1950-02-24

CURLING


Mr. E. A. McCusker (Regina City):: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege, I should like to call the attention of hon. members to the fact that sitting in the gallery today are six young curling teams, four from the western provinces of Canada, and two from Ontario. They have been taking part in the dominion competition in Quebec city for the Sifton trophy, emblematic of the championship of school curling in Canada. They tell me that they have had a wonderful time there, and much has been done to cement the entente cordiale.
I am also pleased to announce that the team from my home city, the Scott collegiate institute team, was successful. That in itself is not important. The important thing is that today throughout Canada there are thousands of young boys and girls learning this game, which teaches people to lose gracefully and win graciously.



FEDERAL DISTRICT COMMISSION


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: I should like to table the fiftieth annual report of the federal district commission, in English. I am sorry that the French version is not ready. It is in the hands of the translators, and will be tabled as soon as it can be prepared.



COMBINES INVESTIGATION ACT


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to announce the appointment of Mr. Thomas D. MacDonald, K.C., as commissioner under the Combines Investigation Act. Mr. MacDonald graduated from Dalhousie university in arts in 1931, in law in 1933, and immediately entered the department of the attorney general of Nova Scotia. In seven years he had risen to become the head of the department as deputy attorney general in 1940, and except for a period of war service he occupied that position continuously until 1949, when, in April, he
resigned to accept a position with the federal Department of Justice, as superintendent of bankruptcy, and also as counsel. In that post he served until he accepted the present position.



MAIN ESTIMATES, 1950-51 EXPLANATORY STATEMENT OF THE MINISTER OF FINANCE

[Stage Direction]
A message from His Excellency the Governor General transmitting estimates for the financial year ending March 31, 1951, was presented by Hon. Douglas Abbott (Minister of Finance) and read by Mr. Speaker to the house.
Hon. Douglas Abboit (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, it has been the practice in previous years to table the estimates and move that they be referred to the committee of supply without any explanatory statement in this house. My predecessor as minister and I have usually sent a brief explanatory statement to the press immediately after tabling the estimates. This year, in response to various suggestions, I propose to make a brief explanatory statement to the house itself when presenting the estimates.
It will be observed that the total of the estimates being proposed for the new fiscal year commencing April 1 is $2,308 million. This includes those items for which continuing statutory authority for the expenditure is already available-a total of $1,011 million- as well as the 560 votes for expenditure which we are putting before this house for its approval, and which add up to $1,297 million. In addition, we are proposing votes for loans and investments which will create active assets and which total $105 million. These are, of course, not included in the expenditure totals.
First, I wish to indicate how these figures compare with those for the current fiscal year now drawing to its close in March. As usual, we have shown throughout the estimates the comparable figures for the votes already passed by the house this past year, including supplementary estimates made to date, and the forecasts of statutory expenditure placed before the house with the estimates last year. These add up to $2,335 million-which is about $27 million more than the estimates now presented for the new year.
It is difficult to determine what past figures make a satisfactory comparison with those


Mr. Gordon Graydon (Peel):: May I be permitted to make a suggestion which I hope will find some favour in connection with consideration of the estimates? It is not a new suggestion, and I hope the government, having considered the matter from previous sessions, will be agreeable to following it, at any rate to some extent.

Main Estimates
In the past we have been pursuing a rather irregular course in connection with the estimates. Some departments are brought in1 day-after day, while other departments are not touched until the last. My suggestion is that this session we try to find an orderly way of dealing with the estimates so that they may all be covered on something like an equal basis.
I am going to suggest to the Prime Minister that the house devote one day a week to estimates, and that each week the estimates of a new department be introduced. Having in mind the normal length of a session, we would reach the later part of the session with all departments dealt with although they might not be completed.
I think this would meet public desire, because no one could then say that parliament had not given all the estimates fair consideration as they went through. Of course toward the end of the session a number of matters would still require to be examined; nevertheless the examination of estimates would be spread over the entire field, something which, to the knowledge of all of us, has not been done for the past number of sessions.
I make this suggestion in perfectly good faith, in the hope that we may be able to establish a custom and practice in the House of Commons that not only will meet public favour but will prove of great convenience to the government and to parliament in general.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, on the very day of the opening of parliament, dealing with the motion for the consideration of the address in reply to the speech from the throne, I declared that that suggestion had been made and had been considered, and that it would be our endeavour to try it out. It was for the purpose of getting into a position to do that that the motion was presented in the form in which it was.
We shall be most happy to attempt to get the co-operation of groups in the house to carry out that procedure, namely, the calling one day in each week of a department that has not previously been called, so that on the item covering administration there can be general discussion of the affairs of that department. I hope we shall get the co-operation of the various groups to the extent of not having the whole of that day spent in discussing the motion to go into supply.


Gordon Graydon: That will depend upon the government's removing the grievances.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
(Mr. Graydon.]


Hon. Paul Martin (Acting Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table, for the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell), P.C. 474. In connection with this order in council I wish to announce that the government is making an extension of unemployment insurance coverage in the lumbering and logging industry. With this important step about 75,000 workers in industry will receive the protection of unemployment insurance.
It will be recalled that the exclusion of lumbering and logging in the 1940 act was due mainly to the difficulty of administration. The chief difficulties were:
(1)	the seasonality of the industry in most
parts of Canada except on the west coast;
(2)	the inaccessible location of some of the
operations;
(3)	the high turnover of employees;
(4)	the large amount of subcontracting, and
(5)	the large number of farmers, fishermen
and other non-insured persons who work in logging camps for very short periods.
Initially attention was directed towards the establishment of the over-all insurance scheme, and later, after experience had been gained from the operation of that program, questions of extending the coverage to some of the excepted occupations received consideration in the light of newly-gained experience.
Both the unemployment insurance commission and the unemployment insurance advisory committee have for several years given a great deal of study to the advisability of and ways and means of extending coverage to this industry.
In 1946 employees in lumbering and logging in the province of British Columbia were brought under insurable employment. The government insured lumbering and logging in British Columbia because in that province it is an all-year-round industry, whereas in other parts of Canada the seasonal factor is important. Further, it was considered that it would be useful to gain some experience in one area in Canada before extending coverage to other areas.
Since this time the advisory committee and the commission have reviewed the question of further extensions, and the commission has held public hearings. Every effort has

been made to obtain workable provision for the coverage of those employees in the industry who require protection.
As a result of full investigation of the many phases of the industry it has been decided that seasonal regulations under the Unemployment Insurance Act will apply to the industry except in British Columbia, where of course they are now in an insurable state.
This means those people whose only insurable employment is in lumbering and logging can draw benefits only during the logging season. In the prairies this season is for the time being regarded as from November 1 to April 15, and in eastern Canada, from November 1 to March 31. However, people who are employed in lumbering and logging during part of the year and in other insurable employments during the remainder of the year, even to a limited extent, are not affected by the seasonal regulations, which are designed to exclude from benefit in the off-season only those whose employment is seasonal.
Provision has also been made for the voluntary exclusion from coverage of farmers, hunters, fishermen, and others whose main employment is not insurable when these persons do not expect to work in lumbering and logging for more than sixty days in any year. It would be unfair to take unemployment contributions from persons who would be unable to obtain sufficient contributions to qualify for benefit. Accordingly this exclusion is voluntary to allow flexibility that might be needed in certain cases but in the main only affects those whose contributions from their work in this industry would not be sufficient to give them benefits under the act.
Up to the present time certain planing mills and saw mills which work only part of the year have been excluded. These saw mills will also be brought under insurance coverage.
April 1 has been set as the date of commencement of these new provisions, because it is thought to be the most suitable date to begin contribution collections. It comes at a time when employers in the industry will not be in the position of having to apply the regulations to their employees when their payroll staff is overloaded with work. Since insurance books are renewed each year on April 1, it will be an advantage to issue books for the new insurance year 1950-51 rather than to issue books at an earlier date for the current fiscal year, which would have to be renewed shortly afterwards.
Unemployment Insurance
These coverage provisions have been carefully adapted to the particular needs of the industry. As I mentioned yesterday in this house, our seasonal trends are, because of our climatic conditions, more pronounced than in other countries, and we believe we should shape our insurance scheme as far as practicable to take these conditions into account. This extension of insurance coverage to lumbering and logging in parts of Canada where the industry is highly seasonal will bring to these workers the protection they need and deserve against the hazards of unemployment. The broadening of coverage under this measure is another important advance in the development of a more comprehensive insurance program as a first line of defence for workers and their families against unemployment.


Mr. Fleming:: I should like to ask the minister a question arising out of his statement. Has any decision been reached as to the inclusion of hospital workers?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I have already answered that question. The hon. member will find it was answered last night.


Mr. Cruickshank:: I should like to ask the Acting Minister of Labour a question arising out of the remarks he has just made. Is he not aware of the fact that three members from British Columbia forced the government to bring loggers and lumbermen under the unemployment insurance provisions?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Much as I respect the hon. member and his colleagues from British Columbia, I must say the fact is that the government was not at all forced into the situation as my hon. friend indicates. The government examined the question, and has done so over the years in the light of what it regarded as practicable. While the hon. member and others may have helped, it would be wholly inaccurate to suggest that his actions, or the actions of any other persons, forced the government into the action it has taken.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


George Alexander Cruickshank: That does not bother me at all, Mr. Speaker. If the minister will read Hansard for the day the measure was introduced, when he was a very junior member, as I was, he will find that there were only three members who took the stand I did.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Graydon: In the absence of the Minister of Trade and Commerce I
202	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. It is based on a reported statement of the Secretary of State for External Affairs on his return from the commonwealth meeting in Ceylon. Has Canada received any requests, officially or unofficially, from other countries for the appointment of Canadian trade representatives? If so, when were such requests made, and from what countries did they come?	[DOT]


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: As the question refers to a statement reported to have been made by the Secretary of State for External Affairs, I hope the hon. member will not mind receiving the answer from him. I understand he is ready to make it.


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the statement to which the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) has referred as having been made by me is apparently one that appeared in the press last week, in which I am quoted as saying, in respect of our visit to the Far East:
We found very great friendship and admiration for Canada and a general desire to increase trade and economic contacts with this country.
After the quotation of what I had said there followed this paragraph, which is presumably a condensed report of something else I am supposed to have said. It reads:
There were requests from several countries for Canadian trade representatives.
I have looked up the record of this particular conference. I said at that time that members of the governments of certain countries in that area where we are not now officially represented had expressed the desire that we establish such representation, diplomatic or trade or both, as soon as we found it possible.
In answer to the second part of the hon. member's question as to where such requests came from, I think it would be a little embarrassing if I mentioned in public the names of the countries, because it would possibly give the impression that they are more anxious to receive Canadian representation than we are to receive representation from those countries. The attitude I took in reply, Mr. Speaker, was that we are of course anxious to extend our trade and diplomatic representation in all countries where it is in the interest of Canada to do so, but that the extension of the diplomatic and trade services has to be governed by financial and other considerations.
IMr. Graydon.]




Paul Joseph James Martin: the second reading of Bill No. 8, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940.


Mr. J. G. Diefenbaker (Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I intend to make a few observations on the motion for second reading, though most matters were dealt with yesterday in>
the discussion of the resolution.
Before beginning my general remarks in this connection I feel that mention should be made of the general regret on the part of all hon. members, irrespective of where they sit in this house, at the fact that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) is indisposed and unable himself to move second reading. If there is one member or minister in this house who enjoys the friendship of all-and after all, that is the way it should be in parliament -it is the Minister of Labour. We all trust that very shortly he will be back in the house discharging his responsibilities.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: It will interest the hon. member if I say that yesterday I received an encouraging letter from the Minister of Labour. I hope, as my hon. friend does, that within a very short time the minister will return to the house in his usual good health.


John George Diefenbaker: And saying things, as he always does, in so kindly a manner.
It was only about half an hour ago, Mr. Speaker, that my hon. friend the acting leader of the opposition (Mr. Graydon) asked me to say a few words on the question of unemployment insurance. In the interval I looked up the representations and recommendations made by the Sirois commission, as well as those made by the dominion government to the dominion-provincial conference of 1945. When one reads those recommendations it is difficult to understand what happened to them; for the extent to which they have been adopted is so infinitesimal, as compared with what was sought by those representations, that it seems beyond comprehension that there should' have been any controversy at all in the matter.
The Sirois commission recommended that the dominion should be responsible for the employable unemployed. The bill now before us, as was said yesterday, effective though it may be as far as it goes, omits so many things, having regard to present conditions, that in the opinion of the opposition it is most inadequate to meet the unemployment situation of today. I go back to 1945; I am going

to read a tew of the recommendations made at that time by members of the government, with a view to offering certain suggestions with respect to further amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act. As I see it, on this motion for second reading not only are we discussing the general principle of the bill; we are also discussing the situation facing this country today, the whole matter of unemployment.
At page 6 of the report of proceedings of the 1945' conference, the then prime minister said:
We are convinced that the people of Canada expect governments-all governments-to accept responsibility for creating conditions which will ensure high and stable employment. To create such conditions, we believe it should be made possible, through reduction and simplification of taxes, and in other ways, for private enterprise to operate boldly and courageously.
I pause here to say that at that time the then prime minister particularly mentioned that in order to encourage employment it was necessary to reduce taxation. Then he went on to say:
We believe the state-and by the state, may I say again, I mean provinces as well as dominion- should design programs of public development and conservation which can be readily expanded or contracted to help in balancing the rise and fall of other sources of employment.
I point this out because, as was suggested yesterday, I feel that many unemployed people in this dominion will not be covered by the Unemployment Insurance Act as it now stands, or even with these suggested amendments. There are many excepted employments; there are many casual workers. But if they be unemployed, no matter what their classification, they demand and deserve help at this time. I referred to public works. The present Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) did so as well at pages 55 to 60 of the proceedings, when he said:
The purpose should not be to find a "cure-all" for unemployment in huge expenditures on public works. Rather, the problem is one of devising a sound and consistent program of public improvements-


Paul Joseph James Martin: 
John George Diefenbaker: All or at least some of these recommendations were made at the dominion-provincial conference of 1945. At that time it was suggested that the question of unemployment should be faced in a certain way. In a moment I am coming to what the Minister of Labour had to say on that occasion. He provided for alternatives first in the Unemployment Insurance Act, and then in provision for those who are employable but are unemployed. He asserted that they were the responsibility of the federal authority. Finally the minister made certain suggestions as to increasing the ambit of the Unemployment Insurance Act.
What I am doing is discussing the principle at issue here. As the member has said, the purpose of the measure now proposed is to meet the situation prevailing today. We in the opposition say that, as far as it goes, it will meet part of the situation, but it cannot provide for the more than 100,000 unemployed who do not come within the ambit of the Unemployment Insurance Act. It is for this reason, sir, that I am discussing the recommendations of 1945. I trust that I may be permitted to continue, even though a reading of the promises made by the members of the government in 1945 indicates that many of those promises have fallen into the limbo of things forgotten and unperformed. I await your ruling, sir.


Mr. Speaker:: It is rather difficult to determine just what is the principle of the amending bill before the house. I do feel, however, that it has to do with the bringing of additional workers within the provisions of the present act, known as the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940. I do not see any provisions in the bill which provide for creating employment.


Gordon Graydon: That is the trouble with it.


Mr. Speaker:: That may or may not be the trouble with it; I am not giving an opinion on that. This bill, however, is not one for creating employment, as I see it; nor does it deal with questions which create employment. It deals rather with making the act wider in its application, so that persons may be brought within its provisions who do not now come under it. I hope that hon. members will now confine their remarks to the issue.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, bowing to your ruling, I would point out to the house
204	HOUSE OF
Unemployment Insurance that a portion of this bill in no way deals with unemployment insurance. In fact it deals with what is called unemployment assistance, which is quite a different thing from unemployment insurance, as was pointed out at the dominion-provincial conference of 1945. Supplementary benefits, under sections 87A and following, are not related to unemployment insurance; they are an alternative to unemployment insurance.
What I was trying to suggest, and I shall not pursue it, was that supplementary benefits, rather than meeting the situation in this country, will merely reach a few who are covered thereby. There will still remain a large area of unemployment about which nothing is being done, either under the Unemployment Insurance Act or under the provision which deals with supplementary benefits.
In 1945 the Minister of Labour made his proposals, and they are of interest today. These were the proposals of the dominion government, and in some parts they are as well forgotten as were those other proposals for social security in connection with old age pensions.
The minister said:
Over the past seven or eight years there have been recommendations by the national employment commission, the Sirois commission and others, that the dominion should assume responsibility for necessary relief to the employable unemployed. It has been generally suggested that the dominion should accept this obligation as part of any general settlement with the provinces.
Then he goes on to say this:
The' dominion government would accept responsibility for ensuring that there shall be provided a reasonable minimum payment for the maintenance of employable unemployed persons through
(a) the extension as rapidly as possible of unemployment insurance to cover all employees.
I point out, sir, that those suggestions were made almost five years ago, and since that time there have been few additions to those who come within the terms of the act. A reference was made today to the inclusion of people who are employed in lumbering and logging. There still remain many other excepted employments which, under the terms of this bill, will not receive anything. Then the Minister of Labour said:
In the period when such extension is being carried out and before insurance benefits properly so-called can be built up, by instituting a system of unemployment assistance to be administered in close co-operation with the unemployment insurance commission.
This is, in fact, what we have here-unemployment assistance. It is called by a different name-supplementary benefits. How far the government has departed from these promises of 1945! With regard to unemployment assistance, which is just another form for the supplementary benefits, the minister said 

that as part of the government's promises to the provinces, in addition to unemployment insurance-I emphasize those words, "in addition to"-the dominion will set up a system of unemployment assistance under which it will pay benefits equal to eighty-five per cent of the unemployment insurance benefits to unemployed persons able and willing to work who are not entitled or have ceased to be entitled to unemployment insurance benefits. Why has that' not been carried out? Why is it now reduced to eighty per cent?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I do not like to rise again, but my hon. friend is continuing to talk about unemployment assistance, which does not involve the principle of insurance. If I sit in my seat and say nothing, in spite of your ruling, sir, I shall be admitting the relevancy of what the hon. gentleman is saying. All this should be said on another occasion. I do not think this is the moment to enter upon a discussion of that problem. We are dealing with an amendment to the Unemployment Insurance Act, and I submit we should adhere to the ruling.


Mr. Knowles:: On the point of order, I believe Your Honour was correct in the previous ruling to the effect that, in debating this bill, we should debate unemployment insurance and not the methods of providing employment. I believe I am correctly stating what Your Honour ruled. Since that ruling was made, the member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) has adhered to it. He has not been talking about a means of providing employment; he has been talking about proposed changes in the Unemployment Insurance Act. I say that as long as we stay within that sphere of discussion of the Unemployment Insurance Act, we should be in order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: If we do that.


John George Diefenbaker: Apparently my hon.
friend has not read this.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I have been accused of writing some of it.


John George Diefenbaker: I am reading from the dominion-provincial submissions, page 387, a summary of dominion proposals. I can understand my hon. friend's diffidence about hearing a matter such as this discussed, but I am pointing out that it is the same thing as is now brought in under another name, with the exception that the government has not carried out the promise it made in 1945 to provide for eighty-five per cent of the expenditures in connection with these assistance grants.
I submit, sir, that I am in order. If we cannot discuss this matter under unemployment insurance, when the government itself placed

it under that in 1945, then my hon. friend is simply endeavouring to throttle discussion of this matter which is so important to the people as a whole.


Mr. Speaker:: From what the minister said I did not gather that he was endeavouring to throttle discussion. He was bringing to my attention the fact that this bill deals with unemployment insurance, and not with benefits which are being paid to people who are unemployed. I gather from the act that this bill deals with persons who have been employed and have been entitled to benefits. Further assistance is being given to them if they previously came within the provisions . of the act. As I said this is quite a long bill. I do not like to be too technical, but I would point out that in dealing with these amendments we are not dealing with the whole Unemployment Insurance Act; we are dealing with certain phases of the act which are being amended.
I would ask hon. members to endeavour to keep their remarks within the confines of the amendments which are now before the house.


