1936-04-03

[Stage Direction]
Hon. FERNAND RINFRET (Secretary of State) moved that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following proposed resolution:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to amend the Copyright Amendment Act, 1931, with respect to fees, charges and royalties which may be collected, and to provide for the constitution of a copyright appeal board and for the travelling and living expenses of the members thereof, and for the remuneration and travelling and living expenses of persons appearing before the board in an advisory capacity.
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the favourable consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: I wish to ask the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) whether he is prepared to answer the question, appearing on page 1709 of Hansard of yesterday, asked by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Perley). I may say I have also received some inquiries in regard to this matter and am anxious to get the information.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance): I think, Mr. Speaker, you ordered the hon. gentleman who asked the question yesterday to put it on the order paper in proper form. I must confess I did not pay any further attention to it. I know nothing about it personally.



UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: I wish to address a question to the government, based on an article in the Toronto Globe of to-day:
Federal relief cut burden to be borne by municipalities.
Ontario legislature will not reduce its grant and will try to persuade Ottawa to reverse decision ...
The larger municipalities have passed their budgets for the year, and at this time of year after a long winter many people on relief are sick and suffering, many in the hospitals. Before this is put through I would ask the government to reconsider it, or hear the municipalities and the provinces about this drastic cut, which is going to bear very heavily on the people on relief-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: My hon. friend has asked a rather long question; it will appear on Hansard and I shall endeavour to see that it is answered on Monday.


Right Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition):: I hope the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) will not take it amiss, but I think when a member asks a question and it is not answered at the time, the question itself is taken as notice for answer on a succeeding day. I can quite understand the minister not having done so in the case in question, but for the sake of the preservation of the rights of members, I might point out that the practice has always been in accordance with what the Prime Minister has now stated, that a question such as the one asked by the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. APRIL 3, 1936	1755
Employment Commission-Mr. Douglas
Church), to which answer is not given at the time, is treated as a notice, to be answered on a following day.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance): Just to clear up that point, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Perley)
said at page 1709:
If the hon. gentleman desires I will put it on the order paper.
Mr. Speaker: Questions such as this should be placed on the order paper.
In view of the involved nature of the question I am sure the hon. member asking it would be able to state it more succinctly and clearly in the form of a question on the order paper. I was really consulting his convenience; I had no desire to avoid answering the question.



EMPLOYMENT COMMISSION


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Thursday, April 2, consideration of the motion of Mr. Rogers for the second reading of Bill No. 14, respecting the establishment of a national employment commission.
Mr. T. C. DOUGLAS (Weybum):: When
the house adjourned last night I was quoting from sessional paper 102A, pointing out that for a period of fifteen months the grand total of those receiving relief in Canada had not varied greatly except as accounted for by seasonal employment, and that in February last the grand total of those receiving relief, according to the minister himself, was 1,310,423 persons. It is hardly necessary to point out that this is a staggering figure. It means that out of every eight people in Canada one is receiving government assistance in order to live. One can easily visualize the effect of such a condition. The economic effect was depicted very graphically yesterday by the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. McGeer) who pointed out that up to the present the depression had cost something in the neighbourhood of $700,000,000. He went on to paint a picture that is very gloomy indeed. But it seemed to me tragic that he did not suggest any solution, did not say his party had any solution, and did not point out how in any respect this bill offered a solution. I submit that $700,000,000 does not begin to estimate the economic cost of unemployment. Millions upon millions of dollars have been expended by private charities and individuals. In addition to that, for between five and six years 400,000 men and women have been taken out of productive employ-12739-112
ment, which means that all the goods which might have been produced by those individuals have not been produced. When some hon. members opposite speak about scarcity they might bear in mind the fact that to-day in Canada 400,000 individuals capable of producing goods are inactive.
But the economic cost of unemployment, which has been terrific, is small as compared with the physical cost. One has only to examine statistics of the welfare bureau, to look at the diets submitted by dietitians, and to consult the relief scale, to know that vast numbers of Canadian citizens are living on a subsistence level insufficient to maintain decent health. Thousands of people in Canada are coming very close to malnutrition. Added to that is the fact that we have many people who are not receiving proper medical and dental care and whose health is therefore undermined.
A few days ago I had sent to me an interesting communication from a person in Amulet, Saskatchewan, who had noticed that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) had made the statement in the House of Commons that the government was putting human rights above property rights. This person went out and secured a number of certified statements from people in his community who at that time were bedridden and unable to get medical or hospital care. I shall not weary the house by enumerating the different types. There are cases of bedridden elderly women, and one of a young man in his twenties invalided through an accident. X-ray revealed the fact that he could be cured, but he was unable to get the necessary assistance. Circumstances like that are not uncommon. I am not attempting to ascribe it to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) or to anybody else, but shall content myself with pointing out that the physical cost of unemployment is almost beyond our powers of estimation.
The mental cost is well worth comment. One has only to consult the figures of our mental institutions to show what the cost has been. We would find how many people have come at last to mental hospitals as a result of worry, a sense of insecurity and inferiority brought about by want of employment. Add to that the huge numbers of people who are not getting proper mental exercises. For instance, there are the students coming out of the universities and high schools who are not given tasks which challenge their ability. A few days ago I came across an interesting article describing certain circumstances in Seattle, Washington. It states:
In 1929 American industrial chiefs picked Walter Huston of Seattle as "America's brightest boy," and promised him a brilliant

1756	COMMONS
Employment Commission-Mr. Douglas
and profitable career. At that time he was feted and dined by Young, of the General Electric, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison, and so on, and sent to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with his next four years' expenses paid in advance. He graduated in 1933 with honours, was given front page publicity, and then started looking for a job. At present he is working as a labourer in Seattle, and when interviewed stated he was "glad to get that."
There is not very much mental exercise there for "America's brightest boy" who is now doing manual labour.
But even worse than the mental cost has been the moral cost. I am not suggesting that unemployment has affected the morals of our people, but I am suggesting it has affected the morale of our people. You cannot place thousands of people in a state of inactivity for four or five years without serious repercussions on their morale. Loss of initiative, which hon. members opposite love to talk about, loss of resourcefulness, and the spirit ' of independence, are inevitable effects if these conditions are allowed to continue. In this connection may I quote from the report of the so-called Rigg commission, which deals with the young men in relief camps. Paragraph (c) of article 1 states:
There is a group of young men whose ages range from eighteen to twenty-five years, many of whom have never had other than occasional, casual employment, and who, therefore, have not acquired the habit of working, or a sense of individual responsibility to society. These young fellows have suffered through thwarted ambitions and the lack of visible grounds of hope for the future, and have become an easy prey to the subversive influences of communistic or anarchistic philosophy, sedulously propagated by experienced agitators. Most of these young men are gifted with average intelligence and if they had grown up surrounded by the influences of a normal environment, which included useful work, they would no doubt have given a good account of themselves. Under the influences among which they have lived during the past few years, however, they constitute a real menace to the maintenance of our existing institutions. They are viciously rebellious against, and defiant to authority; they shirk work and are determined to continue to do so; they assert that society owes them a living and are oblivious of the obligations they owe to society; they are acquiring undesirable habits, especially by moving from camp to camp, often under assumed names, staying in each camp long enough to secure a complete issue of clothing and then leaving camp, selling the issued clothing and shoes, and donning ordinary cheap mufti clothing; they disturb and irritate more reasonable and stable-minded men, and are a constant source of trouble to camp authorities.
I submit these young men are not to be blamed. Let us rather blame existing conditions. It is not the young men who stand in judgment; it is the society which pro-

duced them. The judgment of the ages will not indict them, but will indict those of us who sit in this parliament and who do nothing to better their economic environment.


Mr. BLAIR:: What shall we do?


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I am not given to reading poetry, but after the reference by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) to Carlyle I imagine almost anything along that line would be permissible. I read this poem not because I think it is good poetry but because it expresses the views of thousands of good people. It is in blank verse:
We are the betrayed generation,
With a legacy of despair.
Life has given us a cup that the past has broken
And the new cup is still under the potter's wheel.
How then shall we drink the wine of
happiness;
How shall we use our hours?
We were born into the madness of war-hysteria
And the moaning of the bereaved was our lullaby.
Our childhoods were spent in the frenzy of gin and jazz
And we were told that Mammon was the lord our god.
But Mammon is a stupid god, insecure in his golden temple.
Now it is gone, gone, all gone,
We are left with a great questioning.
Strong are we and eager,
But the world doesn't want our strength. Passionately, with pounding hearts, we want to build and grow;
Corpses are not more useless.
We are the young made old before our time; We are the betrayed generation.
Factory wheels are idle, but we are not permitted to turn them.
Colleges are empty, for we are forbidden the longed-for years in their halls.
Books are unbought, paintings unadmired, concerts unattended; we are hungry for beauty.
We cannot earn; we cannot pay.
We are denied what we ask from the only life we shall live


Mr. A. A. HEAPS (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, may I say that I agree with a good deal of what the last speaker (Mr. Maybank) said. In opening his observations the hon. member stated that he wanted to discuss the bill in a non-partisan manner. I think there are many hon. members who have been in the house a number of years and have discussed this question year after year who, although on some occasions they received scant sympathy, have always tried to place the question far above party politics. But it did seem out of place that one who professed an intention to discuss the question from a non-partisan viewpoint should begin his observations by throwing arrows or darts at hon. members in this corner of the chamber. As one member of this group I have never claimed and do not now claim a monopoly of sympathy for men and women out of work.
I believe every other hon. member, irrespective of party, has as much sympathy for men and women out of work as I have or any other member of the group to which I belong. We claim no monopoly of sympathy. I think the hearts of hon. members are in the right place; it is a question of appealing not to their hearts but to their heads. It may be that the viewpoint of one hon. member is different from that of another, but we are here as a soft of open forum, representing different ideas and different constituencies. We are sent here because we represent those ideas and to express the point of view of those who sent us here.
The hon. member said that we should all get together and pull the cart along, even though fools may be pulling it. I would not care to make an observation of that kind.
I do not say that the men who are pulling the cart are of that description; far be it from me to make such an observation. In my view the men who are to-day charged with the task of government have a most difficult task ahead of them; many times have I expressed publicly my sympathy for them. And there is no minister or member of the government charged with a more responsible, arduous and difficult task than is the present Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers). In the light of these observations it will be understood that if I offer any criticism it is intended to be constructive. I hope that the minister will realize that any statements in the matter which come from this corner of the house are made in good faith, and that he will accept them as such. We do not expect him to agree with us; probably if he did he would be over here sitting with us, and if we agreed with the minister we would be on the opposite side. It is because we disagree that we sit in different parts of the chamber.
I believe all hon. members are anxious for action in connection with the unemployment problem. The one feature about which the minister and we who represent for the most part large industrial centres do not agree is that the government is a little too dilatory or too slow in what it is attempting to do. All hon. members realize that there is an enormous unemployment condition to be faced, and one which through time has grown worse. It is true that what was done in the past five or six years did not have the effect that those who were responsible for the legislation hoped it would have. Therefore I am one who believes that the experience we have had in those years should be an excellent guide to the government now in office. In other words the remedies of the past five years have not been remedies at all. We might even look

Employment Commission-Mr. Heaps
also to the United States and witness what has been attempted there. They have spent not millions but billions of dollars in dealing with unemployment, and yet the expenditure of these large sums of money has not effected a remedy for the evils from which they and we in Canada alike are suffering.
The hon. member who has just taken his seat spoke about spending large sums of money for public works. I agree that we should spend money for public works, but I also realize that within the orbit of the existing economic or capitalistic structure such expenditures are hardly possible. During his observations the minister pointed out most ably that it would cost approximately $300,000,000 or $400,000,000 per annum to provide work for those who require it. I do not believe that the capitalist structure could stand a strain of that kind. If, as the minister pointed out, the government is bent upon maintaining the structure in its present form, then such an expenditure must be ruled out of the question.
I share the view of other hon. members that the minister made one of the ablest presentations of the unemployment situation which has been made at least since I have been a member of this chamber. His presentation of figures, facts and statistics was made in such beautiful English that it was a delight to listen to him. But when we1 take away the beautiful English and the statistics he seems to have left us in a cul-de-sac. In what direction is the government travelling? We are told that we should have the long range viewpoint. I am quite . prepared to have a long range viewpoint in dealing with unemployment, but I wish also to have an immediate policy to cope with the problem. That is where the minister and some hon. members sitting in this corner of the house differ. The minister dealt most of the time with effects, and placed on the record a wealth of statistics which those interested may read and pore over for many a long week. Most hon. members who have so far spoken in this debate have approved in a general way of the appointment of an employment commission. For some time past we in this group have also been in favour of the appointment of a commission to deal with the unemployment situation. However, I do not think it is necessary to appoint a commission whose sole function will be merely to gather statistics, and it appears to me, Mr. Speaker, if I read correctly the contents of the bill, that the main function of this commission, if and when appointed, will be to gather and correlate statistics at the request of the min-

ister and then submit them to him. As to any useful powers which this commission may exercise in relieving the unemployment situation, they are practically non-existent in the bill itself; at least, I cannot find them.
I go back to the time when the minister introduced the resolution preceding the bill. I was very happy indeed when the resolution was introduced, and I was one of those who gave it active support. I supported it because the resolution preceding Bill No. 14 dealt with the question of employment, not with the question of unemployment, and it is well that we should bear this in mind. The resolution -was as follows:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to provide for the establishment of a commission, to be known as the national employment commission, to supervise or administer the expenditure of funds voted by parliament for unemployment relief and for providing employment.
That was to be the main provision, to my mind at least, of the bill which we are now discussing, and yet I look through the bill in vain for anything giving the commission power to deal with the immediate question of providing employment. The resolution was adopted by the house after a very short discussion because we were anxious to see what the bill contained, and it might be as well to recall what the minister said on that occasion. I quote briefly from his remarks on March 19, 1936, at page 1267 of Hansard:
The resolution itself refers to the fact that the national employment commission shall have among its functions supervision or administration of the expenditure of funds voted by parliament for unemployment relief and for providing employment.
I may be mistaken in my interpretation of the bill, but I have looked through it to find any provision that the commission may have funds placed at its disposal for the creation of employment, and I see in it no such provision.
Then I look at the preamble of the bill, and what do I find? The preamble starts by saying:
Whereas unemployment has been for several years Canada's most urgent national problem, and until such time as the normal revival of trade and industry will absorb a large percentage of unemployed workers, it is essential that steps be taken to find ways and means of providing remunerative employment-
That is what I was in favour of, and am still in favour of that-the government, if they possibly can, provide remunerative employment for those who unfortunately now find themselves out of work. There are ways and means perhaps that could be devised. I know that within the existing economic structure

