1946-06-17

Mr. JOHN BRACKEN (Leader of the Opposition):: I am sure all members of the house are glad to see that the Prime Minister's seat is once again occupied by the Prime Minister himself. On behalf of the official opposition I wish to extend to him a cordial welcome back to Canada and to the House of Commons. I am glad to see that he is looking well after his trip. I trust that he has found his trip not only useful but pleasant as well. I may say to him that during his absence we have done our best to keep the government on the straight and narrow path of rectitude, but in that we have been only partly successful. We have saved up a few things for his consideration on his return, among others such minor matters as the budget, redistribution, and so forth. For these reasons I am sure

The Prime Minister
that those who sit at his back will be as glad as we are in the opposition to welcome him home.
As a matter of interest, the Prime Minister returned on a ship which, according to the papers, carried two thousand brides. I would be the last to offer the Prime Minister any advice in his domestic affairs, and I suppose I would be the last from whom he would accept any such advice, but having failed at least in one respect during his threescore years and ten,
I am sure the Canadian people would not have objected had that ship contained two thousand and one brides.
Again let me say on behalf of the official opposition that we cordially welcome the Prime Minister, and we look forward to the report of his visit overseas.


Mr. M. J. COLD WELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: It is unnecessary for me to add anything to what the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) has said. We join with him in his welcome to the Prime Minister. We are glad to see him back, and for a change we agree with all that the leader of the opposition said.
Mr. SOLON E. LOW (Peace River): May I join with the two hon. gentlemen who have spoken in welcoming the Prime Minister, and say that I have been looking forward to his return ever since he left, because I am still very much concerned about the hot weather. I am happy he is here again, because it augurs well for some speed in getting through the work of the session, so that we shall not have to sit here through the heat of the summer. We are pleased to see him looking so well.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I need
scarcely say I am indeed deeply touched by the welcome extended to me this afternoon on my return from a journey overseas. May I at once thank my hon. friends, the leader of the opposition and the leaders of the other parties who have spoken, for the cordial manner in which they have extended greetings on their own behalf and on behalf of their followers. May I say to the members of my own party, to my colleagues in the government and to our supporters, how delighted I am to be back again helping to share with them in the solution of some of the problems and in helping to bear some of the burdens which they have been carrying exclusively, during the time that I have been away.
I should like to say a word of thanks to the house for giving me the opportunity, which I have had in the last five weeks, of paying a very memorable visit to the old country. The main purpose of the visit hon.
members know was to participate in the proceedings of the conference of prime ministers which had commenced some weeks before I left, but which had been adjourned in order to give me the opportunity of joining with the premiers of the other nations of the commonwealth in reviewing situations and problems of common interest. I found that opportunity of exceptional value.
I shall keep in mind the wish expressed by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) that I should report to the house on the conference at a later and more appropriate stage, but at this moment I should like to express very warmly my appreciation of the many courtesies extended by the government of the United Kingdom, and in particular by the Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee, and the secretary of state for dominion affairs, Lord Addison; also of the courtesies extended by their colleagues, and the facilities that were afforded for gaining first-hand information on imporantant public matters from as many sources as possible during the period of my stay.
My absence covered a period of five weeks. Two weeks were spent in the trip to and fro.
I want to express appreciation of the opportunity that was thereby afforded to get a little rest and, while taking the ocean voyage and having the benefit of the sea air for that length of time, to reflect on many questions which are of real concern to us all. The three weeks in London were necessarily very much occupied with the proceedings of the conference and with consultations with different members of the government. During that period I also had the opportunity of witnessing the marvellous victory parade which took place in that city. That parade I believe will prove a line of demarcation between the past and its associations with war, and the future with its outlook for better conditions for human society. I wish 'all hon. members might have been privileged as I was to witness that parade. From what they have seen in the illustrated papers of views of the mechanized colum, they must realize something of the tremendous power it was necessary for the nations of the commonwealth and allied nations to exert in order to defend freedom and civilization from the enemies who were seeking to overthrow them. Similarly from a view of. the marching column one got a fuller appreciation of the tremendous contribution made by the manhood and womanhood of the different free nations toward victory. It has secured the condition we have in the world to-day which, though still one of unrest, is free from actual war. Looking
The Prime Minister

beneath the surface one could not but feel deeply the tremendous burden mankind seems to have had placed upon its shoulders in the recent past, and could not but wonder what will happen to human society if soon we do not find some way of effecting peace and good will among the nations of the world.
I should like to say a special word about the place our contingents, of the navy, the army and the air force, held in that memorable procession on the occasion of the victory parade. The Canadian contingents were recognized immediately by the multitudes along the streets and were given a wonderful reception. I was never in my life prouder of being a citizen of Canada than as I witnessed that parade, and reflected upon the position which Canada holds in the eyes of other nations as a result of the great part our defence forces have played in preserving the liberty of the world. May I add that I was never more grateful that this country is a member of the great community of nations which constitutes the British commonwealth and empire than I am at this moment, as a result of what I have seen and learned in a more intimate way in the course of this last visit. This is a time when all of us who love freedom cannot be bound together too closely by every possible bond that will cement relations between nations; and we are fortunate indeed in belonging to a great community of free nations which, in free combination with the powerful forces of the United States, have done and will, I believe, continue to do more to preserve freedom than would be possible in any other way.
I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, that on the way overseas or coming back I was not able to improve the opportunity along the lines suggested by my hon. friend, the leader of the opposition. But may I say that while I believe threescore years and ten are something of a handicap, I have not yet lost hope that there may be opportunities of happiness for myself and others, which he apparently so greatly desires should be mine.
I was deeply impressed while away by what I learned of the very serious condition of the world at the present time. It may seem a commonplace in the light of what has been stated from various sources to say it, but one could not participate in conferences such as we had, or have the privilege as was mine of conversing with those who have inside knowledge of the situation, without realizing that at this moment the situation in the world is in some respects as difficult as it has been at any time in history. In England, to appearances
fMr. Mackenzie King.]
at least, there has been some improvement. Outwardly at least the people look better; there is a note of hope, and a happier expression on their countenances. But they know that all the fortitude which was required during the war is still required to carry them through the situation facing them at the present time, and anything that can be done on this side I know will be appreciated over there more than words can express.
May I add that it does seem to me conditions in central Europe are deteriorating rapidly and greatly. Undoubtedly conditions are better in Holland, Denmark and Belgium, but they are still very difficult in France and are terrible in parts of Germany. Unless some means can be found whereby the new world, and countries that have supplies of food and clothing, can furnish those supplies to the people of some of the occupied zones and other parts of Europe, there may be conditions of famine, of strife and of turmoil which will amount to something in the nature of the spread of a new revolution throughout Europe. I think I am not wrong in giving that as an impression-not from what I have seen in Europe, because unfortunately I did not have the chance ito pay the personal visit that I had hoped I might, but from what I have gathered from those who have inside information.
The last word I should like to say at the moment is that, as far as one can judge what will go farther than anything else in helping to meet present world conditions is increased production and more effective distribution. The need in Europe to-day is to get industry under way, to get people at work. There is the prospect of a good harvest, but in some areas it has been impossible thus far to find any means whereby large numbers who should be employed can be given work, because of lack of fuel, food and transportation. Anything that can be done in the world to-day to furnish the necessities of life to those parts of Europe which are in dire need will not only mean salvation for them, but may well be in the nature of salvation for the world as a whole.



STANDING ORDERS

[Stage Direction]
Third report of the standing committee on standing orders.-Mr. MacLean.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. LIONEL CHEVRIER (Minister of Transport) moved for leave to introduce bill No. 194, respecting Canadian National Railways and the acquisition of the Manitoba Railway.

Questions
He said: Mr. Speaker, by virtue of this bill the Canadian National Railways seeks authority from the house to purchase the Manitoba Railway. The Manitoba Railway is an amalgamation of The Northern Pacific and Manitoba Railway company, the Winnipeg Transfer Railway company, the Portage and Northwestern Railway company and the Waskada and Northeastern Railway company. In the year 1901 these railway companies, the names of which I have just mentioned, leased to the crown in the right of the province of Manitoba their railways and undertaking, for a period of 999 years. The lease was afterwards assigned by the province of Manitoba to the Canadian Northern Railway company; and the Canadian Northern Railway company is part of the Canadian National Railways. One of the terms of the lease referred to in 1901 provided for payment of an annual rental of $300,000 per year. That has been paid by the Canadian National Railways, since its purchase of the assignment of the lease.
The lease also contained an option to purchase the railway for $7 million, and the Canadian National Railways now seek the right, by virtue of the assignment of the lease, to purchase the railway at the price mentioned. This purchase will mean a substantial saving to the Canadian National Railways, and a consequent reduction in its fixed charges. The committee on railways and shipping, in its consideration of the 1946 budget of the Canadian National Railways, approved the expenditure of this money.
Mr. BLACK (Cumberland):: Has the minister considered the purchase of the Cumberland Railway and Coal company, operating from Springhill to Parrsboro in Nova Scotia, and the Maritime Power, Coal and Railway company, from Maccan to Joggins in Nova Scotia?


Mr. CHEVRIER:: The bill has no reference to the matter the hon. member has mentioned. It seeks power only to purchase the Manitoba Railway, which has some 353 miles of line, as its undertaking.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



QUESTIONS

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
emigration to united states
["1.\tYes.\n2.\tToronto, Hamilton and St. Catharines.\n3.\tLetters have been sent to the mayors in each city stating that the government has given consideration to the requests for extension of financial aid to day nurseries but has decided to discontinue assistance after June 30, 1946. The Ontario government had been notified previously that the dominion contribution would cease on March 31, 1946. How-'ever, because of representations made by the province of Ontario the period was extended to June 30, 1946. It is the considered opinion of the government that ample notice has been given and it has been decided not to grant a further extension."]
Mr. GLEN:: There is no record kept in the department in this connection, so far as Canadians are concerned; therefore I cannot furnish the information.
export of electric energy


Mr. CHURCH:: How much direct electric current generated in Canada is annually exported (a) under treaty; (b) under agreement to the United States?


Lionel Chevrier: There is no direct electric current exported to the United States.



Mr. LENNARD:: 1.	Did the government buy any property or properties in West Flamborough township, Wentworth county, Ontario, during the past several years ?
2.	If so, from whom were the properties bought and what prices were paid?
3.	Have any of these properties since been disposed of by the government?
4.	If so, what property or properties and what did the government receive in payment for the same?


Mr. TUCKER:: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asking the question has indicated that he is interested in the answer only in so far as it affects the Department of Veterans Affairs. The answer has been prepared accordingly, and is as follows:	[DOT]
1.	Yes.
2.	Vendors:	W. Geo. Anderson; Theron
Cosby; Sanford Jamieson; B. Alaire; Donald E. Kingsbury; Charles James Symonds; Lome C. Sparham; W. L. Nicholson; Mrs. E. Mc-Gorman; Herbert Smith; J. W. Mann; Mrs. Elizabeth Goodbrand; Howard Bertrand.
3.	Yes.
4.	All but the first two properties referred to in the answer to part two have been disposed of to veterans in accordance with the provisions of the Veterans Land Act.


INCOME TAX-FARMERS
Mr. CASTLEDEN:: 1.	How many farmers have filed income tax returns in each province in each of the years from 1930 to 1945?
2.	How many farmers have been assessed income tax in each of the provinces for each of these years?


Mr. McCANN:: The information requested is contained in the following schedule. The record of the number of farmers' returns filed extends back only to 1937.
Questions

Number of Farmers Filing Income Tax Returns and Number Assessed with Tax by Provinces
and Fiscal Years
Number Filing	Number Filing
		Non-			Non-	
Assess-	Assess-	Number	Assess-	Assess-	Numberable	able	Assessed	able	able	AssessedProvince	Returns	Returns	With Tax	Returns	Returns	With Tax1944-45 Fiscal Year	1943-44 Fiscal	YearPrince Edward Island	... 191	298	82	75	151	70Nova Scotia	... 222	147	83	133	161	25New Brunswick 	... 37	66	44	74	155	41Quebec	... 93	707	251	370	950	129Ontario 	... 4,544	24,352	4,000	4,029	12,956	1,234Manitoba 	... 7,614	18,350	5,562	3,027	18,721	1.903Saskatchewan 	... 10,113	22,759	3,465	8,015	9,809	2,450Alberta 	... 3,792	6,259	1.316	2.811	4,260	1,060British Columbia 	... 2,523	2,521	911	1,713	1,381	659Canada 	... 29,129	75,459	15,714	20,247	48,544	7,5711942-43 Fiscal	Year	1941-42 Fiscal	YearPrince Edward Island 	... 32	254	12	30	135	12Nova Scotia 	... 116	123	17	49	91	0New Brunswick 	... 24	165	11	40	112	(X)Quebec 	... 128	318	72	180	193	49Ontario 	... 2,204	5.004	7S4	1,818	3,728	239Manitoba 	... 618	7.082	392	319	4.399	107Saskatchewan 	... 2,299	5,585	1,544	2,088	9,872	666Alberta 	... 1.424	2,540	497	1,681	3,056	275British Columbia 	... 669	1,156	240	570	920	140Canada 	... 7,514	22,227	3,569	6,775	22,506	1,4881940-41 Fiscal Year	1939-40 Fiscal	YearPrince Edward Island	... 8	28	4	8	28	13Nova Scotia 	... 31	74	13	21	76	29New Brunswick 	... 5	71	(X)	4	53	(X)Quebec 	90	18	31	87	33Ontario 	... 596	2,916	569	514	2,056	671Manitoba 	... 53	3,882	186	60	2.301	157Saskatchewan 	7.329	437	77	1,256	123Alberta 	... 666	1,729	575	545	1,446	644British Columbia 	... 157	664	67	95	269	51Canada 	... 2,135	16,783	1,869	1,355	7,572	1,7211938-39 Fiscal Year	1937-38 Fiscal	YearPrince Edward Island	... 4	38	4	8	38	7Nova Scotia 	... 17	135	19	27	142	22New Brunswick 	... 3	51	(X)	9	46	(X)Quebec 	82	6	28	67	12Ontario 	... 590	2.530	540	378	1,771	382Manitoba 	... 97	2.474	101	51	1,166	48Saskatchewan 	... 47	791	103	132	2,134	180Alberta 	... 399	1,433	474	238	1,229	285British Columbia 	... 113	288	62	135	255	64Canada 	... 1,311	7,822	1,309	1,006	6,848	1,000

Questions
Number Filing	Number Filing
		Non-		Non-	
Assess-	Assess-	Number	Assess- Assess-	Numberable	able	Assessed	able able	AssessedProvince	Returns	Returns	With Tax	Returns Returns	With Tax1936-37 Fiscal	Year	1935-36 Fiscal Year	Prince Edward Island	.. 3	29	5	6Nova Scotia 	.. 25	99	16	16New Brunswick 	... 3	47	(X)	(X)Quebec 	... 22	66	11	Not	9Ontario 	.. 406	1,459	325	Available	259Manitoba 	.. 16	561	31	41Saskatchewan 	.. 126	1,406	142	96Alberta 	... 287	1,138	344	220British Columbia	... 63	294	47	47Canada 	.. 951	5,099	921	620 4,776	694
Number Assessed With Tax
1934-35	1933-34	1932-33	1931-32	1930-31	1929-30Prince Edward Island 	... 7	(X)	4	14	41	44Nova Scotia 	... 7	5	5	7	35	8New Brunswick 	... 4	(X)	-	6	4	7Quebec 	... (X)	8	8	15	31	34Ontario 	... 191	130	113	161	183	223Manitoba 	... 22	11	14	27	131	196Saskatchewan 	... 38	29	32	144	994	1,304Alberta 	... 124	63	42	227	803	764British Columbia 	... 23	16	31	52	54	46Canada 	... 416	262	249	653	2,276	2,626
(X) Less than 3 taxpayers, grouped to conceal identity.


GYPSUM PRODUCTS
Mr. KNOWLES:: 1.	Has any government assistance been given to manufacturers of plaster board and/or products having a gypsum or lime base?
2.	If so, is such assistance still being given?


Mr. MAYHEW:: 1.	The wartime prices and trade board is contemplating assistance to manufacturers of plaster board and/or products having a gypsum or lime base but Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation Ltd. has not yet been authorized to give assistance.
2.	Answered by No. 1.


WARTIME PRICES AND TRADE BOARD-SUBSIDIES
Mr. McGREGOR:: What amount of money to date, by provinces, has been paid as subsidy under the Wartime Prices and Trade Board?


Mr. MAYHEW:: Because Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation Limited finds it administratively impossible to keep a breakdown by provinces of subsidies paid, this information is not available.


WARTIME PRICES AND TRADE BOARD
Mr. LOCKHART:: 1.	How many people were employed by the
wartime prices and trade board at January 1, 1946?	.
2.	What was the monthly cost of the wartime prices and trade board for salaries, fees expenses. etc., at that date?
3.	How many people were employed by the wartime prices and trade board at June 1, 1946?
4.	What is the monthly cost of the wartime prices and trade board for salaries, fees, expenses, etc., at this date?


Mr. MAYHEW:: 1.	5,678.
2.	Salaries, fees, expenses, etc., month of December, 1945, 8908,553.51.
3.	5,106.
4.	Salaries, fees, expenses, etc., month of May, 1946, $842,626.51.


CENTRAL MORTGAGE AND HOUSING CORPORATION- D. B. MANSUR
Mr. HODGSON:: 1.	What is the age of D. B. Mansur, president of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation?
2.	What experience has he had to qualify him for this position?
Questions


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	D. B. Mansur, President of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, is 40 years of age.
2.	D. B. Mansur is a graduate of the university of Manitoba and in an Associate of the Actuarial Society of America. He was an officer of the Mortgage Department of the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada and has a knowledge of practical mortgage administration both farm and urban in all parts of Canada. He was appointed general superintendent of the Central Mortgage Bank in 1939. During the war D. B. Mansur served as assistant to the chairman of the foreign exchange control board and assistant chairman of the national war finance committee.


CENTRAL MORTGAGE AND HOUSING CORPORATION- N. A. YOUNG
Mr. HODGSON:: 1.	What is the age of N. A. Young, vice-president of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation?
2.	What experience has he had to qualify him for this position?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	H. A. Young, C.B., CB.E., D.S.O., vicepresident of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, is 48 years of age.
2.	H. A. Young holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the university of Manitoba in electrical engineering, graduating in 1924. He obtained a commission in the Royal Canadian Signals and for a number of years was concerned with the installation of radio stations in the western Arctic and northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. He served overseas on active sendee in both world war I and II. During world war II he held various important staff appointments and commanded an infantry brigade in the Normandy operations. He held the appointment of Quartermaster-General of the Canadian Army in Ottawa from September, 1944, until his recent retirement on March 31, 1946.


GREAT LAKES SHIPPING
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Was any recent request received by the government or any officer thereof, from any person or persons in Toronto, or from the municipal authorities there, regarding the operation of coal, grain and marine shipping on the great lakes and St. Lawrence river, to aid the domestic fuel and grain situation?
2.	If so, from whom; when and to whom was it addressed, and what was the text thereof?
3.	Was any reply given thereto by the government or any officer thereof? If so, by whom?


Mr. MITCHELL:: 1.	Yes.
2.	From His Worship Mayor R. H. Saunders, addressed to the Minister of Labour on June 7. The text of Mayor Saunders telegram was as follows:
"In my opinion a national emergency is being created by the seamen's strike. For the last 24 hours I haim endeavoured to communicate with Alderman Ferguson, vice-president of the seamen's union, seeking his cooperation to have the grain and coal boats operate. As you know, prior to the strike, there was already a grave situation with regard to the shortage of coal. This is, of course, becoming increasingly serious and presents a dangerous situation for the people of this and other cities throughout the dominion and next winter.
Last year, 1,735,000 tons were delivered to this city by ship, of which 418,849 tons arrived prior to June 6, 1945. My information is that so far this year we have received only 97,440 tons. I am further advised that scores of thousands of tons are waiting to be placed on the boats. I am also informed there is no way in which the shortage to date can be made up.
Realizing these conditions and looking forward to extreme difficulty the coming winter season for the people whom I represent I ask most emphatically that our government take oirer and operate the ships carrying grain and coal so that our people will be assured of at least some protection during the coming months and particularly during next winter.
I would be pleased with an immediate reply."
3.	Yes; on June 8 and June 11 by the Minister of Labour.


VETERANS AFFAIRS-HOUSING-AN CASTER, 0NT.
Mr. LENNARD:: 1.	How many houses are being built by the Department of Veterans Affairs in or near An-caster, Ontario?
2.	How many applications have been received for these small holdings?
3.	How many houses have been completed?
4.	How many of these completed houses are now occupied?


Mr. MACKENZIE:: 1.	95.
2.	28 applications received specifying Ancaster; 112 specifying Hamilton.
3.	17.
4.	None.

Questions as Orders for Returns


LABOUR CONDITIONS-WAR LABOUR BOARD- BROTHERHOOD OF RAILWAY CARMEN
Mr. HARKNESS:: 1.	Has the railway association filed a rebuttal to the brief filed with the national war labour board on February 13, 1946, by the brotherhood of railway carmen of America?
2.	If not, why has the railway association not been required to file this brief within thirty days?
3.	What steps is the Minister of Labour taking to settle this dispute?


Mr. MITCHELL:: 1.	Application referred to is incorporated with a general application by division No. 4, railway employees department, to which application the reply brief of the railway association has been received by the national war labour board and has been forwarded to division No. 4, railway employees department for rebuttal in accordance with usual procedure. [DOT]
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	Answered by No. 1.


BEEF-CEILING PRICES
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Has the Administrator of Meat and Meat Products yet met a representative group of meat dealers from all parts of Canada regarding the suspension of the wholesale ceiling prices on red and blue brand beef?
2.	If so, when and where was the conference held, and with what result?
3.	Will any compensation be allowed meat dealers in view of the suspension of the wholesale ceiling price?


Mr. MAYHEW:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Ottawa, June 12, 1946. There was a full discussion and exchange of views, but no final decisions were reached.
3.	If any change in the ceiling price structure is decided upon, it will be announced in due course.


DAY NURSERIES
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Has the government received any communication from any municipality with reference to continuing financial aid for day nurseries in the larger cities?
2.	If so, what municipalities have asked for the continuance?
3.	What action has been taken on such requests ?


Mr. MITCHELL:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Toronto, Hamilton and St. Catharines.
3.	Letters have been sent to the mayors in each city stating that the government has given consideration to the requests for extension of financial aid to day nurseries but has decided to discontinue assistance after June 30, 1946. The Ontario government had been notified previously that the dominion contribution would cease on March 31, 1946. How-'ever, because of representations made by the province of Ontario the period was extended to June 30, 1946. It is the considered opinion of the government that ample notice has been given and it has been decided not to grant a further extension.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. KNIGHT:: 1.	Have any men been laid off by the Canadian National Railways in the Saskatoon territory since November 1, 1945?
2.	If so (a) how many: (b) how many are veterans of the recent war ?
3.	Have any veterans of the recent war lost their positions in that _ territory since the date mentioned through losing their seniority with the railroad on account of re-classification? If bo, how many?


SERVICE PERSONNEL-RETURN OF DEPENDENTS TO UNITED KINGDOM AND EUROPE
Mr. FRASER:: 1.	What action is the government^taking with regard to the return to the United Kingdom and Europe of Avives and children of returned service personnel who have incurred marital difficulties?
2.	Under what circumstances, if any. does the government assume the expense of sending dependents of returned service personnel back to their homes?


PRINCE ALBERT NATIONAL PARK
Mr. KNIGHT:: 1.	How many bungalows or cabins are there in Prince Albert national park?
2.	Are any of these bungalows or cabins sublet by the owners?
3.	If so, what is the price range per month and per week?
4.	Who are the owners of main bungalow concessions, and what are the amounts paid to the government by each of them?
5.	How many bungalows or cabins were built during the recent war?
6.	At what rates (a) monthly; (b) weekly; (c) nightly, are these bungalows or cabins usually rented?
7.	Are any concessions held in the names of Stephenson and/or Sanderson?
8.	If so, what is the extent of such holdings?
9.	What fees are paid to the dominion government for them?


VETERANS AFFAIRS-OPTICAL WORK
Mr. LACOMBE:: 1.	What are the specifications of the Department of Yeterans Affairs for first quality toric lens?
Questions as Orders for Returns

2.	How long does a veteran have to wait for a pair of glasses prescribed through the Department of Veterans Affairs?
3.	Has the Department of Veterans Affairs discontinued the inspection of optical works? If so, for what reason?
4.	What facility has a specialist to examine the quality of optical work?
5.	What is done by the department for the veteran who does not get proper glasses?
6.	What action is taken by the Department of Veterans Affairs in connection with inspection of optical work of veterans?
7.	Has the department received any complaints from veterans as to delivery of their glasses?
8.	What are the reasons given by the director of prosthetic services for not making inspection?
9.	How many test checks of optical work have been made at the Montreal Military hospital during the period, March 1 to May 1, 19-46 ?
10.	What qualifications are required of an optical firm recognized by the Department of \eterans Affairs?


CANADIAN INFORMATION SERVICE
Mr. FRASER:: 1.	What publications were issued by the Canadian Information Service during 1945?
2.	What publications have been issued during the first five months of 1946?
3.	How many are employed by the Canadian Information Service?
4.	What was paid in wages, or salaries, to these employees during 1945?
5.	Were any speakers sent out by the Canadian Information Service during 1945?
6.	If so, who were these people?
7.	What expenses, if any, were allowed each one of them?


OLD AGE PENSIONS-NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Mr. KNOWLES:: 1.	How many persons in each of the provinces and in the Northwest Territories were receiving old age pensions as at the latest date for which this information is available?
2.	What was the average monthly payment in each province at said date?
3.	Does this monthly average include any supplementary amounts paid by the provinces?
4.	What supplementary amounts are paid, and what other special provisions are made, by the various provinces?


BLIND PENSIONS-NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Mr. KNOWLES:: 1.	How many persons in each of the provinces and in the Northwest Territories were receiving blind pensions as at the latest date for which this information is available?
2.	What was the average monthly payment in each province at said date?
3.	Does this monthly average include any supplementary amounts paid by the provinces?
4.	What supplementary amounts are paid, and what other special provisions are made by the various provinces?
TMr. Lacombe.]


COMPULSORY SAVINGS
Mr. MOORE:: 1.	What total amount of money accrued to individuals under the government's compulsory savings plan during the war?
2.	On what date does refunding of these savings begin?
3.	Over what period of time will refunding continue?


OLD AND NEW FORT, STANLEY BARRACKS, TORONTO
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Has the government deeded the Old and New Fort at Toronto to the city of Toronto?
2.	If so, when and on what terms?
3.	Has the government received any application to use the Old Fort and the New Fort at Stanley barracks for exhibition purposes?
4.	If so, what answer did the government give to the application?
5.	Will the policy of preserving these two forts as historic sites be continued?


