1944-06-05

Mr. J. E. MATTHEWS (Brandon-for Mr Gregory) moved:: That the first report of the joint committee of both houses to review the special problems arising out of the location of the seat of government in the city of Ottawa, presented on June 1, be now concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Hon. C. W. G. GIBSON (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement with reference to an announcement recently made by the premier of Ontario concerning the ration of spirits in
Alcoholic Beverages-Rationing

that province. Colonel Drew referred to the difference in the amounts authorized by the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and stated:
There may be some good explanation for this striking contrast in ration, but there can be no doubt of the effect of this situation upon the minds of those who come in contact with it.
Under P.C. 11374, the wartime alcoholic beverages order, the provinces are restricted to receiving each year for sale seventy per cent of the spirits which they received during the year ended October 31, 1942.
Each province receives the same percentage. All are treated alike, and there is therefore no foundation for any suggestion of discrimination.
Although this fact is well known, efforts are constantly being made to create an impression that Quebec is receiving preferential treatment over other provinces, particularly Ontario. The following table gives a comparison of spirit and beer consumption in these two provinces during the year ended October 31, 1943, the first complete year under the restriction order:	*
Spirits
,

A_________________
Domestic Imported Total (proof (proof	(proof
gallons) gallons) gallons) Ontario... 942.640-33 207.178-81	1,149,819-14
Quebec.... 959,948-69 203,698-51 1,163,647-20
Beer
Delivered under 90 per cent quota (gallons)
Ont?rio	 36,993,411
Quebec	 27,947,571
It will be noted that although Quebec received 13,828 proof gallons of spirits more than Ontario, Ontario consumed over nine million gallons of beer more than Quebec. Expressing it in another way, Quebec received 1-2 per cent more spirits, while Ontario received 32-4 per cent more beer.
One obvious reason for the discrepancy in the ration between, provinces lies in the variation in the number of permits issued. I observe from a recent advertisement of the liquor control board of Ontario that in January, 1943, when the permits issued by the province totalled 155,295 the monthly ration was 160 ounces. According to the same source, in March, 1944, the province had issued 1,282,938 permits, and the ration at that time was 26 ounces. I do not know how many permits are outstanding in Ontario at the present time. In one Ontario city a man has recently been prosecuted for having no less than 63 permits. The best answer to Premier Drew's allusions to the relative ration of Ontario and Quebec seems to be

made by the chairman of the Ontario liquor commission, who says in the advertisement, "It is a problem in simple arithmetic," and goes on to state that:
The increase in the number of permits and the extent to which permit holders are purchasing spirits each month makes it necessary to reduce the amount which can be purchased by permit holders in Ontario.
Attempts are also being made to becloud the issue by drawing attention to the stocks of spirits which are held in warehouses. As far as the federal government is concerned, there has never been any suggestion that the restriction placed on the consumption of spirits was attributable to a shortage of supply. The Prime Minister made it clear in his speech of December 16, 1942, that the restrictions were being imposed to ensure a total w'ar effort, and the reasons which he advanced at that time are not only valid to-day, but as the hour of our greatest trial approaches they possess added significances


Mr. GRAYDON:: Is the minister prepared to table the correspondence which appears to have passed between the premier of the province of Ontario and the federal government relating to this problem?


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: The correspondence was between the premier and myself. I shall be happy to see that it is tabled.



QUEBEC SAYINGS BANKS ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance) moved for leave to introduce bill No. 131, to
amend the Quebec Savings Banks Act.
He said: The Quebec Savings Banks Act is amended each ten years, just as the Bank Act is. I have not before me a list of the proposed amendments, but they will be apparent when the bill is reached.	*
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 119, for the relief of William Taf-fert.

Mr. Mcllraith.
Bill No. 120, for the relief of Belle Bailey Leibovitch.-Mr. Mcllraith.	[DOT]
Bill No. 121, for the relief of Gertie Shul-man Friedman.-Mr. Mcllraith.
Bill No. 122, for the relief of Sarah Slutsky Shapiro.-Mr. Mcllraith.
Bill No. 123, for the relief of Jessie Dickson Mackie Toy.-Mr. Hill.
Bill No. 124, for the relief of Angele Pauline Edgar Marie Lambert Choux.-Mr. Fulford.

Questions
Bill No. 125, for the relief of Margaret Kathleen Hollenback Fortin.-Mr. Fulford.
Bill No. 126, for the relief of Hulda Van Koughnet Lynch-Staunton.-Mr. Boucher.
Bill No. 127, for the relief of James MacMillan McHale.-Mr. Homuth.
Bill No. 128, for the relief of Vernon Ross Aiken.-Mr. Boucher.
Bill No. 129, for the relief of Frederick Richard Channon.-Mr. Factor.
Bill No. 130, for the relief of Ernest Charles Hazard.-Mr. Whitman.

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

Mr. BLACK (Cumberland):: 1.	Has the government or the wartime prices and trade board fixed the sale price and number of bicycles sold in Canada?
2.	What are the delivered sale prices and number of such bicycles sold each year an each of the following provinces: Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia?
3.	Does the manufacturer, dealer, government or purchaser pay the freight?


Mr. ABBOTT:: 1.	Yes. Under the provisions of wartime prices and trade board order A-694, the administrator of fabricated steel and nonferrous metal has jurisdiction over the production, manufacture, and design of bicycles sold in Canada. Prices have been fixed by the board on the basis of the consumer value of the wartime model.
2.	The delivered sale prices and number of such bicycles sold in each of the years 1941 to 1943 inclusive are as follows:
Consumer prices	Men's	Ladies'Ontario and Quebec	$42 50	$43 50New Brunswick]	Nova Scotia 1. ...	45 00	46 00P.E.I.	Number sold	1941	1942	1943Ontario 	38,880	28,205	20,608Quebec 	20,625	15,325	10,593New Brunswick ....	3,534	2,413	1,638Nova Scotia 	3,611	2,728	2,005Prince Edward Is. ..	640	466	297Totals	6S,290	49,137	35,1413. The purchaser	pays the	freight	chargesin the fixed prices established	by order A-463.


LABOUR CONDITIONS-VACATIONS WITH PAY, ETC.
Mr. FACTOR:: 1.	(a) How many vacations with pay plans were made effective during 1943 by the national
war labour board, the regional boards and other bodies having such jurisdiction; (b) how many employers and employees were affected by the plans; (c) what is the estimated cost to industry ?
2.	What is the estimated amount, in money, that wage earners in Canada have received as a consequence of wage and cost of living bonus decisions by the national and regional war labour boards during 1943?
3.	(a) How many investigations were made in 1943 by industrial disputes inquiry commissioners into cases of dismissal for union membership or activity under P.C. 4020; (b) how many dismissed workers were involved; (c) what disposal was made of the cases investigated?
4.	How many workers in Canada were members of trade unions at the end of each year since 1939.
5.	What was the percentage increase in membership at the end of 1943, as compared with the end of 1939?
6.	How many votes to determine the collective bargaining agency have been held in industrial establishments as a result of proceedings under federal labour legislation since January 1, 1940?
7.	How did such votes affect the settlement of disputes under the legislation?


Mr. MARTIN:: 1.	(a) 1,007. (b) 549.863 employees; 1,007 employers, (c) It is not possible to estimate the cost of vacation-with-pay plans. The standard plan allows employee one-half day vacation with pay in any year for every 25 days actually worked during previous year. Under the standard plan an employee may become entitled to not more than six days' vacation with pay.
2.	$85,457,640';
3.	(a) 32. (b) 179. (c) of 179 employees in 32 cases, 71 were reinstated voluntarily; 21 were reinstated by order of the Minister of Labour; 21 were found dismissed for cause; 36 were found dismissed for economic reasons; 21 left employment of their own accord, and 9 did not wish ot return.
4.	Number of workers in Canada who'were members of Trade Unions at the end of 1939, 358,967; 1940, 362.223; 1941, 461,681; 1942, 578,380; 1943(a), 660,000(a).
(a)	Estimated, because returns for the end of 1943 are not yet complete.
5.	The estimated percentage increase in membership at the end of 1943 as compared with the end of 1939 is 84 per cent.
6.	185.
7.	Of 185 representation votes 64 were taken by the Department of Labour in connection with disputes involving procedure under the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act and 121 were consent votes taken by the department on request of the parties.
In the 64 cases where votes were held in connection with Industrial Disputes Investigation Act procedure, settlements were obtained in 40 instances; settlements were not obtained
Questions

in 11 instances; and in 13 cases the persons petitioning for the vote were not supported by the employees concerned and the cases were considered closed.
In the 121 cases involving consent votes, settlements were obtained between the employees and employers based on the result of the vote. In cases of consent votes there is usually little difficulty in arriving at a settlement inasmuch as the parties usually give a prior commitment that they will abide by the result of the vote. In the overwhelming majority of cases settlements followed the vote.


MONTREAL, LIGHT, HEAT AND POWER-INCOME AND EXCESS PROFITS TAX
Mr. STOKES:: Has the taking over of the Montreal Light, Heat & Power Consolidated by the province of Quebec resulted in that company no longer being liable for dominion income and excess profits *taxes?


Colin William George Gibson: The expropriation by the provincial government of the corporation's facilities for the generation and distribution of electricity and gas will not alter the status of the corporation as a taxpayer liable to dominion income and excess profits taxes on the income from its remaining assets.


ALTERNATIVE SERVICE WORKERS-RED CROSS CONTRIBUTIONS
Mr. WEIR:: 1.	What is the arrangement whereby alternative service workers contribute part of their earnings to the Canadian Red Cross society?
2.	How much has been paid to the society to April 30, 1944, giving the breakdown by treasury offices ?
3.	What was the balance unpaid of such moneys on April 30, 1944?


Mr. MARTIN:: 1.	The arrangement whereby postponed conscientious objectors contribute a part of their earnings to the Canadian Red Cross society is in accordance with order in council P.C. 2821, section 5-
(5) The employment of any person under this section shall be subject to the terms set out in the order pursuant to which the employment was accepted and to the following provisions:
(a)	If the employment is in agriculture, the employer shall supply board and lodging for the employee and in addition thereto shall pay in respect of the employment such wages as may be prescribed by the minister:
(b)	if the employment is outside agriculture, the employer shall pay in respect thereof wages at the rate, if any, fixed by collective
	.
agreement for the place where the work is to be performed, or, if there is no such agreement, at the rate paid by good employers;
(c)	If the employment is in agriculture, the employer shall pay to the employee, out of wages payable to him under this subsection, twenty-five dollars per month, unless the wages are less than twenty-five dollars per mouth, in which event he shall pay him the full amount thereof;
(d)	if the employment is outside agriculture, the employer shall supply board and lodging to the employee or pay him an allowance fixed by the minister in lieu thereof and shall in addition pay him.
(i)	The amount by which the wages payable in respect of the employee exceed the aggregate of the allowance for board and lodging as fixed by the minister and amounts which he is required by law to pay out of the wages to other persons, if such amount is not in excess of twenty-five dollars; or
(ii)	twenty-five dollars per month if the amount, by which the wages payable in respect of the employee exceed the aggregate of the allowance for board and lodging as fixed by the minister and amounts which he is required by law to pay out of the wages to other persons, is in excess of twenty-five dollars; and
(e)	the employer shall, each month, pay to the Canadian Red Cross society, or to some person designated by the minister to receive it on behalf of the Canadian Red Cross, the amount by which the wages payable in respect to the employee for that month exceed the aggregate of
(i)	the amount payable to the employee under this subsection;
(ii)	amounts, if any, which lie is required by law to pay to other persons and
(iii)	if the employment is outside agriculture, the allowance for board and lodging prescribed by the minister and
(iv)	the amounts, if any, which he is authorized or directed by the alternative service officer to pay to any person as an allowance for the maintenance of dependents of the employee or for hospital, dental, or medical services rendered the employee.
A postponed conscientious objector who is directed to employment in agriculture or other essential industry may be required to sign an undertaking or become a party to an agreement between himself and his employer whereby a portion of his earnings is paid to one of the chartered banks of Canada

Questions
to llic credit of the Canadian Red Cross society. The employer pays the going wage rate; the conscientious objector receives twenty-five dollars per month together with board and lodging or the equivalent thereof; the Canadian Red Cross society receives the balance less statutory deductions. Where a postponed conscientious objector has dependents, dependents allowances may be granted and paid to the conscientious objector out of that portion of his earnings accruing to the Canadian Red Cross society.
2.	Treasury office at	Amount	paidMoncton, N.B	
$	518 35Montreal. P.Q	
615	00Toronto, Ont	
75,425	68North Bay, Ont	
3,633	59London, Ont	
138,011	87Winnipeg, Man	
127,032	70Saskatoon, Sask	
44,248	81Edmonton, Alta	
30,409	69Vancouver, B.C	
88,142	34Total	
$508,038 033.	272,576.77, which includes current month's billings not due.


NATIONAL DEFENCE-&quot;THE BENNY FARM&quot; PROPERTY, MONTREAL
Mr. BRUCE:: 1.	Are there plans being made for the construction on tile Benny farm or Sherbrooke street site in Montreal of a hospital for the Department of National Defence? If so, what will be the size and capacity of the said hospital ?
2.	Will the hospital of the Department of National Defence be connected with or in any way associated with the new neurological hospital ?
3.	What is the expected date for the completion of each of the above-mentioned hospitals?


Mr. MACDONALD (Halifax):: 1.	No.
2. Answered by No. 1.
3. Answered by No. 1.	[DOT]


QUEBEC FARM LABOUR OFFICE-ELIE LALUMIERE
Mr. LACOMBE:: 1.	Is there an employee by the name of Lalumiere at the Quebec farm labour office, located at No. 31 St. James street west, Montreal?
2.	If so, what are his duties, and Christian name?
3.	How long has he been employed by the dominion-provincial organization of farm labour for Quebec?
4.	What is his salary?
5.	Is his salary paid by the dominion government or by the province of Quebec?
6.	Is the Quebec farm labour office a dominion-provincial body?
7.	Is the dominion government paying part of the expenses of such body? If so, in what proportion?


Mr. MARTIN:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Elio Lalumiere. His duty is to interview prospective farm workers.
3.	He has been employed by the Quebec 'arm labour supply bureau since April, 1943.
4.	$1,800.
5.	His salary is paid equally by the dominion government and the Quebec government under the dominion-provincial farm labour agreement.
6.	The Quebec farm labour supply office has been established by the Quebec Department of Agriculture under the dominion-provincial farm labour agreement.
7.	The dominion government is paying 50 per cent of the costs of the operation of this office by arrangement under the dominion-provincial farm labour agreement.


INTERNMENTS-CAMILLIEN HOUDE
Mr. LACOMBE:: 1.	Has the honourable the Minister of Justice
or his department received a report from the advisory committee which, about a week ago, in Fredericton, examined the application for the release of Mr. Camillien Houde from internment camp?
2.	If not, will the Minister of Justice ask the committee to send a report concerning the inquiry?
3.	Has the Minister of Justice received during the past two weeks, from certain public bodies, such as the labour^ unions of Canada, petitions asking for the immediate release of Mr. Camillien Houde from internment camp?
Mr. ST. LAURENT:
1.	No.
2.	The committee may be expected to make its report in due course without any special request being necessary.
3.	Two resolutions, one stating in effect the opinion that the liberation of Camillien Houde would not jeopardize the saftey of the allied cause, and the other requesting that he be released at an early date, have been received from two labour union lodges of Montreal.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. LACOMBE:: 1.	What are the names of the barristers or law firms, in the cities of Montreal, Lachine, Verdun and Longueuil, (a) that have received fees from the dominion government or any commission or board of said government, since January 1, 1937; (b) to whom fees from the dominion government or any commission or board of said government are still due and payable?
Motions for Papers

2.	W'hat is the amount of fees paid to date to each of said barristers or law firms; for what year and for what professional services?
3.	What fees are still due to each of said barristers and law firms, and for what professional services?
4.	What are the names of the barristers or law firms now employed by the dominion government or any commission or board of said government in the above-mentioned cities?


MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. GAUTHIER:: For a copy of all correspondence, letters and telegrams exchanged between the dominion government and the government of the province of Quebec, or any other person, association or municipal council, concerning the closing of the zinc-lead mine at Montauban, county of Portneuf.



JAPANESE NATIONALS


Mr. REID:: For a statement showing the total of all sums collected, to the present time, by the security commission and standing to the credit of those of the Japanese race within Canada, showing, (a) sums of money owing or paid from all property, including farms under the Veterans' Land Act; (b) from fishing vessels, and (c) for rehabilitation purposes.



MOBILIZATION ACT-CANADIAN NATIONAL AND CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAYS

Mr. POULIOT:: For a copy of all correspondence exchanged between the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways and the Department of Labour, from April 26, 1943, to June 14, 1943, concerning mobilization regulations of the national selective service.


Mr. MARTIN:: Return tabled.



JAPANESE NATIONALS-BRITISH COLUMBIA

Thomas Reid: For a copy of the evidence taken by the commission appointed under order_ in council P.C. 9498 to inquire into the provisions made for the welfare and maintenance of persons of the Japanese race resident in settlements in the province of British Columbia?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Return tabled.



BARRIEFIELD MILITARY CAMP-BILINGUAL SECTION

Jean-François Pouliot: For a copy of all letters, memoranda and reports, (a) for the establishment, and (b) for the abolition of courses in French at A-21, C.O.C.T.C., Barriefield, since September, 1941.


Mr. MACDONALD (Halifax):: On May 8 the member for Temiscouata asked that he might be given leave to amend his motion by substituting the words "a course in French"

for the words "the bilingual section". There is no record of the establishment or discontinuance of a course in French at A-21, C.O.C.T.C., Barriefield, since September, 1941, nor can there be found any letters, memoranda or reports relating thereto.
Motion dropped.



SELECTIVE SERVICE-RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS

Jean-François Pouliot: For a copy of all correspondence exchanged between the railway brotherhoods and the Department of Labour, concerning any amendment to the mobilization regulations of the national selective service.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, there is no correspondence between the railway brotherhoods and the Department of Labour concerning amendments to the mobilization regulations of the national selective service, as requested by the motion.
Motion dropped,



SELECTIVE SERVICE-LEAVE FOR AGRICULTURAL PURPOSES-PTE. FRANCOIS LAPOINTE

Mr. BERTRAND (Terrebonne):: For a copy of all documents, petitions, letters, telegrams, medical certificates, concerning various applications for leave, for agricultural purposes, made by Private Francois Lapointe, D-616300.


William Chisholm Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, documents of the kind asked for by this motion are considered confidential and it is not regarded as being in the public interest that they should be produced.
Motion dropped.



EXCHANGE OF NOTES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Graydon: Mr. Speaker, may I ask if the Prime Minister is yet in a position to make public the provisions of the so-called "cultural" agreement relating to the exchange of professors, teachers and students between Canada and Brazil, which is said to have been signed some days ago? I presume the Prime Minister will table the agreement when it is in shape.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, I would say to my hon. friend that the cultural agreement to which he refers was in the form of an exchange of notes between the Canadian

Wheat Pnces jor 1044 Crop
Ambassador and the Foreign Minister of Brazil on May 24 last. As soon as the Brazilian note is available I shall be glad to table the exchange. I might say in the meantime that by the exchange of notes the two governments welcome efforts to facilitate the exchange of official scientific and technical publications, books, magazine articles, et cetera, and the presentation of concerts, lectures, radio programmes, films and art exhibits designed to make each country better acquainted with the cultural life of the other. Within its constitutional powers the Canadian government undertakes to encourage intellectual and cultural exchanges of a reciprocal character with Brazil.


Gordon Graydon: Is this the beginning of a development whereby provision will be made for a better system of teaching Portuguese in Canada, having in mind the importance which now seems to attach to the learning of that language?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I could not say that it had that design, but I should be pleased if it might have that effect.



PRIME MINISTER FRASER


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Graydon: I would ask the Prime Minister if the government has extended to the Prime Minister of New Zealand an invitation to address members of both houses of parliament when he honours Canada with a visit in the near future, and if so, whether the invitation has been accepted.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, when I was
in London I renewed the invitation to Mr. Fraser to visit Canada which had been extended to him before he left New Zealand to attend the conference of prime ministers. I also intimated to him that I ivas sure that both houses of parliament would be pleased if he would address their members when he was in Ottawa. He did not give me a definite assurance as to what he might find it possible to do while here, but I have every reason to believe that he will be happy to accept that invitation, and I hope he may be visiting us shortly; I cannot say how soon.


Jean-François Pouliot: Does the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) expect him also to boost the cooperation between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, as the Prime Minister of Australia has done?

PRICES FOR 1944 CROP On the orders of the day:


Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, on
Friday afternoon last the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Ross) addressed a question to me regarding a press statement. I did not quite follow' the question and it was only when I saw Hansard that I noticed that I had been asked if any change in the price of wheat for the 1944 crop is contemplated. I thought the hon. member- was referring to an entirely different matter. In reply now to the question I wish to assure the hon. member that no change in the SI .25 initial advance for the 1944 crop has been under consideration here or in Washington or in any Washington discussions. This is wholly a matter between the Canadian government and Canadian producers and is not a matter for international consideration.
Meetings of the international wheat council have been and are still being held in Washington, but these are broad international discussions on the wheat situation affecting the various countries interested, particularly in the post-war period. There is nothing to announce at this time from these discussions, nor is any announcement in the near future likely.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. ROBERT FAIR (Battle River):: May I ask the Minister of Labour whether employees of Aircraft Repair Limited, Edmonton, who were recently laid off, have yet been placed by selective service or any other agency, and if not when will such placement take place?
Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour)': My hon. friend was good enough to give me notice of his question. I have not yet been able to secure the full information he desires. Employment selective service officers have special instructions to take care of workers involved in plant lay-offs, but details of the disposition of individual workers are not a matter of record at Ottawa. I have however asked for a complete report as to the disposition of workers involved in the lay-off of the aircraft plant of which he speaks. I expect to have this information in a couple of days, and I shall be glad to give it to him.
Farm Pests



FARM PESTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. K. FRASER (Peterborough West):: I desire to address a question to the Minister of Munitions and Supply. In view of the fact that there have been serious complaints recently from the different agricultural districts of Ontario and other parts of Canada about the great increase of groundhogs, skunks, and other vermin that destroy farm products, will the government give consideration to releasing sufficient ammunition to farmers so that they may clear their farms of these destructive animals?


