1944-06-02

PRIVATE BILLS


[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]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. T. A. CRERAR (Minister of Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, a few days ago the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) directed an inquiry to the government as to whether it was the intention to print in Votes and Proceedings of the house the speech delivered by the Prime Minister of Great Britain before the British parliament following the recent conference of prime ministers.
I have made some inquiries since the hon. member again brought up the matter yester-



City oj Ottawa-Joint Committee
day, and I may say it is not the intention of the government to have that speech recorded in the proceedings of the house. After all, the records of this house are for the discussions and debates which take place here. The speech of the Prime Minister of Great Britain is recorded in British Hansard, and has also been published in full in many of the newspapers of Canada.



CITY OF OTTAWA


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yesterday the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) asked if it was the intention to widen the scope of the committee at present inquiring into certain matters as between the city of Ottawa and the government. I may say to my hon. friend that it is not the intention of the government to broaden the present inquiry.



ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Leader of the Opposition):: I should like to ask the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of National Defence for Air whether negotiations are under way between air ministry officials in Great Britain and Canada with a view to arranging that Royal Canadian .Air Force men shall become eligible for repatriation to Canada after three years' service overseas. I would be glad if he would give the house the latest available information on this .point.


Hon. CYRUS MACMILLAN (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of National Defence for Air):: Mr. Speaker in reply to the leader of the opposition, who courteously gave me notice of this question, I may say that negotiations were completed some time ago between air ministry officials of Great Britain and Canada and an agreement was entered into under which aircrew personnel of the Royal Canadian Air Force who have served three years overseas will be eligible for repatriation to Canada. Such repatriation is always subject to the operational needs of the service.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Graydon: May I ask the Minister of Finance whether he is in a position to indicate when the budget will be presented?


Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I realize that I have indicated on two or three occasions that the budget would be presented at an early date. I am doing the best I can with the situation, but I must say that it will be two weeks from now at the earliest before I shall be able to present the budget. There has been a very considerable increase in the number of matters that make demands upon my time, and while a large amount of work is being done on it I do not think we can get it to the stage, of completion until the time I have indicated. While I am on the subject I might refer to the fact that there are many rumours in the press and elsewhere as to what the budget will contain. I want to say that all those rumours without exception are entirely unfounded.


Gordon Graydon: Does the minister read them all?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I have not read them all. In the nature of the case they must of necessity be unfounded. I do not know what the budget will contain; the government does not know wdiat the budget will contain. I will not know' until almost the last moment before the budget is presented.


Gordon Graydon: The press is in just about as good a position as you are to prophesy.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am not prophesying. I think it does far more harm than good to make statements, some of which are rather plausible on their face, as to what the budget will contain. I want to make it very emphatic that nobody knows what will be in the budget or has any ground whatever for making predictions as to what the contents of the budget will be.


Gordon Graydon: Perhaps it is the way the press have of making suggestions to the government, and the minister mistakes them for predictions.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Perhaps so.

Labour Conditions



FOREIGN EXCHANGE CONTROL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
James Lorimer Ilsley: On May 18 the hon. member for Renfrew South (Mr. McCann) asked:
Are there to be any changes in the premium or discount rates?
To which I replied:
That is a matter of government policy to be announced in due course. None is being announced to-day.
I try to be very careful in these answers because I realize how important the interpretation placed upon them may be. I am told that that answer has been interpreted in some quarters as meaning that the government is giving consideration to changing the discount rate. That is not the case. I did not mean by that answer, nor did I intend to give the impression by that answer, that any announcement would in fact be made regarding that matter or that any consideration was or is being given to it.



INTERNMENTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. LIGUORI LACOMBE (Laval-Two Mountains):: Mr. Speaker, I gave notice to
the Minister of Justice of the following question to which I should like to direct his attention.
(Translation):	In the first place, has
the hon. the Minister of Justice (Mr. St. Laurent) or his department received the report of the members of the advisory committee who have examined, at Fredericton, about a week ago, the application for release from an internment camp filed by Mr. Camillien Houde? Second, should the contrary be the case will the Minister of Justice request the members of the advisory committee to send him their report concerning the examination undergone by Mr. Camillien Houde. Third, has the Minister of Justice received, this very week, from certain public bodies such as the labour unions of Canada, petitions asking for the immediate release of Mr. Camillien Houde from an internment camp?


Mr. SPEAKER:: Would the minister indicate just what is the question asked by the hon. member?
Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Minister of Justice): The question relates to the release from internment camp of Mr. Camillien Houde.
100-218J


Thomas Vien: I do not know how many times the hon. member has asked a question of the same kind. It cannot have that degree of urgency which should exist for a question asked on the orders of the day, and I therefore must ask the hon. member to place his question on the order paper in the usual way.



PRICES FOR 1944 CROP

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. A. ROSS (Souris):: 1 should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In this morning's Montreal Gazette appears a lengthy article about the wheat convention that was drafted at Washington in 1942. It intimates that there is to be a change in the price of wheat, and it happens that Canadian wheat board officials have recently been in Washington. May I ask the minister if any change in the price of wheat for the 1944 crop is contemplated by the Canadian wheat board, as is indicated in this article?


Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I saw the article to which the hon. member refers. Conversations have taken place in Washington from time to time in the international wheat committee, but there has been no decision on the point suggested.


Gordon Graydon: Is it being considered? LABOUR CONDITIONS



EMPLOYMENT OF ARMED FORCES PERSONNEL IN CIVILIAN CAPACITY-FLORENCE COLLIERIES, SYDNEY, N.S.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. CLARENCE GILLIS (Cape Breton South):: I should like to direct two short questions to the Minister of Labour based on telegrams which I received yesterday. One was from the steel workers' lodge 1064 at Sydney protesting against the employment of seventy-six members of the Joliette regiment as labourers in the steel plant while local labour was available. The second concerns the failure of the operators to accept the decision of the adjustment board in Nova Scotia and reinstate three employees at the Florence collieries. Is the minister in position to say whether his department can intervene in these disputes?-because they might mean a serious interruption of production.


Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):: I got my hon. friend's question just before I came into the house. The Department of Labour had no knowledge of this situation at Sydney until a telegram was

Labour Conditions
received from the steel workers, I think on June 1. We checked the situation. It is true that seventy-six members of the Joliette regiment stationed at Sydney volunteered their services while on learn during the weekend and were employed at local wage rates, subject, I am informed, to the usual deductions for income tax. As to the question of employing members of the armed forces in a civilian capacity while civilians aTe seeking employment, my information is that there are no civilians in the Sydney area who are seeking employment of the kind undertaken by the men from this regiment.	_
The second question dealt with the dismissal of three employees at the old Sydney collieries in Nova Scotia. Word was received yesterday by my department that the adjustment board set up under the agreement between the United Mine Workers of America and the Dominion Steel and Iron Corporation had adjudicated on the dismissal of three employees, and while the arbitration board finds that both the company and the men were at fault, it recommended that the men should be reinstated. My department immediately got in touch with our resident officer at Fredericton, who in turn informed the company that their refusal to reinstate these men was a breach of section 17 of P.C. 1003. That is how, the matter stands at the moment. The general manager of the company was absent at the time and the message was conveyed to the general superintendent, who I am informed got in touch with the general manager with reference to the opinion on the matter held by the Department of Labour. I hope to be able to give to my hon. friend some word over the week-end as to the conclusion of the dispute.



PRISONERS OF WAR


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. THOMAS REID (New Westminster):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the acting leader of the house, and if he is not prepared to answer it to-day, it might stand as a notice. According to a dispatch of the United Press, the Right Hon. Anthony Eden stated in the British House of Commons the other day that representations had been made by Great Britain to Russia on behalf of British prisoners of war in Japan. Has ' [Mr. Mitchell.)
Canada made or is she making representations
along similar lines to those made by Great Britain?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The question will have
to stand as a notice until Monday.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. S. H. KNOWLES (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to
direct a question to the Minister of Finance. In view of the increasing demand for building lots, as a result of the government's housing proposals, will the Minister of Finance give consideration to the placing of a ceiling price on lots available for new houses, in order that there may be no loss of the advantages of the government's proposals?


Thomas Vien: Order. That question must be placed on the order paper.



WAR APPROPRIATION BILL


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Thursday, June 1, consideration in committee of a resolution to grant to His Majesty certain sums of money for the carrying out of measures consequent upon the existence of a state of war-Mr. Ilsley-Mr. Bradette in the chair.

[Stage Direction]
Wartime Salvage Limited, administration and losses, $500,000.
The CHAIRMAN:: I must state to the
committee with respect to this item that I was in the chair last night when the committee rose, reported progress and asked leave to sit again, and this item of $500,000 was passed, but in Hansard it is not recorded as having been passed. The item is carried.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Canadian wool board, administration, $500,000.
Mr. BRYCE:: Has any change been made from last year? Manitoba and British Columbia did not participate in the bonus because under the agreement that was made the provincial governments had to put up fifty per cent. I think it is very unfair. I do not need to speak for British Columbia because-

War Appropriation-Finance
Mr, ABBOTT: If my hon. friend will allow me, the payment of the subsidy, which is a producer's subsidy, is under the Department of Agriculture and has nothing to do with the operations of the Canadian wool board. I think my hon. friend's inquiry should be directed to the Minister of Agriculture.


Mr. HATFIELD:: The price of wool in Canada was set by the wartime prices and trade board at 25 cents to the producer, while in the United States the O.P.A. set the price at 45 cents. The wool is all handled and controlled by the united nations wool pool. Why, then, is not the price in Canada as high as it is in the United States?


Mr. ABBOTT:: In the first place, so far as I am aware, there is no united nations wool pool. The United States price has been higher than our price, which is the case with a good many other commodities. Incidentally the price in Canada is somewhat higher than 25 cents a pound as mentioned by my hon. friend. I have the 1944 prices here. The lowest price is 28 cents, and from that the prices range, depending on grade and quality to 33 cents and higher per pound.


Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: Were subsidies not paid in the past on wool coming in from South America?


Douglas Charles Abbott: Certainly not during the past year, and I am advised that at no other time has a subsidy been paid.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: A subsidy was granted in the early days of the war on wool coming in from South America, and I wondered if any had come in. I know that their wool is of a very poor quality, dirty and tangled.


Douglas Charles Abbott: We permitted the import, but there was no subsidy paid because I am advised that none came in.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: It did not come in evidently because of its quality.


Thomas Reid: While it is true, as the parliamentary assistant has said, that the subsidy on wool is paid under the Department of Agriculture, is it not a fact that the price of wool in this country is based on the price in the London market of Australian wool plus the freight from Great Britain to Canada? That was one of the reasons for the subsidy, to help make up the difference. At least that is the information we have from the wool growers association.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I am advised that the price of wool is fixed at the laid-down cost of New Zealand and Australian wool in this country,


Thomas Reid: From London?


Douglas Charles Abbott: No, from New Zealand and
Australia, whichever country it happens to come from.


Mr. CHURCH:: How long is this subsidy policy to continue? Is it to continue after the war?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I am afraid I am not in a position to say how long it will continue. If I venture into the field of prophecy, I think it is likely that we shall have to avail ourselves of subsidies until at least the end of the war, as part of the. price control policy.


William Scottie Bryce: Would the minister put on the record the amount of wool which has been imported in the last three years?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I have not that information here, but I can get -it and give it to my lion , friend, if that would be satisfactory.


Heber Harold Hatfield: Is there a subsidy on shoddy?


Douglas Charles Abbott: The corporation sustained a loss of S5.95 last year on shoddy.


Heber Harold Hatfield: They do trade in it?


Douglas Charles Abbott: Yes.


Mr. GLADSTONE:: Wool is being stored in large quantities in buildings throughout the country. Does the matter of storage come within the scope of this department, or is it handled elsewhere; and if so, could the minister give particulars of the contracts for storage?


Douglas Charles Abbott: The company has its inventory stored in about forty warehouses. It pays the usual storage charges for warehousing its product, as any other merchant would do. I have a list here of the warehouses which are used; to be exact, there are thirty-nine. I do not know whether my hon. friend wants me to give him the list. It is a long one.


Robert William Gladstone: I would like the hon. member to place the list on the record; also to indicate if all contracts for storage are on a uniform basis, if persons are employed by the government to secure storage buildings, and how the entire system of storage is handled for the department.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I find that the list I have here is last year's list. There is one more name to add to it, and I have not that name here. I suppose one should be prepared for
War Appropriation-Finanse

all these questions, but I had not thought that we would require to table the list. However, I can get it. I do not know whether it need be printed in Hansard; that is as the committee wishes. If my hon. friend or any other hon. member is particularly interested I can see that a copy of the complete list is furnished. Perhaps that course would be preferable to printing the list in Hansard. Would that be satisfactory to the hon. member for Wellington South?


Robert William Gladstone: Yes.


Douglas Charles Abbott: As to the basis on which these warehousing charges are paid, I am advised by the comptroller of the board, who is in front of me, that the contracts are on the usual basis. We would have to get particulars of each individual deal. There is no objection to doing that; I should be quite ready to furnish that information; but again I am afraid I have not got it here. There would be a certain amount of work in getting it, but if either the committee or any individual hon. member wants it of course I shall be glad to get it.


Robert William Gladstone: Is the storage based on so much per pound or per hundred, or does it vary with different buildings?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I am advised that some of it is on a poundage basis, and some of it is on an annual rental basis, where it is expected that the whole of the space which can be rented can be used. It varies from warehouse to warehouse, depending on the circumstances.


Robert William Gladstone: Where the contract is made on an annual basis, is the contract with the government, or the owner of the building, or in some other way?


Douglas Charles Abbott: The contract is between Canadian Wool Board Limited, the corporation whose estimates we are now discussing, and the warehouse company, or the owner of the warehouse, as the case may be. .


Mr. MARSHALL:: This board has been set up for a matter of two years. It was created under order in council P.C. 1853 of March 10, 1942. Unfortunately we have not the latest financial statement to Inform us as to the operations of the company during the last year. In the previous year the company had a net loss of approximately $34,000. I would like a little enlightenment on the matter of the commissions on sales, totalling $11,345.82.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Is that in last year's figures or this year's figures?


James Alexander Marshall: Those are last year's figures.
IMr. Abbott.]


Douglas Charles Abbott: I have just received the statement of this year.


James Alexander Marshall: What were the operating profits or losses for the year ended March 31, 1944?


Douglas Charles Abbott: The net operating loss for the year ended March 31, 1944 was $221,296.11. I think my hon. friend has the comparative figure for last year.


James Alexander Marshall: Yes. I have these
figures: $36,246 last year, as against $221,296 this year.


Douglas Charles Abbott: That is correct.


James Alexander Marshall: Could the minister break that down into, let us say, commissions on sales, warehouse expenses, administrative expenses, office furniture and equipment


Douglas Charles Abbott: Yes. Commissions on sales, $58,857.40, and a small item of $665.90 for discount on sale; total $59,523.30. Under warehousing expenses are included storage and handling, insurance, inter-warehouse freight, miscellaneous repairs, bales and bags, sampling and testing. The large item under that heading is $198,838.58, covering storage and handling; $16,733.45 for insurance; $15,384.04. inter-warehouse freight; the miscellaneous and similar items that I referred to, totalling $236,681.77; administrative expenses, the usual salaries, travelling, rent, stationery, et cetera, total $59,547.42; total expenses, $355,752.49. Net operating loss, $205,646.60, from which are deducted items representing discount on purchases, miscellaneous revenue, and inventory adjustment, totalling $26,689.46, leaving a balance of $178,957.14; and to that loss is added an item covering storage and handling of stock pile of $42,338.97, giving a net loss of $221,296.11. The auditor general is auditing this statement now. I should make it clear that this is the statement prepared by the Canadian wool board.


James Alexander Marshall: Will the parliamentary assistant enlarge on that item of $59,523? To whom were the commissions paid?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I have here a three or four page document setting out the regulations issued by the Canadian wool board respecting rates of commission to registered wool warehouses on Canadian fleece wool in 1944. It is lengthy. It gives the information which I take it my hon. friend wishes to have, but since I am not an expert on wool, I should be glad if he would indicate more definitely exactly what he wants.


James Alexander Marshall: I am not especially
interested in any one particular item. This is an amount which is paid to the regular firms

War Appropriation-Finanse
operating in wool. Is that the object of the commission? This corporation carries on business through regular wool dealers?


Douglas Charles Abbott: Regular wool brokers, wool dealers; that is correct.


James Alexander Marshall: What is the rate of commission paid?


Douglas Charles Abbott: The sole purchaser of Canadian-produced wool is the corporation, and it buys only graded wool through the registered warehouses. Agents, collectors or the wool growers' association may be licensed by the board to operate on behalf of the registered warehouses, but payments are made directly to the grower by the registered warehouse on the basis of grades and prices set by the board, and the warehouse is allowed the uniform commission. The wool sold by the board for civilian requirements is sold at prices in conformity with the domestic ceiling, and on all importations of wool yarns, fibres et cetera, the board assumes the position of any private importer as regards import subsidies and applies to the stabilization corporation for subsidies required to avoid a loss on its own account.


James Alexander Marshall: What is the rate of commission paid these wool firms?


Douglas Charles Abbott: The table I have referred to will give an idea of the rates:
For services rendered, a registered warehouse shall be entitled to commissions on the following basis:
Section 1-2J cents per pound on all range wool and western domestic wool in the fine and i blood grades.
Section 2-3J cents per pound on all other grades of range wool and on all other grades of western domestic wool.
Section 3-3J cents per pound on all grades of eastern wool-Ontario, Quebec and the mari times.
These rates per pound on the net weight of the respective classifications are the full rates which will be paid by the board for all services rendered; payments to licensed agents; handling, grading, normal weight loss, insurance and all carrying charges until the wool is taken over by the board; loading graded wool on railway car or truck, and any other expenses incidental to the .proper operation of a registered warehouse.
There is a good deal more information with regard to commissions of other types.


William Scottie Bryce: Can the parliamentary assistant tell us whether we are getting sufficient wool now? Two years ago we were 8,000,000 pounds shy, and that meant that the farmers would have to clip another million sheep to make up the shortage. At that time, two years ago, when the people were making blankets, they used seventy per cent shoddy and a year ago fifty per cent. Can the parliamentary

assistant make a statement on the progress that has been made in the provision of wool?


Douglas Charles Abbott: The situation is fairly satisfactory. As of March 31, 1944, the holdings of wool by the board, including stocks owned jointly with the United Kingdom, were 27,500,000 pounds, clean basis. With the war picture now changed and no longer demanding the holding of such large stocks as were necessary until recently for civilian and military purposes, the policy is to liquidate a substantial part of the present inventory.


Gordon Graydon: I have no wish to delay the passing of this item and I am sure the parliamentary assistant is anxious to avoid any possible delay, but I do want to call his attention to a part of the debate that took place last night after the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton (Mr. Hatfield) had asked some questions with reference to the potato subsidy which had been claimed and had been paid to the producer. On page 3441 of Hansard, the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton said:
Coming back to the -potato subsidy, we all know what was claimed to have been paid the producer. Since the investigation we know what was actually paid. Would the parliamentary assistant tell us what was actually paid the producers? The investigation showed the amount that was paid.
Then he went on to say:
But he had to pay a certain price to the producer. It is claimed that he paid $3.50 for the first part of August and $3 for the latter part. What did he actually -pay?
The parliamentary assistant then said he was afraid he did not have the information here. Then the member for Victoria-Carleton said that perhaps Mr. Van Buskirk might know. The parliamentary assistant, however, said that Mr. Van Buskirk was in the same position as himself; he did not have the information with him. Then I entered the discussion and at the end of my remarks on the same subject I said:
Some time before the debate ends-
And that is why I am rising now.
-I would -ask the parliamentary assistant to give the information to the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton, because if it is not readily available now it should be available before the debate ends. This is a vital part of the whole situation, as I see it.
The parliamentary assistant was good enough to say:
I shall see what information I can get.
I rise now not to open the matter again but to ask for the information that was promised.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I had in mind dealing with all these points together when we had completed the various estimates, but I might
346S
War Appropriation-Finance

as well deal now with the point raised by the member for Victoria-Carleton and the leader of the opposition. I made inquiries this morning as to the prices paid the producers in the case referred to, and I am advised that the board's investigator did disclose what prices were paid. They were found to be prices below the ceiling; otherwise a subsidy would have been properly payable. I am sure, however, it would be improper to disclose the private business of a private firm, in this house or elsewhere, as to prices paid for a particular commodity, and particularly so since the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton is a competitor, I believe, of the shipper in question. Therefore I do not think I should place on record the price paid to the producers. I make the general statement that the information was ascex-tained by the investigator of the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation and that 'the price found to have been actually paid to the producers was under the then prevailing ceiling, but farther than that I do not feel I should go.


Heber Harold Hatfield: I may say that the price paid on the market in New Brunswick is public information. There are all kinds of rumours going around as to what price was actually paid in this case. I think I know what the price was-$1.80 a hundred.


Douglas Charles Abbott: There was one point I should have added. The purchases were made at different times. I am advised that the price was not uniform in each case; it varied in different cases.


