1938-03-02

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: I wish to lay on the table a copy of a communication dated March 1, 1938, from the Prime Minister of Canada to the Premier of Ontario regarding the Kenogami river diversion project.



HARBOUR COMMISSIONS


[Stage Direction]
Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Transport) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 32, to amend the Winnipeg and St. Boniface Harbour Commissioners Act.
He said: The purpose of the bill is to extend the jurisdict;on of the Winnipeg and St. Boniface harbour commissioners to the waters of municipalities, contiguous to the cities of Winnipeg and St. Boniface, which desire to be brought under the act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

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

Mr. BROOKS:: 1.	Were tenders called for the recently constructed warehouse on the public wharf at Moncton, New Brunswick, or was the work done by day work?
2.	If by contract, what was the amount of each tender, and to whom was the contract given ?
3.	Who was appointed foreman on this work, and what amount did he receive for his services?


Mr. CARDIN:: 1 and 2. Work done by day labour.
3.	(a) Reid McManus; (b) $255.


PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND RAILWAY
[Stage Direction]
Mr. MeCULLOCH:
What was the total cost of changing the narrow gauge to the standard gauge on the Prince Edward Island railway?
Mr. HOWE:: The total cost of converting the line, according to the accounts, was $1,786,565.22, of which $1,200,570.11 was charged to capital account and $585,995.11 to
Questions

operating expenses. In addition, a loss of $383,667.05 was incurred in retirement of narrow gauge equipment.


EFFECT ON CANADIANS OF ITALO-ETHIOPIAN WAR
Mr. HANSELL:: 1.	How many Canadian citizens lost their lives in or as the result of the Italo-Ethiopian struggle?
2.	What is the total estimated value of property such as buildings, land or personal enterprises, belonging to Canadian citizens, confiscated by Italy?
3.	How many of the following types of property were confiscated: (a) hospitals; (b) schools; (e) homes; (d) land; (e) other?
4.	If any of the above properties were confiscated, what are they being used for now?
5.	How much has been paid to Canada in this connection by way of reparations?


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: 
MASKINONGE RIVER, QUE., PUBLIC WORKS
Mr. WERMENLINGER:: 1.	What were the works executed on the Maskinonge river, at St. Didace, province of Quebec, in the summer of 1936?
2.	What has been the total amount of money spent for the execution of said works?
3.	What is the name of the resident superintendent who had charge of these works?
4.	Are there any accounts still unpaid for the above works, either for material or for labour? If so, what are the names and occupations of those to whom amounts of money are still due?


Mr. CARDIN:: 1.	Construction of protection work.
2.	$9,334.18.
3.	C. A. Boisjoli, resident foreman.
4.	An account for sawing of timber for $35 in favour of Mr. Clovis Denomme, lumber dealer, has not yet been paid. This account was not forwarded to the department for payment at time work was done, but the matter is now being attended to.


NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT COMMISSION
Mr. COLDWELL:: 1.	Who were the members of the National Employment Commission?

2.	What salary did each receive in 1936, and 1937?
3.	What expenses did each receive in 1936, and 1937?
4.	What other emoluments, if any, did each receive during the years 1936, and 1937?
5.	What was the total expenditure on account of this commission during the years 1936, and 1937?


Mr. ROGERS:: 1.	Arthur B. Purvis, chairman, Montreal, Quebec; A. N. McLean, Saint John, New Brunswick; Alfred Marois, Quebec, P. Q.; Tom Moore, vice-chairman, Ottawa, Ontario; Mrs. Mary M. Sutherland, Wells, British Columbia; W. A. Mackintosh, Kingston, Ontario; E. J. Young, Dummer, Saskatchewan.
2.	The commissioners were not in receipt of a salary, except Commissioner Moore whilst performing the duties of vice-chairman.
Fiscal year 1936-37 (March).. .. $ 641 25 Fiscal year 1937-38	 6,750 00
3.	Fiscal year Fiscal year
	1936-37	1937-38
Arthur B. Purvis	Nil	NilA. N. McLean	$1,547 16	$1,311 39Alfred Marois	
Tom Moore (travelling	892 85	389 10expenses only)	
Mrs. Mary M. Suther-	275 75	334 20land	2.706 63	2,243 11W. A. Mackintosh.. ..	1,017 58	593 88E. J. Young	2,110 20	408 60Note: The above expenses consisted of	travelling expenses.	4. A remuneration at the rate of $20 a day while engaged on the work of the commission (P.C. No. 1140, 13th May, 1936). The follow-	ing amounts were received:-	Fiscal-year Fiscal year	1936-37	1937-38Arthur B. Purvis	. .. Nil	NilA. N. McLean	. .. Nil	NilAlfred Marois	.. S2.489	SI,040Mrs. Mary M. Sutherland.. 4,845	4,600W. A. Mackintosh.. ..	.. 1,786	1,280E. J. Young	620
Note : Commissioner Moore from June, 1936, to 28th February, 1937, received salary as employment and social insurance commissioner to the amount of S6.432.50.
5.	1936-37	1937-38
National Employment Commission $88,966 93 $72,413 80 National Employment Commission,
registration branch 58,602 79	75,512 14

Questions


CAMBRIDGE, N.B., LANDING FIELD
Mr. BROOKS:: 1.	(a) What money was expended on the
emergency air-landing field at Cambridge, Queens county, New Brunswick, in the year 1937;	(b) who was in charge of the work;
(e) what are the names of the men employed, and the amounts received by each?
2.	(a) How many buildings were sold off the said property, and to whom; (b) what amount was received in each ease?
3.	(a) What amount was received for standing grass sold off the said property; (b) was the grass sold by tender, and, if not, why?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	(a) $344.40.
(b)	E. C. Percy, district airway engineer,
Moncton, N.B.
(c)	Cambridge, N.B.
Survey work Classified labourers
Name	Amount
John Austin Labour	 $55.80
Topographical Survey
Russell Perry	"	
54.60Gordon Perry	"	
55.80Garfield Fowler	"	
58.20

T. Kelly, part time caretaker, 12
months at $10	 120.00

2.	27 buildings were sold through the salvage board:
Buildings	Purchaser
1 Guest house	E. C. Percy. Moncton, N.B	
1	Old oil house	James N. McLaughlin, Mill Cove,	N.B...1	Tool house	Ottie Deware, Cody, N.B	1	Foreman's quarters	Thos. E. Kelly, Mill Cove	1 Stable	11 Store room	[Tom Kelly, White's Point, NJ3	1 Cooler	J1	Ablution room	Miss Elizabeth Kelly, Mill Cove	1	Bunkhouse No.	5	Roy Ferris, department authorized	disposal without charge	1 Bunkhouse	Harold Springer, White's Cove, NJB	1 Dining room	A. L. Gunter. White's Cove, N.B	1 Store and ration room.. ..S. Appleby, Narrows Cove, N.B	1 Kitchen	S. Appleby, Narrows Cove, N.B	1 Cooks sleeping quarters ..S. Appleby, Narrows Cove, N.B	1 Bunkhouse	C. R. Starkey. Cody's, N.B	1 Bunkhouse	Frank B. Starkey, Cody's, N.B	1 Bunkhouse	Emerson Farris, Cambridge, N.B	1 Recreation room	Emerson Farris, Cambridge, N.B	1 Cooler	Medley Wood, Mill Cove, N.B	1 Blacksmith shop	Merritt Appleby	1 Garage	Cambridge, Queen	1	Hospital	Clarence	W.	Barton,	Mill	Cove	1	Toilet	Clarence	W.	Barton,	Mill	Cove	1	Toilet	Clarence	W.	Barton,	Mill	Cove	1	Pump	house	Clarence	W.	Barton,	Mill	Cove	1 Water power building.. ..Emerson Ferris, Cambridge	1 Icehouse	Emerson Ferris, Cambridge	Salvage Amount minute	$20.00	9,95221.52	9.97815.00	9.97710.00	10,01110.001	2.00	10,0122.00	20.00	9,994no value 10,213	5.00	10,22420.00	10,2174.75	4.75	10,2232.00	2.00'	10,2182.00	10,21611.00	10,22516.00	r10.00	10,226
4.00
4.00 20.00'
1.00 1.00
10.00
2.00
1.00
10,239
10,272
3.	(a) S20; (b) Yes. Calls for tenders were posted in Cambridge, Jemseg, and on the airport.


IMPORTATIONS OF ASPARAGUS
Mr. LENNARD:: What was the value of the asparagus, both fresh and canned, imported into Canada from the United States during the calendar years 1935, 1936 and 1937?


Mr. EULER:: Asparagus in cans Calendar Asparagus, or other air-tight years	fresh	containers
$	$
1935	
68,124	27,7651936	
145,033	49,1361937	
101,589	21.399
Questions


HOG PRODUCTION, GRADING AND EXPORT
Mr. McGREGOR:: 1.	How many hogs were slaughtered in Canada in each of the three years 1935, 1936, and 1937?
2.	How many hogs in each year were officially graded: (a) on the hoof; (b) on the rail?
3.	How many in each year were classed as selects ?
4.	What percentage of the kill in each year was exported to Great Britain as: (a) Wiltshire sides; (b) hams; (c) box cuts?


Mr. GARDINER:: 1.	Inspected slaughtering of hogs:
1935		 2,805,825
1936		 3,562,534
1937		 3,802,141
Wiltshires
1935		 79,126,105
1936		 93.644,513
1937		 115,084.817
Percentage of inspected slaughtering of hogs exported to Great Britain. On the basis of 120 pounds of bacon to a hog, bacon exports were equivalent to live hogs as follows: Pounds
1935..	..	121,325,616=1,011,046	live	hogs1936..	..	160,955,112=1,341,292	"	"1937..	..	192,757,163=1,606,309	"	"
Inspected slaughterings equivalent in live hogs exported:
Percentage of total kill exported
1935		 36 %
1936		 37-6%
1937		 42-2%


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION-RADIO LICENCES
Mr. LAWSON:: 1.	What were the total number of radio licences issued for the current year as of December 31, 1937?
2.	What net amount of money 'was received by the Department of Transport (after deduction of commissions, etc.), from the issue of such licences?
3.	W hat amount was paid to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in respect of radio licence fees during the calendar year 1937 or during the fiscal year commencing April 1, 1937, to date?
2.	Number of hogs officially graded:
	(a) Live	(b) Carcass
	graded	graded
1935.. .,	. 2,831,479	115,2091936.. .	. 3,297,973	447,4931937..	. 2,923,769	1,002,5413. Number of hogs officially graded as select	alive or "A"	grade carcass grading:	Selects	"A" grade1935.. .	
650,180	40,0431936.. .	
805,987	154,7761937.. .	
714,847	312,0874. Exports	of Wiltshire sides, hams am	other cuts to	Great Britain:	Hams	Other cuts Total bacon	24.254,274	17,945,337	121,325,61637,109,089	30,201,510	160.955,11241,726,249	35,946,097	192,757,163


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. ELLIOTT (Kindersley):: 1.	What are the total foreign investments in Canada?
2.	What are Canada's total payments to
foreign investors in:	(a) interest; (b) dividends ?
3.	What portion of Canada's balance of trade went to pay foreign credits?
4.	Is there any control over foreign investments in Canada for: (a) purposes of restriction, and (b) control of exchange operations?
5.	Through what agencies is exchange operated (explaining the operations) ?
6.	Are there any preferential exchange rates to certain importing countries, or is preference given solely by tariffs?
7.	How do tariffs, quotas and restrictions effect and/or interfere with purely local trade?
8.	Has Canada liquidated any of its foreign indebtedness during the last year or two? If so, how much? Has it increased, and, if so, how much?
9.	What is the controlling factor, making necessary, the floating of foreign loans?
10.	On whose authority was the last London loan floated?
11.	Was it not possible to borrow this money in Canada for the purpose intended?


MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. HOWE:: 1.	1.048,232.
2.	$1,925,014.61.
3.	From 1st April, 1937, to date-$1,870,000 (plus S110,000 credited in May, 1937, in respect of the year 1936-37)
[Mr. Euler.)


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weybum):: For a copy of all correspondence, letters, telegrams and other documents exchanged between the Post Office Department and any other person or persons from 1935 to date, concerning the proposed rental of the Bank of Montreal building in Ceylon, Saskatchewan, with a view to using the same as a post office.

Unemployment Relief-Federal Responsibility


REGINA-COLLECTOR OF CUSTOMS
Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: For a copy of all correspondence, telegrams, and other documents in the possession of the department, relative to the granting of an extension of one year to the collector of customs at Regina, Mr. J. H. Spooner, who attained the age of 65 and became eligible for superannuation on January 8, 1938.


UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview) moved:: That, in the opinion of this house, the government be requested to consider making direct relief, and also in part, urgent relief works, a federal responsibility entirely and not a municipal or provincial one, notwithstanding the provisions of any law, statute, usage or custom to the contrary;
And also consider a new measure of constitutional reform adapted to Canada's present-day circumstances so as to afford a more ready, just, equable and more immediate remedy and basis of dealing with all of Canada's social services of all and every kind, thus providing a quicker solution of the same and more equality of treatment for all provinces of confederation on the principle of each for all and all for each;
And, if deemed advisable, a select committee of the house be appointed to make a study and review of the whole question and report back to the house as quickly as possible.
He said: This resolution has been on the order paper since January 27 last. I did not know until the moment it came up yesterday of another such motion to go into supply. But, after all is said and done, the discussion yesterday will do no harm, although it anticipated this prior motion. In regard to the remarks I made last night, I believe from what the late Right Hon. Austen Chamberlain said that one will find as I have found the House of Commons to be a place of much kindness. I found also that the House of Commons is a sort of gentlemen's club. If I made an3' personal remarks last night it was the first time since I have been a member. But I say now that I am very much disappointed at the stand taken by the minister as far as the municipalities are concerned. I did not speak last night for the city of Toronto, far from it; my remarks were national in scope, not provincial, not municipal. They related to a problem which is Canada's greatest domestic problem since we have been a country, the care of the health, comfort, welfare and well-being of all the citizens of this country. That should be the supreme interest of parliament.
I am sorry if this resolution is taking up too much time, but too much, time cannot be
given to this chief domestic problem. This is the twenty-fifth day since parliament met and what have we done for the average forgotten man, the industrial worker, the farmer and the toiler who have no work by which to earn a living? Nearly all hon. members are owners of real estate; many of them know conditions better than I do; the medical men who visit these people, the social workers, the municipal workers, know the conditions that exist. Parliament meets and does nothing about the matter. The motion before the house to-day puts directly on the House of Commons full responsibility for the solution of this problem.
I was asked a question by an hon. member last night. I am sorry I did not know what his question was. I had no time to answer questions. Had I known what the hon. gentleman was asking I should have answered. He asked me what remedies I had. I did propose remedies. During the debate on the appointment of the Purvis commission I laid this matter right at the doorstep of the government and the gentlemen on the front benches and proposed remedies; I pleaded the cause of the man on the street to the man in the cabinet. I was very much disappointed last night at the reply which the minister made in the house. I gave concrete cases; I quoted conditions in forty cities all over Canada.
The government of the day is responsible for the solution of these problems as long as it is the government. Under the principles of responsible government the responsibility is not on members of the opposition; it is not on the private members. Under the constitutional practice from the days of Edmund Burke the government of the day is responsible to the electors for the way it administers the country, this sacred trust, as long as it is the government.
This resolution of mine is divided into two parts. It places the burden of relief where it belongs, on the federal government. I was asked last year by some municipalities to bring this matter up. They were of the opinion that the dominion government is the only body which can solve this problem, inasmuch as that government controls the tariff, trade and commerce, banks and banking and bills of exchange, and immigration. They brought the people into the country. This view of the municipalities was recently emphasized at the meeting of mayors. They asked that relief be borne forty per cent by the dominion, forty per cent by the provinces and twenty per cent by the municipalities Some ten years ago when the hon. member for Winnipeg
960	COMMONS
Vnemployment Relief-Federal Responsibility
North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) and I brought this question of relief to the attention of parliament, we suggested that the cost should be divided amongst the federal, the provincial and the municipal governments, one-third each. Until the dominion-provincial conference of 1934 that was the rule. At that time the dominion government changed the whole policy and decided that they would not deal directly with the municipalities in regard to relief. It is in the cities of over 40.000 popidation that ninety-five per cent of this relief burden arises. I am not referring to the drought sections, because that situation occurred later. In this resolution I ask that the government solve these problems. We live in a land of plenty, a land flowing with milk and honey; yet we have people starving owing to the failure of the government of the day to solve the greatest problem Canada has, that of distribution which is at the base of the whole question.
The second part of the resolution deals with the constitutional question. Last year I had a resolution before the house for constitutional, parliamentary, cabinet and law reform. The government in reply said, "We will appoint a royal commission," which they did. The commission was to be chosen to revise, amend and bring in a sort of new bill of rights for the forgotten man, and amendments to the British North America Act. That has all been changed, and we have now travelling throughout Canada a roaming commission. which can do nothing at all but give this parliament advice and opinions.
We were told two years ago that this travelling minstrel show, the Purvis commission, headed by the Canadian representative of the du Pont dynasty, the gentlemen who control Canadian Industries Limited, and other vast corporations, who controls sixty per cent of the companies engaged in transportation, distribution, agriculture and so on, was going to solve these problems, but that first it had to make a survey. We were told that we ought to read the essays of Carlyle before we would understand the problems of the country, and we were told that we did not have the facts. After spending two years in the collection of facts, what did we find? We found that all that was discovered had been found out. by the committee headed by Senator Couzens in the United States in 1927. They even copied the youth assistance idea from the findings of that committee, and that matter was brought up from the opposition benches years ago.
What reply did we get? Apparently the government policy is to balance the budget

and stop feeding the hungry. That is the policy of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers); I say that without fear of contradiction. They want to turn all these people back on the municipalities for any relief, who can depend only upon real estate taxes to meet their expenditures. Most hon. gentlemen here own real estate; we are investors first and members of parliament afterwards. Once in a while, instead of coming down here for five or six months and looking after the business of the country, we should look after our own affairs. I do not think I need appeal to hon. gentlemen because they are all investors in real estate.
In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, this problem can be settled only by the House of Commons. No municipal council and no provincial government can settle it. No Purvis commission or any other body can give us the solution. No Rowell commission can deal with it. That commission is travelling all over Canada. It is going to be a harvest for the lawyers, but all the unemployed will be dead before we get a report or any action on it. It simply means that the government of the day is postponing action. When the government does not have the courage to deal with a problem, a favourite way to postpone action is to appoint a roving royal commission and take judges off the bench instead of leaving them to attend to their judicial duties. We are told that this new Rowell commission is a fact-finding commission, as the Purvis commission was supposed to be. This is the second fact-finding commission we have sent out on the road. It will visit all parts of Canada; it will cost a large sum of money for lawyers to present briefs, and after they are presented they will be simply thrown into the waste paper basket. The commission was appointed solely for political expediency and will find out nothing not now known.
I repeat that parliament is the only place where this problem can be settled. In a previous debate I said that the provinces never should have been created; that they were created in this way by the fathers of confederation for political rather than economic reasons. At that time, in 1936. I coined the epigram that the various provinces, now ruled entirely by Liberal administrations, were like nine Balkan states, all quarrelling among themselves, and that is just what they are The present government do not admit responsibility for this problem; they say their aid is only a grant or loan. They go back to their stand of ten years ago When I asked a former Minister of Labour, Mr. Heenan if this government would contribute one-

Unemployment Relief-Federal Responsibility
third of the cost, he said no; that the question of unemployment under the British North America Act was one for the municipalities and the provinces
In my opinion, the remedies which have been proposed by the present government are wholly futile. It seems to me, after reading what the Minister of Labour said in the house last night, that he is making the whole problem a political question. I moved in the house, a week before the meeting of the mayors, that certain papers regarding relief be laid on the table. That information was laid on the table of the house on Friday, and on Saturday, at the meeting of mayors, only one or two government members had copies of it, the opposition members had none. I say to the minister that this is not a political question in any shape or form; it is an economic problem entirely. The remedies suggested by the government remind me of the celebrated remark of a well known Canadian, the late Hon. J. Israel Tarte, who said that elections are not won with prayers, and that platforms are made to get in on and not to stand on.
If hon. members opposite want to find out the policy of the Liberal party, or the remedies they propose, let them remember what was on the bill-boards all over the country during the last campaign, in 1935. "Beat Bennett and Bad Times." "Action, not Promises." "End Unemployment, Vote Liberal." That advertisement was in black and yellow colours, those of a famous racing stable, on a big bill-board at the Don river. Those colours were significant-the black for the unemployed and the yellow for the yellow policy of the government which will not tackle this problem. They did beat Bennett, but they have not carried out their promises to give us better times or solve unemployment or relief. They have appointed several commissions but otherwise have done nothing. They shoved off this new deal into the law courts, and then the decisions were put into cold storage. Nothing has been done even in regard to sickness and unemployment insurance, which has been part of the Liberal platform since 1919. Now it is said that nothing will be done about it this session, until the report of this Rowell commission is brought in next year or the year after. Parliament will not see it until after the next election.
This is the twenty-fifth day of this session, and the electors and ratepayers back home are asking what we are going to do about the matter. We have all the facts we want. The next election will be won by the voters of the middle classes and those whom I have called
the forgotten men, together with the industrial workers who have been driven to the wall. Eighteen men control the wealth of all Canada, the products of the sea, the soil, the forest and the mines, and no effort is made to have any equitable distribution of wealth or to solve the question of distributism. The only fair basis I see on which to meet this problem is the percentage basis. We have several volumes of these figures, reports and indexes which have been presented by the minister, but they do not show the real state of affairs in industry at all. Many Canadian workers are on part time. Many industries are closed up altogether, while others are threatened by the continuous tinkering with the tariff. It has been said that there may be some interference with the Ottawa agreements of 1932. While all this tariff tinkering is going on. who will invest money in business in Canada?
Last night the minister gave figures indicating that the number of unemployed has decreased steadily since 1930, until in 1937 the figure stood at 381,000. He said that last year it improved by 120,000, while 100,000 were taken off relief and put on payrolls. I challenge these figures. I had a letter from an indexed worker in my riding stating that he had been working in a very large industry in ward six. But he has been laid off for three or four months and has been unable to find other work. He applied to the fire department but could not get a job. In my opinion these indexes are not reliable. They may be all right sometimes, but it is another matter when the government undertake to count the people in the country who are out of work.
The main problem in industry in Canada, as I say, is that of unemployment, because no scheme of doles or insurance can take away the desire of free citizens to work. No insurance scheme can be a substitute for the desire of the ordinary man to find employment. Employment is the only agency by which the wealth of the nation can be distributed. Without distribution production is a mere waste of time. I am not altogether a believer in socialism. I believe the day to day conduct of business in Canada should be left to those who understand it, namely to the business men and the retail men in the country. It should not be left to a lot of index collectors, professors, royal commissions and so forth. I believe there are many abuses of the capitalist system, and many abuses in industry. Some people are protectionists only for what they can get out of it, protection themselves. The worst enemy of protection is that five per cent of the manu-