Employment Commission-Mr. Heaps
those ways and means are limited and confined, yet I believe ways and means could be found of providing useful work for those who are now unemployed. I am speaking of such things as self-liquidating projects. Public works for the sake of public works are not of very much value. Unless they have a real utility value they are in much the same position as a commission appointed merely for the sake of appointing a commission. A national commission is of little value unless it can perform some useful function in dealing effectively with the unemployment problem.
What are those useful projects which I believe from the references to-day are barred from the operation of this bill? I have in mind a national housing scheme such as was considered by a committee of this house a year ago. A national housing scheme would provide employment on a fairly large scale. I mention a housing scheme as an illustration of a self-liquidating project. A national housing scheme is essential to-day in this country, and it is admitted on all sides and by all authorities as being a very desirable thing to do. Such a scheme could be financed by the government and the cost repaid over a period of time; it would not be a financial liability so far as the federal government is concerned.
Then there are reforestation projects, and possibly reclamation. These could be undertaken on a national scale. Unfortunately, however, I do not see where there is provision in this bill for anything of that kind being done. Earlier in the session when the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) discussed the question of housing he gave the house the impression that so far as he was concerned the government intended to give the housing act a proper opportunity to function. May I just mention in passing that up to the time of the latest returns the housing act has resulted in about two-thirds of a million dollars being provided by the federal government for housing purposes. That does not begin to solve the problem of housing; it does not even begin to touch the housing problem which is becoming more acute as the years go by.
Coming to the bill itself, I do not know that it was necessary for the government to introduce this measure at all, because when the government came into power late in October last there was on the statute book an act which gives them practically all the powers asked for in the present bill. I will go over the clauses which describe the functions and the purposes of the proposed commission. They are found in section 6 of the bill. Paragraph (a) says:
The commission shall carry out as soon as possible a national registration and classification of persons on relief in cooperation with the provinces, municipalities and private and public bodies.
Such a registration, sir, is long overdue; It should have been carried out years ago, but I do not think legislation is required to do it. A national registration could be undertaken by the present government departments even more effectively and far more efficiently than could be done by any commission the government might appoint. Our bureau of statistics, in cooperation with the various employment and other agencies maintained throughout the country, could have undertaken a registration of this kind. I believe that the Minister of Labour would have had the wholehearted support and cooperation of this house if he had undertaken a national registration immediately upon assuming office. There was no need to wait until a commission was appointed to have a national registration of those who happen to find themselves out of work. Then I come to paragraph (b), which reads:
(b)	recommend to the minister conditions to be complied with by any province obtaining grants for relief purposes from the government of Canada;
I do not think we require a commission for that purpose; the conditions are complied with already. Then section (c) reads:
(c)	recommend to the minister effective means of mobilizing the agencies for relief both state and voluntary, and so coordinating their work as to avoid overlapping and abuses, and to secure a proper provision and auditing of expenditures of all moneys;
All this is contained in the Economic Council of Canada Act which was repealed by this house a few short weeks ago. Upon reading the provisions of the present bill and comparing them with the provisions of the act repealed a few weeks ago I find a remarkable similarity. It would seem that whoever was responsible for the drafting of this bill took the Economic Council of Canada Act as his guide. The phraseology is quite similar and even the sections seem to be numbered the same. I could go on and quote clause after clause of section 6 to show that all this commission can do is to recommend to the minister or investigate and report. The commission is not being given power to deal with large constructive works to provide immediate and useful employment to relieve the situation which prevails at the present time.
There are many statements made by the minister with which I agree, but there are some with which I do not agree. I am in hearty accord with his statement that the
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Employment Commission-Mr. Heaps
acceptance by this house of existing conditions almost means an admission of bankruptcy. The unemployment situation in Canada has been a standing challenge to parliament for the past number of years. While it was accepted a few years ago it was not adequately met and the fact that in 1935 we found ourselves in the same condition as that which we were in a few years ago was responsible to a large extent for the present government being placed in power. The government now in power was in office in 1930 and the unemployment situation which existed at that time was the cause of the Conservative party being then swept into power. The unemployment problem is the greatest challenge to parliament. The question is, how are we going to meet it and the problem of insecurity that accompanies it?
The minister said that we should cooperate with private agencies, with industrial concerns, with social agencies and probably with financial institutions. My experience during the past few years has been that these private corporations have made very little headway in finding a way out of the difficulty. In fact, the very institutions to which it is proposed we should go seeking assistance have themselves come to parliament to seek assistance. We cannot expect our railways to find a way out of this unemployment situation. During the past few days I have received letters from railway men and railway organizations deploring the fact that men are now being laid off in the railway shops.
The minister seemed to be pleased with the employment figures he submitted at the time he introduced this bill. He said that the statistics showed a steady improvement in the unemployment situation, while the problem of relief seemed to be holding the same position it had held for a number of years. I think the minister was quite right when he said that employment had shown a slight improvement over a period of years, but may I point out to him and to the house that during the last few years large capital expenditures were made by the former government in an effort to provide employment in the railway shops, by large construction projects and other relief works, by the payment of subsidies to our steel^ works and in other ways. When these subsidies cease, when public works construction ceases, when the government aided work in the railway shops ceases, we will again have a jump in our unemployment figures. Where are these people going to turn for a ray of hope? Where can they be assured that something will be done for them?
As has been pointed out by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. May-bank) and the Minister of Labour (Mr. 
Rogers), unemployment relief has a most demoralizing effect upon the unemployed. That is why I am and always have been so anxious to see something more useful substituted for the dole. I know how difficult it is for the average man to go down and ask for relief for the first time. I know of many men with nerves of steel who feared that ordeal of asking for relief for the first time. On the first occasion they went trembling and with tears in their eyes. The second time was not so difficult, the thing was a little easier. The third time it was easier, and by the fourth or fifth time they became what you might call habitual recipients of public relief. The effect is so demoralizing that in time the unemployed person becomes practically unemployable. We want to avoid that; we want to reestablish these people and make them useful citizens. Every man and every woman should have the opportunity of doing something useful in life.
In support of the establishment of this commission the minister pointed out that he had received resolutions from a large number of organizations such as chambers of commerce and so on. He said he could get one from the Canadian Manufacturers' Association. He pointed out also that he had received a statement of approbation from the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada. I have not the slightest doubt that a few months ago the minister could have got a thousand resolutions in favour of a commission to deal with unemployment, but I doubt very much if he could get a single one to-day in favour of the bill as it is.


Mr. ROGERS:: If I might correct my hon. friend, the resolutions from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and from the Canadian Welfare Council were passed after an examination of the bill now before the house.


Richard Bedford Bennett: They must have had it before we had it.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Did the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and other bodies have this bill before the members of this house had it?


Richard Bedford Bennett: It looks like it.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I gave the dates. I am referring not to the trades and labour congress, but to letters received from the Canadian Welfare Council and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I think the statement of the trades and labour congress was dated January 15.

Employment Commission-Mr. Heaps


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes, but I am not including that.


Abraham Albert Heaps: The Canadian Chamber of Commerce letter was dated March 27.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes, after the bill was introduced.


Abraham Albert Heaps: That is a business organization and probably they are the one body that might approve of the bill, because they want coordination, efficiency, and possibly a reduction in costs.


Norman McLeod Rogers: And the Canadian Welfare Council, which is not a business organization but is concerned more intimately than any other in Canada with the distribution of relief and with the incidence of social problems.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I have not the date of that
in front of me, but I notice that the provincial governments are also here. The one is dated December 1935 and that of the trades and labour congress was dated January 15 last. I am dealing with those two. It is quite correct to say that on January 15 the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada may have approved of the appointment of a commission, and we in this group will support a commission. But that purpose was entirely different from what is proposed by the chamber of commerce. Let us see why the trades and labour congress wanted a commission. They say:
We trust that the commission may be a material aid in advancing ways and means of reabsorbing the unemployed into useful, gainful occupations. We trust also that the commission may standardize relief and so supervise its administration that none in need may be overlooked.
I think there will be general agreement with the submission of the trades and labour congress, but my disappointment lies in the fact that in the bill there is no immediate provision for the establishment of ways and means to provide useful employment, and that I think is a grave difficulty in the whole scheme of things. The dominion-provincial conference had a submission somewhat along the same line. They were anxious that work should be provided, and I can understand their position; they are anxious for it because presumably they want to relieve themselves of the burden of taxation. Some hon. gentlemen who have spoken here have all been anxious to discuss the question from the standpoint of taxation. The municipalities to-day have a burden resulting from unemployment which is almost beyond their ability to bear. Our provincial governments are in the same position, and I realize also
that the federal government faces a serious financial situation. The position of the federal government is in many respects no better than that of some of the provinces, although its borrowing powers are at the present time in a much healthier state than that of the provinces; for the borrowing power of some of the provinces seems at this juncture to be at a very low ebb.
The minister in one of his statements said, in effect, "We are now passing through what may be called an abnormal condition so far as our economic life is concerned." I am quoting him from memory but I do not think I am very far wrong. Well, we have had this situation now for about six years; we have had a serious unemployment situation in Canada throughout that period and it has grown and grown and we have had relief given to so many hundreds of thousands of the population that the situation, which a few years ago might have been called abnormal, is to-day in my opinion normal. It seems to me that it ought to be within the wit of parliament to do something to find a way out of the difficulty in which we are at the present time. I think that in the appointment of a commission one of its first duties ought to be to inquire most exhaustively into the causes of unemployment; but there is nothing in the bill, as I read it, which gives to such a commission the power to investigate unemployment and its causes and to recommend ways and means of dealing with it in a fundamental way. Possibly at some later day the duties of the commission may be enlarged, but in the meantime the army of unemployed is with us. These people are a standing challenge to parliament. Many of us come from industrial constituencies, and in my constituency there is a large army of unemployed. They have been there for many years now. Many a member in this house has spoken of the fortitude and patience of the unemployed throughout these years, how they have borne the brunt of the economic chaos in which we have found ourselves. I referred a few moments ago to the demoralizing effects which the continuing receipt of relief has had upon the unemployed themselves; day after day, week after week, year after year, they go on living without seeing a ray of hope for the future. I come in contact with these people and at week-ends I go into the large industrial centres where I come across them.


An hon. MEMBER:: We all do.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I am glad of that. The
first question they ask is: What are you
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doing in parliament in regard to the unemployment situation? What can we tell them as a result of the bill now before the house? Can we tell them the government will take a long range view of the unemployment situation, that the government is going to appoint a commission to gather more statistics, when we have enough already, and that when the statistics are gathered we shall be in a position to label the unemployed and to index and cross-index them a little more fully than at the present time?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Of the various functions
given the commission in clause 6 of the bill, only one refers to the classification of persons on relief. All of the others relate to what 1 fully acknowledge is the larger problem, that of expanding employment either through public works or through the effective cooperation of industrial corporations. I thought my hon. friend would not mind my bringing that to his attention.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I am glad the minister has
called that to my attention, because all that it says is that they shall investigate and report upon such proposals, and if I know anything of the Minister of Finance he will have to be convinced before there will be much doing in that respect. I hope that when the time comes and investigations are made and projects considered there will be no difficulty, so far as the Minister of Finance is concerned, in seeing that these projects are carried through to a successful conclusion. But I take as an indication of the attitude of the Minister of Finance his first statement in this house several weeks ago with respect to housing, in connection with which I thought there was an opportunity for the government to do something worth while on a social basis, something worth while in the economic sense, in the way of providing employment. On that occasion the Minister of Finance turned down the project, and I believe he said he spoke at that time on behalf of the government. I was taking that as a criterion. I hope that since then the minister has changed his attitude on this question, and that he and the government will deal with it from the standpoint of providing employment in a large measure, particularly on those self-liquidating projects that I enumerated a few moments ago.
I said at the outset that I realized the complexity of the situation. I realize the difficulty which the government faces in the fact that they are pledged to uphold the system as it is. This is such a restriction upon their efforts that it is going to be a most difficult task for the minister to provide work for those capable and willing to do a useful day's work for a proper day's pay.

That is something that we have suggested in this house for many years. It is true that the government tried public relief works some few years ago, but they were very small in comparison with the vast number that need to be provided with work. It would require a gigantic works program to make a real dent in the vast army of the unemployed. The United States over a period of years has spent, I think, over thirty billions of dollars, and in spite of that huge outlay to-day ten millions of people are without employment.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman said thirty billions. Is that not too large a figure?


Abraham Albert Heaps: I got that from one of the
United States papers. It may not be that much, but if it is not thirty billions it is a staggering figure, and it indicates that public relief projects in themselves are not a remedy for unemployment, although they may be a palliative. I think that this government and any future government will have to go far deeper into this question and strike at it in a more fundamental way than we are attempting to do at the present time. In years gone by I have suggested that we might attempt a reduction of hours of labour by instituting a six hour day. We shall have to come to it sooner or later; in fact I believe that if all the men and women who to-day are out of work were put into useful occupations, we could probably satisfy all our requirements with a much shorter working day than six hours. I am convinced also that we shall have to come to a much higher wage level, creating a higher purchasing power than we have at the present time.
Within the scope of the limited suggestions now made to us I see no permanent solution of the problem of unemployment. Let me nevertheless assure the government that so far as anything can be done to relieve the existing situation, to ease the burden on those who are now out of work, this small group of seven will give them whatever support they possibly can. -


Mr. E. G. HANSELL (Macleod):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak to the bill, I desire to make one or two comments relative to the speech the other day of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers). I did not have the good fortune of being in the house when the minister was making his speech, but on my return many of my colleagues told me of the able manner in which the minister handled his subject. I was interested enough by those remarks to read Hansard the next day, and I wish to commend the Minister of Labour for the ability he showed in presenting his

Employment Commission-Mr. Hansell
case. His speech was forward-looking, hopeful, and full of confidence, and this is, I think, as it should be; these qualities should characterize any man who holds the portfolio of Minister of Labour in a Liberal government.
I should like to call attention to one paragraph in the bill which, I think, is deserving of some commendation; that is subsection (f) of section 6, that the commission is to-
-investigate and report to the minister on measures of cooperation with commercial and industrial groups in devising means under which provision may be made for the maintenance and increase of employment.
Of course I do not think that solves the problem. Nevertheless it is a step in the proper direction. In this connection I would call the attention of the minister and all hon. members to a local incident which perhaps we might dwell upon for a moment in connection with this particular section of the bill. At the present time there are in the Crowsnest pass a number of towns which have very little employment. Practically all the mining that is done in the Crowsnest pass to-day is done by virtue of orders received from the Canadian Pacific railway. All these orders happen to be going to one town, with the result that in other towns in the Crowsnest pass there are many heads of families who cannot get adequate employment. It seems to me that by cooperation with the Canadian Pacific railway these orders might be distributed among the other towns. This would not, we know, solve the entire problem, but it would distribute purchasing power in the Crowsnest pass to the extent that many of those who are now almost unemployed would not have to seek relief. I received this information last week, and I drew the matter to the attention of the Minister of Railways (Mr. Howe). He courteously informed me that the matter was out of his particular jurisdiction, but he kindly suggested that he would take the matter up with the president of the railway for report. I much appreciated that attitude. This morning I got from a local union in the Crowsnest pass a telegram which I should like to read in order to show the situation as it exists there. The tele^am reads:
Mine at Bellevue only worked two days since March thirteenth. Maple Leaf mine same.
That means that the men employed in these two mines and other parts of the Crowsnest pass have worked only two days in three weeks. My contention is that it is impossible for families to live when the heads of those families receive only two days' work in three weeks. The telegram continues:
Figure three hundred men married and single and families will need relief within one week. Information shows no coal orders.
Three hundred men, married and single, together with their families, on the verge of receiving relief. Perhaps, by proper cooperation with that commercial institution, that situation may be avoided. I appreciate that section of the bill even though it may not be a final solution of the entire problem.
The Minister of Labour had something to say in connection with that particular section and was asked a question by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Pelletier): The question was:
Does the minister believe that private industry will be able to absorb all the unemployed who are employable?
His answer was vague but suggestive. It does not answer the question but it is highly inferential. I should like to deal with it for a moment or two. The speech of the minister was an admirable one. I know he is a busy man; the weight of responsibility must rest heavily upon him and in the multiplicity of duties perhaps there are some matters to which he cannot give his entire attention and thought. I fancy that when the question was asked, had the minister had time to meditate a little he might not have answered in just the way he did. Nevertheless I suggest, from a psychological point of view, that when a man answers a question on the spur of the moment he reveals his attitude of mind more accurately perhaps than if he had time to meditate before answering. At any rate the answer to the question contains some very striking features. I am directing attention now to the quotation from Carlyle. I noticed when the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) referred to this last night the minister smiled a little. Perhaps he would not give the same answer to-day. Notice this part of the answer:
Some of the modern reformers of our own day have tended to simplify the problem and suggest that there was one simple way out of it ...
That is hardly an answer to the question. The minister goes on:
I am quoting Carlyle. I continue:
"I have got no Morrison's pill for curing the maladies of society."
Then continuing in his own words the minister says:
I do not know that I can better answer my hon. friend than to leave these thoughts with him. I believe it is as true to-day as it was a century ago that there is no magic formula by which we can suddenly emerge from the condition in which we find ourselves to-day.
1770	COMMONS
Employment Commission-Mr. Hansell
That sort of answer given to this corner of the house is highly inferential. We have no magic pill to offer. We do not expect for a moment that the philosophies which we hold will in the present state of the world's progress solve all its problems. But why should we close our minds to the suggestion of new things? We are living in exacting times. Thus we have this bill. We seek a remedy for our ills. The hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. McGeer) in his very able address yesterday afternoon pointed to the vast increase in debt due to the problem of unemployment. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Poole) pointed out that unemployment is a permanent problem. We are in dangerous and exacting times. But why should one turn a deaf ear to suggestions that may be new? Why should we be afraid of investigating new things? We are to-day living in an age of rapid progress; things happen very suddenly; sometimes governments are overthrown in a few hours, and other governments take their place. Are we not justified in expecting some new suggestion to arise which may lead to a further and more satisfactory solution of the problems we have to face?
If we look back over history for a few decades or perhaps a century or more we discover that all the solar energy ever applied to production was through flesh and blood. But genius took up the task and eventually the power of steam was applied to the machine. Watt and Stephenson by their combined efforts gave us, not our great transportation systems of to-day, but a new thing, which new thing developed until to-day we have our great transportation systems. In the field of aeronautics nearly two centuries ago Sir George Cayley brought out a very tiny invention, a sort of windmill affair made with feathers. People scorned it; they said You don't expect ever to fly something through the air, do you? It was only a beginning. The world laughed because it was something new. I read some time ago in the Encyclopedia Britannica that when it was first proposed to build ships of iron instead of wood even the intelligent British admiralty laughed. They said: Wood floats; iron sinks. To-day they would laugh if it were suggested that battle-ships should be built of wood. This was a new idea, but it gave us our great battle-ships of to-day. Those ideas were developed until to-day we have great, seaworthy vessels made of iron and steel.
I do not wish to labour these points, nor do I wish to prolong the discussion, but one may carry the same logic into the medical or almost any other field of science. I do not like to think that the attitude which seems

to be evidenced by this part of the minister's speech would be one of a closed mind. But he knows that in the world to-day there are great men thinking along this very line, and when great economists are thinking about new economic proposals it seems to me that we should not close our minds to a suggestion of something which may be new. I implore and beseech not only the Minister of Labour but the entire government to bear with us. We may not be able to propose an ultimate solution of every problem, but there may be something in what we have to suggest which might lead to great things.
I believe all hon. members are convinced that unemployment is our greatest problem. May I be permitted to read one statement from the pen of the Prime Minister . (Mr. Mackenzie King) as recorded in Maclean's magazine of September 15:
The Liberal party believes unemployment is Canada's most urgent national problem.
The word "urgent" is used. Speaking last night, the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Gray-don) suggested that the bill presented a "real solution." Further on, there is reference to "the greatest problem" and the statement that "the unemployment commission is of the highest importance." Notice the words: "urgent problem," "real solution," "greatest problem," "highest importance." The hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. McGeer) characterized it by stating that it was the most gigantic problem facing the nation.
Am I right in saying that the present bill embodies the very best the government can pit against the greatest and most gigantic problem facing the nation to-day. I believe the bill under discussion will prove to be but a palliative. The Minister of Labour may think of new things in terms of magic pills, if he desires. If it is to be a choice between a magic pill and a palliative I fail to see where there can be much choice between them. The bill under discussion perhaps will prove to be but a palliative for the relief of the headache of a dizzy, bewildered nation, while the root of the disease will be left untouched. I am afraid it will continue to permeate the entire body politic.
Possibly the bill may prove to make the patient's dying hours a little more pleasant. I do not make that observation in ridicule. As a matter of fact I am going to vote for the bill, but not because I believe it will be an ultimate solution of the problem. I do not wish in any way to hinder the government in taking a step which might be in the right direction. But I fear the end, and I fear

Employment Commission-Mr. Taylor
that if the attitude of the present administration is one of. a closed mind to new suggestions, characterized as magic pills, the government of which the Minister of Labour forms a part may have to swallow a very bitter pill of another kind.