Mr. Maclnnis:: Mr. Speaker, may I say a word on the point of order?-because I think we may have to have a decision on it before this matter of debate is finally settled. The only way to understand what we are talking about is to know what the item on the order paper says. Item No. 5 on the order paper reads:
Second reading of Bill No. 8, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940.
I maintain that the whole Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940, is open for debate. If the minister did not want a full debate he should have taken the precaution to limit the debate by having the title read something like this: "An act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940, extension of benefits." If this had been the title of the bill, we would have been limited to a discussion of extension of benefits; but this is a general revision of the Unemployment Insurance Act, and I am going to have something to say on that when my turn comes. We cannot limit discussion on this bill until we get a new title for it.
Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, second edition, citation 753, reads:
The second reading of a bill is that stage when it is proper to enter into a discussion and propose a motion relative to the principle of the measure.
There is a great variety of principles involved in the measure that is now before us; consequently other amendments can be moved to the Unemployment Insurance Act. Therefore the whole act is now before us.
Unemployment Insurance


Gordon Graydon: May I suggest that this is a bill for insurance against unemployment? If the house is not going to be allowed to discuss unemployment in all its phases, how can it properly be asked to discuss insurance against unemployment? There is no place that I can see in our whole sessional set-up that lends itself more properly to discussion of unemployment, and all the factors that enter into it, than the very bill that we have before us. Surely when we are trying to establish an act for insurance against unemployment, that is the time to discuss unemployment itself. If we cannot do it on this bill, the government might as well say that they are going to close the books on the whole question of unemployment so far as the Commons is concerned. They have closed their eyes up to the present time, and now they are going to close the books.


Mr. Green:: With great respect, may I point out that I think Your Honour was in error in stating that this bill covered only those employees who have already established entitlement to insurance. That may be true of groups 1 and 2; but if Your Honour will refer to section 20 of the bill you will find in new section 87B that classes 3 and 4 consist of employees who have never had entitlement to insurance. I think that that should make a material difference in the ruling made by Your Honour. It certainly is perfectly obvious that the amendment is not confined to persons who have been entitled to insurance.


Mr. Browne (St. John's West):: I should like to direct the minister's attention to the promise he gave yesterday that he would permit a good deal of latitude if we adopted the resolution. However, sir, some enlightenment may be gathered by looking back at the resolution, which dealt with more than merely special supplementary benefits. The resolution reads:
To provide for supplementary benefits during the winter season in any year and government financial contribution in consequence thereof, for additional insurance coverage, for readjustment and simplification of rates of contribution, and for consequential amendments; to provide also for an increase in the membership of the unemployment insurance advisory committee from six to eight members; and to provide further that the members of the national employment committee shall receive the same remuneration as the members of the unemployment insurance advisory committee.
Bearing in mind the great importance of this subject not only to hon. members but to the hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country, I feel that the minister should now reconsider the suggestion he made to Your Honour and permit the latitude that he promised yesterday.


Stanley Howard Knowles: For Your Honour's consideration may I also suggest you note that the

Unemployment Insurance amending bill proposes changes in the rates of premium that workers are to pay; it proposes changes in the rates of benefits the workers are to receive; it proposes changes in the statutory conditions under which workers receive those benefits; it proposes changes in the rules of evidence before the courts-
Mr Fournier (Hull): That is not a point of order. The hon. member is making a speech. Why not wait?


Stanley Howard Knowles: It is a point of order,
because you are questioning whether or not it opens up the whole act. In addition to all these changes, and others that I shall point out in my speech that the Minister of Public Works is talking about, there is a whole new section with regard to supplemental benefits. Actually it is a rewriting of the whole Unemployment Insurance Act. While I stand by my concurrence in Your Honour's ruling that in this debate we have to stick to unemployment insurance, still I submit that Your Honour should recognize that this is practically a whole new Unemployment Insurance Act, and that the whole Unemployment Insurance Act should be up for discussion.


Mr. Speaker:: I am not entirely in accord
With what was said by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) with regard to this bill permitting a general discussion of the Unemployment Insurance Act. I do not think that merely because a few words are added or omitted in the title of a bill, that would permit or prevent a general discussion. I am inclined to the view that discussion should relate to the principle of the amending bill, irrespective of the title.
The hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Green) drew my attention to clause 87B. I notice in that clause there is added a class who work in lumbering and logging for at least ninety days in any period of twelve months falling within the year and a half prior to a claim being made. That probably does bring in workers who had never formerly been covered by the act. But they had been employed in a specific industry.
I believe I have made my position clear. The minister did say, and intimated again a moment ago, I gathered, that he does not wish to be too technical. So far as I am concerned, however, I do not think the terms of this bill are wide enough to permit a discussion of the whole question of unemployment. This bill refers, not to methods of providing employment, but to unemployment insurance.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, if I understand your direction aright, I am permitted to discuss the question from the point of view
[Mr. Knowles.l
of the 1945 representations made by the government of Canada to the provinces in regard to the question of unemployment insurance, or unemployment assistance.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The first is right, but not to unemployment assistance, unless it is on an insurance basis.


John George Diefenbaker: Oh, Mr. Speaker, it was all together in 1945, and it is all together now.


Paul Joseph James Martin: No.


John George Diefenbaker: All the government have done is this: they have changed the name from unemployment assistance to supplementary benefits. Your Honour will have noticed how anxious the minister was to raise this, question. Apparently in this way they would endeavour to delude us into believing that they have not departed from the promises they made to the provinces in 1945.
I point out that these were the representations made regarding unemployment insurance and employable unemployed by the Minister of Labour to the premiers and representatives of the different provinces. He made this suggestion:
As rapidly as possible the Unemployment Insurance Act will be widened to embrace all employed persons.
The question necessarily arises now, after five years: Why is it that there are so many excepted classes of persons today who are being passed by in the matter of assistance.
The minister went on to say this:
As already stated the objective would be to bring into insurance in a relatively short time the whole employed population; when this had been accomplished the only employees who might require assistance, ini contrast to insurance, would be those who had exhausted their insurance benefits or failed to qualify.
Those are the same people today who come within the provisions of the supplementary benefits. Then he went on to say:
By that time experience with the extended insurance scheme would enable a decision to be made whether to extend the duration of benefits and shorten the period of qualification for insurance.
The question naturally arises here: Why should not the period of qualification be reduced? Mention has been made of the hundreds of millions of dollars amassed as a result of the contributions. A period of five years has gone by now and experience has shown that the period of qualification should indeed be reduced.
Having pointed out what should be done with those who had exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits, the minister said this:
In the case of an insured person who has exhausted insurance benefits, or who lacks the full qualification for insurance benefits, the scale of

assistance would be approximately eighty-five per cent of the insurance benefit to which such person's contribution class previously entitled him or would in due course entitle him.
I ask the minister this question: Why has there been this change from the eighty-five per cent, the promise made in 1945, to the eighty per cent of today? Why has there been this material change?
In 1945 the Minister of Labour undertook as follows:
Payments for unemployment assistance would be made under authority of an appropriation for this purpose, out of the consolidated revenue fund, and not out of the unemployment insurance fund.
Today the new scheme is this-a complete departure from that of 1945.


An hon. Member:: Shame.


John George Diefenbaker: Today the scheme is that the provision be made for contributions on the part of workers, and in addition to that, in the other provisions, for increasing the ambit of qualifications in the salary limit from $3,120 to $4,800. What the minister is expected to explain to the house and to the provinces-which have no responsibility in connection with unemployables-is why the change that has been made; why the alteration? Who made the recommendation? Did the advisory committee suggest that the promises and pledges of 1945 should be departed from in this manner?
What provision is to be made in connection with supplementary benefits for young men and women who have none of the qualifications to ensure them payment of benefits, and who are unemployed today? What about those in categories not comprised within the act? These are questions which the unemployed in this country expect to have answered.
Instead of saying:	Let us not discuss the
question of unemployment here, surely the minister's attitude should be:	Let us face
it; let us endeavour to arrive at some solution. The hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) spoke about shutting the book, and about the government shutting their eyes to unemployment. Surely they do not want parliament to shut its mouth on this problem, one which is so important to half a million people in this dominion today.
So far as the general purpose of the bill is concerned, we accept it; but we say it does not go far enough-first, in the matter of the payment of benefits; secondly, in the fact that it is a departure from the promise of 1945, made to the dominion-provincial conference; third, that parliament should consider the period of unemployment for qualification, and its reduction; fourth, that parliament should consider, under this act, the
Unemployvient Insurance inclusion for supplementary benefits of those who today are unemployed and have no one to look to but the federal authority.
The provinces have no responsibility. The Sirois commission report, which I have here, places the responsibility for unemployment expenditures, so far as employables are concerned, on the federal authority; and that responsibility was accepted in 1945. It will not be discharged by an act as incomplete, with its amendments, as is the Unemployment Insurance Act of today.


Angus MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, I wish to associate myself with the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) when, in his opening remarks, he referred to the indisposition of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) and expressed the hope that he may shortly return to the house in his full vigour. I too sincerely hope so. I have been associated with the Minister of Labour for many years and although we have not always seen eye to eye in connection with certain matters I have the highest regard for him.
I spoke yesterday on the resolution stage of this bill and I do not want to repeat anything that I said at that time. If it were not for certain things that have happened I would be quite willing to let this reading go without saying anything at all. But I do protest as strongly as I possibly can against the way the government has treated the house in regard to this measure. We were told-1 shall read the statement of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent)-in so many words that the purpose of this bill was to extend the supplementary benefits and it was desirable that it should go through the house now so that it could be quickly enacted and the benefits paid, despite the fact that on the opening day of this session we passed a resolution providing that the speech from the throne would have precedence over all other business this week and that for next week it would have precedence for three days in the week, with government business having precedence for the other two.
This bill was said to be so important, the purpose it was to fulfil was said to be so important, that we could not wait until next week; it had to be done at once. If the purpose of the bill was what we were told it was last Wednesday I would have no objection. At the adjournment of the house on Wednesday the Prime Minister said, as reported on page 151 of Hansard:
I understand that the Acting Minister of Labour has been discussing with the leaders of the several groups the possibility of taking up tomorrow, notwithstanding the special order made in respect of this debate, resolution No. 10 on today's order paper dealing with unemployment insurance in an effort

Unemployment Insurance to have that resolution considered and the legislation enacted so that the payments it would authorize could be made as from the first of March.
Then the Prime Minister went on to say that he was informed that preparations by the Department of Labour were so far advanced that the benefits would be paid as soon as the legislation was passed, and he continued:
If my understanding is correct, the leaders of the several groups have said that they realize it would relieve distress to have that done as soon as possible.
That was the understanding upon which we allowed this measure to have priority over the debate on the speech from the throne. What have we got? What is placed before us? This is not a short measure to extend the benefits of the act; we have before us a bill of seventeen pages dealing with 25 different sections of the Unemployment Insurance Act. I insist that that is not the way the government should treat this house. This is a general revision of the Unemployment Insurance Act.
When the Unemployment Insurance Act was introduced in 1940 it was referred to a special committee and witnesses from all over the country were heard. We now have a general revision of the act and an attempt is being made to rush it through the house. A great many of those who will be affected by it were not consulted or did not see the bill. As a matter of fact, I did not see the bill until noon today.


John George Diefenbaker: We are all in the same position.


Angus MacInnis: A government that wants the co-operation of this house, a government that wants the co-operation of various sections of the community, should not treat this house or the community in that way. I protest the deception that was put over on hon. members of this house.	[DOT]


Paul Joseph James Martin: I know the hon. gentleman will not mind my suggesting this to him because he observes the rules so carefully, but I think perhaps the word "deception" in reference to the Prime Minister or to those who made the arrangements is not really an accurate description of the situation and I know he would not want to use that word.


Angus MacInnis: If the minister thinks that "deception" is a little too strong I am quite willing to have him suggest a more moderate or less extreme or more general word that will meet the situation. In any case I am glad that he admits that there was something put over the house.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Oh, no.
[Mr. Maclnnis.)


Angus MacInnis: I am quite willing to leave it at that.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I protest strongly and say to the hon. gentleman that nothing was put over the house.


Angus MacInnis: There is no doubt something was put over the house. As a matter of fact, what should be done is to have a special bill brought in dealing with the extension of the supplementary benefits and postpone the rest of the legislation until such time as the labour bodies, the employers' associations and even the members of the advisory committee set up under the act have had an opportunity to look over the amendments proposed.


Mr. Speaker:: The minister has raised a question as to the use of words by the hon. member for Vancouver East, to the effect that the Prime Minister has misled the house. I do not think that that is parliamentary.


Angus MacInnis: I find it difficult sometimes to find a word to express my feelings. I have not had the advantage of a formal education and the fact that my mother tongue is Gaelic does not make it any easier. Words do not come easily to me, and I wish to thank you very much for giving me the proper word- misled the house.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member suggests that the Prime Minister deliberately misled the house that is not parliamentary.


Angus MacInnis: I did not use the word "deliberately."


Paul Joseph James Martin: I think the hon. gepfleman ought to withdraw that.


Mr, Speaker:: If the hon. member for Vancouver East did not actually use the word "deliberately" he gave the impression that the Prime Minister had deliberately deceived the house. I think he should withdraw the imputation.


Angus MacInnis: After what I have said I find it very difficult, even at Your Honour's request, to withdraw the impression that I have left with the house because that is the impression I got. However, if it is unparliamentary to use the phrase, of course I withdraw it.
Here is the kind of thing that we have in this bill, and this is by no means the most important section in the bill.
Section 87E, dealing with suitable employment, has nothing to do with supplementary benefits. It is not required at all to take care of the critical unemployment situation confronting us today. The section reads:
Any employment that, in the opinion of an insurance officer, a person who claims supplementary benefit is able to perform shall be deemed suitable, notwithstanding paragraphs (b) and (c) of subsection 2, and subsection 3, of section 40 of this act.

That is an important amendment. It varies the principle embodied in the act when it was first drafted. It leaves the question of suitable employment to the insurance officer. I submit to you we should not have amendments of that kind put before us and the house asked to rush them through without giving the people who are affected by the legislation, the people who pay the contributions, an opportunity to see what the effect of the amendments is going to be. I deplore the way this matter has been handled.


Mr. C. E. Johnston (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, I want to say a word at this stage. I do not intend to go into the subject of general unemployment although, so far as I know, the government agenda does not provide any other place where we might better discuss that problem. As was expressed clearly the other day by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Shaw), we see no great objection to the amendment in that it gives a little bit more relief to some of those who are unemployed if they come under the legislation. Generally speaking, it seems to me that the bill is not going to benefit a great many more than it did before. It is true that there will now come under the bill some industries which were not included before. The ceiling has been raised from $3,120 to $4,800, and that will bring in a great amount by way of extra contributions. To that extent the fund will be swelled. Whether the increased benefits will be in the same ratio as the increase in collections is problematical. Probably the minister will explain that as we go along. Certainly the benefits that are to be paid under the supplementaries are not going to be sufficient to take care of the problem involved.
One thing that concerns me very much is the thousands of unemployed who are not going to benefit as a direct result of these amendments. When the legislation was introduced I was in hopes that the government would see to it that the amendments to be made to the legislation would be comprehensive enough to cover at least a large majority of the people who are now unemployed. I want to join with the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) in his statement as to the procedure that is being followed in connection with this measure. The amendments presented to us are most complicated when you compare them with the original act, and it seems to me that it will take a tremendous amount of work in order to get the thing in proper shape. In my judgment this is no place to do that. I think it would be far better for the bill to be referred to a committee where it can have the thorough study that it deserves. Otherwise
Unemployment Insurance when the new amendments come into operation we are going to find ourselves in the position where a great many worthy organizations which should have been included under the bill will be exempt. In that respect it is not meeting the conditions for which it is intended. I should think the acting minister would be only too pleased to have the bill referred to a committee. In that way it could be brought back to the house in a satisfactory form to which the whole house could agree. I strongly recommend that procedure to the minister.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I wish to join in the protest that has already been made by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis). As members in all parts of the house well know, it took the unanimous consent of the house for this measure to be dealt with yesterday and today. I certainly can speak for myself, and I think for others too, when I say that we gave unanimous consent because we were led to believe that the important part, if not the whole of the bill, dealt with ways and means of getting supplementary benefits to certain people now unemployed and not receiving them.
It was pointed out to us that the department had already made the necessary arrangements and that certain cheques, as a matter of fact, could go out right away if we facilitated the passage of the measure. That is the kind of situation that we frequently find ourselves in, but in view of the obvious distress, to use the Prime Minister's word, and the possibility that this measure would provide some relief for that distress we agreed to upset the established procedure for this week and permit the bill to be introduced. On receiving the bill today, an hour or two at the most before the house convened this afternoon, we find it has in it a number of things that call for changes in the basic part of the Unemployment Insurance Act. It is that sort of thing that led my colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver East, to use language that was regarded as perhaps unparliamentary. But, Mr. Speaker, you can see the situation. I shall not say the same thing, but you can see how we feel. Under the pretext of an emergency we have been given not a simple bill to deal solely with that emergency but a bill that provides pitiable relief of that distress, and along with it makes major and fundamental changes in the Unemployment Insurance Act itself.
The Acting Minister of Labour (Mr. Martin), and the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour, who has also had occasion to express this view, know that when we have asked in previous sessions for changes in the

Unemployment Insurance Unemployment Insurance Act-and the same thing happens when we ask for changes in the national labour code-we have been told that this legislation is the result of long consideration. We are told that drafts and subsequent drafts have been referred to the labour congresses, the Canadian Manufacturers Association, and the provincial governments and as a result the legislation that is before the house represents the consensus of the various governmental and other bodies that are interested. Therefore it is said to us that no matter how good the suggestions we offer on the floor of the house it would not be wise to upset legislation that has that kind of support behind it.
This afternoon we receive a bill containing basic and fundamental changes in the Unemployment Insurance Act. I can say categorically that up until three o'clock this afternoon neither the president of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada nor the president of the Canadian Congress of Labour had seen a copy of the bill. I do not know whether the employers have seen a copy of it, but I doubt whether they were able to get one either, because it was available only to a few of us when it was first handed around a couple of hours before the house met. That simply is not playing fair with the house, with the people interested in the measure, or with workers across the country or employers either, for that matter. In addition to the statement I made about the top officials of the two labour congresses, I can say that, since reports have appeared in the press as to what is coming, I have had complaints from representatives of labour in this city today as to some of the other changes that are proposed in the measure. My colleague the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) has referred to the amendment having to do with the phrase "suitable employment". Granted that this is tied to the portion of the act which relates to supplementary benefits; still that phrase "suitable employment" has been one of the greatest bones of contention in the Unemployment Insurance Act. We have discussed it and complained about it on the floor of this house time and again, but we have been told it could not be changed without consulting all these people concerned. Now we have an amendment which makes that phrase even worse than it was before, with respect to the payment of supplementary benefits, and we are asked to rush it through.
We find, too, that there has been a change in the statutory condition which requires 180 days' contributions within the last two years. Now we find that in addition an employee seeking benefits must show that he has made at least 60 of those contributions within the last twelve months or 45 within the

last six months. That is not an alternative; it is an addition to the statutory condition which has been there since this act was brought down in 1940. All kinds of workers across this country who have been paying their premiums through the years will feel that in a sense this is the breaking of a contract. True, it is a one-sided contract in that it is legislation which they have to abide by; but these were the conditions under which they have been paying their premiums all this time, and now a change has been made. When I asked officials of the labour congresses here in Ottawa what they thought of this the only answer I could get was, "Well, I have not seen the bill; I don't know what it is all about."