Heber Harold Hatfield: I think I know the reason. Some of those potatoes were bought graded and some ungraded. There was an extra price paid for the graded. I understand the price was $1.80 a hundred the first part of August and $1.75 a hundred the latter part of August.


Douglas Charles Abbott: My hon. friend knows the potato business very well; I would not question that.


Gordon Graydon: There may be some merit in the contention of the parliamentary assistant with respect to ordinary cases, but I am not admitting that there is, because I think the government does carry much too far in the house the matter of revealing of business of competitors. In this particular instance, where a serious situation has developed, so much so that investigations have been made-


Douglas Charles Abbott: There has been no suggestion of fraud, remember.


Gordon Graydon: I have not made any suggestion of anything more than irregularities. The suggestion of fraud is a serious one to
'Mr. Abbott.]
make, and I fancy no one would venture into that field unless he were confident that his statements could be easily supported. However the fact that the parliamentary assistant has declined to give this information is an indication that in a matter of this kind we should have had the report of Mr. Daniels to the wartime prices and trade board. I think the parliamentary assistant has gone much too far-


Douglas Charles Abbott: We have argued that twice already.


Gordon Graydon: I am just giving the parliamentary assistant this parting shot, that I do not think-


Douglas Charles Abbott: You want the last word, do you?


Gordon Graydon: Yes, one last word. I realize that it is in vain because of the position the government has taken, but I want to be in a position to support this contention on other matters. As I said yesterday, the principle is totally wrong. It cannot be supported in any appropriate way by the government. The parliamentary assistant should have given the information asked for by the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton, namely, the price that was paid to the producers.


Thomas Langton Church: I wish to refer to one or two matters in connection with the control system and the ceilings. I first want to point out to the parliamentary assistant that this corporation-


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order. I would ask the hon. member to keep within the item before us, namely, "Canadian wool board, administration."


Thomas Langton Church: I wish to refer to the commodity prices and some of the ceilings that have been placed on consumer goods. As I see it, while the report in the blue book put out by the board shows that a great deal of work has been done, there are a great many articles that should be under ceilings which are not under ceilings at all. Let us find out what control parliament has over this matter. I missed the item, Mr. Chairman, when you moved on to the other one. I want to bring it up on another item.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: It is too bad that the hon. member was not here when the discussion took place, but he will realize it is absolutely impossible for the Chair to reopen an item on which many hours of discussion took place.


Douglas Charles Abbott: War Appropriation-Finance

consumed and the actual salary costs of the bank officials so engaged. The results of this time survey were checked by the comptroller's division of wartime prices and trade board, and it was felt that the unit charges proposed in this survey were fair and reasonable. The survey covered only salary and direct costs such as stationery, et cetera, and did not cover any charges for overhead, space, light, heat, et cetera.
As a result of the survey, unit costs for four different operations were calculated. For example, there was a charge of 12 cents per thousand coupons physically handled; a charge of 25 cents payable for the opening of every new ration bank account; a charge of 25 cents for each ration transfer voucher (a document similar to a draft for transferring ration bank credits) and, finally, a charge of 6 cents per entry in a customer's account.
At the present time, in accordance with the original arrangement made with the banks, the board is reviewing the arrangement and making a spot audit of the monthly invoices received from the banks.


Liguori Lacombe: Mr. Chairman, I wish to point out to the committee that the government should take every means in their power to prevent a rise in the price of fabrics and clothes. Is it a fact that the scarcity of wool-


Douglas Charles Abbott: Mr. Chairman-


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order.
The hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains knows quite well that he must keep within the purview of the item which is now before the committee. The matter with which he is now dealing has already been submitted to this committee, on the second item of these estimates, and it was discussed at great length.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Auditor General's office, audit of war expenditure, 1290,600.
Item agreed to.
Finance, comptroller of the treasury, $9,105,355.
Thomas Langton Church: Mr. Chairman, I think
the time has come when the house should regain what it used to have, namely, some control over war expenditures, as they appear in these estimates. We have just seen voted the sum of $140,000,000, and we have been divested of any control whatsoever in connection with that expenditure.
We now come to the office of the auditor general, one which at one time in Canada was most honoured. I have criticized this report at length since the war began. Shortly after confederation a great auditor general

arose-the late Mr. McDougall-and he operated under the treasury of Mr. Mackenzie, who used to sleep on the strong-box. Well, there is no one in Ottawa now to sleep on the strong-box. Alexander Mackenize was a Liberal and an economist. Where is he today? The statue of him is away in the back yard-and that is a fitting place for him at the present time, the way money is being spent. In those days the auditor general's office was an important one. A civil war was fought in England to enable parliament to get control over all expenditures. Since this war began we have lost all control over war or civil expenditures, and all economy or retrenchment is forgotten.
What control has this parliament over any expenditures? Here we have an expenditure of around four billions of dollars. Last year I read to hon. members a letter received from the auditor general's office-I refer of course to the present auditor general, Mr. Sellar, a very good official, so far as I know. At the time I received the letter he was secretary to a minister of finance. In his letter he stated that he had no control over anything contained in war appropriation bills. The procedure has been amended somewhat so that now there is a comptroller of the treasury who has certain duplicate duties under the Minister of Finance. I sympathize with the minister, because I realize he carries a very heavy burden. He is the pivot of the whole public service, and bears a heavy share of work. However, I fail to see the usefulness of this particular division.
As hon. members know, there is now sitting a war expenditures committee. Where they are, I do not know. They have been lost, strayed or stolen. We have not had one report from them, and we have now reached the seventieth day of the session. I have yet to see one report from the war expenditures committee.
What are the functions of the auditor general and comptroller? Those functions are set out. They do not state that he is an official of the Minister of Finance. Rather he is an official of parliament and is responsible to parliament for every dollar spent. But we might as well go home, and stay home, for all the control this parliament has over war expenditure. All the boards have been appointed, and about 46,000 orders in council have been passed. Do hon. members think that orders in council do not involve the expenditure of money?
The auditor general makes his report a few days after the opening of parliament, and in it we find the public accounts. It is a very good report. If he sees anything wrong it is his duty to report it to the house, but up to

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last session very little reporting had been done. I do not see the hon. member for Temiscouata in his seat, but 1 know he would give the other house more work. I suggest the report of the auditor general might very well be referred to another branch of parliament in another place, where some of these expenditures could be considered.
I notice the Minister of Fublic Works is smiling. It was said that they could not get paint, but I notice they have enough money for yellow paint-"Site No. 1", "Site No. 2", "Site No. 3"-disfiguring not only the pavement but also the landscape on which we want to spend millions of dollars to beautify the city. Let us get rid of some of the extravagance right around parliament hill.
The auditor general has lost control over war expenditures and civil expenditures. He has not the functions he used to have. These are all with the comptroller now. A report may be presented to the comptroller of the treasury for payment and as long as it is within the four corners of the appropriation bill it is paid. Some of those reports cover almost a quire of paper. The information is given on the back of the paper, but there is very little check on the expenditure. No great banking system could maintain itself if it had not a better auditing system, nor could a department store or a railway company. The war expenditures committee never report to parliament till near the end of the session. They conduct their business as a star chamber. 1 doubt if the auditor general could get into that committee. I say the time has come for us to put on the brakes in respect of some of these war expenditures. I have the report of the auditor general before me and I think it is a good report for the money that has been spent. The vote is only $290,000. I am criticizing the system, not the officials.
I believe the time has come when parliament should try to regain some of the control over war and civil expenditures which has been lost. The auditor general reports to the house on anything that he considers to be wrong, and the report is a rather heavy volume. Our war expenditures amount to over four billion dollars and, as I say, the House of Commons should try to regain some of the lost control over expenditures.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Just a word or two-


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I called the first item and it was carried and we are now dealing with item No. 2. Apparently the hon. member who has just spoken did not understand that the first item was carried. Is it the wish of the committee to revert back to item No. 1?


James Lorimer Ilsley: We had better revert back.
100-219i
The committee having reverted to the item-
Auditor General's office, audit of war expendi-' ture, $290,600.


John Ritchie MacNicol: During the last few sessions I have criticized the auditor general's report rather vigorously, so that I feel it my duty now to express a word of commendation of the report this year. During the last few years there has been very little given to us in the report, but this year the auditor general has included everything down to S2,500 and has turned out a really fine report. I have studied it carefully and I should like to refer briefly to one or two items. There are many items in the auditor general's report which it would be well worth the time of hon. members to read. There is one which I have marked, "The Limit" to be found at page 14 at the back of the book. It reads:
42. Excise duty drawbacks-(a) The attention of the department was directed to the fact that drawback claims, in respect of the excise duty collected on malt contained in malt beer exported, were paid without the beer being tested as required by section 179 (2) of the Excise Act. In explanation, the department stated that "the instruction to dispense with testing of samples of beer exported was given because of the physical inability of our laboratory to keep up with the greatly increased volume, plus an appreciation that the test itself had proven to be of little or no value."
The fact that they were not able to keep up with their work is no excuse. I think the auditor general was quite right in pointing that out. There would appear to be laxity on the part of someone. There are many of these that I have marked, but another one that struck me particularly is paragraph 60 on page 19, which reads:	.
60. Receipts of $3,519,731.24 might have been, by reason of the provisions of the War Appropriation Act, recredited to war appropriation account. The sum represents moneys arising from special discounts granted by suppliers, voluntary refunds and refunds of profits on account of cost audits, which were treated as revenues rather than reduction of expenditures, since the contracts to which they are applicable could be ascertained only by effort beyond the practical needs of the moment. In addition to this sum, special receipts of $1,604,787.43, arising chiefly from refunds of profits disclosed by cost audits, wore held in suspense as at March 31, 1943, pending investigation to ascertain the government or allotment entitled to receive the benefit.
As I say, having been critical before I now want to give the auditor general credit for putting out a most exhaustive report, and for pointing out many cases even more pertinent than the ones I have quoted. I had intended to let this matter pass, but when it was introduced by the hon. member for Broadview I felt it my duty to compliment the auditor general upon getting out such an
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effective report, a much more helpful report than the ones we had in the previous two or three years.


James Alexander Marshall: When the item was called I refrained from making any comment because the auditor general's report is now the subject of investigation by the public accounts committee, of which I am a member. I want to add a word of commendation to those expressed by the hon. member for Davenport .about the work being accomplished by the auditor general. The public accounts committee has held a number of sittings and we have gone into a number of the items mentioned in the report,' particularly that part to be found at the end of the volume. I am satisfied that given more time we shall be able to clear up satisfactorily many of the misunderstandings which appear in the report. I notice that the civil estimates covering the work of the auditor general are somewhere in the neighbourhood of $348,000, whereas this vote is for only $290,000. The question arises as to why there should be this difference when there is more work to-day in connection with these audits than there was prior to the war. The whole matter should be gone into carefully and explained.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The regular staff is working on war work, and I suppose they can be said to be paid to a large extent out of the civil appropriation. I should like to say a word which may not be strictly relevant. Last night some hon. members were good enough to speak appreciatively of the report of the wartime prices and trade board and today some hon. members have spoken appreciatively of this report. I want to point out that nearly all of the report is prepared by the Department of Finance, the auditor general's part being the small portion at the back.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is where the criticisms come.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The auditor general goes
through the public accounts and if there are any matters which are of doubtful regularity it is his duty to point them out; but I think that members will agree that for the volume of transactions that take place in this war the number of irregularities is very small indeed. The committee will remember that last year we had some debate over the adoption of this new form of public accounts and the auditor general's report, and I am glad that it seems to commend itself to the committee. I do not get an opportunity very often of saying anything in praise of the officials of my department, or of hearing much praise of them, and when I do I am pleased indeed. It is a matter of satisfaction to me that some tribute is
being paid to the incessant work, the backbreaking work, that my officials do, not only in the discharge of their daily duties but in the preparation of this very able and excellent report.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I would appreciate it if the minister would make some further comment-I think perhaps he intended to-on the question raised by the hon. member for Cam-rose, but before he does so I would like to enlarge upon it briefly. There is a disparity between the amounts of money required by the auditor general for auditing civil expenditure^ as compared with wartime expenditures. Tire amount of this year's civil budget is roughly $700,000,000 and the amount required for the auditor general's office-with respect to auditing, I take it, the $700,000,000-is $363,000. That includes $15,000 which the minister did [DOT] not include in the figures he gave a moment ago. But when it comes to auditing the war expenditures, we have a total war appropriation bill of $3,650,000,000 and the amount required for auditing that sum would appear to be only $290,600. It occurs to me that there *may be an explanation for that, of the kind suggested previously by the Minister of Finance. On the other hand there may be false economy here. Certainly no one can complain at all of an item of $290,600 to audit $3,650,000,000. I am a member of the war expenditures committee, which has just been run into the ground by the hon. member for Broadview. I shall not argue with him on some of the points he has raised in connection with the committee, but I have had enough experience on the committee to realize that the checking of the expenditures under the war appropriation is a huge job, and it does seem to me that we should have the assurance that the auditing is thorough, right down to the very last item. I should be glad if the minister would give us that assurance and explain why the vote is so small in this particular instance.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The salaries of all the permanent officers are charged to the civil vote for the office. This allotment is mainly for the salaries of temporary employees engaged on war audits. The only other important item of expenditure is for travelling expenses by the men who make periodical examinations of the R.C.A.F. schools and stations and overseas establishments. I do not think it is possible to divide the total expenditures connected with the work of the auditor general with any precision whatever as between work on nonwar activities and work on war activities. The permanent officers are engaged in what is more or less war work. The temporaries provided for by this estimate are engaged altogether on
[Mr. MacNicol.J

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war work. I do not think there is any significance to be attached to the fact that the vote is a little larger for the civil estimates than for the war estimates, because it is so difficult to allocate precisely the expenditures to one or the other activity. The great cost of checking expenditures and seeing that they are regular is not connected with the auditor general but with the comptroller of the treasury. There we ha,ve an enormous staff, something like seven thousand, and there, there is a division between war expenditures and peace expenditures.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is there a much greater increase there?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think it is much greater for war there.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That would partly explain it. While that is being looked up, I am quite prepared to accept the minister's explanation as to the difficulty of dividing peace and war expenditures so far as auditing is concerned. But having regard to the total amount of money being spent, 8363,000 to audit an expenditure of 8700,000,000 apart from the war, and a total of S653,600 for auditing a total expenditure of 84,300,000,000, including both civil and war, without regard to any line of demarcation between them, my concern was whether or not we were spending enough on auditing for our own protection.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The figures relating to the comptroller of the treasury are $2,819,520 for non-war work and 89,1057555 for war work, so that there we are voting a great deal more for war than for non-war activities. I realize it can be argued that the comptroller of the treasury is not the auditor general, that the auditor general is an officer of this parliament and that the comptroller of the treasury is an officer of the Department of Finance. But the comptroller of the treasury is certainly most active in checking the regularity of and authority for all expenditures.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Which one of these officers checks the expenditures of the various crown corporations?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The auditor general.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I think the explanation is very simple. The difference in the gross amounts might be made up through the tremendous expenditure on certain of the items.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The size of the items, yes.


John Ritchie MacNicol: It is not hard to understand that.


Stanley Howard Knowles: From my experience on the war expenditures committee there are many projects that are brand new-the rubber plant at Sarnia, for instance; there is nothing to compare it with. It has to be pioneered right from the start, and there is a pioneering job of auditing to be done in connection with a project of that kind.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Controller of the treasury, $9,105,355.
Item agreed to.
Old age pensions and pensions to the blind. $6,942,250.
Mr. GREEN:: This vote of $6,942,250 is a war vote described as being for old age pensions and pensions for the blind; in the course of my remarks I propose to deal with the old age pension, although most of these remarks will also apply in the case of the blind pension. The war vote is for approximately $7,000,000, and in addition there is a vote in the ordinary estimates for 831,569,780, of which $43,280 is for departmental administration, and the remainder, 831,526,500, is for old age pension and the blind pension. I take it that the reason why we have a war vote this year for the first time under this head is order in council P.C. 6367, passed on August 10, 1943, entitled "order in council authorizing making of agreements with provinces governing old age pensions." That order in council, as the minister explained on July 24 of last year, provides for the possibility of an increase of $5 a month in the case of a single pension, namely, an increase from $20 to $25, of which of course the dominion would pay three-quarters and the province would pay the remaining quarter. The first paragraph of the order in council reads as follows, and, I think, is very significant:
Whereas the Minister of Finance reports-
1.	That under wartime conditions-
And I emphasize those words.
-It has become desirable and necessary to provide additional assistance to old age pensioners and blind pensioners.
As recently as May 29 the minister announced further changes. He described them in the house on that day, and his explanation will be found at page 3304 of Hansard. There are several changes; for example, in the case of a single pensioner the allowable income from sources other than the old age pension is now restored to 8125 a year, it having been cut to $65 by the order in council passed last August.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It was cut only by leaving the statutory rule where it was.

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Howard Charles Green: But the effect was that the single old age pensioner could earn or receive only $65 over and above his old age pension. There are certain other changes which are beneficial, but they do not go very far. One of them has to do with restrictions on residence in the case of an applicant for old age pension who has spent part of his life out of the dominion. As I understand it, the change is that now, if, for example, an applicant has been out of Canada for five years of the last twenty, he can get a pension by waiting a year, the original provision of course being that an applicant must have been in Canada for 5.844 days out of the twenty years preceding his application for pension. So that there is some easing there, although it does not cover the need. I have a case where a woman now eighty-seven years of age was born in Canada and has lived here seventy-eight years of her life, but it so happens that she was out of Canada eight years in the last twenty. Under the law as it stood before these changes were made, she would have had to wait sixteen years from the day she returned to Canada. Now she will have to wait four years. In other words, she will be ninety-one before she can qualify for pension. I think that when the change was made it would have been better to provide that if a person had lived in Canada for twenty years of his life, or since he became forty or even thirty-five years of age, he would be qualified. That, I think, would have been much fairer.
There are several other changes-one with regard to an applicant moving from one province to another; another with regard to applicants who have been out of the country' on ships or fishing; also a provision with regard to collecting from the estate upon the death of a pensioner. I think those changes are beneficial. But the minister in explaining them went a little further than just saying what they were. He also made a statement on policy, which will be found on page 3305 cf Hansard, in these words:
These changes represent the result of a very careful examination of the steps which the dominion would recommend to make the present legislation meet the immediate practical problems without radical revision of the whole scheme.
He went on to discuss contributory old age pensions, which I submit constitute an entirely different problem from the problem of noncontributory pensions which we have at the present time. He said that a scheme of contributory pensions could be introduced only after there had been discussions between the dominion and the provinces. I think he was right in that statement. But it is obvious that there will be no provision for contribu-
[Mr. Ilsley.l
tory old age pensions during the present session. It is also obvious that there will be considerable delay before a scheme of contributory old age pensions can be instituted, and that even though it were, it would not help the present recipients of old age pensions or those Canadians of, say, over sixty years of age at the present time. Probably they would have no time left in which to contribute to the scheme, and no funds with which to contribute; they, I think, must be covered by a non-contributory scheme; I do not see that they are going to be helped very much by a contributory scheme. So that I suggest to the minister and to the committee that there are two separate problems, contributory pensions and non-contributory pensions, and that our particular job at the present time is to deal with the latter.
I think there are two serious defects in the government policy with regard to noncontributory old age pensions. The first is that the government, as announced by the minister the other day, is against any radical revision of the present scheme. The government is making wartime changes only. I read from the order in council of last August in which the minister set out that it was to meet the wartime conditions, and that is true of the changes which have been made this week, again by order in council rather than by amendment to the old age pension legislation; they are all based on a wartime need, the wartime position.
Then what changes are made are made only after there has -been much pressure from members and even from a committee of the house; last year w'e had a report from the special committee on social security; it appears in Votes and Proceedings of July 23, 1943. Hon. members will find in paragraph 5 of the report of that committee the following recommendation:
That the government review the existing regulations governing old age pensions, pensions for the blind, and war veterans' allowance, and consider the advisability of adjusting the eligibility age to a lower level and of increasing the amount of pension.
Pressure has also been brought to bear by the press and the people in many parts of Canada, as well as by most of the provincial governments. So that the second defect in the present government policy is that the government is declining to take the lead in settling this old age pension problem.
I am convinced that the government is wrong in each case, and very seriously wrong. After all that our Canadian people have gone through in the war, and with the Atlantic charter as drawn up by those two great leaders,

