1937-04-09

[Stage Direction]
Mr. G. W. McPIIEE (Yorkton) presented the third report of the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills.
He said: With the consent of the house I desire to move:
That the bills contained in the third report of the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills, presented this day, be placed upon the order paper of the house for consideration this day in committee of the whole, and for third reading.
Motion agreed to.


Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to ask leave to move the adjournment of the house to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the strike at Oshawa and the concentration of federal and provincial police at Toronto, and the urgent necessity of government mediation.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Is it the pleasure of the house that the hon. member shall have leave so to move?
Some	hon.	MEMBERS:	No.Some	hon.	MEMBERS:	Yes.And more	than twenty	members	having
risen:


James Shaver Woodsworth: At this late stage in the session I have no desire unduly to delay the house, but I think we are all convinced that a	grave situation is developing	at
Oshawa. I recall only too well having had to take up two years ago the matter of the unemployed advancing on Regina, and I then urged upon the house the necessity of discussion before there came bloodshed. I welcome the opportunity to-day briefly to bring this matter to the attention of the house.
As to the situation, statements have been given us pretty clearly by the various people

Labour Dispute-Oshawa Strike
concerned. I read from this morning's Montreal Gazette just one paragraph which indicates the position of the company:
The issue is clear cut. General Motors of Canada, Limited, is not opposing organization by labour, but will not, under any condition, negotiate with any person or organization, other than their own employees' committee, and with them they will confer at any time. In fact, conferences have been carried on for the past week and many of the points at issue have been settled thus satisfactorily. Rather than see any violence, no attempt is being made to operate the plant.
There is a clear cut statement that the company will not negotiate with any general trade union body, but merely with their own employees.


Mr. BENNETT:: Does the hon. member think it is quite fair to take a newspaper report as an accurate statement?


James Shaver Woodsworth: That is the only information yet available. What I have read appears to be the statement of the company. I wish to quote also what appears in the papers with regard to the attitude of the organizer.


Mr. BEAUBIEN:: Last session the hon. gentleman objected to any reading from a newspaper. I submit that he is out of order.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The objection I took to the reading of articles in newspapers was the quoting of newspaper opinions on certain matters before the house. I am quoting facts now. The organizer, Hugh Thompson, said:
We are not going to break any laws. We are going to abide by them and see they are executed.
There we have pretty clearly stated what seems to be the attitude of the man representing the workers.
There is also an extraordinary statement and apparently a quite impartial one from the mayor. In his reply the mayor said he was not taking sides in the dispute, and continued :
Some people consider that if you are not one hundred per cent with them, then you favour the other side, but I intend to keep an impartial attitude.


Walter Edward Foster: I do not think the hon. gentleman is in order in quoting from newspapers.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not know of any rule that prevents me from quoting from a newspaper. It is being constantly done. Newspaper accounts are made the basis for questions again and again and I know of no rule that prevents me from quoting facts as reported in the press. I do not see why I should not be allowed to read any statement

with regard to the attitude of different individuals. However, if the house rules against me I shall have to desist.


Mr. LAPOINTE (Quebec East):: Could not my hon. friend state his case without quoting?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I will do that. Briefly, the mayor takes the ground that it is the responsibility of the mayor of Oshawa to maintain law and order, and that he is opposed to the introduction of any police. He states that the employees are maintaining law and order and he hopes they will continue to do so, but he does resent the interference of Premier Hepburn in this matter. We come then to the statement that has been made by Premier Hepburn, and again I would refer to the morning newspapers. Apparently Premier Hepburn has placed himself unreservedly one hundred per cent behind General Motors.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, no.


James Shaver Woodsworth: According to the morning newspapers that is what he has done. If hon. gentlemen wish me to do so I will quote again from the newspapers. I reiterate my statement that according to the morning newspapers, the only information we have to go on, he is quoted as having placed himself one hundred per cent behind the company and is prepared to use all the resources of the province to maintain law and order.


Mr. DUNNING:: And that is right.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Further, he speaks very strongly against the Committee for Industrial Organization, It seems to me we should have a clear statement regarding the dominion government's policy in this matter. Again, if I may refer to news dispatches, the only source of information so far, the mounted police have been sent to Toronto by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) on the request of Premier Hepburn. We should know quite definitely from whom the request came and whether the situation in Oshawa is sufficiently grave to warrant the sending of a large force to Toronto.
Several important considerations immediately emerge. First of all we hear a good deal about the sit-down strike. It is quite true that in the United States the Committee for Industrial Organization has made use of the sit-down strike on various occasions, but I would say that the C.I.O. and the sit-down strike are by no means identical. The sit-down strike may be, as the Minister of Justice said the other day, illegal in Canada. Under our present legislation it certainly seems to involve trespass.
I would draw to the minister's attention an excellent article in the New Republic of

Labour Dispute-Oshawa Strike
two or three weeks ago, which suggests that at least American law needs some revision along this line, because great bodies of workmen have certain claims that cannot be so lightly set aside. In our more modern development of industry, where there is not a single individual employer engaging a single man called an employee, but a great corporation, with shareholders scattered all over the world with the factory under the direction of a manager, that manager cannot simply dictate to thousands or tens of thousands of men who have been drawn from all parts of the country, who have their interests, and equity if you like, in the business because of their special training, the location of their homes and so on-under these circumstances the situation is radically altered. This New Republic article goes on to state that we must come to a realization that the sit-down strike, in view of all these circumstances, is not quite so illegal as it would seem to be on the surface.


Charles Avery Dunning: In the United States but not here.


James Shaver Woodsworth: That may be, and I frankly admit that as far as I see it, it involves what to-day is regarded as trespass.
But the point I make is that the C.I.O. is quite distinct from the sit-down strike; the C.I.O. is a legitimate labour organization. It is true that it is not favoured in Canada by the regular American Federation of Labour organization because it is in the United States, more or less, a split-away from the American Federation of Labour. I need not tell the house that the American Federation of Labour type of organization was based on craft unionism. Each craft was organized. In the meantime, in the last twenty or thirty years, the form of structure of our industry has vastly changed and there are a certain number of people in the American Federation of Labour who believe that there ought to be corresponding changes in the type of trade unionism. Into that matter I do not intend to enter this morning, but I point out that it is a perfectly reasonable thesis and program which the C.I.O. have adopted, namely, that there should be industrial unionism rather than craft unionism.
In the United States, as everyone knows, Mr. Lewis has received a great deal of support from the American government. There is an excellent editorial along this line in yesterday's Ottawa Journal. However, the point is that the C.I.O. is not a subversive or an illegal organization.
An effort is being made to cry down all foreign organizations. May I point out that the American Federation of Labour is as
much a foreign organization as the Committee for Industrial Organization. Both are international organizations with the bulk of their membership in the United States. The American Federation of Labour has developed across the international border, and we have accepted the Trades and Labour Congress which is more or less the Canadian section of the American Federation of Labour. Most of the trades union members on this side are directly connected with the American unions. It was only a few days ago that the Minister of Justice emphasized very strongly the recent wonderful achievement in the railway trades, where a threatened strike had been settled by reasonable means. I quite agree with him, but I point out that the organizations involved are many of them American organizations- just as much "foreign" organizations as the C.I.O. I point out, as he did then, that trouble involving a disturbance of our whole transportation facilities in this country was avoided because we had strong labour organizations which were allowed to function. At the present time in Oshawa an effort is being made by the companies to prevent strong labour organizations, and if the effort succeeds almost inevitably trouble will ensue.
May I also point out that whilst some people have a good deal to say against foreign labour organizations, all over this country, particularly in the east and the far north, we have United States corporations. Capital is American, management is American, General Motors, if you like, is American. I had an experience several years ago which illustrates this. I went into a district in northern Manitoba where before I could hold a public political meeting in support of a Progressive candidate I was interviewed by the superintendent and manager of a United States corporation, himself not a naturalized Canadian, who undertook to say whether or not a public political meeting could be held in a community of 3,000 people. Surely it is an intolerable situation when an American manager undertakes to dictate the policies of citizens of Canada. That is true of many American corporation towns all up the Pacific coast, and some in northern Ontario and Quebec. We ought not to allow ourselves to be led astray by this term "American organizer." As far as the particular individual who is organizing the strike is concerned, whose name is Hugh Thompson, I am informed that he is still a British subject, an Irishman by birth, and comes to Canada, as has been done for many a year by the American Federation of Labour organizers, to carry on the work of his union in Canada. The objection of the

Labour Dispute-Oshawa Strike
company, if put into effect, would rule out all the legitimate labour organizations in this country.
I do not know whether I should make any special appeal to a Liberal government. But I would remind the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) that the Liberal program contains this plank on the democratization of industry:
The Liberal party believes that industrial reconstruction is the problem of the future. It will seek in industrial relations as opportunity offers, to give to workers and consumers a larger share in the government of industry.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: Hear, hear.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am glad the Liberals say "hear, hear." It occurs to me that this is good opportunity to check the dictatorship being attempted by the management of this industry at Oshawa.


An hon. MEMBER:: By the management only?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I have on the order paper-I do not know whether it will be reached this session-a bill which would give to trade unions the right to organize.


Ernest Lapointe: They have that right now.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes, theoretically they have. In practice they have never been able fully to exercise it, and there is no positive legislation on the statute books. It would seem that in this country positive legislation, with penalties for infringement, is highly desirable. It is unfortunate that it should be left to a private member to introduce such legislation.


Mr. ROGERS:: Will the hon. member permit me to ask whether he is aware that the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada and other labour organizations have brought this matter to the attention of the government over a period of years? Is he also aware that the Trades and Labour Congress prepared a draft bill protecting the right of association, which was submitted to every provincial legislature in the dominion within the past few weeks, and that this submission on the part of the Trades and Labour Congress to the provincial legislatures recognized that so far as the right of association is a civil right to be dealt with by provincial law, any sanction behind that right of association should also properly be applied by provincial law?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am quite aware of the facts as related by the Minister of. Labour (Mr. Rogers). But I know also that

under the British North America Act it is doubtful where the line comes between civil and criminal, between provincial and federal jurisdiction. I need not say that to the house. The Trades and Labour Congress, almost in despair of getting any action by this government, attempted to get it through the provincial governments.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is not the fact.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is not a true statement. if I may say so. As Minister of Labour I had a number of discussions with representatives of the Trades and Labour Congress and other organizations on this very question. When the matter was brought to the attention of the provincial legislatures it was not done on the basis of any feeling on the part of leaders of organized labour in Canada that the dominion government had in any way failed to accept its due responsibility in the matter.


James Shaver Woodsworth: That may have been the statement made to the minister. I have had statements along other lines made to me. However I do not intend to discuss that matter now; if my bill can be reached I shall be able to discuss it then. But I should like to emphasize that it has been extremely difficult under existing legislation for the workers in this country to exercise the right to organize. In Great Britain that right is conceded in practice as well as in theory. In the United States it is only in the last few months, largely through the efforts of this new organization, that the right of labour to organize is being recognized in practice.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say to my hon. friend that I think the house has been generous in its attitude in affording him the opportunity to discuss the Oshawa situation as a matter of urgent public importance. In his motion he indicated that he wished to speak about the Oshawa strike and I suggest to him that it is hardly fair to begin under that head a general discussion on the question of rights of organization and other subjects of the kind. I think he should hold to the point on which he asked leave to move adjournment of the house.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I quite accept what the Prime Minister says, but I think I have not transgressed very far, and I am about to conclude.


An hon. MEMBER:: Why bring in the United States?

Labour Dispute-Oshawa Strike


James Shaver Woodsworth: I brought in the United States simply because we are told that this is a United States union and that in this country we will not tolerate any American unions.
I suggested in my last statement that it had not been very easy for labour to organize in Canada. Under these circumstances it does seem to me that this government has a very decided obligation to take some definite stand regarding this situation at Oshawa. Apparently at the moment all that has been done has been to place our Royal Canadian Mounted Police in large numbers at the disposal of a provincial government which has already placed itself definitely behind the company.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is not right.


Ernest Lapointe: Why make these rash, untrue statements?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am not making a rash statement; I am merely stating what is reported in this morning's press. If it is incorrect I hope the minister will correct me.


Ernest Lapointe: It is more than incorrect.


Mr. McLEAN (Melfort):: Would the hon. member care to read the full statement regarding what he alleged?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I was trying to read the full statement, but objection was taken.


Malcolm McLean: Then why repeat the definite statement?


James Shaver Woodsworth: If I may be free from all these interruptions I can conclude in a moment or so. I do say that it seems to me it is the responsibility of a government charged with the maintenance of law and order, a government that has definitely stated its policy to be a larger measure of control of industry by the workers, to use some other means than merely repressive measures. I would beg that before there is violence of any kind or before the workers are crushed by the combination that seems to be arrayed against them, this government should exercise its utmost authority and influence in mediating this situation and guaranteeing the workers of this country the right to organize.


Ernest Lapointe: Mr. Speaker, yesterday morning I was twice called on the telephone by the Premier of Ontario, and following those telephone conversations Mr. Hepburn sent me the following telegram, which I think the house is entitled to hear:
Hon. Ernest Lapointe,
Minister of Justice,
House of Commons,
Ottawa, Ont.
Following our telephone conversation would urgently request that assistance of dominion police be made available to maintain law and order in strike areas. Would further urge that first detachment be sent to Toronto where services will be available in case of emergency. Have only seventy-five trained provincial officers available without impairing other necessary services throughout Ontario. Please let me know to what extent wre may anticipate assistance. Prepared to swear in additional force but am sure you appreciate the fact that special constables could operate more efficiently in conjunction with trained police. Report just submitted to me indicates situation becoming very acute and violence anticipated any minute also impairment of heating plants and fire protection services.
M. F. Hepburn.
I replied as follows:
Hon. Mitchell Hepburn,
Prime Minister,
Toronto.
Your telegram received. Seventy men unmounted will leave at three o'clock for Toronto. Thirty-three all ranks mounted will leave at six o'clock for Toronto. All to be placed at your disposal with understanding that all expenses as usual will be paid by province.
Ernest Lapointe.
In the telephone conversation I was told that officers of the company had been prevented from entering their own offices. A certain number of men, then, have been sent to Toronto at the urgent request of the Premier of Ontario to help the province preserve order and uphold the laws of the country, and my hon. friend has just stated that it is the duty of this government to preserve law and order in the country. The same step would be taken if a similar request were made by any other provincial authority in Canada. Unless the necessity arises for the purpose of upholding the laws these men will not intervene in any way.
There are precedents for the action which has been taken. Police assistance was requested at Port Arthur a few years ago by the attorney general of the province of Ontario, and it was sent. Police assistance was requested at Cochrane in 1931 by the attorney general of Ontario, and it was sent. Police assistance was requested by the province of Quebec at Rouyn, in the mining district, a few years ago, and it was also sent. I would remind the house of the provision contained in section 12, subsection 3, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act, chapter 160 of the Revised Statutes of Canada:
Every member of the force shall be a constable in every part of Canada for the purpose of carrying out the criminal and other laws of Canada . . .

Labour Dispute-Oshawa Strike
I am pleased indeed to hear my hon. friend say that there is no intention of violating the laws of the country in the special instance he has mentioned, and I hope and trust that our labour forces as well as our employers will show to the world that illegality and disorder will never become an industrial weapon in this dominion.
As to the attitude of the government, I have nothing to add to or withdraw from the statement I made in the house a few days ago. I may assure the house and the country that we will be pleased to cooperate in the fullest measure, consistent with our jurisdiction, to effect a peaceful and friendly settlement of this difficulty. I hope my hon. friend also will cooperate.


Mr. ANGUS MacINNIS (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, there was only one purpose behind bringing this matter before the house to-day. That was to direct the attention of the government to the situation that is developing at Oshawa. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) undertook to read some of the statements made by Premier Hepburn, but he was not allowed to do so. If I were allowed to read some very brief quotations from the statements by Premier Hepburn I should be glad to do so, because they put Premier Hepburn definitely behind General Motors in their opposition to the Committee for Industrial Organization.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No, that is not so.


Malcolm McLean: Only in opposition to an illegal organization.


Angus MacInnis: The C.I.O. is no more illegal in this country than the American Federation of Labour is, and I have been a member of the American Federation of Labour for the last thirty years. I am still a member of an organization that is affiliated with the American Federation of Labour; as a matter of fact it is an industrial organization, not based on craft, and we have had very harmonious relations with the company with which we work for a longer period of time than that.
I am going to make only one request today, and after listening to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) I think it will be conceded. I believe that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) and the government are just as much interested in bringing about a peaceful and equitable settlement in this case as they were in connection with the threatened railway strike. We must remember that the railway workers are sheltered employees. They have been organized for many years;

they have carried on negotiations with their employers, and nearly always the chairman of the negotiating committee has been an American citizen, an officer of the international brotherhood organization. Such men as those concerned in Oshawa have never been able to organize. At the present time there is a general tendency toward organization, and in order to have harmonious relations in industry of necessity the employees must be organized. I believe every member of this house will agree to that. Now I am asking the Minister of Labour if he will use every available facility within his department to bring the situation in Oshawa to a peaceful and satisfactory conclusion to everyone concerned, which I am satisfied can be done.
Hon. NORMAN McL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, I imagine all hon. members will share the opinion I now express, that it ought to be the purpose of any discussion here to facilitate rather than to prevent the satisfactory settlement of the dispute at Oshawa. I believe I need not assure the hon. member who has just spoken that the services of the conciliation branch of the Department of Labour in Ottawa will be made available immediately in order that, in the event of the parties to the dispute being agreeable, we may be able to render some assistance in bringing about a satisfactory settlement. May I point out however that the department of labour of the province of Ontario has its own conciliation service, and that up to the present time that service has been dealing with the dispute. I well remember that when the estimates of'the Department of Labour were before the house some time ago the question arose as to possible duplication of or conflict between the conciliation services of the dominion and provincial departments of labour. I sought to explain at that time that so far as the dominion Department of Labour was concerned, sometimes we had to time our intervention in order that it might have the best possible effect. In other words, it would not be desirable that we should interfere in a dispute within a province when the department of labour of that province was actually engaged in negotiations.
As hon. members are possibly aware, that situation has existed for the past week. The department of labour of the province of Ontario has been carrying on negotiations between the company and the employees with a view to settlement of the dispute. Having said that, I can only repeat that the Department of Labour will use its entire resources

Doukhobor Disturbances
when, in its best judgment, it can intervene successfully, in order to bring about an amicable settlement of the present difficulties.
Motion withdrawn.



TRADE AND INDUSTRY COMMISSION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. S. TAYLOR (Nanaimo):: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day are called, and in view of the inquiry directed to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) on March 29, as reported at page 2235 of Hansard, may I inquire of him if the matter of the appointment of a public prosecutor, as provided by the Dominion Trade and Industry Commission Act, has been considered? If so, what is the decision of the government? If there has been a positive decision, when will the appointment of the prosecutor be made?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, in reply to the hon. member may I say that the matter is still under consideration, and a final decision has not yet been reached.



DOUKHOBOR DISTURBANCES


[Stage Direction]
On the order for committee of supply:
Mr. W. K. ESLING (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, because the rules of the house do not offer another opportunity, with the unanimous consent of hon. members I should like to preface a question to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) by a very brief statement. I do so because this is a matter involving terrorism, dynamiting and incendiarism. A whole community in my constituency is terrorized by the action of a fanatical group of Doukhobors who, in two or three hours last Sunday morning, dynamited and bombed eleven schools, seven of which were totally destroyed. Community halls, churches and other meeting places are under guard. The situation is so intolerable that the farmers institute at Robson, the centre of the disturbances, has wired a request that I bring the matter to the attention of the Minister of Justice.
Last June one of these fanatical Doukhobors was convicted of burning a bridge. Immediately following the conviction there were no 31111-178
less than fifteen fires, and it must be understood that the perpetrators are not particular as to whether or not life is endangered by their actions. Very often the teachers make their homes in these small public schools.
We realize, as the minister will no doubt tell us, that it is up to the provincial government to maintain order and to enforce the law. The difficulty however is that it is impossible for them to do so. There are records of about fifty fires; the provincial police have done their very best, but they are up against a stone wall because the Doukhobors are dumb in so far as giving information is concerned. They simply tell the provincial police that there is plenty of money to run down offenders of our nationality, and that they can use it to run down offenders of their nationality. I would ask the Minister of Justice if, without intruding upon the duties of the provincial police, he would enter into a conversation with the attorney general of British Columbia with a view to participating in bringing this period of terrorism to an end.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I know the house must have some realization of the seriousness of this situation. It is one which really beggars description. At another time I had occasion to direct attention to it, and I do not believe that the province can quite deal with it. Where you have eleven or twelve buildings destroyed by fire, blasting, dynamiting and other means you have a situation which we Canadians find it difficult to understand or appreciate. I suggest the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) should at least meet the views of the people in the locality-I am sure they have communicated with him, through the provincial authorities-


Ernest Lapointe: Not yet.


Richard Bedford Bennett: -and see if it is not a matter of such national importance that he might provide assistance of a permanent character to prevent a recurrence of these terrible outrages against decency, so that law and order may in some way be maintained.


Ernest Lapointe: Mr. Speaker, I fully realize the
seriousness of the situation described by the hon. member (Mr. Esling) and the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett). 'I may say that if our assistance is asked by the British Columbia authorities I shall be pleased to submit the matter to the government, with my support and recommendation. It seems to

Supply-Labour-Relief

me to be one of the serious cases where a province may ask that the dominion police assist in upholding the law.
Up to the present time there has been no official request for our assistance from the province of British Columbia, but I assure the hon. member that no doubt, in view of his remarks to-day, the request will come in due course. I shall be pleased to submit to my colleagues the observations he has made, and I think I may say that we will help in the matter all we can.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF LABOUR

[Stage Direction]
To provide for commitments under relief settlement agreements with provincial governments, $400,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Does this vote cover
existing obligations?
Hon. NORMAN McL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour).:	This item consists in part of
existing obligations under relief settlement agreements with the provinces and in part of anticipated new obligations under the present agreements. Perhaps I could explain that in this way. The agreements provide for continuing payments to those who have been settled under the previous agreements and also for new settlements of families falling within the terms of the agreements. Therefore we are providing in part for expenditures to which we are committed and in part for anticipated expenditures during the coming year.


Richard Bedford Bennett: To what extent is this
item referable to over-expenditures under existing agreements and to contemplated payment of new obligations?


Norman McLeod Rogers: There are no over-expenditures. It is a continuing contribution to the provinces which have agreements with the dominion government for relief settlements. If the leader of the opposition desires, I can place on Hansard the distribution of the money among the provinces. In 1936 Quebec received $12.200; Ontario, $1,400; Manitoba, $69,500; Saskatchewan. $10,000; Alberta, $55,500; British Columbia, $1,400, making a total of $150,000. The new commitments total $250,000, making a grand total of $400,000.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To provide for federal contribution to provincial and municipal relief projects, $7,331,000.
Mr. HEAPS:: Would the minister give us a breakdown of this item?
	I ["* 1


Norman McLeod Rogers: This total amount is broken down as follows. First, revote for claims to be rendered by the provinces under previous agreements which will not be received by the dominion in time to be paid before the close of the present fiscal year, $1,316,117.75. Second, revote for the continuation of works authorized under previous agreements which will not be completed at the expiration of said agreements on March 31, 1937, $514,269.04. Third, provision for new projects for relief measures during 1937-38, $5,500,000.


Mr. CHURCH:: What percentage will be provided for the municipalities?


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is a matter to be determined when we negotiate the agreements with the various provinces. It is not possible in advance of our consultation with the provincial governments to indicate definitely what percentage will be allocated for works in the municipalities.
Mr. MaeINNIS: Would such works as the forestry camps in British Columbia come under this item?


Norman McLeod Rogers: They would come under another item which I will indicate when it is reached.


*Mr. LOCKHART:: Would the work in connection with highway No. 8, to which I referred the other day, be included in this item?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I am advised by the officers of the department that that is not included in the list of the joint projects provided for under the last agreement with the province of Ontario.


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: Is any portion of the cost of this highway being provided by the dominion government?


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is the information I receive from the officers of the department.


Mr. BARBER:: There is considerable variation in the wages paid in the different municipalities for relief work. I had a letter the other day from a man who has been employed on relief work for three years and he tells me that he has received only S20 a month, and he has to pay $10 a month for rent. I understand that this particular municipality is receiving contributions on a fifty-fifty basis from the two governments. Is there not some way by which wages could be regulated so that they would be more nearly uniform? I do not know of two municipalities in my part of the country that pay the same rate.

Supply-Labour-Reliej


Norman McLeod Rogers: I would judge my hon.
friend has in mind relief work being done within a municipality in the province of British Columbia?


Harry James Barber: Yes, with contributions from the provincial and federal governments.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Apart from the city of Vancouver, where some work was done on the parks under the last agreement, to my knowledge there is no federal contribution to any municipal work in British Columbia. That is, there is no direct contribution under the joint works program. It is conceivable that some municipalities are requiring relief recipients to work out their relief, and from that point of view it might be considered that the dominion is contributing indirectly. So far as wages are concerned, any control would be limited to works being done under the terms of our joint works agreements with the provinces. These agreements contain a clause to the effect that the wages paid shall be fair wages, and the interpretation of "fair wages" is the prevailing rate in the locality where the work is being done.


William Kemble Esling: Have the fifteen specific
projects been completed to which the federal government contributed $750,000 last year, or will they be continued under agreements for the present year? How much of the $750,000 allocated to these fifteen projects was expended last year?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Answering the several questions in order, first, I may say to my hon. friend that where works which were definitely set out in the schedule to the agreement with a province are not completed during the period of the agreement, it has been the practice to provide a revote to cover the continuation of the actual projects if the province requests that this be done. In answer to the second question, I have here a statement of the actual expenditures made by the dominion under the joint agreement with the province of British Columbia up to March 31, 1937. The total is $520,275.57, In addition there are accounts, now being examined, to an amount of $75,000. This makes a total of accounts payable to the amount of $595,275.57.


Thomas Langton Church: Will consideration be given, when the minister makes the agreement with the province of Ontario, to the program laid before the government by the mayor and board of control of Toronto for the expenditure of $4,000,000?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I assure my hon. friend that consideration will be given to certain 31111-1781
items of that program. As he is aware, some of them do not relate directly to the Department of Labour. There was, for example, as I recall, a request that there should be a contribution to an airport in Toronto, and that would be dealt with by the Department of Transport.


Mr. SPENCE:: That is dealt with in another vote, the item of $400,000.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I recall that deputation from Toronto expressed interest in the improvement of parks and recreational facilities. I have already advised hon. members that it seemed to me there was much to be said in support of the allocation of a certain sum to our larger cities for the purpose of improving parks and recreational facilities. That will b|e done, however, through the provincial governments. I do not contemplate a break in the established practice of dealing with these matters through the provincial governments.


James Houston Spence: The minister should earmark some of it, anyhow.


Thomas Langton Church: May I ask whether or not in these proposed agreements the matter will be put on thie basis of fifty per cent contribution by the province and fifty per cent contribution by the federal government? I notice that some municipalities are asked to put up one-third, in conjunction with provincial and federal authorities, which seems to be a fair principle. So far the city of Toronto has got nothing out of these agreements of last year, not a five cent piece, and I hope that it will now receive consideration.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I do not think it possible to indicate at this time any precise basis of allocation of funds of the dominion government to works done within a municipality. That would have to be a matter of negotiation with the provincial government concerned. For example my hon. friend referred to the agreement of the past year with the province of Quebec. It is true that certain municipal works were undertaken under the terms of that agreement. At the same time there was no provision in that agreement for contributions by the municipalities concerned. That is, the Quebec government assumed fifty per cent of the cost of the works included in that agreement.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And the municipalities paid nothing?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Correct.


William Kemble Esling: In view of the minister's reply, may I ask him if any new agreements will be entered into so far as British Columbia is concerned for the current year, and
Supply-Labour-Relief

[DOT]what amount will be allocated towards those new projects? If nothing is to be done, it seems to me there remains approximately only $150,000 to complete the grants of last year. Will all that money be allocated to British Columbia, or if not, how much will be made available out of this grant?


Norman McLeod Rogers: There is an amount of $5,500,000 for new projects. It will have to be divided among the various provinces upon a basis of joint contribution for new works. The precise means by which that allocation will be made can hardly be stated at this time. We are very anxious to avoid too great a concentration of dominion contributions in one province as against another. Other departments of government contemplate expenditures during the coming year dealing [DOT]with one aspect or another of relief, so that in making our allocations for the various provinces we shall try to keep it in view that there should be an equitable distribution having regard to the needs of the situation. That will depend also upon our further negotiations with the provincial governments.


William Kemble Esling: Mr. Chairman, with $150,000 remaining from last year's grant, and with Innumerable people along the line of the highway from Banff into West Kootenay and over the summit to the coast, does it not mean that somebody was derelict in not carrying on these operations and continuing these projects, and does British Columbia practically not forfeit the expenditure of that $150,000 on these highways simply because it did not expend the money when so many men were waiting for work and urging that they be employed?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I sought a moment ago to point out that the total of $595,275.57, being payments made to British Columbia to date, included disbursements on accounts received up to March 31, 1937 and the total of accounts being examined and for which payment is asked by April 30 of this year. That does not mean that further accounts may not be receivable for work already done. But where the work has not been completed it has been the practice to revote an amount sufficient for that purpose. I would also point out that weather conditions in the winter will often prevent the completion of a particular project, so that failure of a province to get in its accounts for the entire amount payable by the dominion government does not suggest any laxity of administration.


William Kemble Esling: Following the department's practice of last year, is it to be understood that the federal members from British Col-

umbia will not be informed as to any projects or any expenditure of public money under this relief vote until this house again assembles next year?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I have been accustomed to receive proposals for projects from hon. members from all the provinces, and so far as possible consideration is given to those proposals as received. It must be remembered, however, that what we have here is the joint works program. It is necessary that the two governments concerned shall agree; therefore we are to some extent in the hands of the provincial governments which submit to us their highway programs. I am sure the hon. member will understand that there is much to be said in support of that view where expenditures are made on highways. The dominion government has not the knowledge necessary to decide where a particular highway should be placed; the construction of highways has always been a matter under provincial jurisdiction.


William Kemble Esling: I fear the minister has not understood my question. I asked, if the government allocates money to British Columbia for expenditure during the present fiscal year, and an hon. member for British Columbia writes to the Department of Labour and asks what expenditures are being or are to be made, must that member wait until the next session of parliament to be informed? Because that was precisely the situation last year.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I am sorry that I did not understand the hon. member's question. I see no reason why, once the agreement with the province has been signed, it could not be made available to any member of the house who writes in to request the information. That would be my view of it, and I can see no reason why the other party to the agreement would have any objection.


William Kemble Esling: It was from the minister himself I received the reply that these agreements with the province of British Columbia were confidential and could not be disclosed to hon. members until they were laid on the table of the house, this session.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I doubt if I used just those words, but if I did I am glad to make the correction now.


Thomas Langton Church: May I ask the minister what proportion of the $7,000,000 is a revote from last year? How large is the old revote, and how much is the new vote this year?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The revote for the continuation of works is $514,269.04. The revote for

Supply-Lab our-R eliej
claims to be rendered by the provinces under previous agreements which will not be received by the dominion in time to be paid before the close of the present fiscal year is $1,316,117.75. Provision for new projects is $5,500,000.


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: I am not clear as to the allocation of moneys given by the federal government to the provincial governments and passed on to the municipalities. In the event of a municipality contemplating a certain relief work, which of course will have to be dealt with through the channels of the provincial government, are any limitations placed on the actions of the province by the federal government? In other words, is any restriction imposed on the extent or the type of work which the provincial government may engage in, or is it left entirely in the hands of the province?