Mr. Cole (Verdun-La Salle):: If my hon. friend will permit me, on a point of order I would like to say that everything contained in the present bill which refers to the existing act, changing or clarifying any existing provision, has been submitted to the advisory committee on insurance. This has been stated already, and I should like my hon. friend to take note of it. Part IIA of this bill, having to do with supplementary benefits, did not go to the advisory committee on insurance but went to an interdepartmental committee on social security.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I think you will agree, Mr. Speaker, that this is not a point of order, but I do not mind it as an interjection; as a matter of fact it helps me out. I would point out that in the bill now before us there is an explanatory statement in connection with every clause; and in a number of cases it is stated that the clause in question, either in detail or in substance, has been approved by the national unemployment insurance advisory committee. In some cases, however, that sentence does not appear; and because of the zeal with which that sentence is put in whenever that is the case I can only assume that there are a number of these sections, even in the changes to the original act, about which the advisory committee knew nothing. This conflict between the statement made just now by the parliamentary assistant and the statements made to me by responsible labour leaders strikes me as very strange. They have seen reports of this statement that these matters have been referred to them; yet they say they have not seen them.
I repeat, every time we want to make a change we are told that this legislation has been built up after long consideration and that it cannot be changed without equally long consideration, so it seems hardly fair to bring about these amendments in this unsatisfactory manner. I would point out as well

that changes are proposed in the rates of contributions which employees will make. There are some anomalous details in that connection which I shall not discuss now but will reserve until we get into committee on the bill. It means that once this bill comes into effect many workers across the country are going to find the deduction from their regular pay a little higher than it was before. They are going to wonder what this government and this parliament are doing down here. They think we are doing something to help out the unemployed who need supplementary benefits; but lo and behold, the deduction from their pay cheques is going to be greater. They are going to discover the rather strange fact that the deduction increases by just the same amount for those in the lower categories as for those in the higher ones, with but slight exceptions.
Then there are corresponding changes in the rates of benefits to be paid, all of which are fundamental changes in the basic act itself; yet we are given really no opportunity to pass upon those. There is a little bit.of relief for the distressed in the bill, and if we oppose it or delay it or even have it sent to committee, as was suggested by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston), we will be accused of withholding payments from some of the 70,000 unemployed who might get something under this legislation. There is also a change with respect to temporary unemployment, which seems to be somewhat confused. As a matter of fact a number of the calls I have had today relate to the confusion on that point.
I do think the government does this sort of thing just a little too often. It has something good; it may be little enough, but it is sufficiently good for us to support it. But along with it they include other things that, to say the least, require more mature consideration. So I feel that the protest made by the hon. member for Vancouver East is valid indeed and I support that protest as strongly as I can.


Mr. Clarence Gillis (Cape Breton South):: have only a few words to say on this matter at this time. We are dealing now with the principle of the bill, and this is the only chance we will have to say anything in that connection. Well, what is the principle of this bill? As I see it the principle of the bill is to raise more money for the unemployment insurance commission and, as to the benefits to the unemployed that will be paid out for the additional period, to reduce by 20 per cent the payments made by the commission. Stripping this bill of all the legal language, that is exactly what it means to me.
Unemployment Insurance
I am not going to repeat anything that has been said already by the two previous speakers from this group, but I want to emphasize that this is the principle we are dealing with. Throughout the country there is a crisis in employment; and it is growing. In my opinion this bill was designed by t'he government to take the edge off that crisis. We get into a discussion on unemployment, and unless this is understood pretty thoroughly a lot of people are going to assume that this legislation is going to do something about our unemployment problem.
Take this business of increasing the amount of money available to the unemployment insurance commission. The bill suggests a change in connection with employees in the boy class. Previously the employer paid the contribution for that employee. Under the terms of this bill the employee will have to make that contribution himself.


Paul Joseph James Martin: His own contribution.


Clarence Gillis: That is right; but previously the employer made it for him.


Paul Joseph James Martin: But he obtained no benefits.


Clarence Gillis: Yes, he did. We can argue that point when we come to the section; I know Mr. Speaker does not want me to go into the bill clause by clause. That change means more money to the commission, with very little increase in benefits. Then you are giving coverage to another income group, up to $4,800 a year, which will include another 90,000 people. In my opinion that is a pretty select group, who are not going to draw on the fund. They are the men in the executive class, and that means more money for the commission. It is throwing the burden for paying for the upkeep of the unemployed on a group of men who, in my opinion, will never receive any benefit from the act. Then, the one cent increase is going to mean a lot of money to the unemployment insurance fund. It would seem, therefore, that the only connection this bill has with the present unemployment' situation is the extension of benefits from January to the end of March and, providing the bill passes this year, until April 15. While the benefits are being extended to people who are unfortunately unemployed for that length of time, the amount payable to them is being cut by 20 per cent. Personally, I cannot justify that principle. So far as I can see, those are the two principles contained in the bill. No. 1 is to get more money for the commission, and No. 2 decreases the rates that are now in existence.
I should like to mention this advisory committee. If you look at the bill, you will find that of all the sections contained in it there

Unemployment Insurance are only two concerning which it is emphasized that the advisory committee has agreed to them in principle. The advisory committee is composed of representatives of labour and of the employers. If these representatives are not going to be consulted when basic changes are made in the act, then the committee serves no useful purpose. The bill provides also for an increase in the number of representatives on the committee. I know the program of labour concerning the changes in the Unemployment Insurance Act. These changes are certainly a long way from it. I am reasonably sure that most of the changes, as the bill itself indicates, were not agreed to by the advisory committee.
In my opinion, that is a serious objection. I know that if I were the Minister of National Health and Welfare, and a man who is as honourable as he is, if I were pinch-hitting for the Minister of Labour, who is unfortunately ill, and I was handed a bill such as this, one of the first questions I would ask the parliamentary assistant would be, "Has this bill been before the employer-employee committee?"


Paul Joseph James Martin: That was one of the first things I did.


Clarence Gillis: I imagined you would. Then, the parliamentary assistant would have to say, " I am sorry, but only two sections of the bill went before that committee."


Paul Joseph James Martin: He said just the opposite.


Clarence Gillis: The bill does not say that. The bill clearly says that the committee agreed upon two matters in principle, one of which was the increasing of the amount of permissible earnings. They are small details. In so far as the basic changes are concerned, such as the rates and the people to be included, I do not think the committee was consulted.


Mr. Cote (Verdun-La Salle):: May I say that on the question of the disappearance of the fraction of a cent in the rate of contribution, the advisory committee was consulted and unanimously agreed the change was reasonable.


Clarence Gillis: I would agree to that myself.


Paul-Émile Côté: That is a basic change.


Clarence Gillis: That was not a basic change, that was just a reasonable change. In fact, that was a good change, and I would have agreed to that myself. I do not believe this complicated bookkeeping, and the chasing around of fractions, means anything but a lot of trouble. The committee agreed to that in principle.

As I -said before, the drafters of the bill were careful to write into the bill the few places in which they could say the advisory committee agreed to this in principle. Such was the case in only about one-half of one per cent of the bill. The other changes were not agreed to by that committee. I am deeply concerned about this advisory committee. If it is only to be window-dressing, and to be used merely when the department wants to use it, then I think we should have an understanding on it.
If I were a member of the advisory committee representing labour, and a bill with the far-reaching effect of this bill were brought in by the department, I would certainly disclaim any responsibility and quit the committee. I would have my say or I would not remain on the committee. If the members of this house are assured that neither the employer nor the employee representatives are to be consulted about these things, we can take a different attitude in the house. When I know a committee representing the people vitally concerned in these matters actually functions, I am not so inclined to be suspicious as I would be if the committee were not there. I strongly urge upon the minister and the parliamentary assistant that when matters of this kind are discussed in the future the committee should be used, and thus guarantee that the measure receives some consideration by a committee, which is really the only place such matters can be properly considered.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Beaudoin in the chair.
On section 1-Designated officers may administer oaths.
Mr. Pearkes:: Most of the speakers who have discussed this bill, either in the resolution stage or on the second reading, have referred to the implications of it in large metropolitan areas in which there are offices of the unemployment insurance commission. The first section of the bill deals with the administration of that commission, and I should like to address a remark or two to the workings of the commission in the smaller centres which have small offices. There are several such small centres in my constituency. These offices have been flooded during the last few months owing to the sudden rush of men-


Paul-Émile Côté: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, there is no objection to letting the hon. 'member say a few words of a general nature on this subject, but it has no relevancy to clause 1 of the bill. It

Unemployment Insurance
was thought proper to point this out to the slightly over two hundred. Powers have committee, so there would be no trespassing been asked and are being considered for a upon the rules.	further substantial increase of their numbers.


George Randolph Pearkes: I have been referring to the administration. Surely clause 1 relates to the administration and conduct of the offices of the commission. I do not intend to speak at any length, but I believe my remarks are in order, because they are pertinent to the administration of this act. In these small centres, the unemployment insurance commission offices have not been able to cope with the sudden rush of men who have been thrown out of employment, because of the shutting down of the mines or the closing of some of the logging camps on Vancouver island. The closing down of these camps is seasonal, but it is a recurring coincidence year after year; and then these men come in and find that they cannot get their claim adjusted immediately because there is either a shortage of staff or a shortage of trained staff; then a great deal of discontent is shown.
The question I should like to ask at the present time is this. Is there to be any simplification in the procedure whereby perhaps additional staff may be brought in immediately so that they may be taught how to deal with these new problems which will arise as soon as this bill comes into force, and whether it would be practicable to increase the number of adjudicators so that the claims would not have to be referred to a central office? In my particular case, claims arising in Nanaimo have to be sent over all too frequently to the central office in Vancouver, where there is a considerable delay because there is not an adjudicator in Nanaimo. I do not know whether it is a case of new and additional adjudicators, or whether the local agent in the small cities should have his powers increased so that he might be able to adjudicate on some of these claims. But I am quite certain that one of the reasons for a certain amount of discontent is the delays that have been experienced in the smaller offices.
I do ask if possible that a simpler form of procedure may be brought in and that the steps be taken now so that the provisions of this act may be implemented immediately that the cheques are available.


Paul-Émile Côté: Answering
my hon. friend, I may say that the commission has been studying very closely ways and means whereby the servicing of the insured would be increased across the country. To the particular question that my hon. friend asked I may say that the number of adjudicators has been increased by


William Joseph Browne: Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether I may be allowed to make a few observations at this stage. I am not particularly familiar with the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940, which has had a good many amendments in the past ten years. To be confronted with a bill at three o'clock this afternoon, and to be expected to understand it, would require the wisdom of a Solomon. I know there are a great many wise men here but I do not profess to belong to that class. Because I do not know under what particular section I should bring these points out I should like to be permitted to point out to the minister certain difficulties that have arisen to my knowledge in connection with the administration of this act in Newfoundland.
There is the instance of men who were working on public works and who, prior to the provincial election in May, had to be laid off in accordance with the provisions of the Newfoundland election act of 1913. Before the month had expired some of these had occasion to go and apply for insurance, and they drew six days' insurance. Under the law as it applies to Newfoundland since April 8, 1949, unemployment assistance rather than unemployment insurance was granted, because they had not made any contributions. They went back to work on May 31, and then they were laid off as seasonal workers. The work closed down. When they went to apply for the insurance they were not granted any. They were told that they had received six days' insurance, and that was all they were entitled to until six months had expired. The acting minister, and certainly the parliamentary assistant, knows all about it, and I do not suppose it is anything unusual. It seems to me to be an extraordinary thing that men who have been employed for four years can draw only six days' insurance and were refused any further benefits.
The second class that I wish to bring to the attention of the minister is that of workers on other public works who had to wait five weeks and still have not received their insurance. Acting on their behalf I took up the matter with the local office, and was informed that they were swamped with applications for insurance. But surely, if it is to be of any benefit, it should have been attended to before that length of time had elapsed; otherwise the people had to depend upon charity or they would have starved. Therefore I suggest to the acting minister, and to the minister himself when he comes back, which I hope will be soon,

Unemployment Insurance that some attention should be given to a proper adjudication of those claims. They should not have to wait so long.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 2 agreed to.
On section 3-Rates of contribution.
Gordon Graydon: Mr. Chairman, I should
like to make an observation, if I may, on this section, which has to do with rates of contribution. It may properly be said that because the federal government has gone so far into trade, into business and commerce, in the natural flow of events the question of unemployment and the question of workers' conditions, wages, jobs and so on are predicated to a very great extent upon the policies of the government of the day. At least, when things are good the government takes the credit for it. I suppose when they are bad the government will not be quite so prone to advertise their relationship to that condition, but nevertheless they have to take the bitter with the sweet.
That leads me to this point. The change in the Unemployment Insurance Act, both as to contributions and the other sections as well, is largely brought about by the fact that people have not as many jobs as they did have and that the future of their jobs is much more uncertain than it was a year or so ago. That means that the government has a responsibility with respect to the unemployment situation and the insurance against it. That has been recognized by the fact that the government is now guaranteeing the fund. What it means is that if the fund has not enough money by contributions the government puts up the difference. In establishing that principle with respect to unemployment insurance the government has accepted some responsibility for the matters which are causing the situation which would call for greater benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act.
The point on which I find myself in great disagreement with the administration is why the government, which has partially accepted responsibility for the condition, asks the worker to put up more money because there is some unemployment which has been caused by policies or conditions which are under the jurisdiction of the government. I think it is adding insult to injury to ask the worker , of this country to underwrite the unemployment situation, even to the degree that the government is now asking him to do so. I do not think the worker should have been asked to do that. In many instances the worker is in a pretty insecure position. I do not think that he should be asked to carry

more of his share with respect to unemployment benefits than he is doing now. It is asking too much of our working people to ask them to increase their contributions in order to relieve unemployment, or the results of unemployment, in the country. So far as this financial measure is concerned, that rests squarely on the doorstep of the government. Surely we are not going to put the unemployment situation over on the doorstep of the workers of Canada, who are themselves likely to feel the pinch as the days go on. That is the thing the government ought to be shouldering. Having accepted that principle, surely there is no reason why they should not have gone that far. There may be valid reasons which dictated the government's position on that. But the government will never get the worker to see that they are valid reasons- and, frankly, I have not been able to see them, either.
I suggest that at this stage the government should consider very carefully whether it should not either change or withdraw the amendment it is making which would have the effect of directing the workers in this country to put up more money for the unemployment insurance fund. It ought to be the other way round. We ought not to be shouldering the worker with more burden; we ought to be taking something off his back, rather than putting it on.
For that reason I suggest that the government ought to retrace its steps and retreat from its position. This amendment is feeble and futile enough as it stands. It is a half loaf being accepted by parliament, rather than nothing. Nevertheless it seems to me we have reached the limit of absurdity when we ask the workers of this country to put up more money to solve the unemployment situation. That is the government's job, not the workers'.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say something similar to what has been said by the hon. member for Peel. I feel that the government, through the acting minister or the parliamentary assistant, must give a full explanation of the basis upon which these new rates were arrived at.
I presume it will be said that in return for the increased amount each worker is being asked to pay he will receive the guarantee of a slightly higher rate of benefit, if he has to go on unemployment insurance. That is an argument which seems to have some logic in it. But it is pretty hard to sell it to the worker who is not anticipating unemployment, but who sees this increase in the amount he has to pay brought in just at a

time when apparently the government is being generous and doing something for the unemployed.
This will look to the workers of this country exactly as it has been described by the hon. member for Peel. It will seem as though the workers are to be asked to pay an additional tax which is said to be necessary to enable the government to send out these cheques-which will go out if and when the legislation passes.
The minister made the statement that the increase was to be one cent a day. Well, that is pretty easy to recite; it sounds very small- just a cent a day. But it happens to be six cents a week by way of an additional deduction from the average worker's take-home pay. I have one or two observations to make in that connection. The first is that, except for some differences which I shall point out later, that six cents is across the board. A person who is making $10 a week and is now paying 18 cents unemployment insurance will pay six cents more. A person who is making $35 a week and is now paying 42 cents a week unemployment insurance will pay six cents more. That is not a very fair method of taxation-to add the full six cents on to the unemployment insurance deductions of the people in those two different categories.
Let us take the case of the boy to whom reference was made by the hon. member for Cape Breton South, the boy working for $5.40 a week or less than that. I hope there are not any of them from whom unemployment premiums will be taken. That is a ridiculous wage even for a boy to be receiving. But the provision is here. Under the act as it stood before, a boy making less than $5.40 a week paid no premium out of that amount.


Paul Joseph James Martin: And received no benefits.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Just a moment; you said that before. He paid no premiums, and had no deductions from his $5.40. The total premium paid for him was 18 cents, 9 cents of which was paid by the employer under the employer's name, and 9 cents paid by the employer on behalf of the boy.
Let us get it straight. A boy who was making $5.40 a week paid nothing out of his own earnings.


Angus MacInnis: Or a girl.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes. Anyone making $5.40 a week paid nothing. Under the new provision brought in today such a person will pay 18 cents a week. I have already indicated the gross unfairness of it.


Paul-Émile Côté: May I give an immediate reply?
Unemployment Insurance


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes.


Paul-Émile Côté: Speaking first of the first class in the old scale, the insured earning $5.40, under the age of sixteen, may I say the aggregate number in that category is one-half of one per cent of the total number of insured under the act.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I was going to come to that. I was about to say that if it were only one bo}' in the whole of Canada who, thus far, had been paying nothing into the unemployment insurance fund, but who is now called upon to pay 18 cents a week to help the government hand out these supplementary benefits, then that is a shame and something of which this parliament should not approve.
The parliamentary assistant says that it is less than one-half of one per cent. I would assume therefore that it is more than one boy, or that it is a number of boys-perhaps one or two hundred. Offhand I do not know what the number is; but I submit it is bad enough to assess an extra six cents against the person making $10 a week equally as against the person making $35. And certainly it is adding insult to injury to pick out the boy who makes only $5.40 a week, and to ask him to pay 18 cents-


Charles Delmar Coyle: This is insurance; this is not assistance or relief.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I know it is insurance; and the parliamentary assistant is now underlining our complaint about the whole bill, namely that under the pretext of an emergency, or the pretext of an extreme urgency to deal with distress, the government has brought in basic changes in the act. I believe changes should be made in the act, and I have argued for those changes ever since I came here. But the time to deal with them is when we have sufficient time to go into them on a proper basis, instead of going at it with a gun at our heads, as at the present time.
I have gone out, as has the hon. member for Vancouver East, and pointed out to working people that this is insurance. That is what labour asked for, and it is a good thing to have. But it is a strange coincidence to have to provide these increases in amounts just at a time when the government is apparently being generous and giving supplementary benefits to some of the thousands now drawing nothing at all.
I submit there is a coincidence here which will be pretty hard for the government to explain. However, I want them to do it. I want them to explain how they arrived at this new scale, and why it is six cents across the board. It is not completely so, because I realize there are one or two places where

Unemployment Insurance there is no increase because of an overlapping of the old group with the new; and there are one or two places where the increase is only three cents, and one place where it is nine cents. Also, for those in the highest brackets the increase will be twelve cents a week. I would point out at the same time that the increases on the part of employers are not quite the same. Because of this equalization of payments between employers and employees the extra amount to be paid by employers is not as great as the extra amount to be paid by employees.
There has to be some explanation of this- not just figures drawn out of a hat. I think the question asked yesterday by the hon. member for Lake Centre should be answered now and we should be told how much the government expects to get because of these increased rates. Again quoting the hon. member for Lake Centre, I think when we get to the supplementary benefits section we should be given figures showing how much the government expects it will have to pay out. It looks as though these rates are being increased under the pretext of their being insurance when in fact they simply represent the money necessary to pay out these supplementary benefits.


John George Diefenbaker: I should like to say a word about the levies that are provided by this section. I pointed out this afternoon that at the dominion-provincial conference of 1945 representations were made by the dominion government through the Minister of Labour as follows, and I quote from page 387 of the proceedings:
In addition to unemployment insurance, the dominion will set up a system of unemployment assistance under which it will pay benefits equal to eighty-five per cent of unemployment insurance benefits, to unemployed persons able and willing to work who are not entitled, or -who have ceased to be entitled, to unemployment insurance benefits. This assistance will be limited to two years of continuous assistance, but a person will again become eligible for this assistance following an approved period of employment.
As I pointed out this afternoon, unemployment assistance is just another way of saying supplementary benefits, the phrase used in this bill. I feel that the charging and imposition of these levies on the employer and employee are a denial of. the representations made to the provinces in 1945 by the Minister of Labour. It is inexcusable and should not be done. In 1945 the Minister of Labour undertook on behalf of the dominion government to provide all of this unemployment assistance.
What is the justification for this further levy? It is a denial of what was promised in 1945. It is all very well to say it is a small levy, but the dominion government undertook at the conference in 1945 to provide


unemployment assistance for the persons covered by this bill under the heading of supplementary benefits. Has consideration been given to this by the provinces? Have they been consulted? This is in fact a travesty of what was undertaken in 1945 at the dominion-provincial conference.
Not only do I disagree with the amount of the levy, I disagree with the right to impose the levy in view of what the Minister of Labour said in 1945. I ask the minister: Is not the provision of these benefits the same thing that the Minister of Labour undertook in 1945 would be supplied by the dominion government at the expense of the people of Canada as a whole?
That is what was promised. You can change the name and call them supplementary benefits instead of unemployment assistance as it was called in 1945; it is the same thing. I submit that it is unjustifiable that a further levy should be made in order to meet this so-called extraordinary situation, incidental as the government claims, to peculiarly difficult climatic or local transitory conditions that will soon pass away. That is the government's allegation, it is not ours.
That being so, what justification is there to impose a levy on the man who works to meet a situation that the government says is transitory, to provide for supplementary benefits? As a matter of fact, this whole question of supplementary benefits is being dragged in by the back door into the Unemployment Insurance Act. There is no justification whatsoever for that. There is no unemployment insurance act that I know of that provides for supplementary benefits such as are being provided for here, and I have read the United States and the British acts. This looks like another scheme whereby the responsibility of the dominion government as enunciated by the Minister of Labour in 1945 is being evaded through the subterfuge of changing names.
I protest most strongly against a further levy being made against the man who works to provide for a situation which the government says is transitory and local, which is the result of conditions peculiar to various areas, rather than having this considered as a national unemployment situation. This is the type of expenditure that the government has always had to make since 1945. Prior to 1945, as is shown in the debates from 1928 to 1945, there was an endeavour to place upon the provinces or the municipalities responsibility for those in this category. In 1945 the government accepted the sole responsibility of providing for unemployment in the transitory sense.

