1941-03-06

Hon. N. A. McLARTY (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to lay on the table order in council 1347, dealing with the appointment of Mr. Justice Archibald as commissioner in respect to the Minto-Chipman district situation in New Brunswick.
I believe the hon. member for Royal (Mr. Brooks), who yesterday asked the question, will find a complete explanation in the order itself as to the circumstances leading up to and the reasons for the appointment. If, however, after he has had the opportunity of perusing the order he desires any further information, I shall be glad to give it.


Mr. BROOKS:: Thank you.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: 1.	What was the total cost of the national registration conducted under the National Resources Mobilization Act?
2.	How soon will the data collected be classified and made available?
3.	What was the total number of persons registered, (a) males; (b) females?
4.	How many workers suitable for war industries were located, and in what trades?
5.	How many of these workmen have been placed in war industries as a result of the national registration?
6.	How many persons were found capable of driving a tractor, (a) males; (bl females?
7.	How many persons were found capable of milking a cow, (a) males; (b) females?


Mr. GARDINER:: 1.	Expenditure to date. $806,988.12; Department of Public Printing and Stationery accounts still awaiting payment, $111,745;. total, $918,733.12.
2.	The data for reserved occupations, etc., are already available, and part of the statistical data. The latter will be completed before the end of March.
3.	(a) 3,988,760 males; (b) 3,871,710 females.
4.	Approximately 1,800,000 in 1,250 trades.
5.	No record available. Department of Labour is presently engaged in extracting from lists prepared, names and addresses of unemployed persons, and these lists are being sent to employment agencies for the use of industry. Industry may secure complete lists of names and addresses of all persons with special qualifications for the doing of any type of work in respect of which they desire men or women. It is expected that this type of information and service will be increasingly required as demands of industry for men and women develop.
6.	In Ontario, 636,400 males; 20,210 females; other provinces not yet available.
7.	In Ontario, 556,500 males; 318,880 females; other provinces not yet available.


ARMY BAKERIES IN MILITARY CAMPS
Mr. COCKERAM:: 1.	Has consideration been given to the establishment in all military camps, of army bakeries?
2.	What would be the saving, if such bakeries, were established?

Questions


Mr. RALSTON:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Nil. The estimated loss per 1 lb. of bread per day is 00-03 cent.


CALGARY HIGHLANDERS PAYMASTER
Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: 1.	Is Mr. Andrew Davidson of Calgary, Alberta, paymaster of the Calgary Highlanders?
2.	If so, what pay and allowances does he receive in this capacity ?
3.	(a) Does the appointment permit of other civilian activities or (b) is it a full time job?
4. Is the said Mr. Andrew Davidson mayor of the city of Calgary and member of the Alberta legislature?


Mr. RALSTON:: 1.	Yes-of the 2nd Battalion, Calgary Highlanders (reserve formations).
2.	Pay and allowances of rank, viz., $5.20 per diem while undergoining training with his unit.
3.	(a) Yes. (b) No.
4.	Yes.


NATIONAL DEFENCE HEADQUARTERS STAFF
Mr. COLDWELL:: 1.	What are the names, ranks, (a) present pensions, (b) last position in the Department of National Defence, and (c) reason for retirement of all commissioned officers at national defence headquarters who have been retired since July 1, 1939?
2.	What are the names and what is the
present relation to the Department of National Defence of all holders since July 1, 1939, of the following posts:	(a) chief of the general
staff; (b) adjutant-general; (c) quartermaster-general; (d) master-general of the ordnance?


Mr. RALSTON:: 1.	Colonel (Honorary Brigadier) J. L. Potter, R.C.A.M.C. (a) $4,219.40 per annum, (b) Director General Medical Services, (c) Age limit.
Major (Quartermaster) J. W. White, R.C. A.M.C. (a) $2,489.21 per annum, (b) Quartermaster, Central Medical Stores, (c) Physically unfit.
Lieut.-General E. C. Ashton, C.B., C.M.G., YD. (a) 86,891.50 per annum, (b) Inspector-General for Central Canada, (c) Physically unfit.
Captain R. R. D. Day, R.C.O.C. (a) $2,465 per annum, (b) Branch of the Master-General of the Ordnance, (c) Physically unfit.
2.	(a) Major-General H. D. G. Crerar, D.S.O. (Present holder of appointment).
Major-General T. V. Anderson, D.S.O. Inspector General of the Military Forces in Central Canada and in addition to the duties
of the appointment will carry out such other inspections as the Minister of National Defence may require.
(b)	Major-General B. W. Browne, D.S.O., M.C. (Present holder of appointment).
Major-General H. II. Matthews, C.M.G., D.S.O. Died
Major-General H. F. H. Hertzberg, C.M.G., D.S.O., M.C., Commandant, Royal Military College.	-
(c)	Major-General E. J. C. Schmidlin, M.C. (Present holder of appointment).
Major-General H. F. II. Hertzberg, C.M.G., D.S.O., M.C. Commandant, Royal Military College.
(d)	Mr. V. Sifton. (Present holder of appointment).
Major-General W. H. P. Elkins, C.B.E., D.S.O. General Officer Commanding-in-chief, Atlantic command.
Mr. P. A. Chester. No longer with the department.


CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I., GRADING AND PURCHASING DEPOT-CANNED LOBSTER
Mr. HATFIELD:: 1.	How many cases of canned lobster were handled during the 1940 season through the government grading and purchasing depot at Charlottetown?
2.	How many cases were passed in each of the following grades: (a) grade A; (b) grade B;
(e)	grade C; (d) grade C minus?
3.	What was the total cost of operating this depot?
4.	What were the names of each person employed in the operation of this depot?
5.	What was the amount of salary, allowance or other remuneration paid to each such person?


Mr. MICHAUD:: 1.	Total number of cases received, 2,556. Acceptances, 250; Graded, refused by packer, 880; Rejections, 1,426.
2.	Grade "A", nil; Grade "B", nil; Grade "B minus", 100 cases; Grade "C", 100 cases; Grade "C minus", 50 cases.
3.	$1,774.63.
4.	W. H. Tidmarsh, Depot manager, R. L. Huestis, Warehouseman. Peter McAleer, Labourer. Clara Shaw, Clerk.
5.	W. H. Tidmarsh, SI,025.81. R. L. Huestis, $346.67: Peter McAleer, $58.45. Olara Shaw, $4.50.


ALASKA HIGHWAY
[Stage Direction]
Mr. HAN3ELL:
1. Has the route of the proposed United States-Alaska highway been decided?
[Stage Direction]
Questions as Orders jor Returns
2. If so, through what province will the highway mainly run?
Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: 1.	No.
2.	Answered by the answer to No. 1.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. MacKINNON (Kootenay East):: 1.	How many members of the Senate and of the House of Commons are serving, (a) in the active services overseas; (b) in the active services in Canada?
2. How many members of the House of Commons are serving in the reserve forces in Canada ?
3. How many members of the House of Commons and of the Senate saw service in the last war?


EMPLOYMENT OF HALES ROSS
Mr. SHAW:: 1.	Is one Hales Ross of Edmonton, Alberta, employed by the Department of National Defence or any other department of the government ?
2.	If so, in what capacity is he employed?
3.	What rate of salary or commission does he receive?


DENTURES FOR CANADIAN FORCES
Mr. BOUCHER:: 1.	How many sets of artificial dentures have been ordered for or on account of the Canadian Dental Corps since the outbreak of war?
2.	What is the total cost of such artificial dentures?
3.	From what firm or firms have these dentures been ordered?
ir'1 ivhat dates were such orders given?
5.	How many such sets have been supplied to members of the Canadian forces, armv naval and air?


Mr. RALSTON:: Stand.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: Order for return.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: Well,
when one minister says "stand" I submit another should not give some other direction.


James Layton Ralston: In this particular instance I believe my colleague the Secretary of State is right. Information would be required from three different ministers.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order for return.


PURCHASE OR LEASE OF BREWERY PROPERTIES
Mr. McGREGOR:: 1. How many properties formerly used for brewery purposes have been purchased or leased 
by the government of Canada since the beginning of the present war?
2.	From whom were they purchased or leased?
3.	For what purpose were they purchased or leased ?
4.	What was the purchase price or lease-rental for each property?
5.	Who are the officers of such companies who made the sales or leased any such properties?



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Richard Burpee Hanson: On February 17, the day on which
we met, in reply to a question of mine the Prime Minister promised to indicate to the house in the course of a day or two the measures which were likely to come up at this session. So far as I have been able to-observe the Prime Minister has not done this. I should like to ask him if he would take an early opportunity to set forth in some detail' the proposed legislative programme for this session. This information is not important to myself, but I am sure it would prove helpful to a lot of the members in making future plans.
Right- Hon. IV. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister): I shall be only too pleased to give my hon. friend the information he has asked for at as early a moment as it may be possible to give it with a completeness likely to be of help to hon. members. The leason I have not replied up to the present is that I did indicate at the time the question was first asked that I anticipated that the measures to be introduced this session would be confined almost exclusively to financial measures having to do with the war, the War Appropriation Act, the budget and supply.. Outside of these I do not know of any other measures of importance likely to be proceeded' with beyond those already appearing on the order paper.
It is possible that there may be some legislation with respect to the St. Lawrence waterway project, but up to the present time no agreement has been finally reached. Therefore, I am not in position to say when that particular measure will come before the house-Perhaps this will answer my hon. friend's question immediately, parliament has before it at the moment, so far as I am in a position to know, with the exception mentioned, the legislation of importance for this session.

Business of Parliament



PRAYER FOR VICTORY AND PEACE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: I note that His Majesty the King has proclaimed March 23 as a day of prayer for victory and peace. Will the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) indicate whether a similar proclamation is to be made in Canada?


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: On a previous occasion when I saw that His Majesty the King had made a proclamation for a day of prayer in the United Kingdom, I thought it would be most appropriate if a similar proclamation were made here. I shall be only too happy to recommend to my colleagues that a similar course be adopted in Canada with respect to his majesty's present proclamation.



BUSINESS OF PARLIAMENT

[Stage Direction]
REDIVISION OF WORK OF COMMONS AND SENATE TO MEET WAR CONDITIONS On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: I should like to inquire of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) if the government will consider, in view of the gravity of the war and the present financial situation, appointing a committee of this house to meet Their Honours of the other chamber to consider a reallocation or redivision of the work of the two houses. The other house has adjourned for a further two weeks, and yet we have an extensive legislative programme to consider. In Washington and London the other houses are cooperating and doing a great deal in connection with war work. I brought up this matter in 1940, as reported on page 1918 of Hansard of that year, and before that in 1939, as reported on page 1471 of Hansard of that year. On both occasions the Prime Minister said that the matter would be given consideration.
I realize how busy the members of the government have been, but there are many learned gentlemen in the other house as well as former members of this house and I am sure that that house could relieve the Commons of a lot of work. Last session the other house could have handled the questions having to do with subversive elements and enemy propaganda and all that kind of thing. There are many fine members of parliament in the other place, and I ask the Prime Minister to consider this matter and give us a reply.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The question asked by the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) has been asked on previous occasions by himself. As he said, I previously replied that the government would carefully consider the matter to which he has referred. The government has considered this matter repeatedly. The leader of the government in the senate has brought up the subject time and again in meetings of the cabinet. He did so only a few days ago with regard to the work of the present session. The answer which I have just given to the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson) as to the legislative programme for this session answers at least in part the question the hon. member has asked. The important measures to be considered this session are all financial measures, the War Appropriation Act, the budget and supply, and in the nature of things all of these measures must originate in this house. They cannot reach the senate until this house has disposed of them.
If there were other measures contemplated I would say that the government might consider having them introduced in the senate, unless there was some special reason why they should first be introduced here. For this session the government is refraining from bringing down many measures which ordinarily we would wish to bring down simply because we desire to have the attention of the house concentrated as exclusively as possible on matters pertaining immediately to the war.
There is nothing to prevent the Senate taking any course with respect to its own proceedings which it may deem advisable. I agree with the statement of my hon. friend that there is great talent in the membership of the other house, but it is for the hon. members there to control their own business and to decide in what way they can through their membership render the greatest service to the war effort. My hon. friend has suggested a conference between the members of the two houses. I doubt that that method of procedure would be helpful at this time, for the simple reason that the government itself must decide how its business can best be advanced. Having carefully reviewed the situation we have felt that for the present session at all events we must hold to the particular course outlined, without placing restrictions either on this house or on the other, in order to make the most rapid headway we can with government measures.
The War-The Balkans



TRANS-CANADA AIR LINES ACCIDENT AT ARMSTRONG    QUESTION AS TO AIRPORT PERSONNEL

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. H. A. BRUCE (Parkdale):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the minister of transport, as to whether Emil Kading, a German enemy alien who, according to the Canadian press dispatch, was on duty at the airport at Armstrong, Ontario, on February 6 when a Trans-Canada Air Lines plane crashed killing twelve persons, is still in the employ of Trans-Canada Air Lines.


Hon. C. D. HOWE (for the Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I consider this to be an unnecessary question. If my hon. friend has read the report of the coroner's jury he will have seen that it was amply demonstrated, and was in fact stated by the coroner, that Mr. Kading had nothing whatever to do with the accident. Mr. Kading is a naturalized Canadian, and to bring his name up in the House of Commons in this way is I think very unfair to that gentleman, who has been a loyal and efficient officer of the Trans-Canada Air Lines for a considerable period.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: He has been naturalized only four years.



THE WAR


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, yesterday my hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson) referred to a lady from his province of New Brunswick who for a number of years had been residing in Sofia, Bulgaria. He asked that some steps be taken, if possible, to protect the interests of Canadian nationals in that country. As my hon. friend said, he had personally mentioned the matter to the Under Secretary of State. The course taken by the Under Secretary of State was the one which I indicated I thought would have been taken. A communication was sent to our high commissioner in London to bring the matter to the attention of the foreign office with a request that the foreign office would communicate with the British minister at Sofia asking that particular attention be paid to the circumstances in Bulgaria of the lady he has referred to. May I say to my hon. friend that I have also ascertained that great efforts

have been made for some months past to have this particular lady leave Bulgaria as it was known that she was an important person and it was feared that her finances might suffer if she remained there, but apparently it has been very difficult to persuade her to leave.	*



MUNITIONS AND SUPPLY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. H. HARRIS (Danforth):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question or make a suggestion to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston). In view of the fact that the return made to an order of this house with regard to the purchase of certain lands stated that the department had no information and that a supplementary return subsequently filed contained the information that the land had been acquired, would the minister feel disposed to amend the interjection he made yesterday, at page 1269 of Hansard, at the bottom of the page, that the hon. member for Danforth was still tilting at windmills?


James Layton Ralston: No, Mr. Speaker; my hon. friend is wrong about that. My suggestion that he was tilting at windmills was with regard to his statement that no information of any kind was being furnished. My hon. friend is quite right in stating that the return to which he referred indicates that the department concerned-not my department-had purchased land, but I still suggest to my hon. friend that that one particular instance does not indicate that there is any general attitude on the part of the government or anyone on this side of the house to refrain from giving any information.


Joseph Henry Harris: And no indication that the member for Danforth was tilting at windmills.


SHORTAGE OF NATURAL GAS IN WESTERN ONTARIO FOR DOMESTIC USE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. KARL K. HOMUTH (Waterloo South): May I draw to the attention of the Minister of Munitions and Supply a situation that is serious in some parts of western Ontario and ask whether something cannot be done about it. Representations have been made to me over the week-end and during this week with respect to the very low supply of gas in

Pension Act-Mr. Green
many municipalities of western Ontario, attributed to the fact that munitions factories are taking such a large supply. The situation is really serious. Is the minister in a position to make representations to the industries which are increasing their demands for gas, with a view to getting them to substitute coal or artificial gas? I bring the matter to his attention in order that he might have consideration given to it by his department.
Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my hon. friend. The subject to which he referred has been giving us a good deal of anxiety for some time. A good many processes in the munitions plants, particularly annealing processes, are dependent on a supply of natural gas. We have tried to meet the situation as best we could. We have, for instance, relaxed the regulations on the use of fuel oil, and are using fuel oil as much as we can to replace gas in these manufacturing processes. I have also been in consultation with the provincial government on the matter for some months. It is a difficult situation but we are trying to deal with it as fairly as we can for the benefit of the domestic users.



PENSION ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Pensions and National Health) moved the second reading of Bill No. 17, to amend the Pension Act.
Richard Burpee Hanson: Mr. Speaker, before the motion carries would the minister be good enough to make a statement covering the whole bill- this is by way of a question-and is it his intention to refer the bill to a committee? I think he said so the other day, but I should like to have that made clear.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: I did make a statement on the first reading with reference to the general principles of the bill and stated then that it was the intention immediately after the second reading to refer the bill to the special committee of the house which was appointed the other day.
In general the amendments contained in the bill place in statutory form certain orders in council which have been passed by the government during the last twelve or fourteen months. There are also certain changes with reference to administration and with reference to Canadians serving in the imperial forces, and other changes of minor importance. Every section of the bill will be carefully examined
by the special committee of the house; therefore I do not think it is necessary at this stage, when we are concerned with the general principles of the bill, to make any further explanation.


Mr. H. C. GREEN (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Pensions and National Health has just stated that it is the intention of the government to refer this bill to the special committee which was appointed the other day to consider questions of interest to ex-service men. If Bill No. 17 were merely a bill containing more or less routine amendments to the Canadian pension law, perhaps there would be no need to discuss it further at this stage. But it is of more importance than that, of more importance than the minister himself has just indicated, because it lays down principles to be followed in the treatment of men of the new fighting forces who suffer disability, and the principles to be followed in the treatment of their dependents.
The approach to this whole question on the part of the Canadian people and the members of this house certainly is that at least as much consideration as the men of the last war received should be shown to the men who are serving in the present fighting forces of Canada; and that any changes in the Pension Act should be of a type which will give these new soldiers, airmen and sailors at least as' much consideration as the fighting forces of * the old war have received at the hands of different parliaments of Canada.
I was astonished, on receiving this bill yesterday for the first time, to find that, while in some respects it gives additional consideration to our fighting forces, in most respects it restricts their rights. It is tightening up not only on the soldiers of the last war but on the men who are in the fighting forces at the present time. To me it smacks of officialdom. Throughout it I can see in different sections the deft touch of departmental officials, and I think that the house should realize that fact before this bill is sent to committee. I propose to-day to give several instances supporting the statement I have made.
For example, if hon. members will look at page 5 of the bill, at the top of the page they will find subsection 2 of section 11 of the Pension Act. The amendment is a departure in Canadian pension law, something entirely new, and something which restricts in a great degree the rights of these fighting men. It provides that men serving in Canada cannot receive pension for disability, nor can their dependents receive pension in the event of their death, unless the injury or disease "arose out of and was directly connected with such military or war service." In practice this
Pension Act-Mr. Green

means that it is almost impossible for a member of our forces who is serving in Canada, not having yet got overseas, or his dependents, to obtain a pension, because it must be shown that the injury or the disease was caused directly by the service; it must have been directly connected with the performance of military duties. The proof of my statement is found in the small number of men who have been able to receive pension. The minister told us the other day that 10,829 men of Canada's fighting forces, exclusive of the air force-for which he promised to get me the figures; I do not know whether they are yet'available-have been discharged from the fighting forces as physically unfit, and of that number only 484 have been able to establish claim for pension. This includes, of course, dependents receiving pension in the case of the death of the fighting man. That works out at a percentage of about 4-4 of the number of men who have been discharged as medically unfit. In other words, only 9 men in every 200 have been able to qualify for pension. This is largely because of this restrictive provision which we now find in the Pension Act and which has been used, in the shape of an order in council, for the last nine or ten months.


Thomas Langton Church: What about the fifty-four
4 soldiers who have been killed on the highways by hit-and-run drivers?


