1943-06-29

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, it would, I think, be in keeping with the wishes of hon. members were I to make a brief reference to the conference concluded to-day by the Empire Parliamentary Association. The meetings were attended by delegations from the parliaments of the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand and from the legislative assembly of Bermuda, as well as by many hon. members of our own parliament. The proceedings throughout were of a high order and demonstrated the value of the free expression and interchange of ideas among the nations of the commonwealth which the conference had been formed to promote.
The conference will be particularly memorable because of the attendance, yesterday and to-day, of a distinguished delegation of visitors from the two houses of the congress of the United States. The delegation, comprising senators and members of the house of representatives, was appointed by a concurrent resolution of the congress of the United States of America, accepting the invitation of the Canadian branch of the empire parliamentary association. The resolution itself will, in time, become an historic document. It is a signal honour, paid to Canada and to the empire parliamentary association, by the congress of the United States. The resolution is also of historic significance, as adding another bond to those which already join the nations of the British commonwealth of nations and the United States in the common defence of free institutions.

Empire Parliamentary Association
The house will, I am confident, wish to record its appreciation of the visit, at a time of war, of our distinguished fellow parliamentarians from other nations of the commonwealth, and its satisfaction that Canada should have been the place of the meeting for the first time of a delegation from the United States congress with the empire parliamentary association. In this meeting we can see the development of the understanding, friendship and good-will on which even now is being laid the enduring foundations of a new world order.


Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad at this point to associate myself and the members of the party which I have the honour to lead with the sentiments which have been voiced so eloquently by the Prime Minister. The meetings of the Empire Parliamentary Association which concluded to-day have been memorable in character. They have served a most useful purpose and in future will be looked upon as having been of great value, not only in relation to the problems which may arise during the war period through which we are passing, but also in relation to the tangled problems which the nations and governments of the British empire, the United States and others will have to solve in the post-war period.
In my opinion the meeting of representatives of the people rather than the heads of government is an occasion of which we should take cognizance. If permanent peace is to come, the common man of each nation must learn to respect and to understand the common man of all the other nations. These meetings have brought forth a new feeling and have generated a new spirit which will be of great value in the days that lie ahead. I wish to echo the words of welcome extended by the Prime Minister to the delegates from the various parts of the British commonwealth and also from the United States. We view with a great deal of interest the renewal of the acquaintanceship, friendship and brotherhood among those who met together.


Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of our party I should like to add an expression of appreciation that this conference has been held in Canada. To those of us who visited Great Britain some eighteen months ago it was indeed a pleasure to welcome such a delegation to Canada.
There is not much that one can say, except that conferences of this kind, participated in by what we might term the rank and file of our legislative bodies, including on this occasion representatives of the congress of the United States, can bring nothing but good to the united nations and to the world. I hope that it will be the first of many such conferences.


Mr. J. H. BLACKMORE (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, the members of my party rejoice along with other Canadians in the fact that we have laid the foundation for the development of good-will between the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race. The conferences which have just been held were epoch-making in their significance. I do not believe I have ever attended meetings at which such frankness, candor and good-will were displayed. I am grateful indeed to those who arranged the conference and to those who have taken part in the meetings.



PRIVILEGE-MR. CHURCH REFERENCE TO ARTICLE IN MONTREAL &quot;GAZETTE OF TUESDAY, JUNE 29

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, I regret having to rise to a question of privilege. I wish to call the attention of the house to what purports to be a reprint in this morning's Montreal Gazette of an item from I'Evenement of June 9, but I can find no such article in I'Evenement. It refers to me as "one of the survivors of the Conservative opposition of 1908 which accused Laurier of building a tin-pot navy." I was not a member of the house in 1908 or for fourteen years afterwards, and I never attacked Laurier on the navy or used any such words as "tin-pot navy". It goes on to say:
"It remained to Mr. Church to deny also the utility of the Canadian army and air force," I'Evenement Journal said.
I never did. That is ridiculous. It says further:
It is not a bad thing, perhaps, that a representative of the Tory party in the House of Commons should demonstrate, by his extravagant words, that there is more than one blunderhead in parliament-that the province of Ontario can count one.
I was no blunderhead when I predicted that in this war the enemy might sail up the St. Lawrence and bomb the citadel, and advocated before the war that we should rearm on land and sea and in the air.
War Appropriation-Labour



WAR APPROPRIATION BILL


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, June 28, consideration in committee of a resolution to grant to his majesty certain sums of money for the carrying out of measures consequent upon the existence of a state of war-Mr. Ilsley-Mr. Donnelly in the chair.

[Stage Direction]
National selective service programme, $8,680,225.
Mr. POULIOT:: Mr. Chairman, in my
humble view this is the most important matter that has been brought before us this session, because by virtue of chapter 13 of 4 George VI the Minister of Labour has authority over everybody in this country who is not in the army. This is the law:
Subject to the provisions of section three hereof, the governor in council may do and authorize such acts and things, and make from time to time such orders and regulations, requiring persons to place themselves, their services and their property at the disposal of His Majesty in the right of Canada, as may be deemed necessary or expedient for securing the public safety, the defence of Canada, the maintenance of public order, or the efficient prosecution of the war, or for maintaining supplies or services essential to the life of the community.
This is selective service as it has existed since the midsummer of 1940. In 1942 orders in council were passed specifying the powers granted to the minister and to the head of national selective service. The matter was understood by Mr. Little in a clear and very simple way. I have here a publication that was sent to all of us, Canadian Business, of June of last year, which sets forth the conception which Mr. Little had of his work and of national selective service, as follows:
The ideal behind national selective service is the fitting of every Canadian into the place where he can serve most effectively. Just coming into force, the new regulations provide for the gradual carrying out of this plan. Management's wholehearted cooperation is essential for its success, particularly in the field of personnel relations.
After March of 1942 we had the plebiscite, the effect of which was described in a contradictory way by the correspondent of a big daily, the New' York Times. The same issue of the paper, November 1, 1942, had two articles on the plebiscite, one of which was entitled, "Canada is stirred by plebiscite," and the other "Plebiscite debate unifies Canadians". That shows there was a divergence of views about the matter. I shall not go into the whole chain of procedure which has been summarized by the member for Temiscouata
rMr. Church.]
in an article published in Le Saint-Laurent of February 4 this year, because that has been sent to all members, especially the members of the government.
The other day, I think it was on Friday, I asked the Minister of Labour for some information about Mr. Alexander Gunn, who was called here from England to make suggestions about essential and non-essential industries. I regret very much that the minister has not yet supplied the committee with that information.
It was said in the Montreal Gazette of April 26 of this year, "Mitchell gets wider control of man-power." He could not get wider control than he has now. The only thing that could make a change would be the exercise of the powers that he now has.
I have here a letter dated November 16, 1942, from an official of national selective service, in which he states:
We conform ourselves to the requisitions made by the Department of National Defence according to their training plans, and our registrars act accordingly.
Which, I find, is all wrong, as I have stated before, because all the youth of this country should be under the control of the Minister of Labour, and the Minister of Labour should not be for any consideration the subaltern of the Minister of National Defence.
For a time matters were so bad that, according to a news item which appeared in one of the Ottawa papers on January 16, 1943, the Prime Minister wrote the Minister of Labour asking him, what about man-power?
"What about man-power?" Mr. King asks Mr. Mitchell.
Said requesting detailed answers to 19 "pertinent" questions.
"Among the things to which Mr. King is said to seek answers are:
"What has been done to stabilize employment in agriculture?
"What is the true situation regarding labour supply?
"What has been done to give effect to the mobilization regulations of December 1?
"VVhat has been done to ensure the uniform application of these regulations throughout the nation? ..."
The dispatch says it is learned that Mr. Mitchell has set up a special six-man committee of selective service and labour department officials to prepare the replies to the questions. The committee is described as made up of:
C. F. Needham, recently appointed associate director, civilian, of selective service, chairman; Brig. Riley, associate director, military; Dr. Walter Couper, special assistant to the deputy minister; Allan Mitchell, director of unemployment offices; Harry Hereford, formerly chief of man-power records and now special assistant to the deputy, "and one other."

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Quoting from the Globe and Mail:
The theme of the 19 questions is said to be:
"What has been done to give effect to my man-power speeches of March 23 and August 19?" On March 23 last Mr. King announced the establishment of national selective service . . . and defined its policy. On August 19 in a nation-wide broadcast he told of the extension of that policy in order to put every competent man and woman to work in essential industry.
There is a great difference between the United States regulations and ours. American regulations specify what positions are essential; ours mention what positions are nonessential. That makes all the difference in the world. In the first place, what we should know is what positions are essential, and I regret very much to have to admit that in this connection the United States list is much more practical than that of this country.
Now with regard to the farming question. Here I have news items which appeared in the papers on January 28 of this year, in which are stated two things which may surprise us very much. In the first place, Lord Wool ton said he was absolutely satisfied with the food situation, while we in Canada are expressing fears that there will be famine during next winter. Something was said about the legacy which the Minister of Labour inherited. I think it is a proper word to describe what happened. We must go back to the first draft of the regulations concerning conscripts. The first draft was passed in 1940 of the order in council which was adopted afterwards, and then some justification was sought in the report which was made by five men who had to decide about essential industry. They were: the deputy minister of agriculture, a gentleman from the Department of Fisheries, another man from the Department of Mines and Resources, another official from the Department of Transport, and the timber controller. They made a report which was sent to the deputy minister of labour, and by him to the Department of National War Services, and by that department to all registrars. Here is what is said about agriculture. It is considered in that report a primary industry for the south half of Quebec from May to August, and for the north half from June to September. It is a secondary industry regarding animal and vegetable products, butter and cheese, from May to October; other dairy products, June to August; fruit and vegetable preparations, July to September; tobacco processing and packing, January to March; leather goods and mitts, July and August; aerated and mineral waters, from June to August. What farmer in the province of Quebec is interested in making aerated and mineral waters? But what is essential to note is precisely that agriculture
was not considered a primary industry for more than one-half of the year, when everybody knows that farmers are working from dawn to dusk a great deal of the year. That was all wrong.
The Minister of Agriculture was Minister of National War Services from July 12, 1940 to June 11, 1941. In Hansard of November 13, 1941, the Minister of National Defence for Air, who was taking the place of the Minister of National Defence on that occasion, mentioned that the thirty days' training had been decided and ordered by P.C. 4904 of September 17, 1940. May I point out to you, sir, that Lieutenant-General Crerar, who is commanding a division in Great Britain at the present time, has a fine military record, and he stated at the time that one month was enough for the training of those young men-


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: He never said anything of the sort.


Jean-François Pouliot: -which raised a storm, in which my hon. friend from York-Sunbury took part-


Richard Burpee Hanson: The chief of the general staff never said anything of the sort. He said that one month was all that they could put into effect for the time being; and he stated the reason why-that the youth of Canada had to be taught a sense of national obligation.


Jean-François Pouliot: Words speak for themselves, and if the hon. member for York-Sunbury has a power of attorney from Lieutenant-General Crerar it should be delivered to the Chair.
Well, sir, the extension of the four months was by P.C. 1910 of March 18, 1941, when the Minister of Agriculture was still Minister of National War Services, and clause 8 (f) regarding the thirty-day period was amended as follows:
Upon so becoming a member of the active militia each "R recruit" shall forthwith undergo training for a period of four months, or for such other period as the minister of defence may from time to time prescribe, unless in the meantime he is required for service or duty.
On July 2, 1941, the Minister of National Defence, by a stroke of the pen,, extended the training for the duration. There were many young men who recognized their obligation to go to camp for training, but they were told by everyone that training "Was only for one month, and afterwards they found that it had been extended to cover four months. Well, they said that they would take the training during the dead season, but after having understood that their training would last one month, and then four months, and having made arrangements accordingly, they
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were detained in the camp by means of an order, not an order in council but an order, signed by the Minister of National Defence in virtue of an order in council that was passed when the Minister of Agriculture was also Minister of National War Services. The farmers had no protection from the Department of Agriculture in their endeavour to remain on the farm.
In the first place, in consequence of that famous report that I have already read, in which agriculture was described as not being an essential industry throughout the entire year, and also because of the fact that they have had to remain for training, these men have not received the protection which they could have expected. Let me tell the Minister of Labour of the troubles we have had in the province of Quebec from the time we began to fight for the farmers. I have here a letter from the then chairman. I will send him the original, which I would ask him to return to me later. I quote:
But you must understand that we cannot postpone their service indefinitely.
Seulement il faut que tu comprennes que l'on ne peut pas remettre leurs services indefiniment.
That is why we have to fight so hard. The fact is that these people did not understand either the letter or the spirit of the regulations and we have had to put up a struggle for the farmers. For everyone will realize the loss that must result when the farmers are taken away from their farms. It is disastrous.
Next I called the attention of the predecessor of the present Minister of National War Services, Judge Thorson, who entirely agreed with me, to the fact that the farmers had the same rights as others and were entitled to postponement. The staff had to be changed because there was no possibility of getting any understanding. Now, when we hear some people saying that the farmers are exempted from service, it is untrue because there are a good many young men whose place is not in the army but on the farm. They went to the army in good faith but they were kept there by men who are not expert in agriculture, -as the minister admitted, to the great surprise of the hon. member for Belleehasse. It is those people, who have no experience in agriculture, that decide upon the necessity or otherwise of men remaining on the farms or going into the army. That cannot work.
There are many farms that cannot do as well now7 as they did before, and that is exactly the reason. But, I may say, I wrote certain articles in our local newspaper and sent a copy of each article to the ministers
[Mr. Pouliot.l
at the time. Some of these articles were translated; they had an opportunity to translate them at any rate. These articles explained the situation in the province of Quebec. I have high regard for the minister personally, but I believe that he was wrong in some of his utterances. Unfortunately, I have only the French version of the speech which he made on September 12, 1941. At that time he w7as not Minister of National War Services, but here is a translation of what he said:
If we have to raise a million men for our armed forces vre will have seven million other men. in Canada, aged over 16. These seven million were organized and determined to help the armed forces, by directing our farms, our dairy industry and our business offices in a way which w7ill give the required production.


Mr. GARDINER:: Not 7,000,000 men.


Jean-François Pouliot: I will send this to the Minister of Agriculture.


James Garfield Gardiner: It has been translated twice, apparently into French and back into English. That is incorrect.


Jean-François Pouliot: I am glad the minister corrects it. I send him the paper I received from the information bureau.


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend knows that there were not 7,000,000 men in Canada aged 16 and up.


Jean-François Pouliot: I know that very well, but at the time the information was given by the Department of National War Services. I do not know who is responsible for that translation.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am not responsible for the translation, because I regret to say I do not speak the language.


Jean-François Pouliot: I take it for granted that the minister did not make that statement because it cannot be correct, but it will show him what is stated in French sometimes in the translations of speeches given by a minister. But if the minister did not say 7,000,000 men, and I am sure he did not say that, he did say that we could have a million men for the army. Now to give a million men to the army we must take men from the farms, men who are indispensable there. In the province of Quebec, I may say, we have not been as well treated as they have been in the provinces of the west, and here I have a copy of a letter from the Cure Bonne Madone of Saskatchewan, from which I quote:
(Translation) My parish is cosmopolitan; I have parishioners of six different nationalities, and all the farmers' sons of my parish and of all other localities in Saskatchewan, as wTell as day-labourers who know the least little bit about agri-

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culture have without exception been exempted, and no difficulties were made. Why do the French Canadians of the province of Quebec encounter so much trouble in trying to obtain justice? Farmers are asked to produce and even over-produce for the war effort, and in this area they are deprived of necessary and competent help.
He states that it is much easier to have postponements in Saskatchewan than in the province of Quebec where he is at present for a short time.
Coming now to the regulations, they were perfectly in accordance with the famous report I have quoted, in which agriculture was at first described not as an essential industry but as a seasonal industry, that is, seasonal during four seasons, although it was not stated in that way. It was regarded as a seasonal occupation for the summer months, as has been indicated officially by the deputy minister of national war services, who is now minister of that department. He sent that document to every registrar informing him that agriculture was a primary industry only during a part of the year. I had to fight as many people and I was supported by the present Prime Minister and lay the late Mr. Lapointe. They understood perfectly well that agriculture was an essential industry, and finally the description was changed, but changed in such a way as to dumbfound people. Agriculture was described as a seasonal and essential occupation, meaning thereby that agriculture was essential during a *certain season. And now to corroborate what I have said, we see farmers coming from Saskatchewan to help the farmers in Quebec. I say it is better to have in Quebec farmers from Quebec, than to have conchies and Japs. But we find there are farmers in Saskatchewan who have spare time, and a shortage of farmers in Quebec because the army would not let out those men who are indispensable on the farms.


Mr. HOMUTH:: No, no.


Jean-François Pouliot: My hon. friend does not know what is going on. I may quote him a case, among many others,


Karl Kenneth Homuth: We have an example from the hon. member.


Jean-François Pouliot: I know of a farmer fifty-one years of age who needs help. His son, over twenty years of age, is in the army. He has three boys whose ages are fourteen, eleven and nine, and two girls of eighteen and seventeen, who are evidently unfit to run the farm. Of course they could milk the cows, possibly, but I do not see how they could do hard work, nor do I understand how a boy of fourteen years could do that work. This is a large farm, and the answer I received from the Department of National Defence was a
great surprise to me. AVhen I have an opportunity to talk the matter over with the hon. member for Waterloo South I will let him see the file in order that he may understand. I shall give him the evidence, as I have been giving it for a month to the parliamentary secretary of the Minister of National Defence. He understands the situation, and I am sure that he understands that I was justified in complaining about several cases.
Now, why do we have trouble? We have trouble in the first place because the mobilization act was passed only in 1940. It should have been passed at the first session in 1939. When we are at w'ar we must act accordingly. In total war each man must be at his place, and each man must obey the law. But there are exceptions. Yes, there are many exceptions. What about those whose ordinary place of residence is not Canada? Why make a distinction in respect of immigrants who came to this country, who should be called for the medical test and for training, just the same as any other citizens of the country?
I understand that for a long time the government had trouble with the boys who belonged to other races or other countries. I refer to countries now under the control of Germany, and the governments of which are in England. In this class would be Belgians and others. They have refused to do their training. I do not know how it is working out now, but I do know that some of the nationals, whose governments are in England, were refusing to do their training and were retaining their places on the farms. Yet Canadians have to leave their places on those farms to give a better chance to these people. I do not know how it is working out now.
We should have a census of all those who have come to Canada through Canadian ports since the beginning of the war. We should have a census of all those who have passed customs offices at border points, and we should have a record of those who have landed in the United States of America en route to Canada. Those people should be called upon to do as much as Canadians. That is only fair; I cannot see why a man from any other friendly country must not do the same as the Canadian who happens to be born in this country and who has lived here all his life. What is the idea of treating with white gloves those fellows who have come here for shelter during the war? There should be a careful investigation of all people in that group.
In the second place, if it was the intention that the plebiscite should relieve the government of all pledges made to the people of Canada, I do not see why the Doukhobors, Mennonites and conscientious objectors should be treated differently from good Canadians wffio have lived here all their lives, and who
War Appropriation-Labour

do not take advantage of the law by saying that they are conscientious objectors. .Why do the Doukhobors receive special consideration? I ask that very serious question of the minister, and I hope he will answer it. If the government was to be relieved of all pledges, without exception, then did not such relief include pledges given to Doukhobors, conscientious objectors and Mennonites? How is it that those people have rights different from those held by people who have lived all their lives in this country, and who will be buried here? I cannot understand it.
I have before me a return tabled at the request of the hon. member for Lake Centre, and it shows correspondence with regard to Doukhobors. It is far from edifying. I do not see why these men receive special privileges. I now send to the minister two anonymous letters I have received from the city of Quebec containing complaints with respect to members of the staff in the registry office. He may have these letters translated, and take the action he sees fit. I have my own way of carrying out inquiries, and probing and making investigations.
I have in mind the case of three young men who were supposed not to have answered the call from the registrar to attend training camps. I pleaded their case. It was one of the few cases I have argued in many years. The first witness I called was Henri L. Gagnon, acting registrar. Under oath I obtained the truth from him. His statement was stupendous. He admitted 15,000 letters-I knew there were more-had been put in a file, without being classified. One man had been called a deserter because the sworn medical certificate stating he was not fit to attend for training had been sent by registered letter, and was left in the dump. He was called a deserter. Gagnon admitted there was something wrong in the office.
I think the Minister of Labour should be boss of national selective service. National selective service should be operated by officers of that branch, not by officers who were formerly in the Department of National War Services. That practice has been discontinued. The Department of National War Services has nothing to do with calling men to training camps. That must be done by the Minister of Labour, through the organization charged with that responsibility.
I remember when the present Minister of National War Services went to Quebec city some time before the change was made-and the change was long postponed. He said he would see to it that none of the staff of the ' registrar would lose his or her job. That was because they did not want any stenographer, typist, clerk or messenger from the

office of the former registrar to lose his or her job. The law of the country is not applied by an organization which has always been under the Minister of Labour. It is still administered by the old national war services board, now called the mobilization board, which has done so much harm to agriculture in our district. This cannot be denied, because changes have been made. I will say to the minister that I appreciate the cooperation of some of his officials whom I know and with whom I have dealt in regard to certain cases. They are very modest; they do not want to be praised in public, but I know that he has very able men under him, especially among the bilingual staff whom I know better than the other members of the staff. They are men who understand common sense. But I want the minister to make a clean-up of what is wrong in his department; I want his department run smoothly according to the directions given by the minister and, more than that, in accordance with the law itself. I have here from the proper authorities information with regard to the staff of the registrar's office in Quebec city. I admit that the registrar is not a bad fellow; I am sure Judge Fortier means very well, but I cannot say the same for the other two commissioners.
Let me conclude by saying how difficult it is to obtain information in regard to certain people, but how easy it is to make men feel great when they want an increase in salary of $400 a year. I have here the case of one man who for some time acted as registrar at Quebec. On May 9, 1942, Major Benoit, who was then director of mobilization, wrote of this man in these words:
He is the eyes and ears of head office throughout Canada. On his recommendations may depend important changes of policy or procedure. .	.	. For these reasons, subject to
consideration by the comptroller of the treasury, it is suggested that the duties of Mr. 
 warrant his reclassification to the rate of remuneration of $4,000 per annum.
A man like that, who is the eyes and ears of the head office throughout Canada, should be worth at least $100,000, but what I find strange is that it should be done in this way, making a superman out of an ordinary fellow. If he were merely the eyes and ears of the head office throughout Canada, that would be a bad thing. Then the deputy minister, who is now the minister of the department, wrote this in the margin:
If anything Major Benoit has erred by understating the good work Mr. 
 has done for us
and underestimating the responsibilities which he is carrying.

