1939-03-06

Hon. IAN MACKENZIE (Minister of National Defence):: I desire to move, seconded by the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power):
That all contracts entered into by the Department of National Defence and tabled in this house be referred to the standing committee on public accounts.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. E. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to ask a question of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler). On February 24 last, at page 1278 of Hansard he stated he would give further consideration to a request I had made that the weekly reports of the wheat board be brought down and placed in the sessional papers office and there be made available to hon. members. Would he give a statement to-day as to whether he proposes to see that these reports are tabled accordingly?


Hon. W. D. EULER (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: My hon. friend has reminded me of something that perhaps I should have spoken of before. My recollection at the moment is that when we agreed to place the reports among the sessional papers there was at that time no wheat for sale, and there has never been tabled or put amongst the sessional papers any of the weekly reports of the sales of wheat of the current year's crop. That practice will continue to be observed.


Ernest Edward Perley: I think that last year, following the procedure of bringing down the weekly reports, which shows the standing-


William Daum Euler: There was no wheat for sale.


Ernest Edward Perley: No wheat for sale?


William Daum Euler: Very little.


Ernest Edward Perley: I think there was wheat for sale until the thing was finally wound up.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order.


Ernest Edward Perley: I am not at all satisfied with the position the minister has taken. I think we are entitled to the information I have asked for. There is provision made for it in section 8(e) of the act. I would ask the minister to give further consideration to the matter.


Walter Edward Foster: Order.


William Daum Euler: I just want to lay this down as a very definite principle. It is' not regarded by the wheat board as being in the public interest to divulge any information with regard to the sales of wheat; and that
Radio Licence Vendors

has been government policy. Never has there been given to the house any information in any sort of detail as to the sales of wheat of the current year's crop. That position, I think, will have to be maintained.



SUDETEN IMMIGRANTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. C. G. MacNEIL (Vancouver North):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to ask if the government intends, as reported in Saturday's press, to place responsibility upon the colonization departments of the railway companies for the settlement of families from the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: The Minister of Immigration (Mr. Crerar) I have no doubt will wish to make a statement with reference to the matter to which my hon. friend has referred. Perhaps he will allow it to stand until the minister is here.



RADIO BROADCASTING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. R. J. MANION (Leader of the Opposition) :: A week ago I asked a question in the absence of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Howe) as to the method of appointing radio licence vendors. It had been stated that there was to be a change in the method. Is the minister now prepared to make a statement in that regard?


Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Transport) :: The principal change was that returned men were to be employed exclusively. I have not reviewed recently the correspondence that took place with the organization of returned men, but I shall be glad to table it in the house to-morrow. Perhaps that will be the best explanation I could give.


Robert James Manion: That is all right, but the statement was made to me that the matter had been put distinctly on a direct patronage basis. I should be glad if the minister would deal with that to-morrow, if he does not wish to do so to-day.


Clarence Decatur Howe: It always was.


Robert James Manion: Perhaps so; I do not know whether it was or not, but I should like to know whether or not it is at the present time. I should be glad if the minister would deal with it to-morrow, or to-day, if he wishes.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. LENNARD:: 1.	How many non-residents of Toronto have been appointed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation at Toronto?
2.	What are their names, positions held, and salaries, and from what other places, in or outside of Canada did they come and what is their length of service and experience?
3.	Who were the staff at Toronto during 1938, and what were their salaries?


Clarence Decatur Howe: This question is obviously out of order. It refers to the internal management of an autonomous corporation.


Walter Edward Foster: Dropped.


Robert James Manion: The question might be referred to the radio committee.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes, it is a very proper one for the committee.
Question dropped.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-EMPLOYEES AND WAGES
Mr. MARSH:: 1.	How many people were employed by the Canadian National Railways in each year from 1929 to December, 1938?
2.	What was the total amount of wages paid in each year from 1929 to December, 1938?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Total number of employees and their compensation:
Compensa-
Year	Number tion
1929	
109,096	$173,078,5061930	
101,105	159,675,1111931	
91,416	139,784,6301932	
76,616	106,911,6081933	
70,625	95,632,0761934	
74.774	90.408,1021935	
75,053	104,861.5201936	
78.836	111,221,1291937	
79,471	117,804,7691938	
74,953	116,526,108


NANAIMO, B.C., HARBOUR EMPLOYEES
Mr. TAYLOR (Nanaimo):: 1.	Have any officers, clerks, employees or labourers been appointed since January 1, 1938, in the district of Nanaimo, British Columbia (Nanaimo assembly wharf excepted), under section 6 of the Government Harbours and Piers Act and Amending Act, 1937?
2.	If so, what are their names, and when, and where were they appointed?
3.	Have any government wharves in the said district (assembly wharf excepted) been in

Questions
charge of a wharfinger, officer, clerk, employee or labourer, so appointed, during any part of the period from January 1, 1938, to date?
4.	If so, what are the names of such appointees, on what dates, and where were they appointed ?
5.	At what place or places, and on what date or dates were the services of such appointees, if any, discontinued?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	Wharfingers only.
2.
Name-Date of appointment-Place appointed
James A. Goldsmith, June 2, 1938, Che-mainus, B.C.
John Iv. Stewart, May 19, 1938, Cowichan Bay, B.C.
Geoffrey L. Wheatley, March 28,1938, Mayne Island, B.C.
McGregor C. Ironside, July 8,1938, Nanaimo, Farmer's Landing, B.C.
Thomas B. Morgan, May 26, 1938, Sidney, B.C.
3 and 4. Answered by No. 2.
5. Geoffrey L. Wheatley, resigned April 11, 1938, Mayne Island, B.C.
Thomas B. Morgan, resigned June 6, 1938, Sidney, B.C.


TREASURY WARRANTS
Mr. BLACKMORE:: At what times, in what amounts, and for what purposes have treasury warrants been used by the dominion government in the past ten years?


Mr. DUNNING:: It is not clear from this question just what the hon. member wants. He speaks of treasury warrants, which is a meaningless term. If he means governor general's warrants, that information can of course be supplied. He is not in his seat, so I suggest that in the meantime the question be dropped and redrafted in terms of what he desires.


Walter Edward Foster: Question dropped.


ALBERTA WHEAT SHIPMENTS
Charles Grant MacNeil: How many bushels of wheat were shipped from the province of Alberta during the current wheat marketing year:	(a) via the eastern
route; (b) via the western route.


William Daum Euler: The Canadian wheat board considers that it is not in the public interest to divulge such figures during the course of the marketing season.


IMPORTATIONS OF UNITED STATES CANNED BEEF
Mr. THOMPSON:: 1.	How many pounds of canned beef did Canada import from the United States during each of the years 1936, 1937, and 1938?
2.	What was the rate of duty per pound paid by the United States upon importations of canned beef?
There is an error in the drafting of this question. I ask that it be dropped so that I may redraft it.
Question dropped.


ROYAL VISIT TO TORONTO
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Did the government receive on January 25 last from the Ontario government the plans and details of the king's visit to Toronto?
2.	Have such plans and all details as yet been approved by the government?
3.	If not, what is the cause of the delay in approving of the plans and when will an announcement be made?
4.	Will a copy of all papers be tabled?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The hon.
member has asked to have the question dropped.
Question dropped.


CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD SALES
Ernest Edward Perley: Does the Canadian wheat board sell wheat direct to representatives or agents of foreign countries who are not members of the Winnipeg grain exchange, or do they insist upon all sales being made through, or by, members of the said exchange?


William Daum Euler: The Canadian wheat board has sold its wheat exclusively through members of the Winnipeg grain exchange and members of the Vancouver merchants exchange. Representatives or agents of foreign countries have never made any effort to purchase wheat from the board.


VALUE OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION IN EASTERN PROVINCES
Mr. BLANCHETTE:: During the seven years from 1931 to 1937 inclusive, what was the total value of agricultural production in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Ontario and Quebec, as compared with the total value of the same production in the said provinces from 1924 to 1930 inclusive?	.

Questions


William Daum Euler: Years	Prince Edward Island	Nova Scotia1924	. 19,681	38,1621925	. 24,798	41,2911926	. 25,966	45,1611927	. 22,923	40,5411928	. 22,297	42,0801929	. 25,976	43,4121930	. 18,025	35,015Totals, 7 years.. .	. 159,666	285,6621931	. 11,414	24,0291932	. 10,162	19,9321933	. 12,731	24,9201934	. 12,997	26,5121935	. 13,259	27,2641936	. 15,765	29,0391937* 1 2	. 12,870	27,932Totals, 7 years.. .	. 89,198	179,628
Preliminary.


ELEVATOR CHARGES
[Stage Direction]
Mr. PERLEY.
What are the elevator charges for storage of grain at the different ports or points where the government own and operate elevators?
William Daum Euler: Elevator charges for storage of grain at ports or points where government own and operate elevators
Location of elevator-Storage rate-
All grains
Churchill, Man. (1)-M5 cent per bushel per day from August 1 to October 8; Mo cent per bushel per day from October 9 to July 31. On grain in store on October 9 and grain delivered between October 9 and November 30 in same year total storage charge up to and including August 31 of following year is 1 cent per bushel.
Halifax, N.S.-Export grain summer, Mo cent per bushel per day; winter, free storage 1st December to 1st May. Domestic grain: 14o cent per bushel per day. Maximum storage charge on export grain from 2nd May to 30th Nov. is 1 i cent per bushel.
Quebec, Que.-Summer,. Mo of 1 cent per bushel per day. Storage rate not levied on export grain for summer period. Winter Mo cent per bushel per day. Maximum storage charge from 2nd Dec. to 30th April is 1 cent per bushel, on export grain.
New Brunswick Quebec (thousand dollars)	Ontario	Total Five Provinces29,055	255,690	459,325	801,91340,705	294,125	493,909	894,82839,008	286,125	508,454	904,71434,948	296,073	518,577	913,06234,761	292,772	517,313	909,22339,919	313,695	509,208	932,21031,936	240,336	417,785	743,097250,332	1,978,816	3,424,571	6,999,04722,189	161,614	293,224	512,47021,202	138,042	247,684	437,02220,880	138,892	280,814	478,23724,867	182,095	304,733	551,20425,402	175,074	315,256	556,25530,408	189,970	360,329	625,51126,517	191,510	357,201	616,030171,465	1,177,197	2,159,241	3,776,729
Montreal, Que.-Summer, Mo cent per bushel; winter, Mo cent per bushel. Maximum storage from 2nd December to 30th April 11 cent per bushel.
Prescott, Ont.-Mo cent per bushel per day. Maximum storage charge from 1st December to 30th April 11 cent per bushel, on export grain.
Port Colborne, Ont.-Mo cent per bushel per day. Maximum storage charge from 1st December to 30th April 11 cent per bushel, on export grain.
Edmonton, Alta., Calgary, Alta., Moose Jaw, Sask., Saskatoon, Sask., Lethbridge, Alta., (2)- Mo cent per bushel per day.
(1)	At Churchill the rate for handling mixed grains is %o cent per 100 lbs.
(2)	At the government interior elevators the rate for handling mixed grains is tfso cent per 100 lbs.


BUTTER PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION, 1934-38
Mr. BLANCHETTE:: 1.	How many pounds of dairy butter were produced in each of the provinces in the calendar years 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1938?
2.	How many pounds of dairy butter were consumed in each province during each of the said years?


Mr. EULER:: 1. Dairy butter production in Canada, by provinces-

Questions as Orders for Returns
1934	1935	1936	1937	1938Prince Edward Island	. .. 1,950,000	1,872,000	1,862,000	1,732,000	Nova Scotia	. .. 6,277,000	6591,000	6,500,000	6,455,000	New Brunswick	. .. 7,456,000	6,710,000	6,674,000	6,260,000	Quebec	. .. 14,765,000	14,174,000	14,099,000	14,494,000	NotOntario	. .. 32,715,000	31,407,000	31,240,000	31,365,000	Manitoba	. .. 9,240,000	10,434,591	10,500,000	10,200,000	avail-Saskatchewan	. .. 21,500,000	24,330,673	24,400,000	24,200,000	Alberta	. .. 13,400,000	15,922,735	16,000,000	15,600,000	ableBritish Columbia	. .. 2,615,000	2,720,000	2,751,000	2,778,000	Canada	. .. 109,918,000	114,161,999	114,026,000	113,084,000	2.	Butter consumption figures include both creamery and dairy butter. Separate estimates cannot 'be made without knowing the quantities of each kind exported and imported; but since very little dairy butter enters into commercial trade channels, it may be assumed that practically all the dairy butter produced in Canada is consumed in Canada.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. PERLEY:: 1.	Was a community pasture established at Val Marie, Saskatchewan?
2.	If so, what was the extent of the pasture, the number of miles of fencing, and the cost per mile?
3.	Was it done by contract?
4.	If so, who was the contractor, and what were the number of men employed?



CANADA-UNITED STATES CORRESPONDENCE ON WATERWAYS

Mr. CHURCH:: Will the government lay on the table of the house a copy of all correspondence with and all other material from the government of the United States, or any other person or persons, since the last session of parliament, with reference to:	(a) the Chicago diversion of
waters; (b) the St. Lawrence waterway?



GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS AND PROPERTY IN OTTAWA

Mr. HEAPS:: 1.	What buildings are owned by the government in the city of Ottawa?
2.	What is the assessed value of each of such buildings?
3.	What is the assessed value of the land on which each such building is located?
4.	What vacant sites, or parcels of land, are owned by the government in the city of Ottawa?
5.	What is the assessed value of each such site, or parcel of land?
71492-99J



PRAIRIE FARM REHABILITATION ACT-EMPLOYEES IN SASKATCHEWAN

Mr. PERLEY:: 1.	How many persons were employed in the offices under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act in the city of Regina during the year 1938?
2.	How many were employed under the said act in other parts of the province of Saskatchewan, during the same year, including directors, supervisors, superintendents, engineers, instrument men, draftsmen, land investigators, soil specialists, agricultural advisers, agricultural supervisors, and agricultural assistants?
3.	What are the names, home addresses, salary and expense allowances of each of these employees?
4.	How many of the above operate cars?
5.	What were their respective expenses for operating cars during the year 1938?
6.	How many cars, new' or used, were purchased or rented during the year 1938 for the use of the employees under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act in the province of Saskatchewan ?
7.	From whom were such cars purchased and/or rented, and at what prices?



DOMINION GOVERNMENT PORT EXPENDITURES

Mr. PERLEY:: 1.	How' much money has been spent by the dominion government in developing the ports of Churchill, Port Arthur and Fort William: (a) since confederation; (b) each year since 1930 to date?
2.	How much revenue has the government received from the capital expenditure: (a) since confederation; (b) each year since 1930 to date?
3.	How much has been spent by the dominion government in developing the ports of Toronto and Hamilton?
4.	How much of the expenditure was charged to the Toronto harbour commission and the Hamilton harbour commission, respectively?



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Mr. BROOKS:: For a copy of all payrolls for the year 1938 in connection with repairs to Forbes wharf, so-called, Richibucto, Kent county, New Brunswick.
Motions for Papers



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-COAL SUPPLY

['I ask that the motion stand.\nMotion stands.']
Mr. ESLING:: For a copy of all letters and other correspondence from coal mine operators and others in the maritime provinces quoting prices to Canadian National Railways for supply of coal during the years 1937 and 1938.


Clarence Decatur Howe: This motion asks for correspondence between the Canadian National Railways and coal mine operators, and has to do with purchasing for the Canadian National. This type of correspondence is never brought down.
Motion dropped.



Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: For a copy of all correspondence, letters, telegrams and other documents exchanged between any minister or department of the government and the provincial governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, with respect to the procuring or financing of seed grain for the 1939 crop.


ALBERTA WHEAT
Charles Grant MacNeil: For a copy of all shipping instructions issued by the Canadian wheat board, relating to the movement of Alberta wheat during the current wheat marketing year, via eastern or western routes.


William Daum Euler: I ask that the motion stand.
Motion stands.



WAN HAM, ALTA., STATION MAIL CONTRACT

Mr. PELLETIER:: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, recommendations and other documents in the possession of the Post Office Department, concerning the termination of a contract for handling the mail at Wanham railway station, and the appointment of a new contractor.



CROP INSURANCE

[Stage Direction]
APPOINTMENT OF COMMITTEE TO CONSIDER A WORKABLE SCHEME FOR THE PRAIRIE * PROVINCES
Mr. G. W. McDONALD (Souris) moved:: That, in the opinion of this house, a special select committee be appointed to investigate and report on the possibilities of endorsing a workable scheme of crop insurance for the three prairie provinces, such scheme to become operative for the 1940 crop season.


Walter Edward Foster: Before the hon. member proceeds with his motion it is my duty to direct the attention of the house to the scope of the resolution. I do not know what the hon. member wishes to discuss with reference to the motion, but last week there was a debate in which the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston) discussed all matters pertaining to the wheat situation. A declara-

tion of policy was made by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner). The rule with reference to questions of this sort is to be found in Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, citation 304, and also in May, thirteenth edition. I quote from May, page 316:
It is a wholesome restraint upon members to prevent them from reviving a debate already concluded; and there would be little use in preventing the same question or bill from being offered twice in the same session, if, without being offered, its merits might be discussed again and again.


Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) :: Before you give your ruling, Mr. Speaker, I do not think that crop insurance has been discussed at any time during the present session. We have been discussing the price of wheat and a number of other matters involved, but the question of crop insurance is entirely new.


Walter Edward Foster: I was afraid that the debate might take on a wider scope and that we might have a repetition of what had been said before.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think it would be well to hold them down to crop insurance.


George William McDonald: During the past ten years agriculture in the western provinces has suffered very severely from drought and from crop failures. These failures were due principally to drought, rust, grasshoppers and other handicaps; in fact, everything that could happen to crops has taken place in those three western provinces. The question might very properly be asked, why do you not include all crops? I can easily understand that, and I do not intend that crop insurance should apply to any province or section that does not wish to have it. I have been asked, however, by the United Farmers of Manitoba in the constituency which I represent, to bring this resolution before the house, and accordingly I do so.
Naturally we in the west talk a good deal about our wheat, wheat prices and crop failures. Wheat occupies a very important place in the agricultural life of this country. It was perhaps news to many who attended the western wheat conference in Winnipeg last December that there were 58,000,000 acres of land under cultivation in Canada, of which 40,000,000 acres are in the three western provinces. That shows the importance of crop insurance as far as western Canada is concerned.
I should like to give a few more figures to illustrate the importance of wheat growing in the west in the economic set-up of this country. It has been stated from reliable

Crop Insurance-Mr. McDonald (Souris)
sources-it was so stated at that conference- that the revenues of the western provinces during those years dropped by over $2,500,000,000. Hon. members can easily understand the impossible position in which western farmers are placed by severe crop losses accompanied by the lowest farm prices ever known. In 1929 the farmers of those three western provinces were able to buy $384,000,000 worth of goods, but by 1933 they were able to buy only $80,000,000 worth. Surely the effects of that decline were felt all over the country. Ontario and Quebec would certainly know that there was something wrong in the west.
We could paint a very dark picture of conditions in western Canada; in fact it would be only honest to say that some of us were beginning to despair of conditions in those provinces; we felt that we had grown wheat and other grain in that part of the country so long that the time had come that we could no longer do so. But that is not true. We had produced 540,000,000 bushels in one year; in another year the crop dropped to 169,000,000 bushels, and we had almost come to believe that western Canada had seen its best days. But last year we grew over 350,000,000 bushels. As one who has gone through the depression and seen Manitoba and the west at its worst as well as at its best. I am sure that with the rehabilitation scheme which this government is carrying on there this country will yet produce great crops of grain. Some sessions ago I heard the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett tell this house that in the growing of wheat wealth can be produced much more rapidly than by any other industry, not excepting gold mining.


Mr. SENN:: Will the hon. member permit a question? Does he not intend crop insurance to apply to other grains as well as wheat?