Howard Charles Green: I will leave my hon. friend to deal with that. He has spoken of it before, and spoken very well.
This situation shows that there is something wrong with the pension provision for men serving in Canada. They have been given a far more thorough medical examination than recruits in the last war, and yet we find that only 4-4 of those discharged as medically unfit are able to qualify for pension. I suggest to the house that this change in the basis of awarding pensions to Canada's fighting forces must be given careful consideration, because if we carry on under the new provision which the government now proposes, great hardship will be suffered, as the years go on, by the men who are disabled in the fighting forces and by their dependents.
Another instance of restricting the rights of the men in the forces will be found on the same page of this bill, in section 7, which enacts a new section 13 of the Pension Act. That section deals with what we call the dead-line. Hitherto, at least since the special committee met in 1936, the position has been that if a man served in the last war in Canada or England only, he or his dependents could not apply for a pension after the first day of July, 1936. There was a further provision

that, in the case of a man who served in an actual theatre of war, application could be made up to the first day of January, 1942. Originally, I believe, the date was January 1, 1940, but it has been extended until now it stands at the first of January, 1942. Time and again returned soldier members in this house have asked that the government remove that dead-line entirely, so that a man who served in a theatre of war would be able to apply for a pension whenever he broke down, regardless of whether it was before or after the first day of January, 1942. One reason for the demand was that thousands and thousands of Canadian soldiers who were wounded in the last war are not yet in receipt of pension; as they grow older many of them break down, and it was felt that there should not be a dead-line with respect to applications by such men. However, the government insisted that the dead-line stand as the first of January, 1942, and now, in this bill, the dead-line remains at that date.
The provision regarding men of the new fighting forces is even more drastic. It will be found on page 6; it provides that in the case of a man serving in the present war, no application for pension will be received after seven years from the date of his discharge. If that same provision had been in the Pension Act after the last war, men would have been cut off in 1925; under this provision, seven years after a man is discharged he will be out of luck, he will not be able to apply for a pension. There is not even a proviso to that subsection such as partly protects the man who served in an actual theatre of war in the last war; in his case the pension commission have discretion to hear the application after the dead-line is reached, but tinder this new provision for the men of the present fighting forces, the pension commission have no discretion to grant such special leave.
This new provision is copied from the pension legislation of Great Britian. As every member of this house who has had anything to do with returned soldier problems knows, the British are far more strict in their pension laws. It has been a great deal more difficult to get a pension there than in Canada. They have many more men to consider, men scattered all over the empire, and they have been hard-boiled in dealing with their veterans. Under this section the Canadian government proposes to be just as hard-boiled, and that, I suggest, is contrary to the wish of the Canadian people, contrary to the wish of the members of this house. It should not be embodied in our pension legislation.
Another example of hedging in these men will be found in the treatment of widows under this amending bill. Hon. members will

Pension Act-Mr. Green
12S3
find it at page 11 of the bill. There has been, a demand from all parts of Canada during the last few years for an extension of pensions to various classes of widows, and I think a great deal can be said in support of the contention that these women should be receiving more consideration. But we find that there is nothing in this bill to give them that further consideration. There is no extension whatever of their rights; and as for the widows of men who lose their lives in the present war, they are further restricted in that they can get a pension under the provisions of section 16 of the bill only if they -were married to the pensioner before he was granted a pension. Otherwise they cannot qualify. That is a narrower clause than we have in our Pension Act as it stands at present.
There is also a good example of tightening up on the part of departmental officials to be seen in subsection 4 on page 11 of the bill, where it is provided that if a woman has been separated from her husband she can get a pension upon his death only if she has been receiving alimony. Previously the law said, if she had been awarded alimony. There are many cases in our courts in which a woman is awarded alimony but does not receive it. In other words, she gets judgment but cannot collect. This section has been changed so that although she may have been awarded alimony she cannot get a pension on her husband's death unless she has been actually receiving it. It is an example of departmental tightening up.
At the bottom of page 11 there is the provision dealing with pension to a widow whose husband has died of his pensionable disability. At the present time the widow of a pensioner who was wounded in the last war can get that pension provided she was married before he was granted pension or before the first of January 1930, which of course was twelve years after the war. Under this bill the widow of a member of our new fighting forces cannot get the pension unless she was married to the pensioner at the time he was granted pension; in other words, no provision is made for the case of marriage within a period of years after the war.
The sum and substance of the provisions for the widow of a pensioner is this, that if the pensioner marries after he has been granted pension and then dies, upon his death his widow will be cut off. The result will be that in a few years' time there will be hundreds of widows of men now serving in our fighting forces coming to us and asking for more consideration and they will be quite right in doing so. Provision should be made for them
in this bill. At any rate, discretion should be given to the pension commission to award a pension to the widow even though she was married to the veteran after he had received his pension.
Another restriction has reference to the wife. From time to time each one of us gets complaints about these cases, and as hon. members know, there is no allowance payable for the wife of a soldier who served in the last war, if they were married after May 1, 1933. That was introduced in 1933 as an economy measure. It was unjust at that time but it has been continued ever since. Complaints have been made in the house but nothing could be done about it. The bill introduces a provision, to be found at page 16, that unless the new soldier and his wife have been married within a period of ten years after the termination of the war no allowance will be paid for the wife. There is the same restriction with respect to children. In other words, the children of our fighting forces who are lucky enough to be born within ten years of the war will receive an allowance. Any children born after that date will not. That is unfair. There is no reason for it. All the children of a pensioner should be entitled to the allowance, and none should be cut off at a date which is arbitrarily set.
This morning I had a letter from a veteran of the last war living in Manitoba, in the riding of the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Ward). He says:
Can there not be some provision made so that an honest man can be provided for to the end that all married pensioners or veterans are afforded the same benefits of the pension act?
There is another restriction to be made in the act in the change that is being brought about in the appeal board. Hon. members will find it at page 15 of the bill. When soldier questions were considered by the special committee in 1936, the veteran at that time had the right to apply first of all to the pension commission, then to be heard by a quorum of two members of the pension commission-they sat in different parts of the country, saw the man and heard evidence- and finally he had the right of appeal to the pension appeal court, sitting in Ottawa and consisting of three men. Subsequently that was changed and to-day the veteran applying for a pension has the right, first of all, to what is called a first hearing, which is really not a hearing at all but a first consideration by the pension commission in Ottawa-all done by correspondence. Then, if his application is rejected, he has the right to a second hearing, which again is merely consideration given at Ottawa. Then he has the right of final appeal, to an appeal board, which sits in different parts of the country, for example in
Pension Act-Mr. Turgeon

Halifax or Vancouver. The veteran can go before that board of three men, take his witnesses with him and have a proper hearing; and he derives great satisfaction from being able to tell his story to those three men. Now under section 22 of this bill the government proposes to cut that final appeal board down from three men to two; and section 23 goes on to provide that in case of a split verdict, in case one member of the new board is for the soldier and one against him, the decision will be made by a man sitting here in Ottawa, a commissioner appointed by the chairman of the pension commission.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Who did not hear the appeal or see the witnesses.


Howard Charles Green: Who did not hear the witnesses at all and did not hear the ex-serviceman's story, but who sits here in Ottawa and looks through a file. That is not good enough. Certainly it is one of the provisions of the bill which should not be retained. Nothing will do more to stir up the veterans across the country than to have some man here in Ottawa given the power to throw out their application for pension on a final appeal.
There are some provisions of the bill which are helpful. One in particular will be found on page 13: I refer to the provision for extending the Pension Act to cover Canadians who serve in the Royal Air Force or the Royal Navy. But it also is too restricted. The hon. member for Wellington South (Mr. Gladstone), when the resolution which preceded this bill was under consideration, brought out the fact that those young Canadians who enlisted in the Royal Air Force before the war broke out cannot get pensions under the -act. Under these amendments the only airmen who can benefit are those who have enlisted in the Royal Air Force since the war started; it does not cover those who went to England in 1939 or 1938, or the other years preceding the war. I suggest that the bill should be extended to cover those eases.
I mention these instances in the hope that consideration will be given to them not only by hon. members who happen to be on this special committee but also by all other hon. members. I say that this bill is fundamentally wrong, because the whole tendency is to be tough," to be just a little tougher than before on the men in the fighting forces. That means that if parliament enacts this bill in its present shape it will be "tough" with the very Canadians who should be receiving the most consideration at the present time. .


Mr. J. G. TURGEON (Cariboo):: With some of the statements made by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) I am in agreement. I refer especially to the sections of the bill which deal with widows, and to certain features of section 5 with regard to men injured in service after May 21 last.
It is not my intention to deal with these matters now on the motion for second reading, because I think they can best be discussed in the special committee that has been set up. After the bill returns from the committee with any recommended amendments, the house can better deal with it.
I think this country is fortunate in having as minister in charge of pensions one who for many years before he came to this parliament was dealing with the matter of pensions on behalf of soldiers, or their wives and dependents, because of injuries received during the war. I commend this bill, on general principles, to the house, on the understanding of course that favourable consideration will be given to any amendments which may be proposed by the special committee.


Mr. CLARENCE GILLIS (Cape Breton South):: In view of the fact that a special committee has been appointed to go into this question it may appear to be a waste of time to discuss just now the matters brought up by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green). I do wish, however, to take this opportunity of saying that I have had some experience with pension matters during the past twenty years and I am entirely in agreement with the statements just made by that hon. member. There is no need for me to repeat what the hon. member has said. I agree that the select committee will have a certain duty to perform, but the bill contains certain provisions and principles with which I am not in agreement, and if it is given second reading as it stands and goes to the special committee, we can be reasonably sure that it will come back in the same form.
I see the bill in this light, that it is an indication of the considered policy of the government as to the manner in which pensions should be dealt with at the present time; and the committee will naturally be guided by the Minister of Pensions and National Health. In addition, the members of the government party constitute a majority of the committee.
I am assuming that the bill embodies the policy of the government, otherwise it would not be here in this form; it is reasonable therefore to suppose that that is exactly what will come out. What I am concerned with at the moment is that it is clearly shown by the amendments that the insurance principle, or "incurred during service" principle, is being

Pension Act-Mr. Gillis
practically eliminated in several clauses, and that the man who enlists for service in Canada only is discriminated against. In the last war the man who saw service in Canada only was included in the pension provisions and had exactly the same opportunity to qualify as the man who served overseas, if he incurred a disability while on military service. The bill as amended very definitely sets out in clause after clause, and underlines it, that the disability must have been incurred on war service. The trainees who are being called up at the present time find themselves in this position: They have the option of volunteering for service overseas. Many perhaps will not feel inclined to volunteer; they may believe that their service can be better rendered in this country. As the bill stands it may be construed as a lever to induce a man to volunteer for overseas service. This principle, the insurance principle or "incurred on service" principle, was dealt with exhaustively in 1921 under a commission headed by the present Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston). After considerable inquiry by that commission it was held in 1921 that the original intention of parliament was to protect all members of the forces w'ith respect to any injury or disease incurred during the period that they wore the king's uniform. Those with service in Canada only received the benefit of this protection during the great war. There is no valid reason why any discrimination should now' be introduced against those who serve in Canada only.
There are many things I should like to see included in the bill. Among all the grievances with regard to pensions which in the past twenty years have been aired there is one which, in my opinion, should receive special consideration in the bill before the house. I refer to the service of nursing sisters. In the last few months I have carried on a correspondence with the Department of Pensions and National Health concerning a nursing sister who saw service in Prance from 1917 to 1919. To-day, completely disabled, she receives only a small stipend under the provision for war veterans' allowances. This sister considers herself as a recipient of charity. She feels she is entitled to a pension by virtue of her service. But because her documentation or her files are not as they should be, or because they do not agree with her version of her disability, it has been declared that she is not now eligible for pension. Arrangements have been made to have her case heard by a tribunal.
In my opinion the act should deal specially with nursing sisters. Any girl who volunteers her services to her country and serves her time in hospitals overseas, any girl who serves
in an actual theatre of war, who goes through bombing raids and all the horrors connected with surgical operations performed under difficult circumstances in military hospitals, regardless of whether she has been actually wounded or seriously ill, in my opinion suffers shock to her nervous system. The fact that she has gone through a couple of years of that kind of life has left its mark on her. The fact that she volunteered her services and actually served in a theatre of war should entitle her to pension, regardless of whether or not she has the required documentation. The fact that she did her work and that she is not now in a position to earn a livelihood ought to be sufficient to entitle her to the pension. Many of the women who served during the last war sacrificed practically everything that a woman values in life. Many of them continued their services in military hospitals after the war. Many of them never married. Specific provision should be made in the Pension Act for women who render service of this kind.
The Minister of Pensions and National Health will recall that about a month ago I wrote him respecting a man who had gone from Sydney, Nova Scotia, to England, on a convoy ship, leaving a family in Glace Bay. Shortly after landing at Liverpool he was killed during a bombing raid on that city, and his wife was left destitute. The landlord threatened to throw her out on the street. I went to see her; she explained the circumstances, and I telegraphed the minister. Let me say right here that the minister acted promptly, and did everything he could, within the regulations. But in my opinion because of those regulations that woman is suffering hardship.
The minister explained to me that any man serving on a convoy ship of Canadian registry is protected by the Pension Act, and that under these circumstances there would be no difficulty in obtaining a pension. The procedure of convoying is undoubtedly one of the most essential in our war services at the present time. It is also very dangerous. A large percentage of the ships plying between England and Canada to-day are of British or foreign registry. Only a small minority are of Canadian registry. In the instance to which I have called attention the ship was of British registry. The minister has communicated with the British representative in Canada, and is carrying on negotiations with a view to having the woman pensioned. However, this condition developed two months ago, and the woman is now receiving relief from the city. So far there has not been any pension adjustment. In my opinion it is not fair to those
Pension Act-Mr. Gillis

who are suffering that they should have to depend on the British government, under present circumstances, to take care of such cases. While I have mentioned only one, we know that more may arise at any time. Regardless of a ship's registry, any Canadian operating on a convoy from a Canadian port should receive the protection of the Canadian government, and his dependents should be in a similar position. This is not a British war; it is an empire war, and we are all engaged in it. The government of Canada should accept the responsibility of caring for the dependents of men who have been fatally injured in any phase of our war effort.
I know the minister has been working in the matter. He has done all he can toward making an adjustment, under present regulations. But in order to take care of matters of that kind the regulations should be extended. As the hon. member for Vancouver South pointed out, there are many widows in Canada to-day. Petition after petition, resolution after resolution come to us every day from different organizations asking that the regulations be extended to take care of the widows of exservice men who cannot now be provided; for.
Any man who went through the last war will agree that practically all who came back after being in the line for any considerable time returned with a certain percentage of disability. The life of any man who was in the line was shortened because of his service there. Many are widows to-day because their husbands are in premature graves. Had the proper documentation been on record, many of them would be eligible for pension. But we know that during the first year or two of the war in France records were not kept as scrupulously as they should have been, and as a result many men have been denied their right to pension.
I should like to see a provision in this measure which would take care of the situation I have described. With all due respect, I am reasonably sure the committee will recommend what is in the minds of the sponsors of the bill. We may go into committee, talk, make recommendations and all the rest of it; nevertheless I do not believe that in any material respect the bill will be changed. I should like to have the principle to which I have referred understood by hon. members before deliberations by the committee take place.
Every man who puts on the king's uniform, and who is on military service, engaged in the war effort, should receive the protection of the state while he is wearing that uniform. This is a classic example of what might happen under the legislation as it now stands. A

man who meets with an accident while on leave, and not connected with his military duties, oannot claim pension. For example, let us suppose that the leader of the opposition and I are in the same unit. I am going on leave, and I am not subject to the performance of military duty while I am on leave. The leader of the opposition, we will suppose, is driving me to the station. There is an accident and we are both killed. The widow of the leader of the opposition would be entitled to pension, and mine would not.. Because I was off duty and going on leave, my wife and dependents would be deprived of pension, under the regulations as I understand them. This is a condition which should not exist. While one is wearing the king's uniform he and his dependents should be entitled to the protection of the state. Many things may happen to one who is on service which may not happen to one who is not on service.
I am interested in this matter because in the past I have had some experience with pensions. At the moment that is all I have to say.


Mr. A. G. SLAGHT (Parry Sound):: Mr. Speaker, in my view a number of the matters brought to the attention of the house by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) should receive most careful study in committee. I am not a member of the committee and in my view this is not the time to go into details, particularly since my colleague, the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Turgeon), has expressed to the house the exact views, which I entertain in regard to this matter.


Mr. P. E. WRIGPIT (Melfort):: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) and the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) that this bill is very restrictive in its nature. I think there will have to be a few changes made when it is in committee.
Another point which I should like, to bring to the attention of the house is this. I refer to a principle which is being carried forward from the old act. At this time I think we should have an equalization of pensions. Under *the old act, men with the rank of lieutenant or under receive $900 for a total disability, while a brigadier-general receives $2,700 for a total disability. The widow of a man of the rank of lieutenant or under receives $720 while the widow of a brigadier-general receives $2,160.
This war is entirely different from the last war. Our forces have been highly mechanized and many of the non-commissioned officers and other ranks must have mechanical exper-

Pension Act-Mr. Wright
ience. I believe such men are entitled to a pension equal to that paid to 'higher ranks. This principle was agreed to by the former Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Power) in 1936. A question was asked with regard to hospitalization and the then minister replied as follows:
That is to say, a private soldier was placed on pay and allowances approximately equal to those which he received as a private soldier in the army, and a general or colonel was placed on the pay and allowances of the rank which he held in the army. The divergence has always appeared to me to be pretty wide, and after considerable study the officers of the department and myself came to the conclusion that perhaps at this time, twenty years after the war, we should not perpetuate the system of pay according to rank which existed during the war.
This difference in pensions paid to the different ranks was a carryover from the British system. I believe we could very well change the legislation to provide an equalization of pensions to all members of the forces.
I do not mean that there should be a reduction in the total amount paid, because the saving achieved could be used to raise the schedule of the lower pensions. A pension of $900 for total disability is quite small. The cost of living in this country has been rising continually and will continue to go up after this war. This is something which the house should decide and give instructions accordingly to the committee. Most of those from the higher ranks go into protected occupations after serving where their disabilities are not of as great disadvantage as similar disabilities suffered by men who have served in the lower ranks. For instance, a man who is a bricklayer by trade and who loses his leg finds that disability much greater than a man who works in an office and is suffering from the same disability. We should consider seriously this matter of the equalization of pensions.


Mr. VICTOR QUELCH (Acadia):: Mr. Speaker, as this bill is to be referred to a committee I shall be very brief, especially in view of the fact that the last time we considered such a bill it was dealt with most extensively. I have no fear that we shall not be given the fullest opportunity to make what we consider to be essential amendments to this bill. If I remember correctly, we practically rewrote the last bill in committee. The hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) raised a number of important points. He pointed out that we were changing the whole principle of certain clauses of the act in such a way that the benefits accruing to soldiers will be restricted rather than expanded. I believe that public opinion to-day is almost unanimous in demanding that the
benefits of our pension legislation shall be expanded rather than restricted in any shape or form.
For instance, reference has been made to the fact that a soldier will not be eligible for pension unless he has been actually engaged in war service. I can visualize a man being given two or three days' leave and taking ill, or suffering some form of disability on the second day of his leave. Under this bill he would not be able to get a pension.
I do not think the people of Canada will agree with that. No provision is being made in this bill to provide pensions for the war widow whose husband does not have a 50 per cent war disability. Ever since the last war an effort has been made to obtain some consideration for these widows. We must realize that we are not fulfilling our obligations to the men in the forces until every man who enlists is assured that when he dies his widow will get whatever pension he may have been receiving.
When a man is entitled to pension, he receives a larger pension if he is married. We thereby recognize a certain responsibility for the man's wife. Yet we say that should he die we will not assume any responsibility for his widow unless he is in receipt of a pension for a fifty per cent disability or over, or unless the widow can prove that he died as a result of a war service. Five, ten or fifteen years after a war a widow may find it impossible to furnish such proof. I have no doubt that every hon. member has a file of cases in which he has been trying to get pensions for widows and has been turned down because they have not been able to furnish this proof.
I have one reason to hope that we may be able to get more for the soldiers in this committee than we were able to obtain in the last, in that while in opposition the present minister took a very broad stand on the question of money. I have read a number of statements made by him prior to 1935 in which he took a very broad view.


Howard Charles Green: He has changed since then.


Victor Quelch: We will have plenty of opportunity to remind him of the stand he took. There is no excuse for saying that we cannot make these payments because there is no money available. It was admitted in the last committee that it was not a question of deciding what was due to the soldier, it was simply a question of deciding how much money we had available. It was admitted freely that we were not prepared to assume our full responsibilities to the returned men because the nation was bankrupt. The word "bankrupt" was actually used. I hope a
Pension Act-Mr Ross (Souris)

similar state of affairs will not obtain in this committee. When we are spending millions upon millions of dollars daily and weekly I hope we are not going to be told that we cannot find the paltry few thousand dollars necessary for this or that because the country is bankrupt. I do not think we should expect our soldiers to make sacrifices unless we are prepared to assume the responsibility of looking after their dependents after the war. We have not taken care of their dependents, and we know it.
This bill is going to a committee and I sincerely hope we shall be given every opportunity to deal with all phases of the Pension Act and the War Veterans' Allowance Act. I shall not say any more at this time.


Mr. J. A. ROSS (Souris):: Mr. Speaker, as has been pointed out, we expect to be given ample opportunity to discuss this bill in committee. As the previous speaker (Mr. Quelch) has said, I trust that we shall be given an opportunity to rewrite this bill to some extent, but candidly I am not as hopeful as he is in that respect.
There are two or three things I should like to point out. First I am disappointed that in framing this bill consideration has not been given to providing for war widows and for the widows of pensioners.
Secondly, I am of the opinion that provision should also have been made for the dependents of those who die on active service in Canada.
I can visualize a young man, with a young wife and a family of small children, giving up a good position to serve in our armed forces at a rate of remuneration one-third less than he received in civil life. Should he become a casualty I do not think it is fair that the whole family should become a charge on the local municipality, which in some cases would be their only recourse.
With reference to the appeal board, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green), I think it is a retrograde step that we should be appointing a board of two members instead of the three that we have had in the past. In case of disagreement the case is referred for decision to a third party who has not even heard the evidence. Surely that is a retrograde step. I trust that we may have ample opportunity in committee to rectify it, as well as many other deficiencies in the bill.
Since we are going to discuss the bill in detail in committee, I shall not take up more of the time of the house now.


Mr. A. W. ROEBUCK (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, one of the great military hospitals is located in my riding, and I suppose few members of the house have more appeals made to them on behalf of veterans or their 
dependents than I have. Were there any public benefit to be gained by a discussion of this bill in detail now, I should wish to be heard extensively at this stage. But the bill is going to a committee, and the subject matter is largely one of detail rather than of general character.
Somebody has said that the people of Canada do not desire a tightening-up in this matter. I think I may say that the people of Canada desire neither the one nor the other, neither a tightening-up nor a broadening-out. If there is any public opinion at all on this matter it is that the Pension Act must be not generous, not mean, not niggardly, but just. The people of Canada are prepared to discharge their responsibilities with respect to the dependents of our soldiers abroad or in Canada, but the job of making the bill just and accurate is a job for a committee and not for the house in general. Therefore, sir, I join with others in saying that we should give the bill second reading and reserve details for discussion in the special committee.


Mr. D. G. ROSS (St. Paul's):: Mr. Speaker, I shall take only a few moments but I wish to say a few words about that small group of Canada's permanent army who retired prior to 1919 and were pensioned. In 1919 the government at Ottawa realized that in view of the increased cost of living the pensions being paid to long-service men of what was then known as the Royal Northwest Mounted Police and of the permanent army were inadequate, and accordingly the pensions to these men were increased in the neighbourhood of 500 per cent. I have spoken on this matter in the house before. I do not think it comes directly under this act, but undoubtedly something should be done about it. I am sure that a great many members have had this particular matter brought to their attention.


Arthur Wentworth Roebuck: May I ask the hon.
gentleman a question? Does he know that I have already applied to the prospective chairman of the special committee on this bill to have the veterans heard by the committee, and that they will be coming to Ottawa to make their representations?


Douglas Gooderham Ross: They have been asked to come to Ottawa a great many times since 1935 when they had this matter up, and they have had some very pleasant things said to them. I have here extracts from letters they have received from Ottawa, and if my hon. friend wants to get into a controversy about this thing I am ready. Here is a letter from, I think, the Minister of National Defence at that time, in which he states:
In my opinion your claim is based on complete fairness. I fully sympathize with you.

