1938-04-07

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. E. MICHAUD (Minister of Fisheries) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 98, respecting the north Pacific pelagic sealing convention.
Mr. NEILL:: Explain.


Mr. MICHAUD:: Mr. Speaker, in 1911 a convention was entered into between Great Britain, the United States of America, Japan and Russia in regard to pelagic sealing in the north Pacific ocean. The convention was ratified by the British parliament of the time, and later, in 1912, enabling legislation was passed by this parliament. But the enabling legislation did not provide for any sanctions for violations of the provisions of the act, and so from 1912 to the present day the sanctions provided by the Fisheries Act were applied. It has been found that this was leading to [DOT] misunderstanding by the natives of the Pacific coast, and accordingly it has been thought advisable to recast the legislation relating to pelagic sealing in the north Pacific ocean to provide sanctions for violations of the act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. LEADER:: 1.	Have any trial shipments of fresh killed beef been made to the British market?
2.	If so, when, and by what agency?
3.	Has the government undertaken any work of this nature?
4.	If so, what are the prospects of developing this trade?


Mr. GARDINER:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Harris Abattoir Co. (now with Canada Packers), 1921; Dominion experimental farms, 1923; University of Saskatchewan, 1934.
3.	Yes. Dominion experimental farms, 1923.
4.	Prospects indicate further experimental shipments warranted.


Mr. LEADER:: 1.	How much shipping space is available for the transport of Canadian cattle to Great Britain during the next three months?
2.	Has all available space been booked for this period?
3.	If so, can the government furnish the names of the men or firms exercising this control ?


Mr. GARDINER:: 1.	Approximately 12,000 spaces.
2.	Yes.
3.	D. A. Campbell, Donald Munro & Sons, and Alexander Muir, Montreal, Quebec. These men operate independently but also act as the representatives of United Kingdom firms buying in Canada.


PROMOTION OF SALES OF FISH
Mr. NEILL:: 1.	How much money has been spent in each
year from 1931 to 1937 inclusive, on advertising:	(a) to promote the sale of fish in
Canada; (b) in Britain?
2.	If it can be separated, how much of this has been spent on specifically promoting the sale of salmon?


Mr. MICHAUD:: 1.	(a)	(b)
Fiscal years [DOT]	Canada Britainf
1931- 32	
$ 4,041 40	....1932-	33	
4,187	80	....1933-	34	
2,S00	20	....1934-	35	
1,477	80	....1935-	36	
2,967	00	....1936-	37	
140,026	29	825,000*
tSo far as the Department of Fisheries is concerned.
*Transferred to high commissioner for Canada in London for use in "Canada Calling"
campaign.
2.	The advertising within Canada related to Canadian fish foods generally not species of fish; there was no advertising of salmon by itself. The money transferred to the High Commissioner was earmarked for the advertising of canned salmon and canned lobster.


ST. MICHEL DE BELLECHASSE, QUE., LIGHTKEEPERS
Mr. BOULANGER:: 1.	What amount has the government paid to Mr. Ulderic Roy, of St. Michel de Bellechasse, for land, right of way and damages in connection with the construction of a range light on his property?
2.	From the time of such construction to date, who were the range light keepers, and what was their annual rate of pay?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	$300-lighthouse site 50 feet square and right of way 1,600 feet long. $60-right to erect a pole line to lighthouse.

Questions
2.	Front light-(electrically operated).
Edmund Dugal-April 26, 1928-July 31, 192S, $25 per annum; Aug. 1, 1928-March 31, 1929, $60 per	annum;	April	1,	1929-Sept.	30,	1929,$S0 per	annum;	Oct.	1,	1929-Sept.	30,	1930,$85 per	annum;	Oct. 1,	1930-March	31,	1932,$90 per	annum;	April 1,	1932-March	31,	1934,
$95 per annum (less 10 per cent); April 1, 1935, $100 per annum.
Back light-(electrically operated).
Ulderic Roy-April 26, 1928-July 31, 1928, $50 per annum; Aug. 1, 1928-March 31, 1929, $60 per	annum;	April	1,	1929-Sept.	30,	1929,$80 per	annum;	Oct.	1,	1929-Sept.	30,	1930,$85 per	annum;	Oct. 1,	1930-March	31,	1932,$90 per	annum;	April	1, 1932-July	31,	1932,
$90 per annum (less 10 per cent).
Edmund Dugal-Aug. 1, 1932-Nov. 15, 1932, $45 per annum.
Onesiphore Cbamberland-Nov. 16, 1932-March 31, 1934, $90 per annum (less 10 per cent); April 1, 1934-June 30, 1935, $90 per annum; July 1, 1935-March 31, 1936, $95 per annum.
Philippe Goupil-April 21, 1936-June 30, 1937, $S0 per annum; July 1, 1937, $S5 per annum.


ST. DENIS COUNTY, QUE., POSTAL SUB-OFFICES
Mr. DENIS:: 1.	How many postal sub-offices are located in St. Denis county, what are their addresses, and what are the names and addresses of the persons operating them?
2.	When were sueli persons appointed?
3.	What are the names and addresses of persons provided with a permit for the sale of postage stamps in St. Denis county, and when w'ere they granted such a permit?


Mr. EULER (for Mr. Elliott):: 1 and 2. Sub office-address-sub-postmaster -date of appointment:
Villeray-7706 St. Hubert, Albert De Repen-tigny, April 30, 1936.
No. 6-6865 St. Hubert, Ludovic Duquette, March 7, 1932.
No. 10-8480 St. Denis, Georges Lamarche, July 17, 1931.
No. 36-6045 Christophe Colomb, Laurent Arthur Lefebvre, May 30, 1932.
No. 45-7499 St. Denis, Rosario Filion, January 4, 1934.
No. 58-5801 St. Hubert, J. Rene Adam, February 15, 1929.
No. 59-1251 Beaubien-Est, Rosario Filion, October 19, 1937.
No. 67-8119 St. Hubert, Wilfrid Chamber-land, August 7, 1928.
No. 73-6415 St. Hubert, Donat Laporte, January 13, 1933.
No. 86-200 DeCastelnau, Jos. Emile La-france, December 9, 1925.
No. 91-6698 Christophe Colomb, Henri Toupin, April 5, 1932.
No. 108-6947 St. Denis, A. B. Doray, March 28, 1917.
No. 114-236 Jarry, Narcisse Morin, August 17, 1922.
No. 119-1251 Belanger, Leslie James Lamoureux, March 27, 1933.
3.	Name-address-permit or licence-date, granted:
O.	Barbeau, 7407 Christophe Colomb, P, June 22, 1933.
J. G. Benoit, 7901 St. Denis, P, August 22, 1927.
J. P. Durand, 651 Jarry, P, September 29, 1932.
R. Denis, 750 Belanger East, P, September
17,	1934.
R. Dube, 635 Jarry, P, February 23, 1938.
J. A. Gauthier, 500 Beaubien East, L, August
12,	1929.
L. Harvey, 6055 St. Denis, P, January 5, 1938.
P.	L'Heureux, 7348 St. Denis, P, June 4, 1936.
E.	Lemay, 6945 Delaroche, P, January 30, 1936.
V. Labrie, 7900 Casgrain, P, September 5, 1923.
F.	Lamarre, 7904 Chateaubriand, P, August
13,	1927.
O.	Meunier, 7040 Christophe Colomb, P, January 30, 1936.
O.	Nadeau, 7400 Christophe Colomb, P, May 8, 1936.
Rev. L. Page, 7400 St. Laurent, L, April 16, 1937.
J. Serres, 1290 Beaubien East, L, December 10, 1935.
H.	S. Talbot, 354 Beaubien East, P, February 7, 1930.
R. Terreault, 6978 St. Hubert, P, October 20, 1934.
United Cigars, 6910 St. Denis, P, September
18,	1934.


REPAIRS TO FORT HENRY
Mr. LENNARD:: 1.	What repairs have been done to Fort Henry, in the county of Frontenae-Addington, since January 1, 1936?
2.	On what basis was the work carried on: (a) contract; (b) cost plus?
3.	Who has the contract for the said work?
Questions

4.	Were tenders called for by advertisement?
5.	If not, who tendered on the work, and who granted authority for them to tender?
6.	If so, what are the amounts of the various tenders ?
7.	Upon whose recommendation was the contract awarded?
8.	What quantity of materials has been delivered to the work to date?
9.	By whom were these supplied?
10.	What check was made by the Department, or by any one acting for the Department, in the delivery of materials?
11.	Has the contractor been authorized to transfer any material from this work to other work being carried on by the same contractor in the city of Kingston?


Mr. ROGERS:: 1.	The cost of repairs to Fort Henry have been contributed to by the dominion under both The Unemployment Relief and Assistance Act, 1936, and The Unemployment and Agricultural Assistance Act, 1937. The repairs consisted of general improvements and restoration of grounds, buildings, walls of fort and gun sites.
2.	Contract and day labour.
3.	Contracts for the work under both of the above mentioned acts were awarded to Frid Construction Company Limited.
4.	Yes.
5.	Answered by No. 4.
6.
Frid Construction Co., Ltd.
Harold Harvey	
McGinnis & O'Connor.. .. Fitzpatrick & Wright.. .. Russell Construction Co... .
The Unemployment Relief and Assist-tance Act,

72.288 50 98,968 00 102.946 00 92,667 00 137,722 75
The Unemployment and Agricultural Assistance Act. 1937 S
305,448 50 335.008 00 328,743 50
7.	The contracts were awarded to the lowest tenderer and were between the government of the province and Frid Construction Company Limited.
8,	9, 10 and 11. The work carried out was within the jurisdiction and supervision of the provincial government and the information requested is not a matter of record with the dominion government.


CANADIAN COMMISSIONER TO PARIS EXPOSITION
[Stage Direction]
op 1937
Mr. BARBER:: 1.	Who was Canadian commissioner to the Paris exposition in 1937?
2.	What amount was paid the commissioner for travelling expenses and other charges?


Mr. EULER:: 1.	Oscar L. Boulanger, M.P.
2.	S3,000.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. MARSHALL:: 1.	What are the (a) names; (b) ages; (c) addresses; (d) salaries of all seed and feed inspectors appointed by the federal Department of Agriculture in Alberta during the year 1937?
2.	Were these appointments made under the Civil Service Act or by the Department of Agriculture ?
fMr. Lennard.]
3.	How many of those appointed are returned men, and what are their names?


BUTTER IMPORTATIONS
Mr. THOMPSON:: 1.	How many pounds of butter were imported into Canada from New Zealand from January 1, 1938, to the present time?
2.	How many pounds of butter were imported into Canada from Australia from January 1, 1938, to the present time?
3.	How many pounds of butter were in cold storage in Canada on the 31st of March, 1937?
4.	How many pounds of butter were in cold storage in Canada on the 31st of March, 1938?
5.	How many pounds of imported butter were held in bond on March 31, 1937, and on March 31, 1938?
6.	What is the rate of duty on butter imported from Australia and New Zealand direct through: (a) Atlantic ports; (b) Pacific ports?
7.	What is the rate of duty on butter, coming from New Zealand and Australia, imported from Great Britain?


LIVE STOCK WINTER FEEDING-SASKATCHEWAN
Mr. FLEMING:: 1.	How many head of cattle were shipped out of Saskatchewan for winter feeding in the year 1937-38?
2.	How many horses were shipped out of Saskatchewan for winter feeding in the same year?

Privilege-Mr. Bennett
3.	How many farmers in Saskatchewan are in receipt of relief in the said year?
4.	How many farmers in Saskatchewan secured seed grain and fodder, respectively, in the said year?


WESTERN RELIEF EXPENDITURES
Mr. FLEMING:: 1.	How much money was expended by the government in 1937-38 in the 100 per cent relief area?
2.	How much money was expended by the government in 1937-38 in the grant and aid to municipalities?
3.	How much money was expended by the government from 1929 to 1938 inclusive on relief in the province of Saskatchewan: (a) in the 100 per cent relief areas; (b) in the grant and aid to municipalities?


NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT COMMISSION STAFF
Mr. COLD WELL:: 1.	On what date did the members of the National Employment Commission tender their resignation?
2.	On what date were they accepted by the government ?
3.	Did the government give consideration to the commission's final report prior to the acceptance of the resignations?
4.	Subsequent to the date the resignations became effective, what members of the staff of the commission, if any, have been or are being dispensed with by the government?
5.	Are any of those mentioned in No. 4 returned soldiers?
6.	What length of service have they had in various capacities, excluding war services, with the dominion government?



INDIAN ACT AMENDMENT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. T. A. CRERAR (Minister of Mines and Resources) moved that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following proposed resolution:
That it is expedient, by amendment to the Indian Act, to authorize the governor in council to make regulations enabling the superintendent general to issue leases of land deemed to contain minerals and to grant in respect thereof the right to prospect for, mine and take away the same; and also to authorize advances of moneys from the consolidated revenue fund to assist Indians in carrying on agriculture and other pursuits, and to make provision for the repayment of such advances; the outstanding advances at any time not to exceed $350,000.
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the favourable consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Right Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to mention a matter of privilege affecting this house. Yesterday I endeavoured to follow the observations which were made by the hon. member for Beauce (Mr. Lacroix), and while I realized that he was speaking about a question of timber limits and timber dues in the province of Quebec, not until I saw this morning the translation of his observations was I able fully to grasp their meaning. It will be observed from a reading of them that they had to do with matters entirely within the province of Quebec; but that is not the point which I desire to mention. We all have an interest in the maintenance of our institutions, and I do not claim to have any greater concern in that regard than any other member of this chamber. But I invite the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) to look at that translation and ascertain whether he does not think that, after a conference with the hon. member for Beauce, certain observations should be expunged from the record. I will not even mention what they are, but they are of such a character as, translated, must convince any of us that had the Speaker been able to hear what was being said he would have indicated that those observations should not have been made in this chamber, because they cannot but have, I believe, a very serious effect upon the position of the House of Commons itself. I refrain deliberately at this time from making any reference to the language employed and the charges that have been made against those who are not in this place, about matters that have nothing to do, under our federal constitution, with this house. I think that when the hon. member for Beauce has perused them, as translated in the official record, and the Prime Minister has done the same, they will regard my observations as temperate and moderate and made for one purpose only, namely to do at least what we can to maintain in this generation respect for our institutions, which I think is a very heavy obligation that rests upon each and all of us at this time
Seed Grain



GERMAN PLEBISCITE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Richard Bedford Bennett: I noticed in the press this morning a short item dealing with the question of an endeavour being made to poll the vote of German nationals in Canada with respect to the annexation of Austria. Possibly it may be of value, as some conclusions have been arrived at, if the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) would indicate whether or not (1) any effort has been made on the part of the German government to have us provide facilities for a poll being taken; (2) what reply the administration made to such request, and (3) whether any steps have or can be taken to ascertain whether or not those who claim the right to vote have been naturalized in some instances as British subjects. The latter question is perhaps of the most pressing importance from the standpoint of the country as a whole. I did not get an opportunity to indicate to the Prime Minister that I intended to ask this question on the orders of the day, and if he thinks that it is inadvisable to make an answer without further consideration he can treat it as notice; but inasmuch as the press report indicated that some conclusions had been arrived at, I assumed that possibly the question of notice was unimportant.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of any representations having been made by the German government to our government, but I will look into the matter and let my right hon. friend have a reply to-morrow.



SEED GRAIN


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. C. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: On page 1790 of Hansard, Monday, March 28, 1938, I asked the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) the following question:
One more question. The minister said this afternoon that feed and fuel would not be deducted from the amount of seed a man could get under the schedule. Does that apply also to repairs?
To which the minister replied:
Feed and fodder and oil and gasoline and repairs have no necessary connection with the seed a man gets.

I am now in receipt of a telegram from a municipal council stating that the amount of repairs given to each farmer is being deducted from his seed schedule. Would the minister care to make any statement with regard to the matter?


Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture):: As this is a matter entirely in the administration of the province there is nothing I can add to what I stated at the time. Feed, fodder, oil, gasoline and repairs have no necessary connection with the seed a man gets. I imagine that the case of every municipality and every individual will be considered on its merits and some decision reached by the province, but there is nothing I can add to that statement.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Last evening, in announcing the business for to-day, I failed to make reference to two bills which appeared in the name of the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Power), one relating to political expenditures, the other to franchise and elections. There are obvious reasons which make it desirable to have the bills referred if possible before the Easter recess to the committee on matters pertaining to elections which was appointed the other day. If hon. members have any objections to proceeding this afternoon with these bills of course the government would not ask to have them taken up at the moment; but as there is an understanding that they will be referred to the committee, perhaps there would be no objection to proceeding with the second reading on this understanding this afternoon.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Obviously I cannot speak for
all of those who sit on this side, but the bills stand for second reading, and as far as we were concerned we practically made up our minds that as the bills in any event were to go to the committee, no good purpose would be served by making any extended observations on second reading. I will content myself with saying that, having read the measures, I trust the Prime Minister will forgive me if I remark that one of them, at least, seems to have been fearfully and wonderfully made.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We had the best counsel possible.

Elections and Franchise


Richard Bedford Bennett: I would doubt thatnot on the score of capacity to practise the profession, but from the standpoint of not being able to apply academic knowledge to realities. The two things do not go side by side.


Mr. POWER:: It is the first time I have been accused of purely academic knowledge.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I assure you, Mr. Speaker, I had no intention of accusing the hon. member of possessing academic knowledge. Perhaps I might have said that he had great knowledge of realities, many of which I would prefer that he did not have.



POLITICAL EXPENDITURES


[Stage Direction]
Hon. C. G. POWER (Minister of Pensions and National Health) moved the second reading of Bill No. 90, respecting political expenditures.
Richard Bedford Bennett: I should like to make it abundantly clear that in consenting to the second reading of this bill, which I think under the circumstances it is proper to do, I make the fullest reservation on behalf of those who are associated with me, as not adopting the principles that are contained in many sections of the bill; because it may be difficult to iudicate what the principle is that governs the measure as a whole. There are many sections to which I think objection in principle must be taken, and I desire to reserve the right to the fullest measure of discussion with respect to the bill itself and to every section of it in order that there may be no misapprehension in the future.


Charles Gavan Power: That is thoroughly understood.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the special committee appointed to consider electoral matters.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. C. G. POWER (Minister of Pensions and National Health) moved the second reading of Bill No. 91, respecting the franchise of electors and election of members of the House of Commons.
Richard Bedford Bennett: I desire to make a similar reservation with respect to this measure. Naturally, if the minister in charge of the bill were to present the case on second reading it might precipitate a lengthy debate. If, with the reservation I have mentioned with reference to the other measure, the bill is given second reading, I cannot see that any harm will be done, because we would reserve the fullest right of criticism with respect to the principles embodied in some of the sections, believing as we do that a closed list has much to commend it as against provisions that exist in some parts.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The government greatly appreciates the attitude my right hon. friend has taken towards expediting consideration of these bills, and care will be taken to see that the fullest latitude is permitted for discussion when they come up again.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the special committee appointed to consider electoral matters.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Wednesday, April 6, consideration in committee of the following proposed resolution-Mr. Rogers-Mr. Sanderson in the chair:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to provide assistance towards the alleviation of unemployment and agricultural distress, and for such payments out of moneys appropriated by parliament as may be necessary for all or any of the purposes of the proposed legislation.
Mr. RALPH MAYBANK (Winnipeg South Centre):: Before the committee rose yesterday afternoon the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Massey) was engaging in a speech of rhetorical excellence, an excellence which I could not hope to approach, let alone equal; however, I might endeavour to emulate him. At that time he was engaging in a criticism as spirited in manner as it was broad in scope, of the work and contribution of the Department of Labour in reference to this problem of unemployment. According to him, it would seem that the Department of Labour is very much like Nazareth of old, out of which apparently no good could come. It seems to me pertinent to remark that just as those who condemned that village were in egregious error, so too the hon. member may very well be in error no less egregious in seeking to belittle the work and the contribution of the minister of that very difficult department.