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Mr. Churchill and President Roosevelt, emphasizing freedom from fear and freedom from want for all the peoples of the world, I think we have developed in Canada a new standard of values. We are placing far greater value on men and women and far less value on money and material things than we did before the war. We are emphasizing the human angle in our whole course of life. There is a new spirit abroad in this country as there is in all the other countries of the united nations, and I suggest that this parliament should recognize that fact and act accordingly. And right here, in the old age pension scheme, is a good place to make a start. It is a good place for us to put into action this new and better spirit that is abroad in the land. I am convinced that there is a very widespread and firmly held opinion in Canada that these older Canadians, these senior citizens, are not being cared for adequately, that they are being treated harshly. Quite a few of them come into my office when I am at home in Vancouver, during the short time the house is not sitting, and when they find that they are not eligible, because of some particular regulation or restriction in the act, they feel that they are being treated cruelly, and I must say that in many cases I get the same impression myself. The restrictions are much too severe.
I believe that the policy is not right. I propose to mention several features of the old age pension situation in Canada to-day which I think should be remedied. First of all the amount of the payment. As I said in the opening of my remarks, that amount is $20 under the act, and an additional $5 provided by order in council of last fall, making a total of $25 in the case of a single person. Then some of the provinces are paying an additional amount by way of cost-of-living bonus; at least that is so in British Columbia; they describe it as a cost-of-living bonus. I believe Alberta and British Columbia are each paying an additional $5, making a total of $30 for single persons. Other provinces pay smaller amounts, but there are great difficulties in this arrangement. For example, in British Columbia it is paid only to those who get a pension there or where there is an agreement with another province; an Albertan moving into British Columbia can get a cost-of-living bonus because of the agreement between the two provinces; and it is payable only so long as the pensioner continues to reside in British Columbia. I suggest that the payment of this additional $5 should be on a national basis; it should be dominion-wide. The single old age pensioner should get at least $1 a day,
which means a little over $30 a month. That should be the very minimum in all parts of Canada.
Then the allowable income over and above the old age pension is now a maximum of $125 a year. Provision should be made that a pensioner could with his earnings bring the total income up to at least $50 a month. Anything he earned over and above the pension would be earned by his own efforts, and he should be encouraged to make as much as possible in the way of earnings.
Again, pensioners should be allowed their home without any value in the way of income being placed upon it. There is a very arbitrary way of setting income value on real property. I have here the regulations under the act, and as the minister knows, regulation 17 (a) (2) reads:
For the purpose of determining the income of any applicant the pension authority shall take into account all sources of income including

And then comes (2):
-real property at the rate of not less than 5 per centum of the assessed value or market value thereof (whichever be considered the more equitable standard) exclusive of encumbrances-
And mind you, there may be absolutely no income from this real property.
-or, in the discretion of the pension authority, the net income from real property if the net income exceeds five per centum of the assessed value or market value thereof (whichever be considered the more equitable standard) exclusive of encumbrances.
I suggest that actual income alone should be counted in deciding whether or not the pensioner is getting the allowable income.
Then the age for qualification should be reduced. The minister said in his statement on May 29 that several of the provinces had asked that it be reduced, and he went on to say that if all or substantially all asked he would give consideration to making provision for the reduction. I suggest that the dominion should take the lead and not wait for the provinces. There was a report tabled last year known as the Marsh report on social security for Canada. Members are, or they ought to be, familiar with that report. Doctor Marsh deals with old age pensions, and I quote from page 73 with reference to the age of eligibility:
Review of the forty or more systems of old age assistance, contributory and non-contributory, effective in the world to-day clearly shows that the generally accepted view as to the proper age when consideration should be given to retirement from work and provision of security is 65 for men and 60 for women.
That is the finding of the government's own appointee.
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Further the act and the regulations should be humanized. I have already given some instances of where that could be done. These are the days of social security. The Canadian people want real social security. May I give an example of that. This year the British Columbia legislature passed unanimously a resolution dealing with old age pensions, which reads as follows:
Whereas this house notes with satisfaction that the government of the Dominion of Canada has seen fit to increase allowances made under the Old Age Pensions Act:
And whereas these increases have been made under the War Measures Act, thereby limiting these increases to the period of the duration of the war;
And whereas the allowances are still less than this house considers adequate:
And whereas the government of the Dominion of Canada did not increase the amount of income the pension applicant may have before becoming ineligible for pension:
And whereas the government of the Dominion of Canada did not decrease the age at which persons shall become eligible for pension:
Therefore be it resolved, that this house petition the government of the Dominion of Canada urging that the Old Age Pensions Act [DOT]be amended to provide that the maximum pension be raised to $365 per annum and that the maximum income be raised to $500 per annum and that the age at which persons become eligible for pension be reduced to sixty-five years for men and sixty years for women.
And be it further resolved, that this house petition the government of the Dominion of Canada, urging that the Old Age Pensions Act and its regulations be so amended that property used by pensioner as his home and contributions reasonably expected from children, donations, and benevolences be not treated as income.
I think that resolution of the British Columbia legislature is typical of the feeling of the people in most parts of Canada. They are not the only ones who think the regulations should be humanized. I would again refer hon. members to Doctor Marsh's report at page 70. He points out that in Great Britain a far larger, percentage of the people over seventy years of age are able to qualify for government assistance than in Canada. Four-fifths of all the people over seventy in Great Britain are able to qualify, whereas in Canada he says it is unlikely that more than fifty to sixty-five per cent of the people over seventy are able to qualify for assistance of any kind, including old age pensions or relief or any other kind of assistance. He goes on to say:
While it would be tempting to assume that this is an indication of the greater comfort of the aged in Canada, and their greater ability to provide for themselves with savings or through their families, independent of the state, such an assumption is hardly sufficient to reconcile the entire difference. When one turns to examination

These are very significant words in a young country like Canada which prides herself on being up-and-coming and wealthy.
-of the old age pensions administration in Canadian provinces, one finds a major portion of the answer to this discrepancy between British figures and our own; an answer which is a good deal more realistic and less to the credit of the Canadian people as a whole. Examination, for example, would reveal written into the act itself, and especially into the regulations-but most of all practised in the administration-a rigid system of eligibility requirements set on a very low level, which makes it difficult for many aged, persons, genuinely in need of some form of assistance on a permanent continuing basis, to qualify for allowances. These provisions include:
1.	Citizenship;
2.	Residence restrictions, both dominion and provincial;
3.	Means testing in terms of the applicant's personal income, personal property qualifications, and even the assumption of income from property where in fact such income does not exist.
I referred to that in dealing with real property. The report continues:
4.	The principle, zealously adhered to in certain provinces, of the responsibility of the children, to the point of assuming that income is actually forthcoming from children -for the support of the applicant, even in cases where it is not;
5.	Scaling-down of allowances below the amount permitted by the statute, cn the grounds that the pensioner does not require even that amount of pension which is found to be the arithmetical maximum payable after the exhaustion of all statutory, regulatory and administrative means-test procedures.
Therefore I say that the act and the regulations should be humanized. I then come to the question of citizenship. We listened in the house a few Weeks ago to statements of several hon. members to the effect that certain old people who came here from other lands had never been naturalized, so that they now find themselves unable to qualify for pension. They also find .themselves unable to become naturalized because they cannot speak either English or French. That is a situation which should be remedied. I do not believe that the remedy should be by changing the naturalization provisions, but I suggest to the minister that consideration be given to using the test of domicile as defined in our Immigration Act for deciding whether or not a person is entitled to old age pension. I believe that should be decided on their Canadian citizenship under the same provisions or similar provisions to those found in the Immigration Act. The definition is found in section 2, paragraph (e) of the Immigration Act, and is as follows:
(e) "domicile" means the place in which a person has his home, or in which he resides, or to which he returns as his place o-f permanent

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abode, and does not mean the place where he resides for a mere special or temporary purpose;
(i) Canadian domicile can only be acquired, for the purposes of this act, by a person having his domicile for at least five years in Canada after having been landed therein within the meaning of this act.
If a person has become domiciled in Canada under provisions such as those contained in the Immigration Act then the twenty years could run from that time or they could be used as a basis rather than the present basis which, I believe, is British citizenship. The individual must be a British subject.
There are other respects in which the act and the regulations could be improved; I have pointed out just a few. But I repeat that a radical revision of the whole scheme is needed now, not after the war. At that time the suggestion will be made that we postpone it until we settle post-war problems. This is something that should be done now without delay. The dominion must take the lead in bringing about a revision of the scheme and changes should be on a statutory basis and not by order in council under the War Measures Act.
I suggest that old age pensions should be administered not by the Department of Finance-with all due respect to the minister and his own department; I think it is not their job to deal with old age pensions-but. by the new department of social welfare. About all the responsibility the dominion government takes at the present time-and this is taken, of course, through the Department of Finance-is to pay three-quarters of the cost and to check the accounts. Doctor Marsh deals with that situation in his report. He objected strenuously to the act and the regulations being administered in the provinces by the workmen's compensation boards, and by the way, I understand that at the present time only one or two of the provinces are so administering old age pensions; most provinces have set up a separate old age pension authority.
In his report Doctor Marsh used these words at page 71:
The tendency in workmen's compensation administration is to assess eligibility on relatively hard and fast lines and then to apply the eligibility schedule strictly. Scaled to different earnings levels and to a variety of accident cases, this is less apt to produce harsh results. Scaled to what is supposed to be a minimum and to a need which is relatively equal for all eases, it can only produce inequities. Unfortunately, federal supervision reinforces these tendencies, through the fact that the old age pensions authority on the federal level is located in the Department of Finance. The supervision of provincial administrations consists almost exclusively of audit and financial
control, the result being a restrictive influence on provincial administrations which is easily-reflected in a repressive attitude towards the applicant.
The speech from the throne pointed out that we were to have a department of social welfare, the work of which was described as follows:
A department of social welfare to organize and to assist in administering activities of the federal government in the fields of health and social insurance.
Then, in the resolution on the order paper at the present time with regard to the setting up of this department of social welfare we find that one of its duties is set out in this way:
. . . to assume the management and control of and to consolidate in such department matters relating to the social security and welfare of the people of Canada.
So that I suggest to the committee that old age pensions should come under this new department of social welfare. In that department should be experts trained in social welfare problems, the idea being that in that way we shall be able to get something like uniformity right across the country and also that the act and the regulations will be administered in a far more humane and up to date way than they are at the present time.
While I blame the minister, because I believe his policy is a wrong one, yet I realize the difficulties he faces in respect of old age pensions; but I would point out to him, with all the sincerity I can muster, that the Canadian people are very much in earnest over this question of old age pensions, and that now is the time to act.


John Ritchie MacNicol: So much has been said about old age pensions in the many years I have been here that I believe very little can be added to what has been said so well by others. May I add only a few words to what was said by the hon. member for Vancouver South, when he urged so strongly that it is the government's duty to do something now. and to prepare something of a uniform nature. That suggestion I strongly endorse. I do not know where we are going to go in respect of old age pensions .payments, and the regulation of ages, unless something is done at once. To do that I would recommend that the federal government in agreement with the provinces take over the whole business. Let this government take it over entirely. I see no reason why it cannot be done in that way-with provincial agreement of the financial consideration, of course. If that is not done, however, there will be chaos from one end of the country to the other.
I remember that during the last election campaign in Ontario one candidate said that
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if returned to power he would see that the old age pensions regulations were amended so that they would grant S50 a month at fifty years of age. Another man could have said, just as easily, "If I am elected I will see that the old age pensioner gets $60 a month at forty years of age." Under present circumstances there can be no uniformity, and it will become a question of who is the biggest demagogue.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The age will go down and the pension will go up.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Yes, unless the federal government takes over the whole business and arranges something uniform which would apply in every province in exactly the same way. There is no telling where the present method will end.
I thought that on March 13 the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre delivered a very able speech, and one which had required a good deal of thought and care. What he said was well considered, and I must compliment him upon his ability to line up figures one after another. He pointed out-and I am not questioning it-that in no two of the ten authorities in Canada, the nine provinces and the Northwest Territories, are the old age pensions the same. Those figures appear in his speech as reported at page 1407 of Hansard. That being so, there is no uniformity. Therefore I agree with the hon. member for Vancouver South when he says that now is the time to do something, and I strongly recommend and suggest that the federal government take over the whole thing. It could easily arrange with the provinces as to where the money is to come from. At the present time it puts up seventy-five per cent. Then, in one province after another we find an addition of five per cent, or this or that, and the result is. that to-day we have no uniformity.
Therefore, to avoid demagogic bidding in general elections, or in provincial elections, to avoid competition between this and that party, to avoid bidding for votes by promising the impossible-because some of these promises are impossible-the federal government should take over the whole thing and make regulations which would be uniformly applicable to all provinces.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Does the hon. member think that would eliminate the bidding?


John Ritchie MacNicol: It would reduce the bidding from nine bidders, nine provinces, to one bid among the parties in the federal field.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Instead of nine small auctions there would be one big auction, you think?


An hon. MEMBER:: And the stakes might be even greater.
Mr. MaoNICOL: They are having the same trouble in the United States. It is much more difficult over there to adopt a uniform procedure. They are having difficulty in each and every state, because the various parties in those states are bidding so as to get the pensionable vote. They are offering lower age limits and increased pension payments. Pensions in the United States range from $20 to $50 a month. California pays $50 and Alaska pays $45 a month. In many of the states the age at which the pensioner begins to participate is lower than it is in other states.
I like to see uniformity in these things. For the life of me I cannot see how we are going to get along, either here or in the United States, by following the procedure we have to-day. I find that eight American states pay $40 a month; one pays S36, and the remainder pay somewhere between $20 and $30.
The platforms of the various parties in respect of old age pensions are not far apart, as they have been enunciated in the past few years. I remember that when I first came here in 1930 certain resolutions were presented, chiefly by hon. members who were then associated with labour, I believe. The then hon. member for Winnipeg North, the then hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, and later the hon. member for Vancouver East moved resolutions along those lines. Those resolutions were not far apart. At that time I strongly supported the principle of reducing the age limit for old age pensions.
I have had a long association with the working men in the industries with which I have been connected, and I know that with sicknesses and lay-offs and the large families with which God always blesses them-and God uses good judgment in doing bo-most of them find it impossible from their earnings to lay up anything for their old age. That is why I have supported the principle of old age pensions, even before I came to this house. A resolution moved by the hon. member for Vancouver East reads:
Therefore be it resolved, that in the opinion of this house, the government should consider the advisability of reducing from seventy years to sixty-five years the age at which the Old Age Pensions Act becomes operative and of increasing the monthly pension at least fifty per cent.
As I recollect, I supported that resolution, although I do not remember whether it came to a vote. That showed that in 1937 the hon. member for Vancouver East advocated that the age limit should be sixty-five years and that the pension should be $30 a month. I

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have advocated that on many occasions. In 1939 the then hon. member for Winnipeg North, Mr. Heaps, moved a resolution, which read:
Whereas it is becoming more ancl more difficult for older persons to be absorbed into the useful productive life of the dominion, therefore being unable to maintain themselves in decency and comfort;
And whereas Canada is a country richly endowed with natural resources capable of maintaining our whole population in a reasonably high standard of living;
Therefore be it resolved, that this house would welcome a government declaration of policy that would bring about an immediate lowering of the present pensionable age limit of seventy years, the effect of such being that the older generation would retire from industrial activity, thereby creating opportunities for the younger generation to be usefully and gainfully employed.
I presume that resolution meant to lower the age limit to perhaps sixty-five years. While it does not mention that the pension should be increased, I have no doubt that at that time the former hon. member advocated it. He was always most sincere in his efforts for the good of the working man. In making this reference to the former member for Winnipeg North, I am not saying anything against the present member for Winnipeg North.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Perhaps you are mixing up Winnipeg North and Winnipeg North Centre.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am referring to Mr. Heaps, whatever riding he represented. He was always an ardent advocate of benefits for the working man. What is the situation as far as the Progressive Conservatives are concerned? I take them first because I am a member of that party. At their convention in Winnipeg in 1942 they advocated the payment of an increased old age pension at a reduced age. The present pension is $20 a month, and while I do not know what the framers of that resolution had in mind, I know I have advocated for many years that $1 a day should be given to old age pensioners, which would be approximately $30 a month, and that the age limit should be reduced to sixty-five years. While I cannot interpret just what the party meant at Winnipeg, I am interpreting it to suit myself.


Mr. WEIR:: That would be an auction as well.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I stand where I have always stood, namely, that the age limit should not be more than sixty-five years and the amount paid should be not less than $1 a day, or approximately $30 a month. I have
found that in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and many states of the United States the pension is paid to women at the age of sixty years. I am in accord with that. Women have a double burden to bear and perhaps they are entitled to an old age pension at an earlier year than the men.
What about the Liberal programme? At the 1942 convention they passed a resolution that the age limit should be reduced. The present limit is seventy years and I presume that they meant to reduce it to sixty-five years although they do not say so. If we assume that they meant sixty-five years, that would bring them on the same platform as I am on. They say in the resolution that the amount of pension should be raised. It is now $20 a month, so that I would interpret the resolution as meaning that they intended to increase the pension to $30 a month or $1 a day. That would place the national Liberal federation or association or perhaps the party on approximately the same footing as myself on that subject.
The Liberal convention of 1942 advocated the dropping of liens. Perhaps there should be some limitation here. It has been advocated that houses valued at $2,000 or $2,500 should be exempt from liens. I believe any humble home should be exempt from a lien, but some of the expensive homes should not be exempt. I would presume that the exemption of a $2,000 or a $2,500 home would have the approval of the Liberal association, although they do not state any amount.


William Gilbert Weir: What would happen to the house worth $2,500 upon the death of the pensioner?


John Ritchie MacNicol: If he had a family, it would go to the family. I presume that is what the Liberal federation had in mind in 1942 when they passed the resolution that there should be no lien. My hon. friend was there.


Gordon Graydon: He has not a family.


An hon. MEMBER:: Give him time.


John Ritchie MacNicol: In 1944 the Social Credit party sent out a letter which stated that they advocated the reduction of the age limit to sixty years and an increase in the pension to $50. That was a pretty strong bid for votes, raising the pension to $50.


Mr BLACKMORE:: That was not a bid for votes; that was simply a statement of the bare minimum to which an old age pensioner in Canada is entitled. Anything less than that is an insult.
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John Ritchie MacNicol: I notice that the same feeling is quite strong throughout Alberta because I have seen several resolutions from that province, advocating a reduction of the age limit to sixty years and an increase in the pension to $50. The Social Credit programme does not say anything about liens on homes.
In 1942 the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation advocated that the age limit be reduced to sixty years and that the amount of pension be raised to $40 a month. They also advocated that liens against houses should be dropped. I do not remember whether their programme placed a limit of $2,000 or $2,500 on the homes that should be exempt. There was something else that amused me greatly. In the letter of the C.C.F. which sets out their programme in connection with old age pensions and which is signed by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), it is stated that in 1927 former members of the labour party, which I presume would refer to the former member for Winnipeg North and per-hape the former member for Winnipeg North Centre, held the balance of power in this house, That is a far-fetched statement.


James Arthur Ross: What did they do about old age pensions while they had the power?


John Ritchie MacNicol: In the parliament elected in 1926 there were 116 Liberals, ninety-one Conservatives, thirteen Progressives, nine Liberal Progressives, three Labour, two, of them from Manitoba, and one Independent; so that if the two Labour members who later became Cooperative Commonwealth supporters held the balance of power-well, I cannot figure that out on these statistics.


Mr. McGEER:: To complete the record, would it not be well to recall that the act passed in 1926 was vetoed by the senate, and that the act which went into force was passed in 1927 when the Liberals had a clear majority in the house?


John Ritchie MacNicol: Thank you for the interjection, but I have no comment to make on it at the moment.
Just a word or two further. As I understand it-I may be wrong but this is my understanding-a Canadian who moves to Great Britain and resides there for twelve years becomes eligible for the old age pension there when he reaches the age of sixty-five. But in Canada to become eligible for the old age pension a man or woman must reside here continuously for twenty years. In my riding we have a number of people who have come there from Newfoundland. They are a fine type of citizen, thrifty, hard-working; there

are no better citizens anywhere. A few' years ago, when there was a great demand here for labour and when conditions in the fishing industry in Newfoundland were bad because of certain European conditions, quite a number of Newfoundlanders moved to Canada. They came here in good faith. Now they find themselves handicapped by this residence qualification, requiring twenty years residence in Canada before they can become eligible for the pension. It means that they may have to reach the age of eighty, ciglity-five or ninety years before they will become eligible for the pension here. That is not fair to our brothers from Newfoundland. I can see that unless we make a reciprocal arrangement with Great Britain with respect to the citizens of Great Britain -who leave the homeland prior to being eligible for a pension there and come to Canada, we shall not have that immigration from the old country which we certainly desire very ardently-I do in any event-because if they have to live here for twenty years before they become eligible for the pension they will not leave the fine social conditions they have in the old country. So that I suggest to the government that thej' consider making a reciprocal arrangement with Great Britain whereby a British citizen from the old land will not lose his entitlement to the old age pension at pensionable age by coming to Canada. I think we should also make a similar reciprocal arrangement with Newfoundland, so that we shall treat Newfoundlanders coming to Canada just as if they were Canadians. We want them to be Canadians. But with the present twenty years' residence requirement before they can obtain the old age pension we are penalizing them for coming here to live with us.


Stanley Howard Knowles: him on that one point and that one point alone, and we were quite disappointed, since there -was time, that the government did not make that slight adjustment. Since then, provincial governments and old age pensioners' societies and bodies of citizens and members of parliament and newspapers all over the country have been, if I may use the phrase, putting the pressure on, and at long last the announcement has come through.