POSTAL SERVICE-RAILWAY MAIL BILAN CH
Mr. LENNARD:: 1.	How many appointments (a) probationary;
(b)	permanent, have been made by the postal department to the railway mail service branch since January 1, 1944?
2.	How many of these (a) probationary; (b) permanent appointments, were made to men (1) with overseas service in the last war; (2) service in Canada in the last war?


SOY BEANS
Mr. WHITE (Middlesex East):: 1.	How many bushels of soy beans have been imported into Canada during each of the years 1940 to 1945 inclusive?
2.	By what companies have they been imported?
3.	What price have these companies paid for soy beans each year?
4.	What subsidy per bushel has been paid in each year?
5.	What was the ceiling price on Canadian-grown soy beans in each of the years 1940 to 1945?


CANTEEN FUNDS
Mr. GILLIS:: 1.	Has the government taken any action to implement the special committee's report on canteen funds presented to the house in July, 1942?
2.	If so, was a board appointed to control and supervise profits?
3.	What are the names and rank of the personnel of the said board?
4.	Has the government set up provincial boards to work under the direction of the central supervising board? If so, what are the names and rank of the personnel of the different boards in the respective provinces?
5.	Have arrangements been made by units and formations to pay to the central supervisory board all canteen funds on hand on the cessation of hostilities?
6.	What amount of money has the different branches of the service handed over to the central supervisory board or paid into the consolidated revenue fund (a) army; (b) air force;
(c)	navy?

Atomic Energy



MOTION FOR PAPERS


Mr. POULIOT:: For a copy of all speeches dealing with education and made by Major-General G. Brock Chisholm, of Ottawa, since his appointment as Deputy Minister of National Health and Welfare for Canada.


Mr. CLAXTON:: On inquiry from Doctor Chisholm I find that the only speech of which he has notes was given on October 29, 1945 and it has since been published. It was given as a professional man to a professional audience without his representing the government or the department. It is submitted that under standing order 51 matters that are required to be produced are those relating to public business and obtainable through public authority but not available in published form.


Jean-François Pouliot: All the others were made through his hat.
Question dropped.



ATOMIC ENERGY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Peel):: I should like to direct a question to the right hon. Minister of Reconstruction and Supply, as well as to the former acting Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent). Was the reported offer of the United States delegate to the atomic energy commission to scrap the atomic bomb monopoly in exchange for a guaranteed world front outlawing the weapons of mass destruction made after consultation with the other two governments including Canada who are in possession of the secrets of atomic energy?


Right Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Reconstruction and Supply):: While there have been numerous informal discussions between the officials of Canada and the United States on questions relating to the international control of atomic energy, there was no specific consultation with the Canadian government on the precise terms of the proposal put before the atomic energy commission by the United States representative.


Gordon Graydon: May I ask the minister if, having read the proposal, the Canadian government is prepared to report on it?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I assume that the situation will receive the consideration of the government in due course.



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Graydon: I
desire to ask another question. When I drew up this question I was not sure that we should be favoured to-day with the presence of the Prime Minister, and I sent notice of it to the Minister of Justice. I shall direct my question now to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. The drafting committee of the united nations economic and social council is reported on Saturday last to have strongly approved a bill of human rights for incorporation into peace treaties with enemy countries. Since Canada has a seat on the council, what position is the Canadian delegate taking with respect to the matter?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend's question was referred to me. While Canada is a member of the economic and social council, I have been informed that the council has not yet received the report from the drafting committee and therefore there has not been an opportunity thus far to consider the contents of the report or the attitude in consequence which Canada should take with reference to the provisions of the bill referred to.


Gordon Graydon: Have any instructions
gone forward on this point to the delegate?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As I say, the
draft has not yet been received from the drafting committee. As soon as it is received, instructions will go forward.



FINANCIAL AID TO OPERATORS TO INCREASE PRODUCTION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. H. BLACKMORE (Lethbridge):: I
should like to direct a question to the right hon. Minister of Reconstruction and Supply. Will the minister make a statement to the house at an early date indicating how many Alberta coal mine operators have sought financial aid from federal government agencies in order to increase production, and whether or not such financial assistance has been refused?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I shall be glad
to consider the question and make a statement in due course.
Building Materials


Mr. FULTON:: Will the minister include
British Columbia in the statement that he is to make?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I shall be glad to do that. BUILDING MATERIALS



QUESTION OP PRODUCTION BY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. D. M. FLEMING (Eglinton):: I
should like to ask the right hon. Minister of Reconstruction and Supply if the government is contemplating the manufacture of soil pipe or other building materials?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I presume the question is whether the government itself intends to go into the business. The answer is no.



SHORTAGE OP CEMENT IN SOUTHERN ALBERTA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Horne Blackmore: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance which has to do with the supply of cement. I suppose it should be put to him because I understand the wartime prices and trade board has charge of the matter. Will the Minister of Finance make a statement at an early day explaining why there is a shortage of cement in southern Alberta and whether such a shortage extends into other areas of western Canada?
Right Hon. J. L. 'ILSLEY (Minister of Finance): I am not sure that this is a proper matter on which to make a statement on the orders of the day. If too many statements are made on subjects of this kind, we shall be spending half the afternoon making them. I shall be glad to look into the question and give my hon. friend any information I can get.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. A. CRUICKSHANK (Fraser Valley) :: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour, in view of the statement just made by the Prime Minister about the necessity of conserving food. Are the box factories and cooperage plants in British Columbia operating to-day? If not, is the Minister of Labour aware that Mr. E. Dalskog, international board member of the I.W.A. union, offered on June 14 to reopen the box plants-


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order. The purpose of asking a question on the orders of the day is to get information from a minister. A member in putting a question is not supposed to give information.


George Alexander Cruickshank: All right. Will the factories be opened to-day under a controller in order to conserve food?


Mr. MITCHELL:: The answer to the first question is no. The answer to the second question is no. The answer to the third question is that consideration will be given to the subject matter of my hon. friend's inquiry.


George Alexander Cruickshank: When-next year?



JAPANESE IN CANADA


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Humphrey Mitchell: I wish to advise the house that yesterday, June 16, a ship sailed from Vancouver for Japan with 1,106 Japanese repatriates on board. This number combined with the first boatload of 668 persons who sailed on May 31, brings the total of Japanese repatriates who have left Canada to 1,774.
I should add that since these two sailings were arranged several hundred more Japanese in settlement in British Columbia have asked to be repatriated on the same basis, and that efforts are now being made to obtain shipping accommodation for them.



FOREIGN EXCHANGE CONTROL


[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance) moved that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution.
That it is expedient to present a measure to make statutory provision for foreign exchange control now exercised under the authority of orders in council passed under the War Measures Act and for that purpose, inter alia, to (a) continue the special exchange fund in the name of the Minister of Finance established under the Exchange Fund Act; (b) establish a foreign control board which will be the successor of the existing foreign exchange control board and have power, under the direction and control of the Minister of Finance, to regulate and control transactions in foreign currencies and related transactions and to manage and operate the exchange fund account; (e) authorize the Minister of Finance to make advances to the exchange fund account out of unappropriated moneys in the consolidated revenue fund on such terms and conditions as the governor in council may prescribe; (d) authorize the payment out of the exchange fund account of such remuneration to . authorized dealers as the governor in council may prescribe.

Foreign Exchange Control
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.
Mr. ILSLEY:: I have a lengthy statement to make on this matter,-


John Bracken: Would the Minister of Finance permit a question before he starts?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


John Bracken: What is the desire of the minister with respect to this particular measure?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I was about to make a suggestion to the committee. As I say, I have to make a long statement at the outset because the bill to be based on this resolution deals with a very important matter, and it is a long bill. If the course is taken which would be most agreeable to me, it will be this: I will make my statement, and as soon as possible afterward, preferably at the conclusion of my statement, the resolution can be reported so that I may introduce the bill and have it given first reading. The house will then have before it the statement, with the table which I shall place on Hansard, and will also have before it the bill. An opportunity should then be given of perhaps a few days or even longer for study of the facts that I have to place before the house. Then we can take up the second reading. That is the course I suggest, but naturally it is not for me to say.


John Bracken: I understood that the minister was willing to have this bill go before a committee of the house. Is he willing that it should go to the committee before the second reading?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not think that course should be taken on a bill such as this. Rarely a small or unimportant bill is referred to a committee without first approving the principle, but I think the principle of a bill as important as this should be approved before it goes to the banking and commerce committee. When it comes back from that committee there will be opportunity to amend it in the committee of the whole and, on the third reading, to defeat it, or move the six months' hoist, if anyone desires to make such a motion. After the second reading I am suggesting that the bill be referred to the banking and commerce committee, as was done with the Bank Act.


John Bracken: After second reading?


James Lorimer Ilsley: After second reading, yes.


John Bracken: So far as the official opposition are concerned we shall be glad to
facilitate passage of the measure up to the second reading, on the understanding that there will be an opportunity for study of the bill before the debate on the second reading begins.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I shall not move .the second reading for a few days, because there ought to be an opportunity for hon. gentlemen to study the bill. But I think it is important to get through all these early stages, and I cannot do that without making an extensive speech on the resolution.


John Bracken: That is satisfactory.


John Horne Blackmore: It is well understood that when a measure of this kind is going through the resolution stage there is a wide opportunity for hon. members to ask questions.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


John Horne Blackmore: Is the minister in a position to guarantee that we shall have an opportunity to ask the questions, whether or not we take time to do it on the resolution?


James Lorimer Ilsley: My. suggestion would be that the questions be asked in the banking and commerce committee. That is by far the best place to ask questions. This is a most inappropriate stage at which to answer, if not to ask, questions on a measure of this kind, because the bill itself is not before the house. It is a 74-section bill. There can be any amount of debate on the second .reading- although I hope there will not be any-and every opportunity to ask questions when the bill is taken up section by section in the banking and commerce committee.


Thomas Miller Bell: I think the suggestion made by the minister and approved by the leader of the opposition is one -that should be followed. Obviously this afternoon we are to have a long statement from the minister on a highly important bill, with much technical detail behind it, if not in the statement itself. It seems to .me that when we see this 74-section bill we shall be in a much better position to ask questions about it. It is also usual for the house to adopt the .principle of a bill before it goes to a committee, where modifications may be made. I am in favour of the procedure outlined by the minister, that he make his statement, that the bill be then given first reading, and that an opportunity for study of the bill be given before the second reading is proceeded with. After second reading, the bill, I understand, will go to the banking and commerce committee.
*Foreign Exchange Control


James Lorimer Ilsley: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this legislation is to provide for the continuance of foreign exchange control. As the committee is aware, exchange control has been in operation in Canada since September 15, 1939, having been introduced by virtue of an order in council passed under the provisions of the War Measures Act.
In asking the committee to approve legislation to continue exchange control, I have felt that I should tell the war-time story of exchange operations and that the committee should have certain information which, for security reasons, was withheld during the war. I have tabled a report of the foreign exchange control board which gives full details and I propose, in introducing this measure, to touch on the high spots of the happenings in this field during the war years. I shall be prepared to make detailed explanations of the various provisions of the bill before the committee at a later stage of the proceedings.
I should like to begin by reminding the committee of the reasons for the original decision to impose exchange control. We were, at the outbreak of war, one of the world's largest debtor countries. One of our main preoccupations was consequently the fear that our international debtor status might interfere with an all-out effort on the economic front-in other words, that exchange shortages, in particular a shortage of United States dollars, might become a bottleneck in the Canadian war effort.
There were three main dangers involved in the situation. First, there was the danger of fluctuations in the exchange rate, with unsettling effects on commodity prices and on business generally. Second, there was the danger that foreign holdings of Canadian securities would be dumped on the Canadian market and the proceeds withdrawn from the country in U.S. dollars with the result that we would be left with insufficient supplies of foreign exchange to cover our war requirements and to meet our normal current and capital obligations as they fell due. Finally, the panicky sale of securities in our market would have been highly detrimental to an orderly programme of war financing. In this respect, the main danger lay, of course, in the very large amounts of our securities held by residents of the United States, at that time a neutral country.
I wish to refer in somewhat greater detail to the anticipated scarcity of U.S. dollars. For some years before the outbreak of war, Canada's international receipts and payments on current account had resulted in a credit balance. Our current receipts of foreign exchange from the export of goods and services
CMr. Coldwell.]
and from the production of newly-mined gold exceeded our current payments abroad for imports, interest and dividends on the foreign investment in Canada and other invisible items. This surplus on our current account transactions went, of course, towards improving our international capital position-we were making a start at reducing our large balance of international indebtedness.
The over-all surplus on our current account transactions with the rest of the world in the years just before the outbreak of war was made up, however, of two main elements which are clearly shown in the table on page 6 of the foreign exchange control board report which has been tabled. The United Kingdom was our most important market while the United States was our most important supplier. With the United Kingdom, the rest of the sterling area, and with the continent of Europe, we had a surplus; with the United States we had a deficit. We had to expect that wartime conditions would aggravate the situation in two ways. On the one hand, our deficit with the United States was certain to increase since many of the things required in the war production programme were imported from that country. On the other hand, although our surplus with the United Kingdom was expected to increase as a result of increased shipments from Canada, this surplus would no longer be freely convertible into United States funds in view of the necessary establishment of exchange control by the United Kingdom.
In these circumstances it was clear that we would be hard put to make both ends meet so far as U.S. dollars were concerned and that it would be necessary to supervise all foreign exchange transactions to ensure that the pressure on our U.S. dollar resources was not aggravated as a result of capital withdrawals by non-residents or capital flight by residents. In a statement issued at the time exchange control was imposed, my predecessor, Colonel Ralston, explained that the government had decided that a policy of foreign exchange control was essential to the successful organization of Canada's wartime activities, and that it was necessary during the war to make sure that the country's foreign exchange resources were used in the national interest. He went on to say that the use of Canadian monetary resources for speculation abroad or for other purposes which could not be regarded as necessary or desirable would be bound to hamper Canada's war effort, and should therefore be prevented.

Foreign Exchange Control
Accordingly, the foreign exchange control order placed in the hands of a board responsible to the Minister of Finance control over all financial transactions between residents of Canada and residents of other countries. The board centralizes the foreign exchange resources of the country and is responsible for seeing that foreign exchange earned as a result of exports, etc. becomes available for the general use of the Canadian economy and that foreign exchange is used only for approved purposes. To discharge this responsibility all international transactions involving more than nominal amounts are brought to the board's attention through a system of permits. The only transactions which are restricted, however, are certain transactions involving the export of capital, such as the sale of securities in Canada by non-residents, and the purchase of U.S. funds by residents for the purpose of acquiring securities or otherwise transferring their capital abroad.
Subject to direction by the Minister of Finance, the foreign exchange control board fixes the rates of exchange for the currencies in which it deals. The board's buying rates for U.S. dollars and sterling have remained completely stable at SI.10 and $4.43 respectively since the beginning of exchange control. The selling rates for these currencies, originally $1.11 and $4.47 respectively, were reduced to $1.10| and $4.45 last October. I believe that the house will agree that the complete stability of exchange rates which has been maintained since September 1939 has been of great advantage to the Canadian economy. As I shall show later, the swings in the exchange position have been very considerable and if the exchange rate had been left at the mercy of the temporary oscillations of supply and demand it would, I believe, have undergone quite wide and frequent fluctuations.
Although the exchange control had to be comprehensive in order to be effective, I think it is the general view that it has operated with considerable smoothness. Of one thing I am certain, and that is that the board has made the most conscientious effort to exercise its wide powers with prudence and restraint and to avoid giving cause for complaint that its actions were in any sense arbitrary in character or that they imposed unnecessary formalities on the Canadian public.
The early fears regarding shortage of US. dollars which led to the imposition of exchange control turned out to be fully warranted. True, for the first seven or eight months we were not subject to particularly strong pressure on our U.S. dollar reserves. There was an
adverse balance during this period, but it was largely met out of the gold and U.S. dollars received from the United Kingdom in partial settlement of their deficiency with us. This initial lull provided a welcome opportunity to improve the machinery of exchange control and to explain the necessity* for this control to those affected by it so that their cooperation in observing the provisions of the order might be ensured.
The serious pressure on our U. S. dollar reserves developed when Canadian war production got into its stride. When it became apparent that a heavy drain on our U.S. dollar resources was developing, the government passed an order in council on May 1, 1940, the so-called foreign exchange acquisition order, directing that all foreign exchange held by private individuals and corporations should be offered for sale to the foreign exchange control board. By a separate order in council the Bank of Canada was directed to sell to the foreign exchange control board all gold held in unrestricted ownership, and was relieved of its obligation under the Bank of Canada Act to maintain any minimum reserve ratio of gold or foreign exchange to its sight liabilities. Through these measures all the liquid foreign exchange resources of the country, apart from minimum balances needed for the day-to-day conduct of business operations, were concentrated in official hands. The foreign exchange control board took over from the Bank of Canada gold to a U.S. dollar value of $205 million and U.S. dollar balances amounting to $25 million. Privately held U.S. dollars amounting to $57 million were also taken over; this followed on earlier negotiated transfers of U.S. funds from private to official holdings to an amount exceeding $20 million.
The development of our military production programme after Dunkirk necessarily involved heavy expenditures in the United States for machine tools, other capital equipment, aircraft and military equipment and materials and component parts. In addition, the expansion of incomes in Canada led to increased imports of civilian goods. Our dollar earnings failed by far to keep pace with this increase in our dollar expenditures. Exports to the United States increased appreciably but the overrunning of Europe meant the loss of dollar markets and American tourist expenditures in Canada shrank appreciably in 1940.
To help meet the position, a series of exchange conservation measures were taken in 1940. In the budget of that year a war exchange tax of 10 per cent was imposed on all imports from non-sterling area countries. In July 1940 a complete prohibition was imposed on the use of our US. dollar resources
Foreign Exchange Control

for pleasure travel in the United States. In December 1940 the War Exchange Conservation Act prohibited the import of a long list of non-essential goods from non-sterling area countries and placed others under import quota. These measures saved considerable quantities of exchange in the aggregate-under the conditions prevailing when they were imposed the annual rate of saving may well have exceeded 1150 million. In addition the foreign exchange control board exercised a great deal of ingenuity in devising many ways and means of economizing on U.S. dollar payments and adding to U.S. dollar receipts without interfering with the legitimate business operations of the country.
These steps were, however, not sufficient to stop the drain on our reserves. As the table on page 20 of the report shows, official gold and U.S. dollar reserves, which had already fallen by $72 million in 1940 notwithstanding the receipt of $225 million from the United Kingdom in that year, fell in 1941 from $332 million to $188 million. In the four months ending January 1942 we lost $85 million in reserves. If this rate of loss had continued, our reserves would have been exhausted in a matter of months. Moreover, if it had not been for the special measures of exchange conservation taken in 1940, we would already have been at the bottom of the barrel by the end of 1941. I hope that those who were inconvenienced by the travel restrictions and who co-operated so admirably with the foreign exchange control board at a time when the explanations of the exchange position had, for security reasons, to be general in character, will now be assured that these restrictions were an important factor enabling us to keep our heads above water.
The situation was indeed a serious one in 1941. We had mobilized all our privately-held reserves and had received from the United Kingdom gold and U.S. dollar payments in partial settlement of their deficit with us to an amount of $225 million in terms of U.S. funds-as much as they could afford. These extraordinary accretions to our reserves had been spent and our remaining reserves in gold and U.S. dollars were much below any figure that could reasonably be regarded as the minimum working balances of a country with Canada's volume of international transactions. In spite of the measures of exchange conservation taken, we were running a current account deficit in our transactions with the United States at the rate of some $300 million per year.
New sources of receipts of U.S. dollars were clearly necessary if Canada was to continue to purchase the great variety of United States

commodities required for the prosecution of the war. The United States introduced the lend-lease programme in 1941, but Canada never wished to ask the United States for lend-lease assistance. We felt, as I have said in the house on a previous occasion, that as a nation in a favoured position, free from the ravages of war, we were in duty bound to stand on our own feet and, indeed, to share with the United States in assisting other less fortunate of our allies in carrying on the war against the common enemy.
A means of providing Canada with new sources of dollars to finance part of our war purchases in the United States, while at the same time mobilizing the resources of the continent most effectively for the production of war goods, was found in that most statesmanlike arrangement made by our Prime Minister and the President of the United States in April, 1941, and generally known as the Hyde Park declaration. It was agreed in this declaration that "each country should provide the other with the defence articles which it is best able to produce, and above all, produce quickly, and that production programmes should be coordinated to that end." Canada's purchases of war goods in the United States were already very heavy and increasing; under this agreement the United States undertook to increase its purchases in Canada of urgently needed war supplies in respect of which we had facilities for speedy and economical production.
Receipts of U.S. exchange by War Supplies limited, the company which was organized to handle the sales of munitions, ships and other war supplies under the Hyde Park agreement, amounted to $275 million in 1942, $301 million in 1943 and $314 million in 1944. These figures are net, after making allowance for price adjustments and repayment of advances in the later years.
I should like to place on record my conviction that the Hyde Park agreement and the spirit which prompted its conception and guided its execution constitute an outstanding example of the neighbourly goodwill and capacity for constructive cooperation which is so often found in our dealings with the United States. Like all good bargains, this was one from which both sides gained advantages. We were given, at a time when the outlook was darkest, the assurance that a shortage of U.S. exchange would not impede our war effort-that we would be able to go on getting the war goods we needed in the United States by producing war goods which the United

Foreign Exchange Control
States needed. The United States, for its part, got full value in the form of vital munitions of war.
In essence, what the Hyde Park arrangements involved was an exchange of war goods between Canada and the United States in accordance with the character and availability of productive capacity. In the aggregate, of course, our purchases of war goods from the United States were considerably higher than our sales of war goods to them. Net sales through War Supplies Limited amounted, as I have indicated already, to approximately SS90 million to the end of 1944. From the start of the war until the end of 1945, imports of goods purchased by Canada from the United States amounted to over $6,000 million and it is estimated that the war content of our imports was about half this sum.
Notwithstanding these very large outlays we made on the purchase of war supplies in the United States, certain unexpected developments to which I shall refer in a moment resulted in additions to our cash resources in gold and U.S. dollars during the period when large contracts were being placed by agencies of the United States government with War Supplies Limited. It was not the desire of either the Canadian or the United States government that the operation of the Hyde Park agreement should have the effect, or even appear to have the effect, of building up Canada's liquid balances in U.S. funds just as it was not the desire of either government to let them fall too low. Accordingly, when it was found that our balances were rising as a result of the factors to which I shall refer, the Canadian government in pursuance of previous agreement with the United States government, offset this tendency by making certain payments to the United States treasury in the
spring of 1944. I informed the house regarding the nature of these transactions on April 21, 1944.
The unexpected developments leading to an improvement in our U.S. dollar position in the course of 1942, 1943 and 1944 were three in number-sales of securities in the United States, United States government expenditures in Canada, and unusually large sales of grain to the United States.
United States interest in Canadian securities developed on a large scale in 1942 and persisted in later years. In addition, Canadian sales of Canadian held United States securities brought in appreciable amounts of U.S. exchange. The net proceeds of security sales exceeded $100 million in each of the years 1942 to 1944 and exceeded $250 million in 1945. United States government expenditures in Canada in connection with the Alaska highway and other government projects are estimated to have averaged over $80 million in these years, reaching their peak in 1943.
Finally, the extraordinary sales of wheat and coarse grains to the United States brought in approximately $150 million in 1943 and nearly $300 million in 1944. The latter figure is only slightly below our total exports of all commodities to the United States in 1939. In 1945 receipts from this source were in the neighbourhood of $100 million.
The committee will appreciate that receipts of exchange from the last two sources were of a fortuitous and non-recurring character while receipts from security sales do not cause any change in our over-all international financial position. With these comments I now propose to place on Hansard the figures of Canada's balances of gold and U.S. dollars which are given on page 20 of the foreign exchange control board report.
Canada's Holdings of Gold and U.S. Dollars (in millions of U.S. dollars)
		F.E.C.B. (and	Dominion		
Bank of Canada)	Government	Private*	TotalSeptember 15,	1939 	
238-7	22-4	132	393-1December 31,	1939 	
272-8	33-4	98	404-2December 31,	1940 	
309-3	20-8	2	332-1December 31,	1941 	
164-1	23-5	187-6December 31,	1942 	
242-9	75-6	318-5December 31,	1943 	
573-2	76-4	649-6December 31,	1944 	
800-1	102-1	-	902-2December 31,	1945 	
1,275-9	232-1	-	1,508-0
* Exclusive of working balances.
As the cash position improved, the restrictions imposed on current account expenditures of U.S. funds were gradually relaxed. The travel restrictions were modified in the spring of 1944 and withdrawn in the spring of 1945.


Mr. REID:: The minister gave the figure of $8 billion as the amount of goods purchased by Canada from the United States. Has he the total sales by Canada to the United States in the same years?

Foreign Exchange Control


James Lorimer Ilsley: I have not the total here.


Thomas Reid: I think you might find that they would balance.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think the information can be obtained from the tables I am putting-on Hansard.
The import prohibitions imposed under the War Exchange Conservation Act of 1940 were repealed in the budget of 1944 and the war exchange tax was abolished in the budget of 1945.
The strong cash position shown by the figures I have placed on record naturally gives
cause for satisfaction, but it would be seriously misleading to draw from these figures the conclusion that we have become richer in terms of UR. funds in the course of the war. The cash position is only one item in the total balance sheet. To make a realistic appraisal one must naturally look behind the cash and see what has happened to our other assets and to our liabilities. I am placing on record another table which shows, by years, the wartime changes in Canada's debtor position vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar area. This table will be found on page 21 of the report of the foreign exchange control board:
Principal Wartime Changes in Canada's Debtor Position Vis-ia-Vis the United States Dollar Area to the end of 1945
(millions of U.S. dollars)
Sept. 16 to Dec. 31,
A.	Increases in Canada's external assets: _ Increase (or decrease) in liquid reserves in
gold or U.S. dollars	
Less-
U.S. securities sold or matured	
Other foreign assets realized	
Total increase in external assets	
B.	Increases in Canada's external liabilities:
United States holdings of Canadian securities	;	
Other Canadian borrowing	
Undistributed profits of branches and subsidiaries of U.S. companies in Canada..
Total increase in external liabilities	
Net increase in indebtedness indicated by above changes in position (B-A1	
Total to end of
1939	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	194511	-72	-145	131	331	253	606	1,11512	24	24	21	36	38	81	2362	13	19	17	22	36	23	132-3	-109	-188	93	273	179	502	7474	-13	12	97	84	99	201	484-9	-42	3	12	17	10	30	2144	16	38	36	23	29	44	23039	-39	53	145	124	138	275	73542	70	241	52	-149	-41	-227	-12
The table shows that between the outbreak of the war and the end of 1945 our liquid reserves in gold and U.S. dollars increased by approximately $1,100 million. Canadian holdings of other U.S. dollar assets, mainly securities, were reduced however by over $350 million, so that our total UR. dollar assets rose by approximately $750 million. This increase in assets was almost exactly matched by an increase in our liabilities to the United States-about $500 million in the form of increased United States holding of Canadian securities and approximately $230 million in the form of the undistributed profits of United States owned business in Canada which have been earned since the outbreak of war and are consequently, under present foreign exchange control regulations, eligible for conversion into U.S. funds.
Taking jt by and large then, Canada's net debtor position vis-a-vis the United States was just about the same at the end of 1945 as it was at the outbreak of war. We are a good deal more liquid now than we were in

1939 but the increase in our cash holdings is balanced by a reduction of other assets and an increase in our external liabilities in the form of United States holdings of Canadian securities.
In the first few years of the war, as the table I have placed on record shows, our indebtedness to the United States increased by some $400 million, but this lost ground was recaptured in the succeeding years. I think that the committee will agree with me that there is cause for some satisfaction in having come out even after paying cash for over $6,000 million worth of imports from the United States during the war years.
I wish at this point, for the sake of completeness, to refer briefly to the other half of our exchange problem, namely our relations with the United Kingdom and the rest of the sterling area. My reference can be very brief since the position has recently been exhaustively reviewed from time to time and most recently in connection with the $1,250 million loan.

