1941-11-12

NATIONAL REGISTRATION


Hon. J. T. THORSON (Minister of National War Services):: I desire to lay on the table a copy of preliminary statistical tabulations of the national registration of August, 1940, and also a copy of "Specialized Occupations, National Registration, 1940."


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: Will copies of these be sent to hon. members?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I believe that any hon.
member can obtain them either from my department or from the Dominion Bureau of Statistics.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. REID:: 1.	What have been the total quantities of plywoods purchased for military purposes during 1940 and up to September 30, 1941, from firms in British Columbia?
2.	What price per thousand was paid for same?
3.	From what firms in British Columbia were such plywoods purchased?
4.	What was the market selling price for plywoods in British Columbia during the months of October, 1939, January and September, 1940, and September, 1941?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	By the Department of Munitions and Supply-1,220,720 square feet.
A large quantity of British Columbia plywood, used for military purposes, was bought direct by contractors from manufacturers and no record of this is available. The timber controller arranged, however, for this to be supplied by the manufacturer direct to contractors on war projects at controlled prices, the same as government purchases.
2.	5/16 wallboard-$28 per m. square feet, f.o.b. mill carload lots; 5/16 weatherboard- $42.50 per m. square feet, f.o.b. mill, carload lots.
All purchases of plywood made by the department are direct from manufacturers, eliminating distributors' or dealers' profits.
The price paid for all plywood bought by the Department of Munitions and Supply was, and is, a controlled base price set by the timber controller in August, 1940. This controlled price was on an f.o.b. mill basis for standard items, plus actual freight to destination for carload lots, and uniform for all manufacturers. Arrangements were also made for the supply of less than carload lots at the carload rate from points where stocks were held, with the addition of local freight or trucking charges only.
3.	The Canadian Western Lumber Company, Fraser Mills, B.C. B.C. Plywoods Limited, Vancouver, B.C.
4.	See answer to No. 2. There has been no change in the market selling price of plywoods in British Columbia during the months mentioned, with the exception of the addition of sales tax imposed April 28, 1941.


WAR SAVINGS CERTIFICATES
Mr. CHURCH:: What sum has been spent on war savings certificates campaigns to end of October, 1941?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 


$1,244,129.11. CONTROLLER OF SUPPLIES
Mr. REID:: 1.	Has a controller of supplies been appointed? If so, what is his name?
2.	What position did he occupy in business at the time of appointment?
3.	What company or companies was he a director of or associated with at the time of his appointment?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	Alan Holmes Williamson.
2.	Vice-president, Wood, Gundy & Co. Ltd.
3.	British Columbia Packers Limited (Vancouver).
Federal Grain Limited (Winnipeg).
Wood, Gundy & Co. Ltd., Toronto.
Wood, Gundy & Co. Inc., New York.

Questions
1941 WAR LOAN


Mr. NICHOLSON:: 1.	What was the total amount subscribed in the 1941 victory loan?
2.	What were the expenses in connection with the floating of the loan for, (a) advertising; (b) commissions; (c) other expenses?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	$836,820,250.
2.	Expenditures incurred in connection with the sale of the 1941 victory loan to October 31, 1941;
(a)	Publicity expenses:
Newspaper and magazine
advertising	 $476,677	00
Posters, including billboard
posters and posting	79,565	83Radio advertising	
86,618	17Local advertising	
160,888	13Other publicity	
254,319	85
1,058,068 98
(6) Commissions to individual canvassers on general subscriptions	$1,551,713	80
Remuneration to banks, trust and loan companies-service fee for handling and1
delivering bonds	$1,750,000	00
Remuneration to investment dealers and stock brokers re pooled subscriptions. .$3,293,040	00
(c) Other expenses	$1,133,748	16


Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	What was the total cost of the last victory loan, giving details and breakdown totals of rent of premises, salaries, advertising, hire of help, travelling and hotel expenses, commissions and other expenses?
2.	How many other victory loans have there been since this war began, and at what cost?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	Expenditures incurred in connection with the sale of the 1941 victory loan to October 31, 1941:
Preparation and distribution of bonds	 $ 363,921 86
Administration expenses:
Salaries	
$149,881	67Travelling expenses	
285,038	37Stationery and office supplies	
160,673	25Rental of office space	
29,006	77Sundry expenses, including	postage, telephone, telegraph, etc. 145,226	24
Publicity expenses:
Newspaper and magazine	advertising	
$476,677	00Posters, including billboard	posters	and posting	
79,565	83Radio advertising	
86,618	17Local advertising	
160,888	13Other publicity	
254,319	85Commissions to individual canvassers on general subscriptions	
Remuneration to banks, trust and loan companies-service fee for handling and
delivering bonds	
Remuneration to investment dealers and stock brokers re pooled subscriptions.
769,826 30
1,058,068 98 1,551,713 80
1,750,000 00 3,293,040 00
Total

2. Public loans issued since the outbreak of war have been the first war loan issued in
January, 1940, and the second war loan in September, 1940.
First War Loan-$250,000,000
Total expenses incurred in connection with the sale of the loan	 $2,170,920 14
Second War Loan-$324,945,700
Total expenses incurred in connection with the sale of the loan	 $2,735,645 28
429S
Questions


HOUSING PROJECTS
Mr. NICHOLSON:: 1.	How many houses have been built by the national housing administration to date?
2.	What was the total cost of the national housing projects to the federal treasury?
3.	How many are employed on the staff of the national housing administration?
4.	What has been the cost of administration to date?
5.	What is the average cost of national
housing administration houses with full basement and permanent structures, built during 1941?	.


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	As at October 31, 1941, 17-.966 loans providing 22,450 family-dwelling units have been approved under the National Housing Act, 1938, and its predecessor act, the Dominion Housing Act, 1935, in the amount of 875,053,658.
2.	Advances aggregating $16,446,023 have been made by the dominion to October 31, 1941, representing its share of approved loans iisbursed to that date.
3.	As at October 31, 1941, there were 45 employees on the staff of the housing branch of the Department of Finance which administers the National Housing Act and the Home Improvement Plan.
4.	The expenses of the housing branch from its inception in 1935 to October 31, 1941, total $355,120.42.
5.	In the period January 1, 1941, to October 31, 1941, 4,390 loans in the amount of $13,712,458, providing 4,390 family-dwelling units have been approved. The average loan was $3,123, the average appraised value of the houses constructed (including land) was $3,750 and the average estimated cost of the houses constructed (including land) was $4,000.
^PURCHASE OF. EELS, ISLE OF ORLEANS, QUE.


Mr. ROY:: 1.	In or about the month of October, 1940, did the government purchase or cause to be purchased or sold through the intermediary of a Mr. Britton or any other person, a quantity of eels from the Eel Fisheries Cooperative Association of the isle of Orleans, Quebec?
2.	If so, was this fish paid for, and (a) by whom; (b) to whom was payment made; (c) upon what date?
3.	If not, does the government possess any information on this or any similar transaction?


Mr. MICHAUD:: 1. No.
2 and 3. No information.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. REID:: How many of the ships built or being constructed in Canada have been or are being built for, (a) Great Britain, (b) United States, (e) Canada, and at what cost in each instance?


MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. MacINNIS (for Mr. Coldwell):: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, recommendations, reports and other documents, in the posession of the Post Office department, relating to the resignation of the postmaster at Engle-felclt, Saskatchewan, and the appointment of a successor.


PETROLEUM PRODUCTS-PRICES AND CONTROL
Angus MacInnis: For a copy of all correspondence, communications, orders in council and other documents in the possession of the government, relating to authorizations for increases in the prices of oil and gasoline and control of the oil industry and service stations.


Mr. HOWE:: I would like to point out to hon. members that the request for a copy of all correspondence, communications, etc., represents a tremendous volume of inquiry. I am told that it would take a staff of stenographers at least six months. It means copying almost every file in the possession of the oil controller. If the motion could be limited to orders in council and pertinent documents, perhaps the mover could obtain all the information he desires, and it would then be in practical form for an earlier return.


Angus MacInnis: I think that will be satisfactory.


TRADE AGREEMENTS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. G. HANSELL (Macleod):: I should like to ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce if it is his intention to make any statement to the house on the results of his recent visit to central -and south America, and will there be any place for discussion of the matter in the order of business of the house?


Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: The present intention is to submit the treaties formulated between the various countries of south America and Canada to the next session of the house, at which time there will be opportunity for full discussion and a full report on the negotiations in connection with the treaties.

Wheat


LABOUR CONDITIONS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. CLARENCE GILLIS (Cape Breton South):: In view of the fact that the Kirkland Lake situation has developed to the point where a strike will be called to-morrow morning if there are no negotiations with the operators by seven o'clock this evening, would the Minister of Labour care to inform the house what steps have been taken by the government since the taking of the vote to offset a strike in that section?


Hon. N. A. McLARTY (Minister of Labour):: The hon. member was good enough to give me notice of this question. As he knows, on Monday last a communication ivas sent by the union to the mine operators asking for a conference, and a time limit was put at seven o'clock to-night. I have not had an opportunity of learning what reply, if any, has been given to that communication. But today I telegraphed the representative of the mine operators and the representative of the union asking that they send representatives to Ottawa next Monday to give consideration to the whole matter and see whether or not some formula can be worked out to avoid a strike. I have requested that in the meantime no strike action be taken.


DECENNIAL CENSUS
[Stage Direction]
DELAY IN PAYMENT OF ENUMERATORS On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. C. GREEN (Vancouver South):: I should like to ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce a question with regard to the census taken last June. I learned to-day that at least some of the enumerators who helped take that census have not yet been paid in full. Could the minister tell the house when such payment will be made? I believe some of these men are badly in need of the money.


James Angus MacKinnon: I am advised that
there are some 17,000 of these enumerators' accounts. The accounts reach my department through the census commissioners. There is considerable necessary delay in the compiling of these accounts by the enumerators and the census commissioners. As soon as they are received a cheque for sixty per cent of the bill is issued from this department, and the balance of the amount goes forward as soon as the account is checked. In many cases considerable correspondence is required before the accounts can be passed for payment. I am told
that correspondence is necessary in connection with a large percentage of these accounts; this has always been found to be the case. Most of the accounts, however, are now in, and I am advised that cheques are being issued at the rate of over six hundred a day.


REPORTED SALE OF 150,000,000 BUSHELS TO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. E. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: I desire to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. I know he is very anxious to make a statement about the sale of wheat. My question is based on a report appearing in the Winnipeg Tribune of November 1 from Charles Bishop, press correspondent. It states that the Ottawa Journal carried a story that on the preceding Friday the biggest transaction in the history of Canadian wheat took place, namely, sale by the government to the British government of 150,000,000 bushels of wheat. The reporter said that when he interviewed the minister the minister declined at the time to make any definite statement, but said he would have something interesting on the subject very soon. Twelve days have since passed. Would the minister care to make that interesting statement now, or if he is not prepared to-day, to-morrow?


James Angus MacKinnon: No sale by the Canadian
wheat board to the cereals import commission of the British government has been completed. I think it is in order for me to state that negotiations are in progress at the present time, but no sale along the lines of the press dispatch referred to or any other lines has so far been consummated.


HOUSING
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. N. J. M. LOCKHART (Lincoln):: May I ask the Minister of Munitions and Supply if he will be good enough, when submitting the information in connection with wartime housing, to segregate the construction costs of housing from such expenditures as roadways, playgrounds and the like?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I shall be glad to do that.
The War-Canadian Legion


THE WAR
[Stage Direction]
me. churciiill's declaration of British policy

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. H. A. BRUCE (Parkdale):: I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of Prime Minister Churchill's declaration of British policy on Monday last, when he said:
I take this occasion to say-and it is my duty to say it-that should the United States become involved in war with Japan the British declaration will follow within the hour.
Will the Prime Minister state if it is the intention of the government to subscribe to this declaration of British unity with the United States?


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the attitude of the government of Canada towards Great Britain and towards the United States and towards British-United States relations is well known throughout Canada, throughout the United Kingdom, throughout the United States, and I think I might add, throughout the world. More than this I do not think I should say at this time.


MOBILIZATION OF CANADA'S RESOURCES- REPRESENTATIONS OF CANADIAN LEGION
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. DIEFENBAKER (Lake Centre):: I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister. On October 22 the dominion executive council of the Canadian Legion appeared as a delegation before the government and requested a complete mobilization of Canada's resources on a total war footing. Would the Prime Minister inform the house what is or has been the answer of the government to such representations, and if no answer has yet been given will the Prime Minister give a statement of the government's present position with regard to the question of a complete mobilization along the lines of the memorandum submitted by that delegation?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend will have to ask the members of the delegation as to the reply I made to them at the time. As I recollect it, it was to the effect that their representations would be carefully considered by the government. As to any statement of major policy on the part of the government, as I intimated yesterday a statement of the kind will be made, not at the end of a session but at the beginning of a new session of {Mr. Howe.]
parliament, and will be made in a way which will permit of the fullest debate and discussion in this house.
INTERNATIONAL SITUATION SINCE JUNE 14, 1941 -Canada's war effort
The house again in committee of the whole, Mr. Vien in the chair.


John George Diefenbaker: With the leave of the committee I should like to ask for an answer to the question I asked yesterday of the Minister of Munitions and Supply in regard to the aircraft manufactured or assembled in Canada. I believe the minister is in a position to answer now.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I have the information. The number of aircraft manufactured in Canada from September 3, 1939 to November 1, 1941, is 2,228. The number of aircraft assembled in Canada during the same period was 2,243, which figure I believe includes planes from the United States as well as planes from England. This makes a total of 4,471 planes.


Mr. HARRIS (Danforth):: Could the minister of National War Services make a statement with regard to the coordination of the activities of the many war charities now carrying on in this country? Perhaps before he answers that question I might make one or two observations.
Splendid work is being done by the many women's organizations, who give of their time, energy and money to a most remarkable degree. But it does seem in many cases that they do not have sufficient guidance as to the results of their efforts, or as to whether they are doing the most economical and most satisfactory type of work. For example, only a day or two ago Miss Macphail, formerly a member of this house, made the statement in the press that ladies in the district around the town of Durham, I think it was, might better be employed making children's dresses instead of knitting socks, which can be turned out by machinery so much more quickly and more cheaply than they can be knit by hand. In Toronto the same condition exists. I wonder if the minister's department could not indicate to these organizations the sort of work they might do to the best advantage. If there were someone in each district as a regional officer, if you will, charged with responsibility directly from the department, who could find out from the department the type of work that might be done to best advantage, it would be of considerable help. Even if that information could be circulated in the press it would be of some assistance.

The War-War Services
There is another point I should like to bring to the attention of the minister. In most areas this work is carried on by groups of ladies who congregate in church basements, private homes, or, as in the case of Toronto, in vacant store properties, which they turn into a sort of headquarters. Perhaps the minister's department might give some consideration to this suggestion. Where a store property has been turned over to an organization of this kind, entirely without charge, could the owner be exempted from payment of income tax on the amount of property tax he has to pay on that building, or even to the extent of the carrying charges on the property? If that could be done I believe many desirable centres would be opened up in various communities where this work could be carried on in a much more efficient manner. Then there is the further point that when these groups meet in private homes there is a tendency on the part of many people to entertain perhaps a little extravagantly. If these activities could be organized more efficiently much better results might be achieved.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: When I first appeared before the committee I referred in a very general way to some of the points which have been mentioned by the hon. member for Danforth, and at that time indicated that my department was coming to the view that the time had arrived when we did not wish any increase in the number of war charities or in the number of war activities of a charitable nature, but that we were hoping that the men and women of Canada would give consideration, in respect of their various war charities, to the coordination of their efforts rather than to any expansion of the field of activity.
As hon. members are aware, every application for permission to engage in a war charity must be made to the war charities division of my department in order that a permit may issue under the provisions of the War Charities Act. Every application for such a permit is carefully considered by the officers of the department before a permit for the registration of a war charity is granted under the provisions of that act. There are a number of activities which are of a more spectacular nature, shall I say, than others. Certain activities make a very attractive appeal to the men and women who are engaged in them,
but it does not necessarily follow that these activities are the most desirable, or that the men and women taking part in them are thereby making their greatest contribution. If I were to make one general observation in reply to the question asked by my hon. friend it would be this, that the men and women of Canada should get behind the great national drive that will take place in the spring of 1942. I refer to the joint drive in which the great national war auxiliary services organizations will take part, and in which the Canadian Red Cross society also will participate. I could discuss the activities of these services, but the general observation I would make would be that instead of multiplying the number of separate activities of this kind, the men and women of Canada might well get behind the national drive that is to take place this coming spring.
The national war auxiliary services organizations such as the Canadian Legion, the Knights of Columbus, The Salvation Army, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., and another which is going to take part in the next drive, the Navy League of Canada, are in the main performing auxiliary services for our troops both in Canada and abroad. On the other hand the Red Cross society is performing its splendid services in accordance with its traditional position as an instrument of mercy in time of war. Its activities have been tremendously increased. Up to recently, for example, it was packing 10,000 parcels a week for prisoners of war. That activity has been increased to 35,000 parcels per week. In addition, it is engaged in activities of a nature which give aid to the bombed [DOT] victims of Great Britain.	It has been performing a
splendid service in its blood donor arrangements. All these activities are of a great and humane kind. The operations of such an organization deserve the support of every man and woman in Canada, and I should like to see the men and women of Canada who are anxious to make some kind of contribution to the war effort make it in that field and in support of that drive, rather than in a multiplication of war charities of one kind and another. I shall have more to say about the national drive later when we have fixed upon the date and our plans for its success are further advanced.
I do take this opportunity however to urge upon the men and women of Canada that
The War-War Services

they must make an absolute one hundred per cent success of the approaching drive. It will be a large one, in the field from $17,000,000 to $20,000,000. That is a large amount of money, but the Canadian people have never failed to respond to a single appeal that has been made thus far, and I devoutly hope- indeed, I know-that they will not fail to respond in this instance.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: As the minister has pointed out, these moneys are pretty well regulated and governed by the government. It arranges for the work to be done by the organizations to which he has referred. Since it is work to aid our soldiers, could the money not be taken from the national revenue rather than through a national drive? The people are heavily taxed and regulated as it is; could we not avoid the canvassing which is done repeatedly across the country? With all the safeguards and regulations enforced by the government on the expenditure of this money, which is to be used for the assistance of our troops, it strikes me it would be better to take the money out of the national revenue.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: No, that is not my view. It may be necessary for the government to undertake the financing of some of the auxiliary services now rendered to our troops by the national organizations I mentioned a moment ago. I am definitely of the opinion, however, that there is a tremendous value in having the thousands of men and women identified with these organizations engaged in the task of assisting in the auxiliary services. The services of the Red Cross, by reason of its inherent nature, must be voluntary. So far as the auxiliary services are concerned, I see a great advantage in having thousands of men and women across Canada actively associating themselves with the promotion of these services to our troops. It would be much easier for the auxiliary service organizations to get their money direct from the treasury, but I am satisfied the country would lose something of incalculable value if this voluntary effort were replaced by putting the whole burden on the federal treasury.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: Is the minister in a position to make a statement in reply
to the observations made last night with respect to the potentialities of our man-power, broken down in the manner I indicated?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Yes. I had intended to reply as soon as possible to the questions asked yesterday by the leader of the opposition. He asked me to give a specific statement of Canada's potential man-power capacity as disclosed by the national registration. At the opening of the house to-day I tabled a preliminary statistical tabulation resulting from the national registration of August, 1940. I also tabled a publication entitled Specialized Occupations, National Registration. This latter document breaks down the results of the registration in a variety of ways. There are a number of interesting and useful tables in that publication.
The first of these tables shows the numerical and relative distribution by provinces of persons reporting specialized occupations. There are some 1,250 of these specialized occupations. The second table indicates this distribution according to age groups for each province separately, and for the dominion as a whole. The third table is similar to the second one, except that the classifications are by present status-that is, as employer, own account, employee, and so on. Table No. 4 classifies some thirty main occupational headings according to ten-year age groups. These are shown only for the dominion.
Table No. 5 is similar to No. 4, but shows this classification arranged according to present status. Table No. 6 is a most complete and detailed one. It represents the principal tabulations of the report, and classifies the registrants according to some three hundred main occupations, stating sex, and giving the information for Canada and for each of the provinces. The basic information and results respecting the national registration, so far as specialized occupations are concerned, are shown in this publication.
Then my hon. friend asked me to table a statement of the total number of men of military age in Canada between the ages of 21 and 45. This statement shows the numbers of single men and widowers ' (without children) between the ages of 19 and 45, classified by provinces. The total is 989,739. With the consent of the committee I should like to place this table upon Hansard:
(Mr. Thorson.]

