was to cooperate with the government if it would only bring down its famous reforms. We have had them and I am going to make a frank statement to the house and the country: we are supporting those reforms in principle; there are some details upon which we are not agreed. I will say further: If I were to listen to some opposition in the part of the country from which I come

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Rinjret
I would sometimes hesitate to give my unlimited support to those measures; yet in a spirit of cooperation, of political abnegation to a certain extent, because we believe in the principles of those reforms and because we want to give the government the fullest cooperation in carrying out those measures, we will support unemployment insurance and other reform measures and I am ready to vote for them although quite a number of my electorate wants me to vote the other way. So far as cooperation is concerned, is that good faith on our part? I wish to emphasize that I think the comment the hon. member made to-day is altogether undeserved.
When we raise the question of unemployment that is not lack of cooperation; it is not obstruction. We believe it is the more pressing problem before the country and parliament. We believe in framing this program of reform the Prime Minister has overlooked the essential thing-how to remedy not future but present conditions. The diseased body is given a preventive against future sickness, but there is no remedy for the present one and the government is just like a doctor who would tell a patient: well, if you do not die from the present disease, I promise to cure you for the next one that you may contract. We are asking the government: Before you insure against unemployment of the year 1938 or 1939 and before you limit hours of work and set a wage scale for those who still enjoy the privilege of working, give a little more thought to those who are at present unemployed, to those who have no hours of work, no wages and who have to depend entirely on provincial and municipal aid. If we insist on that, it is because the government, far from indicating that it will at this session introduce legislation to cure unemployment, is now receding from the very limited degree of help that it has given to the provinces in the past. In June, 1934, at the end of the session the government through the Minister of Labour (Mr. Gordon) announced that it might abandon its contribution to direct relief. Later on there took place in Ottawa a conference, a sham conference I would call it, which lasted exactly three days. One day was consecrated to welcoming the premiers from the different parts of the country and of course the last day was consecrated to wishing them goodbye when they were returning home; there was only one day of conference, and what took place? There was no discussion, no debate, no opportunity even for any of those premiers to present their case, but merely an ultimatum from the Prime Minister that they would be told later on what this government was willing to do.
And what took place as regards the province of Quebec? This government was paying, or at least was supposed to pay, one-third of the relief money and other unemployment money. That amounted to over a million dollars I am sure. The Minister of Labour notified Hon. Mr. Taschereau that in future it would be only 8600,000, and since then it has fallen to $500,000 and I think it is now only 8400,000, and it is my observation that even that small amount of money is very hard to get from the federal government; you must send in accounts, and other accounts, and have them checked north and checked south, and the government has always been six or eight months late in its payments. But I do not want to discuss that part of it, I see I am disturbing the minister already.


Mr. GORDON:: May I ask the hon. member a question? I do not like to interrupt, and I rarely do, but there was no time that the federal government was ever six or eight months behind in payments to the province of Quebec.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: That is not a question.


George Gordon: But the province of Quebec has been eighteen months behind in sending in their accounts for payment.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: Well, here we have an admission of delay, whether it was due to my hon. friend or to the province. Whatever money the federal government pays to the municipalities is not only being reduced all the time but payment is subject to considerable delay. Let me point out that I read in the paper this morning that for the month of March the municipal administration of Montreal is asked to vote 81,443,771, nearly a million and a half dollars. If the federal government is going to contribute not one-third, but merely $400,000 to the whole province, you will see that it means a very paltry sum indeed as the city of Montreal's proportion. Yet there was a time when the government was willing to pay one-third, so I am quite right in saying that not only is the present government not coming forward with any help or policy in the matter of unemployment, but on the contrary is receding considerably.
The government was not very ready to discuss this problem with the provincial premiers in 1934, or to discuss it with the mayors. I remember that not a month ago we were told through the newspapers that this government had declined to receive in Ottawa a delegation of mayors, and I am surprised

Unemployment Rekej-Mr. Rinjret
that it was not anxious to meet even the mayor of Montreal. I think it should have been pleased to meet him. It was not very anxious to meet me sometimes when I was mayor. But I am pointing out that we have only omissions to underline in the matter of a policy by this government in regard to unemployment. They did not accept the offer of the premier of Quebec. Correspondence was laid on the table on February 15 on the motion of the hon. member for Laprairie-Napierville (Mr. Dupuis) showing that a generous offer was received from Hon. Mr. Taschereau; at least it was something positive. He said the province was willing to pay 50 per cent if the federal government would pay 50 per cent. The statement of the Minister of Labour was that the offer was not made in good faith, that the premier of Quebec knew very well that this government would not accept it. Well, why not test the sincerity of the premier of Quebec, why not accept the offer if only to find out whether Mr. Taschereau would live up to his part? I think Mr. Taschereau was very sincere in making that offer, but that the Minister of Labour was much more sincere when he refused. That part of the transaction at least is very clear.
Besides that we have had a slackening in public works. Look at the city of Montreal for instance. Not a veTy large amount of money was voted for Montreal out of the famous S40,000.000 program, but there was something, mostly it is true for the western part, where- the vote is more likely to be on the sid-e of the Conservative party; yet we are interested in public works all over the city. But they have not been going on very rapidly. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I may tell you that the public works policy of this government in my city is a policy of excavations. We had the excavation of the Canadian National Railways terminal some years ago; there it is, gaping wide open to the view o>f the public. Later on we heard that my hon. friend the Postmaster General (Mr. Sauve) -not from himself, because he never wants to give any information on that matter, but through the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Stewart)-was going to build a postal terminal in Montreal. Well, the land was excavated a couple of years ago, and there it gapes, a true companion to the Canadian National excavation.


Mr. HANBURY:: With a fence around.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I was told a few days ago that contracts had 'been let and that at last this terminal would be built. I regret that inasmuch as this government decided to
TMr. Rinfret.]
supplement what it was not doing in direct relief by public works, it has not been more expeditious as regards works in Montreal.
Another cause for grave apprehension is as to what is going to take place after the first of April. The other day -the Minister of Labour in replying to the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) said something that is most extraordinary, but if it indicates anything it indicates that the government itself does not know what it will do after the first of April. Here is what the Minister of Labour said:
I do not know' that I made the announcement that direct relief would terminate on March 31, but this government is keeping in close touch with the provinces and a decision will be arrived at as to what method may have to be employed with respect to assisting them. Up to the moment v'e have not had any information or request from the provinces as to what assistance they may need.
I do not wish to be unfair, I will admit that in that reply there is an indication of some intention on the part of the government to do something, but it is a cause of gravest concern to all interested parties to see that hesitancy and evident lack of decision in so essential a matter.
The unemployment question is a national problem. I may again refer to the quotation made by the hon. member for West Lambton (Mr. Gray) from an order in council passed by this government in 1931, P.C. 2043:
Whereas unemployment is primarily a municipal and provincial responsibility, it has been so general throughout Canada as to constitute a national concern.
On that I think we are all agreed, and I hope -one of the decisions of this government wil be not to abandon that attitude as regards unemployment. It is a problem for this government and this parliament primarily to solve. There is good ground for that attitude, because after all, while seasonal and local unemployment may be due to local conditions, when we have a general state of unemployment as we have in Canada now we can say it is due primarily to the condition of trade and industry in the country. I do not say that 'by changing one item in the tariff or modifying the budget of the country you could solve the problem in one day, although I think we have been most unwise, the majority of this parliament, in approving of budgets rising to such heights as we have had in the last five years. But I do say the condition of trade and industry is the cause for unemployment in this country, and therefore the responsibility is on the government which is responsible for trade and industry.

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Rinfret
I say further that in Montreal, as in all large cities, the unemployed are not all from that city itself; they come from all over the province and even all over the country. I remember that when I was mayor of Montreal we had to deal with men who were sent to us by the mayor of Winnipeg. I merely mention that in passing as an illustration of the fact that when unemployment becomes general it is no longer a municipal or a provincial matter. There are certain centres in the country which are flooded with unemployed coming from all parts of the country, and it would be most unfair for the central government not to acknowledge its primary responsibility for dealing with that problem. I might point out also that with regard to a large city such as Montreal-and this would apply to Toronto or even to Sherbrooke-we do not receive the full benefit of all the money collected in the city. The harbour, the customs and the post office all collect money, in the main from activities taking place within the city limits, but that money belongs-and rightly so-to the central government. The central government has the power of taxation; it is able to call on many resources; it is able to exact money from those who should contribute it to the treasury of the country, but these opportunities are not open to the municipalities. Look at the difficulties with which the present administration in Montreal are faced. They have tried the income tax, the sales tax, this tax and that tax, but everywhere they are met with the condition which demonstrates that a problem such as this cannot be properly dealt with by only a small portion of the country. They want to tax a certain class of people in Montreal in order to meet the needs of the unemployed, but those people need only move to the next municipality in order to escape that tax, It is only the central power that can go to all the people of Canada and secure, through taxation or otherwise, the money needed for unemployment relief, and use it for that purpose.
Therefore I do say, Mr. Speaker, that if this responsibility has to be placed somewhere it should rest with the federal government. Yet, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, this government are not showing any signs of activity which would indicate that they are alive to their responsibility. On the contrary they seem to think that because they have provided a reform program which smacks very much of electoral disquiet, they have provided for the future, and that the present problems can be solved by leaving them alone or leaving them to be dealt with by local authorities. I remember that at the beginning of the session
there was some discussion as to the number of unemployed in the country. Statistics are very deceiving; if you consider the heads of families, their dependents, this class or that class you may suit them to your purpose, but I have in my hand a return brought down by the Secretary of State (Mr. Cahan) which places the number of persons on direct relief at 1,182,123. Those are the figures supplied by the government, and I do not think they show any decrease in the number of unemployed such as the Prime Minister attempted to point out in a former debate. On the contrary I think it is amply proven that there are vast numbers of people still on direct relief, and I say that unless the government have some policy to substitute for it the time is very ill chosen for any minister to announce to the country that the government are not going to pay their share and accept their responsibility in connection with direct relief, but are going to leave it to the provinces and the municipalities, contenting themselves with the payment of a lump sum.
I know, as everyone knows, that direct relief is an evil, but it has been rendered necessary because of the conditions that have arisen in the country. I repeat, however, and I think this is a fair statement to make, that direct relief is inevitable unless you have something else. It is all right to say that direct relief is not moral or that it is anti-social or something else, but if you do not provide work or if you have not a policy to deal with the problem in some more effective way are you going to let the people starve in order to show them that they are living in an unmoral state or something like that? Inasmuch as we must have it then I say the federal government should pay even a larger share than one-third of the cost of direct relief. If this government should drop out direct relief in Montreal would be left either to the province or to the municipality, and if that happened a condition would arise upon which I do not wish to dwell. In Montreal there are 225,000 people who depend upon the municipal cheque for their living. Do you imagine for a moment that you can turn those people loose and say there will be no cheque this week or next week? That would be a terrible state of affairs. It would be a new order of things, but not the new order that was promised in the Prime Minister's radio speeches. When the government say they are not going to pay more than a certain amount they practically accept the possibility of such a situation arising, and it is only because the government of the province and the administration of the city are more alive to their responsibility that this
1218	COMMONS
Unemployment Relief-Mr. Rinfret
condition does not come about. But that does not relieve this government of their responsibility through accepting, even in theory, a situation of that kind.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I say that this amendment is very opportune, because it places the situation squarely before the country. Even if we are willing to accept the principle of unemployment insurance for coming years, together with the other reforms that have been announced-which have been in the programs of all parties, in fact, and have reached their place in the program of the present government only after being supported by the other parties in this country-we insist that the first thing we should have is a clear enunciation of policy by this government as to what they intend to do in regard to unemployment, because I say the disease of to-day is of much graver moment than the possible disease of five years hence. The reforms may be good in principle and even in practice, but they fail to touch that essential point. On the contrary the amendment brings that forward and reminds the country of the primary fact that the first thing to which this parliament should devote its attention, is the cure of our present evils and the certainty that these difficulties will receive consideration on the part of the government.
In conclusion may I say that I have no hope that the house will aocept the amendment. It is only natural to expect that hon. gentlemen opposite will vote against it. Though the Prime Minister claimed some weeks ago that we were now the Conservatives and that hon. gentlemen opposite had become the Liberals, I am afraid they have not become Liberal enough to vote for the amendment. It is my impression, from the way this session has been conducted, that the government did not expect that we on this side of the house would agree with their reforms. It was rather expected that we would oppose them from the very first, and perhaps force an election. Evidently the Prime Minister has been surprised by our attitude; in fact at times I think he has been surprised at his own. He is now somewhat embarrassed as to what he is to do next. I am giving him this advice in all good faith: Let him look first to the problem of unemployment because it is the most urgent.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (East Toronto):: Mr. Speaker, the motion now under discussion has to do with the most important problem which can come before parliament, and today the people of Canada are paying for forty years' neglect of it. This afternoon we heard from the representative of the

constituency of St. James (Mr. Rinfret), Montreal, and a former mayor of that city. The constituency of St. James is the home of the so-called capitalist system of Canada, which more than any other agency is to blame for the present unemployment situation.
It would be just as unfair for me to blame the former mayor of Montreal for the condition of affairs prevailing in that city, for the unemployment, the untold privation and suffering as it was for the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie), assisted by the hon. member for West Lambton (Mr. Gray) to blame the government of Canada for the unemployment situation in the dominion.
May I observe in passing that the very same speech was made in Toronto by one of the hon. members who has spoken, and upon that occasion he complained that the Conservative government had not solved the unemployment condition in three days. Well, the hon. member for St. James was a part of the administration which held office from 1921 until 1930. That government was in office 5,697 days and did nothing but make a political football of the unemployment problem. The result was that when the present administration took office they found no organized plan either with the provinces or the municipalities which would have been sufficient to cope with the difficulty.
I am sorry to note the political trend of the discussion on this motion, because if there is one problem which should not be considered from a standpoint of party politics it is this particular problem which affects such large numbers of the men and women in the industrial centres in which such conditions have never before prevailed. I hope we will never again see the conditions under which many people who have been born in our cities and others who are new arrivals are living. They are enduring untold suffering, awful privations exceeding anything the human imagination can conceive, and this condition applies to skilled workers and other men and women who never knew what it was to lack a day's employment. These are most distressing conditions.
I am sorry to note the partisan stand taken by the Liberal party in connection with this proiblem. I admire the nature of the real liberalism which inspired the miners of Cornwall to march to London town to defend Bishop Trelawney against the tyranny of James II, as I do the freeholders of Buckinghamshire who defended John Hampden

