1943-06-07

QUESTIONS

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

Mr. ROY:: 1.	Are there actually a number of divisions of our army available for service as reinforcements for our troops overseas?
2.	If so, (a) what is the number; (b) to what army corps do they belong?
3.	Are these divisions composed exclusively of volunteers, or of men called up, or both?


Mr. POWER:: Reference is made to statement of Minister of National Defence, Hansard, May 13, 1943, page 2667; May 14, 1943, pages 2691 and 2693 to 2696; and June 1, 1943, page 3219.


DEPARTMENT OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS- APPOINTMENTS
Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: 1.	Does the civil service commission make all appointments to the Department of External Affairs?
2.	If not, how are the other appointments made?
3.	How many have entered the Department of External Affairs by this method during the past two years?


Mr. CRERAR:: 1.	No.
2.	(a) In Ottawa, certain temporary appointments of senior personnel are made by order in council.
(b) (i) In offices abroad, as in Ottawa, certain temporary appointments of senior personnel are made by order in council, (ii) In offices abroad certain clerical and stenographic positions, oi[ which the civil service commission has knowledge, are set up by order in council. Appointments thereto are made by the chief of mission with the approval of the department.
3.	During the two years prior to the 27th of May, 1943, appointments by order in council numbered: (1) Ottawa, 17; (2) outside offices, 44.
Questions


Mr. WRIGHT:: 1.	How many medical notices were issued to farmers in each administrative division from December 1, 1942, to April 30, 1943?
2.	How many postponements were requested by or on behalf of farmers in each administrative division?
3.	How many postponements were granted farmers in each administrative division?
4.	How many of those receiving one postponement'applied for a second postponement?
5.	How many received a second postponement?
6. How many of those receiving the second postponement applied for a third postponement?
7. How many received	the third	postponement?


Mr. MITCHELL:: 1. Medical notices are	sent to all	persons
in designated classes but	no current record	
of the occupation of such	persons is	kept.
2 and 3.		
Administrative	Number	
Divisions	Requested	Granted"A" London, Ont	. 1,652	1,614"B" Toronto, Ont	. 4,219	3,722"C" Kingston, Ont	. 2,110	2,061"D" Port Arthur, Ont....	. 94	82"E" Montreal, P.Q	. 5,478	5,461"F" Quebec, P.Q	. 4,129	3,869"G" Halifax, N.S	. 1,635	1,408"H" Saint John, N.B	. 541	493"I" Charlottetown, P.E.I.	. 717	620"J" Winnipeg, Man	. 4,090	3,670"K" Vancouver, B.C	. 841	795"M" Regina, Sask	. 6,630	4,678"N" Edmonton, Alta....	. 3,085	2,995Total	. 35,221	31,468
4, 5, 6 and 7. No record maintained.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: 1.	Since January 1, 1942, what properties have been purchased in Winnipeg by the dominion government in connection with Deer Lodge hospital?
2.	From whom were these properties purchased?
3.	What was the purchase price paid, or agreed to be paid, in each case?


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: 1.	Property in the municipality of St. James, Manitoba, bounded on the north by Portage avenue and on the south by the Assiniboine river and forming an easterly extension of the Deer Lodge Hospital property, so bounded, already owned by the dominion government. The Department of Public Works was author-
ized. to survey and value the property and the Department of Justice was authorized to complete the agreement of sale.
2.	Alice Maud Wightman, St. James, Manitoba.
3.	88,500.


Mr. DORION:: 1.	Is Mr. Symington serving as a dollar-a-year man?
2.	If so, what is his actual address, and what was it before he entered the service of the government?
3.	What are his duties as a dollar-a-year man?
4.	What is his occupation other than his work with the government?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	Yes.
2.	244 St. James street west, Montreal, Que. -both cases.
3.	Power controller; member, Wartime Industries Control Board; member, Material Coordinating Committee U.S.-Canada.
4.	Barrister at law and various executive positions.
defence OF CANADA REGULATIONS COMMITTEE


Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: When will the chairman of the defence of Canada regulations committee call a meeting of that committee?


Mr. McLARTY:: I note in Votes and Proceedings that a meeting of the defence of Canada regulations committee is to be held tomorrow. I assume this affords the answer to this question, which might well be dropped.


Joseph William Noseworthy: Yes.


Mr. HATFIELD:: 1.	Is the position of postmaster at Perth, New Brunswick, being filled?
2.	If so, when was the position advertised?
3.	How many applications were received, and from whom?
4.	Were any of the applicants returned soldiers? If so, which of them?
5.	Had any of the returned soldier applicants post office experience? If so, where, and for how long?
6.	Were any of the returned soldiers recommended by the Canadian Legion? If so, which of them ?
7.	If the vacancy is not filled, what is the reason for delay?


Mr. McLARTY:: 1.	Temporarily.
2.	August 25, 1942.

Questions as Orders for Returns
3.	Seven: Hallett, Cash William; Ingraham, Mrs. Ethel Opal; Jamer, Randolph; Palmer, Mrs. Jean; Stevenson, Angus Gordon; Tomlinson, Guy 0.; Whitman, Mrs. Margaret Inch.
4.	Four: Hallett, Cash William; Jamer, Randolph; Stevenson, Angus Gordon; Tomlinson, Guy 0.
5.	No.
6.	No.
7.	As indicated above, there were seven applicants in the competition. Of these, four were returned men. Doubt existed as to whether three of these were patrons of the office, and they were only permitted to enter the competition on the understanding that if they qualified their right to be considered for appointment should be, determined. Two were not qualified and the other, who secured the necessary pass mark, was definitely not a patron of the office. The other returned man did not secure the average 70% necessary to be declared successful.
The three other candidates, all of whom were successful, are married women supported by their husbands, and in view of this circumstance, Mm. Margaret Inch Whitman, who obtained the highest rating was selected for temporary employment only. Therefore, Mrs. Whitman, who had been selected locally for the position, has been continued as. acting postmistress in a temporary capacity for the duration of the war, and at the close of hostilities another competition will be held thereby giving those now on active service a chance to compete.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. COLD WELL:: 1.	Have censors authority to withhold letters posted at Halifax, Nova Scotia, or other defence areas and addressed to points within Canada?
2.	Does censorship include R.C.M.P. investigation of personal opinions between friends expressing disagreement with the North African policies of the United States state department in its recognition of former supporters or members of the Vichy regime?
3.	Are private letters critical of government policy copied in whole or in part, and forwarded systematically or otherwise to the departments concerned?
4.	Have any letters or telegrams to or from members of parliament been so censored or dealt with?
Mr. LaFLECHE: Order for return, with any necessary reservations.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: Oh, well; what does that mean?


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: The usual reservations.


Mr. GRAYDON:: That is an unusual
answer. My understanding is that in some instances in the past, ministers have said, "subject to the usual reservations". From time to time I have wondered just what that meant. But this is an extension given to the government which I am afraid will have to be stopped. It is a serious matter.


Mr. COLD WELL:: I would point out that there are no "usual" reservations. The only reservations there can be are those applying to particular questions at particular times. I object to the use of the words "usual" or "necessary", because there are no necessary reservations.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Purely
arbitrary.
Mr. LaFLECHE: The reservations I make are on the ground of security.


CONSTRUCTION OF BUILDINGS FOR RECRUITING PURPOSES
Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: 1.	How many buildings designed for use in recruiting have been erected since the outbreak of war?
2.	What is the location and cost of each of
them?	[DOT]


MOBILIZATION ACT-DEFAULTERS
Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: 1.	How many defaulters, who had theretofore failed to answer calls under the National Resources Mobilization Act, reported pursuant to the offer of immunity issued by the Department of Labour some three months ago?
2.	How many defaulters, by military districts, have been prosecuted to date?
3.	How many defaulters, by military districts, have been located since March 22, 1943, by the Hooper-Holmes Bureau, of Toronto, Ontario?


MOBILIZATION ACT-REQUISITIONS BY MILITARY DISTRICTS
Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: 1.	How many men, by military districts, were requisitioned for by the Minister of National Defence for call-up under the National Resources Mobilization Act since October 31, 1942?
2.	How many notices were sent out pursuant to requisition?
3.	How many men, to whom notices were sent, reported?
4.	How many of those reporting received medical examination, and of these, how many passed?
5.	How many of the men to whom calls were sent were duly enrolled?

Questions as Orders for Returns


WARTIME INFORMATION BOARD-PUBLICATIONS IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH
Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: 1.	What pamphlets or booklets have been issued by the wartime information board, (a) in English exclusively; (b) in French exclusively; (c) in both English and French?
2.	How many copies of each have been printed?
3.	Who is the editor or compiler of each of the said pamphlets or booklets?
4.	What was the cost of each? -


Mr. CRERAR:: Return tabled.



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Mr. GILLIS:: For a copy of all correspondence, telegrams, and other documents in possession of the Department of Labour, from the United Mine Workers of America, district No. 26, Dominion Coal Company, Acadia Coal Company, Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company, Cumberland Railway and Coal Company, and the Department of Labour, in the matter of wage negotiations, from February 15, 1943, to May 31, 1943.



PUBLIC DEBT

Mr. FAIR:: 1.	What was the gross national debt of Canada at the end of each of the fiscal years: 1867-8, 1875-6, 1880-1, 1890-1, 1900-1, i910-l, 1913-4, and each year thereafter to date?
2.	What is the amount of, (a) accrued interest; (b) other related commissions and charges, at the end of each of the above years?
3.	What percentage of the total national revenue of each of the above years was required to pay the interest, commissions and charges above?
4.	What provision is being made to satisfy the above indebtedness?
5.	If present policy is continued, can this debt ever be repaid?


Mr. ILSLEY:: Return tabled.



VULCAN, ALTA., AIR TRAINING SCHOOL

Mr. HANSELL:: What use is being made of the residence and barn purchased with the property now being occupied by the Vulcan air training school at Vulcan, Alberta?



HARTNEY, ALTA., AUXILIARY AIRPORT

Mr. ROSS (Souris):: 1.	What _was the total acreage purchased by the dominion government in Cameron municipality at Hartney, Manitoba, for auxiliary airport?
2.	What was the purchase price paid, or agreed to be paid, for this property?


Humphrey Mitchell: I am informed by my officials that the preparation of this return would entail a considerable amount of work. I suggest that the hon. member look over the files, and we could have copied for him whatever he wishes to have.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Then it would be the property of the hon. member, not of members of the House of Commons. I object to that because other hon. members as well as the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) are interested in the correspondence.


Humphrey Mitchell: I am informed it would take three weeks to complete this file. I think it might be made a return of the correspondence the hon. member really wants to see-or any other hon. member, for that matter.


Gordon Graydon: Of course the time required in preparing answers to these motions is not the proper basis upon which a decision should be made. The question is whether the bringing down of the information sought in the motion is in the public interest. If it is in the public interest, and of importance to the public generally, then the question of time does not enter into it in the same degree.


Humphrey Mitchell: It is a question of
man-power, expense and time.



GROSSE ISLE, QUE., FEDERAL BUILDINGS

Mr. DORION:: What use is being made of the federal government buildings at Grosse Isle, in the St. Lawrence river?



RESERVE UNITS, MILITARY DISTRICT NO. 6

Mr. DORION:: 1.	Before September 1, 1939, what were the reserve units in military district No. 5, and,
(a)	what was the effective strength of each;
(b)	how long had they been in existence?
2.	What were the reserve units in military district No. 5 on May 15, 1943?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It frequently happens, in respect of a long return involving a great deal of labour and preparation, that the hon. member asking for such information is interested in having only a certain portion of it. In order to get what they want, hon. members frequently ask for a return of the whole. If there is something in which the hon. member is particularly interested, I can see no objection to his looking over the files in the minister's office, getting the information he desires, and, if necessary, having copies made of what is required. That has happened before in similar circumstances.

Motions jor Papers


Gordon Graydon: The minute an hon.
member asks a question such as this, involving the tabling of correspondence, it becomes a matter of interest to all hon. members. For that reason I object to the minister's statement.


Clarence Gillis: I cannot see how the amount of correspondence for which I asked would entail any considerable amount of work. I deliberately asked for correspondence only from February 15, 1943 to May 31, 1943, and in that period I do not suppose there would be more than two or three telegrams and half a dozen letters. I cannot see why a stenographer could not prepare the information in an hour.


Humphrey Mitchell: The hon. member can have it; I have no objection, but he will have to wait for it. I think I know what my hon. friend wants. There are submissions to the board, complicated wage structures and reports, and their preparation would require some time. I believe I know what he wants and, if he agrees with me, I shall get all he wishes to have.


Clarence Gillis: I suggest that the motion stand, and in the meantime I will discuss the matter with the minister.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is satisfactory.
Motion stands.



SASKATCHEWAN INDIAN RESERVES-INTEREST ON TRUST FUNDS

Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: For a copy of any letters, notices or circulars from the superintendent of Indian agencies at Regina to the Indians on the reserves located in Saskatchewan, asking them to forgo temporarily, in whole or in part, the distribution of interest earnings and other moneys held in trust for them.



SASKATCHEWAN INDIAN RESERVES-MILITARY SERVICE

Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: For a copy of any letters, notices or circulars from the superintendent of Indian agencies at Regina to the Indians on the reserves located in Saskatchewan, regarding the eligibility of the above-named Indians to call for military service.



REPORT OF CIVIL SERVICE ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Mr. McILRAITH:: For a copy of the report made by the advisory committee under the chairmanship of Mr. J. Coon, set up by order in council P.C. 2-584, and of all correspondence, recommendations and other documents in the possession of the government in relation thereto.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Mr. Speaker, the report in question is really an intradepartmental communication. It was asked for the other day by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwel'l), and I stated then, as I now state, that I regard it as confidential and not properly producible. If the hon. member wishes to redraft the motion so as to request the production of letters to and from the department respecting the matters dealt with in the report, I will have no objection. But the report itself I regard as confidential.


Richard Burpee Hanson: On the
point as to the confidential nature of the report, my understanding is that this report is the result of a public order in council which either was or could be tabled, and that there is nothing in the order in council to indicate that the report when made would be confidential. I regard this as a public document, and the house is entitled to have i:t. I am sure it would be a matter of keen interest to the public, especially to people in Ottawa. The Minister, knowing what is in it, declares it to be confidential; but that was not the basis of the order in council.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know how many times I am entitled to speak on the motion. I have made my position clear. There are many orders in council setting up departmental committees and interdepartmental committees which prepare reports containing advice for ministers. Certainly these have never been regarded as producible in the House Of Commons. The government must take the responsibility for what they do after they get such advice as they are able to secure, but in my judgment the advice they get is not a public document.


George James McIlraith: This is not a report
of a departmental committee. I would point out to the house that the chairman of this committee was not connected with any department, nor was he a government employee; he was a person entirely outside the public service. Therefore I do not understand in what respect the committee can be regarded as a departmental committee.


James Lorimer Ilsley: He was just as much an
officer of the department when he was sitting with the other members of that committee as are many hundreds of persons who are brought in temporarily to assist the government from time to time and who are now and have been during the war years connected with the government service.


Mr. HOMUTH:: How much was Mr. Coon paid?
Motions for Papers


James Lorimer Ilsley: He was not paid anything.


Thomas Miller Bell: Mr. Speaker, I asked
a question about this matter the other day, and I am glad it has been brought up again particularly in this form. The Coon report deals with conditions within the civil service of Canada. If a report has been made to any department-particularly, as has been pointed out by the hon. member for Ottawa West, when it has been made by a man not a member of one of our departments, a man who comes from outside the service and outside the city of Ottawa-this house should know what conditions have been revealed and what suggestions have been made with regard to the remedying of any conditions that may be bad. To my mind this is not a report which concerns the treasury board only or the government only; it is a report which concerns the House of Commons. The house should insist that the report be tabled in order that we may be apprised of conditions within the civil service, which, is the civil service, not of the government, not of the ministers, not of the treasury board, but of the parliament of Canada of which this chamber is a part. I hope that the house will insist on the tabling of this document.


James Lorimer Ilsley: If I may speak again, the
same observations would apply to the report of every advisory committee, without exception. Every year the advisory committee to the wheat board presents a report, but we do not produce it, and there are scores of other advisory committees.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They
should.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is the issue, and I
am stating my position. If the government sets up advisory committees to advise ministers or to advise the government, where the government is of the opinion that such advice is confidential, then the reports must be regarded as confidential. I do not regard this as being in any other category.


Gordon Graydon: I for one am unconvinced by the minister's argument against the tabling of this report. The press of Canada and the public generally have looked upon this committee as a committee which would make a report of much consequence, of much value and of much importance to the government. Its deliberations were not confidential so far as the press were concerned, because time after time they were referred to. The position ought to be made clear so far as the House of Commons is concerned. The minister has mentioned the advisory committee of
[Mr. Homuth.3
the wheat board. This is also a matter of policy, and I think that question should be deliberated upon by this house.


James Lorimer Ilsley: And twenty others.


Gordon Graydon: There should be a decision on these matters. I propose to vote in favour of the tabling of this report as called for by the hon. member for Ottawa West. I consider that this is a matter which should be pressed to the limit and we are prepared to do that.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The issue is there and perhaps it should be settled; I do not know. If we are going to set up advisory committees, a great many of them by orders in council, if we are going to set up interdepartmental committees, departmental committees and so forth, every reason for the making public of this report will apply to the reports of those committees. If that is what the government must do in the future, let us have it settled.


Gordon Graydon: The minister is confusing the issue. This is not an interdepartmental committee. When the minister asks civil servants under him to set up an interdepartmental committee, with a deputy minister or someone else as chairman, the chairman of that committee is in an entirely different position from that of an outsider like Mr. Coon, who was brought in for a definite purpose.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Not a bit.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I would call the attention of the house to the fact that we are not in committee.


Mr. BOUCHER:: Mr. Speaker, I feel that this report should be tabled. This is not a question of government policy, where secrecy should be maintained, where the contents of a report should not be divulged. The civil servants of Canada are affected in connection with their relations as employees of the government of Canada. A request has been made for the tabling of this report concerning civil servants and their employment. Surely the civil servants have the right to know what attention has been given to their representations. Surely they have the right to expect that members of the House of Commons will be acquainted with their conditions and with the result of any investigation that has been held. That should not affect government policy, and there should be no question of government responsibility in keeping secret the contents of this report dealing with the welfare of the civil servants. The members of this House of Commons are definitely inter-

Exchequer Court Act
ested in the welfare of the civil service and should be acquainted with the report of a committee which deals with civil service matters. I call upon the members of the house to ask for the tabling of this report. The civil servants are faithful, true and loyal servants of this House of Commons of Canada, perhaps a little more than of the people of Canada, and the members of the house should take an interest in them so that the civil servants themselves may know that we have a knowledge of their circumstances and are interested in their welfare.


Gordon Graydon: I was paired with the
right hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.
In view of the vote which has just been taken, will the Minister of Finance be good enough to table order in council P.C. 2-584 dated January 23, 1943? I was under the impression that it had been tabled, but I am now told that it has not.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Is that the one setting up the committee?


Gordon Graydon: Yes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, I will see that it is tabled.



EXCHEQUER COURT ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Minister of Justice) moved that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to amend the Exchequer Court Act to provide that for the purpose of determining liability in any action or other proceeding by or against His Majesty, a person who was at any time since the twenty-fourth day of June, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight, a member of the naval, military or air forces of His Majesty in right of Canada shall be deemed to have been at such time a servant of the crown.
He said:	His Excellency the Governor
General, having been made acquainted with the subject-matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.
PRIVILEGE-Mr. POULIOT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temiscouata) (Translation): Mr. Speaker, I rise to
Man-Power
[Stage Direction]
a question of privilege. On page 8 of its June 5 edition Le Soleil reported as follows the statement which I had made in the house the day before on a question of privilege.
Mr. J. F. Pouliot (Temiscouata) at last ended the series of statements on the question of privilege by commenting on an article from the Globe and Mail.
Le Soleil goes on:
It is known that in moving for the adjournment of the house to discuss the man-power question, Mr. Pouliot has had, especially, the Progressive Conservative party's support.
That is absolutely untrue. Three Conservative members only rose when Your Honour put the question to the house. They were the hon. members for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson), for Kootenay-West (Mr. Esling) and for York-East (Mr. McGregor). .
Further on, Le Soleil states:
The Toronto newspaper to-day hints that the member for Temiscouata had supporters among the Conservatives and that before he introduced his motion he gave notice of his intention to certain Conservative Progressive members.
Mr. Pouliot acknowledges that this is true-
That is quite untrue. I said the very opposite on Friday last.
Le Soleil goes on:
-he (the member for Temiscouata) had a visit from a Tory member wbo assured him of his support if he raised the man-power question in the house.
Le Soleil further states:
Mr. Pouliot then gave him the assurance that he would raise that question.
That is the very reverse of the statement I made in the house on Friday. I have just this to say to Le Soleil: If it continues to publish such insinuations I shall ask its readers to cancel their subscriptions, as I did myself with good results twenty years ago.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Graydon: I wish to ask the Minister of Labour a question. Press dispatches indicate that Doctor Walter J. Couper, who has been executive assistant to the minister and the deputy minister of labour, and who is reported to have expressed in public dissatisfaction with the man-power policy of the department-a matter which was dealt with, I believe, by some hon. member during the debate-has severed his connections with the department

and is returning to his former position with the International labour office. Will the Minister of Labour kindly inform the house as to whether or not Doctor Couper severed his connections at the instance of the minister or the deputy minister of labour?


Humphrey Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I read in last Saturday's Globe and, Mail the news item referred to by the leader of the opposition. I was much surprised that two unfair and unjust implications had been included. One of them was:
It is regarded as significant however that Doctor Couper was the last of some sixteen advisers, all in a more or less technical capacity, who have parted company with the department since Elliott M. Little resigned as director of national selective service.
The other is:
Possibility that Doctor Couper's views on the administration of selective service, and the general situation as to man-power, are at variance with the labour minister is not being overlooked, especially since, no later than the second week in April, he forcefully and clearly expressed his opinions in an address in Toronto on the cause of the labour situation.
I do not think I can give a better answer to the leader of the opposition than to read the text of a telegram dispatched by Doctor Couper on Saturday last after he read the news item about himself in the Globe and Mail. It is as follows.
Ottawa, June 5, 1943.
Editor
Globe and Mail Toronto, Ontario.
It is true that the possibility of my return to duty on the staff of the International Labour Office is currently under discussion. It is not true as implied in Cragg's story that I have broken with the Minister of Labour on the question of man-power policy. I was and am a friend of Elliott Little but that does not affect my views about government policy. If you will obtain from Morley, manager, Industrial Accident Prevention Associations, steno-typist transcript my address from which you purport to quote, you will see that by wrenching statements from their context you create an impression exactly opposite to that which I intended to convey and which I think the full text does convey.
W. J. Couper.
I looked for this telegram in this morning's Globe and Mail, but I did not find it there. I think in fairness to myself-and to Doctor Couper more than myself, because he is not in the house to speak for himself, and in the nature of things cannot be-this newspaper might at least have had the decency to print a retraction of the story of last Saturday.

Censorship



SAUSAGES AND HAMBURGER-RATION REGULATIONS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance with regard to rationing. Reports over the radio at noon to-day state that, in reply to protests of those interested in the manufacture of hamburger and sausages, which products are now rationed, it was announced that no decision would be given for at least a month. I wonder whether the minister would look into this matter and make a statement, because I feel that if these food products are going to waste owing to mistaken policy in regard to the rationing of such products, something should be done about it before a month elapses. The statement to which I refer was made over a local station at noon to-day.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not understand the point. The hon. gentleman said that no statement would be given on something, but I do not know what it was.


Major James William Coldwell: Nothing could be done about it for at least a month.