George William McDonald: I mention
wheat because it is the principal product of the west, and because in the little study I have made of crop insurance it was advised that we should first take one particular commodity. In the west it would be wheat; in the east it might be tobacco or corn or some other commodity. I should have made that explanation earlier. This resolution could apply to any crop, any farm product to which any section of the country might desire to apply it.
Farmers in the west during this depression have received much advice from every section of this country-from bankers, railway-men, manufacturers; and there is nothing . wrong about that, because the subject is
important enough to deserve the most serious consideration. Anything that affects the income of more than half the population of Canada certainly deserves the serious consideration of this house. We believe the time has come to try to safeguard or stabilize in some measure the revenue of the farmers. It is good business for this house and the country to study any possible method of improving conditions on the farm. With my hon. friends who champion the cause of industry I have no quarrel whatever. We have splendid industries in this country, but what good will it do to build up the finest industrial machine if back in the country the great masses of the people are not able to buy manufactured goods? There is at present very little buying power in the place where it should be. There never was such a potential market as there is now in this country if the people only had the buying power.
I am not going to introduce the money question; I do not think it belongs here, although it could very well form part of this discussion. There are two sides to the question: there is that of trying to safeguard the production, and that of doing something to stabilize prices. To-day in parts of western Canada capable farmers know that even if they sow good seed in well cultivated land there is no assurance of a crop, and if they get a good crop they are not sure of the price. That is the impossible position in which the western farmer is placed. What are we going to do about it?	'
It may be asked, why does the farmer not move out? Well, it cannot be done; people have built their homes there. Settlement in the west was encouraged; for many years it was the settled policy of this country to open up the west. The gates were thrown open and great numbers of people were encouraged to go to western Canada. During the war we urged those people by every means to produce, produce, produce, as a patriotic duty. They did so. Western Canada produces the finest wheat in the world, as well as other grains and farm products.
If we are going to discuss wheat at greater length when the Minister of Agriculture 'brings down his bill I shall not take the time of the house now to speak further of the value and importance of wheat growing in this country. But I should like to give a few figures relating to Saskatchewan. Comparing the years 1929 and 1933, the decline in farm production was only six per cent, but the decrease in prices was 63 per cent. For purposes of comparison let us take other commodities closely allied with the buying needs of the farmer. For example, the decline in the price of farm
1572	COMMONS
Crop Insurance-Mr. McDonald (Souris)
implements was only 16 per cent, but production dropped 80 per cent. In cement the volume of production dropped 80 per cent, but the price dropped only 18 per cent. Iron and steel prices dropped only 20 per cent but volume of production decreased 83 per cent. Is it fair, is it honest, that the farmers of this country should be compelled (to go on producing with a decline of 63 per cent in the price of their product, when the manufacturer of farm implements takes a reduction of only 16 per cent, iron and steel 20 per cent, and cement 18 per cent? Of course I know that in respect of some other commodities the decrease in price was greater.
Let us look at some of the conditions applicable to good crop insurance. The people of Manitoba are studying crop insurance at the present time. Saskatchewan has given considerable study to the question; the United States has made an extensive study of it, and we in this house must do likewise in view of what the Minister of Agriculture has announced, because I feel certain that the government intends to bring in something in the nature of crop insurance, we hope at this session.
We should not continue the present policy, because it has placed the farmers of the west in such a position that they see very little hope for the future. The effect of the paralysis of the purchasing power of the west will be felt in every part of the country; it cannot be confined to the west alone, any more than a disease which may attack one part of the body can be confined to that part only. For that reason we should do what we can to correct this situation. I believe we should look into the feasibility of crop insurance in an endeavour to safeguard the farmer as far as possible against factors which are beyond his control. Certainly the farmer cannot control the weather, which has so much to do with the production of crops. Certainly he has very little to say about the fiscal policies of any country other than his own, in order that he may maintain a decent standard of living through the sale of the goods he has produced. Industry has been able to safeguard itself by insurance. We have all kinds of insurance-life, automobile and hail insurance-and by the way that is the only crop insurance we have ever had in the west; any other crop insurance plan ever tried has failed because we have not had sufficient information to give the insurance companies a proper basis on which they could fix the cost of such insurance.
As I mentioned a moment ago, industry is able to protect itself through insurance, and the farmer will have to do the same thing if (Mr. G. W. McDonald.]
he is to survive. It is expected that some time in the future this government will introduce a system of unemployment insurance, which I feel reasonably sure will not apply to the fanner, if we are to judge from the legislation that was introduced by the previous government. For that reason the farmer has every right to ask for crop insurance in order that he may receive the protection that industry will receive by way of unemployment insurance, workmen's compensation and other insurance plans that have been devised to safeguard industry and the workers in industry.
In the beginning we should have the simplest possible crop insurance plan, because that is the only way we can gain practical experience; and I think that insurance should apply to some principal crop. We cannot have it apply to every crop; we must take the most important one, wheat. The contracts should be very clear and simple, and should not be open to dispute. In addition, no form of crop insurance should encourage poor farming. We have no right to introduce into this house a bill that will have the effect of making the farmer look more to his crop insurance than to better methods of farming. We must avoid that very real danger. The amount of insurance should be arrived at scientifically; we should have all the information as to the type of soil, what it has produced in the past, what kind of farmer the man is, and all the rest of the data necessary to show the physical value of each farm, and we should not insure to the extent of more than seventy-five per cent of that amount.
Then there is the question of the collection of premiums. From the resolution I have introduced it might be surmised that we wanted the government to do this free for the three western provinces. That is not the idea of crop insurance, though in view of the present position of the western fanner the government at first would have to do that. We have many farmers in the west who would be pleased to pay their own premiums, if they could once get started; but in instituting such a scheme I suggest that the government take at least a portion of the premiums, if not all, in the form of w'heat or some other farm product, particularly in a year when there was a large crop. That would have the effect of taking a large part of the surplus off the market, and would help stabilize prices. It would have a double benefit; it would help the farmers finance themselves and would help the government put the farmers in the position of being able to pay their own premiums. After all, any industry that is worth while should stand on its own feet.

National Health-Mr. Mclvor
I have touched only a few of the principal features of crop insurance. There is one other point I should like to mention, however, and it is this. In years when we have large crops, such as we had this year in many parts of western Canada, the municipalities could do a great deal to help themselves if they would build municipal elevators in which part of the jrop could be stored. Why do I advocate a scheme of that kind? I do so because every year we have had a crop failure the farmers have had to come and ask this government to provide seed and feed, and in almost every case when the farmer came to pay back the advance it has taken three bushels of wheat in the fall to pay for one bushel of seed obtained in the spring. That being so, I believe something should be done by way of storing grain, not in commercial elevators, so that it may be available in time of need. The cost of providing feed, seed and direct relief in western Canada has brought bankruptcy to most of the municipalities, placed a heavy burden on the provinces as a result of which they are unable to finance themselves without the help of this government, and placed a heavy strain upon the finances of the federal authorities. At the conference held in Winnipeg last December it was stated that $900,000.000 had been spent on relief. We cannot continue under present conditions, and it is for that reason I now bring the subject matter of this motion to the attention of the government.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Mr. DANIEL McIVOR (Fort William) moved:: That, in the opinion of this house, the government of Canada should try to secure amendments to the British North America Act, to provide periodical health examinations and provision for suitable treatment for all those suffering from disease.
He said:	Mr. Speaker, the resolution
appears in its present form so that it may not be called by a false name and debated under some other head. We realize that as a dominion government we cannot go ahead without the cooperation of the provinces. Therefore we want to tell them, in the words of Dickens, that "Barkis is willin'."
I bring the resolution before the house, first, for the sake of the doctors, and, second, on behalf of the sick. I speak not from hearsay but from personal information and from what I have seen in Saskatchewan, Manitoba
and around the head of the lakes. The worthy hon. member who has seconded this motion (Mr. Howden) used to take me out under his wing, especially on a Sunday night when he had a few calls to make, and in that way I was permitted to see and to understand for myself. I saw both sides of the case. I can see that doctor, on my advice and invitation, visiting the home of a man, the father of five children, who could not pay five cents to the doctor. The father was suffering from a severe foot infection, and as a result part of it had to be cut away. I can still see that man sitting with his foot in a pail of hot water. I can still see that worthy doctor taking the foot from the water, and handling it as if it were a tender baby. Who would pay him? I say that sort of thing is not fair. It has been said of that doctor that at one time the community in which he lived owed him $75,000, and, if I may be permitted to use the doctor's own plain language, he would not "get a blamed cent of it." No doctor whose services may be worth $50 to $70 a day should have to give them free of charge. We have great wealth in Canada and, as I said on another occasion, there ought to be enough for everybody. But there is not sufficient for all, because of the greed of some. Selfishness is perhaps one of the greatest causes of much of our suffering.
I can remember an occasion in northern Manitoba when a young doctor took me with him on a forty-mile drive. Taking his kit, he expected to perform some surgical work. When we arrived at our destination conditions were not very comfortable for him and were especially uncomfortable for the patient. However, working under difficult conditions, the doctor did the best he could, and the operation proved successful. Following his work we drove home, shooting some wild ducks and having our lunch on the way. I was present at an interview between that doctor and the farmer. The doctor's fee, to cover a forty mile trip and a surgical operation, was $17.50. When he was informed of the amount, the farmer objected. Then, as one might expect the doctor sat back and permitted the sky pilot to do the talking. I informed that man that for the type of operation which had been performed the doctor should receive $150. I said to him; "The doctor will not take a cent for his services because you have not appreciated what he has done in saving the life of your wife. Perhaps you think your wife was not worth very much." Some time after that however the man had a good crop and was able to make a payment.
National Health-Mr. Mclvor

I am sure there are medical men in the house who come from centres where during the depression-and the same may apply even now-they received very little for their services. That would be true especially in relief cases. I could take hon. members to a home in Fort William where a doctor had been called to attend a sick child. As it was not expected to live, I, too, had heen called. As one might expect, the minister beat the doctor to it. I can still see that doctor-and I do not mind giving his name; it was Doctor McCartney, a very fine type of returned soldier-attending that child as if it were the most valuable thing on earth. Yet he could not get five cents for his work. I say, therefore, that the resolution is worthy of support, first, for the sake of the doctors.
May I point out, too, that it should be supported for the sake of the sick. I heard of a farmer in O'Connor district, near Fort William, who refused to go to the hospital for treatment because he did not expect to live much longer anyway, and did not wish to leave his family in debt. Undoubtedly he should have had treatment.
To my mind the two reasons I have submitted are sufficient to warrant the support of the resolution. I know the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Power) will give it his fatherly approval just as soon as the means are at his disposal. Prevention is the best kind of cure. Our doctors tell us that if patients could be treated in the early stages, the cost of illness would not be so great. We know however that the surgeon or doctor is called in only as a last resort, and that in many cases surgical operations are performed when it may be too late. The people hardest hit in this way are the greatest producers of wealth, namely the toilers, and especially the farmers. In some communities great difficulty is experienced in getting a doctor. For some time in a district east of Port Arthur the people have been trying to obtain the services of a doctor. They would pay part of the expense, and would find some other way to provide the rest of his salary, but so far however they have not been able to secure the services of a medical man. Under present circumstances medical attention costs them far more than it shopld.
I do not want to take much time in a discussion of this motion, because we want to hear from members in different parts of the house. I would say that one of the outstanding needs of our time is that of health examination, especially for those who are contemplating marriage. I believe the absence of such examination is one of the greatest

causes of divorce. The doctors know more about that than I do, and they will be able to speak with authority.
I leave the matter now for the consideration of the house, because to my mind health examinations and treatment for those suffering from disease represent one of the outstanding needs of our time. From Cape Breton on the east to Vancouver on the west, and extending up into the northern country, periodical health examination and proper medical treatment are very necessary. I know it is difficult to get the money, but under present circumstances it is costing the country far more than it otherwise would.


Mr. J. P. HOWDEN (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, during the session of 1931 it was my privilege and pleasure to bring before the house the following resolution:
That, in the opinion of this house, a measure of federal state medicine would be in the best interests of the Canadian people.
It will 'be seen that I asked only for a measure of state medicine. Thirteen hon. members took part in the debate on that resolution, and, with the exception of two, I am happy to say that they were all favourably disposed. In fact one member on the government side, since deceased, sent me over a note asking me not to withdraw the resolution but to allow it to go to a vote. However, the leader of the government took exception to the resolution and set his face quite definitely against it. He indicated that if the resolution were accepted by the government it would mean that the government would be obliged to bring in state medicine in some form, and that the resolution, in the terms in which it then appeared, meant practically the sweeping away of all existing medical services in the country. In the following year I moved another resolution in the following language:
That, in the opinion of this house, the government should take into immediate consideration steps which would:	(a) provide for
periodic medical examination of the Canadian people; (b) afford medical relief for those suffering from disease.
This resolution was substantially the same as the one moved to-day by the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor). Under the circumstances it is not difficult for me to come to his assistance and support his contention by seconding his motion.
It is not my intention to spend a great deal of time in a discussion of the resolution; it speaks plainly enough for itself. It asks that the government secure authority to provide for periodical health examinations and to afford relief to those suffering from disease.

National Health-Mr. Howden
I would proceed first by asking the house: Is it desirable that we should have periodical medical examinations? We are told that thousands of people, in fact hundreds of thousands of people in this country die yearly from preventable diseases. We are told that between three and four per cent of the population of Canada are constantly sick and under medical care, and that medical services cost the people in the vicinity of 1300,000,000 yearly.
What would be the advantage of periodical medical examinations? Speaking generally,
I say that periodical medical examinations would discover, in the case of children, bad *teeth, diseased tonsils, defective hearing and eyesight, scrofula, chorea, tuberculosis, and many other forms of disease which would have disastrous results in a short time or lead to more serious trouble later. Then in the case of adults, periodical examinations would discover tuberculosis, heart disease, the greatest destroyer of human life; hyperarterial tension, and many other conditions. So far as children are concerned, if these conditions are discovered in time, about ninety-five per cent of all cases can be corrected. The child may then go on in its healthful way, strong, intelligent, and rejoicing, whereas if the condition is not discovered in time, we may have a feeble youngster who has difficulty in fighting life's battles.
As far as adults are concerned, I think we are all indirectly familiar with the conditions which I have mentioned and realize that periodical medical examinations would be of decided benefit. This whole matter was summed up quite well in a pamphlet put out some years ago by the health league of Canada. It started off 'by stating what I have said, that many thousands of people die from diseases that could be prevented. It then goes on:
There is one solution. Periodic health examination-a periodic and thorough overhauling by a competent physician. To induce people to adopt this solution is a task demanding prompt and constant attention of health authorities, thoughtful citizens, and statesmen.
Disease strikes from coast to coast. It is a national menace and combating it a national problem. Dominion leadership is needed, because at present there is no uniformity of health management. In some places health is well safeguarded, in others, deplorably neglected. Cooperation between the dominion and the provinces in a concerted attack upon venereal disease has proven the value of maintaining a united front against disease. Not until this unity is achieved in attacking all diseases, can we expect a rapid change in the present unsatisfactory disease and mortality rates.
This deals at least in a brief and inefficient way with the first part of the resolution. Surely no one who considers the matter seri- [DOT] 71492-100
ously can help but realize the benefit of health examinations, at least once a year or, even better, twice yearly. The people of all countries, particularly the people of the United States, are becoming more alive to the need of state help in the matter of health relief. In 1935 the United States government passed the social security act. I am not familiar with its provisions, but I understand it is a measure which affords relief in many forms to the people of that country. I believe it provides relief for the unemployed, relief by way of public and health services, relief to expectant mothers, child relief, and so on. The President of the United States, realizing that many of the services provided by this act as emergency measures would become permanent once the act had been put into force, created a so-called interdepartmental committee and instructed it to coordinate the health and welfare activities. The chairman of the committee is Miss Josephine Roche, formerly assistant secretary of the treasury; the other members are the undersecretary for agriculture, the assistant secretaries of interior and labour, and the chairman of the social security board.
The social security board, in assuming its duties, asked the technical committee on medical care to investigate health and welfare conditions in the United States. The technical committee on medical care made an intensive study of health activities and summarized its findings in a report which was presented to the interdepartmental committee, which in turn passed it on to the president. The president recognized the urgency of the needs described in the report and suggested that the interdepartmental committee' lay the technical committee's report before a public health conference. As a result, a national health conference was called, which assembled at Washington in July, 1938.
Five recommendations were laid before the health conference at that time. I believe those five recommendations are well worthy of the consideration of hon. members of this house, and with your permission, sir, I am going to quote some of them.
The first recommendation was that the existing federal-state cooperative program for general public health services and for maternal and child health services be further extended through enlarged grants in aid to the states. Under this recommendation the committee first proposed an expansion of general public health services. Prevention must always be regarded as the first step in health programs. The expansion of the preventive health service means the strengthening and expansion of organized public health services which are



National Health-Mr. Howden
furnished primarily in the states and in local communities. Federal participation should be increased with a view to equalizing the public health services throughout the nation by strengthening such services where they are weak.
The committee further proposed that there be increased federal participation in public health services particularly in promoting an attack on certain important causes of sickness and death, for the control of which we already have effective weapons. I do not know that I need dilate on these various forms of sickness. Although they are not specifically stated, they are definitely hinted at. Certainly tuberculosis is one of them, and transcending even tuberculosis in importance I think is venereal disease, particularly syphilis. Members of this house are probably aware that last year the United States congress passed a bill providing for a federal expenditure of $5,000,000 the first year and $7,000,000 the second year, and such further sums as might be required for the balance of a ten-year period, for the purpose of fighting venereal disease alone.
The committee's recommendation calls for a careful but steady expansion towards a ten-year goal, when an adequate program of expanded public health services would require additional expenditures by federal, state and local governments of about S200,000,000 a year, or about $1.50 per capita. So that the first part of the first recommendation of the national health committee involved in expansion of public health services alone the sum of $200,000,000 a year.
The second part of the first recommendation deals with the expansion of special maternal and child health services. The committee proposed an expansion of the federal-state cooperative program already developed under the social security act. The goal is to assure to the mothers and children of all income groups and in all parts of the United States at least the minimum medical services which are essential to a reduction of the needlessly high maternal mortality rates and death rates among newborn infants, and to prevent diseases and conditions which occur in childhood and lead to serious disabilities in later life. If all of this were undertaken the program would require by the tenth year a total additional expenditure of about $165,000,000 a year. That is to say the first recommendation entailed an expenditure by the United States of $365,000,000 a year for public welfare and maternal and child welfare.
The second recommendation was this-and my reason, Mr. Speaker, for discussing this 
program in some detail is that it is such a comprehensive program of national health; if by any far-off chance we could embrace such a program in this country, we should indeed be considered a very fortunate people. The second recommendation was concerned with federal grants in aid for the construction of needed hospitals, and for the provision of temporary maintenance grants in the first three years after these new hospitals are built, in order to assist the local communities in taking over the responsibility for using and supporting them. The committee's studies show that the states need about 360,000 additional beds-taking into account beds needed in general, tuberculosis and mental disease hospitals, in both rural and urban areas, and that they need at least 500 health and diagnostic centres-no doubt comparable to our district health units in Canada [DOT]-in areas not readily accessible to hospitals or not sufficiently populated to require or to be able to support fully equipped hospitals. Improvement and modernization of existing facilities is, of course, included. Averaged over a ten-year period, the total annual cost of this program, including both construction and temporary maintenance, is estimated at a little under $150,000,000.
The third recommendation calls for federal grants in aid to the states to help them meet the costs of a medical care program, and this is the one I wish particularly to emphasize. It is a medical care program for recipients of relief or public assistance and other persons with low incomes who are able to meet the ordinary costs of living but not the extraordinary costs of illness. That to me, Mr. Speaker, is the hub of the whole thing. I believe that about sixty per cent of our population in Canada receive incomes of less than $1,000 a year. While I do not wish to rehash what has been said before, it must be evident to every lion, member that the family man who is not earning more than $1,000 a year will need to use every cent of his income to provide for his family and himself, and naturally he does not put away any money for sickness. When sickness comes it is a burden which he is little able to face, and if he is an honest man and insists upon paying his way, it certainly leaves him in a sad financial condition for a long time to come.
The facts brought to the attention of the committee show that the one-third of the population which is in the lower income brackets is receiving inadequate medical service in the United States. I think the same holds here. This applies to more than 20,000,000 persons who are supported by general relief, work relief, old age assistance and

National Health-Mr. Howden
other forms of public aid, and to about 20,000,000 other persons and families with incomes of S800 a year or less. These 40,000,000 are doubly handicapped. They have higher rates of sickness and disablement than prevail among groups with larger incomes, and they have less capacity to buy and pay for the services they need. Current provisions for medical services are inadequate to meet their needs. The committee recommended that the federal government assist the states from grants in aid to strengthen medical services for these two particular groups of the population.
The fourth recommendation, presented as complementary to the third, called for grants in aid to states to enable them to set up a general program of medical care, either by the use of taxation or by state health insurance programs, or by a combination of the two.
The first three recommendations took account of general or special preventive services, hospital construction and modernization and services for the medically needy. The fourth recommendation turns to the problems of persons who are ordinarily self-supporting. The committee directed attention to the economic burdens created by sickness, especially among low income groups, and concluded that there is need for measures which will enable people to anticipate and to meet sickness costs on a budget basis.
Without great increase in total national expenditure, the burdens of sickness costs on families and on the public can be greatly reduced through arrangements to distribute these costs among groups of people and over periods of time. The more adequate prevention and care thus made possible would lessen both individual disasters and the public burdens arising from dependency.
The committee recommended consideration of a comprehensive program designed to increase and improve medical services for the entire population. To finance the program, two sources of funds could be drawn upon: general taxation or special tax assessments, and specific insurance contributions from the potential beneficiaries of an insurance system. The committee recommended consideration of both methods, recognizing that they may be used separately or in combination.
Though this fourth recommendation deals primarily with medical care for self-sustaining persons, the committee recognized that it would be unsound for the states to develop for the self-supporting population medical care programs which are separate and apart from whatever the states might develop for needy persons. Accordingly, the committee 71492-100J
proposed that while the fourth recommendation deals primarily with state medical programs for self-supporting persons, a sound state plan should make provision for the care of the needy persons under the same system that is developed for the self-supporting.
I think the fifth and last recommendation is also worthy of notice. The fifth recommendation proposed that federal action be taken toward the development of disability compensation-that is, benefit payments to insured workers who are temporarily or permanently disabled. This recommendation contemplates insurance against loss of wages on account of disability.
Under the present social security program, millions of workers may count on some continuance of partial income in lieu of their regular wTages when they become unemployed and are able to work. Under the workmen's compensation laws, most of them are protected against wage loss resulting from accident or injury arising out of employment. But generally they have no protection against wage loss resulting from non-industrial sickness or accident. A limited number of workers do have some such protection through voluntary insurance schemes, commercial or non-profit, but they are a small minority in the total.
There is good reason to believe that insurance against disability can best be treated not by a single insurance system but by two systems closely coordinated. There is, first, the problem of the temporarily disabled worker-the worker who has an acute illness and for whom there is every reason to expect that, after a few weeks or a few months, he will recover and return to work. There is, second, the problem of the permanently disabled worker-the worker who, by reason of crippling or chronic illness, will probably never again be able to enter gainful employment.
Temporary disability compensation, with a substantial waiting period-seven, ten or fourteen days-with benefits calculated at fifty per cent of wages for a benefit period of at least twenty-six weeks, would cost approximately one per cent of wages. The cost should probably be divided between employers and workers, though a share of the cost might be carried by general taxation. Such an insurance system would normally be financed on an annual fiscal basis, involving no reserves other than for operating and contingency purposes.
Permanent disability insurance, with benefits geared to old age and survivor's benefits, would probably cost two-tenths to three-tenths of one per cent of wages in the earlier
National Health-Mr. Howden

years, 'but as time went on the cost might be expected to rise, depending on the extent of the benefits provided and numerous other factors. This type of insurance could be established by liberalizing the present federal old age pension system.
There we have a comprehensive system of national health insurance. It provides for an extension of public health services and maternal and child welfare work; the building of needed hospitals, the institution of district health units in various parts of the country; health service for those on relief and families which cannot afford to pay for it. It offers a form of health insurance to families which would have great difficulty in meeting the cost of large and extended medical services. Lastly it provides protection for workers who are unemployed, and for people who through chronic illness, crippling or old age will be permanently unemployable. It is an important, comprehensive and complete system of health insurance. It has been submitted by the President of the United States to the various states and organizations throughout the states. It has in fact been the subject of heated and vitriolic debate in that country. But there can be no question in the mind of any sane and honest individual who has the welfare of his country and his fellow citizens at heart that the adoption of a program of this kind would be eminently desirable and to the advantage of us all.
Inasmuch as the motion of the hon. member for Fort William practically requires state health insurance-for it is useless to provide for periodical health examinations if relief is not provided where sickness is found to exist-it is not necessary to abolish the health service we have at the present time. We have an excellent health service, extensive hospitals, and a sound and efficient practice of medicine. A large majority of the medical practitioners are philanthropically inclined; they are serious and able. We have health units pretty well spread over the provinces of Quebec and Ontario and finding their way through Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Health and medical services are provided by many fraternal societies; the Kiwanis and other service clubs are doing an excellent work in supplying needed measures of medical relief. Sickness and life insurance companies provide a measure of nursing service in time of illness. The value of ordinary municipal health service is not to be ignored: school nurses examine the children from time to time and ascertain the nature of the illness that is keeping children at home. School children fortunately have the benefit of more than an examination, because according to

law in most of our provinces the children are required to submit to inoculation against diphtheria and typhoid and scarlet fever, as well as vaccination against smallpox, and any disease from which they may be suffering is attended to immediately in order that they may return to school as soon as possible. The examination of school children therefore is a valuable service to the country, and we may look forward hopefully to the day when diphtheria, typhoid and scarlet fever will practically cease to exist, just as smallpox has been successfully eradicated.
This is all excellent work, but it falls far short of a general scheme of national health. The poor sick are always poor, and very often sick. They get the poorest medical attention, just as they receive the least consideration in other matters. I urge upon the federal government that they take this matter into serious consideration. All we ask is that they interest themselves in the health of the Canadian people beyond merely administering the Food and Drugs Act and looking after leprosy-which by the way I have never seen and never expect to see, and I am sixty years old-and a few other things that make no difference at all to the Canadian people. If this is all that is done, the federal health department might just as well not exist; and if it might just as well not exist, why not do away with it?