Mr. J. S. TAYLOR (Nanaimo):: Mr
Speaker, I am afraid I shall have to commence my very short talk with an Irishism. It seems to me that all that has to be said or will be said about the bill has already been said. There is one thought, however, I should like to elaborate for a few moments.
At the outset I am certainly not going to congratulate the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) upon his excellent speech. That has been done so often that I want to become my true self by still refusing to praise a man for what, after all, is his plain duty well done. He may receive for himself sufficient gratulation in the satisfied knowledge that his application to duty has produced something which contributes to the knowledge and understanding of hon. members and of the people throughout the country.
I have, however, gone carefully through the minister's speech and from the sixty columns of closely printed matter, most of which is tabulation and statistics, I have picked out about seven columns of philosophical and economical statements. From the breastplate I have attempted to cull some of the jewels which I am going to present to the house, in order that we may have the full picture. I am not taking these statements from their setting in order to place new meanings upon them, but I want to contribute to the understanding we have about this great problem. I read from the minister's speech:
The problem of prolonged unemployment in this and other countries is a challenge to the political intelligence of our generation.
And again:
Upon our ability to deal with it effectively may depend the maintenance of institutions and traditions which have long been established in this country.
And again:
As individuals we must guard ourselves against the complacent acceptance of conditions as we find them to-day. As members of parliament and as a government the placid acceptance of present conditions would be little better than a voluntary declaration of political bankruptcy.
And again:
It-
Referring to the social problem.
-has its origin in the elementary obligation of the state to provide for the subsistence of its members-to use the term employed by 12739-113
Jeremy Bentham-and who are in necessitous circumstances through no fault of their own.
Again:
It must be borne in mind that the relief of distress rests upon practical considerations as well as upon the moral obligation which has been assumed by the state as an association for the promotion of human welfare.
Again:
It is to the interest of the state, quite apart from the question of obligation, to preserve the health and vigour of its people and as far as possible to prevent the impairment of the technical skill and efficiency of its workers. The provision of unemployment relief has been and is now a heavy financial burden, but any failure on our part to bear this burden would be tantamount to the -wasting of an estate by a life tenant, and would mean irreparable injury to those who will inherit from us in years to come.
Again:
What happens to us as individuals is of small consequence. What happens to this government is only of relative importance in the long perspective of history. What happens to the morale and future outlook of our people is of supreme importance in the ongoing life of the nation.
With these facts and these statements I am in entire agreement. But the failure of the government to present by some radical measure an outline of what they intend to do to change the condition leaves me profoundly disturbed. I want to bring to the attention of the government and the members of the house that now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation. We are losing our country and our people, and we are losing them far more surely than if we were engaged in desperate internecine war. I quote Doctor Alexis Carrel. Nobel Laureate in medicine, speaking on March 21 last:
It appears that our resistance to fatigue, to sorrow's, to worries, has decreased. Modern men need much sleep, good food, good houses. Their nervous system is delicate. They do not endure the worries of business, the responsibilities, and the sufferings of life. They easily break down.
Some unknown factors in our material and mental surroundings are doubtless responsible for the fragility of our nervous tissues. Mental diseases by themselves are more numerous than all other diseases put together. Besides the insane, there is an immense crowd of feebleminded.
Intelligence and morality do not appear to have markedly increased, in spite of the immense amount of money spent on education.
Political, financial and commercial propaganda assume many forms. They impinge ceaselessly upon us. We are immersed in them. Modern man has no defense against them. He has no time to think, to meditate.
It is obvious that a strong race does not thrive in this realm of science. We are the victims of the backwardness of the sciences of life over those of matter.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I had not
intended to make any observations in connection with this measure, but in view of the course the debate has taken it is necessary for me to make a few remarks which I think I can conclude before six o'clock. This government received a mandate from the people in October last to enact this legislation and in my judgment the house should afford the administration an opportunity to pass it. That seems to me to be abundantly clear. I differ from the government with respect to the details of the legislation and I differ entirety as to the results that may be achieved.
If one will take the trouble to look at this legislation he will realize that in principle it proposes to delegate to a commission certain powers which in my judgment and 12739-1131
which the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said the other day, dealing with another matter to some degree cognate to this, can property be discharged by the government. The major question is the extent to which the government should delegate their powers. This is a question that has engaged the attention of public men for a very long time and I do not propose to enter into any discussion about it this afternoon. It is quite clear that there are times when a commission is the only organization that can adequately discharge certain functions of government. For instance, the board of railway commissioners was set up for the purpose of fixing rates. That commission hears evidence; it determines an issue and makes a report which has the effect of fixing a rate. To say that the government could hear evidence, determine issues and settle rates in as expeditious and satisfactory a manner shows, in my opinion, an entirety wrong conception of the situation.
In the same way the tariff board takes the place of the government in connection with many matters which have to be determined and which it would be impossible for ministers to hear. Details necessarily have to be considered and conclusions arrived at with respect to many questions. It is true that in the end the government must accept responsibility for the action taken. It has been the custom of responsible governments for many years, and it will continue to be their custom to devolve to certain organizations the duty of ascertaining facts and making reports in order that action may be taken.
In connection with the measure before the house at the present moment I cannot but feel that it is my duty to direct attention to the fact that it divides itself into two branches. It indicates that in some instances the commission to be appointed shall do so and so. "Shall" divides itself into two branches, one to make recommendations and the other to investigate. The third branch, that of administration, is not yet dealt with. If one looks carefully at section 6 he cannot but realize that it means that the recommendation of the commisison is to the minister. There is no reason why the minister, under the powers he has, should not employ one, two or half a dozen people to make reports upon most of the matters covered by this section, but to set up a commission with all the costly trappings that go with it 'is, in my judgment-I have said so frequently-unnecessary and unwise, having regard to the fact that the bill expires at the end of the year. On March 31, 1937, this commission will be functus officio unless
1774	COMMONS
Employment Commission-Mr. Bennett
it is provided by the measure that it shall continue to operate.
Seven people are to receive salaries, which will be a burden upon the taxpayers. These seven people constituted as a commission, a permanent organization for the period between now and March 31, 1937, can serve the purpose the minister has in mind, but could not a certain number of individuals delegated by the minister, serve the same purpose? The registrations that the minister seeks to obtain could have been obtained by the unemployment insurance commission. The minister himself has answered my question. In the evidence that he has given to this house based upon information received during his term of office, he has made it abundantly clear that it is quite possible to obtain all the necessary information without setting up a commission. Some of the new members might think that the figures he gave the other day were entirely new, but the fact is that they have been given from time to time in the reports of the ministers of labour and they will be found in the annual report of the minister. But I think we owe him a debt of gratitude for anticipating the report he would make by giving us now an indication of what the present situation is as compared with that as indicated by the reports of several ministers of labour during the last few years. He has indicated and proven beyond perad-venture that all the information statistically that was required he was capable of obtaining for himself. That, I think, is quite clear; we may take it as being established. Then, what reason does he give for the establishment of a commission? That is really the next point.. Having himself demonstrated by his own evidence that he is capable, with the machinery at his disposal, of securing the statistical information and the classification of the statistics that may be necessary for the purpose of efficient and effective control, he has then to give us adequate reasons why the commission should come into being. And that is all I desire to direct attention to because, as I say, the government has a mandate to set up a commission; the people have so declared and my duty is to yield to the will of the people so far as that is concerned, which I propose to do.
If we leave out the statistical side, the commission is to recommend to the minister conditions to be complied with by any province obtaining grants for relief purposes from the government of Canada. Now, that has been one of the rocks upon which the ship of state has had great difficulty during the last few years, and one can only give the house the benefit of one's own experience and observa-

tion. The truth is that when there is a sum of money to be utilized for relief purposes the provinces of this confederation have demanded that it should be divided among them ratably according to their population, whether we like it or not; and the right hon. gentleman, when he had to deal with the matter after he came into office, increased the monthly allowance by seventy-five per cent to all the provinces-Prince Edward Island and British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan

leaving out the extraordinary drought conditions- Quebec and Ontario; all shared equally in that division. Now, that division was not based upon population; that distribution was not arranged by population. But when you make a flat increase of that amount, without regard to needs or conditions, it illustrates the point I desire to make.
The first question that is pertinent to that is this: Is the minister to be bound by the recommendation? The answer obviously is no. Second, in making that recommendation as to what sums shall be given each province for relief purposes by the government of Canada, these seven men are in no better position, as the Prime Minister remarked with respect to another matter the other day, than is the government itself, because the government must adopt or refuse to adopt the recommendation of this commission with respect to the distribution of moneys for these purposes. What can they gain, by any effort that they may make, that a provincial government cannot supply this government with? We cannot go beyond the provincial government, because we cannot set up a commission here that can take from any provincial authority the exclusive powers they enjoy under section 92. If they agree and say: We will permit you to make an investigation, then they reserve to themselves the right to say: We will not accept this matter because you cannot set up a commission in the terms we have in this measure, which compel any province to be bound by the recommendation made.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I take it that my right hon. friend is aware of the fact that this particular function as assigned to the commission was recommended to be so assigned by the dominion-provincial conference in December last.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I was going to come to that at the end of the very few remarks I desire to make, but I will deal with it now. Could we have anything that better demonstrates the futility of that recommendation than we have had in the last few days?

Employment Commission-Mr. Bennett
When the stress and strain of a condition are imposed upon a province it must do its best for itself regardless of other considerations. Conditions in Alberta make that abundantly clear; the letter read by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) yesterday from British Columbia establishes it beyond question. That recommendation reminds me of a statement made by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Maybank) as to why there was a change in dealing with the problem of relief. Personally I have always been opposed to the dole as every hon. member knows, and as my personal friends know. But when the provinces were called into session, as they were every year before a relief act was passed, they unanimously determined that they must have direct relief, and abandoned the principles upon which they had proceeded. For during the years that are past we clung to the idea that this was a federal union and that, it being a federal union, we could not by any single act of ours destroy the authority and force of the word "exclusively" as applied to the power of legislative jurisdiction conferred upon the provinces. When the provinces, acting within their jurisdiction, took certain action, we could supplement that action only by grants in aid, and they determined unanimously, sitting together in conference with the federal government, that they desired a change, an entire alteration of the scheme; they desired that grants for direct relief should be given to them in order that they might give direct relief. That is what I was going to say a few minutes later with respect to the futility of relying upon any such recommendation as that which may be secured for the moment from a provincial conference. These gentlemen that came here were mostly premiers, except in one case. Every year before a relief act was placed upon the statute books of Canada there was a conference, and they determined, or at least they in conference with the federal government determined, what the legislation should be.
Now, I do point out that the effect of this commission is to add to the coach another wheel that cannot possibly in the end accomplish any purpose, for it cannot relieve the government of ultimate responsibility, nor can it confer upon the commission any power to deal with the provincial situation as it occurs and presents itself from time to time to the provincial authorities.
Then, the other subdivision is to recommend to the minister effective means of mobilizing the agencies of relief for the purpose of assisting the governments. Well, at the very start of this difficulty in Canada the
late Senator Robertson went from the Atlantic to the Pacific and saw the governments, saw the great railway corporations, saw the heads of industrial concerns, and the answer was a simple one:	We cannot conduct our
operations and lose money because we have taxes to pay to the municipalities and if we do not pay them the municipalities are unable to function. I know of many organizations in this country which during the last four years have continued to operate their plants without making any money whatever for their shareholders, because the} owed an obligation to those who were employed by them and, more, to the municipalities in which they existed in order that these might secure taxes with which to maintain in part the relief measures which they carried on.
The next point is the question of investigation. I am not going to do more than point out that these investigations are capable of being carried on without the setting up of the costly machinery of a commission. The investigation is followed by a report, and the report need or need not be adopted by the government. The result, therefore, is that so far as we are concerned we have the machinery of a commission set up for the purpose of making investigations and reports which are not binding upon anyone, but which merely supply the government with information that might, under existing legislation, be obtained by the government itself at any time by setting in motion the present machinery. That is the clear position with respect to that.
I am not going to do more than point out one more matter, and that is this. The commission does not control the expenditures, but it is said to control the supervision of the expenditures. How, under section 7, this commission is to supervise the expenditure of funds for purposes of relief and perform such administrative duties with respect to relief and employment as may be assigned to it by the governor in council, I cannot quite understand. That means that we have legislation by governor in council. It is that point to which I now direct attention. When I consider what transpired in this house during the last five years; when I direct the attention of members to Hansard to see the speeches made, for instance, by the then member for Kenora-Rainy River, Mr. Heenan, or the speeches made by the members for northern Ontario, as well as other parts of Canada, I invite them to ask themselves, having read those speeches, whether the government has any regard for consistency when it provides in this bill that no administrative powers
1776	COMMONS
Employment Commission-Mr. Bennett
shall be vested in this commission unless and until an order in council is passed to enable this to be done. That means legislation by order in council, which means that, regardless of the grant of power having been made by parliament, the governor in council, the executive, can determine by regulation and by order the extent of the powers to be exercised administratively by the commission thus set up.
I am not objecting to that provision in the sense that some hon. members may assume, because I have said time and again that in a period of depression the government necessarily must ask parliament to clothe it with power to meet emergencies, and so long as oarliament grants the power there is a valid jxercise of it if it is exercised within the limits of the powers so granted. But in section 7 we have the negation of all the speeches of the last four years. I ask new members of this house to read Hansard and see the attacks that were made unceasingly and unsparingly as to the usurpation of the powers of parliament, the talcing from parliament of its great functions and vesting them in a few men, or in one man, as members of the then opposition used to say. Now, what happens is that the commission is given power to "supervise" expenditure. No one knows just what that means, because it is powerless to control provincial governments with respect to matters except in so far as that control may be imposed as a condition, and that condition, we know, is one to which the provinces will not likely yield. Administrative duties are to be imposed upon this commission by the action of the governor in council. There is no limitation upon those broad words "administrative duties," and they are to be assigned by the governor in council, not by this parliament. How often have I heard my right hon. friend from this place thunder against the usurpation by the governor in council of the powers of parliament! Now, there is to be assigned to this commission such administrative duties-with all that word "administrative" means; with all that is involved in those great words "administrative duties"- as, not this parliament at all times, but as the governor in council may assign. That is the second point to which I desire to direct attention.
The third point is that this contemplates the setting up of a national advisory committee. Do I need to remind this house that the wheat act contained a provision for an advisory committee, and that it was swept out when this government came into office? They say that there was no obligation to appoint an advisory committee because the word was "may", which is merely permissive. Under this bill the governor in council may appoint

an advisory committee. Then all this talk about the advisory committee is in exactly the same position as that regarding the advisory committee under the wheat act; it depends entirely upon the attitude of mind that the government may adopt towards it at a particular moment. And this committee will extend its operations so that it is not the commission that sets up a department with respect to women or a department with respect to youth, but it is this advisory committee that there is no obligation on the part of this government to set up. So far as we may predict the future from the actions of the past we can only say that, having regard to what happened w'ith relation to the wheat board, this advisory committee will not be set up, on the ground that an advisory board is a fifth wheel to the coach, and does not help those who are charged with the responsibility as being members of the commission itself. That is the position to which I desire to direct attention.
The measure having received the endorsement of the people and being part of the mandate given to the government, it follows that I do not propose or suggest that any member of this house has a right to interpose his will against this legislation being placed on the statute books. But when it is being placed on the statute books it is my duty to point out that in so far as the figures and statistics are concerned, the anticipation of them, by the presentation of them to the house now rather than in a report at the end of the year, is highly commendable; and the form in which they were presented by the minister commands, I think, the commendation and admiration of every hon. member of this house. They were given to us lucidly and precisely, and there was no question about understanding exactly the implications of the figures themselves.
I do not think this is the time or the place to discuss what has been so often discussed in this chamber during the last four or five years. I could reverse the conditions for an hour or two, recalling that in the past the government of the day and I used to be pointed at by hon. members on the opposition benches and attacked for the sad neglect, the utter callousness to the condition of the country. the utter disregard of the sufferings of the people, of which we were supposed to be guilty. All this we will pass by. We will not yield to any one, even to the present administration, in our regard for the condition of the people. But I think it is my duty to point out that in so far as this commission is concerned it divides itself into the branches I have indicated, and no reasons have been given except those that should not prevail in parlia-

Employment Commission-Mr. Mackenzie King
ment, because there is a rule that forbids the introduction in these debates of opinions of those outside parliament. The reasons for this rule are obvious to every student of our institutions. You cannot introduce another member to the two hundred and forty-five who are now here, and when you express in these debates the opinion of this person or that person, stating that they have said that this is a good thing or that is a bad thing, this is entirely beside the question and contrary to the principles which in time past have governed and, I think, should continue to govern the discussion of public questions in this house.
When one deals with the broad question of what is the power of recommendation on the one hand and the power of investigation on the other, I think it is abundantly established that what we are doing is once more entrusting powers to the governor in council, and in this instance largely to the minister himself, to determine what action shall be taken in connection with the great problem with which the minister has to deal. The problem is his and that of the government. They sought authority to deal with it. They received a mandate from the people to deal with the problem and solve it. In their hands I leave it, because I believe the mandate of the people must be respected.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 29, for the relief of Sonya Shenk-man, otherwise known as Sadie Shenkman.- Mr. Factor.
Bill No. 30, for the relief of Louisa Mark-land Molson Blaiklock.-Mr. White.
Bill No. 31, for the relief of Rita Constance Beatrice Gurd Rylcert.-Mr. Lennard.
Bill No. 32, for the relief of Helen Elizabeth Ham Lilley-Mr. Davidson.
Bill No. 33, for the relief of Mary Kaydouh Massabky.