The War-War Services


NUMBER OF SINGLE MEN AND WIDOWERS (WITHOUT CHILDREN) 19 TO 45 YEARS OF AGE CLASSIFIED BY PROVINCES
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Age Groups	Ontario	Quebec	Nova Scotia	New Bruns- wick	Prince Edward Island	Mani- toba	Saskat- chewan	Alberta (in cl. Yukon)	British Columbia	Totals19	29,919	29,641	4,714	3,768	702	6,248	8,719	6,936	5,459	96,10620	27,690	27,845	4,514	3,681	638	6,071	8,551	7,031	5,154	91,17521	23,613	23,817	4,026	2,984	660	5,374	7,471	6,081	4,403	78,42922	22,150	23,913	3,692	3,031	556	5,099	7,018	5,659	4,222	75,34023	21,298	22,084	3,275	2,615	530	4,793	6,565	5,194	4,147	70,50124	19,576	19,591	3,122	2,415	488	4,345	5,863	4,723	4,040	64,16325	17,794	17,368	2,909	2,085	435	4,081	5,154	4,292	3,913	58,03126	16,155	15,862	2,617	1,966	434	3,655	4,523	3,937	3,496	52,64527	13,692	13,952	2,316	1,702	371	3,105	3,905	3,148	3,017	45,20828	12,278	12,132	2,117	1,492	367	2,690	3,305	2,898	2,569	39,84829	10,788	10,350	1,831	1,289	320	2,381	2,932	2,604	2,263	34,75830	9,732	9,577	1,708	1,171	274	2,004	2,537	2,351	2,102	31,45631	8,410	7,868	1,399	942	254	1,739	2,197	2,043	1,903	26,75532	8,089	7,191	1,343	959	228	1,633	2,201	1,934	1,813	25,39133	7,142	6,478	1,232	766	204	1,369	1,765	1,945	1,683	22,58434	6,864	5,563	1,032	699	185	1,332	1,661	1,749	1,490	20,57535	6,878	5,345	987	684	175	1,321	1,624	1,750	1,667	20,43136	6,506	4,934	900	587	159	1,209	1,545	1,719	1,491	19,05037	5,705	4,388	777	504'	145	1,103	1,438	1,540	1,443	17,04338	5,575	4,070	770	513	150	1,025	1,391	1,546	1,372	16,41239	5,113	3,729	666	481	138	963	1,265	1,382	1,338	15,07540.	4,893	3,485	735	484	124	845	1,226	1,271	1,320	14,38341	4,155	2,769	573	401	104	768	945	1,063	1,126	11,90442	4,204	2,807	565	383	110	740	949	1,001	1,041	11,80043	3,812	2,574	505	385	96	673	869	1,029	864	10,80744	3,732	2,418	536	348	82	666	866	932	973	10,55345	3,416	1,976	477	314	75	645	808	736	869	9,316Total	309,179	291,727	49,338	36,649	8,004	65,877	87,293	76,494	65,178	989,739
Richard Burpee Hanson: Has the minister a summary which could be placed upon Hansardf I assumed that his departmental officials would have given him a summary wffiich we could take as a general statement and then have the tables to come and go upon.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I am trying to respond to the questions asked by the leader of the opposition.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Perhaps I have not approached the matter in the right way.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I think the information given in this table is what my hon. friend desires. With the permission of the committee I should like to place upon Hansard a table showing the number of single men and * widowers (without children) 19 to 45 years of age, classified by administrative divisions. I think this table will answer specifically the question to which I referred a moment ago. The table follows:
The War-War Services


NUMBER OF SINGLE MEN AND WIDOWERS (WITHOUT CHILDREN) 19 TO 45 YEARS OF AGE CLASSIFIED BY ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS
[Stage Direction]
Age Groups	"A" Lon- don, Ont.	"B" Toron- to, Ont.	"C" Kings- ton, Ont.	"D" Port Arthur, Ont.	"E" Mon- treal, Que.	"F" Que- bec, Que.	"G" Hali- fax, N.S.	"H" St. John, N.B.	*T* Char- lotte- town, P.E.I.	"J" Win- ni- peg, Man.	"K" Van- cou- ver, B.C.	"M" Re- gina, Sask.	"N" Ed- mon- ton, Alta.	Totals19	6,392	16,664	5,749	1,114	18,943	10,698	4,714	3,768	702	6.248	5,484	8,719	6,911	96,10620	5,886	15,275	5,477	1,052	17,913	9,932	4,514	3,681	638	6,071	5,188	8,551	6,997	91,17521	4,922	13,071	4,640	980	15,317	8,600	4,026	2,984	660	5,374	4,439	7,471	6,045	78,42922	4,513	12,339	4,310	958	15,111	8,802	3,692	3,031	556	5,099	4,251	7,018	5,630	75,34023	4,255	11,855	4,228	960	14,252	7,832	3,275	2,615	530	4,793	4,198	6,565	5,143	70,50124	3,773	11,021	3.865	917	12,913	6,678	3,122	2,415	488	4,345	4,082	5,863	4,681	64,16325	3,441	9,931	3,531	891	11,289	6,079	2,909	2,085	435	4,081	3,951	5,154	4,254	58,03126	3,004	8,990	3,327	834	10,538	5,324	2,617	1,966	434	3,655	3,556	4,523	3,877	52,64527	2,627	7,650	2,709	706	9,275	4,677	2,316	1,702	371	3,105	3,064	3,905	3,101	45,20828	2,322	6,678	2,627	651	7,988	4,144	2,117	1,492	367	2,690	2,611	3,305	2,856	39,84829	2,140	5,948	2,133	567	6,968	3,382	1,831	1,289	320	2,381	2.300	2,932	2,567	34,75830	1,950	5,245	1,986	551	6,502	3,075	1,708	1,171	274	2,004	2,153	2,537	2,300	31,45631	1,654	4,487	1,783	486	5,398	2,470	1,399	942	254	1,739	1,945	2,197	2,001	26,75532	1,589	4,283	1,776	441	5,008	2,183	1,343	959	228	1,633	1,835	2,201	1,912	25,39133	1,334	' 3,940	1,426	442	4,504	1,974	1,232	766	204	1,369	1,713	1,765	1,915	22,58434	1,259	3,864	1,272	469	3,909	1,654	1,032	699	185	1,332	1,525	1,661	1,714	20,57535	1,293	3,796	1,252	537	3,855	1,490	987	684	175	1,321	1,686	1,624	1,731	20,43136	1,199	3,701	1,084	522	3,577	1,357	900	5S7	159	1,209	1,525	1,545	1.6S5	19,05037	1,088	3,145	986	486	3,255	1,133	777	504	145	1,103	1,467	1,438	1,516	17,04338	1,137	3,027	90S	503	3,006	1,064	770	513	150	1,025	1,387	1,391	1,531	16,41239	970	2,752	944	447	2,780	949	666	481	13S	963	1,355	1,265	1,365	15,07540	910	2,643	907	433	2,586	899	735	484	124	845	1,344	1,226	1,247	14,38341	875	2,187	751	342	2,109	660	573	401	104	768	1,138	945	1,051	11,90442	840	2,227	807	330	2,083	724	565	383	110	740	1,053	949	989	11,80043	835	1,985	709	283	1,998	576	505	385	96	673	882	869	1,011	10,80744	777	2,015	687	253	1,830	588	536	348	82	666	992	866	913	10,55345	657	1,843	658	258	1,523	453	477	314	75	645	874	808	731	9,316Total	61,672	170,562	60,532	16,413	194,430	97,297	49,338	36,649	8,004	65,877	65,998	87,293	75,674	989,739
Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The leader of the
opposition asked that this information be broken down in order to give the various occupations of persons of military age. To comply strictly with that request would involve an enormous tabulation, but I may say that essentially this information is contained in table No. 4 of the publication, "Specialized Occupations, National Registration 1940," which I tabled this afternoon.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Have those documents been distributed?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I shall make inquiry, and if not, I shall try to arrange for their distribution.
The hon. member for Grenville-Dundas (Mr. Casselman) asked me to give the numbers in the 21, 22, 23 and 24 year old classes, and also the number in each class that had been notified to report for examination. I have a table giving the number of notices to report for medical examination by administrative divisions and covering the ten monthly training periods. The grand total is 270,114. I have not this information broken up into the different
age groups. That is kept in the divisions, but if necessary it could be obtained. With the consent of the committee I should like to place this table upon Hansard,'.
Notices "Medical Examination" Sent Out
Admn.	Total of first	10th M.T.	Granddiv.	9 M.T. periods	period (Oct. 2-41)	totalA....	.. 22,211	1,112	23,323B. . . .	. . 30,610	1,267	31,877C	. 17,624	682	18,306D	,. 3,594	3,594E....	. . 58,328	1,739	60,067F....	.. 37,263	2,240	39,503G	.. 9,335	219	9,554H. . . .	.. 11,203	361	11,564I	. . 1,536	52	1,588J	. . 15,595	356	15,951K. . . .	.. 19,187	189	19,376M	. 16,557	16,557N....	.. 17,586	1,168	18,754Totals. .	.. 260,729	9,385	270,114


Richard Burpee Hanson: Could the minister arrange to obtain that information from the divisions and make it public in some way at a later stage? I think that information is essential.
(Mr. Thorson.]

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Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Yes, that could be done; the information could be obtained from the divisions and the total given here could be broken down into the different groups.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Could the minister tell the committee how many men this year have come within the age groups that might be called under the regulations? As I remember, the estimate last year was that 90,000 men had reached the age of 21 years, and estimates were given for those who had reached 22, 23 and 24 years. The minister gave us a figure of 270,114 as the total of those who had received notices. I should like to get the total number of those who have been called and the total number who have actually gone into training during this last training period.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I gave that information when I made my first presentation to the committee. I gave the number of men who had actually reported to the training centres.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: As related to the total number who were available within the age groups?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Yes.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Has the minister the percentages?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Yes, I gave that.


Mr. McGREGOR:: Yesterday the minister placed upon Hansard, page 4281, a table which shows the postponements according to provinces and occupations. We asked, however, for the number of applications in each province and the number of men called from each province. If the minister can furnish such a table it will cover the situation.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I appreciate that the hon. member asked two questions and that I gave an answer with regard to only one of them, the number of postponements that had been granted. I have not before me the number of requests which have been made in each division. As one will readily appreciate, we have been getting this statistical information together as rapidly as we can. We would have to get that information from the divisions.


Robert Henry McGregor: Can the minister give us the number of men called for training in each province?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The hon. member means a division of the requisition that we get from the Department of National Defence?


Robert Henry McGregor: I suppose that is where you get it.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The hon. member means the number of notices sent out in each province?


Robert Henry McGregor: Yes.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: That can be obtained.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: Referring to the table which appears on page 4281 of Hansard, I should like to direct attention to the figures under the heading "All other reasons except conscientious objectors." The figures for Ontario and British Columbia seem to be quite large, being 2,752 for Ontario as compared with 449 for Quebec and 1,682 for British Columbia as compared with 94 for Saskatchewan and 579 for Alberta. Could the minister give us some further information as to what groups are included here?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I suppose that information could be obtained. This column covers a multitude of special cases.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: What, for example?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: At the moment I cannot think of any large group of cases. There might be persons in cities, towns and villages who do not come under any one of the specific occupations such as farming, lumbering, trapping, fishing, and so on. They might be employed not in war-time or other industry, but in any one of a number of other occupations of a civilian nature.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Is there any reason for those two provinces having such large percentages under that heading. This is a pretty comprehensive table, including farming and other industries, and the number of postponements for two provinces is very large as compared with the other provinces. I think some explanation should be given.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: There might be mining, for example.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Other industries?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Not necessarily.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Would that not be an industry?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I would not like to say, but this covers a multitude of civilian occupations. This total of which we have been speaking covers 1,250 specialized occupations, many of which would not be included in wartime or other industries. Nevertheless it might be an occupation, without being employment in an industry. The final heading would cover a multitude of occupations. But if it is desired to have a further break-down in respect of these figures I shall be very glad to try to get it for my hon. friend.
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Mr. CASTLEDEN:: The minister will admit that there is a very wide difference between the numbers granted postponement in the different provinces. The number is 94 for Saskatchewan, 1,682 for British Columbia and 579 for Alberta. It would seem to indicate a wide difference in the attitude of the various boards granting postponement.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: There is nothing of the kind. The boards deal with all applications in the manner we discussed yesterday. I would emphasize again that every single application is dealt with on its merits by the boards. Every board is headed by a judge of a court and has on it two responsible citizens, and in addition the Department of National Defence and the national labour supply council have a right to appear before the board.


George Hugh Castleden: I am not questioning that at all, but I am saying that the very wide difference in the numbers granted postponement seems to indicate a difference in the attitudes taken by different boards.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The chances are that in some provinces fewer persons applied for postponement.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: According to the 1931 census British Columbia's population was 694,000 as compared with Saskatchewan's 921,000. Yet I find from this table that the total number of postponements granted in British Columbia is nearly three times the number granted in Saskatchewan, where agriculture represents a very large industry. I would think that those engaged in that industry should be given consideration in connection with postponements. There must be some reason why this particular category should show such a wide difference between the provinces and such a large figure for Ontario and British Columbia. This category has not been broken down. I think the point made by the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr Douglas) yesterday should be stressed and that there should be some way of unifying the procedure so that you would not have such wide differences as, for example, 1,682 postponements granted in British Columbia as compared with 94 in the last category given in the table for Saskatchewan. I think there should be some break-down of these figures.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I have not the slightest doubt that the percentage of requests granted * in respect of applications made is about the same in all the provinces and that there were fewer requests for postponement made under that heading in Saskatchewan than in the

other provinces. The percentage of applications granted in respect of requests made under this heading is 83-1 per cent for the nine military training periods.


George Hugh Castleden: Has the minister those percentages for British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Saskatchewan is division M, and in Saskatchewan in the first three training periods 32 people made application for postponement under this heading and 25 of them were granted. In the remaining periods, from four to nine, 141 applications were made under this heading and 64 were granted. In British Columbia, which I think is administrative division K, in the training periods from four to nine, 1,317 applications for postponement were made under this heading and 1,256 were granted.


George Hugh Castleden: That shows a very wide difference. Less than half of the applications in Saskatchewan were granted, and over ninety per cent of the applications in British Columbia were granted.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: We do not know what the nature of the occupation was in respect of which applications for postponement were made. You must have all the facts before you, before you can make comparisons.


George Hugh Castleden: I was just taking the figures which the minister gave.


Mr. HOMUTH:: The table shows postponements in various industries, farming, lumbering, trapping, fishing, war-time industries, and other than war-time industries. What else could there be?	.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I think I have already dealt with that question. I have pointed out that in the table to which I referred earlier this afternoon there are 1,250 specialized occupations in Canada, and these other categories might include a multitude of occupations. But if it is desired to have a further breakdown that can be done. It would only be illustrative, but if the committee insists, I will have it broken down. That heading would cover a multitude of occupations.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I think it is important that there should be some uniform system. Last night, for instance, a good deal was said about hockey players in Manitoba being refused permission to leave Canada. They thereupon established residence in Ontario and in a very short time got permission to leave Canada. Again, I cannot imagine that the difference between Ontario and Quebec is so

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marked that seven times as many postponements should be granted in Ontario as in Quebec, under the same heading.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Probably because seven times as many were asked for.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: It seems to me that, in view of 2,752 being granted in Ontario as compared with 449 in the province of Quebec, there must be some difference in the policy which is carried out in the two administrations.


Mr. QUELCH:: Could the minister say
whether or not boys born in this country of alien parents are subject to military service at the age of twenty-one?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: He is required to register upon attaining the age of sixteen; they all have to register. They are subject to being called if they are British subjects ordinarily resident in Canada.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Isn't that
a legal question?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: That becomes purely a
question whether they are or are not British subjects.


Victor Quelch: Are they?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Well, I am not going to
answer without having the facts with regard to each particular person. I should not like to express offhand a legal opinion on that subject. While we are on the subject of aliens, I put on Hansard yesterday a table relating to aliens which indicates that there are far fewer aliens in this country than most people think.


Howard Charles Green: Does that table include the
married aliens?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: No.


Howard Charles Green: The table itself does not
make that clear.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: No. I think that that table includes the single men and the unmarried men, because these were the cards that were sent by the registrars of the national registration to the divisional registrars, and the table comes from them. I therefore assume that it includes only the single and unmarried men.


Victor Quelch: I do not understand why
the minister cannot answer the question I asked. It is quite a simple one, and I will tell him why I asked it. In the district in which I live there are a number of foreigners. Apparently they have never taken out naturalization papers. They have sons of the age of twenty-one who apparently are not being called up, and these boys are continually ridiculing the lads who are called up, saying, "Oh, you
should be of our race and then you would not have to serve your country." I think the minister should answer whether or not those boys should be called up. I have been told that every man in this country who is bom of alien parents becomes automatically at the age of twenty-one a British subject.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I do not express an opinion one way or the other.


Victor Quelch: The minister is a lawyer,
and also he is in charge of the department. He should know the answer, and if he does not, evidently the matter is debatable.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I have no intention of
expressing a legal opinion on the subject.


Victor Quelch: The minister will admit that the United States have already gone farther on this question than we have. They are calling up aliens who have expressed their intention of finally becoming naturalized Surely we can go at least that far.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: We have not the same system as they have in the United States.


Victor Quelch: There is no reason why we could not change our system. At the present time, as the hon. member for Vancouver South has stated, there is a great deal of dissatisfaction throughout the country. One finds it very much on the prairies where there are numbers of alien farmers whose sons are not enlisting, and I believe this condition is proving very harmful to recruiting. Surely when a person comes to this country and gets all the advantages of Canadian citizenship he should be prepared to accept the responsibilities involved. It may be necessary to have a thorough overhaul of the matter of naturalization. I am of the opinion that after a person has been in this country for a number of years he should be given the option either of becoming naturalized or of getting out. Why should we allow people to live indefinitely in Canada, obtaining from it every benefit they possibly can, and then refuse to accept their fair share of obligations? This is not a light question; it is one which is coming very much to the front at the present time, because present conditions are doing, as I said, much harm to recruiting. I cannot yet understand why the minister cannot answer a simple question.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Just a moment. I was in the course of replying to the hon. member for Acadia when the hon. member for Vancouver South asked a question-


Howard Charles Green: I beg the minister's pardon.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: -with regard to the table which I put on Hansard yesterday. I was about to say that that table indicates that the
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number of aliens in this country is much smaller than a great many people believe. I believe we are still being unjust to a number of persons of alien origin who are Canadians although they are being grouped with the aliens. Let me say one or two things with regard to that. Some persons whose origins are not alien are saying, "Well, we are not going to enlist until Canadians of alien origin enlist." My information is that many Canadians of certain alien race groups are enlisting in the forces in as great numbers as those of any other racial origin. For example, I am informed that in some parts of Saskatchewan the men of Ukrainian origin are enlisting to a greater extent than men of other origins.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Are they
enemy aliens?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: No, they are not. Although many people are confused and group them all as foreigners, they are not foreigners.


George Hugh Castleden: How were they treated in the last war?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: In the last war there were racial groups of alien origin in which the percentage of enlistments was greater than from the whole Canadian native-born population. People say that the Jews do not enlist. Well, the Jews are enlisting in quite remarkable numbers.


Robert Henry McGregor: Where?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: For active service anywhere in the world. The number of Jews in this country is about 170,000. The number of Jews who have enlisted for active service anywhere in the world is somewhere between three and four thousand. It is not a bad average.


Robert Henry McGregor: Is that in Canada?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: In Canada, yes. There is a lot of confusion about the term "foreigners", and hon. members ought to try to clarify their views in this regard. The number of aliens in this country is quite small. The number of good Canadians of alien origin is very large; there are two millions of them in Canada. Although people may forget this, they are just as much a part and parcel of the Canadian nation as Canadians of any other origin.


Ernest George Hansell: We are told that only the young men who pass the physical tests and are placed in category A are called up under the mobilization act. If these young men who pass as category A are called up and are later found not to be physically fit, are they put in a lower category and retained in the army? Assuming the answer is yes, I submit that is

unfair and irregular. If a young man is called up, and does not pass the tests, he is not in the army, but if a young man is accepted and eventually is put in a lower category, he is in the army. So that one man in category B may be in the army while a thousand other men in category B, of the same age, are not in the army. Let us not fool ourselves; of course, we have conscription in Canada to-day for home defence. Everyone knows that. But if we are going to conscript some in certain categories and leave others of the same age and the same category not conscripted, it is unfair and I would say highly irregular.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Would the hon. member state the specific question he has in mind?


Ernest George Hansell: When a young man who is called into the service and passes his medical test as category A-which I understand is the only category that is called-is put in a lower category, after he has been in the army perhaps for some weeks, is he still retained in the army under the mobilization act? I have a definite case in mind.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I think I indicated that the only persons who are received for military training at the training centres are those who go into category A. When they become attached to a training centre they come under the jurisdiction of the Department of National Defence. They are held by that department for the four months' period of basic training, and so on, and then are held for active service in the Canadian army for service only in Canada for the duration of the war unless otherwise required. The man has become a soldier when he reports to the training cfentre, and is in the same position as other soldiers. In the active service force there are men in category A, category B and category C, I think. I do not know at what category they start discharging them from the army.


Ernest George Hansell: The position is simply this: you may have a young man called up under the conscription act-that is not what we call it, but that is what it actually is- at the age of twenty-one. He is in the army and in category C or D. Yet there may be thousands of young men twenty-one years of age who are not in the army but might be in category B.


Mr. ESLING:: In connection with exemptions, will the minister tell the committee whether the government has been able to cope with the situation arising by reason of the refusal of Doulchobors of military age to respond to the call for training? The minister may remember that to meet this situation it

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was proposed to put these young Doukhobors to work on road improvements. They were to receive fifty cents a day and their board. But they simply refused; they would not do it. They are not in training and they are not on the roads. Now, that is a poor incentive or encouragement for young men to enlist, when the Doukhobor element simply flouts the dominion government. What steps are being taken to meet this situation?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I am astonished that the hon. member should ask this question, because he and the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling) are perhaps more familiar with this situation than any other hon. member. Admittedly the situation regarding the Doukhobors is difficult, It has been met in some degree in Saskatchewan. There, as hon. members know, the Doukhobors were gathered together into a community which held its lands through a corporation which, if I recall rightly, was called the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood. The corporation got into difficulties and heavily mortgaged its lands. The corporation did not pay the mortgage when it fell due, and the holders of the mortgage began sale and foreclosure proceedings. At that time, as I recall, the government of Saskatchewan stepped in to save the persons who were in the community from losing their interest in their holdings, which had been corporation holdings and not holdings by individuals, and permission was given to individual Doukhobors to redeem lands from the mortgage. Thus the holdings of the community, which had been previously in the hands of the corporation, became individual holdings, and the community broke up to that extent.
We have had some difficulty with the Doukhobors in-Saskatchewan, but in the main they have complied with the provisions in our regulations for alternative service of a nonmilitary nature. In British Columbia the situation is not as happy.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They just defy the law?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The situation is not happy at all. In that province a particular sect of Doukhobors, called the Sons of Freedom, are objectors to everything. They have constituted a grave and serious problem. I may take the house into my confidence to this extent: I must confess that I find it difficult to see any solution to this problem of the Doukhobors. This is not the first administration to come up against these difficulties. You may say, "Yes, put them all in gaol; intern them
all." Well, I believe the number of young men liable for military training belonging to this particular sect is about 2,500.


Mr. DUPUIS:: Of military age?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Yes; about 2.500 of military age. I do not think anyone here would suggest that they all should be placed in an internment camp. The hon. member for Yale understands this situation. He will remember the difficulties which beset the former administration in dealing with these self-same people. An attempt was made, I think in 1931 or 1932, to deal with this troublesome sect, the Sons of Freedom, in a wholesale way, but all the efforts of that administration proved abortive. I am reluctant to confess it, but I see great difficulties in the way of any solution to this problem, and certainly I would hesitate to intern 2,500 of these people, particularly when this administration has before it the experience of the previous administration in that regard.
Perhaps I have told the committee more than should have been told, but I wanted to take hon. members into my confidence and admit the extreme difficulties which both this and the previous administration have had in connection with this unfortunate sect, the Sons of Freedom.