Norman McLeod Rogers: We do exercise some discrimination when a works program is submitted to us by a provincial government. For example, I do not think there has ever been a case where a provincial government has not submitted to us plans which have gone considerably beyond the amount of money which could be allocated to that particular province for a joint works program. But in. general no restriction is imposed in advance by the dominion government upon projects which may be submitted by the provincial government. Where there is discrimination it is exercised in the course of the negotiations.


Mr. POULIOT:: May I remind the minister that one of the best projects for the relief of unemployment would be the rebuilding of the dam on Morin lake. Riviere du Loup is a progressive city with its own power plant, and it has set an example to the rest of the province of Quebec in the municipalization of power. The present dam is not in good condition and there is urgent necessity for rebuilding it. The work would cost no more than $300,000 and it could be carried out in sections costing about $100,000 per year, the federal government and the province cooperating. It would relieve unemployment to a large extent and serve a very useful purpose, and it would be much better than building sidewalks on lonely streets where there is no traffic or doing fancy works that do not serve any other purpose than to give temporary employment. Money could be spent usefully and in the public interest in connection with this dam. The minister is familiar with the situation and I trust that in due course, when he discusses the matter with the province, the provincial government will include that project in the program for this year and that this important work will be started at once.


Mr. MASSEY:: In connection with these various projects that are undertaken either by the municipality or by the province, with aid from the federal government, what consideration is given to the cost of the work? Is the minister given some idea as to the cost of the materials required and also as to the extent of the labour necessary for the project itself? There has been a certain amount of criticism of the cost of these works and of the wages paid in connection with them. I should like to know how far the minister goes in his investigations with the provinces or the municipalities, through the provinces, as to the wages to be paid, the total cost of the work and so on.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The Department of Labour does not maintain an engineering department, but in our consultations with the provincial government in regard to all joint works programs we do try to place the emphasis on the type of work that will give the maximum employment and call for the minimum expenditure. I cannot say how far we have succeeded in doing that in every instance, but it will be understood that here, as in other cases, where we have to work with the provincial government, it is necessary that the two shall agree before the work can be carried forward.


Denton Massey: What check if any is made by the federal government as to the actual men to be employed on the work?


Norman McLeod Rogers: We have in each province a dominion representative who is assisted by a number of inspectors, and it is their duty to see that the terms of the agreement are carried out with special regard to the clauses having to do with wages and hours.


Denton Massey: Is any effort made to employ the maximum number of men? What I mean is this. Do the men who start a project carry it to completion, or is the work spread around through the particular locality in which the project is going forward so that as many men as possible will get a share of it? Is it confined to a few?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Both systems have been followed in the past. In general, during the past year, the practice has been to take heads of families or single men off relief and keep them off, paying them the prevailing wage, rather than take them on for a few weeks and then send them back on relief. In Ontario sixty-two per cent of those employed on these works were taken from the relief rolls.


Denton Massey: Does the inspector report directly to the minister anything he finds to be unsatisfactory?
Supply-Labour-Relief


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes. The inspector reports directly to the commissioner of unemployment relief in Ottawa, and as a matter of fact many of the difficulties are settled by the inspector on the location.


Denton Massey: Would it be too intimate a question to ask in how many instances there have been difficulties that have had to be followed up?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I have not an actual record of the number. The daily correspondence of the department does, however, often include complaints with respect to relief in one form or another. We try to follow them up as quickly as possible and remedy the situation. There is a daily report from the various inspectors.


Denton Massey: I ask the question because one hears in connection with all these matters that there is a certain amount of difficulty and dissatisfaction, and I was interested to know whether the trouble had been extensive and whether there were many hazards in the way of satisfactorily carrying out the work. Is the difficulty widespread or is there only an occasional complaint?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I would not say the difficulties have been extensive during the past year. I understand that the number of complaints over a period of years has not varied greatly, in proportion to the work done and the money expended. Something of course depends on the staff of inspectors, their competence, tact and experience. I do not feel that during the past year we have had an abnormal number of complaints.


Denton Massey: In projects where men are taken from centres where there is permanent accommodation for them to where they have had to camp, if they have a complaint in regard to food or shelter or whatever it may be, is their only way of complaint through the inspector, or how does the complaint reach the department?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Unless the work is being done by day labour the men are employed by contractors, if they have a complaint presumably they would make it first to the foreman. If they do not obtain redress in that way there is nothing to prevent their taking the complaint to the inspector and having it brought in due course to the attention of the Department of Labour in Ottawa.


Harry James Barber: I take it that before this amount is arrived at and placed in the estimates there has been discussion with the several provinces in regard to proposed works. Take British Columbia, for instance; I suppose

before this time of year agreements have already been signed?


Norman McLeod Rogers: No.


Harry James Barber: The question of works has been discussed?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Has been discussed, yes.


Harry James Barber: But no agreement has been made?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Correct.


Harry James Barber: And on the basis of that discussion a certain amount is arrived at to be allocated to British Columbia?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Only in a very tentative way. My hon. friend will understand it is not legally possible to make an allocation until the estimate has been approved by the committee and until the new relief act of 1937-38 has received royal assent, so that any discussions with any province have been purely tentative. As far as particular projects are concerned there is almost continuous consultation; that is, provincial governments will frequently send in lists of proposed projects very early in the year, before the dominion government has power to enter into new agreements.


Harry James Barber: I believe the people of British Columbia expect a considerable program this year, on account of an election coming on in May or June.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I can only say that the amount for new works this year is considerably less than it was last year. I am not sure that my hon. friend will accept that as evidence of our virtue.


Mr. TUSTIN:: I understood the minister to say a daily report is made by the inspectors on these projects. Do I understand from that that the inspector is continuously on the job?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes.


George James Tustin: He does not travel from one project to another?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes, he does, but the inspection areas are so arranged as to enable an inspector to cover the work satisfactorily. He is continuously in touch with the projects in his district.


Denton Massey: Are the inspections of a clandestine character? Are the visits unexpected, or are they advertised in advance?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Certainly they are not advertised in advance. But the contractors are aware that inspectors are appointed by the department to see that the terms of the agree-

Supply-Labour-Relief
ment are observed. Also inspectors are sometimes changed from one district to another, although normally inspectors are kept within a particular district in order that they may become familiar with the work in that district.


George James Tustin: Do I understand then that
the inspector visits each project every day?


Norman McLeod Rogers: No, I would not want to leave that impression. That might be physically impossible. It depends on the size of the district.


Mr. McGREGOR:: I happen to know something about this. On most jobs there is a local inspector who is under a chief inspector, to whom he reports. If everything is going all right the general inspector is not on the job very often, but if there is anything wrong and the rules are not being lived up to the inspector will be there next day. I can safely say they have been checking up fairly well.


Mr. NEILL:: The department had a gentleman named Ells, I think, an engineer, as inspector in British Columbia last year?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I think he is under the Department of Mines.


Alan Webster Neill: He had charge of a lot of this work, I understand.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Just the mining roads.


Alan Webster Neill: I had some knowledge of his work, and I want to say that he did excellent work.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I am very glad to know that.


Harry James Barber: Who was the inspector in British Columbia?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Mr. A. E. Munn was the dominion representative, appointed July 1, 1936.


Mr. MALLETTE:: When the representatives of the government of Quebec come to the minister with a list of recommendations for works to be executed in that province to alleviate unemployment, I ask that particular attention be given to the construction of a new road on the western part of the island of Montreal. The construction of such a road has been discussed, to my knowledge, for the last thirty-five years. It is very much needed. Last year the bulk of the works executed on the island of Montreal were in the city of Montreal-quite properly-and a good deal was done on the eastern section, quite properly also. But this year I think it is the turn of the western section. The road along lake St. Louis, which connects Montreal with southern and western Ontario, is the same as our forefathers used two hundred and fifty years
ago. It is very fine from a scenic point of view but from a practical point of view it is dangerous, being winding and narrow, in some places not wider than thirty feet. I think that when these gentlemen from Quebec visit the minister very special attention should be given to the question of a new road there. Another reason we should like to have the road is that increase in the facilities of travel gives us a better chance to visit Ontario, and Ontario people to travel in Quebec, and thus to understand one another better; and God knows there is need of the two provinces understanding each other better. A good road would help that.


Denton Massey: Approximately how many inspectors are maintained by the department?


Norman McLeod Rogers: At the peak of the work the number of inspectors of the Department of Labour for the entire dominion would run from thirty-five to forty.


Denton Massey: How are these men
selected?


Norman McLeod Rogers: They are selected directly
on the recommendation of the minister. We try to get men who have had experience either in engineering or in some branch of contracting so that they will not find themselves in a wholly unfamiliar atmosphere in carrying out their duties. No other qualifications are required except a natural desire that those who do the work can be depended upon to send us reliable reports.


Denton Massey: And harmonious cooperation with the point of view of the present government?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The purpose of these inspectors is to see that the work is carried out properly and according to the terms of the agreement, and more particularly to see that the clauses which have to do with wages, hours and transfer from relief rolls to the pay rolls of the contractors are observed.


Denton Massey: A defeated Liberal candidate would be a good inspector, no doubt?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I would not say he could
not be a good inspector.


Joseph Léon Vital Mallette: There are not many
defeated Liberal candidates available.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To provide for agricultural reestablishment in cooperation with provincial governments, $52,500.
Mr. DOUGLAS:: Will the minister explain the nature of the expenditure under this item?


Norman McLeod Rogers: This is an amount to cover commitments under a number of special agree-
2824	COMMONS
Supply-Labour-Agricultural Reestablishment
merits with four provinces, having to do with agricultural settlement and resettlement. There was an item in the estimates last year under this heading amounting to $1,000,000. Agreements were entered into with the provinces of New Brunswick, Alberta, Saskatchewan British Columbia. I may say that the purpose of these agreements was to enable those who were receiving relief as farmers to get on their feet, so to speak; and be able to look after themselves.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Does the minister mean moving them to some other parts?


Norman McLeod Rogers: In some provinces there
was a measure of transfer. That was true in the northern districts of Saskatchewan, and to some extent in Alberta. Some of the families assisted under this particular scheme were families who had moved to the northern parts of those provinces from the drought area, but who found themselves still in a state of practical destitution. The desire was to provide them, as far as possible, with the means of establishing themselves on an independent basis. The same was true in the province of New Brunswick, where a considerable number of families were established on crown lands and given such assistance, through the provision of stock in some cases, as would enable them to dispense with relief. I may say there is no comparable item in the estimates of this year for new expenditures of this kind, and only $242,691.51 was actually spent under the agreements with the provinces that I have indicated.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Why is the amount so
much smaller this year? Is some of the money being revoted?


Norman McLeod Rogers: This amount of $52,500 is being revoted to cover commitments actually made under agreements with the provinces I have indicated.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: It is not the intention of the government to pursue this policy further?


Norman McLeod Rogers: There is an item under the Department of Agriculture in the final supplementary estimates, which is designed to carry on this work. My own feeling was that this type of work should be done by the Department of Agriculture rather than by the Department of Labour.


Denton Massey: I think the minister and the department are in the main to be congratulated on the work that has been done under this item, but I understand that the province of Ontario does not cooperate in this work with the federal department. Is there any reason why Ontario does

not so cooperate? Why is it that we do not gain the benefits that might easily accrue to the province through the application of part of the sum so voted?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Ontario was not one of the provinces with which agreements were made for this purpose. I may say, however, that in an earlier year Ontario did have an agreement with the dominion government for relief settlement. Possibly my hon. friend has in mind the farm employment plan, which comes under the next item, which was not accepted by Ontario. I shall be glad to discuss that in a moment.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To provide for federal contribution to farm employment and supplementary plans, $3,283,500.
Norman McLeod Rogers: On this item I should like to say a word before the discussion continues. The farm employment plan, as hon. members are aware, was worked out after very careful consultation, during which the national employment commission held conferences with representatives of all the provincial governments. It was designed to meet the situation created by the closing of the relief camps and, subsequently, the termination of the special maintenance work upon the railways.
I should like to say here, and I am glad of this opportunity to do so, that during the discussion of unemployment and relief a year ago the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader) brought to the attention of the house the importance of enabling single unemployed men in the cities to go to the farms, particularly during the winter months, and also the advantage to the farmers of having that additional assistance during this period. The hon. member made a definite proposal, as I recall it, which has been largely carried out in the actual farm employment plan which has been in operation. I give that simply as one illustration to assure hon. members that those responsible for particular departments frequently profit, and ought to profit, from the suggestions which come to them from various quarters of the house.
The farm employment plan, I think we may say, has worked out very successfully. It has meant that the large concentration of single unemployed men, particularly in our western cities, has been dissolved, as it were, and these single men who otherwise would be receiving casual meals at soup kitchens have spent the winter in more congenial and, I submit, more wholesome surroundings. Not only that, but we have reason to believe that a very large number of these men who have been placed on the farms in the west-

Supply-Labour-Farm Employment Plans
era provinces will be continued in employment during the seeding season. In other words we may say that it is a measure of apprenticeship in farming, since some twenty thousand of those who were so placed are under the age of twenty-five. I give that figure to the house as an indication that these measures have placed these younger people in surroundings much more satisfactory than would have been possible had they remained in the cities or, I suggest, in the relief camps, though some members may question this. Not only that, but in many cases they are given the opportunity to reestablish themselves in what after all is and will be the basic industry of the prairie provinces.
It is quite true that Ontario did not decide to accept this scheme. As hon. members of the house are aware, the plan is one of joint participation; that is to say, the costs involved are divided equally as between the dominion and the provincial government concerned. The government of Ontario, together with all other provincial governments, was approached as early as September of last year in order that we might have plans in advance to deal with the problem of single unemployed and transients. I may say that the national employment commission had a very keen appreciation of this problem, and from my contact with the situation and also with the members of the commission during that period I know that their conferences with the provinces were enormously helpful in bringing about that degree of cooperation which has made the plan successful in those provinces where it has been adopted. The Ontario government rather took the view that owing to the great increase in work being carried on in the woods, through the stimulus given to the newsprint industry, there would not be the same problem with regard to single unemployed transients as there had been in earlier years. In fairness to the Ontario department of welfare I should say that it was also the view of the minister of labour of that province that the wages paid under the scheme were unsatisfactory, that they might tend to reduce the level of ordinary farm wages and interrupt labouring conditions in that province. At all events, for the reasons I have indicated, the province of Ontario did not think it expedient to adopt this plan. I believe I am justified in saying that the plan has worked out successfully in other provinces where it has been adopted.


Mr. MacNEIL:: To what extent has farm placement work been conducted in British Columbia?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The figures for the different months are as follows:	November, 79;
Deecember, 155; January, 260; February, 220. Those are the numbers actually placed in British Columbia. I should point out that from the beginning we realized that the farm placement plan was not applicable to British Columbia in the same degree as to the prairie provinces, where there were more extensive opportunities for farm placement. Therefore we asked British Columbia to submit to us a supplementary scheme which would deal with the same group of unemployed, but which would provide work foi them more in accord with the basic industries of that province. Under this supplementary scheme the men placed were engaged in forestry work and to some extent on highway work which could be done satisfactorily in the winter months. A number were placed in British Columbia under supplementary schemes. In December there were 1,251; January, 2,000; February, 2,270.


Charles Grant MacNeil: To what extent must the unemployed comply with regulations respecting domicile in order to come under the farm placement scheme? For instance, I understand that the agreements with the various provinces, and particularly with British Columbia, apply only to those who have domicile in the province concerned, under the regulations as enacted by the province.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I will have that information in a minute. The hon. member will recall that a peculiar situation existed in British Columbia in that a large number of transients collected in Vancouver who did not qualify for receipt of direct relief. When I was in Vancouver in November of last year I had discussions with provincial government authorities regarding the matter, and also with a number of interested organizations in that city. Although originally the transients who could not establish a domicile might have been excluded from these supplementary works, we did provide that the transients actually in the province at the time the agreement was made should not be excluded. In turn that involved the setting of a date which would prevent transients from moving in from Alberta to British Columbia with a view to obtaining work on the supplementary program. In order to stabilize the situation in the various provinces we sought to have similar plans arranged. Only a few weeks later we arranged a supplementary plan in Alberta. That is to say, we wanted to check transients moving both ways, and, so far as British Columbia was concerned, in order to do that it seemed desirable to set a definite
2826	COMMONS
Supply-Labour-Farm Employment Plans
date so as to determine those who should be eligible for employment on a supplementary works program.


Charles Grant MacNeil: What is the situation now? Has any uniformity been achieved with respect to the regulations concerning domicile, and to avoid having a large number of men described as transients who would be denied relief or employment on a relief project in any province?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Certainly that has not been the case with regard to special measures we have taken in recent months. For instance, in respect of farm placement no domicile is required. No special regulations with respect to domicile have applied generally with regard to the supplementary schemes in the various provinces which were designed to afford employment to the single unemployed. Only where, as in British Columbia, there was a danger of continued influx of new) transients to take work under the supplementary plan was there a restriction made of the kind I have indicated.


Charles Grant MacNeil: What is the position of men who could not be accepted in British Columbia, but who accepted transportation to other provinces? Would they be included in a scheme in Saskatchewan or Manitoba, for instance?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I know of no reason why they should not be accepted for farm employment in any province. Certainly there was no restriction as to date of eligibility in connection with farm employment. As a matter of fact when I was in western Canada I met a number of transients who had moved eastward from British Columbia, and who apparently were prepared to accept farm employment in one of the prairie provinces.


Charles Grant MacNeil: Has the minister given consideration to the problem of the single unemployed in Ontario? The matter was brought to his attention in a previous discussion this session. There are many men who cannot obtain direct relief, who are moving from city to city and are apparently not eligible under any relief project in Ontario.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is a question which I believe might very properly be taken up with the provincial government in connection with a joint works program during the coming year. I cannot say in advance what can be done to meet the situation, but I can say that the Department of Labour here has not been indifferent to the problem. What I have indicated as to the measures which have been taken elsewhere is some evidence of our desire to meet that particular province. I can under-

stand well the plight of some of the single unemployed in Ontario. I believe that through unemployment bureaux a special effort is now being made to place as many as possible in farm employment.


Charles Grant MacNeil: Would the minister state the wages paid on the special forestry project in British Columbia?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I shall have the information in a minute.


Mr. CLARK (York-Sunbury):: Has the farm employment plan been accepted in New Brunswick?


Norman McLeod Rogers: New Brunswick has made no placements under the plan. It is open to them, as it was to the other provinces.


William George Clark: Will there be any other plan for the employment of the young men there?


Norman McLeod Rogers: New Brunswick was asked to submit a supplementary plan. They complied with the request, and an agreement was entered into for the employment of a number of single unemployed transients on forestry work. That work did not involve the employment of very many single unemployed men. As a matter of fact the preparations required to carry out the plan were such that it did not really employ as many as was originally anticipated.
I shall quote section 8 of the agreement, to set out the wages in British Columbia:
The rates of wages and working hours of all persons employed in the execution of projects under this agreement shall be those hereinafter provided. It shall be the duty of the province to see that all persons employed on any project approved under the terms of this agreement shall, during the continuance of the work, be paid fair wages. Inasmuch, however, as it is considered that the projects authorized to be undertaken by the terms of this agreement are of a class and character which the governor in council, pursuant to the powers granted under section 5 of the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act, 1935, can class as a "special case" it is agreed that in general the maximum number of hours per day and per week to be worked by any employee on any of the said projects shall be restricted to eight and forty-four respectively, but in such instances as the province deems advisable, the said maximum may be exceeded, with the limitation that in no instance shall any employee work in excess of an average of forty-eight hours per week over a period of three consecutive calendar weeks. The province shall keep complete records of the hours worked per day and per week by each of its employees on projects authorized by this agreement and such records shall be available for inspection and audit by the dominion.
That does not refer to specific wages. As a matter of fact the dominion Department of

Supply-Labour-Farm Employment Plans
Labour has not laid down schedules of specific wages with respect to any of these agreements. The undertaking is that fair wages shall be paid, and "fair wages" has been interpreted as being the prevailing wage in the province or locality where the work is being done. In connection with the special supplementary works in British Columbia I believe provision was made that single unemployed men should be located on the work.


Denton Massey: A few moments ago the minister stated that Ontario had objected to participating in this scheme. In view of the experience of the past year I am wondering if the Ontario government had changed their minds and if they would now like to come into the scheme.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I am unable to answer that question at this time.


Denton Massey: In the opinion of the minister this scheme is a success, particularly from the point of view of permanently locating these lads who have gone on the farm. When introducing the item he said he felt that many of these lads would regard their experience as an apprenticeship. If these young men stay on the farm, what steps are being taken to see that the farmer does not take advantage of the fact that they are content to remain? A farmer might keep them on at the low wage they are now paid when otherwise he would have to hire another man for the summer.


Norman McLeod Rogers: After consultation with the provincial governments we have made a special arrangement whereby this plan has been extended through the month of April. Otherwise, it would have ended on March 31, that being the expiry date of the agreements. Through the provincial governments, the employment offices and the radio we have made a special plea for farmers to keep these men on at the going wage. We have asked the farmers to increase their staffs of farm labourers wherever possible during the summer. Every effort is being made to see that these men are given continued employment. As I have said, it has been arranged that the men remain on the farms during the month of April without allowance to the farmer during that period.


Denton Massey: Will the province of Ontario again be consulted before the coming winter? Most of the farms in Ontario are dairy farms and thus there is almost as much farm labour required during the winter as there is during the summer. This is not the case with the vast majority of the farms on the prairies. It seems to me that if this plan has worked out satisfactorily in the western part of the dominion, it would work out even more satisfactorily in Ontario. Will further representations be made to the Ontario government in this connection?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I can assure my hon. friend that the matter will receive further consideration during the summer months.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Do I understand the minister to say that unless these men are absorbed by farmers at the end of April they will then be out of jobs? That is practically what it means. The minister says that every effort is being made to have these men absorbed by the farmers, but that is impossible as far as the drought area of Saskatchewan is concerned. The same thing will probably apply to the rest of the province. The farmers have been able to take on these men with the assistance of the government, but the average farmer will certainly not be in a position to pay for a hired man until his crop is harvested, which will not be until the fall. In mans' instances the governments are furnishing seed and feed and fuel so that the farmers may put in their crops, and it would be impossible for these men to hire labour.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I do not make the statement in just the terms suggested by my hon. friend. I did say that normally the agreements would have terminated on March 31, but after consultation with the provincial governments the dominion government decided to renew the agreements for the month of April. In the meanwhile a concerted effort is being made to see that the men who came under this scheme are given employment by the farmers during the seeding season. We are in continuous consultation with the provincial governments with regard to this matter and hope to be able to deal with the situation as it develops.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The minister says that every' effort is being made, but he does not tell us anything of the nature of the effort. Would it not be possible to continue the same plan through the summer months until harvest time? Otherwise these boys will simply flock to the cities.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: Has there been much demand for these boys? Can it be safely said that a place can be found for any man who wants to go on the farm? Have all farmers who expressed a willingness to participate in this scheme been furnished with men?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I cannot answer that question finally. I do know that when the plan was first put into operation the number of applications went beyond the number of men who could be placed. I would think that with the hopes for good crops which exist in west-
CJVJ2.-Accounting

ern Canada this year there should be a considerable demand for this type of labour during the coming months.
Progress reported.
At one o'clock the house took recess.
The house resumed at three o'clock.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
The house proceeded to the consideration of amendments made by the senate to Bill No. 12, to provide for revision of the accounting set-up of the Canadian National Railway system.-Mr. Howe.
Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Transport) :: Mr. Speaker, the bill has been returned from the senate with six amendments and a change in title. As to five of the amendments we can concur, but we cannot agree to the sixth amendment in its present form. As the bill has not been reprinted I will briefly describe the amendments.
Amendment No. 1 is simply the insertion of the word "and." I will refer later to amendment No. 2. It is an amendment of section 11, and we cannot concur in it in its present form.
Amendment No. 3 is a change in the wording of section 16. Subsections 2 to 5 inclusive are struck out and the following substituted therefor:
Such by-laws shall provide for-
(a)	the custody of the corporate seal of the trust;
(b)	the execution of instruments by two or more trustees;
(c)	meetings of the trustees, to be held at least once in every year, the giving of notices of meetings, the appointment of a presiding officer at each meeting and the number of trustees necessary to constitute a quorum at meetings.
That is exactly the same as the bill except that it is worded in a more compact form.
Amendment No. 4 is the changing of a capital "S" to a small "s."
Amendment No. 5 is a change in section 22. This is the substitution:
The Securities Trust is hereby declared for the purposes of the Canadian National-Canadian Pacific Act, 1933, and the Canadian National-Canadian Pacific Act, 1936, to be a corporation comprised in the National railways, provided, however, that subsection 3 of section 8 of the Canadian National-Canadian Pacific Act, 1933,

as enacted by section 3 of the Canadian National-Canadian Pacific Act, 1936, shall not apply to the said corporation.
That particular section is a provision that the directors of Canadian National Railways shall be directors of all subsidiary companies. I have no objection to the change. Also section 24 has been struck out and the following substituted therefor:
The minister shall annually include as an appendix to the public accounts of Canada a detailed statement of the assistance, whether by way of grant or unpaid loan of money, undischarged guarantee, grant of land or otherwise given by the Dominion of Canada to every railway, showing separately the assistance given (a) in aid of construction and (b) to meet losses on operation. Such statement shall, as far as possible, show separately for each item of assistance the name of the company to which granted; the date upon which granted; the authority for the grant, whether by statute, contract or otherwise; the purpose for which granted, and the manner in which such assistance has been dealt with in the public accounts of Canada. The appendix shall also contain a similar statement in respect of loans which have been repaid and guarantees which have been discharged, showing the same details and also the dates of repayment or discharge. Grants to relieve unemployment shall not be considered as assistance to the railways.
I have consulted the Department of Finance to ascertain whether a statement in that form is possible. I am told that it is, and I have no objection to that amendment.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is merely an expansion of the other section.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Quite, yes. It requires a little more detail than the other section.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is what the Department of Finance would, in any event, have done, but it is well to have it stated.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Reverting to amendment No. 2, to section II, the proposal is to add this statement:
A footnote shall appear in the said accounts stating that the proprietor's equity, representing an aggregate indebtedness of $1,334,567,414, is disclosed in the net debt of Canada, and in the historical record of government assistance to railways as shown in the public accounts of Canada.
There are several reasons why we cannot accept that amendment. The first is that the statement which it makes is not correct. It says, "representing an aggregate indebtedness of 11,334,567,414."


Mr. CAHAN:: What is the correct amount?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I do not know. But what
they have done here is to take the operating losses and add to them the grants made under the Maritime Freight Rates Act of 1927 and also grants made under the Canadian

CJfJl.-Accounting
National-Canadian Pacific Act of 1933. If one refers to the finance bills under which those moneys were voted it will be found that they were granted not as debts but as outright grants, so that to say they are debts is entirely contrary to the fact. I do not know what figure could be inserted. I cannot imagine what the senate had in mind in making this amendment, but to insert any figure is to do exactly what we are trying to undo through the bill. The purpose of this measure is to take out the deadwood from the corporation balance sheet.


Richard Bedford Bennett: This amendment does
not touch that purpose.


Clarence Decatur Howe: A footnote would not do so?
I should like to refer to that argument. It has been said in the senate and in this house that a footnote to the balance sheet is not part of the balance sheet. The accountants of the department, however, say very definitely that the footnote on a balance sheet is part of that balance sheet, and our legal advisers are of the same opinion; both say that no footnote is ever put in a balance sheet unless it is necessary to give a clear conception of what the balance sheet is intended to report. The purpose of a footnote on a balance sheet is to show that bond interest in a certain amount remains unpaid, or that certain preferred interest is unpaid; it is put there because without it the balance sheet does not correctly set out the present position of that business. No such purpose would be served by the footnote proposed in the amendment. This bill eliminates from the balance sheet these losses on operating deficits. That is its purpose. To say in a footnote that these items must also be considered in reading the balance sheet is to undo everything that this bill purports to do.


Richard Bedford Bennett: But the amendment does not say that.


Clarence Decatur Howe: It provides that there must be a footnote on the balance sheet showing that this amount is involved.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It says it is " disclosed " in another statement.


Clarence Decatur Howe: But why would they feel it necessary to disclose a figure, almost as large as the balance sheet itself, in a footnote, unless it has some direct effect on the figures above?


Richard Bedford Bennett: When the minister has finished I shall say something.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I have suggested two reasons for rejecting this amendment. One is that
the figure named is grossly inaccurate; it is not the correct debt at all. The second is that to put in there any such specific sum of that magnitude, however one cares to make it up, is to undo everything that this bill undertakes to do in clearing up the balance sheet situation.
In that connection it is interesting to note that it has been said here that financial centres were quite aware of this duplication. My attention has been called to the statement filed by the underwriters in connection with the recent loan by the dominion in the United States. The underwriters, Morgan, Stanley and Company, found it necessary in a registration statement issued on January 14, 1937, under the United States Security Act of 1933, to caution prospective investors against a misconception of the present combined debt position of the dominion and its railways. This footnote is found on page 23 of the registration statement as follows:
Under no circumstances should the loans set forth above and the interest accrued thereon, be included in any figure for the gross debt of the dominion plus the debt of the Canadian National Railways, as to do so would involve an overstatement of the total debt of the dominion, and of the railways due to the public by the sum of the above loans and accrued interest thereon, to wit, $1,250,235,251.
My officers who are responsible for these matters tell me that, if we put the proposed footnote on the balance sheet, in order to float a loan in the United States it would be necessary to have another explanation. What we are trying to do is to present to the world a combined statement of the debt of the dominion and the debt of the railways so that the two can be added together and the total liabilities of Canada and its railways disclosed. Unless we can do that there is no purpose in this bill.
I move, therefore:
That a message be sent to the senate to acquaint their honours that this house has agreed to their amendments to Bill No. 12, an act to provide for revision of the accounting set-up of the Canadian National Railway system, with an amendment to their second amendment as follows:
By striking out of the said amendment the words "representing an aggregate indebtedness of $1,334,567,414 is disclosed in the net debt of Canada and" and substituting therefor the words "is included in the net debt of Canada, and that expenditures by Canada on Canadian National Railway system are set out":
For the following reasons:
The inclusion of the second amendment as worded nullifies the purpose of this bill in that it restores to the balance sheet the amount of accumulated operating deficits covered by loans, and adds thereto the amounts voted in the form of contribution (which are not and never have been loans) under the Maritime Freight
C.N Jt.-Accounting

Rates Act, 1927, and the Canadian National-Canadian Pacific Act, 1933, which amounts are duplicated in the net debt of Canada.
I will now read the footnote, the clause as it will be amended by the foregoing:
A footnote shall appear in the said accounts stating that the proprietor's equity is included in the net debt of Canada and that expenditures by Canada on Canadian National railway system are set out in the historical record of government assistance to railways as shown in the public accounts of Canada.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The difference between the senate and the minister is the difference between those who desire to disclose the situation and those who desire to cover it up. That is the story. We may talk about it for the rest of the week, but that is the fact.


