Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):: I should like to table copies of orders in council P.C. 1713 and P.C. 1714, dated April 16, 1948, each having to do with operation of the Government Annuities Act.


Mr. KNOWLES:: Shame.


Humphrey Mitchell: My hon. friend said "shame" before I read the statement. These socialists make me smile; they always want to run everything in reverse.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is what this is, a step in the wrong direction.


Humphrey Mitchell: The orders have changed the rate of interest to be used in computing the purchase price of annuities from four per cent per annum to three per cent per annum, compounded yearly. In other words, it is a reduction in the rate allowed on money paid for purchase from four to three per cent.
Changes have been made in the mortality table to be used in computing the purchase price of annuities and direction given as to the interest rate and mortality table to be used in calculating the liability for any annuity. Provision has also been made for necessary alterations resulting from these changes in the forms of application for annuities.
The change in the interest rate has been made in order to make it the same as the rate paid on long term government bonds.
The government will, of course, continue to contribute towards the cost of administration of the annuities branch so that, from an investment point of view alone, the purchase of annuities will be attractive. Actually the contribution through the cost of administration will be increasing.
In selling annuities it will be appreciated that the length of life of the purchaser is of vital importance. Recent figures published by the national office of vital statistics of Washington
show that the average length of life of the American people in 1945 reached a new high of nearly 66 years. This was two and a quarter years more than the corresponding figure in the immediate pre-war period and 16% years above the level prevailing at the beginning of the century.
Canadian experience probably approximates that in the United States and the trend is continuing. The present mortality basis established in 1937 allowed a small margin for improvement in mortality and has measured, with a slight margin, the actual experience. The new mortality basis is considered necessary to provide a margin of safety for contracts maturing in future years.
These orders have effect as of the 19th day of April, 1948, but do not change existing contracts.
The Government Annuities Act is in my judgment an excellent act and I consider it most advisable that it be kept on a sound basis.


Mr. BOUCHER:: I should like to ask a question on these orders in council which have just been tabled. Has any change been made in the regulations with respect to the assignment of annuities? In the past certain difficulties have arisen where joint annuities have been taken out. Can the minister tell us whether there has been any change in the situation with respect to this matter?


Humphrey Mitchell: I think I can say to my hon. friend that consideration is being given to amendments to the annuities act, and I shall bear his observation in mind.


Mr. HARRIS (Danforth):: Since the
minister intends to bear in mind my hon. friend's observation, will he also make sure that no income tax is payable on the capital portion of annuities, present and future?



BRITISH FOOD CONTRACTS


Right Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture):: In answer to a request made by the leader of the opposition I should like to lay on the table two copies of the signed agreements with Great Britain on food.
Questions



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. PROBE:: 1.	What was the total amount of printing let by the government of Canada to commercial printing firms in each province of Canada in each of the past five years?
2.	What are the names and addresses of firms receiving in excess of $5,000 for government printing in any or each of the past five years, and what amount wias paid to each?
3.	What value of government printing is it estimated was used in each of the provinces of Canada in each of the past five years?
4.	What was paid for freight or express on government printed matter sent out of Ontario or Quebec to other provinces by departments of the federal government during each of the past five years?


Mr. PROBE:: With respect to the fourth part of this question, which has been standing on the order paper for nearly two months, it has been drawn to my attention by the department concerned that it will be difficult to get the information in the form in which the question was asked. I therefore wish to drop the fourth part of the question, provided that such explanations as are readily available will be forthcoming.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Part 4 dropped; parts 1, 2 and 3 stand.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-EMPLOYMENT OF W. D. LOWE
Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: 1.	Was W. D. Lowe, of Montreal, in the employ of the Canadian National Railways in 1938 and 1939.
2.	If so, in what capacity and what was his salary in each of said years?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Chief buyer, Montreal office, Canadian National Railways. The question of salary has to do with the internal management of the Canadian National Railways and is of a type that all governments have consistently declined to answer.


TOURIST INDUSTRY
Mr. TIMMINS:: Having regard to the moneys appropriated in the estimates and supplementary estimates to promote the tourist business in Canada in 1948,
1.	What amount of money is to be spent (a) for each respective province; (b) for radio services; (c) for newspaper advertising; (d) for the printing and distribution of pamphlets?
2.	How many persons are employed directly by the federal department and how much will be spent on salaries?

3.	How many tourist branches have been and will be established?
4.	How much money will be allocated for winter tourist business and what specific districts will be advertised in respect of winter tourist business?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	(a) No money is spent for each respective province. The function of the Canadian government travel bureau is to carry on its advertising and promotional program on a national rather than a provincial basis.
(b)	No amount of money has yet been spent for radio services out of the Canadian government travel bureau vote. The question of utilizing radio for travel promotion is, however, continuously under consideration.
(c)	For newspaper advertising in 1948 the expenditure will be between $175,000 and $200,000.
(d)	1 For the printing of pamphlets, booklets, etc., the estimated expenditure will be $208,613. Our booklets, maps, etc., are distributed through co-operative agencies all over the United States and in many other countries of the world. Such organizations as the American automobile association and affiliated associates distribute our literature free of cost. Literature is also distributed through Canadian government trade commissioners and ambassadors abroad, and through banks, hotel associations, hotels, travel agents, travel bureaus, etc.
2.	Fifty-seven persons are employed by the Canadian government travel bureau. Estimated salaries for 1948-49 will be $91,496.
3.	None. The Canadian government travel bureau has not established branches but works directly with provincial tourist bureaus and tourist transportation interests throughout the country.
4.	The estimate for our 1948-49 winter tourist advertising has not yet been decided upon.


REPAIRS TO C.N.R. ENGINES IN ST. THOMAS NEW YORK CENTRAL SHOPS
Mr. COYLE:: 1.	Have the New York Central shops at St. Thomas been making any repairs on C.N.R. engines of the J 1 type in the past year?
2.	If so, are they still doing this work?
3.	If not, when was the work stopped and for what reason was it discontinued?
4.	Has any demand come from the New York Central for continuance of this work?


Mr. CHEVRIER:: The Canadian National Railways advise as follows:
1.	The N.Y.C. shops at St. Thomas have not made any repairs to any engine of the J 1 type

Questions
in the past year, but some repairs have been made to type S 1.
2.	Yes, but the shops are closed down temporarily as a result of the recent coal strike in the United States.
3.	See answer to No. 2.
4.	No.


AMHERST HARBOUR, MAGDALEN ISLANDS
Mr. CAOUETTE:: 1.	Has a petition been received by the Department of Public Works for the deepening of Amherst Harbour (Havre Aubert), Magdalen islands, province of Quebec?
2.	If so, what decision has been arrived at concerning such petition?


Mr. FOURNIER (Hull):: 1.	Yes.
2.	The project necessitates an extensive examination on the site, which will be undertaken as soon as personnel conditions permit.


