1960-12-06

Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, may I inform the house that if it please the house I hope, barring unexpected occurrences, to introduce the supplementary budget two weeks from this evening, on Tuesday evening, December 20, at eight o'clock.


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the minister whether it would not be possible to introduce this budget in time to permit of a debate in this house, in accordance with the regular custom and before the Christmas adjournment.


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, it is proposed to give the opportunity. In view of the question that has been asked I think I should tell the house that it is the intention to adjourn after the sitting on December 21. That will provide an opportunity for discussion by the opposition of the measures to be referred to by the Minister of Finance.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Prime Minister if he is not aware that this would provide only one day for discussion and that would be a short day, a Wednesday.


John George Diefenbaker: Well, Mr. Speaker, with the leave of the house I am sure that the house would be willing to sit in the morning at eleven and might even run through until ten at night. We want to give the fullest opportunity for the opening speeches to be made.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The fullest opportunity; one day.

On the orders of the day:


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Prime Minister whether he appreciates the fact that if the budget is brought in two weeks from today it will not be possible to put into effect any of its provisions which may concern unemployment before the Christmas recess?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I can only say that will depend on the speed with which it is considered.

On the orders of the day:


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister, who has indicated that he proposes that the house shall rise on the 21st of this month. Can he indicate when he proposes that the house will resume after the Christmas recess?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, the date of the resumption of the session will be announced before the adjournment in ample time so that all hon. members will be able to govern themselves accordingly.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: A supplementary question. Will the Prime Minister indicate to the house as quickly as possible when we shall resume, because many hon. members are making return reservations in their travel arrangements and it is inconvenient not to have the date.


John George Diefenbaker: That is a very good suggestion. I never knew it was so difficult to get back from Toronto.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I ask the question out of consideration for others.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Martin (Essex East):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Labour whether the advisory committee of the unemployment insurance commission has had any meetings since the prorogation of parliament and, if there has been a meeting of that committee, will the minister kindly table the report in accordance with the direction provided in the act?


Hon. Michael Sfarr (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the way it will be tabled.


Paul Joseph James Martin: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. When might we expect the report to be tabled?

Inquiries of the Ministry


Michael Starr: The act provides that it shall be tabled 30 days after it has been received by the governor in council.


Mr. Pickersgill:: Within 30 days.


Michael Starr: Yes, within 30 days.


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I ask the
Minister of Labour another supplementary question. Since he is prepared to table the report of the advisory committee on unemployment insurance within the 30 days, can he undertake to do that before the Christmas adjournment so we might ascertain whether or not it is a fact that there will be no money left in the unemployment insurance fund by the end of May?


Michael Starr: In answer to the first part of the question, Mr. Speaker, I may say the report will be tabled in the House of Commons as provided under the act within 30 days, and as soon as the government has had an opportunity to deal with it.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hazen Argue (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Agriculture I should like to direct a question to the acting minister. In view of the record quantities of butter now held in storage by the government, could the minister inform the house of the activities being undertaken by the Department of Agriculture to promote and increase the sales of butter?
Would the minister also comment on the report that the government is considering lowering the support price on butter fat by four cents per pound? Is the minister in a position to assure butter producers that there will be no reduction in the support price for the coming year?


Hon. D. S. Harkness (Acting Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, on April 13 last, at a time when I was minister of agriculture, I announced in the house that it was the intention of the government to inaugurate a campaign to promote the sale and use of butter in Canada. A campaign of this kind is now under way and was announced by the present Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Hamilton) in a statement released to the press on November 29. 1 think I could arrange for a copy of this to be sent to the hon. member if he would like to have it.
As far as the other question is concerned, the hon. member knows that has to do with government policy and will be announced in the normal way.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, the minister might say when we can expect an announcement, and whether consideration is being given to introducing a deficiency payment plan for butter.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, again all these are straight policy questions which the hon. member knows it is not the policy to reply to on the orders of the day. I should like to point out to him that the butter year, as I think he is aware, begins on May 1, and it is prior to that date, and not too long prior to it, that any changes in regard to support prices for butter during the following year have normally been made.


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I ask the minister a supplementary question. Is the minister not thinking of having a supplementary budget for butter?


Douglas Scott Harkness: The answer to the question, Mr. Speaker, is no. I know the hon. member is very interested in slippery questions of all kinds, and I am not surprised at his asking the question.



SHIPMENTS BY CANADIAN SUBSIDIARIES OF U.S. COMPANIES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Can the minister inform the house whether Canadian subsidiaries of United States companies are refusing to fill orders for shipment to Cuba?


Hon. George H. Hees (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I wish to thank the hon. member for sending me notice of his intention to ask this question, which I received just on entering the house. I am not aware of any such restrictions having been placed on Canadian subsidiaries by parent companies in the United States.



OTTAWA CONFERENCE-DISCUSSION OF CANADIAN DOLLAR PREMIUM

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hubert Badanai (Fort William):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Has the question of the premium on the Canadian dollar been discussed by the 111 trade commissioners who are here now for the purpose of finding ways and means to increase trade with overseas countries?


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Hubert Badanai: If so, can the minister indicate to the house their reaction to the high priced Canadian dollar?


George Harris Hees: The answer, Mr. Speaker, is no.



TELEVISION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. C. McQuillan (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Revenue. Approximately 15 months ago C.B.C. authorities announced their intention to proceed immediately with the construction of a satellite station of CBUT-Vancouver to serve the Courtenay-Powell River area. Inasmuch as there is no visible evidence of any progress toward the establishment of this station, can the minister inform me of the reason for the delay and when some action may be expected?


Hon. George C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member sent me notice of this question yesterday. The fact that there was no question period yesterday enabled me to get the information from the corporation. I am advised as follows. On December 28, 1959, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation filed an application with the Department of Transport for authority to establish on channel 7 a satellite of CBUT-Vancouver to serve the Courtenay-Powell River area. It was referred to the board of broadcast governors by the Department of Transport on February 8, 1960, and was considered at the public hearing held in Toronto on March 14-18. The board announced their recommendation for approval on March 31, 1960.
The corporation is still awaiting the final authorization for establishment of this station from the Department of Transport. The delay is caused by a question of channel allocation being worked out internationally, and negotiations have been going on between the Department of Transport and the federal communications commission for some months. My last information is that a settlement of this question is to be expected shortly, an end which I desire very devoutly will be achieved.



HUMAN RIGHTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hubert Badanai: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister. My question is based on a letter from the proprietor of the Manoir Mont Carmel of Mont Carmel, Quebec, addressed to prospective tourists. The letter describes the choice accommodation, the attraction of
Inquiries of the Ministry the St. Lawrence river and gives various rates, etc. At the bottom of the letter there is a postscript which reads:
We do not accept coloured people.
Does such a solicitation constitute a violation of the bill of rights? If so, will the Prime Minister inform the house whether he intends to do something about it?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member is in effect asking for an interpretation of a statute, and he cannot expect to obtain answers to questions of that kind on the orders of the day. I am not sure about the earlier part of his question, but it seemed to relate to the administration of justice and not properly directed to the federal authorities. (Translation):



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Rodrigue Bourdages (Laval):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. Is the minister in a position to give us further information regarding the new regulations under the National Housing Act?


Hon. D. J. Walker (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to answer the question of the hon. member for Laval (Mr. Bourdages). Would you kindly allow me, Mr. Speaker, to continue in English?
(Text):
I should like to make a brief statement, Mr. Speaker, on the new lending policy for which provision is made in the amendment to the National Housing Act passed by the house on November 25. The bill has received royal assent and appropriate regulations are now being submitted for approval by the governor in council.
In discussing the intent of the regulations I shall speak first only of loans made by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The larger loans available under the new legislation and the higher maximum loans by regulation are, of course, immediately available to any eligible prospective borrower who cannot find accommodation from an approved lender. Furthermore, provided a request is made in writing prior to the date for adjustment of interest, that is the date on which monthly mortgage payments start to run, the more generous terms also apply to a home owner applicant or to a purchaser who has assumed the mortgage from a builder and to a builder at the time of the sale of houses financed by corporation loans.
To answer the question asked by the hon. member for Nipissing on Friday last, the

Inquiries of the Ministry higher loan and the new maximum loans by regulation will also be available in the case of any unsold house built by a builder and financed by a direct C.M.H.C. loan, even if the date for adjustment of interest has passed. The amendment also permits a longer period for repayment of a National Housing Act mortgage loan. This longer period, up to 35 years, will be available to a new borrower if he needs it to meet payments of principal, interest and taxes.
In the case of rental properties financed under the National Housing Act, the higher loan ratio and the new maximum by regulation will also be available, again provided the date for adjustment of interest has not been reached.
The new terms to which I have referred also apply to insured loans made by the approved lenders, banks, life insurance companies, trust and loan companies. I cannot, of course, speak on the probable action to be taken by the approved lenders with respect to these terms, but the terms are available.



RESTRICTIONS ON LOANS FOR UNIVERSITY RESIDENCES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: I wonder if I could ask the minister a supplementary question about the legislation that has now received royal assent. Would the minister say whether the government, and the corporation, feel they are bound by the list of 38 institutions given in this house by the minister, as it appears on page 223 of Hansard, for making loans for university residences?
Hon. D. J. Walker (Minister of Public
Works):	The suggestion was made, Mr. Speaker, that I should answer my hon. friend in French and then he would not understand. May I say that there are no restrictions yet as to whom these loans will be available in connection with university residences. The limits of the regulations have not yet been determined. We are always very happy to have suggestions from any hon. members in the house, including the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate; and in writing if possible.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I rise on a question of privilege affecting every hon. member in this house. On November 25, at page 223 of Hansard, the minister, having read the list of 38 institutions into the record, said at the bottom of the page:
This list is the list which the government proposes shall be included under this legislation in the light of the interpretation of "university".

In other words, we were told in answer to a question that this was the list and I have now asked the minister, once the legislation is passed and we can no longer debate it, if the government considers itself bound by that categorical statement. He now tells us it does not.


David James Walker: I think the statement speaks for itself. It refers to the 38 universities, inclusive, and they are included.



PUBLIC SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Gaston Clermont (Labelle):: I should like to direct a question to the Postmaster General. Will the minister comment on a report which appeared in the Montreal newspaper La Presse last Friday, to the effect that the non-permanent postal employees will have a reduction in their wages until the 27th of December?


Hon. W. M. Hamilfon (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to hear the question from the hon. member for Labelle since the hon. member for St. Denis sent me the same clipping yesterday and no doubt intended to follow up his responsibility in that connection later this day.
The information given in this clipping is substantially wrong. A number of people who were employed on particular work in the department, and for whom there was no further employment in that field during the period immediately preceding Christmas, were offered an opportunity of continuing as Christmas help at a somewhat lower rate of pay if they wished to do so. They accepted. However, there is no employee of the Montreal post office, having the same responsibility and in the same position, who has had his salary reduced in any way whatever.


Mr. Azellus Denis (St. Denis):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad the Postmaster General admits that he has received notice of some questions we want to ask him. That is why he is so smart in answering them. I have a supplementary question. I should like to know why, instead of reducing the salaries of nonpermanent or part time employees, the minister did not do the opposite, namely raise the salaries of the part time employees to the level of those of the permanent employees in view of the cost of living, which is higher than ever it was previously.


William McLean Hamilton: The
answer is that fair and reasonable levels for those non-permanent employees have been

established in consultation with treasury board. It applies right across Canada, and is eminently fair in all respects.


Azellus Denis: I have a supplementary question. Is it not true that the salaries of the non-permanent employees are fixed at $1.26 per hour when they work during the day and $1.41 per hour when they work during the night? According to the report, this rate has been reduced to $1 per hour.


William McLean Hamilton: Mr. Speaker, we have not yet reached the estimates of the Post Office Department.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. D. M. Fisher (Port Arthur):: I should like to ask the Postmaster General a question relating to the recommendation of the public accounts committee of last session to the effect that his department do something about reducing the huge annual loss on carrying second class mail. Is consideration or action on these recommendations being left in abeyance until after the O'Leary royal commission reports?


William McLean Hamilton: Mr. Speaker, I think it would be most inappropriate at this moment to take any action in that field.



ONTARIO-USE OF NOVA SCOTIA COAL IN NEW THERMAL PLANT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys. In view of the urgent need to develop immediate markets for Nova Scotia coal, will the minister comment on the report that a new thermal power plant is being planned for Ontario? Can he say whether Nova Scotia coal will be used in that plant, or whether he has had any discussions about the matter?


Hon. Paul Comiois (Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys):: I wish to thank the hon. member for Assiniboia for having given me notice of this question. In reply I would say that the Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario have two thermal power plants which operate as required to maintain the necessary power output. The commission are presently building a third plant of this type.
These plants are operating on a greatly reduced schedule and, I understand, have
Inquiries of the Ministry adequate stockpiles of imported coal to protect operations until some time next year. They will not, therefore, be using Nova Scotia coal for some time, but I have no doubt that when large scale purchases become necessary consideration will be given by the commission to the purchase of Nova Scotia coal.


Hazen Robert Argue: Can the minister inform the house whether he has had any conversations with the Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario to the end that Nova Scotia coal might be used?


Paul Comtois: Yes, Mr. Speaker. There have been some conversations about the future purchase of coal. The hydro commission in 1958, I think it is, purchased 10,000 tons of Nova Scotia coal in order to conduct experiments with a view to using Nova Scotia coal. The experiments have proved it to be satisfactory, and it is my understanding that they intend to use Canadian coal when the third plant is built and when they have gone through that stockpile of coal which they already have.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. H. Aiken (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Has the government taken any action to transfer the Canadian government travel bureau from the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources to the Department of Trade and Commerce?


John George Diefenbaker: No, Mr. Speaker.



SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: I wonder if I could ask the Minister of Finance whether he expects to be in the house between now and the Christmas recess to justify the supplementary estimates.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I do not expect to be in the house constantly, but I can assure the hon. gentleman that the supplementary estimates are fully justified and that the ministers of the various departments will be here to deal with the estimates pertaining to their respective departments, according to the usual practice of the house when supplementary estimates are considered.

Vocational Training


John Whitney Pickersgill: I wonder if I could put a question to the Minister of Veterans Affairs as leader of the house. Can the minister say when the usual practice of the house was changed?



VOCATIONAL TRAINING


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Friday, December 2, consideration in committee of the following resolution-Mr. Starr-Mr. Rea in the chair:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to authorize the Minister of Labour to enter into agreements with provincial governments for the encouragement of technical and vocational training and to authorize the making of contributions by Canada toward the cost of programs of technical and vocational training undertaken under provincial authority, including contributions toward the cost of capital expenditures on training facilities connected with such programs; to authorize the Minister of Labour to undertake programs of technical and vocational training for specified categories of persons; to provide for the establishment and operation of an advisory council and the appointment of its members and staff and to define its duties; and to provide for other related and incidental matters.
Miss Aitken:: I rise to voice wholehearted support for this resolution, because I think if more attention had been paid to vocational training 10 years ago we should not have the unemployment which exists today.
The minister has told us that Canada has never trained enough manpower for her own needs; we have had to depend on immigration for our skilled labour, and I think we are doing the right thing now in emphasizing the need for more vocational training. In a speech made recently in Toronto Mr. Karl Scott, president of the Ford Company of Canada, warned that Canadians no longer enjoyed technological superiority in this world. Management, government, organized labour and the public in this country, he said, must recognize world competition and be prepared to face its threat and meet it. I think this particular resolution which the Minister of Labour has presented is one practical way of trying to meet world competition and overcome unemployment.
In the past few decades there have been many changes in our labour force and great shifts in our population. In 1900, 50 per cent of the workers in Canada were employed in agriculture. Today only 12 per cent are so employed. Then there is technology; new machinery is replacing manpower, and the time has come when men must learn new skills. Then again, more married women are working than ever before in Canada's history, except for the period during the war. There are now 77,000 married women collecting unemployment insurance.

Finally, our health standards have improved so much that more and more healthy pensioners are working either full time or part time. We have 368,000 unemployed, yet on reading our newspapers it is amazing to see how many advertisements there are for men and women with special skills to be employed at specific jobs. In developing this vocational training program I hope careful studies will be made of the kinds of skills and trades that are in demand today and in respect of which training should be undertaken. I hope the men and women concerned will be guided in this training so they may be fitted for these available jobs. It seems to me that this far-sighted project will do a great deal to combat not only seasonal unemployment but permanent unemployment also.
The minister has told us that 15 per cent of the unskilled workers are among the unemployed. I should like to see the Department of Labour send officials into Canadian schools, public schools and high schools, in order to give information about the jobs that are available. It could be that counsellors would not only provide information but would also spark ambition in boys and girls and inspire them to set out for certain goals. I feel that possibly one of the reasons so many young people are not going on to courses of higher education is that they do not know what to do. I think industry could well spend more time and energy in encouraging ambition in this way and in preaching the value of trades and skills. Millions of dollars are spent by industry in courting the consumer through public relations work. If some of this money were diverted to schools to encourage the ambition of young people to learn a trade or craft I believe it would be a fine investment in the future.
The hon. member for Halton spoke of the psychological problem with regard to vocational training, and said the dignity and importance of vocational training should be emphasized. I agree. I think for too long we have allowed technical training, as against university training, to become something of a second class proposition, and I believe it is a task of both government and industry to alter this situation. It seems to me that in a country such as Canada a fine craftsman is much more important than a bachelor of arts.
Moreover, to be idle can produce a demoralizing effect, especially upon young people. In studying the causes of today's unemployment, we find that high on the list is this large influx of young people. These are war babies who have come into the labour force. These young people came in during a very high wage economy. In their teens they

were often able to earn more in the summer months than 20 years ago their fathers were able to earn in six months. That situation has changed now. The young people who leave school too soon without adequate training are now among the unemployed. They are the ones who need and should be given this training.
There are two things I can say to the Minister of Labour, and I say them with the authority of observation in my own riding. In struggling with the problem of unemployment, which is such a great problem in Canada, the Minister of Labour is not alone. I hope it will hearten him to know that many segments of our private citizens are not only giving great thought to this problem but are trying to do something about it. For instance, I have noticed that in the schools in my riding of York-Humber a number of the teachers are laying great stress on the need for education and for training in specific fields, and are trying to persuade the students to take all the education they can possibly absorb before they leave school.
Then, too, private citizens have formed themselves into committees on things like winter works programs. There is one such committee in the town of Weston in my riding. It has been definitely established that this committee last year placed men and women in 158 jobs. That number of jobs in relation to more than 300,000 unemployed may not sound like too much, but if every small community should find 158 jobs for their citizens it would go a long way toward solving the unemployment problem.
The local council of women in Weston has concerned itself particularly with the training of young people. Research by this organization has disclosed, for instance, that in the motor mechanics field there is accommodation for 30,000 skilled workers in apprentice training, while only 6,000 are enrolled at the present time. Other disclosures and suggestions indicate that technology is going to demand higher skill from the new workers, that unemployment insurance should not be considered as a wage that has been earned but considered as a resource for persons who are genuinely unemployed, and that steps should be taken to make it necessary for applicants to take training in order to draw unemployment insurance.


The Deputy Chairman:: Order. Would hon. members kindly lower their voices. Some hon. gentlemen have advised me that they are unable to hear the speaker.


Margaret Aitken: I believe the Department of Labour should do a little educational work of its own in trying to make not only young people but all unemployed people have a
Vocational Training
feeling of training-mindedness. A recent survey has shown some discouraging results as to how many women would be willing to take courses if they were available. They have given several reasons for their unwillingness to participate in courses. In the first place they do not want to take courses because of a need for immediate financial returns. Second, they have home responsibilities. Third, some have insufficient educational background.
The other day Mr. William Thomson, director of employment services for the unemployment insurance commission in Ottawa, rather turned the penny over in regard to the subject of unemployment and employment. He said that Canada's chief employment problem today is not to find work for unskilled labour but to fill vacancies in professional and highly skilled categories.
I feel that this resolution is extremely welcome at this time, and I believe it to be a long-sighted project.