Clarence Decatur Howe: We want to disclose it, but at the same time we do not want to magnify it.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It cannot be magnified. I know nothing of the figures because I have not sent for my books to check them up, but the minister has now said that the effort is to cover it up. It is absurd to say that this is a part of the balance sheet. I do not think that any accountant ever said that this kind of footnote forms a part of any balance sheet. I should like to see over the signature of an accountant the statement that a note of this kind is a part of the balance sheet. Every day statements are made-I can show many of them-as to how an amount is made up, but such statements are not regarded as part of the balance sheet; they are explanatory. Here the statement is made that certain amounts are disclosed in the net debt of Canada. I agree with the minister that they should be accurate; but certainly his explanation makes it clear that the desire is to cover it up. I do submit again that it is a very bad thing not to have in the balance sheet of the Canadian National Railways the information which heretofore we have had. We had the information about the deficits under the Canadian National-Canadian Pacific bill of 1933. They are all there. I read them the other day from page 10 of the balance sheet. They are there every year, and no attempt has been made to cover them up nor have there been any statements as to their being included in the national debt.
The suggested amendment would be all right were it not for the fact that it is not strictly accurate inasmuch as that sum included some old Canadian National and Grand Trunk matters which only subsequently came into the Canadian National system. It might be put this way:

A footnote shall appear in the said accounts stating that the proprietor's equity is included in the net debt of Canada and in the historical record of government assistance to railways as shown in the public accounts of Canada.
It would be inaccurate to say that it is shown in the report with respect to assistance given to the Canadian National Railways, because they did not come into being until long after a portion of the money so indicated had actually been expended on these roads. It must be remembered that this originated with the government itself. Section 24 is merely a statement of principle which the government suggested to the committee and which is now more fully set out; and to say that the indebtedness is disclosed in the net debt of Canada and in the historical record of government assistance would be strictly accurate in view of that clause, the principle of which was suggested by the government, the adoption of it in its present form being merely an expansion of what was originally stated as the principle.
I cannot see that the suggested amendment meets the situation from the standpoint of accuracy, to which I am sure the minister is as desirous as I am to adhere. Perhaps he would read the whole section.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I will read the section as a whole, as it will appear:
A footnote shall apear in the said accounts stating that the proprietor's equity is included in the net debt of Canada-
As a matter of fact it is there to-day, and this statement is necessary to clarify the balance sheet. We are adding:
-and that expenditures by Canada on Canadian National Railway system are set out in the historical record of government assistance to railways as shown in the public accounts of Canada.
In other words, we are tying up the balance sheet with the statement in the public accounts, and to put a definite figure in there would be misleading because the figure will not be the same from year to year.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Only with the permission of the house-for I have no right to speak again-I think the minister will find that the statement he has made, assuming that he leaves out the figures altogether, will not reflect the true situation if he desires to be accurate. He is using "is included" instead of "is disclosed." I think he is right in saying "is included in the net debt of Canada."


Clarence Decatur Howe: That is what we want to say.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is all right. Then there should follow after that: "and disclosed in the historical record of government assis-

Immigration Act Amendment
tance to railways as shown in the public accounts of Canada," because the public accounts of Canada showed the whole expenditure, and the Canadian National Railways did not become an entity until long after many of these expenditures had been made; therefore the statement in the footnote would be inaccurate.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I want two statements there: first, an indication that the proprietor's equity is included in the net debt of Canada- that is necessary to explain the balance sheet-and second, a tying up of the balance sheet with a complete statement that we are setting up in the public accounts.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The Canadian National system did not until it became an entity include the assistance given to the Canadian Northern and other railways, which helped to make the aggregate sum in question. Therefore if after the word ''Canada" you say: "and disclosed in the historical record of government assistance to railways as shown in the public accounts of Canada" you accomplish the purpose the minister has in view, namely, to tie it up with the public accounts, and at the same time the statement is so general as not to be open to a charge of inaccuracy.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I think my right hon. friend is entirely right, but I am trying to meet the views expressed by the senate committee. I am putting it in for that purpose only; my personal opinion is it should not be there.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: If you change the word "disclosed" in the second line of the amendment as proposed by the senate to "included," and insert after the word "and" in the third line the word "disclosed," you have done all that is necessary, of course striking out "representing an aggregate indebtedness of $1,334,567,414." So that if you strike out part of line 2. substitute the word "included" for "disclosed," insert "disclosed" after "and" in the third line, you have a statement which is accurate.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I think my right hon. friend, the leader of the opposition, has cleared this up, and I will ask my colleague to move accordingly.


Charles Avery Dunning: On which I think we can agree, and thus attain the objective of agreement with the other house.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I hope so.


Charles Avery Dunning: I move that the second amendment made by the senate to Bill No. 12 be amended to read as follows:-
A footnote shall appear in the said accounts stating that the proprietor's equity in included
in the net debt of Canada and disclosed in the historical record of government assistance to railways as shown in the public accounts of Canada.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And the message to their honours will be amended accordingly.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. T. A. CRERAR (Minister of Mines and Resources) moved the second reading of Bill No. 102 to amend the Immigration Act.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.
Section 1 agreed to.
On section 2-Domicile.
Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It strikes me that this person who is absent may not be a representative or employee of a firm, company or organization. There is much foreign commercial activity carried on by individuals other than such representatives or employees. A leading engineer may send an employee abroad to make surveys for an electrical development in a foreign country. He may have to remain abroad more than a year. Make it read "a person, business, firm, company ..." A person engaged in business on his own account would be covered. "Firm" has a technical meaning of the association of two or more persons in a business.


Richard Bedford Bennett: If it said "employee of a business organization." Put the word "business" before "firm."


Mr. CRERAR:: I am quite in sympathy with the suggestion made by the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George, although as I understand the act, if such a person is absent not more than six years he does not lose his right of Canadian domicile. If he is absent more than six years he does lose it.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That is only partly true. If he was not born in Canada, but acquired domicile either through being a British subject when he came to Canada or through having acquired a certificate of naturalization while in Canada, his absence for one year is sufficient to lose it.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Unless he reports.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: And in such places as in many parts of South America you cannot find a person to report to except perhaps by travelling through hundreds of miles of wilderness.
Immigration Act Amendment


Thomas Alexander Crerar: In that event the person absent would probably be a representative of an organization.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: A one-man organization often.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: If a man having an office and carrying on the business of engineering sent a representative say to Mexico to report on an engineering project, I think such a person would come within the category.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There is a little doubt about it. Why not just add the word "business?"


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That suggestion is quite agreeable to me. The purpose of the clause is the very thing my hon. friend suggests.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I found that our trade commissioners abroad are worried in connection with their children. Say "a business, firm, company or organization." Or you could put it the other way about.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I simply say that for five years while I was in office hardly a week passed when some difficulty of this kind did not arise. I have known of most pitiable circumstances-


Thomas Alexander Crerar: My colleague will move
the necessary amendment.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: I move that the word "business" be inserted after the word "a" in line 14 of section 2.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
Sections 3 to 10 inclusive agreed to.
On section 11-Duty of companies to reconvey rejected immigrants to country of birth or citizenship.
Alan Webster Neill: It seems to me we are committing an injustice against somebody here. The minister will tell me it is the same wording that is in the old act, but that does not make it any better. The section reads:
When any immigrant or other person is rejected or ordered to be deported from Canada, and such person has not come to Canada by continuous journey from the country of which he is a native or naturalized citizen, but has come indirectly through another country which refuses to allow such person to return or be returned to it, then the transportation company bringing such person "to" such other country shall convey such person from Canada to the country of which he is a native or naturalized citizen-
I think it should be "from such other country." This may work a great hardship on some innocent shipping company. We will suppose the law says that Chinamen may be
[Mr. Cahan.J
allowed into the United States but not into Canada. A perfectly innocent company brings a Chinaman to the United States; many years later that Chinaman is brought to Canada. His entry is illegal, and we discover that, but instead of saying that the company which brought him from Seattle to Vancouver should take him back again we compel the original company that brought him from Hong Kong to the United States to take him back. That does not seem fair, and I do not know how it can be enforced. The man who comes by ship to Vancouver can be returned in that way, but how can we have anything to do with a company which may not have anything to do with Canada at all?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think the hon. member for Comox-Alberni has the wrong interpretation. The section says, "but has come indirectly through another country which refuses to allow such person to return or be returned to it." If there are two countries affected he has to be taken back to the country from which he came originally.


Alan Webster Neill: He came to the intermediate country innocently enough. He was legally entered there.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: He can be returned there, then.


Alan Webster Neill: That is what I want to have done, but the minister is providing not that he shall be returned by the company which brought him on the last leg of his journey but that the original company shall be penalized because he was brought from China to the United States. Surely the company to be penalized is the company that brought the man into Canada, not the company that brought him to the intermediate country.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I do not think my hon. friend from Comox-Alberni is quite correct. If a ship brings a Chinaman from Hong Kong to San Francisco and the Chinaman is allowed to land, he is legally in the United States, and in that case he can be returned from Canada to the United States if later he should come to this country. But if he is in the United States illegally and comes to Canada, then we put the burden on the steamship company that brought him to the United States; they must take him back to the place from which he came originally.


Alan Webster Neill: But his original entry was legal. The first country does not say he was there illegally; they merely refuse to allow him to return.

Immigration Act Amendment


Thomas Alexander Crerar: If he is in that country legally they cannot refuse to allow him to return.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I do not wish to complicate the matter, but taking the illustration given by the minister-it is not necessary that the man should be Chinese or Japanese; he may be a citizen of one of the South American states. He is first brought to the United States and from the United States he comes to Canada. Then you wish to deport him and to provide for the cost of deportation. How can the Department of Immigration in Canada impose upon a steamship company, which has no relations with Canada whatsoever, the expense of a deportation from Canada? What jurisdiction would you have over some South American steamship company running from Buenos Aires to New York which brought in a citizen of Argentina, or a company running from Rio de Janiero to New York which brought in a citizen of Brazil? How could you exercise any control over that steamship company which is not connected with Canada, which never calls at Canadian ports and which has no agency in Canada? How could you collect the expense?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: In that case I would say we probably could not collect, but if that company ever sent a ship to any Canadian port then we could get at the company and collect the cost.


Alan Webster Neill: Why not put the obligation on the company that actually brought the man to Canada, the steamship company that brought him from New York to Halifax? Then if they have any redress against the first steamship company, let them go to it. We can make the steamship company that brought him here from New York take him back, but we cannot touch the other company, so in that respect the statute is not worth the paper it is written on.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Taking the case of a Chinaman, a steamship company may bring a Chinaman to Seattle legally, we will say. Later he comes to Canada, but having entered the United States legally he can be returned to that country. If he comes to the United States illegally; that is, if he escapes the immigration authorities at that port and then walks across to Canada, he is in Canada illegally. The United States refuses to take him back, and then we put the obligation on the steamship company that brought him to Seattle to carry him back to China.


Alan Webster Neill: All I say is that we are putting the obligation on the wrong company. In the first place he entered the United
31)11-179
States legally; later, owing to some action of his, the United States thought they were well rid of him and refused to take him back. Perhaps he had been accused of some crime, and they wanted to get rid of him. The person with whom we are dealing, and the only person with whom we can deal, is the person that brings him to Canada. Under this act we are asked to go out into the world at large and find some company which may have brought him over the first stage of his journey, a company of which we may have no knowledge and over which we have no control.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It has been the law for
years and has worked very successfully.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It was intended to operate as a deterrent.


Alan Webster Neill: Has there ever been a case where we could find this first company?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I cannot give any specific instance to my hon. friend, but I can imagine a case like this, where an immigrant may be brought illegally into a port such as Seattle. He is entered into the United States and is not carried into Canada by any transportation company. What recourse have we against him?.-none, unless we can get after the steamship company which originally brought him in.


Alan Webster Neill: Yes, you can arrest him. But, suppose the conditions are as the minister describes: What are you going to do with the man whilst you are hunting for the number one steamship company? You have to do something with him. He is here in Canada. You will put no obligation on the company which brought him on the last leg of the journey. WThat will you do with him while you are hunting for the original company? You impose no obligation on the company which brought him in here, so I suppose you are going to keep him in Canada. What are you going to do with him while you are hunting for this elusive company we know nothing about?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: We will probably send him out of the country.


Alan Webster Neill: To where?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: To the country he came from.


Alan Webster Neill: The party to do that is the company which brought him to Canada.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The provision has been there since 1910.


Alan Webster Neill: That is a very poor reason.

Immigration Act Amendment


Charles Avery Dunning: It dealt with a specific situation which arose at that time.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 12 to 15 inclusive agreed to.
On section 16-Deposit as security for return of deserters.
Charles Hazlitt Cahan: This is a new section?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes. May I explain that when a seaman deserts from a ship in a Canadian port the ship is required to put up a deposit of $300, if my memory serves me correctly as to the amount. That deposit is held by the Canadian government through the Department of Immigration. The deserter may remain in Canada a few weeks and then accept work on another ship leaving a Canadian port. There is no provision in the law in such cases for the return of the deposit secured in the first instance from the ship which originally brought him to the Canadian port. This is simply to provide authority that in such cases, or in other cases where similar action would be proper, the deposit may be returned. I may say this matter has been brought to our attention by the British government.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I believe the words " that it be returned to the depositor " might be left out. I do not think they should have the money returned to them. However, I shall not press the point.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 17 to 19 inclusive agreed to.
On the preamble.
Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: May I make a general inquiry of the minister? I was inclined to ask the question on section 5, but possibly I may be permitted to do so now. During my brief experience in the application of the Immigration Act I have come in contact with cases in which section 5 would apply, and I have no doubt the department has had many such experiences. I do not wish to reopen the discussion, but there may have been many immigrants from southern European countries to which section 5 would apply. I am just wondering if the minister has contemplated a more definite immigration policy than has been followed in the past of promoting immigration of people of Anglo-Saxon origin. Could the minister give the committee any information as to whether he has in mind any further policy with respect to bringing out more people of Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian origin, or generally a policy of having a better type of immigrant than on occasions we have had in the past?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I believe we are out of order in discussing section 5 at this time, but if I am to answer the hon. member it will be necessary for me to be out of order for a moment or two.


Richard Bedford Bennett: This bill does not touch the problem of immigration.


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: The application of the act with respect to certain cases has brought the matter to my attention. As I say, in a general way there are many immigrants which come from the southern part of Europe.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: And a great many from other countries as well.


[Stage Direction]
Preamble agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.

[Stage Direction]
To provide for federal contribution to farm employment and supplementary plans, $3,283,500.
Angus MacInnis: The hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. MacNeil) asked a question with respect to wages paid on forestry projects in British Columbia. The minister replied that the federal government had set no definite wage, other than the stipulation that a fair wage would be paid. Has the minister any information as to wages paid? If the men who have worked on the forestry projects secure employment after leaving the forestry work, is the deferred part of their wages kept back, or is it kept back only in the event of their being unemployed?
Hon. NORMAN McL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour): I am sorry I have not the information with respect to the actual wages paid the men on forestry projects. As the hon. member is aware, the administration of the agreement is in the hands of the provincial department. I do know as a matter of fact that under the original arrangement a portion of the wages was to be deferred and paid to the men over a period of weeks following the termination of their service. I have no knowledge of arrangements which would be made to deal with the particular case he has in mind, namely as to whether the deferred pay would be handed out in a lump sum if the man went immediately into other employment. Have I understood the hon. member's question correctly?


Angus MacInnis: Yes.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I shall toe very glad to secure the information, but it does not come to me as a njatter of course.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Before the house rose at one o clock, dealing with the plan under which men on the farms were to be taken care of until the end of March, the minister informed the committee that there has been an extension to cover the month of April, $5 per month being paid to the employee but nothing to the farmer. I was asking the minister what would now be done for these young men and he replied that every effort was being made to have them absorbed by the farmers now employing them. I was pointing out that most farmers, particularly those in the drought area of Saskatchewan, would not be in a position to employ them. It seemed to me the minister was delightfully vague about just what was going to happen. Here we have several thousand young men employed on farms in Saskatchewan. What is going to happen to them? When seeding operations are completed where are they to go? Men are needed on the farm more in the summer than in the winter. Has the government in mind some plan to look after these men during the summer months? Is this vote only to pay for the scheme that has been in operation during the winter months?


Norman McLeod Rogers: 
[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To provide for federal contribution towards $362 200ater Winnipeg sewa8e disposal scheme,
Thomas Langton Church: How is it the city of Winnipeg can get a direct federal grant? I do not object to that city getting some help from this government, but if assistance is given to one municipality for the construction of trunk sewers or other works of the kind, the same thing should be done for other municipalities. There are many other municipalities greatly in need of increased sewage facilities. I do not see why this city should be singled out for treatment outside of the general legislation. Toronto is carrying out a S30,000.000 trunk sewer scheme at the present time and has not asked the provincial and dominion governments to contribute one-third each of the cost. The principle of confederation, each for all and all for each, should apply.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think I should say
that the minister is not responsible for this. The former government made this arrangement with the city of Winnipeg in consequence of the Red river having shrunk in volume to such an extent that the health of the whole community was threatened. The province made representations and the arrangement was made that we would pay one-third of the cost of this scheme to protect the health, and shall I say the lives of the people of Winnipeg. The Red river was one over which we exercised some jurisdiction, and the minister merely inherited this matter.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Perhaps I should say that
the arrangement was made through the provincial government.


Denton Massey: There is a business project of which I am about to speak, but which has been rejected by business men as not being one likely to pay, but which if the initial cost could be met might be made into a most extraordinarily efficient and productive proposition. I was very much impressed this last autumn with the spectacular and dramatic waste of heat occurring in the Turner Valley of Alberta. There I saw scores of fires burning the waste gases from the various wells, heating the whole outdoors to no purpose whatsoever. It is a well known fact that such gas has been advantageously utilized in many places for heating purposes. There is little or no doubt that there are sufficient b.t.u.'s being dissipated
2ggg	COMMONS
Supply-Labour-Winnipeg Sewage
in, that area to heat the greater part of the cities of Calgary, Regina and Winnipeg.
I realize the piping of this gas for such long distances would be an expensive proposition and perhaps of doubtful business value from the point of view of the initial cost, but we are living in a day when money is being spent to keep men in idleness or to give them work on various relief projects which are of doubtful value. Has the minister given consideration to such a proposition as I have outlined as a relief project? This project would provide work for both skilled and unskilled labour. It may be entirely removed from the realm of possibility or feasibility, and I am only asking the minister if any consideration has been given to the matter.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I do not recall that this
particular proposal has come to the department. I must say that I am not competent to pass upon the engineering feasibility of the scheme. I agree with my hon. friend that where possible we should see that expenditures are made in a direction that will lead to collateral and additional ultimate employment. Any proposal of that kind which is referred to us we consider most carefully. Where we have not the engineering staff in our own department to consider the matter, we refer it to other departments which have the requisite staff.


Denton Massey: This is not a matter
limited only to the province of Alberta. There is sufficient heat being wasted in the Turner Valley to burn up the city of Calgary overnight. The service could be extended to Regina and Winnipeg, thus becoming an interprovincial proposition in which the federal government could well interest itself.


Mr. COLDWELL:: Several years ago a
private corporation did submit a plan which was found to be quite feasible from the engineering point of view. It was from the economic point of view that the feasibility was doubtful. The amount involved to pipe the gas from Turner Valley to Saskatoon and to Regina by a triangular route was approximately 818,000,000. An alternative proposition to pipe the gas to Regina from the Turner Valley field, touching on the way Swift Current and several other cities, amounted to some 814,000,000; and there was actually a scheme voted upon in the city of Regina several years ago to bring in gas from the Bowdoin field in Montana at a cost of about 811,000,000. These estimated prices were in boom times, and I happen to know that early in the depression-I think it was in 1933 or 1934, anyhow shortly after I left the council at Regina-a scheme exactly

like the previous one to bring gas from the Bowdoin field to Regina was discussed. It was to cost about $6,750,000, or about half the cost of the original Calgary-Regina scheme.
I believe there is a great deal to be said for the suggestion of the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Massey) as a conservation measure and for the utilization of something which I, at least, regard as a criminal waste. No doubt the minister has been in the Turner valley, and I am sure he would agree with me that probably it represents one of the world's greatest wastages. Billions of cubic feet of gas, after the naphtha has been removed, sufficient for almost all the heating and lighting needs of the prairie provinces, are going to waste every day. As an unemployment measure consideration might be given to the proposal. I realize however, that in respect of such schemes the cost of material is a factor, and the outlay for piping would be a fairly large percentage of the total. But I believe that if geologists can assure the government that there is a fair supply of gas for the future-as to which, I may say, doubt has been expressed from time to time- the enterprise might be remunerative, would conserve a great resource, would utilize something which to-day is a great waste, and probably give a tremendous service to the people of western Canada. As I have said, it is an engineering possibility, but whether it is economically practicable or economically desirable is another matter on which I cannot pass an opinion.


Mr. LANDERYOU:: Has the minister received any suggested plans from the provinces in connection with the utilization of this gas?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I stated a moment ago
that I have not received a definite proposal in this matter from any province. It may be, as was suggested by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), that some years ago a proposal was sent to the Department of Labour here. I can only say I have no knowledge of it. I surmise that some question might arise as to the effect of such an undertaking on the coal mines of Alberta.


Thomas Langton Church: A most dangerous principle is involved in this vote. I do not see why any one municipality should be allowed to balance its budget with federal aid. For example, the city I referred to, one of whose members is the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Massey) has had to provide a vast general Greater Toronto sewage system not only for the city but for many incorporated villages, towns and townships within a radius of miles. It has been found necessary to put in a slow sand water filtration plant. Now

Supply-Labour-Youthful Unemployed
the city sewers, the capital charges for which are being carried by the body of the taxpayers, have become overloaded, with the result that they have to consider a vaster system than has been, which will cost from twenty-five to thirty millions of dollars. The committee is now asked to pay money to Winnipeg for a greater sewer system. As soon as they get the sewers they will want water. I am unable to see why this particular municipality should be singled out for special treatment; it is not fair, and it is contrary to the British North America Act. Why are they under a special direct municipal vote? Furthermore, when they have got the sewers they will probably want the dominion government to defray one-third of the cost of maintaining them, and that would be a very large undertaking. I appreciate the difficulties of Winnipeg in respect to the sewerage system, but every city and town is having difficulties of much the same sewage kind. They have not been able to maintain their systems adequately owing to the depression and the consequent lack of municipal funds. But it is not fair to other municipalities that some municipalities should come to this parliament and have services provided for them at the expense of the country at large. I do not think any other country is doing that kind of thing. As an hon. member has reminded us, Hamilton, Toronto, and other cities for instance, needs assistance in respect to its sewerage system. The same tendency to special treatment of certain places is to be seen in the main estimates, the supplementary estimates and the extra supplementary estimates. Certain places where they vote right receive special treatment; others which don't vote right get nothing. I could mention to the Minister of National Reevnue some of those other places which did not get a five cent piece.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The leader of the opposition has already explained to the house the circumstances under which the dominion government agreed to contribute to the Winnipeg sewerage project. The original agreement was for a year. We inherited that obligation; at the same time we did not seek to evade our own responsibility in relation to it. It was commenced as essentially a health measure because of an acute situation which developed in Winnipeg at that time. I might add that in connection with the whole transaction the negotiations were carried on with the provincial government.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To provide for development and train ing projects for unemployed young people, $1,000,000.
Denton Massey: I am sure that, considering this particular item, the committee must realize it touches one of the most important subjects which has come before the house this session- not perhaps because of the size of the vote, which certainly is not excessively large, but on account of the importance of the use to which the money will be put. It is to be regretted exceedingly that it is in the dying hours of the session that this particular item is brought to the attention of the committee. After all the object to which the money will be put is one which concerns this dominion as vitally as any item which we have so far considered in this or any other session.
I know that it would be entirely distasteful to hon. members were I or anyone else in this chamber to indulge in a lengthy discussion of this or any other item or to attempt to launch a debate on the subject. Therefore I will confine my remarks to the minimum and endeavour to cover the subject as rapidly as possible.
I fully realize that I am speaking before the minister has had time to state what he has in mind under this vote, and perhaps before I make any remarks he would prefer if I surrendered the floor to him to permit him to give his statement. Or shall I proceed?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Now?


Denton Massey: Yes.


Norman McLeod Rogers: This is a new vote, and I had proposed to make a brief statement to the committee respecting the expenditures which it is proposed to make under it. 1 should say in the beginning that this vote finds a place in the estimates this year by reason of the fact that when the National Employment Commission Act was passed last year provision was made for the appointment of a youth employment committee. We made that provision for this reason, that upon the basis of the knowledge obtained through the registration and classification of the unemployed we believe there was a very special problem as regards the age group of, let us say, eighteen to twenty-five years, the younger members of the community who have completed their school years and have been obliged to seek employment under conditions most unfavourable to gaining employment. There has been and possibly will be in parliament a measure of criticism respecting the setting up of the youth employment committee. Possibly that criticism will extend to the segregation, for special consideration, of a particular group of the unemployed.
2838	COMMONS
Supply-Labour-Youthjul Unemployed
Naturally as Minister of Labour I must accept full responsibility for advocating the sotting up of the youth employment committee and also for this item now before us. It was as a result of the study by the youth employment committee that the recommendation was made that a sum should be placed in the estimates this year to provide for special training projects for unemployed young people. I think I am quite within the facts when I say that this item as it appears in the estimates was a result of the setting up of this special committee of the national employment commission.
A further question arises as to the manner in which this sum can be expended to the greatest advantage. The youth employment committee made a number of reports directly to the national employment commission. The commission gave further study to these reports and made definite recommendations to the government. In these reports the suggestion was made that this money could be expended to the best advantage in some provinces upon forestry projects or upon projects which would enable unemployed young men to fit themselves for work in the primary industries of those particular provinces. For example, in British Columbia, where there is a very large forest reserve and lumbering is a basic industry, it was suggested that it would be most desirable that the training projects there should relate to forestry or to mining, another important industry in the province. So far as the western provinces are concerned, there is an obvious advantage in having training projects directed rather towards employment in agriculture in one of its forms or conceivably in the building trades. We have had some definite representations with regard to the need for further skilled labour in the building trades in some of the western provinces. In the central provinces there is need also for work in the forests, particularly fire protection, and we have under consideration he establishment of a small corps of young unemployed men who will gain experience and as well, we believe, a wholesome acquaintance with the outdoors in the protection of the forests.


Mr. MacNICOL:: They will have first to cut roads into the forest.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That may be necessary.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Not may be; they must.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I am willing to accept that as a necessary part of the work; of course, I am speaking in general terms. The hon. gentleman is familiar with the work of reforestation, but some of the general projects might very well cover that aspect of it.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That is a splendid way to employ young men.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Then we have in the maritime provinces certain proposals with respect to the training of young men for hard rock mining and in New Brunswick for forest work.
In all that we seek to do under this vote we are going to try to secure a proper sense of direction through which we may .be able later if the necessity should continue to concentrate our efforts upon particular measures of reestablishment. I should like to point out to the committee, however, that it would be neither wise nor practical to indicate one predigested plan, so to speak, which would apply generally throughout the dominion. We are of the opinion, especially where we have in view that this action should be taken in cooperation with the provinces, that the training projects should be related as far as possible to the basic industries of the province wherein unemployment exists. There is also, and I believe it is becoming more evident each day, a growing need for training some of our young unemployed in the skilled trades. That applies particularly in certain branches of the building industry. Hon. members are well aware that this industry has been passing through a very acute depression. It has not responded as quickly to the forces of recovery as have some other industries in the country. At the same time it is now becoming recognized in some of the larger cities that we may have a real shortage in the building and construction industry. We propose to discuss with the provincial governments of the more industrialized provinces the feasibility of arranging special classes for unemployed young people in such trades as are most likely to ensure their early absorption into the economic life of the country.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Will the minister consult the trade unions to ascertain what in their opinion are the best trades to which young men should be apprenticed?


Norman McLeod Rogers: We propose to do just that. I am glad the hon. gentleman has mentioned it at this time. In our earlier conversations we have had consultations with representatives of the various trade unions concerned, and certainly in any final action taken we shall have the benefit of their views.
I believe I have indicated in a general way, with as much particularity as is possible at this time, what we propose to do under this vote. I do not suggest that it is more than an approach to the larger problem. At the same time, from all that I have been able to gather in recent months, there is no feature of the general unemployment problem that challenges

Supply-Labour-Youthful Unemployed
our attention and interest to-day to a greater degree than this problem which we seek to deal with under this vote.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Has the minister considered and, if so, is he sympathetic with the United States scheme known as the C.C.C. camps-the civilian conservation corps? I -have visited a number of these camps and I think it is a splendid way of putting young men to work. They learn a good deal and perform much useful service. The proof is the fact that the United States itself has adopted the principle of C.C.C. camps as a permanent institution.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I believe that the C.C.C. camps in the United States have operated with considerable success. I may remind my hon. friend that those who are in the civilian conservation corps are enrolled and are subject to discipline while in those camps. That is an important consideration in the general scheme of the C.C.C. camps. I doubt whether under this vote we shall be able to make substantial progress in the country generally in setting up such camps, but there are some provinces that have already expressed their interest in work connected with the forests, and there we may very well be able to carry out the idea my hon. friend has in mind.


Thomas Langton Church: I have seen some of the camps the minister speaks of, and I know that Miss Perkins, the Secretary of Labour in the. United States government, has issued reports in connection with them. In my opinion it would be a flat failure owing to different conditions if attempted in Canada. Our experience should have taught us what to do for the youth of the country. I have no faith in any of these camps or committees or commissions proposed by the minister under this million dollar vote, and if we are not careful we shall get no value at all for the money we are going to spend. Let me read three or four short sentences to the minister. This is a book on the new conservatism, entitled Conservatism and the Future, by Lord Eustace Percy, M.P. and others. It will show the futility of these camps as a palliative, and that the scheme is all wrong if begun in Canada both from an educational and industrial standpoint. Lord Eustace Percy, President of the Board of Education, says:
In our educational example, one of the chief weaknesses of the body politic is the dislike manifested by many of the most enlightened industrialists, who are really keen on education, for any organized system of part-time education and part-time employment. The problems of internal factory organization which such a system must create are many and serious; yet unless they can be solved, unless the inhibition
can be removed, no thorough educational reform is possible. There is one obvious way of removing the inhibition: the five day working week, during which the employed juvenile would receive his specific craft training in the factory, with a universal system of Saturday morning continuation classes. This idea needs careful testing before it is put into practice, but in many, if not in most, industries Saturday closing might well be found to have positive advantages in reducing "terminal" costs, and again educational reform would be merged in a larger reform of occupational life, a reform which would be organic because it would be economic.
He also says, concerning a forward policy for the aid of youth in the depression:
This policy involves, first of all, not a merely educational, but an industrial reform: the imposition on organized industries of a statutory duty to formulate their schemes of recruitment and training, or in other words, a revival in a new form of the idea of apprenticeship as the path to a definite professional status. It involves, in the second place, an extension of compulsory full-time school attendance, not to some fixed and unalterable point dictated by the requirements of school classes, but to points corresponding with the various approved recruitment schemes of industries. It means, thirdly, a new cooperation between the state and industry in the establishment of a system of part-time education . . .
-along the lines suggested.
This can be done only by cooperation between industry and the boards of education in the country. Take all these high school students going around the country riding the rods; are they to be referred to Mr. Purvis's commission and youth committee, the most useless lot of committees and commissions I ever saw? But they represent a lot of money, not only in the main estimates but in this estimate. I served on the Toronto board of education, and from my experience I believe the minister's plan is all wrong. He referred to camps in the United States; I can tell him that Miss Perkins -has just put into effect during the past year a scheme by which a certain number of these students are selected by the educational authorities for further training, and instead of having to quit high school, as they do by thousands in this country, because of inability of the parents on relief to keep -them there, she has adopted a system of keeping -these children in the high schools. They get about -two dollars a week and attend the commercial and industrial classes, and some the night schools. When they are not able to get lunch they give them a small lunch in the school cafeteria, which costs very little. I have seen these camps all over the country, both military and industrial, and I can tell the minister that the young men would rather be out of work than go to some of these camps and waste their future. They do not want -the dole.
2840	COMMONS
Supply-Labour-Youthful Unemployed
The educational system of this country is all wrong in many ways. A commission was appointed by Sir Wilfrid Laurier on technical education and youth in industry in 1909 which dealt partly with this very problem. I asked the minister to bring down in the house the clauses of its report relating to industrial education of youth. He brought them down, but not the whole report. That report showed that the linking together of youth and industry is a federal problem. The school board of Toronto is spending eleven or twelve or thirteen million dollars a year in maintenance charges, trying to take care of youth, with very little provincial help-mere pin money. It has got to such a state that they have had to take into the Toronto high schools many of the children from the townships around the city. Many of these children are getting week-end jobs, driving cars and delivering papers and all that. Instead of looking to the United States I hope the minister, since he is going to England, will look into what is being done there. No doubt there will be objection from the industrialists, but many of them are connected and interested in education with boards of education and the universities. Instead of the government working with committees who are going around in a circle, if the minister would work with the provincial and municipal educational authorities and the municipalities and the universities, he would achieve something.
Here is the annual report of the dean of the faculty of medicine of the university of Toronto. Some of the young men from the first to the fifth and sixth years in medicine will not be able to continue owing to the heavy fees and the depression. Aid is needed. I have in mind a youth who has won many honours in the university; he is in his fifth year and may not go on any longer because of lack of funds. This boy and other boys might be a Banting some day with a little state aid. See the work done in the Banting institute by these students. The hon. member for Renfrew South (Mr. McCann), is interested in this work and realizes the necessity for some aid being given to these young men. The univesity of Toronto medical report deals with twenty different branches connected with medicine, in which these young men are working. Many of them do not need help but others do. They help themselves by working in the summer time.
What is the use of all this overlapping? Miss Perkins succeeded in arranging a program with the various secretaries in the capitol by which her department was linked

up with others in its work. Look at the untold wealth of this country in mines and minerals. I saw a lot of these young people riding a freight train last summer at a station called Torrance; they said they had been up to new Ontario but could not get jobs. Who does get the work? Immigrants who have been in the country only a short time, many of them of foreign birth. No wonder the young men are wondering what is going to become of them. And the parents are wondering. The youth committee has no monopoly of knowledge of this question. Neither have I, but I am very much disappointed. It is the most important problem facing Canada at the present time. What is to become of this generation? Surely instead of reopening these camps-I can tell the minister I do not believe they would accomplish much by going into the camps-


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is not suggested.