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Church
against the tyranny of Charles Stuart. I cannot, however, admire the economic liberalism of the Liberal party in Canada, because I believe that economic liberalism, the policy adopted by those of the Manchester school and by those who for many years have been crying out for free trade and semi-free trade must bear some of the burden of blame for the condition of unemployment we have.
In my view the present economic problems of Canada cannot be solved by majorities in parliament. They must be dealt with by the nation as a whole, and as a matter of life and death. Our problems demand national sacrifice, and not parliamentary repartee, such as was attempted last night by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie). A remedy must be found for this great disaster of unemployment because it is the greatest disaster this or any other nation has ever experienced. The remedy must be as far reaching and uncompromising as the application of conscription was found to be in war. We have a war in Canada to-day, a war between thousands of our citizens on one hand and poverty and starvation on the other. Do not run away with the idea that the economic war is not as bad as a military war, because unemployment is as dangerous as a foreign foe in war time. Against a foreign foe we are united to repel invasion, but against our internal foe of unemployment we are not united and up to 1930 did nothing to check the advance of this enemy. In a time of military contest our country's resources are mobilized, and we have control of the transportation services, the man power and capital resources of the country. Under those circumstances we would be prepared and united to meet a foe, but when we have to meet a foe just as bad, namely the foe of unemployment, we are divided into political parties. Instead of standing united to solve this problem we are not united.
I believe our Prime Minister and the present government deserve a great deal of credit. I do not know where a great many of the municipalities would have been had it not been for the service given by the government now in office, because the government which preceded us for nearly nine years did nothing but make a political football of the whole problem. I mentioned between 1921 to 1930 the matter of unemployment on many occasions. May I say in passing that I would advise the hon. member for West Lambton who seconded the motion and is a past-president of the Sarnia senior rugby team dominion champions, to sign the hon.
member for St. James and the members of the cabinet of the former administration as members of his team next year on account of the football they made of unemployment from 1921 to 1930.
The hon. member for Vancouver Centre made reference to two paragraphs in the speech from the throne. I have looked through the speeches from the throne for many years, and as a result I am led to make these observations. In the year 1926 I complained about the unemployment situation. At page 91 of the debates for that year I am reported as follows:
I very much regret that in the speech from the throne the government has given no indication that they are going to take any active steps to solve the economic ills of the country. There is the problem, for instance, of unemployment. Unemployment to-day in the larger centres of population is very acute. I might refer to the unemployment in the large manufacturing city from which I come. I know the conditions there, and I know that in the past three or four days very rapid preparations have been made by the social and charitable institutions and the public bodies of various kinds in the city to try and cope with the unemployment situation with which we shall he faced this coming winter.
We find nothing about unemployment in the speech from the throne of that year or for many years in which the previous government held office. The government which took office in 1921 had before it a report on unemployment ordered by the Union government in 1919 under Mr. Justice Mathers of Winnipeg. This report came as a result ol a national industrial conference which sat under Mr. Justice Mathers of Winnipeg. They travelled across Canada hearing evidence from public, commercial and manufacturing bodies. Later they made a report to the government in the fall of 1921, stating:
We recommended to your government-
The Union government-
-the question of making some provision by a system of state social insurance for those who through no fault of their own are unable to work, whether the inability arises from lack of opportunity, sickness, invalidity or old age. Such insurance would remove the spectre of fear which now haunts the wage earner and make him a more contented and better citizen.
Last night the hon. member for Vancouver Centre urged, as one of his nine points, the calling of another conference. By the time the Liberal party have another conference instead of being in the house of industry the unemployed will be dead and gone. By the time the Liberal party have another conference the unemployed will be dead and in

1220	COMMONS
Unemployment Relief-Mr. Church
the cemetery. My hon. friend from Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) proposed a dominion-provincial conference to consider the question of financial relations between the provinces and the dominion, and secondly to consider unemployment, Canada's most urgent problem. The late Liberal government were nine years in power and had a report before them recommending sickness and unemployment insurance, and yet they did nothing to give effect to it. I myself brought this matter to the attention of parliament on many occasions in the nine years the Liberals were in power, and motions were also moved by my hon. friend from North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps). I was a member of the committee on industrial and international relations for many years, and I supported this particular policy from the time that I entered the house till I left it in 1930 and I continually brought the matter to the attention of the late government. As late as February 25, 1929, I had this question on the order paper:
1.	Has the government any plans for providing employment for the great body of the unemployed?
2.	If so, what are they and what action will be taken, and when?
Mr. Heenan:
1.	The question of unemployment is one for the provincial governments.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
That was all they thought of it. That was the government of which my hon. friend from St. James (Mr. Rinfret) was a member. On March 5, 1930, I asked the government this question respecting unemployment relief:
1.	Has the government any plans for providing useful employment for the great body of the unemployed?
2.	If so, what relief will be afforded?
3.	Will the government accept the offer of the province of Ontario to provide one-third of the cost of certain forms of relief in conjunction with the federal and municipal authority; if not, why not?
Instead of answering that question the Liberal government asked to have it ruled out of order. I asked another question on March 13, 1930, with reference to an advisory economic committee. This was my question:
Will the government consider the appointment of an advisory economic committee for Canada to deal with economic questions?
The reply of the then Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) was this:
This and kindred subjects are receiving the attention of the government.
In 1927 my hon. friend from Winnipeg moved a resolution in the house, and asked to have it referred to the industrial and international relations committee. That motion

was talked out of the house. By whom? It was talked out of the house on two occasions, in 1927 and again in 1928, by members who were supporting the government of that day. They prevented the hon. gentleman from having his case considered by the industrial and international relations committee at that time. It was just about that time that I presented the following resolution, adopted in 1927 by the ministerial association of the country:
Your committee, after careful enquiry and conference, respectfully submits concrete proposals, designed to help in solving the problems of relief and unemployment.
Your committee is conscious that results will depend upon the birth and cultivation of a public conscience, which shall demand that standard' of living in which no worthy citizen or his or her dependents shall suffer from hunger or cold by the operation of economic or other conditions beyond his or their control. To secure this conscience demands tact, tenacity and widespread use of the pulpit, the press, the platform, and every other form of advocacy.
Your committee believes that this association must employ its strength and zeal with determination to obtain the defined objectives.
Unemployment is an unsolved but solvable problem. It results generally from the operation of forces beyond the direct control of the wage-earner, and constitutes a menace and challenge to every citizen.
Your committee believes unemployment contributes to the moral, mental and physical deterioration of our citizens, and involves immense annual economic losses. It permits thousands of children to exist cold, neglected, under-nourished, and exposed to the most serious afflictions affecting the human race; it robs womanhood and manhood of character, their sense of self-respect, and shadow's their life outlook with shame and despair; it demoralizes unfolding youth, begets beggars and' vagrants; it is so far reaching in its effect upon society that generations unborn wall reap the awful harvest which follows inevitably in its wake.
Your committee believes the burden of responsibility to be a joint one resting upon all citizens and in particular embracing the federal, provincial and civic administrations. It would appear that the federal government has not been impressed by the serious and accumulative consequences of unemployment upon the citizens of the dominion.
Right down to the day the Liberal government left office I cannot find that they did anything of a practical nature to solve the unemployment problem, or to give relief to the municipalities of Canada, or to pay the municipalities one-third of the cost of relief. The municipalities had to deal with the unemployment problem for several years before the present government came into office, and before they got the help of this government, which was the most worthy help that was ever given to them. I do not know where

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Church
the constituents of my hon. friend from St. James would have been had it not been for the help that this government gave in the matter of unemployment relief and for the great work done by the Prime Minister and his cabinet to solve this unemployment problem.
This question also came up in the House of Commons in the session of 1923 in connection with the combines act. One of the main causes of the unemployment we have to-day has been the gigantic mergers and trusts and combines in restraint of trade which flourished unmolested from 1921 down to 1930, when the Liberals were in power. During that debate I proposed to write into the criminal code of this country the Sherman anti-trust law, and I proposed the appointment of a federal trade commissioner for Canada to regulate those abuses. I also proposed to add a section to the criminal code to give the grand jury at the assizes power to do the very work which a committee of this House of Commons has been doing for the past fifteen months, but that matter was not even considered by the government. I brought it up on many other occasions but it was rejected. So we can see, Mr. Speaker, all that was done by the Liberal government for the unemployed.
Another cause of unemployment has been the policy of economic liberalism in this country. Away back in the session of 1923, on the nineteenth of March, I moved a resolution in the house on Canada's coal supply, urging that we should have a national fuel policy for the people of this country so that we would not be left dependent on the United States. That resolution urged that the government immediately consider an allBritish and Canadian coal supply for Canada, whether the coal came from Wales, the maritimes or Alberta. When I proposed in this house a system of bonuses and subventions and subsidies for coal and grain and steel and iron, what was the policy of the government of which the hon. member for St. James was a member? It was to oppose the policy which I advocated, and not once but three or four years. Where would the maritimes have been to-day if it had not been for the policy which the Conservative party adopted under the leadership of the present Prime Minister? He is leading a party of reform, a party of real liberalism as we had it in England a hundred years ago at the time of the industrial revolution. Where would the maritimes have been had it not been for the assistance which the
92582-78 J
leader of this government gave them following out the policy advocated in my resolution which on many occasions hon. gentlemen opposite voted down? As a result of that policy the coal and steel and iron industries, which were withering industries in the maritimes, are to-day progressive and on the road to recovery.
What about grain? Agriculture, coal, and steel and iron are the three great key industries in this country, and the Conservative party has always been a consistent protectionist party with respect to them. The Conservative party under the leadership of the Prime Minister believes in giving protection to our own industries and in eliminating the abuses in the capitalist system. The basis of our policy has always been protection for two great classes in this country, agriculture and the industrial workers. Our policy has been our own work for our own workmen, and our own markets for our own' products. That is what made Canada a great industrial country, the country it is to-day. And where was the Liberal party in regard to this problem in the prairies? Where was the Hon. Mr. Crerar, who came down to my riding, a former Home bank director? Where were all these free traders? They were contending all along that the grain industry was a north and south industry, instead of an east and west industry, and they proposed free trade north and south. But we could not get any grain into the United States except our hard wheat. Afterwards there was an inquiry in the house and the then Prime Minister appointed Mr. Justice Turgeon of the Supreme Court of Saskatchewan to look into the question. Mr. Justice Turgeon found the very thing that I have pointed out; he said that there had been bootlegging of hard wheat in the elevators at Buffalo, Baltimore, New York and Boston. I was there and saw it myself. A great protectionist paper in Toronto, the Evening Telegram, spent thousands of dollars to prove its case, and it did prove it; and that is one of the reasons why the farmers of the prairies are in the condition in which they find themselves to-day. When the government of Sir William Hearst went out of power and the Drury government came in, Mr. Drury was not very long in office before he presented to the Prime Minister of this country in 1924 a resolution of the Canadian council of agriculture, and he denounced the manufacturers of Ontario and Quebec as thieves and robbers. The resolution complained that the farmers on the prairies had suffered from many unmitigated evils for many years, that the farmers
1222	COMMONS
Unemployment Relief-Mr. Church
had been exploited and plundered by those who enjoyed special privileges, and they requested to be relieved of the artificial barriers that stood in their way. Well, Ontario got rid of one of these obstacles in the form of the Drury government. Mr. Drury so denounced the manufacturers of Ontario that no manufacturer would invest any money in that province during the time that government was in office, with the result that industry got into a very bad state indeed. And where was Mr. Crerar all that time? I was never very enthusiastic about the Union government, but I will say this, that that goverment made a courageous effort in 1919 to rescue the farmers of the prairies, the people who were actually growing the grain, from these exploiters. As I said at that time, the greatest enemy of the man who grew grain in the prairies was not the manufacturer east of the great lakes but the big interests west of the great lakes, the grain combines and exchanges and elevator and transportation monopolies. Again I ask, where were these free traders when the grain industry was suffering in this way? We find that eventually they have had to come and ask this government to give them protection for this withering industry; they want a stabilization fund. But they were supporting free trade at that time. Mr. Crerar and his friends secured an injunction to prevent an investigation into the alleged system of robbery of the man who grows grain, but the Union government-and I give them credit for this-did try to do something practical for the farmers.
I have referred the house to two or three matters in connection with economic liberalisms, the economic liberalism of the Manchester school. I submit that the government of Canada might have done something practical regarding the St. Lawrence waterway. There was issued the other day a report to congress showing the magnificent success of the Panama canal. We know that they all laughed at Theodore Roosevelt when he put through that canal, but it is a magnificent success to-day, and no one knows how much it has contributed to employment the world over. If the government in 1921 had done something practical in connection with the St. Lawrence waterway, in conjunction with the United States, if they had pressed the matter year after year, we would have been prepared to meet the unemployment situation. Again, between 1921 and 1930 the question of a national hydro policy for this country came under consideration. What greater agency for the development of a country could there have been than that-a policy proposed right

in this house. We have 42,000,000 horse power in this country and only 7,000,000 developed, just one-sixth of all the potential water power capacity at our disposal. What was the policy of hon. gentlemen opposite when this matter was up, when the province of Ontario came here asking for a lead and proposed a federal policy for this country so that all power development power would be generated at cost and distributed to the two central provinces? The government of that day did nothing to put that policy into effect.
I say that we should all emulate the King in the calm words he used a year ago. There should foe calm words here instead of narrow partisanship. What did His Majesty say over the radio? His words were heard throughout the world on Christmas day a year ago, and I venture to say that if you canvassed the opinion of all reasonable men who heard him they would agree that we should reform our system. As the King said, we should have those qualities of unshakable sanity, invincible patience and tireless good will; those are the qualities we need to-day, which His Majesty so fittingly commended on that occasion. Hon. gentlemen opposite criticize the present government but I do not hesitate to say that this government did more in three months after coming into power, they did more for the unemployed in that time, than was done in the whole nine years the Liberal party was in office. This party has never been partial to the dole; the dole is only a temporary expedient, something which is intended to meet an emergency. As President Roosevelt said the other day, the lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before him, were conclusive on this point, that continued dependence upon relief tended towards moral disintegration and the fundamental destruction of moral fibre. As he said, the dole is a narcotic to the human spirit; it is inimical to the dictates of sound policy; it is a violation of the liberties of America. He urged work for every able bodied man and said that the federal government must quit the business of relief.
What did the Liberal party in this country do from 1921 to 1930? Owing to their complete failure to take any steps, the government which followed them in 1930 could do nothing but come to the aid of the struggling municipalities and assist them and the provinces, because many of the municipalities were facing bankruptcy. I do not know where the municipalities would have been had it not been for the aid that this government extended to them. It seems to me that the