Mr. Macdonnell:: Mr. Chairman, perhaps before making my own remarks I may say how interested I was in those just made by the hon. member for York-Humber. I believe we can take it that the need for technical and vocational training has been fully established, and I propose to say practically nothing on that subject at this time.
I was struck by one of the remarks made by the Minister of Labour in introducing this resolution, when he pointed out that 35 per cent of our highly skilled technicians in this country came from abroad. I was also struck by the other convincing arguments that he made. As I say, I do not wish to speak on that. What I wish to do is put forward a word of caution, so to speak, although I am sure it is not really necessary, and say I believe that in stressing vocational education we must remember we are training not only technicians but citizens. We must therefore have an adequate amount of what I can only call collateral education in training people who will have to consider important questions and who will be deciding these questions by their votes later on.
There is one particular point I wish to make in this connection. If we confine ourselves entirely to technical and vocational education and do nothing to train citizens we may find that we have a number of good technicians with no sense of Canadian citizenship, who may drift to the United States. I feel it is during the period of education that we have to make them feel that Canada is worth-while living in. My own feeling is that they have to have some knowledge of Canadian history and institutions so they may develop a sense of Canadianism. On the other

Vocational Training
hand, I would have thought that the events of the last 40 years and the fact that we have had to play a part in two wars should have created a basis for a real Canadian patriotism.
Also, these people must have some knowledge of economics to understand the conditions under which their industry exists, both its strengths and weaknesses. Above all, I believe they have to be made feel that they are part of the show, that they have some interest as individuals, that they are not working solely for someone else. I remember hearing a wise remark made by the great Churchill when speaking of the background of English history. He said the great thing about us is that we are constantly bringing new people in and making them feel they are part of the show.
I personally feel that this is tremendously important. If we can make the rank and file of the industrial worker feel they are part of the show it will undoubtedly give them a different attitude. It will make them feel that they have both a responsibility and an opportunity. If they are going to have that feeling they must know something about the conditions of competition both at home and abroad. They must realize that over the long run industry can only pay what it earns.
Employers must also contribute to this knowledge to the end that labour may feel it is co-operating. In rowing terms, labour and management must "pull together", not "row jealous". They must learn to pull together instead of each trying to get ahead of the other.
I submit this is not impossible. The Prime Minister used wise words of admonition in saying that this is no time for people to be thinking exclusively of themselves. I am not entirely without experience in labour relations. When I was in business it fell to my lot on more than one occasion to represent the company with which I was associated as a receiver and manager in industry. I was in charge of running a steel plant for several years. I believe I can say we made friends of these people. It is perfectly true that the receiver is in an easier position than the ordinary manager. By reason of his appointment he is working for everybody. He is working to try to restore the business to health; he is working for the operatives, the shareholders, the bondholders, everybody. I can remember a hard-boiled American manufacturer at that time telling me that he had not too much sympathy for the working man. He thought there could be no sympathetic relationship.
I hope those days are past.
I heard of a case the other day which shows that where trouble is taken to present

the problem to the people in advance, they will be ready to co-operate. This was a case where a certain group of workmen in a plant were making a component of a product. The management discovered that they had reached the point in dealing with this group of workmen where it was costing more than a synthetic product which was available. They got this group together and told them the story. They make it perfectly clear, that by employing those men they were losing money. It became perfectly clear that to keep on working they would have to take less money, and they did. There was a real problem, and the manufacturer took the men into his confidence, show them the position and let them make the decision, and that was their decision.
I think myself, when we look at the competition in the world today, we do realize that special co-operation is necessary. I do not need to go further than the very able brief which the Ontario government presented to the Bladen automotive commission. This is quoted in an article in the Globe and Mail of October 26 last. I have read the brief, and I consider the summary in the Globe and Mail a fair one. I should like to read from it, because it seems to me to put the thing very clearly. The editorial says, referring to the brief:
It looks at the dilemma of all Canadian industry -high costs, high prices-and explains how Canadian industry got there.
The trouble began, essentially, when the war ended 15 years ago. There was then an unlimited demand for everything Canada's factories could produce; the gutted factories of Japan and Europe offered no competition. It was Canada's opportunity to exploit the misfortunes of other people, to get rich because of other people's poverty-and we seized the opportunity with both hands. Heedless of the future, never thinking that Japanese and European industry might come back, we treated ourselves to bigger profits, higher wages, shorter hours, a languid and luxurious way of life. Not only did we live right up to our means, but went beyond them by borrowing.
Now comes the day of reckoning. As the Ontario brief points out, the industries of Europe and Asia now "not only have modern, highly efficient equipment that matches our own, but substantially lower wage rates".
I read one more sentence. After quoting again from the brief the Globe and Mail editorial continues:
The main remedy rests not with the Canadian government, but with Canadian industry itself.
Then in the final paragraph I think there is a lesson for all of us. I should have said first that almost without exception the organizations which appeared before the commission asked the government to solve the unemployment problem by artificial measures of one sort or another, such as higher tariffs, bigger hand-outs, more subsidies, easier loans, higher wages, shorter hours, even peacetime

conscription for military service. I continue quoting from the Globe and Mail:
Judging from press reports, there was one word which nobody mentioned at the unemployment conference, one remedy which nobody proposed- work. Perhaps this four-letter word has, like other four-letter words, become offensive; perhaps like them, it is not to be found in the popular dictionary. We suggest it had better be reinstated in Canada, because it has been reinstated-often is deified-in most other parts of the world. Otherwise, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Frost, Canada will be "a sitting duck" not just for imports but for unemployment of a much deeper and deadlier nature than we have today.
May I say just a word about Japan. I was very interested the other day in talking to a friend of mine who had just come back from Japan. He said that the Japanese people are better than we are. I looked at him, and I found that what he meant was that they seemed to work with the feeling that they knew they were part of the show. They seemed to feel that they were working in their own interest, and it was in their interest to do their very best. That struck me as being very significant, very important.
I come now to Germany. Of course some people would be inclined to say, "Well, the Germans are amenable to discipline". I found on reading the International Labour Review that that does not seem to be the case. It appears, too, that in Germany there has been legislation making labour a part of the show, giving labour a very considerable say in management. I have not pursued it far enough to speak with detailed knowledge, but I suggest it is a matter that should be of interest to us all, and we should not ignore it.
I again say I do not think we should regard ourselves as having the world by the tail on a downhill pull. I recall some years ago speaking to an economist who had lately returned from Europe. He indicated the picture in Europe, where they have a tremendous amount of work going on, tremendous prosperity and so forth. I recall reading the last issue of the London Economist. I was rather surprised to find that they had a lot to say about the United States, which is apparently moaning about its affairs, and I was rather interested to see the Economist telling the United States not to be downhearted, that they were really all right.
Again coming back to the European situation, it may be that with the progress in Europe; with the astonishing progress made by the common market and the Six, which has succeeded beyond its expectations; with the possibility of injury for us by reason of their operations and by reason of Britain's need to adhere more to Europe, and by reason of what these. dangers mean, we should
Vocational Training
be taking the situation very seriously. In that connection I want to read just a short extract from a report made two or three years ago of a study conference called by the Duke of Edinburgh. Apparently they discussed the problems of industrial relations. The conference was called "Human Problems of Industrial Communities". The man who summed up the conference had this to say, and I shall read briefly:
Again and again groups reported that all the techniques of management-joint consultation, promotion schemes, bonus systems, welfare arrangements-are subordinate to one overriding demand- the demand for personal contact between manager and managed with an absolute sincerity of purpose and a recognition of the simple respect which one man owes to another as man to man.
I quote further where the report says:
That satisfaction, contentment and efficiency are so largely dependent on men and women being able to identify themselves clearly with the purpose and results of the businesses in which they work.
I am sure all will agree that is only good common sense, and I am sure it is a worthwhile objective for all of us. I hope I have not seemed to stray a long way from vocational training. In any event, if I have I am nearly through my wanderings. I do not think I have strayed, because these men who will receive training are going to be leaders in industry. They will not be merely technicians but will go on to become leaders in various ways, and their attitude can be of great importance.
I think it was the Duke of Wellington who said that in war, morale as against material rated ten to one. I do not suppose we would care to go quite that far with respect to industry, but we would be prepared to say that morale contributes an enormous amount, and that when it is there it makes a great deal of difference. In fact I could mention employers right in this house who I know have high morale among those working for them. The reason for this is very simple. It is because they have made clear to their employees that they care about them, that their welfare is close to the heart of the employer, and they are going to give them every chance and make them feel they are part of the show.
You may ask, does it need a miracle to produce this attitude? I would say not, while it is easy to say what shall be done; it is another thing to do it. All that is needed is that we should have a common purpose. In this country in the past we have had a common purpose. I do not think it will be denied that a century ago, prior to confederation, there was a common purpose. Many in this house have spent years of their lives in an occupation which has certainly had a common purpose. I refer to war. We all know that in war there is a common purpose. When you have morale,

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with good officers and men, they are not girding at each other or working against each other. They believe in each other, and I see no reason in principle why we cannot have the same thing in civilian life.
There is just one other point I want to mention before I take my seat. I am not going to dwell on it because it is too big a problem to deal with in the last few minutes of a speech. One thing that would give us a common purpose would be if we really believed it was our task to go all out to raise the level of underdeveloped countries. That is not merely an emotional dream of long-haired enthusiasts. Eugene Black, head of the world bank, has stated in a most matter of fact way in a speech he made recently that we should be earnestly considering as part of our day to day obligations how much we can afford for these underdeveloped countries. Of course what he is pointing out is that it is not merely a case of doing the right thing or giving way to our better feelings, but also it is a case of taking steps to raise the level of world trade. It may be that in two, three or four years we may be saying to ourselves that in 1960 we could have done quite a lot about this, but we did not do it and consequently are suffering.
I think I have taken long enough. I am quite confident that the Minister of Labour will not be unmindful of this side of the picture. I have tried to say that I think it is possible to bring about what I have suggested provided we take the matter seriously. After all, some serious objective is necessary. I remember reading the other day of an American who had just returned from Moscow to Miami, and who found himself rather desolated in Miami because he said that when he left Moscow he left a city where people were working earnestly and seriously and believing in their work, however much we detested their aims, whereas when he got to Miami he found a different atmosphere. This serious, concentrated and devoted attitude toward life was entirely absent. It remains for us to choose which way we want to travel.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Mr. Chairman, in the general approval of this resolution there have been enough diverse approaches to suggest that we will only really grasp the scope and the direction when we see the legislation. For that reason I hope we will have a day or several days to look at the bill after it is introduced, because it is apparent that some people expect much more from the legislation than others.
We must have sympathy with the Minister of Labour and the government in this regard, because there are ten standards of education
[Mr. Macdonnell.l
which are going to be involved in this legislation and no one needs more sympathy than a federal legislator or executive who is trying to work out a common policy over the whole country on any educational matter. I feel that some members have perhaps cast their loop a little too wide with regard to what they expect from the legislation. Some of them seem to see it as a boost for technical schools, others as a boost for vocational training within the secondary schools, and others think it involves some kind of approach to apprenticeship training. Some see it, and this is the way I see it, as mainly an effort to do something about the unskilled people within the labour force who at the present time are almost unemployable.
I suppose it is out of order, Mr. Chairman, to refer to the proceedings of the other place, but there is a group there which is studying the whole manpower situation and which has already produced one paper that indicates the scope of the problem in attempting to define and set out what is involved in the working force. Right in that paper we have an indication that several hundred thousand people in this country are unemployable because of lack of skills. It is that very problem that I can see most strongly in my own region, and I wonder about the mechanics of this legislation and how it is going to be able to attack that problem.
Those of us who live in Ontario can be very proud of a number of institutions that our provincial government has fostered. I refer to Ryerson institute and the other technical institutes at Hamilton, Ottawa, Haileybury and Port Arthur, which are all doing very good work in catching people who are unable to go on within the university stream and yet can qualify as technicians. But I wonder if we really need to spend money in that particular field throughout the country if other parts of the country are on a par with Ontario. I wonder whether that is not too formal a kind of expenditure for the federal government to become involved in, and I am wondering whether it might not be better if in the spending of the money that is involved an attempt were made to hook up with local committees in various regions in an effort to bring about something that is fairly close to on the job training for people who are out of work.
Looking at the results from the application of schedule M in Ontario, I can only say they have been extremely disappointing. We have an advisory committee on vocational education at the lakehead working in cooperation with the unemployment insurance commission and the board of education. Despite repeated efforts they have only been able to get one course under way over a number

of years. That happened to be a very successful one, and one of the reasons for its success was that the instruction was given by practical men and was related directly to practical training for on the job work to fill an immediate need. In other words there was a great deal of flexibility about it. If you cannot retain flexibility under the plan now before us it seems to me that you have to fall back within the very large and swollen framework of the facilities provided by boards of education and the department of education in such institutions as vocational schools.
I think we need to keep this in mind, and I believe the teachers in the province of Ontario would agree wholeheartedly, that the vocational schools in Ontario have been a failure. I believe the scope and scale of that failure has never been underlined. When I say they have been a failure I mean they have been neither fish nor fowl. They have not provided a good general academic education, and they make very difficult the whole process of teaching. Perhaps this is not important, but it is very much to the point if you are trying to do something. They do not produce people who can go right out on the job and fit in very well.
One of the reasons for this, and this fits in with the remarks of the hon. gentleman who spoke just before me, is that you are trying to give them some kind of particular training at the same time you are trying to give them some kind of a general education. The mixture does not work very well. You can go to any board of education in Ontario that has a vocational school set-up and you will find that this is the most expensive kind of school, while the results that have been received from it are, in the main, extremely disappointing. When you talk to the employers of labour you will find it is only the very rare boy or girl who can really step out of a vocational school and make a contribution right away.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What about the new institutes?


Douglas Mason Fisher: The hon. member asks about the new institutes, and they are a tremendous success. However, they are doing something quite different from what the vocational schools are doing. It is my considered opinion that we are wasting a great deal of money in Ontario on vocational training at the 14, 15 and 16 year age levels. We would be much better advised if we used these facilities to do the job done by the technical institutes to which the hon. member has referred. I think the record of the Ryerson institute has been good in filling an important need. We have had many students who have found, at grade XII or grade XIII, that they did not want to go on into university work and have turned
Vocational Training
to Ryerson and these other schools, and have had not only a practical success in finding good, well paying work, but a real stimulation in becoming topnotch technicians.
On the other hand, when I look at the record of our vocational schools and see what they turn out within the ordinary, secondary school framework, I can see nothing but disappointment. Many employers say they would much sooner have someone trained by a business college than someone who has been spoiled by a three-year commercial course at one of our vocational schools. I have gone to garage operators in Fort William and Port Arthur, where we have one of these vocational schools, and I have been told that there are very few good mechanics coming from these schools. Many of them tend to be spoiled by the fact that they get a superficial knowledge, and they have neither a good academic background nor a good mechanical training.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: May I ask the hon. member a question? Would he say a word about the Ryerson institute, with which I am not familiar, and tell us to what extent it is exclusively technical?


Douglas Mason Fisher: The point here is that the Ryerson institute will only accept people who have completed or who are outside of the secondary school framework. It is not a secondary institution in any sense of the word. The whole idea is that they do give special courses of a technical kind and, in the main, Ryerson demands a qualification of at least grade XI and usually grade XII. It does wonderful remedial work on many people, too, in such fields as photography. People who have been to vocational schools and received some training there can go to Ryerson and receive a higher degree of training. Many of these vocational schools in terms of the money that has been pumped into them and in terms of the knowledge which they have pumped into the students, have been failures whereas these technical institutes, which are training people for higher, tougher, more concentrated standards, have proven to be a great success.
In Port Arthur, for example, the institute there is giving courses in two fields, mining and forestry. As a consequence we now have a number of technicians who are doing excellent jobs in both the fields of mining and pulp and paper. Many of these students, encouraged by their success as technicians, have returned to the universities to take degrees. We have one boy now who has his Ph.D. in geology, who dropped out of school at grade XII and then went on to take technical training and, encouraged by his success, returned to the university. In these cases the technical institutes have done a good job.

Vocational Training
I wonder whether this is really what we need, either the technical institute or support for our present vocational set-up. It seems to me that what we need is a much more pragmatic approach toward education of a practical kind which will do something for our unskilled people in the labour force. When we did get one course going at the lakehead, the number of people who wanted to take it was about four or five times the number who could. Amongst the unemployed I have repeatedly encountered the feeling that if there were only some way whereby they could receive training so they would at least be bulldozer operators, dragline operators or something like that, then their needs might be met. These courses should be conducted by experts grouped around some kind of regional centre, and it appears to me this type of course would be the most help.
One point that has become very obvious in the last few years has been underlined by this Senate report, and that is that the service industries are the real area of extension for our labour force, and that the primary goods, secondary goods and durable goods industries, as well as the basic industries, are either not growing at all or are in a stage of decline. This must raise the possibility of training men, in particular, in some aspects of the service industries, where the training does not have to be long but can be very practical, almost on the job. In the past women have been taking most of the jobs created by the expansion of the service industries. One of the things it seems to me we have to do is consider whether we cannot get more men into that part of our working force. Certainly, with the decline in the opportunities in the durable goods and basic industries, we have to take the time to get more money into the service industries. One of the reasons women have the advantage is that in the view of employers they tend to be more easily trained, more amenable to the kind of hours and the kind of working conditions there are in the service industries. It seems to me we might be able to do something in the way of a practical training program to get men into this particular field.
The last point I wanted to make was that all of us, no matter what our party, will have to have a tremendous amount of patience in regard to this particular program. Judging by the Ontario record, and the Ontario record in relation to the federal government, you are going to have recalcitrance, you are going to have delays. I personally am prepared to see this take a long, long time to get under way, even if we see that the terms under which it is to go ahead are good.
I hope the minister does not expect overnight success in getting this legislation going.

One thing that is probably going to be written into the legislation is some way of getting an expenditure in a hurry to help with the unemployment situation, to help get capital expenditures under way for the development of plant. This may be very well, and I hope that can be done. However, I do not think we can hope for complete implementation of this program for several years. I think where schedule M has failed, there is still some opportunity for success at very little expense in relation to what we may have under this program. I hope that is the way the government will try to make this mean something.
One of the things about which the hon. member for Peterborough and I were talking, as schoolteachers, was the change in attitude we have noticed in the last year and a half. I have been back as a supply teacher, and he has just come from the schoolroom.
In the last one and a half years we have noted a change in attitude on the part of students in the schools in which we happened to be and which are many hundreds of miles apart. The change could be summarized by saying that we now have motive of a much sharper kind back within the school framework. It is a pity that the motive must come from the unemployment situation and the tightening of the economy, but that is what we feel it to be.
I know the minister has made the point repeatedly that we must get the students to stay in school longer, that we must get them concerned about taking more intensive training, and that there must be a sharper motive on their part. To a degree the economic situation is beginning to supply this motive. I find that students are now much keener than they were just a few years ago.
In Port Arthur, in my opinion, the reason is that it is no longer possible for a student to quit school, go to the paper mill and get a good job at $1.75 or $2 an hour. Those opportunities are diminishing. The students are beginning to get an awareness that jobs are harder to come by and that education and training are quite important. This situation would seem to me to indicate that we are at the right stage or the ripe stage for a move in this regard. I hope this resolution will be a part of it. We are enthusiastic about the resolution though I expect that we shall be critical and suggestive about the legislation itself.