Relief and Agricultural Distress

I do not intend to attempt anything in the way of an oratorical performance to be placed in juxtaposition in the journals of this house with the hon. gentleman's speech of yesterday, but I do think it is desirable that some facts should be dispassionately stated which perhaps might invite renewed reflection upon this problem so that possibly the result may hereafter be less emotion and a little more reason in forming and passing judgment.
I think it perhaps unnecessary for me to remark that I am by no means a complacent person. Whenever I have remarks to make they will not be solely of approbation of tilings done and of things as they are. I regard smug complacency as of greater danger in the national life than an absolute vice.
It seems to me that extensive criticism with regard to the lack of concrete proposals in the speech of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) is at the moment ill-timed. It ill becomes me to be dogmatic or didactic about such a matter, but merely from a reading of the resolution and from some slight knowledge of the place which a resolution of this sort occupies in the proceedings of parliament, I take it that we are discussing a resolution only intended to indicate the need for something being done, namely the spending of money; a resolution which under our parliamentary system is necessary in view of the fact that money is to be spent; a resolution which merely directs attention to a condition and to certain circumstances. All that is necessary, therefore, for the mover of such a resolution to do, is to speak in such a way as to give a general review of the situation. It is only necessary that the scope of the problem should be indicated rather than that details of remedies should be given; and perhaps in view of the broad scope of this problem it is not even desirable that an attempt to give full details should be made. If I might borrow a medical term, the remarks of the mover of a resolution of this sort should be diagnostic; no criticism lies because of the lack of complete disclosure of the various remedial plans. And full disclosure will come shortly when the bill is before us.
But while the minister may not have indicated exactly the measures to be taken, I apprehend that no one else is precluded from pointing out the steps that should be taken; and this is exactly what the hon. member for Greenwood did not do. As a matter of fact it is what I propose to do in presenting to the committee the ideas that occur to me-and I am going to present those ideas in complete and untrammelled freedom.
I have read with interest and profit both the interim report and the other publications of
[Mr. Maybank.l
the so-called Purvis commission, and I have also read the final report. I must say I cannot see the force of the criticism offered by the hon. member for Greenwood when he satirically utters with tragic intonation the word "final"-"final, final"-with reference to this report. It seems to me this report shows a highly creditable discharge of an onerous and important duty. The job being done, what would the members do but write finis to their work Any person who completes a job. investigative, consultative and advisory in its nature, makes a report. The fact that it is a final report is surely nothing sinister; there is nothing sinister in the dissolution of the commission. If the government should do nothing about the report and nothing about the problem, that would be a different matter.
For my part I should like to see every proposal of the so-called Purvis commission put into effect. I think the housing plans advocated by the commission in its interim report should have been put into effect. I note that the report has certain negative proposals and certain positive ones. As an illustration of a negative proposal I might mention the remarks regarding the unwisdom of certain types of public works. But we should take the report as a whole and look upon its recommendations as complementary one to the other. We ought not to fall into the error of accepting the negative recommendations and failing to accept the positive. For instance, I endorse every word that has been written or spoken in respect to the desirability of a national housing and slum clearance scheme. If that proceeds I care not at all about the other public works which the commission does not favour.
In reference to unemployment I am a strong believer in a works policy so far as possible. I hold it to be true that the curse put upon Adam has since become the most cherished privilege of the human race. That man must earn his bread in the sweat of his brow is to-day a privilege. We are accustomed to speak of unemployment as the greatest national problem; and sometimes to repeat this seems almost trite. Yet that enforced idleness is the most serious national problem not only of this country but of almost all countries cannot be gainsaid. Long idleness undoubtedly makes clods out of sentient men and women.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay-
-said Goldsmith. We have not so much evidence of wealth accumulating, but we have had for a number of years a great deal of evidence that men decay as a result of idleness. Like many other hon. members I

Relief and Agricultural Distress
have kept a scrapbook, and a short time ago I clipped a little piece from the Atlantic Monthly, which I quote:
The thing that numbs the heart is this:
That men cannot devise
Some scheme of life to banish fear
That lurks in most men's eyes.
People with numbed hearts, with a fear of unemployment so great that it lurks in their eyes, cannot develop themselves fully and cannot make the contribution which they would and shouid make to the development of the human race. In the light of all this it can never be trite to observe once more that unemployment is our greatest national problem.
So far our critics and ourselves are in agreement. But one might infer, in listening to the hon. member to whom I have referred, with his spirit of criticism, that we, in this corner and on the other side of the house, are not sensible of the transcendent nature of this problem. It is worth while to recall again that since this government took hold there has been, chiefly as a result of the scientific manner in which the problem has been handled, a steady improvement. And, per contra, when the government of the chief of the hon. member to whom I have referred were in office, in consequence of having promised to cure unemployment absolutely and forever so that it would be completely forgotten, by reason of the hit and miss manner in which the problem was then handled it grew steadily worse.
The hon. member mentioned the farm placement scheme. The minister had said that as a result of the operation of that scheme large numbers had been taken off relief; I have not the figures before me. but the hon. member for Greenwood himself mentioned the figure of 50,000. He then sought to detract from the work and the contribution of this government by saying that this was not a scheme of the present government at all, that in fact his own party was the progenitor of the scheme. It will not be amiss to remind the hon. member that it is not enough to have a plan; what is really important is the manner in which the plan is executed. It is not enough to be a progenitor. Most people I think will agree that Doctor Dafoe has been of more value in the development of the healthy lives of the Dionne quintuplets than the progenitor. Dionne may not say so, an hon. member on my left remarks, but looking at it impartially I think we give more credit to Doctor Dafoe than to Mr. Dionne. The fact is that the plan I refer to is not really the plan of the former government either. That plan emanated from Manitoba and a great deal of
51952-133i
pressure had to be put on the then government before they could be got to adopt it. The hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader), who sits in this house probably more than any other single person, is responsible for the adoption of that plan. He popularized the idea and " sold " it to a large extent to the Manitoba government; the Manitoba government in turn brought pressure to bear on the then federal government, and that is how that plan came to be instituted.
Great emphasis is placed upon this problem in its relation to youth. It is said that unemployment among youth is perhaps the most serious aspect of this problem. With that I am in entire agreement. Undoubtedly there are thousands of young men rapidly reaching man's estate who have never experienced the blessing and discipline of labour. Every person needs the discipline of work, and he who has not been trained under that discipline, and the thinking which practically always in some degree accompanies useful toil is handicapped in meeting the emergencies of life. It is worth while to remind ourselves that a very great and important part of the problem of unemployment among returned men is due to a youth-period engaged otherwise than in preparation for useful toil. Idleness is even worse in this respect than the war. The soldier did have some discipline, although perhaps not the best kind to fit him for commercial and industrial life. But idleness is a negation of all discipline. It encourages attack upon every idea which is a bulwark of civilization.
It may be worth while to remind the committee at this time of the blessing Canada enjoys in the character of her youth, and the difference between them and the youth of many other countries. In many countries youth is practically delivered over to designing people who have made of them in some cases tools of oppression, and also directed them into mass action of one kind and another provocative of strife. They have been Hitler-ized here, nazified there; in another place made fascist; and in one country they have been made the spearhead of an anti-God ideology. Contrast that with our own youth in this country. Everywhere we have our young people banded together in councils and societies, spending their time and boundless energy, turning their fresh minds and buoyant spirits not towards the mere accomplishment of any selfish aims but in an endeavour to make contributions to the national life of this country, to do something of lasting benefit to all. The contrast between Canadian youth and the youth of some of the other countries to which I have referred is very
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great indeed. For instance, our youth are appearing at almost every sitting of the Rowell commission, in each case presenting to that commission some contribution that is worth while and beneficial to Canada as a whole. Likewise they are appearing before other public bodies presenting their views and in general influencing public opinion all over this country towards an appreciation of those things which in this nation are for the general good of all. In no case have we any such youth associations in this country engaged in the furtherance of anything that is harmful to the national life.
Personally I rejoice that the government which I support has seen the need of doing something towards the training and reclamation of youth, and I rejoice that now much more is to be done. It does not matter how much the government spends-


The CHAIRMAN:: Order. I may tell
members of the committee that the Hansard reporters are having difficulty in hearing what is being said, largely due to the noise in the chamber. I would ask hon. members to keep order.


Ralph Maybank: I am sorry to interrupt
some of the conversations that are going on. To continue, it does not make any difference how much money the government may spend on youth training and reclamation schemes; it is quite probable that I will not be satisfied, that I will think more should be spent. Frankly I know that I am greedy in respect to this matter; that my wants are insatiable.
But while we are considering this problem, thinking what ought to be done and endeavouring in this way to indicate what I think should be done, I am bound to contrast my ideas with those expressed in the speech of the hon. member for Greenwood yesterday, and to recall the high point of imagination set by the party which he now supports in their handling of the youth problem at that time. Then the high-water mark of imagination in dealing with this problem was to herd youth of all kinds, all types, all trainings and all ages into camps. Work? No; they did not even put them to work. They went into camps, miscalled labour camps, and they were completely without the beneficial discipline of labour. Had that system persisted it would have been the greatest crime ever perpetrated against youth in this country and the greatest crime that could have been perpetrated against the youth of any country, the most reprehensible policy any government ever put in force. The efficiency of those camps has been stated at times 
to have been in the neighbourhood of twenty-five to thirty per cent, but I visited many of those camps and I can say that it was much less than that. The youth of that day, under the aegis of the governmental scheme, neither played nor worked. There was a premium on idleness and sloth and all the rest of the things that result from that sort of treatment. Yet to hear the hon. member yesterday one would think he wanted us to go back to what according to him were the halcyon days of 1932, 1933 and 1934, when the unemployed youth prepared to march on Ottawa; when lives were lost in riots, and when something like $53,000 was spent in a commission of investigation, after it was all over. Sometimes there is criticism of the appointment of commissions. Well, I can say this, sir. It is a great deal better to appoint a commission to investigate a problem in advance, with a view to endeavouring to treat a problem in a scientific manner, than it is to wait until some harm results and then appoint a commission to investigate the difficulty that has arisen through your own acts.
In conclusion I should like to stress once more certain statements I have already made in this house. In my opinion the government should take over the unemployment problem in the main as its own burden, and relieve the cities and municipalities. The condition of my own city, and many more, indeed constitutes a national emergency. If a government contributes at all to the cost of unemployment relief it is because the matter is viewed as a national emergency. Now we have always admitted that unemployment is a national emergency, yet handling the problem in such a way that a municipality which gets its money only by direct taxation, and chiefly by direct taxation upon homes, must pay as high as fifty per cent of the total cost, is not a handling of the problem in a way that can be called national. I would say, take over the unemployment problem at any rate as far as the employables are concerned, leaving the unemployables if you will. The load in respect to them will be heavy enough, because it has increased greatly in these last few years. Thousands have been rendered unemployable by reason of the very long unemployment period they have gone through. The present condition is chilling to all enterprise. The brink of insolvency for the municipality is so close; the tax load, and the threat of an additional load, is so great that as a matter of fact people are beginning to fear the ownership of property. Hence

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there cannot be the building and improvements in the cities which otherwise probably would be the case.
This prompts me to say that in my opinion it would be highly desirable to spend money on all feasible schemes of rehabilitation in order to restore people to the work rolls. Aside from the purely human aspect of that matter it would be good business financially. A person who is allowed to slip from the class of employables into the class of unemployables becomes for many years, perhaps for the rest of his life, a threat to balanced budgets, to the extent of $500 or $1,000 per year. He may not be a threat to the balancing of the budget of the dominion government, but he is bound to be a threat to the balancing of budgets somewhere. After all, the problem is that of the people of Canada as a whole, not merely a problem of the people in relation to the jurisdiction of this dominion government.
I welcome everything that can be done with reference to the development of the trans-Canada route and the aids to the tourist business. I believe a very great deal of employment can be created by such plans. I also think it would be good business to deal with the railway question with a view to endeavouring to prevent unemployment there, and preventing further threats of lay-offs. If the general recommendations of the report are implemented I believe we may look forward hopefully, possibly not to a cure, but to a very considerable alleviation of the problem. We can then depend upon a longterm policy, the success of which, of course, would to some extent depend upon crops, of which we are always living in hope. Indeed it would seem as if the Lord has decided not to look sideways any longer upon that part of the country from which I come, and that the people west of Winnipeg, out in the great wheat empire of Saskatchewan, may probably next year be making their usual immense contribution to the economy of the country.


Mr. F. E. LENNARD (Wentworth):: Mr. Chairman, I feel very sympathetic indeed towards the people in the areas of the west where great drought has been experienced. I realize, too, that we in the east may not fully appreciate the hardships which they have had to face and which they are experiencing possibly to a greater degree to-day. But I must add that I also appreciate the deplorable conditions existing in some parts of eastern Canada, especially in Ontario.
The minister stated that great numbers of people in the stricken areas had been moved to other parts of the country. Where did they go? I can tell you where some of them are;
they are in Ontario. I know of some such families who have had to be cared for by the people of Hamilton within the past few months. One case in particular comes to my mind. A man and his family, with farm stock, were moved to Wentworth county. He did not like the property on which he was placed, and as a result was moved to another. After being on the second farm only a short time he sold the stock and used the money from the sale as the first payment on a house and property in the city of Hamilton. He has had to be kept by the city ever since; and Hamilton can get no relief from Saskatchewan for these people. Many similar cases are being dealt with in Hamilton.
I have before me a file containing information with respect to several unfortunate cases, but upon this occasion I do not propose to put the details on record. But the problem is a serious one so far as Hamilton is concerned; and the same condition exists in other cities of Ontario. Yet when eastern cities apply to the federal authorities for consideration in connection with increased relief costs, they are turned down flat.
In 1935 we were told to vote for King and get action. As other hon. members have1 indicated, we have had nothing but most decided inaction. All the government has done has been to tear down and destroy the social reforms of the last administration.
What did the Liberal campaigners tell us in 1935? They said that with all provincial governments except one being Liberal, the return of a Liberal government to Ottawa would bring about a condition of unity and cooperation and make of Canada a veritable political paradise. What has been the result? There is more disunity and interprovincial ill-feeling in Canada to-day than there has been at any other time since confederation.
Unemployment insurance should have been adopted immediately, because the sooner it becomes effective and the sooner we pass through the initial stages of operation, the better. Great Britain adopted a scheme several years ago; where is she to-day? There could not be a major depression in Great Britain, because with her reserves of unemployment insurance the working man is assured of being able to meet his necessary obligations, and the internal trade of the country must at all times remain fully active.
Grants in aid are indeed necessary in some parts of the west, because we know that the people out there do need relief. But the working man in industrial centres finds himself in the position of losing his home, through lack of work, and is not receiving any grant

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in aid. Nor does he receive any assistance through home owners' creditor arrangements, to help him reclaim his home. If he finds himself out of work he must go on relief and accept the bare necessities of life. He may lose his home and be thrown out on the street.
During the course of his speech the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) stated that there was not enough of a falling off in employment to justify a change of policy; then at a later point he urged that we avoid excessive pessimism. How can one help being pessimistic when he realizes that in the city of Hamilton alone there are 600 more heads of families on relief now than there were two months ago? The minister stated he had made a thorough study of conditions. What has this government done in addition to making studies? We have had commissions, commissions, commissions-and now we are waiting for the report of another commission, which we may receive late in the year.
The minister said that the tourist trade might afford a way out of unemployment. With all the resources of a country of 11,000,000 people, is it possible that we must turn parasitic in order to exist as a nation? Are we to be another Bermuda, offering lilies, onions and trinkets? He stated further that the provinces seemed reluctant to cooperate. I would say that the reverse is the truth, and that the federal government has been the [DOT]reluctant body. In a speech last fall in support of a candidate in the vicinity of Kingston the minister said, in effect, that while Mr. Hepburn disagreed with him on some matters, he hoped Mr. Hepburn would be returned to power so that there would be that unity between Ottawa and Toronto which was so essential. I believe the minister is not in a proper state of mind to cooperate with Ontario in relief problems. He may be at variance with the premier of that province, but that should not prevent him from cooperating to the fullest extent. When the mayors met in Ottawa some three weeks ago and endeavoured to place the facts before the minister, apparently they obtained no results. Mr. Hepburn is reported to have said that the relief problem as put forward by the Minister of Labour some few days ago was to him "a headline and a headache," and he is also reported to have used these words: "I must confess I am not in the confidence of the government at Ottawa."
That is a condition which should not exist. Men in public office, in the more important departments of government, should not permit such a condition to exist. They should get down to business and make an effort to co-

operate, because the poor people throughout the country are suffering while they quibble.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would urge that the Minister of Labour turn his attention more to the urgent needs of the great cities and towns of Ontario and the east generally; and finally I would remind him that Nero fiddled while Rome burned.


Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Kootenay East):: Mr. Chairman, the resolution before the committee finds its origin in action taken in this parliament two years ago in the passing of an act intituled "An act respecting the establishment of a national employment commission." It will be recalled that on that occasion there was a definite discussion of the unemployment and distress problems of Canada, and many definite expressions of opinion were given. I recall very well, and perhaps the committee will do me the honour of recalling it also, that on that occasion I warned the government that the appointment of a commission as proposed in the then bill was not a solution of the problem of unemployment or of the problems of economic distress peculiar to the country at that time. I further stated that the employment commission could not possibly report within less than eighteen months. I was too optimistic, Mr. Chairman, because it has taken two years for the commission to make its final report.
I also warned the government at that time that in all probability, when the report was made, it would not show much progress towards a practical solution of the problems with which we were confronted. I do not wish to detract in any way from the splendid public service that has been given by those who constituted the commission, from its chairman down, but I must say, after reading the report very carefully over the week-end, that it appeals to me in this way, that the commission actually should have commenced where they ended. That is, the report really shows that we have spent two years educating this commission to an understanding of the problem. I will not deny that there are e idenees in this report that the members of the commission now understand the problem of unemployment in Canada-that is, understand the extent of it, its nature and the way it works. But I can find nothing in the report, nothing of any importance, that discloses an understanding of the causes of unemployment.
But unemployment, as we have it, is an effect, and not a cause. It is the result of certain forces operating in our economic structure. The duty of the commission was to

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take the facts, which we knew then quite as well as we know them to-day; to study with the assistance of their experts the causes that lay behind, and then come to the government with their conclusions so that the government could present to parliament some definite proposals for remedying these problems.
I am not in the confidence of the government and I do not know what it is intended to bring before parliament as a result of this resolution. But I have some experience in parliamentary procedure and I draw from the resolution certain inferences which I imagine are fairly accurate. For instance, the resolution has one word in it which discloses completely the comprehension of the government of this problem, and that word is "alleviation." In other words, Mr. Chairman, the whole policy of the government as disclosed in this resolution is to be for the alleviation of unemployment and agricultural distress. From a humane point of view that is highly commendable, but from the standpoint of a two years' effort to understand the problem, and with tens of thousands of dollars spent upon the commission, it is not very encouraging to those who are the victims of these undisclosed causes. Surely after two years-after nearly ten years, as a matter of fact; for the unemployment problem started in 1928-surely after eight or ten years we do not need ti be told by the commission in a report of some scores of pages a number of things such as it sets out-that registration was desirable, for instance. Of course it was, and we all knew that when they started. We all appreciated that registration and the classification of the unemployed into employables and unemployables, and so forth, was desirable. Every member knew it, and it is more or less an insult to every member of this house to suggest, after two years, that we need to be told that you must divide the unemployed into different classes. We knew it then- all of us knew it.