Thomas Langton Church: The school board had
camps a few years ago for cadet training and industrial training for part time, but they were more largely recreation camps. If the minister could do as the British board of education has done, make an arrangement with the industrialists for an apprenticeship system, I believe good results would follow, instead of appointing five or six men to a youth committee which will perhaps meet in Muskoka in the summer and pass resolutions.


Denton Massey: In speaking to this item, in response to the very clear explanation given by the minister, I am sure he will realize that I do not wish in any sense to be partisan or political. The matter is far beyond the realm of mere partisan politics. I think we must face this problem squarely and each express his opinion from his best and considered judgment. I know the minister will take what I have to say in that spirit.
In the first place, the problem is not one of training alone or of employment alone. They are the two main divisions as I have just mentioned, but there is a third division which is just as important as either one of the other two. It may not be so much a present problem as a rising and increasing problem for the immediate future. There is the problem of the employment of youth, definitely; there is the problem of the education of youth for that employment; and then there is the problem of the readjustment and realignment of youth. The minister knows full well that legion is the name of the young men and women who, as they have come out

Supply-Labour-Youthful Unemployed
of high school, technical school or whatever it may be, have had to take the job they could get, whether or not it was a job to which they were suited or for which they had trained, and whether or not it was a job they liked. They have remained in those positions because they were the only ones that were available to them. In many cases this situation has brought about a psychological condition in a large body of youth that in many ways is just as serious as the psychological state resulting from continuing idleness. After all, if a young man or young woman is compelled by force of circumstances to carry on a certain job for which he or she is not suited, how apt that person is to become bitter, disillusioned and entirely dissatisfied with himself or herself.
Accordingly I say the problem is far broader than the mere training of youth for specific jobs, to which the minister has just referred. Training and all that is splendid; I commend the minister on what he hopes to be able to do, but it barely touches the surface of the whole problem.
Some months ago there was set up the national employment commission, of which the youth committee was formed as a subcommittee. But my mind goes back further than either of these bodies, to a resolution that was unanimously adopted in this house over a year ago, suggesting that there should be set up a national youth re-establishment commission. I fully realize the weight of the words of my hon. friend from Broadview (Mr. Church), who has a horror of commissions, but on the other hand I am sure he would be the first to admit that the soldiers civil re-establishment commission did a magnificient piece of work in an emergency. I did not suggest a national youth re-establishment commission as a permanent commission in this dominion, but it was suggested as one of the instruments with which to tackle the emergency of the present, the problem which is so readily apparent and which is of such great magnitude that a committee, be it ever so efficient, cannot possibly adequately cope with it.
As I just stated, under the national employment commission the youth committee was set up, and in a return dated January 29 of this year we are told that this committee made five reports to the commission, under date of August 6, August 25, October 9 and two on January 6 of this year. That covers rather a long period of time. It is interesting to note that the chairman of the committee was appointed on July 4, 1936, while the next two members of the committee were not appointed until August 11. The first report
was made on August 6, five days before the appointment of the next two members of the committee, so I presume we had a one-man report. Then, on August 25, before the last two members of the committee were appointed, another report was made, with the third report being made on October 9, following the appointment of the fifth member of the committee on September 21, so that one presumes that the first three reports listed by the minister were merely progress reports, as not much could have been done in that interval by first a one-man, and then a three-man committee. The contents of all of these reports are still unknown. They were made to the national employment commission which, up to a few weeks ago, had been carried forward at the cost of $87,418 according to the statement of the minister. That was public money expended for a definite purpose, we may assume, and I think the results of the investigations carried on by that commission should be public property. The commission itself has gathered information and must have made some sort of report; at least we may assume that it made a report. Certainly the youth committee under that commission has made several reports, and this has been done at great cost to the public. I say it is due not only to the members of this house but also to the people of Canada who have paid the cost that the contents of the reports should be made public.
At the moment the committee consists of the following members: Alan Chambers, of Victoria, B.C., merchant: R. F. Thompson, of Toronto, Ontario, retired clergyman; Joseph McCulley, of Newmarket, Ontario, headmaster; Andre Montpetit, of Montreal, Quebec, lawyer; W. C. Nickerson, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, merchant. According to the return to which I have already referred, dated January 29, 1937, the following amounts have been expended in travelling expenses by these gentlemen:
A. Chambers	
$ 570	10Joseph McCulley	
421	35R. F. Thompson	
3S4	39Andre Montpetit	
77	40W. C. Nickerson	
55	64Total	
$1,508	88
The living allowances paid the members of this committee to January 29th, 1937, have been as follows:
A. Chambers	
$2,985	00Joseph McCulley	
1,290	00R. F. Thompson	
1,507	50Andre Montpetit	
585	00W. C. Nickerson	
225	00Total	
$6,592	502842	COMMONS
Supply

Labour-Youthjul Unemployed
This living allowance is paid to each member of the committee at the rate of $15 per day, or $75 per day for the whole committee. This is the latest information, dated January 29th, we have as to the operating cost of the youth committee. There is a question on the order paper, No. 3, which has been standing for some time, in the name of the hon. member for Vancouver South, requesting further information.


Norman McLeod Rogers: If my hon. friend will permit me to interrupt, I had the answer to that question yesterday and intended to lay it on the table, but had to attend a committee of the other house and therefore was not able to furnish the reply. I shall be very glad to give that information now if the hon. member desires it.


Denton Massey: I was not criticizing the minister for not having given the information; I was simply regretting that we did not have it. What I am getting at is this: there has been a vast sum of money spent by the national employment commission the returns for which so far are of doubtful value. The youth committee of the national employment commission has brought in reports upon which the minister has based this item of $1,000,000 for the purposes he has stated and of the contents of these reports this committee knows nothing. I should like to say with all the earnestness with which I am capable that the great problem of youth in this country cannot be met by a committee, particularly by a committee the chairman of which is a defeated Liberal candidate who has recurring political ambitions. I do not say that in any criticism whatever of the individual concerned.


An hon. MEMBER:: Oh, no.


Denton Massey: No, I do not, and from the sarcastic tone of my hon. friend's voice I am sure he knows that. I do not make that statement in any individual criticism of the gentleman himself, whom I had the pleasure of meeting on one occasion. I do know, however and I think the minister knows, that a man in such a position, if he is completely and absolutely honest with himself, is severely handicapped through having been a defeated candidate and still possessing the political ambitions which he does possess.


Mr. ILSLEY:: Why?


Denton Massey: I do not feel that it is fair to the consideration of the whole problem itself. It cannot be fair. The whole problem which is being dealt with to-day is far beyond the realm of politics, but any man who has been tarred with the brush of politics-and certainly a defeated candidate has been not only

tarred but tarred and feathered-must find himself in the position-


Mr. MARTIN:: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Denton Massey: Yes.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Is the gentleman handi-oapped in the great work he is doing for youth in his own city because he happens to be an active political figure?


Denton Massey: He is handicapped by the very situation the hon. member for Essex East mentioned-the work that he is doing in his own city. Why should he not do work in his own city? That is admitted. But pressure is now to be brought to bear upon him in his own city of Vancouver. The forests of British Columbia are in his backyard, and are peculiarly attractive to him. I thank the hon. member for putting the words into my mouth.
After all, the problem is a national one; it cannot be local. Nor can it have any sort of political tinge if it is going to carry through successfully. Therefore I feel that the mistake the minister has made in this whole matter is in his choice not of the person of the chairman-I know the minister understands that, and the chairman himself will understand me- but in the fact that he is a defeated candidate, and if he has any political ambitions, which he has, he cannot by reason of that discharge his responsibilities as head of the committee to the fullest and best advantage of the whole of the youth of the country, no matter how splendid his capabilities may be.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The hon. gentleman knows that the chairman has no administrative powers in any way.


Denton Massey: I know that, but at the same time that makes it all the worse. The minister is adding to my ease. Here is a man expressing merely opinions as chairman of a committee. The efforts of a person in administration can be watched, and every so often we hear of the case of a civil servant who has been accused of partisanship in administration, and who, as a result, is released from his job. That is what happens in cases of administration. But the chairman of the youth committee is offering opinions-and how difficult it is to trace even unwitting partisanship in opinions.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Would the hon. member answer my question?


Denton Massey: I think I did. The rest of the committee understood it. But I should be glad to see the hon. member privately for his own benefit, and go further into the matter with him.

Supply-Labour-Youthful Unemployed


Paul Joseph James Martin: Will the hon. member
permit me to ask again does he find that because he happens to be a member of a political party that his work in the city of Toronto among those of his own generation and a generation below is to any extent handicapped by virtue of his political affiliations?


Denton Massey: That work is not political by any possible stretch of the imagination, not political in any way, shape or form, and the hon. member knows it. But if I, on the other hand, as a member of parliament, were given the chairmanship of a government committee and were asked to cany forward in an impartial way I would certainly do my fullest and best to carry it forward in an impartial way. But the work itself would be jeopardized by the fact that I was a member of parliament, and you could not convince those with whom you had contact that you were following a course of complete impartiality in the matter. The hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) knows that.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am sorry my hon. friend has not answered my question.


Richard Bedford Bennett: He cannot provide understanding.


Denton Massey: I cannot make it any clearer. I have done the best I can; I had hoped the hon. member would understand it. I am sure the seed planted will gradually sprout and blossom.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am afraid not.


Denton Massey: Then it has fallen on stony ground. Now, may I return to the problem in hand in its widest sense. We are now at this time facing a situation in regard to our youth which demands the fullest possible action. On previous occasions I have pleaded with the minister that there be at least some indication of action on behalf of youth. Here in this item is an indication. But how far reaching can the results be? After all, a million dollars is a large sum of money. After all, the problem of the training of youth, the problem of apprenticeships, the problem of gainfully employing youth, and the problem of adjustment, all the matters I have already mentioned, are very broad and difficult problems with which to deal. This whole question of the readjustment and realignment of youth alone is of itself a very broad and difficult one. Whereas the minister's vote should be regarded as a start, I am sure that is all it is.
The vote is to be administered. There is a million dollars to be spent. I have not asked the minister nor do I expect to ask
him how much he will allot to the work in forestry or the work in primary industry, how much to agriculture or to the building trades. I presume the answer to that would be that that information is not yet available. The youth committee of the national employment commission will no doubt administer these moneys.


Norman McLeod Rogers: No, that suggestion is really not justified, because there has never been the slightest indication that the youth employment committee would have any administrative functions. The national employment commission has no such functions.


Denton Massey: May I say to the minister it would seem to me that although perhaps not actually administered by the commission, certainly the home improvement plan has been advertised by it. The men who are responsible for the advertising, the local committees, have been appointed by the commission and are under the direction of the commission.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is promotion work.


Denton Massey: Yes, it is "promotion work" in connection with this youth matter. There must be promotion work in connection with it. Perhaps we cannot call it advertising, but at least it is promotion work. The minister must justify his vote, and if he is going to justify it it must be put to the fullest use. If youth is to receive the benefit of this vote, it must know how much of this money is to be expended and when and how and where, in order to take advantage of it. There is "promotion work" to be done. Therefore I believe I am correct in my assumption that the .youth committee will have a great deal to do with the actual spending of the money.
Mr. Chairman, I have the highest personal regard for the two other members of the committee, whom I know personally and whom I admire. As I endeavoured to do before, I want to make it clear I have not been nor am I speaking politically. I am speaking of the whole committee in its position as a committee of five young men endeavouring to deal with the youth problem of Canada. Information has been gathered. Opinions have been formed, and reports have been made. We have now reached the stage where there is to be a practical operation under the recommendation of the committee. If the minister has in mind that the affairs of the youth of Canada can be left in the hands of this committee of only five, then I am afraid we have not progressed very far along the way.
After all, the minister must know very well that throughout the length and breadth of Canada there are many highly diversified youth
2844	COMMONS
Supply-Labour-Youthful Unemployed
organizations. There are individual organizations, and there are groups of organizations local in scope and national in scope. The hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) most ably introduced a resolution at this session with respect to scholarships. At times other hon. members as well as myself have endeavoured to introduce various schemes and to present various ideas with regard to that which may be done for the benefit of youth. Within youth organizations throughout the country there has been activity, and what has taken place in the house has not taken place in the house alone. Word of it has reached these organizations. Action of a sort has been instituted by many of them. In other words, on the part of youth there is a desire to take an active part within its own sphere.
I am quite sure that the minister does not feel that between a national youth committee of only five and the national youth organizations there can be efficient cooperation such as he suggests exists between the federal and provincial governments. Surely these national youth organizations have a right to foregather and to consider problems. Surely there should be some outlet for the full consideration of these problems. I consider it to be wholly unfortunate if youth groups throughout Canada, disturbed as youth may well be in many ways in these days, are left to drift along any way without support or guidance and thus to formulate certain ideas which may ferment and foment unless there is accredited leadership over such groups. What I mean is this. These groups have no local sources to which they can go, and from which they can get accurate information concerning matters in which they are vitally interested. Throughout the length and breadth of Canada there is a highly diversified population with diversified ideas and as a result a diversified application of the remedy is necessary. It seems to me that a national youth reestablishment commission of the type and kind of the soldiers' civil reestablishment commission is even more vitally necessary to-day than it was a year ago when I first introduced the idea to this house. Such a commission with branches across Canada could be a constant source of help and encouragement to any and all youth organizations constituted worthily to aid youth, and also would be an efficient guiding means to the end of helping youth to help itself along the right road. By only such a method will subversive elements among our youth be combated. I do not think we are taking steps of as definite and specific a nature and in a broad enough realm to satisfy the youth and to give them the opportunities that are due them.

We must face this problem in the broadest possible way. Whereas one may commend the minister for taking at least the first step, one cannot altogether congratulate him upon the method by which he approaches the problem, for the reasons I have endeavoured to state. I sincerely hope that in the administration of this vote of $1,000,000 he will bear in mind the fact that the problems that must be faced are not theoretical. He must remember that he is facing stark reality and that definite and specific steps must be taken in particular areas and in particular ways if this problem of youth is to be solved.
Let me illustrate the broad principle which I have stated. As I speak I think of a hostel in one of the cities of this dominion. Here is accommodation, if you can call it such, for several hundred young unmarried men. I am told that the hostel has been investigated by the municipal authorities and passed as being satisfactory from the point of view of its operation and with respect to the mechanical facilities of the building in which it is located. But those of us who have been there know full well that the building is entirely inadequate for the purposes to which it is being put. For example, in one room over 200 men are sleeping. There is no lavatory accommodation. Containers of a sort are brought into the room at night and left there until the morning. Yet these conditions have been passed upon by the health authorities of the city in which the hostel is located. What can one expect in a place of that sort? When young men experience such conditions there is a breakdown in morale and they are apt to become the victims of subversive elements in this country.
It seems to me that, with a vote of this size, practical application could be made of specific remedies, not only in urban centres but throughout the country as well. This is a matter which concerns not only the physical welfare of our youth but their mental and moral welfare. We are facing problems to-day the like of which we have seldom faced. These are matters of very deep and grave concern to the state. The future welfare of those within the state should be of the utmost importance to those of us who sit here. True we must deal with the problems of to-day, but there are the problems of the to-morrows and to-morrows that must be considered. These are the conditions that the youth of this land are facing, and I earnestly urge upon the minister with all the force of which I am capable that he, along with those who sit about him on the treasury benches, give the fullest and deepest consideration, not only to the administration of the vote which

Supply-Labour-Youthful Unemployed
we are considering at the moment but to the whole broad problem of Canada and her youth.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I appreciate the concise details the minister has given us of the objects to be attained by this item, but I wonder if he could give the committee some specific data as to the methods to be employed. Is it intended to use the technical schools for training purposes or will special camps be set up? What type of young people will be eligible for entrance to these camps? Practically all the other projects which have been considered have in mind the transient youth. While I have every sympathy with the transients and have spoken on their problems again and again, I do contend that there is another group of young people who are oftentimes forgotten simply because they do not cause the government any embarrassment. I am thinking of those young people who have gone through high school in the small towns and cities and who are at home without employment. They are sadly in need of some kind of training. Quite often they are not eligible for employment on any of the government projects. It is quite evident that a million dollars will not take care of the training of all the young people of Canada, and so I should like to know what the basis of eligibility will be.


Norman McLeod Rogers: It is not intended that this vote shall be confined to any particular group of unemployed young people. Certainly it is not intended that it shall be confined, as my hon. friend suggests, to that group which we have learned to describe as transients. There have been other votes under discussion which apply more particularly to that class of young people. In the allocation of these amounts we shall be obliged to work with the provincial governments, as we shall have to do in connection with other votes which have received the consideration of the committee. It is not intended to set up camps except where camps are a necessary part of the equipment for the work which is to be undertaken. That would apply to forestry work, and probably to training projects for hard rock mining. Where it is contemplated to give special courses elsewhere to train the unemployed, we shall try to utilize, in cooperation with the provincial governments, the existing equipment in the form of technical schools, and so on. We shall try to arrange the courses in such a way as to bring about the highest degree of absorption of young people in industry. I might say that it is not intended that the money shall be reserved exclusively for unemployed young
men. We have in mind that some provision may have to be made for unemployed young women. They will be provided with training in certain classes of work as may be recommended to the government.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Will the small towns and cities that have no technical training facilities be automatically eliminated?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I am somewhat at a disadvantage in stating exactly how far this money will go. I have not the least thought that the vote is large enough to deal with the problem as one would like to deal with it, but at the same time I hope it is large enough to give us a clear sense of direction if we find the problem is a continuing one.


Charles Grant MacNeil: Would the minister amplify his statement with regard to the assistance to be given to unemployed young women?


Norman McLeod Rogers: So far as the unemployed young women are concerned, we have in mind the classification of employment opportunities, and special training will be given to unemployed young women in order that they may be eligible for these employment opportunities. Already in some cities progress has been made through voluntary agencies in preparing young women for housework, in taking housekeeping positions, and in dressmaking and that type of training. I am not suggesting that this description is allinclusive, but I mention it as illustrative of what might be done.


Mr. KINLEY:: As an employer of labour who is interested in industry I wish especially to commend this item. But before doing so I must express surprise at the attack which has been made by the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Massey) upon the young gentleman who is chairman of the youth committee-an attack which, it seems to me, is made more subtle by touching him with the kiss of high personal regard. This young man is said to be unfit to be chairman of the committee because he was a defeated candidate at the last election.


Denton Massey: And because he has political ambitions.


John James Kinley: And because he has political ambitions. In my opinion the fact that he has been a candidate and has political ambitions eminently fits him for the position. In the first place, if as a young man he was chosen as a federal candidate he must be highly thought of. In the second place, if he is ambitious because of his political convictions to serve the government which is now in power he will be
2846	COMMONS
Supply-Labour-Youthful Unemployed,
loyal and faithful in carrying out the ideas of the minister and will be better able to interpret the minister's intentions so far as the expenditure of this money is concerned. Why this hypocrisy about partisanship? In this country is a man to be branded because he happens to have been selected by the people as a candidate or because he has been in politics? All my life I have been in politics, and I should hate to think that I am thereby impaired from performing impartially any public duty. We know that eminent lawyers who have been active politically are made judges. Do any of us fear for the future of this country because the judges who preside over our liberties-


Denton Massey: Are the judges about to become candidates?


An hon. MEMBER:: Some of them have become candidates.


John James Kinley: 
Mr. HARTIGAN:: I was interested in the remarks of the hon. member for Greenwood. He talked a good deal, but evidently modesty is not one of his attributes, because he made the statement that he was the one who introduced on the floor of this house the idea of a youth movement.


Denton Massey: I made no such statement; I said that I introduced the resolution for setting up a national youth reestablishment commission.


David James Hartigan: That may be, but every man in this house is deeply concerned in the youth movement in Canada. I will not take up the time of the committee labouring the point, nor will I discuss the subject to any great extent, because I do not believe that talking, if we talked all day, is going to get us anywhere with this problem. It is no use handing out platitudes and offering these people a philosophy of life. That is akin to old women going slumming in certain parts of the city and telling people how to live, but giving them nothing tangible to help them out of their predicament.
It seems to me there is an anomalous condition in the government of Canada to-day. We have had it for a long time, and I suppose a great many people believe that because it has existed, it should continue undisturbed. The hon. member for Greenwood said that the youth problem was the major problem in Canada.


Denton Massey: I said it was one of the major problems.


David James Hartigan: I do not agree with that. I believe that the restiveness of people is the major problem to-day, and it is one of the things that have contributed to the youth movement. I do not believe for a moment that any government in a country like this, with limited possibilities of wealth, not overburdened with cities and with lots of farm land vacant, should be expected to take a youth out of one groove along which he has been going and put him in another which appeals to him and in which he believes he would be more proficient. Personal ambition should still characterize the young of the country, as it always has done in the past.
The sum and substance of all that has been said this afternoon is simply this. The minister is advised to give earnest consideration to the youth problem. But would the Minister of Labour or any man acting in his capacity fail to give serious consideration to that problem? Such an admonition is superfluous, I do not care from what source it comes. This is and has been a burning question with the Minister of Labour.
The anomaly to which I referred a moment ago is the civil service commission-and I have no axe to grind; I am discussing a principle. Before this house meets again there will probably have been a thousand or fifteen hundred positions awarded under that commission. With the commission the Minister of Labour has nothing to do; there is no cooperation between the commission and any department of government. The commission can give, as I understand, three or four positions
2848	COMMONS
Supply-Labour-Youthful Unemployed
to members of one family. I hold that the first qualification for a civil service position should foe the fact that one is unemployed. Our universities are turning out hundreds of men every year with all sorts of degrees in engineering, medicine, law, commerce and so on, and yet these men are finding it difficult to get work.
The civil service commission should be operated as a managerial arm of government. There must be no patronage. The first qualification should be the fact that a man is unemployed, and the fact that no other member of the family is drawing a government income.
Some hon. members have described certain isolated conditions in the cities. There are also rural slums, and there is as -much rural unemployment as there is in the cities. Eighty per cent of the income from farming is produced by thirty-five per cent of the farm population, only twenty per cent being produced by the other sixty-five per cent of the farmers. In many rural districts in Nova Scotia-and I have no doubt the same is true of the other provinces-there are a great many people who are suffering extreme hardships because they are not listed with any of the employment agencies of the government, and this simply for the reason that the father owns a farm or some member of the family has a job.
Hon. members have been giving plenty of advice to the minister and suggesting all the qualifications which his commissioner should possess, but they have left out the most important of all, and that is a little bit of common sense.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The name of Mr. Chambers having been brought into the discussion I must make a brief statement; silence on my part might be misunderstood. To the best of my knowledge, and I was in a position to know, Mr. Chambers gave of -the very best of his great energy and ability to the work he was called upon to do, and he did no more and no less than any young Canadian would have done under similar circumstances.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I was absent from this country when this committee was appointed. When I returned I made inquiry as to the personnel. I found that Mr. Chambers was residing in Ottawa, that he had been a candidate in Nanaimo, had run third on the list- there is no objection to that. But is it quite fair that he should come to Ottawa, taking up his residence here, knowing as we do what that means in the way of correspondence for one who supported the government, the pressure to use his position in every way possible? I am told by a gentleman whom

I have always found reliable that he is now intending to return to the provincial field as a candidate in the next election.


Norman McLeod Rogers: This is the first I have heard of it.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am glad of that. He is leaving his residence here to go back there. I think that is not fair to the people of Canada. I do not know Mr. Chambers, except from hearing him spoken of in the highest terms. I am told that he has been in this country only a very few years. I do not know whether that is true; therefore I ask the minister whether he knows. About three years, I am informed.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I think it is longer than that. I believe he was born in England.


An hon. MEMBER:: Much more than three years.


Richard Bedford Bennett: But is it quite fair to him or to us? After residing in Ottawa, knowing as we do what that means to one who has been a candidate of a successful party and is preparing to be a candidate in an approaching election, how can he give that measure of consideration and attention, dispassionately and impartially, to the problems with which he has to deal? It is quite beyond my understanding. It is unfair both to ourselves and to him, and mostly perhaps to him in the long run. That is the criticism which has been urged. It has nothing to do with Mr. Chambers personally; I have heard him highly spoken of.
I think also it was a terrible mistake to appoint E. J. Young on the other commission. I do not mean anything personal for he and I happen to be good friends, but I think it was unfair to the country and to him to put him there, having regard to his well-known views as he expressed them from time to time and the difficulty any man finds who comes here, having been a candidate, in the way of dealing with correspondents when the party he supported is in office. He is be-seiged by correspondents; no one knows that better than those of us who have been through it. It is a terrible responsibility, and I think militates against the possibility of success of any gentleman who finds himself in that position.


John James Kinley: I recall that a few years ago when the social security legislation was passed in this house it was necessary to appoint a board to administer unemployment insurance. Colonel Harrington, a member of the Nova Scotia legislature and leader of the

Supply-Labour-Provincial Grants
Conservative party there, was appointed chairman of that board by the then government. I think it was a splendid appointment-


Richard Bedford Bennett: So it was.


John James Kinley: -but Colonel Harrington retained his seat in the Nova Scotia house, and when the job faded out-


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is not a fair way to put it. He resigned.


John James Kinley: Well, I accept the right hon. gentleman's interpretation. Colonel Harrington resigned, and went back to resume his position as leader of the opposition in the Nova Scotia house, and retained his seat there. If political connections are to be discussed, surely there is a glaring example of a commission presided over by one who is intensely interested in politics. Colonel Harrington went back to Nova Scotia, went to the convention and was reestablished as leader of the party in Nova Scotia, and he will contest the election this or next year in the interest of that party against the present government there. Now we did not complain about that-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, you did. You may not have done so personally.


John James Kinley: Not a bit. I thought the appointment was a splendid one, but I think that when he was appointed he should have resigned as a member of the local house. However, there was some insecurity in the appointment in view of what was taking place before the courts, and I think he used good judgment in hanging on to the job in Nova Scotia until he was sure of the job here, and when he found that this job did not look so good he went back to the one in Nova Scotia. We are not complaining; we are only comparing.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I have known that the hon. member has been anxious to make that statement for a long time. I think he must be grateful to me for affording him the opportunity. I have heard it sotto voce for some time, and now we have it on Hansard, which adds greatly to it. The position of Colonel Harrington was that he was appointed because of his eminent qualifications in matters of social legislation. About that there is no doubt.


John James Kinley: No doubt in the world.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Also he had had wide experience in organization. He had been at Argyll House during the war and his work in connection with the organization of our military affairs had been highly commended, and it was desired if possible to have him
organize that commission. And I may say that he was persuaded with great difficulty; he did it reluctantly; and he said that, as the law of Nova Scotia, with which we have nothing to do, did not provide that he resign his seat, he did not propose to do so. He undertook the task of organizing that commission at my very earnest solicitation. He did start the organization, with Mr. Moore and the other member, and when the change of government took place he resigned office, having first told the Prime Minister in writing that he was prepared to do so for the reasons given in the communication.
That is an entirely different case from the one in question here. Hon. members may say it is different because one happened to be a Liberal and the other a Conservative. But those who have knowledge know that there was no man we could get in Canada who had exactly the qualifications Colonel Harrington had for that particular position. His acceptance of it was reluctant, in fact, more than reluctant; he felt he was being forced into what he should not take, but he took it, and then resigned and went back to Nova Scotia where he resumed his seat in the legislature, and as has been said, was reelected leader of his party. That is an entirely different thing, because it is a provincial administration.
I am only pointing out the difficulty in which Mr. Chambers finds himself, residing in Ottawa, with the tremendous strain put upon him by those who suggest that because he is here and near a government which he supported he can get almost anything for them that they desire, whether they be youth or aged. That is one of the intolerable positions of a member of parliament or a defeated candidate who lives in this community at this time. None of us is unacquainted with what that means. My hon. friend who has just spoken perhaps knows as much about it as any living person.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Grants-in-Aid-Amount required to provide for monthly grants in aid to the provinces, $19,500,000.
Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Will the minister give
the amounts by provinces?


Norman McLeod Rogers: It is not possible to indicate precisely the distribution of this amount to the provinces. That is a matter of quarterly adjustment during the year.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: This is merely an estimate?


Norman McLeod Rogers: This is an estimate.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to,
[Stage Direction]


Supply-Mines-Migratory Birds

[Stage Direction]
Administration of the Migratory Birds Convention Act, $36,180.
Richard Bedford Bennett: This item was allowed to stand in order that I might ask the minister a few questions with regard to his department. In connection with supplies for the parks I told the minister I would like him to give the committee information as to the names of the persons from whom the oil used on the roads was purchased, and the prices paid for it in the various parks of the west. The minister said he would obtain the information.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That has reference to the oil dressing for laying dust. I inquired into the matter after my right hon.-friend mentioned it to me. Quotations were asked on approximately 480,000 gallons of dust laying road oil, which is the description given of this material. Nine firms were asked to tender, including three firms in Banff, Alberta, operating gasoline and oil service stations there. Those invited to tender were the Imperial Oil Company and the British American Oil Company, both of Toronto; McColl-Frontenac Oil Company, of Montreal; North Star Oil Company of Calgary; Prairie Cities Oil Company, of Winnipeg; the Brewster Transport Company of Banff; the Union Oil Company of Banff; the Texaco Oil Company, of Banff; and the British American Oil Company, per E. S. MacMillan, Calgary. Quotations were received from the British American Oil Company, Toronto; the Union Oil Company, Banff; and the Brewster Transport Company, Banff. The lowest tender, being a satisfactory price, was accepted.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What was the price?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It was submitted by the Brewster Transport Company.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What was the price?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I do not seem to have that information here, but I can say that the 1936 price was slightly higher, by about three-twentieths of a cent per gallon, than the 1935 price, but it was lower than the 1934 price by about two-fifths of a cent per gallon.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I should like to have the tender prices.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I have not that information at the moment, but I shall be glad to give it under some other item that may come up after six o'clock. For the information of my right hon. friend I may say that the delivery of this oil was made through the Imperial Oil Company.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That was to be my next question, through what producing company

the delivery was made. The minister has answered it; it was the Imperial Oil Company. The next question I wanted to ask was whether that covered supplies for all the roads in all the parks of western Canada.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes, the tender was a total tender for 480,000 gallons.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Then perhaps the minister can give me the particulars a little later as to the tenders.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes, I can give that. All I have here is the difference.