Mrs. NIELSEN:: Perhaps the minister
would say what guarantee these people were given when they first came to Canada. I should be interested in learning a little more about that.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I am very glad the hon. member has asked this question. We have a special section dealing with the Mennonites and Doukhobors; and just here I should like to say that we have had very little difficulty with the Mennonites who in the main have been a grand people in this country. Section 18 of the regulations deals with Mennonites and Doukhobors.


Mr. ROSS (Calgary):: What regulations are those?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The national war services regulations. Perhaps I might place on record subsection one of that section, since this question has been raised:
Members of the denomination of Christians called Mennonites and members of the community of Doukhobors who immigrated to Canada pursuant to the arrangements evidenced by the order in council of August 13, 1873, and by the order in council of December 6, 1898, respectively, or the descendants of such immigrants who have continued without interruption to be members of the aforesaid sect or denomination of Christians or of the aforesaid
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community of Doukhoboi's and who have resided without interruption in Canada, shall be entitled, subject as provided in these regulations, to the postponement of their military training.
The order in council of August 13, 1873, dealt with the Mennonites; the order in council of December 6, 1898, dealt with the Doukho-bors. I have not the two orders in council before me, but their general tenor, as I recall it, was that these persons were admitted to Canada upon the assurance of exemption from military training. In respect of the Mennonites, that is an engagement that was entered into in 1873. They were the first people of foreign origin to come to Canada in any numbers and are therefore perhaps the oldest of our immigrants of alien origin. That engagement has been lived up to and is incorporated in these regulations. The order in council of December 6, 1898, had to do with the Doukhobors, who came to this country from Russia; and we have sought to live up to the engagements into which the government of that day entered with those people.


William Kemble Esling: The situation referred to by the orders in council which the minister has mentioned is rather different from the situation to which I refer. Here are strong, ablebodied young men, born in Canada-as was every Doukhobor now under the age of forty-two-who refuse to take their training. Very well; the government says, "Instead of going to this military camp we will put you to work on roads." Mind you, the Doukhobors are quite willing to go to work on the roads when they are paid the same as other Canadian citizens; but when it comes to working on the roads in lieu of military training, they simply refuse. The whole programme was set out. These Doukhobors were enumerated; they were told to report for work on a certain section of road, under the control and direction of the provincial government. They were to receive so much a day and their board, but they have simply said, "We will not do it." Does not the minister think it time the government should try to cope with this defiance of the law by the Doukhobors? They are masters of the situation; they know it, and they propose to remain such.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I should be very glad if the hon. member for Kootenay East would suggest a solution to this great difficulty. He knows very well the trouble the previous administration ran into when they tried to deal with the problems that arose at that time. I should be very glad to have any suggestion from him as to how the matter might be dealt with, because I assure hon. members

that we have been giving our utmost attention to this question. I must admit that I find it difficult to arrive at any solution.


James Arthur Ross: To come back to the discussion of aliens, even though there are only some 27,700 aliens of military age, or perhaps only 100,000 aliens all told in the country at the present time, that is no reason why we should shut our eyes to this situation at a time like this. I think the minister's department should see that these people make some contribution to our war effort.
Let me give him one or two concrete examples. Out in my part of the country we have a small industry from whose employees some twelve young men offered their services to the armed forces. They have not all been called yet. An alien went in there and asked the manager of the industry when someone would be called, because he was waiting to take his job. I do not have to tell hon. members about the high feeling which has been running in that community. That sort of thing, prevalent throughout Canada, certainly does not tend to assist recruiting.
I know of another man who has enjoyed citizenship in Canada for the past twenty-five years, and has made a lot of money in this country. He has done nothing for the war effort, financially or otherwise. At times such as this I have always thought that any alien, after so many years' residence in the country in normal times, should be forced to become naturalized. Probably that could not be done at present. But irrespective of that, I do suggest the minister's department should insist that these people make some contribution to the country at the present time. They have enjoyed residence here for some years; they have enjoyed our citizenship and our freedom. It is not fair that our own boys, born in this country, should fight for their protection; and I suggest the minister's department should see that they are called upon to make some contribution. It would have a good effect on the recruiting campaign, and surely that is the least that should be done.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The minister's reply to the hon. member for Kootenay West was in effect an admission of defeat.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: An admission of very great difficulty.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Does the minister think that that is good enough, at this point in Canadian histoiy? If these men will not go to work on the roads, why should they not be conscripted? If a young Canadian

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in Fredericton who is twenty-one years of age is called under the mobilization act and does not respond, what happens to him? A guard comes along and takes him away, and he is put into the ranks. That is what happens to the boy in Fredericton or in any other place in Canada. But in Brilliant, we will say, that may not happen; is that sort of thing to be tolerated in Canada? I put it to the minister; it will not do for him to say to the hon. member for West Kootenay that if he has a policy he ought to advance it. The responsibility is the minister's, and the minister cannot get away from it. I hope he will not try to get away from it. Let the minister grapple with these problems by adopting one course or another-and, as I see it, there are only two courses. Either he must put that man in uniform, or put him on the road, and let the majesty of the law be vindicated. Do not let it be said that these men defy the government of Canada in war time. If the minister would take that stand the whole country would support him.
Mr. REID; Or any other minister.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Yesterday I stated in the house that on two occasions a ruling has been given by the Department of Justice that these two orders in council apply only to the original settlers coming to Canada, and not to their descendants bom in this country. I'believe that is the correct interpretation
I feel, as do many others, that if these men who enjoy all the freedom and privileges of the country are not obliged to play their part in the war, why should I? Why should any other man? That may be a low attitude to take; it is not a loyal attitude, but nevertheless the feeling is there. It would seem that the government was trying to save face when Mr. Justice Davis called all members of the house together to discuss this war service act. On that occasion I said, "Are there any exemptions?" And he replied, "No; there are no exemptions under the act." Finally he did say, "There are exemptions from war services for Doukhobors and Men-nonites." The feeling went out through the country that this was unfair. The thousands of young Mennonites and Doukhobors born in Canada enjoy all the privileges of entering industry-because they certainly do not all stay on the farms. They receive good wages, and they are exempt from war service, not because of any law on our books, but because the administration says, "We will consider the same law applies to them as applied to their parents and grandparents, when they came out here."
The government then said, "Here is what we will do: we will take them into camp we will show the people of Canada that these Mennonites and Doukhobors are to be conscripted"-not to fight for the country, but to build more roads so that tourists may drive over them years hence. It is a profitless waste of energy and money. In the county of Waterloo and the surrounding district, young Mennonites have been taken off the farms, and they have been told by the government, "You are not to be conscripted for war service." All right if that is the government's attitude, we will abide by it. But those boys have been taken off the farms and sent to the camps to build roads-useless roads-while the crops have been left lying in the fields. We cannot get exemption for those men. It is a strange policy. It seems that we want more food and are telling the farmers to produce it, but in order to save the face of the government, in connection with granting exemption to those who, under an old agreement, ought not to be entitled to it, these men are being taken off the farms and sent into camps to build useless roads while the crops lie wasting in the fields. I know of farmers working 200, 225 or 250 acres of land. A man holding an acreage of that size, and doing mixed farming, has a great deal of work to do. He would have 20, 25 or 30 head of cattle to milk every day, and certainly he could not do it alone. Some of those farmers are selling their herds and giving up their farms. Pick up any weekly paper and we find that there are more auction sales on farms to-day, in the third year of the war, than there were during the depression. Those farms are being sold, not because the farmers could not make farming pay if they were given an opportunity, but because the government is taking the men off the farms and sending them to do useless work.
Surely the whole picture should be reviewed. It is not conducive to our war effort. True, postponements for from three to six months may be obtained. 'But last week I was told about two farmers who had applied for postponements for their boys who had been helping them on their farms, and they were told, "You may have a postponement until January, but then they must come in." Cows have to be milked in January just the same as in June. Perhaps we ought to get down to earth in this matter and distribute the work according to the jobs the men are going to do, so that we may have better service than we are now getting.


Clarence Gillis: I do not believe the minister has taken a firm enough stand in regard to Doukhobors. One hon. member has asked the specific question why Doukhobors should not
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be conscripted and compelled to engage in military occupations. Last year a book entitled "Slava Bohu," by James Wright, of Saskatchewan, was published; I suggest that the minister read it. The Doukhobors to-day are in exactly the same position as they were when they were exiled from Russia. They are stating that they are persecuted because of their religious beliefs. According to my understanding of the story revealed in the book, these people were brought to Canada for the purpose of providing cheap labour for the Canadian Pacific Railway. That at least was the original idea.


Richard Burpee Hanson: No, no.


Clarence Gillis: That was the original project in which they were engaged.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The Canadian Pacific Railway had nothing to do with bringing them out.


Clarence Gillis: Anyway they built it for
practically nothing. At that time the Canadian government gave a solemn, undertaking-


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: They came in as part of a movement from the old world to the new by people who were filled with the hope of opportunities in the new world that were not open to them in the old world.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They were brought in by the Sifton colonization scheme.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: He was personally responsible for bringing in the Doukhobors, and he brought in a lot of other people. The experience has been good and their value to this country has been great.


Clarence Gillis: Some people in this country made a lot of money out of them.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Many of them have done very well.


Clarence Gillis: At that time the Canadian government gave a solemn undertaking that their religious beliefs would be respected. That is the point I want to make. Unless we want to go farther than we have gone in imitating Hitler we should not start off by tearing up these obligations.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The government has not the slightest intention of dishonouring those obligations; the government is honouring them both according to the letter and according to the spirit. These men have conscientious objections upon religious grounds, they believe that it is their duty to their God, as they see it, not to bear arms. While we may not be able to see alike with them, nevertheless that is their point of view and this government intends to honour its obligations to them.
[Mr. Gillis.l


Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: What about Jehovah's Witnesses?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: They are members of an illegal organization. They are in quite a different category.


Mr. BROOKS:: Compel them to do some war work; that is the point.


Clarence Gillis: The minister has admitted that this is a problem and that he did not know just what they were going to do with them. I do not think there should be any doubt in the mind of any minister of the government in this matter. We guaranteed certain rights to these people and we should stand behind that guarantee. As I remember the story, the building of a road is considered to be work of a military character as far as the Doukhobor's religion is concerned.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I think the hon. member is in error in regard to that. The regulations contemplate alternative service of a nonmilitary character in the case of persons who have been found by the boards to come within the categories covered by the regulations.


Clarence Gillis: I agree that those are the regulations, but that is not the Doukhobor's conception of his religion. Not only does he believe that he should not bear arms; he believes that he should not engage in any military project.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Propaganda has been
spread through some parts of the country to the effect that the Doukhobors are being ordered into military projects in breach of our engagement to them. An effort is being made to have the Doukhobors not comply with the provisions of the regulations relating to alternative service. These regulations are administered by a civilian department. Alternative service in the main is performed in camps operated by the Department of Mines and Resources and is carried on largely in the national parks. The Department of National Defence has no say whatever in the matter of alternative service. Those who put out propaganda that this alternative service is a breach of the engagement which Canada entered into with these people are guilty of subversive action and strong efforts will be made to stop this propaganda.


Clarence Gillis: I only wanted to make it clear that we have an obligation to the Doukhobors with respect to war service. Am I right in assuming that some of the men called up for road work and paid at the rate of fifty cents a day are already employed? Is it proposed to take some of these men from employment and put them at road work at fifty cents a day?

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Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: No. However, I would not want to generalize. Persons have come before the board and have claimed the right to a postponement of their military training upon the ground that they are either Mennonites, Doukhobors or conscientious objectors. The board then determines whether such persons come within any one of these categories, and, if so, directs the alternative service that they shall be called upon to perform. At the present time this alternative service is being performed in the main in our national parks under the direction of the Department of Mines and Resources. This is pursuant to an agreement relating to the matter between the Department of Mines and Resources and the Department of National War Services.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Why should not they receive the same treatment they would be given if called for military training? For instance, the Doukhobors in Saskatchewan have cooperated most commendably in the matter of alternative service.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Not too well, but better than their brothers in the province farthest west.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I know something of the men who had a part in persuading the Doukhobors to cooperate in this regard, and I know they have cooperated much better than some of these men thought they would, even in their most optimistic moments. But that spirit of cooperation has not been helped by paying men fifty cents a day for what is fairly hard work. I have been told that in some cases they are not being supplied with the necessary clothing and equipment. I have in mind a young university student who made application for postponement upon the ground of conscientious objections and who was sent into a camp for alternative training. Ordinarily he would make sufficient money in the summer months to put him through university in the winter, but this summer he received about $30 a month for doing very hard work. I do not think we are helping this spirit of cooperation by paying little better than slave wages for manual labour. These men ought to get the same pay and receive the same treatment as if they had taken military training. If that were done, I believe we would receive better cooperation.


Thomas Reid: Are the Doukhobors of British Columbia registered? My information is that they are not.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The Sons of Freedom are not registered.


Thomas Reid: I think that important fact should be placed before the committee. In 14873-272
British Columbia we believe that these people should be made to obey the law. They have defied the law and have not been registered.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Many of the others have registered but this sect has not.


Mr. McNEVIN:: I understand this agreement was made in 1898. Were the Doukhobors forced to take military training during the last war?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: No, they certainly were not. I should like to say something more about this question of conscientious objection and give the reasons why the government adopted the attitude it did toward Mennonites, Doukhobors and the general class of conscientious objectors to which I have not referred thus far. The spirit of one order in council governs the Mennonites, while the spirit of another governs the Doukhobors. There is another section relating to conscientious objectors and covering all such persons who do not come within the category of Mennonites or Doukhobors. A number of Quakers-The Society of Friends-for instance, have somewhat the same view with regard to bearing arms. I do not think anyone should express hasty views on this subject. The experience of Great Britain in the last war with regard to conscientious objectors was an unfortunate one. At the beginning they did not recognize that viewpoint, which to perhaps all of us is an incomprehensible one, and they filled Dartmouth prison to overflowing with conscientious objectors. Then they receded from that original policy and embarked upon a policy of service of a nonmilitary nature for conscientious objectors. Anyone who has made a study of the unfortunate experience of the British government with conscientious objectors in the last war will realize the lessons that were learned by that government as a result, and they have not in this war repeated the experience. I do not think we ought to throw away the value of the lessons which the British government learned as a result of their dreadful experience of the last war with conscientious objectors. Let me assure the committee that this subject has received most careful, sympathetic and humane attention. I do not think the fact that we have dealt with these people in this humane manner has interfered with or lessened the war effort of Canada; not at all. I think people holding these views are giving great service to this country in many ways. They hold the view that they will not bear arms against their fellow men.


Thomas Reid: One of the objections we have is that they did not register.



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Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: It is only the Sons of Freedom who did not register.


Thomas Reid: We are confusing two questions. So far as British Columbia is concerned one objection we have is that these men have not registered, but all the talk this afternoon has been about conscientious objectors and orders in council. An anomaly arose this year when farmers were fined for engaging these men who had not registered. No explanation has been given the committee of why these men have not been registered. The question of conscientious objectors can come up later. I say that no one should be allowed to defy the law. It only causes disunity in Canada to have one class of people powerful enough to defy the government of the country.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: It is not a class at all. It is a group of members of this community, the Sons of Freedom, who did not registet, and who have gathered together by themselves in the wilderness in districts in the extreme eastern part of British Columbia. They have camped there and will not do anything. Faced with that situation, are we going to put them all in gaol? What good would that do? Are we going to put them all in internment camps? What good would that do? There is a realistic situation to-day. It is that one group, and they are the only group.


Vincent Dupuis: They do not work?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: They do not do anything; they are passive resisters to everything. They are a headache, I can assure the committee. They do not have votes. British Columbia does not give them votes.


Thomas Reid: Why should it?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I quite agree. I do not see why they should have votes.


Angus MacInnis: Why should they not register?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The Sons of Freedom have not registered. They are just camping in the wilderness. They did the same thing in 1931 or 1932, I forget which year it was, and the previous administration picked them up lock, stock and barrel, men, women and children, and took them out to an island in the Pacific. They would not do anything there.


Thomas Reid: Maybe they will go back to Russia?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The government of that day, even though these people took the attitude that they would not do anything, said: "We are not going to let them starve." Therefore they brought them back. They had their unfortunate experience, and we are

having ours. It is a very difficult question, but for heaven's sake do not let the thing get out of its proportion. There is a problem there, and I have put it frankly and squarely before this committee, explaining the difficulty. , It was an insoluble problem in 1931, and it is close to being an insoluble one now. I do not want my remarks to be taken as applying to all the Doukhobors-not at all-and they do not apply to the Mennonites in the slightest degree.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I should like to support the general position which the minister has taken before the committee. I would remind hon. members that the minister did not bring the Doukhobors to Canada, and he is not personally responsible for all the views they hold. We are living in a democracy, in a country where ever since we have had a Canada we have welcomed people from different countries of the world with different points of view. Those of us whose parents came from Scotland think that the only people are the Scots.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: So they are.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I am very glad I have such unanimous support. Our colleagues from the province of Quebec have another tradition. People who, like the minister, came to this country from Iceland have also made a valuable contribution to our national life. From all the four corners of the world people have come here and) have pooled their opinions and made their contribution to building up Canada.
May I remind the committee that while the Doukhobors have in our view, a great many queer ideas, they have one fundamental idea: "Thou shalt not kill." I know there are a great many Doukhobors of the younger generation who in the past ten years have acted as if they did not prize that tradition of their forefathers.


Thomas Reid: Thou shalt not be registered.
That is another of their traditions.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The Doukhobors except
the Sons of Freedom registered.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I might explain that
the national registration was interpreted by many of the Doukhobors as a first step in the breaking of a solemn agreement entered into when they came to Canada in the late nineties.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It was no agreement. It was an order in council. It was unilateral.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Yes, an order in council executed by the government of the day, a government elected in the usual democratic way and representative of the people. As a result,

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large numbers of Doukhobors came to this country on the understanding that the terms of this agreement would be lived up to. They and their parents and grandparents had been persecuted in Russia for the religious views which they held, and they decided to come to a country where their religious views would be respected. May I remind the committee that during the last war the government of the day, which was not a Liberal government, considered it in the best interests of Canada to respect the terms of this agreement, and in all the years that have passed very little has been done by Canada to abrogate that agreement.
I know there are people in Canada who say that if Hitler came here there would not be any conscientious objectors, or, if they were in Germany, they could not do this and they could not do that. We are engaged in the most important struggle in human history to prevent Hitler from doing the things that he is doing, and the minister states the case very well when he asks the committee, "What would you do if you were in my position? Would you proceed to put, not twenty-five hundred but twentjr-five thousand Doukhobors in prisons or in internment camps across the country?" There are people in Canada advocating policies which would lead to that step. I cannot see that it would help the struggle to defeat Hitler if we put thousands of Doukhobors in internment camps-where many of them are prepared to go. It was mentioned that there was difficulty in getting young Doukhobors into the national parks. I know the minister has experienced some trouble in Saskatchewan in that connection. One young Doukhobor who came to see me said he would go to gaol because the transportation for him was by a ticket which was endorsed "military". I urged him to reconsider the matter and to report for duty, pointing out that this was not military training; but he said, "It is a military ticket, and I will go to gaol rather than travel on a military ticket;" and he has been in gaol for the summer. There are things which Doukhobors will do and can do. The production of food is a very important contribution to the war effort, and it seems to me that those who say, "Let us put the Doukhobors in gaol and keep them there", might well consider for a minute the contribution they can make if they are permitted to produce large quantities of food. In seeking to preserve democracy we must profit by the experience of the last war in the United States and in Great Britain, and refuse to put people in gaol because they believe "Thou shalt not kill" to be a divine command.
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Mr. HANS'ON (York-Sunbury): If we have disposed of the Doukhobors, or agreed not to dispose of them-and I do not think that if we argued this matter from now until the end of the session we could usefully carry the discussion very much further at this time-


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I quite agree.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I hope the minister will bear in mind that the opinion of the committee so far as it has been expressed is that he should not take this situation lying down, that something should be done to have these people conform to the law and to make some contribution to the war effort. I am content to leave the matter there, because I know the difficulty.
I should, however, like to make this one observation, that I have read the orders in council with respect to both the Doukhobors and the Mennonites. I am not making any reflection on the Mennonites, because I understand that their disposition has been to accept the alternative and to make their contribution in that direction, and that there has been very little difficulty so far as they are concerned. But there is in my view no legal interpretation which binds this government to release from military service the descendants of those who came over here in 1898.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: That may be only technically correct.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It is not binding upon the government with respect to their heirs.
There is one matter I want to bring to the attention of the minister before he rises-and I suppose he is hoping he will rise pretty soon; I know that another minister is anxious to get on, and I want to help-and it has reference to the travel bureau. The minister should tell the committee exactly the cause of Mr. Zeller's resignation. I do not accept the statements contained in the correspondence which passed between the minister and Mr. Zeller. There is something more behind it than that.
Then, passing from that, I should like to refer for a moment to the present position of the Canadian travel bureau. When this bureau was established in 1934, it was attached to the Department of Railways and Canals, which subsequently became the ministry of transport. There it remained until the present Minister of National War Services was appointed to his portfolio, and then, for reasons which appear to me to be not very logical, it was transferred to the present minister. I am not suggesting that the present minister is not qualified to handle the work of this
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bureau as the political head, but I do suggest that, as the ministry of national war services is essentially a war department, the transfer of this peace-time bureau to a war department was psychologically a mistake. That is my first submission. I do not believe-and I have heard this view expressed by those better qualified to judge the matter than I am-that the travel bureau should be associated with a war department. They have nothing in common. I suggest to the minister that the tourist industry has suffered greatly since the very outbreak of the war from propaganda which has been spread in the United States in the attempt to keep their nationals within their own territory, to the effect that tourist activities in Canada may be and are interfered with as a result of this country being at war. Fantastic stories are reported to me to have been spread in the United States, to the effect that, "If you come up to Canada, your car will be taken away from you", and also that "you will be conscripted." Those responsible for those stories have an ulterior motive, namely, they want to keep their tourists in their own country; and the very fact that Canada is at war and that the operation of this bureau is under a war service ministry has had a distinct effect in keeping out of Canada people who are desirable tourists. I believe that the association of the bureau with this ministry lends credence to the fantastic views which have been expressed in the United States.
I have here a letter from the travel bureau. It is entitled, "Canadian Government Travel Bureau, Ottawa, Canada. Department of National War Services." That is on the letterhead. I assume that hundreds or even thousands of these letterheads go to the United States. Thereby the government is disseminating information among would-be tourists in that country that the travel bureau is a war service. There is an association of ideas which we just cannot get away from; it is wrong, and it has had a detrimental effect on the tourist bureau.
I suggest to the minister, not with any intention of disparaging his activities or his capabilities, that this travel bureau should be dissociated altogether from the idea of war services and be put into the Department of Trade and Commerce, or somewhere else, so that this bad psychological effect may be obviated. There is no doubt that we want these people to come into Canada. There is no doubt that the coming of the normal number of tourists into Canada would be a great help to us in connection with the foreign exchange problem.