Mr. Hyndman.
Bill No. 34, for the relief of Dora Louise Gustiana York.-Mr. White.
Bill No. 35, for the relief of Violet Charlotte Dyke Duiven.

Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 36, for the relief of Irene Louise Penny McKee.-Mr. White.
Bill No. 37, for the relief of Esther Shapiro. -Mr. Lennard.
Bill No. 38, for the relief of Thomas John Howard Fox.-Mr. Lennard.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Hon. Mr. Rogers for the second reading of Bill No. 14, respecting the establishment of a national employment commission.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, I must thank the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) for having made clear to hon. members that in bringing forward this measure, the government is fulfilling an undertaking given to the country, and that it has a mandate for so doing. I have felt throughout the discussion that, if that could have been said at the beginning by my right hon. friend, possibly many hon. members would not have gone so far afield in criticizing the present measure. Whatever views we may entertain in this house with respect to the advantages of setting up a national commission to deal with the great question of employment and relief, there can be no doubt that the country, as a whole, has unmistakably expressed its view in favour of having that step taken. And it has done so after having had five years to observe the method of dealing with the problem which my right hon. friend, by his remarks this afternoon, apparently suggests should be continued. My right hon. friend has said, and so have a great many others of his party, as well as some of the members of other groups in the house, that there is no reason why the minister himself, with the staff which he has, should not be able to cope with the great problem of unemployment.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And the staff he could employ.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: And the staff
he could employ, yes. My right hon. friend had a perfectly free hand to employ a staff of any size during the five years that he was in office. During those five years the problem of unemployment not only maintained over the years the position which it occupied, when he came into office, and which according to my right hon. friend's statement was overwhelming at that time, but it increased continuously. Every year he continued the administration of government it became more and more overwhelming, until at the present time we have in Canada a problem with respect to unemployment and relief which is unparalleled. It has been demonstrated over a period of five years that a department of the government of itself is wholly incapable of dealing with this great problem. I submit the
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present administration would, to say the least, be derelict in its duty if it endeavoured simply to continue that which hon. gentlemen opposite found to be wholly inadequate.
Not only that; we of the Liberal party believed from the outset that the former government was making a very grave mistake in attempting to deal with this great problem as though it were just an ordinary question tvhich could be dealt with by a single department of government, as questions are dealt with in normal times. We pointed out at the very beginning of the last parliament that my right hon. friend would probably find, where he had to deal with different provinces and municipalities, on a question as baffling and perplexing as that of unemployment, that he would need the advice and assistance of some body which would be as representative as possible of all sections of the country, of all the interests in the country, and of all parties immediately affected. We stressed that at each succeeding session. But in part I imagine, because the suggestion came from the other side of the house, my right hon. friend did not think it should be accepted. He continued to go on seeking to deal with this problem through the medium of a single department. The people of Canada were naturally concerned at the manner in which their affairs were being managed. They were immediately interested in observing how public money was being spent. Each year they saw the expenditures on relief account mount ever higher. I venture to say that at the time of the general election, no single question contributed more effectively to the electorate reaching the emphatic decision it did than the manner in which the problem of unemployment had been handled in the preceding five years.
When the Liberal opposition put forward the view that a commission was necessary, we did so, amongst other reasons, because we had before us examples from the past, which we believed would appeal to the government and to the entire country. During the period of the war Canada found it necessary to deal with a question of relief. The country was faced with the problem of relief for the wives and dependents of those who were members of the forces overseas. Did the government of Sir Robert Borden at that time attempt to deal with the problem through a single department of government? Did the government say: Let the Department of Labour, and the minister at its head look after the dependents of those who are fighting overseas? Or did the government assign this duty to the Department of National Defence?

The government of the day did not adopt any such course. The government felt that conditions were exceptional and had to be met in an exceptional way. So there was established by act of parliament the Canadian Patriotic Fund, an organization incorporated under statute, the object of which was to deal with the administration of funds made available for the purpose of affording relief to the dependents of those who were on active service with the forces overseas.
The total amount of money expended by that corporation in the time it was in existence was about 850,000,000. The money was expended under the direction of the executive committee. I happened to be a member of the executive of the Canadian Patriotic Fund throughout the period of the war. I believe I attended practically every meeting of the executive in that period, and I saw a good deal of the way in which that great transaction was administered. I saw the advantages which came from having a committee on which there were men who could speak with knowledge, authority and experience respecting the conditions in all parts of the country. I saw, further, the great advantage of pooling knowledge and information in an effort to work out schemes which, on the one hand, most effectively would serve to provide relief, and, on the other, would perform another all-important duty of the state, namely that of being careful and economical in dealing with great sums of money whether obtained from public or private sources and the expenditure of which is in the nature of a trust.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The government had
nothing to do with it at all.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The government had everything to do with it. It introduced the bill incorporating the national patriotic fund; it had everything to do with determining the personnel of the executive and, as I have just indicated was responsible for its performing certain functions.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Except that the Minister of Finance was honorary treasurer.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend is now backing me up. He says that the Minister of Finance was honorary treasurer.


Richard Bedford Bennett: My right hon. friend said that the government had everything to do with it.

Employment Commission-Mr. Mackenzie King


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I might also
tell my right hon. friend that the auditor general of Canada was its auditor.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, honorary auditor.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Which was
something more than we had during the time my right hon. friend was spending hundreds of millions with respect to relief in Canada during the last five years.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I have no desire to interrupt, but the auditor general was auditor of every dollar of expenditure.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We have had that discussed before. Perhaps hon. members, who are interested, will look it up.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Exactly.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have in my hand the act incorporating the Canadian Patriotic Fund. I would ask hon. members to listen to the preamble and see if its very words might not be suitably substituted for some of those which appear in the present measure which relates to the much larger problem of relief as it is in Canada at the present time. It reads:
WThereas it is desirable to provide a fund for the assistance in case of need, of the wives, children and dependent relatives of officers and men, residents of Canada, who, during the present war, may be on active service with the naval and military forces of the British Empire and Great Britian's allies; and whereas money is now being raised for the said purpose, and it is desirable to provide for the administration of the same:	Therefore His
Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows-
Then follow the several provisions of the act. I say that the previous administration had before it this example of an effective method of dealing with a great question of relief. I venture to say that if something similar to this method, the one recommended by the opposition in each of the past five years, had been followed by the government of the day, the problem of unemployment and relief would not be anywhere near its present proportions, and expenditures would not have been at all what they have been during the past five years.
Turning to one of the clauses in the act I find this:
3. The objects of the corporation shall be to collect, administer and distribute the fund hereinbefore mentioned for the assistance in case of need of the wives, children and dependent relatives of officers and men, residents of Canada, who, during the present war, may be on active service with the naval and military forces of the British Empire and Great Britain's allies.
I call the attention of the house to the words "collect, administer and distribute." Hon. gentlemen opposite have been taking exception to provisions of this measure which, in some particulars, may have to do with the administration of relief. Yet both houses of the parliament of Canada, with respect to much smaller sums of money, at a time of emergency found this a desirable and necessary method of procedure. The record of the fund and of its administration is evidence of the effectiveness of this method of dealing with a great expenditure of the kind.
Turning to clause 7 I find this:
7. The corporation shall, subject to the provisions of this act, pay, apply or distribute to the best of its judgment, in such manner, among the persons entitled to share therein, and in such amounts, as in the absolute and uncontrolled discretion of the corporation seems proper or advisable; and the corporation shall take such means as it thinks necessary or advisable to ascertain who are entitled to share in the said fund, and to what extent and in what manner the persons entitled will be relieved by the corporation.
Did the previous administration ever make a similar provision with respect to the expenditure of relief moneys? Hon. members may search the record and they will find nowhere any provision which gave to the government of Canada powers to ascertain who were entitled to share in the relief payments, and to what extent and in what manner persons so entitled should be relieved.
I submit we have in what I have cited sufficient, not only to justify this parliament in taking the steps proposed, but to brand it as neglectful of its duty if, in the face of this very obvious precedent and example of an efficient method of handling a great relief problem, it should fail so to do.
Section 10 reads as follows:
On and from the 31st day of December, 1914, the accounts of the corporation shall be audited by the Auditor General of Canada, and a report of such audit with such further statement as seems proper, shall be published as the corporation directs; and the said auditor, or his successor in office, shall be the auditor of the corporation.
Under the late administration what did we have by way of a report from the auditor general of Canada as to how expenditures had been made with respect to relief?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Every account is audited before it is paid.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend is saying that every account was audited.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Before it was paid.
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William Lyon Mackenzie King: Towards the close of the last parliament, the auditor general had a few officials of his department go into some municipalities to see how public moneys were being spent. They presented reports to this parliament which, had they been gone into in any detail, would have aroused the censure of the entire country against the administration. The reports evidenced the greatest laxity. They evidenced one kind of scandal after another just because there had not been the proper or necessary supervision.
Now, may I ask what my right hon. friend said when we suggested there should be a commission along the lines proposed? He said that it would be an insult to the provinces to have anything of the kind done My right hon. friend sought to have the country believe that, in suggesting a national commission to supervise the expenditure of federal moneys, we were trying to invade the jurisdiction of the provinces. He stated, when it was suggested that the expenditure of federal money should be audited in detail, traced down, so to speak, from federal sources, that it would be an insult to the provinces even to suggest anything of the kind.


Richard Bedford Bennett: May I correct the right hon. gentleman?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Certainly.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What I said was that when we paid money to the province and got their receipt for it in accordance with the arrangements made, we could not follow the money and have an audit made.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend took great care to maintain the position that all he would do or seek to do, with respect to conserving public funds and seeing that they were economically administered and distributed, was to pay over lump sums to the provinces, inquire of the provinces as to whether or not they had received the money, and, when their receipt was given, say that, so far as the federal government was concerned, the transaction was ended. That is a straight statement of fact, and that is largely why we have such enormous sums expended in the last five years.
I wonder whether members of this house have any idea what is really represented by the sums of money already expended for relief. Perhaps a true perspective might be given if I draw the attention of the house to what in a given year the total expenditure of the Dominion of Canada amounts to. I am quite

right, I think, when I say that during the five years of my right hon. friend's administration S200,000,000, in round figures, was spent on relief and for the employment of those who were unemployed. This does not include either loans or guarantees which are still outstanding.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Does that include public
works?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, but not all public works; such public works as were undertaken to assist the provinces, but not public works provided for in special bills for the purpose of providing work-$200,000,000, as I say, in those five years. I have in my hand a statement by years of the receipts and expenditures of the Dominion of Canada. Those who are not familiar with them will perhaps be interested in knowing that $200,000.000, is more than the total expenditure of Canada in all branches of government in any single year prior to the fiscal year 1914-15, when Canada was in the war. That amount, spent alone for purposes of relief and providing work for the unemployed is, I repeat, more than the total expenditure of this dominion in any one year, prior to the fiscal year 1914-15. Will hon. members please give thought to that? Then consider that my right hon. friend says all expenditures on relief should be looked after by the Minister of Labour; that one minister should be responsible for all which relates to relief and unemployment ; that all the minister needs to enable him to perform the task is to engage one or two extra clerks or officials and have them make reports to him on different subjects. It all comes back, Mr. Speaker, to what I said to hon. gentlemen opposite, time and again, during the last parliament, that I did not think they even began to apprehend the magnitude of this problem, or to understand it at all. Had they ever comprehended its magnitude and what it was likely to amount to as the years went on, I cannot believe, for one minute, that they would have continued trying to deal with it through the agency of a single department of government.
My right hon. friend this afternoon gave a strong reason why that effort should not be attempted again. Having in mind what he believed to have been responsible for the breakdown of a former Minister of Labour, I often marvelled that he had continued the policy he did. Time and again he has made very touching reference to the late Senator Robertson having been a casualty of the depression. He was referring to the fact that the late Senator Robertson, as Minister of Labour, took this matter in hand when the problem

Employment Commission-Mr. Mackenzie King
of unemployment was developing, with the result, as we all know, that his life was really sacrificed through the strain and stress of the work and responsibility placed upon the shoulders of one man. Now, I ask members of this parliament: Do you wish to run the risk of a repetition of that sort of thing? The immediate successor of Senator Robertson as Minister of Labour left the problem pretty much alone. We never could get any information in this house from the last Minister of Labour of the late government on any aspect of the unemployment problem. When we sought to secure accurate statistical information, it was not available. The minister permitted the department and its work to slide along month after month, and year after year.
What I want to bring out at the moment is that anyone who understands this problem will realize that, no matter how able and efficient a minister may be, and how able and efficient his staff may be, no single department of government can begin to grapple with this question, as it has to be grappled with, in the light of its magnitude at the present time.
What was done at the time of the war as respects departments of government? They continued their regular work, but during the war the government of the day found it necessary to supplement their activities by establishing many commissions for one service after another. We had a purchasing commission, to make purchases necessary for war purposes. That work was not left to a single department of government. It was recognized that the whole business was so exceptional that the regular departments carrying on their ordinary work, even by extending their staffs, could not do, and were not suited for, the extraordinary demands of the war period. Then there was a food board established to deal with the matter of food supplies, a fuel board to deal with the supply of fuel, and a munitions board to deal with the purchase of munitions.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That was a British
commission.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: British, but
dealing with the purchase of munitions manufactured in Canada. During the period of the war there was a great demand for manufactured commodities. There was a great demand for foodstuffs. There was, as already mentioned, the National Patriotic Fund to look after the problem of relief. There was available sufficient money in circulation to give employment to everyone. And back of it all, there was the fervour and enthusiasm
of the people which had been raised to a high pitch of endeavour through appeals to patriotic purposes and aims. Yet, notwithstanding all this, the government of the day found it necessary to create additional bodies to carry on exceptional phases of the work connected with the war. To-day, when hundreds of thousands are unemployed, with little money in circulation, and when the countiy has passed through five years of depression, it is a very different thing altogether to get the several relief and other agencies of the nation working in cooperation on the problem of unemployment. The business of coordinating the national efforts in time of war is an easy task compared with that of coordinating efforts for providing relief and for supervising expenditures, in a time of great depression which has run on for year after year as this one has.
May I go a step further? The work of this commission falls largely into two main divisions, one which has to do more particularly with relief, and one which has to do more particularly with employment. I have mentioned how the parliament of the war period sought to deal with the question of relief. Let me now say a word about the question of providing employment.
Did the parliament of that day leave to the haphazard passing of orders in council, for all kinds of purposes, the provisions of ways and means to reestablish in civil life in this country the men who had been on active service overseas and who, as a consequence of their service abroad, found themselves out of employment when they returned? Did its members rely upon any existing department to get men back into employment? Did the Union government under Sir Robert Borden rely on the Department of Labour to reestablish in civil life those men who were without employment and who were returning from overseas, in numbers not at all comparable with the numbers of those out of employment to-day? What the government did was to create a new department of government altogether for purposes of reestablishment, organize a new department of government under a minister and deputy minister, to deal exclusively with the problem of reestablishing in civil life men who had served overseas.
I have before me a copy of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment Act. The act incorporating the Canadian Patriotic Fund, to which I have referred, was assented to on August 22, 1914, when the necessity of dealing with the great problem of relief arose at the beginning of the war. The Department of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment was created in
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1918, just at the close of the war when the men were beginning to come back to Canada and needed assistance in reestablishing themselves in civil life. Section 2 of this act reads:
There shall be a department of the government of Canada to be called the Department of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment over which the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment shall preside.
The minister shall hold office during pleasure, Hid shall have the management and direction af the department.
That department was created in spite of the fact that the Department of Labour was in existence at that very time.
Let me read one section of this bill. It will disclose that duties being assigned at the present time to the employment commission are not very different in some particulars from those which were assigned to the Department of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment. Power is given to make regulations covering hospitals, workshops and other institutions. The act further provides:
(e) for prescribing the payments, grants or allowances, if any, to be made to persons or their dependents whenever such persons are being cared for under the provisions of this
act, either by medical treatment, training or otherwise;
There are many sections I might quote, but I shall not take the time to do so now. The section I have read1 shows that it was found advisable to have a department to supervise grants being made to individuals. We in this parliament are making grants, not merely to individuals, but to provinces. We are making them, not in small sums but in millions and in hundreds of millions of dollars. But as yet there is no special department, there is no special agency, associated with the government, to supervise this vast expenditure of public money.
Let me repeat, at a time when the industries of the country were working at their maximum, when the demand for manufactured goods and the products of the farm was at its highest, when the whole country was organized for a vast national effort, it was found desirable and necessary to have two special enactments of parliament, one to deal with such relief as was necessary at that time, and the other to deal with the question of reestablishment, once the necessity for it arose. Surely after five years of experience, such as we have had in in this country during these years of depression, there is an obvious need for a body such as is proposed by this bill to deal with these two same problems of relief and re-establishment, which only under different conditions exist in infinitely greater 
magnitude to-day. The need is perfectly obvious.
The examples to which I just referred were repeatedly placed before the ministry of the day, but no heed was given to them. They wer-e subsequently in a general election placed before the country and the people of Canada approved them. With the problem what it is to-day, we cannot be too sure that even along with other measures, they will suffice to effect a solution, or that a solution will be achieved in the near future. We do believe, however, that, unless a step of this kind is taken, there will be no overtaking the problem at all.
I have very little comment to make with reference to what has been said by most hon. members in other parts of the house who are opposed to the government. Some have been critical towards the measure proposed by the government, I suppose because they feel it their duty to be critical. I have listened very carefully to the debate throughout. I have yet to discover a single suggestion from the other side of the house calculated to be helpful to the government in dealing with this great problem. A suggestion has been made by one group that socialism is the only cure. May I ask my hon. friends of that group-the member of the group who was perhaps foremost in putting forward the idea that something in the nature of a socialistic state was the only thing that would solve the unemployment problem has just come in-is it going to be possible, during the term of this parliament, to bring a socialist state into being? If it is not, wherein is it helpful to suggest that nothing short of the socialist state will solve the unemployment problem? Members of this house are here for a limited period of years to deal, among other things, with the problem of unemployment. The only suggestion that can be of value to the government or to the country during the next four or five years is something to which effect can be given during that period of time. Theories that proclaim, as an hon. member said this afternoon, something new and untried, cannot be helpful in the solution of our problems unless there is some prospect of their being put into effect within the next few years through the agency of this parliament. They must otherwise be treated as something put forward merely as a subject for academic discussion.
An exception I do take to criticism of some hon. gentlemen, is their assumption that this bill to establish a national employment commission is the government's entire program