War Appropriation-Labour
Well, sir, I suppose these men make no mistakes.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I do not rise for the purpose of making another speech on this item, Mr. Chairman, but primarily to correct an impression which my hon. friend the parliamentary secretary to the minister left with the committee last evening, I believe inadvertently. He did me the honour to follow me at that time, and it was through no intentional discourtesy that I did not stay in the chamber and listen to him. I must confess that the atmosphere here was so humid and so tepid that I could not remain in the chamber any longer. I have since read the remarks of the hon. gentleman, and I desire at once to correct an impression which he appears to have in his mind that through all these years since Dunkirk I have had one rigid idea, which was that the man-power policy of Canada should be directed only toward the reinforcement position of our army overseas.
It is perhaps fair to say that in the remarks I made last evening I did direct attention to that particular phase of the situation, and that on more than one occasion I have laid emphasis on the necessity of having ample reinforcements for our fighting men. But it is not a correct inference for anyone to draw, least of all one so intelligent as the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Labour, that I am not concerned with other aspects of this man-power question. May I remind you Mr. Chairman, and the members of this house, that during the time I had the honour to lead this party we laid down the principle of selectivity as the underlying theme for dealing with the man-power situation in Canada. I had the honour to embody that principle in an amendment which I moved on one occasion to the address in reply, or at some other time; I have not checked it up. I think that is a fair statement for me to make here; but I have always recognized that a nation at war, like Canada, endeavouring to play a man's part, with an active army on service overseas in a theatre of war, should keep that army as the primary consideration with respect to our man-power policy, and we should never lose sight of that. We have lost sight of it in a degree, because of the fact that our army has not been in action; but it is not correct to say that this party or any members of it have ignored the other features of the man-power problem. We have accentuated the position with respect to the farmer; we have tried to emphasize the position with respect to the industrialist, and there have been occasions when we have taken exception to the regulations that have been adopted because we thought they were endeavouring to do in an
indirect way what should be done manfully and in a direct way, toward getting men into the army.
The specific instance to which the hon. gentleman referred, the case of a young man eighteen years of age, whose father was ill and who was the only man left on the farm, I find was referable to a regulation under which no one could employ that young man. Behind that regulation was the theory that because this country would not adopt a manly system of getting men into the army, they adopted an indirect method of driving young men into the army by refusing to permit them to obtain employment when they reached a certain age limit. On that occasion I was objecting to that position., and I think rightly so. We have never been unmindful, as I think the hon. gentleman would1 lead the house to believe, of the fact that there were other aspects of this man-power question; but primarily, as I observed before, the duty of this nation-no matter what the demands of agriculture or the demands of industry may have been or are to-day-is to see that the army which has volunteered for service overseas, to fight and it may be to die, shall have first call on the man-power pool. That is the position we take, but wTe do not close our eyes to the fact that there are other avenues for the employment of man-power to sustain that army overseas. In that way we have urged upon the people of Canada and upon this House of Commons to adopt as an underlying principle for our man-power policy the principle of selectivity. We have never had it, I am bound to say, until quite recently. Under the present set-up an effort has been made-I want to be fair about this- to improvise ways and means by which this underlying principle may be integrated into the national effort.
Mr. HOMiUTH: Not very successful.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is my opinion. However, I did not rise to castigate the minister or anybody else; I rose merely to make clear the position which I have always maintained. The immediate objective should be to adopt that principle of selectivity and to integrate the whole manpower of this country in. such a way as to place a man in the job he is best capable of doing.
We heard something to-day about the farmer, and I should like to say something about that. Food is important. As we all know, the farmers have done a magnificent job under adverse circumstances. It is a matter of great regret to every one of us that agriculture may be placed in a difficult
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position, not- only because of a lack of manpower but because of the weather conditions that now prevail. I am somewhat apprehensive about the quantity of food we may be able to produce this year. I know our farmers and our farmers' wives-many of them are doing it-will do as good a job as it is possible to do. I think t'he mistake that was made at the beginning was that the recruiting branch of the Department of National Defence endeavoured to get volunteers where the picking was the easiest. I am bound to say that in my community the young men on the farm offered a favourable field. One reason was that as a rule, in my part of the country at all events, farmers' sons receive an inadequate pecuniary compensation for their services on the home farm. Many of these lads were glad to go, but the majority of them went for patriotic reasons. The number of men on the farms, in New Brunswick particularly, was rapidly depleted.
Then you have the situation, which I have seen, in which one farm is denuded of the young men and nobody leaves from another farm. Perhaps it is not proper to refer to specific cases, but often they illustrate the general riile. I have in mind two farmers living side by side, each with four sons. On one farm' the four sons enlisted voluntarily, and not one went from the other farm. This type of situation causes discussion in the community, which discussion penetrates to me or to somebody else and is held up as an example of inequality of sacrifice, and it is. When the mobilization regulations are put into effect the man whose four sons have gone into the army will not be able to get them back, except perhaps on seeding leave if they happen to be on this side. If a liberal interpretation is given to the regulations the man with the four sons still left may be able to get every one of them off.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: That has happened in some cases.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I have had this very case up with the mobilization board in my own province. The man with the four sons still left does not need them all on his farm.


Mr. MITCHELL:: I should like my hon. friend to give me privately the name of that farmer.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I shall have to look up my file; I cannot remember the name. It did not happen, because the mobilization board took the view that one son was sufficient to work the farm and the other young men had to go. I am calling
fMr. H. B. Hanson.]
this matter to the attention of the minister and of his deputy who is sitting in front of him. There should be some flexibility in administering these regulations, as there should be in connection with anything that deals with any form of human activity. You cannot be too rigid about this sort of thing. You must not lay down a law that all farmers' sons are to be relieved. Each case must be decided upon the circumstances. The man whose four sons had not enlisted should have no right to go to the authorities and say that he wants them on his farm. I do not believe that was the intention.
I should like the minister to give us a break-down of the figures which were put on Hansard so unexpectedly last night by himself and later by his parliamentary assistant. The first figure of 1,043,163 covers the men in designated classes as at 1940 registration total, while the second figure of 988,475, which I used last night, I understand is the difference between the first figure and the figure of 54,688, which represents the men being called. I should like to have some information with respect to the figure of 550.692. Does this figure not include the second figure covering the men now on postponement? A man is never given a postponement until he is actually called. The men on postponement, as I understand1 it, would have been actually enlisted and signed up. Does the figure 100,973 represent men who have never actually got into the army? I think I am correct in assuming that it does. That would help the minister's position. But I do want a break-down of the 550,692 figure. I also want the minister to tell us about this lost army of 67,674 men. What is being done to trace them? What is being done to get them into the army? What is being done with the acknowledged defaulter? In my view it is not good enough to have some advertising agency, or whatever it is, in the city of Toronto, given the job of tracing these defaulters. I have forgotten the name of the company.


Mr. MARTIN:: Hooper-Holmes Bureau.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Are they an advertising agency?


Paul Joseph James Martin: No, a collection agency.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That may be the proper sort of agency to hire for this purpose, I do not know. I am not concerned about that; I am not prepared either to condemn or to commend the employment of this agency, but I want to know what is being done to vindicate the law. The law has been set at defiance by a large number of people.

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Karl Kenneth Homuth: It depends on what
province they live in.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It depends on where these defaulters are located. I am happy to think that in the little province of New Brunswick from which I come there have been few defaulters. I am happy to think that the citizens of New Brunswick have not had to be taught a sense of national obligation, as we were told by the chief of the general staff in October, 1940, was needed. So far as I know, there have been no prosecutions in the maritime provinces. The minister ought to tell us what he proposes to do to get these men into the army. He should give us particulars of the machinery used in sending out these calls, because so many of them seem to remain undelivered. My understanding is that every call was sent out by registered mail, so that every one of them could be traced, mathematically. What happened when that machinery broke down? Who has been penalized, if anybody, because the law was not carried out? These are all interesting queries that I am putting to the minister, and I hope he will take the time to put the position before the Canadian people, because they want to know, and they are not satisfied with what has been done in the past.
In particular the Canadian people were not satisfied with the administration of the Department of National War Services. If ever there was a washout in government departments in the history of this dominion it was the institution of that ministry and its career from that time down to this. I am not going to blame the minister who first occupied that position, because he is a busy man and I venture to say that he took on the job only because nobody else would take it. I have an idea that is the fact. I happen to know that when the Prime Minister was endeavouring to get gentlemen from outside the pale of the Liberal party to enter his government after May, 1940, he approached various gentlemen who were adherents of the Conservative party and offered one of them this job of minister of national war services, but to his everlasting credit the gentleman spurned the offer because he was not going to do the dirty work of the administration. That is true; that is a matter of history. I shall not mention the man's name. As I have said, I am not blaming the Minister of Agriculture, who was the first minister of national war services, but I do say that the performance of his successor in that position- I am sorry he is not in the house so that I could say this to his face, and I am not going to cast reflections upon him now that he has become a member of the judiciary-was a perfect wash-out, and the Canadian people
never had any confidence in his administration of the office. I wonder why the ministry has been continued until this day. What useful function does it perform?


Karl Kenneth Homuth: That is why the former minister was given social security.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The hon. gentleman is quite capable of expressing his own views and I invite him to do so when I am through, but I am expressing the thoughts that are running through my mind. Is the ministry being maintained for the purpose of political expediency, to find a place for the present minister who was put into office for the ostensible purpose of converting his compatriots to the principle of conscription for military service overseas? That is what we were told prior to the by-election in Outremont, but I notice he soft-pedalled that in all the speeches he made during the contest, and we have never heard from him since with respect to that aspect of the matter.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Except that "it is not in the public interest."


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am
speaking of this particular question of interesting his compatriots in the great national effort in which Canada is at present engaged.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Chairman, the
discussion which has been going on since Wednesday last with respect to certain matters having to do. with man-power has caused quite a number of speakers to refer to the registration which was made in 1940. The hon. member for York-Sunbury has called attention to the fact that I was minister of national war services in 1940 and therefore in charge of that registration. The fact which has brought about the discussion that has been taking place was that 988,475 men of certain age groups from nineteen to forty six years were available in Canada, single men who at some time might be called for military service. After a call had been made, 608,642 of these men responded to the call and 379,833 did not. If I remember correctly the argument which was used in the house and certainly in some of the press of this country was to the effect that these men had simply disappeared, and that if such a considerable number of men could disappear and their whereabouts not be known to the government there must be something seriously wrong with the system in force. As I understand the remarks made last evening by the Minister of Labour, he accounted for these men in a way that must have been satisfactory to the last speaker; because I listened to his
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remarks last evening when he suggested that at some later date, after he had had time to review the figures, he would tell the house what he thought about it all. But this afternoon, instead of telling the house what he thinks about it, he has risen in his place to tell us that he wants a little further explanation from the minister. In other words he has discovered that instead of 379,000 men there are some 68,000 men who are not entirely accounted for, and he wishes the minister to tell him who those 68,000 are and where they are. I tell him in a word that if he read's the explanation that was given by the Minister of Labour last night he will find everything explained, and that the whereabouts of many of the 68,000 are pretty well known.
That brings me back to the question of the registration itself. One of the members speaking last night agreed that the registration had been fairly well carried out and that the results were satisfactory. I recall that the statistics then available from the statistical branch of the Department of Trade and Commerce, following the previous census, indicated that there were in the neighbourhood of 8,000,000 people in Canada who were sixteen years of age or over. A registration was taken in 1940 of the people of Canada who were sixteen years and over, and the actual registration reveals that 7,862,920 people registered. The highest estimate that we have of the number of people in that age group in Canada was around 8,000,000, and the final result of the registration was that 7,862,920 people registered. I venture to say that there is no other country in the world in which, if the people had been called upon to register their names in three days the result obtained would have been as favourable as the result obtained in Canada on that occasion. When the second chance was given last year to those who had not registered in 1940, about 144,000 turned up and registered. If you add that 144,000 to 7,862,920 you get almost exactly 8,000,000 people, which was the estimate that was made of the number of people in Canada from sixteen to the top ages of our population. In other words, practically all the people registered on the first occasion, and practically all of the few who did not register at first registered on the second occasion, when some 144,000 appeared.


Mr. MacNICOL:: On the second occasion
did the number not include those who in the interim had reached the age of sixteen?


James Garfield Gardiner: No, I understand not. It was the persons who should have registered in the first place but did not, because the idea was that any who did not register after
f:Mr. G*rrlinf*r.l
this second chance were to be prosecuted. As I understand the figures given last night, some 1,300 have been prosecuted, most of them convicted, and some 14,000 cases are still in the hands of the courts. That is the position in connection with the registration itself.
But the chief charge or the chief claim which was made in the press which criticized the statement made last week was that all these people should have been followed throughout the year, that this registration should have been kept up to date, and that somebody in the government should know exactly where every one of these 8,000,000 persons is at the present time. I submit that any member of this house or any person in Canada who is interested only in seeing a job done knows how ridiculous a thing like that would be. Any man in any community knows that at least seventy-five per cent, in many cases ninety per cent, of the people in the community are living to-day exactly where they were living in 1940. Everyone in the community knows where they are, knows that they were there in 1940 and that they are there still. As a matter of fact, when we examine into the farm population situation, we find that about twenty-five per cent of the man-power from our farms of certain large groups who are ablebodied men, have left the farms and gone into some other employment. That means that seventy-five per cent of them are still on the farms-that is, speaking of the man-power- and I venture to say that when you take the vroman-power into account a much larger percentage than the seventy-five per cent are still on the farms. What would be the sense in a government or anyone else sending a body of people around to inquire every once in a while whether these people are at home or where they are? The facts with regard to the whole case demonstrate they are at home, and they are not only at home but they are working.
Something has been said as to whether the method which has been followed in connection with our man-power is a good method. I believe the minister, speaking in the house, said the other day that under the circumstances this was the best plan that could be devised in this country. Well, if one wants to test the plan itself what one should take into consideration is the results. What are the results? The hon. member for Temis-couata, (Mr. Pouliot) speaking a few moments ago, referred to the position of the farm population in his province; and he has a perfect right to discuss that and should discuss it, but in discussing it I submit that he was not altogether fair. The orders and the statements made in 1940 and 1941 with regard to persons who were on farms permanently and persons who were there only seasonally had to do

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with the policy which was then being put into effect. The policy was one which was intended to give thirty days' training in the first few months, and, later, four months' training to every man of a certain age in Canada if he were single. In putting that into effect it was said that agriculture is more or less seasonal, and it was said, in the interests of agriculture, not in the interests of someone else, not in the interests of the army-the army if left to themselves would have desired to get those men called, so many in each six weeks period, as was done at the beginning, from every area right across Canada- but agriculture said, and certainly the Minister of Agriculture, who happened at the time to be Minister of National War Services, said, that the proper time to train men off the farms is in the season when they are least employed. In the western sections of Canada, where we are grain growers, we said, "If you want to call men for training from the farms, call them in the winter months and not in the summer months so far as those areas are concerned." It is true we had protests with regard to that policy from dairy areas across Canada where, they said, labour was just as necessary for dairying in winter as in summer, and conditions were provided to meet situations of the kind, and men went forward to training. It is true that when it was changed from thirty days to four months some difference was made in the ruling, and then, when the four-months regulation was removed and men were supposed to remain in, other changes had to be made, and one was the change which was made in the spring of 1942. Within six months of the time that the limitation had been taken off the four months' training, and within three months of the beginning of the off season, the regulation was that men who were on farms and were essential to agriculture and asked for postponement were entitled to be given indefinite postponement.
Some hon. members from the west raised the question last evening as to whether that intention was carried out. I do not need to repeat in this house what I said here last February, that in certain areas the intention of the regulations had not been carried out.i I do not need to repeat what was said within the last three weeks in this chamber, and admitted by hon. members from every part of it, that since February last the intention had been fairly well carried out throughout the length and breadth of the country. But I do come back to this point, that an effort has been made to do what is the fair thing in connection with the calling up of men and to allow persons to remain in places where they are most useful.
After we have been carrying on for almost four years in connection with this war, what is the position with regard to man-power? If one were to take the able-bodied man-power of this country and divide it into three groups: first, the group that is on the farms; second, the group that is in the munitions plants, or in the yards that are building ships, or in factories which are building planes or tanks or trucks, and then take the group that are in the army, it will be found that the statement I made back in 1941 which my hon. friend was quoting a few moments ago has turned out to be not very far wrong. That statement was to the effect that if it ever became necessary in this country to have a million men in the army or in the armed forces of Canada, it would be found possible to produce the munitions of war, the ships and the machines of war, and also to produce a great deal more food than we had ever produced in Canada in the past. I backed up that statement by saying that if the registration showed approximately 8,000,000 people in Canada, and 1,000,000 were taken out to fight the war, surely the other 7,000,000 could take care of the other jobs, the jobs of providing the wherewithal to fight and the food to keep those who were fighting as well as ourselves.
Well now, coming to the position of to-day, where do we find ourselves? We find ourselves with 988,000 young men who have been called for service. Of that number, 550,000 are in the armed forces; 257,000 of them, as the figures revealed the other night, were found unsuited because of their physical condition to go into the armed forces; approximately
100.000	men have been found to be entitled to postponement and have been given postponement. Men in other exempted categories number about 12,000. When you go over the figures of the men who were available for military service because of being in certain age groups, and single, you have only some
68.000	of them still to account for, and they are accounted for in the general terms used by the minister the other night. In addition to that you have the married men who joined the forces and others who did not come in these groups who were in the forces. The figures given the other day show that approximately
700.000	men have joined the fighting forces of Canada, and in addition to those there are some 150,000 men, some of whom perhaps are too old to go into the fighting forces, to go overseas or into battle, but who nevertheless are in the forces performing services as guards or otherwise throughout the country. In addition there are 38,000 men in the merchant
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marine, who are as truly facing dangers today as are the fighting men on any front in any part of the world.
These figures bring us dangerously close to the point where we are providing as many men as anyone ever estimated, since the war started, that the dominion would provide for the fighting forces. When I made that speech in 1941 I received criticism from every part of Canada. I was asked, how do you expect that there ever will be 1,000,000 men in the armed forces of this country? My own opinion has been from the beginning of the war that some day there ought to be three-quarters of a million men ready to fight for Canada in this war, and we are getting so close to it now that I feel rather pround of having made the estimate away back at the time when I was minister of national war services.
We have approximately 3,000,000 ablebodied men in Canada of these age groups, married and single who might be pushed around. Over 1,000,000 are on the farms, and almost 1,000,000 will be found in the armed forces, or among those who are doing work similar to that of the armed forces, and another million, approximately or more than a million of them, will be found in our munitions plants and factories of one kind or another doing work associated with the war. In other words, without getting down to exact figures-and exact figures bore a lot of people in this country-our population is split about three ways. I have listened to statisticians, and I have sat in committees with statisticians, who can give figures to the last man and the last fraction of a man, and I have listened so long now to that sort of thing that I am getting tired of it myself. However, I say that you can take the manpower of the country and split it into three about equal groups, and you will find that one-third of them will be doing something to produce food, another third will be doing something to produce munitions and equipment for the war, and still another third will be found in the armed forces or getting ready to go in.
That, I think, is the way in which the whole system should be viewed and criticized. Is that a proper division of the population? I submit that the results seem to indicate that it is. And what do I mean by that? In 1940 we were told in this country-I have repeated it in this house before and I will state it again on this occasion

that when the armed forces came back after Dunkirk there was not enough ammunition in Britain to keep them shooting for one hour if they had been given all the guns that were there

and all the ammunition and told to shoot. But we in Canada and the people of the United States and of every one of the democratic countries which to-day are favourable to the allied cause were asked to produce munitions of war and machines of war as soon as possible. I am proud of the fact, whether my friend the hon. member for Temiscouata criticizes me or not, that I did not stand up on that occasion and say that every man ought to remain on the farm. We would not be in this House of Commons to-day discussing matters with the freedom which we enjoy, and the right we have to say anything we like, whether it hurts or not, if on that occasion men had not gone into the factories and the shipyards and into the munitions plants from every part of this country and other countries, from every activity of the country, and rolled out the munitions and guns and tanks and ships as they have never been rolled out in any nation of similar size before. We were told in 1940 that no nation could equip itself in less than three and a quarter years after it had begun to do so.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I don't
remember that.