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Church
Liberal party in Canada failed to realize the inroads which science had been making during the past nine or ten years into human labour; the machine has been the cause of unemployment everywhere. The machine is doing the work of man and man is not employed. All wealth was once created by the working classes and the soil combined; now it is created by the machine. The inventors, the rationalizers, the mass production experts, the clever fellows who have developed control over inanimate nature are making it more and more difficult for men to get employment. Judged by the old standard, the Canadian workmen's capacity to produce goods and services, the ordinary citizen would not be worth his salt; the machine can do the work better and more cheaply. But surely that is an absurd position for an industrial society to find itself in. For man first, last and always is the most important thing in civilization and a machine can produce everything but ideas.
We are living in a jobless age. Just the other day reference was made in the house to those of our population who were around eighteen years of age as living in a jobless age. What is going to be done with them I do not know7, but it is a problem regarding which I hope we shall get some constructive suggestions from hon. members opposite. I notice we did get one from the hon. member for West Edmonton (Mr. Stewart) after hon. members on this side had made the very same proposals several years ago and again about a month ago in the house.
The question of unemployment insurance was brought up by the hon. member for North Winnipeg on March 16, 1927, and it was talked out at six o'clock by Liberal members. His motion was to refer the question to the committee on industrial and international relations. The question of unemployment insurance referred to by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre last night was part and parcel of the Liberal platform, if you please, away back in 1919. Clause number 7 of this platform reads as follows:
That in so far as may be practicable, having regard to Canada's financial position, an adequate system of insurance against unemployment, sickness, dependence in old age, and other disability, which would include old age pensions, widows' pensions and maternity benefits, should be instituted by the federal government in conjunction with the governments of the several provinces; and that on matters pertaining to industrial and social legislation, an effort should be made to overcome any question of jurisdiction between the dominion and the provinces by effective cooperation between the several governments.
That was the platform of the Liberal party in 1919. They were elected to office on that in 1921, but although they remained in office for nine years they did nothing to put that platform into effect. Of course, as we know, a platform, as the late Hon. Israel J. Tarte said was made to get in on and not to stand on.
We have had visits from many hon. gentlemen opposite to my city, and in view of the partisan attitude taken by them in regard to this question I would like to refer to a brilliant book entitled The New Conservatism, written by Mr. W. S. Morrison, a British member of parliament, one of the most gifted of the younger Conservatives, and slated, as many British papers say, for very high office in Great Britain. He is criticizing the many-party system in his country. Speaking of Great Britain, he says:
The two old parties are done unless they open their ranks to new men and their minds to new ideas. There should be a modification of the present system or we will make a socialist government possible. The two old parties must be a constructive force for the building of a healthy social order based on economic and spiritual freedom or give place to those who have got an alternative program as an alternative to socialism. It is these conservatives that are the hope of the country.
These are the words of a great political leader of England, a young member of the British House of Commons and a man, as the London papers say, destined to high office in that country.
The municipalities are bearing a very heavy burden at the present time and this new legislation will be gladly welcomed by all classes of people. The industrial workers of this country are suffering as never before. As I said in the house the other day we need in parliament a type of member to bring to the attention of the house the anitiquated conditions of labour and of our maritime laws on the great lakes and their effect on unemployment and shipping. It seems more profitable for owners to lose vessels than to salvage them; our ship owners are protected by insurance. On the other hand in the fall of the year insurance for loss of life is practically nil in the upper lakes and because of this we have acute unemployment and many are suffering.
The dole is a help, but not a final remedy; it is only temporary. The policy of the Conservative party, notwithstanding statements made by hon. gentlemen opposite last night to the contrary, is not to place any more burdens or artificial barriers on business or trade and commerce or industry in this
1224	COMMONS
Unemployment Relief-Mr. Church
country, for to do so would not be modern protection. As our leader has said, I believe the new Conservative doctrine will be a greater aid to business, trade and commerce and industry generally than ever before, with protection brought up to date to take care of the consumer and labourer, to eliminate the abuses of the trusts, combines and mergers in restraint of trade which have borne so heavy a part in the unemployment of our people.
In the by-election in East Toronto we had a visit from many members of parliament from all over the country. The mover of the resolution, the hon. member for Vancouver Centre, and many others were there. The issue raised in that riding was "Beat Bennett and bad times." As I said on that occasion, the present Prime Minister, the leader of the opposition when he was Prime Minister and the leader of the Progressive party had nothing to do with the condition into which the country had fallen; this was caused by world economic conditions brought about by the war and the disturbance of the industrial equilibrium. In that riding I paid tribute along that line not only to the head of the present government but to the other two hon. gentlemen to whom I have referred. I would be most unfair if I were to say of the Liberal leader what the hon. member for Vancouver Centre has said of ours, that he was responsible for conditions at that time.


Mr. ROBERT McKENZIE (Assiniboia):: Mr. SpeakeT, I desire to discuss briefly the amendment now before the house. The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie), in moving this resolution, brought forcibly before us the fact that the most urgent matter at present confronting the people of Canada is being sadly neglected by the present government. The resolution reads:
This house regrets that, notwithstanding the specific promises made prior to the elections of 1930, and many times since reiterated, and despite the fact that extraordinary powers to deal with unemployment have been repeatedly secured from parliament, the present administration, after nearly five years of office, has not yet submitted to parliament any definite or effective policy to deal with widespread actual unemployment or distress which continues to be Canada's most urgent national problem.
We are faced to-day with the most serious problem of unemployment that has ever confronted this country; we are faced too with a government that during the election campaign of 1930 promised the electorate that they had a formula for the cure of unemployment and that if they were returned to

power they would not only relieve the existing situation but absolutely cure it. The present Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) was most emphatic in his statements at that time; and some of the statements he made were put on Hansard last night by the hon. member who moved the resolution. He said he would cure unemployment or perish in the attempt. Now after a lapse of four and a half years we come back and are told by the right hon. gentleman who was leading the house last night (Sir George Perley) that we should not criticize the government, and we were told something the same this afternoon by the hon. member for East Essex (Mr. Morand). They say we should not criticize, that we should offer suggestions; but ever since the short session of 1930 we have been offering constructive suggestions to this government. If they look up the records of 1930 and every session since, they will see that not only my right hon. leader (Mr. Mackenzie King) but others of this party have offered very constructive suggestions, which the government did not see fit to accept. Now, after a lapse of four and a half years this government must be judged by the results of the policies that they have put in force, and not by the promises that they are making for the future. The promises they made in 1930 that have not been fulfilled are still vividly in the minds of the people of Canada, and the government is to be judged by them rather than by the new array of promises that the Prime Minister broadcast at the new year.
In 1930, according to the records given at the short session of that year, there were
117,000	unemployed in Canada. That was just a little over the normal proportion of unemployment of the country. To-day we have over a million on relief. Not only has unemployment increased under this government, but trade has very materially decreased. In 1930 the total foreign trade of Canada, export and import, was over $2,000,000,000. In the last fiscal year it was down to $1,150,000,000 or thereabouts. It is further noticeable that the trade with the United Kingdom in 1930 was something over $474,000,000. We have heard a great deal about the benefits that the people of Canada got from the empire trade agreements, but in the last fiscal year the total trade with the United Kingdom was only about $343,000,000, or less by $130,000,000 than it was in 1930. In 1930 the sales tax was one per cent; at present it is six per cent, and

Unemployment Relief-Mr. McKenzie
not only that but this government have added practically all the nuisance taxes that we ever had during and following the war.


An hon. MEMBER:: And sugar.
Mr. MoKENZIE (Assiniboia): Yes, sugaT, as my hon. friend reminds me. Then we hear a great deal to-day about our railway problem. No doubt it is a tremendous problem, but we did not hear much about it in 1930. 1 believe the main trouble with our railways to-day is lack of tonnage, largely a result of the policies of the present government. Not only is that true, but there is the condition of the farmers. In the part of the country from which I come they are practically bankrupt. I believe it is safe to say that seventy-five per cent of them are absolutely bankrupt, and another ten or fifteen per cent nearly so. It will be impossible for Canada to recover from the depression until more of our people are gainfully employed in useful occupations, and the obligation rests upon this government, which won the election of 1930 by promises to solve the unemployment problem, to bring in measures that will bring about that employment.
Last night the right hon. leader of the house told us that Canada was recovering from the depression faster than other countries. Coming from western Canada I cannot see much to be elated over or to be optimistic about in regard to recovery. I believe that any improvement there is in Canada is largely reflected from the N.R.A. in the United States. Instead of finding fault with us for our criticism of the government's policies the people of the country are wondering why the opposition have been so silent regarding the policies introduced this session. It is true that some social legislation has been introduced, but it has been disappointing in comparison with what the people were led to expect after hearing the Prime Minister in his broadcast on January 2 and on three or four subsequent occasions. So far as I can learn the part of the country that I represent can receive no benefit whatsoever from the unemployment bill. The other day I asked the Prime Minister whether or not the coal miners in my part of the country could benefit under it. He rather evaded the question; he did not give a very definite answer, but from what I could gather there is no hope whatever of those men receiving any benefit from this legislation, and of course the farming community cannot benefit.
This country has been going from bad to worse for the last four or five years as far as employment is concerned. We began to take the toboggan immediately after the high tariff legislation introduced at the special session in 1930. It may be true that there has been a slight improvement during the past few months. This government introduced their "Canada first" policy in 1930 and tried to make Canada self sustained. Now if there is one country in the world that we look upon as largely capable of being self contained it is the United States, but even the United States has to import a considerable number of products, for instance nickel, and pulpwood, and other products which they must obtain in Canada. They also must import rubber. Great Britain must import at least two-thirds of her foodstuffs; France has to import oil. Every civilized country has to import some product; it is impossible for even the older nations of the world to be self contained. Therefore it was utter folly to think of Canada becoming a self contained nation. This government's policies have now been in operation for over four years, and it has been established beyond doubt that their theories and formulas for the improvement of the situation have failed and are of no avail. I have always been at a loss to understand why this government took the attitude they did, particularly following the short session of 1930. The Prime Minister seemed to think that all he had to do was to increase the tariff and the unemployment situation would be relieved and prosperity would return. But after he saw the effect of that policy I cannot understand why the government continued it. In 1930, when business collapsed and wages and salaries went down, the prices of commodities would have declined also had it not been for the high tariff policy of the government. I do not understand how the government ever thought it would be possible for the labouring men of this country, who received very moderate salaries and who, owing to the policies of this administration, had their wages reduced-because high tariffs and low wages go hand in hand-to continue to pay for what they had to buy, their clothing, their food and other requirements, at the old prices. Not only that, but if the labouring man was a taxpayer his taxes were greatly increased. The situation of the farmers was even worse; their incomes were reduced in many cases by as much as seventy-
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Unemployment Relief-Mr. McKenzie
five per cent, but still they were expected to pay the same prices for everything they had to buy, as well as increased taxes.
I remember that in 1931 the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir), who was fresh from the province of Saskatchewan and who knew the feeling of the farmers of that province with regard to high tariffs, introduced a measure providing for a bonus on wheat, and said that it was a compensating adjustment to the farmers of western Canada in view of the high tariffs that had been raised. I have been waiting to hear what the minister is going to introduce now as a compensating adjustment to the farmers of the west not only because of the high tariffs but also because of the extra taxes they will have to pay for the administration of this unemployment insurance measure. The farmers cannot benefit from that measure any more than they can benefit from high tariffs; it is impossible for the farmers to benefit from either.
It seems to me the government are very lax in regard to measures to relieve the unemployment situation. There is nothing in the legislation that has been brought down, including the unemployment insurance bill, to relieve the present unemployment situation. In addition there are many other challenges presenting themselves to the government. with which the government are not grappling. In the first place there is the interest on our bonded indebtedness. Some few years ago, after the government had negotiated a loan of some $200,000,000 at five per cent interest, I said that I believed they could have borrowed that money for at least one per cent less, which would have meant a considerable saving in the annual interest. This interest on our bonded indebtedness makes a very considerable levy on our income each year, and the problem must be dealt with sooner or later. In addition we have another problem facing us; I refer to the pension indebtedness of the country. 1 have often asked myself why every person working for the government should be entitled to a pension. Sooner or later this pension business will have to be dealt with. I believe we are overdoing it. It is a good thing, but you can easily overdo a good thing, and I believe our pension schemes have been entirely overdone. There is also another matter which I believe must be dealt with; I refer to over-employment in our civil service. I have received quite a number of letters from people in my constituency complaining that there are too many people being employed by the government in the higher 
salaried classes. I think it is true; I believe there are altogether too many civil servants receiving exorbitant salaries.
The unemployment situation is the most serious problem confronting us, but there is another great problem which should be considered by the government and which has not been dealt with by any of the legislation that has been brought down. That question is how our farmers are to survive the present depression. They cannot survive unless something is done, by reducing interest and in other ways, in order to help them. It cannot be done by increasing their taxes through the introduction of such measures as the unemployment insurance bill, which the Prime Minister told us would mean the addition of four thousand employees to the civil service. The farmers are going to ask just what they will receive from this legislation, and I ask the government before this session is finished to endeavour to devise some scheme whereby the farmers can be kept on the land and helped through the present depression.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, February 15, consideration of the motion of Mr. Reid for the second reading of Bill No. 17, to amend the Fisheries Act, 1932.
Mr. H. J. BARBER (Fraser Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a few observations on the second reading of Bill No. 17. First may I say I believe it would have been better had this matter been brought before the house by way of resolution. Probably that action would not have been quite so spectacular from a political standpoint, but I believe it would have been just as effective, perhaps more so, than the method which has been adopted of bringing it to the attention of hon. members. I do not believe it was ever intended that parliament should replace regulations by legislation in matters of administration under the control of the departments. If we are to undertake to adjust by legislation every grievance in every corner of this great country, then we must be prepared to sit here twelve months of the year not only to pass legislation but to amend it.
Let me point out the danger in the present instance. So far as I am concerned, if the bill receives second reading, well and good. In that event the principle would be adopted, and seining would be prohibited in district

Fisheries Act
No. 1, British Columbia. If the bill is defeated on second reading, then the matter is closed. I doubt very much whether all hon. members from British Columbia will support the bill, but even if they did. a majority of the house may not see fit to interfere with the regulations as applied to certain fishing districts on the Pacific coast. That is a matter which in my view should rest entirely in the hands of the minister and the government. Under the act the parliament of Canada has given powers of regulation. Nevertheless I welcome this opportunity to discuss this matter and to bring directly to the attention of the minister and the government certain conditions pertaining to seine fishing at the mouth of the Fraser river.
The constituency I have the honour to represent is perhaps not so much concerned in this matter as the districts lying directly west. While in my constituency there are hundreds depending on the industry, other constituencies number their dependents by thousands. In the Fraser Valley constituency there are, however, a large number of good citizens located along the Friser river who for a number of years have followed the occupation of gill net fishing. Throughout those years they have been able to make a comfortable living for themselves and their families. In the last couple of years they have found their incomes greatly curtailed, in some instances to such an extent that municipalities have represented to me and to other hon. members that in the past year some of the families of these men have had to accept relief.
I have discussed the matter with representatives of the gill net fishermen, and they have protested strongly against the department permitting seine fishing in district No. 1. Their submission is that seine fishing is most destructive and will eventually destroy the established industry of gill net fishing on the Fraser river. I have discussed the matter not only with the representatives of the fishermen but with the Department of Fisheries, and I believe it would be only fair to the department to place on record the main reasons given for the introduction of seining in this particular district. I have before me a memorandum prepared by the department, and I shall quote that portion which presents their side of the case, following which I shall undertake to place on record the facts presented by the fishermen.
The first point presented by the department is as follows:
The main runs of the different species of salmon to the Fraser make their way to Canadian waters through Juan de Fuea strait and the lower portion of the gulf of Georgia that is within United States waters, During that time by far the largest portion of the catches that are made on both sides of the line is effected in the United States waters with purse seines and trap nets.
The argument there is that we should get in and catch some of the fish now being taken by the Americans. The fishermen point out that apparently the Americans have seen the error of their ways in the using of traps, and have taken them out. There is also the possibility of the Americans prohibiting seining. Even the continued use of seines in American waters is not a good argument for the use of seines in Canadian waters. I am advised there is no comparison between seining at the mouth of the Fraser river and seining on the American side of the line. On the American side, the fish travelling more or less rapidly towards the mouth of the Fraser river, about two hundred seine boats are scattered over a distance approximately of two hundred miles whereas on the Canadian side of the line over one hundred seine boats are operating over a distance of less than ten miles. As the regulations stand there is nothing to prevent another hundred boats moving in, whenever they wish. It is a well known fact that as the sockeye cross the Canadian border the water becomes more brackish, and the fish on entering fresh water have a tendency to slow down, to play around and to gather in schools in preparation for entering the river. This is where the seines get in their deadly work and where the slaughter is wholesale. To show just how-deadly seine fishing can be, my attention was drawn to a report of one week's seining allowed by, the department in district No. 1 during the first week of September, 1934. The report showed that the last day's catch of the week was only ten per cent of the first day's catch,, indicating that all the fish had been caught. That deals with the question so far as the competition with the American fishermen is concerned.
The main argument lodged by the department has to do with quality. I have before me the particular portion of the memorandum dealing wTith that point; it reads as follows:
While tile pink salmon are in first class condition all the time they are in United States waters, and while as a consequence vastly larger quantities of them have been packed there than has been the case on the Canadian side, unfortunately for us we are faced with the fact that by the time these fish reach the
Fisheries Act

