1936-03-09

[Stage Direction]
Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Marine) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 12, respecting the Toronto harbour commissioners.
Mr. BENNETT:: Explain.


Mr. HOWE:: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to clarify the present Toronto Harbour Commissioners Act. A doubt has been raised whether the act gives the harbour commission authority to refund its indebtedness. While there is no real doubt about it, the purpose of the bill is to make it clear that the commission has that right.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. JEAN:: 1.	What lending institutions entered into a contract with the Minister of Finance under the terms of the Dominion Housing Act, 1935?
2.	How many loans have been made to date through the medium of such institutions (a) in the city of Montreal; (b) in the other municipalities situated on the island of Montreal?
3.	What is the total amount of loans made (a) in the city of Montreal; (b) in the other municipalities situated on the island of Montreal?
4.	In what wards of the city of Montreal were loans made, and what is the number and amount with respect to each ward?
5.	In what other municipalities on the island of Montreal were loans made, and what is the number and amount with respect to each municipality?
6.	How many loan applications were refused
(a)	in each ward of the city of Montreal;
(b)	in each of the other municipalities situated on the island of Montreal?
7.	Were special instructions other than those contained in the aet and the contracts given to lending institutions of Montreal?
8.	If so, what are such instructions?


Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada; London Life Insurance Company, North American Life Assurance Company; Mutual Life Assurance Company of Canada; Great-West Life Assurance Company; The Northern Life Assurance Company of Canada; Canada Life Assurance Company; Confederation Life Association; The Grey & Bruce Trust & Savings Company; Community Trusts Corporation; The Sterling Trusts Corporation; Capital Trust Corporation Limited; The Premier Trust Company; Guardian Trust Company; Osier & Nan ton Trust Company; The Ontario Loan & Debenture Company; The Central Trust Company of Canada; The Waterloo Trust and Savings Company.
2.	(a) 10; (b) 40.
3.	(a) Montreal.. ..
(b) Outremont..
Mount Royal Hampstead..
Pointe Claire

 282,543

10 loans	S 154,103
2	"	$ 13,98026	"	
194,5618	"	
57,4364	"	
16,5664.	No record by wards.5.	Answered by No. 3.6.	By Department of Finance: (a) 2 in Montreal (no record by wards); (b) 1 in Westmount.
7 and 8. No special instructions as to lending in Montreal.
Note.-In this answer the amounts in dollars include the share of the dominion government and of the approved lending institutions.



TRAP NET LICENCES-BRITISH COLUMBIA

Mr. PLUNKETT:: _ I. How many trap net licences have been issued yearly for fishing in British Columbia waters from 1930 to 1936, inclusive?

2.	To whom or what fishing companies have such licences been granted in each year?
3.	Is it the intention of the Department of Fisheries to terminate some or all further licences for trap net fishing?
4.	If so, what firms or companies will be refused further licences for trap net fishing?
5.	At what date will such licences for trap net fishing terminate, should the department decide not to renew same?


Mr. MICHAUD:: 1.	and 2.
1930-3 to Sooke Harbour Fishing & Packing Company, Ltd.; 3 to J. H. Todd & Sons, Ltd.

Questions
1931	and 1932-3 to Sooke Harbour Fishing & Packing Company, Ltd.; 4 to J. H. Todd & Sons, Ltd.
1933-3 to Sooke Harbour Fishing & Packing Company, Ltd.
1931 and 1935-5 to J. H. Todd & Sons, Ltd.
1936-3 to Sooke Harbour Fishing & Packing Company, Ltd.; 4 to J. H. Todd & Sons, Ltd.
3,	4 and 5. Notification was given that licences for these traps would be available for the season of this year. Whether they will be continued thereafter may later be considered.
mail transportation contracts


Mr. BOULANGER:: What number of contracts for the transportation of mail are in operation in each province at the present time?


Mr. ELLIOTT (Middlesex):: Prince Edward Island	 249
Nova Scotia	 1,099
New Brunswick	 962
Quebec	 2,723
Ontario	 3,739
Manitoba	 817
Saskatchewan	 1,443
Alberta	 1,104
British Columbia	 802
Yukon	 14



DISMISSAL OF POSTMASTERS

Mr. MULOCK:: 1.	How many postmasters were dismissed from August 7, 1930, to November 7, 1930?
2.	How many postmasters were dismissed from October 23, 1935, to January 23, 1936?
3.	How many postmasters were dismissed from August 7, 1930, to October 23, 1935?


John Campbell Elliott: Mr. Speaker, I received from the hon. member for North York (Mr. Mulock) a request to add an additional month in each case, and the answer has been prepared accordingly, as follows:
1 and 2. Dismissals authorized for four-month period-(August 7, 1930-December 7, 1930), 73; (October 23, 1935-February 23, 1936), 52.
3.	913.



JAMES J. LARABEE

Mr. BROOKS:: 1.	Is James J. Larabee, of Eldon, Queens county, Prince Edward Island, in the employ of the Department of Fisheries?
2.	If so, what was the date of his appointment, what are his duties, and what is his salary?
3.	Is the position under the Civil Service Commission?
4.	Is Mr. Larabee an ex-service man?


Mr. MICHAUD:: 1.	Yes.
2.	December 18, 1935. Supervision of the fishery protection vessels and fisheries patrol boats on the Atlantic coast with a view to effecting economies therein. S3,500 per annum.
3.	No.
4.	No.



CHEESE BONUS PAYMENTS

Mr. BERTRAND (Prescott):: 1.	What amount was paid on cheese bonus
each month from July to December, inclusive, 1935?	,	.
2.	What amount of such bonus _was paid in each province during the said period?


Mr. GARDINER:: 1.	July	 Nil
August	 S 233,916 44
September	
278,848	01October	
261,893	98November	
121,936	42December	
137,274	20Total	
$1,033,869 052.	Prince Edward Island. S 2,146	87Nova Scotia	
NilNew Brunswick	
2,751	11Quebec	
216,186	29Ontario	
779,118	63Manitoba	
11,865	12Saskatchewan	
5,573	46Alberta	
11,231	92British Columbia	4,995	65Total	
$1,033,869 05



KITCHENER MUNICIPAL COUNCIL-RESOLUTION ON IMMIGRATION

Mr. MALLETTE:: Has the government received from the municipal council of the city of Kitchener, Ontario, copy of a resolution passed by that council on ' December 16,	1935, respecting
immigration?


Mr. CRERAR:: Yes.



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Mr. HALL:: For a copy of all correspondence, reports and other documents appertaining to the lease entered into with the Three Rivers Grain and Elevator Company, regarding the erection of an elevator at Three Rivers, on government property.
Pensions jor the Blind



CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I., HARBOUR IMPROVEMENTS

Mr. SINCLAIR:: For a copy of all letters, correspondence, telegrams and other documents exchanged between the government of Canada and' any department thereof, or any other person, with regard to harbour improvements in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, since 1930.



LA DURANTAYE, QUE., POST OFFICE DEPOSITS

Joseph Oscar Lefebre Boulanger: For a copy of all correspondence between the Postmaster General or the general superintendent of postal service at Quebec, and the postmaster of La Durantaye, respecting the discontinuance of La Durantaye post office deposits with the Provincial Bank of Canada at La Durantaye.



LA DURANTAYE, QUE., POSTAL SERVICE

Joseph Oscar Lefebre Boulanger: For a copy of all correspondence between the Postmaster General at Ottawa and the postmaster of La Durantaye, from August 1, 1931, to date, respecting (a) the post office, and (b) La Durantaye rural mail No. 1.


Joseph Oscar Lefebre Boulanger: For a copy of all correspondence between *he Quebec district superintendent and the postmaster of La Durantaye, from August 1, 1931, to date, respecting (a) the post office; (b) La Durantaye rural mail.



' JAMES J. LARABEE

Mr. BROOKS:: For a copy of all letters, correspondence and other documents exchanged between the ion. the Minister of Fisheries, any official if the Department of Fisheries, and any other oerson, with respect to the appointment of James J. Larabee, of Eldon, Queens county, Prince Edward Island, to a position under the Department of Fisheries.



PENSIONS FOR THE BLIND


Mr. T. F. DONNELLY (Wood Mountain) moved:: That, in the opinion of this house, the government should consider the advisability of extending the provisions of the Old Age Pensions Act to blind people over forty years of age.
He said: Mr. Speaker, last year a resolution similar to this was placed before this house by the then hon. member for North Renfrew, Mr. Cotnam. The resolution was debated and received the unanimous support of all parties. It was considered that a resolution of this kind was not of a political nature, but was one that appealed to people of all classes. The resolution was sent to a committee which, after considering it, re-
ported back to the house in a favourable manner. The house then saw fit to refer it again to the committee with the request that certain other features be considered. The committee again reported to the house and the resolution was passed unanimously. Since that time nothing has been done. Probably the trouble of the last elections prevented the former government from putting the resolution into effect-


Richard Bedford Bennett: It could not do it; there was no appropriation.


Thomas F. Donnelly: In any case, nothing whatever has been done, either by the Conservative or by the present government, to put this resolution into effect.
I do not feel that I need to apologize to the house or to any one else for bringing forward this resolution and asking the government again to consider the advisability of pensioning blind people over forty years of age. In my opinion the blind people throughout the dominion might be considered or thought of as the forgotten men. We have an obligation in respect to the blind which in my opinion has not been fulfilled. We have certain duties to these people which we have not lived up to.
Hon. members may ask what is the definition of a blind person. The definition varies in different parts of the world. For example, in the state of Kansas a blind person is considered as one who has lost all eyesight. In England the definition of a blind person is one who is unable to perform any work for which eyesight is essential. In my opinion the best definition of blindness is that used generally by ophthalmologists or oculists, that a man is blind who with all the assistance that can be given by means of glasses cannot see even with his best eye what is known as the 6/60 Snellen's test chart, in other words, one who cannot see block type one-quarter inch in size one foot from his eyes.
These blind people can be divided into three classes. First, there are those who are absolutely blind. Then there are those who can distinguish light from darkness, who can tell when it is daylight but who cannot see otherwise, although they may go to even the 3/60 Snellen's chart. Then there are those who can see certain large objects, but whose eyesight is not sufficient to enable them to read block type one-quarter inch in size one foot away from the eyes. The test to be applied to young persons or those who are illiterate is to place an apple two feet from the eyes, to see if they can distinguish

Pensions for the Blind
it. Those who cannot distinguish it are classified as blind, and this is considered a definition of blindness in Canada and throughout the world, and they should be considered as 6/60 Snellen's chart. It is the definition most acceptable and practicable for dealing with these people.
The next question to be considered is the number of blind people in Canada and other countries. The average for blindness throughout the world is about one person out of every thousand. In some civilized countries this average is somewhat reduced. For example, in Canada, according to the 1931 census, there were 7,343 blind people, or a little less than one in every thousand. In Japan or India the average is much greater. The total number of blind people in the United States is in the neighbourhood of
75.000.	In England the total is in the neighbourhood of 46,000; in Scotland it is about
7.000,	but in India it is about 500,000.
The next question is whether the rate of
blindness is increasing. The last census reports show that blindness has been increasing very rapidly in the Dominion of Canada during the last few years. The general idea is that because of hygienic measures adopted by different localities the number of blind people in the dominion is becoming less, but I find that the census of 1881 gave the total number of blind as 3,002; the 1891 census showed that the number had increased to 3,350. In 1901 there was a slight reduction, to 3,266; in 1911 there was a slight reduction to 3,226; in 1921 the number had increased to 4,388, and in 1931 there was a total of 7,343 blind persons in Canada. The tests for blindness made in the taking of the census prior to 1931 were not accurate, and it is believed that those used in connection with the 1931 census contained many defects:	However, the census returns
for 1931 are more accurate than any other return taken in the dominion. We believe that from 7.400 to 7,500 is a correct estimate of the number of blind people at the present time in the dominion.	[DOT]
The next thing that might interest some of us is the cause of blindness. Why are people blind? The first cause of blindness is disease. Ocular affections such as cataract, glaucoma, atrophy of the optic nerve, and other causes accounted for 1,699 of the blind persons in Canada, according to the 1931 census. Senility or old age is the second major cause of a large number of cases of blindness, the number being 1,301, and accidents are a third cause, the number being 1.283. These are the' three major causes of blindness in Canada, according to our census returns.
The next question we may be interested in is the ages at which blindness takes place. At what age does it generally occur in Canada? I thought that I should find that the great majority of cases occurred in the first five years of age, but that is not so; the majority of those that become blind meet with this misfortune between the ages of sixty and eighty. There are 2,347 who have become blind between those ages. The next largest number is between thirty-five and sixty-five years of age, 2,180; next, between five and thirty-five years of age, 1.382; and those between birth and five years of age number 1,218. There are 216 who were not able to say at what age blindness took place.
In discussing a resolution of this kind the first question that occurs to us or that should be brought to our attention is this: How many people does the resolution affect? To how many would it be necessary to pay pensions? How many are between the ages of forty and seventy-because at present all those who are over seventy if they are in need come under the old age pensions scheme; this applies only to blind persons between forty and seventy, and who are without any means of support. We find that the total number of people between forty and seventy who are blind is 3,016, according to the census returns of 1931. But of this number there are some who would be excluded from the provisions of any scheme for pensioning the blind. For example, there are forty blind persons who are receiving workmen's compensation, an income sufficient to exclude them from pensions for the blind; there are sixty-seven mothers receiving mothers' allowance and they would not come under the scheme; there are eighty-nine blind returned soldiers who would not have to be pensioned; and there are 684 blind married women, a large percentage of whose husbands are earning a living, probably fifty per cent, so that that would leave a total in this class of 342 who would have to receive pensions. Then there are blind people earning over 8500 a year; there are about 250 in this class to whom it would not be necessary to pay pensions. And over and above that there are people with private incomes for whom the government would not have to provide; there are about fifty in this class. This makes a total of 838 who would not be included in the first total I have given of 3,016; so that the number who would have to be pensioned to a greater or lesser degree by the government if this resolution were adopted would be 2,178. We realize, however, that there are many blind people who, when they found that a pension was going to be paid, might try to get under

Pensions for the Blind
the act; in some way or other they might get on the pension list. We say therefore that in order to be quite fair we should add another twenty per cent to the total, which would make it 2,614. This is the total number of those who in my opinion would have to be provided for under this proposed scheme of paying pensions to blind persons between forty and seventy years of age.
The next question that arises is this: What is it going to cost the government? Suppose we pensioned the whole 2,014, giving them 820 a month or 8240 a year? the amount involved would be 8627,360. But as the dominion would pay only three-quarters of this sum and the provincial government one-quarter under the old age pensions legislation, if this were adopted on the same principle as that legislation, it means that the cost to the federal government would be about $470,520, or about half a million dollars in round figures. This is the maximum which in my opinion the dominion government would be called upon to pay.
Another question that naturally suggests itself is: What are other countries doing for their blind? How are the blind treated elsewhere? I find that in Great Britain they give 10 shillings a week to all over fifty years of age. In Northern Ireland and the Irish State they give 10 shillings a week to all blind people over thirty, and in Australia 20 shillings a week to all over sixteen years of age, while in New Zealand 17 shillings and sixpence is paid to all blind over twenty years of age. In Denmark all disabled persons are pensioned, and in France the necessitous blind over the age of forty receive pensions. Sweden recently enacted legislation giving $125 a year to the blind. Russia has established a large number of factories in which blind people are employed in cooperation with workers who can see. Russia perhaps has done more to give employment to the blind than has any other country. Thirty states in the United States pay pensions of varying amounts; for example, $1 a day is paid in Pennsylvania and $50 a month in California. Japan has set aside certain occupations to be engaged in only by the blind-the work of a masseur, for instance, which onily the blind are allowed to do. Certain other countries give industry a bonus each year provided they employ only blind persons, and blind persons are engaged in these industries. This is what other countries have done for their blind, and we as Canadians have fallen down in our duty. We have not so far passed any law making provision for the blind in Canada, apart from such charity as has been given them during the last few years.

The next thing I may be asked is why the age of forty years has been chosen instead of some other. I will only say that forty was taken more or less as a tentative age. On the other hand it is to be remarked that the blind are probably more systematically looked after in England than in any other country. There they have gone into the conditions surrounding blindness in much the same manner as they do everything else, very thoroughly and systematically. For some time pensions had been paid in England to blind people over fifty years of age, but in 1928-29 a British Ministry of Health advisory committee, under the chairmanship of the Right Hon. Lord Blanesburgh, P.C., G.B.E., investigated the age at which pensions should be paid to the blind, and decided to recommend that they be paid to all blind people over forty years of age. I wish to quote from a part of the committee's report:
We understand that the minimum age for the receipt of these pensions was originally fixed at fifty years because it was thought that up to that age blind persons were generally fit for a course of vocational training and subsequent employment. We still believe that it is possible for many blind persons of fifty years of age, or even more in some cases, to be trained for successful employment, and we trust that local education authorities will give every suitable blind person an opportunity for training without being bound by an arbitrary age limit. Nevertheless experience has shown that in a number of cases it has not been possible, for health or other reasons, to train blind persons less than fifty years of age to earn a livelihood. We consider that the reduction of the age limit from fifty to forty years for the receipt of a blind pension would be fully justified.
That is one of the reasons why we have taken the age of forty.
Some people say, why not have it for all blind people? I do not think that would be a good idea. If you gave pensions to blind persons under forty years of age it would take away their incentive and their initiative to do work themselves, to be self-reliant, to be independent, to take up some vocation or other to earn their livelihood. We know that those who are able to work are much happier and more contented when they are doing something than when they are doing nothing and living on money they receive from the government. But we do find that when blind people are over forty years of age, if they are not then rehabilitated, not then able to earn their living through some useful occupation, it is almost impossible to train them to earn a living for themselves. That is why we have chosen forty as the age when a pension to the blind should begin.

Pensions jor the Blind
You may also ask me why we should link up pensions to the blind with the Old Age Pensions Act. We think it is desirable to do so for two reasons. First because if it is connected with the Old Age Pensions Act it will not look so much like charity to the blind who receive it. They will feel it is coming to them anyway; it is not a charitable donation, but something which they deserve, being linked up with the system of old age pensions. Another, and I think the major reason for this course, is that one set of officials can administer the whole thing, can look after the blind as well as the aged, and at practically the same cost to the state.
I wish to say only this in conclusion. If legislation is passed connecting the present old age pension law with pensions for the blind, probably it will not be possible to put it into effect to any great extent this year. We realize that if this legislation passes we shall have to have concurrent legislation in the provinces before it can come into effect. But it will be a beginning, and probably it can be started next year and put into effect to at least a certain extent. There are two provinces in the dominion which have no provision for old age pensions; I refer to New Brunswick and Quebec. We believe that that difficulty will soon be overcome, that these provinces will put through old age pension legislation before the end of the year, and they will then have the same opportunity to give pensions to their blind as will other parts of the dominion.
It was a Liberal government that first enacted an old age pensions act. True it is that they did not give seventy-five per cent, the amount to which it was raised by the Conservative government, nor did they increase it to one hundred per cent, as the Conservative government promised to do. We hope it will soon be done, because the dominion government are paying practically all the old age pensions at the present time anyway. If people over seventy years of age are entitled to a pension, how much more deserving are blind people over forty, labouring as they do under far greater handicaps than older people who have kept their sight? I look around this house and I see sitting here people over seventy years who are hale and healthy and smart and able to carry on their occupations and make a living for themselves. Why then should we not fulfil our obligations to those who are labouring under the handicap of blindness, by pensioning them off?
It is true, as some point out, that there are people who labour under other handicaps; there are the deaf and the dumb. Probably at some time we shall have to pension them.
But I do say that our first obligation is to the blind, and it is one which we should not disregard. They are calling out to us, appealing to us to remedy their condition, and I ask the government seriously to consider this resolution, which urges that pensions be given to the blind who are over forty years of age.