962	COMMONS
Unemployment Relief-Federal Responsibility
facturers who maintain sweat shops, and do not give the employees a chance, as was revealed by the price spreads committee. That committee should be reestablished, and the sooner the better. I believe business should be conducted along proper lines, and that there should be a fair readjustment and sharing of the profits of labour in industry.
The question of income tax has been referred to previously. I have before me the monthly reports of the Bank of Canada. They show that the country spent about $212,000,000 on unemployment, and the details are given in a chart. This chart shows a steady increase. About $212,000,000 has been spent on unemployment since the depression started. What has been collected in income tax in Ontario? During that same time they have collected S252,000,000 in that province. Every year the people of Ontario pay the full cost of relief for the whole of Canada, including the cost in the drought area of Saskatchewan, What does Ontario get? It gets little or nothing.
I believe in the principle of each for all and all for each, as set out at confederation. That is the only proper principle. Why should some provinces, because they support the government, be given a better percentage? Why is Ontario not given more consideration, because in that province the industrial worker is suffering as much as those who are in the prairie provinces? I am asking for a larger share of the income tax receipts.
I say that the dominion should share with the municipalities what it receives from Sir Thomas White's act of 1918. Real estate and income taxes have been taken away from the municipalities, and that means a loss of about $3,500,000 a year to the city of Toronto. I brought this matter to the attention of the house in the session of 1926-27 when, as reported at page 145 of volume I, of Hansard I moved:
Whereas it was deemed necessary and expedient to impose an income tax by the parliament of Canada as a revenue measure growing out of the war and to temporarily invade the former exclusive field of the municipalities to collect this form of taxation.
And whereas such taxation has led to duplication and there is an urgent demand for further reduction of taxation and to restore to the municipalities their former exclusive rights and prerogatives to this form of taxation.
Therefore this house will support the government in any immediate measures it may take to give effect to the principles of this resolution or to reduce taxation generally, including income tax, sales tax, stamp revenue postage and other forms of what are called nuisance taxes.
Some of those taxes have been removed, but the income tax has remained. In introducing the income tax measure in 1918, the

then minister of finance said that he hoped in a few years to hand back this type of taxation to the municipalities.
For these reasons I say that these conditions should be investigated. Then, would it not be a good thing to have a referendum at the next election giving the people an opportunity to say what they think about the duplication by way of overgovernment and overtaxation in Canada by having provincial governments. We should have a referendum as to whether or not the people are prepared to vote on the abolition of provincial legislatures. Since confederation they have been at the root of many errors in Canada. They have been at the root base of many racial jealousies. They have handed out natural resources of the sea, the forest and the mines to favourites, and we have had nothing to do with the matter. They are just a second municipal system. They were established only as an afterthought of the fathers of confederation. With her
47,000,000 people, Great Britain has not such a system. Australia has had one only recently, and I say that the form we have is just a glorified municipal council, or a large county council, as Sir Oliver Mowat called them.
What have they been doing? The moment Toronto, or Hamilton, or London or Windsor finds a new source of revenue, what does the province do? It grabs that source of revenue for itself, and takes it away from the municipality. It loads the burden of debt on real estate. I contrast the reply the mayors of Canada received from the minister with what Mr. Hopkins, WPA administrator, told the United States mayors at the Mayflower hotel conference held recently. He joined with the mayors of Chicago, Los Angeles and Cleveland in asserting the responsibility of the federal government for the care of the unemployed. The conference took no action, however, on the question, beyond referring to its resolutions committee a resolution asking a thirty per cent increase in WPA quotas to cities, on account of the increased cost of food, clothing, coal and rent. The administrator was supported . by Mr. J. Warren Madden, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, who told the conference there is no reason whatever for Americans to be pessimistic about the practicability of industrial democracy. There is considerable reason for the workers to be pessimistic about any action taken by this government with respect to the control of the high cost of living or relief.
I notice in a recent publication of hon. members opposite, known as the Canadian Liberal Monthly, the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett is charged with the responsibility

Unemployment Relief-Federal Responsibility
for Liberal inaction. In answer to that statement, would not Hansard show the discussion in connection with Mr. Bennett's New Deal policy when hon. members opposite, then on this side of the house, sat as dumb as oysters? The head of the department would not say whether he was for or against it, and had no views on the subject during the debate.
The answer of the present Minister of Labour to the municipalities is along the same line. The government has not been able to make up its mind with respect to social reforms, on which platform it was elected. If the government literature in this monthly publication is correct in saying that the legislation of the late government was ill considered, hastily drafted, and condemned with the stigma of unconstitutionality, were not hon. members opposite, now on the government benches, aware of that fact when the legislation was passed? Where have they been since they took office? They will have to repeal those measures, or cure their defects. But nothing has been done, except that the decision of the privy council has been put into cold storage, and unemplosonent relief abandoned after all the bill-board promises.
What does the government propose to do for the house owner? Is it going to wait until the royal commission presents its report? The relief in municipalities will be reduced, if the federal government does not do something about the matter. Fears were expressed at the mayors' meeting with respect to relief, and it was indicated that if dominion grants are not increased, the provinces will not make to the municipalities the grants which they made last year. Through income tax the provinces have taken money belonging to the municipalities.
In passing, may I say a word or two about my observations of last night. I did not refer to local matters. The hon. member for Brant (Mr. Wood) made some observations in the house last night. He made his annual filibuster-to use his own word-against the city of Toronto. He is one of those hit and run members, who hits out about something he knows nothing about. He was one of those who supported the Drury farmers government in Ontario.
I was not responsible for bringing up this matter and I did not know anything about it. In answer to the hon. gentleman I may say that every utility in the city of Toronto is self-sustaining and has its own sinking fund and costs not a cent in the tax rate. Services are given to the public at cost. Twenty years ago the water rates were running away behind, but to-day the city of Toronto is supplying water to about fifteen 51952-611
different municipalities at cost, and that fine system is self-sustaining on low rates. Roads have been built into the county as far as fifteen miles to permit the bringing in of milk and other farm produce. The city of Toronto paid forty per cent of the cost of building and maintaining the Toronto- Hamilton highway. If it were not for the city of Toronto there would be no hydro electric service in the province or any Chippawa plant. The city of Toronto saw to it that outside places received their electric power at the same rate. The Toronto transportation system, the hydro electric system, the water system and other utilities are all seh-sustaining; it is not necessary for the taxpayers to put up one cent in taxes for them. Toronto is the most solvent city on the American continent.
As the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Heaps), the whip for the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, said, it was mosl unfair to consider the gross debt and pay no attention to the net debt, but what did the hon. member for Brant care about that? Toronto is the only city that I know of which supplies transportation at cost on a five cent basis. The hon. member for Brant made his annual tirade against the city of Toronto. He was one of those who supported the farmer government, known as the Drury government, in Ontario. We all know where they went. Manufacturers and others were denounced as grabbers and robbers, and the result was that no manufacturer would invest in industry in the province while that government remained in office. The hon. gentleman represents 18.000 constituents in Brant constituency, but when I followed Sir George Foster as the member for North Toronto I represented
120.000.	Apparently the hon. gentleman is not a believer in that good old clear grit doctrine, "representation by population." I was surprised to see the Minister of Labour justify the erroneous statements which had been made by the hon. member for Brant and congratulate him. I was surprised when Liberal members from Toronto did not rise in their places to correct the hon. gentleman.
I have the report from the bureau of statistics and I know that his figures were not correct.
According to the figures of the bureau of statistics, the real estate board, the Bank of Canada, and others, the capital debt of Toronto is little or nothing considering the net debt and the great revenues of utilities. Tha* city has the largest sinking fund of any city in the dominion. A total of 828,000,000 ha* been set aside as a sinking fund to pay the debt. The city spends many thousands in providing hospitalization and education, summer and winter fairs, and other services
964	COMMONS
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which this government should provide. This parliament was able to vote three millions and a quarter to provide for the health of animals, but it could vote only $427,000 to provide for the health of humans. It was left to the city of Toronto to pioneer in modern health work under the late Doctor Hastings. That work benefited the city of Brantford and other places throughout Canada.	_
The city of Toronto was left out of the distribution of relief work and had to pay $100,000 for the construction of a breakwater at the island. The first time since confederation cities in Quebec were given millions of dollars when Toronto got little or nothing. This was the treatment given although that city contributes vast amounts in the form of income tax. All these relief works are a direct charge against income and are paid for largely by income tax collections. I do not wish to detain the house any longer as our session to-day will be only for the afternoon and there are others who may want to express an opinion on this matter. This is not a local matter, but it has been made a political football by the present government.
This House of Commons is the only body that can solve this problem. As the resolution refers t the British North America Act, I shall say a few words about that. We want the British North America Act for the living, not for the dead. This act has placed our industrial workers and farmers in straitjackets. The phrase I used three years ago is still true and these people are still in straitjackets. We are the only body that can settle this question, not the present royal commission under Mr. Rowell. The	British North
America Act should be revised and all these social services should be readjusted. Confederation is at the cross roads; we are at the parting of the ways under the act as it is at the present time.
If the government wants to find some money to provide these social services, let them solve the railway problem. Did not the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and others say in the last election that if they were returned to power they would settle the railway problem in short order? We must provide for a deficit of $40,000,000 a year in connection with our railways. Then there is drought relief, pensions and all that to be considered. This government can afford to send a useless deputation to the League of Nations; they can spend three and a quarter millions all told on that organization since 1922; there are many ways of finding revenue; but when it comes to providing a few dollars

for hospitalization and relief of the hungry and needy, they say they have not anything.
It would have been far better if the advice of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) had been taken and these matters discussed at a round table conference as they do in Washington. That would have been better than appointing a royal commission which can only collect facts and give advice about which nothing will be done for years. That would have been the proper way to settle these matters, especially when the government of the day have their friends in office in the provincial governments. Or it would have been far better if a committee of this house had been set up to consider these things. We got somewhere with the mass buying and price spreads committee and we demonstrated that facts could be found very quickly.