Mr. POWER:: Hear, hear.


John Power Howden: I am glad to hear the Minister of Pensions and National Health say " hoar, hear," for I know he is sympathetic to the health movement. I have little doubt that if he were to receive any encouragement from the government to which he belongs we should soon have a desirable system of care of national health.
In conclusion I ask the government to take the same degree of interest in the health of the Canadian people that is being taken by governments not only in the United States and Europe but in South America and Africa and every other country under the face of heaven.


Robert James Manion: I agree in general with the purpose of the motion of the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor) rather than with the method proposed by him for carrying it out. Having been many years ago a medical practitioner, I sympathize with the idea of greater care of the people's health. I realize that the hon. member for Fort William is moved in this matter by his sympathy and kindness of heart. Being a clergyman by profession, he has had much

National Health-Mr. Manion
experience, as all medical practitioners have, in entering the homes of the people and seeing the sickness and sorrow which is the lot particularly of the poor; and he feels that something should be done about it. With that feeling I think all hon. members will be in sympathy. One difficulty is the expense, in these times when governments are hard pressed for money, and another, which is at the present time almost insurmountable, is that of securing the necessary change in the British North America Act.
A good deal has been done towards the protection of the health of the people. I think the insurance companies, not only of Canada but of the United States and other countries, deserve much credit for their splendid work in encouraging their policyholders to undergo annual medical examination. For example, within the last ten days I had a thorough examination at the expense of an insurance company in which I have held a policy for some years.


Mr. LAPOINTE (Quebec East):: The result was good?


Robert James Manion: Pretty fair; good enough at any rate, I may inform my hon. friend, that I think I shall be hanging around when the next election takes place.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Robert James Manion: I am glad my hon. friends are pleased.


Charles Gavan Power: I do not know whether or not the applause is flattering.


Robert James Manion: Well, I will take a chance on that. Without doubt the insurance companies have carried on this work in the hope that it would pay them to do so, though so far as I know they have been unable to prove as yet that this work has brought them any financial return. Recently, however, I saw some figures which indicated that in 1938 some six thousand people took advantage of the opportunity to get medical examination at the expense of the insurance companies in which they held policies. That is a large number of people. Some of the diseases which may be discovered by these early examinations, even at a time when the patient may seem to be in reasonably good health, are cancer, tuberculosis, diabetes, Bright's disease and heart diseases. There may be others that I have overlooked, but these five came to my mind. If I may give a little free medical advice to the whole house, a complete medical examination at least every year, and I should say every six months, is advisable for all men over fifty years of age. I hope that may make a little
business for the medical profession, incidentally, though it will not be any advantage to me because I am not practising. Regular medical examinations every six months or every year would in many cases arrest the progress of some malady which might carry off a man or a woman if it were not discovered in time. The diseases I have mentioned may be discovered early in their development and, by proper treatment, their progress halted. The great leader of the Liberal party, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the idol of my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe), when a comparatively young man was discovered to have some defect in his health. I am not certain whether it had to do with his lungs or his heart, but I think he had what was described in those days as a weakness in the lungs. He was advised to take good care of himself. So well did he do that, despite the fact that he was a hard worker all his life, he lived to a ripe old age.^ If I may be forgiven for mentioning it, that is a good illustration of the' advantage of the early discovery of an illness or disease.
So that even if a debate such as this does nothing more than stir up interest in the health of the individual, it accomplishes a great deal. At the same time it should not be forgotten that this whole question of periodical medical examinations is bound up with health insurance, old age pensions, unemployment insurance and other social services which in some countries at least are being progressively entered upon. Even England, which is far fiom being a socialist country, has gone in for social services to a greater degree, I think, than most other countries. Indeed, as I said in this house a few days ago, I think during the debate on unemployment insurance, we in Canada might do well to copy more of England s methods in such matters as social services. Canada is very far behind in all these matters, and we might well do more than we have been doing in caring not only for the health but also for the lives of our people.
The latter part of the resolution deals with state medicine, and I do not know that at the present time I would come out wholeheartedly for that. The last few words of the resolution are as follows:
Provide periodical health examinations and provision for suitable treatment for all those suffering from disease.
That is really state medicine, and at the present time, as far as my information goes, the medical men themselves' are opposed to that proposal. There are individuals, of whom I think the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Howden) is one, judging from his remarks in this house on a number of occasions,
National Health-Mr. Manion

who favour state medicine, but I think the majority of the medical profession do not. To their credit be it said that in the years that have gone the medical profession have always been in the forefront when any proposal was made which would benefit the public.


John Power Howden: If I may, Mr. Speaker,
I would inform my hon. friend that the house committee of the American Medical Association have accepted the first three and the fifth of those resolutions, but have discarded the fourth.


Robert James Manion: I thank my hon. friend for that information. I do not pretend to be up to date in regard to medical questions at the present time, but I think I am correct in saying that a majority of the medical men in Canada at any rate, and I believe in the United States, are not favourable to state medicine.


Charles Avery Dunning: If my hon. friend would permit me-I will put it in the form of a question,-is it not a fact that at present any province that so desired could embark on state medicine?


Robert James Manion: Yes; before concluding I
was going to mention that of course this is at the present time a provincial matter.
I was going to say that the medical men themselves have originated all the advances that have been made in regard to public health. All down through the ages the medical men have been taking away from their livelihood by discovering new methods of treatment and giving them to the world. We can look back at practically all the discoveries in medicine, such as anaesthesia, antisepsis, antitoxin in diphtheria, the treatment of syphilis and various other treatments, and with only one exception that comes to my mind these discoveries have been given freely to the world, without any profit to the person who discovered them. There is another discovery that I overlooked for the moment; that is, the discovery of the insulin treatment for diabetes by our own Doctor Banting of Toronto. It is true that Doctor Banting did receive a reward; he was appointed as head of a research institute which is doing splendid work. But men in the medical profession, all down through the ages, have been discovering methods of treating disease and offering them freely to the world. The one exception that comes to my mind, though there may be others, is the discovery of 606 for the treatment of syphilis, which was patented so that the medical profession, and through them the patients, had to pay quite 
high prices for the treatment. It was discovered in Germany, and I do not say that with any desire to criticize the German people. I do sometimes criticize their present leader, but I have no criticism of the German people themselves. One other treatment I could have mentioned, perhaps, is the discovery of vaccination many years ago by a country practitioner in England. All the treatments I have mentioned, with the single exception, were given freely to the public, even though it meant that in giving them the medical profession were taking away part of their own livelihood.
I mention this only because it suggests that the fact that the majority of the medical profession oppose state medicine seems to me proof that this is not quite the proper time to institute such a system.
There is another method growing up in various parts of the world whereby medical men band together and form a sort of clinic. In consideration of receiving so much per month from a number of families, they care for them. There is really nothing very new in that, because I well remember that thirty years ago I was doing the same thing on a fairly large scale at the head of the lakes, the vicinity from which the mover of the resolution (Mr. Mclvor) comes. The scheme was of an industrial type. I was looking after the employees of three or four very large corporations. I remember that one of them at one time had as many as 1,600 men employed. Regularly I made my morning visit to the plant at half past seven, and held my clinic before I began what I regarded as my regular day's work. This system is much the same as that which is being developed to-day. The employees in the plant paid one dollar a month, and in return received medical and surgical attention, drugs, ambulance service, hospitalization, and all that any man would require in respect of any illness.


Charles Avery Dunning: The ancient Chinese
system.


Robert James Manion: Yes, to a certain extent it was the ancient Chinese system, the system under which you keep the patient well. He pays you while you are keeping him well, and stops paying when you do not. As a matter of fact I think it is a rather good system. There is this about it, that they pay, whereas to-day a great many who become sick do not pay. From the point of view of the medical men I imagine they would much prefer a system under which all would pay.
One development which has been a great boon to the working man has been the introduction of workmen's compensation

National Health-Mr. Woodsworth
boards. This system was introduced in Ontario I do not know how many years ago- it cannot be very many, because I can well remember that there was no workmen's compensation board in the early days of my practice.


Mr. MacNICOL:: It was introduced by Sir James Whitney.


Robert James Manion: Yes. There was no workmen's compensation board in the first ten years of my practice. At that time if a man was injured and wished to secure damages he had to sue the company, and very often if he hoped to win he had to carry his case up through the courts. The companies worked on the principle that if an individual beat them in court they were placed in a disadvantageous position in respect of other accident cases. The operations of the workmen's compensation board have brought great happiness to the working man. It is a system which is now in force I believe in every province in Canada, although some of the provinces adopted it only recently.
As I say, the difficulty involved in the proposal of the hon. member lies in the attempt to change the British North America Act. The very fact that it is necessary to change the British North America Act to put into force a system such as this emphasizes the fact that health is really a provincial matter and not a dominion matter. While I might be very sad if the health branch were wiped out, 'because it is headed by a minister who is one of my very best friends in the house, and while I should not like to see him out of a job-


Charles Gavan Power: I shall have to deal with the soldiers for a while.


Ernest Lapointe: The
pensions would remain.


Robert James Manion: Yes. But I have wondered sometimes if the dominion were not going outside its proper scope in dealing as much as it does with health matters. At the same time I believe it was the party to which I belong which brought the health branch into operation. I remember advocating the appointment of the first deputy minister, Doctor Amyot, and also the present one, Doctor Wodehouse.
I suppose, however, that the hon. member for Fort William does not expect the resolution to carry. I imagine he has accomplished his purpose in drawing the matter to the attention of the house. I have expressed my sympathy with the general idea. I imagine his resolution will receive the sympathy of many other hon. members, including that of
the minister, and probably the hon. member will consider he has done all that he set out to do.


Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I think perhaps the form in which the resolution is presented is not very fortunate. However on behalf of our group I should like to associate myself with the principle which seems to underlie it. I would rather take exception to the last words of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion), that sympathy is about all that we need at this time. As regards a great many of these things I think the government ought to be pressed to take action.


Robert James Manion: I did not say sympathy was all you need. I thought sympathy was all you would get.


James Shaver Woodsworth: That is a somewhat different matter. Recently the Health League of Canada presented an interesting brief to the royal commission on dominion-provincial relations. I shall take the liberty of quoting a part of the submissions which, it seems to me, summarize the situation:
1.	That the cost of illness in Canada is so great that it imposes a very heavy burden on the community and on the individual.
2.	That the direct cost falls largely on the provinces, municipalities and individuals.
3.	That a very large proportion of illness is preventable.
4.	That the discoveries in the field of preventive medicine are not applied to the task of preventing illness as they should be and that the amount of money spent on preventive measures is inadequate.
5.	That the value of cooperation between the dominion and the provinces has been proven and has proved to be effective in the field of venereal disease control.
6.	That this type of cooperation should be extended to other fields.
7.	That there is nothing in the British North America Act which prevents cooperation and the development of coordinated action throughout the dominion.
I shall not go farther. The last paragraph brings me to the resolution itself, which urges that the British North America Act be amended so that the dominion might more thoroughly enter into this field. I am inclined to think that the Health League of Canada was nearly correct when it pointed out that there is really nothing in the British North America Act which is out of keeping with action along this line. Here again I would read from their brief in support of the contention that "(7) there is nothing in the British North America Act which prevents cooperation and the development of coordinated action throughout the dominion:"
Under section 91 of the British North America Act exclusive legislation of the par-

National Health-Mr. Woodsworth
liament of Canada is extended to all matters coming within classes of subjects listed in this section. Subject No. 11 is quarantine and the establishment and maintenance of marine hospitals.
This is the only reference to health in the British North America Act.
I noticed it was taken for granted by the mover of the resolution that the British North America Act would have to be changed. It would appear that the leader of the opposition assumed the resolution could not be carried out without changes to the constitution.


Robert James Manion: Section 92 also refers to the subject.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I will come to that. I quote the brief:
In section 92 exclusive powers of the provincial legislatures are defined. Subsection 7 assigns to the provinces the establishment, maintenance and management of hospitals, asylums, charities and eleemosynary institutions in and for the province and other than marine hospitals.
That refers to institutions only.
In view of the fact that in 1867 there were no departments of health and preventive medicine was scarcely thought of, this matter is not definitely taken up in the act.
Section 91 states: "It shall be lawful for the queen, by and with the consent of the House of Commons to make laws for the peace, order and good government of Canada, in relation to all matters not coming within the classes of subjects by this act assigned exclusively to the legislatures of the provinces."
In other words, all residuary matters may be dealt with by the dominion.
It would seem that there is no good reason why the dominion should not enter into full participation in any scheme for the promotion of health throughout Canada.
That seems to be a not unreasonable argument. I shall not go into the constitutional question at any length, but I think we have taken some of these matters altogether too much for granted. We have failed to recognize the developments which have taken place in more recent years.
As to the position of our own group, let me say that from the very inception of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation we have emphasized the necessity of socialized health services. One of the planks in our platform is that there should be cooperation with the provinces in creating dominion-wide socialized health services. A pamphlet recently issued by the national council of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation explains this as follows:
The dominion and the provinces have their ministers and departments of health. In the main, however, health services are a matter of private arrangement with the medical profession, though there are important exceptions.

Several provinces already have some municipal doctors, free tuberculosis sanatoria and cancer and other clinics. But these hardly touch the problem, let alone solve it. On the whole, adequate medical care is still a luxury for the majority of our men, women and children. In thousands of cases serious illness and even death could be avoided if the patients had proper medical attention in time. But most workers, farmers and fishermen can only afford to go to the doctor or even hospital when they become convinced that they can no longer delay with safety. The result is unnecessary and preventable suffering and loss of life.
In this respect, too, Canada is behind most countries. Some form of state medicine is already operating in many lands such as Great Britain, the Scandinavian countries and New Zealand. The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation urges the institution of socialized health services for all Canadian citizens and will endeavour to coordinate the work in the provinces on a dominion-wide scale.
That is what we propose and what we are bound to advocate on every suitable occasion. It seems to me that this resolution hardly goes far enough. It asks for periodical health examination and for the suitable treatment of all those suffering from disease. There is nothing specific in that. It is something which cannot be done effectively except by some form of state medicine. Sooner or later we shall have to come to that. The leader of the opposition, himself a medical man, suggests that a considerable number of medical men are opposed to this idea and therefore it is not a good time to advocate a measure of this kind. I am ready to admit that medical men have done a great deal to cure and prevent disease, but I do not think we should take their judgment in such a matter as this as absolute. Like all of us, they have their own professional interests to consider. For example, it was found that in Great Britain medical men were not among those who were most keenly in favour of medical reform, nor were they among those most keenly in favour of the extension of social services by the state. The same thing has recently been found to be true in New Zealand, and I believe also in connection with health services in certain provinces of Canada. I do not think we should be asked to accept as decisive the opinion of a certain group of the medical men. I realize that there are many medical men who are in favour of state medicine, but we should not take the temporary decision of certain members of this profession as final.
Like everyone else, medical men are apt to think in terms of the days when they began to practise and when individualism was more or less the rule. Times have moved on. The leader of the opposition has said that years ago we saw the beginning of a new development when many large industrial companies

National Health-Mr. O'Neill
introduced collective medical services. That is all very well for those who are at work, but I would point out that there are large numbers of our people to-day out of work. There are also large numbers who are receiving such small wages that except in the most extreme emergencies they cannot call a doctor with any hope of paying for his services. Under these circumstances some form of health insurance or state medicine becomes very desirable. Some medical men from the narrower standpoint may be afraid of all that may be involved for themselves or for their profession in this idea, but as in many other instances I think it will be found that they will gradually fall in line with the new conceptions with regard to matters of social welfare.
Somebody has raised the question of where the money is to come from. May I suggest that unless we revert to barbarism, sooner or later the money in any case will come out of the community. It takes a lot of money to support our hospitals and health institutions of all kinds. Surely it would be more economical if we could prevent people from becoming ill. As I said the other evening with regard to crime, I think a greater proportion of the expenditures for penitentiaries and hospitals should be made to prevent crime and disease. Unfortunately we need these institutions at the moment, but we must not lose sight of the larger needs.
This brings me to the third consideration I had in mind. I have spoken about the desirability of periodical health examinations, and I have said that sooner or later we shall have to come to some form of state medicine, which would include medical health insurance. Perhaps more important than these is preventive medicine. We are gradually beginning to realize the desirability of preventing disease. It seems to me that there is absolutely nothing in the British North America Act to prevent the dominion government from going further along these lines than it has hitherto. In the old days we had to fight against smallpox, cholera and many of the great scourges of the middle ages, but even to-day there are other types of disease which take a heavy toll. I hope the government will give careful consideration to what may be done under modern conditions along more modern lines.
Mr. T. J. O'NEILL (Kamloops): Mr. Speaker, I think practically all hon. members will be found to be in sympathy with the resolution introduced by the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor). We hear a great deal about dominion and provincial rights, about the British North America Act
and as to whether we have a right to bring into vogue a system of state health insurance, but I think in the last analysis public opinion will be found to be the force that will bring about state health insurance.
We have a hospital in Kamloops which was going behind all the time. At every annual meeting of the board of directors attempts were made to find some means to help the hospital. One of the lady members of the board happened to visit a small town in Saskatchewan where they had hospital insurance. She brought back the idea to Kamloops, where the idea was adopted and proved to be a great boon, not only to the people but to the hospital. The hospital is now for the first time in many years beginning to pay its own way, and the people are able to get hospital treatment at rates they are able to afford. They pay one dollar a month, which includes hospital care for the entire family.
In British Columbia also the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific have health insurance schemes of their own for their employees, who contribute $1.75 a month and receive free medical attention, free hospital treatment and free medicine. When these advantages can be secured by the employees of a railway I see no reason why they should not be provided in Ontario by the 'big manufacturing plants, where often you will find four or five hundred employees in one plant; or if you could not have such a plan in one plant, half a dozen plants could get together and make an arrangement with the doctors.
Further, in Ontario there is an organization formed by the doctors themselves, known as the Associated Medical Services Incorporated. In my opinion, a committee should be set up at this session to study this question in order to see if we cannot get the doctors to cooperate in formulating a plan for submission to parliament, which can then, if necessary, whip it into proper shape.
In British Columbia the provincial government made a conscientious effort to bring into force the state health insurance act which the legislature had passed, but it met with a great deal of opposition, and the opposition of doctors retarded the operation of the act. Therefore, I think it would be much better if we could get the doctors to formulate and submit to parliament a plan of their own, which parliament could use as a basis in enacting suitable legislation, than to have parliament initiate a plan the operation of which might later be blocked by the doctors. What I have said about the doctors in British Columbia I have said in no belittling sense. While they did not block the legislation, the
15S4

National Health-Mr. Needham
objections they raised were the greatest factor in retarding the operation of state health insurance in that province.
If nothing is done by parliament at this time to bring about state health insurance, at least every member, on his return to his section of the country, can try to get his constituents to adopt a scheme of health insurance and do the best he can to bring about state health insurance on a small scale in the local community, and then it will not be very long before public opinion will force this parliament, in spite of the British North America Act, if that should prove an obstacle, to enact legislation to bring into force state health insurance on a national scale.