Pension Act-Mr. Hazen
12S9
Here is another letter from Mr. MacLean, of Prince Edward Island, and I have dozens more here. Here is one from the Postmaster General (Mr. Mulock). They have received all these letters but nothing has been done for them, and something must be done because the present situation is unfair to them. Let me state what some of the pensions of these men are.
Here is a man getting a pension of $17.93, and the present rate of pension for a similar case would be $93.00. Here is another one receiving $17.31, and the present pension would be $66.00. Here is another one receiving $9.99, and the present pension would be $48.00. Here .is another receiving $20.60 and the present pension would be $41.81. I am bringing this matter to the attention of the house to get something done for these men. There is only a small group of them but their claims have been under consideration now for five or six years and it is time that action was taken if we are ever going to get any action at all.
There is another matter on which I wish to say something. When a soldier in Canada is on leave he is not supposed to be on duty, and if he is injured on leave he gets no pension. Under the present arrangements the only way in which many of our soldiers can travel from one place to another in Canada is by hitch-hiking. No free transportation on the railways is supplied to them, and it costs money to travel from place to place; therefore they travel in automobiles in which they seek rides. In some of the provinces, if a passenger is injured in a motor car accident he has no claim against the driver, and therefore he has no comeback. It seems to me that the government ought to do something about providing transportation for these men. Surely that could be done; or when they are on leave and travelling from one place to another, if they meet with an accident, they should be considered as being on duty. It is unfair that they should have no right to a pension if an accident happens on their weekend leave.
There is another appeal which we made in the house last year and again this year, and that is on behalf of widows. I sipoke on their behalf the other day and I wish to add a few words to-day. I think the government in this bill could very easily reduce the percentage of pensionable disability so that the widow could qualify and get her pension. These widows are all getting older and many of them are in a very bad way financially. We could take this step now quite easily, and if the government do not feel like going 14873-82
the whole way we could at least meet the claims of these widows half way so that all of these widows might get some pension.
I am not a member of the committee but I hope the committee will make a great many changes in the bill as it stands at present.


Mr. D. K. HAZEN (St. John-Albert):: A number of important suggestions have been made this afternoon concerning this bill, all of which no doubt will be given careful consideration by the committee to which it will be referred. I am not a member of the committee, and I should like to make one or two suggestions now, in the hope that they will receive attention.
The first is that this bill include a class of men who are not mentioned in it at the present time-the men who belong to Canada's merchant marine. These men face during this war, and up to the present time have faced perhaps as great danger, and probably more, than most of our fighting forces. Some recognition should be given of their services, by including them within the provisions of this bill. It could be done by amending paragraphs (i) and (j) of section 1. I do not want to elaborate on this matter, but I hope the committee will seriously consider the inclusion of members of Canada's merchant marine who have served on the high seas.
One other suggestion I would make; it has to do with section 5 of the bill, section 11 of the old act, namely, that at the end of paragraph (a) the following words be added: "while on or off duty." The last line of the paragraph would then read:
-attributable to or was incurred during such war service, while on or off duty.
Possibly after those words there might be added: "if not disobeying orders."


Mr. J. J. KINLEY (Queens-Lunenburg):: I wish to say just a word or two with regard to pensions as they affect Canadian seamen. Nothing in this bill refers to Canadian seamen as such, but some time ago the government passed an order in council-a very generous order in council, I think-which says in effect that seamen and fishermen in the performance of their duties who suffer by reason of contact with the enemy shall be given the same privileges with regard to pension as are given to the active forces of the country. However, as has been brought out by the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis), it appears that this refers only to Canadian seamen on ships of Canadian registry. Might I point out to you, sir, and to the house, that the number of ships of Canadian registry which travel overseas or are in the overseas trade is very

Pension Act-Mr. Kinley

small indeed. Even the ships which are commonly called Canadian and operated by big Canadian companies are registered in Great Britain. The present limitation would restrict these benefits to a very small number of Canadian seamen and-what is worse-would leave out many who would be eminently qualified for pension.
I	recall that soon after the Jervis Bay went down in her fight on the Atlantic, I met a young man of my town who was a member of that crew. A great many seamen along the coast of Nova Scotia are on oil tankers and on ships of every register. We must recognize that service upon the sea is a common service to all countries. Whether you are on a British ship or some other ship, you are still working for the cause of the empire; it is, as it were, a universal service which extends beyond the boundaries of any one country. Furthermore, those who were so anxious to serve that they joined a foreign ship or a ship outside of Canadian registry are in most cases serving aboard an empire ship; for do not forget that the shipping of Norway, the Netherlands and some other countries is controlled by our own empire, so that these men in reality are working under the direction of the central authority of the empire that is carrying on this war. It will cause a great deal of trouble and much suffering in my part of the country if these brave Canadians who are serving on ships on the high seas are debarred from the privilege of receiving pension from the country which they so well serve.
I am not a member of this committee, but I hope that the minister, and through him the government, will see to it that the generous treatment which they have accorded to seamen-a new departure in the statutes of this country-will be further amplified in the direction I have mentioned. Such treatment will be well deserved, arid will acknowledge a service which is most vital at the present time, when a Macedonian cry has gone out for more ships, a call by the head of the British empire. We must have crews 'to man those ships, and those men must have the very best treatment we can give them.


Mr. THOMAS REID (New Westminster):: With many of the statements and suggestions made this afternoon in connection with this bill I am in hearty accord; but, realizing that the bill can be better and more fully discussed in the committee, it is my intention to devote only a few minutes to it at this time.
I have one suggestion to make to the government. It has not been touched upon by any other speaker, and I doubt whether

it has been brought forward before. We all realize that, no matter how good the bill or what fine words we place in it, unless we have, in charge of the administration of it, those who will carry out the spirit and intent of parliament, it will not operate as fully and effectively as it should.
Perhaps my suggestion will not meet the approval of many of the commissioners, or of the officer class of the army, but, as one who has taken an active part in the affairs of returned men, I say this after many years' experience. I am not casting any reflection on the present personnel of the commission; to my mind many of its members have at heart the entire interests of the ex-service men, but I am offering this suggestion to the minister, that he change somewhat the personnel of the commission and place upon it at least one private soldier. I know that in days past, when the act was being administered by men who had been generals and other high officers, they still carried with them that class distinction. I say that in all sincerity. I am of the opinion that it would help the returned man to know that his appeal was being heard by a board at least one of whose members had held a rank similar to his, a man who had been one of the rank and file. I say that without casting any reflection whatever upon any member of the present commission or of the war veterans' allowance board. I make the statement in all sincerity after an experience of something like sixteen and a half 5'ears with ex-service men's affairs.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I have no intention of delaying the house with respect to this measure, but I desire to make one or two observations. The bill is necessary at this time because of certain general principles that are incorporated-the extension of "theatre of actual war" to the British isles, for instance, as contained in the section dealing with definitions; the question of the extension of "war service", as contained in paragraph (p) of the same section, and other matters. There are other features that are really objectionable, and since the bill is to go to a special committee, not to be dealt with in committee here, at least until it returns from that special committee, I take this opportunity of calling the attention of hon. members to section 4, which amends the present section 9 of the act as enacted in 1932-33, then section 10B.
Underlying that section is a pernicious principle. It is legislating a pension to a man who otherwise is not entitled to it and who-I do not know who he is or what the amount of the proposed pension is, but it must be quite substantial-has probably been

Pension Act-Mr. Hanson (York-Sunbury)
in receipt of a substantial salary for a long period of years but not quite sufficient to qualify him automatically for a pension as the law now stands.
My mind is not unduly suspicious, but I think I am right and the minister should make a statement with regard to the matter. I desire to call attention to this situation. It is exactly on all fours with a provision that appeared in the estimates of last session with respect to a high salaried official of the government who retired from the public service. The principle is exactly the same. Hon. gentlemen will recall what happened to that item in the estimates in the dying days of last session. Hon. gentlemen to my right, in what is sometimes called the rump, are entitled to a good deal of credit for what they did on that occasion. When I read the discussion I was sorry that I had gone home because I should like to have heard it.
I warn the House of Commons of Canada that this is special legislation in the interests of one individual who by law to-day is not entitled to it.


Mr. NEILL:: Put it in the estimates.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That would be coming out into the open and telling who he is and how much he is to get.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who is he?


Richard Burpee Hanson: Ask the minister; he will tell the hon. member better than I can. I have only a suspicion, but I think I know. I am not an authority; he is. Ask him. I have said enough on that to call attention to the situation. That is my duty and no more.
I assume as a matter of principle that when a bill of this sort is brought down by a member of the government, it ordinarily represents the considered policy of the government. I am disturbed to think that this is a bureaucrat's bill, as suggested, though not in those terms, by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green). It is the settled policy of the government, for which of course it takes responsibility. Pension measures in days gone by have, of course, always been brought in in that way, but it was well understood that when they were referred to a special committee, as has been done as long as I can remember, the committee was not bound by the terms of government policy as expressed in the bill and was at liberty to make other recommendations. I was disturbed to hear the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) suggest that the committee would not be at liberty to propose, or at least that the government would not listen to, recommendations that might be brought in with regard to a change in the bill. I should 14873-82}
like the minister to reassure the house that this is not so, that the government will give heed to recommendations of the special committee. Having regard to the responsibility which the government has, as the custodian of the public purse, the treasury, at the present time-with that limitation-I think the minister might give consideration to the suggestion that I make, that when the special committee reports on matters of principle and matters of detail, the government will give favourable consideration as far as possible within certain limitations which I will not attempt to define at present.


Mr. DANIEL McIVOR (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, my advice is that perhaps more consideration be given to the findings of the local doctor than possibly has been given heretofore. I will cite one case-I do not mind giving the doctor's name. He is an honour graduate, a gold medallist. This doctor found his patient not fit for work. He felt that there was something wrong and discovered afterwards that there was shrapnel in the man's liver. The man, however, could never get a pension. He died, and I should like to see his wife get a pension.
I must say that I have had the heartiest cooperation from Brigadier-General McDonald and his staff, and I expect good results in this case, but I suggest that the local doctor's findings are most important.


Mr. T. C. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: I do not think the statement of the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) should be misunderstood, or the attitude he took. It is generally understood that when a bill is given second reading, it means that we are accepting the principle; and while the committee who will take this bill under consideration have it within their power to suggest changes and amendments, the general principle contained in the bill will remain after it has been given its second reading in this house.
In our view that should not be the situation, because there are embodied in this bill principles which we believe should not be accepted. Not only the details and terms of the bill but also some of the principles ought to be referred to the committee. We have particular reference to the removal of the principle of insurance. Up to the present time it has been understood that from the time a man donned the king's uniform until he was demobilized he was insured with regard to becoming disabled or being killed, that there was definite protection for himself and for his dependents should anything happen to him, irrespective of where or how it happened. What we are proposing to do under this bill is, as I understand it, to draw a line, by which,
1292	COMMONS
Pension Act-Mr. Douglas (Weybum)
if his accident happens in Canada, a man will have to show, or his widow will have to show in the event of his death, that his injury came about as the result of his military duty. That is going to raise a great many difficult points, and there will be many borderline cases.
I have in mind a young man who was in the active service force for something over a year; he joined in September, 1939, and was discharged in December, 1940. He was fit and a good soldier. He slipped while taking a shower bath, fell and injured his spine. He was brought back to Weybum and discharged with a month's pay. What is that man's position under this legislation? In this particular case the returned men in the district rallied round him and he was given a job in the local mental hospital, and has been able to support himself and his family.
But multiply that case by many hundreds that we are bound to have, and the department will find itself faced with innumerable difficulties. This bill does away with the covering principle of insurance and the sense of security of men in uniform. The committee should give this matter serious consideration. There may be many cases like the one I have mentioned, and that is not good advertising. Young men contemplating entering the service, particularly married men with dependents, are going to view with some trepidation the removal of the insurance principle and the bringing in of a principle which requires a man to show that his injury, or his widow to show that his death, was directly due to his military service. What the hon. member for Cape Breton South had in mind is, I think, valid, that in allowing this bill to go to the committee we are not accepting the principle of removing the insurance principle that has always existed, but we want the committee to give the matter most careful consideration and, if possible, bring in something more satisfactory.


Mr. J. H. BLACKMORE (Lethbridge):: To all realistic, right-minded people this bill is positively disgusting. The principle of the bill is the principle of scarcity, under which we have worked for a hundred years. It is a niggardly, cheese-paring and restrictive measure. This government asks for a total war; it asks the people to give their all. The risks involved are tremendous. Surely the government ought to be prepared to take the risk along with the men and their wives and children. This bill is conceived and modelled in the atmosphere of reaction; it looks backward instead of forward. It ignores two fundamental facts. The first is that what is physically possible must be made financially 
possible; if not in this generation of blindness and lack of vision, it must in the next generation. The second fact ignored is that we are progressing into an age which will be even more an age of plenty than that in which we now live; consequently there will be more unemployment, fewer markets, heavier taxation, greater restrictions on everyone engaged in an effort to make a living. If it was next to impossible for men to make a living before they joined the forces; if they had to be content with meagre pittances such as $7.50 a month for working on a farm, how on earth are they going to support themselves when they come back from this war?
There is plenty of money to equip these men for war. There must be found money to support them as well as their dependents after the war. There are at the present time many widows of soldiers who fought in the last war who cannot get work. They are efficient women, capable of doing good work. I could name one here in Ottawa who is thoroughly qualified to take as fine a position as can be found in the civil service, and that woman cannot even get a hearing. She is only one of thousands. Nevertheless we have ministers of the crown prating about lack of men and lack of help in this country. It is disgusting. It is disgraceful. As long as we allow ourselves to be hoodwinked by such plausibility, such specious reasoning, we are unfit for the positions we hold.
There are in Canada veterans by the ten thousand who cannot get work, not because they are not qualified but because they happen to be a few years too old. What is going to be the situation twenty or thirty or forty years from now? Surely we are not going to ask people rising out of the mire of misery and poverty to risk their all, to fall back afterwards into a similar mire. There are in this country returned men's children 'by the ten thousand who can get no work. Under provincial laws, when a widow's child becomes fifteen or sixteen years of age the widow's allowance is cut off, the assumption apparently being that a child of fifteen or sixteen can immediately get work and thereby contribute to the support of the family. Under the present circumstances that is utterly absurd, and every hon. member knows it. Then why not face facts as they are?
To-day there are countless returned men engaged in production who cannot sell their product for enough to yield them a living. We have farmers by the ten thousand-not all are returned men but many are-who are in that state. There are thousands of manufacturers; tens of thousands of tradesmen, such as carpenters, blacksmiths, builders of

Pension Act-Mr. Blackmore
various kinds; thousands of professional men, such as lawyers, doctors, teachers and the like, returned men, who cannot by any possible means make enough to support themselves in a decent, respectable manner. They are on the verge of bankruptcy all the time. Yet this bill is apparently designed to perpetuate these abominations into the next generation. When one considers the number of provinces in this dominion which put such licence restrictions around men that it is virtually impossible for a tradesman to go out and get work, unless he happens to be able to qualify for a licence, utterly disregarding the possibility of the man's making a living, in the event of his not being able to get work at his trade, it is a disgrace to the house and to the country that in the presence of such a situation we calmly contemplate a measure like this.
If the condition has been so bad up to the present time, then I ask any hon. member: What do you suppose it will be when the men come back? Let us be realistic. Why not give a pension to all the men who go into the forces, all the men who serve? Why not remove them from the competition in work and production, unless they choose to go into that competition? This thought may startle people, but there has to be something that will startle people, something widely different from anything which has been conceived in high places thus far, and widely different from anything which has been made to prevail in this country thus far.
The question we need to ask ourselves is this: Is this Canada of ours able to produce enough food, enough clothes, enough shelter, enough education, enough culture and enough recreation to provide for the men who don the king's uniform, both while they are in that uniform and afterwards, with all the food, clothing, shelter, education, culture, and recreation they need? If that question is asked, then the answer simply must be yes. I would defy any man in this house successfully to controvert that statement.
If then it is physically possible-and it is going to be physically possible, provided we are able to defend this land

to give those men the standard of living we all know they ought to have, then why not seriously contemplate it now?
After the war we should be able to do a great deal better than we are doing to-day. If it is possible for us to produce all these goods now, what will be the condition after the war? I ask this: What are we going to do with this great amount of bacon we now are gearing ourselves to produce and to supply to Great Britain, when no longer the British
people are able to take it, or when they are able to produce their own? What are we going to do with the butter, the cheese and the great amount of clothing we are now enabling ourselves to produce? Are we going to stop producing them, and let men suffer? What a piece of monstrous nonsense even to think ofl What are we going to do with the great amount of manufacturing power we are building up in the production of ammunition? Are we going to dismantle the ammunition plants, and turn the men on the streets, saying to them, "We have no further need for you; go and ride the rods"? Are we going to tell them, "Go out into your cities and go on relief, so that the municipalities may keep you"? Why in the name of common sense can we not put those men to work producing food, clothing, shelter and other things, and distributing them among the people of Canada, and thus give the returned men something like a proper standard of living?
What are we going to do about the many devices being perfected during this war to speed up production? What are we going to do with the aeroplanes we shall have in such great abundance when the war is over? Are we going to use them for the betterment of our people? Are we going to use them for the betterment of the people of the world, or are we going to take them out and scrap them? Can any one contemplate the latter proposal with equanimity? If we are going to use them, then we are going to use them for some purpose of production. What are we going to do with the production? We must set ourselves to discover a new system, a new economic order, which will enable us to distribute our goods among our people. Once that is done we shall never have any more worry about supplying men with a fair standard of living. If this government cannot discover a system of distribution, then I say shame on the government, shame on every single man who occupies a cabinet position and shame on every man who sits in support of it.


Mr. MacNICOL:: That is surely shame enough.


John Horne Blackmore: I am merely saying what is going to be echoed by the generations of the future, and what is being echoed to-day by hundreds of thousands in Canada, from end to end of the land.
This bill is a digrace to Canada. It is an insult to this house. Every member is ashamed of it. I know that, from talking with the members individually; I know the attitude they take. They are just as anxious as I am to see the returned men have a fair chance; that means they must be ashamed of this bill.
Pension Act-Mr. White

Every private member, every minister, must be mortified to contemplate this bill. If the government could not do better thani present legislation such as that we now have before us, then let everyone in Canada know it, and know it now.
Let us in this house, all of us, sir, be worthy of the trust conferred upon us. Let us for once not betray Canada. Let us demand what we want. Let us be realistic. Let us decide what is physically possible in Canada, and then let us insist on what is physically possible being made financially possible, for our fighting forces.
If the present financial system be such that it must say it cannot be done, that system thereby declares its own condemnation, insufficiency, impotence, and ineptitude. It gives notice that it is no longer worthy of the respect of any intelligent community. I ask the committee to give us a bill fit to appear in a modem British legislature. I then ask the house to demand that the government make the implementation of that bill possible.


Mr. G. S. WHITE (Hastings-Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, I should like, first, to deal with the remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green). He brought out many valuable suggestions with which I am sure the committee will deal fully. I should like, too, to associate myself with the observation of the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) to the effect that, after the bill is passed-and I think it will be a fine one when it is completed, despite the violent speech of the previous speaker-in the administration of the act, over which we as members will have no control, there should be on the board at least one man who during the war served as a private soldier.
At the last session the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) laid down the principle that all future officers in the army must come from the ranks, thereby indicating that at this late date the army recognizes the fact that the most efficient officer must come from the ranks because of his first having served as a private, having become a non-commissioned officer and having later on been promoted to the rank of an officer. Every officer who began service as a private and then served as a non-commissioned officer always understands the private's point of view. One of the great faults in connection with the administration of the Pension Act is that practically all who are in charge-doctors and other officials -never served as privates or non-commissioned officers, and therefore do not understand the viewpoint of the private soldier.
I have dealt with the pension board for twenty years. Since this war began, a battalion left

from my riding for overseas. Quite a number of men have been returned home because of illness or injuries received through bombings and things of that kind. I have made various applications to the pension board and I regret to say that, despite what the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) has said, I have received little satisfaction, the board is already tough; quite frequently a letter comes back with two excuses: first, that the injury complained of is not due to military service and, second, that the injury complained of has not been aggravated by military service. Yet in 1939 these men passed a strict examination by a board of three doctors. They were X-rayed and accepted in category A. They went to England and within a few months or a year were returned home and placed in category D or E. Yet these men cannot obtain pensions. That is why I agree with the hon. member for New Westminster when he says that it is in the administration of the Pension Act that we are perhaps falling down.
Unfortunately, when a private soldier or a non-commissioned officer goes to the pension board, he finds that there still clings to that board a trace of the old military discipline. A distinction is made between the private and the officer. I should like to outline one case briefly. This occurred two years ago in my riding. This man, a private soldier, suffered a recurrence of a serious wound which he had received over twenty years ago. The local medical doctor in the pension department sent the man to the Kingston general hospital, where a small number of rooms are reserved for military patients. He was attended by one of the leading physicians in Kingston; he was dangerously ill and it was a question whether he would live. The doctor in charge gave instructions that he should be placed in a private room and be provided with a private nurse because he was delirious much of the time. He was moved to a private room and furnished with a private nurse, but when it caime time to pay for this service he found that he had to pay the money out of his own pocket. The total amount paid to the Kingston hospital was $79.50.
I took up the matter with the pension board, and the administrator told me himself -this is not hearsay-that under the regulations as they stood at that date there was no provision for a private soldier to be furnished with a private room in a hospital and a private nurse. I asked him if he considered that a private soldier was not of sufficient importance to Canada to be entitled to a private nurse when his life was in danger, but the administrator said that he

Pension Act-Mr. Mackenzie
was sorry, the regulations contained no provision for that. To date that man has never been reimbursed for the money he paid to the hospital. The disability from which he suffered was 100 per cent due to the effects of his war wound. We may pass the finest act under the sun and yet have it fall down in administration. If we had a few private soldiers active in the administration of this legislation, much of the present trouble would disappear.
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Pensions and National Health): Mr. Speaker,
I think the house will generally agree that we have had a most vigorous debate upon the second reading of this bill. I am not going to endeavour to reply to the extremely extravagant, and to my mind unjustifiable language used by the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore) with regard to this measure. I venture to suggest to my hon. friend that he has not given a wide study to the terms of this bill. If he had, he would have been more conscious of his definite responsibility as a member of this house than to use such extreme and extravagant language.
As I said the other day, there is a tradition in this house with regard to measures dealing with pensions. In days gone by, that tradition has always enabled the house to deal with such measures on a strictly non-partisan basis. During the course of this debate many hon. members seem to have forgotten the terms of reference to the select committee which was agreed to the other day by this house. Not only is this particular measure to be referred to that select committee, but the general provisions of our pension legislation as well as the War Veterans' Allowance Act are also referred to the committee. That committee will have complete jurisdiction, not only to consider and pass upon the adequacy or otherwise of the present measure, but to discuss other provisions of the Pension Act or phases of the pension administration. If hon. members had been mindful and conscious of that fact during the course of this debate, many of the statements which were made would not have been made.
I can say that it was not necessary for the government to introduce this bill at this time, from the point of view either of authority or of administration. We could have functioned until the end of this war. As a matter of fact, it was thought better that this bill should be submitted or that the basic principle should be submitted to the attention of parliament at this time so that a free and unfettered judgment could be passed thereon. Could
anything be more fair than that? Yet the hon. member for Lethbridge uses the words "disgraceful and disgusting."