James Lorimer Ilsley: We did not have the agreement of the provinces last July. The pressure did not come from anything like all the provinces. We took up with the provinces the question of whether they would agree. Raising the ceiling means bringing in a substantial number of new pensioners, and is a matter of vital concern to the provinces under our present system, and it -cannot properly be done without agreement with the provinces.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes, but when the announcement of the proposed $5 increase was first made, on the 24th of July, and when the order in council P.C. 6367 was made on the 10th of August last year, no agreements had been drawn.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, but we had agreement from the provinces covering what we did at that time, and we did not move until we had that agreement with the provinces-all the provinces. But we did not have the agreement on the other point.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is the minister telling me that the provinces up to that point had not agreed to raising the ceiling?


James Lorimer Ilsley: They had not agreed.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Well, at least we are
getting the blame spread around a bit, if that is the case. My understanding from such provincial people as I have talked with was that they right along-


Humphrey Mitchell: What provincial people did my hon. friend have contact with?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Members of legislative
assemblies of various provinces.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The province of Manitoba wanted it from the beginning. I will say that about Manitoba.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I ask the minister again then, was this matter given discussion prior to the 10th of August? Was it given thorough consideration? Was the government blocked from doing it by the unwillingness of the provincial governments to deal with it?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, it was not discussed. It was not taken up with them. We were taking up a different point entirely, namely, the question of the $5, without any reference to the

other matter. The $365 ceiling was in the act, and it would be assumed, I think, would stay there, when provinces simply requested an increase in the amount of pension from $20 up to $25, which they did between 1941 and the summer of 1943, and we went as far as we had any general basis of provincial consent, in July or August of 1943. I am not saying that the other point was discussed. That was discussed afterwards, and the agreement of the last province was obtained on the 31st of March, 1944. I will say that perhaps this government should have proceeded a little more rapidly after March 31, 1944, but we have had a great deal to do and the order in council takes effect from April 1, 1944.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I do not want to spend a great deal of time over a matter which has been taken care of, but when the proposal was made last summer it was a proposal for a $5 increase.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It seems to me that involved in making that proposal was the whole question of the conditions which would permit that $5 increase or in some cases prevent its being paid,' and the government already had the experience of a number of provinces-four or five, at any rate-which had added their own supplementary amounts to the former $20.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There were Alberta,
British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and possibly Nova Scotia-I will not be too sure about that. At any rate there was a number, and in all cases where these provinces added their own supplementary amount they asked that it should be possible to pay it outside of the then existing ceiling. The government by order in council from time to time amended the regulations, adding in each one of the provinces to permit it to pay this former supplementary amount outside of the ceiling. So that when, for example, British Columbia added $5 to the $20 that the federal government then provided, everyone in British Columbia got that additional $5. My point is that, on that basis of doing things, means for providing for an extra amount to be received in full by every pensioner was a matter that had already been discussed. There had been a great deal of correspondence between the provincial governments and the minister. I had a return tabled about that kind of thing. All I am trying to say about this argument is that this subject was very much to the fore. I am amazed when the minister tells me now that prior to July 24 last he took up with the

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provinces the proposal to add $5 to the pension but did not discuss whether or not every old age pensioner in the province would get it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is not quite right to say that I took up that proposal with the provinces. The request came from the provinces to make the then existing pensioners eligible for as much as $5 additional; but when it comes to raising the roof in the act, it would not only do that, but bring in a lot more pensioners who are not getting anything at all now, and that is clearly a new matter with which we did not have authority, on the basis of general provincial consent, to deal, and which we had to take up with the provinces later.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The minister and I both think we are right, so that I will not argue that part of the matter farther.


Humphrey Mitchell: The minister is right. That is the difference.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Oh, no. I am considerate enough not to take up further time in discussing that point, but I will say, in connection with the remark the minister has just made about raising the roof-perhaps we had better stick to "raising the ceiling"; we are not raising the roof yet-that to raise the ceiling brings in a larger number of people and that involves additional expenditure.


James Lorimer Ilsley: And additional administrative difficulties, which are a matter of vital concern to the provinces. So long as this is on the present basis of primary provincial responsibility, the provinces must in decency be consulted about these things before we do them.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am not admitting what the minister says as to the place where the responsibility lies. I want to avoid getting into that argument at present. I will say, however, with regard to the additional $5 that if the minister could not have provided for everyone to get it by raising the roof, as he says, and thereby bringing in a great many other people-and I do not agree that they should not have been brought in-at least he could have provided for $5 additional to be received by every pensioner in the same way that he had provided for the individual provinces to give their $5 supplementary amounts to every pensioner. He provided by successive amendments to the regulations, bringing in one province at a time, while they were paying supplementary amounts, that these amounts could be paid outside the ceiling. You do not bring new people into the pension fund because the basic regulations still stand; but so far as people already under the pension scheme
are concerned, they were permitted to get an extra 85 from British Columbia or Alberta, or $1.25 from Manitoba, outside the ceiling.


James Lorimer Ilsley: My hon. friend will find that there is something inequitable about that, in just adding to the pensions of the existing pensioners. If he works it out he will find that there is.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It was done in that day and it is being done to-day.


James Lorimer Ilsley: By the provinces.


Stanley Howard Knowles: With the new maximum payable under the act as amended, British Columbia is still paying, according to Hansard at page 2071, in answer to certain questions I asked, an additional 85 a month to each pensioner, and Alberta is paying $5 a month to each pensioner plus an amount up to $5 a year where income is less than $365 a year. In other words, British Columbia pays $60 a year and Alberta $65. Saskatchewan and Manitoba are paying an amount up to $1125 a month to certain pensioners under certain circumstances. I will not try to explain the circumstances under which they get $1.25 in Manitoba. The matter is quite complicated and we will let it go at that. Ontario pays an amount of fifteen per cent of the amount of pension payable under the Old Age Pension Act prior to the passing of order in council P.C. 6367. Nova Scotia pays certain amounts as well.
This simply emphasizes what the hon. member for Davenport has said in regard to this discrepancy in the amounts paid in the various provinces, which has been the case for a good many years, ever since the provincial governments in some parts of the country began to agitate for an increased amount. In other words, it emphasizes the need for an overall federal plan of old age pensions which will establish some kind of uniformity throughout the country. So much for the question of ceiling. We are glad that at long last it has been raised and that it will provide for many pensioners who previously did not get the $5 increase and who will now get it. Some got only part of it and will now get the full amount, and it will bring in some people who were not getting any pension at all. It will give them some small amount and it will increase the pension rolls throughout the country. Every little step like that is all to the good.
The other day when the minister announced these changes and tabled the orders in council he gave me a little more hope, listening to him in the house, than perhaps I was justified in taking, because when I look over the orders in council, while it is good to have these
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changes, I feel with the hon. member for Vancouver South that something more might have been done even at this stage of the game. Order in council P.C. 3377 just makes the necessary changes to raise the ceiling to the amount the minister indicated. The differences as between the conditions as they apply to old age and blind are taken into account. The other one, P.C. 3376, is the one that makes some reference to the 16-year residence qualification. That was the one that was the greatest disappointment to me. From what the minister said I had hoped, though to read his language he seems to be correct-


John Ritchie MacNicol: What was the 16-year qualification?


Stanley Howard Knowles: If I understand it correctly, the change is to make the original intention of the act quite clear. The intention was that the pensioner should be deemed to have lived in Canada for the past twenty years if he had lived here sixteen years of the last twenty. The change by this order in council adds to that, "or since attaining the age of fifty years". That means now that a person who does not apply for his pension until he is seventy-five must have lived here sixteen years since he was fifty. Is that correct? I think that is the effect of it. The total amount of sixteen years he must get in before applying for his pension is now not just during the last 20-year period, but since the age of 50.


John Ritchie MacNicol: When did that become effective?


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is what the minister tabled this week. It was effective April 1. I think the suggestions made by the hon. member for Vancouver South should be given attention in connection with the whole question of residence in the country. A number of the amendments in the order in council are simply amendments consequent upon other changes that have been made. The one with regard to two years' residence in the province in which the pensioner applies is good in the sense that an old age pensioner is no longer forced to go back to the province from which he came. But these changes are quite incidental to the more basic question of residence, bearing in mind many cases of people who went home to England for a few short years between the ages of fifty and seventy and who have been denied their pensions, also people who spent a while in the United States.


John Ritchie MacNicol: And during this war.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There are a number of difficulties that are very discriminatory which

the authorities should try to work out. From what the minister said the other day I was hoping that these orders in council would deal with them.	Apparently there is still left
something further to do.
On Monday of this week the minister referred to the slight change that had been' made with regard to the filing of liens against homes of pensioners or the recovering of money from those liens. He advised the house that the provinces were being told that this would now be up to them. That is quite correct. Unless it was done on some other occasion, that advice was given in answer to a question which I put on the order paper. My question was on the order paper from February 10 to March 23; it was answered on the latter day and the reply indicated that up until that time there had been confusion, but that the government had now decided to straighten out the matter by advising the provinces that it was entirely up to them. My only complaint about it is that it is still left uncertain. It is definite so far as the federal government is concerned. They do not require it. But it is still left to the provinces to do it or not as they see fit. It seems to me that this is a place where the federal government might have changed the basic regulations so as to do away with it altogether.
Just on that point I should like to say this to the hon. member for Macdonald, who interrupted the hon. member for Davenport earlier when he asked what would happen to an old age pensioner's home after he died.
I think the . hon. member for Davenport answered the question all right, but I would point out to the hon. member for Macdonald, as I am sure he knows, that a great many people who are really eligible for pension and who should get it are deterred from applying for it by the knowledge that a lien will be applied to their homes. I know that I have said to many persons in Manitoba, where the government we have was headed formerly by a certain gentleman who established a reputation of not cashing in very often on those liens, that they did not need to worry about it because the government in Manitoba did not very often collect on the liens. However, there is always the possibility in the mind of the old person that his home may be taken after he is gone and that deters that old person from applying for the old age pension and getting it as his right. It seems to me that the solution is to do away altogether with the filing of liens up to some specific amount, say $2,000 or $2,500. While we are talking about liens against homes I should like to ask the minister a question.

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John Ritchie MacNicol: The hon. member means that there should be no lien against property in which there is an investment up to 82,500?


Stanley Howard Knowles: There should be no lien filed against a home under that value or against the first S2,500 of the home, no matter how valuable it may be.
I do not know whether the minister has a copy of the Old Age Pension Act in front of him but possibly he can secure one. My question is with respect to section 9, paragraph 2 on page 5. I want to compare that with section 17 (a), paragraph (ii) of the regulations on page 13. The section on page 5 reads as follows:
Where a pensioner is the owner of an interest in a dwelling house in which he resides and the pension authority accepts a transfer to it of such interest, the pension payable to the pensioner shall not be subject to any reduction in respect of the annual value of such interest, but the pension authority shall, on the death of the pensioner ....
The remainder of the section deals with the collecting of the money. It seems to me that that language is clear. If the pensioner is the owner of an interest in a dwelling house in which he resides there is to be no reduction of his pension in lieu of the value of the home.


James Lorimer Ilsley: If the pension authority accepts transfer to it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes. As I read that, where the pensioner owns his house and lives in it and accepts a lien on it for the purpose of getting a pension there is to be no reduction in the amount of his pension. The point I am trying to make is that according to this section the only thing that is supposed to happen to a pensioner who owns the home in which he lives is that there is a lien filed against it, but there should be no reduction in the amount of the pension that he receives. But according to regulation 17 (a), (ii), which was included in the regulations made pursuant to the act. it has been decreed that for the purpose of determining the income of any applicant for pension the pension authority shall take into account all sources of income, including:
... real property at the rate of not less than five per centum of the assessed value or market value thereof.
There is no reference in this clause at which I am now looking to except the home in which the pensioner lives. It seems to me from the reference I read on page 5 that when a pensioner owns his home and lives in it, only one thing should happen to it even under the full effect of the art, namely, that there should
be a lien against it. But under the regulations as they appear on page 13, what happens to such pensioner is two things: he has a lien filed against his property and the amount of his pension is-and I know this happens because of my knowledge of many cases in Manitoba at any rate-reduced if five per cent of the value of the home in which he lives is an amount which brings him under the effect of the ceiling. It strikes me that either there is an inconsistency between the two references-


The ACTING CHAIRMAN (Mr. Golding):: Order. It being six o'clock I now leave the Chair.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, I shall conclude as quickly as I can. There is a good deal more I certainly should like to say, but I realize that the time at my disposal is almost exhausted.
When the committee rose at six o'clock I was discussing section 9(2) of the act, and was asking the minister to compare it with section 17(a) (ii) of the regulations. I pointed out that the section in the act is quite explicit. Where a pensioner owns a dwelling, resides in it, and gives a transfer of his interest therein to the pension authority, there is supposed to be no reduction in the amount of his pension. I pointed out, on the other hand, that the regulation referred to, passed by order in council. in my view sets aside the spirit, of section 9(2). No doubt the minister will deal with that point later. But since my time is just about exhausted I would turn for a few moments to something else.
I hold in my hand a letter which I should like to place on the record. I do not do this in any argumentative fashion at all, but do it merely because the matter was referred to this afternoon. It is only fair that the record should be complete. If there are other members who have anything they wish to say in the matter, they are of course free to do so, but I am sure this letter will set out clearly the activities of Mr. Woodsworth and Mr. Heaps, so far as old age pensions in 1926 are concerned. Hon. members will note that this letter is framed. Because this matter was felt to be of such significance, our organization had the letter framed and, normally, it hangs in our C.C.F. national office on Sparks
34S6
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street. I procured it at supper time for the purpose of reading it to-night. It is as follows:
Prime Minister's Office Canada
* Ottawa, January 28, 1926.
J. S. Woodsworth, Esq., M.P.,
House of Commons,
Ottawa.
Dear Mr. Woodsworth:
Replying to the letter received from Mr. Heaps and yourself, dated January 7, in which you ask whether it is the intention of the government to introduce at this session legislation with regard to (a) provision for the unemployed, and (b) old age pensions, I would refer you, respecting provision for the unemployed, to the answer given in the House of Commons to-day by the Honourable _ Ernest Lapointe on behalf of the government in reply to a question by yourself, and which indicated the government's intention of carrying out with respect to emergency relief the practice adapted in cooperation with provinces and municipalities in the years immediately following the war. In answer to a question from Mr. Neill, Mr. Lapointe further intimated that it was the intention of the government to introduce at this session legislation with respect to old age pensions.
You will observe that the statement made by Mr. Lapointe was in accordance with the intimation which I gave to Mr. Heaps and yourself at the time of our interview, following the receipt of the communication herein referred to.
With respect to amendments to (a) the Immigration Act, (b) the Naturalization Act, and (c) the criminal code, which were referred to at the time of our interview, I would say that having since taken up the proposed amendments with the ministers concerned, I feel I am in a position to assure you that legislation on these matters will also be introduced in the course of the present session.
Yours sincerely,
In the Prime Minister's handwriting is the signature "W. L. Mackenzie King'". I point out for the record the fact that the letter establishes that immediately after January' 7, which was the opening day of the parliamentary session for that year, there was an interview between Mr. Woodsworth, Mr. Heaps and the Prime Minister, that they discussed the subjects mentioned in this letter, and that the Prime Minister intimated to them that old age pension legislation would be introduced at that session.


Gordon Graydon: What date was that?


Stanley Howard Knowles: January 28, 1926, is the date of the Prime Minister's letter. It was in reply to a letter Mr. Woodsworth and Mr. Heaps had sent on January 7 of that year. Reference is made to an interview between those two dates.


William Henry Golding: Are you going to table that?


Stanley Howard Knowles: It goes back to the C.C.F. national office.


Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: It seems to me that every year this question of old age pensions is brought up and discussed by a number of members. On only one or two occasions have I heard, either in this chamber or in committees, anyone objecting to increasing old age pensions. I cannot say it is unanimous, but I can say that almost all agree that old age pensions should be increased, because there are only very, very few-not more than one or two, I should imagine-who are opposed to such increase.
I say that because I am sure that if to-day the minister were to bring in legislation to increase pensions for the aged, and to lower the age at which pensions might be received, or to widen, within reasonable limits, the scope of those eligible to receive them, he would receive the support of almost every member of the house. There would be no difficulty whatsoever. Therefore I am amazed that the minister neglects to do so, because this is a most serious question, especially for those who are concerned.
It should not be considered that we give old age pensions as charity; rather they should be given as of right. And when we think of pensions in that way we must also realize that these old people are deserving. Back through the ages, since Canada's inception, it was they who built up the country. Surely anyone who came here in the old days, who established a homestead, cultivated the soil, and cut down the trees to build up a great section of an empire, should not be denied a decent standard of living.
If it is a question of finance, of course that is a different matter, and one which we should be discussing. I venture to say, however, that the Minister of Finance would not offer that as a reason. Surely we have reached the time, after having spent so many billions of dollars for war, when there can be no further question about raising money to increase old age pensions, especially to that level where it is possible for the pensioners to keep body and soul together.
Some may say that the pensioners are getting along all right now. I heard one or two hon. members say that, but it is not so. On the amount of pension the old age pensioners are getting to-day-$20 a month, until the other $5 was added, making a present total of $25-what standard of living can they have? I venture to say the minister himself could not get along very far on $25 a month. If he had to maintain a home, or a room, buy his clothes and feed himself on $25 a

34S7
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month he would become very thin; I am sure of that. When we talk of applying the means test-


Humphrey Mitchell: That is cheap.


Charles Edward Johnston: There is nothing .cheap about it at all. Do you mean to say it is cheaper for the Minister of Finance to live on $25 a month than it would be for an old age pensioner?


Humphrey Mitchell: That was not the
expression.


Charles Edward Johnston: It might be a good thing for you and me to try it.


Humphrey Mitchell: That is not what you
said.


Charles Edward Johnston: It is exactly what I said.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Hon. members who are discussing old age pensions should keep to the subject under discussion.


Charles Edward Johnston: Absolutely. That is exactly what I am doing.


An hon. MEMBER:: And no more personal remarks.	[DOT]


Charles Edward Johnston: I do not think anyone on the other side is entitled to tell me what I should say and what I should not say.


An hon. MEMBER:: Keep your advice to yourself.


Charles Edward Johnston: Keep your advice to yourself and you will be doing all right. I did not intend any remarks I made as being personal, and I do not think the minister took them as such-I hope not. What I wished to impress upon members of the committee, and particularly upon the minister, is that the $25 which pensioners are now receiving is not sufficient. There should be no question nowadays, when we are raising such tremendous sums for war purposes-and that is necessary-of raising a little more to make the lives of these old people a little more pleasant. It must be remembered that not only have they made this country a great part of the empire, but they have also protected it. In a great many cases these old people have sons who served in the last war or in this war. When one considers that they have assumed their share of the responsibilities of protecting this country, that should be sufficient grounds for increasing the amount of the old age pension.
I remember last year when I was on the social security committee this question came up. The session was just about to conclude,
and we had to rush through the last few days in order to get our recommendations with regard to old age pensions to the house before it closed. We had to hold extra sittings to do that. There were two main recommendations brought in by the social security committee. One was that there should be an increase in the amount of the old age pension. The government took action and the amount was increased from $240 to $300. I have not checked up the figures exactly, but I think that increase came after the recommendation of the committee. However, I am not sure about that. The reason why the committee did not set the amount is obvious. Most of us thought the government would be more generous than they were and would allow more than a mere increase of $5 a month. Personally I do 'not think a $5 increase was sufficient; I do not consider a pension of $25 sufficient.	[DOT]
The hon. member for Davenport referred to the resolution which was passed in the Alberta legislature recommending a pension of $50 a month to be paid at the age of sixty years. There was a suggestion that that was done for political purposes, but I would remind him that Alberta is one of the provinces which have taken the lead in increasing old age pensions and trying to make living conditions of the older people a little better. That has been its attitude since 1935 when it was first elected. It did not wait to have this matter brought up as political propaganda. I would not even suggest that the minister brought down the orders in council referring to old age pensions for political purposes, although the Saskatchewan election may not be very far off. I know that was not the purpose at all in regard to Alberta. That would be too small a thing to do, to trifle with the incomes of these older people for such purposes as that.
Another aspect of this matter which was referred to in the statement made by the minister is the contributory scheme of old age pension. I want to say at once that I am against a contributory form of old age pension; I think it should be non-contributory. It should be given to these people as a right, not as a charity. As is suggested, they have given their lives to this country and when you have done that you cannot do more. I think it is wrong to talk about contributory old age pensions. There are many angles that could be discussed in regard to contributory or noncontributory old age pensions, but no doubt that subject will come up in the social security committee when we finish dealing with the health insurance bill. In view of the legislative programme before us and the rate of progress we have made lately, it is not likely that w.e shall get through with these matters this session. I have no great hope that the
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question of old age pensions will be settled this summer, and that is why I am somewhat concerned. When the minister brought down these orders in council he should have brought them down in a form which would have provided better conditions for these older people.
There are some things in the orders that are worth while, but it must be remembered that the pension is not increased. All that has been done is to increase the amount of income which a pensioner may have from outside sources over and above his allowable pension, and this has been increased to the extent of $60 a year or $5 a month. That does not represent a very substantial increase. It works out to about eighteen per cent, the increase in the cost of living index. I think everyone in the committee will agree that the cost of living has increased more than eighteen per cent. The index is based only on the necessities of life; the general standard of living has increased much more than that. This small increase of $60 a year or $5 a month provided by the order in council will not pay the increased cost of living which these older people have been compelled to pay since the war started. I think the change in the resident qualifications is worth while; that is the sixteen years requirement between the ages of fifty and seventy years. I think it was suggested this afternoon by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre that there should be some change in the period from fifty to seventy years.
The clause in the order in council providing for movement from one province to another is a good one, as is the clause which provides for service on ships or in the fishing industry. I am not going to discuss this matter at great length to-night since I have spoken on it before and I assume it will come up in the social security committee. However, I am very much disappointed that the order in council did not provide for a greater increase. I suppose the minister had in mind that later on there would be other legislation brought down, probably after the report of the social security committee was presented, which would in effect raise the actual amount given to old age pensioners. I am sure we would all agree with that.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to review the details of the old age pension system in Canada because they are fairly well known to all members of the committee, but I should like to bring to the attention of the committee a phase of the old age pension system which I think is a peculiar and unique development of the present war. Without referring to it in detail, may I say that one of the warnings given to parliament and to the government by the governor of the Bank of

Canada deals with a phase of our post-war adjustment that must be known to every member of this House of Commons who is conversant with the revolutionary development that has taken place in the last four years in Canada's power to produce.
One of the great problems that we are going to face-and it is not peculiar to the factory but applies just as well to the farm-will be to find the means to absorb and consume the enormous quantity of consumer goods that we can produce with comparative ease, and with the employment of a smaller proportion of wagearners than would have been required to produce the same volume of goods before the war. I believe that we should recognize our old age pension system as a potent factor-not by any means the whole solution-by which we can increase consumption and at the same time relieve the pressure of competition among the wagearners producing consumer goods. To some people that may seem a mug's game, as we heard in the banking and commerce committee the other day.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: What does that mean?