Employment Commission-Mr. Mackenzie King
with respect to unemployment and relief. Some members have stated that, within the four corners of this bill, they cannot find a solution of the problem. My hon. friend, to whom I referred a moment ago, was one of those who said that very thing. I want to speak particularly to him because he is an older member of parliament, and knows better. He knows that he should not expect to find within the four corners of this bill the things which he has said he cannot find there. He knows very well that, if he had looked at the order paper, he would have found reference to other measures to be adopted for the purpose of providing relief and employment.
My hon. friend and other hon. members have said that they could not see any provision for money in this bill. Apparently that is all most hon. members are looking for, something that is going to lead to expenditures of vast sums of money. In the last five years a great deal of money has been spent, but parliament has had very little to say about the expenditure; it has practically all been spent under the blank cheque authority taken from parliament by the administration of the day. This government does not propose to proceed in that way. We propose, with respect to whatever moneys are to be spent, to ask parliament to appropriate the moneys for the specific purposes for which they are to be used. That is why there is nothing in the proposed enactments which this government has brought down in the nature of a 'blank cheque or blanket authority to legislate by order in council.
To appreciate aright the government's policy in dealing with relief and unemployment, there are three enactments which have to be considered together. There is, first, the one which relates to this national employment commission. Second, there is the one, to which I have just referred, which has to do with assistance in the relief of unemployment, the promoting of agricultural settlement and rehabilitation, and the development, conservation and improvement of certain natural and other resources. That bill we shall take up immediately we have concluded with this particular measure. Third, there is a supply bill in the form of special supplementary estimates, which will set forth the various projects for which the house will be asked to vote the necessary moneys. The government hopes to combine in one bill the amounts which will be required for these purposes over and above the sums required to meet the ordinary expenditures of government. We
do not propose to lessen the ordinary expenditures of government in any particular because indirectly they may have a bearing upon employment and relief. The various departments will make out their estimates in the usual way. In fact, they have done so already, and these estimates have been presented to parliament. Where, however, additional work is to be provided in connection with the various existing departments of government, or by means of grants to the provinces, or in connection with special public works or other activities, the details will be set forth in a supply bill which will enable hon. members and the country to see what the cost of reliei and the furnishing of work for the unemployed is likely to be in the course of the year.
I hope that the special supply bill will be brought down before the Easter recess. Perhaps I may say at once that, when it does come down, the total appropriation requested for purposes of relief and for providing employment will be seen to amount to over 850,000,000. Let me impress upon hon. members the significance of this sum. In doing so, I would ask hon. members which, in their opinion, is the correct course to follow with respect to the expenditure and the supervision of that vast sum of money, the one suggested by the leader of the opposition, or the one proposed by the government. The leader of the opposition and the hon. gentlemen who sit beside him advocate that the Minister of Labour should see to the proper supervision of the expenditure of these moneys; they contend that the department of Labour alone is all that is needed for the performance of this task. We maintain that, while all departments of government will have to do their full duty, there will have to be, in addition thereto, a body such as we propose to constitute; a National Employment Commission, which will survey and supervise the whole problem of unemployment and relief, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, as it relates not only to the expenditure of money by this government, but to expenditures by the provinces, the municipalities and private agencies as well.
To show what 850,000,000 really signifies, I should like to point out that the total expenditure of the dominion government for the fiscal year 1878, at the time Sir John A. Macdonald's government succeeded that of Alexander Mackenzie, amounted to a little over 830,000,000. When the Liberal government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier came into office in 1896 the total annual expenditure of the federal government was less than this sum of 850,000,000 which
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Employment Commission-Mr. Mackenzie King
we propose as an extra or special supplementary estimate, exclusively to help deal with the problem of unemployment as it exists at the present time. In 1896 the total expenditure of the Dominion of Canada amounted to $44,000,000. Properly to administer and supervise that expenditure required the attention of all the departments, the auditor general and every agency of government. Now the leader of the opposition says: Let the Minister of Labour do it. If we desire to be totally indifferent to the expenditure of the money of the people, that is the method to follow. If, however, we have any sense of trusteeship whatever, the time has come when we must check up and see what is becoming of the moneys expended for these purposes. May I go a step farther. This $50,000,000 constitutes only the contribution of the federal government towards the solution of the problem. A corresponding amount, or something approximating it, will have to be paid out by the provinces as well as additional amounts by the municipalities. You cannot separate the three in estimating the cost to the country of relief in Canada to-day. The people of Canada have to pay the bill whether it is paid out of the moneys of the municipalities, of the provinces or of the dominion. The people of Canada will never know the cost of relief until there is some agency to bring together in one report the expenditures of all the agencies involved, government and private alike, nor will there be any substantial lessening in the amounts until they know the manner in which all the different agencies are supervising their expenditures and carrying out the works for which the expenditures are being made. That is one of the main purposes of this commission, and I venture to say that no agency other than a body such as we suggest can possibly carry it out.
Reference has been made to the powers and duties of the commission. Let me ask hon. members to look again at these powers and see whether, in the first place they are right, and whether in the second place, they could be properly carried out by any body other than the one I have named. Many hon. members have spoken as though the purpose of the commission were solely to gather statistics. It is not fair to make a statement of that kind; that is only one of its purposes. They have talked as though the commission will be there simply to study. If that is the only contribution to be made to the discussion it would, I submit, be much better if some members devoted their time to studying, instead of discussing,

the subject under consideration. Certainly the national registration and classification of persons on relief form but one of the duties of the commission. The Minister of Labour and his department have done a quite exceptional bit of work in showing, in the absence of any [DOT]satisfactory data during the past five years, that it is possible to get together statistics helpful to this parliament as well as to the provincial governments and the municipalities in. dealing with the problem. But the department has only begun to gather a fragment of what is necessary if we are to know the true effect and inwardness of the unemployment situation.
Take the second of the powers and duties of the commission as set forth:
Recommend to the minister conditions to be complied with by any province obtaining grants for relief purposes from the government of Canada.
Is it not advisable to have attached to the moneys that are being voted by this federal parliament conditions which shall govern their expenditure? How is it going to be possible to estimate accurately what the conditions should be unless you have some organization which has power to supervise the manner in which the various provinces expend the federal money which is granted to them? What can the Minister of Labour or any minister of the crown in Ottawa know of the manner in which expenditures are being made in the maritime provinces, in Quebec, in Ontario, in the prairie provinces, in British Columbia? It is impossible for any minister of the crown, or any department of the government here at Ottawa to undertake to secure that information. What is needed is a body, such as this commission will be, which will be comprised of representatives from different parts of Canada and which will have a staff organized for the purpose of securing full particulars with respect to these matters.
Take the next duty mentioned:
Recommend to the minister effective means of mobilizing the agencies for relief both state and voluntary, and so coordinating their work as to avoid overlapping and abuses, and to secure proper provision and auditing of expenditures of all moneys.
Are these not necessary and proper duties? If they are, is it possible to have them performed in a period of so-called emergency by any agency of government other than one such as it is proposed to constitute under this bill? A national commission will be in a position, not only to supervise the expenditure of federal moneys or relief, but to get in touch with all of the provinces, and where

Employment Commission-Mr. Mackenzie King
it is necessary, with municipalities as well, to inquire into their methods of administration and expenditure, and, as far as possible, draw up plans and suggestions which will enable the work to be effectively coordinated and supervised from one end of Canada to the other.
Then take the next:
Investigate and report upon proposals for the carrying out of programs of public works and other projects to aid in providing employment.
We have been voting money for public works for the last five years, but has there been any definite plan, any definite scheme? Has there been any effort to ascertain whether the federal government was duplicating the work of the provinces or municipalities, or whether the various projects were in accordance with the greatest needs of the municipality or the province or the dominion itself? There has been no concerted effort to see that the most effective use was being made of the moneys expended.
Take the next:
Recommend to the minister measures with respect to programs of public works and projects of the dominion, the provinces, the municipalities, and other agencies, intended to aid in providing employment in a manner which will serve to mobilize and coordinate their activities.
I come back again to the amount of money that has been spent by the federal government-8200,000,000 in the last five years. Repeat that for the provinces, another $200,000,000; and put down another $100,000,000, if you like, for the municipalities. That is something like $500,000,000. I think that is about 8400,000.000 less than was calculated by one hon. member as having been spent by these three agencies combined. Does any one say that, if there had been a national commission, which had carefully planned projects essential to the development of the country, with a great sum such as $500,000,000 at its disposal, we should not have had something to show in Canada, as a result of that expenditure, at the end of five years? But what have we to-day?
Can you point to any national program, anything in the nature of coordination of the work of the dominion, the provinces and the municipalities along useful and necessary lines? Where can you point to a program of work duly outlined which, all will admit, will have to be done at some time, and which might be done effectively to-day when public monejs are available for the purpose, and done in a manner which will not only serve to give employment but which will also
render to the state a service that is essential? You cannot do so, simply because we have not had the proper agency to formulate such a program.
Take the next provision:
Investigate and report to the minister on measures of cooperation with commercial and industrial groups in devising means under which provision may be made for the maintenance and increase of employment.
Is this great problem of furnishing employment and providing relief to be left for all time to the agency of the state alone? Are we to educate the people of this country- I am afraid that has already been done and for too long a time-to look exclusively to the state for employment or for relief? It is going to be a very serious business for this country if we go on in this way. Unless we discover private agencies which will help solve this problem, and unless we can coordinate their effort and bring it into relation with the efforts of the state, there will be no solution at any time of the unemployment problem.
Take the next:
Investigate and report to the minister upon plans for the establishment of an apprenticeship system in industry;
Investigate and report upon ways and means of providing employment for disabled persons, and cooperate with the veterans' assistance commission in its efforts to secure suitable employment for ex-soldiers.
I think I may leave those sections to speak for themselves.
Let me come to the next:
Recommend to the minister comprehensive measures constituting a long-range plan of national development which may be proceeded with or discontinued from time to time as conditions may determine.
Is that not a very desirable step? I heard an hon. member speak this afternoon of the advisability of a national plan. One phase of a national plan would be to have the dominion, the provinces and the municipalities enter at this time upon the execution of obviously essential national projects. This would not only effect the completion of the projects themselves, but provide honourable and remunerative employment to citizens of Canada who for the time being find it im possible to obtain employment in private industry.
Finally:
To take such steps with the approval of the minister to ensure such publicity as in the opinion of the commission may be necessary to enable it effectively to discharge its powers and duties.
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I wonder what would be said of a department of the federal government, particularly the Department of Labour, if it were to attempt by means of publicity to bring to light obvious abuses, rackets, overlapping and the like with respect to public expenditures made by municipalities or by any of the provinces or by the dominion. And yet,, may I ask members of the house: Have the past five years not taught us the necessity of something of the kind if we are ever to overcome this problem of relief and unemployment? For my part, I cannot see how some of the abuses which have arisen are to be remedied except through the agency of publicity. We heard a good deal in the last session of parliament about the power of publicity to remedy evils. Certainly I have been one of those who have always thought that there were some evils which publicity is much more effective in curing than penalty. Particularly are social wrongs and social frauds in this category. It is not the business of a department of government which has its own work to do, to attempt this task. But the fact is some agency will have to attempt it if we are to secure a solution of this question.
These are all part of the powers and duties of the commission. I think I am right in saying that hon. members generally realize they are essential duties, which can be performed only by some supplementary agency, such as the one I have indicated.
In proposing the appointment of a national commission there is no attempt to find a substitute for the work of government departments. This body is not intended to relieve the government of any legitimate responsibility. The government will continue to have its responsibility with regard to the solution of the problem. The government departments will continue to carry on the work of administration just as largely as it can possibly be carried on. But the departments will have the benefit, and the government itself will have the benefit of getting, from a body such as this, advice and information which will be a helpful guide and which will prevent much in the way of overlapping and waste in the expenditure of public moneys.
Something was said this afternoon about the desirability of moneys being spent for housing, for reforestation and reclaiming of land, about the desirability of spending money to clear slums and the like, in addition to providing for the more usual type of public works. Well, that is the very kind of work this commission is intended to

further. In order that there may be no chance for anyone to assume or to say that this is an afterthought, as a result of the discussion, I should like to read to hon. members what I said over the radio in an address delivered on August 5 of last year, during the course of the general election campaign, as to the functions and duties of the proposed commission. I shall quote but a small part:
The program to which a national commission would be asked, by a Liberal government, especially to direct its attention, with a view to ensuring cooperative effort, would include necessary projects already commenced or previously undertaken, such as: essential public works, buildings and municipal improvements; the extension and improvement of highways, and the elimination of level crossings; the provision of airway facilities and ground services; large scale schemes of afforestation, aimed, amongst other things, at preventing those conditions of drought and soil drifting which follow upon the absence or wholesale destruction of tree life. Equally important is the preservation, in more ways than one, of what we now have of natural beauty itself and also of forest wealth.
I believe the country would welcome, above all else, a comprehensive scheme of urban and rural improvements. Such a scheme would appropriately include the clearance of slum areas, housing programs, the repair and painting of buildings and fences, both in the cities and the country; and, of scenic development, which would serve to make of Canada a country second to none for tourists, and to afford to the people as a whole fuller opportunities of recreation and the enjoyment of natural beauty. Indeed, all projects might readily be made to contribute to these ends. The interests of tourists and the enjoyment of our citizens generally could, for example, be promoted by making many a highway into a tree-way, and by making accessible, and improving the approaches, to areas of great natural beauty. The development of our national parks might well be supplemented by the creation of a larger number of smaller parks. Much of national importance might also be accomplished by the preservation of historic sites, residences and monuments, and the beautification of their surroundings.
All this could be worked out by the commission as part of a long-range scheme of national development, to be proceeded with or discontinued, from time to time, as conditions might determine. The employment which it would serve to create would be all in the nature of constructive work. Comprehensive measures of the kind would serve to increase the social capital of the country as distinct from its private capital. It would improve and beautify our country. Moreover, it is work which would appeal to the imagination, and which should arouse the interest and enthusiasm of those who may be assigned to it.
I submit that this is a constructive program of national development, in the truest sense

Employment Commission-Mr. Mackenzie King
of the word. We have to vote these vast sums of money; 850,000,000 will be voted in the course of a few days in this house. Why not spend that $50,000,000 in a manner which, while providing work for those who are unemployed, at the same time will create for the state great social assets as distinct from its private capital? Thousands of men, who are unemployed, owing to circumstances over which neither they nor the state itself have any control at present, may in this way, be made to feel that they are employed as citizens of the state and, in the truest sense of the word, are helping to build a greater Canada?
In order to emphasize the immediate necessity of a body such as this, I should like to direct attention to what has taken place in this city and in this province within the immediate past, if, indeed, not at the present time. Shortly after the administration came into office, with a view to helping the municipalities during the winter months, we increased the grants in aid to the provinces by seventy-five per cent for the months of December, January, February, and March. That was a rather large increase. We had to make the best estimate we could of the requirements of the situation. Fortunately a dominion-provincial conference had been held and we had been able to ascertain, at first hand from the premiers of the different provinces and the provincial treasurers and other members of their governments, what was necessary to enable them and the municipalities to meet their requirements during the winter months. In passing let	me not forget to say that the
complete answer to my right hon. friend's contention, that the provinces would not consent to any degree of federal supervision of relief activities, lies in the fact that every province in Canada endorsed the idea of a national commission and offered to cooperate with it when established. As I say, we had the advice, the information and the knowledge which came to us through the week's discussions on this question with the members of the governments of the different provinces. We subsequently increased the grants in aid by seventy-five per cent.
It would have been a very fortunate thing for all concerned had there been a national commission at work during the past few years, appointed if you like by my right hon. friend, to which we could have gone, before deciding what particular percentage of increase should have been made in the way of relief grants to the different provinces. When I say "we," I 12739-114
mean the federal government as the trustee of the people of Canada with respect to their moneys. We and the provinces would have been in a better position in deciding upon the adequate amounts, which are in the nature of trust funds, if there had been some body which could have given us advice on the actual situation, based upon information gathered from day to day and from month to month, to say nothing of from year to year. There was, however, no such body, and we had to do the best we could. I think we made, from the point of view of the federal government-I am speaking not of our government, but rather of this parliament-a very generous grant to the provinces. We made it clear, at the time, that the grant was for the purpose of meeting the situation in the winter months when there was bound to be less employment and more in the way of distress and need for relief than in other months of the year. We made it clear at the same time that the extra grant was for these four months only, and that at the end of the period we might have to revert to the previous arrangements. Some days ago the government was faced with the question of what it was wisest to do considering that the four months had nearly passed. Had we followed the course, indicated as a possibility, of reverting to the amount granted to the provinces, when we came into office, we would have notified them of a cut of seventy-five per cent. We discussed the matter for some time and concluded that, as we had not yet had an opportunity to give to some of these problems the study we should, and as we did not have a commission to advise us or any independent source of information, it would not be advisable to run the risk of making a cut which might embarrass the provinces or the municipalities. Instead, then, of making a cut of seventy-five per cent, or fifty per cent, or twenty-five per cent, we indicated that for the month of April there would be a cut of only fifteen per cent, and probably a further cut in a subsequent month.
To-day the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) asked a question of the government with respect to that fifteen per cent cut; it was, I think, as to whether or not the municipalities are to be allowed to suffer. We have received representations from one or two provincial governments to the effect that they are already embarrassed because there is a fifteen per cent cut. Who is to decide as between the municipalities, the provinces and ourselves as to what is right and just and fair in regard to such matters?