By the same token the restrictions on the issue of Canadian currency for travel in the United States have had a bad effect upon the reciprocal action of United States nationals coming into this country. If the minister wants any confirmation of that, I would ask him to consult with our Canadian minister at Washington; I think he has views on the subject. I have no authority to quote him, but I suggest that the minister find out what our highest ranking official in the United States has to say about this matter, and then see if something cannot be done. I am satisfied that if there were greater provision for Canadians to visit the United States and mingle with the people there, they could become good missionaries for Canada, enlightening the United States public as to Canada's war effort, and there would not be the slurs that we sometimes hear and read as to Canada's war effort.
I offer these suggestions in good faith. As long as the Canadian travel bureau is associated with a war service, that fact will be used by those who have ulterior motives, and the very object for which parliament is voting money, namely, getting United States tourists into this country, will be defeated. I commend this suggestion to the minister with all the earnestness at my command: let him- get the tourist bureau out of his department, get it into Trade and Commerce or some other department, so that the wrong impression will not be drawn by those who want to draw wrong impressions for an ulterior purpose. Do not let the minister forget to ask the Canadian minister at Washington what he thinks about this interchange of travel. We cannot have it a one-way business. If we want tourists to come to Canada, ten to one, fifty to one perhaps, spending money in amounts relative to their numbers, on balance we shall be ahead notwithstanding the opinion of the foreign exchange control board.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I listened with a great deal of interest to the remarks of the leader of the opposition and should like to express my appreciation of many of them. There is no doubt that our restrictions on pleasure travel in the United States have had an adverse effect as far as the tourist industry is concerned. I think there is general agreement on that. But the whole question of pleasure travel abroad is debatable and difficult. The restrictions are foreign exchange control restrictions. They have been put into effect not as a matter of choice but as a matter of necessity, to safeguard our United States dollar exchange position. We have been doing our utmost in this country to safeguard that

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United States dollar exchange position. Those regulations, I am certain, were not put into effect as a matter of choice. The situation as far as United States dollar exchange is concerned may improve as a result of the operation of the Hyde Park agreement, and it may be possible to modify the restrictions relating to pleasure travel in the United States to some extent. But that will depend on our United States dollar exchange situation.
The leader of the opposition referred to the association of the Canadian travel bureau with a war-time department. I have heard that argument put forward. I have had no indication that that association has had an adverse effect on the coming of tourists to Canada. If it has had such effect, it has not been brought to my attention.
The reason for assigning the Canadian travel bureau to my department was that my department has charge of public information, and with public information are associated organizations such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, so far as broadcasting is concerned, for which I am the minister responsible, and the national film board. Both of these agencies are capable of working in cooperation with the Canadian travel bureau to promote tourist travel to this country, aDd that grouping together was for the purpose of coordinating these activities.
I said thg other evening that I was not altogether satisfied with the Canadian travel bureau. I think there can be improvements in its organization, and I am hopeful that some improvements will be made. I am giving careful study to that whole situation, and until that study has reached a further stage I should prefer not to add anything to the interchange of letters that took place between Mr. Zeller and myself.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That means that the minister just will not give the country the information to which it is entitled. Now there is something more behind this. I do not know what it is, but I think the public are entitled to know. I shall leave it at that.


Ernest George Hansell: I do not want to prolong this discussion. We have been engaging the minister's time for quite a while, and I think he has stood up to the discussion very well. I believe we are all conscious that his department is a very large one and a very young one. I do not know how extensively it was organized when the minister took it over, but we know that previously it was held by a minister with two portfolios.
I do not know much about the internal organization of this department, but there are two other subjects which I think should
come up for some discussion. One is the bureau of public information and the other the matter of salvage. I am not entirely satisfied that the bureau of public information is making the very best of its possibilities. We call it a bureau of public information; it could well be called a bureau or ministry of propaganda, for, after all, that is what it does. I believe we have a good deal to learn as to more effective methods of propaganda. The bureau of public information has been giving out a good deal of information concerning Canada's war effort. That is all acceptable, and I suppose there is some reason for the people being informed as to what Canada is doing. But from the point of view of propaganda, from the point of view of stirring up the public, it seems to me that a little more attention might be given to the nearness of the dangers presented by the enemy. Perhaps we have to be a little more definite and specific with certain information.
I attended a theatre the other day, though it is not very often I do so. There was a newsreel shown on the screen, and when a picture was shown of the President of the United States delivering an address I could not help thinking what a powerful piece of propaganda that was. He said something to this effect: "I have before me a map of the western hemisphere which has been obtained by the intelligence branch of our government. On it appear specific plans for nazi aggression, for the occupation of south and central America." I said to myself, "that is powerful stuff." I think we could be a little more powerful along similar lines. The raft of material put out by the bureau of public information does not seem to me always to click. We read about certain appointments being made; a certain individual has been appointed to a certain position. Then his biography is given. He was born in a certain place, in England or some other country; he obtained his public school training here and there, and all the rest of it, and I doubt very much whether the people care where he came from or what he knows. As the hon. member behind me says, they are more anxious to know where he is going than where he came from.
In his address the other day the minister stated that the director of public information was gradually building up his staff. Might I suggest to the minister that what is required in the building up of that staff is a number of competent journalists. When I say that, I am going to suggest that journalism is a very highly specialized profession. A journalist is not merely one who can write good English, or articles of perfect composition. A good journalist knows how to persuade the public I do not think Canada lacks good journalists;
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I believe we have in this country men who know how to write the truth, how to put punch into it, how to write it in such a way that the people will recognize the truth and at the same time be persuaded. I offer this suggestion to the minister because this matter is vital. We are spending a great deal of money, and if we do not get the very best possible return for that money, then it is spent uselessly.
In his remarks the minister also referred to a possible speakers' branch. I did not quite understand what he meant by that. Just what is in the mind of the minister? Are these to be paid speakers? If they are, we have 245 members of parliament who might be able to get good jobs. There may be a need for such a branch, but let us not spend money foolishly. Just what has the minister in mind in that regard?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I greatly appreciate the constructive suggestions of the hon. member for Macleod. No good public information bureau or publicity department ever is of the opinion that it is doing as much as it is possible to do. Once any such bureau thinks it is perfect in the matter of publicity, then it is time for it to fold up.
With regard to the speakers' branch of the bureau of public information, to which I made reference in my opening address, I have in mind a branch of our bureau which would have to do with the matter of public information by the spoken word. We are continually receiving requests from various parts of Canada, as well as from the United States, for speakers. We have had voluntary offers from a great many people to assist by making speeches, and I am sure they would be very helpful in accomplishing the real purpose of the department, which is to bring the Canadian war effort and the Canadian people as close as possible to one another. We have been operating through the newspapers. Our association with the daily newspapers is much less important than our association with the Canadian weeklies, which rely upon us for a very great deal of information. We have been operating in the motion picture field in a more successful manner than Great Britain, the United States, or any of the British dominions, through the national film board. We have been operating by means of the radio, as well as in a variety of other ways including posters, leaflets, pamphlets, booklets, and so on. The purpose of the speakers' branch of the bureau would be to extend -the activities of the bureau by means of the spoken word, for the spoken word still has its powerful appeal.


Charles Edward Johnston: Before we finish with this department, I should like to bring up one question in connection with the salvage campaign. I do so principally because

last year, when I was dealing with this subject of the picking up of scrap steel and so forth, I said I w'as not going to have anything more to do with the collection of scrap iron unless I was quite sure the country needed it. Then, on October 20, the Minister of National War Services sent out a letter to all hon. members. In part, the letter read:
In order to intensify the collection of secondary raw materials and to promote the organization of more voluntary salvage corps, also to stimulate salvage corps presently operating, we have now obtained authority to employ experienced organizers and inspectors.
It will be recalled that when this project was first undertaken it was to be on a voluntary basis, and at that time hon. members were asked to assist in the salvage campaign. People throughout the country were desirous of helping. Schoolteachers' organizations agreed to do it by themselves, free of charge. Scrap iron and scrap steel were coming in, but they coidd not get rid of the stuff.
After all that voluntary work was done, to no good-at least not to the best advantage-[DOT] it seems there is to be a reorganization, and salaries amounting to $2,880 are to be paid to organizers. These are only the salaries. There appears on to-day's order paper a question in my name requesting a little more information along these lines. The sum I have mentioned includes only salaries. Will these men receive travelling expenses in addition to salaries?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Yes, they will be paid
necessary travelling expenses.


Charles Edward Johnston: That will amount to a good deal of money, and it seems unfortunate that such an expenditure should be necessary when we realize that the work was done previously by voluntary help.
There have been occasions when salvage collectors have done wonderful work, but when very little return has come from that work. In some instances they could not even get rid of the scrap. The result has been that the enthusiasm has died down. My suggestion is that the government is entirely to blame for this state of affairs. I have in mind a particular incident which took place at High River, Alberta. I hold in my hand an excerpt from the High River Times, which reads as follows:
Sale From Scrap Iron Returns -a Sad Story
Net proceeds salvage drive brings $29.93 to bombed babies; railway gets $243.36 for hauling
Never was so much done for so little
Theme song on elevator row "we've been working for the railway." Donors swell chorus
The sum realized out of the scrap iron collected by the High River elevator agents from farms of the district, has brought $29.93 to the fund in -aid of bombed families of Britain. There

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were 31 tons assembled and shipped out by railway from this point. The freight charges on the shipment to Winnipeg were $243.36.
This net result of all the labour on behalf of the refugee fund, has set the elevator agents, the contributing farmers and other donors back on their heels. The letter of appreciation from the Patriotic Salvage Corps at Winnipeg, acknowledges the receipt of the $29.93, as "the net proceeds of the carload of scrap metal." The same letter congratulates the agents on their splendid work, and suggests that they now go after the salvaging of rags in the district.
Just ask the boys who sweated over the scrapiron, how soon before they are going to start after rags, and you may get a black-eye out of it. It is safe to say they won't start immediately. Never was salvaging enthusiasm at lower ebb amongst these patriotic citizens.
The letter received from the Patriotic Salvage Corps attempts to shed a little brightness by saying, "While in view of the total value of the metal shipped, the net proceeds of $29.93, appears very' small, we must bear in mind that freight charges from your point to Winnipeg are extremely high, and in this case amounted to about $250. However, there is one compensating feature of this shipment and that is that you have made available for the defence industry a very much needed shipment of raw material."
It is realized grimly that if the scrap had been trucked up to Calgary (even if they had paid $1 a ton for trucking) the refugee fund would have been boosted by $200 or more. But the instructions were to ship to Winnipeg as the headquarters for the disposal of the metal.
It is doubtful if history can record such small net result from such an amount of combined labour, cheerfully and generously given. Every person participating, including the seven elevator agents, 35 or 40 farmers, two or three truckmen and a wrecker from town (and one musn't overlook free publicity in the Times) - all of these gave something of commercial value in material, time, labour, transportation or news space. Incidentally some pretty good clothing was also worn out in the cause. This was given mainly out of sympathy for the fund for bombed families. All this, to raise the sum of $29.93.
In the letter the minister sent out on October 20, he used the expression, "although we have been unsuccessful in obtaining any concession from the railways".
We are going out again to ask the farmers to contribute scrap metal. We are going to ask them to give their labour for nothing, and to give organizers well over S3,000 to organize those campaigns. We shall have instances like those we had before. In reply to the question: "Is the Department of Munitions and Supply in need of the steel produced from the scrap metals so collected?", the minister said, in the return filed:
The chairman of the war-time industries control board and the steel controller, Department of Munitions and Supply, advise that scrap iron and steel in all forms is urgently required.
I assume that is correct. When I spike on this matter last year one of my chief concerns was that of obtaining scrap steel for our war effort. On that occasion the Minister of Munitions and Supply told me definitely that his department did not need the steel produced from that scrap metal. Only the other day I had a call from an organizer asking me to go out to help him collect. I am not going to waste my time, or that of the people in my constituency, for nothing. If the scrap metal is needed, our attitude will be entirely different; but I want to have the question settled.
No longer ago than June 11, 1941, as reported at page 3812 of Hansard, the Minister of Munitions and Supply stated definitely that his department did not need the steel produced from that scrap metal. I was amazed that this was the condition, and it will be recalled that I was one, and only one, of those hon. members who persisted in having the Calgary rolling mills opened, in order to have that scrap steel handled. A short time ago I visited those rolling mills to see how the work was progressing. Well, I saw. I could not help this morning contrasting what I saw in the moving picture made available to us by the minister's department-or possibly one of the other departments. I refer to that moving picture showing the English people working day and night, not even stopping for meals, on account of the urgent need for guns. They did not take time off for dinner; it was brought to them. The plants were operating twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There was no whistle blowing and no time off for lunch periods. I suppose that this scrap iron is urgently needed.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: It is.


Charles Edward Johnston: I certainly hope that we are not carrying on a salvage campaign if the scrap metal is not needed. I visited the rolling mills at Calgary one afternoon, getting there at a quarter after five o'clock and I found them closed. It would seem that we do not need steel. Talking to a man at that place I was informed that they were running only one blast furnace and working only one shift. The Prime Minister has said that this is a one hundred per cent war effort, but this man told me that if the government or anybody else would take the steel, they were ready to work twenty-four hours a day. I asked if there was not a demand for their product, and he told me that they could not get orders. He said that as quickly as they got orders they would produce more steel. Linking that up with what the Minister of Munitions and Supply
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said last year to the effect that that steel was not needed, I am at a loss to know why we are spending $3,000 and more for salaries, wages and expenses in connection with organizers of this salvage campaign. Our effort and money should not be wasted. If we need the scrap metal, let us get it by all means, but I do not think we should pay out $2,880 for salaries, with expenses in addition. I am quite sure that if the people get a decent break in connection with this salvage campaign, they will provide more scrap steel than the department will know what to do with, and they will not have to pay organizers.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I shall be glad to clear up that point in as few words as possible. First, I should like to correct an error. I am reported in Hansard as having said that the Canadian Red Cross benefited from the aluminium campaign to the extent of $7,000,000; what I did say was $75,000. Earlier this year there was a difference of opinion in connection with scrap iron and steel, as to both the amounts available in the west and the advisability of bringing it down from the west. The steel controller at that time was of the opinion that there might be perhaps 100,000 tons of scrap iron in the west, although we thought there was a great deal more. If there was a limited amount of scrap iron available in the west, it was thought unwise to move it. There was one rolling mill in Manitoba and another in Calgary, and it was thought that this scrap would be needed to meet the requirements of these two mills.
The situation is different now. The steel controller and the material controllers of the Department of Munitions and Supply are very anxious to have scrap iron and steel. It is true that we had the incident at High River to which my hon. friend has referred where the persons who gathered the scrap together got only a small return for the patriotic effort they had made. We are hopeful that we can make arrangements for the better moving of the scrap which has been gathered in many towns in western Canada and make progress in ensuring that the mills operating in the west have sufficient for their requirements. Anything in the way of scrap iron and steel in the west over and above these requirements can come down here in a regular flow. It is desired that the activities in connection with the collection of scrap iron and steel should be increased and the department would like the assistance of all volunteer salvage corps in this regard. Some of the salvage corps have operated exceedingly well, while others have operated indifferently. The Winnipeg salvage committee has collected about $30,000 in its salvage operations for war charitable purposes.
"Mr. C. E. Johnston.!


Charles Edward Johnston: They did not have to give it all to the railways as the people at High River had to do.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I quite agree that there have been difficulties, but I can assure my hon. friend that we do want to get all the scrap iron and steel that we can get together. It is desired also to promote the salvage campaign in connection with other commodities, and the purpose of these appointments is to increase the activities of the various volunteer salvage corps across the country. As I say, some of these have been working very well; others have been working indifferently, and some have had no success at all. The purpose of making these appointments is to attempt to clear channels, to promote the activities of the corps and to increase the cooperation between all those engaged in these activities with a view to making the campaign more successful than it has been.


Charles Edward Johnston: Why have salaried men for that purpose?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Chairman, I believe a question of privilege is in order at any time. I have just seen in the evening edition of the Ottawa Journal an article headed:
No Conscription Under Mr. King Caucus Told.
Premier Discussed Problem with Winston Churchill.
This is a communication by the British United Press, and the first paragraph reads as follows:
Prime Minister Mackenzie King told a Liberal caucus last week that so long as he was head of the government there would he no conscription in Canada, it was learned on highly reliable authority to-day.
Another paragraph further on reads:
Informants said that Mr. King had told his followers that he discussed the problem of conscription with Prime Minister Winston Churchill during his visit to Great Britain. The effect of his conversations with the British Prime Minister was to confirm his own view that Canada, a country of less than 12,000,000 people was consequently limited in its available manpower for military purposes, the Prime Minister was quoted as telling Liberals.
While it is not customary to disclose matters that are discussed in caucus, speaking in the presence of members of the party who were present at that Liberal caucus I wish to say at once that I never mentioned the name of Mr. Churchill in connection with any discussion on conscription at any party caucus held at any time. The statement is false and, what is more, I believe it has been inserted not with a view to helping Canada's war effort but to make the war effort of Canada as embarrassing as it can be made at this time. I think an

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apology is due from the British United Press for publishing a statement of that kind before inquiring of the Prime Minister whether or not the statement was correct, I cannot protest too strongly against a misrepresentation that could not be grosser than the one appearing here.
There has been a great deal of talk lately about conscription. I want to make perfectly clear what is in my mind when I speak of conscription so that there will be no misunderstanding as to my attitude in relation to it. So far as conscription stands for compulsory selective national service, that is a principle which this government has embodied in its _ National Resources Mobilization Act passed at a previous session of this parliament. As to how rapidly that principle should be applied and how far it should be extended is a matter which the government must decide and will decide in the light of all the knowledge which it has with respect to the needs of our war effort and the position of the country in meeting them.
I want it to be distinctly understood that so far as the principle of compulsory selective national service is concerned for Canada, in Canada, I stand for that principle. I have never taken any other stand. It is the position that I have held all along. It has been applied in connection with military training and applied in a number of other directions I might mention. How much further it will be applied the house will learn as the government takes its decisions on that matter.
But so far as conscription for service overseas is concerned in the armed1 forces of Canada, that question was submitted to the people of Canada at the last general election, an election which was held in war-time, and in which the leaders of all political parties made their statements to the electorate, and the people of Canada decided against conscription for overseas service. So far as I am concerned, without any consultation of the people on that subject, I do not intend to take the responsibility of supporting any policy of conscription for service overseas.


Ernest George Hansell: Just one more question,
and I am sure that what I have to say will sink into oblivion following the forceful statement which the Prime Minister has just made. My question has to do with railway freight rates on salvage. When farmers bring in their scrap iron or other salvage material to a town they usually use their own trucks, spend money for their own gas, do their own labour and do the whole thing voluntarily. But somehow or another the railway companies seem to pick the plums when it comes to freight charges. My suggestion is that the railway companies bear
a share of this voluntary service by donating one car out of every freight train that moves across Canada or to the centres where the salvage is needed and charge no freight on the salvage that goes into that car. I do not think the railway, companies would lose anything by that. They would just hook the car on to a train here and there and shunt it off at its destination. If the railway companies would do that, it would mean that we would get a lot of salvage moved free of freight charges, and the people of the country would donate even more liberally and enthusiastically to the salvage campaign.


Howard Charles Green: One other question with
which the minister dealt the other day and which I think should be cleared up, has to do with sending Canadian firemen to Great Britain. It was not clear from the minister's statement whether these Canadian firemen would be split up among British fire brigades on reaching Britain or would serve together as a Canadian fire brigade. I think it is of the greatest importance that they should not be scattered around in different centres in Great Britain, and if it can be arranged at all, I suggest that our Canadian fire-fighters be kept together, certainly as much as possible.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I have not immediately
before me the establishment of these fire-fighting units, but my recollection is that they are organized into what are called "stations," with about twenty men to a station, and that each station operates as a fire-fighting unit.


Mr. POWER:: If I may interject, there is
a central reserve from which the fire-fighters are sent out, and my impression, when I was over there, was that the number was fifty to a station rather than twenty. They are kept in a central reserve to be sent to whatever district they would be most needed at.


Howard Charles Green: Would they all be kept in
one or two cities?


Charles Gavan Power: The thought was that there would be a central reserve. I do not know just where it would be located, but from that reserve if fire-fighters were required in Liverpool they could be sent there in a hurry, or if they were needed in a section of London they could be sent there in a hurry. They would operate in mobile units. My colleague says twenty men to a station, but my recollection is that they were talking in terms of a unit of fifty when I was over there. I have not heard anything about it since my return.


Howard Charles Green: They would operate from
one central base?
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Charles Gavan Power: From one central British
base to which this group of Canadian firefighters would be attached. The thought was that there should be quite a concentration of fire-fighters in some central place, and the Canadian firemen would be there.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I hope in a very short
time to be able to announce a good deal of progress in connection with the raising of Canadian fire-fighters for service in the United Kingdom.


Charles Edward Johnston: What has
been done about freight rates on salvage material? Could something not be done along the line the hon. member for Macleod suggests.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I shall be very glad to
bring his suggestion to the attention of the railway companies. We are still struggling with that question.


Charles Edward Johnston: Bring it forcibly to their attention, too.


George Hugh Castleden: What has been
accomplished in the voluntary services branch of the department?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: A new division of women's voluntary services was just recently set up, and I hope to be able to make some interesting announcements with regard to the operation of that division in the very near future.
Mr.	CASTLEDEN:	What	has been
accomplished up to date?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I have given quite an elaborate report with regard to the former division of voluntary services, which is now the war charities division of the department.