Gerald Grattan McGeer: If you ever gave any money away and awaikened one day to the fact that you were not going to get it back, you would be playing what some people would call a mug's game.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I never heard the expression before.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: It is a very old English expression. It is the adoption of that kind of economy where you cast your bread upon the waters without any hope of its ever returning.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I have often done that.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: But I am not speaking about any mug's game. I am speaking about a sound, practical innovation in the economic life of the Dominion of Canada. Of course I thoroughly disagree with the continuance of the old age pension administration in the Department of Finance. The Minister of Finance cannot serve two masters. In the very nature of things he wants to keep his expenditures as low as possible; he wants to keep his burden of taxation as light as possible; and when he is called upon to face those responsibilities, who is apt to suffer if he is at one and the same time the representative of the taxpayer and the representative of the old age pensioner? We want a man representing the old age pensioners in Canada

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who will fight with the Minister of Finance for more for the old age pensioners-and I cannot see the Minister of Finance fighting with himself for the old age pensioner.


Richard Burpee Hanson: This is a rebellion, Mr. Chairman.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: That is one of the privileges we have in the Liberal party.


Richard Burpee Hanson: You will find out if you go far enough. They do not tolerate rebellion over there.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: They have stood me for a long time and I have not changed much in the seven years I have been here.


James Arthur Ross: But the times are getting rough.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: What I am advocating is a change in attitude, and I believe that in the change in attitude that should come with regard to old age pensions will be found something of the fundamental principle that we must employ if we are actually going to win the peace and establish expanding progress and expanding security with growing prosperity. Will anybody in this house qr in the Department of Finance or elsewhere say that we in Canada cannot provide our old age pensioners with all the food they need? Is there anybody who can say that we are unable to provide them with all the clothing they need? Is there anybody who will say that we cannot provide them with a house fittingly comfortable for an aged Canadian? We have all these things in abundance. Is there anybody who will say that a man who has come to the age of retirement is not entitled to a radio and some of the comforts of this earth as well as the bare necessities of life?


Mr. BLACKMORE:: A picture show, for instance, once in a while?


Gerald Grattan McGeer: Yes, and he should not have to borrow money at 9| per cent for medical services either. If it is true, then, that we have an abundance of the things that are necessary to sustain life, upon what principle will the men of this parliament support a Department of Finance that demands for our old age pensioners in Canada life on the basis of pauperism? That day must come to an end.


John Horne Blackmore: And now is a good time.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: The day when we place human values and human considerations above money will be the day when we shall have the peace that our men are fighting and dying for to-night. The whole attitude of finance
to the old age pensioners discloses the wholly false attitude of the financial institutions in our whole economy. I know it was very popular a few years ago for men to declare that the. granting of any form of old age pension would destroy the character of the individual, would destroy thrift, would break down the morale of our people. Let me refer the committee to one man's attitude wTith regard to that. I should like to place on the record a few remarks made by the present Prime Minister of Great Britain, in a speech made by Winston. Churchill when he was the flaming crusader of Liberalism in Dundee in 1908. He said:
We are told that our non-contributory scheme of old age pensions, for instance, will be fatal to thrift, and we are warned that the great mass of the working classes will be discouraged thereby from making any effective provision for their old age. But what effective provision have they made against old age in the past? If terror be an incentive to thrift, surely the penalties of the system which we have abandoned ought to have stimulated thrift as much as anything could have been stimulated in this world. The mass of the labouring poor have known that unless they made provision for their old age betimes, they_ would perish miserably in the workhouse. Yet they have made no provision; and when I am told that the institution of old age pensions will prevent the working classes from making provision for their old age, I say that cannot be, for they have never been able to make such provision. And I believe our scheme, so far from preventing thrift, will encourage it to an extent never before known. It is a great mistake to suppose that thrift is caused only by fear. It springs from hope as well as from fear, and where there is no hope be sure there will be no thrift.
Those men who in their own strength can go and take care of themselves, who believe in the ruthless philosophy of "root hog or die" and never had a bit of compassion in their souls, could have taken a lesson long ago in the Canadian parliament from the words of Winston Churchill, uttered in 1908. And when he beoame chancellor of the British exchequer in 1925 he rationalized and improved the old age pension system to a great degree.
The man who believes that the old age pensioner is a liability to the state and the taxpayer is unsound in his economic philosophy. If you give to the old age pensioners of Canada means of living upon a decent standard whom do they employ? They employ the farmer who produces the food, who has had surpluses in the past and, when the war markets go, will have surpluses again. Yes, our fruit will be rotting on the field and all the things which the farmer produces will be begging for consumers within a very short period of time after this war is over. Are we then going to stand forth and say that in the midst of this abundance there shall be' starvation and misery again? Let us change
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our hearts and look upon this principle, not through the eyes of the money-changer and the money-lender, but through the eyes of common sense, guided by the plainest and simplest of humanitarian motives, and we shall be ashamed to stand up and admit to the condition of the old age pensioner imposed by a federal law.
Now, Churchill recognized that, and in 1909 he made another speech, when he had this to say:
But there is another issue which must not be overlooked. I mean the social issue. We have taken a great step already. I must say that he is a rather sour kind of man who can find nothing to notice in the old age pensions act except its little flaws and petty defects. I think you will feel on the other hand, that the establishment of the pensions system is a marvellous and impressive example of the power which British governments possess. Without a hitch, perfectly smoothly, punctual to the minute, regular as clockwork, nearly six hundred thousand aged persons are being paid .their pensions every week. That is a wonderful and beneficent achievement, a good job well worth some risk and sweat to finish. Nearly eight millions of money are being sent circulating through unusual channels, long frozen :by poverty, circulating in the homes of the .poor, flowing through the little shops which cater to their needs, cementing again family unions which harsh fate was tearing asunder, uniting the wife to the husband, and the parent to the children. No; in spite of socialistic sneer and Tory jeer and glorious beer, and all the rest of it, I say it is a noble and inspiring event, for which this parliament will he justly honoured by generations unborn.
Look at the England of to-day; look at what she has stood to, and ask yourself if the inauguration of the old age pension system and its steady improvement have ever undermined the character, the thrift or the courage of the English-speaking race. It has been a help and a power in building a stronger and a better nation.
I appeal to the minister to play true to the principles of Liberalism that were declared in 1926 and again in 1927. It is true that the first Old Age Pensions Act was passed in 1926. It is true that there were a great many people all across the Dominion of Canada advocating the establishment of the old age pension system. It is true that some correspondence passed between certain members in the independent ranks and the Prime Minister. And this fact remains: the bill which was passed in 1926 was vetoed in the senate.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The C.C.F. was not there.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: An election was held; a Liberal government with a clear majority was returned to parliament, and one of its first acts was-


Richard Burpee Hanson: The Liberals did not have a majority in 1926. They

had 116 seats; and there was a bargain made between the Prime Minister and Mr. Woodsworth-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Richard Burpee Hanson: -and the record is on Hansard.


Mr. SLAGHT:: Why did you oppose it?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I did not oppose it. We supported old age pensions. The hon. member for Parry Sound may laugh. He was not here and- does not know the history of the deal. We did not oppose it. Hon. members over here supported it.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: The hon. member for York-Sunbury is entirely wrong.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am not wrong.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: I said that in 1926 when the first bill was passed, there were letters passed between independent members and the Prime Minister. I then said that an election was held.


Mr. NEILL:: In 1926.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: In 1926. The present Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), in the assembly of 1926, was defeated on the floor of the house, went to the country as leader of the opposition, and was returned with a clear majority in the house.


Richard Burpee Hanson: No.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The hon. member is
entirely wrong. He came back with lil6 seats.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It is stated right here in the Parliamentary Guide as 116 seats.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard was not here.


James Arthur Ross: His party had to start dealing.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Look at page 353 of this year's Parliamentary Guide.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: In any event it was not in that election and it was not in 1927 that the letters passed; the letters passed in 1926 before the election.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is when they got it started. The Prime Minister did not dare go back on it after that.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: In 1927 the government, with a clear majority which it held until 1930, passed the act as a Liberal measure, without support from anybody.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They had the majority as the result of a bargain. They

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had 116 Liberal seats; the Parliamentary Guide shows it. The memory of the hon. member is bad and his history is worse.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: All right; the record is there. I have not got it but I will get it.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well, get it.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order. If I ask hon. members to keep order it is not for the sake of the chairman; it is for the sake of the reporter, and for a certain amount of decorum. I would ask hon. members to primarily address the Chaij.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: What I want to bring particularly to the attention of the minister is the Liberal policy on old age pensions as declared by the Prime Minister in 1931. He laid down these principles for the guidance of Liberalism, and I have never known our leader to change his attitude in that regard:
The Liberal administration fought for many years for an old age pensions act, and care I think was taken to make it clear that an amendment to the British North America Act would be required before this federal government would have power to administer an old age pension scheme. It was recognized that an amendment to the British North America Act would take some time, and for that reason the government of the day adopted the method of agreeing to give those grants in aid to the provinces on condition that they would carry out a scheme framed by the federal government which would be similar in all the provinces.
An hon. Member: A vicious principle.
Mr. Mackenzie King: The principle, from a financial point of view, was unsound. I am quite prepared to concede that. But I will go a step further and say that,' in my opinion, this parliament ought to remedy the unsoundness of the principle, not by discontinuing to vote money for old age pensions, but by assuming the entire obligation, one hundred per cent. This government should take over the whole scheme and itself pay out the money. That is the position that should foe taken; that is the proper way to remedy what there is of unsoundness in the principle. . . .
Obviously the principle is thoroughly sound. I have always taken that position and have fought strenuously for it; and to get that principle recognized by parliament, I was prepared to go so far as to support a grant in aid, which I am perfectly frank to admit was, from the point of view of financing, an unsound method. Now I say, let us recognize that the principle of old age pensions itself is perfectly sound and involves an obligation which the federal parliament should assume. Let us undertake to administer the Old Age Pensions Act from Ottawa and have all the moneys which are necessary for the payment of those pensions voted by this parliament.
Here we have a declaration of principle by the present Prime Minister; we have his government in power; and for some reason there are forces within this government that refuse to follow the declared principles of our leader and refuse to recognize the stand that
we as Liberals have taken all down history, of giving to our old age pensioners something that every Canadian can be proud of.
I plead with the Minister of Finance-and this may be the last session of this parliament before the reconstruction period arrives: Let us leave upon the records a national old age pension system which will treat our old age people in Canada, in need, as economic units of consuming value. Let us treat them as people who are retiring from the competition of employment, and let us out of that great richness which we own in Canada put to the practical test the kind of thing we talk so much about and rarely put into practice.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is good.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: Yes; it is good.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It is quite true, too.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: One of the sad things about our whole economy is that we who are secure, we who have been gifted with the intelligence and the strength and in some instances the good fortune to establish ourselves in sheltered positions of security, have too little thought for those less fortunate than ourselves. When in that other place the old age pension was vetoed I often thought it strange as coming from such an assembly, secure with a salary for life, comfortably ensconced, with transportation provided, that they should look upon the aged of the land as entitled to get but a mere $20 a month after reaching the age of seventy, when all good Christians are supposed to be dead, while in that place, in all its security, that proposal was vetoed, depriving the Canadian in need, over seventy years of age, of a mere pittance of 820 a month. And on what grounds? On the very grounds which our present Minister of Finance offered in the last session of this parliament. It would cost too much. It should be contributory. It would destroy the thrift and character of the Canadian people. And yet, mark you, the people of this country are not going to forget that we were rich enough to lend to Britain 8700,000,000 and to produce and give to this war effort a billion dollars worth of goods, over our own goods and services, and that we stood in this house and defended our chartered banking system putting away in reserves, hidden and otherwise, tens and tens o'f millions of dollars. Yes, we found in that banking system men pensioned at the age of sixty-five; and if we Liberals think we can find endorsement from the electors of Canada, after giving evidence of being the richest people in the world, when we cannot do better for our old age pensioners than we are doing, then I think
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we shall find that not only the old age pensioners but a great army of men and women who are awakening to this injustice will let us know that they do not approve our attitude.
I say this as a warning. While I realize that the Liberal party has some defects, I can see no hope over there, and less in the far corner opposite.


Clarence Gillis: That is where you are wrong. The only people who have the courage of their convictions are right over here.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: That is the trouble; they have too much courage. I have seen what happens to people right within your own party, because they do not agree with you- and I know the fate of Mr. Trotsky. I know that if I ever had to contend with that kind of thing and yo-ur group came into power I would be one of those fellows who would talk as freely then as I talk now, and I do not know what the end of me would be. I am worried about that. I am afraid I would hit a salt mine or a concentration camp.
Mr. GILLIS; We will do the things you are talking about.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: I have a great deal of sympathy for my hon. friends in that regard and I think the majority of men in the Liberal party would do it; and if we had you fellows over here on our side, and a lot of the Tories in the Liberal party out of this party, we would all be able to do it together.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Do you not have the majority rule in the Liberal party?


Mr. ADAMSON:: What about Tim Buck?


Gerald Grattan McGeer: There are some of us-and we do not mind saying so now-who have that feeling, and we expect the Liberal party to be true to Liberalism.


An hon. MEMBER:: Whatever that is.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: If it is, it will not be trailing behind other countries in the matter of old age pensions and social services; it will be leading them.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Vain hope.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: One of the charges made against the countries of the British empire is that we possess too much of this world's wealth and use it too little, and there is no part of the British empire where that charge can be made with greater justification than right here in Canada. One of the reasons why we have failed to give our people the abundance that we are capable of producing is that we have been afraid to put buying power

into their hands. Now we are to be told, I suppose, that if we gave the old age pensioners a decent standard of living, that would cause inflation.


John Horne Blackmore: I guess so.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: Well, that nonsense will not go with the people of Canada any longer. We were told that kind of nonsense back in the days of the depression, in the days of 1936, 1937, 1938, and 1939. The Canadian people will not accept from any government the declaration that we cannot find the money to give our old age pensioners a decent standard of living after the record we have established in finding the billions we have found to carry on a successful war effort, and not out of taxation, not out of borrowing, but out of the printing of Bank of Canada bills, and the creation of new money by allowing our bankers to use pen and ink to write up their own bank deposits. I had hoped after the last session of parliament that there would be some changes in this system, but I wish to say.that it is with sincere and deep regret I find our Department of Finance just as much against the old age pensioner to-day as they were when after a long struggle and on the eve of the Ontario election we were able to wrest from the Department of Finance a meagre $5 a month increase with no increase in the total amount for the year.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: They are putting it off now until the eve of the next election.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: Those orders in council that have been read and this statement that has been made passing the buck to the provincial governments will not be accepted by the Canadian people either. There is, in addition to that, the indifference to the old age pensioner. It is said that if we provide contributory old age pensions on a decent standard and pensions for those who have never had an opportunity to contribute as voluntary old age pensioners a lot of insurance companies believe that it will cut down the number of insurance policies that will be held by the Canadian people. One of the real obstacles-and the Canadian people have to come to know this- is. the organized power of resistance to the establishment of the right kind of social services, the right kind of old age pensions. Why do not we amend our Unemployment Insurance Act and provide in that act that when a man has paid in to it for a certain length of time he will be allowed to retire and move out of competition in the production of consumer goods? All industrial activities that have pen-

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sion schemes do that. Our banks do it. Why do not we or the government do it? Where is the resistance?
I hope that before this parliament prorogues some steps will be taken to place the old age pensioners of Canada on a much higher plane of living than they are now placed and that the age limit will be reduced from seventy to sixty-five for men and from seventy to sixty for women. I ask consideration for this not merely upon humanitarian grounds but also upon the sound basis that it is one place where we can safely put consumer buying into circulation without fear of inflation and as a means of creating employment for those who have to find employment producing consumer goods and services for others.


Alan Webster Neill: I am sorry that I cannot rise to the heights of histrionic ability shown by the last speaker in discussing this matter; I also regret that I have been otherwise engaged and have not my notes on this subject as coherent as they should be; but I wish to touch on two or three points where at least I shall have the advantage, of knowing thoroughly the subjects on which I wish to talk, having been actually present on the occasion. I shall also try to treat it in a practical and realistic way.
I have a suggestion to make to the Minister of Finance which I think, if it had been suggested earlier and acted upon, would have saved a great deal of the time of this house which I think we are all trying to do.
Why does he not-it is not too late yet because heaven knows how much longer this debate is going to take-send this subject to the committee appointed for many years past to deal specifically with such matters? This committee is called the industrial and international relations committee. I have been on it ever since I have been here. It has not sat for the last seven years. I am not sure whether it is seven or four years. There are two committees, one of which has not sat for seven years and the other for four. The industrial and international relations committee is set up specially to deal with such subjects. The matter of old age pensions was brought up in that committee long before I was here; in 1912 or 1914, I forget which. It reached the usual report of a partisan committee but it served to start the subject. If I remember rightly it was brought up again in 1919, also when I was not here. They made a little more progress; they showed a little more zeal, so to speak, and the matter was again stalled by bringing in a vague report with the government doing nothing on it. Then I came into the house in 1921 and I
began in 1922, which was the first session, to agitate for this matter. We had a committee which discussed it for two years running. At the first year's committee we discussed the question at great length; I think we put in a report to the effect that we discovered or realized that according to the British North America Act it was a provincial responsibility, and that we could only proceed along the lines of helping out, but could not attempt to run things without a change in the act, and we suggested that the provinces should be invited to express their intention as to how far they would go and what assistance they would require. We obtained that information during the recess, and again in the next year, which I think was 1924, we brought in a definite recommendation that the government should bring in an old age pension act. It simmered along and nothing was done. An election was held in 1925. I might take a minute here to explain the difference between the last speaker, the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard, and the hon. member for York-Sunbury. As often happens when two men are flatly contradicting each other, there is a certain amount of truth on both sides, but misunderstanding.
What happened was this: an election was held in the fall of 1925. The hon. member for York-Sunbury said that the Liberals came back with ninety-one members.


Richard Burpee Hanson: A hundred and one.


Alan Webster Neill: No man can deny me this,
because I have the red book Parliamentary Guide before me. I am talking about the election of 1925, not 1926. Here it is in the Canadian Parliamentary Guide. In the election of 1925 the Liberals came back with a total of 101.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Quite right.


Alan Webster Neill: The hon. member for York-Sunbury is right. That was not a majority, but the Liberals had a slight majority because there was always a certain number of people who did not want an election and so on. The government went along for a few months. Then, as the hon. member for York-Sunbury said, they made a deal, a quite proper deal, with two or three members to give them support for one term, I think it was, on condition that an old age pension measure be brought down. The Prime Minister of the day adhered to his agreement; we adhered to ours and the bill was brought down.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They put the gun to his head.
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Alan Webster Neill: Not at all. We did not use 'those gross methods. The hon. member for York-Sunbury may be familiar with those methods but not the enlightened people of Comox-Alberni.
I might step aside for a moment and take up a point which I think is not properly understood. The hon. member for Davenport went far afield this afternoon into back history and everything else but he got his dates mixed and his party mixed up.