John Horne Blackmore: That the bill is.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Can my hon. friend tell me a single instance in which this measure is either one or the other?


John Horne Blackmore: People from end to end of Canada are saying it.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) made a most intelligent analysis of the measure. He has a deep knowledge of pension matters, but he pointed to only one principle in this measure which could be criticized. There is not a single removal of any right or privilege enjoyed by the exservice man of the great war, with the possible exception of that reducing the quorum of the pension board from three to two. Is there any one in this house who disputes that statement? There is not a single right being taken away from the ex-service man.


John Horne Blackmore: What about the-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Would my hon. friend kindly maintain silence?


Howard Charles Green: If the minister wants a particular case, I would say that all the points I raised are restrictions.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: There was not a single point raised by my hon. friend. He dealt only with requests made in years gone by, which were not granted, or with provisions affecting those serving in the present war. He cannot show me one paragraph in this bill which takes away a single right enjoyed by the ex-service man to-day.


John Horne Blackmore: Does the minister
consider that the legislation we have had during the last five years has been adequate?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I have never considered that any pension act was adequate. During my private and public life I have done far more to make our pension legislation adequate than has the hon. member for Lethbridge. We cannot improve legislation by extremism. We can improve it only by cooperation, by working together as Canadian citizens. It cannot be improved by introducing the elements of weird finance into the debate. I understood the hon. member for Vancouver South to say, in reply to an interjection by his leader, that the appeal board heard evidence away from the individual.


Richard Burpee Hanson: No.
Pension Act-Mr. Mackenzie


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I am glad to be corrected. My hon. friend must know that the final stage of the hearing is held in the presence of the applicant.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It was suggested that with the quorum being reduced from three to two, the third member might be called upon to make a decision when he had not heard the evidence or seen the witnesses.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: If there is substantial objection to the number of the quorum, I shall be glad to leave it as it is. The leader of the opposition referred to another section as giving a pension to somebody. May I assure my hon. friend that we are doing nothing of the kind. If there is objection to that section, I shall have no hesitation in having it removed. An attempt is being made to make the period of service in another body count as service under the terms of the Pension Act in qualifying a man for pension. If there is objection to that section, let us strike it out. Not a single right is taken away from anyone by this bill.
With reference to the points that have been raised by the hon. member for Vancouver South, every one of them was discussed in years gone by in other committees of this house and every one of them was rejected.
With regard to those serving in the present war, a committee has been set up to consider this very question of service within Canada as against outside. An important question of principle is involved. It is, I might say, the only important question involved in this measure, apart from the extended benefits that are given to every Canadian serving with the imperial forces. That question will be thoroughly discussed by the committee. I can assure my hon. friend that no restrictions whatsoever will be placed on the committee's deliberations. There will be the fullest, freest, frankest discussion of the Pension Act generally, of war veteran allowances generally, and of all other measures which are necessary to effect a real rehabilitation of our ex-service men.
May I suggest in closing, Mr. Speaker, from what I have seen of the committee, that I know the spirit of the committee will be better than that which has been displayed by some members of the house this 
afternoon. I am sure the committee will meet in a spirit of cooperation and helpfulness and with an earnest desire to bring back into this house a measure which will do justice and fairness to our men who are doing so much not only for Canada but for the empire, the world and Christianity itself at the present time.


John Ritchie MacNicol: May I ask the minister, following the excellent statement which he has made on this measure, if the subject of widows' pensions will be brought before the
committee?
Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre:) Not only that, but it is my intention to ask my hon. friend himself to present their case.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the select committee on the Pension Act and war veterans' allowances.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, February 28, consideration in committee of a resolution to provide sums not exceeding $1,300,000,000 for the year ending March 31, 1942, for the carrying out of measures consequent upon the existence of a state of war-Mr. Ilsley-Mr. Macdonald (Kingston City) in the chair.
Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: Mr. Chairman, since I started to discuss the matter of aircraft production, events have happened which have made great changes in Europe and brought home to us the fury that may well sweep over Europe within the next few weeks. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said this afternoon that, so far as he knew at the present time, this session would be devoted in the main to a discussion of the war appropriation bill and the budget, that all our ideas would be directed to one matter, that of winning the war.
The attitude which we on this side of the house take is that we owe it as a duty to those whom we represent to do everything we can at this time and during this discussion to remove the veil of secrecy which to-day conceals from any of our people the gravity of the situation in this country and in the empire. Apathy must be swept aside because for too many people in this dominion the war is yet but a daily radio programme of changing events.

War Appropriation Bill
The attitude we take on this side of the house is that one of the things that will be of paramount importance in determining the outcome of this war is air power and aircraft production. We have heard from the Prime Minister himself that Canada's contribution to the air training scheme may well be the determining and decisive factor in this war. Churchill has called for planes, and still more planes.
I make these explanations for the reason that they accord me an opportunity of saying why I intend to devote some time this afternoon to a discussion of the speech delivered the other day by the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) and to the MacMillan report, and also to a discussion of the Breech report, be it written or be it verbal.
Let me say that my reason for suggesting the return of the former Prime Minister of this country to head a committee or commission to look into aircraft production in Canada was to assure the people of this dominion that there would be placed at the head of an investigation of our aircraft situation a man whose patriotism will never be doubted, a man whose industry and capabilities have meant so much in the past to this dominion.
We have business men in Canada to-day who are devoting their best talents to assisting this country at this time. I am not one of those who cast ridicule on men who are serving this country for one dollar a year. They are men whose aim is to contribute something to our war effort at this time, and I think one of the finest examples is Mr. H. R. MacMillan, chairman of the war-time requirements board, who in a speech delivered the other day in Vancouver epitomized the situation as he saw it as a result of the experience he had had. This is what he said in part:
In this case the balance sheet of Canada is the war. Nothing else matters. If we find that our capacity for making an effective war performance-say in the supply of ships and guns and aircraft and munitions-is defective, then it should be our duty to make the needed change without delay, and we should make it with one single motive, to increase the efficiency of our war effort.
Having regard to what has taken place and the objections that have been made by business men who have assumed positions of responsibility, naturally the question suggests
itself to all of us: Are the efforts of these business men being emasculated by controls exercised by government officials?
What of the aircraft situation? I have indicated the views of the Prime Minister and of Mr. Churchill on the importance of air power. Is the aircraft production situation in Canada to-day what it should be? The Minister of Munitions and Supply himself admitted that it was not, and he was quite frank in that regard. We have the right to know what the situation is. We have a responsibility not to sit by in silence and condone the failure of the government to organize properly the aircraft industry of this country.
Take the other side of the picture. What is the position in the United States of America? William Knudsen was appointed to take charge of aircraft production. What has happened? In December, 1940, it was expected that only 700 planes would be produced; the production was 799. In January, 1941, that production had increased to 1,306 planes, and it is ever on the increase, because the government of the United States realizes that only through an ever-accelerated aircraft production can the United States properly defend herself and assist this empire.
What of the situation in so far as Federal Aircraft Limited is concerned? The minister has stated that it was organized by the government to assure the production of fuselages for twin-engined Anson bombers, and to coordinate the industry throughout the dominion. It has failed to date. I say that, not in an attitude of gloating over that failure. The minister was optimistic last July when he spoke in this house, but he did not tell us it was optimism; at that time he indicated that the situation was such, with the organization of this particular corporation, that all would be well. These are his words on July 30, 1940, as reported in Hansard of that date at page 2116:
Early in 1941, we expect to have a production of 360 planes per month, or about 12 planes per day, Sundays and holidays included, on the basis of production now arranged for.
Those were his words. Production was arranged for; the expectation was placed before the house. Then he went on to say this:
In order to coordinate the work of these nine firms-
That is, those who were producing aircraft.
*-and to ensure a supply of raw materials, engines and instruments, as required, a wholly

War Appropriation Bill

Sovernment-owned company, Federal Aircraft limited, has been formed to take over the responsibility of the government for the production of aircraft of this type. It is anticipated that Canadian production of Ansons will commence before the end of this year.
That was the promise. The performance is that the promise is being carried into effect only in a very small measure. Why, even in November last, the minister asserted that all was well. According to Hansard, page 263 on November 20, he said this:
With regard to aircraft production, our aircraft industry is expanding rapidly and is producing planes to meet the requirements of the joint air training plan, and is also building operational aeroplanes for Great Britain and Canada. The output of planes is expanding each week in this new Canadian industry.
And then, a little further down:
The industry is in process of being reorganized on a production line basis.
That was the interim report. To-day the admission is that we are not producing sufficient planes for training purposes in Canada, and that it has become necessary to import such from the United' States.
What does Mr. MacMillan say in his report? His report on this matter appears on page 7 of the appendix to the Votes and Proceedings of February 27:
(L) Aircraft:
(1) (a) Anson's-Production might not start until after July, 1941, and might reach only 200 to 300 in 1941-
Compare that with the promise, the expectation in July, 1940. Mr. MacMillan continues:

but if carefully reorganized at several key points, and if time lost by failure of subcontractors can be recaptured, 1941 production might be doubled-
And so on. I ask the minister when he replies to tell the committee whether the "careful reorganization at several key points" has been proceeded with; if so, what was the nature of the reorganization, and1 what were the key points? Second, who are these subcontractors w'lio are to-day retarding the aircraft production of this dominion? I further ask him this, what reorganization is taking place to enable these qualified promises of production to become actualities? What assurance has parliament and this country that the record of failure established since the set-up of Federal Aircraft Limited, six months ago, will prove a foundation for success in the next six months?

I now refer the committee to an interview given by the Minister of Munitions and Supply, as reported in the Windsor Daily Star of February 1, 1941.


Mr. MARTIN:: That makes it an accurate report.


John George Diefenbaker: Commenting on reported aircraft production delays, Mr. Howe said that the Avro Anson bomber programme to provide machines for the empire air training plan would be at least three months behind schedule.
In November last he said that there would not be any falling behind schedule, but that Canada was able to produce these planes in sufficient numbers to meet the need.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Can the hon. member quote
my remarks to that effect?


John George Diefenbaker: I have just quoted them.


Clarence Decatur Howe: But they are not exactly
what the hon. member said the second time.


John George Diefenbaker: I will quote them
so that there will be no misunderstanding:
The output of planes is expanding each week in this new Canadian industry. Existing plants have been extended and new plants have been, and are being, constructed. The industry is in process of being reorganized on a productionline basis. Canada is now building complete aeroplanes-
And so on.
With regard to aircraft production, our aircraft industry is expanding rapidly and is producing planes to meet the requirements of the joint air training plan.
Does the minister say now that in November sufficient planes were being produced to meet the requirements of the air training scheme then?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes.


John George Diefenbaker: Then I ask the
minister when he replies to tell us what happened during the interval between November, 1940, when he gave the interview, and February 1, 1941. It is not the minister's responsibility, I know, because during part of the time he was away. What happened during the time from November 20 to February 1 to cause a falling away in the production of Anson trainers? I go on from there in referring to the interview:
He said he had not decided whether production could be speeded up by taking supervision of this project away from Federal Aircraft Limited, a company set up by the government last summer to handle the Anson job. "At the present moment I cannot see any guarantee

War Appropriation Bill
that we could get planes more quickly if we upset the applecart and took this job out of the hands of those we organized to handle it" he said. "But we are still studying the situation. Our only object is to get the planes in the quickest way."
I now ask the minister to tell the committee whether the matter is still being considered, whether the continuation or discontinuance of this particular corporation is now being considered, or whether a final decision has been arrived at. I refer further to a statement that the minister made on his return from overseas, as reported in the press:
Federal Aircraft is in no worse shape than the rest of the aircraft industry in Canada.
Was that statement made as an excuse or as an indictment, because, when I read Mr. MacMillan's report, I find that the Noorduyn company, the Fleet, and the de Havilland are all on a smooth running basis and that their orders are being completed. They are commended for their efficiency?


Clarence Decatur Howe: It does not say they are up to schedule, though.


John George Diefenbaker: That is the information which the committee wants, whether or not these companies are up to schedule.


Clarence Decatur Howe: If the hon. member will read a recent Hansard he will get pretty much all the information he wants. He is sort of beating the air, it seems to me.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is a provocative statement.


John George Diefenbaker: The minister gave to the house before, in July and November, information that has not been justified by subsequent events, and we accepted those statements then. We are asking to-day to be assured that in the coming months the promises and the expectations of to-day will be the realization of to-morrow There were delays from July until now, delays until the 1st of July, 1941. The people of the country have a right to demand that these delays shall no longer be tolerated. If these machines are not turned out as they should-and the minister has been frank in that regard in saying that they have not been-then what the committee and the country want to know is, what changes will be effected that will ensure that such a condition shall not continue until the march by Hitler against the British empire commences?
The minister says that, because of the fact that we are able to secure supplies from the United States of America, our air training plan is not suffering. Yes. But if, perchance, that country went to war and it became necessary, 14873-834
in consequence, to assure a supply of these training planes for the United States, where would this nation be?
The MacMillan report says that the subcontractors have been to blame. Who they are we do not know; where they are we do not know. The committee wants to know, too, why it was that Federal Aircraft, set up as a designing corporation, went into private manufacture and acquired premises for factory purposes in the city of Montreal within the last few months. Who made the decision to alter the set-up of Federal Aircraft in that regard? Was it the company, or was it the minister himself? The minister has made the statement that all the plants in Canada are operating to capacity, and his explanation for delays is the fact that the industry is a new one and that it is not properly developed. I ask him, then, why it is that the de Havilland Corporation to-day is finding it necessary to reduce its shifts and hours. I ask why the Cub Aircraft Corporation in Hamilton, Ontario, which I am informed is able to produce Avro parts, is not being utilized. I ask why National Steel Car at Malton is not being operated to full capacity. Is it the subcontractors? Have they fallen down? If they have-and the evidence seems clear that they have-then I suggest to the minister that under the powers contained in the National Resources Mobilization Act the government act now and take over these corporations that are delinquent. Last June this legislation, the National Resources Mobilization Act, was put through the house, and we were told that it was necessary to ensure its early passage so that something could be done without delay. Here are the powers:
Subject to the provisions of section three hereof, the governor in council may do and authorize such acts and things, and make from time to time orders and regulations, requiring persons to place themselves, their services and their property at the disposal of His Majesty in the right of Canada, as may be deemed necessary or expedient for securing the public safety, the defence of Canada, the maintenance of public order, or the efficient prosecution of the war, or for maintaining supplies or services essential to the life of the community.
The power is there. It was not put there for no purpose. It has not yet been used.
We now come to one other report, the Breech report.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Does the hon. member know anything about a Breech report? I am sure I do not. What information has he on it? Is there such a report?


Richard Burpee Hanson: That i* what we should like to know.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I know of none.
War Appropriation Bill


John George Diefenbaker: The minister says he knows nothing about the Breech report. Is there such a report as the Breech report? At page 922 of Hansard of February 21 the minister is reported as follows:
I can say to my hon. friend, however, who believes, as does the leader of the opposition, that the Breech report recommended that the Anson programme should be taken away from Federal Aircraft, that it recommended nothing of the sort. It recommended that it be not taken away from Federal Aircraft. It made one or two recommendations in connection with the organization of Federal Aircraft, but said the programme was rapidly rounding into shape. That shows how far afield we can sometimes get.
I now ask the minister to tell the committee about this Breech report; what were its recommendations? He has stated that it recommended that the Anson programme be not taken away from Federal Aircraft, and made one or two recommendations in connection with the organization of aircraft. Therefore, I now ask the minister to tell us something about that report. He told us a few minutes ago that it does not exist. On February 21 he told of its existence. Then he went on to say:
Perhaps I can lay on the table the part of the report referring to aircraft, but I am afraid that hon. members would then ask for the rest of it. . . .
And then he said:
So far as the report of Mr. Breech is concerned, I have never seen it.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Let me read the context of what my hon. friend is now reading. Before that, I said:
I should like to give the house the report from Mr. Breech, but unfortunately that was made orally to the wartime requirements board.


Richard Burpee Hanson: There was a report, written or verbal.


Clarence Decatur Howe: It was, I presume, in Mr. MacMillan's report to myself. That is just what I said. My hon. friend just passed my words by in reading the statement to the committee.


John George Diefenbaker: As the hon. gentleman said, "That shows how far afield we can sometimes get."
What is the nature of the recommendations? Further, with reference to what the minister has stated, I ask him, what information did he get from Mr. MacMillan and Mr. Henry as to the contents of that report? He said:
So far as the report of Mr. Breech is concerned, I have never seen it. It was made orally I think. I have questioned Mr. MacMillan and Mr. Henry, who accompanied Mr. Breech-


Clarence Decatur Howe: I said Mr. Carmichael, I notice it is misreported in Hansard.


John George Diefenbaker: Then it should be Mr. Carmichael.
-and I have every reason to believe that the views of Mr. Breech are reflected in Mr. MacMillan's report.
There is only one way in which the minister would have reason to believe that, that is, if he knew what Mr. Breech's views were. 1 ask him to elucidate that and explain it for the benefit of the committee.
The minister seems loath to disband Federal Aircraft, and I am not saying that he is not justified in his view. But what we want to know is, what are the reasons why a company that to date has been unsuccessful should be continued in existence.
I also wish the minister to advise this committee whether the Breech report recommended a reduction in the number of aircraft types to be built in Canada; also whether it recommended that R. P. Bell, the present director-general of aircraft production, should have wider powers and be free to make his decisions in connection with aircraft production without interference of any kind.
There were certain suggestions that I placed before the house the other day. In addition to those, I should like to ask the Minister of Finance as well as the Minister of Munitions and Supply to inform the committee whether a decision has been arrived at on the part of the government that the major portion of Canada's war effort should be restricted to the army or to the air force, because I notice that during the year ending January 31 some 3141,000,000 more was expended upon the army, upon the militia, than upon the air force. Yet we have been given to understand from time to time that aircraft production, personnel, et cetera, were considered one of the most important contributions that Canada could make.
With regard to Federal Aircraft, I would ask him to advise whether in his opinion its failure has been due in part to divided control. In England the government has set up no such corporation. Their efforts have won the admiration of the world. Each service is under the direct responsibility and supervision of a minister, aircraft production being under Lord Beaverbrook who is a member of the war cabinet and makes his report direct to parliament.
There is another phase I wish to take up, with a view to suggesting to the government that efforts be made and sanctions be adopted with a view to assuring that maximum efficiency shall characterize the expenditure of the moneys that are to-day being raised by both loan and taxation. The committee on war expenditures that was set up in Great

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Britain studied this question at great length and came to conclusions that might very well be adopted by this parliament. I am not going into the matter in detail, except to refer to one recommendation that was made:
Your committee desire to record their emphatic opinion that no industry should be exempt from obligation to submit its costs to investigation by government accountants for the purpose of determining the prices to be paid under non-competitive contracts with government departments together with more supervision of costs where contracts are let on a cost-plus basis.
I am suggesting the adoption of a like principle for the consideration of the minister, in order to allay any suggestion of suspicion or concern in this country that will in any way undermine our war effort, because uncertainty and fear and suspicion will breed apathy in this nation and will result in a slackening of our war effort.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.
Mr. DIEFENBAIvER: Mr. Chairman, when the committee took recess I was dealing with the recommendation of the committee in the United Kingdom. I now pass on to another phase, and suggest that the government use the national registration to secure the labour categories which in course of time may become scarce, particularly with a view to ensuring that all technical men shall be mobilized in the service of the state.
I,	too, add my plea to that made by other hon. members that more effective use be made of smaller plants located throughout the dominion. I am more than pleased with the action of the government, taken with a view to securing stricter control of expenditures and to make possible the recommending of economies, in setting up the committee on war expenditures.
I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) state yesterday, if I understood him correctly, that so far as he was concerned the government was not going to demand that the committee sit in secret. In my opinion the only occasions upon which it should hold secret meetings would be those when the national safety might be jeopardized. I believe, if the meetings throughout are held in secret, suspicion will be aroused in the minds of some people that politics are being played. On the other hand if, for the most part, the sessions of the committee are held openly, the people of Canada will be able to judge as to what members of the committee
are endeavouring in any way to play politics, whether they be on the side of the government or of the opposition.
There must be stricter control of expenditures; the people have asked for it. I was pleased with the attitude displayed by the hon. member for St. Antoine-Westmount (Mr. Abbott) and the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Thorson). Their attitude was that taken by this party, namely, that it will be our desire to enter the committee in a sincere spirit of patriotism. We will approach the work, not with a desire to search out picayune faults, but with an honest desire to help the war effort, and to make recommendations, general as they must be, to speed up the tempo of the war effort. We will endeavour to ascertain what, if anything, is holding up the production of munitions, if indeed there is such a hold-up; and, in particular, we will inquire into the hold-up in aircraft production and have an opportunity to suggest remedies.
The people, however, must not expect too much from the committee. If we are to sit until the end of the session, a matter of only two months and a half, at the outside, in view of the fact that to this date 85,000 contracts have been awarded and 1,500 new contracts are being awarded each week, it must be realized that all the committee can do is to generalize. It will not and cannot, as I conceive the situation to be, enter into consideration of individual contracts.
The attitude of Conservative members on the committee, as it has been in the house, will be to subordinate party interests to the public good, just as the blueprint of this party since the outbreak of the war has been to couple fair criticism with honest cooperation with the government in a national war effort.	[DOT]
In conclusion, I would say that, before this debate is concluded, we want action with regard to the matter of aircraft production. The country must be assured that the failures of the past will be rectified. It must be assured that anyone who to-day is hampering production in any of the departments, either through inefficiency or negligence, must go. After eighteen months of war, the period of trial and error should be over. We do not wish to criticize only for the sake of advancing arguments to injure the government. Far be it from us to take that attitude,-although the government has shown signs of being allergic to all types of criticism. Our attitude is that aircraft production must be speeded up. In this life and death struggle there will be no second chance for our empire. Excuses for non-production of aeroplanes or other munitions of war will avail nothing when the test with Hitler arises.
War Appropriation Bill