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend says
he does not remember that. He does not remember it because it was said to me in London by men who know, that no nation could equip itself with munitions inside of three and a quarter years after it had begun the task. It was estimated that because we did not begin until 1938-and I am not speaking of Canada; we did not begin in the world to realize that we were going to have a war, we did not realize that among the democratic nations until 1938-it would take until 1942 at best to become equipped with ammunition alone, to the extent of being able to beat the enemy on a battlefield.
When Mr. Churchill came over on his first visit to Washington he told us that we would have to be delayed on that job until 1943, and now in 1943 the allied nations are producing munitions, ships, equipment of . various kinds, and Canada stands second to no nation in the world in that regard. In other words, we have a sufficient number of our population engaged in the task to-day to accomplish what was expected of us.
What about the farms? We have talked a lot about farm labour and the shortage of farm labour, and I agree with everything that was said a few moments ago by the member for York-Sunbury. I agree also with much of what was said by the member for Temiscouata with regard to hardships. But you will

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have noted, Mr. Chairman, that in order to substantiate the criticisms which are made it is always necessary for members to come back to individual cases. It is all very well to say that in one family four sons went while in another family none went. I venture to say to the member for York-Sunbury and the member for Temiscouata that in those families where four sons went, no law or regulation, no organization in Canada, could have prevented those young men from going. They went because they thought it was their duty to go, and no one could have stopped them. No regulation or dictation from Ottawa, no indication, "We want you to follow a team of horses on the farm instead of going to fight," would have kept that type of man at home. And lam not too sure that some of the others that are spoken of would have made very good soldiers. I say, I am not too sure of it. Probably they would have found themselves in some job that was not as essential as the job they were doing before. I am not going to comment further on that.
I will not argue in this committee or anywhere else that war does not bring hardships. War is bound to bring hardships to any family or group of people who take their patriotism seriously. It will not to those who just talk about it. I heard a gentleman only today-I am not going to say who he was-make the statement in a meeting that a plan is no good if it is just on paper, a treaty is not of much use if it just has signatures on it. After all, what counts is work. The thing we have to do is to work at the job. I think that is very sound. These people of Canada on our farms have befen working at the job, and to-day we are producing more food than anyone in this house would have stood up four years ago and prophesied that we could ever produce with the normal farm population.
I have heard members every session in the last four years declare that before the end of the year we are going to find out that our farms are lacking in labour and machineiy and fertilizer, and for that reason we are not going to be able to produce in Canada what we were hoping to be able to produce. But every year we have been able to produce more than we hoped to be able to produce. As late as the year 1942 we sent to Great Britain all the essential products that she asked us for. In cheese and pork products we sent approximately eighty per cent of our production. And not only eighty per cent of our production, but we sent her in so far as pork products are concerned eighty per cent of what she got from all the countries of the world, before the war started. Our great problem in agriculture is the problem of determining what we are
going to do in the future with all we are producing. But I have never met a farmer in Canada-and I travel among farmers from the Atlantic to the Pacific-who has told me that he is not prepared to produce until it hurts, even though he may be called upon to cut down again at the end of the war to where it hurts. He is not talking about that, seriously, until he has the first job done. And the first job is the winning of this war.
We know in Canada what it means to us to lose; I should say, not to completely win a war in which we take part. We went through one of them within the lifetime of every member in this house. Every man who got by the last war, even though many members of his family did not, and thought that war was over for his lifetime, has found out since, if he raised a family in this country, that im conditions which existed in the world his family might go down in battle, in due course. And having found that out on two occasions, what the men of this country want is to win this war, and a condition in the world which will make it possible for him to go on and to produce for a ,peace-loving world. We are producing more munitions than anyone ever expected us to produce. We are producing more machineiy of war, more ships of war and more food from our farms. We have many men in the armed forces of Canada to-day who, had it not been for the war, would have been ini the farm forces of Canada. Thousands of them did not wait for the call, but joined up. That was the meaning of what was said the other night by the Minister of Labour. If anyone believes they are not listed, he should consult the lists in our forces. It must be remembered that we have only 12,000,000 people in Canada. We cannot feed China with its 400,000,000. If it is left to us to do that job, some of them will be left to starve. We are doing the best we can do, with around 12,000,000 people. We cannot produce enough munitions to supply the millions who will come from Great Britain and the United States, with the millions of men they have already at the front, and the additional millions in China, and other places where there will be shooting. But we can produce and are producing our share of it. Every statesman of the world, including the stateswoman, Madam Chiang Kai-shek, who was here the other day, who has discussed the question at all, has said that Canada has done more than her share in connection with the war, in the production of machines and munitions of war. When it comes to our food supply, any information
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we get from outside Canada is to the effect that they cannot understand how Canada accomplishes as much as she does.
When it comes to our armed forces for all services, our m.n manning the ships at sea, our men fighting in the air and our men in the army who have been making ready since the outset of the war, all are going to be available to finish it in numbers greater than was anticipated. None of the allies except Russia ever thought they were ready even to start fighting in this war until 1943. Those men who have died at sea and in the air in the past two or three years have died to give us an opportunity to get ready. We are ready now. The fight is still ahead. And as that fight goes on, we will continue to require men in the armed forces.
I can understand the hon. member who has just spoken saying that it is important that we should have men in the army. But I do not think he should have bothered making the correction he made a while ago. I still think it is important that men should be in the armed forces. And I still think we are doing a very good job on the farms-not we who are sitting here in this house. As a matter of fact, if we had been more anxious to get the jdb done on the farms, we would have been out of here two months ago, doing a little farming. Again I agree with my hon. friend that such work is more important than talking, and must be done. I know he is really anxious to get it done. I am anxious to get out on my farm and do a little work, too. There are other members who are anxious to get away. We all of us can help, out on the line in our country, if we are not able to help on the front line over where the battle is being carried on. If we want to do a real job, we have to get out as soon as possible where production is being carried on. We are not going to accomplish anything if we hold the opinion that the front line is here, in the House of Commons, and that we should sit here for twelve months talking about it. If we would just get the estimates through, we would then have an opportunity to get busy. Let every business man and every farmer here get back to his work, in the busy season, and we shall be doing the best job we can do, and getting on with the war.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Yesterday I asked the
minister a question with reference to the manner in which men are selected to be sent to the various industrial institutions. The military end of this matter has been discussed at some length. My remarks will be with respect to the industrial end. I asked the minister what the procedure would be if one asked the selective service office at Toronto

for ten boilermakers, or ten riveters, or men of that type. He replied that the selective service office has all people in the community classified as to their various skill and training. That would indicate that selective service must take the responsibility for those who are sent to any industrial institution.
On the 23rd instant the Toronto Telegram contained an article which to my mind revealed a grave condition in the shipbuilding industry at Toronto. I am wondering if selective service sent the men referred to in this article to the Toronto Shipbuilding plant. I have had a great deal to do with labour, and to my mind this is almost an impossible situation. The article states:
Employees of the Toronto Shipbuilding Company have asked munitions minister C. D. Howe to investigate conditions in the Toronto shipyard, said to be retarding production and resulting in the waste of thousands of dollars of public money.
The production end, of course, is under the Department of Munitions and Supply. But the sending of men to the plant is under the Minister of Labour. This article states:
1. Certain types of ships which are under construction at the yard for the past twenty-two months have not been commissioned.
That is a very long time in which to turn out a ship in war time. Then:
It was pointed out that hulls Nos. 31 and 32 left the yard in September, 1942, uncompleted and were sent to the yard at Saint John, New Brunswick.
At the time of the writing of this article they were still not commissioned. The article sets out the reason for this situation as faulty workmanship, wrong material, faulty measurements which necessitated the almost complete rebuilding of the ships when they arrived at Saint John.
I have had a great deal to do with steel in connection with boilermaking. I know that to compete in the building of boilers it is necessary to drill and shear a number of plates at one time, perhaps two, three, four, five or six at once. Therefore the measurements have to be perfect or there is great loss and great delay. In my time we could not afford to have men who could not measure steel or who could not properly mark the holes to be drilled in the boiler sheets; we could not afford the losses, but evidently there is a great deal of trouble here if this article is based on fact. I have no doubt it is, because the brief on which this article was based was submitted by Mr. L. Sefton of the United Steel Workers of America. I assume that the brief is correct, and of course the article itself would be correct to the extent that the brief is accurate.

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This article goes on to state that the mast on one of these ships was erected at the position indicated by the foreman superintending the construction of the ship. It was erected in front of the door leading to the captain's cabin; after it had been welded to the deck and all the work had been finished of course they found that the captain could not get into his cabin and the mast had to be taken down again. Surely that is a situation for which somebody must be responsible. I do not know how far the minister can go, but he is the Minister of Labour; he is a man in whom I have confidence, and he may have authority to see that conditions of this kind are wiped out. Certainly they should be. Certainly no plant building ships in war-time should have such incompetent labour or incompetent management or incompetent foremanship; I am not going to condemn one or the other.
The article goes on to speak of the ship's brass. Instances are mentioned of material being provided such as naval brass, which had to be scrapped because it was improperly laid out. Brass is one of the commodities of which we can hardly get enough for the construction of ships and the necessary workaday life of this country. There is something very seriously wrong in that respect. What kind of men were sent to that plant? Did the men in the national selective service offices who looked them over know enough to see that the proper men were sent there? I do not know; I am not saying they did not. I do not know how much they had to do with it, but certainly if all the facts set out in the brief are correct there was something very seriously wrong. The article goes on to tell about the boring of holes. That is something with which I have had experience, as no doubt the' minister has. In steel or in iron you may allow a variation of perhaps one-thousandth of an inch, but if you go much beyond that you make an error which results in a good deal of material being wasted.
The article goes on to speak of brass storm valves, costing approximately $50 each, which were not the correct type and which were thrown into the bay. If that actually occurred I think the minister should make an investigation. To me it seems almost incredible that valves costing $50 each should be thrown away like that. Were there no foremen on the job? Where was the management? This is a government plant, remember; was it being run in this fashion? If so it is an alarming situation. Fancy throwing $50 valves into the bay! I think the minister
should send a man to that plant and have a diver go down and dig those valves out of the bottom of the bay; they are too expensive to be thrown away like that.
The article goes on to speak of the difficulties in connection with welding. Well, that is also something with which I have had experience. It has to be done properly; certainly if two steel plates going into the construction of a ship are not properly welded, there will be a leak. Perhaps that is one reason why these ships had to be partially rebuilt when they got to Saint John. Mention is also made of the riveting of the plates. The article states:
In the matter of wastage of public moneys it was pointed out that in Hull 43, when tested, 1,700 rivets leaked and had to ibe replaced, wasting material, time and money. It would appear that the system of paying a bonus for the number of rivets driven, rather than for the rivets tested watertight, "mitigates against efficient workmanship. ..."
How much national selective sendee has to do with the muddle in this shipyard I do not know, but someone should be held responsible. WTe require ships; but when it takes twenty-two months to turn out a ship of that kind, and then it is necessary to keep it for approximately another year at Saint John being refitted and rebuilt before going into commission, it does not help to win the war. I think we should have an explanation as to just what part national selective service officers play in the distribution of man-power.


Humphrey Mitchell: If I could answer my bon. friend in a sentence-


John Ritchie MacNicol: I shall be through in a moment. I sat for many hours in the labour offices in Manchester, Birmingham and London; and as a former employer of labour it did me good to listen to the questions which were asked by the men behind the counter; for I appreciated their knowledge of the trades to which they were sending men. Perhaps our national selective service has not had time as yet to get properly organized to send the most competent men to work in our munitions plants. If what was said yesterday or the day before by the minister or the hon. member for Essex East is correct, that there are 4,500 men and perhaps women employed in the national selective service offices, and that only 900 people have been transferred from one plant to another, perhaps the time has come when we should send 3,500 of the people employed in these offices to work in the factories, because it would appear that they have been doing very little.

War Appropriation-Labour

I read in the press to-day, as no doubt the minister did, an article in regard to the strike in the Quebec shipyards. Something must be done to eliminate strikes in this country. Those shipyards have been shut down for two weeks, and 672,000 man-hours of labour have been lost. Well, surely there is something wrong when in the shipyards of one .province, in war-time, 672,000 man-hours of labour can be lost. Surely the department should be Able to cope with a situation of this kind. Surely they should be able to see that the men receive proper treatment, that the management gives them whatever fair treatment they are asking for, and that they are kept at work.
I wish to say a word1 or two about priorities. Some days ago I asked a question or two on this matter, and later the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre asked further questions on the same point. At the time I was not paying very much attention to what the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre was saying; I was busy at something on my desk, and I did not just grasp the significance of the minister's reply to questions 1 and 2. Questions 1 and 2, which I asked on June 16, 1943, were:
1.	Is there a priority list or classification of industries or firms for the guidance of national selective service in placing workers?
2.	If so, who prepared this list?
The minister's reply, as reported at pages 3998 and 3999 of Hansard, is as follows:
Let me say without equivocation that national selective service is not, to my knowledge, being used to cut down wages. That is question No. 1.
I did not say anything about wages, although the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre may have. The minister continued:
As to number 2, with regard to the priority schedule, that of course is confidential for obvious reasons.
Farther down on the page he gives a list of those who make up the board that decides whether this or that factory is to have preference in connection with men. This advisory board is made up of representatives of employers' organizations such as the chamber of commerce, the manufacturers' association, the mining association and so on, and on the labour side are representatives of the Canadian congress of labour, the railroad trades, the Catholic syndicates and the trades and labour congress of Canada. There are also representatives of the departments concerned in the production of war materials.
I can picture a cast iron boilermaker sending to national selective service for ten moulders, and a hot air furnace manufacturer also send-
[Mr. MacNicol.J
ing for ten moulders to make fire-pots. If there is a representative of the castiron boiler manufacturers on the board, he will probably see that the cast iron boiler manufacturer gets the preference, or vice versa. I would suggest that the foremen in the shops should be represented, because in many instances they know just as much as or more than the manufacturers as to the type of man that is needed. Who represents the retail trade on the board? As we all know, the retail merchants distribute vast quantities of manufactured articles.
Take the large restaurants on Sparks street like Woolworth's or Kresge's or the large restaurant operators in Toronto. They buy their * sugar and flour by the bag or barrel. The plan is to have girls and women handle all this work. A girl or a woman should not be asked to lift a 100-pound bag of flour or a 200- or 300-pound barrel, whatever a barrel weighs.


An hon. MEMBER:: One hundred and ninety-six pounds.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That is too much weight to ask help of that kind to shuffle around. Then take shortening, for instance. I understand it comes in 400-pound barrels. It is all very well to say that it could be put up in ten-pound or forty-pound kegs, that sugar and flour could be put up in ten-pound or forty-pound bags, but if that were done we might hear from the Minister of Munitions and Supply. The plants now turning out these containers are designed to manufacture those particular sizes. I am wondering if such things are not partly the cause of the muddle we now have in man-power. I am not blaming the minister for this, because I realize he has had a terrific job to handle. I would rather help him than do anything that would give him more worry. But the man-power situation is so serious that something must be done, especially in connection with ships and equipment for ships. They must be turned out more rapidly and sent down to the sea to safeguard the supplies going overseas.


Humphrey Mitchell: I think the hon. member asked me whether the Department of Labour had to do with materials. That would be under the jurisdiction of the Department of Munitions and Supply. My hon. friend also said something about the transfer of 900 people. I should like to tell him that during last year selective service placed 1,400,000 people in jobs.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I referred to 900 transfers.


Humphrey Mitchell: That was all done within a short period. In Great Britain over 90 per cent of the transfers or placements have been

War Appropriation-Labour
made without any direction. I feel sure that the Canadian men and women will give the same degree of cooperation as has been given in Great Britain. As to the fitness of a man sent to take a job, I may say that in the unemployment insurance offices we have card indexes of three and a quarter million people which indicate their skills, but the final say as to the fitness of a man must be the employer himself. National selective service regulations have been so devised as to take care of that particular phase of selective service activity, and either the workman can leave or the employer can ask the workman to leave without giving the usual seven days' notice up to a period of thirty days after work has been accepted.
My hon. friend inquired also about the priority list that is given to national selective service officers. As I indicated the other day, this list is drawn up by the priority division of the Department of Labour and representatives of the Department of Munitions and Supply and wartime prices and trade board. Naturally the list is confidential, because it changes from day to day in conformity with the changes in work being undertaken by different industries.
The hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) referred to Mr. Gunn who came to Canada at my request from the department of labour in Great Britain. Mr. Gunn was of great assistance in the early stages of the organization of selective service. He has spent his life in the administrative side of the British ministry of labour, having been in it almost since its inception. He is one of the permanent officials of that department. I do not think it is a crime to go outside the boundaries of this country to get advice in connection with any work which any government, federal, provincial or municipal, might carry on. It is often done. I know the United States government requested Mr. Bevin to lend them one of his ranking officials in connection with their organization, and it is to the credit of Mr. Bevin, in view of the tremendous pressure under which the British ministry of labour is functioning at the present time, that he found it possible to lend us one of his senior officials for nearly six months.


Gordon Graydon: Did the government or the minister negotiate for the services of this man through Mr. Bevin or directly with the man himself?


Humphrey Mitchell: I know Mr. Bevin personally; I just cabled him, and he very kindly lent us the services of one of his senior assistants.
72537-262}


Gordon Graydon: He is the man Mr. Bevin chose?


Humphrey Mitchell: Absolutely. We owe to a Frenchman, Mr. Greber, a distinguished landscape architect, much of the scenic beauty round the centre of Ottawa.


Mr. REID:: We have to walk round the monument now.


Humphrey Mitchell: Mr. Greber was employed by the government of this country to lay out the city of Ottawa. When I have been to Washington in connection with government matters I have been glad to get the experience and advice of our United States friends, and they have also come here and been glad to get our advice. I hope that free intercourse and interchange of ideas will continue. I wish there were more of it in the world, because no nation can live in a vacuum. Our doctors and dentists in peace time go to Vienna and Paris, and of course to London and Edinburgh, to continue their studies.
The other question my hon. friend raised was as to a difference in treatment between western Canada and eastern Canada in the military call-up. He said that was shown by the fact that men from Saskatchewan had come to work in Ontario during the summer months. That is made possible on account of the nature of farming operations in the western provinces. There is an off-season between seeding and harvest when the men on the western farms would be comparatively idle, and it is possible to make them available for a short period to other parts of Canada.
The hon. member for York-Sunbury asked with respect to the figures I gave last night: whether the number outstanding, 100,973, was included in the 550,692. The answer is, no.