James Lorimer Ilsley: About what?


Major James William Coldwell: About changing the regulations regarding the rationing of hamburger.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will look into the matter.


Gordon Graydon: Hamburger won't keep for a month.



CENSORSHIP


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. R. MACDONALD (Brantford City):: I have a question to direct to the government or to the minister responsible for seeing that the censorship rules are carried out. It is based on two newspaper articles, and I trust the house will bear with me for a moment while I explain the basis on which my question is put.
A newspaper article appeared in the Toronto Evening Telegram of May 31, and it is entitled:
Missing Son's Voice on Air from Berlin.
Chases Worries of Parents in Toronto.
The article refers to a broadcast on the previous Friday by Doctor Goebbels, who stated that on the following day a certain young man from Toronto who is a prisoner of war in Germany would broadcast. The newspaper has pictures of the father and mother and members of the boy's family. It gives a full account of the feelings of the parents as they heard their son's voice. The newspaper states that "it brought unbounded joy to his parents", and goes on to say:
As tears of happiness rolled down their cheeks, Mr. and Mrs. Morrison instantly recognized their son's voice.
I bring this to the attention of the government because Doctor Goebbels is endeavouring to have people in Canada listen to his broadcasts and this is one way of attracting their attention. The Canadian people, by listening to these broadcasts, will listen to many others; and as the News of June 5 states, the paper is helping the doctor. I am not suggesting that it is doing so knowingly. I know that the Toronto Telegram would not do anything to assist the enemy ; it is one of the most patriotic papers in this dominion; but I do feel that unwittingly, by giving such publicity, by informing people that their sons' voices are likely to be heard over the German radio, it may cause many people to listen to German propaganda. Someone says, what if they do? Well, that is the way the Germans have carried on this war. They are spreading propaganda by such methods as this, and I feel it should not be encouraged. This particular boy had been missing for many months. He had not been reported by the Red Cross. The Red Cross society is doing a splendid service to Canada by reporting, as soon as it possibly can, all men who are missing. If the people of Canada are to get news of missing airmen and sailors-[DOT]


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Give the people of Canada credit for a little more common sense.


Thomas Vien: Perhaps the hon. member will put his question without making a speech. He has not the right to do that.


William Ross Macdonald: I will put the question. Does the minister who is responsible for censorship, in view of the danger of German propaganda, censor the speeches which are sent forth by Goebbels to Canada? Are those speeches censored?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Ross Macdonald: I should say, is the report of the speech in the newspaper censored by the government?
Hon. L. R. LaFLECHE (Minister of National War Services): One might wish that
Sussex Military Camp

the hon. member had not explained his question, because everyone in this house would dearly love to censor Goebbels' messages and himself if it were possible. As to the real question, whether reports of broadcasts from Germany are censored in our newspapers, there is a very good understanding with the newspapers themselves, but I cannot answer in regard to this particular case. I will look it up and I shall let the hon. member know.
Hon. ANGUS L. MACDONALD (Minister of National Defence for Naval Services): I may add that the service forces take a very definite view on the question of broadcasts by prisoners of war, and within recent weeks or months instructions have gone out that broadcasting by prisoners of war in enemy hands should not be carried on.


Gordon Graydon: It has just occurred to me that if there is anything wrong with the publication of what the hon. member for Brantford City has indicated, it is doubtful whether he has cured it. He has rather exaggerated and overemphasized it by bringing it to the attention of the House of Commons.


William Ross Macdonald: I think I should be allowed to reply to the leader of the opposition-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Mr. MACDONALD (Barntford City):: I am speaking to a question of privilege. The only purpose I had in bringing this to the attention of the government was to prevent its repetition.	-



CANADIAN ARMY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Richard Burpee Hanson: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston). Unfortunately he is not present and therefore I will present it to his parliamentary assistant, who is in his seat. The question has to do with the minister's statement of May 10 last regarding the trouble at Camp Sussex. My questions are: (1) Has the minister any further information or statement to give to the house with reference to the disturbances of May 6 at Camp Sussex, in which one soldier unfortunately lost his life and several others were wounded? (2) Has an inquest been heldl? If so, what is the substance of the verdict? (3) Have the military authorities held a court of inquiry? If so, what is the result and will the

findings of the court be laid on the table? (4) Is it true that the Dufferin and Haldimand battalion has been sent overseas, and the Voltigeurs of Quebec have been transferred to another district in Canada?


Charles Gavan Power: I cannot answer the last question, but as regards it and the others I shall inquire of the officers in the department and let my hon. friend know.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I was not paying the minister the compliment, though perhaps I should have addressed my question to him in the first place. I was endeavouring to attract the attention of the parliamentary assistant. However, I am quite content to leave the question with the Minister of National Defence for Air.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. S. II. KNOWLES (Winnipeg North Centre): I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. Has the minister been advised of the complaint of the Winnipeg and District Trades and Labour Council to the effect that the Winnipeg selective service officer, in cases where he canno't supply workers for plants paying unduly depressed wages, is assisting employers in such plants by freezing workers to their low-paid jobs? Is this practice in keeping with the policy of the government, and will the minister look into the situation?
Humphrey Mitchell: The answer to the first question is, no. As to the second question, I shall be glad to look into it.	[DOT]



WAR APPROPRIATION BILL


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, June 4, 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. Rradette in the chair.

[Stage Direction]
7.	Ammunition and bombs, $23,990,000.
Hon. CYRUS MACMILLAN (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of National Defence for Air):: The minister has instructed me to answer a few questions that were asked

War Appropriation-Air Services
in the last two or three days. The first question was from the leader of the opposition (Mr. Graydon).


Gordon Graydon: A good place to start.


Cyrus Macmillan: A splendid place. The question was with, reference to chaplains. The answer is:
1.	(a) Chaplains are not granted any powers of command and therefore only honorary rank is provided for them.
(b)	Chaplains are not subject to accept or assume the full responsibilities of the rank granted them in comparison with all other R.C.A.F. officers; that is, they are not detailed to assume all the ordinary duties normally allotted to an officer, such as drill parades, orderly officer, etc., etc.
(c)	The practice of granting honorary rank to chaplains follows the custom adopted by the other armed forces of Canada and the armed forces of the United Kingdom.
2.	Although appointed to honorary rank, R.C.A.F. chaplains are paid at the same rates as other special reserve, non-flying list officers of equal rank.
The next question was from the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling):
Is all signal equipment used by the R.C.A.F. in Canada of Canadian make?
The answer is, no. Approximately 50 per cent is Canadian; 15 per cent, American, and 35 per cent, United Kingdom.
Do Canadian capital companies come into competition with regular commercial signal equipment companies?
The answer is, yes. Research Enterprises Limited handle all secret radio equipment and were set up for this purpose.
The hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) asked in regard to the situation in Canada with respect to transfers from the army to the air force for training as aircrew. Direct transfers are not possible under existing regulations. Personnel of the army desiring to serve in the RiCA.F. must be discharged by the army before enlistment in the R.C.A.F. Regulations governing discharges from the army for the purpose of enlisting in any other force are set out in Canadian army routine order No. 1030 dated May 7, 1941.
Only applications from candidates for enlistment as aircrew and such other highly specialized trades as may be urgently required are considered from personnel in the army. A soldier of an active unit of the Canadian army desiring entry into another service must first submit an application in writing to his
commanding officer requesting discharge for the purpose of enlisting into the service concerned. If the application is concurred in, the commanding officer will then forward his recommendation, accompanied by the soldier's application, to the nearest recruiting centre of the service concerned. If it is decided to accept the soldier for service in the R.C.A.F. the air force recruiting officer will notify the soldier's commanding officer by letter stating the trade in which he will be enlisted and the date he is to report for duty. Army discharge proceedings are then commenced.
At the present time, negotiations between the army and the air force are proceeding with the object of increasing the flow of men desiring aircrew training from the army and also to arrange for enlistment into the army of men who have failed in their aircrew training in the R.C.A.F. Final arrangements have not been made.
The hon. member for Fort William asked with regard to the Memorial Cross: Who gets the Silver Cross; how can distant relations get it; what are the regulations? As hon. members doubtless know, the Silver Cross is a memorial to airmen who were killed in action or who died while on active service or from causes attributable to service in the air force, either while serving on active duty or subsequent to discharge from the said force. The Silver Cross is granted to mothers and/or widows of Canadian airmen who have died in the service of their country during the present war. In case, after becoming entitled to the cross, the widow or mother has died, the cross will be delivered to the eldest of the airman's next of kin.


Gordon Graydon: The eldest female next of kin?


Cyrus Macmillan: No, the eldest next of kin. Air force administrative order A.64/2 sets out the regulations, and is as follows:
Regulations pertaining to the grant of the Memorial Cross to the mothers and/or widows of Canadian airmen who have died in the service of their country during the present war. Reason of Issue
1.	A Memorial Cross will be issued as a memento of persona] loss and sacrifice on the part of mothers and widows of Canadian airmen, who have laid down their lives for their country during the present war.
Description of Cross
2.	The cross will be a cross patonce in silver, suspended by a purple ribbon; and at the end of the upright a crown; at the foot, and at the end of either arm, a maple leaf; in the centre,

War Appropriation-Air Services
within a wreath of laurel, with royal cipher "G.R.I." It will be engraved with the number and/or name of the airman commemorated.
3.	A cross will be issued to the widow or mother in respect of every airman who was survived by either. If both survive him, two crosses will be issued, one to each.
4.	If, after becoming entitled to the cross, the widow or mother has died or dies, the cross will be delivered to the eldest of the airman's next of kin.
In Respect of Whom Issued
5.	The cross will be issued in respect of each airman, who:
(a)	was killed in action; or
(b)	died, whilst on active service; or
(c)	died or dies from causes attributable to service in the air forces whether while serving on active service or subsequent to his discharge from the said forces;
Provided that where death occurs subsequent to discharge, the Memorial Cross will be issued to the widow only if she was married to the airman at the time of his discharge.
Proof Required
6.	Every applicant for the issue ,of a cross must produce such proof of death, service and eligibility as may be required by the Minister of National Defence for Air in respect of Canadian airmen.
Authority
7.	The decision of the Minister of National Defence for Air shall be final in all matters pertaining to the issue of the cross in respect of Canadian airmen.
8.	In the foregoing paragraphs;-
_ (a) "Widow" includes the legal widow of the airman killed and the unmarried widow who is pensionable by^ reason of the airman's death, but does not include a widow as so defined who,-
(i)	Is known to be of dissolute character.
(ii)	Was at the time of the airman's death, separated from him by agreement or legal process.
(b)	"Mother" means the woman who gave birth to the airman.
(c)	"Airman" means any person, male or female, who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force or who having been ordinarily resident in Canada on the 10th of September, 1939, or at any time during a period of 10 years prior to this date, served in the air forces of his majesty or any of his allies.
9.	These regulations shall have force and effect as of and from the 1st September, 1939, and are made and established by order in council P C. 4210, dated 27th August, 1940, as amended by order in council P.C. 2135, dated 28th March, 1941.
On Friday afternoon the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Black) asked a question with reference to the delivery of cables overseas. Postal letter telegrams are sent from cablehead, where they are received in England, by mail to the base post office where the last posting of the personnel is determined; the cable is then forwarded again by mail to the

unit concerned. All direct cables are telegraphed from cablehead to the base post office at Manchester; then when the posting is determined they are forwarded by mail to the unit concerned. In all cases when telegrams or cables are received at the addressee's unit, they are delivered to him as quickly as possible. On account of the amount of mail handled at the base post office inevitably there are some delays, but there may be some at the units also, especially when the addressees are absent on operational duties.
The hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore) asked how the amount spent on transportation was divided between the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific railways. The expenditure in 1942-43 for the services given by these railways was divided as follows:



C.N.R. C.P.R.

[Stage Direction]
Passenger accounts. $6,581,413 67 $5,768,781 39 Freight and express. 2,432,976 88	1,593,767 22
Totals	 $9,014,390 55 $7,362,548 61
In each case there is a difference of about $800,000, or a total difference of over $1,600,000.
The hon. member for York West asked whether we will use cracked gasoline in aircraft. The answer is, yes. Tests have been carried on at No. 2 S.F.T.S. for the last six months, and the MeColl-Frontenac product has been approved for 80 and 87 octane gasoline. Tests are still being carried out for other companies. The hon. member also asked a question with respect to the R.C.A.F. staff college, and if there is any suggestion of adding an R.C.A.F. college after the war. The answer is that a provisional syllabus for the course of training at the R.C.A.F. staff college has been drawn up and a suitable location for the school has been decided upon. The objective of the R.C.A.F. staff college is to give selected R.C.A.F. officers of relatively senior rank instruction in advanced administrative and staff work applicable to present day service conditions. There is no intention at the present time to add an R.C.A.F. college after the war, but the question may be considered at the appropriate time.
Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury); When would that be, if not after the war?
Cyrus Macmillan: The staff college is at Fiavelle House, and it will be open about July 15. The hon. member for York West also asked whether an attempt is being made to get ground crew wherever possible from those unfit for aircrew and, if so, what categories we were taking. The answer is that

War Appropriation-Air Services
an attempt is being made wherever possible to fill ground crew quota with men physically unfit for aircrew duties. The medical category for ground crew has been lowered from A4B to A4HBH.
The hon. member for York West asked a question with respect to sea rescue. I shall try to summarize the answer, which is relatively long.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What was the question?


Cyrus Macmillan: Have any measures been developed for air-sea rescues. Early in the war steps were taken to establish an air-sea rescue service by the commissioning of vessels on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, oceangoing vessels in addition to the salvage vessels and crash boats. Details of this cannot well be given. The hon. member may have them privately. Rather remarkable developments have taken place in respect of the type of emergency equipment provided. Hon. members are no doubt familiar with the report of that airman of matchless courage, Captain Rickenbacker, following his miraculous rescue after twenty-one days on a rubber raft. No doubt hon. members are familiar with the recommendations he made some months ago. The information is that practically all these recommendations have been carried into effect, with the result that the risk has been greatly decreased. That includes, of course, the provision of collapsible rubber boats which are automatically inflated, and the providing to each member of the crew of every Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft operating over the ocean of a Mae West life jacket, and also heavy clothing, with a special emergency supply apparatus containing food, water and other equipment. Then, there is a continuous watch throughout the twenty-four hours on the two coasts. There is further secret information which the hon. member may read.


Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: Has Canada tried the carrying of small motor launches by aeroplanes, so that they can be deposited where crews are to be rescued?


Cyrus Macmillan: Not up to the present time.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I
notice they have them in Great Britain.


Cyrus Macmillan: Development along
that line is proceeding, however.
The hon. member for York West asked a question with respect to the commissioning or promotion of prisoners of war. Negotiations with Germany have been undertaken through
the Department of External Affairs. Although there can be no definite statement regarding what the decision has been, there is no reason at the present time to doubt that the suggestion will be carried forward. Negotiations are pending with Italy, and it is not considered advisable by the department to discuss them in public at the present time, because such discussions might jeopardize their success.
The hon. member for York West asked respecting categories of aircrew, and concerning percentage of training received in Canada. The details are these:
Of bombing navigators, 94 per cent of the output receive all their training in Canada, and 6 per cent in the United Kingdom. Those who complete their training in the United Kingdom do 77 per cent of their training in Canada and 23 per cent in the United Kingdom.
Of general navigators, none complete their training in Canada, all completing their training in the United Kingdom. In this group 74 per cent of the training is done in Canada, and 26 per cent in the United Kingdom.
Of wireless navigators, 19 per cent of the output complete their training in Canada, and 81 per cent in the United Kingdom. Those who complete their training in the United Kingdom do 81 per cent of their training in Canada, and 19 per cent in the United Kingdom.
Of air bombers, none complete their training in Canada, all being completed in the United Kingdom. Seventy-three per cent of their training is in Canada, and 27 per cent in the United Kingdom.
Of' wireless air gunners, 86 per cent of production complete their training in Canada, and 14 per cent in the United Kingdom. Those who complete their training in the United Kingdom do 76 per cent of their training in Canada, and 24 per cent in the United Kingdom.
In respect of air gunners, those who complete their training in the United Kingdom do 58 per cent in Canada, and 42 per cent in the United Kingdom.
In respect of pilots, those who complete their training in the United Kingdom do 76 per cent of their courses in Canada and 24 per cent in the United Kingdom.


Mr. ADAMSON:: That includes fighter and bomber pilots?


Cyrus Macmillan: Yes. The hon. member for York West asked a question with respect to experience in connection with shearling in wool. On the basis of many months of

War Appropriation-Air Services
fundamental research, developmental work and field trials, the use of shearling in flying suits has been shown to be less satisfactory than the new type Royal Canadian Air Force flying suits for the following reasons: Greater bulkiness of shearling suit; greater weight of shearling suit; poor snag resistance of shearling leather; poorer resistance to compression loads of shearling, and therefore less thermal insulation and decreased warmth; greater retention of gas fumes in exposed shearling, including collars and the like, with increased possibility of burns following gasoline fires; shearling much less flexible than new-type suit and, last, greater cost of shearling flying suits.
The new-type "E" flying suit was developed on the basis of a questionnaire answered by over 4,100 aircrew. The detachable lining is a newly developed flexible double-pile twenty-two-ounce wool lining employing 50 per cent 64's, 20 per cent 60's, 20 per cent 56's and 10 per cent 50's, Canadian wool, with a thickness of one-half inch uncompressed.*
Shearling is still used in Royal Canadian Air Force flying boots, and due to the large stock on hand no change is contemplated in the near future.
The hon. member for Peterborough West (Mr. Fraser) asked with regard to payment of personnel in the United States and Alaska. Royal Canadian Air Force personnel in the United States receive their pay and allowances in United States funds, their net entitlement in Canadian dollars plus credit for loss on exchange as provided by an order in council, being converted to the equivalent in United States dollars. They are paid dollar for dollar in United States funds.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: That is, they receive in United States money $1.30 a day.


Cyrus Macmillan: Yes, in United States money. The second question asked by the hon. member for Peterborough West was with respect to the reason for the increase in rentals. The increase is not for rentals alone. The item under consideration was for rentals, water, light, power, heating, sanitary services, renewals, repairs and other maintenance costs of properties.
The expenditures for 1942A3 in the British commonwealth air training plan included the Royal Air Force schools from July 1, 1942, to March 31, 1943, a period of nine months, whereas for 1943-44 provision must be made for a full twelve-month period for these schools. All the expansion of the British commonwealth air training programme begun in the fall of 1942 will have its full effect in

1943-44. This applies also to a very substantial expansion in construction connected with the western hemisphere operations. The greater the amount of the property to be taken care of, the higher the expenditure will be for maintenance.
Another question asked by the hon. member for Peterborough West was with regard to the special treatment given night fliers to develop their eyes. The reply is that the night vision of aircrew is tested on a special apparatus for this purpose, but details can not be given, other than privately.
Another question had reference to the use of sulpha drugs. Sulpha drugs are used in the Royal Canadian Air Force in treatment of certain infections where elaborate clinical investigation has proved their worth. A greatly lessened mortality rate' from pneumonia, streptococcal infections, war wounds and the like can be attributed to the use of sulpha drugs. Their application in preventing surgical infection is recognized. There are five varieties of sulpha drugs issued for emergency use to prevent infection in injuries and wounds, until the patient can be given more special medical attention.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The men have this themselves, have they?


Cyrus Macmillan: Yes. The hon. member asked a question respecting a death resulting from inoculation at No. 35 elementary flying training school. This matter has been studied in the greatest detail. The results of the special investigation have been prepared for the coroner's inquest. No informed report can be given until the findings of the inquest are received. That report is expected within the next few days, and the hon. member will be given a copy.


Mr. McCANN:: Is that the case at
Neepawa?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes, from inoculations.


James Joseph McCann: The hon. member mentioned the coroner's inquest. Is he not following out in Manitoba the plan adopted in Ontario, under which there is no coroner's inquest?


Charles Gavan Power: This happens to be a
special case. As a result of inoculations fif.ty-two or fifty-three people were made ill and the thing became a little complicated because of having to decide whether the toxoid itself was defective or whether it was faulty inoculation. The Connaught laboratories prepare nearly all the fluids or whatever it is that are used in inoculations, and they sent a Mr. Fraser out there.

War Appropriation-Air Services


Gordon Knapman Fraser: No relation.


Charles Gavan Power: The department of health of Manitoba has a Doctor Jackson there. Inquiries have been made but we have not had a full report. Everything that can be done to find out who should be blamed will be done. The coroner's inquest will follow our inquiry. This will be under the presidency of Doctor Jackson of Manitoba.
Mr. MeCANN: Is this a special investigation of just one case?


Charles Gavan Power: It is a special investigation. As a rule we do not have a public inquiry or investigation, as my hon. friend knows, but this was a case where the death should be inquired into.


Cyrus Macmillan: The hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) asked a question with respect to the supply of water at Mossbank, and the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) asked a similar question about Assiniboia and Dafoe. These questions will have to be answered by the Department of Transport, as that department is responsible for the supplying of water to building sites. This information has been requested and will be given later. The hon. member for Davenport asked about the type of runway at the airfield at the Pas, but this information is secret. However, I shall send it to the hon. member privately.
The hon. member for York South (Mr. Noseworthy), the hon. member for St. Paul's (Mr. Ross), the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Hoblitzell) and the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) inquired about provisions being made with regard to inteiTupted education. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar also asked about the educational qualifications of our airmen. A total of 68,000 occupational histories of members of the air force have been checked and checking is still in progress. The information obtained is extremely impressive. First there is the fact of their youth. I think the late Mr. Binyon's line applies to these young men more emphatically than to any other group- "They went with songs to the battle, they were young". Seventy per cent of the 68,000 checked are under twenty-seven years of age, and more than half of them are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three years. Their high standard of education is amazing, and the minister has asked me to put the following figures before you because of their impressiveness.
Of this total number of 68,000, 6,800 in round figures have university degrees or were
undergraduates at the time of enlistment; 5,500 had completed their senior matriculation, the equivalent of the first year in university; 5,600 had partly completed their senior matriculation; over 13,000 had completed their junior matriculation and 21,500 . had completed it in part-that is, one or two or three subjects yet to be passed; 1,300 had completed technical school requirements and 4,200 had partly completed technical school courses; 700 had completed teachers' courses. About 54,000 out of 68,000 had junior matriculation in part or higher qualifications.
I am sure that every hon. member looks forward to the return of these young men and the question of their rehabilitation and repatriation will be a very serious problem.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Their
interrupted education.


Cyrus Macmillan: I understand that the phrase "interrupted education" applies to members of the forces who were in educational institutions at the time of enlistment pursuing a course of studies or who had temporarily suspended their studies because of financial or health or other reasons. Unquestionably most of these men will wish to return and provision has been made already toward that end. Order in council P.C. 7633, passed on October 1, 1941, and amended on April 20, 1943, makes provision for their educational needs by providing for grants. This comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of Pensions and National Health, but I am sure the minister of that department will1 not mind my saying a word or two about it. The order in council provides for a grant of $10.20 per week in the case of an unmarried student and $14.40 per week in the case of a married student, with fees if required.


Richard Burpee Hanson: In addition?


Cyrus Macmillan: Yes. The universities are making provision to give refresher courses to these young men and women when they return. No man can say what intellectual power has been or will be lost, but we must do everything possible to help those who come back to attain their objectives. In olden days a pessimist said: Who shall restore the years that the locusts have eaten? These young people will be able to restore part of the lost years themselves if they are given assistance and encouragement and wise guidance. I am sure that nothing is closer to the heart of the minister than that.