Mr. W. K. ESLING (Kootenay West):: The hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly) has made a very complete presentation of the subject matter of his resolution, and it is my most earnest hope that it will be favourably disposed of, and that the government may see the way clear to bring down at this session legislation to implement the terms of the resolution. As the hon. member stated, a similar resolution was thoroughly reviewed by a select standing committee at the last session of this house. The resolution involves either an amendment to the Old Age Pensions Act or perhaps special legislation. That, however, is a matter for the government. It also involves acceptance by the various provinces; as to that we need have little concern, because no doubt public opinion in each province will justify that acceptance.
We all know the personal interest of the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) in all matters affecting the welfare of the sightless, and we know too that every member of this house shares equally in such sympathy.
This is a private member's resolution, and unless it is disposed of to-day it will be a very simple matter to sidetrack it or send it to the parliamentary burial ground. No good purpose can be served by again referring this matter to a committee. If the government is disposed to bring down legislation every hon. member will have an opportunity to record his views, and I think the constituents of all members from one end of the dominion to the other will endorse the attitude of those who support any legislation that is brought down. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, through you I would ask hon. members to cease this discussion, call for the question and dispose of the matter immediately.


Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this resolution for two reasons. First I wish to express, not only on my own behalf but also on behalf of those with whom I am associated, our appreciation of the fact that this resolution has been brought before the house. In the second place it gives me a peculiar personal pleasure to speak to this resolution. For a number of years, for reasons I need not give,
Pensions jor the Blind

I have been very much interested in the welfare of blind people, and have been privileged to act as honorary president of the Saskatchewan branch of the Federation of the Blind for some years. My only comment in regard to the resolution would be that perhaps it does not go far enough, but if it is adopted by the government it will be a start, and a very excellent start at that, in the right direction. I look forward to the day when we shall have not only a national plan to deal with blind people but also a general plan that will take care of those in our midst who are disabled or handicapped, not only those who suffer from physical defects but also the widow and the orphan.
I realize that a resolution of this kind, coming before the house at the present time, involves the question of finance. Consequently the government, perplexed with having to find money for the various activities of government, is loath to extend services of this kind. I noted that the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly) who so ably introduced this resolution, stated that in certain countries-and Denmark was particularly mentioned-the government had instituted pensions for all disabled people. That is true. On more than one occasion I have referred to the social legislation that has been instituted in the kingdom of Sweden. I do not know if it is generally known in this house, but it was in 1915 that a Conservative government of that country introduced an old age pension plan. Faced with the necessity of financing the plan they adopted a novel method which I am going to recommend to the consideration of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) of this country. They took over what had become a great monopoly, the tobacco monopoly, and in the course of the years that have followed from that one source alone, earmarked for old age pensions, the government of Sweden has received something in excess of $300,000,000. Then they took over the liquor monopoly, and I think most of us in this house will agree that this is a traffic which ought not to be left in private hands for exploitation. A few days ago I saw an article by Professor Walter Thompson which stated that from that source Sweden was receiving approximately $50,000,000 per year, yet it was also pointed out that the cost of the various brands of wines and other beverages compared quite favourably with similar costs in Great Britain and other countries, and that drunkenness had been halved.
We have in Canada a number of such monopolistic institutions that might be con-

sidered by the government in relation to problems of this sort; for I realize quite fully that we must find new sources of revenue if we are to institute and continue legislation of this sort. I should like to point out that in 1932 it was divulged, upon inquiry, that in Canada the tobacco business was already a monopoly. Therefore it is something that could be easily controlled by the government. We learned that two companies practically control the whole field, the Imperial Tobacco Company, controlling some seventy per cent of the business, and the Macdonald tobacco company, controlling some twelve per cent of it. In the five years from 1929 to 1933 some $1,861,000 was distributed to six executive officers of the Imperial Tobacco Company; dividends paid amounted to $26,000,000, and there were undivided profits of some $11,000,000 in the same company.


Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: Mr. Speaker, I
rise to a point of order. I do not think the hon. member is speaking to the subject under discussion.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I do not think the hon.
member is going too far away from the subject in showing how the government would be able to obtain money with which to pay these pensions.


Major James William Coldwell: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In discussing this resolution I was anxious to make some constructive suggestions as to where the money might be obtained, and I was drawing an analogy between the situation in Canada and the situation in a country overseas where the money has been found for a similar service in the manner I have just outlined. I would suggest that the government explore avenues of this kind in order that we may provide for services of this description.
It is not necessary to emphasize the need of a measure such as this, but I should like to add one more thought. It is this, that the government of Canada should not only endeavour to provide for those already blind. As a condition of making that provision, in cooperation with the provinces, it should be laid down that the provinces which participate and which, to a degree, are financed by the federal government in this regard, should do something in reference to the prevention of blindness. For a number of years I have been associated with institutions where I have seen the necessity for that being done. Children have been unable to obtain the necessary care, with the possibility that in after years they may suffer from blindness. Consequently I should like to see the scope of this resolution extended, when considered

Pensions for the Blind
by the government, so that whatever is done may be done on the condition that the provinces participating, through their educational and other institutions, should do something for the prevention of blindness.
I do not propose to say anything further, Mr. Speaker, except that we of the group with which I am associated, realizing that this is not a partisan or political issue, are thoroughly behind this resolution, and we hope the Minister of Finance will be able to see his way clear to make provision for the institution of this well worth while service.


Mr. DANIEL McIVOR (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this resolution from a sense of duty and fair play. Pensions to the blind are long overdue. When we see the need and realize our duty, something may be done. My eyes were opened to the needs of the blind when I saw a young man who had fought overseas and come back whole, and then had to go into a gravel pit on relief work to get a living for his wife and family and came out blind. It was then that we in Fort William woke up to the needs of those who are blind, and we found that at the head of the lakes there were over thirty who are sightless. Captain Baker, for whom we have great respect, told us the other night that the cost of pensions for the blind would not exceed $150,000 for this year. I got in touch with him to learn the reason for that, and he said that even if legislation is enacted at this session, regulations could not be made to inaugurate payments before October 1. Besides age verification and means test there would be the additional requirement of proof of blindness within the terms of the definition used in the act.
We take off our hat to a man like Captain Baker, whether we agree with war or not, who went overseas and served faithfully. He came back and fitted himself to lead out of darkness into light those suffering from this affliction. He is behind this resolution, and it is our duty to support him and those associated with him in this work. He is backed by men and women in all provinces, teaching handicrafts to the blind, but the difficulty is that when the goods are made it is hard to find a sale for them.
Every afternoon, Mr. Speaker, you open the session with prayer, and I admire your reverence, saying either in French or in English, "Our Father." If we say that prayer sincerely, every man and woman throughout this wide dominion should be our brother or sister, and when any of our fellow citizens 12730-56
fall into a pit it is our duty to help them out. To me there is no pit so dark and cruel as the pit of blindness. It is our duty to provide for the blind, even if it requires making reductions of expenditure in other places.
Miss AGNES C. MACPHAIL (Grey-Bruce):	I want to add my voice to the
others who have spoken in favour of this resolution and the institution of pensions for blind people over forty years of age, payment to begin this year. It is now almost thirteen years, I think, since the agitation for pensions to the blind began. I think they say in the document they send out that since 1923 they have been seeking earnestly to get pensions. When times were not as difficult as they are now, blind people might have been able to get work, but now when those who have their sight and are trained cannot get work there is almost no hope at all for the blind in that regard. I do not think any of us meant to do what was done last year; we raised the hopes of the blind throughout Canada and then those hopes were dashed to the ground. It caused a great deal of suffering of mind and spirit, a great deal of bitterness in the hearts of blind people, because they thought they had won their fight. I believe that parliament meant, and even the government meant, that the blind should have the pension, but there were a lot of things to do and the matter was neglected. This should not be put off any longer. Canada will soon be the only part of the British empire that has not done it. Great Britain takes care of the blind; so do New Zealand and Australia and Ireland, also the United States, France, Denmark and Sweden. Surely we do not want to tag along at the very end in all great social services.
Last year the blind were so confident that by putting just a little more pressure on parliament they were going to get the pension that they had a great parade in Montreal. I have the story of that parade and the speeches at the demonstration as reported in the Montreal Daily Star of May 17, 1935, and there is a paragraph in it which expresses very well how I feel when I see blind people trying to get along. It says:
The sight was one that brought a lump to the throat and tears to the eyes, as old men and women, well built youths and girls, and little children, linking hands to keep themselves in line, and guided by a sighted friend', walked behind the citadel band of the Salvation Army, and tried to keep in step with the lively march that was played. It was a tragic procession, and those who lined the sidewalks commented on that sadness, and

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could be heard endorsing the slogans that were carried on many banners:	"Give the
blind' pensions NOW." Traffic police guided the marchers to the hotel entrance, and there a double' line of bell boys shepherded their faltering footsteps up the stairway through the rotunda to the meeting hall.
That demonstration was largely organized by Philip E. Layton and his son. I think too much credit cannot be given to the Layton family for what they have done for the sightless in Canada.
I am not in the least convinced that we cannot find the money. I know we can, and I know' we ought, and I think the House of Commons and the government should see to it that this year we inaugurate pensions for the blind. If we do not we can only be unhappy about it, and while we may seek reasons to justify our action to others, we shall not be able to justify it to ourselves.


Mr. H. W. WINKLER (Lisgar):: In speaking to this resolution I desire to make special reference to a comparatively small class of the blind. Before doing so, however, I wish to refer briefly to the debate that occurred on this subject in the house last year. On January 31, 1935, no less than fifteen members spoke on this matter and I think advanced about every good reason that could be given for payment of pensions to the blind. The resolution before the house then was substantially the same as the one now before us, except that to-day's resolution says that-
-the government should consider the advisability of extending the provisions of the Old Age Pensions Act to blind people over forty years of age.
On January 30, 1935, the hon. member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler), in concluding his remarks, asked this question:
I would like to ask the hon. member why he confines it to people over forty.
Then on January 31, on the motion of the then Minister of Labour (Mr. Gordon) the question was referred to the committee on industrial and international relations. On April 3, after witnesses had appeared before bhe committee, the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill) said that they-the witnesses-asked:
... that special consideration be given to the unemployable blind of any age. We never considered that aspect at all. They asked that they be taken care of by a bill, separate from the Old Age Pension Act if possible, but we never embodied that consideration in the report.
I should like to refer briefly to the information in bulletin No. 43 issued by the bureau of statistics in 1935 in relation to the 19fcl census. It gives the total number of blind
TMifis Macphail.]
in the year 1931 in Canada as 7,343. I have calculated some percentages from the figures given on page 2 and find that of the blind about 9 per cent are under twenty years, 25-3 per cent are under forty-five years, and 41-5 are over seventy years of age. Using these figures as a basis, approximately 10 per cent of the blind are under twenty-one years, 21 per cent are under forty years, and approximately 11 per cent are between the ages of twenty-one and forty. It is particularly with regard to that class that I want to speak to-day.
Considering all classes in regard to the benefits conferred by the government, we find that education is provided for the blind up to the age of twenty-one years. There are a few good schools for the blind in the dominion; the provincial governments, I am informed, pay the expenses of blind young people up to the age of twenty-one, and these benefits apply to approximately ten per cent of the blind. In all the provinces except two, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly), the old age pension at the rate of 820 a month is provided for those over seventy, and that represents 41 per cent of the blind. But no government benefits whatever at present go directly to blind people between the ages of twenty-one and seventy, comprising approximately 48-5 per cent of the blind.
By this resolution it is proposed to consider the extension of the old age pension to those between forty and seventy years of age, or to approximately 37-5 per cent of the blind, or roughly 2,750 people. According to the 1931 census that would leave the blind between the ages of twenty-one and forty receiving no direct benefits from any government whatever, and that class comprises approximately 11 per cent of the blind, or about 800 people. Let me therefore give special consideration, Mr. Speaker, to the plight of these 800 people between the ages of twenty-one and forty who are receiving, and would receive under this resolution, no benefits whatever.
We know that when a young person without physical disability leaves school and is thrown on the world, especially in these days, finding a vocation is a difficult problem. We can, I think, safely multiply those difficulties by many times in the case of blind young persons who are looking for some occupation upon leaving school. If ever there is a time when a blind person needs assistance, it is when he or she leaves school and is seeking a vocation. I submit that the blind of that age, if of any age, should receive special consideration. This is the period of readjustment, and it determines to a great extent

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883P
the type of citizenship we are going to have among our blind young people. The resolution before the house therefore does not meet with the most urgent requirements of the blind people as a class.
Furthermore, when we consider the requirements of the blind person of the age of twenty-one, let us say, it is found upon inquiry that the average active industrious young blind person requires a guide, and unless a member of the family or some child is willing to act in that capacity, it will cost from $8 to $10 a month to have someone act as a guide and take the blind person about. Deduct that from the $20 which is not even offered to this particular class under this resolution, and you can see how badly off they would be. I maintain that this is an additional reason why the resolution is entirely inadequate.
If I thought that in this resolution lay the only hope of the blind in that age class, I would support it as it stands at once, but I am sure I voice the opinion of a great many people in this house and in the country when I say that we are looking to the government to bring down legislation which will consider the rights and requirements of our blind people irrespective of age.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, the test, it has been frequently said, of our Christian civilization as distinguished from others is the care we give to the disabled and the poor and the suffering. I do not quite agree with what has been said by the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly), in his references to the blind, as to our having wholly neglected our duty in that regard. My earliest recollections as a young man of the care that was given to the blind go back to the time when every day I was passing a school for the blind in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and seeing the number of sightless persons that were there cared for and trained. Our estimates during all these years have indicated that we were desirous of making some appropriation to care for the sightless in every part of the dominion. We have given grants in aid of the work carried on by organizations in Montreal, Toronto and in the different provinces, in Nova Scotia and every part of Canada; so in fact we have endeavoured to assist the work carried on by various organizations in behalf of the blind.
In the days of my youth when this institution to which I refer was being maintained there was no thought that the state should care for the blind, or that the state should provide pensions for those over seventy, or 12739-564
that the social services that are now extended to so many persons in the community should be available. That indicates the great change that has taken place in the attitude of the people of this and other countries toward problems of this kind. In the older countries the legislation has assumed the characteristics to which reference has been made. In newer countries the progress has been slower, and on the American continent little thought was given to any such idea until more recent years. In 1927 we passed in this parliament an old age pension law which made it possible for the dominion and the provinces to cooperate to provide $20 per month or $240 per annum to	men and	women	who	hadpassed the age	of seventy years,	and	whorequired this assistance. Need and age were the tests,	and when	the age	had	beenreached, if the	need was	present,	the	state
made the grants to which I have referred.
With respect to the need of the blind as compared with other classes, I do not think there is any difference of opinion in this chamber. Last year I listened with great interest to what was said in a very comprehensive discussion of the whole problem, and it was quite apparent that those who had personal and real knowledge of the situation were agreed that there was no doubt at all that the need was present, and that in many instances the unselfish devotion and the charitable instincts of humanitarian Canadians had supplied the needs so apparent of those who were sightless.
The question of age is one of the greatest importance. I shall not express my view beyond saying it did appear that in determine ing forty years as the age, those responsible-for framing this resolution were following the-course adopted in Great Britain. Like the-hon. member for Grey-Rruce (Miss Mac-phail), I discussed the matter with Mr. Layton and he told me that there was no reason, for taking this age beyond the fact that in Great Britain forty years had been determined upon, and that that was the age that appears to have been considered as being proper to submit to this parliament, In other parts of the British empire another age has been considered, but this question of age is a matter which can be dealt with just as parliament dealt with the age of seventy in connection with old age pensions. It cap be determined by taking a general consensus of opinion as indicated by the members of the house regardless of their political affiliations.
There then arises the question that had to be considered last year, that must be con-
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sidered this year and that will have to be Considered at all times, the extent to which the provisions of the Old Age Pensions Act 'can be made available to meet the conditions to which I have referred. The Old Age Pensions Act is predicated upon the assumption that each province that desires to take advantage of its provisions shall make an agreement with the dominion government. That agreement provides the amount that the dominion will pay, which has lately been increased to seventy-five per cent, and the terms and conditions under -which it will be paid. I am bound to say that there have been very grave abuses under that statute, but efforts have been made to curtail them and I think to some extent the efforts in that direction have succeeded. There will not be much likelihood of any abuses in connection with the blind. Blindness is apparent to all and there could be no misunderstanding under the circumstances as to the question of need, because that could be ascertained without difficulty. There might be some difficulties in connection with age, but we will pass them up.
Last year when Doctor Cotnam succeeded in having the matter referred to a committee, which committee made its report, it was quite clear that there was substantial unanimity in the house that the matter should be dealt with. However, it was pointed out, quite properly, by one member, who is now a minister, I believe, that two of the provinces, in one of which there was perhaps the largest number of blind persons of any province in Canada, had not availed themselves of the Old Age Pensions Act. If we had given effect last year to the suggestions contained in the resolution it would have been necessary to enact a statute for the payment of pensions to the blind regardless of any provisions in the Old Age Pensions Act, because it was agreed by all members that it would be highly -improper to leave out the provinces of Quebec and Nova Scotia in dealing with payments to sightless persons. It was suggested that we should proceed to set up machinery to deal with the matter. As I have indicated, the government felt that that would not be a proper thing to do and I still think that that is the correct view to take of the matter. As the hon. member for Wood Mountain has said, it is not improbable that during the present year Quebec and Nova Scotia will avail themselves of the facilities provided for the payment of old age pensions under the Old Age Pensions Act. If that is done, the provisions of that act will be applicable to these two provinces. That being so, this house would be within reasonable bounds if
[Mr. Bennett.l
it asked the government to give to this matter their very serious consideration.
I am not one of those -who urge upon the occupants of the treasury benches that they should do this and that because it is the popular thing to suggest. The government must in the very nature of things be in a position to determine what action may be taken. We who sit in other parts of the house must not fail to realize that upon the treasury benches there falls a great and ever increasing responsibility; in the ultimate analysis the determination of what is to be done with the taxes raised must rest with those responsible for the raising of those taxes. If we asked blindly that the government pay out half a million dollars, six hundred thousand or seven hundred thousand dollars to a particular agency to effect a particular purpose, we might be asking them to do something practically beyond their power and be embarrassing the administration instead of assisting with the business of the country. I take it from what has been said on previous occasions and from what has been said to-day that there is no hon. member of the house who, if he were convinced that it did not involve a question of difficulty on the part of the government to supply the necessary funds, would not urge upon the government the desirability of amending the Old Age Pensions Act so as to make pensions available to sightless persons when they have reached the age of forty years, assuming that that age is accepted as the arbitrary age. For the reasons that have been given, that age does not seem to be unreasonable. But despite the fact that we all desire that it should be done, despite the fact that there is complete unanimity on the part of this chamber that such an act would not only be gracious and proper but would be fitting as indicating the humanitarian and benevolent impulses of the parliament of Canada, those charged with the responsibility of raising revenues must in the ultimate analysis determine whether or not it is possible at this time to give effect to that purpose. I rise only to say how much I appreciate the difficulties of the government in that regard and how firmly I am of the opinion that if it is at all possible to carry into effect the sense of this resolution, it should be done.
In passing I join with the hon. member for Grey-Bruce, in paying a tribute, not only to Mr. Layton and his family, but to the men and women in humble walks of life, and others in fairly good circumstances and conditions, who have made for themselves places despite their handicap and who have shown an unselfish devotion to this cause and have ex-

Pensions for the Blind
hibited an earnest and continued anxiety to assist in every way within their power in bringing some measure of relief to those who are sightless. For relief is required not only by them but by many others. The epileptic, the deaf and the dumb and many others are crying aloud for help, but there is no case that seems to strike human nature so strongly and move men's hearts so greatly as that of the sightless person who has attained the age of forty, we will say, and finds himself or herself utterly unable to battle with life's difficulties and problems and utterly unable to earn anything at all for himself or herself. Therefore I join my voice with the voices of those who have preceded me and who may follow me in expressing thorough accord with the effort being made to arrive at a solution of this very complex problem. At the same time I do not do more than urge upon the government, that must, as I say, be responsible for the raising of taxes, on the one hand, and the expenditure of revenues, on the other, to determine whether under existing conditions they can meet the just and reasonable requests that are made because of humani-tarianism and benevolence, if you like, and see that those who have struggled so bravely and made sacrifices so great are afforded such assistance by the state as will enable them to be recipients not of charity but of a just and proper pension from the country.
Mr. A. MacG. YOUNG (Saskatoon):	Mr. Speaker, I rise to say just a few words in support of this resolution. I notice that so far all the speakers have been on the other side of the house, but I do not believe all the sympathizers with the blind are over there. I think it has been demonstrated, not only this year but in other years, that there is a very great unanimity among hon. members and the people of Canada that one obligation which has never been discharged properly and fittingly is that of looking after the blind. Like the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) I too passed the school for the blind in Halifax many times in my younger days. There I saw a very large number of persons trained and educated to take care of themselves. Scattered all over the dominion there are blind persons. In the city I have the honour to represent, the blind are among the most courageous people in the whole community. It surely must awaken the sympathy of every man and woman either in this chamber or outside to see people who have lost their sight now in serious difficulty.
I congratulate the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly) not only upon
having introduced the resolution but upon the able way in which he has presented it. I have observed that many resolutions on very vital questions are fully debated here, but on following them up I fail to find that much has been done in a practical way with respect to them, and I would bespeak for this resolution the attention particularly of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning). I am sure there is no member in this house who is more sympathetic to those in need than the Minister of Finance. In his life in western Canada he has come in contact with people really in need, and I am sure that the blind head the list of those who ought to be assisted. I therefore commend this resolution particularly to his attention. It is no part of my duty to tell him where the money is to come from or how it is to be done; that is a part of his duty and he is quite competent to perform the function he is called upon to perform in the government of which he is a very notable member.
When I think of this dominion paying
8140,000,000 a year in interest rates, I suggest that we might begin by refinancing some of the great debt and perhaps cutting down so that the payment of a small pension to the blind would be a mere bagatelle. I commend that to the hon. gentleman. And he need not perhaps stop there, because there are many ways in which we might find the small amount necessary to pay some compensation to the blind. I recognize that the figures given to-day would probably not represent the full and ultimate requirements; nevertheless I would urge the Minister of Finance to give the matter his serious consideration.
I doubt whether the resolution quite meets my own view. I had the pleasure some years ago of supporting a bill for the establishment of old age pensions, and I support the proposal to pay pensions to the blind at forty years of age, not because I believe that this is the real solution of the problem but because I do believe that it is a step in the direction of that solution; and in the meantime I think the house should adopt the resolution. This is a question which in the opinion of hon. members on all sides is one which is worthy of support, and I commend the resolution to the government in the hope that they will give it that full consideration which in my opinion it entirely merits.