Foreign Exchange Control
The problem here, as members of the committee are well aware, has been that the British requirements of Canadian dollars to pay for their large purchases of munitions, foodstuffs and so on have greatly exceeded the Canadian dollars realized by them through exports to Canada and in other normal ways. It has been the determination of the people of this country that financial considerations should not impede or delay the victory by limiting the arms and other supplies that we put into the common pool. It was also their desire that our contribution of supplies should not result in international indebtedness on a scale that would be burdensome to international commerce.
I am placing on record the table given on page 30 of the foreign exchange control board
report which shows the war-time changes in the balance of Canadian indebtedness to the United Kingdom to the end of 1945. This table excludes, of course, the new loan to Britain and also the $425 million commonwealth air training debt which is to be cancelled under the legislation recently approved by this house, and it also excludes certain other intergovernmental liabilities which were settled by a lump sum payment of $150 million from the United Kingdom to Canada in accordance with the provisions of the loan agreement. It will be seen that, excluding these items, Canada's balance of indebtedness vis-a-vis the United Kingdom improved by approximately $1,500 million in the course of the war.
Wartime Changes in the Balance of Canadian Indebtedness to the United Kingdom
to the end of 1945 (millions of Canadian dollars)
Sept. 15 to	Total
Dec. 31.	to end of
Reductions in Canadian liabilities to United Kingdom (minus sign indicates increase in Canadian liabilities)	_
Official repatriation of Canadian securities..
Private redemption of Canadian securities..
Other repurchases of Canadian securities...
Other indebtedness	
Total reduction in Canadian liabilities..
Increases in Canadian assets in United Kingdom (minus sign indicates reduction in Canadian assets)
Loan to government of the United Kingdom.
Other assets	
Total increase in Canadian Assets	
Net reduction in balance of Canadian indebtedness	
1939	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	194575	137	188	296	4	2	1	7032	13	10	30	10	32	32	129i	28	36	8	20	27	32	158-36	7	-13	4	3	3	-3278	142	241	321	44	64	68	958.. .. 700	-18	-57	-64	561-i	-6 -1 6	7	8	-1	12-1	-6 -1 706	-11	-49	-65	57377	136 240 1,027	33	15	3 1,531	
In connection with Canada's financial relations with the sterling area I should like to invite the attention of members to a table given on pages 32 and 33 of the foreign exchange control board report which shows the main heads of sterling area expenditures in Canada from 1939 to 1945 and indicates how they were financed. Total sterling area expenditures during these years amounted to approximately $11,000 million. Receipts from ordinary sources such as imports into Canada, interest and dividend payments, etc., amounted to approximately $2,500 million, while Canadian government expenditures in connection with war activities overseas provided approximately the same amount. This left an aggregate deficiency after Canadian military expenditures of nearly $6,000 million. It was financed to the extent of $700 million by official repatriation of securities, to the extent of $340 million by private repatriation of securi-63260-161i
ties, to the extent of $500 million by the sale of gold and U.S. dollars to Canada, to the extent of $560 million net (after allowing for the application of the proceeds of sales of Canadian securities by residents of the United Kingdom on the original amount of $700 million) by the interest-free Canadian dollar loan, to the extent of $1,000 million by the gift of 1942 and to the extent of $2,175 by mutual aid.
So much by way of summary of our wartime financial relationships with the U.S. dollar area and with the sterling area. We have, as the committee will see, been through some difficult moments and have had to face problems of enormous magnitude. I think that we are entitled to feel that we have done reasonably well in handling these problems.. Hon. members will recall my statement of the dangers we saw originally which led to the imposition of exchange control-the danger-
Foreign Exchange Control

of a fluctuating exchange rate, the danger of large non-resident sales of securities on our markets, the danger of a shortage of U.S dollars leading to a contraction of our war effort. We have fared well on all these scores. The exchange rate has been kept completely stable since September 15, 1939; we have not added the further uncertainty of a fluctuating exchange rate to the inevitable uncertainties of -war. Canadian credit abroad stands higher than ever before. And we have met all our obligations in U.S. funds and are in a relatively strong cash position. The operation of the exchange control has been an important, indeed an indispensable factor, in producing these results.
The relatively strong cash position to which I have referred enables us to face the future with a greater degree of confidence than would otherwise have been possible. Since the end of the war our imports from the United States have continued to run at very high levels and it is reasonable to expect that in reequipping our industry we shall have to import many goods which have not been available, or only in inadequate quantities, during the war. Moreover, it is to be expected that the high level of incomes in Canada will lead, as it has done in the past, to increased imports of civilian goods, particularly consumers' durable goods, as they again become available in quantity. On the other hand, the special exports of war supplies and of grain to the United States which, as I have shown, figured so largely on the income side of dollar exchange during the past years, have fallen away. Our current account with the United States, which was about in balance for some time, is again showing a deficit. In the first quarter of this year the loss of United States funds from current account transactions (excluding collections on past business effected by War Supplies Limited) amounted to $50 million. The fact that we hold sizeable cash reserves means that we can face any deficit which it is now reasonable to anticipate without having to consider taking restrictive measures to eliminate it. It does not, however, mean that we can throw overboard all control over our exchange resources. In addition to the current account deficit with the United States which is now developing, we must naturally stand ready to meet all our capital obligations as they fall due. During the next 12 years Canadian bonds and debentures payable solely or optionally in U.S. dollars fall due in an amount of $1,000 million, the bulk of which is held in the United States. Of this total, some $400. million represents dominion, dominion-guaranteed and C.N.R. issues. Here, too, I hasten to say that we have no doubt that our cash reserves

and prospects are such that we shall be well able to meet both these capital payments and the current account deficits I have referred to. But we feel that we cannot, as well, undertake the obligation which would be inherent in a decision to do away with exchange control to find U.S. exchange for non-residents who wish to sell securities on the Canadian market and withdraw their capital from Canada or for residents who, without valid reason, may wish to transfer their capital abroad. The exchange resources of the country must be at the disposal of the national economy and must not be dissipated through capital flight.
In reaching the conclusion I have stated, the government was naturally influenced by the uncertainties of the world outlook. In our view, these are so great that a country in Canada's position has no real choice but to continue to control exchange transactions. In introducing the Bretton Woods Agreement Act last December I dwelt at some length on those uncertainties and need therefore allude to them only briefly here. No one can say at the present time what will be the character of the economic system which emerges in the world as the war-devastated areas reconstruct their own shattered internal economic structures. We shall either go forward to a degree of co-operation among countries with regard to international trade and financial matters which is greater than anything we have known in the recent past or we shall enter a period of intense international economic rivalry and discord. The Canadian interest is so bound up with the expansion of world trade and with liberal economic relationships among nations that we must clearly throw our whole weight in favour of the first alternative. This we have been doing in every way open to us, and most recently by the decision of this house to have Canada join the two Bretton Woods institutions and to extend large credits to the United Kingdom and other countries.
Through these positive steps Canada has demonstrated its willingness to make its constructive contribution to solving the economic problems confronting the world This does not mean however, that we can afford to throw all caution to the winds and act as though the world's economic problems had been solved. For some time to come the international financial situation of many countries will continue to be abnormal and we shall have to count on providing a large portion of our exports to certain of these countries on credit terms. These exports will not produce equivalent amounts of foreign exchange which we shall

Foreign Exchange Control
be able to use to pay for our imports from the United States. We are therefore thrown back on the necessity of being in a position to control any undesirable drain on our U.S. dollar reserves, and in view of the very large amount of Canadian securites held by non-residents it is particularly necessary to be able to guard against the pressure of capital withdrawals from Canada. I have already informed the house that during the past few years the pressure has been in the other direction and that we have gained exchange and not lost it as a result of nonresident transactions in Canadian securities. I have no reason for believing that this trend will be reversed in the near future. But I am also awrare that rapid changes have taken place in the past, both in our exchange position and in the attitude of non-residents towards Canadian securities. At present there is a keen interest on the part of American investors in Canadian securities, but I consider it my duty not to forget that there have been times during the recent war when Canada's premier securities sold in the American market on a 7 and 8 per cent yield basis, and were quoted at a price 40 per cent below the valuation placed on similar securities by the more confident Canadian public. In the light of such disturbing volatility, we cannot base our long-term policies on the favourable attitude towards Canadian securities in evidence at this particular moment or count on the indefinite continuance of that attitude.
The control of foreign exchange transactions which this legislation contemplates will provide the machinery for discharging certain of the obligations assumed by Canada in becoming a member of the international monetary fund. Under the fund agreement "each member undertakes to collaborate with the fund to promote exchange stability, to maintain orderly exchange arrangements with other members and to avoid competitive exchange depreciation" (Articles of agreement of international monetary fund, article IV, section 4 (a)). There are three possible methods of discharging this obligation. One would be to return to the international gold standard and make the Canadian dollar convertible into gold at a fixed price. I am not prepared to advise the house to adopt this course. The second would be to operate an exchange equalization account which would intervene in the exchange market by buying or selling foreign exchange in order to maintain exchange rates at whatever level had been determined, but which would exercise no qualitative supervision over exchange transactions. The third
method, and the one we have chosen, is to operate an exchange control which will buy and sell foreign exchange at fixed rates but which will exercise a qualitative supervision over exchange transactions to ensure that any involving capital flight which are contrary to the national interest are prohibited. The fund agreement clearly contemplates that certain countries will continue to operate exchange controls after joining since it provides in article VI, section 3, that "members may exercise such controls as are necessary to regulate international capital movements."
I should like to summarize what I have said in this way. The general character of the international financial and economic relations between nations which is going to prevail in the future is still uncertain. We hope that it will be one which does not call for restrictive controls and we shall do everything in-our power to bring this about. But we cannot be certain that the world we are going into will be what we would like to see. It may be a world of economic friction instead of cooperation. Canada is in an exposed international position, on account of our international debtor status and on account of the great importance of international transactions in our economic life. WTe cannot demobilize our main economic defence without being absolutely certain that it will not be needed. We cannot leave ourselves in a position where our choice of domestic economic policies has to be influenced by the consideration that one policy or another may lead to capital withdrawal by foreigners or capital flight by Canadians.
We have no intention of using this exchange control legislation to restrict anything but certain types of capital movement. We expect to be able to avoid any interference with current account transactions. But experience, both our own and other peoples', has shown that to control capital movements effectively it is necessary to supervise all transactions between residents and non-residents. Let me give one illustration of this point. If we attempted to control capital exports merely by refusing to sell foreign exchange for this purpose, it would be open to anyone who wished to export his capital illegally to say that he required the exchange to pay for imports. Similarly, anyone could buy goods in Canada and export them without bringing the exchange proceeds back home. In either case a transaction which appears to be quite innocent on the surface is in fact an export of capital. It is for this reason that it is necessary to maintain our over-all machinery
Foreign Exchange Control

of control even though our intention is to place no restrictions on current account transactions.
I believe that there has been general appreciation during the war years of the benefits of exchange stability, and that the business community will welcome the assurance provided by this measure that the government intends, through the continuance of exchange control, to guard against a return to the situation that prevailed in this respect after the last war. Some members may recall the difficulties and hardships caused by the wide fluctuation in the price of sterling and U.S. funds in Canada in the past. Between 1919 and 1920 the United States dollar fluctuated between If per cent premium and 19J per cent premium in Canada. Again in 1933 it moved within a range of 11 per cent discount to 23 per cent premium. Sharp fluctuations of this sort are injurious to business anjl of advantage only to the exchange speculator. We do not wish to return to this situation. We want those engaged in international transactions to have some assurance that they will not be faced with arbitrary and erratic fluctuations in exchange rates that upset their price calculations and turn profits into losses.
I realize that the machinery of control is not without its burdens to those engaged in foreign transactions and I hope that this section of the community will understand the necessity of continuing the control. The foreign exchange control board has tried to reduce its formalities to the minimum compatible with effective control and I am sure that it will continue to make further efforts in this direction. I.should like at this point to pay a tribute to the business community for the way in which they have cooperated with the foreign exchange control board during the war. I should also like to express appreciation to the public generally for its cooperation, particularly in accepting with such good grace the unpalatable but necessary travel restrictions. When the reasons for the control measures were explained and understood, the business community and the public generally were at all times willing to assist the board in carrying them out. I must also make a special reference to the chartered banks who have acted as agents of the exchange control authorities. Exchange control necessarily involved considerable additional work for them. This work has been carried out in a very satisfactory manner and they have at all times given their full cooperation to the control authorities.
In conclusion, I wish to assure the committee, if such assurance is needed, that the
[Mr. Ilsley.l
government's decision to maintain exchange control is not due to any fondness for controls as such. When the world returns to a more normal basis we shall have a fresh look at the question. Meanwhile, world conditions are far from normal and we cannot act as though they are. With the exception of the United States, practically every country in the world has exchange control and expects to continue it at least for the transition period. This being the case, Canada has no satisfactory alternative but to retain its control and operate it on the most liberal possible basis.


Mr. MACDONNELL (Muskoka-Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of forgetting the convenient arrangement which has been suggested for dealing with this measure, and at this time I wish to make only one or two brief observations.
I venture to suggest to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) that this measure is of such importance and will have so many technical aspects that he might very well allow a good many days before having it brought forward for full discussion. That however is a matter for his consideration.
I should like to make only a few observations respecting the situation in which we find ourselves. Speaking for myself, I do not see how anyone can dissent from the minister in his description of the world of to-day. I remember when we were debating Bretton Woods in this house about six months ago the statement was made by several hon. members that international relations had deteriorated lamentably within the preceding six months. Particularly in view of what the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said this afternoon, I think we shall find it hard to believe that they have not deteriorated still further in the interval. That raises the problems which the minister has described, and I doubt if any one will be able to avoid the conclusion he has reached, that some measure of control is necessary. For how long, we do not know.
I want to make just one comment on that. We have heard described this afternoon a technical job well done. I do not think there will be any grudging of credit for what has been done. I think we all feel that it has been done well.
It is obvious to say that people who have done a good job well, who have been in the position of controlling and really making the financial system tick for several years, would be inhuman if they did not somehow believe that they could go on and make it tick indefinitely.
The minister has spoken about a possibility -one does not like even to hear the words-

Foreign Exchange Control
of a period of intense economic rivalry, and then he went on to say that we must be absolutely certain-I have forgotten his exact words, but this is their effect-of our security before we let these things down. It is on that that I would like to say a word. If we are all going to make sure that we get our own security, that is the surest way of making certain that there will be no security. I agree with the minister when he says that we have to use caution; nevertheless it seems to me that if everybody uses caution, if everybody is the last to show any courage and to become cooperative, the results will not be what we want. I am sure that is not the minister's intention. From what has been said in this house by the minister and by others I am sure he will agree with what I have just said.
I should like to leave that with the committee and with the minister. He has given us this afternoon a description of a world which can easily degenerate into suspicious and economic rivalries and exclusiveness such as we had in the nineteen thirties. It seems to me that that should make us aware of our serious responsibilities in arriving at the decisions at which we must arrive. Although it is only economic danger, that faces us at the moment, I am reminded of a line from Shakespeare:
. . . We are in great danger;-[DOT]
Economic danger.
The greater therefore should our courage be.


Thomas Reid: I have one word to say and one question to ask the minister. The statement just made by the minister was an important one, and I think it is a little hard for the ordinary member of parliament fully to understand foreign exchange and high finance control. A thought that enters my mind has to do with the position of Great Britain and the United States with regard to trade with Canada. Great Britain buys more goods from Canada than we buy from her, and yet the pound is down to $4.38 which means that she gets less for the pound she expends in Canada than does the United States, where conditions are exactly the reverse. We in this country buy more from the United States than they do from us. I have always wondered in my own mind who actually sets the differential in exchange. We would seem to have made a contribution of $600 million to the United States since the war began in the form of the ten per cent exchange, that is, the United States dollar being worth $1.10 Canadian. The opposite is the case with Great Britain. I would have thought that in this new world that we are fashioning the very opposite condition would have prevailed.
I would have thought that in poorer countries like Great Britain it would be made more possible to buy more with their currencies, and that at least the Canadian dollar would be equal to the United States dollar. During the past three years I have asked the Minister of Finance the question: Who sets this differentiation in exchange between the Canadian and United States dollars? It may be my fault, but I do not think I have had a proper explanation. I trust the committee when the bill is before it will go into the two points I have mentioned.


Mr. QUELCH:: I hope the recommendation of the hon. member (Mr. Reid) will be carried out. Personally I think it would not be for the benefit of Canada if the Canadian dollar were on parity with the United States dollar. Undoubtedly this question will be discussed later. We welcome the introduction of this measure to provide for the establishment of a foreign exchange control board as a peace time measure. This board served the country well during the war by making United States dollars available to provide for the maximum production of armaments, and also by providing Canadian dollars for Great Britain. When I say that, I do not mean that we are going to approve everything that is in the bill, but we do believe it is in the interests of Canada to establish a foreign exchange control board as a peace-time measure.


John Bracken: Is there any termination date?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The bill just provides for the establishment of the board. If it becomes necessary to discontinue it, it will have to be repealed.
Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in. Mr. Ilsley thereupon moved for leave to introduce bill No. 195, respecting the control of the acquisition and disposition of foreign currency and the control of transactions involving foreign currency nonresidents.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.


John Bracken: Can the minister say when the bill will be up for second reading?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will consult the convenience of the opposition on that. I doubt whether it will be this week; we should probably give more time than that.

Right Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance) moved that the house go into committee of supply.
Supply-Procedure


John Bracken: Mr. Speaker, if this is a motion to go into supply in order to move three other departments into committee of supply to make them available for discussion, then as leader of the opposition I must oppose the motion. If the government feels that it is necessary to persist in this motion for this purpose, I shall have to ask for a division when you put the motion to the house. I object on this ground. The motion to go into supply on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays is debatable under our rules, but it is not debatable when put on a Thursday or Friday.
It is not necessary to put any more departments into supply at this time. If I am not in error, there are still ten or eleven departments to be dealt with in supply. If there were need for more I would gladly approve of more, and I say to the government now that whenever there is a need for more, there will be no objection. The opposition has the right on a motion to go into supply on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday to raise any grievance or bring up any matter regarded as of importance; and to the extent that we put additional departments into supply we are denied that right. I do not think the government should put us in that position. It does not need to. I do not think that practice is democratic, I do not think it is fair.
Under the legislation passed last year, the emergency powers bill, the government can take action that we know nothing of until it is announced here at the opening of the house, and that is a time when we are denied the right to debate it. The only opportunity which the opposition has to raise any question which is not before the house in the form of a bill or resolution is on a motion to go into supply on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Unless I am in error, there are, as I said, ten or eleven departments in supply now, and about ten more to go in. Why should the government ask us to put more in when there are so many already in and not yet finished? I am perfectly agreeable to having, say a couple of departments go in each week, but once we put them all in we are denied the right, thereafter to bring up any matter that may be regarded as important.
May I add this. As leader of the opposition I would say to the Minister of Finance that we feel that it is time the budget was brought down. I am aware of the reasons which the minister or the government may have for not having it brought down before this. But we have been here for three months now, dealing with some important matters, but none is more important than the fiscal problems facing this country. I would ask the government to

bring down the budget as soon as possible. In a week or two we shall be running into hot weather and there will be a general demand to get away from here. Then we shall have before us not only the measures now on the order paper and the rest of the estimates but the important budget proposals as well. The budget proposals will probably be-I was going to say more important this year, but I do not like to make a comparison; I shall say only that they will be very important measures. I therefore urge the government to bring down the budget as soon as possible.
I suggest in all sincerity to the government that it should not ask us now to give up the right of raising any question we deem important on going into supply the first three days of the week. Having said that, let me assure the government that we will help- them see to it that there are always enough departments in supply to carry on the work of the house. I am aware that under the rules you can go into supply and call one item in each of the departments named; then that department is in; the government can go into supply again on Thursday or Friday without any debate, and therefore no opportunity for the opposition to raise any grievance on those days. I trust that the government will not deny us this right. I am sure that the government appreciates this position. There have been eleven departments in supply already this session, only one of which is finished, and to ask us to put three more departments in at this time-


Mr. MACKENZIE:: Agriculture is not all
through yet.


John Bracken: That makes my argument all the stronger because you have eleven departments in supply already, any one of which can be considered.



LABOUR CONDITIONS-EFFECT OF LABOUR DISPUTES ON PRODUCTION

Mr. ANGUS MacINNIS (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I am going to avail myself for a moment of the prerogative which the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) mentioned a moment ago of discussing an important matter on the motion to go into supply. I hesitate to take up the time of the house, but the question I am going to raise is of the utmost importance.
But first on the point raised by the leader of the opposition I think it would be quite in order for the government to move one of the departments into supply because I realize that the government must have a certain amount of manoeuvrability. The only thing I am afraid of is that they will manoeuvre too much. If we could only be sure that

Supply-Labour Conditions
they would not do that I would have no objection to one new department going into supply because the government must have something to put before the house on Thursdays and Fridays.
I hesitated about bringing up the matter, to which I am about to refer, although not to the point of not referring to it at all. I hesitated until I heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) this afternoon refer to the terrible condition, the dangerous condition that prevails in Europe. If there is a dangerous condition in Europe we cannot hope in the small world in which we live to-day to avoid that danger any more than we could in 1939.
There are at the present time a number of labour disputes in progress in the country which are retarding production. I think there is no member of the house, regardless of where he sits, who will not agree with me that the greatest need of the world to-day is production, and that we should all do everything we can to see that production is not retarded. I have already referred to this need in different words on two or three different occasions this session. I referred to it in my speech on the address on March 22, when I urged that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) or some other minister of the government should call a conference of representatives of employers, representatives of organized labour and representatives of the provincial governments in order that we might come to some understanding and some conclusions in regard to the need for increased production. After that was done, the attention of the public could be drawn, as was so often done during the war, to the dangerous position that we and the world are in. We could .then get the cooperation of the public in the same way as the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) mentioned this afternoon we got it so often in other matters.
There is a shipping strike-a disastrous strike, in my opinion- and the Minister of Labour has worked hard, I believe, to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. It being a matter affecting navigation, I believe it comes wholly within the jurisdiction of the federal department of labour. Last Thursday the Minister of Labcur brought together representatives of the shipping companies and representatives of the union concerned and presented them with a formula for the settlement of the strike. I am informed by the president of the seamen's union that it w^as immediately accepted by the union. According to a news report in the Ottawa Journal of June 14. the shipping companies decided that they would take the minister's proposals 63260-162
under consideration the following day. Then, according to the same report, they decided that they would not discuss them until Monday, that is to-day; and later on it was decided that they will not discuss them until tomorrow. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that no matter what the grievance may be this lackadaisical manner of dealing with so urgent a matter should not be tolerated at a time like this. The government have an obligation to the people of Canada, who also are partners in these matters, because to-day there is no labour dispute in which there are not at least three	parties-the employers, the
workers, and the community-and the government must act for the community. I believe that the government has an obligation to-day to secure a quick decision from the shipping companies. It should ask them whether or not they are going to accept the formula proposed by the Minister of Labour, and if they will not act the government should see to it that shipping moves again.
On the west coast, in the lumber situation, we have the opposite condition. The employers have accepted the commissioner's proposals of settlement and the labour organization concerned has rejected them. Here again the government has an obligation to prevent as far as it possibly can the wastage of food and to get into operation as many lumber mills as it is within its power to do, in order to meet the urgent needs of the fruit growers.
There are other disputes. Last Thursday or Friday I brought to the attention of the Minister of Labour a dispute in British Columbia in which the moulders are concerned. I believe the moulders' organization is the union involved in the strike. But the strike is affecting a large number of plants which, I am told have no concern at all with the strike. I am informed by one of the companies that when they took this matter up with the government of British Columbia they were told that the administration of the labour relations regulations came under the federal government; but when I drew this matter to the atention of the Minister of Labour here the other day, and asked if that was a correct statement, he told me that it is wholly in the control of the provincial department of labour. Having so much experience with these regulations. I think this sort of buck-passing should be impossible. I am sorry I have not the communication which I referred to with me: I thought I had and I was going to read from the letter the definite statement that the company had the opinion before-mentioned from the premier of British Columbia.

Supply-Labour Conditions

In my view the minister has been long-suffering in these disputes; he has tried to negotiate fairly between the parties; the formula which he proposed in the seamen's strike is-as far as I know; I am not in a position to judge-a fair one. He should now see to it that the parties concerned get together, and if they do not, the government should take the necessary action in order that goods will float again on the rivers and lakes of this country.



STRIKE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA LUMBER INDUSTRY

[Stage Direction]
-COST OF LIVING

George Alexander Cruickshank: Mr. Speaker, if there is now an opportunity to speak on the labour situation I shall take a few minutes of your time. I want to try again to impress upon the government, and particularly on the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell), through you, Mr. Speaker, that in view of w'hat the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said to-day, in my opinion they have even more responsibility on their shoulders than they have apparently realized up to the present time, as far as labour is concerned. I have been negotiating to the best of my ability for the last two weeks with the labour representatives, with a view to getting the box and cooperage factories reopened; I am not speaking of the lumber situation generally. As I understood the Minister of Labour, the union had agreed to man these plants, without prejudice to either side, exactly on the lines of the appeal made by the Acting Prime Minister (Mr. Ilsley) on the 24th or the 28th of May, that these plants should be reopened in order to conserve the food which, in spite of what any official says, is going to waste, and which, according to the statement of the Prime Minister on his return from England, is urgently required to-day. This food is going to waste, and will go to waste in far greater quantities unless the Department of Labour accept their responsibilities to-day, and do, as the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) suggested, stop passing the buck from one department to the other. Let us assume our responsibilities, and do so to-day.
I am not going into the rights or wrongs of the strike, but I say definitely, Mr. Speaker, that the international woodworkers of America have come this far. The men have agreed and guaranteed to re-man the plants with union labour. They offered to do so on Friday night, and the plants could have been working all day Saturday, all day Sunday and all day to-day if the government had accepted its responsibility, as I see it, and put in a con-

(roller. We did it some time ago in the case of the American Can plant. We did it after a lot of food had been wasted. Apparently we are adopting the same attitude to-day in so far as fruit, fish, milk and other products in British Columbia are concerned. Apparently the department does not realize that if we start these plants to-day hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of food will still be wasted in British Columbia because, by operating the plants on twenty-four hour shifts from now on, we cannot catch up.
To-day I tried to ask what I thought was a fair question, namely, when would the plants be opened if they were not opened to-day, and why were they not opened before? Every hon. member knows my stand in this matter; but I say that no union, no operator and no government can justify food going to waste by the buck being passed from the minister to the minister of labour of British Columbia or to the federal authorities at Ottawa or to the union. The unions are prepared to go to work to-night and work all night producing crates, barrels and other containers if the Minister of Labour of the federal government will put Mr. Jones or someone else in as controller to operate these plants for a period of at least three weeks during which time negotiations can be carried on.
A short time ago the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton) showed me the latest edition of the Kamloops paper. These people know the situation in British Columbia; they know the situation in Kamloops, and! they state that if we operate to-day we shall still lose foodstuffs because we simply cannot catch up. Surely we are big enough or should be big enough to discuss these matters without prejudice to either side while the plants are operating. It could be done along the line of the appeal w7'hich was made by the Acting Prime Minister, and which has been answered by the International Woodworkers of British Columbia, If the appeal of the Acting Prime Minister of May 27 has not been answered by the companies or the government, it has been answered by the union. Why not by the government and operators? I am now appealing to the Department of Labour of the federal government. I am appealing particularly to the. minister of that department. I shall not use the word I intended to use-


Humphrey Mitchell: Use it.