John Ritchie MacNicol: You are away off yourself.
My facts and figures were correct.


Alan Webster Neill: The hon. gentleman is
entitled to maintain that, of course. I am maintaining that he was away off. I did not hear every word that he said. Some of his figures were no doubt correct, but he was wrong in the general statement that he made. This is what took place. If the hon. member-I do not say this in any ill will to him; I am a great admirer of his-will look up Hansard of July 24, 1943, he will find that I put the whole thing on Hansard. He has only to read it to get the correct information. No one contradicted it. The very man I was contradicting was here and had nothing to say about it. I pointed out that the C.C.F party were going through the country and would continue to do so for years, taking the whoie credit to their party for having passed the old age pension bill or, if they had not passed it, had been the means of having it passed.
They were not in existence until seven years after it was passed. They had nothing whatever to do with it, because the C.C.F. party did not come into being until 1932 or 1933, and did not run as such until 1935; and the Old Age Pensions Act was passed in 1926, nine years before. Would anyone like to contradict that?


John Ritchie MacNicol: May I interrupt the hon. member? I did not say the C.C.F.; I said the representatives of the so-called labour party.	,


Alan Webster Neill: Now the C.C.F., he said.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Mr. Heaps was in the C.C.F. later.


Alan Webster Neill: He was talking about the ancestors of the C.C.F., and was giving credit to the C.C.F., or-


John Ritchie MacNicol: I told the truth about it.


Alan Webster Neill: Quite, exactly; howT pleased the C.C.F. will be to see that to-morrow. They will be glad to hear from the lips of an

old Conservative that it was their party, or its predecessor in office, which put through this great reform.


John Ritchie MacNicol: No, no.


Alan Webster Neill: As a matter of fact it did not
happen that way.


John Ritchie MacNicol: May I correct the hon. member; I know he wishes to be right. What I said was that the former member for Winnipeg North and the former member for Winnipeg North Centre moved resolutions-along with the hon. member for Vancouver East- to reduce the age limit in connection with old age pensions, and to increase the amount of them.


Alan Webster Neill: Ah, yes; and the hon. member, when he said that, did not say, as he should have said in all fairness, that those resolutions were perfectly well known to be utterly out of order, and were introduced only for the sake of cheap political notoriety, and in order that they could say, "We advocated it." And if the government of the day had offered them $40 they would have raised the ante to $50, and if the government had said $60 they would have said $100.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Mr. Chairman, the man is right. The man is absolutely right.


Alan Webster Neill: Which man?


Richard Burpee Hanson: You. They were just shadow-boxing.


Alan Webster Neill: I stand in the glory of a halo I have long hoped to wear, the approval of the hon. member for York-Sunbury.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I do not wish to stand in the halo of that glory. What I said was correct, and I stand by it anywhere and everywhere.


Alan Webster Neill: The trouble is that the hon. member's halo is pinching him; that is what hurts him. I hope, by the way, that I am getting time out for this.
Now, getting down to the election-


Richard Burpee Hanson: The hon. member-


Alan Webster Neill: Am I to be allowed to speak. Mr. Chairman?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order.


Alan Webster Neill: Perhaps I had better begin again at the beginning.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Well.-


Alan Webster Neill: Now, give a man a chance. That was the election of 1925. The government made this deal and they introduced the

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Old Age Pensions Act in 1926.. They put it through, and it was an excellent bill. The government by that time had found they could not get the provinces to do anything anyway. The provinces wanted the dominion to do it, and they shilly-shallied, and would not do one thing or another. The government, to its credit, said, "We will do it. There is only one way we can do it, and that is this way: we will pass what the lawyers call an enabling act. It will show that we are willing to give fifty per cent of a certain sum. Here is a draft bill. If you-Ontario, Manitoba and all the rest of the provinces, or any of them- want the pension, we will pay fifty per cent." But they did not bring it into effect immediately, because it had to pass the provinces. We had to get their consent. I am intensely sorry to have to disagree with my new-found sponsor the hon. member for York-Sunbury. and tell him he was mistaken when he said that his party had endorsed it, because I can remember the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen saying, "There will not be a dollar paid under this act; fraud is written in every line."
That was said about the first bill. That bill was sent to the senate, and the senate killed it. Then the government was defeated on another measure altogether. They went to the country, and the old age pensions proved to be remarkably and unusually popular. The government got into power, largely because of that, perhaps, and they put the same bill through, identically the same bill. Then the senate took the view that the country had pronounced upon it, and let it go through. On that occasion it is only right to say that the Conservative party certainly did not vote against the second passing of the bill. So that the hon. member for Van-couver-Burrard is right when he says that the Liberal party, with a sufficient majority behind them, did not have to make a bargain with anybody. On the other hand, the Conservative party did not oppose it the second time it was passed.
I have to answer the hon. member for York-Sunbury with respect to the election of 1926. He said the Liberals only got 116 members; that is true. But the Conservative party got only ninety-one. But the Liberal party could count upon a number of Progressives-thirteen, I believe, and nine Liberal Progressives, and occasionally they could pull in the U.F.A. from Alberta. The government had sufficient majority to go ahead. The bill went through, and they got the credit for it. The hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard is right when he says that the Liberal party passed it when
they did not have to. And the Conservative party can say they did not oppose it the second time it was introduced.
I should like to say a word to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, who read a letter this afternoon, to which he appeared to attach great importance, so much importance that the blamed thing has been subject to some form of glorification, and has been framed. I do not know whether it is printed or embossed, but it is no doubt considered as the last word in political strategy. I have no doubt it will be playing an important part in the election in Saskatchewan within the next two weeks.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I have it right here.


Alan Webster Neill: Is it not framed?


Richard Burpee Hanson: It may be a frame-up, for all you know.


Alan Webster Neill: I hope they frame all of the Prime Minister's speeches.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Every time he says anything definite.


Alan Webster Neill: I never heard any man's
speech which was worth framing. However, the hon. member quoted a letter from the Prime Minister. It was written in language considered to be confidential, and never intended to be blatted forth. But if you read that letter, you will see that the bulk of it refers to a different matter altogether. It is only when you get to the foot of the letter that there is any reference to old age pensions, and that is a reference to a promise by Mr. Lapointe to Mr. Neill. Yet members of the C.C.F. party are going through the country to-day and saying that I had nothing to do with it, that it was given to the C.C.F., and to them alone. Nevertheless, if you look up that date in Hansard you will find that Mr. Lapointe in answer to a question by Mr. Neill promised old age pensions. That is the letter they are framing. They have framed it, and they are going to show it in Saskatchewan to prove that they and they alone are God's chosen people who passed this bill, or at least obtained the passing of it-and that was six years before their name was ever heard of. They should have waited for another six years, and got another more suitable name. I heard their leader, himself, say that their name was unhappily chosen.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You should not worry about that.


Alan Webster Neill: I heard him say that, myself. I heard Mr. Woodsworth say at a meeting in Courtenay, before a Rotary club, that he gave
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me great credit for my action in helping to get the old age pension measure passed. There is plenty of credit for both of us. I gave him due credit, and he gave me due credit. But hon. members to my left now hog it all.


Stanley Howard Knowles: No one is taking it. I read the letter, and your name appeared in it.


John Ritchie MacNicol: It is not such a credit.


Alan Webster Neill: I am quite willing to give credit where credit is due. Does not Scripture say "Agree with thine adversary quickly lest he turn and rend thee."


Richard Burpee Hanson: Or stab you in the back.


Alan Webster Neill: With respect to the committee I was going to say that it recommended a resolution which afterwards became law at a very important and long session. Representatives of all parties were on the committee. Witnesses from far and wide were called. We always asked them two questions: What do you think the age should be? What do you think the minimum amount should be? I remember that a railway man, a very intelligent man, representing one of the railway unions, said, "That does not interest us because we will have to help pay for it; we have our own pension scheme, but I would say to you to go ahead and get it passed; do not quibble about the amount; it would be better to get it passed if you only get $20, because public sentiment will see that it is increased; but get it passed." I thought that was very sound advice. When it came to deciding upon that section of the report which prescribed the amount we were distinctly told, not only by the government of the day but by every representative of the different parties in the house, publicly and privately, that we had not a ghost's chance to get it through if we asked for more than $20. I will take my bible oath that that was the situation.
One gentleman who is now a leading light in the C.C.F. party, who is an organizer, I do not know whether of all Canada or of Alberta only, got up and said, "I propose that it be $40." I said to him, "Mr. So-and-so"-I will not say who it is for the sake of his unborn children-"what do you think is the best thing to do; do you think it is better to hold out for $40 and get turned down, as you know and cannot deny will be the fate of this measure, or to take some lesser amount, say $20, and regard it as a stepping-stone to something higher, as being of some advantage for these old people?" He said, "I would rather ask for $40 and get turned down, for I would get the credit in the country." Even in those days-there were no C.C.F. then; but
[.Mr. Neill.]
he had the same desires-he was ready to sell
out the interests of the old people for a place of profit, for a chance to advance to power by just one little bit. That is what is going on to-day. That is not carrying out the principles of government; it is just expediency.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is the hon. member referring to any member of this group?


Richard Burpee Hanson: He was here long before you were ever heard of.


Alan Webster Neill: I was going to say that the government made the offer to the provinces. They said, "Take this and we will pay fifty per cent." Afterward when Lord Bennett was carrying on his campaign he offered to pay 100 per cent, but when he came into power he made it only seventy-five per cent.


Richard Burpee Hanson: He went half-way. That is all the money we had.


Alan Webster Neill: I have no doubt that he did
the best he could.


Richard Burpee Hanson: May I ask a question with respect to Mr. Meighen? The hon. member said that Mr. Meighen based his appeal on fraud. Mr. Meighen based his objection at that time on the known fact that under the constitution we had no right to do it, and he charged the Prime Minister with knowing that and still putting the bill through. It was on that basis that it was considered fraudulent.


Thomas Langton Church: That is right.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is the answer.


Alan Webster Neill: That may have been his argument.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That was kis argument and that was true in law and in fact.


Alan Webster Neill: Then you are on the horns of a dilemma. You have either to say that he wanted to reject a good measure, or that as a lawyer he said it .was constitutionally rotten when it was not. It was afterwards passed and became law in the same exact language.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It was only passed as-


Alan Webster Neill: You have to take it one way or the other.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It was only a grant in aid and it is yet.


Alan Webster Neill: The bill was passed and it was a good bill. With one exception there has never been any need to change it. Where the mischief was done was in the regulations.

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The government in their wisdom passed the power to make regulations over to the provinces and they passed such regulations which, if it were not unparliamentary, I would say were entirely damnable. If that word is improper, I will say they were utterly unworthy of a Christian country.
But that power was given to the wretched little boards in the provinces. I speak more particularly of the one in my own province. They simply made the law unto themselves. If you told them, "This is wrong; this is not the way the act reads," they simply pointed to the section which gave them the power to make regulations. Having that power to make regulations, they made a new act. If, as I pointed out, you said, "You cannot do that; that is contrary to the law," they said, "No; we have the power to make regulations; we can make any regulations we like." And they did. Some of the fool things they did were laughed out of court.
As I pointed out in this house a few years ago, there were a number of questions, I think about thirty-five, which were asked of applicants for pensions. One question asked was: "Since the old age pension law came into effect"-which was seventeen years before -"have you sold or given away any personal property?" There were some more legal words to the question. An old woman might have had a stove which was worn out and which she had given to her next-door neighbour who was' worse off than she. Then the person to whom she sold it, if she sold it, or the person to whom she had given it, if she had given it away, had to be dug up whether he was in heaven or in California and asked to sign a statement as to the consideration that had passed on that occasion and what had been done with the money. It was not a question of bonds or land; it was simply a question of personal property. Finally something like shame struck the British Columbia board and that was changed to five years. They are still asked what they have done with an old ' saucepan or coal shovel, what they got for it, and they must produce evidence to show it was paid for or, if anything remains unpaid, how much it is. There were a whole lot of rules like that. Probably the government is not responsible for those rules except that it should have taken those people and knocked their heads together.


Richard Burpee Hanson: This government agreed to those regulations.


Alan Webster Neill: It sanctioned them.
Another regulation that I object to is that governing the estimated value of property. That is, they take the assessed value of the property, which in British Columbia is
absurdly and ridiculously above the real value.
I would cheerfully sell any of my property for the assessed value. I used to point that regulation out to the government and finally got it changed to either the assessed value or the market value, whichever seemed the more equitable. A man might have a hundred or two hundred acres of useless bushland and five per cent of the assessed value of that land would be considered as income.
What did this board do? They said, "We will continue to adhere to the assessed value." I said, "You cannot; the law has been changed; the regulations have been changed; you should take the market value of this property." I offered to take them from the nearest port in my car to show them the wretched land, but they said, "No; we will take the assessed value." I said: "You cannot; you are going against the law." They said, "We have the option to take whichever we like and we find that taking the assessed value is less trouble to us. We assume the assessors are honest and reliable men." The}' still take the assessed value because it is a little less trouble.
I have known of cases where a woman had 160 acres away back of beyond, away up on the northern edge of Vancouver island. I could not say what it was worth, because it was not worth anything. She might be paying $10 or $12 taxes. She was paying the taxes but getting nothing. But the board said that the property was assessed at, say $1,500 and that five per cent of that would be $75 and they considered that sum as part of the. woman's income. They took five per cent of land that was not worth a curse, land upon which the woman had to pay taxes. I advised this particular owner to sell it, but it could not be sold. I said, "I will give you $10 for it, and then they can charge you only on the $10." That is the sort of thing we had to do to get an honest break for some of these people.
I wish to say just a word or two before I pass away from this. I have been slamming the provincial government. The board was rotten, lock, stock and barrel, but the system has been changed. They have now a new board. I think it was the hon. member for Vancouver South who said pensions ought to be run by a welfare department. It is run now by a welfare department in British Columbia; they have a competent man at the head, and it is to his credit that we are now able to get an old age pension out there much more readily. Very often it was a matter of months and months. I know of one man's case when it took exactly nine months, and then the pension was granted

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in the end. They were writing to a man who got mail only once a month and the final delay was over his position and earnings. They said: "You are a postmaster and no doubt get a princely recompense, so that we want a certificate signed by someone in authority telling us how much you got every year out of this valuable position." The man finally lost his patience-he had nothing else to lose, and so he wrote back, "Do you want a letter from the postmaster general or from the governor general or from the Prime Minister? There is a blue-book on your table, or ought to be, which will show you that I drew every year the sum of $100." That man had to go without the old age pension for months until they got a certificate that he drew only $100 a year. I know of another man whose pension was held up for months because they could not get a translation of his birth certificate. They could have got it in Vancouver for fifty cents. I have done it.
Another man who applied for an old age pension was dying of cancer. The authorities were holding his pension up until finally I told them, "Give this man his pension or he' will be dead, and then you will be able to say that you saved the government $20 for a month." This man got his pension the day before he died. They wrote him a letter like this, "We know you are very ill. If you are dead when you get this cheque, it must be sent back at once."
I will give the provincial government credit that the system is much better now. It is run by a man who has some human sympathy, who believes in fair dealing, but still handicapped by fool rules.
There is one question I will take up with the minister. I asked him about it last year when this last $5 was added to the pension, and paid for out of the war appropriation. I asked the minister if the $5 would be stopped when the war ended and the minister replied, "Yes, unless legislative action is taken at that time or in the meantime." I hope the minister will take action now by an amendment to the Old Age Pensions Act so that there will be no doubt that the $5 will be continued after the war, so that these pensioners will not be shivering at the thought that, when the war is over, this last $5 that was added to their pension will be taken away again.
Many proposals have been made by hon. members looking to the future. No doubt a contributory system must be brought in at some time in the future and the age limit reduced, but we are living to-day and we have to deal with these people now. I think the hon. member for Vancouver South in his fine speech might have given the government a

little more praise for the action it has taken. There is an old proverb that you should not look a gift horse in the mouth, which means that if a man gives you a present of a horse, do not open its mouth to examine its teeth which tell you the horse's age, because then you might find that he had given you a lemon instead of a horse. The present old age pension is a gift horse. It is an improvement, and I am willing to give the government credit for it. If somebody gives you something, grab it and use it as a stepping-stone to get some further advantage for the people you represent. Do not sneer at it because it is not all that you want and say that it was forced out of the giver. That is not the way to get things. It is the way to choke off at the source anything further of the kind.
I would suggest that the whole question of old age pensions go to a committee. These are local matters which could best be dealt with a committee. The government have a large majority in the house and they would have a majority on the committee. We have dealt with the matter four times already in committee and good came out of every one of those committees. This is not the place to dispute about these small matters. If the minister could see his way to sending the question to the industrial and international relations committee, the whole thing could be threshed out there and amendments suggested, and it would help to popularize the scheme with the people.
Here we are in the midst of a war and I know the large expenditures which the minister is called upon to make. I agree to some extent with the position he takes. I also admit that whenever he proposes to raise the pension, it is not his word alone that goes because he has to get the consent of nine provinces. If he would send the matter to a committee everyone would have an opportunity to be heard; the minister would get a sound basis for future action, post-war, and proposals would be made to deal with the matter equitably in the meantime. It is not just a question of a dollar or two more that irks the old age pensioner. It is the injustice, such as has been done in the cases to which I have referred, and I could go on reciting similar cases for an hour. It is that which kills the spirit of the poor. All question of charity, of course, will be removed in any contributory system, but that cannot be adopted in a moment. I do trust that the minister will accept the suggestion 1 have made.

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Thomas Langton Church: In discussing this vote for old age pensions I shall leave politics out entirely. I was head of the Union of Canadian Municipalities for three years and head of the Ontario Municipal Association for three or four years. I was also a member of the committee on old age pensions, and during the time I sat on the committee I was ashamed of Canada, a so-called Christian country, in its treatment of our aged people or the blind. There is an old saying, "he that hath pity on the poor, lendeth unto the Lord." But for years we could get nothing for our aged people. I was the head of a very large municipality which pioneered in social reform services. The city of Toronto led the dominion in many forms of social legislation and had pension funds for its employees in most departments. We came here on many occasions to interview governments of all kinds and we got very cold and chilly receptions in all forms of aid. The first duty of the government is to look after the health, wealth, happiness and prosperity of its citizens.
This question is not a provincial one. We have the most complicated constitution in the world for the protection of human values in Canada. It is no wonder that juries of all kinds in their reports to the presiding judge have criticized the federal parliament and all governments for years for their utter lack of any Christian charity toward the aged and the poor of this country. It is disgraceful that this debate should have been precipitated in this chamber to-night, with a war on. There has been quarrelling about who did this and who did that, when as a matter of fact not a thing was done until recently for the aged, the blind and the suffering. It was left in the past very largely to the municipalities and private sources. Finally the federal government contributed seventy-five per cent and the provinces twenty-five per cent to the old age pensions. Then on July 24 of last year the maximum pension was raised by this government from $20 to $25 a month, but no cost of living bonus was granted. Where can you get a house for $20 or $25? That will not even buy your food, let alone a room.
We have heard from the British Columbia members to-night, and we are always glad to hear from them. When any question of importance to their province comes up they make, to borrow a phrase from hockey, a ganging attack upon the government. I wish the Ontario members would do the same for their problems.
The Liberals in their platform of 1919 had a scheme for unemployment insurance, sickness and health insurance, but it took them down to a couple of years ago to put such a measure
on the statute book. The first day I was in the house in 1922, I had, with a former member for Winnipeg North Centre, a resolution in favour of sickness, unemployment and health insurance, and in addition, old age pensions for the blind and the aged. This whole problem has been left to the municipalities largely, until lately by the government, excepting for pin-money, for it is really nothing more, handed out in the form of grants of $5 and $10 to those who have borne the burden and heat of the day. It has been a disgraceful manner of dealing with a federal problem, which should be an entirely federal responsibility and not a tax on the municipalities and on real estate.
Just think of the way in which some of our citizens have been used. Long ago, at the time of the rebellion of 1885 in the Northwest Territories, troops from Quebec, Ontario and the maritimes. in response to the country's call, marched across lake Superior in the winter when it was thirty or forty degrees below zero. In those days and from then onwards these men of the militia have done much to build up our armed forces. Yet these 1885 veterans, the backbone of the militia, have never received any pension. We would have had no troops in South Africa and our efforts in the first great war and the present war would have fallen short of what they have been, but for the pioneers in the militia and cadet services of those days. Why have these aged men been used in this fashion? They have experienced the same sort of treatment as the schoolteachers who were allowed to starve in the country school-houses, receiving no more than three or four hundred dollars a year for their services as compared with the way Canada helped the builders of railways. The militia men got a grant of 200 acres, and that was all. To this day some of the 1885 veterans are in the poorhouse, and there they will continue to be, if we wait for Canada.
We tried to get their case discussed in this chamber, but were unable to persuade a so-called Liberal government of the justice of compensating these pioneers and veterans who served us in the northwest rebellion. My leader here and the hon. member for Kootenay West tried to get the matter discussed, but they never were able to have it dealt with.
As regards the blind, little or nothing has been done for them. They have been mainly dependent on the splendid Association for the Blind, upon the municipalities, private persons, the community clubs, and voluntary social agencies, much as are the poor unem-
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ployed people who found themselves out of work through some of the policies which have prevailed in this country.
What has been done about income tax? What encouragement has been given to those who tried to help in maintaining some of their poorer neighbours, or relatives or those who have contributed in large or small measure to charitable organizations? The charges required of them under the War Measures Act, in the form of income tax, are such as should not exist in any Christian country.
I ask that some consideration be given to these questions. Very little has been done for the pioneers. They are allowed $20 or $25 a month, plus a $5 raise by a province here and there. It is just charity, and charity in its worst form. Those who have worked honourably and well until they are sixty-five or seventy years of age should have a better outlook in life than they get now, namely an open door to a house of industry, or even to a gaol, or a poor-house. At times in the past the gaols have been filled with these poor people. I know, because I have been a municipal officer for many years, and have always taken great interest in social problems. Yet the parliament of Canada was able to vote millions of dollars for branch lines and other material purposes, while it could not treat with reasonable generoshy builders of character in the schools and the poor old folks. But as for the builders of railways, they were presented with the title deeds of the country.
We have been a long way behind other countries in legislation for social purposes. Let me tell the last two speakers, although I have great respect for them because they usually contribute matters of interest to debates in which they take part, that on this question they cannot afford to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude. Here we can afford $140 million to support ceilings some of which may collapse overnight, and all the ceiling you have for the poor and the suffering and the sick and the halt and the maimed and the blind is about seven million dollars, while we quarrel about whether we shall pay them $5 out of $30, or four or five dollars out of $25. What a miserable sum for such a purpose! No wonder so much suffering exists in the homes of this country ! I remember that the sister of Sir William Mulock, Mrs. Boultbee, who had taken a great deal of interest in homes for infants and other charitable institutions once came and told me, as the mayor of the city, "If you do not give us a larger grant for the infants' home we are going to put the babies on the front steps of the city 
hall." They did not need to do that, because the city of Toronto provided for them generously.
I greatly regret that these social problems have been made a political football ever since I have been in the house. Let us show some Christian charity among ourselves. Never mind who is entitled to the credit so long as the work is done. The poor are suffering, and I am almost ashamed as I travel over the country and visit the homes of the poor, for whom hardly a dollar is spent, while we provide $140 million to erect castles in the air and ceilings on anything or everything. Charity begins at home. Let us find first a few dollars for old age pensions and pensions for the blind. In letters I receive from the troops in Italy and other places the writers want to know if its true that their parents have been laid off work owing to the age limit, or that they are taxed heavily on what little they have, and they wonder what is going to happen to them in trying to exist on the dollar or dollar and a half a day which is about all they get.


Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: I shall not digress
into the history of the old age pension movement, nor shall I enter into argument with those who took part in that battle nearly twenty years ago ; except to say this, that the people of Canada to-day-that goes not only for the old people but for the younger as well -are not half as much interested in who is to receive credit for what was done twenty years ago as in who is to provide them with pensions that will meet the needs of the present day. That, I think, is the vital question we should discuss here to-night.


Humphrey Mitchell: Why was the framed
letter produced this evening?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Because somebody referred to the matter this afternoon.


Joseph William Noseworthy: I am confident that every old person and every pensioner in this country and thousands of younger sons and daughters of these pensioners would be grateful to the minister for the crumbs which have fallen from the treasury bench's table to them These improvements help, and the people of Canada, the old people in particular, will be grateful for the change which has been made in the residential requirements. But there is still much to be done, and I think the most hopeful part of the minister's speech was the promise that he held out that there was to be something better in the near future. While a person now receives a pension at seventy if he has lived sixteen of the last twenty years in Canada, that still leaves many people with unsolved problems. There is a vast number

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of people in this country, aged and indigent, who reach seventy years of age and yet will not qualify for a pension even under these more generous terms, and I think we have to face the question of just what we are to do with indigent old people. We are not going to give them a pension and many of them will become a burden upon the municipality or the public, and while I am not going to say where that line should be drawn, nevertheless, sooner or later-I hope sooner rather than later-we shall have to accept the responsibility of publicly providing for the old and indigent. And I think we shall have to do it before they reach seventy years of age. As already pointed out, the time is not far distant when we shall be wise enough to know that it will pay us as a people to provide the aged at sixty-five with an adequate income, that it will be advantageous to us to do that, just as it is advantageous now for us to give gifts to the mother country m time of need. We shall find that the money will come back to us, that our entire economy will profit by the money we expend in providing these old people, not at seventy but at a lower age, with an adequate income.
There are two or three regrets I have to express. I wish the minister would correct me if I am wrong, but do I understand that where an old age pensioner receives, on behalf of a son in the armed forces, dependent's allowance, coupled with assigned pay, both the dependent's allowance and the assigned pay are counted as part of the income in arriving at the pension?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes; they are both counted.


Joseph William Noseworthy: That is one of the things I regret. I wish that the minister, when he was amending the act, had taken that into consideration. That assigned pay is the soldier's money, and if he chooses to send it to his father or his aged mother, the government has no right whatever to save on its pensions by adding that to the pensioner's income. I do not think the minister himself : I do not think any cabinet minister; I do not think any member in this house would stand on a public platform anywhere in this country and defend that principle. I am confident that if that question were placed before this house at any time, not even cabinet ministers would support it. I would urge the minister to take that into consideration and, in arriving at the maximum pension, leave the question of assigned pay out of the picture entirely.
There is another matter I regret. The hon member for Winnipeg North Centre called attention to a clause in the act which seemed to provide that the home in which a pensioner lived should not be considered in arriving at
the amount of his income. I have argued this with the officials many times, and I can find nothing in the act itself which justifies the board in taking as part of his income five per cent of the assessed value of the little home in which the pensioner lives. I can find it in the regulations and it appears to me to be a clear case of regulations, formulated by some board, overriding an act passed by parliament. I am confident that the people of this country, I do not care where you go, are opposed to that practice. They are opposed to having five per cent of the assessed value of the home in which the pensioner lives counted as part of his income against his pension.
On these two points I wish the minister would do something to get rid of this injustice. They are unfair and I do not think they can be justified on any grounds. There are other points in the act upon which I will not touch to-night, but in regard to these matters I appeal to the minister.
There is another point I would bring to the minister's attention. A great many instances have been brought to my notice where old people find it impossible to obtain proof of age. I have been told again and again by the officials that proof of age must be documentary evidence of some kind. I will say this for the officials. I have found them most cooperative and ready to accept almost every form of document which would establish, by way of documentary evidence, the date of birth. But a number of cases have been brought to my attention where the officials recognize that people are entitled to pensions but there is no possibility of getting any document sufficiently old to establish their date of birth. The hon. member for Davenport was good enough to refer to many of the old people born in Newfoundland. I have come across many such cases. No vital statistics were kept there until recently. If I had to establish the date of my birth, by a birth certificate, I could not do so. At the time I was born in Newfoundland no vital statistics were kept. There is no record there. I was fortunate enough to have secured an affidavit from my parents when I came to Canada and I have had to use that as documentary evidence when I required proof of age. There are many people from Newfoundland in Canada who just cannot get documentary proof of age. I have tried, in some instances, to get the old school registers, but they cannot be found. We have tried to get evidence from the churches in which persons' baptisms were recorded, but in many instances the churches are burned; the records have been destroyed. I have a number of deserving cases that just simply cannot get proof of

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age. I think there should be some latitude left to the board or to some officials whereby affidavits or adequate proof of age could be accepted without insisting on documentary evidence as required at the present time. I make these three suggestions to the minister for his consideration.


James Arthur Ross: I should like first of
all to endorse the remarks and arguments
which were so ably set forth this afternoon by my colleague the hon. member for Vancouver South. Without repeating any of the arguments that have been made to-day there are one or two points that bother me to some extent. One of them has just been referred to. It is the case of the old age pensioner with a son serving in the armed services. I think it is most unfair, where it can be proven that the son had been contributing to the assistance particularly of a widowed mother.
I think I have discussed this matter of old age pension in every session since I have been here. In 1940 I set forth the idea that those pensioners should receive at least S30 a month or a dollar a day. The cost of living has risen considerably since that time. I think the index is a hundred and nineteen point something now and food is much higher. The cost of food is up thirty per cent in the index. As has been pointed out, many of those old people have been pioneers in this country. At times they thought they had enough laid up for the eventide of their lives. In many instances, through no fault of their own they have lost it. I think we should do better for those old people who have developed this country. We should make better provision for them in their old age. We might consider raising the amount to at least S30 a month. The age limit might be reduced to sixty-five years in the case of males and to sixty years in the case of females.
To return to the matter of the widowed mother with a son serving in the armed services. I do not have to remind this committee that many of those sons are dying for parliament and our way of living to-day. I do not think we are keeping faith with the mothers of those sons who have sacrificed their lives for our way of life. Surely the first move with respect to social security in this country should be by way of a proper provision for those old people who in the eventide of their life are now in difficult circumstances. That should be our first thought in so far as social security in this land of ours is concerned. We all recognize that we have what could easily be, if it is not now, one of the most prosperous lands in the world. We have many untold and undeveloped

natural resources and a sparsely settled country. Surely with all our available resources we can afford to do better for those old people and I think we should rightly do so.
I feel very much concerned about this matter, particularly with respect to those in the armed services. I sincerely trust that the minister will bring down legislation immediately whereby the assigned pay and the old age pension will not be taken into account where dependents' allowance is required.
Before taking my seat I wish to compliment the minister upon the statement he made in this house last month. I think the matter of increasing the income which the pensioner is allowed to earn from $65 to $125 is a step in the right direction, but I do not think it goes far enough. It should be still further increased. I trust that these suggestions, and especially the one about the widowed mother with sons in the armed services, will be dealt with more leniently. It is dealt with now in an altogether too carping a manner.


Humphrey Mitchell: I wish to say a couple of words on this matter. We have witnessed what I might call the Messiah versus the Messiah versus the Messiah this evening where so many different people have taken credit for the original establishment of old age pensions in this country. I think from a political sense the best exposition that I have heard to-day was from the hon. member for Comox-Alberni. I have a definite recollection of following him in the House of Commons in connection with this -Vitally important social problem. In saying that I do not want to take anything away from my good old friend the late James Woodsworth, with whom I sat in this House of Commons, and Abe Heaps. It might be truthfully said that the fact that the Liberal party in 1919 had this as part of its platform gives some indication of the movement in that direction over a good many years. But what has not been said here this evening and what should be said is the contribution made by the trade unions in this country in connection with the establishment of the old age pension.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We are glad to join with you in that.


Humphrey Mitchell: It can be truthfully said that the trade unions as an economic organization-not as a political organization, you understand, because politicians from the very nature of things are very careful sometimes about what they champion-first sponsored in a big way the advocacy of old age pensions in the Dominion of Canada. Because of the observations that have been made here this afternoon and evening I believe it is only fair

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for me to make that statement. I endeavoured to get from the library here the records of . the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada back to 1894 or somewhere around there, but I was not able to get them. I was able to get only back to 1914. I shall read a resolution advocating old age pensions in this dominion at a time before the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre even lived here. Let us go the correct way about this. Might I also say this, that I played some part in the establishment of old age pensions in this country, if I may be forgiven for saying it in a personal way, because I signed the agreement that brought it into existence in the province of Ontario. Strange to say, one of the signers of the agreement was the Hon. Peter Heenan, who was Minister of Labour of the Dominion of Canada at the time; the other signer was the Hon. Howard Ferguson, who was leader of the Conservative party in Ontario; and I went in and witnessed their signatures. Therefore it might be truthfully said that all the forward-looking citizens of this country who believe in social progress have played their part in the establishment of this very necessary social reform. Let us be fair and honest about it.
I have a vivid recollection of the campaign in which I took some part, the election of 1926, I think it was, referred to by the hon. member for Comox-Albemi. I think it was at that time that the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada set in motion another agitation, an educational agitation, for four fundamental things that were necessary. I remember two of them. One was the abolition of section 98 of the criminal code, and the other one was the establishment, after a veto by the senate, of old age pensions. If I remember rightly, I think the third one was the abolition or reform of the senate. Arising out of that educational campaign we got the establishment of old age pensions.
Might I say that if I had my life to live over again-I advocated non-contributory old age pensions-I think I would advocate contributory old [DOT] age pensions. I believe that pensions should be paid-I speak now as an individual-to the people of this country by right. The only way you can get anything by right is by making some contribution to it. That principle is followed in Great Britain. It has been followed in Sweden and New Zealand, and in any country where they have what might be called a successful old age pension system, it does embody a contributory system.
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
100-221J
everything that is paid by the state is a charge on the living standards of the people of this dominion or any other nation. History has proven that pride is the backbone of a nation. Let us consider, for example, the nation from which the hon. member for New Westminster comes. There you have thrift and pride, a combination which has made the Scotch people what they are.	[DOT]
In the very nature of things we must take care of these old people, and I take second place to no man in the House of Commons in my understanding of the obligation owed1 to them by the state. But I hope I shall live to see the day when we shall establish a system of old age pensions which will provide pensions by right to every person-to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre and to myself, for that matter, and if necessary to the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway company. I do not think there should be any discrimination whatsoever.	.
Some people are thrifty. It is something like walking down a country lane and seeing different kinds of land. We see the good farmer, the fair farmer, the indifferent or average farmer. Thrift should not stand as a barrier in setting out the obligation of the state toward the old people. It would be my hope that as the days go by we might establish in Canada a system of old age pensions, based upon a contributory principle, the same as unemployment insurance.
I have always felt that there have been three great fears in the lives of working men and women: the fear of destitution in old age, the fear of destitution through sickness, and the fear of destitution through unemployment. I have always felt it is only a question of organization in a big way-in a big way, you understand, rather than by telling people they can have something for nothing-that these fears can be met. There should be organization in a big way, and on a contributory basis, so that a nation could-not in a full measure, perhaps, but at least in a reasonable degree- eliminate those three fears from the lives of its working men and women, its farmers and others engaged in the commercial life of the country.
I have given what I have always considered to be my philosophy of life. It is as old as history itself. 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 ashcan. 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
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doubt. One could read the history of Carthage, Rome, Greece, the history of other civilizations and nations-


Thomas Reid: And Russia.


Humphrey Mitchell: I could say that, too, but not at the present time. They flourished and decayed. That is written indelibly in the history of those nations. The strength and power of the British people is their pride and thrift. That has made them what they are. I hope that some day I shall live to see worked out an organization operating on a contributory basis which will attack these three great fears of our men, women and children.


Mr. ESLING:: Mr. Chairman, various phases of the Old Age Pensions Act have been discussed this afternoon and this evening. However, I should like to touch upon just one phase of it, namely that relating to the blind. In doing so, I should first of all like to refer to that able and energetic blind administrator, Colonel Baker, director of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. That is an institution which has done much more than is realized by the general public. It is to Colonel Baker that this country owes a debt for having made it possible for so many blind persons to maintain themselves.
Then, in the Department of Pensions and National Health is Doctor Burke, who has made a special study of the case for the blind. He has gone into the matter thoroughly, and looks forward to the day when there may be a further step which will improve the condition of the blind, and also relieve them by a system of treatments which should be put into effect in every province. Had such been done in late years, it is altogether probable that many who are now receiving pensions at the reduced age oi forty, many who are to-day shut out from the world, would be relieved of that disability.
It is known that in 1942 there were 12,350 blind persons in Canada. Of that number sonle 6,350 are now pensioned, not only by reason of the age limit of seventy, but by reason of the reduced age of forty. There are also about 2,300 who are not blind, according to the interpretation of that status, as it is defined in the act, but who are suffering, and who would never have reached that state of disability had there been proper treatment. In many instances their condition is the result of disease, or malnutrition, or of accidents.
In this day and age when we look forward to travelling along a trail of sunshine and security the first essential is health. When we do not have the best of health and the best of treatment we may look forward to further cases of blindness, calling for pensions. It is strange to note how the cases are apporfMr. Mitchell.]
tioned among the provinces. Although Ontario has a population which is 400,000 greater than that of Quebec, yet we find that Quebec has about 2,100 oases of blindness, and that about 900 are deserving and desirous of treatment. There are about 2,100 cases in the dominion who are awaiting the eligible age of forty years before they can be pensioned.
The point I would emphasize to-night is the necessity for treatment of the blind. Then, too, I hope the minister may see his way clear in the near future to bring in a measure which will put under one act legislation affecting the blind. I would suggest, too, that the age limit for the blind should be brought down to twenty-one years. Surely the life of a young man is just as valuable at the age of twenty-one years. He has more to look forward to at that age than the man who is blind at the age of forty years. The main purpose of all this social legislation is to create self-maintenance, self-support and independence. We are indebted to Colonel Baker for having made it possible for so many blind persons to be able to maintain themselves. I urge upon the government the providing of treatment in order to prevent so many people from being shut out from the world as the blind are. I ask the minister to give thought to this suggestion.


Gordon Graydon: Mr. Chairman, I have not been one who has been favourable to rising by way of repetition of other people's arguments, and I have no desire to do so to-night. I join with many of those who have spoken. There was an air of unanimity in the committee, to ask and demand that the older people of Canada shall have a square deal. I want to say to the government and to those in the committee that it seems to be easy for promises to be made and for bidding sometimes to take place with respect to the older people in our land. I may say that what the older people are interested in are not promises, what the older people are interested in is action which will bring them the conditions to which they are entitled under the present situation.
I want to say to the committee, and I state it very seriously, that I believe in the days to come the course outlined by the hon. member for Vancouver South must be followed by the Canadian people in a way in which it has never been followed before. That is, human values must definitely replace material values in a way that we in this nation have never known before. That is one of the things which the new era, the new world, the new order, will call for, will demand and must get if it is to be successful.

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I would say this one thing with respect to old age pensions. This party does not take a back seat to any party in the House of Commons in its desire-perhaps this is more important-and in the years to come in its capacity to do something for those of our older people in Canada. As I listened to the hon. member for Kootenay West I could not help thinking of the excellent address that was made last night to the empire parliamentary association group in Ottawa by Mr. George Tomlinson, undersecretary to the minister of labour of Great Britain. He indicated the work that was being done there in rehabilitation in connection with those who have lost their sight. He pointed out that in certain industries in Britain those who are unable to see have mastered certain jobs which could not be mastered in the same way by those who have their sight. This was of vast interest to those who listened to him. I think we were all much cheered with the thought that there were jobs and trades being created for our people who are thus afflicted.
I rose to-night more particularly to say to the minister that there is one thing that perhaps ought to be stressed at this time. I have had cases, and I imagine hon. members have had cases, where old age pensions have been reduced, sometimes taken away entirely, because assigned pay or dependents' allowance had been received by a mother of a boy who is overseas. I want to make this very earnest plea to the minister and I think it is one that he will at once see should be given consideration. Where there is assigned pay or where there is a dependents' allowance I do not think this country can afford-I put it as seriously as that-to ignore the situation where those people are being so treated with respect to the reduction in old age pension, or in some instances are experiencing its loss altogether. It certainly is not fair and it certainly is not understood by those who are thus involved. From the cases I have come across I have reached the conclusion that we must do away with the regulation which calls for that.
Curiously enough, just a short time ago I received definite information and evidence of one particular case concerning two old people. The old gentleman was receiving an old age pension. His wife is living and his son is overseas. Assigned pay and dependents' allowance were paid into that home. First of all, his pension was taken away and then on May 12 last it was restored to the extent that instead of receiving $25 he now receives $12.83. I do not want to be unduly critical of the minister, and I do not rise in any sense of narrow criticism, but I think this
country and this government will at once recognize that that is not the way to increase confidence in those fine old citizens of our country whose sons are overseas fighting for the security which we enjoy.
I for one do not think-and I believe I speak on behalf of the committee generally- that we can afford to allow that state of affairs to continue in this dominion. It may ' seem a small item to some people; it may seem a very insignificant thing, but when one realizes that this is the one and only source' of revenue and income that some people have, it becomes a matter of major importance to them. I want to make the plea to the minister sincerely to-night that something be done with respect to the situation which I have just described. I realize that there has been some change made, but evidently the situation still needs attention of the character I have indicated. .


Clarence Gillis: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that the minister wants to get his estimates through, but I have a few observations I should like to make. I have sat here for some time and had someone else expressed what I had in mind, I would not be on my feet at this moment. I wish to request the minister to pay serious attention to the remarks to-night of the hon. member for Yancouver-Burrard. Increasing the old- age pension and the pension to the blind would not be a waste of money. There is a great consuming market in these people. There are 188,488 people receiving pensions, and there are a great number who do not receive them, particularly blind persons, because the blind pension is not paid until forty years of age.
I think that is a crime. If you doubled the old age pension all the money would be spent within Canada. It would stimulate the markets across Canada and help in building up this country. I am not going to go into that in any detail because it is elementary social economics.