It is not a large contribution that is being asked for, but the principle is wrong and unjust. However small it may be, when a principle is at stake there is good reason to object to a levy such as is being made here.


Mr. Noseworthy:: I think before we pass this section we should be clear in our minds as to just what is involved. During my speech yesterday the Acting Minister of Labour informed us most emphatically that the purpose of this amendment to the Unemployment Insurance Act was not to provide a substitute for employment, that it was not a measure to take care of unemployment, that it was simply a redrafting of the act.
We are told in the explanatory note opposite page six that the purpose of the additional cent per day is to provide part of the money that will be paid out in supplementary benefits and that supplementary benefits are being provided because of the unemployment situation during certain months of the year. Regardless of what the minister has said, this is the government's method of meeting the unemployment situation during these particular months.
Working people are being called upon to contribute from their earnings in order to provide money that the government will pay to the unemployed during certain seasons of the year. The government has completely reversed its policy in regard to providing for unemployment. As yet we have had no indication that the government has any other measure to bring before this house to take care of the unemployment situation. I am quite sure that the workers will resent the government calling upon them tq finance an unemployment situation in this country which has always been the responsibility of the federal government.
There is one question I should like to ask. I note that the inclusion of a .new class is recommended by the unemployment insurance advisory committee. Did the unemployment insurance advisory committee also recommend the increases that are in this table? I think we should have a direct answer to that question.


Mr. Fulton:: Before the minister answers, I should like to add my voice to those who have said already that it is not just or sound to expect workers across Canada to have to make contributions on this increased scale, which will be permanent contributions, made a part of the act, in order to provide, as the explanatory note makes clear, for the supplementary benefits outlined in clause 20. In other words, for the sake of getting benefits for three months in the year under a situation which, as the hon. member for Lake Centre so
Unemployment Insurance clearly pointed out, the government itself says is only transitory and results only from extraordinary winter conditions, they are going to increase the contribution by six cents per worker forever or for however long he may work. That is exactly what is being done. It is not justified by the situation. It is contrary to the promises which were made, that the dominion government would assume full responsibility for this. No necessity for it has been demonstrated in the course of the remarks of the minister. I certainly suggest the committee should not pass the section until that necessity is proved, and I personally do not believe it can be proved. Before we go any further I think we should have an answer from the minister as to how much these increased contributions are expected to yield, and how much it is anticipated that the increased benefits for these three months of the year will cost.


Mr. Isnor:: It appears to me that the hon. member for York South and the hon. member for Kamloops are taking the stand that workers will be opposed to this increase. If I were looking at it from a selfish point of view, representing merchants and retailers, I could take the same stand, but I am not. Organized labour advocated a measure of this kind for years and' they were pleased at the time unemployment insurance was brought into effect because it was insuring their future in the same way that we as individuals insure our lives or make provision for our own protection and that of our families by investments, pension schemes, or annuities. I think you get out of this world what you put into it, and if we are going to ask for greater protection and the extension of the benefits, then it is only natural that we must pay. At the time when the measure was first introduced we enjoyed an exceptionally high state of employment and prosperous times, and I think it was most opportune that it should have been introduced then. Employment has increased since then.
I have particularly in mind the last class, $48 a week or more. That should bring in a large amount, and while I, like other members, am concerned about the actual return in dollars and cents from the one cent addition in the various other classes, I am wondering what amount the category to which I have referred will bring in. Is the minister prepared to tell us the amount expected from that particular class?
I feel that workers as a whole, as well as merchants, realize that these increases must come from one source only. After all, the government makes a 20 per cent contribution to the general fund just as other contributions are made. The more you dip into the fund

Unemployment Insurance "the more you are going to take from the productive pool created by the efforts of the workers and those who are interested in enterprise. For that reason I am inclined to differ from members who have taken the opposite view, and I welcome the measure if there is going to be greater security so far as the insurance angle of the act is concerned.


Angus MacInnis: I do not think that those members who have criticized these particular amendments have done so so much because of the increase in the contribution as they have because of the fact that the amendments have been introduced without consultation with representatives of those who are to make the contributions. That is one basis on which we object to it. Before unemployment insurance was provided for on the statutes, organized labour had advocated it Tor many years. Hon. members of the house will recall when unemployment insurance was eventually put on the statutes. It was not done because the government believed in unemployment insurance but because they wanted to use the contributions to unemployment insurance to prevent the development of the inflationary trend at that time. The two matters coincided, and perhaps it is just as well that they did or we would never have got unemployment insurance.


The Deputy Chairman:: Shall the clause carry?


Some hon. Members:: No.


Edmund Davie Fulton: We want an answer.


Joseph William Noseworthy: Will the minister answer my question?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I have listened with a great deal of interest to what has been said. I have no hesitation in saying at once-and I know something about labour in this country-that I am sure every worker in Canada will be willing to pay six cents a week, as a result of this unemployment insurance amendment, in order to assist, under a pattern of supplementary insurance system, in giving him benefits during the winter months if during that period he finds himself out of work. I have no doubt about this and anyone who does not share that view has not the confidence in Canadian labour that I have. What are we doing in this measure? We are extending the principle of unemployment insurance by way of three partners, the employer, the worker and the state. That is the principle which makes the Unemployment Insurance Act the sound measure that it is.
It would have been possible for the administration to alter its course and, instead of exacting premiums from the beneficiaries, to have paid the whole shot itself. But what
fMr. Isnor.]

does that mean? The government merely represents the taxpayers as a whole, and if the government paid the whole contribution not only would it be betraying the principle of insurance but it would also simply be transferring away from the same quarter moneys that it is collecting now in accordance with insurance principles. I think we are developing in this country, and properly so, the idea that our social services, in so far as they lend themselves to this kind of remedy, should be paid for by contributions from those who are possible beneficiaries. What do we find the situation to be in this house with regard to old age pensions? There is a demand, a desire and an expression of opinion that we should develop pensions on the basis of contributory principles, and in so far as that is practicable I hope, as the Prime Minister has said, that it will be possible to do so.
Could we at this stage, when we have built up a great tradition in the administration of unemployment insurance, betray that principle? I do not think that upon reflection any hon. members, even those who have criticized the bill, will come to that conclusion. As I said last night, and as the hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris) urged me to say, the unemployment insurance fund must remain intact; it must not lose its trust character. One way to make sure that does not happen is to see that no agency, including the state, is allowed to alter it, directly or indirectly, in such a way as later to lead to impairment of that fund. If my hon. friend will recollect the words of the prime minister of this country in 1935, the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett, in addressing himself to the measure he introduced, and which was later declared by the courts to be unconstitutional, he will see that Mr. Bennett made this very point, indicating the necessity of providing safeguards with respect to this fund. I do not think one needs to say any more on that point.
In spite of what the hon. member for York South (Mr. Noseworthy) insists on repeating, even in view of what I said last night, this is not an employment measure. Anyone in his right senses knows that even a government of which my hon. friend has such a low opinion is not so lacking in ordinary intelligence as to make such a declaration of purpose. Of course this is not a measure to relieve unemployment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Read the speech from the throne.


Paul Joseph James Martin: This is exactly what it says, a measure intended to provide benefits for those who suffer the condition against which provision is made in this act, by way of

insurance in which they participate, during a period when historically the unemployment rate in our country is higher than in the other months of the year. That is what this measure is, and nothing more. As far as I am concerned, as one member of the government I shall be ready to deal with that other matter when that is to be done, in the way I think it should be dealt with. But let us keep in mind the matter that is engaging us at the present time.
My last comment is in connection with what the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) has said twice today. He said it well, but that does not make it a correct or valid argument. He keeps confusing unemployment assistance with assistance made possible by way of an insurance measure. By no possible construction does this come within the ambit of unemployment assistance. The hon. member referred to the discussions of 1945. Of course proposals were made at that time by this government, and in their broad objectives those proposals are still in mind and have not been abandoned.


John George Diefenbaker: And have not been kept.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Undoubtedly they will be discussed when the provinces meet next September, and we will have to face such issues. The matter now before us has nothing to do with that kind of assistance. This is not assistance; it is insurance, to which the state and the two partners in industry, the employers and the employees, are contributing. It is a wise principle, which is not new to unemployment insurance. The only criticism that in the circumstances could be legitimately made, I think, is that instead of thinking about this measure today it might have been thought about in 1940 when the original act was introduced. But of course hindsight is always better and more brilliant than foresight. So I say that instead of in any way weakening this principle of contribution, we on this side believe in it, and we feel that the workers of Canada will subscribe to that belief.


Mr. Ferrie:: I want to say just a few words with respect to the actual insurance. I heartily endorse this measure, and I think we should put it through as quickly as possible so the boys who need this money will get their cheques on March 1. As I see it, however, one thing is left out that I should like to see put in. Take the man who comes out of the mine, the man who comes off the railroad, who goes to a doctor and suddenly finds that he has cancer, or something else radically wrong that cannot be helped. He is out of a job; and he is out of unemployment insurance. That man has paid his
Unemployment Insurance insurance, and he is going to pay more now; and I believe that man should be taken care of.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I think the minister should try to give an answer to the question we have asked repeatedly, as to the increased revenue to the fund that is anticipated from these higher rates.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I do not think I should try to give an answer which cannot be entirely accurate. That depends upon factors not now known. We could give an estimate, but it might not be helpful in the matter. The whole thing has yet to be calculated. This is a new experiment for us, and I submit that, not knowing how many will be employed in any given period or what will be the extent of unemployment during winter months, if it does take place, we cannot with any sense of responsibility give a figure.


Stanley Howard Knowles: How did you set the figure?


Paul Joseph James Martin: It is a calculation based upon actuarial principles.


Gordon Graydon: It must have been a guess.


Paul Joseph James Martin: It was an estimate, and every estimate is a guess.


Gordon Graydon: But you say you cannot make an estimate.


Paul Joseph James Martin: It was an estimate, and in view of that fact I do not think I should give anything that is not reasonably close to absolute certainty. What we do know is that the one cent a day contribution by the employer and the employee, and the commitment of the government to supply the difference in the fund, will be carried out. At the end of 1952, in the light of our experience in the interval, we may have to revise our calculations.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I think the minister should be pressed to tell us the basis on which these figures were arrived at. Surely he does not think the government can just sit down and guess at any figure, which might be this or might be that, and expect us to approve it. We should know the basis on which these figures were arrived at. The minister says it was done on an actuarial basis. I never knew an actuary who did not deal in pretty definite figures. However, I will go on to something else; plenty of others around here will see to it that that question is pressed.
When I was speaking previously the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour interjected a figure the meaning of which in absolute figures-since I was speaking at the moment-I was unable to calculate. He said the number of people in the zero class
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Unemployment Insurance
covered by unemployment insurance was boys and girls of this country who are mak-less than one-half of one per cent. Could ing $5.40 or less per week to contribute he give us the number in that category at $125,000 per year in order to help provide the present time?	these supplementary benefits.


Paul-Émile Côté: Roughly 15,000.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Now, we shall see what that means. If the parliamentary assistant has given me the wrong figure, will he please correct me before I make a calculation based upon it? He says that 15,000 people amongst those covered by unemployment insurance are in the class who receive $5.40 per week or less. In other words, I suppose that covers a lot of boys and girls. They are the people who are now paying no unemployment insurance out of their own pocket. Let us get that absolutely clear. There are 15,000 boys and girls earning $5.40 per week or less, who are registered and covered by unemployment insurance, but who pay nothing out of their own pocket.


Charles Delmar Coyle: But who get no
benefit.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We all know that, but they accumulate benefits.


Charles Delmar Coyle: It serves to build up the benefit year.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There are 15,000 people who are now making $5.40 per week or less, and who pay nothing out of their own pocket. At the moment 18 cents per week is paid for them, 9 cents in the name of the employer and 9 cents on behalf of the employee, but paid by the employer. In practical terms, therefore, the employer is paying 18 cents and the boy or girl is paying nothing.


Charles Delmar Coyle: The exact .lumber is 14,850.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Let me stay with the round figure of 15,000. There are roughly 15,000 boys and girls who are going to be asked to pay 18 cents per week-


An hon. Member:: You have told us that six times.


Louis-René Beaudoin: Order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: They are going to be asked to pay 18 cents per week. In 52 weeks that amounts to $9.36. If you multiply 15,000 by $9.36 per year, it amounts to $130,400.
The parliamentary assistant says that the number is less than 15,000, so I shall settle for $125,000. I ask the minister to get away from this high-sounding language he is using, and face what this government is asking this parliament to approve. We are asking the


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I tell my hon. friend that he can do nothing better than to join in the suggestion that that would be a very good lesson to give to the younger people of this country.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The speech the minister makes reminds me of the speeches that were made in England 150 years ago, by some people who said it was good for the children to go into the coal mines or climb up and down chimneys.


An hon. Member:: Rubbish.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Rubbish, is it? Members who are crying "Rubbish" should hang their heads in shame that there are 15,000 boys and girls who are working for $5.40 per week.


An hon. Member:: We do.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Are you proud of it?


An hon. Member:: No.


Louis-René Beaudoin: Order. Really,
there must be more order in the proceedings. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has not concluded his remarks. I ask all other hon. members not to interrupt the member who has the floor.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to respond to the challenge of the minister. I do not think this is any sort of lesson to be giving the boys and girls of this country in social responsibility, to put this sort of thing on their shoulders now.
Let me go further. Do not forget that when I first got to my feet I stressed the fact that we want to know what these new rates are going to produce, and I want to know that before this section passes. The senior member for Halifax said a moment ago that employees would be glad to pay these increased rates, because of the increased insurance they were getting for them. I believe he said that, as an employer, he was willing to pay these increased rates too. He has in mind, of course, the statement of the Acting Minister of Labour concerning the one cent per day or six cents per week across the board for employees and employers alike. May I tell the senior member for Halifax and others that in the case of all those earning less than $15 per week, there is to be no increase in the amount paid by the employer. Just let that sink in for a moment.
Let ys take the table that is on page 2 of the bill before you, and compare it with the

old schedule which appears on page 43 of the latest office consolidation of the Unemployment Insurance Act. Here are the facts. In the case of those who were previously making less than $5.40 per week, the employer has been paying a total of 18 cents. He will still pay the 18 cents, so there will be no increase for the employer, but there is an 18 cent increase for the employee. In the case of those earning between $5.40 and $7.49 per week, formerly the employer paid 18 cents. He will still pay 18 cents, so there is no increase. The employee was paying 12 cents and he will now pay 18 cents; an increase of 6 cents. The next group covers those earning from $7.50 to $8.99. The employer was formerly paying 24 cents per week and he will now pay only 18 cents a week; a drop of 6 cents. In the case of the employee, the payment goes up from 15 cents to 18 cents; an increase of 3 cents. The next group is from $9 to $9.59. Formerly the employer was paying 24 cents, and he still pays 24 cents, so there is no increase. The employee was paying 15 cents and now pays 24 cents, an increase of 9 cents. The next category covers those earning $9.60 to $11.99. The employer was paying 24 cents and still pays 24 cents, no increase. The employee was paying 18 cents and is now paying 24 cents, an increase of 6 cents. The next group is from $12 to $14.99. The employer was contributing 24 cents and still contributes 24 cents, no change. The employee was contributing 21 cents, and will now contribute 24 cents, an increase of 3 cents.
The dividing lines with respect to those categories have been changed, so I have had to break them into different groups so as to make the calculations accurate. I have taken all cases up to $14.99 per week, and have shown you that in no case is the employer paying any more, and in one small section the employer is actually paying 6 cents less. In all cases, the employees are paying more, varying from 3 cents to 6 cents and 9 cents and, in the case of those 15,000 boys and girls 18 cents, to provide $125,000 for the fund. To talk about high-sounding principles with these features of this bill is a distortion of those high-sounding principles. Certainly the members of this house support the insurance principle, and support the value of the people of the country knowing that they are paying for what they are getting. It is a distortion of that principle, however, to ask those people in these lower brackets to pay these additional amounts. I protest against it most strongly.
Unemployment Insurance I still say we should have some explanation as to how this scale of rates was arrived at. We should be told, and I hope the members will continue to support me in that, what the governments expects these new rates to provide by way of actual increase in revenue to the fund.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at eight o'clock.
The Chairman:: When the committee rose at six o'clock we were dealing with section 3.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is the minister prepared now to give us the figure of the total extra revenue expected by virtue of the increase in rates provided in this clause?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I shall have to give that information later in the evening, and I shall try to do so. I cannot give it at the moment.
I think I should deal briefly with the point that my hon. friend was making at six o'clock when he was talking about the figure 14,850. I am not saying that we perhaps did not give him some basis for the statement he was making, but the information should have been supplemented by another statement which I neglected to make. When we give the figure of 14,850, that figure is not meant to be only of persons sixteen years of age. That class "O" includes persons sixteen years of age or under, regardless of their earnings. It would require a great deal of statistical information that I have not got available, or is not easily available to me tonight, to show that they by no means represent anything like the majority. I cam not give an accurate figure. It is also made up of course of persons earning less than 90 cents a day, or $5.40 a week.
Now, the total of those persons is 14,850. But as I say, it includes, I am told by the officers of the commission, a majority who do earn much more than that figure. Perhaps it would have been more helpful if the thing had been broken down, but it is not.
The number of persons in (a) and (b), that is those who were earning more than $5.40, and those earning that or less, I have not got. For instance, if a person under sixteen years of age works and earns say $15 a week he will still be in this class. If he earned only $5.40 he will also be in class "O", both on account of his wage and on account of his age.
I am told by the officers of the commission that most of those who earn $5.40 a week
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Unemployment Insurance are working in part-time employment. If an older man, a pensioner, for instance, works here and there casually on a part-time basis for a couple of days he may earn in the week a low wage of $5.40, but that does not mean that he has been working a full week. In other words, it is not the rate of earnings per week that determines the class of contribution, but the actual earnings in the week. That, of course, gives a different complexion to the situation. Perhaps it does not meet the argument in principle that my hon. friend was making, but I simply do not agree with the argument that he was making.
It would be interesting to know that the people in the first five groups represent but 3-5 of the working insured group-


Stanley Howard Knowles: The first five groups on the old basis?


Paul Joseph James Martin: On the old basis. For instance, without going into all of the figures, the group in No. 1 is 6,600; whereas the group in No. 8 is 1,780,075. Therefore that gives a picture which had not been given earlier. It shows that the situation is not exactly as previously argued.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Has the minister figures for each of the groups? If so, will he put them on the record?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Well, in "O" group it is 14,850 with the explanation that I have given, including those below $5.40 and the greater majority who are earning over that in a week. In the first group, 6,600; in the second, 7,700; in the third, 16,500; in the fourth, 40,150; in the fifth, 147,675; in the sixth, 303,050; in the seventh, 433,400; and in the eighth, 34 and over, 1,780,075.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Just a word. I am glad the minister did make that correction with respect to the information that was given me before recess. All the information that I had to go on was the figure which the parliamentary assistant had given me. We now have it clear that that 14,850 includes people getting $5.40 a week or less, and people sixteen years of age and under-or is it under sixteen years of age-regardless of their income? The minister will admit that it is still the case, using the argument that I was making before recess, that $125,000 or more is to be taken from two groups of people, namely, those making $5.40 a week or less, and those under sixteen years of age. I submit that there is nothing very high sounding about that. Certainly that is no basis on which to try to meet the needs of the unemployed at the present time.
I am glad that the minister has given us the figures in those various groups. I am also
[Mr. Martin.1

glad that he is prepared to give us the total amount of expected revenue some time during the evening. It will be possible for me now to take the figures of those various groups and multiply them by the average of 6 cents a week and find out for myself about how much it is expected will be brought in. I think it is only fair to the house and to the workers of this country to show the relationship between the extra amount of money the workers are being asked to pay this year and the extra amount that is to be paid out by way of supplementary benefits. [DOT]


William Joseph Browne: May I ask
the minister whether the figures given on page 2 would not represent the total amount including the one cent additional paid out.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Yes.