Mr. PERLEY:: We have been given some splendid information just now, but there is one point to which consideration should be



War Appropriation-Air Services
given, and that is the period of time that many of these men are kept in the army before being discharged. Many of these men left medical, dental and other practices, to which they are ready to go back. They will be anxious to get right back to work and will not want to be held in the army for one or two years after the war is over before being discharged.


Cyrus Macmillan: The suggestion is that they be given the preference.


Ernest Edward Perley: I should think so.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Those who have positions to go to immediately.


Cyrus Macmillan: I understand that the universities will give them precedence in admission.


Charles Gavan Power: The rehabilitation system that we are working on would permit a boy with a B.A. who wanted to go on to law to go to the university to study for that profession. It would be paid for by the government of Canada to give him a chance to complete his education.


Cyrus Macmillan: The clause reads:
In case any discharged person becomes regularly admitted to a university and commences any such course-


Ernest Edward Perley: I just wanted to make sure that the minister has my point. There are a great many men in the air force who were formerly practising his profession.


Charles Gavan Power: I think that is another problem. I do not know how we can rehabilitate the man who was practising, say, law or medicine, but as my colleague has said, there are so many who have interrupted their education to join the air force that we are trying to furnish them with an opportunity to complete it. I do not see how we could rehabilitate a man in his practice if he was a lawyer or a doctor.


Ernest Edward Perley: Their practices are there awaiting them.


Mrs. CASSELMAN:: Are the benefits that are being provided for the men being provided also for the women, at the same rate?


Cyrus Macmillan: The answer is yes to both questions.


Frederick Clayton Casselman: The women will get the same rate of benefit pay?


Cyrus Macmillan: The subsidy or assistance granted is the same to male and female *-but not to a married woman. That is set out in the order in council.


William Ross Macdonald: I think the point of the hon. member for Qu'Appelle is well taken. Many members have expressed themselves to the effect that when the war is over the men in tie armed forces should not be suddenly discharged and thrown on the labour market. I think most hon. members will agree with that as a general submission. But as the hon. member for Qu'Appelle has said, there are many men who have left the professions in which they were established. I quite agree that these men should be encouraged when the war is over to go back to their professions, if they so desire, and not be held in the forces. Then there are students, as the parliamentary assistant to the minister has stated, whose studies were interrupted. There should be no delay in allowing these men to go back to their studies so that they may qualify themselves for whatever profession they have chosen. These two classes should not be any great problem. But there is a third class, men who have no trade, no profession and no business to which to return. I trust that when the war is over this class, which is composed of the great mass of men in the armed forces, will not be suddenly thrown on the labour market with nothing to do.


Cyrus Macmillan: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Jackman) asked two or three questions: He asked: "Is there to be a fleet air arm formed in Canada?" The question of forming a fleet air arm in Canada has been under discussion but no definite decision has been arrived at. He also asked: "What becomes of obsolete material?" Obsolete material is disposed of as follows:
(1)	Retained in the service for instructional use.
(2)	Sold to civil air lines in mining communities or to contractors et cetera, who may require this equipment.
(3)	Or issued to war extension training programme schools and air cadet squadrons for instructional purposes.
(4)	If the equipment is not required for any of these purposes it is reduced to produce and disposed of by sale as scrap.
The hon. member for Rosedale also asked:
Is all equipment in depots modern?
Yes; stocks at equipment depots are reviewed continuously to ensure that equipment declared obsolete does not accumulate. Particulars of the obsolete items held are submitted to air force headquarters for disposal instructions.
The hon. member also asked for a comparison of personnel strength. At No. 2 Service Flying Training School at Uplands comparison of personnel strength as at May 31, 1941, and May 31, 1943, shows the following:

May 31,1941 May 31,1943
Staff
Service	
703	897Civilian	
182	128Total	
885Aircrew in training...	175
1,025
Grand total...	1,060	1,259
It will be seen that while the number of aircrew in training showed an increase of thirty-four per cent, the increase in staff was only sixteen per cent. Thus the ratio of staff to pupils decreased from 5-06 to one to the present figure of 4-38 to one.
The hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell) asked how decorations were awarded. Recommendations for honours and awards may be submitted under the following classifications:
(a)	Gallantry awards for any specific act of gallantry or series of acts of bravery. These may be submitted as immediate at any time or included in the periodic lists.
(b)	(i) Chivalry awards for extreme meritorious service and devotion to duty. These may only be considered in the periodic lists.
(ii) Certain gallantry awards may also be awarded for devotion to duty and meritorious service, i.e., A.F.C., A.F.M., B.E.M., "M.I.D." and commendations.
I have a list here of the honours and awards granted to air force personnel, excluding those of last week. Hon. members might be interested in knowing that the total of awards for gallantry is 479.
The hon. member for Huron North (Mr. Cardiff) asked a question with reference to security guards:
Have they been given a chance to remuster to a trade of their choice or will they be transferred to another trade arbitrarily without any choice in the matter?
Yes. Given the necessary qualifications and provided there is room within the establishment of the trade preferred, security guards are given ample opportunity to remuster to the trade of their preference. For example, in the recent amalgamation of service police and security duties, all security guards were individually interviewed to ascertain how many wished to remuster to the trade of service police; several hundred were so remustered by their own expressed choice, but none was remustered against his will. Those who were not remustered to service police appeared before duly constituted trade selection boards to be remustered to other trades, according to their several capabilities and expressed preferences.


Charles Gavan Power: The hon. member for Cam-rose (Mr. Marshall) asked a question with regard to radio mechanics. It is a long story but I will try to make it as brief as possible.
TFar Appropriation-Air Services
In January, 1941, we received a request from Sir Gerald Campbell to see if we could not recruit in Canada radio mechanics for the Royal Air Force. I happen to have discussed this matter of radio mechanics with a higher authority, Mr. Churchill, in England, and he ascribes the victory in the battle of Britain largely to radio mechanics or radio locators, and the United Kingdom government allotted the highest priority to them. The original request came in October, 1940, from Sir Gerald Campbell, then high commissioner. It had nothing to do with the joint empire training agreement; it was, so to speak, an extra. At that time they asked for 1,000 radio mechanics, but as things went on, eventually the request came for 5,000. They required a very high standard; so much so, that we thought the best people we could get would be university students. As a matter of fact in May, 1941, I made a speech calling on students of the universities to undertake this radio mechanic training, and we sent these people to the different universities all across Canada to follow a university course. Somehow or other we seem to have demanded too high qualifications. We had lawyers, doctors, clergymen: for instance, there is a clergyman up in the Hebrides who is a private in the air force, and a headmaster of a Toronto school who is somewhere in the Faroe islands, holding the position of acting lance corporal without pay. Evidently we rather exaggerated the required qualifications, but the man who invented the apparatus thought, like most other inventors, that he needed the best possible - men to handle it, and he sold us the idea of obtaining the best educated men we could. We were asked for 5,000 and we supplied 5,000. These unfortunate fellows have been sent all over the world. Some of them went to West Africa, some to Singapore, some elsewhere. Nearly all are of the class of university student, and of course, they did not get the advancement which one would expect people of that class to get; they are still LAC's. This is nobody's fault, or if it is anybody's fault I suppose it is ours, because the work seemed so important. I must say I am more responsible than anybody else. I said, "We will send the best we can get," because apparently this was the most important thing that could be done. In any case they went overseas and, as I say, did not get much in the way of promotion.
But wTe have now provided for radio mechanics of two kinds. I cannot explain the details, because they are very secret. There are six categories. There is radio mechanic, air:	he is the man who looks after whatever
radio machines they put in the aeroplanes.

War Appropriation-Air Services
There is also radio mechanic, ground, who gets the radio locations from different parts and has all these secret devices. Apparently the ground men are all right. They have been sent all over the world: some are in Kenya, some in West Africa, others at Cape Town, and everywhere they are getting on pretty well. The trouble with the radio mechanics has been that this radio business changes so quickly that before they are fully trained their machines are obsolescent, so that they have had to begin all over again and learn a new system. The result is that they could not get promotion. They would be trade-tested on machine A, and 'by the time they got to their assigned place machine B was installed, and they were out of luck.


Agar Rodney Adamson: The course was about
six months, was it not?


Charles Gavan Power: I believe the university-trained boys had two months in Canada plus whatever they had in England. For a while they were unemployed or misemployed; there is no question about that. But now the thing has straightened itself out. I believe that, of the 5,000 required, all but 200 have been sent over; 638 have received their commissions, and now every one of them gets trade pay; he is either a corporal or a sergeant; and they are trade-tested by Canadian boards. So that the situation is pretty well cleared up. For a while it was very interesting. I do not know that I can say much more, except that the boys are happier than they were a year ago. We sent highly educated people-for instance, lawyers-to do what a man should do with a hammer and chisel: that is about the size of it. It was our fault, I think, somebody told us to require too much.


Mr. STIRLING:: Can they get still further promotion? Is there anything else for them to go up to?


Charles Gavan Power: That has to do with the commissioning policy. I do not know of any class we have sent over who are more under the Royal Air Force. They are mixed up everywhere; they are not in Canadian squadrons. I do not know who is in charge of them. There is a group of some kind, and they can get commissions; they are on the basis of ten per cent on graduation and ten per cent for service in the field. After all it is not so bad, for what are they, really? They are signallers.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I was going to ask the minister how they compare with the army, who did more or less the same thing but did it through the signal corps.


Charles Gavan Power: The complaint that my hon. friend has is that the army men get promotions more quickly. I am not sure about that, because I do not think the army enlisted very many of them. They may have enlisted them as straight signallers.


Mr. ROSS (Calgary East):: Are they R.A.F or R.C.A.F.?


Charles Gavan Power: They are R.C.A.F. They wear R.C.A.F. uniforms, but their careers are dictated by R.A.F. If they go to England they can be sent to the Shetlands or anywhere else.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I believe the army did the same thing, and the course was six months.


Charles Gavan Power: I do not think so. There are signallers who know the radio mechanic's job, but I do not think they went out to get them as radio mechanics.


Mr. McIYOR:: I think the Minister of National Defence for Air showed his good sense in placing extra work upon his parliamentary assistant, for he does it well; which proves the old proverb that two heads are better than one, especially when they are good. It also proves that the appointment of parliamentary assistants is of splendid value to this house. On behalf of those in the homes where the boys have lost their mothers and the next of kin of casualties will receive the Silver Cross, I would thank the minister and his parliamentary assistant for this consideration. It will be like a drop of sweet oil poured into a very tender wound; because when a boy loses his mother when he is young, and an aunt or an older sister or someone else comes in and takes the place of that mother, she appreciates very much this Silver Cross, which tells her and all Canada that the ministers in charge have a little bit of heart and sympathy. I thank them.


Mr. KNOWLES:: Has the parliamentary assistant supplied all the answers which he has thus far obtained?


Cyrus Macmillan: No; I have some more to give.	.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Why not finish them? I am interested in an answer to the question about civil servants in the air force.


Cyrus Macmillan: The hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Fair) asked a question, which I will answer now. He asked, is there a new field in Wainwright, Alberta? The answer is yes, a single landing strip 5,000

War Appropriation-Air Services
feet long and 200 feet wide, near Wainwright. It is built to carry air exercises in connection with airmen's training.


Mr. MARSHALL:: Will the parliamentary assistant state where that field is situated? Has it anything to do with the army training school which is now located very close to Wainwright?


Cyrus Macmillan: The only information I have is that it is at Wainwright, Alberta.


James Alexander Marshall: I know, but a large training centre is being built there at the present time for the army. It is the old Wainwright buffalo park, a huge place, and quite a large amount of building is going on. Has the parliamentary assistant any information as to the exact location of this airport?


Cyrus Macmillan: I will try to give that information this evening. The member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) asked a question with regard to the expenditure last year and this jmar classified according to the three branches of the department, oversea^, commonwealth air training and western command. The estimated expenditures for 1942-43 are: C.A.T.P. $45,000.000; western hemisphere operation, $65,000,000, or a total of $110,000,000; for 1943-44 the B.C.A.T.P. is $35,022,282 and western hemisphere operations, S5S,398,818, or a total, as contained in the sheet before you, of $93,421,100. It will be noted that there are no expenditures overseas for 1942-43 and no provision is included in the estimate for such expenditures for 1943-44.
The member for Weyburn asked another question: what has been done to localize training, to eliminate the excessive use of railway travel.
Personnel are posted in such a manner as to minimize the use of transportation. In the case of staff personnel, movements must, of necessity, be in accordance with the trade qualifications and the unit requirements. In so far as aircrew trainees are concerned, enlistees are posted to the manning depot nearest to place of enlistment (except on such occasions as movements are effected to balance up deficiencies in recruiting considered in relation to training school intakes), from manning depots to schools in accordance with routing plan devised to synchronize with training requirements, with personnel proceeding in all instances to the nearest unit designed to accept them in the next stage of training.
The member for Hastings South (Mr. Stokes) asked whether we pay the same cost of living bonus as civilian employers.
No. Cost of living bonus to civilian employees of dominion government is governed by order in council PC. 6702 dated 26th August, 1941. According to terms of order in council P.C. 6702 dated 26th August, 1941, and treasury board interpretation of September 6, 1941, any increase in basic rate authorized since August 1. 1939, is to be deducted from the cost-of-living bonus; therefore, any employee whose basic rate of pay has been increased sufficiently will receive no cost of living bonus, whereas those whose rate has not been increased will still receive bonus.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Was that by order in council, or was it an interpretation by the treasury board?


Cyrus Macmillan: It was an interpretation by the treasury board of September 6, 1941.


Clarence Gillis: 
Cyrus Macmillan: The specific case
referred to by the hon. member will be considered and further information will be brought down.


Charles Gavan Power: The same answer is given to the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston) with reference to Calgary. At least, I fancy it is the same answer. If this ruling of the treasury board is to be accepted, then all I can do is to make further representations on the basis of what has been said in this house, and you may win.

War Appropriation-Air Services


Stanley Howard Knowles: Does the minister know whether it is possible for us to get some report as to the nature of the treasury board's interpretation and the reason for the decision arrived at, in order that we may try to persuade them to change their mind?


Charles Gavan Power: The discussions in the house will indicate to anyone who is at all interested that the general opinion in this house is that the interpretation is a bad one. I will send copies of Hansard or pass on to them the representations made to me in the house. I do not say that the decision will be favourable, but I will do my best.


Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: I agree with the minister that the decision of the treasury board was bad. It was so bad that, I believe, there was a conference between the departments and representatives of the civilian ser- , vices. In fact, the other day I read part of a letter I had received from one of the members of the treasury board. I do not recall the details now, but it is on Hansard. I think the situation is bad, where you have two services, one working for the government and the other in civilian occupations, and one receiving the cost-of-living bonus while the other does not. It is creating hard feeling among the men in the service, and they feel that they have a just claim. I am pleased to hear the minister say that he will take it up further with the treasury board and try to get them to change their minds. It is a most unfortunate situation and one which should be cleared up.


Charles Gavan Power: There are four ministers on the treasury board, and they may have listened to what my hon. friends have been saying and have decided to change their minds.


Clarence Gillis: Who are the ministers?


Charles Gavan Power: The acting leader of the government is one, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Trade and Commerce, I believe.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The hon. member for Bow River has emphasized the unfairness of paying different rates for the same sort of work. Is it not also true that the basic rate varies as between different places? The hon. member for Cape Breton South referred to a rate of 43| cents for general labour in the maritimes. The basic rate in Winnipeg at one time was 40 cents and I believe is now 45 cents.


Charles Gavan Power: I am informed that the Department of Labour sets this rate. Let us say it costs more to live in Winnipeg than in Prince Edward Island. Would my hon. friend

say the basic rate in Prince Edward Island should be the same as in Winnipeg, or should it not? I am just asking the question.


Charles Edward Johnston: Would not the cost of living bonus enter into it?


Charles Gavan Power: I do not know; I am just asking the question. I am not trying to justify it.


Major James William Coldwell: Treasury board consists only of members of the cabinet, but they have certain advisers who sit with them. I should like to know the names of those gentlemen who sit with the treasury board1; I think that would be interesting to the committee and to the country. May we have the names of those who sit with and advise treasury board?


Charles Gavan Power: Really it is so long since I had the honour of being a member of treasury board that I do not remember the name of the secretary. I am told it is Mr. Ronson.


Major James William Coldwell: I think we would all like to know who are the gentlemen who advise the treasury board, because this seems to be a sort of super-cabinet; they seem to be able to make interpretations and decisions that do not coincide with what the House of Commons expects or, indeed, with what some of the ministers seem to expect.


Charles Gavan Power: That is true.


Major James William Coldwell: I should like to know who the advisers are.


Mr. FAIR:: I think it would be well if we could learn also the names of those who are the advisers to the advisers of the treasury board.


Stanley Howard Knowles: A moment ago the minister asked me a question. In turn I would ask him if he would find out on what basis the different rates are determined, whether it is on the basis of a difference in the cost of living or whether it is on the basis of the going rates in the various parts of the country. Naturally I have no interest in seeing the rate at Winnipeg reduced to what it may be in the east, but it seems to me the difference should be explained, at least.


Charles Gavan Power: I really think these questions are more for the Department of Labour than for my department, but I am quite willing to make inquiries and see if I can get the information. At the moment I cannot give the answer because frankly I do not know why there should be a difference between the rates of pay in certain sections of the country. It may be based on the cost of living or what

War Appropriation-Air Services
have you, but I shall be only too glad to inquire and give the answer to-night if I can get it.


The CHAIRMAN:: The minister did not raise a point of order, but I listened attentively to the last few questions and I believe they are out of order. The Minister of National Defence for Air cannot be expected to answer questions pertaining to the Department of Labour.


Clarence Gillis: This is not a question for the Department of Labour, because it has been under consideration by the Royal Canadian Air Force for the past year, so far as my end of it is concerned. There is a difference in the rates; I have gone into the question to a certain extent with the people in the maritimes and I understand that the rates are fixed by National Defence, without regard to any other department, based upon the prevailing rates in the district.


Charles Gavan Power: That is right.


Clarence Gillis: There is a difference as between different sections of the province. If they come in with a fixed rate and the district rate is lower, their rates are automatically lowered to conform to the highest local rate.


Charles Gavan Power: It is what I think they call the prevailing rates of pay.


Clarence Gillis: That is right. What is in dispute so far as I am concerned is the cost of living bonus. At the moment I am satisfied with the minister's answer.


Charles Gavan Power: I shall do what I can to straighten it out.


Charles Edward Johnston: I realize that the basic rates of pay may be different in different places. The hon. member for Cape Breton South has stated that the basic rate of pay for general labour in his district is 40 cents. I think in Calgary the basic rate for carpenters was 80 cents, while those employed in civilian industry were receiving something like 95 cents. My point, however, is that the cost of living bonus should have no relation whatever to the basic rate of pay. That basic rate may be settled by the prevailing rate within a district, but certainly the cost of living bonus has nothing to do with that. The cost of living bonus is paid entirely because of the rise in prices due to the war, and I think that bonus should be general throughout the country. I do not think it would cost the people in Nova Scotia any more to live than it would cost the people in Calgary, at least so far as the cost of living bonus is concerned. Once you have decided
what the cost of living bonus should be, then it should be applied to all industries and all branches of the service, and I should not think the basic rate would have anything to do with it. If the minister would bear that in mind when he is trying to persuade the treasury board that there should be some adjustments made, perhaps it might help. Personally I am afraid he has a hard nut to crack, having in mind the names he has given, along with Doctor Clark, the deputy minister of finance, who I think sits with the board in an advisory capacity. They seem like a pretty tough bunch and he will need a sledge hammer to work on them.


Charles Gavan Power: We shall do our best.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
8.	M.T. vehicles and marine craft: capital cost and repairs, $10,508,405.
Stanley Howard Knowles: May I ask if other questions which have been asked will be answered in due course?


Charles Gavan Power: My colleague has a few more questions which he will answer. Was there anything special?


Stanley Howard Knowles: There was a question in relation to the pay of civilian personnel.


Charles Gavan Power: I think we have it, and it will be put on the record.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It may be in the form of a table.


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Did the minister say the parliamentary secretary had further answers to give?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Cyrus Macmillan: In reply to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), there is a very long answer with regard to salary increases for civil service employees. Is that the one he has in mind?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I believe it is. I asked the minister if he would break down the civilian employees into three groups: those who were civil service commission appointees, those who were appointed by order in council, and those who were exempt.


Cyrus Macmillan: That will be brought
in this evening.


James Alexander Marshall: I was not able to follow the answer the minister gave with respect to radio technicians; I suppose I shall have to read it in Hansard to-morrow. However, I should like to ask if any improvements have been made in the status of these radio

War Appropriation-Air Services
technicians since I placed my question upon the order paper last March. From the correspondence I have had I am led to believe nothing has been done, or that nothing had been done up to that time, and the question in my mind is what has been done since March of this year.


Charles Gavan Power: I can assure my hon. friend that their position is far better than it was at that time. They are getting trade tests now; they are getting trade pay, and more and more of them are- being commissioned or remustered to other trades. I have a report which indicates that there is much less dissatisfaction amongst them now than there was two months ago.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Did the minister or his assistant answer the question I asked in reference to Mossbank airport?


Cyrus Macmillan: Yes. The Department of Transport is responsible for the water supply at all these sites, and that department has been asked for a report, which will be given to the hon. member for Davenport. With regard to the situation at the Pas, the answer will be given to the hon. member privately, because it involves secret information'.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I understood the minister was going to answer all questions before proceeding to the next item.


Charles Gavan Power: I do not know of any others. Has the hon. member one in mind?


Agar Rodney Adamson: I was wondering if there were any which had not been answered.


Cyrus Macmillan: The hon. member for Cape Breton South asked the Minister of National Defence a question with regard to travelling allowances, berths and meals between eastern and western Canada. While this question was not put to the Minister of National Defence for Air, the answer has been prepared by him. Present regulations regarding rail transportation, sleeping car accommodation, meals and the like in connection with the movement of personnel as laid down in F.R.I. part 13, article 209, were put into effect, after careful study and consultation with the army, and the regulations of both services are uniform in this regard.
These regulations provide that airmen below the rank of sergeant, when travelling on duty, are entitled to second-class transportation and necessary meals. If the trip is of such duration that personnel are required to spend two consecutive nights or more on continuous journey they may be provided with berths in tourist cars, if available.
[Mr. Marshall.1
Because of the present train service in effect on Canadian railways there are bound to be some inconsistencies. The instance quoted to the effect that personnel from the maritimes destined to No. 1 manning depot at Toronto did not get berths is correct. Such personnel would actually spend only one night on the train. Personnel from points, Winnipeg and west, destined to No. 1 manning depot at Toronto are compelled to spend two nights on the train, and are therefore provided with berths in tourist cars, if available.
Furthermore, personnel moving between units in western Canada, for instance from Winnipeg to Edmonton, would not be provided with berths, since the journey involves only one night on the train. In this regard they are treated similarly to personnel from the maritimes to Toronto.
The statement to the effect that there have been cases of personnel travelling between Halifax and Montreal who have not been provided with meals is difficult to reconcile, unless they were proceeding on leave, in which case the onus for obtaining transportation and meals en route is the responsibility of personnel concerned.
The further statement that cases have occurred where personnel did not even get seats on trains between Montreal and Toronto is difficult to check. This may have occurred during a week-end rush, when the situation complained of was not peculiar to service personnel only.