Mr. ROGERS:: May I just interject that
the duty of registration was conferred upon the national employment commission when appointed, and that registration has taken place. The recommendation is that the registration shall be continued.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes. Now I turn to the act, and, by the way, a day or so ago-I have been waiting here patiently for several days for an opportunity to discuss this matter- the minister said that the commission was not clothed with administrative powers. Here is what the act says. I read the preamble which indicates what the intention of its
promoters was in relation to the commission. The preamble is a guide to the interpretation of the clauses of the act. My hon. friend from Essex East (Mr. Martin) shakes his head, but I am bound to say the preamble is an indication and a guide to the interpretation of the clauses of the act. The preamble reads:
Whereas unemployment has been for several years Canada's most urgent national problem-
Then it goes on to say that something shall be done:
-to find ways and means of providing remunerative employment, thus reducing the numbers at present on relief .	.	. and whereas, to
achieve a nationwide cooperative effort in reducing the numbers on relief and in providing employment-
Not to discover that it is advisable to have cooperation, but to achieve a nation-wide cooperative effort, and:
-such nation-wide cooperative effort can best be effected through the appointment of a representative national commission, with power to cooperate with the provinces, municipalities and other agencies in respect of unemployment relief, and in an endeavour to provide work for the unemployed.
In an endeavour to provide work for the unemployed-that is in the preamble.
Now I turn to the powers of the commission. I shall not read the sections because the minister read them himself and others have referred to them. A number of powers are outlined, and then in section 7 we have this additional power which the minister said the other day the commission did not have.
Section 7 reads:
The commission shall, under the direction of the minister supervise the expenditure of funds voted by parliament for purposes of relief and providing employment, and perform such administrative duties with respect to relief and employment as may be assigned to it from time to time by the governor in council.
So if the commission did not exercise any administrative powers, it is because the governor in council did not assign any such duties to them.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is correct.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Then the government
must take full responsibility for dereliction in this regard. But that is not all:
The governor in council, on the recommendation of the minister, may make, amend or repeal such orders and regulations and prescribe such forms as may be deemed expedient for carrying into effect the objects of this act or for ensuring the due administration thereof by the commission. . . .
There was I am sure, no doubt in tne minds of hon. members or of the great majority

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of the people that by the appointment of this commission two years ago we were to have an administrative effort by the government and the commission, working with the provinces and the municipalities, to solve these problems, and to deal with the causes of unemployment as well as the alleviation of unemployment and agricultural distress. It is not good enough to come to this chamber after two years have gone by and say, "Well, we have had some expansion of external trade". I will give the minister credit for consistency at least in this respect, that two years ago, and again to-day, he tied himself to external trade as the solution of our internal economic problems. What I tried to point out two years ago, and what I wish to emphasize now, is that while external trade is highly desirable, it is not a solution of the internal economic problems of this or any other democratic country. What good is it to say to the more than fifty thousand railway workers who have been thrown out of their occupations in the last few years, "Well, with external trade growing there is some hope of your being reemployed." In only partial degree is their unemployment due to the falling off of trade; because during the years that have just passed, and accelerated no doubt by the orders for larger units of motive power in the shops of the locomotive construction companies, the unemployment of these men has been largely due to changes in methods of transportation, and an increase in the number of automobiles. But the only solution suggested to them is that they may benefit by an expansion of external trade.


Mr. GOLDING:: What did the hon. member say to them for five years when he was in office? What hope did he give them?


Henry Herbert Stevens: If the government and the people of this country had paid attention to what I said, they would probably have been further ahead than they are to-day, but they did not pay attention. I am going to say to-day what I said before the last election. and what I said when I sat on the treasury benches and after I left them.


William Henry Golding: Say it now.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am going to say it now, if my hon. friend will let me. The cause of the unemployment of fifty, sixty or seventy thousand railway men is not a falling off in external trade; it is a change in economic conditions, which has been wholly ignored in connection with this matter.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Will my hon. friend deny that the increase in employment on the rail-

ways in the last two years has been due very largely to improvements in external trade?


Henry Herbert Stevens: There has been some improvement in employment.	*


Norman McLeod Rogers: And for that particular reason.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Because the parliament of Canada voted some millions of dollars, half to the Canadian Pacific Railway and half to the Canadian National Railways, to employ some thousands of men on maintenance of way work. At the time I said that I was very heartily in favour of it, but that is in the realm of alleviation-probably about a six million dollar alleviation, and not a solution.
The minister referred to the position of our youth; and in the whole gamut of his speech and through the pages of this report it is the one rather interesting and attractive feature. But let us see what it really amounts to. It shall not be said through any oversight on my part that I am belittling assistance to youth. I am all for it; I have been for some years and have spoken constantly in favour of it, and I commend the minister and the commission for what they have done, as far as they went. But it is no more than just a step or two in a direction in which they should have been forging ahead instead of lingering on the threshold as they are doing. I asked the minister when he was speaking to give us some information in the shape of figures with respect to the youth training plan, and he mentioned a total of 28,000 odd.	That is rather imposing, but
let us examine the figures a little more closely. Subsequently he gave further figures which indicate that in forestry and mining 2,102 youths have been put to work, and he added another figure which sounded attractive, namely 151,357 working days. What does that really amount to? Just fifty-two days each, in all that period of many months that this scheme has been in operation.


Norman McLeod Rogers: This, of course, in most provinces began only in the autumn of last year.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Of that 2,000, three-fourths were in forestry. The minister spoke of that as an achievement. The employment of those youths in forestry was the result of one of the most disgraceful things that have happened in this country, hundreds, thousands of young men crowded into the city of Vancouver, penniless and destitute, without food or shelter. They stood on the street comers

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with tin cans, trying to collect money; they were arrested by the hundreds and sent to gaol for thirty, sixty, ninety days. There was such an outcry in the province by public-spirited people, by the churches, boards of trade and other institutions, that these camps, about which we hear so much, to the closing of which hon. members referred a little while ago, were-some of them-reopened.	Day
after day, as I sat in my office in Vancouver during the cold, rainy days of late October, November and December, I saw hundreds of men standing around the street from eight o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon; half and even two-thirds of them could not get to the registry gates and had to come back the next day and stand around for hours again.


An hon. MEMBER:: Where are they now?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Some of them went to
the camps. Those camps were reopened not because of the foresight and goodwill of the government or the commission, but under duress, because of the indignation of public-spirited citizens of Vancouver who felt that these young men were entitled at least to some chance of earning their own living. I walked among these men and questioned them. Possibly a few of them were reckless characters, but I know this, after questioning dozens of them, that I found but one desire, the desire for a job. The first thing I did was to shake hands with them and feel their hands to see whether they were chaps who were willing to work; for you can tell when you shake hands with a man whether he is one who will work or will not work. I would say that ninety per cent of them ask for no more than an opportunity to work. Hon. members may smile, but I say to the minister that he cannot take credit for having opened forestry camps. The province of British Columbia opened the camps; they were supported with assistance from the minister only after public opinion was so much aroused and expressed with so much indignation that something had to be done.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Of what time is my hon. friend speaking with reference to these occurrences in Vancouver?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am speaking from
memory, but I would say between the end of October and Christmas, or just before Christmas.


Norman McLeod Rogers: May I tell my hon. friend, then, that following the recommendation of the national employment commission letters were sent to all the provinces in September of 1936 asking the provinces to propose projects
for the absorption of these unemployed single men, and plans were worked out in British Columbia accordingly.


Henry Herbert Stevens: All I have to say is that nothing was done until after the incidents occurred that I speak of.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Oh yes, it was.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I venture to differ with the minister, and I still say that nothing was done, as far as British Columbia was concerned, until after these incidents occurred.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I was in Vancouver shortly after some of these troubles occurred, and the hon. member for Vancouver will remember that plans had been made with the provincial government for establishing these camps, but the question was, who should be admitted to the camps. There were certain transients who were excluded and afterwards admitted.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I remember that very well. I may be out in my dates, but I say that it was not until after these men were incarcerated. It was not until after there was public indignation at hundreds of these young men being sent to prison.


Norman McLeod Rogers: My answer is that arrangements for these camps were made before these occurrences.


Henry Herbert Stevens: And my answer is that nothing was done until after these men were sent to prison. I do not wish to be delayed with undue argument over this point. What I am pointing out is that that is the choicest statement the minister had to make in his speech regarding youth, and that is the explanation of that one. Then when we ask him how many were taken off relief-


Norman McLeod Rogers: May I correct my hon. friend? He is reckless. These camps of which he speaks are not included in the youth training program at all.


Henry Herbert Stevens: They are included in the minister's statement.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is true, but these other camps of which he is speaking are forestry camps for single, unemployed men. They are not included in the other.


Henry Herbert Stevens: They are included in the minister's statement.


Norman McLeod Rogers: They are an alternative to the farm employment plan during the winter months.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am simply taking the minister's own statement at page 1996 of Hansard. His words speak for themselves.
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I am telling him of the agitation that occurred before these young men were sent to the camps.
The minister laid great emphasis on unity, and I notice that the extent of the unity which had been achieved was apparently this. He spoke with great feeling of the difficulties of getting the dominion and the provinces together, and he emphasized the point that it was necessary to bring the provinces in one by one-these were his own words. He said that it was quite a task to bring in the representatives of the nine provinces to achieve the adoption of an agreement. I would take the minister's mind and the minds of his colleagues back to the days before the last election when the Prime Minister told the country that there was one hope for Canada and that was that, there being eight provinces with Liberal governments, if the people would put in a Liberal government they would have liberalism marching down the corridors of democracy to a revival of good times. Well, the government has been in power over two and a half years. I remember telling some of the new members in the first speech I made in this parliament, two years ago last January, that the Liberal party had the most wonderful opportunity to lead Canada out of its distress-a marvellous opportunity. But I did warn them of this: 1 said that there were certain things peculiar to the politics of Canada, among them being that insidious thing called patronage, which I feared greatly would obtrude its head from time to time and prevent the Liberal party from achieving its great destiny. How have my hon friends taken advantage of their opportunities?
I have before me statements made by Premier Hepburn a few days ago, and they are similar to many statements that have been made. I do not agree with him in all his policies, but I will say this about him. He is a young man, a Liberal; he is vigorous in the administration of his government; he may be doing things that some of us do not like, but he is a strong leader of a strong Liberal government in the biggest province in Canada. And there is no unity between the minister and that province-no unity. Who is responsible for that lack of unity? I do not know. It is not my duty to say, but I will say that there is a lack of unity between the Liberal government at Ottawa and the Libera] government in Ontario.
Then I turn to the great province of Quebec. The government in office there is not a Liberal government, it is true; but I ask the minister: Why the other day, as was indicated in a speech by the premier of
(Mr. Stevens.]
Quebec, would he refuse to meet the mayor or representatives from the city of Montreal in regard to a great practical scheme to deal with unemployment?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Does my hon. friend wish
the answer?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I should like to have the answer.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The answer was communicated to the mayor of Montreal and appeared in the press at that time. In matters of relief the dominion government has always had to deal in an administrative way with the provinces, and we have taken that position with respect to the city of Winnipeg, and with respect also to the cities and municipalities of Ontario, who were here in Ottawa a short time ago; and I simply advised the mayor of Montreal that we should be very pleased to meet that delegation if it would come at the request of the minister of labour of the province of Quebec, and if the minister of labour of Quebec would accompany the delegation here.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I expected the minister
to make an answer of that kind. I find here, in his own measure introduced two years ago, the dominating measure indicating the government's policy with respect to unemployment in Canada, one purpose was to:
recommend to the minister measures with respect to programs of public works and projects of the dominion, the provinces, the municipalities and other agencies. . . .


Norman McLeod Rogers: Through the provinces,
certainly.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It does not say through the provinces at all. But I accept the minister's position; he can keep that position, and I say that is one of the tragedies of the situation. This report says that the government of Canada, the parliament of Canada should take full responsibility for relief. The minority report says no.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The majority report does not say that, as a matter of fact.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes, it does.


Norman McLeod Rogers: No, it does not. What it says is this, that if and when unemployment insurance is established, and a national employment service set up across the country, then there should be a national system of unemployment aid. If my hon. friend knows as much about the relief situation as he purports to do, he must know that at the present time relief covers the unemploj'ed and the unemployable. There is no suggestion in

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the report from beginning to end that the dominion government should take over relief one hundred per cent at the present time.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I did not say relief.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The hon. member did say relief.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I said that the recommendation of the commission was that the dominion government should take over responsibility for unemployment, and it is true that they did reserve to the municipalities that portion of relief which existed before the depression, such as sickness, indigency and so on. No one considers that as part of this program at all. It is like the poor of whom the good book speaks; there are a certain number of poor unfortunate people whom we have always with us.
The report certainly recommends that this parliament should take control of industrial unemployment, ""he minister, in the face of that recommendation, fixes himself firmly in this position, that he will do nothing with a municipality, no matter how important it may be, how large it may be, or how precise and definite may be its proposals, unless it comes to him through the provincial government. All right, let him take that position; one of the reasons why this whole problem hangs over Canada to-day is this quibbling about constitutional jurisdiction, this habit of "passing the buck," this quibbling about whether a particular officer of this particular government shall talk to another particular officer or not. Let us sweep aside these silly, incompetent administrative practices and face the issues frankly. If the city of Montreal is prepared to pay 83,000,000 and the province of Quebec is prepared to pay 83,000,000 towards a project, let this government definitely say yes or no to the project, and not quibble about these other matters.
But I disagree with the idea of the dominion government and the dominion parliament taking the responsibility, because in my opinion the whole question narrows itself down to one of economics and not to a dispute about constitutional authority. The economics are extremely simple. The municipalities are calmly told by the dominion, and sometimes by the province, that theirs is the responsibility. We, the dominion parliament and government, say: We shall be glad to render a certain amount of aid in the form of charitable contributions, but we insist that the responsibility is yours. At the same time we deny the municipalities and the provinces an opportunity to get sufficient revenue to
discharge these obligations. There is not a city in Canada to-day that is not bankrupt or going bankrupt.


Mr. HOWARD:: Go easy; that is not true as to Sherbrooke.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Well, I will say this for the benefit of my hon. friend, that as far as I know there is scarcely a city in Canada except Sherbrooke that is not either bankrupt or on the verge of bankruptcy. Why? Because of the intolerable burden of relief. Municipal taxes are raised to the point where building cannot go on, where real estate is dead, where the whole machinery of construction and building and housing is blocked because of the unholy height of municipal taxes. Yet we stand here, not only offering no assistance, but calmly telling the municipalities that theirs, is the responsibility; that they must discharge that duty, and at the same time we deny them a chance to get a fair amount of revenue to carry out that responsibility.
The suggestion of the employment commission that certain phases of their duties cannot be discharged because the government has appointed another commission on the constitutional question is an insult to the intelligence of parliament. Does it mean that we shall quibble along about constitutional difficulties for another year or two, or until after the next general election, before the Rowell commission reports, when all the time it is not a constitutional difficulty at all but a question of economics? It is a question of taxation and of revenue. What we should have done, instead of appointing this commission, was to use the officers that we have in the employ of the government, men like Doctor Coats, Mr. Sim, Mr. Fraser Elliott, the head of the income tax branch, Mr. Sellar-I could name a dozen outstanding experts.


Mr. BLAIR:: They are Tories.


Henry Herbert Stevens: No; they are not-well, I have no knowledge whatever of the politics of any of these men.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Henry Herbert Stevens: They are not Tories.


Mr. MacNICOL:: There will be a lot more Tories in the next parliament.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That interjection was unworthy of the hon. member. These are outstanding civil servants. What I was about to say is that these men-and I could name

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others-are men unexcelled in the United States or any other country for their ability to find the solution of Canadian problems.


Mr. FACTOR:: Why did the hon. member not do it?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I did as far as I was able. Let me give my hon. friend an experience I had which warrants me in making that statement. There was brought before me as Minister of Trade and Commerce a question regarding a conflict between the accountancy systems of the provinces and the dominion in, computing the tax for income and other purposes. So I asked Doctor Coats to call in the deputy ministers of the treasury departments of the provinces. We brought them here. I presided at the first meeting. I said, "Now gentlemen, this is a technical question in accountancy;" and I presented the problem to them. I left them to deal with it; they worked it out in about a week, and from that day to this there has been complete harmony in that extremely technical realm between the provinces and the dominion.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That was done under Doctor Coats.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Certainly, at my instance. I presided over the first meeting.


Norman McLeod Rogers: And I think it was a very good thing.


Henry Herbert Stevens: And exactly the same thing could be done now. When I suggest that these outstanding civil servants should be used, I do so because I have confidence in the civil service of Canada. There are dozens of men, men recognized in other countries as outstanding, who could be used. Let me cite one instance to support what I am saying. Our dominion statistician, Doctor Coats, is recognized in the United States and in every country in Europe as one of the outstanding statisticians in the world. We ought to be proud of him. There are other civil servants who in their spheres are equally competent. These are the men who should be charged with these tasks. Let them call in actuaries, accountants, provincial treasurers, tax experts from the large cities, and go into conference on these technical economic questions of revenue, taxation and the burden of relief upon the provinces and the municipalities, and there would be no more worry about the British North America Act or this passing of responsibility from one body to the other. The problem would be solved on a basis of mathematics and economics. This suggestion is, I think, worthy of consideration, and I ask the minister to reconsider his determined 
view that this is a responsibility solely of the municipalities. It is that thought perpetually advanced which is causing trouble throughout Canada to-day. Unless the municipalities are assisted in getting revenue from other sources than their present limited ones, so that they can lower their taxation on real estate, we shall never get very far with any housing scheme.
Mr. ST-PERE:	That is the problem.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I have in mind the statement of the mayor of Calgary, that the dominion government should take over the entire cost of relief. It is a cry of desperation. He indicated that the city no longer intended to be financially responsible for a situation which was not of its making and which it was impossible for it to correct. We heard from Winnipeg a day or two ago, what it had to do; that it had spent some 810,000,000 in the last two years, and that it had to use its reserves and sinking fund. We know the state of Vancouver-


John Ritchie MacNicol: And the same in Toronto.


Henry Herbert Stevens: 
Mr. MARTIN:: I just want to point out to the hon. gentleman that the Canadian report of cities which was issued last year states just the opposite.


Henry Herbert Stevens: All right. All I have to say is this: I know every city in Canada personally; I have looked at them all, and I am expressing my own opinion when I say that our cities to-day, in their downtown sections, are in the main hazards to health as well as being hazards from the standpoint of fire, and ought to be rebuilt. Further, it will take us thirty years to build up our cities and towns to a reasonably decent level of construction. But the minister says that the municipalities are responsible for relief, and that he will deal with them only through the provinces. The minister and his colleagues will have to face this question sooner or later. They have failed to face it in the last two years; they have failed utterly to face it through this commission, because this report does not contain anything in that connection except some pious observations that we ought to have a housing scheme; that we ought to have unemployment insurance, and that we ought to encourage the tourists. Is there anything new about that? What about the tourist branch?


Norman McLeod Rogers: My hon. friend was in
office here for five years. Did he advocate all these things at that time?


Henry Herbert Stevens: He did; but I would also suggest to the minister that I left office.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I am aware of that.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Certainly I advocated
them.


Norman McLeod Rogers: In this house?


Henry Herbert Stevens: In this house and out
of it. Since 1931 I have consistently taken a strong stand on this question of housing throughout Canada. I am speaking alone in this house; but I would remind the minister that while that is so, and while I can be very easily brushed aside as far as the house is concerned, I represent 381,000 votes. I am not ashamed of those votes. I am not ashamed of my record, nor am I ashamed of the policies I advocate. I am not ashamed of the policies for which I gave up office. What the minister says is no answer. He can, if he so desires, lay on me, as the last part of his speech indicated he was quite capable of doing, all sorts of political opprobrium, but that will not alter his responsibility one iota. He is the minister. He came to the house with this proposal two years ago, and at the time I warned him that we would hold him and his government responsible for results from this measure. That was two years ago; the results have been nil.
Let me complete what I was saying about housing. It will take us thirty years to catch up in that regard if we do not give the municipalities of this country relief from the burden of the cost of unemployment, either by talcing over the whole responsibility or by giving them new sources of revenue, which we could do very simply and easily. Unless we do something of that kind, there can be no housing, because the municipalities cannot afford to do it and no one is going into a housing scheme with the taxes he has to pay to-day.
The minister referred to the tourist business. Of course the tourist business is good, but the minister just discovered it. He brings it to the house as a new discovery by this commission. They refer to the tourist business ; it is one of their chief accomplishments. Why. Mr. Chairman, for some years we have had within the ambit of the government of Canada a department or a branch of a department dealing with the tourist business. We have been encouraging the tourist business through other departments. I noticed that the minister spoke about the Department of Mines and Resources, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Commerce. At first I thought the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) was delivering the address.