Mr. SPEAKER:: I think that that question might well be placed on the order paper.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: It is a serious condition right now, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: It is serious at any time.


Gordon Graydon: With regard to the question raised by the hon. member for Peterborough West, I realize that hon. members who do not come from farming districts may regard matters relating to agriculture as, perhaps, something which-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Gordon Graydon: I am laying a foundation for a suggestion.


Mr. HOWE:: This is just politics.


Gordon Graydon: My hon. friend the
Minister of Munitions and Supply always has one answer for everything, and that is ''politics". I was about to say that I encounter people from time to time who think that if some matter is raised with respect to the farmers, major importance should not be attached to it. Now I happen to know, ns does the hon. member for Peterborough West, that the question the hon. member asked relates to a matter of great urgency, particularly in western Ontario and in the district from which he comes. There have been a great many complaints, and the matter is urgent from the point of view of production. It is, I believe, a question which an hon. member might properly ask the minister to answer, and to which we should have an answer.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The distribution of ammunition

for farmers is a matter for the wartime prices and trade board. The ammunition industry of this country is operating at full capacity and has been doing so for a very long time, but the ammunition is being used for other purposes than the shooting of small animals in Canada. I am sure that if any ammunition can be released without jeopardizing the war effort it will be released. This is not a matter of immediate urgency; it has been before departments of government for the last eight months at least, and we are doing the best we can to meet the situation.


Richard Burpee Hanson: There is plenty of ammunition in the hands of the wholesalers of New Brunswick, but they cannot let it out.



PRISONERS OF WAR


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: On Friday last the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) stated that he had seen in a dispatch that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of Great Britain had communicated with the Russian government with regard to British prisoners of war in Japan, and he asked if any similar action was being taken by Canada. The question was allowed to stand as a notice.
I might say to him that I notice that Mr. Eden intends to make a further statement to-morrow on that matter. I should prefer to wait until that statement is made before answering the hon. member's question. I will later have a general statement on the position, and more particularly with respect to what Canada has been doing in the matter.



PRIME MINISTER CHURCHILL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata):	May I ask the government if the
speech delivered by Mr. Churchill in the House of Commons at Westminster, where he summarized the work done by the conference of dominion prime ministers, will be published in the record?
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I understand that the
question my hon. friend has just asked was

War Appropriation-Finance
answered on Friday by my colleague, the Minister of Mines and Resources. However, I would say to him I am sure the house will agree that so far as Hansard is concerned it should be kept for the purposes of recording the proceedings of this house, not of the British house, and that speeches in the British house would probably find their place in the British Hansard and be looked for there.



KEPORTED CESSATION OF RATIONING IN THE UNITED STATES-CANADIAN POLICY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Thomas Reid: I desire to put a question to the Minister of Finance; perhaps it can stand as a notice. It is with regard to sugar. In view of the fact that, the United States do not now ration sugar, will the minister make a statement as to the present position in Canada, and indicate whether the restrictions in this country will likewise be lifted?


Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance):: I will make inquiries-I was not aware that that was the condition in the United States- and make a statement.


Thomas Reid: So that the minister will know where I got the information, I may say that I was just now in conference with a United States official from the state of Washington who is closely associated with the subject, and he told me that there is now no limit on the purchase of sugar in the United States.



WAR APPROPRIATION BILL


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, June 2, 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. Usley-Mr. Bradette in the chair.

[Stage Direction]
Old age pensions and pensions to the blind, $6,942,250.
Mr. HANSELL:: A few days ago the Minister of Finance made a statement in respect of old age pensions having to be paid back from the estates of the old age pensioners, and pointed out that the policy was left pretty much with provincial departments of finance. It is my understanding that in the past that has been the regulation. Just what advantage the provinces have taken of it, I do not know, but I do know the effect on old age pensioners.
When applying for a pension the applicant is asked to sign a document which hands over as collateral for his pension the little house or home in which he has had considerable pride. Is this a charge against the entire estate, or is it a charge against the property value of the estate up to the amount the minister mentioned? I ask this question because during the last victory loan campaign I was asked if war savings bonds would be considered part of the estate and subject to collection by the provinces in the event of the death of a pensioner. I could not answer the question, nor did I have time on that occasion to get in touch with the minister. Perhaps he will reply to the numerous speeches which have been made, and when he does I would ask him to include an answer to the question I have now asked.
I have always maintained that old age pensions should be paid to our aged mothers and fathers by right of their Canadian heritage. It is my belief that if the nation is to reach the status of a glorious Canadian people, one thing we have to do is to recognize as a right of Canadian citizenship the giving of adequate old age pensions to those who have pioneered in the country, to those who have spent their lives to make the kind of Canada we want.
I should like now to make some observations in respect of the speech delivered on Friday evening by the Minister of Labour. I have a good deal of .respect for him, and therefore I am not going to criticize him personally. He is much bigger than I am, and I must be careful of what I say about him. However, as this is a land of free speech I suppose I have some rights when I criticize words spoken by him. This is what he said:
I think I would advocate contributory old age pensions. I believe that pensions should be paid-I speak now as an individual-to the people of this country by right.
A statement of that kind is, to my mind, a misnomer. One does not have to talk about paying to people by right something that is owed to them. That goes without saying. I do not talk about this country paying me my indemnity by right. By law I am paid so much to indemnify me for what I may lose in my constituency by becoming a member of parliament. I do not have to say that that is paid to me by right; it goes without saying. That is one criticism I would .make of the minister's speech.
Conversely to that, what the minister has in mind, of course, is that anything given to our old age pensioners, anything they receive by way of a gift, anything which does not come out of a fund to which they have contributed, is not their right.
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Mr. MITCHELL:: If I may correct my hon. friend, I do not think he wishes to misinterpret what I said. I still think it is theirs by right, but I think if one helps to pay for a thing, at least he has something to say about how it should be disposed of. That is not theory.


Ernest George Hansell: I do not think the minister has contradicted what I said. If we want to have a Canada such as we should have, then in my view anyone who puts his life into the building of Canada, anyone who has lived as a citizen of our country, should have by right of citizenship and by right of his Canadian heritage an adequate pension paid to him, without his paying for it for years before he reaches old age. If there is a contributory form of old age pensions then we are only paying back to the old age pensioner what he has contributed to the fund in his younger days.
I wish to draw this to the attention of the Minister of Labour, and I want to be as logical as I can. I think he is a logical man and I think he will follow this argument. The Minister of Labour is charged with the problem of finding employment. Very well. Any individual who contributes to old age pension, unemployment insurance, life insurance, or any other form of social services or means by which he can be helped later on, does so out of his wages or salary; therefore he has less to spend on that which is produced. If he has less to spend on that which is produced, then the production to that extent is not sold; and if you follow it to its logical conclusion it means that eventually men are laid off. If they are laid off, their purchasing power is still further reduced and there is more unemployment. I want the minister to think of that, because if it is followed to its logical conclusion there will be less employment in this country. Taking a long range view of this old age pension problem, we see that it will stretch forward into the years of our post-war life, the years when the production of civilian goods will be speeded up, and it will not be very long before we are in the same position as that in which we found ourselves a few years ago when there was what was commonly known as a period of overproduction.
A man and his wife, walking down a street, look into a shop window. Perhaps it is a furniture store. The wife notices a nice piece of furniture, a chesterfield or something of the kind. She would like that beautiful piece of furniture to grace her home. She says, "Well, Pa, what about it? Do you think we shall be able to buy it?" Pa figures it out and he says, "Well, now I don't know, Ma,

if I can. I don't think we can buy it now. I have my unemployment insurance, which of course, is a tax. I have some taxes to pay on the property; and then I do not get much of a wage. There is the income tax, and that reminds me that I did not pay my radio licence fee, which is another tax. I shall be having that man after me if I do not pay it. Then of course there is the old age pension tax; this contributory scheme. Oh, no, Ma, I'm afraid I won't be able to buy that piece of furniture for you. I shall have to wait until we get old; then I may be able to squeeze out a little bit." That is the position. By the time this, that and the other thing are taken from a man's wages, how is he to buy back the production of industry? Industry becomes slowed up, and the first thing you know we have a period of unemployment on our hands.
Let me read what the minister said on Friday night as reported on page 3503 of Hansard:
We hear people talk about non-contributory unemployment insurance and non-contributory this and non-contributory something else. Whether you like it or not, anything and everything that is paid by the state is a okarge on the living standards of the people of this dominion or any other nation.
I say to the minister that I for one do not believe that statement. I suggest that he is thinking too far back. He is not thinking in terms of a modern technological age when we are able to produce more than we can consume. All I have to do is to bring to his attention the pre-war years, or, if you like, the post-war years when there will be over-production. People have been paid their wages, and for the purpose of my illustration there may even be a period when everybody is more or less employed. But through the advancement of technological skill we are able to produce an abundance. Goods pile up. If there is a surplus of production, does the minister say that if we organize our economic system through a financial accountancy to distribute that surplus to our aged mothers and fathers it will depreciate the standard of living in this country? I should like to have him answer that some time if he cares to.


Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: He would rather not.


Ernest George Hansell: It is true that in years gone by there was destruction of our surplus when people were in need. If ever I thought this world was a lunatic asylum it was at that time. I recall reading of a shipload of oranges going out from Liverpool and being dumped into the sea when little children in England needed them. Instead of feeding them to the

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children they fed them to the fish. Of course, economists from such schools as the London School of Economics, if you like, would say: But the children did not have any money to pay for them. Well, that is true; neither did the fish, but the fish got them and the children who needed them had to go without. We all remember the coffee from Brazil that was burned and dumped into the sea. We all recall blankets being destroyed and cotton ploughed under in the United States. Does the minister say that if instead of destroying those goods we arranged our economy in such a way as to distribute them to the aged and the needy it would reduce the standard of living in this country? That is something for him to think about.
The minister in his remarks on Friday night (vent on to say:
Whether you like it or not,-*
That is a nice preface to a statement.
[DOT]-anything and everything

There is a positiveness about this. He is so sure about it.
-everything that is paid iby the state is a charge on the living standards of the people of this dominion or any other nation.
Then listen to this:	.
History has proven that pride is the backbone of a nation.
Well, for a little while I am going to talk about pride. I am going to ask the minister if it is anything to be proud of when our economic arrangement is such that we have to destroy goods instead of distributing them.


Humphrey Mitchell: I am sure my hon.
friend is not suggesting that I said we should destroy goods.


Ernest George Hansell: No; the minister said that people could not get something for nothing. We cannot give them the goods, so if they cannot be sold they must be destroyed; that is the logic of it.


Humphrey Mitchell: That is the weakness of your argument.


Ernest George Hansell: No, it is not my argument, and I do not know whether it is the minister's, but that is actually what has been done and it is exactly what will have to be done if the present economic arrangement is not changed. There is only one other way to deal with it; that is to give people enough purchasing power over and above wages to buy the surplus of goods, and you can start with the old age pensioner. As the hon. member for Jasper-Edson suggests, we are giving fifty per cent of our production to the enemy now and making no bones about
it. I heard a story once about little Johnny. When he was a small boy he wanted a tricycle, but his father could not buy him one because he had no money. When Johnny got a little bigger he wanted a bicycle, but his father could not buy it for him because he had no money. A little later he thought he would like a car, since he was growing up, but his father could not buy one, and if Johnny wanted a car he would have to make it out of some old junk. Finally the time came when he did not want to live on his father any longer, so he began to tramp the roads of the country, to ride the rods, frying eggs by the side of the railroad track in the midst of abundance. Then war broke out; economic necessity laid hold of him and said, "Johnny, how would you like to have three meals a day and a suit or two suits of clothes?" Johnny replied, "What do you mean?" "Well, come with me and sign on the dotted line and you will get them." So he went and signed on the dotted line and got three meals a day and two suits of clothes. Then one day they came along and said, "Johnny, how would you like a nice education?" Johnny replied, "Are you going to give me a good education?" "Yesv we will give you an education that will cost $25,000." But Johnny said, "I could not possibly afford that." The reply was, "Oh, you don't need to pay for it; we will pay for it." So they took him and made him a pilot, at a cost of $25,000. After that they said, "How would you like a nice railroad trip?" He replied, "Well, I had many of those railroad trips before the war, and I got very tired of them; I used to ride the rods." "Well, you will not have to ride the rods now; we will even give you a berth to sleep in." "You are going to give it to me?" "Yes, we will give it to you." So he went all the way to Halifax. Then they asked, "Would you like a nice trip over the ocean?" and they took him over the ocean to a bomber field in England and said, "Look at that machine." He said, "Boy, isn't she a big one?" Then they said, "Here is a big bomber; how would you like to fly it?" "I couldn't afford to fly that; I could not buy the gasoline to fly even a mile." "Oh, that makes no difference; jump in." So Johnny jumped in and began to fly it all round. Eventually they said, "How would you like to fly over Germany?" "Well, I wouldn't mind; it has not cost me anything so far." But before leaving for German}' that afternoon they wheeled out the bombs and Johnny asked, "What are those?" "Oh, these are bombs." "How much did they cost?" "Oh, we couldn't tell you; thousands of dollars. Now we want you to take them over to Germany, and when you

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get over there we want you to give them to the Germans." "What, give them to the Germans? Are you not going to charge anything for them?" So he took them over Germany and gave the bombs to the Germans. As he was flying back be thought, "My, that is a great idea. I never knew they could give things away like that. Why could we not have a' system after the war under which we could fly over Canada and, instead of dropping bombs, drop washing machines, furniture and things like that?"
That is the logical sequence. In time of war we are able to give a large part of our production to the enemy, but we are not able to give any of our surplus to our aged people in time of peace. When the minister talks of pride I tell him that I will have plenty of pride in a nation that provides for its aged people out of the abundance of its production and its surpluses. Suppose we came to a place in our economy when we provided all these things for our people; when, as they grew older, they retired on an adequate pension, not a pinch-penny $25 or even $30 a month, but $50 or more if necessary. Raise the ante, as long as there is a surplus of production. Imagine the minister and his friends who hold the same philosophy saying, " Well, I do not know whether or not I am proud of that. I think perhaps I had better go to some other country where they charge us in our youth for that which we may get if we live long enough to receive it." He ridicules the idea of something for nothing. I wonder if the minister has ever considered that some of the most precious things of life are given us for nothing. The very air we breathe we get for nothing, unless we want to listen over it; then we have to pay.


Jean-François Pouliot: It is not a good thing to mention that to the minister.


Ernest George Hansell: I want him to see if there is anything wrong in the philosophy of something for nothing. The energy that comes from the sun; the rain-these are given to all, rich and poor alike.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It has to be harnessed.


Ernest George Hansell: That is true; I am only saying that these things are given to us for nothing, and they are given to rich and poor alike. Let us take another example, if the hon. member for York-Sunbury objects to that one. Here is a youqg man who inherits a million dollars. If he holds the views of the minister he will say, " Oh, pride forbid; I could not take that, for it is something I am getting for nothing." All I say is that I have not a rich uncle or a rich father and mother,

but I belong to a rich country. I belong to a country whose citizens have a heritage far greater than that of any other country in the world.
At page 3503 the minister goes on to say:
I have given what I 'have always considered to he my philosophy of life. It is as old as history itself.
Of course; that is what is wrong with it.
And remember this, that any state which started out to kid the people that it was giving something away for nothing has ended up in the ash can.
The hon. gentleman starts off as Minister of Labour; then he takes the part of a great economist, and now he has become a great historian.
It may be that we now have a new formula; I do not know. I sincerely hope, with all my being, that we have. But human nature being what it is, and in the light of history, there is reason for doubt. One could read the history-*
Then he refers to Carthage, Rome, Greece and "other civilizations and nations". Surely the Minister of Labour is not going to compare modern civilization with bygone dynasties. Some of us have read a little history. Those days were days of scarcity; and furthermore, there was a vast distinction between the rich, or the aristocracy, and the slaves who laboured by the sweat of their brow to provide for the rich. That day may not be completely gone economically, but I am certain that the minister cannot compare our modern age, our modern country and our modern civilization with bygone days and bygone nations. I think that is enough for the Minister of Labour.
A little later I was interested in listening to the speech of the hon. member for Cape Breton South. I usually enjoy his speeches because he is quite human and understanding, but I must confess I was a little amused when he tangled with the Minister of Finance over the matter of taxation or contributions given to this or that fund in New Zealand and here. I could not help thinking to myself, "Are they fighting over which system of taxation is the best?" I was tempted to say, "Why any taxation at all?" I say that with all sincerity. I do not believe there is any need for the extreme taxation that we have had in this country. I am not going to criticize what is happening at the moment, because we know that there is a vast depreciation in time of war in all civilian goods and that much of our money must be spent for munitions of war and goods of that nature. I am talking of normal times, when we get back to our quiet, peaceful life. In those days I see no reason for the taxation that has bled the people of this country white.

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In this connection I want to read from a book written by Major Douglas, "Monopoly of Credit". I make no apology for quoting any first-rank siocial crediter.


Mr. WEIR:: Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order. The hon. gentleman is proposing to discuss a matter dealt with by Major Douglas. We are dealing with old age pensions in Canada.


The CHAIRMAN:: I have no doubt that a large part of the matter dealt with by the hon. member for Macleod has been out of order. We have been discussing old age pensions, and I hope that hon. members will keep within the orbit of the item.


Ernest George Hansell: I am sure I will keep within the rules. Most of my time has been taken up in criticizing the Minister of Labour.


Humphrey Mitchell: Stay with the Minister of Labour.


Ernest George Hansell: If I was out of order, then he must have been out of order. I intend to refer to contributory old age pension schemes, which are a form of taxation. I shall soon be finished, so that the hon. member who has raised the objection need not worry. Major Douglas says-


Humphrey Mitchell: Who is Major Douglas?


Ernest George Hansell: My hon. friend knows.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I do not believe the committee is discussing a contributory old age pension scheme; it is discussing the operation of old age pensions in Canada. I do not see how the discussion of that type of scheme would be relevant.


Ernest George Hansell: I am not going to argue the point, but I will say that on Friday night the Minister of Labour went out of his way to advocate a contributory old age pension scheme. I am only reading from what I regard as the greatest authority in the world on this matter.


Mr. JAQUES:: And a Scotsman at that.


Ernest George Hansell: And a Scotsman, such as my hon. friend praised the other day. I want to quote what he says about contributory schemes. He states:
In .passing it may be noted how the power of taxation has grown into a form of oppression beside which the modest efforts of the robber barons of the middle ages must appear crude.
And again:
Modern taxation is legalized robbery, and it is none the less robbery because it is effected through the medium of a political democracy which is made an accessory by giving it an insignificant share in the loot. But I do not think robbery is its primary object.
I will not read any more. I will conclude by saying that a contributory scheme of this kind, being compulsory, would mean confiscation. To my mind confiscation is to steal; to steal is to rob, and those who steal and rob are thieves and robbers. There is only one solution for the old age pension problem and that is the adoption of a philosophy which provides a national dividend as a right of citizenship. The Minister of Finance will make a name for himself in Canada-I suppose he has a name already; I think he is well respected in many quarters-he will move history and move this country if he adopts the principle that will make it possible to provide a national dividend, and he can get off to a good start with our aged mothers and fathers.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: When a blind person marries another blind person his pension is reduced to $120. That seems hardly fair. In many cases a blind person needs someone else to look after him. I contend that the blind pension should be doubled in order to provide for this extra care which many blind persons need to help them out. Many accidents have occurred to blind persons because they tried to look after themselves. The government would be well advised to increase the blind pension. I was very much interested in what the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Esling) said the other night, and I agree that the age limit should be reduced and the pension increased. The age limit should be reduced below twenty-one years, because there are many who have been blind from infancy.


Humphrey Mitchell: I thought my hon. friend was advocating reducing the age limit for old age pensions to twenty-one years.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: No; I am talking about blind pensions. Can the minister make a statement with regard to one blind person marrying another?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The pension is reduced to discourage the marriage of two blind persons.


Mr. HLYNKA:: To my way of thinking there is no^ old age pension scheme in Canada to-day. What we have is pauper's relief for those who are seventy years old and over, and are able to prove that they are absolutely destitute, and can produce -a birth certificate and other documents to prove their age and their economic position. I repeat; a citizen must be over seventy years of age and be absolutely destitute before he can qualify for this pauper's relief. In my opinion anyone who administers this pauper's relief as it stands in Canada to-day should hesitate
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before he speaks about it, because the results are a condemnation of any government and not a credit to a civilized people. I suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, that a conscientious and self-respecting farmer treats his old horses better than we have treated our old worthy pioneers, the old age pensioners. What we need in Canada is a retirement allowance. No pauper's relief under the old patched-up legislation will do. The present act should be discarded and thrown in the waste-basket, and a more humane legislation should be passed.
I do not apologize for taking the time of the committee to speak on the problem of old age pensions. Several aspects of this problem have already been dealt with, but I wish to touch on some aspects which have been either inadequately dealt with or omitted altogether.
I suggest to the minister and the government that all citizens who no longer possess the power to earn a living should be automatically granted a retirement allowance adequate to provide them with a decent standard of living. If a Canadian citizen has lost his earning power he should be immediately granted a pension whether he is over sixty years of age or below sixty years of age. Those reaching the age of sixty who have not the power to earn for themselves a decent standard of living should be given a generous retirement allowance. The amount of the retirement allowance should be such that our . worthy pioneers could live in comfort and dignity. It could easily be fifty dollars a month for each individual pensioner.
Besides this regular monthly allowance our aged people should be provided with medical and dental care. Very few who have spoken in this debate so far have mentioned the importance of medical and dental care which our old people require. I suggest that the physical condition of each old age applicant be checked on applying for pension, and if medical or dental care is required money should lbe provided for it.