ST. LOUIS DE GONZAGUE, QUE., RURAL MAIL SERVICE
Mr. RAYMOND (Beauharnois-Laprairie):: 1.	Has the mail service on rural route No. 1, St. Louis de Gonzague, been changed or suspended in part?
2.	If so (a) since what date; (b) for what reason; (c) when will the Post Office Department re-establish the regular service?
3.	Has the mail service on rural route No. 2, St. Louis de Gonzague, been changed or suspended in part?
4.	If so (a) since what date; (b) for what reason; (c) when will the Post Office Department re-establish the regular service?
5.	Has the Post Office Department received a resolution from L'Union Catholique des Cultiva-teurs. of St. Louis de Gonzague, protesting against the fact that mail was not delivered daily?
6.	If so (a) on what date was the said resolution received; (b) has the government rectified this situation?


Mr. BERTRAND (Laurier):: 1. Reduced temporarily to tri-weekly.
2 (a) 10th January, 1948.	(b) Contractors
for St. Louis de Gonzague Nos. 1 and 2 refused to carry on after 31st December, 1947. Only one person interested in performance of services, but, owing to condition of roads, services could only be performed on alternate days, (e) When road conditions permit use of automobile.
3.	Reduced temporarily to tri-weekly.
4.	(a) 10th January, 1948.	(b) See answer
to 2(b). (c) When road conditions permit use of automobile.
5.	Yes.
6.	(a) 3rd February, 1948. (b) Standing order issued for daily service as soon as road conditions permit use of automobile.


EXPORT RESTRICTIONS
Mr. RAYMOND (Beauharnois-Laprairie):: 1.	Is the export of powdered milk, flour, butter, lard, cheese and soap prohibited?
2.	If so, what are the countries to which such prohibition does not apply, if any?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	No, except in the case of roller process whole milk powder.
2.	As the information is readily available by countries to which exports will be permitted, the answer is submitted in the following form.
Skim Milk Powder.-Permits are being issued under allocation for Newfoundland, British West Indies and Netherlands West Indies.
Spray Process Whole Milk Powder.-Permits are being issued against producers' quotas to any destination.
Roller Process Whole Milk Powder.-No permits being issued.
Butter.-Export permits are issued under allocation to the British West Indies and Newfoundland.
Lard.-Export permits are issued under allocation to the British West. Indies, Netherlands West Indies and Newfoundland.
Cheese.-Is under contract to the. United Kingdom, but export permits are issued under allocation to the British West Indies and Newfoundland. Arrangements have been made to grant a few special allocations for export to the United States.
Soap.-Export permits are granted under allocation to Newfoundland, Netherlands West Indies and the British West Indies. As of April 15 an export allocation of 2.000,000 pounds of soap of all types was set up for export.
Flour.-Permits are issued under allocation to certain designated countries determined quarterly.


CAXADAIR LIMITED-NORTH STAR AIRCRAFT
Mr. SKEY:: 1.	How many North Star aircraft have Can-atlair completed?
2.	To whom have the above aircraft been sold and how many to each person, corporation or country ?
3.	At what price per aircraft were these sales made ?
4.	How many North Star aircraft are (a) under construction on the assembly line; (b) stored in a completed or partially completed state; (c) on order by any government or private concern?


Mr. McILRAITH :: Mr. Speaker, it will be seen from this question that it, asks for details of the operations of a limited company. As
Questions

the company is not a crown-owned company, there is no means of getting this information. However, I might add that last year a good deal of information about the former aircraft plant at Cartierville, Quebec, was given on March 20. and information on that subject will be found at page 1540 of last year's Hansard.


Mr. SKEY:: I placed this question on the order paper, first, because I understood that the government had a continuing interest in the Canadair plant at Montreal, and second, because of the press controversy and the tremendous public interest in the North Star aircraft and its efficiency in comparison with the DC. 4 at the present time. I feel that if the government can give me any information as to production figures they have every right to do so as a continuing owner of this plant, which will not be paid off for some years. I think I have a right to ask for this information and I would request that the question be left on the order paper until it can be further considered by the government.


Mr. HOWE:: Answered.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


George James McIlraith: There is no point in leaving the question on the order paper, because the crown does not own Canadair Limited and never has. If the hon. member wants information on the subject of North Star aircraft, and if he will ask about that subject, I shall be happy to get such information as the government has. But he does not ask about that subject; he asks about the operations of Canadair Limited. We have not that information, and there is no method I know of by which to get it.


James Horace King: Answered.


Lawrence Wilton Skey: Mr. Speaker


James Horace King: Order. The hon. member realizes it is against the rules to permit a [DOT]debate on a question.


Lawrence Wilton Skey: May I ask Your Honour what you stated with respect to my question with regard to North Star aircraft?


James Horace King: If the hon. member will look at the rules he will find that it is the privilege of a minister to refuse by reason of public interest to answer a question as put. There is nothing for me to do but to accept the word of the minister or his representatives.


WAR SAVINGS CERTIFICATES
Mr. HANSELL:: Can war savings certificates be cashed without being discounted or without a charge being
levied for the service?


Mr. ABBOTT:: Yes. War savings certificates may be forwarded postage free to the Registrar, War Savings Certificates, Ottawa. Cheques issued in redemption of certificates may be negotiated free of charge at any branch of any chartered bank in Canada upon satisfactory identification.


SOUTH SASKATCHEWAN IRRIGATION PROJECT
Mr. THATCHER:: Have any plans been concluded by the government to commence construction work during 1948 on the South Saskatchewan irrigation project?


Mr. McCUBBIN:: No. Further survey and engineering work is necessary before construction can be considered.


SASKATCHEWAN IRRIGATION PROJECTS
Wilbert Ross Thatcher: During the calendar yeaT 1947, howr much money was actually spent by the federal government for (a) surveying and engineering; (b) construction, on (1) the St. Mary's River irrigation project; (2) the Red River irrigation scheme; (3) the South Saskatchewan irrigation project?


Robert McCubbin: Stand, with one correction. In the second part of the question it should be the Red Deer irrigation scheme and not Red River.


James Horace King: Stand.


ARGENTINE EMBASSY
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. DIEFENBAKER (Lake Centre):: I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. It arises out of a press report that His Excellency the Argentine ambassador has asked the Canadian government, as additional to an apology, to institute proceedings against two humane society inspectors who in performing their meritorious duties allegedly invaded protocol. The question I wish to ask the minister is this: Is the minister in a position to report as to the attitude of the government towards this unusual request?
Right Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Secretary of State for External Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I must say I learned with regret of this incident

Inquiries of the Ministry
and of the inconvenience to which the Argentine ambassador may have been put. Then I carefully considered the legal aspects of the matter and came to the conclusion that the Department of External Affairs could not under the circumstances initiate proceedings of any kind. Now my understanding is that when the president of the humane society was apprised of this incident he immediately proceeded to the residence of the ambassador and expressed regrets, and followed that up with a letter, and to these regrets and those expressed by the chief of protocol of the Department of External Affairs I have added my own.