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Usually it is left to the Prime Minister to deal with the affairs of all the departments, but the minister spoke of them quite freely. The Minister of Mines and Resources (Mr. Crerar) has been doing very good work. I have commended him for what he has done in the expansion of mining; but when the Minister of Labour quotes figures showing the increased production of gold as an evidence of what the employment commission did, it is pretty thin. It may be good politics. It may be good stuff as a sort of sedative for dissatisfied Liberal supporters throughout the country. It may be, but I doubt it. But for the minister to suggest to the house that the increase in the production of gold in this country is to be credited to him and to this commission is stretching things pretty far.


Norman McLeod Rogers: There is no suggestion of that at all. My hon. friend can look up the record.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Must I read everything the minister said?


Norman McLeod Rogers: That had no connection with the commission at all.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I have in my hand a copy of his three hour speech, and in it he gave the increase in gold production.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That had no reference to the employment commission at all. I was dealing with the expanding trade policies of the government.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Was that not referred to by the employment commission?


Norman McLeod Rogers: There was no connection between the national employment commission and gold production in my speech.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Was it not referred to by the employment commission?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Not in this connection at all


Henry Herbert Stevens: I hold in my hand three pages of this report devoted exclusively to the export business. The minister went ahead and quoted the increases in exports. What were those increases? As I said two years ago in my speech on the budget, had there not been hanging over the world threats of war-a condition which unfortunately has not clarified in the last year or two-our exports would have been very much less than they are. An analysis of our exports shows that a very substantial portion of the increase is for that class of export which is involved in the production of armaments. Yet the minister quoted the improvement in exports,
TMr. Stevens.]
the tourist business and the extension of gold production as evidences of a solution of these problems.
The whole question is one of confidence and unity. The whole question is one of leadership by this parliament. I am not now for the moment placing the onus of responsibility in this respect on the government. This parliament-and, by the way, a parliament can express its leadership only through its government

ought to give leadership to industry, leadership to finance and leadership to the provinces in the approach to the solution of this problem.
The question of debt and taxation lies at the root of the whole trouble. This government has heaped opprobrium particularly on the government of Alberta. It has gone out of its way to paint the activities of the Alberta government in every known possible term. Why? Because the premier of Alberta is the exponent of some peculiar ideas in economics, with which, by the way, I do not agree. But he is the premier of Alberta. In this house there now sits a young man who only the other day was returned from the capital city of that province, indicating that the people of Alberta are feeling very keenly and very deeply. What is the root of all the trouble? The awful burden of debt.
Nevertheless there is not a word in this report about that, the root cause, almost the main cause, of dissatisfaction, and of social and political dislocation in Canada. When the farmers of Alberta who, if I remember correctly, number about 500,000, realize that they have to pay eight, nine or ten per cent interest on mortgages on farms; when they realize that they have to pay from ten per cent to thirty per cent interest on deferred payments on agricultural implements-and I can produce a list of two hundred from one district alone-and when they find, after borrowing the money and during ten and, in some instances, twenty years paying more than they borrowed

that at the end of the period they owe more than when they started, then they must ask, "What hope is there for us? Where are we going to get assistance?"
Mr. Aberhart has at least done this:	He
has shown that he is desirous of lifting the burden of debt. His methods and processes may be wrong. I do not agree with the social credit theory; but I do agree with this, that the root cause of the dissatisfaction is the unbearable burden of debt. It may be that in the older provinces that condition may not be realized as keenly as it is in the west.
I wish to make a statement here which I think would warrant careful consideration, and it is this: There is a good deal of talk

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about the losses incurred by eastern financial institutions in western Canada. We hear a great deal about that. I venture this statement, and challenge its contradiction: In the last twenty-five years the farmers of the three western provinces have paid in interest rates in excess of six per cent more than double the total capital or interest lost in those three provinces by mortgage and loan companies. I repeat that, because it lies at the root of our trouble, when we talk about agricultural distress. True, the drought area is the first catastrophe, but it is not the sum total of agricultural distress out there. It is due to debt. I say that these farmers have paid in interest rates in excess of six per cent, which would be a moderate rate, more than double the total losses in principal and interest in the last twenty-five years. These men know that something is wrong, and they are asking for some relief. They are asking us to lift this burden of debt from their shoulders. Parliament may not be clothed with all the responsibility; but unless it gives leadership in the approach to the solution of this problem, there will be no cessation of dissatisfaction in connection with these matters.
So I say to the minister that this report, a major portion of which, by the way, is taken up in a discussion of export trade, and another portion in a discussion of the tourist business, lamentably fails, and the minister in his speech failed to indicate any worth while and practical methods of dealing with this great problem.
Before I take my seat, let me add one further word. I do not know what the minister is going to introduce, and it might be said to me, "You might have waited until the bill came down." But I am taking the proper, parliamentary procedure. This resolution, together with the minister's statement, is supposed to indicate the government's policy on this subject. If the minister has something up his sleeve, and if there is something to be disclosed later on which is much in advance of anything he has indicated or has disclosed in the resolution, then he is not dealing fairly with parliament. I am bound by what I can see and by what the minister has said. I take it for granted that he was honest and honourable, took the committee into his confidence and disclosed the government policy. That is the one and the only thing an honourable man could do. Taking that position, I say to him that I find, not no hope, but little hope for a solution of the problem. I question whether the minister himself is satisfied.
He came to this house a few years ago, a young man highly trained, a young man with an academic training, an economist of note,
a man to whom the country looked as adding youth, virility and vision to the government. But as I listened to his speech the other day I realized that the first half of it was a laboured statement to justify the report, and the last half of it was a disquisition on the record of the government, dealing with every department of it, a speech which might have been delivered by the Prime Minister in connection with a budget, or on some other occasion of that kind. But it was not at all germane to this subject. He left us in a hopeless morass, so far as any solution of this stirring problem is concerned.
It is not good enough to say that we have supplied some means of training youth and to leave the underlying problems-and as an educated and cultured man, and a student of economy, he knows these problems exist- behind the dark screen. Either he did not have the courage or he was not allowed to disclose them. I think myself he would, had he been allowed, have brought them to the light of day. But he did not.
One point further, and it is this:	It is
rumoured that the government proposes to introduce a long list of public works, to be scattered throughout the various constituencies, as a contribution toward the solution of this problem. If that is done, all I can say is that it is an indication that an election is in the offing. That is no contribution toward the solution of the problem, and if it is contemplated I would plead with the government to abandon it. We shall see when it comes; we can only guess. But if it does come, I warn the minister it will be looked upon in that light. From what we are able to learn, there is little hope given to the unemployed; there is little hope given to the struggling manufacturer; there is little hope given to the distressed agriculturist.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Nothing but abuse for the manufacturer.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I deplore very much
indeed that this condition two years afterwards is the answer to the very bright speech which the minister made two years ago when he introduced the bill upon which this commission was founded.


Mr. HARRY LEADER (Portage la Prairie):: Mr. Chairman, I have listened with a great deal of interest to the speech just made by the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens). It is needless for me to say that he was not looking at me when he said that this country was looking to parliament for leadership. I am a Leader by name only; yet I am proud of my name, and I am proud of my occupation as a farmer.

Relief and Agricultural Distress
This debate on unemployment in Canada has been very interesting and instructive. I can think of nothing that affects more deeply the lives of the Canadian people than a solution of this great problem. I am thinking now of the eve of the general election in 1930, when the present leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett), appealing to the people, at that time said that the greatest problem confronting the Canadian people was that of unemployment. "Give me power," he said, "and I' will cure unemployment or perish in the attempt." And in the fortunes of political war he perished in the attempt.
Another government came into power, and after they had been in power for nearly three years we find a responsible minister saying that unemployment is the most vital question affecting the Canadian people. I am making these statements in order to indicate that we have not yet solved this great problem. It will take some years to solve it. It will take the united efforts of all the members of parliament to solve it, and I hope we get that concerted action.
I do not think the problem will be settled by the expansion of our tourist traffic, important as that is. I do not wish to minimize the value of that great trade, but I do not think it goes to the root of the trouble. Nor do I think that youth training is going to solve the problem of unemployment, very necessary as I believe that is, because, Mr. Chairman, what is the use of training young people for certain occupations if you cannot give them a job?


Mr. BLACKMORE:: Hear, hear; now you are talking.


Harry Leader: I do not believe the setting up of employment agencies will solve unemployment, for the same reason that I gave a moment ago-what is the use of employment agencies if you cannot give the worker a job?
Perhaps my hon. friends sitting opposite do not believe that the expansion of our trade is of so much importance. I believe that it is of vital importance, and that the efforts of the present government have had the effect of developing and expanding our trade so much during the last two years that we have had more or less of a boom in comparison with conditions which obtained previously. I think the trade agreement which this government made with the United States was a wonderful achievement. The right hon. leader of the opposition said that he could have obtained the same trade agreement from the United States had he so desired. If that is so, then I believe the Conservative party
[Mr. Loader.)
were in error in not accepting it, and I want to commend the Liberal government for accepting that trade agreement with the United States. But that has not solved our unemployment problem, and it is the duty of parliament to find a solution for it and to provide the necessary remedy.
When I was elected a member of parliament-and by the way I represent 25,000 people in western Canada, and I am speaking here not in my own interests but in the interests of those who sent me here, and if at any time I express in this house sentiments that are contrary to those I know my people hold, I know I shall have to pay the penalty; I shall be the one to suffer-when I was elected I wanted to give a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, and I wondered what I could do to help solve the problems of Canada. Being a very humble member of parliament, but knowing the agricultural situation, and knowing that great numbers of agricultural workers throughout the country were unemployed and had drifted into our cities, I investigated the farm placement plan which had been adopted by the previous government. I felt that the administration of the plan had not gone far enough. I believed in the plan, but I thought that something more could be done.
I am not giving away any secrets, although perhaps I am giving information when I say that the farm placement plan was first suggested to the former government by the deputy minister of labour of Manitoba, Mr. MacNamara, but I want to give them credit for adopting the plan. The plan was for the federal government to pay the agricultural worker five dollars a month and another five dollars a month to the farmer for whom he was working. But after a few months the former government ceased to pay anything to the farmers and carried out only that part of the plan providing for the payment of five dollars a month to the agricultural worker. If the government is going to get credit for instituting the plan, it must also take the responsibility for making it a partial failure. I felt that if we could give these farmers, who were in dire need at that time, ten dollars a month to board these men, we could extend the plan and take in thousands more of these unemployed single men in our cities, and so I got busy. At the first public opportunity I took the matter up with the United Farmers of Manitoba, who were holding their annual convention in the city of Portage la Prairie that year. I discussed the plan at their meeting and presented a resolution asking them to endorse a policy whereby the dominion

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government would put the plan into effect, and the resolution passed unanimously. I came to Ottawa and submitted the plan to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers), he discussed it in the house, and the plan eventually was adopted.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is correct.


Harry Leader: Yes. Yesterday the hon. member for Greenwood, (Mr. Massey) gave credit to the late government for instituting the plan, which statement I have corroborated, but I have added that the late government must take responsibility for making just half a job of it. I have told the committee of the procedure I followed in introducing that measure into the house; I am now going to read the words of the minister himself, and I do not think he will deny me that right. Speaking in this house on April 9, 1937, he is reported at page 2824 of Hansard as follows:
Mr. Rogers: I should like to say here, and I am glad of this opportunity to do so, that during the discussion of unemployment arid 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.
I would add that a government should profit by opinions expressed on all sides, and should take heed to them. I think the government, in giving credit to an hon. member who happens to be a friend of the administration, should be glad that its supporters are in a position sometimes to offer constructive criticisms. Honest criticism coming from a friend should it seems to me, be regarded as perhaps the best advice possible.
I am sure that had the hon. member for Greenwood known the facts, he would not have made the statement he did make yesterday.


Mr. MASSEY:: What statement?


Harry Leader: I shall read it. The hon. member was discussing the farm placement plan, and he said:
It was with some degree of satisfaction that the minister reported what had been done under the farm improvement, employment and settlement plan. The minister realizes, as does the national employment commission, that 51952-134
this plan was not set up by this government, not even recommended by the national employment commission, but constituted by the former government. The present government has to its credit, let it be said, the fact that it adopted the principle of that plan.
Mr. Martin: Look at the difference in the results.
Mr. Massey: I have noted them. The plan under the former government was and still is a great success, but do not forget the origin and point from which it started, and give credit where credit is due. Fifty thousand men have been placed under the scheme and the minister is to be congratulated upon having accepted it. Surely the government and the national employment commission should not assume any credit for this plan.
The hon. member was not in the chamber when I told the committee that Mr. MacNamara, deputy minister of labour of Manitoba, suggested the plan to the former government. I gave that government credit for adopting the plan, but I also censured them because they discontinued the bonus of five dollars a month to the farmer. That proposition was brought into the house by myself; only I suggested ten dollars a month to both the farmer and the farm hand.
I was going on to say that I am sure the hon. member for Greenwood did not know that those are the actual facts or he would not have arrogated to himself the duty of claiming this credit for the former government.
That the government has accepted the plan which was suggested gives me encouragement and prompts me to offer another. The plan I am about to mention has been alluded to previously in this chamber. It has to do with that part of the report which deals with the rehabilitation of agriculture. During the campaign I had occasion to speak over the radio, and I prepared a fifteen minute talk on how to rehabilitate agriculture, how we cotffJ devise some scheme to keep our people on the land, rather than have them drift to the cities. I have the statement before me. I am going to read but very little of it, as I wish to hasten on with my remarks. I told the people of the money that was being spent at that time. I believe the then leader of the opposition stated that over three hundred million dollars had been expended in unemployment relief, and that nothing of a concrete nature had been devised. I spoke of great public buildings which had been erected throughout the dominion at a huge cost to the taxpayers, not a dollar of the expense having been paid in cash, every dollar being borrowed money on which interest would have to be paid in perpetuity. I told them of the relief camps and what they were doing to the nation. By the way, before I get away



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from that point let me state, what perhaps I should have mentioned a few moments ago, that the adoption of the farm placement plan had the effect of closing those camps. Last year, I believe, over fifty thousand workers, men and women, were placed on farms, at a cost of something over three and a half million dollars to the taxpayers. The last year the relief camps were in operation, according to figures which, I understand, were given by the minister, the cost was in the neighbourhood of nine million dollars, and the prospective expense for the following year was twelve million dollars. But under the farm placement plan we were able to close the relief camps and reduce our cost by two-thirds.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Were as many men taken care of?


Harry Leader: Yes, far more. On an average there were, I believe, only twenty thousand in the relief camps, whereas last year fifty thousand men and women were placed on farms. I said in my address that the handling of the relief at that time was more or less of a political nature, because there was no employment commission, there was no real foundation on which the government could work, and many decisions were made at a time when matters did not receive mature judgment owing to the emergency, with the result that the work and the appointments were more or less political. Then I told them of the plan of the leader of the opposition at that time:
The alternative method of handling the unemployment problem is found in the platform of the Liberal party as outlined by Mackenzie King. Mr. King and his followers pledge themselves to appoint a National Unemployment Commission which will represent all parts of Canada, all classes of society, and all interests of the community. That body will be nonpolitical. It will be in a position to consider each relief project strictly upon its merits and to advise the government accordingly.
The commission was duly appointed. Perhaps all hon. members will not believe that it has accomplished much, but if it has not, this certainly was not the fault of the commission. I went on to outline a plan by which we could help the unemployed and keep our people on the land. We have heard from all parts of the chamber suggestions by hon. members as to electrical energy being placed at the disposal of the fanning population. I do not know of any farmers in the west, unless perhaps there are a dozen or so around my city of Portage la Prairie, who enjoy the use of electrical energy in their farm homes. I believe it is for lack of this facility more than anything else that young people are 
leaving our farms. Men, and women, boys and girls, are going to the cities. They see the conveniences there, and are discouraged when they return home and realize what they have to put up with. This, we are told, is a machine age. It is true that farmers have a great deal of machinery to help them in their work; but farm women are without the devices which are at the disposal of city women, and so the younger generation tend to drift towards the cities because they have no pride in their occupation and no heart in their work. So I suggested this:
We all know, and no one better than those who are engaged in farm work, that farm life is not so attractive as city life. Farm houses generally lack the modern convenience found so universally in the city. Although Canada has an abundance of electrical energy generated to meet the requirements of all citizens, our governments have not yet been able to place this power within the reach of the farmer's pocket-book. This is one reason why our young farmers, both boys and girls, prefer a doubtful existence in the city to the more permanent though humdrum life on the farm. These young people should be retained on the land otherwise they will displace workers in the city. This could be done in a large measure if our governing bodies would undertake to supply farmers with electrical energy and not limit the benefits of this modern laboursaving device to those residing in our towns and cities. Why, and it is a pertinent question, should not farm women have the same opportunities as their sisters in the city and simply by the pressing of an electric button be relieved of much of the drudgery of housekeeping?
Then I told them that I knew from personal observation and through contact of thousands of retired farmers or farmers who had lost their farms and who were living in our cities on relief. I said that those farmers would give their right arm to get back to the old farm again, but that there was no opportunity for them. I told them of farm workers who had laboured for years and years on the farm, but who, owing to the depression, could not go back with any chance of getting a job. I told them about the returned soldiers, and perhaps I should read the paragraph dealing with this class:
Then, too, the returned soldier, who offered his all for the welfare of the nation should be taken care of. Perhaps he and his family would like to be reestablished on good land in a good district. The fact that he had failed in a previous experience should be no detriment. Perhaps our government was greatly to blame for his failure because we know that many of these men were placed where they had no chance to succeed owing to having started on poor land in a poor district and with expensive equipment. I know of many returned men who are separated from their

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families by force of circumstances that would welcome the chance to reestablish their homes on the land, had they an opportunity.
I am thinking now of one incident in particular that occurred while I was loading a car of wheat at a siding at Burnside. There was a man of perhaps forty years of age who was working for another farmer, and he said to me, "My wife and two children are back home living with her father and mother. We were placed on a farm and were anxious to succeed. But after a year or two we came to the conclusion that no man in Canada could make a living on it." Consequently they abandoned the farm and his wife and two children went back home, while he became a hired man. There are thousands of such cases, and the minister himself told us that many of these soldiers have not had a fair chance to succeed.
I should like to read the plan that I submitted then. Here it is:
Now I think that the Canadian government should undertake at the earliest possible moment to place these ex-farmers and the others that I have mentioned back on the land. They could be located on much of the land that is at present a burden to the resident farmer.
What I meant by being a burden to the resident farmer was this: In my own district of Portage la Prairie, I know of fathers who are themselves the sons of old pioneers who went there from Ontario and Quebec. They are now seventy years of age with four or five sons, not one of whom is at home. Where are they? They have gone to the cities, either in Canada or in the United States, to find employment. They would like nothing better than to take up a quarter section or half a section of the land belonging to their fathers, but they have not the means. The father, perhaps, has a big mortgage, or a small mortgage it may be, on the farm and he cannot get hold of any money for the purpose of establishing a son on a farm across the road. Consequently the son leaves home and goes to the city. And by the way, when the boys leave home it is a natural consequence that the farm girls do likewise. Therefore, it should be, and, in fact, it is the duty of the government-and I believe they recognize it-to try to keep these farmers' sons and daughters on the land where they were bom. To continue:
In my opinion the federal government should undertake to finance this scheme. Money can be procured at the present time at a very low rate of interest. It could be loaned to the provinces who in turn would deal through the municipalities whose councillors would be in the best position to judge, not only the quality of the land but after investigation the capabilities of the land-seeker.
I believe the minister will discover some similarity between some of the recommendations contained in the report and what I have been reading to the committee.
In proposing that the federal, provincial and municipal governments should cooperate in the operation of this scheme I am endorsing the policy of the Liberal party as outlined in Mr. King's radio address in which he advocates unity of purpose if we are to achieve beneficial and permanent results. Furthermore, the plan could be carried out with a minimum of expense as it would not be necessary to engage a staff of government officials to add to our burden of taxation.
That could be done by our municipalities without costing the taxpayers one cent, and I believe it is what the report recommends. I believe that is the system which is recommended for adoption by federal, provincial and municipal governments. I do not know whether the farm loan board would take care of a matter of this kind, but it seems to me that is the agency through which we might work. The present farm loan legislation is, in my opinion, a mere pretence.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A waste of good paper.