Alan Webster Neill: This item deals, I think, with the establishment of open seasons and that sort of thing. There has been a good deal of difficulty about that in British Columbia. I suppose it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, with the different seasons that prevail, to draw up regulations governing the whole of Canada, that will satisfy everyone, but I have had a number of complaints from the district I represent. Apparently they do not object so much to the season being cut down to two months for geese and ducks, but they object to the dates set. As far as I can make out, on Vancouver island the most acceptable period, if the season is to be cut down to two months, would be December and January. In some districts it is claimed that the ducks have not arrived during the present open period, and that the people there are practically prevented from getting any ducks at all. In some of these remote places, where steamers call only once or twice a month, deer in season and wild ducks and geese are about the only sources of fresh meat, and it is really an important matter. I am sure the minister must have had representations from gun clubs and similar organizations in British Columbia. Is it intended to have the same period as last year, which ran from the middle of October to December?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Naturally there are some
differences of opinion among individuals, gun clubs and other organizations as to just what period should constitute the open season. The practice of the officials of the department is to get in touch with the officials of the provincial government having to do with the preservation of wild life in each province, and the open season is arrived at in consultation with them and after taking into consideration the representations made by bodies such as those to which my hon. friend has referred. In the administration of many matters, of course it is impossible to define the regulations in such a way as to please everybody, but in this matter the broad principle guiding the setting of open seasons is what will best help preserve the wild fowl of the country.

Supply-Mines-Migratory Birds


Alan Webster Neill: I do not blame the minister,
because he is trying to do an impossible thing; he is trying to set dates that will be satisfactory all over the country, which is impossible, because in some districts the ducks or geese have not arrived by the time the open season is ended. I find that last year the open season was from October 17 to December 15. In many places on the west coast of Vancouver island the ducks have not arrived by December 15, so what is the use of an open season that is over before the ducks and geese have arrived?
The remedy I suggest is that the minister take power to do what has been done in many other cases, fix a season which is appropriate to the particular province or the particular district. In connection with fishing, for instance, we have twenty or thirty different dates in British Columbia, so why not leave the matter subject to the control of the provincial government, or at least why not act on the advice of the provincial government? I am quite sure that the province of British Columbia, if left to itself, could fix a couple of seasons, one for the interior and one for the coast, that would be acceptable. The period from October to December is not acceptable. I have under my hand a petition from the gun club centering around Alberni, and also representations from the west coast, wherein they say that if the season must be curtailed for two months, let it be the months of December and January. I hope the minister will look into the matter because, as I have already said, the solution is to have it regulated according to the district.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I find that there are different periods for different districts in British Columbia, and the representations made by the hon. member so far as the west coast of Vancouver island are concerned, will be considered. I promise that. I think possibly to some degree we may be able to meet his suggestion.


Mrs. BLACK:: Mr. Chairman, as the minister knows, we in the Yukon have considerable fault to find with the opening date of the shooting season in the north. We also realize that because of the number of years which it has taken finally to have not only the state governments but the federal government of the United States to sign a treaty with Canada, we have to go slowly in the matter.
The opening of the duck shooting season in the Yukon is August 15. By that time in the large majority of cases our ducks have left the Yukon, as they begin to go south very early in August. The law in the Yukon is administered by the mounted police, and I
31111-180}
must say that they do their very best to make everything comfortable for the few people in the country who bear guns. It took many years of consideration before the United States and Canada could reach the treaty arrangement which was signed in 1916. I believe that later, in 1929, another treaty for a period of ten years was signed.
I deeply regret the fact that the minister feels it incumbent upon him in any way to reduce the amount of money to be allowed for the conservation of game. I do not think any person could imagine anything more horrible than to go through a country denuded of its forests and its game. Canada has kept her treaty to the letter, but I can state truthfully that that has not always been so with respect to many of the states in the union. Our law makers and those who enforce the law have followed hunters closely. We miss a great deal, but at the same time we realize that on the north American continent the conservation of game is necessary.
I well remember hearing my grandfather tell stories about the clouds of passenger pigeons which flew through the air in his day, and about the horrible murder-it could not be described otherwise-of the pigeons which were netted, shot, packed in barrels, and sent to the larger cities in the United States and Canada. In many cases hundreds of thousands of those birds were allowed to rot on the ground or in the barrels.
In the early days, before a treaty had been signed, the birds went to California and were there slaughtered. Ducks and geese were slaughtered by the thousands, and our sportsmen in the north had very little chance of getting game. There was the general idea that from the breeding grounds there would always be millions of birds to fly south, but there came a time when the birds became scarce. It was only the treaty which saved the trumpeter swan, the whooping crane, the eider duck and the wood duck. The treaty saved many of those breeds, and I would urge that the minister do all he can to continue the conservation and to see that the men charged with the enforcement of the law carry it out to the very last word.
As hon. members are aware, there are in Canada a number of sanctuaries. Any person who establishes one should be praised. We need our bird life, both the migratory and the insectivorous birds. Men and women who enjoy being out of doors, who enjoy fishing and a short shooting period, realize that if we are to have such enjoyment for ourselves and for those who will follow us, the law must be enforced. I ask the minister on all opportunities to do all he can to
\

Supply-Mines-Migratory Birds
persuade the minister who sits beside him (Mr. Dunning) to set aside more money for the enforcement of the treaty.


Mr. TOLMIE:: The statement of the last speaker to the effect that August 15 is the opening day for duck shooting in the Yukon is an indication that a variety of dates should be set to suit different districts. The brant is one of our best game birds on the Pacific coast. Sportsmen out there would like to have the season open on January 1, if possible, and particularly would like to have February an open month. The brant, a small variety of goose, is not found inland, but is found on the eastern and western coasts. The people interested in the brant would like to have the dates set from January 1 to March 1, and would like to have the dates for ducks set at November 15 to January 31.
May I point out further that the birds are bred in Canada, in very much the same manner as are the sockeye salmon with which the hon, member for Comox-Alberni is so familiar. They travel down into the United States and to a great extent are shot there. I believe we ought always to see to it that we get our reasonable share of game birds.


John James Kinley: With regard to the migratory birds treaty and the protection of game birds may I say that the impression on the Atlantic coast is that the duck season is too early. In September the birds are covered with pin feathers, and are not as satisfactory for food as they would be later. Our fishermen would like to have the season extended. I have discussed the matter with departmental officials, and I believe they agree that it should be later. It is my expectation that in the near future the season will be somewhat later.
There are two elements interested in game birds, namely sportsmen and fishermen. The sportsmen are interested for purposes of sport, and the fishermen use the birds for food. It is my view that the interests of the fishermen on the Atlantic coast should have first consideration, because these birds form an important part of their food. If they can hunt ducks at Christmas time rather than earlier, they are of more value to them.
In the last year or two we in Nova Scotia have been disturbed by the mounted police using decoys who would circulate among the fishermen. When a fisherman would shoot a duck for food, possibly not being aware that the season was closed, or possibly a day before it opened, the stool pigeon would lay for him, report to the police, and bring him into court and have a heavy fine imposed. A fine of that kind destroys a fisherman,
IMrs. Black.]
absolutely, because he cannot pay it and must go to gaol. He may have a family at home for whom he is attempting to get food, but if he shoots a duck he finds himself in trouble.
I believe in the enforcement of the law and I believe, too, that fishermen are anxious to obey it; but we are told that the letter of the law killeth and the spirit giveth life. However, when there are stool pigeons in addition to the police along our coast laying for fishermen, and being paid for it, it seems to me the enforcement is too drastic.


Mr. HOWDEN:: I should like to supplement the remarks of the last speaker (Mr. Kinley) with regard to the duck shooting season. I do not know anything about duck shooting in Nova Scotia, but I know in Manitoba our season opens on September 20. At this time the birds are still covered with pin feathers, and many are not fully grown. If the season were moved back fifteen days I think it would do a lot towards the conservation of the ducks, as well as bringing the ducks to the bag in much better shape.
The prairie chicken is not a migratory bird but I think it is the best game bird in Canada, if not in north America. On several occasions it has been necessary to have closed seasons in Manitoba for a number of years. Perhaps this matter does not come under the vote for the committee, but I think it is worth while being mentioned. Because of the poverty of the province during the last several years, they have not been able to keep on a sufficient number of game wardens to protect the game. I can realize that a farmer might feel it his privilege to kill a few birds out of season, and probably it is; but it is an entirely different thing when hunting parties leave the city of Winnipeg during the out of season period. Hundreds of birds are destroyed before they are grown, and it seems to me that something ought to be done. I have been a hunter for many years, and I would rather never shoot another prairie chicken than see them become extinct. They are a wonderful bird, but under present conditions they are in serious danger of being killed off and completely destroyed in our part of the country.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is regulated by the provinces.


John Power Howden: I understand that is the business of the province, but it does not seem that the province of Manitoba is able to keep on enough game wardens to protect the game. Perhaps the federal government will come to our assistance.


Mr. POTTIER:: Up to last year the season in western Nova Scotia extended from October

Supply-Mines-Indian Affairs
1 to January 15. Last year it was cut down to October and November. We have two kinds of birds in that part of Nova Scotia, the home bird and the migratory bird. They do not reach the shore before the month of December, so I ask the minister to consider changing the season in western Nova Scotia to November and December.


Jean-François Pouliot: There are game wardens in Kamouraska and Rimouski county, but none in Temiscouata. Many birds are to be found at Isle Verte and on Hare island and White island and I submit a game warden should be appointed for Temiscouata.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Indian Affairs branch-To provide for expenses connected with the administration of Indian affairs, including salaries, supplies, relief, medical attendance, hospitalization, dwellings, agricultural activities, surveys, roads, bridges, irrigation, dyking, education, et cetera, and a grant of $100,000 approved by parliament in session of 1920-27, $4,249,124.
Mr. NEEDHAM:: Does the Indian agent give to the chief or councillors of the band, an account of the money he receives for the band, and the expenditures made therefrom?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Certain bands have band funds which earn a certain rate of interest, I believe five per cent. The disposition of band funds can be made only by the joint consent of the Department of Indian Affairs and the band itself. So far as an accounting is concerned, there is a proper accounting made of the disposition of all funds.


Joseph Needham: Do the chief and his councillors get an accounting of what has been received and disbursed during the year?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Any withdrawal of money from a band fund is done only with the consent of the band itself. The band knows for what purpose the money is being withdrawn, and how it will be expended. At any time the chief or any Indian can get from the Indian agent any information desired in relation to the fund.


Joseph Needham: Are the books of the agent open to the chief and the councillors?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The accounts of all these trust funds are kept in Ottawa. We do not permit the agents to handle the trust funds. If the Indian desires information and it is proper information, he can secure it from the Indian agent.


Joseph Needham: Can the chief go to the Indian agent and get access to the books?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I have just stated that the records are kept in Ottawa, where the band funds are maintained. If the chief wants to go to the Indian agent to get some information, he can do so.


Joseph Needham: Could the agent give the chief a statement of the moneys received and disbursed for the band during the year?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Certainly.


Joseph Needham: I am not referring to trast funds; I am referring to treaty money, and what is received from the reserve and so on.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: There is no accounting necessary for the payment of treaty money except with respect to the amount paid out and who receives it. That money is paid under treaty regulations. So far as the expenditure of money voted by parliament is concerned, that is not a matter that concerns the chief or his councillors.
Item stands.
At six o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair and the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 91, respecting The Premier Trust Company-Mr. Ross (St. Paul's).
Bill No. 95, to incorporate The Canadian Mercantile Insurance Company-Mr. Vien (for Mr. Fontaine).

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 104, for the relief of Albert Henry Pergley.-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 105, for the relief of Suzanne Rosenthal Winnikoff.-Mr. Factor.
Bill No. 106, for the relief of Kate Mary Briggs Robinson.-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 107, for the relief of Mildred Gordon Kahn.-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 10S. for the relief of Ernest Arthur Allen.-Mr. Tomlinson.
Bill No. 109, for the relief of Florence Rose Wright Clark.-Mr. MacKinnon (Edmonton West).
Bill No. 110, for the relief of Constance Hope Davidson.-Mr. Heaps.
Bill No. 112, for the relief of Rosalie Annie Arathoon Webster.-Mr. Plaxton.
Bill No. 113, for the relief of Minnie Sidil-kofsky Sadagurskv.-Mr. MacKinnon (Edmonton West).-Mr. Walsh.
Bill No. 114, for the relief of Simone Bail-largeon Mann.-Mr. Walsh.
Bill No. 115, for the relief of Thelma Lucille Farr.-Mr. Ross (St. Paul's).
Bill No. 116, for the relief of Sybil Geddes.- Mr. Graydon.
Criminal Code
[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 117, for the relief of Maurice Ame-dee Tremblay.-Mr. Jacobs.


[Stage Direction]
On the order:
Second reading of Bill No. 62, an act to amend the criminal code-Mr. Woodsworth:
Ernest Lapointe: I oppose this bill, Mr. Speaker. Only such bills as are not opposed can be gone on with, and therefore this one cannot be considered.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am at a loss to know how the Minister of Justice


Walter Edward Foster: Order. I call the hon. member's attention to the fact that a resolution was adopted by this house, last week I 'believe, which provided that all these bills would stand except those that were unopposed.


James Shaver Woodsworth: It can hardly be said that anyone is opposed to the bill until the mover has had a chance to explain it. This is high-handed. The position I now take was taken a few nights ago by an hon. member supporting the government.


Ernest Lapointe: If I were in order, I should be pleased to give my reasons for opposing this bill. I simply say that having read the bill I am opposed to it. Indeed, I contend that it would be invalid if adopted, for parliament has no right to pass such a bill. It is colourable legislation; under cover of an amendment to the criminal code it interferes with the rights of the provinces. I cannot discuss it seeing that it is opposed, and I do not see why it should be proceeded with when the others are not.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The other day the member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) was allowed to present his bill, although the resolution to which you refer, Mr. Speaker, had already been passed. I submit that it is hardly fair to discriminate in this way. Had the member for New Westminster not gone on with his bill, mine would have been reached. It is not fair that a member supporting the government should be allowed to go on with his bill, even though it is opposed, when this privilege is denied someone else.


Ernest Lapointe: Even that is not right. The bill submitted by the hon. member for New Westminster was not opposed. The minister discussed it for two minutes but did not say whether he was opposing it or not. So that my hon. friend is not right.


Walter Edward Foster: Stand.
'Mr. Crerar.]
On the order:
Second reading of Bill No. 100, an act to amend the Civil Service Act-Mr. Pouliot.


Jean-François Pouliot: I move the second reading of the bill.	[DOT]


James Shaver Woodsworth: Opposed.
On the order:
Resuming debate on the motion of Mr. Reid for the second reading of Bill No. 16, to amend the Railway Act (rates on grain).


Mr. GOLDING:: I had something to say-


James Shaver Woodsworth: Opposed.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Opposed.



INDUSTRIAL LOAN AND FINANCE CORPORATION

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Tuesday, March 30, consideration in committee of Bill No. 57, respecting Industrial Loan and Finance Corporation-Mr. Vien-Mr. Sanderson in the chair.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Opposed.
And the Speaker having resumed the chair:


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, you promptly left the chair when the order for this bill was called. Some of us oppose it.


Ernest Lapointe: Because the whole list had been gone over.


James Shaver Woodsworth: This procedure cannot be permitted. We cannot slip things over in that way. This bill was called and it stood, this very night. Under the rules of the house we cannot revert to it to-night without the unanimous consent of the house.


Mr. VIEN:: I rise to a point of order. The rule under which we are now proceeding is that from eight to nine o'clock the time shall be reserved for private bills, but under the amendment to that rule which was passed the other day the right of way is given to such public bills and orders as are not opposed.


James Shaver Woodsworth: This is opposed.


Thomas Vien: We may revert to private bills when the list of public bills is disposed of.


James Shaver Woodsworth: On the point of order, I submit that there is no possibility of reverting without the unanimous consent of the house.


Thomas Vien: We revert to private bills when the order of public bills and orders has been exhausted.


James Shaver Woodsworth: On a point of order, I submit there is no possibility of reverting without the unanimous consent of the house. That is the first point.

Industrial Loan and Finance


Jean-François Pouliot: Speaking to the point of order, I gladly support the hon. member for Outremont (Mr. Vien) although I do not agree with him with regard to the bill. If we look at the orders of the day for to-day, we see that private and public bills have precedence for the first hour. Therefore private bills are considered ahead of public bills. We first considered private bills which were unopposed; then we considered public bills that were unopposed. Now we are coming back to private bills which are opposed, and public bills which are opposed can only come afterward, according to the order paper which I hold in my hand. Therefore if the bill were as good as the remarks of the hon. member for Outremont has made on the point of order, I would support it.


Mr. WOODS WORTH:: I ask a ruling on the point of order. My point of order is-


Ernest Lapointe: As my hon. friend has already spoken twice on the point of order, perhaps he will let me say what I think about it. This motion was made for the purpose of getting rid of the bills which are unopposed. They are called in the order of their place on the order paper. Those that are opposed stand and all the other bills are called; and then when the list is exhausted, if the hour for private and public bills has not expired, it is clear that we come back to the first opposed bill according to its place on the order paper. That was the purpose of the motion; that is what we had in mind when the motion was adopted by the house, and I cannot see how any hon. member can think otherwise.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I ask a ruling on my point of order. My point is that only to-night this bill was declared to stand. On two previous occasions it stood. That procedure effectively blocked some bills that were on the order paper. I submit that now without the unanimous consent of the house we cannot revert to an earlier order.


Ernest Lapointe: They
stand until the others are called.


Walter Edward Foster: I have listened to the point of order raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth). On reference to the Votes and Proceedings of April 1, I find that this motion was adopted unanimously:
That, on Tuesdays and Fridays for the balance of the present session, unopposed private and public bills shall have precedence during the hour devoted to private and public bills.
What has been done this time, as on the previous occasion when we had the hour for
private bills, was to proceed with the unopposed bills, and come back to the other bills, as has been said by the Minister of Justice. All the unopposed bills have been disposed of and the others were allowed to stand. I do not see any reason why this bill should not now be taken up. I so rule.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I shall have to appeal against the ruling of the Speaker.


Charles Grant MacNeil: Hon. gentlemen opposite
block s-ome bills and not others.


Walter Edward Foster: I have given my ruling. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre having appealed from my ruling, those in favour of the ruling of the Speaker being sustained will say aye.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Aye.


Walter Edward Foster: Those opposed will say nay.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Nay.


Walter Edward Foster: In my opinion the nays have it.



[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Tuesday, March 30, consideration in committee of Bill No. 57, respecting Industrial Loan and Finance Corporation-Mr. Vien-Mr. Sanderson in the chair.
James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, we would like to know the decision of the Speaker. In this corner we heard that " the nays have it." I ask for your decision. Had we not so heard it we would have stood up for a vote.


Ernest Lapointe: The nays have it.


James Shaver Woodsworth: That is what I said.
I ask that the official reporters be asked concerning what they heard.


Ernest Lapointe: You make parliamentary government a joke.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether you are in the chair officially or not.


Ernest Lapointe: He is not.


The CHAIRMAN:: I remind the hon.
member for Winnipeg North Centre that the house is now in committee of the whole.


James Shaver Woodsworth: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, we in this corner distinctly heard the Speaker say " the nays have it." I would ask whether that is what the Speaker said. If so, we are not in committee. I appeal for a ruling from the Speaker.

Industrial Loan and Finance


Charles Avery Dunning: He is not available.


Jean-François Pouliot: I would make a suggestion to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. He should move that you, Mr. Chairman, leave the chair and report to the Speaker what has occurred.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Chairman, I
appeal against your ruling.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order. Sit down.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Chairman, you stated that we are in committee of the whole. I appeal against your ruling on that point.


Ernest Lapointe: Surely we are not going to make this into a mock parliament.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am within my rights.


Ernest Lapointe: There is no dignity in the stand taken by my hon. friend. The Speaker has left the chair, we are in committee, and we are going to proceed in committee.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am appealing
against the ruling of the chairman that we are in committee. There is clearly an error, and if the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) wants this house conducted in an orderly way, he should see that justice is done.


Ernest Lapointe: It will be conducted in an orderly way in spite of the hon. gentleman.


Charles Grant MacNeil: On the point of order
raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, I support him.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: There is no point of order.


Frederick George Sanderson: There is no point of order.


Mr. STEVENS:: Surely, Mr. Chairman, it cannot be contended that there is no point of order when an hon. member rises and questions whether the house is properly constituted as a committee of the whole, whether the house agrees with him or not. That is the question which has been raised. May I say that I was entirely in favour of the Speaker's ruling as I first heard it, but when he gave his decision I distinctly heard him say "the nays have it."


Charles Avery Dunning: A slip of the tongue, which he immediately corrected.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Possibly it was, but I
say in justice to the hon. members who have risen and protested, that I know it is difficult
LMr. Woodsworth.]
sometimes to hear in the chamber, but I distinctly heard the Speaker say "the nays have it," and the members then did not rise quickly enough. But, Mr. Chairman, surely when an hon. member rises in good faith and questions whether the committee is properly constituted, that is a legitimate point of order, and I suggest to the Minister of Justice that the proper way to secure decorum and dignity in the house is to recognize a point of order promptly, no matter what one thinks of it.


Ernest Lapointe: I know that; I merely said it was an absurdity.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I do not agree with the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre in his view, but I think he is entitled at least to the courtesy of having his point of order decided.


William Henry Golding: If the statement made by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, supported by the hon. member for Kootenay East, is correct. I should like to know why a number of hon. members opposite rose in their places. Surely, if they understood that the nays had it, it would not have been necesary for them to rise at all.


Major James William Coldwell: I was one of those who stood. I expected the yeas to have it and I was on my feet until I heard that the nays had it, when I sat down.


Frederick George Sanderson: What the hon. member for Kootenay East and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre are asking me to do is to refer back to a decision given by the Speaker. That cannot be done when the house is in committee. The decision of the Speaker was given when he was in the chair, and the house is now in committee of the whole.


James Shaver Woodsworth: This is a different point of order, Mr. Chairman. The Speaker said the house was in committee, and my point of order is that under these circumstances we are not in committee. In all fairness we should have been given the right to challenge the ruling of the Speaker. We had no opportunity to do so, and that is why I now raise the point of order that we are not properly in committee.


Frederick George Sanderson: My ruling on the point of order just raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre is that his point of order is not well taken.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Then I challenge the ruling of the Chair; I appeal from the ruling of the Chair.

Industrial Loan and Finance


Jean-François Pouliot: We are wasting precious time.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I understand that a point of order has been raised by the hon. member in committee, which must be referred to Mr. Speaker. In order to expedite proceedings, since an appeal from the chairman in committee will involve in any case an appeal to Mr. Speaker, I think all parties to the argument will be satisfied if someone moves that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again this day. Then, with Mr. Speaker back in the chair, we can have the matter decided immediately.


Jean-François Pouliot: In accordance with the suggestion made by the Minister of National Defence, Mr. Chairman, I would move, seconded by the hon. member for Essex East, that we should-


Frederick George Sanderson: The hon. gentleman is entirely out of order.
Mr. SPEAKER resumed the chair, and the chairman of the committee made the following report:-
In the committee of the whole Mr. Woods-worth raised a point of order on the ground that the committee was not properly formed. The chairman ruled that the point of order was not well taken. Mr. Woodsworth appealed from this ruling.
The ruling of the chairman having been confirmed, on division the house resumed consideration in committee of Bill No. 57, respecting Industrial Loan and Finance Corporation-Mr. Vien-Mr. Sanderson, in the chair.
On section 1-Loans of $500 or less.


Jean-François Pouliot: I should like to say just a word, Mr. Chairman, to tell you that in my humble judgment there should be an additional half hour for the consideration of private and public bills to-night, because of the time that has been spent in discussion of other matters. It seems to me that either the sponsor or the seconder of this bill should move that private and public bills may be studied until nine-thirty to-night, instead of nine o'clock.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Thomas Vien: Mr. Chairman, I regret that
the time at my disposal will not permit me adequately to answer the criticism that has been offered against the bill now under consideration. I should like, however, in the few minutes at my disposal, to urge that such criticism as has been offered has come principally from members representing provinces
in which these companies do not operate. I do not deny the right of all hon. members to speak on such a matter and to oppose it, but
1	am quite sure they must agree that their constituents will not suffer if these bills are enacted. Furthermore, I would beg the com-.mittee to consider that most of the opposition has been misdirected. Our opponents have urged that this bill, No. 57, and its brother bill, No. 58, will have the effect of putting on the statute books a wrong principle, in that we will give these companies the right to impose a rate of interest amounting to 24 per cent per annum.


Mr. LANDER  YOU@: No, 26-8 per cent.


Thomas Vien: The hon. gentleman says 26-8
per cent. According to the bill, the maximum rate that can be imposed is two per cent per month, but my hon. friends are wrong when they try to urge that these bills under consideration have the effect of granting these companies the right to charge 24 per cent or, as my hon. friend says 26-8 per cent. We are not placing any such principle upon the statute books, Mr. Chairman. On the contrary, at the present time the laws of the land, both the general laws applicable to loan companies and the special charters of these companies, entitle them to charge as much as 2i per cent per month. I ask my hon. friends to possess their souls in patience and not interrupt me. because I have so little time at my disposal, and they certainly will have an opportunity to reply. I am suggesting. Mr. Chairman, that at the present time under the statutes governing loan companies these companies are entitled to make a maximum charge, including interest and all other services, not exceeding 2i per cent per month. For several years the superintendent of insurance has been urging these companies to come to parliament to have their charters modified in two respects: first, to reduce the maximum charge they are entitled to ask from the borrowers from 2\ per cent per month to
2	per cent per month; and secondly, in addition to that, to change the basis of their operations. Presently these companies operate on a discount basis. That is to say, when a borrower asks, for instance, for a loan of $100 the company is entitled to deduct from the loan the interest for one year, plus the service charges. The interest for one year being 7 per cent per annum, and the service charges being 2 per cent per annum, the borrower instead of receiving S1O0 would receive $91.
If the borrower then refunds the money before the due date he is entitled to a refund
of a part of the interest, but not part of the
2S58
Industrial Loan and Finance

service charges. This makes a very complicated system, both for the company and for the borrower. The company has to keep a certain amount in reserve for the unearned portion of the interest, and the borrower cannot know at all times how much he is being charged for the money he is borrowing.
For at least two or three years we have had long discussions with the insurance branch on this subject, and the superintendent has urged these companies to try to reduce the rate of interest. At long last they have agreed to come to parliament and to amend their charters with a view to reducing the maximum charge from 2| per cent per month to 2 per cent per month, and also to change the basis of their operations from a discount basis to a straight interest charge on the remaining monthly balance owing by the borrower.
This bill, Mr. Chairman, and Bill No. 58, were referred to the committee on banking and commerce, where a lengthy study has been made of all their features. Bill No. 58 has been amended and will be considered by the committee. I desire to advise the committee that before resuming my seat I shall move that this bill be amended in exactly the same terms and in the same language as Bill No. 58 was amended in the standing committee on banking and commerce. By these bills parliament is not called upon to enact a new principle. The principle is already in the charter, and the principle is already in the general act applicable to loan companies.
If parliament defeats the bill, what will be the result? Will it be advantageous to the prospective borrower? All our opponents have tried to set out the miserable conditions which these companies make with the prospective borrower. I suggest that the very reverse is true. These bills purport to correct a situation, maybe not to the extent some hon. members would like, in fact, not as much as I would like myself, but at least to the very limit which has been found practicable both by the superintendent of insurance and by the managements of the companies concerned. If these bills are enacted it will not be permissible in future for the loan companies to charge not only for interest but for all services of any kind whatsoever more than a maximum charge of 2 per cent per month. This is also provided in the amendment I am about to move. In the standing committee on banking and commerce the 2 per cent per month rate has beenf broken down, half of one per cent to cover interest, and up to 1J per cent per month to cover all legitimate expenses incurred by the company.
[Mr. VienJ
I therefore suggest that when these bills shall have been enacted a borrower, far from being put in a more disadvantageous position, will be in a more advantageous position. If these bills are defeated, if they are talked out and cannot be enacted, the result will be that the present condition of which there has been so much complaint will continue to obtain, and loan companies acting under the provisions of these charters will, as in the past, continue to be entitled to charge the rate of 2J per cent per month.
In addition, I beg to suggest that the opposition which has developed both here and in committee has been instigated by a competitor-


Henry Herbert Stevens: Mr. Chairman, that statement cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. The hon. member has said that the opposition of hon. members in the committee on banking and commerce to the bill was instigated by a competitor. I made myself clear in the house before the bills were sent to committee, and I take absolute exception to the hon. member's statement and demand that it be withdrawn. The hon. member has no right to say it.


Frederick George Sanderson: The hon. member for Kootenay East is speaking on a point of order?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes.


Frederick George Sanderson: In my opinion the point of order is well taken, and I ask the hon. member to withdraw.


Thomas Vien: I should have the privilege of speaking to it, but I abide by your ruling;, Mr. Chairman. In my words I had no intention of implying that any hon. member either in committee of the whole or in the committee on banking and commerce had been influenced by the competitive company. But the competing company has been very active in suggesting that these bills should be defeated, and the solicitor for a competing company, Mr. Forsyth, was heard in committee. When he was heard in committee, what did he have to say? He said, not that the rate was too high, but that it was not high enough.


Jean-François Pouliot: He is a lamp post on St. James street.


Thomas Vien: My hon. friend may urge that in committee, if he wishes, but I do not believe Mr. Forsyth would agree with him. Mr. Forsyth suggested in the first place that the maximum loan that these companies should be allowed to make should be limited to 8300, and also that the interest rate should be three per cent per month on loans up to $100, and two per cent per month on loans

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from $100 to $300. Mr. Finlayson analyzed the results of this suggestion, and I should like to quote from page 154 of the evidence he gave before the committee.


Mr. TUCKER:: I rise to a point of order. The hon. member is reading from a report of a committee now considering another similar bill.


Thomas Vien: On the point of order, both bills have been reported. The reports of the committee have been tabled and I submit that I am entitled to read from a report which is on the table of the house, even although it does not refer to the bill under discussion. I am entitled to do that in order to make my argument.


Frederick George Sanderson: In my opinion the point of order raised by the hon. member for Ros-thern (Mr. Tucker) is not well taken.