Clarence Gillis: I have some complaints
along these lines. In my opinion the joker in the arrangement is the words, "if possible." There should be no misunderstanding when a number of men in the air force are moved from place to place, on call of duty. That is not a decision made overnight. Those in charge of the situation must know they have a certain number of personnel who will be moving from- point to point at a certain time. The railway company should be so informed, so that they would have sufficient time to guarantee that men coming from Halifax to Toronto would be provided with the accommodation stipulated in the regulations.
It was a considerable group of men-I believe it was five, although I cannot vouch for it-that moved from Halifax to Toronto. They were not provided with meals or sleeper accommodation, and they spent two nights on the train. The last night on the train from Montreal to Toronto it was so crowded they had to stand most of the way. These were recruits being sent from Halifax to Toronto to take

War Appropriation-Air Services
basic training. That was not a very pleasant introduction to the service. Even then, they did not complain until they reached Toronto, and were told that they had been given a raw deal, and that personnel moving west of Toronto for the same purposes were provided with berths and meals. Evidently service on that end of the line is good. These boys had a specific complaint. I am sure their complaints were sincere, because I know some of them personally.
In my opinion the expression, "if possible," is the one which should be eliminated. There should not be any misunderstanding. If anyone has to stand up or go without a berth on a train it should be the civilian, who can travel at his own convenience, when he is not under pressure. The services are required to move on order, and there should not be any interference with the regulations concerning their comforts and conveniences en route.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Are the bombs dropped
on Germany by the Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons paid out of this item of $23,000,000?


Charles Gavan Power: No; that would be out of
item No. 13, for the maintenance of overseas squadrons. This is a per capita arrangement, under which they charge us a lump sum of so much for aircraft, bombs, military transport, food, and items of that kind. The $303,783,729 covers everything. We pay for the bombs our men drop.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Bombs and ammunition
in this instance would be for training purposes, such as dummy bombs, smoke bombs and the like?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes, many of them are
practice bombs.


Agar Rodney Adamson: And for the operational command?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes, east and west coasts.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
8. M.T. vehicles and marine craft: Capital cost and repairs, $10,508,405.
John Ritchie MacNicol: What are these marine craft?


Charles Gavan Power: Vessels one has to have, largely in connection with home war establishment, I would say.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Including boats carried on aircraft?


Charles Gavan Power: Under the joint empire plan we spend on marine craft $4,900,000; on home
war establishment, $2,381,000, and overseas, $21,000. I do not really know what that item would be.


John Ritchie MacNicol: What is the meaning of the term, "marine craft"?


Charles Gavan Power: Rescue vessels, such as were mentioned a short time ago. They would be called out in the event of a crash. Then, it would include tenders, ferries and that sort of thing.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Do they not carry small ones on the aircraft?


Charles Gavan Power: No. We have rubber dinghies. They would not come under this item, but would be included in aircraft equipment.


Mr. POTTIER:: Is there not a marine
section of the air force?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Vincent-Joseph Pottier: And these marine craft would be under the control of that section?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Has the Department of National Defence for Air any special designers for these rescue boats, or would that come under the Department of Munitions and Supply?


Charles Gavan Power: I would say that when we want special rescue boats we have someone make up specifications, and then ask the Department of Munitions and Supply to have them built for us. I think we still have a marine engineer in the department.


Grote Stirling: Has the minister the requirements of these refuelling tenders? Have they been supplied with reasonable rapidity?


Charles Gavan Power: I think as far as marine craft are concerned, we are in pretty good shape. I know we bought a boat of about 500 or 600 tons in Lunenburg to bring supplies to Newfoundland.


Mr. HAZEN:: Is automobile transportation supplied to each air training school?


Charles Gavan Power: I think, all told, we have
3,500	vehicles of different description. Each establishment would have a certain number of vehicles. For example, at Uplands there would be so many staff cars, one, two or three as the case may be, so many caterpillars and so many vehicles of other descriptions. There would also be so many fire-fighting tenders.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Would snow-clearing
equipment come under this item?



War Appropriation-Air Services


Douglas King Hazen: Are there motor-buses
attached to the different air training schools? I have in mind Pennfield in New Brunswick.


Charles Gavan Power: I am not absolutely sure about Pennfield.


Douglas King Hazen: I am referring to buses which would enable the men stationed there to get to Saint John or St. Andrews or St. Stephen.


Charles Gavan Power: I would think they would because there is no other way of getting there. It is about forty miles from Saint John?


Douglas King Hazen: About.


Charles Gavan Power: And about thirty miles from St. George. There must be some kind of transportation. I know we have buses in Ottawa to bring our W.D's. back and forth to Rockcliffe, and also in other places where they are necessary. I do not know about Pennfield, but we should have.


Douglas King Hazen: I do not know whether they have buses, but they should have because these young fellows there are pretty well cut off from the world. I pick them up on the road sometimes and give them a lift at least part of the way.


Charles Gavan Power: I recollect now that when I was last there they had a bus which went into Saint John in the morning and then would leave Saint John about eleven o'clock at night to reach the station about twelve.


Ernest Edward Perley: What equipment is there at Mossbank and Dafoe?


Charles Gavan Power: I do not know what there would be at Mossbank particularly, but we have tractors, snow rollers, trucks and different kinds of equipment.
Mr. PERLEY": That is a special school.


Charles Gavan Power: There are graders, tractors, trailers, snow ploughs, snow removers, turf rollers and so on.


Ernest Edward Perley: Could the minister give me what they have at Mossbank and Dafoe?


Charles Gavan Power: Each school is entitled to so many different kinds of motor vehicles, maybe one staff car for the commanding officer and a roller, a tractor and so on.


Ernest Edward Perley: Could the minister give the break-down for these stations?


Charles Gavan Power: The establishment is made up for equipment just as it is for personnel; that is, so many men, so many cars, so many motor vehicles.


Ernest Edward Perley: Would the minister give the information for Dafoe and Mossbank?


Gordon Graydon: Will the minister look into the question of transportation for the airmen who are stationed at Malton? There has been considerable complaint as to the adequacy of transportation from that school to Toronto. Many public-spirited people have interested themselves in the welfare of the airmen and have given a great deal of attention to this matter. I am not familiar with the recent developments with respect to transportation, but I ask the minister to look into this matter and, if it has not been remedied in the last few weeks, to see that this is done.


Charles Gavan Power: It is about twenty miles to Toronto?


Gordon Graydon: Not quite that far.


Charles Gavan Power: I will have the answer for my hon. friend.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Up until a day or two ago the road was in very bad condition, especially during the wet weather.


Charles Gavan Power: Is it the condition of the road or the lack of vehicles?


John Ritchie MacNicol: I do not know. There is some question about who should keep the road in order. Last time I was over it, it was in dreadful condition, there being a number of pitch holes of one kind and another. Someone undertook to fill in these holes with gravel and then put dirt on top, but when the weather got wet the whole thing went to pieces.


Gordon Graydon: My question was directed to the matter of transportation rather than the state of the roads.


Douglas King Hazen: Have any orders been issued to restrict the use of staff cars in order to save gasoline and, if so, to what effect?


Charles Gavan Power: I cannot say offhand what the orders are, but, like the army, we have issued strict orders about the use of staff cars, trucks and that kind of thing. I shall have the order for the hon. member to-night.


Ernest Edward Perley: When the minister is getting the information with respect to the schools at Dafoe and Mossbank, will he also let me have the fuel costs in each case? Is a separate contract issued for the supplying of fuel to Mossbank, for instance?


Charles Gavan Power: All fuel is purchased through Munitions and Supply, and I think they have tried to divide the business between the different gasoline companies in Canada on an

War Appropriation-Air Services
equal basis. I could not tell whether the gasoline for Mossbank is purchased from Imperial Oil, McColl Frontenac, or some other company. The price is the same, so that there is no competition. We ask Munitions and Supply for the gasoline and they deliver it.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
9.	Fuel costs for aircraft, M.T. and marine craft, $29,368,636.
Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A complaint has come to me repeatedly-I am sure other members have heard the same thing-which I should like the minister to clear up, because I believe it would be a good thing from the point of view of the general public. It is said frequently by those who live close to airports that when planes come back from making trips they simply let their gasoline run out on the ground. I understand that there is an explanation for this, but I do not know what it is. If the minister could give a full explanation it would prevent constant rumours of wastage which one hears throughout the country. When the victory loan campaign was on, people said: "Here we are with gasoline rationed and these fellows are letting gasoline out on the ground instead of salvaging it. Why is that done? Is there not some way in which it can be salvaged?" I think the public should be given an explanation.


Charles Gavan Power: That question has come up at intervals during the past two years. I am sure my hon. friend must have heard it many a time. The rumour would arise in Nova Scotia at one time, say, and next you would hear of it in the western provinces. Therefore the head of No. 4 training command asked the Calgary Albertan to make an inquiry into the situation. They sent out their own men and I should like to send my hon. friend a copy of their report. Every time this rumour comes up we send out a copy of this report made by an independent newspaper, and therefore not to be considered prepossessed in our favour. I have a copy here and *svould gladly send it to my hon. friend.


Ernest Edward Perley: But what is the answer?


Cyrus Macmillan: When an aircraft completes a normal training or operational flight, the tanks are refilled, not drained, in readiness for the next flight.
Gasoline is drained from aircraft tanks prior to major repair and overhaul or transfer (when not under its own power), immediately after a crash and, normally, before being placed in storage. When gasoline is drained, it is returned to bulk storage or directly into refuelling tenders for re-issue to aircraft (when taken
72537-215}
from undamaged tanks) or filtered, mixed with lead free gasoline and used as M.T. gasoline (when taken from damaged tanks).
Gasoline removed from tanks of aircraft flown into a civilian contractor's plant for repair and overhaul is drained into the contractor's tanks (or into R.C.A.F. tanks where such exist) and re-issued to the aircraft on completion of repair or used for engine test purposes.


Ernest Edward Perley: How about the lubricating oil? There is a rumour that that is sold to certain parties.


Cyrus Macmillan: I have a memorandum
on that:
It is the unanimous opinion of petroleum technicians associated with national research council that the employment of re-refined oil in aircraft engines in Canada is not advisable at the present time.
While reclaimed oil is so used in the R.A.F., this is done for economic reasons which do not apply in Canada. In the United Kingdom, initial cost of oil is considerably greater; costs of collection and transportation are much lower, owing to shorter distances, and the volume of oil to be reclaimed is large enough to justify installation of the necessary machinery.
A large proportion of the used oil in Nos. 2 and 4 Training Command is being re-refined by a civilian company at Camsack, Sask., and returned for use in R.C.A.F. M.T. vehicles. There is no suitable contractor in the east, but the possibility of installing a plant in the Ottawa district, to be operated by the Royal Canadian Air Force, is being investigated. Such a plant, if installed, would serve Nos. 1 and 3 training commands.
The larger oil companies (who own practically all the oil drums used in the R.C.A.F.) are not particularly interested in purchasing used oil as an economic proposition, and the greatest difficulty is encountered in finding containers for accumulation of used oil for shipment to such smaller plants as are willing to accept it for reclamation. The small companies cannot supply drums and the large concerns require their prompt return owing to the war-time shortage of metals.
Reclamation of oil must be done to rigid specifications, under proper control. The experience of the army has shown that unit reclamation plants cannot be operated satisfactorily with the type of personnel available.
In the Royal Canadian Air Force as a whole, the only possible course at present is to dispose of used oil under contracts at the best prices obtainable. During the past nine months, 183,904 gallons have been sold for $10,515.09 -an average price of 5'7 cents per gallon.


James Alexander Marshall: This sum of $29,000,000 odd seems a small amount for fuel oil. Surely it does not include the fuel oil required by the Royal Canadian Air Force overseas.


Charles Gavan Power: No; everything overseas is
under item 13.

War Appropriation-Air Services


Agar Rodney Adamson: The minister said in
answer to my question about cracked gasoline [DOT]that the octane rating was 80 to 87. What percentage of lead is used in gasoline for aircraft?


Charles Gavan Power: I would not know.


Agar Rodney Adamson: For operational work it
is 100 octane, is it not?


Charles Gavan Power: From 90 to 100; I could not say exactly, but it is 90 anyway.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Has your experience
with cracked gasoline been satisfactory?


Charles Gavan Power: My colleague tells me that
they are now testing it out.


John Ritchie MacNicol: If we are using gasoline with an octane rating of only 87 it must be used for training purposes. The Americans flying over the north country always use an octane rating of 100. You see it in barrels all over the north country route. The reason for using gasoline with that higher octane rating is that it has more power, will lift an aeroplane faster and carry a heavier load than the 87 rating.


Charles Gavan Power: It gives much better performance, yes.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is this $29,368,636 for
gasoline to be used for aeroplanes purely in Canada? It is used for training purposes?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes. This covers training,
home war operations, hemisphere operations; it does not cover overseas. Everything overseas comes under item 13.


Charles Edward Johnston: With
regard to reclaimed oil, have the department investigated the question of cleaning this oil themselves? The minister's assistant stated a moment ago that this oil was being sold to reclaimers at five cents a gallon. When I was in Calgary not long ago I visited one of the plants. It was not a very large place. They bought the oil from the Royal Canadian Air force in Calgary and, if my memory serves me correctly, they were selling it as reclaimed oil for sixty cents a gallon. There was nothing complicated about the plant; it was a very simple affair. I do not imagine the whole set-up would cost very much. If they could buy the oil for five cents a gallon and resell it at sixty cents, and so far as I could see the oil was perfectly good and was being sold for use by all types of automobiles, would it not be worth while for the department itself to install an oil-cleaning plant? Then the oil they reclaimed could be used in the Royal Canadian Air Force transport vehicles, such as trucks, automobiles, and so forth.


Charles Gavan Power: All I can say is that this
question has come up time after time. I have made inquiries and this is the information I get from the technical officers:
It is the unanimous opinion of petroleum technicians associated with national research council that the employment of re-refined oil in aircraft engines in Canada is not advisable at the present time.
This question has come up a dozen times and they have always given me the same answer. There is a plant at Kamsack, Saskatchewan, for refining this oil, operated by a civilian company. The oil when reclaimed is used in Royal Canadian Air Force motor transport vehicles. The technical officers say in their report:
There is no suitable contractor in the east.
I have not checked up on that. They go on to say that the possibility of installing a plant in the Ottawa district to be operated by the Royal Canadian Air Force is being investigated. Such a plant, if installed, would serve No. 1 and No. 3 training commands; that is, Toronto and Quebec.


Charles Edward Johnston: I was not referring particularly to any area, such as Ottawa, though it might be a good place to start one. I never suggested nor do I think it would be proper to use this refined oil in aircraft. My only purpose was-and I was referring to the Calgary case because that happened to be the place I was at-to draw attention to this refined oil which these fellows got at five cents a gallon and turned round and sold at sixty cents, giving them a pretty fair margin, of profit. The machinery which they have is quite simple; there does not seem to be anything to it at all. It seems to me that wherever there is a large establishment such as the air force has in Calgary and surrounding districts, it would be well worth while to establish one of these plants.


Ernest Edward Perley: Who operates the plant at Kamsack; how much was refined in the last year and how much was paid?


Charles Gavan Power: I would not know. This statement is that it is refined by a civilian company at Kamsack. It does not say how much they have actually refined.


Ernest Edward Perley: Could the minister get the name of the company, and how much oil they secured, at the five-cent rate, to refine?


Mr. CASTLEDEN:: What quantity of that used oil from aircraft engines is sold from the air force within a year?


Charles Gavan Power: I will try to find that out. In the R.C.A.F. as a whole the only possible

War Appropriation-Air Services
course at present is to dispose of used oil under contract at the best prices obtainable. During the past nine months, 183,904 gallons have been sold for $10,515, or an average price of 5-7 cents a gallon.


Charles Edward Johnston: What do they do with the other stuff? Just throw it away? That seems like a tremendous waste. They must have used much more oil than is shown to have been sold.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Probably the rest of it is burned up.


Charles Edward Johnston: There is not much burned up.


Charles Gavan Power: I will get one of the technical officers to prepare an answer.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Does the minister know for how many hours' operation oil is used? There is a set standard in the air force; oil in the engines is changed after so many hours' operations.


Charles Gavan Power: I would not know that.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I understand that in the Royal Air Force the oil is used considerably longer than we use it here.


Charles Gavan Power: It probably is. It would be.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Has the minister information as to how many hours oil is used?


Charles Gavan Power: I will find out.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: When the minister is getting this information, in view of what has been said about it, would his advisers be able to tell us what percentage of the used oil they can reclaim? The statement made is that oil is sold at five cents and resold at sixty cents. In all fairness it would be desirable to inform the committee of the approximate percentage that is reclaimed.


Charles Gavan Power: I will try to get in touch between now and eight o'clock with the officer who does all this oil business and have the information which is asked for.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: You have a reclamation plant at Rockcliffe, have you not-a small one?


Charles Gavan Power: I do not think so.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
10.	Aircraft, engines and spares, including overhauls, $231,846,296.
Gordon Knapman Fraser: The parliamentary assistant to the minister mentioned that air cadets get part of the equipment which cannot be used for the regular
force. What do the air cadets get for training; would they get an old aeroplane, or just the engine, or what?


Charles Gavan Power: No; we supply the air cadets aero engines and planes of the ordinary training type, wherever the cadets are well organized. There are always planes becoming obsolete or obsolescent, and we supply them to air cadet squadrons to let them learn something about how to run an engine and something about an air frame and so on. There was one on Laurier avenue at the air cadet place for three or four months; it may still be there. We supply the cadets with obsolescent craft so that they will know something about them.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Will the minister tell us whether the department has made any purchases of helicopters, or whether it intends to do so?


Charles Gavan Power: I think there are six, or sixteen, on order. I do not know when we are going to get them.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The minister has to buy them from the United States or Britain?


Charles Gavan Power: The United States.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Will they be equipped to alight on water as well as on land?


Charles Gavan Power: I think so. They are the latest type. But I do not know when they will be delivered. The R.C.A.F. have ordered a certain number of themi every year. I cannot give the hon. member offhand the delivery dates, and I doubt if you can be always sure of delivery dates on machines which are constantly changing. They are putting on new gadgets all the time.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Oh, yes; they are entirely different from the old gyrocopters. I was wondering about their capacity to land on water because I understand it is desired to use them for rescue work.


Charles Gavan Power: Probably.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Carried?


Agar Rodney Adamson: No, Mr. Chairman. This is the third largest item in the whole R.C.A.F. estimates. Does this include aircraft and engines for hemisphere operational work, only?


Charles Gavan Power: It includes only Canada, not anything overseas. Overseas comes under item 13, $303,000,000.

War Appropriation-Air Services


Agar Rodney Adamson: The minister has given us the number of aircraft in the joint training plan.


Charles Gavan Power: I have not given it exactly. I said, 10,000 plus.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Has the minister had satisfaction with aircraft and things like, for instance, the Jacobs engine? I believe there was some trouble at the beginning.


Charles Gavan Power: I do not know of any engine or aircraft which has not been a headache at some time or other. Apparently the Jacobs engine is working pretty well now. There have been troubles with it. I know my hon. friend will not expect me to relate the technical details or to know what is wrong with piston rings or things like that. It was troublesome for a while, but I believe they Rave got what they call the "bugs" out of it.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Is the department buying gliders and transports for troops?


Charles Gavan Power: We did purchase some gliders but they have not been very satisfactory. We have them in Canada. We have given or sold or leased some to the United States. The kind of glider we bought is not fully developed. We bought them from Great Britain; I could not tell the hon. member how many there were.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: It will be necessary to have transports to carry paratroops?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Agar Rodney Adamson: There is no air-borne
training being done in Canada at the present time?


Charles Gavan Power: Not by us. It would be an army job, anyway.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Yes, but the minister's department would have to provide the aircraft. We have a number of new heavy transport planes that could be used for air-borne troops, but they are not actually being trained.


Charles Gavan Power: They are not actually being carried.


Douglas King Hazen: What company is supplying the helicopters, and what do they cost?


Charles Gavan Power: I shall have to find that out. As I said a moment .ago, these things are changing so rapidly that I do not suppose we would even have a fixed price for them.


Douglas King Hazen: Do you order them before you know the price?


Charles Gavan Power: Oh, you would, with a thing like that. We would say, "We want helicopters"; we would ask, "How much is it?" and they would say, "We don't know. We have to make this or that change. We will charge you the actual cost-plus," or whatever it is. Very often you do not know the price of equipment which is bought, because it is constantly changing; so that you cannot get a fixed price. I will try to find out. I suppose they give us a figure of some kind, but it would not be the actual figure until the thing is delivered.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Can the minister find out the carrying capacity? I think it is definite.


George Hugh Castleden: Will the minister give an outline of procedure with regard to overhaul work done on R.C.A.F. aircraft as regards what they have in their own repair depots and what they do by letting contracts to civilian firms?


Charles Gavan Power: Most of the overhaul is done by civilian contractors, but we have five or six repair depots of our own where we do ordinary repairs. The larger and more important repairs are done by civilian contractors.


Charles Edward Johnston: That would be under the Minister of Munitions and Supply?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes. The companies are
almost crown companies. He has supplied capital to a great many of them. There is a firm of Macdonald Bros, in Winnipeg who were largely assisted with government funds. They have large hangars and aerodromes and facilities there. A good part of that was supplied by Munitions and Supply. I do not know how they figure the capital cost into the cost of overhaul. That is worked out between Munitions and Supply and themselves.


George Hugh Castleden: The ministers' department has nothing to do with setting the charges or the amounts to be paid for overhaul?


Charles Gavan Power: That is entirely Munitions and Supply.


James Alexander Marshall: These figures have to do with home defence and not overseas?


Mr.   POIVER@: Not overseas at all.


James Alexander Marshall: Not connected with overseas?


Charles Gavan Power: No.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

War Appropriation-Air Services
11.	Miscellaneous stores and equipment: including machine guns and other armament, 826,623,160.
Gordon Knapman Fraser: (Peterborough West): Does this include metal runways?


Charles Gavan Power: Anything to do with runways would come under item 4, "construction, purchases, repairs and operating expenses of properties".


Gordon Knapman Fraser: (Peterborough West): I
thought some of these transports carried runways for emergency fields.


Charles Gavan Power: I do not think metal runways would come under this.


James Alexander Marshall: Does this include the storage fuel, oil containers and necessary equipment of that sort?


Charles Gavan Power: Fuel oil would be under operating expenses of properties.
Mr. MARSHALL. I am talking about the storage facilities of fuel oil, gasoline tanks. Perhaps if the minister would give us a break-down of the $26,000,000 we could find out.


Charles Gavan Power: I will furnish that to-night.


Charles Edward Johnston: Is there any shortage of gasoline barrels or oil barrels to take care of the oil they have there?
Mr. P0W7ER: From what I read into the record, there is apparently a shortage of steel drums. The smaller companies have none to spare and the larger ones want to keep theirs for themselves.


Charles Edward Johnston: Would the R.C.A.F. possess these for themselves if they had the opportunity?


Charles Gavan Power: We have no drums of our own.


Charles Edward Johnston: Would the department buy any, supposing the public had some to sell? There are quite a number of gasoline barrels and oil storage barrels throughout the country. Would the R.C.A.F. purchase them and keep them as their own?


Charles Gavan Power: If we felt the need of these drums we would apply to the Minister of Munitions and Supply and he would get them. He is our contractor. We do not buy or order anything. If we want anything we ask Munitions and Supply who are our contractors.


Gordon Graydon: You do not buy directly, but you order them?


Charles Gavan Power: We ask them to buy what our technical officers think is required. But
whether we are going to buy drums or not, I cannot say. If the technical officers say that we require something we ask Munitions and Supply,


Charles Edward Johnston: They would ask if they were short of barrels, and I take it from what the minister says that they are not short of storage barrels?


Charles Gavan Power: I do not think we use them at all.


Agar Rodney Adamson: These machine guns are purely for Canadian use?


Charles Gavan Power: Absolutely.