Mr. SAMUEL FACTOR (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, if I understood the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) correctly, he suggested that we ought to approach this problem first as investors and second as members of parliament. I suggest to him that we should reverse that process and consider the problem first as members of a national parliament and second as investors.
Before the economic depression set in, relief was primarily a municipal and provincial responsibility and was assumed by these authorities as such. In order to illustrate this point may I say that figures furnished by the department of public welfare of the city of Toronto indicate that even back ;n the year 1922 Toronto spent some $114,969 on direct unemployment relief, in addition to .providing other general social services such as hospitalization, care of indigents, clinics, children's aid societies, Ontario training schools, industrial refuges, mothers' allowances, old age pensions and the like. In 1922 the city of Toronto expended $1,367,444 on direct relief and the providing of these general social services; and so on during the years 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926 and 1927. In 1928 and 1929, two years of so-called boom or prosperity, the city of Toronto expended, respectively, $1,909,007 and S2,036,910. These figures clearly indicate that the municipal authorities were then assuming this responsibility and perhaps were quite capable of doing so. When, however, relief became so general as to constitute a matter of national concern, the dominion government came to the assistance of the provincial and municipal authorities with a system of grants in aid. I shall not discuss at the present time the efficacy of that system, or criticize it unduly, but I should like to quote a passage from the interim
MARCH 2. 1938	96g
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report of the national employment commission, referring to the situation in respect of grants in aid as the commission saw it on taking office:
A system of aid, to which the dominion contributed, which had developed without adequate regard for the causes of the distress relieved and with insufficient safeguards, and which in consequence tended to discourage rather than encourage reemployment.
In any event this system of grants in aid was established, and under the legislation of the former administration the dominion contributed on a percentage basis; thirty-three and a third per cent was provided bv the province, the municipality and the federal government respectively. In August, 1934, when the administration which the hon. member for Broadview supported was in power, the system was changed and the grants in aid were cut down to a monthly sum of
8600,000.	This was in effect between August 1, 1934, and November 30, 1935, while the former administration was in office. In other words, during that period the grant in aid was decreased in percentage from thirty-three and a third to 21-11 per cent. I ask the hon. member for Broadview and the hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris), both of whom were in the house at that time, why they kept such a discreet silence when the percentage of relief was decreased? Why did they not criticize the administration for reducing the percentage of relief as I have indicated? The other two hon. members, representing St. Paul's (Mr. Ross) and Greenwood (Mr. Massey), were not then in the house; they were only budding politicians; but surely the hon. members for Danforth and Broadview could have risen in their places and protested against the decrease.
I am not prepared to criticize the former administration for having inaugurated that reduction, because I think they found that a percentage grant of relief is not in the interest of the taxpayer, that it encourages an excess of municipal expenditures and has caused many municipalities to become insolvent. But in any event these hon. members were silent.


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


Samuel Factor: Yes.


Joseph Henry Harris: What portion of the
moneys paid out for direct relief at the time he mentions were revealed in the tax rate or in the taxes collected by the city of Toronto in the year to which he refers, which I believe was 1933?


Samuel Factor: I have those figures, and
if the hon. member will permit me I will refer to them later.


Joseph Henry Harris: The hon. member knows
that there was nothing in the tax rate, and that now there are two millions of dollars paid in taxes.


Samuel Factor: I appreciate the question, and I will answer it when I come to it.


Joseph Henry Harris: That explains the silence.


Samuel Factor: In 1935 the present administration came into power, and what happened? The grants in aid to the province were increased to seventy-five per cent and the monthly grants increased to 81,050.000. In other words the percentage was increased fiom 21-11 to 31-91. I do not recall hearing the hon. members for Broadview and Danforth give any measure of praise to this administration for increasing the grant in aid from twenty-one to thirty-one per cent. There was an indiscreet silence at that time.
In April 1936 conditions undoubtedly had improved, and the grants in aid were reduced to 8892,000. There were successive adjustments from April 1936 to June 1937, when the grants amounted roughly to about 8600,000 a month, or thirty-two per cent of the total. In July 1937 they were reduced to 8480.000, and remained at this amount till September, 1937. then amounting to thirty-eight per cent of the total; and in October 1937 the amount was reduced to 8465,000, to continue to the end of the fiscal year, March 31.
I wish to quote a few figures to indicate how fairly and adequately the federal administration tried to deal with the provinces. Since the government came into office the dominion grants in aid to all the provinces, as of December 31. 1937, amounted to 859,404.798. Of this amount Ontario has received 819.941,750, or 33-6 per cent. The population of Ontario, according to the bureau of statistics estimates for the year 1937, is 33-4 of the population of the dominion. I believe hon. members will agree with me that that was a fair allocation of the grants in aid. Further, of the total number in receipt of material aid in the dominion in January 1937, twenty-nine per cent were in Ontario; in January 1938 the percentage in Ontario of the dominion total dropped to 22-6. From January 1937 to January 1938 the reduction of the numbers in Ontario in receipt of material aid was 32-4; in the same period the reduction for the dominion, apart from the drought areas, was 23-6 per cent, and for the dominion including the drought areas, 13-6 per cent. In January 1937 the percentage of Ontario's population on material aid was 9-2; in January 1938 the percentage had dropped to 6-2. The percentage of the population in receipt of material aid, apart from the drought area, was, in January 1937, 9-1, and in
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January 1938, 7-1. Persons in receipt of assistance in Ontario in January 1937 numbered 340,099; the number in receipt of assistance in January 1938 was 230,000, or a reduction of thirty-two per cent. Cost of relief, as estimated by the province, was in January 1937, S2,503.462, and in January 1938, 81,800,000, or a reduction of twenty-eight per cent. Last session parliament voted some 819,500,000 for distribution to the provinces by way of grants in aid. and I can sincerely say that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) and this government have allocated that sum very fairly and equitably, considering the financial position of the respective provinces. A province that claims a surplus, a reduction in debt, a province that reduces taxation in various forms, is a province that should not ask for as much assistance as one that is not in such a good financial position. That is my opinion.
May I for a few moments consider the problem of the city of Toronto. I wish to discuss the situation there not as a local matter but as one that is indicative generally of the situation in the municipalities. In the first place I would point out that the tax rate in Toronto for the last year was 34-85 as compared with 18-5 mills in 1912. The taxation last year totalled 832,437,530, of which realty supplied S2S,532,530, or approximately 93 per cent. I have no doubt hon. members will all agree that the burden of taxation on realty in Toronto and in other municipalities is getting beyond endurance; it is reaching the stage where the municipalities will be unable to carry the load. I say further with regard to real estate that with present values and under present revenue-producing conditions seventy-five per cent of the real estate in Toronto is not worth the mortgages placed upon it. This is a very serious situation.
In the last few years, from 1932 until last year, the assessment in the city of Toronto was reduced from 8989,000,000, in round figures, to 8906,000,000; in other words, because of the decrease in the value of real estate, the assessment was reduced by over $80,000,000 in that period, with the inevitable result that the tax rate had to be increased and the load of taxation again placed heavily on real estate. I would also point out the tremendous load that has been borne by the municipality so far as direct relief is concerned. I have statistics for the last fifteen years from 1922, showing that the total cost to the city of Toronto of unemployment relief was the huge sum of $17,765,452. It is becoming an intolerable burden for the taxpayers. So far as the relief situation is concerned, let me
assure you that the people on relief in Toronto are not getting honey and cakes, so to speak; the level of the relief voucher is very low, and the city council has under consideration a motion to increase it by fifteen per cent. Hon. members will appreciate the almost impossible position in which the municipalities find themselves, particularly Toronto.
I must insist, however, that there is also a bright side to the picture. I was surprised to hear the hon members for Broadview, Danforth, St. Paul's and Greenwood say that the conditions were not better in Toronto last year than they were before. Why did they not refer to the same brief that was furnished by the department of public welfare? They should have looked up the figures to see what happened in Toronto.


Joseph Henry Harris: I did not make the statement that the hon. member has just attributed to me.


Samuel Factor: If I read Hansard correctly I thought the hon. member was criticizing the administration, that he wanted a strong man of action to do something.


Joseph Henry Harris: Quite so, yes.


Samuel Factor: Well, let me for the enlightenment of the hon. member give him some figures furnished by the department of public welfare of Toronto. With the permission of the house I should like to place this table on Hansard because it clearly indicates the enormous improvement that has taken place in 1937 as compared with 1936. The gross expenditure for relief for 1936 was in round figures, $8,765,000 and for the year 1937, $7,194,000 or a reduction of $1,570,000. Let us take the net cost to the city. In 1936 it was $3,139,000 and in 1937, 82,409,000, or a reduction of $729,339.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Will the hon. gentleman read the figures for 1936-37, for December?


Samuel Factor: Yes. I shall be glad to do that. For December, 1936, the net cost to the city was $369,910 and for December, 1937, it was $266,766. Let me say this to the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol). If he will cast his eagle eye over the last column of these statistics he will find a most encouraging picture with regard to the total number of persons on voucher and house of industry relief, including single men in hostels. I should like to read these figures by months because they show beyond question the steady, gradual improvement in Toronto as a result of policies put into operation by the present administration. In January, 1936, there were 100,415 people on relief and in January, 1937, 78,561.

Unemployment Relie I-Federal Responsibility
This is the table:
Dirkct Unemployment Relief Gross and Net Cost. etc.
Gross Expenditure Month	1936	1937January	
$961,986	$768,578February	
927,512	755,521March	
980,956	778,265April	
868,301	716,893May	
650,098	572,163June	
615,898	483,385July	
568.944	461,498August	
560,694	436,104September	
555,240	439,494October	
641,034	508,902November	
675,381	582,385December	
758,410	691,766Total	
8,765,054 7,194,954
Let me point out that between the months of January, 1936, and October, 1937, there was a fifty per cent reduction in the number of people on relief in Toronto, from 100,000 to 50,000. Will bon. members deny, then, that conditions have improved? I am not saying that we have reached Utopia; far from it. The problem of unemployment relief is still the greatest domestic problem facing the people of Canada to-day. As long as we have even 61,000 people on relief in the city of Toronto, as we had in December, 1937, we cannot sit back in smug self-complacency and say that we have solved the problem of relief or of unemployment.
Here may I interject a word in regird to the trade policies of the government. Much has been said by protectionist members from Toronto to the effect that this policy of expansion of trade has-I think they almost said-hurt the city of Toronto, if one interprets their remarks correctly. But I tell those hon. members that I know of no single cause which has been so effective in bringing about the reduction in unemployment in Toronto last year as the trade policies of this administration.


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


Samuel Factor: Certainly.


Alexander McKay Edwards: Will he explain how any person will be given work if the goods are produced in another country?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.
Total Number of Individuals onVoucher and H. of I. Relief including Single Men in Hostels Net Cost to City (Peak Week in Month)
1936	1937	1936	1937$278,968	$268,578	100,415	78,561255,985	255,521	100,529	78,425269,418	228,205	97,864	76,028287,124	236,893	90,915	73,171223,504	172,163	81,941	64,812212,863	163,385	74,327	56,730194,639	151,498	70,728	52,237215,530	136,104	68,767	49,833222,240	139,494	67,669	48,928294,4S1	1SS.902	66.178	50,531314,631	202,385	69,915	54,819369,910	266,766	74,873	61,8773,139,293	2,409,954


Alexander McKay Edwards: That is a pertinent question. How are you going to do it if the work is done in another country?