To-day people are making demands. They are asking us-and that is why we are here- to get assurance that the maximum war effort of which this country is capable shall be given. They are asking for a maximum, measured not in terms of amounts but rather in amounts coupled with effectiveness and efficiency. The people of Canada want to help. They want the facts. They are prepared to face those facts, and if mistakes have been made they want to know that those mistakes have not been and will not be condoned.
Let us all in a spirit of cooperation and calm deliberation meet this challenge to our very liberties and our lives; and when a course is decided upon or when changes must be made in the interests of the safety of the state, let us proceed to carry out those plans ruthlessly and with determination.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: Mr. Chairman, I had hoped not to say anything in this debate, because I know the minister is quite capable of taking care of himself. I would, however, be derelict in my duty if I did not say that we are thankful to the Almighty that he is here tonight and is able to come bubbling up over the top of all this fighting just as safely as he did) when that boat was sunk on the other side of the Atlantic. I feel it is the duty of hon. members to show up any weak spots, but when the hon. member for Weybum (Mr. Douglas) was dealing with the aircraft industry I was sorry that he stopped short o'f Fort William.
Fort William is alive. A writer in a magazine stated that no Hurricanes were being made in Canada, but Hurricanes are being made at Fort William. Fort William is in Canada; therefore the logical conclusion is that they are being made in Canada. Some have said that no Hurricanes are being made, that they are just being assembled. We admit that the engines come from the other side; but if hon. members could see, as I have seen, the piles of raw material, of long pipes, of large sheets of metal, all of which are to be cut and filed into shape and fitted to the proper spot on the plane, they would realize that a great deal is being done there. When it is said that no Hurricanes are being made in Canada, they should think of Fort William. I know that all planes made in Fort William or any other place in Canada are made either for the dominion government or for overseas under the control of the dominion government. It is impossible for a plane to be shipped out of Canada without the authority of the government of Canada through the Department of External Affairs.
The factory at Fort William is increasing its production all the time. It is expected that it will be producing twenty-five or more

planes a week. Judging from the present results, I know the number will be more. For the week ending February 8, they produced seven planes, or one a day; for the. week ending February 15, they produced fourteen; for the week ending February 22, they produced thirteen and for the week ending March 1, they produced fifteen. The small production in the first week of February was due to a shortage of material. Much of this material was being procured from Great Britain and perhaps Germany was able to prevent some of this from reaching Canada. The minister, however, made some trips to the United' States, and he has found a way for us to get engines and other material. I think we have a right to be grateful for that.
I should like to say a word about the management. The management of this aeroplane factory at Fort William is as efficient as the management of any other concern in Canada. Generally speaking, the foremen and inspectors are locally trained, although there are some exceptions. Young men who went to school in Fort William and Port Arthur were taken on and trained in the making of an obsolete plane called the Grumman. At that time this plant could not obtain permission to make a more up-to-date or modem plane. One of these young men is the general foreman, and I would say that there is no better man in Canada. He has considerable sense because when he found a young lady he liked, he had a member of this house help him tie the knot.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Does the
hon. member know that the Hurricanes being manufactured1 at Fort William are on British government order entirely?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Just to clear the record, they are being manufactured on contract between the Dominion of Canada in the right of the Department of Munitions and Supply and the Canadian Car and Foundry company. Let us have the record straight.


Richard Burpee Hanson: But for
the British government entirely. Mr. MacMillan's report says that.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: But for the same war.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: All I know is that when the Canadian Car wanted to send planes out of Canada, they had to get the permission of the former Minister of National Defence, the present Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie). I do not think there is anything that goes out of Canada to Great Britain, or even out of the United States to

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Great Britain which is not known to the Minister of Munitions and Supply and Mr. Purvis.
I was speaking of the staff when I was interrupted. The staff is well balanced because there are about 500 girls working in the plant. That shows that in this plant there is the making of a future great industry which will go far beyond its present capacity. Then, again, this plant is staffed by men and women who honour the right of men to organize. They have one of the best trades unions at the head of the lakes, one which is second to none in Canada. They had a terrific job organizing this union because employment increased so rapidly. I should like to pay my tribute to the trades union executive. These men have the milk of human kindness in their hearts. When a man passes on or someone suffering from sickness must go away for treatment, they pay the bills. I do not know of any other organization in Canada which does that sort of thing.
This organization has banded together and has donated one and perhaps two Hurricanes. The Montreal plant is donating the material and the men and women at Fort William are giving two days' pay, which ranges from about $8 up. These Hurricanes will not cost the Canadian or the British government one cent, and we hope the British government will accept them, as I think they will, in the spirit in which they are given. There is another thing about this splendid plant at Fort William which I should like to mention. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." That proverb lives because it is true. The men of this plant organized their athletics with the same energy that they give to their jobs. Last summer they won the hard-ball championship of the Thunder Bay district and they played so well that the big league scouts were up there looking for talent for the coming season.
They entered a team in the hockey league this winter. Against keen competition they have topped the league. They are ready to go through a stone wall to secure a goal or make a home run. They are putting into their games the same energy as they put into their work. I ask the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) to note this. If all other organizations are like this one, there is nothing to worry about. Then the production will be like that wheat which they used to raise in Manitoba in the early days, and sometimes yet, known as No. 1 hard.
There has been no sabotage in this plant because the man in charge of maintenance showed great sense by appointing a real Irishman as a policeman in charge of the guard.
They know they are being taken care of. This all-round industry is very sensitive, and so am I when members in this house say that it is not functioning with efficiency. It is functioning far better than I ever expected it would function, and I visit the plant regularly. If all war industry in Canada were functioning as efficiently as this one plant, I am sure that Hitler would soon find himself in the place where he hoped to send the Minister of Munitions and Supply when his boat was torpedoed.
I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Lake Centre upon one suggestion that he has made. He thought it would be a good thing to invite the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett to come back to Canada. I am sure that if he came back and spent six months under the leadership of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), he would never sit among my hon. friends to my left on this side of the house but would blossom out as a real Liberal so that wherever he might be he would have honest Liberal action.
There is one thing more I should like to say about the plant at Fort William. I believe that it will lead the rest of Canada, just as it is leading it now in production, in efficiency, in harmony among the workers, and in kindness and courtesy between the management and the staff, and I resent anybody in this house saying one word against the minister who fathers an organization of that kind. He has given gladly of his time. I have invited him out of the house on several occasions to meet the executive of the Canadian Car, and he has always surprised me by accepting the invitation. Sometimes we would meet in room 16 and sometimes upstairs, and the knowledge he had of aeroplanes and the aeroplane industry in those early days was a revelation to me. He showed the executive of the Canadian Car that he knew far more than they did, and I gladly pay my tribute to the minister. I get a little bit hot when anybody blames him for insufficiency or Shortcomings. He has always been honest and fair and has conducted his department in such a way that the government and the people of this country can take off their hats and say: "Thank God he is living."


John Ritchie MacNicol: Mr. Chairman, I am
sure that we all feel refreshed by the address of the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor), but I wish he had told us just where he thinks the minister would have gone had Hitler succeeded in sending him on his way. For fear there may be any misapprehension as to the region the hon. member had in mind, I am sure that he meant the minister would have gone to heaven.
War Appropriation Bill

In view of the bitterness of the remarks of the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) when he spoke earlier in this debate and the bitterness of the Prime Minister's remarks in reference to anyone who might offer any suggestion that might be construed as criticism, I hardly know how far I should go. However, I was sent here to speak on behalf of my constituents and I am going to present my arguments as I see fit. But, before doing so, I should like to repeat to the minister, for whom I have a warm feeling as one business man for another, a verse that I quoted once for the benefit of the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie) when in former years he would get hot under the collar and say something that perhaps he did not intend. I must say that he has greatly improved since he took to heart this ancient verse which I am now going to quote for the Minister of Munitions and Supply, with the hope that he, too, will not get so hot under the collar from now on, because, after all, when a man gets heated he loses control of himself.
Here is an ancient Brahmin proverb which I found in a very old book. It reads like this:
Proceed not to speak or act, before thou hast weighed thy words, and examined the tendency of every step thou shalt take: so shall disgrace fly far from thee, and in thy house shame shall be a stranger; repentance shall not visit thee, nor sorrow dwell upon thy cheek.
From what the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) said this afternoon, it would appear that the minister, being heated perhaps, has on one or two occasions given different answers to the same question, but if he keeps before him the verse I have just quoted I hope he will be able to control himself from now on.
For my part, I admit that every member of this house is just as sincere as I am in trying to plan to win this war. I do not think there is in this house any man or woman either who is anything but sincere in doing what he or she can to win the war. So I grant all sincerity to the minister in what he has done.
At the same time I hope that the minister and the Prime Minister will admit that the press is also sincere. I cannot for the life of me understand why any bitter words should be heaped upon the press. They have a number of highly paid men on their staffs, although not anything like as highly paid as they should be. To be a successful journalist a man must have a love of writing and digging, and they never get paid for that. But they do write and dig, and give advice; and whenever I have seen in the press what might in some quarters be interpreted as criticism of 
the efforts of the minister or of the government, I take it that it was advice honestly given to urge the government towards further improvement. I am quite satisfied that the journalists and the press of this country are as sincere as any of us in this house in our desire to win the war. Then why criticize them bitterly as they were criticized earlier in this debate for what they wrote for the benefit of this dominion?
Similarly I believe that every member of this house is sincere in what he says. We may not agree, but we are all sincere in what we have said.
I should like now to refer to a few of these press articles to see if they are guilty of the insincerity that was attributed to them earlier in this debate. On February 5-that was pretty early, just about the commencement of criticism of a strong nature-there appeared in the Toronto Telegram an editorial entitled:
Fumbling on vital matters painfully apparent at Ottawa.
The minister and the Prime Minister may have been annoyed at the heading of that editorial, but it is absolutely true. The editorial reads:
Critics of the compulsory thirty-day military camps who held that these brief periods of training were useless in making soldiers out of civilians, and therefore a waste of money, find confirmation for their opinions in the announcement by Prime Minister King that draftees will now be given a minimum of four months' instruction.
The editorial goes on to quote the reason which the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) gave for the thirty-day training plan, namely, that so many more men could be trained. Further on, it refers to the fact that the longer period will ensure that the men will be much better trained, and that is admitted by the government. Therefore the press were not in any error in saying that. They were right, too, in saying there was fumbling, because there certainly was. Consequently, Mr. Chairman, I am convinced that we often fly off with no sound ground for doing so.
I remember what the Minister of National War Services (Mr. Gardiner) said about the manufacturers, that if they were not big enough to do such and such and let their men get away for the thirty days training, they were not big enough to run industries, or words to that effect. Later on, however, the Prime Minister approved an extension of time so that industry would not be injured in that way by the thirty-day training plan. The press was not wrong in that instance.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Sometimes it is right.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I beg pardon?

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Clarence Decatur Howe: I did not say they were always wrong.


John Ritchie MacNicol: No, I know the minister did not. I come to the Telegram of February 6. It says:
Lack of competent direction is paralyzing Canada's war effort.
Perhaps the government and the minister were annoyed at that.
Following the recent statements of air minister Power and supply minister Howe the government can no longer cloak the fact that its aeroplane production programme is in a terrible tangle.
The editorial makes reference to the air minister having said that the necessity to use three planes in training where he should have had four, was not his fault. But, being a really courteous minister, he did not care to elaborate on that. In fact, if I might digress for a moment, I regard our air minister as one of the best members of the cabinet. He has backbone, and I admire a man with backbone.
Here is another editorial, written in Ottawa by the editor of the Journal and commented upon in the Globe of February 6, entitled "The Part Canada Plays". Perhaps the minister, or the government, or both, might be annoyed by the tenor of the editorial. A comparison is there made between the results of the programmes in Australia and in Canada. The Australian programme does show up pretty satisfactorily. I am not going to denounce or belittle Canada's war effort, but it could be better. I have criticized what has been done, but I am not going to decry Canadians.
The next item is one of February 7 in the Globe, entitled "King Ministry Misled Public, Hepburn Says". The minister and hon. members have read what Premier Hepburn said about the government's war effort, and there is no reason why the press should be denounced because of what the premier of Ontario said.
The Montreal Gazette had an article on February 17 entitled, "Equipment Lack Bars Volunteers", and quotes the Minister of National War Services as having said this:
Canada has not been able to use all those who have volunteered for military service since the beginning of the war "because we haven't had the equipment."
That is what the rest of us say; that is what the press says; and therefore there is no reason why either an individual or a journal should be denounced for that.
Then, on February 22, the Financial Post, under the heading "Claims Federal Aircraft Suffers Basic Weakness", says this:
Failure of Federal Aircraft, Limited, to maintain its production schedule is not the only reason why the company should be condemned to the "scrap heap" in the view of Canadian Aviation, recognized authority on aircraft in Canada.
And so on; one article after another. I have read many of them, and I cannot see any reason whatever for heat on the part of the minister or the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was particularly bitter the other evening when he denounced criticism.


James Layton Ralston: My hon. friend has mentioned that before. If he will permit me to say so, I do not think the Prime Minister bitterly denounced any criticism except criticisms by two newspapers. I think he welcomed criticism of a constructive nature.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Perhaps I had better read just what he did say. I will do so later, when I come across it.


Mr. POULIOT:: Hear, hear.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I want to get right down to fundamentals in one matter in particular, and that is, who called the conference which met in Ottawa at the end of December or early in January?
Mr. LaCROIX (Quebec-Montmorency): Nobody knows.


John Ritchie MacNicol: My leader, in making his address, did try to ascertain exactly who called the conference. He said this, as reported in Hansard, page 1060.
I asked whether early in the year he did not request an opportunity to discuss aeroplane production problems with manufacturers interested in Anson bombers.
The minister of munitions was away. The Minister of National Defence for Naval Services (Mr. Macdonald), who was acting Minister of Munitions and Supply at the time of the conference, replied:
In answer to my hon. friend's question, there was a discussion between the manufacturers of component parts of Avro-Anson bombers, on the one hand, and myself on the other. Whether I requested it or they requested it I am not sure. They came to Ottawa and requested to see me and I spent an hour or two with them.
To me, who called the conference is an important matter, because that is the beginning of the so-called criticism, or of what resulted in the so-called criticism. It i3 a fact that the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services, then acting Minister of Munitions and Supply, did invite the manufacturers here to Ottawa. There is no question about it.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Has the hon. member seen the invitation?
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John Ritchie MacNicol: He requested them to come to Ottawa-and rightly, in my judgment. When I got full confirmation of that I said to myself, "the minister of naval services must be a business man, because that is just what a business man would do." Not knowing, perhaps, much, if anything, about aeroplane production, what would a man do who really wished to inquire? He would send for the men who knew. After having a discussion with them, he asked them to send a report, which they did. I am not going to deal with the report particularly; it was dealt with fully by the hon. member for Lake Centre. But one of the clauses asked for the dissolution of Federal Aircraft. That is very plain. After reading the report and observing that the principal request was for the dissolution of Federal Aircraft, the acting minister likely concluded, in my judgment quite rightly, "Now this is a big matter; I will wait until the minister comes home; he will soon be here."
When the minister came home and had the report put before him, he exhibited immediately, I think, a little bit of heat, for the letter which he wrote to the aircraft manufacturers is not in my judgment the most courteous letter that could have been written. Probably he was hurt at the request to dissolve Federal Aircraft. I would not have acted in that way. I myself was employed in big business for a quarter of a century-a business employing well on to a thousand men-


Clarence Decatur Howe: What was discourteous about the letter?


John Ritchie MacNicol: -and in operating a big business a man learns to control himself. He must do so, or the business will go to pieces.


Clarence Decatur Howe: What is there discourteous about the letter?


John Ritchie MacNicol: I will read the part which I think is discourteous.


Jean-François Pouliot: How interesting!


John Ritchie MacNicol: It may not be interesting to the hon. member for Temiscouata, but it is interesting to people who understand business. Perhaps he does not know very much about business.


Jean-François Pouliot: What I mean is, it was interesting when the hon. member did not speak.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The minister wrote, on January 31:
On my return from the United Kingdom my attention has been called to the document signed by yourself and several others. . . .
Recommendations signed by six firms with some experience in the manufacture of aircraft-
They are the only people in Canada who had any experience. They are all big manufacturers.
-or components must, of course, receive careful consideration.
Then he asked questions, of which No. 3 is:
As one of the contractors holding a subcontract for this production, what guarantee can you and your group give as to the date when substantial deliveries of Anson planes will be made, provided your recommendations are adopted?
What would I have done? I would have sent for the manufacturers and talked to them across the desk as big men. The minister himself is a big man. He was a business man building big things such as docks, elevators harbours and so on in his time, and that is what he would have done in his own business. It is also what he should have done in this instance. He should have sent for these men and said, "Let us talk over the table so that I can get your views. I am as anxious as you are to produce aeroplanes in large numbers to win this war".
The first step was the calling of a conference; the second step was asking for the report, and the third step was the return home of the minister and the writing of the letter to the manufacturers.
I should like to go back to the minister's own statements. They were given this afternoon, but it will not hurt to repeat them now. They will be found at page 263 of Hansard of November 20. The minister said:
The industry is in process of being reorganized on a production line basis. Canada is now building complete aeroplanes except for the engines, and, for the present, engines are being purchased either in the United States or in Great Britain. Production covers practically every type of training plane in use in Canada and several types of operational planes.
From that I would gather that at the time that statement was made on November 20 last, production was pretty well under way, but earlier, in the month of July, the minister had made this statement. On July 30 he said:
Federal Aircraft Limited has been formed to take over the responsibility of the government for the production of aircraft of this type. It is anticipated that Canadian production of Ansons will commence before the end of the year.

War Appropriation Bill
It is almost eight months since that statement was made, and yet Ansons are not being produced in Canada. There is one plane that is being tested and examined, and I presume that in due course the engineers in charge of that plane will arrive at a conclusion as to how the plane should be finally constructed.
Recently the minister said that it would be next April or May before Ansons would be ready to fly, but the MacMillan report, referred to earlier to-day, staves off the time until next July or August; and it is still problematical. The question is, exactly when are these planes going to be constructed? Apparently they are very necessary for training. They are good bombers and good fighters, and in my judgment they should have been turned out before this.
Something was said to-day about the cutting down of hours in these plants. The reason why hours are being cut down is, as I understand, the shortage of skilled mechanics in Canada. The shifts have been reduced from three to two, two ten-hour shifts. I would point out that trained, skilled mechanics cannot be turned out in two or three months. Any business man knows that. An executive is not trained in two or three months, and therefore, by reducing the shifts, they are able to cut down the demand for such men. I am not sure that they will not produce as much, because where a plant operates in three shifts the machines do not go on immediately on each eight-hour schedule. It takes some time for one shift to step out and the other to come in.
In my opinion the government deserves some censure or blame for the fact that in Canada there has been a shortage of skilled mechanics and trained executives to operate machine plants. I remember, after I returned from England in 1937, I told the government in 1938, in the course of the session that yeaT, that, according to the figures I had obtained from the immigration department in England, Canada had already lost from 25,000 to
30,000	skilled mechanics. I warned the government on that occasion that the time would come when those mechanics would be required here. I say, therefore, that the government deserves some censure for the fact that all those skilled mechanics left the country. That was a large number of skilled men to leave this dominion.
I also warned the government that it was necessary for us to get into aeroplane production. I will not read from Hansard what I said at that time, but in 1937 I had made a close inquiry into aeroplane production in continental Europe, particularly in Germany, and during the course of the debates that took place then-the present Minister of
Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie) was Minister of National Defence at the time-I strongly recommended that Canada get into aeroplane production; because, from my observations in Germany, I was of opinion that everybody would fly-well, not everybody; that is an exaggeration. Certainly, however, there were very large numbers of aviators passing through the stations in Berlin. I sat in one of the stations there for hours and mentally counted aviators getting on and off trains, and I estimated that in that one station there were about 1,500 men that I observed. There are twelve stations in Berlin and I remember calculating at the time, multiplying 1,500 by twelve, that Germany when she was ready would fight in the air, because there were thus probably 18,000 aviators in Berlin alone. In view of this I warned the government that they should get into aeroplane production.
The same with regard to machine tools. Look at the trouble we are in to-day in this respect. That is one of the troubles in connection with the aeroplane business. I am told on good authority that a large number of machine tools were purchased in Chicago, by the machine controller I presume, and that a goodly number of machines are unsatisfactory for the work for which they were acquired-shapers, planers, slotters, drills and so forth. We are partly to blame for that. After I returned from my last visit to Britain, I made a statement in this house that I had met different manufacturers in England who were ready to build branch plants in this country. I was more or less laughed at for making that statement, but no less a man than the Minister of Munitions and Supply himself gave out a statement that plants would move to Canada, as can be verified by reference to an article headed "Howe Reports British Firms to Move Here." I felt at the time that Canada should be the arsenal and manufacturing plant for Great Britain if at all possible, if and when war broke out.


Thomas Reid: What year was that?


John Ritchie MacNicol: That was in 1938. I made a statement to the house. In the opinion of anyone travelling through Great Britain as I did, surveying factories by the dozen, large factories, some with as high as 35,000 to 40,000 men, and additions being made, it would have been only sound business on Canada's part to induce some of those new branch plants to come here, because those large bombs would blow some of those plants that I have in mind, off the map. If we had those plants in Canada
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now, we would be in much better shape to produce aeroplanes and other equipment required to win this war.
The minister said, I believe a year ago more or less, that it would take about eighteen months to build an aeroplane engine plant in Canada. Well, they built them in Australia; they manufacture their engines in Australia to-day; in fact, they manufacture everything pertaining to aeroplanes except magnetos and carburetors.


Mr. MACDONALD (Kingston City):: They are not manufacturing every kind of engine there.