Mr. COLDWELL:: As a supplementary
question, may I ask to what extent, in the view of the Department of External Affairs, diplomatic immunity overrides municipal legislation, bylaws and so on. The question is interesting to municipalities as well as to diplomats.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I do not think I should at this time attempt a dissertation-


Major James William Coldwell: We should like to know some time.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: -on the extent to which diplomatic immunities override municipal legislation. I think that in practice the good sense of all those concerned enables them to find solutions which dispose of any of the incidents that may arise.


HOUSING
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. M. NICHOLSON (Mackenzie):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply. Has the minister received a communication from the Canadian association of women voters, Montreal, of which Madame Casgrain is president, in connection with subsidized low rental housing? Could he indicate whether or not Mr. Mansur was expressing government policy when he stated: "The present is a bad time to start subsidized rental housing"?


Clarence Decatur Howe: (Minister of
Reconstruction and Supply): I did receive a copy of the letter referred to, sent to me from the Prime Minister's office. In reply to the second part, I may say that government policy has been and will be announced by members of the government.


HEALTH INSURANCE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of continuing reports in the Winnipeg Citizen and other newspapers, and in view also of the fact that it was in the Liberal party's platform of 1919,-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -may I ask the Prime Minister whether the government is yet in a position to say whether health insurance legislation will be submitted at this session of parliament.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: In view of the extent of the preliminaries to the hon. member's question, I shall have to read it over before I can give an answer.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You have had only twenty-nine years.


CZECHOSLOVAKIA
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Right Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Secretary of State for External Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I should like to answer a question asked by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Die-fenbaker) when I was absent on official duty elsewhere. On Thursday the hon. member referred to the appointment of Doctor Evzon Syrovatka, consul for Czechoslovakia in Montreal, and the question was in this form:
Is this the same man who was declared persona non grata to the United States government for alleged subversive activities, arid if so, was the government of Canada consulted before the appointment was made?
The answer I wish to make is this. Doctor Evzon Syrovatka was formerly an officer of the Czechoslovak embassy in Washington. The United States government recently informed the Czechoslovak embassy in Washington that he was persona non grata but it is not the fact that the United States government alleged that he had taken part in subversive activities. We have made careful inquiries and have received no information which would lead me to conclude that Doctor
Inquiries of the Ministry
[Stage Direction]
Syrovatka would in any sense be an undesirable or unreliable Czechoslovak consular representative in Montreal.
In accordance with normal diplomatic practice, the charge d'affaires of the Czechoslovak legation in Ottawa has requested the Canadian government to give provisional recognition of Doctor Syrovatka as consul in charge of the Czechoslovak consulate general in Montreal, pending the arrival of his commission of appointment, when a request will be made for an exequatur for him.
I might add that we are informing the Czechoslovak charge d'affaires that his request for provisional recognition of Doctor Syrovatka has been granted.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. A. CRUICKSHANK (Fraser Valley):: May I direct a question to you. Mr. Speaker: in view of your ruling that in future no exhibits be allowed in the house, does the decoration worn today by the hon. member for Stanstead (Mr. Hackett) come under that ruling?


H.M.C.S. &quot;MAGNIFICENT&quot; REFERENCE TO ARTICLE IN TIME MAGAZINE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. L. LANGLOIS (Gaspe):: I wish to direct the following questions to the Minister of National Defence. First, has his attention been called to an article in Time for April 19, on H.M.C.S. Magnificent, and is this article based on information received from the Department of National Defence? Second, are the statements in the article correct?


Hon. BROOKE CLAXTON (Minister of National Defence):: In answer to the first question. Mr. Speaker, I would say that the article is partly derived from facts given to the correspondent of Time by the press officer at National Defence headquarters. These were not fully or correctly reported, certain of them having been lifted out of their context, while certain other information gathered from other sources is incorrect.
In answer to the second question, I would say that most of the statements in the article are not true, and because they are misleading and because of the possible effect on the services, I should correct them.
The article says:
Because budget economies have hit the air divisions hard, less than half of its 125 pilots are fully qualified.

There are 130 pilots in the Royal Canadian Navy, not 125 as reported. Economies had nothing whatever to do with the proportion of pilots who are qualified. Although trained as pilots, there are 38 pilots who have not yet been fully trained for carriers; twenty-nine per cent, not fifty per cent as reported.
The article goes on:	,
Its pilots are R.C.A.F. trained. For their flying service they may choose the navy if they prefer. Few do, for there is no special flight pay to attract men to the navy's air arm.
The fact is that there is a combined R.C.N. R.C.A.F. training schedule, whereby the R.C.A.F. trains pilots for the navy up to "wings standard," and the navy provides advanced operational and deck-landing training. But both pilots and observers enter the R.C.N. before training: neither is transferred from the R.C.A.F. during any stage in the training, as stated in Time. Contrary to Time, aircrew in the R.C.N. receive flying pay at the same rate as aircrew in the other two services-that is, $30 per month additional.
The article states that the two squadrons "will have an operational strength of only 18 aircraft against a regulation 40." The figure 40 is wrong. In addition to the 8 Sea Fury fighters and 10 Firefly IV fighter-bomber-reconnaissance aircraft of the latest operational types borne on H.M.C.S. Magnificent, there are at present 8 Sea-Fire fighters and 10 Firefly I fighter-bomber-reconnaissance aircraft at Dartmouth.
There are two more squadrons at Dartmouth, composed of miscellaneous types, for aircrew training and other necessary services.
In addition to the Sea-Furies now on H.M.C.S. Magnificent, we are awaiting delivery of a further number which have been on order for some time to provide reserves and spares for the fighter squadrons. Sea-Furies have an announced cruising speed of 300 miles per hour and a top speed of over 450 miles per hour. They are among the most modem and effective carrier-based planes. The use of jet-propelled aircraft from carriers is still in the experimental stage, and the purchase of the Sea-Furies is in line with the policy of keeping abreast of the best available equipment.
I should add that there is a steady need for additional officer personnel in the fleet air arm. The requirements are graduation from Royal Roads, Royal Military College or a university, for permanent officers, and senior matriculation for short service commissions.

Vocational Training Co-ordination Act



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. J. BENTLEY (Swift Current):: I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Will he inform the house if the government proposes to introduce at this session any legislation with respect to co-operatives such as was promised in the 1919 platform?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I shall have to look up the 1919 platform.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I send a copy over to the Prime Minister?


James Horace King: Order.



POSTAL SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. H. FERGUSON (Simcoe North):: I should like to address a question to the Postmaster General. Is it the practice of his department to give the preference, everything being equal, to returned soldiers in the appointment of postmasters in suburban areas? If so. why was a man who came here eleven years ago from Ireland given a preference at Phelpston, Ontario, over a flying veteran who served for five years in the recent war?



EXPORT AND IMPORT PERMITS


[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Trade and Commerce) moved the third reading of Bill No. 138, to amend the Export and Import Permits Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour) moved that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act, 1942, to extend vocational assistance to unemployed persons although such persons may not have applied for insurance benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1949.
Mr. COLD  WELL@: Is the intention of the minister to make a statement?