George Alexander Cruickshank: No. The Minister of Labour is always good-natured; I shall say that for him. As a member of parliament representing the fruit-growers, I do not want any buck-passing or side-tracking. What I want the minister to do is to tell me when

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these factories are to be reopened. If he cannot tell me that I should like to know why.
I should like to know why he cannot take some action when the men are prepared to go to work in the factories under a controller to prevent the fruit in British Columbia from wasting.



COST OF LIVING-SECURITY IN EMPLOYMENT

Mr. ALISTAIR STEWART (Winnipeg North) :: Signs of labour unrest are obvious all over the country, and part of the reason is that the government has not yet had the courage to face up to the inevitable results of its own policies. The Progressive Conservatives would like to see the ceilings lifted just as quickly as possible. The government intends to go about the matter more slowly, but no matter how slowly they go about it, nevertheless the fact remains that to the average worker his cost of living is increasing. The increase in the cost of living does not always mean a monetary increase. It may mean a depreciation in the quality of the goods he has bought.
One of the problems which is facing the average worker throughout this country is the increase in the cost of food, particularly milk. Milk is basic to the health of a nation; yet the price has gone up by two cents a quart, and within a few months there is the threat that it will go up still another two cents a quart. The ordinary working-class family know that the cost of clothes they have to buy is going up. They find the costs creeping up all around them, and if they are to live on a standard which will grant them the minimum amount of health, naturally they must have higher wages. The labour disputes to-day centre largely around the question of higher wages.
There is also the question of security in employment. We have heard almost ad nauseam of the government's promises during the election of jobs for all. We have read the government's white paper on employment policy, and seen how its policy was to provide full employment, whatever that may mean. But full employment is not with us, and there is no sign at all of full employment because there is no sign at all of a reconversion programme on the part of the government. There is no general all-out Canadian plan which will give the people an inkling as to wRat the government has in mind to maintain full employment. I should like to bring this matter particularly to the attention of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) because full employment is largely a matter of fiscal policy, and we are faced with this apparent fact: according to the govern-63260-1621
ment's advisory committee on reconstruction, that is, the James committee, it is estimated that under full employment the savings of the Canadian people will be in the neighbourhood of $1,500 million a year. If we .are to maintain full employment the costs of industry have to come back again in the purchasing stream. I differ from my hon. friends of the Social Credit party in not believing there is an inherent deficiency of purchasing power under the present economic system. I believe every element of cost has an offsetting element in somebody's income. But when we have $1,500 million worth of savings, much of which is not reinvested in the economy, then there will be an apparent lack of purchasing power. When that lack of purchasing power appears profits diminish; because profits diminish there is a tendency to lay-off men or to cut wages, and when that is done purchasing power is still further diminished. It is true that one might perhaps stabilize the national income at $8 billion as one might stabilize it at $3 billion, as happened in the thirties, but on these low levels the obvious result is mass unemployment.
If we are to maintain full employment, obviously somehow or another the government must evolve a scheme whereby the savings of the people as a whole, the savings of industrial enterprise, will again be channeled back into purchasing power. Yet according to the Financial Post's 1944 survey of firms which, I think, accounted for, about sixty per cent of manufacturing industry, these companies figure on spending slightly more than than $100 million a year on capital assets. Mr. J. R. Beattie, of the Bank of Canada, writing in the August, 1944, issue of the Canadian Journal o) Economics and Political Science, pointed out:
(a)	That "even the tremendously rapid industrial expansion . . . during the war" had not "involved more than $1,000,000,000 of capital expenditure . . . public and private ... on plant, equipment and housing in any one year;"
(b)	that though "electric power is a heavy capital-using industry," its "pre-war investment in fixed assets was less than $1,500,000,000;"
(c)	that "one year's saving" at the rate of $1,500,000,000 a year "would more than cover the cost of all residential housing built in the twenty years from 1917 to 1937;" (d) that $1,500,000,000 "would cover nearly half the total fixed capital investment in Canadian railways;" (e) that "even the building of a new industry comparable to the pre-war automobile industry would absorb less than three weeks' saving at the rate of $1,500,000,000 a year."
That means there must be a tremendous amount of additional purchasing power spent if we are to maintain a balance between national income and the outgoings of the incomes whether they be wages or profits on
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*other income of the people. But now comes a new survey of post-war investment plans, in the Canadian Bank of Commerce monthly letter of January, 1946, which estimates that capital expenditure for the years 1946 to 1950 will be as follows:
City and town homes	 $750,000,000
Business building	 250,000,000
Industrial and mining	 1,000.000,000
Public utilities	 350,000,000
Transportation	 400,000,000
Farm improvement and extension	 350,000,000
That means a total in these years of $3,100 million, or a total per annum of $620,000,000; yet on the committee's estimate the Canadian people are going to save a billion and a half dollars each year. If we are to maintain full employment this means that somehow or another another $900,000,000 must be spent in this country, preferably in capital construction, or if not, then in improving the conditions of the people; and one way in which that is being done is through the children's allowances. The Minister of Finance cannot exempt himself from some responsibility for complete employment in this country. That is a problem he must face, and it is a problem for which we in the C.C.F. think we have an answer. It means the complete control of investment in this country by the government and investment channeled out so that, as a result, socially useful purposes shall be served. If in the forthcoming budget the Minister of Finance can give us no hope at all that this policy will be followed, then I think we can say with some certainty we are coming into a period of still further aggravated labour troubles and increased unemployment.
What I should like to speak of particularly at this moment is a matter affecting the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell), because here I think he has been somewhat remiss in his responsibilities. I should like to remind the house again of a situation which exists in the city of Winnipeg and which is felt in other areas where these men have gone to live. In 1919 there was a general strike in Winnipeg, during which some four thousand workers of the Canadian Pacific Railway company went out on strike. Many were accepted back by the company, but the price they had to pay for reemployment was the giving up of all seniority rights before the strike. In tribute to the government-owned line, Canadian National Railways, let me say that they took back their men; and, when they established their pension fund in 1935 they gave all men, whether strikers or not, credit for every year and every month they had worked for the company. That was not the case with the Canadian Pacific. In 1937 this company instituted a

new pension plan on a contributory basis. Previously the pension plan had been on a noncontributory basis; and, when the men asked for higher wages the officials of the C.P.R. pointed to the pension plan and to their generosity in giving their men these pensions, and asked that this be taken into consideration. When the new plan was put into operation in 1937 it applied only to those of the age of forty and under. As a result, some four hundred elderly employees of the C.P.R. were given no pension rights at all. Some 2,100 others were affected because the time they had worked prior to the strike did not count toward their seniority. Mr. Coleman, who is now president of the Canadian Pacific Railway company, had a meeting with a sub-committee of the general chairmen of the union, and according to the union Mr. Coleman stated that it would take an additional $1,250,000 to meet the pensions which were asked. The report of the union goes on:
He made it very clear that the earnings of the company made such a task quite impossible, and regretted very much that, in such circumstances, he had to deny the request of the committee.
The subcommittee went on to say:
We are still of the unanimous view that, had the financial conditions of the company been different, we would have made progress.
The financial conditions of the company are appreciably different to-day, and I only hope the C.P.R. will take that fact into consideration when considering the claims of the men. The net income of the company in 1941 was some $46,000,000; in 1942 it was $48,000,000; in 1943 it amounted to $49,000,000, and last year it was some $31,000,000. It should be noted also that last year the profit and loss balance in the balance sheet amounted to $262,700,000. Out of that sum I should think the company could well afford to pay pensions to the men who are now leaving the employ of the company because of age and who are being wretchedly discriminated against because of the strike. The C.P.R. is one of the few companies, if not the only one, still treating in such a way the men who went on strike in Winnipeg in 1919. I have asked several questions of the Minister of Labour in that connection. Last December I asked what had happened to the report of the commissioner who had been appointed by the government to investigate the situation. The minister then told me that the report had been received and had been submitted to the company. Be it noted, Mr. Speaker, that this investigation was conducted at the request of the employees, not at the request of the company; yet the company was given the

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privilege of seeing this report while it has been denied to the union. Again in May I asked the minister what the outcome of the investigation was. All he could tell me was that the Canadian Pacific Railway company were still considering the matter. Therefore I wrote Mr. Coleman to ask when we might expect the company to give the government its answer. I received a reply from Mr. Manson, vice-president in charge of personnel, who said in part:
The report of the investigator is being studied; and inasmuch as he required more than seven months to complete his findings, I am sure you will appreciate the time it takes to analyse the document.
That is a lot of unadulterated nonsense. It may take a commission seven months to make certain findings, but surely it does not take seven months to consider the advisability or otherwise of implementing those findings. However, that is the case put up by the Canadian Pacific Railway company, so that I hope the Minister of Labour will get some iron into his spine and go after the C.P.R. to learn exactly what they intend to do about the legitimate plea of these men I have mentioned.


Humphrey Mitchell: I do not take advice of that kind from a jellyfish in Winnipeg.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: I think the minister should take the advice, because he is badly in need of it.
There is another thing. There is a dispute to-day between the typographical unions and newspapers in Vancouver, Edmonton, Hamilton, Ottawa and Winnipeg. I asked the minister, at page 2153 of Hansard, the following question in reference to this dispute:
I wish to direct to the Minister of Labour a question of which I have given him notice. What steps are being taken by the federal government to settle the dispute between the typographical union and the newspapers concerned?
Part of his answer was as follows:
In Winnipeg, basically the issues were the union's policy that its international law is not subject to arbitration, et cetera-and when I say "et cetera" I refer to the regulations set in motion by the respective governments of this country-the forty-hour week and payment for overtime if the union could not provide labour under its closed shop agreement. Unfortunately the situation had deteriorated to such an extent in Winnipeg by the time it reached the attention of my department that the appointment of two industrial disputes inquiry commissions and the holding of several conferences in Ottawa did not bring about a settlement.
I bring to the minister's attention the words, "unfortunately the situation had deteriorated to such an extent in Winnipeg by the time it reached the attention of my department". The minister may not like taking advice from the
hon. member from Winnipeg North; but let me say one thing more, and that is that his answers ought to be more accurate. This one is grossly and obviously inaccurate, on the basis of an answer to a question I asked later.
This is what appeared at page 2418 of Hansard:
Mr. Stewart (Winnipeg North):
1.	On what date did the dispute between the *typographical union and the newspaper publishers in Winnipeg start?
The answer to that was:
1.	The stoppage of work affecting the international typographical union and the Winnipeg Tribune and Free Press commenced on November 8, 1945, being the culmination of a dispute which had been developing for some weeks previously because of failure to agree on the terms of a new agreement to replace one which had expired September 30, 1945.
The second question was:
2.	On what date was the department made cognizant of the dispute?
And the answer:
2.	On October 31 my department received information that a dispute existed and that a strike was possible. On November 1,-
That was seven days before the lock-out took place.
-the publishers of the two newspapers requested the intervention of either a conciliation officer or an industrial disputes inquiry commission. A conciliation officer was appointed on November 2.
The dispute started on November 8. The third question was:
3.	On what date was Mr. Justice Major appointed as a commissioner to investigate the dispute ?
And the answer:
3.	Mr. Justice Major was appointed a commissioner on November 9.
The Minister of Labour says that the situation had deteriorated before it reached the attention of his department. Yet, nine days before the lockout took place, the Minister of Labour had acted-and I think rightly so; I do not blame him for it; rather, I give him credit. The day after the dispute actually took place, a conciliation officer was appointed. As I said, the first answer given by the Minister of Labour was not altogether accurate.
Last summer the Canadian newspaper publishers association held a meeting in eastern Canada. I do not pretend to know what went on there, but I do know that not long after that, when the union agreement in AVinnipeg was up for negotiation, certain publishers balked, insisting that the laws of the union had to be arbitrated. That had never been the case before in the history of that union. Never at any time in all its eighty years have the union refused to arbitrate hours,
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wages or conditions of an agreement. But they have always insisted that the laws of their own union were not arbitrable, and properly so; because were the laws of the union arbitrable, in every city one would find a hundred different interpretations of the law.


Humphrey Mitchell: Would the hon. member take the stand that the rules of the trade union take precedence over the laws of this country.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: No, I did not say that the laws of the trade union should take precedence over the laws of this country, because the trade union have stated that the law of Canada takes precedence over the law of their union. So that that is no argument.


Humphrey Mitchell: You are talking about something you know nothing about.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: I am talking about something concerning which I know a lot more than you do, because I have been with the men, talked the matter over with them, and they know what they are talking about, even though the Minister of Labour may not know. There can be only one interpretation of the law of the union, and that is the interpretation they put on the law themselves, because those laws are there for the government of the union, and for nothing else.
It has been said-I have seen it in print-[DOT] that the printers are trying to compel publishers to publish what the printers want. That is obviously nonsense. The position taken by the typographical union throughout the years proves that that is nonsense; and it is nonsensical to say that this is a case of foreign interference in Canadian affairs. Each individual union, on its own behalf, took strike action; and that action was not dictated by the international president, Mr. Randolph or by anybody else.
There is much less foreign interference in the unions than there is foreign interference in business. When we consider that several billions of dollars of United States capital is invested in this country, I think we must begin to realize the amount of the United States interference there is in Canadian industry.
The Minister of Labour appointed Mr. Justice Major to act as commissioner, and the commissioner, I believe, did his best. He offered to the union six points to be decided upon, and stated that if the union agreed to them he would then persuade the publishers to agree to them, too. The union agreed to

four of them, and they said they were willing to discuss the remaining two, and to negotiate in that regard.
The publishers refused to have anything to do with the matter at all; they virtually walked out on the commissioner. The result is that to-day all across Canada we find these strikes in publishing plants; and unless some definite action is taken, and taken quickly, I fear they will spread. We find these strikes not only in the newspaper industry, but threatened in steel and among electrical workers. Practically every organized union in the country is affected.
Nobody likes to strike. Strikes cost the country money. They cost the workers money. They cost the employers money. But a worker goes on strike only as an act of desperation, only when that is the only way he can bring his case before the people. When a worker goes on strike he knows what the cost will be to himself and his family.
It is the responsibility of the federal government to take some active stand, a more definite stand than it has taken, in trying to act as conciliator between the conflicting groups in this country. It is the duty and responsibility of the federal government, where necessary, to take over plants which are concerned. They should be taken over on one basis; that is, that any profits accruing to those plants while they are being operated by the federal government should revert to the federal treasury.


Mr. C. E. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, I should like for a moment to refer to what has been said by the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart) where he pointed out that the advocacy by the Social Credit party of a sufficiency of purchasing power would not solve the problem. I remind the hon. member that labour unions are now on strike to obtain increased purchasing power. The Social Credit party contends that if labour unions were to receive their increase in wages, which we think they deserve, that would solve the whole problem. It must be remembered that the people at large would not get that increase; and therefore they would not be able to buy the goods which industry has produced.
However, I do not intend to enter upon an explanation of social credit theory for the special benefit of the hon. member for Winnipeg North, because I have come to the conclusion that he does not understand even the policy of socialism of the party to which he belongs. The hon. member said that his party stood for complete control of investment. That was not the policy enunciated the other day by the hon. member for Vancouver East

Supply-Labour Conditions
(Mr. Maclnnis), when he stated quite clearly that he advocated the total ownership of the means of life.
I do not dispute one or the other, but I believe that the hon. member for Vancouver East came more closely to socialistic doctrine than did the hon. member for Winnipeg North, and I suggest that the latter named hon. member should study the policy of his own party before he begins to criticize others.
I should like to draw the attention of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) to conditions among labour in Canada. Only to-day I received two telegrams from labour unions, one at Drumheller and one at Calgary, asking me to do what I could to draw the attention of the government to the state of unrest among labour throughout Canada. Labour realizes that these continued strikes are not in the best interests of the country as a whole, and I believe they are just as anxious and ready as anyone else to have matters settled. But the government cannot take the attitude that it will sit idly by and let the strikes continue, in the hope that they will work themselves out in a natural way.
I do not think the minister did much to lessen unrest among labour when he stated the other day that he blamed strikes on communists, and said that if the communists wanted a fight he was ready to give it to them. I do not think the labour unrest in this country is due to communist elements. Men are striking for legitimate reasons. The minister knows as well as the rest of us that living costs are increasing rapidly. That being so, of necessity labour must be concerned about its standard of living. As prices go up, the standard of living comes down. Not only must labour be concerned about that; the rest of the people of Canada are much concerned because these continued strikes are bound to add to the increased cost of goods.
I think the question was brought up timely by the hon. member when he spoke this afternoon. I do not intend to enter into a lengthy discussion on labour, but I suggest to the government that they will have to do something definite to solve these problems or labour and the employers will have to deal with the matter to see if settlements cannot be brought about. It would be much better if the government had some definite plan in mind so that when a strike occurs they could insist upon a settlement.


Humphrey Mitchell: Does my hon. friend suggest compulsory arbitration?


Charles Edward Johnston: I do not think it needs compulsion on the part of the government or on the part of labour or on the part of the
employers. There should be some reconciliation between the three groups. If no settlement can be arrived at between labour and the employer, then the government should step in and do something. They should not stand idly by while conditions get worse and worse. It is no solution of the problem for the government to say that we have less labour trouble in Canada than in any other country in the world. If conditions do not improve quickly we shall soon reach a point where Canada will be leading the world with labour troubles.
We had better get busy. The government should have some definite policy. They should enact some regulations which would bring these strikes to an end so that the country can get on with the production that is so greatly needed.
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs): I should1 like to take only one or two minutes to deal the the remarks made by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken), who has raised objection to calling three new departments in committee of supply, not for the purpose of discussion but simply to get them in. The situation is that at the present moment we 'have eleven departments in supply. One department, the Department of Agriculture, is almost completed, as is the Department of National Health and Welfare. There are eleven departments not yet in supply. The theory that getting a department into supply at an early stage deprives hon. members of the right of expression and the opportunity to ask for the redress of grievances is an entire fallacy. If a department already in supply is called' on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday every hon. member has the right to debate the motion.
If -the record of this session is read it will be found that supply was called earlier and has been called more frequently than in any session during the fifteen years I have been in this house. H-on. members opposite must accept some responsibility for moving a motion of no confidence and holding up supply for two weeks. Hon. gentlemen must realize that every session complaints are made in the last week or -two weeks about the government, no matter who the government is, because of th-e congestion of the estimates. We have tried to avoid that this session. We are trying to get departments into supply, but when we do so we are met with retarding suggestions by hon. gentlemen opposite. I will meet the suggestion of the leader of the opposition and call two departments to-day and two next Monday, and I ho-pe the house will agree to that.
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^ Hon. GROTE STIRLING (Yale): Mr. Speaker, I have just one remark to make on what the acting leader of the house (Mr. Mackenzie) has just said. I would draw your attention to the fact that this is a habit which has cropped up during the years of war, that of bringing in one item of each of two or three departments in order to get them into committee of supply. Members of the opposition have agreed to that because we were desirous of assisting the business of the house.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I hope hon. members still are.


Mr. STIRLING:: They still are, but with a proviso. The motion for supply provides an opportunity to members in opposition to raise matters, not necessarily matters of grievance but other matters which in their opinion should be discussed. I cannot accept the minister's view' that it is always possible to have these matters discussed when the department concerned is before the house. It happens quite often toward the end of a session that a department will be called hurriedly and little discussion is possible. The opportunity is then lost to hon. members to discuss certain matters.
Over and over again the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley)

I give these two illustrations only-have suggested, when certain questions have been asked, that there would be ample opportunity to discuss the matter when the house got into committee of supply. The more departments we get into committee, the fewer opportunities will be left to discuss the motion to go into supply.
The minister now suggests that two more departments be moved in to-day, which will bring the total to thirteen. Then two more are to be introduced next week, which would bring the total to fifteen. If we go on at that pace, before many w'eeks have elapsed there w'ill be no opportunities left.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Does the hon. member not hope that there will be no session left?


Grote Stirling: I may have all kinds of hopes, but they are not going to terminate this session before a great many weeks have passed. We have not seen the budget yet, and we have not discussed the three defence services which in past years have been discussed for weeks and weeks on the war appropriations. I suggest once more to the government that we should be chary about introducing more departments into committee of supply at this stage of the session.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I accepted the suggestion of the leader of the opposition.
[.Mr. Mackenzie.]


Mr. H. W. HERRIDGE (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to follow up the remarks of the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank). A few days ago the Acting Prime Minister (Mr. Ilsley) made an appeal for the operation of these plants in order that containers might be provided for food. I know that right after that the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) became very active. No hon. member from British Columbia has done more in connection with the settlement of this strike than the hon. member for Fraser Valley. He has spent in the neighbourhood of $200 on telephone messages; he has met with union representatives, and he has spent a considerable amount on telegrams. Along with other hon. members, I have personal knowledge of the work he has been doing.
Following the appeal of the Acting Prime Minister, and largely because of what was done by one private member of this house with the support of other hon. members, the union have agreed to go back to work in these factories if the government will put a controller in charge and agree that negotiations shall continue while they are at work. We cannot understand why the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) will not take that action at this time when British Columbia is short of containers for fruit and other perishable products.
Even if these factories commence operations at the present time the tree fruit industry-the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling) will agree with this statement.-will be short of containers this year. What is the reason for the delay in this action? Most people know that in British Columbia within three or four weeks it is customary, particularly in the coast area, for the logging companies to shut down on account of the hazardous fire situation. Cannot the Minister of Labour visualize; cannot he possibly see that, if this dispute is prolonged any longer and the fire season comes, we shall then have a heavy slugging match between the big operators in British Columbia and the union? That would be a most deplorable situation. It would not benefit the strikers or the operators or the community. I urge the minister to give consideration to the appointment of a controller in the box manufacturing and container manufacturing plants. That at least w'ould be a step in the right direction.


Edmund Davie Fulton: The hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) this afternoon referred to some facts which I brought to his attention appearing in the Kamloops Sentinel, which I received to-day. For the information of the house and the

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[DOT]2559
Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) I should like to give these facts and figures to reinforce what has already been said with regard to the strike. In its issue of June 12 the Kamloops Sentinel reports an address by a veteran mill-man before the board of trade, in which the speaker said:
The box requirements of the whole upcoun-try's fruit and vegetable industry represent 55,000,000 feet of timber. It would be physically impossible for the mills to saw this amount in the time left before the harvest is in full flood.
The 460,000 fruit and vegetable containers needed for the Kamloops district's crop represent 20,000.000 feet of lumber. Only 50,000 of the boxes have been processed.
Further down:
The grower's survey led to the conclusion that "even if the mills resumed production to-morrow there probably would not be enough shooks produced to market the province's crops."
Dealing with the Okanagan valley, it has this to say:
At Penticton it was estimated that if production had resumed June 10 there should be enough containers to handle the big crop. After that date there would be a daily shortage of
5.000	boxes-a potential money value loss of $10,000 daily.
At Summerland the picture was even glimmer. The mill advised growers some time ago it could not supply the shooks ordered even if plant operation were not interrupted. Every day this mill is strike-bound 8,000 apple boxes are lost and the growers lose about $16,000 daily. No cherry boxes have yet been delivered.
At Kelowna, Simpson's, the largest mill in the interior, despite fairly steady operations from October to May 17, had delivered only slightly over 40 per cent of shooks ordered. At normal production rate it will require five months to catch up with orders. Capacity of the plant is determined by lumber supplied and it is short nearly 3,000,000 feet. It can produce 10,000 apple boxes a day.
At Vernon growers estimate a shortage of
8.000	boxes daily, with ia daily loss to the community of $16,000.
There is a good deal more of the same sort of facts, but I think I have given sufficient in concrete proof of the loss facing the people in the interior of British Columbia.
As regards the strike itself, there have been some developments which have not perhaps been brought out in the statements made here in the house. One of the most interesting ones is that the union made a proposal to the British Columbia fruit growers' association that if they would support the union's wage and certain other demands they would put men back into the box factories. There was great hope that that would produce a resumption of work in the box factories, but it did not take place for the following reason- I am quoting from the same article:
The union, according to J. R. J. Stirling, the president of the association, also reserved the right to stipulate which employees could work during the truce because "there were certain former mill employees whom the union would not recognize."
The growers' association countered with an offer whereby the box factory employees would return under pre-strike conditions, with tne British Columbia fruit growers' association guaranteeing to the workers the award on which the strike is eventually composed.
Also blocking acceptance of the I.W.A.'s three-week "truce" proposal was the reaction of national war labour board, when questioned by the British Columbia fruit growers' association as to the legal position.
I should like the Minister of Labour to listen to this because I am going to ask him some questions arising out of it.


Humphrey Mitchell: Ask all the questions you want.


Edmund Davie Fulton: The minister is in an unusually generous mood. Perhaps he can produce a settlement of the strike. The article goes on:
The national war labour board declared that there could be no conciliation until the men returned to work on the pre-strike basis, and the board also announced it would not authorize any wage increase such as set out in the union's "truce" offer.
The regional w-ar labour board also indicated that there would be no isolated local increase in wages such as might come about if, for instance, a group of growers in desperate need of boxes underwrote the operation of a box factory on the I.W.A. basis.
So that hope of resumption of work in the box factories came to nothing.
In the previous discussion on this question, several hon. members suggested' that in order to provide a means of settling and preventing strikes a labour code should be devised. This question has received considerable discussion. The only existing labour code is P.C. 1003. It perhaps would not be well to go into the merits or demerits of P.C. 1003, but such as it is, it is the only labour code we have. It is my understanding that it does provide a set of rules by which disputes may be submitted to arbitration and in accordance with which they should be settled. That constitutes a set of rules which must be complied with before a strike can be called. If my understanding is not correct, I would appreciate it if the Minister of Labour would correct it. The merits or demerits of the code do not enter into the question. It is the only code we have. I would ask the Minister of Labour this question. Is the present lumber strike in British Columbia an illegal strike in view of the terms of P.C. 1003? If so, why have not the penalty terms of that order been complied with in an effort to end the strike?
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L would appreciate it if the minister would answer these questions. In conjunction with other members from British Columbia, I would urge him to lose no time in appointing a controller in the box factories in an effort to get the men back to work.