Mr. JOSEPH NEEDHAM (The Battle-fords) :: I shall say only a few words because I spoke to a similar resolution last year and I do not want to cover the same ground. I am speaking at the moment not as a medical man, but as one who has had a good deal of experience in the administration of a hospital, and I approach the question from the point of view of preventive medicine. In a hospital you come in contact with the individual who has been forced to undergo treatment in such an institution, and after he has left, you will perhaps hear one medical man saying to another: "If only that man had come to me five or six years ago I could have added ten or fifteen years to his life." But the reason why people do not go for an annual medical examination is largely a financial one; they are afraid of the cost. Some may be afraid that they will be told of some condition which they hope they do not have, and that deters people quite a bit from going to a doctor for medical examination.
I am in favour of this resolution, from the point of view of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth), because I believe that more effective work can be done by cooperation between this government and the provinces. I am of the opinion that health is largely a provincial matter, and I believe that the provinces have gone and are going about as far as they possibly can in instituting state medicine. They would go even further if they had the necessary funds.
We have a minister of health in the dominion government, and in that way public health becomes a dominion issue. Reference has been made to what the municipalities are doing. Most of the provincial governments are placing responsibility on the municipality, leaving the municipality to look after the health of its citizens. They too are going just as far as they possibly can with the funds at their disposal.

There is one phase of the matter which I wish to emphasize from the dominion point of view. The dominion evidently has a responsibility to eveiy citizen of the state because it claims the life of every citizen if needed; in case of war, for example. We are expecting to have laid before us a large appropriation for defence purposes; I say that the surest and best defence that this Canada of ours can have is a strong healthy citizenship, and if we diverted some of the proposed defence appropriation to strengthening the health of our people I think we should have better results and there would be greater satisfaction throughout the dominion.
Miss AGNES C. MACPHAIL (Grey-Bruce): Mr. Speaker, I want to say just a few words to show that I am in sympathy with the spirit of the resolution. I think we have come now almost to the time when the people do not care whether health is a federal or a provincial matter. What they do care about is that it is a human matter. One hears people talking everywhere about the necessity for state medicine or health insurance or some way of taking care of the sick.
Everybody knows that one serious illness in a family, and not necessarily a poor family but a family that you might call between poor and well off, is enough to cripple that family for years. I know one instance in my own riding where a boy, one of two sons, contracted .a serious illness last July, and that one illness will actually cost those people all that they will make for years to come. We have heard a great deal about what, the doctors do to assist poor families. Nurses also help. I could not help thinking of the nurse who took care of this case of spinal meningitis and saved the boy's life and mind at a great risk to herself. If she is paid, it will be because the family will make a superhuman effort to pay her. It is a large family, some of the children being only five or six, and it will mean that they will have to do without necessities in order to pay the nurse. Nurses as well as doctors render great service to families who are unable to pay for the service.
I do feel that the federal and provincial governments should get together and decide who is responsible, and then move as rapidly as possible towards some sort of health insurance or state medicine-I do not think it matters what it is called. But I do think we have come to the time when we want to pay the doctors and nurses to keep us well. That would cost less and result in much greater happiness. There would also be an economic gain because there would not be

National Health-Miss Macphail
so much interruption of work. Certainly it is the human and civilized way of going about the matter and the sooner we do it the better. No matter how much preventive medicine or health insurance we may have, that alone, while helpful, will not eliminate all the causes of sickness, because in some areas, whether in the country or in the city, where the people have not the proper variety of food, where their food is monotonous and is not the sort that is needed for healthy bodybuilding, where they lack sunshine and air-flooded rooms, where there is no recreation or exercise of a kind to promote body-building, we are bound to have illness. So that much as I believe in doing something along the line of state medicine-and we shall not do it all at once-I suggest that there are other things that we shall have to do at the same time. We shall have to make changes in our whole economic and social set-up in order to do away with the great poverty from which so many Canadians suffer to-day.
When I was in Russia, I visited many of the free health centres, one type of which is called the mother-and-child clinic. In Canada we are accustomed to say a good deal against Russia, and I for one would not care to live there-I would rather live in Canada- but I was both delighted and surprised when I saw the care given to the health of the people. The whole of that vast country is covered by these clinics and various health centres. In one mother-and-child clinic I visited in Moscow I saw the children coming in. The mothers are taken care of through pregnancy and delivery; the child is brought to the clinic once a week until it reaches the age of four, and all this is done without cost to the individual or the family. The only cost involved is for some particular diet which the child may need, and if the parents are working and can afford it they are expected to provide it. If, however, parents cannot procure it, it is provided just the same. I went through the clinic, the house of a former prince, and at the back there was a receiving room. There were little individual compartments, something like telephone booths only larger, to which the children were taken. The doctor would look over the child to see whether it had any disease that could be communicated to children in the waiting rooms, and if it had the child was taken directly to its own home or to a hospital.
Another interesting thing I noted was that in the care of the child the same doctor followed its progress right through. In the mother-and-child clinic in which I spent a forenoon there were thirty-two doctors of
whom twenty-eight were women, and the same doctor would take care of a child from birth to the age of four. It was not any doctor who happened to come along; the child's progress was watched by the same doctor throughout that period. There are many such clinics all over that vast city and over the still vaster country.
With regard to the observations of the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Howden),
I think many of these people who are ill should be getting some pay in the meantime if their minds are to be free enough to allow them to get well. In Russia when people are suffering from any illness, when workers, whether men or women, are sent to a sanatorium, they are paid the same wage as if they were at work so that they are not worried over their dependants during the illness of the bread-winner. That undoubtedly results in much more rapid cures than would result in Canada, where very often, when people are sent to a sanatorium, they do not know how in the world their families are going to get along, and they spend a good deal of time in worry which prevents them from getting well.
In connection with the great factories of Leningrad and Moscow, the majority of the doctors in the clinics attached to the factories are men, where the majority of the workers are men, and the majority of the doctors are women where the workers are women. We saw the creche where the mother leaves the child while she is at work. There the child is brought up scientifically with the greatest of care. Its food is carefully inspected, its sleep and even the toys with which it plays are supervised.
Coming out of Russia we passed through Denmark and Sweden, and I met the deputy minister of health of Denmark, and an official of the department of health of Sweden. I learned something of the benefits that accrue to the people of Denmark and Sweden from their nation-wide health insurance scheme. The people contribute a little bit all the time, and when they are ill they receive the very best care in the hospitals for two kronen and a half, which would not be more than sixty cents, a day. They get complete care in hospital, and that is not only nursing but medicine and surgical care as well. They would not think of reverting to a condition without health insurance. It has become a part of their lives and they would not dream of doing without it.
I believe that in Canada we are in many respects away behind other countries, not only in this particular matter but in many others as well. There does not seem to be
15S6
National Health-Mr. Kuhl

the same sort of public responsibility for the care of the sick and more particularly for the prevention of sickness, and it is time we moved. Surely we ought to be able to do something this session. If we had asked to have a committee set up to study the question it would have been better, but at any rate it is time the government moved. That is enough to give them a temperature, but still it is time that they themselves took responsibility and moved in the matter of health insurance or state medicine or some form of preventive medicine to help take care of people when they become ill.


Mr. W. F. KUHL (Jasper-Edson):: There is only one point on which I wish to place special emphasis. It is a foregone conclusion that we are all heartily in favour of providing more adequately for the health needs of the people of Canada, and it is also conceded by everyone that a nation can be strong only so long as its people are healthy and virile. These things should be and in fact they are taken for granted.
The point has been raised, and I think it is the only point in this whole discussion: How much will this health service cost, and how can we provide for it? There are two viewpoints from which we can look at the question. From the real cost point of view Canada can afford all the cost of providing the people of Canada with all health requirements; for, after all, what is the only real cost of providing or doing anything? It is human skill and energy, and physical material. In the final analysis that is the only real cost of doing anything anywhere. Surely it is obvious that Canada can provide all the things required to supply the people of Canada with all they need to raise their standard of health to the highest that is physically possible.
The financial side of the matter is merely bookkeeping. Surely if the people of Canada collectively can supply the real cost, it is the simplest common sense that we should set up a bookkeeping system, or so revise our bookkeeping system, that it will reflect what is physically possible for the people to do for themselves. What is the only real cost of building institutions? It is the building material-the brick, lumber, cement and whatever goes into the erection of the building-and the human labour to set it up. Certainly the people of Canada can provide all those things to erect institutions to care for the health of its people.
Furthermore, surely it is conceded that we have sufficient medical skill, sufficient doctors and nurses, or if not, they can be provided 
quickly. So from the real cost point of view the facilities necessary to provide for a high standard of health for the Canadian people can all be supplied. Then, why in the name of common sense should we not now arrange our bookkeeping system, our money system, to reflect these facts? That is the only real question in any problem that is raised in this parliament, or anywhere else. It would be conceded, I am sure, that physically we can solve almost any problem that faces this dominion. Every problem that is raised here eventually resolves itself into a question of finance, and until we set up an adequate financial or bookkeeping system it is in my opinion a waste of time to talk about these problems-


Mr. GOLDING:: Then why talk about
them?


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: I ask the hon. member to confine his remarks to the motion before the house.


Walter Frederick Kuhl: Yes, I am not going to get into a discussion of financial policy; I am simply pointing out what the real problem is in the resolution under discussion. I say it is physically possible for the people of Canada to provide anything that this resolution calls for, and it is the responsibility of the governing body which has control of finance to provide a financial policy which will reflect the physical capacity of the people to provide for the fulfilment of their desire. I think I need say no more in regard to that. It is painfully obvious to everyone that the real problem is the financing of such things as this resolution calls for, and it is time we set ourselves to devising a scheme which will make financially possible what is physicallv possible in this country in every way, shape and form.


Mr. J. K. BLAIR (Wellington North):: The resolution contains the clause "to provide periodical health examinations", which I think is extremely important. The public does not take advantage of its medical health officers. They are there to serve us. We have even had members of parliament drop dead who did not know they were sick. They should have known they had high blood pressure. Especially is periodical examination necessary for smaller children and for those over fifty years of age. The medical health officers should examine the public at a reduced rate as part of their jobs. Not only in cases of sickness do people need their advice, but you find sometimes big, fat fellows who perhaps do not know they are eating too much, and the health officer should tell such a man to diet, or tell his wife to stop feeding him. Or

National Health-Mr. Blair
a man might be found who shows every indication of having had, say too much beer. He should be told not to do so. Or if a man is working too hard he should be told, for the sake of his own life. This is no trivial situation, because people are dying on all sides who should not die, whose death might be prevented by a timely examination. It is generally believed that more people die from overeating than anything else, so it would be much cheaper to cut down on the diet.
I sometimes amuse myself watching the crowds go by and taking notes, and about every sixth or seventh person one sees is in obvious need of false teeth. Not having them means that these people will die that much sooner. In examining the mouths of the children in the public schools, which I have to do every year, one finds that their teeth are not attended to at all, they are growing in all shapes, the result being that their mouths are not in proper condition when the secondary teeth come in. We are not taking proper care of this generation. We do not think it is the duty of this house to take care of them.
We think there is unnecessary duplication of services. We have had travelling clinics sent out by this government going through the provinces, examining for tuberculosis, and other clinics are sent out by the provinces. That is folly. But we should have free travelling clinics for tuberculosis going through the country every year, under well organized provincial medical control and subsidized by the federal government. More attention should be paid to the services of the medical health officer, much more work should be required of him, and people should be compelled to go to the health officer so that he may guide them as best he can for their own benefit and for the purpose of prolonging their lives.


Charles Gavan Power: Mr. Speaker, the
resolution before the house reads as follows:
That, in the opinion of this house, the government of Canada should try to secure amendments to the British North America Act, to provide periodical health examinations and provision for suitable treatment for all those suffering from disease.
This and similar resolutions that have been placed on the order paper during past years- I may say in increasing numbers in more recent years-indicate that the people of this country are more and more taking an interest in public health, and so far as I am concerned that is absolutely all to the good. In former days, as older members will recall, when a resolution of this kind came up there was usually a doctors' field day, and those of us who were lay members of the house rarely
ventured to discuss the question at issue. I am not sure whether our intervention would have been very welcome in any case. It is,
I think, an encouraging feature for those interested in public health that so many hon. members who are not by profession medical men should take part in these debates and endeavour to impress their views on their fellow members and on the Canadian people. In other words, the members of this house are becoming health conscious. Whether that is as a result of pressure from their constituents or whether for once we are taking the lead is not a matter of much importance; what I think is important to the people of Canada is that whatever methods or means we may adopt to achieve our object, we are coming to realize that those things'once considered purely idealistic, to which only visionaries subscribed a few short years ago, have now become almost matters of what I might call practical politics.
There has come to a very large number of people in this country the belief that every citizen is inherently entitled to as much right to protection from sickness and disease as to protection from the more violent if often less hazardous, attacks of those who wish to steal his property or injure his person. The great difficulty would not appear to be so much the acceptance of the principle. I believe we have placed behind us the view held in days gone by that sickness, disability and illness were each man's individual concern and that the calling of a doctor was something to be avoided except in the most extreme cases. In those days the doctor was one of the most unwelcome visitors to the home. Not only was he unwelcome when he came in the course of his professional duty; he was still more unwelcome later when he attempted to collect the fruits of his labour.
I think we have reached a stage where it is not difficult for anyone to obtain the undeniable sympathy of members of this house and of the country at large to almost any proposal for an increase in the amount of money to be spent on public health. The difficulty, I believe, lies first in regard to just what authority, municipal, provincial or federal, is to be charged with the responsibility of carrying out those proposals; and second, in spite of the advice we have received from some of my hon. friends in the far corner, just where we are to raise the large sums of money which inevitably will be involved in carrying out these highly sympathetic proposals.
I might digress here for a moment to deal with the suggestion of my good friend the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) with respect to that very point of the responsibility of the various auth-
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orities which deal with health in this country. On consulting part II of the act respecting the Department of Pensions and National Health, I find that the duties and powers of the minister are set out as follows:
The duties and powers of the minister under this part shall extend to and include all matters and questions relating to the promotion or preservation of the health of the people of Canada over which the parliament of Canada has jurisdiction, and, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, particularly the following matters and subjects:
(a)	Cooperation with the provincial, territorial, and other health authorities with a view to the coordination of the efforts proposed or made for preserving and improving the public health, the conservation of child life and the promotion of child welfare

That was urged by my hpn. friend. Some of the other duties imposed upon the minister are these:
(b)	The establishment and maintenance of a national laboratory for public health and research work;
(e)	The inspection and medical care of immigrants and seamen, and the administration of marine hospitals;
(d)	The supervision, as regards the public health, of railways, boats, ships and all other methods of transportation;
(e)	The supervision of federal public buildings and offices with a view to conserving and promoting the health of the civil servants and other government employees therein;
(f)	The enforcement of any rules or regulations made by the International Joint Commission. . . .
(g)	The administration of the acts mentioned in the schedule to this act-
That is to say, the Food and Drugs Act and others.
(h)	Subject to the provisions of the Statistics Act, the collection, publication and distribution of information relating to the public health, improved sanitation and the social and industrial conditions affecting the health and lives of the people;
(i)	Such other matters relating to health as may be referred to the department by the governor in council.
Section 12 of the act, however, considerably restricts the authority conferred upon the minister. It reads:
Nothing in this part or in any regulations made hereunder shall authorize the minister or any officer of the department to exercise any jurisdiction or control over any provincial or municipal board of health or other health authority operating under the laws of any province.
So all we can do, so far as the provincial authorities are concerned, is cooperate. We have no power and no authority over them. Let us take for a moment the proposal with respect to periodical medical examinations, with which we are dealing at the present time. May I say at once, though perhaps this carries no authority, that from the informa-

tion I have been able to acquire in one way and another, officially and otherwise, I have been led to the conclusion that periodical medical examinations would be of great benefit to the community; first of all, by detecting and permitting the diagnosis in the earlier stages of diseases which might very well turn out to be fatal later on, such as cancer, heart disease and so on. It wrould be beneficial in observing the development of the individual and would permit us to detect the earliest signs of change from the normal and of impending disease. It would enable us to observe the effects of a hygienic daily regime; to note abnormal conditions arising from neglect of the laws of health; to recognize the benefit of following advice given to correct these abnormal conditions; to detect the early signs of focal infections and the results of their persistence; to accumulate facts regarding early symptoms of disease and treatment; to investigate the possibilities of cure in cancer, tuberculosis, venereal disease, et cetera, and to study the importance of hygienic and dietetic treatment in general. So that I do not think there is any difference of opinion [DOT] with respect to the value, not only to the individual and the community but to the dominion in general, of putting into effect something like periodical medical examination, in a general way.
If I may be permitted to digress again I would say that we have in this country to some extent periodical medical examination carried out gratuitously by the insurance companies. On January 1, 1930, a system of periodical health examination was adopted for the policy-holders of four insurance companies, namely the Sun Life, the Confederation Life, the London Life and the Canada Life. The scheme was inaugurated by the Canadian Medical Association. The companies agreed to pay $6 for each examination, $4 of which would be paid to the doctor and S2 to the Canadian Medical Association for administration and education. To further the scheme the Department of Pensions and National Health, in cooperation with the Canadian Medical Association, published a booklet for the guidance of physicians making examinations. In 1931 the number of policy-holders examined was 3,797. Having inaugurated the scheme the Canadian Medical Association dropped out, and its place was taken in 1931 by the Canadian Medical Institute of Toronto, which acted as administrative body.
The Canada Life Insurance Company has dropped out of the scheme, and at the present time there are three companies which have periodical examinations for policy-holders, namely the Sun Life, the London Life, and

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the Confederation Life. The examinations are confined to policy-holders thirty years of age and older, and for policies of $5,000 or more. In 1938 the total number of policy-holders examined was 6,000, and it is believed that in 1939 the number will be close to 7,000. Since 1931, 36,610 policy-holders have been examined. The fee paid at the present time to the examining doctor is $5, and the per capita cost of administration is $1.42, making a total of $6.42.
It is obvious that if periodical medical examinations were made available for all the people of Canada on the basis adopted by the insurance companies above-mentioned, the cost would be practically prohibitive. It might be possible to obtain a reduction in the medical fee if the numbers examined were sufficiently large, but no one could expect a doctor to make a thorough medical examination for less than $3. Even at this amount the cost would be still almost prohibitive. The only practical way, I am advised, to adopt a periodical medical examination would be by some system of health insurance.
But to return to the question of periodical medical examination, may I point out that in order to have the greatest value there would have to be some element of compulsion or coercion in it. Unless all, or almost all, or even a large majority, of the people of this country desired the examination, or were willing to give themselves the trouble or to suffer the inconvenience of calling on a selected medical man to be examined, some form of coercion would have to be employed. If we wanted to have a good cross-section indicating the health of the people of Canada in different localities, I am convinced this compulsion would have to be brought to bear.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre would be the firdt to agree with me that he would not expect me, at any rate- and I do not think I would expect him, if he were in my place-to go to any province in Canada and say, "I ask you to permit me, or to permit the government of which I am a part, to amend the British North America Act, so that I may impose coercion on the citizens of your province and place upon them the obligation of coming before a doctor to be examined." I would thereby be violating the elementary principle of the British North America Act with respedt to civil rights. Then I would have to go one step farther. I would have to call on my right hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) and ask him to lend me his mounted police, so that they could go forth into the country districts and round up or corral the recalcitrants who refused to have their teeth cleaned or their chests thumped.
I fear very much that my right hon. friend, with all the courage he has and all the desire he 'has to be of assistance to his fellow countrymen, would not undertake to enter into such a campaign as that-a campaign whereby we would have to apply some system of fine, coercion or force to bring the people before the doctors for examination.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre is perhaps about to say that a large number of people would wish to be examined. The statistics we have from the insurance companies lead us to the conclusion that even in those companies, where this work can be done free of charge, where it is performed on those policyholders having policies of $5,000 or more, and where it can be performed without great inconvenience or loss, advantage has not been taken of the opportunity to anything like the extent to which it could have been taken.


James Shaver Woodsworth: May I ask the minister If his objection would not apply to a considerable extent to coercion on the part of a province? The fact is we have not yet realized the importance of the matter. Would that not also apply to a province taking such drastic action as he suggests?


Charles Gavan Power: But they have the right to do it; we have no right.


James Shaver Woodsworth: But that is another matter.


Charles Gavan Power: I am answering my hon.
friend's suggestion that we have the right to impose periodical examination. In the first place I say we have no right, and in the second place I say I would not have the courage to ask a province to give me the right to go into their territory with authority to fine and imprison people simply because they did not want periodically to be medically examined.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Where does the
minister find the right in this instance in the British North America Act? Where does the minister find in that act the right of the province to this field.


Ernest Lapointe: Civil
rights.


Charles Gavan Power: Surely it is a question of civil rights.


Ernest Lapointe: How can you force me to go to a doctor? It is my civil right, and only the province can deal with the matter.


James Shaver Woodsworth: How can the province deal with it?
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Ernest Lapointe: The province has the authority under civil rights.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I had not intended to debate the question when the minister was speaking


Charles Gavan Power: I have no objection.


James Shaver Woodsworth: -but I- was going to ask whether this is not a matter expressly dealt with in sections 91 and 92 of the British North America Act. I note that the residual powers seem to be with the dominion.


Ernest Lapointe: But it comes under civil rights.