Thomas Vien: Mr. Finlayson analyzed the results of the rates suggested by Mr. Forsyth as follows:
I have them computed on the $300 loan. The balance up to $100 bears three per cent per month; the balance from $100 to $300 bears two per cent. The two per cent element will be repaid first, and when the loan gets down to $100, the $100 balance will bear three per cent until repaid, and that $100 will bear three per cent while the first element is being repaid. Now, I had computed loans on that basis, because that is a very common basis that has been suggested, loans of $100, $200, $300, $400 and $500. Perhaps I may as well give the whole schedule because the balance above $300 bears one per cent. The $100 loan would be, of course, at three per cent; the $200 would be at 2-73 per cent; the $300 loan would be at 2-54 per cent; the $400 loan would be at 2-35 per cent; the $500 loan would be at 2-17 per cent.
I think I am right in stating that the competing company opposed this bill, not because the rates were too high, but because they contended they could not make any profits at those rates. As reported on page 134 of the evidence given before the committee, Mr. Forsyth stated that his company would be unable to prosper unless it were able to charge the rates which were set out a little earlier.
I urge upon the committee that these bills offer an improvement over existing conditions. If these bills are defeated, the condition complained of will continue to obtain. If these bills are allowed to pass, the maximum rate will be reduced from 2i per cent per month to two per cent per .month. The basis of operation will be changed so that the borrower will know at all times exactly what he is called upon to pay. The two per cent will be charged on the balance owing to the lender at the end
of each month, and there will be no confusion either in the mind of the company or in the mind of the borrower. The borrower will know at all times that he pays one half of one per cent per month as an interest charge, and pays up to one and one half per cent per month to cover all services, including insurance against fire in the case of a chattel mortgage, against death, and so on.
I suggest that the criticism levelled against these bills is ill founded. I am sorry the time at my disposal does not permit me to go into this matter fully, but I would point out that these bills have been urged upon the companies interested by the department of insurance. These bills are opening the way for the general legislation which the government has announced may be introduced next year. A special committee is to be created to study the whole situation, and if these bills are permitted to pass, that committee will have the benefit of a year's operation of this legislation when studying what type of legislation should be placed upon the statute books to cover companies of this kind.


Frederick George Sanderson: It is nine o'clock.
Progress reported.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF MINES AND RESOURCES

[Stage Direction]
Indian affairs branch-	*
To provide for expenses connected with the administration of Indian affairs, including salaries, supplies, relief, medical attendance, hospitalization, dwellings, agricultural activities, surveys, roads, bridges, irrigation, dyking, education, etc., and a grant of $100,000 approved by parliament in session of 1926-27, $4,249,124.
Harry James Barber: When we were discussing the other evening the supplementary estimates of the Indian department I intimated that I wished to raise under a general item the problem which faces us in British Columbia of the control of tuberculosis. The provincial government have been making a concerted drive against this disease in British Columbia. They are somewhat handicapped because the Indian population is not under provincial jurisdiction. To show the seriousness of the situation in British Columbia- and perhaps it applies to other parts of Canada as well-I refer to the bulletin of the Canadian Tuberculosis association for March, 1937. I direct the attention of the minister to that bulletin, from which I will read no more than a few extracts. This article states:
The appalling toll of tuberculosis among the Indians of Canada constitutes one of the most challenging problems of the present day. When
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Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Both
good men.


Harry James Barber: Yes, the minister agrees they should be looked after. Five modern equipped dentists are within ten minutes' drive of the Coqualeetza school, but these men are not permitted to do the work. Two reside ait Mission City, but are denied this work. The two elderly Liberal dentists have been given -the work, the minister agreeing to have them look after the Indians at $30 a day-Lo, the poor Indian! This is what they have to put up with. Ask anyone who knows, and he will tell you what the work was like prior to 1930. Purely political patronage.
One dentist receiving 25 cents an extraction told me he -had "not bothered sending in a bill, it takes about three months to get a cheque back and I think they only owe me $12 or $15 for the year and I have not bothered about it." I say to the minister, local dentists are entitled to a much better deal than this. And I believe it would be much more satisfactory to employ local men, they are there in case of emergency. The minister has plenty of choice, I am not naming anyone, there are plenty in close proximity to these schools. I think it cannot be said that my criticism is not constructive. I have criticized the department for not taking action in regard to tuberculosis, but that does not lie at the door of the minister. I have undertaken to show where we can save money and improve the service. I ask the minister to take these into consideration. As far as dental service is concerned I urge that it be given to local men whom I know would give the very best service and at a reasonable cost.


Mr. McCANN:: This appropriation, running into something over $4,000,000, makes provision for medical attendance and hospitalization of the Indians. The amount this year shows a decrease of $113,000. I hope that amount is not taken off what is appropriated for the medical services. I think I can speak on this matter, because at one time I did some work among the Indians and because I know I can present the views of organized medicine throughout Canada with reference to this very important problem.
I want to endorse what has already been said by the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber), who speaks more particularly with reference to British Columbia. Probably I can give some information with reference to Canada regarding tuberculosis among- the Indians, and I hope to offer some constructive suggestions whereby that service to the Indian

population can be much bettered. It is not a service to the Indians alone about which we are concerned. This is a national problem, a problem which concerns not only the Indians immediately, but those who live adjacent to them.
According to the bureau of statistics we have in Canada approximately 120,000 Indians out of a general population of about 11,000,000, and in this relatively small group there were 704 deaths from tuberculosis in 1935 as compared with 6,597 from the same cause in all other races. This means that the Indian rate is approximately ten times that of the white population. Let me quote some figures with reference to the number of deaths among Indians in Canada from tuberculosis from 1926 to 1935.
In 1926 the number of deaths was 586, in 1927 there were 624, and in 1935 the number was 704, showing a very considerable increase.
The total number of deaths from tuberculosis in Canada, including Indians, was 8,116 in 1926, then there was a gradual decrease every year until 1935 when the number was 6,597. But the bureau of statistics figures show that among the Indians there was an increase in the death rate during those ten years, although among the general population of the country there was a very considerable decrease.
I give the figures for the death rate from tuberculosis in Canada, including Indians, from 1926 to 1935. The figures are, per 100,000 of the population. In 1926 the figure was 86, and in 1927 it fell to 82-2, then gradually it decreased until 1935 when it stood at 60-5. In Manitoba, which contains a great number of Indians, the rate in 1926 was 61 -1, and it only decreased to 60-8. In Ontario it was 58-9 in 1926, with a gradual decrease to 35-5 in 1935.
There has been, I think, no more prominent authority on tuberculosis than a resident of the province of Manitoba, the province from which the minister comes. I refer to Doctor David A. Stewart, the late medical superintendent of the sanatorium board of Manitoba, at Ninette. I wish to quote a few extracts from a very interesting and illuminating article which he wrote, called The Red Man and the White Plague:
We can all remember when tuberculosis among Indians was thought of as a kind of relentless process of nature, like an earthquake that we could stand in awe of, and be very sad about, but do nothing to check or change. Now *sve know, or if we don't w'e should, that tuberculosis among Indians is amenable to suitable and adequate measures of prevention and cure, just as it is among white people, and just as any other endemic and epidemic disease is in any population. This field, once thought to be abandoned to stark fate, could yield returns to surprise everybody.

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Much has already been done by the federal government through its Department of Indian Affairs to improve standards of living, health and enjoyment of life among its native wards, but very much more remains to be done by direct attack on entrenched disease, chiefly tuberculosis. An excellent illustration is the cutting of death rates in two, in five years, in the health demonstration carried on by the department at Fort Qu'Appelle as a result of full time medical care, some segregation, and a limited amount of hospitalization. Still better results will follow-perhaps another cut in two of death rates-when this unit has the backing also of a small local hospital which has just been completed by the department. There is no reasonable doubt that Indian deaths and Indian tuberculosis can be reduced in time to an astonishing minimum if only the necessary measures can be applied.
It is true that all possible helpful measures, economic, medical and educational, cannot be fully applied in every part of the field at once, especially at a time of maximal national outlay and minimal income. But we, the people of Canada, who are the guardians of the Indians, should at least know that tuberculosis and other diseases among them are not the hopeless or insoluble problems they were once thought to be. The chief obstacle is lack of money, which, while it may be at times the root of much evil, can also be a means of rooting out much evil. One way to lessen that obstacle if we cannot overcome it, is to find the most efficient ways of using what money and resources are already devoted to the service of Indians. For instance, the local medical services, while here and there worthy of all praise, could be greatly improved, especially if made when possible full time, reasonably continuous and specially trained.
There, I think, lies one of the great difficulties in treating the Indians. Treating tuberculosis is an expert business, and you cannot hope for the best results if you use only ill trained, part time men. I submit that a great number of appointments are being made and have been made more from a political point of view than with an expert, scientific end in view. This is one place where politics should not be played. We cannot trifle with the lives of people, especially with the lives of the Indians, who are the wards of the Canadian people. I submit that men are employed who are adjacent to Indian reservations, men who are good general practitioners but who have neither the expert knowledge nor the technique to carry on this particular work. We owe this treatment to the Indians, partly because we occupied their territory but especially because we brought them tuberculosis, and we should help them fight it.
Furthermore, in these days of much easier intercommunication with white people, because of the new methods of transportation and the opening up of the north, there is more opportunity for this disease to be spread. These Indian reservations and settlements never
were disease-tight or watertight compartments, and that is even less so in this new day of easier travel. It is true that any disease in any remote corner of a province is a disease within the province, and that the province will not be clear of disease nor safe from its menace until that corner is cleaned up and made safe. In health matters no man liveth unto himself and no man dieth unto himself. I submit that the prevalence of tuberculosis in these Indian reservations makes them cesspools of infection which may infect the population adjacent to them, so that all the good work that has been done by organized medicine throughout Canada in reducing the mortality from tuberculosis may be undone through the neglect of the department of Indian Affairs in not scientifically carrying on the work with reference to the Indian population.
Treaty Indians are not citizens, but they are residents within the province just as though they were citizens, so their uncontrolled diseases are a menace to the peoplq generally and to the general health of the province itself. Indeed in some ways their menace is much greater because they are not citizens, since they are beyond all local and provincial arrangements and facilities. An Indian reserve with bad health conditions is like a city slum would be if the city health authorities had no jurisdiction. So the Indian is a dangerous neighbour, presenting a serious problem particularly in Ontario west of the great lakes and in the four western provinces. That is so to a lesser extent in the northern hinterland, because there the primitive Indian life has been less interfered with.
Figures obtained at Ottawa show that, including those not living on reserves, the Indians represent 1-1 per cent of the entire population. In Prince Edward Island they represent -3 per cent of the population; in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec, -4 per cent; in Ontario, -9 per cent; in Manitoba, 2-2 per cent; in Saskatchewan, 1-7 per cent; in Alberta, 2-1 per cent, and in British Columbia, 3-5 per cent. At first glance it may be considered that such a small proportion of Indians could not greatly affect the general average of health, or the general tuberculosis death rate, but let me tell the committee how the record stands in the four western provinces, and this may be illuminating to the minister. In Manitoba the Indians comprise only 2-2 per cent of the population, yet 31 per cent of all deaths from tuberculosis were among the Indians. In Saskatchewan 27 per cent of the total deaths from tuberculosis fell among the Indians, who compose only 1-6 per cent of the total population. In
Supply-Mines-Indian Affairs

Alberta, where the Indians are 2-1 per cent of the total population, 34 per cent of the deaths from tuberculosis were among these people and in British Columbia, with an Indian population of 3-7 per cent of the total, 35 per cent of all tuberculosis deaths were among Indians.
I submit that these Indian settlements are reservoirs of tuberculosis, and from those reservoirs infection leaks out into the general community. It leaks out in three ways; first, by mixture of blood, which has gone on for nearly two hundred years and no doubt will continue until the red race is absorbed into the general population. This forecast surely gives us a special motive for doing the best possible for the Indians, who are actually increasing in numbers in spite of all their difficulties. In the second place, disease is scattered by the association of Indian people with white people in work, in travel and in exploration. Third, the disease can be spread by articles made or handled by Indians. Even the picking and selling of blueberries should be considered in this connection. The menace of these areas becomes greater and greater as communications get better. While some local communities are practically rid of tuberculous infection and children are growing up uninfected and tuberculin negative, any outside infection is as a spark in dry grass, not as a spark in the rather sodden grass of a half or quarter century ago.
We sometimes blame the Indians for having a low resistance with regard to tuberculosis. That is very easily explained, from the medical point of view, in the fact that it is a new disease to them. For hundreds of years the rest of the population have gradually developed a degree of immunity which gives them something with which to ward off the disease, but it is practically a new disease to the Indians, so the death rate is relatively high. I submit further that another reason for the high death rate among the Indians and the low resistance to tuberculosis is their poverty. Like most other social problems, this one is less medical than economic and educational. It is true that this poverty is accentuated by the Indian's mismanagement, indolence and improvidence, and these are sometimes gross. We must remember, however, that the Indian is in the difficult position of having almost lost his own world of the open spaces and his various employments, while he has only an occasional chance in the white man's world. The most energetic and resourceful white man, if put in the position of some Indians and placed under their limitations with regard to employment, probably would not do much better than the Indians have done. Racial carelessness and
f*Ir. McCann.]
ignorance handicap the Indian in his fight, if he does fight against tuberculosis, but his poverty also presents great difficulties.
We are the guardians of the Indians, we, the people of Canada. In the language of the day we have a mandate for their care. The world suffers increasing spasms of conscience with regard to what is done by dominant people, such as ourselves, with native races, such as the Indians. The new principle, that the advantage of the native in and through his own country and not the enrichment of the invader from the native's toil or slavery is the first aim of any kind of colonization, would have been preposterous years ago. In Canada we have likely done neither the worst nor the best possible, but I doubt if a league of nations mandate committee would be entirely satisfied with what we have done or are doing for the health of our wards, or the lessening of If tuberculosis among them. This whole matterf was taken up by the medical association some time ago. A fact finding committee made certain recommendations, and some of the facts which were advanced by the committee I want to place before the minister. They are these:
First, the general death rate among Indians is extremely high, especially in deaths from diseases of the chest.
Second, tuberculosis in the western provinces has a death rate among Indians ten to twenty times as great as that among white people, and over thirty per cent of the total deaths from tuberculosis occur among Indians, who comprise less than three per cent of the total population.
Third, where well thought out measures have been applied by the Department of Indian Affairs the response of the Indians, and the comparative cleaning up of their disease have been phenomenal.
Fourth, we are satisfied that this extremely high death rate can be reduced, as death rates elsewhere have been- reduced in time, by the careful applying of known measures.
Fifth, such tuberculosis-soaked groups as the Indians, mingling with the general population of the western provinces, constitute a very grave menace to the health and life of the people in general.
Sixth, the rapid lessening of tuberculosis in the general population of the western provinces, while this disease remains among the Indians unabated, makes the relative danger of the spread of infection from Indians a constantly increasing one.
Seventh, whatever the menace may be, and however well understood by people of the provinces, no action can be taken except by the federal authorities.

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In view of those findings I think we can make certain recommendations which, if put into operation, will not only affect the death rate from tuberculosis among Indians, but will be a general safeguard to the population of the country which comes in contact with the Indians. The point I make is that if the present situation continues, the good work which has been done by the medical profession throughout Canada in lowering the death rate from tuberculosis will be undone, and in a few years, probably a quarter or half a century from now we will have to do over again that which at this time could be prevented. I would recommend that:
1.	In view of the facts I have set out, wherever possible the medical services given to the Indians should be full time, permanent appointments.
2.	Medical services among the Indians should be considered to demand special experience and skill in dealing with diseases of the chest, especially tuberculosis, and such experience and skill should be chief considerations in the making of appointments. As I said earlier, I am afraid that sometimes these appointments are made as a matter of convenience, and that the qualifications of those appointed are not such as to give the Indians that care to which they are entitled.
3.	The services of travelling clinics with X-ray equipment, either organized by the department or borrowed from provincial organizations, can and should be used for periodical surveys of reserves.
4.	Such surveys should be made at least yearly in schools for Indian children, and children who have infective disease should be satisfactorily segregated or removed.
I submit to the minister that either these recommendations should be put into effect or the department should transfer to the Department of National Health the treatment of these wards which come under our care. I have no apology even on this last or second to the last day of the session to make for bringing this matter before the committee. I submit it is one of national importance, and one which will require the best thought and judgment of the minister and the officials in charge of this service. If we do not give the matter proper consideration at this time we are going to pay a severe penalty for not doing so.
I have made some suggestions which perhaps will be useful, and I believe I have presented the views of organized medicine. It is my belief that the minister, knowing that the views I have expressed are held not only by
31111-1S1
me, but rather are those of doctors from one end of Canada to the other, will take note of the representations I have made.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Mr. Chairman, the subject under discussion has been well covered, and for that reason I do not purpose saying very much or taking up much time. My reason for speaking on this question is that I have received from the health branch of the province of British Columbia a request to bring the matter before the house. May I say that the provincial government of British Columbia, as has been pointed out by the hon. member for Fraser Valley, is somewhat alarmed at the dissemination of tuberculosis in that province, much of which is said to be due to Indian sources.
Some of the figures are rather interesting. The government out there has made a real effort to cope with the situation by establishing a sanatorium at Tranquilie, near Kamloops. At that point an excellent institution has been set up, to deal mostly with whites. It is believed by officials in that province that Indians, in their present condition, and with the high percentage of tuberculosis which is found among them, are a menace to the work which is being carried on to fight the disease.
I do not propose to give many figures, but I shall refer to a few of the high spots. One of the pathetic facts in connection with the record is that 58-52 per cent of Indians dying from tuberculosis are under 20 years of age. To a great extent they are helpless children. When it is remembered that tuberculosis is not hereditary, that is, that it is not communicable through the mother, the conclusion must be that these Indian children must develop the disease from contact after birth.
The registration of deaths showing only a percentage of 43-3 per cent where there was any evidence of a doctor being present at death or during illness, is a fact which should cause us alarm, and shows reason and plenty of opportunity for improvement. Doctor McQuarrie, who is in charge in British Columbia, is an official who is well known and in high standing, and one who thoroughly understands the situation. While I have not had experience in the treatment of human tuberculosis, I have had a very excellent opportunity to study animals infected with the disease, and I know from my experience that we cannot expect satisfactory results in caring for tuberculosis unless we have sufficient money. One cannot make one dollar do the work of three.
In connection with expenditures on education, with respect to the ailment, I notice that in 1936, $400,554 was spent, and on



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medical services only $241,317. If these children are dying at the rate I pointed out a minute ago, I believe the medical service should be supplemented to a point where it will control the danger from the disease. When we consider that these Indians are charges or wards of the dominion government, as has been pointed out very clearly by previous speakers, we should not think of it in . the light of the money involved. It is a matter of humanity and Christianity, a matter of treating these wards of the government in a fair and decent way. When a man's life is at stake we cannot begin to count the cost. The present situation is unfair both to the Indian and to the white.
I am not blaming the minister for the conditions referred to among Indians. This has taken place over a period of years. I should like to. point out what can be done when sufficient money is available and there is a determination to succeed. In 1926 a tuberculosis free area was created in the Fraser river valley by the health of animals branch. A total of 46,174 head of cattle were tested and 3,643 or 7-9 per cent reacted. In 1932 a total of 66,746 cattle were tested, and the percentage of reactors was only 0-6 per cent. When the tests are completed in 1937 it is expected that there will be less than one half of one per cent of affected animals in the area. I give this to the minister, not as a matter of comparison but as illustrating what can be done when there is sufficient money to go after these things in a determined way. With the permission of the house, I shall conclude now by placing my figures on Hansard.


Charles Avery Dunning: All right.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: They are as follows:
The first general test was conducted in 1926-46,174 cattle were tested, 3,643 reacted, or 7-9 per cent, at a compensation cost of $124,101.
The following general tests have since been conducted:
No.	No. or Per-	Compencattle reactors eentage	sation1927	
46,191	515	1-1	$20,4221928	
46.480	351	0-76	14,6371929	
50,603	188	0-37	8,1131932	
66,746	407	0-6	12,879
The last general test of the cattle in this area was commenced last fall and up to February 24th last 36,186 cattle had been tested and 62 reactors found, or 0-17 per cent, compensation $2,019. There is, therefore, every prospect, with over half of the cattle tested, that the percentage of reactors this time will be less than one-half of one per cent.
The estimated total cost of each general test, including salaries of veterinary officers, tags, supplies and compensation, but not including livery, which is borne by the provincial government, is as follows:
Statement of Expenditures-British Columbia
(a) Indian Education:
Residential schools.. ..
Day schools	
British Columbia special
Expended for fiscal year ended March 31, 1936 $328,720 91 60,922 17 10,911 40
Appropriated for fiscal year ended March 31,1937 $304,260 42 55,075 00 10,000 00
Totals
$400,554 48	$369,335 42
(b) Medical Services:
Parliamentary appropriation British Columbia special..
Expended for fiscal year ended March 31,1936 $186,020 63 55,297 35
Appropriated for fiscal year ended March 31,1937 $171,151 00 50,000 00
Estimated for fiscal year ended March 31,1938 $160,763 00 50,000 00
Totals

$221,151 00	$210,763 00
[Mr. Tolmie.i

nuypiy-m mes-/ naian Affairs
Memorandum Re Tuberculosis Problem Amongst Indians in British Columbia
The tuberculosis division of the provincial board of health, in attempting to control tuberculosis m British Columbia, has jurisdiction over the total population, except for the Indians. The Indian population comes under the control of the Indian department of the dominion government. Compared with the rest of the population of the province, the Indian death rate from tuberculosis shows a startling high rate. The following death rates speak
Year 1931 1932	Race Orientals	 Indians	 Whites	 Orientals	 Indians	
	Whites	
1933	Orientals	
Indians	
Whites	1934	Orientals	
Indians	
Whites	1935	Orientals	
Indians	
Whites	1936	Orientals	9 mos.	Indians	
Whites	Deaths	Population	Rate per 100,00090	49,344	182165	24,599	670387	620,320	6262	49,918	124189	24.743	763314	629,339	4966	50,308	131187	24,930	749291	636,753	4569	50,674	136216	25,161	858284	649.165	4368	50,958	133163	25,383	642355	658,659	5349	51,169	95148	25,615	577276	673,216	40
It has been noted also that 58*52 per cent of all deaths from tuberculosis amongst Indians were persons under 20 years of age, and that the registration of deaths of Indians for the year 1935 showed the 43*3 per cent of deceased persons were not attended by a doctor.
It does not seem a consistent policy to attempt to control the disease amongst one portion of the population, while it is allowed to run rampant amongst another group. The following table shows the number of Indians in the whole pf the Dominion of Canada, divided into the various provinces, and also divided into certain age groups.
Indian Population of Canada
Province	Total	Under	7 years	7 to 16 inc.	17 to	21 inc.	22 tc	65	Over 65	pop.	M.	F.	M.	F.	M.	F.	M.	F.	M.	F.Alberta ..	10,900	1,116	1,238	1,277	1,221	601	513	2,233	2,124	259	318B.C	23,598	2,148	2,260	2.762	2,755	1,023	1,024	5,213	4,803	807	803Manitoba . .	12,958	1,212	1,134	1,497	1,345	851	742	2,667	2,785	322	403N. Brunswick	1,734	165	173	208	193	92	89	401	333	39	41N.W. Terr. .	3,854	355	428	439	408	262	183	812	888	31	48N. Scotia ..	2,093	178	177	210	235	134	117	406	427	83	66Ontario .. ..	30,631	2,012	2,046	2,618	2,576	1,868	1,857	5,898	5,923	829	842P.E.I	224	21	27	26	29	5	10	46	48	7	5Quebec .. ..	13,281	1,334	1,252	1.406	1,441	753	732	2,940	2,696	350	377Sask	11.878	1,288	1,347	1,313	1,330	575	502	2,351	2,507	289	376Yukon Ter. .	1,359	121	173	134	150	87	87	273	239	47	48No details ..	4,162	Totals ..	116,672	9,950	10,255	11,890	] 1,683	6,251	5,856	23,300	22,743	3,063	3,327
It will be seen from this that British Columbia has the second largest Indian population in Canada, but has a far greater ratio of Indians to the rest of the population than any other province in Canada. It would seem, therefore, that the dominion government should be spending a great deal more on tuberculosis in this province than in any other province in the dominion. Also, at this particular time, when a province is taking steps to control tuberculosis amongst the rest of the population, cooperation from the dominion government to coincidentally work amongst the Indians would seem the correct procedure. One would hesitate to say just exactly how* much danger the Indians are. relative to tuberculosis, to the other people of the province. However, knowing that tuberculosis is an infectious disease, we can at least state that there is a potential danger in having so much tuberculosis amongst the Indian population, and that this potential danger increases as the remaining population becomes more in contact with the Indians.
. Doctor McQuarrie of the Indian department has been doing everything that his limited finances allow him to do to help control this menace amongst the Indians. Several surveys have been made with the help of the tuberculosis division of the provincial board of health, of some of the Indian schools. In two schools a small preventorium was set up to house some of the infected Indian children. The tuberculosis division of the provincial board of health has offered to survey as many Indians as possible, charging the Indian Department with the cost of this However, surveys are not sufficient, and must be followed up. The
2868
Supply-Mines-Indian Affairs

logical means of doing this is by public health nurses, wlxo should go right into the Reserves and teach health to this population. This would be a far-sighted policy and would take some time to show actual effects, but it is felt it is only by this means that some real results could eventually be accomplished.
The Indians in residential schools throughout British Columbia are as follows:
School	Boys	Girls	Total	In ChargeAhousaht	.... 32	29	61	United ChurchAlberni	.... 70	55	125	United ChurchAlert Bay	.... 128	110	238	Church of EnglandCariboo	.... 51	71	122	Roman CatholicChristie	.... 60	59	119	Roman CatholicCoqualeetza	.... 148	113	261	United ChurchKamloops	.... 166	168	344	Roman CatholicKitamaat	.... 13	29	42	United ChurchKootenay	.... 44	49	93	Roman CatholicKuper Island	.... 51	53	104	Roman Catholic.... 89	98	187	Roman CatholicPort Simpson	
St. George's	
St. Mark's Mission	29	29	United Church.... 84	90	174	Church of England.... 77	82	159	Roman CatholicSechelt	
53	40	93	Roman CatholicSquamish	.... 27	30	57	Roman CatholicTotals	
Schools Residential	
1.093	1,105	2,198	No. Pupils . . 16 2,198Day schools	.. 48 1,518Day schools-boys	
723girls	
795
School age: 7 to 16 years. Expenditure
Day schools	
Residential schools	
Stationery, etc	
1,518

It will be seen from the above that the Indian Department has recognized the value of education. Admittedly, education also includes health. However, the health side needs to go to a great deal further than it has gone up to the present time, and it is felt that the dominion government could cooperate at the present time to aid this province in controlling the tuberculosis menace.
To be fair to the Indian department, it should also be recognized that there are certain so-called Indians that are classified as half-breeds, that are listed in our death rates as having died of tuberculosis under the Indian classification. These half-breeds do not come under the Indian department, despite the fact that they may be living on the Indian reserve. However, it will be admitted, that after the half-breeds are deducted, the Indians run a tuberculosis death rate between six to eight times that of the white population. In controlling the spread of tuberculosis, it is apparent to all that isolation must be carried_ out. The infected individual, who, through his positive sputum, may spread the disease, is isolated in an institution or in suitable quarters in the home where a public health nurse has the opportunity of supervising him. As far as the Indians are concerned, nothing of this type has so far been done. Where an individual can be isolated, real results can be accomplished. but in communities, such as Indian reserves, where no isolation is_ attempted, or a relatively small amount at least, it would seem that if something further is not done than is being done at the present time, in order to carry the principle of isolation to its full conclusion, the province should isolate all Indian reserves. This would be a very drastic and unnecessary step, but as the province has no jurisdiction over these Indians' health, it -would be the only recourse that they could take in order to be absolutely sure that they are safeguarding the health of the remaining part of the province. The tuberculosis division of the provincial board of health, therefore, earnestly requests that a sincere endeavour be made to interest the dominion government, through the Department of Indian Affairs, to make a substantial grant to their own officers here in the province, who are only too willing to work in cooperation with the tuberculosis division in this province. It is suggested that $150,000 a year be set aside by the Indian department for tuberculosis control in British Columbia. When one considers what the province of British Columbia, and other provinces are spending on the remainder of the population, the Whites, Orientals, etc., this does not seem a large amount of money to spend on the Indian population.
IMr. Tolmie.l

2S69
Supply-Mines-Indian Affairs


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Mr. Chairman, the representations made by the hon. members who have taken part in this discussion I think will be very helpful. The hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber) has invited me to act on the constructive suggestions which he made in the course of his address. I am not certain that all of his suggestions were constructive, but those that were will receive the proper consideration. With reference to the matter of medical supplies, to which he alluded, the practice for some considerable time has been to have these supplies furnished in the main by the Department of Pensions and National Health. I have not been aware of the criticism that he has directed against this practice, but I may say to him that that will be considered. My only purpose in the administration of the department is to get the most efficient results with the least expenditure of money.
In connection with tuberculosis, I think the hon. member for Renfrew South (Mr. McCann) made a very helpful contribution to the discussion, based largely I assume on his knowledge as a medical practitioner. Due consideration will also be given to the remarks of the hon. member for Victoria (Mr. Tolmie). Tuberculosis among the Indians is one of the gravest problems we have in Indian administration. It has been said that the vote this year has been reduced from the vote of a year ago, but if hon. members will look at the supplementary estimates, which were tabled a day or two ago, they will find an additional vote of 8400,000. Part of that vote is to be used to make a start in meeting the tuberculosis problem.
With all that the hon. member for Renfrew South has said I agree. There is no doubt that the efforts made to clean up tuberculosis among the white population in all the provinces of Canada have been handicapped by the constant stream of infection coming from the Indian population. I have discussed this matter with medical men in Manitoba and Saskatchewan who have been actively associated in this fight against tuberculosis. Some of the most valuable suggestions were received from the late Doctor Stewart, who was for many years superintendent of the Ninette tuberculosis sanatorium in Manitoba. I think it is the common judgment among medical men in this country that in his knowledge of tuberculosis and the treatment therefor, Doctor Stewart stood at the very top of his profession. One of the suggestions made to me was that the treatment of tuberculosis among the Indians might be more successfully
carried out on the reserves. It was stated that the keeping of an Indian in a sanatorium, with the consequent loss of freedom, might act as a barrier to successful recovery, and I think there is a good deal in that point of view.
For the information of the committee I may say that I have already taken preliminary steps, so far as Manitoba and Saskatchewan are concerned, to get the best possible opinion from medical men who have been associated with the sanatoria in those provinces. Doctor Ferguson of Saskatchewan is an outstanding authority on the treatment of this dread disease. I hope the cooperation and assistance which I shall get from these gentlemen, and also from the medical profession generally, which I am sure will be available, will make it possible to work out some definite plan for fighting this disease. As I said, the supplementary estimates, which will probably be before the committee later on in the evening, provide a sum of money with which to start this work in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. It has been suggested that perhaps the first step should be a survey of the reserves by a travelling clinic, which would find out to what stage the disease had progressed in individual cases.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That would require X-ray equipment.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: For several years there has been a travelling clinic in Manitoba under the direction of the Ninette sanatorium. Their equipment would be available at comparatively little additional expense for the examination of the Indians on the reserves. I ask the committee to accept my statement when I say that I hope I am fully seized of the importance of this problem. We are going to attack it in the most intelligent way we can. I think it is more important to make the right start than to attempt to build sanatoria which would be very expensive and might not achieve the full results expected of them. At any rate I can assure the committee that the purpose is to consult the best and most experienced authorities we have, to make a study of the problem and if possible arrive at some definite plan of attacking it.
I do not know that I can add anything more of interest, but I assure the committee that the department is fully seized of the importance of the problem. There is no doubt that we have been somewhat limited in the amount of money available for Indian administration. Roughly in -this calendar year we shall have spent on medical services among the Indians throughout the country close to a million dollars; I have not the fins' figures

Supply-Mines-Indian Affairs
up to March 31. Relief to Indians will approximate to the same figure. Medical care and hospitalization, relief and education are the large items in the vote for Indian administration. If we could find means of reducing by say five hundred thousand dollars the cost of relief for Indians, that amount of money would be available for other services. As I have said, the problem must be considered as a whole. Without doubt in the northern parts of the western provinces the natural means of livelihood of these people have virtually disappeared. The Indian is by tradition and experience hunter and trapper, an out of doors man. That is especially -true in the northern parts of the provinces where agriculture cannot be practised.
I have already discussed with two premiers of the four western provinces the setting aside of areas where fur-bearing animals can be reestablished and where trapping will be limited to Indians alone. It may be necessary to spend a little money on this project, but we hope -to arrange with the provinces for the setting aside of suitable areas, perhaps on some form of long term lease, which will enable us to reestablish fur-bearing animals and thus provide a livelihood for the Indians in the adjacent districts. The Indian is a natural conservationist. The depletion of the fur-bearing animals has not been due -to the trapping done by him, but to indiscriminate trapping done by whites, who in a matter of this kind are not conservationists at all.
I have mentioned -these things very hurriedly to indicate to the committee the gravity of the problem with which we have to deal. The Indian population is increasing at the rate, I should say, of twelve to fifteen hundred a year. If we succeed in our aim of reducing the ravages of tuberculosis and bringing to the Indians better ways of living, through education and other means, undoubtedly the increase -of population will be accelerated; and if something is not achieved in the direction of making the Indian population self-sustaining, as surely -as night follows day we shall be faced with the necessity of increasing annual expenditures to look after them. The work that has to be done must be constructive.
As regards political considerations attaching to medical care under the Indian administration, may I say that I wish to keep clear of anything of that kind. I entirely agree with the remarks of the hon. member for Renfrew South that the matter is too important to be made subject to political considerations.