James Alexander Marshall: Could the minister give a break-down of the $26,623,160?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes, we will try to have that to-night.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
12.	Flying training contracts, $33,805,829.
Gordon Graydon: I suggest that the minister had better be prepared at eight o'clock to give a fairly comprehensive resume of the position with respect to these training contracts. There must be a good many of them covering various schools.


Charles Gavan Power: The hon. member for Lake Centre told us all about them the other day. As my hon. friend knows, he is more familiar with that than almost anyone else in the house. I will give what details I have. Does my hon. friend want to know how much each civilian club received?


Gordon Graydon: I do not wTant to put the minister to unnecessary trouble.


Charles Gavan Power: It is easy; it is in the book.


Gordon Graydon: It would be interesting to have it, because there is a good deal of money involved in the item, and the public would not like to see an item of this kind passed without details in connection with the contracts, the amounts of them, those with whom the contracts are made, and so on, throughout Canada. That is a proper question.


Charles Gavan Power: I will put all that on Hansard.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Cyrus Macmillan: A question was asked in regard to what companies are supplying helicopters, the number, the cost and the carrying capacity. Six helicopters have been ordered through the United States treasury, as is most

War Appropriation-Air Services
of our equipment not including lease-lend. The estimated cost of the six which are on order is $641,617.84 in American funds. The carrying capacity is a secret and cannot be divulged other than privately to the hon. member.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: That is for six of them?


Cyrus Macmillan: Yes. Then we were asked for a break-down of the expenditure on air observer schools. It is as follows, from the inception of the schools:
Malton	
Edmonton	
Regina	
London	
Winnipeg	
Prince Albert ... Portage la Prairie Aneienne Lorette. St. Johns, Quebec Chatham, N.B. . .

Then the cost of the elementary flying schools from their inception is as follows:
Malton	
$1,335,501	04Fort William	
1.468.702	67London	
750,070	61Windsor	
1,048.678	15High River	
1,700,060	01Prince Albert	
1,330,145	08Windsor	
1,047,656	14Vancouver	
537,137	85St. Catharines	
1,185,109	91Mt, Hope	
1,241,627	32Cap de la Madeleine	
1,227,857	89Goderich	
1,174,643	74St. Eugene	
1,219,979	75Portage la Prairie	
1,320,180	32Regina	
1,155,766	82Edmonton	
1,259,679	28Stanley	
521,025	41Boundary Bay	
1,502,055	68Virden	
1,492,148	29Oshawa	
1,343,695	26Chatham, N.B	
997,165	70Aneienne Lorette	
306,097	87
That is the complete list.


Mr. REID:: The hon. gentleman mentioned Vancouver. Did he mean Sea island?


Charles Gavan Power: That was Sea island, but it is closed down now. It is used as an operational station.


Thomas Reid: That should not be called Vancouver, because it is in the riding of New Westminster.


Gordon Graydon: Is that a better place?


Thomas Reid: It certainly is; that is why it was put there.


Charles Gavan Power: The hon. member for Peterborough West asked for a break-down of the next item. I am not trying to say that we

have passed this one, but I had better give him the break-down immediately, and I shall send it over to him.


Grote Stirling: I believe the minister was to give some information with regard to oil reclamation and the handling of oil, and he thought he would have it at eight o'clock.


Charles Gavan Power: I thought I could getut, but I am afraid the officer in charge has not been able to give me the information. I shall have it during the evening or in the morning.


Cyrus Macmillan: The hon. member for Qu'Appelle asked if there was a separate gasoline contract for each individual school. All schools using Turner valley gasoline have individual contracts. Schools receiving their supplies under lease-lend are allocated their aviation requirements from the major oil companies as proportioned by the oil controller.
The hon. member for York West asked what percentage of leaded gasoline is used. All aviation gasoline used by the R.C.A.F. is leaded. The same hon. member asked whether cracked gasoline of 100 octane is used. No cracked 100 octane gasoline is used by the R.C.A.F.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The hon. member means none of the 100 octane gasoline is used in Canada?


Cyrus Macmillan: It is used, but not refined in Canada.
The hon. member for Qu'Appelle asked how many gallons of oil were re-refined at [DOT] Kamsack, Saskatchewan, and the name of the company doing the work. The Northern Petroleum Company of Kamsack, Saskatchewan is a privately owned company, and the R.C.A.F. has no knowledge of its output.
The hon. member for Bow River asked if the department had looked into the question of reclaiming oil, and not selling it. He asked if it would not be worth while for the R.C.A.F. to have reclaiming machinery of its own. The air force has made a constant study, since the spring of 1941, with regard to the possibility of reclaiming used aviation oil for re-use in aircraft engines. We have been unsuccessful in locating a unit of equipment which will reclaim such oil to the satisfaction of the rigid specifications set up by our engineering division for re-use in aerial engines.
The study has recently shown a new unit, known as Refinoil, manufactured in the United States, which indicates that it may

War Appropriation-Air Services
be possible to reclaim aviation oil for re-use in Canadian transport, on an economical basis. Purchase of one unit has been approved for installation in the Ottawa district, for this purpose.
The hon. member for Battle River asked how much used oil is sold altogether. The answer is 209,726 gallons, for which the sum of $10,236.75 was received. This covers the period from April 1, 1942, to March 31, 1943.
The hon. member for St. John-Albert asked what percentage of oil can be reclaimed. The answer is that approximately eighty-five per cent can be reclaimed.


Grote Stirling: I understand from what the minister has said that the only plant for this refining is that at Kamsack, and that there is no plant in eastern Canada.


Charles Gavan Power: Correct.


Grote Stirling: Does that mean that Kamsack has brought used oil a considerable
distance?


Charles Gavan Power: No; as my colleague has said, we are now thinking of setting up a plant in eastern Canada, in the Ottawa district. But so far we have not done so.
Mr. STIRLfNG: Does the oil at Kamsack come from territory from Winnipeg to the coast?


Charles Gavan Power: I would say probably all
of No. 2 and No. 4 commands, which would be as far as the Rocky mountains.


Grote Stirling: Very costly in freight,
is it not?


Mr. POWTER:: It would be, yes. But
there are concentrated in Saskatchewan and Alberta many of our training schools. I think they would all go into Kamsack, but it would not be economical to ship it east. We would have to have a plant of our own in the east, and that is what we are thinking of setting up. That would probably take everything from Fort William to Montreal. For instance, it would not be economical to ship from Mont Joli to Ottawa.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I was shown through an
aviation repair plant in the east end of London, Ontario. The gentleman showing me through the plant said that such-and-such equipment was for purifying oil.


Charles Gavan Power: I do not think we have a
plant there.


John Ritchie MacNicol: It may have been for
trucks.


Charles Gavan Power: There was a very large
plant there for trucks and motor vehicles coming from Windsor. There was storage at that point. But we are talking about the refining of oil, and I do not know of any such plant in London, Ontario. There is an army plant, and it has nothing to do with us. They ship motor vehicles from Windsor, and store them in London. I believe it was a big building in connection with the exhibition grounds.


John Ritchie MacNicol: In the east end of
London?


Charles Gavan Power: As a matter of fact I think
they took over the whole exhibition grounds, and stored motor vehicles there for several months.


John Ritchie MacNicol: They have the exhibition grounds, but the plant I have in mind is north of that. On second thought, however, I remember it was not for aeroplanes, but rather for army trucks and equipment.


Charles Gavan Power: Yes; that is correct.


George Hugh Castleden: Can the minister give
the quantity of aero-engine oil used from April 1, 1942 to March 31, 1943?


Charles Gavan Power: I can get that information,
although I have not it just now.


George Hugh Castleden: The minister has
given us the figures of the amount of oil sold by the air force between those dates, and I should like to have figures showing the amount used in the same period.


Charles Gavan Power: It can be produced.


George Hugh Castleden: I understand the minister will have a report to make later this evening or to-morrow morning. Can he get those figures?


Charles Gavan Power: I shall do my best.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
13.	Overseas squadrons and ancillary units, $303,783,729.
Gordon Knapman Fraser: The
minister supplied me a summary of costs overseas. I thought when I saw it first it was a break-down of the $303,783,729, but I find it is a break-down of the expenses of the air force overseas, including civil salaries, pay and allowances, gasoline and oil, laundry and the like- This is not the break-down I wanted because the $303,783,729 is not broken down at all.


Charles Gavan Power: No; this was a deal we made with the British government whereby we pay

War Appropriation-Air Services
for all our squadrons overseas. This includes food, dental and medical stores and supplies, the purchase and maintenance of aircraft, and all other cost of the squadron. The expense depends upon the type of squadron. If it is a fighter squadron, it costs a little less to buy aircraft than if it is a bomber squadron. I do not wish to give figures, but I would suggest that, say, a Lancaster would be worth around a quarter of a million dollars. We pay for all that. Of course the figure of a quarter of a million dollars is just a rough guess. On the other hand a Spitfire would be in the neighbourhood of possibly $40,000 or $45,000. Payment is made on the basis of so much per squadron overseas per annum.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: It is paid to the British government?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes, to the British government.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: And these other expenses, on top of that?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes. I believe the actual cost of the squadrons to us is this $303,783,729.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: But when we add up the other total it comes to $383,277,800.


Charles Gavan Power: Correct.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I notice an item here of $15,000 for photographic equipment. I should consider that very small.


Charles Gavan Power: This is for overseas headquarters only. Everything we get overseas is paid for in this lump sum of $303,783,729. There is a break-down, but I suppose most of it is secret.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: It fits into the other item, does it?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes. For instance for security reasons I cannot tell my hon. friend how many people we have overseas, but the pay and allowances for all our troops over there would come under this item,


Mr. MacINNIS:: Would the minister explain the great difference between the estimate for 1942-43 and that for 1943-44?


Charles Gavan Power: Before answering the hon. member may I add something to what I said to the hon. member for Peterborough West, because I believe I made a mistake when replying to him? The pay and allowances go into the first item, No. 2 on the list, for pay and allowances. So that the $303,783,729 does not include pay and allowances.
	.
Now, in answer to the hon. member for Vancouver East: Recently, in the month of April, we undertook to pay for all our troops overseas. Originally the men who went over were paid by the R.A.F. at R.A.F. rates of pay, and Canada made up the difference between the R.A.F. and the R.C.A.F. rates. We have now taken over the whole thing and are paying all our men the full Canadian rates. This runs into a considerable amount of money and it accounts for the difference the hon. member has mentioned.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: That would appear in item 2?


Charles Gavan Power: It goes into item 2.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: What about the clothing for these men?


Charles Gavan Power: Food and everything else are paid for on a per capita basis and is included in the $303,000,000. Clothing is on a per capita basis and is included under item 5. Item 13 covers medical and dental attention and everything else.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: In other words, item 5, personnel supplies and services, does not cover the men overseas?


Charles Gavan Power: The $303,000:000 includes what is paid to the British government for feeding and1 everything else for our men overseas excepting clothing and pay.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: We do not ship the clothing over?


Charles Gavan Power: The army does, but the air force does not.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The British government are responsible for clothing and feeding the men?


Charles Gavan Power: At so much per head.


George Hugh Castleden: What is the rate?


Charles Gavan Power: I do not think that has been finally settled, although it is a matter of discussion between the two governments. The $303,000,000 is made up by estimating what it will cost to keep the men in the R.C.A.F. squadrons in England for a year. I do not think the rate for the last war has been settled, but at that time they paid something like $2 per man per month.


George Hugh Castleden: It will be most important that someone find out some time.


Charles Gavan Power: They were still working on the rate for the last war ten years ago, and I do not know what settlement eventually was made. I think they arrived at one on a

War Appropriation-Air Services
hit-or-miss basis and decided to call it square because Canada owed them so much. I imagine that is what will happen in this war.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Surely the minister does not mean $2 per man per month?


Charles Gavan Power: Per day. That covers food and clothing and ammunition, if it is an infantry man.


Richard Burpee Hanson: From the very' beginning Canada paid the pay and allowances and upkeep of her army overseas, but we have done this only recently in connection with our air force. Why was that?


Charles Gavan Power: Under the empire training agreement Canada undertook the responsibility of paying practically all costs in Canada, which amounted to eighty per cent of the total cost. Great Britain undertook to take the man from the moment he got on the boat at Saint John or Halifax or any other eastern port and pay him from then on. Canada undertook to pay the difference between the British and the Canadian rates of pay, because the British rates were somewhat lower. In April of this year we signed a new agreement whereby we become responsible for the pay and allowances of all the R.C.A.F.


Mr. TUSTIN:: Is the difference in pay between the R.A.F. and the R.C.A.F. rates made up to the man who has joined the R.A.F.?


Charles Gavan Power: Who joined the R.A.F.
pre-war?


George James Tustin: Yes.


Charles Gavan Power: If a man joined pre-war, he would probably still be R.A.F. The hon. member for York-Sunbury referred to one man who went over in a cattle-boat. We would not be paying the difference in pay to a man who is still R.A.F.


Richard Burpee Hanson: He cannot get transferred back to Canada to the R.C.A.F.


Charles Gavan Power: That has been a matter of great discussion. The man to whom my hon. friend has referred could apply to his commanding officer for transfer to the R.C.A.F. If his commanding officer recommends it and we find that he will be useful to us, we would take him in. There have been only two or three cases of transfers because it is a very difficult matter. Take a man like Collishaw, who is now air vice-marshal. If he were transferred, there would be a matter of seniority to consider. The matter of transfer from the R.A.F. to the R.C.A.F. is rather difficult.
* Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury): I know of another case of a man from Canada who went overseas pre-war and joined up with the R.A.F. He became a very useful man and was sent to Canada for instructional purposes, still with the R.A.F. He has not been allowed to transfer to the R.C.A.F., although I have been trying to get him transferred.


Charles Gavan Power: He could make application to his commanding officer.


Richard Burpee Hanson: He has made application and they do not seem to want to let him go. This man could be very useful to Canada.


Charles Gavan Power: The difficulty is that the more valuable a man is to the R.A.F., the less they want to transfer him to the R.C.A.F. That is one of the difficulties. The R.A.F. do not want to send back the good men; they may send us a lot of fellows who are not so good.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am still trying to get him transferred.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The
minister has said that clothing and equipment are included in the $303,000,000, but there is an item here in this list of the R.C.A.F. overseas war establishment estimates for clothing and necessaries, $2,615,909. Would that be for men who are not really in the war establishment overseas?


Charles Gavan Power: I am advised that clothing is in another item altogether.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: This item of $2,615,909 is exactly the same as it was last year.


Charles Gavan Power: That would be under item 5, "personnel supplies and services: food, medical supplies and services, clothing and personal equipment." That is how my hon. friend gets the $3S3,000,000 instead of the $303,000,000. The cash amount we are going to spend on the squadrons is $303,000,000.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The $303,000,000 will have added to it the other figures in here?


Charles Gavan Power: Absolutely.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Then there is a small item of $12,355 for medical supplies and services.


Charles Gavan Power: That would go into the
$383,000,000; that would be for headquarters' personnel.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Perhaps the other figures are also headquarters?

War Appropriation-Air Services


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Would it not be wise to place this table on Hansard in order that it might be available to other hon. members.


Charles Gavan Power: I would be glad to make this available to my hon. friend personally.
Mr. M&cINNIS: Is the Canadian government paying all the expenses in regard to the empire training plan in spite of the fact that we are taking care of our own men overseas?


Charles Gavan Power: 
Angus MacInnis: Does Canada pay the other part?


Charles Gavan Power: The actual cash is spent by Canada; then Britain owes us that much.


Angus MacInnis: Do New Zealand and Australia pay any part of the expenses?


Charles Gavan Power: The cost is divided half and half between Britain and Canada, and then Australia and New Zealand pay Britain so much per head.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Does the minister mean that the total cost of the air training scheme is cut in half; that Canada pays half and Britain the other half, and that Britain then charges Australia and New Zealand so much per head for training their airmen?


Charles Gavan Power: That is quite right. That is to say, in the agreement the cost up to 1945 was fixed at roughly $1,400,000,000; Great Britain undertook to pay through lease-lend or in kind, $723,000,000 approximately and Australia and New Zealand then make their own arrangements with Britain either through credits or some other system.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: They pay so much per head to Great Britain?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes, the reason being that Canadian pupils constitute roughly fifty per cent and pupils from Britain, Australia and New Zealand the other fifty per cent. But Britain has the right to send us Netherlanders or men of any other race, provided they keep within the quota of fifty per cent. They may

send Poles, Norwegians, Netherlanders up to Britain's quota of fifty per cent, and they are charged to Britain's share.
Mr. ADAMSO'N: Are our squadrons overseas paid for on a per diem basis? The expenses of a squadron might vary considerably depending upon the number of operations undertaken, the losses in operation and many other factors. Is it a fixed sum per squadron per diem, or what?


Charles Gavan Power: 
Agar Rodney Adamson: Do we estimate the maintenance at the beginning of the year, or does that depend on our losses?


Charles Gavan Power: Under the arrangements made with Britain in January the capital cost of the latest equipment is $74,000,000 and the annual maintenance cost of the latest equipment is $222,874,000.


Grote Stirling: That is an all-Canadian
squadron?


Charles Gavan Power: No; for the authorized Canadian squadrons.


Agar Rodney Adamson: And that is irrespective of the number of operations in which it is engaged? It is a figure arrived at empirically?


Charles Gavan Power: It is mostly guess work, subject to review every year.


Agar Rodney Adamson: It is an empirical figure?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Grote Stirling: Who pays for the establishment from which the squadrons operate- the hangars, the buildings, the administrative structures? Does Great Britain pay that, or does it come out of this item?


Charles Gavan Power: I am advised that we make a lump sum payment and the Royal Air Force pay everything else. It goes into the per capita cost. Suppose we have a group headquarters in the north of England and have to take over a castle or a house or something of that kind. That goes into the cost per squadron.


Grote Stirling: Suppose another hangar is wanted at such and such an aerodrome? Britain puts it up and'-

War Appropriation-Air Services


Charles Gavan Power: That goes into the cost of the squadron. The Royal Air Force pay for it originally and charge the accommodation back to us.
Mr. MaoNICOL: When item 9 was under discussion the minister said that gasoline for overseas use would come under item 13, if any. May I ask whether the gasoline used in the planes flown by Canadian pilots over* seas is supplied by Great Britain or Canada?


Charles Gavan Power: That is what is called the ferry command. That is Royal Air Force.


John Ritchie MacNicol: No; I mean planes flying from England to attack Germany or Italy.


Charles Gavan Power: That is charged in this


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is it supplied by Britain?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes, and paid for under this per capita system.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The gasoline used over there is 100 octane, is it not?


Charles Gavan Power: I should think so.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The British and the
Americans all use 100 octane gas. The axis powers, I have read, have not been able to develop the 100 octane gas, although they have invented a process whereby they get over S7 octane. German gasoline is a good deal higher than 87 octane; it may be well up to 100, and I have been wondering just what would happen if German planes were transported across the ocean either in submarines or by some other method and came in contact with our aeroplanes on the Atlantic coast.- If the Germans were using a gasoline close to 100 octane, their planes would be much faster because 100 octane gas drives the planes faster; they can also climb more quickly and carry a heavier load. A four-motored bomber, with four 1,500-horsepower engines, using 100 octane gas would carry five more 1,000-pound bombs than a plane could that was using 87 octane gas. I am just wondering what our planes on the Atlantic coast would do if attacked by German planes using this higher octane gas.


Charles Gavan Power: I would not be able to answer the somewhat involved technical question put by my hon. friend, but I do know that all our ships flying from Canada to Britain use 100 octane gas.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That is the bombers on the ferry command?


Charles Gavan Power: All the planes used in our coastal operations would use 100 octane gas.


John Ritchie MacNicol: But this afternoon the minister said a lower octane rating was used.


Charles Gavan Power: I was speaking of training planes. They would not necessarily use the 100 octane gas, but our operational planes would.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That gives me a good deal of relief if our Atlantic coast planes are using 100 octane gas.


Charles Gavan Power: What my hon. friend has in mind probably are the planes flying on the northwest transport stage.


John Ritchie MacNicol: No; I was thinking of our planes flying on the Atlantic coast.
Mr. POW'ER: They would all use 100 octane gas. I thought my hon. friend had in mind the planes on the northwest stage route that goes up north to Alaska. They are mostly American planes, carry American gasoline of 100 octane rating. I do not want to go into particulars, but the C47 and the Lodestar, for instance, both American planes, use 100 octane gas, like all American planes.


John Ritchie MacNicol: All the gas used in the United States war planes is 100 octane. We make no 100 octane gas in Canada?


Charles Gavan Power: I do not think so.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I hope after we win the war Canada will see to it that we get some of those vast boilers which the Germans use in the hydrogenation process to assist in making high octane gas.


Stanley Howard Knowles: A few moments ago the minister was answering questions relating to the transfer of Canadians in the R.A.F. to the R.C.A.F. He left us rather up in the air, and I am still wondering if there is not something his department could do on behalf of Canadians who are anxious to make such [DOT] a transfer. As he knows, there are cases of men-I have been in touch with the minister about one-


Charles Gavan Power: That has been under very active consideration and still is a matter of discussion with the Royal Air Force. The R.A.F., very naturally, do not want to lose some of their best men. Some of their men who joined before the war, say five or six years ago, have the natural feeling, now that we have a Royal Canadian Air Force that they would like to join us. They have first to go before their commanding officer. If he gives permission we check up on the applicant, and if he is suitable for our purposes we take him in. But so far the thing is still only being discussed.

War Appropriation-Air Services


Stanley Howard Knowles: I fully understand the position of the Royal Air Force in that situation, but it seems to me that as yet the , machinery is not very clear. The minister says that a Canadian in the R.A.F. who wishes transfer to the R.C.A.F. can go to his commanding officer; that is. I take it, to his commanding officer in the Royal Air Force. I have in mind a case of a Canadian, who- incidentally, he served in the last war-joined the R.A.F. before the R.C.A.F. was over there, and is now in Canada. He was posted to Canada at his own request because of the difficulties his family were facing under the lesser allowance, and he finds now that he is likely to be posted back to Britain. While he is perfectly happy to go back he would like to go back in the R.C.A.F. He tells me that he approached the R.A.F. commanding officer, and that that commanding officer told him to get in touch with the R.C.A.F. at Ottawa. He has been in touch with me, and I have taken the matter up with the minister, who has given me by letter the same reply he made this evening. There seems to be no other move which can be made; the man is stymied whichever way he turns.


Charles Gavan Power: The thing is in process of being settled. It is not settled yet. But the man to whom my hon. friend refers would not be suffering from lack of pay, because even if he is R.A.F., if he is in Canada he gets paid at R.CA.F. rates of pay. Does my hon. friend understand that?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I understand that perfectly. The point is that he expects to be posted back to Britain very shortly, and that if he is then in the R.A.F. his family's allowance will be reduced, whereas if he were transferred to the R.C.A.F. before being posted back, that would not happen.


Charles Gavan Power: My hon. friend is quite right. That is one of the things we are trying to settle.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The minister will agree with me that this man faces quite a difficult situation.


Charles Gavan Power: Quite.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I wonder if the minister has in hand a statement of the approximate number of gallons of gasoline that were used, say last year, or the number estimated to be used under this appropriation, by our air force overseas-


Charles Gavan Power: My hon. friend wants to
know how much gasoline we use in our training schools in Canada?


John Ritchie MacNicol: How many million
barrels?


Charles Gavan Power: My hon. friend wants the figures of consumption in Canada, does he? I would not know what was being used by our squadrons in Britain. If my hon. friend wants to know how much gasoline is used in our training schools in Canada I will try to get that for him.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I should like a compilation of the amount of gasoline Canada is using in- all its war activities. I am not in a hurry to have the figures to-night. Would the minister give the number of barrels, and the octane content, first in- Canada, then the number used on the sea-coasts in the defence of Canada, and also the number we pay England for, in the flying of our air service overseas?