Charles Gavan Power: It is the civil right of each individual, if he so desires, to be cleansed or to be washed, to have his tooth pulled, to have his chest pounded, or to be placed on a table and have a stethoscope placed on his chest. He has a perfect civil right to resist, unless we made his resistance a criminal offence. There is the objection I raise; I do not say the provinces cannot do it themselves.


Ernest Lapointe: They can.


Charles Gavan Power: Yes, the provinces can do it. But I say that under the present set-up we cannot do it, and that with the little political sense I have I will not do it. I would not like to do it, and I would not try it.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Could not the dominion government go as far as the insurance companies and make this optional for all?


Charles Gavan Power: I am not sure, but possibly we could set up centres in which all who wanted could have medical examinations. Admitting that is possible, I come to the next objection. After all, periodical medical examination would be only part of the great problem of looking after the health of the people. I will not say it is putting the cart before the horse or that it is an unimportant part of the problem, but I do contend it is not an absolutely first essential in the general health problem. It must be included in the general problem of health insurance, whether such a plan is contributed to by the municipality, by the province or by the federal government. Of itself I cannot see that it would be of much benefit unless there were other means of looking after those who, upon examination, were found to be ill. After all, w'e would not be getting very far if we simply set up examination centres where we could tell Bill Jones that he had a leaky heart, and advise him where to go for treatment. Necessarily we would be obliged to coordinate our efforts with those of the hospitals, with those

of the medical authorities generally in the provinces and with those of the provincial health authorities. All we could do would be to tell a man what his disability was and where he could obtain treatment.
I am speaking now to the resolution as it is drafted and am not discussing the general principle. I contend that if we adopted this resolution as it is drafted we would not get very far. If we are to undertake anything that would be of value to the people of Canada, we must coordinate our efforts with those of the provinces on a much wider scale. I would like nothing better than to be in a position to propose a bill similar to that introduced into the senate of the United States on February 28, 1939, by Senator Wagner of New York. This is entitled the national health act of 1939. For maternal and child health services it proposes:
*-there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1940, the sum of $8,000,000; for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1941, the sum of $20,000,000; for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1942, the sum of $35,000,000; and there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for each fiscal year thereafter a sum sufficient to carry out the purposes of this part of this title.
Then, to provide medical services for children and services for crippled and other physically handicapped children, the bill provides appropriations for 1940 totalling $13,000,000; for 1941, $20,000,000; for 1942, $35,000,000, and thereafter the sums sufficient to carry out that part of the title. Then the same bill provides the following appropriations for public health work:
-for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1940, the sum of $15,000,000; for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1941, the sum of $25,000,000; for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1942, the sum of $60,000,000;
And thereafter such sums as are sufficient to carry out the purposes of that part of the title. Then, for hospitals and health centres the bill provides for an appropriation of $8,000,000 for 1940, $50,000,000 for 1941 and $100,000,000 for 1942.


James Shaver Woodsworth: That is a real liberal government.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is not a government bill, it is just a bill.


Charles Gavan Power: I do not quite agree with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning). I think a good deal of it will be put over. Then, for grants to states for medical care the bill provides for appropriations of $35,000,000 for the year ending June 30, 1940, and thereafter a sum sufficient to carry out the purposes of this title.

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Charles Avery Dunning: Read the qualifying
clauses.


Charles Gavan Power: I think in most of the sections the qualifying clause is to the effect that there is an allotment made to the states. It provides that there must be a state plan to effectuate the purposes of the act and to provide for financial participation by the state and for a state-wide program or for an extension of the program each year so that it shall be in effect in all political subdivisions of the state in need of the services not later than the beginning of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1945. Another clause provides for administration of the plan by the state health agency and for supervision by such agency of any part of the plan administered by another state agency or by a political subdivision of the state. There is provision also for the setting up of advisory councils.


Charles Avery Dunning: The state has to put up a great deal of money.


Charles Gavan Power: Payments are made to the state provided the state subscribes something.


Charles Avery Dunning: How much?


Charles Gavan Power: The part of the act I have been able to study does not make that quite clear. The financial resources and per capita income of the state is considered. The Minister of Finance will be glad to know that the poorer states receive more money, which is something to be said for this bill quite apart from its other provisions.


Mr. DONNELLY:: Could the minister state what percentage of people took advantage of the opportunities for free examination afforded by the insurance companies?


Charles Gavan Power: I shall try to have that by eight o'clock.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Charles Gavan Power: Mr. Speaker, just at six
o'clock the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly) asked if it was possible to ascertain the proportion, of those who could if they wished obtain periodical medical examination from the insurance companies, who have actually taken advantage of this free benefit. I have not been able within the time at my disposal to ascertain the exact numbers, but I am reliably informed that only thirty per cent of the limited number, it is true, of those who hold policies of a value of over $5,000 have up to the present taken advantage of the offer made to them by the insurance companies.
In numbers it was something like 36,000 since the scheme was inaugurated in 1930, and this year it is expected that some 7,600 will take advantage of the offer.
I notice, Mr. Speaker, that I have not very much more time at my disposal. I took up rather more time than I had intended in discussing some of the proposals which are now before the United States senate with respect to health generally and health insurance.
The house will remember that as far back as 1929 this house passed a resolution referring to the committee on industrial and international relations the question of sickness and invalidity insurance, and that committee reported to the house that the department of health should make some study of the question of health insurance in order to be prepared to give the information which would be necessary whenever the house or the country should desire that health insurance be put into effect. Time will not permit my placing on Hansard anything like the quantity of information which it has been possible to collect in the department, but if the house will bear with me for a moment or two I should like to sketch as briefly as possible some of the plans for health insurance or state medicine as they exist in different countries, and also to point out, with all due respect to the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Howden), who wished to abolish the department over which I now preside, that we have done something at least in gathering information to be available to members of the house and others who are interested in this matter, which information will guide them in their further researches in matters relating to state medicine and health insurance.
Last year, during the course of the debate on a similar subject, I dealt extensively with the situation as it exists in Russia, which is really the only country in the world that has state medicine in all its implications, and where, so far as we are aware, owing to their peculiar constitutional set-up, it has been found practicable so to regiment their medical men and their citizens that it is quite possible and even probable that state medicine has been successful.
In Germany they have a state insurance scheme, contributory and to some extent compulsory, and 19,000,000 citizens of that country come under its provisions.
In Norway the system of state health insurance is compulsory through insurance societies, which are confined one society to one district, and the division of contributions is made along these lines: The insured pays six-tenths; the employer, one-tenth; the commune, which I take to be the municipality, one-tenth, and the state, two-tenths.
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In Sweden, of which we hear a great deal these days, the system is voluntary, and here again it operates through societies with fixed societies in each region. The insured receives one quarter of the costs of medical care and drugs and has to pay for the rest of it himself. In Sweden one million persons out of a total population of 6,300,000 come under this scheme.
In Denmark the scheme is on a voluntary basis,. again through societies, but the state there pays fifty-four cents a year per head for persons whose income is less than a legally specified limit. So I take it that in Denmark what we might call the medically indigent are being looked after, and the state also gives cash for lay-off periods and provides for medical and maternal care. Out of a population of 3,700,000, there are 2,100,000 so insured.
In France they have a system all their own, whereby the sick pay out of their own pockets a percentage amounting to about twenty per cent of the doctor's medical costs, and the state provides a certain amount.
In Italy, while I have not been able to ascertain just how the proportion is made up, the fascist confederation of industry and the fascist confederation of industrial workers handle together the insurance of all the workers.
In Great Britain, as is well known, their health insurance scheme has been in effect for twenty-five years. Prior to 1936 there had been expended in insurance benefits $2,825,000,000, and there are in the reserve funds $618,270,000.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That is contributory, is
it not?


Charles Gavan Power: 
Walter Edward Foster: I regret to interrupt the minister, but he has exhausted his time.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Walter Edward Foster: By unanimous consent.


Charles Gavan Power: One of the more recent schemes has attracted a good deal of attention-the cooperative movement of the university of St. Francis Xavier at Antigonish. That went into operation on January 1, 1939, the unit being known as the mutual hospital group. There is a family rate of $2 a quarter. This will entitle members of the group to five weeks of ward treatment and a fifty per cent reduction in the rate for private and semiprivate rooms, together with laboratory services, ordinary medicine and a fifty per cent reduction on X-ray and operating fees.
In New Brunswick they have the Moncton group hospitalization service, in western Ontario, the Galt hospital service society, a nonprofit, cooperative hospitalization scheme, incorporated last year. A membership of 200 is the absolute minimum with which it would be safe to start. I have a note here that in no place in Canada or the United States where a hospitalization scheme of this kind has been properly thought out has it met with failure.
British Columbia has many such successful ventures. Directors of the King's Daughters hospital, Duncan, B.C., completed arrangements in December, 1938, for the inauguration of a hospital benefit scheme similar to those which are in successful operation in a number of districts in British Columbia. The scheme offers a contract whereby the contract holder and, if he is married, his wife and dependent children under twenty-one, may secure hospital accommodation and service, including stock drags, anaesthetics and the use of the operating room and X-ray equipment for a period of three months in any contract year. The annual payment has been set at $15, which may be paid in monthly instalments. To make the scheme successful and to get it under way it will be necessary for 1,000 contract holders to sign up. Kamloops has a successful scheme now operating. Kelowna also has a similar scheme.
We also have in Canada schemes of group medicine, to which reference was made this afternoon by a number of speakers. There is Associated Medical Services Incorporated, with headquarters in Toronto. In January, 1939, the chief medical officer of the corporation stated that subscribers in Ontario numbered over 4.300. Between June 1, 1937, when the association was formed, and September 1, 1938, approximately 1,400 accounts were paid, ranging from $1 to S150 on single items, to $400 in one case. The maximum allowed anyone in need of medical services is $800 in one. year. As each person is allowed to choose a doctor, the number of physicians who

work with the organization grows as the membership mounts. Membership costs $2 a month, plus $1.75 a month for the first dependant and $1.50 a month for each succeeding dependant. Most subscribers are in Toronto, but the plan is in operation also in Ottawa and in Norfolk and Oxford counties. The rate of growth has been continually increasing, having risen from a low of 193 in January, 1938, to a maximum of 525 in November, 1938. The annual subscription averages between $1.85 and $1.90 a month, depending on the average size of the family subscribing during the month. The average expenditure over the twelve months' period of 1938 for those entitled to service was $1.08 a subscriber per month. In Toronto there are approximately 820 participating doctors out of 950. In Ottawa there are 139 participating out of about 150.
These schemes are also in effect in some of the western provinces, in Saskatchewan and, I believe, in Manitoba. Also in western Canada there is a scheme known as the municipal doctor scheme. Perhaps some hon. members from Saskatchewan are far more familiar with the operation of this scheme than I can be, but in theory at least the plan is that a physician is engaged by the municipality on a salary basis to give the residents of the municipality medical care. In western Canada the municipality is the local unit of government, 200 to 300 square miles in area, with a population varying from 1,200 to 3,000. This type of service has extended until in 1938 over one-fifth of all the rural municipalities in Saskatchewan either have voted favourably on the scheme or were operating under a similar plan. In Manitoba there were in 1938 nine municipal corporations receiving medical care under the municipal doctor plan, with three or four more ready to initiate the scheme.
There are a number of other schemes for attaining the same object, persons in the community grouping themselves together in order to obtain greater benefits in the way of medical or hospital care.
There has been also an agitation throughout the country to press for what is known as state medicine, the definition of which I would take to be the furnishing by the state, free, of all medical, hospital, dental and other services. It has been stated pretty freely that a large number of the members of the medical profession would not care to join in such a scheme, partly, I assume, because some of the more prominent at least would not look with favour on the suggestion that they should all be state employees or servants of the state, and partly on account of the argument which has been

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set forth here on numerous occasions that there should be a particular and special relationship between patient and physician, which relationship is very difficult to achieve where the doctor is an employee of the state and liable at any time to be called upon to treat any patient. The cooperative schemes to a large extent overcome that difficulty, but in some countries it is overcome by giving the patient or the insured the right to choose his own doctor.
My view-and I express it here without endeavouring to hold the government in any way responsible for it-is that sooner or later all these schemes will have to be coordinated in some fashion under state supervision. I believe I should foe right constitutionally in saying that the supervising authority will not necessarily be the. federal authority, unless there is some change in our present constitutional arrangements. But the tendency is that sooner or later we must see to it that every citizen of the state obtains at least the minimum of medical care and attention.
The difficulty up to the present is that each province has looked at the problem from a different angle; what would be suitable in the way of health insurance for Quebec, for instance, would not apply equally well in British Columbia.. But once the provinces have themselves coordinated their efforts and come to the federal authority, I have no doubt that the pressure throughout the country will be such that the federal authority will be obliged to give leadership so that there will be put into effect a definite health program.
In passing, I may say that up to the present, although we have had our conferences with the provinces, it has been extremely difficult to bring all the provinces to see eye to eye as to what is the preferred procedure. Only recently I met the ministers of health of the various provinces. Some suggested that we should begin by attacking the problem of tuberculosis; others felt that the venereal disease problem was the one which should be handled at once; others thought that there should be full-time health units, and so on. It seems to me that the way to settle this matter definitely and to have a clear program which could be presented to the Canadian people would be by some kind of health conference at which there would be present representatives not only of the provinces as such but of social agencies interested in this kind of thing throughout the country, and medical associations, at which conference the particular interests of the provinces, of the dominion, of the medical associations and even of the welfare agencies, would be to some
extent set aside so that it would be possible without prejudice to determine what is needed as a beginning for the carrying out of our plan.
Of course I must not close without making some reference to the cost, because after all that will foe a factor in anything like a general scheme. It should be pointed out that just because a project is highly desirable does not necessarily mean that it is always economically feasible; and before such beneficial programs can be put into effect the cost must be counted so that there may be no subsequent regrets. I am not quite prepared to accept the suggestion, but it is often stated that just as soon as a form of state medicine is introduced the incidence of sickness will be doubled. If we introduce state medicine we will have to pay for it. Under state medicine the cost of medicine increases, and an instance is given here which I will mention, purely for the information of the house and not because I think it is what I would consider a conclusive argument. It states that, in the factory districts of England medicine costs are four times as large as in the district around Oxford university.
To return to the question of cost, as far as we are able to ascertain it in the 1931 census the cost of illness in Canada is $23 per capita. The cost of absolute state medicine would be at least $250,000,000 annually, with the suggestion that this cost would increase if all the services were free.


John Ritchie MacNicol: If I may ask a question, would that include or exclude contributions?


Charles Gavan Power: I am dealing now with the
cost, the amount of money which would be expended if the state looked after all the illness in Canada.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That would include any
contributions made under a contributory system?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes; that is what it would cost. As to how this cost would be allotted between the employer, the employee, the municipality, the province and the federal government is another matter. One thing that strikes me, however, is this: Someone said in this house, I think either the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Howden) or Mr. Spencer, a former member, that the annual cost of illness in Canada converted into money is estimated to be approximately $300,000,000. To that must be added the much larger sum of the cost of postponable deaths. Medical statistics reveal that while Canada distributes in the neighbourhood of $300,000,000 annually for medical treatment-this is perhaps the'
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saddest part of it-only $6,000,000 is actually spent in preventive medicine. I believe an essential factor in any medical program would be preventive medicine. Perhaps that is where the state could do its most useful work, in the preventive field rather than actually in the curative field.


Mr. HAYHURST:: Does the dominion government make any grant to the public health bureau in Toronto, which does a great deal of educational work throughout the dominion?


Charles Gavan Power: I do not think that is the name of the organization my hon. friend has in mind. I believe he is thinking of the Health League of Canada, is he not?


William Hayhurst: Yes.


Charles Gavan Power: We do make a contribution of $5,000.


William Hayhurst: Then, if I might ask another question, have the grants which were given to the provinces prior to 1932 been reinstated?


Charles Gavan Power: Which grants; those for the treatment of venereal disease?


William Hayhurst: Yes.


Charles Gavan Power: For some years, beginning in 1919, I believe, certain grants were made to the provinces in order to assist in combating venereal disease, on the condition that the provinces would set up clinics and contribute an equal amount. The grants continued-I am speaking subject to correction- for perhaps five years. Then they were decreased to $100,000 a year and finally, I think in 1931 or 1932, were cut out altogether. Last year they were revived in a different form when this house, as my hon. friend will perhaps remember, voted S50.000 in order to permit the federal government to supply arsenicals to the provinces to be used in combating venereal disease. So to all intents and purposes we have revived the contributions formerly made, perhaps on a smaller scale.
In conclusion I propose to repeat what I 3aid last year, that my personal view is that state medicine as such will not, for at least some little time, be generally accepted by She Canadian people. I feel that there is in it too much of regulation and regimentation to make it acceptable to the people of this country. But I also feel that some form of contributory health insurance will have to

be studied; and not only studied but put into operation in conjunction and cooperation with the provinces, before very long.
I want to thank the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor) for having brought this matter to the attention of the house. We have had an interesting discussion; as I said at the outset of my remarks, we have heard the views of hon. members who are not directly connected with the medical profession but who feel that their constituents and the people of Canada generally want something to be done along these lines. Having obtained full approval of the principle of the proposal he wishes to lay before the people, perhaps my hon. friend will be satisfied to withdraw it, bearing in mind that perhaps in practice it would be extremely difficult to bring into effect exactly that which his motion, in its present phraseology, calls for.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: Mr. Speaker,' there are perhaps one or two misunderstandings that should be cleared up. Those who have need of these health examinations are neither the very poor nor the very rich, but rather the small wage-earners. I appreciate the discussion we have had to-day; I think it will indicate to the minister that this is a live question. For myself, whether within or without this house, while I am spared I am not going to let up in my efforts, because I see the need. When it is suggested that people will not attend for these examinations, might I say that anyone who attended the meetings of the municipal league of Thunder Bay district could not be there very long when this question was under discussion without finding out how they feel about it. There is no sham; it is a real issue. The low wage-earners and farmers are those who are in great need. I appreciated the frank statement of my hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion), but I do not think he is altogether correct when he says the doctors do not want this. I know the specialists and the doctors who have large practices certainly do not want it.


Robert James Manion: I am afraid my hon. friend misunderstood me. I said the majority of doctors did not want state medicine.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: Thank you, doctor; or I mean I thank my hon. friend. I am not discussing state medicine. The resolution is very simple. I took heart as I listened to the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Power), and I was also encouraged when I saw a photograph of the various

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Heaps
provincial ministers of health. I thought they were human, intelligent beings, and that when they would realize the need for what I have suggested they would have brains enough to put it into practice. We have provincial police protection and we have education which is paid for by the province. I think health insurance, or something of that kind-it may be called state medicine, or whatever you like -is most important.
When I go to the experimental farm I see our specialists experimenting to develop plant and vegetable life, and they are attempting to develop horses and cattle to the highest point of efficiency. What is our greatest asset in Canada? Is it not our men, women and children? I am sure the Minister of Pensions and National Health will understand me when I say it is more important to raise healthy men, women and children than it is to have thoroughbred horses.
I appreciate very much the time the minister has devoted to the subject. He has shown that he is capable of filling in the best possible way the position he holds. We wish him the greatest success in his endeavours. I am sure that if, when he is discussing this question in conference with representatives from the provinces, or when an effort is made to revise the British North America Act-and when we went to the country we promised it would be revised-he needs any help from the humble representative of the constituency of Fort William, I shall be there to work to the best of my ability.
As the minister has indicated, I do not think any useful purpose would be served by putting the resolution to a vote. In our own consciences we know where we stand, and so does the minister. For these reasons I beg to withdraw the motion.
Motion withdrawn.



OLD AGE PENSIONS


Mr. A. A. HEAPS (Winnipeg North) moved:: Whereas it is becoming more and more difficult for older persons to be absorbed into the useful productive life of the dominion, thereby being unable to maintain themselves in decency and comfort;
And whereas Canada is a country richly endowed with natural resources capable of maintaining our whole population in a reasonably high standard of living;
Therefore be it resolved, that this house would welcome a government declaration of policy that would bring about an immediate lowering of the present pensionable age limit of seventy years, the effect of such being that
the older generation would retire from industrial activity, thereby creating opportunities for the younger generation to be usefully and gainfully employed.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this is the third motion along these lines I have introduced in the last four sessions of parliament requesting that the pensionable age, now placed at seventy years, be reduced from that figure. Probably, on my third effort, my insistence or persistence in the matter may be a little more successful than it has been on the two previous occasions.
Before dealing directly with the motion, however, there are one or two observations I should like to make in regard to the present administration of the Old Age Pensions Act.
I am receiving complaints from many parts of Canada in regard to the stringent methods being applied in some of the provinces in respect of those who believe they ought to come under the provisions of the act. I have no intention this evening of dealing with certain of those complaints, further than to say that when the estimates are before the committee, I shall place those complaints before hon. members.
There is one complaint, however, I do wish to bring to the attention of the house, and particularly to the attention of the responsible minister, and it is that in some of the provinces the pensioners entitled to the full pension of S20 a month are not receiving the full amount. That is a serious complaint to make, and represents a serious hardship that is being visited upon pensioners in certain parts of the dominion. I believe this is particularly so in Saskatchewan. I say that when the House of Commons determined a pensioner should be entitled to a pension of $20 a month, it meant $20 a month. When in the administration of the act provinces allow a maximum pension of only $15 a month, I claim that the old age pensioners in those provinces are being deprived of S5 a month. I see the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) disagrees with what I am saying. I am not accusing the federal government of responsibility for the reduction in the amount of the pension. On the other hand I say, clearly, that it is being done by those who are responsible for administration in some of the provinces. In view of the fact, however, that the Minister of Finance seems to dissent from the statements I make, perhaps I should read a letter which otherwise I had not intended to read at this juncture.
The letter I have in my hand is from the commissioner of old age pensions in Saskatchewan, and is dated December, 1938. I do not
159S
Old Age Pensions-Mr. Heaps

wish to mention the name of the party to whom it is addressed, but if the minister wishes he may have the letter. It is as follows:
Dear Madame:
I beg to acknowledge receipt of yours of the 5th instant, and in reply thereto I would advise that as you and your husband are now receiving the sum of $30 per month by way of old age pension, and as that amount is the maximum which is being paid to married couples, there will be no increase made in the rate of your pension,


Charles Avery Dunning: That is true.