Humphrey Mitchell: I have listened to the hon. members here this afternoon and I was particularly impressed by the speech made by my hon. friend the member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis). I do not think anything is to be gained by trying to be clever or smart, as the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart) tried to be this afternoon. When he gets older and has more experience in this chamber he will understand that we can carry on only by being decent to one another, instead of sinking into the gutter like he did this afternoon.
No one underestimates the difficulties and complexities of the present situation. While the final responsibility rests upon myself, I think there is a responsibility on every member of this House of Commons, when he rises in his place, to give at least some leadership. Here we are passing through a difficult period in which we find an emotional breakdown after a long war. I do not believe that there is any short-cut to the settlement of industrial disputes. I have had enough experience to understand that. I also know that all the faults are not on one side. I know, of course, that politically it is always best to take the side of the larger numbers. You are not taking any chances when you do that; it is a perfectly safe thing to do. But what we are endeavouring to do in this country-I speak of the Canadian people generally-and what this House of Commons irrespective of party is trying to do, is, I believe, to protect the living standards of the great masses of the people of this dominion. I say that without any equivocation. While our approach may be different, I think that in the main that is the underlying motive of all the members of this chamber.
There is a philosophy or an ideology of government which holds that when you debase the currency, revolution is around the corner. There is no secret about that. Lenin preached it prior to the 1917 revolution in Russia. You may have read in last week's Newsweek what Mr. Earl Browder recently said in Moscow. In effect, what he said was that, now that the war is over, the more strikes we have, the nearer the revolution is. That is a matter of record. I say sincerely that I believe more can be done by negotiation and conciliation than in any other way. One of the Social

Credit members spoke this afternoon about compulsory arbitration. I do not think he understood the import of his language.


Charles Edward Johnston: I did not say "compulsory" arbitration.


Humphrey Mitchell: Wait a minute. I listened to you. Now let me speak.


Charles Edward Johnston: Then get it right.


Humphrey Mitchell: The effect of what the hon. member said was compulsory arbitration.


Charles Edward Johnston: No such thing.


Humphrey Mitchell: If you say a thing you have to take the other fellow's interpretation. This is still a free country. I say that the import of my hon. friend's remarks was that there should be compulsory arbitration.


Charles Edward Johnston: It was no such a thing. That is the minister's misinterpretation of it.


Humphrey Mitchell: I shall be charitable to my hon. friend. Probably he meant nothing at all. However, if I cannot satisfy him, for goodness' sake let me say something of what I feel about compulsory arbitration. Neither employers' organizations nor labour organizations in North America agree with the principle of compulsory arbitration. Conditions are always difficult when one side says, "Now this is as far as we are going; we won't go any farther." The greatest progress has been made by labour and employers' organizations in this country when there has been a willingness to give and take, without resort to what labour men call the economic arm of the labour movement. As I said before, we have been reasonably successful. When you reflect that under the wartime labour relations order there have been thirty-two hundred odd cases, and only eight strikes, I think that is a pretty fair batting average.
The hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) talked about an offer which he had received from some individual in connection with this dispute in British Columbia, to put these plants back into operation. He may have received it, but I did not. He showed me the wire, and I had the information relayed back to British Columbia, but we did not get the same kind of answer which he got from this individual. I believe that the offer of fifteen cents an hour and the revocable check-off is a fair compromise and that there is no sufficient reason for the non-acceptance of that offer by the trade union out there. At the same time I would say to the shipping companies on the great lakes that the 84-hour week is a relic of bygone days of industrial operations. Let us be frank about the mat-

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ter; in this day and age, any group of employers who think they can put over the proposition of a 12-hour day and a 7-day week might as well try to push back the St. Lawrence. It cannot be done. I believe that, given the right degree of conciliation in both these disputes, there is absolutely no reason why they should have ever started. Working people never win by a strike. The leaders may get prominence; they may make a national reputation for themselves; but the men and women back in the trenches, the rank and file, have to sacrifice so heavily that often it takes them a long time to recover, and sometimes they never catch up. I believe that succecs in industrial leadership, whether on the part of employers or employees, requires them to have some regard for the rank and file. They are simple people, like myself, they have a spark of the divine in their make-up, and I believe that sometimes these "ships that pass in the night" are not giving the leadership which the workers justly desire and deserve.
Coming to the question of "passing the buck," let me tell the hon. member from British Columbia who raised it that I am not given to that practice, and the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine) knows it very well. I accept full responsibility in the matter of the British Columbia dispute so far as my responsibility goes. But by the very nature of things, having been asked by the minister of labour of British Columbia to appoint a commissioner, I must confer with him and the commissioner in connection with the settlement of this dispute. Obviously the federal Minister of Labour in a country as vast as Canada cannot be responsible for every dispute which takes place anywhere in any province. I believe every hon. member will recognize that. In the course of time, and in my opinion within not a very long time, the constitutional jurisdiction in connection with labour disputes will have to be returned to the provinces. There is a good deal of sloppy talk about the centralization of power; but, as any lawyer knows, you cannot break a law by agreement. The only reason we have a national labour code in this country at the moment is that the power was included in the jurisdiction of my department under the War Measures Act. My hon. friends opposite have their opinions about legislation by order in council, and I hope it will be possible in the not very distant future to put the jurisdiction back where it properly belongs.
It is getting near six o'clock, and I have said all that I care to say at the moment. Hon. members can rest assured that when responsibility in relation to the settlement of these disputes is placed upon me, I will not shirk it.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Did the minister intend to answer the question about P.C. 1003?
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Edmund Davie Fulton: The Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) neglected to answer two questions I asked him just before the house rose at six o'clock. I wonder whether the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine) would be kind enough to permit the minister to give the answers now. I asked whether the lumbermen's strike in British Columbia is an illegal strike within the meaning of order in council P.C. 1003? If so, why are the provisions of that order in council not applied?


Humphrey Mitchell: I cannot answer without the unanimous consent of the house.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I appreciate that.


Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (Cariboo):: The discussion on the motion to go into supply has ranged over a rather wide field. Under such circumstances it is the privilege, of course, of an hon. member to bring forward whatever matter seems to him to have some importance; but the discussion as opened by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Mac-Innis) had to do with the two main strikes now in process in Canada, and I intend to say what I wish to say on this matter and, if possible, to bring the attention of the house back to that issue in particular.
I listened, as I always do, with great interest to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) in his reply. I was particularly struck with the remark which he made as regards the responsibility of members of the house as well as the responsibility which devolves upon him as Minister of Labour. With that I wholeheartedly agree; and it is because I have some feeling of responsibility as a representative in this house, and feel something of the urgency of the subject itself, that I make the remarks that I am about to make.
I should like to say also that I appreciate perhaps more than most the abilities of the minister. I appreciate some of the problems with which he has to contend, and I hope that nothing that I say will ruffle his feelings or make his problem any more difficult; for it is most certainly something that I do not wish to do. But having said that, I would say
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that his speech was more discouraging than I felt it ought to be in the circumstances. Ho gave us a few homely truths which I do not suppose anybody will dispute; in fact they are so commonplace and so well known as to be almost hackneyed. He told us. very truly, that there are no short-cuts to settling strikes of this kind. He also said that there are faults on both sides-there usually are. We all agree that these two things are true in this strike as in many others. But it must be a challenge to the genius of the minister himself and to the imagination of this house to find as short a cut as possible to settle the strike, to find out on which side the greatest fault lies, and to find a method of bringing some measure of justice to bear upon the situation.
I believe the minister allows a prejudice which many people feel against communism to influence his mind in this matter. He referred to some speech that a Mr. Browder had made in Russia to the effect that the more strikes we had the better for the revolution, or something to that effect. I am not very much interested in Mr. Browder or in his views in so far as they apply to the present situation. It may very well be that there are communists in the leadership of this strike; I do not know; but I do not think that it is the point at issue with us here. It is far more important that we should examine the conditions of the workers who are taking part in these strikes and satisfy ourselves that there is or is not, as the case may be, a just cause for these strikes. If there is a just cause for the strikes, then we must not allow our prejudice against any particular leader to prevent us from seeing that justice is done.
The minister himself roundly condemned the 84-hour w'eek and said in language something like this, that you might as well try to push back the St. Lawrence as to prevent the ultimate coming of the 8-hour day. He says that it cannot be done. But the great fact is that it is being done; that it is going on before the minister's face and before our faces while we are talking about it. Therefore there is no use saying that it cannot be done. It is being done and we are faced with that outstanding fact.
I should like to point out that, according to the information which I have, there are some 5,800 seamen affected by the seamen's strike. I am informed that there are as many as 37,000 affected by the woodworkers' strike in British Columbia. To imply that we should be careless about taking active part in settling a strike because it is alleged that some communist is in the leadership-I may not be interpreting the minister's remarks

aright, but that is how I got it-is to ignore the actual conditions which govern the lives of 37,000 men in British Columbia and 5,800 seamen. That is the point that we must, centre our attention on.
The Canadian great lakes seamen work twelve hours a day seven days a week. That is the first fact. That is the pivot of the-strike. That is the condition for which they are seeking a remedy. The question which we have to ask ourselves is whether that is a. reasonable demand of men in this age; or if it is reasonable for shipowners to use all their power, all their skill and all their finances to. prevent such a thing from happening. It seems to me that should be the chief business of the representatives of the people in this house, because this is not merely a matter-of the wage-earners; it is not a matter merely of the shipowners, or both of them. It is a: matter of the economic life of this nation. It is also a matter of particular urgency because of world conditions as we know them. To-day we heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) review what he said appeared to be a dangerous situation in the world, and' say that he thought more production and! better distribution were the best remedy he-could see for the world problem. I think; most of us will agree, but here is a situation in which production has stopped and distribution has ceased; and by permitting that to go on we are increasing the dangers to which the. Prime Minister made reference this afternoon..
The 8-hour day for seamen was recommended by the international labour office of the league of nations in 1920. That was a long time ago, and this house has had ample opportunity to take some action on that question. I agree with the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) that since these seamen are not confined to one province ; since they are on the oceans on both sides of the country and sail the great lakes in the centre of Canada, it is not a matter which any provincial government can handle. It is specifically a matter for the federal government to take a hand in. I suggest that the seamen's strike for an 8-hour day should never have happened in Canada; that legislation should have been passed long since making it illegal for men to have to work twelve hours a day seven days a week or lose their jobs. I am not saying that all the responsibility or blame should fall upon the Minister of Labour. I accept my share of that responsibility, together with all other hon. members; but I insist that this is something which ought to have been done long ago. When I speak of that recommendation, though it was endorsed by

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the delegates representing Canada it has never been ratified by this house, and most certainly it never has been implemented.
This condition, then, in my opinion should have been corrected by legislation; but instead of that being done, I am informed that when a certain company offered to introduce the 8-hour day on the great lakes the war labour board refused to countenance it. I am quoting now from the brief of the Canadian seamen's union, which says:
Recently the Imperial Oil and the McColl-Frontenac Oil Company, who operate oil tankers on the lakes, applied to the national war labour board for permission to abolish the 84-hour week and to replace it with the eight-hour day, 56-hour week. Unbelievable though it may sound, the war labour board so interpreted P.C. 9384 that they refused these oil companies the right to introduce the eight-hour day.


Humphrey Mitchell: If I may point out to my hon. friend, that is not a statement of fact. The war labour board approved the 8-hour day on that application.


William Irvine: The minister says that is not a statement of fact. Then, of course, the judgment must lie as between the minister and the brief, and I am not competent to judge as between the two.


Humphrey Mitchell: I am saying that on my responsibility as a minister; that the war labour board approved the 8-hour day on the application to which my hon. friend has referred. That is Imperial Oil, is it?


William Irvine: Yes.


Humphrey Mitchell: Then that was approved.


William Irvine: Well, as I say, Mr. Speaker,
I shall leave the minister and those who drew up the brief to settle that matter; but it is not too late yet for the government to act.


Humphrey Mitchell: I am talking about the judgment of the board. I am not talking about something which was *written by somebody else, probably for propaganda purposes.


William Irvine: I have no intention of disputing the minister's word. I merely quoted what was given to me as fact. Personally I do not know which is the fact. I must take one or the other, or both, or neither; perhaps -in the long run I may take neither, but for the present I must accept the minister's statement. It is urgent, however, that our ships should be running now as they never ran before. The need for them is even greater, if that be possible, than during the war years. I suggest that the minister now introduce legislation for an 8-hour day for the seamen of Canada and that it be rushed through, with the three readings at one sitting if necessary, thus making it illegal for the shipowners to
have men working twelve hours a day on their ships; and failing that, to put in a controller and take over the shipping until such time as settlement has been reached. I need hardly point out that the 8-hour day for sailors is universally accepted. Certainly it is accepted in the United States, in Great Britain, in New Zealand, in Australia, and, indeed, in all other forward-looking countries. How is it that Canada should be so backward in a matter of this kind?
I think we should note also that the seamen's union did not press for the 8-hour day during the war period. They did not permit anything to interfere with the uninterrupted operation of Canada's merchant marine. It is worth noting also that a thousand of these men went down with Canadian ships while carrying on the business of war. I think we ought to be a little more considerate of their case when we realize the real sacrifices they have made and are making to the economic life of Canada. The 8-hour day was promised by the shipowners during the war. They said that when the war was over the 8-hour day would be granted, but when the war was ended the shipowners refused to keep their promise. In 1945, when the unions were negotiating the agreement under which they were operating before the strike took place, they pressed their claim again. Still the shipowners refused, and the agreement under which they were operating was signed only after a clause had been included which permitted the renegotiation of any clause to take place on the giving of ten days' notice by either of the parties.
So it is not true, as someone has suggested, to say that in calling this strike these men have violated their trust with the employers. However, the union took advantage of this clause to call the strike when they had failed to negotiate satisfactory arrangements with the shipowners. But even when the strike had been called, they still strove to have it settled by negotiation before the actual strike took place. Accordingly they applied to the Minister of Labour. The minister acted. I understand he called a conference for April 8. On that date representatives of the unions appeared, but the shipowners had disappeared. They refused to meet; hence the conference was abortive.
Having failed in this, the union called their strike on April 9, or at least called a strike vote; whereupon the ship owners countered with expensive and elaborate advertising in many of the daily papers of Canada, issuing strong press statements to the effect that they *would fight the seamen to the last against their demands for an 8-hour day.
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We now come to the question: Can the shipowners afford to pay for an 8-hour day? I am not going to enter into the profits they made during the war, although that might very well be done. But I would say that morally this nation cannot afford to allow the continuation of a 12-hour day, seven days a week. Any industry which cannot afford to employ its men on an 8-hour day should either cease operation or be subsidized by the, public, so that one class of worker may not have to bear more than its share of the national burden.
United States lake shipowners have an 8-hour day. Not only do they have an 8-hour day; they pay from 50 per cent to 95 per cent higher wages each month to their men than is paid by Canadian companies, and they receive exactly the same rates or charges for the freight they move. An American able seaman on the lakes receives $216 a month for an 8-hour day, while a Canadian able seaman receives $112 a month for a 12-hour day.


Humphrey Mitchell: And board, in both cases.


William Irvine: Yes.


Mr. GIBSON (Comox-Alberni):: Making
another $50.


William Irvine: That is for both, and does not alter the relationship. An American deckhand receives $166 for an 8-hour day, while the Canadian dteck-hand receives $89 for a 12-hour day, despite the fact that both companies charge the same rate.
Here is a Canadian ship loading grain in a Canadian port alongside a United States ship loading grain from the same elevator. They are both bound for the same port; both carry the same grain for the same freight rate. Yet there is this differential both in hours of labour and in, wages paid as between the United States and Canadian companies.
Those of us who are proud of Canada, and are going some day to be proud of the Canadian flag waving over us, ought to see to it that under that flag our working people have at least as good a chance to live as those under any other flag in the world. If the United States companies can afford1 to pay the wages they are paying, and give an 8-hour day to their seamen, when they are hauling the same goods as our men are hauling for the same freight rates, then I want to know what justification there is for our permitting Canadian seamen to work twelve hours a day, seven days a week for almost half the wages being paid by competitive companies in another country.
I need hardly refer to the condition in connection with the great strike in British Columbia. Most of us are aware of the need

for more and more lumber. All hon. members have been impressed by the pleadings of the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruick-shank), and his efforts to save the fruit crops in his constituency and province. I am told they have in sight only about 40 per cent of the amount of lumber required to take care of the fruit crops this year. In a time, like this, when foodstuffs have greater value than ever before in the history of Canada, there is a real urgency for immediate action on the part of the house and of the Minister of Labour.
I would plead that we lay aside whatever prejudices we may have in respect of any particuiar individual in connection with the leadership of these strikes, that we look at the great number of men affected, that we examine the facts and the conditions under which they are -working, and that we take action on those grounds, and on no other.


Thomas Reid: Mr. Speaker, I rise to say a word to those who spoke this afternoon regarding the situation in British Columbia. First, may I comment upon the question asked by the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton). I do not pretend for a moment to answer the question the minister was asked, because he answered his questions ably, himself.
But when the hon. member asks a question regarding an illegal strike I think we might as well face the facts. The unions draw up agreements with the owners of factories. Certain clauses appear in those agreements, one of which is that a fine of $20 and a gaol sentence shall apply to all strikers who shall participate in an illegal strike. How could you take 37,000 men who are on strike and put them in gaol, even if you did declare their strike illegal? It does not seem to make sense. We may as well face that fact, instead of saying to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell), "Why do you not enforce this clause respecting illegal strikes"? It simply cannot be done. In future agreements drawn up between workers and either provincial or federal governments, I suggest that we should be more careful and not include in the orders in council clauses which cannot be reasonably enforced.
When I last spoke in the 'hous'e it was pointed out to the minister just how serious the strike had become, so far as its effect on the fruit crop was concerned. But as the strike continues, it begins to affect other branches of produce as well. As recently as Saturday last the hon. member for Fraser Valley and myself, who are members of the Fraser valley milk producers' association, received telegrams from that association saying

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that if they did not receive barrels and boxes at an early day the canned milk and powdered milk which they produce for shipment to Great Britain could not be made available. As time goes on, we find matters getting worse every day.
I would refer for a moment to the strike which took place last fall. At that time cans already manufactured were available in the factories in British Columbia, but the workers went on strike and refused to allow the farmers who were growing peas to get cans from the factories. The farmers had to stand by and see their produce wilt and spoil. After days and days of loss, the government finally did step in and take charge of the situation, and some of the crop was saved. I appeal to the minister this evening not to allow this thing to go on and on until there is no crop and then in the last' days step in and take charge of some of these factories. At that time it may be too late.
I realize the difficulties faced by the minister. We all know that the unions want to force the government to use the big stick on the owners. We may as well be frank about the matter. If the government do that in one instance, they will have to do it in every instance that occurs across the country. These matters have not been stated until now, but we may as well face the facts, and I think what I have just mentioned are the facts of the situation.
I urge the minister to do what he did in the canners' strike. If he puts in a controller I feel reasonably sure that it will not be long before a complete settlement takes place. I am assured of that by those who are handling the situation in British Columbia.


Mr. J. H. MATTHEWS (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, I had not intended making a speech to-night, but I want to support once again the appeal made this afternoon to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) by the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruick-shank). As we approached the weekend we had high hopes that when Monday morning came around we would hear that this strike in British Columbia had been satisfactorily settled. I listened to the questions put to the minister this afternoon by the hon. member for Fraser Valley and the minister's answers. His answer to the first question was no, that the strike was not over. The second question was if he were going to put a controller into these plants and open them immediately, and the answer was no. I think that came more or less as a shock to many of us.


Humphrey Mitchell: I did not say "no" to the second question.
Mr. CRUICIvSHANK: Oh, yes, you did.


Humphrey Mitchell: Just wait a minute.


George Alexander Cruickshank: We have waited for
three weeks.


Humphrey Mitchell: If I remember correctly, what I said was, "no", to the first question; and to the second question with reference to a controller, that consideration was being given.


James Herbert Matthews: That is exactly the answer that the minister gave to me personally last week. I appealed to him and showed him certain telegrams that we were receiving from some of the fruit growers of British Columbia.


Humphrey Mitchell: If I might say to my hon. friend-


James Herbert Matthews: No; the minister made his speech this afternoon.


Humphrey Mitchell: This is a matter of privilege.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The matter of privilege is always your way.


Humphrey Mitchell: I think there should be some ethics as between my hon. friend and myself. If he and I had a confidential conversation last week-and I have a vivid recollection that it was considered to be within the four corners of this room-and then he comes and repeats that conversation in this house, then there is no more conversation. You cannot deal with one another on that basis.


James Herbert Matthews: On a question of privilege, I want to say to the minister right here and now that I have not repeated any of the conversation he had with me. I am merely stating the answer he gave in this house this afternoon.


Humphrey Mitchell: That is changing your tune.


James Herbert Matthews: That is the word the minister gave publicly in the house this afternoon. The hon. member for Fraser Valley-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


James Herbert Matthews: -has tried his best.


Humphrey Mitchell: Unless my hon. friend changes the record, you can read the record of what he said this evening and see that he said, "last week."
256b
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James Herbert Matthews: The minister should read the record of what he said this afternoon. The hon. member for Fraser Valley has tried consistently not to take sides in this dispute, and I have tried to do the same thing. I realized that the minister was doing his best through the appointed officials in British Columbia to settle this dispute. But what is the use of appealing for more and more production in Canada? I have listened to appeals such as that made this afternoon by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), and then I see the hypocritical attitude taken by the government in refusing to do something when there is an appeal from all over the country for immediate action.
As the minister said this afternoon, we *ought to deal with this matter constructively. I think every word I have said in this house so far regarding this strike situation has been constructive. I have tried to follow the position in which the minister found himself. But what do we have here? Week after week the strike is going on and day after day there is in British Columbia considerable loss of fruit which we can ill spare. This is fruit that should have been saved. We are told that even if the mills began to operate to-night they could not begin to supply containers for the fruit that is still to come. I appeal to the minister to put himself in solid with the people of British Columbia by placing a controller in these mills.


Humphrey Mitchell: Would my hon. friend go in and knock the dollar down to seventy-five cents in Vancouver, British Columbia, and allow the working classes to suffer?


James Herbert Matthews: My appeal is to put in a controller at once and get these box factories opened. Then you can allow the ordinary procedure to work in order to settle the strike, no matter how long it takes. Why should so many innocent people suffer because of the attitude of this government? My appeal is to put in a controller and then let them work it out themselves, as I believe they will.


Mr. C. C. I. MERRITT (Vancouver-Burrard):: Mr. Speaker, I want to add my voice to those who are asking the minister to step in and take the necessary action to bring this [DOT]strike to an end. I do not suppose there is really anything I can say that has not been said this afternoon, and I am not going to speak very long. This afternoon the minister asked the members of the house for leadership. In my view the members of the house have given Iiim an almost unanimous expression of 
opinion. The members of his own party, the Progressive Conservative party, the C.C.F. and I believe the Social Credit party, although I am not certain because I have not heard them in this debate, will be behind him in taking whatever steps he finds necessary in the public interest to bring this strike to an end at once.


Charles Edward Johnston: That is exactly what we said.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I was not in the house when the hon. member spoke. That is a simple proposition. Surely the minister must know that if he has the whole house behind him he has the country behind him. He can give the leadership that he spoke of to-day without any fear of any consequences ensuing therefrom.


Humphrey Mitchell: If you take over the industry and they do not go back to work, what then?


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: All I can say to the minister is that we have in British Columbia a situation where the chief industry of the province is tied up by a strike affecting thirty-seven thousand people. The production of berries and all other forms of food is being affected, as well as lumber supplies for UNRRA and Great Britain and those required in Canada for housing purposes. All these activities have been stopped by this strike. The strike, incidentally, has been declared illegal by the provincial minister of labour. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) was asked to give his opinion on that point but so far he has not given it. We have had ample conciliation procedure, and we have had a report from a highly respected judge who knows the lumber business intimately from his own experience. His report has been made after a very fair and long hearing given to all parties. We have the Minister of Labour here saying that the union should accept that report not only as being a fair report but as being in the interests of the men themselves, because all this time they are losing wages. We have the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) calling for production. Most important of all perhaps, we have all the newspapers in British Columbia, the organs of public opinion, of absolutely one mind, that neither the interests of the operators nor the interests of the men are any longer the matter of prime importance, but that the interests of the people of Canada, and particularly of British Columbia, together with the needs of the whole world at this time, should be the dominent and compelling factors in this situation.

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I think what is going through the minds of the members of this house is, first, the absolute necessity of constructive action being taken at once so that something will be saved of these supplies-


Humphrey Mitchell: I am looking for a way out. Would my hon. friend give me an indication of constructive action? Would he conscript labour, or what would he do? Let us bring this out into the open.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The men have
offered to go back to work.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: When the minister interrupted me with his questions-and I will come to them later-I was dealing with what I think are the two most important considerations. First, there is the necessity for speed so that something will be saved. Second, this house believes, certainly I believe, that the conciliation procedure provided by P.C. 1003 has been exhausted. We have been given no idea of what further steps the minister proposes to take. We have held off during the past weeks because we realized that there were conciliation procedures which could be followed and nobody wanted to make the minister's task more difficult. But when he spoke this afternoon he did not carry us anywhere past the provisions of P.C. 1003 or indicate to us any other measures that could be taken in a deadlock of this kind.
In normal deadlocks, once the conciliation procedure has failed, under our present law the parties are left to work out their own difficulties among themselves. But all members of the house are at one in believing that such a course cannot be followed in this case, but that some new departure in the realm of labour relations must be taken.
The minister asked me to say what further steps he could take. Naturally I am not as qualified as he is to indicate those steps. But I should have thought he had in mind several steps that he could take, and it makes me apprehensive that he should have asked me for advice because it indicates that apart from the appointment of a controller he feels there is nothing he can do.
Certainly the appointment of a controller of these plants would be one way in which a solution might be found. The minister suggests that the men might not go back to work. That is a chance that the minister must take, and from what I know of public opinion in this country, particularly in British Columbia, I believe that if the minister puts in a controller the men will go back to work. But if he should find that his fears are realized and that on putting in a controller the men will not go back to work, there may be other
ways of dealing with the situation. In this particular strike-and I say this without reference to any other labour disputes-because the situation is so serious and the people of Canada, with the exception of the leaders of this union, are at one that it should be settled at once, I suggest to the minister that this is one case where, even if he were reluctant to do it as he well might be in every case, he might well invoke the penalty provisions of P.C. 1003, not, as the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) said, against the innocent men who form this union, but rather against the central body that called this illegal strike and thereby put the whole public of Canada and the needs of so many people in other parts of the world in such peril.