Mr. J. R. MacNICOL (Davenport):: Having served during the last session on a committee to which was referred a resolution moved by Doctor Cotnam, in terms similar
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to the one before us, and having heard before that committee representations from the various institutes representing the blind throughout the country, headed particularly by the Canadian Institute for the Blind of Montreal and the National Institute for the Blind1 of Toronto, I would be derelict in my duty if I did not rise now and say a few words in support of the present resolution so well moved by the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly).
The number afflicted by blindness will, I am afraid, increase as time goes on. The worker in industry, owing to the fact that he is working with rapidly moving machinery, or owing to the effect on his sight of many of the factors that enter into production in industry, is subject at all times to loss of sight. The sight of workers in industry is all too frequently impaired, and because of long association with that class of men I hope that the government will find it possible to adopt this resolution and to formulate legislation thereon.
I support the resolution for another reason. While the matter was under consideration by the committee last year, I made it my business to visit the blind institute in Toronto and was taken by Mr. Myers, one of their principal officers, to see the work being done in that city, and I was very greatly impressed with it. A year ago I was in hearty accord with a similar resolution but I am now more strongly in favour of the government accepting the present motion and giving it legislative effect.
During the election I had an experience that impressed me greatly with the necessity for pensions to the blind. In the course of a canvass I called on a family. Both husband and wife were blind, and when I introduced myself to them it appeared that, through association with other blind folk, they had learned something that had taken place before the committee during the last session, and it seemed that my name had impressed itself on their minds as one who was strongly in support of pensions for the blind. I have never in my life had a more courteous or a more hearty reception than was given me by these two blind people. When I called first the husband was in the cellar, a very dark cellar, and I learned from that visit that there is one advantage which even a blind man has over a person blessed with his sight. As I say, the cellar was very dark, there was only a small window in it, and when he came up he said, "I have been downstairs reading a good book." Of course, a normal person could not have seen

to read in a dark cellar, but he had had the advantage of having been taught to read Braille in some of the institutes for the blind.
I have nothing to add at present but a sincere expression of hope that the resolution will be heartily supported and will be accepted.


Mr. J. J. DUFFUS (Peterborough West):: Mr. Speaker, doubtless I do not differ from any hon. member in this house when I say that I have every sympathy for the unfortunate people to whom this resolution refers. I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly) upon having again introduced this subject to the house. I do not suppose there is a person in the world who would forego the indispensable pleasure and use of his sight for any pension, however fabulous it might be. We should not overlook, also, the tremendous hardship which falls upon poor families who have among them one or more sightless members. Next to those who are facing starvation I can conceive of no unfortunates who are more entitled to the sympathetic consideration of this house than those who are blind. Unless the government has some insurmountable reason for deferring action upon the resolution or not supporting it in a financial way or otherwise at this particular time, I feel it my solemn duty to give it my hearty support.


Mr. E. J. POOLE (Red Deer):: 
Joseph Léon Vital Mallette: Although I am the first member from Quebec to take the floor with regard to this resolution, you must not think, sir, that we are not interested in it. On the contrary, I am quite convinced that the entire population of the province is fully in accord with the principle of the resolution presented by the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly). According to the right hon. leader of the opposition there are legal difficulties in the way, but those legal difficulties could probably be overridden by a special act dealing with
blind people alone. On the other hand, if I correctly understood Mr. Taschereau in the last campaign, there was a promise that old age pensions would become effective in Quebec.
The sentiments of generosity and of social justice which animate the deputation from all over Canada could hardly find a more magnificent and practical expression than through the adoption of this resolution. Since the opening of the present session many legislative proposals have been submitted to this house, all tending to improve conditions in Canada, but I doubt if there is one that has more merit than the one now under consideration by this house. No doubt, in view of the sentiments, so well known, of this chamber, there is no reason for my making a very long address on this subject, but I feel that I should express my sincere sympathy with the cause, especially because the riding which I have the honour to represent in this parliament contains the only French Canadian Catholic institution devoted entirely to the cause of the blind. I am referring to the Institut Nazareth, which is undoubtedly very well known to members from the district of Montreal and from other parts of the province of Quebec, as well as, no doubt, to those people in Canada who are taking a national interest in the welfare of the blind. This institution, which is now located at No. 4565 Queen Mary Road in Montreal, was founded in the year 1861. thanks to the generosity of a Sulpician priest, l'abbe Rousselot, a member of the seminary of Montreal. This institution has been managed ever since its foundation by the Grey nuns, whose devotion I will not try to describe, because it would be impossible. There are at the institute about forty nuns and a staff whose devotion is extreme to help the blind- their blind, as they call them in a sort of maternal way. On December 31 last there were in the institute 232 blind people of divers ages and conditions, and when one wishes to know how the good nuns manage to make both ends meet in an institution of that kind-well, they simply do not make both ends meet; they are able to give help and comfort and everything that can be given to their blind boarders, but when it comes to balancing the budget that is an impossibility. For the year ended June 30, 1935, they were short almost $61,000, and for the year ended June 30, 1934, the shortage was almost $66,000, and this after very generous grants by the provincial government as well as help extended by the public at large, by different organizations of ladies and gentlemen who hold parties, banquets and so on to raise funds and who also give very generously from their private purses. Last year the total ex-
Pensions jor the Blind

penses were over $120,000, more than $10,000 per month. When I asked the lady treasurer yesterday what she proposed to do to meet these deficits and where she would get the funds, she said that for the time being she relied on providence and on pensions for the blind being introduced. No doubt to rely on providence is a very magnificent act of faith, but I should like to see something more practical, so I do hope pensions for the blind will be in effect before very long.
Of the blind themselves there is not very much I can say that this house does not know very well already. When a blind person is brought to this institution or any other, at first the board is paid regularly. That goes on for some months or perhaps some years. Then the payments begin to get smaller and more intermittent, until one day there is no payment forthcoming at all, and after that the poor blind person is left entirely to the resources of the institution, which means that he is more or less brought down to the level of a beggar. We can imagine the obstacles which must be overcome by the blind in instructing themselves, whether in school education or in learning a trade. In addition we must remember that the work that can be done by blind people is very limited. Generally they manufacture baskets and things of that kind, but they have to work much more slowly than other people who can use machines, and as a result the cost of the articles so produced is so high that they cannot be sold at a profit but must be sold at a loss. There is a store in Montreal kept open purposely for this business. I am told that it brings in a little revenue during the holiday trade but that during the rest of the year it might as well be closed. Blind people are quite successful in music, and it was suggested to me that perhaps an effort might be made by parish authorities all over the dominion to reserve for the blind the work of playing the organs and pianos in the churches. Perhaps the radio commission could help; possibly those business houses who put special programs on the air could employ the services of the blind, because they can put on some pretty good programs, and that would be something very practical indeed in the way of helping them.
These blind people, naturally, have their pride; they want to earn their living and they do not want to be reduced to the level of beggars. I have been told another very astounding thing, that many of them want to get married and establish homes. I think that proves conclusively, once and for all, that love is blind. The depression has affected everyone, of course, but none more than it has

affected the blind. They relied on the help of people with large incomes, but these large incomes have dwindled away to nothing and now they find themselves without help of any kind. I am told also that when a blind person reaches the age of forty there is usually no one of his family left to look after him. During his younger years his relatives will likely have lighter family burdens and therefore will be able to subscribe generously in order to help their blind brother. After these blind people reach the age of forty, however, generally their fathers and mothers are dead, their brothers and sisters have gone away, and they are left dependent upon public charity.
Yesterday, when discussing this question with the authorities of the Nazareth institute I was asked if there was any possibility of these pensions being granted this year. Not wishing to encourage false hopes I said I had strong doubts. I felt confident that the house would support the resolution brought in by the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly), but I did not know whether or not the government could put it into effect this year. The good sister said to me, "Well, Mr. Mallette, if we had gone to the government in 1930 we would have been told that they could not afford it, and since then we understand the country has gone into debt to the extent of about one billion dollars, so probably we will get the same reply now." When the provinces come to seek help from the federal government-and get it-why is it that a small minority of deserving people cannot get some financial assistance? Frankly I cannot understand it. To me it seems that in some way or other we should be able to adopt this resolution and put it into effect.
The discussion to-day has been of such a high order that, while I know it is impossible,
I wish it could be printed in Braille so that the blind might know that from the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) down to the humblest member they have nothing but friends in the Canadian House of Commons.
Mr. CAMERON R. McINTOSH (Battle-ford North): Mr. Speaker, may I be permitted to make one or two observations in connection with the resolution now before the touse. Last year a similar resolution was moved in this chamber, reading as follows:
That, in the opinion of this house, the provisions of the Old Age Pension Act should apply to blind people over forty years of age.
Perhaps a word or two might be necessary in connection with the action taken on that

Pensions jor the Blind
resolution, which, after a brief debate, was passed on to the standing committee on industrial and international relations. Having been a member of that committee not only during last session but during the last ten years, I can tell hon. members that the resolution was considered quite fully and quite sincerely by that committee. Many submissions were made, and after they were analyzed a report was submitted to this house. Hon. members who were in the chamber at that time will remember that the committee reported favourably on the resolution. Every member of the committee was in favour of it, but it was pointed out that if the resolution was adopted and legislation introduced based on that resolution, such legislation would apply to only seven provinces out of the nine. Two provinces, Quebec and New Brunswick, would be excluded from the operations of the legislation, and as a result practically one thousand blind people in those provinces would not receive any benefit. Because of that limitation a difference of opinion arose in the house during the debate. The division of opinion was along this line, that because of the limitation of the resolution some hon. members were for bringing down a special bill. In fact a special bill sponsored by the government was strongly supported by the house. In that way the resolution, although supported by the committee, was not referred to the committee again. The debate was adjourned, the matter left to the government, and no action was taken.
This afternoon we have before us a resolution presented by the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly), practically the same resolution as last year. The resolution means we are back at the same place as a year ago. Here we have another case of history repeating itself. From the debate this afternoon I am convinced that practically all hon. members, new and otherwise, are in favour of this resolution. The work of last year has thus gone on, public opinion has been forming, and to-day we have this house almost unanimous for action. This year's resolution reads:
That, in the opinion of this house, the government should consider the advisability of extending the provisions of the Old Age Pension Act to blind people over forty years of age.
If the government adopted that resolution it would only partly meet the need. It would meet the need of those over seventy; it would meet the need of those between forty and seventy, but it would not meet the need of blind people under forty years of age. Consequently the government are faced with
this situation: they know that if legislation were enacted in accordance with this resolution the cost involved would be only part of what will be required to meet the problem of the blind in the next few years in Canada. I believe that actuarially for this year $150,000 would be required, the next year about $350,000, and the next year practically half a million. So that half a million dollars will be required to meet the needs of the blind between the ages of forty and seventy, and then we have over two thousand blind people under forty. So, as I said, we have arrived at the stage we were at last year.
I do not think it is necessary to have this resolution referred again to the committee on industrial and international relations. The committee thoroughly analyzed the situation last year and reported in favour of the resolution, and it is not necessary to have that same work done again. What does that mean? It means that the resolution is before the house and the government, and we shall have to leave it with the government knowing that the government is sympathetic, that the finance minister is sympathetic, and that the situation will be dealt with by legislation as soon as possible. Nothing more can be done, because the government is the only power that can deal with this resolution and get the money to meet the problem that confronts this chamber in regard to the blind in Canada. The best we can do is commend the matter to the initiative and action of the government and to the good will of the finance minister, and knowing that the government is wholly favourable, we can look for action as soon as it is possible financially- at the earliest possible moment. More than that I would not say. It is not necessary to tell the government that they can get the money if they adopt new and fanciful financial policies. That is not our business as members of the house; that is for the initiative and vision of the government. After the government fully consider the resolution I believe we shall find in a short time that pensions for the blind will be operative in Canada.


Mr. H. C. GREEN (Vancouver South):: There is very little that I can add to the discussion on this resolution, but there is one material feature which should be brought out, and that is the efficiency with which work for the blind has been carried on in Canada during the last ten or fifteen years, perhaps longer. That is a material point, because the leaders of the blind come before this parliament to-day as a group who have done efficient
Pensions for the Blind

work. I suggest that these men have done all that could possibly be done, and they are now up against a blank wall.
I should like for a minute or two to deal with the work of some of these men. It has been my privilege to see some of them at work. First I should like to mention Captain Baker. Captain Baker lost his sight during the war. He was a promising young engineer, a graduate of Toronto university, decorated for gallantry in the field, and one night he was shot across both eyes and blinded. From that time to the present his life has been an epic of courage and initiative, a life that in times to come I think will be looked back upon by the Canadian people as outstanding in his generation. Captain Baker, like most of the blinded soldiers, was trained at St. Dunstan's in England. When he came back to Canada he took charge of work for blinded soldiers; then he took over work for all the blind in Canada. He is now managing director of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and probably one of the leading younger executives in Canada to-day.
Captain Baker has been able to draw around him several other leading young men, for instance, Mr. Harris Turner, who although blinded overseas was at one time leader of His Majesty's loyal opposition in Saskatchewan; also there is Mr. Myers, and we have in Vancouver M. C. Robinson, superintendent of the western division of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. Mr. Robinson was blinded overseas at the age of nineteen, and his work and experience have almost duplicated that of Captain Baker. Then we have Joe Clunk, placement officer of the institute, an American, a qualified solicitor doing wonderful work; and we have the work of the Layton family in Montreal.
I refer to these men for this reason, that in all their work their main idea has been to help to make the blind people independent, make them feel that they are taking their share in the life of the nation. In addition they have tried to raise the morale of the blind. As many hon. members know, blind people easily become discouraged, and it is no wonder they do. These leaders of the blind have started social clubs; for instance in Vancouver we have a club known as the Nil Desperandum club, which might be interpreted as the Never Say Die club. By such means the morale of the blind has been greatly improved. Despite this able leadership and good work there is a class of blind people for whom little can be done, and they are the ones for whom we are asking help to-day, the blind over forty years of age. These older blind folks are in many cases not active enough to work for wages; the 
majority of them have not the initiative to run concession stands, or carry on a business of their own and are really unemployable; they are just stranded, and I would suggest that the government could very well extend the provisions of the Old Age Pensions Act to cover these people.
The Old Age Pensions Act is particularly suitable because under its provisions only those blind people who are not earning a certain income would get assistance, and it would throw a portion of the burden on the provinces, which, while perhaps not so good for the provinces, would -ensure their checking very carefully every application for a pension.
I personally am convinced that if we in the parliament of Canada adopt this resolution we shall be expressing the sympathetic feeling of Canadians generally for the blind and carrying out the wish of an overwhelming majority of the people of our nation.


Mrs. MARTHA LOUISE BLACK (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to say very much on this question because so much has already been so ably said. We all know that the minister who will have the spending of this money is sympathetic and will do his best, but when we read that there are men and women deprived of their sight who, because of lack of clothing, because of lack of health, are absolutely unable to leave their homes, it is enough to tug at the heartstrings of every man and women in this country. Private charity is called on to the utmost of its capacity, and we have to come to the government with our hands outstretched. Governments give money for raising the standard of grades, for raising the value of stock, and surely in some way the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) can find a little money to help these blind people.
For fifteen years past I have sat in the gallery of the house and it has been borne in upon me more and more that if you really want help; if you really want to be assisted, you have almost to commit a crime. If you do murder, if you commit a theft, you are taken care of; you are fed and clothed and kept warm; but if nature commits a crime against you, it is sometimes very difficult to get help, and so in all sincerity I ask the government to consider what they can possibly do for these poor people.


Mr. R. E. FINN (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker,
I feel it not only a privilege but a duty to say a word in support of the resolution that is now before the house. Coming as I do from the city of Halifax where we have an institution for the blind, and having passed it on my way to the city almost every day

Pensions for the Blind
*during twenty-five years of my life, I have seen many young blind boys and girls there;
I have watched them grow up still in the same condition, and I have seen them later on in the evening of their lives almost forgotten, unattended, and having to be helped across the street by a stranger. We whom Almighty God has not so afflicted have an opportunity of seeing Him in the beautiful works of nature, but those who have been deprived of their sight have not that great compensation, for after all one of the finest things in life is to look out and watch the sun go down surrounded by tints of amber and gold. That is denied to these unfortunate people, and this resolution is but an evidence of our sympathy with them in their affliction.
I am not a member of the medical profession, indeed hardly one of the legal profession because nearly all my life has been spent in politics, but in my journeys I have observed that a large percentage of those afflicted with blindness do not live to the sere and yellow leaf. They pass off the scene before the allotted span, and if they do not, they might almost as well, because they are in many cases unnoticed as the rest of the World go by.
I would urge this one point, that these blind people as they grow older require care and attention; that they need to get out into the wide open spaces, to inhale the fresh air, and perhaps to hear the sea rolling in on the sandy beach. They may not be able to do all this unaided, but with the little pension that is proposed in this resolution they would be provided with funds which would make more enjoyable the evening of their lives, and I think parliament and the government would not have to strive very hard to find and place in the estimates a sufficient sum to care for the blind of this dominion from the age of forty upwards.
I cannot agree with the hon. gentleman who spoke a few moments ago and who said that the blind should be assisted from an early age, because it is always well to make a humble start. If we look after the blind from the age of forty upwards until they are called to that bourne from which no traveller returns we shall be doing much for that class, and then later on public opinion might be such that the government would be warranted in appropriating a larger amount to take care of the class on whose behalf the hon. member for North Battle-ford (Mr. McIntosh) spoke.
My only reason for rising to speak to-day is that I am interested in any person or class of persons who suffer from any disability or have been deprived of the use of some of
their senses which are necessary to enable them to go through life happily and successfully. Having seen the Institution for the Blind in the City of Halifax and noted the good work that is being done there, I am sure that the passage of this resolution will cheer the hearts of those who will benefit under this proposal and also of those who are assisting in looking after the blind. Therefore I have much pleasure in supporting the resolution, and I hope, Mr. Speaker, that the government led by my right hon. leader (Mr. Mackenzie King) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) will be able to find a sufficient sum to place in the estimates to make a modest start so that the blind may see that a studied interest is being taken in them by hon. members of the house and by the government. I am sure that they will appreciate this and it will give them the thought that perhaps, after all, life is worth living.