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I think I should make a brief statement at this point.
The Vocational Training Co-ordination Act, 1942, was designed to provide legislative authority for the carrying out of the various forms of training in connection with the prosecution of the war, for the training of discharged members of the forces, and for forms of vocational training or assistance for vocational training foreseen as being desirable in the post-war period.
The act provides that all training may be undertaken by provincial authorities under agreements between the dominion and provincial governments providing for financial assistance by the dominion. Experience has shown that the provisions of the act in this respect have been entirely adequate to meet the situations and to provide the training for which it was designed.
From the inception of the act, the most important program was the war emergency training for war workers and tradesmen for the armed forces, and then the training of veterans preparatory to their return to civil life. A splendid job has been accomplished in these two fields through the joint efforts of the local and provincial educational authorities in co-operation with the Department of Labour. I regard our arrangements and relations with the provinces, for the carrying out of the provisions of the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act, as a most satisfactory example of what can be accomplished by dominion-provincial co-operation.
There has been established under the act a vocational training advisory council which includes representatives of the provinces, employers and labour and other interested groups. The work of this council has been of great assistance in the administration of the act.
One of the provisions of the act empowers the Department of Labour to undertake a training program or to enter into agreements with the provinces for the operation of a program, to fit for gainful employment persons directed, for training by the unemployment insurance commission. Under the Unemployment Insurance Act, however, the only unemployed persons whom the commission may refer for vocational training are persons who are entitled to draw' unemployment insurance benefits. Thus there is no provision under the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act for training of persons who have exhausted insurance benefits or have not been working in

Vocational Training Co-ordination Act
insurable occupations. It is proposed to broaden the scope of the training provisions of the act so that vocational training may be provided in approved cases. The idea is to fit those concerned to secure gainful employment offering better chances of permanency than they previously have had. This is the purpose and effect of the amendment to the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act, which is now being introduced.
Up to the present, fortunately, it has not been necessary to make very much use of the provision for the training of unemployed persons, because, outside of seasonal and temporary lay-offs, there has been little unemployment in Canada since the termination of the war in 1945. However, it is desirable to make provision for such training so that it may be provided when required.
This program for training of unemployed persons has been discussed with the provincial authorities and all provinces have expressed their willingness to co-operate with the dominion in plans for such training.
I think it will be of interest to members of the house to have some particulars of the training activities being carried on at the present time under the Vocational Training Coordination Act. First, there is training of discharged members of the forces as approved by the Department of Veterans Affairs. This is carried on in all provinces under the re-establishment training agreements. The dominion reimburses the provinces for one hundred per cent of these training costs. Second, we have youth training and assistance to students. This type of training was formerly carried on by the provinces with financial assistance from the dominion under the Youth Training Act. which was superseded by the Vocational Training Coordination Act. The youth training agreement is in operation in all provinces and the approved training costs are equally shareable by the dominion and the province. The program was initiated during the depression years. In recent years the dominion and provinces have joined in a wide range of courses for rural young people, both men and women, financial assistance to university students and nurses in training in hospitals.
We also have agreements with the provinces for either full-time or part-time training classes for apprentices indentured under provincial apprentice legislation. The training has been generally applicable for the building and construction trades. At the present time this plan is in effect in all provinces except Prince Edward Island and Quebec. The approved training costs thereunder are shared equally by the province and the dominion.

Another phase of our work is assistance to vocational schools. The financial contribution provided under agreements with the provinces is a continuation in modified form of the provisions of the former Technical Education Act of 1919. The agreements cover the carrying on and expansion of vocational training on the secondary school level and are in operation in all provinces. The costs are shared equally by the provinces and the dominion. Under the terms of the agreement, a fixed amount is allotted to each province for each fiscal year.
I have referred to the training of unemployed persons generally, which is the proposal under the' bill to be introduced.
Since the passing of the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act, up to January, 1948, the gross total of enrolments in vocational training projects was 662,896. This total is broken down as follows:
Workers for war industry	 181,686
Supervisors and foremen in industry ..	150,844
Navy tradesmen	  9,056
Army tradesmen	 49,362
Air force tradesmen	 65.214
Youth training schedules	 50,776
University students and nurses	 13.209
Correspondence training to apprentices,
approx	 10.000
Discharged members of the forces (men
and women trained since end of war) 132.349 Unemployed civilians-approx	 400
Of the discharged members of the forces enrolled for training, 2,103 have been in correspondence courses; 17,359 have been enrolled in private trade schools and business colleges; 28,746 have been enrolled for training on the job in industry; 29,358 have been enrolled in pre-matriculation classes; 54,783 have been in the regular vocational training classes. Veterans in the last two categories have been trained in schools under the supervision of the Department of Labour and carried on in co-operation with the provincial governments.


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, I believe this vocational training scheme is one of the most important and most interesting projects undertaken, by joint agreement between the provinces and the dominion, and every encouragement should be given to the improvement the minister says is contemplated under this measure. While what he says is perfectly true, that up to the present time it has not been necessary to broaden it in the manner he suggests, since there has been little or no unemployment, obviously the high peak of demand may end within a measurable period or time. We have the Marshall plan going into operation which may defer it, but even if deferred for a year or

Vocational Training Co-ordination Act
two I think it is worthwhile making preparations now for the conditions that may arise afterward.
The defect I see in most projects of this description is that we train people in our universities for certain specialized vocations; we train them in our vocational schools and under such schemes as this, but we have no method of so arranging our future industrial and economic projects that we can guarantee them, something to do when they have taken the training. It seems to me this is something we must think about, particularly in the future. Should there come a period of unemployment we cannot face again the prospect of having unemployed a large number of young people in our country, adequately trained to do jobs that are necessary to the welfare of the community. If we do, there will be not only a great deal of distress but a great deal of social difficulty. I suggest to the Minister of Labour that attention be given by the department to this phase of the matter.
One of the most satisfactory projects under this plan in the past has been the training of young people in our rural areas. Those of us who are acquainted with what has been done at some rural points in our provinces are appreciative of the fact that, really for the first time, training of this kind has been placed within reach of young people in the rural areas and on farms. Of course I realize that this has been a financial burden on some of the provinces, and that provision of the necessary facilities has imposed a strain on provincial departments of education. When new agreements are discussed, every consideration should be given to more generous aid to the provinces in order that they may carry out this project in the manner in which I am sure all hon. members of the house would like to see it carried out.
The measure when it comes before us should be discussed in the light of doing something for the thousands of young men and women who have taken advantage of this training-I was not aware until the minister gave the figure that such a large number of our service personnel were taking advantage of it, and I think it is a splendid thing to have such a high percentage of them enrolled.