William Joseph Browne: Perhaps the minister would like me to help him out in the question asked by the senior hon. member for Hailfax about the amount that will be paid by the 90,000 new people who will be brought under the act by extending the benefits from $3,120 to $4,800.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I have to give that later.


William Joseph Browne: I will tell you what it is because it is very simple to calculate. On the basis of $1.08 a week and 90,000 people it would amount to nearly $100,000 a week. There are 52 weeks in the year, therefore the total would amount to about $5 million.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is part of the story, yes.


Charles Edward Johnston: Before I would be in a position to agree to the passing of the section I would have to have the information that has already been asked for by other hon. members. I do not want to repeat it. It was my intention to ask a question that has been asked several times, namely, what is the total amount of expected revenue that the extra cent will bring in, and then the amount that is expected to be paid out to the recipients who come under the section. Perhaps it is the minister's intention to let the section stand until such time as we get the information. It would hardly be fair to ask us to pass this section until we have the information. Certainly I cannot agree to that. I should like to have the information, and then we could pass the section.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I hope to give it later.


Charles Edward Johnston: Would the minister let it stand until we get the information?


Paul Joseph James Martin: We can pass it and get it later-


Some hon. Members:: Carried.


Charles Edward Johnston: No.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I will give it later in the evening.


Mr. Drew:: Does the section stand in the meantime?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I think we ought to pass it.


George Alexander Drew: Not if there is something relating to it which has not been given.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I give the result of the multiplying I have just done? The minister gave us the total number of people in each of the categories, on the old basis. I have taken the figures he gave for classes one, two, three and four, up as high as $14.99 a week, and I have added them together. They come to 70,950. The average increase of the rate to be paid by that 70,950 is one cent a day or six cents a week or $3.16 a year. Multiplying 70,950 by $3.16 we get the figure of $224,202. Now, we have already cleared about the $125,000. That comes from those earning $5.40 a week or less, and those under sixteen years of age, whatever they are making. So, all told, we have those who earn less than $15 a week and those sixteen years of age or under contributing a total of $349,202 into this fund out of which the proposed supplementary benefits will be paid.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Shall the section carry?


Some hon. Members:: No.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Shall the section stand?


Some hon. Members:: Stands.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Carried.


George Alexander Drew: Stands.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Stands. Section 4-


Paul Joseph James Martin: We ought to deal with the section. I have said I will give the other information. It is not germane to this section. It is germane to the whole amendment, and later in the evening I hope to have it from the commission. Meantime I think we ought to pass it.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Shall the section carry?


Gordon Graydon: This section should not carry because, while we cannot offer an amendment to this section which would be acceptable under the rules, still there are many members in the committee who would like to vote against it and, so far as contributions are concerned, have it revert to the original position. If it cannot be carried with the consent of all the committee-


Paul Joseph James Martin: I have already indicated that it has been approved by the advisory committee, so far as the equalization principle is concerned. If the hon. member wishes a vote, then we will have to vote upon it.
Unemployment Insurance


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Does the section carry?


Gordon Graydon: On division.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: The hon. member for Cape-Breton South.


Clarence Gillis: I think that this is the root of the whole bill, and that we should have more information. When this act was first passed it came before the house for analysis, and went to a committee. After much work in committee it came back to the house.
In changing the basis of contribution the minister has asked us to vote on that change with practically no information as to how he arrives at the figures he has given us. In my opinion this is not insurance any more; it is an indirect levy. It is taxation.
The minister also states that the advisory committee had looked at this and approved. The act does not indicate that; but there is a section in the bill which definitely sets out that the committee were consulted. So far as I am concerned, the meagre amount of benefit in this for those who are affected byprolonged unemployment is overshadowed by this inequality in the matter of imposing the rates on the lower income groups. As one member who would like to see this bill go through for the benefit of the unemployed, for whatever benefit there may be in it, I am prepared to say that it should stand and go before a committee for a thorough analysis. I say that because the government is attempting to go right to the roots of the whole Unemployment Insurance Act.
Every time I listen to a discussion of this kind in the house it indicates one thing to me, and that is the necessity of the government getting down to the business of writing an over-all social security act for the people of this country, which would embrace all these things on a contributory basis. With the overlapping of administration costs, and all that kind of thing, this is far from satisfactory. I know it is far from what organized labour in this country is asking. If we close-this act now and accept the contributions on the basis the minister is proposing to us, it may be a long time before the act is reopened.
I would suggest seriously to the minister that this be done. If he wishes to go through the rest of the bill he will find it is only incidental. This section is the basis of the whole thing, and we should have a better understanding of it before it passes.


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has criticized the point of view as expressed by me on behalf of the contributing employer group. The hon. member for Cape Breton South states that this is a.
224	HOUSE OF
Unemployment Insurance direct tax. If he is correct, then the direct tax, in so far as the benefit is concerned, applies only to the employer group because they pay 40 per cent of the total amount without receiving any direct benefit.
In other words, they pay 50 per cent of the amount contributed, to make up the weekly payments by employer and employee. They receive no benefit directly or indirectly from that payment. The government pays the other 20 per cent. That is why I say the employer is paying 40 per cent of the total amount toward an insurance plan which is entirely for the benefit of the employee.
I believe I should put this on record to offset the argument advanced by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre respecting the low scale of the smaller group in this scheme. I wonder if he realizes just what type of employee that includes. In the great majority of cases it would be a parttime employee or a boy or girl working after hours. Perhaps they may receive a small amount for working after school hours. Perhaps that is another point which the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has overlooked.
After all, there are only three types of insurance in which we are interested. First there is the type which we pay ourselves by way of individual insurance. These are amounts which we lay aside either in the form of investment, life insurance, annuities or some other forms of insurance from which we benefit. In that connection we pay the direct cost.
The second type is group insurance in which both employer and employee participate. The third is the one we are now considering, which comes under the Unemployment Insurance Act, where the employer, the employee and the government each pay a proportion. As stated before, the employer pays 40 per cent, the employee pays 40 per cent and the government pays 20 per cent, which makes up the total cost of the payments. Through the years the employer pays without receiving any personal benefit.
I submit that the group represented by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre and the hon. member for Cape Breton South are unfair to the very people they pretend to represent, labour, or at least that is what they tell us. In 1940 and previous years organized labour was in favour of a system of unemployment insurance such as we now have. As far as I know they were 100 per cent in favour of this act. The objections being raised to bringing these amendments into effect come from the group which pretends to represent labour. For the life of me I can-


not follow their argument. This should be placed on the record so that the workingman throughout the country will know the position taken by the C.C.F. on this occasion.


Angus MacInnis: It will need only a short answer to reply to the argument put forward by the senior member for Halifax. The hon. member is correct when he says that organized labour was in favour of the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1940, but this bill is changing that act in regard to a special class of contributors. No evidence has been brought before this committee to show that organized labour either has been advised of the changes or has indicated approval. Unless the senior member for Halifax can bring forward that evidence his argument is so much eyewash.


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: To answer the hon. member may I say that the employee representative on the advisory committee has seen these amendments and the advisory committee has informed the government-


Angus MacInnis: We have no evidence that this bill was ever before the advisory committee, or that the committee have approved of it.


Clarence Gillis: The argument just advanced by the senior member for Halifax is really not an argument; it was just wishful thinking. He hopes that someone will read that statement in Hansard and fall for it. A great percentage of the people in this country are a little better informed on that subject than he thinks they are.


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: That is why they do not take very much stock in what the hon. member says.


Clarence Gillis: If it were not for men like myself there never would have been an Unemployment Insurance Act. I can recall sending resolutions thirty years ago to Liberal and Tory governments in this country asking for an unemployment insurance act. That practice was followed through the years. I was a member of this house when this act was brought down and we welcomed it because we realized that this was the fulfilment oi 25 years of effort. We finally convinced those in authority that such an act was a good thing to have.
I remember the opposition there was to this act when this House of Commons was lobbied by representatives of the manufacturers association and other agencies which were opposed to the interests of the working people. They have opposed it right through and they still oppose it. Fortunately for the government and for this act there was a war on which looked as though it might last a little while. It was thought to be a good

time to gather a fund against the anticipated depression that would take place after the war.
I have no illusion as to how the workingman feels about this act, but I do not want to get into an argument on that because I am more concerned about this particular measure. I do not want to see the efforts of thirty years chiselled away, perhaps unconsciously, by people who are advocating this bill at this time. I would rather have the old act without this bill.
The senior member for Halifax says that industry contributes 40 per cent toward the maintenance of the unemployed and gets no benefits. He would seem to indicate that they just throw in 40 per cent out of the goodness of their hearts. But at the end of the year when the employer is reckoning his income tax, the total amount paid to the unemployment insurance fund is written off. In the final analysis the taxpayers of the country are making his contribution. If industry did not have an unemployment insurance fund at this time which had been contributed to on a three-way basis they would be paying heavy taxes for the purpose of taking care of the totally unemployed. I just would not want to see this country with the unemployed that we have without this measure to cushion it. It is a good thing for all concerned that the act is there.
There are two main objections that I have. First, the fund was set up on an actuarial basis. The minister is not able to tell us how they arrived at the figures and the chances are that they may upset the actuarial apple cart. We do not want to see that happen. Let us have it understood that the hon. member for Halifax is an employer. He tells us that labour is in favour of this, when the fact is that labour has never seen it. The head of the Canadian Congress of Labour lives in this city.


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: I said that labour was in favour of the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1940.


Clarence Gillis: This bill is an entirely different thing.


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: It is on the same principle.


Clarence Gillis: This bill is taking some of the teeth out of the act. The heads of two large labour bodies live in this city but our information this afternoon was that neither had seen this bill.


John George Diefenbaker: We did not see it until
today.


Clarence Gillis: We got it this afternoon.


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: Does the hon. member say that the heads of both labour organizations are against this bill?
Unemployment Insurance


Clarence Gillis: They have not seen it. They do not know anything about it.


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: Are they against it?


Clarence Gillis: No sensible person commits himself on something he has not seen. The hon. member for Halifax has failed to indicate that the employer is being relieved of certain contributions by this bill. The $5 per week employee, and there are all too many of them, has to make his own contribution under this bill, whereas under the 1940 act the employer made that contribution. Another thing that must be remembered is that these benefits are going to accrue only to those who have been out of work for a long time or who are on unemployment insurance. I do not think the hon. member for Halifax wants to have his position-


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: Let the hon. member make his own case; I will make mine.


Clarence Gillis: The hon. member is in favour of the obtaining of $125,000 a year from a group with an income of about $5 per week for the purpose of taking care of an extra problem created by prolonged unemployment. Then there is another $300,000 approximately out of the pockets of the first four groups set out by the minister. The $5 million is additional; that is going to come out of the new group that has been added. Perhaps they can afford it a little better but nevertheless it is an indirect tax. It is not unemployment insurance for that group at all. The executive group is never going to receive anything from the fund. I am sure they will be willing to contribute their proportionate share, but that is the group on which your whole tax structure bears most heavily. They took it on the chin all through the war and they are still taking it on the chin. Now you are going to impose an extra levy on that income group to the extent of approximately $5 million a year in order to take care of the unemployed in this country.
That is why I would like to see it stand. Some people will say that I am not in favour of it. I am not in favour of imposing additional hardship on groups that are in a position where they are less able to bear it in order to get the benefits that are supposed to be contained in this act. I can see very little benefit in it. I suggest we should do exactly the same thing with this bill as we did when the act was first introduced. We should refer it to a committee, call in the representatives of labour and employers as we did before, and get some agreement on the terms of this measure. If we are going to open it up let us do a half decent job. If it takes another week before we can bring it back into the house let us do that so that we will
226

Unemployment Insurance all understand it. I understand that neither employers nor employees were consulted about this particular bill. They know nothing about it. There are in it one or two items about which they were consulted but which do not mean anything, but they have not had anything to say as to the contributions and how they are going to be applied.
Coming from the province of Nova Scotia, as the senior member for Halifax does, I know that unemployment is pretty bad there, and he and I do not want to disagree on this matter. I should like to see the best possible job done. My experience is that you cannot do a good job in a hurry. This measure has been rushed in here too fast to suit me. Until I have more information as to the bill than I have now I am prepared to vote against it and let the Unemployment Insurance Act remain as it is. I am prepared to have it sent to a committee so that a proper job can be done, which is what should be done if we are going to open up the matter at all. In the meantime let the government do something for the unemployed who are now on the streets and living in missions.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Clarence Gillis: If the members to my right and the members over here, with the weight of the machine they have in the house at the present time, want to steamroller this through, that is O.K. with me, but remember you will take the responsibility for it in the future. That kind of thing will boomerang on you. Do not make any mistake about that. In view of the present unemployment situation I think what we should be doing now is to try to do something for municipalities such as Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, where there is a concentration of unemployed and immediate help is needed.


Mr. Lennard:: Hamilton.


Clarence Gillis: Hamilton, Windsor, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Halifax, Winnipeg, although, according to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, Winnipeg is doing something about it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It is doing better than this.


Clarence Gillis: I think something should be done immediately to relieve the bad spots. In the meantime legislation such as this is something I do not want to fool with. If we are going to open up the act and do something about it I want to see it done properly so that it will have proper consideration.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Shall the clause carry?


George Alexander Drew: On division.


Some hon. Members:: On division.
Section agreed to on division.
Section 4 agreed to.


On section 5-Persons to be treated as employers in certain cases.


Mr. Langlois (Gaspe):: Before section 5 carries I should like to ask the minister two questions. In this section we are giving power to the commission to require all employers to see that contributions are paid in respect of their employees. In the explanatory notes relating to the clause I read the following:
In respect of lumbering and logging, the person so required may be the owner or lessee of the property or timber limits where the operations are carried on with his concurrence.
In my district there are many lumber cooperatives, or forestry syndicates, as we call them down there. They represent groups of farmers and fishermen who in their off season work in the forests for their own co-operatives, incorporated under the law of their province. I come now to my first question. Since in this case the employers and the employees are the same persons, and since these syndicates are co-operatives and are not leasing limits from the provincial government but are cutting lumber on stump-age fees only under the supervision of the forest engineers or licensed scalers of the department of lands and forests, in such a case will the commission ask the provincial government through its lands and forests department to see that contributions are paid by both employers and employees? My second question also relates to the same cooperative system. As I said before, the employers are the same persons as the employees. Am I right in assuming that they will be required to pay dual contributions as employers as well as employees to benefit from the proposed amendments to the act?


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 4-Recovery of contributions made on behalf of employee.
Mr. Carroll:: Mr. Chairman, I was on my feet to ask a question as to section 4 when it was ordered carried and the hon. member for Gaspe then proceeded to deal with section 5. There is one question I should like to ask the minister as to section 4, and it has to do with subsection 3 of section 19 of the present act, which reads:
Where the employed person is not paid wages or other pecuniary remuneration by his employer or any other person, the employer shall be liable to pay the contributions payable both by himself and the employed person and shall not be entitled to recover any part thereof from the employed person.
Is that not a much more favourable clause for the employee than existed before?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I think that is right. As to the questions of the hon. member for Gaspe, section 5 is merely one of clarification. The

matter which my hon. friend has mentioned is, I know engaging the serious study of the commission.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 3-Rates of contribution.
Gordon Graydon: I rise on a question of privilege concerning section 3, which was carried a few moments ago. The chairman will understand that a rather unusual situation arose. When the chairman called "carried", a number of us called "on division". Then the hon. member for Cape Breton South proceeded to make some observations, and the clause was finally carried. I want it distinctly understood, so that it will be beyond possibility of any misunderstanding on Hansard or in your records, that the section was passed on division. I hope it will be so recorded because I think the chairman will say at once that was said.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: There is no record in committee, but it will be on Hansard. Shall the section carry?


Some hon. Members:: On division.
Section agreed to on division.
On section 6-Statutory conditions.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I hope the minister will give us a pretty full explanation of what is happening to section 28 of the original act by virtue of this amendment. This is a pretty important section, since it sets out what are known as the statutory conditions. One improvement has been made, which I commend; those under sixteen years of age will now qualify for benefits if they meet the other statutory conditions. Another change is obviously an administrative matter; that is, doing away with the old paragraph (c). But what concerns me is the fact that now even the first time an employee applies for benefits he will have to have made contributions for 180 days within the last two years, and in addition 60 of those contributions must have been in the immediately preceding year, or 45 in the immediately preceding six months. I think I state it correctly when I say that is a change; that the 60 days within the last year or 45 days within the last six months, in addition to the 180 days in the last two years, were not conditions previously. The 60-day provision was there with respect to a person coming back for benefits a second time, but it did not apply when the first application was made.
Some of the complaints we have been receiving today from representatives of labour because of reports that have appeared in the newspapers have related to this change
55946-15J
Unemployment Insurance in the statutory conditions; and this is something pretty fundamental to the act. If I may put it in these terms, these are the contractual conditions under which millions of workers have been paying premiums into this unemployment insurance fund for a number of years. Now one of the basic terms of the contract is being changed, and I should like to know why. I want to kno\v what is the significance of the phrase in the explanatory note to the effect that the substance of the amendment of the statutory conditions concerning the number of contributions has been approved by the unemployment insurance advisory committee. At least one of the labour congress heads in this city complained to me about this very section. I note that the approval referred to is approval of the substance. Apparently these are things which are open to considerable question, and I believe the minister should give a pretty full explanation of this section.


Paul Joseph James Martin: As my hon. friend has mentioned, the advisory committee has approved the substance of this provision, which I think will commend itself to hon. members.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Just what does that mean?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Exactly what it says. The government has the responsibility for legislation. It has discussed this matter with the advisory committee; but that does not mean to say every letter has to be discussed. This government is prepared to accept its responsibility, but the principle involved in this matter has been approved by the advisory committee.
With regard to the explanation, at the present time to qualify for benefits a person must have made 180 contributions within two years of his claim. On a second or subsequent claim 60 of those contributions must have been made since the commencement of his last benefit year. This provision worked a hardship on persons who became ill, accepted employment in non-insurable industry, or worked on their own account after setting up a claim. The amendment modifies this second condition, and in future a person can qualify provided he has 180 contributions, 60 of which were made within a year prior to the claim or 45 within six months prior to the claim. So it will be seen that the 45 is a relaxation of the 60, and definitely a benefit. In addition the present provision has been further modified so that the period of one year or six months may be extended after periods of illness, self-employment, or non-insurable employment. This modification is the result of representations made by the Canadian Congress of Labour

Unemployment Insurance and has been concurred in, as I stated, by the unemployment insurance advisory committee.


Angus MacInnis: The minister has said that the latter part of this section, that is the 45 days' contribution in the preceding 26 weeks, is a relaxation that should work to the advantage of a person claiming benefits. That is not what is in the explanatory note on the opposite page. According to that note this is really a tightening up, to provide that the person making a claim will have had more recent employment than might have been the case formerly. Let me read it for the benefit of the minister:
The amendment would generally require either 60 daily contributions in the last year previous to the claim or 45 during the last six months previous to the claim. This is in order to ensure some recency of attachment to the labour market.
In view of that phrase which has been placed in the explanation the minister's statement seems pretty far-fetched. It is quite contrary to the explanation contained in the bill.


Some hon. Members:: Carried.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I want to ask the minister a question about a later part of the section, but I am waiting to see if he has anything more to say about the earlier part.


Some hon. Members:: Carried.