An hon. MEMBER:: All exports and no imports!


Alexander McKay Edwards: No, I do not believe in that.


Samuel Factor: I do not know of any work that Canadians are able to do in this country which has been diminished by the policies of the present administration. On the contrary I tell the hon. member, who comes from an industrial centre, that because of the trade policies of the present administration the purchasing power of the agricultural population has been largely increased so that they are able to buy more of the products of the industrial centres.


Alexander McKay Edwards: I do not like to interrupt, but if the hon. member will permit, I tell him that ninety-five per cent of the production of the county of Waterloo is consumed within the county of Waterloo.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Because the manufacturing towns prosper.


Samuel Factor: If the hon. members want to make a speech I shall be glad to listen to them.


Alexander McKay Edwards: Pardon me.


Samuel Factor: I repeat that we must have a balanced economy. I am not prepared to have our secondary industries sacrificed in an.'
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way, but I do say that the extreme point of view suggested by hon. members opposite will not do our national economy any good.


Alexander McKay Edwards: That is all a myth.


Samuel Factor: Getting back to the problem of unemployment as far as the city of Toronto is concerned, it is clearly shown that there has been considerable improvement. But in all kindness to hon. members from Toronto I say that extreme and exaggerated speeches in this house will not do Toronto any good. They will not do the province of Ontario any good or do this country any good.


Miss MACPHAIL:: Ontario is used to exaggerated speeches.


Samuel Factor: You mean from Toronto.


Mr. SPENCE:: The hon. lady means from Queen's park.


Samuel Factor: This government has dealt fairly and equitably with the problem of relief. It has contributed seventy-five per cent of the cost of old age pensions, has assumed the cost of pensions to the blind-


James Houston Spence: This government is paying the seventy-five per cent now, but the government did not start it. Why take the credit for it?


Samuel Factor: This government is continuing to pay the shot, and it was this government which inaugurated pensions for the blind. The total cost of old age pensions and pensions to the blind in 1937 was S9.441,-984. In the province of Ontario this government assumed the entire cost of supplementary assistance to unemployed war pensioners, which in 1937 amounted in that province to over a million dollars. This government is going to enact unemployment insurance. This government as indicated by a resolution of the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Power), is extending the War Veterans' Allowance Act to include relief of war veterans who have been in a theatre of war and who are not one hundred per cent physically fit. I ask this government that, in bringing down the estimates for the coming year, it cooperate to the fullest extent with the provincial authorities so that the taxpayers in Toronto and other municipalities may have their burden lightened.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Only a change of government will do that.


Mr. STREIGHT:: That will be a long time coming.


Samuel Factor: We have in the last few months been in a period of recession. I think the revenues of the country indicate that we
[Mr. Factor.)
are being affected by conditions in the United States, and, optimistic as I should like to be, I fear that for 1938 the relief picture may not be as pleasant as we all hope it will be.
I therefore suggest that the government take this condition into consideration in making their estimates for relief for 1938.
I believe that the respective powers of the municipalities, provinces and dominion in regard to raising revenues to meet such obligations as arise from relief expenditures, while they may have been appropriate at the time of confederation, are entirely unsatisfactory in the light of present conditions. I believe that the government took a proper step in establishing the Rowell commission to investigate this problem, in order to furnish to hon. members of this house the information gathered by their investigations. There ought to be re-allocation of responsibility to meet present-day conditions, but surely the basis of any change must be accurate information, and the government have taken the initial step to obtain that accurate information. If the resolution of the hon. member for Broadview is adopted the effect would be to substitute a committee of this house for the Rowell commission. With all due respect to the qualifications and abilities of hon. members of this house I maintain that the members of the royal commission are far more suitable, far more able, and perhaps have far more time and greater capacity to undertake an investigation of this kind, and to furnish the necessary information, and I feel certain that the time is fast approaching when, based upon the information gathered by the royal commission, this administration, which I know will be in power for the next few years to come, will take the matter into consideration and so adjust conditions as to meet the problem that we are discussing this afternoon.
May I conclude by saying to all members of this house that it certainly is not in the best interests or to the advantage of our country at this time and on this occasion to snipe politically, or indulge in carpiDg criticism of the actions of the government. This is a time for unity. This is a time for accord among all those who have the interests of our country at heart. Tremendous problems face us to-day, and the only way we can hope to solve them is, first, by having a thorough understanding of them, and, second, by unanimity in an endeavour to solve them.


Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, though this
resolution is brought forward by a Conservative member from Toronto I feel that we in this corner cannot let the opportunity pass without expressing our support of the prin-

Unemployment Relief-Federal Responsibility
ciples involved in it. These principles, I think, are two; first, that direct relief should be regarded as a federal responsibility, and second, the need for constitutional reform. Again and again we have urged these principles.
First with regard to constitutional reform, it is quite true that there is a special commission investigating the relations between the dominion and the provinces, but that would not preclude a thorough study of the situation by a committee of this house. In his closing words the last speaker suggested that we had to have a very thorough knowledge of the situation. I think that is true, and while we are having committees dealing with all sorts of subjects there is no real reason why a committee of this house should not deal with the urgent problem that is before us to-day. Suppose the Rowell commission does report in the course of another year. What then? It will lay before us a certain amount of information. It may make certain recommendations. It is then for the government to adopt the report and the recommendations. We have had a good many royal commissions in the past which have cost the country a great deal of money and which have made very thorough investigations, but this government has taken no action on those recommendations. Suppose this commission comes back and reports that there should be radical changes in the British North America Act. Is it possible that this government would recommend those changes? For years we have been recommending such changes as being absolutely necessary, yet nothing has come of the matter. This year the government is asking for one simple amendment, to facilitate the passage of an unemployment measure. That in itself is anticipating what the royal commission may recommend, and I am afraid that, like a great many other things, this particular matter will be held up.
Almost daily we are blocked in this house by jurisdictional disputes. I was in a committee yesterday where this same thing came up, as it comes up again and again. We all know that the House of Commons can do practically nothing because of this trouble over jurisdiction. In the meantime the people are suffering; the country is suffering. Why should we let another parliament pass by without taking some action? Why should not we in this very parliament, instead of seeking one little amendment to the British North America Act, claim the right to amend the act as we see fit? Until some government is courageous enough to take some such action, I am afraid various social measures are not going to get very far.
Now we come to the main question, that of federal responsibility for direct relief. I would point out that, as everyone knows, to-day unemployment differs radically from the unemployment of twenty or thirty years ago. To-day unemployment is not due primarily to local causes. It may be that there is still a small amount of unemployment which is due to individual incapacity, individual shiftlessness, laziness and so on, but we all recognize that the great mass of unemployment to-day is due to general causes, great national causes, in fact world causes. Everything in the way of improvement in the situation, according to the last speaker, is due to the actions of the Liberal government; but everything in the way of depression is due to the policies of the United States, or something else. I submit that we need to get away from that kind of party argument. Whatever government is in power is going to have difficulty with the unemployment question as it exists at the present time.
I do not intend to-day to burden the record with a mass of figures. I would refer hon. members to the statements that have been submitted by the province of Manitoba or by my own city of Winnipeg. I do not think we need go to the submissions of other provinces. The conditions prevailing in my own province and especially in my own city are almost desperate. I am not however making a plea merely on that local ground, because we are more or less typical of the whole of Canada, though undoubtedly the west is more seriously affected. I suggest that the difficulty to-day is to no small extent due to the tariff and trade policies of this country, and let me say that, despite all the protestations of the Liberal party, tariffs have not altered very materially under the Liberal regime. The trouble is due to financial policy, for which this dominion government is primarily responsible, and to our foreign policy. And when we have large numbers of the people unemployed because of the policies of the dominion government. I care not whether they are the policies of the Conservative government or of the Liberal government, the least the dominion government can do is to assume responsibility for the effects of those policies. That is the ground for pressing this resolution.
This year. Mr. Speaker, I think more than in any other year I have been in parliament, I have been almost obsessed with a sense of the futility of the whole business, with a sense of frustration. I look around this house and recognize the faces of a great many people I have come to know during the years I have been here. They are splendid men, men who
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are kind, thoughtful, and ordinarily intelligent. And yet this problem has been with us year after year. We have had it, in acute form, for nearly ten years. What are we doing about it? We are puting it off from month to month and from year to year. I require all the courage I can summon to get to my feet on the floor of the house this year. There are about seventy members present. I would not say it is not worth while to talk to seventy people; but what is going to be accomplished by talk? One can put forward the best arguments of which he is capable; one can enter upon the record large masses of statistics, but what do they avail?
The government has a huge majority, and there is nothing to prevent its meeting the needs of the people-nothing whatever. And yet I charge that, speaking by and large, the government has done very little since it was elected, nearly three years ago-very little. When we look at the program placed before us at this session, what does it amount to? The biggest thing, so far as the common people are concerned, is the unemployment insurance measure. But does anyone imagine it is going to go through? And if it does go through, it will touch only the very fringe of the problem of unemployment.
There is the situation we face. The government has a huge majority and yet it does practically nothing. Further than that, it is using its majority to prevent measures being effectively brought before the house. What has happened? There was a division on the address in reply, and since that time there has been no division of the house. Steadily, steadily, steadily, whether a question is of importance or of very little importance, the government has adopted the tactics of either adjourning the debate, when a matter is a very ticklish one which, if brought to a vote, might cause an inconvenience, or on the other hand, of talking it out. I presume that will be the fate of the resolution now before us, and of almost every other resolution hon. members may present this session. That means, in turn, that a great many resolutions which at least some of us thought would be important are being shoved aside. I would not mind so much having private resolutions pushed aside, if the government were doing something along these important lines, but it is not. I think it is time the country as a whole recognized the fact that this government is not only proposing to do nothing, but also is determined to implement a certain policy of "hush, hush" which prevents parliament being the forum it ought to be.