Humphrey Mitchell: The number is 132,349.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: When we consider that
this is in addition to the large number who have taken advantage of educational grants under the Department of Veterans Affairs we realize that coming out of this war there
will be a group of young men and women better equipped to play their part in the economic and social life of the country than we have ever had before. That I think is an important fact in view of the conditions which this country may face in the future, when we expect our population to increase by immigration. Provided that we can find a satisfactory means of livelihood for those who come in, such immigration is to be welcomed, and it is well that we should have a well-organized and well-equipped group of young people who will be able to give leadership to those who have not had similar opportunities. If we get that much out of the war we shall have something that is really constructive. War is destructive in so many ways that a project which gives some hope for the future development of our country, both economically and socially, should be supported by all members of the house.
I shall be brief, Mr. Speaker, because this is not a subject which I have studied as fully as some other members of our party in the house; as hon. members know, we divide up the work of the session among us, and some members of our party have given particular attention to this matter. But in the first place I do wish to point out that having trained this group of young people to contribute to the economic life of the country, ways and means will have to be found to give them an opportunity to exercise the aptitudes developed under schemes of this kind. I do not think that can be done by any hit-or-miss method. We must find ways and means within our democratic society of so planning our economic life that we can give opportunities to all our people, not only to contribute in, the field of industry and labour but to reap the fruits of that industry and labour and thus enjoy improved cultural standards also. I think this is becoming more and more apparent in every country, and it is perhaps because it is not being done in some countries that much unrest is prevalent throughout the world.
In the second place, no undue burdens should be placed upon the provincial departments of education. The costs of education have risen sharply in all our provinces. Teachers' salaries have risen, and properly so. They were lamentably and disgracefully low, and still are in many parts of the country. The cost of equipment has gone up tremendously. School supplies, books, papers, pencils, everything that is used in school, have increased in price, as well as the material required for cleaning and heating the buildings. The departments of education in some of our provinces have greatly expanded their

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services. They provide a health service now that we knew nothing about when I started to teach forty years ago.


Humphrey Mitchell: They were real schools that you and I attended.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: But changes have been made for the better. In my opinion generous aid should be given to the provinces to put this scheme into effect. If they have to increase their facilities, we should assume an obligation proportionate to our greater sources of revenue, which are much wider than those of the provinces.
That is all that I want to say at this stage, Mr. Speaker, but I am quite sure that other members of our party who have given more study to this subject will wish to comment on some aspects of the minister's statement.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, I think this is a very worthy and outstanding plan of training ex-service personnel. I hardly think that our friends of the C.C.F. need have any fear of the future, because while the present government have no plans for increasing employment, and the C.C.F. have none, we of the Progressive Conservative party have a plan and in the near future we shall be in power and be able to fix everything.


Mr. CLARENCE GILLIS (Cape Breton South):: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the resolution but I think the statement made by the minister was all too short.


Humphrey Mitchell: The shorter the speeches the more business we get done.


Clarence Gillis: Had the minister's explanation been a little longer and more informative I might not have found it necessary to get up.


Humphrey Mitchell: The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) and I were taught at school that empty vessels make the most noise.


Clarence Gillis: The resolution to extend the the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act is all right in itself but I wish to point out a few things which I think were wrong with the act originally.
In the first place, while the minister pointed to the large number of service personnel who had taken advantage of the act, I would point out that a large number of service personnel had no opportunity to benefit by it. I am referring to that group who through no fault of their own were denied the rights which others received. Hundreds of service personnel who came back from the war never had a job before entering the service, and when they

applied for vocational training upon their return they found that they did not have the necessary basic education to qualify under the terms of the act, which require an eighth grade education. I know thousands of young boys who did not have that necessary basic education When they enlisted; consequently on their return they were relegated to the ranks of the unemployed, and so far as I know the great majority of them are still there. I refer particularly to my own part of the country.


Humphrey Mitchell: If my hon. friend has any facts to bear out that statement, I should like to have them.


Clarence Gillis: You should know them.


Humphrey Mitchell: I do not want to interrupt my hon. friend, but provision has been made for those who have not matriculated. I presume that conditions are the same in Nova Scotia as in Ontario, where those who had not matriculated before going overseas were given the opportunity of taking the training.


Clarence Gillis: I do not want to enter into an argument with the minister, but I have talked this matter over with his officials in the field, and have also discussed it in committees of the House of Commons; and I have pointed out that defect in the act. I am not talking about those who had their matriculation, I am talking about the young fellows who had no more than an eighth grade education. They did not qualify under the terms of this act and nothing was done for them.
I suggested before the war had finished that these young fellows should be given an opportunity to go back to school at government expense in order to obtain the basic education necessary to qualify under this act. Most of these boys were in their bare feet during the depression. Their fathers were working one or two days a week and were not able to send them to school. Through a lack of interest on the part of those in charge of this legislation no provision was made for these boys to be brought up to the standard of education necessary to qualify under the act. I want some understanding on this point before the bill finally goes through the house.
During the war the Department of Labour set up a vocational training scheme and apprenticeship plan in the mining industry. This worked out very well. It was the first time in the history of mining in this country that the Department of Labour or the government had recognized that some training was necessary. Prior to the war the conception
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of coal mining was that all that was necessary was a broad back and a weak mind. Then it became a matter of production essential to the war, and interest was taken in this industry. It was found to be a technical operation. You have to know something about ventilation; you have to know machinery; you have to know something about compressed air. All these things required study. The Department of Labour set up an apprenticeship plan under which boys would be sent down into the mine under proper supervision to be given a course of instruction for six months. That did not cost very much, because the coal produced by these young fellows during their apprenticeship period offset the cost of their training.
This plan was carried on during the war but as soon as the war finished the legislation was abandoned and the plan folded up. With the fuel situation in this country as it is, with our complete dependence upon the United States, the time has come when this industry should be developed. I think the Minister of Labour should have continued this legislation in connection with the coal mining industry and carried on the apprenticeship plan that was carried on during the war. If the industry is developed, this country could be made as nearly independent as possible of coal supplies from the United States.'When the minister brings up this bill for second reading I want him to say something about that.
There is another point on which I want information. Unless the minister has the complete co-operation of industry in this country this legislation will be ineffective. I shall give him a case in point about which I have been writing him for the last two years. We have not got anywhere with it, but in this particular instance it is not the fault of the government. A group of service personnel came back to my home town. Prior to going into the service they were taking training in a large machine shop of the Dominion Coal Company. During the period of the war they were out. When they came back they were unable to come under this vocational training scheme because the company would not sign a contract with the government.
A government grant would have augmented the wages they were getting under the company apprenticeship plan. The result was that these fellows wore losing from $1.50 to $2 per day. The government was quite willing to pay them but the company would not sign a contract. As I say, unless you can get the co-operation of industry this legislation will not be very effective.
My understanding of the terms of the resolution is that unemployed, regardless of whether they are service personnel or not, will be given vocational training in training camps or be placed in industries which have a vocational training set-up. It would not be a bad thing to make a start down in that end of Nova Scotia, because it is practically an unemployed camp today. There are 27,000 unemployed in the maritimes, and there is not a school1 I know of down there doing any kind of job in that field. I hope the minister is thinking in terms of something like that.
Unless you can offer these young fellows employment there is not much use in training them. That would mean just getting them off the streets for a short time. I want the minister to tell the house what they are going to do with the 27,000 unemployed in the maritimes even after they have been trained. There is no use in training them as machinists, or what have you, if after their period of training they are to be relegated to the ranks of the unemployed. Unless you have some program of employment for the unemployed in that part of the country there is no use in applying this palliative of vocational1 assistance. The whole thing must be considered in its relation to the prospects of employment after a man comes out of training.
I think the minister will have to make a more detailed statement before the bill goes through the house. Personally I want to know exactly what this proposed legislation means in relation to the 27,000 unemployed in the maritimes. I want to know what they are going to be trained for, the terms under which they are to be trained, and the prospects of employment after the period of training is over. I think the house is entitled to know that.
To just stand up and wave your arms and say that this is another step in the right direction is no good. We in this house should be ashamed to talk about unemployment. We on this half of the North American continent, with a population of 12,000,000, have more natural resources at our disposal than they have on the other half of the continent where the population is over 130,000,000. We should not be talking about unemployment in this country. These people should be put to work, with the world screaming for the production of this continent. It is a reflection upon the intelligence of everybody in this house to be talking in terms of unemployment in this country and setting up a scheme to train the unemployed in order to get them off the streets. These people should be working at producing the goods which the world so badly needs at this time.