James Augustine Power: As to the first two matters
for which my hon. friend is asking, what we are using in training, I think I can get for him; then, what we call home war establishment on both coasts, I think I can give him that too; but I doubt very much whether the British government would let me know how many gallons of gasoline they use in our squadrons over there.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I wondered how this
estimate was made up. Would the minister not have some record from the British government of how many gallons of gasoline they call upon us to supply to fly our machines overseas?


James Arthur Ross: If the minister is
getting that information as regards gasoline, I wonder if he would couple it with the amount of motor oil-lubricating oil for machines-used in Canada.


Charles Gavan Power: I think we can get that.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Does the same agreement apply to Canadians in parts of the world other than England?


Charles Gavan Power: In Ceylon and-?


Agar Rodney Adamson: Africa.


Charles Gavan Power: Absolutely.


Agar Rodney Adamson: How about ground
crew? The other night the minister was discussing the relative numbers of Canadians in the Canadian squadrons and Canadians in the R.A.F. squadrons. The Canadian squadrons now have Canadian ground crew. Are there any Canadian ground crew with R.A.F. squadrons, or are there any Canadian ground crew in other parts of the world than Great Britain?

War Appropriation-Air Services


Charles Gavan Power: We have something like
5,000 radio mechanics who are in the R.A.F. all over the world. They are ground crew; they are not flyers.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Are .they considered
ground crew?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes. They do not fly. They are not aircrew.


Agar Rodney Adamson: No; they do not fly, but I did not know that they are definitely considered as ground crew. One more thing: There is no formation in Canada corresponding to the R.A.F. regiment?


Charles Gavan Power: No.


Agar Rodney Adamson: We have no such unit for aerodrome protection?


Charles Gavan Power: The army does that for us.
It is mostly veterans' guard.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: Referring to the
matter of Canadians serving in the R.A.F., I wonder if there is any sufficient reason why Canada should not undertake to pay Canadians who are serving with the R.A.F. such an amount as, added to what they are receiving from the R.A.F., would put them on a basis equal to that enjoyed by those serving in the R.C.A.F. -


Charles Gavan Power: We do that; all Canadians
who enlisted in the R.C.AT. originally and are overseas, whether they be in Burma or India or Ceylon, are being paid Canadian rates of pay. The only question is that of men from Canada who before the war went to England and joined the R.A.F. They never were R.C.A.F.; they joined the R.A.F. and still belong to it.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: But they are
Canadians.


Charles Gavan Power: They were born in Canada; they are Canadians. But the question becomes more and more complicated. If you go back twenty-five or thirty years you will recall that quite a large number of men-Collishaw, for instance-who were in the Royal Air Force, remained with it after the war. I doubt very much whether these people want to come to the Royal Canadian Air Force, and if they did I do not know just how they would fit in our picture if they are senior to many of our people. But the ordinary man who left here before the war-a great many of them went over in cattle-boats and the like because they were in a hurry to join up-can make application to his commanding officer, and if the commanding officer-who is Royal Air Force- approves it we will accept it. As, however, I
told my hon. friend, the question is not quite settled ; there are all kinds of difficulties about it. The man who enlists in the Royal Air Force joins for six years; with us in the Royal Canadian Air Force he joins for the duration of the war. The Royal Air Force would have the right to say to us, "This man has joined for six years. If you take him into the Royal Canadian Air Force, will you pay him for the services he does not render us?" The pension rates have been fixed by the Minister of Pensions and National Health and next-of-kin of the men would be paid at the Canadian rates of pension. If they left four years before the war they are on Canadian rates of pension. The only question for them is, do they want to come to the Royal Canadian Air Force. If they do we are most sympathetic, but we cannot buy them out of their contract with the Royal Air Force.


Charles Edward Johnston: Although they are on Canadian rates of pension, the British government has to pay the pension?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes; that is to say, if they have a disability when they come back; or if unfortunately they are killed, their widows or mothers, or whoever the next-of-kin may be, will be on Canadian rates of pension.


Charles Edward Johnston: Paid by the British government?


Charles Gavan Power: Paid by the Canadian government.


Charles Edward Johnston: The Canadian government?


Charles Gavan Power: The British pay according to their rates and we make up the difference.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I press further the case of the family of the man to whom I referred a few minutes ago. This man is one of those who got over to Britain probably on a cattle-boat before the Royal Canadian Air Force got there. He was a Canadian, with a home and a family in Canada. He went to join the Royal Air Force and is still in the Royal Air Force. While he was in England his family in Canada received allowances less than those received by dependents of Royal Canadian Air Force men, but he was posted to Canada and is here now and the allowance paid his family has been increased. When, however, as is quite likely, he is posted back to England in the near future, the allowance- received by his family will go down again. ,


Charles Gavan Power: That is so.


Stanley Howard Knowles: If it is possible for extra payment to be made to the family of this

War Appropriation-Air Services
Canadian in the R.A.F. while he is in Canada, why is it not possible for that same extra amount to be paid to a Canadian in the R.A.F. in England?


Charles Gavan Power: The hon. member states the case accurately; what he has said is quite true. I do not know, however, why the Canadian government should be charged with the payment of extra rates for somebody who is not serving this government. He is serving the British government.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Who pays the difference between the British and the Canadian rates while this man is posted in Canada?


Charles Gavan Power: The Canadian government does.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Then one might ask, why should the government do that? If the government does that while the man is in Canada, why not do it for him while he is in England?


Charles Gavan Power: I am advised that he is a servant of the air training plan and that a part of his salary would be charged to Great Britain. We pay the whole lot and Britain pays its share to us. That is the only way I can explain it.


Richard Burpee Hanson: He is serving this government.


Charles Gavan Power: While he is here he is serving this government. When he goes back to England he is not serving this government and I do not know what justification there would be for us to pay extra to his wife or next-of-kin when he is no longer our servant.


Stanley Howard Knowles: While he is in this country he is serving this government, and yet the minister is not in a position to make representations on the man's behalf in his endeavour to be transferred.


Charles Gavan Power: I could make representations, but I very much fear the British government would not listen to them. If this committee thinks that we should pay somebody who is serving some other government, that is a different matter. As I have told1 my hon. friend, this is one of the thorny points we have to discuss and decide. We could transfer him to the R.C.A.F. if the British government would allow him to be transferred, but they think he is too valuable.


Richard Burpee Hanson: He is their enlisted man.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I can see that the problem is thorny if you try to force the R.A.F. to

allow the man to transfer to the R.C.A.F., but it is not quite so thorny to consider paying the dependents of a Canadian, when he is in England, just as you do when he is here. I wonder whether that point has been given consideration.


Charles Gavan Power: I am advised that we have made representations. If we want to pay R.C.A.F. dependents' allowances to all wives and next-of-kin-New Zealanders, Australians and everyone else-of men who serve in Canada, the other governments would not like to undertake that financial obligation. It is too much. They do not want to take it on. The R.A.F. have fixed their own rates and they do not see why they should pay Canadian rates.


Stanley Howard Knowles: At the moment I am not suggesting that you should try to get the R.A.F. to increase its rates. I am suggesting, however, that the Canadian government, which pays the difference to the dependents of a Canadian while he is located in Canada, should also consider paying that difference to the dependents of a Canadian while he is posted in England.


Charles Gavan Power: I will look into the matter. I am serious about it when I say that I do not know how it can be done. After all, he is working for another government. He may be a Canadian, but he hired himself to another government. Why, therefore, should we pay him the difference between our rates and the salary which he contracted to take, including his dependents' allowance and what have you? If the Canadian people wish to do it I have no objection. Perhaps my hon. friend can make a good case.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It is tough on the dependents here.


Charles Gavan Power: Yes; but why should we take over responsibilities that are not ours? We are not getting service for it from the man in question.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Does it not rather weaken the minister's argument when you reflect on what he said a few minutes ago? If this man, a Canadian in the R.A.F., is unfortunately killed overseas, this government will accept responsibility-


Charles Gavan Power: My hon. friend has me there.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: -for dependents' allowance, in addition to the British dependents' allowance, although he was not this government's responsibility and was not serving them. This government, nevertheless,

War Appropriation-Air Services
have agreed to pay that difference. It is a very good idea, but if you carry the argument to its logical conclusion it weakens the minister's argument.


Charles Gavan Power: I fear my hon. friend has me there; he is logical and I was not. It is the Minister of Pensions and National Health, with his well-known sympathetic consideration, who has put it over for the pensions. The position is most illogical, but it exists.


Joseph William Noseworthy: Just what is the difference between your paying these boys the difference between the English and the Canadian standards and paying the R.C.A.F. boys who are serving the R.A.F. as you do? What is the material difference?


Charles Gavan Power: I do not quite understand that.


Mr. NOSE  WORTHY@: We pay the Canadian boys who are now serving in the R.A.F.-


Charles Gavan Power: Right.


Mr. NOSE  WORTHY@: -because they belong to the R.C.A.F., and we make up the difference?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Joseph William Noseworthy: So far as their contribution is concerned, where is there any difference?


Charles Gavan Power: None.


Joseph William Noseworthy: Is it not all the same cause?


Charles Gavan Power: The only answer is that one contracted with the Canadian government and the other with the British government.


Joseph William Noseworthy: But it is all the same cause.


Charles Gavan Power: I agree with my hon. friend and I have been trying to work it out, but I have not yet done so. If the committee will let me struggle with it again we may succeed.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I make a further comment in connection with the minister's struggle. The man who joined the R.A.F., when he is over here in Canada, is rendering us a service, the minister says, and therefore we are liable for him. If you are to be consistent you should say that the man in the R.C.A.F. serving with the R.A.F. should not be our responsibility. I do not want the minister to adopt that principle, but it is logical. It seems to me that if we still maintain responsibility for those who are with the R.A.F. when they are here in Canada, it
is perfectly consistent for us to accept responsibility for Canadians who are with the R.A.F. over on the other side.


Charles Gavan Power: Perhaps I did not make myself clear. If the man is serving in Canada in the empire training plan, it is the plan that is responsible for him while here, though Canada is the administrator of the plan. Britain pays fifty per cent of the cost, so that he is charged to the plan and Canada only pays fifty per cent of the increased pay and allowances. Then when he goes back to Great Britain, as my hon. friend suggests he is on R.A.F. rates of pay; he is not on the Canadian rates or the B.C.A.T.P. rates. Then he is working for the British government, not for us. I do not mind studying the point further, but I am convinced that it would not be logical for us to pay his salary and allowances any more than it would be logical for us to pay a share of the salary of the colonial secretary, say, or anything else. It is true, of course, that we are fighting for the same cause.


Stanley Howard Knowles: As the hon. member for Weyburn says, it is just as logical as what is being done by the Minister of Pensions and National Health.


Charles Gavan Power: Yes; we have done an
illogical thing in taking responsibility for the man's pension.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
14. Sundries:	including printing, stationery
and other costs not included in the above items, $7,818,706.
Gordon Knapman Fraser: Does the printing of the casualty lists come under this heading, the information bureau which sends out those casualty lists?


Charles Gavan Power: All printing comes under this including our publication called Wings; I do not know whether my hon. friend has ever seen it.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The
information bureau sends it out?


Charles Gavan Power: The casualty list; not Wings.


Ernest Edward Perley: Where is that edited?


Charles Gavan Power: At our headquarters here in the Jackson building. We have a printing establishment of our own, and we sell this paper for five cents. It is rather a good looking publication.


Ernest Edward Perley: What is the cost of
operating it?


John Ritchie MacNicol: Does it pay for itself?

War Appropriation-Air Services


Charles Gavan Power: I do not know but it must come pretty close to it. We do not carry any advertising in it, so that the revenue cornea from sales at five cents per copy.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: Does it carry any af the speeches in this house?


Charles Gavan Power: No.


John Ritchie MacNicol: How is the increase of $3,000,000 made up?


Charles Gavan Power: Does my hon. friend want a break-down of these sundries?


John Ritchie MacNicol: A break-down of the
additional amount. How is the increase made
up?


Charles Gavan Power: There are four items I have here: photographic equipment, printing and stationery, air cadet expenses and air cadet capitation grant, and sundries. There is a sum provided under B.CA.T.P. for photographic equipment.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That is for taking photographs from the planes?


Charles Gavan Power: This amount in item 14 includes such things as public relations, photographs of our airmen and so on. We have a little procedure of our own; if unfortunately a man is killed we like to be able to send a photograph to his next-of-kin.


John Ritchie MacNicol: It does not mean the equipment used to take photographs from planes?


Charles Gavan Power: No.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Does that include the photographing of the letters of airmen which are sent by air mail, the airgraph letters?


Charles Gavan Power: No; those come under the Post Office Department.


Agar Rodney Adamson: The minister has not
given any figures in regard to recruiting. What item do they come under?


Charles Gavan Power: They are in here.


Agar Rodney Adamson: What is the cost of recruiting?


Charles Gavan Power: It comes under the sundries;
I will get it. The total cost of advertising recruiting campaigns last year was $340,000. The total anticipated for this year is $750,000. That covers radio, advertising and all the things that go with recruiting.


Agar Rodney Adamson: 
Charles Gavan Power: I do not think so. I think principally we are publishing half-page advertisements in the metropolitan dailies and that sort of thing. It costs quite a lot for a half-page advertisement.


Agar Rodney Adamson: And of course this includes the recruiting for the women's division?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes. We are now looking principally for aircrew.


George Russell Boucher: Could the minister give some explanation as to the rapid increase in the cost of recruiting, some general explanation?


Charles Gavan Power: Any explanation would only be this, that a year ago it was very easy for us to get aircrew; they were flocking into our recruiting depots, but now it is becoming tougher to get aircrew and we have to go out and look for them. At one time we really had too many; now we may be running short, though not very much.


George Russell Boucher: Could the minister give any particulars as to any new means or methods that are being employed in connection with recruiting, which would bring about this increase in cost?


Charles Gavan Power: By full-page or half-page advertisements in the newspapers; by radio talks; by moving pictures; by any sort of stimulation that would make the younger generation want to join the air force. We have the air cadet league and all these things which go to make people feel that they would like to join the air force, and what we really need are aircrew.


George Russell Boucher: Then the minister would say there is no new method of recruiting but rather a general expansion of the old methods?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Mr. EDWARDS:: Is the cost of the air cadet movement included under this item?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes. Expenses last year in connection with the air cadet league were $1,100,000, and the air cadet capitation grant- that is to say, we pay so much for the clothing of the air cadets-came to $20,000 last year and is estimated at $35,000 this year. We expect fifteen thousand more air cadets.


Joseph William Noseworthy: Are many transfers accepted from the army into the air force

War Appropriation-Air Services
ground crew? I am thinking of a number of men who have sought to be transferred from the army to the ground crew of the air force. Is there much of that being done?


Charles Gavan Power: I would not think so; certainly not at the moment. A man has to get permission from his commanding officer before he can transfer, or rather he must get his discharge from the army and be reenlisted in the air force, and that is rather difficult.


George James Tustin: To get back to the question of advertising, all over the country to-day we see large photographs which look like lithographed pictures in colour. As I go down the main street of my own town I see three or four of these large photographs in each store window. To me they look like costly photographs, and I should like the minister to tell us approximately the cost of each one. It seems to me this is a great waste of money. Surely we should be able to advertise the air force to better effect than through these pretty pictures, especially when we see three or four of them stuck in a small store window in a small town. I have had a great many people complain to me of the extravagance shown by scattering so many of these pictures around the country.


Charles Gavan Power: I would have to find out the cost. The problem of recruiting is, I suppose, like the problem facing a tobacco company, say, that wants to sell its cigarettes. It constantly impresses upon the public that its cigarette is much better than any other. That is what a company does when it wants to sell tooth-paste, and so on.


George James Tustin: And are you trying to show that the air force is better than any other service?


Charles Gavan Power: Therefore the air force has these pictures, but I could not tell my hon. friend what they cost per sheet.


George James Tustin: They are very extravagantlooking pictures.


Charles Gavan Power: Yes, they are very extravagant-looking. And the reason why we want to make them extravagant-looking is that we want to make people say they want to join the air force.


Manley Justin Edwards: Is this advertising, socalled, done through recognized commercial advertising agencies? Is the advertising placed through that sort of medium, or is it done directly by the air force through posters in the * newspapers?


Charles Gavan Power: I think it is done through
advertising agencies, usually. There is one
in Toronto, I believe-Cockfield, Brown and Company. I am not sure of the name, but anyway there is one. In fact I think all the advertising agencies have got together now to carry most of the government advertising.
I believe that organization is known as National Advertising. There has been an amalgamation anyway. I would not really know the name of the firm that carries our advertising, because it is all mixed up together.


Charles Edward Johnston: The thing which amazes me is that when the minister rises in his place to talk about his methods of recruiting he refers to the cost of advertising. It boils down to this, that the one of the three armed services which can do the best advertising gets the recruits. I can just imagine that when the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services is before the committee, and we ask him. how he gets his men, he will say it is done by advertising. He will say that they have to go out and advertise, and that they have to advertise a little more attractively than does the Minister of National Defence for Air.
Therefore, in the final analysis, the fellow who makes a profit out of this thing is the advertising man. I must say the whole method is wrong.


James Arthur Ross: Is there any cooperation among the three armed services in the matter of going after recruits? I am wondering where national selective service enters into the picture. According to the minister's story, this is a matter of competition between each department to see who can put on the best show, to get the men. Is that correct?


Charles Gavan Power: I would not exactly say
that. As a matter of fact the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services says he does not have to advertise for the navy, because it has an appeal of its own. * For many months we in the air force did not have to advertise, either. But at this time we shall have to advertise, if we want to get the people we want. And I am not in competition with the Minister of National Defence, army, because we have a different class of people we take. Possibly I should not put that on Hansard-I should say not a better class.


An hon. MEMBER:: Better put a soft-pedal on that.


Agar Rodney Adamson: National selective service does not help you, at all?


Charles Gavan Power: They would not help in
connection with the people we want. We want aircrew, and you cannot conscript men

War Appropriation-Air Services
to fly an aeroplane. They have to be either natural fliers, or volunteer for duty, because in no place in the world, so far as I know, have they had conscription for aircrew.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I agree with that, entirely; but the young boy who leaves school, and is reaching his callable age, might go to the national selective service and say, "I am about to be called." The selective service man might say, "You had better hop around to an air force recruiting station, because you are a pretty bright-looking lad." Then he might say to the other fellow, "You had better wait until you are called up, because you are not so bright." One fellow is turned away because he may be none too bright, and the bright fellow goes into the air force.


Charles Gavan Power: I was not going to say exactly that, but that is about the truth of it.


James Arthur Ross: The minister has said he cannot conscript these people to fly. I am satisfied that many of the best men in the aircrew overseas have been chaps who in the early days of the war received their call, or were conscripted in Canada. But they decided they were going to join the air force.


Charles Gavan Power: Perhaps my hon. friend is right, in respect of many cases.


Joseph William Noseworthy: If the young men called up under the National Resources Mobilization Act were given some time after they were called to volunteer for air force or ground crew the minister would not have to advertise for recruits. He would not have to advertise if he -were given that choice of going into the air force after they were called up for military service. He could take his pick of all he wanted.


Charles Gavan Power: I think when they are called up they are supposed to report to the army centre. But before they report they can come in and report to the air force.


Grote Stirling: And they do.


Charles Gavan Power: And they volunteer for air force. Many of our ground crew have been called up. But there are not so many in connection with aircrew, because they are mostly younger men. Our aircrew now are nearly all under twenty-one years of age. Originally we took them up to thirty-two years, but that class is now pretty well exhausted. We are taking them between eighteen and twenty-two.


Manley Justin Edwards: Is it possible, in respect of a young man who is anticipating a call-up probably in a year or six months, to take him on strength and give him 'leave to continue in

his civilian occupation until such time as the air force requires him to report for duty. It has come to my attention at least on one or two occasions that it is possible for a young man to come to an air force recruiting station, be sworn on strength, taken into the force and then given indefinite leave for maybe three or four or five months, before being required to report for service, and in that way he avoids being taken into the army in the regular way.


Charles Gavan Power: That was .the custom about a year ago. Since March, 1941, in connection with applications for enlistment as aircrew, men enlisted in the R.C.A.F. immediately upon application, even though some period might elapse before they could actually commence their training. In those days we had more than we knew what to do with. But now they might get a month or two months. A man might enlist to-day, and we would say, "Come back on July 15." They do not get more than a month.


Charles Edward Johnston: He is
actually on. strength, though, when he does enlist?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes, and he is paid one dollar when he is sworn in.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: He is a dollar-a-year man.


Charles Edward Johnston: If he were discharged, and the question of pension arose, would the Minister of Pensions and National Health say he was not in the air force?


Charles Gavan Power: My hon. friend asked that question the other day. Immediately the applicant completed his enlistment he would become an airman and, as such, would be subject to air force law, and to the proper orders of superior air force authority. His leave of absence could therefore be terminated at any time by directing him to report for duty. During the period of leave of absence *without pay, however, he would not be liable to perform any air force duties, and in consequence, in the event of his being injured or killed during that time no claim for pension would arise because the same would not be based upon an injury received arising out of the .performance of an air force duty.


Charles Edward Johnston: My point was in connection with an enlisted man who was sent home for a month on leave, without pay-or just a dollar, as the minister indicated. He did not contract the sickness at that time, but contracted it after he was

War Appropriation-Air Services
called up again and was placed on duty under the R.C.A.F. It was then that the question of pension came up. They said,, "You were not enlisted. You were not in the force at that time, and we can only count you in the force, so far as pension is concerned, from the time you were recalled." That is my point.
I say that when he came back, after being called the second time, he was actually on the force from the day he first enlisted. He contracted the illness after the second call, and his pension should begin from the time he actually enlisted.


Charles Gavan Power: My hon. friend is referring to the Sommerville case.


Charles Edward Johnston: Yes.


Charles Gavan Power: I am having it looked into. That is really a pension case, rather than an air force case, because, after all, once a man is discharged from the air force, his .pension must be handled by the Minister of Pensions and National Health.


Charles Edward Johnston: I agree with the minister on that, namely, that it is really a pension case.


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Charles Edward Johnston: But it is also a matter of principle. If, after a man is called up the second time, an illness occurs, for purposes of pension he should be considered as having been on the force from the day he was sworn in, not from the day he received his second call-up. That is a matter of principle which should be cleared up. I am glad the minister is looking into the other case.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I was going to ask a further question along the lines of one I asked a few days ago. I have just forgotten what answer the minister made with respect to the fleet air arm. We have not a fleet air arm here. But the British are recruiting in Canada, are they not? How are our young	men	being enlisted	here	and sent
overseas?


Charles Gavan Power: My hon. friend the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services says he does not	think they	are.	I do	not know,really.	There may be	some who	are beingenlisted in the fleet air arm of the Royal Navy,	but	I cannot	say,	from	my own
knowledge.


Angus Lewis Macdonald: Not now.


Charles Gavan Power: The minister says it is not being done now.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I do know about this, because just a few days ago a young friend of mine went overseas, to England. He was only nineteen years of age. He went to the fleet air arm, and it is my understanding that someone here in Canada induced him to join up, and to enter that branch of the service. Of course he may have wanted to go; but how did he get into the fleet air arm? How are they enlisting?


