1939-04-19

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

Questions

Mr. GRAYDON:: How many gallons of, (a) milk, (b) cream, were exported to the United States from Canada in each month since January 1, 1939?


Mr. EULER:: (a)	January: milk, 248 gallons; cream, nil.
(b)	February: milk, 248 gallons; cream, nil.


SOLDIER SETTLEMENT BONUS
Mr. BARBER:: 1.	How many settlers under the Soldier Settlement Act have taken advantage of the dollar for dollar bonus during each of the fiscal years 1937-38 and 1938-39?
2.	What amount was credited to these accounts during each of the two years, (a) in bonus, (b) in cash?
3.	During each of the said years, (a) how many met their payments in full; (b) how many completed their contracts; (c) how many holdings reverted to the board?


Mr. CRERAR:: 1.	1937-38, 7,672; 1938-39, 3,174.
2.	(a) 1937-38, $840,685.38; 1938-39, $264,422.09;	(b) 1937-38, $1,419,163.73; 1938-39,

3.	(a) 1937-38, 4.394; 1938-39, 3,480; (b)
1937-	38, 294; 1938-39, 232; (c) 1937-38, 664;
1938-	39, 477.
The above answers include soldier, civilian and British family settlers.


NATIONAL HARBOURS BOARD
Mr. MacINNIS:: 1.	Who are the present members of the national harbours board?
2.	For how long are members of the harbours board appointed?
3.	What is the salary paid to each?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	R. O. Campney, Colonel A. E. Dubuc, B. J. Roberts.
2.	Ten, nine and eight years respectively.
3.	$10,000 per annum.
aid to maritime fishermen


Mr. BROOKS:: [DOT]
1.	Under what policy does the Department of Fisheries give aid to the fishing industry and the fishermen of the maritime provinces?
2.	Does the same policy apply to the three provinces, or is there a different policy for Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island ?
3.	WTiat amount of money did the federal government give to each of the provincial governments in the maritimes for expenditure among the fishermen in the years 1937 and 1938?
4.	Wrhat amount did the provincial governments contribute in each of these years?
5.	What check has the federal government on the expenditure of the money it contributes?
6.	What facilities have the federal government for knowing that the provincial governments put up their share of the money?


Mr. RINFRET:: On April 5 a reply was
given to this question. The information then furnished was not complete, and I now table the complete reply, with some information from the Department of Labour.


MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: For a copy of all correspondence, letters, telegrams and other documents, dated from January, 1935, to April 1, 1939, exchanged between the Department of Public Works, the Post Office Department and C. R. Walrod of Rockyford, Alberta.


Mr. McLARTY:: Mr. Speaker, this motion is somewhat more restricted than the motion originally placed on the order paper. It is, however, still quite broad in its terms in respect to the two departments which it specifies. There is no objection to the motion, as far as the Post Office Department is concerned, but I would like the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston) to realize that it is going to involve the investigation of many hundreds of files; so that unless he cares to specify what he requires with more particularity I think he will have to be patient in regard to the time that may be required to bring down the return to the order.


Charles Edward Johnston: I do not
think there could be a great deal of correspondence between this one person and the Post Office Department. I have made the request more specific, as the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) suggested the other day, in that I have limited it to these two departments. I do not want to put the departments to any unnecessary work, but I am much interested in getting a copy of this correspondence.


Norman Alexander McLarty: I do not know whether
there is a great volume of correspondence or not. I do not know whether there is any, but in order to eliminate the possibility of any correspondence being overlooked we must go through a great number of files.


Mr. STEVENS:: Check over the index.


Norman Alexander McLarty: I do not think any index is kept under the name of each individual writing the department. However, I am satisfied to let the order go with that explanation and on this understanding.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Combines Investigation Act

Mr. CHURCH:: For a copy; of all letters, telegrams, resolutions of bar associations or from any judicial officers or lawyers, and all other correspondence or orders in council, if any, under the Supreme Court Act relating to the abolition of appeals of all kinds to His Majesty the King in his privy council received by the government or any officer thereof or by the Right Honourable the Attorney General of Canada from the aforesaid or from any other sources in relation to this matter and all replies sent thereto.



COMBINES INVESTIGATION ACT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J.S.WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre): A report has been issued by the commissioner under the Combines Investigation Act with regard to papetboard shipping containers. May I ask the government whether legislation will be brought down at the present session to deal with this matter?
Hon. NORMAN McL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour): It is not customary to deal with a report of this kind by legislation. The statute requires that when the report is made, the report itself, together with the evidence, shall be transmitted to the attorneys general of the provinces in which the alleged combine is said to exist.
Mr. WOODSWORTH:: And this government will take no action to remedy this situation?


Mr. ROGERS:: The action specified by the statute has already been taken.



TRADE AGREEMENTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Daum Euler: On Monday, in reply to a question by the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) I stated that the quota of cattle exportable to the United States at the reduced rate of duty had not been filled. Yesterday the hon, member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Perley) inquired as to the number of cattle that had been exported from Canada during the present quarter, which began on April 1. At that time I was not able to give him a reply, but to-day I am in a position to give the house some information.
The United States figures available are for the period from April 1 to April 8 inclusive. During this period 11,193 head of cattle, other

than dairy cattle, were exported from Canada at the reduced rate of duty. This represents 2ll-6 per cent of the 51,720 head, which is Canada's share of the quarterly quota of
60,000	head. Our own records give figures for a somewhat longer period, from April 1 to April 13 inclusive. These figures show an export from Canada of 13,288 head of the above class of cattle, shipped to the United States during this period.
The hon. member for Qu'Appelle also asked for some information as to the number of head exported from Mexico to the United States. The quota from all countries other than Canada is 8,280 head. On April 1, the first day of the present quarter, there were shipped into the United States 6,940 head, so a very small balance is left for importation from countries other than Canada. I might add that it is understood that practically all the latter number came from Mexico.



UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Tuesday, April 18, consideration in committee of the following proposed resolution-Mr. Rogers-Mr. Sanderson in the chair:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to provide assistance in the alleviation of unemployment and agricultural distress and for such purpose to authorize the execution of undertakings in the general interest of Canada and requisite for the purposes of the act, out of moneys appropriated by parliament, and also to provide financial assistance to the provinces by way of loan, advance or guarantee, out of unappropriated moneys in the consolidated revenue fund, and for the appointment of necessary officers, clerks and employees.
Mr. WALSH:: 
Henry Herbert Stevens: Mr. Chairman, if it had
been possible for any one of us to divorce himself from his status as a member and to occupy a seat in the galleries of the house and listen to this debate, what would have been the main impression made upon his mind? As I pondered that thought during the last few days I could not help feeling that perhaps the first and most definite impression an impartial outsider would receive would be the conviction that there was a singular indifference in this house to the problem of unemployment. a problem which agitates the mind of the public from one end of Canada to the other, and which in thousands of households is looked upon as little less than a tragedy. Yet day after day and hour after hour it appeared to me that there was an attitude of indifference and apathy towards a problem so serious that it might reasonably be expected that we would forget differences of opinion and endeavour to mobilize our abilities and our thoughts towards solving it.
The second thought that would come to me were I in that position of impartiality would be this. The numerous useful suggestions made by members on all sides of the house-a great many of them from the Liberal benches as well as from over here-were received often in a spirit of hostility. There was resistance to them; there was a tendency to resent suggestions that obviously were good, sound and useful. That is the second impression that has been made upon my mind.
The third is this. Can it be possible that we in this parliament-and for the moment I include all of us-are really unaware of the vital and tragic problem of unemployment that exists in Canada to-day? Is it possible that parliament is the only place in Canada where there is unawareness of its existence? Yet to me, from the general attitude and atmosphere up to this moment, this seems to be not an unfair judgment of the house as it is.
Sir Robert Peel almost a hundred years ago, under conditions not dissimilar to those now prevailing in Canada, when it will be recalled that prior to the repeal of the corn laws there was great destitution in the old land, in presenting his budget to parliament, stated at the very outset-the words I have not under my
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hand, but I have them in my mind-that the most essential thing was to admit and recognize the problem; once that was done we could progress, said he, to the treatment of the problem or solution. That is one thing at least, it seems to me, upon which parliament could be united-that there is a definite, and not a temporary, condition of unemployment and suffering and insecurity and distress in this country. Having admitted that, having laid it down as the underlying condition with which we are seeking to deal, we should be able to approach the question in a sympathetic way.
We are all aware of the problem individually. I know it; and may I say to the minister that I was a little disturbed at the question he would repeatedly put to one member after another who was presenting his view of the problem: " What evidence has the member to support that statement?" Well, if in discussing this or similar problems in the house we are to ibe narrowed down to such utterances as we are in a position to substantiate in a court of law, there is no hope for free discussion in parliament. I stand here and say on my responsibility as a member of parliament that I know this problem exists. We all know it. I know it because like many other members-I am no exception in this respect-I have touched it personally, yes, and indirectly by visiting camps and talking with men by the score, by the hundreds. We all know the problem exists; there is no question about that.
Now I look at the terms of the resolution. Frankly I had hoped at the opening of the session of 1939 some clear and definite policy would be announced to deal with unemployment. But the resolution is, I believe, the same as last year, if not the same as four sessions ago. Let me just call the attention of the house to its terms:
That it is expedient-
I pause at the word " expedient." It is not a question of expediency; it is a question of vital necessity. But I pass over that.
That it is expedient to bring in a measure-
What for?
-to provide assistance in the alleviation of unemployment.
In other words, we stop right there and simply say in plain, simple language that we have before us still a temporary problem which is bothering the country and we propose to alleviate it. We propose to carry on with the same measures we have had over the years in the past, which will get us away from the problem for the moment. The resolution goes on to say, referring to agricultural distress:
TMr. Stevens.]
-and for such purpose to authorize the execution of undertakings in the general interest of Canada and requisite for the purposes of the act, out of moneys appropriated by parliament.
This is the next important part of the resolution, and it is exactly what we have had in several sessions gone by:
-also to provide financial assistance to the provinces by way of loan, advance or guarantee, out of unappropriated moneys in the consolidated revenue fund.
There is nothing in that whole resolution to inspire any hope that we as a parliament are going to give serious consideration to this problem.
Let me proceed to the government's position as it is reflected in certain utterances of the minister and of members supporting the government. I cite these utterances not in a spirit of criticism, although I shall perhaps criticize them in a certain sense, but rather for the purpose of summing up the government's approach to this question.
One utterance which was made and repeated on several occasions was, "The poor ye have always with you." I repeat that not merely for the sake of reiteration, but for the purpose of suggesting that the citation of those sacred words in connection with parliament's attitude towards unemployment is a tragic travesty of this sublime utterance. The repetition in these circumstances of those words showed a total lack of appreciation of what they really mean. I think we might remember another utterance, "Bear ye one another's burdens," as being infinitely more appropriate at the present time than to taunt the unemployed with the fact that "unfortunately w'e have always had with us people such as you." Is it any solace or encouragement to the thousands of young and older men and women who are in this predicament simply to say to them: The poor we have always with us? The hon. member for Huron North (Mr. Deachman) may have reflected the view of a great many hon. members when he uttered those words and related them to unemployment. These are his words:
It is an old disease of the human race. Jesus mentioned it when he said, "The poor ye have always with you." It was recorded in the days of the Roman empire, and it came to Spain during the collapse which followed the expansion after the discovery of the continent of North America. It was present in England after the battle of Waterloo. ... It followed the Crimean war, the United States civil war, and the great war.
I will finish the quotation in a moment, but I pause to suggest to my hon. friend, and to others who applauded him so vigorously, that merely to say that time after time

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throughout history there has been distress is no discharge of our present responsibility as leaders of the state.


Mr. DEACHMAN:: May I ask my hon. friend a question?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will my hon. friend permit me to finish the quotation?-because I do not intend to do him an injustice. He added these words:
Strange as it may seem, every time there came the same remedy to cure the disease. Always something happened to cause an expansion of trade. When trade grew, unemployment ceased.


Robert John Deachman: May I ask my hon. friend a question?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Certainly.


Robert John Deachman: Is that not a fairly accurate statement of an historical fact, and should it not impress us with the gravity of the situation, which it was purely my desire to do?


Henry Herbert Stevens: It is an accurate recitation of a series of historical facts which one could parallel in a dozen ways, but it does not discharge our responsibility as regards the present problem of unemployment.


Robert John Deachman: It shows the difficulty.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It does not follow, because after the Napoleonic wars a hundred years or more ago there was a period of distress, that to-day we should rest patient and somnolent under distressing conditions.


Robert John Deachman: I did not say so.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am aware that any great disturbance such as the last war will inevitably bring results injurious to the human race. One cannot escape them. But, with all the experience of the past available to us, and with all the modern facilities we possess to deal with these conditions, we should be applying our best knowledge and efforts and taking advantage of all our accumulated science and skill to overcome, or at any rate to lessen, suffering, even though, as my hon. friend has shown, the cause and the effect may have historic precedent.
It is a singular fact that the hon. member for Huron North put his finger upon the only thing on which the government depends to cure unemployment; because only yesterday the minister made this statement:
As one looks ahead, one cannot but feel that our ability as a country to absorb our unemployed in industry depends in a very large measure, if not entirely, upon a resumption of normal conditions of international trade.
I am not ridiculing this statement, not for a moment, but I am pointing out that it
represents the policy of the government. The minister made a similar statement four sessions ago, in 1936. He made it last year. I do not recall whether it was made in 1937, but I assume it was. He has made it on numerous occasions on the public platform. In that declaration he reflects the viewpoint of the government, because the leader of the government has frequently expressed a similar view. We must therefore accept it as the government's policy for the correction of the condition of unemployment in Canada. I for one do not admit that it is an adequate answer to the problem, and I will tell the minister and the house why.
In the first place, we do not control world trade. The measure of our influence over the movement of trade to-day is probably less than it was fifty years ago, although since that time the expansion of our commerce has been considerable. The simple reason is, as I have repeatedly stated in this chamber, that country after country, until virtually all of them can be included, has adopted a definite and fixed policy of internal control of external trade. Quotas, high tariffs, prohibitions of one kind and another, have been imposed. To-day it is not at all a question of free trade versus protection-that issue is outmoded; today it is a question of quotas. There is scarcely a country which is not dealing with external trade through bilateral agreements and quotas; and for us to stand back and say that we are going to wait patiently and supinely until by some miracle the convictions and prejudices of other countries are removed, until in some mysterious way trade starts once again to move to our advantage, is not only a sorry position for parliament to take, but incidentally, is a tragic answer to the unemployed!
The minister yesterday-again I am not criticizing him; I cite it for the purpose of reviewing the situation as I see it to-day- was asked. "What is the cause?" I think the hon. member who asked the question ought to have paused and realized that almost any simple person can ask a question, but sometimes it is exceedingly difficult to answer.


Norman McLeod Rogers: It is a large order.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It does not display any great degree of perspicacity to ask a question of that kind. The minister, of course, was embarrassed in his answer. But he did say, and I would not for a moment disagree, that there is no one single cause of unemployment; it is due to a variety of causes. He, trained economist that he is, knows that is true. But why does he stick to this mythical remedy, namely, the possible expansion of external
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trade, as the only cure? He admits that there is no single cause of unemployment; certainly the fall in external trade was not the only cause. That is certain; he knows it better than I do. He knows that one cause which perhaps has had a larger measure of effect than others is the scientific development of machinery, the mechanization of industrial plants. This is not a temporary condition; it is permanent, it is definite. It is there, and we have to face it.
In justice to myself let me say-not vaingloriously at all, but merely by way of emphasizing my sincerity-that a socialist rose at one of my meetings in the election of 1930 and asked me this question: "Mr. Stevens, if you are elected, will you declare that your party can cure unemployment?" I said, "No; I will make no such declaration. And I will tell you why. Because," I said, "this condition of unemployment is in substantial measure due to new and scientific methods in industry and the expansion and use of machinery, and it would probably take us a considerable time to understand it and to absorb those thrown out of employment by the machine." I remember using this illustration, which at the time was a sound one, and to-day is even more to the point than it was then. I cited the electric light bulb. I said that up until 1923-I think that was the year-it took one operative all day to make 40 electric light bulbs. Then a machine was perfected which would make some 70,000 to 80,000 of them in an hour. I believe that since then the number has gone up to something like 250,000. I pointed out that that machine actually displaced 900 operatives. In reply to the question put at that time I said that a major cause of unemployment was the introduction of just such machines as that.
I know the minister agrees with me when I say that these and other factors intimated by him yesterday are the causes of the present distressed industrial condition. Why, then, do the minister and the government cling to this mythical thing, expansion of trade, as the only solution for unemployment? For that is the only policy they have, other than, as this resolution says, to alleviate it through loans to the provinces. We know that there are many causes of unemployment; but my point is that many things will have to be done by this government, by industry, by finance, by provincial governments, by municipalities, yes, by individuals, by service clubs such as waited on my hon. friend the other day-many things will have to be done by all these agencies before the problem is solved. But it is the duty of the federal government to mobilize these forces and to see that we

get out of this great economic and social machine which we call Canada the maximum results in efficiency. We have a magnificent economic machine; we have financial organizations capable of handling all the credit that is available and properly disposing of it-there is no need for any new machinery in that regard. We have an industrial machine that is equal to those of the leading countries of the world, if not in some respects, as I am told, ahead of many. It may be said that these are platitudes, but sometimes one has to indulge in platitudes in order that we may bring ourselves down to earth. We have all these things; yet there is something radically wrong. Last year the minister recognized the point I am now making; he said one thing that was necessary was to have private interests function properly. Well, he is no nearer now to getting private interests functioning than he was then.
Can one offer condemnation of a condition without being thought guilty of disrespect to the minister or to members of the government? I should like to say to him and to the Prime Minister and to his colleagues that I do not know one of them whom individually I do not respect and honour. But I must say without reserve that in this regard they have shown appalling ineptitude and incapacity.
I know someone will be tempted to say to me, "Oh, but what happened before 1935?" Are we going to waste our time in recriminations-what happened in 1935-what happened in 1930? Let me say that I have no patience with it; let the dead past bury its dead. What I am concerned about is what we are doing in 1939.
Let me call the minister's attention to the record as it is. In 1936 he came into this house a bright, cultured, trained young mind. This country said at the time, and I was one who said it, that in this Minister of Labour we have a young man who is mentally equipped to cope with this great task. I take second place to none in my appreciation of the complexity and tremendous scope of the task. But he came here with that blessing on his shoulders from the countiy. In the first session he showed a grasp of economic problems probably superior to that of almost any other member who spoke in the house at that time. He showed an understanding of the subject, the technique of it was familiar to him, the phraseology, the nomenclature of economics was at his command. He said to us, "Now, I want you to be patient, because we are going to appoint a royal commission-" this was in 1936-"and when that commission reports, when I as a trained economist have before me the assembly of all the facts, then

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
look out-we will do something." A year went by. In 1937 he told us to be patient, the commission was still sitting, there was no report yet. Well, while I cannot claim experience in economics, I can claim some experience in parliamentary practice, and the minister will recall that in 1936 I told him from my seat in the house that that commission would not report for two years. I was laughed at.
So in 1937 we were asked to be patient. The house was patient, the unemployed were patient. Then came 1938, and lo and behold we had the report 1 Here was an achievement. The young minister came before the house and tabled the report. True, his neighbour threw the report on the floor and ridiculed it, but I did not. I read it, and I recognized in it certain merits-not quite as high a degree of merit as was assigned to it by my hon. friend a moment ago; but the report did focus attention on the factors entering into the unemployment problem. I think most of us who have studied the question were fairly well acquainted with them before, but we did not have them presented in the clever, orderly precise manner in which they are set out in this report. From that standpoint we had a good report, an excellent report, in which a number of very useful suggestions were made.
In 1938 the minister came before the house and said, "Look, I have the report; now watch me." Well, a year has gone by. I am not going to be so prejudiced, shall I say, as to suggest to the minister to-day that conditions are worse than they were a year ago. We all know that. I am not going to say they are worse to-day because the minister has taken no action, because I know in my heart that there are factors that enter into the matter, factors in commerce and industry that influence the up and down movement of trade. But it would be just as fair and truthful for me to say that as it is to cite figures for 1933 and then figures for 1938. 1937 or 1936. These comparisons are worthless. I say to the minister very frankly that there has been a general world depression, or as they call it this time a recession, since a year ago; there is no question about that. But that does not exculpate the minister in respect of the grave duty of implementing the report, which has not been done in any measurable degree.
I am not going into details in regard to aspects of the question that have been analysed here over and over again, but I want to say this, and I will make my statement so broad that there will be no need of details. The minister now claims that instead of the $30,000,000 or whatever it was we voted for
this housing scheme being all government money, as we understood, that total was to be made up of both government and private money. But where we voted $30,000,000 for that purpose we should have voted $100,000,000. Where we voted $40,000,000 for another kind of activity we should have voted $100,000,000. Oh, yes; someone will say, "Where is the money to come from?" That question was asked in 1931, when I made a similar proposal. All we have to do is to pause and consider this fact, that since and including 1931 this country, dominion, provincial and municipal, has raised and expended over $900,000,000 on direct relief. It is an appalling sum. In 1931 I suggested $100,000,000 for housing. I suggested it again a couple of years ago, and I suggest it again now. When I am asked, "Can you raise it?" my answer is that of course we can raise it. We have raised money to the extent of $900,000,000, and wasted it. It has gone down the sewer and we have nothing to show for it except wrecked lives and young people whose lives have been sapped of ambition.
I would ask the Minister of Labour, the Prime Minister and the government to forget every speech made by members of the opposition and take only the speeches made by their own followers, depicting conditions in their own ridings. These were what might be called favourable critics. Read those speeches; remember the expenditure by this country of $900,000,000-Tory government and Grit government, if you like

and think of what we have to-day. It is an appalling situation. Then I am asked how we would raise $100,000,000 for this or that. It can be done.
In this report the minister is told by the commission, and truthfully, that one of the reasons building construction has not gone ahead in municipalities in Canada is that there is such a weight of local taxation. Two years ago, in this house, I think, I suggested that as a federal parliament-and I am prepared to explain this in detail-under agreement we might subsidize the cities and municipalities of Canada to the extent of twenty-five per cent of their taxation, provided they would immediately lower their taxes by twenty-five per cent and hold them at that level for a period of years. If you did that you would provide an impetus to building construction. These are not questions which you can blueprint and say you know all about their beginning and end; they are questions to be attacked day by day and hour by hour. As I said in regard to another matter a few weeks ago, they are administrative rather than legislative questions. It is not more legislation we want; it is administration, the will to do, the
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conviction that something must be done, then getting at it and doing it. I repeat that there is no doubt whatever that it is within the power of this government to mobilize the forces of industry and finance so that this question can be solved, perhaps not to-morrow and not during the next year. But we have been going on now for nine years. Let no one say, "Well, five years of that was under the previous government." Of course it was, and I am not excusing that government. I am saying that we are here as a parliament. Let us divorce ourselves from one side or the other. We as a parliament have been sitting here for nine years, facing this problem, and we are no nearer a solution of its essential features to-day than we were nine years ago.