Mr. MacRae:: In rising to speak on this resolution, Mr. Chairman, I should like first of all to commend the government and the minister for this extremely practical and worth-while additional step to provide employment for all Canadians and train the

technicians that are needed in this country-in this day and age. Like other hon. members who have already spoken, including the hon. member who has just done so, have a personal interest in this measure because my profession is and always has been that of teaching in the specific branch of vocational education.
Education itself, as everyone knows, is a provincial responsibility, so decreed under the British North America Act. This provision was evidently necessary at confederation because of geography, race and religion, but it seems to me that it is not a valid reason today. A few years ago, in the promotion for education week across the dominion, the slogan was "Education is everybody's business". I thoroughly agree with that sentiment.
It is only in the last half century or so that there has been any vocational training in the schools. The hon. member who immediately preceded me took a rather pessimistic view of vocational training. I cannot agree with him completely, although in some cases it does not seem to have fulfilled the objectives contemplated. However, I believe this action which is being taken by the federal government to further vocational and technical training will commend itself to all Canadians.
It is true that there are ten standards of education in Canada. However, after the last war, when-" approximately one million service men and women left the forces, there were several hundred thousand of them who wanted training in universities, vocational schools and business colleges as well as other on the job training of various kinds. At that particular time it was not found impossible to use all the facilities of every department of education in Canada in order to train those men and women. I see no reason why the same accommodation cannot be brought about today in order to make this particular program and the extension of this act a complete success. I shall discuss that matter a little further in these brief remarks.
The greatest proportion of those who are unemployed in this country today, as we all know only too well, are those who have little education and little or no specific skill. There is a fine pamphlet put out by the Department of Labour. It is entitled "Are you thinking of leaving school?" I suppose all hon. members have copies of this pamphlet. So much material comes to our desks that quite often we do not get the opportunity to read it all, however, I would commend this pamphlet to every hon. member. It contains some extremely pertinent facts in connection with the training of our youth and their lack of education.
Vocational Training
According to this pamphlet, a survey shows that 63.5 per cent of those who are unemployed today in Canada or of those who are seeking work today-perhaps that is a better way of expressing the matter-have had only a grade VIII education or less. All those people can offer an employer is just unskilled labour. We used to say-it is not very humorous, and I do not mean it to be humorous- that all they can offer is a strong back and a weak mind. Perhaps the thought would be better expressed by saying that all they can offer is a strong back and an untrained mind.
There are also those who do not wish to work. That is a sad commentary on our modern civilization and this welfare state into which we have been ushered in the last 25 years. I know of one community- and I suppose this statement could apply to practically every town and city in Can-ada-in which there is a group of young men in their late teens or early twenties who are referred to as the leather jacket brigade. There happens to be about 35 or 40 persons in this group. When they are referred to a job they will stay on it only until somebody gives them an order. Then they will walk out, but before they walk out they want to know when they are going to be paid.
Perhaps nothing very much can be done about those young people; I do not know. I doubt that this particular group is trainable. However, there are a great many young men and young women who, through force of circumstances and perhaps through lack of wisdom on their part when they were young-we all go through this stage but fortunately some of us outgrow it eventually- have no training whatsoever, and they are the ones who are worthy of help. This measure will assist them.
What is the reason there are so many unemployed in this country today? There are more persons working now than ever before in the history of Canada. However, there are more people coming into our labour force every year than the economy is able to absorb. The answer, I believe, is to be found partly but not completely in automation. The other day I read a definition of automation. It was a rather heavy one; this is it: Automation is a term which we loosely apply and is of comparatively recent origin, which has gained wide currency to describe a specific aspect of mechanization applied to operations formerly performed by manual labour.
We have heard much said about automation. Machinery has been gradually taking over many jobs, doing them more efficiently and making life more pleasant for all of us. The champions of automation point out that

Vocational Training
more jobs are created in the process than are done away with. This statement is probably true. However, those new jobs are for the most part skilled jobs. Firms which introduce new machinery usually make every effort to retrain the unskilled employees for the new jobs. This training or retraining is extremely difficult and in some cases impossible if those employees do not have the fundamental knowledge or the fundamental, basic education on which such training can be based. The employees who cannot be retrained are laid off. If they find other unskilled jobs, the chances are that they will soon be laid off again. Each new invention since the invention of the wheel-perhaps the greatest invention in the history of mankind-has meant change and temporary distress. Such has been the situation through the centuries. We are experiencing today a temporary dislocation of our work force.
I should like to relate a personal experience in connection with retraining having regard to this subject about which we are talking today and actually under this act which is being amended. In 1954, in the little cotton milling town of Marysville, close to Fredericton where I make my home, the mill which had been in operation for 75 years making good textiles was forced to close. It was a great blow to the community because people there, from the time they had started their working days-some of them extremely young, perhaps too young-had worked nowhere else but in this textile mill.
The action of the government at that particular time I felt was most commendable. The then federal minister of labour, who was the representative of that constituency in the House of Commons, got together with the very able minister of labour in the province of New Brunswick, who served in that government under the present distinguished Minister of Forestry, and their cooperation was a fine thing to see. I wish all governments and individuals were able to co-operate as they did at that time. They took a large proportion of these people and put them into training courses. I was personally interested, because I was directly concerned with helping to train between 35 and 40 of them in the field of commercial education.
What were the results? People who one day seemed to have no hope went back to school and, for the most part, did well. It is true that a few of them did not, not because they were too old or anything of that kind but they just could not make the grade. On the other hand, some of them did very well indeed. The great bulk of those who were

dealt with were satisfactorily retrained and went out to take their places in industry, and in business offices.
I should like to quote a paragraph or so from Industry, which is a publication of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association:
A high proportion of those out of a job for any length of time stay jobless either because they are unskilled or because demand for their particular skill is not what it was.
At the same time, employers, newspaper advertisements and national employment service bulletins daily emphasize the fact that there are other skills which are-and have been for some considerable time-very much in demand. Clearly, what is needed is a much more ambitious, energetic and nationwide program of job training and retraining than anything we have yet attempted in Canada.
Belgium, as the Labour Gazette recently pointed out, is one country which has shown what can be done. She has retrained more than 25,000 unemployed persons over the past 15 years and over the same period has developed her retraining program to the point where it is today one of the most advanced in the free world.
Training centres are located in various parts of the country. These operate within the framework of a highly flexible training system that adapts the kinds of trades taught to the nation's economic needs as forecast by a manpower studies unit. Length of an average course is five to eight months, but this is shortened where possible.
A Belgian who successfully completes his course is considered to be semi-qualified; a few more months of practical experience usually is enough to make him fully skilled. Although most trainees are in their twenties or thirties, some are older, the retraining program being quite separate from the regular vocational training program for school leavers.
There would seem to be no reason why Canada could not profit from Belgian experience and, indeed, from that of other industrial countries which have gone further along these lines than we have.
We are certainly in a position to know which industrial and commercial skills are going to be needed most in the years immediately ahead.
I think that is a very fine article. Our able and progressive government is taking a long stride in the right direction in bringing forward this measure. Some hon. members of this house have visited the communist countries, Russia and China, in the last year or two. We cannot disregard the fact that Russia and China are making terrific strides in technical training. Unfortunately they are at the same time neglecting what we consider to be the finer aspects of education. However, I do not think that will happen in this country of ours. We know that in the next decade our universities will have hundreds of thousands more students than they have at the present time, and today they are filled almost to capacity. While we may disagree with the militant system of communism-and we all do in this house-let us not bury our heads in the sand so that we cannot see the tremendous strides they are making technologically.

The other day I read a fine article in the editorial page of the Ottawa Journal, and I should like to quote a short portion of it. For me the editorial page of any newspaper contains much that is well worth reading as, I am sure, most hon. members will agree. This particular article said in part:
Provincial and municipal authorities can help prevent the waste of human resources if they plan at once to supplement the dominion program of assistance to vocational training.
Without their co-operation, the offer of the federal government to pay 75 per cent of the cost of approved technical schools or training institutions will achieve little, although buildings should go up quickly.
At the various levels of government it is known that buildings are only a start. The important part of the program is the bringing to them of students who want to be trained, and can be trained, for useful work in which they can have pride and adequate reward for their skill.
The writer points out that the important part of the program for new schools is the student. It seems to me that there is another factor which is most important. To me the most important factor in any school is the man or woman who stands at the head of the classroom. I think that for far too many decades, or even centuries, the teachers have been the forgotten persons in the school system. They were underpaid and overworked. It is only in the last few years that teachers have been adequately paid in this country, though the teachers play the most important part of all. We must not forget that the greatest lesson ever taught in the history of mankind was taught on the side of a hill and it was called the Sermon on the Mount. It was not necessary to have a million dollar school building in order to teach that lesson.
It would be naive to think that a multitude of students waits to bang on the doors for admission when the new training schools are finished. The idea of training, or retraining, has to be sold. Encouragement and explanation may not suffice; to ensure that the training program yields the results it should, there may have to be more positive action. Thousands of young men, it has been estimated, left high school in the last year and have been unable to find regular employment. Most of them would benefit from training for useful occupations, but such is the contrariness of youth that unless there is positive direction many will continue to drift.
There is a source of teachers which I should like to mention briefly. This would require a great deal of co-operation among the various departments of government. I call the attention of the committee to the fact that the armed forces of this country have fine technical and training schools. I have had some experience in connection with the army, and perhaps that is why I think of the Royal
Vocational Training
Canadian Engineers, the Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, for example. If this program is to be put over I suggest to the minister that he explore the possibility of obtaining on loan highly skilled and highly trained technical instructors from the army.
In conclusion, entering into all these considerations is the human factor. Next to a man's family his job is the most important thing in the world to him, his chance and his right to earn a decent living. I am sure other hon. members of this house are as distressed as I am when they talk to a decent man with a family who, through no fault of his own, cannot get employment; or when they talk to a young man who, because of his lack of training cannot get a job, whether it is his fault or somebody else's fault. It is always distressing, and these people are very close to us; whether or not we know them personally we all sympathize deeply. If this measure will do anything to help such people it is one of the most worth-while measures this house could pass during the present session, and I would ask every hon. member to give it his full and unqualified support.


Mr. Hicks:: I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate the minister on this resolution concerning vocational and technical training. This is a subject in which I am exceedingly interested, and I should like to take a few minutes to talk about it here at the present time.
We have wonderful winter works program committees in Chilliwack and Mission city in my constituency, and these committees more or less put the punch into the winter works program.
The dominion and provincial governments have continuously stressed the importance of the workers acquiring the skills necessary to keep pace with modern industry. A survey of the 5,177 pupils attending junior and senior high school in Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Mission, Sardis, Yarrow, Fraser Canyon and Agassiz districts indicates that 654 of these dropped out last year, and of this number approximately 165 would have been interested in vocational training had it been available to them.
According to the latest figures from the British Columbia department of education, approximately 64 per cent of all students entering high school do not graduate. This would indicate to me, and I am sure to other hon. members, that many students find academic training either too difficult or of no practical use to them. Rather than have these students drop out to become merely manual labourers or unemployed, it would seem good business to provide for suitable

Vocational Training
training more closely tied to the vocational needs of the student and the country's economy. After early counselling in grade VIII or IX, if it is found that they have the aptitude and are anxious to learn a trade the students should be offered suitable vocational training.
The national employment service in Chilliwack is continually contacted by young people who have been out of school several years, by handicapped workers and by older married workers who possess outmoded skills, seeking additional vocational training. Many of these would have been suitable for training but have had to wait so long to be accepted into a school that they drifted into low paying, unskilled and unsuitable employment. Because of the extremely large number of applications received by the Vancouver vocational institute it is expected that an applicant would have to wait approximately a year to receive the training he desired. At latest report the Nanaimo vocational training school on Vancouver island is also operating at capacity, and an applicant has often had to wait a year to receive training there. Of the applicants who were not able to receive training at Vancouver or Nanaimo, a large number who reside at the coast, in the interior and in various parts of British Columbia would be agreeable to taking their training in the Fraser valley should a vocational school be established there.
I think it is a sound principle that any special training, whether or not it is immediately useful, is an asset to the individual and to the community. An education of any kind is a handy thing to carry around. It might even be more important to some students to know how to repair a car than to be able to keep a set of books. Without adequate vocational schools situated in strategic positions throughout the country it is impossible for students to get this training.
A resolution passed last year by the Chilliwack winter works committee reads as follows:
Therefore be it resolved that the dominion and provincial governments allocate moneys for the construction of a vocational training school, at Chilliwack or somewhere in the upper Fraser valley on a winter works program project, to provide training in such generally useful subjects as auto and diesel mechanics, auto body, commerce-
-and believe it or not the committee even included-
-beauty culture and barbering.
The establishment of such a vocational training school would fill a great need in the Fraser valley. It could be patterned along the lines of the school in Nanaimo. I know several young men who attended school in

Nanaimo and who are now happily employed as mechanics. I know of two students in particular who were unsuccessful in high school and who are now extremely successful in mechanical work. The father of one of the boys at one time wondered what he was going to do with his son, but now this lad is happily employed.
I received several letters after coming to Ottawa in relation to the resolution to which I have made reference. The letters came from such groups as the Ryder lake P.T.A., the Canadian Order of Foresters and the Ryder lake branch of the British Columbia women's institutes. All expressed their support for the resolution. I even received from the Chilliwack and district ministerial association a resolution which said, in part, that the different levels of government be asked to consider-
-the establishing of an educational program for those young men who are capable of using it. Social workers remind us that the great majority of these young people want work, but because of their lack of training, are usually the first casualties of a recession.
Late last summer a vocational school opened in Burnaby. This school was constructed by the province of British Columbia under the federal-provincial vocational and technical training agreement. We had approved a federal contribution of $1,101,276.71 toward the capital cost of this project. It is difficult to say how much has been contributed to the operation of this particular school, because our allotment to the provinces for operation is an allotment to programs rather than schools, and some of the programs in British Columbia, such as that for the training of unemployed persons, are carried out in other schools such as Nanaimo and the Vancouver vocational institute, as well as at Burnaby. However, under the agreement mentioned about the sum of $227,800 was allotted to British Columbia in 1959-60 for the operation of vocational training programs.
Under the federal-provincial special vocational training projects agreement the sum of $167,869.31 was paid for the operation of vocational programs including training of unemployed persons, foremen and supervisors and workers in primary industries. Under the federal-provincial apprenticeship agreement the sum of $341,924.79 was paid to British Columbia in 1959-60 for the training of industrial apprentices.
More vocational and technical training of youth is required with the advance of technology in industry. Indeed, the retraining of many workers is almost as important if production is to be increased. Transferring from one job to another is also important. With the anticipated jump in export trade

due to the extension of new credit to exporters it is important that the production of many articles be improved.
Some say we do not want too many vocational schools. I have no fear of this, as the demand for skilled workers is sure to increase. I feel that the idea of suitable grants for research work from the standpoint of vocational and technical education is deserving of our encouragement.


Mr. Broome:: Mr. Chairman, with regard to this resolution I conducted a small investigation with the Department of Labour as to the number of unplaced applicants as of October 31. I believe these figures not only indicate the need of this measure proposed by the Minister of Labour but illustrate the vital necessity of it.
For instance, on October 31 unplaced applicants in the professional and managerial class represented 12 per cent of the vacancies but only 2 per cent of the applications. As of the same date 28 per cent of the total number of personnel registered for employment with the national employment service were totally unskilled. This group would not include even the semi-skilled jobs such as waitress and other jobs of that nature. The figure represents those who had no training whatsoever in any type of job.
With respect to the vacancies, there were 28 per cent applying for them but only 15 per cent of the vacancies were for unskilled labour. At the end of September there were 4,448 vacancies which could not be filled from local offices and had to be put into clearance; that is, they had to be put into a system whereby the request for help was funnelled through all offices of the national employment service. At that time the requests were for 150 engineers, 65 draftsmen, 207 nurses, 17 land surveyors, 5 credit checkers and 80 machinists. These were the types of jobs that were put into clearance because they could not be filled from local offices. It is granted that because of variations in economic activities in different parts of the country we may have a shortage of machinists in one office and a surplus in another, and that is why they have the clearance arrangement, so that those shortages can be made known to offices where there is a likelihood that they can fill the requirements.
I was also interested in an article entitled "The Growing Shortage of Technicians" by Paul Nowack, which appeared in Saturday Night of September 3, 1960. The article starts off in the following way;
The demand for highly trained personnel has never been greater in the nation's history. The classified advertising pages in newspapers from coast to coast bear witness to it. But leaders in industry who are worried about the current shortage of trained technical personnel, are even more 90205-6-35
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concerned about the future. All agree that many more specialists are essential if our increasingly automated, industrialized society is to vie successfully with fierce world competition.
The same article later on quotes Thomas Medland, executive director of the association of professional engineers of Ontario, who stated that the ratio of three technicians to one engineer is not high enough for Canada. The article continues:
He claims that the proper ratio is five to one. Right now it stands at less than one and a half to one. Medland asserts this low ratio is the real cause of the so-called shortage of engineers.
The point that is being made, of course, is something that is rather difficult to grasp immediately, that at a time of very high unemployment-because, according to the dominion bureau of statistics figures, on October 15 there were 368,000 persons in Canada seeking work-we have a shortage of trained personnel. Part of the answer over the years has been immigration, the bringing into Canada of skilled people, and part of the answer has been again on the job experience; but neither of these is the real answer to the problem. The real answer is to gauge our requirements for technically trained people and provide the facilities to teach and train previously unskilled people to handle those technical jobs.
We are coming to a period, in fact we have already entered into it, when we require more training in schools. We require a longer schooling period. We require an extended teacher training program. We require all these things because of the growing complexity of industry and the increasing technical requirements of industry. If we are to increase our export trade, if we are to have a continuing level of prosperity in this country, then we must do it by better use of materials, machinery and men.
This resolution deals with the last of these three items, the better utilization of men and women through training to take the jobs which are in industry and which will be created by industry as our industrial capacity increases. This adequate supply of trained technical help will be of immeasurable benefit in the expansion of our industrial activity. In this way it will generally increase employment throughout, whether that employment is in the service industries, in the professional fields, business, insurance, finance or whatever it may be; the increasing industrial base which we will achieve, partly through resolutions and measures such as this and partly through other measures which have been brought in and will be brought before the house. This is one of the best

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ways to attack the major underlying problem we have in Canada today, namely unemployment.


Mr. Pascoe:: Mr. Chairman, the bill forecast by the resolution introduced by the Minister of Labour is of great interest to all parts of Canada. It will, I am sure, be a great help toward our country's continued national development. I want to join with the other speakers in offering congratulations to the minister on this far-sighted move which, as he stated, is designed to undergird the government's program for increasing employment and fostering national development.
The proposed bill is aimed at stimulating and encouraging technical and vocational training by broadening the scope of this training. The changing pattern of manpower requirements emphasizes the need for such action, because anyone who has made any study of the present unemployment situation realizes that, in the midst of this unemployment, there is a big demand for skilled and technical workmen.
The minister pointed out that Canada has never trained enough manpower to meet the needs of Canadian industry. I was surprised at his statement that a survey of five skilled occupations showed that only 35 per cent of the workers in those occupations had been trained in Canada. We should be able to train a much higher proportion of our skilled workers. The program of training embodied in this resolution is intended to accomplish this.
The minister indicated that further research will be carried on to show how labour demands are changing, and the resulting recommendations should be given all the publicity possible, especially in labour circles. In this regard, I think labour leaders would assist by putting greater emphasis on the growing need for more education and for greater training. This could also be done through the Canadian vocational training advisory council, which consists of representatives of employers, labour and the provincial governments. The minister pointed out that the bill he will bring in is patterned along the line of recommendations from this advisory council.
Mr. Chairman, other speakers have referred to an editorial reprinted in Canadian Weekly Features. I should like to refer to it briefly because I think it throws light on the training program we are now considering. It starts off by saying:
There are several reasons why unemployment remains stubbornly and uncomfortably high. But, without a doubt, a high proportion of those out of a job for any length of time stay jobless either because they are unskilled or because demand for their particular skill is not what it was.

The editorial goes on to say:
At the same time, employers, newspaper advertisements and national employment service bulletins daily emphasize the fact that there are other skills which are and have been for some considerable time very much in demand. Clearly, what is needed is a much more ambitious, energetic and nation-wide program of job training and retraining than anything we have yet attempted in Canada.
I submit that the program forecast by the Minister of Labour is just such a training program.
Other speakers have already mentioned what Belgium has done with regard to training and retraining. As was pointed out, that country has retrained more than 25,000 unemployed persons over the past 15 years and over the same period has developed its retraining program to a point where it is today one of the most advanced in the free world. With regard to what Belgium has done, the editorial goes on to say:
There would seem to be no reason why Canada could not profit from Belgian experience and, indeed, from that of other industrial countries which have gone further along these lines than we have.
The editorial states that Belgium has been carrying on this training for 15 years or more. I mention this to draw attention to the lack of action on this problem by the previous government. While Belgium and other countries for years were moving very effectively to increase the skills of their workers in order to fit them for the changing pattern of available employment, the previous federal government apparently was not. As a result we have many people unemployed at a time when there is a demand for skilled workers. I think this situation constitutes an indictment of the previous government for its lack of foresight and lack of action in past years.