Charles Gavan Power: I do not know how to answer my hon. friend. I am trying to get all the recruits I can for the Royal Canadian Air Force. I really would not know how they are getting recruits for the fleet air arm. The Minister of National Defence for Naval Services says he does not think they are doing it. But if my hon. friend has a case in mind, then it must be done. There is nothing to stop its being done. But there is no encouragement by way of financial assistance being given by the Canadian government to people who are enlisting in the fleet air arm. That is the best answer I can give.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Early this year I had a call from two men who had joined the R.C.A.F. in January, and were told to report some time in 'March. They were given a card which instructed them to tell their employers that they had signed up, but to continue with their jobs. They told their employers, and they were immediately given notice that they would be through at the end of the week or at the end of the following week. They then had two months to put in before they would join the air force. I immediately took the matter up with the minister's department and these boys were called earlier, but this might happen in other cases where boys might be left out on a limb until they were taken into the force. I think these men should be warned that when they tell their employers they should watch out and let the air force know if they are fired from their jobs.


Charles Gavan Power: At the present time I doubt if there is more than one month from the time they actually sign on until they are called in.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: In this case it was over two months.


Charles Gavan Power: In January we had a surplus; now we are running into a shortage, but we expect to have a surplus in June or July.


George Russell Boucher: Following up the matter referred to by the hon. member for Daven-

, War Appropriation-Air Services
port, is it not a fact that when a man in Canada who is not subject to call under national selective service wishes to go overseas to join the fleet air arm or the ferry command he must first get a permit from the Department of Labour, and that the Department of Labour will not issue such permit unless it is concurred in by the air force?


Charles Gavan Power: I never heard of any such rule. It may exist, but the question has never come up. In the early days or before the war a great many young Canadians went overseas to join the R.A.F., but since the war, since they have had the opportunity of joining the R.C,A.F., very few have gone over.


George Russell Boucher: I was referring to men who might not be qualified for pilots' positions in the air force and who are not subject to military call.


Charles Gavan Power: If a man wants to join the ferry command he must be a pilot or a navigator or an observer and would have to be trained unless he was a former bush pilot.


George Russell Boucher: I am referring to men who have paid for their own tuition at flying schools and who might be above the age limit permitted by the R^C.A.F. I have known of one or two cases, and I wonder if this is the government policy?


George James Tustin: Is there not some establishment of the fleet air arm attached to certain stations in Canada?


Charles Gavan Power: Under a contract with the British admiralty we are training airmen at Kingston for the fleet air arm, but they all come from the other side. An elementary school will be opened in October; Kingston has been in operation for over a year, and there is another in Nova Scotia. These men train under the British commonwealth air training plan, but they go to the British navy. They come from Great Britain; they are not recruited in Canada, but they receive their full training here.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I know of several young men who had passed the university school with the highest honours, and they were sent overseas almost immediately^.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Since this is the last item, perhaps the minister will tell us when we may expect answers to questions which have been asked, but which have not yet been answered.


Charles Gavan Power: I shall have to check
Hansard. I shall be only too glad to ask my colleague to answer them on the opening of the house to-morrow. There are a great many

questions that will have to be looked up, but we will put the answers on Hansard.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am particularly interested in one I asked with reference to the average rate of wages paid to civilian employees in various classifications and which appears on page 3251 of Hansard.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Charles Gavan Power: I do not want to block my own estimates, but I have a duty to perform. I made a statement on Thursday on commissioning, and the high commissioner for Great Britain wants me to correct any impression I may have left in the minds of hon. members. Therefore, I should like to read into Hansard a letter which he wrote me, as follows;
Dear Mr. Power:
In the course of your speech on air force commissioning in the House of Commons on the 2nd of June, you stated the Royal Air Force policy to be that an arbitrary figure of fifty per cent of graduates from training schools, namely thirty-three per cent on graduation and seventeen per cent after service in the field, were commissionable, and no more. This would mean that the R.A.F. had established 50 per cent as a rigid maximum of all pilots, observers, navigators and air bombers who could receive commissions.
That is not the case. The policy is that all members of aircrews of the above categories who qualify for commissions shall be commissioned, although the Royal Air Force view is that not more than about half of aircrew posts need to be filled by commissioned officers. It is also true that experience has shown that no more than 50 per cent qualify for commissions in practice. For this reason it was decided that some 33 per cent should be eligible for commissions on graduation, whilst a further 17 per cent should be recommended for commissions after a period of operational service. But these percentages do not exhaust the opportunities of commissioning, since the Air Ministry are always prepared to consider any number of additional recommendations on the strength of operational records. Whilst the suitability of a certain proportion of pupils for commissions can he clearly recognized at the stage of graduation from training schools, the R.A.F. feel that the test of the qualities of the others cannot really be satisfactory except in actual operations. No commanding officer of any squadron in the R.A.F. has then any limit placed upon the number of recommendations that he can make. On the contrary, he is encouraged to recommend any pilot, observer, navigator or air bomber who possesses the necessary qualities of leadership and command.
This policy was affirmed clearly during^ the Ottawa conference in May last year, and it is not qualified by any question of rigidity in the matter of establishment or any other consideration except the qualifications of the individual.
The Royal Canadian Air Force have adopted their own policy. They have as much right as the R.A.F. to adopt whatever policy they consider best, and the R.A.F. are cooperating fully in the implementing of that policy so far as

War Appropriation-Naval Services
Canadian personnel are concerned. This is only one example of the spirit of comradeship in which our air forces are operating together against the enemy.


George Hugh Castleden: That means in reality that you would not be embarrassing the Royal Air Force by granting commissions to more than fifty per cent.


Charles Gavan Power: Exactly.



NATIONAL DEFENCE FOR NAVAL SERVICES

[Stage Direction]
Hon. ANGUS L. MACDONALD (Minister of National Defence for Naval Services): Mr. Chairman, on the 3rd of March of this year my colleague the Minister of Finance placed on Hansard a table showing the estimated expenditures of the Department of National Defence for Naval Services under some thirteen main heads. I should like now to place on Hansard a further table showing the same figures given three months ago by the Minister of Finance, which were for the present year, and showing also the estimated expenditure for the same items for the last fiscal year. It is as follows:
Department of National Defence Naval Service
Comparison of Estimated 1943-44 Cash Requirements with Estimated 1942-43 Expenditures for all votes combined
Objects of expenditures
1.	Civil salaries and wages	
2.	Pay and allowances	
3.	Travel, transportation and freight....
4.	Construction, purchase, repairs and
operating expenses of properties-
(a)	Capital expenditure	
(b)	Repairs, operating expenses and
rentals	
5.	Personnel supplies and services: food,
medical and dental stores, clothing and personal equipment	
6.	Signal and wireless equipment, line
construction, etc	
7.	Ammunition and bombs	
8.	Armament, including rifles, machine
guns, naval guns, etc	
9.	Fuel cost of ships	
10.	Acquisition, construction, charter, repair and upkeep of ships	
11.	Naval stores: small boats, minesweeping, degaussing, anti-submarine, firefighting and training equipment, etc.
12.	Miscellaneous stores and services:
printing, stationery, laundry, office machinery, teletype rental, etc....
13.	Sundries: postage, pilotage, prize funds
and other costs not included in above items	
Totals	
Estimated expenditure 1942-1943	Estimated expenditure 1943-1944	Increase$ 3,645,222 28 63,236,432 19 3,382,574 74	$ 6,192,054 00 89,565,119 00 6,978,000 00	$ 2,546,831 72 26,328,686 81 3,595,425 2616,490,051 37	36,579,608 00	20,089,556 631,831,417 80	6,267,182 00	4,435,764 2010,000,812 96	22,015,072 00	12,014,259 04986,447 64 3,100,416 01	4,592,188 00 14,245,890 00	3,605,740 36 11,145,473 993,947,684 19 4,088,267 74	42,415,548 00 25,257,798 00	38,467,863 81 21,169,530 2674,979,157 67	167,571,202 00	92,592,044 3319,738,111 08	57,651,110 00	37,912,998 921,268,148 72	6,552,959 00	5,284,810 281,127,524 91	3,261,237 00	2,133,712 09$207,822,269 30	$489,144,967 00	$281,322,697 70
It is now some thirteen months since I ments in the press or by radio to the
presented the last estimates of the Department of Naval Services. Much has happened in those months. We have undertaken certain new duties; we have continued and enlarged upon some old tasks. We have had some brilliant successes; we have had some tragic losses. But on all these matters a great deal has already been said through the medium of speeches, interviews with the press and state-
Canadian public. Therefore I doubt whether I can enlighten the committee to-day by presenting any new material. I can only hope to survey events that are already for the most part well known, to bring together in what I trust will be convenient form information that in one way or another is already, I am sure, in the minds of hon. members.
3406	COMMONS
War Appropriation-Naval Services
The story which I have to tell, Mr. Chairman, is in the main a story of progress, progress in the size of our navy, both in ships and in man-power, and now, I have to add, woman-power as well. When we began to build up a navy some three and a half years ago we were young to the task. Except for a few officers and men we lacked experience. We have learned something in the hard school of war, and while it would be vain to say that we are beyond the range of criticism; while it would be foolish to assert that we have not made mistakes, we can say, I think, that we have performed our duties with some credit to this country, and certainly we can state that we have won the approval and the praise of many authorities on naval matters in other countries.
"Where the treasure is, there is the heart also." The treasure of a navy is its ships, and the heart of a navy is its men. I shall speak first of these precious and vital elements in our naval story. I shall then tell the committee something about the operations in which the Canadian navy has engaged itself. My remarks on these three topics must necessarily be general, but further detailed discussion can be had as the individual items of the estimates are under consideration.
Ships. When I first spoke to the house in November, 1940, I pointed out that at the outbreak of war the Canadian navy had some fifteen ships but that, even as I spoke, the number had grown to 155 ships of all classes. Each succeeding year since then has seen more ships built and commissioned) than we had estimated. For instance, in the last fiscal year we planned to add about 100 ships to our strength. As a matter of fact, we added over 150. To-day the Canadian navy boasts a fleet of over 550 ships of all types.
That is a remarkable rise from the little fleet of fifteen with which we began the war. It represents a 36-fold increase.
During the last year two Tribal destroyers were completed for the Canadian government in British shipbuilding yards. Two more of the same type will shortly be completed and commissioned in the same yards; and two more steel are under construction in a Canadian shipj'ard.
Tribal destroyers belong to the largest and most powerful type of destroyer in the world. It has been and it is our feeling that these ships should see service as fleet destroyers rather than as escort destroyers, and we have made arrangements with the United Kingdom authorities to that end. The two Tribals already in commission, the Iroquois and Athabaskan, are serving with the British fleet,

and the others as they are completed will join the first two. Thus eventually we shall have a Canadian flotilla of Tribal destroyers assigned for service with the British fleet and manned by Canadian officers and men.
I am glad to be able to report that the Royal Navy has in its turn placed four of its own escort destroyers at our disposal, and these destroyers have become part of the Canadian convoy escort service in the north Atlantic. These four destroyers have been renamed, according to our policy of naming destroyers of this type after Canadian rivers. We have given to these ships the well known names of Ottawa, Gatineau, Kootenay and Saskatchewan.
George Russell Boucher: You have not Carleton there?


Angus Lewis Macdonald: It is possible that before the end of the year the British navy will be able to give us two more escort destroyers.
This gift by the British navy is very highly appreciated, and these destroyers will be of the greatest service to the Canadian government in its escort work on the Atlantic.
While the figures which I have given as to the increase in the number of ships are matters of gratification to the Canadian naval service, they speak eloquently of the work that has been done by Canadian shipyards, and in the factories and foundries where the steel and the machinery and the other materials required by these shipyards are manufactured. In the years immediately before the war, shipbuilding in Canada was practically nonexistent. Last year the tonnage of ships built, that is both merchant ships and warships would aggregate about one million tons, and this year that figure will be greatly exceeded. I think we can say now that Canada is becoming a naval and a maritime power.
Our facilities for the training of men have been developed to a point where we are now able to man the ships which are available to us. The task has been difficult, I am bound to say, but we have always been able to keep the manning of ships abreast of construction, so that our ships are not kept out of operational duties through lack of trained personnel.
Men. I now come, Mr. Chairman, to the question of men. We began this war with an active service personnel of 1,774 men. At the end of the last fiscal year, that is on March 31, 1942, our personnel had grown to

War Appropriation-Naval Services
31.000,	and it was our plan to take men into the service last year at the rate of about 1,000 a month.'
Now in the case of personnel, as in the matter of ships, we have far exceeded our estimate. In the year that has passed we took in about twice as many men as we had planned to take. To-day the man-power of the Canadian navy stands at approximately
60.000.
We have doubled our size in the last fourteen months. We have increased our stature thirty-four times since the outbreak of war.
That is a rate of expansion not paralleled, I believe, in all naval history. An article in. the March issue of the British magazine Shipping described it as an all-time record. On the list of the .navies of the British commonwealth we stand second-second only to the British navy itself.
If we maintain the rate of growth which we now contemplate we shall by the end of next year reach approximately the number of men that the British navy had in prewar days. We shall have about 90,000 men.
I am sure that if, in the early days of September, 1939, anyone in this chamber had predicted that the Canadian navy would some time in 1944 have as many men as the British navy had before the war, he would be branded as a visionary of the wildest sort. Yet his vision will soon be justified. For there is no dearth of recruits for the Canadian navy. In fact, we still have a waiting list at some of our naval volunteer reserve divisions.
The men of the Canadian navy come from every part of Canada, and a few from beyond our borders. I should like to place on Hansard a table showing naval enlistments by provinces, complete to the 31st of March of this year:
Enlistments from September 1,		1939,
to March 31,	1943	
	Officers	Ratings
Prince Edward Island. . .	49	1,036Nova Scotia	534	4,741New Brunswick 	119	1,651Quebec 	1,118	7,354Ontario 	1,722	20,590Manitoba	218	4,208Saskatchewan	130	3,657Alberta 	164	4,436British Columbia	983	6,905Others (inch U.S.A. and	Newfoundland) 	133	222Total	5,170	54,800
Some 1,400 of our officers and men are serving with the Royal Navy in widespread parts of the world. About 20,000 are serving in Canadian ships; the others are training at shore establishments.
Training. I come now to training. The training of our naval ratings is normally undertaken in one or the other of four ways. First, at Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve divisions of which there are eighteen throughout Canada, beginning with the division at Charlottetown in the east and ending at Vancouver in the west. Second, at our naval bases and training schools, of which we have seventeen. Third, in technical schools and universities, and fourth, in our ships.
It requires about six months' training for a man to qualify for the lowest rating. It takes about fourteen months to train fully a naval artisan. Stokers, engine room artificers, electricians, radio artificers, shipwright welders, motor mechanics, coppersmiths, boilermakers- these are some of the trades which have to be known and used in a modern navy. Stewards, cooks, supply assistants, waiters, also need' training. Then we need gunners, torpedo men, asdic operators, men who understand the intricacies of radio direction finding, or R. D. F. as it is commonly called. We need also men who are skilled in the art of communication, who understand wireless, and visual signalling, coding and decoding.
A modem ship of war is in itself an intricate bit of machinery, and its operation requires skill, not merely in seamanship, but in a great variety of other trades as well.
The training of officers is now done at King's College, Halifax, and at Royal Roads, B.C. After an officer has completed successfully his training there, and has spent some time at sea, he may be given further courses of trainring ashore at H.M.C.S. King's or elsewhere, depending upon the specialty for which he wishes to qualify.
Early this year a new scheme for the entry of officers in the Royal Canadian Navy was adopted. In the first years of the war we followed the principle of what is known as "direct entry"; that is to say, a man could, if he was assumed to have the proper qualifications, enter into officer rank directly from civilian life. Concurrently with this system we also followed the practice of promoting promising men from the lower deck, and from the outbreak of war to the introduction of the new system, 1,086 ratings were promoted to officer rank in this way.
In February of this year we came to the decision that there should be no more direct entries into commissioned rank except in the special branches. All persons who wish to become executive officers in the naval service must enter the service as ordinary seamen and they must take at least six months' training as ratings. About three months or a little less
72537-J18



War Appropriation-Naval Services
perhaps must be served at sea. If at the end of that six months' time a rating is considered worthy of a commission, he is commissioned as a probationary sub-lieutenant and he takes at King's the course of training laid1 down for such officers. This method of entry is new and has not been fully tested, but it is designed to put a premium on ability and adaptability to the requirements of the service.
In recent months we have made arrangements with several Canadian universities, and we hope to make arrangements with some more, for the establishment of what we call university naval training divisions. These divisions will correspond in a general way to the Canadian officers training corps establishments of the army. Preliminary instruction will be given during the academic year, and during the summer months a two weeks' training course will be provided on each coast. Students who enrol in these courses will be on divisional strength of the volunteer reserve division which is nearest to the university.^ I am happy to say that we received most satisfactory cooperation from the faculties of the universities in this matter, and we have also received much helpful advice and valuable assistance from the Canadian army through the units of the C.O.T.C. at the universities.
While on the subject of personnel, I should mention the fine work of the medical branch of the Royal Canadian Navy. We now have in that branch some 300 medical officers and 132 nursing sisters. Forty of our medical officers have been loaned to the Royal Navy, and many of these are seeing service with the ships of that navy in all parts of the world.
Since the outbreak of war the health of our personnel has been good; only three per cent of the days available for work have been lost through hospitalization. This represents a loss of less than ten days per man per year, and compares very favourably with the normal loss in industry. When we consider the difficult conditions under which our men often have to live at sea, the crowded living quarters, the exposure, the mental strain under which they labour, the incidence of a sickness is a matter of considerable satisfaction.
The naval medical research unit has continued to give careful study to the problem of suitable diet for men at sea, and it has made what I think are notable improvements in dietary conditions. It has also worked out an excellent type of emergency ration for lifeboats and rafts, and its improvements in this regard have won the attention and approval of naval medical men in other countries.
The studies which our medical research unit has made in rationing and in dietary problems,

generally, should prove of great benefit after the war when the problem of rehabilitating and restoring the health of the populations of the conquered countries arises. I am sure that the services of such men as Commander Best of this unit, famous throughout the world for his researches in the treatment of diabetes, and of his associates, would be of great value in the solution of post-war health and dietary problems.
Sea cadets. Under the subject of personnel I must make reference to the sea cadet movement. Of striking interest during the past year has been the great growth in the sea cadet movement in this country, and in this work the navy league of Canada has rendered enthusiastic and powerful assistance. The boys who have been trained as sea cadets provide one of the finest sources of recruits which the navy has, and we estimate that to-day more than 4,000 former sea cadets are enrolled in the Royal Canadian Navy or in the Canadian merchant navy.
When I spoke to the committee a year ago, I said that there were 2,700 sea cadets in Canada. To-day there are 61 sea cadet corps and the enrolled membership is, in round figures, 10,000. Summer camps have been established in different parts of the country, and it is hoped that the majority of the cadets will be able to attend these camps. Here they will receive training in elementary naval work, in the handling of boats, in swimming, and in discipline.
We have recently held training classes for the officers of the sea cadet corps in Halifax, in Toronto, in Victoria, and these classes were attended by 175 sea cadet officers. Apart altogether from the value of this work to the navy, I am glad to say that highly satisfactory and gratifying reports have been received from the parents of the boys and from law enforcement authorities who have watched the beneficial effects which sea cadet training has had in decreasing juvenile delinquency.
W.R.C.N.S. I pass on now to the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service'. During the past year the Canadian naval service has begun to enlist women into the Wbmen's Royal Canadian Naval Service. These women are commonly referred to as "Wrens". We have now some 2,500 in this corps. The basic training for ratings is conducted at Galt, Ontario, at an institution made available to us through the generosity of that province. The training of Wren officers is carried on at Ottawa.
Generally speaking, the services performed by the Wrens will be domestic, administrative and clerical. I must say that those who

War Appropriation-Naval Services
have joined the corps have adapted themselves with great enthusiasm and efficiency to naval life and service conditions. They are-working as stewards, clerks, cooks, sail-makers, laundresses, drivers, telegraphists, stenographers, and in many other positions. Members of the corps are now to be found on duty in Halifax and Deep Brook, Nova Scotia; in Ottawa; in seven of the volunteer divisions throughout Canada; as well as on the Pacific coast.
Naval College. An event of high importance in the last year, and one that I hope will be of increasing significance in the years to come, was the opening of the Royal Canadian Naval College at Royal Roads, British Columbia, on Trafalgar day, October 21, 1942.
Some 300 Canadian -boys sought entrance to the institution, but the enrolment was limited to 100 students. Fifty of these, the older cadets, are taking a one-year course; fifty more have embarked on a two-year course. They come from every part of Canada, and they have been carefully selected not only on their scholastic qualifications, but also on a physical and personality basis. After they complete their work at the college these young men will undertake further training with the Canadian Navy or with the Royal Navy.
Operations. I pass on now to the third main part of this summary, namely, the part that deals with operations. The operations of the Canadian navy during the last year have taken its ships and its men to various points on the Pacific, to areas in the north and south Atlantic, and into the waters of the Mediterranean. Some of our ships have joined with United States forces in the waters of -the Aleutians, and some of them still stand on guard on our western seaboard. Seventeen of our corvettes saw service in the North African expedition. The Canadian corvettes Ville cle Quebec, Port Arthur and Regina definitely sank three enemy submarines and captured their crews, and other Canadian corvettes made promising attacks on submarines in that area. But our main work as a navy has been in the north Atlantic. It has lain in the protection of trade convoys, in- the guarding of merchant ships, carrying food and war supplies from the ports of this continent to the harbours of Europe.
From time to time, both before the outbreak of war and since, we have received much advice as to how oqr naval effort couldi be best directed. There were some who felt that the proper role of the Canadian navy lay in the establishment of a fleet of fast -motor-boats, presumably to guard our shores
against the attacks of enemy surface ships. There were and there still are others who claim that we should -have concentrated our efforts, at least in part, on the manning of cruisers, and still others who feel that we should have featured the building and operation of submarines.	.
It is true that there were several courses open to us at the outbreak of war. We could have attempted to man great ships, if we could have gotten the ships, such as battleships and heavy cruisers. These might find work to do in far away waters, but there would be very little scope for their activities in the seas that lie between America and Europe. Or, again wie -might have endeavoured to organize a fleet of motor-boats carrying torpedoes, or we might have attempted to form a submarine navy. These craft, too, would have to go far away from home to find work, for there were and there are few enemy surface ships in the open Atlantic. The British navy has seen to that.
But we chose another and, I believe, a truer and more natural course. We looked at our geographical position, at our great agricultural wealth and at our industrial possibilities. We knew that Canada would send across the seas not only thousands and -hundreds of thousands of fighting men, but huge quantities of food and munitions of war. We knew that enemy submarines would threaten the ships which were to carry those men and supplies from Canada to Europe. Indeed, we believed from our experience of the last war that enemy submarines would -be the greatest menace that our merchant ships and our troop ships would have to face.
That view, all too unfortunately, has proved correct. By almost unanimous agreement among spokesmen for Britain, the United States and Canada, the Atlantic is our first and major battle ground; it is there that the war against Hitler can be won or lost. And so we said in the Canadian navy: let us undertake the task that lies nearest to our hand. Let us build a fleet of escort vessels that will guard the lives of Canadian service men on their way to Europe, that will protect the products of Canadian farms and-Canadian factories on their long journey over the seas. That seemed to be a distinctively Canadian type of effort-a close-knit, compact effort, with most of the ships being built here, the men trained here, the work directed from here. While from time to time we have assumed other tasks, in other places, we have clung to our original design, and it is on the north Atlantic that our chief work as a navy has been done.