Abraham Albert Heaps: And it is signed by George A. Beckett, pro superintendent, Old Age Pension Bureau, Regina, Saskatchewan.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is true in Saskatchewan, and in some other provinces. While in Saskatchewan the pension is paid to the maximum in 4,771 cases, that province has adopted a rule whereby when two married persons, both eligible for pension, are living together, instead of receiving S20 each they receive jointly $30. That is correct, as far as Saskatchewan is concerned.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I claim if that is so there is an evasion of responsibility.


Charles Avery Dunning: I understood the hon. member to say the province was not paying the maximum. I am pointing out that it is paying the maximum in 4,771 cases, but the hon. member's contention stands on the other point, namely with respect to the married couples.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I am not speaking of the whole. I am saying that in certain cases the maximum is not being paid. They have laid down the law that in certain cases married couples entitled to the sum of $40 shall receive only $30, and thereby the provincial authorities are evading the act. Any person who qualifies under the act is entitled to $20 a month. The people in question were entitled to that amount, but Saskatchewan has laid down its own law and pays them only $15.


Charles Avery Dunning: In justice to Saskatchewan I should say that it is not the only province. That point has been one of difficulty with a number of provinces.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Then, if it is being done in other provinces I am glad I have drawn the attention of the minister and the house to it. It is a practice which ought to be stopped, and old age pensioners, whether they are single or married, ought to be entitled to the full amount of their pensions.
[Mr. Heapi.)


Charles Avery Dunning: Quite a number of provinces do not think so, and I find it rather difficult to make them.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I do not wish to enter into any extended argument on the point. The act specifies that a person who is in receipt of an income of not more than $125 a year, is entitled to a maximum pension of $20 a month. If those persons have qualified they are entitled to the full $20, and not to only $15. Again I claim that in Saskatchewan, or in any province carrying out this procedure, there is an evasion of the act, and I hope that in due course, with the assistance of the Minister of Finance, those old people who are entitled to $20 a month may receive the full amount of their pensions. However, when the estimates are before us, perhaps we may be able to go into that aspect of the question a little more fully than I intend to go into it to-night. I am just drawing this matter to the attention of the minister, and perhaps some good will accrue as a result of the remarks I have made on this question.
I stated a moment ago that this is the third occasion in four years that I have introduced a motion asking for a reduction in the pensionable age. I find no greater justification for my motion than the remarks made a few moments ago by the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Power). He gave particulars of what was being done in other countries in connection with old age pensions and referred to New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain, the United States and one or two other countries. We find that all of these countries are far in advance of Canada with regard to social legislation. I would go so far as to say that Canada is in this respect practically the most backward of the English speaking nations of the world. I do not say that with any degree of satisfaction, far from it. I would much prefer to be able to rise in my place in this house and say that Canada was the most advanced country in the world in regard to its social legislation.
I am pleased to note that to-day old age pensions are a part of the social structure in every one of our provinces. They have been accepted as a part of the economic life of the whole dominion. I do not think there is a province which would think for one moment of going back on its old age pension legislation. There . might be the odd person here or there with antiquated ideas, whose mind belongs to the bygone ages, who would want to see our old age pension legislation discontinued or its advance stayed, but they are few and far between. I believe the overwhelming majority of the people of Canada

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Heaps
are not only satisfied with the pensions we have at the present time, but extremely anxious to have the benefits of old age pensions extended to people below the age of seventy.
When this question was raised in the past two or three years, the minister expressed in a general way his sympathy with the proposal. I believe that in a sense every hon. member sympathizes with the idea of reducing the pensionable age from seventy to either sixty or sixty-five years. At first I asked that it be reduced to sixty years, but I am quite prepared to compromise with the government and accept, on the present occasion, a reduction to sixty-five years.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is typical of my hon. friend's Scotch extraction.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I hope the Minister of Finance will not be so Scotch as to refuse my modest request. On a previous occasion the minister told us that persons over the age of sixty years were fairly well off. He stated they were receiving on an average of about $1,076 a year by way of salary or wages. If that were the case there would be very few people of the age of sixty years or over who would require pensions. But the fact is that the overwhelming majority of those of the age of sixty years or over are finding it extremely difficult to get along and perhaps do not know where the necessities of life are to come from. Despite the fact that the minister is extremely sympathetic to the proposal, I feel sure he will tell us to-night what he has told us on other occasions. He will tell us about the cost and of the necessity for taking from those who have to give to those who have not. Then he may again ask the question: Where is the money to come from?


Charles Avery Dunning: I think the hon. member will agree that it has to come from the people.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Now that the minister has
raised that question, I shall deal with it. When the minister raised this point a couple of years ago I stated that if money were required for the purpose of war, there would be no difficulty in finding funds. In 1936 the minister stated he could not find sufficient money to finance the payment of pensions at an age lower than seventy years. I would point out to him that to-day there has been an increase in the cost of our armaments to an extent greater than would have been required to pay pensions at sixty-five years. If we can find money for the purpose of armaments which will be utilized sooner or later to destroy life, I feel we ought to be able to find money for the purpose of conserving life.
It is said that this is taking money out of the pockets of the taxpayers; but where do 71492-101
the taxpayers get their money? Do they not get it from the goods or the wealth produced each year in Canada? I remember in 1930 when the house was called to a special session to vote $100,000,000, mostly for the purpose of dealing with the unemployment problem which was becoming worse and worse as the months went by in that year. Of that $100,000,000, a total of $20,000,000 was to be expended for purposes of direct relief. At that time we had more wheat in our granaries in western Canada than we knew what to do with. Our farmers were burning grain because they could not afford to buy coal.


Charles Avery Dunning: That was only an isolated case.


Abraham Albert Heaps: But it happened. They were burning grain for fuel, while the miners in Alberta were wondering where their next meal was going to come from.


An hon. MEMBER:: How much wheat
was burned?


Abraham Albert Heaps: I am making my argument
and my hon. friend can make his later on. The government of that day wanted $20,000,000 for direct relief when we had more foodstuffs and more food and shelter than we knew what to do with. The government went to New York and borrowed the $20,000,000, I believe from the house of Morgan, although it makes no difference. When they had borrowed that $20,000,000, our miners and our farmers could eat and obtain fuel. Could there be anything more ridiculous than an economic set-up which demands that we get permission from the bankers of Wall street before our farmers and miners of western Canada-the same thing applies all over Canada-can consume commodities produced in this country? When the minister asks: Where does the money come from-


Charles Avery Dunning: I did not ask it.


Abraham Albert Heaps: The minister asked it two
years ago.


Charles Avery Dunning: I said I thought we would all agree that it had to come from the people. I was not going any further than that by way of a discussion of where the money was to come from.


Abraham Albert Heaps: It has to come from the people of the Dominion of Canada; but the people do not care whether they get a slip of paper or something else, what they want is food, clothing and shelter. I claim that at the present time we have in this country sufficient food, clothing and shelter to provide a reasonable state of existence to all our people of

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Heaps

the age of sixty-five years and over. If we did not have that abundance in our midst I would state immediately that I would not feel justified in asking this house to pass a resolution calling upon the government to give to our older people the right to sweet content, as the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) would say, when they reach the age of sixty or sixty-five and over. After all, when a person reaches that age, the chances of being aibsorbed into industry are exceedingly slim. Where can a man of sixty-five or over find employment to-day? We have at the present time tens upon tens of thousands of our younger people who have not as yet been absorbed into useful productivity in the dominion. So what opportunity is there for a man of sixty-five or over to be able to find useful employment in Canada? Does it not seem absurd that our older population should be working when young men and young women in their teens and early twenties are walking about idle?
I have said that on two previous occasions I had a similar resolution on the order paper, but on both occasions it was talked out. The minister claimed that it was not possible for the government at that particular time to give to our older people a pension at a lower age than is now provided. I feel sorry for the government for the stand which it took, because the Minister of Pensions and National Health pointed out a few minutes ago that it is only a question of time before other social legislation of a similar nature will be enacted and put upon the statute 'books, and I think it would be a good thing from the point of view of the government for them to come forward with a definite statement that they will, if not at this session, at another session, grant the request I am now making and give to our older people some real hope that pensions will be granted in the near future at a lower age than is the case at present.
When I put that request in the form of a motion, all I am asking is that there be a fair distribution of our wealth production in this dominion. I do not want to take anything away from anybody. I do not even covet the wealth of those who have riches at the present time, because I believe that we can produce to-day in such abundance that we can give a fairly high standard of living to every Canadian within the confines of this dominion.
I shall read just a few lines from a pamphlet which may be recognized by some hon. gentlemen in this chamber. I shall not read it word for word, but will change a word here and there:
Our party recognizes that the problem of ilistribution has become more important than -hat of production, and believes that personality 
is more sacred than property. Our party will devote itself to finding ways and means of effecting a fair and just distribution of wealth with increasing regard to human need, to the furtherance of social justice, and to the promotion of the common good.
I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that every member of our Cooperative Commonwealth Federation group, and I have no doubt my friends to my left, will subscribe to the few words I have just quoted.


An hon. MEMBER:: Hear, hear.


Abraham Albert Heaps: My hon. friends of the Social Credit party say '"hear, hear." I wonder if hon. gentlemen of the Liberal party would bn just as willing to subscribe to these views as members of the Social Credit group or of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. I have not yet heard any loud shouts from the Liberal party opposite. May I say that I have just quoted from a speech which the Prime Minister uttered in this House of Commons on February 27, 1933.


John Ritchie MacNicol: He was in opposition
then.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Old age is becoming a more serious problem in some ways than unemployment. After all, when a young person in his twenties or thirties is out of work he has seme hope of some day being a little more fortunate and finding employment. But when a person advances along in years and old age begins to creep upon him, we find that he is not wanted in the labour market and his opportunities for a livelihood become more and more restricted as time goes on. When we see the figures of the numbers who are in receipt of old age pensions to-day, and the vast number of people in this dominion now over the age of sixty, we realize what a complicated and difficult problem old age is really becoming.
There is another problem in connection with old age that arises out of the advancement of medical science. The expectancy of life to-day is becoming greater and greater, and as it increases and people live longer they find it more difficult to earn a livelihood. Consequently the question of old age is one that I think ought to be dealt with in such a definite way as to give some hope to the older people of the dominion.
It may be said that if we give pensions to those of sixty or sixty-five years of age we do away with the incentive of what the Minister of Finance might call that good old Scotch habit of thrift.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is not only a Scotch habit.

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Heaps


Abraham Albert Heaps: No, but I thought the minister might have called it that. I mention that fact because to-day the average worker is not in a position to save very much out of the wage he receives. The average wage to-day is so low that very few people, comparatively speaking, receive what might be termed a saving wage. May I interject here that a good many of the figures we quote as to wages in Canada are not altogether as accurate as we would like them to be, for the simple reason that when our bureau of statistics gives us the annual wage, it shows what w'ould be earned if the worker were engaged for a full year, but the great majority of our working people do not work the full year but have periods when they are on shorttime.
I believe that our aged people to-day are entitled to their pensions not as a matter of charity, as some peoiple look upon old age pensions now, but as a matter of right in just exactly the same way as a pension is granted to a judge or a general. I believe that those workers who have given of the best years of their lives to build up our social structure in this dominion are entitled to the old age pension in the same way as our soldiers and judges, many of whom to-day are in receipt of exceedingly large pensions.
My plea this evening is for economic security for our older population. When men and women have given of the best years of their lives in building up the state and providing for others in the community,, I believe they are entitled, when they reach old age, to a measure of economic security which they do not have to-day until they reach the age of seventy. We have to-day at the present time, as has been pointed out time and time again in this house, an abundance of everything in this dominion. It is not a question of production; this has been solved; it is now a question of distribution. I do not think it is beyond the ingenuity of members of this house or of the government to devise ways and means whereby there can be a fairer distribution of our wealth production so as to provide adequately for people in their old age. It is often said that there is a great deal of discontent in this country, but the surest way of removing social discontent, as has so often been pointed out, is to give to our people that economic security which to-day is denied them to a large extent.
I am sorry to think that whereas in practically every part of the British empire old people are to-day receiving pensions at a much lower age than seventy-at the age of sixty-five, and in some parts at sixty-we in Canada can give pensions only at the age of seventy.
71492-lOli


Charles Avery Dunning: What countries are giving non-contributory pensions at sixty or sixty-five?


Abraham Albert Heaps: Australia.


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


Abraham Albert Heaps: At sixty-five, both Australia and New Zealand.


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


Abraham Albert Heaps: If the minister has the facts before him I hope he will give them to the house.


Charles Avery Dunning: Their acts are not in
operation yet.


Abraham Albert Heaps: The minister is not quite
correct in that statement. They have had old age pensions in Australia for the past thirty years so that the scheme is bound to be in operation, and they have had them in New Zealand for about the same length of time. The new act in New Zealand is not yet in operation-that is, the act which the Minister of Pensions and National Health spoke of as coming into effect on the first of April, the act passed by the Savage labour government. But in New Zealand and Australia pension schemes have been in operation for approximately thirty years. I do not believe they have been entirely on a contributory basis. However, if the minister has the facts I hope he will give them to the house when he speaks. In New Zealand the act has been widened to an enormous extent under the new legislation which has not yet become operative. There the minister will find that provision is made for pensions at the age of sixty. However, I say this to the Minister of Finance. If he finds fault with the act either in New Zealand or in Australia-


Charles Avery Dunning: I am not finding fault.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Oh, I thought the minister
was finding fault. At any rate I am prepared to accept, so far as Canada is concerned, exactly the provision that Australia and New Zealand have made with regard to pensions. If they can give these benefits to the older people in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Great Britain and many other countries which I could enumerate, why can we not do the same in Canada? Why should we lag behind other nations in our social legislation? There is no reason in the world, because we are in no way poorer than they. In fact, Australia carries a tax burden somewhat greater than we do, and they are prepared to shoulder their full responsibility when it comes to social legislation. If those countries are prepared to shoulder the
Old Age Pensions-Mr. Leader

responsibility of advanced social legislation there is no reason why we should not do the same.
There is no use in saying that this is a matter for the provinces or that the cost will be so great. I do not think that is a valid excuse. The people of Canada are prepared to-day to take a long step forward in the matter of social legislation, and I trust that when the minister speaks he will give us a more definite assurance than we have so far had, that in the immediate future the old people of Canada may look forward to having pensions at a much lower age than seventy as at present.


Mr. HARRY LEADER (Portage la Prairie):: In the first place I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Heaps) upon his persistence in bringing this motion before the house session after session. At one time I took exception and was not willing to lend my support to his resolution for the reason that he had scaled the age limit down from seventy to sixty, and I did not believe that Canada could afford to pension off old people at the age of sixty. However, I have almost come to the conclusion that we could do that. Perhaps I should put it in this way, that we should do that, for the reason that I am getting older myself and am looking forward to the day when I might be eligible for an old age pension.
To-night I want to say that I will support the hon. gentleman's resolution. It begins:
Whereas it is becoming more and more difficult for older persons to be absorbed into the useful, productive life of the dominion-
I agree with that. We who knock around among our people know that is absolutely true. We find so many people out of employment. Many sturdy young men are looking for jobs which they cannot find and we sympathize with them, but we sympathize far more with the older men who are unable to secure positions. We could quite well grant them a pension of $20 a month to help them in their old age. The second part of the resolution reads:
And whereas Canada is a country richly endowed with natural resources capable of maintaining our whole population in a reasonably high standard of living-
I agree with that also. We like to say that this is the grandest country in the world and that we have the greatest natural resources of any country. Then why not use them for the uplift of the people who live in Canada? The resolution goes on to say:
-that this house would welcome a government declaration of policy that would bring about an immediate lowering of the present pensionable age limit of seventy years.

My opinion is that the government should lower the age limit to sixty-five. The hon. member mentioned that old age pensioners were not receiving the full $20 a month allowance. I can vouch for the truth of that statement from my own experience. I know of one pensioner who was granted only $15. On making inquiries I found that this particular pensioner, a woman, was keeping house for a relative; it was thought that her services in that capacity were worth something and so the administration at Winnipeg decided to limit her pension to $15. I am glad to say that when I took the matter up with the commissioner in Winnipeg, it was rectified.


Charles Avery Dunning: Does my hon. friend think it just that some person should get the services of that old lady, make her work, and not pay her? That is one of the major abuses.


Harry Leader: I am not saying they got her services. She was just living there.


Charles Avery Dunning: The hon. member said she did housekeeper's work.


Harry Leader: I take this stand most definitely, that if she was entitled to $20 a month it does not matter where she was living.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is not what the resolution advocates.


Harry Leader: I am glad to say that the matter was rectified and she is now getting her pension of $20 a month. I know her personally and I can say that no one in this dominion is more entitled to that pension than she is.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend is taking me up wrong. I am not saying the old lady was not entitled to it. But I say that those who were getting the benefit of her services as housekeeper should be made to pay for them. And I stick to that.


Harry Leader: I disagree with the minister in that regard. I claim that if she is entitled to that $20 a month she should get it whether she works or not.
I want to deal to-night with two or three questions that have been asked me by my constituents. Some point out the inequality of our pensions and say that judges, if they retire after fifteen years' service, are granted pensions at two-thirds of their salaries, which may amount to $10,000 a year. They point out that these judges may live in any country in the world and still retain their right to the pension. I know as a fact that it is being paid under such circumstances, while if old age pensioners leave Canada for thirty days their pension is immediately cut off

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Leader
until they return. I have no fault to find with the law that compels a Canadian to live in Canada if he is drawing a Canadian pension; but that is where the inequality comes in, it should apply to every Canadian pensioner, to the judges of our higher courts as well as those receiving old age pensions. It is inequalities like that which cause so much unrest; that is why people are say-in, "What is the matter with democracy?" I could tell about a certain judge who was getting a pension of $6,000 a year; his last year's salary at the expense of the taxpayers of this country was $30,000, and he refused to pay income tax on it. He was assessed $9,000 on that $30,000 gratuity as he called it, but it was remuneration; he refused to pay, and the courts of this country upheld his contention. Is that justice?


Mr. FAIR:: It is democracy as it is operated to-day.


Harry Leader: I brought up in this house the question of the returned men, who went to France and offered their all, were wounded, buried in shell holes, and after three years' service were so anxious to get out of the army and get home that although they had a disability the dead-line was reached before they put in their application. I know one man who has not reached the age at which he is entitled to the veteran's allowance. He is able to drive a school van that takes the children to school and thus make a few dollars a month, and he is denied a pension. I am not suggesting that our pension law in regard to our returned men has not been very liberal, but that is one case and perhaps there are thousands throughout this dominion in the same position. It is so hard for those returned men, who offered their all, to get a pension, yet a judge who does not need to worry is relieved by the courts of even having to pay income tax, and he does not have to live in Canada, whose people pay the pension.
Let me come back to those old age pensioners who are perhaps destitute, yet, who, because they have some relatives who are able to assist them to a limited extent, have the amount of that assistance deducted from their pension. I say again it is not right. Those people are entitled to that $20 a month, and it is not right to oblige them to look to their families to support them. If the family have enough pride-and many of them have-to keep their father or mother from getting the old age pension, that is all right, but if they have not enough pride, or perhaps enough money, that is no reason why these
people should not have every dollar of that pension which has been granted them by the laws of this country.
Another question that has been asked me is why the pension is cut off when the recipient leaves Canada. I knew an instance where a certain pensioner left Canada to visit some relatives in California, and when the authorities found out he was away, his pension was promptly cut off and he had to do without it for the time he was away. I do not find any fault with that, but I am coming to another illustration. We had a judge in my own city of Portage la Prairie who for twenty years lived in California but drew his pension of $3,000 a year. I believe he has died recently, but for nearly twenty years he was being paid $3,000 a year by the taxpayers of Canada while living in a foreign country.


Charles Avery Dunning: May I suggest to my hon. friend that that is not an argument in favour of this resolution, but an argument in favour of amending the Judges Act, an entirely different statute.


Harry Leader: Well, I would not worry about the Judges Act, I would amend the Old Age Pensions Act.


Charles Avery Dunning: That would not stop the judges from leaving the country.


Miss MACPHAIL:: The hon. member is talking about the inequality of treatment.


Harry Leader: Well, I would not stop at amending the Judges Act. I would see that there is more equality in this country and stop driving the minds of the people to something worse.
Another question that was asked me was why the Old Age Pensions Act was changed. Formerly it provided that an old age pensioner should get his pension from his seventieth birthday; it was retroactive. If it took a year to secure the certificate of birth and other material which was required, the pension would be paid from his seventieth birthday. I was surprised to learn, two years ago I believe, that the act was amended so that the pensioner-


Charles Avery Dunning: The act was never
amended.


Harry Leader: Well, I think it was by order in council.


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


Harry Leader: Will the minister deny that the pension is now paid from the date the application is accepted?


An hon. MEMBER:: The date he makes
application.

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Leader


Harry Leader: No, the date the application is accepted.