Stanley Howard Knowles: If the minister is not going to say anything more I shall just state that this is a section concerning which we will nave to say "on division" because I think the explanatory note is closer to the text than what the minister had to say. It seems to me it is definitely lessening the benefits accorded to workers under the act. It is a tightening up. The 60-day provision is already in the act with respect to a person applying for a second benefit; now it is being made to apply to a man applying for his first benefit. That short sentence really tells the story: "This is in order to ensure some recency of attachment to the labour market." In other words the poor chap who has been unemployed a little too long is just out of luck.
Now I want to ask the minister a question about the latter part of this section over on page 4. There are some lines underlined ending with the words "shall not in any case exceed two years." That is a change from the old section, which ended "but so as not to exceed in any case four years." This is the part of the act that has to do with giving employees the benefit of the time they have lost owing to illness, in establishing the 180 days in the previous two years. I have read this over several times trying to straighten

it out in my own mind. This is my question: Is there any change in the substantial meaning of that section because the words "two years" appear where the words "four years" formerly appeared? Is it just a case of addition, putting two and two together, or has the right of the worker actually been lessened?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Let that section stand, because I cannot give the answer at the moment.
Section 6 stands.
On section 7-While following any occupation for remuneration unless outside ordinary working hours.


Stanley Howard Knowles: If the members had been able to see this bill a little sooner, perhaps others would have been able to study it and take more part in this discussion. I should like an explanation of paragraph (d), over on page 5. First of all, I want to say that I approve of the change that is found in line 37 on page 4, where the means test provision for the amount of other income a person can earn has been increased from $1.50 to $2.00.
Clause (d) over on page 5 puzzles me. This clause formerly read as follows:
(d) On any day of any calendar week during which he works the full working week;
That came under a section which said that was not to be counted as unemployment.
The section now reads as follows:
(d) On any day of any calendar week during which he works the full working week or four or more days or shifts by reason of a temporary reduction of his working week.
It appears to me as though, whereas an employee could claim a day or two in a week that he lost because of a reduction in work being done as days of unemployment, he now will not be able to claim it if he works four days. I see no indication that this change was referred to the advisory committee.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Chairman, it is proposed, and I now so move, to drop subsection 2 of section 7, and that includes subparagraph (d) over on page 5.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Good.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Shall the section as
amended carry?
Section as amended agreed to.
On section 8-Rates of benefit.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The part of section 8 which concerns me is subparagraph 2 which says:
(2) In computing the average daily contribution
(a) any contributions paid by the insured person for any period prior to the first day of July, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, at the daily rate of nine cents shall be deemed to have been paid at

the rate of eight cents, for the purpose of computing his rate of benefit for periods prior to the first day of July, nineteen hundred and fifty-one;
I believe I understand that, and there is some logic to it. I take it that the new category that is being brought in, those people who are in the $4,800 class, are being called upon to pay 9 cents a day or 54 cents a week. This provision is to keep them from getting the full benefits that 9 cents a day would normally provide until they have paid into the fund for a couple of years. I see the parliamentary assistant nodding his head that I am right on that.
What about subparagraph (b)? It reads:
(b) One cent shall be deducted from each daily contribution paid by the insured person after the first day of July, nineteen hundred and fifty;
What does that mean, and why is it there?


Paul-Émile Côté: Mr. Chairman, this cent is calculated to constitute the premium of the insured for the supplementary benefits only. When a calculation is made on an ordinary benefit year, it should be calculated on the basis of the daily contribution he is paying, less the cent he is placing towards protection for the winter months, as provided in part IIA.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am not as worried about ihe people in these higher brackets as I was about the people in the lower brackets, but still I do not think that is fair. You establish that the benefits for a person without iependents shall be 34 times the average of ;he 180 most recent daily contributions paid sy the insured person during the two years mmediately preceding the commencement of :he benefit year, and for a person with a lependent it shall be 45 times such average, ess 10 cents from the product so obtained, rhat has been laid down as a general principle. Then for this group that are earning |>48 per week or more, and whom yqu [DOT]equire to pay 54 cents per week into the und, you establish a benefit of the same (mount as you give to the people who are laying 48 cents a week. Is that correct? You leduct one cent-


Charles Delmar Coyle: That is right.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -from what they have paid, or the purpose of computing the benefit they hould receive?


Charles Delmar Coyle: That is for the
Lrst year.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There is nothing in 2 (b) vhich says it is only for the first year. It ays:
One cent shall be deducted from each daily con-ribution paid by the insured person after the first lay of July, nineteen hundred and fifty;
Unemployment Insurance
For how long does it continue? There is no termination to that.


Charles Delmar Coyle: I have a report of the advisory committee, Mr. Chairman, which deals with the subject being discussed by the member for Winnipeg North Centre. It reads:
The committee has been concerned to see that the contribution and benefit classes should retain the relationship to actual earnings which they had when the act was first passed. It previously recommended the addition of a class 8 and the act was amended to this effect. It now recommends the establishment of a class 9 (in terms of the present numbering) for persons receiving $48 a week or more with contributions and benefits proportionate to those of the present classes. Since, however, benefit rates are now fixed on the average contributions of 180 days rather than two years and the immediate granting of higher benefit rights might occasion a serious drain on the fund, the committee recommends that, though contributions under the new class should start at once, benefits under the new class should be limited to the rates of class 8 until one year after the new class had come into effect.
It will be seen that the report is along the lines of my reply to the hon. member, to the effect that the purpose of this provision was to let the insured in this new higher class contribute for one year on the new rate basis, before he is allowed to receive a benefit on the basis of that contribution.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I can see that clearly as an explanation for 2 (a), but I find it extremely difficult to accept it as an explanation for 2 (b). It says in 2 (a) that if those people who are in this higher bracket, and who have been paying 9 cents a day, claim a benefit any time before July 1, 1951, that benefit shall be computed on the 8-cent basis.
Paragraph 2 (b) appears to be concerned with something else altogether. It comes under the general heading of computing the average daily contribution, and subparagraph (b) reads:
One cent shall be deducted from each daily contribution paid by the insured person after the first day of July, nineteen hundred and fifty.
I do not see any relationship between 2 (a), which sets a deadline for benefits of July 1, 1951, and 2 (b), which talks about this deduction commencing on July 1, 1950, and apparently carrying on forever.


Charles Delmar Coyle: I think this is the appropriate time to show to the committee that there is a real basic difference between unemployment assistance and what supplementary benefits are intended to be in this particular legislation. One cannot be taken for the other. This is noticeable precisely in the subsection to which my hon. friend has drawn my attention. One cent a day is added to the daily rate of contribution across the board for no other purpose than to assure the
230	HOUSE OF
Unemployment Insurance entitlement of the insured to the supplementary benefits during the specific period mentioned in the act and under the conditions which are provided.
This additional contribution of one cent a day cannot in any way interfere with the normal administration of the act so far as the regular benefits are concerned. That is why, in calculating the amount of benefit which an insured is entitled to under the act after the new rates have come into force, he has to establish the average of his daily contribution on the new schedule, after deducting one cent from the daily rate of contribution which appears in that new section. I do not know whether I have made myself clear.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You are right. You haven't.


Charles Delmar Coyle: What I want to emphasize is the fact that after July 1 the insured will be paying one cent more to entitle himself to claim under the supplementary benefits legislation, part IIA of the act.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That will go on for all time.


Paul-Émile Côté: That will go on until parliament decides to modify it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: But it does not apply between now and July 1, 1950?


Paul-Émile Côté: The contributions on the new schedule will go into force only on July 1. That is why the date has been set there.


Angus MacInnis: Mr. Chairman, I am not quite sure which of us is confused, the parliamentary assistant or myself. I think that goes for the rest of the committee as well. Will the parliamentary assistant tell us where the one cent a day will go that is to be deducted? Who gets it, and why? It seems to me that the real purpose of this amendment to the Unemployment Insurance Act is to provide work in the unemployment insurance office for people running around looking for cents. Are we to understand also that the funds required for the supplementary benefits are to be kept separate from the ordinary funds of the unemployment insurance commission? If that is so, what is the reason for it?


Paul-Émile Côté: Mr. Chairman, there will not be any special fund for that. The additional contribution made up of the additional one cent a day by the contributor, either employer or employee, will go to the unemployment insurance fund; but a special accounting will have to be made on account of certain provisions which we shall meet a little later on, and which will be necessary for the adjustment of accounts between the Minister of Finance and the unemployment insurance commission, because, as my hon. friends


know, the government is underwriting the commission and protecting the fund to the extent of the losses that may occur from the payment of supplementary benefits over the aggregate of what the addition of one cent a day contribution will bring in.


Stanley Howard Knowles: If ever there was evidence that this is a very complicated measure to bring in, in a rush like this, we have it now. I am trying to get this clear, and I shall ask another question of the parliamentary assistant. Section 2 (a) refers, does it not, clearly day contribution will bring in.


Paul-Émile Côté: Yes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I thought before-maybe I was right, maybe I was wrong-that 2 (b) also referred only to those in the 9 cent a day category. I am wondering now-


Paul-Émile Côté: To all the
categories.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That refers to all the categories. At last I understand it.


Paul-Émile Côté: It means just what it says.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Now that I understand it I am opposed to it.


Paul-Émile Côté: We know where you stand, anyway.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I ask the Liberal majority that is getting a little fun out of this to take note of it. It means that when an employee applies for benefits and knows that he has been paying, say 7 cents a day, and looks into this act he sees that his benefit will be $18.30 a week. It means that after July 1, it will not be $18.30 a week; it will be the rate for 6 cents a day, namely $15.60 a week. The heads are nodding over there. One Paul is nodding up and down and the other Paul is nodding a different way.


Charles Delmar Coyle: We were not discussing this particular point, excuse me.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It is quite clear now that after July 1, 1950, when you compute the rate of benefit to which you are entitled, the figure you take is not the number of cents per day you have actually been paying in but one cent less. That one cent, as the parliamentary assistant has said, clearly is the amount that they have been paying for this supplementary benefit.


Charles Delmar Coyle: Right.


Stanley Howard Knowles: All right. If the person has been paying 8 cents a day, 48 cents a week, When the time comes to apply for benefit, after July 1, 1950, and he looks at the table and he sees opposite 8 cents, $21, he thinks

that he is getting an increase. He is getting no increase at all. He has to move up to the 7 cent line, and will get $18.30 a week. Similarly, the person who has been paying on an average 4 cents a day or 24 cents a week looks at the table and sees that he is going to get $10.20 a week. Not at all. Alter July 1, 1950, he has to compute on the 3 cent rate, which means that he gets only $7.50 a week. I am taking the oases with the dependent across the line. Mr. Chairman, I have been fooled again. I thought earlier today when we were presented with the increased premiums in class 3, which some of us opposed, that at least these increased premiums carried with them increased benefits for the unemployed, but now I find that such is not the case at all. You are getting it both ways. You increase the premium because you are out to cover supplementary benefits, but when you come to draw the benefits you do not get the benefits specified for that increased rate but rather the benefits specified for the next lower rate. It is quite a game, if you can get away with it. However, I submit there will be an awful lot of nasty letters complaining about this, once the workers in this country understand it.
I say again that the senior member for Halifax was perfectly right that this whole piece of legislation is one of the things closest to the heart of labour. They were involved in the drafting of the thing. Now these drastic changes are being made, and they have no voice in the matter at all. Look at the time it has taken those few of us who are paying attention to these details to get this point sorted out. Here we are paying for these supplementary benefits two ways: you pay the increased rate of premium, six cents a week more-get that clear; and when you come to claim your benefit you get the benefit, not for the number of cents per day you have been paying, but for the next cent less.


Paul-Émile Côté: I discussed the matter with the hon. member a few moments ago and I have nothing to withdraw from what I said. However, since then, he has referred to the schedule of the rate of benefits appearing in the bill at page 6. Now that he has referred to that schedule, I would point out that there has been made the precise deduction of one cent which goes direct for entitlement to supplementary benefits. So that if an insured person refers to the schedule which has been prepared for his convenience, and for the service of our administration, he will have no deduction of one cent to make, because it is already made. That is why the highest category, those who make the daily contribution of 9 cents, does not appear in the schedule.
If my hon. friend would compare this schedule he would find that the insured does
Unemployment Insurance not lose anything in the amount of benefits to which he is entitled, on the specific daily rate-either 2 cents or 3 cents, or up to 8 cents. He does not lose a penny on it. But he will be paying one cent more to qualify him to get the special benefits involved in part IIA, which will be submitted a little later on.


Stanley Howard Knowles: In the circumstances pointed out by the parliamentary assistant is it not a fact that the 9-cent man looks at the 8-cent rate? There is no 9-cent line in the schedule. And if the 9-cent man looks at the 8-cent line, the 8-cent man looks at the 7-cent line.


Paul-Émile Côté: The 9-cent man will be entitled to use the 8-cent rate of daily contribution, for the calculation of his benefits, after a certain period has expired. My hon. friend has agreed as to the soundness of letting the insured in the highest category have time to accumulate a certain amount of contribution. That is, on an actuarial basis, for the protection of the unemployment insurance fund.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 9-Days not counted for benefit.
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, hon. members from all sides of the house, including the hon. member for Spadina at yesterday's sitting, have protested against the 9-day waiting period. I see in line 31 of section 9 a slight recognition of that protest in that the number of waiting days is to be reduced from 9 to 8. My, the Liberals can be so liberal at times! It really should be cut out altogether or, if a change is to be made, surely it is not good enough to reduce it from 9 to 8.
I was pleased to note that when a few moments ago I pointed to one section which seemed to be particularly offensive the minister moved for its deletion. I hope he will move a further amendment at this time to change this 8 days to some lesser number, if the section is to stay at all.
May I call the attention of the minister to the fact that when we reach page 15 of the bill we will find that some recognition of the wrongness of the waiting period has been indicated with respect to supplementary benefits. I am pleased to note that in respect of supplementary benefits a person will not have to wait 9 days after the legislation goes through.


Paul-Émile Côté: That is specially provided.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Here, however, we are dealing with those older contributors who have been in the fund for a long time. The only concession we give them is to cut the waiting

Unemployment Insurance period from 9 days to 8. Well, it has taken us 10 years of arguing to get that down, and perhaps it will take quite a while to get it any further-unless we can get it down further right now. I hope there is support in all quarters for my contention either that the waiting period be cut out altogether or that the number of days be reduced. I am hoping the government may propose an amendment to do that right now. I would do it, only it would cost money, and as a private member I am not permitted to offer such an amendment.


Paul-Émile Côté: per cent of the claims all of the benefit days authorized were used up even with the nine-day waiting period.
It is felt that a reduction in the waiting period would mean a large increase in the number of claims filed. At present, persons who only have a short period of unemployment do not bother to file a claim. There is also a possibility that a shorter waiting period might increase the number of short lay-offs.
Certain provisions of the present bill, it is hoped, will rectify some of the conditions which heretofore have prevented a reduction in the waiting period. If these provisions are found adequate, it may be possible at an early date to reduce the waiting period.


Mr. Byrne:: I should like to say something about this waiting period. I think I have had more practical experience with working people than some of my friends across the aisle. I have worked with these people and have gained a knowledge of their desires from that contact rather than from ideological literature. I have heard this question of the waiting period discussed on a number of occasions at union meetings by those who were regularly employed but who might because of certain circumstances become unemployed for a day or two. When that happens usually someone comes along and tells them not to wait, that they should get something back from the unemployment fund, but when this matter has been brought up it has been voted down overwhelmingly.
These men feel that when they are steadily employed it is no hardship to be off a day or two and that they should continue to contribute to the fund without trying to grasp something back from it as soon as they see one or two days of unemployment ahead. I have found that ever since the act was brought in there has been no great desire to reduce the waiting period, unless it were reduced to permit a person who had a prolonged period of unemployment to receive benefits back to the first day of unemployment rather than to the tenth day. At such times I have heard it said that they should not go after it now but accept the assurance that when a man retires and is still employable he is able to get some benefits in the way of unemployment insurance. These men look forward to that, but they are not quite as avaricious as some people would have us believe.


Clarence Gillis: I have had a little experience with the rank and file of the workers, and I know they are concerned about this particular angle. There are 4,500 steel workers and around 6,000 miners in my constituency. During the recess I attended at a majority of the miners' locals and all the steel workers'

locals and I heard them discuss what they thought would be good amendments to make to this act. One of the things that they stressed strongly was that the waiting period should be abolished. This happened only a few weeks ago.
I did not intend to say anything about this, but I could not let the remarks of the hon. member pass unchallenged. If I did the people who had told me that just a couple of weeks ago would say that I was falling down on the job. I think this waiting period should be abolished and so do the people whom I represent.


Mr. Hatfield:: I think the waiting period should be reduced to six days as recommended by the advisory committee. I do not see why this house should accept the recommendation of Mr. Watson. We are sent here to make the laws.


Paul-Émile Côté: The recommendation of the advisory committee was based on the actuarial advice being favourable to the recommendation.


Heber Harold Hatfield: This is insurance. What is the employee going to live on during those eight or nine days?


Paul-Émile Côté: The recommendations of an actuary are of prime importance simply because this is an insurance scheme.


Heber Harold Hatfield: If you have a sickness insurance policy and are taken sick you do not have to wait nine days.


An hon. Member:: Yes, you do.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It seems to me that the memorandum read by the parliamentary assistant enhances the argument for making a change, at least to the six days recommended, although provisionally, by the unemployment insurance advisory committee. I do not like to speak disparagingly of a civil servant, but I have had occasion to read some of the memoranda and documents prepared by Mr. A. D. Watson. He does not belong to the Department of Labour or even to the Department of National Health and Welfare where they have some good research people.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Thank you.


Stanley Howard Knowles: He is in the Department of Finance, and one would almost think that he had been brought up in the treasury board. I have in mind a document that was tabled by the Minister of Labour in response to a motion of mine having to do with the old question, whether or not people on unem-
Unemployment Insurance ployment insurance who are taken ill should be cut off, as is now the case, or whether they should be retained on benefits.
That question was referred by the unemployment insurance advisory committee to Mr. A. D. Watson and he gave them an answer of fifteen or twenty, or perhaps thirty pages. I have a copy upstairs. The only reference in the whole thirty pages, or whatever number it was, to the question referred to him by the committee was a footnote on page three that he did not agree with them anyway. That was the social approach of that particular actuary to this whole problem of social insurance.
I think the department would have done much better to have taken the advice of the unemployment insurance advisory committee. It would have been much better to have referred the matter to the labour congresses or to the manufacturers association, if you will, or even to parliament-really not a bad idea-as the hon. member for Victoria-Carle-ton has just said. We should not be influenced or governed by the advice of Mr. Watson.
I submit strongly that we should not be satisfied with this small reduction from nine to eight days. The distinction made by the hon. member for Kootenay East between those who are on unemployment benefits for a long period and those who are on for a short period is valid, although he cast a reflection on the request we had made. However, he did come along with us so far as those who had been unemployed for a prolonged time were concerned, because he said that they should get benefits right back to the first day they become unemployed. I am sure that the minister and the department would be well advised to reconsider this whole matter and reduce the waiting period.


Heber Harold Hatfield: Does a man who lives 30 miles away from the unemployment insurance office have to report to that office in person every two weeks during the time he is receiving benefits?


Paul Joseph James Martin: He does it by mail.


Heber Harold Hatfield: What is that?


Paul Joseph James Martin: He may do it by mail.


Heber Harold Hatfield: Can they do it by mail now? They used to have to report in person.


Joseph William Noseworthy: Are we right in assuming that the waiting period has been reduced from nine to eight days, or does this not imply eight days plus the first day of unemployment mentioned in part A? Is the waiting period really to be eight days or is it to be nine days under the amendment?
234

Unemployment Insurance


Paul-Émile Côté: It is a matter of making the section more operative. No change is being made.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You were zealous in telling me I was wrong. You were very quick in telling me that I was wrong.


Paul-Émile Côté: It is provided that in all cases, except the two mentioned in the section, the first day of unemployment shall not be compensable. This being stipulated the waiting period will therefore be a total of nine days as under the existing statute.


Howard Charles Green: Just the same as it is now.


Paul-Émile Côté: There is no change. The section has been redrafted to make it more operative and to simplify certain difficulties.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I will not withdraw the complimentary remarks I make about the research people in the office of the Minister of National Health and Welfare, but I must withdraw the approving comment I made with respect to the reduction from nine days to eight days. In all seriousness I must protest at the minister and the parliamentary assistant sitting there and letting me welcome a reduction from nine days to eight days when no change was being made at all. All they were doing was dividing it into one day at the top of the page and eight days down at the bottom. That is pretty bad. The hon. member for Vancouver East used language this afternoon that we cannot use, but it is certainly most appropriate.