Mr. J. P. HOWDEN (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, I have not very much to say today, but I should not like to let this opportunity go by without expressing my sympathy with and hearty support of this resolution. Actually there is no opposition which could be brought against this resolution, and my purpose in rising would be rather to state that I do not think the resolution goes far enough. I think we should do something more than provide pensions for the blind. Last year this thought was expressed most excellently by the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill). It is quite true there are many blind people who are helpless, some being invalids as well; it is true there are others who have reached an age where there is no possible chance of their being educated for anything, but on the other hand there are many able-bodied, intelligent blind men and women who could be educated and given something to do. It has been proven beyond question that blind people can produce the most excellent basket work, brooms and other things of that sort. I know of a young fellow who lost his eyesight in the war and who is now a skilled masseur in Toronto where he is earning a very good salary. The fact that a person has lost his eyesight does not mean that he should be helpless and hopeless for the rest of his life. A helpless blind person is the most helpless person possible, but there are many who are able-bodied and who, if given an opportunity, could provide for themselves. I certainly think the government should provide that opportunity by way of education and the provision of employment.
Pensions for the Blind

The mover of the resolution (Mr. Donnelly) discussed the definition of blindness. I believe a blind person should be considered as one who has not sufficient sight for the ordinary purposes of life. Whether he has half sight, whether he is totally blind, or whatever degree of sight he has, this should make no difference so long as he is unable to carry on the business of life. When he is in that condition he should be classified as blind. I think pensions for the blind should be national in scope. As was pointed out by the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Winkler), the provinces are called upon to educate all blind persons up to the age of twenty-one years. If the provinces have this burden upon their shoulders, surely the federal authorities should undertake the other forms of relief.
I do not know that I have anything further to say. Every hon. member owes a duty to the blind people of Canada to speak in this house on their behalf. It is the business of the government to find the money to provide pensions for the blind; it is our duty to support them in their hour of need.


Mr. W. M. RYAN (St. John-Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say a few words in connection with this resolution. I want to congratulate the mover (Mr. Donnelly) upon the splendid way in which he has presented his case and also upon again bringing this matter to the attention of the house. I am in hearty sympathy with the spirit of the resolution. However I think it is unfortunate that the resolution should be taken as a means to launch an attack upon the bankers of this country. I do not happen to have the good fortune of knowing any of the gentlemen in St. James street and I hold no brief for them, but I do not think there is anyone in the dominion, no matter what his calling may be, who is not heartily in sympathy with this resolution. If the government brings in legislation giving effect to the resolution, I for one will support it so far as it is possible for me to do so.


Mr. W. A. TUCKER (Rosthern):: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to detain the house very long, but I want to bring to the attention of hon. members the situation in which we find ourselves as representing this dominion. Every hon. member who has spoken to-day has endorsed the principle of this resolution. They agree that those who have been unfortunate enough to lose their sight are deserving of some assistance from their more fortunate fellow Canadians. It is admitted that something should be done at once, but nearly every hon. member who has spoken has brought up the question of where the money is to come from. As I listened to the 
speeches of hon. members I was reminded of David Copperfield. In that book mention is made of a person who was trying to write a history but who could not get around King Charles' head. It kept coming up and coming up. This problem of where to find the money keeps coming up in connection with every proposal made in the house. It is agreed that it is desirable to do something, but the contention is that we have not the money. We all know that if we were faced with war the necessary credit would be forthcoming. Great Britain considers that she is faced with the danger of war and she is able to make an immediate appropriation of $1,500,000,000. We know that if Canada were in the same danger we would have no difficulty in finding the necessary credit to carry on any defence plans deemed necessary.
The hon. gentleman (Mr. Ryan) who has just spoken has indicated that this resolution has been used by some hon. members as an excuse to make an attack upon the bankers.
I think the hon. gentleman has misconstrued the attitude of that increasing number of men who count themselves as monetary reformers. They do not attack the bankers as individuals; they attack the system which has grown up during the last fifty years. They do not suggest that the bankers are any less devoted than is anyone else to the best interests of society, but they do say that the financial system is not working in the best interests of the people. I would point out that some of the greatest economists in the world to-day have come to the definite conclusion that in the twentieth century we are trying to do business under a financial system that, while it may have done fair service in the nineteenth century, is just as much out of date to-day as is the ox-cart when compared with the motor car. I hear member after member say that the financial system is too complicated for parliament to deal with, but I suggested that if they really want something done along the lines which have been just suggested, they should devote their study to the financial system and the banking policy.
It is a well recognized fact that the country is continually going deeper into debt. If we could not afford to do a certain thing last year, there is not much hope of our being able to afford to do it this year and there is less hope of our being able to afford it in the future. We are willing to speak soft words on behalf of and offer sympathy to the blind, but we have not the money to do anything for them. This reminds me of a certain saying in the bible: They asked for bread and he gave them a stone. It reminds me of the

Pensions jor the Blind
parable of the loaves and fishes at the time when the multitude were to be fed. The question was asked where the money was to come from, but the multitude were fed with bread and fish without money coming into the question. We as a deliberative assembly must devote ourselves to finding ways and means of doing what is physically possible, Tegardless of whether the financial system as at present constituted stands in the way. If we do not do this we are not doing our duty to the people of Canada.
What these blind people need is food, clothing and some of the other good things of life. If the financial system does not permit us to do those things which we as a Christian people realize we should do, which we know we have the ability to do, then it should be changed. If we refuse to study this problem can we say that we are as serious as we should be in our desire to do something for these people? That is the question I put to the house. This is the test that faces this House of Commons. Do we really mean these things? Do we want to have them done? If so, let us begin to study some of the ways suggested by the greatest economists not only of the English-speaking nations but of the world. Let us begin to give serious and sympathetic consideration to those suggested ways and means whereby in this twentieth century we may go forward and place at the disposal of these blind people the things that it is physically possible to put at their disposal. The things that are physically possible should be financially possible, and if under our present system they are not financially possible, although physically possible, then we are subordinating the best interests of the people to adherence to a system; we are refusing, by our adherence to an outworn system which no longer serves humanity to the best possible advantage, to benefit by the abundance which providence has given us. I am not now advocating any particular change in the system, but I know that every hon. member present would like to do something for the blind as well as for others who are unable to look after themselves. As the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Young) has said, fifty-four per cent of what we raise in taxation is going towards paying interest on our debt. That is where the money is going and it is in that quarter that we should direct the searching gaze of parliament to find out whether we cannot there save money and thereby serve the best interests of the Canadian people.


Mr. W. H. MILLS (Elgin):: I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without saying a word in favour of the resolution, but before I speak
to it, as this is the first occasion on which I have addressed the house during this session,
I should like to congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the Speaker, upon your elevation to the respective offices which you hold, and I would also congratulate you, sir, upon the order which you maintain.
Just a word in reference to the resolution.
I have seen a good deal of the work done by the unfortunate blind and it is truly wonderful to view their accomplishments. But in these times when there is so much competition in all lines it is very hard for these people to find anything to do to earn their living. People who bocome blind at an advanced age are particularly unfortunate in this respect. During my campaign I met a man who had become blind at the age of sixty-four. He was married but had no children. He had nothing saved up and it was necessary for his wife to stay at home to look after him. Apart from the little relief provided by the municipality, they are entirely dependent upon the kindness of neighbours. The question is: Where is the money to come from? But it seems to me that we have money for many other purposes; many other grants are made, and I do suggest that people who are blessed with their sight owe something to their less fortunate brethren.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance): It seems to be my lot these days to meet deputations and to hear representations both in the house and outside it asking for one of two things, either more expenditure of funds from the public treasury or a reduction in the taxes which contribute to the public treasury. I suppose there is not a member in the house but is favourable to the principle of the resolution now under discussion, and I dare say that anyone who advanced the slightest argument against it from the standpoint of national desirability would be subject immediately to the accusation that he was placing property rights ahead of human rights. The debate however has been on a very high plane with the exception of the contribution of the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Poole). I would suggest to him, with all respect, that if he has such a low opinion of this house of which he is a member there is one chamber at all events which is controlled by the members of his own party, and in connection with which there is no doubt whatever as to constitutional authority to deal with this matter; and I suggest that, lacking faith in this chamber and in this government, he might well address himself to that chamber which unquestionably has authority to deal with matters such as this.
Pensions for the Blind

And that brings me to this: The discussion which has taken place to-day would have been virtually impossible in this chamber twenty years ago for the reason that until quite recent times it was assumed, and properly so, that responsibility with respect to measures such as that contemplated by the resolution was provincial in character. All down through the years from confederation on the provinces of Canada had assumed responsibility for all such matters, for dealing with property and civil rights, for dealing with all matters of public charity; and indeed we recognize still that the dominion is merely a contributing factor towards what is really a provincial responsibility in connection with the old age pensions legislation presently on the statute books. There has been in the last twenty years a change to such a point, as the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) indicated, that the dominion is now contributing seventy-five per cent of the cost of old age pensions to the provinces, a recognition of a fact which is inherent in our constitution, that such responsibilities are first of all provincial.
The provinces have all down through the years recognized their responsibility with respect to the very matter now before the house, because they have set up institutions for the care of the blind and their education as well as for the care and education of various other classes of disabled people. I am not seeking on behalf of the government to put aside this question on constitutional grounds, because rightly or wrongly parliament has embarked upon the principle of assisting the provinces with respect to matters which are clearly within provincial jurisdiction. But when we hear remarks such as those which emanated from the hon. member for Red Deer I think it is well to point out these considerations.
The hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly), who introduced the resolution, made, I think, an admirable presentation, and with regard to the point I have just mentioned I might call his attention to a statement he made. He said that in the United States many states grant old age pensions. The United States is a federal country, similar to Canada. In the United States the federal authority has not yet assumed any responsibility with respect to pensions for the blind.


Mr. HEAPS:: May I ask the hon. minister whether it is not true that the United States, in the new security acts recently enacted, are assuming the responsibility?


Mr. DUNNING:: What acts?


Abraham Albert Heaps: Social security acts of the
United States, passed this year.


Charles Avery Dunning: Well, I am not familiar with any recent enactment by which the federal authority in that country assumes any responsibility. In any event I am quite sure that such an assumption of responsibility would be in the same manner as is here proposed.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Yes.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is, by way of contribution to what is recognized as a state responsibility.


An hon. MEMBER:: Dollar for dollar.


Charles Avery Dunning: Dollar for dollar, yes.
I just wish to make that point because of the fact, if I may be permitted to say so, that parliament has now sufficient to do in finding the necessary funds for those activities with which by the constitution it is charged. We want to be generous with respect to humanitarian objects of all kinds; we want to be generous by way of contributions to the provinces, I know; but is it not our first duty to look after those matters with which the constitution of this country charges this parliament?
With respect to the matter of age, I am not at all convinced that good arguments or particularly sound reasons have been advanced for setting it at forty. In England, 1 believe, the age is fifty; in Australia, some one said-the member for Wood Mountain, I think-that the age is sixteen; and if I look at the matter through the eyes of the finance minister I must of course regard age forty as merely the entering wedge. We all know perfectly well that in estimating future financial requirements one cannot possibly take age forty as the basis, because obviously there would be demands from time to time that the age provision be modified on account of what could easily be advanced in cases of people of thirty-five, thirty, or twenty-five years who were at least equally needy with those whose age exceeded forty.
I have on record from some of the blind organizations some objections to provision for the blind being made a part of the old age pension legislation, with, instead, the request that separate provision be made for the blind-I presume as a federal responsibility. I doubt very much if we can approach the matter from that point of view because of what I have been saying with respect to the responsibility of the provinces in connection with the question.
That brings me of course to a consideration mentioned by many speakers, that so far two provinces have not come within the ambit of the old age pensions legislation, and

Pensions for the Blind
consequently, if the blind are added to that legislation, their receipt of pensions would be dependent upon the entry by the dominion into agreements with all the provinces with respect to the payment thereof. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) made some suggestions as to the manner in which further revenues could be raised; he made suggestions of an interesting character. The liquor monopoly in Sweden was held up, I think, as a model for the extraction of money for governmental purposes from a monopoly, and I think the figure of $50,000,000 was mentioned. Well, I just turned over in my mind the amount of money which the governments of Canada, dominion and provincial, are now extracting from the liquor traffic, and from the standpoint of extraction I do not think we have anything to learn from Sweden. As to the method of extraction there might, of course, be some point to my hon. friend's remarks, but I am quite sure that with reference to the amount of money we can show the Swedes a few things at the present time.
Every question of this sort of course renders possible, although I think it is of doubtful order, a discussion of credit. But may I point out that this is not a question of credit at all. This is a question of extracting from the people of Canada each year money to spend on some of the people of Canada. It is not a question of borrowing the money; it is a question of taking it from all of us to give to some of us. No question of credit is involved at all. From year to year we must go on raising from all of us that which we spend either on all of us or on some of us. That is not a question of borrowing. No question of creating money alters the fact that we tax ourselves as a people for the discharge of our public services. I shall not pursue that question further. There will be other opportunities when I shall be much more in order than I am on this resolution to discuss matters of banking and credit.
On behalf of the government I can say that we shall, as this resolution requests us to do, consider it very carefully. We are favourable to it. The practicability of immediate action, of legislation at this session, is very doubtful, however; in fact I should not like to hold out hope that there will be legislation this session implementing this resolution. The government has given it consideration and that is the conclusion of the government at the present time. Naturally I should prefer to say immediately-it would be nice just for once to be able to say-yes, instead of having to say no to almost every
request either for greater expenditure or for lower taxation. But I can only repeat what I said on a former occasion. The government believes that at the present time we require to keep a very tight hand with respect to new commitments, and therefore I cannot hold out hope to the house that we shall propose legislation at this session regarding this matter. While acknowledging the desirability of assisting in the discharge of provincial responsibilities with respect to it, we do not feel justified, in view of the state of the country's finances, in promising to do so at this session.


Mr. HARRY LEADER (Portage la Prairie):: Mr. Speaker, I was taking it for granted that every member of this chamber is in favour of the resolution. I also took it for granted that it would pass, and that the government would see that provision was made to take care of our blind. I had no intention of rising until I heard the remarks of the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning). I received a telegram this morning from the Institute for the Blind at Winnipeg asking me to support the resolution. I want to say that I am supporting the resolution and believe that the money should be found to take care of our blind people.


An hon. MEMBER:: They can find it for brass hats.


Harry Leader: I did not intend to go into the monetary question at all or to say anything about the huge taxes that the people of this country pay in regard to interest rates, but I want to say something along the lines of economy in administration. Every party in the election last fall had that as a plank of their platform; they were pledged to economy in administration. I suggest to the Minister of Finance that the cost of administering the high commissioner's office in London has doubled in the last four years; that it now costs the taxpayers of this country over $500,000 a year to maintain that institution, including the $250,000 that is spent for advertising purposes. I want to point out that two or three years ago the taxpayers had to pay for a $200,000 building that was erected in Tokyo, Japan. There is no doubt that we can save hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, millions of dollars in the administration of this country if we only apply ourselves to doing so. If one goes through the auditor general's report, as I have, one will find that in the last five years we have paid out nearly $18,000,000 in travelling expenses. I mention these things just in order to show how we could save a paltry $300,000 to take care of
Retiring Allowances

our sightless people. I have nothing more to say, Mr. Speaker, except that I am supporting the resolution and I am very sorry indeed that the government cannot find the money with which to meet this request.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Abraham Albert Heaps: That, in the opinion of this house, the government be requested to take under immediate consideration the question of granting adequate retiring allowances to Canadian citizens of the age of 60 years and over.
He said: I have no desire, Mr. Speaker, to continue the debate on this subject which was carried on in this house for almost two days only a few weeks ago. I know already the attitude of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) in this connection; he asked his supporters to turn down a similar resolution. So it is my intention at this time to allow the matter to drop, but I wish to notify the house and the government that at another session of parliament we shall have on the order paper a similar resolution which we hope will receive more sympathetic consideration on the part of the government than was the case this year. Judging from the vast amount of correspondence I have received during the past two or three weeks there would seem to be a very strong, in fact, an almost overwhelming body of sentiment throughout the country in favour of pensions at sixty. Now that we have introduced a resolution of this kind we will continue to bring in similar resolutions until such time as parliament lowers the existing age limit and grants higher pensions than are being given to-day.
With these few words, Mr. Speaker, I would ask the permission of the house to allow this Tesolution to stand or be dropped, with the hope of resurrecting it on another occasion. Motion dropped.



MARKET GARDENING


Mr. LIGUORI LACOMBE (Laval-Two Mountains) (Translation) moved:: That, in the opinion of this house, Canada *should study the question of immediately adopting a seasonal tariff in the interest of market gardening, particularly during the months of April, May and June of each year.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is with a deep sense of gratification that, after five years of 
absence, I find myself again in this house. However, I notice that a great change has taken place. The Conservative opposition lacks the exuberance and vigor of former days. For the first time we behold a powerful government elected by a majority without precedent in Canadian parliamentary history. The people of Canada are entitled to expect great things from this government; above all, the financial and economic recovery of the country, the revival of employment, and the improvement of the agricultural situation.
I wished to make these few observations before broaching the subject matter of the motion, which is closely linked with the agricultural progress of this country.
Mr. Speaker, the question which I propose to examine is of national import. From the answers made by the minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) to inquiries which I submitted to him recently, it is obvious that every province in the dominion is deeply interested in market gardening. According to information supplied by the Minister of Finance, the Ontario counties of York, Simcoe, Essex, Middlesex, Hastings, Grey, Waterloo, and Huron are specializing to a greater extent in this market gardening branch of agriculture. In the province of Quebec, the counties of Beauce, Bonaventure, Temiscouata, Champlain, Lake St. John, are included in the list, and I owe it to the truth to add the constituency of Laval-Two Mountains, which it is my privilege to represent in parliament.
The counties of Jacques Cartier, Mercier and the former constituency of Laprairie-Napierville are by no means unconcerned with market gardening; nor is Terrebonne, and many other Quebec counties will, in a few weeks, be real gardens.
I shall quote the latest statistics indicating the land area devoted to market gardening in the province of Quebec and the value of crops produced thereon in the years 1931 and 1935. Statistics, as the poet says, are the thorns of speech,	and	they	compel	me tokeep referring to my notes. In 1935, the area thus cultivated amounted to 44.010 acres, representing an increase of more than 2,000 acres in a single year. In fact, in 1931, the area covered	was	42,000 acres.	That
short period thus showed an increase of five per cent. What was the value of the vegetables produced for marketing purposes in the province of Quebec in 1935? $6,297,000.
And in 1934?	$5,601,000. We have there
an increase of 12	per	cent.	These	figuresclearly show the	economic	importance of
garden marketing to Canada. However, it must be borne in mind that the figures which

Market Gardening
I have just quoted refer only to purely commercial market gardening. If we further take into account the substantial contribution made by home gardens, we find in that interesting analysis unsuspected sources of wealth.
Let me now draw the attention of the house to a comparative statement of the different products of market gardening for the years 1935 and 1934, which I desire to have recorded in Hansard.
Marketing Gardening-1935-1934
Total crop	Total value
Acres	Acres	$	$1935	1934	Unit n ^	1935	1934	1935	1934Beets	. 2,200	2,100	B	814,000	693,000	334,000	298,000Carrots	.. 1,200	1,200	B	444,000	475,000	155,000	185,000Celery	.. 530	480	D	869,000	864,000	443,000	372,000Cabbage	2,600	B	728,000	884,000	226,000	301,000Cauliflowers	. . 650	650	B	98.000	130,000	82,000	104,000Cucumbers	. . 1,900	1,900	B	266,000	266,000	146,000	154,000Beans	.. 2,700	2,600	B	378,000	302,000	374,000	332,000Lettuce	.. 1,100	1,100	D	1,496,000	1,485,000	434,000	297,000Corn.. 	.. 11,000	10,500	B	1,166,000	1,050,000	758,000	546,000Onions	. 2,300	2,100	B	610,000	500,000	555,000	400,000Green peas	.. 5,200	5,000	B	364,000	290,000	400,000	235,000Tomatoes	.. 6,200	6,000	B	1,860,000	1,962,000	1,135,000	1,717,000Strawberries	. 3,500	3,100	Q	6,160,000	5,890,000	524,000	530,000Raspberries	. 1,590	1,500	Q	2,544,000	2,250,000	331,000	304,000Other vegetables..	.. 1,340	1,260	400,000	366,000.. 44,010	42,000	-Quarts.	6,297,000	5,601,000(1) B-Bushels.	D-Dozens. Q-	
At the outset of my remarks, I referred hon. members to the answers made by the honourable Minister of Finance. Besides the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, several counties represented in this house by my honourable colleagues, are interested in market gardening. I may mention, among others, the counties of Queens in Prince Edward Island, Westmorland in New Brunswick and Lunenburg in Nova Scotia. As to the prairie provinces I might mention constituencies numbered 2 and 5 in Manitoba, 9 and 15 in Saskatchewan, 10 in Alberta, and 4, 5 and 6 in British Columbia. This enumeration brings home to me the fact that the vastness of our land gives rise to disadvantages, divergences of opinion, opposition of interests. Is that a reason for impairing the effect of a large investment? Indeed, can anyone say what market gardening in this country has entailed in the way of past sacrifices and hard labour? When we know that an undertaking is profitable, we stay by it; when we do not, we quit it. Too many of our people sometimes scorn our most valuable resources.
In these last few years we have witnessed the demoralizing spectacle of hundreds of thousands of our people subsisting on the dole. Why this degeneracy? Why this ruinous policy? Why this tragic anomaly in a rich country like Canada? Is it not largely due to economic nationalism? The present government has already taken steps to sup-12739-57
press this growing evil. It has demolished the barriers, and even now, as in the days of Laurier and King, the political horizon of the country begins to dawn with brighter hues.
However, in the discharge of this important duty of economic reconstruction, I am fully confident that the authorities will protect the market gardeners against any competition that may prove ruinous to them. Therefore, in the interest of Canadian market gardeners, I urge the establishment of a seasonal tariff during the months of April, May and June of each year. In urging this seasonal tariff, which is so important to agricultural progress, I cannot refrain from upholding once more the rights of the farming community, rights which have been ignored too long. At a time when the hardships and sufferings of a considerable section of the population induce the rulers of the nation to turn their eyes towards the land, it is essential to render all possible assistance to the farmers. The arduous task which they perform from daylight till dark should be generously encouraged by those who preside over the destinies of Canada. Agriculture must survive in this country. Our leaders cannot shirk the duty that devolves upon them to make farming more efficient, more profitable and more prosperous.
At six o'clock the house took recess.