Mr. FACTOR:: Is the United States any nearer a solution?


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend interjects a question which illustrates the tragedy of this whole thing. Why, Mr. Chairman, I do not care what the United States has done; I am talking about Canada. I am talking about a young country, virile, full of power, energy and resource, with only eleven million people. If we cannot solve our own problems there is something wrong with us. The attitude of mind indicated in that question is what I have noted in this debate-always an effort to excuse oneself in thinking of the question. No one can entertain an idea or concept of the sort indicated by my hon. friend's query and at the same time have an earnest desire for the. solution of this question. It cannot be done; it is a mental impossibility.
I have no desire to detain the committee at great length, Mr. Chairman, but I feel extremely earnest albout this. I know many hon. members of this house have boys of their own, as I have. I know from my own boy and from his chums and friends that they are puzzled and worried. They do not know what they are to do. I know from my young married daughters and others that scores of their friends, perhaps comfortably cared for, do not know how they are going to arrange their social and economic affairs in order that they may start married life together. That is one of the underlying problems. Then I am visited, as all hon. members are, by scores of older men, forty and fifty and fifty-five and sixty years of age, who for these last few years have found themselves without the opportunity to work. I recall the tough times of the nineties. I went west early in the nineties, so when we talk about depressions I have been through them. But while perhaps there was more suffering from poverty in those days than there is to-day, yet there

were few cases where a man could not get enough work to enable him to eat. To-day that is not so.
When, the other day, I heard an hon. member refer to the unemployed without discrimination as derelicts and little better than criminals, I was shocked. I will give my estimate of the percentage represented by those who honestly want to secure work, and if the minister asks for evidence I will say the only evidence I have is my common sense and personal knowledge. I have talked to hundreds-I suppose thousands-in the last few years. I have gone up the lines and into their camps, shaken their hands and talked to them. I have talked to a lot of these fellows who came from my own province in the last two weeks. My own conviction is that about seventy-five per cent of those chaps are honest, earnest men, who want a job and nothing else. I am convinced of it. I will admit there are a certain number of slackers, derelicts, easy-going fellows among them, who do not want work. You always have that class. You will find them in the busiest of times.
I remember the boom period in Vancouver, back in 1908, 1909 and 1910 when conditions there were noted the world over for the rapidity with which money could be made. Yet even in those days, when I was a member of the city council, we had to keep certain families because of the indigent character of the head of the house. You always have that. But of these young men and of these older men I venture to say we can set it down as a fact that seventy-five per cent of them want one thing-an opportunity to work. And it will not do to say that if they had the enterprise their forefathers had, they would have work.
I can go back to my young days, a generation ago-


The CHAIRMAN:: I regret that the hon. member has exhausted the time at his disposal.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go ahead.


Frederick George Sanderson: There seems to be unanimous consent.


Henry Herbert Stevens: All I was going to say, to finish my sentence, was that I could go back a generation, to my younger days and remember that we had these tough times. But it was possible, as I said a moment ago, for a man to find a way of earning enough to live on. I could tell some interesting stories of how we used to do it forty-five years ago, when I first went to British Columbia. But that is not the case to-day. I am not saying the state owes every man a living, but I do

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
say this: The state owes it to society that where circumstances arise which prevent a man from getting an opportunity to work, the state must take cognizance of them and do what it can to remove them. And they can be removed, provided we realize what the minister said yesterday-that there is no single cause for unemployment, that there is no single remedy. But an application of numerous remedies through administrative effort would bring about a return to normal conditions.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Naturally I have no desire to delay the passage of my own resolution. At the same time I should like to comment briefly on a number of statements made by the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens).
In the first place I wish to express appreciation of the manner in which he has spoken. I believe he honestly desired to give the fruits of his own thought on this very serious problem of unemployment, a problem which has been troubling us not for five years but, as the hon. member well knows, for a period of ten years, and not this country alone but, one might say, the entire world.
He chose as the text for his remarks a statement I made yesterday in response to a question from one of the members of the Social Credit party. The question, put suddenly to me, was in these terms: Do you believe it is possible for this country to absorb the unemployed? My answer to that question, given upon the basis of my own experience, was that with a return of normal conditions of international trade a great exporting country like Canada might expect to absorb its annual accretion of potential wage earners.
My hon. friend has suggested I put that forward as the only solution of the unemployment problem. I have no hesitation in saying I did put it forward as the most reasonable expectation confronting this exporting country for an absorption of its unemployed in private industry. When I made that statement I was only repeating what was said a few months ago by Oliver Stanley, president of the board of trade in England. I was only repeating, in different words, what has been said on more than one occasion by the Secretary of State for the United States. In these last years Mr. Cordell Hull has by his own efforts sought to negotiate bilateral trade treaties with as many countries as possible because of his conviction that in that way lay the most reasonable prospect of reviving trade, industry and employment in his own country.


Mr. CAHAN:: And so far he has utterly
failed.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Well, I would not acknowledge that at' this time. I think even my hon. friend would agree that in these years there has been an extraordinary situation of international tension, of fear and of lack of confidence on the part of those who control the investment of private funds. Under these conditions even the best of trade treaties have not been able to produce their maximum effectiveness in respect of the trade of this or any other country.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: May I ask the minister a
question?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Certainly.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What percentage of the
productive energy of this country goes to supply products for export trade?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I will answer that
question-not in exact percentages, because I should prefer not to give percentages unless I know them to be accurate. But the hon. gentleman is well aware that a large section of our population is engaged in producing products which depend entirely upon export markets.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Not more than fifteen per
cent.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Those engaged in the industry of agriculture, which is still the basic industry of this country-


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I entirely disagree.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Will my hon. friend permit me to go farther? In these last few years we have had a persistent condition of drought in western Canada. In other words we have not produced what normally would have been produced in that area and sold in foreign markets, such sales establishing purchasing power which would have assisted eastern industry.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: If we had produced it, was there any possible way we could have sold it in foreign markets?


Mr. LAWSON:: You cannot sell it now.


Mr. ROWE (Dufferin-Simeoe):: What percentage of agricultural production is exported,
anyway?


Norman McLeod Rogers: There is no question, my
hon. friend will agree, that a very large proportion of our wheat is exported, and must depend upon export markets. But a very considerable section of our secondary industry-

2952	COMMONS
Unemployment and Agricultural Distress


Mr. ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):: About fifteen per cent.


Norman McLeod Rogers: -in this country also
depends upon the export market. Let us take the automobile industry, for example, which depends largely on the export market, and the other industries as well.


Mr. LANDERYOU:: May I ask a question?


Norman McLeod Rogers: If my hon. friend will
permit me to finish, he may do so later. I put this to the hon. member for St. Law-rence-St. George:	Suppose that lacking that
condition of drought you had an equally serious condition, namely that we were unable in Canada to produce wheat which could be sold, and that this wheat was simply held in our elevators; would he not acknowledge that such a situation would have as serious an effect upon industrial employment in eastern Canada? Most certainly it would.
The hon. member for Kootenay East suggested that there is no real solution for unemployment in the direction of international trade. But he, as a former minister of trade and commerce, would be the first to admit that for a country so constituted as Canada the maintenance of export markets is essential to the welfare of a very large and increasing section of not only our agricultural but our industrial life,


Henry Herbert Stevens: That has never been in dispute.


Norman McLeod Rogers: But my hon. friend does dispute-


Henry Herbert Stevens: I do not.


Norman McLeod Rogers: -that there is a real hope of improving the employment situation through an improvement in international trade -because that is the statement I made, and the statement to which he has taken exception.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I know the minister does not wish to misrepresent what I have said.


Norman McLeod Rogers: No.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Not at all; I do not for one moment say that international trade will not have a beneficial effect. It always has. We always welcome an expansion of international trade. But I say that to lean upon that-I will narrow it that much-to provide the major solution is, in my opinion, a dereliction of duty on our part. My point is that we must do much more than that.


Norman McLeod Rogers: If my hon. friend will follow me, he agrees that we must produce more in this country in order to give greater employment. Is that correct? He has said we cannot

hope to produce more and find outlets in foreign markets for our production. How is he going to bring about the consumption of the more that he would produce in Canada in order to give greater employment?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: By giving more domestic employment.


Norman McLeod Rogers: My hon. friend is simply following a vicious circle. I ask my hon. friend how he would answer that question.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I can answer it quite easily, but I certainly cannot answer it with a yes or no.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I am wondering if my hon. friend is not really in the same position in his thinking as the members of the Social Credit group.


Henry Herbert Stevens: No.


Norman McLeod Rogers: If you cannot produce more [DOT] and have that production taken up in foreign markets, then obviously you must produce more and consume it within this country. How do you propose to do that?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I shall gladly answer that. Probably I will get a chance to deal with this before the committee rises. For the moment, my answer is that if we spent as much energy on practical measures which would assist in the solution of this question, dozens of which have been suggested, as we do in academic reasoning and regimentation backward and forward, we would make more progress.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I have long since passed the time when I was worried about that word "academic." I think it was the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) who applied it to me first, although later on he decided that "metaphysical" was a better word. Nevertheless, I prefer to go ahead with the argument, regardless of whether or not my hon. friend considers it to be academic. In my opinion it is practical common sense.
In answer to the question put to me yesterday I said that if we as a country lost our export markets, which would be a calamity the like of which we have never known before, we would find it more and more difficult to resist the pressure toward a self-contained economy. Perhaps that is what my hon. friend has in view. If we had a self-contained economy in this country, it could only be at a sacrifice of the standard of living of the people of this country, and also at a sacrifice of human liberties.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: To what standard of living is the minister referring?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The standard of living of a large section of our population, and not only

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
in western Canada. My hon. friend does not find it possible to follow me, but surely he knows as well as I that a. large section of the industrial structure of this country was not only built up but was maintained by the western market, which in itself has depended upon the markets of the world.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The markets of the world for wheat, which is the chief product of the west, have almost completely disappeared, that is, markets at reasonable prices. Furthermore, I have had enough experience in other countries of America to know that any country which depends chiefly upon its export trade of primary products for its standard of living has a standard of living so far below the lowest standard of living prevalent in this country, that God forbid that this country could ever be reduced that far. If this government would give reasonable encouragement to domestic industry, within eighteen months there would be an increase of thirty per cent in the number employed in the industrial life of this country. But that will not be achieved by devoting your entire attention to foreign markets for wheat which do not now exist and which are not soon likely to exist except in case of war.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The views which my hon. friend expresses now were expressed by him and his leader of that day before 1930. He and his government had every opportunity to put those views into effect. They did so with the emergency tariff of 1930, which produced the opposite result to that which he now says would follow.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Let me say in reply to the hon. gentleman that they produced this result-


Frederick George Sanderson: The hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) must not interrupt the minister unless he obtains permission to do so.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The minister put a question to me and I am answering.


Frederick George Sanderson: The minister must permit a reply.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It is not a question of giving permission when he enters into a general discussion in committee.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I am quite willing that my hon. friend should proceed.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: If the hon. gentleman objects, I shall find another opportunity to express my views.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I should like to say to the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George that if at any time he wishes to interrupt me, it is all right for him to do so.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I was going to reply in only one sentence. My firm conviction is that the remedial tariff measures which the former Conservative government introduced in 1930, 1931 and 1932 saved this country from an almost complete disaster, and preserved in this country a standard of living, the like of which was to be found in but very few other countries. I know of none in which the standard of living is as high as that which was preserved in this country for our own people. It is true that in the later development of that policy certain measures which had been introduced were declared to be beyond the jurisdiction of this parliament, and therefore they failed. But some means must be found, either by further decisions of the courts or by agreement with the provincial authorities, whereby the legislative jurisdiction of this parliament may be so extended as to place in this parliament, not only the duty and responsibility but also the legislative authority necessary to enable us to enter upon a thorough solution of our social problems.


Norman McLeod Rogers: We on this side acknowledge the value of the home market, but we have gone further than my hon. friend in that we have also recognized that in a country situated as Canada is, the home market is inextricably bound up with the maintenance of international markets. You cannot speak of a home market in a geographical sense: you can speak of it only in the sense that there lies within that market the purchasing power which can be used for the exchange of products. My hon. friend is perfectly well aware that in a great agricultural country like Canada you have to depend upon foreign markets in order to place that store of purchasing power in the pockets of our farm population.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: For about fifteen per cent of it, that is all.


Norman McLeod Rogers: My hon. friend and those who sat with him adopted what I can only describe as a defeatist attitude toward international trade from 1930 to 1935. It was commonly said that apart from the British commonwealth of nations and the Ottawa agreements it was hopeless for this country to expect that it could recapture markets or establish markets that had never existed before. That was the whole trend of economic policy in this country from 1930 to 1935. But the Liberal party took the position, and takes the position now, that regardless of that trend, foreign markets have not been lost beyond recovery. And we practised that philosophy when we came into power. We gained a market which governments of Can-
2954	COMMONS
Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
ada have been seeking to gain from confederation to the present day. We gained it first in 1935 and broadened it this year.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Where are they?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I refer to the market of the United States and the reciprocal trade agreement. I cannot believe, and I doubt if my hon. friend will believe, that a kind of economic policy established in certain countries of the world to-day which regards the importation of foreign products as a confession of economic failure is a policy that can continue to exist. We can, if we desire, produce oranges under glass in Canada, and provide employment in setting up greenhouses.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That is academic enough.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is simply the policy I have just referred to, carried to what I admit is an absurd conclusion; but it is the policy itself that is absurd, and that is why the conclusion is absurd. You have in Germany to-day a country which is committed to an economic policy of producing synthetically products which formerly were imported on a basis of exchange with other countries. You have an economic policy in Germany and fascist countries which holds that all things needed by their populations must be produced within those countries. I cannot believe that a policy of that kind, founded as it is on an eternal fallacy, can survive. But just now we are passing through that particular phase of economic philosophy. No government true to its convictions can admit that such a policy can survive, and that is why we have held to the view that we are going to search for foreign markets regardless of the obstacles in our way. That is why we believe that in a country like Canada we must find foreign markets for our agricultural products, and for an increasing number of our industrial products, in order to stimulate industrial activity and expand employment.
One other word before I close. The hon. member for Kootenay East has referred to the recommendations of the national employment commission. I have no objection to discussing that subject, which was referred to yesterday by the leader of the opposition. The national employment commission made recommendations of several kinds. In the first place they made recommendations to deal with an immediate situation. The first problem they faced was that of single unemployed men, particularly in the prairie provinces, and they recommended the adoption of a farm employment plan. That recommendation was accepted immediately by the government and

put into effect, and under that plan we have had in the last three years an average of
40,000	men and women put into employment in the prairie provinces.
The national employment commission also took this position so far as stimulating internal industry was concerned, that the industry which offered the best prospect of stimulation, the building industry, might very well be encouraged under a plan called the home improvement plan. Again that recommendation was carried into effect.
Other recommendations of the commission touched upon public works which would contribute directly to employment. The commission took the view expressed by the hon. member for Kootenay East that there was no real solution for unemployment in public works. They recommended rather that the government should not, except at an acute period of depression, adopt any large program of public works. They realized that public works had their function in a depression period, that there can be legitimate expansion, but that such expansion should be directed rather to the type of project which had at the end of it increased employment in the country. Here again we followed the recommendations of the national employment commission in the actual projects undertaken. We have spent money on mining roads, tourist roads, national parks, historic sites, in directions where the expenditures have given definite stimulus to the tourist industry of Canada.
Now I come to other recommendations of the commission. The commission recognized two constitutional positions: the one an existing position, the other a possible position with respect to grants in aid to the provinces. Under the existing position the commission recommended that grants should be given with certain stipulations attached, designed to bring about a greater degree of efficiency in the distribution of relief. Those recommendations were substantially carried into effect and are continued in effect in the agreements we have with the provinces.
The other recommendations of the commission with respect to the ultimate assumption by the dominion government of the cost of relief given to employables were contingent upon the adoption of a national scheme of unemployment insurance, and if my hon. friend will read the report of the commission he will see that this is the only fair inference that can be drawn from it. I submitted to my hon. friend, if he shakes his head as an evidence of failure to accept that view-


Henry Herbert Stevens: As an evidence of hopelessness.

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress


Norman McLeod Rogers: -that he has not read the report in its entirety.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I have read it and reread it.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Then he has failed entirely to catch its meaning. In so far as that recommendation of the commission was concerned, it was based upon the adoption of a national scheme of unemployment insurance.
In so far as other recommendations of the commission are concerned, the recommendation with respect to youth training was carried into effect in the session of 1937-38 and has been continued ever since.
There was another recommendation with respect to the rehabilitation of older unemployed persons, but in order to carry that recommendation and other recommendations into effect it was necessary to get the full and cordial cooperation of provincial governments. I went with Mr. Purvis myself to certain provincial governments and discussed the rehabilitation of older unemployed persons. I remember particularly a conference on that question in Quebec. All the members of the commission realized that these rehabilitation plans could only be carried into effect on the basis of dominion-provincial cooperation. It so happened that the government of Quebec was unwilling to enter into those plans, preferring what they termed a policy of giving work to those in need through public works. The same was true of a number of the other provinces.
In so far as housing is concerned, I have already mentioned the home improvement plan. There was in addition the low rental housing plan. That too now forms a part of the National Housing Act. My hon. friend from Kootenay East suggests that only a very limited sum is available under our various pieces of housing legislation, and he would have 1100,000,000 made available; but if he will add up what has been done under the home improvement plan under part I of the National Housing Act, under part II of the National Housing Act, and under the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act, he will have a figure in excess of $100,000,000 made available for the purposes mentioned.


Henry Herbert Stevens: All provided by this
government?


Norman McLeod Rogers: By way of loan and guarantee.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Plus the private interests.


Norman McLeod Rogers: No, that amount is made available by way of loan under the legislation indicated.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Would the minister give a simple illustration of what he means? Take,
for instance, the question of loans. Who advances the money, and what proportion is advanced by private interests?


Norman McLeod Rogers: As my hon. friend is aware, different systems prevail under different acts. Under part I of the National Housing Act it is by way of guarantee to the private lending companies. Under the home improvement plan the dominion government assumes a portion of the losses which may be incurred.


Henry Herbert Stevens: How much?


Norman McLeod Rogers: If my hon. friend will permit me, that legislation does not come under the Department of Labour.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It is about fifteen or twenty per cent.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Again, under the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act, a fixed amount is made available for purposes of loans to these various construction projects. I mention these matters because it is very easy for hon. members to rise in their places and say, this or that has not been done. I think that sometimes it would be useful if there were at least a recognition that these various measures have been undertaken, because as far as this government is concerned we are able to point to a record of definite policies which have been put into operation to meet this problem-not to cure it; no one for a moment would suggest that. But I say that, in addition to long-range measures designed to improve the trading position of this country and thereby its industrial activity, we have put into effect measures, some of them recommended by the national employment commission, some of them put into effect before the national employment commission began to function, which have had their effect in improving the situation in this country.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Before the minister concludes, would he permit just one question?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Certainly.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Does the minister consider that the government's policy to-day is an adequate discharge of their responsibility towards unemployment and an adequate carrying out of the recommendations of the national employment commission?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I will deal first with the latter question, as to the national employment commission's report. We have carried out, I suggest, the more important recommendations of that commission which were within our power to discharge.
2956	COMMONS
Unemployment and Agricultural Distress


Henry Herbert Stevens: Does the minister think the government has adequately discharged its responsibility? That is what I am asking.


Norman McLeod Rogers: On that point, which is the other question put by my hon. friend, I as Minister of Labour would never be satisfied that we had done all that could be done while the situation remains as it is now. I hope there is more that we can do. We are doing something all the time. Only the other day an announcement was made with respect to forest conservation camps in this country. That work was not initiated for the first time this year; it was an expansion of what was done before in an experimental way. I am satisfied that we have done many things which have made a definite contribution to the employment of the unemployed, and we have at the same time avoided certain policies, some of them in existence under the preceding administration, which in the long run would have had an injurious effect upon the position of the unemployed. I believe that any government in power in any part of the world at this time is compelled to proceed by way of trial and error, and any government has to decide how much it is going to deal with this problem by way of creating an increased dependence upon governments, and how much it is going to depend upon the cooperation of private industry and the expectation that private industry under improving conditions of trade will be able to expand employment.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Would the minister
answer that simple question: Does he consider that the government's policy towards unemployment is an adequate discharge of its duty to the country in that respect?


Norman McLeod Rogers: This government, from the time it has come into office, has addressed itself to the unemployment problem with deep conviction and, I suggest, with as great a desire to obtain results as any government could have. The results have not always been equal to our desires or our expectations, but I do not fear, regardless of the consequences, to go before the people of this country upon our record with respect to this matter.


Charles Edward Johnston: I am sure it must be gratifying to hon. members sitting in this section of the chamber to have listened to the argument between the two old-line parties as to which has done the most towards solving the problem of unemployment. One hon. member says, which has done the least; I think it amounts to the same thing.