Mr. STIRLING:: We understand that this evening the committee will discuss the speech of the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) and that in his regretted absence the associate minister will reply?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I understand that that is the agreement which has been reached between the whips.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Grote Stirling: Could the minister give the names of the units which comprise the fourth division, and indicate to what strength they have been enlisted?


Charles Gavan Power: I do not think I could give that at the moment, but I will get it. Perhaps I could give it now, but I should not like to trust my memory.
[Mr. Green.3


Grote Stirling: Could the minister also explain exactly what the phrase, "these three brigade groups of the sixth division" means?


Charles Gavan Power: They would be, I take it, the three infantry brigades which have already been authorized. I have not the figures; I know they are not recruited up to strength at the moment. That will be the infantry brigade groups without the divisional troops.


Grote Stirling: Perhaps the minister could also give the information of the extent to which they have been recruited.


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The Minister of National Defence gave a definite statement of the number of men who have been sent overseas. I believe the number he mentioned was 110,000, although I have not the reference in front of me.


Charles Gavan Power: That is right.


Richard Burpee Hanson: How many of those who have been sent overseas have remained overseas? What is the net number overseas, having regard to that figure of 110.000?


Charles Gavan Power: My hon. friend placed on Hansard certain questions. I have the answers to the questions here; this is one of them. The first question asked is:
The total number of men now serving in overseas theatres of war.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Yes.


Charles Gavan Power: The answer is: As of October 25, 1941, 110,209 in all theatres beyond Canada.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is the net number?


Charles Gavan Power: I take it to be so, as of October 25. 1941, in all theatres beyond Canada. The next question asked is:
A statement as to the number of rejections of enlisted men sent overseas, men whom this country trained in Canada, then took overseas and trained them there, and then rejected as medically unfit or likely to become unfit for service; and the reasons for their rejection. How many were rejected because of bad discipline records?
The answer is: number of men returned from overseas as category E-after medical attention, many are reboarded to a higher category after return to Canada, and are retained-3,080.


Richard Burpee Hanson: How many were re-categoried? Does that include the number re-categoried?


Charles Gavan Power: No. I would say that the number of men returned from overseas in category E, that is men definitely put out of the

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army, is 3,080. The number of men returned for adjutant-general's disposal as unlikely to make efficient soldiers, disciplinary action, or compassionate leave, or discharge, 253; making a total of the two categories, 3,333.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Would the 110,000 be reduced by that number?


Charles Gavan Power: I would say that the 110,000 are what we had there as of October 25, 1941.
I have a partial reply with respect to the fourth division. The tenth brigade consists of the British Columbia Regiment, the South Alberta Regiment, and the Saskatchewan Horse; the eleventh brigade-the Grey and Simcoe Foresters, Lake Superior Regiment and Irish Regiment of Canada; the twelfth brigade -Governor General's Footguards, Canadian Grenadier Guards and the Elgin Regiment. I have not the other figures.


Grote Stirling: The minister has not the strengths?


Charles Gavan Power: I have not the strengths, but I will get them.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That does not cover all the information asked for.


Charles Gavan Power: I will go right ahead. I
have been furnished with a memorandum containing the answers to the questions of my hon. friend, and I am told that the figures it contains have already been furnished privately by my colleague the Minister of National Defence to the leader of the opposition.
The first question was:
(a)	the total number of men enlisted in the Canadian army in all its branches since the outbreak of war.
The answer is, 276,088 for the active army. The records are not available at National Defence headquarters of enlistments into the reserve army. The actual increase, since the war began, in personnel attested into the reserve army is 21,520; a considerable extra number have, in this period, enlisted, turned active or been discharged.
Then:
(b)	the total number of men serving in all branches of the Canadian army.
The answer is: as of October 25, 1941, 241,530. This includes Canadian Active Army, overseas and in Canada, and 4,380 members -home defence-now serving with units of the Canadian Active Army in Canada; also 9,807 "R" recruits in training, 147,683 Canadian reserve army, including 70,163 30-day National Resources Mobilization Act recruits attached.
Then "(c) the total number of men attested for service overseas." The answer is: as of 25th October, 1941, 276,088; that includes subsequent discharges.
The next question is:
3.	We should like to know from the minister the result of the recruiting campaign of June and July, and the results of the monthly recruiting campaigns, and specifically:
(a) the method by which the quota for the general recruiting campaign and for the monthly campaign was settled. Was it based on population figures in a given military district?
The answer is: Recruiting campaign: 32,434 required, 34,625 enlisted. Approximately 48,000 offered themselves for service.
In answer to (a), before I deal in detail with the method adopted in the general recruiting campaign, the following general observations may be helpful.
The mobilization scheme was based upon the structure of the non-permanent active militia for obvious reasons, the chief being that this organization was capable of the speediest expansion. Experience of the last war in connection with records and maintenance of continuity of the non-permanent active militia units made adoption of this scheme advisable. In mobilizing the non-permanent active militia units for active service due regard was paid to equitable territorial distribution, consistent with the availability of the arm or branch of the service required.
The objective of the campaign was 32,434, of which a portion was to bring units up to strength, and the balance as reinforcements for existing active units, including deficiencies of previous quotas. Only ten per cent of the above figure was for infantry, and the remainder for the technical branches, such as artillery, engineers, et cetera. These latter are mostly English-speaking and require a large proportion of tradesmen. Accordingly, whilst regard is had to estimated population in fixing quotas, it was necessary in the last campaign to take into consideration the geographical origin of the units to be strengthened or reinforced and the location of their reserve counterparts, as well as the availability of tradesmen and suitable personnel for the various purposes for which they were required.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Right there may I suggest that the potential man-power in the various military districts was not the basis of the mobilization scheme at all.


Charles Gavan Power: I would say not. It was a factor.


Richard Burpee Hanson: To a
limited degree.


Charles Gavan Power: But it was not the fundamental factor.
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Richard Burpee Hanson: The
fundamental factor was the presence of nonactive militia units in the various military districts.


Charles Gavan Power: And active units also, the necessity of reinforcing active units.


Richard Burpee Hanson: But the mobilization scheme was based upon the structure of the non-permanent active militia. That would indicate that, say British Columbia, where there were more nonpermanent active militia units than in other provinces, would be called upon to produce a greater number of recruits? I think that is a fair statement.


Charles Gavan Power: I think that is fair.


Richard Burpee Hanson: And population had nothing to do with it.


Charles Gavan Power: I will not admit it had nothing to do.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well, very little.


Charles Gavan Power: Perhaps.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am not seeking to make any point against any one, but seeking to understand the position, and since I have received this memorandum I do understand it in a much greater degree than before. Was it not also in a measure based upon the theory that a given military district had in the past supplied a given number of recruits, and the theory was that the district which had produced, say four men was more likely to be a more fruitful source of recruits than a district which had produced only one?


Charles Gavan Power: I think so.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is a terrible discrimination against certain provinces. Take British Columbia. British Columbia had produced, say three men to one from some other military districts, so it was asked to produce three to one in this recruiting campaign of June and July. But the available volunteers had gone, so British Columbia did not attain her objective. That is the situation which resulted. The whole set-up was based on unrealities. The reality upon which it should have been based was the potential man-power of the military districts as shown by the registration of August, 1940. But that was not made use of; on the contrary they proceeded on another basis altogether.
The Minister of National Defence said they had had a preliminary survey of man-power. Was there no survey of the potential manpower available when the June campaign started, or did the adjutant-general just
[Mr. Power. I
proceed along the lines of least resistance, looking for recruits from those portions of the country which had responded most nobly in the past? I think that is the situation. The minister's statement to-night rather bears that out.


Charles Gavan Power: I will not altogether agree with that, but there is something in what my hon. friend says. My hon. friend knows, however, that certain districts were extremely eager to have their units mobilized. Also there was prior to mobilization a war plan, I suppose one might call it; or, in other words, a distribution of militia units across the country. Some districts were more fully mobilized than others. There is a natural pull in any district towards the mobilized unit, the unit that has gone overseas; men like to be with pals, and there was the thought that possibly more recruits could be obtained in the districts from which certain units came than in other districts where there was no unit at all or w'here the unit covered a very large territory.
"Whether or not at the time the recruiting campaign started there was an actual analysis made of the figures of the national registration I am not sure, but I know that there is overlapping. My hon. friend knows that also. The Minister of National War Services explained yesterday that in military districts Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 the boundaries of the registration districts do not coincide with the military district. In fact, in some instances, they do not even coincide with the boundaries of the provinces.
Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury); But generally speaking they are about the same?


Charles Gavan Power: I do not know how wide the divergence is. If I am not mistaken, Hull and a considerable part of the province of Quebec is in military district No. 3, Kingston, unless there has been a change. Probably districts Nos. 5 and 4 are a bit mixed up with respect to the eastern townships. I think No. 5 goes about through the county of Megantic; it is in the provincial county of Frontenac, and does not take in Three Rivers. Therefore there are divergencies, but I would not say it was a major difference.


Mr. TURGEON:: I wish to take this opportunity of recording one fact in connection with that phase of recruiting of which the minister has just been speaking. The Peace River block of British Columbia is not in the military district whose headquarters are at Victoria. It belongs to military district No. 13, with headquarters at Calgary, Alberta. During the recruiting period, when records were being kept,

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those who enlisted from the Peace River block-and the enlistment from there was very heavy-were credited to Alberta and not to British Columbia. At that time there was some criticism of British Columbia because the enlistments had not come up to the quota which had been allocated to that province, so I wanted to clear the record in that regard, because British Columbia was not credited with the heavy enlistment which occurred in the Peace River block of that province.


Howard Charles Green: What is the present system? Is the government still working on the same old quota basis, or has any change been made?


Charles Gavan Power: From the quota basis? Apparently this is covered in part at least by my reply to the leader of the opposition, which I might repeat. No actual monthly campaign has since been conducted, though reinforcement requirements allocated to military districts, primarily on a population basis but considering the other factors already mentioned, including enlistment trends, have been issued monthly. The mobilization of new units has taken place for several months, but no combined figures of requirements each month have been issued.


Howard Charles Green: Is there not an allotment made to each military district now? In other words, is each district not asked to raise a certain number of recruits?


Charles Gavan Power: I am under the impression that they are, but I cannot say for sure.


Howard Charles Green: I think it is of the utmost importance that the quota system should be revised. There has been a good deal of hard-feeling in British Columbia about our quota being so high during the drive last summer, because it created a very unfavourable and unfair impression. I suggest that the quota should be based not on the number who have already enlisted in each district, but on the number who should enlist.


Charles Gavan Power: I have some figures that I should like to place on Hansard, a table which I think pretty fully answers that point and
which, I believe, will do justice to any districts that have had cause for complaint. For instance, I am sure the leader of the opposition will be delighted to learn that New Brunswick, which is military district No. 7, has the highest percentage of any district. This is quite a lengthy and complicated table, but if I may just pick out one figure, military district No. 7 has a percentage of 5-53, while military district No. 11, which includes British Columbia, has a percentage of 4'08.


Howard Charles Green: Do these figures include the men who have enlisted in the air force and the navy?


Charles Gavan Power: No. No one seems to have bothered about the air force until I mentioned it last week.


Grote Stirling: The point made by the hon. member for Cariboo, it seems to me, makes the situation and the figures with regard to British Columbia all the more difficult to understand. Southeastern British Columbia also is attached, for military purposes, to military district No. 13. If you deduct the number of recruits obtained in the Peace River district and the number of recruits obtained in southeastern British Columbia, it makes the figures and the quota asked of British Columbia seem all the worse, bearing in mind, as has been mentioned, that a very considerable amount of recruiting already has taken place in British Columbia. That merely makes it worse.


Ernest Edward Perley: Could the minister give the quota and the enlistments for military district No. 12?


Charles Gavan Power: I cannot give the figures as to the quota. I have a long table here, to which I referred a moment ago and which perhaps would be more intelligible if it were placed on Hansard, though if my hon. friend wishes I can give him the comparable figure I have given already with regard to military districts No. 7 and No. 11. That figure would be 3-55 per cent, as compared with 5-53 per cent in military district No. 7, and 4-08 per cent in military district No. 11. The complete table is as follows:


QUOTAS'AND, IN BRACKETS, PROPORTIONS OF QUOTAS TO ESTIMATED MALE POPULATION AGED 19 TO 45 IN EACH MILITARY DISTRICT
[Stage Direction]
M.D.		Recruiting campaign				Subsequent to recruiting campaign				Total	Grand Total
	As stated in answer to question (a) above, whilst regard is made to estimated population in fixing quotas, it was necessary to take particularly into consideration the geographical origin of the units to be strengthened and reinforced and the location of their reserve counterparts, as well as the availability of tradesmen and suitable personnel for the various purposes for which they were required.										
Unit shortages	Reinforcements	Total	Unit needs	Reinforcements	16th quota	17th quota	18th quota	19th quota	20th quota	21st quota	(o)	(6)	(c)	W	(«)	(/)	(a)	(A)	(i)	(j)	(A)	(0%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%1	1808 (1-22)	484 (-33)	548 (-37)	2840 (1-92)	357 (-24)	1009 (-68)	587 (-40)	679 (-46)	679 (-46)	3311 (2-24)	6151 (4-16)2	4225 (1-03)	1141 (-28)	1265 (-31)	6631 (1-62)	394 (-10)	1786 (-44)	1192 (-29)	1235 (-30)	1239 (-30)	5838 (1-43)	12469 (3 05)3	1223 ( -81)	601 (-40)	518 (-35)	2342 (1-56)	671 (-45)	902 (-59)	656 (-44)	749 (-50)	749 (-50)	3727 (2-48)	6069 (4-04)4	2447 ( -58)	670 (-16)	1250 (-29)	4367 (1-03)	195 (-05)	975 (-23)	663 (-16)	911 (-21)	934 (-22)	3703 ( -87)	8070 (1-90)5	687 ( -32)	281 (-13)	766 (-36)	1734 ( -81)	277 (-13)	625 (-29)	469 (-22)	636 (-30)	609 (-28)	2591 (1-21)	4325 (2-02)6	1381 (1-17)	274 (-23)	461 (-39)	2116 (1-79)	729 (-62)	613 (-52)	497 (-42)	508 (-43)	504 (-43)	2861 (2-42)	4977 (4-21)7	738 ( -92)	381 (-47)	359 (-45)	1478 (1-84)	712 (-89)	633 (-79)	495 (-61)	560 (-70)	564 (-70)	2962 (3-69)	4440 (5-53)10	1402 ( -78)	598 (-33)	603 (-34)	2603 (1-45)	131 (07)	707 (-40)	633 ( 35)	704 (-39)	702 (-39)	2877 (1-60)	5480 (3-05)11	2139 (1-38)	501 (-32)	465 (-30)	3105 (2-00)	670 (-43)	775 (-49)	552 (-36)	619 (-40)	617 (-40)	3233 (2-08)	6338 (4 08)12	1464 ( -83)	500 (-28)	747 (-42)	2711 (1-53)	213 (12)	1031 (-58)	713 (-40)	808 (-46)	812 (-46)	3577 (2-02)	6288 (3-55)13	1449 ( -90)	569 (-35)	489 (-31)	2507 (1-56)	246 (15)	757 (-47)	543 (-34)	591 (-37)	591 (-37)	2728 (1-70)	5235 (3-26)Total	18963 ( -85)	6000 (-27)	7471 (-34)	32434 (1-46)	4595 (-21)	9813 (-44)	7000 (-32)	8000 (-36)	8000 (-36)	37408 (1-69)	69842 (3-15)
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James Arthur Ross: Has any thought been given to basing these quotas on population?
I was not in the chamber when this discussion began, but I understand that the quotas have been based on previous enlistments.


Charles Gavan Power: I would not say so much on previous enlistments. They were based on the mobilization plan and the non-permanent active militia units. That was one factor. A second factor was the mobilized units and the desire to fill up the mobilized units from those particular districts. These were factors, as well as the question of population.


James Arthur Ross: There are many areas where there were no mobilized units, or where such units were not recognized, and in many ways this system seems rather unfair. Would it not be much better to base the quotas on population? Would that not give a fairer picture for the future?


Charles Gavan Power: All I can say is that at the time these quotas were set that was not done on a straight population basis; all these other factors came into it. To what extent the population of military age entered into it I am not able to say; that was a factor, though perhaps not the predominant factor.


Richard Burpee Hanson: As a matter of fact, the population data was one of the smallest factors, according to the previous statement of the minister. The quotas were based on the presence of the non-permanent active militia units plus the record of previous enlistments, and population had practically nothing to do with it. That was the answer of the government.


Howard Charles Green: Would it not be possible to arrive at a quota by taking into account the numbers who have enlisted in the three fighting services, together with the national registration which showed the number of young men who were available in each district? Would that not be the only fair way to strike a quota?


Charles Gavan Power: I should say it would be possible, though, as I said before, I have not gone into this question in detail. Up to the present no one in this house, and very few throughout the country-and I say this seriously-have taken very much account of the fact that the air force is taking a great many recruits. As a matter of fact, as the Minister of National Defence said here the other day, within a period of six months, taking the air force, the navy and the army, we enlisted 105,000 men, which is a very reasonable number of enlistments.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The minister spoke about the situation, in New Brunswick, and I am glad he did so. I should like
to tell him that the New Brunswick enlistment has been good from the beginning; we have never been behind in our quota. This has been due primarily, I hope and suggest, to the patriotic attitude of our people. Second, it has been due to the patriotic attitude of those who have tried to bring in the recruits.
I should like to give the committee an illustration of what was done in my own city during the June-July recruiting campaign. They organized an active recruiting committee, calling themselves the York minutemen. They combed the constituency from one end to the other with public meetings and personal solicitations, and they got the recruits. But the reason why recruits were available, after giving due effect to the first principle I tried to enunciate, is primarily the fact that there is no industrial life in the country to take in these young men. That I believe is a true statement. I tried to analyse it as well as possible, and I am satisfied that all those factors caused the result in New Brunswick.
But that time has now passed. The men have gone, and the minister cannot look for the same results in the future. The men who constituted themselves the minutemen of York, led by my own partners, who are both returned soldiers, say they cannot repeat that performance on any quota. I just wish to leave that fact W'ith the minister.


Charles Gavan Power: I think my hon. friend will
agree that there was a feeling in industrial centres that young men who had good jobs, and who were earning $5 or $6 a day, did not want to join the army to walk round Canada for $1.30. There was not enough action in that, and I believe that fact would account for the large number of recruits we obtained in the air force. There was not enough action in the army for a great many of the young men, I have been told by a number of hon. members and others interested. In the industrial cities of, let us say, Ontario, a great many young men said, "Why should I go and work for $1.30 a day, and probably spend a year marching up and down the country in Canada, when I am earning $5''-or possibly $6- "a day at the present time. If there is any action, I will join up." That may have been the feeling. I know I have been told that, and I can understand it.


Richard Burpee Hanson: There is
one other point I wish to make for my own province. I should like to pay a tribute to the Aeadians of New Brunswick. They did their duty by enlisting, once they got the opportunity to do so. But the military authorities gave those young men no opportunity to recruit for at least the first nine months of the war. There was no opportunity to recruit in
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the districts from which the most of these young men came. The only opportunity offered was in the county of Madawaska, represented by the Minister of Fisheries.


Charles Gavan Power: What about the North Shore regiment?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I shall
come to that. In May, 1940, after the election, when I took this seat, I called the attention of the late Minister of National Defence to the matter, but it was not until June or July, 1940, that these young men on the north shore, out of whom the North Shore regiment was subsequently recruited had the opportunity of enlisting anywhere near their own homes. They . were told that if they wanted to pay their own expenses they could go to Fredericton, but Fredericton was a couple of hundred miles away from their homes.
The recruiting officers in the military district were to blame; I am not blaming the government. Those officers were to blame because they did not make available to these young men the opportunity to recruit in the vicinity of their own homes, or in the military unit in that part of the country, namely, the North Shore regiment. I take some credit for having arranged with the minister to have that position remedied. Men from the counties of Restigouche and Gloucester had to go to the city of Quebec to enlist, and many of them did so. That position was reversed, and the whole programme was covered in the proper way.
I wish to pay tribute to the young Acadians of New Brunswick. There is just one unfortunate fact in that connection, namely, that the number of physical rejections among them was higher than among their Englishspeaking compatriots. That was a misfortune, but it was not their fault. It showed that those young men had not had the proper opportunity for development, and had not received, during the years of depression, the standard of nutriment they should have received. Undoubtedly that is somewhat of a reflection on my own province.


Charles Gavan Power: And there is another factor, too.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It is unfortunate that we must admit that the number of rejections from those communities were much higher than from the English-speaking communities. Surely that is something which ought to be prevented in future. This country must deal with a condition like that. It is a very big problem, but we must do something to raise the standard of living in certain sections of Canada.
[Mr. R. B. Hanson.)


Charles Gavan Power: There is another factor which I noticed in connection with air force recruiting. The probability is that the young men in that northern section of New Brunswick, very much like the young men of certain parts of Quebec, do not engage in sports to the same extent as obtains in other sections of the country. Therefore they are not as well developed physically. I have been told that that was so in connection with recruiting for the air force. We found a large number-and I am speaking particularly of the air force-who were just a little below standard or underweight, or who were not quite sufficiently developed, owing largely to the fact that they had not taken physical exercise, or had not been given physical training in their schools. I am making arrangements as well as I can to feed those lads, to set them up and give them physical exercise. I believe that with two or three months of regular living, good feeding, physical training and rest, we shall be able to bring quite a number up to the required physical standard in the air force.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Good. I think the hon. member for Royal could tell the minister an interesting story along that line.


Charles Gavan Power: Does he agree with me?


Alfred Johnson Brooks: Absolutely.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The young men who came from Acadian centres in New Brunswick were not accustomed to playing games, as the minister has said. I will say this for them, that as soon as they see how a thing is done they enter into it with great zest, put their spirit into it and come through.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: Since my leader has asked me to explain, and then taken it upon himself to do so, I do not believe there is much for me to say, except to agree with him. In all the training schools, as the minister knows, we have sports. That is one of the main features of our training. I had noted that the Acadian boys who have come to our centre in large numbers, in both the active and reserve units, are not very familiar with sports, when they arrive. But they acquire a liking for sports, after they learn how to play the games.
There was one question I wanted to ask the minister, and it arises from the statement by the leader of the opposition. A great many young men from northern New Brunswick did go over to Quebec to enlist. I was wondering if they were recorded as enlisting in New

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Brunswick, or was a certain district in Quebec receiving credit for those enlistments? The numbers were supposed to reach 2,000 or 3,000. To my mind that is probably more than actually went over. Did New Brunswick receive credit for those men, or did the military district in Quebec?