This kind of thing is a danger to democracy. All along we have boasted 'hat constitutional, parliamentary means afforded the best way in which to bring about reforms. If I were in the position of many a poor unemployed man to-day, do you imagine 1 could be persuaded to wait, wait, wait, until parliament helped me out, or until some commission reported favourably, and parliament took recommended action? I do not believe it. I do not wonder that there are crimes committed. I am not advocating crime-and I do not want anyone to put that in my mouth-but I say I do not wonder that desperate, unemployed men commit crimes. I do not wonder a bit.
Nor do I wonder at the development of fascism in some parts of Canada. If we are not going to get action from a so-called democratic government, men are not going to go on suffering forever. They are going to take action in some other way. I say that any government which has postponed constructive action, as this government has done, is a menace to democracy in Canada.
I think of the large groups of out-of-works I have met. I have no doubt many hon. members meet similar groups in their constituencies. Sometimes I imagine that because some of us are trying to represent labour we meet more than our share of these people. We see them in homes of refuge, in camps, and on the streets. A haphazard way of treating them has been going on for eight or ten years. The men are either getting desperate or, on the other hand, are becoming so hopeless that they will never be of any use to the country.
I am thinking particularly of the youth. Again and again we have had inquiries as to what is to be done for our youth. Recreational projects have been brought to our attention. But when I see a young fellow of twenty, twenty-three or twenty-five years who has never worked and never will work,-if this condition continues much longer he will not be capable of working-I urge it is a desperate situation. These men are not trained to work. In time, they have not the disposition, and never will work. If there were only fifty, a hundred or a thousand of these young men perhaps we might not feel that the condition was serious, but there are tens of thousands of them, and the best we have hitherto been able to do for them has been to send them to a camp where they receive a meagre amount, and where they engage in what they themselves know to be a dead-end

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sort of vocations, if they may be called such. They are at jobs which lead nowhere, and they know it.
I shall not enter further into the situation to-day. From time to time we have advocated various constructive measures. We believe that if a man is out of work, through no fault of his own, the state has the responsibility of giving him a decent living-not a pittance, and not charity. I do not ask that that decent living should be given without his contributing his part. When I think of the statistics which were read to us a few days ago respecting housing conditions in almost all our cities in Canada, I conclude that there is work enough to do. There is plenty of work to be done in Canada, and I advocate housing because I do not know of any program which would put a larger number of unemployed to work, or which would benefit a larger section of the public.
What can we do about it? Does the government purpose putting on an extensive housing campaign? We have not heard of it. Again we hear, "Where is the money to come from?" This morning in the banking and commerce committee we were told by an expert from the United States that there was great difficulty to-day in finding fields for investment. Certain classes of people are able to amass wealth, and their savings are so great that they do not know how to invest them in regular enterprise. That situation has developed in Canada as well.
It is obvious that nothing short of some considerable redistribution in national income will bring about a desirable condition. Why not accomplish it by means of taxation? Again and again we have urged in the house a heavier income tax. I do not see why the tax should not be higher in the higher income brackets. Then, the inheritance tax, I think, has never been used by the federal parliament. There is no reason why the dominion should not use it, despite the fact that some provinces are using it.
The other day a very estimable gentleman died leaving a fortune of $2,000,000 almost entirely to his own family. There have been several deaths recently from which we have come to know of the considerable fortunes which have been piled up by a few individuals in our midst. Giving due credit to these men for their ability and all the rest of it, the opportunity to amass a large fortune to-day is granted by the state. There is no earthly reason why at least a portion of these great fortunes should not be taken back and utilized for the good of the less fortunate members of the community-none whatever.
It was some years ago that I read in a pamphlet dealing with the inheritance tax published by the British labour party this little phrase:
Naked man came into the world and naked he should go out again.
There is a great deal of truth in that. Let us make provision for the immediate needs of the dependants of the man who passes away, but let us not seek to perpetuate these fortunes which really mean that the rest of the community is under tribute to those who inherit. Although the government may talk out this resolution this afternoon, although it may continue to move the adjournment of the debates on the various motions which we bring forward from time to time, these are only temporary ways of saving its own-


Agnes Campbell Macphail: Hide.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes, its own hide, as the hon. member for Grey-Bruce (Miss Macphail) suggests. Those are only temporary ways of, shall I say, sliding by without dividing the party and without raising any great hostility in certain sections of the country, but I do not think such tactics can be regarded in any sense as indications of true statesmanship. As I said earlier, to neglect these pressing, vital social problems is to endanger that democracy which I think we all hold dear.


Mr. J. A. MARSH (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I listened very attentively last night to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) when he was replying to several hon. members representing city constituencies. In rising to speak to-day, and it will be but briefly, I am actuated only by a deep concern for the man who wishes to fulfil what I would say is the third most fundamental material thing in life. Perhaps you may not agree with my sequence of ideas, but I would say that the first is to get married, the second is to have a family and the third is to own a home, pay for it, live in it and keep it regardless of all the adversities to which the average man is subject
May I presume that we are all agreed that a nation of home owners is a contented and happy nation. I was reading the other day that the people of a certain country not far removed from us spent more last year on radios than they spent on the purchase of homes, and that they had spent several times more money on the purchase of automobiles than on the acquiring of homes. I do not think that is the condition in Canada, and I would be very sorry if it is. I submit that if citizens in Canada are to preserve and keep their homes and if the young man is to fulfil
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the ambition of his boyhood to own a home as a sanctuary for himself, his wife and his children, some tax-alleviating legislation must be passed to make that possible.
It has been said, I think truthfully, that the building trades are the backbone of prosperity, and that the product or products of the building trade is real estate from which is extracted the bulk of our taxation. The burden of relief in our municipalities has been soaring since 1930. Because of increasing tax rates and assessments which have been consistently too high, we have placed on the home owner a burden of taxation that he cannot bear up under. The poor home owner is bowlegged and humpbacked from trying to cari'y this burden. This condition has been caused by a frantic effort on the part of the municipalities to get revenue from the only source available, that is from real estate taxation and other levies in the way of licences and levies on the business man.
Several hon. members from Toronto have pointed out that in that city real estate bears ninety per cent of the burden of taxation. In Hamilton real estate bears 88-4 per cent of the burden of taxation. The result is that the home owner and the small business man are bearing almost the total burden of relief. W hat incentive is there for a man to own his home? What incentive is there for a young man to fulfil the dearest ambition of his life, and practise one of the fundamental principles of citizenship?
To some extent municipalities are restricted in their ability to tax. The province has wider powers and the federal government, through this House of Commons, has access to the widest field of all in the way of taxation. The mayors of various cities waited upon the provincial government and also upon the Minister of Labour of this government, and the result was that the province said: We will cooperate with you, we will try to do something for you, we will try to shoulder a greater part of your load. However, I understand that this is a step which this government, through its Minister of Labour, does not care to take. The result is a stalemate and the municipalities are faced with the probability of having to shoulder more than half the cost of relief for 1938.
I was interested last night in hearing the Minister of Labour say:
I fully agree with what has been said to-night regarding^ the plight of the small property owner. From the time I first came into active contact with the relief problem in Canada I have been impressed with the unfairness of a system of relief which presses as heavily as it does upon those who own real estate. But I would suggest to hon. members that the only
I Mr. Marsh.)
solution to this problem does not lie in an increase in grants in aid payable by the dominion to the provinces. It is within the power of the provinces to increase the grants to municipalities, over and above the amount received from the dominion government. It is also within the power of the provincial governments to confer wider powers of taxation upon the municipalities within their borders.
The province has promised fuller cooperation, and inasmuch as this is a national problem, I suggest that we regard it as such and do something to relieve the property owner. I wonder if we realize the extent of unemployment and relief payments still obtaining in our cities, despite what we hear of increasing revenues and trade and commerce. I am not saying that conditions are not slowly getting better. The employment figures are mounting gradually, but I am speaking about the municipality of which I know most, the city of Hamilton. In December 1937 we had 2.606 families on relief, and now the number of families is 3.002, an increase of 400 during the last two months. Last year we paid out in direct relief $1,319,918. of which the city's share was $345,222. Of that amount the city of Hamilton budgeted $100,000 and funded the balance of $245,222. I do not want to tire the house with figures, but I will briefly present some items to indicate what we have paid out in relief in various forms. Last year there was expended: for food. $721,400; fuel 8166.748; clothing, $59,835; shelter, $308,713; medical services, 850,075. and for a land settlement scheme, purely an experiment in the city of Hamilton with the surrounding community, but one which I believe has definite possibilities, $12,372. There are some other charges, which at the moment I cannot earmark, amounting to $775, or a total of $1,319,918 for direct relief.
Now, the point is that the cost of relief did not improve materially during the year. In January, 1937 we spent $134,011; in December of the same year, $126,546-in other words, approximately 87,400 less, an improvement of eight per cent. My submission is that so small a decline in expenditure cannot be regarded as a real improvement.
I desire now to say just a word or two about the ability of the property owner in Hamilton to pay his taxes. In 1930 arrears of taxes in our city amounted to SI,107,710 against an assessment of $165,440,160. Seven years later what do we find? We have tax arrears *o the amount of $2,488,555 on substantially the same assessment, or a trifle less, namely S164-127,200.
What does it all mean? It means that the home owner cannot continue much longer

Unemployment Relief-Federal Responsibility
to shoulder his present burden of taxation. Neither can the business man. I implore the Minister of Labour and this government to look into this matter more thoroughly, to hear again the mayors' association and see what can be worked out in the way of help. When a citizen is interviewed by a municipal official in the department of welfare, and that official, the guardian of the taxpayer's money, is trying to solve his problem and allow him as much as his regulations will permit, he ends by saying, "It is all we can do for you." I am sure that this citizen and the official alike are reminded of those words in the bible, "And they all with one consent began to make excuse." One said, "I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come." Another said, "I have bought five yoke of oxen. . . I pray thee have me excused." I submit that this eternal "passing the buck" from the municipality to the province, from the province to the dominion, and back to the municipality is something that must stop if people are to retain whatever vestige of trust they have in democratic government.
I do not agree with the resolution in its entirety. I believe that if we do not hold the municipality liable for a percentage of the cost of relief, that relief cannot be properly administered by the municipality. The municipality should have a stake in this relief debt. But I contend also that the province and the dominion should be responsible for at least seventy-five per cent of the load and thereby lessen the burden now carried by the homeowner and the taxpayer.