I listened carefully to this debate, especially while the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens) was ridiculing the Liberals and while the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) was ridiculing the Conservatives. In one of his remarks the hon. member for Kootenay East blamed machines for a great deal of the present unemployment. He pointed out that through the advance of science and invention, machines have materially displaced labour. That statement is quite in accord, I believe, with modern data. He went on to point out how greatly thereby unemployment had increased, and right there is where he fell down; for he had no suggestion as to how we should take care of the people who have been displaced by machinery. That is the difficulty experienced by both the old-line parties; they come right up to the problem, but they do not go on to solve it. I was listening with interest to the speech of the hon. member for Kootenay East, to find what he would do with these men who have been displaced by the machine, but I am still at a loss to know what is his solution. He stressed the point that we should not look to what happened before 1933; that we should not examine the past record of the Conservative party, or what had been done or left undone in the past by the Liberal party, but that we should start in on a new plan. But it seems to me that in all fairness, since the two old-line parties are following exactly the same policy they pursued in the past, it would be of great benefit to this country if we investigated rather carefully the results of their policies; for I believe we would find that in consequence of those policies Canada is in a worse position than it ever was in before. A figure of something like 400,000 has been mentioned as the number now unemployed. That in itself shows what the country can look forward to if we continue with the policies which are advocated by either of the old-line parties.
It is easy for the Conservative party as represented by the hon. member for Kootenay East to say to the government, "You should go out and do this; you should inaugurate a scheme of public works or some other plan." The hon. member went on to say that he would raise a hundred million dollars for this purpose, but when he was asked where he would get the money he threw up his hands and said, "Let us not bother about that." The Minister of Labour on the other hand pointed out that his party had spent more than that amount, and the way they got the money was by borrowing or by taxation, but largely in the form of loans. It is through just such action as that that the dominion has gone into debt over three and a half billions of

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
dollars, and that last year we paid out in interest roughly $137,000,000; or, putting it in another way, we paid out in interest charges on borrowed money over thirty cents of every dollar obtained through taxation. That is one of the reasons why we are so heavily in debt to-day, and one of the reasons, indirectly, why there is so much trouble in the land. Better evidence of this could not be put before the people of Canada than we have heard in the last half hour in the arguments between representatives of the Conservative party and the Liberal party.
I think any fair-minded citizen must come to the conclusion that the policy of either of those parties, policies which have been tried off and on for a hundred years, or at least since the time of confederation, are certainly no solution for the difficulties that we face to-day. I was interested when the hon. member for Mount Royal (Mr. Walsh) was referring to the eleven-point program presented by the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Massey). At one moment he said it was a commendable program and in the next breath he condemned it, saying that public works are no solution. So the old-line parties argue back and forth; one sets up a snow man and the other knocks it down and they get nowhere.
I did not intend to take up much time in this debate, believing that the house wanted, as was indicated to me this afternoon, to get along with the business of the session; but when I find the time of the house being wasted so uselessly as it has been in some of the lengthy addresses and discussions that have been going on, and especially when some hon. members on the other side refer to our young unemployed people in such scurrilous language as was used the other day, I think it behooves me to say a few words on their behalf.
In my constituency I have two cities that are as industrial as any part of the west, the city of Drumheller, which is entirely industrial, and the industrial section of Calgary. I resent strongly any hon. member from his place in this house trying to convey the impression abroad that these unemployed young people are worthless dubs and spineless vagabonds and so on. I have seen men of the unemployed ranks in Drumheller and have spoken to their organization, and I defy anyone in this house or anywhere else to find a more orderly or more intelligent group of people. I often wonder what would be the effect upon these young people, who, after all, are the flower of the land, should some of them be sitting in the galleries of this house and hearing the remarks which were made here by one or two
hon. members on the other side and which were so loudly applauded by other hon. members on the other side-


Mr. McDONALD (Pontiac):: That is not true; all government members did not applaud.


Charles Edward Johnston: I just wonder what effect it would have on them, thinking: There is the man I helped to elect; there are the people who are supposed to be here solving our economic problems, yet the only thing offered as a solution is to refer to the unemployed in such unscrupulous language as was used the other day.
I am gratified to have the Minister of Labour acknowledge that the Liberal party have no solution for unemployment.


Mr. BRADETTE:: They did not acknowledge that.


Charles Edward Johnston: And I am also gratified to know that the Conservative party have acknowledged the same thing.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: What has the hon. member's party done?


Charles Edward Johnston: Yet they go on fooling the people, hoping by that means to get into power in another election.
The other day I took up a report in regard to relief camps, an interim report made by a committee set up by the Minister of Labour to investigate these conditions. The committee consisted of R. A. Rigg, director of the employment service branch of the Department of Labour, Humphrey Mitchell, formerly member of parliament for Hamilton East, and E. W. Bradwin, Ph.D., of Toronto, principal of the Frontier college. In the re< port it is said:
With the official release of the report, the Hon. Norman McL. Rogers, Minister of Labour, issued a prefatory statement as follows:-
"The members of the committee were selected for the task because of their special knowledge in regard to the several aspects of the relief camp problem."
So the minister did not pick them indiscriminately; he used great care in picking these men. The statement continues:
"They approached their investigation with a sympathetic understanding of the human factors in the problem and with a knowledge as well of the practical considerations which must also have their bearing on government policy. This report is being released because of the widespread interest in relief camps throughout the country. We propose to take the people into our confidence in regard to the whole matter. Wherever it is possible to do so, I think it is desirable to throw a clear light on a problem in order that the taxpayers and citizens generally may know the reason for the adoption of particular policies."
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This interim report was made to the minister on January 31, 1936. I do not intend to read the full report, but the minister said the other day that the only policy that the Liberal party had for the alleviation of the condition of the unemployed was the hope that the agricultural industry would absorb them. This was a select committee, carefully chosen to report on these conditions. Let me read some of their recommendations:
We beg to report specifically on the five phases of our inquiry, set forth in the minister's letter of reference, as follows:-
1. The evidence we have accumulated compels us to advise that continuance of the camps for a temporary period is necessary.
This is the part I should like hon. members to notice:
The facilities for employment in private industry and agriculture are insufficient to absorb any considerable number of those in the camps at the present time.
There was a committee, carefully selected by the minister for their special ability to deal with this question, and they clearly state that unemployment could never be taken care of through the absorption of the unemployed in agriculture or private industry. Yet the minister rises in his place in this house now and says the only possible chance that these unemployed have is that agriculture will absorb them. That is in direct contradiction to the recommendations made by his so-carefully-picked committee.
The report continues:
Relief camp workers may be classified under four broad types.
I refer to this particular section in order to show that the people in these relief camps are not such as they were branded by the hon. member for Wellington North (Mr. Blair) and the hon. member for Renfrew North (Mr. Warren). The report says:
There is a goodly percentage of young men who still retain an eager desire to occupy a useful place in society and to devote their energies and abilities to industrial, commercial or agricultural employment.
The majority of the relief camp workers consists of that body of men of more mature age, who, while not so keenly ambitious as the younger element, are, nevertheless, yearning for the opportunity to maintain themselves independently through the medium of normal, remunerative, private or public employment.
Anyone who has had to do with the unemployed knows that by far the greater percentage of them is of that very description. And here is this selected committee appointed to investigate this subject coming out with exactly the same words, that they are only too willing to take employment, provided

they get a decent wage, but when they are offered twenty cents a day I do not blame them for not working, I would not myself.


Mr. MARTIN:: The hon. member's group does work.


Charles Edward Johnston: That may be applicable to some hon. members. It does not destroy the truth of what I said. The report continues:
There is a group of young men whose ages range from eighteen to twenty-five years-
This paragraph perhaps pertains more closely to those who do not act quite in accordance with our views, some of those young people in the camps who possibly become leaders of so-called insurrection movements in these camps. It says:
There is a group of young men whose ages range from eighteen to twenty-five years, many of whom have never had other than occasional casual employment and who, therefore, have not acquired the habit of working or the sense of individual responsibility to society. These young fellows have suffered through thwarted ambitions and the lack of visible grounds of hope for the future, and have become an easy prey to the subversive influences of communistic or anarchistic philosophy, sedulously propagated by experienced agitators. Most of these young men are gifted with average intelligence and if they had grown up surrounded by the influences of a normal environment, which included useful work, they would no doubt have given a good account of themselves. Under the influences among which they have lived during the past few years, however, they constitute a real menace to the maintenance of our existing institutions.
While some of the young fellows in these camps may not be up to the one hundred per cent standard, after all they are not the ones to blame. We in this house, by the legislation we pass, make it impossible for them to get out and get employment, and we are the ones to blame, as is so aptly pointed out in this report, which continues:
It is of the most pressing importance that very determined efforts should be made to explore the resources of Canada-
That is exactly in accordance with the opinions of this group. Time after time we have said that the full resources, natural and human, of this dominion, should be put to work to solve this question.
-both public and private, for the purpose of developing fields of industrial employment in order that the men included in the types A, B and C might be absorbed as speedily as possible in useful work at current rates of wages and thus become self-sustaining.
With this accurate information before him I am surprised that the minister would suggest that he hopes agriculture will be able to absorb the unemployed. He must know that this cannot be done.


Norman McLeod Rogers: If my hon. friend will
permit me, I was asked if I could give an example, and I mentioned agriculture.


Charles Edward Johnston: That is
correct; the minister did mention agriculture as the possible hope.


Norman McLeod Rogers: As one possible hope.


Charles Edward Johnston: Let us
consider the other industries, because the report I just read showed conclusively that neither private industry nor agriculture would ever be able to absorb any material number of these men. Even if you take both together you will not be able to absorb them. Last year I happened to visit one of the automobile factories of this country, which I think was working about six or seven months a year. In conversation with the manager I said, "Why don't you fellows work the full twelve months?" We were standing near a window; the manager pointed through that window and said, "If you will get rid of that line of trucks out there I will put twice as many in their place, and we will work twelve months a year to keep that yard filled if you can keep the trucks going out of the yard." I think he just about hit the nail on the head.
You cannot expect private industry to absorb these men. The Conservative party adheres to the old, outworn theory that if you stimulate industry that is all you have to do. That is far from the truth. It is not necessary to stimulate industry by parliamentary methods. If you will make it possible for industry to sell its products, industry will do its own stimulating. If you increase the purchasing power of the people so that they can buy the products of industry; you need not worry about industry being speeded up; it will take care of itself in that regard.
When we think of the few opportunities available to these unfortunate people, compared with what we used to have, the situation is tragic. Especially is that so when hon. members rise in this house and say these fellows can go out and get jobs if they want them. I recall the way in which I got money in the fall of the year, in my younger days, when I was going back to university. I came to the conclusion that all I had to do was go out and get a job in the harvest field, and that was exactly what I did. We were paid $11 a day for a man and team throwing bundles. You did not have to go out and look for a job; it was practically there at your door. Last year I met some young fellows from Ontario and Quebec out in western Canada during harvest time, and said to them, "Goodness gracious, why do you come away out here looking for jobs?" Their reply 71492-187
19, 1939	2959
Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
was, "Well, we heard there was a chance of some work in the harvest fields out here." That was the condition fifteen or twenty years ago, but that time has gone. In the old days threshing machines required fifteen or sixteen teams with a crew of perhaps twenty or twenty-two men. Now the same size crop on the same amount of land is harvested by just the farmer and his son, working with a combine. Because of our improved methods of farming the day is past when agriculture can absorb any considerable number of the unemployed.
That is particularly so because of the way in which agriculture is being treated, or the way in which the Liberal party hope to treat it by the new legislation, under which they do not intend to pay the farmers more than thirty cents a bushel on the farm. I am sure that will not encourage farmers to hire more men and help reduce the number on the relief rolls. How can they do it? It is an utter impossibility for agriculture to absorb any number of unemployed when the farmer receives only thirty cents a bushel for wheat; the idea is preposterous.
I live in perhaps one of the richest provinces of Canada. In Alberta we have a tremendous amount of coal as well as an oil field which, I believe, is potentially one of the largest in the British empire. What is the dominion government doing to help those two great industries to absorb some of the unemployed? One would have thought, Mr. Chairman, that once the oil field of Alberta became a proven fact this government would have done everything possible to make it a going concern, instead of putting every possible obstacle in the way of the provincial government. Why, according to the newspapers, even Germany wanted to assist in the construction of a pipe line, and not long ago I read that members of the Alberta government had gone to England in order to obtain sufficient money to carry on the oil industry of that province. Surely it is a sorry outlook for this dominion when a province has to go entirely outside this country in order to obtain money to assist in the development of one of the greatest oil fields in the empire.


Mr. GOLDING:: Did they get the money?


Charles Edward Johnston: I do not know, but should it be necessary to go to England or to Germany to get it?


William Henry Golding: The hon. member should be able to answer that question.


Charles Edward Johnston: It is
exactly as the hon. member for Kootenay East said a short time ago; if we need this money

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Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
we can get it, especially in connection with a matter of such importance as the Turner valley oil field, and particularly at a time like this when we are about to be thrown into war and when we shall need all the oil reserves we can possibly secure. Yet here is one of the greatest industries-and what are we doing? In the east the people buy gasoline from United States sources. We cannot get decent freight rates for the transport of Alberta oil to eastern Canada; that is our greatest difficulty. If members of the government would devise means of developing the coal fields and oil fields of Alberta, and a method whereby we could trade those commodities for the fish of Nova Scotia or the manufactured goods of eastern Canada, we would be getting down to rock-bottom, and the root of the whole question.
Yet, here we sit idly by, trying to follow the policies which have been followed for hundreds of years, at a time when this Dominion of Canada is faced with a debt of about seven and a half billion dollars. And the hon. member for Kootenay East says, "Well, go on and get more money." But he does not say where he will get it from. If we would centre our attention more particularly on the distribution of goods within our own country we would be getting closer to a solution of this problem. Hon. members may ask me: "How are you going to do it?" I don't care how you do it; I am not concerned in that-just so long as you do it.
A little while ago we were talking about export trade. The party to which I belong has nothing against export trade but I think our first requisite is that we take care of our home market. When we have completely satisfied that market we can ship our wheat, if you like, in exchange for something we do not have. H we have a wheat surplus, why not ship it to Germany and get their farm machinery in exchange? "Oh, but," some people say, "what about our industry in Canada?" All' right; arrange matters so that our machinery industry in Canada can trade machinery for wheat, and so that we may have an interchange of goods. When we talk about the unity of Canada we ought to remember that that is where it lies. And I say in all seriousness that unless we find some way of equally distributing those goods within Canada, and thereby bringing eastern and western Canada more closely together, the government are going to have more trouble on their hands than they have to-day through unemployment, because the whole nation will be unemployed.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What will you do with
the wheat that is not consumed in Canada?


Charles Edward Johnston: What
would you naturally do with it?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am asking you.


Charles Edward Johnston: You would ship it out, of course; you would exchange it for something else you could not grow. But why should you ship out wheat when you are not now consuming all that can be consumed in Canada? Tell me that. Why should you have unemployed, or people on relief who do not get enough bread? Why, in Germany and Austria they even give their people bread.


James Earl Lawson: They may give them bread, but they do not give them enough.


Charles Edward Johnston: That might be.


James Earl Lawson: We have the same condition in Canada. All people can get some bread, but the difficulty is that all people cannot get enough bread to satisfy their needs.


Charles Edward Johnston: But a goodly share do not get enough to maintain them in decent health. The question is whether or not they can get enough. The question is: Do they get enough to maintain decent health?


James Earl Lawson: That is not the point the hon. member was arguing. I was dealing with his earlier argument, not the one he is now making.


Charles Edward Johnston: I was saying that we should never look for export business until we have completely satisfied the requirements of our own home market. And I do not think you will ever find a solution until you do that very thing. This is not merely a difficulty which lies in any one province.
A clipping I have before me from Labour, published in Washington, refers to the meeting of the Canadian federation of mayors. This issue, of April 18, 1939, contains the following:
The Canadian federation of mayors and municipalities is demanding a sweeping change in relief costs so as to relieve municipalities of their present share of responsibility.
This week the federation announced that everything indicated the relief problem will continue indefinitely, because there is no appreciable abatement in unemployment.
That was the statement made by the mayors from the different towns and cities in Canada, men who are conversant with conditions in their local municipalities. Surely they should know something of what they are talking about. The article goes on:
"Unemployment in our time," the federation holds, "is primarily a by-product of the economic state of the nation and, as such, is rightly a national responsibility."

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
I think that is true; it is a national responsibility.
What are we doing down here? It can be justly said that we are doing nothing. When one realizes that one province in the dominion made the promise to the federal government, " If you will keep your hands off us we will take care of our own difficulties and our own troubles, and we will not ask you for a nickel," he would think the dominion government would have been so tickled it would have been overjoyed to find out that that province was willing to go ahead on its own initiative. In 1935 the Prime Minister said he would keep his hands off. But certainly such was not the case.
The other day I ran across an article published on November 25, 1938, in which the question of unemployment is discussed. Allow me to assure hon. members that this did not appear in a social credit paper; on the contrary it appears in the Calgary Albertan, and is as follows:
The stark, naked fact of continued unemployment is ever before us. Worse still, it is now apparent that there is no orthodox cure for such a condition. War preparations have played their part in creating employment but it can only last as long as the war spirit is in the air. People are asking, "What will be our lot when building of armaments cease?"
And I just wonder: What will be our lot?
The national consciousness is perhaps slow to move to a new base, but we now have evidence that the continued cry of the new deal, technocracy, social credit and the many additional cries of others are having their effects. We are now moving, slowly perhaps, but surely, to a new concept of life and the whole structure of democracy is due for great changes within the next ten years.
In the end we must conform to physical facts. We may dodge them for a time but the day of reckoning comes. Governments everywhere are facing difficulties created by these bothersome facts. And we make bold to say that those who are opposed to change had better leave political pursuits severely alone.
There are two outstanding facts which claim the attention of our legislators to-day. The first is the great volume of debt being carried by governments, which is continually increasing, and the other is that the day has come when the home market is of more importance than any other. In those two facts we see the politics of to-morrow.
The scaling down of debts, and their repayment is coming to be regarded as a matter which gives great concern. For the cutting off of debt structure is bound to have its effect on the investment field. It will at once be seen that investment must find its field in industry instead of in debt-building and that again will increase the volume of employment if-the market can buy what is produced.
Around this latter point the controversies of to-morrow will rage. Consumer finance is the key to prosperity. The forgotten man must come into his own.
7 492-187J
May I endorse that statement. Until we have come to realize that we must finance consumption, never will we have solved unemployment, or any other question in the dominion.


Mr. McIVOR:: This is the first time I have taken part in this debate. I believe, however, that I have some right to speak, because had it not been for the relief camps and unemployment in my constituency my name would never have gone before it for nomination. I would remind the hon. member who has just spoken, an hon. member who is a student, one for whom I have profound respect and who has said that the two old parties are the same, that there is a universal law which states that there is change everywhere and no two things are ever alike. A little girl once asked her mother if, when she got married, she would have to live with the same man for twenty-five years. The mother replied, "Your dad is not the same man he was when I married him twenty-five years ago."
My experience is that there are at least three types of single unemployed. First, tl ire are the travellers, who were formerly known as the hoboes. The men of this type belong to the lowest classes. I believe their character is less dependable than that of the other two types to which I shall refer. We permitted a large number of these hoboes to sleep in our church basement in Fort William -during the week days of course-and at the end of the season they carried away the rugs which had been given to them to sleep upon and many other articles. When that happened I was just as much disappointed as was the hon. member for Wellington North (Mr. Blair) when he had his bam burned and his horses and cattle destroyed. He said a few bad words, and I am not going to blame him very much for that.
I believe that among the men who hit the trail there are many who would prove capable if they could only get settled. The members of this house should take a personal interest in these men. We should not be afraid to go all the way with them, as the hon. member for Yukon (Mrs. Black) has suggested. There is another type of single unemployed, the city youth. The leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion) has said that not more than ten per cent of this class are unwilling to work. I do not know whether that is right because I have no data to prove it, but I should like to give the committee an example. I know one young man who graduated from our collegiate. I was attracted to him because he was a dandy sprinter. He did not like the relief camp; he got pretty hot over the thing, and the result was that someone took an interest in him.
2962	COMMONS
Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
He went back to the university and is graduating this year in engineering. This shows that these boys will make good if they get a pull in the right direction. The other type of single unemployed is the rural youth, the sons of farmers. They are second to none; they are the cream of the earth-I am one of them.
There are several causes for unemployment. First, we had the crop failures in the west. Then we were faced with continuous unrest in Europe. We have had the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few, and the introduction of certain types of machinery has displaced labour. But I am convinced that these are not all the real causes. Why is it that in the city of Fort William we have no Hebrews on relief, and no doubt the same thing can be said of other places. They seem to be able to look after their own, while the gentiles apparently cannot measure up in that way. There is one way in which those who hit the highways could be improved If they were encouraged to smoke fewer cigarettes and drink more milk they would have more manhood in them.
The other day someone reminded me of another law, the law of struggle. Any young man or woman who has read natural history, especially zoology, knows that in every form of life a struggle is taking place. Whether it be a kitten, a dog or a youth, once the initiative to fight uphill is lost, the best will not be brought out.
I should like to say a word on behalf of those interested in the distribution of relief. I have not verified this, but I was told by a reputable citizen, a former member of the legislature from Fort William, that two babies that had been raised in homes supported by relief took prizes at a baby show. I go into Fort William to the picture shows and I find them fairly well crowded. I go into the beer parlours and I find a great many people there. People are working to-day who were not working five years ago, yet this problem of unemployment is still with us.
I should like to say something to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) which may perhaps stiffen his vertebrae. Not long ago . a group of youth in Fort William told me to go back and tell the little minister to stick to his job, that he was on the right trail, that he was the first Minister of Labour who had brought in anything in the way of youth training. We are ready to blame the government for everything. There was a great football match being held in England. This was an important match and it was attended by royalty and over 80,000 people. Before the whistle blew it started to rain and one rMr. Mclvor.]
fellow spoke up and said, "This blinking government, why don't they give us a decent day?" But I am not going to blame the government, because I was elected to support the government and I am going to do it. I tell the little Minister of Labour to stick to his job. He has a task worthy of his mettle. We should not forget the advice given by a certain old farmer. This man was greatly depressed because he had no money. Most of his neighbours were in the same position, and he figured out a cure. He said to them, "Put your faith in God, put your back to your work, put your wife in the kitchen and put your car in the garage."