Alan Webster Neill: With all that the minister has said as regards tuberculosis I quite agree, particularly with that portion of his remarks where he said that it is doubtful whether confining Indians to sanatoria or houses would be successful. I have seen Indians get better when they were living outside in quite insanitary conditions. The minister instanced, among the methods he proposed to adopt to remedy the situation as regards tuberculosis, that of education.
That brings me to what I intended to speak on, which is the need of rebuilding the Albemi Indian boarding school, which was burnt down two months ago. So far I have been unable to get any assurance from the Indian officials that they intend to rebuild it this year, nor do they seem to be seized with the importance and necessity of doing so. This school has been in operation to my knowledge for some forty-five years, and it has been doing excellent work. At -the time of the fire there were 125 children actually in the school, and about a hundred awaiting admittance, too young at this time, but who would be coming along in the course of a year or two. The school was filled to capacity, and there was no need to canvass for pupils because the parents were fully aware of the importance of giving their children education. Many of them are fishermen, and their education in the school had made it possible for them to hold positions as captains and engineers in seine boats and to be employed as fish buyers and in situations of that character. They mingled with the white population probably as much as the Indians anywhere in Canada, and it would be a calamity indeed if they were stopped getting their education. The principal of the school, in writing to me, states:
The health of the children, too, is bound up with the residential school. To not build will mean that many more wrill go down with T.B. and other diseases. They will become a greater menace to the community and a greater burden on the department.
There is one phase that the gentleman I have been quoting has not touched upon, and that is the fact that this is an obligation on our part. We are not doing this for the Indians out of kindness or charity, but in fulfilment of a written pledge given to them. We made a treaty with them, one of the terms of which was that we would provide them with educational facilities, with medical treatment and so on. It is not a question of whether we will give them a handout or not; it is a question of whether or not we will hold to the bargain we legally and lawfully made with these people whom we superseded in the possession of this country. Of course I will

Supply-Mines-Indian Affairs
be told, "Oh, we cannot do it just now, but maybe we can do it next year." That means that for eighteen months these children will be without education.
I have heard the suggestion that there is another way of handling the matter: We will start a day school. The official who suggests that is only showing his ignorance of the conditions out there. A day school on the west coast of Vancouver island is absolutely useless; it is just a waste of public money. I know, because I was Indian agent there ten years and I saw the situation. I saw the growth of the boarding schools into which the children were put for a fixed term of years, and which turned out educated young men and women. I remember a day school where I used to go and inspect. Children had been officially ostensibly there for two and three and five years and they did not know the elements of anything; they did not know what A or B stood for; and the reason was that these people were transients; they migrated around according to the season of the year and the supply of fish and so on, and therefore they would leave the school and go to some place where there was not any day school. There was no discipline, no attempt to enforce going to school. I have gone to a parent and said, "Now you ought to send your child, your boy, to school," and he would turn to the child and say, not "You have got to go," but "Do you want to go to school?" If the boy said he did not want to go, that would end it. You may say that you could start a day school at Albemi but that would only take care of the children in that vicinity. Out of 125 in the school perhaps 25 would come from the vicinity of Alberni; the rest would be drawn from a radius of fifty miles; and you cannot have day schools all over the country, and if you did, they would not be of any use for the reason I have stated.
Of course, I understand that the government do not insure their public buildings. In a sense they do, because they carry the risk themselves, as is probably quite proper with the large number of buildings they have. But if this school that was burned down had been a private man's building the foundations would have been laid already, because he would have had the insurance money ready at his hand and would have begun operations the day after the fire. It is the same way as regards the dominion government, because while they do not insure their buildings, they do in the general sense that they carry their whole insurance, and consequently the money should be available to rebuild the school.
I am not so sure that considerable blame is not to be attached to the department itself
for this fire. I am told that the fire brigade went from the adjacent town and might have put out the fire, but they could not do so because there was only a small pipe connecting the river below with the building. A request was made some years ago from the Indian department for an adequate pipe so that water could be pumped from the river close by. If that had been supplied, as much water as was necessary could be pumped up; but the department was too cheap to authorize this small expenditure. So that from every point of view it appears to be up to the department to build this school during the summer months. If the money is not voted either here or in the supplementary estimates, it means that the school will not be built and occupiable until September or November of the next year, with the result that the children will lose eighteen months' schooling. What will they do in the meantime? Again I ask the minister to recognize the fact that this is not a question of a wharf somewhere regarding which the government could say that it had no money. I am asking the government to fulfil an obligation that rests upon the people of Canada. The school must be built some time, and it might as well be built now when it is needed. Why should these children lose a couple of years of schooling?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am afraid I am not in a position to give any assurance to my hon. friend that this school will be rebuilt this year. As a matter of fact, there is no provision in the estimates for it. We have had requests for the building of at least four residential schools, but the fact is that the money is not available for that purpose this year. We will do the best we can in the circumstances to which the hon. gentleman has alluded. Some of these children have already been placed in the Ahousaht residential school; others have been placed in the Ucluelet day school, and some will be accommodated in the Cowichan agency. We will do the best we can to see that as far as possible these Indian children shall be enabled to go to school, but I am afraid that at the moment that is the best assurance I can give my hon. friend, much as I should like to meet his wishes.
As regards his general observations on day schools, in a great many instances these schools are being operated very successfully throughout Canada. I think perhaps there is some difference of opinion as to the relative merits of the day school and the residential school. Both have strong advocates. My own view of the question, so far as I have been able to study it, is that there are instances where the residential school will better serve the

Supply-Mines-Indian Affairs
needs of the Indian community than the day schools; but it is equally true that in other instances the day school gives better service. There is this advantage with the day school where it can be conducted successfully, that the children are in daily contact with their parents. This problem is being studied by the department. I confess it is a most difficult one to get at in all its bearings. This is the position we find ourselves in to-day. We have a limited amount of money to carry on the work in this whole Indian administration, and our endeavour therefore will be to do the best we can with the money at our disposal.


Alan Webster Neill: With regard to day schools
I was speaking of the particular area out there, and not of the question generally. Somewhere on the prairies, I concede, there may be conditions where the day school is satisfactory, but not in that west coast agency, in view of the migratory habits of the people. As regards the suggestion that it would be advantageous to have a day school because the children would be in contact with their parents, I point out on the contrary that one of the advantages of the boarding school is that the children are taken away from all daily contact with their parents. If you want the children of totally ignorant Indians to be properly educated, you must take them away from their parents and put them in a school where there is regular discipline, because the Indian has no idea at all of discipline. He simply says to his child, "What do you want to do?" Whatever the child wants is done, and there is no discipline of any sort. The officials of the department will not deny that the discipline of the boarding school produces far more satisfactory results among such people.
The minister says that the delay in building the school is due perhaps to a difference of opinion as to whether it should be a day school or a boarding school.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I was speaking of the
general question.


Alan Webster Neill: I am not discussing the question of day schools versus boarding schools generally; I am speaking of that particular place, and I defy the minister to mention any official out there with any knowledge of the situation who will not endorse the stand I have taken. It is all very well to say that we have not the money to do these things, but if we take that attitude, we are defaulting on our bargain. That is what it is. We talk of Alberta defaulting; we are defaulting on a bargain made long ago with ignorant savages who trusted in the word of the white 
man. Let us consider our own children. How would we like to have their schooling interrupted for eighteen months? Could not an arrangement be made to use one of the other buildings? When the old school was burned down, they carried on in tents during the summer. In any case the school has to be built and it might as well be built now.


Joseph Needham: Hon. members have
been dealing with Indian affairs in a broad, general way, but I want to refer particularly to a local band. Before six o'clock I asked one or two questions regarding the financial accounting between the agent and the band under his supervision. I submit that there should be a form of accounting whereby the chief of the band can get from the agent a definite statement annually with regard to his band and each member of it. I think that should be done, but I do not believe it is done at the present time.
I have one or two further questions with regard to the local band. Sometimes there are matters of vital importance to the local band. Is it possible for the chief of the band or his councillors to communicate directly with the department at Ottawa in connection with any vital matter affecting the reserve? Would such a communication have to go through the agent?
Mr. CRERAR; Communication with the department at Ottawa is through the agent. If we adopted the practice of allowing every Indian in Canada and the chief of every tribe to communicate direct with the department, we should need to double the staff of the department to handle the correspondence.
As to the other question, there is no objection, and it is open to any chief or any member of a band to get information from the agent relative to the trust funds or the disposition that has been made of them. As I stated before six o'clock, no disposition can be made of the trust funds of a band except in certain cases without the joint consent of the Indian department and the band. That is the law. The chief or the councillors or any member of the band can get information through the agent. As far as the treaty money is concerned, that information also is available. That is governed by treaty and by statute. I presume my hon. friend is not alluding to the ordinary expenditure for education ; that is, the money we are voting in this vote.


Joseph Needham: Is the agent expected to give to the chief information in his possession affecting the reserve or the band? Can he refuse to give the information?

Supply-Mines-Transportation Facilities


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes; it depends on what information is desired. I can assure my hon. friend that any information which the Indians of a band desire in respect to the disposal of their trust funds, or any part of them, can be secured through the agent.


Joseph Needham: I could go into a matter, but perhaps I will take it up with the minister personally.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That will be all right.


Mr. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: Four or five members have monopolized most of the time this evening. I think we should have a three minute rule.


Harry James Barber: What about wheat?


Ernest Edward Perley: I am particularly interested in the work the department is doing in trying to stamp out tuberculosis among Indians, particularly as the minister is well aware that since we met here last year a splendid hospital has been opened at Fort Qu'Appelle. I played some small part in having that hospital built, after representations made to the government by Doctor Ferguson, who has been so well spoken of to-night, and Doctor Symes, who is carrying on very splendid research work among the Indians. Representations were made by these men to me and I was able to persuade the department to build a hospital at that site. It is right near the sanatorium at Fort San. I think the committee would be interested in a brief report from the minister as to the success met with at the hospital in the few months it has been open. I think there are about one hundred beds. If we could have some statement as to the number of patients and the medical service it would be of interest.
Then there is the matter of general hospitalization. Much has been said with respect to medical service other than for tuberculosis to the Indians in the different reserves, but I am not going to take the time of the committee on that to-night.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am not in a position to give any special report on the very excellent hospital at Fort Qu'Appelle. My officers advise me that it is operating successfully and doing real service to the Indians in that community.


Ernest Edward Perley: Does it not serve the whole province? I think it does, for special cases.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Probably that is correct. I regret that I am not in a position to give a
special report as to the patients treated or their diseases, but I shall be glad to supply my hon. friend with any particular information he may desire regarding that hospital.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To assist in provision of transportation facilities into mining areas, $1,400,000.
Mr. STEWART:: How is it proposed to spend this money?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Hon. members will remember that we had in the estimates a year ago a vote of 81,500,000 for aid in providing transportation facilities into mining areas. The vote this year is $1,000,000. The $400,000 is a re-vote carried forward from the appropriation of last year. Owing to the fact that the session last year did not close until the end of June, the programs of work which had been mapped out were not completely carried through. The vote as made a year ago was for help in providing transportation into mining areas. Many of these mining areas are remote from the railway. If I may venture to say so, I think that that expenditure was one of the wisest that we made last year, having in mind the development of new wealth for the country. The work is done in cooperation with the provinces in each case, the province putting up one third as against our two thirds. The projects are agreed upon by the Department ot Mines of the various provinces and the federal department. We supervise the expenditure in this sense, that we have the right to inspect the work as it is progressing.


Mr STIRLING:: Would the minister tell us whether the construction of the west lev of the Big Bend highway comes out of this vote?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That comes under the surveys and engineering vote.


Mr. STIRLING:: The Golden-Revelstoke highway is on the east side: I am asking in connection with the west side.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Both are under the surveys and engineering vote, which will come up presently.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
National parks: construction, improvement and repair ot roads, $490,000.
To assist in the development of the Canadian section of the international peace garden Alanitoba, $10,000.	8	'
Thomas Alexander Crerar: Before the six o'clock adjournment my right hon. friend (Mr. Bennett) asked for some information with respect to the oil supplied for the roads in the parks I find that the price quoted by the
Supply-Mines-Parks

British American Oil Company of Toronto, f.o.b. Banff, was 10-66 cents per gallon. The Union Oil Company of Banff quoted 11-76 cents per gallon, and the quotation of the Brewster Transport Company was 9-71 cents per gallon. I can give the figures for each of the parks in the west, if my right hon. friend desires it.
Quotations Received:
Banff Park-
F.o.b. prices to:
Banff	
Castle	
Temple	
Lake Louise	
(185,000 gals.)
Yoho Park-
F.o.b. prices to:
Yoho Siding	
Field	
Leanchoil	
(56,000 gals.)
Kootenay Park-
F.o.b. prices to:
Radium, B.C	
Castle, Alta	
(85,000 gals.)
Waterton Lakes Park-
F.o.b. prices to:
Cardston	
(61,000 gals.)
Riding Mountain Park-
F.o.b. prices to:
Erickson	
(36,000 gals.)
Jasper Park-
F.o.b. prices to:
J asper	
(41,000 gals.)
Prince Albert Park (barrel lots) - F.o.b. prices to:
Prince Albert	
L.C.L	
(13,000 gals.)
Elk Island Park-
F.o.b. prices to:
Lamont	
L.C.L	
(3,000 gals.)


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Roads-construction, improvement and repairs of Golden-Revelstoke highway and improvements to main tourist routes from the international boundary to Banff, Yoho and Kootenay parks, $600,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Will this highway be nearly completed this year?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: We would like to have the Big Bend road completed next year, but it is doubtful if this can be done.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What about the road from the boundary up to the parks?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Perhaps the minister
might put them on Hansard.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I can put them on Hansard, if it is agreeable to the committee.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The figures are as follows:
British	Union	BrewsterAmerican	Oil	TransportOil Co.,	Company,	Company,Toronto	Banff	Banffcents gl.	cents gl.	cents gl.10-66	11-76	9-7110-76	14-88	9-9110-91	14-80	10-0110-91	14-64	10-0110-91 10-	91 11-	06	14-48 14-48 14-16	10-06 10-06 10-2111-66 10-76	14-80 14-88	10-71 9-9110-91	17-36	10-0611-21	10-3613-01	14-64	12-1513-25 16-05	12-60 15-6413-575 ..	.. 13-95.. 17-11


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is being proceeded with this year. Out of this vote we expect to appropriate $200,000 for that purpose, and an equal amount will be paid by the province of British Columbia. It will not complete the road to Radium Hot Springs; something will be left to be done the following year, but substantial progress is being made with this road. For the benefit of my right hon. friend, who represents an Alberta seat, I may say that we hope to spend, together with the Alberta government, a substantial sum on hard surfacing the road between Calgary and Waterton Lakes National park.

287S


Richard Bedford Bennett: Has the location of the road to Radium Hot Springs been settled?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The final location has not been settled yet. The British Columbia government are making a survey on both sides of Windermere lake with a view to obtaining information as to relative costs. As far as the department here is concerned, we want the road built where the expenditure will be the least, because our main purpose is to get tourists through to the park.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Does the department
supply the hard surfacing?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The work is done by the highways department of the province of British Columbia under agreement between the Department of Mines and Resources here and the British Columbia government. Of course, we have the right to inspect the work as it progresses in order to see that it is carried out in accordance with the agreement.


Grote Stirling: If all that comes out of this S600 000, it seems to me there will not be much left for the west side of the Big Bend road.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: At the moment I cannot tell my hon. friend what will be the expenditure on the west leg of that road. There will be a total of about $325,000 spent on the road from Golden to Revelstoke, but part of that expenditure is for a section between Golden and Donald. I have forgotten the exact distance, but it is some six or seven miles. Then there is the maintenance of the east leg, together with some minor improvements to it. I should think probably $200,000 or $250,000 will be spent on the west leg, although I cannot give that as a definite figure.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Amount to be applied by the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada towards the cost of actual construction work for the protection, safety and convenience of the public in respect of highway crossings of railways, as the governor in council may from time to time determine, $2,500,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Is this subject to the same general rules with respect to subways as heretofore?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes; this represents an
accumulation of the moneys voted, but not expended.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Supply-Transport-M iscella neous
Marine Service-River St. Lawrence ship channel dredging:
(a)	To provide for contract dredging in St. Lawrence river and Montreal harbour, $2,000,000.
(b)	To provide for the maintenance and operation of the government ship channel fleet and the government shipyard while engaged in the deepening and improvement of the ship channel, including all necessary repairs and reconditioning, $700,000.
Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Chairman, I should like to revert to this item 72, to deal with a matter which I overlooked when the item was passed previously. The item was divided, and provides $2,000,000 for dredging in the St. Lawrence river and S700.000 for dredging by our own fleet. I shall ask my colleague to move an amendment which will have the effect of consolidating these two items into one item, to permit the $700,000 to be expended either on our own fleet or on contract. We have some plans in mind which may make the change desirable.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I move accordingly.


Richard Bedford Bennett: In that event would the government's fleet not be used at all?


Clarence Decatur Howe: It means that we are consolidating the two items, and the wording will be such that we can do it with our own fleet, or otherwise.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Air service-civil aviation-construction of airways, airports and radio stations, further amount required, $915,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: What is the breakdown of this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: It was given when we discussed the main estimates.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
aviation tu pitmuc lur contrinutions to assist municipalities on the trans-Canada airway to improve existing airports or provide new airports, $500,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Gan the minister say where that is to be spent?


Clarence Decatur Howe: There is this situation along the line of the Trans-Canada airways, that a number of cities have expended considerable sums in the building of airports. To permit the use of modem equipment many of these airports will have to be extended and enlarged. In many cases the cities are not in a

Supply-T ransport-Miscellaneous
position to do the work, and provision has been made whereby the government may spend on a municipal airport up to one-third of the expenditure made by the city.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Heretofore made.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes, heretofore made, or to be made.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Has the minister the names of the towns?


Clarence Decatur Howe: No, but we know that Winnipeg requires one, and Lethbridge. There may be a small extension at Regina, also at Vancouver.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What about unfortunate Calgary?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I think Calgary is also included. Upon a survey, this is the amount which we believe will be required.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To provide for the suppression of local electrical interferences and for the is/ue of radio receiving licences, further amount required, $15,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Under whose direction is the expenditure to be made?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Under the direction of Commander Edwards, head of the radio telegraph branch.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Under the government's own direction?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes, it is to provide radio cars to trace down interference. We hope to put one in the Fraser valley, and in one other area which is not properly covered.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To provide for the settlement of the claim of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario for power supplied to the Port Colborne elevator, $200,000.
Clarence Decatur Howe: Perhaps an explanation is required.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I believe for the past five years there has been a dispute between the government of Ontario and the federal government with respect to various transactions between the two; that is with respect to power used at DeCew Falls and on the Trent canal, which we sell to the Ontario Hydro-Electric Power Commission, and on their part with respect to power supplied to us for the operation of the Port Colborne elevator. A general settlement has been worked out whereby they pay our bills in
[Mr. Howe.}
full up-to-date in settlement for power required, and we have paid an increased price for power at Port Colborne. It is what you might call a non-cash item. It is a deduction which we make from our total bill. That is, it is $200,000 applied for power for the Port Colborne elevator, which goes back over twenty years. This was on old contract made in the days of the Niagara Power Company, which was acquired by the Hydro-Electric. The hydro ordered discontinuance of the contract, and we have refused to pay more than one-half cent per kilowatt as provided under the old contract. This adjusts the situation, and we have now provided that a new contract shall be made also on the basis of one-half cent per kilowatt.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The minister knows, of course, that successive governments have denied liability in the matter. This adjustment is in the face of the fact that there was constant denial of responsibility. As I understand it, this does not contemplate the payment of actual money. These are bookkeeping entries, and the appropriation is made for the purpose of enabling adjustment to be made on the basis indicated.


Clarence Decatur Howe: That is correct. I may say that we are at a disadvantage; their bills run up faster than ours.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The liability for one was denied, and admitted for the other.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
National harbours board-Saint John harbour improvements-reconstruction of berths 1, 2, 3 and i, $693,536.
Richard Bedford Bennett: As I understand it, the
minister tabled a report the other day which contains the details of the estimates made so far.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Quite.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I suppose we may look
forward to a complete report giving in detail the receipts and expenditures at the different ports.


Clarence Decatur Howe: These are capital improvements. I may say to my right hon. friend that in connection with the harbours board we have adopted the practice of the Canadian National Railways.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I hope that does not
mean the writing down of the assets.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Our fiscal year will end
December 31, so the report covers the calendar year.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

Supply-Transport-Miscellaneous
Chicoutimi harbour improvements-improvement of roadways, $17,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Without wanting to
trespass upon the time of the committee, it must be apparent that the expenditures in connection with some of these harbours are not justified or warranted. I am hopeful that the minister is exercising the power which is now vested in him to see that notwithstanding the tremendous pressure that may be brought to bear, these expenditures are within reason.
Mr. HOWE. The expenditure in connection with the Saint John harbour is a continuation of a contract. As a matter of fact, all the items down to 328 cover the completion of contracts initiated under the public works construction acts. No new project will be started unless we are assured that it is justified.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Canadian National Railway Company-
Amount not exceeding $35,000,000 to be paid from time to time, under such conditions as the Minister of Finance may prescribe, to the Canadian National Railway Company (hereinafter called "the National Company") and to be applied by the National Company in payment of the net income deficits arising in the calendar year 1937, including such supplementary contribution to the Intercolonial and Prince Edward Island Railways Employees' Provident Fund as may be necessary to provide for payment in full of monthly allowances under the provisions of the Intercolonial and Prince Edward Island Railways Employees' Provident Fund Act, notwithstanding the limitation contained in section four of the said act, and including such supplementary contribution to the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada Superannuation and Provident Fund as may be necessary to enable payment to be made of monthly allowances under the rules and regulations of the fund, notwithstanding the limitation contained in section thirteen of_ehapter sixty-five of the Statutes of Canada, 1874, and including profit and loss but not in-culding non-cash items and interest on dominion government advances, of the National Company or of any other or others of the companies comprised in the Canadian National Railways (as defined in chapter 10 of the Statutes of Canada, 1929) or any company controlled by stock ownership or otherwise by any company comprised in the Canadian National Railways or by the National Company in respect of any of the Canadian government railways entrusted to the National Company, $35,000,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: This item has been before the committee and reported upon?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, and the same applies to the following item.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
National Harbours Board-
To provide for payment, to national harbours board, of the amounts hereinafter set forth, to be applied in payment of the deficits (after payment of interest due the public but exclusive
of interest on dominion government advances and depreciation) arising in the calendar year 1937, in the operations of the following harbours-
Halifax, $24,042.
Saint John, $17,964.
Quebec, $174,610.
Churchill, $242,000.
Ernest Edward Perley: The minister promised the other day that he would give the committee some information with respect to temporary and seasonal employment at Churchill. I asked for a return giving the number of men employed during the season of 1936, which I have in my hand. In reviewing this I notice that some 250 men were employed during 1936, 120 of whom came from Le Pas and Swan River, and some 30 odd from Port Arthur. This is a considerable number to come from two constituencies. In previous years certain western members were allotted positions for 10 or 15 men. Representations were made to me last spring by a number of men who wanted to get into Churchill, but any representations I made did not get very far. Possibly I did not expect that they would. I think some explanation should be given with respect to this matter. I suggest that the minister should give consideration to constituencies in the province of Saskatchewan as Churchill is more or less a western project. I would be more than pleased if he would take 10 to 15 men from my constituency, and I know other western members who feel the same way. In this return one page is taken up listing the men from Port Arthur, and another page listing those from Le Pas.


Clarence Decatur Howe: This project has been in the process of changing from a construction project to a purely operating project and each year the staff is getting fewer. For the current year the total operating staff will be about 105 men, or about half the number employed last year. During the short time I have been the head of this department my experience has been fairly wide, and I find that it is very seldom hon. members will permit operating men to come in from another constituency. Perhaps the hon. member for Churchill (Mr. Crerar) will take a different view of it. The hon. member refers to the large number of men brought in 'from Port Arthur. Any elevator project usually requires to call on the head of the lakes for skilled operators, that being the largest elevator centre in Canada. I think if the hon. member looks back over a number of years he will find that each year about the same number of skilled operators have been drawn from the head of the lakes.

Supply-Agriculture-Miscellaneous


Ernest Edward Perley: I checked that with other years and I found1 that only a few were taken from the head of the lakes.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Agriculture

Dairying, $290,000.
Mr. GARDINER:: When this item was up before, it was discussed at some considerable length. The discussion covers two pages of Hansard starting at page 408. It was found necessary to adjourn that evening because of the death of Mr. Marcil.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: I wish to say a few words in explanation of some points which our British Columbia dairymen would like me to bring to the attention of the Minister of Agriculture; I refer to the matter of improving the quality of our commercial cow. The cow that occupies a position in a dairy has to pay her way, and to be good enough to do that she must produce sufficient milk beyond her maintenance ration to give the farmer a reasonable profit. This dairying business is a 365-day job. Cows must be attended to twice a day during the whole year, and unless the cow is of such a nature that she will produce a profit for the dairyman, then of course she is no use to him. I do not know anything more hopeless than attempting to dairy- with cattle of poor quality. There is a way of finding out which is a good cow and which is a poor one; it is a matter of testing, a practice which has been followed since the end of last century in Denmark and many other countries in Europe, and on this American continent to a considerable extent; in fact to-day cows from the cow testing associations of Denmark amount to over 38 per cent of the dairy cows of that country, with the result that they have vastly increased their product of butter-fat per cow.
The dairyman having a herd of that kind, where cow testing is under way and is followed in the dairy, is enabled in the first place to improve his whole dairy by the elimination of the poor cows. He is enabled to select those cows that are sufficient producers to merit being placed in the breeding list so that he can produce more animals. Having reached that point, how is that man to carry on the gradual improvement of his herd? The only way to do it is by the introduction of good blood which will have to be selected from one of the pure bred herds in this country, and I think in Canada only a small number of our pure bred registered herd are under continual test. In Denmark it has been found necessary, so that these farmers can select proper sires to improve their herds,

to maintain their pure bred herds under test for the whole year; and it is strongly urged by dairymen in our country that this practice be seriously studied with a view of introducing it in Canada. They also desire to see the cow testing associations, which are now under the provincial government, taken hold of by the federal government either by controlling them completely or in such a way as to stimulate them and make them render better service to the herds of the country.
They also insist:	(1) that all breeders
selling registered stock should maintain their entire herds perpetually on record; (2) they say that the slackness of qualifications demanded for the record of performance bulls is very marked and that some better method should be devised in this particular connection; (3) in the same way the slackness of qualification demanded for the record of bulls of advanced registration should be stressed; (4) it is felt by some of our prominent breeders that the sellers of registered stock should afford ample proof of the quality of their stock; (5) another matter that is strongly stressed is that owing to the great value of cow testing of our commercial dairy herds this should be made a national undertaking for the improvement of the average cow of the country, and should be supported by continued propaganda and efficient regulation.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Live stock, including assistance to fairs and exhibitions, $1,540,000.
James Garfield Gardiner: I might say that the remarks just made by the hon. member for Victoria. (Mr. Tolmie) related really to live stock. It is under this heading that practically all of the work is done which he referred to.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: I will not say it again.


Harry James Barber: There is just the question of fairs. When we were discussing these items before, did the minister tell us anything about the regional fairs, and whether they are to be continued under the same policy as last year? The minister will recall that a year ago he told us that he was going to review the whole situation.


Richard Bedford Bennett: As between class A and other fairs.


Harry James Barber: As between A and B fairs.


James Garfield Gardiner: The grants are being made on the same basis as last year, 84,000 to A fairs and $2,500 to B fairs. We are still continuing a review of the situation in an attempt to bring the provinces to recognize

Supply-A gricult ure-M iscellaneous
some national system of taking care of the giving of grants that may be applied all across the country.


Richard Bedford Bennett: In the meantime the grants will be the same as last year?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Harry James Barber: And the same with regard to regional fairs?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes; B and A are the two to which we give grants, and also the larger fairs like Toronto, the Royal and other winter fairs.


Grote Stirling: Those that were known as regional last year are being carried on in the same way?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. They are all in the class B fairs.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Experimental farms, including investigations concerning plant diseases, $2,025,000.
Mr. COLD WELL:: On the item "experimental farms" I asked the minister last year about the wages at experimental farms. He said he would look into the matter. Has anything been done for the married men on these farms?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. There was an increase. I think the increase at Indian Head was about four cents an hour.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Health of animals, administration of Animal Contagious Diseases Act and Meat and Canned Foods Act, $1,819,700.
James Garfield Gardiner: The health of animals item was previously discussed and was just about ready to be carried. There were five or six pages of discussion of this earlier in the session.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Just a minute. With regard to agriculture generally, I should like to ask the minister if there is any comparison between the wages paid to the very efficient men who comprise the Department of Agriculture and the salaries paid to other departmental officials. How does this department compare with the salaries paid in other departments? We have here a group of men who are carrying on a very important work. There is none more important anywhere in Canada than that which is being done by the Department of Agriculture, and it is done by men of very high qualifications. Our experimental farm system is one of the best to be found anywhere in the world. The splendid work which is being done by another official in rust
investigation will also be worth a great deal to the country. In my opinion the only way to maintain this department at a high standard is to pay good salaries and secure the very best men available. Has any such comparison been made?


James Garfield Gardiner: That matter is at the present time before the civil service commission in connection with the reorganization of the department, and we are having a reclassification made throughout. I may say that we think that our service is the lowest paid in the government as compared with other departments, but that may not be agreed upon generally.