Mr. MacNICOL:: I am under the impression that Ontario grants medical care. I know that the old age pensioners have been getting it.


Anthony Hlynka: To my knowledge no province in Canada-


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am speaking from
knowledge. I know' that the old age pensioners in Ontario W'ere getting medical care, and they are still getting it unless a change has been made recently.
' Mr. LALONDE: It is the same in the province of Quebec, where the aged receive medical care from the health units.
Mr. HLYNIvA: If hon. members wrho have just interjected are ready to state that the

old age pensioners in Ontario and Quebec are receiving medical and dental care, and are provided with glasses when they require them and their teeth kept in proper condition, I will certainly be the first to express my appreciation of what has been done in that regard.


John Ritchie MacNicol: - I am speaking from knowledge w'hen I say that in Ontario the old age pensioners have been been receiving medical care, and are still receiving it unless some change has been made recently. I cannot speak definitely as to dental care.


Anthony Hlynka: I have received many
letters from old age pensioners across the country who have stated that they need money with w'hich to buy glasses because they can no longer read without them, and they need dental attention. That is why I have included this point in my notes, to bring it before the committee. There is no reason why this nation cannot provide our aged people with complete medical and dental care, provide them with glasses, dentures when they need them, and so forth.
Provision should also be made for funeral expenses of old age pensioners. As things stand to-day, the old age pensioner is forced to put away a few dollars from his .meagre twenty dollars a month pension so that he may be buried decently. This country could easily provide for funeral expenses, and let our worthy old pioneers enjoy the few dollars of pension they now receive.
I wish to say a few words on proof of age. I have many letters in my office from applicants who tried to get the old age pension but were turned down on the ground that they were unable to produce their birth certificates. I submit, Mr. -Chairman, that a great many of our citizens cannot produce their birth certificates. Many of them come from different European countries where the difficulty of getting birth certificates would be very great. But as the law now stands they .must be seventy years of age and produce their birth certificates before they are granted a pension. Surely it is too much to expect that every citizen treasure his birth certificate, keep it in a safe for years so that he can produce it when asked.


Paul Joseph James Martin: They can make a Statutory declaration.


Anthony Hlynka: I know of many instances in which the old age pension authorities refused to accept a statutory declaration. The applicant is asked to go out and find someone who remembers the day when the applicant was born. That is pretty hard to do, and so I say provision should be made to relieve them of this requirement, particularly those

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who have come from European countries and whose birth certificates have been destroyed or lost. This is extremely important to many citizens in western Canada. Perhaps even some members of parliament could not find their birth certificates. Perhaps some of them would not want anyone to know when they were born, because the attitudue of some would indicate that their birth took place somewhere back in the seventeenth century; at lease one might assume that -when one hears them speak on measures which are urgently needed to-day.
Another suggestion I would make is that national registration should be used for the preparation of the lists of those qualifying for retiring allowance. Every citizen of Canada has certain obligations to Canada; he should also have certain privileges. If a young man is required for military service, under our laws he is called up, and he must obey the law or he is punished. My suggestion is that every Canadian be accorded similar privileges commensurate with his duties. When he becomes of pensionable age a notice should be sent to him to appear before the board to give a statement of his position. If his income is less than is required to provide a decent standard of living he should be immediately granted his allowance. If a citizen fails to accept his share of Canada's wealth and the heritage to which he is entitled he should be soundly scolded and told that unless he accepts his share it will be distributed among those who are kind enough to accept their cheques. That is the sort of attitude we should take. Again, every pensioner should be allowed to keep property up to a value of $3,500. Why not? He is not going to take it with him when he dies. But no; our present attitude is to grind him down and hold him to the ground to his last day. Surely we should be more human.
In a copy of the "Old Age Pensioner", a publication issued in British Columbia in the interest of old age pensioners, I notice these words:
Not only was it necessary to have an increase in the pension and reduction of the age limit, but something should surely be done to humanize the regulations and those who administer them. Too long had these worthy pioneers suffered by the indignities placed upon them and it was high time a halt was called.
These words were uttered by a gentleman interested in the subject of old age pensions, m asking the government to humanize the regulations and the handling of the whole problem.
Up until recently in my own constituency very few pensioners got as much as S20 a
month. Always there was some sort of deduction. An old mother is usually told to go and live with her daughter or her neighbours or someone else; and if she argues that the daughter has her own children to support and cannot provide her with living quarters, she is then told that she can do anything she wants and that that is the decision of the board and she will have to abide by it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Mr. Chairman, let me correct my hon. friend. The average pension paid in Alberta is $22.82.


Anthony Hlynka: I agree with the minister; with the assistance that the provincial government of Alberta has given to pensioners-


Norman Jaques: I thought it was $30.


Anthony Hlynka: -some of the pensioners can now receive as much as $30.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Let me correct my hon. friend. The average pension is $22.82 exclusive of the provincial supplement.


Anthony Hlynka: So much the better. But I never ran across anyone in my constituency until these changes were made who received $20 a month. I know what I am talking about. I have never met anyone in my constituency who received that much. There was always a deduction.


Thomas Reid: Did the hon. member say, hundreds of them?


Anthony Hlynka: Hundreds of them.


Thomas Reid: He must have a great old age
pensioner constituency.


Anthony Hlynka: Well, I have nearly fifty thousand people in my constituency. I know how anxious the minister and those who sit on the government side are to defend the present system, but let me tell them that these conditions have existed too long; it is about time that the regulations were humanized. I am glad to hear from the minister that the average pension, exclusive of provincial assistance, which is being paid in Alberta is $22.82. Any case which is referred to me in the future of old age pensioners who are not getting their share I intend to pass on to the minister, and I shall see how many of them are granted the amount to which they are entitled. It is all right to talk theoretically about these things, but in practice there is absolutely nothing to be proud of. I have had to go to the boards and try to rectify various cases, but I was told it is simply impossible to do anything because such were the regulations and th' / had to

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abide by them. Naturally those who administer the regulations are in the driver's seat, and the old age pensioner is forced to accept what he is given.
I wish next to plead the case of those who do not speak adequately either the English or the French language. A large number of our Canadian pioneers in the west, particularly in the northern part of the prairie provinces, settled together in blocks. For many years there were no schools in the districts and they had no opportunity of learning the English language. To-day, if they have reached the age of seventy, they cannot obtain a pension because, they are told, "You must be a citizen; you must have your citizenship certificate." If these old folks apply for their citizenship certificates they are told to go home, that certificates will not be granted because they do not know the English language. Surely that is an unfair attitude to take. These people are pioneers; they have contributed much to the development of this country. Is there not at least one minister who would get up and say that now is the time to show our appreciation of what these people have done for this country, in which many of them have lived for fifty years or more? Yet two or three years ago they were celebrating their fiftieth anniversary of their coming to Canada, this very government failed even to send a government representative to their convention. That is not the attitude that makes for true Canadianism. That is not the attitude which should be adhered to. It is about time someone studied the problems of these people with a view to treating them as they should be treated.
I should like now to touch upon the subject discussed by the hon. member for Macleod, when he referred to the oft-repeated phrase, "something for nothing." A large number of members in the house object to that phrase because they would not want the people to know that they can get something to which they are entitled without working for it. Why should the people not be taught just the opposite? Why should they not be told that there is a certain heritage to which each citizen is entitled? That is the point of view we should all take. Certainly we should not raise our voices in ridicule when we speak of heritage. When an hon. member ridicules that expression, or ridicules us by reference to $25 a month, it immediately indicates a process of thinking that I could not possibly describe properly.
Reference has been made to contributory pensions. I suggest the reason why this government, or governments which have preceded it, have not brought in an adequate and

proper old age pension scheme or a proper scheme of retirement allowances, is that they did not want to stand in the way of insurance companies and, so that the companies could advertise in the press, and make use of pictures depicting misery, and say, "Unless you buy an endowment policy you will find yourself in a similar position."
That is the catch. I say the people of this nation should support the principle of insurance. They should be insured, but insurance should not stand in the way of the old age pensioner. And if we are going to have-


James Lorimer Ilsley: I rise to a question of privilege. The hon. member is going pretty far. I do not think I can remember anyone having gone quite so far as that before to the length of saying that the reason the government is-not making a more generous provision for old age pensioners is that it is desirous of helping the insurance companies. I deny that, completely, both for myself and on behalf of the government, and I ask the hon. member to withdraw it.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: We are discussing old age pensions. Surely hon. members should keep within the limit of the item. I have some responsibility in the matter and I must insist that this be done. I have ruled to that effect, and I repeat that hon. members must keep within the item before the committee.


Anthony Hlynka: I am not going to argue the point, but I must say that if we are to have a contributory pension scheme in Canada we shall undoubtedly have to compete with insurance companies. It will be a choice between one and the other. The point I wish to make is that if the government cannot give our citizens non-contributory old age pensions, the scheme will be of less value, because even as conditions are to-day our citizens can. insure on their own behalf. They can insure with one of the insurance companies, and be cared for when they reach the age of sixty years or over. As has been said so often by the hon. member for Lethbridge and other hon. members of this group, every citizen in this nation is entitled to a certain heritage-as a right of citizenship. A right to an old age pension is part of that heritage.
The minister said that I have gone beyond what he expected. However, I have noticed in the last four and a half years that unless one puts a problem straight to the government, the minister under whose jurisdiction the problem comes ignores the representations made, and that is the end of it. I would like the minister to read the letters I receive from old age pensioners. I would like him to read the letters which come from people who are

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either refused or receive pensions inadequate to care for them in the circumstances in which they find themselves. Therefore I do not apologize to the committee or to anyone else for urging as strongly as I can upon the government that something more be done with respect to old age pensions.


Norman Jaques: Mr. Chairman, I am not
going to apologize for making a few remarks on this subject. The only wonder to me is that such a debate as this is necessary in this day and age. I have wondered why there is any opposition or any hesitation on the part of members, or people outside the house. I wonder why there should be any longer any reluctance to pay a decent, civilized old age pension to citizens of Canada who are too old to work and who have failed to provide, as the saying goes, for a rainy day.
It seems to me the opposition springs from two points of view. There are those who still ask -where the money is to come from- although I think they are not in as large numbers as they were. The other kind of opposition comes from those who regard thrift, which in -their meaning is nothing but the saving of money, as the greatest of all virtues. From that they draw the conclusion that if an individual has not provided for his old age it proves that he has not led a good life, or even a useful one.
Mention has been made of the superiority of the Scot in the matter of thrift. I happened to be in Scotland last winter, and while there met a number of Scotsmen. During a discussion I was told that while the Scots were probably better thinkers than the English, the English had sounder instincts. That reminds me of a story of Doctor Johnson. While in the highlands he was told by some Scotch people, with great pride, that one could buy twenty eggs for a shilling. Doctor Johnson, with the sounder instinct of the English-if I may say so-replied at once, "The reason for that is not the plentiful supply of eggs, but the scarcity of pennies."
The statement has been made that a government can distribute to the people only what money has been previously contributed by them. I hold in my hand a book which was lately sent to me called " Monetary Experiment," by Richard A. Lester. Mr. Lester was born in New York stete, educated at Yale and Princeton. He holds the Ph.D. degree from Princeton. He has devoted his time to teaching. He was an instructor in economics at Princeton, assistant professor of economics at Haverford college, and is now assistant professor of economics at the university of Wash-
100-222 J
ington. For a time he was an analyst with the United States treasury. This book deals with experiments in money in the American colonies.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order. I have no objection to hearing read a book written at that time, but I must remind the hon. member that we are now dealing with old age pensions. Surely this is not the time to deal with social theories and new economic problems or panaceas. I repeat that I must make a ruling at some time, and I would ask the hon. member to keep within the orbit of the item now before the committee.


Norman Jaques: Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to argue the point with you, but I want to read the quotation for this reason: the excuse that is given everywhere for the failure to pay more adequate pensions is, where is the money to come from? The statement has already been made in this committee that it is impossible for a government to distribute to a people money which has not already been surrendered to the government. Here is a matter of history. I wish to quote only a few lines, as follows:
When Maryland first issued paper money in 1733, most of it was given away-a certain sum to each inhabitant over fifteen years of age. This was done in order that the paper money might be "the more useful to the inhabitants" and its circulation made as "speedy and diffusive as .possible." The legislature hoped by this means "to remove the difficulties under which the inhabitants had long laboured." In a sense this "bounty" was a sort of "social dividend," similar to that advocated by Major Douglas in his books on social credit.
At the end of the chapter he sums up this particular experiment in these words:
From his detailed study of forty-five years of money in Maryland, Professor Gould concludes:
"Considering the peculiar benefits to grain and tobacco culture, the conveniences offered to trade, the exceptionally high exchange that the bills maintained throughout most of their life, and the faithful redemption of every shilling at face value, it is hardly too much to say that this was the most successful paper money issued by any of the colonies."
The author of the book, as I said, is a qualified economist who has held the position of analyst with the United States treasury. I do not think it is necessary to enlarge on the point as to where the money is to come from, because everybody has heard it said that if we can finance a war of course we can finance the peace.
But let us turn to the other objection to paying adequate pensions on a non-contributory basis. The idea seems to be, as expressed here, that you cannot get something for nothing; that in order to provide for old age every man should save money. I am going to make this statement to the committee: whenever a man
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or a citizen ceases to work-I do not care whether he has a million dollars saved up or not, it does not make any difference-he immediately ceases to contribute to the work or to the effort of the nation and he is bound to live on the bounty of the rest of the country. The idea that a man can save money and then at the end his life live off what he has saved and not at the expense of the community is, I am convinced, pure fallacy. I was reminded of this by a book which I read quite a few years ago and which I procured from the library this afternoon. It is called " Essays in Persuasion," by Maynard Keynes. In his chapter on inflation and deflation Mr. Keynes makes some remarks on the saving of money. He says:
There are to-day many well-wishers of their country who believe that the most useful thing which they and their neighbours can do to mend the situation is to save more than usual.
Of course, Keynes was writing during the depression, after the last war, in 1925, I think. The quotation continues: *
If they refrain from spending a larger .proportion of their incomes than usual they believe that they will have helped employment. Now, in certain circumstances all this would be quite right, but in present circumstances, unluckily it is quite wrong. It is utterly harmful and misguided-the very opposite of the truth; for the object of saving' is to release labour for employment on producing capital goods such as houses, factories, roads, machines and the like. But if there is a large unemployed surplus already available for such purposes, then *the effect of saving is merely to add to this surplus and therefore to increase the number of the unemployed. Moreover, when a man is thrown out of work in this or any other way, his diminished spending power causes further unemployment amongst those who would have produced what he can no longer afford to buy. and so the position gets worse and worse in a vicious circle.
The best guess I can make is that whenever you save five shillings, you put a man out of work for a day. Your saving that five shillings adds to unemployment to the extent of one man for one day-and so on in proportion. On the other hand, whenever you buy goods you increase employment-though they must be British, home-produced goods if you are to increase employment in this country. After all, this is only tile plainest common sense. For if you buy goods someone will have to make them. And if you do not buy goods the shops will not clear their stocks, they will not give repeat orders, and someone will be thrown out of work.
Those are the words of Maynard Keynes, who is reckoned one of the great economists; and they are in direct contradiction to the theories that are always advanced whenever the subject of old age pensions is brought up. The statement always is made that people are not entitled to pensions unless they have saved sufficient money to provide for their old age. And who is to value the contribution that any man may make during his life?

What about a mother who raises a large family of from six to a dozen children, whose husband earns barely enough to keep them, and certainly not enough to provide for any incidentals? Having raised her family; having done all the work for them and, as far as wages go, having received nothing for it; having put the welfare of her children before the accumulation of savings for her own old age, is she to be penalized because she has not saved sufficient money to provide for her needs? That is the position to-day. And I would ask this. In a country as empty as Canada, where we are bringing in Asiatics to fill up the waste spaces, what more valuable contribution could anyone make than by raising a family? Yet to-day the people are penalized for doing so. We all know what avarice does to a nation. We need only look at Roman history to learn that those people became so "thrifty" and so money-piinded that they could not even reproduce their own numbers, and so there came about the decline and fall of the Roman empire. So it is in Canada; we have pretty well reached the stage, outside the province of Quebec, when the people cannot afford to raise enough children to populate their own country.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: What does the hon. member mean when he says we are bringing in Asiatics? We are not bringing in any now, are we?


Norman Jaques: They are refugees. I do not know where they come from; I cannot find out.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: They are not Asiatics, are they?


Norman Jaques: I do not know where they come from, but we have brought in quite a number.
With regard to the future, we are told by the government and by other leaders that we must have a new order, a new world. When you boil down this new world it comes to this, as far as I can make out, that everybody is to be put to work. I do not think there is anything new about that; it seems to me the oldest thing in the world. I presume that if the work does not come about naturally then it will be created for its own sake. Let me put it from the point of view of providing employment for the majority of the people after the war. If you are going to have full production then you must have full consumption. There is no question about that; and if all the younger people are going to have full-time employment then the surplus must be distributed to those too old to work. If there is to be any involuntary unemployment

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after the war-and I have not met anyone yet who does not fear it-surely that unemployment should fall upon those who are old and not upon those in the prime of life.
So I say that from every point of view you wish to look at it, whether from the moral or the practical, there is everything to be said for properly looking after our old people. I know that what is good in war is not necessarily good in peace. As someone has said, war is hell, and we do not want to carry the conditions of war into the time of peace. But if we are to prepare for the new age that we hear about in this chamber and elsewhere, a very good way to begin, and a proof of the earnestness of those who talk about it, would be a guarantee to those who are too old to work, those who have done their share of work in this country, that henceforth they shall be granted more than the bare necessities of life-at times they do not even get that- and that in future they may enjoy some of the comforts as well, whether or not they have accumulated savings deposits of money. Again I ask, who is to judge the value of any man's contribution? Who is to value the life work of any man or any woman? Certainly it cannot be done by the size of his or her bank balance.


Mr. McIVOR:: I am sure there is not an hon. member in this chamber who could not speak on old age pensions and pensions to the blind for at least forty minutes. But when I remember that the minister is to bring down his budget next week, or at least very soon; when I remember that we have been discussing this matter for two days, I feel that if I spoke for forty minutes now, or for five minutes, I would be committing an unpardonable sin. I know we have much to say, but I think the patience of the committee has been exhausted. I believe we should call a halt to this discussion and say, "Carried."


Mr. ROSE:: I would have felt the same way as the hon. member for Fort William, but if we can spend practically half a day on strawberries, an hour and a half on empty beer bottles, quite a while on dressed and undressed poultry, and so on, surely we can spare some time for the aged people. I do not want to quote from any books or deliver a full thesis on the question of the aged. I believe everyone here could approach the problem from the humanitarian point of view. Among the saddest scenes I have to witness is old men and women selling newspapers in the city of Montreal on cold winter nights. Often I say to myself there must be something radically wrong with this world of ours that such things should have to be. Each of us is confronted
with such a scene now and then, and I am sure we all feel the same way. I do believe, however, that in dealing with the problems of the aged it is. hardly proper for an hon. member of this house to slur our Asiatic allies or anyone else, or to go in for racialism, as the hon. member for Wetaskiwin did.


Norman Jaques: Not at all; I maintain that charity begins at home.


Fred Rose: Our Chinese allies have been fighting our battles for many years; they are a very fine people. The Siberian corps at Stalingrad were very fine people too.


Norman Jaques: That is all right, but charity still begins at home.


Fred Rose: So far as we are concerned I should say the word "Asiatics" was used by the hon. member in a racial sense and in a manner unbecoming to any hon. member of this house. What was the obstacle placed in the way of the payment of old age pensions in Canada? At one time it was the province of Quebec. I can remember not so many years ago when the leaders of the government in Quebec used to say, "We do not want any old age pensions in this province because it will destroy charity." Others used to say that it would take away the responsibility of children to look after their parents. I would say that those people were hypocrites. They did not mean anything of the kind; they were just thinking of the money that would have to be paid out of the provincial treasury.
I am glad that to-day the province of Quebec has taken the lead in asking that .the age limit be reduced to sixty-five years, and the government of that province deserves congratulations. One of the obstacles of olden days is now out of the way. Why should it not be possible to speed up the dominion-provincial conference in order that this matter may be settled as soon as possible? These old people cannot wait. Many of them feel that they never know how many more years of life they have. I wrent through an election campaign not so long ago and many of them came to me and asked, "What will you do about it?" I told them I would do my best. They cannot wait; they feel that their years are numbered.
This matter should not be postponed too long. I understood that the dominion-provincial conference was to take place in the early summer, and this problem of old age pensions should be on the agenda. This government is considering the payment of family allowances and I think that problem and the problem of old age pensions can be considered together. In both cases the people concerned are helpless; they need someone to
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look after them, and considered from this point of view we should not let down our old people.
I remember back in the days of unemployment when the labour leaders used to say that the age limit should be reduced to sixty years in order to provide more jobs for younger people. Many thousands of young men will be coming back after the war and if these older people could step aside it would provide many jobs for them. This matter should be considered as a post-war problem. Whether the scheme is to be contributory or noncontributory, I believe the people of Canada will not quarrel about it once they feel assured that they will receive an old age pension when they reach the age of sixty or perhaps sixty-five years.
Many hon. members have given credit to the trade union movement for the improvement in old age pensions. I was especially gratified to hear the Minister of Labour give credit to the trade union movement and the work they have done for the aged. In a memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister and members of the dominion government by the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada on Friday, February 25, 1944, it is stated:
While some adjustments have been made in regard to pensions .paid to aged people and the blind, in our opinion the adjustments were not sufficient to meet the increase in cost of living and some further adjustments should be made immediately. Some of the provinces have taken action in this regard but we would_ suggest that your government take the lead in calling a conference of all the provinces in order to establish once for all an adequate pension on a uniform scale that aged and incapacitated persons may enjoy a full life.
That is a very moderate demand on the part of the trade union movement and it should receive the full support of this committee.
Before sitting down I should like to say a few words in support of those who are not citizens of this country. I have had people come to me and explain how they have put off becoming citizens, and now they find themselves too old. Quite often they do not speak the language very well and because of their experience with police in their homeland they are fearful of going down to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They have many other reasons for not becoming citizens. The result is that they cannot get pensions. Many of these people have lived and worked in this country for a number of years, and they should be able to enjoy the few years that remain to them without being punished for not having become citizens. Whether they have their papers or not, they are just as loyal as anybody else.