Thomas Langton Church: Mr. Chairman, this resolution of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) has been before the house, in the same form almost, for two or three years. I do not intend to speak for more than a few minutes, but I must say that I sympathize with the minister because he has a tiresome, wearisome, thankless job, just as three or four of his predecessors from this side of the house had. However, I believe the text of the resolution and the system are all wrong. We should have a national policy for Canada, adapted to our modern times, in connection with unemployment, but we have never had that. In the United States of America the whole question of unemployment is handled by one man, Mr. Hopkins. In 1927, years before the depression came along, there was presented in that country a report known as the Couzens senate report. This question is not going to be solved by majorities in parliament or parliamentary repartee or wisecracks. Its solution depends on, and calls for broad national service and sacrifice from every man, woman and child in Canada. It will never be solved by half-baked theories or palliatives or patent medicines or quack economic remedies or copious use of the printing presses. If it could, it would have been solved centuries ago.
This problem calls for wide national sacrifices on the part of every man, woman and child in the country. It is true that the government cannot do it all. In my opinion no government can cure unemployment per se. But if the government adopted a forward, courageous, up-to-date, modern policy of wisdom and foresight it would go a long way toward alleviating distress, finding work for the employables and making a better day for unemployables. I do not mean that this whole unemployment question or work should be in connection with public works. The Couzens report, which was issued about twelve years ago, and which made a deep study of

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
it all, stated that public works on a gigantic scale should be undertaken only in times of acute distress. It was contended that expenditures on public works should be left for times of depression, as much as possible, not like here with useless and unnecessary works of a political kind. However, that contention has been found to be not entirely correct as far as the United States is concerned, and was not adopted, but a policy of gigantic public works was adopted there on a wide and ruinous scale.
In my opinion the first thing the minister should do is to change the whole present system. It has been found wanting and Useless. The minister should be divested of a lot of his work. There should be a national committee of this house to consider this problem. Some members of this committee are complaining about the waste of time, but the fact is that we have been here for sixty-eight days, and this is only the fifth or sixth day that we have devoted to the consideration of the problem we were sent here to solve. Any questions that we may deal with between now and May 15, which apparently is to be our closing day, will add little or nothing to the solution of this problem.
The other problems with which we have to deal are interlocked and correlated with this one problem, and if we could have a fair discussion of this problem in a committee of this house I think parliament could conclude its labours very soon. I believe that we should set up a select national committee of this house for the purpose of discussing unemployment questions day by day. Look what the mass buying committee in 1933 and 1934 did for the workers of this dominion. True, it cost S300,000, but it did more for the workers and toilers than any other agency established since confederation. It was the first organization in this country that attempted to bring about some regulation of trade and commerce, the function of this parliament, something which had been ignored and had been the duty of nobody ever since confederation.
Unemployment is not a political question and it never should be. It is a matter of life and death, for if a man loses his job, he might just as well lose his life. It is a question that relates to the life, comfort, health, wealth, peace and prosperity of every citizen of Canada. We should have a labour and employment committee of this house meeting in session and out of session to find jobs for Canadians in Canada. Everybody knows the problem that we had in this house a few years ago of what should be done to provide employment for the returned soldiers, and
we had a pension committee appointed, which has done great work ever since 1935. It has sat as a non-political committee, discussing the questions before it round a table somewhat like the discussion was carried on this afternoon between the Minister of Labour and members on this side. A labour and employment committee such as I have suggested could do a great deal in getting results in regard to the problem of unemployment, in place of a lot of wasteful and useless doomsday commissions.
I believe in showing some ordinary degree of Christian charity towards my political opponents; I always believed in that as a principle of courtesy and respect, and I say to the minister that everybody makes mistakes, every government makes mistakes, and it would be far better to recognize, in this complex question, that a mistake has been made in dealing with unemployment and relief and go back to the old system of dealing directly with the larger municipalities so far as urban and suburban relief is concerned. Ninety per cent of the unemployed, outside agricultural distress, are in the large centres of population, in the big cities. We heard a plea from the conference of mayors along that line the other day. That conference was a great day for Canada. It is time for a change, and I hope the minister will not feel afraid to make a change to a more modem system, because fundamentals are essential. It should have been made long ago.
Under the present system you are forgetting those whom Disraeli called the suffering millions. You allow them to suffer for years from the errors and mistakes that have been made, through the failure to get a coordinated national policy on unemployment. Lord Salisbury once said that the commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcases of dead policies, and that applies particularly to the present system of dealing with unemployment because it is inadequate, inefficient and costly. It is not a long range, national labour policy. It does not avoid the evils of duplication, waste and discrimination. It is not even a national policy in any respect. It has a great many defects and robs collective Peter to pay selective Paul.
Por example, some of the provinces pay nothing towards relief. There is no equality of treatment. In some of the provinces the dominion pays the whole cost of relief for industrial and agricultural workers. Some provinces get assistance with municipal improvements, and other provinces get none. The system is all wrong and should be
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changed; it is a robber system and should be changed immediately, I am glad to see cities in Quebec province, like Montreal, getting dominion government assistance for parks, playgrounds, schools, sidewalks, roadways and other improvements, but municipalities in Ontario, British Columbia and the maritimes get no assistance of that kind from the federal government, but should get assistance immediately. If the system is wrong let us change it. In Ontario we receive no assistance under the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act or little aid from any act, although Ontario pays 42 per cent of all the taxes of Canada. I do plead with the minister not to be afraid to change the present system which has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Let him unburden himself of a lot of this detailed work and place it where the report of the commission declared it should be-on a national outside commission to adjust it all. The Purvis commission stated that this was a national problem, and assistance should be given by community clubs, boards of trade, with municipalities and the provinces all in it, all doing their part instead of looking to the federal government to handle the whole thing. That is the key to the whole problem. We should have a great national cooperative policy to end unemployment, with everybody in Canada doing his bit, and the present resolution should be amended to that end and the municipalities dealt with directly and not through the provinces.
The federal government deals directly with the municipalities under the farm rehabilitation plan and deals directly with the municipalities in relieving agricultural distress, but in the most important matter of all, unemployment in the industrial provinces of Ontario and Quebec this resolution insists on great cities dealing with the provinces. Why should the government not deal with the great tax-paying municipalities directly, justly and liberally? Now in Ontario do we get any assistance under the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act or any just help under any other act? We are the goat of confederation. The present resolution should be amended along the lines I have indicated. There is waste under the present system, favouritism, sectionalism, coma, vacuum and waste, and the system varies in the different provinces according to the way they vote. Some of the provinces pay one-third of the cost of relief and other provinces pay nothing. Some provinces get public and gigantic municipal works and others get nothing. The program of public works should be changed along the lines I have indicated before it is too late.
(Mr. Church.]
Some of the mayors who were in conference in Ottawa recently have been complaining about this very thing. The government in its policy has forgotten the urban workers and the suburban toilers. They are the forgotten men of confederation. The industrial worker is forgotten, with no direct aid.
There are many projects that could be undertaken with benefit to the country and to the unemployed. There is the St. Lawrence waterway. That would be a work of benefit to the country and would provide a large amount of work. The President of the United States is a firm believer in that project. It is the most important work for unemployment. This work will be a feeder to the railways.
In large cities like Toronto and Montreal slum clearance work could be undertaken. Toronto owns its street railway, radial lines and buses, and Montreal has a steam suburban service. Why not start slum clearance as a work measure on trial? There is an opportunity here for providing work through federal assistance in expanding these services. We should also have a national slum clearance and reconstruction policy adapted to our local circumstances at federal expense. We should have had a national register long ago of our man power, our industrial power and our economic power for defence purposes. Canada is criminally neglectful in matters of defence. It is a tragedy.
This country has been getting very little work under the British rearmament program, but just the other day San Francisco got a sixty million dollar contract for the building of aircraft and the United States gets most of the work of this kind. We should have been building storage reservoirs for food; we should have been manufacturing armaments, guns, supplies of various kinds for the British government. We have had a few orders but not nearly enough. A return has been brought down showing that 1,627 industries in this country have been inspected, but very few of them have got any work so far under the British rearmament program. But Australia and the United States have got a great deal.
In Australia, they have built storage reservoirs, and have had large orders for materials for rearmament. Canada has got little or nothing, because of our failure to look for it and our failure to adopt a forward defence and reconstruction policy.
We should have done something long ago towards developing a national coal policy. My national coal policy was adopted ten years ago. Now, in 1938 three million tons of coal have been moved from the maritimes to the head of the lakes economically and has produced a lot of work. We should have a

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
national coal policy that would include also oil and water power, further development all along the line, so as to provide that there will be no power shortage in time of war.
Italy has been carrying out a municipal program of building municipal institutions of all kinds, schools, hospitals and harbours, to provide for her requirements for the next thirty-five years in a municipal way, of all kinds of public local utilities. In Canada we should have a reconstruction, municipal and public utilities policy adapted to our circumstances, and we should also have a national volunteer system of assistance through community clubs, service organizations and the like, all linked up as part of this national employment policy, all coordinated and factors in it.
We are now sitting on the sixty-eighth day of this session. The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie) has brought down estimates providing for an expenditure of $63,000,000 for defence. Why not let us pass those estimates at once so as to provide work for the unemployed and see that they are spent for militia and real defence? May day is only two weeks off, and the government's program of defence should be accelerated, not only for defence, but to provide a great deal of work all over Canada.
I cannot understand why we can have legislation to provide crop insurance for the prairie provinces and yet have in the industrial provinces no unemployment insurance, which deals with human beings. It is absurd. Why not pass such legislation now? I believe that, as the law clerk of the senate said, and as has been said in the Ontario legislature, under the British North America Act, sec. 91(1), "the public debt and property," parliament can vote any money it likes for federal purposes, especially as all but three of the provinces are willing that it should be done. Never mind constitutional questions; let us act and do things; let us go ahead and do something to develop a policy along the lines which I brought up and referred to on the orders of the day yesterday, and in view of the very forward policy of the Ontario legislature to act at once. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) has a policy for ensuring material things, all outside the British North America Act; surely the workers should not be asked to wait any longer for useless commissions and waste of time.
I believe that one of the main causes of unemployment and the accompanying distress in Canada is over-government and over-taxation. Artificial barriers are raised and burdens are put on industry and agriculture to-day which make it almost impossible for a man
successfully to conduct his business, and result in lack of security. The day-to-day conduct of business should be left to those who understand it, and not to a useless lot of professors and dunces. In addition we are handicapped by these favoured nation treaties, the tinkering with the tariffs and useless appeasement treaties. Nothing has been said here about the export of brains to the United States, although some of our ablest young people are going to that country, because of our inaction and incapacity.
A word about the treatment of senior employees, by which I refer to those over forty-five. As I said on this very resolution a year or two ago:
Senior employees, whose lifeblood has been drawn from them by long years of faithful service, are in many cases cast out without retiring allowance to make room for younger and cheaper people. It matters not what suffering is entailed for human beings so long as the stockholders are paid their dividends. This amazing selfishness and shortsightedness of the modern industrial system is creating a progressively lower standard of living and a vicious struggle for existence philosophy on the part of the people, increasingly serious social problems which must find their tragic solution either in war or in revolution. In the face of modern methods of competitive living the royal law of love, bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ, is a hollow mockery in Canada, presumably a Christian country. This is the contradiction of modern life: a truly wonderful appreciation of the value of the single soul in some quarters, but an absolute denial of any such value in others.
I find in the Couzens report of the United States senate in 1927 a strong recommendation on behalf of senior employees, namely that they should not be exposed to the law of the jungle as in Canada, or the survival of the fittest; for that is what it is-the present system in this country under which men in industrial pursuits cannot get employment when they are over forty-five. What policy has the minister so far as these senior employees are concerned? These senior employees are the forgotten men of Canada. Here is what the Couzens report of 1927 says about these men:
Many of them are still in the prime of life and are able to meet the requirements of industry. They are not old in the sense that they have outgrown their usefulness. Yet once they have been discharged they find it exceedingly difficult to secure new employment. It is the duty of American industry to keep these men on their payrolls rather than to turn them adrift upon a labour market which refuses to absorb, their services.
I believe further that the industries of this country, owing to the tariff tinkering and the useless trade treaties, are not getting a fair show and are being ruined. There are now no industries working on full time in Canada,
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but who could be but for these wide tariff surrenders. The Couzens report indicates a situation due largely to changes in the tariff when it says, at page 495:
To say that all industries are seasonal would hardly be an exaggeration. It would be most difficult to find an industry which showed an even distribution of production and employment throughout the year. An individual plant, here and there to be sure, may show steady and regular employment from month to month, but such plants are exceptions and by no means the rule in any industry.
That was a report of prophecy. Now in 1939, so far as Canada is concerned with the loss of our home markets, so much for the consequences of tariff tinkering and that sort of thing.
There should be some amendment of the law with respect to treatment of transients and other unemployed. The gaols of this country are being filled with these young people. I recently referred to the situation at Toronto, Timmins and other centres, and the comments of judges and magistrates, and I have read in this chamber what the magistrates have said, that these men are in prison not for any crime but because of inability to find a job. The Vagrancy Act should be amended so that men who are looking for work and doing no wrong should not be held in detention as they are under the present law. Let us grasp the cause and effect of it all in a Christian country. Yesterday the hon. member for Wellington North said that nobody wanted to go back to the farm. As far as I can find out there is no work, or at any rate very little, on the farm. I spoke a month ago on "waste not, want not," and of the inroads of the machine. The machine has taken the place of human labour, on the farms and prairies, with results which are evident not only on the prairies but in all parts of the country and in all parts of the world. As far as that is concerned we should have a forward policy, not only for agriculture but for other industries and to help the forgotten man, the industrial worker. Little or nothing has been done.
At page 10 of the Purvis report reference is made to what can be done for casual unemployment by an increase of the tourist trade. The departmental stores take advantage of that situation; the coming of their majesties is made an occasion in the United States for providing a good deal of casual work, but here we have no national policy and the people are not prepared to take advantage of these opportunities, or prepare the way for this glorious visit or educate the school children, as they did in France last July, as to the king and queen and all the monarchy stands for.

The time has come to return to the old system of dealing with the large municipality directly, who pay most of the cash taxes, and encouraging the apprenticeship system. In Canada apprenticeship is only in its infancy; our school boards and industrialists should help; we have not adopted the system they have in England; we are not providing any national system of training for either peace or war. We are asleep; we are not interested in establishing a proper plan of cadet and national training in camps for youth in the summer or all the year around on the lines which I described a few weeks ago as having been adopted in England, where they take the unemployed, provide work, clothing, food and lodging for them with some pay, give them physical drill, and prepare them to learn a trade, so that at the end of three or four years they can get jobs in the air force or as mechanics in industrial establishments. By such methods we should be preparing for defence and for industrial and defence training. To-day we are standing at the parting of the ways. As Adam Smith said, security is better than opulence. A great deal of voluntary training of those who want to get on and sign up, and a real education, could be undertaken under a national program of the kind I have indicated, which has met with great success in England and in France and aids defence, employment for the future, and real national service and patriotism. Let us reduce unemployment by preparing for adequate defence not only on land but at sea and in the air all along the British and French lines. What is the government doing about the submarine menace, about the menace of aircraft, about the defence of the civilian population? Absolutely nothing, and giving no leadership. Surely it has some program along these lines or should have before the enemy come here. We are criminally negligent as to defence.
Rearmament will provide work, and I hope that the Minister of National Defence, who I believe has a good program ready, which will be taken up in the next few days, will be able to provide a good deal of employment before May day, and real help to our faithful militia. I doubt whether there will be a great deal of discussion of his proposals, in view of the long debate we have already had, but, with May day coming, very soon a day should be set apart to deal with this problem immediately and defend Canada before it is too late. I hope that when the government come to it they will have a national policy of employment and defence for the youth of this country, conceived along

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
the lines of a volunteer system absolutely, for these out of work, with pay, especially in the summer time, when students at the high schools can go to these camps and be educated for duty, patriotism and service and receive pay and education in patriotism and trade. Since when did it become a crime for a man to defend his country? I believe that a scheme of this national kind can be developed to an extent where a great deal of various kinds of unemployment would be taken care of, particularly among employable youths around eighteen years of age or a little over, as has been done in England, for youths, with pay, training and board. The matter should be taken up and considered at once by the government on a volunteer basis.
That is all I have to say. I am sorry to have detained the committee, but parliament has been sitting for sixty-eight days and this subject has been under discussion for only five days. I believe that when it is disposed of, because there are so many problems correlated with it, we may hope to see soon the end of the session.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. COLDWELL:: Yesterday I rose to
speak briefly in this debate because I felt that a group of the younger people had been misrepresented in this chamber. To-night there are one or two other matters to which I wish to refer briefly. The first is that I regret that this year again we are discussing a resolution foreshadowing much the same kind of measure to deal with unemployment and agricultural aid that we have had before us in preceding years. The legislation expires annually on March* 31, I believe, and new agreements have to be made each year with the several provinces. It is, therefore, a purely temporary policy that we are again discussing. I would say to the minister I believe that we ought to be considering a long-term policy, because, as has been suggested from all sides of the house, this problem is no longer an emergency one, but one which we have had with us for a long time and are likely to have for a long time yet. I noted that when the brief was presented to the minister by the youth of this country some time ago, that opinion was stated very clearly. And the young Canadians who presented that brief on behalf of themselves and others in the same position were anxious that something should
be done not only to meet the contingency of the moment but to provide at least some measure of solution for the problem that they face in the future. Therefore it seems to me that parliament is not justified in passing this resolution, towards the end of the fourth session of this parliament, merely to continue the kind of annual policy that we have had in the past. I do not agree with the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens) that the attitude of the house generally is one of indifference; I do not think it is. I think the attitude of hon, members on all sides is more or less one of troubled consideration, if I may put it in that way.
Ever since 1929 unemployment has been with us in an acute form. To-day instead of being acute, one might almost be justified in describing it as chronic. In 1930 the hon. gentlemen who occupy office to-day, members of the Liberal party, were defeated because of the growing discontent and unemployment all across the country. The government of that time refused to recognize the problem as a national one, believing it could be dealt with by the municipalities and the provinces. As I said, the government of that time was defeated, and the Conservatives came into power with the promise that the problem would be considered as a national one and an attempt made to solve it by various national measures. We know that they also failed. Now it seems to me that in the fourth session of this parliament, this government, although having an overwhelming majority behind them, are also failing to meet this pressing problem of unemployment.
Yesterday the leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion) spoke of the necessity of solving this problem because it endangered the system under which we live. I should like to quote his words as reported at page 2911 of yesterday's Hansard:
I believe that the system under which we are living, the capitalistic system, the democratic system, is the best system, a system worthy of preservation, and I want to preserve it;
My reading of history teaches me that society continually evolves. At the present time we are evolving from what we may call the competitive system to a cooperative society. In some respects that evolution accounts for some of the probelms we are facing to-day; in other words, we are witnessing the break-down more or less of the old system and the troubled birth of a new one. Believing as I do in evolution and orderly progress, I am afraid that, if this progress is obstructed, it will result in even more discontent and in uprisings which in the end may
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bring about something in the way of a revolution. And I do not like to contemplate either a revolution from the extreme right, which we to-day call fascism, or a revolution from the extreme left which is sometimes spoken of as communism.
The leader of the opposition yesterday spoke of capitalism and democracy as though the terms were synonymous. Perhaps they once were. But now the monopolies which we find within capitalism, which cause unemployment, and discontent, resulting in the kind of regimentation that we have in relief administration, actually destroy the democracy which we once knew. Because I believe firmly in democracy I have no confidence in a system which undermines our political democracy and perhaps makes economic democracy impossible. Yet because I do believe in evolution I believe that we should do all we can to preserve that which is good in the present system and to eliminate the evil, 3ecau.se in that way we are really laying the rest kind of foundation for the society that nust be built.
In our country at the moment the two most rressing problems, which in some degree are embodied in the resolution presented by the minister, are unemployment and the plight of agriculture. It seems to me that we cannot separate the one from the other. They are interrelated, and neither of them can be cured by the kind of policy that we have pursued, that of maintaining people on relief at relatively low levels of existence, because relief ultimately undermines those who receive it. Let me interject, you cannot cure the problem of agriculture by reducing the farmer to the level of the European peasant, and that is what the government's proposals regarding wheat marketing will really do if they are carried out in their present form.
What I said yesterday I repeat to-night; that parliament ought not to prorogue or adjourn until these problems have been tackled in a much more satisfactory manner than they have been up to the present time. None of us wishes to remain here during the heat of the summer. It seems to me, however, that we in this house would not be doing our duty at the present time if we did not endeavour to impress upon the government the necessity of doing something really worth while in connection with these problems. May I remind you, Mr. Chairman, that two years ago we had a very short session; parliament prorogued early in order that hon. members might attend the ceremonies in connection with the coronation, and it seems to me the people of this country would feel that

we had not fulfilled our duties as a parliament if we did not give more consideration to these problems than they are receiving at the present time.
Last night the hon. member for Yukon (Mrs. Black) said she had heard no constructive suggestions to deal with these pressing problems. I think, as a matter of fact, suggestions have come from time to time from all quarters of this house, irrespective of party. Speaking for the group with which I am connected I would say that we have seldom risen to criticize a government measure or policy without offering at least some constructive proposal which, in our opinion, was worth presenting to this parliament.
Before sitting down I should like to enumerate some of the proposals we have made at various times and to say that long before 1929 members now connected with this group urged preparation for the cyclical unemployment which has been witnessed from time to time under the present economic system. As early as 1922 the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woods-worth) proposed in this house that a system of unemployment insurance should be established. I have before me at the moment a long list of resolutions, which I do not propose to read, which have been moved in the house by members of this group on various occasions. As I have said, in 1922 the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre introduced a resolution advocating unemployment insurance. In 1926, to pick some out at random, the same hon. member moved a motion that unemployment insurance should be established. In 1929- and in the intervening years similar resolutions were moved-the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Heaps) moved that all provinces be requested to pass unemployment insurance legislation, because of the constitutional difficulty that then existed. In the 1930 session the same hon. member moved that the house discuss the serious unemployment problem that existed throughout the country, and the debate lasted for six days. I am not going to mention all the resolutions that were moved, but other members of the house suggesting similar action have always received the support of the group with which I am associated.
When the problem became acute, following 1929, the members of our group made many suggestions, including public works programs, housing, reforestation, irrigation, road building and so on. Again and again these suggestions were urged, and again and again the government was asked to recognize the necessity of making preparation to finance these undertakings. Time after time this group urged

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
upon the government the necessity of establishing a central bank in order to make currency and credit an instrument of national policy. We have suggested that chartered banks actually engaged in the loan business should be brought more closely under government control, that investments should be directed, and so on. All those things had to do with answering the question as to where the funds would come from to finance these undertakings. Then, in order to distribute purchasing power to the agricultural community, we have constantly urged that adequate marketing legislation should be placed on the statute books and that reasonable minimum prices should be fixed for farm products.
Then, to create opportunities for youth, we suggested that the age limit for old age pensions should be lowered and the amount of the pensions increased, in order that people might be encouraged to retire. After all, opportunities must be found for our young people. As I said yesterday, while the condition of those in middle age is deplorable, much more regrettable is the condition of the young people. When I cross the line and see the splendid work that is being done in the CCC. camps, under the WPA. programs and so on in the United States, I only wish we might do something of that kind for the youth of our country. But when people speak of camps in Canada, of course some immediately say all we need do is place our young people under military discipline. My observation of the civilian camps in the United States has convinced me that there is no military discipline there. As a matter of fact they do use some of the military terms and titles, but they have a free and easy self-discipline which, in my opinion, is a good type of discipline for our young people.