John Whitney Pickersgill: What about the last three years?


James Ernest Pascoe: I will refer to that right now. My home city of Moose Jaw will be particularly interested in the minister's proposals. The resolution refers to contributions or grants by the federal government toward the cost of capital expenditures on facilities for vocational and technical training. Through such federal financial help, and I bring this to the attention of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, amounting to more than $2,186,000 up to the end of this fiscal year, a fine technical institute has been constructed and is now operating in Moose Jaw for vocational and technical training. The building has 35 classrooms, some of them huge workshops. There is a total of 150,000 square feet of floor space with plenty of adjacent property for future expansion.

I refer to the property available for future expansion because I can see the need for even more classrooms and shops when the program of training assumes its full proportions. I trust that the reference in the resolution proposing federal grants toward the cost of capital expenditures for training facilities also covers extensions to present buildings and facilities. I hope the minister will make this clear during consideration of the bill. Moose Jaw will be very pleased to increase its vocational and technical training facilities with federal government assistance.
In this regard, Mr. Chairman, there has been some mention by previous speakers that vocational and technical training institutes should be established at many points in the various provinces. I believe that such a policy would create too heavy a demand on the available qualified teachers and instructors. Taking the Moose Jaw technical institute as an example, I think that the building and facilities there should be extended and operated to their full extent rather than have other such institutes built in other parts of the province. This would make it possible to concentrate the teaching staff where they could do their most effective work. I make this suggestion to the minister.
The resolution proposes to authorize the Minister of Labour to undertake programs of technical and vocational training for specified categories of persons. Specified categories are now, or will be soon taking courses at the institute in Moose Jaw. They are there because of federal financial grants which it is now proposed to extend.
I refer to the training of unemployed persons. In my opinion this is one of the most important programs being carried on in this institute. The training of unemployed persons to fit them for jobs requiring more skill is provided under the terms of schedule M of the federal-provincial vocational training agreements. Under schedule M the federal government pays 75 per cent of the training costs, and I want to emphasize that Ottawa pays 75 per cent of the cost. For the benefit cf some provinces, including my own province of Saskatchewan, which could not meet the specified requirements of a minimum lumber of training days in relation to popula-;ion, these minimum requirements were cut n half for the winter months. This has made t possible for the federal government to iay to Saskatchewan the grant I mentioned ;arlier, 75 per cent of the cost of training memployed persons.
I was surprised, Mr. Chairman, when I bund that special minimum training require-nents had to be set for Saskatchewan because know that the ministers of the Saskatchewan [overnment are well aware of the situation
90205-6-35}
Vocational Training
there. In this regard I should like to quote the following statement by the premier of that province:
Saskatchewan Is going through a period of social and economic change. At the end of the war a little over 20 per cent of our total production was non-agricultural... This indicates the diversification which is taking place in the social and economic life of the province. And this means a change in the type of demand for trained people, a change in the courses and the training and the form which education must take if it is to serve the needs of a changing society.
To emphasize these words, I might point that in the last report of the national employment service for Saskatchewan it was stated that despite the number of unemployed there were 703 job vacancies because those looking for work did not have training to fill the positions that were open.
At a meeting of the vocational training advisory council in Ottawa this year it was emphasized that the provinces are expanding the training of unemployed workers. Members of the council agreed that although increased training of workers without jobs was not the complete answer to the problem of unemployment such training could go a long way toward alleviating the situation. It was brought to the attention of the advisory council that while registrations of those seeking jobs increased at national employment offices, at the same time there were numbers of unfilled jobs because those seeking work did not have the skills required for the jobs that were open.
One speaker told the meeting that there was a growing recognition of the importance and the necessity of training and general education as a basic requirement in improving Canada's long term employment outlook. This resolution before us, and the legislation it forecasts, is a recognition by the Minister of Labour and the federal government of this requirement.
In so far as this training of unemployed workers is concerned, I think it is a fine move on the part of the government to allow those wishing to attend classes to do so while they are drawing unemployment insurance. I know this can work out very well at the institute in Moose Jaw, although there is very little understanding by those receiving the training or by the public, and very little acknowledgment by the provincial government, that the federal government is paying 75 per cent of the training costs. I believe, Mr. Chairman, there should be more publicity given to this training of the unemployed while they are drawing their unemployment insurance, with the federal government paying 75 per cent of the cost, as I pointed out before. Again, I compliment the Minister of Labour for this action he has taken, and I am very happy to. support the resolution.

Vocational Training


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am not rising to take part in the debate, Mr. Chairman, but I am rising to join the Minister of Labour in the appeal he made as long ago as December 2, which will be found at page 476 of Hansard, as follows:
On second reading, for anyone who wishes to take part in the discussion and debate on this particular measure, an opportunity will be afforded. Would hon. members of the committee consider passing the resolution today in order to give us the opportunity to discuss second reading of this measure on Tuesday?
It does seem to me, sir, if we really mean business in this house we would get on and pass this resolution, with which everybody agrees, then we could see the bill and debate the legislation itself.


Hazen Robert Argue: I think one should add to the words of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate that this afternoon we have heard from a great number of the supporters of the government. They, of course, are free to take part in the debate. It is the government supporters, in the main, rather than the members of the opposition who are making it impossible for the request of the Minister of Labour to be granted. In other word's, the members of the Conservative party have told the Minister of Labour they do not agree with his suggestion to pass the resolution, and they are going to talk about it.
Last night, when the house leader was reporting the business of the house, I noticed he suggested that we might take both readings of the bill today. I think this is doing things backwards. If there is a stage of the debate that should be shortened, it should be this stage and then we should have at least overnight to look at the bill rather than adopt the procedure that apparently the government wants us to adopt, namely a dragged out debate on the resolution, with exceedingly meagre information before the committee, and then wrap up the bill in a very short time with members obviously not having a chance to study the bill. The position of this group has already been placed on the record by a number of our members such as the hon. member for Kootenay West, the hon. member for Peterborough, the hon. member for Port Arthur, so my remarks will not be extensive at this stage.
However, I do want to point out what the committee is being asked to do. We are being asked to pass this resolution with almost no information having been given to the committee by the minister as to the contents of the bill. As I see it, we should have been told whether or not a survey is going to be undertaken to ascertain the requirements in Canada for the training of personnel under this type of legislation. The minister has been
[Mr. Pascoe.l
able to give us statistics to show that a large number of those that are unemployed are unskilled, but we have no information as to the number of skilled persons who are required in the various categories throughout the country. I ask the minister if that information is available to him. Has the gov-ment any idea whatever of the number of trained persons in the various categories required by the labour market in our country at this time?
Is this part of a co-ordinated policy to make reasonably certain that the graduates of vocational training schools will have jobs available or is this just another case of a hit and miss, patchwork effort by the government which has very little to do with a well thought out program to meet the need for a greater number of skilled workers in this country and to provide graduates of vocational training schools with jobs? I would ask the minister, too, whether under this legislation there has been any thought given to the making of payments to dependents of persons who are being trained. It is obvious that if unemployed persons must maintain families there must be some provision for the maintenance of their dependents during the time the unemployed person is being trained.
I take it from the resolution, but I cannot take it from the minister's speech because it is not there, that the government, under the legislation that will follow, is prepared to take some initiative to make certain that technical and vocational training is provided because there is one section in the resolution which would empower the minister to undertake programs of technical and vocational training for specified categories of persons. I would ask the minister to tell the committee what is the particular provision in this bill which will make this possible. Undoubtedly, we need technical training for Canadians at this time because of widespread unemployment. I think an improvement in the educational facilities in the vocational field is necessary in Canada, even if we had a full employment economy. As automation is accelerated there will be a greater and greater need for moneys from the federal government and from governments at all levels to provide additional facilities in the field of adult education, in the field of vocational training and others.
I would ask the minister, before he requests the committee to pass this resolution, to tell the committee the main features of the bill. The hon. member for Essex East says, let us see the bill. I am not satisfied, myself, with the minister's statement which is so empty of content. I think the Minister of Labour should have been as frank with the

committee as were his colleagues during this session in introducing other legislation. The Minister of Public Works, in introducing the resolution which preceded the amendments to the National Housing Act, was frank with the committee. He told us the main features that would be contained in the bill. We were not asked to discuss a resolution without any information, because we were given the principal features of the bill. I suggest that this practice should have been followed by the Minister of Labour in asking the house to discuss and to support this resolution.
The Minister of Finance was frank with the house when he presented a resolution which preceded the bill to provide certain loan facilities to small businessmen in this country. The Minister of Finance outlined the main principles of the bill. The house was able to deal with that resolution in an informed way because we knew the main features contained in the bill. This time we are asked to pass the resolution and then we are asked to pass the bill on the same day without having been given any real information by the Minister of Labour as to the main features of the bill.
I think this procedure is an insult to the committee. I think it is a rather contemptuous procedure to ask parliament and the members of the house to discuss intelligently and to vote in an intelligent manner when the Minister of Labour has refused to disclose in his statement the main features of the bill that is to follow the resolution.
In former days, when the Conservative party sat on the opposition side of the house, they raised their voices strongly in asking the government at the time of a resolution to disclose the principal features that would be in the bill. I think this procedure is making a mockery of this stage of the debate when the Minister of Labour gives us almost no information and then we have an endless stream of Conservative members standing up to congratulate the minister and saying what a wonderful thing he is doing. He has not told us just what he is going to do but they are so happy about it that they are congratulating him. They are spending the time of the House of Commons in discussing a question about which the Minister of Labour has given us almost no information.
I have carefully gone over the statement initially made by the minister. I have looked for him to spell out some of the main points outlined in the resolution that we are asked to pass. This is something he has failed to do. This procedure, I feel, is not giving parliament its right to discuss in an informed manner the resolution which the government would like to see passed. We are all in favour
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of an extension of vocational training facilities. However, instead of a government short term filibuster on its own resolution, it would be much better and in keeping with the practices of our House of Commons for the minister to have given the committee the same kind of general outline of the main features of the bill to follow this resolution as was given by the Minister of Finance in announcing legislation having to do with small business and as was given by the Minister of Public Works at the resolution stage preceding the bill to amend the National Housing Act.
I ask the Minister of Labour to tell the members of the committee the main features of this resolution and to cease trying to keep us in the dark and asking us to pass a resolution about which he has given us little information.


Mr. Lambert:: May I ask the hon. member
a question?


Hazen Robert Argue: Yes.


Norman Platt Lambert: In his conclusions about the number of government members who have spoken on this resolution will he apply the proportion of members of his party who have spoken to that of the government and then consider just what percentage have spoken? Does he not feel that perhaps they too are entitled to speak in the same proportion?


Hazen Robert Argue: Nobody is trying to exclude any hon. members from speaking. This is a new principle, Mr. Chairman, namely that in the discussion of every measure before the house it is the intention of the government members to put up the same proportionate number of speakers as is put up by the opposition. That procedure is contrary to the way in which parliament has been operating for many years. If the government members want to do this, it is perfectly all right with me. I have no objection whatsoever. However, I was merely pointing out that in response to the question of the Minister of Labour it was the members of the Conservative party who turned him down and not the members of the opposition.


Michael Starr: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Chairman, pertaining to the last statement made by the hon. member for Assiniboia. On Friday last I appealed to the members of this committee to pass the resolution so that we would have the bill for discussion today. The hon. member for Assiniboia was absent and in charge of that group was the hon. member for Skeena who said this in respect of my plea, as reported at page 476 of Hansard:


Mr. Howard:: So far as the request or suggestion of the minister is concerned, may I say that it has

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certain merits. However, it has always been our understanding that one of the principles underlying the resolution stage was that it afforded an opportunity for the suggestion of ideas that might be incorporated in the bill when it finally comes along. We all know that debate on the second reading of a bill is confined to the provisions contained in it. For that reason I think we should perhaps call it five o'clock.
Therefore the statement of the hon. member for Assiniboia has no foundation; far from it. If he had been in the chamber at the time or had read Hansard he would have found that it was the hon. member for Skeena who took on the leadership of his group while he was away and who made the decision that the resolution should not pass.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Let us now call off the filibuster.


Hazen Robert Argue: With regard to the statement made by the Minister of Labour, Mr. Chairman, I can tell you that he is completely inaccurate-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Hazen Robert Argue: -and that he is wrong. What he read from the Hansard record is, of course, correct. But the fact is that today there has been a long array of Conservative speakers. The chairman's list will show the long array of Conservative speakers. In spite of the appeal made by the minister, the members of his party have turned him down.


The Chairman:: Order. It being five o'clock it is my duty, pursuant to section 3 of standing order 15, to leave the chair in order to permit the house to proceed with consideration of private and public bills.
Progress reported.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. It being five o'clock p.m., in view of the fact that there is on the order paper nothing under the heading of private bills, the house will now proceed to the consideration of public bills pursuant to section 3 of standing order 15.



FLAGS OF CANADA


Mr. John Smith (Lincoln) moved: the second reading of Bill No. C-8, to authorize a Canadian flag.
He said: Mr. Speaker, in presenting my bill at this time I realize this may be a controversial measure, but as I have gone about the country I have found there are a great many people who believe that something should be done at this time by way of authorizing a distinctive national flag. I

have some notes here and 1 should like to stick to them fairly closely since this may be a controversial matter.
In proposing the second reading of Bill No. C-8 at this time I do so with all sincerity and respect for the two flags which Canada now uses-the union jack and the red ensign-and I appreciate the heritage of pride and devotion for those flags which our armed forces and our pioneer Canadians have left for us by having used them during days of both victory and misfortune. Had I been in this house 20 years ago, it is doubtful whether I would have sponsored a bill of this kind, although as far back as the first world war I often felt that Canada some day should have a distinctive Canadian flag.
In my opinion that day has now arrived, and with our population now soaring to 18 million people of all creeds and races, and bearing in mind the outstanding part Canada is playing in world affairs, we need a distinctive Canadian flag that leaves no doubt as to our identity among nations.
This bill advances no opinions as to what the flag should be like or what group of people or what committee should design it. If we agree in principle that Canada should have a distinctive Canadian flag then I am sure that on another occasion this house could determine what procedure could be taken by way of setting up a special committee or taking any other action to determine the design and colour of the flag itself. In recent years I have observed many acts of indiscretion and neglect in the use of our flag, or flags, by both Canadian and other people, and I am sure the majority of Canadian people would welcome action by this government to designate a distinctive Canadian flag, giving some direction of when and where it should be used.
In my own home city of St. Catharines I find that the city council continue to fly the union jack at the city hall whereas the Lincoln county council flies the red ensign on the county building which stands in the city square next to St. Catharines' city hall. This is most confusing, especially to new Canadians and children.
On the Welland ship canal which passes through my riding of Lincoln the same condition of uncertainty about our flag prevails. Foreign shipmasters, who are expected to fly a Canadian flag on their ships while passing through Canadian inland waters are often confused and sometimes do not fly either the union jack or the red ensign. In fact, I see some of them flying the United States flag where the Canadian flag should be.
I do believe, Mr. Speaker, that the appreciation of our flag or flags, and what

they stand for is deteriorating in the minds of some Canadian people. Too often we see the union jack and the red ensign tacked up to trees and fence posts at auction sales and the opening of new gasoline stations, and left to become tattered and weather beaten.
I think all this lack of courtesy, respect and love for our flags could be and should be corrected as soon as possible by the dedication of a distinctive Canadian flag. Personally, I would not object to adopting the red ensign which was originally a British naval flag. Perhaps, with some slight modifications, this flag could be made to be the unanimous choice of the Canadian people.
The council of the corporation of the city of St. Catharines, which is located in my riding, realizing the need for a distinctive Canadian flag, passed the following resolution asking the Prime Minister and his government to enact legislation to establish a distinctive Canadian flag:
Moved by Alderman Beattie:
Seconded by Alderman Chown:
Whereas this council is aware that, on the fifth day of September 1945, the federal government by its order in council, Number P.C. 5888, declared it appropriate to fly the Canadian red ensign within and without Canada, wherever place or occasion may make it desirable to fly a distinctive Canadian flag;
And whereas it is unanimously conceded that Canada, by its active participation in important world affairs and as part of the British commonwealth, has served with distinction, not only in defence of Canada alone or in particular, but also served valiantly in defence of the British empire;
And whereas the population of Canada now numbers approximately eighteen million persons as citizens of Canada;
And whereas Canada is the only nation and member of the British commonwealth of nations and in fact, the only nation in the world that has no national flag of its own;
Now therefore be it resolved that the federal government and the Right Honourable the Prime Minister of Canada be and they are hereby required to amend order in council P.C. 5888 or to pass a new order in council to provide forthwith for the establishment of a distinctive Canadian flag;
And further that copies of this resolution be forwarded to the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable John Diefenbaker, and to Mr. John Smith, member of parliament for Lincoln county, and to all members of the federal cabinet, urging their vigorous support and that copies be sent to all Ontario county councils and to all municipal councils of every city and town in Ontario, requesting them to pass a similar resolution and submit the same to their respective local member of parliament as well as to Right Hon. John Diefenbaker, urging upon them the necessity of this important and vital subject.
Copies of that resolution were sent out to all municipal councils in the province of Ontario, with the result that I have on loan from the city of St. Catharines a file which contains replies from 98 of those municipalities. Fifty three of those municipalities are in favour of a distinctive Canadian flag,
Flags of Canada
17 are undecided, and 28 feel that it is entirely a matter for the government at Ottawa to deal with. They declined to take any action although some of those 28 indicated they would have endorsed the St. Catharines resolution if it had asked that the red ensign be dedicated as a distinctive Canadian flag. Should the Canadian government decide to have a distinctive Canadian flag, I am sure the union jack will always be flown in Canada with perhaps more reverence as the British flag, the empire flag, than it is now. At the present time it is sometimes used as just another flag. I think I have submitted enough evidence to show there is a growing feeling among Canadians that Canada should have a distinctive Canadian flag so that this difference of opinion on which flag to fly and when to fly it may be clarified.
I hope that if not sufficient time is available to discuss this bill at this time the government will make more time available in the near future or bring in a government bill similar to Canada's bill of rights 1960.
I have been asked on several occasions by tourists why there is no Canadian flag flying on the Peace Tower or any part of the centre block on week ends or when parliament is not in session. I understand it is against certain regulations to fly a flag from the Peace Tower of the House of Commons unless the members of parliament are in the house at work or sitting in the house. If this is so, surely somewhere on parliament hill there could be a flag pole worthy of the Canadian capital where our flag could be raised in the morning and lowered at sundown with pride and dignity. I am a great believer in flag-raising ceremonies at schools, universities and other places of learning. I believe it is necessary that our young people and our new Canadian citizens should, as a foundation for their citizenship, be taught to respect and love a distinctive Canadian flag.
I do not think it proper that they have to make their own choice between the union jack, the red ensign, or a provincial flag while we who should know better are still divided on whether we should continue to use or not to use the red ensign, which was a British naval flag the British Admiralty permitted Canada to use in 1892 and which by order in council in 1945 the Canadian cabinet declared it appropriate to use on certain occasions.
That is the extent of my submission on behalf of a distinctive Canadian flag. I feel that hon. members who favour it will speak to it and those who are opposed to it will do likewise. It seems to me that for the past 68 years, ever since the British Admiralty gave us permission to use the red ensign, the people of Canada have been divided on the question of a distinctive flag. Our neighbours

Flags of Canada
across the border in the United States have a far better conception of a national flag than we have. I go over there occasionally and am always impressed by their flag-raising ceremonies. If we could decide on a distinctive flag I do not think it would be too long before all Canadians would adopt it, love it and respect it.
At this time there comes to my mind occasions when flags were raised under very trying circumstances. I recall the United States troops at the Pacific island of Okinawa when a group of United States soldiers seized the flag of that country, rushed to the top of a hill and raised it. If they did not have a distinctive flag what would they have done?
I also recall a moving incident in the first war in the battle of Pozieres ridge. An Australian soldier crept to the top of the ridge, stuck his rifle in the ground, hung his helmet from it, hung from the top a small flag he carried in his hip pocket, and then died. The memory of that action by that Australian soldier still lingers with us. Every year at armistice we all think of it as a symbol of sacrifice.
I could speak at length on this bill but I should like to conclude these remarks at this time because I know that time is limited.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, this is one of the most unusual and unique bills ever introduced into the Canadian parliament. Hon. members of this group have every sympathy with the objective but the thinking of the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Smith) must be back in the days of feudalism for him to introduce a bill like this. Does he not realize Canada is an independent nation with the commonwealth. The hon. gentleman is obviously a Tory of preVictorian vintage. To illustrate let me quote from the language of the bill:
This measure shall suffice to warrant and require the governor general in council forthwith to petition the Lord Lyon King of Arms of the Scottish court of chivalry and, by the petition so warranted and required, pray the Lord Lyon be pleased to grant Canada-
Listen to those words, "be pleased to grant Canada." I continue:
-its peoples and their heirs forever-they being virtuous, well deserving, and of connection and persuasion proper thereto-
Obviously the hon. gentleman in presenting the bill in this fashion is treating the people of Canada as though they were members of a Sunday school and deserved a lollipop for being good. I continue:
-such ensigns, armorial flags and banners, as the Lord Lyon, of his knowledge and as may be his will and pleasure, is moved by the prayer to appoint and declare.