Thomas Reid: All hon. members, no matter
where they sit, are in favour of increasing pensions for our aged people and decreasing the age limit. The records of the house over the past years show that I along with other members have championed the cause of old age pensions. I think, however, it ill behooved the hon. member who has just taken his seat to accuse other hon. members of taking up time, in speaking about strawberries. Although strawberries may have nothing to do with old age pensions, I, as one of those who did speak about strawberries, have no apology to make for having done so.
There was a principle at stake in that, connection, as there is a principle at stake here to-day. In that case we had a board appointed by the government fixing prices and the only court of appeal to which we had access was this House of Commons. Having appealed *to the board and having received no redress from the board, we then brought the matter, as was our right, to the House of Commons. That was the reason why many of us entered into that discussion and took up the time of the house. on that occasion, and it ill behooves the hon. member for Cartier to chide any hon. member of the house for doing that.
I sat in my place and listened to him take up about forty minutes in discussing a man by the name of Kirkconnell. Those who live in glass-houses should not throw stones, and this place has more windows than any other place I know of which are easily broken if a man begins to throw stones. Reference has been made by the hon. member to Asiatics, but may I say that at any time if I referred to Asiatics I did so in a fair way. I have never attempted to raise racial hatred. Although I well remember when, in 1934, the Japanese were being discussed, hon. members belonging to his party used that old tirade, or old argument of their's by saying that I was doing it just to draw a red herring across the trail. I have always approached the question from the practical point of view and with no idea of causing racial hatred.
I rose, however, on this occasion to add my voice to those who have spoken on this question of old age pensions which is one that should not be allowed to die down. Time has moved on, and we have reached the stage when the old people in this country should get a better deal than parliament has granted them up to the present time.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I .suppose I should answer
some of the questions that have been asked and deal with the matter as a whole for perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes. I did not make any general remarks when introducing

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this item to the committee. Perhaps I should have done so. Perhaps I would have done so had I known the debate would be so protracted.
At the present time we have an old age pension system in Canada which is far from satisfactory. It is far from satisfactory mainly because of the division of responsibility between the dominion parliament and the legislatures of the provinces. I have never disguised the fact that this system is an unsatisfactory one. Those of us who have any responsibility for its administration see evidence of that every day. For that reason I have been saying, for the last year or two at least, that I hope to see the time, and I hope it will be at an early date, when we shall have a satisfactory system of old age pensions in Canada under one jurisdiction, where the pension will be more generous and where it will be payable at an earlier age than at present,


Richard Burpee Hanson: And be more uniform.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes; if it is under one jurisdiction it will be uniform. But we cannot move from our present divided jurisdiction system into that better system without a transfer of certain jurisdiction from the provinces to the dominion. That certainly is true if we adopt the contributory system of old age pensions. I have not had experience, as members of the house have pointed out, in the administration of social service legislation; and if the dominion government undertakes the administration of a federal pension scheme, I am inclined to agree that its administration should not be in the Department of Finance. 1 do not say that because I admit a hard and unsympathetic heart. I say that because I think it could be more appropriately administered by a department of social welfare than by the Department of Finance. The reason why the administration of the old age pension scheme, in so far as it is administered by the dominion government, is in the Department of Finance is that we are merely contributors to nine provincial old age pension systems, and that is a fact which so many members lose sight of entirely. The payment of old age pensions from the beginning has been regarded as primarily the responsibility of the provinces, just like the payment of mothers' allowances, just like the administration of workmen's compensation. It is a scheme to which we contribute, and which is administered by the provinces. It is administered by regulations agreed upon by the provinces and the dominion. There is a dominion Old Age Pensions Act which authorizes us to contribute.
In the early days of the old age pensions legislation the federal contribution was fifty per cent of the pension. Shortly after 1930 that was increased to seventy-five per cent of the pension, and it became more unsatisfactory from our point of view. I do not mean because it cost us more than it would have had our contribution remained at fifty per cent, but it became a case where the administrative authority was less concerned about the matter .because the paying authority was to the extent of seventy-five per cent of the pension another authority altogether.
Accordingly that system went on, a most unsatisfactory system; I do not deny that at all. I want to see it move into a more modern, more advanced and more generous system than the system we have at the present time. The only way we can do that sensibly is, I think, by adopting a contributory system which will be administered entirely by the dominion government. That would probably cost the dominion treasury more than the present system, even though it is a contributory system, because it is not true to say, as some members have said, that under a contributory system everything is paid for by the contributors. A large part is paid by the state. The only way in which we could get a transfer of jurisdiction would be by an amendment to the British North America Act. Whether we can get the provinces to agree to that I do not know, and whether the people will accept a system of contribution I do not know.


Gordon Graydon: Has the matter been discussed with the provinces?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No; that is a matter which will have to be taken up and will be taken up at the approaching provincial conference. We have come out in the speech from the throne in favour of a contributory sysem. Whether it can be done or not I do not know. I have listened to members and most of them talk as if it were wrong to ask anybody to contribute. Perhaps I am not qualified by experience to argue the matter thoroughly, but students of these questions, experts on these problems, all seem to agree-there seems to be complete unanimity-that the sounder .system is the contributory one. Sir William Beveridge says so; Marsh, who wrote the report to which the hon. member for Vancouver South referred, says so. They have a contributory system in the country which is always quoted by the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation as the most advanced country in the world, namely, New Zealand, where they contribute to their social security measures. I think it is a sounder system. I think people ought to contribute. Remember, in
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unemployment insurance we do not say that the workman should not contribute to the fund out of which he gets benefits when he is unemployed. We do not think there that an outright dole is better than the insurance principle.


Mr. GILLIS:: It works out in that way.


James Lorimer Ilsley: They contribute, and there are very sound reasons for a contributory system. However, that is in the future. In the meantime we have the present system to administer.
What is the situation? We started out in the beginning with a maximum pension of S20 a month. In the early part of 1941 a cost-of-living bonus was being paid to persons engaged in industry, and .there was a great demand that we pay the cost-of-living bonus to old age pensioners or do something along that line. In November, 1941, I announced the government's policy to the. house. I stuck to the principle that has always been preserved in this pension scheme, namely, that it was primarily a matter of provincial responsibility; I said that if any province wished to pay a supplemental allowance we would alter the regulations in such a way that they could do so without that supplemental allowance being regarded as income, and certain provinces did that.
Prior to the passing of the order in council of last year six provinces had made provision for a supplemental allowance: British Columbia, $5 to each pensioner from April 1, 1942; Alberta, $5 to each pensioner from April 1, 1942, plus up to an amount of $5 where income is less than $365 a year; Manitoba, $1.25 to each pensioner from January 1, 1943; Saskatchewan $1.25 to each pensioner from January 1, 1943; Ontario, 15 per cent of pension payable under the act from July 1, 1943; Nova Scotia, $10 a month payable at the discretion of the pension authority to pensioners with income of less than $365 a year, from June 1, 1943. That provision made in the various provinces is illuminating. It shows the different views which the different provincial authorities took with respect to adding to the pension by way of supplemental allowance.
As a result of that and the addition to the pension which we provided last summer, the maximum payments per month now allowed in the various provinces are: Alberta, $30, plus $5 per year; British Columbia, $30; Manitoba, $25; New Brunswick, $25; Nova Scotia, $30; Ontario, $28; Prince Edward Island, $25; Quebec, $25; Saskatchewan, $25. If hon. members are interested in the average paid in each province apart from the supplemental

allowances, I can give the figures as of March 31 last: Alberta, $22.82; British Columbia, $23.55; Manitoba, $23.41; New Brunswick, $17.69; Nova Scotia, $18.06; Ontario, $23.09; Prince Edward Island, $18.53; Quebec, $22.54; Saskatchewan, $23; Northwest Territories, $24.55.
In November or December, 1941-whenever it was that I announced the government's policy-I also said that if all or substantially all the provinces wished us to agree to increase the maximum amount of pension payable we would give attention to doing that; and the provinces, somewhat slowly, began over the next year or year and a half to make requests that that be done. The last of -these requests was received in July, 1943, and we passed an order in council increasing the maximum from $20 to $25 a month. There is some demand at the present time that the age be reduced from seventy to sixty-five years, and the decision of the government has been that they should pursue exactly the same course as they did with regard to the raising of the maximum payable, namely, that they should not attempt to force this on the provinces, it being primarily a provincial responsibility; that they should say to the provinces, as I said to the provinces the other day in the statement I made in this house, that if all or substantially all the provinces should make representations to the dominion government in favour of a reduction of the eligible age from seventy to sixty-five years the government would give consideration to those representations. That is just as I did before; and I do not think, if we are to keep our policy consistent, if we are to pursue a policy which will have regard to the position and rights of the provincial authorities and respect the provincial jurisdiction, we can do anything but that.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Has there been any reaction from a-ny province yet?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Not since I made the statement the other day; but three or four provinces had indicated -previously that they would like to have the ages reduced-one of the provinces, I think to sixty years. But the position we felt we should take was very carefully thought out.


Mr. KNOWLES:: On -this same point may I ask the minister if any of the provinces at the same time are suggesting increasing the amount?


The ACTING CHAIRMAN (Mr. Golding):: Order. The minister has listened patiently to a number of speakers, and I think he should not be interrupted.

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James Lorimer Ilsley: I believe certain provinces are requesting an increase in the amount. The provinces contribute only twenty-five per cent to all this, and .requests come forward with considerable facility. In a good many cases they do not need very much encouragement. But that is the situation.
As I say, I think this is a reasonable course to pursue under the present system, the system of divided jurisdiction which we have had established here since 1926. Not only is it consistent but it is, I believe, the correct and proper course to pursue.
After we passed the order in council of last summer raising the maximum amount from $20 to $25, the question arose as to whether the permissible outside income should not be raised to $425. One or perhaps more than one of the provinces had asked that at the beginning, I remember particularly the province of Manitoba. They thought the matter through and coupled their request with a request for an increase in the maximum amount payable. But most of the provinces said nothing about that; the question was not discussed; and I did not feel free on a basis of general provincial consent to take that step, because it would be not only increasing the amount payable to existing pensioners but enlarging the class of pensioners, and would raise administrative burdens for the provinces as well as cast further expense on them. That was taken up later with the provinces by the dominion, and the other day, this order in council, which in a sense is consequential to the order in council of last summer, was passed having effect from April 1 or such later date as the province in any particular case might desire.
It has been suggested by one of the speakers that we should put these changes we have made into legislation, that we should amend the act.


Mr. NEILL:: Hear, hear.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Well, I do not like the
act as it stands well enough to bring in amending legislation if we can help it. If we are to legislate on the subject of old age pensions, I should like to put something on the statute books more satisfactory than a patched-up 1926 Old Age Pensions Act; and I think, if there is patching-up to be done, it should be done by order in council.
Hon. gentlemen may be afraid that the authority for the orders in council will run out before there is a chance for legislation. Let me point out that the War Measures Act of the last war ran until some time in 1920-* I have not the exact date-and there is no prospect of the present War Measures Act
losing its effect for a very considerable length of time to come. It does not pass out at the end of the war or six months after; it passes out when the necessity for it, in the opinion of the government of the day, no longer exists.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Or when the courts say the necessity for it no longer exists?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not think so. My hon. friend suggests that it is perhaps when the courts say the necessity for it no longer exists, but certainly there is a post-war period during which the War Measures Act will be in force, and I suggest that there is plenty of time for legislation such as this, and that we should not enact legislation for old age pensions until we have a more satisfactory system, jurisdictionally and otherwise, than we have at the present time.
Certain specific suggestions have been made during the course of the debate, and I will try to deal with a few of them. I cannot make any definite pronouncements on the suggestions which have been made, but in certain cases at least I am prepared to give them consideration.
One was that no rental should be charged up against the occupant of premises which he owns. Rental is charged up against them at the present time because of a regulation which was agreed upon by the provinces and the dominion, and I assume that that regulation was based upon the desirability of eliminating discrimination between pensioners who occupied their own property and those who roomed, or something of that kind.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Those who had to pay rent.


James Lorimer Ilsley: One must be very careful in changing these regulations not to give rise to discrimination, because nothing creates a sense of injustice so much as discrimination.


Mr. GREEN:: The home owner has to pay taxes.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well, the roomer.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, but that is not equivalent. Taxes are merely a fraction of the occupancy value of the premises.
Another suggestion was with regard to dependents' allowance and assigned pay, and I should like to review that story. In the first place let us take the case of the person to whom the soldier assigns pay, there being no dependents' allowance. In that case it was considered, first, that it must be regarded as income. Then a great many cases came to the attention of the pension authorities in

War Appropriation-Finance

which these seemed to be the facts: it was found that in many cases pay was being assigned to persons who held the pay in trust for the assignors. That was particularly true in cases where there was no dependents' allowance. It was true in cases where there was no condition of dependency. So that it became impossible for the authorities to decide as to whether the assignee held the amount in trust for the assignor, or otherwise; and it was decided, therefore, in those cases to wipe it out as income altogether, and to consider it the property of the assignor, and not to consider it the income of the assignee.
The next case about which complaint is made in the house by a great many members is the one where there is no question of dependency, because dependents' allowance is being paid. It was considered that under the regulations, there being no question of dependency, the dependents' allowance board having decided that the assignee is a dependent of the assignor, in that case what the assignee received by way of dependents' allowance and assigned pay must be regarded as income. The result was that the old age pensions in some cases were cut out or reduced.
I am not just sure what the suggestions are that have been made in this debate, but I gathered from a remark made by one of the members that he thought possibly one should be considered as income, but not the other. Someone asked the question whether both were regarded as income. There is some argument for giving assigned pay the same treatment in a case where there is dependents' allowance as in a case where there is no dependents' allowance. There is some argument for that. But there is also some argument on the other side, too. All I can say about it is that I took to heart what some members said about this situation. It may be a little difficult to explain, and it may be thought there should not be strictness in adherence to the regulations. I would be prepared to give consideration to the suggestions which have been made, and see whether they can be squared with the regulations or, if not, whether the regulations should in some way be limited. But that would be a matter of agreement with all the provinces, as I have said before.
I wish to point out at once that if we build up too much the income of the mother of a member of the services, in proportion to the income of the mother of someone who is not a member of the services, but living next door, the latter-mentioned mother will say there is discrimination.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Not in the case of assigned pay.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Perhaps not in the case of assigned pay. But if dependents' allowance were allowed to go you would have a lot of difference in the treatment of two old age pensioners who might be living side by side. That must always be considered when one considers amending regulations.
The hon. member for Macleod asked a specific question regarding to what property of the pensioner a lien attaches. That is a matter of provincial legislation. I presume the regulations in the various provinces are different. No lien is created by dominion legislation. The lien has to be created by provincial legislation, and they can make the lien attach to any property they wish. The most common provision is that it is a lien against the real or personal property of the pensioner.


Thomas Reid: Could a province waive that right?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Oh, yes, they can do that. I believe the dominion act says it is a debt, does it not?


Richard Burpee Hanson: All the provinces have liens, have they not?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, they all have liens, but they do not necessarily all have the same kind.


Mr. STIRLING:: None of them exercise them, do they?


Richard Burpee Hanson: Yes, they do.


Grote Stirling: British Columbia does not.


Thomas Reid: The dominion gets the blame for the property clause.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I thought it was the other way around.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Five of them do not.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The relative provision of the dominion legislation creates a debt, but it does not create a lien. The lien is created by the province.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It is a crown debt, and it is ahead of ordinary debts.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Oh, no.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Oh, yes; a crown debt is ahead of my debt.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The income tax people do not think so.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well the courts have said so.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is a long story.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I would remind the minister that his parliamentary assistant has already made that point clear. He referred

TFar Appropnation-Finance
to it on March 23, when the house was told in answer to a question of mine that it is now up to each province whether the crown files liens, at least up to a certain value.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is correct.


Stanley Howard Knowles: And according to subsequent information given in answer to a question, it now appears that British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia do not file liens up to the specified amount, which seems to leave it that the other four provinces do still avail themselves of that privilege.


Thomas Reid: Then it is not correct to say the property is taken away from the old age pensioners in those provinces?


Jean-François Pouliot: Mr. Speaker-


Richard Burpee Hanson: Has the minister finished?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am afraid I have stirred this up, all over again. We could go on all afternoon and evening. I shall have to answer new questions that are asked.


Howard Charles Green: I understand that the minister says he is in favour of having an amendment to the British North America Act to give the dominion exclusive jurisdiction over contributory old age pensions.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is correct.


Howard Charles Green: Does he mean that to include old age pensions to the people who would not be able to contribute to such a scheme? In other words, would the contributory scheme include all the persons who are now pensioners, or would it not? I do not know whether he thinks they, too, should come under the exclusive jurisdiction of the dominion.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I certainly think they should. I think the dominion should have jurisdiction over the whole thing. The object would be eventually to work into a contributory scheme which would have very wide coverage. Of course it would not be contributory as far as present old age pensioners are concerned, because it is too late.


Howard Charles Green: If the dominion takes over contributory old age pensions it should also take over present old age pensioners.


James Lorimer Ilsley: In some modified form, perhaps. But I would be in favour of the dominion dealing with old age pensions as a whole, because I do not think we can have a federal scheme and provincial schemes. We would just have confusion worse confounded.


Howard Charles Green: Take over everything.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.
100-223J


Howard Charles Green: May I ask the minister-


William Henry Golding: Order.


Howard Charles Green: The minister said I could
ask a question.


William Henry Golding: Order. Several times this afternoon the chair has requested that we do not get into a debate on contributory insurance, and it has been urged that we deal with this item.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The minister said he was willing to answer questions.


William Henry Golding: It has been suggested several times this afternoon that we stick to a -point under discussion, and I hope hon. members will do that.


Howard Charles Green: I have one other question.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The minister did not stick to it.


Howard Charles Green: The minister has repeated
this afternoon that old age pensions are in the same category as mothers' allowances and workmen's compensation. I wish he would go a little farther in his explanation of that statement, because actually the fact is that mothers' allowances and workmen's compensation are handled exclusively by the provinces. The dominion has nothing whatever to do with them and has never had. On the other hand, the dominion stepped in and passed the first Old Age Pensions Act and, as the minister said, is now paying three-quarters of the cost. Will he explain how he puts these three types of assistance on the same basis and then says that they are a provincial responsibility in each case?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I have explained that repeatedly in other years. The dominion did what it did in 1926 in order to get the provinces going; that was why. The provinces got under way under their own steam in the matter of mothers' allowances and workmen's compensation, but they were not getting ahead with old age pensions. Therefore the dominion adopted the principle of paying part of the cost which we have all repeatedly said we do not like, just for the sake of getting the provinces going.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Would the minister in his scheme suggest that the provinces be relieved of all costs, administrative and otherwise, if they transferred their jurisdiction to the dominion?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, I would; but I wish to point out that that will be a big burden
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for the dominion to assume and it is tied up with financial adjustments and division of revenue fields and so forth with the provinces.


Richard Burpee Hanson: You will have to ask them to give up something else.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know who will do
the giving up. The two things are tied up to one another.


Richard Burpee Hanson: No doubt about that.


James Lorimer Ilsley: We have a fairly satisfactory arrangement with regard to taxation fields for the w-ar period, but it- expires at the end of the war, and we shall have to get our minds down eventually to the question as to what taxes may be imposed by what authority.