James Arthur Ross: I agree with the Minister of Agriculture that more work and fewer words are required so that we can get back to our farms; but the question of postponement was raised last night, and the minister said that in his view, where the man was essential to agriculture, an indefinite postponement was granted. I know a young farmer -it may be an isolated case-who has been granted only six months postponement on three different occasions, the last being March, 1943. He may have now become an "R" recruit; I think there should be greater cooperation between the army and this department. At all events, this young chap is the only male left on a section of land, with 80 head of cattle and the usual number of horses and hogs. I think he and others in like position should be granted indefinite postponement. I hope that will be the practice in the future.
War Appropriation-Labour

I certainly think the hon. member for Lake Centre and the hon. member for York-Sunbury have proven in this house in the last few days that inequality does exist in the call-up between different sections of the country. The hon. member for York-Sunbury this afternoon told of a farmer in his locality with four sons who were granted postponement, or at all events they were not in the service, while a neighbouring farmer had his only son in the army. I could cite similar examples from my province. The examples I have given are not from my constituency. I know of a farmer who was not beyond an age at which he could continue to work his farm, who had four sons, grown up young men, and a younger son not of military age, who before the war were running less than a rented section, but since the war some of the boys have bought more land by agreement of sale and are continuing to stay on the farm. One can readily understand the feeling that exists in that community when they see that and then see a neighbouring farmer without a son left to help him on a much larger farm, and the older man forced to operate the farm alone. That is not a healthy situation; it is most unhealthy, but these are some of the results of the manpower policy of this government of to-day. As was stated by the hon. member for York, Sunbury this afternoon, the operation of a few of these mobilization boards under the Department of National War Services has been little short of a disgrace. My sympathies are very much with the Minister of Labour and his staff because, after almost four years of operation, the man-power situation has become so tangled that it is almost impossible for any human being to unscramble the man-power muddle we have in Canada. The minister and his department deserve sympathy in attempting to make something of the bad muddle we have at the present time.
N	'


Mr. GILLIS:: I wish to say a few words on selective service and how it operates. The real test of any machinery is the way in which it functions and the service it performs. Before I go into that, I should like to pay my respects to the hon. member for York-Sunbury. I am sorry he is not in his place at the moment. Generally, after making one of his orations to the house; after making a lefthanded swipe at the members of this group, he packs his grip and goes away for a rest, to get some more wind up. This afternoon he referred to bill No. 80 of last year, to amend the National Resources Mobilization Act, and the attitude of members of this group on that bill, and on the stand of members of this

group who were in the house at the time war was declared. I did not happen to be in the house at that time, but I followed very closely the position taken by the members of this group, and I would say this with respect to bill No. 80: While we do not agree with the government's handling of man-power for military purposes, the Prime Minister, when he explained the government's position with respect to bill No. 80 of last year and the future of man-power for military purposes in this country, left no doubt in the minds of any member of the house as to his intentions. He clearly stated that there would be no change with respect to the raising of men for military purposes until he returned to this house and asked for a vote of confidence. At that time the hon. member for York-Sunbury and every member of his group voted for and supported the Prime Minister and the' govern-ernment with respect to raising men on that basis for military purposes, and incidentally at the same time made the remark, after the vote was taken, that the government had looped the loop three times within twenty-four hours on that particular question-and he looped the loop with them. His speech yesterday afternoon clearly indicates that he is now endeavouring to get hold of a parachute to ease himself to the ground in order to alibi his way out and apologize for the stand taken at that time. I cannot see where he can do anything in the future, on the basis of that vote cast for bill No. 80 of last year, except to support the government all the way in any policy they may bring before this house. The members of this group did not do so. We realized at that time that it was placing too much power in the hands of the Prime Minister on that question to support him in that measure, and left ourselves free to fight and analyse the proposals and take whatever action we think necessary on that question when it comes before the house. We insisted at that time on that vote that a bill should be brought before this house for the purpose of raising men for military purposes which we could vote on, and with regard to which we could cleanly understand what the regulations were. The hon. member for York-Sunbury did not do that, and he has absolutely no criticism to make, or should not have, because the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation members kept both hands free and intend to fight that issue when it is brought before the house at some time in the future.
With respect to the attitude of this group in 1939, I think any hon. member who is conscious of Canada's position at that time would take exactly the same position. He oould not take any other. The generation

War Appropriation-Labour
that you proposed to .place in uniform at that time could not be expected very readily to volunteer for military service, and I think the government took the proper attitude in approaching that very cautiously, to avoid a revolution. You had a disinherited, disfranchised generation that were on the rods from coast to coast, without a means of livelihood for the twenty years between the two wars, and were you to have approached them when this war broke out with a mandate that you were to requisition them for military service and send them overseas, you would not have had the military organization which you have in Canada to-day on a voluntary basis.
Second, anyone who looked at the problem realistically must have recognized that Canada was completely unorganized in every phase of war. The industrial machine was functioning at just about ten per cent. When war finally broke out, in view of the position which Britain and other countries close to t'he scene of war were in, it was recognized by General McNaughton and others who viewed the matter realistically that Canada's position would be one of producing machines, munitions, ships and other requirements for war purposes. While he was in Canada in 1941, General McNaughton clearly stated through the public press that the main emphasis as far as Canada is concerned should be placed on the production of machines of war. not the sending overseas of half-fed and half-trained men to be placed in a position where it was difficult either to feed or to train them. This is where the training job should be done.
With respect to the trainees who are in Canada at the present time, many demand that they should be conscripted and sent overseas. I do not believe that if the Canadian army goes into action, there will be any difficulty in having at least ninety per cent of the men now in the army in Canada on that basis, cross the sea and join in. the battle with their friends, relatives and neighbours who at present are in England. To-day units are applying to be moved en bloc. I can mention units on the east coast that are in that category. They have done jobs on isolated posts and been in a much tougher position than are the fellows in the old country, and they are anxious to get away. They trained together; they want to move together, but they are being kept here year after year. I completely discount the argument which is advanced that these men will have to be moved by force. I do not think those who suggest that have any knowledge of the boys.
They will go when they are needed, and I do not think that up to the present time they have been needed in England.


Mr. STIRLING:: Does the hon. member mean units composed of our home defence recruits?


Clarence Gillis: Yes, I do. To date they have not been needed in England. Moreover, there are now more there than we can feed. I think that is generally recognized by the boys who are remaining here. They perform the same service in Canada as waiting around in England. The time will come when they will move, and move voluntarily for the most part. I have not much doubt about that.
I have not much patience with the man who rises in his place in this chamber and takes the position that everyone should be in a uniform, that there should .be conscription of man-power for military purposes and military purposes only. It is easy to be an armchair general back here in Canada and be willing to fight until the last farmer or the last worker in this and other, countries is dying on battlefields across the ocean. I do not mind that contention when it comes from men who have already made their contribution on some battlefield in the past. But I think it is ill-advised on the part of those who have had a nice comfortable living during the years of poverty and frustration of the generation that to-day has to fight a second war, and1 some of whom have already made their contribution in blood on the battlefields of Europe, in order that those who are comfortably off may retain that comfortable position in Canada, and they are not prepared to make very many sacrifices. I think it is uncalled for and totally unbecoming for the hon. member for York-Sunbury to occupy the amount of time in the house that he occupies telling you and me that your son and my son and someone else's son should be conscripted in order that people of that calibre may live the kind of life that they have, as contrasted with what the average worker in this country has had during the past twenty-five years after doing the job that he advocates the workers should be compelled to do again.
I make these remarks because I think the hon. member goes out of his way, every time he rises, to attempt to discredit members of this group. Make no mistake about it, although this group is small, thirty-three per cent of its members have already made their contributions on the battlefields of Europe, and perhaps would do it again quite willingly if they were not in the position they are in now.
War Appropriation-Labour

I started to say something on, selective service. I said that the test of the machinery is, how it is working in the field. One of my main criticisms of selective service is that the offices are understaffed. The machine has been called upon to do a lot of work which it was not originally designed to do. Originally the majority of the offices were set up as unemployment insurance offices and they were staffed for that purpose. Second, selective service was dumped in on them. Third, the welfare officers' work was also passed into the unemployment insurance offices, plus the selective service offices. To-day there are some 80,000 ex-servicemen back in Canada discharged from this war, with very few welfare officers ini the national selective service or national employment offices to take care of the work. In Nova Scotia there is one. This large group of ex-servicemen has to be taken care of through the rehabilitation regulations, which is considerable work and a job in itself. That is thrown upon the selective service offices as an additional burden. I believe the department has 4,500 men across Canada employed in the national selective service offices.


Humphrey Mitchell: Men and women.


Clarence Gillis: Men and women. From
conversation with people who I think are in a position to judge, there should be approximately 2,000 more people in those offices in order to do this work and do it properly. That is one of the first things that should be done. If the machine is to function properly, it will have to be given the necessary personnel to do the job.
One complaint I have to make is that the Department of Labour allowed to get out of its control the organization of production committees and labour-management committees. That belongs to the Department of Labour. It is now under the Department of Munitions and Supply, but I think the department has altogether too much authority, too much work to do in its own field, without usurping the machinery that rightfully belongs to the Department of Labour. These labour-management committees, if properly set up, could do a wonderful service, working in cooperation with national selective service, in ironing out the many difficulties they have to handle, and the Minister of Labour would be well advised to insist on the completion of that organization and the direction of it back .under the Department of Labour instead of leaving it under munitions and supply.


Humphrey Mitchell: The production committee is a joint body comprising munitions and supply and labour.
IMr. Gillis.]


Clarence Gillis: I hope it will soon start to work. It should be wholly in the Department of Labour.


Mr. MacINNIS:: It will get no sympathy under munitions.


Clarence Gillis: I think that is why it was taken over there. Another phase of selective service that requires checking up is the necessary coordination between the call-up boards and the national defence boards. This happens in many cases. Selective service sends out a notification that a man must report for medical examination to one of the national defence boards. The man loses a day's work reporting to the board1 and taking the medical examination. If he is fit he is sent into the service, but in many cases he is declared unfit and is placed perhaps in category E, and he goes back to work. The next week he gets another call from the same people back to the same board. I have known men to go through that routine twenty different times. A man is unfit and is turned down by the national defence board, and he reports that he has already had a call, but he receives another notice and he loses another day's work going through the same machinery. When he reports that he has received a call they will tear up that reply, but the next week he will get the call again.


Humphrey Mitchell: If my hon. friend has the name I should be glad if he would give it to me personally.


Clarence Gillis: I will give the minister half a dozen of them.


Humphrey Mitchell: I shall be glad to have them.


Clarence Gillis: That is particularly true in the Toronto district. That is the fault of national defence. The thing to do is to have the national defence board, whenever a man is categorized as unfit, send in notification to the national selective sendee giving the record to show that this man has been reported in category E and that there is a special file made of his case, so that there will not be a repetition of the call-up week after week.
The hon. member for Davenport introduced the question of shipbuilding as applied to the Toronto shipyards. National selective service definitely have a responsibility there. Under the regulations, before an employee can be dismissed from his job he must be given seven days' notice. There are 289 men affected at the Toronto shipbuilding yards. These men were dismissed without reference to the national selective service regulations. That was a week ago this past Friday, and these

War Appropriation-Labour
men are still idle with the exception of about twenty. The charge made by the management that they had committed an infraction of the rules and regulations has been disproved; it is not true, and the men so dismissed illegally -there is no doubt about their having been dismissed illegally-have made representations to selective service in Toronto and are endeavouring to negotiate their reemployment there. Because of infraction of the regulations in the first place by the Toronto Shipbuilding company, they are trying to get them back en bloc through selective service. One of the officials was there, but he was there on another matter; and to date no action has been taken by selective service with reference to returning those men to their employment. They are key men. I know very well the story which the hon. member for Davenport was reciting, although I do not intend to tell it here. The minister of munitions has it verbatim much more fully than it was recited by the hon. member for Davenport. What I am concerned about is this. Immediate action should be taken by selective service from Ottawa to return those men to the Toronto Shipbuilding yard, put them on the job and then determine whether they are entitled to remuneration for the time lost during the period they were out of the yard illegally.
If the regulations are to work they must work both ways. They will have to be followed up and applied to employer and employee alike. In this case they are not being so applied, and I suggest that this is something that the minister should attend to. If the regulations are to be respected they will have to be enforced religiously, regardless of who gets hurt.
Another point I wish to bring to the attention of the minister is the transportation of men from point to point.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is under another item.


Clarence Gillis: Is it not under selective
service?


Humphrey Mitchell: We have a special item for that.


Clarence Gillis: Well, I can wait for the other item. There is a lot of trouble with that particular phase of the regulations in Nova Scotia. They seem to be splitting hairs on administration when men are taken from one industry and transferred to another. If selective service hires these men and puts them through their new plant, transportation is paid for; but In many instances where groups of men are employed or are being transferred they do not bother with selective
service. They go to the office and are hired, and there is that much more work taken from selective service. But to qualify for the transportation reimbursement they must go to selective service and make application on a special form for transportation, and in many instances it costs from $4 to $4.50 a week commuting between different points. The boards have taken the stand that because the men were not hired through them in the first place, the special form does not apply and they cannot get that reimbursement for transportation from plant to plant. The only crime they committed, however, was saving the national selective service some hours of work in employing with a new employer. They short-cut the thing themselves, but because they did that and saved that amount of work to the office, they cannot receive reimbursement for the money spent in transportation from point to point. I should like to see this matter taken up by the deputy minister, who is sitting before the Minister of Labour, because I know that representations have been made to him time and again on this particular point.
There is another matter I wish to bring up, because I received a telegram this afternoon with regard to it. There is a charge made by union 4527, U.M.W. of A., representing the views of 900 men, that national selective service in Nova Scotia, in the Sydney area, in a dispute that involved the employees of a restaurant supplied strikebreakers to the restaurant keeper. I mention the matter here for this reason. On Monday of this week 7,000 coal miners were tied up in that Sydney-Glace Bay area on account of this dispute. The point at issue was that the restaurant keeper was violating the minimum wage laws of Nova Scotia and consequently was violating the trade union legislation of that province. This was entirely a provincial responsibility. It should have been settled there within twenty-four hours, but it was not settled. It was allowed to drag on from day to day, until it reached a point where it tied up essential war industry. They were notified a week earlier that if the minimum wage laws and the trade union legislation in the province were not recognized and enforced by the provincial authorities, within a given time a certain thing would happen. It did happen.
The point I make, for the benefit of the administrators of national selective service, is that if they have taken the position where they are prepared to supply labour where there is a dispute, they will not get much respect. To the best of my knowledge the office at Sydney has been 100 per cent efficient, and I have had a great deal to do with it. It is
War Appropriation-Labour

cooperative, and understands its job thoroughly. I am not so sure about the office at Glace Bay. I would assume that the people supplied in this particular dispute would be supplied through the Glace Bay office. I am requesting the minister to check up on. the matter.
An ultimatum was arrived at last Sunday, and a provision for an idle day was brought into effect. Next week, if it is not settled, there will be two idle days. A dispute of this kind could be settled by responsible authorities in ten minutes, simply by a telephone call. If the province will not act, then recognizing the fuel emergency and the repercussions of this dispute, the federal minister should take the bull by the horns and settle the matter for them.


Mr. HANSELL:: We listened this afternoon to a speech by the Minister of Agriculture delivered in his characteristic form. I noticed, however, he took a good deal of credit to his government for what the people of Canada have done in the past few years. He rather deplored the fact that hon. members in the opposition were attempting to prove certain contentions by citing certain cases. All I wish to say in that respect is that nobody on the opposition side of the house will say that the people have not done a good job. No one on the opposition side of the house will say that the farmer has not done a good job in producing food. No one will criticize the people of Canada for the job they have done. But certainly it must be the duty of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition to point out certain weaknesses they think they have discovered in governmental administration. That is what we do when we rise in our places and bring certain matters to the attention of the government.
The minister went on to say that it was a great accomplishment for the national registration of a few years ago to be able to register several millions of people in just a few days. I do not consider that such a great accomplishment, so far as the administration is concerned. An order went out that a national registration was to be taken. We were under the stress, strain and duress of war. Of course all came out and registered. Surely there is no great accomplishment about that. We might as well say it is a great accomplishment when the whole nation goes home to lunch when the twelve o'clock whistle blows. One is almost equal to the other.
We want to know what purpose the national registration served, and what the results of it were in the years since it was taken. In fact, I wonder if it is not time we were having another national registration, to find out

exactly where we are in respect of our manpower situation. I am not going to advocate that, but I am certain that the last national registration did not fulfil the purpose the Canadian people expected it would fulfil.
We are not disputing the fact that the people of Canada have done a great job. But some of us feel that a certain portion of our people are not keeping step with those who are doing a great job. I say that after referring to some figures brought down in the house some days ago, figures which the editors of the Ottawa Journal have taken time to consider, and which they have made the basis of an editorial entitled "Five Hundred Thousand Missing Men." The figures look perfectly correct, so far as I can see. It is pointed out that notices have been sent out to 988,475 men and that out of that number only 608,642 reported for examination, leaving 379,833 unaccounted for.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That was explained, though.


Ernest George Hansell: Perhaps it was; I do not know.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The minister did so last night.


Ernest George Hansell: Perhaps it is another case of juggling around with figures. The fact remains that-


Humphrey Mitchell: Does the hon. member insinuate that the minister has juggled figures, or that the juggling was done by the newspaper editorial writer?


Ernest George Hansell: Either one or the other. This afternoon the Minister of Agriculture said he was getting sick and tired of listening to figures this way and figures that way. Then he attempted to give some figures. The figures I have before me were compiled by the Ottawa Journal. They were brought down by the minister, and reference is made to them in this newspaper.


Humphrey Mitchell: I am not responsible for what the editor of the Ottawa Journal did with figures brought down in the house. I have not yet reached the stage where I try to mislead the house; and I do not juggle figures.


Ernest George Hansell: I am not accusing the minister of juggling figures. The minister's figures may be correct; I do not know. I know when one person talks figures and another person talks figures the old adage may be true that figures do not lie, but liars figure. I am not accusing anyone. I make the simple statement that I have some figures before me. And regardless of whether the figures in the Journal are 100 per cent accurate, the fact remains that they cannot be depreciated to any great extent, no matter how we

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work it out. I am only saying that there seems to be a tremendous portion of our people who are not keeping in step or in line with others who are doing a job. Perhaps I had better not go on reading the figures contained in this article, since it is not very palatable to the minister.


Humphrey Mitchell: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, there is nothing my hon. friend could say that would be unpalatable to me. I tried to be fair with the committee yesterday; I gave what I thought was a clear exposition of the man-power situation as far as the armed forces are concerned, from the best available sources, which are the official government sources. I know it is the easiest thing to do what my hon. friend is attempting to do at the present time, but unless he can prove me wrong I think he should take my word for it and should accept the figures presented by me as Minister of Labour last evening.


Ernest George Hansell: I am not concerned with whether or not what I say is palatable to the minister; I simply said that the figures in the Journal evidently were not to his liking, because he had to explain them last night. In any event they were his own figures. However, let that go by the board; I do not mind. I am going to state a grievance which I think is quite legitimate. I believe I am right in saying that a large proportion of the people of Canada, because they have not been given the proper direction, have been out of line and out of step with the rest of the people. I hold in my hand the June issue of "Canada at War," an informative little pamphlet issued by the wartime information board, which I like to read. In it I find something which of course is well known, that in April the minister was given power to order employers in specified industries to discontinue the employment of persons within certain age classes designated for military training, and so on.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What page and what
month?


Ernest George Hansell: At page 47 of the June issue. This is perfectly correct; I am not criticizing it at all. Men in these classes may not be employed except under special permit, and then a list of ten specified classifications is given; there is a second order which covers six more classifications. I do not know what is involved in these special permits or how they are obtained, but I notice that classification No. 8 includes waiter, taxi driver, elevator operator, hotel bell-boy and domestic servant. I am going to suggest that this regulation evidently has not been fully complied with, for in some of the best hotels in Canada they
still have male waiters. That might be all right; I do not know, but I suggest to the minister that it does not tend to the creation of the best possible morale or to a total war effort to see husky men waiting on tables at a supper dance, for instance. I was in the Royal York hotel the other day-perhaps I should not have mentioned the hotel, but I imagine it does not matter-and saw men wheeling carts on to the elevators, wheeling them off again and through the corridors because people wanted to have breakfast in bed.


Mr. GRANT:: Perhaps they had flat feet.