Mr. CLARENCE GILLIS (Cape Breton South):: I know this debate is becoming irksome to the members on the other side of the house. However. I consider this matter of greater importance than the new flag. The hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine) a few moments ago waved the flag a bit and said that he hoped that some day under that flag the conditions which the people of Canada fought for in two wars would become established. Of course, if waving the flag would solve this problem the Conservative party would have solved it years ago. But it is going to take more than just waving a flag.
We have been discussing in this house for weeks and weeks matters that are merely incidental in comparison with the major economic problems that face this country, and I say that after due consideration. I think the problem upon which the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) focused the attention of the house this afternoon is one upon which we might well spend two or three days of debate with a view to settling it. You can condemn the employers and you can condemn the men of the union, but in the final analysis it is the members of this House of Commons to whom the people of Canada are looking for advice and guidance in matters of this kind. They cannot be settled outside.
I am not going to deal with the woodworkers' problem in British Columbia because that has already been dealt with by the members from that province.


George Alexander Cruickshank: But we have had no answer yet.


Clarence Gillis: Well, you voted for the government. You cannot blame me.


George Alexander Cruickshank: We might get some help from you.
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Clarence Gillis: The hon. member for Fraser Valley has done such a capable job himself that m.v assistance is hardly necessary. The hon. member for Vancouver East this afternoon focused attention specifically on the Canadian seamen's union disturbance and it is with that I shall deal. I have sat here and listened to the other members who have spoken, each discussing and developing the question from his own angle, and I think it must be obvious even to the minister that what he is doing will not settle these two strikes.
I am going to deal for a few minutes with the minister's difficulties. I think the machinery writh which the minister has to work to-day in the federal department of labour invites difficulties of this kind. It is .slow, cumbersome, legalistic, academic; it does not understand the basic problems of the workers, with the result that we have the kind of friction which has developed in this case. I have only to mention the steelworkers' union in Sydney. For four and a half years they have been patient and long-suffering, down on their knees, praying the regional and national war labour boards for a nickel to wipe out the differential in their wage rates. They are still praying, waiting and hoping. Fortunately the people of Nova Scotia have great patience. The seamen and the woodworkers are a little more impetuous, and as a result the minister has these difficulties on his hands. But I think the delay of four and a half years which I have mentioned is a good example of what I mean, and the case is still "in the slings". The seamen, heaven knows, have been waiting since 1920 for someone to implement the 8-hour day for them. Internationally, everybody said they were entitled to it, and twenty years is a long time to wait. But what I was going to point out to the minister is that the time to stop strikes is before they start, and if some attention had been paid to this problem a couple of months ago, instead of the government sitting back and waiting for a divine providence to intervene, the trouble might not have developed into a strike.
The minister is faced, in settling the difficulty with the seamen, with the unfortunate fact that the antagonisms which have been allowed to creep in will not be permitted to be forgotten for the next twenty years. I am sorry the Minister of Justice (Mr. St. Laurent) is not in his seat at the moment, because I am going to be a bit legal at this time. The Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier), of course, is interested in this too, and I am glad he is in his seat. The hon. member for
Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis), some considerable time ago, and the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) raised in this house the question of the status under the Canada Shipping Act of Canadian seamen who were ordered by their union off their boats because of difficulties with their employers in a collective agreement under the Canada Shipping Act. Leaving a ship without the permission of the captain could be construed as deserting the ship, and so would bring the men under the criminal code. The minister at that time stated that it was not the problem of the Department of Transport, that the strikers more properly came within the scope of the criminal code. That is now evident, because these men were arrested for deserting their ship. Somebody asked the question this afternoon if they thought the laws of the union took precedence over the laws of the country. I say no; there is not any conflict. I went through the mill on this question, so that I know something about it; I had lawyers and judges waving their hands at me for some considerable time over it. Any trades union is entitled to make laws to discipline, regulate and guide its own members within its own jurisdiction without contravening any of the laws of the country. That decision was handed down at a time when I happened to be present. I do not say that it is in Beauchesne. Under the formula worked out by the government and accepted by the union, all employees are entitled to return to the ships except those who may have committed acts which brought them under the criminal code. In my opinion, when that strike terminates, any seamen who were on strike, regardless of their position at the present time, should go back to their ships, because the men who came off these boats and are now being tried under the criminal code merely obeyed the instructions of their organization, as other members did who came off later. The individual is not at fault, it is the organization which accepts responsibility; and by sending most of the seamen back, with that group out, and in the toils of the law, you are starting the first blacklist and providing legal machinery for discrimination. In my opinion all these men should be permitted to go back to their boats.
I said a moment ago that antagonisms have crept into this strike. When it developed first it was orderly and quiet. There were no disturbances. But I drew to the attention of the Minister of Justice in this house that there was a private detective agency in Montreal, the Fidelity Detective Agency, evidence of whose activities has been supplied to us by men who were hired by it. Accord-

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ing to affidavits which are in our possession, men were paid S10 a day, provided with transportation in trucks, and sent to the city of Cornwall with instructions that they were to wreck the poolrooms and restaurants and get out of the city as fast as they could, so that these acts of lawlessness might be attributed to members of the seamen's union. That is an old stunt; it is thirty years old; I have seen it a good many times, practised by men imported from the same city. Away back in 1909, 1910 and up to 1925 they took these protectors of private property, put them on horseback, and, armed with all the authority of the state, they would ride you off the sidewalk. That sort of thing has been practised again in the case of the seamen's union. When the Minister of Justice answered a question I asked him on the orders of the day he told me that in so far as his department was concerned they did not enforce the law. That may not be his prerogative; the enforcement of the law may be in the hands of the provincial governments; but the Minister of Justice presides over a body in this country known as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It is exclusively under his direction and jurisdiction. If called upon they are required-


Mr. GARDINER:: They are provincial
police in five provinces.


Clarence Gillis: I did not hear the minister.


Humphrey Mitchell: They are the only police force in five provinces. Some provinces have provincial police; some provinces avail themselves of the R.C.M.P.


Clarence Gillis: Yes, but they can be called in to assist in any section of Canada regardless of the provincial police.


Humphrey Mitchell: At the request of the local attorney general.


Clarence Gillis: At the request of the local attorney general? Well, we notice that Mr. Blackwell in Ontario is not allergic to police, because he manages to wave his wand and get as many as he wants at any time. The R.C.M.P. were used in Windsor and in Cornwall, and in each case they were requisitioned from this city. If the Minister of Justice has not any prerogative with respect to enforcing the laws, I think this House of Commons, in view of the fact that we make the appropriations which maintain that force, should have some understanding as to what they should be used for. I am not critical of the R.C.M.P. in their ordinary duties, but I do not think it was ever the intention of those who first mobilized the force that they should be used as strike-breakers across
Canada when the workers of this country are looking for something to which they are legitimately entitled.
The Minister of Justice should accept some responsibility at least in investigating this detective agency which hired1 people in Montreal and shipped1 them to Cornwall with instructions to turn the public against the seamen who are on strike looking for the establishment of the 8-hour day and small increases in wages. It is time that we found out whether that kind of thing is to be permitted. I am reasonably certain that if this upheaval had not taken place in Cornwall and if McMaster had not established a recruiting agency-and I have an affidavit here with regard1 to McMaster which I shall read for the minister's benefit; it was sent to Mr. M. J. Coldwell-


Humphrey Mitchell: The hon. member does not need to tell me anything about McMaster; I know all about him.


Clarence Gillis: He is allowed to run wild in Montreal; to act as the A1 Capone of the shipping companies in organizing gangsters for the purpose of injecting them into a legitimate labour dispute in order-


Humphrey Mitchell: The hon. member is not going to put these words into my mouth.


Clarence Gillis: I did not.


Humphrey Mitchell: "The moving finger writes and having writ moves on." Let me put the matter straight. I was speaking of McMaster as a trade unionist.


Thomas Miller Bell: The minister laughs.


Clarence Gillis: I appreciate the minister's position. As minister he has to be dignified and he cannot call a thug a thug. He has to call him Gentleman Jim or something of that kind. But I am in the habit of using plain English in matters of this kind. What I am concerned about is the pattern which is being developed in the seamen's strike, and which is apt to spread to other industries if they get away with it.
The minister will remember the little steel formula and the strike-breaking in the United States some years ago. They were successful in exposing it after a lot of men went to gaol, suffered injunctions, broken heads and the rest of it. We do not wish to go through that kind of thing in this country. In my opinion it is that kind of action which is making it difficult for the minister. You have the employer standing behind barbed wire, completely alienated from his employees. You have the employee who has seen that mess at Cornwall.

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It is that complex which makes the employee feel .that the employer is the kind of a fellow who will secure a gun to shoot him so long as he does not get behind the eight-ball himself. They may be armed with crowbars, canthooks, peavies, old car springs and anything to smash things up. You cannot feel very kindly toward that kind of employer, and no doubt the employer is ashamed that he was engaged in action of that kind.
The employers of this country might as well understand one thing. They may look upon the unions as pests, but they are not going to get rid of them. They are here to stay; therefore the employers may as well learn to love them, and do business with them.


Humphrey Mitchell: I agree with my hon. friend.


Clarence Gillis: The minister said that he knew all about McMaster. I am going to put one epistle on the record to let hon. members know all about him.


Humphrey Mitchell: I did not say that I knew all about him.


Clarence Gillis: I hold in my hand a letter which was written to Mr. M. J. Coldwell, House of Commons, Ottawa. It is dated June 16, 1946, and was written by the solicitor who is handling the affairs of the seamen's union. It is as follows:
You will possibly remember reading in the Toronto and Montreal newspapers of Friday about certain statements made by H. X. McMaster, president of the national shipping federation, to the effect that the Canadian seamen's union was planning sabotage on our ships in July and other illegal activities. He is further reported as having stated he had eight men who were available to support his statements. We have procured an affidavit from one of these alleged eight men. It gives you the real story behind his statements.
That is the relevant part of the letter to ;he hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. This is one of the affidavits which was secured in the province of Quebec. It is as follows:
Province of Quebec,
District of Montreal,
Affidavit
I. the undersigned. John MacPherson Osborne, merchant seaman, residing temporarily at 1434-
This fellow would not tell a lie. I continue.
-St. Urbain street in Montreal, domiciled in the city of Toronto, do hereby solemnly declare:
I am making this declaration of my own free will and volition.
On Friday, June 14, 1946, at about 9.30 a.m., Captain H. X. McMaster, president of the national maritime federation, communicated with me by telephone and asked me to meet him at 11 a.m. in front of the clock tower on McGill university campus.
Mr. Gill is.]
I met him there at the appointed time, and he was in the company' of another man whom I understood to be a Mr. K <1 laud. He asked me to try to form a policy committee of eight men, preferably members of the Canadian seamen's union, who were dissenters of the union and who-would be willing to create confusion and dissension within the ranks of the Canadian seamen's union for the benefit of the ship owners.
He asked me to get these men to meet with certain ship owners whom he did not name at the C.S.L. wharf office on Ottawa street, on June 14, 1946, at eight p.m.
Captain McMaster likewise stated to me that either during the day or during the evening or night of June 14 a "job" would be done either at the Lachine canal or in the Soulanges canal and that it would be made to appear as though the Canadian seamen's union were responsible for this proposed illegal act.
The affidavit is signed by Osborne and his solicitor.


Humphrey Mitchell: What is the name of the solicitor.


Clarence Gillis: The seamen's union solicitor is Irving Himel. The name of the individual before whom the affidavit was taken is Bernard S. Mergler. They are not Scotch. I continue with the affidavit:
As a matter of fact, on Wednesday night, June 12, at about nine p.m. I was taken to a home in Westmount by Mr. McMaster, where I was introduced to Captain Reoch and to Mr. Campbell, who was supposed to be the host. There were about eight other men there to whom I was not introduced, and I was told by Mr. McMaster that they all represented the owners of various shipping companies. I was questioned by some of the persons there as to what connections I could establish with the Canadian seamen's union and these ship ow'ners told me to keep in communication with Mr. McMaster who would advise me as to what to do.
It was obvious that from my conversations and from my dealings with Mr. McMaster that he was closely connected with and in close cooperation with the ship ^owners and he was endeavouring to break the Canadian seamen's union for the benefit of the ship owners.
In consideration for my cooperation, Mr. McMaster offered me a job as personnel director of a proposed national seamen's benevolent association which would serve as an employment agency7 for the ship owners.
I 'phoned C. Sauras at the Canadian seamen's union office in order to give him this information of my own free will.
And I make this solemn declaration . . .
It goes on to give the regular form of declaration. There are several others here which were taken from some of the thugs who were sent in to Cornwall by the detective agency. They were taken after they landed in hospital, and they state who hired them, what they were hired for, and what the remuneration was to be.
It is all right to stand up in the house and to pull the Minister of Labour to pieces, to blame everything on him. We shall hare to

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remember that behind the scenes there are, in my opinion, greater influences in this country than the Minister of Labour or the government. There is an invisible government in this country, and that invisible government is the government which wields economic power. They are in a position to tell the Minister of Labour, or any shipping company, or any steel company, or textile company or packing house or any of these major organizations that they have to play ball or there will be no production. I believe that is going on to-day. I believe that will continue until, not only the minister, but each and every member of this House of Commons accepts the responsibility delegated to him by the constituency which sent him here, namely, to stand up and call a spade a spade.
A thing is right or it is wrong; and in my opinion in a country that has provincial police, mounted police and police of all descriptions it is wrong to allow a detective agency or a private concern of any kind to promote civil strife. They are making it difficult for the minister; they are confusing the public; they are trying to smash legitimate organizations, and it is time we all came to grips with that kind of thing and exposed it. If the only function that agency has to perform is to use hired thugs as catspaws when decent citizens of this country are merely trying to maintain decent standards; if private concerns have the right to promote the sort of thing that was promoted in Cornwall, then I think it is time we folded up and gave up the pretence that we are here representing the people and making laws that are fair and equitable to everybody.
I would not have taken part in the debate to-day at all but for the fact that I too listened to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) this afternoon. Some members of this group had the privilege of going to Europe in the latter part of 1944. I could not describe what I saw there then, and I can imagine the situation there now in the way of misery and human suffering. This is no time for strikes or interruptions of- production on this North American continent. I believe that if the workers of this country are met fairly and squarely, with the cards laid on the table, they will not want to interrupt production. They realized in fighting this war that it was our war; they know we must follow through and attain the objectives for which we fought. One of the first requisites is the establishment of decent standards of living in the countries devastated by war. We should keep our shoulders to the wheel. Every machine in this country to-day should be producing foodstuffs, clothing and everything we can
ship to these countries, because it is not going to be possible to solve the problem on this continent alone. The other countries have to be brought up, and we shall not be able to do this by fighting among ourselves and thinking in terms of thirty years ago, as those who are opposing the seamen's union are doing to-day.
I thought this sort of thing belonged in the past, hiring thugs to shoot people who are in legitimate organizations. I believe we should put our foot down and abolish these agencies if they serve no other purposes. They must be able-bodied men, and we should put them to work producing something instead of carrying on activity of that kind in this country in this day and age. There is no use in the Prime Minister going over to Europe and discussing the food problems of that continent with Attlee, Morrison, Cripps and these other people; seeing the situation as it exists there; coming back and trying to impress it upon us in this house and then, when he looks across the country, seeing the chaos which exists in the machinery of production, all over small, trivial matters. I have never yet met with any body of men who would not be fair and reasonable if you sat down with them and put the cards on the table face up. The only time they get suspicious and afraid of you, and do not trust you, is when they see the sort of activities that have been carried on in connection with this seamen's strike.
I see the Minister of Justice is in his seat now. I am not going to repeat everything I have said previously, but I say that the minister presides over the R.C.M.P. I believe they are a decent body of men-


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Would the hon. gentleman permit an interruption, just to suggest this? I listened to what the hon. gentleman said; and if the things described in that affidavit actually took place I agree with everything he said about them. I agree it is outrageous that things like those could happen, but I wanted to suggest to the hon. member that he read the affidavit again now that the Minister of Justice is here. I suggest that this house has a right to know whether these things have taken place. The hon. member is good enough to allow me this interruption, and I should like to ask if he knows any of these men himself, if he thinks they are responsible people. From what he said I gathered that he did not know them. To me the whole thing sounded like a kind of Oppenheim story. If it is true we should know it, and I suggest he should
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put it right up to the authorities, so that this house and this country may know if these things are true.


Clarence Gillis: I have already read the entire document. It is on record, and the minister can read it in Hansard. I am quite prepared to accept the statements contained in it, because we did meet with this Mr. Irving Himel, the legal representative of the Canadian seamen's union who is handling this problem. We met with him personally, together with a member of the union; we discussed with them these affidavits, and I believe they are all certified. I do not think any lawyer in this country would draw up a document of that kind and send it to members of the House of Commons, requesting us to make use of it, if it were not true.


Thomas Miller Bell: The local chief of police also made the same statement.


Clarence Gillis: I think it would be imposing upon the time of the house to read it all again. The Minister of Justice can read in Hansard what I have said about the R.C.M.P., which comes under his department. They can be requisitioned from one end of this country to the other to engage in activities which, in my opinion, are beneath their dignity; that is, when they are called to take part in the sort of situation in connection with which they were sent to Cornwall, where private detective agencies were promoting civil strife and trying to blame it on the seamen's union. The R.C.M.P. should not be involved in a situation of that kind. I have too much respect for them to see them dragged into a mess like that. I do not think they were ever organized for that purpose. When I asked the minister a question in reference to this matter a few days ago he said it was not the prerogative of his department to enforce the laws. I quite agree, but I say that when a body such as the R.C.M.P., which functions under his department, is requisitioned for service in some part of the country, he should be reasonably sure that the service they are going to perform is in keeping with the purposes for which they were organized.


Lionel Chevrier: I suggest to the hon. gentleman that the R.C.M.P. had absolutely nothing to do with the mess he speaks of in Cornwall. They went there for one purpose only, to protect government property.


Clarence Gillis: That is always the excuse. I have heard the same excuse for the last twenty-five years.


Lionel Chevrier: That is not an excuse; it is a fact.


Clarence Gillis: Why were they not sent
there when these two truckloads of thugs from Montreal invaded Cornwall? One of the first people assaulted in the city of Cornwall was a sergeant of police, who was rescued by members of the Canadian seamen's union. There were no R.C.M.P. requisitioned then.


Lionel Chevrier: No. The hon. gentleman refers to an officer of the township police-[DOT]


Clarence Gillis: Certainly.


Lionel Chevrier: -who was placed in that position. I may add that the chief of the township police investigated the circumstances to which my hon. friend refers and charged McMaster and several others, who are now before the Cornwall police court.


Clarence Gillis: I know that; but you say-the mounted police were sent only there to-protect government property.


Lionel Chevrier: I say they had nothing to do with the mess to which my hon. friend refers.


Clarence Gillis: They were sent to Windsor, also. They were not sent there to protect government property. That is always the excuse, you see, that it is government property or that it is private property; but the same consideration is not shown to those who established that property, who provided the labour and who should have an equity in the property, when they are trying to feed their families, as is the case with members of the Canadian seamen's union. During the process of fighting the war I saw many people in this house weeping salty tears for the Canadian merchant navy, the only part of our forces that fought the war under the banner of free enterprise. Why, if their wages were computed on an hourly basis, they were as low as sixteen cents an hour, working a twelve-hour day. Everyone spoke of the contribution they made, and that was all true. I think in proportion to number they suffered greater losses than any other branch of the service during the war.
I do not believe the other branches would have been able to fight the war but for the Canadian merchant marine. They would have starved to death but for them.


Lionel Chevrier: No one denies that.


Clarence Gillis: The war is now over. The seamen were patient and long-suffering. They fought the war; they took their chances and did not interrupt shipping. The war is now over, and they have believed what we told them. I heard the Prime Minister say that we were fighting this war for a new philosophy

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and a new order of society; that when this war was over, those who contributed or who offered their lives for their country were not going to come back to things which existed in pre-war years. Every last soldier, sailor and airman believed that sory. They accepted our word.
The Canadian seamen's union is not asking for much. They are asking for an 8-hour day, instead of the 12-hour day they are working, and for three watches on their ships. Then they want a little upward revision in their wages. Surely they earned that in the process of fighting the war. They were dealt out of everything. They did not have uniforms; they got a tin badge and that is all they got. Surely the least we can do is to protect them from thugs hired by private detective agencies. That sort of machinery should be outlawed, and that is why I rise to-night to bring this matter to the attention of the Minister of Justice. We went through all that thirty years ago.
Why, I could stand here for the next ten hours, and tell stories-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The hon. member has said that that was all they got. I want to say to him, on the authority of positive knowledge, that our merchant seamen of Canada got five times the benefits that merchant seamen of Great Britain got, as a result of the war.


Clarence Gillis: You see, to compare this continent with Great Britain is below the intelligence of the minister. They are still getting their people out of air raid shelters in Great Britain; they are still depending upon this continent to feed them.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The merchant seamen saved England.


Clarence Gillis: Yes, I concede that, and for England to get back on her feet again is still part of our job. But I like to get away sometimes from taking England as a yardstick.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Do not let us decry our own effort.


Clarence Gillis: I am not doing that. What I said was that after a lot of struggle, for five years-and I am not blaming the minister for it, because I know he was as sympathetic as anybody in the house; but unfortunately he has that invisible treasury board to deal with-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Not only that; he is a member of it.


Clarence Gillis: Very likely a junior member.


Brooke Claxton: A senior member.


Clarence Gillis: I can see the shadow of the Bank of Canada over him, and it frightens him.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: No.


Clarence Gillis: After a lot of pressure we did do some things for the merchant seamen. We restored benefits to -them, when they had no uniforms. Their incomes were taxed during most of the war-even their war risk bonus. They were never relieved of that, the taxation on war risk bonus; and they got back certain pension rights.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: But the hon. member said they got only a tin medal, and that is not right.


Clarence Gillis: You do not see them going around wearing ribbons.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: That is not fair.


Clarence Gillis: The only recognition they got for service-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: They got 80 per cent of the benefits of the service men in the three fighting forces.


Clarence Gillis: Yes, but still they have not the right to educational benefits, and things like that. I am expecting it will be 100 per cent before the veterans affairs committee finishes its work this session.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: My hon. friend is always an optimist.


Clarence Gillis: Well, it is just as well to be optimistic. When one loses hope, then it is time to get out of the picture.
As I was saying, however, I am strongly urging the Minister of Justice to examine into the activities of this detective agency, and into the organizing of thugs to break strikes.
I say that with a great deal of feeling, because I could tell the house many stories in connection with the establishment of unions in this country in the earlier days. In those days we met the same kind of people, many of them from the same city, evicting people from their homes, leaving them out on the sidewalk, chasing them out of town two or three times. I thought all that was finished at least fifteen years ago. It is unfortunate that we find it still existing in this province of Ontario, and allowed to exist in Quebec.
I am going to promise the minister that this is one question I will not forget. I shall continue to find out something about this until such time as we abolish illegal agencies of that kind in this country.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege. Earlier in the debate it was suggested that the member
Supply-Labour Conditions

for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) had quoted a wire without authority, owing to the fact that it was signed by one E. Dalskog in reply to a wire sent by B. G. Melsness.
My question of privilege is that another wire was handed to me three minutes ago. I particularly wish this to be put on the record, because it was implied that I was not speaking with authority or with correctness in respect of the wire I quoted, as coming from E. Dalskog, the international representative of I.W.A.
I wish now to quote the wire handed me:
Re letter following wire filed June 14 by E. Dalskog answering yours of 13th to me-
And this is the part which solves the fruit problem of British Columbia.
"-union prepared to immediately return men to work box factories under government controller with settlement of demands made with government after return to work." Letter following.


Humphrey Mitchell: Who signed that?


George Alexander Cruickshank: Signed by B. G. Melsness. I wish now to conclude the matter of privilege. My responsibility as a member was questioned in respect of a wire I quoted and an answer I gave. I now wish to quote a letter from Mr. A. MacNamara, dated June 15, as follows:
The minister asked me to acknowledge receipt of copies of your correspondence with the international woodworkers association. I am sending copies to Hon. George Pearson and Hon. Mr. Justice Sloan by airmail.
"By airmail"-and we spent thousands of dollars in long distance calls. Then I am questioned as to whether I quoted correctly, and as to whether I had authority to speak for I.W.A. 1


Humphrey Mitchell: On the request of the minister of labour of British Columbia I appointed Mr. Justice Sloan of the British Columbia appeal court to act as commissioner. In disputes of this kind one has to act with the principals, not with the fellows down in the trenches without any responsibility.
My hon. friend has quoted a wire from the organizer of that union. I may say that matter was checked. I am informed by Mr. Justice Sloan, in connection with the leader of the men's organization in British Columbia, and the terms indicated in the wire could not be carried out by the leader of the men's organization.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and the house went into committee of supply, Mr. Golding in the chair.
Ian Alistair Mackenzie: As I indicated this afternoon, by agreement we are going to call two items which will be allowed to stand.



SECRETARY OF STATE

[Stage Direction]
356. Departmental administration, $106,210.
Item stands.

[Stage Direction]
369. Departmental administration, $199,115.
Item stands. -

[Stage Direction]
National health branch-
223.	Advertising and labels division, $70,463.
Donald Methuen Fleming: The minister was to give us certain additional information on this item, particularly as compared with expenditures made in 1945-46.


Brooke Claxton: The leader of the opposition asked a question which I can best answer by telling the committee what happened. The work which is planned to be carried on by this advertising and labels division was carried on previously in part by the director of health services, by the food and drugs laboratory, by the laboratory on hygiene and by the proprietary or patent medicine division, four different divisions of the department's activities. It was found that the work was not being satisfactorily done because there was some overlapping. There were also some inconsistencies in the rulings made by departmental officers dealing either with radio advertising or with labelling. So it was decided, after the estimates for last year were prepared, to create a new division called the advertising and labels division.
This division was created on January 16, 1946, and an item of $13,000 was sought in the supplementary estimates to cover the expenses of the division for the remainder of the year. This item will be found on page 32 of the supplementary estimates. This vote represented the estimated expenses of the new division for the remaining three months of the year. It was not possible to set up the division before the end of the year, so that the amount actually expended was $100.11. The work of setting up the new division is proceeding and officers and employees from the old divisions are now being transferred. When the operation is completed the director of health services will not have anything to do with this operation except in an executive and administrative capacity. The food and drugs laboratory and the laboratory of hygiene will no longer have anything to do with this. The proprietary or patent medicine division will be absorbed and the new division will carry on the functions I described last Friday night.