Jean-François Pouliot: This act was, in the first place, dominion legislation. By that I mean that the first statute with regard to old age pensions was a dominion statute. I remember the day when the Hon. Peter Heenan, then Minister of Labour, went to Toronto to have the agreement signed with the Hon. G. Howard Ferguson, then premier of Ontario. Afterwards agreements were signed with the other provinces, and at the present time there is an old age pension scheme in every province.
The act was passed at a time when provincial rights were respected. It was not long after a judgment of the supreme court that was not appealed from by the government of the day, in which the respective powers of the dominion and the provinces were clearly stated. It is important to .note that it was the then Minister of Labour who went to Toronto to sign the agreement with the premier of Ontario; it was not the Minister of Finance of the day. I do not know whether or not since that time pensions have been placed under the Minister of Finance. Perhaps they have been, but they were not at the time. The idea of putting the plan on a fifty-fifty basis with the provinces was precisely to respect provincial autonomy. The provinces were told that the dominion had passed legislation in virtue of which a subsidy of fifty per cent would be paid to the provinces if they agreed to it, and it was up to them to establish an old age pension scheme within their boundaries.
It took some time to have this scheme accepted by all the provinces, but finally it was. Then Mr. Bennett came into powers He also respected provincial autonomy, but increased the dominion contribution by twenty-five per cent, making it seventy-five per cent. What people do not understand is that the dominion is paying seventy-five per cent and the prov-

inces only twenty-five per cent. They admin- _ ister the whole thing. The dominion has no responsibility to the people with regard to the administration of the scheme, but on the other hand all the blame is put on the dominion by the provinces when a pension is refused. The provinces say the regulations that have been passed by Ottawa prevent us from granting a pension, and so on. That is the story. This is most unsatisfactory legislation.
I will tell you, Mr. Chairman, what I think of old age pensions. I think it is a good thing.
I congratulate the minister for having raised the contribution from S20 to S25 a month.
It was a good step, but the age should be lowered to at least sixty-five years for the old and in so far as the blind are concerned, as soon as a child is acknowledged by the doctor to be blind he should be entitled to a pension if his parents have not sufficient means to pay for his care. Distinction should be made between those who have some means and those who have none. We now come to a basis of contribution. I will not discuss the question of contribution at all. How is it possible for a man who has nothing, who is destitute, to pay a contribution toward old age pension? Those who have sufficient means may buy an annuity from the Department of Labour. It still exists. It does not come under the Department of Finance unless things have been changed. We are not fighting here the case of those who have a sufficient income on which to live or who have independent means. We are fighting the case of the poor who have not the means to pay a contribution, who are destitute and who must not be left on the street. They are old. They have rendered a certain service to the community and they deserve some help from the state. That is the purpose of the old age pension, as explained by the legislators and by the members of the government of the day when this act was passed. It is easy to see in the speeches made at that time by the present Prime Minister and the Hon. Peter Heenan who was then Minister of Labour that the purpose of the old age pension was to help those who had no means on which to live and who were destitute, who had no children who could help them.
There is another matter I should like to mention. To-day a twenty-dollar bill does not go any farther than a ten-dollar bill used to go. These people have expenses to meet. Even those who have not much to live on have to pay more for their food, clothes and so on. Therefore they need a certain increase. [DOT] It is a matter that the minister has understood and I congratulate him upon having done so.
It is essential for the government to understand that discrimination exists when men

Private Bills
aged sixty-five do not get their pensions. How many suffer from rheumatism and are unable to work when they reach sixty, labourers, who did not save any money for their older days? I leave this to the minister's consideration. I hope he will realize the fact that the suggestion is unanimous; it has been made by all parties of the house.
There is perhaps this controversial question of dominion and provincial rights. The minister holds the view that this matter of old age pension should be under one jurisdiction. He is perfectly right. I agree with him; but we should not forget that taxation from which this old age pension is paid comes from the pocket of the Canadian taxpayer. The only question that arises as between a provincial payment and a dominion subsidy to the provinces is that of control. The taxpayer pays the same amount for the same purpose, but the question is whether the money is to be raised and controlled by the province or by the dominion. If the only purpose of the dominion government in establishing old age pensions was to see to it that the scheme was adopted by all the provinces, now that it has been so adopted; now that it is in force; now that it cannot be changed, surely that purpose has been realized.
How would it be possible to have the matter under one jurisdiction, which it is a desirable thing? It could be done by the Minister of Finance releasing a part of the taxation that formerly belonged to the provinces, to enable them to carry on the old age pension scheme. It is the easiest thing in the world. Take the succession duties, and things like that; if the minister would release the dominion succession tax and negotiate agreements under which the provinces would bind themselves to lower the age at which people could receive pensions, surely an agreement of that kind could be relied upon just as much as a treaty with a foreign nation. Why should provinces not be considered on the same footing as other countries? They are our own people; yet such a fuss is made when agreements are to be signed with the provinces. The time has come when our own people, the provinces of this country, should have priority over all other nations in their dealings with the dominion government. They are our own people; it is only natural that we,should look after them; so why not do it in an orderly way? Some people in the Department of Finance like complicated matters; instead of simplifying the procedure and allowing the provinces to be masters of their own destiny they say, "Well, we will get the money and we will give it back to you." What is the reason for that transaction? Why keep accountants
to write down the amount of money received
on behalf of the provinces and the amount of money that is returned to the provinces?
In a nutshell what I have to suggest to the minister is this: reduce the age at which the blind may receive pensions, so that they may be paid even to infants and children whose blindness is certified by competent doctors; lower to sixty-five the age at which old people may receive pensions; give pensions only to those who need them, but give pensions to all who need them. Then start once more to respect provincial autonomy. Give the provinces an opportunity to collect the amounts of money they collected previously, so that this scheme may be operated by the provinces themselves to the great benefit of all concerned.
And the Speaker having resumed the chair:



' ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES


Mr. CRERAR:: If I may revert for a moment to motions I should like to table the correspondence asked for this afternoon by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Graydon), which passed between the premier of Ontario and the government here on the matter of increasing the supplies of spirits.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock. PRIVATE BILLS



GORE DISTRICT MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on bill No. 40, respecting Gore District Mutual Fire Insurance Company.-Mr. Homuth-Mr. Bradette in the chair.
Sections 1 and 2 agreed to.
.Preamble agreed to.
On the title.
Mr. MARSHALL:: What is the capitalization of this company?


Gordon Graydon: I was hoping that my good fortune would be such that perhaps I would not be examined too closely upon the details of the bill which I have undertaken to sponsor on behalf of the hon. member for
Private Bills

Waterloo South (Mr. Homuth). Perhaps my hon. friend would be content to take the undertaking that that information will be given to him in due course and the title might be permitted to carry in the meantime.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on bill No. 94, respecting a certain patent application of Claude H. Peters.-Mr. Mcllraith-Mr. Bradette in the Chair.
Section 1 agreed to.
On section 2.-Manufacture, use and sale commenced prior to February 15, 1944, by others may continue.
James Alexander Marshall: What are the facts in connection with this patent?


Mr. McILRAITH:: The bill merely permits the applicant for the patent to make application before the patent office in order that it may be dealt with there in the ordinary way. It does not confer any substantive rights at all. The patent has to do with air-conditioning equipment.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on bill No. 95, to incorporate the executive board of the Canada Conference of the Evangelical Lutheran Augus-tana Synod of North America-Mr. Maybank -Mr. Bradette in the chair.
Sections 1 and 2 agreed to.
On section 3-Objects.
Mr. BLACKMORE:: Mr. Chairman, you
are going too fast. It is impossible for us to find these bills before they are passed. I think you had better give us a chance to find them. I do not know whether there has been a mistake in filing my bills, but I cannot find the one with which you are dealing.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: This is a bill to incorporate the executive board of the Canada Conference of the Evangelical Lutheran Augus-tana Synod of North America.


Stanley Howard Knowles: What is the amendment
that has been made to this bill?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: The amendment is to
section 4; we are now dealing with section 3.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.

On section 4-Management.
Joseph-Arthur Bradette: The amendment is to
add the words, "and shall hold office during pleasure of said Canada conference."


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
Sections 5 to 17 inclusive agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 92, to incorporate Wesleyan Methodist Church of America in Canada.- Mr. Mcllraith.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 113, for the relief of Frances Eleanor Campbell Coleman.-Mr. Mcllraith.
Bill No. 114, for the relief of George Igaz. -Mr. Casselman (Grenville-Dundas).
Bill No. 115, for the relief of John William Frank Draper.-Mr. Emmerson.
Bill No. 116, for the relief of Sam Sokoloff. -Mr. Mcllraith.
Bill No. 117, for the relief of Leon LeBrun. -Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City).


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration in committee of a resolution to grant to His Majesty certain sums of money for the carrying out of measures consequent upon the evidence of a state of war-Mr. Ilsley-Mr. Bradette in the chair.

[Stage Direction]
Old age pensions and pensions to the blind, $6,942,250.
Alan Webster Neill: Mr. Chairman, I shall not long detain the committee. I listened with interest this afternoon to the explanations of the minister, more especially as regards the trouble he was encountering in dealing with this subject, which is under dual jurisdiction. He also stated that he personally was in favour, later on possibly, of a contributory scheme, that he would be in favour of it if the provinces would agree. I do not think there will be much trouble in the provinces agreeing. If you go to a man and ask him to pay his debts he may quibble; but if you offer to pay half his debts you are much more likely to get a favourable response. If you go to him and offer to pay the whole bill, I do not think there would be a great deal of trouble in getting his consent. The

War Appropriation-Finance
trouble in 1926 and 1927 was that while we fully recognized, as we do still, that it was the obligation of the provinces, we could not make the provinces recognize their obligations, or at all events they would not do anything about them. The only way we could get action was not by waiting, dallying along the primrose path, but by taking action ourselves, and so we drafted a bill and passed it and said: This we will do, and you can come in or stay out. British Columbia immediately came in, and the other provinces one by one followed suit.
The outstanding feature on which the minister has not been able to meet the representations made to him the other day was as to reducing the age limit. I think he might have given a lead to the provinces in this matter. Nothing is to be gained by waiting on the provinces, with the provinces waiting on somebody else, but just as when we passed an act and said to the provinces, "We will contribute fifty per cent" we got action because the people of the provinces stirred up their governments, so that I think in this case the Minister of Finance might give the provinces another lead by proposing to reduce the age limit. I think he said that three or four provinces were already agreeable to that.
When I was discussing old age pensions the other night I raised two points. One was the danger of losing the last five dollars that was added to the pension last year. I find that the Minister of Finance admitted last year, as he did again this afternoon, that the increase then put on would be liable to be taken off if legislative action was not taken at the end of the war or in the meantime. I foresaw the danger of putting this in as a sort of cost of living bonus item which would disappear with the disappearance of the War Measures Act. But now the minister says that the War Measures Act of 1914 lasted for some years after the end of the last war. Although I cannot find any record of that, I take his word for it. Then he said that there was no hurry, that no doubt the War Measures Act would extend beyond the end of this war and there was time to deal with any emergency at that time. I do not just see the point. This is not like an act. This has not been done bv passing an act or by passing an order in council under the War Measures Act but merely by putting an item in the estimates which is contained in certain appropriations to be passed under the War Measures Act. Last year the minister simply rose in his place and did not consider it necessary even to put an item in the war appropriation. He simply said: We will take the necessary sum out of the war appropriation. There is no
guarantee that he will do so this year. We have confidence in him, of course, but there is no obligation on him to do so. After the war other governments, with other minds, may come into power and may say: We will drop this; we have r.o authority to pass further items of this sort under the War Measures Act. They might even go further if challenged and , say: It is obvious that the government that passed it did not intend it to be anything more than a temporary measure because they did not pass an act but simply put an item in the estimates, so that eventually it was nothing more than a temporary measure, a cost of living bonus, so to speak, which might be taken away. They would have a good argument in saying that.
The minister said that he did not like the act. But if we never voted for anything we did not like, sometimes governments would find their tenure of power somewhat slim. I think, with all deference to the minister, that was a weak argument. After all, it is only a small act and only a small amendment is required. If later on another act is necessary to bring in the contributory system the amendment would disappear with the disappearance of the act. Is there any harm in tying it up for the present in such a way that it will not disappear? Another, perhaps unsympathetic government might fall back on the contention that this was a temporary thing on account of war conditions and so on. I cannot see how my suggestion would do any harm; it would relieve these old people from the fear hanging over them that, for some minister's convenience in years to come, he might say, "Oh, times have changed; I am not going to put it in; what are you going to do about it?" We could do nothing about it; we could not point to a definite measure, unless passed the way I suggest. Therefore I urge that it would be a good thing to allow this simple matter to be inserted in the act itself.
If I were the leader of the party to my left I think I would be inclined to insist upon that, because I am sure it has the approval of the people as a whole. I would be inclined to say, "Well you have brought this in; you admit it is right; the people think it is right; you will put it in the act-or else". But of course that is for somebody else's judgment.
The second matter I brought up when I was speaking the other day-the minister did not allude to it-was that he should send this bill, and the regulations connected with it, which are the greatest source of trouble, to the committee appointed to deal with just such things; I mean the committee on industrial and international relations. It was dealt with on four different occasions, each time with
War Appropriation-Finance

some measure of profit, and out of the last discussion, came the bill itself. There are a number of small matters which we have not time to thresh out here, nor is a committee of 245 members adapted to discuss them, but they could well be discussed in the committee to which I have referred.
I mention only one or two points, although I could cite half a dozen or more. Take the one which says that a poor old man may have 160 acres of wild bush land, not worth the paper that the title is written on, but it is assessed at, we will say, $1,000 and he has to pay $20 a year taxes on it. The pension board say, "You own that property, it is assessed for $1,000; therefore, we say you have an income from that useless land of $50 a year and we take that off the amount of pension you have been getting". On top of that his taxes are $20, so that he is "out" $70 a year on some land of which he long since got tired, and which never did have any value except in some optimistic hope twenty or thirty years ago. It may be said that he could sell it and get rid of it. But it is the sort of thing you cannot sell. I made written application to the government, signed by an old age pension applicant, who stated, "I hereby convey and grant all my right, title and interest in such a piece of land to the government." But the government were too smart They would not take it. They said, "Not for us; we know better than that, and we don't want it." The alternative was to let it go to tax sale, we were told, and he could thus get rid of it. But no; first, it would take two or three years to get rid of it in that way. There were hard times during the depression; perhaps an election was coming on, and the government did not hold tax sales, so that the wretched man could not let it go to a tax sale, since none was being held, and he was caught between the two dilemmas. He could not get out of it at all. He could not sell it; he could not give it to the government, and he could not let it go to the tax sale. Things like that are well worth consideration by the committee.
They are charged five per cent on land which is not producing anything. That charge should be abolished.
The other point to which I particularly wish to refer is the assessment of the land. We got the regulations changed so that it would not read, as at first, the assessed value, but would read, the assessed value or the market value, whichever was deemed to be the more equitable. I immediately jumped at that concession and said to myself, now we shall be able to get a pension for that man or woman, because the market value of the

land is eighty cents and the assessed value is about $2,000. But the authorities would not do that, and said so. They told me, "We have the option." "No", I said, "the only option you have is to say which is the more equitable". They said, "It will save us trouble; we prefer to take the view that the assessors are men of ability and assess the land properly", and to this day they will not regard the equitable market value but insist on taking the assessor's value, although the regulations read that they must adopt whichever is deemed most equitable. Everybody knows that land in British Columbia is overassessed.
I could name several other things. I am sure the government does not want to give the impression that it is chiseling on these old people, and the people do not want the government to do that. However, you must go around and yell at them for a year or so, and perhaps in the end the government will give way.
When the act was first passed it read that the pension was to begin from the date of the man's first application. What did they do? They changed it by regulation to make the pension start from the day the board made its decision that the wretched man was entitled to it, and if they could prove that the poor man at some time was in Africa or some other remote place they kept writing to him for certificates on different things so that his grandchild would be more likely to get the pension than he would. And when they finally had decided, payment was made only from the date when it was decided to give it to him. I have known a man to wait for eight or nine months for his allowance, living, meanwhile upon the charity o^ friends, and when he got his pension he was not able to pay the arrears for board and lodging because the pension was dated back only to the time when they decided that it was due.
Several other matters of this kind occur tome. By just going through the regulations the committee, I am sure, could make useful and reasonable recommendations. The government would have power to say yes or no; they could decide whether they approved the committee's suggestions; they could insist, the next time these local boards got together, on something like ordinary common sense being introduced. So that I say a great deal might be gained by the government allowing this matter to go to the committee. The government has a majority on the committee; I cannot see why they need fear our doing anything unreasonable about it, and it would certainly satisfy a great many people as regards the treatment they are getting, or not. getting, under these regulations.

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Stanley Howard Knowles: There are a few remarks I should like to make following the interesting statement the minister made this afternoon. It was indeed a significant statement, particularly wherein he laid down the views which the government will probably present on this matter at the anticipated dominion-provincial conference. However, I should like to say in reply to his defence, in which he pointed out that this government has considerable trouble in getting the general consent of the provinces to some of the things it would like to do, that wThen we as members of parliament go back to our respective provinces and come up against the situation there, we find the provincial people telling us that the trouble is that Ottawa will not agree. The minister may say, and quite rightly, that this situation underlines the necessity for an over-all federal scheme, but in the meantime the poor old pensioner is being shuttled back and forth between Ottawa and the provinces.
I say that not just to be critical but as a basis for offering a suggestion in addition to some of the worth-while suggestions which the hon. member for Comox-Alberni has just made. The minister recently has followed a policy which I think might be pursued. He -made it known that in the matter of filing liens against property henceforth the decision as to whether or not it would be done would be up to the provinces. Prior to that announcement the provincial government of Manitoba, the province from which I come, ctmld always say, "Well, we have to file the lien because of section so-and-so of the act." Well, the other provinces, such as British Columbia, and some others, did not read the act in that way. Now this government has made it clear that, however the act may have been interpreted before, it is now understood that this matter is entirely up to the provinces.


James Lorimer Ilsley: With the $2,000 limit.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes. So far as the government of Manitoba is concerned, the responsibility has been located. No longer does it rest with this government on that point. It rests with the province of Manitoba to do the thing that British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and two or three other provinces have done.


Alan Webster Neill: It never was compulsory.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The statement that was made by the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Finance on that point, on March 23 of this year, as reported at page 1742 of Hansard, was that whatever may have been the intention, there had been some confusion. Some provinces thought it was compulsory.
But whatever may have been the case in the past, it has now been made clear by the action of this government that there is no compulsion on this point.
I suggest that the Minister of Finance do the same thing with respect to one of the regulations to which the hon. member for Comox-Alberni has just referred. I have in mind section 20 of the regulations which indicates when a pension shall commence. It states that the pension shall commence on the first day of the month following the month in which all necessary information and proof has been furnished, to the satisfaction of the pension authorities, or on the first day of the month following the month in which the applicant first becomes entitled, whichever is later.
As the hon. member for Comox-Alberni points out, this means that when the applicant for old age pension produces his evidence establishing his eligibility for a pension on the day he becomes seventy years of age, his pension is not made retroactive to the day he became seventy. It becomes effective only on the first day of the month after the month in which he finally got in all those documents to prove his eligibility at the age of seventy.
I know the provincial legislature of Manitoba has discussed this matter and feels that it is quite unfair. I know a resolution was sent down some time ago-probably it has been sent more than once-from the legislature of Manitoba asking this government to change the regulation. That is a regulation which is not in the act, mind: y0U. But as yet nothing has been done. The province of Manitoba is still in a position to say, "We would do it, but for this federal regulation." I suggest again to the minister that he ask his officials who administer the Old Age Pensions Act to go through a number of these regulations to which his attention has been called in the debate. See if there are points like that, where announcements similar to the one about liens might be made, saying to the province, "Henceforth it is up to your administration. These are the limits within which you can go in interpreting these regulations."
I know the minister may point out that that makes it more patched up, perhaps, than it is already. It is pretty badly patched right now, and if these little adjustments would improve the situation, and take care of some of the grievances, then at least it means something to the old people in the meantime, many of whom will not live for that finer old age pension set-up, which we hope yet to see realized.
There are a number of minor points like that. For example, as I have pointed out
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before, if a person, were born on the second day of the month, assuming he gets all the documents in on time, when he becomes seventy years of age and eligible for old age pension that pension could not commence- not according to the act, but according to these regulations-until the first day of the month after the month in which he became seventy. So that many a poor old person who may reach his seventieth year on the second or third day of the month is quite disturbed when he discovers that his pension does not become effective	until	the first	day of	thefollowing month,	and	that the	cheque	willnot be received	until	the 30th	or 31st	dayof that following	month. Those	two months,
to the old age pensioner, are two months for which he thought he was going to receive a pension. The amount of money involved1 is not very great. Once a pensioner is eligible for pension, and begins receiving his pension, that one month might in time be forgotten. But it is little grievances like that which create some of the difficulties, and I suggest that things of that kind should be straightened out.
When I discussed this matter on one occasion with the superintendent of old age pensions in Manitoba he produced correspondence between Manitoba and the administration in Ottawa of a good many years ago-I forget the date-showing that this decision as to the application of one's actual date of birth had been made as a matter of interpretation by the law officers of the administration. Therefore that bears out what is in my mind, namely, that many of these small grievances could be ironed out if the administration in Ottawa would comb them through and would advise the provincial old age pension authorities along the same line as the advice that was given a month or so ago with respect to the filing of liens.
Those adjustments, if they are all made, fall far short of the ideal picture of a better old age pension set-up, such as the minister described this afternoon. That is what we all want-a new and better plan. But he knows perhaps better than I do that the provincial problem comes in, .and that it will take some time to work that out. That is why we hope that more of these so-called minor adjustments might be made right now. We shall have another opportunity to debate old age pensions this session, namely, when we reach the item in the civil estimates. I hope that before that time the minister may be able to make an announcement suggesting that some of the grievances have been adjusted.
Before I resume my seat I should like to add one comment. It is this: When the minister talks about throwing into the dominion-
provincial conference, whenever it meets, the whole question of a better and more adequate old age pension scheme, and when in that connection he makes reference to the set-up in New Zealand, I would suggest to him that the mistake be not made again of setting up only a partial scheme. Reference has been made frequently to the opposition to a contributory scheme in this country, as compared with the well-known fact that in New Zealand the people gladly contribute. What is the difference? Is it because of a great difference between our people and the people over there? I think one of the real differences is that any schemes which have been talked about in this country have been partial-just old age pensions, or just unemployment insurance, or just health insurance. All one sees he can get as a taxpayer or as a worker, for his contributions, is protection against only one of the things which may happen to him.