Ernest George Hansell: Surely, while that'sort of thing is permitted, it cannot be said that we have a total, all-out war effort. Surely these men could be better engaged in that war effort. I wish the minister would give some explanation with regard to this matter.
Referring again to these figures, I am not going to mention half a million men, but I wish to say that farther on in this little booklet it states that those affected by the new orders must register at the nearest employment and selective service office. It continues:
This ensures that those men who have been called for national service and are not acceptable to the army-
It may be said that the people I have mentioned were hot acceptable to the army.
-will be engaged in essential work, such as farming, lumbering, coal mining, fishing and munitions work.
Surely there is some place where these men can fit into the picture. I am sorry if I seem to have singled out these people, but I am citing these cases because I have seen them; there may be other hon. members who can give outstanding examples in other lines of work. I have nothing against the restaurant business or against waiters who are engaged at high-class hotels. The same condition exists in other industries, but I suggest that these instances are noticed by people who have sons or perhaps husbands in the front line of battle. Surely, if we are going to carry on a total war, every man should be put at some specific task within the structure of our war effort. I am not complaining about these regulations; I am complaining in regard to the effectiveness of their operation. It may be a good thing to have regulations such as are outlined in this little booklet. The regulations are good; from time to time certain industries which are nonessential should be set out; but setting them out on paper does not put the thing into practical operation, so that I am bringing up this matter now, and I think the minister should give some explanation in connection with it.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.

War Appropriation-Labour

After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Jean-François Pouliot: Mr. Chairman, I have only a few words to say in connection with the answers given this afternoon by the minister. Some time ago I asked for some information about the English expert who had been brought here, and he answered my question by referring to Mr. Greber who designed the_ plaza, Mr. Gunn being an Englishman and Mr. * Greber a Frenchman. That is not the point at all, and to say that Mr. Greber is a Frenchman is no answer. We may bring in an expert from outside the country who has had experience in the development and beautification of cities; but when it comes to trade and national conditions, when it comes to choosing a man who must make suggestions or decisions on such matters, it is essential that we have someone who really knows the conditions that prevail. Conditions in England or the United States are different from what they are here. England is a small country with a large population; Canada is a large country with a small population, and the United States is a large country with a large population. How can a man from outside the country decide that an industry should do this or do that, decide that laundries are not essential and so on?
There is good material here among our people who possess common sense without bringing in an expert from some other country. This was supposed to be kept secret. Some of the members of the press gallery called on the department and were told in secret that Mr. Gunn had come to make these adjustments. I think the minister should rely upon people who live here. I do not say that in a parochial sense; I say it because I believe that a man who has spent his life in Canada, who has been in touch with business and industry, would know more about this country than an outsider who might spend a few months here and then make suggestions which amount almost to decisions. It is no answer to quote what was done in an entirely different field. I am not prejudiced or biased. If a Frenchman with a Parisian accent had been called in instead of Mr. Gunn, I would have criticized that action just the same. What I am complaining about is that this man has been appointed over the heads of good Canadians who could have done this job much better.
I should like to congratulate the former leader of the opposition upon many of the things he said this afternoon, but there are two or three sentences to which I must take exception. This reminds me of Doctor

Edwards, the head of the Orangemen, who finally wrote me a letter in French. I nearly converted him. I do not contend that I have converted the former leader of the opposition, but he is making some progress. How long it will take, heaven knows. He stated one fact which deserves widest publicity. I took notes when he was speaking and I hope I can quote him correctly. He said that when the Prime Minister was endeavouring to get gentlemen from outside the pale of the Liberal party to enter his government after May, 1940, he approached various gentlemen who were adherents of the Conservative party and offered one of them this job of Minister of National War Services. Are we to have union government? Then the hon. member for York-Sunbury went on to say that to his everlasting credit the gentleman spurned the offer, because he was not going to do the dirty work of the administration. He went on to say that that is true, that that is a matter of history.
I never thought the Prime Minister had done that, although it was stated in the press. It is a surprise to me, and I hope the Prime Minister will make a statement when he has an opportunity to do so to-morrow. If we are to be the Liberal party we do not need anyone from the Conservative party as cabinet ministers. That is my humble view. I have been fighting against national government and union government ever since the last war, and I do not intend to change my views in consideration of anyone.
Then the hon. gentleman went on to ask: Is the ministry being maintained for the purpose of political expediency, to find a place for the present minister who was put into office for the ostensible purpose of converting his compatriots to the principle of conscription for military service overseas? I do not agree with the hon. member when he says that the Hon. Mr. Justice Thorson was a wash-out. That is not the language we would expect to hear from the lips of a gentleman of the legal experience and ability of the hon. member for York-Sunbury. We would not expect to hear him call the senior judge of the exchequer court a wash-out, comparing him to a shower. That is not worthy of the hon. member, and I am sure it was a slip of the tongue. What he said about the Minister of National War Services being appointed in order to convert the people of Quebec to the idea of conscription has been referred to by Miss Judith R. Robinson in the press, the Toronto News, and so far it has not been denied. If that is the case, then I think some questions that it would be proper to place on the order paper would be: WThat are the dates on and places at which

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Labour
the present Minister of National War Services has spoken and what are the subjects discussed, first, from the time he was appointed as deputy" minister of national war services until he was sworn in as minister; second, from the time he was sworn in as minister until his election as hon. member for Outremont and, third, from then on? It would be interesting to see what has been the programme of this perambulating Cicero in Quebec and outside.
The Minister of Agriculture, who is a very active man, has stated that he has travelled from coast to coast. I agree that on account of his position he must travel a great deal, but I am sure he did not stop off in the county of Temiscouata because he would have seen conditions entirely different from what he described. He stated that in round figures the loss of agriculture to the army was about twenty-five per cent. I know of cases where a key man on a farm was taken; no postponement was granted and he had to stay in the army. Even now when I ask the Minister of National Defence to release these men the answer is, no, most of the time. That is not right. The Minister of Agriculture said that we have in round figures a million men on the farm, a million men in the army, and a million men in our war industries.
Let me say to the Minister of Agriculture, who said that I was a bit unfair-I was not unfair, I was most generous-that at the start the regulations were made precisely to deceive the farmer, and it was the Minister of Agriculture, whose duty it is to keep men on the farm, who was made recruiting agent for the Department of National Defence, and he continued at that job even when he ceased to be Minister of National War Services, by making speeches like the one he made in London, Ontario, during the week-end. If there is a man who should work to keep the farmer on the farm, is it not the Minister of Agriculture? Is he not the last man to be the recruiting agent for the Department of National Defence? That is so in my humble view. The regulations, as I say, were made precisely to deceive the farmer. First, we had the one month's training; then, four months, and1 then indefinitely, although the men called up had no opportunity to make their own domestic arrangements accordingly. What I know very well is the fact that the regulations for the draft were all wrong. The minister for air, who has described agriculture as a seasonal occupation, should know something of the struggle we have had to have it recognized as an essential occupation, and we have not even yet succeeded in that. It is both seasonal and essential. Compare the conditions of the real 72537-2631
farmers who work hard from dawn to dusk with those of the gentlemen farmers of the prairies who work only three months in the year and then fill up their tractors with gasoline and empty them in the fall. That was a profound mistake, a mistake from which we * all suffer.
I regret the appointment of the famous chairman of the Quebec board, a man who had four of his judgments reversed at one term of the court of appeal. To have four judgments reversed in one term of King's bench must be a record-and] this was the man who was to decide cases of postponement without any appeal being allowed. Moreover, I will tell the Minister of Labour in houest-to-goodness fashion that even the registrar wrote me once, saying that the board could not reconsider its own rulings. I had to write to Ottawa to have the board told that if there was no appeal from its ruling the board had the right to reconsider its own rulings. That was the fight I had to make. If the minister wants more information about that, his colleague the Minister of National War Services, if he is honest about the matter, as I presume he will be, will inform him that I am telling the truth. I can show the minister my file if he still doubts. That is a fight we had to make for the protection of the farmer and for the protection of this country, and for the supplying of the foodstuffs that are necessary in this war. Once a man knows he has done an injustice, it is his duty to repair it. Ip-justices were done by the board, in larger number last year than this year, I admit, but nevertheless injustices were done just the same this year, with no redress for those concerned. There are farmers who will be unable to cultivate their farms this year, because their key man has gone to camp and it is impossible to have him brought back to the farm.
I have the statement of no less a man than the premier of the province of Quebec, who said that all farmers should have a postponement. I can show the minister many cases where that has not been done. Of course a gentleman who is head of a provincial government does not have the time to see everything that goes on and to consider each case as a member of parliament has a duty to do for the benefit of his constituents. I know very well a large number of cases in which the farmers did not get the satisfaction to which they were entitled. Moreover, I will tell the minister once more and for the last time that so long as he is not the boss-I mean the big boss-exercising the powers that he has to tell the Minister of National Defence to release
War Appropriation-Labour

this man and that man to go on the farm, the national service regulations will not work at all. I offer that suggestion to the minister in all honesty.
The regulations were arranged to get the farmers into a trap and keep them there. I have no objection to farmers enlisting volun- [DOT] tarily, but those who do not enlist voluntarily are not cowards; they are boys who could not leave the farm. It was impossible to let them leave the farm. If they did, it would be the same as padlocking the barn after the horse , was stolen. That is the way it went, and that is the way it is now.
The season now is very late; it is late at home in my county. The weather has been disastrous in some places and we do not know what the future will be. Last year we had a fine crop, it is true, but we cannot conclude that the same thing will happen this year. Is the crop of last year to be considered a standard crop for all time to come? It is impossible to reason in that way; it is all wrong. If God helped us last year, I hope He will help us again this year. I hope that Divine Providence will help the farmers and the population of this country generally this year as well as we were helped last year. But we must not count on probabilities. That is very dangerous. We must neglect nothing.
After the Minister of Agriculture had spoken as he did he asked: How can we, with a population of twelve millions, expect to feed China with a population of four hundred millions? That shows one thing, that the farmer must stay on the land and provide the food that is required for our own economy and for our . armed forces and those of the allied nations.
.The minister also said that we must thank the boys in the army that we are able to discuss matters freely in this House of Commons. When we compare the population of China or Great Britain or especially the United States with our own-and the United States has twelve times our population-we cannot expect, if we have the same number of men. in the army, to go on producing as we have been. We cannot do everything in the whole world. The policy of the government, especially the policy of the Liberal party must be rationalized. It must take into consideration many elements that are vital for success. That is why I insist upon this. I speak very earnestly to the minister. I want him to do a good job. While I have argued the case of the farmers with the associate director of national selective service here in Ottawa, I wish to pay tribute to him and his representative in Quebec City. I went to a great deal of trouble precisely to prevent the

agricultural industry from being destroyed through the activities of some over-zealous men who want to take the farmers into the army.
I hope, sir, that from now on, the Minister of Agriculture will look after his department and not intrude upon the war departments by speaking of matters which do not come under him. At the present time, strange as it seems, the Minister of Labour has more important functions than the Minister of Agriculture, because the former is the one who can tell the farmers what to do. He has the seniority of right and the seniority of duties over the Minister of Agriculture, and his colleague the Minister of Agriculture should understand this and should not take advantage of his position to serve as recruiting agent for any one of the war ministers. That is my humble view, and I give it with all sincerity and hoping to get results.
I trust that all hon. members who have been advocating the case of the farmer will stop saying, "We need more men in the army, and we want the farmer in the field." It cannot work. Conscription for overseas will never work, because then again some over-zealous bureaucrats will think they are obliged to satisfy all the requests that they receive from the national defence departments and will take from the farms men who are essential there, to put them in the army where they are not so essential. I will say more than that to the minister. Does he know that men who were defaulters and others who were deserters have been sentenced to eight, twelve and even fourteen months in the "clink?" What is the use of a farmer who reports to the army and is kept in the "clink?" He does not serve the army; he does not serve the farm, and he is a burden to the country, which has to pay for his maintenance. That man would be more useful on the farm than in the "clink." Some of these fellows say they must remain on their farms, and there are pitiful cases of men who, if they have not a legal excuse, have in equity a plausible explanation to give of what they have done. Besides that, according to the old saying, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. I ask the minister to think of that. He may turn down my suggestions; that is his right; but I tell him what I think of his present duties and I shall add that as a good Canadian I was insulted and my statements were deprecated simply because I was fighting for real national selective service a long time ago. I remember an hon. member from Toronto who told me I was a supporter of Hitler just because I

War Appropriation-Labour
was defending the farmer. It was not my hon. friend from Broadview; it was a member on his side; he threw insults at me because I was doing my duty as a good Canadian and because I wanted this country to survive, as it will do if the minister accepts suggestions which come from those who know the bad condition of the farmers in the country.


Mr. MAYBANK:: of criticism, that there is a good deal more I airness on the part of the public at large than X sometimes find among my own confreres in this chamber. It is because of the way in which people speak to me about the selective service problem, that I have, myself, been less inclined to anger sometimes when I have found something wrong.
After all, I do not think anyone will deny that the country generally has turned in a really good performance among the nations of the world over these war years; and, certainly, that could not have occurred if there had been quite such a man-power muddle as asserted by these various journals.
In the second place, I suggest that a person should be more restrained in criticism, because I have very deeply within me' the impression that there is hardly anyone in this chamber, and very few people connected with the government at all, who at some stage or another have not made requests that such and such a regulation be not enforced with respect to so-and-so. I have not yet spoken to anyone who did not admit that at some stage he had approached the department and had asked either that John Doe be not pushed somewhere, or that he should be put somewhere, or that some sort of favour should be given.
Every person seems to want a variation in the rules and regulations to fit a particular case in which he has some interest, and of course all that sort of thing adds to the difficulties of the work. I do not doubt that a very large number of us would be willing to plead guilty to having requested some sort of favour which, added to all the others which have been sought, makes for a greater difficulty in this department's work. I have even been informed-not by someone in the department-that the government's chief critic in Canada, the Globe and Mail of Toronto, has actually asked for some such favours.
Now may I lay before the minister some facts that have been presented to me by persons who are keenly interested in the problem of coal mining. There are a number of western mines that have their offices in the Winnipeg area, and whenever I am in touch with people connected with this business, they naturally speak of their difficulties. I have in my hand a memorandum on the matter, but I shall not read it in its entirety, for that is hardly necessary. The memorandum refers to a pretty fair sized mine in the Edmonton neighbourhood. I would not be interested in giving the facts about this mine if it were just a particular case, but it is by reason of the fact that I have been assured-[DOT]


Humphrey Mitchell: What is the date of the memorandum?


Ralph Maybank: It is dated a month or two back. I would not be making any remark about this at all, were it not for the fact that I have been assured, both by the person who gave it to me and by several others, that it is a typical case. Again, my reason for mentioning it is chiefly to lay before the ministry a suggestion which it contains and to make one other that has occurred to me.
The maker of the memorandum is telling me about a certain mine-I do not suppose one would call it a large mine-where there are fifty-seven miners and1 fifty-four nonminers. In the first place I would mention his statement relating to absenteeism over a two^week period. Over a two-week period we find that out of fifty-three miners there were sixteen who worked fourteen shifts; ten that missed one shift; seven that missed two; four that missed three; three that missed four; one that missed five; two that missed six; three that missed seven; three that missed eight; one that missed ten; two that missed eleven, and one that missed twelve.
Of course the question of absenteeism is not directly a matter of man-placement in the sense that it is dealt with in selective service, but there at any rate is a problem facing this particular industry, and the reason that most people give for absenteeism is one that would have to be dealt with, not so much by the Minister of Labour, as by the Minister of Finance and his faithful colleague, the man who collects the money for him, the Minister of National Revenue. At any rate most of the people who lose a number of shifts say that they are missing them because they do not actually get the money after they earn it. That is, it is an income tax problem. I do not know personally how true that is; but there would appear to be something in it. I find already about the country a certain amount of tax evasion is going on;, and in some places there is a refusal to earn income because taxes are so heavy. Undoubtedly, in spite of the esprit de corps in the country, that sort of thing is going on. But whether or not: that is the real explanation of the type of absenteeism mentioned here, I cannot say with certainty. It does seem to me, however, to play some part.
My informant recites a great many other difficulties in connection with mining operations, besides absenteeism, pointing out that in order to have fifty-three miners at work there have been employed, over the year, no less than 230 men; and that, at the end of the last winter season there was a straight personnel loss of thirty per cent. After detailing such difficulties, and giving the figures on absenteeism which I have mentioned, he

War Appropriation-Labour
makes some suggestions with a view to correcting the situation faced in his mine field. As I indicated a little while ago, he is one who admits quite freely that it is an extremely difficult thing to do. But he points out that a considerable number of miners are lost to his mine by reason of the fact that they are what might be termed farmer-miners. Sup posing that is true, that is, that they leave their mines and go to their farms, and supposing a considerable number of them do that sort of thing-and he states it to be so- I should like to ask the minister whether or not he has ever considered closing up that type of small industry. It is often a sort of1 combination of farm and mine. Many of these men have little mines of their own on their farms, and they dig a little coal and do a little mining. I do not suggest that there should be any ruthless closing up, by the appointment of some controller who would say, "Do not do this." I do not mean to suggest approaching this from a negative point of view. But I wonder if it has been considered that it might be worth while to buy out these small industries upon the condition that the men who are working these "coyote holes"-I believe that is what they are called-would go to work in one of the larger mines where, as the result of the proper division of labour and the general technological development in industry their hands could turn out more coal than is possible for them to turn out from the little mine. That is one suggestion I would ask the minister to consider.
Then, there is another suggestion-and 1 think we must come to adopt something like it. Persons who work at extremely uncon genial types of work have to be given some incentive. After all, in other sections of our economy we have recognized that sometimes we must provide an incentive to get a job done. We have had to encourage certain industrialists at times. And quite the right course was followed in that respect. For instance, we could not ask the ABC company to make such and such an investment, because if it did, it would be stuck with a useless plant at the end of the war. Therefore we gave them an incentive by way of accelerated depreciation, or something of that kind. In a variety of ways we have given incentives at times, in the Canadian economy.
I think, sir, we have to come down to the fact that such uncongenial work as coal mining must be specially stimulated by some incentive, if we are to have it done successfully. I know I have done many different kinds of hard work, dirty work, and uncongenial work
in my time. But I remember that even when I was shovelling gravel on railway grades I would sooner have been doing that work out in the open air than have been working in a coal mine; and my views in that respect are the same to-day as they were then. I think the man who mines the nation's coal has to be paid for it something over and above the ordinary rate that everybody else can get at other more congenial kinds of work.
I recognize the problems in this connection. If we start to open a hole in the ceiling we may get into all kinds of trouble. I realize that we must take account of that. And that thought leads me to offer this suggestion: Might it be possible to work out some kind of scheme whereby, instead of immediate additional payments, there could be a payment into a bank account, where the money would be blocked. We are well acquainted with the expression "blocked payments" in respect of banks. Why could we not have blocked payments of wages to men engaged in this sort of work? It might very well be that that would be extended into certain other lines besides mining, but I do, indeed, believe that it will be necessary to do something of the sort in order to have men in this country do certain kinds of work which are uncongenial, and yet are very necessary.
I go further than that and offer what ought to be considered a stronger reason, although unfortunately it is not usually so considered. That reason is that I think it is equitable. But one has to be a realist, and he must recognize the fact that merely advancing the argument of equity is insufficient. As a rule, simply to urge that such and such a thing ought to be done in justice and equity never gets one anywhere. I believe Shakespeare would have called it a "bootless" remark.
In any event, I think it is equitable in this particular case, and it will be absolutely necessary to find some kind of stimulant for getting these uncongenial, yet extremely necessary kinds of work done. Anything I have said, of course, has not been offered by way of criticism. I believe my manner in addressing the committee is sufficient evidence of that. It is not the fault of this government, nor is it the fault of the minister that we have absenteeism, and this difficulty in the mines. But we are going to have more of it, unless we find some way now, before the coal shortage, of dealing with it. The suggestions I have made may be helpful; I hope so. But if they be not adopted, then I do urge that some sort of stimulant policy, if I may so describe it, be adopted; because we cannot take chances on
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coldness inside houses, and inoperative boilers and machinery in industry. We cannot take chances on that kind of thing in Canada this year; and I am sure the minister and all those connected with him must agree with this last statement.


Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: I listened with a great deal of interest this afternoon to the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) as he expounded to us the present man-power policy of the now Progressive Conservative party. I had for some time tried to ascertain just what was the policy of that party, particularly since I had had ample opportunity of familiarizing myself with the man-power policy of that party in 1942. The erstwhile leader of that party, in his opening broadcast during the campaign in York South in 1942, clearly enunciated that policy, which concerned itself with little more than the conscription of man-power for overseas service. That was confirmed the following day in full-page advertisements in newspapers across this country, in which there appeared but one little phrase in one sentence in reference to the conscription of man-power, selective or otherwise, other than for overseas service. All through the early stages of that campaign that gentleman, who I presume was speaking for his party, emphasized the need for the conscription of man-power for overseas service. Only in the latter stages of the campaign did he concede that any other form of conscription might be necessary and then, by his own admission, only as a last gasp.