Market Gardening

After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. LA  COMBE@Translation: Mr. Speaker, *when the hoarse rose, at six o'clock, I was discussing the following resolution:
That, in the opinion of this house, Canada should study the question of immediately adopting a seasonal tariff in the interest of market gardening, particularly during the months of April, May and June of each year.
Having quoted statistics in support of my resolution, may I bring forward a few considerations of a general character regarding the needs of agriculture in Canada. For more than five years past, a most depressing term is heard on all sides. I will refrain from repeating it. It is synonymous of idleness, of inertia, of despair, of ruin. Let us oppose to it agriculture, the symbol of life, of tenacity, of wealth, in this country which is blessed with natural resources that many other nations might envy.
In closing my remarks, sir, I wish to say to the house that I am not moved by any petty interest; on the contrary, not only the county of Laval-Two Mountains, but every section of Canada is deeply interested in the establishment of this seasonal tariff. Speaking on behalf of a persevering, tenacious and hard-working class of people, I think I have shown to this house, ever imbued with a truly Canadian sense of justice, the rights of the market gardeners. As to the duties of our rulers, I feel confident that, as in the past, they will discharge them in the' best interests of the country.
Firm action is required, especially in the domain of agriculture. Something should be done without delay to ensure a more generous and expeditious application of the Farm Loan Act. As soon as the practical working of the latter act is assured, the Farmers' Arrangement Act should be repealed, for not only does it affect property rights, but it exerts a demoralizing effect on both farmers and creditors. It has struck a fatal blow to the borrowing power of the farmers and has been a cause of apprehension to mortgage creditors, and even of anguish to small investors and widows who rely on the income from their investment for their maintenance. The act does not favour enterprise, but rather creates discouragement. I repeat, let us replace that nefarious legislation with the immediate application of a wider and more liberal Canadian farm loan plan.


Mr. WERMENLINGER (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains (Mr. Lacombe) whether the resolution now before the house

has reference to seasonal tariffs or to tariffs in general? I think the hon. member is out of order in so far as the last part of his address is concerned.


Walter Edward Foster: The hon. member may put a question but that is all.


Liguori Lacombe: Mr. Speaker, I think I am quite in order, inasmuch as my resolution covers the whole field of agriculture in this country. I am grateful to the hon. member for his observation. I trust that he himself will soon have an opportunity to discuss the farming question in the house.
Before bringing these few remarks to a close, I wish to draw the attention of the house to the ideal of survival that we must attain in this country. Should we not, in the first place, apply ourselves to the development of our splendid country? In that commendable pursuit, can there be found a more fruitful endeavour than that of the farmer? The back to the land movement, the tilling of the soil, are so many symbols of contentment in these troublesome days.
Dark clouds are gathering over Europe; may God preserve us from a catastrophe worse than the last one. To war let us oppose the bulwark of agriculture, and may the statement made by the right hon. Mr. Mackenzie King in the last election campaign, be entirely confirmed. No outside interests, whether in Ethiopia or elsewhere beyond our borders, whatever may be their nature, are worth the life of a Canadian citizen. Let us go on cooperating towards the building up of our great country'. These are my concluding words, sir, and in the discharge of this important duty towards my constituents, I trust that I have acted in the interests of the Canadian people and in a truly national spirit.


Edgard Jules Wermenlinger: Mr. Speaker, the resolution of my hon. colleague the member for Laval-Two Mountains provides for the establishment of seasonal tariffs. The concluding portion of his address in no way refers to the question, and I should like to have more definite explanations on this seasonal tariff, because we are to consider the question of a trade agreement between the United States and Canada.


Liguori Lacombe: Mr. Speaker, I have nothing further to add, save to point out that in order to make a statement the hon. member should have at least invoked the rules of the house.


Walter Edward Foster: Order.

Wheat Board Act-Mr. Perley


Hon. GROTE STIRLING (Yale):: Mr. Speaker, unfortunately I was not able to follow the speech of the hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains (Mr. Lacombe) to the full as I missed certain phrases which I was not able to understand, but I notice that he is appealing to the government to study the question of immediately adopting a seasonal tariff-I am sure the motion means a seasonal tariff, and not a seasonable tariff -in the interests of market gardeners. I assume that the market gardeners my hon. friend represents differ in no way, except perhaps in degree, from those in other parts of Canada, and certainly they are all looking to the immediate future with considerable anxiety.
The hon. member asks for a study of the method of applying protection through a seasonal tariff. I am not aware that a seasonal tariff has ever been -tried in Canada. In theory it has been discussed at great length, and in theory I have always thought it would apply beneficially probably if those against whom we must use it dealt in prices which had some definite relation to the cost of production. But unfortunately that is not the case. Unfortunately the competitors whom we meet in our markets are selling their produce at prices which have no relation whatever to the cost of production. Their desire is simply to remove those commodities from their own markets.
It appears to me that if at this late date the hon. member asks this government to study seasonal tariffs, it must surely be that his market gardeners are entirely ignorant of the facts which present themselves to them at the moment, and the hon. gentleman himself must surely be entirely devoid of humour, for I cannot see how the government can study seasonal tariffs with any probability of satisfaction when the Canada-United' States trade agreement, is presently before the house and contains in the schedules attached to the agreement items which show that the time has gone by when it was possible for the government to consider seasonal tariffs with the idea of being of any assistance whatever to my hon. friend's market gardeners or any other.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance):	Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has proposed this resolution (Mr. Lacombe) will expect, I am sure, and quite properly, some statement on the part of the government with respect to it. Certainly Canada should study the question of a seasonal or a seasonable tariff. From my experience in the house it is very difficult to 12739-571
avoid studying the tariff in all its aspects as relating particularly to the commodities referred to in -the resolution, commodities which are the product of the market gardeners of this country.
I scarcely agree with all the remarks of the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling) as to the effect of the Canada-United States trade agreement on the question now before the house, but I shall not anticipate that discussion of its provisions which must take place in committee of ways and means. I can only say to the hon. member who has moved the resolution that certainly the government has studied and will continue to study the question he has brought before the house.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Mr. E. E. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle) moved:: That, in the opinion of this house, the provisions of the Canadian Wheat Board Act, 1935, should forthwith be made applicable to oats, barley, rye and flax produced in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia.
He said: In speaking to the resolution, Mr. Speaker, may I first of all say for the information of hon. members that representations were made last year -to those in charge of the wheat board bill, and also to members of the committee to whom the bill was referred, that coarse grains should be included in its provisions. Strong representations to that effect were made on behalf of farmers and farmer organizations. Similar representations have been made this year by farmers and their organizations to myself, and, I believe, to the government also.
I might say that the Canadian Wheat Board Act provides for the inclusion of coarse grains after a recommendation has come from the board, followed by an order in council. Section 14 of the act reads:
The governor in council may approve of the provisions- of this act being made applicable to oats, barley, rye or flax produced in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, if the board recommends that such approval be given, whereupon the provisions of this act shall mutatis mutandis apply to such kind of grain as they apply to wheat.
Certain -reasons were advanced last year for not including coarse grains in the act, the chief reason being that there had not been any stabilization operations on the part of Mr. McFarland with respect to coarse grains.
Wheat Board Act-Mr. Perley

During the last two weeks in June there was a very good prospect for a bumper crop of wheat in western Canada and as the board would not have any coarse grains, the committee thought it advisable not to ask them to handle those grains for the particular season of 1935. It was also thought that coarse grains would not be coming on the market in very great volume due to the fact that with the large wheat crop in prospect the farmers might be encouraged to withhold the marketing of their coarse grains in order to have a year's supply on hand, so to speak. It is well within the knowledge of everyone that that bumper wheat crop did not materialize. The prospect petered out in July as the crop had been struck with rust, and there was practically a complete failure of the wheat crop in the southern half of the three prairie provinces.
When the committee was considering this matter last year, it was also thought that if the coarse grains were left to the open market the grain trade might handle them in such a way as to get a fair price, with the possibility of their even boosting prices. It was, however, suggested to the committee by different parties that there was a danger in leaving the coarse grains out of the act. It was contended that if these grains were left to the open market the grain trade might boost the prices to near those received for wheat, especially if the price fixed for wheat was not much above the average. In this way the spread between the prices of wiheat and coarse grains would be narrowed and it would appear that marketing on the open market obtained better results than marketing through the board. But what happened? The average prices received for coarse grains during the season of 1935 were almost the lowest on record. In parts of the constituency which I have the honour to represent, oats were selling along the Canadian Pacific railway at thirteen cents, fourteen cents and fifteen cents per bushel net to the farmer, on the street. Barley was selling at seventeen, nineteen and twenty cents per bushel. I think we are all agreed that those are low prices for these grains. In the southern half of Saskatchewan, and I think also in the southern half of Manitoba, hundreds of thousands of acres of wheat were burned and the wheat was not harvested. The farmers in those sections were forced to realize on their coarse grains. Barley and oats matured earlier and there was some harvesting of these grains. The farmers were forced to sell in order to realize something, but they did not get anything from their wheat. I should like to quote resolutions which have been passed oy farmers' organizations in western Canada 
supporting the principle of this resolution. I quote from the Western Producer of November 21, 1935, which reports on a meeting of Saskatchewan pool delegates as follows:
Among other resolutions bearing on marketing questions adopted by the annual meeting of Saskatchewan *wheat pool delegates last week was one urging that the Canadian wheat board should consider handling coarse grains immediately establishing a fixed minimum price for this class of grain.
A meeting of pool delegates held in Regina from November 5 to 14, 1935, passed the following resolution:
This meeting of delegates believes that it is in the best interests of the grain producers of western Canada that provisions be made for the operation of the Canadian wheat board for a period of not less than five years for the marketing of grain including coarse grains, and further that sections 9, 10, 11, 14 and 16 of the wheat board act should be brought into force by proclamation prior to the movement of the 1936 crop so that all grains shall be marketed through the board.
May I say that these two resolutions reflect the considered opinion of 100,000 farmers in Saskatchewan. The next quotation is a resolution passed at the annual convention of the Saskatchewan agricultural societies in session at Saskatoon in January. The newspaper report, which is headed "Agro societies want wheat board always," reads:
Saskatchewan agricultural societies went on record at their annual meeting in Saskatoon last week as favouring the continuation of a wheat board'. The decision was unanimous. Coupled with this resolution was another putting the societies on record as favouring placing of oats, barley and rye under the control of the wheat board also, and asking that a minimum price be placed on these coarse grains in a similar manner and comparative with that now placed on wheat.
I wish hon. members would note that that resolution reads "comparative with that now placed on wheat." The price set by the board on wheat, basis No. 1 northern, Fort William, was 87| cents per bushel, and there is no doubt that that last clause was put in the resolution because the farmers realized that they were not getting for their coarse grains a price comparative with what they were receiving for wheat. I think it is important to bear in mind that what the farmers wanted was a comparative intrinsic value. The annual convention of Saskatchewan municipalities was held last week. From letters I have received I note that many delegates to that convention have been instructed by their municipalities to bring forward resolu tions similar to the ones I have just read Since coming to Ottawa I have received many letters from farmers stating that they want some action in this connection.

Wheat Board Act-Mr. Perley
I should like to give some figures with respect to the production of coarse grains as compared with wheat. I do not intend to burden the house with a lot of figures; I shall give the figures for just four years to show that the coarse grains have maintained their averages in production much better than has wheat. Of course this may be owing to the drought condition. At any rate, I will put on record the production for four years. In 1927 we produced 400,000,000 bushels of wheat and 250,000,000 bushels of coarse grains; in 1931 we produced 284,000,000 bushels of wheat and 240,000,000 bushels of coarse grains; in 1933 we produced 263,000,000 bushels of wheat and 228,000,000 bushels of coarse grains, and in 1934 we produced 260,000,000 bushels of wheat and 220,000,000 bushels of coarse grains. The coarse grains maintained their average of production possibly better than wheat did. In 1933 we produced 50,000,000 bushels of barley in the prairie provinces and in 1934 we produced 45,000,000 bushels. Those of course were drought years. Exports for 1933 were only 10,000,000 bushels of barley, whereas in 1932 we had one of our largest exports, about 25,000,000 bushels. We have never exported more than half the barley we have produced in the west, but there is every reason to believe that in the next few years we shall be exporting more of this kind of grain.
There is reason to believe that there will be an increase in the production of coarse grains. Under drought conditions more coarse grains than wheat can be produced. Coarse grains may be seeded later in a dry spring, because after it has become too dry for wheat, barley and oats as well, can be seeded, and a fair crop obtained. There is also the problem of soil drift to be coped with. Coarse grains can be seeded later in the spring after the drifting season is past. Then, in connection with cleaning lands, coarse grains are used to a considerable extent by farmers. There is no doubt that the farmers, after their experience of the last five years, will diversify their system in the west, and henceforward there will be a greater acreage seeded to coarse grains and less to wheat. The net price for coarse grains is of course ridiculously low; I have quoted some of the prices, and compared with the price of wheat the figures for coarse grains are low.
It is quite apparent that at this session no consideration is going to be given the question of a reduction in freight rates. The debate on that question has already taken place in the house, and though this may be
somewhat out of order I might say how pleased I was to hear the Minister of Railways (Mr. Howe) say that after the house prorogues he will see to it that the appeal which is before the privy council in connection with freight rates will be heard. I might suggest to the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) that, if it is not heard, next year he ought to bring in a bill to provide that where such important appeals are not heard within six months they should lapse altogether and parliament be given an opportunity to deal with these matters as they should be dealt with.
There is no doubt that had coarse grains been under the operation of the act last year, the farmers would have received at least ten or fifteen cents more per bushel. I have under my hand information from one who has been closely associated with the grain trade-I do not care to give the name- and it is evident that coarse grains have been accumulated by the elevator companies at prices ranging from thirteen to eighteen cents for oats not graded higher than 3 C. W., and barley from seventeen to twenty cents. This grain is now moving out, and from now until seeding time it will be taken to the dried out areas in the country at the considerable profit to those who have accumulated it of from seven cents to twenty cents a bushel. Had coarse grains been under the operation of the board last year, the farmers, rather than the grain dealers or elevator concerns who have accumulated the stocks would now be reaping the increased price.
There is every evidence that in the next six or eight months grain will be sold at a much better price than even to-day. I might call the attention of the house to the fact that the open market to-day is paying only within about six cents of what the board is taking the grain in at a fixed minimum price, that is six cents less for No. 1 northern, basis Fort William. There is every evidence that we shall be able to sell wheat at a much better price. I have before me a little circular that sets out some of the factors tending toward an increase in the price of wheat. These are some of the factors: Many unfavourable reports in regard to European winter crops; anxiety over the United States winter wheat crops by reason of dust storms, sub zero weather and inadequate snow protection; the first estimate of the acreage in India being smaller than the figure of last year; wheat stocks in some parts of the continent being practically exhausted. These are a few indications that we may expect a better price.
Wheat Board Act-Mr. Ross

I will not take up any more time. I think there are many sound arguments to be advanced in favour of the government's consideration of this resolution. Coarse grain should be brought under the operation of the wheat board at once because there is a considerable quantity which has not yet changed hands in western Canada. It is the only commodity which many of the farmers there have to realize on in the line of grain and some have been holding back for a better price. I have no doubt that all western members, especially those from Saskatchewan, will endorse this resolution, for they know that ninety per cent of the farmers all through that western country are in favour of it. I trust we shall get some action.


Mr. J. G. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: I wish to make a few remarks with regard to this resolution. It was not my privilege to be in parliament during the last five years, in which the then government, led by the present leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett), got Canada's wheat and grain trade into the greatest mess it has been in since confederation. When in 1930 the right hon. gentleman took over the government of the country there was some wheat on hand-I believe that in his election campaign he said, in the neighbourhod of
127,000,000 bushels-but there was a reason for that at that time. All hon. gentlemen who remember conditions in Canada prior to 1930, when the new government took over, will recall that the people of western Canada, the grain trade, the wheat pools and the farmers, refused in 1929 to sell their wheat at a very good figure. As a matter of fact it was the surplus of the 1928 and 1929 crops which was the carry-over in 1930, when the last government took office. The people of western Canada, the wheat pool, the farmers and the grain trade refused to sell that wheat at a price. It has been stated that that is not a fact, but anybody who knows the operation of the grain trade and the handling of grain on the exchanges knows that, if wheat is quoted at $1.50 a bushel, and wheat is offered at that price, so long as wheat is offered at that price it never will rise above that quotation.
In the fall of 1929 wheat was quoted on the Winnipeg grain exchange for the October option at $1.73 per bushel. At the same time cash buyers of wheat were offering a nine cent premium for wheat. In other words this meant that $1.82 a bushel was offered for cash wheat at that time, and the people of this country refused to take that price. I do not blame them for doing so; that was their own business; they were advised by people from one end of Canada to the other that wheat rMr. E. E. Perley.]
was worth more than that at that time. Hon. members will probably remember that the president of one of the great banks in this country stated then that wheat was worth more than that. So that when the government of my right hon. friend took over w-e had a surplus of wheat, not on account of any policy of a past government but because we in this country refused to sell wheat at a price of $1.50 a bushel and over.
Then prices started to fall, and throughout the five years that my hon. friend held office he put into effect in Canada policies that acted as a block to the sale of any wheat or grain or practically any other primary product from this country. At that time tariffs were jacked up, first of all on the schedules, then by devious methods of valuations for duty purposes, different discount rates, dump duties and everything else. Naturally our primary producers, in shipping their products, could not bring back their wages across the boundaries in return for the commodities that they shipped out. It was these policies which held back our wheat and other grains until, in the fall of 1932, Canadian wheat reached the lowest price at which it had been sold since we started to grow wheat. I remember in that fall selling my crop of No. 1 hard wheat at twenty-five cents per bushel at my point of shipment. I remember in that fall selling No. 1 northwest Canadian flax with a three cent premium and getting fifty-one cents per bushel for it. That is what happened to the farmer in this country while my right hon. friend piled tariff upon tariff to stop the incoming of payments to the Canadian farmer for these goods which he had to sell. Then, having got the country into that shape, he brought from Calgary Mr. John I. McFarland to endeavour to sell the wheat of Canada against the tremendous obstacles that he himself had put in the way of selling that wheat.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, when the hon. gentleman makes a statement so entirely at variance with the facts I think I must correct it. Mr. McFarland was not brought by the government; he was engaged by the Cooperative Wheat Producers, and that is a matter of record. I am bound to say that the other observations of the speaker are on the same level.