Mr. E. J. POOLE (Red Deer):: I have no intention of speaking very long, for I know there are other hon. members who are anxious to say a few words. But I am interested in the first part of this resolution-more so than in the rest of it-that is, where it asks the government to consider making direct relief a federal responsibility. I contend that relief is a federal responsibility, but it is one which the government has not assumed. If we review the history of relief since 1930 and compare the debts of the cities, we shall find that there has been a tremendous increase in the mill rate of our cities throughout the country. At the same time the desire has been repeatedly expressed in the house to put people back to work. If there is anything which has had a retarding effect upon the building of homes, it is the rising mill rate. Because of the tax burden people are discouraged from building houses for themselves. Since 1930, when relief became a problem of national scope, thousands have lost their homes. It was never intended that the cities should carry a burden of relief as we know it to-day, because it is something unusual, the result of economic paralysis and of conditions which never before existed. In the early days of the depression the obligation should have been taken over by the federal government.
I intended to quote this afternoon some figures showing the rise in various mill rates throughout the dominion, but so many figures have been given and so little time remains that I believe I should leave them out at this time. I wonder how many members in the house have any idea of the humiliation which is suffered by people who are in receipt of relief. How many hon. members can realize the mental anguish which these people have suffered and are suffering to-day? It is time that the house should no longer sit back with a complacent attitude but should become informed of the facts of the way our people are living.
I wish to place on Hansard a letter which was received to-day by a friend of mine in this city. It has to do with a case of a young married couple. They had one child, and there was soon to be another one. These people were compelled to apply for relief. They applied here; they applied there; no one would accept the responsibility. I believe the Red Cross organization gave them a couple of dollars; that is all they have received in the last two months. When they applied again, some days ago, they were told that they should go to Montreal. The husband had been in this city for a year; his wife was an Ottawa girl; and all they received was a ticket to go to Montreal. I now have a letter written by them from Montreal, and I ask hon. members to try to picture the mental anguish these people are suffering because of the apathy of parliament in face of this, the greatest of our national questions, human life and human happiness. The letter reads as follows:
A few words to let you know that we arrived at Montreal at 5 p.m. and had to rent a room. 1 just came in now and it's eight o'clock. I have been walking all the day and tve are in a very desperate position.
I went to the government social service where Miss Joyce sent me with a note and they sent me to the identification cards office. They won't give me my card unless I would be in a position to give them the exact names and address and date where I used to stay in 1933 to 1938. I told them I could give the name and address of the landlord where I used to stay two years ago and could get them somebody to prove that I was here five years ago,
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but I told them I couldn't easily remember the exact name and address where I stayed the last five years, so they told me I could not get my identification card-
And incidentally relief.
-unless I gave them the exact information.
Then I went to the relief office and there they told me that it was impossible for them to give me my relief without an identification card. I was very discouraged to hear that from a supposedly human voice, and I tried to explain it wasn't fair to do that to a woman and child who only wanted something to eat and a place to sleep.
There is an interesting part of this letter from which I gather that this young man lost his temper. I do not blame him. He got out of patience with all the red tape he had to go through and he was threatened. He was told that he was nothing but a communist and that if he did not get out the police would be sent after him. I contend, Mr. Speaker, that the day has come when the administration of relief should be taken out of the hands of nincompoops and placed in responsible hands, the hands of people who will recognize relief as a permanent problem and not as something that will be got rid of by increasing foreign trade. I could tell hon. members stories that would astound them, stories of the humiliating experiences of people on relief, of girls who are being told that they are good looking and do not need relief. That is happening in Canada, the country we are so proud of, as living in a Christian state. I wonder how much Christianity there is in a system which condemns people to this sort of thing, when they are knocked about from pillar to post and no voice is raised in their name.
With regard to the second part of the resolution, calling upon the government to consider urgent public works, I have heard some hon. members refer again in this debate to the question of money. We all agree that money is the most significant question in the house; it is the instrument with which we have to deal with ninety per cent of our social evils, and without which we can do nothing. But I have wondered in the last few years what has happened to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie). In the election of 1935, when he was aspiring to the office he now holds, he declared that the Libera! government would issue $500,000,000 of new currency. Now, however, we have nothing but silence from him; we have no money.
If there is one problem which must be tackled in Canada it is the problem that faces us with regard to the great mass of the people. To-day this government should be busy

organizing the youthful and intellectual resources of the country in an effort to give our young people a place in society. That should be the first job of the government, more important than any other job they have before them. Are we going to pussyfoot around this question in the next five years as we did in the last five, or are we going to take the bit in our teeth and go places? The solution to the problem of unemployment is wrapped up with the .question of money, rather than with foreign markets. If the Minister of National Defence would rise in his place and propose that parliament should issue currency to the extent he proposed a few years ago, not half a dozen men would be opposed to him.
We are facing a strange paradox. We have everything in the world, natural resources, willing hands, intellectual resources, everything; yet we are destroying the most valuable asset of the country, our Canadian youth, because this government has not the intestinal fortitude to handle the problem. I know that many members of the government, many of those sitting on ministerial benches, have not had experience with many of these people of whom I am speaking. What is wrong with the people on relief is not simply that they have not a job; the most significant feature of the problem is the soul-destroying conditions under which they live. We must give them a new hope; we must let them know that they are a part of Canadian society.
If I could do anything to shake the government and to lift it out of the rut it is now in, I would surely do so. Someone says "Ha, ha." I wish some hon. gentlemen would cast aside, for six short weeks or so., whatever riches they iha.ve; I wish they wouid divest themselves of their cloak of membership, and go through the country without anything and look for a job. Let them endeavour to find work and they will learn at first hand what the problem of the mass of the people really is. No one can afford to say "Ha, ha " in the house. I say to hon. gentlemen: It is your responsibility as members of this federal house; it is my responsibility, and I believe that the joint efforts of all parties could produce something within one week. We need homes. In the west we could stand some more oil development. Why cannot these things be done? Is it because we cannot sell things to some foreign power?
When people speak to me about depressions I try to grasp just what they mean, for the word implies at least something that is beyond our control. I believe, however, that throughout the world to-day the people are waking

Unemployment Relief-Federal Responsibility
up to the real circumstances of our economic existence. If these poor people who depend upon this government to bring in some legislation to provide them with an opportunity to live, are waiting for expanding markets-well, heaven help them, because they will never be reabsorbed into our industrial life.
One hon. member spoke to-day of the desire of Canadian youth to be home owners. That is, of course, natural; we should all like to be home owners. But there are a great many fewer home owners to-day than there were in 1930. Many homes have been lost in tax sales. Many people who invested 82,000 or $3,000 in $5,000 homes have lost their investment. They were thrifty people, but they were caught in the economic maelstrom. To-day they are on relief.
Recently I read of an investigation that was carried out in the city of Ottawa with regard to chiselling among people on relief. Is it not astounding-trying to prove that somebody who is getting less than nothing, if you can imagine that, is chiselling? If we were to concentrate our attention for a moment on those who are chiselling, not on a little margarine or butter, but by thousands, for instance, insurance companies, big corporations, if we only had a few more investigations into their operations, this would be appreciated by the Canadian people. To talk about men on relief 'buying motor cars, or a radio, it is astounding. All one has to do to see the impossibility of it, is to look at the report. In any event every man on relief is entitled to a radio. Why should he not have a radio? Every Canadian is entitled to the luxuries we can provide in this country. Goods are made that people may use and enjoy them. Our economic system should be so organized that we can distribute all we can produce. On the one hand the government talks of overproduction, while on the other people cannot get the goods. They are called relief recipients. We would not have overproduction if these people had plenty to eat and plenty to wear.
But I shall be asked, where are you going to get the money? The Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) differentiates between the kind of money he has and the kind to which I am referring. I wonder if the minister ever saw the kind they have in the cities, which they refer to as vouchers, which they give to relief recipients, and for which the city of Calgary pays interest to the Bank of Montreal. The words of Professor Soddy can be used to describe money; it is anything, no matter what it is made of or why people want it, provided it has arrived at the degree of
acceptability that people will exchange goods and services for it. It is not wealth in itself. If we have wealth in this country, it is the duty of the government to remove the obstacles in the way of distributing that wealth.
I heartily endorse the resolution of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church). I only hope that too many resolutions of this kind are not talked out this session. Let us try to do something to solve this national problem, not evade it. The problem cannot be talked out of existence. While some hon. members may not agree with the theory which this group presents to the house, remember that what is facing the country to-day is not a theory, but a condition with which the government must deal.


Alexander McKay Edwards: I do not intend to detain the house at any great length on this subject, but I want to say a few words in commendation of the resolution proposed by the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church). The ground has been covered fully by hon. members who have preceded me, and I do not propose to follow their observations, I cannot follow the hon. member (Mr. Poole) who spoke last very closely, but I do find myself in some considerable degree of sympathy with the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) in his remarks, and also the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Wood).
A great deal of attention has been paid to the city of Toronto and its troubles, but I think we are not here to legislate for any one centre in particular. Toronto is a large centre; it might be called my market town; but it seems to me that much of the improvement which government speakers claim has taken place in different municipalities, particularly industrial, is due in no small measure to the careful management and intelligent grasp of a serious situation by municipal councils. I have followed a great deal of the work of several municipal councils, not only of the city or municipality in which I live but also of the county councils, and for years the policy of those councils has been one of retrenchment, and an endeavour to pay as they go. A great deal of the difficulty in which some municipalities find themselves to-day, causing them to call on governments to assume their load, is due in no small measure to reckless spending in days gone by. However, that is water under the bridge. I am sure the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), if he could draw money out of an inexhaustible well, would be very glad to cooperate with the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers in relieving this situation. But take as an example the city of Galt in which I live,
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for the first four years of the depression we raised each year one-third of the amount required to relieve unemployment. It was a three-way payment plan; one-third was raised by private subscription; one-third came from the province and one-third from the federal government. During those four years not one cent of the money required to take care of the unemployed was charged against municipal taxes. To-day what do we find? We are able to reduce our mill rate without increasing assessments.
I want to commend the earnest endeavour of the Minister of Labour to relieve this situation. I speak particularly of the housing plan and the home improvement plan; they have taken up a great deal of the slack in our district. I do not know of any year for the last eight or ten in which we had as much home building as during the past year. And that can be enlarged. As we all know, there is no line of industrial endeavour which gives as much employment to labour as building. I am told by contractors that if you trace a building back to its elements, eighty-three per cent of the cost goes for labour. So that anything done to enlarge the building program would assist materially in lightening the burden of unemployment.


Mr. DUNNING:: About eighty-five per cent is labour in the home improvement plan.


Alexander McKay Edwards: And about eighty-three per cent in new housing.
Another matter of which I want to speak for a moment is the plan on which these funds are distributed. I do not want to say anything derogatory to municipal control. Perhaps it is all right; I have no knowledge. But if I may be allowed a personal word, in Galt we appointed a committee of patriotic citizens who handled our unemployment relief funds during the four years of which I have spoken. They did this very satisfactorily. Careful attention was given to all cases; they were carefully investigated and relief was paid in a satisfactory way where required. In distributing relief through the province and down through the municipality, without implying anything, I think there is a temptation there, and with some people the temptation to play municipal politics is very strong. So that if relief can be handled, particularly where large amounts are involved, by an independent committee at the final distribution of the funds, that I think is very desirable indeed.
Now, to get back to the resolution, we all know it is nearly impossible for the municipalities to carry this burden of relief. The taxation on real estate to-day is so heavy

that building houses for rental or investment is almost prohibitive. No one can get even a modest return on the investment. There is plenty of money for this sort of investment if only people were assured of even a modest return. Under these circumstances the burden of unemployment relief appears to be a national burden. It should come back in its entirety to the federal government. I hope the municipalities will cooperate to the extent of reducing their requirements to the minimum by handling relief funds very carefully.
I am going to offer a suggestion to the Minister of Labour as to how this relief problem could be handled. I do not mean distribution. My idea is this, that interference in private business over a period of years has been greatly responsible for the situation we are in to-day. For the past twenty years Anglo-Saxon America has been playing the game of government in business. Whether it has been wheat marketing, railways, mortgaging or whatever else you wish, when private enterprise got into any difficulty whatever the solution was to put the government in. Well, we have had an opportuni'y to see just how that has worked over quite a period of years. That has been a commonplace, as I say, for a long time. That is what happened in Canada in connection with radio. After five years of experimenting with radio I do not think I would be amiss in saying that conditions are in a rather bad state. I was going to say they were in a sorry' mess, but I would hardly go that far. Instead of achieving the goal of Canadianizing the air, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation coast to coast network, built at considerable cost to the Canadian taxpayer, is now being used as a cut-rate pipe line to give much prized supplementary facilities to American broadcasters in the Canadian market.
The point I wish to make is that the only way to take up the slack is to encourage private industry, to stop continually sniping at successful private business, and to aid business in every legitimate way possible. I feel sure that if this is done, the heavy fog of unemployment and unrest will rapidly pass away. I was going to speak last night, but did not have an opportunity to do so. I find to-day however, that I am in very distinguished company in what I have said. According to this morning's Gazette, Sir Josiah Stamp, speaking in New York last night, said something very much along the same line, and I should like to read just two or three extracts from his remarks. He was addressing the British Empire Chamber of