Gordon Graydon: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, the hon. gentleman is making a charge against the previous leader of the Conservative party. My recollection is quite clear on this matter. I believe the hon. member is now repeating a statement which gained some publicity at the time, to the effect that only in the last gasp would some policy with respect to the mobilization of wealth be adopted. I speak from recollection, but I believe that statement was denied by the then leader of the party, and now, in attempting to flog a dead horse, my hon. friend is not doing himself justice.


Mr. NOSE  WORTHY@: I fail to see any point of order, Mr. Chairman. An attempt was made to show that the statement was not in accordance with the facts; but if my recollection serves me well, as I think it does, no evidence was ever submitted to prove conclusively that the statement was not made.


Gordon Graydon: Did not Mr. Meighen himself deny it?
tMr. Maybank.]


Joseph William Noseworthy: On certain conditions.


Gordon Graydon: Of course he denied it.


Joseph William Noseworthy: Not outright.


Gordon Graydon: Why does the hon. member try to drag that in now?


Mr. NOSE  WORTHY@: The hon. member for York-Sunbury never misses an opportunity in this house to deliver a jibe at the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party, and I simply want to trace the twistings and turnings and improvisations of the Conservative party's man-power policy, as I have observed them.


Gordon Graydon: Well, stick to the facts, if you are going to do that.


Joseph William Noseworthy: My recollection of the debates that took place in this house last session, is that for the most part the members of the Conservative party who spoke on the question of man-power called for an all-out conscription of man-power for overseas service, and for little else. Only when they went to Winnipeg last summer did they erase the word "conscription" from their statement of policy; and I have not seen that word in their statement, nor have I heard them use the word, since that time. There has been criticism from the Conservative ranks of the government's farm policy, on the ground that the government was calling too many men from the farms. When the Minister of Munitions and Supply was before the committee he was criticized for allowing trained men in the aeroplane factories to be taken into the armed forces. To-day we heard a tirade against the government because they are not getting sufficient men into the army overseas.
I was interested in that exposition of the policy of the Conservative party. I think the hon. member for York-Sunbury made it amply clear this afternoon that, in his mind at least, the supreme effort, the greatest contribution Canada could make in this war, would be the creation of a large army overseas. He admitted, of course, that we were making a great contribution; he admitted that there were other calls upon Canada's man-power, but I think he made it quite clear that so far as he was concerned that was the outstanding contribution Canada could make. Last evening he attacked the attitude of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party toward the policy of sending an army overseas. I can certainly speak for myself, and I think I can speak for this group when I admit that we never at any time felt, as the hon. member for York-Sunbury apparently feels, that -this was the way in which Canada could make her greatest contribution to the war effort. It was

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and consistently has been, so far as I know, the policy of this party that Canada's man-power should be made available wherever it could be used to the best advantage in the cause for which we are fighting. Unlike a minority group in this country who still think of this war in terms of the war of 1914-18, who still think in terms of large armies, masses of infantry, as being the essential feature of our war effort, we felt that, on account of Canada's unique geographical position, on account of the extent of our natural resources, we were in a peculiar position to contribute to the war effort in fields other than that of the army. In view of the vastly greater armies that our allies can put into the field, we never felt that the size of Canada's army would be the vital, determining factor in the course of the war. We felt that Canada could make what would probably be a decisive contribution by supplying food to the armed forces, by utilizing to the full our industrial plants, and so on. We felt then, and I think time has shown that we were right, that on account of Canada's remoteness from the battlefield we were in a unique position to train young men for the air force, to provide our allies with ships and with men for the navy.
I am not suggesting for one moment that Canada should not have an army overseas.


Gordon Graydon: Your party said that before; that was your party's policy.


Joseph William Noseworthy: I am speaking now for myself. Since I became a member, the party has never at any time opposed the presence of a Canadian army overseas.


Gordon Graydon: The hon. member must be just a newcomer.


Joseph William Noseworthy: No one who knows the temper of the Canadian people; no one who has any knowledge of the Canadian people would for one moment believe that it would be possible for Great Britain and the empire to be engaged in a war and to keep Canadians out of the army.


Gordon Graydon: The hon. member's leader said that.


Joseph William Noseworthy: Our leader can defend himself on that point and give his own explanation. I am confident that no government in this country, whether it be Conservative, Liberal, Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, or any other, could possibly withstand the storm of public protest that would arise, should it be decided not to give Canadians an opportunity of serving in the army. Our point is that Canada's contribution will not of necessity be determined by the size
of our armed forces. The hon. member for York-Sunbury expressed concern as to whether or not we had sufficient recruits to reinforce the five divisions of the Canadian army that may be called to go overseas. I have grave doubts myself as to whether we have sufficient reinforcements for that army. But my contention is that it is not a question of whether we send one or two divisions more or less, that is likely to be the determining factor in winning the war; that will not be nearly as important as our contribution through our factories and especially our agricultural production.
I do not profess to have the knowledge possessed by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner); I do not profess to know the situation regarding agriculture across this country as well as he does, but I have travelled considerably in Ontario during the past six or eight months; I have talked to many farmers in this province, and I am satisfied that the policy now being followed by the government will not enable this province to maintain the production of farm products on the scale we have been producing in the past. I do not think anyone in this house doubts for one moment the importance of Canada's contribution to the food supplies of the allied nations during the war. It is important that we should maintain this food production during this war.
On June 3, I gave to this house numerous reports which had been made iby, the Ontario department of agriculture and by the dominion bureau of statistics, showing that present prospects are that there will be a decrease in Ontario's production of beef cattle, hogs, dairy products, sugar beets and other essential war foods. If we are to maintain this production which is one of Canada's principal contributions to the war effort, which in my opinion will be a vital and determining factor in victory and in the postwwar world, steps will have to be taken to see that no more experienced farmers are called from the farms of this country either into the army or into industry. Farms in this province have already been denuded of this help.
If our farmers are to be able to carry out the programme set for them by the Minister of Agriculture, I maintain that it becomes most essential that experienced men who are still on the farm be left there. I notice that an official of the selective service branch in Ottawa when speaking in Hamilton on May 24 made the statement that 60,000 additional farm workers would be needed to obtain the entire quantities of farm products required for the coming year without making any allowance for farmers who are likely to be
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called to the armed forces. Reliable authorities estimate that Canadian farms need at least 100,000 workers.


Humphrey Mitchell: Would my hon. friend give me the source of that figure?


Joseph William Noseworthy: The 60,000 figure was given by-


Humphrey Mitchell: I am talking about the other. Does my hon. friend know that we put 53,000 additional workers on the farms of Ontario last summer? I should like the source of the statement with regard to the 100,000 additional workers.


Joseph William Noseworthy: I have heard that from leaders of farm organizations.


Humphrey Mitchell: Who are they?


Joseph William Noseworthy: They stated that in their judgment there are needed on the farms of Canada at least 100,000 workers. The minister may have more definite information and may be able to assure us that that is not the situation.


Humphrey Mitchell: Could my hon. friend give me the name of any leader who said that?


Joseph William Noseworthy: I prefer not. Unless selective service can deliver at least 50,000 or 60,000 men to the farms of this country, other steps will have to be taken to provide this number of farm help. I suggest, as has been suggested by other members of this house, that if selective service is not able to deliver the required number of workers to the farms of Ontario, arrangements should be made to grant long leaves to experienced farmers who now make up a part of this army of 60,000 or 70,000 men which constitutes our home defence army. Some such plan is needed. Some definite steps are required in order to enable the farmers of this country to deliver the production they are being asked to deliver. If our agricultural workers are to make their contribution, not only must the problem of help be solved, but some way must be found to enable the farmer to pay his help wages which are to some extent commensurate with those which could be earned in other fields of industry. That, I suggest, will have to be done either by enabling the farmer to secure prices for his products which will enable him to compete with industry in securing help, or the government will have to do in the case of the farmer as it does for Imperial Oil and other oil companies in this country, namely, subsidize farm help just as it has subsidized gasoline and other industrial products.


Gordon Graydon: I have a few questions
to ask the minister with respect to national selective service, but first I would say to my

hon. friend who has just sat down that if it were not for the profound pity I have for him because of the line of argument he followed in his remarks, I would be disposed to take a few minutes to set him right. I think we owe it to this committee that we should at least be fair with respect to what has happened in the past. I was sorry, because I have had a high regard for the hon. member and still have although he has made a mistake, to raise the question as he did to-night, in order to reflect upon a very great Canadian who has been rendering service as he sees best in our national life. When my hon. friend talks of twistings and turnings of policies I think the committee will agree that his group must be regarded as speaking with the voice of experience in such matters, for I think no one could follow the devious course which has been followed by that group since the war began and before. But I do not wish to weary the committee at this stage of the debate by detailing the various shifts and changes that have been made by these hon. gentlemen. It would take too long, and I doubt whether it would be profitable to the committee or to the country as a whole, so that I will leave it at that.
It seems to me from the notes I took this afternoon of the speech made by the Minister of Agriculture that either he or the Minister of Labour must have his facts confused. I have not had an opportunity of perusing Hansard, but I think my notes are reasonably correct. I understood the Minister of Agriculture to say that when the second call was made last year, all those who had not registered in 1940, about 144.000, turned up and registered. I think the Minister of Agriculture must have had the issues somewhat confused in his own mind. I think it is only proper that I should attempt to put the record straight, and it is particularly for that reason that I rise now. Surely the Minister of Agriculture was incorrect when he spoke of 144,000 having turned up of those who had not registered in 1940, because in the Minister of Labour's own statement as reported at page 3946 of Hansard, these 144,973 men are described as follows:
This past winter we required all single men to report who had failed to receive or acknowledge their notices of medical examination, or to present themselves for medical examination. We announced an amnesty to those who complied as required 'by March 15. This resulted in 144,973 men re-registering.


Humphrey Mitchell: That is correct.


Gordon Graydon: I am glad to have the
minister's confirmation on that.

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Humphrey Mitchell: I think it was just a
slip of the tongue on the part of the Minister of Agriculture when he said it was a second call. I do not think it was deliberate. There have been a good many calls.


Gordon Graydon: I was not attempting to attribute anything deliberate on the part of the Minister of Agriculture. I simply wanted to get the record straight, because we have had so many figures on the man-power situation that we are inclined to view every fresh figure with a little suspicioo on account of the careless manner in which they are sometimes presented, and obviously the statements by the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Labour did not jibe.
I dealt with the general question of national selective service at some length in the remarks I made at the opening of this discussion, and I have no desire to traverse the same ground again. But there are some points on which I should like some further information. When Mr. Elliott Little resigned in November, 1942, there was a large exodus out of the department of men who had filled rather important positions under the then director of national service ; and having in mind that there was at that time a change of control in national selective service, it seems to me that we should have some explanation of this exodus, I will not call it a mass migration, but there was a migration of at least from sixteen to nineteen men who left the service, following Mr. Little's resignation. A number of these men had gained some prominence in newspaper reports from time to time. One was Dr. Couper, who resigned or was transferred under circumstances previously explained by the minister so that I shall not deal with that at the moment. But I wish to point out to the minister that in a return which was brought down to the house as sessional paper No. 400 on Wednesday, June 16, 1943, I find a copy of all letters, telegrams and other communications which passed between Goldwin Smith, who had been brought here from the United States as assistant to C. F. Needham, assistant director, civilian, national selective service, and the minister or the Department of Labour. The correspondence is rather interesting. I shall not go into it in great detail, but I cite this document as evidence on the point I am making as to the position in which national selective service finds itself. True, it is not always possible to gain a sufficient footing in a department to find out exactly what is going on. Therefore, I suppose, hon. members generally have to deal with the evidence as it is produced in cases such as this. I will read to
the committee what Mr. Goldwin Smith said in his letter of April 19, 1943, after a number of pleasant letters had passed between him and the deputy minister of labour. On April 19 he writes to Mr. MacNamara, the deputy minister, as follows:
Thank you for your kind letter of this afternoon. My resignation was the result-
May I point this out, that Mr. Goldwin Smith was an unusually intelligent employee, of high standing.


Humphrey Mitchell: Who said that? Did he say that?


Gordon Graydon: He did not say it.


Humphrey Mitchell: That he was a highly intelligent employee of the department?


Gordon Graydon: Well, is the minister
saying it?


Humphrey Mitchell: I have my own personal opinion.


Gordon Graydon: If the minister is not going to deny the statement I will let it stand at that. I notice the minister is rather hesitant, so that I imagine we will let it stand at that.


Humphrey Mitchell: I am taking the hon. gentleman's word for it.


Gordon Graydon: This man is very modest, but certainly, as his letter will show, he indicated in no uncertain terms what he thought national selective service was doing. He said:
My resignation was the result of a sober and increasing conviction that the work I do is of relatively minor value in the war effort.
Six weeks ago Mr. Caloren-
Who is apparently one of the senior officials of the department.
-persuaded me' to delay my departure. Since that time I have continued to be a rather ineffectual angel in the corridors, my duties undefined, my responsibilities unspecified. I do not earn my salary, even though I came to national selective service aware that my financial position would be far from strengthened. It is a situation in which I cannot be content.
These are matters which throw at least some light, I think, upon the position ope finds in connection with national selective service itself. I would point out that the correspondence shows clearly that the department itself did not view Mr. Goldwin Smith in any suspicious light, as the minister's rather hesitant remarks a few moments ago would seem to do. I should like the minister to give me information, though I do not ask him to do so at the moment, as to the number of these men who have resigned from the department or have been transferred since the resignation of
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Elliott Little in November, 1942. I wish the minister would be good enough at his leisure or at the earliest possible moment to table the corresponence dealing with the resignations of these sixteen or nineteen officials. I believe what I said before with respect to national selective service will be fairly well borne out by the evidence these documents will afford the committee.
One other matter I wish to deal with is the question of the enforcement of the regulations of national selective service. It is one thing to have regulations on paper, and another thing to have them enforced. Regulations without enforcement are not of much use. My information is that the chief enforcement officer, whose name I have forgotten for the moment, has left the department.


Humphrey Mitchell: Walsh?


Gordon Graydon: I think the name is Mr. Austin Wright.


Humphrey Mitchell: He is not with us any more.


Gordon Graydon: No; I know he is not. I should like to know whether or not he has been replaced, and why he left a position in national selective service. Also-and I suggest that the minister's parliamentary assistant or someone else make a note of these items, because I do not ask the minister to answer them all at the moment, as I want to get on with the business of the committee-I should like to know how many prosecutions have been launched with respect to enforcement of national service regulations.
There are one or two* other matters which, I think, are also important. So far as the local offices are concerned, I realize that what the minister said when he made his speech the other day, in reply to something I had said was quite true, that no one wants to direct unfair criticism against these local officials; criticisms based on the government's policy should be shouldered, not by them, but by the government. The minister clearly and quite properly pointed out to-day that these men and women who are attempting to do their jobs in the local offices of national selective service are doing so under obvious difficulties, through lack of training and experience. The minister in effect said, "What can you expect in six months?" But the point is that we should not at this time have amateurs in these posts. The time is long past since the question of national selective service was first broached by the government, and particularly by the Prime Minister. The main criticism that most people aver against national selective service as an institution is that it was much too slow in getting into operation. It was not, and is not

now capable of competently handling mass transfers from time to time, which it is so essential in the national interest that it should handle.
Someone, I am not sure whether it was the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister of Labour, made reference to-day to the question of special permits. I fancy he was referring to special permits with respect to agriculture. That opens up this particular subject: Once a special permit is given to a man who is leaving a farm for some other industry, what check has national selective service upon the return of that man to his original line of occupation? I will not say the minister is not frank about these things. He is, as far as his knowledge goes. But I should like him to tell the committee whether there is any possibility with the present national selective service machinery of any check as to whether these men ever return to their original occupations.
I understand, too, that there is a system of open permits, which are almost like blank cheques. When a man comes into a selective service office and is handed one of these blank permits, when and how are these permits checked off and records of them made? Once an open permit gets into the hands of an employee who is seeking a job, it then rests with the employer who finally hires him to send that open permit back to the selective service office where it belongs. But the check is, in my opinion, a very loose one, and one as to which I should like some explanation from the minister when he comes to make a reply to the various matters I have raised.
I should have liked to ask a number of other questions, but I do not wish to go into the subject in any further detail at the moment.


Humphrey Mitchell: I will try to be as brief as I can. I think I can now answer most of the questions my hon. friend has put to me.
With regard to the question of resignations, I am not concerned about an individual who probably should have been, if the terms of his letter have any basis in fact, a playwright rather than an executive. But hon. gentlemen will appreciate this, that when you get an organization of 7,000 people, a dozen resignations are not of any great consequence, particularly when you are in the process of building that organization. It is the easiest thing in the world to resign from a position when the job is difficult.


Mr. GOLDING:: Running out when the going is tough.

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Gordon Graydon: Did my hon. friend say something about running out? I do not know whether I heard him or not-he was whispering pretty loud-but I thought I heard him say something about running out. On that point, may I say that the sessional paper filed will show whether he ran out or not, because the deputy minister himself said:
We sincerely regret we are unable to assist you in this matter.
He is writing to the coal administrator.
However, Doctor Smith's background and recent experience particularly qualify him for the position which he will be assuming immediately with this department.


William Henry Golding: I hope the hon. member is satisfied now.


Humphrey Mitchell: I know the hon. member will agree with me that in my position as minister I cannot go into all the ramifications of the organization; but this might be truthfully said about the individual referred to, that he was offered a position of some responsibility and he did not stay with the ship. Let us be frank and honest about the matter. When my hon. friend speaks about experts in selective service, it may be said that prior to the outbreak of the war, or prior to a year ago, there were very few persons whom one might term experts in selective service. So far as the north American continent is concerned, the direction of human beings as free people is a virgin field. Let me say, however, frankly that notwithstanding all the criticism, I think our people have in a very large measure lived up to their responsibilities. I have been in countries where dictatorships have existed, where a man had to have a card with his finger-prints on it, his photograph and signature, and even under such conditions-I speak of course merely from observation, having had some experience in travelling in many countries-I believe that our people generally have done a better job than the people in the dictator countries. And they are doing just as good a job as the people in Great Britain.
My hon. friend speaks of permanence in the system we have for placing these various classes in industry and commerce within the compulsory orders. It is fundamental and axiomatic that you cannot overload the machine too soon. This machine has been taking care of the placement of nearly a million and a half people in the last year, and placements on a voluntary basis can be much more easily undertaken than when you have to give direction. I hope it will be said, I am sure it will be said when this war is over, that we have the same basis of voluntary movement as they have in Great
Britain in proportion to the number of people moved. As time goes on, I look for an increase in the tempo of these compulsory orders. I think that is inevitable under present circumstances.
Might I say in passing that last night when I said that we were getting to the bottom of the keg, I meant it in the sense that it affects the age groups that we have already called up for military service, and my hon. friend will agree with me that when there has been the tremendous expansion which we have had in industry, where at the outbreak of the war we had to all intents and purposes no shipbuilding industry at all, whereas to-day we have over 100,000 people engaged in that activity, and in the production of aeroplanes, guns and all those necessities, it is inevitable that we shall have difficulties with labour supply. We shall have the same kind of difficulties they are experiencing in Great Britain and at the moment in the United States, as well as in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. But I am not afraid of our people; I am not afraid of production on the farm front. Given the right kind of weather, I think our farmers will produce as much as they did last year and probably more; but I wish to give this warning, that I shall not be held responsible for the weather by the opposition or by anyone on the government side.


Gordon Graydon: You have exonerated yourself on that score before.


Humphrey Mitchell: I want to make it clear. There are one or two spots that are very difficult and grave. I hope, in the course of the next two or three days, to have something to say about coal. Of all problems confronting my department, that is the most important and vital in Canada. One can cut down on the family table, but one has to keep warm; and as I said the other evening, when you reflect that this nation is not self-supporting in regard to coal but is on an import basis, the situation will be realized. This year we have to import, in addition to our own production, 23,000,000 tons of coal. That is a lot of coal. No one can predict what will be the condition in the coal industry in the United States, and I think we might very well assume that if they run into difficulties to the south of us the supply of this country will, in the very nature of things, have to suffer. That is why I would plead with everyone in this house, whether he be a trade unionist, a miner or an employer, having some influence on coal production in Canada, that he lend every effort to see that coal production is not only maintained but increased.
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Compulsory direction of men in the industry is not received with favour in some quarters; but I feel sure, that, taking the over-all view, the miners themselves, those having previous experience in the mines, will cooperate with this government and, may I add, with this parliament, because it may be said that there is a unanimous opinion in this parliament as to the gravity of the situation and as to the policies that have been put into effect by the government.