Fraser river waters they are so nearly approaching spawning condition that their quality has fallen off, and it continues to deteriorate so much that it is only the earlier fish that will make a creditable pack. Since inspection of canned salmon became a factor, there is much less readiness to pack poor quality goods than was previously the case. Consequently if fishing for pinks were restricted on our side to gill netting, gill net catches would be bound to be small owing to the lack of demand for the fish.
Then further, referring to the late run of sookeye:
Since 1926 there has been coming to the Fraser in quite large quantities what are commonly called late run soekeye. These have been occurring two years out of the four year cycle; that is, 1926 and 1927, again in 1930 and 1931, and again in 1934 and 1935. These fish, like the pinks, while of good quality when they are in the United States waters, are definitely off quality when they begin to ascend the Fraser, so if purse seining for them were not permitted and inspection maintained, as with the pinks, there would be little demand for them from the gill netters.
1 should like to refer to the first paragraph I quoted in regard to quality. It says that the pink salmon are so nearly approaching spawning condition by the time they reach the Fraser river that their quality has fallen off. Those of us who live on the Fraser river know that the spawning grounds are from fifty to sixty or seventy-five miles, and perhaps further than that, from the mouth of the Fraser. We are also told by those who are in a position to judge that these fish feed while in salt water, and that they cease to feed as soon as they enter the fresh water, and that is the time that the fish is in a better condition.
As to quality, the gill net fishermen point out that the pink salmon, whether taken by seine or gill net, are oaught in practically the same waters, the boats even operating side by side, and if there is any difference in< the quality it should be in favour of the gill net caught fish as there is a vast difference in the handling oif the catch en route to the- canneries. The gill net fish are collected in small boats, the loads rarely exceeding three thousand fish, while the seine boats carry a load of from 20.000 to 30,000 fish, and these fish are dropped from the brail, a distance of from twelve to fifteen feet. Naturally, with a soft fish like the pink salmon, the weight of this load, approximately seventy-five tons, when packed into a wedge shaped hull leaves the bottom fish in a mess that has to be seen to be appreciated. Often five thousand or more of the fish at the bottom of the boat have to be thrown overboard, and there is no doubt that a certain percentage of the

others are not in prime condition. Undoubtedly the fish caught and handled in this manner must account for a considerable proportion of the so-called inferior grade. But that is the system by which this oountry,. apparently, through the ruling of the department, is endeavouring to obtain a higher grade product.
These men claim that the late run of sock-eye and pink salmon might be caught while they are in better condition if there were a longer weekly closed season and the fish were permitted to enter the river while in prime condition. The high quality of the pack would then be maintained without the use of seines.
Hon. gentlemen may have noticed that reference was made in the first paragraph of the memorandum from which I have quoted to gill net fishermen being unable to supply the fish in quantity. The gill net fishermen have made application year after year to increase the length of their nets 150 to 200 fathoms in order that they might increase the size of their catch.
On the question of quality, we have as evidence, that the gill net fish are of a higher quality in the fact that last year the gill net fishermen received sixty cents for their fish while the seiners received fifty cents.
It has been represented by certain interests that the trouble in this district No. 1 is between two classes of fishermen. That is not the case. The trouble is between the interests that own practically all the seine boats and equipment, and the fishermen; and I wish to point out that the interests that own the seine boats and equipment require five-twelfths of the catch to be handed over to them in lieu of their investment. But these big interests are not the only ones that have a heavy investment in the fishing industry. The gill net fishermen also have a very large investment, and that brings me to the claim which these men make that many misleading figures have been published by the department regarding their income, their investment, and the number of boats engaged in the gill net fishing industry. Apparently this information has been secured from the canning and packing industry. The figures issued by the department show an investment by the gill net fishermen of some $800,000, while the fishermen themselves claim that their investment is closer to $2,000,000. The number of boats estimated by the department engaged in gill net fishing is 1,600, which the men claim is an error; they state that during the last

Fisheries Act
soekeye season no less than 3,500 gill net boats were engaged in fishing in district No. 1.
It would appear to me that the question to be considered is this: Is it in the best interests of this country to continue to curtail the income of thousands of our citizens in order to satisfy the claim made by the department that a better grade of fish is being secured through seine fishing than through gill net fishing? I would say that no satisfactory evidence has been produced in support of that claim. My own opinion and it is based on information which I have secured from the men and from the department, is that it would be wise to prohibit seining for the next two years in order to check up on this question of quality. Oh, yes, the department tell us that they have no intention of permitting seining next year, the reason being that there will be no fish. But this is the year of the big run, and that is one reason why I think that the minister and the government in view of conditions should consider seriously throwing it open to the gill net fishermen and give them the advantage in this year of the big run.
I am quite willing to leave this matter to the judgment of the minister. I suggest to him that if he has not satisfactory evidence before him to justify making this change and cancelling the present regulation, he appoint someone perhaps outside the department, someone who is not interested in the canning or packing business, to go out into that district and go right out on the land or on the water and investigate and secure any information which the minister might require in order to deal with this matter.


Mr. ANGUS MacINNIS (Vancouver South):: I wish to say a few words in support of Bill No. 17 introduced by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid). To me this is the age old question, as old at least as capitalism itself, of hand production versus machine production. Gill net fishing is a form of hand fishing and purse seine fishing is a form of large scale production. There are two questions which the government should keep in mind: first of all, the preservation of the fish in the fishing areas so that there may be supplies of fish so long as there are any human beings in need of them; and secondly, the welfare of all those engaged in the fishing industry. The fishing industry should be considered as a means of livelihood for the people in the surrounding country. If more people can secure a livelihood by the use of the seine, then that would be the proper method to follow. But
it seems to me it has been proved that this is not so; it has been proved that seine fishing deprives a great number of fishermen of their livelihood while it gives a greater advantage to a small number of canners. That being so, I think the position of the minister is rather an easy one, regardless of what may have been done in the department before he came into office. He is now the minister and he is not bound by what took place before he took that office.
I do not know whether it would have been better to bring this matter before the house by way of a resolution rather than in the form of a bill, but I do not think it makes much difference. If the government would have accepted a resolution there is no reason why they cannot accept the bill. I was not here when the matter was discussed, but I understand that the hon. member introducing it asked that it be referred to the fisheries committee. I hope that the minister will see his way clear to refer it to that committee, and that when that is done an opportunity will be given some of the representatives of the gill net fishermen to appeaT before the committee. I attended a meeting in 'New Westminster early in the winter when the deputy minister, Doctor Found, was present, and I am sure that anyone who was at that meeting must have been struck with the intense feeling of the gill net fishermen. They had a feeling that they were being done out of their livelihood by the use of seines. I appeal to the minister to allow the bill to go to the committee on fisheries. I am pleased at the reasonable attitude adopted by the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber), and I add my word to his in an appeal to the minister to have the bill referred to the fisheries committee, where it may be discussed on its merits.


Hon. GROTE STIRLING (Acting Minister of Fisheries):: The hon. member who sponsors this bill (Mr. Reid) proposes to prohibit the catching of salmon by the use of purse seines. This is a controversial matter which has been before the house on previous occasions, but no one has ever attempted to deal with it by inserting in the Fisheries Act an amendment which would prohibit the use of purse seines. When I was out on the Pacific coast early in December I had the privilege of meeting delegations from the gill netters, from the purse seine men and from the canners. On the latter occasion only passing reference was made to this question. The hon. member who sponsors this bill was present when I met the gill netters. In his statement before the house on the second
Fisheiies Act

reading he, in my opinion, stated but one side of the question; and because he omitted several points which I think are salient, I propose to devote a few minutes to placing those points before the house.
Prior to 1916 the taking of salmon in these waters which we are discussing was prohibited after August 25, and the reason therefor was that the fish towards the end of the main run were not in prime condition for canning purposes after that date. They enter the straits of Juan de Fuca and hug the Washington coast, and are taken there by the United States fishermen in far greater quantities than they are on the Canadian side of the line running down the centre of those straits. As the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber) has said, until recently they have been taken in fish traps by United States fishermen, and by purse seiners as well. The fish traps have now been prohibited, and whether that prohibition will continue or not time only will tell. But intruded into this question of recent years has been the extensive runs of late sockeye. These fish come around on the Washington coast, and it is not until they enter the Canadian waters along the line running close to Boundary Bay, which is not so many miles south of the mouth of the Fraser river, that they can be taken by Canadian fishermen. The gill netters fish in the Fraser river and in the discoloured waters of the gulf of Georgia adjacent to the mouth of it, and they confine their attention principally to these discoloured waters, because in the clearer waters of the gulf the drifting gill net is visible to the fish and the fish at least endeavour to avoid it. The consequence is that the gill netters are found principally in the discoloured waters at the mouth of the Fraser river, and if they do move on into the adjacent clear water they find that they are not taking fish in the same quantities, and so they get back into the discoloured water.
Now, after 1916 there was a general desire for an increase of food, and the fishing season was therefore extended to last from July 1 to October 31. The hon. member who sponsors this bill left on the house, I think, the impression that when the seiners began by regulation to fish, they fished in the same waters and presumably for the same length of time as did the gill netters. In 1934 the purse seiners were permitted to fish from September 1, but the gill netters had begun at the beginning of the season on July 1; and on September 8 fishing was stopped by the supervisor of fisheries for conservation reasons. As two of the days between the first and the eighth of September were two weekly days of

closing for conservation purposes, the seine fishers fished only for six days at the beginning of September. Conservation having been satisfied, fishing was again permitted on the first of October. So poor was the quality of the fish that the seiners fished for only two or two and a half days and then fishing ceased. Therefore the seiners were allowed by regulation to fish in the clear waters of the gulf, not infringing upon the discoloured waters in which the gill netters fish, for only a total of eight and a half days last fishing season, whereas the gill netters in the river and in the adjacent waters near the mouth were able to fish from July 1 until fishing was stopped except for the two days a week for conservation. I do not think the hon. member made that plain to the house.
With regard to the numbers that he claims are included in the rank of the gill netters, he states that 2,366 gill net fishermen are employed. I do not know the source of his figures, but they do not agree with those of the department and it must surely know the number of licences issued. The total number of fishermen was 1,705, of whom 1,266 were white; 39, Indians; 400, naturalized orientals, and 234, fishermen who had taken licences for other areas and had them later transferred to the Fraser. In addition to the above there were 335 assistants to the fishermen. Of these, 34 were whites, one was an Indian, and 300 were naturalized orientals, making a total of 2,040 instead of the 2,366 mentioned by my hon. friend. Those fishermen and their assistants are, I presume, residents on the banks of the Fraser river and naturally are particularly interested in the process of fishing known as gill net. The seiners on the other hand come from further afield. Last year there were 103 seine boats. As the crew varies in numbers from seven to eleven men, we may say that perhaps 900 would be an average of the crews of the boats. Besides that there were the carrying boats. We may say therefore that there were
1,000	seiners interested. Those seiners come from away up north, from Skeena, Comox-Alberni, the Vancouver district, and they are just as much interested in this question we are discussing as are the gill netters.
The position taken by the department in this controversy has been to endeavour to hold the balance even between these two methods of taking the fish. It became evident in 1930 and 1931 that consequent on the scramble for world markets, the Canadian canners were losing out in those markets owing to the extreme competition of United States and Japanese canneries in the matter

Fisheries Act
of quality. They could not get a sufficiency of the quality desirable for their first grade canning. The fish, as I have pointed out already, come up and enter the clear waters to the south of the discoloured water at the Fraser river. They apparently cannot toward the end of the season be taken in sufficient quantities to supply the needs of the Canadian canner and consequently by regulation restricted seining was permitted for a certain time. My hon. friend the sponsor of the bill in his earlier statement expressed the opinion that it was not possible for the canners to keep the seine caught fish and the gill net caught fish separate. My information is to the contrary; it is that at least some of the canners are at particular pains to keep the gill net fish separate from the seine fish and so are able to say what proportion of the gill net fish and similarly, what proportion of the seine caught fish are prime, firm in flesh, suitable for a high quality of canning. Their opinion is that toward the end of the season they can get the desired quantity from fish taken in the cold clear waters of the gulf and they are not able to get them from fish taken in the discoloured waters in the Fraser river.
My hon. friend also referred to the fact that regulations were passed by the department and fired at the gill net fishermen without notice. I do not think that is quite a fair statement of the case. Every fall the chief supervisor of fisheries invites from the industry recommendations based on the past season's fishing. Those are received; perhaps they are added to in the' form of recommendations by the chief supervisor himself; they are considered; they are tabulated and they are sent out to the fishermen's organizations. Those' organizations have an opportunity to express their opinions thereof and then the department takes the necessary steps to arrange what the regulations for the coming season shall be. An order in council is then passed, and obviously it is not possible before the order in council is passed to pass on to those organizations the definite wording of the regulations. When it is passed the fishermen's organizations are so informed. I do not see in what other way ' it would be possible to keep in touch with those organizations.
It is quite obvious to me that the only role that the Department of Fisheries can take in this matter is to endeavour to hold the balance even. The fish are there to be caught, and surely no one type of fishermen can have a prescriptive right to state what method shall be adopted in order to take the fish.
There was a great controversy before the regulations of 1932 were adopted. Every effort was made on the part of the department to try to draw those two sets of people together in order to arrive at a compromise which would satisfy both. When that was found to be impossible and the United States fishermen were taking fish by the millions while the Canadian fishermen were taking them in much smaller quantities, it was evident that something had to be done in order to enable this industry which we have been building up with such success to continue to fill the needs of the market.
My hon. friend suggests that the bill should be permitted to go to the fisheries committee. I cannot accept the principle of the bill, but with that proviso I have no reason to object to its going to the fisheries committee for further consideration and discussion. It must however not be taken that the government accepts the principle of this method of prohibiting the taking of salmon by seines in the waters referred to. My hon. friend has suggested that if the bill should go to the fisheries committee it would be desirable that these fishermen should come and give evidence before the committee. We must wait until the committee makes a recommendation with regard to that but it is quite obvious to me that both contesting parties must have the same opportunity and invitation to come and give their evidence. I very much question whether witnesses coming from that distance can add any new facts to those already collected on the subject, but as I say it is for the committee to state its wishes so far as witnesses are concerned. I do not object to the bill being submitted to the select standing committee on marine and fisheries so long as it is clearly understood that the government does not accept the principle laid down.