John Smith: Mr. Speaker, may I say that the wording of the bill is not mine. It was worded by one of the top solicitors, shall I say, connected with the House of Commons. Of course, I do not object to the part about Scotland.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I can well understand the hon. gentleman wishing to disown the measure. I can appreciate that the wording was provided by a solicitor, but on his advice no working man or farmer would introduce a measure in these terms. Let me repeat:
This measure shall suffice to warrant and require the governor general in council forthwith to petition the Lord Lyon King of Arms of the Scottish court of chivalry and, by the petition so warranted and required, pray the Lord Lyon be pleased to grant Canada, its peoples and their heirs forever- they being virtuous-
I like those words "they being virtuous". I continue:
-well deserving, and of connection and persuasion proper thereto-such ensigns, armorial flags and banners, as the Lord Lyon, of his knowledge and as may be his will and pleasure-
Mind you, his will and pleasure.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is Tory doctrine.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: It goes back to the preQueen Victoria period, or the Elizabethan times. It was in keeping then, but not beyond that period. I continue with the quotation: -is moved by the prayer to appoint and declare.
I have read the principle of the bill, Mr. Speaker, which is contained in one clause. On behalf of this group I must take the strongest exception to the procedure suggested by the hon. member in choosing a distinctive national flag of Canada. I am not for a moment questioning his sincerity or the validity of his objectives, but I do very seriously question his method when it comes to introducing a measure of this kind in the House of Commons for the purpose of providing a distinctive national Canadian flag. I am quite sure that there are other members of his party who take the same point of view. In fact, I see some of them who aim to speak when I have concluded my few remarks.
My objection to this is that this bill is asking parliament to pass a measure which will provide for the choosing of a distinctive national flag for the Canadian people by an authority in another land, by someone associated with the College of Heralds. There is a presumption that the Canadian people, through their parliament, are not capable of choosing their own national flag.


An hon. Member:: That has been proved.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I am quite sure that members of all parties would not agree with that contention. My colleague from Assiniboia suggests that the Minister of Defence Production (Mr. O'Hurley) would not agree with this bill, and neither would some of his other friends from Quebec. If we pass this bill we will be revoking constitutional developments that took place in Canada 93 years ago or more. We would actually be reverting to the period of colonialism. Why the bill reeks from its spirit of colonialism. Its methods are colonialism and the spirit of the bill is the same. I am quite sure that the hon. gentleman who is listening so carefully does not understand the language of the bill that he has introduced. Had he consulted with some of his colleagues from the province of Quebec or other provinces they would have sensed the spirit of colonialism in it and they would have suggested he revise it, and make it more acceptable to the spirit of the House of Commons as a whole. In the explanatory note of this bill we read that:
This bill would ensure that a Canadian flag would be judicially determined;-
Why not democratically determined in Canada? I continue:
-proper in heraldic symbolism;-
I have a great respect for heraldry and symbolism and I appreciate the value of those traditions in any society, but we want the flag to be properly correct according to the views of the Canadian people. The explanatory notes go on:
-and a gage of the warp and woof of the life, the spirit, and the amour-propre of the Canadian.
How in the world are you going to get the Lord Lyon King of Arms in the Scottish court of chivalry to design a flag that is a gage of the warp and woof of the life and the spirit of the Canadian people? How can you expect anyone to do that who has lived under different circumstances, different conditions and is out of touch completely with our traditions, our constitution and our aspirations and actually the aspirations of our nation. I see the hon. member for Greenwood rising.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: May I ask a question. Has the hon. member the slightest idea of :he meaning of this last paragraph which I am going to read?
This bill would ensure that a Canadian flag would be judicially determined; proper in heraldic symbolism; and a gage of the warp and woof of the life, the spirit, and the amour-propre of the Canadian.
Does he understand that? I understand he says he does not. If he does not, is it not possible that he is the one who is at fault? Does he not think that the sponsor of this
Flags of Canada
bill has pursued the proper course? He has taken expert advice. Nearly everybody in difficulty goes and gets advice from a lawyer. I suggest that the hon. member should go very slow in his generalization because I think he is getting himself out on the end of a very long limb.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, I shall look forward to the speech of the hon. member for Greenwood expressing his whole support of the terms of this bill, in view of his comments and questions.
I mentioned, Mr. Speaker, that I have all respect for the traditions of heraldry and symbolism for various reasons, but I do suggest with all respect to heraldry and symbolism, that to ask the Lord Lyon King of Arms of Scotland to choose a flag is not the correct procedure, because of his lack of knowledge of our history, traditions, and so on. We in this group maintain it is the parliament of Canada that should decide the composition of a distinctive Canadian flag.
I am very glad to notice that when I mentioned that we in this group believe it is the parliament of Canada which should make this decision there was applause from members of all parties in the house. Regardless of our, shall I say, party affiliations, there is a strong Canadian spirit and conscience in this parliament because we are all Canadians. I can see from the expressions of approval and the applause by members of various parties in this house that they are not in favour of having the Lord Lyon King of Arms of Scotland choose a distinctive Canadian flag.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, may I say I am quite sure that it is the spirit, the purpose and the intention of this house and of this parliament that the parliament of Canada at the appropriate time choose a distinctive Canadian flag that represents the majority wishes of the Canadian people.
(Translation):


Mr. L. J. Pigeon (Jolieile-L'Assompiion-Monlcalm):: Mr. Speaker, for the first time, perhaps, I completely agree with the remarks of the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge).


Paul Joseph James Martin: Your party
is divided.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: No, not at all, because the Conservative party is the symbol of freedom and of free speech. We are not under Mr. Howe's dictatorial rule, we do not have anything of the kind in the Conservative party.
Mr. Speaker, now, if ever, is the time to have a distinctive national flag without any symbol of allegiance to another country, whichever it may be. We are now of age as a nation, and I object to this bill. However,

Flags of Canada
the hon. member explained his views, and I respect his position. It is his own business, but I think that we have now come of age as a nation and that we should take up our responsibilities as Canadians without asking London's or anybody else's permission before deciding anything with regard to this country.
Canada has now taken up its place among the nations of the world, and asserted itself in the international field. I do not agree with the hon. member, no more than I agree with the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) who, in 1946, said that we had a Canadian flag, as the union jack was the Canadian flag.


Mr. Speaker-(Text):: 


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker- (Translation):


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: -on many occasions-
(Text):


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. The hon. member purported to quote me and what he said was something I have never said in my life.
(Translation):


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate is consistent with himself, I would ask him, as soon as I shall have finished my brief remarks, to announce his position for or against the Canadian flag, and to tell us what he thinks about it. Then we shall see if he shares Mr. Smallwood's way of thinking or not.
Mr. Speaker, there have been two incidents at the international level because we had no distinctive Canadian flag. In 1944, the Argentina opposed our joining the PanAmerican union, because we had no distinctive flag. There had been some confusion with another country. Moreover, from a practical point of view, the lack of a distinctive flag caused some difficulties for our country. We may remember the Egyptian attitude, when those people refused to welcome troops flying the British flag when the Canadians arrived in the Middle East.
But it was mostly in our national pride that we have had to suffer from a state of affairs for which there is no excuse in the case of an international power such as Canada is at the present time.
As for the red ensign, may I add, Mr. Speaker, that it was unquestionably to an order of the Admiralty, dating back to February 2, 1892 that prime minister Mackenzie King was referring on June 9, 1943, when he stated in reply to a question of an hon. member, Mr. Wilfrid Lacroix, that it was a mistake to contend that Canada had no flag.

Of course, our ships are now allowed to fly the British naval flag bearing the arms of Canada, especially since 1936 when paragraph 1 of section 89 of the Canada Shipping Act was amended to confirm-one wonders why -the Admiralty's order.
May that flag be used on land? Custom forbids it. "The red ensign, says Stewart Wallace, is essentially a naval flag, that may not be flown on land." He goes on to say that the flag may not, therefore, constitute Canada's national flag.
Nevertheless, by virtue of an order of the privy council under date of January 26, 1924, permission was granted to fly the naval blue ensign (the distinctive flag of Canadian coast guard vessels, as authorized by the admiralty in 1868) on Canada House in London and to use the red ensign, with the Canadian coat of arms of course, on all dominion buildings or buildings occupied by Canadian representatives outside Canada.
Therefore, that essentially naval flag has become the distinctive standard on our consulates, commissioner's offices, legations and embassies abroad.
Was the British Admiralty consulted in that instance? I doubt it very much. In any case the Admiralty is much less concerned with its prerogatives than it used to be concerning those emancipated children which the dominions now constitute within the British family of nations.
If a commonwealth nation wishes to use a naval flag on land, authorities in the mother country will only smile as they might if an Iroquois or a Huron chose to saunter down Regent street in a feather headdress and moccasins.
Mr. Speaker, I had an opportunity, at the beginning of this session, to introduce a bill concerning a distinctive national flag and a distinctive national anthem.
Soon Canada will celebrate the centennial of confederation. Already, in many parts of the country plans are under way to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Canadian nationhood adequately and logically.
Do you not think, Mr. Speaker, that the best way to pay tribute to our forebearers is to recognize nationally that Canada is autonomous and free and takes no orders from any other country? Do you not think it would be logical in the circumstances to adopt a distinctive national flag?
Personally, I am not in favour of including on the national flag the fleurs-de-lis, to remind us of our ties with France, no more than the union jack to remind us of our ties with England, because new Canadians

could also demand the inclusion of a new element recalling their own country of origin.
If we are all Canadians from sea to sea, we should, I think, in the interest of national unity, adopt an essentially Canadian flag.
In closing my remarks, I should like to refer to part of a talk given by Clement Brown, a newspaperman, and reported in the monthly review Alerte for October and November 1958:
A few years ago, I suggested that the three great physical features of Canada, namely the forest, the prairies and the northern expanses, be represented on our future flag. In terms of colours, that would make it green, gold and white. Other symbolisms might be added: green for our French origins; gold for our British origins; white for the new Canadians; green for our youth as an autonomous nation; gold for our fidelity to the throne; white for the purity of our ideals. The three bands could be either vertical or horizontal, and for colour contrast, the white could be placed between the green and the gold. Some day, I hope that an artist may enable me to see with my own eyes what such a design would look like.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear the views of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) on that subject. What does he think of a Canadian flag? Then we will know whether he is a true Canadian or whether he shares the views of Mr. Smallwood.
(Text):


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I am not rising to take part in the debate but merely to correct an incorrect statement made by the previous speaker, the hon. member for Jo-liette-L'Assomption-Moncalm (Mr. Pigeon).
I have said repeatedly and I say again that the flag of Canada is the flag that was prescribed by the order in council of the fifth of September, 1945. It is the flag that flies over this building and it will continue to be the flag of Canada until this parliament changes it.
(Translation):


Mr. Boulanger (Drummond-Arihabaska):: Mr. Speaker, at the outset of his remarks, the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Mont-calm (Mr. Pigeon) ascribed to the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) some statements he has never made.
I would ask him to indicate whether he shares the views of his leader, who has mentioned in the past that the Canadian flag should have a union jack in a corner.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: In reply to the hon. member's question, I am pleased to say that the Conservative party is a free party-


Some hon. Members:: A divided party-


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: -a democratic party, and we
state our views according to our conscience.
90205-6-361
Flags of Canada
The same cannot be said of the Liberal party, which was at one time under the dictatorship of C. D. Howe-


Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Speaker, I note that the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-tion-Montcalm (Mr. Pigeon) has not replied to my question. I am not surprised at that.
The Conservative party says one thing in eastern Canada and another in western Canada. Mr. Speaker, for the first time the member for Lincoln (Mr. Smith) introduces a measure, I must say he has not been too successful. However, he is to be commended for his stand, even if it only serves to remind us of the matter of a flag, or to recall the word flag in this house. Very seldom does a member from Ontario speak about a national flag or a distinctive national flag.
However, I am surprised at his position. These last few months, in fact, there has been talk of repatriating the constitution. Discussions to that effect were held during the federal-provincial conference. I am therefore surprised to see that a Conservative member should introduce such a resolution and ask that a pattern for a definitely distinctive Canadian flag be chosen by Scottish authorities.
That is certainly evidence of immaturity.
In the past, the Liberal party has proposed in this house a distinctive national flag, chosen by Canadians and approved by the Canadian people.
I think that we have here in Canada people who are qualified to produce a design which would reflect our mentality and our aspirations.
In 1945, a special committee was established to study the matter of a design for a Canadian flag. At that time, 1,400 designs were submitted, and a dozen of them were considered. I feel that we could choose among those twelve one that would be suitable to us, without having to go to Scotland for that purpose.


Mr. Martineau:: Would the hon. member permit a question? Would the hon. member care to comment on the words of his colleagues, the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, who just stated that the red ensign would be the Canadian flag.


Samuel Boulanger: The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate said that at the present time the flag of the merchant navy included the union jack-


Paul Raymond Martineau: That is not what he said.


Samuel Boulanger: Either the hon. member misconstrued his words or I am the one who misconstrued them.
I should like to bring to the attention of the hon. member for Lincoln that the municipal

Flags of Canada
council of St. Catharines recently urged all Ontario municipalities to support the request for a distinctive national flag. But it never has been said that the choice had to be made in Scotland.
For all the reasons I just mentioned, I am definitely against this bill. I do not think any hon. member here is more desirous than I am of a distinctive national flag for this country. I feel that I must vote against the proposal put forward by the hon. member for Lincoln.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: I should like to hear the views of the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin), if possible, on this question.


Mr. Heward Graffiey (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, as member for Brome-Missisquoi in the House of Commons, I am convinced of one thing, namely that the people of my riding have entrusted me with the duty of speaking in favour of a distinctive flag.
I am thinking now of a few villages of my constituency, namely that of Foster, where most people are English speaking, while five miles away in the village of St. Etienne de Bolton the people are mostly French speaking.
Mr. Speaker, I can state that, under the present government and the leadership of the Right Honourable Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker), a great spirit of national unity pervades the Brome-Missisquoi riding, where people today are anxious to obtain a distinctive flag. Mr. Speaker, even if my late grandmother on my father's side bore the name of Emma Stewart, and her own mother was born overseas, I am convinced that she would object to the terms of the bill now under discussion. I am in favour of the adoption of a flag by the Canadian parliament, by Canadians, for Canadians.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


William Heward Grafftey: Mr. Speaker, once again I am being interrupted by members of the opposition, the very ones who want to divide our country in order to rule.
As for me, I am speaking in this house in exactly the same way as in the riding of Brome-Missisquoi and I am sure of one thing: if we had known earlier the spirit of national unity shown by the Prime Minister, it would be much easier for us Canadians to adopt and obtain today a distinctive flag.
Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to go into the artistic merits of a flag. I only wish to point out that today Canada, our big and young country, does need a distinctive flag.

(Text):
Sir, the other day I was travelling from Ottawa back to my constituency and, as often happens, the subject of a distinctive Canadian flag came up. I came out, as I have always come out, sincerely for a distinctive Canadian flag. I have advocated this ever since I was a young man in high school. I have advocated it in my district, and I have never said different things in different parts of this country. I have always spoken in favour of a distinctive Canadian flag. I offered my point of view to my hon. friend, who happened to come from Manitoba and is a member of this house, and I said I had a mandate from my own particular region to speak in this house for a distinctive Canadian flag.
He sincerely put forward the proposition that we are still a young country, that we were brought together by an act of confederation through the efforts of John A. Macdonald and George Etienne Cartier in 1867. He mentioned the fact that we are still a very young country, the fact that we could differ on what should be in a flag and could recognize our differences, that we could really differ and talk about the matter openly without trying to rub the sores of division, as is ofttimes done by hon. members opposite.
I pointed out to him that I felt the time had come for us as Canadians to discuss the desirability of a distinctive Canadian flag.
I am sure of one thing, Mr. Speaker. The debate such as that taking place here in this house this afternoon is helpful, coupled with the fact that national unity has really been underlined by the spirited direction of the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) today. When he talks about a spirit of Canadianism, he talks about a factor that is truthfully uniting Canadians, a factor that I can tell the people in my riding will bring about a distinctive Canadian flag much faster than would otherwise be the case.
I can also say this, however. Even after listening to my friend speak on the train proceeding from Ottawa to Montreal I am still as convinced as I always have been that the time has come, as I said before, for us to advocate a distinctive Canadian flag.
One of the true things about Conservative principles is that we recognize the fact that local affections spring out into broader affections. Conservatives pay a great deal of attention to local affections. Conservative principles say that our primary affections start in our family, our churches, our towns and spread out to our provinces, our country and to wider associations such as the commonwealth and the United Nations. In short, as I

said, Conservative principles state that our local and family affections form the setting for those broader affections.
Speaking for myself, I may say that I am proud when I see the fleur-de-lis flying in the province of Quebec as representing my province. I am proud of our flag in the province of Quebec. I am also proud when I see the union jack. When I see it flying it says to me that Canada is an equal partner with other nations in the British commonwealth of nations, an association that plays such an important part in the modern world of today.
I am proud when I look at the flag with the fleur-de-lis on it representing my province. I am proud when I look at the union jack which represents our co-equal position in the commonwealth of nations. I would be equally proud to recognize a United Nations flag which represents the important work being done by this great world body. However, I think one thing is missing, namely a flag which represents a real Canadianism, a spirit which prevails from Atlantic to Pacific in this country today.
As a Conservative may I say this. While I have a flag that represents my local loyalties, I should also like to have a distinctive Canadian flag which would represent my loyalty to this country, called Canada in which I live. May I repeat what I have already said. I feel that under the direction this country is getting today from the Prime Minister, we are coming closer, day by day, to attaining just such a distinctive Canadian flag.
I cannot support the bill before us today because, as I said before, I believe that a Canadian flag should be adopted by Canadians for Canadians in the Canadian House of Commons. I recognize the fact that many of my ancestors came from Scotland. However, I do not know whether they, in all seriousness, could support some of the terms of the bill before us. Of one thing I am certain, however. The discussion that has been had this afternoon and the discussions that I am sure will be had in the future on this extremely important subject can do nothing but help in obtaining for the people of Canada something that in my opinion should come very soon.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Speaker, only a few minutes are left before six o'clock and I do not intend to speak in general terms on the question of the flag. However, I should like to speak specifically on the bill that has been introduced.
I agree with other hon. members that the method of referring the problem to the Lord
Vocational Training
Lyon King of Arms is not a satisfactory solution, but the suggestion served to point out one thing. It points out the desperate position in which we find ourselves in this country in not having a national flag. We cannot seem to settle the question in parliament. The hon. member who has introduced this bill would throw the responsibility on the Lord Lyon King of Arms. We have before us another bill, namely Bill No. C-17, which I do not wish to discuss but which would throw the problem on the governor general. We have before the house another motion which would throw the problem on the people by way of a referendum. Apparently we are attempting to throw the responsibility in a number of directions.
There is before the house no bill or resolution which suggests that the house itself should settle this question and that we should enact some legislation, appoint a committee outside the house but within this country or take some definite action within parliament itself. I think that situation is what is pointed up by the criticism. I can understand that the hon. member who introduced the bill is trying to find a means or a method by which we can have a distinctive Canadian flag, or a means or a method as a result of which we can get ahead with the job. To that extent I sympathize with the effort he has made to have someone settle this matter for us. But I agree with other criticism to the effect that we must settle it ourselves.
May I call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hour for the consideration of private and public bills having expired, the house will resume the business which was interrupted at five o'clock.