Vocational Training Co-ordination Act


Mr. DANIEL McIVOR (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to make a long speech, but there are one or two things which strike me as being important.
We are getting back now to first principles. Hon. members will recall the old Jewish nation where every man was taught a trade. Whether or not there was employment, if he had a trade and initiative he could get busy and earn his own living. That is one good thing in favour of this resolution. The other thing is this. When the leader of the C.C.F. (Mr. Coldwell) rises in his place and commends this resolution, it makes me believe that there must be something good in it or he would not commend it.


An hon. MEMBER:: Hear, hear.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: Thank you: I am glad you agree with a sensible speaker.
I do not agree with the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) that those who have not matriculation standing do not get the vocational training. Perhaps I am not stating it correctly. I have known young men who did not matriculate before they went overseas, but they received the groundwork, and at the end of this month they are graduating. One young man will graduate in electronics, and he did not have his matriculation when he took up the course. When we had our vocational school in Fort William a recommendation was sent forward to the provincial and dominion leaders of vocational training asking that the school should be continued for civilians, but it was not. This resolution is a step in the right direction. If it is any commendation to him may I tell the Minister of Labour that the experts in labour at the head of the lakes will support him thoroughly in this matter, and that is something. The resolution should be strongly supported because it is absolutely necessary.
As the hon. member for Cape Breton South said, we have great resources in this country We have also a government with unbounded initiative, and therefore we are certain to go ahead.
Mr. JOHN R. MacNICOL (Davenport): This resolution is in line with legislation which has been introduced in this house during all the years I have been here, and on every occasion I have supported it. One of the minister's predecessors, the late Norman Rogers, the former member for Kingston, had a very broad vision as to how to make a scheme like this operate. Unfortunately for this country he was taken away before his time. I really believe and did believe at that time that had he lived he would have put into operation schemes to follow up legislation such as this, because this is legislation for the training of young men,

and every one of us is in favour of that, whether they are returned soldiers or not. I should say it is for them in particular, but for others as well, because all must make a living.
We must look forward to what these men are to do when they are trained. Today I had a letter from a young veteran from Nova Scotia who has been in Toronto for two or three months. He got out of employment about six weeks ago and I have written on his behalf to ten different companies in Toronto including the Toronto Transportation Commission, to try to get him a job. He had a distinguished record, but in his letter today he tells me that up to the moment he has been unable to get anything to do. This does not speak very well for opportunity, does it?
I know myself that the opportunities for employment are not anything like they used to be. I am not blaming anybody for that. The war is over. During the war multitudes of men were busy at making munitions. These factories are not now making munitions, unless some of them have started doing so again. I hope the minister will couple a program such as this with some other program or direction or body of control which will make it its business to see that those young men are placed in jobs when they graduate from the vocational schools.
On a trip recently I met a father who had three sons in the recent war. When I inquired about these three sons he told me that they were all in the United States. They had all gone to western United States to work on bureau of reclamation projects. Will this legislation include training or teaching in the vocations through which the bureau of reclamation of the United States has been able to provide many thousands of jobs? W'hen the minister speaks again I should like him to tell us whether there will be instruction in the surveying for and the building of dams, and all that pertains to the construction of dams, concrete mixing, steel to be used in the construction of water conservation works and so forth. I know that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) has a program for western reclamation which, as it develops, will require many thousands of men in the construction of conservation works, irrigation works and all matters associated therewith. Therefore I should like to know whether this vocational training program will provide for the training of men required in this kind of employment.
Everyone knows that a large number of the soldiers who have come back received a great deal of training during the war in actual operation of engineering works associated with the war. This would be very useful to them if they were employed in the construction of

Vocational Training Co-ordination Act
reclamation works in western Canada. Will the program envision the training of men to work on reclamation programs? Will it have to do with the training of young men in the field of oil production? We all know that great oil companies such as Imperial Oil and others in this country are sending quite a number of young men, competent engineers and geologists, to every part of Canada to ascertain if there is oil in the areas into which they are sent. Will this program have to do with the training of young men who can be placed in fields where oil is to be developed, or in places in which oil is now being developed, such as the Leduc field and the Norman Wells field, and so on? I am convinced that besides training them we have to go a step further and make provision for their obtaining employment in the kind of activity toward which their training has been directed.
As a previous speaker has said, there is not much use in turning out trained young men unless there is something for them to do, particularly in Canada, because altogether too many young men are now crossing the line to obtain employment in the United States.
I am anxious to know whether the program will do three things. First, will it train young men for positions in the whole field of reclamation, including flood control works, irrigation works, water conservation works, and so on? Second, will it train them in the field of the promotion and development of oilfields in Canada and in all matters associated with the oilfields? I saw a large number of oilfields during a recent trip I made to the United States, and it was amazing to see the multitude of young men who were working on all sorts of vocations connected with this industry. Will the scheme cover that as well, and will there be some program to see that after these young men have been trained at Canada's expense, they will be provided with jobs in Canada to help to build up this great country?