Charles Gavan Power: I have not all the information on that, but I do know of at least three units which were affected. There was the 57th Battery, which formed in Quebec and enlisted a goodly portion of its recruits from Gaspe, and the vicinity of Campbellton. But they would be English-speaking recruits; I believe that was an entirely English-speaking unit. Then, there were the Royal Rifles of Quebec. They also recruited extensively in Gaspe among the English-speaking residents, and to some extent among the French-speaking people of the Matapedia valley, and along into Campbellton. Then I believe the Chaudiere Regiment is entirely French-speaking, enlisted in the Matapedia valley, going through into Campbellton, and through to St. Leonard. I would not be sure, but I think it would go along that highway, reaching Bathurst, and generally through that district.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I believe many of the Acadians from Madawaska went into the Carleton and York Regiment.


Charles Gavan Power: Probably. I believe, however, that from the shores of the Baie des Chaleurs, there were quite a few who came to Quebec.


Mr. MICHAUD:: I think it is my duty to try to throw a little light upon the matter brought up by the leader of the opposition, which the acting Minister of National Defence (Mr. Power) has attempted to explain. Recruiting in New Brunswick has been based more upon geography than anything else. The oldest infantry regiment in the province, the York and Carleton Regiment, recruited for the first division. Naturally those who were already in the ranks of this regiment were among the first to sign up with the colours. It just happened that this regiment was recruited largely along the banks of the St. John river. Then recruits were taken from Madawaska, Victoria, Carleton, York and Charlotte. Those living in the Frenchspeaking section of Madawaska and Victoria counties naturally joined up with that regiment. Before the regiment was recruited to full strength, I believe a campaign was carried on in the counties of Restigouche and Gloucester. The number recruited from these sections was quite limited, but they helped to fill the ranks of the York and Carleton Regiment, first division.
When the second division was mobilized, men from the districts along the north shore formed the nucleus of the recruits in the infantry division from New Brunswick. More recruits were obtained from the northern or French-speaking section of New Brunswick than when the first division was mobilized. At that time, however, a number of boys who lived adjacent to the province of Quebec had enlisted in the Gaspe and Matapedia valley regiment which had been mobilized for the first division. Credit for those enlistments was not given to New Brunswick. These boys were French-speaking and they joined up with Quebec regiments.
In connection with the physical condition of those who joined, it is an unfortunate fact that the men from the northern section of New Brunswick were not as physically fit as those from the lower part of the province. I shall not attempt to explain this, but there are two main causes. These people have to work hard for a living. Many of them are engaged in lumbering, and they do not have much time for sports and games. They work from daybreak to sundown. Many of them are fishermen, and the life of a fisherman does not tend to produce a strong and robust man. Social workers will tell you that people who spend most of their time in a fog on the high seas, who are not working as strenuously as a farmer and who, therefore, do not require the same nourishment, do not tend to develop bodily to the same extent. Furthermore, they do not have time to practise physical culture, to go to doctors, and to carry out modem methods of hygiene. The war will have one good effect: it will enable us to remedy this condition as quickly as possible.


Mr. PURDY:: Is it the intention of the minister to take any action in connection with the barring of private soldiers from the three leading hotels in Truro? My opinion is that if these men are good enough to fight for us, they certainly are good enough to eat with us.


Charles Gavan Power: I noticed that in a Montreal paper this morning, and I got after it immediately.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What is that?


Charles Gavan Power: The paper contains an interview by the Canadian Press with Hon. Michael Dwyer, former minister of mines of Nova Scotia and now general manager of Nova Scotia Steel and Coal company. He asserted that at Truro the hotels are barred to the noncommissioned ranks, to private soldiers. He relates that while he was endeavouring to enter a hotel with some private soldiers, he was barred by soldiers with fixed bayonets.

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Richard Burpee Hanson: I have
the story now. When he went to the hotel with his friends, two soldiers barred the entrance with crossed bayonets. He goes on to state that the same thing occurred at the entrance of each of the three leading places. That would be an action by the military authorities, not by the hotels.


Charles Gavan Power: I immediately asked the officers of the department to get in touch with the commander at Debert. May I say by way of explanation that certain districts or localities and even certain institutions or establishments are quite often barred to soldiers. I must say, however, in justice to the two hotels in Truro, that they are not of the class that would normally be barred. I want to make that quite clear. As the result of a long distance conversation with the assistant adjutant quartermaster-general of Debert camp I ascertained that there are two hotels in Truro, the Stanley house and the Scotia.


Gordon Timlin Purdy: What about the Belvedere? This article refers to three places.


Charles Gavan Power: They spoke only of two. The Scotia hotel is apparently out of bounds at the request of the manager on account of a disturbance which had been created in the hotel by soldiers a year ago. That order was issued in October, 1940. The Stanley house is in a different category. Apparently it has been reserved to officers on the grounds that they cannot or do not go anywhere else. During the last war I was a private soldier for a considerable length of time, and there was not a hotel in London into which I did not go even though there were generals and so forth there. Needless to say, my view was that the sort of thing which has been mentioned should not be tolerated in the army. We are, however, making further inquiries, and perhaps I shall have to consult with my associate and colleague before giving a definite order.


Howard Charles Green: The Minister of National Defence put the situation with regard to recruiting very clearly last Wednesday. Referring to the recruiting campaign in the summer he is reported at page 4115 of Hansard as follows:
The assumption was that if we could enlist men at the rate of 12,000 or more per month in the campaign, there ought to be no difficulty in enlisting 7,000 or 8,000 under the influence of the momentum which had been generated. But there was a definite falling off. As the figures show, in the last four months, since the campaign, we have asked for 37,000 odd, and something over 24,000 have actually enlisted.
This means that the recruiting campaign at the present time is not a success, and that is

perhaps the most vital question facing this house at the present time. I would ask the minister to tell us what plans the government have in mind to make recruiting a success. We should be told what plans are in mind.
I should like to make two suggestions, and no doubt there are many others that could be put forward. First, it seems foolish to rely largely upon sending around bands all the time. I do not know what the practice is in other parts of Canada, but in Vancouver a band parades up and down the street two or three times a day, and there is a recruiting station or perhaps several of them. I think it would be much better if, in addition, we could have stationed in the city a tank or some other type of the most modem military equipment. I am quite sure that it would be of interest to our young men because they are all mechanically-minded anyway, and the army is continually calling for mechanics and tradesmen. I suggest that it would be very much worth while to change the present method and send some modern tanks to different parts of the country to give the young lads a chance to examine them and see how they go. In that way far more enthusiasm would be stirred up than is aroused at the present time.
My other suggestion is this. I think the government misses a grand opportunity by not doing something without further delay with respect to dependents allowances. When the war broke out the policy was adopted of paying an allowance for only two children of the enlisted soldier, no matter how many children he actually had. We were told at the time that it was done in order that men with more than two children would not enlist. But despite that fact, men were taken on who had more than two children, and there are many men in the forces now who have more than two children, yet their wives receive an allowance for two children only. I daresay nothing does more to hamper recruiting than to have that condition exist to-day all across this land. Here is the wufe of a soldier with five children drawing only the allowance that goes to the wife with two children. Not only is there bound to .be insufficient food for the family, but they cannot get proper living accommodation or proper medical treatment, and it is almost impossible for the family to live under decent conditions unless they have other means. I am sure that practically every member of the house has run into that difficulty, and I suggest that provision should be made at once to pay an allowance for all the dependents of a man who is overseas.
Furthermore, I think these dependents should get a cost of living bonus. As it is

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to-day, they are pretty well forced to live on a minimum scale, which is not good enough for the dependents of the men of the fighting forces. I suggest that these women and children should be granted a cost of living bonus. The same applies to the men of the last war who are on war veterans' allowance, and to the pensioners, who are in a most difficult position. The young man who has not enlisted sees these veterans of the last war and says to himself, "Well, if I enlist, am I to be treated in that cavalier fashion when I come back from this war? What is the use? Why should I enlist and have to come back and fight the government in order to be able to live?" Those are the arguments with which we are being met in the ridings day after day. These men should get the cost of living bonus. Old age pensioners are in the same category. They are drawing only $20 a month and that simply means semi-starvation. They are on the government payroll just the same as civil servants, and yet, although they are given an extremely small amount to live on, they are not considered in the cost of living bonus scheme at all. Things like that are hurting the recruiting campaign, and until the government wakes up and realizes that these are the conditions across Canada to-day, do not expect very much in the way of recruiting. The government cannot get the men unless it remedies these conditions, and I urge that there should be no further delay in meeting them.


Charles Gavan Power: Answering my hon. friend's first question dealing with the shortage in recruits during the past recruiting campaign period, if I may use his own argument of a moment ago, I would call his attention to the fact that during that period there were at least enough men enlisted in the air force and in the navy more than to make up the quotas required.


Howard Charles Green: But the government needed the men in the air force and in the navy besides those who were required in the army.


Charles Gavan Power: My hon. friend was lumping them together to get a true picture, and so I say that the recruits for the navy and air force must be lumped together as well.


Howard Charles Green: But the Minister of National Defence stated that the army was 13,000 men short.


Charles Gavan Power: That does not mean that the man-power of Canada did not come forward to do its duty. It did not come forward to the army because the army has not the same attractions for them.


Howard Charles Green: The army did not get the number of men they wanted.


Charles Gavan Power: With respect to my hon. friend's next point, bands for recruiting purposes, this is the first time I have ever heard any member of this house say that such bands were useless.


Howard Charles Green: I would not say they are useless. I think they help, but I suggest using the other method too.


Charles Gavan Power: This whole country went crazy over telling us to get bands, and for a while, when I was acting Minister of National Defence a year ago, after the death of the late lamented Norman Rogers, I kept on authorizing bands as fast as I could to put a little more colour and glamour into recruiting.


James Arthur Ross: A good idea, too.


Charles Gavan Power: I think everyone agrees that a band helps to do that. I am not quite sure, speaking for myself personally, that a parade of tanks or the use of a dug-out or other paraphernalia is of great effect in getting recruits. I know that the officers of the department and civilian committees interested in recruiting have thought they were of some effect. I do not know myself but I shall be only too glad to pass my hon. friend's suggestion on to the proper authorities.
With respect to increasing the dependents' allowance, it has been stated in the house by the responsible authority, by the Minister of Finance, and, I think, by my colleague, the Minister of National Defence, that this question is being studied by a committee of the cabinet, and I believe a decision should be arrived at very shortly.
Then my hon. friend came back to the old problem of the rehabilitation of the exsoldier. I am under the impression that the rehabilitation programme as laid down by the present minister of pensions is something which, when it comes to be studied, will appeal to the returned soldiers of the preceding generation as well as to the returned soldiers of this war. There is ample assurance that they will be looked after, perhaps not to the extent that they would wish themselves, but looked after in a way that will obviate the necessity of constant requests and petitions to the government. Decisions have been made, and rules and regulations laid down by order in council, which assure them of far greater benefit than, possibly, those who served in the last war were able to obtain.


Howard Charles Green: The minister did not deal with my main request, which was for some information as to the recruiting plans of the government. How does he propose to get these men?
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Charles Gavan Power: The answer to that is very simple. My colleague the Minister of National Defence stated, when he was speaking in this chamber last Wednesday, that he had only recently returned from the old country. He returned on the day the session opened. He had not had time to consult with his colleagues. Certainly he has not had time this week; for, as my hon. friend knows, unfortunately he has been confined to his room on account of illness; and he has not had the time to consult with his colleagues in the war committee and in the cabinet with regard to his future plans. Those plans will be developed within as short a time as possible and will be announced to the country.


Howard Charles Green: Then there is no plan at
the present time?


Charles Gavan Power: We are still recruiting.


Mr. L. A. MUTCH (Winnipeg South):: This is, perhaps, an unusual opportunity-to be able to direct a remark to the minister to-night in both his capacities, upon this subject of recruiting. I should like to mention to him one matter which has caused a good deal of heart-burning, and to make a recommendation in connection with it.
The high percentage of rejections through medical examinations is due to either one of two things. Either the national health of the country and particularly of our young men is more deplorable than I think it is, or a wrong emphasis is being placed on the system of medical examination. We are in the unique position-I speak now of the army, of which I know, not of the air force and the navy-that the Canadian Army is a creation of the medical profession, that profession being composed of people who understand the art and practice of healing and on that account are entitled to respect. But this profession is in the rather odd position, not of its own choosing, of saying who shall serve and who shall not serve, with the result that, I believe, a great many of these medical officers, being young men without practical knowledge of what is required of the service in its various branches, are forced to decide whether or not a man shall serve, according to a routine order and a little book, a book which anyone who has been turned down for service will probably remember having seen. It is not, I say, of the medical profession's own choosing, and it seems to me and to many others in the service that the time has come when recruits should be examined by soldiers, their capabilities assessed and the decision made as to where in the varied services of the Canadian Army they would most likely be valuable, and then, when that has been

decided, the medical officer should be called in to perform his true function, that of an expert witness who, having been told what is required of the particular man in the service for which he is destined, can state whether the recruit is physically fit for it or not.
Some of my colleagues may quarrel with that point of view, but I doubt very much if it will be seriously objected to by any of the medical profession. Under present conditions, in my opinion, there is wastage. I come back to the point I mentioned last night, namely, that we are judging every one of our prospective soldiers by the highest standard which would be required of any of them. In an army which comprises even six divisions or less, there is a place for those who, being willing and anxious to serve, do not qualify by the highest standards.
I put this suggestion to those of us who cheered when we heard the then Prime Minister of Australia say in this chamber:
What does it matter if we come out into that wmrld bankrupt? What does it matter if we come out into that world with lower standards of material living than wre have now? What does it matter if in that world the rich are not so rich? What does it matter if in the last resort the business of statesmanship in that new -world becomes the business of sharing justly a new and honourable poverty?
We cheered that; did we subscribe to it? We gave at least lip-service to it. But I suggest to the minister and the government that our attitude with respect to the substandard eases is prompted at least in part by the thought of the pensions yet to come. At any rate, I should like to see a reconsideration of the system of medical examinations.
Before I leave the subject, may I suggest to the Minister of National Defence for Air that the problem of recruiting, in so far as it is a problem, has been bedevilled somewhat by that which is in the nature of a contest between the services. I am one of those who think that recruits for all branches of the service might well be pooled and then, according to their various qualifications, assigned to that branch for which they are best fitted. Perhaps I would not give even the volunteers who come from our training scheme quite as much latitude in that respect as they already enjoy. I can understand the Minister of National Defence for Air getting enthusiastic about the fine body of men he has. We are all equally proud of them; most of us have boasted about his air force, and-some of us-about his own part in creating it. Perhaps he will not take it as unfriendly if I say to him that, in the opinion of at least one member of this house, it does not lie in his mouth to assert the superior Canadianism of any group of men in service in Canada, even the men in the force

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of which he is so proud. I suggest to him-I think he agrees with me-remembering those men who serve in the army under less happy conditions, in particular, though not so much recently, still to some extent in the matter of pay, and certainly in matters of comfort, including the comical clothes in which we train our soldiers-that perhaps the test of sincerity of Canadianism and loyalty in the service was laid down long ago by One who said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life." I believe that the Canadianism of the men in the rougher khaki will stand the test, even though some of them may have to pass out without "benefit of matriculation."


John George Diefenbaker: Following what the hon. member for Vancouver South has said as to the necessity of removing all sources of dissatisfaction among service and ex-service men, there is a matter which I should like to bring to the attention of the committee, arising from a letter which I received this evening since coming into the chamber. I am going to read all material portions of the letter, which is from Earl Grey, Saskatchewan, and dated November 10, 1941:
I have received a letter from the Department of Pensions and National Health, together with income tax forms, and I enclose their letter which is self-explanatory, and which I thought you might like to read, the forms I am returning, completed, to the proper department.
I find it difficult however to reconcile the government's action in taxing the soldiers' pensions, especially when, owing to the increased cost of living, bonuses are now being paid to workers who are earning at least $25 a month more than my pension of $75 a month.
And this particularly, Mr. Chairman:
My pension is for the total loss of sight in the last war, and this handicap, which necessitates paying out for everything that is needed by me, is an added burden to the increased cost of living.
In the last session I made an appeal-and I know it was sympathetically received, although not acted upon-that pensions should not be subject to income tax. Up until the present time they have not been subject to the national defence tax. Attached to the letter is a notice received by this pensioner, a letter that apparently has been sent out to all pensioners in Canada, which reads as follows:
To all pensioners whom it concerns:
Subject: National defence tax.
A ruling given by the Department of National Revenue, income tax department, some months ago, to the effect that total disability pension was not regarded as income and therefore not subject to national defence tax has now been repealed.
I do not know the meaning of the word "repealed" there. The ruling in effect until recently was apparently that these men who are to-day receiving pensions by reason of the last war for total disability should not have imposed upon them the national defence tax. The word used is that that ruling has now been "repealed". I presume the word meant is "revoked".
It has been ascertained that there is no statutory authority in the Income War Tax Act for the exemption from the provisions of such act of total disability pension.
In the circumstances, this department will be obliged to make the necessary tax deduction from pension commencing January 1, 1942, in all cases where this action is indicated.
At a time when we are endeavouring to get recruits and every effort is being put forward to that end, even now at the end of this session we ought, in the interests of these men who to-day are in receipt of total disability pensions for their services in the last war, to remove that cause of dissatisfaction. I suggest that the act should be amended at once if there is any doubt, as apparently there is, whether the income war tax act provides for such exemption.


Mr. A. W. ROEBUCK (Trinity):: May I commend the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) for bringing up one matter which is near to my own heart. Nevertheless I would not have it thought for a moment that the interest which he has shown in soldiers' dependents is confined to the group to which he belongs. The sentiment is widespread not only in, but outside parliament, that an increased allowance of some kind should be made to the wives and children of soldiers who are in the army, whether abroad or still in Canada. The amount undertaken to be paid to the dependents of soldiers was calculated in 1939, and no doubt was calculated with care in order to give a living allowance at that time. If it was the right amount at that time-and I do not say it was or was not, but let us assume it was-it is the wrong amount now, because in the meantime the cost of living has advanced an amount which it is hard to state. It is easy to look up the cost of living index and see that it has risen 10, 15, 20, or 30 per cent; a little over 14 per cent is perhaps the general figure, but that figure is not quite applicable, because the style of living of these people is special, and one would have to calculate food and clothing specially and make due allowance for the kind of houses they live in and the rents they pay. The cost of living to them has probably increased more than it has in a general way. The likelihood is that the amount we are now
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paying to them has decreased in buying power by more than 15 per cent over what was paid to them in 1939. I want to associate myself strongly with what has been said by the hon. member for Vancouver South in the interests of these poor people. We have had representations made here in Ottawa as to children without shoes, children improperly and insufficiently clothed, and most important of all, children who are not receiving sufficient nourishment, who are underfed. That should not take place in Canada.
I have thought that one of the really statesmanlike conceptions which has passed into actual law in the last two and a half years while we have been at war is the cost of living bonus. I think the Minister of Labour is to be commended for that very sound provision which raises wages proportionately to the increase in the cost of living, and which will probably in due season decrease the remuneration as the cost of living falls. That is a statesmanlike provision and has had a marvellous effect in our industrial centres, because it has removed the fear that increases in the cost of living would so whittle down the standards of life that our people would be in a much worse condition than they are now or have been. It has removed fear, and in doing so has settled the minds of the people, and they have gone to work forgetting for the moment about their financial troubles. It would do the same with regard to the dependents of the soldiers if they knew that as the cost of living increases in the future, payments would be made to them increased proportionately with the increase in the cost of living. There would be found very much less discussion of this matter; these women would take care of their children, look after their homes, devote themselves to their domestic duties instead of feeling impelled to take part in public movements to save their standards of living.
I am glad to learn from the minister that a decision on that matter will probably come down in the near future. I hope it will be a favourable decision, and I would say a generous decision would be welcomed by the people of Canada. It would be a statesmanlike provision if a cost of living bonus is paid to these dependents. I took part with the city council when the matter was brought up in Toronto; I came down with the delegation to press it upon the government; I have taken every possible occasion of a private nature to advocate this measure, and I want it to be written in the records of this house that I am in favour of it. I hope not only that a favourable decision will be made with regard to the soldiers' dependents, but that

this bonus will be extended to all those people who are dependent upon the government for set amounts, so that the fear of the increasing cost of living shall be removed. They will know that no matter how high it goes, compensation will be given to them. The name of the minister who signs that recommendation will be blessed in this country.


Mr. HARRY LEADER (Portage la Prairie):: I wish to make one or two observations in support of what has been said with regard to granting adequate allowances to soldiers' dependents. I do not think there is anything that would add more to the morale of our troops than to know that their dependents at home are being looked after. I do not know of anything that would stimulate recruiting more than to know that if our boys enlist their dependents will be adequately looked after.
I want to give two examples which have come to my notice in talking this matter over with my constituents. I have had several cases of boys who enlisted expecting to get an allowance for their mothers. In one instance this has been denied the mother, for the reason that she is not living with her husband. They are not legally separated; they have been living apart for many years; yet, because she has a husband living, she is denied the allowance in respect of her son who has volunteered his life in defence of his country. As I say, I have had several cases of that kind.
Then there is another instance I should like to cite to the committee. This is the case of two old age pensioners, each receiving $15 a month. They have a little property, which has been willed to the son who is now overseas fighting for Canada, who served during the last war and who volunteered once more for active service. I am informed by these old people that in the course of two or three years their equity in this little house will pass to the old age pension board, and I was asked if it would be possible to have the Old Age Pensions Act amended so that in such cases, where the son enlisted, the board would not exercise the lien which it held on the property.
I want to submit that case to the acting minister to-night. About a week ago I wrote a letter concerning this particular case to the Department of National Defence. I do not know whether that letter has come to his attention, but I should be glad if he wrould give careful and favourable consideration to the two matters I have submitted.


Charles Gavan Power: So far as they relate to the
Department of National Defence I shall be very glad to do so.