Mr. MacNICOL:: In the evenings the CCC. camps are under control of the military authorities. All the officers are military officers.


Major James William Coldwell: I have just said that they did not have a military discipline, although the titles conferred upon the people in charge of the camps are largely military titles. My observation has been that they have a free and easy type of self-discipline and that there is nothing of the sort of discipline that we usually associate with the word "military."
Minimum wages and hours of labour must also come under some control if we are to create opportunities for our young people.
Again and again the members of this group have suggested that sort of legislation for this country. I submit that all these proposals have been constructive.


Mr. REID:: The hon. member mentioned the camps a moment ago. What would he do with those who adopt the attitude of the group of unemployed here in Ottawa, who through a spokesman stated that they would not submit to these camps?


Major James William Coldwell: No doubt there are thousands of young men in the United States who may have taken that attitude at one time, but I imagine those who hold that opinion in Canada are thinking of the camps which existed a few years ago in this country. Those camps, as far as my observation has gone, were entirely different from the CCC. camps in the United States.


Mr. BARBER:: Those camps were not under military discipline.


Major James William Coldwell: Therefore to say that constructive proposals have not been advanced is, I think, doing an injustice to the members of various groups in this house. What we do criticize, and what I am criticizing to-night, is what has so frequently been called the "do-nothing" policy of the present government; that is, "do-nothing," in comparison with the problem that confronts us. The term "do-nothing," interpreted literally, would perhaps be unfair; but in comparison with the problems with which we are confronted, I think relatively "do-nothing" can be applied to the government. So far as we are concerned, our object in discussing this matter at the present time is to endeavour, if we can, to move the government from its complacency. It seems to be too satisfied with the condition which exists in Canada, and yet all across the country there is a rising tide of discontent.
There is much more one might say, but I do not wish to prolong the discussion tonight. I rise simply because I wish first of all to state that in my opinion this policy of going on from year to year, from April 1, to March 31, with a condition which is becoming chronic in our midst, is not good enough and not wise enough for the wellbeing of the country in which we live.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: Before the resolution is carried I should like the minister to give me some information for which I
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asked when he first introduced the resolution. Has he at hand the number of applications made this year under the farm placement scheme, and the number of rejections in each of the provinces? He was good enough to give me the information last year, and I was wondering if he had it for this year.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I am sorry to say I have not the information available at the present time. I hope it may be available when we are discussing the supplementary estimates under which the farm employment plan is covered.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Has the minister any idea of the total number engaged at the present time under the farm placement scheme?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I can have that information in a very few moments. As a matter of fact it was my intention, when the resolution was passed, to proceed to the supplementary estimates of the Department of Labour. I hope to have the information available at bat time.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Could the minister tell the committee now, or later when we go into supply, what the government proposes to do with those young men? I understand the scheme ends on March 31. Unless they have been able to stay on with the farmers, which would not be the general practice in western Canada, particularly in Saskatchewan, those young men are now foot-loose again. Has any provision been made to gather them into camps or to provide some railway work, or will they be eligible for the reforestation work which has been announced?


Norman McLeod Rogers: In conformity with previous practice the provinces were advised some weeks ago that the dominion government would cooperate in an extension of the farm employment plan through the month of April. In all the prairie provinces that extension has been authorized. The governments of provinces where the farm employment scheme is in operation have been advised that, in view of conditions within the provinces, if they consider it advisable the plan may be extended further. But as a matter of fact it is not considered desirable that the bonus plan in relation to farm employment should be placed in competition with normal farm employment which develops in the prairie provinces at this time of the year. We are leaving that, however, to the provincial governments concerned.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Are any of the governments extending the scheme beyond the end of April, or will it end at that time?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I shall have the information within a very few days, I expect, with regard to the three prairie provinces.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Chairman, I do not intend to detain the committee very long. However, there are two aspects of the case to which I should like to direct attention. Last Friday I had not time to do so.
First of all, I should like to point out the excellent studies which have been made by the Canadian welfare council with regard to the problem of the non-resident and migrant. May I be permitted to read a brief extract which seems to me to summarize the situation :
And so, we come, surely, to a realization that both in its social and in its legal aspects we are face to face with a problem existent long prior to the present depression. Looking at it frankly we can gauge its potential extent by the fact that practically a third of the gainfully occupied population of Canada is engaged in the primary activities which chiefly feed it.
Some of the registration statistics, issued by the national employment commission, indicated that even at its lowest level, our non-resident and homeless men must have exceeded 50,000: doubtless the total has been as high as 100,000 at some times. Only those who are accepted as in receipt of aid as individuals in some one centre are registered, and the general experience of our larger centres (possibly a fair reflex of the movement through the smaller towns and cities), is that from a quarter to a third of the number aided at any time are non-resident. The more mobile elements in these groups are not likely to be stationary, unless in the depth of winter, for the one constant factor in local policy in many centres is to keep these men moving.
As we look back upon the decades of this century in Canada's story, in the light of our experience of these immediate years, we can see the situation in a three-pronged challenge to our progress.
1.	The problem of assuring gainful occupation on a self-supporting basis for a large supply of necessarily mobile and necessarily young labour;
2.	The problem of assuring reasonable social care for these men whose very modes of life have defeated marriage and the establishment of homes; and
3.	The problem of tying down both employment and social care facilities on a basis of residence.
Let us accept the common starting point that, for this body of thousands of potential workers and other thousands who are "burned out," our primary interest is in man power or the care of men, rather than in the fixing or shifting of maintenance costs. If we do so, we must admit that our first objective should be to stop the wandering tide and to make the acquisition of settlement or residence, somewhere, possible. Only by such action can we arrive at the sorting out of the human atoms now adrift. Then we

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
can effect the reestablishment of those who have homes and residence, somewhere, and for whom reestablishment offers there, and we can sort out the others into those who can be salvaged for self-supporting occupation and those who may have to become social charges on a more or less permanent basis. The line of solution will follow the natural outline of the problem itself in its legal and its social aspects.
I shall not take the time of the committee to elaborate upon these statements, or to comment upon them, or to quote further from the other excellent pamphlets which have been published by the Canadian welfare council. I would, however, urge that the government has been amply supplied with the facts in the case and with careful studies which should enable it to carry out a reconstruction program. The whole matter comes back, it seems to me, to the willingness of the government to undertake this work. The only reason why we should prolong for a moment the debate at this time is to insist on behalf of a large number of the unemployed that the country as a whole expects the government to take action along these lines. There is one other-


Mr. MOORE:: I wonder if the hon. member would make a comment on the seasonal influence of our climate on the transient problem?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not know that I can do that. In fact, I do not quite understand what the hon. member has in mind.


William Henry Moore: Perhaps I may be permitted to explain it. In Canada we are, of course, subject to wide variations of temperatures in winter and summer. We have a severe winter during which certain industries cannot carry on. Our great lakes offer a good illustration of this type of seasonal employment. I have every respect for the hon. member's information, but I should like to have his observation as to just how far these seasonal changes affect and reflect upon permanent residence and seasonal unemployment.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not know that I am prepared to give a thorough-going answer to that question. As the hon. member has suggested, undoubtedly we have more unemployment in the winter time than in the summer. There is great difficulty in dovetailing one type of occupation into another. I think a good deal more could be done in that direction. We have the transient in the summer time as well as in the winter time. Considering the vast extent of and the variety of conditions existing in our country, I think we should consider making it easier for people to shift from one province or one section of the country to another.


William Henry Moore: The hon. member will realize that I was simply asking for an explanation of the report of the social welfare council. When people are unemployed in the winter time they are forced to become transients in the summer time in order to seek employment. I thought that perhaps the social welfare council had dealt with that aspect of the matter.


James Shaver Woodsworth: They have some elaborate graphs. I should be glad to send these over to the hon. member, or he could obtain them from the social welfare council. I do not think I could undertake to give the substance of these at a moment's notice.
There is one other matter to which I should like to refer. Within the last two or three days I have received three different documents from three different correspondents, in Saint John, New Brunswick, and because of my correspondents I should like to bring these to the attention of the committee. The first document I received is a copy of the Evening Times-Globe of February 19, in which this statement appears:
A pitiful picture of employment conditions in certain Saint John industrial plants-a picture of sweatshop wages, of veteran employees being replaced by youths at apprentices' pay, and of full time workers earning so little that they are forced to seek direct relief, was presented to the common council yesterday by Chief Inspector McLeese.
"Children have died this winter for no other reason in the world than that they were undernourished," the inspector declared.
The article continues in that strain. Then I received a telegram from another organization known as the industrial and agricultural league of New7 Brunswick. I do not know this organization at all, but they sent me the following telegram:
We can furnish proof starvation and direct circumstances of unemployment here. Copies of this are forwarded to Hon. N. Rogers and Hon. A. McAvity.


Mr. GRAY:: Does the hon. member endorse those statements?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I pass them on as information. I simply read from a copy of the Evening Times-Globe. I do not know that I should be asked to endorse it; I read it simply as a matter of information.


Ross Wilfred Gray: Does the hon. member endorse it as a member of this house?


James Shaver Woodsworth: That is an extraordinary question.


Mr BROOKS:: I may say that Inspector McLeese is a member of the Saint John police force and his statement should be quite correct.

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James Shaver Woodsworth: I presume that they are reputable people and that the journal is a reputable journal. I am not here to endorse or not endorse; I am here simply to give certain facts and to make certain references. That is all that is ever asked for in this house. As far as the telegram was concerned, I said that I did not know the organization that had sent it, but it states that a copy had been forwarded to the minister. It is for him to know whether it is correct-not for me. The third document came to me just recently from another organization-I am not familiar with Saint John-which calls itself the family welfare association of Saint John. This is a report of a survey of families on relief, and I shall read only a few paragraphs:
The 200 or more special visits made on this survey covered a cross section of the most depressed areas. The findings from these visits may be summarized as follows:-
A great many of the families were living in quarters actually unfit for human habitation; there was also overcrowding, suffering from cold, lack of clothing, bedding, cooking utensils and food.
There was plain evidence of slow starvation among many adults and little children in this group, and the ravages of diseases were apparent as attested by their medical and hospital records.
Most of these homes were without bed sheets or towels and had less than half enough other bedding.
Some families had one bed for the family and no mattress; a large number of this group of families had exhausted supplies of cooking utensils and in some homes one pot was used for cooking and bottles for drinking, in absence of cups.
In the remainder of the cases visited, the majority revealed evidence of considerable hardship with undernourishment and the results had affected a number of children. In almost every ease visited, the family were existing very much below the minimum standard of decent living and without enough food or clothing.
And further on:
Seventy-five per cent of the families owe from three to sixteen months' rent. Most housing conditions are squalid and unsanitary; a terrible lack of clothing, bedding and utensils. A large section of those visited had been evicted from three to six times a year. During the past two years, fifty per cent of these families had moved from three to twelve times.
And again:
Slightly over fifty per cent have suffered from ill-health and had hospital treatment during the last two years, having had from one to six members of the family in hospital at different times. According to a recent report by the district medical health officer on conditions, this was due because "undernourishment, insufficient or inadequate food, acute and chronic illnesses, and poor hygienic conditions, have existed so long a time in the community that they are now presenting a most serious economic problem."

Most of the families suffer from a deficiency of milk. Milk used is principally canned and averages a few cans a week per family.
The clothing scarcity is marked. Many children are unable to leave the homes or attend school for lack of clothing. Red cross, churches and other organizations and private individuals have assisted to the limit, but the requirements far exceed the supply.
Taking five family cases of the group mentioned, we quote as follows from the survey reports:-
Family-north end. Two adults and one child five months of age. Behind in rent, little bedding. Man active tuberculosis case, has no underwear, socks or overcoat. Relief $1.50 per week-extra $1.25 per week from church.
Family-west end. One adult and three children from seven to nine years of age. Owe one year's rent. Beds and mattresses in bad condition, no sheets, no towels, no fresh milk obtainable. All children in one bed to keep warm. House cold. Neighbours have to provide ferry tickets to enable woman to work for relief of $2 per week at the Red Cross sewing centre.
Family-south end. Two adults and seven children from three to eighteen years. Owe eleven months' rent. Beds, clothing in bad condition. Eighteen year old girl is ill. Bad cases of undernourishment. $5.60 per week in relief.
Family-east end. Two adults and eight children from one and one-half to fourteen years. Owe six months' rent. One bed, no mattress. Bedding almost nil. No cups. Man in hospital and consequently relief order had to be reduced to $3.20 per week. Very bad conditions here.
Family-north end. Two adults and two children, ten and thirteen years. House cold, girl just had mastoid operation, sleeps on mattress on the floor; no fresh milk. House perfectly awful. No quilts, wretched clothing. Relief $3.50 per week.
These cases are average of 210 surveyed.
There are many relief regulations which no doubt appear necessary but which are disastrous to family life, i.e., in case of the arrest of the head of the house, family can now only receive municipal help by going to the poor house. As this includes children the effects are very bad. In the past, relief works orders could be obtained in such cases by the wife working for the order.
If either husband or wife in a family is in receipt of an old age pension the remainder of the family become ineligible for work relief. This is a great hardship.
We find that many men on work relief, exposed to the most severe weather had thin clothing and no underwear. Consequently some became ill and were cared for at municipal cost through the hospital. The hospital expenses exceeded the cost of proper clothing.
From records of families on relief and those in a similar condition not on relief, there is evidence that there must be one thousand families in Saint John in greatly depressed circumstances, unable to gain the meanest living in employment, without assistance. In nearly every case the head of the family states that inability to secure work has forced them into this situation although there are quite a few widows, and others who have suffered illness or injuries.

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And further:
We quote here from the Saint John work order schedule-
And the schedule is given.
-and ask how any child or adult could maintain life on an average of around 2i cents per meal; it is all very well to say that they obtain food elsewhere, but in many cases they do not obtain it, and are forced to pay some of this wretched allowance for rent.
One other sentence:
We have been unable to deal with the great problem of the homeless single men in our midst, who are in a deplorable position without relief or public aid.	_
We suggest that only commercial and industrial employment or productive works, fostered and initiated if necessary by the various governments in conjunction, can offer a fair solution to this great problem. Our only criticism is that such organized means for coping with the situation fundamentally have hardly begun to function.


Ross Wilfred Gray: May I ask who signed the communication ?


James Shaver Woodsworth: It is signed by the Family Welfare Association Limited; W. Arthur I. Anglin, president; R. E. Roy, secretary; F. Lansdowne Belyea, Reverend W. C. V. Martin. H. Usher Miller, John G. Willett, a special committee.


Ross Wilfred Gray: Is the hon. member putting this on record as part of his speech?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am putting it on record as a document sent to me as evidence.


Ross Wilfred Gray: As part of the authority for his speech?


James Shaver Woodsworth: It is not part of my authority, and the hon. member will receive no other answer from me, nor is it required under the rules.


Ross Wilfred Gray: I do not want any.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: May I say to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre that I know all these men personally, and they are all very reliable men in the city of Saint John.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Will that satisfy the hon. member?


Ross Wilfred Gray: No.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Then nothing would satisfy him.


Mr. McAVITY:: Does the hon. member know who signed the agricultural and other statements he quoted?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I gave the only signature I had.


Allan Getchell McAvity: The man who signed that telegram is on a pension.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Does that debar him from speaking?


Allan Getchell McAvity: Not at all, but I think
the hon. member should examine into the conditions before he puts these documents on record.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am not going to prolong this discussion. We are having an example right now of the arbitrary, almost callous disregard of Canadian people and, my friend here suggests, by the Liberal party.
I do not say that individually the members of the Liberal party are any worse than other people. But I do say that the Liberal party constitutes the government of this country and they are the people who have to accept the responsibility. There is no use in my talking to Conservatives or other parties in this house. I have at times in this house been sitting opposite a Conservative government, as when we had trouble in Regina some years ago, and my Conservative friends will concede that we brought that trouble to the attention of the government of the day just as vigorously as we could. I am dealing with these conditions not from the party point of view at all. I gave nearly twenty years of my life either to church activities, mostly social, or in connection with certain social service organizations, including dominion-wide social welfare organizations, and for one year I was with a bureau of social research maintained by the. governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. I do not often mention personal matters in the house, but I am not unacquainted with what social investigation means, nor am I unacquainted with the conditions of the poor. I know very well what the conditions of the poor were in my own city of Winnipeg as far back as thirty years ago.


Ross Wilfred Gray: The hon. member's experience should make him speak more consistently with the facts.


James Shaver Woodsworth: My hon. friend
cannot get away with that. I know the facts. Many of them are in published reports. I do know the facts. I admit I do not personally know the details of the facts in the last few years as well as I used to, simply because now I must take them, as most members do, from other people's reports. But I knew them personally first-hand some years ago, and I knew every man, woman and child in the old days. But I have to take my facts from other sources to-day.
To-night, I have presented to the committee certain facts. First, I read from the documents of the Canadian welfare council.
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Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
Does anyone question the ability of the executive director of that council? I would just say in passing that she has almost worn herself out with her activities in the last few years-I refer to Miss Charlotte Whitton. Does anyone question her facts? I place these facts and recommendations before the committee. Surely each member of the house ought not to be called upon to investigate or corroborate individual cases. Most of us have not the time to correlate the facts and draw up the memoranda that may be necessary. I read a paragraph or two from this document to-night in order to save the time of the committee. I could have made a speech of my own, but I thought the statement might come with greater force from the welfare council, and I thought also it was put in the document in succinct form. Yet even that authority seems to be questioned or to be wholly unacceptable to some members of the Liberal party-to the whip of the Liberal party.
Then I said frankly that I had received within the last day or two three communications from Saint John, New Brunswick, from three different individuals. I quoted from the paper which was sent to me-sent, I assume, because of the discussion that went on with regard to the accuracy of the statement made by an hon. member that people had died of undernourishment.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Thousands.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Thousands, he said. Well, I am not defending his statement. I assume it was for that reason that the paper was sent to me. I went on to cite a telegram which came only to-day; I gave it because the statement was made that it had been sent also to the minister. I do not know why I cannot read in the house-letting the statement stand for itself-something which was sent to the minister. The third document was sent to me by people who know the situation a great deal better than I do and who, I am assured, are reliable. I have the right to read that in this chamber. There may be some inaccuracies in it; that is possible; but there will not be any more than in a great many other statements we have heard.


Ross Wilfred Gray: Then the hon. member supports the hon. member for Greenwood?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I did not rise to support the statement of the hon. member for Greenwood. What I said was that I assumed this paper had been sent to me because of the vigorous repudiation which was given of

certain statements which had been made by the hon. member for Greenwood. I did not say whether I supported his statement or not.


Ross Wilfred Gray: Does the hon. member support it, or does he not?


James Shaver Woodsworth: We are not here for a questionnaire.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Let the hon. member make his own speech.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am speaking about certain documents which I tried to lay before the committee. What I would emphasize is that we are dealing with the lives of men, women and children who were bom in Canada and have a right to as good a living as other people in Canada, yet who have been sadly neglected. Under these circumstances the individual is almost helpless. I know that to be the case. If I go from Saint John to my own city of Winnipeg I know of scores and hundreds of cases of perfectly worthy people who to-day find it impossible to obtain anything like remunerative work and are on relief. There is no use in the Liberal whip trying to bull-doze me or brow-beat me or question these facts. I know them to be true. I say that as individuals these people are almost helpless. You may say, let them look to their municipalities. Naturally one thinks of that; that is one of the first places to which they should look; but let it be remembered that a great many of, at least, our western municipalities are in a bad way. My own city of Winnipeg is better off than some of the others. A great many are bankrupt. They have not the money to give relief. I do not know why it is that some hon. members find it so difficult to understand the conditions which prevail in this country. With many municipalities on the verge of bankruptcy, and therefore not having the money to put up, what are these people to do? They apply to the province. Sometimes the province is able to assist. We come back to the old question of jurisdiction, whether the obligation is primarily municipal, provincial or federal. Personally I do not care so much about that. I suggest that the unemployment we are experiencing to-day is not the old kind which we used to have in this country even fifty years ago. It is a different kind. It has been brought about by world causes, as the government will admit. As I said the other day, the loss of markets to us in Canada is not primarily a municipal or a provincial matter; it is one for which the whole dominion is responsible. I do not say that we here are to blame; it is a bigger thing than a merely dominion question; but I contend that

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
when it comes to people who have suffered disaster in this way, if the provinces and the municipalities are not able to carry the load, the least we can do as a parliament is to assume full responsibility.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Will my hon. friend permit me one brief statement? He has quoted, quite properly, from a publication of the Canadian welfare council. If he will permit me, I should like to quote a paragraph from the Canadian welfare council's report with regard to the point we have been discussing.


Mr. STEWART:: Do it later.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Well, I am quite willing to do it later, if my hon. friend is not willing that I should do it now.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Why do it now?


Norman McLeod Rogers: It is rather important
that it should be in its proper relation to the other statements.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am not objecting.