Mr. F. S. ZAPLITNY (Dauphin):: The resolution before us, although apparently it refers to an extension of the provisions of the act, does bring into focus the whole question of federal aid to education.
About two years ago I had the privilege of introducing a resolution in this house asking that the federal government provide financial assistance to the provinces for education. Unfortunately on that occasion there was not time to debate the resolution and bring it to a vote, but those who did take part in the debate agreed almost unanimously that the time had come when the federal govern-5849-196
ment should take further steps in the direction of aid to the provinces generally for education. The act to be amended, should this resolution pass, is the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act, 1942. If the provisions of that act are not too strictly interpreted, assistance could be given over a very wide range of educational activities in the provinces. For example, under definitions, "vocational training" is defined thus:
"Vocational training" means any form of instruction the purpose of which is to fit any person for gainful employment or to increase his skill or efficiency therein, and, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, includes instruction to fit any person for employment in agriculture, forestry, mining, fishing, construction, manufacturing, commerce or in any other primary or secondary industry in Canada.
According to that definition, there are very few activities in the field of education that could not be brought under this act. I realize, however, that the immediate purpose of the resolution is to extend the provisions of the act so as to cover unemployed persons, although such persons may not have applied for insurance benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act.
I wish to make an admission: in this respect Manitoba is probably the province most at fault, but unfortunately the provinces have not taken advantage of the act to the fullest extent possible. For example, I have the report on Canadian vocational training for 1946-47 and it shows that in the matter of replacement of depreciated equipment in vocational schools, Manitoba made use of only 88,000 whereas it could have used a great deal more than that under the act. Further, in connection with youth training, I find that Manitoba used only $3,167.59 in 1946-47, whereas it had an allotment of $20,000.
One reason for the failure to make use to the greatest extent of the opportunity afforded is to be found in the fact that the greater part of Manitoba is made up of rural school districts which are organized on the singler district basis, and outside the city of Winnipeg, where there is a different system, it has been difficult for the school districts of Manitoba to furnish even elementary education, what we sometimes call primary education, for the children of the province, to say nothing of going into the technical and vocational branches, which they cannot afford. For that reason, the province has not been able up to this time to make the fullest use of the provisions of the act.
There is, however, an encouraging sign. It so happens that we have now one of the larger-unit areas, taking in a whole group of school districts under one administration. This
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happens to be in my constituency, and in the town of Dauphin within the last two years there has been set up what is called the technical school branch. I have seen it personally and I think it can compare with any similar branch anywhere in the province, or perhaps, for that matter, in western Canada. A real attempt has been made to bring technical and vocational education into that part of the province, which is the first step of the kind taken anywhere in Manitoba outside the city of Winnipeg. That is only the first step. Other parts of the province are taking similar steps, thus attempting to provide education of a kind which the individual school districts, organized on their present basis, could not finance.
In Saskatchewan and Alberta they have gone much further in the direction of grouping small school districts into larger areas so as to have a central high school or college in which they can provide the higher forms of education, including technical and vocational training. There is wide scope for the federal government to give assistance.
There might be some dispute if one were to advocate general grants in aid to the provinces for education, because then questions with respect to constitutional difficulties, as well as many other considerations, might enter into it. But there is a clear field in vocational technical training; here there is no dispute as to the right of the dominion to provide assistance, because the act has been in operation since 1942, and I believe the federal government could with perfect propriety enter the field of furnishing equipment and facilities. At present these are the real bottlenecks in the field of technical and vocational training.
It is true there is a shortage of personnel, but the provinces could look after that end of it. Provision of equipment and buildings, which are so expensive these days, is something which the federal government could very well look into.
I should like to put on record a resolution which was passed in December 1946. This is the first opportunity that has presented itself for a debate of this kind of legislation; therefore I should like to put this resolution on the record. It deals with grants in aid for higher education for university students, returned service personnel. It was sent on to us by the Co-operative Commonwealth University Federation, and reads:
We endorse the policy of federal government assistance to war veterans to enable them to undertake university training;
We condemn the inadequacy of D.V.A. grants which have resulted in great hardship for vet-

erans without other means of income; and we point out that the inadequacy of these grants increases daily with the rising cost of living;
We believe that under no circumstances should the pre-war condition be allowed to return, with thousands of students unable for financial reasons to complete their education;
Therefore we urge that educational grants to veterans be immediately raised to an adequate level, and that plans 'be laid down now to extend the principle of federal grants in aid for higher education, by means of:
1.	An extensive scholarship system to enable all students of ability to complete their university training;
2.	A program of interprovincial scholarships to enable students in considerable number to complete their education in other parts of Canada, particularly to facilitate an interchange of students between English-speaking and French-speaking Canada;
3.	Federal assistance for students of outstanding ability to study outside Canada, on condition that they return to work in Canada for a specified number of years or repay the state for the assistance provided.
This was passed in 1946 and certain changes have taken place since that time, but in essence what is set out in the resolution still applies. I believe the federal government should give favourable consideration to a plea of that kind.


Mr. W. GARFIELD CASE (Grey North):: I will not detain the house very long, but I wish to make this observation. The proposal to provide for vocational or educational training is all to the good so long as it remains on a voluntary basis, that is to say, so long as the applicant can make his own choice. Too often we read that a plan is made by some government or planning authority and the individual is subjected to training which he may or may not desire, with the result that there is a measure of socialism or social planning.
I have every reason to believe that no such provision will be made in this bill under the present Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell). But I cannot help listening with concern when I hear the leader of the C.C.F. suggest to this house that we should make this a land of opportunity. The challenge that applies to everyone in this country is to seize the opportunity himself. All too often the tendency is to delegate to some authority the responsibility for planning.
The hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) suggested that we in this house should be ashamed to talk about unemployment. I do not know that anyone talks about unemployment to any great extent. I suppose there is a certain amount of seasonal unemployment at this time. Surely we are

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not going to suggest to the government that they take it upon themselves to direct the employers of labour. As a matter of fact my own considered opinion is that the sooner the government gets away altogether from planning and delegates to the individual himself the responsibility to do a little foraging for himself, the better it will be for the individual. He will retain a sense of personal pride in himself, and no doubt will make a greater contribution to the common national welfare.
I am not prepared to go along with the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor) in reference to the abundance of initiative that is evident in the government. Nevertheless I feel that we would do well to accept the resolution and proceed to the stage where we shall have an opportunity to examine the bill; because one of the desires of any individual should be so to train and qualify himself that he can make some contribution to society and feel a sense of security in his knowledge of how to make that contribution. Above all, the constant desire of everyone should be to learn how to make a living. That is the measure of success. If you can forge ahead in this competitive world, if you have the initiative, the ambition and the courage to go forward, there is no doubt that this is a land of golden opportunity.