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Clarence Gillis: I wish to associate myself with the
hon. member for Vancouver South in urging the government to extend the cost of living bonus to old age pensioners and dependents of soldiers. My understanding of the cost of living bonus, as it has been applied by the government, is that instead of being a cost of living bonus it is a steady-work bonus, because one must work six days a week in order to get it, and it is based on one's daily earnings. That may be why it has not been extended to pensioners and dependents of soldiers, because it has not been worked out as a cost of living bonus. If it were, perhaps these people would be entitled to it, but as it stands it is a steady-work bonus.
In my opinion there are many things which are tending to retard enlistments. I believe one great factor is the length of time it takes soldiers' dependents to get their allowance after enlistment. During the past three months I must have written two hundred letters to the dependents' allowance board seeking to help these people. Some of them have had to go without their allowance for as long as three and four months, running round, writing letters, appealing to everyone. I think the minister would be doing something worth while if he could devise ways and means of speeding up the machine that handles dependents' allowances.


Charles Gavan Power: If my hon. friend will pardon me, I am rather astonished to hear that statement. I have not looked into the question of dependents' allowances for some little time, but something over a year ago I did a special job of work on it, and at that time I think the allowances W'ere coming through with fair expedition. I should be very glad if my hon. friend would let me have any instances in which the allowance which was due under the regulations was held up for two or three months; I will take the matter up personally. I should be very glad to get it, because I was under the impression that this particular board at the moment was functioning with fair efficiency and expedition.


Clarence Gillis: I want to assure the minister that in the part of the countiy from which I come the situation has been terrible for the past five months. These have not been isolated cases, either; it seemed to be a general thing.
Another complaint that we hear very frequently is with respect to the treatment of the soldier in camp who happens to become sick. This has been reported to me personally not once, but several times; a soldier reports sick; he is sent to his battalion medical officer. Invariably he gets medicine
on duty, with practically no examination, and in some instances is fined 25 cents for reporting sick. When soldiers who have volunteered come home on leave and discuss these matters freely on the streets, there is not very much encouragement for the men whom we are trying to get to enlist voluntarily. That story is true; I have checked it, and I believe that situation should be remedied also.
There is still another matter with which we are concerned in Nova Scotia, at least; that is, the question of employment for men now unemployed. When they seek employment in the coal mining industry particularly, which is the basic industry of that province, the first question asked is whether they have medical certificates certifying that they are unfit for military service. If they do not have such certificates they are not taken on. On the other hand, a boy who is hired in that industry to-day is told definitely when he signs his employment card that he is hired for the duration of the war, and that when the war is over he will be relegated to the ranks of the unemployed. One hears it said quite freely on the street that if this is the programme of the government with regard to rehabilitation after the war, there is not much incentive for men to enlist voluntarily. In the first place, a man must be unfit for the army, and down there they construe that as equivalent to economic conscription. If a man is not fit for military service but is fit for employment, when he takes that employment he is told that it is only for the duration of the war.
There is another matter I should like to bring to the attention of the minister, which I think works a great deal of injustice and hardship. A man enlists in Nova Scotia and is sent to Ontario. He has a family of five or six children, though his wife receives an allowance for only two children. Then the husband goes absent without leave for perhaps twenty-one days, and the wife's allowance is discontinued for perhaps two or three months, depending upon how long he was absent without leave and how long he was kept in detention after being caught. The family are not responsible for the actions of the man. When he goes into the army his sergeant-major is responsible for his discipline; and if the man gets away and commits infractions of military law, he should be punished, not his family. It is a sad spectacle to see a woman who has waited a month or two for her allowance, only to be notified by the department: "Your husband
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was absent without leave, and as a result your allowance is discontinued," effective on such and such a date.


Charles Gavan Power: I do not think the allowance is touched.


Clarence Gillis: Yes; I definitely know it is. I have had many cases of that kind.


Charles Gavan Power: The assigned pay may be stopped, though I am not even sure of that. I know most certainly, however, that the dependents' allowance is not touched.


Clarence Gillis: It may not be according to the regulations, but certainly it has been done. I have had many cases of it, and not only in Canada. I had two cases where the husbands were absent without leave in England, and the wives were some three months without their allowances. After some correspondence with the department at Ottawa an adjustment was made. Nevertheless they were without that allowance for some months.


Charles Gavan Power: Would my hon. friend send me the facts of that case?


Clarence Gillis: Yes, I will; there are two of them. These matters tend to retard enlistment.
Then, with respect to rehabilitation, there are some points I should like to make. I know the minister has written a first-class order in council-at least it is good on paper. But my concern is this: when will it become operative? I have met many men who have been in the army, some of whom have served eight or nine months, and who have been invalided out for certain disabilities. Upon their return they find it impossible to obtain employment. They are on the street. They are unemployed. Industry does not w'ant them, and they are not physically fit. I have known some of them, and I have had to buy shoes for at least two of them.
Those men circulating round do not tend to support voluntary enlistment. I am wondering whether the minister saw the article which appeared in the Times-Retnew of Fort Erie, Ontario, on Thursday, November 6. The article is headed "Armistice Day, 1941," and is written by Judith Robinson. If the minister has not read it, I suggest that he should. I shall not read it to the committee, but I would say, having read it, that it is the worst indictment thus far, in my opinion, against the government on the question of rehabilitation. It sets out the views of a party of returned soldiers from overseas, after serving twenty-two months in England. They received no pay leave in England and no pay on the boat. They did not have enough to purchase a package of cigarettes. There were some
(Mr. Gillis.]
Americans among them, and the story told by one of the Americans certainly is not going to help our war effort in the United States. I would suggest that the minister investigate this matter. If it is not correct, then a correction should be made. If it is correct, then someone should answer for the treatment these men got upon their return from overseas. There is no doubt about it, it is a terrible story.


Charles Gavan Power: Hand it over.


Clarence Gillis: I agree with the hon. member for Vancouver South that the cost of living bonus should be applied. As I said, however, I am skeptical as to whether it is a cost of living bonus, because it is not being applied in that way. It is based on the number of days a person works, and has nothing to do with the cost of living. If the government is interested in voluntary enlistment, I would strongly urge that some of these matters which appear small and isolated should be given consideration. If one may judge from the discussion, the opinion seems ito be general from coast to coast. The treatment the boys are receiving in the camps, according to their own story, is certainly not encouraging to voluntary enlistment.


Charles Gavan Power: Just a word to my hon. friend. I have read only a paragraph of this article. It seems to me there is a certain amount of vituperation in it. The places to which the man interviewed assigns the army, and the adjectives he utilizes with respect to pay, could scarcely be put on Hansard; but, after abstracting the adjectives and the invective, I shall try to see what there is in it.
With respect to rehabilitation, my hon. friend knows that the order in council provides that from the time the Unemployment Insurance Act came into force, namely on July 1, men discharged from the army profit from that act, just as if they themselves had contributed to it. They are placed in exactly the same position as persons in civilian life, except that they do not have to contribute out of their own money. That is the broad outline of the order in council; I have not the details of it.


James Arthur Ross: I should like to associate myself with the hon. member for Vancouver South and other hon. members who have spoken on behalf of the dependents of those who are serving in the armed forces. They should receive the cost of living bonus. If there is any class of people in the community who should receive that bonus, then surely it is the dependents of those men who are serving in our armed forces.
I can substantiate some of the observations of previous speakers respecting conditions in recruiting. The wife of a soldier came to

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me last fall to see if I could do anything about her receiving her dependent's allowance. She had not received her cheque for three months. I had the matter straightened out finally, and it was explained to me by the dependents' allowance board that the allowance had been held back because her husband had been reporting out without leave. She had to get along as best she could for those three months. I could give the minister the name, if he cared to look into the matter.


Charles Gavan Power: I should be glad to.


James Arthur Ross: We listened to a
speech yesterday, and the matter was dealt with in an article in the Globe and Mail of October 10, with respect to the system of bulldozing draftees into offering their services for the armed forces. I do not suppose the officers responsible have authority from the minister's colleague, but that is a matter which should be checked up. It does not seem the proper procedure.


Charles Gavan Power: I know instructions have been issued that there is to be no coercion. I have seen the instructions.


James Arthur Ross: I am glad to hear that,, because rumours are prevalent that that has been carried out in the training centres, I am also of the opinion that there should be more selection in connection with these volunteers. When the war is won I am convinced that it will be the old army which will be up there holding the fort. I say that with all due respect to the air force and the navy, each of which is doing a wonderful job. It is true that they are important branches of the forces. I suggest, however, that our army will have to be provided for, because it will be in there at the finish. These volunteers should be pooled to some extent, and I believe the Minister of National Defence for Air should change his ideas a little bit. He said the other day in the house that there was no selective basis, so far as he was concerned, and that he wanted all the volunteers he could get, and more. I believe that is the statement he made. While I agree with him, I suggest that there should be more coordination among the three defence ministers, and a greater division of the men. They should be given the duties for which they are best fitted.


Charles Gavan Power: Does my hon. friend wish me to give up the boys who have matriculated from high school and are fit for air crew?


James Arthur Ross: No.


Charles Gavan Power: Does he wish me to give them up to the army?


James Arthur Ross: No.


Charles Gavan Power: Because I am not going to.


James Arthur Ross: I did not make any such suggestion, and I quite agree with the minister that he should not do that. But there are many other young men who do not happen to have the educational standards, and so on, but who would make fit soldiers. I agree with him that all of us desire to have a fine air force, and a fine body of men. but we must go at this in a different manner, so as to provide for other forces which are not getting the recruits to the same extent as the minister is getting his.


Ernest George Hansell: We have heard from every group in the house with respect to the granting of the cost of living bonus to old age pensioners and soldiers' dependents. In fact, to-night we have been privileged to hear all parties associating themselves with one another. That is a happy feature of to-night's discussion. But our associating with one another does not pay the bonus.
There is a principle in connection with the cost of living bonus which hon. members in their speeches to-night have not recognized. The hon. member for Trinity congratulated the Minister of Labour upon his humanitarian act in bringing down regulations whereby the cost of living bonus would be paid to wage-earners, and the hon. member urged that the minister do the same thing in connection with old age pensions. The principle is this: The government is not paying any cost of living bonus, but if it were to increase the old age pension or give a cost of living bonus to soldiers' dependents the government, that is the country or the taxpayers, would have to pay it or we would have to borrow the money. The cost of living bonus to wage-earners is paid by industry. The Minister of Labour (Mr. McLarty) can pass regulations covering the payment of a cost of living bonus to wage-earners, and yet he is not able to pass regulations in connection with bonuses to these other people.
I wish to associate myself and this group with what has been said. I think it will always be found that this group is willing to spend money. As a matter of fact, the social credit philosophy is one of spending, but not spending other people's money or the taxpayers' money or money which would have to be borrowed. We have another way of doing it, but I am not going into that tonight. I quite agree with the principle of a
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cost of living bonus. The complaint I have from wage-earners is that the bonus is not commensurate with the increase in the cost of living. They claim that the bonus should be higher. If industry must pay this cost of living bonus, they must get it from somewhere. If it is not to affect their profit, they must write it into the cost of the goods they sell. The effect of this is that they retrieve the amount from the consumer of the goods, so in the end the people pay it just the same.


Mr. MAYHEW:: What about the price ceiling?


Ernest George Hansell: I am assuming that the cost of living bonus was paid before the price ceiling came into effect. I am glad my hon. friend brought that up. We are to have a ceiling placed upon prices. If the cost of living bonus is increased-and I think it should be-it will work a hardship upon industry if it has to pay that increased' bonus without increasing the price of goods. I have no particular argument to offer either for or against the policy of the government. A price ceiling or rather the control of prices is something that we have advocated in this house for many years as being one of the things that would prevent inflation. We might not want to do it in the same way as the government is doing it, but in principle the method adopted by the government is what we have been advocating for a good many years. I say again that we believe that old age pensions and soldiers' dependents allowances should be increased, and that the responsible ministers should create some plan whereby this can be done.


Richard Burpee Hanson: May I call the minister's attention to three matters about which I spoke to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston). He may have intended to deal with these, but he did not. I referred to the potential man-power of the nation. The minister said that a preliminary survey had been made and I wanted to know the results of that survey. The next question was dealt with in part by the minister, but he said that he wanted to see what he had said previously before giving a complete answer. This question referred to the disposition of our troops overseas. The minister made it quite plain that so far as service out of England was concerned, the final say was with the government here. The third question had to do with the government's policy of refusing to accept voluntary enlistments for the home army. I asked the minister to elaborate upon that policy and he promised to do so. Perhaps the minister will clear up these three matters in the order in which I have mentioned them.


Charles Gavan Power: With regard to the first question, I am under the impression that my colleague said he knew that such a 'survey had been made but was not in a position to speak of the preliminary figures. I do not remember just what figures my hon. friend asked for.


Richard Burpee Hanson: We have not had any action in that connection. This question of the potential man-power of the nation is most important. Unless its disclosure is considered as being contrary to the public interest, this information should be revealed. If the minister can satisfy me that it is not in the public interest to reveal it at this time, I shall not press the point now but I will later on.


Charles Gavan Power: I do know that that has been looked into. I have not seen the figures. I was under the impression that the Minister of National Defence had asserted that he was proposing to look into these figures and that based upon the figures he would announce some policy or give some further information. I am under the impression also that he did not undertake to furnish the figures to the committee. After all, they come from another department.
With regard to the second question, that dealing with the authority of General McNaughton, the Minister of National Defence made it quite clear that in the final analysis the government would have to take the responsibility for the disposition of Canadian troops. While General McNaughton has considerable authority and while his advice would certainly be heeded, when it came to the disposition of troops, the moving of them outside England, not based on England, the government would have to take full and entire responsibility.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Has that position obtained from the beginning, or was there another position which was changed at some stage?


Charles Gavan Power: I am not sure if any other position was assumed, but I think it was always understood, as I think it would be with any government, that apart from actual operations, if the question arose of moving any large body of troops to start a new campaign or open up a new front, that would be considered a matter of government policy.
I do not think there was ever any other view which would go beyond that. For instance, to say to General McNaughton that he could take troops to Africa would, I think, be divesting the government of a responsibility which it owed to the Canadian people. I do

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not believe there has ever been any other theory. There would be the other question of what disposition and use General McNaughton could make of his troops as long as they were based on England and were not opening a new front. If his troops were in France and there was some discussion, as there was in the last war, about opening a new front in Italy, under the circumstances I do not think the government would permit any military officer, no matter how high his rank, to move those men without consultation with the government.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I agree with the statement of policy that the government should have the say as to the final disposition; I am not quarreling with that policy at all. I had the understanding that at one stage there was a different view held-I will put it in that way.
With regard to the position of the troops in England, it is quite clear now, is it not, that they come under the general authority of the British high command in England without reference to the government of Canada?


Charles Gavan Power: Correct.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I think that is as it should be. May I ask another question? At the time of Dunkirk or just before, when Canadian troops were about to board or were actually on board ship, was the permission of the government of Canada sought and obtained for that movement or proposed movement of our troops?


Charles Gavan Power: I have a recollection of dispatches from General McNaughton-they have been made public since so there is nothing hush-hush about it-in which he stated that he had gone, I think, to Calais or Boulogne to reconnoitre the ground and ascertain whether it would be advisable for Canadian troops to be sent. If my recollection is correct, he was almost cut off from communication with Great Britain, and he came to the conclusion that it would be most inadvisable to send Canadian troops to Dunkirk.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is hardly the question I asked.


Charles Gavan Power: I think I am coming to my hon. friend's question. As to the brigade or part of a brigade of Canadian troops which actually landed in France and after a very short stay returned, my recollection is-and I think I was acting minister at the time-that General McNaughton advised the Canadian government of his plans.


Richard Burpee Hanson: And they gave consent?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Richard Burpee Hanson: With
respect to my first question, I have now been handed the reference, page 4118 of Hansard of November 5, second column, where the Minister of National Defence makes this statement:
A preliminary study of the man-power situation in Canada has just been made. The chief of the general staff and I have returned from England after consultations with the general officer commanding the corps, and our friends in the United Kingdom. I have had no opportunity as yet to report to my colleagues. The war committee of the cabinet will be examining the situation thoroughly in the light of Canada's potentialities, and in the light of the needs, to determine the most effective ways in which the army can act and in which the army programme for 1942 can be developed as part of our war effort; and that, of course, will take account of the other calls on our resources of man-power and of materials. Therefore I say to my hon. friend that that is our objective-an all-out effort to the utmost of our strength based on a study of the situation and in the light of other calls which are necessary upon our resources.
I want to know what that preliminary study of the man-power situation revealed. If the minister is not able to reply just now-


Charles Gavan Power: No.


Richard Burpee Hanson: -perhaps he will do so at some later stage.


Charles Gavan Power: I cannot answer my hon.
friend's question, but I can say that I cannot express myself better with respect to it than my colleague, the Minister of National Defence, has already done.


Richard Burpee Hanson: But these are very general statements. They do not give us any information.


Charles Gavan Power: Apparently my colleague was not prepared to lay down any policy until he had had an opportunity to study the figures with his chief of staff and his colleagues in the war cabinet, and then formulate some kind of policy. Therefore I am bound by that.


Richard Burpee Hanson: And the
minister is not able to go beyond that?


Charles Gavan Power: I should not like to go
beyond that.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The Minister of National Defence answered my question as to not accepting voluntary enlistments for service in the. home army, and said that that was the policy.


Charles Gavan Power: I think that is the policy.
The War-Mr. Perley


Richard Burpee Hanson: I want to know what it is based on. I am not now dissenting from it, but I would like to know the reasons for that policy.


Charles Gavan Power: Possibly because through
compulsory military service we are getting enough trainees.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is
the answer?


Charles Gavan Power: I do not know of any other reasons offhand, but there may be others.


Richard Burpee Hanson: All right; I will not press that.


Ernest Edward Perley: I was
very glad to hear the question of soldiers dependents allowance and the cost of living bonus brought up. The cost of living bonus has been granted to other classes, and I trust that the minister will give the suggestions that have been made him to-night serious consideration.
I wish to lodge a protest against the treatment which some soldiers' wives have received since their husbands enlisted and went overseas. Since coming to Ottawa I have received three or four letters, and before leaving home I have on different occasions had people come to me, protesting against a deduction amounting in some instances to as much as $8 or $10 a month which is made from the allowance provided for dependents of soldier settlers in Saskatchewan, which deduction is made to pay interest due on soldier settlement contracts. I am sorry the Minister of Mines and Resources (Mr. Crerar) is not in his seat because it refers to cases under the soldier settlement board and to action taken by his department. These cases have been brought to my attention; I have reviewed them, and I think it is most unfair to make this deduction in view of the present cost of living and the fact that these soldiers of the last war have enlisted and gone overseas and left wives and families behind them. But evidently the soldier settlement board has persuaded the minister to deduct from $8 to $10 a month from their dependents' allowance to be applied as interest due on soldier settler contracts. I wish to lodge my protest against that action. The matter also concerns the Minister of National Defence because many of these men who went through the last war are overseas, and I hope the matter will be given his attention. These men are not in the air force.
While I am on my feet I would ask the minister to give us, if he can, figures with respect to the cost of each recruit obtained in the last recruiting campaign.


Charles Gavan Power: If my hon. friend means
the cost to the government-


Ernest Edward Perley: Yes.


Charles Gavan Power: -I am under the impression that that information has been put on Hansard. If not,- I will get it for my hon. friend.


Ernest Edward Perley: If so, all right.
I was interested to hear the minister review the recruiting campaign and the results achieved in the different military districts. As to district No. 12 in Saskatchewan, part of which I represent, if the present recruiting campaign has not measured up to expectations, it is only fair to say that in that district the early enlistments on the outbreak of the war were most favourable compared with those in any other part of Canada. In the constituency of Assiniboia-I do not see the hon. member for that riding in the house at the moment-there are one or two towns, and I also mentioned one or two towns in my own district last year, which before this latest recruiting campaign was started had enlisted every physically-fit man under thirty-five years of age. It was a very creditable showing, and naturally one cannot expect similar results now when the enlistments in that district a year ago were up to that high standard. I just wanted to put on record, that if military district No. 12 is not making a favourable comparison with certain other districts mentioned here to-night, certain parts of that district last year held the record for recruiting for almost the whole of Canada.


Mr. BERTRAND (Laurier):: The hon.
member for Vancouver South is receiving a response to his suggestion to-night which he is not used to receiving from this side of the chamber. He is a very agreeable gentleman, and belongs to a party which is just looking for a man of his type now. I hope that we are not hurting his chance to-night.
I wish to say just a word about the allowance given to the soldiers for their children. It is a most important question, especially for the province of Quebec. I am quite sure that if the allowance, instead of being restricted to two children, were raised to provide for four or five children, the percentage of enlistments in my province would increase considerably.


Mr. MARTIN:: Why stop at four?


Ernest Bertrand: I am glad to know that there are hon. members from other provinces who say the same thing. It is a serious matter. In my province and in my town young men marry as early as around twenty years of age. At thirty a man might have four or five children. He cannot enlist

The War-Mr. Fuljord
on the basis of an allowance for only two children. I am entirely in agreement with the hon. member for Vancouver South that this question will have to be seriously faced if the government wants to increase enlistments under the voluntary system.