Angus MacInnis: This evening is the first time that I have had the opportunity of hearing a representative of labour, or one who claims to be a representative of labour, oppose a reduction of the waiting period. I have before me a list of resolutions received from the British Columbia federation of labour, an affiliate of the Canadian Congress of Labour. I understand that for ideological reasons the organization my friend represents is no longer affiliated with the Canadian Congress of Labour. Among the changes that the British Columbia federation of labour is asking for in the Unemployment Insurance Act is No. 3, that the nine-day waiting period be shortened. So far as I know, at every convention of every labour organization in Canada that is one of the resolutions that are regularly passed. For a so-called representative of labour to refer to us as getting our ideas from ideological sources and saying that is our basis for asking that the waiting period be reduced is enough to make me say that I imagine in their own good time labour will take care of that.


Heber Harold Hatfield: The minister told me a few minutes ago that a person could report by mail now. How often does he have to report by mail, and how many signatures does he have to have on the form?


Paul Joseph James Martin: How far is he from the office?


Heber Harold Hatfield: Suppose he is twenty-five miles from the office.


Paul Joseph James Martin: About twice; it depends pretty well on the cost of transportation.


Mr. Cardiff:: I should like to ask the minister what extra personnel, if any, will be required to administer the act in view of the changes that are being made?


Paul Joseph James Martin: It is pretty hard to estimate. We do not think very many.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 10 agreed to.
On section 11-Regulations in respect of special classes.
J. G. Léopold Langlois: Section 11 deals with section 38 of the act. Section 38 of the act empowers the commission to make regulations in relation to some classes of persons. These regulations may be made in regard to-and I cite the act:
(i)	imposing additional conditions and terms with respect to contributions and the payment thereof and with respect to the receipt of benefit.
(ii)	restricting the amount or period of benefit, and1
(iii)	making modifications ini the provisions of this act relating to the determination of claims for benefit . . .
Among the classes of persons to whom these regulations apply are persons employed in the shipping industry, or transportation by water as it is described in the act. At first employment in the shipping industry was not considered as an insurable risk or hazard under the act, but I believe it was two years ago that this principle was abandoned by the commission and the act was amended to bring the industry within its scope at the particular request, I am told, of the seamen of the great lakes. The industry was, however, brought under the act under certain restrictions or special conditions. These special conditions are set out at pages 44 and 45 of the regulations and special orders of the unemployment insurance commission made under section 38 of the act. Subparagraph 5 (b) of section 12 of "Seasonal regulations" reads as follows:
"Seasonal industry" means and includes the following respective industries, which the commission hereby declares to be seasonal industries:
(i) the industry of transportation by water on any of the "inland waters of Canada" as the latter expression is defined in the Canada Shipping Act, 1934, herein referred to as "transportation by water":

(ii) the industry of stevedoring in any of the inland or deep sea ports, herein referred to as "stevedoring."
Subparagraph (c) goes further and says:
(c)	"inland port" means a port on any of the said inland waters of Canada.
In subparagraph (d) deep sea port is described as follows:
(d)	"deep sea port" means the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia and the port of Saint John, New Brunswick.
In subparagraph 4 of the same section 12 of the regulations made under section 38 of the act it is further said:
(4) The off-season applicable in the case of any such seasonal worker shall be determined in accordance with the following rules:
(a) where the particular seasonal industry applicable in his case is transportation by water, the offseason applicable shall be the off-season for transportation by water, namely, the period commencing on December 16 in each year and ending on April 14 next thereafter.


Charles Delmar Coyle: If I may assist my hon. friend, I suggest that he is not reading from the latest regulations of the commission. These were tabled just a few days ago, and they are dated at the end of last December. The regulations provide that the line of division between deep sea and inland waters is Cap des Rosiers. To relieve the mind of my hon. friend I suggest that this is a matter which might be placed before the commission, which has power under the act to give consideration to any representations of this kind and to submit proposals to the governor in council if special regulations should be found desirable.


J. G. Léopold Langlois: To deal with the first point raised by the parliamentary assistant, I was quoting from the office consolidation dated October, 1948, which last night he suggested I should get from the library. In any event, I have not yet quoted anything having to do with home trade and inland waters.


Paul-Émile Côté: To make the position clear, as far as the act is concerned the consolidation of October, 1948, is the latest; but the latest copy of the regulations dates back to December, 1949, only.


J. G. Léopold Langlois: Nothing I have quoted, I am sure, has been amended in the latest edition of the regulations to which the parliamentary assistant refers. I refrained from speaking on the resolution or on second reading because I did not want to delay this important bill. I shall be very brief, but I make these remarks at this point because I do not quite agree with the parliamentary assistant when he says that what I suggest should be corrected with respect to this particular industry can be done only by
55946-16J
Unemployment Insurance order in council or by regulations. I am not sure of that; and I do not know how the parliamentary assistant can be sure of it, because I have not yet fully stated my case. If I may be permitted I should like to proceed, and I shall be as brief as possible.
I was saying that we had created a special category for those employed in the inland shipping industry. If during this off-season period from December 16 to April 14 an employee loses his employment, he has to prove 420 contributions instead of the 180 which are asked of those in other categories.
I am not sure of this, and I have been unable to check it, but I am told that recently this number of 420 was reduced somewhat but that it is still very much higher than the minimum of 180 days required in other categories.
Now I come to the other remarks of the parliamentary assistant. The inland waters of Canada were defined in the Canada Shipping Act as, at their eastern limit, commencing at a line drawn from Father Point to Point Orient on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. As everyone knows, a year ago this limit was changed and put some three hundred miles further down the river, so that it is now a line drawn from Cap des Rosiers through the western point of Anticosti island to the north shore. That required no change in the regulations, because the regulations accepted the description of inland waters contained in the Canada Shipping Act, and when the Canada Shipping Act was changed this definition was automatically changed in the regulations.
Now I come to my second point. I want to make it clear that my remarks apply to seamen no matter where they come from, as long as they are engaged in the specified trades to which I am going to refer. But while my remarks apply to all those seamen they are made particularly in reference to seamen belonging to my own province. In Quebec we have ships sailing from the inland ports of Montreal and Quebec but going further down than the eastern limit of our inland waters. They go as far as Gaspe, the Magdalen islands, Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Labrador. Quite wrongly, I am convinced, these have been classified as inland water ships. They are not; they are in the home trade. Their officers must have the certificates of competency required for the home trade of Canada. More than that, the men employed on those ships can very easily, as they have been doing for a number of years, find employment during the off season on the St. Lawrence on ships sailing from Halifax or Saint John or Sydney, and even on ships which during the summer months are engaged in the St. Lawrence trade but in the winter
236	HOUSE OF
Unemployment Insurance months go to the gulf of Mexico and carry on their trade there. So I say that the risk of unemployment for the men employed in our home trade is not the same as that for those employed in our inland water trade, meaning by that term our great lakes seamen, for instance.
I point out that this situation has created severe hardships in many cases. I feel that, if under this section the commission is to be empowered to make regulations concerning inland shipping, it should be made clear that those regulations are not to extend as they have in the past-unjustly, I say-to seamen engaged in the home trade rather than the inland trade of Canada. That is why I consider it my duty to make these remarks at this stage, when we are discussing the very section which empowers the commission to do the things I am complaining about. I know it might be possible to remedy the situation 1 have outlined simply by amending the regulations, but I contend that if the commission had not such indefinite power it would not be tempted to pass regulations which would affect our home trade, as it has done in the past.
I have another suggestion to put forward in this connection. When we say that the seamen employed on ships sailing in the inland waters of Canada are employed in a seasonal occupation, and should therefore be asked to comply with severe conditions in order to secure benefits under the act, we are not being fair to these men. We should allow them, before they apply for benefits, to declare themselves available for employment in similar industries, or for employment which can be found for them in other industries.
In order to clarify what I mean, may I cite the example of a cook on a ship. A cook on a ship can be just as good a cook in a lumber camp during the winter months, or any other industry in which a cook is required. Another example is a deckhand on a ship. He is used to doing all sorts of work on the ship, such as handling the cargo and various other deck jobs. Such a man could do similar work in other industries in which employment can be found the year round. The case of motor mechanics is similar to that of men working in other industries whether they are handling gasoline or steam engines. These motor mechanics may be employed on a ship on the great lakes during the summer for example, but that does not prevent them from finding employment in a garage in Windsor, for instance, during the winter, or in any other industry in which motor mechanics are needed. I do not think these men should be deprived of their benefits through
l Mr. J anglois (Gaspe).l

the severe restrictive conditions imposed by the regulations, just because they happen to work for five or six months a year in what we call the shipping industry.
The other day I asked an official of the unemployment insurance commission of my province what happened to the employees of summer hotels, such as those which exist in my province. Some of these hotels are operated by the Canada Steamship Lines at Tadoussac and Murray Bay and operate from May or June until September only. Their employees are seasonal employees but because they can find employment in other hotels in other parts of the province or Canada during the winter months they are considered as a regular insurable class. I asked this official why the same thing was not done for the cook, motor mechanic or deckhand on our ships and he had no answer to explain the severe treatment of our seamen.
On many occasions in this house, the senior member for Halifax has mentioned the case of stevedores in connection with unemployment insurance benefits. Recently, I had occasion to join with him in making representations to officials of the government requesting that something be done for them. Surely, those men are eligible for employment during their off-season period in other industries where men are needed to handle heavy cargoes or to perform other work for which stevedores are trained.
As I said, Mr. Chairman, I thought it my duty to make these remarks because I believe it is an important subject. With the decline in our shipping activities, our seamen are finding it difficult to secure employment. I am in favour of the loggers, and the men employed in the lumbering industry in general getting their share of benefits, but I believe our seamen are entitled to the same treatment, because their trade is being severely hit today. I hope these remarks will be taken in good part by the parliamentary assistant, and the minister, as well as the officials of the commission. I hope prompt action will be taken in this respect.


Mr. Hansell:: I have been waiting for this clause to be called, because there is a question or two I should like to ask about it. I do not know whether this clause governs those classes that are known as excepted or exempted classes, but I should like to know if the commission has the power to determine what classes shall come under the act and what classes shall be exempted from it. When I refer to classes, I mean people such as I referred to yesterday, hospital employees. They do not come under the act. My question does not concern hospital employees, and

1 only use that as an illustration. My question is, does the commission have power to include or exclude those particular people?


Paul Joseph James Martin: The commission has power, under section 86 (2), to do that very thing. I recall that, because I was reading it last night. Of course, the recommendation of the commission is subject to the approval of the governor in council.


Ernest George Hansell: What is the government's reaction to the suggestion that those classes be written into the act instead of being included by order in council, or upon the recommendation of the commission? I believe the act should be changed every time that is done. I refer to classes of people that might number in the thousands. What I have in mind, Mr. Chairman, is this, and you will appreciate the significance and importance of it:	When by regulation, whether it is by
order in council or whatever it may be, certain classes of people are compelled to contribute to a scheme of this kind, then we are imposing a form of taxation. Some other terminology can be used if one desires, but that is what it is. In principle, therefore, you have a small commission authorized-we shall at least give them this benefit-to recommend to the government, and then the government, by order in council, takes the authority of imposing what I am going to call taxation. So far as I am concerned, that is what it is.
Now, I do riot agree with that principle. I believe that action of that sort should be taken by parliament. It is for that purpose the members are here. I should like to know what the government's answer is to the question of why these classes cannot be set out in the act, and the act changed from time to time as required.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I must confess that there is a good deal of merit in what my hon. friend says, but he does not state the whole case, although that part of it which he has stated has been well stated. As he knows, classes have been brought in by the commission, subject of course to careful investigation and consideration by the governor in council. These things are not done lightly. For instance, the lumbering industry was brought in, and today I announced the order in council confirming the recommendation of the commission in that regard. Parliament was sitting, of course, and I was able to table the order in council and make a statement.
I should like my hon. friend to know that when I was going over this measure I was struck with that situation. I am not in a
Unemployment Insurance position to take any step at the moment, but the matter will be given further consideration in the light of all the circumstances.


William F. Carroll: I was about to raise the same question as that raised by the hon. gentleman who has just resumed his seat. My question was in connection with hospitals, which are charitable institutions, and are exempt under the act. I know that hospitals and charitable institutions are exempt under the act. I understand that by order in council or otherwise there is likely to be something, perhaps under the provision of this very section that we are dealing with, so far as seasonal employment is concerned. On two occasions I was given the assurance by the minister, in answering questions put to him by hon. members, that hospitals and charitable institutions were not to come within the purview of this act. Something is said about seasonal employment. I have no doubt that the commission has the power to include seasonal employees who are employed by hospitals and charitable institutions. I only want to say that it will be a real hardship. I do not exactly know how they are going to collect from hospitals on account of seasonal employees. I see some difficulty about that; but even if they had no difficulty about it I am objecting right now to the commission passing any such regulation. My objection may fall on deaf ears because they have the power to do it. But I am objecting on behalf of the hospitals of my province, because there is not one hospital in that province that is making a dollar. They are going into the red every year, and they are supported by the charity of the people. Every year they come around asking for donations from every man, woman and child in the province who has a cent to spare for charitable institutions. It would be a hardship and a wrong to impose upon hospitals down there. I know something about it. I have been chairman of the commission of Victoria General hospital for twelve years. I have connections with some other hospitals in the city of Halifax and also in the constituency I represent. I am only suggesting to the minister tonight that the provisions of this act be not so worked that even seasonal employees of hospitals will come within the purview of the act, thus bringing hospitals within it to a certain extent.


Paul Joseph James Martin: As I said the other night, the amendments before us are not intended to cover hospitals and charitable institutions. I need not tell my hon. friend that in another capacity I have a great interest in this matter also.
238	HOUSE OF
Unemployment Insurance


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I ask the minister whether any regulations have yet been made to implement the additional reference to married women?


Paul Joseph James Martin: No.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Can we be given any indication as to what additional conditions will be laid down before married women are qualified for benefits?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I cannot give those.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Another blank cheque.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 12 and 13 agreed to.
On section 14-Additional penalty.
Howard Charles Green: May I ask that section 14 be allowed to stand? The hon. member for Lake Centre wanted to ask a question on it.
Section stands.
Sections 15 to 18 inclusive agreed to.
On section 19-Constitution of committee.


Stanley Howard Knowles: This is a minor point. Perhaps there is no harm in getting it clear. The section formerly read:
The committee shall consist of a chairman and not less than four or more than six other members.
The proposed amendment reads:
The committee shall consist of a chairman and not less than six or more than eight members.
Why the omission of the word "other". It seems to me that the previous wording was clear, whereas there could be a bit of ambiguity in the new wording.


Paul Joseph James Martin: We will accept the suggestion.


Stanley Howard Knowles: As it reads now the eight
members could include the chairman. I move that the word "other" be inserted.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend is quite correct. It was intended to be included.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
Paul Joseph James Martin: 
Paul Joseph James Martin: The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre asked me a question about four years. I want to assure the committee that the base period of two years can be increased by an extension of, of course, not more than two years; that was the intention. The old section referred to two years and the extension, two years plus the extension of two
CMr. Martin,]

years equalling four. The new section speaks of the increase only. The two is as intended.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Therefore there is actually no change in the total amount of time involved.


Paul Joseph James Martin: No.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 20.
Stanley Howard Knowles: Section 20 is a new part which has several sections, 87A, 87B, 87C, 87D, 87E, 87F, 87G. I would humbly suggest that you take up each subclause.


Louis-René Beaudoin: You wish to deal with the various subclauses separately?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes.
On section 20, clause 87A-Right to supplementary benefit.


George Alexander Drew: I notice that this subject was under discussion at the dominion-provincial conference in 1945 and that at that time the Minister of Labour said that 85 per cent was the figure that he expected the dominion government would contribute in cases of this kind. There should be some explanation as to why it is now 80 per cent instead of 85 per cent.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Yes. Of course, my hon. friend was not able to be here because of other matters today, and I did deal with that. Our argument of course is that the matter to which my hon. friend directs my attention now is not the same as the matter referred to in the amendment. The matter referred to in 1945 was the matter of unemployment assistance. There was no feature of insurance involved whatsoever. The benefit rate fixed here is in the light of the benefit and the rate of premiums to be paid. The case to which my hon. friend refers specifically has to do with non-insurance assistance to the unemployed, but that is a separate and important matter. The rate fixed here is the one which in view of the premium is intended to be in ratio to the benefit.


George Alexander Drew: I do not think the Hansard record of that meeting bears that out, because at page 105 of the plenary session of the discussions held in 1945 I find this wording in regard to this particular subject, and it is from the statement by the Minister of Labour:
In the case of an insured person who has exhausted insurance benefits, or who lacks the full qualification for insurance benefits, the scale of assistance would be approximately 85 per cent of the insurance benefit to which such person's contribution class previously entitled him or would in due course entitle him.

I do not think it would be possible for words to make this more clearly applicable to the person who is given insurance benefits than these words which I have just read.


Louis-René Beaudoin: Shall the clause relating to supplementary benefits carry?


George Alexander Drew: I do not think the explanation that has been given answers the words I have just read. The words I have just read make it quite clear that the statement of the Minister of Labour in 1945-and that is the position that has been carried forward- related to those who were under insurance benefits, and those benefits have come to an end. It also applied to another group; that 1 will of course concede. The remarks made by the minister and which, I understand, he made earlier, apply to that other group, but do not apply to those who are under insurance benefits but whose benefits have terminated. I think there should be some explanation as to why the 85 per cent the government then intended to contribute is not now being contributed.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I do not think I can say any
more than I have said. I am quite sure if my hon. friend will read the text carefully he will find I am right. Assuming the situation were otherwise, to increase the amount we would have to increase the premium paid. It is thought that the one-cent premium is, in the circumstances, as high as one should go.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I think the minister is really stretching a point when he tries to tell us that the unemployment assistance referred to in the green book of 1945-46 is something totally different from the supplementary benefits offered to the committee in this subsection. The leader of the opposition read from page 105 of the report of that conference. I turn now to page 387, where the prime minister of that day, Mr. Mackenzie King, set out what the government would do. Under the heading "Unemployment Assistance" he said:
In addition to unemployment insurance, the dominion will set up a system of unemployment assistance under which it will pay benefits equal to 85 per cent of unemployment insurance benefits-
Note this:
-to unemployed persons able and willing to work who are not entitled, or who have ceased to be entitled, to unemployment insurance benefits.
That is an exact description, to the letter, of the kind of people being covered by the section now before us. They are covering people who are unemployed but able and willing to work and who either are not
Unemployment Insurance entitled, or have exhausted their entitlement, to unemployment insurance benefits. Then the same paragraph goes on:
This assistance will be limited to two years of continuous assistance, but a person will again become eligible for this assistance following an approved period of employment.
So the whole idea that was being put forth at the dominion-provincial conference of 1945 and 1946 under the name of unemployment assistance is precisely that of which we are now getting a partial implementation. There can be no argument about it at all. The idea then was the extension of unemployment insurance, and it was noised from one end of the country to the other that that was one of the things the dominion was prepared to do, namely to recognize its responsibility for the employable unemployed.
Because of that promise we have been pleading for it ever since. Now we have a partial recognition of it in the measure before us. When we point out it is only partial the minister tries to say it is something different altogether. That is just skating around it. The fact of the matter is that the offer then was 85 per cent, continuous for two years. We are getting in this section 80 per cent with a three-months limit. I say the minister should give a better explanation as to why we are getting so little of what was promised.


Louis-René Beaudoin: Shall section 87A carry?


John George Diefenbaker: Oh no. I raised this point this afternoon, and last night.


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I just make this observation-


John George Diefenbaker: All right.


Paul Joseph James Martin: From expressions which have been made I know the house generally is anxious to do everything possible to ensure that we are in a position to make payments by March 1. In order to do that I should point out to hon. members the desirability of having this measure passed tonight, if it can be done. The only reason I am now rising, in addition to saying what I have already said, is that I am sure, Mr. Chairman, we are quite out of order in discussing this particular phase of the matter under the section before the committee. We are now dealing not with classes but with the rate of benefit to be given to these classes. I submit with great respect that the discussion is not in order.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker held it was in order when he was in the chair, and permitted a full discussion on the subject. I listened to my hon. friend this afternoon

Unemployment Insurance expounding on the necessity for social security, with which all of us agree. But he rather upbraided some of us for daring to make any criticism of what is being done here, a criticism designed to improve the situation. I could not help remembering, Mr. Chairman, that that solicitude was not quite so definite in 1935 as it is today.