17S8	COMMONS
Employment Commission-Mr. Mackenzie King
It is not our money to do with as we please, but money which belongs to the people of this country, for whom we are trustees. You cannot leave a question of this magnitude to the Minister of Labour. You cannot leave it to any department of the federal government. It must be a part of the duties of a commission in which the provinces, municipalities and dominion alike will have reason to have confidence. They are all equally interested; the municipalities and the provinces, like the dominion government, are interested in avoiding waste of public money. They will be quick to recognize that a body such as the one proposed is the only kind of organization which can go in and effectively size up the situation.
That is what has happened to-day. A similar situation may arise every month, and possibly every month for one, two or three years, depending very much upon how the matter is handled in the meantime. Which course will bring us nearer a solution of the problem following the method which has been adopted in Canada for the last five years, namely leaving it to the attention of one minister of the crown, or taking the course we now propose, the establishment of an organization which can give information not only to parliament but to the provinces, municipalities, private agencies and the press?
Take the case of this very city of Ottawa: What have we heard in Ottawa during the winter? We have heard that a grant made to the province of Ontario to be passed on to the municipalities, had not been so passed on. The city of Ottawa has been complaining that it has not received what it should have received out of the increased federal grant. Who is to decide that question? Can the Minister of Labour settle it, as between city and province? Can any body connected with the federal government undertake that particular task? If a matter affecting municipal, provincial and dominion funds is to be dealt with satisfactorily, it is essential that the party who deals with it be above all, but not part of, any one of these particular entities. That is why we need a commission of this kind to assist in the distribution of outlays and in the supervision of expenditures.
I shall not take up more of the time of the house, but I hope I have made it clear that, in the course the government is pursuing, it is simply carrying out the policy whieh we advocated five years ago, and which we have advocated ever since, year in and year out in the House of Commons. That policy was

placed before the public in the general elections, and it received the endorsation of the people of Canada. It is a policy based not upon mere theory, but upon practice which has proved to be an effective and helpful method of administration of public funds in a time of great national emergency. Above all, the plan developed is one which, we believe, will help to solve the problem of unemployment and to meet the needs of relief. It is one which is essentially constructive in its bearing on many projects essential to the future needs of Canada. Whether it will succeed or not, no one can say; as a plan for effecting a nation-wide cooperative effort in providing employment and administering relief, it is as practical as anything which could possibly be suggested. The degree to which it will succeed will depend very largely upon the support it receives from hon. members in this chamber. The government will welcome all in the way of criticism so long as it is fair and just, but may I venture to suggest that each member of the House of Commons, in seeking to . aid in a solution of this emergency situation, in some ways the greatest with which this country has been faced at any time, and which may grow to proportions the like of which none of us can comprehend, will do well to realize that his first and chief obligation is to make constructive suggestions or to conclude that for the time .being at least it may be equally helpful to remain silent.


Mr. W. A. WALSH (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, it was not my intention, having been incapacitated for the greater part of the week, to take part in the debate, but after listening to the progress of the debate to-day I feel it my duty to say at least a few words concerning the measure.
I was sorry indeed to hear the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) suggest that the measure introduced by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) had not received fair criticism and treatment from all quarters of the house. I do not think the Minister of Labour would say amen to a suggestion of that kind. I have listened to the debates which have taken place and that part of it which developed to-day, and I must say that as yet in this chamber I have never heard a debate carried on on a higher plane and with more constructive criticism or more sympathy for the measure as introduced than the debate to which I have listened to-day and which, during my absence, I followed in Hansard.	.

Employment Commission-Mr. Walsh
Before he took his seat the Prime Minister asked in what body the municipalities or provinces would have confidence if they did not have a commission of this kind. May I ask the right hon. gentleman whether the provinces or the municipalities have lost confidence in the present government? Is it necessary to establish a buffer state between the government and the municipalities and provinces in order to protect the government from the abuse which may follow legislation of this sort? I leave that question with other hon. members.
It is not my intention to assist in making the measure a political football, nor is it my intention to thrust into the political arena so important a problem. I decry any possibility of that kind. I am afraid, however, that as hon. members read and compare the speeches of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) and the Prime Minister, they will readily see who is leading this great problem into the realm of politics and who is trying to keep it out of politics. It would be most unfortunate if this bill and the whole question of unemployment became a political issue, in the regular sense and meaning of the term. This would not do the country any good and certainly it would not ease matters for those who during the next few years may be dependent upon a measure of this kind.
During the course of his observations the Prime Minister mentioned other commissions which had been established in the past. I suggest to the house that the examples he used were those of commissions established to deal with matters pertaining to the federal field and the federal field only. The body set up to handle soldiers' civil reestablishment was handling a federal matter, and a separate and distinct department was built up to assist those thousands and thousands of men returning to Canada to reestablish themselves in this, their homeland. That was a federal matter and had nothing to do with the provinces or the municipalities. I suggest to the Prime Minister that the other examples to which he referred were of a similar kind and were not analogous to the commission under discussion.


William Allen Walsh: I mean to say that the member mean to say that the problem of the relief of the unemployed is not a federal matter?


William Allen Walsh: I mean to say that the
problem of relief and unemployment is a matter belonging to the federal government, the provinces and the municipalities, and is quite different from the problem of civil 12739-lMJ
reestablishment of soldiers, which is altogether a federal matter.
I do not want the Minister of Labour or anyone else in this house to think for one minute that I am opposing this measure as such. I am in favour of any measure that is going to help us in any way to get out of the present depression, but there are certain features of this measure that I do not like. As I have mentioned already on many occasions in this chamber, I am radically opposed to the appointment of commissions. I am absolutely opposed to a commission form of government. To my mind we have already twice too many commissions. I am reminded by the remarks made by my hon. friend from Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill) when the estimates for the fisheries department were under consideration, and he described in his own inimitable way how the appointment of a snow-shoveler would very often lead to the creation of a department of snow shoveling. I suggest that this measure is another step of that sort. It is proposed that a commission handle this problem. Five years from now, Mr. Speaker, I venture to say that you will hardly recognize this commission that is to be appointed, for it will be surrounded by a staff greater, I dare say, than that which the minister now has under his command in the department. I am afraid of commissions; I do not like commissions. They have a peculiar way of building round themselves a sort of wall of protection behind which they smugly sit and compile figures and issue statements and booklets, and consider that they are doing a real man's job.
There is another feature of the debate I do not like, and the Prime Minister will excuse my taking exception to it, being a new member of this house. I do not like this constant reference to what has been or has not been done during the past five years.


An hon. MEMBER:: No wonder.


William Allen Walsh: If we could only bring a representative gathering from each of our constituencies and have them sit and listen in this house for one week I dare say there would be very few of us returned at the next election.


Mr. REID:: Speak for yourself.


William Allen Walsh: I shall be here when other members are gone and forgotten. No one need worry about my presence in this chamber, for as long as I want to be here I shall be here.


Thomas Reid: Give him a trumpet.


William Allen Walsh: When I first entered this house, Mr. Speaker, there was naturally in
1790	COMMONS
Employment Commission-Mr. Walsh
the early part of the session much gloating over the victory that had been won in October, 1935. The reason for that victory was given during the early part of the session as being the immense popularity of the Prime Minister. The reason now given for the victory is the immense popularity of the employment commission that was promised to the electorate throughout this dominion. I assume we can take our choice as to why the election went as it did. I have it figured out in my own mind that no matter what government had been in power in the last five years they were due for a defeat, and a really good defeat. No government, be it Liberal or Conservative, could have gone through what this country had to go through for the five years from 1930 to 1935 and expect to receive approval from the electorate of the Dominion of Canada, and I suggest to this Liberal government, strongly entrenched as they are in power at the present time, that if they have to go through a similar period of depression to that which the Conservative government went through in the last five years they are going to meet the same Waterloo in 1939 or 1940.
We have heard in this house much reference to the causes of the depression and to the need for a measure of this kind. This measure is the suggestion of the Minister of Labour after looking at the situation as it now exists. I want to say in all fairness to him that I have read the speech he delivered on the second reading of this bill, and I do not think any hon. member could take exception to the remarks he made on that occasion. I think he is seriously making an effort to establish something that will help him solve this problem of unemployment. The only difference between the Minister of Labour and myself is that I have more confidence in him and his department, and in his ability to organize and reorganize his department, than he has himself. He wants to turn over the work of the Department of Labour in this particular field to a commission. As I look over the record of the Department of Labour prior to 1930 I hardly think it was an overworked department. I feel that the present Minister of Labour would be quite competent to handle this situation if he had not been tied by an election promise that had been made and that must be carried out. I feel that he could engage sufficiently competent assistants to render the establishment of this commission unnecessary, and in that way curb the expenditures that are bound to arise through a measure of this nature.
(Mr. Walsh.]
One can picture the appointments to this commission. Of course, the appointments are to be non-political. No politicians or nearpoliticians need apply. The commissioners are to be gathered together here in Ottawa; then they are going to proceed to collect statistics and compile and publish all that information, and then they are going to proceed to act upon it. Now, why could not that be done by officials in the Department of Labour? Why could there not be a committee formed in the department to do that self-same work, instead of adding to the burdens of the department by giving it another body with which to deal? The only reason I can see for the appointment of a commission of this kind is that it may act as a buffer state between the government and those who are seeking aid and relief in connection with unemployment m this dominion. That is the only reason I can see, and I do not like political manoeuvres and appointments of that sort. I think any government in power should take full, absolute and complete responsibility for their actions, and not place themselves in a position to say: We have nothing to do with the matter; here is the commission; you must go to them, and if they do not do as you would like them to dio, we are very sorry but we cannot assist you in any way; blame the commission; we have nothing to do with the matter; we did all we could but the commission would not act as we would like them to do.
I do not think the Minister of Labour when he was teaching-and by the way the Prime Minister did make me feel at home in the house to-night when he suggested that members should go back to their rooms and do a little studying before coming here to speak; he did make me feel that I was back in the lecture theatre and in the classroom once more-I do not think the Minister of Labour when he was propounding his economic theories and studying this question from the point of view of a professor of economics at Queen's university found the same solution for the problem as he is finding to-day as Minister of Labour. I think the solution he found as professor of economics at Queen's would be a better one to put into effect than the one that he is urging this house to adopt at the present time.
During the course of his remarks the Prime Minister suggested that the government in power during the past five years had done little or nothing; that they had done a tremendous amount of manoeuvring but actually had accomplished nothing; that they did

Employment Commission-Mr. Walsh
not even recognize the full significance of the condition as it existed. I do not think he was really sincere when he made that statement. I do not think any government would stay in power five years and treat * this question just as a paltry addition to the worries of government. There is no man in Canada, be he Liberal or Conservative; there is no member of this house who does not recognize the proportions of the problem with which we have to deal. When the Prime Minister suggests that the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) and his supporters did not realize the stupendous task that was ahead of them, I feel he is making a statement not borne out by the facts. The previous government did recognize the problem and they made a serious effort to combat it. That effort was not in line with what is suggested now, but it should not be suggested that they were un-Canadian enough to neglect the problem of unemployment and leave it to shift and drift to a possible conclusion by the coming in of better times. They did their work and did it well, and many members of that government broke down their health in their efforts to deal with the unemployment situation. They made mistakes, but who does not make mistakes? The only person who does not make a mistake is the one who sits back and does nothing. They made a lot of mistakes, but I do not mind seeing a man making mistakes if in the end he gets somewhere and accomplishes something. It is only by making mistakes that we get anywhere or accomplish anything in this world.
We cannot analyze the cause of this depression. It is no worse in Canada than it is anywhere else, and as far as I can see we are in a better position than that of most countries of the world. Our position is not as good at the present time as that of Great Britain, but it is better than that of most other countries. In my estimation something was done during the past five years. If it did not accomplish a great deal, it at least put us into the position in which we find ourselves to-day. That condition was not aggravated as it would have been had nothing been done. I do not want to suggest, as did the Prime Minister that the government of 1930-35 were responsible in any way for the depression. I do not want to suggest that the Liberal government from 1929-30 were responsible for the depression, although they did not recognize that it existed during those years. They were in no way to blame for it. To my mind the real cause of the depression is industry. I have tried to analyze this picture and as far as I can see, industry itself is to blame. We
enjoyed a tremendous period of expansion from 1921 to 1928 and the dividend and profit seekers are primarily responsible for the condition in which we find ourselves to-day. They took the soul out of business. There was a time when I could apprentice my boy to the corner grocery, when I could have him learn a trade and then start him up in a profitable business in some corner of a new suburb; at one time there were prospects for our .boys, but there are none to-day.
We must readjust our thinking to the conditions as we find them to-day. Great industries have taken the soul out of business. They have forgotten the human element. Just as we forget the human element in business, so did we plunge down and down into the depths of the depression until we found ourselves where we are to-day. If these profits which these people were making had been properly applied during the heyday of our commercial existence, we would not be talking about measures such as the one we have before us to-night. It is because of the exploitation of the commercial and industrial life of our country by many of the so-called financiers that we find ourselves in our present condition. They have taken the soul out of business. They have forgotten that which our forefathers knew when they established1 themselves in business fifty, sixty or a hundred* years ago; they have forgotten the import of that question which we hear so frequently in Sabbath sermons, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Too many business men have eliminated that thought from their code of ethics and the man who works in industry is now the forgotten quantity. The result is that he is bearing the load of the depression, not the business leaders and the financiers. As a result of the conditions that both governments have allowed to grow up around us the very life-blood has been sapped from the economic and industrial life of our communities.
As I said when I commenced my speech, I am not opposing this measure although I do' not agree with certain features in it. It will go through this house, but I assure the Minister of Labour that after it does go through, everything done by this commission will have my heartiest support. After this discussion is through I believe that all hon. members should get behind the Minister of Labour and give him their moral support. In standing by him we are standing by our country and we can help ourselves out of this depression by such an attitude. I want to emphasize again that this problem of unemployment should be kept out of the realm of politics. Once it gets into politics we are sunk. I want
Employment Commission

to leave that thought with the Minister of Labour. I am with him one hundred per cent, but I would rather he would strike out the clause appointing a commission and assume full responsibility himself. He could reorganize his department and do this work more effectively and more efficiently than any commission.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee on the bill, Mr. Ward in the chair.
Sections 1 and 2 agreed to.
On section 3-Commission constituted.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I move that between the words "consisting of" and the word "seven" in line 5 there be inserted the words "not more than" so that the section will read:
There shall be a commission to be called the national employment commission, consisting of not more than seven members ...


Richard Bedford Bennett: That answers the question I was about to ask the minister, as to why the number was seven.


Mr. STIRLING:: What will guide the government in the choice of the commissioners? Will any notice be taken of geography or of occupation, or in what way will they choose the commissioners?


Norman McLeod Rogers: It is the desire of the government in selecting the personnel of the commission to have in mind as a primary consideration the qualifications of the men who will serve on the commission to deal with particular aspects of the problem of unemployment and relief. It will, however, be desirable to keep in mind also the regional aspect of the problem. It has been proved by experience that there are certain phases of the problem which attach themselves to certain sections of the country, and we have had in view that this commission shall be representative in the widest sense of the word both geographically and, if I may use the term, occupationally.


Grote Stirling: Does the minister anticipate that they will travel or will they spend most of their time in Ottawa and examine the situation at long distance?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I should think that the commission would carry out its investigations partly upon the basis of movements through the country as occasion might require, but very largely upon the basis of information which they would be able to obtain and assemble here in Ottawa, as it is provided in the legislation itself that the head office shall be in this city.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Will the minister tell us something about the particular qualifications of the commissioners? Will they all have the same qualifications or will their qualifications vary according to experience, background and so on? Will they be able to discuss matters with industry proposed as an inducement to industry to give more employment?


Norman McLeod Rogers: As my hon. friend is aware, the personnel of the commission has not yet been announced, although I can safely say-


Mr. SPENCE:: You have lots of applications.