Charles Avery Dunning: The existing regulation,
which was put through at the instance of all the provinces, they being partners with the dominion in this matter, provides for the application being made before the age of seventy is reached, so that the applicant has plenty of time to have his application accepted before he becomes seventy years of age. But all the provinces desired to have no retroactive provision. That is why they were willing to agree, at my request, that the time for application should be advanced to some time before the age of seventy was reached in order that it might be acted upon by the time the man became eligible. That is the present regulation.


Harry Leader: Well, I take it I was right in making the statement that the pension is paid from the date the application is accepted.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, quite.


Harry Leader: I realize that the regulation is that they should make application two months before reaching the age of seventy. But many of these people are from Great Britain, and they must send to the old country to get the records. I know one case in which it took a year to get the proper records, and the pension was granted only from the date the application was accepted. Even in parts of our own country records were not kept seventy years ago, and people have to go to a great deal of work to dig up information to prove that they are seventy years of age.
Miss MACPHA1L: It takes three months.


Harry Leader: And they lose the pension
for those three months.


Charles Avery Dunning: There is nothing to prevent them from starting to get their records two years before if they want to. They can make actual application within three months of their seventieth birthday.


Agnes Campbell Macphail: They do not know
about it.


Harry Leader: Well, I think I have exhausted the ten minutes that I promised myself I would take. I have made one or two recommendations which I hope the minister will take into consideration. I say it is not right that the pension is denied them after they are seventy; I think it should be granted, if not the day they are seventy years of age, at least the day they put in their application, not when the application is accepted.


James Shaver Woodsworth: While it seems that progress along this line is disappointingly slow, I do believe we are making some progress, at least as far as the general public is concerned, and possibly even in this house. I think back some years to the time when the old age pension legislation was put on the statute books. It was done with the greatest difficulty against the strongest possible opposition. We were told of the constitutional difficulty. Sticklers for the constitution said it was simply impossible to carry out any such scheme under the British North America Act. There was much the same kind of argument as the one we had to-day with regard to state medicine. As a matter of fact, although several of the provinces stayed out at first, one by one they came in until today they are all in. This notwithstanding what was said a few years ago about the constitutional difficulty, and their determination to boycott the whole scheme. Quebec, from which we have the most strenuous objections, has finally joined the other provinces.
So we were told it was absolutely impossible to finance this scheme. Well, it has been in operation for some years now. All the provinces are in; there has been a very large increase in the number of persons coming under the scheme, but this country is not quite bankrupt. Even if it is nearing bankruptcy that is not because of the claims of the old age pensioners.
Then we were told that we should not introduce this scheme for high moral reasons. I recall very well hearing it said in this house that by paying old age pensions to people of seventy we would be encouraging shiftlessness, that if they were sure of getting an old age pension at seventy no one would save. Further we were told that it would practically break up the family, because it was the duty of the children to care for their aged parents, and if those parents were looked after by the state the consequence would be that the children would not love their parents any more.


Charles Avery Dunning: I hope my hon. friend
is not looking at me now. I never said anything like that.


James Shaver Woodsworth: No, the minister
did not, but others in this house did. Still others said it was the religious duty of the rich to contribute to the poor, and that if the state stepped in to look after the poor aged people then the rich people would not have any way of fulfilling their religious duties. Apparently they were afraid they

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Woodsworth
would not go to heaven 1 We were warned of all these dire consequences, but such objections have all been swept away. Some of the people who made those objections have gone to their own reward, but still the scheme goes on.
We must remember that conditions have changed from the old days. I can remember when I was a child frequently seeing an old man sitting by the fire, or an old lady sitting in her cap and gown; my own grandmother, if you will. Many of us can recall such scenes. Who would begrudge the old gentleman or the old lady the little bit of food required or the clothes they wore? And they wore their clothes for a very long time in those days. To-day conditions are quite different, even on the farms, particularly those of the west which I know best. There are very few of these family farms where the old people can sit in comfort by the fireside. On the majority of the farms of the west that condition does not exist. Certainly when you come to the cities you find people who, in seeking work, have shifted from place to place. Most of the western people came either from eastern Canada or from overseas. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) knows as well as I do that they have moved from place to place, so that in many instances they have no long established residence. That, of course, is particularly true in the industrial centres. Under these changed circumstances we must adopt new methods. We must care for these people who did the pioneering in this country and who surely are just as worthy of being looked after as any other class in the community.
My hon. friend the member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader) spoke very strongly with regard to judges. One might refer also to civil servants, some of whom get quite tidy pensions. One might refer to the senate, where many former members of this house are now enjoying a comfortable salary in their declining years. The distinction between civil servants or judges or members of the senate on the one hand and farmers and industrial workers on the other is rather arbitrary. I assume they have all contributed to the upbuilding of this country, but why is it that simply because a man belonged to one particular class or was fortunate enough to be placed in a certain recognized position he is well looked after in his old age, while other people who in their own sphere have worked just as faithfully and done just as much for the upbuilding of this country have to pass a miserable old age?
Now I should like to say a few words with regard to the present administration of old age
pensions. In this instance I am glad not to have to criticize the dominion but must criticize rather the provincial governments. As my colleague said, I do not think the provincial governments are living up to the terms of the act, which laid down that under certain conditions the pension should be $20 a month. I do not 'believe any provincial government has the right to reduce that amount to $15. The act provided that people might have an income of $125 from other sources and still receive that $20 a month. That provision has not been lived up to in a great many instances, and it seems to me the dominion government should bring pressure to bear upon the provinces. After all, the provinces did not enact the Old Age Pensions Act.


Charles Avery Dunning: Oh, yes, they did, in each province.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes, they passed supplementary legislation, but it was an act o: this parliament that laid down the conditions. We passed the primary legislation and the provinces, if they came in as " partners," to use the phrase of the Minister of Finance, came in on the terms of the dominion act. It seems to me if they are not willing to come in under those terms they should stay out. Then each province could settle the matter as to whether or not that particular government should remain in office. I want to protest against the badgering of old people and against the cheese-paring policy that is so often followed in connection with old age pensions. I should like to read a letter from my own constituency, dated March 3, which has just come into my office and which is typical of scores I have received. I had not time to have this letter copied, but will try to make out the writing:
In reference to old age pensions no doubt you are aware that a great majority are not receiving the full amount, namely twenty dollars. For instance in my case I receive fifteen and a quarter monthly. I was seventy on the first of May, 1938, but I did not receive my first cheque until the first of October, so you realize they have not given me the months intervening, a matter of five months. I have learned the fault lies with the Manitoba government. I have lived permanently in Manitoba for the last thirty-two years, had a lot of sickness and unemployment. I never had a banking account. I borrowed money on my home when my sons came home from the last terrible war. They were gassed and they were unemployed for a long time. They do not receive any pension. I really do consider this should have been the government's responsibility. I have never been able to get relief and have not been able to pay off the mortgage. . . . To further complicate matters we are obliged to give names of sons and sons-in-law for further particulars with a view to get them

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Woodsworth
to support us. Possibly I see in this a move to lessen our pension. Why should these young people be further penalized? The social welfare do all the investigating, nothing but highly organized spies. I think it cruel for poor old people to be subjected to so much obnoxious embarrassment.
The letter continues, but that is the gist of it. I heartily agree with the writer of that letter. It seems to me provision could be made to eliminate this constant interference with the privacy of the lives of people who have to accept old age pensions. I do not 'believe the investigators should have any right whatever to attempt to force the sons and other relatives to take over the responsibility for the care of these old people.
As my colleague has said, with the productivity of this country we ought to be able to lower the age and also raise the amount that is to be paid. I believe that to-day almost all people are living under higher tension than that under which people used to live. They are not able normally to carry on as long as many of those who lived in the quieter days of long ago. They may indeed live, but they are not fit for active hard work. We all know that there are many people in business and professional life who are turned off at sixty. What is there for such to-day?
Some of us who are rapidly approaching the age of sixty-five may be still able to do intellectual work. But I think of a good many of the men and women whom I knew as children. Many of them have dropped out. Those who were engaged in physical work are not able to carry on. Those who went farming are not as active as they used to be years ago. If they are on their own or their children's farms they putter around doing chores. In industry very few are actively engaged in jobs after they have reached the age of sixty. According to the old scriptural phrase a man's allotted years are three score and ten or, by reason of strength, four score years, then he passed on. Only at three score and ten years do we give him a pension, though he is probably played out at three score!
There is a big gap between sixty years, beyond which very few are able to secure work-especially manual work-and the age of seventy years at which they become eligible for old age pension. In these years, what are they to do? I can speak with the greatest assurance about the west. There are thousands in my own city who cannot get work at the age of sixty. What are they to do during the next ten long years? A great many of them are now on relief. Why should they not [Mr. Woodsworth.)
have some little security for their old age. I have read already a letter which came to-day. Within the last week I received another letter from a lady of sixty-six years of age who recalled that we had gone to school together in Brandon when we were children. This lady taught school in the rural sections of Manitoba during most of her life. To-day she is on relief. At her age she cannot get a school. For one or two years recently she did go out in an extremely backward district, at which time, owing to the extreme cold and the poor accommodation she was able to obtain, she contracted physical troubles. To-day she finds it next to impossible to get a school. What is she to do? I can remember the time in the old days when she lived with her mother. Many women helped to support their old mothers, and helped to send their brothers and sisters to school.
Sometimes in the comfort of this chamber we forget the conditions under which many people must live. Here is a lady who has carried on a useful life. She is not eligible for pension. At the age of sixty-six she finds herself compelled to wait for several long years, probably on public relief. Then she will be eligible for $20 a month-another kind of charity. She will have to swear up and down that she has nothing coming in. She will be investigated and badgered by officials. This, instead of receiving an old age pension as her right, because she has helped to build up the country.
As the hon. member for Portage la Prairie has said, I think we ought not to have such great inequalities in the manner in which we deal with people. Older people ought to be dealt with as I am sure all hon. members would feel like dealing with them, if they were dealing with them personally. We would treat them with a certain dignity and recognize the work they have done in the past. We would give them a pension, not as a matter of charity, not as a bit of wretched relief, but give generously-something more than $20, something more than a miserable $15 for the one who is unfortunate enough to have a husband or a wife surviving! What after all, is $25 a month to an old man who has done his bit in the building up of Canada? How would we treat our own fathers and mothers if we had the chance? Why not act thus toward others? Why not do as much for other people, many of whom are equally worthy, but have not had as good an opportunity in life?

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Mutch


Mr. L. A. MUTCH (Winnipeg South):: Mr. Speaker, when I rise to support the motion as it appears on the order paper I hope it will not be interpreted as an endorsation of all that has been said by others who are supporting the motion. It is perhaps a little peculiar that we have wandered away from the actual subject of discussion to a consideration of real or imaginary grievances in connection with the administration of the act. Since that administration lies in the provinces I do not propose to spend any time in discussing it to-night.
This is the third time I have risen in the house to support a resolution lowering the age at which old age pensions may be given. The government have accepted the age of sixty-five as that at which we might reasonably be expected to retire from labour. Although they have accepted that in practice, they continue to deny it in principle. Consequently we have this situation of once more postponing that which is inevitable. I wish it were possible, particularly in connection with social legislation which is recognized as inevitable, that we might meet the inevitable now. I do not see why it should not be possible at this session not only to consider the advisability of immediately lowering the age for old age pensions from seventy to sixty-five years, but to give something more than cursory consideration to the possibilities of old age pension which under a contributory scheme might provide optional ages of retirement.
I am not one who thinks that by cutting a man off at the top, putting him on a form of government subsistence, and bringing in a younger man at the bottom we are creating another job. I hope I have sense enough to know we do not do that. But what is much more important is that at least we give a measure of security to a man who during his lifetime has made a contribution. We take him at a time when he is not likely to be greatly demoralized by the acceptance of what some of our proud old people still consider to be a form of relief, although I do not hold with that view, myself. We are not so likely to demoralize them by offering that form of keep. On the other hand it cancels out a much more serious loss at the other end of the labour market. Two or three years ago we talked about unemployed young persons about the age of twenty-five years. I think to-day we would be justified in placing them between the ages of twenty and twenty-eight years. I say that because 71492-102
I personally know many young persons of twenty-eight years who have had no opportunity of getting permanent employment.
Consequently, while we do not create new jobs by expanding the number of those who have retired upon some form of competence, we do bring in the same number of young people who need work. It is much more important, not only for them individually but for the country as a whole, that they should have work.
I am getting tired of having to go to departments of government or to business employers whom I may happen to know, to plead that a man who has reached the age of sixty-five years may have one more year to make a little more provision, so that there will be one year less in which somebody else will have to support him until he reaches the age of seventy and is able to get his old age pension. Whether or not those people should have been thrifty, whether or not fault is to be found because they are not able to look after themselves in the five years from sixty-five to seventy, the fact remains that the great majority of men, particularly those who live in our cities, are not independent when they reach the age of sixty-five years. I have talked with scores of such men in the last two or three years who have told me that they do not want to hang on to their jobs past sixty-five years of age. They told me they knew of younger men who needed work, but they wanted to know what they could do. Their families could not keep them, and they did not know where they could go or what they could do in the years between sixty-five and seventy.
I am satisfied that now is the time when something should be done about this problem. I do not believe it is an insurmountable problem, but perhaps we may have to sit down to figure out some contributory scheme which would permit of an earlier retirement. The situation for many is hopeless now, but must it go on being hopeless forever? My purpose in rising is to say that if this measure goes to a vote I shall support it in the words of the resolution. I urge the government either to do something now or to give an indication that something will be done. This should not be one of those things which is postponed until the inevitable hour.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance):	Mr. Speaker, it would be much
more pleasant for me if I could take the side of this question which the hon. members who have spoken have taken. It is much more pleasant to rise in one's place and advocate



Old Age Pensions-Mr. Dunning
the paying of money to people who need it than it is to demonstrate the difficulties attendant upon such a course. I do not think some of the speakers have been fair either to the dominion government, to the provincial governments or to myself as minister in the attitudes they have taken. However, that is part of the responsibility of government and one must accept it. Needless to say, the popular rule in these days is to advocate the paying of money to people. The larger the number of people to whom one can advocate the paying of money, the more likely one is to get sympathetic support. I say again, as I have said before in this house, that no scheme has yet been devised whereby money can be paid by the government to some Canadian people without taking that money in some way or another from all the Canadian people. If I leave out the word "money" and substitute the word "value," perhaps in that statement I may get the support even of my Social Credit friends. However that may be, it is becoming a function of government to an increasing degree, to redistribute wealth. Particularly since the war has this government taken from all to give to some and I am one of those who believe that this tendency will continue.
I consider it to be my duty to bring to the attention of the house the extent to which we do this by way of war pensions, every one of which has been richly earned, to the extent of $50,000,000 or so a year; by way of old age pensions to the extent at the present time of some $30,000,000 a year; by way of relief and so on. We do in fact redistribute five or six hundred million of the national income which comes into the coffers of the treasury. This is redistributed either in the form of payments to individuals, in the form of pensions or relief, or in the form of payments for services which are insisted upon by the community for the community.


Mr. POOLE:: Or interest.


Charles Avery Dunning: And interest. By the way, I should tell my hon. friend that interest is the one expenditure which has been decreasing during the last three or four years while all others have been increasing. In spite of an increase in the public debt to the extent of nearly a billion dollars in the last eight years, our interest bill this year is lower than it has been in any year since the war. I think this fact should be stated when we emphasize the payment of interest, which is the wages of money.
With respect to the old age pension system and the principle of old age pensions, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. 
Woodsworth) went into the history of this matter. I sat in the house, as did he and a number of others, when this legislation went through. I am quite prepared to accept the statement of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre as to some of the things which were said on that occasion by some of the members. I do not remember them, although I do remember quite distinctly that members on all sides of the house at that time, and indeed prior to that time, were anxiously looking for a way, within the limits of the constitution, by which old age pensions could be commenced in this country. I think that was a general desire on the part of the members of the house at that time, and for several years preceding the actual inauguration of the scheme. Many of us believed that the only type of scheme possible under our constitution would run the risk of not being adopted in some of the provinces. In spite of what our friends in the comer say, there is a real constitutional difficulty in this parliament endeavouring to promulgate something which under the constitution is within the jurisdiction of the provinces.
I say again, as I have said before, that there is no better illustration of the long term unwisdom of attempting to evade the constitution by means of agreements between the dominion, on the one hand, and each separate one of the nine provinces, on the other, than the very old age pension scheme we are now discussing. I have had experience in endeavouring to get a degree of provincial unanimity which would make possible improvements in administration in the interests of the old age pensioners, many thousands of whom are within the intent of the law bona fide entitled to old age pensions. At the same time I endeavoured, and I believe the provinces endeavoured, to reach an agreement on regulations which would prevent thousands who were not bona fide entitled to old age pensions under this law from getting them. In spite of the appeals to prejudice made from some quarters of the house to-night, I conceive it to be my duty to endeavour to carry out the law as it was placed upon the statute books of this dominion.
But there are difficulties. One of the real difficulties of abridging the constitution in this matter-because it is really an abridgement by agreement of the plain intent of the constitution that this particular form of activity should be under the provinces and within their sole jurisdiction-is that having entered into agreements with each of the nine provinces, which agreements could not in the very nature of things in connection with experimental legislation foresee all of the

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Dunning
thousand and one points which would arise, once the provinces commenced operating the scheme in cooperation with the dominion, minister of finance after minister of finance- not merely myself-had to endeavour time after time to secure that degree of agreement between the nine provinces separately and the dominion which would make it possible to bring this scheme more into harmony with the original intent of the law as we understood the law.
It was not until a little more than a year ago that finally, at a conference, a substantial agreement was reached on many points, not by any means on all the points of difference. The provinces insist that it is their constitutional right to administer this system, that they have an absolute right of veto of any change in the regulations. Please mark that. Each province says:	We have an
agreement with the dominion under the terms of which ten years' notice of termination is required. The province says: We have an agreement with you and that agreement cannot be changed except by mutual consent between the dominion and each individual province. And, Mr. Minister of Justice, they are constitutionally right, are they not?


Ernest Lapointe: Yes.


Charles Avery Dunning: Can hon. members who look solely at the humanitarian aspect of the matter really see the difficulties that are inherent in a situation of that sort?


Mr. COLD WELL:: On the other hand we
pay seventy-five per cent of the money. So should we not therefore lay down the conditions under which we pay a major portion of the pensions?


Charles Avery Dunning: There would have been no old age pensions had we not agreed to pay fifty per cent. Following through my hon. friend's point to its logical conclusion, what shall we say to the provinces? Shall we say to them: If you will not agree to do precisely as the dominion wishes in this matter, we will do-what? We will give ten years' notice that we are going to terminate the agreement? My hon. friend sees the dilemma.


Mr. COLDWELL:: But all the provincial governments would be defeated on that score.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am not discussing the political aspect of it at all, and I am not discussing the political complexion of any provincial government. To be perfectly fair to all of them, in any conference I have been in with the provinces-and they have varied in political complexion from time to time-I have never known the political
aspect to enter into the discussion, and I freely confess that the provinces with their own knowledge of their own conditions are just as sincere and are taking just as sound a humanitarian view of this question as we are sitting in this house.
I am merely trying to make the point that this question of extra-constitutionality, which was never contemplated at confederation, is very difficult to work out in practice. It is for that reason that I have advocated before to-day, and advocate again to-day, that the constitutional responsibility for old age pensions and for unemployment insurance should be federal in character.
I believe, too, very strongly that a public body which has the power to expend money should be responsible for the raising of that money by taxation upon its own constituent body. That I believe to be a vital principle of sound government, and to the extent that we abridge the constitution by agreements in the manner in which we have done in this case, we to that extent at any rate violate that principle and make sound and fair administration more difficult.
Now, having said that, may I say further in defence of the provinces that, in spite of what has been said here, Mr. Speaker, I believe that every province is endeavouring to give fair and sympathetic administration to the Old Age Pensions Act-I believe that honestly-in accordance with what they consider to be their knowledge of their own provincial conditions. We may talk as we like, but twenty dollars a month in Prince Edward Island is worth more to a man or woman than twenty dollars a month in Saskatchewan. All the theorizing in the world will not equalize the cost of living across this dominion, or as between certain urban and certain rural sections of this dominion. That is one of the very reasons why the fathers of confederation divided the jurisdictions as they did, in order that differences in conditions might continuously be dealt with in the light of the smaller area where it is much more likely conditions will be reasonably uniform.
The arguments advanced here to-night by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre- who I am sorry is not in his seat at the moment, and the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, illustrate one of the great difficulties of the provincial governments-not of the federal government because the federal government has nothing whatever to do with deciding who shall get a pension or how much the individual applicant shall get. The federal government under the law and under the agreement is in the position of agreeing to

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Dunning
pay seventy-five per cent of what the province expends, and it may surprise hon. members to know that it was not until 1931, when the amendment to seventy-five per cent was put in the law, that the dominion got the definite power of audit. At the present time we do audit, but every province insists-and the law and the constitution are with them- that it is its right and its power to determine who is qualified under the law and how much under the law that individual shall receive.
May I say that the law never contemplated that a person in receipt of an income of over SI25 a year should get an old age pension. That is written in the law.


Abraham Albert Heaps: The full pension of $20 a month.


Charles Avery Dunning: The full pension of $20 a month, subject to a deduction if the income of the individual reached $125 a year. Let me put it in another way. A person could receive up to $125 a year from other sources without impairing his right to an old age pension.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Of $20 a month.