Mr. G. T. FULFORD (Leeds):: I notice in the Ottawa Citizen this evening, on the front page, an item with the heading, "Reserve units get orders to recruit full complements." No doubt this is a move intended to further recruiting, but I am just a little afraid that certain difficulties will be encountered, in units especially that are not mobilized and are not associated directly with any unit serving overseas.
I happen to belong to such a unit, and in spite of the fact that we furnished one of the companies for the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders, the fact remains that it is a battalion which lacks the local colour and the local associations on which our unit was founded. We have many fine traditions, including, a brilliant record in the last war, at Cambrai, Amiens and other places; but we see units all round us being mobilized, while we are left, as it were, holding the bag. We have lost thirty officers to other units, as well as 150 riflemen and non-commissioned officers, and at present we are finding it difficult to get men to turn out for drill.
It might be interesting to the committee to hear the results I had in interviewing all the men in the company to which I happened to be attached, with a view of getting them to sign up for active service. This was when we were in camp at Connaught ranges last July. I am glad to say that very few men signified unwillingness to sign up for active service. Many wanted to join the air force immediately and have subsequently been enrolled in that branch of the service. Others signified their intention of joining the navy. By far the largest number said that they would sign up the minute the unit was mobilized for active service. This applies to officers and men alike. Since our return from camp, however, it has become increasingly difficult to get the men to turn out for drill, in spite of the fact that there is a fine of $5 in the civil court if they do not put in the thirty days which are required of them.
I would suggest, in this matter of trying to bring the reserve force units up to full war strength, that one company at least be composed of veterans of the last war, and that the age limit for these veterans be increased from forty-five to fifty, provided that they are in the proper medical category. I venture to say that if that were done, in a matter of weeks this company would be the smartest company in any reserve force unit; it would
be an inspiration and an incentive to the other companies; and in the event that they were needed for home defence, there would be none better to serve in that capacity. I know a great many returned men who on account of their age have been turned down, yet would make excellent recruits for a reserve force unit.
There is one other matter I wish to bring to the attention of the committee, namely, the number of officers from the last war who, since the outbreak of this war, have moved heaven and earth to get back into the service in some capacity. I have in mind two men, one of whom, especially, had a distinguished record in the last war and has vast military experience. In spite of trying every known means at his command, he has been systematically and consistently turned down. It seems to me that to leave a man of that type in civilian life is a great loss to the army. I feel sure that there are many others in the same position as this man, and I would heartily commend to the Department of National Defence that great consideration be given to utilizing this type of man, who wants to serve his country, who has the ability to serve his country, and above all, who has the experience.


Mr. F. D. SHAW (Red Deer):: Before we get too far away from this question of dependents' allowances, there is a little information I should appreciate having, and one or two observations I should like to make. My remarks apply particularly to the matter of the dependents' allowance as it applies to the parents of one who has enlisted. I have been informed on more than one occasion that there are regulations covering the payment of allowances to parents. On the other hand, I have been told from time to time that there are no such regulations. I would ask the minister, therefore, in the first place, if he would comment-I will put it in that way-upon the regulations regarding the payment of these dependents' allowances. In the second place, I should like to know whether such allowances are paid in cases where a condition of total incapacitation does not exist. I refer to this condition of total incapacitation by reason of the fact that in certain cases which have been brought to my attention the amount of allowance has been determined by the degree of incapacitation. I have in mind particularly one case wherein the dispute between the board and the individual had to do with whether this man was or was not 50 per cent disabled. It was finally decided that he was not 50 per cent disabled, and allowance was paid.
The War-Mr. Shaw

In the second case another applicant was turned down because he was not totally incapacitated. I do not particularly care about bringing these matters up on the floor of the house, but it seems that all other ways of securing information have failed as far as I am concerned.
About a year ago a certain man residing in my vicinity whose only son is in the service was rejected by the board because he was not totally incapacitated. After about a year he made application to have his case reexamined. When that application for reexamination was made, a certificate of a reliable physician was submitted. I was informed that a board would be set up to reexamine this applicant. According to the letter which I received from the applicant, a certain individual in the town concerned was communicated with by the dependents' allowance board and asked to set up a board to examine the applicant. Before, however, he had time to set up the board, the dependents' allowance board informed the applicant that a report had been received and that his claim had been rejected, the grounds being that he was not totally disabled from a physical point of view. Furthermore, it was stated that this man was capable of doing a day's work in the harvest field and therefore was capable of supporting himself. I should like to know exactly what steps are taken when a board is set up for the examination of a person who applies for dependents' allowance, and if the reports submitted to the dependents' allowance board have to be concurred in by all the members of the examining board. I intend submitting the particulars of this case to the minister, but I should like to have one or two comments.


Charles Gavan Power: I shall be glad to get the full particulars. I am not aware of the system of setting up boards in districts to adjudicate as to the dependency of the person claiming.
I thought that through the ordinary social agencies and possibly through the inquiry agencies of the Department of Pensions and National Health it was possible to obtain the information for the use of the dependents' board which would enable it to judge whether or not an applicant was a dependent. The procedure outlined by my hon. friend is new to me. Of course the broad principle is that in order to obtain dependents' allowance one must be dependent, and it is, I presume, only a question of proving dependency. But I shall be glad to look into that case. I was not aware of local boards going into this matter.


Frederick Davis Shaw: Throughout the correspondence there has been repeated reference, not to the
	,
question of dependency, as I thought there would be, but to the question of the physical condition of the applicant.


Charles Gavan Power: That brings about the dependency, I presume?


Frederick Davis Shaw: He was certainly dependent, but they did not seem to regard it from that point of view.
Mr. JEAN-FRANQOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata): I desire to bring to the attention of the minister a certain case. I mention only a number, I will not give any name. It is E-29327. .
A lady who was alone at home received a visit from three military police armed to the teeth who said they were searching for her husband who was supposed to be a deserter. She said, "I find it strange because he passed here on June 18, 1941, and landed in England on July 1, 1941." That man was serving in England, and the military police were going to his home to arrest him as a deserter. This lady writes asking me for an explanation, and I think the least that can be done is that the brigadier of the Quebec district should write her an apology of some kind. Some hon. members may smile, but I find it rather tough. Here is the wife of a man who is serving overseas, and she receives a visit from three men she does not know saying that her husband is a deserter when he is serving in England.


Charles Gavan Power: This is really a most extraordinary case, it is only my hon. friend the member for Temiscouata who would discover one like that.


Mr. POULIOT:: I did not discover it; it came to me.


Charles Gavan Power: Having the letter, I shall certainly make inquiry.


Jean-François Pouliot: I will send the original
letter to the minister.
There are other extraordinary cases. I have some correspondence regarding a young man aged fifteen who had enlisted without his father's consent. I wrote to the army asking some information about him, giving his number. The correspondence with the regiment lasted over two months, and finally I received one morning a letter stating that it was not possible to find that man. I was just reading that letter when I saw his face in the door of my office; he was coming to see me. I asked him, "What regiment do you belong to?" He mentioned the name of the regiment, and he gave me the number of his company. Therefore I could immediately dictate an answer to the letter telling me they did not know anything about him by saying

The War-Mr. Pouliot
that he was in my office and that the number I had given was the right number, and stating also what company he was in.
There was another young fellow, fifteen years old, who had enlisted without his father's consent. I sent a certificate of birth and a letter from the father saying the boy was too young to be in the army. He was in the ordnance. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and it was not possible to locate that man. The man existed. In the first place they knew nothing about the number; in the second case they knew the number fitted the man, but they did not know where the man was. I wondered whether he was a deserter, but he was not; only they did not know where he was. Finally, after two or three months, I discovered that he had been transferred from one unit to another and was in England. Then the army quite properly cabled to England to send him back here. I do not complain of headquarters with regard to that.
There are other extraordinary cases. There is one that I mentioned in the house in May or June of last year, which has been settled satisfactorily. It was most incredible, but the records are here in the department. The man has an English name although he does not speak much English, he speaks mostly French. He is a nice little fellow, a married man. First he was in Quebec city; then he was transferred to Camp Borden or Peterborough, or some camp in Ontario. I tried to get him a separation allowance; there was some correspondence, and I was told by one of the deputy ministers-the one who has resigned to enlist in the army-that this man was mentally unfit for the army. This soldier came home to visit a sick relative; while there, he had an attack of appendicitis. Following that, the next news I had was that he was a deserter. At the time he was arrested in Quebec city as a deserter he had in his pocket the original letter from the deputy minister stating that he was mentally unfit to remain in the army. I had to call Ottawa by long distance, and Ottawa had to call Quebec by long distance, in order to have this man released.
That is bad enough, but I read something worse in the Montreal Gazette, reprinted from the Toronto Telegram. For me there are no Jews or Gentiles, and I am quite eclectic in my appreciation of newspapers. This report stated that in an Ontario military camp there was high pressure when there was low pressure in other camps. The high pressure amounted to this: If a man signed his agreement to go overseas, he might enjoy leaves, passes and so on, and would be treated much better than the draftee who would not do so, though our
mobilization act is for the defence of Canada. Then there are certain commanding officers who want to have 100 per cent of their effective strength go across with them, and those who do not sign up to go are penalized by being made to do fatigue work until they do sign. Thus, while the others have a certain amount of freedom, and can enjoy leaves and passes, these men must wash the fioors and do that sort of work. It does not seem fair.
I should like to acknowledge my high appreciation of the kindness of the deputy minister and his secretary, who is just as efficient as the secretary of any executive-I need not mention names, but the minister knows of whom I speak-who have done their best to help me give all possible assistance to soldiers who are in trouble. That is the job we do. A friend of mine from across the floor mentioned that I had not been over there in the last war. I do not feel the need to speak of what has been done by anyone close to me; I do not like to boast of what has been done by others, but I am doing my very best in this war. I am trying to help those who want to enlist, by clearing away all possible difficulties in their way; but on the other hand I try to help obtain fair treatment for those who have a right to be exempted. It does not seem fair that men should be treated in the way they apparently are in our army.
I know of young men who have completed their courses at army schools, particularly at Vimy barracks, near Kingston. They were supposed to have learned trades, but instead were kept in the kitchen doing fatigue work, washing floors and so on. Some of these men were sent to Ottawa, but when they came here they were of no use; the officers here could not understand why men were sent here when they were not trained for the work they were supposed to do.
One day I was in Ottawa and needed some guidance with respect to certain correspondence. I telephoned the army, who told me to telephone national war services. I telephoned national war services, who told me to telephone the army. I said, "Well, I do not want to go from pillar to post; I want this information. The army directed me to you; now you return me to the army. I want to know where I must write." Then I called the army again; the army called the person who had drafted the regulations, and finally I was told that I must write to the registrar under national war services. In another case, with regard to an exemption that had been obtained by a certain man, I was directed by the army to get in touch with the chairman of the commission in Montreal, which I did, only to be told by this gentleman that it was none
The War-Mr. Pouliot

of his business. We do not know to whom we should address our requests, and that situation certainly should be cleared up.
There was something else I read, this time not in the Toronto Telegram but in the Ottawa Journal of September 24, stating that a census of the religious beliefs of the troops was being taken. I do not see how it is possible to do that when it is not possible to learn how many French-Canadians have enlisted in a certain regiment. All that information should be available.


Charles Gavan Power: It is on the attestation card. The man states to what religion he subscribes, and usually it is on his identification disc as well.


Jean-François Pouliot: That is fine, but I should like to know the number of French-Canadians who are serving in regiments such as the Black Watch, the highlanders, and so on.


Charles Gavan Power: I believe that information can be obtained.


Jean-François Pouliot: Thank you. On the slope of Mount Royal, at the door of the new armouries, I noticed a bilingual invitation to young men to join the Black Watch, and this despite the fact that three French-Canadian regiments have not as yet been mobilized. These are the Joliet, St. Hyacinthe and Chateauguay regiments. Let me explain the point to my English-speaking colleagues. In the first place, French-Canadians were supposed to enlist in the old French-Canadian regiments, but if the doors of those regiments were not open to them, they had to swell the ranks of the Black Watch, the highlanders, and so on. Therefore these English regiments received credit for the enlistment of these French-Canadians. I do not think it is fair or just, and I had to bring to the attention of national defence headquarters the fact that French-Canadians sometimes were placed in regiments where the non-commissioned officers and officers did not speak a word of French, while they, the soldiers, did not speak a word of English. That is an absurd situation. They are alone and miserable in those circumstances. But when they are given an opportunity to be with men speaking their own language they are more at ease in military life.
I give credit to the deputy minister of national defence for having helped me transfer one of those boys who was stationed in the woods about twenty miles from Halifax. He was in an English-speaking unit, and was transferred to another one. Those are matters of fairness. It is a matter, not of religious or

racial prejudice, but merely one of giving to those boys the opportunity to serve under the best possible conditions.
Although I must praise highly the excellent work done by Protestant as well as Roman Catholic chaplains in the army, it is essential that those boys keep their religious beliefs, whatever they may be. One day I had a conversation with Mr. Hocken, who was at that time leading the Orangemen, and who spoke a great deal against Roman Catholics. He told me that it is much better for a young man to be a Roman Catholic than to be an atheist. Those young men should keep their beliefs, and should be given an opportunity to worship as they have been taught.
I have in my possession a letter sent to me by a priest at Pennfield Ridge. It states the case of a young man who complained of the way in which he was treated. He points out that a Protestant service was held in the camp in the morning, and that while a truck was standing idle, and there were several Roman Catholics present, those boys could not have the truck to travel only a few miles to attend mass. They were told to attend the religious services at the camp, and they were not permitted to go to their own church. In the letter only the first name of the soldier is given, but I shall be pleased to hand it to the minister. It was given to me by the parish priest.
I hope that those conditions will be changed, and that French-Canadians in the army will not be considered inferior. In Canada we are at times given an opportunity to hear fine, patriotic speeches. We must always understand that we are all brothers, and ready to do everything to help each other. But a French-Canadian should not be considered in the same category as the negroes of the southern United States. The sidewalk belongs to all. The way in which some French-Canadians are treated at Vimy barracks, Petawawa and even at Cornwall is shameful and unworthy of our country. I hope it will soon be corrected. I leave it to the Minister of National Defence to discuss it with the proper authorities. I know they are people of good will, and they are not always responsible for the wrong things that happen. But the finger must be pointed at them, so that the correction shall be made.
I should hope that between now and next spring Canadian defences would be improved. This is the time to do that, so that we may not be taken by surprise early next year. Some people may laugh at the suggestion; some may jeer, but let them remember that an ounce of caution is better than a pound of cure.

The War-Mr. Harris (Danforth)
Before taking my seat I would ask the minister to state on what authority training was extended, first from one month to four months, and then from four months to an indefinite period.


Charles Gavan Power: I am not sufficiently familiar with the regulations, but undoubtedly the extension from one month to four months was made legally, and I believe it was done by order in council, and probably under the provisions of the National Resources Mobilization Act. I would be glad to find the order in council for my hon. friend, if he wishes to have it.


Jean-François Pouliot: I thank the minister. If
he is good enough to-morrow to tell me whether it was done by order in council, or done under the minister's signature, by virtue of the regulations, that will be sufficient.


Charles Gavan Power: All right.


Joseph Henry Harris: 
Charles Gavan Power: They have done reasonably well; they have made a survey of each locality.


Joseph Henry Harris: They have not sat in at the regular meetings.


Charles Gavan Power: In regular meetings?


Joseph Henry Harris: Which were asked for.


Charles Gavan Power: Who asked for them?


Joseph Henry Harris: The letter of December 5. There is no record or minutes of the meetings which they did hold, and no real report has been made to check over-



The War-Mr. Harris (Danjorth)
lapping and duplication in each of the services. This is not criticism, it is simply stressing the need for cooperation between these departments. In the city of Ottawa we find four different buildings where supplies of a like kind are sent out to citizens who have had to be hospitalized, some of the supplies being sent out by the Department of Pensions and National Health, some by the Department of National Defence, some by the Department of National Defence for Air and some by the navy.
My appeal to-night is that we should endeavour to get more cooperation. Perhaps "cooperation" is not the right word to use; we should have more coordination of the efforts of these different departments of government. For instance, in the Daly building will be found a laboratory set up by the Department of Pensions and National Health. Here is an efficient staff making up cough mixtures'and other standard drugs and medicines required for the hospitalization and care of patients under the charge of this department. Then on Kent street we find a duplication of the same service, another laboratory mixing up cough mixtures and medicines of one kind and another.
What happens to these products after they are made? They are shipped out to the different medical centres of the different departments. The quantities are small, but they may go to the same destination. In Toronto will be found patients from the Department of National Defence and in the same hospital, patients from the Department of Pensions and National Health. Two separate shipments may be made. There is not sufficient coordination between these different services, and the result is that this duplication is costing us money.


Charles Gavan Power: If I understood the hon.
member correctly, he refers to the Christie street hospital and intimated that in that hospital there might be a patient belonging to the Department of Pensions and National Health, one belonging to the army, and possibly one to the navy or the air force. The fact is that the Department of Pensions and National Health takes charge of these patients at a contract rate at so much a day. Therefore, it would not stand to reason that drugs would be sent to this hospital from the different distribution depots in Ottawa. In that instance I do not think my hon. friend is correct.
Mr. HARRIS (Danforth) . I used the city of Toronto as an illustration because I happen to know something about it. The main point is that these services should coordinate and

not duplicate their efforts. Let us go further afield and take Macleod, Alberta. If goods are shipped from Kent street and similar goods are sent out from the Daly building-


Charles Gavan Power: As far as I know, there is no unit of the Department of Pensions and National Health in Macleod, Alberta.


Joseph Henry Harris: Go still further
afield; I will take my hon. friend to British Columbia.


Charles Gavan Power: Go to Calgary.


Joseph Henry Harris: What I am trying to say is that the movement started by my hon. friend the Minister of National Defence for Air to get some coordination should have been carried through, but it has not been carried through. I ask him to read the recommendations of the war expenditures committee.


Charles Gavan Power: The recommendation is only that this board be made a kind of permanent board. It was set up as an ad hoc board to deal with certain cases in certain districts, and it did deal with them. But as I understand it, the war expenditures committee has recommended strongly that it be made a kind of permanent board. Am I right in that?


Joseph Henry Harris: I do not think it will do any harm to put it on the record. I quote from page 615 of the proceedings of the war expenditures committee: Interdepartmental committee:
By letter dated December 5, 1940, the Minister of National Defence for Air indicated his desire that the whole question of medical and hospital services be thoroughly explored.
That was not done.


Charles Gavan Power: Oh, yes, certainly. I do not like to contradict my hon. friend, but a survey was made of each military district and a statement given indicating the number of beds belonging to the army, pensions, the air force and the navy, and there was a recommendation, I believe-I would not be sure about this- as to how many beds would be required, I have that somewhere in my possession. Therefore a survey was made, and only this week I referred another survey in the city of Halifax to this very committee to ascertain whether certain required expenditure in the way of hospital beds was justifiable, and they recommended that it was.


Joseph Henry Harris: I have great respect for what the minister says, and I am rather prone to take his answer

The War-Mr. Harris (Danforth)


Charles Gavan Power: I have a good memory.


Joseph Henry Harris: -but	the
answer of the committee itself, which was dominated by and predominantly made up of friends of my hon. friend-*


Charles Gavan Power: I have no friends in this game.


Joseph Henry Harris: Oh, yes. The answer of the committee itself was that "the above committee has met infrequently-"


Charles Gavan Power: It was not supposed to meet otherwise.


Joseph Henry Harris: "-since and from the evidence adduced before the subcommittee we are of the opinion that the greatest possible use is not being made of this interdepartmental committee." That report was signed by J. T. Thorson, chairman. I am almost commending my hon. friend for having the initiative eleven months ago to originate this committee and I am endorsing what he has done. But if he does not want any assistance, if this house does not want any help from hon. members-


Charles Gavan Power: I am only too glad to get
help.


Joseph Henry Harris: -I submit it is time for the Prime Minister to rise in his place and say so.


Charles Gavan Power: My hon. friend misunderstands. I said that this body was set up as an ad hoc body, never as a permanent body, but I am very glad that the war expenditures committee confirms my judgment and makes it a permanent body. But my hon. friend has no right to blame anybody because it did not meet more frequently. It was not asked to meet. It did make a survey of all the military districts across Canada. From time to time it has been asked to make a survey. One such survey was made last week, as I have just told my hon. friend. If the war expenditures committee thinks this committee should be set up as a more permanent body, I am inclined to agree; I have no objection. As a matter of fact, I agreed with my hon. friend right from the start of the war. I felt that the Department of Pensions and National Health should do all the purchasing of drugs and medicines required because they have had twenty years of experience while the air force have none.


Joseph Henry Harris: I do not want to get into any controversy over this matter. The member for Danforth is of the same opinion as the minister, and why? Because we find in that department men in uniform
-I have the highest regard and respect for them, and I know they are trying to do the very best they can-who have been drafted into this work in which they have had no training, men with sergeants' stripes accustomed to being warehousemen and shippers. They are gathering together equipment here in the National Grocers' building on York street, and they do not know the difference between an X-ray machine worth $5,000 and a bathtub worth $5. They are packing this stuff on trucks and shipping it out. They are men in uniform. They are doing the best they can, but they simply have not had the necessary experience. What is the result? I did not purpose putting this on the record, and when I do put it on I put it on because the minister has raised the point and with the idea of helping out a difficult situation.
With regard to equipment and the shipping of supplies across Canada by the medical services branch of the Department of National Defence, what do we find? First, with regard to the records, scores of thousands of dollars worth of goods bought, and properly so, to take care of these men, bought through means of indents made on the Department of Munitions and Supply, and properly so, and then brought into warehouses under the supervision of men in uniform, anxious to serve their country but inexperienced in the work that has been handed to them. The result was that the stockkeeping records on Kent street in July of this year showed thousands of dollars worth of goods supposed to be in store, and perhaps they were, supposed to be on the record as at the end of Canada's fiscal year ended March 31, 1941, and in July those records had not the official approval of the auditing service of the Department of National Defence. This is no charge, Mr. Chairman. This is a condition we are all anxious to remedy.


Charles Gavan Power: There is no accusation that the goods disappeared. We do not know whether they are there or not. That is the point?


Joseph Henry Harris: This work was sprung on them by reason of the war. I am commending this idea of an interdepartmental committee. These records were in lead-pencil figures. The balance on that ledger brought down as of March 31 was in lead pencil. Why were these figures not in ink? Because they had not been audited. In this muddle they said: "We will start off with a new bookkeeping system but will continue with the lead-pencil figures until such time as the audit is made for the financial year." They

The War-Mr. Harris (Danjorth)
carry on for April, May and June with a new set of books. In July the books are still not audited, and we asked the head of that service, "What about it?" The auditors were there in May, but the head of that service did not know whether these books had been audited up to the end of the fiscal year March 31, 1941. He admitted that frankly when he was asked what might be done to clear up the muddle and the mess they were in with regard to thousands and thousands of dollars worth of stock in medical stores for the whole of the army service. Mark you, Mr. Chairman, he had one system prior to March 31, and a new one after March 31. The deposition on the record says, "I think perhaps we should start a new system altogether." The result is that the books were not audited. What I am trying to say in my last sentence, is that the initiative which was inspired by that letter of December 5, 1940, should be carried through in those services.
The committee rose and obtained leave to sit again at the next sitting of the house.
On motion of Mr. Crerar the house adjourned at 11.04 p.m.
Thursday, November 13, 1941