Harry Leader: It does not go far enough. In my opinion, the farm loan board's operations could be extended so as to enable it to buy a lot of this land from farmers who have now more than they can work economically. The result would be that the farmers' sons could apply to the board for a loan on some of the land. This money could be paid to the father who owns the land, and his son would be established. In this way two purposes would be served at the same time. The aged farmer would not sit down waiting for the old age pension; he would be relieved of his mortgage on the old homestead and would be quite content to live there the rest of his days looking across the fence or over the roadway and watching the progress of his son, happily married, carrying on the traditions of his forefathers.
I submit that our system has been all wrong. I do not think one dollar should be paid out in direct relief. All moneys paid out should go to men who work, unless they are unemployable, in which event they are the subjects of charity and we should look after them. I have here some figures given by the Hon. Mr. Garson, provincial treasurer of Manitoba. In the last five years there has been paid out in that province-I believe these are the total figures for the dominion and the province-for direct family relief, including the drought areas, the sum of 835,604,730.19. At the same time they paid
The Royal Assent

out $818,699.12 for rural rehabilitation. In other words, they paid out over S40 for direct relief for which we get no benefit and from which we have no chance of ever getting a return, to only SI spent for reestablishing our people on the land. That is the situation in Manitoba. That is why the minister mildly condemns the plan of rehabilitation which we have had up to the present time. The minister said, in answer to a question of the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Heaps), that capital expenditure should not be undertaken unless it provides national income. To that I most heartily agree. But if there is anything which will bring in national income and produce a better morale in this country, or any other country for that matter, it is having a happy, contented rural population.


Mr. R. H. McGREGOR (York East):: I listened to the three and a half hour speech of the minister with great care, trying to find something that would be of some benefit to my people. Having found that there was nothing of that in it, I feel it my duty to bring before the committee some of the conditions which exist in the southern part of the county of York, and more particularly in that part of the county which I represent. This part of which I speak is situated on the outskirts of the city of Toronto. In years gone by, property there was fairly cheap, and many people from Toronto came to that district and built what we at that time called "shacks."



THE ROYAL ASSENT

[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by Major A. R. Thompson, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, as follows:
Mr. Speaker, His Honour, the deputy of His Excellency the Governor General, desires the immediate attendance of this honourable house in the chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly, the house went up to the Senate.
And having returned,
Mr. SPEAKER informed the house that the deputy of His Excellency the Governor General had been pleased to give in His Majesty's name the royal assent to the following bills:
An Act to amend The Dominion Franchise
An Act respecting the appointment of Auditors for National Railways.
An Act to authorize an Agreement between His Majesty the King and the Corporation of the City of Ottawa.
An Act to amend the Railway Act (Telephone Tqlls).
, An Act to amend The Opium and Narcotic ©rug Act, 1929.

An Act to amend The Trans-Canada Air Lines Act, 1937.
An Act to amend Part V of the Canada Shipping Act, 1934 (Sick Mariners and Marine Hospitals).
An Act to amend The Winnipeg and St. Boniface Harbour Commissioners Act.
An Act to amend the Soldier Settlement Act.
An Act to amend the Penitentiary Act.
An Act to amend The Canada Grain Act.
An Act for the relief of Alice Cecile Pinder Hartt.
An Act for the relief of Ruby May Foster Ryder.
An Act for the relief of Ethel Sadie Davidson Case.
An Act for the relief of Ray Simon Stern.
An Act for the relief of Norma Adelaide MacKenzie Bird.
An Act for the relief of Mabel Marjorie Thompson Maynes.
An Act for the relief of Walter Edward Gorham.
An Act for the relief of Margaret Anne Eddie Bender.
An Act for the relief of Kathryn Chronis Briggs.
An Act for the relief of Vera May Levis Holloway.
An Act for the relief of Robert Andrew Young.
An	Act	for	the	relief	of	Mary Lorraine
Ward Williamson.
An Act for the relief of Lyall Gibson Hodges.
An Act for the relief of Esther Lazaroviteh Cohen.
An Act for the relief of Dorothy Reaves McMartin.
An	Act	for	the	relief	of	Mary Dorothy
Picard Whitcombe.
An Act for the relief of Emil Kastus.
An Act for the relief of Eva Fleming Hislop.
An Act for the relief of Sigmund Cravec.
An Act for the relief of Robert Parry.
An	Act	for	the	relief	of	Nacha Ferszt
Klajner, otherwise known as Nora Firstenfeld Klein.
An	Act	for	the	relief	of	Leonora May
Howard.
An Act for the relief of Annie Elizabeth Climie Adams.
An Act for the relief of Margaret Alice Mizener.
An Act for the relief of Frances Dorothy Scott Skinner.
An	Act	for	the	relief	of	Esther Rotman
Resnick.
An Act for the relief of Dorothy MacFie Safford Dale.
An Act for the relief of Alice Temple Jamieson Adair.
An Act for the relief of Gladys Kathleen Crook O'Sullivan.
An Act for the relief of Geraldine Estelle Bamford.
An Act for the relief of Charles Marie.
An Act for the relief of Rosamond Cheriton Stoyle MacDonald.
An Act respecting The Dominion Association of Chartered Accountants.
An Act to assist the Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in financing the cost of seed and seeding operations for the crop year 1938.
An Act to amend The War Veterans' Allowance Act.
An Act to amend the Canada Evidence Act.

Relief and Agricultural Distress
An Act to amend the Civil Service Act.
An Act for granting to His Majesty certain sums of money for the public service of the financial year ending the 31st March, 1938.
An Act for granting to His Majesty certain sums of money for the public service of the financial year ending the 31st March, 1939.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock. UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration in committee of the following proposed resolution- Mr. Rogers-Mr. Sanderson in the chair.
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to provide assistance towards the alleviation of unemployment and agricultural distress, and for such payments out of moneys appropriated by parliament as may be necessary for all or any of the purposes of the proposed legislation.
Robert Henry McGregor: Mr. Chairman, as I
was saying when the committee rose at six o'clock, most of the people in the southern end of the townships of East York and Scarborough and the southern portion of North York moved out to those municipalities between the years 1916 and 1929, and built what at that time were termed "shacks." Most of these people worked in the building trades in Toronto during the day time and they built their houses in the evening. When 1929 came, most of them had fairly good working men's houses erected, and when they fell out of work they had no reserve. All they had left was their little home.
I want to give the committee some figures to show to the minister that the statement of the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens) this afternoon to the effect that most of the municipalities in this country are bankrupt had a good deal of truth in it. I will give figures of the assessment, the levies, the arrears of taxes, the property taken over already and the property that is expected to be taken over by these municipalities in the year 1938.
In the township of East York we have an assessment of S14,497,000; the levy is $1,085,000, and the arrears of taxes, $1,040,000, or almost equal to one year's total tax levy. The property that has already been taken over by the municipality amounts to $325,244, and let me say to the minister that every time a piece of property is taken over by the municipality, no further taxes can be collected on it and the rest of the property owners must bear that extra burden. Properties on the tax roll that are expected to be taken over in East York in 1938 amount to $160,000.
In North York the assessment is $10,685,000; the levy, $670,000; arrears of taxes, $495,000; property taken over, $119,901, and the property that is expected to be taken over in the year 1938 amounts to $244,674.
In the township of Scarborough the assessment is $10,475,000; the levy, $620,000, arrears of taxes, exactly half a million dollars. I hesitate to give figures of the property that has been taken over by the municipality, but I have here a publication which has been prepared by the county of York, and it shows that this municipality has taken over $1,584,000 of property; those are the actual tax arrears owing on the property-not the assessment.
What is going to happen to these municipalities in another few years if they continue to take over property at this rate? It will mean that before very long the biggest part of this assessment will be owned by the municipality, and what are the other property owners going to do then? The municipality has paid interest on debenture debt at the rate of 3 per cent, but it has paid no principal since 1933.
In 1928 the township of East York had a building program of $2,600,000; in 1937 it had a building program of $360,000. The bill for relief for the month of January of this year was $53,138; for February, $57,477; and for March just closed, $58,802, of which the municipality is asked to pay approximately $12,000 a month. The number of those on relief in the month of January was 5,523, and in February, 5,977.
One big drawback that we have in these municipalities is that we have no factories. There are no industries of any kind, and consequently all the taxes have to be levied on the homes, which constitute the only property available for taxation. The school tax in some instances amounts to 50 per cent of the total tax levied, and in most instances the school tax, plus the relief tax, amounts to more than 50 per cent and in some instances to 60 or 65 per cent of the total tax levied.
The	minister	may	say	that there	is nomoney	to	look	after	this	situation.	But Iwould point out that from 1935, the last year the Conservatives were in power, until this year the revenues of this country have increased by some $93,000,000, and if the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) went down to my riding and attempted to make a speech there,	the	first	thing he	would be	askedwould	be:	What are	you	going to	do for
Relief and Agricultural Distress

the unemployed? If he told them that there was no money, they would say: There is plenty of money for Saskatchewan; there is plenty of money for defence, plenty of money to pay the deficits on the Canadian National Railways, and plenty of money to pay the interest on the bonds of the Dominion of Canada.
I want to give a few instances of men who have lost their property. One is the case of a gentleman who had given thirty-five years of his life to the public service of the municipality as school trustee, reeve, member of the county council, and so on. The five acres that he owned had been in his family for sixty years. Four years after he died his property was taken over by the municipality for arrears of taxes, and the rest of his family have not a dollar to live on. What is going to happen to them I do not know.
Another family have lived on their farm for 125 years, and cleared the bush off their farm originally. This property has been taken over by the municipality, and what is going to happen to the family nobody knows.
Another case I shall cite is that of a returned soldier. He built his own house, and when it was finished he and a number of other returned soldiers built a veterans' hall in the community. The municipality got into financial difficulties, and this man, who happened to be working for the municipality at that time, was laid off, his work being done by relief labour. He had a small mortgage on his home, and the mortgagee came to foreclose the mortgage, but a group of sympathetic friends rallied around the owner and prevented the bailiff from carrying out his orders, and so the man's home for the time being was left alone. The last time I saw him he stated that before he would be put out of his house-and that is the only thing he has left in this world-there would be murder. Whether that would happen I do not know. But I say that one of the reasons why we have what we call "reds" in this country, one of the reasons why this great scam of communism is over Canada, is the injustices that have been done to families along the line that I have indicated. I ask the minister, If he had worked all his life; if all he had left as a result of his work was his house, and if someone came along and took it from him because of a paltry seven or eight hundred dollar mortgage, taxes and interest, what would he do? Yet in the township of East York alone, five hundred people have lost their homes in this way. I do not know where it is all going to end, but conditions are extremely serious.

When the mayors and reeves visited Ottawa a few days ago I understood, from talking to one of them, that they were returning home with a good deal of hope. They expected the minister was going to do something for their relief problem. They said that Premier Hepburn of Ontario was prepared to do his share if the federal government would do theirs, and they gave me to understand that they were assured by the minister that something would be done. If the premier of Ontario is ready to do his share, I do not see why this government should not do theirs. I trust that before the session is over, the minister will do something for these municipalities, for they are in very bad shape financially.


Mr. WILFRID LACROIX (Quebec-Mont-morency):: I listened with deep interest to
the Minister of Labour's magnificent survey of the unemployment situation, in the course of which he stated that the government is seriously contemplating a new plan designed to stimulate the building of low-cost dwellings. So far, it is well known, the wageearning classes have been unable to take advantage of the Dominion Housing Act. May I be permitted to suggest to the minister a low cost housing plan which, in my humble opinion, would be within the reach of the labouring classes?
There is no doubt that the best solution of the unemployment problem lies in the construction of low cost working men's dwellings. Such a project, carried out on a large scale, would furnish considerable employment to labourers, carpenters, masons, bricklayers, plasterers, painters, etc., and also stimulate the building material industries. But there is only one way, in my opinion, to make such a plan practicable, and that is to construct dwellings at such a low cost that every wage-earner may own one by writing off his investment through a moderate monthly payment in the form of rent. To my mind the most practical way to ensure this is to adopt a system along the lines followed in Sweden, Norway and Italy, which consists in creating in the larger municipalities a local commission composed of an architect, a sociologist, and a secretary, who would give their services without remuneration. Such a commission would have a town planner draw up a governing plan of the area in which the municipality is situate. This plan, which would have to be approved by the proper authorities, would indicate the various sites suited to a development comprising groups of fifty to one hundred standardized houses costing no more than S2,400 each. I believe it would be possible

Relief and Agricultural Distress
to get down to this price by building a large number of houses at one time, thus effecting a saving on materials and transportation, and on other costs.
Such a commission, which would be under the control of both the municipality and the federal government but whose activities would be subject to the approval of a central advisory commission located at Ottawa, would, after drawing up the governing plan and making the cadestral subdivisions required for the construction of these houses, select from among the working men of the locality those to whom, after inquiry, it saw fit to assign a building lot, and after having thus distributed the lots among fifty or one hundred persons, would itself undertake the mass construction of the houses. I am convinced that, provided the commission selects working men in employment, a monthly payment of fifteen to twenty dollars would ensure the repayment within fifteen years of the cost of both land and building. The wage-earner will thus find his house fully paid with very little sacrifice on his part.
In order to attain this objective, two things are essential: mass production and a monthly payment of not more than twenty dollars. The existing act is useless to those who do not have a piece of land and some money; it is beyond the reaph of the small wage-earner. Contrary to what has been said, it does nothing to improve living conditions among small urban wage-earners.
The government could lend the required funds, without interest, to the municipalities, which would guarantee the repayment thereof. The local committees and the municipalities could undertake the collection of the sums due, which, as they are collected from the house owners, would be immediately forwarded to the finance department at Ottawa or to the federal commission charged with the administration of the project. I believe that by lending to each Canadian municipality from $100,000 to $5,000,000 or even more, according to size, the government would solve in the soundest way possible the unemployment problem, while providing the country with a tremendously valuable asset and increasing municipal revenues by the surplus wealth thus created.
I would suggest that the government lend $100,000,000 to the municipalities for this purpose. I shall probably be asked where the government is to obtain this money which it will loan without interest to the municipalities. Here is my answer. Have the Bank of Canada issue $100,000,000 of paper money. St. James Street will say that is inflation. I say
it is not; for the $100,000,000 of paper money thus issued by the Bank of Canada will be automatically refunded over a given period, say fifteen years, by the redemption fund constituted by the monthly payments made by the house owners. After a certain number of years, the Bank of Canada will have recovered all the paper money thus issued, which it will destroy as it comes in. In this way the bank will not lose one cent, and the government of Canada will add to the assets of the country and increase the resources of every municipality by providing new taxable property. Moreover, the $100,000,000 which is thus placed in circulation and which would become bank deposits, would place borrowing facilities at the disposal of commerce and industry. The stimulus given to all the building trades would attenuate the economic recession which is becoming more and more apparent and solve the unemployment problem pending a revival of business.
Let us see who are those who will object to such a policy. There are in the first place the banks, which would rather see the government make issues of bonds to which they could subscribe and, without trouble or risk, make a profit consisting of the difference between the interest which they pay to their depositors and that which the government pays them on its bonds. But all the money which the banks invest in government bonds is money withheld from commercial and industrial development. In the second place, there are the small investors, the holders of savings accounts, who may fear that their dollar will lose its purchasing power. To them I say that they are mistaken; for this operation of the Bank of Canada will be only a temporary one designed to create wealth, to provide work and to make money circulate. When it shall have been entirely refunded to the Bank of Canada, the dollar will have lost none of its value, as the situation will be the same as before the $100,000,000 was issued.
Besides, identical operations have been carried out in Sweden and Norway with no effect whatever upon the monetary unit. It must not be overlooked that this expenditure of $100,000,000 will not only provide needed employment and solve the slum problem which is daily becoming more serious in our cities, but also create a permanent national asset.
Such a policy seems to me to be the soundest possible. I find on page 101 of the national employment commission's report, under item (iii):
The employment created by such housing projects will be greater and more widely spread than that afforded by large scale public works.

Relief and Agricultural Distress
Public works, in most cases, are non-productive, whereas working men's dwellings, if built according to the plan that I have just indicated, will assuredly be paid for. Besides, should an owner fail to meet his payments, what is to prevent the municipality from taking over the property and keeping the amount already paid on it? Moreover, a $2,400 house is always salable, and the possibilities of loss, taking into account the payments already effected, are practically non-existent.
I might add that the action I am asking the Bank of Canada to take is not out of line with the bank's practice. In fact, when it increases the price to be paid for gold, it issues paper money and practises inflation. By so doing, it is following the example of the United States government.
I consider it sounder policy to create in this country an asset, which, while increasing Canada's wealth, will solve a pressing social problem and allow our working classes to live a little more comfortably than to augment the gold reserves concentrated in the Bank of Canada's vaults.
The policy that I am now urging upon the government is already being followed by some manufacturers. At St. Gregoire de Montmorency, in my constituency, the Dominion Textile Company employs 2,000 workers. During the first year following my election as representative of these working people, for whom I feel so deeply, I asked the Dominion Textile Company to adopt such a policy, but my appeal brought no result.
The working people of this small town in my constituency live in small houses where, in some instances, three or four families are crowded together. They would be delighted if the government were to adopt a policy such as I have outlined, which would give to each worker his little home and a garden.
In order to solve the social problems which confront us to-day, it is of vital importance that the working man be able to live under conditions which permit him to have, as other social classes have, a home of his own with space around it, where he can breathe freely, and where the sun can penetrate into every room. It is important that he be able to say to his children: I live in a country where it is good to live.
That man, living in such conditions, will hold fast to our national traditions, will cherish all the more the liberty that is ours and will, in such a state of mind, constitute our strongest bulwark against any subversive ideas that may seek to permeate his home.

The present living conditions of our city workers are untenable. It is essential to wipe out the slums in which the working man considers himself an outcast and where his surroundings make him curse the differences which unfortunately exist between men endowed with the same heart, with the same soul.
When selfish industrialists and greedy capital shirk their obligations, it is the duty of the government to come to the rescue with sound and vigorous legislation. This is what I am now asking the government to do.