Norman McLeod Rogers: My hon. friend has made
the point that as a result or under conditions of relief administered there are serious conditions of malnutrition and presumably higher mortality rates. That certainly was the gravamen of the evidence he gave just now.


James Shaver Woodsworth: In the latter part,
yes.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I am quoting from the
Canadian welfare council bulletin issued in 1936 under precisely these same conditions, and I think it should be placed on the records of this house.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Oh, no.


Norman McLeod Rogers: So far as I know the view has not been changed since then.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Before the minister says anything further, I would just point out that to-day hon. members on his side of the house objected to the reading of some statistics which are only a year old, yet he is now going back to 1936.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Three years ago.


Norman McLeod Rogers: After all, there must be some reason in this. The hon. member has quoted from two bulletins of the Canadian welfare council which were issued at least some months ago.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The one was January 1, 1939.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Some months ago. I should like to place this on the records of the house because what it states is equally true to-day.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Norman McLeod Rogers: If my hon. friends opposite do not wish to have this, well and good.


Ross Wilfred Gray: They do not want the facts.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I made no objection whatever to my hon. friend placing his statement on the records of the house. I think it is important that we should also have this one:
It would be anticipated that the conditions of frustration, deprivation, and need in which thousands of Canadians have been living in these recent years would be reflected in general trends in morbidity and mortality. As a matter of fact, the general death rate, and the rate of deaths due to many of the highest contributory causes, have recorded a fairly consistent improvement, maintained throughout the depth of the depression.
I am not speaking of the time the Liberal government has been in office; this relates to the period in which a relief administration has been in existence in this country:
This result has been due in large part to the high standard of efficiency of the Canadian health services in most of our provinces and larger cities, to widespread popular education in sound health habits and in no small part to the fact that, in the distribution of family relief particularly, reasonable care has been shown, on the whole, in the issuance of balanced and nutritive food orders. Particularly have the larger units of relief administration shown special consideration in food issues to families with young children, and to expectant or nursing mothers. As a result, there is considerable evidence that malnutrition due to wrong feeding has been actually less, and the general nutrition of thousands of children actually better in homes of low paid wage earners during unemployment than in the immediately preceding years.
That is from a bulletin of the Canadian welfare council, the body which my hon. friend cited some time ago as an authority.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am glad that is the general condition.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I was sure that my hon. friend would be. That is why I read it.


James Shaver Woodsworth: At the same time, that has no bearing whatever upon these very bad conditions which I quoted as existing in the city of Saint John.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Three years later.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not know what they were like in Saint John three years ago. They may have been better than they are to-day. I believe that in a good many, perhaps in most cases, conditions are worse than they were three years ago. People have exhausted their supplies; they have expended their little earnings; I know that in my own city a good many people are losing their homes. The minister's statement does not show that my
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Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
figures as given here to-night are incorrect. I said that in the survey from the family welfare association there was enclosed a schedule giving the maximum amount receivable. If there is one person in a family, the maximum amount is $1.90.


Major James William Coldwell: Per week.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Per week. I quote:
We quote here from the Saint John work order schedule and ask how any child or adult could maintain life on an average of around 24 cents per meal; it is all very well to say that they obtain food elsewhere, but in many cases they do not obtain it, and are forced to pay some of this wretched allowance for rent.
Here is the table:
Maximum	Total number	Weekly workamount	in family	hours$1.90 ..	.. .. 1	542.45 ..	.. .. 2	73.15 ..	.. .. 3	93.50 ..	. . . . 4	103.85 ..	.. .. 5	114.20 ..	. . . . 6	124.90 ..	.. .. 7	14


Ross Wilfred Gray: One-half the story.


James Shaver Woodsworth: What		is one-half
the story?	-


Ross Wilfred Gray: According to the report.


James Shaver Woodsworth: What report?


Ross Wilfred Gray: Which the minister has just read.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Chairman, we are here for business, not to waste our time. The Liberals have been making a great deal of not wasting any time. What are they doing to-night? I accepted the statement of general conditions from the Canadian welfare council as quoted by the minister as existing three years ago, and to-night I present a statement which I am told comes from a reputable society as to conditions in Saint John to-day. This document was received by me a few days ago; I assume it is a recent statement, I have not had time to verify it. Now the hon. member says this is half the story. I was giving this as a particular case existing in a particular place. I am not seeking to give half the story, I am seeking to give the facts in the case. I wonder a little that the hon. member will lend himself to an attempt-at least so it seems to me-to discount these facts that I am trying to bring before the committee.


Mr. CRERAR:: May I ask whether the case which the hon. member cites and the communication he has read from Saint John relate to cases on relief or not?


James Shaver Woodsworth: As I understand, there is in Saint John a work order arrangement, not straight giving of relief. It takes the place, as I understand, of relief.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: Seeing
my hon. friend has quoted from these documents, will he, according to the rules of the house, be good enough to lay them on the table when he has finished?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I shall gladly lay them on the table, but I should like to give them to Hansard first, so that they may be quoted accurately.
When I rose to-night, I had not intended to say nearly as much as this; I intended to put these facts before the committee and let it go at that. But this is primarily a question of the welfare of the people of this country, and again and again the government have met us with two objections. The first is that this is primarily a matter for the provinces and the municipalities, and outside the jurisdiction of this government. Perhaps under certain interpretations of the British North America Act that may be the case. But this is an extreme and abnormal situation. If there were an earthquake in some far country, this country would, I think, be willing to send relief because of an extraordinary situation. We have done it in the past. When I or a dozen other members call attention to the needs of particular localities or particular groups, why should there be such a fuss about recognizing the situation or coming to the help of these unfortunate people? It is not primarily a question of jurisdiction. I do not think there are many provinces which would abject to being helped along these lines. We are not going to have some threat of secession because the dominion government undertakes, say, to take care of the single unemployed.
Then the other question that is raised is, where is the money to come from? We are told that the government is carrying a heavy financial burden. I know that is the case. But at the same time, if we are able to raise anything like $63,000,000 as we propose to do with the idea of increasing our defences, the money resources are available. And instead of talking about a -few thousands, or even a few millions, why not talk in terms of tens of millions of dollars-if need be-in dealing with this question of unemployment? It will have to come to that.


Norman McLeod Rogers: If my hon. friend will allow me, I would point out that he will find in the supplementary estimates that the amount proposed to be voted by this parliament for grants in aid to the provinces for relief is $10,000,000 in excess of what it was last year.

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress


James Shaver Woodsworth: That may be, and I would say vote twenty or thirty millions if necessary. A single neglected child warrants the expenditure of money by this government; I believe that, it is part of my creed if you like. Further than that, if I may come to a political consideration, I urge that this government can do no greater harm to its own cause than to refuse to supply the legitimate needs of the Canadian people. I say further that if it is necessary to call upon the riches of a few wealthy people, that will have to be done. I cannot see why a feiw people should be in a position to make their thousands or millions out of this country while other people starve. I cannot see that at all. I do not see why we should allow a few people like International Nickel and others to make their millions out of sending war materials to potential enemy countries while our own people starve. I cannot see it at all. I am not saying this merely because the Liberals are the government; I say it because they are the people to whom we have to appeal and whom the country will rightly hold responsible.
In reference to what was said the other day by the leader of the opposition when he suggested that some of us in this corner did not think the capitalistic system should continue to exist, I am not sure whether it can exist or noG-or how long it can. I do not propose to discuss my own particular theory or the beliefs held by the members in this corner. All I want to point out is that if the present system cannot function even to the extent of feeding its people, it is time it went out of existence. I tried to say the other day, perhaps with less heat, that just as I think this present government is on trial, so I thought the capitalistic system was on trial. If that system cannot feed its people, surely it does not deserve to exist; and whether we want a new system or not, a new system will be forced upon us. In the meantime, I say to those who so ardently believe in the present system that it is their responsibility to show that it can work and can feed the people of this country. That is what we ask of them to-night.
Mr. MaeINNIS: I spoke on this question in the resolution stage before it came to the committee. I thought I had then finished all that I wanted to say until we had an opportunity to speak on the second reading of the bill. Yesterday afternoon I was virtually forced to speak again because of the insolent attitude and the callousness displayed by hon. members on the other side.


Mr. THORSON:: Which members?
Mr. MaeINNIS: There were hon. members. My hon. friend was in the house, but he was not one of them, I am glad to say.


Mr. RENNIE:: Members on this side would not mind getting some constructive suggestions from that side, not platform speeches.
Mr. MaeINNIS: We have given some constructive suggestions.


Almon Secord Rennie: A lot of political speeches.
Mr. MaeINNIS: Well, my hon. friends will hear more. To-night I am particularly urged to rise again and say something because of the remarks of the hon. member for Lambton West who sat in this house from 1930 to 1935-I do not know whether he was here before then. I very well remember that in the session of 1935 his deskmate at that time, the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie), moved a motion of want of confidence in the former government which the hon. member for Lambton West seconded. Yet. on the word of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) here to-night, the conditions in Canada to-day are just the same as they were in 1935. Let me read what my hon. friend seconded and spoke to in 1935. This amendment was moved on the motion to go into supply on February 25, 1935, by the present Minister of National Defence and seconded by the hon. member for Lambton West:
This house regrets that, notwithstanding the specific promises made prior to the election of 1930, and many times since reiterated, and despite the fact that extraordinary powers to deal with unemployment have been repeatedly secured from parliament, the present administration, after nearly five years of office, has not yet submitted to parliament any definite or effective policy to deal with widespread actual unemployment or distress which continues to be Canada's most urgent national problem.


Ross Wilfred Gray: Mr. Chairman, I have no
apologies for seconding that motion.


An hon. MEMBER:: Better move it again.
Mr. MaeINNIS: If my hon. friend has no apology, there is a duty that falls upon him to-night; that is, to rise in his place and denounce his own party for not having a policy, just as he denounced the former government in 1935:	Will my hon. friend do
that? If he does not, then he was merely playing politics and talking to the galleries in 1935 when he seconded this motion and addressed the house on it.


Mr. GRANT:: That is the hon. member's viewpoint.
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Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
Mr. MaeINNIS: I do not know whether my hon. friend is capable of having a viewpoint, so I will leave it at that. Then the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Moore) rose in his place to-night and asked the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) if he had any explanation to offer as to the increase in the number of transients as between one season of the year and another. The question was asked in the most casual way, just as though the hon. member were talking about an eclipse of the moon or something like that, without the slightest bit of feeling or the slightest evidence of any desire to get to the essential needs of these unemployed.
Let me tell my hon. friend that I meet the unemployed fairly often, and every time I meet them I feel ashamed. I see the things they are wearing for shoes; instinctively I look at my own, because I wear fairly decent shoes. I look at their clothes and then instinctively I look at my own and feel ashamed. What right have I, what right have you to something thousands of others in the community do not have? I should like to tell my hon. friend that the wealth of the world to-day is a social product, brought forth by the combined efforts of all those whom we allow to participate in its production.
Take, for example, the production of wheat, about which we hear so much these days. Actually the farmer in western Canada does not produce wheat; he plays a part in its production. Before he can produce wheat at all, a great many things must take place. In the first place men must go down into the bowels of the earth and take out iron ore. Other men must go down into the bowels of the earth and take out coal. These two commodities are brought together; we have pig iron, then iron, then steel. These materials go through various processes in the factories and agricultural machinery is produced, after which it is transported to the farms. Then the farmer uses it to plant his seed, to reap and thresh his crop, which then has to be transported to where it is consumed. The product is not finally produced until it reaches the ultimate consumer. Before and after the farmer contributes his share, hundreds of thousands of other people-the whole of society-take some part in the production of this commodity. Then we find manipulators on the grain exchange, who possibly would not know a grain of wheat from a grain of oats, who never contributed one day's labour to the production of this commodity, but who live bountifully while the

farmer and many of the others who worked to produce those crops go around with the seats out of their pants.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, no.
Mr. MaeINNIS: Possibly not all of them; perhaps a few still have a pair of pants, but in a few more years they will not have them. How can we talk about this question in this way, when we actually know the conditions and know what creates them? I have told hon. members until I am tired of telling them, that we are faced with a condition which requires a fundamental change in the economic and social set-up of society itself. What is a government? Is it not an instrument formed by the people to do for them collectively what they are not able to do for themselves individually? If we have allowed the means of production in this country to get into the hands of a few people who take the cream of the wealth and leave the great mass of the people in poverty, then the function of government is to see to it that the wealth produced by the people is restored to the people in order that they may have it to meet their need.
To-night the Minister of Labour quoted with approval the report of the welfare council for 1936, pointing out that the health condition of many of the workers on relief was better than it was when they were employed because, forsooth, under state, provincial or municipal regulation they had better health attention and care than when they were on their own. Despite that fact, which, however, he quotes with approval, the minister says he is opposed to the state doing certain things which he thinks should be done by private initiative. His own statement proves that long ago private initiative had fallen down on the job and that the mass of the people have never been able to get a decent living out of the wealth which they produced.'


Norman McLeod Rogers: Does my hon. friend say the mass of the people?
Mr. MaeINNIS: The mass of the people.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I do not think we should debate on that basis. My hon. friend is surely aware that the total number of those in receipt of urban relief, those unemployed and their dependents, does not represent more than five per cent of the population of this country. Sometimes, when my hon. friend is speaking, I think he assumes that ninety-five per cent rather than five per cent are actually in that position.
Mr. MaeINNIS: I do not want to say anything that is not correct, and I do not think the minister would accuse me of saying what is not correct.

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress


Norman McLeod Rogers: My hon. friend said the mass of the people.


Mr. MacINNIS:: I still say the mass of the people. Will the minister tell me what the average wage in this country is for the head of a family? And then will the minister tell me that with that wage a man is able to support a family? That is what I am trying to get at.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is not what the hon. member was saying.


Angus MacInnis: At that moment I was not talking about relief at all.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Oh, yes, you were.


Angus MacInnis: Oh, no, I was not; I was pointing out that the minister had quoted the welfare council bulletin to show that these people were better off, and that their health was better, when they were on relief than when they were employed. From those remarks I undertook to show that never at any time have the great mass of the people, the majority of the industrial workers in Canada, had an income sufficient to give them a decent standard of living. My hon. friend knows that as well as I do.


Ross Wilfred Gray: The hon. member never hired 'a man in his life.


Angus MacInnis: Never hired a man?


Ross Wilfred Gray: Yes.


Angus MacInnis: Is that any reason why I should not know how the workers live? I have worked for hire, and if that is not the way to find out, then I should like to know how to find it out. Who should know better whether or not I can live on my wage-I or my employer? The hon. member has been so accustomed to taking the employer's word for things that he would not know a worker if he met one on the street-not if he could possibly pass him by without taking notice of him.
I have before me a statement which gives a good picture of the way in which we deal with people on relief. I believe my own province of British Columbia has as good relief arrangements as are to be found anywhere in Canada. The average cost for relief for a child in that province-and a child is any person from a day old to the age of twenty-one years-is 15-83 cents a day.
Probably I should say that this compilation of figures has been made by a person who has taken a great interest in governmental institutions in British Columbia-a member of the provincial legislature. If the father dies the mother gets the mother's
pension or mother's allowance until the child is sixteen years of age. The allowance for the child is 24-66 cents a day. If the mother dies and the child becomes the ward of the Children's Aid Society, the child costs the state or the province, whichever you like, 73-4 cents a day. If the mother lives, the child upon reaching the age of sixteen years goes back on relief and gets 15-83 cents a day.
If a boy gets into trouble and is sent to an industrial school, it costs the state $2.19 a day to look after him. If it is a girl and she is sent to the girls' industrial school, it costs the state $1.64 a day to look after her. Or, if the child is still a child on relief, but is a little older, he goes to the provincial gaol at a cost to the province of 91 cents a day. Later on, if he gets into more trouble, he qualifies for the penitentiary and his keep costs the state $2.59 a day.
Then he is released from the penitentiary at the age of twenty, or before he is twenty-one, and he goes back again on relief at 15-83 cents a day-although in the penitentiary it had cost the government $2.59 a day to keep him. Then, after he reaches his twenty-first birthday, if he is still out of work and on relief, it costs the state 42 cents a day. He may remain on that until he reaches old age, when he would go to an old men's home in Vancouver at a cost to the government of 64 cents a day. If he were to go to the old people's home at Kamloops he would cost the government 89 cents a day. If he went to the infirmary for incurables he would cost the government $1.32 a day. If he received an old age pension he would cost the government 65f cents a day.
If, during all these difficulties, he should contract tuberculosis he would be sent to Tranquille sanatorium at a cost to the government of $2.47 a day. If he contracted some other acute illness he would be sent to the Vancouver general hospital at a cost of $3.71 a day.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: From what authority is
the hon. member quoting?


Angus MacInnis: I am showing the cost
per patient per day in any of the institutions I have mentioned. The figures are government-


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Those are alleged facts,
but who is the authority for them?


Angus MacInnis: The figures are taken
from government blue books and have been compiled by a member of the provincial legislature of British Columbia.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: What is his name?
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Unemployment and Agricultural Distress


Angus MacInnis: Mr. E. E. Winch, member of the legislative assembly, representing Burnaby.
Mr. CRERAR. That does not convey much information to me.


Angus MacInnis: That is the only information I can give the minister. If he asks for information which conveys something to him, I will try to give it to him.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: What is his name?


Mr. HOMUTH:: On whose responsibility
was it issued?


Angus MacInnis: I gave him the authority.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I will endeavour to make myself clear to the hon. member. He is quoting figures compiled by some person. I understand they are from certain blue books issued by the government of British Columbia. What is the name of the gentleman who prepared the figures?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: What difference does it
make?


Angus MacInnis: I gave the name; perhaps the hon. member did not hear me.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am sorry if I did not.


Angus MacInnis: The name of the person
who gave the figures, and, I believe, quoted them in the legislature of British Columbia, is E. E. Winch, representing the constituency of Burnaby.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I did not hear that before.


Angus MacInnis: I am sorry.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am sorry.


Angus MacInnis: The reason why I have
quoted these comparative figures is to show that we could really save money by being more generous with relief, as long as we have to give it. Relief in any event should be only a matter for an emergency But this situation has continued so long that it is no longer an emergency; it is a condition which is going to remain with us. Last night, in answer to a question by the hon. member for Calgary East (Mr. Landeryou) in regard to the cause of unemployment, the minister answered as follows, as reported at page 2928 of Hansard-.
Mr. Landeryou:	.... The question I
directed to him was this: Does the minister think that under the present economic system we shall ever be able to employ all the unemployed who are employable?
Mr. Rogers: Mr. Chairman, I am bound to say the hon. member has put a difficult question. I say that frankly to him. I did believe three years ago there was a reasonable prospect,
[Mr. Crerar.l
given a return to normal conditions of international trade, that this country could absorb from year to year the annual accretion of potential wage-earners. Lacking normal conditions of trade, it has not been possible for this country to do that thing.


William Daum Euler: May I ask a question, for
purposes of information?


Angus MacInnis: Yes.


William Daum Euler: The hon. member stated a moment ago that unemployment should be dealt with as an emergency. Then he stated it was no longer an emergency, but was going to remain with us-I take it he meant that it will remain permanently. Would he, then, subscribe to the statement that there is no cure for it-if he states it is a permanent thing?


Angus MacInnis: No, I cannot say that there is no cure for it. As a matter of fact it is not unemployment itself that is bad. What is wrong is the condition of being unemployed without income. I know of a great many people who are unemployed and enjoy it. They can go south in the winter and go to the mountains in the summer. They are having a whale of a time, and they are unemployed all the time-that is, provided they cannot find some diversion which will occupy their time. What is required is not the ending of unemployment, but rather the provision of access to the means of production or the means of existence for the people, so that with the proper exercise of their own efforts they can live as well as the resources of the country will permit. I do not see any reason in the world why a cabinet minister, a member of parliament, a judge, a deputy minister, a life insurance president or anyone else, simply because he happens to be in a more advantageous position and has a pull on a bigger share of the national income, should have an assured income while other people have to go without any income at all.


Ross Wilfred Gray: Why not give us a solution for unemployment?


Angus MacInnis: The solution is easy, but what is the use of giving a solution to people who would not accept it? I am reminded of the statement that was made to Dives when he asked Abraham to send someone to warn his brethren so that they would not get into the predicament in which he found himself at the time. Abraham replied "They have Moses and the prophets. If they believe not them, neither would they believe, even though one rose from the dead." I am afraid my hon. friends are very much in the position of Dives.


Ross Wilfred Gray: That is not much of an answer.

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am really interested in the remarks of the hon. gentleman and I should like to ask him a question. Does he consider it to be a part of the function of government that every citizen or individual in the country should be assured an income?


Angus MacInnis: My idea of government, which I think I stated a moment ago, is that it is an instrument which the people have perfected or made in order to do for them certain things that they are not able to do for themselves as individuals.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I should like to have an answer to my question because I think it is one susceptible of being answered by yes or no.


Angus MacInnis: It is susceptible of being answered by yes or no, and I say "yes." Otherwise what is government for?


An hon. MEMBER:: What?


Angus MacInnis: Apparently my hon. friend was asleep, so I shall have to say it again. It is the duty of government to see that every person in the country willing to work under decent conditions and to assume his share of the obligations of the country is assured an income adequate to his needs. That is my reply to the question asked by my hon. friend. The government is organized to do quite a number of things, and it will have to do many more things. The government is doing dozens of things to-day which would have been considered rank socialism if they had been even suggested twenty years ago. That applies not only to this country but to other countries throughout the world. But it is only in those countries where they have done these things in a planned way that real progress is being made.


An hon. MEMBER:: Which countries?