John Gordon Ross: I may have been incorrect when I said that my right hon. friend brought John I. McFarland from Calgary. Probably my right hon. friend will say that he had nothing whatever to do with the appointment of Mr. John I. McFarland?

Wheat Board Act-Mr. Ross


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is true. I was in
England at the time.


John Gordon Ross: Nevertheless Mr. John I. McFarland was much closer to my right hon. friend than he ever was to the wheat pools of western Canada prior to his appointment.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That also is inaccurate.
Mr. McFarland and I had no business relations for years prior to that. He was president of the Alberta Pacific Grain Company and I was vice-president of it until I sold out. The purchaser of it is in this building.


John Gordon Ross: Mr. Speaker, I
still maintain that Mr. John I. McFarland was a much closer friend of the right hon. the leader of the opposition than he ever was of the wheat pools of western Canada. He was brought down here to handle a proposition which it was impossible to handle in view of the policies that we had in effect in the country at that time. Things went on from bad to worse in regard to w'heat in Canada until, in the last session of the house, action was put through by which a board could be formed, and that board was given leave to handle the wheat of Canada which our Canadian farmers wished to sell to that board. It was given the right to fix a minimum price for the sale of the wheat. The idea throughout the dominion was that a board was being created to set a minimum rate for Canada's wheat crop for 1935. What happened in actual practice? A board was formed, but until the opening-gun-of-the-campaign speech of my right hon. friend the leader of the opposition the set price of wheat was not set, or at least if it had been set it was not given to the public. For about seven or eight days after that there was a set price only on No. 1 northern; there was no set price on a lower grade. Then it took some seven or eight days beyond that period before a set price was placed on feed wheat.
In western Canada this year we had until July the promise of the largest wheat crop that section has known since 1915. It was a beautiful crop, an even crop practically all over western Canada. But in July, rust, which had started in the southern states some time before, gradually found its way north until it struck the western wheat crop, and it did tremendous damage. In the western part of Saskatchewan, where the rust did not hit, frost came early in August and to a large extent ruined the crop there. A western Canadian crop when ripe must be harvested. In our section, where the fields of grain are large and there is danger of winds and early snow in the fall, the moment the crop is
ready to cut the farmer must get into the fields and harvest it. We found in western Canada last year, long prior to the announcement of my right hon. friend of the set price of wheat, that many of the farmers of that section had to start to harvest their grain. It was of low grade and the yield was low. It started to move into the elevators and, with the uncertainty regarding the price, prices dropped in the country elevators and the farmers had to sell their wheat for what they could get at that time. It was not a case of holding it until later; it was such a poor crop, such a poor yield, that in order to be able to pay the wages they had to pay from time to time and in order to buy the gasoline and oil with which to run the engines of the combines and threshing machines to harvest the crop it was necessary for the farmers, as they threshed loads of wheat, to take them to the country elevators and sell them so as to obtain the money with which to buy supplies to carry on the balance of their harvesting. The result was that many farmers in southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba were forced to sell wheat, and especially feed wheat, for as little as twenty and twenty-one cents per bushel, eleven to twelve cents under the price later fixed by the board. So these people sustained a loss of from ten to twelve cents per bushel on a very low grade crop with a very low yield.
The intention of this House of Commons, when the bill was passed last year setting up a board, was that the board would be set up in time to fix prices before the crop was harvested, so that the farmers would receive the fixed minimum price for their grain. However, for some reason or another better known to my right hon. friend than to myself, that price was not set until the election campaign was on. These farmers in western Canada have lost many dollars because of the action of my right hon. friend in not having that price stated long before it was. This resolution asks that coarse grains be brought under the board. This is very late in the season, I would suggest. My hon. friend was in the house last year when the bill was before parliament. Why did he not use his influence then to have these coarse grains put under the board, and see that a price was set for them?


Ernest Edward Perley: How does the hon. gentleman know I did not?


John Gordon Ross: Well, I know
the hon. gentleman.


Ernest Edward Perley: That is an
insinuation, too, and the hon. gentleman should withdraw it.
Wheat Board Act-Mr. Ward


Walter Edward Foster: I will ask the hon. gentleman to withdraw the remark.


John Gordon Ross: It was just a
pleasant observation. I know the hon. gentleman.


Ernest Edward Perley: All right.


Mr ROSS (Moose Jaw):: The hon. member who introduced this resolution could have insisted at that time that the government have coarse grains brought under the board and prices fixed for them, but he did not do so. He does not need to say that I am insinuating now; I am stating the fact when I say that he did not do so at that time. Now he brings in this resolution at a time when he is sitting in opposition. So far as coarse grains are concerned, I would suggest that before any action is taken by parliament to have prices set on coarse grains, first of all the great loss which the western growers sustained through the delay of my right hon. friend in setting a price on wheat, or, if that price was set, through his not allowing the grain companies and the farmers of western Canada to know what the price was, should be refunded. I am willing to support any measure that will bring about that result, but I will not support the measure brought down by my hon. friend until such action is taken by this house.


Mr. W. J. WARD (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I agree with what has been said by the hon. member who has taken his seat (Mr. Ross, Moose Jaw) with regard to the delay in setting the price for the crop of the year in question, but in the light of the fiscal policy of this country, the bonus, if you like to call it that, that is paid to the manufacturers-and it appears to me that we have resigned ourselves to a system of bonusing our manufacturers-the only complaint I have to make with regard to the resolution is that it does not go far enough. I think we should include all farm products. If we are to continue bonusing the secondary industries of Canada by all that is reasonable and logical we should also bonus the primary producers. It has been stated by one hon. member, a man who I think should know, that it has cost us, in the greater prices we have had to pay for the goods we consume, in the neighbourhood of from 3400,000,000 to $500,000,000 to carry on this system of bonusing. I think if we could analyze the ultimate load created in this way we would find that it rests very heavily upon the shoulders of the farmers of this country. So if the hon. member had brought down a resolution advocating a direct bonus to all agriculture, to everything we produce, I would heartily support it, but I

think the resolution is perfectly logical in the light of the past experience of this country.
Mr. W. G. WEIR (Macdonald) [DOT] Mr. Speaker, this is probably one of the most important resolutions, as far as western Canada is concerned, that will come before the house this session. I did not think it would be reached to-night, and I know there are many members from the west who would like to take part in this debate. I know the interest that is being shown and that has been shown for some time in regard to this matter.
May I say that I subscribe very heartily to the remarks of the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Ross) with respect to the delay in establishing the initial payment on the 1935 crop, but I am also concerned in regard to the proposed settlement that was announced just prior to the election -frith respect to the 1930-31 crop. The government has already announced that it is going to introduce legislation to implement in part that supposed undertaking. I think we in this house, as well as the country at large, will welcome that opportunity of securing the additional information, and until that time comes I do not feel that we are in a position to deal adequately with this resolution. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I desire to move the adjournment of the debate.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION



PROPOSED INQUIRY INTO NEED FOR TECHNICAL


Mr. DENTON MASSEY (Greenwood) moved:: Whereas, a trained youth is indispensable to the future welfare of Canada;
And whereas, the unemployment of parents and heads of families, because of conditions for which they are in no way responsible, means that boys and girls, and young men and young women, have been denied the necessary training to properly and adequately equip them for a life's vocation;
And whereas, prolonged enforced inactivity has a debilitating and often disastrous effect upon the youth of our country;
And whereas, it is not enough merely to provide employment for youth who have suffered from the lack of training and preparation for vocational work;
And whereas, provincial schools which have reached a high standard of excellence and which yearly are increasing the sphere of their usefulness, do not provide adequate facilities for technical training;
Therefore be it resolved, that the government consider the desirability of investigating the broad question of the reestablishment of the young men and young women of Canada;

Vocational Education-Mr. Massey
And be it further resolved, that, in the conduct of such investigation, attention be given to the possibility of making available, to those of our youth, who are adapted for such training and who would otherwise be denied it, technical training in various branches;
And be it further resolved, that, in the conduct of such investigation, consideration should be given to the feasibility of setting up and maintaining a National Youth Reestablishment Commission.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I rise for this the first time to speak in this house with considerable trepidation. I am not insensible of the extent and depth of the tradition that is bounded by these four walls. I think of those who have spoken here these many years past and of those who speak here now. I am here as a new member; I have come here- and I say it proudly-with a sense of humility, a sense of privilege-the privilege of association; the privilege of opportunity; and the privilege of responsibility. I have been sent here-and I am fully conscious of it-by upwards of seventy thousand splendid Canadian people who are dependent upon industrial activity for their livelihood. I have been sent here to represent them, and when I speak in this house I speak not as a private member only but as the representative of those people. During the course of my campaign I made a promise. I believe, sir, that promises are rather dangerous things during elections. But I made one promise, and that promise was to do my best.
As I have said, I honour and respect the traditions of this house; I respect its dignity, its decorum, and the purposes for which we are gathered here. So as I speak I am filled with a sense of privileged obligation and traditionalistic responsibility not only to those who sent me here but to my fellow members of this house, to my country, to the empire, and to my king.
To identify myself, Mr. Speaker, may I say that I am a Conservative, and proud of the fact. I am proud of my party, its principles and its accomplishments. I have an intense loyalty to party, yes, but I feel that, in the words of him whom I honour as my leader, "a party is an instrument to effect a purpose," and this purpose is to advance the best and fullest interests of the Dominion of Canada.
The motion which it is my rare privilege to bring to the attention of hon. members is, I feel, vitally important to our national life. As I introduce it I am not under any misapprehension as to the magnitude of its scope. I realize that it must be treated as a national subject in the deepest and broadest
sense. I feel that it is the duty of this parliament particularly, if I may say so, to bend our united efforts, of course with loyalty to party ideals and principles, to the common cause, the national welfare. We have been sent here for that purpose and to that purpose we must adhere.
This motion relates to a national matter that concerns the very life-blood of Canada. We face a most serious national problem. That sounds platitudinous. One who rises to speak in such days as we have passed through in this world in the past seven years almost feels it incumbent upon him to use such language. But when I say that we face a most serious problem, this is no platitude. It is not necessary for me and it is not my purpose to expatiate at length upon the burning question of unemployment occasioned by the economic world war of the last seven years. It is with a single feature, and a singularly important feature of it, that this motion deals; that is the problem of youth. I have been privileged in my contacts during the last eleven years, in that I have had very extensive contacts with the youth of one city of this province, particularly, and perhaps in a lesser way with the youth of Ontario as a whole. I have come into contact with scores of young men who have been good enough to come to me with their difficulties and problems. I have counselled them in their difficulties and disappointments. So I speak here to-night with some definite and practical knowledge of the subject with which I deal.
Prior to 1929 it seems to me that we did not pay much attention to the youth of Canada. It is true that in 1919 we passed a Technical Education Act, the purport of which was "to aid in promoting industry and the mechanical trades and to increase the earning capacity, efficiency and productive power of those employed therein." The need for such aid was expressed in the terms of reference of the royal commission which had previously reported to parliament, as follows:
Industrial efficiency is all important to the development of the dominion and to the promotion of the home and foreign _ trade of Canada in competition with other nations.
From 1929 to 1936 the world has passed through very difficult days, days of diminished salaries, lowered wages, apprenticeships discontinued, days of lost opportunities. The abuses of the system under which we carry on in this western so-called civilization have become very apparent and have been brought under the microscope. We found that we had made many mistakes and had permitted many mistakes to be made. The

Vocational Education-Mr. Massey
results were farreaching and simultaneously spectacular and tragic. Unemployment of heads of families left in its wake suffering hardship, and many casualties the like of which the world had not seen before. Single men and single women found no means of selfsupport. In this emergency agencies were quickly set up and the job of work called relief was comparatively well done-when I say comparatively I refer to other countries -but sometimes it seemed that we had forgotten that women too who had been employed and were then unemployed had to be taken care of. Did we ever see a woman in the bread line? But youth has paid the greatest price of all, for not only did youth lose the opportunity to earn but it lost also the opportunity to learn how to earn.
Education had to be curtailed, not alone because of the cost of education, but because it was necessary for those who were engaged in academic and scholastic pursuits to surrender them in order that such means as possible might be gathered together. Then came spasmodic and in some cases continuing idleness. Idleness, Mr. Speaker, is an ugly word. It is a word that one finds on the side of the incubator of national disaster. In so many instances, youth became discontented, youth became unbalanced, youth became despondent. Youth did not understand what it was all about. Youth, in some quarters- and let us admit it frankly-became unpatriotic and permitted some of itself to be gullible to the approach of the foreign agitator, violent and extreme and destructive, gullibility born not of desire but of a sense of hopelessness.
To deal with the problem of the reestablishment of youth is to deal with a practical, not a theoretical, problem. This is not the time to spend in extended discussions of our problem. This is not the time to wrangle upon a party platform concerning what is to be done. These are days of action. The voice of youth will be heard; the voice of youth has already been heard in many quarters.
There sits to my left in this house a group of seventeen young men, sent here to represent a party. I deprecate the attitude of some, if I may do so in all humility, who tend to laugh at this group. Why laugh? Experiments will be tried; youth will indulge in experiments. These young men, our fellow-members, have been sent here by youth. These are days of action, and not of petty, partisan political ponderings upon petty matters. I envy the government, if I may say so, the opportunity that is theirs, and particularly, if he will allow me, do I envy my r.Mr. Massey.]
good friend the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) the opportunity that is his, an opportunity that he may discharge directly and swiftly. His action must spring, it seems to me, not from any academic or any theoretical point of view, but from a regard for human values and human feeling. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), for whom I have the highest respect, is interested in a balanced budget, as he must be. Before him are figures, prefaced by the dollar sign, but the national dollar must be regarded only as it is related to national life.
For some days in this house there has been debated the matter of a trade agreement. The whole matter of this trade agreement, it seems to me, if I am in order, Mr. Speaker, is as it is related to jobs, and as it produces income for the primary producer. It is not enough for the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler) to present at the end of this or that or the other year a statement showing an increase in trade. But what does increase in trade mean in terms of jobs and of income for the farmers? If trade is increased and the number of jobs is not increased, then trade itself is not enough. The unemployed youth of this country are thinking in terms of jobs, not in terms of dollars of trade. Further, as the resolution states, it is not enough merely to supply jobs. Parliament has a wider and fuller duty to the youth of Canada, our national life-blood, than merely to supply jobs. It is the reestablishment of our youth, morally, educationally, socially, as well as occupationally.
Here is the problem. In 1926-and may I say, Mr. Speaker, that all the figures I am using to-night are taken from the bureau of statistics-the population of this dominion was 9,451,000; I am giving figures to the nearest thousand; in 1929 our population was 10.029,000; in 1934 it was 10,835,000, and in 1935 our population was estimated at 11,000,000. From 1926 to 1935 our population increased by 1,550,000; from 1929 to 1935 it increased by
1,000,000; from 1934 to 1935, in one year, it increased by 165,000. Let us consider the problem more intimately, more in relation to the resolution itself. In 1931 there reached the age of sixteen years 215,000 boys and girls; in 1932 there reached that same age 205,000; in 1933, 207,000; in 1934, 202,000; in 1935, 210,000, and in 1936 it is estimated that there will reach that age 217,000.
Now, what of employment? We are told that employment at the end of 1935 is slightly higher than in 1934, and essentially the same in 1931. In other words, about four million men, women, boys and girls, altogether, are

Vocational Education-Mr. Massey
engaged in gainful occupations. But since 1931 the population of this dominion has increased by approximately 625,000; from 1931 to 1935 1,049,000 reached the age of sixteen. Now, what has happened to these young people? Of those who were in school at the age of sixteen, fifty-seven per cent remained in school until they were seventeen, and forty-three per cent dropped out. Of those in school at the age of seventeen, fifty per cent remained until they were eighteen, and fifty per cent dropped out. Of those in school at eighteen, seventy-one per cent remained until they were nineteen, and twenty-nine per cent dropped out. Of those of all ages who attended school only two-thirds reached the final year of the elementary school. One-half did some high school work; one-fifth proceeded to matriculation, one-tenth to university, and three per cent graduated. Let it be borne in mind too that in 1931, for example, there were 469,000 boys and girls under the age of twenty who were working at some sort of occupation, with an average earning for those of the age of nineteen of $760 a year. May I ask hon. members if they think that state of affairs which I have so briefly sketched is desirable, and if it is in the best interests of Canada?
What are we doing to correct this situation? What are we doing to bring about at least some measure of equilibrium in this state of unbalance? As the motion states, our provincial schools are doing an excellent job of work in their own field and as far as they can go. Our technical schools are also doing an excellent job of work as far as they can go. In my own riding there is a technical school in which 1,800 are enrolled in the day classes and over 3,000 in the night classes. This school is admirably conducted by the principal, Mr. Ferguson. There is at present in this dominion an investment of $579,571,000 in educational institutions which are maintained at an annual cost of $140,000,000. Let it be remembered that the cost of education of one child through the eight and a half years of his or her scholastic experience, which is the average scholastic experience in length of time in this country, is no more than $750. To raise one child to the age of economic independence costs $5,000. Thus it is that six children can be raised and educated in the Dominion of Canada at a cost no more than it costs to raise seven children as illiterates. Against this is the staggering figure of $7,000,000 per month which is being paid to keep men and women in idleness under the name of relief. Seven million dollars per month! What might that not mean translated into terms of education?
What price are we placing upon education? Why is it that we sit back and let our youth go out into the world to make their own way without adequate equipment?
It seems to me that right here is one of the most challenging, perhaps the most challenging, of all our national problems. Provide jobs? Yes, but are we playing fair with our youth who are going to fill these jobs? We listened the other evening with a great deal of interest and justifiable commendation to the Minister of Labour when he introduced his plan for closing the relief camps and putting some 10,000 men to work' this summer on the tracks of the Canadian National railways and1 Canadian Pacific railway. That is very laudable, but what about this fall? I have in my hand an excellent editorial from the Toronto Globe, which I read occasionally-I also take Punch -dated February 10, 1936, headed "Skilled Workers Service," and reading as follows:
There is something almost startling in the expressed view of industrial leaders in the United States that industry is faced by a shortage of skilled labour. At a conference recently of business leaders in Chicago it was stated that, though hundreds of jobs calling for technical knowledge were opening, trained men could not be found to fill them. This scarcity was described as most acute in the automobile and general machine trades, though it w'as experienced by industry in general.
The editorial concludes by saying:
This situation is not peculiar to the United States. It is being discussed in this country. Here also there will be plenty of applications for jobs as they develop, but it is evident that for some years, if conditions continue to improve, employers will be obliged to get along with a large percentage of inadequately trained workers.
There is a record of an anomalous situation. What is the solution of this problem? In suggesting this motion to the government I realize that the whole question is too broad, too deep to find an answer in this chamber alone. It is a job of work to be concentrated upon by a discerning and active committee or commission. Hon. members will perhaps permit me for a moment to touch briefly upon some phases of this situation and to deal with some of the possible steps that may be taken to ameliorate the condition that I have endeavoured to sketch.
What have we done for youth these past many years? I have stated already that our provincial schools are excellent. I have stated already that our technical schools are excellent.	During the last twenty years
technical education has come into its own, for twenty-five per cent of all those now attending secondary schools in this dominion