Mr. D. G. ROSS (St. Paul's):: The resolution before us reads:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to provide assistance towards the alleviation of unemployment and agricultural distress, and for such payments out of moneys appropriated by parliament as may be necessary for all or any of the purposes of the proposed legislation.
One can easily understand the reason for bringing in this measure so far as agricultural distress in the drought areas in the west is concerned, but one can hardly understand the reason for it in relation to the alleviation of unemployment in general.
I wonder if the memory of hon. members is too short to recall the Liberal campaign cries in 1935. I wonder if the general public still remembers the nicely printed cards and flaming bill-boards: "Get off the relief roll; get on the payroll. Vote for us. Get action. King or chaos." Three years have now passed and the poor misguided electorate are still on the relief rolls or on the edge of the payroll. One would think that those responsible for these election cries had some concrete policy in their minds for the relief of unemployment. We have been waiting now for two and a half years for something concrete from this government elected on these promises, and now we are handed a report of a commission!
The three or four hour speech made by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) was void of any immediate hope for the unemployed. No reasons for unemployment were given. The minister attempted to take credit on behalf of the government for such increase in employment as has taken place. Very little that this government has done has improved employment in this country. The improvement which started in the regime of the Conservative government has continued in spite of this government.
If a business gets into difficulties a concrete policy for betterment must be formed without delay. The board of directors must take action to get the business out of its diffi-

Relief and Agricultural Distress
culties. The shareholders will not allow them to "pass the buck" to some other independent body; the responsibility is theirs. The board of directors call in the heads of the various departments and the experts whom they have at their disposal in an endeavour to clear up the difficulties. They go to work step by step; they do not rush in with some theoretical panacea of foreign trade or such cure-alls and then wait for two and a half years for some outside body to report. If they did so, by that time they would have no business. They recognize that maladjustments must be discovered and corrected step by step. That is what the former Conservative government did. First of all they reestablished the Canadian home market. But the constructive program initiated by that government is well on its way to being wrecked by such action as has been taken by the present government.
Every phase of Canadian unemployment cannot be corrected at once. Canada is a young country. Canada was built up nationally. The forefathers of this country made sacrifices for the privilege of living under the British flag and under British laws and traditions, and to be a nation. The whole plant of Canada-our canals, our roads, our railroads, our water powers, our factories, and now our airways and radio-was built with this object in view. Our forefathers were for Canada first, and they expected us to follow that principle. Our national resources should be for the benefit of Canadians, not only those now living but future Canadians. Our forefathers saw the great possibilities and the potential wealth of this country, and we must recognize these facts if we are to have continued prosperity and economic security in this country. We must use our national plant and our national resources for the benefit of Canadians.
We have to go a step further, and recognize the advantages of empire nationalism. The commonwealth is held together by ties which were recognized by our forefathers. These ties were responsible for creating Canada as a nation in the commonwealth; these ties were responsible for the building up of the commonwealth. It is right and proper that we should recognize the advantages of using our national plant and national resources for the benefit of the empire and of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Now that the whole world has gone national, it is ridiculous to think that a little country like Canada can hope to survive by sacrificing our home markets and Canadian industries for unstable markets in countries where these ties do not exist.
The government of the day are entrusted with our natural resources; they are trustees
of the Canadian market for Canadians. But they have been remiss in their trust. Has Canada's board of directors followed a businesslike course? No. The people expected them to act in a businesslike manner. In the 1935 election, bill-boards and election cards cried out, "Get off the relief roll; get on the payroll; vote Liberal; elect us, you will have action!" When the Liberal party was elected and a new cabinet formed, this new board of directors should have directed all their efforts to constructive action. They should have utilized the machinery, such as the bureau of statistics and their experts, to the fullest, extent. They might have utilized their elected members of parliament; but they did not; they set up a commission, which has cost the country two or three hundred thousand dollars. The government passed the buck, they have refused responsibility.
The least I can do is to do something better than the government has done. I wish to make a plea for national unity in the correction of unemployment. The policy of this government, rather than fostering national unity, has to a large extent created disunity. We have discord between one section of the country and another, between classes of labour, between labour and capital, between provincial governments and the federal government. They all have a chip on their shoulder, due to the actions of this government. People in one section of the country are led to believe that prosperity built up in another part of the country, is responsible for the privation and distress of their own section. Banks are blamed; railways are blamed; labour unions are blamed; the weather is blamed for unemployment; but the real blame lies at the door of this government. The people should be brought to realize that prosperity in one part of Canada does not make Canada prosperous; that there is very little chance of one section of the country being prosperous while other parts suffer poverty and distress.
One great difficulty is the enormous increase in federal and provincial debt; another is our tremendous cost of government, resulting in excessive taxation. Everybody wants to work for the government because jobs in industry cannot be had. They are looking for economic security, and that seems to be the only way they can get it. The government must give leadership in the formation of public opinion to correct this overgovernment.
Interest on our enormous public debt must be paid primarily by exports of goods or services which the creditor nations need and must have. No bargaining is necessary here.

Relief and Agricultural Distress
Canada must pay in the equivalent of goods or services; there is no other way. Canada cannot afford to buy from foreign countries any more goods or services than are absolutely necessary, as to do so would still further increase our debt and our foreign obligations, and make unemployment greater. In this country we have everything that is necessary for abundant prosperity if only we had good government leadership. Canadians must have an opportunity for production. We have primary producers of many products which deplete our natural resources, such as pulp, paper, minerals, lumber and so on. We have producers of other products which repeat year after year, such as farm products, wheat, cattle, animal products and so on. We have service products in the tourist trade, the insurance business, the railways and so on. We have secondary producers, who are by far the greatest proportion of the population. Through lack of government leadership and also through unfair propaganda, prejudices have been created. One class of industry is sure that help for another industry will be prejudicial and almost an insult to itself. They want protection for themselves and none for others. In no class of industry can continuity of employment be assured without security to the workers in the other classes. The great fundamental fact is that primarily all the great classes engaged in industry, farmers, doctors, lawyers and everyone, require as much of the home market as they can obtain; the more the better, if we want continuity of employment.
The minister touched on almost every phase of the matter but that which is the most important. Our unemployment urgency requires national unity. That phase of this government's policy with respect to the home market, Canada for Canadians, is the phase on which the minister did not touch. Our unemployment urgency requires national action. It might require sectional sacrifice until such time as a proper balance of employment is arrived at in these various classes of industry. Those who are required to make sectional sacrifices should be properly assisted or compensated; this will be cheaper than the cost of relief for the employable unemployed.
Three years now have passed, and at last we have the report of the national employment commission which was set up in 1936. That commission established a statistical branch and went into action. Clerks, stenographers, secretaries, typewriters, adding machines. tabulating machines and so on all went into action in order that the commission could get the information which they have obtained. They collected statistical
[Mr. Ross (St. Paul's).!
data. This information is useful and illuminating, and it should continue to be collected and tabulated. I think the bureau of statistics, with its trained staff, could do that work without much added expense. The compilation of all this information could have been carried out by that expert branch of the government without any very great increase in cost. Could not the machinery of the bureau have been used for this purpose, without the expenditure of two or three hundred thousand dollars? In any event a great deal of the information obtained was collected by the bureau. The municipalities carried out the registration and collected most of the information. The interim report of the commission was made in July, 1937. The final report was made in January, 1938, and was printed and tabled a few days ago. Why the delay from January to April? Was there difficulty with the report? Or was the report supervised by the government? Or is it an independent report by an independent commission? Surely in view of the gravity of the situation hon. members were entitled to see this report earlier than the month of April, when it was completed in January.
Having regard to the increasingly large number of unemployed, is that action? It is not. We are told that another commission will have to report on the ways and means of carrying out this report. This is action by commission, but it is not action for the benefit of the employable unemployed. As soon as they were elected in 1935 the government took action, observing that general business conditions were steadily improving and that we were recovering from the effects upon the country of the dumping of goods in 1930, due to the policy of the Liberal government of the day. We were recovering rapidly as a result of the Ottawa agreements and the policy of the Conservative government in enforcing dumping duties. This government, hoping that conditions would continue to improve, referred the Employment and Social Insurance Act to the courts. They did not even repeal the act. The hon. member for Temiscouata endeavoured to do so; but as usual this government passed the buck to the courts, spending thousands of dollars of the taxpayers' money in order to have the act declared ultra vires. They did not take steps to see if the provinces would fall in line and agree that necessary steps should be taken to bring this legislation into force. The provinces would have needed little persuasion at that time, but this government refused to approve this legislation, which had been passed by a Conservative government.

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They refused to take action, in spite of their election cry, "Elect a Liberal government and we will be Liberal from coast to coast." Now we know that this cry meant nothing. This act might have been in force to-day with the machineiy running smoothly if there had been action on the part of the government. Anybody with foresight could have seen that under our industrial set-up such legislation was necessary for a great many reasons, and now it has been recommended by the national employment commission, but we must wait for another year or so until we get a report from another commission.
Very little credit can be given the government for the improvement in the unemployment situation, but condemnation may be expressed because of their neglect to conserve the home market for Canadian workers. No one can deny that the dumping of Japanese goods, manufactured under a standard of living which is only a fraction of that enjoyed by our workmen, has taken employment from our workers here. The government refused to stop dumping; no action was taken. Canada has not been prosperous as far as her workmen are concerned. Canada's volume of trade is not the indication of the prosperity of the country. Our prosperity is indicated by the prosperity of the individuals throughout the nation, how much they earn each year, not each day or each week. That means how much work has been done. In three years this government has done nothing to increase the continuity of employment. It has given away the home markets of our secondary industries by not stopping dumping. The depression in the United States which started in October. 1937, has been steadily growing worse. That country had high inventories, which had to be liquidated. For the last four or five months these inventories have been liquidating at the expense of Canadian industry. Almost fifty per cent of our imports from the United States were of finished manufactured articles. Therefore I say that this liquidation has been at the expense of our workers. Our imports from the United States have increased, and our exports to that country have decreased. Our balance of trade with them has become increasingly against us.
What action was taken last October, November or December to stop a continuance of these conditions? Where was the imposition of dumping duties? No action has been taken, and yet the government takes credit for having done good work. It takes credit for placing youth in industry. For years it has been obvious that youth training was necessary. It has also been obvious that when conditions
warranted, manufacturers would encourage that training. They would encourage it when there was a demand for their goods. It is also obvious that government assistance and cooperation were necessary, and I must say that very little credit is due the government for anything which, on the face of it, is so obvious. When conditions warrant, youth training in industry would increase. But what will happen to the trained youth and the old employees? When the demand for manufactured goods declines, the services of employees will have to be dispensed with. I ask this question: What is the use of training the youth if the manufacturers cannot keep them employed? What has the government done to ensure the continued employment of these people?
What is happening at the present time? They are being laid off, or are being told that they will have to work shorter hours. Thousands of young Canadians are reaching the age where they could take work in the industrial fields. What has the government done to ensure work for them? We know it has refused to impose dumping duties on imported goods. Is that the proper action? The work our workmen should do is being done by United States workmen, in order that some purchaser may save a few cents on the dollar. All this is done at the expense of the Canadian workman, and at a heavy relief cost to the government.
Canadian buyers for Canadian firms have orders from their headquarters not to buy. Business houses, because of the policy of the government, are afraid to make purchases. They realize that the government have followed a policy of doing nothing, and that there is uncertainty with respect to the proposed new agreement with the United States. Nobody knows what conditions may be a short time in the future. I know of four industries in Toronto whose business was so good last October that they were cramped for space. Had those conditions continued, they would have built extensions to their plants at a cost of from $10,000 to $40,000. But a Liberal government was in power, and the uncertainty wfith respect to tariffs and proposed new treaties discouraged them from building. They had the idle cash ready to use, but they still have it. They have put up a temporary accommodation at a cost of two or three thousand dollars, and Canadian workmen have been deprived of the work they might have had in the larger extensions.
Those companies are keeping their cash, to tide them through the coming depression- and it is coming. Provincial governments, through legislation, are trying to improve wage
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standards and hours of labour, and these improvements raise production costs. The manufacturer must have protection which protects, or go out of business. Surely he is entitled to a condition whereby he will have fair competition, and protection against dumping. But he knows he will get no action until it is too late. Had action been taken by the government to prevent dumping even as late as last November or December, we would not now be approaching the maelstrom of depression in which the United States now is. Action should be taken right away. Due to the stabilizing effects of the Ottawa agreements passed by the late Conservative government, we might not become involved as deeply as we did in 1930 and 1931. However, if four or five months of dumping takes place, it will take two or three years to recover.
This government is inviting Canada to step into a tail-spin with the United States. In October, November and December, when the indication of recession first became apparent, the urgency for action arose. Was there any action? In the closing months of the last Liberal administration, the early months of 1930, the handwriting of the approaching of the depression was on the wall; but the Liberal government then in power took the same attitude the present government is taking. They had ample warning, and I must add that action is as necessary to-day as it was then.
The condition with respect to employment is getting worse, and something will have to be done. The warning has been given, but there are none so blind as those who will not see. I hope sincerely I am not right in what I cannot help thinking and feeling from the indications, namely, that we are fast approaching another bad depression.
We now have before us the report of the employment commission. An efficient Department of Labour working in cooperation with the minister should have anticipated a great many of these recommendations, and acted upon them. Two and a half years has been lost. There has been a lot of theory, but nothing worth while. To my mind, any atempts which have been made in connection with unemployment, as a result of government action, have had about as much effect as one would bring about by pouring a pail of water into lake Ontario.
Chaos-where did I hear that word? I think the expression " King or chaos " is changing rapidly to " King and chaos." If we do not have proper and constructive action, we shall have much greater chaos than we have to-day.

The people of Canada want work the whole year round. They do not want to work half the year only. Our people want to eat and live decently. Farmers want markets. We know that the best market is the home industrial market, and that the farmer cannot be prosperous unless the industrial worker is prosperous. We must keep our Canadian workmen employed, because relief is repugnant to them. A lack of industrial work means a poor market for the farmer.
This government is doing its best to destroy the home market by refusing to stop dumping into Canada. It is giving work to foreign workmen. It would be better to import the workmen and increase the market for Canadian consumption. By its lack of effective policy in industry it has broken its pledge to the electorate. It has betrayed its trust and shirked its responsibility. The cabinet, the board of directors of the country, should be held responsible for gross negligence in trifling with the livelihood of the workers. It has sacrificed secondary industry for concessions in connection with natural resources. Again I ask this question: Are the workers off the relief rolls and on the payrolls? Have the workers who elected the government been given proper treatment? Those gaily printed cards and flaming billboards should have read: " Get off the payroll and get on the relief roll; King and chaos." The mayors of Ontario are not now making irresponsible threats, as was intimated by the minister a short time ago; they are stating facts.


Mr. J. C. LANDERYOU (Calgary East):: Mr. Chairman, it is reports like that of the national employment commission which have created a feeling in the minds of the people of Canada that the setting up of commissions is of little value; for in this report we find that no careful analysis has been made of the situation to ascertain the real causes of unemployment. The three hour speech of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) contained no concrete proposals for the abolition of poverty or the settlement of this great problem of unemployment, and I was consequently not surprised to hear that the provincial premiers, particularly the premier of Ontario, were not satisfied with the results of the employment commission. The premier of Ontario said that the speech of the Minister of Labour was a headline and a headache:
Asked if he had any intimation of the nature of Ottawa's relief program, Mr. Hepburn said: " I must confess I am not in the confidence of the government at Ottawa."

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Mr. Hepburn added, "I can't find a concrete program in it, and we are dealing with relief as best we can, having in mind the federal government has withdrawn its support."
Prior to the election the Liberal government promised the people of Canada that if returned to power they would issue money in terms of public need; but now we find that they have curtailed the grants to the provinces, even though many municipalities and provincial governments throughout Canada are bankrupt to-day. We know that these bodies may have their constitutional responsibilities and be responsible for maintaining certain services; They may be responsible constitutionally for maintaining indigent citizens and those who are unemployed; although those who are employable should not be a constitutional responsibility of municipal or provincial governments.
I have gone over the report of the national employment commission, and find in it a table showing municipal indebtedness, that tremendous burden of municipal debt which has so increased taxation that it is now almost impossible for the municipalities to meet their social needs. In 1926 the gross total bonded indebtedness of municipalities in Canada amounted to 81,050,206,121. There had been a substantial increase from year to year, until in 1934 the debt rose to $1,452,850,562.
An analysis of current developments in Canadian municipal finance points to the following facts:
I may say that this was prepared for the dominion conference of mayors at Ottawa in 1936, by H. Carl Goldenberg:
1.	The duties and responsibilities of municipalities have increased without a proportionate increase in the power to raise the revenue necessary to meet their new obligations ;
2.	Having regard to these increasing duties and responsibilities, real property, the principal source of municipal revenue, is no longer an adequate basis of taxation;
3.	Declining revenues accompanying diminished assessments and increased rates have necessitated a greater resort to borrowing, thereby increasing still further the charge against real property and discouraging new construction and home ownership;
4.	Debt charges and the increasing cost of social services and particularly of unemployment relief are absorbing a continually increasing proportion of annual revenues and are tending to paralyze normal municipal services;
5.	Forced economies in current municipal services are resulting in a huge accumulation of deferred maintenance and expansion.
6.	Having regard to the heavy burden of debt charges, further economies in ordinary expenditures can afford no material relief to the taxpayers of the municipalities.
We find that the debts of the provincial governments are increasing. The reports show that the debts of the provinces have increased from $813,400,000 in 1925 to a total of $1,622,100,000 in 1935. The increase in provincial debt between 1925 and 1929 is given as 22 per cent; between 1929 and 1932, 35 per cent; between 1932 and 1935, 21 per cent; and between 1925 and 1935, there was an increase of 99 per cent.
It should be apparent to anyone who has made a careful analysis of the debt structure of Canada that it is becoming impossible for many municipal and provincial governments to carry out their social responsibilities. They may be constitutionally responsible for the maintenance of their indigent citizens and those who are unemployed; but they find themselves financially unable to carry out their constitutional responsibilities, and now the federal government has cut the relief grants.
The Conservative government, when they were elected in 1930, faced a very serious unemployment problem. That problem was due to a large extent to the policies which had been pursued by the previous Liberal administration during their term of office. I admit that the Conservative party attempted to solve the problem, but they found how impossible that was under the present economic system.
The Liberal government promised to end unemployment in a different way. They promised to abolish poverty, to address themselves to the task of abolishing poverty in this dominion, and they were going to do so by the necessary adjustments in our monetary system so that money and credit could be issued to meet the needs of the people. They recognized that usury, once in control, would wreck any nation, and we therefore naturally expected that the Liberal party would at least make a determined effort to solve the problem of unemployment. When the national employment commission was set up two years ago, the people of Canada expected that they would offer some solution of the unemployment problem, but we find on a careful examination of the report that nothing of a constructive nature has been suggested. True, they have attempted to do something for the youth of this country. Training centres have been established for a small percentage of our unemployed youth, but we have heard nothing from the minister and there is nothing contained in the report that would indicate to the members of the house or the people of Canada what the government intend to do for these youth after they have been trained. There are hundreds and hundreds,

government of a province-the government of Alberta, for example-should suggest to the people of that province that by associating together and controlling their own credit and producing wealth, and being prepared to produce it, they could pay dividends to themselves. We know that it would take an increase in the amount of money to pay dividends to the people; but we know that precautions can be taken to prevent the evils of inflation, and we know also that the velocity of circulation would possibly increase and that it would not take as much as many believe it would to pay a dividend of $25 to every citizen in Canada. We know that if the people of this country were prepared to support the issue of dividends by their willingness to render services and produce wealth, such dividends are possible in this country.
We know that thousands of fishermen on both coasts are on relief; that thousands of fruit growers are not putting in new trees because they are unable to sell the fruit from the trees they have; that our lumber industry has slowed down; that our cement plants are closed or running part time; that our mines in the west are not turning out all the coal which could be produced; that we are not utilizing all the power which is developed in Canada to-day or taking steps to utilize our natural resources to the extent that is possible if our system of economics were properly ordered. We know that physically it is possible to provide the citizens of Canada with a high standard of living, but the present financial system prevents this. People are turning from the present monetary system, realizing that they cannot borrow themselves into prosperity or tax themselves into prosperity.
I turn for a moment to the housing problem. I know that the government attempted to put men back to work by encouraging the erection and repair of homes. Fifteen million dollars have been borrowed from the banks, but what does that amount to in comparison with the tremendous need of housing facilities in this country? Fifteen million dollars could be spent in Montreal alone in slum clearance, and the mess would not be cleared up. I expected, when the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said before the election that money would be appropriated for a national housing scheme, that money would be issued by the Bank of Canada in sufficient amount really to solve this problem. But that did not take place. On the contrary, an agreement was entered into with the private banks whereby $50,000,000 could be loaned to the people of CanfMr. Landeryou.]
ada at a rate of 6-32 per cent interest, although in the great republic to the south and in New Zealand money for this purpose is provided at four per cent and less. Not only did we allow the private banks to collect 6-32 per cent interest, adding to the private debts of this country, but we guaranteed them against loss up to $15,000,000. The government is throwing the responsibility for the unemployed upon the individual citizens of the country, asking them to go further into debt without assuring them that the government is taking steps to remove this paradox of starvation in the midst of plenty.
I hope the news we hear is true, namely that the minister intends to bring down a bill which will provide for more than a mere alleviation of the situation, for something of a permanent nature, a real attack on this problem. If he engages in a scheme of public works, and if other departments of the government encourage industry, develop foreign trade, explore every possible avenue to improve the employment situation, I believe that it will not be necessary to carry on such public works indefinitely; that the time will come when public works can slacken off, because these men will become absorbed in industry. But until such time as industry is able to absorb all the unemployed who are employable, it is the duty and responsibility of the government to provide for their needs -and not with borrowed money. It is time for the government to take over the issue and control of money, not to wait for seven years or for any other period. It is not sufficient to have control of fifty-one per cent of the shares of the Bank of Canada, or to have the power to appoint a majority of the board of directors. What we want is a government which will change the policy of that bank, and take control of the issue of money and credit and so order it that there will be sufficient for those who need it in industry, and sufficient purchasing power in the hands of the people to enable them to buy the products of industry and "the services which can be rendered by the citizens of Canada to each other.
The minister referred to relief rates. He said the employment commission had recommended that some of these rates be cut down.