Supply-Health, and Welfare
In view of the operation which I have just described and which is still under way, it is not possible to say how much of each of the previous expenses will be met out of this estimate. We are still engaged in forming this new division which will render better service to the trade, to advertisers and to the public of Canada. The amount sought here will be sufficient to carry on the work of the division after it has been set up, but as it is not by any means fully set up the amount will be prorated throughout the year and the full amount sought in this vote will not be expended. Because of lack of staff and space we have not been able to set up the positions which were created in the new division and the salaries for these will lapse. There will be no duplication of payment.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
National health branch-[DOT]
224.	Grants to institutions assisting sailors, in the amounts detailed in the estimates, $2,400.
Mr. MacNICOL:: This vote covers grants of $200 each to twelve societies or organizations assisting sailors, but I wish to refer to only two, namely the Navy League of Canada at Halifax and the Navy League of Canada at Sydney. I am fairly familiar with the work that has been done by the navy league at all ports at which they have institutions, and in particular at. these two. I assume that this grant is merely a gesture of appreciation for the work that is done by those associated with the navy league. There is a long line of men and women in the communities across Canada who have given sincere and hard service to this work. They have been able to provide large sums of money, great quantities of clothing, many varieties of comforts, ditty bags and so forth for distribution to sailors. I know the minister must be familiar with the work, but I wonder if the country generally knows what was done by the Navy League of Canada during the last war?


Brooke Claxton: I agree with everything the hon. member for Davenport has said.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
National health branch-
225.	Medical services-Indians and Eskimos, $4,103,390.
John Ritchie MacNicol: It is not my intention to deal with this item at any length, because the matter of Indian affairs is before a special committee and I must be careful about any reference to that committee. There is an increase of over one and a half million dollars and I suppose the minister will have more complete details than are furnished' on page 63260-163
167 of the estimates. If this is to be used to provide medical services and so on for the Indians, I shall not oppose it.
Through many years I have visited about twenty-five Indian reservations, some in remote areas and others in the settled areas of Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba, so that I know something about this matter. Looking at page 167, I notice that three medical officers are being provided this year for the northwest territories. The next item shows an additional medical officer for the northwest territories. I have no doubt the minister will explain what these extra medical officers are going to do in that very large area. Last year there were thirty-two physicians, and this year there are thirty. That is going backward instead of forward. There were three graduate nurses last year, and1 two this year. The total medical service employees are fifty-six last year and fifty-six this year. There is an increase for temporary assistance of about $275,000 over last year. That would mean a lot of temporary assistance, and I hope the minister will explain what these additional temporary assistants are going to do.
There is a new item of $10,000 for publicity and information. I should like to know what that has to do with the Indian affairs branch. What does it want publicity for? It might have to do with instructing the Indians where to go for medical service, but I do not recollect any such item in any previous year. There was no such item last year. I notice that there is an increase of $5,000 for equipment maintenance and a considerable reduction in the item for acquisition of equipment. Is that equipment for hospitals for Indians? I am not opposed to reductions, but it is a large reduction and I had hoped that under the new minister the Indians would be getting a much better deal than ever before. There is a large increase in the item for construction of works and buildings. What is that for? Hospitals, schools or what? Another large item is for professional and special services. I presume that is for doctors, surgeons and nurses. Travelling expenses are up considerably, about $75,000. What does that large vote cover?
There will be another opportunity to discuss Indian affairs when the report from the Indian affairs committee comes before us. All I wish to say now is that I am anxious that a real change for the better will be made under these votes. I have long made up my mind, after consultation with teachers in the day schools on Indian reservations, particularly in remote areas such as around lake Nipigon, where you have to engage a boat

Supply-Health and Welfare

and go anywhere from twenty-five to fifty miles-I travelled over 100 miles by boat and paid $25 a day to make my own investigations -to bring this matter before the house. In one school I met a very bright teacher, and she strongly recommended-and I pass this on to the minister-that all teachers in the Indian schools be sent in their summer holidays by the department to some hospital or training school for thorough instruction in first aid. On one reservation I learned that the day before my visit an Indian had died just because there was no one present who could apply the most simple remedies for whatever sickness or illness he had. So I made up my mind that at the very first opportunity I would urge as strongly as I could that the teachers in the Indian schools in these remote areas like Fort Chipewyan, Fort Resolution, lake Nipigon and many other Indian reservations throughout the west-I met a very bright teacher at Fort a la Corne

be sent out at government expense and given a thorough training in first aid and applying the first remedies in all ordinary sicknesses until the Indian could be sent out for proper medical attention or a doctor brought in. This vote is largely for medical services and I am for anything that will improve the health of the Indians.
There is one other point. The Muncey reservation in Elgin county is a substantial Indian reservation, and if the minister had a talk with the doctor in charge-I do not know whether it is the same man now-the doctor would tell him one thing, and that is that if the Muncey reservation had a hospital like the one at Oshweken on the Six Nations reserve, it would be of great benefit to the Indians. The great trouble in getting the Indians to go to hospital some distance away is that the love of the Indian father and mother for their children is so great that they cannot bear to see one of them go away to a hospital at London, Chatham, Windsor or Woodstock. Much better results would be obtained if there were a small hospital on the Muncey reservation, and then the Indians would not have to send their children a considerable distance away to hospital. The department has a first-class doctor at Muncey, perhaps more than one. At least the man I met was excellent and very sympathetic. I have the highest opinion of him. He may not be there now because I met him some years ago.
I leave these two suggestions with the minister, that a small hospital be put up for the Indians where there is a substantial reserva-

tion, and, second, that the teachers in Indian schools in the remote areas be given thorough instruction in first aid.


Mr. CASE:: The hon. member for Davenport has pretty well covered the ground with respect to the Indians, and I endorse what he has said. I am pleased to see an increase in the estimates for medical services to the Indians and Eskimos. If the money is properly spent-and I hope it will be-great good can come therefrom. I propose to address myself now to the problems of the Eskimos.
We know that the Eskimos are badly in need of medical and dental care, care for their eyes and so on. I understand that each year medical services are made available on the Nascopie, which travels to the far north. A medical doctor and a dentist provide inspection, care and corrective treatment for the Eskimos who present themselves on the boat during the time it is being unloaded. Coming from the war expenditures committee I have heard reports that boats are being sold at a very small sum compared with the original cost. I am not mentioning this by way of criticism because it is not my intention to go into that at the moment. My purpose is to recommend to the minister that his department give consideration to acquiring a suitable vessel from the Department of Munitions and Supply or War Assets Corporation with a view to equipping it as a hospital ship to be devoted largely to the health and welfare problems of the Eskimos, who would then not have to depend entirely upon the Hudson's Bay company boat which puts in at northern ports for a limited time while it is unloading. In other words, I am suggesting that the department give more particular attention to providing better services to the Eskimos, and I am suggesting, as a means to that end, that it acquire a suitable vessel, properly equipped as a hospital ship, and send it on its voyage so that it can play an adequate part in the health and welfare and general advancement of the Eskimos, for whose care we are largely responsible. That is about the only observation I have to make, along with my endorsa-tion of what the hon. member for Davenport has said with respect to our Indians.


Mr. BRYCE:: I should like to take the minister back to Manitoba for the time being. I have a great number of Indians in my constituency. I do not rise in a critical mood, but I want to be sure that the services of the Department of Mines and Resources and of the minister's own department are not duplicated. I am going to take him to Norway House and ask him to consider the position

Supply-Health and Welfare
of an Indian there with tuberculosis. I want him to tell me what is done. Has he a superintendent of medical services for Indians, in Winnipeg? If the minister can answer me as I go along it may save time.


Brooke Claxton: At Norway House there is a resident full-time doctor.


William Scottie Bryce: When Doctor Corrigan at Norway House decides that a patient must have treatment in a hospital, what is the next step?


Brooke Claxton: Move him to the nearest general hospital.


William Scottie Bryce: How are you going to move
him?


Brooke Claxton: If necessary, by air.


William Scottie Bryce: Who is going to sanction air transportation?


Brooke Claxton: We usually do it here in Ottawa.


William Scottie Bryce: You do not mean to tell me that somebody is lying dying at Norway House, 425 miles north of Winnipeg, and you have to come to Ottawa to ask for sanction to move a dying patient?


Brooke Claxton: The hon. member is just a shade ahead of us. We are planning the appointment of eight regional superintendents who will include that as their responsibility and duty.


William Scottie Bryce: I asked you if you had one at Winnipeg.


Brooke Claxton: Not yet. We are setting up these posts.


William Scottie Bryce: There will be one at Winnipeg? Well, then, what is the Indian agent going to do, if your doctor does him out of his job? You cannot employ a highly paid doctor to do the work of an Indian agent. Doctors are more valuable to-day.


Brooke Claxton: I do not know whether the hon. member is in favour of our having more doctors or less.


William Scottie Bryce: I am in favour of having more doctors.


Brooke Claxton: We have a resident fulltime doctor at Norway House; we propose to have a regional superintendent at Winnipeg; and they will not compete with the Indian agent in any sense whatever. They will work very closely with him. If the Indian agent receives word of anyone being ill he will tell the nearest doctor. If he cannot reach 63260-163i
a doctor he will get out word by radio if he has that equipment, and we will take the necessary action.


William Scottie Bryce: Do you intend to have an aeroplane of your own for moving these people?


Brooke Claxton: An air ambulance?


William Scottie Bryce: An air ambulance.


Brooke Claxton: We have not any, but we have been immensely assisted during the war, as I believe the hon. member knows from the statement I made in the Indian affairs committee-I think he was there-by the assistance given us by the Royal Canadian Air Force and the United States Army Air Force, both of which had . extensive establishments in the north country. That will now be replaced either by Royal Canadian Air Force assistance or by our hiring, as we frequently do, privately owned planes or else borrowing an R.C.A.F. or Department of Transport plane. We do not at present propose to have a private air force of our own. The territory is so great that it would take a considerable number of planes to cover it. It would not be an economic way to use planes; they would not be in the air a sufficient portion of the time to be economically used. What we aim to do is to use by one means or another the resources there are, and when we get stuck we shall find some other way of doing it.


William Scottie Bryce: At the present time, if anyone takes sick at Norway House and is brought to Winnipeg, will your branch be responsible for the movement from the train to the hospital, or will that be done by the Indian agent in Winnipeg?


Brooke Claxton: As far as the patient's health is concerned we are responsible for that.


William Scottie Bryce: But it is not only the supervision of his health, but transportation, and everything-*


Brooke Claxton: Everything in relation to his health will be attended to by us.


William Scottie Bryce: You have to make that plainer for me. I want to understand this thoroughly before I leave it.


The ACTING CHAIRMAN (Mr. Golding):: Order. I ask the hon. member to address the Chair.


William Scottie Bryce: I am sorry, Mr. Chairman I will try not to hurt your feelings any more. Mr. Chairman, I want to carry this farther; I want to get to the bottom of it,
Supply-Health and Welfare

because I know the trouble the Indians have had in coming from these places-Norway House, Grand Rapids, Berens River-they are three or four days on the way. Somebody must be responsible for them. When Doctor Corrigan puts them on the boat his duties are ended. Does the minister intend to increase that service by having somebody to look after them on the boat, or is there to be an Indian agent to do it?


Brooke Claxton: I have already answered the hon. gentleman. In so far as the health of the Indians is concerned this department is responsible, and if an Indian is to be moved for reasons of health this department will be responsible.


John Ritchie MacNicol: There are so many
Indians at Norway House, Berens River and Grand Rapids that I suggest the minister follow the same plan he did at Oshweken, as far as he can, and put up a small hospital there.


Brooke Claxton: We have a hospital there. We aim, as part of the programme of construction, to replace that with a larger and fire-resistant hospital.


John Ritchie MacNicol: At Nonvay House?


Brooke Claxton: Yes. Also to have a
number of nursing stations in that area, which has a total Indian population in that agency of 3,740.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Where is the hospital now?


Brooke Claxton: At Norway House.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I thought there was a hospital there, and I wondered why my hon. friend was speaking about the necessity of taking patients away from Norway House.


William Scottie Bryce: I should like the hon. member for Davenport to know that it is only a twelve-bed hospital; we have people dying there with tuberculosis, dying like flies, and they have to be moved to the new hospital at The Pas. Can the minister tell the committee what progress has been made with the hospital at The Pas; how many beds it contains; who has been appointed as doctor there, and give other information about it?


Brooke Claxton: At The Pas there is the Clearwater Lake Indian hospital, which was taken over from the United States army. It is a 100-bed hospital, and it is planned to enlarge that hospital quite considerably so as to make a more efficient use of the large central equipment they have. The number of beds will then be increased considerably.
[Mr. Bryce.j
I cannot give my hon. friend the number of
beds planned for yet, because the plans are [DOT] still being prepared.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: How many beds are there?


Brooke Claxton: One hundred.


William Scottie Bryce: It is not the intention of the minister to have tuberculosis patients placed in the little twelve-bed hospital at Norway House?	1


Brooke Claxton: It would depend on the situation. If the patient is in an acute or very infectious stage he would be put there for a time until he could be moved somewhere else. Certainly a hospital of that kind is not suitable for the care and cure of tuberculosis. It has twenty-two beds.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: The United States
army have a modern hospital at Churchill. Has it been taken over by the department?


Brooke Claxton: It has not.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: What is being done with the hospital?


Brooke Claxton: I am not familiar with the situation of the United States hospital at Churchill.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The minister mentioned the hospital at The Pas. When I made my inspection of the hospital at The Pas I was informed that the government had contributed a large sum of money toward the building of that hospital. It is a big building, and I understand that the Indian department has the operation of the whole of the main or ground floor. How many beds are on the ground floor of the hospital at The Pas?


Brooke Claxton: One hundred.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Of course the Indians are all up and down the river, west as far as Cumberland House, and down the river as far as the Chimauawin and Moose Lake. I suppose the hospital will have to take care of all these Indians?


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: The hon. member for
Davenport and the minister are speaking about two different hospitals. The minister is speaking-


John Ritchie MacNicol: No; I am speaking about the one that has been up for some years.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: The minister is speaking about the United States hospital about fifteen miles out of The Pas at Clearwater lake.


Brooke Claxton: Yes.

Supply-Health and Welfare


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: The minister said it
has accommodation for a hundred patients at the present time.


Brooke Claxton: Yes.


Mr.   McM ASTER@: I should like the
minister to give us a breakdown of this large amount. How much of it is for hospitals; how much for doctors who devote their full time to the work and how much for doctors who devote part of their time? I know that in some provinces some of the reservations, such as those in Saskatchewan for instance, are some distance away from doctors. That may still be true. I know for a fact that sometimes the doctor makes a visit to treat an Indian who suffers perhaps from eye trouble and the bill amounts to about $25. Is there a maximum charge which the doctor can make? The doctors used to charge so much a mile, and then so much for the visit. Is that the system in vogue at the present time? If so, then the question arises as to whether the reservation should not have a doctor, or whether the doctor should not live closer to it, or whether some other means could be found to keep down what seems to be a large expense.


Brooke Claxton: Perhaps I should answer the various questions raised by the hon. member for Davenport and other hon. members. As has been said, the increase now being sought from the figure of $2,526,000 to $4,103,390, an increase of $1,577,390, is a substantial increase. That is sought because we are determined to take positive steps about the health of the Indians and Eskimos of Canada. The plans were made by the Indian affairs branch of the Department of Mines and Resources before the Indian health services were transferred to this department, to take effect from November 1, 1945. Since then we have gone over them carefully with the advantage of having direct contact between the Indian affairs doctors and our own doctors; we have drawn up a programme for Indian health services which hon. members who are interested will find summarized at page 75 of the proceeding of the special joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons, appointed to examine and consider the Indian Act, when I made a submission on June 6, 1946. The proposals of the programme of the department for the Indian health services are summarized there, and hon. members will see throughout the proceedings information which would answer many of the questions asked here.
One of the questions related to the general scope of the increased services proposed. These
include greatly improved health services to Eskimos, opening three hospitals in the current fiscal year with a total bed capacity of 650, increasing by more than fifty per cent the departmental hospital bed capacity. These additions are the Miller Bay near Prince Rupert, taken over from the air force about a year ago with 150 beds, the Edmonton Indian hospital taken over from the army about November 1, 1945, with 400 beds, of which at least 100, with 100 more temporarily, are earmarked for veterans so long as they need them, the Clearwater Lake Indian hospital taken over from the United States army, 100 beds. The programme also provides for more adequate health services, and consequently the treatment of many more patients.
The hon. member for Davenport asked about the considerable increase in the amount sought for professional services, and that was referred to by another hon. member. This amount covers the expenditure by the department on part-time doctors. These doctors are engaged on various bases, depending on the local circumstances. Some of them are paid on a fee per patient basis; others at an amount per month. Altogether I can assure my hon. friends that the amounts paid are not regarded either by the department or by doctors as excessive. Their accounts are submitted in detail. They are gone over and, after verification, are paid according to the scales which have been established. I am sure that in some respects the amounts paid are not in line with the amounts paid for medical services rendered to other patients in the same area.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Are they higher or lower?


Brooke Claxton: They are lower. On the other hand, in ordinary times it does provide a steady source of income for doctors; but at the present time when doctors are overworked it is not quite as attractive as it used to be.
In addition to the departmental hospitals, Indians are hospitalized in general hospitals. During 1945, 16,239 Indians were hospitalized outside departmental hospitals for a total of 404,730 days in 417 hospitals. We intend to render more hospital service.
Reference has been made to tuberculosis, and the incidence of tuberculosis among Indians and Eskimos is very much greater than that among the white population.


John Ritchie MacNicol: About seventeen times as great.


Brooke Claxton: On the average the figures are fifteen times as great as for the white population of Canada. They vary from place to place. In places like the Mohawk, the Six
Supply-Health and Welfare

Nations reserve, they are three times as great. But there are localities in which it is even greater than fifteen times as great as among the white population. That presents a special problem of diagnosis, isolation, treatment and cure. As we know, tuberculosis is a disease which can be cured. We have reduced the tuberculosis mortality among the white population from something like 200 per 100,000 at the beginning of the century to something in the neighbourhood of 45 per 100,000 to-day. In other words, among the whites we have wiped out three-quarters of the killing power of tuberculosis. That is not the case with the Indians; and in order to tackle that job we require a considerable increase in hospital beds, in X-ray equipment for diagnosis, and so on. This plan we have under way aims at achieving as much as we can do with the staff and space and facilities we can expect to get during the next year. In other words, this year money is not a limiting factor. The limitations on the service will be those of securing adequate, experienced staff and being able to do the amount of construction we aim to do. The results will not be immediately spectacular, because tuberculosis and other conditions of this kind cannot be dealt with in a year; but with a determined effort and a long-term programme there is no doubt at all but that we can substantially improve the health of the Indians. The building programme for this year includes a new hospital at Moose Factory which we hope to begin-


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is that to be built out on Moose island or on the mainland at Moosonee?
Mr. CLAXTON; My understanding is that it will be on the mainland, but I shall verify that- and give the bon. member the information later. At Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan, there is to be a fifty-bed extension to the present hospital; also a building replacing a nurses' home destroyed by fire; provision of adequate power house and doctor's residence. At Coqualeetza Indian hospital at Sardis, British Columbia, we are to build a nurses' home, power house, doctor's residence and children's ward. At the Edmonton hospital, Edmonton, we hope to do the necessary alterations and complete the building. Then at the Clearwater Lake Indian hospital, Le Pas, Manitoba, we are to build a doctor's residence. We also aim at least to commence the construction of five additional nursing stations at Bersimis, Quebec; Eskasoni, B.C.; Fort George, Quebec; Gypsumville, Manitoba, and St. Regis, Quebec.

The hon. member for Davenport also asked the reason for an item of $10,000 for publicity and information. That is designed to begin an educational programme among the Indians and Eskimos. There, as elsewhere, we find the greatest obstacle to health is ignorance and failure to put into practice what we know we can do. This programme involves the preparation of two simple leaflets in colour on child care and the rules of hygiene; the purchase of some pamphlets for use in hospitals; some simple, colourful posters; a film strip; a motion picture news clip, and then the translation of these into the Cree syllabics. This will account for this expenditure. In answer to earlier questions I should say that the hospital at Moose Factory will be on Moose island. The Clearwater Lake hospital at Le Pas, to which the hon. member for Selkirk referred, is about one hundred miles from Norway House by plane. I should add that the local doctor has authority, in the event of an emergency case and it being impossible to deal with the matter in any other way or to refer it to Ottawa, to take the responsibility upon himself of getting a plane.


John Ritchie MacNicol: One hundred miles from where?


Brooke Claxton: From Norway House.


John Ritchie MacNicol: There must be some mistake. Even by air it is 110 miles from the Pas to Cedar Lake, and it is thirty-six miles across the lake and then twenty miles from the lake to Grand Rapids; then from The Pas across to Norway House is a trip requiring a whole night and a morning by boat. I should say it would be 150 to 200 miles if it is a mile.


William Scottie Bryce: I should like to ask another question on that. The Norway House residential school was destroyed by fire a couple of weeks ago. Has the minister any information as to the data and information collected at that school concerning vitamins and nutrition? I am sure he is aware of the manner in which the school was divided into four sections and, how they all got different biscuits so many times a day or so many times week. Does the minister know if the material they were able to build up in that study has been destroyed?


Brooke Claxton: I have the report on that nutritional survey in my hand at the moment. It was completed.


William Scottie Bryce: I think it would be interesting to mention it to the committee. It was good work.

Supply-Health and Welfare


Brooke Claxton: It is exceedingly useful work. This survey of nutrition among North American Indians was conducted by the acting superintendent of the medical service, Doctor P. E. Moore and by Doctor F. F. Tisdall, who is very well known and who was consultant to the armed forces, as well as by the local doctor, Doctor R. S. C. Corrigan, and by Doctor Kruse of the Millbank memorial fund of New York. They obtained valuable results, which are being used not only in connection with health services to the Indians and Eskimos but also in connection with family allowances to the Indians and Eskimos in kind.


William Scottie Bryce: My question was really about the records in the school. Do you know if they were destroyed?


Brooke Claxton: I do not know.


Mr. ROBINSON (Bruce):: We have two Indian reserves in Bruce county, and I am glad to say they are among the healthier reserves which were mentioned by the minister a few moments ago. The fact is, however, that we are still short of hospitals in Bruce, and we are having two built, one very close to the Cape Croker reserve and the other close to the Saugeen reserve. These hospitals are being built largely by public subscription, and I should like to ask the minister if his department would consider helping out with. a donation, large or small as they may see fit, in order to help in the hospitalization of these Indians.


Brooke Claxton: We would have to know the circumstances of the case. In a limited number of cases grants have been made to hospitals, but only where the Indians in the locality represented a very large proportion of the population and the services necessary for the Indians could not be provided more economically in any other way, or as part of the regular services of the hospital. We have had many applications, and I had occasion to mention this two weeks ago, when the matter came up. We have had applications from every part of Canada; but, as hon. members know, hospitalization ordinarily is a matter for the provinces. In the great majority of cases the Indian health "service pays the daily cost of hospitalizing an Indian as its contribution, in accordance with arrangements worked out with each hospital. Ordinarily we do not make capital grants.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Would the minister give consideration to taking over the American army hospital at Churchill? I visited there in 1943, at which time there were seven American doctors at that point. Frequently they were called out in emergencies to some of
the Indian settlements and also to attend the Eskimos, and they were greatly concerned about the type of medical service we were providing in that area. In view of the fact that the supply situation is to be a factor, and since I understand that this establishment has been taken over by the Canadian government, it seems a pity not to make use of it. I can think of no good reason why the minister should not use these facilities for the benefit of the Eskimos and Indians in that north country. Could the minister state whether this has been given any consideration?


Brooke Claxton: I can state in a general way that consideration has been given to the taking over of every hospital occupied by the navy, army or air force of Canada or of the United States in Canada. We have looked at every situation, and a great number of them are still receiving consideration, so I shall be very glad to see that this is looked into further.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I note that the amount for temporary assistance under this vote has increased by almost $300,000. Does that include professional assistance or non-professional? If it is professional, why is it not included under the item for professional and special services which appears farther down in the list? It seems to me it must represent *. change in policy, when we find such a considerable change in the amount of the item. I notice further that the item for cash allowances is more than doubled, going from $21,000 to $90,000. What is the nature of those allowances?


Brooke Claxton: An item for temporary assistance appears in the votes of almost every department. That item covers salaries or wages of personnel whose positions have not yet been made permanent, but who may continue in service for some time. In this instance it includes a considerable increase in professional personnel, owing to the fact that we have taken over the hospitals I mentioned, with a bed capacity of 650.
We propose, too, to have eight regional superintendents, including one from Manitoba and western Ontario. It also includes the addition of a considerable number of nurses for nursing stations, as soon as we can get them.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: What about cash allowances?


Brooke Claxton: I shall answer that a little later on, if that is satisfactory to the hon. member.
Supply-Health and Welfare


Mrs. STRUM:: What is the infant mortality rate among Eskimos and Indians? Are those separated from the general rates for all Canada?


Brooke Claxton: The infant mortality rate among Indians is given at page 91 of the minutes of proceedings and evidence of the special joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons on the Indian Act. I should make it clear that they are there given under the heading of diseases peculiar to the first year of life, and the rates are set out per 100,000 of population.
Infant mortality rates are usually sho<wn per 1,000 of live births. Here, however, the figures on the number of live births are not reliable, with the result that the figure given is a rate peir 100,000 of papulation. It will be seen that the rates for 1942, 1943, and 1944 are, roughly, three times as high as the white rate for all Canada, exclusive of the northwest territories. However, we do not know accurately the number of live births. So that if there is a greater proportion of births imong the Indians and Eskimos than there is among the rest of the population, the infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births will be relatively smaller than shown here. However, as shown here it is three times as high as the whites.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: Is any clinical or pre-natal care taken, or any attempt made to reduce the rate?


Brooke Claxton: In the Six Nations reserve, where there are 6,600 Indians, I believe every baby is born in a hospital, and the rate compares favourably with that among the white population. In other localities every possible assistance is given, in relation to the possibilities in those localities. There are only nine doctors in the whole of the northwest territories and the Arctic, but we hope to establish more doctors and more nursing centres to supplement the doctors. We also hope to do much more by way of education among the Indians, and also by way of special training of traders, factors, members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and others in the north, including missionaries and teachers, so that they will be able to give more than just first aid assistance.


James Herbert Matthews: Can the minister tell the committee in what percentage of reserves across Canada are nursing stations with well-equipped dispensaries? I am of opinion that we have a large number of small reserves located at great distances from hospitals. Those reserves are visited rarely by Indian agents, and I am wondering what such people will do in the future. Will nurses be

stationed at such points to help them in their health difficulties, or does the department plan any extension work to place nurses on such reserves, so as to administer to the needs of the people before they have to go to hospital? I am referring particularly to the north Pacific coast.


Brooke Claxton: Every band of Indians in Canada has been surveyed. We have drawn up a long-term plan which provides by one means or another for their securing adequate health services. This plan has to be developed as people become available to carry it out, and as we develop the technical and administrative experience requisite to enable us to handle it. But every band-in fact, every group of Indians across Canada-is plotted on this map, and we aim by one means or another, where they have not existing services, to provide them with adequate health services.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: I did not hear the minister's comment replying to the suggestion for a special hospital ship for the far north, and I therefore wish to address a further question in that connection. Does the minister consider the facilities of the Hudson bay boat adequate to meet the demands of this trip? I understand that the quarters are cramped, and that the facilities can be considered only as makeshift. What is the feasibility of the department's owning a ship which could be properly equipepd as a hospital ship? Does the minister consider the facilities of the Hudson bay vessel adequate?