Vocational Education-Mr. Massey
are attending technical or commercial schools. 1 have in my hand Report No. 3 of the International Labour Conference for the session at Geneva last year. This particular report deals with unemployment among young persons. What have we done in Canada as compared with what has been done in other countries in this regard? Under the chapter: General Education, Vocational Training and Social Service for Young Unemployed Persons, I find the following:
In Canada provision for the education and recreation of the unemployed is made in a .number of places, largely by voluntary effort. Thus, in Montreal, for instance, rooms have been opened for games, reading and classes, and a library, concert hall and theatre have been placed at the disposal of the unemployed. The classes include general subjects and some technical subjects such as geology and mining. Instruction of a practical character is also given in boot repairing, clothes mending, etc. Moreover, in many prairie towns and villages lectures on literature, civics and music have been organized.
That is an excellent job as far as it goes, but how far does it go? Let us consider the recommendations of this same conference. I have before me a pamphlet entitled World Labour Problems, 1935. This is an account by an eye-witness of the Nineteenth International Labour Conference. These are some of the recommendations made in connection with vocational training:
Juveniles (of 15-18) unable to find suitable employment, i.e. occupations which are not "blind alley," to continue full-time attendance at school until such employment is found' for them.
Juveniles not attending full-time school should attend continuation courses. Where such attendance is not compulsory for all juveniles, it should be at least compulsory for the unemployed, under pain of disqualification from unemployment benefit or relief.
For unemployed young persons of 18-25 vocational training centres with some general education should be organized, in cooperation with employers' and workers' organizations.
We have heard of the efforts put forward along technical and vocational training lines in Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Sweden and other countries, and yet we find, according to the Year Book, 1934-35 of the International Labour Office, that very little can be said about Canada. Compared with what has been done in Great Britain, Germany and other countries, very little has been done in Canada. There is in this publication one paragraph to which I should like to direct the attention of hon. members. It is headed: Workers' Living Conditions, and referring specifically to vocational training, it states:
During 1934 the effects of the economic depression continued to be felt in the field of vocational training:	Further progress was

frequently held up, expenses were cut, and there was a reluctance to promote reforms and fresh measures. Attention must however be called to a number of encouraging symptoms, such as the improvements made in the vocational training of skilled labour, the insistent demand that such training should be of an educational character, the efforts made to link up general and technical education, and to combine intellectual and manual training, and the steps taken to regulate the training and employment of juvenile labour and to ensure adequate protection for young workers through the concerted action and real collaboration of all competent persons and parties.
Our position in the family of nations as far as youth reestablishment is concerned, is not too creditable. The funds available under the Technical Education Act are essentially exhausted, and in many places evening classes have been discontinued. We are making little or no progress towards making available to our youth, who without help from some source are denied it, that vocational training which is such an invaluable asset.
I have before me The Year Book of Education, 1936, and I turn to a chapter contributed by Mr. Robbins of our own bureau of statistics. He says in part:
It will be seen, then, that the last twenty years have brought about a beginning in the direction of shaping the secondary school course to fit occupational needs, and that this adaptation has taken the form of a broader common highway from primary school to university rather than a forking of the road. But so long as fewer than a quarter of secondary students are in the technical courses,, when more than half of all children are going into the secondary schools, it is difficult to believe that the present position represents more than a beginning, for only about 10 per cent of children are thus in their regular school career being trained specifically for either the offices or shops of industry. And this under conditions in which, as the census of 1931 showed, young people are not attaining economic independence before the age of eighteen, on the average. They were, of course, by no means all staying in school to the age of eighteen, but if trends of the last twenty years are continued, not more than one in four was preparing for a position in life in which he would not be on somebody's paylist. In the interests of the three-fourths there is room for a much closer linking up of the schools and industry.
This whole broad question which I have been attempting to discuss may be epitomised in one story. I take the story of a particular young man. Similar stories of young girls can be told to exactly the same purport. This young man spent nearly three of his four years in technical school; he topped his class for the two years he had been there and one term of the third year, but he was compelled by necessity to become the bread-winner of his family. He sacrificed his education and sought

Vocational Education-Mr. Douglas
for and obtained a job. He told me not many days ago, "I have done pretty well but I am not going to get the promotion I expected because the other two fellows working alongside me have finished their course and are better equipped than I am." That is not fair; it is not good enough.
There are many suggestions offered for consideration to those of us who have been interested in this particular phase of our national development. I have under my hand a letter from the head of the Balfour Technical School of Regina, Saskatchewan, Mr. Blair, in connection with correspondence classes. I have before me a pamphlet ably written by Mr. A. E. Corrigan, in connection with national scholarships as a national investment. I have also a copy of Hansard dated Monday, February 17, and' I turn to page 232, where I find part of the speech by the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) in which he discusses what the United States is doing in connection with reforestation. Then I turn a page or two to page 235, where I read a most capable speech by the hon. member for Grey-Bruce (Miss Macphail), in which she discusses what the United States is doing to keep youth in the schools.
I realize that the suggestion is a dangerous one, but one might introduce at this point the question of subsidizing industry to allow for apprenticeships! I say that the subject is a dangerous one because I see in his place the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) Apprenticeships are not being provided for these days. The opportunity given youth in days gone by when times were good and money was plentiful is now denied them, through no fault of their own. We are compelling people to go outside Canada to buy certain commodities they require because we have not in this country the men trained to manufacture those commodities, whatever they may be. I think of one case in particular but I will not take time to develop the point. I have mentioned but a few of the thousand and one possible approaches to a solution of the problem, which is too vastly important to be covered within the limits of a forty-minute speech. All I have attempted to do is to speak to the motion itself, which urges the government to consider the advisability of setting up a national youth reestablishment commission.
In 1914 there was a state of war. Youth carried the burden; youth bore the brunt of it all. They came back from France shattered mentally and physically, and we were quick to set up a soldiers' civil reestablishment commission. From 1929 down to this
day we have experienced the vicissitudes of another war, an economic war in which, thank God, there has been no rattle of muskets; there have been no long casualty lists published in the daily press; but there have been casualty lists carrying the names of those who have been "unwept, unhonoured and unsung," our unemployed. Again, it is the youth who have carried the greatest burden of this economic war. They have been deprived of the opportunity not only of earning but of learning how to earn. Should we then be slow in 1936 in setting up a national youth reestablishment commission?
It is an old adage that "he who pays the piper calls the tune." And youth has paid the piper. The next quarter of a century in this dominion is youth's ; youth has paid and youth will call the tune. We cannot be deaf to the voice of youth. Let us then act and act quickly, for God's sake, in the name of Christianity; for the sake of the crown in the name of devotion; for the sake of empire in the name of loyalty; for the sake of country in the name of patriotism; for the sake of youth in the name of humanity.


Mr. T. C. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: I am
sure the younger men in this house are very proud to-night of the able way in which the case for their generation has been presented by the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Massey). We of this generation feel perhaps that there are problems that we have which the generation that is older than we are do not quite understand. There is to-night in Canada an army of young people who are looking to the future with a degree of uncertainty, in an attitude of bewilderment, and who are looking to those who call themselves leaders in the community to take some very definite steps in guiding them. Twenty years ago an army of half a million young Canadians went overseas to engage in a life and death struggle. As I remember those years we bent every effort to look after their comfort, to see to their well-being. Women gathered in groups to knit socks; parcels were packed; people worked long hours; no sacrifices were too great on behalf of the men who were holding the line. Now, twenty years later, half a million or more young Canadians are fighting another battle in which there is no glory; they receive no medals; there are no drums and no flags. Yet I submit that it is a battle which is leaving some severe scars and lacerating wounds, and it is on behalf of those who have been the victims of this
.	COMMONS
Vocational Education-Mr. Douglas
struggle in the last five years that the mover of the resolution is pleading here to-night. I submit that this is no time for ornate rhetoric; it is one for several concrete suggestions which such a commission, if established, might use in dealing with the problem of youth.
I would divide the great army of youth into four major classes: Those who are in the student class, who have completed all or part of their studies and are now waiting to be absorbed into industry; those who have had some training but have never been gainfully employed; those who have worked at some time but are now unemployed, with very little immediate prospect of being again employed; and, lastly, that great army of young people about whom we think so seldom, the farm youth, scattered across Canada, living on farms with their parents, not able to establish homes of their own, with their initiative and their energy bottled up. If we are going to deal intelligently and adequately with the problem of youth we shall have to consider these four groups, because they present totally different problems and consequently will need totally different remedies. I am going to touch on them only briefly, Mr. Speaker, because I know there are many other young men in the house who will want to advance suggestions before the hour of closing draws near.
Of the first group, that group of young students, I think it might be well said that the provision of national scholarships might meet something of their need. Instances may be found in abundance; I quote one. I know of two young men who two years ago graduated from high school with the highest average that had ever been given to any pair of students graduating from that particular collegiate. For two years they have been staying at home simply because their parents were on relief and they were unable to get sufficient funds to go to university. Imagine two young men with an average mark of over ninety-three, passing a grade twelve examination and yet unable to go on and give to the state and to humanity the value of that intelligence, and of the knowledge that they had acquired! And yet they represent but a fraction of thousands of young men across Canada, gifted, brilliant, able-


Miss MACPHAIL:: What about the women?


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: but who, because of
the fact that they lack funds, are prevented from going on. One of my colleagues says, "What about the women?" The same is true of thousands of young girls fitted for nursing, fitted for teaching, fitted for research work !Mr. Douglas.]
and post-graduate work, but who are unable to make the necessary progress.
Some advance has been made along this line with reference to national scholarships in other parts of the world. I quote here something that is quite familiar, no doubt, to many members, from a little book by Professor Barker, entitled: The Universities of Great Britain. Speaking of this subject he says:
The state, through the Board of Education, grants state scholarships and other modes of assistance. The local education authorities grant local or county scholarships; these with other forms of public scholarships, give various forms of aid which enable poor students of promise to proceed to the university. It has been calculated, on the basis of official returns, that nearly one-half of the total number of students in British universities have obtained assistance in one or other of these ways on account of the promise they show either before entering upon a university career or at some point in its course.
Then this remarkable statement:
The universities of Oxford and Cambridge, supposed to be the homes of the rich, contain 38-2 per cent of assisted students.
The author also points out that the British government has assisted no fewer than 73,000 university students.
I submit that many of these young men and women, either in their collegiate courses or in their university courses, have shown such a degree of brilliancy as would warrant any assistance that can be given them by a national reestablishment commission that might be set up.
Then there is that group of young men in the cities who are not particularly adapted to academic pursuits, unemployed who never have been gainfully employed, who need some type of technical training. There is a crying need throughout Canada to-day for enlarged facilities for technical training. While visiting in Winnipeg I had it drawn to my attention by some men who are connected with St. John's and Kelvin technical schools of that city, that when they opened a course for these unemployed young men their registration was flooded within forty-eight hours and it was necessary to turn away a great number who wished to enroll. I believe that if it were possible to set up the necessary machinery, a great many young men and women who are at present unemployed, and who are getting very rusty, would have an opportunity to develop certain techniques that, when good times return, if they do return, would place them in a position to become economically independent. A prominent British economist made the statement a short time ago that in certain areas of Great Britain in which some indus-

Vocational Education-Mr. Douglas
tries were picking up it was found very difficult to obtain trained technicians, solely because during the last five years there had been no training of these people to fill the vacancies that might occur. This is a splendid way whereby such a commission, if set up, could go about the task of rehabilitating youth.
The third class that I mentioned consists of those who have worked and who are now out of work. They divide themselves into two classes: Those who have been located in unemployment camps, and those who remain at home with their parents. I am not going to deal with those in unemployment camps. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) has already made a statement; we shall know more about what is to become of them. But we should bear in mind that we cannot wash our hands of responsibility for these young men next fall; they cannot be left to wander, as they have done in days gone by, on freight cars across Canada. I was thinking, however, of the other group, not those in camps but those at home, staying with their parents, becoming restless and dissatisfied. Such a commission might consider ways and means of providing work and wages for those young men. They never have asked and they are not now asking for any type of charity, but if we have to continue year after year requiring them to live upon government bread, we shall come very quickly to the point at which the desire for work and the urge to work will disappear.
I come to the last class of these young men and women, and that is those who are living upon the farms. They are not banded together; they have no collective voice, and as a result they have been very largely forgotten. Yet there are thousands upon thousands of them. I know of homes where there are five or six grown sons staying with their parents on the farm. The farm does not require that many to work it; yet they have no place to go. Farmers who wish to hire them are not in a financial position to do so. It is just possible that by cooperation with the federal and provincial governments, steps could be taken, as they have been in some small measure in the west, to subsidize farming, to pay a small sum to the farmers and a small sum to these young men, because they are men to whom schemes of work and wages would not appeal since they have never done industrial work.
They cannot be cared for by camps. They have been raised on farms; their whole outlook is agricultural, and they desire to stay in agricultural communities. On the other hand I know of farm after farm on which
old people are continuing to do the heavy chores for which they are not fitted; last summer some of them were putting up hay, because they simply could not afford to hire any help. I am informed that at Dundurn camp alone it was costing over $24 a month to maintain some of these young men; a questioner in this house in 1934 was told that it cost something like $39 per inmate. I have asked the present Minister of Labour what it cost in 1935; as yet I have not received an answer, but whatever the sum is it would be quite sufficient, if cut in half, to give half to the farmers towards boarding these young men and half to the young men themselves. That would do two things: It would rehabilitate them in an agricultural community with which they are familiar, and in the second place it would give them a small income which would enable them to buy clothing and set aside something in the hope of again becoming self-supporting citizens of an agricultural community. It might even be possible to have our present loan board take into consideration the fact that there are thousands of farms, particularly in southern Saskatchewan, that are not being operated. Many of these young men and women have come to the age when they want to marry and when, with some sort of government assistance, they would be prepared to go on these farms and set up house. In a measure they would be self-supporting; they would be reinstated in the community; they would not be a charge, as they are now, upon either their family or the state.
I submit that this is perhaps the most pressing problem facing the Canadian people at the present time. Some great sociologist has said that every nation gets the criminals it deserves. We shall get the criminals we deserve; we shall have the tramps, the transients and the vagrants we deserve, if we continue over a period of years to allow the young men and women, from whom we might create the finest Canadian citizens, to drift gradually into a state of dry rot.
Miss AGNES C. MACPHAIL (Grey-Bruce):	Mr. Speaker, though not a young
man I desire to speak on this subject. I should like to see Canada composed entirely of young men, and see how they would get on.
I should like to read some extracts from a letter I received only to-day which perfectly illustrates the need of the debate that is taking place to-night, and of some action being taken in this regard. This letter is from a mother in an Ontario town. It is beautifully written, and she tells that her husband died suddenly. They had some life
.	COMMONS
Vocational Education-Miss Macphail
* insurance, but he had used it to change his business. He had been a blacksmith; the automobile had come and ruined his business, so he had gone into some other way of making a living and shortly had died suddenly, leaving her nothing. She received mothers' allowance until the last of the children reached the age of sixteen. In this letter she tells me the story of the family, and I should like to quote from it enough to place the situation before the house. She says that her eldest son is twenty-three; he has a first class certificate but did not get a school, and is working for $3 a week. Her eldest daughter is twenty-one; she is a stenographer in an insurance office, but the man who employs her is not busy. He has little to do, so he can give her work only three afternoons a week, and she is paid fifty cents an afternoon. The next son is learning to be an operator in a theatre, and gets only $1 a week. She says that there is nothing else to do in this town, because the two factories in it are closed. The next son is sixteen; he has a paper route and earns SI a week. The mother continues:
When I received the mothers' allowance cheque I could always manage.... I could' keep their clothes clean and mended, cook vegetables and plain meals for them, but we cannot manage now. Lome-
That is the eldest boy.
-says he is going to leave home. Where can he go? ... Ruth's boss says he wishes he had enough business to keep her every day... I lie awake at nights. I worry so, sometimes I am sure I will lose my mind.
This woman lives in a very fine town. I do not know her, but I know the town and undoubtedly the member for that constituency would be interested in the letter, which I will pass on to him. What can be done for people like these? This woman is worse off now, with her children over sixteen, than she was before.
I am not going to make a long speech, because I am not prepared to do so, but I do want to say something about the necessity of giving youth a chance. They do not want to be unduly helped; they dislike that more than anything else. They want a chance to live; they want a chance to work. They do not want to be pampered and babied and subsidized, but they must be given an opportunity to help themselves. A quotation appearing in an article I saw in the New York Times a week or so ago by Aubrey Williams, director of the national youth administration of the United States, very well expresses just what I am sure we all feel. He said:

This is a task which we may begin for youth but which must be carried on by youth.
And again:
We must not let a single spark of that spendid fire go out, in the boredom, hopelessness and actual want that unemployment brings to those who meet it at the threshold of their active lives.
That is the task we face. We have not attended to it well, and it will cost as much in relief, in illness, in one or another of our institutions and in the care of our criminals as it would have cost to give youth an opportunity. We have spent the money but we have spent it in the wrong way. I think youth is particularly idealistic. They like heroic living. They want to live for an ideal, for something bigger than themselves. Unfortunately that is why war appeals to them; it is something in which they can drown themselves, and they certainly made a good job of it the last time. They want now a social order under which they will have an opportunity to live. They want to live normal lives. I hear older people saying, "Well, these are hard times, and they can just go without this, that or the other thing." What we forget is that these people will never have youth again. They have only one chance at youth. They are trying to have some fun, and why not? They have a right to it. They are trying to find some place in life They are trying to set up homes. I suppose there is no need to enumerate all the things they want to do, but they do want work; they do want idealism; they do want an opportunity to care for somebody or something; they do want the fellowship of their kind. Why should they not want these things, and how much less would we think of them if they did not?
I believe we are just on the threshold of something being done to give young people opportunities. I do not mean particularly in parliament. I should like to be optimistic enough to think the commission will be appointed to study the problems of youth; I hope the minister in charge of the matter will rise in his place and so state, but I have been here a long time and I am not looking for this. However, here and there in Canada I do see worth while people who are taking hold of this idea and acting in regard to it. There is a scheme being carried out in British Columbia; the money is supplied by the provincial government, but the work is carried on largely by Mr. Eisenhardt. There are thousands of young people who come, without any charge at all, and play and sing together, develop their bodies and have a very happy and useful time. Hon. members can read

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about this in many papers. But it seems to me insufficient, good as it is, since it is physical development without relation to mental development. Then I find that in Montreal, Rosemount I think it is, they are doing something which is described in a very interesting pamphlet: One Way Out. It shows that they have organized the whole community and in one season have handled five thousand people, there being a very nice combination of physical and mental development. So there are in Canada two places in which they have taken hold of this problem and done something about it. Many teachers in technical and high schools have done a great deal to interest youth in study, manual training, et cetera, and have kept them from becoming completely discouraged.
But that is only a beginning; there will have to be a great deal more done. I feel sure that it will be done, but as we have the habit of doing in Canada, it will be started too late to be completely effective. If one compares our record in the treatment of youth with that of other countries it will be found that we are far down the list in our provision for the salvation of youth. I am thinking of Ontario which I know best; we need in the villages and towns and the open country adult education, education for the young people and the people not so young. The changes that have taken place in the last ten years and that are taking place are so terrific, so far-reaching and so rapid that people who do not follow the digests and magazines are unaware of what is taking place. We are most urgently in need of adult schools of some sort. When I think of the number of churches that are locked up in this province, and schools that are used only until four or five o'clock, I am appalled. The people built them writh their money and it is their sons and daughters who need a place to which to go for fellowship, development and amusement; yet these buildings, which should be available to the young people for any worth while projects, are not being used. The church is too good and the school is too-well something or other; the trustees are so very careful lest someone should scratch a desk or something.
What are schools and churches for if not for the development of young people? It is time that some of the too-good people, the goody-good, got it through their heads that the churches and schools are for the development of the people, and they must adapt themselves to the times when young people and adults can come to these schools and churches and use the equipment in them, 12739-58
such as piano, library, et cetera. The young people whom I know in these country communities cannot afford to buy a piano to put in their community hall, if they are fortunate enough to have one. All this equipment, including libraries, is in these buildings which the people cannot use, and they cannot afford to equip other buildings. So we ought to lay down in unmistakable language so often that it will be heeded that, if the upstairs of the church cannot be used, possibly the basement or the school would not be too good, and here the young people can come for study in economics, citizenship, music, dramatics, manual training and all sorts of domestic arts. Much good comes from singing together, not only by way of training voices but in developing fellowship and the spirit of cooperation.
Then we must get, whether in this or some other way, some adaptation of the folk school, some place in which the philosophy and history of cooperation can be made known to rural people. What they have done in the four eastern counties of Nova Scotia is revolutionary; in very simple surroundings they have studied the philosophy and history of cooperation in relation to the needs of the community and then applied their knowledge to the meeting of their need. It is time our agricultural colleges and high schools-and perhaps, this would not hurt in the last class in public school-should consider very carefully the subject of cooperation. At any rate the high schools and agricultural colleges should be devoting themselves to teaching the philosophy of cooperation, because the competitive age is finished; we are rapidly moving into an age of cooperation. But the education which rural youth are getting today has nothing to do with cooperation; it is all "beat the other fellow and get to the head of the class, and the more people you overcome the more successful you are," which is certainly not the spirit of cooperation.
Youth in country places can be well served without anything being done by this parliament, although I want something done here, but if there are leaders in every rural community they can do much; the high school teacher, the continuation teacher, the preacher and all these people who have had a good education can lead classes in some subject in which they are proficient, and not very spectacular but really good schools can be set up. Some woman in a community who can do something in needlework very well could teach that; someone else who is good at making things out of wood could teach how this should be done. There are some