John Horne Blackmore: Has the government tried the device of increasing remuneration as a reward for men going back to the mines?


Humphrey Mitchell: That, of course, is not the duty of the government but of the national war labour board.


John Horne Blackmore: Are they doing it?


Humphrey Mitchell: I do not think this is the place, nor am I the person, in view of the establishment and the functioning of the war labour board, to express an opinion one way or the other.


John Horne Blackmore: I did not ask for an opinion; I asked for a statement of fact.


Humphrey Mitchell: I think both the men and the employees understand the situation well. And if either one side or the other feels that these increases are justified in the near future, they will make some representations to the national war labour board.


John Horne Blackmore: The trouble is they might take too long.


Ernest George Hansell: And freeze in the meantime.


Humphrey Mitchell: I do not think anything could be easier to say than what my hon. friend has said. That is the easiest thing in the world to say. I say to my hon. friend I do not think this government can be criticized with respect to the steps it took last winter in connection with the coal industry in Canada. There was no lack of decision on the part of the government.
I did not intend to speak at length, but in passing I wished to bring this coal question to the attention of the committee. As I say,
I expect to make a statement in the course of the next two or three days on the subject.
I believe I have answered nearly all the questions asked.


Gordon Graydon: Perhaps the minister might answer the question with respect to the number of men in the department who have resigned.


Humphrey Mitchell: Seventeen out of seven thousand.


Gordon Graydon: Would the minister give the names of those persons? If he has not them now, he may put them on Hansard.


Humphrey Mitchell: Does the hon. member wish to have them on Hansard?


Gordon Graydon: I should like to have them on record.


Humphrey Mitchell: I shall be glad to do that, then.
Another question had to do with those returned to agriculture, who were engaged in industry in the off seasons. I believe the committee will agree that it would be a waste of man-power if we did not move people off the farms during the winter months. In my statement the other evening I put on record the number of men going from agriculture into industry, lumbering, base metals and mining. Those permits expired on a certain date. An employer cannot hold them after that date. I am frank to admit that there were one or two who got under the barrier, but that is inevitable in handling tens of thousands of men. In a big and general way, however, while we gave some extensions this spring on account of the lateness of the season, we are confident that all the men who were given permits last winter at the conclusion of the farming season have returned to agriculture. What we have endeavoured to do is to intensify that swing between agriculture on the one hand and primary industries on the other.
Then, there is another point. We permit farmers to leave agriculture for sixty days without permits. As my hon. friends know, that is done more particularly in western Canada. In that part of the dominion there is a great deal of work between seeding and harvesting which is generally undertaken by farmers. I refer to work on the railways and roadbuilding generally. That is the reason why that regulation was incorporated in the selective service regulations, and we find it has worked fairly well.
Then, in respect of open permits, a man is given the open permit and finds a job. Once he has located that job he must report to the selective service office. He then obtains the ordinary permit given to people who go to work. The check is that he has to pick up his insurance book. So that it is comparatively easy to control the issuance of these permits, because a man must pick up his insurance book as soon as he starts to work.


John Horne Blackmore: All through the consideration of the war appropriation measure I have refrained from speaking to any great extent. I have felt that the war appropriation was money parliament was granting so

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that the government might go on with the war. My judgment is that we should have granted the money to the government, so that it could go on with the war, without so much talk about it. There will be plenty of opportunity for every hon. member to say all he wishes to say when the departmental estimates are before the committee. That is my own opinion in the matter.
Therefore I have said very little up to the present time, all through these weary weeks of talking and talking with respect to the war appropriation bill. The government has to have the money. It is essential to the prosecution of the war, so why not give it to them, and go on with other matters?
Perhaps, however, I should on this occasion make one or two observations. I believe the minister is struggling with a very difficult task, and so far as I can judge, and with my limited knowledge of the details of his difficulties, he is doing as well as a man could be expected to do under the circumstances.
Although he has endeavoured to clarify the whole situation with respect to selective service, I find that throughout the rank and file of the people everywhere there exists boundless confusion concerning regulations with respect to selective service. The average farmer is just bewildered by reason of the statements which are made. I believe the time has come-and very likely the minister fully agrees with me-for a frank, honest, open, clear and detailed statement of the whole selective service situation. When the Prime Minister on March 23, 1942, I believe it was, issued a statement to the effect that farmers were not to be taken off the land, people on the farms took it for granted he meant what he said. It never dawned on them that back behind the curtains there had been issued an order to the effect that probably a given number of thousands had to be taken out of a given province, whether they came off the farms, or whether they did not. I say any action of that kind was not playing fair with the people. It is just a cheap, base kind of trickery or treachery or double dealing. The ordinary man on the street, where I have been, feels just that way about those regulations as a whole. The minister is not to blame for them, but clarification would certainly be the remedy.
I received a letter from a farmer in my constituency, a very well-educated farmer, and one who showed good reasoning powers. He said, "When the statement was made that the boys were not going to be taken off the farms I assumed my boy was not going to be taken off my farm, and I invested in so
many cattle, so many hogs and some other types of stock. I opened up on a rather extensive scale on my farming activities for 1943. And now, behold, right out of the blue, my boy is taken away; and all the efforts I can put forth will not prevent it. So, if the government is intending to take boys like that, surely a man has a right to be told about it." It is the mere fact that this man was not told which makes the situation so unfair as to constitute a betrayal.
We are giving consideration to industry along these lines. When men put money into industry the government has taken commendable care to try to help them avoid losing their money. Those men are given safeguards and guarantees, and that is the only way to build up the confidence of men who have money to invest. The same applies to farmers. If a farmer is to spend money on the purchase of good cows and good stock of various kinds, he must invest what for him is a large sum of money, and surely he is entitled to protection. This is just one way in which protection has not been given to him. I say it constitutes rather cheap double dealing, and I suggest at the earliest possible date the minister should clarify the whole situation, so that everybody will understand. That is one example.
We have heard a good deal in regard to a man being essential to agriculture. What is the meaning of that phrase, " essential to agriculture"? I do not believe any man can define what it means to be essential to agriculture. The board is left to form its own interpretation of the meaning of those words. A man who is running a farm may think his boy is essential to agriculture. The boy may think so; they may establish it to their own complete satisfaction and the satisfaction of the people around them; yet the board may not feel that this boy is essential to agriculture. That is just one example, one illustration of why clarification is necessary.
Let me give another illustration, and I have had cases of this kind brought to my attention. Supposing a man depends upon his son, nineteen or twenty years old, to run the tractor on the farm. That man simply cannot operate the tractor himself and cannot employ anyone else to operate it. A tractor is an expensive piece of machinery; it cannot be trusted to anyone who is irresponsible. Suppose that boy, after all the tractor work is done and the other hard work is finished in the fall, accepts a job teaching school, as a result of the persuasion of the school inspector, because of the very great shortage of school teachers that exists in many districts. He teaches for a few months

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in the winter, when there is very little work to be done on the farm; then a policeman comes round and1 investigates the case and says, " This boy taught school for several months during the year; he is not essential to agriculture." Is that not enough to show the need for clarification? If a boy is essential to agriculture, certainly some sort of score card should be made out under which the boy would be able to qualify, and if he can forfeit his eligibility there should be terms laid down under which that might occur.
I think I need not say more; I have just laid down in a general way the need for clarification. I believe the same need exists in connection with labouring men throughout the country, but I shall have more to say about this later on. I want the minister to understand that I do not intend to indulge in any carping criticism of a man who is working under very great difficulties; I am merely offering these as suggestions.	.
Before I take my seat, however, I will say that in my judgment there is somebody behind the scenes over whom the minister has no control whatever, who is laying down a policy which is not what the minister feels it should be. I believe the minister is called upon to put into operation a policy which someone else is drawing up, which causes him great difficulty in carrying out his task. I want him to know that I appreciate that this sort of thing really exists, and I believe before we get done with this part of our work this year, we should find out who it is behind the minister or over in some other department who is having so much to do with the policy which so vitally affects the work of the minister.


Mr. CASTLEDEN:: Would the minister answer the questions I asked?


Humphrey Mitchell: I have the figures for which my hon. friend asked if he would like them now.


George Hugh Castleden: While the minister is giving those figures, would he also give us a short break-down of this amount of 88,680,225 which has been passed under this item?


Humphrey Mitchell: Would my hon. friend like a copy of it? It is quite extensive.


George Hugh Castleden: If it goes on the record it will be all right.


Humphrey Mitchell: Then, with the permission of the committee, I would put it on the record.


George Hugh Castleden: That will be satisfactory.


The CHAIRMAN:: By leave of the committee.


Humphrey Mitchell: The break-down is as
follows:
National selective service programme	 $8,680,225
Labour supply
Salaries	 $ 342,375
Cost-of-living bonus	 21,000
Advertising	 150,000
Printing and stationery	 40,000
Communication services	 10,500
Travelling expenses and living
allowances	 50,000
Sundries	  7,500

Mobilization
Salaries	 $ 861,500
Fees and allowances	 90,000
Cost-of-living bonus	 112,000
Unemployment insurance	 15,000
Travelling expenses	 40,000
Printing and stationery	 175,000
Transportation of recruits		215,000
Meals-recruits	 30,000
Lodging-recruits	 7,000
Medical examinations	 720,000
Miscellaneous	 47,500

Unemployment insurance commission
To meet expenses in connection with national selective service work performed by the unemployment insurance commission $5,375,150
Man-power records and national
registration
Salaries	 $ 293,860
Cost-of-living bonus	 48,140
Printing and stationery, equipment and supplies	 20,000
Travelling expenses	 500
Communication services	 100
Cartage, freight, express	 1,500
Machine rentals	 6,500
Miscellaneous	 100

Then the figures for which my hon. friend asked last night are as follows: In the period from March 12, 1942, to May 21, 1943, there were 17,208 requests for postponements of agricultural workers in Saskatchewan. Of these, 12.380, or 71-9 per cent, were granted, and 4,828, or 28-1 per cent, were rejected.


George Hugh Castleden: Is there a shortage of farm labour in Saskatchewan at the present time?


Humphrey Mitchell: No, according to the information I am given.


George Hugh Castleden: There is no shortage?


Humphrey Mitchell: No general shortage.

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George Hugh Castleden: At a recent dairy convention held in the city of Saskatoon an attempt was made to find a solution of what they termed the increasingly difficult labour situation on the dairy farms of Saskatchewan, and the delegates passed a resolution in regard to that matter. I noticed that at the same time the department was expected to move 1,000 workers from Saskatchewan to Ontario for some seasonal employment on Ontario farms, and I wondered what the situation was, because my information was that a serious farm labour shortage existed in Saskatchewan. The other question I wanted to ask was whether schoolteachers as such are granted exemptions if they ask for them?


Humphrey Mitchell: No. Perhaps I might answer my hon. friend's other question, with regard to a labour shortage. I said there was no general shortage. Of course it is quite possible that there may be a shortage of labour on the dairy farms; I think that is pretty general throughout Canada, but when I said there was no general shortage I had regard to the whole picture, not to any special branch of the industry.


George Hugh Castleden: I had a case brought to my attention, of a man who was granted postponement on condition that he would move from his farm to another farm. He has been told to report to the employment office at Yorkton, which means that he must travel a distance of 130 miles. Is anything done in regard to that man's transportation, or does he have to go there as ordered at his own expense ?


Humphrey Mitchell: We pay the cost of transportation from the employment office to the job.


George Hugh Castleden: This man has to go from his home, which is at Hudson Bay Junction, to Yorkton to report, a matter of about 130 miles.


Humphrey Mitchell: He can report to the office by mail, of course.


George Hugh Castleden: If he takes a job in the vicinity of Yorkton, does he have to pay his own fare to that job?


Humphrey Mitchell: This particular kind of transfer is new to me, but under the circumstances I should say that we would pay that man's transportation.


George Hugh Castleden: I trust that will be so.
There is one other field about which I should like to inquire, namely, the men who are in our prisons. In the United States men of this kind are being employed in munitions works and they have done remarkably well.
In addition, I think there are certain types of men in our prisons at the present time who might be used to good advantage in the army. Of course there are some types who could not be so used, but I advocate that research be carried on in order to see what supply of men might be available there. With regard to the matter of teachers, I should think throughout the whole dominion there must be a shortage. I notice that in one issue of the Western Producer there are advertisements for 200 teachers. That situation will have a serious effect upon this country. People in the fields of social service and teaching are rendering particularly valuable service. I believe we could learn something in this connection from the old country, and I hope the adviser the minister has secured from Britain will give him some pointers in these matters. The vital need for the social work of these people in war time is not yet recognized in this country.


Ernest George Hansell: I do not want to hold up the item at all, but we are asked to vote to his majesty over two and a half billion dollars, and in view of that huge amount of money I think hon. members have a perfect right to air their grievances here. The minister has ventured to mention the great problem of coal and the national emergency which exists at the present time, and I was glad to hear him say that he will soon make a comprehensive announcement in this connection. He made a little pass at me when I said we might freeze in the meantime, by saying that, of course, that was an easy thing to say.


Humphrey Mitchell: My hon. friend will not freeze at this time of the year.


Ernest George Hansell: We may not freeze at this time of the year, but it takes a long time to get coal out of the ground or to increase production when the machinery is wearing out. I am not going to argue that point. Twice in the last few days the minister has made a rather significant statement, something we have all known for years. He said that Canada is not on a self-sustaining basis as far as the production of coal is concerned; in other words, she cannot produce enough for her own needs. The strange thing is that within Canada is to be found fourteen per cent of the world's coal deposits. I am not laying any blame at the door of the minister, but I should like him to answer a question, although I really do not expect an answer. Why is it when we have fourteen per cent of the world's coal deposits we do not produce enough coal for our own needs? I know it will be said that we have not the best grade of anthracite coal in Canada, but we have good coal that
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will burn and that will keep our industries going. With fourteen per cent of the world's coal deposits we were not able to keep our small population of twelve million people warm last winter and our industries are liable to break down this winter. I will tell the minister why we are not on a self-sustaining basis, and this is easy to say. It is because over the years we have had too much old-line party stupidity administering the affairs of this country. That is easy to say because it is true.


James Arthur Ross: Did I understand the minister to say that schoolteachers are not being granted postponements?


Humphrey Mitchell: They are in the same category as persons in industry. They would have to prove their cases before postponements would be granted. Of course the boards have been giving special consideration, but schoolteachers must make out a case for postponement before it is granted.


James Arthur Ross: There is a distinct shortage of teachers in the province from which I come, and I think the mobilization boards are seriously considering the matter.


Humphrey Mitchell: That is the reason why the order was issued the other day under my direction. In view of the representations which had been made by the various ministers of education, it was decided to move all teachers through selective service under direction. I do not think my hon. friend would want to go so far as to take them outside the realm of the call-up machinery.


James Arthur Ross: This afternoon the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) was trying to straighten out the hon. member for York^Sunbury (Mr. Hanson). The hon. member for York-Sunbury does not need anyone to speak for him. I understood the hon. member for Cape Breton South to state that while they were only a small group, seventy-five per cent of their members were ex-service men. I have been looking over the records of the C.C.E. members, and I find that there are three members out of nine who are ex-service men. That is not seventy-live per cent of their membership. I do not know that any one group in this house has any particular claim on having ex-service men in its membership, and certainly no group should endeavour to capitalize on our armed services. I am surprised that a group with so many schoolteachers and ministers of the gospel in its membership should not have made a greater attempt to get their facts straight.


George Hugh Castleden: The hon. member for Cape Breton South-he is not in his place at the moment-told me that he did not intend to say seventy-five per cent.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: What was he talking about then?


George Hugh Castleden: That is his concern and he will tell you that to-morrow. I think it will be found that the matter will be corrected, either in Hansard or by a statement by the hon. member.


Grote Stirling: He said it in the hearing of all of us, and he cannot alter what is in Hansard.


George Hugh Castleden: I said he would make a statement on it.


Mr. SHAW:: I should like the minister to give us a break-down of the 104,743 persons who were granted permits to leave the farm in order to engage in other types of work during the past winter. When I referred to this matter some time ago the minister endeavoured to ridicule a statement I made that no individual who had spent such a short period of time in industry could become essential to that- industry.


Paul Joseph James Martin: To what item is the hon.
gentleman referring?


Frederick Davis Shaw: I am referring to the farmers and farm workers to whom permits were granted last winter in order to engage in work other than farming. On June 23, this year, the minister stated that a total of 104,743 persons had been, granted permits, but only 23,960 had been cancelled. Later on in his remarks he asserted that in certain instances these individuals had not been obliged to return to agricultural industry because they had become essential in the work in which they had been engaged during the winter time. To-day the minister said that one or two permits had not been cancelled. In checking over the statements which have been made during the last four months, I find that there is little conformity between them.


Humphrey Mitchell: It has been raining for a long time and my hon. friend will appreciate that that would tend to make the season late. Then it is no use in cancelling permits unless conditions are right for these men to go back on the farm.


Frederick Davis Shaw: They were granted permits for winter work.


Humphrey Mitchell: I appreciate that, but what is the use in having a farmer or a farm labourer-I hope I shall not be criticized for using this language-lying around a farm

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until the weather clears up? If the spring had been earlier, these permits would have been cancelled earlier, and the reason for extending the life of the permits is the lateness of the spring.


Frederick Davis Shaw: I am not raising any objection to certain, permits not having been cancelled, I was simply trying to get a complete picture of the situation as it stands to-day. Otherwise we are utterly and hopelessly confounded with respect to the whole question.


Humphrey Mitchell: These men are spread over the nine provinces, some of them being in very remote parts. It would be impossible for me to make a statement until the weather clears up, so that these men may go back to agriculture. Even then it will take some time to check up with the 216 offices across Canada from which permits have been issued. I shall be glad to do that at the earliest opportunity if it is at all possible.