Norman McLeod Rogers: There has been no lack of applications and in many cases they have come from men who have offered to serve voluntarily in this time of grave emergency. So far as qualifications are concerned, I have already made some reference to that in answering another question. Obviously it will be desirable to secure as members of the commission some men who are intimately identified with the industrial life of the country. We have that very much in view. It will also be desirable to secure as members of the commission those who have had a close relationship with the relief problem. I do not know that it is possible to go beyond that at this time. I can assure my hon. friend that these are the two considerations which shall guide us in selecting the personnel of the commission and these considerations obviously have a relation to the two problems that will confront the commission, the great problem of reemployment, which involves the closest kind of continuing cooperation with industry and commerce, and the problem of relief which is of a somewhat different order and which has never existed before in its present dimensions in this country.


Mr. STEWART:: Inasmuch as it is sought to secure the cooperation of the provinces, and there being nine of them in the dominion, I think it is essential that in work of this kind the provinces should be consulted. This has been the policy in the past, and what was done in the way of relief in the past was done very largely upon the initiation and with the recommendation and approval of the provinces. Reference has been made to a change of policy from works to direct contribution. That was done after a meeting of the premiers of the different provinces was held and upon their recommendation. Now, it is proposed to appoint a commission which seeks to secure the cooperation, approval and good will of the provinces. Will the provinces be consulted? Will they have any-

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thing to say in connection with the appointment of these commissioners, or will the municipalities or any organization other than simply the governor in council be consulted?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The provinces, by their unanimous approval of the proposal to establish a national employment commission, as indicated at the dominion-provincial conference on December 6, have made it clear that they regard the establishment of this commission as a move in the right direction. They did not ask then and have not asked prior to this time to have any voice in the selection of the personnel of the commission, and I am quite sure that my hon. friend will appreciate the difficulty of going beyond the provinces, as he has suggested, to the municipalities and consulting the municipalities as to the selection of the personnel. Clearly this is a matter which will have to be determined by the governor in council. This national employment commission is being set up not by legislation of the provinces but by legislation of the dominion parliament. It is designed to secure and, I trust, will secure, by virtue not of its personnel but of its functions, the cooperation of the provinces and the municipalities.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: We have been told that at the recent conference there was the utmost harmony between the dominion and the provinces with regard to what was agreed upon. Very shortly after the conference broke up there came from different sources indications that everything was not quite so harmonious, and some of the suggestions that were said to have been adopted unanimously are now being repudiated. I do not suggest that all the municipalities could be consulted, but I am sure that some of the municipalities, the larger cities that have had to deal with this problem and have been close to it through all these years, could give the minister some very helpful information and possibly provide one or two appointees to the commission who would be found very useful.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I can assure my hon. friend that we shall take an extremely liberal view-


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is what we thought.


Norman McLeod Rogers: -in considering this question.


Mr. BRADETTE:: What is meant by fees in subsection 3 of section 3?


Richard Bedford Bennett: We have not reached
that yet.


The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Ward):: We will
come to that clause later.


Mr. MAYBANK:: Has the Minister of
Labour considered the desirability of having a representative of labour among the seven? I should like to impress my own view, which is entirely in line with announcements made from time to time by the right hon. the Prime Minister, that on all such bodies labour should be represented.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That matter has also received consideration. I think there are obvious reasons why there should be upon this commission some one who has had a close relationship with the labour movement in Canada. I might even go further and 6ay that the government welcomes the suggestions which have been made in the house this evening with respect to the manner in which the personnel of this commission should be determined. Our desire is that it shall be so selected as to perform most efficiently the functions that we propose to entrust to it.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Has the minister figured out a possible amount to include in the supplementary estimates for the operating of this commission?


Richard Bedford Bennett: That comes later.


Norman McLeod Rogers: An amount will be included in the special supplementary estimates to cover the administration costs of this commission.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I just checked over the
costs of seven of the commissions of the federal government, as they are outlined in the estimates for 1936-37, and I note that they average approximately $250,000 apiece, I assume that that is for office staff, motor cars and all the other appurtenances, travelling expenses and so forth, that are connected with a commission. So that if this commission is to run on a par with the others I assume the vote will be around $250,000.


An hon. MEMBER:: All of that.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That is just for office
staff, motor cars, travelling expenses and so forth.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am going to ask the
minister what he considers to be the qualifications of these members. This commission, in large degree, either succeeds or fails on its personnel. I know when the hon. minister said that he would take an extremely liberal view of the question, he did not mean that in a political sense.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Not in a political sense
at all.

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Richard Bedford Bennett: I quite appreciate that.
But the real point is that if this is to be a political commission it cannot possibly succeed. I should like to have some indication of the hon. gentleman's views as to what he considers to be the qualifications for a com-missionership in- this particular commission.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I thought I had dealt with that question before, but possibly I have not done so adequately. There are two problems which confront the commission, the problem of employment and the problem of relief. As is indicated in the bill itself, we hope to secure the effective cooperation of industry and commerce throughout the country in our measures for expanding employment. Obviously it would be desirable that among the members of the commission should be men who have been closely identified with the industrial and commercial life of Canada. We hope and believe that we shall be able to secure men of outstanding ability who will serve upon that commission as representatives, so to speak, of the industrial and commercial life of the dominion. We also hope to secure as members of the commission those who have had a close relationship during these past few years with problems of relief administration and labour problems generally.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Does the minister think
it would be well, in view of the relief feature which he has spoken about, to have a lady member of the commission? During all these years there have been organizations of women who have been very helpful in social services of this kind. I should think the minister might get some help from one qualified through the experience gained, as he suggests, from association with this work, and such an appointment would give the commission some strength.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That matter has also received consideration and will be further considered when the personnel is selected. As my hon. friend can understand, we have not thought it desirable to provide specifically for representation on the commission either of labour or of the women of Canada.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I hope the minister
will find within the confines of Canada all the commissioners he needs.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I have no doubt on that
score.


Mr. MacNEIL:: Inasmuch as the bill indicates that the commission will give special attention to the problems of physically handicapped ex-servicemen, may I ask whether the minister has considered the appointment to the commission of an ex-service man having

a thorough understanding of that problem? I need not remind him that this is an important phase of ithe work confronting the commission, or that, with reference to the question there should be appointed men who have an understanding of the difficulties involved in the problems of handicapped exservice men.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I think I can answer my
hon. friend by referring to a later section under which this commission is to cooperate with the veterans' assistance commission in its efforts to secure suitable employment for exsoldiers. As my hon. friend is aware, legislation is now before a committee of the house which is designed to set up that veterans' assistance commission.


Mr. McIVOR:: There are large groups of
men and women in Canada who are accustomed to deal in a commonsense way with many knotty questions relating to athletics. Anybody who will not give weight to the influence of athletics in our great country is, I think, lacking in- common sense, because all over Canada athletics are cutting a great figure in moulding the life of our citizens, and members of their executives show remarkable wisdom and judgment. I think the Minister of Labour would do well, in selecting the commission, to choose from some of these men who, first, have been through the mill and know how to play the game fairly, and who also have served in the capacity of executives. I do not doubt but that the minister, who knows the value of trained minds, whether in women or men, will have a lady on this commission. As to the cost of the commission, I was just wondering whether the Prime Minister had not in mind the setting up of this commission when, at the first, he did not have as many ministers of the crown as formerly.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I think that if the commission are going to deal with "knotty" problems it would be very unwise to have a lady member.


Grote Stirling: The Prime Minister indicated earlier this evening that the work which the government will require of this commission will be most varied, and one of its duties, I think I understood him to say, would be to discover the extent of the expenditures already incurred by provinces and municipalities throughout Canada. I was surprised to hear him say that, because I had supposed that in the minister's own department there was considerable, if not conclusive, evidence of what that expenditure was. What I would like to know is: In what way will this commission

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be in a better position to acquire that knowledge, if it is not now there, than would the officers of his department? During the past four or five years the minister's officials have travelled through the nine provinces of Canada and been in touch with each of the provincial governments. There have been dominion-provincial conferences continually; agreements have been arrived at between the dominion and the provinces; I am surprised that there is a lack of information in regard to work which is being carried on for this purpose throughout Canada, and I would like to know how the commission will be able to do what the department apparently has not been able to do.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I do not find among the functions of the commission that which has just been suggested by my hon. friend. The securing of such information might very well relate to some of the specific functions to be entrusted to the commission. It is quite true that the Department of Labour through the unemployment relief branch does receive information respecting expenditures in the various provinces, but I think I arn correct in saying that we have not complete and comprehensive information respecting the detail of expenditures in the provinces and municipalities. When the dominion government was contributing upon a pro rata basis of thirty-three and a third per cent to the provinces there was more occasion to obtain that information in detail, but since that policy was changed in 1934 to a system of grants in aid we are not in the same position to obtain information respecting expenditures by provinces and municipalities. It is obviously desirable that we should have that information; and that it should be placed before the national employment commission in its study of the feasibility of public works programs and where particular projects of public works might usefully be prosecuted.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I listened with great
interest to what was said by the hon. gentleman in that regard, as well as by the Prime Minister. The difficulty is this:	Does a
commission set up under the circumstances indicated in this measure hope to be able to displace the elected representatives of the people in a municipality? If the municipality elects a mayor and board of aldermen and sanctions expenditures, and assistance is given to it by the dominion through the province, is it suggested that the commission is to analyze those expenditures? That is what the last observation of the hon. gentleman would lead one to conclude. If his statement
is to be taken in the terms in which it is made this commission is really to displace the representatives of the electors of the community in determining the desirability of expenditures in that locality. It means that if it means anything.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Certainly I had no intention of leaving that impression. What I intended to say, and what I think I did say, is that it would be desirable that this national employment commission should assemble information respecting expenditures upon relief works by municipalities and provinces throughout the dominion, and that the assembling of that information has an obvious relationship to the study and investigation of further programs of public works to which the dominion government might be asked to contribute. That is all I had in mind.


Richard Bedford Bennett: But that has always been done. As long as there was undertaken by a municipality a public work to which the dominion contributed, under the terms of the agreement made with the provinces the vouchers were actually filed with the province for those expenditures, and the province in turn sent the vouchers to Ottawa. I explained the other day that there was not a single payment that ever left the auditor generals' office under the relief acts that did not carry pre-audit with two initials on it of the auditor's own staff, and the signature of some person representing the provincial government and that of some person representing the municipality. All that information is available here. Whether it is all sorted and sifted out I cannot say, but I know the report made by the ministers preceding the hon. gentleman indicated the expenditures made by the municipalities and provinces and the extent of the contribution by this government. But it was believed, rightly or wrongly, by the provincial representatives-I emphasize that -that that form of dealing with these matters was not the best, having regard to their limited financial resources, and therefore grants in aid were made which were indeed continued by the present government, and increased by seventy-five per cent as the Prime Minister said. The provinces then undertook the allocation of these moneys to the communities in question, and the communities in question were responsible to the provincial authorities for the expenditures thus authorized and for the allocations made. That information is and has been open to the minister. As a matter of fact the bureau of statistics also receives full information in respect to these matters. It wifi be remembered that under the act relating to the bureau of statistics they have
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wide powers, and they kept closely in touch with the municipalities for the purpose of obtaining information in respect to these matters. What gives me concern is: What is the commission going to do that is not already being done and has been done during the years past so long as expenditures went on by joint effort of municipalities, provinces and the dominion, or sums were granted by the dominion to the provinces, to enable them to carry on works and undertakings productive of employment?
Take for instance the matter of level crossings, or subways to overcome the danger of level crossings. That was dealt with by special provision at the last session of parliament, in addition to what had been done previously. It was found, of course, that the number of people employed in such undertakings was much smaller than it was believed would be the case, and on the basis of the reports received no effort was made to expand that class of work because it did not give employment to a sufficient number of people having regard to the great expenditure involved. In Hamilton, for example, and in other places the conditions to which I have referred were encountered, and were in part being dealt with under a statute passed by this parliament many years ago, whereby a sum of money was set aside to deal with the level crossing danger and appropriations were made available through the railway commission to assist municipalities to deal with the problem. Now, I cannot see that the commission is to add anything to that situation with respect to expenditures on public works carried out by the municipalities.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I sought to make it clear a moment ago that when the dominion government was contributing thirty-three and a third per cent of the total relief expenditures, the provinces thirty-three and a third per cent, and the municipalities thirty-three and a third per cent, there was an obvious necessity for our obtaining complete information respecting provincial and municipal expenditures.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is done by the department now.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes; it is there available, but since the change from a percentage contribution to grants in aid there has not been the same necessity for obtaining that information. I suggested that it was obviously desirable that that information should be collected and analyzed by a national employment commission in connection with its study of relief works and its examination of the utility of particular types of works in relation to employment and so on.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Surely any province that comes to the dominion for a grant of money would not withhold from the minister any information for which he might ask. If it did, the minister could very easily deal with the situation; the grant would not be made. As long as parliament makes a grant in aid it may ask for the fulfilment of any conditions it likes in connection with that grant. The provinces are just as much interested as is the dominion; I am sure that if asked for information they would readily furnish it, and if they did not the remedy is in the hands of the dominion.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Quite so.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Then, why have a commission to go out and collect such information?


Norman McLeod Rogers: If my hon. friend will permit me to remind him, there is in the functions entrusted to the commission nothing which relates to the collection of this particular type of information. The point has come into debate incidentally, as it were. I have tried to afford an explanation with the information now available, and have tried to indicate the value attached to the securing of the information.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I did not grasp the significance of the answer made by the minister to the question asked by the leader of the opposition in reference to subways.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I do not think I gave any answer to that question.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I did not hear what the minister said, then. I thought he mentioned subways.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I might say that the legislation under which grants were made for the elimination of level crossings-


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am aware of that, but I did not get the minister's reply. I now understand that he did not make one. In view of that fact, can he tell the committee how the commission will take on a subway problem now handled by the railway commissioners, who deal with subways?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The administration of legislation under which grants are made for the elimination of level crossings comes under the Department of Railways and Canals, and does not come directly under the Department of Labour. In recent years, however, the amount granted has been increased because it appeared to be a useful method of providing relief work. I do not think any one will question the fact that from the standpoint of social utility much can be said for increasing

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the number of subways and the avoidance of level crossings. There is in the bill, however, no suggestion that the national employment commission would in future deal with the expenditure of such funds. It might very well consider the feasibility of continuing or enlarging that particular type of expenditure for relief work.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Then I should like to ask the Prime Minister to what he was referring when he suggested, if I understood him correctly, that the commission would have something to do with the elimination of level crossings.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think the minister has made it quite clear that so far as the government is concerned, it will continue to do the class of work it has done in the past. The commission in making its surveys of all the work being done throughout the dominion will take account of what the dominion is doing, what the provinces are doing and what the municipalities are doing. It will seek to coordinate that work. As the minister has just indicated, in connection with a project such as the elimination of level crossings the commission might deem it advisable to emphasize the necessity for increasing that phase of the work and restricting work in some other direction. It might suggest that the use of an equivalent amount of money in some other particular manner might be more profitable. In its functions the commission will be advisory and supervisory, rather than administrative. Here and there in connection with its work there may be administrative functions which it might be obviously desirable to have discharged by the commission. Enough power is being given under the measure to permit of this-but not to enable the whole business of relief to be carried on by order in council, as the leader of the opposition would have hon. members believe. The commission may be granted administrative powers to a limited extent and in the circumstances I believe this will appeal to the committee as being reasonable.


Mr. BETTS:: The minister said something
about labour being represented on the commission, but I did not hear his observations fully. Will labour be represented on the commission?


Norman McLeod Rogers: My statement was that we were fully aware of the interest of organized labour in the national employment commission, and we are giving careful consideration to the suggestion that a representative of organized labour should become a member of the commission.


Frederick Cronyn Betts: Will the minister agree with me when I state that no class in the country is as greatly interested in the operation of the commission as are the working men.


Norman McLeod Rogers: In what I said this evening I tried to make that very clear.


Mr. BEAUBIER:: Will farmers be represented on the commission?


Norman McLeod Rogers: As the hon. member is
aware, at the present time the general problem of relief includes relief in the dried out areas in western Canada and in addition, as hon. members will recall, a considerable number of farmers on relief in other provinces. In selecting the personnel of the commission I said that we would have regard for geographical and occupational considerations, and on both grounds I should think it probable that the farming population would be represented on the commission.
There is, however, a special organization, concerned exclusively with farming problems, operating in the rehabilitation area. It may be contended that the whole question of agricultural relief is for the time being at any rate an aspect of the larger relief problem. If I may mention the matter here, when I spoke on the second reading of the bill I had intended to segregate the problem of farm relief. I think we ought to recognize that it has certain features peculiar to it. In the strict sense of the term, conditions in agriculture are not due to industrial dislocation. One might say that in the main these conditions are due to a series of droughts in western Canada.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And soil erosion.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes, and soil erosion. We are justified at any rate in stating that they are due to climatic disturbances or causes quite distinct from those which operate to produce industrial unemployment. For that reason we may hope that this portion, of the problem may be liquidated even before we are able to make as great progress with the industrial phase of the relief problem.
I believe I understand the interest of the hon. member in the agriculture aspect of the larger problem of relief and unemployment. Some one has said quite properly that one cannot very well speak of the people in the dried out areas as being unemployed. In the strict sense of the term they are not unemployed.


Richard Bedford Bennett: They are just idle.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Well, I would not even
say that they are idle, certainly not at this season of the year.
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Richard Bedford Bennett: That is correct.


David Wilson Beaubier: Is the government carrying on in the western dried out areas the conservation plan as outlined by the late government?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes, that is being proceeded with.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: I readily understand that it is impossible to have all parts of the country and all sections of the community represented on the commission of seven, but I should like to urge that in some way special attention be given to having actual representation of the large number of people now unemployed. I do not know how that can best be effected. In almost every province there are unemployed associations. I think in some way the commission should undertake to see to it that the actual needs of those unemployed are given careful consideration. It is one thing to speak from the standpoint of a large industrialist or some of our leading commercial men, but it is another thing to speak from the experience of the actual struggles of the unemployed, and the people on relief. That aspect of the matter ought to receive careful consideration.