Thomas Reid: What about Great Britain?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Great Britain has gone a good distance along that line, too. In New Zealand in particular the scheme is allinclusive. It would take far more time than the Chairman would allow me to put on the record the list of things that are provided. It is all-inclusive protection; and I think, when the matter is discussed at the dominion-provincial conference, that way of doing things should be thrown into the discussion.
In the meantime, however, without arguing the detailed points, I welcome the general statement of the minister this afternoon, in which he took the position taken by many of us, that the time has come when measures such as our old age pensions legislation-and we say even more-should definitely be established on a dominion basis.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There were two or three
points raised in the last two speeches to which I think I should reply. I agree with the last speaker when he says that the officials in charge of the dominion administration of the old age pension scheme should take this debate, make a list of the suggestions, and prepare a report on them so that the government may decide which ones, if any, they would like to take up with the provinces. I think agreement on any substantial number of them would probably have to await the conference, but hon. members know that changes are made in the regulations from time to time as the result of correspondence. I think that would be a better course of procedure than to refer the matter to the committee on industrial and international relations. It is true that that committee could work out lines along which they would recommend that the government

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approach the provinces, but a more appropriate group to work out changes would be representatives of the provinces and the dominion. In the main the matters that the hon. member for Comox-Alberni speaks about are matters of provincial administration. It would appear to me more appropriate that the matter be taken up with the provinces than by a committee of this house.
There is one objection to putting more work on committees of this house. It means that the time of overworked officials is taken to attend and a large number of committees are now sitting. For my part I do not see what there is about a committee on industrial and international relations which makes it an appropriate body to consider old age pensions
.Mr. NEILL:	Because it has dealt with it
four times already.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am sure if I said that it
would be argued that it was a very bad reason.


Gordon Graydon: It depends on who advances it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: With regard to the other
points raised by the hon. member for Comox-Alberni, the authority to continue the payment of $5 a month does not depend only upon items; it depends upon orders in council. Those orders in council have the force of law so long as the War Measures Act is in existence, and a vote would take place as a matter of course to carry out the provisions of the orders in council. Of course they do not have the permanency of legislation. Legislation would stay on the statute books until it was repealed, and the orders in council come to an end automatically with the end of the War Measures Act at some time in the future. But the point I was making this afternoon is this, that that time will not be very soon and I would hope that -when this matter is dealt with by legislation it will be dealt with in a much more satisfactory and thoroughgoing way than by amendments of this type to the present act.
From my experience I do not think there will be any danger of any government dropping the $5. The whole trend is not that way, to say the least, and I think the picture that the hon. gentleman has drawn of some grasping, cheese-paring government coming in that will drop that $5 simply because it is paid by orders in council is one that will never become an actuality.


Gordon Graydon: The minister does not look for our hon. friends to the left to be elected.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The other point made by the hon. member for Comox-Alberni is that we
should take the position we took in 1926, namely, that we should say we will lower the age for any province that wants it. That would result in a patchwork of ages across the country. In some provinces they would start at sixty-five and in others they would start at seventy.
Mr. NEILL- Why not; it worked before?


James Lorimer Ilsley: In 1926; but rightly or wrongly I gave that principle a great deal of consideration at the end of 1941 when the hon. member for Comox-Alberni urged us to do the same thing about the additional $5. I think what I said to him was that in time of war we did not want to swing that sort of club on provincial governments. I do not think we should have a different age for different provinces across the country. I think we should wait until the provinces are pretty well in agreement on this matter of ages, and therefore I put what I have said in regard to age in the same language exactly as I did in reference to the $5 increase. That is, when all or substantially all the provinces make representations in favour of a lower age limit we shall give those representations consideration. Otherwise acute provincial political issues are raised. I can remember all through the years provincial elections almost being run on whether they should come in under the old age pension scheme. I do not think we want to raise that kind of thing in time of war. I think we want to keep this thing as uniform as possible and to wait until there is some generality of demand by the provinces.


Alan Webster Neill: The minister speaks of uniformity. Uniformity is not necessarily desirable. To-day we haw anything but uniformity in the amounts paid by the different provinces, some as low as $11, others $19.80 or something like that. Conditions vary. Living conditions vary. It might not be desirable to have unanimity on the one fixed rate. In fact it would not be, because the cost of living in British Columbia far exceeds the cost of living in some of the other provinces.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think it is desirable to have a fixed rate in the dominion and a similar age. Then let the provinces go ahead and do as much more as they like. There is nothing to prevent the provinces themselves from bringing the age down to sixty-five or sixty now and paying the pension at that age. I do not say they should do that, although they have far more money than we have. All of them have large surpluses, and, as this committee knows, we have enormous deficits. Hon. members are pressing us all the time, nevertheless, to go into that field and do it all ourselves when the provinces should take the load.
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Gordon Graydon: Could the minister give the committee any hint as to when this long looked-for dominion-provincial conference is to take place?


James Lorimer Ilsley: As soon as we can get around to it. I am not in a position to make a statement on that. A statement could be made if the hon. gentleman wants it, not on the time, but on, the present stage of the negotiations with the provinces.


Gordon Graydon: Perhaps I had better ask a question of the Prime Minister on that?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Whatever the hon. gentleman would like to do.


Charles Edward Johnston: The minister said there is nothing to stop the provinces from lowering the ages to sixty-five or sixty under the present set-up if they want to do so. The dominion would not pay its share for those new applicants?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No; it would not pay
anything.


Charles Edward Johnston: Therefore if the provinces lowered the age they would have to assume full responsibility-


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Charles Edward Johnston: -for those who came in under that lower age?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Exactly. I do not think I have anything more to say to the hon. gentleman. He has made certain suggestions about the time of the beginning, and all that sort of thing?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I have one question to ask the minister, although when I read Hansard I may find that the answer is there. Did the minister agree with me to the point of giving an undertaking that he would have the departmental officials comb through those regulations and see what could be done about straightening out some of the grievances with a view to communicating further clarifications to the provinces?


James Lorimer Ilsley: We are communicating with the provinces all the time more or less about this. There is a vast amount of correspondence with the provinces going on all the time. What I said was this: I would ask the officials to take this debate and make a list of the suggestions made in it, make a report on those suggestions; that is, say what they thought of them. We do not take the position that we will do anything with regard to these regulations that the provinces want us to do. It is sometimes right when the provinces or particular provinces say they would like to do so-and-so, for the dominion not to do it. [Mr. Ilsley.l
Sometimes that is correct. I do not say their suggestions are not always correct, but there are ten views to reconcile w-ith regard to those regulations, the views of nine provinces and the dominion. Sometimes you get them in agreement and sometimes you cannot.


James Alexander Marshall: I should like to ask the minister a couple of very simple questions. My views are well set in regard to old age pensions; I want the age lowered and the amount increased. The first question I wish to ask the minister is: how much was allotted for this purpose up to March 31, 1944, and of that allotment how much was actually spent? I shall have another question to ask when this is answered.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman is speaking about old age pensions alone, is he?


James Alexander Marshall: The list which appears at page 395 of Hansard shows the amount of $6,942,250 for old age pensions and pensions for the blind for 1944-45. Nothing at all is shown, for 1943-44, which would lead one to believe that no allotment was made last year and no money was spent up to March 31 of this year. The question I am asking now is, what allotment actually was made and what amount of money was expended.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Under the order in council of last August, passed under the War Measures Act, $4,500,000 was allotted from the wrar appropriation and $2,943,494.16 was spent; that is, for old age pensions.


James Alexander Marshall: And pensions for the blind?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The allotment for pensions for the blind was included in the $4,500,000 that covered both. The amount expended on pensions for the blind up to March 31, 1944, was $118,660.21.


James Alexander Marshall: According to the statement made by the minister the other day, liens are not filed against the estates of these old people by the dominion government on amounts of less than $2,000.


James Lorimer Ilsley: To get the groundwork right, the dominion government does not file any liens against anybody.


James Alexander Marshall: That is my understanding; if any liens are filed, that is done by the provincial government.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Right.


James Alexander Marshall: Has the dominion government collected anything from old age pensioners, through the provinces, on account of

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the money that has been expended by the dominion? If so, what amount has been collected, say up to March 31, 1944?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Does the hon. member mean
altogether, or for the one year?


James Alexander Marshall: I should like to have it for last year, and if the minister has the total to date I should like that as well.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I have not the figures here;
I have seen them, but I would not like to give them from memory. It is true that some money has been collected from estates of deceased pensioners, of which seventy-five per cent has been paid to the dominion government.


James Alexander Marshall: Would the minister bring down those figures? I should like to have them.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I had better send them to the hon. gentleman; there will not be time to bring them down during this debate.


James Alexander Marshall: All right; thank you.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
. Payments to millers and other manufacturers of wheat products, $15,000,000.
James Lorimer Ilsley: I wish to make a statement on this. A statement never has been made to the house, and I feel that the country is indebted to the millers for the cooperation they have given in this matter.
These payments relate to the maintenance of the price ceiling, but are shown separately because they are administered by the Canadian wheat board on behalf of the Minister of Finance. As hon. members are aware, flour prices are not permitted to rise above those prevailing in the base period, September 15 to October 11, 1941. Wheat prices, however, have not been subject to the same degree of control; and when in August, 1942, the Canadian wheat board initial price was raised to ninety cents for No. 1 northern in store, Fort William, flour millers were subjected to a serious squeeze. After an investigation by the wartime prices and trade board into milling costs it was decided to make payments to flour millers and other manufacturers of products using western wheat in respect of their domestic sales at a rate equal to the difference between the average monthly price of No. 1 northern wheat and 77$ cents, which was the highest price recorded in the base period when flour ceilings came into effect. This basis of payment was in effect for the year beginning August 1, 1942.
An important change in the basis of payment was made on August 1, 1943. It had been recognized that millers could not be
expected to produce flour for sale in the domestic market if they were unable to obtain western wheat at prices appropriate to the flour ceilings. Some mills, however, as a result of war conditions, were enjoying very large and increased export business, which enabled them to earn excess profits. Most of these increased exports are for Britain and are being financed, in part at least, by Canada. Under these circumstances it was difficult to justify payments to mills earning excess profits even though such profits may be attributable to the export business. After discussions with most of the mills principally affected it was decided to continue payments on the same basis as in the previous year but subject to the refund of any payments contributing to profits taxable at the rate of 100 per cent under the Excess Profits Tax Act. The net effect of this is that the mills will sacrifice the twenty per cent refundable portion of the 100 per cent excess profits tax on any government payments that would have contributed to profits in excess of 1165 per cent of standard profits.
I always intended to say on some occasion, and I want to say now, that I greatly appreciate the cooperation the millers have given the government in this matter.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: This item of $15,000,000 is for 1944-45, but there is no item in the 1943-44 column. I was not quite able to follow the minister's statement, in view of a return which was brought down on March 6.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The allocation took place in August, for some reason or another. I do not know why there was not some allocation in the spring, at the time we presented our war appropriation for 1943. That is the point the hon. gentleman is making, is it not; that there was no allocation last year with which to compare it?


James Arthur Ross: Yes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It may be that we expected that subsidy to come out of the subsidies payable by the wartime prices and trade board. That is the explanation which occurs to me.


James Arthur Ross: It would be the Commodities Prices Stabilization Corporation?


James Lorimer Ilsley: We expected that would be the source of the subsidy, but the wartime prices and trade board did not do it under the corporation, so that later in the year we got an allotment out of the war appropriation, which does not show in the figures presented to the house in the spring of 1943.


James Arthur Ross: Is it expected that this $15,000,000 will take care of all subsidies for the next calendar year?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.
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James Arthur Ross: In a return brought down on March 6 of this year I asked this question:
How many bushels of wheat were used by the millers of Canada during each o-f the years 1942 and 1943?	[DOT]
The answer was:
1942-	93,134.762 bushels;
1943-	108,448,431 bushels.
The prices prevailing over the subsidy paid for 1942 and 1943 varied all the way from 11% cents to 30% cents. The subsidy paid last January on this same basis on No. 1 at Fort William was 47% cents and on durum, 52% cents. I suppose that will prevail right through and be based on the SI.25 price. I assume there is just as good a demand for flour now as there was in those years.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman has not taken into account the profit control factor of the arrangement. The subsidy is reckoned on the basis of the difference between 77% cents and $125, but the arrangement made with the millers for the present grain year which ends July 31 is that that amount will be reduced by the extent to which their profits exceed 116% per cent of their standard profits.


James Arthur Ross: Excess profits.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. That is the reason why I expressed my appreciation of what the millers are doing, because it really worked out to reduce their profits on their export business although this is a subsidy in respect of domestic business. I do not know whether that arrangement can be continued for another year, because there is considerable objection to it by some millers, but they have been very fair to date; I will say that.


James Arthur Ross: I was just asking for information. Have you figured out on a monthly basis the refunds made on the excess profits up to the end of the year?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It would have to be at the end of the financial year.


William Gilbert Weir: I am sorry I did not hear all of the minister's statement. Does this arrangement take into consideration the mills grinding only for domestic use as well as those in the export business? I am thinking particularly of the small mills in the west who would not be in export business. I wanted to know if this arrangement worked out on the same basis as it does for the exporting mills.


James Lorimer Ilsley: They get the full subsidy except to the extent that the subsidy might push them up above 116% per cent of their standard profits. It does not make any difference whether they are in the export business

or not; it is simply that the export end of the business has been more profitable for most companies and that is how a reduction in subsidy was obtained.


Mr. SENN:: Would the eastern mills grinding winter wheat for pastry flour enjoy this subsidy as well as the western mills that are grinding hard wheat?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think so, although I do not know. The idea of the subsidy is that they must sell their flour for what it sold for in the basic period, and therefore they have to buy wheat at the price they were buying it for in the basic period, or at something near that figure. I should think they would have to be subsidized if wheat has gone up in price. It may be that it has not, because I understand that wheat in Ontario was fairly high during the basic period.


James Arthur Ross: I understand that
millers are subsidized on the same basis and that there is no distinction between,the different mills as referred to by the hon. member for Macdonald.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Housing conversion programme, $3,755,000.
Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: Would the minister give us the statement as to what has been achieved under this programme.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will give a statement of the houses converted into apartments and those under construction as of April 30, 1944:
Completed and occupied		Apartments
April 30, 1944	Houses	providedQuebec	. 2	16Montreal 	. 8	66Ottawa and Hull	. 17	94Toronto 	. 7	25Hamilton	. 9	46Brantford	. 3	15Vancouver	. 9	80Victoria	. 5	24-	-Under construction	60	366Quebec	. 9	120Montreal	. 20	140Ottawa and Hull	. 2	19Toronto	. 2	16Hamilton	. 3	19Kingston	. 2	18Galt 	. 1	5Fernie 	. 2	44Vancouver	. 21	298Victoria	. 7	72-	-69	751
If we add those that are completed and occupied to those under construction we get 129 houses to provide 1,117 apartments.

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Mr. HAZEN:: Have any steps been taken to bring this plan into operation in the maritime provinces? I remember some time ago I wrote to the officer in charge about some reconstruction in Saint John, and if my memory serves me correctly he told me that he was on his way to British Columbia but that when he returned he hoped to go to the maritimes to look into the situation there.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The extension of the plan
to Moncton, Saint John and Halifax is authorized, but no work has yet been done in any of those cities.


John Ritchie MacNicol: What is the total number of apartments?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The total number of apartments provided or being provided is 1,117 from 129 houses.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That makes an average of from two to three thousand dollars apiece. The total amount is $3,755,000.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I have not given any figures of cost.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The figures are here-[DOT] housing conversion scheme, $3,755,000.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is not what has been done. That is for the current year.


James Alexander Marshall: How much was spent last year?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The total expenditure to the end of March was $842,201.45.


James Alexander Marshall: How does this scheme differ from the national housing scheme, the wartime housing plan and the home improvement plan? Is it a different scheme entirely?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Oh, yes; it differs in an infinite number of ways.


James Alexander Marshall: Cannot one tie in with the other?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is nothing like the others. Under this the government leases large houses for a number of years, converts them into apartments and then rents the apartments at an amount estimated to bring the government out even at the end of five, six, seven or eight years. The government agrees to turn the property back to the owner in its converted condition at the end of that time.


James Alexander Marshall: Is it not possible to
consolidate some of these housing schemes?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No; this is not like any of the others, and none of the others are alike.


John Ritchie MacNicol: What is the number of applications for this year?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Does the hon. member mean tenants, or property owners, or cities?


John Ritchie MacNicol: How many applications from Toronto, say, to convert these large houses into apartments, and how many apartments is it anticipated will result from conversion in the city of Toronto this year?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There are no applications. The government has to take the initiative- I would not say that that is 100 per cent the case. In Toronto the number of units occupied on May 1 was thirty-four; the number of units under construction sixteen, and the number of additional units estimated to be under construction before December 31, 1944, 166.


Jean-François Pouliot: Housing is an urgent matter to a large number of Canadian citizens, and there is no reason why members of parliament should be deprived from taking advantage of housing legislation. It seems to me that it would be in order to amend the Senate and House of Commons Act to allow members of parliament to enjoy the same rights as any other Canadian citizen to live in houses of their own under the government housing scheme. Members of parliament should not be permitted to take advantage of the legislation to build apartments or houses to rent out. I hope the minister will consider the matter and give his thought to it so that housing of which we hear so much may become an accomplished fact in the near future. To my knowledge people are living in sheds and barns. That may do in the summer but people should have better accommodation than that in the winter. The minister is open-minded and, I am sure, will realize that fact, and I trust that he will consider favourably the suggestion I have made regarding members of parliament and members of the senate as well.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The difficulty is the Independence of Parliament Act, is it?


Jean-François Pouliot: Exactly.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That can be given consideration, but I do not know that we would be justified in bringing in an amendment to the act.


Jean-François Pouliot: Let me explain to the minister. Suppose that a member of parliament is a tenant and wants a home of his own. He would be satisfied with a modest little home just the same as the labouring man or anybody else in this country. AH other Canadians can take advantage of the housing schemes, and I do not see why the Independence of Parliament Act should not be amended to permit a member of parliament to
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have his own little home under a government housing scheme the same as any other Canadian citizen.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Some members might say that they are entitled to have their own little contracts with the government just like any other Canadian citizen, but they cannot.


Jean-François Pouliot: I have been told that some members of parliament are shareholders in companies which build a lot of these houses, and have contracts for building from twelve to twenty houses. If they can do that, why cannot a member of parliament have his own little house?


Thomas Reid: In connection with the renovating of old homes on the Pacific coast complaint is made that they are allowed a rental which represents a ten per cent increase over the rental of modern apartments in the same vicinity. A great deal has been said regarding the plight of tenants and no doubt much may be said on their behalf. On the other hand, something may be said for landlords who own houses. I know of one landlord who rented a house for S25 a month. The man to whom he has rented it draws S80 a -month from that same house. The landlord pays all the taxes and all the upkeep and takes all the responsibility for S25 a month, while the man who has the house lives in a two-roo-m suite in the basement, rents the rest of the house, and draws 8960 a year in rentals. That is a serious complaint.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That has nothing to do with this plan.


Thomas Reid: It comes under the renovation of homes. Why should old homes that are renovated be allowed a higher rental than modern suites right in the same vicinity?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I know there was complaint in Vancouver. I did not hear it from anywhere else. We went into that very carefully and I thought I had it straightened out. I know the housing administration agreed with the wartime prices and1 trade board that they would not transgress the rental ceiling regulations, and I have every reason to believe that they carried out that agreement. They say they have anyway.


Stanley Howard Knowles: As the minister has
already indicated, this housing conversion programme is just one of the ways in which the government has tried to do something about the housing situation in time of war. The minister has already announced in this chamber that certain other steps will be taken in due course. As he knows, in practically all our cities our local municipal people are quite

concerned about the housing situation. Many municipal councils and voluntary bodies are giving a great deal of study to the whole question. Bearing in mind the fact that the minister and his officials will be giving consideration to ways and means of supplementing this part of the programme with other housing legislation, I should like to draw to his attention two suggestions which have been placed in my hands, with the thought that consideration might be given to them now, in advance of the presenting of that legislation.
The first suggestion is contained in a resolution sent me by the Winnipeg council on rehabilitation and post-war reconstruction, which is one of the voluntary bodies to which I referred a moment ago. I will quote the resolution:
Whereas there are at -all times considerable differences in the cost of identical structures in the various cities and provinces of Canada,
And whereas unavoidable variations also arise -from differences in climate, subsoil, drainage and other physical factors,
Resolved that this council urge .parliament, in its revision of the housing acts, to take these regional differentials into account in:
a.	Setting the upper limit of eost-per-unit
for low-rental housing projects, and
b.	Prescribing the lending values and the
maximum amount of individual loans on single-family units.
The other suggestion I would make to the minister in advance of any legislation which may be -brought down is, in my view, an urgent matter. I endeavoured to ask a question about it the other day, but it was -intimated that I might ask it in another way, and I put it to the minister now. In view of the announcement made by the government, which announcement we welcome, to the effect that something is to be done about housing, there is an increasing demand for building lots upon which homes may be -built in various cities, and -that increasing demand results immediately in the prices of these building lots starting to go up.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Are they actually going up?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I have been advised by
at least one real estate agent-of all people- in the city from which I come that that is taking place right now, and the fear was expressed to me -that it would nullify to some extent the advantages of the government's housing proposals. My suggestion is that it might be proper and consistent with what the government is doing to arrange for -the freezing of prices of lots available for the erection of new homes. The price at which lots would be frozen would have to be related to something

the assessed value, or the value of the home to be built, or as the minister might

War Appropriation-Mines and Resources
determine. It seems to me that the question should be considered along with other plans for helping to relieve the housing situation.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will ask the officials'for _a
report on that proposal. We considered it in the past and thought it was entirely impracticable, and I think still it may be entirely impracticable, but I will not shut my eyes to the possibility of something along that line being done. I can see plenty of grief ahead if we try to place a price on real estate.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I will tell the minister privately from whom the suggestion came.


Gordon Graydon: I am very much interested in the suggestion of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, and I ask him only for information with respect to it

to what basic period would he hitch the price in a freezing arrangement for real estate? Good as the plan may be-and I understand what he has in mind-the difficulty will be to find some base upon which to set the price at which the land will be frozen. Has he any practical suggestion with respect to that?