Mr. THOMAS REID (New Westminster):: As the acting Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Stirling) has stated that he is willing that this matter be considered by the committee on marine and fisheries, my remarks will be very brief. I am disappointed that the minister makes the reservation that the government will not accept the principle of the bill. To me that is a straight direction to the committee in advance that the principle of prohibiting seines in that area does not meet with the approval of his department or of the government. I thought when he was going to refer the bill to the committee he would do so without any such reservation,
Fisheries Act

allowing the committee to decide the matter after hearing evidence, if they consider it necessary to call evidence.
In view of the fact that the acting minister has stated that in my address the first evening I presented only one side of the matter, let me point out that I have endeavoured to show both sides. I will state one fact to show how keen the cannery men are that only their side of the case shall be given to the minister, and nothing given to members of parliament or others who are interested. In 1931 I endeavoured to learn what the canners were doing, and, hearing that the Deputy Minister of Fisheries -was to meet them in Vancouver I made it my business to go there and sit in at the meeting. It was held on a Saturday afternoon. The room was full of cannery men. I asked the deputy minister if he had any objection to my sitting in, and he said no. But when I walked in to the meeting you should have seen the look of consternation on the faces of those canners. Their hair almost stood on end. I said: "Gentlemen, I might just as well tell you who I am. I happen to be the member for New Westminster representing the fishermen of the Fraser river, and I am interested in this industry. I have heard the fishermen s side and now I want to hear the canners' side." One canner got up and said: "Mr. Deputy Minister, I thought this was a private meeting." It became so embarrassing that they did not know what to do. One member said: "I suggest that Mr. Reid go out of the room until we discuss this question." I went out and took my hat and coat and went off; as a member of parliament I was not going to stand waiting like a flunkey outside the door of a canners' meeting. That is the trouble: the deputy minister goes out there and meets the canners and gets an earful from them, and they come to Ottawa and give him another earful and then he holds a meeting with the fishermen. But until such time as a deputation of the fishermen and a deputation of the canners meet together with him on common ground this matter will never be satisfactorily settled. I would welcome the bringing from the Pacific coast of representatives of the canners' interests as well as those of the fishermen. I think now is the time that the whole matter should be gone into.
I was very sorry to hear the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber) say: "I am in favour of this but I do not like the way the hon. member introduced it." Next time perhaps I shall consult him first when I am going to introduce a bill. But, Mr. Speaker, the fact is that if I had introduced this by

way of resolution he and a few of his friends might have talked it out and to-day we would find it at the foot of the order paper and so it would never be heard from again. I knew their tricks and their manners, and I introduced it as I did so that it would come squarely before the government. I speak as I feel in this matter because the livelihood of over 2,000 fishermen is at stake; they are threatened with being driven out by the vested interests who control and own most of the seines. I deprecate the acting minister giving the direction to the committee that the government is not going to accept the principle of the bill. I urge on the members of the committee that all interested parties be brought before them so that this whole matter, in which not only the livelihood of the men but the whole salmon industry itself is at stake, shall be fully heard. I am quite willing, however, to accept the suggestion of the minister and leave my further remarks for the committee.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the select standing committee on marine and fisheries.

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Rhodes for committee of supply and the amendment thereto of Mr. Mackenzie (Vancouver Centre).
Mr. B. M. STITT (Nelson):: After listening for something over a month to the declarations of anxiety on the part of hon. members opposite that we should bring down our legislation and go forward with our reforms and get on with the business of the country, the icy blast that inundated this chamber last night from Vancouver came to us with something of a shock.


William Duff: You are thinking of Hudson bay.


Bernard Munroe Stitt: To my mind all this is nothing short of a crude and organized attempt to divert public attention from the real issue that confronts this house and the people of this country to-day. The reform program of the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) is the issue now before the house. I can quite understand our Liberal friends being a little worried-


Mr. EULER:: Very little.


Bernard Munroe Stitt: For a year or two they were basking in the sunshine of a few

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Stitt (Nelson)
provincial victories, with the federal election already won, and they did not feel that they had to say or do very much. But the Prime Minister's program of reform gave them a great shock. I venture to say there will be a still greater shock coming to them when the smoke of the next election has cleared away. It is all right for them to damn the government and damn the Prime Minister and hon. members on this side for inactivity in regard to unemployment, but this was something that came to us as a legacy from the party opposite; it was left on our doorstep when we took over in 1930. It is true the leader of the government made certain promises then, and I believe he was sincere when he made them. But I do not think in 1930 any member of this house could have foreseen what was ahead of us. Most hon. members thought the depression was more or less a local affair that would blow over in a year or two, as other depressions had, and I think the right hon. leader of the government can be absolved from many of the promises he made at that time. I believe any fairminded man will admit that.
I think our friends opposite would be well advised to withhold their criticism until such time as the Prime Minister has brought down all his reforms. One or two measures have been brought down and proceeded with, but I want to tell hon. gentlemen that they have not heard half of it yet. They are ill advised to start throwing sand in the machinery at this time. I quite appreciate that hon. members may be carried away by some of the things they hear and see in these days of stress and strain, but let me say that they have no monopoly of sympathy for the unemployed, those poor unfortunates who through no fault of their own find themselves in a desperate condition. I think we on this side of the house have suffered as many sleepless nights as hon. members opposite, and we are just as sincere and just as much interested as they are in trying to find some remedy. We are looking for helpful suggestions, not for criticism. So far we have received mainly criticism from hon. gentlemen opposite, and destructive criticism at that. We have not been able to put through one piece of legislation in the last four years, no matter how helpful it may have been, without running up against almost a blockade from the other side of the house. Much of the legislation we said would be helpful, and it has turned out to be helpful. If hon. gentlemen are really sincere when they say they wish to assist this government to put through their program, why not climb on the
construction train instead of throwing obstructions on the track? It might be well for some hon. gentlemen opposite to remember that a hammer can be used to build up as well as to tear down.
The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) spoke with great gusto about world trade, and damned this government for high tariffs. He is not very consistent; it was not very long ago that he made a statement in this house which I should like to quote. Referring to page 4258 of Hansard for June 25, 1934, I find the hon. member quoted as follows:
I am in favour of reduced tariffs all over the world, but I recognize that it may be very difficult for us alone to reduce tariffs when all other nations are maintaining theirs.
Mr. Bennett: Good! At last!
Mr. Mackenzie (Vancouver): We are discussing this in a very frank way.
The hon. member might be at least consistent when he speaks about tariffs. I should like to go a step further and quote another front bencher on the opposite side. This is an extract from a speech delivered on October 28, 1932, by the ex-Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Euler):
I have always felt, and still feel, perhaps in a sense more than ever when all the other nations of the world, or practically all, have erected impenetrable barriers against our products, that it is only fair that we should have such a tariff as will enable our own producers to have a fair chance in their own market.


William Daum Euler: Where is there any inconsistency in what I have said since?


Bernard Munroe Stitt: I have not said there was any inconsistency on the hon. member's part. I am simply quoting the statements of some of the front benchers opposite in order to show the inconsistency of the party as a whole.
Now I should like to say a word in regard to trade. One would almost think Canada was the only country in the world that suffered any loss of trade, but what are the facts? We will all cheerfully agree that Canada experienced colossal trade during some of the years hon. gentlemen opposite were sitting on this side of the house, but in 1928 and 1929, especially after the adoption of the Hawley-Smoot tariff in the United States, trade started to fall off. It was only natural that Canada, together with all the other exporting countries of the world, should suffer some decline in trade. The chief statistician of the League of Nations issued a statement showing that in 1929 the world trade amounted to 868,000,000,000, in round figures. In 1930 it had dropped to 855,000,000,000. In 1931 it
1234	COMMONS
Unemployment Relief-Mr. Stitt (Nelson)
was only 839,000,000,000 and in 1932 only $26,000,000,000, or about one-third the trade of 1929. What happened in Canada; did our trade decline by two-thirds? Our trade is about fifty or sixty per cent of what it was in the banner years when the Liberal government was in power. One year we did drop back from fifth to sixth place among the trading nations of the world, but now we are back in fifth position, which is not a bad record in view of the statement made by the statistician of the League of Nations.
I am not going quite so far as some hon. members on this side of the house have gone;
I do not say the Liberal party were responsible for the drop in trade or the loss of markets. I do not think they had any more to do with it than we did. The world became obsessed with mad, economic nationalism, and we were sliding down that slippery hill towards ruin and despair. The United States took the lead long before we fell in line; as a matter of fact that country set the pace for us, as was admitted by Mr. Cordell Hull, secretary of state for the United States. Not very long ago that gentleman said:
Extreme nationalism, if persisted in, is destined soon to wreck our entire structure of western civilization.
He stated that the United States started it and most of the other countries fell in line, so we were driven to any action we took in this country. For one or two years after the depression set in United States industries were bonused by the government; under their codes they voted billions of dollars to stiffen up industry and keep it going. As a result practically all the available warehouses were filled with goods, and they were anxious to dump them on any market at any price. If the Canadian government had not taken the action they did take in 1930 practically every factory in this country would have been closed up within sixty days. It must have been disconcerting to some of the Liberals to see the figures contained in an article on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen this morning. The headline reads:
Trade Figures Show Canada's Sharp Advance.
During 12 months ended January 31, her exports to world exceeded imports by $131,830,000.	.	.
24T per cent growth in Empire business.
Upturn of 20-9 per cent in commerce with foreign countries also revealed.
That does not sound very much like the stories some of our Liberal friends are telling, that we are strangling trade and losing what trade we have. We lost our trade for the same reason that every other country lost its trade; the world went crazy on economic

nationalism and purchasing power was destroyed. I am ready to admit that on the surface it would appear the Liberals have the wind behind them. We must remember that in the last three or four years they have been doing most of the talking. The conservative party and its great leader, Right Hon. R. B. Bennett, have been too busy to answer the tradueers of Canada; we have been trying to save this ship of state from destruction. But from now on we will go out -on the hustings and tell the people our side of the story; we will give them the true picture of conditions which existed when we came into office; we will explain what has been done since and the courageous steps we have taken to meet those conditions.
I do not know why it is necessary for hon. members opposite to rise day after day and damn the leader of this party and his followers. In passing may I say to hon. members opposite that hon. members on this side of the house have yet to see our leader, in whom we have every confidence and for whom we have the greatest respect, rise in his place in this chamber and tell the people of Canada that he and his followers find themselves in the valley of humiliation. I believe I am fair when I state that it does not lie in the mouths of Liberals to hurl across the floor of this chamber the criticism which they direct against the greatest Canadian and the party supporting him.
I do not know how long this debate will continue. I shall not take up further time.
I sincerely tTust it may soon be completed so that we may defeat the amendment moved by the crown prince from British Columbia and get on with the business of the country. Let us see whether the Liberals will stand true to their promises and to the statement that they are here to support the government and to cooperate in having legislation passed at the earliest possible moment which may bring comfort to those who are suffering from one end of Canada to the other.


Angus MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, since coming to this House of Commons about five yearn ago I have been anxious to cast my vote in support of the most constructive proposals introduced. I have adopted that attitude because in this corner of the house we have no strong party ties. Only on a veiy few occasions do we feel any need for voting together. Taken as a whole I believe the group in this corner of the house have been anxious to give the government an opportunity to put its program into effect as quickly as possible. I believe we

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Maclnnis
indicated that in a similar stand when some time ago we voted against a motion like the present one.
On the present occasion however I feel I must support the amendment, because I believe in substance it states the facts, regardless of the reasons for bringing it forward. I must believe that the motive behind the amendment was the very best possible, and if it comes to a vote I shall vote in favour of it. The amendment states :
This house regrets that notwithstanding the specific promises made prior to the election of 1930 and many times since reiterated, and despite the fact that extraordinary powers to deal with unemployment have been repeatedly secured from parliament, the present administration, after nearly five years of office, has not yet submitted to parliament any definite or effective policy to deal with widespread actual unemployment or distress which continues to be Canada's most urgent national problem.
I think every bon. member, regardless of whether or not he accepts the motion, must agree that the words contained therein are true. Hon. members opposite cannot get away from the fact that undoubtedly they were elected to put an end to unemployment. To-day I heard some of them say, "Well, we have done as well as other countries have done; show us some countries which have done better." They were not elected to do as well as other countries did; they were elected to end unemployment. If we were to accept that answer, then we would have to accept what the Liberals said in 1930,-"Why, conditions *in Canada-are no worse than they are in other countries." That statement would have been as true in 1930 as the statement made by hon. members on the other side to-day. Possibly conditions in other countries are no better than they are in Canada, but we must remember that in 1930 the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) contended that what was true of other countries so far as prevailing conditions were concerned should not and need not be (rue of this country. He said Canada was a young country. Well, to-day we are only a little more than four years older than we Were in 1930, and in the life of a nation four years is a very short time. Speaking in Calgary on June 12, 1930, he said, "This is a new country, and there is no excuse for unemployment in Canada if a government does its duty." If that statement held in 1930 it is just as true to-day.
The hon. member for Nelson (Mr. Stitt) said, "Well, we did make promises in 1930 which we were not able to fulfil, but we did not know that this depression was not similar to former depressions. We thought it would 92582-79
pass away and that everything would be all right." They were depending on Providence to help them carry out their promises, because they have admitted that they did not know anything about the world economic situation.
I have never received the same publicity as the Prime Minister; possibly I have never been entitled to it. To-day however I was looking over the very small amount of publicity I received during the campaign of 1930, and -found that at the first meeting I addressed I said, "The Liberal party is not responsible for the conditions prevailing in Canada today." Let me remind the Liberal party that if they blame this government for the economic conditions prevailing to-day they too are liable to the same accusation, namely that they know nothing about economics. At the same time I made the statement, "The Conservative party will not end unemployment"-and they have not. They could not end unemployment, because unemployment is part of and essential to the capitalistic system. Speaking in this chamber a short time ago the Prime Minister said, "There has always been a certain amount of unemployment in Canada; there has been during the best of times." I am surprised to note how easily he shifts his ground. Speaking in this house on the occasion referred to, he said that in normal times the average unemployment amounted to about 150,000. Speaking during the special session of 1930 he gave an estimate of 117,000 then unemployed, and stated that by the end of December of that year it was anticipated the figure would reach 177,000, if their program did not work out as they expected it would. But despite the fact that he realizes and maintains that the average number of unemployed for some years past was some 150,000-and during the election campaign in 1930 he admitted that the number of the unemployed- was only 117,000-nevertheless he went out on the hustings and said that unemployment had got to the stage where it was a national problem and that the Liberals must be turned out because they had refused to accept it as such. Now you cannot blow hot and cold on these things and get away with it and have the people think you know what you are talking about.
Let me point out to my hon. friends another statement that was made by the Prime Minister. On July 16, speaking at Renfrew, Ontario, he said:
There is no excuse for unemployment in our country. There is no excuse for poverty. We have the people and the resources. We have the capital-

1236	COMMONS
Unemployment Relief-Mr. Maclnnis
But note what follows:
-but the capital will not allow itself to be used unless there is stability and certainty.
Stability and certainty of what? Stability and certainty of profits. Then that denies that we have the things that the Prime Minister said we had. We have the people, we have the resources, we have the capital. Now if we have the resources and the capital surely we can use them to meet the needs of the people of this country. But as a matter of fact the people of this country have not the resources and the capital. The capitalists of this country, the Flavelles, the Holts, the Gordons, the Blacks, and all that gang, those are the people that have the resources of this country, and those are the people that will not allow the resources of this country to be used unless they make a profit out of the process. That is why my friends to my right cannot put an end to unemployment any more than hon. gentlemen opposite without putting an end to the class that is furnishing the funds for the next campaign.
The impossibility of carrying out the promises made by political parties in this country should have become evident to those parties a long time ago. I have always felt that either one of two things must be true with regard to the promises made by the Conservative party during the last election, and particularly by the Prime Minister: either the Conservative party were quite reckless as to what promises they made, or they did not know or understand the conditions with which they were dealing. But whichever it was it does not make any great difference. I believe it was this impossibility of keeping promises made under present conditions that caused the mover of this motion to make the statement in Vancouver some little time ago that he was afraid the Liberals were going to have such a large majority in the next house that it would be difficult to keep them to their promises. I am afraid it will be difficult to keep them to their promises if they make any promises to restore capitalism, or to end unemployment, or to restore trade, or to do any of these things, because they are going to fail just as surely as this government failed to carry out their promises. But the hon. member for Vancouver Centre tried to safeguard at least the British Columbia contingent by saying that they at all events would live up to their promises. So the rest of you gentlemen from the other provinces must realize what they think of you in Vancouver, that you make promises and do not keep them, while the Vancouver contingent does keep its promises.