Frederick George Sanderson: I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but his time is exhausted.


John Charles Landeryou: It will take me just one moment more, Mr. Chairman. I want to refer to the relief rates which are paid in these municipalities, and which the minister stated were competing vith wage rates. I ask the minister if he will place on record

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the relief rates paid that are competing with wages, the highest relief scale paid anywhere in Canada, and the relief rates in force at present in the two largest cities of each province in Canada. If he will do that, we shall be able to make a comparison and see just in what areas the relief rates are competing with wage rates, because such a situation does not speak well for conditions in Canada, nor does it speak well for the record of this government.


Mr. R. J. DEACHMAN (Huron North):: I found the report of the national employment commission particularly interesting. The last six pages are a mine of useful information on the distribution of the national income in the Dominion of Canada. As I turned over the pages of the report to-day, I noticed this peculiar fact, that the civil service now takes 1-52 per cent of the national income, which is thirty-eight per cent more than in 1926. Then I turned back to page 110, the last page of the report, which seems to be the natural place for them to put the farmer, and I found that after adjusting the gross figure to the net, the farmers' income now constitutes only 7-5 per cent of the national income. So, if in Canada we had five times as many civil servants as we have, they would be receiving a total income greater than that of the 728,000 farmers who produce so much of the national wealth of the dominion.
Let us turn back and look over these pages, because they reveal some very interesting things about the distribution of our national income. The other day I mentioned that the wages of money had declined; in fact, the wages of money and the earnings of the fanner apparently, are the only two things in the dominion which have declined in the last few years. The wages of money, or the real value to the receiver of interest, stood at 100 in 1926, and according to this report it had dropped to 97-8 in 1936. I mentioned the income of the civil servant, based upon the proportion wh'ch he took of the national wealth; but when we come to the purchasing power in 1926 dollars of the average earnings of the civil servant of to-day, we find that he or she is getting 24-6 per cent more than he or she received in 1926. In the average earnings of the manufacturing industry the change is not so great. Based upon the 1926 level the worker receives 108-6; but, as is usually the case during a period of relatively hard times, the salaried gentlemen, the brass hats of industry, are drawing 12-1 per cent more than in 1926. In regard to the employees of the railroads, their yate is 17-4 per cent above the 1926 level. At no time since that year have they fallen to the 1926 level, and for
the last three years their figure has stood, first at 114-4, or fourteen per cent above the 1926 lev-el; than 11-7 per cent above and now 17-4 per cent above. In regard to the farmers I mentioned that their income had fallen to 7-5 per cent of the total national income; but if we turn to the purchasing power of 100 units of farm products we find that on the basis of 1926 equalling 100 they paid 144-2 for 100 units of manufactured goods in 1932. In 1933 they paid 137; in 1934 the figure stood at 124. Now it has dropped to 106-1.
I wonder where the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Massey) is. I should think this would appeal to him. He was cradled on the sheaf carrier of a Massey-Harris binder. He is familiar with these implements. He ought to be in intense sympathy with the farmers in Canada to-day. He has a face which indicates that at least he has some of the milk of human kindness,, even though he did not come from a farm. But this much is certain; when he looks at these figures he sees the condition of agriculture growing worse, while industry manages to keep up. I often wonder why these men who have been so closely associated in an indirect way with agricultural industry, do not pause to reflect upon the conditions existing to-day. I wonder why they fail to realize that the greatest thing that could possibly happen for manufacturing and industry of every kind in Canada is not, as the hon. member for St. Paul's (Mr. Ross) said to-night with upraised hands-Stop dumping; do not let goods come in, but keep everything out. Rather it is that there should be a larger measure of freedom of exchange, so that the farmer might exchange the products which he produces for the products of the manufacturer. Thus we could restore industry once more to a normal balance.
What are we doing in regard to this question of unemployment? It strikes me that everything we have done since 1930 has been done with the idea of causing unemployment rather than curing it. I suggest that we attack the problem from a slightly different angle. We have been making a frontal attack; we have attempted to cure unemployment by digging up jobs for men, which is just about as good a means of causing unemployment as one could possibly devise. I suggest that we move a little to the rear, or to the right or left flank, and see if we cannot make an attack from an angle different from anything we have had before. The remedies we have tried, as I have stated, are all specific causes of unemployment. What are they? Well, in 1930 we started with higher tariffs, and ,we continued with higher

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tariffs in 1931 and 1932. In 1933 we were still keeping them up; the same was true in 1934 and 1935, and we are still a long way from reducing them sufficiently to meet the situation existing to-day. Not only did we use tariffs; we used embargoes and restrictions. In fact, for a number of years the house has carried out the policy which was laid down a few years ago by the present leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett), who was then also in opposition, when he said:
All we endeavour to do, Mr. Speaker, is by every legislative means within our power, to use the words of a great Englishman, and with the tools that are in our hands, whether they be tariffs, regulations, bonuses, drawbacks, or bounties, to bend our efforts to one purpose and one purpose only, namely, to make the Canadian people a strong and virile nation, developing their own resources to the limit of their ability and thus become entirely economically independent of foreigners, whoever they may be or wherever they may be found.
If that is not running pretty close to the gospel of absolute exclusion, so far as trade is concerned, then I do not know what it is.
What did we do with the problem? Having blocked the channels of trade, restricted imports, checked national development, expanded the deficits on our railways and increased unemployment, we had to find more money. And so the sales tax of one per cent in 1930 moved up to four per cent in 1931. Then it went to six per cent in 1932. Meanwhile, in the ranks of the army of restriction the sales tax had been joined by a one per cent excise tax in 1931, and a three per cent excise tax in 1932. The three per cent tax was cut to one and a half per cent in 1934. In 1936 we reached the peak, with an eight per cent sales tax.
I now come to the practical suggestion I wish to make in regard to a solution of the unemployment problem. We have tried all these remedies; we have tried tariffs and taxes and public works of different kinds. Public works are only another means of creating unemployment, and the more money we spend upon them, unless they are real, productive public works, the more unemployment we shall have. I suggest to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) a striking and bold course. We have an eight per cent sales tax. Each one per cent of the sales tax takes $18,000,000 from the Canadian people, so far as the revenue of the country is concerned. But as the sales tax is pyramided, each additional one per cent will carry with it an additional pyramided tax-I do not know how much, but possibly one half of one per cent. In other words, when we have a sales tax of eight per cent, by the time it reaches

the consumer it takes from the Canadian people approximately twelve per cent.
Let us reduce the sales tax boldly, at one stroke, by three per cent. Measuring it only as a payment of revenue, that would give a total of $54,000,000 to be added as purchasing power of the Canadian people. But allowing for the fact that it is pyramided, it would give an expansion of $80,000,000 of purchasing power to the people. Would not an addition of that much purchasing power improve business conditions in Canada?
Do hon. members think that by an expansion of public works or by the building of highways over which very little traffic would pass they could attain the improvement which would come through the remission of taxes? Do hon. members realize that public works- highways, or whatever they may be-unless they have an exchange value with the Canadian people more than equivalent to the cost of production, bring about a condition whereby, with every dollar expended upon them, you are decreasing instead of increasing the total volume of employment in Canada?
Further, by a reduction of the sales tax you spread the benefits over the whole nation; it is diffused. It is of more benefit that the construction of a road in some remote spot in northern Ontario. It is not spent on a useless building in a city, or on a public institution. It is something which is diffused throughout the nation, from the farthest point in British Columbia clean down to the maritime provinces. Would that not add to the volume of business throughout the dominion? Would that not improve conditions? "Oh, but," you say, "it will lead to a deficit!" Yes, it may- or it may not. It' might lead to such an improvement in business that the deficit would be overcome. But if you expend the money in any other way, what do you do? You have a deficit, the only distinction being that you have practically nothing for that deficit, whereas by the plan I suggest there would be an improvement in business conditions throughout the nation. Not only is the benefit diffused throughout the whole area, but it reaches every class in the community. Of what value is a public building, or a highway in the north, to the farmers in my constituency who are drawing such a small share of the national income? I speak for the farmers in my own constituency, of course, but when I do so I speak for all farmers in Canada. How can you help them in any way other than the one I have suggested?
My method would reach not only the farmer, but the manufacturer, because the manufacturers are always talking about in-

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creased volume, and I believe there is something in the argument that increased volume of business brings about lowered costs, enabling them to meet competition and to increase the extent of their business.
Let us for a moment consider the table of the national income. At page 22 we find a comparison of the national incomes of Canada and the United States. This has been prepared on the basis of an index number. If one takes that index number and looks down both sides of the table he finds that in almost every year the national income in Canada is at a relatively higher point than it is in the United States. All their efforts to improve the conditions of the people of that country by a reckless and generous expenditure of money have fallen flat. Without that reckless expenditure in Canada we have made more relative progress than they are making. I venture to say that anyone reading the records as they affect the United States to-day will be convinced that they stand in a much more dangerous and uncertain position than we do. They have more unemployment, more unrest and more trouble, by far, than there have been in Canada. I attribute a great measure of the difference to a saner attitude on the part of Canadian labour; but undoubtedly one of the chief factors has been the sounder basis we followed in Canada during those years when we had lower tariffs, permitted a greater volume of increase in our export and import trade, and thus helped in the development of the nation.
In the United States to-day they have recovered only 64 per cent of their 1929 level of export trade, while we have recovered 94 per cent. To-day the leader of the reconstruction party (Mr. Stevens) mentioned the fact that he did not expect a development of trade to cure the problem. Well, the hon. member was always a pessimist. Back in 1936 he said the same thing, because I find that at page 1825 of Hansard he used these words:
Here again we have an indication that the government is resting its hope of a solution of the Canadian economic and social problem of to-day upon the time when there will be a normal revival of trade.
He was pessimistic then. The export trade of Canada at that time was valued at $838,000,000, and it is now $1,124,000,000, or an increase of over 30 per cent since 1935. We are making progress.
Let us turn to the comparison of national incomes, as it is set out at page 110 of the report. In this connection there is a problem I should like to place before the committee. In 1936 our national income was stated to be $4,062,000,000. But the price level is now down to 80, so that with an income of $4,062,000,000 the purchasing power on the basis of the present price level is equal to the purchasing power of a national income of 84,930,000,000 in 1926. So that, actually, in purchasing power our income today is higher than it was in 1926. Will the committee tell me why we are not as prosperous to-day as we were then? I have the answer, and I think it is a sound one: It is because we are taking too much from the Canadian people in taxation, because our tax rate is higher than our capacity to bear, and because the tax rate is bearing down so hard on industry that, unless we reduce it in some way, we cannot hope to make the progress we ought to make.
I am going to quote one or two distinguished examples of men who hold a similar view. Take Henry Ford. He is the one outstanding manufacturer on the American continent who has recognized the fact that there are times when the best course is to strike out boldly, take the risk of a deficit, lower your price to the point where profits vanish, and trust to the increase in sales to make good.
There is another outstanding example, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the Bell Telephone Company here. They extended their lines, entered new territory; then they proceeded to develop their service at a lower cost, and they have given singularly efficient service at a reasonable price.
From the political standpoint the policy I suggest was always the policy of Gladstone, to look forward to expanding trade, to the development of the commerce of the nations of the world, and I ask this government and the Minister of Labour, and I would ask the Minister of Finance if he were here, to take their courage in their hands and strike out boldly. Remove three per cent from the top level of the sales tax. Knock off the old excise tax, which is a tariff in disguise, and if there is anything in national economy that is contemptible, it is a tax disguised and called one thing when it is really another. Going a little further, lower these impossible tariff barriers the first time the opportunity comes along, and that, to my mind, will be in the next budget. Going forward from that, we can have faith and courage, because we shall know we are on the right road and are on a sound basis. Then Canada will prosper because it has the men and the physical characteristics which make the men who know how to produce goods if only they are given the opportunity.
Relief and Agricultural Distress


Mr. GORDON GUAYDON (Peel):: Mr. Chairman, in rising to take part in this debate relative to unemployment and agricultural distress, I do so with a full recognition of the problems that are involved in these two questions, which make us realize that they are of transcendant importance to the people of Canada as a whole. I believe the vast majority of the people of Canada are of the opinion that the problems of agricultural distress and unemployment, touching as they do the very roots of agriculture and industry, should receive prior consideration over any other problems with which the house is called upon to deal. Nothing short of a deliberate plan, a sustained attempt and concerted action on the part not only of governments, but also of the Canadian people cooperating with governments, will make any effective headway in a solution of these problems with which we are faced.
Members of this committee will recall being in the house in 1936 when the national employment commission was launched into action. Whatever may have been the motivating influences so far as the government was concerned, there was the transfer of this responsibility from the shoulders of the government to the shoulders of the commission it appointed. Whether it may have been an advisory commission or whether it may have had some administrative powers as well, the public, rightly or wrongly, gained the impression and had the belief that in the setting up of this commission there lay some hope of the unemployment problem being solved through its efforts and that of the government itself. They felt that ways and means might be found through the work of the commission for curing the cancer which had grown up in our body economic and in our body politic.
As a new member of this house I was greatly impressed with the possibilities of the commission when it was first appointed. I, along with other members on the opposition side of the house, was willing to give the commission a fair chance; but we all realized this, that in any cooperative effort the responsibility actually lay upon the shoulders of the government itself, and, Mr. Chairman, it must still lie there.
Statistics, of course, form a valuable foundation from which the problem may be attacked, but statistics themselves will not solve the problem. The problem cannot be solved on any such narrow ground as that, and we are still awaiting satisfactory results from the appointment of this commission by the government.

The speech of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers), eloquent and well delivered as it was, and most interesting so far as its facts were concerned, should have been in my opinion the cornerstone upon which this nation through the government might have built its unemployment and agricultural distress policy. But I must admit, with all due regard for the Minister of Labour himself, that I was not able to find in it in any plain terms a governmental policy which would be worth while in solving either of these two problems which we have in our midst, and I think everyone found it impossible to find in the detailed account of his speech in Hansard any real solution or any real policy which would go far to remedying our agricultural distress and our unemployment problems.
May I say that it was not very encouraging to me or to the people of Canada, I believe, to hear the Minister of Labour say that, after all, unemployment insurance and the other social legislation which we have been expecting for some considerable time since this government took office would have to wait until such time as the commission on dominion-provincial relations would report to the house. In sporting circles they call that sort of thing shadow boxing, and for want of a better term I am going to apply that description to the minister's efforts with respect to the matters he dealt with in his address.
There is seldom any real reason for the appointment of the commissions we have had since I came into the house. We are sent down here by the people as their representatives, some of us to govern the country, and some to assist in that government by way of criticism and other activities. But, in addition to being sent down herq, we are paid by the people to do that job. If that job is too big for the government and the elected representatives of the people of this dominion, then it is our bounden duty to see to it that the people know it, and know it soon, because we have no right to expect them to pay twice for the government they are sending us down here to give.
I pay this compliment to the Minister of Labour and the government and the members of the House of Commons, that I believe there are just as good brains and just as great a capacity and intelligence in this house as on any of the commissions which so far I have seen appointed in Canada. The commission form of government is, in my opinion, open to two or three grave objections. One objection I should like to note is that the commission is too far removed from the people themselves. The second is that there is the

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great danger, of which we have ample evidence, of serious delay in the presenting of its report, and this commission is no exception in that regard.
In addition, there is always the possibility that a government may attempt to still criticism against it by referring to the fact that the matter is under consideration by a commission which will report in due course. One commission dealing with a subject of this kind is bad enough; but when there are two commissions whose reports must be waited for, that is going just a little too far as regards the commission form of government in this country. There used to be in Toronto a belt line railway. Perhaps a number of hon. members will remember that old railway which went around the city. You got on at one point, paid your fare and made a circle right around until you arrived back where you started. Riding on these old street-cars, you had, when you came back to that original point, to pay another fare or get off. So far as this government's policy with respect to unemployment and agricultural distress is concerned, I would liken it in some respects to the old belt line railway. When the people of Canada have taken that circular ride and come back to the original starting point, they will not pay the fare; they will not get off; but they will change the motorman and the conductor who are running the line.
Pursuing this analogy a little further, may I point out this sequence. Prior to the election of 1935, the Liberal party sought a mandate to cure these cancers in our economic and political body. They received that mandate in the election of 1935. They then proceeded to form a government. The government decided to appoint a national employment commission. Then the national employment commission started to work. Afterwards, before the report of that commission was brought down, we had another commission, the royal commission on dominion-provincial relations, but still no report. Later there came the report of the national employment commission, which represents the stage we are at to-day. Now we are asked to wait until the royal commission on dominion-provincial relations has made its report before any real, strategic move can be made to deal with this great problem. I predict that when the Rowell commission's report has come in, the government will again meet and discuss it; a decision will be arrived at that nothing can be done about this question until the people have been again consulted, and another election will be upon us. In other words, we will have travelled all around the circle of the old belt 51952-136
line with regard to unemployment and agricultural distress, and will be back exactly at the place we were when we started out.
The report of the national employment commission does not, in my opinion, present a true picture of our national difficulties. Few hon. members represent a constituency more normally prosperous or better balanced than that of Peel.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Gordon Graydon: I shall except the constituencies of all those gentlemen who have said, "Oh, oh". The condition of the people in the constituency I represent shows the scars of unemployment and agricultural distress and the depression in general to an extent which I confess I do not like to see. I shall hand to the Minister of Labour to-night a few photographs taken in a southern part of the constituency of Peel, showing some of the housing conditions with which we are faced in a township at the lower end of that constituency. These pictures were given to me by an unemployed man who has been on relief for quite a long time. The visits which most of us have made from time to time to these poorer homes have familiarized us with conditions in a much more vivid way than the figures and statements of the national employment commission could possibly do.
Few hon. members live more closely in contact with the working man and his family than I do. If I were given to boasting I think I would boast about my position in that regard; for only those who day by day, week by week, and year by year are up against the facts of unemployment and the consequences which follow in homes and communities affected by it, can really understand the nature and magnitude of the problem. As one sees day after day the effects of the depression, I often wonder, great as were the trouble and distress inflicted on the country by the great war, whether the scars and wounds of that struggle were so very much worse than those which have been left by this tremendous depression which has struck not only Canada but the world at large. One can hardly view such conditions and go into homes where such conditions are to be found without having brought to mind the words uttered by Abraham Lincoln after having seen a female negro slave sold in one of the southern slave markets of the United States. What he said to himself at that time, as subsequently recorded by a great historian, was, "If I ever have a chance to hit this thing I will hit it hard". And he hit it hard, so