Angus MacInnis: The hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Massey) referred on several occasions to New Zealand, Sweden and Denmark, and there are other small countries with the same kind of government. These countries have definitely accepted the principle that the function of government is to assure the economic and social welfare of their people. We in Canada are accepting *this responsibility reluctantly, hesitatingly and in a very small measure. Consider the bills now on the order paper sponsored by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler), by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) and by other ministers. Every one of them is on the order paper because of the failure of private industry-that is industry operating without government aid-to enable people to make a living.
I have before me a clipping from the Vancouver Daily Province of October 7, 1935, reporting a speech made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) in Barrie on the same date. Referring to the former government and its difficulties with provincial governments, the Prime Minister is reported as follows:
"Mr. Bennett had called a few provincial conferences," said Mr. King, "but they had lasted only a few days and the procedings consisted only in a lecture from Mr. Bennett." The one he personally proposed would remain at work until an agreement was reached on every problem in which both provinces and dominion had any common interests.
That was just a week before the election of 1935, and the Prime Minister and his party were elected on those promises. As I said a little earlier, they accepted unemployment as the most urgent national problem and as a matter concerning the provincial and federal governments and requiring the attention of both. Mr. Bennett was not highly successful with his provincial conferences, but the Prime Minister went up and down this country telling the people how successful he would be with his. He was going to call a conference which would be the last because it would clear up all the difficulties. Of course, at the present time Mr. Hepburn and other good Liberals-if there are any-appear to be of a different mind. The feeling is not so cooperative in certain provinces as the Prime Minister would like it to be.
Just one other word. We are asked to cooperate. Ever since this government came into power, during the last parliament and ever since this group has been represented in this House of Commons, there has never been a constructive proposal submitted which has not received our support. The difficulty we find in cooperating is that the government submits practically nothing for us to cooperate on. I was not present when the vote was taken on the last trade treaty, but the other members of this group who were here voted in favour of that treaty. We voted with the government on the trade agreement of 1936. I would point out further that we voted against the Ottawa agreements because we felt that while from the narrow point of view they might be of benefit to this country, ultimately they would not be of benefit because they made world trade more difficult.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That is where you made your mistake.


Angus MacInnis: We would be prepared to make the same " mistake " again. I firmly believe that we were right. Let the government bring on whatever proposal it will. As long as it is constructive they will find that this group will not hesitate to give its support,
2982	COMMONS
Unemployment and Agricultural Distress


Mr. COLD WELL:: The hon. member for Lambton West (Mr. Gray) asked a question of the hon. member (Mr. Maclnnis) who just sat down, as to how he considered this government should treat the citizens of this country. I hold in my hand a leaflet issued by the National Liberal Federation of Canada, 144 Wellington street, Ottawa. The leaflet is No. 3A, and is entitled, "The Liberal's party position on some immediate problems."


Ross Wilfred Gray: There are fourteen points.


Major James William Coldwell: It contains fourteen points and the final one is this:
More equitable distribution of wealth
The Liberal party recognizes that the problem of distribution has become more important than that of production, and believes that personality is more sacred than property. It will devote itself to finding ways and means of effecting a fair and just distribution of wealth with increasing regard to human needs, to the furtherance of social justice, and to the promotion of the common good.
Then there is appended this note:
Note: The paragraphs above have been extracted from the official report of Mr. Mackenzie King's speech in the House of Commons on February 27, 1933.


Ross Wilfred Gray: I am glad to have a leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party put that on record.


Major James William Coldwell: To-night we have heard the hon. member for Lambton West querying the hon. member for Vancouver East as to whether the function of government is to see that people get a decent living. In other words, the whole attitude of the supporters of the government to-night has been against the statement of the Liberal party's position from which I have just quoted.


An hon. MEMBER:: You are spoiling the leaflet.


Major James William Coldwell: No, I am not, but I am trying to spoil the impression the Liberal party sought to give in 1935. When I saw that statement which they made before the election-


Ross Wilfred Gray: We are still proud of it.


Major James William Coldwell: They still believe in it? Well, that reminds me of a little story of a lady who had a rather lazy husband, and she said to him one night:
"John, have you thought of the canary?"
"Yes."
"Have you fed him?"
"No."
"Have you given him water?"
"No."
"Then what have you done?"
"Thought of him."

That is precisely the position of the Liberal party in regard to this matter.


Allan Getchell McAvity: I wish to say a few words in refutation of the statements that have been made to-night by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) because I feel I should be remiss in my duty if I allowed the house and the country to think that Saint John is in the condition in which he reported it to be. I have just returned from Saint John, where I was over the Easter holiday, and I can assure the house and the country that conditions there are not so serious as might be gathered from the telegram read and the document from which the hon. member quoted from the family welfare association.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Do 1 understand
the hon. member to say that these statements from the family welfare association are incor-reot?


Allan Getchell McAvity: The hon. member presented them in an exaggerated way.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I read the statements exactly as they appear. Are they incorrect?


Allan Getchell McAvity: There are cases of distress in Saint John as in every other city, but they are being dealt with by the proper authorities. Conditions as represented by the documents read are very much exaggerated. I pay no attention to the telegram the hon. member read because the name he gave is the name of one with no conception at all of justice or right.


An hon. MEMBER:: How about the welfare association?


Allan Getchell McAvity: The man himself is on a pension, and he has been complaining about the pulp mill being shut down. He has been the leader of the pulp mill workers. I am advised by the hon. member for Beauce (Mr. Lacroix) that the pulp mill will be starting up at a very early date, which will relieve the distress.
The port of Saint John has not had as good a season as in previous years, but conditions this last winter were not nearly so bad as under the late government when revenues shrank to sixty per cent of what they were last winter. The situation in Saint John is no worse than in any other comparable city throughout Canada, and the picture which has been presented to-night was grossly distorted. I should know, if anybody does, of conditions in industry in Saint John, and I think I know the sentiments of the people there.

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
Speaking from the point of view of the manufacturers, I think our people in Saint John have done their best to keep their workmen going. They have done so through hard times, they are doing so to-day, and will continue to do their best. I think the hon. member for Beauce has done his best to keep the pulp mill in Saint John going. I submit that the situation in Saint John as represented by the statements which have been read in the house to-night has been grossly exaggerated.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Are these people who signed this document not reputable people?


Allan Getchell McAvity: What were their names?


James Shaver Woodsworth: One was Arthur Anglin, another was H. Usher Miller, another was Reverend W. C. V. Martin. I have not the names of the others before me at the moment because the document has gone to Hansard.


Allan Getchell McAvity: I know them all very
well, but I still submit that the picture was not presented in its proper light. There are a few families in distress, but the picture is not as was presented to-night. Cases of distress can be found in every city throughout Canada, and conditions in Saint John are no worse than in other cities; in fact, they are slightly better.


Mr. MacNEIL:: I desire to refer to the
recommendations of the Canadian welfare council for the purpose of basing on them certain questions with regard to the plans of the government respecting the transient or non-resident unemployed. I think it is generally agreed that lack of uniformity in residential qualifications across Canada has seriously aggravated the situation. That is chiefly the reason why British Columbia has been required to shoulder more than its just share of the burden with regard to transients. No one can accuse the welfare council of having overstated or exaggerated conditions. If I interpret their study of this question aright, it is essentially a plea for a different approach to the question, that we should regard these men not so much as a liability to be sidestepped by shifting the responsibility, but rather as an asset to be conserved and developed. The welfare council in a booklet entitled, Wayfarers Perforce, states in a prefatory note:
These suggestions represent merely the best thought which it has been possible to garner on this problem, and are submitted as such for the consideration of the respective governments.
They go on to say, under the heading of "Need for uniformity in residence rules":
It is recognized that any principles governing residence should progressively be made uniform, not only as between municipalities within a province, through intra-provincial legislation, but also as between differing provincial jurisdictions under some form of interprovincial agreement, or under conditions which the dominion government might attach to its grants-in-aid agreements with the provinces, under the Unemployment and Agricultural Assistance Act. It is also recognized that, in addition to obtaining uniformity of residence rules between different areas, municipal or provincial, for purposes of aid to which the dominion government contributes, there is the further problem of making these uniform residence or settlement rules applicable to all forms of social assistance within each province.
They go on to say in another paragraph:
Before endeavouring to agree upon any actual definition of residence that might be set forth in provincial or interprovincial agreements, it would seem that the fundamental principle must he laid down that, whatever the definition of residence, no person who has established a residence in any province or local area, under any definition of the term, should lose that residence until he has established residence elsewhere.
The council then goes on to give what is called their program in summary, which they have submitted to the government, the first part of which I read the other evening. Part II refers to the liability of the dominion and suggests acceptance by the dominion government of responsibility for certain things:
The acceptance by the dominion government of responsibility for
(1)	taking steps to obtain the establishment, on the basis of uniform residence rules, of the four following generally accepted classifications on the basis of residence;
(a)	local residents, those belonging to some municipal area within a province;
(b)	provincial residents, those belonging to no local area within a province but to the province as a whole;
(c)	inter-provincial residents, namely those with residence in some provincial area or subdivision of it other than the province where they find themselves in need;
(d)	migrants, or those who cannot be shown to have established residence in any province under any generally acceptable definition of residence but who have moved about from province to province in such a way as to be deprived of residence anywhere;
(2)	arbitration facilities for the adjustment of conflicting claims among provinces in respect to the establishment of residence claims for persons whose residence may be in dispute among different provinces;
(3)	assuring proper provisions, until legal residence can he acquired, for the residual number of persons who may have lost legal residence in any one province, or who, having drifted in and out of Canada, are found to be migrants or casuals without place of fixed abode, or the possibility of early establishing one.
III. As the joint liability of citizens and government.

2984	COMMONS
Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
Once these residence agreements are concluded, concerted action by public authorities and voluntary agencies, under dominion leadership, to assure
(1)	the creation of central registry bureaux at all probable centres of heavy concentration of non-resident or migrant persons;
(2)	the issuance of a special credential card *which will enable the bearer at all times to prove his place of established legal residence, or his interim status, while acquiring residence;
(3)	the withdrawal, to more or less permanent care through farm hostels and similar plans, of all persons obviously incapable ot reestablishment on a self-supporting basis;
(4)	the creation of voluntary work centres for the special training of able-bodied, employable men, 18 to 30 years of age, voluntarily enrolling for a definite period of time tor the courses offered through such a service,
(5)	the initiation of such other special training works, settlement, and occupational projects as may be justified by the classification revealed through the detailed registrations of the central bureaux;
(6)	every effort, within the local community, and on the part of the private employer, to develop occupational opportunities for workers, enrolling in the special training or rvork projects.
I now come to the minister's words, which appear at page 224 of Hansard, of January 23, 1939, when he is speaking of grants in aid.
He says:
Under the proposed agreements the dominion government will provide for a sharing of the cost of aid given to transients on a fifty-fifty basis with the province.
Mv first question to the minister is this: Is there any objection or any obstacle that cannot now be overcome with regard to the acceptance of these recommendations making for uniformity of residential rights across the dominion? Second, is it his intention under the proposed agreements,' to which I have made reference, to define more clearly residential qualifications on a uniform basis across the dominion? I think this is important because everyone agrees that existing conditions are seriously aggravating the problem of transients.
'Mr. ROGERS: As to the first question, it was announced on January 23 that the dominion government was prepared to join with the provinces in sharing the cost of relief given to transients. The implementation of that undertaking will require an agreed definition of " transients," and that in turn will probably require some uniformity among the provinces with respect to the rules governing domicile. At the present time that uniformity does not exist. Our present negotiations with the provinces for an agreement covering this fiscal year will tend, we
[Mr. MacNeil.J
believe, to clear up in considerable measure the misunderstandings which had previously
existed on that point.


Charles Grant MacNeil: Will the government insist on a clause in the agreement stipulating that as a condition of the receipt of grants in aid the provinces will be required, first, to establish uniformity between the municipalities in the province, and, second, to enter into reciprocal arrangements between provinces?


Norman McLeod Rogers: My hon. friend will hardly expect me to go that far at this time. The matter is under discussion with the various provincial governments, and we have as our objective an agreement as to what will be understood iby the word " transient " in its relation to provincial domicile.


Charles Grant MacNeil: Will the government assume further responsibility with regard to the residual problem, those who are casual migrants and have no residence in any province?


Norman McLeod Rogers: If there is an agreement as to sharing the cost of relief given to transients, there would be no residual transients. That question is bound up in the first.


Leslie Gordon Bell: There were four recommendations along these lines in the report of the national employment commission. May I read them?
1.	Establishment of definitions of residence on a comparable basis all across Canada.
2.	Reciprocal basis of maintenance and reimbursement among different units of administration in respect to those aided in a unit other than their own.
3.	Equitable apportionment of maintenance costs, and agreement on conditions for establishment of local residence for nrovincial and interprovincial residents and for migrants.
4.	Establishment of central bureaux for the "clearing" of non-resident and migrant applications in certain large centres of known concentration.
That is included in the report of the commission in October, 1937. Has anything been done to implement those four recommendations? They will be found at page 89 of the report.


Norman McLeod Rogers: These were not distinct recommendations of the commission to the dominion government. They formed a part of the appendix to the report of the commission. They appeared originally in a special press 'bulletin which was sent out by the commission. As a matter of fact, if my hon. friend examines those recommendations he will find that a number of them can be carried into effect only by action of the provinces. For example, in law the whole question of domicile is within provincial jurisdiction. We

Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
ourselves cannot correct that situation. There is also a reference to reciprocal arrangements. The reciprocal arrangements contemplated are such arrangements as between provinces for the return of migrant families. There is also a reference to an equitable apportionment of expenditures incurred in returning transients. That, too, is a matter for interprovincial action. So these particular suggestions were put before the provinces, and to some extent, I know, in the western provinces progress has been made in carrying them into effect.


Major James William Coldwell: But what I say is that the four recommendations are preceded by this statement of the commission: "The commission recommended" these four things. The point I am making is that a year and a half from October, 1937, we still find ourselves with the establishment of residence undefined and no agreements between the dominion and the provinces or with the municipalities. I was asking whether steps are going to be taken to see that this matter is cleared up, because it is causing a great deal of confusion and a great deal of hardship all across the country; and, as I understand it, this bulletin states quite clearly on page 89:
In respect to_ the first-the legal, technical problem of residence, the commission recommended-
It did not suggest, it recommended; and there are four recommendations.


Norman McLeod Rogers: But I have already explained to my hon. friend that the recommendations were not addressed to the dominion government alone.


Major James William Coldwell: No.


Norman McLeod Rogers: They could be addressed only to the governments that had power to carry them into effect, and as I have explained to my hon. friend, some progress, I know, has been made with respect to reciprocal arrangements between the provinces.


Major James William Coldwell: Yes, I understand.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That applies perhaps more particularly in the prairie provinces, where there is a larger incidence of this movement back and forth of transient and. of migrant families. In our own agreement with the provinces last year we did clear up, I think quite satisfactorily, the question of a person becoming such through loss of municipal residence within a province. It is provided-I believe I am speaking correctly although I speak from memory-that no one shall lose eligibility for relief by reason of that condition. We are seeking, as I explained to the colleague of my hon. friend, to go
71492-188J
further in the agreements that are at the present time being negotiated with the provinces in order to correct as far as we can the interprovincial situation.


Mr. BAKER:: Would it be a feasible plan on each occasion when the census is taken, which is practically equal to a registration, that a registration be made of each individual of age from, say eighteen up and that he should receive a registration card, and make the law read that when they leave that place of residence where they are registered they must give notice and also be recorded in the new place to which they go? It may look like regimentation, to which some people object, but it would be a good, simple plan and we would always know where people belong.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I agree that the suggestion of the hon. member has some merit, if it were applied to the entire population. I believe that this is what he has in mind.


Richard Langton Baker: Well, the dominion takes the census.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes, every ten years. How far that registration would be effective in the interval is open to serious doubt, and of course any system of registration is exposed to the danger of fraudulent returns.


Richard Langton Baker: Well, is the principle good?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I am inclined to think that the gains to be derived from a complete national registration would not offset the disadvantages of conducting such a registration at this time.


Richard Langton Baker: Well, what will achieve the purpose?


Charles Grant MacNeil: Do I understand the minister to say that under the proposed agreements the dominion government will share in the aid to all necessitous persons including transients within the province, provided the province enters into the scheme?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The undertaking given by the dominion government in the announcement of January 23 was that we would assume, together with the provinces, the entire cost of any assistance given to transients by way of relief. In other words, there would be a fifty-fifty apportionment of the costs of relief given to transients within every province that entered into such an agreement.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: I wish to say a few words with reference to unemployment in New Brunswick. I had not intended to say anything, but the matter was brought up to-night. Speaking generally, I think I can truthfully
2986	COMMONS
Unemployment and Agricultural Distress
say that unemployment in New Brunswick has been greatly on the increase during the past year. That is on account of the fact that there has not been much lumbering there during the past winter, especially on the north shore and up the Miramichi river. In my own town of Sussex I know that during the nine years of the depression the situation has not been worse than it is at the present time.
With reference to Saint John I am, of course, not as well acquainted with that city as is the hon. member for Saint John-Albert (Mr. McAvity), but if it were possible for him to improve conditions in Saint John I am sure he would. I know that the situation in the port this last winter has been one of the worst we have had in many years. As to the cause of that condition we may have different ideas, but I know the longshoremen in Saint John believe that the reason why there has been so little work in that port this winter is the recent trade agreements which we have made with the United States and Great Britain. In past winter many millions of bushels of wheat went through the port of Saint John, this winter there has been very little, and I think that what is true of Saint John is also true of the port of Halifax.
I was surprised to hear the hon. member for Saint John-Albert say that he believed the statement read by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) was grossly exaggerated. I know the men who signed their names to that report; they are responsible men in Saint John. Mr. Anglin is one of the leading barristers of that city, W. Usher Miller is secretary of the Protestant orphanage and as such is brought into contact with conditions there and charitable work almost daily. Reverend W. C. V. Martin has also been extensively connected with welfare work in Saint John, and I know no one who would be more responsible in making a report than Reverend Mr. Martin. I could not let go unchallenged the statement that these men exaggerated conditions there. And Inspector McLeese who, with another man, is reported as having made a statement in the Saint John Times is a member of the Saint John police force, part of his duty as inspector being, I understand, to visit the homes and look after the giving of relief and other such matters. So I believe that the statement made by these men is correct, that they are responsible men and, I am satisfied, would not in any way exaggerate a matter of this kind.


Allan Getchell McAvity: I will agree with the hon. member for Royal (Mr. Brooks) to this extent, that conditions in Saint John are worse than they have been at any time since 1935.

If you go back over the record from 1930 to 1935 you will find that in every year during that period they were worse than they are to-day.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: My hon. friend cannot substantiate that.


Allan Getchell McAvity: The port paid out more in wages to longshoremen during the past year than in any year between 1930 and 1935. It is true that the grain has not been going through the port of Saint John to the same extent this year as the year before.


Mr. McLEAN (Melfort):: There was not so much grain to go.


Allan Getchell McAvity: As for the last two years. But the reason for that has been not so much the trade agreement as the low rates of ocean freight from the Pacific coast, because the same thing applies not only to Saint John and Halifax but to the United States Atlantic ports as well. Further let me add, since the hon. gentleman has been kind enough to make a few remarks concerning my own constituency, that I never saw things busier in his own constituency than they have been during the past year, with people taking pulp and lumber and other things from Royal to the port of Saint John. I tried to park my car in the town of Sussex, where the hon. member lives, and several times last summer I could not find a parking space when I passed through there. That condition did not prevail from 1930 to 1935.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The minister said a moment ago that their difficulty in implementing some of these recommendations of the commission lay in the fact that the matters were within provincial jurisdiction, and that the provinces had taken no action.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I said the provinces had taken some action.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Some action, but it had not been carried out in full. I think we all recognize the difficulty with which the minister is faced, but I believe he will agree that it would be a great advantage if there were some uniformity with reference to residential qualifications across Canada. In view of the fact that the federal government is putting up a good share of this money and the provincial governments are in receipt of assistance from this government, it seems to me it ought to be possible to insist upon some agreement with the municipalities and provinces in this matter. I know that almost endless difficulties arise; people

Supply-Labour-R eliej
in southern Saskatchewan, for instance, who were given government assistance to move down east, found that since they moved, the residential qualification had been changed by their municipality and they were not eligible for relief, so that there had to be endless negotiation back and forth before they could get the assistance they required. If the provinces are going to get this assistance from the federal government, it seems to me only right and fair that the federal government should insist on a certain degree of uniformity being worked out.
I should like to ask the minister a couple of questions. Most of the discussion during the last two or three days has centred around unemployment. The resolution also provides for agricultural aid and youth training. Without prolonging the discussion or making any comment at all, I wonder if the minister could give us some break-down of the money that has been spent under those two heads, in order that when the bill comes down we may discuss it to better advantage.


Norman McLeod Rogers: There will be two opportunities to discuss the matters mentioned by my hon. friend. In the supplementary estimates of the Department of Labour there will be items dealing with youth training and the assistance given to agricultural families through relief settlement. As far as agricultural assistance generally is concerned, that is provided under the estimates of my colleague the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) in regard to the drought area. If it will meet the convenience of my hon. friend I would prefer it if this resolution could go through to-night in order that the bill may be brought down. I propose to go right along with my supplementary estimates then, and later we are to proceed with the second reading of the youth training bill, so there can be no question of any lack of ample opportunity to discuss these matters.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: If the minister prefers to do it in that way I have no objection.
Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in. Mr. Rogers thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 96, to assist in the alleviation of unemployment and agricultural distress.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

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



DEPARTMENT OF LABOUR

[Stage Direction]
506.	To provide for commitments under relief settlement agreements with provincial governments, $550,000.
John Ritchie MacNicol: How much goes to each province?
Hon. NORMAN McL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour):	This item is divided among
three provinces, as follows: Quebec, $400,000; Manitoba, 8100,000; Alberta, $50,000, making the total indicated.


Charles Grant MacNeil: Would the minister explain the plans under which it is proposed to carry out this settlement in the provinces?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The agreements under which this expenditure is made provide for a dominion contribution of one-third of the expenditures incurred by the province and any organized municipalities thereof up to a total of $1,000 per family, in assisting any selected family who would otherwise be in receipt of direct relief to become self-supporting by placing such family on the land. The agreements also provide for a fifty per cent contribution by the dominion, not in excess of $300 per family, when taken from an unorganized district. The balance of the fund is provided by provincial and municipal contributions.


Charles Grant MacNeil: Is British Columbia included?