James Lorimer Ilsley: But a post-war argument.


Clarence Gillis: That is so, and it is post-war that I am thinking,of. I realize that after the close of this session we may have an election, and we do not know who will be in power next. In listening to the debate in the house to-night, I have wondered who is the government of this country. Conservative members, whose party has been in power many times in the last seventy-six years, claim that on every occasion that their party has been in power the old age pension has been very close to their hearts The same is said by the Liberal members, who claim credit for establishing what? We have not established
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old age pensions in Canada yet. What makes me wonder who is running this country and who has been running it in the past is that the members of the House of Commons, we who are sent here to legislate for this country and are desirous of seeing old age pensions established, and the aged and the blind get everything that is coming to them, have not brought this thing to pass. What has stopped them from doing it? All that is required is to bring down the necessary legislation and it would go through the house unanimously.
I am sorry for the Minister of Finance, for whose honesty I have a great deal of respect.
I am led to believe, after listening to the discussion here to-night, that whoever sits behind the scenes and runs the treasury board is running this country. Otherwise we would give effect to the things we talk about wanting. That is what strikes me as I sit here. If I belonged to a party in this house that had -been in power in this country in the last twenty or thirty or forty years I certainly would not want to rise in this house and say that I still owed allegiance to that party and supported its principles if it had neglected the opportunity of passing the legislation when it was within its power to do so. That would be an admission that, while in office, it had not taken advantage of its privilege to enact the necessary legislation which it said it wanted.
I was glad to hear the Minister of Labour mention the struggle which had been made by the labour unions across Canada during the past forty years to get the old age pension enacted. Yes, they have struggled, and struggled hard. They have passed resolutions at their conventions, provincial, national and local, but they had no power to legislate. I can remember back to the year 1910, when I sat in a very small provincial organization in Nova Scotia which passed resolutions favouring old age pensions. They have been trying all along to get the government to do something about it.
What struck me to-night in the analysis given by the Minister of Labour of contributory and non-contributory old age pension schemes is this, that there is no such thing as a non-contributory old age pension scheme. You do not get anything without contributing toward it. I have said that for the last twenty years, when many people were discussing a non-contributory system. Our aged people have made their contribution. They have gone into industry or worked on the farms or in business; they have raised their families and given their children of three generations to war; they have helped to build this nation. Now they are at the end of the trail when they are no longer productive, and they are
[Mr. Gillis.l	.
relegated to the scrap-heap. I have in mind the heavy industries of this country. I should like some members of the house to go into the coal mines of Nova Scotia at five o'clock in the morning and watch the old men, seventy years of age and older, with a can on their backs, hobbling along with a cane perhaps, crippled, but obliged to work because they have no other means of livelihood. They have given everything they had to that industry and there is nothing for them at the end of the trail. They have made their contribution already. That is why I say there is no such thing as a non-contributory system.
The minister stated that New Zealand and other countries had a contributory scheme. That is true. But he failed to point out the different methods used in those countries to finance their social security scheme. New Zealand has an over-all social security plan, covering old age pensions, medicine and all the rest of it-all these schemes that we are considering separately. Theirs is the only way to do it. New Zealand has a five per cent tax against all income in New Zealand, and the proceeds from that tax go into their over-all social security fund, which provides for old age pensions as well as other things. Everyone contributes to it. If your income is small, you make your contribution; if your income is larger, you make a greater contribution. It is a direct tax on the pay envelope of the individual. Everyone pays into that social security fund on the basis of his ability to pay. That is the difference in New Zealand.


James Lorimer Ilsley: They have a flat tax as
well?


Clarence Gillis: A five per cent tax against,
all income.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is called a progressive
tax, and in addition they have a flat tax of a pound a year.


Clarence Gillis: No. Any deficit in their
social security fund at the end of the year is made up out of consolidated revenue.


James Lorimer Ilsley: My hon. friend is very positive, but often he is wrong. I am sorry to say that, but it is a fact. Is it not true that in New Zealand, in addition to the five per cent tax, which goes down to even the smallest incomes, there is a flat tax of a pound a year?


Clarence Gillis: No.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not believe my hon.
friend knows. I have been told that there is.

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Clarence Gillis: Unless they have made
changes quite recently, the tax is a five per cent tax for all social security purposes, and it is applied to all incomes.


Mrs. CASSELMAN:: Is there not a registration tax on every man over sixteen years of age of one pound a year, and something less on every woman, in addition to the five per cent tax?


Clarence Gillis: No.


Frederick Clayton Casselman: Yes, I think I am right in that.


Clarence Gillis: I am not going to argue with the hon. member. The tax I mentioned is the tax that has been in effect in New Zealand up until six months ago. It may have been changed recently. That is the only way in . which to deal with the matter. If you are going to finance separately all the social security plans that are being discussed in Canada now, $12 a year for medical services, so much for unemployment insurance, and so on, and load all those charges back against the pay envelope of the individual, or apply it as a tax by municipalities upon property, it will never work. No one can make it work. The only way in which to work it is the way they have in New Zealand.
I agree with the minister that we shall have to understand what is contributory and what is not. But I maintain that there is no such thing as a non-contributory scheme. We have to pay for it out of the wealth that is produced in this country. Personally I would not want to take any credit for the old age pension scheme that we have in effect to-day. We have established the principle; that is about all; and as someone pointed out here to-night, it really is a paupers' allowance, because the thing which any applicant for the old age pension to-day has to prove is that he is a pauper, that he does not own anything. Take, for example, the sad experience of certain families of veterans of the last war. The men carry an insurance policy of a thousand dollars. They pass away. They are no sooner dead than someone from the old age pension board and the other bodies which handed them out pittances comes in to inquire if there was any insurance. "Yes; there was a thousand dollars insurance." "All right, you cannot get anything from any source, be it a mother's allowance or anything else, until you have spent that thousand dollars insurance and have rendered an itemized account of it to the different boards from which you expect help, so as to make sure that it is all gone and that you have spent it solely for the necessities of life." These things are nothing to brag about.
I would be ashamed if I had to admit that 1 had ever sat on a committee and put my name to that kind of legislation.


Mr. GERSHAW:: As regards that thousand dollars, Mr. Chairman, is it not a fact that they figure out how much of an annuity could be purchased at the age of the pensioner, and then calculate, not the principal itself but the amount which would be produced if it were used to buy a government annuity?	[DOT]


Clarence Gillis: No.


Frederick William Gershaw: I think it is.


Clarence Gillis: That thousand dollars has to be used up. In the old age pension scheme they watch it a little closer. I am talking now about the application of the old age pension in Nova Scotia.


Frederick William Gershaw: We have a better scheme in Alberta.


Mr. HANSELL:: Hear, hear.


Clarence Gillis: I am not going to get into a political argument about Alberta. I know you have. I might go farther and say that it is not a Liberal or a Tory government in Alberta.


James Arthur Ross: Nor a C.C.F. government.


Clarence Gillis: That is true. I know old people who dragged out their lives in the coal mines, retired at seventy, applied for the old age pension, and when a check-up was made, it was found that they had a few hundred dollars in the bank to pay the cost of burying
them.


Thomas Reid: I have always wondered why the province from which the hon. member for Cape Breton South comes has always paid the lowest old age pension of the provinces. As you know, it started at S20; some pay $30; but in Nova Scotia I believe the average is around $11; and I never could understand how a person could live on that, and why the province has not increased it.


Clarence Gillis: You cannot live on it, and the only answer I can give is that up to 1925 we had about forty-six years of Liberal government in Nova Scotia. There was a break
then,	when the Tories went in, but the Liberals went back in again.


Thomas Reid: That does not apply in British Columbia, because we have a Liberal government there, and the pensioners get $30.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The average in Nova Scotia as of March 31 was $18.06, exclusive of the provincial supplement. There is a provincial supplement which is, I believe, S5.
350S
War Appropriation-Finance


Clarence Gillis: In checking the thing since the rates were changed and the increase was granted, I have been told that there has been a much stricter administration, and that people actually lost money. That is all they succeeded in doing there with the increase.
There are two things of which I want specifically to complain in the administration of the act. A soldier of the last war who served in a theatre of war and is in receipt of war veteran's allowance is granted that pension because of being incapacitated through service in an actual theatre of war. The pension is granted by the federal government, and is the veteran's pension by right. Two cases have been brought to my attention where a wife, having reached the age of seventy, made application for old age pension, and S12 a month was granted and payment made for about two years. Then someone advised the authorities that the husband was in receipt of a "burnt-out" pension of S30 or S40 a month, whereupon the old age pension of the wife was immediately . discontinued, and the war veteran's allowance to the husband was assessed so much a month to pay back what had been paid to the wife by way of old age pension. I think that is a practice which should be discontinued.
The same principle applies in the matter of compensation. A man injured in industry is in receipt of compensation, for which benefit he has paid. Some people are of the opinion that it is a benevolent set-up, that in the case of accident the industrialist pays you because of the injury. One of the first charges against the wage rates of workers in industry is compensation. It is one of the major elements in computing cost of production.


Mr. WARD:: But the worker pays only a percentage.


Clarence Gillis: He pays a big percentage.


William John Ward: No; small.


Clarence Gillis: The fact of the matter is-if you want to argue the matter-that he pays it all. There is nobody who produces except the worker.


Frederick Clayton Casselman: Not in Alberta.


Clarence Gillis: Just a minute. In a steel plant, in a coal mine, in a factory or a mill, the only person who produces wealth in the industry is the person who actually works. Nobody else produces it; and when you sit in and make an assessment for compensation purposes, if you pay only twenty-five or thirty per cent it is taken out of the actual cost of the operation, and he is the man who pays the shot 100 per cent. But in the event of an injury, and the man receives a small pension

to compensate for the partial or permanent disability, there is an arrangement that, in the event of old age pension being paid, it is deductible from what the man receives in compensation pension. We are only kidding people when we tell them that we have estab-lishesd an old age pension system for the aged and infirm when we ramify it through every other piece of legislation we have in operation. Either it is an old age pension or it is not. I believe that the first charge on the wealth of this and any country is for the care of the aged. I believe they should receive that pension when they are sixty years of age. There is no use in giving it to either a man or a woman who is older than that. What can they do with it? They cannot enjoy life; they cannot get around. They cannot do anything with it. When anyone has struggled from the time he or she is twenty years of age until the age of sixty and made a contribution in this country, the statesmen who are running the country should recognize it _ as an obligation to see that the few remaining years of his or her life are spent in at least a fair degree of comfort, with enough to eat, enough to wear, some little recreation and the opportunity to breathe the fresh air. That is not asking too much; it is a right which should be recognized; no strings should be attached to it, and there should be no quibbling about it.
I have heard no little talk about the building of morale of the men in the armed services. In listening this evening to the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard and some other speakers, it struck me that if the programme of policy of the Liberal party as laid down in 1919 had been implemented even to the extent of fifty per cent, there would not be these groups in this chamber to-night. The groups represented here are the logical protest against promises made and never fulfilled. Fifty per cent of the programme mapped out in 1919, had it been put into effect, would, I am reasonably sure, have offset the third party movements in this country. But we have passed the time when we can keep on merely promising.
We have to start doing something, and on this point alone I think that at this session of the house something should be done about old age pensions. I think for the moment of the hundreds of boys in fox-holes in Italy and of the thousands who are waiting to-night in England to go on board a barge to cross the channel. They know what they are going into and they stop and look back at Canada and wonder what is happening here. You know that many of the homes these boys come from have as their only income an assignment of pay. In some cases they have

War Appropriation-Finance
an allowance by virtue of that assignment of pay. If something happens to that boy during the process of crossing the channel and going into the land of the enemy, that assignment of pay will stop; that allowance to the family will be discontinued. The result is that that family has a good chance of going back on relief. That is not a good state of mind for that boy to be in when he goes to invade the European continent.
In my opinion, one of the greatest morale builders that could be provided for the services at this time, and for our old people as well, would be a declaration on the part of the federal government that we in this country have enacted an old age pension law that will guarantee to the aged, at the age of sixty or sixty-five, an income of around $40 a month. It is the right of the old people; it is something they are entitled to; and if they have built a little home for themselves, if they have accumulated something in the course of their lifetime, there is no reason why they should be penalized in consequence and have to will that home to the provincial government in order to establish their right to pension. If something were done along the line I have suggested it would establish the morale of the men. I know it would be a relief to me if I were in England to-night, about to cross the channel, to know that we in Canada had taken at least one step in the direction of guaranteeing a measure of security to the people I had left behind.
And remember that the boys who are going to cross the channel come largely from such families. The one thing that I have feared, the one thing that ninety per cent of our people have feared all their lives, is old age. There is no security. You are living ninety per cent of your life preparing yourself to get sufficient to bury you after you leave this earth. That is all. The fear of insecurity is the spectre that has haunted the great majority of the people of this country. I do not know what the minister will do about it. But I am reasonably sure that if he has his way he will do something about it. I fear, however, that someone else is superior to him behind the scenes, and that is why something has not been done long ago.
Sitting here, listening to the discussion, I wonder where the supremacy of parliament is. This is not a war measure that must be passed by order in council. It is something that comes within the purview of the House of Commons, and we are all agreed upon it. Why, therefore, do we not do something about it? What are we waiting for? I could stand here and talk for hours on this subject, but I will not do so. The hon. member for
Kootenay West spoke also about the blind pensioners, and they are in a worse position, if anything. There are hundreds of blind people in the country who are receiving no pension. Up to forty years of age you may be stone blind and yet not receive anything. After you pass forty years of age they will make some provision for you. There is a possibility that if there were proper pensions and grants and provisions made to augment the schools throughout the country, hundreds of young people who are in that condition could be made productive, and helped to lead useful lives.
I could tell the committee a story of the administration of blind pensions, but I will not do so now. It is too long. Certainly it leaves much to be desired. The people who are obliged to live either on a war pension or on a compensation pension and who are unfortunate enough to have a blind boy or girl in the house are penalized if they send that boy or girl to school. If the child is in the home the blind pension is paid, or the compensation pension is paid, on behalf of that child; but if that child is sent to Halifax, to a blind school, from any part of Nova Scotia, then immediately he leaves home and becomes an extra responsibility the pension is cut off, because he is no longer living at home. That is crazy, because the fact that the child has gone to a school adds to the obligations on the mother, in the case I have in mind, instead of relieving her. The compensation pension was cut off because he left his home and went into a school in Halifax.
It is little odds and ends such as this that irritate the people. In connection with this matter of compensation, war veterans' allowance, an agreement or understanding arrived at between the federal government and the provincial authorities is, I think, something which, if the Minister of Finance has any authority or power over, he should put his foot on. If a man is burnt out and unemployable in consequence of service in- an actual theatre of war, what he receives is his by right, and if his wife is blind she should be entitled to blind pension, without any interference with what has already been granted the soldier by statute. The same applies to compensation. The compensation paid should not militate against the wife in the event of her reaching the age prescribed by the act in making her eligible for old age pension. This is something I feel strongly about, because it is one thing which for many years I have thought over. I have sat down and drafted bills, dozens of them. I have had pilgrimages to the provincial governments. We have tried to make it contributory; we have tried to
War Ap propria lion-Fina ncc

make applicable to our own industry, we have tried in every way to get around it, but we have met with a rebuff every time. If we established it for one industry we were told we would have to make it contributory for some others; the rural people would make a fuss if it were not applicable to them, and we have not the same access to them by way of contributions, and so forth. For years and years we have been going around in a circle trying to do something about, the matter. It is a federal responsibility. Everyone is agreed on that, but the surprising thing is that we do not do something about it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I asked'the hon. gentleman if he was sure that the five per cent was the only contribution in New Zealand. I have had the high commissioner's office telephoned to find out about it, and I find that there is five per cent on the earnings at the source on everybody, one pound per annum registration fee on all males over twenty, and on women there is a registration fee of five shillings for women over sixteen and five shillings on youths of ages from sixteen to twenty. One hon. member has handed me the Vancouver Daily Province of Monday, May 29, 1944, in which is reported a speech by the Hon. David Wilson, High Commissioner of New Zealand to Canada. I quote:
A shilling tax on every pound of income, and a registration fee of one pound per year per person pays for the majority of the benefits of social security in New Zealand, Hon. David Wilson, High Commissioner for New Zealand to Canada, said at the Sunday evening forum at St. John's United Church.
He goes on to make a speech on that. I simply wanted to make that correction because the hon. gentleman is wrong about it, as he is every once in a while. I do not object to that, because I am sometimes wrong myself; but he is so positive he is right when he is wrong.


Clarence Gillis: You must remember that in New Zealand in financing this war they changed their financial arrangements half a dozen times.


Frederick Clayton Casselman: 
James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. The hon. gentleman is wrong again. He cannot say it was just since six months ago.


Clarence Gillis: Have you got what it covers?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Social security.
[Mr. Gillis.l


Clarence Gillis: Complete?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Clarence Gillis: Unemployment insurance,
medical set-up, hospitalization and all the rest of it?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am quoting from the speech but that is not the point at all. The point is that there is the pound in addition to the five per cent for social security, and I am not going to carry it any farther with the hon. gentleman because once before I did. It was about the R.C.M.P. or something of that sort. I depended on what my hon. friend was saying. I asked him if he was sure about what he was saying because I could not deny it and I found out next day he was wrong about that. I am just asking him to be a little more accurate in these matters of figures in the house.


Clarence Gillis: I do not remember anything about the R.C.M.P.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I can remind my hon. friend of it.


Clarence Gillis: The minister cannot bring the record in here.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I certainly can.


Clarence Gillis: No; because what I advocated about the R.C.M.P. at that time has been fixed up.


James Lorimer Ilsley: My hon. friend was entirely wrong in his figures.


Clarence Gillis: No; the only time I was wrong in myr figures about, the R.C.M.P. with the Minister of Justice I rose an hour later and drew it to his attention and told him I was wrong.


Gordon Graydon: I do not think the minister or the hon. gentleman are very sure about this thing. I think we had better go on with the business.


James Lorimer Ilsley: So do I.


William Henry Golding: Shall the item carry?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Quite a few questions were put to the minister and I am sure we should like to hear from him.


James Lorimer Ilsley: If everybody is through-


Ernest George Hansell: Everybody is not through.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I thought it was too good to be true.


William Henry Golding: The hon. member for Edmonton East has the floor.

Alcoholic Beverages-Rationing


Frederick Clayton Casselman: I have tried to get the floor before, Mr. Chairman. I just wish to say I do not want to repeat what has been said to-night; but I think all of us can speak on this question of old age pensions because we have all had them very much at heart and we should like to see an increase in the standard of living of our old people.
The Minister of Labour has expressed vigorously some of the things I should like to have said had there been time. We all recognize, of course, there are administrative difficulties because it comes under provincial and dominion administration. We have overcome some of the difficulties that could be overcome and we shall overcome others. We are all glad to have the minister's statement of a few days ago that all, or substantially all of the provinces that wish to have a decrease in the age will be given consideration. I also wish to join with the hon. member for Kootenay West in his references to pensions for the blind and the splendid work that the Canadian Institute for the blind is doing. That institute and the War Amputations' Association of Canada are helping a great deal at the present time those who are disabled in this war. They meet the cases at Halifax as they come back. They correspond with the relatives of the men who are disabled. They help to bring both to a better frame of mind in order that the adjustments which are necessary may be made when a man is disabled or injured in this war. I was also interested in the statement made by the hon. member for Peel, the leader of the opposition. Last night we both listened to Mr. Tomlinson's speech; I had the privilege of talking to the hon. member for St. Paul's later and he told me that in a Toronto hospital the same kind of treatment was given to the men disabled in somewhat the same way as Mr. Tomlinson spoke of. Those men were -being treated similarly and are placed in industry in Toronto and made self-supporting. I think the training is an excellent thing because it teaches them to be self-supporting and independent. The early training is good.
My impression of the Canadian Institute for the Blind which gets a grant from the government and looks after the children sent to the blind schools is that when the children leave the home and are taken in by that institute it pays the bills. I am not exactly sure of that, but that is my impression. I shall look it up. I just wish to speak on these matters and, if there were time, there is a great deal more I should like to say.


Mr. HAZEN:: When the minister makes his reply would he put on record the figures of the
average old1 age pensions paid in each of the provinces at the last date he has available. I have the figures here but they are up only to April 12, 1943. Evidently we have later figures, because he referred to the average each year, the average payment in Nova Scotia. If he has the figures, perhaps he could give us the number of pensons receiving pensions as well.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That data will be found in Hansard of March 23 up to the end of last year.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I have a lot of figures. Perhaps I had better look at Hansard to see what the hon. member has asked for and put it on Hansard later on rather than put on something that is not just what the hon. member is seeking.


Stanley Howard Knowles: A partial answer to that will be found on Hansard of March 23 of this year at page 1744. There will be found the number of old age and blind pensioners in each province, the average old age and blind pensions in each province as at December 31, 1943. The minister may have later information, but that gives it to that date.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes; all right.
Item stands.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Monday, June 5, 1944