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hard that he saw the end of slavery in the United States before his life was tragically cut short in the president's chair years after. So I say to this government and to the Minister of Labour that this problem is ours. It is our job and a bounden duty we must discharge to hit it hard, hit it soon, and hit it often.
But the employment commission's report does not deal with all the major matters which are confronting us in this respect. Low wages have had a most undermining effect upon our morale and upon the condition of the people. Surely it is not expecting too much of a young and promising country such as this to see to it that everybody in the land shall have a decent living wage; that they shall have decent homes in which to live, a goodly measure of life's blessings, and some security in their old age. But there is no help for the low wage man in the national employment commission's report. I say to the Minister of Labour that people of that unfortunate class richly deserve something more at the hands of the government.
Before I come to a discussion of unemployment insurance and a national minimum wage scheme, I desire to make reference to the phase of the report which was a majority recommendation,-advocating dominion administration of relief. As I said in the earlier part of my address, there are difficulties, serious difficulties, in respect of employment in some parts of the riding which I have the honour to represent. I notice that the report of the commission goes so far as to recommend in general terms that something more should be done by the dominion government towards taking a fair share of the load of responsibility of relief payments; it goes so far as to suggest that relief payments might be taken over by the dominion government in cooperation with a national unemployment insurance scheme. I am quite conscious of the possibilities in regard to the national government taking over the entire cost of relief. I can see, of course, possibilities perhaps of extravagance in administration. But surely it should be possible in Canada to place adequate checks on such a course and to see to it that the dominion government bears its proper share of the relief burden in this land, following out the terms of the report of the national employment commission. If these safeguards can possibly be made, the dominion should see to it that the municipalities are relieved of the burden which they are now struggling to carry.
We in this parliament from time to time vote large sums of money in connection with relief in western Canada. I do not believe

that many of us would care to offer a word of opposition to this or of criticism to other parts of Canada, or would refuse to assist those parts which are in distress; for I am confident that the money is, in most instances, sorely needed. But I would point out to the minister and the government that emergent circumstances exist in other sections than western Canada. In some of the municipalities of which I have personal knowledge, the relief cost has become so great that actually the home and farm owner cannot bear the burden very much longer. It is no longer possible for men to sell real estate, at any rate in some sections of the province from which I come, especially in some of the urban or semi-urban municipalities, because no one wants to be burdened with the land and to pay the high taxes. Great sections of these semi-urban municipalities find themselves with plenty of land on their hands as a result of tax sales. In the township of Toronto in my district there were 1,200 people on relief in the month of March of this year. The taxpayers there are shouldering a burden which is now practically unbearable. I am told that during this spring the ordinary road work, which hitherto has been available in consequence of the provincial government's usual policy, is not likely to be had to the same extent as last spring. That increases the intensity of the problem itself. It has been suggested in some quarters-at any rate it is the information I have received-that many of the employable people on relief may have to be cut off or the mill rate of the municipality of Toronto township will have to be increased.
The minister, fair-minded as he is in regard to these matters, will see that either of these alternatives must be avoided if at all possible. There is a growing feeling throughout Canada, especially in many municipalities which are subject to these conditions, that the dominion government is not bearing its proper proportion of the relief burden. Not only is that feeling prevalent in the municipalities and generally throughout the dominion. but the premier of Ontario has also said that he holds the same view, and that almost makes it unanimous as far as I can see.
Sharing the views of the working men of my riding and of the dominion at large, I cannot refrain from expressing their keen regret that no provision has been made this session for a scheme of unemployment insurance or for some national minimum wage legislation. I have been hoping against hope that some time during this parliament some-

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thing would be done. At the beginning of the first session I hoped that there would be some legislation in this connection, and at the second session I still hoped that something would be done. Now we are in the third session of the eighteenth parliament of Canada and no serious attempt is being made to put through an unemployment insurance measure. True, some negotiations have been carried on, but I say to the Minister of Labour in all sincerity that, in my opinion, he is not a very good salesman in relation to the provinces. If he were, he would have been able to sell the unemployment insurance scheme to at least some of the friends of his own party who do not seem able to agree with the terms of the proposal. No good salesman is ever discouraged so easily. I suggest to the minister that during the Easter recess he go back to the provinces and see if some measure of unemployment insurance, yes, and a minimum wage scheme as well, cannot be evolved which will be satisfactory to the dominion government and to the provinces, who now seem dissatisfied with the proposals made by this administration.
Back in 1919 unemployment insurance was mentioned in the platform of the Liberal party. I was glad to see that platform include unemployment insurance; but all through the years, from 1921 to 1930, no steps were taken to shift the unemployment insurance plank out of the Liberal platform and put it into the statute books of the dominion and to keep it there. During that time there was evidence of high wages, plenty of money, and so on, and apparently industry, labour and the government were in a position to contribute to an extent that they have not been since. But all through those years that golden opportunity was allowed to pass without being taken advantage of. May I say that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) must now be criticized for the course he took at that time, because opportunity knocks only once at the national door, and it was not opened on those occasions. In 1935 unemployment insurance legislation was initiated by the late Conservative government, and while they were criticized in many respects, one thing among others stands to their credit: They at least put an unemployment insurance scheme on the statute books for the benefit of the working man.
We have allowed two and a half years to go by since this government came into power. During that time there have existed conditions which, in consequence of armament programs and other international factors, have
increased our trade and brought to fruition some of our hopes with regard to expanding business; and during some part of that period the industrial purse and the working man's purse would have been better able, than in the previous five years, to afford contributions to an unemployment insurance scheme. But after that experience of this period of mild prosperity the prospects are none too good for the immediate future, and still we are without the benefits of an unemployment insurance scheme in Canada.
I impress upon the Minister of Labour to-night, with all the earnestness and emphasis of which I am capable, the great importance of this matter to the national welfare and especially to the workers of Canada. May I point out to him that by the time the Rowell commission reports and the report is considered, and by the time the next election is held, it may be too late to bring in an effective scheme of unemployment insurance.
I suggest that he give the most earnest consideration to this matter. May I go further.
I have not yet been able to conceive why the Rowell commission was appointed only last year, because the same problems were facing us two years ago. The same problems that were facing us then are facing us now, but two precious years have elapsed and nothing has been done.
I attach no blame to the Minister of Labour as some may do, for bringing in other questions of national affairs and other matters in regard to unemployment, because all these things are in large measure bound up in one parcel. But when he states that the policies of this government are responsible for such, expanding trade and increase of business as= we have experienced, I respectfully disagree-with him. I think there is no hon. member of this committee but would say that if the' stimulus given to trade and business by the great rearmament programs throughout the world were taken away, any improvement which has resulted from the policies of this government would be a mere drop in the bucket.
We have in Canada fertile agricultural areas, great industrial centres, the basis of great primary industries, and an aggressive, ambitious and forward looking people. In other words, the Canadian people have all the material and equipment with which to work. All we need is leadership and a restoration of cooperative effort between governments and the people. A people working hand in hand with governments would stimulate a virile national pride in this country's future

Relief and Agricultural Distress
the value of which could not be overestimated. To accomplish this, confidence must be restored in Canadian governmental institutions. This will come about quickly if the government moves forward to do something definitely helpful for the people it governs. Without mentioning all the things which might be done in addition to those I have already dealt with to-night, because time does not permit, I suggest that we proceed at once to cut down drastically the cost of government. Further than that, we should abolish government by commissions. We should live within our means and commence to retire our national debt. In addition we must lift the intolerable burden of taxation from the centre of our national life, the home. And not the least, we should abolish these nuisance taxes which irritate the people beyond measure. We should courageously attack the glaring abuses in our capitalistic system. We should preserve the home market for and advance the interests of the farmers and agricultural sections of our country. We must promote and preserve the jobs of the working people in Canadian industry. Also we should set out immediately upon a five year plan of national development and economic rehabilitation with the object of making Canada the best governed and most prosperous country in the world.
In conclusion, let us be prepared as a nation, and as individuals and communities and governments, to undertake a concentrated offensive against our national shortcomings and problems. We would then command the confidence of every class of our citizens, which is so essential. We would then discharge our obligations to the farmer, the working man, the man in business and the youth of our country. We would eliminate sectionalism completely and create a national spirit of unity which would make Canada what it should be, the envy of the civilized world.


Mr. E. J. POOLE (Red Deer):: Once
again we have before the committee Canada's greatest national problem. Time does not permit me to say to-night all that I should like to say on that subject. But I cannot condemn the government too harshly for the fact that in this third session of this parliament we still find them bankrupt of any real solution of this greatest national problem, to use the words of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers). Again we are hearing platitudes and utterly inadequate palliatives. I have glanced over the report of this national employment commission. I did expect something would develop from it; but lo and behold, what do we find? Briefly
[Mr. Graydon.3
this, that we are to solve our unemployment problem by becoming peddlers selling golly wogs to United States tourists 1


An hon. MEMBER:: And hot-dogs.


Eric Joseph Poole: That is another prize suggestion from the commission. Is that not constructive, after seven years of suffering by the people of Canada? Also they speak of youth training. Has the government any suggestions as to where the youth of the country could be absorbed in employment even if they are trained?


Mr. KENNEDY:: They could sell hot-dogs.


Eric Joseph Poole: Also the commission recommend low cost housing. I have heard that proposal commended on both sides of the house, but I have not heard one hon. member tell the committee where the government is to get the money.


Mr. EVANS:: Can the hon. member tell us?


Eric Joseph Poole: Yes; this group has told
the house many times-by the use of our national credit; not by placing upon the state another chattel mortgage which children yet unborn must pay. Mr. Chairman, it grieves me, as one of the youngest members of the house, to sit here day after day during three sessions and see a government with an overwhelming majority, a government in which the Canadian people put their trust, without a solitary concrete idea for the solution of this problem. I challenge any hon. member on the government side to tell us what the solution is. Have the government any to offer? I have heard some suggestions as to reduction of taxes; reduce the sales tax, they say. On the other hand, hon. members say, We must have a balanced budget. To me it appears like a madhouse.


Charles Robert Evans: Will the hon. member tell
us what his solution is?


Eric Joseph Poole: Yes; I am only too glad
to place our solution before the committee, and we fear no intelligent contradiction of it. This problem will never be solved until such time as rve use our national credit. The problem is an economic one. Once again I ask the government what the purpose of an economic system is. Listening to the discussions here I wonder why the government do not have a provision inserted in our criminal code making it an offence to place on the market any scientific instrument or invention that would displace labour.
For hundreds of years men have been endeavouring to overcome the problem of scarcity, to do away with human labour, to

Relief and Agricultural Distress
make life easier. Here in the twentieth century we sit in this modern parliament, with this gigantic machine at our disposal to bring about a better life and security for every man, woman and child in this vast dominion; yet we find men rotting in the bread lines of the country. If this were a temporary condition, one could well understand it. If it were because we had no place to put men, no work for men to do, again we could understand it. But we have the natural resources. Those are the facts which confront us; those are facts which even the government must admit. We have the natural resources. We have the need. We could initiate a scheme now that would mean the construction of 150,000 houses. The material is available here. The man power is here. The need is here. What are we waiting for? How can a democratic parliament sit here and do nothing? How can any party promise the people anything when we have given to somebody else the very thing which is essential if we are to fulfil that promise? If we were living in the days of 1742, in the age of scarcity, we might well understand the attitude of this parliament. In that age all men had to work or starve. But since the beginning of the steam age, since the invention of combustion engine, since electrical energy was provided by science, we have overcome the greatest problem which confronted mankind prior to that time; that was the problem of scarcity. But we are still basing our government policies on scarcity, while actually we are living in such abundance that it is embarrassing to the orthodox administrators in an age of plenty.
Many times I have said to the Liberal members of the house, and I say it again tonight: If you want to find the cost of unemployment in this country, I would advise you to leave at home your statistics and your costs in dollars and cents; find out what it has cost in human depravity. I wish some lion, members could have the experience I have had. How many hon. members have been in the soup kitchens across Canada? Maybe they do not want to go; maybe they have no sons there. How many have gone to seek a job? Have any of the Liberal members done that? One hon. member says, "ha, ha." Let me tell you, my friend, that you cannot laugh the problem out of existence. I challenge this government or any member of it to solve this problem without monetary reform. I say to my hon. friend that if he will go into the soup kitchens of this country; if he will go among the poor-and remember "hey are the only people not represented in
this parliament-he will come back a more enlightened man and a far better member of parliament in terms of constructive suggestions to the government.
I have often wondered whether it is the Liberal party that is wrong or whether I an: wrong; but every day in this house, no matter what the question, whether it be soldiers' pensions, whether it be old age pensions, whether it be public works, whether it be the building of highways or homes, everybody expresses a desire to do these things; and the strange part about it is that they even go on the public platform and promise to do them. The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie), who is not in his seat to-night, made those promises in the recent by-election. Those promises were made in 1935. They said, "We will build homes." I wonder if the Liberal party is just waiting until it is a little closer to the next election, so that it can go to the people and say, "Well, we have started. Do not put us out now, because if the Conservatives or any other party come into power, they will just stop all this work." It is a crying shame that the people of Canada should be subjected to this duplicity and betrayal.
I often wish I were in the Liberal party, for one purpose only, that is, to tell the Liberal party in caucus just what I thought about their policies. Of course there is always this danger, that any Liberal who opposes the government too strenuously may not remain in the party. But I do not value my seat in the house unless I can make some contribution. We were sent down here to do a job, not to pussy-foot around or to make such asinine suggestions as to build up the tourist trade and sell trinkets to tourists in order to solve our unemployment problem.
The greatest asset of a nation is the youth of the country. We may feel quite safe and content to-night; but remember that prior to 1914 the people of Germany were just as democratic as we are; and so with the people of Austria. They loved their democratic institutions just as much as we do; but when the crisis which confronts us to-night confronted Germany in 1932, a man, whether rightly or wrongly, took the helm and made one appeal. That was to the youth of Germany. It will not be very long before some man will make an appeal to the youth of this dominion, and it will not go unheard. Democracy is fine, provided it is working. It is not working in Canada. In 1935 this government told the people they were going to do something. The government came down here and. in plain English language, it does

Relief and Agricultural Distress
not seem to have the guts to do it. Listen to this: it is the Minister of Labour speaking, dealing with trade expansion:
The government never suggested a cure for unemployment could be found in government spending on public works. It believed the true cure lay in expanding trade and expanding industrial activity.
Just let us give thought to that for a moment, and see how stupid it is. If we are depending upon foreign trade to absorb the youth of this country back into industry,
I say we are going to fail. To-day Germany is producing more internally and becoming less dependent upon imports. Now, since Germany has taken over Austria, the same policy will prevail in the latter country. Japan is making its inroads into China, and will industrialize that nation. Every country in the world is marching towards economic nationalism, and personally I believe it is a sound policy. To me it seems stupid that before the people of Canada can consume part of their own goods they must sell the bulk of them outside the country. The greatest market we have is the home market right here. I can point to a million people in this dominion who could do with more clothes and who could eat more than they are getting. Thousands of children are suffering from malnutrition, while we are looking for foreign markets. Do not hon. members opposite think it is time something was done? It is time we checked up, and compared the orthodox with the new. Is it not time we faced facts, instead of blindly following some one who has no intention of doing anything?
I know more than any other hon. member what the depression has cost the youth of the country. I was one of them. I knew what it was, too, to seek a job. I waited anxiously for the government of that day to do something. What did they do?-the same as -the present government is doing; nothing. That government did nothing, while those men spent the best years of their lives trying to bolster up t'heir confidence in democracy and parliament. I am quite convinced this government will never move until its political solidarity is challenged, and I hope -that in Saskatchewan this year we may see the Liberals get a sound licking. I would like to see them lose the majority in the legislature. Money will not win for them out there; it may have in the past, but it will not this time. The issues are too keenly felt in the minds of the people. I shall be in the field to do my best to tell the people that this government has failed to carry out its promises.

Hon. members opposite ask us what we would do. We would issue national credit. We believe that anything which is physically possible is financially possible. We believe, further, that an economic system must provide an abundance of all things for distribution to every man, woman and child, and we believe, further, that in an age of abundance every individual should have at least the same status as an animal, and should have security, food, clothing and shelter.
God did not give the big industries in Canada all the blessings they now have. They stole them, and cheated and chiselled the people out of them. Seventy-five per cent of the members of this house do not understand the greatest problem confronting them, namely, the problem of money power. They refuse to listen, because the views expressed do not meet with their approval. They are Liberals, who want to continue to be Liberals. They are progressives who continue to stand still and mark time.
Well, I believe I represent other views. Democracy suits me very well, so long as it works; but when my rights, and the rights of the generation to follow me are denied, I challenge it. When I see parliament refusing to do anything, and when I see the government pussy-footing around with the people, and fooling them, election after election, I for one will rise to my feet any day of the week and tell the government what I think of it. Either the government have not the intestinal fortitude to tackle the problem, or they do no-t know what the trouble is. I demand in the house to-night that the government bring in a concrete suggestion to absorb the youth of Canada into production. I demand for Canadians what the Liberal party promised them, namely, that they would bring about reforms, and that they would issue credit in terms of public need. Nothing short of that will satisfy the people of Canada; nothing short of that will provide a solution.
I should like to be like most members and speak in well modulated tones and in beautiful English. But my feelings are too keen. Many times while I sit in the house it is hard for me to restrain myself When I listen to hon. members discussing the vital questions of the day, and dealing with -them in such an irrelevant manner. The problem is before us. It is a simple one, despite what professional economists may say. An economic system must produce goods of every variety. We have an abundance in Canada. We have youth, the greatest asset-human life. We

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have a great nation with vast resources. In the midst of this we have need. Will one hon. member sitting opposite tell me why, with all these things, we cannot bring security to the people of Canada? Will any one answer that? I know my challenge will go unanswered, and I know that a year from to-day the unemployment problem will be exactly the same.
One hon. member said during the debate that relief scales were higher than wages. That does not say much for wages in Canada, does it? It does not speak very highly for that legislation designed to deal with wages, does it? Reading in the press a few days ago, I came across an item wherein two men appeared before a magistrate, charged with some misdemeanor. The magistrate heard the case of the older man and, because he believed he was a deserving character, sent him to gaol for thirty days. The younger man, not so deserving, he turned loose. Is that not a bright system which hon. gentlemen opposite are supporting? That is only one case, but there are hundreds of cases across Canada just like that.
Our gaols are filled with young men who should have been good citizens. They might
well have been absorbed into our industrial life. The intellectual sources of the country are deteriorating in the breadlines, while parliament sits and talks about democracy, expresses sweet platitudes, and has not the intestinal fortitude to get down to the job.
We talk about expanding trade. One of our best customers is our neighbour to the south. To-day United States congressmen are raising the dickens because Canadian lumber, fish, potatoes and other commodities are going across the boundary line. They claim their unemployment situation has been caused through Canada selling on the United States market. Shortly we shall see barriers placed against Canadian goods, and as a result we shall have more unemployed. What provisions have we made for that?
Unemployment is not our greatest national problem. We must forsake, for all time, the orthodox; we must take courage to go into new roads and face the facts. If we do not, then the youth of this country will.
Mr. Speaker, it is eleven o'clock.
Progress reported.


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