Major James William Coldwell: I was glad to hear the minister say that. May I just draw to his attention that a number of graduates of our universities are working under this department at least partly, as student labourers, and have been doing so for some years. I draw that to his attention so that it may be considered.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: With regard to this particular health of animals branch, I think the minister and the Dominion of Canada are to be congratulated on the fact that the health of animals in this country, as far as contagious diseases are concerned, is better than that of any other country in the world. This fact has a great deal to do in giving our cattle and other live stock access to many of the markets to which we should not ' have had entry if conditions were otherwise. The health of animals branch has rendered great service in the past. It should be jealously guarded at the present time and maintained at a high standard. In this connection the minister mentioned a moment ago a reorganization. This high achievement on the part of our health of animals branch has been made possible because we have kept at the head of it men who thoroughly understand their business-Doctors Rutherford, McEachren, Torrance, and at the present time Doctor Hilton. They are doing good work, and I think it would be a very dangerous precedent to disturb them at all in their present activities. What they have done in connection with tuberculosis, hog cholera, and many other contagious diseases is pretty well known in the country.
I understand that a number of junior veterinary inspectors were taken on in 1935, and that their initial salary was reduced by about S300 to 81,620 per annum. This is a matter of some importance. If we are to get our best young men to take an interest in this profession and in the preservation of live stock, we must hold out some encouragement

Supply-Agriculture-Miscellaneous
to those who are fully qualified. Any young man leaving school and contemplating a professional career will take into consideration the prospects ahead of him. These men have been cut down, but I understand that they are to be given an increase in the near future. About fifty-six men were affected. When may they expect the increase?


James Garfield Gardiner: They are on the same basis as professional men entering the service in all other branches. They are being considered under the reclassification.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: I am glad to hear that, because that is the surest way of maintaining the very high standard that has prevailed in the past.


David James Hartigan: I have nothing personal against any of the experts in the department, but the people of Canada are paying them a good deal for their services, and if they are efficient they ought to be able to give us some definite information in regard to diseases among animals-and here I am speaking of hogs. The people of the province I come from would like to know if our bacteriologists and pathologists are as efficient as we are given .to understand, why it is that they cannot tell us something about hogs. What is wrong with Danish hogs that they cannot be shipped to this country? There must be a reason. Why is the Department of Agriculture loath to ' distribute among the farmers of Canada a type of hog which is so valuable? The Danish hog raisers supply the British market. The British people are just as conservative as we are and are not going to use pork products produced from animals that are subject to foot and mouth disease, hog cholera, or any other disease. Why is it, therefore, that the pathologists of our health of animals branch are so reluctant to pass these hogs and allow us to import them? An explanation ought to be given, and no offhand explanation will do.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hogs we have at the farms are not Danish hogs; they are Swedish hogs. After the discussions of last session with regard to hogs I took the precaution this year to make very careful inquiries why there are no Danish hogs in Canada, and I find that there is a good and sufficient reason for it. All of the breeding stock in Denmark belongs to the cooperatives, and they absolutely refuse to sell any of it. They will not sell it to anyone in this country, the government or anyone else. They will sell hogs dead to persons who want to use them as bacon or pork, but they do not sell them for breeding purposes. This year we had a man in Denmark attempting to buy some, and that was

the information we obtained. As regards the hogs we have here, they have been brought to the country and kept under quarantine for a considerable time. I do not think that the question confronting the departmental officials at the present time is whether hogs are diseased or not. Experiments are still being carried on with these hogs with a view to determining definitely whether they are an improvement on the York hog, which is now generally distributed throughout the country.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The Swedish hog.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. As soon as we have advice from officials of the department that these hogs can be distributed to advantage in Canada they will be distributed, but up to the present time we have not been so advised.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
.Natural Products Marketing Act, 1934, $106,600.
Grote Stirling: Will the minister explain this item?


James Garfield Gardiner: 
Richard Bedford Bennett: Will this take care of
the condition mentioned the other day by an hon, member, expenditures incurred in pursuance of the provisions of the acts, which had not been discharged when the legislation was declared ultra vires?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, as soon as we get
a decision of the Department of Justice on that question, those matters will be cleared up in accordance with the decision.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Contributions to empire bureaux-further amount required, $3,317.85.
Abraham Albert Heaps: What is this for?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is the contribution
to the empire bureaux for additional amounts over and above what was voted in the original estimate.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Marketing of agricultural products, including temporary appointments that may be required to be made notwithstanding anything contained in the Civil Service Act-further amount required, $100,000.

Supply-M iscellaneous
Richard Bedford Bennett: This is one item to which I think objection should be taken. This nullifies the effect of the Civil Service Act in connection with the expenditure of $100,000. Perhaps some explanation might be given.


James Garfield Gardiner: The permanent appointments that will be made in connection with the marketing branch will be taken care of out of the general vote for the civil service. That vote was increased, I think, under another item for the purpose of providing for the reorganization, which will involve marketing. The appointments which will be made under this particular item will not involve this amount of money for appointments alone. Part of this amount is to take care of promotion and marketing. But in promoting marketing it will be necessary to appoint persons to go, say, to Chicago to examine into the marketing of cattle under the arrangement we have with the United States. These may not be permanent employees of the government; we may employ them for two or three months or even six months. The same thing might happen in connection with marketing stock and farm products in general in the old country. We may desire to send persons over there because of their special knowledge of bacon or tobacco or some other farm product, not intending to put them on the staff of the department or retain them in the government employ for any considerable time. After discussing the matter with the civil service commission, they did not feel that those officials could be properly looked after in the ordinary way under the Civil Service Act.


George James Tustin: I noticed in the press the other day a statement that the province of Ontario had set up a marketing act, also the province of Quebec, and that inspectors would be appointed and paid by the federal government.


James Garfield Gardiner: Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario I think have all passed special acts since the Natural Products Marketing Act was declared ultra vires, and are setting up officials to do the work that was to be done under the Natural Products Marketing Act.


Richard Bedford Bennett: We are not paying for it?


James Garfield Gardiner: No.


George James Tustin: Are inspectors to be appointed and paid by the federal government to enforce those acts?


James Garfield Gardiner: Much of the inspection has to do with the marketing of say dairy products, and that kind of thing, when they 31X11-182
enter into international or interprovincial trade. Some of those inspectors are paid by us, though not necessarily out of this vote.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Agriculture-Assistance to the provinces for re-settlement, $300,000.
Grote Stirling: Will the minister explain what this means?


James Garfield Gardiner: This is the vote which was previously in the Labour department amounting to some S600,000. It has been transferred to the Department of Agriculture because of our general rehabilitation work.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is what was spoken of this afternoon.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Miscellaneous-To provide for expenditure due to the closing of unemployment relief projects, including salaries and allowances notwithstanding anything in the Civil Service Act, $35,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: What is that for?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: That is for the caretakers still employed in some of the camps.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Quebec
Harbours and Rivers,
Petite Riviere Est-construction of fishing harbour (under contract), $5,000.
Pointe Jaune-improvements to fishing harbour (under contract), $3,000.
Sorel-repairs and strengthening elevator wharf and dredging, $42,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: There is a very objectionable feature in this item, but I shall not take time to discuss it now. I shall make a general statement: it should not pass.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To provide for expenses of the Royal Grain Inquiry Commission, including re-vote $50,000, $111,700.
Mr. EULER:: I do not desire to delay my own estimate, but I should like to make one observation in regard to certain criticisms passed the other evening when this item was under discussion. Some criticism was made of the fees paid to Colonel Ralston, the counsel employed in connection with the work of the commission. I simply wish to say with regard to the fee that all the responsibility should be placed upon the government. Colonel Ralston accepted that position with reluctance, we pressed it upon him, and if there is any criticism to be made it should

2882	COMMONS
Supply-Temporary Grants to Provinces
be of the government itself. The fee he receives is the same as was paid in the customs investigation. It is only fair to him to say that, so there should be no prejudice created.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Some of them did not get $200 a day.


Abraham Albert Heaps: May I ask, are these the regular union wages?


Ernest Edward Perley: The report of the commission I understand will have to come to the government. Will it then be placed before parliament before any action is taken?


William Daum Euler: It will be placed before the government, and I presume if any action is to be taken it will probably require parliamentary approval.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To provide for expenses of the royal commission on the textile industry, $27,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Is this expected to be sufficient to discharge the whole balance?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Temporary grants to provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan to enable said provinces to continue essential services pending improvement in crop conditions and pending report of royal commission to investigate financial powers and responsibilities of the dominion and the provinces; Manitoba, $750,000; Saskatchewan, $1,500,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: I cannot permit this item to pass without making at least one observation. I am not going to do more than say that with respect to all these items we who constitute the official opposition have to balance the question of what we regard as the public interest in remaining here and discussing these items in detail against permitting the members of the government to discharge very onerous and difficult duties before they leave for overseas. But obviously the discrimination against the province of Alberta involved in this item is such that I cannot let it pass without protest.
On a review of the report made with respect to that province I find that it has been treated entirely differently from the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. When Alberta first made application for a loan to enable it to meet its obligations, the application was refused. As a result of that refusal, and the statement made subsequently, they cut down their interest payments to half. The report points out that if they had been in a position to discharge their obligations

in that regard they would have been able, by securing money from the dominion, to be in exactly the same position as the other provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The report concludes in this way:
Its position would be little worse than that of Manitoba, but distinctly better than that of Saskatchewan; and a claim for assistance would, no doubt, be considered in the light of these facts. It is the case, however, that Alberta's budgetary position differs materially from that of the other provinces, by reason of the fact that interest payments have been reduced by fifty per cent, or $3,400,000, and, other things being equal, its cash requirements have been reduced by the same amount. We can only deal with the situation as it is-not as it might have been in other circumstances. We find that Alberta can maintain its governmental services on as favourable a basis as Manitoba or Saskatchewan without receipt of additional assistance, and we therefore see no basis for recommending that temporary financial aid should be extended by the dominion government.
Preceding that, the report states:
Our recommendation of dominion government assistance in the cases of Manitoba and Saskatchewan was based on urgent needs of those provinces for cash during the time required for the examination which will be conducted by the royal commission. If Alberta were now paying full interest on its obligations, the province in 1937-38 would presumably have to borrow its full share of unemployment relief from the dominion, and on the basis of budgetary estimates (not including debt retirement) would have had a cash shortage of about $600,000.
Then follows what I first read, and that condition exists because the government of this country declined to make an advance to that province which would have enabled it to meet its obligations. The minister may shake his head as much as he likes; it does not have any effect on my mind. I have read this report. Because of this refusal; because Alberta did not join the loan council; because it took the action it did, we find it treated differently from Saskatchewan, which was able to secure $3,000,000 from the Bank of Canada. Under the law that bank could no longer continue to loan that money, so it was compelled to purchase bonds of the Saskatchewan government, and to that extent it has made an investment in a bankrupt province, admitted by the bank to be such. Alberta has been unable to secure money from the bank or from the dominion; it has been denied any assistance, and as a result the bondholders have been compelled to take fifty cents on the dollar, while we are voting money to enable the other provinces to pay one hundred cents on the dollar in connection with their bonds.
I say that is a distinct discrimination; it is unfair to the people of Alberta who hold

Supply-Temporary Grants to Provinces
these securities, because that province did pay the whole interest on the bonds of the Alberta and Great Waterways railway, as is pointed out in the report; but now, by reason of the action of this dominion, that province finds itself in a position in which it must pay only fifty cents on the dollar to people who have put their whole savings in its bonds.
Yet we find Saskatchewan and Manitoba now being given grants by the parliament of Canada to enable their bond interest to be paid in full. By the action of the government and the Bank of Canada the province of Saskatchewan has been able to secure not only the borrowings it has obtained but an additional $3,000,000 from the bank, to which it had no right, and the province of Manitoba is being granted $1,500,000. I say that is distinctly wrong, and I should like to spend some time in analysing this report and going into these matters in detail. I must content myself, however, with merely making the observation, with which the minister, as he pointed out the other day, entirely disagrees. But the fact is that the province of Alberta applied for the money and its application was refused. As a result it is in its present condition. The minister says it is not as a result of that; but that statement is not borne out by the records that appear in the report.
I should add just one further word. A number of these items are in the same position. Those of us wno feel, as every member of the house must, a sense of responsibility in connection with the voting of public moneys, have to choose between two alternatives. On the one hand we could take a very long time to elicit facts, conditions and circumstances connected with past expenditures upon which are based the estimates for another year. That would necessitate the ministers remaining in the house for perhaps another week, they having, as I have said, very great responsibilities elsewhere to be discharged, correspondence to be cleared up, and so on. We have concluded to make this statement, that by the acceptance of these items as we are accepting them to-night, without lengthy and detailed discussion, we are not in any sense placing ourselves in a position where it might be said when we discuss these matters on another occasion: Oh, you agreed to these items without further discussion or examination. We must preserve our rights in that regard by making the statement that our action in permitting many of these items to pass without lengthy discussion, though most of them have been discussed to some degree, is not to be taken as an acquiescence in or as an agreement with the principles upon which some at least of them have been framed.
We reserve our right to discuss the principles on which the appropriations have been made when estimates are before the house for similar services in another year. I think I should make that statement in fairness to those of us who have endeavoured to expedite the public business, believing that on balance it is more in the interests of Canada as a whole that this should be done, with the checks and balances that are provided under the constitution through the auditor general and otherwise, than that we should detain the house longer for the purpose of discussing in detail what in any event would become a part of the supply bill.


John Horne Blackmore: 
Richard Bedford Bennett: There are two other occasions on which the hon. member can make his observations, if he so desires; one is on the second reading of the supply bill and the other is when the bill is in committee.


Charles Avery Dunning: I shall be glad to meet the convenience of hon. members in every way they desire. Obviously I desire to say something myself in reply to the leader of the opposition, as he can well understand, while appreciating, in the need for making progress, the cooperation we have received both from the leader of the opposition and the leader of the Social Credit group. If it meets the convenience of these gentlemen to discuss the matter now, I am ready to discuss it. If, on the other hand, opportunity is to be taken with the Speaker in the chair on the second reading of the supply bill, which I presume will be to-morrow, that would be satisfactory.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The bill will be in committee, too.


Charles Avery Dunning: It will be in committee and this item with many others will be in the schedule. It will be perfectly competent to discuss it on that occasion.


Mr. PELLETIER:: So long as it is understood that we will have an opportunity to discuss it to-morrow.


Charles Avery Dunning: All right.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Supply-M iscellaneous
[Stage Direction]
Grant to the Canadian Red Cross Society, further amount $1,900.
Richard Bedford Bennett: I should like to say one word indicating the extent to which the people in the western provinces have appreciated the services of this society. I believe the vote might well have been warranted had it involved a much larger sum, in view of the type of service which has been extended by the Red Cross, which, after all, is its obligation under the terms of the peace treaty, it being mentioned in the peace treaty as the medium through which the services contemplated by that document will be carried into effect.


Charles Avery Dunning: I do not think the item should; be allowed to pass without the committee being advised of the very great, useful and humanitarian work which the Canadian Red Cross did this year in connection with the drought areas in western Canada. The Red Cross took over voluntarily and readily a very difficult portion of the relief work, a portion which I venture to say governmental agencies could not have handled satisfactorily, certainly not as competently *or economically. I believe some $370,000 were collected either in kind or in cash from the people of Canada, and distributed through the Canadian Red Cross in the form of clothing and other essentials which could not readily be dealt with under standardized relief measures.
This SI,900 brings the Red Cross grant up to the $10,000 at which for a number of years it stood. I wish to pay my tribute to the very valuable national service rendered by the Red Cross in the dire distress suffered by western Canada.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To provide for payment to C. P. Blair, formerly Assistant Commissioner of Customs, com: pensation for services in connection with the revision of the Customs Act, in the event of same being required, $2,500.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I understand the hon. member for Parkdale has a question he wishes to ask on this item. It is understood that it may be asked either on the orders of the day to-morrow or on the bill.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
To aid in the re-establishment and re-organization of what are known as the Dried and Pickled Fish branches of the fishing industry of the Atlantic coast, which, owing to world economic conditions, have become acutely depressed. with a view to the rehabilitation of those engaging therein; by granting assistance in processing, storing and marketing; by efforts

to expand the demand for the products of the industry; by assisting in the provision of transportation facilities on portions of the coast where these are inadequate; all under conditions to be approved by the Governor in Council, $500,000.
Mr. BROOKS:: How much of this item will be spent in each province?


Mr. MICHAUD:: That is difficult to state in advance. It will depend to what extent there will be compliance with the provisions and regulations being made. This is not for the purpose of giving out subsidies or grants to any particular individual, but rather for the purpose of helping the industry, in so far as those who are already in the industry are willing and ready to comply with the regulations and the terms set out by the government and the department in order to qualify for the subsidy.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: Did the request for the item come from any one particular province, for instance Nova Scotia, or has it come from the maritimes in general? I understand there has been a special request recently from the province of Nova Scotia, for reasons which I think are quite well understood.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: I believe the hon. member is a little too apprehensive. Although the amount is not as large as is required or as large as the department would like to
have it-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Oh no. surely not the department!


Joseph Enoil Michaud: It is for the purpose of further implementing the recommendations made by the various boards of inquiry appointed by various governments in the last fifteen years.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Make it fifty.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Yes, I should say fifty. I have the reports and recommendations of boards of inquiry such as the Maclean commission, the price spreads commission, and the economic inquiry in Nova Scotia. Then there was the report of a firm appointed in 1932 by the previous government to make an inquiry and report. I must say we cannot carry out all the recommendations, with the small amount placed at our disposal, but we will continue further to develop our fisheries policy.
Mr. BROOKS. I had intended to say something on the item, but I do not want to prolong the debate. I should like to ask the minister if bait freezers are to be included, and whether one will be estabilshed at Cara-quet, or at some other point in the county of Gloucester, New Brunswick?

Supply-Fisheries


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Yes, under this item. Two commissions recommended that the government help the fishermen by providing more bait and better bait, and it is possible to do so under the item.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am sure the frankness of the minister must commend itself to the committee. My own hope is that the bait may not be found as satisfactory as expected. What did strike me as an amazing thing is that the item provides also for transportation facilities-and all under conditions to be approved by the governor in council. Surely this government is not contemplating any such performance as that. It is the direct operation of a blank cheque. However. the real fact is that the vote is limited to the Atlantic fisheries, and I suppose that means the fisheries along the coast, in the bay of Fundy. and in the Atlantic ocean. The minister cannot give information as to what would be applicable to each of the provinces. Inasmuch as the necessity for bait at the moment is much more apparent in Nova Scotia than in the other provinces, I suppose Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick will have to look to the transportation side of it, while the bait is made available for Nova Scotia. Is that correct?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Well, I will take that as a recommendation.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am waiting to hear from the Pacific coast.


Alan Webster Neill: I would like to ask why the whole of this, very large sum is needed on the Atlantic coast?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Because of the needs of the Atlantic coast.


Alan Webster Neill: And are there no needs on the Pacific coast?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: It all depends on what the hon. member means by " needs." But he knows very well, and the house knows very well, that the situation with respect to fisheries on the Pacific coast is not at all comparable with the depressed condition of the fisheries on the Atlantic coast. That is true, for various reasons. A considerable amount of money is being spent on the Pacific coast, but not to the same extent as is necessary to meet the requirements of the Atlantic coast. The fishing industry on the Pacific coast is well organized and is not suffering like the industry on the Atlantic.


Alan Webster Neill: The people of British Columbia have a different opinion from that expressed by the minister. They think they have grievances that need attention. I ask him to
point out one expenditure he has in contemplation for the Pacific coast apart from the ordinary routine official operations of his department that would be in any way comparable to what is being spent on the Atlantic? Can the minister show me an item for, say 8100,000?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: My hon. friend knows very well-
Mi-. NEILL: I wish you would not say I know very well, because I do not.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: The money is not being spent just because there is a demand for it; it is to meet a need and it is because commissions and boards of investigation have recommended that it be done. No such recommendations have been made in connection with the Pacific coast.


Alan Webster Neill: If the trouble is that no one has asked for anything, then there would seem to be a reflection on the members from British Columbia. I did not think they were lacking in that ability. We have just finished some very stormy sessions in the fisheries committee in connection with the traps in British Columbia, and I suggest that a small part of this vote would have purchased the interest in these traps, if they have any equity, which would have substantially improved the lot of the ordinary fisherman, many of whom are going to be thrown out of employment this year, according to the evidence given in the committee, because of the restrictions being imposed upon the Skeena river. This is the second largest source of sockeye salmon in British Columbia.
Another suggestion I would make is the providing of a bounty for the reduction of dogfish. I have been advocating this for years. This fish is very destructive to the salmon industry. They have never been able to find the spawning grounds of this fish and it would be of great benefit to the industry if a reasonable bonus, say $2.50 per ton, was paid for the reduction of this fish. A vote of even $100,000 would be a gesture towards giving us what we are entitled to. The minister seems to regard this vote of $500,000 as being beggardly, but we would like to be given an assurance that some of this money will be available for British Columbia between now and the time it is spent. I do not suppose even Nova Scotia will be able to spend it all immediately.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Fish culture, $231,220.
Alan Webster Neill: I think the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber) wanted to speak on this item.
Supply-Fisheries


Joseph Enoil Michaud: I have informed the hon. member that his suggestions had been adopted in connection with the hatchery at Cultus Lake.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Fish culture is secure.


Alan Webster Neill: What about the Cowichan hatchery?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: I do not think it was closed last year.


William Kemble Esling: Some time ago a committee was appointed to determine the responsibility as between the federal government and the provincial government of British Columbia in connection with the maintenance of a hatchery for the propagation of sport fish. The report of the committee is in the hands of the minister, and I wondered if he could tell us whether the responsibility for this hatchery will rest upon the federal or the provincial government.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: The question of jurisdiction as between the provincial and federal governments has not finally been reported upon. From what I have been able to gather from a brief examination of the interim report, the suggestion is made that the facilities of the federal government should be used wherever possible for the propagation of sport fish and the development of sport fishing on the Pacific coast. This suggestion will be acted upon.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To enable, in cooperation with provincial governments concerned, aiding fishermen and groups of fishermen to establish, or better establish themselves in the industry, $400,000.
Alan Webster Neill: Would the minister give us a short statement of what was spent of the money voted last year, and in what provinces it was spent?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: The expenditure in Nova Scotia was $59,969; in New Brunswick, $21,323; in Prince Edward Island, $25,000.


Alan Webster Neill: And in British Columbia?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: That province did not enter into an agreement with the dominion government. These expenditures would not cover the whole fiscal year as the last report takes us up to only the early part of March.
Mr. IvINLEY: That was on a 50-50 basis?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Yes.


John James Kinley: This money was not spent; it was used to make loans.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: It was paid to the provinces.


John James Kinley: You still have an equity in it; it is loaned to the provinces.


Alan Webster Neill: These figures add up roughly to $100,000. Last year the vote was for $300,000. Was the rest not spent?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: It was not all taken
up. It was placed at the disposal of the provinces, but was not taken up.


Alan Webster Neill: Well, if only $118,000 out of
$300,000 was spent, why are you asking for $400,000 this year?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: It is believed that the
provinces this year intend to take greater advantage of the grant than they did last year. I might say that an offer was made to British Columbia of a share of the amount, but they did not feel they could take it.


Alan Webster Neill: Were they offered any specific sum?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Yes, $50,000.


Alan Webster Neill: And what was the answer of British Columbia?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Well, they did not feel
inclined to take it. I do not think I have the letter here.


Alan Webster Neill: I cannot imagine British
Columbia refusing $50,000 if there is any chance of getting it.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: I have the letter. It
was sent by Mr. Pattullo, premier of British Columbia, and is dated May 22:
Adverting to your letter of 28th April, I have had the fisheries department give careful consideration to the subject matter of your letter, and we have come to the conclusion that under the circumstances existing at the present time it is not considered desirable to take advantage of your proposal. I wish however, to express appreciation of your suggestion.


Alan Webster Neill: I am asking for information;
I am not attacking the minister. But take Nova Scotia; they appear to have had somewhere around $60,000. Was there any arrangement made as to the way in which this money was to be used? The department did not just say: Take it. What did they do?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: It is under the terms of
a contract.


Alan Webster Neill: Well, just generally speaking.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: They were to loan money to needy fishermen, and the province would supplement it by a similar amount for the same purpose, and administer the fund.


Alan Webster Neill: And the province was responsible to the dominion?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: For what?

Supply-Fisheries


Alan Webster Neill: For the money.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: For the refund of the
money?


Alan Webster Neill: Yes.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: No.


Alan Webster Neill: What about the individual
fisherman? Did he pay interest?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Yes. Three per cent.


Alan Webster Neill: And on what security?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: On his note.


Alan Webster Neill: On the boats?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: No.


Alan Webster Neill: Does the minister not think that if a fisherman in Nova Scotia could get a loan on the security of his notes alone, fishermen might also be allowed to get loans under the Fishermen's Loan Act on the security of their boats-not of their notes but of their boats. At present they must have land as security, and many of these fishermen do not own land. The minister would have been doing a great benefit to British Columbia, and no doubt to the maritimes as well, if he had had that Fishermen's Loan Act changed so that if a fisherman needed a thousand dollars or more he could get it on the security of his boat and gear. At the present time a man may have a boat worth $25,000 -that is quite common in the halibut or seine business-and yet when he wants to get a new net or an engine he cannot get it because his real estate must be worth double the amount of the loan. The result is that in British Columbia there has been only one loan granted, of the noble sum of $400. As I say, the reason is that they are not so circumstanced as to get it. If the minister would forget any question of favouritism towards Nova Scotia and elsewhere and would get the Fishermen's Loan Act so amended that the fishermen could take advantage of it, he would achieve something really worth while. They are yearning to take advantage of the act, but it is no good telling a man who wants a loan on a fishing boat that he can get it if he produces a marble mansion or something of that kind. The proof of the truth of what I have said is shown by the fact that in all British Columbia, which produces fifty per cent of the fish production of Canada, we have been able to get only one loan, and that of $400.


David James Hartigan: I think the hon. member is under a false impression as to the amount a fisherman can get under this law. As I understand it the limit is $40.


Alan Webster Neill: Perhaps the hon. member will tell me what is the purpose of the $40 loan? What is the use of it to a fisherman needing a boat or a net?


David James Hartigan: The hon. member talked about a loan for a thousand dollars under another loan plan. But under this particular grant given to the province the maximum was $40.


Alan Webster Neill: What use is $40?


David James Hartigan: That is up to the fisherman-perhaps for the repair of his nets or of his boat.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To aid in expanding the sale of the products of the Canadian fishermen in foreign and domestic markets, $100,000.
Alan Webster Neill: This item has been reduced. What phase of the work is to be carried on this year?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Last year we were largely engaged in the organization of publicity work. The continuation of such publicity requires more money, and we are glad to find that the industry itself is devoting some money to advertising and publicity work. We thought this amount would be sufficient to carry on the work for the coming year.


Alan Webster Neill: I will not detain the committee a moment but I should like to ask the minister about the advertisement I produce. I have seen lots of advertising put out by the department. Much of it was quite good, but I wish he would tell us what this drawing represents? What kind of fish is it?


Frederick George Sanderson: Does the item carry?


Alan Webster Neill: No, it won't carry. The minister is going to give me some valuable biological information.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: That must be one of the dogfish of which my hon. friend spoke.


Alan Webster Neill: I would ask the minister to return my illustration. The fact of the matter is that it is a biological obscenity. It is not any fish at all; it is a composite animal. Did not the poet say, the like was never seen on land or sea.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Sea or land.


Alan Webster Neill: The like has never been seen to my knowledge. It is not anything. I recognize in it a little piece of a halibut, a little piece of a herring, and so on. If the Minister of Agriculture were going to put on similar advertising, I suppose there would be an object part horse and part cow, with a touch of a hog in it, and flavoured with goat.
Supply Miscellaneous

Does the minister not think it would be much better to refrain from trying to deceive the public with a thing like that? I think if it represents anything, the nearest fish it comes to is a trout. But why not change the illustration and have, one day a herring, the next day a cod, the next day a halibut, the next day a haddock, and so on, with a suitable recipe instead of suggesting that the public try this recipe for kippered herring scallop, for this fish is not a herring. It would be better to have, as I suggest, a recipe concerning the fish depicted in the particular advertisement. After all, the idea is to persuade people to buy fish. But here is a picture of this marine animal being caught apparently with a rod and line. That does not encourage the housewife to buy fish. It might encourage a sportsman to go out and catch an object like this if he could find it, but the minister's idea is to encourage the housewife to go out and buy some specific fish, and how seeing this poor hybrid caught with a hook is going to persuade her to do that, I do not know. It would be much better to make the advertisement more practical and have a picture of a cod or a halibut so that the housewife could know what it was when she saw it, and also to have each day a recipe appropriate to the fish advertised.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Employment and Social Insurance Act, $40,000.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: As I said the other evening, I do not believe that any of this amount will be required, but I am not sure. Some unforeseen necessity may arise.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Statue of the late Sir Arthur G. Doughty, to be erected in front of the dominion archives building, $15,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: There is a word I desire to say with respect to this item. The late Sir Wilfrid Laurier said that but for Sir Charles Tupper there would have been no confederation, and one thing that has given me concern is the fact that there is no statue on these grounds to his memory. I have no criticism to make of the statue to be erected to Sir Arthur Doughty in front of the building housing the archives, which he so splendidly established. But in view of what Sir Wilfrid Laurier said on the death of Sir Charles Tupper I suggest that we should make provision for a statue to be erected to him. Had we been in sufficient funds when the late government was in power, provision would certainly have been made between 1930 and 1935 for the purpose, but as money was urgently required for other purposes it was not done. The language of Sir Wilfrid Laurier was quite strong-but for Sir Charles Tupper there

would have been no confederation-and it is but fitting that there should be a memorial to the memory of the man but for whom, in the opinion of one of his great contemporaries to whom he was opposed, there would have been no confederation. I take advantage of this vote to make that observation, at the same time paying a tribute to Sir Arthur Doughty and the great work he has done for the future of Canada. I am not quite sure that the erection of a statue is the best tribute. The Prime Minister thinks it will be. and as there is always room for differences of opinion it is, of course, quite clear that his views in the matter should prevail. I trust that the memorial to be erected to his memory will be one that will remind future generations of the great debt that is owed to him because of what he did for the archives of the country, which are of extreme value not only to Canadians but to all those who desire to know the early history of the North American continent.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: One thought amongst others underlying the erection of a statue to the memory of Sir Arthur Doughty is that for the most part our statues have been erected only to statesmen or generals, there being few, if any, to members of the civil service. Sir Arthur was a great public servant who, as my right hon. friend has said, 'was more responsible than all others combined, for the splendid department of government known as the archives. It was essentially his creation. The administration felt that to commemorate his life and work by the erection of a statue of suitable design in association with the archives buildings, possibly immediately in front of the building, would be an eminently appropriate form of recognition. Members of all parties in the house and leaders of previous governments will, I believe, agree that permanent recognition of Sir Arthur Doughty's splendid services to our country is more than merited.
I am glad that my right hon. friend has called the attention of the government to the circumstance that up to the present no monument has been erected on the parliament grounds to the late Sir Charles Tupper. I believe the country generally will feel that fitting recognition should be given one whose part in confederation and in the history of the country was that which my right hon. friend has described as having been taken by Sir Charles Tupper. I may say to my right hon. friend that the government will be pleased to consider what may be most advisable in the way of recognition.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Resolutions reported.

Coronation of King George VI

[Stage Direction]
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance) moved:
That the reports of the committee of supply-made to this house on January 19, 22, 26, February 2, 5, 8, 9, 11, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26, March 1, 31, April 1, 5, 7, be now received, read a second time and concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
Resolutions reported, read the second time and concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance) moved that the house go into committee of ways and means.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.
Charles Avery Dunning: Resolved, that towards making good the supply granted to His Majesty on account of certain expenses of the public service for the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1938, the sum of $278,368,607.50 be granted out of the consolidated revenue fund of Canada.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in. Mr. Dunning thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 118, for granting to His Majesty certain sums of money for the public service for the fiscal year ending the 31st March, 1938.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: May we revert, Mr. Speaker, to the order, introduction of bills, to enable the Minister of National Revenue to introduce the bill which appears on the order paper, so that it may have first reading tonight?


EXCISE ACT AMENDMENT
[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of National Revenue) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 119, to amend the Excise Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.
It being twenty minutes after twelve o'clock, the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Saturday, April 10, 1937