The conditions in this country to-day have been developing and approaching their present stage for quite a long time. I have in my hand a little pamphlet which has been received I believe by all the members. The title of this little book is Five Years Under Bennett. The author is "Micaw-ber," waiting I presume for something to turn up. Considering who the government is, I suppose that that was the inevitable thing to do. This little pamphlet has rather a Liberal flavour. I am going to quote just a paragraph or two from it to show that if things were not just as bad in 1930 as they are to-day they were bad enough to intimate to the government of that day that something should be done about it. The author of this pamphlet, after drawing attention to what the present government had failed to do, makes this statement:
To wage war against evil everywhere must always be a principal function of any administration. That is not a matter of party policy and Bennett greatly weakens his case when he claims political virtue for deciding to embark upon long overdue reform to clean up the evils of private capitalism which existed and cried aloud for action when he assumed office in 1930.
That is, when the present Prime Minister assumed office in 1930 after nine years of Liberal rule. Yet the evils of private capitalism at the end of that nine years were such that remedies were long overdue and the abuses cried aloud for action.
We have been told, not so much lately, although the statement was made again today, that the unemployed do not want work, or at least that some of them do not. That is something that we might have heard some years ago, but surely we should not hear it at this time. We all admit that there are among the unemployed men who do not wish to work, just as we also know that there are many other people in society who do not wish to work if they can get a living in any other way. But I have before me now a report that was prepared by the relief officer in Vancouver early in 1931, and referring to the men who were unemployed he says:
In the first place the act brought to light the hidden sores of unemployment. Men who were too proud to ask for charity promptly applied for the work they so grievously needed. When the registration of unemployed by the Vancouver city relief department commenced on October 1, crowds of applicants jammed the office, and by November 18, 4,513 married and 5,244 single men had registered. Even this did not represent the total number of unemployed as few clerical workers, union men, seamen and women were on the list.

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Maclnnis
He goes on to say, after referring to one or two people who tried to get something for nothing:
Such cases, however, were far from common. Investigation resulted' in thirty per cent of the married men registrations being placed in the category of "urgent," i.e., needing employment within three weeks to provide the necessities of life.
He continues:
That there is nothing wrong with the unemployed except unemployment holds generally true. At the same time there are exploiters among the jobless equally with every other section of the community.
One of the difficulties that the unemployed are up against is that of getting unemployment relief. I was in a position to put a man who had been on relief some few months ago in Vancouver in touch with a little temporary work, and he refused to do the work. It would have taken only a week or two. He said he had found it so hard and had suffered so much before getting on relief that he did not wish to go through the ordeal again. As a matter of fact they are making it harder all the time for these men to be decent under the trying circumstances with which nearly all of us are confronted. I believe that some one during the debate to-day referred to the fact that the difficult conditions the unemployed were living under were driving them to commit crime. As a matter of fact, in some instances that is the only way in which they can get relief. Let me cite to the house two or three instances out of dozens that I came in contact with during this summer and fall.
A man and his wife called on me early one morning. The man was a returned soldier, a veteran of the great war; he was in ill health; he had been refused a pension, he had three children, which with his wife made a family of five. The affliction or disease from which this man suffered was such that he perspired profusely; yet such were the conditions in his home that they had not a second pair of sheets to change when the others became unsanitary. That is only one of the cases we come across; yet in that home there were three very nice children who were being brought up under such conditions. Again, a lady called on me. Her light had been cut off. They were allowed so much for light but it was not sufficient and the bill was increasing. At last the electric light company, expecting never to be paid their account, cut off the light and these people had to go without any light. They could not get fuel for heating purposes; they were given a small allowance for cooking by gas. And having no fue. for the furnace, when evening came, instead 925S2-791
of putting on a fire as other people do, they had to put on their overcoats or go to bed. Take again the position of the young man under twenty-one in the city of Vancouver. Young people on relief-and there are very many whose parents are not working-are regarded as infants until they reach the age of twenty-one, and for infants the city provides $3.75 a month. Imagine an infant of twenty-one years of age living on $3.75 a month. But that is not the worst; after he has reached the age of twenty-one, there is one of three things he must do; he must either find a job, or go into one of the relief camps, or stay at home and be a burden on the family, who will be minus the $3.75 which he was paid before his twenty-first birthday.
These are circumstances which this government should concern itself with, if the government is concerned with the welfare of the people of Canada. I believe the conditions in Vancouver are generally speaking just as good as, if not better, than they are in most other cities in Canada. I have here a clipping from the Montreal Daily Herald of February 7 in which there appears an interview with E. J. Lincoln, executive head of the Golden Rule Association. The interview is to the effect that welfare groups, companies and individuals had promised sufficient support to repair certain quarters to provide a shelter for homeless men on relief, but they were not able to get permission from the city to open this shelter, the city officials taking the view that the shelter would prove an attraction to jobless people outside the municipalities, and that such a gathering place would become the centre of red propaganda. Mr. Lincoln goes on to say:	.
Despite the statement of Albert Chevalier, director of the Meurling refuge, to the contrary. I guarantee that there are between 1,500 and 2,000 homeless men in the city at present, most of whom will do almost anything, the least of which is to seek nightly shelter in police stations to save them from lodging at the Meurling refuge where the rules are ridiculously severe. The inmates of the Meurling refuge are treated like unruly animals; they are not allowed to exchange one word from the time they enter at 6.30 p.m. until they are evicted at 7 a.m.
They are not allowed to stay in the refuge during the day; they must go into the streets in their flimsy rags and endure the cold. Surely any government that is sympathetic to the people must pay some attention to conditions such as these. My hon. friends on the government side declare that they are just as sympathetic as we are, but you have to have something more than sympathy;
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sympathy without action is of little value.
I submit that there is a sufficiency of everything necessary in this country. The Prime Minister himself admitted this in the city of Kingston a few days ago, when he said that we had everything necessary to give a full life to everyone. If that is so I would ask this government, if it is a government, why it does not do something to bring this condition about. As I look at the various monuments standing on the grounds on parliament hill I often wonder whether the time will ever come when I shall see a monument to the Prime Minister and one to the Leader of the Opposition. I believe there is every reason why there should be monuments to both. We might put up a monument to the Leader of the Opposition for reforming the Senate and a monument to the Prime Minister for ending unemployment.


An hon. MEMBER:: Why not one to
the C.C.F.?


Angus MacInnis: Yes, we can do that
too. I am supporting the motion moved by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre because I believe it deserves the support of this house. But I confess that, although the hon. gentleman is a member of a party which, in his own words, expects to be back as a government with strong support, I cannot see why he has not put forward something for the party as a whole. He has put forward certain views of his own, but I should like to know why, as one who is likely to be in the next cabinet, he cannot advance something that represents the views of his party. Why did he not confer with his leader and put forward something which we could defi-'nitely support? There were one or two things that struck me in the proposals he made. Take the second one:
I want to advocate the handling of this entire problem as one of national emergency, even if only for a limited time, until this depression is over.
But does he think this depression will be over within a limited time? If so, on what ground does he base that opinion? Let me again remind him of the statement made by the hon. member for Nelson (Mr. Stitt) to-day that in 1930 they thought the depression would be over in a short while and that as soon as they got into office they would be able to handle it easily. Let me tell my hon. friend that there is no indication the depression will be over within a limited time. The depression is here to stay as long as we hold to the capitalistic system. Then he says:

I suggest adequate, immediate and effective measures to increase our domestic and foreign trade.
What are the adequate, immediate and effective measures that are going to increase trade? I would like to know what they are. The only way in which trade can be increased in my opinion is by increasing the purchasing power of the great mass of the people, the farmer, the industrial worker; but if you increase the purchasing power of the farmer and the industrial worker, you decrease the profits of the employing class. You have here a certain amount of production; suppose it is divided equally now, so much going to each side; you cannot divide it in any other way without giving one party either more or less than the other. If you are going to give the workers and farmers more, you will have to give the employer class less, and just because you must do that, under the profit system you are going to have those who live by interest and profit against you all the time. Until you reach the stage where you are stronger, where you can do things without having regard to those people you are not going to improve trade, end unemployment or increase the living standard of the Canadian people.
In the program that has been brought down so far there is nothing that will improve the position of the working class or the farmer in any appreciable way within at least the next two years. Therefore, while I am supporting the motion and think it is justified in every respect, I wish the mover of it had gone somewhat further than he has and had explained to us how the Liberal party proposes to improve the position of those at present in need. How are they going to get the workers out of relief camps? How are they going to get the thousands of men who are on relief, the 1,200,000 or so that the hon. gentleman mentioned, placed in a position where they can provide for themselves? I claim that under the present system this cannot be done, and when we suggest that it can be done we are only fooling the people and ourselves.


Mr. F. W. TURNBULL (Regina):: I too regret that the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) did not tell ^ us what in his opinion, his personal opinion, could be done to get these workingmen out of the relief camps. I further regret that the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Maclnnis) followed the bad example of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre and did not inform us how he would get the workers out of the relief camps, except to suggest that

Unemployment Reliej-Mr. Turnbull
he would change the system; but he did not tell us how the system, when he got it changed, would do this.


Angus MacInnis: We are still waiting.


Franklin White Turnbull: The hon. member says: "We are still waiting." It is true hon. gentlemen opposite express a great deal of sympathy with the condition in which unfortunate people in this country find themselves. It is also true that there is sympathy extended toward those people by every person in Canada and out of it. I do not blame hon. members opposite for talking about the sympathy end of the matter because that is the only end they have to talk about. When they tell about their sympathies, they have exhausted themselves.
The motion before the house is as usual a negative one; it merely expresses regret that the government did not do something, but it does not express any views as to what the government ought to do, or as to what the opposition would do, or even as to the personal views of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre. That is quite in line with the tactics pursued by the Liberal party for the last four or five years. I would not like to go so far as to say that they are animated by political motives, but I might point out that they are following pretty closely the program set forth by the present Premier of Ontario in 1930 when he said, as reported at page 1886 of Hansard of that year:
As I say, we are going to settle the unrest among the farmers, the unrest which has been created because of an economic disturbance which is world wide. I refer to the question of overproduction. When we have overproduction it is always followed by a period of low prices, and in a period of low prices it is very easy to stir up trouble, especially in the rural sections.
I suggest that the Liberal party are only running true to form; they are doing exactly what Mr. Hepburn in 1930 advised them to do, what they have been doing for the last five years and what they will do for the next five yearn whether they return to parliament on the opposition or the government side. Of course it is easy to find fault. According to Robert West, nothing is easier than fault finding. No talent, no self denial, no brains, no character are required to set up in the grumbling business.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) a few days ago read us a homily in. the house because a resolution introduced on this side was according to him a political one. That served him as an excuse to vote Liberal, to exercise the
innate liberalism which he has always possessed, coupled with a thin veneer of cooperative commonwealth federation. To-day a similar motion, just as political as the other, is introduced from the other side, and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre and his following have found an excuse for again voting Liberal, just as they did during the last five years of Liberal rule. If there is anything the Liberals did that they should not have done between 1926 and 1930, the blame rests as much at the door of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre as it does at the door of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), because the former is the man above all -men who, according to his own statement, with his confrere from North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps), maintained the former Liberal government in office from 1926 to 1930.


Mr. HEAPS:: Will the hon. member state why he and the whole Conservative party voted with us for a similar motion in 1930?


Franklin White Turnbull: It is very easy to do that. In 1930 there was a motion that something foe done about unemployment. At that time nothing was done, nothing was being done. The leader of the opposition was declaring that he would not distribute any unemployment relief except on a political basis; that he had not a five cent piece for any province that was not Liberal; that no Conservative province would get any money. But conditions are entirely different to-day. Something is being done for unemployment every day the house sits and every day of the week between the time the house prorogues and the opening of the next session. That is why hon. members on this side voted for a similar resolution in 1930 and are voting against the present one to-day.


James Shaver Woodsworth: But the hon. gentleman will concede that Labour members at that time voted against the Liberals, as to-day they are voting against the Conservatives.


Mr. BELL (Hamilton):: You are counting too much on Tim Buck. Don't count on Buck; he is a broken reed.


Franklin White Turnbull: This amendment, while it is accompanied by a great deal of language regarding the distressing condition . of the unemployed, as to which we all agree, nevertheless if carried would have the effect of preventing this government from doing anything for the unemployed until after another election. Hon. members who profess to be in favour of social reform, to believe in all these things in principle, but who oppose them
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in practice when they have the chance, would if this resolution carried dismiss this government without anything being done along the lines of the legislation of which they profess to be so strongly in favour. Yet the hon. member for Vancouver Centre talks of "oleaginous hyprocrisy," and his leader goes back and forth through the country talking of the hypocrisy of Hon. H. H. Stevens in connection with the price spreads and mass buying investigation. I leave it to this house and to the country to say where the hypocrisy comes in.
I read with some amazement the speech of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre. It was amazing for some of the statements contained in it; it was amazing in view of the position he hoped to attain in the Liberal party. I thought for a moment it was the rising star of the white hope of the Vancouver Sun dawning on the horizon. But, evidently feeling the cold blast coming from the seat diagonally forward of him, he changed his tone and said he was not speaking for the Liberal party but expressing only his personal feelings. So the comet that flashed across the horizon vanished in gas and hot air as comets usually do. At one part of his speech the hon. member for Vancouver Centre made the statement that Canada had led the world in the march towards higher tariffs-an amazing statement. The hon. member must realize that there was not a year between 1926 and 1930 that tariffs were not going higher in every country except possibly Canada. And if Canada was leading the march towards higher tariffs it must have started five years before we came into office, because the march was well under way in 1926, and in 1930 the Liberal party joined in the march, because the Dunning budget increased the tariff on more articles than did the treaties with Great Britain.
I suggest to hon. members opposite that if they will allow the government to go into supply the probabilities are that in due course the government's legislation with regard to unemployment relief will come dowm. But that is what they are afraid of; they would rather discuss it on an abstract basis, with no measure before them, than on a concrete basis. They are still theorizers; they are prepared to discuss anything but facts. They will discuss principles from morning to night, but something concrete to put these principles into effect is beyond their horizon. All these things they say are objectives of the Liberal party. The other day the leader of the opposition told us free trade in automobiles was an objective of the Liberal party. I do not know how many years it has been their

objective. If they were in office I do not know how many years it would continue to be their objective, but I suggest that objectives cease to be objectives when they have been reached, and the Liberal party never reach their objectives so long as they can use them to get votes.
Another amazing statement of the hon. member was that this government put a bonus on wheat restriction. He did not tell us where or when or how, in all probability because he did not know; for they did not do it.


Leslie Gordon Bell: That seems fairly
reasonable.