Frederick Davis Shaw: That is perfectly satisfactory. Some of the statements that have been made have led me to believe that the matter was to be dropped at that point.
I should like to refer to those who have been prosecuted for not having reported for military service or alternate work service. I do not know where the cut-off comes between the Department of Labour and the Department of National War Services, so that what I am about to say may not be relevant to the work of the minister. We have discussed from time to time and more particularly to-day what has been characterized as the army of lost persons, those thousands and thousands who for one reason or another have not reported. I find upon checking available statistics that this condition is more prevalent in certain administrative divisions than in others, and I checked back to ascertain the reasons. During the course of my investigations I examined the records with respect to those who have been apprehended and prosecuted for failure to report for military service or alternate work service, and I am utterly appalled when I consider what has taken place in the various divisions with respect to these prosecutions. The absolute leniency shown in some divisions -for example, a one dollar fine-leads me to the conclusion that it is no wonder the individual does not care what may happen to him if he fails to report.
Then I go to another division and find that an individual-and it is quite common in this division-is given a gaol sentence of twelve months and a fine of $200. I will take two more divisions without referring to them by letter or number. In one of these divisions
there were twenty-one prosecutions; nine persons were given a gaol sentence as well as being fined; ten were sent to gaol without the option of a fine, one was given the option of a fine or a gaol sentence, and one was sentenced to report for training. The average gaol sentence in that division was five and one-quarter months, and the average fine imposed was $110.
In another division there were fourteen prosecutions, but only three gaol sentences. In only one case was the accused both gaoled and fined. There were two gaol sentences and nine cases where there was a choice of a fine or gaol. The average gaol sentence in that division was 2-11 months. The average fine was slightly over $41.
What I am trying to get at is this. I realize that there must be a minimum and a maximum fine, and no doubt there are regulations covering that. But why throughout one whole division is such leniency shown? For example, out of forty prosecutions in one division, only two persons were given a gaol sentence and fined, while in another division they were given a gaol sentence of from six months to a year and a fine of $100 to $200 was imposed, with no option; they were both gaoled and fined.
I think it is high time that the minister or whoever is responsible should take into consideration a record such as is presented here, which I understand is up to date as of September last, and see if some equality of sentence cannot be meted out because, if an individual in a certain division knows he is to be fined only $5 or sent to gaol for ten days, he will not worry a great deal. But the fellow who knows he will be gaoled for twelve months and fined $200 is in a very different position. We talk of equality of sacrifice, but I say that there is absolutely no equality of penalty in dealing with these various cases. I shall not elaborate, but I believe this matter should be given immediate consideration.
Just one other suggestion. I have often wondered why the government did not pass a regulation providing that, where an individual fails to report for military service or alternate work service, he be turned over to the military police and treated as though he had been A.W.O.L. I think that is the cure for this situation, and it would avoid all the difficulties that arise as the result of a prosecution. I hope the minister will give this suggestion his consideration.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Removal of enemy aliens including Japanese nationals and other persons of the Japanese race from protected areas in British Columbia, $3,000,000.
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Thomas Reid: Mr. Chairman, I want to
approach the problem of the Japanese in Canada without rancour or being accused of approaching it from a racial hatred point of view. There was a time when the problem of the Japanese in this country was entirely a British Columbia problem, but to-day the problem has become one for Canada because, since the entry of the Japanese into the war, the Japanese in British Columbia have been moved from the Pacific coast and located in certain parts of the interior and in various other provinces.
There are at the moment two schools of thought in this country on this problem. I shall not take time to go into all the aspects of the various views, but there is one school of thought which believes that the Japanese should be removed entirely from Canada and sent back to the country whence they came or to which they owe allegiance. There is another school of thought which believes that treatment like that should not be meted out to them and that those who advocate it are animated by hatred of the Japanese.
My own views regarding the Japanese and the Japanese problem have been well known. They have been expounded both publicly and privately for years before I came into the House of Commons and since. Many hon. members will remember the warnings which I and others gave the government and the country in earlier days between 1930 and 1939, and which passed unheeded but were later found to be well founded.
There are also divided views on this problem in some churches of Canada. Some churches have taken the attitude that the Japanese should remain, especially those born here, while other churches take the attitude that so long as the Japanese owe allegiance to Japan they should be returned to Japan. I mention this particularly because certain proJapanese writers in this country have written articles on this problem, and some have gone farther and written books on the subject. I want for a moment to take exception to some of these writings.
One article on this problem appeared recently in the Montreal Standard, written by Mr. Allen Roy Evans. I want to take exception to the remarks he makes about those who hold the view that an unassimilable race like the Japanese should not be treated as truly Canadian. I have stated, and I do so again, that the Japanees are an unassimilable race in Canada, and I have never yet heard anyone expound the contraiy view. Any race that lives unto itself and is of Mongol blood will remain in Canada Mongol, separate

and apart from the Canadian, and distinctly so. British Columbia is not alone in its attitude to this problem. I know the people of California are also determined that the Japanese will not return to that state. An editorial which appeared in the Vancouver Sun of May 28 sets out the matter clearly. It states:
California, like British Columbia, does not want to take back the Japanese after the war. The Japanese realize this so clearly that many thousands of the former residents of California and other coast states are asking that they he repatriated to their ancestral homes in the Orient at the conclusion of hostilities.
These interesting facts have emerged from a survey of Tukelake Japanese relocation centre, a depot on the border of Nevada which now houses 14,000 Japs. More than 6,000 of these people have asked to be repatriated. They include several thousand born in the United States but who went back to Japan for schooling and military training (just as many did from B.C.).
In dealing with this subject, I wish to make some suggestions to the minister, and through him to the government, on this problem, which must be faced and which will not be downed by mere glossing statements by any minister of the government.
As pointed out, the people generally of British Columbia are determined to see this thing through along the lines on which they believe it should be carried out. It is most unfortunate that the views of the people of British Columbia were not heeded many years ago. Perhaps, now that it has become a Canadian problem, something will really be done. I am not so very sanguine, however, especially when one looks over the records of past federal governments, that the Japanese will be returned to Japan following the conclusion of hostilities, but if not, I believe that the suggestions which I am about to outline should be given serious consideration and acted upon.
Canada has granted the Japanese citizenship because they were born here. This is perfectly satisfactory to Japan, as long as their allegiance to Japan is paramount or comes first. Japan maintains that all these people are subject to the Sun Emperor by virtue of their Japanese blood and by their religion. From the earliest days Japan looked toward a programme of Pacific conquest. Japanese were actually exported from Japan to Pacific coast countries as far as Hawaii. The Japanese government initiated, financed, directed and controlled concentrated Japanese enterprises. These were able to successfully exert pressure upon local governments and even upon the federal government. We must, however, give thoughtful attention to endeavouring to solve

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the problem without persecution. To revoke Canadian citizenship of Japanese who were born here is probably unthinkable to many and, perhaps, too drastic a step. We should, however, require them to prove themselves worthy of Canadian citizenship.
The first step in any sound and permanent solution of the problem must be taken by the Japanese themselves. That is a very important point, and one lost sight of by pro-Japanese writers and others who have written articles and books on this subject, because they nearly always place the blame on the white Canadians who urge that something further should be done. But, I repeat, the first step to any sound and permanent solution of the problem must be taken by the Japanese themselves. They must cut themselves completely aloof from the control and authority of Japan and its emperor. If the Canadian government is not) prepared to send them back to Japan, it should) and must be prepared to protect loyal Canadian Japanese in their renunciation of dual citizenship and alien control. Despite the inquiry which was held under Judge Cameron, it is my belief that the Japanese who are loyal to this country or who would like to be loyal Canadians live under the threat of fascistic elements controlled and dictated by Tokyo. Let me in substantiation of this show what happened in Los Angeles a short time ago:
Eight hooded Japanese beat members of their own race before a tumultuous five-day strike began at camp No. 1 of the Poston, Ariz., relocation centre last November, says Norris Edward James, former head of the camp's receiving centre for evacuees. The Japanese who were beaten had been aiding the camp administration . . . the former camp executive said that beginning then "a definite attempt was made to destroy the Americanism of the American-born Japanese" in the relocation centre with its population of 10,000.
It is tree that a writer in the Standard says that no acts of sabotage have been committed by Japanese. Very true, but perhaps the time is not ripe. When he says that all Japanese are loyal, let me tell the committee this. When the Swiss consul, or one acting on behalf of the Swiss government, visited the camp at Hastings park on behalf of the Japanese government to find out how Canada was treating the Japanese interned in that camp, there was one Jap in that camp who was determined to interview the consul. On being refused, he told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in charge, "I am making no bones about being a Japanese citizen. I was sent here from Japan five years ago. I am a Jap and will always be a Japanese citizen."
It is assumed that he wanted to send some special message back to Japan, but was prevented.
Second, Mr. Chairman, we must expose and tear out the whole web of Japanese influence, propaganda and intrigue and prevent, if possible, tight, deliverable blocks of votes which can always be used to pander to certain politicians.
Third, we must make it impossible for Tokyo directed and controlled enterprises again to achieve control over essential activities in our Canadian economy.
Fourth, we must never allow again unsupervised Japanese schools conducted in Canada, which were carried on for the sole purpose of keeping the Japanese as Japanese, and I believe indoctrinated the creed of dual citizenship.
Fifth, Japan-controlled firms and institutions must break their connections with the Japanese government.
Steps must be undertaken along the lines suggested if we are to solve this problem and with a new awareness and a determination that never again shall we allow dual citizenship to prosper and flourish in this country.
I have spoken many times about their being an unassimilable race and about the dual citizenship. The dual citizenship charge has never been denied by the Japanese themselves, and I am one who has taken the view all through the years, and take it still, and reiterate it to-night, that no man should owe allegiance to two countries at one and the same time. As I pointed out, the first step must be taken by the Japanese to cut themselves aloof from the country of Japan. But so far not one of them has seen fit to take that step, and I repeat it is my belief that they are afraid that their lives would be endangered were they to do so.
There are, it is realized, certain schools of thought which differ entirely from the views I have expressed tonight. I was one of those who was abused; I will not say castigated, although it came very near to that, when we in 1934 opposed the granting of the franchise to the Japanese, and I say this without rancour. I was very sorry indeed that the matter entered the realm of politics in British Columbia, after 1933. It was intimated by the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation that if they were elected to power, the franchise would be granted to the Japanese. I am not accusing the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of intimating such a policy to those who support them, but it was very strange to me that many whose views were similar to mine, but who did support the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, changed their
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views about giving these people the vote immediately after such a policy had been announced. I am not holding them responsible for that, but I do say this, and perhaps for the first time publicly, that the question never entered the arena of politics in British Columbia until that time, because prior to that no one in British Columbia would have got up on a platform to discuss the subject, for the reason that it was taken for granted that everyone in that province was opposed to granting the Japanese the vote.
May I interject one word personally? I have never publicly or at any time in my public career taken the stand I have taken against the Japanese to influence in any way those from whom I sought support. I have refrained from doing that, although I have spoken many times to my own people privately about my stand on the Japanese question. But that stand I have taken from a practical point of view. When they came to the country first in 1911 and 1912, the people of Canada were not aware, nor were we in British Columbia aware, of the move that was being made by Japan at that time to plant her nationals on the Pacific coast, and it is most unfortunate that this country of ours followed Great Britain all through the years. I am gratified to know, however, in conversations with some of the parliamentary delegation from Great Britain, that the eyes of the British people have at last been opened; I would advise those who have not had an opportunity of speaking to some of the delegates to get in touch with them, and they will find out that their views on the Japanese have changed entirely and that they are of one accord now on the point that never again must they trust the Japanese. I say that after having talked with some of the delegates who visited Ottawa.
I say to the minister that the suggestions made to him this evening I should like him to convey to the government and not to accuse us, as sometimes he has done in the past, of not having the milk of human kindness, or of lacking in British fair play. I have taken my stand fearlessly, but without hatred; and coming from the old land, as he does, I do not have to have a lecture about British fair play. It does seem strange, however, that the people who have known the Japanese the longest in Canada, the people of British Columbia and California, are the people who to-day say, "We don't want them back". Surely all the people cannot be wrong in adopting that attitude. It is quite notable that every community in Canada which has taken the Japanese since we have entered the war have been notified by the federal government that they are only being asked to take

them temporarily, and that if they later do not want them the government will remove them from those communities after the cessation of hostilities. It is for that reason that we have some misgivings in British Columbia. If Ontario, Quebec and other provinces who have Japanese at the moment are going to say to the dominion after the war, "Take them out of here; we don't want them," I am wondering where the federal government will put them. This question must be faced. It is now an entirely Canadian problem, whereas heretofore British Columbia alone was faced with it.
As I said at the outset, I wanted to speak on this subject on account of its great importance, particularly to the people of British Columbia, and because it is one that must be dealt with. There is no side-stepping it much longer. The foundations for a solution of it should be laid right now. The people of the United States are thinking along the same lines. I will not weary the committee by reading all the communications I have from prominent men in the United States who take exactly the same stand as we do, but let me read one or two paragraphs from a prominent American, Miller Freeman, of the Pacific coast. He says:
By our blindness in the past we have brought upon ourselves and future generations the problem of the presence in this country of a prolific, insoluble Oriental race, already numbering some 300,000 persons.
That is the number estimated to be in the United States.
For the safety of these people, and ourselves as well, we must recognize this problem, and seek its solution. We have currently controlled it; but the future will bring it back again, intensified by the bitter memories of war and perfidy.
Let no one cry: "Persecution." There is no taint of persecution in our doctrine. Rather it is conceived in tolerance, but in realistic recognition of the dangers and brutality of racial hatreds, and of the perils inherent in a national ambition which litters its history with the tattered shreds of its honour and its mOBt solemn obligations.
There are those who differ altogether from my views and who believe that those Japanese who were born in this country are truly Canadian. Well, to those who take that stand I would turn it the other way. How ridiculous it would be to say that if a Japanese were born in Scotland he would be a Highlander or a Scotsman!


John Ritchie MacNicol: It would not be fair to the bagpipes, would it?


Thomas Reid: I can tell the committee there is something in race after all, because I venture to say, of the race from which I have sprung, that if they had ever received anything like

War Appropriation-Labour
the treatment given the Germans and others by Hitler, Hitler would have been shot long ago by some Soot. They would not have stood long for that persecution. That is one of the things which make a difference in races. I say to the committee in all seriousness that this is a great problem confronting our country. Here we have a race of people who, when one gets to know them, look with disdain upon us and look upon us as dirt under their feet, and who have put it over many of our people close to the government, and in some instances have blinded some of these people by gifts. I say that without fear of successful contradiction. They are, I repeat, unassimilable. Those who talk about the assimilability of the Japanese usually want the experiment tried on some other family and not their own. I want to warn the members of the committee that the people of British Columbia are not going to take it quietly and have the federal government say to British Columbia again, "The Japanese problem is entirely yours, and now they are all going back to British Columbia."
I commend the federal government for the steps taken in taking the fishing vessels from Japanese, and with regard to the land which has been taken from them, and I shall have more to say to the Minister of Justice, who has given a ruling-


Humphrey Mitchell: Will my hon. friend
permit a question? He said that some people close to the government have been blandished with gifts by the Japanese. I think the hon. member should be more explicit when he says that. It is a reflection, and I think those persons should be named if they are close to the government.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Some of them are trips to Japan.


Humphrey Mitchell: For instance, my friend the assistant secretary of labour is close to the government, and members of the house are close to the government-at least we hope they are-even in the opposition.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Some professors are, too.


Thomas Reid: I say, from the information I have, it is no one connected with the minister. It is no one connected with the minister's department, I will go so far as to say that. I will go farther and say this, that I have never made a statement in the house unless I had some proof when making it.


Humphrey Mitchell: If the persons the hon. member has in mind are officials of the government, they should be named. It is not fair
to have a cloud like that hanging over anyone, or to make the statement that they have been blandished with gifts by Japanese. That is a pretty far-reaching statement.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Is a trip to Japan a gift?


Thomas Reid: I suppose it is the minister's duty to run to the rescue-perhaps I should not say "rescue"-to run to the assistance of any member of his staff who he thinks is being attacked. I will give the minister the names in private, from the information I have. I think the committee will agree that it would not be nice, if I may use that word, to place someone's name on Hansard. However, I shall give it to the minister privately.


An hon. MEMBER:: Or any member of the house.


Thomas Reid: I did not say it was a member of the house or any member of the government.


Humphrey Mitchell: But I do think, to be fair, I should have the information. It is not fair to permit anything like that being said, when people are not here to defend themselves. If a stigma of that kind is placed upon a permanent official, then we have the right to know about it.


George Alexander Cruickshank: On a point of order, I do not think the minister has any right to interrupt the hon. member for New Westminster.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: Yes, he has.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The hon. member for New Westminster should be allowed to continue. He has made a perfectly fair suggestion. He never mentioned any member of the government or any member of this parliament. He might have suggested that some might have had a couple of crates of strawberries from one of their Japanese friends. I think the minister would do well to wait until the hon. member has finished what he is going to say.


Humphrey Mitchell: I am not going to be lectured by the hon. member.


George Alexander Cruickshank: And I am not going to be lectured by the minister, either.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Order.


Humphrey Mitchell: My hon. friend has
spoken about British justice. Well, a charge has been made with respect to a certain permanent official of the government. My hon.
War Appropriation-Labour

friend must know as well as I do that by the very nature of things they cannot defend themselves in this house. I say that when a charge is being made that these people-


George Alexander Cruickshank: On a point of order, the hon. member made no charge at all.


Humphrey Mitchell: It was stated that a permanent official had been given a gift by Japanese; that is not a correct statement to make.


Thomas Reid: I did not say they were; I said they had been, and that is a different matter. I am speaking of the past.
There are one or two other matters I should like to mention. Possibly the minister or his assistant would take note of my questions, so that he may answer them. The first matter I have in mind is in connection with the personnel of the British Columbia security commission. A return was brought down on February 15, and in that return a total staff of 115 was shown. There were twenty-eight stenographers, twenty of whom were in the Vancouver office; nineteen clerks, sixteen of whom were in the Vancouver office; and fifty-three of a staff in that office, making a total of 115 in all. My first question is: Why should there be an office in a town like Port Arthur? There is a man there receiving a salary of $2,400, and a stenographer receiving $720.
Before he answers that question, I should like to ask some questions with regard to the appointment of this staff. The information given me is that the staff was appointed by Mr. Austin Taylor, chairman of the security commission. No great objection was raised to that, because it was understood that by the order in council complete power and authority was given to the British Columbia security commission to appoint its staff.
I wish, however, to ask the minister this question: Who was responsible later on for advising the civil service commission to place all these positions under the civil service, and practically protect every one of these under the civil service regulations, when the only qualification many of them had for the job, or the chief qualification, was being a friend of Mr. Taylor?


George Alexander Cruickshank: Professor Angus, too.


Thomas Reid: We have heard a great deal about political patronage. If the government appointed, or dared to appoint one man outside the civil service commission, I can imagine the cry which would be raised in this house. But here are 118 of them. If one of them retired from the position, that position would have

to be advertised through the medium of the civil service commission. It is a splendid thing to have appointments made through the civil service commission, but I should like to know who advised the civil service commission to have all these appointees placed under it. As I say, with respect to many, if not all of them, the chief qualification was their relationship to the chairman of the security commission.
That is one thing I want to know. I want to know all the facts about the office at Port Arthur, and the need for it.- I want to know the need for a staff of 115. I want to know, also, what Mr. Trueman, the placement officer, is doing, and especially after the statement he made publicly that the reason why the Japanese were being moved by the government was that there was mass hysteria, and the political agitation of some members of parliament.
Perhaps I had better permit the minister to answer those questions, or would he rather I should ask the remaining questions?


Humphrey Mitchell: I shall answer one at a time. The first question, as I understand it, is this: Why were employees of the British Columbia security commission placed under the civil service commission?


Thomas Reid: After their appointment.


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes, after their appointment. If my hon. friend's mind will go back to the development of this Japanese problem in British Columbia twelve months ago, and the establishment of the British Columbia security commission, he will know as well as I do that as soon as it was handed over to a department of government-and it was handed over to my department-we moved with expedition. The first appointments were made by Austin Taylor and his commission. Eventually the civil service commission went into the matter, and they were finally approved by it. I believe that is the first question. If there is any responsibility I am prepared to take it, for the civil service commission.


Mr. NEILL:: Let us go back farther: Who appointed Mr. Taylor?


Humphrey Mitchell: The government did.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Who made the
recommendation?


Humphrey Mitchell: The government appointed Mr. Taylor. I do not think my hon. friend made the recommendation.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I certainly did
not. I come from British Columbia.

Privileges oj The House


Humphrey Mitchell: If my hon. friend had
had on his mind what I had on mine at that time, namely the international situation, and particularly the situation in the near east, one which has cleared up considerably since then, I think he would have got anyone he could to move those Japanese out of British Columbia.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I think the hon.
member for New Westminster can look after himself.


Humphrey Mitchell: The next question was
about a gentleman and a stenographer in Port Arthur. At the present time I think we have about 1,800 Japanese in Ontario. We have a large concentration camp in northern Ontario in which there are about 600 or 700 Japanese. This gentleman and his office staff are engaged in the general supervision of the Japanese in that part of Ontario, and in their placement. The next question, I think, was about a Mr. Trueman, located in the city of Toronto. He has the general direction of the movement of the Japanese in eastern Canada, in the province of Quebec and particularly in central and eastern Ontario.


Thomas Reid: Probably I shall have more
to say about this before the item passes, but the questions I want to ask of the minister at the moment are in regard to an order in council which was passed on Friday, May 28, in connection with the wood-cutting proposition. By that order in council the Minister of Labour is made responsible for having the Japanese cut fire wood. Paragraph 1 reads:
1. To undertake and engage in wood fuel cutting and other timber operations to the extent necessary to supply the needs of the interior Japanese housing settlement in British Columbia. . . .
My question in regard to this is:	Have the
Japanese been engaged and paid to cut fire wood for their own homes? My second question relates to paragraph 3:
3. To deliver, sell or otherwise dispose of, and to make arrangements with the wood fuel controller. . . .
Will the wood they cut be sold to the wood controller at cost price or at a set price? The third question is in regard to paragraph 5, which reads:
5. Notwithstanding the provisions of the Civil Service Act to employ, from time to time, occidental machine operators, foremen and assistants required in carrying out the said projects.
Will these men be placed under the civil service commission after their appointments?


Humphrey Mitchell: The answer to the first question, whether they will cut wood for their own homes, is, yes; at cost price, of course. The second question was whether they will cut fire wood for sale, and the answer is, yes. I hope they will cut a hundred thousand cords of fire wood. Of course that will be sold on a strictly competitive basis; there will not be any question of unfair competition with those people who are at present engaged in the industry. The third question was in regard to the men operating the machines. My hon. friend, who comes from British Columbia, knows that, in the operation of the lumber industry there, certain highly skilled operatives are engaged. This provision was to enable us to appoint these people to operate the machines and also to appoint the necessary foremen in connection with getting out the lumber. I do not know about the civil service end of it. At the moment I have not given any thought to that.


Thomas Reid: What will the Japanese receive for cutting fire wood for themselves and for the public?


Humphrey Mitchell: They will be paid so much a cord, according to the usual custom in British Columbia.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie (Vancouver Centre) the house adjourned at 10.55 p.m.
Wednesday, June 30, 1943