John Ritchie MacNicol: They are exporting planes from Australia, and their Wirraway is an extremely fine aeroplane. In an editorial in the Citizen of March 4, it is stated:
Aircraft engines have been imported from the United States to Australia, but the Commonwealth Air Corporation last December celebrated the delivery of its 200th Wirraway war plane entirely designed and manufactured in Australia, with the exception of magnetos and carburetors.
We can do the same thing in Canada. No country in the world has better mechanics than Canada. I say, go to it and try to develop an engine manufacturing plant in Canada, because this war will last more than another eighteen months; and if we have another eighteen months of slaughter in Europe, it may be necessary to manufacture thousands of engines as well as entire planes in Canada.
This is the criticism I would offer to the minister as one business man to another. When it became necessary to develop the aircraft business and build up the manufacture of aeroplanes, instead of setting up the Federal Aircraft corporation with some very good men -I have nothing but good to say about any of them, but what would the minister 'have done had it been a question of building grain elevators and docks? He would certainly have surrounded himself with men who knew something about the erection of elevators and docks. What would I have done if it were a case of the manufacture of boilers and radiators? I would have surrounded myself with men who knew something about them, and about the rolling of steel and the melting of iron.
The same thing should have been done with regard to aircraft. I would have gone to one of these big aeroplane companies and said, "You do all the pilot work for the manufacture of the Anson plane in your plant." In that way only one group of technicians and executives would be used to develop all that is required to make an Anson plane, whereas if three or four different plants, including Federal,

which is a small business, were all engaged, that would increase the number of executives and technicians and experts required. It strikes me as a much better thing to use one of the big plants, any one of them, to develop and complete all that is required to produce the Anson and then say to all the other companies "There, gentlemen, there are the designs and the tools; there are all the particulars in connection with the manufacture of this type of plane; now go to it." One plant would have been the pilot plant and all would do the manufacturing.
I was interested to read this morning about the German bombers now arriving on the borders of Greece. The article said that the fourth German squadron, which is now on the borders of Greece, has apparently about seventeen hundred planes and bombers. That bears out what I saw in Germany. I looked to the future with a good deal of fear-temporary fear-I have no doubt we shall win when we once get organized; we have always won before and we will this time. But at the moment, if the fourth bomber squadron has 1,700 planes, it bears out what I saw in Germany, that there are many thousands of them. We must do the same thing here.
If I were the minister, and I thought for one moment that by calling in the present aeroplane builders or anyone else who could give advice, a better way could be found, I would forget all I had done, if by doing so I could improve for the future. It is absolutely necessary to forget all bitterness or recrimination; that is of no value; it is all water gone under the mill. What we must do now is all to get together with the best we have in the country and produce the most we can to win this war, all- of us; for, if we lose, we all go down. That is my parting word.
I have the best of feeling towards the minister. As one business man to another I say: I know your problems; I have been through them; all big business has its problems, and many times I have had to retrace my steps, wash out everything that was behind and commence over again. Many times we have spent money in making preparations that we thought were right, have spent a hundred thousand dollars, perhaps more, found we were wrong, washed it out and started over again, and we finally won. Some people may have lost confidence in the minister. I have not; I feel sorry for him. I say to myself, to whom in the cabinet can he go for advice?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The Minister of Finance (Mr. Usley).

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John Ritchie MacNicol: The Minister of Finance is a financial man and a bright lawyer from Nova Scotia, but the minister wants business advice, technical advice, advice from capable, brilliant manufacturers who have had many years of experience. They do not grow like mushrooms, it takes years and years to develop a capable administrator. I have nothing but the best to say about the cabinet. There has been a good deal of talk about changing the government; that is all past as far as I am concerned; but if the government is to be improved, I should say there should be taken into it some big business executives upon whom the minister could call.


Thomas Reid: What about labour?


John Ritchie MacNicol: And labour too, a good labour man, a real labour man, an experienced man who perhaps has worked from the bottom to the top. I would trust him; I would not seek advice from a man who had had no executive experience. But what the minister wants is help; he is carrying too big a load to do it alone. As an hon. member said, I, too, thank God the minister came back safely, because he is a big man-yes, I will say this further; I believe it was an act of Divine Providence that he was saved though others were taken; his ability and experience were required here. I am a great believer in God Almighty and His divine direction.
I say to the minister: Retrace your steps. These big executives have said, dismiss Federal Aircraft. That is no criticism of Federal Aircraft; they are good men; in their own line they may be all right. But the manufacture of aeroplanes is a highly specialized business. We must win the war, and if I were the minister I would set an objective of 50,000 planes. If I were Minister of National Defence for Air, or whatever it is he is called-there are getting to be so many ministers I am getting mixed up, myself-I would set an objective of 50,000 aviators and bombers. I would fill the skies over Germany with bombers. There are no better aviators in the world than the Canadians. The Australians are good, and so are the New Zealanders. But none are better than the Canadians. It may be that they have not yet had an opportunity to show what they can do. But I would blacken the sun out over Germany with aeroplanes!
But to do that you have to build them in Canada. Start your engine plant. Even if it takes eighteen months to build it, you can do it. I know you can. Build the engines. I know we are told there would have to be several kinds. No matter how many kinds are needed, let us remember that this is an
all-out war. We have to stake all! We have to win! If it requires planes and plants and executives and men and munitions, the minister can do it. But retrace your steps. Let him surround himself with big, successful, executive men, who will back him up when he encounters difficulties, and then manufacture, manufacture, manufacture more planes 1


Mr. FLEMING:: Mr. Chairman, I am afraid I cannot agree with the hon. member for Lake Centre in his views respecting dollar-a-year men. I find it difficult to follow the hon. member for Davenport. Whether or not he was trying to criticize the government, I was unable to say. But I think he was offering the same old criticism we have heard day after day from the official opposition.
The war appropriation bill now before the committee of the whole contains figures so enormous that sometimes one is likely to conclude that such figures are beyond the human resources of this nation. In the early days of this debate the hon. member for Trinity explained forcefully how these figures mean very little. He pointed out that, after all, only goods and services really matter, and that it is goods and services which constitute the real wealth of this nation.
The staggering amount mentioned in the bill will be accepted by the House of Commons and by the Canadian people, and still more staggering amounts will, in years to come, be accepted by the house and by the Canadian people, because as many hon. members have said, we are in this war to defend that very freedom which was handed down to us by our forefathers. It is difficult, of course, for many people living in the quiet countrysides of western Canada and on the peaceful prairie lands to think that this dominion would ever see the ravages of war. We know that things have happened in other countries, and it is not beyond the bounds of human possibility that such things may happen in our own country.
In discussing the few points which come to one's mind in connection with this appropriation bill I find it difficult to know, in these days of tragedy and tears, whether it is in the best interests of Canada to offer praise or criticism of the administration. After all, they do deserve a certain amount of praise. I do not for one minute believe there is one minister who is not doing everything within his power to make this war effort as efficient as possible. Constructive criticism has, however, been the very cornerstone of our parliamentary form of government.
There is one criticism I should like to reiterate, one which has been made in the
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house before, and one which is heard to-day throughout the country, and that has to do with the status to which members of parliament have come in this house. Once upon a time a letter of recommendation from a member of parliament meant something. But to-day, to be recommended by a member of parliament, even for a country post office position, or as to fitness to receive foreign exchange, would immediately lead to the possibility of being turned down. It would be a handicap. The only thing a member can do is to recommend that the applicant go to some police officer or someone of that kind, because we realize that a member of parliament cannot give letters of recommendation to any of his constituents. Who should be more qualified than members of parliament, those who have been elected by the will of the people, to give letters of recommendation? Who should be more qualified than those who have been placed in positions of public responsibility, regardless of their party affiliations, to recommend residents of the districts in which they live?
During this debate there have been various types of criticism. I wish first of all to say that, although I may disagree with many of the policies of the present administration, I will never engage in any personal criticism of a particular minister. I believe attacks against the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) are completely unwarranted, because no man either in or out of this house has a more enviable reputation for honesty, ability and devotion to duty. The very fact that a suggestion was made that he should be leader of this country, irrespective of the political hook the opposition intended to place upon him, indicated the high regard in which he was held throughout the country. The opposition group would never have suggested his name, had his ability not been known throughout the length and breadth of the dominion.
Then, we remember the abuse which was heaped upon a great western Canadian newspaper, the Winnipeg Free Press. Throughout the years that paper has become almost the western farmers' Bible. It has attained that reputation over a long period of time, and it certainly deserves the position it holds. For a long time Doctor Dafoe was its guiding hand, a man who is recognized as a great journalist, probably the greatest Canada has ever produced. The breadth of his vision, the soundness of his background, his knowledge and his public-spirited Canadianism are known from ocean to ocean. The newspaper to a considerable extent has taken on the character of the man. Although it does speak its mind freely when it believes the party is wrong, or when it is misguided, it has been the bulwark of progressive thought throughout

the years on western Canada's plains. Although Clifford Sifton did break with Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the famous election campaign of 1911, the Winnipeg Free Press did not. It carried on its fight for lower tariffs and reciprocal trade relations with the United States. In that campaign the people who forsook Sir Wilfrid Laurier were his own French-Canadians, the nationalists from Quebec.
Of course, Mr. Chairman, there are so many high-ranking Tories in key positions in this country that the present opposition is able only to tap at any criticism it wants to make. It will never say anything about any departments of government. Every time we meet here they throw up their old smoke-screens asking for a union government or a national government, or for a change in the leadership. This is just a replica of the same old story that their former leader, the Hon. Doctor Manion, carried on throughout the length and breadth of Canada. But when the present Prime Minister asked him to name some of the men about whom the hon. member for Danforth has been talking, those great brains in the country, he was never able to name any.
The only person who has ever been named here was named, by the hon. member for Lake Centre. He mentioned that great man, the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett, and suggested that the Liberal government should return him to power, or return him to Canada. This was the man who in a peace-time crisis was discredited by the Canadian electors. The Conservatives virtually threw him overboard, and that is why he is not in this country.
I sometimes wonder whether it is going to be possible for us to continue on this nonpartisan government basis. When this part of the session opened, the Prime Minister pointed out that it was more than ever necessary that we steel our hearts and minds to the magnitude of the effort and the sacrifice that would be demanded of us over a considerable period of time. In special measure throughout the next few months the government, because of its party affiliations, will be faced with criticism which is not justified. This government has certainly divested itself of all partisanship, but it is difficult for the public mind to grasp that fact. As the gravity of the war situation grows more intense, it will not be difficult to see what may happen with a nonpartisan government. The war is bound to be long and we must do our utmost to promote the best war effort possible. Even though members of this administration may think they are doing everything possible, yet this may not be good enough, it may not be broad enough. It is either freedom for free

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men, or medieval slavery. There is no inbetween measure; there is no half way measure in the new order that has been set up by the dictators of the totalitarian states.
It is our duty to eliminate from all branches of the service all intrigue and ineffectuality that are seething underneath. These are the things that interfere more than anything else with our war effort. Some of us wish to bring them into the open. If they are brought to the light of day, incompetency, inefficiency and unethical practices will not long remain. There is no use in protesting that they do not flourish and exist in certain places. Of course they do. One of the reasons for this is the fact that Tory magnates from all over Canada are being placed in high positions of authority. Then what do we find? They immediately surround themselves with their Tory heelers. Since the government became non-partisan, we have had grow up a system of bureaucratic patronage that is far more dangerous than any system under which a government appoints its own supporters.
A government must defend its actions in parliament. These dollar-a-year men do not have to stand up in this chamber to defend their actions. That is why none of them would go into the government or assume any position in parliament. They knew they would then have to stand up to defend themselves. At present they defend themselves behind their offices. One does not have to go far afield in this city of Ottawa to see them. They are all over the place and they are working to the detriment of the administration in power at this time. It is an extremely dangerous practice to appoint as controller of a commodity or industry a person who has a large stake in that particular industry. The natural human tendency is to use such control, which amounts almost to a dictatorship, for private interests. We can see many cases of this on all sides. Take this MacMillan affair. Mr. MacMillan should have given an explanation immediately to the press. But no; the people were kept in suspense.
Pick up almost any Ontario newspaper and you will find how the heads of these large organizations throughout this province are criticizing members of parliament or anyone else who offer any opposition by way of constructive criticism. I have looked a number of these men up and checked over the contracts they have. One that is in my mind at the moment is the Otis-Fensom Elevator company. The president of this company is Mr. W. D. Black, and this gentleman was
most severe in his criticism about those who had anything to say about the government. Here is what he said:
There is no evidence that a protracted campaign of minority criticism at the present time can contribute anything to our war effort. There is conclusive evidence that it can seriously impair it, by confusing and distracting the public, at a time when solidarity and a deep sense of common responsibility are absolutely indispensable.
I checked things over, and I found that this company had received capital assistance totalling $9,000,000 from this country and Great Britain. It is easy to understand why this gentleman can say that there should be no criticism. All of these chaps who have these large contracts are against criticism. That is one of the reasons why the Tory opposition dare not criticize these parties. I realize that in a war emergency an excellent case can be made out for increasing cabinet or executive authority. I am not saying that I do not approve that action in a crisis, but executive authority should be employed to fuse all the elements of the country into cooperative enterprise. When it simply becomes an appropriation of the functions of government by a few, then it takes on all the worst features of a dictatorship with little of the redeeming advantages. Democracy is a testament of man's faith in man, but I can find but little faith being placed in members of this house by the administration in the last few months. One member of the government who has taken this House of Commons more into his confidence than any other member of the government is the Minister of Agriculture and Minister of National War Services (Mr. Gardiner). He has done this in connection with the national registration and again in connection with the national salvage campaign.
He has been criticized in both eastern and western Canada. In western Canada they say that he has not done enough for western agriculture, but he has been responsible for every progressive piece of legislation on behalf of agriculture that has been put upon our statute books, such as the acreage bonus, the minimum price of wheat and the active administration of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. I disagreed with him in connection with the minimum price of wheat, because I thought the price of 70 cents a bushel was too low. He has not tried to wiggle out of facing the difficulties in which agriculture finds itself. He has met these questions face to face, whether in Saskatoon or in London, Ontario. Wherever he has been, he has made out a splendid case for himself. He has told
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them straight from the shoulder what the situation was and has not tried to paint any glorious picture for agriculture. He has not advised people to go into the production of pork products or some other commodity, but has explained to them the situation as he saw it. When he returned from England he told the people the exact situation that had been presented to him by the British government. He told the people the details of the wheat situation that existed. He did not rise in his place in the house and advise the farmers of the country to go into the raising of this or that commodity.
The minister has been criticized by the industrialists of the east because he had the courage to rise in his place in this House of Commons and defend his leader when he was being attacked. It was being said that our leader was not a good war Prime Minister although he was all right in peace time. When the minister told the industrialists that the young men in their employ would have to take military training, he was taking the long view of this situation. I think in a year or so the minister will be vindicated. After all these guns are manufactured, there will have to be someone to shoot them. What will these particular factories do when the young men go into training? They will have to change their system and employ older men. That is exactly what the minister was advising them to do, and yet there was a storm of protest in the eastern press.
Everyone wishes to do his or her part in this great war effort. When the minister initiated this national salvage campaign he left it to the members of the House of Commons to do their part. Yet we have one hon. member rising in his place and using most unparliamentary terms when he said that we were supposed to collect bones and scrap-iron. It must be remembered that those particular commodities are made into explosives and guns which will be placed in the hands of our fighting forces. In 1920, Doctor Charles F. Horne, editor of The Great Events of the Great War said:
The war could no more have been avoided than an earthquake or any other cataclysm of nature's unknown forces. On the one side loomed the German character of strength and patience, of selfish caution in adversity and vain and reckless arrogance in power. On the other, glowed the sunlight of democratic civilization, which has taught all people to aspire to equality, and to prefer death to slavery Given these opposing forces, and their clash was inevitable. The marvel now is only that we were slow to see the ominous approach to the disaster.
"The war that shall end all war!" Has the human race passed through that stupendous final experience of the great tragedy, the terror 
and the splendour and despair of destruction and devotion? We may all hope so, but mere hope will do little to change the future. Until the great majority of mankind have been educated into the true democracy, until each one has grown to say in his heart, "I want the same rights and opportunities as my neighbour, and no more", until that altruistic day arrives, strong and selfish men will still somewhere continue banding together in ever broader and craftier conspiracies to snatch the pleasant richness of life from those who seem too feeble or too ignorant to resist.
These words were uttered twenty odd years ago, and I am sure they are as true now as when they were uttered. I realize, of course, that the government has a difficult time in converting Canada into an arsenal. There have been differences in specifications as between this country and the rest of the empire; frequently more difficulties and delays through the changing of specifications, and other difficulties no doubt through a desire not to set up in Canada rivalries in trade.
There have been domestic problems, the difficulty of obtaining tools and skilled mechanics. Yet the impression has spread abroad that there has been too much officiousness in this country and not enough efficiency. Of course we have these high-priced Tory dollar-a-year men like MacMillan and the rest of them who are such characters that no one will ever say a word until the minister first makes a statement, and in that way they allowed controversy to develop throughout the country, with reflections being cast on the aircraft industry. I admit, however, as the minister says, that we are a young nation. We are "in the mushroom stage", he said, but it will be necessary for us to harness all our human resources to our natural resources if we are in the years to come to be strong enough to break Germany's war machine.
Until now we have had the ministers rising in their places and making formal statements out of which one can take any meaning at all.
I was sitting on the other side of the house one day and I heard one minister say to another as he sat down, "Well done, you told them nothing."
We must educate public opinion, and in that regard we have failed badly. Before the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) made his statement in the house concerning the aircraft industry, there was a terrible feeling throughout the country. Yet when the minister gave his explanation of the aircraft situation he showed that the aircraft industry was not in such a bad plight as we thought it was. We had thought we were in a very bad spot in this particular branch of production. This could have all been cleared up if members of the house had been given the information.

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There was a splendid address given by Mr. Carmichael over the radio to-night. He showed the production of aeroplanes in the United States and how our production was going, and he gave a satisfactory explanation to the Canadian people. That explanation, however, should have been given long, long ago, before the public mind had become unsettled. If members of the house had had any information, they could have given it out to the public, but of course they would never get any information!
People need inspiration to produce their utmost war effort. Propaganda has become one of Hitler's most important weapons in this new type of war. As J. B. Priestley pointed out in a recent radio address, Hitler tries to sap our resistance by telling us of the horrible things he is going to do to us with the aid of secret weapons and secret machines. What we should be doing is telling him and the Germans of all the horrible things we may have in store for them.
One of the most important changes that we could have in the administration would be to have a ministry of enlightenment. I realize that some of the ministers would not want that because they do not want to disturb too greatly the ordinary methods of gathering the news, but I am sure that, with the situation as it is to-day, even the newspapers cannot give accurate information any more than we can unless they are supplied with it.
The bureau of public information! If anybody ever tried to get information from that bureau, he would soon find out that it was not a bureau of information but a propaganda bureau.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Hear, hear.


Harry Raymond Fleming: A propaganda bureau in the best sense of the word, not in the sense that the leader of the opposition takes it. I do not see why we should be afraid to call it a bureau of propaganda. Mr. Lash, the director of the bureau of public information, in its assigned task of propaganda, is doing an excellent job. But it has not gone far enough.


Mr. DUPUIS:: Is he a Tory?


Harry Raymond Fleming: I do not know, but I
suppose so. After all, a ministry of enlightenment could serve in peace time as well as in war, and we might include in that propaganda bureau a legitimate bureau of information, the archives, the national gallery, the national film board, the Canadian Broadcasing Corporation, the historical section now working in the national defence department, and possibly the censors, although I do not think any of the newspaper men would expect to get much enlightenment out of the censors.
All of these different activities are now being carried on under a wide range of departments among which in many instances it is difficult to see any relationship. With the tremendous sums of money that are being and will be spent on our war effort, there is no reason why this information should not be gathered and given out to the public and why members of parliament and the newspapers should not have it.
Eastern Canada, and especially the central provinces, are to-day enjoying a measure of prosperity, and of course it is odd for us from the west to rise in our places in this house and say that agriculture and the primary producer were never in a worse plight than today. But wheat is a drug on the market. Farmers are unsettled in their opinion as to whether they are rendering any war service by trying to produce commodities and food products of various kinds. Mortgage companies are still collecting their interest.
With this oversupply of foodstuffs in this country we see at the same time the people of Britain on rations. It often occurs to me, why should we haggle about the price Great Britain is to pay for the commodities they buy from us? When there was overproduction in the United States during the depression they dumped their surplus products, their coffee and so forth, in the rivers, and ploughed under a great deal of their wheat. I do not see why we could not get some of this money that we seem to get so easily now for destructive purposes and use it for constructive purposes and pay our farmers for any surplus wheat or other war products that they might produce for this greatest of all causes. In the old days it was impossible to get any money, but now we can get all we want without any difficulty for destructive purposes.
"Oh," some one may say, "we have no ships." But Lord Beaverbrook said, "Go to the ends of the earth and get them." Members from British Columbia say that shipbuilding is not going on in that province to any marked degree, and members from the mari-times tell us the same thing. There are shipbuilders walking around with no work to do. I heard over the radio a few days ago that every shipbuilder in the United Kingdom had *been conscripted for war service. Why do we not do that in Canada?
"A nation cannot exist half slave and half free," said Abraham Lincoln, and there is such a thing as economic slavery. A nation cannot continue half rich and half poor.
In Saskatchewan in the pre-war depression years, with no crop in the drought areas, we went through the worst period that any province ever went through. Now, when there
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is an opportunity to do something for those people on western Canada's plains, those plains which in more peaceful times have been called the "bread-basket of the empire" and the "granary of the empire," has any effort been made to establish industry in western Canada? No. Hundreds and hundreds of people are walking the streets looking for work. They are skilled workmen. What do they do? They come from Saskatchewan to Ontario and try to secure work in some of the munitions plants. WTiat are they told? That they are too old; "what we want are boys out of the technical schools"-boys who should be in the armed forces of the country and not taken into these places and provided with positions which should be given to these older people. Industries should have been established in Saskatchewan, and established long ago. In Saskatchewan another matter of grave importance with regard to which we have been discriminated against is the training of young tradesmen under this scheme of the labour department. The lowest vote which was allocated for this work of training young chaps was to that province. After all the hardship which our people have gone through, schools have been established only in the larger cities, although in every place throughout that province where there were sufficient applicants those schools should have been put into operation immediately. A few years ago we in the town of Humboldt had marked success with these new training schools; they did a splendid piece of work. The schools which have been sponsored by the Department of Labour would have excellent results. The young men who would be trained there would be fitted to go into the factories if they were not physically fit for the army, or, if they joined the armed forces, they would have some trade available to them upon their return to civil life when this struggle is over.
If we forsake these people on the western plains we shall be doing a grave injustice. We know that when an opportunity arose of establishing our economy on a healthier basis, certain interests sabotaged the Rowell-Sirois commission report; and that fact may yet become a stain upon our national conscience.
Citizens in every walk of life, in every province of Canada, wish to do their part in this, the testing hour of the nation. Let the government take the people of Canada into its confidence. Let them take the members of parliament into their confidence; after all they, just as much as the ministers, are representatives of the people. Let them do something to establish industry on these western plains. The people of our province will meet every financial call which may be made upon them. They

will accept every defeat that comes to us, and they will accept final victory and peace in a truly Canadian spirit. I cannot see why we should have prosperity on the banks of the Rideau and not upon the banks of the Saskatchewan.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: I wish to make some observations in connection with the questions I asked the minister of munitions earlier in the day.
First of all, I should like to congratulate the minister upon his safe return to Canada, and particularly to congratulate the government upon his safety, because we recognize him as one of the ablest and most efficient members of the cabinet.
The hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Fleming) has suggested a reason why we on this side of the chamber have not criticized the government sufficiently, namely, that so many dollar-a-year men are Tories. Therefore, if I indulge in a little criticism this evening, I hope it will be regarded as constructive, and it will be remembered that I have been invited especially to make it by the hon. member who has just spoken.
I was sorry that the minister of munitions did not lay on the table of the house this afternoon the missing pages-Nos. 5, 6, 7 and part of 8-of the MacMillan report, giving as the reason that they contain highly confidential matter about guns. The refusal to produce those pages has aroused public suspicion that the minister has some other reason for withholding them, and that he has something to conceal. I think, therefore, that it would be better for the minister himself if he did as I asked him to do and set this suspicion at rest at once.
Will the minister tell the committee if there was any subject dealt with in the deleted portion of the report in addition to the production of guns?
Were any details given as to the various types of guns being produced?
Have we developed a new secret weapon to use in this war?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I should tell the hon. member about that, should I not? That would not be a secret.