Vocational Education

very fine craftsmen in rural Ontario. As soon as people get it through their heads that this is not a depression out of which some government with a large majority is going to bring them overnight, but a condition which we are never coming out of because the machine is displacing more people all the time, they are going to prepare for a longer period of youth, for a longer period of retirement at the end of life and for increasing opportunities at both ends and, indeed, in the middle.
There is in Canada a movement of youth themselves. I do not know what they call it; is it the Canadian youth movement? Anyway, that is the sense of it and they have brought together the young people of all sorts of organizations, from those farthest to the left to those farthest to the right. They are hoping to have a convention in Ottawa this year, and are ambitious enough to think they might send some delegates to Geneva, if there is anything left in Europe by that time, to discuss the problems of the young people of the world. I received one of their publications just to-day, and let me state some of the things they think they need. They say that the most obvious need of the young people is work. Any legislation that will be useful to youth must provide for this; it is the central point, but work, they say, must be provided at a standard union rate of wages. Then they talk about new jobs; they suggest the rebuilding of slums and other projects which would absorb people who are out of work. They also speak of the apprenticeship system and say that they would like it to be possible to learn a trade while working, and they ask if young people could not be employed on government jobs as apprentices and get some wages for such work. They go on to speak about students and scholarships, a subject which has been well covered by the member who introduced the motion. I am sorry that I have not had time to read the leaflet very carefully, but I think I have mentioned the main points. I want to stress, Mr. Speaker, that youth themselves are organizing, and it is not only radical youth, shall we say, but youth that, until lately, did not think about these subjects at all, and possibly a good many of these young people still are not affected by the awful prospects of not having any work to do.
I notice a little item in the Ottawa Citizen of March 3 last which seems to fit into this, telling about a young man of this city who had graduated with highest honours from technical school and was being sent to take a short course with the General Motors Corporation of Canada, showing a close connection between the school and industry. Unfortunately until recently there has been a

disposition in this country to have the schools quite apart from life. That did not work so badly perhaps in the days when the graduate was sure of a job anyway, but to-day when life has become almost terrifying so far as the future of the student is concerned, the closer the technical school and industry, the university and business and government, are brought together, the better I think it will be for those who are trying to prepare themselves for life.
I am sorry that I was not prepared to make a speech, and I have been very rambling, but I do wish to say to the House of Commons that we spend a lot of time discussing matters that are much less important than the one that is now before us.
Mr. DANIEL McIVOR (Fort William); Mr. Speaker, I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Massey):	If I had not seen him where he
was sitting, and could have simply heard his voice, I would have said; There is a reformer from the west, because he speaks with practical, sound, Christian common sense. I am going to support this resolution because it leads in the right direction.
I had the honour to serve for six years on the board of education in our city, and we found this, that while it was necessary to teach our youth how to earn a living it was far more important to teach them how to live. I would like to give a few concrete examples of what I mean. I had a father come to me about three months ago and say, "'What am I going to do with my boy?" That boy was just as fine an athlete as we had in the city of Fort William, and that was about the best in Canada. But he had begun to stay out late at night and would not get up early in the morning. He was irritable with his mother, and his father found it more and more difficult to be chummy with him. The boy was disgusted with himself. All he wanted was a chance to earn a living and not be a load upon his dad. He wanted to be of use and to develop his own gifts, earn his own way and not become an idle nuisance. You and I, Mr. Speaker, know that youth will not be idle. When we were young we were always busy, sometimes on something good and sometimes on something bad.
Let me give another illustration, of a young man in our city who was a splendid athlete, a graduate from our high school, taking his second year at the university. The best our country could offer him was a job in a camp at twenty cents a day, and so he became red, as we call it, and I would

Vocational Education
become red if I had to do the same thing. But influences were brought to bear upon him and he is now a credit to our city. All he wants is an opportunity to earn enough to finish his course, and if we are brothers to him we shall see that he gets that opportunity.
I can give another illustration similar to that cited by the hon. member for Grey-Bruce (Miss Macphail), of a mother with five boys. She was getting quite a pension at one time and the family could live comfortably, but now the boys eat more; she is off the mothers' allowance, and she does not know which way to turn. What are we going to do with those boys? They must have an opportunity to develop and to get work. But to-day, as I see the situation, we are developing a band of youths who have not yet learned to work, and some of them do not care if they never work. We cannot expect them to remain forever idle, and I would say, Mr. Speaker, that if we do not take care of our youth in a proper way they are liable to become criminals and the care of the state.
The hon. member for Grey-Bruce says- and I believe that she meant it-that it is nicer for our young people to have homes of their own and choose mates in this life. She knows that is the natural and the proper thing to do if a young man finds one that he cannot live without. I had an invitation from a young man after he had been employed for about three months this summer. He said, "If you can guarantee me a job eight months in the year I have the finest girl in the world and we will get married, and you will get the job of marrying us." It is not a matter of getting empty buildings or getting buildings heated, because we have plenty of them. It is just a matter of having a heart to measure up to this task, and if we do, we shall find that it will pay us splendidly. Just let hon. gentlemen put themselves in the place of these boys. They graduate from our high school, and as we saw it on our board of education, our task was not so much to find good teachers and to raise enough taxes to meet the estimates, as to find something for our youth to do when they came out of our schools. Of course, they can go on the highways, ride the rods east and ride the rods west, and spend part of their time in different gaols, but that is not in keeping with this great country of Canada, which is the land of our birth or the land of our adoption. I congratulate the mover of this resolution upon the splendid way in which he has presented 12739-584
the matter to us, and I am sure that the government will endorse it.
Mr. JEAN-FRANQOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata): Mr. Speaker, the problem of youth is certainly one of the most important problems of the day, and this motion gives us an opportunity of discussing it in this House of Commons. The first paragraph of the resolution reads as follows:
Whereas	a trained	youth	is indispensable
to the future welfare of Canada;-[DOT]
A trained youth.	Well,	youth	can	betrained in	different	ways.	Youth	can	betrained as	Bible students;	youth	can	be
trained as good citizens; youth can be trained for a vocation in the world; youth can be trained for many good purposes, but it is not stated in this motion how youth should be trained. Now, that is most important. The training might be good or bad, but I assume that the sponsor of this motion desires to give a good training to youth. Of course the motion is only as big as its wording, and its language should be a little more precise.
The second paragraph of the resolution reads:
And' whereas, the unemployment of parents and heads of families, because of conditions for which they are in no way responsible-
Everyone knows who is mainly responsible for the acute unemployment now existing in this country.
-means that boys and girls, and young men and young women, have been denied the necessary training to properly and adequately equip them for a life's vocation;
Before any one is trained for a life's vocation, he must choose the vocation he desires to follow. Every young person who grows up must decide whether he or she will go this way or that way. If a young man or woman wants to reap a success in life he or she must do the thing for which he or she is best suited. The decision must be made as to what is to be done before the training is started. In spite of the fact that unemployment has been so acute, very few boys and girls have been denied instruction. They have been offered the same facilities that were available at other times. The trouble is the plethora of clerks being turned out by the commercial academies in the different provinces. Every young man or woman wants to become a clerk of some kind and there are no more artisans. It is not dishonest to practise a trade. It is not shameful to be a shoemaker, a tailor, a mason, a carpenter or to carry on any other trade. There are many clever young men and women
Vocational Education


An hon. MEMBER:: Are you not going
to create a national employment commission?


Mr. POULIOT:: If the hon. gentleman will sit down and listen to my argument I will afterwards answer any question he has to ask. I have the floor and I do not wish to be interrupted. I wish to make my point first and afterwards I will answer any question he wishes to ask me. It is healthier for him to sit quiet now, healthier for a doctor. The point I am making is this: We have suffered perhaps as much from paternalism in Canada as we have from unemployment. What is paternalism? It is the preaching of this falsehood by one man: Come unto me and I will give you a job, every one of you. That was what was said in 1930. It was a terrific blunder; it was an awful mistake, a great error of judgment. Perhaps it was said in a jocular vein, but there should be no joking about it; the matter is too serious. By speaking that way the gentleman who used such language was killing private initiative in the youth of Canada; and if to-day the youth, although courageous, cannot do as much as they did before, it is because they believe that governments should do everything.
The reason why this country was more prosperous before 1930 than it was afterwards was not so much by reason of the measures that were brought down by the administration that was in office prior to 1930, but by reason of the fact that that government did not interfere with private business, and the youth of the country had every opportunity to earn their own living by themselves. They began at the bottom and worked up gradually until they attained satisfactory positions that
enabled them to earn a reasonable livelihood and even to get married and to enjoy the comforts of home. But now who is the young man that can find a job? It is very difficult to find one, and though there is an improvement it will take a long time to restore the old condition completely.
Young men have to learn, too late perhaps, but they have to learn the truth about the matter. They have to learn that we are at rock-bottom and that it is impossible to give every one of them a job, however sad it is to be forced to tell them that their request, which is perfectly legitimate, cannot always be granted. At any rate, the youth of the country must be told the truth; they must be told that they were cruelly deceived five years ago, and that they can no longer believe that the state can do everything for them. Whenever confidence is fully restored in this country, the Canadian people will realize that private initiative on the part of good Canadian citizens at large, good Canadian fathers and mothers, good Canadian boys and girls, can do much more for the welfare of Canada than any government can do, provided that the government of the day understands this elementary truth that it ought never to interfere with private business nor kill private initiative. The youth of the country deserve every praise and everyone is ready to give it. But let us say to every young man and woman, "Do not be discouraged, for better times are coming, provided that in the future horse-sense and common sense are given the place they should have in the government of the country."
Hon. NORMAN McL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour):	I wish at the outset to offer
my congratulations to the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Massey) upon the manner in which he has presented this resolution to the house. His speech was one which I am sure he may recall in later years with great satisfaction.
As one who has a special interest and responsibility in relation to unemployment, I wish also to express my indebtedness to those who have taken part in this discussion, not excepting my very good friend the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot). He and I have the same objective in view, though our paths sometimes may slightly diverge.
The general objects set forth in the resolution are not in controversy. Certainly I do not propose to approach the discussion of the resolution in any controversial spirit. There is one observation, however, which I am compelled to make, and which my hon.
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friend the member for Greenwood will not contradict. The resolution states that the government should "consider the desirability of investigating the broad question of the reestablishment of the young men and young women of Canada." That is not in dispute; but as I agree with him in that he must agree with me in this, that it would have been desirable that the government should have considered the reestablishment of the young men and young women of Canada during each of the previous five years. I say that because this problem in its very nature is cumulative, and I suggest that its gravity and complexity to-day are due in no small measure to our failure to realize its true proportions in recent years. I think it may be said in connection with this whole problem of unemployment that there is resting upon us now a necessity to reduce it so far as we can to manageable proportions, and that, I believe, means that we must so far as possible divide it into segments. I take it that one of the purposes behind this resolution is to direct attention to some peculiar features in the problem of youth in relation to this larger problem of unemployment, and I think we must all agree that the problem of youth does present certain peculiar features which call for special study and investigation, to be followed in due course by the formulation of special measures to deal with them.
This question of youth and unemployment has received a great deal of attention in other countries. It has also received careful study by a committee of the League of Nations. I was very much interested to observe the recommendations which came from a special committee of the League of Nations upon this question. Among these recommendations were the following:
1.	The abolition of child labour.
2.	The adoption of compulsory school attendance for primary education where this measure is not yet in force; and, in countries where it exists, the extension of the period of compulsory school attendance (a) by the addition of one or several classes to the primary schools, (b) by supplementary vocational courses, and (c) by the extension of the period of attendance at nursery schools.
3.	The systematic transfer of unemployed families to rural areas; that is, internal colonization.
4.	The institution of workers' allotments and suburban colonies.
5.	Voluntary civic service in labour camps.
[Mr. Rogers. 1
6.	Voluntary organizations created by the young people themselves.
7.	Vocational guidance and employment bureaus.
8.	Technical training of a generalized character.
Now if hon. members examine these recommendations one by one it will become apparent that in a country such as this, in order to carry out even a limited number of these recommendations, it is desirable to secure the maximum of cooperation between the dominion and provincial and municipal governments. If one lesson has been brought home clearly as a result of our experience in dealing with this problem of unemployment' during the past few years it is this, that unless we are able to find and create a medium through which that cooperation can be secured and continued we shall not be able to deal effectively with the problem of unemployment. This resolution is simply an illustration, I believe, of the imperative necessity of securing that cooperation. Whatever may have been our failures in the past, we are confronted with an existing situation, serious in itself, which demands our united efforts. And it is with this in view that the present administration proposes to set up a national employment commission which is designed to secure that degree of cooperation, not only between governments, but also between governments on the one side and private industry on the other, in order that we may attain a maximum of united effort along the whole front of our economic life.
I may say on behalf of the government that, in connection with this special problem of youth, it will be possible, in setting up a national employment commission, to provide for a special committee which shall investigate those peculiar features of the unemployment problem which relate to youth. I hope that as a result of such an investigation it will be found possible for this government, working in cooperation with other governmental agencies in Canada, to arrange for improved educational facilities and a better correlation of vocational schools and employment services than now exists. I hope too that it may be possible to revive in some degree an apprenticeship system in this country, although that will require also the cooperation of private industry and of labour organizations.
This government and previous governments have frequently received delegations from individual industries or from associations of industries in this dominion, and invariably

Three Rivers-St. Angele Bridge
these industries or associations have presented to the government specific requests which they believe must be granted if they are to carry on their business successfully. I wonder whether the time has not come when in connection with this whole problem of unemployment this government is not entitled to send delegations to industries and to associations of industries and commercial organizations in this country. I wonder whether we are not entitled to do that and to say to them that their active cooperation is vitally necessary if we, with them, are to deal constructively with this problem of unemployment.
One word more. If we are to deal with this problem of unemployment in a realistic way, obviously we must have something more than the bare statistics of how many men are unemployed and how many women are unemployed in Canada. It is of the utmost importance that we should know how many of these men are employable and how many are unemployable, and the same applies to the women who are on our relief lists at the present time. It is also important that we should know as far as possible the age groups and occupational groups of those who are on our relief rolls. I think I am correct when I say that the dominion government has not possessed that information up to the present time. At the recent dominion-provincial conference it was agreed that there should be a reclassification of the unemployed on relief. I wish to assure the house that no time has been lost in making out the requisite forms and in securing the cooperation of provinces and municipalities in order to obtain that information.
May I say this, too: the hon. member for Temiscouata, by his industry and persistence a year ago, laid the foundation for the work we are seeking to carry on now in that direction. No one can question the desirability of securing this information at as early a date as possible; certainly no one who has any acquaintance with the problems confronting social service agencies in Canada can doubt the wisdom of obtaining and analyzing this data. Already some of the returns have come in from the provinces. As soon as it is possible to summarize that information I propose to lay it before this house.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would repeat that the government is fully in sympathy with the reestablishment of the youth of this country and, like any government conscious of its responsibility in relation to unemployment at this time, we will take every possible step to see to it that young men and women
are given opportunities within which they may realize their desire for remunerative employment. I do not believe the youth of this dominion expect ready-made jobs, nor do I believe that the solution for unemployed youth lies in public employment. If I did believe that I should have some misgivings for the future of Canada. It is our duty to create conditions within which our Canadian youth may once more, as in other years, find their own opportunities and make the most of them.


Denton Massey: Mr. Speaker, may I thank the hon. members who have spoken for the kindly attitude they have shown towards this motion, and may I thank all hon. members of this house for the way in which they have listened to and absorbed that which has been said. Particularly may I thank the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) for the words he has added to the debate. I am sure that what he has said to-night, not only the language itself but what lies behind that language, the thought, the earnestness and the sincerity of purpose, will bring hope and cheer to many who otherwise are rather hopeless and cheerless. I am sure that the cooperation of which he speaks between the federal and provincial governments can be achieved, and I wish him every success in his effort. Let me assure the minister that any part I can play, as a member of this house, in the accomplishment of his purpose in regard to this great question of youth reestablishment, I stand ready and willing to do.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
THREE RIVERSnST. ANGELE BRIDGE
Mr. LUCIEN DUBOIS (Nicolet-Yamaska) (Translation) moved:: Whereas the city of Three Rivers is the most important centre on the St. Lawrence river, between Quebec and Montreal;
And whereas (a) the said city being an industrial centre largely inhabited by the labouring class is the natural outlet for agricultural products of the region; (b) the farmers of the south shore are interested in that important city being easily accessible to them, both for the selling of their products and the making of purchases; (c) the ferry boat service is not always regular, chiefly in winter season and sometimes in summer months by reason of the very large number of passengers; (d) practical means of communication at all hours of the day would benefit the working-class population of Three Rivers and the farmers of the south shore; (e) from a tourist standpoint the regional highway of St. Angele de Laval via Sherbrooke is the shortest route between Three Rivers and the United States; (f) the construction of a bridge

Three Rivers-St. Angele Bridge
between Three Rivers and St. Angele de Laval would greatly facilitate communications between La Tuque, Grand'Mere, Shawinigan, Cape de la Madeleine, Louiseville, etc., and important centres on the south shore, such as the cities of Nicolet, Vietoriaville, Sherbrooke, St. Hyacinthe, etc.; (g) the construction of a bridge would encourage the development of a large number of counties as it would improve transportation facilities and the amount of labour made available in the region; (h) S't. Angele de Laval is one of the terminals of the Canadian National Railways on the south shore between Montreal and Quebec;
Therefore be it resolved, that, in the opinion of this house, it is expedient that the government should consider the advisability of appointing experts to look into this matter in all its aspects and report as speedily as possible.
Mr. Speaker, more than ever, the time has come for action. I therefore do not wish to speak at length, and quote all sorts of figures, and then prevent the house from passing as soon as possible the resolution which I have the honour to submit for consideration.
The resolution speaks for itself and its conclusion, which is as follows, is in no way embarrassing to the government:
That, in the opinion of this house, it is expedient that the government should consider the advisability of appointing experts to look into this matter in all its aspects and report as speedily as possible.
I trust that the government will view my request with due consideration. I believe it to be a reasonable one and I have nothing further to add for the present.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata) moved:
That, in the opinion of this house, chapter 2 of 23-24 George V (1933) should be repealed;
That the trade agreement entered into between representatives of His Majesty's government in Canada and of His Majesty's government in the United Kingdom, copy of which is set forth in the schedule of the above mentioned act, should be revoked;
And that chapter 13 of 20-21 George V (1930), an act to amend the customs tariff, should be substituted thereto.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, much as I appreciate the compliment contained in the last paragraph of the motion, I think I must call your attention to the fact that this resolution is entirely out of order.
[Mr. Dubois.3
Jean-François Pouliot: Then a pious wish is out of order.


Walter Edward Foster: I will reserve my judgment until another day.
Motion stands.
On motion of Mr. Dunning the house adjourned at 10.55 p.m.
Tuesday, March 10, 1936