War Appropriation-Naval Services
Now, from the shores of this continent, over thirteen thousand vessels have sailed in convoy, carrying some eighty million tons of food and war supplies to the ports of the United Kingdom.
It must be admitted that in the early days our part in the Atlantic convoy system was small. We had at the beginning only six ships that were fit for the work. We had only a handful of men. We had to plan and to build and to train, and there is no more difficult task in all the preparation for warfare than the building up of a navy. The training of naval officers and petty officers takes time, much time. After all has been done on shore that can be done, officers and men still must have practical experience at sea. It takes time to rehabilitate shipyards and to build and equip ships. It takes time to construct ashore the facilities that are necessary to a navy-the docks, the wharves, the repair shops, the machine shops, the barracks, the training quarters for men. Bearing in mind the resources of the country in manpower, shipbuilding, ship repairing, and _ its possibilities as a training ground, our constant aim has been to develop a service that was properly balanced as to men, ships, training and shore facilities. Bit by bit we increased our strength and enriched our experience. From the small beginnings that I have already mentioned, we progressed step by step until last fall we were able to say that nearly one-half of the convoy escort work in the north Atlantic was being done by Canadian ships operated by Canadian officers and men.
The significance of that statement is worthy of most careful note. If the winning of the battle of the Atlantic is the first and most important of our tasks, surely it is significant that so large a share in the conduct of that battle has been entrusted to the Royal Canadian .Navy. Of equal significance is the fact that on the first day of May of this year a Canadian officer was given the important post of commander in chief of the Canadian northwest Atlantic. That appointment arose out of discussions between the service forces of Britain, the United States and Canada, culminating in a conference held in Washington in March of this year. As a result of these discussions, the whole responsibility of escorting convoys between these shores and the shores of Great Britain is now divided between the navies of the United Kingdom and Canada.


Douglas King Hazen: What is the name of that officer?


Angus Lewis Macdonald: I am just coming to that. I am glad to be

able to say that in selecting an officer for this important post we felt we could place our confidence in a graduate of our own Canadian naval college, in a man who has seen distinguished service with both our navy and the Royal Navy,, Rear Admiral L. W. Murray, a Canadian, a Nova Scotian. He has operational control of all anti-submarine activity in the northwest Atlantic. Cooperating with him, working in the same building with him, is Air Vice-Marshal G. O. Johnson, who has been given control of all anti-submarine air activity in this area.
I am happy to say now that from the beginning the cooperation of the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy has been close and complete. The new arrangement under which Rear Admiral Murray is made comipander in chief of the Canadian northwest Atlantic, and Air ViceMarshal Johnson is given control of the air command in that region, will mean that the resources at our command, in- the way of both surface ships and airships, will continue to be utilized to the best advantage and in the closest cooperation.
I cannot pass from this topic without recognizing the assistance we have received from the United States and Royal navies. Our friends in the United States have always been glad to make available to us their ship repair and supply facilities, and sometimes their ships. Their experience and information have always been cheerfully placed at our disposal, and their air patrols over the Atlantic have been and are most welcome and helpful. The Royal Navy, as always, continues to assist our efforts. This assistance is most felt in the free use that we have been allowed to make of their unrivalled training facilities, of their plans and designs for ships and machinery and armament. We are glad to be able to offer a measure of reciprocity and the Royal Navy is now making use of some of our training facilities in this country.
The battle against the submarine ebbs and flows as the tides of the sea. We have had months when our losses of merchant ships were heavier than we expected. There have been times when our losses were lighter than we had estimated.
Hon. members will recall that in 1917 the depredations of German submarines became highly alarming. Indeed, it is clear now that there was a period of time in that year when many authorities in. Great Britain feared that the war would be lost on the Atlantic. The sinking of merchant ships by German submarines had reached such proportions that many people in high places felt that if the

War Appropriation-Naval Services
rate of sinking were maintained, the supply of food and munitions of war from these shores to the ports of Great Britain would dwindle and fade to such small proportions that the United Kingdom would be starved into submission. But in that year Great Britain answered the German submarine threat by introducing the convoy system. Instead of letting ships put to sea individually, Britain adopted the policy of grouping them together and sending them out with fast armed surface craft to repel submarine attacks. It is a matter of record now that after the introduction of the convoy system the losses from enemy submarine action dropped sharply.
To-day Germany is again relying on submarine warfare. She has made, within the last few months, many boasts and many threats. But so far she has not produced any new type of weapon, any novel type of submarine. She is, it is true, building stronger submarines. They are more difficult to sink. They are more heavily armed. They are better equipped. They have more bases in Europe at which they can repair, refit and refuel.
They attack now in groups, instead of singly, but beyond those things no new styles in German submarines or in German methods have yet. come to our notice.
The exact number of submarines which the German navy has is known only to the Germans themselves. Undoubtedly the number is large, and their cruising range is long. We are often asked, "Where are the German submarine bases on this side of the Atlantic?" Many people think that German submarines must have some bases on this side of the ocean at which they can refuel and reprovision before starting on their homeward journey. All I can say in answer to this question is that if there are such bases on our coasts, we do not know of them. We do know, however, as I told the committee last year, that German submarines can leave their bases on the coast of Europe, make their way to the shores of Canada and the United States, operate against shipping for some time, and then return to their lairs without reprovisioning or refuelling.


Gordon Graydon: The minister referred to "some time". What does he mean by that, in point of actual time?


Angus Lewis Macdonald: I
would say two or three weeks, depending upon how much territory they wished to cover. But I should think two or three weeks would be quite within-their capacity.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Two or three weeks of operations.


Angus Lewis Macdonald: Yes. In the last war German submarine bases were confined to German or Belgian territory. With the fall of France, Germany obtained bases farther to the west, and therefore nearer Canadian shores. She derived another advantage from her occupation of Norway, the low countries and France, namely that she could now establish submarine bases opening directly into the Atlantic, whereas in the last war her submarines, in order to operate against our shipping had to move out to the open sea, either through the English channel or ' through the North sea.
In consequence of these positional gains German submarines, even if they were only of the same type as were used in the last war, could operate much farther to the west. The result of all this was that the western Atlantic, which was practically immune from submarine attack in 1917, became in this war a very heavily infested submarine area. The fall of France was a heavy blow. In several respects it was nearly fatal to us. But in no way was it more serious than in its effect upon naval strategy. The whole Atlantic now became a submarine theatre. If the British navy, in addition to its tremendous tasks elsewhere, had to take on the added burden of protecting convoys in the waters off Canada and Newfoundland, the task would certainly have proved extremely difficult, if not indeed impossible.
It was in these months of late 1940, and in the months of 1941 that the Canadian navy, small though it was, filled the gap. In the words of Sir Percy Noble, spoken at Montreal in March of this year, "The Canadian navy sailed into the breach. The expansion of the Canadian navy solved the problem of Atlantic convoys". These are gratifying words from a man who during those difficult days, was admiral commanding the western approaches to Great Britain, and who probably knows more about convoy problems than any other living person.
It may be asked, "What is being done here and in Britain and in the United States to meet the submarine menace?" I should answer to that, in the first place, and to take events in their proper order, that the first effort of the united nations is to kill the serpent in the shell before he can be hatched. It is directed against enemy submarine bases and submarine building yards, and it takes the form of heavy air attack. The Royal Air Force, the American Air Force, and the Royal Canadian Air Force have made many such attacks, and there is no doubt that these attacks will have

War Appropriation-Naval Services
their effect. But we must remember that German U-boat bases are strongly built and strongly defended. Heavy concrete cover is provided and other forms of defence are adopted, which makes the task of our air men difficult.
In the second place, we are meeting the German submarine threat by building in Britain, in the United States and in Canada, more anti-submarine vessels, more destroyers, more frigates, more corvettes. Not only are we turning out more and more ships; we are endeavouring to improve the quality of our ships, to increase their speed and to strengthen their striking power.
But it is not only on ships alone that we rely in our battle against the submarines. The aeroplane has become a most important weapon in submarine warfare. I disclose no secret when I say that the convoy which is protected by both surface craft and aircraft is in a much happier position than the convoy which is protected by one type of craft alone. If you have aircraft protesting the convoy, submarines are not nearly so likely to expose themselves by coming to the surface, because a plane in the air can spot a submarine on the surface of the water far more readily than a vessel can and1 the plane can, of course, speed to the attack much more readily than can surface craft.
This war has shown the value of aircraft carriers to a fleet, and we have been giving careful consideration to the possibility of establishing a Canadian fleet air arm. We have had discussions on the point with our friends in the R.C.A.F., as well as with naval authorities in Britain and the United States.
There are many factors to be taken into account, of course, and all I can say at the moment is that we are continuing to give most careful study to the whole matter, but we have not come to a definite conclusion. One of our high ranking naval officers is now abroad for the purpose of seeing at first hand the operation of carriers and of fleet air arms generally.
The Atlantic ocean is very wide and there are parts of it where air coverage is difficult to get at all times, but I can say again, as I said before, that the cooperation between the ships of the sea and the ships of the air is thorough and wholehearted.
Without disclosing a definite figure I can say, too, that both on the sea and in the air we are considerably stronger than we were last 37ear. We have more ships, more planes, more men, more experience. Our coasts and coastal waters are more heavily defended and more ships are available for convoy escort work.

This year the Canadian navy hopes to add some seventy fighting ships to its strength, besides a number of other ships, not of the combat type. We shall dispose of these ships to the best possible advantage. Some of them' are to do transatlantic escort duty. Some of them will sweep up enemy mines, if such are sown along our coasts and shipping lanes. Others will patrol our coastal waters. The point to remember in connection with the protection of ships is that, as an English writer recently said, "The sea is one." If you have a sea lane to protect, you must protect all of it. It would be idle to mass all your protecting ships on one part of it and leave the rest of it unguarded. Naturally you put your strongest force where you expect the heaviest attacks. That is what we mean by saying that we shall dispose of our ships to the best advantage.
Last year the enemy penetrated the gulf of St. Lawrence and the lower reaches of the river and sank twenty allied ships in these waters. At that time the resources of the united nations at sea were strained to the utmost. This year a reasonable portion of our fleet is allocated to this theatre and the air protection is also stronger, so that we look on ourselves as reasonably well off in this area.
We are asked sometimes by cities or other communities whether we can guarantee that our defences are adequate, whether we can guarantee that certain localities are immune from attack. It is extremely difficult to give such guarantees. It is extremely difficult to say that under no circumstances whatever will enemy sea craft or enemy aircraft reach our shores at some point or other. Therefore, when a certain town or city or other locality asks for an assurance that nothing will ever happen to them, I find it very hard to give definite assurance.
I shall not attempt to say that we shall not have further losses at sea. Indeed, it is certain that even with our increased strength, and even if we became much stronger than we are to-day, or than we plan to be, we should still have losses. The U-boats lurking under the water, the floating or sunken mine, the enemy aircraft making a sudden thrust from the coast of Europe against our shipping lanes, the surface raider even, will continue to take their toll against our shipping.
At one time last year I made a calculation of the mileage of convoy routes which had to be protected by units of the British navy, and I estimated that 86,000 miles of sea lanes had to be guarded by that navy. When you add to that the great distances from the western coast of North America to the battle

War Appropriation-Naval Services
theatres of the southwest Pacific, or even to the Aleutians, you have an immensely long line over which troop ships and merchant ships have to be protected, and you can see how difficult it is to guarantee absolute safety to any ship over these great distances.
When I add to that statement the remark that on any given day there are at least two thousand British merchant ships on the sea, not to speak of the merchant ships of the other united nations, the magnitude of the problem of protecting allied merchant shipping becomes apparent to us all.
But yet, when I look at the shipping and the submarine problem as a whole, I see no cause for alarm. Doctor Goebbels, it is true, declared a few weeks ago that the U-boats had England by the throat. There is no evidence whatever to support the statement of the eminent doctor. The fact is that in the very month of April of this year when he spoke, more merchant ships reached England from North America than in any other month this year or last year. Second, allied merchant ship losses due to submarine action in the first five months of this year were considerably less than they were in the first five months of 1942. Exactly how much less I shall not say, but I use the word "considerably" with due regard for the meaning of language. Third, we have done very well this year in sinking submarines, better than we did in the same period of last year. Fourth, there is no doubt whatever that we are now building merchant ships faster than they are being sunk. I know that this fourth answer is not a complete answer, because in some of the sinkings, unfortunately, we lose some of those excellent merchant officers and seamen who have carried on under such arduous conditions with such magnificent gallantry for nearly four years.
Therefore, while the activities of U-boats still constitute a grave problem, and while we must never for an instant relax our vigilant pursuit of them, I have no doubt as to the outcome of the struggle on the Atlantic and on other seas. I have no doubt that in time our surface ships and our air ships will triumph in that struggle.
The Canadian navy is, as to more than ninety per cent of its strength, what might be termed a civilian navy. I pay deserved tribute to our professional sailors, the nucleus on which our strength was built. Without their experience and their training the organization of the Canadian naval service to its present proportions would have been impossible. But I must at the same time render my homage to the more than fifty thousand
men who have come from the ranks of the merchant service, or who have left the office, the farm, the fishing boat, the factory, the mine, the lumber camp, to join our ranks. They have quitted themselves like men and they have been strong.
Nearly one thousand men of the Royal Canadian Navy have already given their lives in this great struggle and twelve of our ships of war have been sunk. There is no sea of the world which is not hallowed as the last resting place of some of the best and bravest of our Canadian youth. They have died gallantly. They have died gloriously, and their memory will remain an inspiration to those who come after them in that service to which they gave their lives.
But they have not gone unavenged. Eight German submarines have been destroyed by Canadian ships of war. Many more have been damaged. Some more must be classed as "probably destroyed".
The heroism and the accomplishments of our men have been duly recognized. Their gallantry and devotion to duty have been rewarded by no fewer than 387 decorations and mentions in dispatches.
I have tried to give the committee in what must be rather factual and prosaic form a sketch of the Royal Canadian Navy and its work. I have only glimpsed the story. The full tale cannot be told until the veil of secrecy which necessarily surrounds so much of the navy's activities will be lifted at the conclusion of the war. He who would understand what this Canadian navy has done must himself go down to the sea in a ship. He must see for himself the hazards of convoy work, the trying weather conditions which our men have to face, whether they serve in the merchant marine or whether they fight under the white ensign. He must observe the gales, the high seas, the ice, the fog, the, constant threat of the elements that must be faced, as well as the ever-present risks of war. He must talk to the men of the sea as they come in from their voyages and as they go out again, knowing that every minute of every day, for weeks on end, they run the risk of disaster and death.
He must learn the story of young Day, of Belleville, Ontario, an ordinary telegraphist aboard the Canadian ship-of-war Otter, who, dying on a raft in the cold of the salt winter air and water, rallied his strength to encourage his shipmates with these last inspiring words, "There'll always be an England".
He must hear sailors tell of the time when Commander Hibbard of the Canadian destroyer Skeena remained on the bridge of his

War Appropriation-Naval Services
ship for sixty-six hours in midwinter, fighting off a bitter submarine attack on his convoy, and brought his ship safely into a United Kingdom port. For that act of enduring gallantry and for other consistently good work Commander Hibbard was rewarded with the Distinguished Service Cross.
He should listen to the story of Lieutenant Keefer, an Ottawa boy, who, when his ship was engaged in picking up survivors of a torpedoed Norwegian craft, leaped into the water to rescue a Norwegian woman and gave his own life in the endeavour to save the life of another. For his heroism he was awarded posthumously the Albert Medal and the Norwegian Medal of St. Olav, the latter being the highest award in the gift of the Norwegian government.
He ought to hear the tale of the coolness and courage of Petty Officer Bernays, of the Canadian destroyer Assinibome who, in a battle with a German submarine, held to his post in the wheelhouse while flames lighted by German shells leaped around him, and while enemy bullets whistled close to him. For more than thirty minutes he stood at his wheel, receiving and executing in that time no fewer than one hundred and thirty-three helm orders and enjoying at the end the satisfaction of seeing the German submarine disappear, a broken hulk, beneath the waves, and her officers and crew captives aboard his own ship. For his superbly gallant conduct he received one of the rarest awards, the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal.
The exploits of these men and of many others like them are the stuff of which great traditions are made. These are the men who are writing indelibly the name of Canada on that great scroll -which records the gallantry of the men of the sea.
Mr. Chairman, with every confidence, I put the record of the Royal Canadian Navy and the request for the moneys necessary to carry on its work before the committee and the house.


Douglas King Hazen: Mr. Chairman, the statement made by the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services about the work of his department and the activities of the Royal Canadian Navy has been a rather short one compared with those which were made by the Minister of National Defence for the Army and the Minister of National Defence for Air, but on the whole it has been an interesting and in some respects an informative statement. He spoke I think altogether for about eighty minutes.
The Canadian navy has grown greatly since the war commenced and it continues to grow.

The work of the minister and of his department has been greatly increased. Last year his estimates amounted to $258,542,713. This year they amount to $489,144,967.
In view of the development of . the navy, its activities in various theatres of war, and the large expenditures involved, I expected that the minister would have made a somewhat longer statement. He painted the picture in rather broad strokes. There are many details that remain to be filled in. Many members of the committee will probably ask for more detailed information about the activities of the navy and of its administration. There are many expenditures about which we should be furnished with more detailed particulars.
Last May, when the war appropriation bill was before the house in committee, several hon. members paid tribute to the officers and men of the Royal Canadian Navy. Those tributes were well deserved. I concur in them. There is nothing of merit that I can add to what was said on that occasion.
From time to time I read in the casualty lists the names of men of the Royal Canadian Navy who died serving their king and countiy. Some of these men came from the constituency which I have the honour to represent, which extends for over a hundred miles along the waters of the bay of Fundy. I realize there is little if anything I can say that will assuage the feelings of the wives and children, the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers of these gallant men. But I know they take some comfort from the fact that their loved ones died fighting for the freedom of mankind, the preservation of our Christian civilization, and the continued existence of Canada as a free nation within the British commonwealth of nations; and I know, too, that they take pride in the fact that their kinsfolk in this tragic but glorious struggle, did not shirk their duties but played the parts of men.
It must be the firm resolve of those of us who remain that the sacrifices they made have not been made in vain, but that this war be continued at all costs and all sacrifices until Hitler and all the evils which he and his nazi party stand for are banished from this earth.
I have no sympathy with the members of this house who say that Canada is doing too much for a country of her size. How can we do too much when we fight for our existence? How can we do too much when we consider the sacrifices that each of these men and the men in our army and our air force have made? We cannot limit with any financial yardstick our contribution to this cause when we consider the contributions of those men who, dying,

War Appropriation-Naval Services
have made us rarer gifts than gold. We cannot limit our monetary contribution in a cause in which they gave their lives.
There comes to my mind a statement which was made in this house about two years ago by the Right Hon. R. G. Menzies, then Prime Minister of Australia. He said, as reported in Hansard of 1941, at page 2632:
What does it matter if we come out into that world-
That is, the world after this war.
-bankrupt? What does it matter if we come out into that world with lower standards of material living than we have now? What does it matter if in that world the rich are not so rich? What does it matter if in the last resort the business of statesmanship in that new world becomes the business of sharing justly a new and honourable poverty? These things do not matter.
No; these things do not matter. We must keep faith with those who died in the defence of our country. We must be firmly resolved that the sacrifices they made were not and have not been made in vain.
On May 7 of last year, when the resolution to provide sums not exceeding $2,000,000,000 for the conduct of the war was before the house in committee-the amount asked for this year is $3,980,000,000 -the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services informed us, as reported in Hansard, at page 2239, that the total amount asked for naval services for the year ending March 31, 1943, was $258,542,713. This evening before he spoke, the minister placed in our hands a table showing the estimated expenditures for 1942^43 and the estimated expenditures for 1943-44. But, sir, in the table he presented to us on May 7 of last year these items were set out in a different way; and I propose now to read into the record the manner in which he set those items out last year; for in a number of respects they are different, and perhaps quite different, although I have not had an opportunity to study the estimates he placed before us before he spoke.
The items he gave us last year were:
1.	Civil salaries and wages	
$ 3,768,0002.	Pay and allowances	
53,195,0003.	Travel and transportation	2,585,0004.	Operating expenses of properties 1,455,0005.	Ships: acquisition by purchase,
construction, charters, repairs
and upkeep	 80,153,000
6.	Equipment division components. 3,923,000
7.	Purchase of new machinery and
repairs to buildings and machinery	 2,874,000
8.	Buildings: acquisition, construction and purchase and rental
of land and buildings	 21,955,000
9.	Stores, equipment and supplies.. 52,720,000
10.	Armament stores	
34,166,00011.	Sundries	
1,743,00072537-217	revised
On February 15, when the resolution for
the supplementary war appropriation for the past fiscal year was introduced, the Minister of Finance stated that he did not think there would be any difficulty about examining the expenditures of the then fiscal year when the main appropriation bill was before the house, because that was the time, he said, when the minister gave an account of his activities over the last year. It was incidental to the passing of the new estimates, he said, that the various ministers concerned should state what had been spent and what had been done.
Now that the estimates of the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services are before the house in committee, I would ask him to tell us what has been spent and what has been done by his department during the past fiscal year. In the first place I would ask him to furnish us with more detailed particulars of the manner in which the amounts listed under the eleven headings I have quoted above were spent; and in the second place I would ask him to tell us what the increases or decreases in his estimates for the coming year are due to. I presume, in some cases if not in all, there will be increases, since the estimated expenditures for the coming year are $489,144,967, or over twice as -much as last year's estimated expenditures.
The first heading in the list he furnished us with last year was civil salaries and wages, $3,768,000. This year, in the statement he furnished us with this evening, before he spoke, the amount is $3,645,222.28. I presume that must be approximately the correct amount, and the estimated expenditure for the present fiscal year he gives as $6,192,054, or an increase of $2,546,831.72.
With reference to last year's expenditure, will the minister tell us how many persons were employed and how much money was spent in salaries and wages at headquarters during the last fiscal year; how many persons were employed in each province and how much was spent in each province in
_ salaries and wages during the last fiscal year; how many persons were employed in the United States and how much was spent there in salaries and wages; how many were employed in Great Britain and how much was spent there in salaries and wages.
On September 9, 1942, the war information board was set up by the government with the object, I believe, of informing the public, both



EDITION

[Stage Direction]
War Appropriation-Naval Services
here and abroad, of the part Canada was playing in the war. According to a return tabled in this house on March 2 of this year, that board employed at that time about 121 persons and it had cost the country about $580,000 in a little less than six months. The supporters of the government in the house last month refused to permit the public accounts committee to investigate that expenditure. In addition to the information handed out by the war information board, each department of the government has its own publicity or propaganda department, or at any rate many of them have. Why it is necessary to have all these publicity departments or directorates of public information, and the war information bureau in addition, in view of the fact that the press has always been capable of obtaining news of the war and keeping the public informed on what is going on, is difficult for me to understand. Perhaps the minister will be able to explain it to this committee.
I would ask the minister to give the number of civilian personnel and the number of naval personnel employed in his publicity department, or in his directorate of public relations, during the past fiscal year or up to any subsequent date, and to let us know how the personnel is distributed by provinces or districts, how many are employed in Great Britain, and how many are employed in the United States.
Will the minister also furnish the committee with' the names and salaries of the civilian personnel and the naval personnel employed in this branch of his department; and in addition will he give us the travelling expenses and all other expenses and costs incurred by the civilian and naval personnel in this branch of his department during the past fiscal year, in addition to their salaries and wages?
The second heading of last year's estimated expenditures is pay and allowances, $53,195,000. In the statement we are furnished with this evening that amount is greatly increased. It is $63,256,432.19. There was a considerable increase in the amount expended over the amount that it was estimated would be expended, and the amount which it is estimated will be spent this year is $89,565,119, or a further increase of 826,328,686.81.
Progress reported.
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Mr. Hazes.)
Tuesday, June 8, 1943