VOCATIONAL TRAINING


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration in committee of the following resolution-Mr. Starr -Mr. Rea in the chair:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to authorize the Minister of Labour to enter into agreements with provincial governments for the encouragement of technical and vocational training and to authorize the making of contributions by Canada toward the cost of programs of technical and vocational training undertaken under provincial authority, including contributions toward the cost of capital expenditures on training facilities connected with such programs; to authorize the Minister of Labour to undertake programs of technical and vocational training for specified categories of persons; to provide for the establishment and operation of an advisory council: and the appointment of its members and staff and to define its duties; and to provide for other related and incidental matters.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
[Stage Direction]
Vocational Training AFTER RECESS
The committee resumed at 8 p.m.
Mr. Matthews:: I feel it is my duty and pleasure to speak on this very important resolution, namely a measure to authorize the Minister of Labour to enter into agreements with provincial governments for the encouragement of technical and vocational training. Perhaps a number of Canadians do not know it, but the federal government has for a number of years been paying part of the cost of vocational schools in the provinces. This additional financial aid will make it possible to do a far better job.
It is interesting to learn that the minister does not intend to depend on immigration as a source of skilled workers as has been done in the past, but rather to train Canadians who are in need of such training. If a proper program had been instituted by the previous government years ago we should not have near the unemployment we have today.
I thank the minister for asking all members to check this resolution and to submit suggestions to help the program. The Progressive Conservative government is to be complimented on this plan to train young Canadians so that they may play a more important part in the building of this great country. As most hon. members know, we have a vocational school in Nanaimo and it is one of the top grade schools in Canada. I have, of course, visited this school many times and I know a number of the fine boys who have graduated and who now hold good positions because of the education and experience gained in this excellent school. Firms in the logging industry know the real value of this school and have placed many of the boys in good positions after they have completed their training. There has always been support for this school from the logging firms operating in British Columbia who realize the value of well trained men. Some of the companies have donated caterpillar tractors, trucks, road graders and other equipment to the Nanaimo vocational training school. This school has been very successful in securing positions for its pupils when they graduate, and I believe the big reason is because of the way the school is operated and because of the system used by Mr. Jack McCreedy under whose able direction the school has operated for many years.
Mr. McCreedy has taken a personal interest in all the pupils and has helped them in many ways. It is my opinion that if all the schools were run in the same efficient manner there would be far less unemployment in Canada. Mr. McCreedy is not at the Nanaimo school at the present time. I understand he is now at the Vancouver vocational training school,
IMr. Speaker.]
but I suggest that if there are to be any factfinding meetings on improvements in vocational training methods Mr. McCreedy should be called in. I am sure his contribution would be a big help to the program the minister has in mind.
I remember that after world war I the government instituted a civil re-establishment program for returned men. While a great many servicemen who took advantage of this plan did benefit from it, many others just wasted their time and the taxpayers' money. It is very important to the success of this new program that proper grades be demanded. Schools that are part of the plan should be carefully checked; they should be required to make sure that the pupils are working and taking every advantage of the opportunity afforded to them. If the federal government is to help finance this program to educate and train young Canadians it should make sure that a good job is being done.
I am very pleased to learn that the plans of the minister include an expanded teacher training program, as we all know that good results from technical and vocational training can only be achieved if there are good teachers. Poor teachers should not be part of this important effort. I think hon. members will all agree that good teachers can do a tremendous job in the training of the youth of Canada and that bad or poor teachers can have a very adverse effect on education. If a teacher is mean and overbearing, if he is overly conceited, he should not be allowed to teach until he is cured of these things that are hard for a pupil to endure.
Look out for the teacher who will not learn. There is a saying that he who graduated yesterday stops learning today is uneducated tomorrow. I feel that is often true of teachers. I will say that in my own constituency and, no doubt, in other constituencies across Canada, there are many fine teachers whose work is undoubtedly of great benefit to our country. I am very thankful that in my youth I had good teachers and they did their best with the material provided. I, of course, went through school as a youth and went through the same troubles that a high-spirited lad goes through today. I had one aunt who claimed that eventually I would be hung. I suppose I was like a lot of young lads, full of life, and I had one of the teachers who taught in my constituency, a Mr. Thomas. I met him a year ago and it was a pleasure to talk to him again, and naturally we talked back to the times when I was a pupil many years ago when I was in school in Victoria.

To give you an idea of how a school teacher can, in certain conditions, help a young fellow out, we were out at recess time and we had some very nice apples, and some of the boys dared me to throw an apple and hit Mr. Thomas. They kept after me and dared me until I agreed to do it. I said to myself: if I throw the apple I will make quite sure I do not hit him. So I threw it way up in the air. Unfortunately, it came down and hit him on the back of the neck. That required that we should go forthwith to the principal's office, and I figured I would come to the usual type of grief-we got the strap in those days and they did not spare it.
The first thing they asked me was why I threw it, and I said I threw it because I had been dared. Then they worked on me and wanted to know who the boy was that dared me, and being a little bull-headed I did not tell them. My reward was that they said I was a very fine boy and loyal to this other young fellow and they would overlook the whole thing. I asked Mr. Thomas, to whom I had not spoken for years, whether he remembered that. He laughed, and said he did remember. I said, you certainly must have loved children to put up with what you put up with in those days, and he said, that is one of the secrets of being a good teacher. I could cite other things along those same lines. When teachers are lacking in these qualities they are going along trying to do a job for our young people without the inspiration which is likely to make it successful.
I might mention another teacher, a Mrs. Bell who was my Sunday school teacher. She was a wonderful influence on my life and for a number of years I could feel that influence. It was quite interesting. A lot of the members here may remember seeing A1 Miller from Toronto on television. He does not know anything about this deal, but it was his grandmother who was such a wonderful influence on me, a boy who according to my aunt might have been hung.
I am very proud of the teachers. I think teaching is one of the most wonderful professions there is in the world. I have spent some money on my daughter teaching her figure skating and she has got on very well. She came home one day and said her instructor, Mr. Albert Enbers, had a contract for her to join Ice Capades. Should she take it, she asked. I said: it is up to you. The next day my daughter came to me and said, would you kindly phone Mr. Enders and tell him I am not going. I am going to go to normal school, I am going to be a school teacher. That was one of the proudest moments of my life. She went to normal school and taught school after that. She gave up a
Vocational Training
very glamourous opportunity to tour the world, you might say, like a good school teacher should.
I should like to ask the minister if consideration will be given to the important matter of the training of musicians. Canadians have contributed greatly to the musical world, and many of our artists have left for other countries to complete their training, and we have lost them.
We have in Nanaimo, the Nanaimo symphony orchestra that has done a wonderful job under the able leadership of Mr. Maurice Kushner. Mr. Kushner is called "Mr. Music of Vancouver island" and has dedicated his life to music. I would ask that some plans be included in the implementation of this resolution to make the training of musicians part of this program.
This represents a most important move on the part of the federal government and one that is long past due. It will encourage and hearten many Canadians who have been waiting for years for such a golden opportunity. Canada is now on the march and years of expansion are ahead. Those who wish to be a part of this great expansion must be well trained, we must have good schools but most important of all they must have good teachers. As I said before, the teaching profession is the most important profession of all and the future of a country in many ways is dependent on good teachers.
I was quite surprised this afternoon when one hon. member who takes as much of the time of the house as he can get, objected to hon. members talking on this resolution. The hon. gentleman's action in making that statement must have required a lot of plain gall. I think it is required when a resolution as important as this one is before us that every sincere hon. member should make a contribution in some way if possible. I do so for the reason that I am interested and also for the reason that we have such a fine vocational school in the city of Nanaimo. It must have made the hon. gentleman very sour to hear hon. members thanking the minister for introducing this important resolution. I have noticed that most hon. members in the house have been taught by their parents to be polite and not to forget their "thank you's". It is a sign of good breeding and hard to forget even though it is distasteful to some people.
I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without offering my hearty congratulations to the minister on the fine work he is doing for Canada at a very difficult time. From all parts of Canada we hear praise of his efforts. The minister is a man who understands the problems of the working man. The minister

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was a working man and a union member before coming to the House of Commons and Canada is very fortunate in having a man of such high calibre as Minister of Labour.
We have just had an example of more rudeness on the part of the hon. member for Timiskaming and even had this comment been intelligible I doubt if it would be worthy of a reply. I wish to close my remarks with a statement attributed to Ben Franklin: Nothing is of more importance for the public welfare than to form and to train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strength of a state far more than riches or arms.


Mr. Nasserden:: Mr. Chairman, I must first of all congratulate the Minister of Labour on the introduction of this resolution designed to extend the frontiers of knowledge and skill to certain citizens of our country. I take particular pleasure in doing so, as I recall my own active interest in some such measure over a long period of years. Then, too, I am reminded of that tough old pioneer, a constituent of mine, who attending my convention, gave voice to the needs, recognized in part, at least, by this proposed measure. That stalwart citizen of Canada was one of those who share a background not altogether dissimilar to that of the Minister of Labour.
This measure did not form part of our platform in 1958. It is, however, another milestone reaching toward a realization of that greater Canada, the vision of which won for our Prime Minister the confidence and the admiration of the people of Canada. I propose to deal with this matter at some length. In doing so, I make no apology to anyone. This measure represents one of the milestones which characterize so indelibly the difference between the administration that was and the administration that is, and has since 1957 been building and rebuilding the foundations upon which unity and purpose in Canada's national life can be achieved for all Canadians.
If we look back on the days of war we are at once confronted with the inescapable conclusion that the national selective service in those days measured vividly the challenge that would face this nation in the post-war years. Nor need we ever forget the unpreparedness of those days in terms of trained personnel that accentuated the perils of national survival itself. Those were the days when the flags of premonition with regard to the future of Canada's youth and labour force were the unfurling banners of arrogance, indifference and neglect worn by those who today form the official opposition in parliament.

The penalties that are accruing today in terms of unplaced applicants for jobs, in terms of those who search for trained personnel for positions that cannot be filled, in terms of the increasing seriousness of trade imbalance and trade deficit, in terms of the alarming grasp of Canadian resources by foreign capital, all claim the distinction of a common origin. I like to recall the words of Canada's prime minister of those days, the Right Hon. William Lyon Mackenzie King. That oracle of Liberal thought never spoke truer than when he said, "If that new world order is not well on the way before the cease of hostilities, then we may well look for it in vain." I have been told it was the quivering hand of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate that held the crystal ball in those days. The pages of Canadian history will always bear the marks of that period, when opportunity to serve the national purpose was looked upon as a stranger by the then government of the day.
The post-war years passed quickly, five, ten, fifteen years. The youth of those days are the untrained unemployed of today. Those were the days when government legislation failed to encourage training necessary to sustain employable people through to the years of maturity. Those were the days when government legislation failed to undertake the tasks of retaining the heritage of Canada's resources for Canadians. Those were the days of budget surpluses so proudly claimed by the Liberal front benches. I say, those surpluses represented and in fact still represent that price which Canadian paid as a first instalment on the anxieties which have been maturing during the past several years.
One need only ask any contractor or any industrial employer to measure the part that untrained and unskilled labour have contributed to the inflationary tendencies which have rocked the very structure of our economic and social life in Canada. Nor has that been the only result. Ask those who have the training; ask those who have the skill. Everyone of them can tell you that he or she has been subsidizing those who through no fault of their own were thrown on the labour market without proper training and, what is worse, without provision for proper training at those times of relaxed labour conditions. Thus was a limitation placed upon their ability to retain and improve their prospects and that of Canada as the years rolled by. The other day in this debate the hon. member for Hull, in referring to this legislation, said:
We recognize that its purpose is to prepare, in a rather distant future, the young generation so that it might play its part within society.

Later on, in the same remarks, he said:
The government has some responsibilities, and it should find the ways and means to relieve the present want while getting ready to give assistance to those who tomorrow will have to change jobs.
This afternoon in the debate the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate remarked: "What about the last three years?" I say to you, sir, and to the members of this house, that if they had been thinking of those people, who tomorrow will have to change their jobs, during the last 22 years, and particularly during the early post-war years, Canada would not be faced with the problem in regard to unemployment that it is facing today. That is one of the reasons why this legislation is needed to alleviate in some measure the situations and conditions which members of the opposition must claim and own as part of the heritage of 22 years of opportunity deferred in the crystal ball of a politician. Do not forget, that it was the quivering hand of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate who cradled the crystal ball.
The opposition say that this bill is too modest. We acknowledge that it is modest; we certainly think it is only part-


John Whitney Pickersgill: We have not seen it yet.


Edward Nasserden: -of the widespread program that has been undertaken to meet those particular conditions.
When the floods are raging over the dikes that have been neglected there is no easy, quick and inexpensive way to remedy the threat to the community life of a nation. The work of reclamation is slow, must be methodical, and must be started. Members of the opposition would not know anything about that. They have discounted every complementary piece of legislation that has been brought forward by this government to relieve the suffering and hardships that, already begun in 1956-57, were a major contributing factor to their defeat in the elections of 1957 and 1958.
I think of some of the measures that have been brought forward. One of the first acts of the Conservative government was to repattern the benefits under the unemployment insurance commission. The outstanding record of this government in regard to house building will forever put to shame the miserable effort of the former government in that regard. The legislation brought forward during the present session for the encouragement and reclamation of Canada's business communities was never even thought of by the former government. Nor should it be forgotten that this government has given more encouragement to the development of our power
Vocational Training
resources in those areas hitherto the forgotten wastes of Canada in so far as industrial development was concerned.
After the MacPherson report on freight rates, there will be the re-assessment of Canada's industrial potential in the light of a national transportation policy designed to give labour the right to the Canadian market unprejudiced by discriminatory rates designed to centralize the industrial plant of Canada. That is the challenge that faces parliament and the Canadian people.
Every time I hear members of the opposition describe the picture in so far as unplaced applicants are concerned I see the quivering hand of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate; I see the crystal ball reflecting decisions deferred. I see the reflection of their former colleague and revered leader who said, if that new order is not well under way before the cessation of hostilities, then we may well look for it in vain.
Those members of the opposition who have spoken of the danger of training someone not immediately required in the labour market are speaking in terms of deferring a decision, yet they have tried during this debate and during other debates in recent days to place that tag on this government. The former government certainly never deferred decisions; it just did not make them. Here again in this resolution they see the government taking action, the need of which was determined during the period when national selective service was in force in this country.
In conclusion, I say to scrutinize the figures of unplaced applicants, the unemployed from 1944 to 1956-57, and you have the real heritage of the official opposition and the Liberal party to modern Canada. This measure, together with a national productivity council, and those other aids that have been mentioned, will surely be beneficial in the years ahead to Canadians generally.


Mr. Creaghan:: Mr. Chairman, unlike most previous speakers, I will not delay the passage of this resolution by congratulating the minister and the government on its introduction. However, with the time at my disposal I want to say a few words in a general way on it, and particularly in so far as it may be applicable to the economic welfare and future of the Atlantic provinces.
At the present time a very large technical institute is under construction in New Brunswick. This institute is being built within the city limits of Moncton and negotations for its erection were conducted in the year 1959 by the former premier of New Brunswick, the present Minister of Forestry. This institute is a start on a new program to train unskilled workers in New Brunswick. It is my hope that

Vocational Training
the new government of New Brunswick will accelerate the existing construction and take steps to establish and construct an additional number of institutes throughout the province.
As we all know, the aeroplane and the car have replaced the buggy; the diesel engine has more or less displaced the steam engine. Centralized traffic control has replaced hand signalling and telegraphic communication on the railways of this country, and more recently the operation of automatic hump yards has replaced marshalling yards at some of our rail centres. We all know that the jet age has already almost outmoded modern postwar aeroplanes.
I mention these few examples to impress upon hon. members that these changes, which are confined to transportation alone, have caused a great deal of displacement and interruption of work for many men throughout the country. Admittedly these improvements were necessary for the progress and expansion of the nation. However, each and every one of these examples of automation in the transportation field has caused a great deal of displacement and in fact unemployment for many trained and unskilled Canadians.
Just before we adjourned for supper the hon. member for Assiniboia said that the minister should have given a fuller explanation at the resolution stage. It is my opinion that the measure was very well introduced by the minister at this stage and not only by the minister but also by the Prime Minister who made reference to this subject during the debate on the speech from the throne. As found on page 44 of Hansard for Monday. November 21, the Prime Minister said:
Then there is vocational training. As the hon. member for Cape Breton South said the other day, 40 per cent of the labour force, which includes all of us, did not get beyond elementary school. Many cannot secure jobs because they have not the necessary training.
The Prime Minister went on to elaborate on this aspect of the throne speech.
I should also like to draw the attention of hon. members to the brief presented by the Canadian Legion as recently as October 24 last when representatives of the Legion appeared before the Prime Minister's committee on employment together with representatives of many other segments of the economy. The Legion brief was a very short one and I commend it to all members of the house. It was presented by R. E. MacBeath, third vice president. I am particularly interested in the Legion brief because Mr. MacBeath is a resident of my constituency and a very active supporter of the Legion. On page 2 of the Legion brief there is the following statement which I believe is very appropriate:
[Mr. Creaghan.j
The Canadian Legion believes that the acute unemployment situation which we now face is a temporary one and that the solution to the temporary aspect can be found. We do, however, suggest that measures could be adopted to help protect against recurring unemployment. One such measure would be for the federal government to immediately institute an intensive program of academic and trades training similar to that implemented for veterans of world war II. This would help to relieve some of the immediate problems and would ensure that our citizens were better trained and better qualified for future employment. This would benefit Canada's economy because the more highly trained and proficient our citizens are, the more productive they will be.
I think the Legion brief expresses fairly well the feeling of all members of the house and can be identified with the resolution now under discussion. As far as the maritime provinces and New Brunswick in particular are concerned, if the resolution is acted upon by the people and particularly the provincial governments it will do much to eliminate recurring unemployment. It was about recurring unemployment that Mr. MacBeath was primarily concerned.
The regional director of the unemployment insurance commission issues a press release monthly, I believe, and we all know that in the Atlantic provinces the highest rate of unemployment occurs during the months of February and March. Last February the report of the regional director contained the following as found in an article in the Moncton Transcript of February 12 last:
Once again the unskilled construction worker led the list taking up 19 per cent of the total applicants. Loggers and bushmen were next with 13 per cent, carpenters third with 8 per cent, and taxi, truck and tractor operators had 6 per cent of the total.
These four classifications represented 46 per cent of the total unemployment in the province of New Brunswick last February. It is also pointed out in the article that all but 5 per cent of the applicants were in receipt of unemployment insurance benefits. However, 80 per cent of the unemployed people in the province of New Brunswick were males.
The last annual report of the Department of Labour points out that a certain number of personnel in the armed forces and a number of permanent employees of the federal government were given courses under the existing vocational training and technical institute legislation. So far as the armed forces and civil servants were concerned, this aspect of conversion courses or further education was paid for entirely by the federal government. Not only did the government pay all wages involved but also the full amount that the provinces charged for teachers' salaries. It is my hope that from time to time more and more permanent force

personnel and people with permanent employment with the federal and provincial governments will take advantage of these extension courses. We have not heard very much complaint from the provincial ministers of education about the federal government subsidizing this form of education and, as the hon. member for York-Sunbury said earlier today, we have heard no complaints about the fact that the federal government paid the cost of educating so many thousands of veterans after the last war.
One point I should like to bring out is the importance of getting the unemployed and the youth of the country to take advantage of the legislation that we expect will be introduced following the passage of the resolution. This point can be summarized in this way. Too many of the youth of the country are forced to go to work while still in their teens. At the other extreme too many of our older citizens must remain at work, whether at manual labour or otherwise, until well after the age of 65. If it were possible for more of the young to take courses at technical institutes after graduation from elementary school or high school as the case may be and if at the same time it were possible for more of our senior citizens to retire at the age of 65, I think the day would soon arrive when we would not be faced with the threat of recurring unemployment. By inducing people to remain at school or in training at institutes for a longer period of time it will be possible to shorten the working life of the average Canadian. If we can cut a few years off each end it may be possible to reduce unemployment and at the same time to provide better working conditions and job security for those about to be trained.
I hope that the bill will be introduced soon, and that following passage of the bill it will be possible for the government, through the Minister of Labour, to negotiate new vocational and technical training agreements with the provinces of this country. At that time I urge the minister to pay particular attention to the drafting of the agreements. I hope that the new agreements will have a clause to protect against any type of political discrimination, not only for the applicants attempting to enroll in the schools and institutes but also in the construction contracts which will necessarily follow when new technical institutes are being built.
In conclusion, although I omitted it at the opening of my remarks, I want to thank the minister and the government for this most progressive legislation.