Franklin White Turnbull: A very prominent member on the other side of the house, a man who occupied a cabinet position in the former government, who was Minister of Agriculture, and who comes from western Canada and therefore should be acquainted with the wheat situation, was one of those who most prominently urged restriction, of wheat production. If hon. gentlemen will turn to Hansard for the session of 1932-33 they will find these words credited1 to the ex-Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) at page 991:
Whether or not we like it, our wheat production must be reduced to near the world's capacity to consume. Otherwise the situation will continue to get worse and worse. Our carryover is becoming larger each year. I recognize the fact that no one country could afford to reduce its wheat acreage without similar action being taken by the others.
Then after condemning us because we had so treated Russia that we could not get an agreement with her, according to the hon. gentleman, he said:
Are we going to go along blindly until we become so impoverished that many farmers will not have the equipment or strength with which to put in a crop? That will be the result of the ruthless law of the survival of the fittest.
I did not hear any dissenting voice from the hon. member for Vancouver Centre when his confrere in the former government declared that wheat production should be restricted, but to-day in opposition he raises a bogy that does not exist and says this government bonused wheat restriction.
Another amazing statement of the hon. member was that this government put the people of this country on the dole. This government never put people on the dole. The only reason why direct relief is in force in Canada is that the provinces came to the federal government and said they, were no longer able to bear their share of indirect relief, and they asked this government-they whose duty it was to administer relief-to

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Turnbull
do it in the form of direct relief and not in the form of employment of labour. May I say in passing, that when the hon. member for Vancouver South, refers to the way in which the unemployed were treated in Montreal he should carry his complaints not to this government, which has nothing to do with the administration of unemployment relief, but either to the province of Quebec or to the city of Montreal, which have to do with these things in that vicinity. I do not know what purpose is served by cataloguing lists of people who have suffered hardship. I do not know of a time in the history of this country when some people did not suffer hardships. I could give case after case of people who have been run over by railway trains or have been hungiy or who have not had all the clothing they needed for their beds. But to show a situation does not provide a remedy.
Another statement made by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre was that this government had raised the tariff in 1930 before going to the imperial conference for the purpose of negotiating treaties in the fall of that year. I heard the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) say the other day that when the motion to put these tariff increases in effect was put to this house he was the only man who opposed it, by saying, "On division." There might have been one or two others, but he apparently expressed the view that the rest of the members on the other side had concurred in the raising of these tariffs in 1930. Indeed there was no reason why they should not, because they themselves had raised them on many articles in the Dunning budget a few short months before.
I want to deal for a short time with at least some of the personal views of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre. I feel that the leader of the opposition must have breathed much more freely when he heard the hon. member for Vancouver Centre say he was not committing his nominal leader by the views he expressed in the house. Nothing could be said on this side that would have been a more masterly condemnation of the policy of inactivity and laissez-faire of the Liberal party than those views expressed by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre last night.
But let us examine some of his proposed remedies. The first was a national relief commission, and the second was that the problem of relief should be handled as a national emergency. I cannot see much difference between the two. He was following his
leader in that regard, and this in spite of the fact that his leader and he both know perfectly well that the provinces will never consent to that method of handling relief. Consequently that can remain an objective of the Liberal party and perhaps serve some good purpose during the election campaign. In the campaign of 1926 the right hon. leader of the opposition addressed certain meetings in the province of Saskatchewan at which he preached the doctrine of a solid Saskatchewan and a solid Quebec, while some place else his friend the ex-Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) was preaching unity. A solid Saskatchewan and a solid Quebec was what the Liberals relied upon at that time to put them 'back in office, and it served the purpose very well, because then we did not have a national system of radio. If the Liberal party intend to get back into power in 1935, once more it will be through the solid Saskatchewan, and the solid Quebec, so let us see the attitude of these two provinces in respect of this national relief commission. Mr. Tasohereau is on record as declaring that he will not allow the dominion government to administer relief within the boundaries of his province. He is quite prepared to accept dominion money which he can spend, but so far as letting the dominion government spend it, that is quite beyond any idea Mr. Tas-chereau ever had.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: Would the hon. member quote the statement of Mr. Taschereau containing those words?


Franklin White Turnbull: I have not the quotation with me at the moment, but it will be very easy to obtain and hand to the hon. member for Charlevoix-Saguenay (Mr. Cas-grain.)


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: I do not think he said that; I think he said his government would contribute fifty per cent, but he did not say what the hon. gentleman has suggested.


Franklin White Turnbull: I think the hon. gentleman misunderstood me. I stated that Mr. Tasohereau said he would not allow the dominion government to administer relief in his province. He will accept the dominion government's contribution of fifty per cent of the cost, but he is to be the man who will handle the money. Then take the position of the province of Saskatchewan. On the 31st day of August, 1934, the government of the Dominion of Canada made an offer to the government of the province of Saskatchewan in these terms:
Your proposals for dealing with relief situation in drought areas do not commend them-
1242	COMMONS
Unemployment Reliej-Mr. Turnbull
selves to this government. We are prepared to relieve you of the responsibilities in those areas for food, clothing and shelter for those who may require same.
In. spite of the fact that if that offer had been accepted it would have relieved the taxpayers of Saskatchewan of the burden of relief in those areas, other than their share as taxpayers of the dominion, the premier of the province of Saskatchewan refused to allow the dominion government to pay for the food, clothing and shelter in the drought areas of that province. Yet hon. gentlemen opposite come here with this claptrap about a national commission to handle this as a national problem.


Mr. BOTHWELL:: Would the hon. gentleman be good enough to read the remainder of that letter?


Franklin White Turnbull: 
An hon. MEMBER:: Lower the tariff.


Franklin White Turnbull: That is a bright idea.
If we spend less money we are told to spend more. If we raise the taxes we are told to lower them again. In his speech the hon. member stated he wanted us to balance the budget, but in the same speech he advocated that the responsibility for relief should be shouldered by the dominion and taken from the provinces and municipalities. Will that help us balance the budget? Then he advocated public works. How can we spend money on public works and still balance our budget? Next he suggested that we should assist private companies. There is 'no limit to the amount of money which could be spent in assisting private companies. When private individuals get government money to spend, the government has not a very good guarantee of getting that money back. That has been the history of government assistance to private institutions as far back as I can remember.
Then he offered a suggestion which may have a good deal of merit in it, although certainly it would not help to balance the budget. His proposal was an "extension of the principle of the War Veterans' Allowance Act, by reducing the age to fifty-five years." In short, the proposition of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre is to spend money in new and additional ways, in huge amounts, so as to relieve unemployment, and at the same time to balance the budget. To be able to accomplish that end one would need to be as great an acrobat in financial matters as the hon. member for Vancouver Centre is in the use of language.
Then, proposition number eleven is a financial conference with the provinces "to consider the advisability of establishing a national loan board to coordinate, if possible, the investment activities of governments," and so on. This is to be a financial conference with the provinces to consider a national board to be set up to control provincial expenditures. How far would the hon. member get with Mr. Pattullo on that point? How quickly would Mr. Pattullo, who is opposed to any amendment to the British North America Act, agree to have his finances controlled by a national board? How about Mr. Taschereau, who states there will be no amendment to the British North
1244	COMMONS
Unemployment Reliej-Mr. Turnbull
America Act? Where would the hon. member for St. James (Mr. Rinfret) stand, the man who declares that Quebec will fight to the last ditch any amendments to the British North America Act? How far would he agree to a national board to oversee expenditures of the province of Quebec? In the days when the provinces and the municipalities were doubling, trebling, quadrupling their expenditures, why did not the hon. member for Vancouver Centre, or the members of his party, institute a national board and lock the door before the horse was stolen? Why did he not have a national board set up to prevent the provinces and municipalities from going into debt and increasing their expenditures each year the Liberal government was in office? Why is he so keen to have some control effected after the damage is done? His proposition I submit is impracticable, because the provinces would not agree to it.
His twelfth proposition, the one respecting the War Veterans' Allowance Act, is the one with which I must have a great deal of sympathy. The burned out soldier loses his ability much earlier than seventy years of age; he is probably as old at sixty as the average man at seventy. The War Veterans' Allowance Act might very well be amended so as to apply to returned soldiers at an earlier age than seventy.
Then the hon. member wound up his speech with the unlucky thirteenth item. He did not put the number on it, because that might have looked bad. But as a thirteenth item in this great program of reconstruction, in which he has set forth his personal views and not the views of his party, he quoted a paragraph from the book-a paragraph from Industry and Humanity. It is full of language, full of expression and full also of inaction. It is a book which remained a book from 1918 to 1934, a book which was hidden up on the shelves; its author had forgotten where he put it. It was never brought out and used. There is a story which reveals why the 1919 Liberal platform was not put into effect. There is a reason why that was not done. That arose as a result of the election in 1921. If the right hon. leader of the opposition would tell the story of what took place in the few months after that election; if he would tell of the men from Montreal who interviewed him within a few months of the election; if he would tell the story of the thumb that was put upon his back and that kept him in a state of inaction for the next nine years, history would know that the Liberal party was the party of laissez-faire because it had to be.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: What is this
all about?


Franklin White Turnbull: If the right hon. gentleman wants to tell what happened I suggest to him that open confession is good for the soul.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have no idea what the hon. member is talking about.


Franklin White Turnbull: Let him tell us himself.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: All humbug.


Franklin White Turnbull: If he does not remember it, some of his friends in the Progressive party may be able to tell him some day.
May I close by stating that if hon. gentlemen opposite are as anxious to make progress during this session, as they say they are; if they are anxious to proceed with legislation in an orderly manner, as they say they are; if they are anxious to have social reforms placed upon the statute books of this country, as they say they are, then it is pretty hard to believe they are sincere in view of the fact that their conversion has been so recent. If they are so anxious to conclude the present session, then they will cease making amendments such as the one we are now discussing, amendments which have only the effect of preventing the house from doing business. If accepted, the amendment would prevent the house from doing any further business, because it is a motion of want of confidence, and at the same time and by the same token it is a vote of confidence in the Liberal party; because if the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre and the hon. member for Vancouver South vote for this motion they vote to defeat the government, a government which is doing something for the people of Canada, and to place in power in Ottawa a party which has done nothing for them. That is the alternative which hon. gentlemen must face. They cannot vote for this resolution and for the defeat of this government without at the same time voting for the policy of laissez-faire which they themselves have condemned in no uncertain terms. If they do vote for the Liberal party-or, to be more precise, for the personal views expressed by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre-then they vote in condemnation of all they have said in this chamber about the Liberal party either at this session or the last.
So far as I am concerned I should prefer to see the opposition abandon its blockading tactics and allow the government to proceed with the business of the country. I have not the slightest doubt that in the course of time the government will introduce legislation at

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Luchkovich
the present session, as it has done in other sessions, to take care of the unemployed. Hon. gentlemen opposite know perfectly well that upon such occasion they will have ample opportunity to discuss anything they may wish to discuss concerning unemployment. But they would rather have the people believe that the Liberal party has been responsible for bringing forward the idea of taking care of the unemployed, and they do not wish to be placed in the position of having to discuss measures which in due course the government will introduce. In my judgment the resolution is purely political, and it passes my knowledge how hon. members of this house can vote against a resolution brought in by one party on the basis of its being political, and then vote for an equally political resolution just because it is brought in by the other party, unless there is something in their minds that they were not entirely able to eradicate when they joined the new movement.


Mr. MICHAEL LUCHKOVICH (Vegre-ville):: Mr. Speaker, nine long years ago I entered the house an innocent and guileless man, politically speaking, but after the lapse of that time I must unfortunately confess that I have lost a lot of that original innocence and that original guilelessness. Members of this group find themselves very much between the devil and the deep blue sea so far as this resolution is concerned. We find ourselves between the upper and nether millstones ready to be ground into dust by either one or the other of the two parties.


Eccles James Gott: Does the hon. member suggest that the blue sea is on this side?


Michael Luchkovich: Well, I do not know that the blue sea is over there, but I do know that on this question of the unemployed a good many of us are at sea. The hon. member who introduced this resolution (Mr. Mackenzie) is somewhat like the pied piper: he is trying to chase all the metaphorical rats in the Conservative program down into the Ottawa river. He says that he and his small group of British Columbia members are going to come down here somewhat like the band of Spartans that fought off the Persian hordes at Thermopylae. There is this difference, however, that the Spartan band was successful, but we do not know yet whether the British Columbia band of mountaineers will be equally successful.
The hon. member said that the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) had a deathbed conversion, that like Paul's conversion on the way to Damascus Mr. Bennett was converted
before the next election. It does seem to me that the official opposition has not been converted to any reform at all yet, judging by the speeches that have been delivered on this resolution. They used to tell me as a little boy that unless you confessed your sins you were liable to go to the hot place, and it may be that unless there is that conversion on the part of the official opposition they also may be bound for that so-called nether region at the next election.
I have read this resolution carefully, and it is very similar to a resolution that was introduced into this house in 1930 by the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps). On that occasion when the division came there were 81 yeas and 100 nays, the Conservatives voting with this group for the resolution, but when the vote is taken on the amendment now before the house I imagine that the Liberals and this small group will vote for the amendment proposed by my hon. friend from Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie).
After hearing so many speeches on unemployment I would like to ask this question: What is the difference between the Conservative party and the Liberal party, not only on the unemployment problem but so far as the tariff issue and all other issues are concerned? I frankly confess that both parties are going to use the issue of the tariff at the next election. On the one hand we shall hear the Conservatives say that they will make high tariffs fight for us, and on the other hand we shall hear the Liberals say that they will make low tariffs fight for us. It is true that the government of the day did raise the tariff, as they promised to do. I am not a believer in high tariffs, but I do not believe that the Liberals in the past have lowered the tariff as much as they have professed to do, not only during the past parliament but during other sessions when in power. That lack of difference between the two parties in regard to all these issues has brought a little ditty to my mind which runs as follows:
Says Tweedledum to Tweedledee,
Resign and give your place to me;
Says Tweedledee to Tweedledum,
If they want you they must be dumb;
For the moral in this little ditty,
Taught by men both wdse and witty,
The Conservative Ins, the Liberal Outs, They take the public for a bunch of louts; They promise this and they promise that But they all strike out when they come to bat;
The Liberal Outs, the Conservative Ins,
Are merely two Canadian Siamese twins.
I have already referred to a resolution in essence similar to the one now before the house, introduced on March 31, 1930, by the
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Unemployment Relief-Mr. Luchkovich
hon. member lor North Winnipeg. On that occasion what did the Liberal opposition have to say? I have here the speech of the present leader of the opposition. He said:
Let me repeat that statement. I can see nothing arising out of a recognition of this problem as a national problem which obliges this federal government, having regard to our constitution and the division of powers under it, to collect taxes from the people generally in order to meet a situation which affects only a certain group of people in some municipalities in this country, but which does not adversely affect the country as a whole. I am not saying we could not do such a thing; I am not saying that this federal parliament cannot vote money for any purposes for which it may desire so to do, but I am trying to make it clear that under our constitution I do not think it was ever intended that this federal government should become the agency through which problems which are primarily municipal and provincial should be dealt with.
In 1930 it was stated by the leader of the Liberal opposition that this was a municipal and provincial matter, but here we have the hon. member for Vancouver Centre introducing a resolution condemning this government for not doing anything about unemployment, after his own leader had said that the problem of unemployment was a provincial and municipal matter. The leader of the opposition further said:
Employment is a matter of contract and civil rights.
Further on he said:
... how little we have a national problem of unemployment in this country at the present time.
And at page 1227 he says this:
But I would not give a single cent to any Tory government.
And further on he said that if he called a , conference of provincial premiers on unemployment, foreign countries would hesitate to make investments in Canada. In other words, he did not wish to inaugurate any system of getting out of this unemployment situation because he thought that by doing so foreign investments would be driven out of the country.
Listening to the speeches of some members on the other side one is led to believe that in view of the stand pat tendencies of the official opposition those hon. gentlemen, in asking for the resignation of the government at the present time, could base their argument only on the assumption that it had been proved that the present government lacks the confidence of the people, that it lacks a policy, and that the official opposition has a policy which is better than anything that the government in power has done.
'Mr. Luchkovich.]
Now, it is not for me to defend the policy of the government; let the government do that for themselves. I voted for the trade pacts in 1932 because I felt at the time that that was one of the only measures in sight to get us out of the present mess in which we find ourselves. I do not think that the trade pacts are as good as the party in power would have us believe, nor do I think they are as bad as the official opposition suggests. But I did think they were one way of getting, out of the depression, and that is the reason I voted for them. As regards the hon. member who has moved this resolution, if he asks for the resignation of the government without offering an alternative policy of his own, he is placing himself not only in an untenable position but in a position that is ridiculous as well. He is very much in the position of the polar bear mentioned by Lloyd George in his speech-a bear perched on an iceberg which is rapidly melting away as it approaches the equator. Without a substitutive remedy his resolution loses much of its force. It may be good politics to rely on the prevalent discontent throughout the country, but it is folly to ask for the resignation of one government and the return of another without offering some remedy as a substitute. It is folly to put one party out and another in merely because we like the way the leader of the opposition combs his hair better than the manner in which the Prime Minister brushes his. Someone says that neither has any; that makes it still worse.