Charles Avery Dunning: Of $20 a month, yes. The questions raised as to whether the province has a right to determine whether, when a man and wife live together, they shall receive $15 instead of $20 each, have been the subject of conflict between law officers of the crown in the right of the province and law officers of the crown in the right of the dominion ever since we have had the act, and I assume they will continue to be. I have reams of opinions here from provincial law officers and from our own law officers of the Department of Justice upon the subject. Some of the provinces say that so far as their people are concerned their people really believe that when a man and wife live together they should not get as much as two aged persons living apart. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) may say that the province would be defeated on that. I do not know. That is what they say, and they say it to their own people. They are taking the responsibility. It is impossible for it to be otherwise in that regard.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre objected to prying into the circumstances of these old people who are applicants for pension. Well, Mr. Speaker, I could, on the basis of inquiries that I have addressed to practically all the provinces of this dominion, bring before this house cases by the hundred where these very inquiries have been the only means of revealing that the persons 
applying were not entitled to old age pensions at all within the meaning of the law as it passed this house. They had in fact in a great many instances considerable property and had taken means to distribute it among their families a few years in advance of becoming eligible for old age pensions, and the very families who got it were not willing to keep them. I can tell this house that the provinces of this dominion, if they could reveal it, could show hundreds of instances of undoubted collusion. Their records also show a very great number of cases where the facts only became public after the pensioner had died and property turned up.
How in the world can any provincial administration be sure that an application from John Smith is bona fide and within the law, so far as need is concerned, unless they have provision for investigation and unless they ask all those questions to which the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre objects? The provincial government is not endowed with second sight. The provincial authorities do not know, when John Smith applies, who he is or what his circumstances are. There is only one method of finding out and that is the method of inquiry. My hon. friend speaks of the insult to these old people in regard to the methods followed of verifying their statements. The hon. member for Portage la Prairie is righteously indignant because in a particular case the provincial government of Manitoba, finding that a woman was working as housekeeper, apparently thought the people for whom she worked ought to pay her wages. My sympathies are wholly with the pensioner in that case. I am of the opinion that when old people work they should be paid the same as young people, and I think the pension authority in any province has a perfect right to insist that anyone getting the services of an old person should pay whatever those services are worth.
With respect to the other matter which the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre spoke of, the type of case in which he said children were pressed-harassed was the word I think he used-to provide for their own parents, he referred to the change that had taken place in that regard since he was a boy. There may be a change in the ability of young people to care for their parents; but I do not admit that there is a change in the moral obligation to do so. Neither do I admit that the state should take over a load which an old person's children could assume if they would.


Mr. JAQUES:: Why pension judges?

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Dunning


Charles Avery Dunning: I am not now discussing judges. The Judges Act is not before the house. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) will no doubt be willing at any time to give full information with respect to judges; personally I do not have it. I am speaking of a specific matter, old age pensions, and I am trying to stick to it.
I would not advocate for a moment that children who obviously cannot contribute towards the support of their parents should be in any way compelled to do so, but I am one of those who believe that the provincial welfare workers who look into these cases are just as human as the members who have made such a parade of their humanitarianism in the house to-night, and I do believe they give sympathetic consideration to the circumstances of any of the children of pensioners with respect to whom applications come before them. But again I say that this house is not the place to advance complaints against the administration of old age pensions by any province, because of what I have before related as to the basis of the act itself and as to the right of the provinces, claimed insistently, to administer it.
I should give some information again as to what is involved in the resolution. The hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Heaps) has changed his resolution this year. He is not now advocating reduction to a specified age-


Abraham Albert Heaps: It is the same as last year's.


Charles Avery Dunning: -in the terms of the resolution. He is willing, as he puts it, to agree to any reduction at all as a step in the right direction. I believe he puts five years as the minimum that would satisfy him. I think I know him well enough to be able to say without offence, that I expect that a five-year reduction would satisfy him for one year, and that thereafter, in the light of what he sincerely believes, he would come along year by year in an effort to obtain a further reduction. I appreciate that, and I am not criticizing him for it. So that in the figures I asked to have compiled for me I asked what would be the financial effect of a reduction of the age from seventy to sixty-five.
Before coming to this point, however, perhaps I should indicate that at the present time, in spite of the alleged heartless administration of old age pensions by the various provinces, just about fifty per cent of all the people of Canada who are seventy years and over-just about half of them-are receiving old age pensions. The federal expense in that regard last year was $28,500,000 in round figures, and for the present year the estimates
provide for $30,500,000. Even if we continue the present basis the cost for the next twenty or thirty years will increase very rapidly, though no more generous treatment is accorded. This increase will result partly from the normal growth in population and partly from the fact that in the next twenty-five or thirty years the percentage of our population over seventy to the total population will steadily increase, because our population has been so largely built up in the generation just past by the immigration of adult persons.
Let me give the estimates of our population at future census dates together with the number over seventy years of age, and the cost of old age pensions for them, assuming the present basis, assuming the present proportion, assuming the present rate of payment-and here I must say that these wicked provinces, as alleged to-night, who are so keen to cut down the maximum pension, are in fact to-day paying an average of slightly over $200 per annum to all pensioners. When we bear in mind that the maximum they could pay under the law is $240-if they paid the maximum to every one, that is all they could pay-it certainly does not indicate a heartless chiseling administration on the part of the provinces when the average today is over $200. Assuming then the same proportion as now, the same average payment as now, the cost to the dominion in 1941 would be $46,300,000; in 1951 it would be $62,000,000; in 1961 it would be $82,200,000, and in 1971 it would be $92,800,000.	'


Major James William Coldwell: Will the minister explain how he arrives at that?


Charles Avery Dunning: By the factors which I
spoke of a few minutes ago, the estimate by the bureau of statistics of our increase in population, and estimates from the same source of the expected number of those over seventy years of age in our population at the dates mentioned, and allowing for continuation of the same proportion of those over seventy eligible for old age pension as are eligible to-day, and for that proportion receiving an average equivalent to that which is being paid to-day.


Major James William Coldwell: And the same depressed conditions over that long period?


Charles Avery Dunning: Well, one assumes that
in assuming the fifty pier cent.


Major James William Coldwell: It assumes that no
improvement in conditions is likely to occur.


Charles Avery Dunning: If my hon. friend could
assure me that conditions will be better, I should be pleased.

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Dunning


Major James William Coldwell: I should like to. Perhaps they will be if there is a change of government.


Charles Avery Dunning: At any rate one may
say this, that that proportion of fifty per cent eligible, which is really the basis of my hon. friend's argument, has held fairly steady in the provinces which originally came into the scheme prior to the present depressed conditions. There is not the factor of variability there that my hon. friend would probably hope for and which I certainly would hope for.


Abraham Albert Heaps: But there is an enormous
increase in the amount.


Charles Avery Dunning: If my hon. friend will
look at the figures I gave last year he will find the percentages of those over seventy allowed by the bureau of statistics in making this calculation are as follows:	In 1931 our
percentage of population over seventy years of age was six per cent. The bureau thinks it will be 6-7 per cent in 1941, eight per cent in 1951, 9-8 per cent in 1961 and 10-1 per cent in 1971, when it is estimated that a general leveling up will have been reached unless in the meantime our age groups are further affected by large scale immigration of particular age groups.
Now, if we lowered the pension age to sixty-five, the immediate additional cost to the dominion alone would be $18,859,000 a year. The total cost to the dominion alone if the eligible age were lowered to sixty-five would be 848,621,000 as against the $30,500,000 provided for the current year. If we reduced the eligible age to sixty, the estimated immediate cost to the dominion would be an additional 844,000,000 more than we are now spending. That is to say, to reduce the pensionable age by ten years would cost the dominion immediately some $14,000,000 more than the dominion is now spending on those over seventy, or a total of $44,200,000 immediate increase. Or the total immediate cost to the dominion this year, if the age were lowered to sixty, would be $73,900,000.
To the country as a whole the cost would be still greater; for one must remember that the provinces are in this, and this house cannot light-heartedly change this act and assume that every province will accept the financial obligations involved. I know that would not bother the hon. member for Winnipeg North; he would immediately say, "Let the dominion pay the difference whatever it is." That would be an easy way to get round that difficulty.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I am. willing to speak for myself when the time comes.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, but I venture to say that would be my hon. friend's solution.


Joseph Needham: It is a correct one.


Charles Avery Dunning: If that is not my hon. friend's solution may I point out to him that there is nothing to prevent any province to-day from deciding to pay pensions itself to its old people between sixty and seventy years of age or any other age it sees fit.


Eric Joseph Poole: They have not the revenue.


Charles Avery Dunning: But I thought my friends in Alberta came into office on the promise that they would provide all the revenue necessary to run that province and pay everybody $25 a month.


Eric Joseph Poole: Leave it to us and we will do it.


Mr. DUPUIS:: What are you waiting for?


Charles Avery Dunning: I think I have said all I want to say about the costs. I leave that part with the house. But I want to say a few words about the growing habit in this house of fouling our own nest as a country. Hardly a discussion of a humanitarian character arises but a number of hon. members state that we are the most backward nation in the world on this and on that. Mr. Speaker, I do not believe it. We are not a backward people. In connection with the matter which was discussed just before this resolution, I could have instanced and I wanted to instance that the people of this dominion are not backward in caring for hospitalization and for their sick and their fatherless; they do look after them; they average up as well as any country in the world in that regard. The difficulty is that some hon. members compare what Canada is doing with some country which has either evolved a scheme which enables their national government to do what in our country is a matter for the provinces, or where, as in the case of New Zealand or England, there is a unitary government, not a federal and provincial system of government as we have here. In respect to these matters our people are developing from the bottom up, which is the soundest way.
We had some information this afternoon from the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Power) indicating how the people themselves are cooperating in providing a measure of health insurance to an increasing degree, which I think is an encouraging sign, and I believe the time will come when we shall deal with the matter from the point of view of dominion assistance to schemes of that sort on the basis of helping self-help. That, indeed, is the basis of the British approach to many of these questions, and is

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Dunning
becoming the basis of the approach which is being made in Australia and New Zealand.
With respect to pension schemes, here also we are advancing in Canada every year. An increasing number of Canadian industries are evolving pension schemes. Unfortunately we have not complete details of all of them; we cannot show with chapter and verse the extent to which this movement has grown. In one branch of the government service, operated by my hon. friend the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers), the annuities branch, a remarkable development has taken place within the last two years, through industries utilizing the facilities of the government annuities branch ' in working out pension plans for their industry, in connection with which also I know the Minister of Labour has been mightily criticized from the opposite point of view to that of the criticism we are getting to-night.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, the Canadian people, thank God, are still imbued with sufficient individualism to want to provide for their own security for their old age, as far as they can. There is plenty of evidence of that.


Norman Jaques: Yes; a good, thick belt to tighten.


Charles Avery Dunning: No one is speaking of belt tightening. No, Mr. Speaker; I am referring to those three and a half million Canadians who are trying to provide, in some measure at least, for their own security through the medium of life insurance. I am thinking of those four million Canadians who at this moment have savings deposits in our Canadian banks. They are trying hard to contribute towards the provision of their own security, and the extent-


Eric Joseph Poole: What about the-


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend can make his speech. Every time I am making a point he just butts in with a boo-boo-boo-boo-boo. If social credit has nothing better than boo-boo-boo-boo-boo, it had better be quiet.
The average Canadian does not want the state to keep him. It is all to his credit that he does not, in my opinion. That does not lessen the obligation of the State to look after its own sick, its own old, its own halt and its own blind. I am not urging that for a moment; but at times, Mr. Speaker, do we not concentrate our attention rather too much on the seven or eight hundred thousand people who are on relief to-night and think rather too little of that great body of our middle-olass represented by those four million of whom I spoke who have some savings and by those three and a half million-of course there would be some overlapping in these two
groups-who are attempting to make provision for their own security by way of life insurance? They are the great burden bearers of this nation, the great middle-class of this country on whom, under any system of taxation, the major burden in proportion to means will rest. I am thinking of them to-night as we speak of those who ought to be maintained by the state, because in the last analysis those who are so maintained are maintained in very large degree by that great middle group of Canadians who are trying to make provision for their own security and who, out of what they do earn or make, are the great body of taxpayers of this dominion.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker., I should like to read what I said in this house on this question last year. Oh, I know I shall be described as reactionary and as orthodox. Thank goodness the ten commandments are orthodox, but they are still pretty good. Speaking for myself, I could repeat to-night every word I said last year, when I made this statement:
In conclusion, I should like to give the house an indication of what I believe our objective should be with regard to old age pensions, and also some idea of the course I think we should pursue in attaining that objective. In the first place, experience in operating this type of social legislation, from the dominion point of view, convinces me that we should look towards a national scheme of old age pensions, nationally administered. I am convinced, in the second place, that the British system of making the lowering of the age limit contingent upon the contributory feature is a sound objective to pursue, and that we should look in that direction. Indeed I am one who believes that there is no limit to what can be worked out in the direction of lowering the age limit, provided we had a national scheme, nationally administered, and provided that the period below seventy years was made definitely contributory.
I think the experience of the British scheme gives us considerable data to work upon in that regard, and I believe that broadly our objective should be, as I have just stated, ultimately to reach a place where we would have a national scheme of old age pensions, nationally administered, and with the contributory feature prominently associated with any ages lower than the age of seventy, which is the present qualifying limit.
Then further on:
Now, as to the course which should be taken to attain them-
That is, the objectives mentioned.
As I indicated at the opening of my remarks, at the present time we are in the position of not having legislative jurisdiction with respect to this matter. There are high constitutional authorities in this house of parliament who take the view that it is doubtful if we have the constitutional authority to pay the seventy-five per cent which we are now paying to the provinces. That view has been expressed on more than one occasion in this house, and

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Dunning
while I do not hold with it, at least it gives an indication of the difficulty surrounding the attainment of the national objectives which I have just described.
Therefore we must somehow reach a place where the constitutional authority in the matter is beyond question, where this parliament can set up an old age pensions scheme of a type it deems to be desirable and also have the power to administer. When I say that, it must be remembered that I am not unmindful of the extra cost to the dominion that would be involved or of the fact that if this parliament assumes a burden which the constitution presently places upon the provinces, then this parliament must receive access to fields of taxation, sufficient to enable it to meet the added cost in a national way. If we undertake greater national responsibility, then we must have wider national fields from which to derive the revenues necessary to maintain those national responsibilities and national institutions.
It is well known that in the hearings before the Rowell commission the matter now under discussion was developed I think by every province which appeared before that body. Elaborate and careful studies have been made by economists and welfare workers on behalf of the provinces, and in addition the commission has had its own independent studies made of the question in its relationship to the great question of adjusting the financial relationships between the provinces and the dominion. That is the position in which we are now. In the meantime, under a system which is admittedly faulty because of that bridging of the constitutional difficulty which is involved in the agreement I discussed earlier in my remarks, we are carrying on. I believe we shall reach a point where the provinces will be convinced that the national parliament and the national government-


John Ritchie MacNicol: National government?


Charles Avery Dunning: Not in the sense my hon. friend has in mind; perhaps I should say the federal government; "national" is rather a dangerous word to use these days- that the federal parliament and the federal government should have the undoubted right to work out, to enact, to administer and to pay for a national scheme of old age pensions. If I had my way, in introducing such a scheme the remarks I have just made, quoting what I said last year, indicate what I think is the sound course. I am of course, not advancing that as definite government policy. At this stage it would be impossible to introduce such a scheme, but I close with this thought, that in pressing this upon this parliament, hon. members should not forget that the agreements with the provinces in no way estop the provinces from supplementing, out of their own resources, the amount of 
pensions now paid. It is only six or seven years ago that the provinces got fifty per cent from the dominion. When they received an extra twenty-five per cent, did any of them pass it along to the old people in the form of increased pensions? No. The extra contribution was used-as they had a perfect right to use it-in the reduction of their own expenses and their own requirements in the field of taxation.
I have tried to cover the matter as dispassionately as I can, having regard to the fact that I have just as human feelings as any of those who have spoken previously. There is nothing much more difficult than to watch the course of a motion of this kind, or to read letters, such as those which have been read to-night, from an individual who is complaining without having asked the provincial welfare bureau concerned. "What are the facts?"
I have had so much experience of that kind. I have had letters by the hundreds from individuals which I have passed along to the provinces, they having the sole right to deal with the matter. I have asked them if they would be good enough to give me an answer, and I am bound to say in fairness to the provinces that I have yet to find a case where I have not had an answer reasonable at all events, if not fully satisfactory to me.


Eric Joseph Poole: Mr. Speaker, first of all may I compliment the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Heaps) upon presenting the resolution to the house. I should like also to pay tribute to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth). I do not think any hon. member has worked more diligently for social and economic reform.
With regard to the resolution before the house may I say that I am at a loss to know why the government should defend itself. After all, if it is in such an impregnable position it does not require defence. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) tells us that we are just as far ahead as any country in the world. I question that statement, and suggest that Sweden, Great Britain and other nations are far ahead of us in matters of this kind.
The question of money once more arises. We are asked who is going to pay. Well, who always pays? But we will notice this, that when matters of national defence are considered in the house mere dollars and cents do not enter into the debate at all. One cannot compare conditions among the people to-day with those which existed ten or twenty years ago. To-day thousands of young men

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Dunning_
are seeking employment, and the old men are hanging on to their jobs, because those jobs are their only source of security.
When I read the resolution I was reminded of an old friend of mine, an ex-service man of about forty-five or forty-eight years of age. When he looked for work he was told he was too old. I would ask the government if there is any greater social obligation than that of providing security for the aged of our nation. I suppose if anyone were to suggest ways and means by which additional pensions might be financed the Minister of Finance would suggest that we were suggesting pure inflation. How can we pauperize a nation by distributing more goods? I believe that in a debate of this kind, involving the expenditure of money, the government loses sight of the all-important question as to the purpose of an economic system. I say the purpose of an economic system is to produce abundantly and to distribute that which we produce. If it is not that, then there can be no purpose in it.
All the aged ask is the right to live. To-day thousands of them are dispossessed, not only because they are old-although that is one of the greatest contributing factors in competitive society-'but because there is not employment for them. How the government can possibly justify its attitude, wherein it denies the aged the right to security, is more than the average man can understand. All we are asking is that the abundance we can produce may be the measure of security of the aged of our nation-that and nothing more.
For the first time during my experience in the house it appeared to me that the Minister of Finance when speaking lost his equilibrium. He was somewhat annoyed when some members from this corner of the house interfered with his speech. He did not like their butting in. But, many, many times when hon. members in this comer have been speaking, the Minister of Finance and other hon. members opposite have asked questions and made comments. On those occasions there have been very few objections on this side of the house. When the minister loses his equilibrium I take it as final and complete evidence that he is attempting to defend an indefensible position.
Old age pensions are not the responsibility of the provincial governments. It may be that the British North America Act would give that impression, but then we must remember that that act has been the curtain behind which both old-line parties have reneged their obligations to the people of Canada. Will any hon. member sitting to your right, Mr. Speaker, say, and have his observation recorded in Hansard, that the age for the old age pension should not be reduced? No, no
hon. member to your right will say that. They are saying, "We have not the money"- but they can find money for national defence and for thousands of other things. But when they are asked for money for the aged, for the youth or for the unemployed, they have no money.
We can provide guns for the west and east coasts; we can build airplanes; we can pass millions of dollars through this house like so many cents for arms and munitions; but when it comes to the real issue of the social security of the people of this nation, then it is a different matter. It has always been the same whether it be the aged, the blind or the unemployed. They do not count; we have no money for them. All we can find money for is to build machine guns, munition factories, and provide other means for the destruction of the state. We have not the intelligence to use our resources for the production of those things which will make life happy and secure and provide a life commensurate with the ability of our people to produce.
What does this resolution ask for? It asks this house to distribute more goods, to give to the aged, to those who are less than seventy years of age, future security. People may boast about democracy, but a parliament that cannot provide security for its aged is bankrupt of progress, bankrupt of everything. It has not an idea. Time and time again sympathy has been expressed in this house for our aged, our unemployed, our ex-service men and our blind, but apparently we have not yet learned that we cannot feed people with sympathy. This matter really requires positive action; it requires the enactment of certain laws to guarantee-what?	Guarantee the
distribution of the goods which we can produce in a scientific age.
When I rose I said that I was not going to speak very long. There is a principle involved here. The Minister of Finance spoke far longer than I shall, and he expressed sympathy in the good old-fashioned Liberal way. But he did not do anything about it. He said he would like to do something, but we have not the money. According to him, the only way we can do anything is to take from those who have little, to give to those who have nothing at least some measure of existence. Are we living in the twentieth century? Can we produce an abundance of things and yet place parliament in a strait-jacket? Can we say, "We should like to give you these things, but we have not the money." What stupidity! I read some of the speeches delivered by Liberal members when they were in opposition, and I was astonished to see the difference between what they say when they are

Old Age Pensions-Mr. Dunning
in opposition and what they say as members of the government. Has not the Liberal party more guts than that? Have they not the courage to fight for the most defenceless people in this nation? If they have not, they should have. I hope they will not be here after 1939, because a government that has lost its courage is no use to a democracy. Democracy demands courage. It demands that we face the facts, not fiction. It demands that we do things, not express sympathy.
Let us get down to facts. The government has said that they are justified in turning down this resolution because the economic system under which we live cannot provide security for these people. The only restriction which the members of the government place upon the providing of this security is the amount of dollars and cents which the chartered banks of Canada can provide. This government does not exist as 245 members; this government is the Minister of Finance. When he cracks the whip everybody jumps. But he is not the whole show. The main show is the Bank of Canada. They are the people who tell the minister what to do, and the government jumps at the crack of the whip. Until this government throws off these shackles of finance; until this government stops saying that nothing can be done every time a suggestion comes from this side of the house, there will be no progress. Until the philosophy of the Minister of Finance is no more; until a new philosophy is predominant there will be no release from the poverty which exists in the country to-day. This resolution gives us an opportunity to bring to the forefront those people of Canada who are so poverty stricken financially, irrespective of the fact that we have so much materially-we are saying we cannot give them more than $20 a month.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Tuesday, March 7, 1939