Stanley Howard Knowles: This problem is one which literally is as old as the hills, namely, the way in which land values rise when a demand is created in this way. It strikes me that some such period as the present time, or the period just prior to the recent announcement of the proposals by the government for the building of homes, might be a suitable time. The difficulty involved was my reason for suggesting, when I spoke earlier, that the problem would have to be worked out by the department, preferably with reference to one of the bases I suggested, but it seems to me that it should be tackled, lest some of the good involved in the government's plan be lost in these increased prices of building lots.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I do not think there is any increase in the cost of building lots. I know of a great number of lots in Toronto, Hamilton and Peterborough which would sell now for much less than they did away back in the boom days. Some lots which cost as much as $500 can now be bought for $50 or $100. People are glad to get rid of them; they cannot carry them because of the income tax.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Sundries, $178,720.
John Ritchie MacNicol: Of what is this amount made up?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Expenses of administration, employee's plan, $164,220; overseas cheque adjustment branch office, $3,500; payment of
premiums on the purchase of Dominion of Canada registered stock, $1,000; payment of losses of remittances for war savings certificates and stamps, $8,000; miscellaneous small loses on war savings certificates, stamps, et cetera, $2,000; total, $178,720.


John Ritchie MacNicol: How would the losses in connection with the stamps occur?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The $8,000 is to provide for payment of losses of remittances for war savings certificates and losses by fire or theft of war savings stamps or proceeds of the same in accordance with order in council P.C. 117359 of August 9, 1942. It is estimated that the average monthly loss will be between $650 and $700.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Surveys and engineering branch-
Prince Rupert-Terrace-Cedarvale highway, $3,000,000.
John Ritchie MacNicol: About how many miles
of the road are completed? I understood it was to be finished a year ago. Is it still under construction?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The total mileage of road to which we are committed in the construction is 110 and one-third miles. That includes the road from Rupert to Kitwanga.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Alongside the river.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No; it is alongside the railway, and in some places alongside the river. When this matter was under discussion the other evening it was urged, I believe by almost all members from British Columbia, that the government should be a little more generous in reference to this road in northern British Columbia. I explained to the committee at that time the genesis of the road, and I need not repeat it now. It is true that, if not wholly, 'at least largely the military needs have disappeared.


Howard Charles Green: We hope.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes, as we see it at the moment. I have gone into the matter since we discussed it before, and although it is difficult to make a definite statement now, possibly we may be able to save something on the amount appropriated for the maintenance of this 110 miles of road. That depends on weather conditions and on spring freshets which may carry out small bridges and culverts. There is the possibility, however, that the amount estimated may not all be required. If it is not, then I am quite willing
3550	COMMONS
War Appropriation-Mines and Resources
to say to the government of British Columbia that if they will duplicate what we provide for the measure of rehabilitation of the road from Kitwanga to Bazelton, which was the contention advanced the other night, we shall be prepared to go phead. I justify that solely on the possibility that the road may yet have to serve a military purpose.
I understand that on the Kitwanga-Hazelton section there is a road of sorts in existence, and that the work to be done is that of rehabilitation and bringing it up to a higher standard, with particular attention to a few short distances which under certain weather conditions are almost impassable. It was the intention of the government to bring the matter to the attention of the government of British Columbia. After all, for military purposes we have spent something like $11,000,000 -or will have spent it-on this stretch of road including maintenance. And when the war ends it is scarcely to be expected that the federal government would maintain it. It would then be the responsibility of the province, and the road will be handed over to the province without any expectation of repayment.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: Is that the complete road?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The road as it is-as it will be completed.


George Alexander Cruickshank: What good will it
be that way?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The completed road?


George Alexander Cruickshank: No; it is not completed.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am speaking of the section we are completing. This road was built for military purposes. When the military need disappears the road is turned over to the province, without any expense. In effect, what happens is that, because of the military need for this road, British Columbia gets over 111 miles of completed road which cost over $10,000,000, and we are not asking the province to repay any of it.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Well, why should
they?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am not suggesting that they should. I believe I have covered the information the hon. member wants.


Howard Charles Green: Will the dominion maintain the road until the conclusion of the war with Japan?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I will not attempt to make any prediction now as to what may be done

next year. There is in this vote an amount that our engineers estimate will be sufficient to maintain it for the present fiscal year.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I should like to ask a question. Probably the hon. member for Skeena would like to speak.


Mr. HANSON (Skeena):: The explanation given by the minister seems to be satisfactory. He says they are going to complete the road, and he hopes they will have ways and means to fix up the gaps on the provincial highway. Probably we should not expect him to go farther than that.


Jean-François Pouliot: I have no objection to that road. On the other hand I cannot see why nothing has been done in connection with an old military road between Riviere du Loup and Madawaska, through Edmundston, and so on. It is an old military road, part of route No. 2, and the government has not done anything in connection with it. For some time money was spent on the trans-Canada highway. The province of Ontario had millions upon millions of dollars, and the province of Quebec had very little. We are now at war. We have a military road in the east, offering the best outlet between the St. Lawrence and the state of Maine. We have as our ally the United States, and there is a good deal of traffic in that locality. When military trucks go to Halifax they pass that way, because it is the shortest route. It is protected, and I cannot see why something is not done for that route.
I now bring the matter to the attention of the minister. He is a broadminded man, and has already done some things at my request. They were not big, in themselves, but I appreciated them just the same as if they had been very big. I hope this time he will realize the importance of this connecting link between the St. Lawrence river, particularly the county of Temiscouata, and the county of Madawaska, from which the Minister of Transport comes.
W'hen one of the minister's lamented colleagues was Minister of Labour, the Hon. Mr. Rogers, some intrigue was made to change the course of that highway. Mr. Rogers would not allow it. He understood the strategic importance of the road. His opinion was most valuable from a strategical point of view, because afterwards he was appointed as the one and only Minister of National Defence, at the start of the war. He had as much military experience in his own head as the three present war ministers have now. And for all those considerations I hope the minister will pay due attention to the matter, consider it and recommend it to his colleagues, for the best interests of this country.

War Appropriation-Mines and Resources


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The road to which the hon. member from Temiscouata refers is one that certainly should have consideration in the post-war development of this country. As my hon. friend has quite properly stated, it will be recalled that from 1936 on, the federal government made a contribution to the various provinces to assist in building what were known to be tourist roads, or roads which might serve tourist purposes. I certainly hope-and I am expressing my own personal views-that consideration will be given to that when the war is over.
But the road we are now considering, from Kitwanga to Prince Rupert, was not assisted because it would develop into a tourist route. The purpose of this expenditure was purely military. If that necessity had not arisen I can say to the committee that the government would not have spent a dollar on this road. I hope that explanation will satisfy my hon. friend to some extent.


Jean-François Pouliot: 1 think the minister is halfway to conversion, but I would tell him that the hon. members from British Columbia have insisted all the time that there was a danger to their shores, and so on. I supported them, but when it comes to the east we are very much exposed. The hon. member for Gaspe and I were laughed at when we spoke of the danger. We do not know the future. We do not know what the enemy contemplates doing on the eastern coast. The war is not yet over. The Prime Minister told us not long ago that the war was far from won and that we would still have a long time to fight before it was won. Mr. Churchill said the same thing. I am not asking this from the tourist point of view. I ask it for the army men who travel there in their trucks and bring ammunition and other war materials. I had hoped that the minister would understand it. I know it is easier for him to understand those problems than any one of the three war ministers, and that is why I ask him to-night. I do not object to what has been done for Prince Rupert and British Columbia, but there is a possible danger in the east. I am not a scaremonger, but I can use the same language as western members have used.


Olof Hanson: You have no Japanese.


Jean-François Pouliot: No; but the Germans came close to our shores and it is precisely because the hon. member for Gaspe and I insisted on better protection that the danger was not so serious last summer. I will tell the hon. member for Skeena that I do not object to what has been done for his constituency. The
Japanese have their eyes not only on Prince Rupert. We do not know what is in the mind of the enemy. We must be ready to repel any attack, and as we boast of our friendship and amity with the United States the first thing we should expect is good roads to connect the two countries. I would think it foolish to ask something only for my constituency. I do not ask it only for my constituency; I ask it for eastern Canada because it is the best link between United States and Canada. I bring it to the attention of the minister in the hope that something will be done in that regard.


James Alexander Marshall: I have one simple question to ask the minister. I understand that a substantial amount of money, something over a quarter of a million dollars, was advanced to contractors to purchase machinery on this road. How much of this money has been paid back and how much remains unpaid?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: If I understood my hon. friend's question aright it was, did the government purchase machinery?


James Alexander Marshall: The government advanced a sum of money in excess of a quarter of a million dollars to purchase machinery. Of this amount a certain quantity has been recovered. How much has been recovered and how much is.outstanding?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: There was an amount of $210,000 of machinery purchased or provided by the department. That was charged up against the contracts.


James Alexander Marshall: It does not seem to be right, somewhere or another.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I cannot hear my hon. friend.


James Alexander Marshall: On page J-63 of the auditor general's report for the year 1943, there appears this item:
Recoverable expenditure in connection with purchase of machinery on behalf of contractors amounting to $258,598.44 of which $152,576.16 has been recovered, leaving a balance of $106,022.28 outstanding.
Of that debt, how much is still outstanding?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am advised it is all paid back. There was some question of priorities. It was essential that the contractors get the machinery. They were unable to do so. The department was able to get the necessary priorities for the purchase of the machinery and it was turned over to the contractor. It has all been paid back. That is the advice my officers give me.


James Alexander Marshall: I am not questioning the transaction. I asked if it had been cleared up.
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War Appropriation-Mines and Resources


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I can say to my hon.
friend that I am advised it has been all cleared up.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Employment of persons of the Japanese race and/or Japanese nationals, $1,000,000.
Alan Webster Neill: Mr. Chairman, I will not
detain the committee, and I do not propose to reopen the whole Japanese question because we discussed it the other day and we rested on the promise of the then acting leader of the government that we would have a definite statement of policy from the Prime Minister later on. I am rising to-night only to make a correction in a statement that has been very much circulated. I might pause here for a minute to say I wonder why it is that whenever this subject comes up the information furnished to the public is so very often misleading and invariably misleading in favour of our Japanese enemies. The hon. member for New Westminster in his speech the other day said, I think, that there was a group of officials in Ottawa

I do not exactly know how he put it -who were very, very sympathetic to the Japanese. I begin to think he is right.
As I say, why is it that information is always or often at any rate false and apparently so absolutely innocent. The other day the Minister of Labour made this statement. I am sorry he is not in his seat at the moment, but before I say what I am going to say, may I say that I am perfectly certain he did not intend to deceive the house when he made his statement. He is not built that way. Before he made the statement he expressed sympathy with our point of view. He said, as reported in Hansard, that seventy-five per cent of the Japanese in the dominion were born here. Well, that is absolutely and entirely false. That is all that is wrong with that. The correct figure is twenty-eight per cent-a vast difference. Once you start a lie going, goodness knows how far it will go. I repeat that the minister did not make that false statement wilfully. He just repeated what somebody else had handed him. Some day in the distant future perhaps we shall be able to get around to those officials alluded to by the hon. member for New Westminster and deal with them adequately. Look how it spreads. Here is an article in " Canada at War." It is supposed to be an accurate description, of course, of our efforts in action in the war. This is what appears on Page 55:
Seventy-five per cent of the Japanese in Canada are Japanese-Canadians.
That is, born in Canada, as stated by the Minister of Labour. As I say, the only trouble with that is that it is entirely false. There can be no doubt about that. I have in my hand a

booklet called " Removal of Japanese from the Protected Area in British Columbia." It is a report issued by the British Columbia security commission. They knew all about it, if anyone did. Here is what they say on page 3:
In March of 1941 the many thousands of Japanese domiciled in Canada, practically all of whom were in British Columbia, had been required to register themselves with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the resulting records reveal the following details: Canadian born 6,727, naturalized 7,011, nationals-
That means Japanese not naturalized.
-9,758; United States citizens 16; total 23,512.
If you analyse those figures you will find that instead of seventy-five per cent being Canadian born, it is only twenty-eight per cent. Why the difference? Oh, if you trace it down far enough somebody will say, "We made a mistake," but why are the mistakes always, on the one side? This pamphlet is circulated far and wide; it goes across the country, to our men in the trenches and everywhere else. "Oh," they say, "do not make a fuss about it; seventy-five per cent of the Japanese are born in Canada." It is not seventy-five per cent but only twenty-eight per cent.
Here is something else which was just put in my hands, and remember that I do not go around hunting for trouble. Not long ago the hon. member for Peterborough West asked for a return showing the Japanese who have been allowed to remain in the protected area, out of which they were all supposed to be moved. The return brought down-and I did not ask for it-showed something like ninety-seven. I glanced over the list, and was attracted by the occupations of these people who have been allowed to remain in a protected and therefore dangerous area. Some of their occupations are: aircraft fitter; Empress hotel laundry; retired; no occupation; lawyer; warehouse foreman; cook-house employee; tap dancer-you will readily understand the necessity for having a tap dancer remain in this area-floor lady; factory worker; candy packer; dentist, and so on. I thought there was something funny about it, and took it upon myself to write the department concerned and ask why it was necessary to have so many Japanese in that area. They wrote back and said that they had looked into the thing and that there had been a mistake of forty, that some forty of these people should not have been on the list. Can they not bring down a return covering ninety-seven people without being wrong about forty of them? If I had not dug into that it would have gone out to the world, whatever object they sought to achieve by making this mis-

War Appropriation-Mines and Resources
leading statement in a return brought down at the request of the hon. member for Peterborough West.
I rose for the purpose of putting hon. members straight about that seventy-five per cent, but while I am on my feet perhaps I may be permitted to present something else to the committee which came to me not half an hour ago. I have in my hand a copy of a bill introduced in the house of representatives at Washington on May 9, 1944, not a month ago, by Mr. Mott. The bill is, "To provide for the deportation of Japanese aliens." I quote the first sentence of section 2:
Within thirty days after the approval of this act the attorney general of the United States shall proceed to prepare warrants for the deportation of all undesirable aliens as defined in section 1 of this act.
I think it was the minister now before us who told us the other day that to a large extent we would have to be guided by the policy of the United States in regard to the Japanese. Well, this is a sample of that policy. Of course this bill has not been passed as yet; it was introduced only three weeks ago, but at least it is evidence of what some thinking and perhaps foresighted men in the United States congress are doing. I must correct myself. It was not the minister now before us; it was the then acting leader of the government who said that we would have to be guided to some extent by the policy adopted by the United States. At any rate I would present this bill as an illustration of what the people of the United States are thinking about this subject.


Grote Stirling: Would the minister break down this item? Obviously it covers the use of Japanese in the work under the surveys and engineering branch. Would he describe where they are working, and would he say what proportion of them are Canadian bom and what proportion are Japanese nationals?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I do not know that I can answer the last question asked by the hon. member for Yale. I should like to make it clear to the committee that the surveys and engineering branch of the Department of Mines and Resources is simply supervising the work the government decided should be done by these Japanese. Other than that we as a department have no interest in it. There are several projects upon which the Japanese have been employed. There is the Ilope-Princeton highway in British Columbia, the Revelstoke-Sicamous highway, the Yellow-head-Blue River highway, which I think is up on the North Thompson river or somewhere in that part of British Columbia, and in addition a small number were employed on the trans-Canada highway at Schreiber, Ontario.
Mr, STIRLING:	Only those four projects
in Canada?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes; those four highway
projects. At April 1, 1943, we had employed on these various works some 876 Japanese. By January 31, 1944, that number had decreased to 49S, and it has further declined to 417 as of May 20 of this year. The decline in the number engaged in this road work is explained by the fact that they have been put at other work. A number were taken away to work in the sugar beet fields of Manitoba, and I think a number were brought to Ontario for the same purpose. Some of them are working on farms as agricultural labourers. They are working at different jobs all the way from the eastern boundaries of British Columbia to Ontario. That explains the decline in the number employed on these road projects, and is also the explanation for the decrease in the vote asked for this year as compared with last year.


Grote Stirling: Could the minister divide the 417 as among the four projects?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes. As at May 20, on
the Hope end of the Hope-Princeton highway there were ninety-six, and on the Princeton end, 150; on the Revelstoke-Sicamous road, fifty-nine; on the Yellowhead-Blue River road, ninety ; on the Trans-Canada highway at Schrieber, twenty-two.


Thomas Reid: Why should we require a
million-dollar vote to take care of only 417 Japanese? That works out at about $2,400 each, which is more than is earned hy a good ' many Canadian citizens. I am wondering why this amount should be required.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: At the time these estimates were prepared there were about 520 Japanese employed in this work, and the number might increase again; some of those employed elsewhere might be brought back to these roads.


Thomas Reid: How much are they paid per
day or per hour?


Alan Webster Neill: The more there are, the more expensive they become, apparently.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am advised that they
are paid twenty-five cents an hour, but in addition this vote covers the purchase of equipment. All this money does not go in wages, by any means; it includes equipment and supplies.


George Alexander Cruickshank: What equipment is there on the Hope-Princeton highway? On one of my visits all I saw Operating was one broken down bulldozer and one shovel. What equipment does the federal government supply?
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War Appropriation-Mines and Resources


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am told that there was
some equipment rented or supplied by' the British Columbia government, and then other equipment, such as trucks, tools and so on, had to be purchased. The total vote this year is $1,000,000 as against $2,200,000 last year.


Alan Webster Neill: That makes $3,200,000 in two years. It would have been cheaper to keep them in drawing-rooms.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The estimated expenditure for last year was $1,014,000.


Thomas Reid: How much road work did they do for that?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I think I can give my hon. friend that information. Here are the details of the Hope-Princeton project. Length of project when work began, 88-8 miles. On. the Princeton end . existing road and tote road have been improved, cleared out and made passable to Allison Summit, a distance of fifty miles from Princeton. In this section six miles of standard road, twenty to twenty-four feet in width, have been constructed.
On the Hope end the partly graded road between Hope and Tashme has been maintained, widened and improved over a distance of fourteen miles. This work included some new simple bridges. Work has been continued on the pioneer road towards Allison Summit, and this road has now been connected through, but is not yet suitable for general travel. Progress has been made on the 1-6 mile revision at mile 4 from Hope.
At the inception of the Yellowhead-Blue river project there were 115 miles of road impassable-that is rather an Irish way of putting it-or not opened up between Yellowhead and Blue river. The work of the Japanese has been concentrated on constructing a tote road passable to cars and trucks between these two points. Up to the present time there is a total of 99 [DOT] 5 miles of road passable to trucks, and with the addition of some unconnected sections that are ready, there is only a total of some six miles of tote road north of Blue river to be completed. The bridge over the North Thompson river near Gosnell has been completed.
Work on the Revelstoke-Sicamous project has consisted of improving alignment and reconstruction on various sections along some 44i miles of the trans-Canada highway westerly from Revelstoke. Standard road is being built, and a substantial amount of work has been done. During most of the construction period five work camps were operated, but late in 1943 this number was reduced to three, in view of the taking of Japanese to other projects.

There would have to be a good deal of heavy equipment for that type of construction in a mountainous country. As I said a moment ago, some of that was supplied or lent by the British Columbia government, but a good deal had to be purchased. Camps supplies and so on had to be purchased.


George Alexander Cruickshank: When the construction was going on, there were two small bulldozers which had been supplied by the provincial government and two compressors, neither one of which would blow up a bicycle tire. There was only one bulldozer which was supplied by the federal govermnent and which came from Banff. Then there were one Ford truck, one Ford light delivery truck and a small shovel. I know this because I went there many times since this project is in my riding. I am not complaining of what the minister's department has done, but with the excessive rates being paid. I think the federal government would have been well advised in spending some money on decent equipment in order that we might accomplish something. I understood the minister to say that the Hope-Princeton highway was a passable road for forty miles. It might be called a passable road in Flin Flon but not in British Columbia.


Thomas Reid: Passable for a mule team.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Not a mule team; passable for a mule up ahead with a camel in between. It certainly is not passable. I should like to know from the minister just what equipment there is on the Hope-Princeton highway. After all, we are paying out all this money and, since the wartime prices and trade board partly handles the money of the country,
I think it would be sound economy to have a little equipment which would enable these Japs to accomplish something. I should like to know what equipment there is on the Hope-Princeton highway at present and what there was last year, and how much was supplied by the provincial government.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am sorry, but I have not an inventory of the equipment used on the road out there. Some of it was supplied by the federal government and some of it by the provincial department. At any rate, there was enough supplied to have the work carried on.


George Alexander Cruickshank: No, no.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: My hon. friend may say, "No, no". I have no doubt the work was handicapped by the type of equipment, but I would tell my hon. friend and the committee that it was very difficult to get priorities for equipment of that kind. I think the department did a creditable job with the equipment

War Appropriation-Mines and Resources
they had. At the Hope end there were two shovels, four bulldozers, five to six trucks and the necessary small tools. I have not the list of equipment at the other end. This information may be of interest to the committee. In 1943-44 there was spent on the Yellowhead-Blue river project, $159,000; on the Hope-Princeton project, both ends, $4(39,000; on the Revelstoke-Sicamous project, $276,000 and on the Schreiber-trans-Canada project, $42,000. The administration costs were over $7,800.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Was the $409,000 on the Hope-Princeton project all labour?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That includes supervision, equipment, supplies for the men, the building of camps, wages and all that sort of thing. The committee will bear in mind that these camps must be up to certain standards, as must the treatment of the Japanese. We may not like it, but there are Canadians in Japan. I do not know just what percentage of these Japanese are Japanese nationals, but the camp conditions would be subject to inspection by the protecting power which Japan employs for supervision in Canada, just as would the situation of our Canadians in Japan be subject to inquiry and investigation by the protecting power that Canada uses in that country.


Gordon Graydon: Does Japan give us the same cooperation as we give her?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The standards are set by international law.