Wilfred Hanbury: You are splitting hairs.


An hon. MEMBER:: There aren't any to
split.


Michael Luchkovich: At any rate I hope
hon. members will accept my address as one that is spoken with the utmost sincerity. I have been asked by many people in the west what difference there is between the two parties. Not long ago an article appeared in Canadian Business, written I think by Leslie Roberts, who says that ever since confederation there have been only three fundamental differences between the two parties; in 1911 reciprocity, in 1917 conscription and in 1926 the constitutional issue. At the present time it would appear that even the Prime Minister is just as anxious to have reciprocity with the United States as is the leader of the opposition; as regards conscription, that to-day, is a dead issue; and as regards the constitutional question of 1926, that also is a thing of the past in so far as it was used then for political purposes. That there-

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Luchkovich
fore reduces the fundamental differences to nil because there are no differences, no fundamental differences to-day. I feel in my hearts


An hon. MEMBER:: No heart.


Michael Luchkovich: No heart? Well, the hon. gentleman has monopolized the hearts of this house and possibly I have none. It was prophesied by the dean and the seer of the house that the Liberals would be the next government in Canada, but in my opinion unless the leader of the opposition comes out flat-footed and puts a definite policy before the Canadian people so that they can judge for themselves as to the differences between the two parties, then the same fate will befall the opposition that has been predicted for the present government. Unless that alternative policy is presented to the people I see no point in the substitution of one party for another; and if that alternative policy cannot be supplied, then why should the people be asked to jump from the frying pan into the fire? It may be good strategy to base one's politics on the expediency of the moment and to maintain a sphinx-like attitude in face of the depression and also to bank on the public dissatisfaction with the government in order to regain power, as well as on a lucky break in the economic tide to retain oneself therein. But I feel that the party seeking power in future will not get very far with any evasive strategy of that sort. Unless an alternative is placed squarely before the people, a definite N.R.A. policy, I have no doubt that the official opposition will meet with the fate that the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) has prophesied for the government. On more than one occasion I have heard it said throughout Canada that the present leader of the opposition does not need a policy to get into power because public dislike of t'he government will put him back. That may be so, but it most certainly will not keep him in power. Unless he evolves a more genuine and practical policy, more practical than anything enunciated in this house either during this session or in past sessions, I am. afraid that his characteristic vacillation will strike the death blow to parliamentarism as we know it to-day. By seeking office without offering a substitutive remedy, he is virtually putting himself "on the spot," and in view of the recent pronouncements of the Prime Minister in regard to the new order and in regard to reform, I do not think the leader of the opposition can afford to play the old stereotyped battle of the Ins and the Outs and the Tweedtedums and Tweedledees, or to wait
for Providence to help him out in this miserable game of politics, because in the future I am not so sure that as Sir Wilfrid Laurier used to say Providence will be on the side of the Liberal party.


Mr. YOUNG:: 'It always has been.


Michael Luchkovich: Well, there is a new rule now to be enacted called "God helps those who help themselves," this does not mean easy campaign funds but plain hard honest application by the people and the government, and I am afraid the Liberals have not at least at the present time such a policy. In the past it seems to me-and I speak in all sincerity-that the Liberals have been sponging a little bit too much on the Almighty, but in the future it does not look as though they will be able to get away with it; for Providence has mode that road much harder and the obstacles and hindrances placed thereon much more difficult to remove. I cannot conceive of the laissez-faires tackling a job that will require so much work, but if they do, then I expect their avoirdupois will greatly decrease within the next few years if in the meantime the reducing process does not actually kill them.
Much has been said about government intervention. I believe in a certain amount of it. The birth of a new order has made government intervention obligatory. I wonder how many members of the official opposition really realize what they are in for when they become the next government; for if they do not, then one must conclude with the words of the poet that "where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."


Wilfred Hanbury: The hon. member is a living illustration.


Michael Luchkovich: The hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Hanbury) has given us a living illustration. He should be the last man to make a statement of that kind. I see him strutting in his seat over there. I have seen men strut while they stand up, strut while they walk, and strut while they dance, but he is the best example I know of any man being able to strut so ostensibly even while he is sitting down. As far as the official opposition are concerned they have done nothing nor said anything this session that would lead one to believe they were actually going to march forward toward their professed goal of reform. It is the same old story about tariffs, finding new markets and restoring old ones.
I was quite amused during the dying hours of last session to hear the hon. member for
1248	COMMONS
Unemployment Relief-Mr. Luchkovich
South Perth (Mr. Sanderson) twitting the members on the government side and also this group about the next election, how our heads would roll into the trough of political oblivion, and how he tried to put fear into our followers throughout the country. Greatly encouraged by recent provincial victories, this grizzly old warrior started to decapitate all and sundry in the house. Even the leader of the opposition on that occasion was not free from this somewhat bloodthirsty attitude, and time and again he would emerge with club in hand to obliterate the big, bad Prime Minister over yonder and his retinue behind him.
So far as I am concerned I might take seriously the challenge in this resolution were it not for the lack of an alternative policy on the part of the hurlers. What does the resolution mean? Strange as this may seem, I intend to vote for the resolution. In view of the fact that we voted for a similar resolution in 1930, it logically follows that we must again vote for a similar one now. But I say that simply routing one form of conservatism and substituting another for it will get us nowhere. As for restoring old markets and finding new ones, I still remember the Fordney-McCumber and the Hawley-Smoot bills passed in the United States, which in 1929 killed our trade with that country in so far as agricultural products and lumber are concerned, as well as the various quota restrictions and impositions that have been placed against our exports to the European market.
The other day the hon. member for Temis-couata (Mr. Pouliot) waxed very indignant when I made certain metaphorical comments on the free trade speeches of certain Liberal lieutenants in and out of the house. References were made to the extravagant expectations aroused by this oratory, the purpose of which was to create throughout this country the impression that this fair dominion would blossom as the rose and be with milk and honey blessed, and that tyrants throughout the whole world would cringe in fear once it was learned that the present opposition was returned to power. Visions were conjured up of an irate populace threatened by five years of misrule attacking the bastile of special privilege, singing the deathknell of protection to the tune of the author, the hon. member for West Edmonton (Mr. Stewart) and of a revengeful public enraged by loss of markets marching round the walls of Jericho not once but seven times-


Jean-François Pouliot: With trumpets.


Michael Luchkovich: -yes, until the
trumpets from Temiscouata, the promulgation of the 1935 Liberal free trade policy and the acid pulverizing negotiating power of the king of Prince Albert caused the mighty rocks to crumble like sandstone in an avalanche, with a grateful electorate proclaiming their timely deliverance and the king of Prince Albert adjuring them at the time, saying: "Cursed be he before the Lord who riseth and buildeth up the tariff walls of Jericho. He shall be put to the sword, just as we killed all the other Tories within the walls of the former Jericho. And the Lord was with the king of Prince Albert, and his fame was noised abroad throughout the length and breadth of the land." Such were the visions conjured up by certain hon. members not only in this house but also throughout the country.


Jean-François Pouliot: This is a caveman's
speech.


Michael Luchkovich: I imagine the hon.
member for Temiscouata thinks the Canadian people should now be of good cheer; for the litter will soon be refilled and our pockets will jingle again;, the lowing kine and the bleating sheep and the grunting pigs will soon fill the empty freight cars and will proceed by the hundreds of thousands to the markets of the world as aforetime.


Jean-François Pouliot: Don't forget the golden
calf.


Michael Luchkovich: I shall not forget
the bellowing calf from Temiscouata.
Such is the dream, but what is the reality? I do not propose to set myself up, as the hon. member for Temiscouata seems to think, as a U.FA. Mark Antony either to praise or to bury the right hon. gentleman who heads this government, for, as Shakespeare said, the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones; so let it be with the Prime Minister. But I do ask the leader of the opposition what he would do if he were in the Prime Minister's place. I think the country has a right to know. They will not be satisfied with the present negative attitude of the Liberal party, nor are they in a humour for the old gag, "We shall not prescribe until we are called in." On many occasions I have heard the leader of the opposition say that the Prime Minister was an autocrat. If that were so it were a grievous fault, and grievously the Prime Minister will have to answer for it. But again I say that the people have a right to know what the leader of the opposition

Unemployment Relief-Mr. Hackett
would do if he were in the Prime Minister's place. This rowing with muffled oars to his objective may be all right, but the people want to know what he is going to do when he gets there.


Jean-François Pouliot: Something that you can't understand.


Michael Luchkovich: Again there is the
loud sound that speaks the vacant mind.
We want to know what they are going to do to put purchasing power in the pockets of the people, what they are going to do to raise the price of primary products, to cure unemployment and to control the country's finances and banking facilities. We heard them say throughout Canada: If we are returned to power we are going to nationalize the banks; yet when a resolution was brought up in this house to nationalize the banks some hon. members said: Yes, we want to nationalize the central bank, but not the other banks. It is like the lady who wrote to the paper saying a certain thing resembled a man trying to learn to swim with one foot in the water and the other on the land. It simply can't be done. If you are going to nationalize the central bank you have to nationalize the other banks as well; but when that resolution came up for a vote there was a mad dash on the part of the official opposition to the narrow aperture that leads to the lobby. Many of them were almost killed in the rush, and it was noticed that those who spoke so vociferously in favour of nationalizing the banks were conspicuous by their absence when the reso-tion came to a vote.
Now it has been said that the hon. member who introduced this banking resolution last year introduced a tripartite amendment of alphabetical stupidity to the central bank bill. He wanted a bill for a central bank that was (a) controlled and owned nationally, (b) government owned, or (c) government controlled. This resolution must have been offered with the feeling that it might be heaven, hell or purgatory his party might share so they thought it well to make friends everywhere. I noticed in the speech he made on the amendment to the motion to go into supply that he very cautiously left out the whole subject of finance and the banks, which of course is the pivotal point, the main thing. You have to reform your finances before you start reforming anything else, and once they are reformed all the other things will take care of themselves. The policy of this group is a program of useful social services financed out of the
real credit of the country without incurring interest or debt. Sooner or later that will involve the nationalization not only of our central bank but of our whole banking system. That is the alternative policy of this group, and certainly it is a better alternative than the policy produced here by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre.
As I have already said I intend to vote for this amendment of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre because it is very much like the resolution introduced by the hon. member for North Winnipeg in 1930. It is not a nice position to be, as I said, between the devil and the deep blue sea, but there is no other way out for us. So I for one intend to vote for the resolution, not because of what the hon. member for Vancouver Centre has said concerning their futile alternative policy, but because we voted for the same thing in 1930, and logically we must do it now.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Question.
Mr. JOHN T. HACKETT (Stanstead): Why so much haste to put the question? Who started this discussion?
I have followed the progress of this debate and have been amazed, in reading the proposed amendment, to see that while the aim of the hon. gentleman who introduced it avowedly was to give the house the benefit of his wisdom in discovering and applying some means that would dispel unemployment, he quite forgot to say what they were. The members of a very learned body assembled the other day for the purpose of discovering some solution for the railway problem. They passed a resolution and sent it to various hon. members. In it they called upon the government to see that effective measures were taken to solve the railway problem. That is about as definite as the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) was in his speech. I noticed how warmly the hon. member for St. James (Mr. Riinfret) acclaimed the suggestion of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre that all immigration barriers should be torn down and that we should welcome to this country all and sundry who might wish to come.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I never said so.


Mr. HACKETT:: I would direct the hon. gentleman's attention to his opening remarks, when he read and characterized with many adjectives an extract from one Hugh Wolfen-
1250	COMMONS
Unemployment Relief-Mr. Hackett
den, who stated that our problems to-day were attributable to a number of causes, and: -particularly in exporting countries, may be listed tariffs, immigration restrictions and other impediments to the free interchange of goods and workers.
If the hon. gentleman takes time and has the interest to reread his speech he will see that on many occasions while speaking last evening he advocated unrestricted immigration and free trade.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Not once.


John Thomas Hackett: I am not astonished that he is a little appalled at what he said, but if he takes the trouble to read his remarks he will find that if they mean anything they mean just that.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: No. Just cite one sentence.


John Thomas Hackett: However it is not my purpose to endeavour to follow the hon. gentleman in the different statements he made last evening. He purported to be very much interested in unemployment, of course everyone in the house is interested in that problem. Unemployment is localized; it is to be found in the big cities of the dominion. Outside of the cities there is no unemployment that is extraordinary or need cause worry to any person. If by any chance the cities of Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Vancouver and possibly Calgary were moved 'beyond our borders tonight we would have no unemployment problem in the dominion to-morrow morning. It is in the industrial life of the country that unemployment exists. It is because large and ever growing numbers have been taken from other vocations, particular from that of tilling the soil, that we now have this loss of equilibrium which expresses itself in large, apparently indissoluble lumps of humanity incapable, in their present situation, of providing for themselves and their families. In no province is this problem more pronounced than in the province of Quebec. In no province has the trek from the land to the city been as rapid or as continuous. In no province is the percentage of people on the land so small. To-day barely a third of the people of the province1 of Quebec is engaged in tilling the soil.
If we cannot, devise some means of finding markets for the products of our industrial establishments we must admit that the possibility of gainful employment for people in the city is remote. The work which these people flocked to the cities to do was not work which resulted from prosperous or

voluminous external trade. In large measure the work which they came to do was work which resulted from the policy of expansion and borrowing which characterized the last decade. To-day we find that cities, municipalities and provinces are heavily indebted, and it was during the period that they were spending the money they borrowed that great industrial activity occurred. I remember one day hearing the late Sir Henry Thornton say that he had built freight cars in numbers sufficient if placed end to end to reach from the city of Montreal to the city of Kitchener. It was while we were carrying on work of that kind, constructing machinery, constructing tools and implements for use in the building of roads, building telephone lines and storage dams and equipping ourselves to supply and serve a population of twenty million or twenty-five million people, when we were making these improvements many of which need never be renewed, that for a few years we found employment in the cities for people who hitherto had been engaged on the soil.
On motion of Mr. Hackett the debate was adjourned.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Wednesday, February 27, 1935