Mr. Peters:: Mr. Chairman, we were very interested in hearing all these remarks and
Vocational Training
some of the things that have been said about the people who are doing all the talking on this particular resolution. It would seem to me that the members of this house should get together with the minister because there seems to be a difference of opinion. On the one hand, the minister urges us to pass this resolution because he has explained it thoroughly, and on the other hand we hear suggestions being made by members which should have been made in caucus before the bill itself was ready for presentation.


Mr. Thrasher:: Howard does not go to caucus.


William Arnold Peters: It may be true that some members do not go to caucus. However, if the bill is already drafted, then the advantages suggested by Mr. Roberts in having a resolution stage, namely that certain suggestions being made to the cabinet would finally end up in the bill, would appear to be lost in this particular case.
I am pleased to find that the minister has given consideration to the advantages to be derived from this type of legislation. I am only guessing, but I imagine that he is mainly interested in solving the unemployment problem by helping with the re-training of those people who do not have the necessary educational or technical qualifications to take advantage of the job opportunities being offered. I agree that this is probably a very good thing, but it is not necessarily what all the members have been saying in the last several hours. It would seem to me that they have been suggesting that a new system be implemented to replace our educational system which, as some members have suggested, is still in the horse and buggy days or the oxcart stage.
It seems to me there may be some truth in these suggestions. I am surprised to find how unsuitable our educational system is for preparing young people to take their place in life today. Those who have the responsibility for our educational system should be listening to the members tonight. I would think that within a very short time the concept of Canadian education rather than provincial education is going to be popular. This is not a new thought in the vocational and technical training field because there are many members in parliament tonight who have had the benefit of a national education, paid for by the federal government, in schools which were not conducted on a provincial basis. It would seem to me that the training they received under that particular scheme- I refer to the veteran's scheme-was no less acceptable to the country because it was national in scope rather than having taken

Vocational Training
into consideration the oddities and idiosyncrasies that are sometimes apparent in provincial educational schemes.
It would seem to me, Mr. Chairman, that in looking at our educational program we should decide exactly what we want to get from that program. I think most of us who have teenage children or who have been around teenagers will have been surprised at the age they reach without having decided for themselves what they want to do. In many cases our grandfathers would have been shocked to find these children still interested in getting an allowance from their fathers instead of being out making their own way in life. Our young people in Canada today have the opportunity to obtain an education such as was not available 20 or 30 years ago. However, when these young people complete their education, in many cases they are not much better trained for a vocation than they are when they leave public or elementary school. It seems to me that, whether our students go to a technical school, or any other type of secondary school, when they leave that school they should at least have a well rounded education. They should be able to carry on the day to day business of life in a manner that will protect them from the many pitfalls in our economy today.
If these young people are going to work and buy things on credit, as most people do, then they are going to need an education to protect them from the moneylenders. They are going to have to be able to read, and I do not mean just read the newspapers. They should be able to read newspapers and understand what they say. Even the education provided in a vocational school should be sufficiently well rounded that the students can continue to gain education throughout their life, because this will be vitally necessary in our changing economy. It seems to me that they should receive enough education that they will be versatile.
Training has been given to some people in highly specialized fields such as electronics, telegraphy and other forms of communication, and within a short time their training has become obsolete. We now find that instead of using 10 or 12 people to operate a small relay station, automatic equipment is now used. When something goes wrong, a light goes on 400 or 500 miles away and changes and corrections can be made in those circuits by remote control. No one even needs to go to the station to do some of this maintenance work. Changes of this type make the training in these fields obsolete very quickly.
It seems to me that people who receive training in such fields should also have an academic background which would enable

them to make the transition from one vocation to another in the shortest possible time. One of the things we have to keep in mind is that the Canadian economy itself is demanding this type of training. The training that we are giving to the young people in Canada is not only training that is going to help these young people take their place in the economy, it is also going to help us maintain a well rounded economy.
It seems to me that in Canada we have in many spheres of endeavour neglected to do the training which has been necessary and which would have produced the people who would have been able to fill the jobs that we are continually given to understand can be filled only by imports. I should like to use the example of the trans-Canada pipe line when it went through Canada. Continually in negotiations and discussions with the pipe line company we were faced with the problem of not having high pressure welders that were able to do the job. It was said that these welders had to be brought in from the United States. It was true that we had many welders in Canada but most of them were not trained sufficiently so that they could do the type of work that was necessitated by this type of high pressure pipe line.
It seems obvious that our vocational system in Canada should be training the type of people that are going to be employable not only now but in the future and that part of this technical training for which assistance is given by the federal government should be on a highly developed economic study basis wherein the department studies the needs and the forward trends of vocational training, just as they would in any other field of endeavour, so that we are not training people for engineering jobs in connection with aircraft that will be obsolete before they are through their training or that we are not teaching students radio and electronics in fields that will be obsolete before they have the opportunity of practising in those fields.
If this work is done, it will have to be done by the federal government in the direction that it will give. I am pleased to note that the Minister of Labour is giving consideration to this much wider field. In every riding and in every area of this country I am sure we have and will continue to have a much greater need for vocational training than we have had in the past.
In my own area of northern Ontario we need vocational schools much worse than we need any other type of school. We have many opportunities for employment in many fields of endeavour but in that part of the country we lack the facilities to which to send our children for training. If these facilities were available it would be much easier for our

people to provide their children with the educational background that will afford them the opportunity of obtaining employment in satisfactory jobs for which they are trained and which they are capable of doing.
I hope the minister has given consideration, as has been suggested by many of his backbench members, to this broadening of national education in the technical and vocational fields. Assistance has been given on the college and university levels. Now we are extending the assistance to the technical and vocational training levels. I would suggest that the studies that were made and the records that were kept by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which had considerable interest and experience in this particular field during the war, be examined. I think that such a study will provide the minister and his officials with a great deal of experience which was gained the hard way by them and which should not need to be repeated by the provincial governments in their field of endeavour. Not only do I hope that this bill will be before us shortly, I hope it will have in it those things the minister had in mind in relationship to training because of automation and because of unemployment and I hope the minister will give consideration to the many suggestions which have been made by his own backbenchers and others in this debate and which, in my opinion, would make for a much better national vocational training program.


Mr. Nielsen:: We have heard this evening from members who have represented various provinces in the dominion. I am the only representative of an extremely important area of Canada and I therefore feel constrained to rise and explain the problems that confront us in connection with vocational training in the Yukon. If there were in the chamber other members from the Yukon I should not be obliged to take this position, even though it may distress the hon. member who has just taken his seat as well as the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate.
Vocational training is a particular problem in Yukon. We have none. We have none because of a number of factors, most of which are soluble only through assistance by the federal government. The Yukon simply does not have the revenue with which to support a comprehensive educational system and, as the situation stands, we are heavily subsidized.
The youngsters in the Yukon who wish to take vocational training are now faced with the problem of either going outside-or what we call outside-to areas such as Edmonton or Vancouver and endeavouring to take it there
Vocational Training
or they take advantage of the limited possibilities available for obtaining apprenticeship training under qualified tradesmen in the Yukon itself. Until recently we had never had an accurate survey of the educational problems existing in the Yukon. However, pursuant to a resolution passed by our legislative council last year a committee was set up to investigate all phases of education in the Yukon territory. This report was just published this year. Undoubtedly the minister will be referring to those portions of it dealing with vocational training in the Yukon.
As most hon. members know, the provinces share in vocational training grants provided by the federal government as indicated in the report of the director of Canadian vocational training for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1959. This agreement that is in existence with the provinces provides for the expenditure, over a five-year period that began on April 1, 1957 of $40 million of federal government assistance to the provinces in the building, equipping and operating of vocational and technical schools, institutes and training centres. Of this amount $25 million is provided exclusively for assistance on capital projects, with preference being given to trade and technical institutes or approved vocational high schools. The capital appropriations is allotted to the provinces on the basis of population in the 15-19 year age group. The remaining $15 million is distributed by way of annual allotment to the provinces for sharing the operating costs of similar institutes and schools or, if desired, a province may claim as much as half of its annual allotment against the capital costs of such institutions. The federal allotment for the Yukon is on the whole quite small. In the year 1958-59 it amounted to $21,100. The territory claimed only $3,212.28 of that amount for that year.
I say that the federal government is vitally concerned in financially supporting the vocational educational system in the Yukon. The Yukon did not participate at all in the year 1958-59 in the federal government supported provincial apprenticeship training scheme. That is the scheme wherein the province shares 50-50 with the federal government in the cost of approved plans. The Northwest Territories shared to the extent of $303.81. One wonders why these schemes are not working in the Yukon.
On advice from the Minister of Labour some two years ago I suggested to Yukon educators that we should try to encourage our youngsters to take on job training under this scheme where the territorial government pays 50 per cent of the cost and the federal

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government pays the balance. On fairly extensive inquiry in the territorial government administration, which comes under the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, I found that none of them even knew of any agreement with the federal government for implementing this scheme.
I think the statistics indicate that the total amount of assistance which the Yukon can expect at the moment from the federal government in connection with the capital cost of new construction or participation in these trading schemes is not very great. Mr. Ford of the vocational training branch here in Ottawa paid a visit to the Yukon and made a fairly extensive survey of the vocational requirements there. He was of the opinion that there was a real need for a training program which could be provided in part by our high school in Whitehorse and in part by other agencies.
The committee on education which produced its report this year has come up with some interesting statistics in relation to the number of people who could be employed in various trades if they were qualified by vocational training institutes. I would draw the attention of the minister to the fact that the accuracy of the statistics which the committee has produced is in my view very much in doubt, because while the various trades are listed together with the number of potential employment vacancies it would appear that the statistics themselves are calculated on the basis of an inquiry conducted by education officials in the Yukon in relation to all children who were then attending school and that they did not take into account any children in the age group 15 years and above who were not attending school. These comprise a fairly large group. For instance, most of the Indian youngsters leave school when they reach the age of 15 or 16, and the Indian people in my constituency are important- they comprise between one fifth and one sixth of the total population. So there is a large group here which would find vocational training to be of decided assistance.
I do not intend to go into the question of the advantages of vocational training. The cost of the scheme of vocational training when a building has to be erected would be fairly substantial and the operating loss alone would probably amount to $50,000 a year, but when one reflects on the savings that could be effected in welfare and related payments by producing useful citizens as a result of such training the cost does not appear to be such a great one.
There is another aspect of this question to which I should like to draw the minister's attention. As I have said, all our education in the Yukon is heavily subsidized. Federal participation in the field of education and 
particularly of vocational education in the Yukon requires co-operation between the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, in so far as her responsibilities relate to Indian Affairs, as well as the Minister of Labour. All three departments must co-operate if they are to produce a reasonable approach to vocational training in the Yukon.
I have suggested before, and I suggest again, that perhaps one of the methods by which vocational training could be achieved in the Yukon would be to enter into a scheme in co-operation with the territorial administration whereby youths could obtain vocational training on heavy equipment such as draglines, bulldozers, shovels and the like. If an arrangement could be made during the winter season when the bulk of this equipment is not being used, if it could be hired by the educational authorities with funds from a subsidy paid by the Department of Labour, perhaps as an extension of the apprenticeship training scheme, a portion being paid by the territorial government, I think considerable practical benefit would be derived. In this fashion, not only would the equipment be utilized during the off season months but it would be serving a good purpose by producing skilled operators for the construction season ahead.
There is also one further glaring omission in the report by the committee on education, which, by and large, is a very excellent report. That is, that when discussing the trades and the anticipated number of employee vacancies in the various trades miners are not taken into consideration at all. Mining represents our future in the Yukon and there is no reason at all why vocational training or on the job training cannot be offered in this field. There are active mines in the Yukon which are operating all the year round and I am sure that both labour and management would welcome a scheme whereby youngsters could be trained to become skilled miners. There are those who feel that perhaps the heavy equipment which the army uses in the road maintenance program could be utilized for the training of young men. This, of course, would have to be taken up in co-operation with the Minister of National Defence.
I want to deal briefly with the recommendations of the committee because they do involve action by the federal government if they are to be implemented. The main recommendation appears to be that a composite high school should be constructed in the Whitehorse area affording academic as well as vocational training. This is not at all out of line. I think the vocational training needs

of the Yukon could be very ably met by the federal government participating in such a scheme. I am sure that the Indian affairs branch would participate financially depending on the number of Indian children admitted to such an institution and I am sure that other departments of the federal government which have financial responsibilities in the Yukon would also participate.
One last thing which I want to draw to the minister's attention before I resume my seat concerns the vocational training of the young girls in the Yukon. There are many who believe that this field could be very fruitful. There is a large modern hospital in the Yukon where girls can receive training as nurses' aides or even pre-vocational training as laboratory assistants. They could obtain this training in the field of dietetics or even in laboratory work which is not out of reason at all.
I conclude with these few suggestions which I hope the minister will take into consideration and discuss with his colleagues the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. I look forward to seeing at least the apprenticeship training aspects of the scheme which will likely be included in the legislation that will follow this resolution somewhat enlarged. I urge the minister to do what he can to see that the territorial administration through his colleague the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources undertakes to activate the apprenticeship training agreement provisions of the existing departmental policy.
Resolution reported and concurred in.
Mr. Starr thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. C-49, respecting technical and vocational training assistance.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



PRODUCTIVITY COUNCIL


George Harris Hees: that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the establishment and operation of a national productivity council and the appointment of its members and staff, to define its duties and objects, to authorize it to exercise certain powers and to provide for other related and incidental matters.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Rea in the chair.
Productivity Council


George Harris Hees: Mr. Chairman, at the conference on unemployment held in Ottawa in October, the Prime Minister suggested the establishment of a national productivity council. His specific proposal, which outlined the need for such a council and the functions it might undertake, was accepted by leaders from commerce, industry, labour, finance and education. Representatives of the various organizations and associations present at the conference agreed in principle that such a council was highly desirable. In making this proposal the Prime Minister stressed the need for the full support and active participation of Canadians in all sectors of the Canadian economy. I should like to outline briefly for the benefit of hon. members the government's thinking and planning respecting the establishment of a national productivity council. The determination to establish such a council is a completely new development for Canada and it pioneers in new fields of Canadian economic development.
While speaking in the budget debate last spring the hon. member for Vancouver Centre suggested the need for this kind of a council and I would like to give him full credit for bringing this important matter to the attention of the house. All of us are justly proud of the fact that Canada takes its place among the forefront of industrial nations. We are recognized as one of the greatest and most successful trading nations. Our citizens enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world. This enviable position can only be maintained, however, if we are willing to take bold and energetic steps in many fields of economic activity.
While speaking in the throne speech debate the Prime Minister mentioned that for a considerable number of years after world war II Canada sold her goods in a sellers' market. Most products were in world short supply and customers from all over the world beat a path to our doorstep asking for our goods on terms which were very favourable to us. In more recent years, however, a very different set of circumstances has prevailed. War devastated countries have rebuilt their economies and are now our competitors rather than our customers. All over the world the competition for markets is extremely keen.
At a time when markets at home and abroad are becoming increasingly competitive it is essential that Canadian industry be as efficient as possible. We believe that this task can best be carried out by enlisting the help of as many people as possible who are concerned with the production and distribution of goods. We are proposing that representatives of commerce, industry, labour, agriculture and other primary industries, government, consumers, professional groups,

Productivity Council
as well as those from other walks of life, should pool their combined knowledge and skills to assist industry in achieving a more effective utilization of Canadian resources.
In essence, this means obtaining the best possible use of all the factors of production and distribution, including capital, materials, plant and machinery, labour and land. In this manner, Canadians can achieve a higher standard of living through a greater and more efficient flow of goods. They will also strengthen Canada's competitive position in both domestic and foreign markets and hence create new and expanding employment opportunities for Canadian workers.
The resolution before the committee is for the establishment of a national productivity council to consist of 25 members. Five members will represent industry and commerce, five will be drawn from organized labour, five will come from agriculture and other primary industries, five will be appointed from the general public, and four will be technically qualified persons from scientific departments of government. The twenty fifth member of the council will be the executive director who will be responsible for implementing the work of the council. The government will ask leaders from each of the fields mentioned to serve on the council for periods of up to three years. It is the government's view that appointment to the council should be regarded as an opportunity to serve Canada in a task of the utmost importance, one on which the government places the highest priority.
The policies of the council will be implemented through a small highly qualified staff. The objects of the council are to foster and promote the development of improved production and distribution methods; the development of improved management techniques; the maintenance of good human relations in industry; the use of training programs at all levels of industry; the use of retraining programs to meet changing manpower requirements; the extension of applied industrial research; and the dissemination of technical information.
The council will be financed through grants from the federal government amounting to approximately $150,000 each year. We are hopeful, however, that non-governmental interests will also assist in financing the work of the council. The government will make an additional contribution to match all private financing.
Obviously the council and its small staff cannot accomplish this great task without additional help. It is intended, therefore, that a great deal of the actual implementation of the productivity program should be carried

out by the interests represented on the council. Regional, area, and industry teams and committees should be organized to carry the work of the council to all parts of Canada and into all industries. Local productivity committees should be formed on an area basis, and industry committees on an industry basis.
The national council should act as a policy making body and should assist in the establishment of regional and industry productivity committees. Its chief objective should be to develop and maintain in the various and changing circumstances of industrial life a positive attitude of mind in industry, among both management and labour, respecting industrial efficiency.
It may be of interest to hon. members to hear a little about the experience of other countries in the field of productivity. Productivity councils have been very successful, both in the United Kingdom and in Europe, as instruments in raising industrial efficiency. While the Canadian council must, of course, design its activities to suit and conform to Canadian conditions, I believe that the experience of the British and Europeans in this field can be a very useful guide to us.
In the immediate post-war period industry in Europe and in the United Kingdom realized the essential importance of increased productivity if it was to regain its position in an era of rapid technological change. Therefore, in 1948 an Anglo-American council on productivity was formed, so that the technical information and experience of United States industry could be placed at the disposal of industry in the United Kingdom. The Anglo-American productivity council was a successful experiment. When its activities came to an end, the British productivity council was formed in 1952. Its members are elected from personnel nominated by the constituent organizations of the council. These organizations are the British employers confederation; federation of British industries; the trade union congress; the association of British chambers of commerce; the national union of manufacturers; and the nationalized industries. Representatives of both management and labour are, therefore, working together with the common aim of increasing productive efficiency in industry as a whole.
When the British council was formed it had as a guide three lessons derived from the experience and operations of its predecessor, the Anglo-American council on productivity. The first was that the major influence which such an organization could exert was on the climate of opinion about productivity. The second was that joint study of industrial problems by people drawn from all levels of industry was the way to a more positive

approach to these problems. The third lesson was that there was a wide and rapid spread of knowledge about industrial techniques and equipment in the United States, and a strong determination to submit every existing practice to continuous critical examination.
With these guiding principles in mind the council decided that the aim of creating a wider appreciation for the need of higher productivity, and of the methods that lead to it, could be carried out only by enlisting the help of as many people actually engaged in industry as possible. To this end local productivity committees or associations were established. These local committees are composed of representatives from both labour and management, from all levels of industry, and representatives of professional bodies and technical education. Their task is to spread more widely knowledge of the best industrial methods and practices. The means used include inter-factory visits, discussion groups, lectures, conferences, films, courses, seminars in work study and other such techniques. One particularly important aspect of the British productivity council's approach to its work has been stressed: that is in connection with every industrial technique that is considered and every subject discussed the council lays great stress upon the problems of human relations to which any industrial change may give rise.
I have outlined the United Kingdom's approach to the subject in some detail, Mr. Chairman, because the British council is recognized to have made a very significant contribution to the improvement of British industry. But I should also mention that similar activities are carried out in practically every European country. Many of these countries have national productivity centres of their own which have developed national productivity programs to increase industrial efficiency.
In 1953 the organization for European economic co-operation established the European productivity agency. Every important trading country in Europe is a member of this agency and Canada and the United States are associate members. The agency acts as an international co-ordinating centre for national productivity programs and serves as a clearing house for the exchange of information and ideas. It also serves as a laboratory in which new ideas are developed and fed to the national centres.
Productivity centres are not confined to Europe alone. Asia, India, Pakistan, Japan, Iran, Lebanon and the Philippines all have productivity councils or similar bodies whose main function is devising means of increasing national levels of productive efficiency. In
Productivity Council
the western hemisphere there are active programs for increasing productivity in a number of countries including the United States, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico and Panama.
In view of the progress made by other countries in the field of productivity, Canada cannot ignore this field of endeavour. We have, therefore, taken the appropriate steps to launch a national productivity program, to be carried on by the citizens of Canada for the benefit of all Canadians.
As in the other countries where these councils have been so successfully used I am convinced that we in Canada can achieve equally successful results if governments, management and labour will co-operate fully to make Canadian products competitive in both quality and price. On behalf of the government we pledge our full co-operation and effort to achieve this end. We are asking for the full co-operation of Canadian management and labour. On our combined efforts will depend the competitive position of our products, and hence the job opportunities for Canadians in the future.
I think it is clear to everyone that if our products are competitive, as to both price and quality, with goods produced in other countries they will be sold, and Canadians will be employed producing more of them. If they are not competitive, the reverse will be the case. It is up to all of us to see that our products are competitive, so that our people can be employed producing them.
We must all realize that there is no sentiment in the buying habits of the average Canadian, or the citizens of any other country. A housewife or a purchasing agent will buy the best product at the lowest price, no matter where the goods are produced. If Canadian goods are to sell against competition they must be either better quality at the same price, or equal quality at a lower price. I think it is obvious, therefore, that if we are to continue to have high employment in Canada we must make sure that our products are competitive in both quality and price. Prosperity and employment are everybody's business.
I think it has become clear that close cooperation between government, industry and labour will be necessary if Canada is to retain and improve her competitive position both in the home market and abroad. The national productivity council will be an important first step in this direction. What the countries of Europe have done in this regard, we can, and must match and better here in Canada.