Unemployment Relief-Federal Responsibility
Commerce in New York city and went on to state what were the key factors of the economic outlook, outlining four points bearing on the recession, which he described as "convenient to watch". Three of the points were mechanical and the other psychological. The first mechanical point was that of credit and monetary facilities. The second mechanical factor was the effect of taxation, and I suspect that the effect of the undistributed profits tax appeared there. I want to say here that another very great load on industry to-day is the heavy sales tax we have in this country, which of course has to be taken up by the consumer. The third mechanical factor was the industrial question, and he believed that the best prosperity was secured by allowing business to make good profits. This may seem terrible to some members of the house, but this is what he said:
The higher profits are, the more rapid expansion and employment .	.	. but if costs,
particularly wage levels and hours of working, are forcibly thrown out of relation with prices the margin of profit is in jeopardy, and restriction of production is inevitable.
Then he went on to discuss the psychological feature of it, and said:
My fourth factor is psychological. So long as business is afraid of what the government will do it can make no long distance plan for development and political fears are the worst enemies of economic progress.
If I have any suggestion to offer to the government to-day, it is this: I am not going to say that the government snipes at business, but we have a good many people who continually snipe at business not only in the house but on the platforms throughout the country. It is a popular thing to do, and it is a very easy thing to do. But private business, under proper supervision, is the right idea for handling this unemployment situation, and I do not think there is the least doubt but that given a chance it will gradually work us out of that difficulty. Just to give an idea of the different businesses that have been socialized-I am not going to say anything about that at the present moment, but I might say-


Charles Avery Dunning: That would be very interesting.


Alexander McKay Edwards: Well, then, I shall say
it. I am going to read a list of businesses which different governments have stepped into, and I think, after I read this list, even the most skeptical will be convinced that the experiments in socialization have not only been costly to the taxpayers and to the country as a whole but put an unfair handicap and brake on private enterprise of the
type which has been the major force in the development of this dominion. The Financial Post of February 5, 1938, published this list of businesses which have been invaded by the government. I certainly gasped when I saw it, and I do not think very many people fully appreciate the way private enterprise has been encroached upon. The list is as follows:
Light and power Ferry boats Steam railways Radio broadcasting Steamships Sale of liquor Farming Coal mining Magazine publishing Grain elevators Gas supply Street cars Saving banks Construction Telephones
I think that is a
Hotels Express Restaurants Market gardening Meat packing Electric railways Mortgage lending Insurance Amusement parks Telegraphs Warehousing and storage Printing
Land development very surprising list.


Charles Avery Dunning: Some of it is a bit farfetched, is it not?


Alexander McKay Edwards: Perhaps it is, a little.


An hon. MEMBER:: Restaurants?


William Daum Euler: The parliamentary restaurant.


Alexander McKay Edwards: We are operating one
here, and under the Canadian National system we are operating hotels in which there are restaurants. I think it is a proper list, though one may have to use one's imagination a little in connection with a few of the items. But there is the list. Without criticizing, or wishing to criticize in any way, may I point out that I think the more we encourage people to invest their money in private enterprise, under supervision, the better it would be. I do not mean that they should be permitted to do just as they like. I served six months on the price spreads commission, and I certainly learned something in that time. I have offered a plan to absorb the unemployed to a large extent, and I trust the government will take action in regard to it.
Hon. NORMAN McL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, this is the second discussion in two successive days on unemployment and relief. Another opportunity to debate the same question was afforded in the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne. For my own part, I welcome these opportunities for discussion of this vital question of unemployment and relief, whether the discussion assumes the form of criticism of government policies or whether, as rarely


Mr. STIRLING:: Does the minister mean
8100,000,000 annually?


Mr. ROGERS:: Yes, S100,000,000 annually to cover direct relief and relief works.


Mr. HEAPS:: What percentage is the government paying now of that $100,000,000?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I cannot give my hon. friend the exact figure, but it would be roughly thirty per cent.
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Unemployment Relief-Federal Responsibility


Abraham Albert Heaps: If it is thirty per cent, it would appear that there is not much difference between what is paid now by the federal government and what was paid a few years ago.


Norman McLeod Rogers: There is, because the total amount expended was greater some years ago.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Earlier?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Some years ago, when the expenditures for relief ran far in excess of what they are to-day.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Do I understand the minister to say that to-day the government is paying a greater share than was paid four or five years ago?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I should say it is not greater than in 1933, but greater than what the government was paying in the latter part of 1934. Certainly that would be so after August, 1934, when the old system of the dominion government paying thirty-three and a third per cent of the total cost was superseded by the present system of grants in aid. For example, the dominion contribution in November, 1935 to the province of Ontario represented twenty per cent of the total cost of relief in that province. We are paying much more now than we did in 1934 and in most of 1935.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I want to find out if the proportion now borne by the municipalities is greater than it was in 1934.


Norman McLeod Rogers: It is really not possible to answer that question, as I have not those figures here. My hon. friend is also aware that the percentage borne by the municipalities varies not only within the provinces but as between the provinces.


Mr. TUSTIN:: How do they arrive at the amount of the grants in aid? Is that worked out on a percentage basis in connection with each province?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The amount is based upon an estimate of what will be required for the forthcoming year. A lump sum is allocated by this parliament to the various provinces on the basis of those unemployed, qualified by the financial position of the province. It is not possible to reduce that to the terms of an algebraic formula, but looking back over the years I believe we would be justified in saying that the allocation among the provinces has been fair and reasonable, having regard to the problem itself and the financial position of the several provinces.
If we did not have recourse to the income tax to raise the money required by the dominion government taking over the entire

cost of relief, we would have to consider the sales tax. I think it will be agreed that here again we would be burdening that group of moderate wage earners who represent, so to speak, the working force of the country as a whole. Not only that, but with an increase in the sales tax we would be providing another deterrent to a revival of the building industry.
I do not propose to develop these points any further. I have brought them out simply as an illustration of the difficulties that would confront the dominion government in assuming the entire financial responsibility for relief within the present structure of the constitution. I use those words deliberately because it has been agreed generally, both by the preceding administration and the present government, that so far as present constitutional responsibility is concerned, the primary responsibility lies with the municipalities, while the responsibility in a secondary sense lies with the provincial governments. The dominion government goes in to assist the province when the problem has reached the point where it is beyond provincial resources. I do not suggest that an improvised method of dealing with the situation has been wholly satisfactory. We are doing our utmost to improve it from time to time, and the agreements now before the provinces are designed for that purpose. I believe that when these agreements are fully understood and accepted by the provinces, we shall be able to remove some, at any rate, of the abuses which now exist in the administration of relief.
But there is also another reason why it would be most unwise for the dominion government at this time, as suggested in this resolution, to assume the entire responsibility for relief. That reason lies in the fact that the relief problem at present is not wholly an unemployment problem. Relief lists in all provinces have been heavily charged with charity cases and unemployables. That, I am quite sure, is within the knowledge of any member of the house who has had close acquaintance with the development of relief during recent years. It is clear, therefore, that as the relief problem is contracted, this constant element of unemployables becomes relatively greater in the total. It is greater to-day than it was a year ago. It was greater then than it was the year before that. So this proposal means in effect that the dominion government at this time is asked not only to take over unemployment relief but also to take over from the provinces the care of unemployables. Now, if the dominion government had not already accepted some
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Unemployment Relief-Federal Responsibility
measure of responsibility in relation to unemployables. there would be better reason for a proposal of this kind at this time. But, as it has already been pointed out this afternoon. the dominion government, through old age pensions, through pensions for the blind, through special care for unemployed pensioners, through provision which is now in contemplation for an extension of allowances to unemployed war veterans, has already taken over from the provinces a very considerable part of the burden of unemployable persons. That being the case, I certainly feel it would be a great mistake for the dominion, in advance of a further review and readjustment. of its relations wi-tih the provinces, to assume this new burden and to do so, as proposed here, "notwithstanding the provisions of any law, statute, usage or custom to the contrary."
There is a further reason why this proposal would not be satisfactory at this time.


Mr. THOMPSON:: May I ask the hon.
gentleman a question?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Certainly.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: Has the government
decided that it has authority to continue raising money by income tax from the people of Canada? I remember, when Sir Thomas White first placed-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Mr. Speaker, I have no
objection to the question and I shall be glad to answer it, but I have only five minutes.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: Sir Thomas White made the statement that it would be only for a few years, and he doubted their authority to impose it.


Norman McLeod Rogers: So far as I am informed,
there has never been any question as to the legal competence of the dominion parliament to impose an income tax.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: For war purposes.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Oh, no.


William Daum Euler: It is in the British North
America Act.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The British North America Act gives parliament the power to raise money by any mode or system of taxation.
It is true that certain assurances were given by Sir Thomas White at that time, but even
he did not anticipate the way in which dominion expenditures would pyramid during the war years.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: The premier of Ontario says we have no authority.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I wish to refer finally to
the reason why the dominion government should not at this time under existing conditions assume entire responsibility for relief. I refer to the question of administration. This resolution does not make any reference to administration, but I would like hon. members to realize that under present conditions the administration of relief is conducted almost exclusively by officials of our municipal governments. They have gained a very wide experience in these last years, and many of them administer relief without additional recompense of any kind. If the dominion government assumed responsibility for relief, it is clear, I think, that this would mean of necessity the setting up of a self-perpetuating organization for administration and at the present time there is no branch of the government that is equipped with an organization suitable to deal with relief across the entire dominion. The one organization which would be useful in this connection is the employment service of Canada, but that employment service is not a national employment service in the strict sense of the word. Contributions are made to it by the dominion government, but the actual control of it lies with the provinces.
Not only that, but if the mover of the resolution does not suggest that the dominion should take over the cost of administration of relief and does mean that the dominion should pay the entire cost but leave the administration to the municipalities, it is clear that we shall be entering into a most vicious arrangement. Under that arrangement municipalities, instead of having two or three dollars from outside to one of their own to expend, would receive all that was required for relief purposes without at the same time being responsible in any way for raising that money by taxation. I believe we have had sufficient experience in this country with the abuses of a system of that kind to convince us that, whatever the errors of the past may have been, we certainly ought not to repeat and extend them at this time.
Finally, as to the proposal for constitutional reform, it does seem to me that my hon. friend who has suggested in the first part of his resolution that the dominion government should take over the entire cost of relief has, so to speak, allowed the horse to be stolen
Questions

and in the second part of the resolution is professing a willingness to lock the stable door. I feel there is a grave necessity for a constitutional revision and this whole question of relief and social service must play an important part in that investigation, but certainly, in advance of that investigation, it would be folly for the dominion government to assume this entire burden of unemployment relief, without any readjustment of powers or revenues of the provinces.
On motion of Mr. Euler the debate was adjourned.


[Stage Direction]
At six o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Thursday, March 3, 1938