Mr. ILSLEY:: Lay it on the table.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: The hon. member for
Humboldt has suggested that we have; and, if so, I think it would be a good thing to let the enemy know about it. Are we afraid that Germany will discover our methods of producing guns, when she has been making guns for generations past, and that it would assist her in the production of some new gun to use in this war?

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Does the minister seriously think that the facts given about guns in the pages which he has deleted would help the enemy? Was there anything in those suppressed three and a half pages critical of the present method of administration or of the minister's proposed set-up for the future?
What about that portion of the report dealing with tanks "K," under the heading of "Mark III Cruiser Tank"? Would it not give much more comfort and information to the enemy to reveal our utter inability to produce tanks of the Mark III type until towards the end of the present year, as indictaed in this report from which I will read in a moment, than to withhold from them the knowledge that we can produce guns efficiently?
From page 6 of the appendix to Votes and Proceedings of the house for February 27, under "tanks," I quote:
(a) The problems are:-
(i)	Armour plate to come from Steel Company of Canada-plant to be completed May/June 1941. May be delayed by equipment from U.S.A.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I would remind my hon. friend that that is not my report. I was not in the country when it was prepared, and I may say for 'his information that the report is quite incorrect, in that the Steel Company of Canada are not making and will not be making armour plate. It comes from another Canadian firm entirely, and they are already supplying it.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: Where is this plate being made?


Clarence Decatur Howe: It is being made in Canada.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: It is the Dominion Foundries, I assume. I may remind the minister of the fact that I told him in June last that these plates could be made in Hamilton at the Dominion Foundries plant.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I told the hon. member that, as he will find if he refers to Hansard.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: I believe, if the minister refers to page 570 of Hansard of June 6, 1940, he will see that I gave that information to the house and to him at that time.


Clarence Decatur Howe: If the hon. member has it, let him read it.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: I do not have it under my hand at the moment, but I believe that upon reference to Hansard the minister will find that the statement I have made is correct.
The next items are:
(ii)	Engines-not yet purchased.
(iii)	Transmissions-not yet purchased.
(iv)	Suspension unit-not yet purchased.
(v)	No drawings yet received for gun mountings.
(vi)	Machine tools not yet all ordered.
(vii)	If cast steel to be used instead of armour plate for hull, which seems likely, drawings are not yet complete.
(b) The contractors are excellent and if above delays are removed will make good time. Present estimates are to begin October 1941 and produce 60 by December 31, 1941 and 150 January to March 1942.
Then, with regard to Valentine tanks, the statement is:
(a)	The problems are:-
(i)	Slow delivery armour plate.
(ii)	Slow delivery steel castings.
(iii)	Some necessary components not arranged.
(iv)	Machinery will be slow in arriving.
(b)	This operation has gone slowly to date. Production is estimated to begin with 20 or more April to June 1941, reach 75 monthly by December 1941, a total of 550 by March 31, 1942.
(3) The slow progress in tank production is not necessarily an indication of what can be done when production of all components has been established and organized. If tanks are found to be necessary in larger numbers, production can be considerably increased, subject to taking labour, equipment and raw material from other uses.
Then on page 8 under paragraph (f) the following statement is made:
The situation therefore is: Canada already has surplus aircraft production capacity but requires some planning to arrange to use it economically.
From what I have just read, it will be seen that the production of tanks is in a hopeless muddle, and yet this information is published. Surely it will help the enemy more to know that we have fallen down badly in the production of such a vital arm as tanks than to know that we are making good progress in the production of guns.
Although the attention of the house was called to the importance of tanks in June last, particularly where the component parts could be made, I am very much disappointed that after a period of eight months more progress has not been made. I should like to read from an article in the Ottawa Journal of to-day's date by Ross Munro, a correspondent living in England, as follows:
These armoured units are Britain's ace weapon to counter-attack an invading force, and every reliance is placed in the tanks. The Canadian army tank brigade and armoured division, coming overseas this year, will be a welcome addition to this fast-growing branch of the army.
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He quotes a colonel in England as saying:
This war is going to be tanks, tanks, tanks, and I maintain the Canadians, from what we have seen of them here, will be probably the best tank fighters in the world.
From the MacMillan report it will be apparent that there will be no cruiser tanks, Mark III, available until the end of this year. May I ask the minister whether this tank brigade will be sent overseas in spite of this, and whether they must again rely on Great Britain for their equipment? On page 1124 of Hansard the minister is reported as saying:
I offer the problem of aircraft production
to anyone who cares to take it.
This would seem to indicate a degree of despair, futility and frustration. The minister indicates that the responsibility now vested in him is very onerous and he has given us a lengthy description of the principles of organization. If the situation is as the minister states-and I have no do-ubt about his sincerity, that he is anxious to do everything to further Canada's war effort-then I suggest to him that the best immediate contribution he can make is by divorcing the production of munitions from all types of politics. Why does he not do as the Ontario government did in the case of the hydroelectric system-name a commissioner and delegate full authority to him, including the selection of the required personnel to enable him to carry on efficiently and get results.
It is generally understood that Mr. MacMillan, after some months' experience as chairman of the war-time requirements board, recommended to the minister a scheme for the complete reorganization of the munitions and supply production department. May I ask the minister whether he agrees with the scheme outlined by Mr. MacMillan? If so, does he consider Mr. MacMillan sufficiently competent to be put in full charge of this scheme?
I do not happen to have the privilege of knowing Mr. MacMillan personally, but I know him very well by reputation, and, in common with the Canadian people generally,
I have great confidence in him as a high-minded patriotic citizen who is unselfishly trying to do a great public service and who, they believe, is being hampered in bis work by partisan interference.
In order to give the committee an idea of the kind of man Mr. MacMillan is, I should like to quote, from the Vancouver Daily Province of February 25 last, parts of a 
speech which he gave at a public banquet given in his honour in the city of Vancouver. I quote:
Mr. MacMillan said that in his own private organization, as in every well-run business in the country, the whole staff worked to the balance sheet. When there was anything wrong with that balance sheet the weakness was soon discovered and the correction made-in personnel or in method.
"It should be the same in our national life," said Mr. MacMillan.
"In this case the balance sheet of Canada is the war. Nothing else matters."
"If we find that our capacity for making an effective war performance-say in the supply of ships and guns and aircraft and munitions- is defective, then it should be our duty to make the needed change without delay-and we should make it with one single motive to increase the efficiency of our war effort."
"We should make it our business to see that our machinery for waging war is running smoothly, and in our effort to attain that objective we shouldn't be sidetracked by political, racial, geographical, religious or any personal considerations. AM those relatively petty things should be swept aside ruthlessly. They simply don't count."
And further on:
Every person in Canada to-day should adopt this creed-to strengthen the national war spirit and avoid destructive criticism; to develop a true war spirit, to speed war production, to follow our constitutional form of government, to maintain the strongest possible government which in turn demands a strong opposition. We are not saturated yet with the critical value of the time factor. . . .
We have been too tolerant, too tolerant of mistakes and incompetence. . . .
If the state fails in this fight or if it fails to maintain balanced intelligent government- all is lost.
I think it is fair to conclude from the quotation which I have just read that something has interfered with the operation of the department that has to do with the securing of supplies. Is it not fair also to assume that it may be on this rock that the minister and Mr. MacMillan split before the latter left for the west some weeks ago? May I again urge that the atmosphere of suspicion be cleared away. I appeal to the minister, with all the force at my command, to make a frank statement himself and ask Mr. MacMillan to do the same, covering all the questions asked by me on Monday last, and thus relieve the public anxiety and suspicion that something is being hidden and that there exists a sharp conflict of opinion as to policy and administration between Mr. MacMillan and the minister.
I wish now to quote from an editorial in what we all have regarded as a Liberal newspaper. the Globe and Mail of March 4, 1941.

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In speaking of the aircraft industry and the minister's published statement, it concludes in this way:
There is reason to believe that craftsmen, executives and civil servants who are directly concerned with the production of needed equipment are profoundly dissatisfied with the manner in which the government is administering the Canadian war effort. The time has come when it is their duty to make public whatever information they may have of culpable neglect, political patronage, logrolling and sabotage.
The defence of Canada regulations are not intended to suppress the free expresison of honest convictions, nor to protect a political party from the consequences of maladministration. An empire is at stake, and thousands of Canadian lives. We have entered the lists as champions of democracy. Who is to tell us that the basic principles of democracy shall be denied?
When Canada and all parts of the British empire are giving their blood and treasure, they have a right to demand that there shall be no delay in the production of guns, aeroplanes and other munitions of war with which to protect them and upon the speedy supply of which our very existence depends. There is a widespread demand that all supply and munition activities be divorced from politics, and that the administration, selection and control of all personnel concerned be vested in a non-political body. I warn the minister that there is a limit to the public's patience, and that limit has been almost reached.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I do not wish to interrupt the type of criticism we are getting now, but I wonder how constructive it is. After all there has been a good deal of mention of newspaper comment about the way in which the Department of Munitions and Supply is being conducted; I should like to say that there is also a good deal of criticism of the way in which the opposition is being conducted. I think it is as fair to discuss one as the other. Hon. gentlemen opposite are free *to discuss my conduct of my department, and I suppose I am free to discuss their conduct of the criticism.
What have we had from hon. gentlemen opposite? We have had the reading from Hansard, of old remarks that I made months ago. The hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) constructed his speech almost entirely from quotations from Hansard, of what I said last July and subsequently. This is committee; he is free to ask any questions he likes, but he picks up every forecast I have given and attempts to pour ridicule on it because the performance has not come up to the forecast. Is that constructive? Any forecasts I gave weTe my opinion at the time, formed after careful analysis of the situation as we saw it then. Subsequent developments
in some instances-not many-have produced a different situation. Is it constructive to throw that up, read it two or three times over, make much of it and say "Ha, ha!"? Hon. gentlemen wanted a frank statement of the present position and I gave it to them as well as I could. Then I said I had a confidential report from Mr. MacMillan. Someone said, "Lay it on the table." Well, I laid it on the table. It was not my report; I had nothing to do with its preparation; some parts of it I did not agree with; it was made in a short time; possibly if more time had been available, a more accurate report could have been made. When asked, however, I laid it on the table. I did reserve one section, the section on guns, because the dominion's office in Great Britain had cabled this government to ask us not to give out any information about guns. I explained that before I laid the report on the table; I said I was prepared to lay the rest on the table if it were understood that the gun information in it was confidential. The leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson) agreed to that at the time; he repeated that he understood the situation and did not expect me to go further.
We have also had speeches quoting editorials almost continuously. Even the leader of the opposition followed my statement with a speech which I have had compared with extracts from the Financial Post, and I find that both the contents and language of his speech were taken almost wholly from Financial Post editorials. Editorials from the Telegram and the Globe and Mail have also been quoted. Everyone has read these editorials. We can at least say -this for the press, that they do attempt to get information, accurate information, and expend some effort in doing so.


Richard Burpee Hanson: If I
quoted from an editorial in the Financial Post I was quoting facts. I have no ghost writer; I can tell my hon friend that.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Would my hon. friend like to see the two paraphrases? At any rate I think he will not dispute the statement that his speech came from that paper. Let me *ask this question: did any member of the opposition ever go into a munitions plant? I admit you are likely to get your clothes a little soiled, but it might be interesting to any hon. member who desires to criticize the efforts of this government to go and have a look.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: I have gone through two.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Which ones?
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Herbert Alexander Bruce: The National Steel Car plant at Malton and at Hamilton, and the Dominion Foundry plant at Hamilton.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The hon. member has not said anything about them here. Does he not think it would have been enlightening if he had said he saw this and that, instead of reading editorials from newspapers? I wonder whether any other hon. member has ever been inside a munitions plant. After all, any hon. member who cares to visit any plant can get permission to do so from our department, and I suggest that if they wish to be constructive in their criticism-and I am sure they do-it might be just as well to go and see what they are talking about before making random statements here. I doubt if it is profitable simply to dig up old statements of mine, and to repeat them again and yet again. I am certainly not going to give any more forecasts; hon. members may be sure of that. I think intelligent forecasts are to the benefit of members of the house; they are some help. But I do not care to give them, to be taken up six months hence with the remark, "Instead of having this Tuesday it came on Thursday"-or perhaps Friday. Why should I? After all, you get what you ask for.
I do not like to lecture. I like to be lectured, and I am enjoying myself very much. Nevertheless I offer that to hon. members opposite. Why not be a little bit constructive, if you are attempting to help us win this war, and give us something that is of use to us, instead of turning over a lot of old straw for the fifth, sixth or seventh time?


Richard Burpee Hanson: Would the minister like me to answer that?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I thought I answered it fully and truthfully two days after the minister made his statement. After the minister had, on Thursday, given us the information with respect to these things, I said that had it been given earlier, much of this criticism would have been avoided. I offered that with the utmost good-will.


Mr. CRERAR:: Why continue, then?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am not going over it. But these hon. gentlemen are just as free to rise in their places, in opposition, and say anything they like, as was the hon. member for Humboldt, who gave a burlesque in this house to-night.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I just wish to say this. This is the one opportunity probably in this session when hon. members may ask any questions they like about the munitions programme in
[Mr Howe.]
this country, and get the best answers I can give. I do not think another opportunity will come. Well, why not use that time intelligently, instead of using every old editorial, and old Hansardst I offer that suggestion in all good faith.
I have been accused of losing my temper. Perhaps I have a manner which gives that impression. But I do not recall that I have been heated at all in this debate, and I am not heated now. I am rather tired of hearing editorials. I have a clipping bureau, and I think I see most of them, in my odd moments. I am tired hearing them read to me over and over again. We have heard the statements that appear in the old Hansards which have been read. But let us, please, have a little of a fresh type of criticism.


Joseph Henry Harris: I do not feel disposed to take this lecture lying down. I do not think it is necessary, and I do not think it is in the best form. After all, we are a democracy, or are supposed to be.


An hon. MEMBER:: We are at war.


Joseph Henry Harris: And we are not going to take any form of dictatorship, no matter who the minister is.
While I am on my feet I should like to make one or two observations along the lines of those I made at the last session. I am greatly concerned with the manner in which the department sees fit to spend money as capital expenditure for new buildings, when so many first-class buildings are available. To a large degree, in many of the large centres buildings are under construction, with steel work completed, which could be taken over by the department, or by those who are accepting contracts, or who are accepting moneys for working capital in connection with carrying out the contracts they have in hand.
I would place on record facts respecting three premises of real magnitude in an area within one or two miles of the John Inglis plant at Toronto, a plant in which large sums are being spent by way of capital expenditure. When I have recorded these facts I shall resume my seat.
First, I should like to mention a building which will soon be completed and which is owned by the Dominion of Canada. I refer to the post office building at the corner of Fleet and Yonge streets in the city of Toronto. Acres of floor space are available in that building. The building is completed. It is not yet occupied. At this point let me digress for a moment. If buildings of this kind were taken over by the Department of Munitions and Supply and put into production

War Appropriation Bill
for war purposes, our people would be seized with the idea more and more that we are at war. They would tend to give more thought and more energy and would subscribe to more war savings certificates-and I ask the Minister of Finance to take note-if the department would take over buildings of the kind I have mentioned.
The second building I have in mind is at the corner of King and Bay streets. This is a large bank building, the steel construction now reaching the ninth and tenth floors. Several acres of floor space are available. Foundations are laid down to bedrock thirty-five feet below the ground. Work to complete that building has been stopped. Perhaps it is not the exact type which would be required for the work being done so extensively by the John Inglis plant. But we do know that new buildings not nearly as well constructed as the one I have mentioned are being built, from the ground up, and that there is delay in having them built. Here is a building the main structure of which is completed. The ministry should take charge of it, brick it in and have a war industry right at the corner of King and Bay streets in the heart of Toronto. Would the people in that area not be seized with the idea that there is a war on? Would they not give more and more attention to the war effort?
The third building I have in mind is one operated under a lease by the National Stone company on Logan avenue, in Toronto. It is a building 300 feet by 300 feet, and) is equipped with a total of eight cranes, some of which will lift loads of fifty tons. The siding is constructed, and would lend itself admirably to some of those contractors who are using some of the working capital we are voting, to build new structures. They need not spend that money for new structures when a structure of the kind I am describing is available, and lends itself admirably to the job of completing war contracts, and to speeding up and getting on with war work.
What obtains with regard to those three large structures I have mentioned, one of which is controlled by the government, one by a banking institution and the third by an estate, obtains elsewhere in the same city. I have mentioned just those three. I have in mind, of course, the non-practicability, as it were, of doing jobs of work on a smaller scale, and having different operations separated one from another. But I bring to the attention of the department, many, many, many contracts which could be completed in buildings already available.
I see the Postmaster General (Mr. Mulock) wishes to tell us about the post office in Toronto.


Mr. MULOCK:: I should like to ask the
hon. member a question.


Joseph Henry Harris: I will just finish my sentence-oh, all right, go ahead.


William Pate Mulock: I should like to ask if the hon. member is referring to the city delivery building in Toronto?


Joseph Henry Harris: Yes.


William Pate Mulock: Then I may tell him that the end of the tunnel, between the post office building proper and the city delivery part, has been bricked up, and it is now under the control, I understand, of the Department of National Defence. I do not know how long, in view of the increase in volume of business in Toronto, it will be possible to let them have it; but the hon. member will be glad to know that the government thought of that, long, long ago, made the necessary arrangements, and completed1 it for the purpose of assisting in this war effort.


Joseph Henry Harris: I am very
glad to hear that deposition from the Postmaster General. Inasmuch as that gigantic building is more than half idle at the present time, let us get on with it, and see to it that the Department of National Defence is in there and is doing a job, and letting the public know about it. Let them know that the department is commandeering idle buildings across the country and getting on with the war effort.
Getting back to the general theme I had in mind, let me say that what obtains in respect of those three buildings, undoubtedly obtains across Canada in like measure. For instance, I have in mind the Smiths Falls plant, and buildings of that kind. That plant was reconstructed, and is now entirely idle. It may seem sensible to separate the units of manufacture, and I agree with the engineers and the department that if this were a long term twenty-year job, then that should be done. But I pray to God that this war will be over soon. In the meantime let us use every building available and be careful not to dissipate our resources by making capital expenditures which in the course of time will prove to be extravagant.
As the Postmaster General has indicated, other departments of the government would be glad to turn over their buildings. The Ontario college of agriculture has stated its willingness to turn over its buildings. I am satisfied that the banking institutions would be willing to do the same. I would refer to the one gigantic building in Toronto' already
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in steel. If they did not feel so disposed, one move of the hand by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) would put them in the right frame of mind. There is the other building I mentioned with the cranes already on the ground, yet similar cranes are being purchased for the fitting up and equipping of the plant of the John Inglis company. Similar cranes will also be purchased for the fitting up and equipping of the plant at Pickering, which did not exist but now exists. Similarly with the plant at Scarboro.
I admit that, taking the long range view, it might not be the most desirable thing to do, but we are facing an emergency. The Minister of Finance is asking the people to subscribe for war savings certificates. The people should be gripped with the idea of the magnitude of -this job of work. Every opportunity should be taken to bring it to their attention and to demonstrate that there is economy in our outlays of capital expenditure. The people must be made to realize that we are commandeering building and space; they must be made fully conscious of the spot we are in. Every move in that direction will be of benefit to this war effort.


Mr. GARDINER:: The discussions so far on this resolution which was before the house and which is now before the committee have been largely with regard to expenditures having to do with munitions and supply. I think it was February 25 when the discussions began. Since that time I have been waiting for an opportunity to make a few remarks with regard to the particular part of the war effort charged up to and coming under the Department of National War Sendees. I desire to make -these remarks at -this time partly because of certain information which is available now and which neither the house nor the public know of at the moment and partly because of certain criticisms which were made prior to the meeting of the house with regard to the reasons for the registration, the method by which it was carried out, and the results obtained.
It will be recalled that when the Department of National War Services was set up, there was assigned to it the task of making a registration of the human resources of Canada and, in due course, of making a survey with regard to the material resources. The department was asked also to take charge of the bureau of information, which has been referred to from time to time during the debate. We were asked to bring about, if possible, the coordination of the efforts of those who were engaged in collecting from the people of Canada funds with which to carry on volun-taiy services.