Gordon Graydon: Do both countries carry out that international law the same way?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I think so, as far as I know


George Alexander Cruickshank: No, no.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It is all very well to say, "No, no", but in answer to the question asked by the leader of the opposition I cannot say that I have any knowledge that it is any different. At any rate, those are the expenditures on the different projects. The work will be reduced this year because many of the Japanese employed on road projects have been taken to other work. A year ago-and also this year-a number were working in the sugar beet fields in Manitoba and, I think, in Ontario. Some are engaged in domestic service in some of the cities in the east, I have heard, although 1 have no actual knowledge of that.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I want to keep the record straight. I am not quarrelling with the $409,000, but I say that that $409,000 should not all be charged against the Hope-Princeton highway. According to the minister himself we must provide a certain class of camp and so on, so that part of the charge of looking after the Japanese is not properly chargeable
to the highway. It has nothing to do with the construction of the highway. Am I not correct in that?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It depends on. how you look at it. Here is a project on which we put Japanese. Certainly as minister administering a department I want to know every dollar of expenditure that goes into that project. I do not think it would make any difference in the total amount spent. The situation was that we had to move these Japanese from the Pacific coast for security reasons. I do not need to go into that because it is an old story that has been discussed many times in the house. The Japs had to be got away from the Pacific coast, and got away as quickly as possible. They had to be put at some kind of work. In the beginning a large number of them were employed on road projects in British Columbia. I think the expenditure on the road has been reasonable. I do not say for one moment that we have got the same value in work per man out of the Japanese that a contractor would have got who could dismiss a man if he was not satisfactory. We could not dismiss the Japanese from the road. We had to make the best of them. I think on the whole the work was carried out with credit to those in charge of it.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I think they did some excellent work on the Hope-Princeton highway. We are getting only two-bits-an-hour work out of them anyway. But what I want to make clear is this. The overhead of Tashme camp, the biggest Jap camp in Canada, should not be charged to the Hope-Princeton highway. I give the department full credit for doing excellent work in opening up that highway, but you would have got far greater value if you had procured some decent equipment for road building. That highway happens to be the kind where the greater part of the work must be done by heavy machinery, and you would save some of the taxpayers' money if you got decent equipment, instead of spending all this money on tap dancers or something like that.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I shall be glad to take my hon. friend's suggestions into consideration.


Robert Fair: Does the government set any particular rate of pay for Japanese working on farms, or do they receive the prevailing rate of wages in the district?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The Department of Mines and Resources has nothing to do with that. I have no information on that. My hon. friend will have to ask the Minister of Labour.


Thomas Reid: I want to ask a question of the minister but, first I want to draw to the
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attention of the committee and the country an important statement that the minister made this evening, the significance of which may have been overlooked. There are opinions in this country, both political and otherwise, that the Japanese in this country are Canadian citizens. But the minister in answer to the hon. member for Fraser Valley said that one of the reasons why we have to treat the Japanese in this country fairly is that there is an agreement governing the treatment we shall accord to the nationals of Japan and that if we do not treat them accordingly Japan will object. But if the Japanese in Canada are Canadians, why should we worry? I trust that everyone gets the significance of the minister's answer.
We in British Columbia hold that the Japanese owe allegiance to Japan, that Japan counts every one of them as her nationals, and the minister has substantiated our point of view because he has said that they are all Japanese, and they being Japanese we must not offend Japan by our treatment of these Japanese, because we have some Canadian citizens in Japanese custody and if we offend the Japanese in Canada Japan will hold us to account. I hope those who are championing the Japanese in this country will take note of the minister's statement to-night, which to me is very significant. He has said what we have always held and hold to-day, that in spite of all the froth and stuff being said about the Japanese in Canada, every one of them still belongs to Japan and Japan is holding us and will hold us to account.


Gordon Graydon: Who are championing the Japanese in Canada?


Thomas Reid: The leaders of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in British Columbia are championing them. Let me draw the attention of the leader of the opposition to what was said a short time ago. The leaders of the C.C.F. in British Columbia are saying that those of us who hold the view that the Japanese in Canada are still Japanese and should be sent back to Japan are just indulging in political propaganda. It is the leaders of the C.C.F. who have brought this question into the realm of politics and who are saying that we are acting under a party whip, that the old parties have a whip and that they crack it over our heads. If you took a secret vote of the people of British Columbia you would find that the rank and file of the C.C.F. are with us in this fight. But they dare not open their mouths because their leaders say that they would rather retire from the party than submit to that kind of thing. This is going to be one of the fights in British 
Columbia. The leaders of the C.C.F. in British Columbia have become the avowed champions of the Japanese in this country, and of that I shall speak later on in this house. The statement of the minister to-night places the Japanese in Canada where we have always placed them. They belong to Japan, the minister says, and we must abide by the international agreement and treat the Japanese in Canada fairly.
The question I wanted to ask the minister regarding this vote, which is not as large as last year's vote, when $2,000,000 was spent, was this. Statements have been made in this house and in British Columbia that some of the work done on this road by the Japanese was a scandal. Delegations from the board of trade of Vancouver have said the same, that the road work done by the Japanese, who receive only twenty-five cents an hour, is a scandal. The minister speaks of dollar for dollar value. Has he taken note of this charge that has been made? Can he tell the people of this country that we are getting value for the money spent on the roads?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No. Under the circumstances I think we are getting as reasonable value for the money expended as we could expect. We have to keep in mind what the position is. The Japanese have been evacuated from the Pacific coast and sent into the interior of British Columbia. We employ them at work. If a Japanese is not working satisfactorily you cannot say, "You are off the job," as a contractor would say to a workman who was not giving him satisfaction. That probably results in not as efficient work from the Japanese as a whole as a contractor would get from a similar number of labourers he had hired to work for him. But in the light of all the circumstances I think a reasonable return is being secured for the money expended.
Somebody asked me a moment ago if I knew how many of the people employed on these projects were Japanese nationals and how many were not. I am unable to give that information. The hon. member for New Westminster states that Japan considers as Japanese nationals all these people, whether bom in Canada or not.


Thomas Reid: That is important.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I have no knowledge personally of the views of the Japanese government on this point, although I have no reason whatever to question the statement of the hon. member for New Westminster. Our officers cannot inform me how many may be regarded as Japanese nationals and how many, under our laws, would not be so regarded.
JUiNE 5, 1944
War Appropriation-Mines and Resources


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The minister mentioned a little while ago that we had to be very careful because of Canada having nationals in Japan. In the return mentioned by the hon. member for Comox-Albemi and dated Thursday, March 2, 1944, it is stated that in these camps they have 204 radios. I wonder whether the Japanese are allowing the Canadians in Japan to have radios. Also I see that in Roseberry camp we are supplying eight school teachers; in New Denver camp, thirty teachers; in Slocan camp, ten teachers; in Kaslo, nine; in Sandon, eight; in Lemon Creek, twenty-four, and in Tashme, twenty-nine. Are these children taught English or are they taught Japanese in the camps?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I have no knowledge on the particular point, because I believe the camps to which my hon. friend refers are not under the direction of this department.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Oh, yes; New Denver and Tashme are under the department; at any rate Tashme is. The hon. member for New Westminster mentioned the C.CF. party in connection with the Japanese. I know that the hon. member for Vancouver East, who' unfortunately is not here to-day, gave a talk here to a group of ladies who have what is called a school for citizenship eveiy Wednesday night, and in his address he said that Japanese should intermarry with Canadians.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Who said that?


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The hon. member for Vancouver East. He said practically the same thing in this chamber last year.


Clarence Gillis: Nonsense.


Thomas Reid: It won't be tried out in his family.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: No; That is the trouble with the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party; they like to try things out on somebody else, not on themselves. Could the minister find out if these teachers are teaching English or teaching Japanese. Every one of them is a Japanese. I think he should also find out if our nationals in Japan are privileged to have radios.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: My hon. friend was referring to the camp at Tashme?


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Yes.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is not one of the camps where people are employed for this work.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Then will the minister name the camps?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Tashme camp is under the Department of Labour. I do not know whether the Japanese in these camps have radios. I cannot say, and I do not think anyone here can say, whether Canadians interned in Japan have them or not.


Mr. SINCLAIR:: We can say that they have not. They have not even Red Cross parcels.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That may be.


John Ewen Sinclair: That is so.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Just read the papers.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: However, the camp of which the hon. member for Peterborough West was speaking is, I understand, Tashme. That is not one of these.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The men are taken from Tashme and come out on the road. Do not tell me they are not on the Hope-Princeton highway. I have ridden on a truck with them. The Japs get better treatment than I did.


Grote Stirling: I am very much interested in one statement the minister made this evening, namely, that part of this S109,000 was to purchase equipment for this road. I am fairly well acquainted with the Princeton end of the road, just as my hon. friend is acquainted with the Hope end of it, and I was not aware that the dominion government had any equipment of this kind on it. The road has been getting what equipment it could from the department of public works of British Columbia. If the government is purchasing equipment to get on with the work I commend the minister very highly for it, and I only wish he would buy some more, for this reason. The gap in this highway is one of the greatly desired things of the whole of the southern part of British Columbia and Alberta. It is sixty or eighty years since this road was started, and it has always been held up. The inhabitants in that neighbourhood have been looking on during the last one or two years at the work which the Japanese are doing on that road, in the great hope that it will be finished at last. Now the minister has the disappointing story to tell that the numbers employed are diminishing. A difficulty to which I think the minister did not refer is that only those Japanese go to the road camps who are ready to work at the road camps. My hon. friend has referred to the settlement at Tashme. The Hope-Princeton road passes close to Tashme, and there are I do not know how many, running into the thousands, of Japanese men, women and children there. But the difficulty is that if



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they do not choose to work on that road work they can look up at it on the mountain side there but they do not work. No way has yet been found to induce the men of that Tashme camp to go out and work on that road; only those go out to work on it who are ready to do so for the remuneration paid to them. As that number dwindles and as the work is finished which labourers can do with shovels, all the more necessity for road machinery, and it needs only about one season's work with adequate machinery to get that long-desired work finished. Anything that the minister can do to increase the equipment will be very much appreciated all through the southern part of British Columbia.
Item agreed to.
Post-war construction programme-planning, $420,000.
Gordon Knapman Fraser: Is this post-war work of the minister's department only, or is it a general plan? The Minister of Public Works, I believe, had a post-war estimate down, and when we questioned him he discovered that it was just to refit some of the buildings.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: This covers only the Department of Mines and Resources. Perhaps I might explain it briefly to the committee. Part of the vote is for national parks improvements expected to be undertaken when the war is over.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The vote calls only for plans.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: During the last four years practically no work has been done in the national parks. We have in our national parks across Canada approximately 1,000 miles of roads or highways. The department has had in mind for some considerable time hard-surfacing these roads. This vote is to get all the plans and specifications, and 'make the necessary examination of the roads from the point of view of drainage, and the like, so that when the war is over, this work can be undertaken for those desiring at that time to undertake it. Then there is similar survey work in the Indian branch. We have recognized for some considerable time that there must be improvement, by way of schools, hospitals and medical care in connection with the Indian services.


John Ritchie MacNicol: How does it come under the war appropriation?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: This is post-war planning and, rightly or wrongly, it is charged against the war appropriation. I believe there are other items in other departments to that effect.

This is all associated with work which will be undertaken after the war. Perhaps it could have been included in the civil estimates, but it was considered proper to have it included as a charge against the war appropriation.
Then there are certain services which have to be undertaken. There is the geodetic survey. The amount there is $171,500. This is important work, from the point of view of having accurate mapping of the country, and plans are in hand now for mapping on a large scale. This is to provide the necessary basic controls, so that the base survey points and lines are accurately determined. It is of the utmost importance that our mapping and surveying be accurate. This also provides for certain precise levelling in northern Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia. But if anyone asks me what precise levelling is I am afraid I could not give a complete answer.
Then it is intended to take certain astronomical observations for the determination of latitude and longitude for mapping, particularly in the arctic islands, and across northern Canada from the eastern shore of Hudson bay to northern British Columbia and the Yukon territory. This work has not been done before, and it will be of great importance in the postwar years, and of particularly great importance from the point of view of the development of aviation, both nationally and internationally.


John Ritchie MacNicol: At the moment, however, this vote is to pay for drawing plans, making specifications and compiling engineering details.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It is for more than that. It will send out field survey parties to make determinations of base points and lines. It requires special mathematical knowledge.
The next item covers hydrographic surveys, and amounts to $14,500. That is for hydrographic field surveys of the Mackenzie river and Slave lake areas in northwestern Canada.


John Ritchie MacNicol: It has all been done many times.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No, this has not-not as far north as that. Then there is an item of $9,000 for legal surveys and map surveys. That is mainly for surveys in the Yukon territory, and perhaps certain surveys of Indian reservations.


John Ritchie MacNicol: How does the minister connect this up with the war appropriation measure, unless it is a provision for plans and specifications to provide employment for returned Canadians who are now serving in the war?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am afraid I have failed
to make myself clear. That is precisely what
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War Appropriation-Mines and Resources
it is. It is to gather data and have it available so that when the service men are discharged some of them, at any rate, can get jobs.


John Ritchie MacNicol: A short time ago some
departmental officials of the Department of Mines and Resources appeared before the committee on reconstruction and presented what to my mind was a very good argument for the expenditure of considerable sums of money in connection with post-war rehabilitation in various parts of the country, connected particularly with fur raising in northern Manitoba, northern Saskatchewan, Quebec and elsewhere. That programme called for plans and specifications. Has the department a large staff engaged in making specifications for all these matters?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The fur conservation programme has been an item in the ordinary estimates of the department for the last five or six years. That work is being continued.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The officials who appeared before the committee on reconstruction presented suggestions with respect to votes of money which I expect will appear later on, and will provide for rehabilitation. I thought it was good work, and I am in favour of it. For instance, it is for completing work in connection with the fur programme along the Sipanok channel between the Saskatchewan and Carrot rivers. It looks worth while. Is that included in this vote?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No. That is carried out
under the ordinary estimates of the Indian affairs branch.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Sundry services, $67,490.
James Alexander Marshall: Would the minister
break down this item?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: 
[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Immigration branch-
For expenditures in connection with looking after Canadian interests abroad, $475,000.
James Arthur Ross: There is an increase of some $200,000 in this item. What does that large increase cover? Is any consideration being given to post-war immigration?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No; there is nothing whatever in this item for post-war immigration, or in any of those items. There are certain Canadian nationals and have been since the outbreak of the war who still are in enemy countries and enemy controlled countries. Our protecting power is Switzerland. Certain moneys are advanced to the Swiss government and their consuls or governmental representatives in those countries use those funds to assist Canadian nationals who may for the time being be in enemy occupied countries or enemy countries. The numbers have increased because some of the Canadians in those countries are asking for help, probably owing to their resources being pretty well exhausted. In addition to that, where items like food or clothing have to be provided the cost has tended to increase. That is the explanation of the increase from $275,000 a year ago to $475,000 this year.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: This
afternoon one hon. member mentioned that Asiatics were coming in now. He mentioned later on that they were coming in as refugees. Is there any truth in that?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is incorrect. Occasionally an Asiatic who has been in this country has been allowed to remain here. The
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director of immigration tells me that one or two Chinese Canadian nationals have been repatriated.


Mr. DORION (Translation):: Mr. Chairman, we are called upon to vote a sum of $475,000 for expenditures in connection with looking after Canadian interests abroad. I have just listened to the brief explanations given by the honourable the Minister of Mines and Resources. Reference to some sessional papers brought down since the beginning of this session shows that some amounts are paid for bringing refugees to Canada. Now, I submit that, the discussion of this item brings to our minds two questions. The first is this: what are those interests which Canada may have to look after abroad in connection with immigration? And here is the second: how will this sum of $475,000 be used.
I wish to make it clear that in the few words I may say on this matter I shall show as much broadmindedness as possible and that I do not wish to echo any narrow or unworthy feeling in connection with immigation. Neither do I wish that some newspapers should continue to construe some of our opinions as was done, for instance, by the Toronto Globe and Mail in its edition of May 24 last. Allow me to quote the following excerpt:
It has been taken for granted for a long time that the province of Quebec is not anxious for any considerable growth in the population of this country to which it does not make its own preponderating domestic contribution. A general flood of immigrants who would not be sympathetic with Quebec's own particular problems and ambitions would naturally not be welcome. It would weaken that province's position apropos the other provinces.
I believe, Mr. Chairman, that such are not at all the feelings of the province of Quebec concerning immigration. As everyone knows, there are two opposite schools of thought on this subject: some would like our country to be hermetically closed against all immigrants; others wish to open our doors wide to welcome them. I do not believe either of these policies, which I call extreme, should be adopted. In this realm, as in all others, a middle course should be followed and we should consider this matter in the light of our experience of past events and of future needs.
First, one must realise fully the possibility for Canada to absorb immigrants. In this regard, I submit that it would be wise to act as a reasonable man does who wishes to increase his stock or his staff. A thorough investigation should be conducted to ascertain whether we have room in our midst to accept a large number of newcomers. Then we would be in a position to decide whether such an immigration policy would really be wise. In
[Mr. Crerar.l
the past, we have, at a certain time, opened our doors wide. Statistics show that thousands upon thousands of immigrants have availed themselves of the opportunity they were thus offered. The results may not have been adverse, for, at that time, Canada was a younger country, with plenty of available space, and opportunities for all kinds of industrial and business ventures, but to-day, we have reached a more advanced stage in our national life and it behooves us to ask ourselves what gaps remain to be filled, if any We should also stop to think whether-


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Unfortunately I do not understand the language my hon. friend is speaking. That is a matter of very great regret, and always has been with me, but I believe the hon. gentleman is discussing immigration generally with some particular reference to refugees who have been brought to Canada, and is asking whether or not any part of this vote is to be expended for that purpose. This vote does not touch immigration generally at all; this is an amount we are being asked to provide to look after Canadian citizens who for the time being are in enemy occupied countries. It has nothing whatever to do with bringing people to Canada, and on that ground I would submit that my hon. friend is out of order.


Frédéric Dorion: Then I think the wording of the item is quite peculiar, because I see it is for expenditures in connection with looking after Canadian interests abroad, and it comes under the immigration branch. If we take the report of the Minister of Mines and Resources we see that there is a special section for immigration, in which is also the question of refugees. If the wording is not correct, I may be out of order, but if the wording is correct as it appears in Hansard of February 11, I think I am in order in discussing this question. We are dealing with immigration, and I have the right to establish my contention before the committee.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I would have no objection whatever to a discussion of the point raised by the hon. member. It could be discussed appropriately under the ordinary estimates of the department, but the item we are now considering has nothing to do with bringing people, refugees or others, to Canada. It is wholly concerned with the care of Canadian citizens who, unhappily, find themselves in enemy or enemy occupied countries. Their welfare is looked after through the agency of the Swiss government, which is the protecting power as far as Canada is concerned.


Frédéric Dorion: Then would the minister be kind enough to tell me under what item we

War Appropriation-Mines and Resources
can discuss the expenditures being made at present in connection with the agencies Canada has established in Europe to bring refugees to this country, through which we receive many hundreds of refugees every month?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That will come under the immigration vote in the ordinary estimates of the department. There will be ample opportunity to discuss that and any other questions about immigration when those estimates are under consideration. I submit, however, that if we are to make progress we must endeavour to keep the discussion within the bounds of the particular item under consideration. I repeat that not a penny of this money has anything to do with the movement of refugees to Canada or the movement of immigrants to this country. It is concerned wholly with the welfare and care of Canadian citizens who are so unfortunate as to find themselves in enemy or enemy occupied countries.


Frédéric Dorion: Then would the minister be kind enough to tell the committee in what countries there are Canadian nationals at the present time? Do we have Canadian nationals in central Europe?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I would say there are
Canadian nationals in practically all the enemy occupied countries of Europe; some in Japan, and probably some in that part of China which has been occupied by Japan. The purpose of this vote is to look after them.


Frédéric Dorion: How many Canadians are there?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am advised that the total number at the present time is approximately 800. That number may increase. In countries such as France, Belgium, Holland or Denmark, for example, Canadian nationals may have been able to get along on their own resources, but as those resources become exhausted they ask for assistance, and that assistance is given under this vote through the agency of our protecting power in Europe.


Charles Edward Johnston: What type of assistance is given? Of course it may be a money grant, but for what purpose?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: In the main it is money that is transferred to them so that they can have it available to buy food and other necessities in the places where they live.


Charles Edward Johnston: And how many did the minister say there were?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: About 800.


Jean-François Pouliot: Does the Lisbon agency have anything to do with that?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No; it is done by Canada's protecting power, which is Switzerland.


John Ewen Sinclair: I have a certain amount of sympathy for the hon. member for Charle-voix-Saguenay. If this item has nothing to do with immigration, why is it here under the immigration branch rather than under the Department of External Affairs?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Because external affairs requested the immigration branch of the Department of Mines and Resources to handle these funds.


John Ewen Sinclair: Why?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I do not know why; perhaps my hon. friend should put that question when the external affairs estimates are under consideration. However, I am told that before the war, even in peace time, there was a small fund available in the Department of Immigration for the relief of distressed Canadians abroad. That has always been under the administration of the immigration branch, so that when we came to the larger question, of relief for Canadian nationals abroad it also was handled through the immigration branch.


Jean-François Pouliot: I submit that the item mentioned by the minister was in the estimates before the war; I remember that very well, because I had an argument about it one afternoon at three o'clock with Mr. Gordon, who was the minister under Mr. Bennett. It seems to me that this item should not come under either the Department of Mines and Resources or the Department of External Affairs. I believe it should come under the Department of National War Services, because the work is done by the Red Cross, and Switzerland is the country where the Red Cross has its headquarters. I do not see why we maintain a civilian vote to look after these people during war time. I have no objection to helping Canadians who are in occupied Europe, but it seems to me that the logical way to help them would be through the Department of National War Services, since the work is carried on through Switzerland.
Item stands.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Invasion oj Western Europe
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, June 6, 1944