Productivity Council
We pledge an all-out effort by the government in this regard. We ask the same cooperation and effort from industry and labour. I feel sure we will receive it.
If we can achieve the same team work effort which our competitors in Europe have achieved our products will become more competitive in both quality and price; we will win a larger share of both the home and the export market, and we will move steadily forward toward our goal of a good job for every Canadian.


Mr. Mcllraiih:: This resolution by which the government is asking leave of the house to introduce a measure to provide for the establishment and operation of a national productivity council is one that will, I am sure, be of great interest to all hon. members. As this is the first occasion on which the Minister of Trade and Commerce has had the privilege, since assuming his new portfolio, of laying any matter before the house for its consideration, I want to take advantage of the opportunity to wish him a great deal of personal happiness and good health in his new position.


Mr. Ricard:: Many years.


George James McIlraith: In answer to the interjection I, like all persons who have the economic welfare of Canada at heart, must say that I hope the minister's stay in this new portfolio will be of very short duration.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Hoping won't get you anywhere.


George James McIlraith: Be that as it may, I did want to express personal good wishes to the minister for happiness in his new portfolio. I have other views about his economic outlook and some of the policies he may bring forward but those will be expressed from time to time and all in due course. It would not be fitting for me to dwell on the brevity with which I hope his tenure in his new portfolio will be blessed.
In presenting the resolution to the house the minister referred very correctly to the Prime Minister's announcements of last October 25 and 26 as they appeared in the press at the conclusion of the day and a half conference of leaders of industry and representatives of labour to discuss certain matters with the government on unemployment, a conference well advertised beforehand and while in progress. In any event, the conference was short and since it was not open to the general public I was not there. I do not know what took place. However, I was rather amazed to hear the minister refer to the attitude of certain leaders of industry at that conference when there is nothing on record to show whether or not this

is their true position. Indeed, some of them are on record as having quite the opposite view.
In any event, the announcement of the Prime Minister at the conclusion of the conference that a productivity council would be established was followed by the reference in the speech from the throne to the setting up of such a council and now by this resolution asking leave of the house to introduce a measure to achieve this objective. In his remarks at that time the Prime Minister said, and I think I am quoting accurately, that the Canadian productivity council would be modelled on the United Kingdom productivity council. Then he went on to set out the aims of the Canadian counterpart. I noticed that the minister was much more careful in that regard and apparently had taken the precaution to find out something about the British productivity council. For that I think the house should be grateful because the United Kingdom productivity council, as I hope to show in a moment or two, was established for another purpose and while it is a very good council for the purpose for which it was set up obviously it will not meet the needs that require to be met by a Canadian productivity council. I think the minister will agree with me on that.
I was interested to hear the minister point out the change in circumstances that has taken place over the last number of years from the period of time when we were producing goods to meet shortages and there was a general atmosphere of world shortage in many lines to a period now of high world production and very keen competition. These changed circumstances have come about surprisingly quickly and have presented many very real problems to the government. I hope the minister will proceed to meet these problems and will not tend to minimize them as some of his colleagues have sought to do over the last two or three years.
The genesis of the United Kingdom productivity council was described by the minister. It originated in the Anglo-American council on production formed in 1948 which was followed by the formation of the present council in 1952. It is rather interesting and worth mentioning that the Anglo-American council on productivity was formed at a time when Mr. Paul Hoffman of the United States was heading up the United States Marshall aid program and so much was being done in the world through that program to increase productivity for the purpose of meeting shortages. The point I wish to make is that its purpose was to meet shortages and that was the genesis of the British productivity council.

I think it would perhaps be helpful to the committee in dealing with the resolution and matters that will arise at later stages when the bill is before us if I were to place on record some of the things that the British productivity council will not do. What I wish to put forward in this connection is found in a memorandum submitted by the British productivity council to the select committee on estimates of the United Kingdom parliament on May 25 of this year. One paragraph in the submission is devoted to matters outside the council's scope and I should like to quote a part of paragraph No. 23 in the submission. It reads as follows:
To circumscribe more clearly the area which is the council's chosen field of work, and also to remove possible misunderstandings, it may be as well to state some of the things the council does not do. It does not carry out research; it sees its task as to spread understanding of better methods, as tested and proved in the practice of progressive firms. It does not teach; it believes that this role can be carried out only by educational bodies, and in particular technical colleges, but that much remains to be done to awaken interest in the training they do or could provide. It does not maintain a consultancy service; there are obvious reasons why a joint body could not become involved in individual applications that affected earnings and conditions of work. It does not deal with the division of the fruits of higher productivity; the council believes that all in the nation will benefit from rising productivity, but that individual cases must be left to the normal system of industrial negotiation. It has no views to put forward on national economic policy-
So much for the British productivity council. I noted what I would regard as a discrepancy between the remarks of the Prime Minister on this subject as found in the press releases of that time and the minister's remarks today. If I am right in saying that there is a discrepancy I hope that discrepancy is accounted for by a thorough understanding of what the British productivity council is and an attempt to make the Canadian productivity council of such a nature as to meet our Canadian needs at this time and in the years that lie ahead.
The minister's remarks also interested me for other reasons. He quoted, as I said, the approval of leaders of industry. I happen to have noted a comment of a man in the Financial Post of November 12, 1960, that man being Mr. E. P. Taylor whom I think most hon. members would regard as a man having something, in fact a great deal, to do with industry in this country. In commenting on the Prime Minister's announcement Mr. Taylor had this to say:
In my view, this country has in store for it a long period of slackness in many lines of business and industry, with consequent large scale unemployment and a continuing diminution in the flow of desirable immigrants, unless we face up to the situation and adopt new policies and practices. The answers to our problems will not come as the result of the appointment of advisory bodies
Productivity Council
to the government composed of many people of largely divergent views such as the newly announced productivity council.
I hope the minister will take note of that comment. I hope that this is not an indication of an attitude on the part of the government that the problems to be met can be put aside or sidetracked through this council and that the government ean thereby escape responsibility for the wrong economic policies which they may have pursued in the past three years and for not adopting other economic policies to meet the new conditions which exist in economic fields today.
In that latter connection I must express regret to the minister that the government has seen fit to discontinue the practice of providing confidential information through the preparation of the Economic Outlook, the type of confidential data upon which the government can base its policies. This is a decision that is tragic if viewed objectively by anyone seeking to concern himself with the advancement of the best possible policies. The minister, before he has been in the department many months, will regret the action that was taken before he came to that portfolio, to cut him off from the benefit of information that can be gathered so well in these reports. It is the type of information he will need and upon which he can base policy. However, that is an aside and is not wholly germane to this issue.
The minister went on, in dealing with the development of this council to suit Canadian conditions, to say a great deal about the type of problem that industry, and particularly the export industry has to face in world competition. In that connection I am glad to see that the government is finally recognizing this problem of changes which are taking place so very rapidly in world trading conditions and world economic conditions. They are going on at a pace that makes it difficult to keep abreast of them. I am one who has been very critical of the government for its failure to keep abreast of these world conditions. I hope this indicates the government is now admitting the rapidity of the changes and attempting to deal with them.
I could not help but recall, as the minister was outlining these problems, how many times they had been asserted by the opposition during the last two sessions of parliament, and particularly in the last session, and were scoffed at by the government. I took the trouble of looking up something which I noticed myself during the debate on May 23 of this year in this House of Commons. It will be noted that this was two days before the United Kingdom productivity council was presenting its submission to the estimates

Productivity Council
committee of the United Kingdom government. A supply motion was called on that day and the hon. member for Essex East, my deskmate, moved an amendment which I think should be put on the record. It was part of the 1958 program of the Liberal party, and based particularly on a paragraph having to do with what was then called the Pearson plan. I think I ought to read that amendment. It will be found on page 4142 of Hansard for May 23, 1960:
That all the words after "that" be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
"this house recommends for the consideration of the government the immediate setting up of a national advisory board on economic development and automation with representatives of governments, industry, labour, agriculture and universities, for the purpose of developing economic policies designed to achieve a high and stable level of income and employment."
The speech delivered by the hon. member for Essex East during that debate was a very good one and had a tremendous effect it now seems on the government, although it did not seem so on that occasion. At that time the Minister of Labour replied to the hon. member for Essex East and his thesis was that there was no unemployment in Canada and no threat of unemployment. He has since changed that tune or it was changed in a television broadcast by the Prime Minister early in October. However, he went on to discuss this matter more specifically, and in the course of discussing it he said that it was actually what the opposition had suggested on March 2, 1960, and that was right. In the course of a rather able speech on that date on the severe unemployment conditions the hon. member for Laurier set out 25 points to meet some of the economic and unemployment problems of this country and which the minister sought to belittle.
Then, at page 4162 of Hansard for the same date, the minister is reported as saying:
Now they come back with the same suggestion. They have nothing new to offer.
Here we were trying to point out the problem and we are told we have nothing new to offer. Then the minister goes on to give us a little lecture on the setting up of such committees, national advisory committees or productivity councils composed of these representatives of industry, labour, agriculture, universities and so on. He said:
That is one way of shirking the responsibility of government. This government does not intend to set up committees in order to shirk its responsibilities. This government feels it has a responsibility toward this problem, and intends to take action in order to do everything possible to relieve the problem.

That is what we find in Hansard when we read his speech. Then, of all things, the minister was interrupted by his colleague, the Minister of Finance, and he continues:
I know that the setting up of such a large and unwieldy committee is a technique often used by governments that wish to evade their responsibility but, as I said earlier, this government does not intend to evade its responsibility. This government intends to continue to deal with the things for which it is responsible.
You will note that in that paragraph the minister makes it quite clear that he considers that the setting up of a committee or council would be an evasion of the responsibility of government. I do not share his view on that subject and I am happy to see that, at long last, the government has come around to a more sensible view. I do not know whether the Minister of Trade and Commerce persuaded the Minister of Labour to see the light on this subject or just how the change was made. It is not my good fortune to be watching when cabinet meetings are taking place. I do not know just how the change was brought about.
Certainly, the position of the Minister of Labour who spoke for the government on that occasion was a shocking position for the government to take, and one which showed a complete unawareness of the problems confronting the government. I am glad to see that position is now being repudiated, if it is being repudiated. Of course, if it is not being repudiated by this measure we have no collective responsibility of the cabinet, and one of the ministers should resign but which one is not clear. I hope, therefore, that this means repudiation of the policy laid down by the Minister of Labour.
It could be, however, that the Prime Minister settled the issue because he made his announcement outside the house right after the conference on unemployment. There were no cabinet meetings between the time of the conference on unemployment and the announcement by the Prime Minister, so perhaps it is not a cabinet decision and that is how it was done. In any event, it is of small consequence, however it is done, as long as the cabinet is now repudiating the Minister of Labour and his whole wrong view.
There are a good many questions that could be asked about certain areas that are intended or not intended to be covered by the bill. But for my part I take the view that the economy of the country is in an extremely serious situation at the moment and that the Prime Minister's announced reason for calling this session in order to deal with some of these problems of consequence was a proper one. I have taken the view that if

the government has legislation to bring forward in order to meet these problems I for one want to see that legislation and to approve it or reject it, as I see fit, when I see it. However, I should like to see it and I want it brought forward for that purpose.
After all, at this resolution stage we are merely deciding whether the government shall have leave or permission to bring in legislation on this subject. I think there is no doubt that it should have that permission. I should like to see the legislation as soon as possible and I should like to get forward with the discussion of that legislation when it can be properly examined by the house and, I hope, improved if it needs improving. If it is perfect in the form in which it is introduced, so much the better. However, I hope the minister will not share the view of his colleague the Minister of Justice, namely that all legislation brought in by the government is perfect. I hope he will have an open mind when we come to the later stages and have the actual bill before us. For that reason I propose to conclude my remarks now and, as far as I am concerned, to allow the minister to bring forward his legislation in order that we may see it.


Charles Benjamin Howard: I have just a few comments to make and perhaps I may not even have time to do that, I observe on looking at the clock. In any event, may I say that I listened intently to the introductory remarks of the minister because, as he himself said, this is a sort of new departure in Canadian governmental activities. We are also interested in what its end result might be with regard to our economy and the people who are unemployed.
I hope the minister will excuse me if once in a while I refer to him as the minister of transport; this tendency still exists. He seems not to fit quite properly in his present portfolio. However, I am sure he will give a good account of himself just as he did when he was minister of transport.
I hope that we are not perhaps embarking on another miniature throne speech debate. However, I am quite sure that this is a matter of such great importance that a number of members in the House of Commons will want to express their views on it. If what happened today is any indication of what will happen in the future, I am quite sure that they will take advantage of that opportunity. This may prevent the attainment of the objective or the expressed desire of the hon. member who just sat down to have the bill introduced at the earliest possible moment.
While the minister in his introductory remarks went into some detail or gave an explanation of sorts as to the structure and
Productivity Council
composition of the national productivity council, in my opinion it was unfortunately still rather vague. Because of the vagueness of the explanation one is prevented from putting his hand out and saying, We will endorse wholeheartedly whatever project the minister has in mind. As I have said, the explanations were not in sufficient detail to allow outright endorsation without knowing just exactly what we are endorsing.
In my opinion, this is unfortunately a bad practice that is developing in the resolution stage preceding money bills in that the ministerial explanations or introductions ofttimes are excessively brief and one sometimes feels that he is buying a pig in a poke. I am not particularly critical of the minister in this instance or more critical of him than I am of any of his colleagues who engage in the same sort of thing. But perhaps if some detailed explanation had been given one would be able to form a better opinion as to whether this particular resolution should be accepted at all. As the matter stands, we are not sure as to just what is contained in it.
While the minister was speaking a number of things cropped up in my mind in connection with the details as to how this productivity council would function and what would be its policy. I think these are important questions to which there should be answers before we come to any conclusion as to whether it is a good thing or whether it will accomplish what the government says it hopes it will accomplish. For instance, there is no indication as to how often the productivity council will meet, or whether it will have within itself authority to break up into subgroups or subcommittees in order to look at specific sections of the economy. There is no indication of the form of the reports. Will there be reports? Will there be recommendations? If so, to whom do the recommendations go? Do they go to the government or do they go to the industries? Do they go to the agriculture department if they are concerned with that section? Are the reports or recommendations, if there are to be any, to be public or are they to be secret? I think these are legitimate questions.
As to the so-called secretariat that will perhaps administer or institute the ideas on policies of the council, what is it to consist of? I understood the minister to say that it was to consist of experts. Are these to be people in the field of economics or in the field of administration or are they to be technical people or who are they to be? This is an extremely important factor. The minister announced small groups on a provincial and local basis of some sort. What is their relationship with the council? Lack of information on these matters to a degree
572	HOUSE OF
Business of the House prevents one from saying at this stage, at any rate, in a blindfolded way that we endorse or that we will not endorse a particular idea. If I might be permitted to do so, Mr. Chairman, perhaps I could call it ten o'clock and continue tomorrow.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

George James McIlraith: I should like to ask the house leader to indicate the business for tomorrow and the succeeding days of this week, if he can do so.


Mr. Churchill:: Tomorrow the first item will be second reading of the bill pertaining to technical and vocational training. If that business is completed it will be followed by discussion of the resolution which is now before us on the productivity council. That business will hold true for Friday-I refer to those two items-if not completed on Wednesday, followed by item No. 7 on today's order paper, namely the resolution dealing with amendments to the Pension Act.


George James McIlraith: May I just ask the house leader to clarify one point in his remarks. In the event of this resolution being disposed of tomorrow would the second reading stage of the bill precede the Pension Act resolution on Friday?


Gordon Minto Churchill: There may be some adjustment in the program I have outlined. If so, I will announce it tomorrow. In case there is a change-and the Minister of Trade and Commerce has suggested to me a possible change-we might have the reverse order and put the pension resolution on the program on Friday before anything else. If any spare time develops on Wednesday or Friday, and these items happen to pass, we would proceed with the setting up of some of the special committees that I have announced on previous occasions. Thursday will be a private members' day.
It being two minutes after ten o'clock, the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.



ANSWER TO QUESTION

[Stage Direction]
The following answer, deposited with the Clerk of the house, is printed in the official report of debates pursuant to standing order 39:

Mr. Marlin (Essex East): 1.	Has the minister of external affairs or the government received any reports since May, 1960 of United States U-2 aircraft flying over Canadian territory?
2.	If so, what has been the purpose of such flights?
3.	Has the Canadian government taken any steps to reach an agreement with the United States government regarding the use of Canadian air bases and/or Canadian air space by United States aircraft, similar to the agreement recently reached between Great Britain and the United States?
4.	If so, what progress has been made toward an agreement?
Answer by: Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary
of Slate for External Affairs):
Question
1.	Yes. Since May, 1960 requests for two flights were made in accordance with agreed procedures and arrangements for the flights of all United States service aircraft over Canada.
2.	These requests were similar to requests made for earlier flights of such aircraft referred to in a statement made in the House of Commons by the Acting Prime Minister on May 11, 1960.
3.	Flights of United States service aircraft into and over Canada are conducted in accordance with the regulations contained in P.C. 2307 of April 17, 1952. As the announcement made by Prime Minister Macmillan did not give details of the arrangements governing the use by the United States of bases in the United Kingdom, it is not possible to state whether these arrangements are similar to those applied to United States service aircraft flying over Canada.
4.	Answered by 3.



Wednesday, December 7, 1960