Brooke Claxton: I believe I overlooked
answering that part of the hon. member's question. We have looked into the matter of providing a special hospital ship. My recollection is that the cost of such a vessel would be about $250,000. This vessel would have had to be taken over from War Assets Corporation, and reconstructed. The amount I have mentioned would be largely the cost of putting it into shape for a northern, voyage. The annual cost of operation would be something like $25,000. The effective period during which it would be in the far north where it would be useful would be. somewhere betwen six and ten weeks, depending on the season. It would be an extremely expensive operation.
As I say, we have considered the matter, and still have it under consideration. But it would seem to us that that is not the most effective and economical way of doing the job.
As to the hon. member's further question concerning the adequacy of the services provided by the Nascopie, let me say that we are extremely glad to have those services. As hon. members are aware, the ship carries two doctors-usually most distinguished ones-who

Supply-Health and Welfare
render service during that trip. Relief doctors and nurses are also sent up. It would be much better if the ship could stay longer at each port of call, but primarily its visits are not for reasons of health but to provide service for the Hudson's Bay company and the other people who are on it. However, it does a very useful work and we are glad) to have it. My hope would be that if the Hudson's Bay company are planning to replace the Nascopie they will do it with a larger vessel which would permit us to provide greater services on board.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: Are trained Indian nurses going to New Zealand to take courses in midwifery?


Brooke Claxton: I did not know of that.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The minister has not answered the question asked by the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard in connection with cash allowances, $90,580.


Brooke Claxton: Those are paid as maintenance to professional people and others who live away from the hospital or the nursing station to compensate for board and lodging.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is a living allowance to people on the regular staff?


Brooke Claxton: Yes.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Would the minister
explain the increase from $21,360 to $90,580?


Brooke Claxton: That is due to the large increase in hospital bed capacity and other development work being undertaken this year.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is hardly likely you will require this amount this year. The minister can hardly expect to get all this hospital development under way.


Brooke Claxton: That would be the target. We shall not get the number of nurses and professional help to use the full amount the way things are going.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The minister has given considerable detail in connection with the item for construction of works and buildings, but I do not think we have had a summing up. What is the cost per bed of this type of hospital construction given in terms that we can compare with hospital construction elsewhere? What bed accommodation is expected to be provided out of this item of $840,000?


Brooke Claxton: I am afraid I have not it broken down in that way. The cost per bed in most of these hospitals is much less than the cost of general hospital construction in cities after you have provided for transporting the materials. You can imagine that the cost of transporting materials, workmen and equipment to do a job at Moose Factory would add enormously to the cost, but actu-63260-164
ally the cost of this type of hospital construction is much less than that of general hospital construction in the larger cities.


Donald Methuen Fleming: What will be the total hospital bed accommodation provided by this item of $840,000?


Brooke Claxton: It will be in the neighbourhood of 200 beds.


Mr. ZAPLITNY:: I should like to pursue the question raised a while ago by the hon. member for Selkirk about the lack of medical care on the Indian reserves. I understood the minister to say that the medical care of Indians has been transferred to his department from Mines and Resources. Who is responsible for reporting cases of tuberculosis or other diseases found on the reserves? I suppose the Indian agent would still be under the Department of Mines and Resources, but medical care of the Indians is now under the Department of National Health and Welfare. Where do the two tie up? Does anyone take the initiative in reporting cases of disease on the reserve, or does the department depend upon the provincial health and welfare departments who send public health nurses around to the schools? What system is used?


Brooke Claxton: There is no difference at all in reporting cases from what it was before, except that we hope to have a larger personnel in the field. We hope to have more trained dispensers and a closer tie-in with the provincial authorities. Apart from that, the Indian agent, the doctor, the nurse or the provincial representative report the cases just as before. There is no division to prevent the Indian agent from communicating directly with us; in fact in some places the Indian agent is the same person as the Indian health sendee doctor.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: To what extent is there cooperation between the provincial health departments and the Department of National Health and Welfare? Is any use made of the reports submitted by the provincial public health nurses who visit the schools on the Indian reserves? There is a lot of data and information obtained in that way that could be used by the department if it were channeled into the department. Is there any liaison there?


Brooke Claxton: Yes. On the Six Nations reserve we are undertaking a mass survey of all the Indians for tuberculosis. They are to be X-rayed in July and August by arrangement with the provincial health authorities. Close cooperation with the provincial authorities obtains right across Canada.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The figure of 200 beds given by the minister works out to approximately $4,200 per bed.
Supply-Health and Welfare


Brooke Claxton: The figure I mentioned includes the provision of a power house and doctor's residence in one place and a nurses' home and doctor's residence in another. The hon. member asked for the total number of beds to be provided by this construction item. If the hon. member wants the cost per bed per hospital I can easily send that to him in detail.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Would this item include the cost of equipping the hospital, or is it simply for construction?


Brooke Claxton: For construction.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: There is an increase from $12,000 to $20,000 for meter rates; what is that?


Brooke Claxton: That is to cover meter rates for water service to Miller Bay and Edmonton hospitals.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
National health branch-
226.	Grants to hospitals which care for Indians md Eskimos, $204,320.
Donald Methuen Fleming: Would the minister indicate where these hospitals are located and what is the basis of selection for grants?


Brooke Claxton: This item provides for the payment of amounts of $1,080 to the Roman Catholic mission hospitals at Fort Smith, Fort Simpson and Aklavik; and a like payment to the Church of England hospital at Aklavik. Those are grants which are paid from year to year in accordance with a long standing arrangement. The item of $200,000 is granted to the Fort William sanatorium board for provision of an 80-bed hospital for Indians there. That is the most economic way of providing for the hospitalization of a large concentration of Indians in that neighbourhood who could not be served as well in any other way.


John Ritchie MacNicol: How much was there for the hospital at Aklavik?


Brooke Claxton: That was $1,080, as well as for each of the other three hospitals I mentioned.


Mr. ADAMSON:: Is there any grant under this vote for the training of Indians nurses? In Arizona a successful school has been established for the training of Indian nurses. It is found that they are very much more effective when dealing with their own race than the white nurses. Has there been any attempt, or does the minister think there may be an attempt to train Indian nurses?


Brooke Claxton: We have had a number of Indian doctors and nurses in the service and are anxious to get more. There is no regular machinery for assisting in the training of .
Indian nurses. That is usually provided by the bands or the Indian affairs branch, but we will certainly look into the question of facilitating that training.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Do the Indian nurses go to the ordinary nursing schools?


Brooke Claxton: Yes, and the Indian doctors too.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Would the minister give figures indicating the incidence of venereal disease within, say the last two years, to establish trends, including both the civilian population and the armed services?


Brooke Claxton: I should have replied before to the question of the hon. member for Red Deer. I have looked into it and find there are no figures that are really reliable prior to 1943, when we reinstated this grant, partly as a war measure, and secured effective cooperation from the provinces and local authorities in securing reports. Figures on the incidence of venereal disease are apt to be misleading unless they are read by someone experienced because, as you secure a greater degree of cooperation and greater efficiency in collecting figures, the rate seems to go up, whereas it may simply reflect, not an increase in venereal disease, but increased reporting as a result of cooperation by doctors, patients, municipal and provincial authorities, so that the figures should be taken with that qualification. I have the figures for 1943 and 1944 here.	.


Donald Methuen Fleming: If it is not convenient for the minister to give them now, perhaps he will give them later.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The minister mentioned Aklavik. There is one doctor there. Is he a departmental doctor?


Brooke Claxton: Yes.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Does he take care of both the Roman Catholic and Anglican hospitals?


Brooke Claxton: Yes.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Does he also look after patients at the Reindeer camp forty miles across the river delta and at Fort MacPherson and Arctic Red River?


Brooke Claxton: I am afraid the hon. gentleman's knowledge exceeds mine, but I think the doctor does look after those patients.


John Ritchie MacNicol: He is an extremely fine man. He does a fine job and is highly respected.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Welfare branch-
227.	Welfare branch administration, $37,635.
Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: Would the minister
explain the publicity item?

Supply-Health and Welfare


Brooke Claxton: The item of $4,000
comprises $2,000 which is sought for the establishment of a film library on welfare

the pictures have already been taken and we want to secure copies of the prints for distribution-and $2,000 which is unallocated.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: With respect to this item of $4,000, I wonder again where it really fits into the picture. The welfare branch consists of the family allowances division, which has its own and a quite large publicity vote, the old age pensions and pensions for the blind division, and the national physical fitness division, which again has its own item for publicity. I said, when I first raised this question about publicity, . that I was sure the minister could give some reason why each one of these publicity or educational items should be in the estimates. Naturally the members have to rely to a great extent upon the discretion of the minister, but I think it would be appropriate for me to say here that, as we have gone through the various items, I have not seen any general coordination of these quite large sums of money, totalling over $500,000, which would lead me to be certain that the money was being spent in the right place for the most useful purposes. It has been my impression, from the answers the minister has given, that the items are usually made up upon separate requests from provincial organizations or from the dominion health council which the officers of the department have met, and which have all seemed perfectly right and proper and been approved by the departmental officials and then have appeared in the estimates. We are dealing here with something which is nebulous and the value of which cannot be gauged as easily as the value of a doctor's services or the expenditure of a certain amount on drugs. I should very much like to see that this money was spent according to certain general principles laid down by the minister, in order that the money may be well spent. It would seem to me, although I am an absolute amateur at the game, that were I in the minister's position I should like to see this $500,000 spent perhaps in five large chunks for five specific services this year, so that at the end of the year I could tell whether the story I had to tell had definitely got over to the Canadian people in each of these five directions. Then next year perhaps take five other services. That is only my opinion. I would urge that the minister work out an over-all policy for publicity and educational expenses which will satisfy him, because he is the person who must be responsible to the house for the efficacy of his expenditures, that
he is really getting over to the Canadian people the picture he wants, rather than a hundred little pictures which are requested by a hundred different agents.


Brooke Claxton: I appreciate the hon. member's comment. It seems to me that he is now contradicting one of the principles which he laid down when he first spoke on this subject. He said he thought one of the first principles should be that the publicity be directed to some particular group to which it was suited and from which it was hoped to obtain definite response. That is something we have had in mind with regard to publicity generally, but not in connection with family allowance publicity because there, since we deal with the parents of 92 per cent of the population, we deal with virtually everyone.
I should like to quote in this connection an interesting' comment on this discussion, when it occurred last, from the Winnipeg Tribune for June 3, in which it is said:
Health and welfare is an important concern of the Canadian people, educational work on a large scale is essential to it, and the colonel might well be asked what other department has in his judgment a better right to stand second to trade and commerce in its publicity appropriations.
Colonel Merritt conceded that booklets dealing with child and maternal care were a good investment. He has perhaps heard-since the opinion is universally held by parents who have made use of these booklets-that they are of unrivalled excellence. But he apparently does not know that these booklets are distributed by and through the provincial departments of health "who have trained staffs in the field." Far from "by-passing" the provincial departments, as the colonel charged, the national department works in close and constant cooperation with them at every point where such cooperation is feasible.
"Telling people what to eat on picnics" may seem an absurdity to Colonel Merritt, but the fact is that the department's manual on camp feeding is a model of its kind-


Gordon Graydon: Will the minister permit an interruption? Is he not offending against a well-known rule of the house by reading editorials here?


Brooke Claxton: No.


Gordon Graydon: I am not asking the minister's point of view on it. I should like to know the views of the Chairman, because he is the one who rules the house.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I should like to say-


Brooke Claxton: I should just like to finish this, if I may:

and meets a real need in an important sector of the nutrition field.


Gordon Graydon: One moment, please. I know the minister rules the department, but he does not rule the committee-yet. Perhaps the Chairman would give a ruling on the
Supply-Health and Welfare

question I raised, because many of us have been stopped before, and I hope there is not one rule for the rich and one for the poor.


William Henry Golding: It is something which should not be done. I hope the hon. member will see to it that the rule is observed, and I would ask the minister also to observe it.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: May I say that it is not my purpose and never was my purpose to criticize proper expenditures on education, and if any newspapers in the country have a different view I suppose I cannot correct them, but I do not think the minister and I have any misapprehension as to what I have said throughout this debate. I simply indicated to him- and I thought this was the appropriate time- that one member of this committee does not feel satisfied that there is a proper over-all policy in regard to these expenditures, and I merely asked him if he would take that in consideration in his department for the next estimates.


Mr. KNIGHT:: Would the minister care to
comment on the matter of the supply or lack of supply of trained case workers for family welfare work? Theirs is a work which requires a particular type of individual and an intensive and specific training. Has the minister considered granting, say national scholarships to encourage young people to go into this work, because unless I am wrongly informed there is a sad dearth of people able to carry it on in the proper manner?


Brooke Claxton: Item 232, which we shall come to, provides $100,000 expressly for that purpose.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Welfare branch-
228.	Family allowances-administration, $1,961,250. Family allowance payments, $250,000,000.
John Horne Blackmore: This item brings up the question of old age pensions.


Brooke Claxton: No, family allowances.


John Horne Blackmore: Surely they come under item 228.


William Henry Golding: Old age pensions is item 229; item 228 is family allowances.


John Horne Blackmore: I wish to discuss the question of old age pensions.


Donald Methuen Fleming: There was a good deal of information which I was going to ask the minister for. If I indicate it now, it may give him

an opportunity to muster the information and make it available to the committee at the next sitting.


Brooke Claxton: I may say that, in view of the fact that this month we complete almost a year of family allowance administration, I thought the committee and others would be interested in a fairly complete statement with the filing of figures showing eleven full months of administration and some general observations on the way it has worked out, and I am prepared to do that just as soon as we get another opportunity. I think some of the hon. member's questions would be anticipated in the statement I intended to make.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Would it assist the minister if I indicated now, in just a word or two, the points I think might be covered? In the first place, we had, on December 15, 1945, shown on pages 3603 and 3604 of Hansard, certain tables. Would the minister bring down comparable tables for the last month for which figures are available?


Brooke Claxton: They will be filed right up to May.


Donald Methuen Fleming: In the item of $150,000 for publicity and information could we have the expenditures and the projected plan?


Brooke Claxton: Yes.


Donald Methuen Fleming: In the next place, the expenditures contracted for by months to date from the commencement of the operation of the family allowances, in respect of publicity.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Does the minister wish to put the tables on Hansard?


Brooke Claxton: If I might, I should like to file,, first, a table showing family allowance payments for the months from July, 1945, when the first payment was made, to May, 1946, when the last payment was made; second, a table showing statistics based on the May, 1946, family allowances payments; and, third, further statistics, broken down by provinces, of the payments in May, 1946. May I have the unanimous consent of the committee to put this on Hansard? We have some further tables to be filed later, but it will, I hope, be a convenience to hon. members if I file these now.


Hon. MEMBERS:: Agreed.


Brooke Claxton: The tables are as follows: (See tables on pages 2587, 2588, 2589.)
Item stands.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie the house adjourned at 11.05 p.m.



FAMILY ALLOWANCE PAYMENTS

[Stage Direction]
Province
[Stage Direction]
July
[Stage Direction]
August
[Stage Direction]
September
[Stage Direction]
October
[Stage Direction]
November
[Stage Direction]
December
[Stage Direction]
January
[Stage Direction]
February
[Stage Direction]
March
[Stage Direction]
April
[Stage Direction]
May
[Stage Direction]
1945
[Stage Direction]
1945
[Stage Direction]
1945
[Stage Direction]
1945
[Stage Direction]
1945
[Stage Direction]
1945
[Stage Direction]
1946
[Stage Direction]
1946
[Stage Direction]
1946
[Stage Direction]
1946
[Stage Direction]
1946
[Stage Direction]
P.E.I
[Stage Direction]
177,058
[Stage Direction]
179,762
[Stage Direction]
180,247
[Stage Direction]
180,724
[Stage Direction]
180,308
[Stage Direction]
181,099
[Stage Direction]
179,550
[Stage Direction]
180,806
[Stage Direction]
181,007
[Stage Direction]
181,187
[Stage Direction]
180,672
[Stage Direction]
N.S
[Stage Direction]
921,333
[Stage Direction]
1,021,837
[Stage Direction]
1,107,919
[Stage Direction]
1,065,667
[Stage Direction]
1,068,959
[Stage Direction]
1,111,203
[Stage Direction]
1,080,260
[Stage Direction]
1,082,918
[Stage Direction]
1,087,899
[Stage Direction]
1,087,512
[Stage Direction]
1,087,552
[Stage Direction]
N.B
[Stage Direction]
849,136
[Stage Direction]
874,203
[Stage Direction]
897,267
[Stage Direction]
914,078
[Stage Direction]
909,118
[Stage Direction]
916,995
[Stage Direction]
919,077
[Stage Direction]
920,454
[Stage Direction]
923,155
[Stage Direction]
923,652
[Stage Direction]
925,856
[Stage Direction]
Que
[Stage Direction]
5,948,309
[Stage Direction]
5,782,627
[Stage Direction]
6,589,206
[Stage Direction]
6,160,887
[Stage Direction]
6,724,978
[Stage Direction]
6,955,275
[Stage Direction]
6,660,314
[Stage Direction]
6,523,020
[Stage Direction]
6,634,200
[Stage Direction]
6,765,204
[Stage Direction]
6,764,992
[Stage Direction]
Ont
[Stage Direction]
4,836,416
[Stage Direction]
5,415,149
[Stage Direction]
5,358,240
[Stage Direction]
5,584,078
[Stage Direction]
5,652,496
[Stage Direction]
5,609,906
[Stage Direction]
5,642,421
[Stage Direction]
5,650,451
[Stage Direction]
5,672,760
[Stage Direction]
5,639,651
[Stage Direction]
5,681,433
[Stage Direction]
Man
[Stage Direction]
1,029,982
[Stage Direction]
1,080,122
[Stage Direction]
1,126,609
[Stage Direction]
1,103,908
[Stage Direction]
1,110,192
[Stage Direction]
1,120,667
[Stage Direction]
1,115,086
[Stage Direction]
1,126,125
[Stage Direction]
1,120,206
[Stage Direction]
1,139,630
[Stage Direction]
1,142,923
[Stage Direction]
Sask
[Stage Direction]
1,397,838
[Stage Direction]
1,450 335
[Stage Direction]
1,458,178
[Stage Direction]
1,470,796
[Stage Direction]
1,477,010
[Stage Direction]
1,478,397
[Stage Direction]
1,482,050
[Stage Direction]
1,506,504
[Stage Direction]
1,488,98#
[Stage Direction]
1,491,291
[Stage Direction]
1,492,853
[Stage Direction]
Alta
[Stage Direction]
1,298,084
[Stage Direction]
1,328,773
[Stage Direction]
1,390,950
[Stage Direction]
1,367,858
[Stage Direction]
1,372,094
[Stage Direction]
1,382,068
[Stage Direction]
1,384,339
[Stage Direction]
1,394,192
[Stage Direction]
1,391,070
[Stage Direction]
1,392,683
[Stage Direction]
1,392,942
[Stage Direction]
B.C
[Stage Direction]
1,111,778
[Stage Direction]
1,152,554
[Stage Direction]
1,176,939
[Stage Direction]
1,187,474
[Stage Direction]
1,201,657
[Stage Direction]
1,212,207
[Stage Direction]
1,215,289
[Stage Direction]
1,230,527
[Stage Direction]
1,231,304
[Stage Direction]
1,237,544
[Stage Direction]
1,243,172
[Stage Direction]
N.W.T. and Yukon....
[Stage Direction]
-
[Stage Direction]
9,137
[Stage Direction]
' 21,958
[Stage Direction]
15,502
[Stage Direction]
25,787
[Stage Direction]
30,795
[Stage Direction]
23,200
[Stage Direction]
20,762
[Stage Direction]
22,683
[Stage Direction]
35,613
[Stage Direction]
22,249
[Stage Direction]
Total
[Stage Direction]
17,560,934
[Stage Direction]
18,294,389
[Stage Direction]
19,307,513
[Stage Direction]
19,050,972
[Stage Direction]
19,722,599
[Stage Direction]
19,998,612
[Stage Direction]
19,701,606
[Stage Direction]
19,635,759
[Stage Direction]
19,753,273
[Stage Direction]
19,893,967
[Stage Direction]
19,934,614
[Stage Direction]
Supply-Health and Welfare
[Mr. Claxton.l
DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL HEALTH AND WELFARE FAMILY ALLOWANCES DIVISION Statistics based on May, 1946, Family Allowances Payments
[Stage Direction]
Province
[Stage Direction]
Number of families
[Stage Direction]
Number of children
[Stage Direction]
Average allowance Per child
[Stage Direction]
Average allowance Per family
[Stage Direction]
Total amount
[Stage Direction]
$ cts.
[Stage Direction]
$ cts.
[Stage Direction]
$
[Stage Direction]
Prince Edward Island
[Stage Direction]
11,989
[Stage Direction]
30,550
[Stage Direction]
5 91
[Stage Direction]
15 07
[Stage Direction]
180,672
[Stage Direction]
Nova Scotia
[Stage Direction]
76,473
[Stage Direction]
182,776
[Stage Direction]
5 95
[Stage Direction]
14 22
[Stage Direction]
1,807,522
[Stage Direction]
New Brunswick
[Stage Direction]
59,259
[Stage Direction]
157,874
[Stage Direction]
5 86
[Stage Direction]
15 62
[Stage Direction]
925,856
[Stage Direction]
404,831
[Stage Direction]
1,143,591
[Stage Direction]
5 91
[Stage Direction]
16 71
[Stage Direction]
6,764,992
[Stage Direction]
Ontario
[Stage Direction]
458,775
[Stage Direction]
943,127
[Stage Direction]
6 02
[Stage Direction]
12 38
[Stage Direction]
5,681,433
[Stage Direction]
Manitoba
[Stage Direction]
88,361
[Stage Direction]
187,244
[Stage Direction]
6 10
[Stage Direction]
12 93
[Stage Direction]
1,142,923
[Stage Direction]
Saskatchewan
[Stage Direction]
106,821
[Stage Direction]
247,914
[Stage Direction]
6 02
[Stage Direction]
13 97
[Stage Direction]
1,492,853
[Stage Direction]
Alberta
[Stage Direction]
104,458
[Stage Direction]
230,977
[Stage Direction]
6 03
[Stage Direction]
13 33
[Stage Direction]
1,392,942
[Stage Direction]
British Columbia
[Stage Direction]
107,677
[Stage Direction]
206,020
[Stage Direction]
6 03
[Stage Direction]
11 54
[Stage Direction]
1-243,172
[Stage Direction]
Northwest Territories and Yukon
[Stage Direction]
1,589
[Stage Direction]
3,690
[Stage Direction]
6 03
[Stage Direction]
14 00
[Stage Direction]
22,249
[Stage Direction]
1,420,233
[Stage Direction]
3,333,763
[Stage Direction]
5 98
[Stage Direction]
14 04
[Stage Direction]
19,934,614
[Stage Direction]
Note: Northwest Territories and Yukon adjustments amounting to $11,899 not included.
Supply-Health and Welfare
STATISTICS BASED ON FAMILY ALLOWANCES PAYMENTS May, 1946
[Stage Direction]
P.E.I.
[Stage Direction]
N.S.
[Stage Direction]
N.B.
[Stage Direction]
Que.
[Stage Direction]
Out.
[Stage Direction]
Man.
[Stage Direction]
Sask.
[Stage Direction]
Alta.
[Stage Direction]
B.C.
[Stage Direction]
N.W.T. and Yukon
[Stage Direction]
Total
[Stage Direction]
1. Number of families
[Stage Direction]
11,989
[Stage Direction]
76,473
[Stage Direction]
59,259
[Stage Direction]
404,831
[Stage Direction]
458,775
[Stage Direction]
88,361
[Stage Direction]
106,821
[Stage Direction]
104,458
[Stage Direction]
107,677
[Stage Direction]
1,589
[Stage Direction]
1,420,233
[Stage Direction]
2. Number of Cheques Issued
[Stage Direction]
11,907
[Stage Direction]
75,832
[Stage Direction]
59,185
[Stage Direction]
403,433
[Stage Direction]
454,300
[Stage Direction]
88,354
[Stage Direction]
105,984
[Stage Direction]
103,694
[Stage Direction]
107,482
[Stage Direction]
513
[Stage Direction]
1,410,684
[Stage Direction]
3. Number of Children
[Stage Direction]
30,550
[Stage Direction]
182,776
[Stage Direction]
157,874
[Stage Direction]
1,143,591
[Stage Direction]
943,127
[Stage Direction]
187,244
[Stage Direction]
247,914
[Stage Direction]
230,977
[Stage Direction]
206,020
[Stage Direction]
3,690
[Stage Direction]
3,333,763
[Stage Direction]
4. Average Children per Family
[Stage Direction]
2-55
[Stage Direction]
2-39
[Stage Direction]
2-66
[Stage Direction]
2-82
[Stage Direction]
205
[Stage Direction]
212
[Stage Direction]
2-32
[Stage Direction]
2-21
[Stage Direction]
1-91
[Stage Direction]
2-32
[Stage Direction]
2-34
[Stage Direction]
5. Transfers from other Provinces
[Stage Direction]
35
[Stage Direction]
89
[Stage Direction]
36
[Stage Direction]
231
[Stage Direction]
566
[Stage Direction]
219
[Stage Direction]
290
[Stage Direction]
405
[Stage Direction]
424
[Stage Direction]
10
[Stage Direction]
2,305
[Stage Direction]
6. Transfers to other Provinces
[Stage Direction]
32
[Stage Direction]
277
[Stage Direction]
154
[Stage Direction]
209
[Stage Direction]
582
[Stage Direction]
521
[Stage Direction]
263
[Stage Direction]
541
[Stage Direction]
350
[Stage Direction]
12
[Stage Direction]
2,941
[Stage Direction]
7. Other Address Changes
[Stage Direction]
165
[Stage Direction]
1,777
[Stage Direction]
874
[Stage Direction]
7,801
[Stage Direction]
10,109
[Stage Direction]
1,793
[Stage Direction]
1,535
[Stage Direction]
2,459
[Stage Direction]
5,148
[Stage Direction]
7
[Stage Direction]
31,668
[Stage Direction]
8. Changes to Higher Age Group
[Stage Direction]
693
[Stage Direction]
3,631
[Stage Direction]
2,927
[Stage Direction]
28,381
[Stage Direction]
17,364
[Stage Direction]
3,479
[Stage Direction]
4,964
[Stage Direction]
4,562
[Stage Direction]
3,784
[Stage Direction]
292
[Stage Direction]
70,077
[Stage Direction]
9. Percentage of Monthly Automatic Changes.
[Stage Direction]
2-27
[Stage Direction]
1-99
[Stage Direction]
1-85
[Stage Direction]
2-48
[Stage Direction]
1-84
[Stage Direction]
1-86
[Stage Direction]
2-00
[Stage Direction]
1-97
[Stage Direction]
1-84
[Stage Direction]
7-91
[Stage Direction]
2-10
[Stage Direction]
Supply-Health and Welfare
Privilege-Mr. Pouliot
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, June 18, 1946