Norman McLeod Rogers: British Columbia is not
now operating under this plan. I might say to the committee that this relief settlement plan was commenced in 1932. A number of provinces which came in at that time under a two year agreement have not renewed that agreement on its expiration, but the three provinces indicated are still proceeding under the plan.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is Ontario not proceeding under the plan?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Ontario is not now proceeding under that plan.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: What is the number of families moved or settled?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Some 6,174 families are
now benefiting from the scheme.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: What is the number by provinces?
Supply-La b our-R eliej



' COMMONS

Mr. STIRLING:: This is not overseas settlement? This is families brought from other parts of Canada?


Norman McLeod Rogers: It is really settlement
within a province. That is to say, a family might be moved from the city of Montreal and placed on the land elsewhere in the province of Quebec, through joint contributions up to the amount indicated from the dominion government, the provincial government and the municipality. The number settled by provinces is as follows:
Settlers Dependents Total
Quebec	1,452	6,777	8,229Manitoba	
275	1,206	1,481Alberta	
136	520	656


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is the amount allowed each family in proportion to the number in the family?


Norman McLeod Rogers: It is $1,000 over a period of four years.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Irrespective of the size of the family?


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is correct.


John Ritchie MacNicol: And the provincial government gives an equal amount?


Norman McLeod Rogers: That covers the contributions of the several governments concerned.


John Ritchie MacNicol: How much does this
government give per family?


Norman McLeod Rogers: One-third of the total of


John Ritchie MacNicol: What happens if they
move off the land within one or two years?


Norman McLeod Rogers: In some instances they
return to the cities, and if they can qualify they go on relief. In some instances they go into employment. In some instances I am bound to say, when the period has ended they have remained on relief. I visited a number of these settlements; there was one in northern Ontario, in the neighbourhood of Cochrane

I think my hon. friend has been there-and I discovered that a number of the families had been there for the four years, had drawn all they could draw under the agreement, and were on relief.


Grote Stirling: What proportion of these people have remained on the land?


Norman McLeod Rogers: About 75 to 80 per cent of the families have remained on the land.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: And are
now self-supporting?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I would not say they were necessarily self-supporting, because that would include those still drawing benefits under the agreement.


Mr. MARSHALL:: The minister gave
some figures a short time ago. For what year were they?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Those are the figures as of March 31 of the present year.


James Alexander Marshall: 1939?


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is correct.


Charles Grant MacNeil: What degree of supervision does the federal Department of Labour exercise in regard to this plan?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Committees are set up in each province on which the federal government has representation. There is also a national advisory committee upon which the railway companies are represented as well.


Grote Stirling: In regard to the provinces with which the dominion government has no agreements at the present time, is that because those provinces do not agree with this method or have no more settlement to undertake, or what is the reason that six provinces out of nine have not proceeded under this plan?


Norman McLeod Rogers: In some instances the
provinces which have not entered into these arrangements have land settlement plans of their own, developed largely through loans. In some instances this arrangement was entered into originally, but was later abandoned.


Grote Stirling: It wras with British Columbia.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes; and in some instances it has been found difficult to work the plan successfully because of the small number of satisfactory vacant farms for this purpose.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Where a family has gone in to pioneer, as is done in northern Ontario and northern Quebec, and in two or three years leaves the farm-as a very large number have done-what is done with that farm?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The farms, as it happens, are on crown lands in those two provinces. In other provinces, where crown land is not available, the farms are leased for short terms. Therefore no serious difficulty arises under the condition mentioned by the hon. member.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The houses and barns remain on the farm?

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Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes. And it might even happen that another settler or another family would be placed upon the same farm.


James Alexander Marshall: When will the agreement with Alberta expire?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The agreement with Alberta expires on March 31, 1940.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
507.	To provide for commitments and for completion of relief work projects, $735,000.
Mr. LENNARD:: What are these commitments?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The unpaid commitments under the Unemployment and Agricultural Assistance Act, 1938, were:
Nova Scotia	$ 17,500
Ontario	 470,000
Manitoba	 27,000
Alberta	 6,000
British Columbia	 6,500
Total	$527,000
There is to be added to that for unpaid accounts under relief legislation prior to 1938, an item of $136,600. Then there are revotes to provide for works authorized under the Unemployment and Agricultural Assistance Act, 1938, to be completed after March 31, 1939. In Nova Scotia there is the amount of $2,500, and in Saskatchewan, $1,000. Then there are federal undertakings. In Quebec there is the Gatineau valley national park with an expenditure of $15,000; in Ontario, the Lakehead exhibition, $30,000.


James Alexander Marshall: What are the figures for the total revote?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The total revote is


James Alexander Marshall: That is the total?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes; this is all a revote.


Angus MacInnis: Is this the full amount as voted last year and other years, or balances from votes in other years?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Balances from votes in other years. It is made up of two types of items. Accounts due on work already done make up the major portion of it, and then there is some work uncompleted under agreements entered into in previous years. That makes up the remainder of it.


James Alexander Marshall: What work is still to
be completed in Alberta?


Norman McLeod Rogers: There is no work still to
be completed in Alberta. It was completed within time in that province.


Charles Grant MacNeil: Is there any work under
this vote to be completed in British Columbia?


Norman McLeod Rogers: There is the small amount of $6,500 still due British Columbia, but the work is all completed. Owing to the longer season in British Columbia and Alberta the work is usually completed within the period.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: Is any of this amount being spent in New Brunswick?


Norman McLeod Rogers: There is no revote for
work being done in New Brunswick. New Brunswick took up and spent its whole allotment, and the accounts are paid.


Harry James Barber: What is the nature of
this work? Is it highway work, or public works?


Norman McLeod Rogers: It was work done last year. The bulk of it was highway work. Some of it was spent on historic sites, and some of it, as I have indicated, was spent on the Gatineau valley national park, in the neighbourhood of Ottawa.


Angus MacInnis: I assume it would be
correct to say that as this is a revote from other years, the government pointed out last year how generous they were being and how much they were doing for the unemployed by voting these sums and they are taking credit for voting the same amounts this year.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I do not think the government has made any attempt to deceive either the house or the public in this regard. This is an item which appears from year to year.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
508.	To provide for federal contributions to farm employment, forest conservation and supplementary plans for single unemployed, $3,500,000.
Mr. HAYHURST:: How much has been
spent in each of the provinces in federal contributions to farm employment?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The expenditures authorized under the farm employment plan are as follows, giving first the estimated expenditures by provinces to March 31, 1939:
Manitoba	$134,858	75Saskatchewan	
445,500	00Alberta	
88,885	41British Columbia	
10,502	35Then, the disbursements to March 31	are:Manitoba	$ 35.070 20Saskatchewan	
154,679	07Alberta	
25,088	57British Columbia	
502	35
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Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Would the
minister give the number of applications and rejections, by provinces?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I have here the farm placements as at April 10, 1939. In Saskatchewan there were 4,087 women and 12,856 men, making a total of 16,943.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Accepted?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes, those are placements. I regret to say I have not here the number of applications. It is administered by the provinces, and I am advised by the commissioner of unemployment relief that we do not have here the number of applications or rejections. The accounts of placements are sent to us, of necessity, in order that we may pay our share. But from the point of view of administration the matter of applications and rejections is in the hands of the provincial governments.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: What were the total placements last year in Saskatchewan?


James Alexander Marshall: Well,-


Norman McLeod Rogers: Would the hon. member wait until I have answered the question?


William Hayhurst: We should like the figure for Alberta also.


Frank Exton Lennard: While the minister is at it, could he not give the figures for all the provinces? In that way it would not have to be repeated.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The total in April of last year in Saskatchewan stood at 26,767. In Alberta, the total for the same month last year is 2,400. These are figures as of a certain date.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Are those for full or part time?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Those are the number still employed under the plan in that particular month.


Frank Exton Lennard: A moment ago I suggested that the minister give the figures for all the provinces. If he did that, he would not be asked continually to give the figures for each province separately.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The farm employment plan was in operation only in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I may say that the report of the unemployment relief branch will be tabled in a few days and will give complete information.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Does this item include the forestry project that was announced the other day?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes. A million dollars of this item will be expended for the purpose of maintaining forest conservation camps, partly in national parks, and partly at dominion forestry stations and partly in cooperation with the various provincial governments.


Harry James Barber: What proportion of this $3,500,000 is it proposed to spend in British Columbia, and upon what projects?


Norman McLeod Rogers: It is impossible to state that definitely at this time because we have not yet entered into agreements with the provinces. Agreements are entered into with the various provinces under the terms of the Unemployment and Agricultural Assistance Act. We are now proceeding with that bill, the resolution preceding it having just been adopted by the house. It is impossible to give the committee at this time the precise allocation of this amount among the various provinces. As a matter of fact, a considerable part of this item is usually reserved for the winter months, when the problem of the special care of single unemployed is increased.


Harry James Barber: How does the minister make up the item if he does not know what work is to be carried on?


Norman McLeod Rogers: We do have some idea of what work is to be carried on. For instance, we have always made provision for the farm employment plan in British Columbia, although they have only placed a small number, I believe two or three hundred being the maximum. Then in cooperation with the province we have operated forest conservation camps, generally during the winter months. As a rule these camps are opened in the middle of October and are closed some time in April or May.


Harry James Barber: Were they not operated by the provincial government?


Norman McLeod Rogers: They are administered by the provincial government under an agreement with the dominion government, the cost being shared equally by the two governments.


James Alexander Marshall: Does the minister intend to enter into agreements similar to those he entered into with the provinces in connection with the farm placement plan?


Norman McLeod Rogers: That will be subject to negotiations in the early autumn with the provincial governments concerned. That has

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always been the practice in recent years. If the need should exist, undoubtedly the plan will be continued next year.


Mr. LEADER:: Did the minister give the figures in connection with farm placements for this year and previous years?


Norman McLeod Rogers: On April 10 of this year the number on placement in Manitoba was 9,069. In April of last year the number was 9,350.


James Alexander Marshall: I should like to direct the attention of the minister to paragraph (a) of section 1 of the agreement entered into last year between the dominion and the Alberta government. Dealing with this matter as a municipal official, I must say that I consider this clause to be rather severe. It reads:
The total of all amounts paid by the province to farmers, resident in the province, for taking into and maintaining in residence and in their employment, during the aforesaid period, any of the individuals described in the next succeeding subsection hereof as eligible to receive payment thereunder who were, immediately prior to such employment registered in any of the cities of Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat or Drumheller as single, homeless unemployed, it being understood that the maximum amount to which the dominion will contribute in respect of any of said farmers hereunder shall not exceed the rate of five dollars per month for each of said individuals so taken into and maintained in employment.
I should like the minister to reconsider this section. There were a number of young men who had been working on farms but who found themselves out of work. When they went to a municipal office in order to be put under the scheme, they were told that the only way whereby they could qualify was to go to Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat or Drumheller and register. I suggest that the minister consider modifying this sec>
tion to make it agree with the terms in the agreement of 1937, and leave the discretion with the municipal officials as to whether or not cases are just and proper.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The change in the Alberta agreement was made at the request of the provincial government. The dominion government tries to cooperate with the provinces in connection with any special arrangements which they may feel are necessary in order to meet their own situation. This particular request was made to us by the provincial government.


Paul Joseph James Martin: For some days now we have listened to a debate upon the employment policy of this government. We are now in supply considering .''terns dealing with this
matter, and I cannot help feeling that those who have leveled criticism against the Minister of Labour in particular lose much of their enthusiasm when we come to consider the actual program of the government. We are now considering vote No. 508, to provide for federal contribution to farm employment, forest conservation and supplementary pla-_ for single unemployed. The minister has indicated that under this item some million dollars will be spent on forestry work. I do not rise for the purpose of making any lengthy observation except to say that having sat patiently through the tirade, some of it just and quite a bit of it unjust, one would expect that the hon. member for Greenwood and his colleague immediately to the left would rise and say that this government is to be commended for at least one or two things.


Mr. MASSEY:: I did.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The hon. member did. During the last week they blasted this government and they blasted the Minister of Labour, whose patience has been most exemplary, and they allow this item to pass.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: It has not passed yet.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Just a minute. I listened to the hon. member while he made two speeches to-day, and perhaps I may be allowed to speak for five minutes without interruption. There have been severe critics of the administration, and I am not denying the merit of much of what has been said. If we would all approach this problem, not in the spirit of party jockeying, but in an attempt to get somewhere, more might be derived from our discussions. But when we do come to constructive items they arc allowed to pass unnoticed, and even the minis ter becomes modest in making any general observations. I think the committee might be prepared to listen to him at considerable length, telling us what is contemplated in this program of forestry work.


An hon. MEMBER:: That is what we are trying to get.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The point is that the minister is prepared to do it, and I think he ought to receive from hon. members opposite cooperation and the kind of support he needs at a time like this. I am not rising in any political spirit at all, because with much of what has been said I. agree, but I do not believe we are going to get anywhere by making flamboyant speeches that are a combination of sincerity and political motives so mixed that it is not always possible to

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identify where the particulars of the combination are to be found. I do think the minister might explain at greater length the forestry project, for example, which he announced the other day, to indicate not only to the committee but to the country at large how the government is meeting this problem. It may not be doing so to the full satisfaction of many hon. members, but still it is meeting it with a measure of adequacy having in mind the severity of the problem. The impression should not be left that the government is doing nothing and that it does not appreciate the problem which exists.


Mr. MANION:: Would the minister tell us whether the item of a million dollars for forestry work which was announced in the press, and which the hon. member for Essex East mentioned a moment ago, is included in this appropriation or is it a special item?


Norman McLeod Rogers: In answer to the leader of the opposition and the hon. member for Essex East, this whole item of S3,500,000 is intended to provide for special plans for single unemployed men. It includes 81,000,000 which has been set apart for the purpose of carrying out a national forestry program in Canada. That is not, I should point out to the committee, an entirely new departure, because under our youth training program last year, for example, we had some 2,500 young men engaged in forestry training, and that in turn is in addition to the forestry conservation camps in British Columbia, where between four and five thousand men have been engaged in this work during the past winter.
Under the proposed expenditure of 81,000,000 there is to be a division as between the work that can be done within the federal jurisdiction in our national parks and at our forestry stations, directly under the administration of the forestry service of the Department of Mines and Resources-that will take 8400,000-and then 8600,000 will be spent in cooperation with the provinces on forestry projects which are intended to be brought within the broad national program.


Robert James Manion: Have any agreements been worked out with the provinces?


Norman McLeod Rogers: We had forestiy projects under the previous youth training agreements, and this program is related, so to speak, from our experience gained in a more modest way, to the youth training program.
I think I ought to say to the committee that the day after the announcement was made I received letters from the Canadian Forestry Association and the Canadian Lumbermen's Association, both indicating that they believed this work was very much
[Mr. Martin.J
needed at this time and commending generally the action taken by the government in making possible an expansion of the work already done in forest conservation. I can only say that I hope very much that all the provincial governments will find it possible to match the amount set apart by the dominion government for forest conservation under the joint plan.


John Ritchie MacNicol: What does the minister mean by forest conservation? Where are these young men working? I have been over perhaps one hundred thousand miles of forest during the last year; I have searched everywhere to find where this work is being done, and I have found nothing outside the United States.


Norman McLeod Rogers: If the hon. member had been in British Columbia he would have found forestiy work being done in camps there. I have also visited the forestry camps in Manitoba, at Sandilands, for instance, and there is work being done in Quebec and New Brunswick close to the international boundary. I know that my hon. friend has travelled widely and is keenly interested in this work, but he will agree that it is quite possible to travel widely by rail, and even by motor, and not discover these forestry camps.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I mean by canoe with Indians.


Norman McLeod Rogers: If he wishes, I shall be glad to tell him where the camps are.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Is there not a forestry
camp within a hundred miles of this city?


Norman McLeod Rogers: At Petawawa, but that is a forestry station.


Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: How many square miles in the dominion is it proposed to have this work cover?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I would be deceiving the committee if I posed as a forestry expert. The actual technical details will be supervised by the forestry branch of the Department of Mines and Resources. It may be that my colleague can speak with some authority on that point. Broadly speaking, the work will consist, first, of training by competent foresters with the object of fitting as many of these young men as can be absorbed into commercial forestry, and second, to do forest conservation work, the making of fire trails and so on.


Robert James Manion: Will there be any reforestation?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Some reforestation may also be done. We are quite agreeable to that being done in the various provinces. In fact, I am

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told we have reached a point where it is becoming urgently necessary that thought should be given to reforestation. We used to think that the natural growth each year would repair the fire damage, but the experts are now beginning to realize that as a result of fire damage, and perhaps reckless cutting, many of our stands of timber are becoming more inaccessible, and that would tend to higher costs unless there was some reproduction of the forests.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Where can we find in
Ontario anything comparable with what they are doing in Kentucky and Tennessee in forest conservation? In those two states I found a great number of men cutting roads through the forests.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Fire trails.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Fire trails so that fire reels and teams and motor cars could pass through the forest quickly to put out a fire, but in northern Ontario I have travelled through many thousands of miles of forests and I have not yet found a fire trail. I have often thought that if a fire took place fifty miles north of the height of land when I was in the forest, there would be no way to get out and no way to get in, because I found no fire trails anywhere, and yet these were large forests.


William Hayhurst: The minister stated that the work would be done jointly by the dominion and the provinces. What proportion will be paid by the provinces?


Norman McLeod Rogers: There is an equal division of the costs under this plan. The administrative costs, however, are normally borne by the provincial governments.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The hon. member for Essex East made some reference to those of us who have been talking on the subject for the last two or three days and to the lack of enthusiasm we now show when the estimates are before the committee. I will not say anything about the motives he attributes to us, although I think probably our motives are just as sincere as his own; but I say this to him, that we have never withheld from the minister or the government any commendation which was due them.
But let us take the item to which the hon. member has referred, an item to provide for federal contributions to farm employment, forest conservation and supplementary plans for single unemployment. The total vote is * $3,500,000, and of that, $700,000 is a revote.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Will the hon. member permit me to ask him a question?
71492-189J


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Just a
moment. The hon. member is asking us to stand up and cheer for someone feeding a peanut to an elephant. As I suggested yesterday, this is a penny-ante approach to a tremendous problem. Take one example. Take the farm placement scheme alone. The minister gave the figure a moment ago and I think I caught it correctly. He says that the total number placed in Saskatchewan under the farm placement scheme this year was 16,000. That compares with 26,000 last year.


Malcolm McLean: The crop was that much better this year.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is ground for satisfaction, is it not?


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Just a moment. What were the rejections? Last year the applications were in the neighbourhood of
30,000,	and the previous year they were in the neighbourhood of 25,000. From my own experience I know that, in my constituency at least, there were more rejections this year than in any year that the scheme has been in operation. The regulations have been tightened up, and far fewer young men and young women were able to qualify this year than in previous years. I know of young people who qualified in previous years who could not qualify this year. I do not know who is responsible for these regulations, whether those administering the scheme in the province, or the federal government. I suppose it is by collaboration. But take regulation No. 2:
This plan shall apply only to the employment of an unemployed worker who is without means of support and in need of material aid as an individual, who is over the age of sixteen years, and who (a) has no home or established domicile within the province of Saskatchewan, and (b) or who, having a home in Saskatchewan, has been maintaining himself independent of such home during the period of at least one year immediately preceding the making of his application.
What happened to numbers of these young people? Some of them have been away from home; some have been on a farm placement scheme the previous year; some of them went out riding the rods during the summer months, working on farms in the spring months until the seed was put in, and by July they had nothing to do, so some of them went back home-	.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I see I have made a mistake.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: -and disqualified themselves for becoming eligible this year.
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Paul Joseph James Martin: I acknowledge that I made a mistake. I invited the hon. member to make another speech, and I should have stayed quiet.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I do not want the hon. member to lose any sleep about it.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I won't.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I am going to make the speech, anyway. I should like to impress upon the government that to my mind the regulations which were put in force last year defeated the whole purpose of the scheme they put in operation.


Norman McLeod Rogers: My hon. friend is surely going too far.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Well, it is certain that, for the province of Saskatchewan, to place sixteen thousand people under the scheme does not begin to meet the situation. Surely the minister must realize that while, in the early stages, to specify that a young man who was living at home could not participate in the scheme may have been all right, yet in view of the fact that we have had drought conditions and a depression for seven or eight years, and that these young people are growing up, the fact that they are living at home, and have not been away from home and self-supporting for one year, should not disqualify them. A young man has been living at home and helping his parents, but perhaps there are half a dozen sons in the family, so that he is not required; why should he not be permitted to go fifty or a hundred miles within the province to another farm and be hired there, just as a transient can be hired? They both require jobs. Sixteen thousand young people placed in Saskatchewan! There could have been placed forty-eight thousand in Saskatchewan had these regulations not been made as strict as they were.
I have received letters which state that applications have been rejected because the regulations specify that reengagement of present help will not be allowed. This is what happens in many cases of which I have personal knowledge. A young man who had been working under the farm placement scheme made a proposition to his employer when the spring came. The farmer said, "I cannot afford to keep you," but the man explained that he had no place to go. The farmer replied, "I will keep you until the crop; if I get a crop I will pay you, and if not, I will buy you some clothes anyway and you can get on the farm placement scheme next year." It was a choice between staying there and going on the road, so in many instances the young men stayed. But when

they came to apply in the fall they could not remain at that particular place because it amounted to a reengagement of help, so they had to move somewhere else and the farmer had to look round for someone else. That was particularly unfortunate in one or two instances where farms were being run by women whose husbands had died leaving them with families of small children. The widow had confidence in the young man who had been there the previous year under the farm placement scheme. Not having any crop, she could not pay him, but she bought him some clothes. This year his application was rejected and she had to let him go. While I appreciate what the minister has in mind- perhaps I put it too strongly when I said a moment ago that the regulations defeated the whole purpose of the scheme-


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes, very much.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: -for it did
place those transients who were eligible, yet it did not provide for the young people in the small towns and villages and on the farms throughout the drought area. I do not know whether the minister can grasp the situation. I cannot expect him to do so. He is here, removed from the problem. But in thousands of these little towns and villages all over the prairie there are young people who are not classified as unemployed because they are not on relief; their parents have a job, perhaps eking out an existence running an elevator for fifty or sixty dollars a month; they are living with their parents at home, and have been kept in that way for four or five years. They are not registered as unemployed, and no provision is made for them. Many of them went off to farms and worked during the winter. This year they were not allowed to do so because they had not been self-supporting for one year.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Thursday, April 20, 1939