Thomas Langton Church: Under section 3 subsection 1 we are evidently going to have a sort of glorified cabinet, to start off with. When we think of the 130,000,000 people on the other side of the line with only one relief administrator, Mr. Hopkins, for all the states in that great union, we realize that we are starting off very badly, in a year of economy, when we proceed to appoint seven commissioners. For arbitrations, only three commissioners are required, and that is ample. We do not want a glorified supreme court travelling all over this country. What sort of example of economy would it be to the unemployed to hire seven commissioners when three are enough? The more I study this bill the more it seems to me to be purely academic. It will create no jobs and give no relief. There will be a chairman appointed, a vicechairman, and I suppose, a deputy chairman. Just wait till you see it next year. Just wait till you see how this commission has grown and branched out in every province. This is one way to create jobs all right, for seven commissioners and a large staff, while the unemployed are walking the streets to-day still looking for jobs with the first of May coming on. Why, in Toronto the administration of relief for the whole city of 650,000 people is in the hands of one man. He runs the whole thing, reports to the board of control and council, and they give him the 
money. If one man can run the whole business of relief in a city of that size, why do we need seven commissioners? We are commissioned to death. It would be far better to appoint only one commissioner, but with seven commissioners we shall have them sitting round a table like a board of directors; there will be voting, and the majority are going to rule. I fail to see how the government can justify this expenditure.
In the old country some of their most important work is entrusted to one man. In this country we had one man operating the whole of the Canadian National Railways from coast to coast, and the ocean services as well, but to hand out relief on standard specifications we must have a glorified supreme court passing votes of so much money for coal, so much for this and so much for that, and I suppose the provinces and the municipalities will have their branches of the commission too. It looks to me as if the constitution of Canada was being turned upside down. The more I study this problem the more I am convinced that it would be better to appoint one man, instead of seven commissioners who will sit round a table like the directors of the Canada Life or of some bank. We would get better administration and greater economy if we appointed one man instead of seven, who will be Liberals, first, last and all the time.


Mr. FINN:: I am surprised at the remarks of hon. gentlemen opposite, including the hon. gentleman whom I spent most of my time complimenting the other night, and I am going to compliment him again to-night because I said that I would do so the next time I spoke. Hon. gentlemen opposite are assuming with regard to this legislation a role which is not quite becoming.
I have in my hand the expenditures in my own constituency of Halifax for the year 1934-35, and I am amazed-indeed, if that word could be magnified a thousand times it could not express my feelings at what I see in this report-and I am going to ask a question of the ex-Minister of Public Works (Mr. Stewart) who has been interjecting remarks and suggestions as to the personnel of this commission. The Minister of Labour stated that the commission would be composed of representatives of industry and labour and those best acquainted with problems of unemployment and industry to help the government and parliament in putting people back into employment.
As I was saying, the expenditures to which I referred were for the year 1934-35 in my constituency. Everybody knows that it was

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thought that the election would be brought on in 1934 or early in 1935, and when the election finally came on, it was very much like the election that was brought on in 1896, when the bell of Canada had to ring and that gentleman who has passed to that bourne from which no traveller returns, Sir Charles Tupper, had to leave this chamber because, under the constitution, parliament had automatically dissolved, so he walked out and met his Waterloo at the hands of the people and Sir Wilfrid Laurier succeeded him as Prime Minister. On October 14 last the leader of the Liberal party (Mr. Mackenzie King) came in as Prime Minister of this country, and the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett), for whom I have the greatest respect, took in this house the seat that was formerly occupied by the present Prime Minister.
Turning to this report for the year 1934-35, I find that $1,182,000 was spent in the constituency of Halifax.


William John Ward: I must
call the hon. member to order. We are dealing with subsection 1 of section 3 of the bill.


Robert Emmett Finn: Mr. Chairman, very considerable latitude was allowed to hon. gentlemen opposite, but I will put what I have to say in the form of a question to the ex-Minister of Public Works. I find by this report that there was paid to a gentleman, an architect, in Halifax, out of relief money that was voted by this parliament for the purpose of giving relief to the unemployed, no less a sum than $30,516.65. The people of Halifax, of Nova Scotia and of Canada, I am sure, would be amazed that an architect should receive that amount out of moneys voted for relief. I ask what he did to earn that $30,000 when there were homes in which there was not a bushel of coal and not a fire burning, in which children had to remain in their beds to keep warm, and in which people had hardly enough to eat. If hon. gentlemen opposite mean what they say, and they want to keep commissions from being of a political character, surely they should have practised when in office what they are preaching to-day. The present Prime Minister entered the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier as Minister of Labour; his life has been devoted to the welfare of the working classes, and if he had been in office I do not think this sum of $30,000 would have been paid out of relief moneys to an architect for his services in one year. I would like to know what he did to earn this amount. Prior to March 21 this architect
was paid $30,516.55, and there has not been that much money spent on the public building in Halifax over which he had control. One must come into court with clean hands, and hon. members opposite should remember this when they criticize the Minister of Labour and the government for their attempts to deal with this gigantic problem. The Prime Minister has been honest enough to tell the house that it may be next year, the year following or even four years before the country will be able to get out of this dilemma. When the leader of the opposition and hon. gentlemen associated with him assume that they are the trustees of the public treasury of this country, I ask them how they can justify that assumption when about $10,000 was spent in a little hole in a port about sixteen miles from Dartmouth to take out a few boulders. This is implemented and supplemented by item after item of expenditure on the eve of the election.
I will go even further and say that not one person who needed food or fuel in his home was put to work. Any man given work was put on solely because he was a Tory and because he and his friends were going to support hon,. gentlemen opposite. I would not have made this Statement to-night had it not been for the continuous attack on the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour. As far as the Prime Minister is concerned, he has a good memory, but he did not go quite so far as my hon. friend who the other day paid me a compliment, whioh I return to-night, as promised.
These figures amount to $1,182,030.56 and they are available to any hon. member who desires them. If that .money had been honestly expended or given to the people in Halifax city and county who really needed it, it would have more than taken care of all the distress of all people, irrespective of party, in Halifax county. There was as much distress when they were through spending as there was before. If this is true, I ask hon. gentlemen opposite whether they are serious in their criticism? Are they fair to a government that is desirous of doing its duty to the people, of carrying out its public trust? It has been asked whether politics are to enter into this question. I submit that in connection with these items nothing but politics entered into the matter. The cheques were issued by those who were in politics and in charge of the great spending departments of this country.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: The hon. member for
Halifax (Mr. Finn) has wandered a bit afield from the section we are discussing. He has delivered a sort of mild lecture-
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Robert Emmett Finn: Too mild.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: -to the members of this house-


Robert Emmett Finn: Not to the house, to the hon. members of the opposition.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: -as to their rights and
privileges. He seems to be objecting to expenditures that were made in the county of Halifax under the Public Works Construction Act. I do not know to what he is referring but-
Mr. FINN; I do not want to interrupt my hon. friend, but I want to say that these architect's fees were paid in connection with the federal building being built in Halifax. So far there are only a few pieces of iron sticking up and looking at the sky. Nobody could get work on that building unless he was a good Tory. I put several Conservatives on and I have been blamed for doing so.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I thank my hon. friend for the information because it gives me something with which to start. He objects to the expenditure of $30,000 for architect's fees in connection with a very fine public building to be erected in the city of Halifax.


Robert Emmett Finn: That has not yet been completed, but the fees are paid..


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Before you start a building you generally have the plans completed. Owing to the slackness in the construction industry architects' associations all over the country made representations to the late government that they were suffering from unemployment.


Robert Emmett Finn: They certainly stopped suffering when they got that.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: The policy was adopted- I want to know if my hon. friend objects to it-of commissioning architects in different parts of the dominion to prepare plans instead of having them prepared here in Ottawa by the staff. In this way employment was furnished and relief was given to that particular type of unemployment. The commission allowed to this architect was less than the standard commission allowed by the architects' associations. As I recollect it, the commission was five per cent. When you employ an architect to design a building the size of the public building in Halifax, the money paid in fees does not all go to one man. He must have a staff of draughtsmen, and I venture to say that from twenty-five to thirty people were given employment in connection with the preparation of those plans. My hon. friend makes some-complaint in connection with em-

ployment, but let me say to him that tenders were invited and the contract awarded to the lowest tenderer.


Robert Emmett Finn: To the Foundation Company of Montreal.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I do not recall.


Robert Emmett Finn: The hon. member does not recall? I will remind him that Mr. Victor Drury is a Tory and a great friend of the former Prime Minister, who, I see, has left the chamber.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: That is all right, but the firm that got it was the lowest tenderer. That is what I am saying and I ask my hon. friend whether he claims that any other course should be followed.


Robert Emmett Finn: No. The former Minister of Public Works has asked me a question and I will answer him by asking him why he authorized and paid $30,000 when the building was hardly started. If Mr. Dumaresq were to drop dead to-morrow, from what source would the money be returned?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: All I have to say to my hon. friend is that plans are prepared before a building is started and the architect is entitled to a certain proportion of his fees as the work progresses. Whatever amount he was paid he earned and was entitled to on the basis of his contract. If anything happened to him his plans and specifications would be available and the work he did would not perish with him. I cannot understand, therefore, what the hon. gentleman is driving at.


James Houston Spence: I assume that this commission will be appointed regardless of anything I may say. I am absolutely opposed to a commission because I dread another spendu ing department. However, we are in the minority and I suppose we have to submit; we cannot do any more kicking. But I certainly. always dread further expenditures in connection with salaries and that sort of thing. Has the minister considered what percentage of the money that is to be voted for relief will be used in administration, investigations, travelling expenses and so on. I know something about the welfare department in Toronto and the number of investigators and I know that every now and then some unnecessary person is appointed. I am afraid that the situation will be the same in this case. I hope that economy will be studied everywhere if the commission is appointed. I am afraid that a large percentage of the money that should go to relief will be used to employ people who do not need employment.

Employment Commission


Norman McLeod Rogers: I appreciate the importance of my hon. friend's observations. It would be impossible in advance for me to give an estimate of the proportion which the expenditures of this commission would bear to the total expenditures made by the dominion for relief purposes. I recollect that an answer was given to a question some weeks ago indicating that so far as administrative expenses of the Department of Labour are concerned they bear an exceedingly small relationship to the total expenditures on relief. I fully understand the importance of economy in connection with the commission, and I realize the danger of setting up a self-perpetuating and self-expanding organization. This government takes the responsibility for recommending this means of dealing with the unemployment problem and obviously we must also take the responsibility for the expenditures incurred in relation to the results obtained.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Will the commission have power to initiate expenditures?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Any expenditures in connection with the commission must be approved by the governor in council, and the amount made available for the administration of the commission will be included in the special supplementary estimates to be passed by parliament.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I am not referring particularly to the administration of the commission; I am referring to any expenditures that might be incurred in connection with public works. I understood from what the Prime Minister said that the commission would not have such a power, and therefore the statements made by some hon. members are evidently not well founded, because if the commission has no right to expend public funds it cannot become a spending body in the narrow sense of the word; it is more or less an advisory body to make recommendations. The cabinet in the final analysis and parliament subsequently will, I assume, be responsible for all expenditures incurred in relief.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is correct.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Beaubier) referred to another commission appointed a short time ago, a conservation commission, of which I understand a former member of parliament has been appointed chairman, to deal with conservation in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. In what way will this employment commission Cooperate with the commission referred to by the hon. member for Brandon?


Mr. GARDINER:: The minister has asked me to answer that question in view of the fact that the work referred to is being conducted under the Department of Agriculture. The committee that was established last year, which might be regarded as a form of commission, is being done away with and the matter is now to be administered under Mr. Vallanee, as indicated a moment ago. We are cutting down the staff for the very reason mentioned by the hon. member for Parkdale (Mr. Spence). The overhead costs were so great under the system set up that we have decided to cut down considerably on the staff to see that more money shall go to expenditure on the land itself rather than to office upkeep.
Mr. MacNICOL. I endorse anything in that direction, but I should like to know how the employment commission will cooperate with the committee to which the Minister of Agriculture has just referred.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The employment commission will have under its supervision all aspects of relief work throughout the country and will seek to coordinate these activities, whether they are under one department or another. As it happens, this work that is being done in the rehabilitation area is under the Department of Agriculture and not the Department of Labour.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That is a point that
has given me great concern since this bill was introduced, namely, possible duplication. On the one hand we have an employment commission and on the other we have a committee or commission in connection with rehabilitation in the western provinces. If the latter is going to have a staff and the former as well is going to have a staff, then we shall be faced with the very situation that I have been fearing right along, namely, duplication.


James Garfield Gardiner: The rehabilitation work is.not relief work in the strict sense. It is a matter of re-seeding lands that have been blown out, and providing water in places where dams can be constructed. It is not relief work in the sense that has been suggested; it is simply to assist farmers in reestablishing themselves on lands that have been affected in recent years by drought.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I understood that the
employment commission would have some connection with the work to which the Minister of Agriculture has referred.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: All these have to be coordinated.
Employment Commission


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is not relief in the strict sense of the word. At the same time we do include among those who are on relief those who are in the dried-out areas, but that by no means exhausts the number of farmers who are on relief in this country. In other words, the work done under the rehabilitation act does not of itself provide relief for all farmers throughout Canada. It is confined to a very particular area of the country. But inasmuch as it is a part of the larger problem it might very well be considered by the national employment commission, but not in an administrative way at all.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I submit that in the discussion we have more than covered the section; we have pretty nearly covered the bill.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: There was one word in subsection 3 to which I wish to draw attention:
The commissioners may be paid such fees or compensation for their services-
Fees to a commission? Would not a salary or compensation be better than fees?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think that "salary" suggests a good deal more in the way of permanency than "fees." An hon. member was suggesting that the commission might last for years to come. It is the hope of the government that it will not be necessary to have the commission continue for long, and for that reason I believe the word "fees" was thought to be more appropriate than "salary." It did not suggest the note of permanency which "salary" does.


Grote Stirling: The question I wanted to ask with regard to this is: Will the~e commissioners be employed during their whole time; and if that be so or if it be not so, in what way will the fees be made proportional to the services they render?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend has touched on a point which the government had very much in mind. It may not be possible to get the full time services of some persons we may hope to have as commissioners. In that event a fee will have to be arranged. Certainly in every case regard will be had for ability and the other circumstances which should govern the matter of retaining the services of whoever may be appointed.


Grote Stirling: Not necessarily residents of Ottawa then?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Oh, no, not necessarily residents of Ottawa.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Seotion 4 agreed to.

On section 5-Secretary.
John Ritchie MacNicol: I should like to ask the minister a question on this section. It says that there shall be a secretary of the commission. On a work of the magnitude that apparently the commissioners are going to undertake it would look to me necessary to have two secretaries, one French speaking and one English speaking. If there was only one, it would be necessary to have either a French speaking or an English speaking one.


James Garfield Gardiner: I move the following addition to section 5, to add subsection (3):
(3) Notwithstanding anything in the Civil Service Act, chapter 22 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1927, the Civil Service Superannuation Act, chapter 24 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1927, or any other act of the parliament of Canada, a civil servant who, at the time of his appointment or employment under or pursuant the provisions of this act, is a contributor under the provisions of the Civil Service Superannuation Act, shall continue to be a contributor under the said act; his service under this act shall be counted as service in the civil service for the purposes of the Civil Service Superannuation Act, and he, his widow and children or other dependents if any, shall be eligible to receive the respective allowances or gratuities provided by the said act; and in the event of his being retired from his office or position under this act for any reason other than that of misconduct, he shall be eligible for reappointment in the civil service or to receive the same benefits under the Civil Service Superannuation Act as if his office or position has been abolished.


Charles Grant MacNeil: Before the amendment
carries I offer this suggestion to the minister, that in such sections of bills that are now coming before the house provision be made to maintain the preference formerly extended to ex-service men under the Civil Service Act. I notice that in the wording of a similar section of the National Harbours Board bill and other bills before the house no attempt has been made to carry out the preference, although when certain post offices were removed from the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Act it was expressly stipulated in the legislation then enacted that the preference formerly enacted would be maintained in appointments to the staff, and I think that in appointments to a staff of this kind the same preference should be maintained as was formerly granted ex-service men under the Civil Service Act. May I have an opinion from the minister on that question?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The amendment was
designed to deal with a somewhat difficult problem which confronted us in providing for the possible staff whieh would be employed by this commission. We desired to

Railways and Shipping
make it possible to use those who are at present in the civil service, and in order to effect that end the proposed amendment has been added. The form is precisely the same as that which was used in the National Harbours Board bill.
So far as the specific point raised by the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. Mac-Neil) is concerned, I am not aware that with regard to temporary employees, to which this refers, the usual civil service preference for returned soldiers has been followed in past years. It is certain that we shall not be through to-night, and I shall be glad to look into that matter and give an answer when we meet again oh Monday.


Grote Stirling: Do I understand that these employees are chosen by the civil service commission?


Norman McLeod Rogers: No.


Grote Stirling: They are not?


Norman McLeod Rogers: No. The amendment was
designed simply to permit the transfer to the national employment commission, so far as we desire to do so, of those who are at present in the civil service.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: That raises the whole
question as to whether appointments to this staff should be made by the civil service commission, or by the governor in council as proposed in this bill, and a great deal may be said on both sides of the question. I know some members want to say something on it, and I suggest that the committee rise, as it is eleven o'clock.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Monday, April 6, 1936