Louis-René Beaudoin: Order.


John George Diefenbaker: Well, Mr. Chairman, I am going-


Louis-René Beaudoin: I am sorry to interrupt, but I must remind the hon. member that speeches in the committee of the whole must be strictly relevant to the item or clause under consideration. I do not think that when the hon. member talks about the solicitude of the minister in 1935, or some other year, he is in order. I know the hon. member wants to co-operate and to see that this measure is dealt with as rapidly as possible. I know he will confine his remarks to the section under discussion.
I have heard several references to the green book the hon. member has on his desk, and I have allowed a certain latitude when references have been made to it. I think now, however, that enough latitude has been granted, and that from now on I shall ask all hon. members to restrict their remarks to the section under discussion.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Chairman, with all the deference that I can impart to my words, I am in entire agreement with you as to the necessity of confining the discussion to the issue. However, I do object to the minister's attitude, that the discussion is to be limited because of the fact that he wants to have this passed1 tonight. So do we. But that does not discharge our responsibility to pass a section such as the one in question without a proper and complete discussion. I point out, as did the leader of the opposition-


Louis-René Beaudoin: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member again, but he knows that while I have not made a ruling I have asked him to co-operate with the committee. Now he is trying to discuss again the attitude of other members in the committee. Let us begin the discussion of the item, and continue it; that is all I am asking the hon. member to do.


John George Diefenbaker: Well, Mr. Chairman, I shall read the section-because I doubt whether the section has been read by some. It states:
Every person who proves in the prescribed manner that he comes within one of the four classes . . . shall ... be entitled to receive payments (in this part referred to as "supplementary benefit") at weekly or other prescribed intervals, at such rates and for such duration as authorized by this part.


I am directing my attention to that particular portion of the section. In 1945 the period was to be for two years. In 1945 no levy was to be made upon anyone. In 1945 the government undertook to make payments without a levy and that is why I am discussing the promises made in 1945 and indicating that the implementation in 1950 is not in accordance with the representations made in 1945.
In 1945 the Minister of Labour undertook- this may be found at page 105-that there would be no levy, that this system of benefits would be paid for by the government, by the people of Canada as a whole. I am pointing out that what is contained in section 87A is far removed from the undertaking made in 1945 to the provincial governments by the Minister of Labour.
I also point out that, call it what you will, it is not unemployment insurance; it is merely supplementary benefits being paid to individuals who are within certain classifications and which are contributed to, not by those individuals particularly but by all who work. I suggest that section 87A and the succeeding sections do not meet the situation in this country today and will prove to be a hoax as far as the unemployed are concerned. The section merely covers a period of three months at the outset of the seasonal unemployment and that does not meet the situation of the 100,000 in this country who do not come within the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act and who therefore do not qualify under section 87A.
We have indicated the attitude of the opposition. We want something done for the unemployed who deserve to have something done for them. The supplementary benefits provided in this and subsequent sections cannot adequately meet the situation today and will prove within the next few months, if the government's contention that this is merely seasonal be not correct, to be a grievous disappointment to those who demand a degree of hope because of the extending and accelerating period of unemployment.
More than that I shall not say, but fulfilling my responsibility as a member I must say that this and succeeding sections, while they may raise hopes, will not justify those hopes in the hearts of the unemployed who are asking for more than is provided by these sections.


Angus MacInnis: I wonder if sections 87A and 87B could be discussed together?


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is satisfactory.


Louis-René Beaudoin: That is entirely satisfactory, and it would also be satisfactory to discuss the whole of section 20.
Clause 87A agreed to.

On section 20, clause 87B-Classes of persons entitled.


Angus MacInnis: I do not know just how far one can go in discussing this clause if we are to be kept specifically to its exact terms which would have to be your ruling if we followed the strict rules of discussion in committee. It seems to me that I cannot say a word in this regard without discussing what was proposed in 1945, because that involves the principle of supplementary assistance.
The first objection to clause 87B is that it restricts assistance to four classes of people. Unemployed' workers who cannot qualify under any of these classes will be just as much in need, and in my opinion just as much entitled to assistance as anyone else. That assistance will have to come from somewhere. As was mentioned yesterday, the logical place for that assistance to come from is the federal authorities. Clause 87B and the rest of the clauses fall short of making the necessary provisions for temporary assistance to * the unemployed, leaving out altogether the question of providing work or anything of that kind.
I am quite satisfied' that no unemployment insurance scheme established on an actuarial basis could take care of all the unemployed. In order to have a complete unemployment insurance scheme there must be unemployment assistance provided outside the Unemployment Insurance Act. That is where the government has fallen down. I agree with the hon. member for Lake Centre when he says that this is really a hoax that is being played on the working people and on this house as well.


William Joseph Browne: Could the minister state what the contributions were in December and January and what benefits were paid out?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I will give that information before we have finished.


Mr. Blanchette:: Clause 87B reads:
The classes of persons entitled to receive supplementary benefit are as follows:
Then classes 1 and 2 are set out, and then follows:
Class 3-A person who, for not less than ninety days within any period of twelve consecutive months falling within the eighteen months immediately preceding the date on which he makes a claim for supplementary benefit, was employed
(i) in lumbering and logging in any area of Canada.
I should like to make certain representations on behalf of certain Canadians residing in the eastern townships who spend most of their time carrying on logging operations in the neighbouring states of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. A large number of men in my county spend the greater part of
Unemployment Insurance the year in those neighbouring states, and the same applies to at least twelve or fifteen other counties in Quebec and I believe also to some counties in New Brunswick.
I realize that those persons make no direct contribution to the Canadian economy but they do a great deal in the way of bringing back American dollars. They also assist the Canadian economy by helping to produce logs in those states which supply the demands of our Canadian mills. Therefore I feel that the greatest consideration should be accorded to these lumbermen who come from at least fifteen counties of the province of Quebec and who spend the major portion of the lumbering season in these states. Once again I can only repeat that they have greatly assisted the Canadian economy by the provision of United States funds to Canada, and also by the provision of raw material to some of our Canadian mills.
Clause 87B agreed to.
On section 20, clause 87C-Rates of supplementary benefit.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I wish to say once again that I do not feel satisfied with the 80 per cent figure proposed in clause 87C. I shall not go back again to the 85 per cent figure that was mentioned in 1945. I want to deal with the 80 per cent figure on its merits. I feel that the hon. member for Vancouver East has stated the matter very clearly. We have got to have something more than this if we are going to provide the adequate assistance that people need in times of unemployment. In fact this sort of bill underlines the growing need in this country for a piece of legislation that will provide over-all social security. This piecemeal business simply is not adequate, but in terms of unemployment insurance surely we all recognize that what we need to aim at is a measure that will provide for the unemployed person insurance benefits as long as he is unemployed. The opinion that after a certain period of time it is good for his soul in some way to have his benefits cut down to 80 per cent, and that later on it is good for those benefits to be cut out altogether, is something parliament should not stand for at all. Amongst other things it has the effect of depressing wages.
I feel strongly that ways and means should be found to maintain supplementary benefits at the full amount provided in the earlier part of the act. Let us not feel satisfied. I suggest to the Liberal members of the house, who are trying to get this measure through, that they will rue the day they were so enthusiastic about it. Just wait until July- their supporters back in their constituencies will use the language the hon. member for

Unemployment Insurance Vancouver East has used tonight and say that a hoax has been put over on the working people of the country. A measure of this kind will not be satisfactory until it is recognized that it is just as hard to keep body and soul together after the normal period is exhausted as it is during that period, that it is harder still to do so when the benefit has been cut to 80 per cent, and harder still when the benefit has been removed altogether. We have no option but to agree to the passing of this section. We would not for one moment agree to anything less but we certainly protest against it.
I do not know whether or not this might be a good place for the minister to answer the questions that he has promised to answer. I suggest it is because one of them is related to this section. We have asked two main questions. What will the increased rates, provided for away back in section 3, bring in by way of revenue? The other question is what will the payments made under clause 87C amount to for the current year? Perhaps the minister might be prepared to give that information now.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am watching the clock because my primary concern, as it is the concern of all hon. members, is to make sure that we can make these benefits available as soon as possible. My hon. friend says they are inadequate. He has used other words, but to the extent that they have any value in his judgment I am sure he wants to get them out as quickly as we can. That is why I purposely refrained from answering a lot of things that could easily have been answered.


John George Diefenbaker: That is not in accordance with the facts.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is the reason why.


John George Diefenbaker: You said you did not have the information.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Let us keep our tempers under control.


Stanley Howard Knowles: As the Secretary of State for External Affairs would say, it is time for a cup of tea..


Paul Joseph James Martin: I told the house earlier, with the qualification I have mentioned, that we would endeavour to give the estimates the commission has had in arriving at the proposed formula. It is thought that we might be able to pay benefits if it were necessary, for instance, to 80,000 persons, and I am taking that figure of 80,000 as a fixed figure for the whole period of three months. The distribution would be approximately $34,320,000. Hon. members may call that a hoax, but it is a substantial sum of money.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Let me-


Paul Joseph James Martin: Let me finish so that we can get the full picture.


Stanley Howard Knowles: What period would that amount be for?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Here is the calculation. Let us assume that 2,750,000 insured persons will be called upon to contribute from July 1, 1950 to March 31, 1952, and take from that let us say 100,000 unemployed over the period, because the figure can only be hypothetical, the result would be a total list of contributors amounting to 2,650,000. In the period of twenty-one months at 25 cents per month the figure of 2,650,000 persons would result in an amount of $13,912,500. The employers' contribution would be the same. The government's contribution would be $5,565,000, and the total would be $33,400,000. As must be obvious, these are rough figures. They can only be estimates, and it is not an easy thing to estimate. This is a novel experiment. Payments will be for seven and a half months or thirty-three weeks during the period. The payment to a person for benefits during all that period would be $429 if his rate was $13 per week, and if it was necessary, as I said at the outset, to pay benefits to 80,000 persons for the whole period it would cost roughly $34 million. These are figures that have got to be taken with reservations because it all depends on a whole set of contingencies that may or may not eventuate.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Just to get the matter clear, the $34,320,000 that the minister said it was estimated would be paid out to 80,000 people is for what period? Did he say seven and a half months?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Yes, seven and a half months.


Stanley Howard Knowles: In other words, those two figures are comparable. They are for the same period. The $34,320,000 to be paid out is for the month and a half this year, the three months in 1951 and the three months in 1952, and the $33,400,000 to be taken in is for the period beginning July 1 this year.


Paul Joseph James Martin: July 1.


Stanley Howard Knowles: July 1 this year and carrying through to March 31, 1952. Therefore they are roughly comparable except that between now and July 1 of this year no additional payments are being brought in. Payments for twenty-one months just about equal the cost for two and one-half winter periods. We have now got what we tried to get' earlier in the day. The basis of the table is an attempt to secure an additional amount equal to what it is anticipated the government will pay out as supplementary benefits.


Paul Joseph James Martin: An estimated deficit of about a million.
Clause 87C agreed to.
On section 20, clause 87D-Duration of supplementary benefit.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Would the minister explain paragraph (c)? I have in mind particularly the fact that as I read this clause the supplementary benefits for workers coming under it, that is people engaged in lumbering and logging, will not apply after March 31, 1951. In other words for that class there seems to be no permanent legislation respecting supplementary benefits, but legislation only for this winter and next winter.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Because they will then move into the insured class.


Stanley Howard Knowles: In other words they would get supplementary benefits, but they would get them under class 1?


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is right.
Clause 87D agreed to.
On section 20, clause 87E-Suitable employment.


Mr. Shaw:: This refers to section 40 of the Unemployment Insurance Act, which deals with disqualification for neglecting an opportunity for work or failure to attend a course of instruction. In section 40 repeated reference is made to suitable employment, and they have gone some distance in defining that term. I do not say it is at all clear, but it is defined as being reasonable having regard to both the circumstances and the usual means of obtaining that employment. In clause 87E it appears that we have entirely departed from even that partial definition in section 40 of the act. Now an unemployed person is obliged to take any work which is deemed suitable; it even goes so far as to say he must accept any work he is able to perform. If these supplementary benefits were being given without additional contributions being required from the employees I could understand a more stringent application of this definition, but I can see no justification at all for such application in view of the fact that the employees are buying this additional protection. I am not going to say for a moment that I was ever satisfied with the administration of the act since 1940 with respect to this matter of suitable employment. Some day I should like to see a committee of this house make a thorough investigation into the administration of that section of the act. I do not want to take too much time, but I am registering a protest against this most severe application of the definition of the words "suitable employment".
Unemployment Insurance


Angus MacInnis: Earlier in the afternoon I drew attention to this section as being one of these amendments having far-reaching consequences which, as far as I knew, had not been brought to the attention of the advisory committee or any of the large labour bodies. On this point I must associate myself with the remarks so ably made by the hon. member for Red Deer. The supplementary benefits under this act are being provided by an additional charge on those already contributing to the unemployment insurance fund, as well as by a new charge on teenagers, who are not contributing at the present time. If the insurance officer were a free agent in dealing with matters of this kind, and if he were a man of experience and understanding, he might be able to make a proper and reasonable decision as to what constituted suitable employment. But knowing the pressure that has been brought on unemployment insurance officers during the last few years to insist that people go to work in all kinds of employment that were not suitable at all, I am quite satisfied that the unemployment insurance commission administration is going to be in for a good deal of trouble if this section is adopted as it now stands. I would suggest to the minister that it be deleted and that the conditions governing these supplementary provisions be left as they are at present.


Paul Joseph James Martin: So anxious am I to get this legislation through in order that benefits may go to unemployed persons at the earliest possible moment that I propose we drop this section..


Louis-René Beaudoin: Clause 87E is
dropped and clauses 87F and 87G renumbered 87E and 87F respectively.
Clauses 87E and 87F agreed to.
Section 20 as amended agreed to.
Sections 21 to 24 inclusive agreed to.
On section 25-Coming into force.


William Joseph Browne: Before this last section is adopted, the minister promised to give us certain information, and I wish he would give it now.


Paul-Émile Côté: The hon.
member inquired as to the total revenue to the fund for the months of December and January last, and also the benefit payments made. For December, 1949, the total revenue was $12,533,740.08 and for the same month the benefit payments were $7,177,759.74. For the month of January last the total revenue was $12,025,859.32 and the total benefit payments $11,779,344.89.
244	HOUSE OF
Unemployment Insurance


William Joseph Browne: I have here the Labour Gazette for January, 1950, which gives a registration of 3,594,000 under the Unemployment Insurance Act, while the minister speaks of 2,750,000. What happens to the other 844,000? I am referring to page 139 of this publication.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What is the point?


William Joseph Browne: The point is that the minister spoke of an insured labour force of 2,750,000 in estimating the revenue that would be obtained from this one cent a day, while according to the Labour Gazette some 3,594,000 are registered under the act as employed.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The figures I gave were estimates.


William Joseph Browne: Then actually almost another million people come under the act?


Paul Joseph James Martin: No.


Paul-Émile Côté: My hon. friend must appreciate the difference between the number of employed insured under the act and the total labour force of the country.


William Joseph Browne: But these are registered under the Unemployment Insurance Act.


Stanley Howard Knowles: As a matter of information I should like to ask a question about this section. We have had references two or three times tonight to July 1 of this year as the apparent effective date of some of the operative sections of this act. In at least one case that date appears in the text. Do I understand that it is the intention of the government to proclaim the sections that are to be proclaimed as of July 1?


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is right.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It struck me as a strange way to draft it.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is the way the law officers wanted it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Some of the sections fix that date and it would be confusing if some other date were fixed for the proclamation.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Louis-René Beaudoin: We shall revert to section 14 which was allowed to stand at the request of the hon. member for Lake Centre. Shall section 14 carry?
Section 14 agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
Paul Joseph James Martin: the third reading of Bill No. 8, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I shall not stand in the way of its being read a third time tonight, as is our right under the rules of the house. I am speaking only for myself, but I do want to say that if you ask for third reading tonight, you are doing it over my protest. The reason I am prepared to let the bill be called for third reading tonight is that there is a little bit in it that is good, and no one in the house is going to stand in the way of that little bit of good being made available. But I do protest as strongly as I can against the government coupling with the little bit that is good the objectionable features that we have protested against in this bill.


George Alexander Drew: Before the bill is read the third time, I wish to make it clear that in consenting to the reading of the bill for the third time now, to which consent must be given if it is to be done tonight, it is only for the purpose of making it possible to carry forward the payments that have been mentioned for which the bill provides. It is not to be taken that that implies approval of the way in which the bill is presented, the procedure which has been followed, which has given so little opportunity for adequate consideration of the details of the bill; nor is it in any way to be taken as approval of those parts of the bill to which objection has already been made, and to which there is a continuing objection on our part. I simply place that on record because I do agree that, with whatever limitations there are, it is desirable that the payments the government is prepared to provide, under such limitations as they impose, should go forward on March 1.


Angus MacInnis: 1
am not going to hold up the bill at all, nor am I going to say verv much. This afternoon I mentioned what I considered to be the government's-I used language this afternoon which you, sir, made me withdraw, so I shall leave it at that. The ordinary procedure of business in this house requires co-operation between the government and the opposition groups. 1 understand that this measure was simply to make provision for supplementary assistance to persons who are unemployed for long periods of time and have exhausted their unemployment benefits. To bring before us almost a complete review or overhaul of the Unemployment Insurance Act is something against which 1 must protest. It is something that would make me

extremely reluctant at any time in the future to assent to anything that this government brings down, until I see in black and white exactly what they want done.
I protest against it in the strongest possible terms. In passing this act, we have done some things today that should not have been done without consultation in a committee, where those concerned could make representations. It is just an insult to the members of this house to bring a complicated bill of this kind before them on such short notice. Even the government sponsors did not understand the bill.


Mr. Solon E. Low (Peace River):: I feel that the protests that have been made by the three hon. members who have spoken on the third reading of this bill are well made. My observation has been that since 1945, on all too numerous occasions, the government have brought measures before us with what they claimed was a limited time for consideration. They have pleaded, as the hon. minister pleaded tonight with tears in his voice, that we shut up and let the bill pass. I am serving notice on the minister and on the government not to ask us at any time to give carte blanche for the passage of bills of this kind or for rushing bills of this kind through.
In common with the member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis), I am going to see what is in a bill before I give my consent. I just want to say that I am not going to delay the third reading tonight. If I did the right thing for the people of this country, I would. It is a disgrace the way that sort of thing has been handled in this house during the past five years that I have been here. This is the end of it.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: You would deprive the 70,000 boys of their money.


Solon Earl Low: I may tell my quick-tempered friend over here that he does not know what he is talking about.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Don't I? I know better than you do.


Solon Earl Low: The thing for the hon. member to do is to keep quiet.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Enough has been said, but the statements of the member for Mackenzie (Mr. Ferrie) prompt me to get to my feet again. He keeps talking about the people who
Unemployment Insurance might have been deprived had we continued our protests against the small benefits that are going out. We are letting the bill go through because of the small benefits, but let it be understood that the provisions for higher payments into the fund will come into effect on July 1, so next summer when the youngsters in his constituency and elsewhere find that they have to start contributing 18 cents a week to this scheme when they are making less than $5.40, when they come to him to complain, let him nor any other Liberal not pass the buck to those of us who have opposed the objectionable features in this bill.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed on division.


Paul Joseph James Martin: In spite of what the hon. gentlemen have said, I simply want to thank the house for its co-operation on this measure. With regard to the misunderstandings and the reference to agreements, I only say to those who have made those statements that I indicated clearly this afternoon what I understood the situation to be. I do want to say that this measure, important as it is, was prepared as a result of careful consideration prior to its introduction here, and it was passed as a result of careful consideration here today. It is a measure of great consequence, and it is because of that that I thank the house and hon. members for their co-operation.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Fournier (Hull):: On Monday we shall continue the debate on the address. I was astounded tonight to hear what was said before the passing of this bill. During last session I had the honour of leading this side of the house for the government, and I should like hon. members to know that I do not think anything was done to try to put anything over the opposition. I have been reading over what the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) said the other night. I did not attend the meetings with the leaders of the opposition, and I cannot say what happened there; but I can assure the house that anything I can do to co-operate with the opposition during the session I shall do with pleasure.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, February 27, 1950