The task given to the department in connection with the registration had for its objective two different results. The first was to obtain men for the training camps. The initial desire of the Department of National Defence was that these training camps should be operated for thirty days and that something between 25,000 and 30,000 men should be obtained for six weeks in order to fill the camps. Before a call could be sent forth to the young men required for these camps, it was necessary to have a registration in order to know where they were. In addition to that, it was thought wise to -make a registration of all persons from sixteen years upwards in order that we might know something of the capabilities -of the general population of Canada and also have a better check upon that population. I think some of the remarks made in the House of Commons at the time, most of them by hon. members of the opposition, which I intend to quote in a few moments, indicate as clearly as anything else the feeling with regard to the registration itself.
Before going on to deal with the registration, I should like to add my protest to the protests made by other members of the government, including the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King). I do not protest because criticism of the government has been offered or because there has been criticism of this particular department or of the registration; I protest simply to draw attention to the nature of the criticism which has been offered by certain sections of the press across Canada. I have no objection at any time to criticism; as a matter of fact I invite it, provided it is based upon facts and not upon statements which are not facts. I admit that criticism, particularly in war time, is helpful. It has been said that ministers in the government have too much to do, and yet many times those who say that have been adding more to the tasks of these ministers than any other group or organization in the Dominion of Canada. This criticism has appeared in newspapers across Canada with large circulations. They -have published what are not the facts and have made criticism which was not based upon things being done in the different departments of the government.
When criticism of that kind is offered it requires more effort and uses up more nervous strain and delays the activities of the particular department more than anything else being done, either inside or outside the dominion. When once wrong information is given -to the people of Canada by the press of the country, it is necessary for the department and the minister involved to clear up such criticism before the effort being put forth by the department can be carried on to

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a successful conclusion. There has been much criticism of members of the government as to why this or that has not been done, as to why there has been delay in doing this or that.
Those who were criticized should be and, I think, are expected to make answers to the criticisms, and probably to criticize those who made the criticisms. My criticism of the press, more particularly a certain section of the press, would be this, that there is no organized group in the dominion that has done more since the fall of 1939 to delay the war effort of this country than certain sections of the press in Canada. That effort started even before war was declared, and it has been carried on since.
I agree with my hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson) when he says it is a mistake politically to get into a controversy with the press because experience has shown that they always have the last word and that if you start an argument with them you are starting something which you cannot end. Nevertheless I believe at times it is necessary that the facts with regard to criticisms of that kind should be stated and that someone should say what he considers to be the effect of that kind of criticism upon the war effort.
In times of war none of us is so much concerned about the political effect of his remarks as he is in times of peace, and if it is necessary to dispute the opinions and expressions given through the press in war time, we must do so despite the political effects it may have.
Some criticisms have been made with regard to the method by which the registration of man-power or the human resources of Canada was carried out. In order to clear up any misunderstanding there may be with regard to the registration itself, either as to the reasons for it, or as to the methods by which it was done, or as to the results obtained, I wish to give a review of what took place in that connection.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Does the minister suggest that we at any time criticized the national registration? On the contrary, will he not say that we assisted in every way? The only criticism that I ever made was that it came too late. I remember saying that.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think the leader of the opposition will agree that up to the moment I have been talking of criticisms from the press.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Then I have nothing to say.


James Garfield Gardiner: Anything I have to say with regard to the question just raised I shall say as I go along.
The government of Great Britain conducted a national registration either immediately after or immediately prior to the outbreak of war. Australia, New Zealand, south Africa, and I think most other parts of the empire did the same thing immediately after the outbreak of war. It was suggested in this country by some-I do not think by any members of the opposition-that since we were going to have a census taken in 1941, a registration in Canada perhaps was not as necessary as it otherwise might have been last year. But there is a difference between a national registration and a census. In a census you secure information, and that is the end of your contact with the individual from whom you secure the information. But a national registration is a continuing process in that it involves each individual registered carrying a national registration certificate, and records of changes of address, changes of marital status and death being continually kept.
Following the collapse of France, there was an insistent demand both within and without parliament that there should be a national registration in Canada. I have taken the trouble to go through Hansard and obtain from it the requests by different members that a national registration be made. There are quite a number of them, making up some seven pages of extracts of a few sentences from the speeches of different members. I shall read only one or two to indicate that these requests came from different parts of the house. The hon. member for St. Paul? (Mr. Ross) said, speaking in the house on tin 24th of May last:
In my view we should have a national regis. tration of every man and woman in Canada; if we do not, I wonder how we are going to find out about subversive influences?
The hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. Homuth), speaking in the house on May 27 last, said:
The general feeling among the people to whom I spoke is that one way of overcoming this trouble is to have a national registration of the men and women of the country with a view to having a list of those available for war work.
Then the hon. member for Peterborough West (Mr. Fraser), who in commenting the other day upon the salvage campaign had the kindly thought to add to his remarks with

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regard to it that we might term the Ministry of National War Services the Ministry of Garbage, had this to say:
The hon. member for Waterloo South suggested that we have national registration. With that I wholly agree, and I do not mean that we should have it in 1941.
I think that is sufficient to indicate that there was a request for national registration from the opposition side of the house; I could cite remarks made by members in each of the other groups as well as by members on this side to indicate that the request was made generally throughout the house, and finally it was agreed that a national registration should be made.
My hon. friend the leader of the opposition called my attention to the fact that an appeal was made to the members. That appeal was made first by the hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris), that all the members of the house should be asked to assist in the making of this registration, and that appeal was answered from this side of the house with consent to do so. As members of the house know, to that end each member was asked to take charge of the organization in his own constituency, and the voluntary effort that was put forth as a result of the efforts of the members of this house was something of which every member can well be proud.
The only further reference I have to make to the remark of the hon. member for Peterborough West is this, that the second effort we have made to enlist the support of all members of the house was when we appealed to them to assist National War Services in connection with its salvage campaign, and there again, so far as I know, the greater part of the members are participating in this voluntary effort in the same spirit as that in which they undertook to help in the work of national registration.
But I would say this, that it is not particularly helpful or encouraging to the minister who appeals to members to do that kind of thing when we have the type of criticism that we have had from one or two within the house with regard to that particular campaign.


Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: Mr. Chairman, may I say a word?


The CHAIRMAN:: The hon. gentleman can put a question, but he cannot interrupt the minister.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Let the minister proceed.


James Garfield Gardiner: I only wish to point out again that members from all parts of the house, including the hon. member for Peterborough

West, were anxious that the registration should be made and that we should have the assistance of all the members in making it.
Next, a committee representative of all departments of the government which would be concerned with the information to be procured from the national registration was set up in June last, under the chairmanship of Doctor R. H. Coats, dominion statistician. This committee prepared a questionnaire which was subsequently submitted to the Canadian people. Only one addition thereto was suggested by the government, and that was question 17 which was added to those on the questionnaire and which asked registrants if there was any special training they would like to receive in connection with industry.
The government decided, as a matter of policy, that the national registration should be conducted under the direction of a new Department of National War Services, and the registration was conducted under my direction as minister and under the deputy ministers who were appointed for that department.
Then the committee, under the chairmanship of Doctor Coats, recommended that the actual registration should be done on an electoral division basis, as nearly as possible in the manner of an enumeration for a dominion election, and through the instrumentality of the chief electoral officer and his staff. This recommendation was accepted; the chief electoral officer was appointed chief registrar, and the actual registration was carried out under his direction.
General supervision of the registration was carried on by the associate deputy minister of the department, that is, Mr. Justice Davis.
The said committee, under Doctor Coats, further recommended that, when the registration was completed, the information secured thereby should be compiled by the dominion bureau of statistics. This recommendation was likewise accepted by the government.
I wish at this point to explain that there have been no staffs in the Department of National War Services associated with the compilation and recording of these statistics. Those staffs have been entirely in the bureau of statistics in the Department of Trade and Commerce. The staffs have been supplied by moneys secured under the vote which we are now discussing in the house, as a result of an appeal made to the government by the minister in charge of war services.
It was necessary to provide a new building for the housing of the equipment and staff necessary to do the compiling of this information. This building was completed on

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or about the 30th of September, 1940. This, I would like to comment, was not bad, considering the fact the department was not established until the month of July. The registration was under way, and the building was completed in time for the information to be taken to that building and the staff to be employed in it.
The dominion bureau of statistics completed moving into the building and the setting up of all necessary machinery about the middle of October; the hundreds of tons of registration cards which accumulated between this date and the completion of national registration were taken over by the dominion bureau of statistics, and the actual work of compilation was started.
The first job which confronted the dominion bureau of statistics was as follows: It was the duty of the deputy registrars in the various polls to copy the cards of the single men, 19 to 45, so that copies could be used for military purposes. When the cards came in, it was found that some constituencies had made copies but sent them here. In other constituencies no copies had been made. The bureau of statistics had to get busy at once to straighten this out and furnish the divisional registrars with missing cards.
The next job undertaken was the compilation of the material with respect to Doukhobors and Japanese. This latter was urgently required for consideration by a committee dealing with the Japanese problem on the Pacific coast.
Prior to the national registration, consideration had to be given to the problem of priority in the matter of compilation of accumulated material, and a decision had to be reached as to whether or not the first job would be to get the statistical picture of the human resources of Canada, namely, the number of males and females of different ages, classified into provinces, according to occupations, nationality, condition of health, et cetera.
This information could be used only for the purpose of deciding broad matters of governmental policy with respect to the utilization of man-power in Canada. You would know from these statistical studies, for instance, how many plumbers there were in Canada, what provinces they were in, information with respect to their experience, age, nationality, et cetera, but you would not know who the actual plumbers were or where they were.
A different method of compilation was necessary in order to procure the last mentioned information. That is, it was thought that it was more important for the time being that we get statistical information which would show the name of the individual, where the 14873-84}
individual was living, and what that individual was able to do, than it was to get the broad statistical picture first in order to formulate government policies upon it.
Prior to the outbreak of war, a committee, representative of several departments of government, had been formed to prepare a list of what might be termed "reserved, preferred or specialized occupations". It was not the intention that they should be reserved in the sense that these persons would not be available for war service, but it was intended that they should be persons who were prepared for work in some industry which would be essential to the carrying on of the war. This means a list of occupations which would be directly or indirectly connected with industries necessary to war and in respect of which consideration would have to be given to the wisdom of withdrawing persons therefrom to permit them to enter the armed forces.
This list, as enlarged by the dominion bureau of statistics, contained approximately 1,250 occupations. That is, the bureau of statistics divided these different industries which might be considered essential or preferred into 1,250 different groups. It should be pointed out that this list was prepared on an occupational basis and not on the basis of industries. For instance, a man might be working in an occupation in a war-time industry, which occupation itself would not be a specialized or trained occupation, and his withdrawal from such industry would not prevent or interfere with the proper functioning of the industry. The case of the common labourer would be an instance in point.
It was decided on the advice of a committee, headed by Doctor Coats, that the first job to do was to get out a list of persons engaged in these "specialized, reserved or preferred occupations", and that the procuring of the general statistical picture should await the preparation of this list.
As soon as the national registration cards in the possession of the dominion statistician were in a position to be used, they were gone through. Incidentally, the dominion statistician received about eight million cards as a result of the national registration. From these eight million cards there were extracted approximately 1,800,000 cards of males and females who belonged to these "specialized or reserved occupations".
This group was then broken down into three categories, which were made up from the answers to these three questions: No. 14, occupation or craft; (a) present occupation (b) what is your regular occupation? (c) what other work can you do well? Through those three questions there were selected the persons that constituted these different groups,
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although they did not take in all the persons who answered those questions. Some of the answers did not show them to belong to these specialized groups.
As I have said, this group was broken down into three categories or three lots as follows:
(a)	A list of persons trained in these specialized or reserved occupations and presently engaged therein.
(b)	A list of persons whose regular occupation was a specialized or reserved occupation but who were not at the time of registration working in their regular occupations. They might be temporarily engaged) in some other reserved occupation but, at all events, not in their regular occupation.
(c)	A list of persons who had training in a specialized or reserved occupation but were not presently engaged in such occupation, or whose regular occupation was not the occupation in which they had special training.
These lists-three in number, as above indicated-also show persons with training in any of these reserved occupations who were unemployed. I may say that I have before me that list with regard to the province of Ontario, and the figures on that list illustrate very well the situation existing in that province. Very shortly, figures will be ready for all the provinces of Canada upon this basis. Just to illustrate the nature of the information which is available with regard to these
1,800,000	persons, may I call attention to this: In Ontario there are about 1,300,000 males of the ages that we are concerned with here in that province among whom these cards have been selected, and in dealing with those specialized classes to which I have referred, we find that 444,496 persons are at present engaged in the industry for which they are best qualified. There are 170,856 in the second group I spoke of; that is, they are not engaged in the industry for which they consider themselves best qualified, although they may be engaged in some other war industry. Then there are 289,948 who are engaged at something else, but who stated that they had had experience in doing work in some of those activities that are necessary to the carrying on of the war.
Turning over a number of pages, and coming to a group that might be of interest, let us look at miners and see how the group that have had experience or are properly qualified to be miners are divided up in Ontario. There are 15,136 persons specially qualified to work in mines and who are working in manes; 5,29.3 qualified to work in mines are not working in mines but are working at some other industry which might be important in connection with the war, for which they do not

consider themselves quite as well qualified; 3,998 persons in Ontario have had experience in working in mines but are not working in mines now.
That will give some idea of the nature of the information available in connection with all these different 1,250 occupations spoken of in connection with these services.
Coming down to electrical apparatus, an employment in connection with which there is great importance as related to the war effort, we find that 6,909 persons in Ontario are working at part of the job for which they are best qualified; 2,664 are working somewhere but not where they think they are best qualified; 5,950 have qualifications to work in that industry but are not working in it. They are engaged, probably, in some other effort that may be made in connection with the war, but not in that one.
Then, coming to electrical repair men and service men, we find there are 1,950 men working where they think they are best equipped to work; 1,799 in the second class; and 4,242 in the third class. The third class, which is the one from which persons could be drawn and moved into an industry that they feel they can do a better job in than they are doing now, is more than twice as great as the number regularly working in that particular employment.
That is sufficient to indicate the nature of the information which is available now with regard to Ontario and which will be available very shortly with regard to all the provinces.
To give a little more detail as to what can be obtained as a result of that class of information being registered, may I say the result is that we have a list of all persons at present engaged in these reserved occupations, those engaged in other occupations but capable by training of being used in these reserved occupations, and those unemployed, capable of employment in these reserved occupations- that is, unemployed in these particular occupations.
To emphasize the vastness of the job which was required to be done, I am told that there are twelve miles of these names-that the sheets, with the names on them, could be piled from the floor up to the ceiling of any of the rooms where these documents are stored. I am told that you can go into the statistical department to-day where the lists are completely made up, as they are in Ontario, and, by tests up to date, inside two or three minutes a clerk can get you the name of any person who is on the list. He will get you information to show the address of that person, what he is working at, what he thinks he is capable of working at and not working

War Appropriation Bill
at. In other words, these lists are available. They have been made available to all the departments of government and are being used by the different departments.
These lists are now available for the industries of Canada and are being used by some of them. Let me give a concrete example to show how they can be used in a direct way. A manufacturing firm desire to know where they can find a list of persons with that particular type of training. For instance, they may want to know where they can locate tool makers. From these lists the dominion bureau of statistics can furnish to the industry the names, addresses, age, nationality, birthplace, years of experience, et cetera, and whether or not now employed, of all tool makers in Canada or in a given province or district in Canada. This applies to each of the 1,250 specialized or reserved occupations.
That last remark will apply within the next few days, when the statistical information is completed, to all the provinces. At the present time it covers a very considerable part of Canada and is entirely completed for Ontario.
In this way any industry seeking men to be engaged can be given the names, addresses and locations of such individuals and can be advised whether or not they are working in that trade or in any other trade, and whether they are employed or unemployed. This was a tremendous job and was completed at the end of January. As soon as it was completed, steps were taken to procure the same type of information in connection with agriculture, and these agricultural lists will be available very shortly for the provinces of Canada.
On completion of this work, the dominion statistician then turned attention to the preparation of the statistical tables necessary for the use of the government and the departments of government-that is, for the formulation of general policy. The first series of statistical tables being prepared gives statistical information with respect to the lists of specialized or reserved occupations which I have mentioned. It gives us a statistical picture of the numbers at present employed in these specialized or reserved occupations, those whose regular occupation is a specialized or reserved occupation, and those who have had training in such specialized or reserved occupation.
These are broken down by sex, age groups and occupational status. Then a statistical study is being made of the registration as a whole-that is, a statistical study of the entire 8,000,000 cards. I have here certain information, again with regard to Ontario, which I am not going to go over except to
say that if the house would permit me to do so I should like to have this short table put on Hansard, because it gives simply the total population of Ontario over sixteen years of age, dividing it into age groups, into males and females.
The table is as follows:
Table 1-Ages
Total Males Females
Total	
2,731,580	1,355,240	1,376,34016-19	
268,180	130,460	137,72020-29	
601,780	286,670	315,11030-39	
539,990	270,770	269,22040-49	
471,700	239,670	232,03050-59	
398,960	208,870	190,09060-69	
266.520	132,910	133,61070	
182,970	85,570	97,400N.S	
1,480	320	1,160
Then there is another short table that would be most interesting if placed on Hansard, giving as it does a set of figures that would be very helpful. It shows the nature of employment in Ontario. This is what is called table No. 14, occupational and employment status. It again gives the total population, dividing it into males and females, and gives the number of employers, the number of wage earners, the number employed, the number of homemakers, the number retired, students, those who have never worked and those who are invalid. If the committee will permit, I should like to have that group placed on Hansard for the benefit of hon. members. It will show some very interesting information, including figures like this; unemployed in Ontario,-that is on their own statement-males 73,010, and females 32,020.
The table is as follows:
Table 14-Occupational and Employment Status Total Males Females 2,731,580	1,355,240	1,376,340Employer	
103,640	97,590	6.050Own account...	234.210	217,010	17,200Wage-earner ..	1,153,680	845,760	307,920Unemployed ...	105.030	73,010	32,020Home maker...	845.060	....	845,060Retired	
119,080	82,120	36,960Student	
63,960	27,630	36,330Never worked..	100,400	8,300	92,100Invalid	
6,520	3,820	2,700
That is the nature of the information which is being made up with regard to the whole population, the eight million people in Canada. This statistical picture will show the number of males and females, with emphasis on the following break-down: age, conjugal condition, birthplace, birthplace of parents, year of immigration if an immigrant, year of naturalization, racial origin, official languages spoken, other languages than English and French spoken, educational status, condition of health, disabilities, pension status, occupational and employment status, weeks since last employment if unemployed, weeks worked in twelve months prior to August 1, 1940, farm back-
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ground, experience with horses, tractors and machinery, experience in milking and other farm work.
This will be followed by an industrial classification together with statistics as to numbers of dependents, family occupations, complete details as to occupations et cetera. These statistics for the province of Ontario I intend to file. I do not think I have a copy here to-night, but I will file it to-morrow.
The same information for all the other provinces of Canada will be completed shortly and will be duly filed.
Arrangements have been made with the various departments of the government that any department wishing to procure information with respect to name, address and location of persons, whether employed or unemployed, with any particular type of training will requisition this information from the dominion bureau of statistics, and lists will be immediately furnished.
It is interesting to note that tremendous use is being made of this national registration by the police forces of Canada. I remember one lion, member, I think it was the hon. member for Waterloo South, who made reference to that in the house when advocating that this registration should be made, that these lists would be most useful, and hon. members will recall that on the first day after the registration was made one of the German prisoners who had escaped from the camp was captured going across a bridge, because he did not have a registration card. In other words, that information is most valuable, as was stated by hon. members and others at the time. A staff of clerks is engaged continuously in getting out information for the police authorities.
It was decided to procure lists of all citizens in Canada of the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, showing the names, addresses, marital relationship, ages, et cetera. This information was to be used for the military purposes of these governments. That is, these governments, as hon. members know, are practically all being conducted now somewhere outside their own countries, and when they wish to get the names of their nationals living in this country they are able to do so and communicate with those nationals if they so desire.


Joseph Henry Harris: Before the
minister completes his statement, would he be good enough to indicate whether this information is sufficient for a census for the time being, while we are at war?


James Garfield Gardiner: I said at the beginning of my remarks, when I think the hon. member

was not in his seat, that there is a difference between a census and these statistics. The census is not my responsibility, and I prefer that the minister who is responsible should make his own statement in regard to it.
This information has already been put to use 'by the governments of Belgium, Poland and Holland.
The national registration was conducted on a constituency basis. When the registration cards came in, they were kept separate by constituencies and polling subdivisions. We are now engaged in rearranging these cards on an alphabetical basis, using the system known as the "soundex" system, which has been adopted from that used by the census bureau of the United States. As soon as this work is completed, if the name of a given individual is handed to the dominion statistician he can at once get out the card of such individual, thus permitting a constant check on the entire population of Canada.
I had the intention of dealing to-night also with a reference to the information bureau, but I see that it is now two minutes to eleven, and I do not think I shall undertake to make that statement to-night. I shall leave it for another occasion, either while we are discussing this resolution in committee or when we are discussing the individual estimate. But I wish, on behalf of the staff of the statistical branch, and the staff that was got together to assist tthe chief electoral officer, and on behalf of every member of the staff of the Department of National War Services, to thank each and every hon. member for the willing and effective cooperation which they gave to make a registration of this kind possible in the very short time in which it was done. I do not think the credit for it is due to the department or the minister or the deputy minister, or to any individual anywhere. It is due, first, to those who advocated the matter in this house and consented to its being done. In the second place it is due to the hon. members who cooperated in seeing that we got the greatest degree possible of cooperation in setting up voluntary organizations to help in the work, and also to the whole-hearted way in which all the people from one end of Canada to the other went into these registration booths in such numbers that in some places we had to get the police to regulate the passing of the people into the booths. In other words, the job was not to get them there but to handle them in the numbers in which they came, and the only reason why that was not an impossible job was that every booth was manned-or "womaned," if I may so express it-by staffs capable of doing this registration

Rules of the House-Documents
in such a way as to make it possible to put all the information down in such form that I am able to refer to it to-night. I had the privilege of going into half a dozen or more of these booths at widely scattered points across Canada during the days the registration was being done, and when I recall the number of young girls between the ages of nineteen and twenty-two or twenty-three-


Joseph Henry Harris: School teachers.


James Garfield Gardiner: -school teachers, and young boys who were engaged in this work, and then see the records that they made, I think there is a word of appreciation coming to two different groups in Canada, one being the teaching profession, and the other the young people of Canada to-day. The manner in which they assisted in carrying out that registration is worthy of comment, and I am sure will receive the full thanks of every hon. member.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Friday, March 7, 1941.