Mr. F. D. SHAW (Red Deer):: When the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act received approval in this house we gave it our support. We recognized fully that, there was a place for this type of training in Canada. We recognized also that it provides an opportunity for the federal government to lend sorely-needed assistance in the field of education. It is appropriate therefore that I should state that we are also prepared to give approval to any extension of the benefits or opportunities to be provided under the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act of 1942.
While it can be agreed that the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) had a point in his reference to unemployment, we must face the fact that we have unemployment and are likely to continue to have a certain amount of it. Therefore the very least we can do is to provide a type of training for the unemployed, and more particularly, as the resolution now states, for those who have not applied for benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act..
On a number of occasions we have urged that the federal government provide greater assistance in the field of education. We feel that
education is something which benefits not only the individual so educated but also Canada as a whole; and more particularly, where we find a free movement of people throughout Canada, we feel that we can ill afford to have one part of Canada obliged to provide a lesser degree of educational opportunity than another. I well recall that when the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Zaplitny) introduced his motion a couple of years ago, we gave unqualified support to the demands which he included in his observations with respect to education. The province of Alberta has had most pleasant experiences in the field of vocational training. I believe the minister would be the first to agree that Ottawa has received unqualified support from Alberta in that field. We feel that the results have been splendid. We should like to see the opportunities further advanced in our province so that a greater number of our young people may acquire this necessary training, which is good for them whether they ever use it or not.
I should like to pay particular tribute to our instructors in those vocational training schools. If I were to lodge a complaint, I would say that the compensation which they receive is altogether too little when one has regard to the kind of work they are doing. I well realize that the minister would likely advise me that the province established the rate of pay, and that, provided it meets with the approval of Ottawa and is in keeping with the general wage scales they are quite satisfied with it. I feel-and whether I am talking to the dominion Department of Labour or to the provincial governments does not make any difference to me-that the instructors should have more adequate compensation for the splendid service they are rendering. I should think the minister would be careful to see to it that these salaries are in keeping with the type of work done.
Veterans who have acquired good training under the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act have found it impossible on graduation to acquire the tools necessary for the carrying on of their work. Sometimes the cost of these tools is substantial. I should like to see steps taken to make giants to these veterans, or loans, if nothing better can be offered, in order that they may not be deprived of the opportunity of engaging in the type of work for which they have been trained.
As I said at the outset, we approve the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act and we welcome extensions to it. We shall act accordingly when a decision is rendered by the house on this measure.
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Mr. J. 0. PROBE (Regina City): Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) for the opportunity, under the discussion of this act, to speak in general terms on the subject of federal aid to education. Vocational training, which is the subject up for discussion this afternoon, is to my mind something which goes beyond the narrow definition contained in the act, and should be defined as training 'of any kind that assists in the earning of a living. Having a lengthy first-hand experience with problems of Canadian education, I wish to state my views on the duty of the federal government in the educational field.
I wish to preface my speech by the statement that I concur in the wisdom of the British North America Act of 1867, by which education was made a responsibility of the provinces. With the reasons for the decentralization of control of education, no member of this house can seriously disagree. I must, however, remind the house that the federal system under which Canada is governed was made possible in the first place by the undertaking on behalf of the central government-a fact often forgotten-that since the provincial governments surrendered to the dominion the field of indirect taxation'-this being in 1867 the source of greatest revenue- the federal government, in effect, guaranteed to the provinces sufficient subsidies to meet their local needs.
In view of the encroachment by Ottawa upon the taxing powers of the provinces in the field of direct taxation, this principle must be restated; that confederation in 1867 carried with it responsibility on the part of Ottawa to the provinces for adequate sums of money with which to meet their ordinary requirements. This contention is supported in a study of dominion-provincial relations prepared by Eggleston and Kraft in 1939, and I should like to read a quotation from page 119 of that study:
Quebec was in none too strong a financial condition during the early years of confederation. During the period 1874-1882, Quebec borrowed over $15,000,000 for expenditures upon railways, thereby increasing its interest charges. In March, 1883, the province submitted a petition to the dominion government stating that Quebec did not dispute the fact that the terms of 1867 were to have been final, but that these provisions had been based upon the belief that subsidies would be sufficient to meet local expenditures.
As a matter of record, in 1867 dominion subsidies provided sixty per cent of ordinary provincial expenditures; but in spite of frequent and insufficient readjustments as provincial needs were presented to Ottawa, by 1930 the dominion government was contribu-

ting less than ten per cent of ordinary provincial expenditures. With impending ruin in many of the provinces in depression years, this percentage of ten per cent was raised, but it has never reached the original figure of sixty per cent in effect in 1867.
It has been argued by hon. members in this house that provincial autonomy would be in jeopardy should Ottawa provide subsidies adequate for provincial purposes, especially for education. Such a view is short-sighted with respect to revenues for the educational needs of a democracy. It is contrary, too, to at least one statute passed last century by the Canadian parliament. I quote again from Eggleston and Kraft at page 140, dealing with the financial difficulties of Manitoba after its entry into confederation.
The dominion refused to take any action upon these complaints, but it did advance $30,000 during the year 1882-83 for educational purposes.
That was by 47 Victoria, chapter 7. Revenue for education in Canada has always been hard to find. In no field of public expenditure has there been a more sacrificing spirit manifested by its servants, that is, the overloaded teachers; and nowhere has there been more value given for the meagre dollars spent. Teaching is still the altruistic field of the social pioneer, with its rewards rarely in money or in material advantage but only in the satisfaction of well done community service. The day of the itinerant and ignorant army man with birch rod and discipline as his only teaching certificate has happily ended. His round of free board, by staying a week at a time at the home of each student, has been superseded by a meagre pay cheque approaching that of the unskilled industrial worker. The money for Canadian education is still far less plentiful, shame to relate, than it is for liquor.
So unsatisfactory was the educational accomplishment in Canada that in 1909 various trade unions asked the Canadian government to appoint a royal commission on industrial training and technical education. Sir Wilfrid Laurier appointed this commission in June, 1910, and in 1914 its report was presented to parliament. The outbreak of world war I shortly after prevented any action from being taken upon its recommendations, but in 1919 the sum of 110,000,000 was voted for technical secondary education in the provinces on a conditional basis, and at that time special provision was made for agricultural education.
In 1929 the government of the present Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) passed an act continuing the grants authorized to the provinces in 1919 for a further five years; that is, in so far as it concerned the unexpended por-

Vocational Training Co-ordination Act
tion of the grants voted at that time, which amounted to some $1,500,000.
These conditional grants, small though they were, had given a boost to technical education across Canada, and there was much criticism of the Canadian government on their threatened discontinuance. Accordingly in 1931 the Bennett administration voted a further $750,000 only, for fifteen years, by way of educational assistance to the provinces. When I see the change of attitude of some of my hon. friends to the right on this subject I need only say that times must have changed indeed since 1931, because, of the grant of $750,000 for fifteen years, made by the Bennett administration, not one penny has yet been spent.
During the late depression years, and during the war, some further expenditures-many of which have been referred to in this house this afternoon-were made by the dominion government for various types of relief and military and industrial education. Since world war II, the Department of Veterans Affairs has assumed the bulk, not all, of the cost of veteran education, and of apprenticeship and industrial training programs.
So, Mr. Speaker, I should like to draw to the attention of the house and the country how insignificant in fact has been the help of the federal government toward this most important branch of Canadian life. In this country we prate about the menace of communism. We talk of its danger, but we have not the national backbone to do anything about it in a way that really counts. If our way of life is superior-and I feel that it can be made so-I suggest that there is no better way to make it work than by putting cash on the line to educate our future citizens, in order that they may be equipped to live the Canadian way and may be immune to the blandishments of the totalitarian ideology. The man trained to think for himself and equipped for the emergencies of life, given the opportunity to live his life in the way of his own choosing, is not led astray by any foreign siren.
It is the duty of this House of Commons to take practical steps to win the war of ideas. Prohibitions and commandments are not enough. The most practical form is to vitalize, through provincial subsidies, the educational sinews with which the base of undesirable isms may be shattered. Where a province spends a good deal on education, its effects go beyond the borders of the province itself.
I have shown in a rough way what limited aid has been given from the federal purse to meet the educational needs of our people. In 1883 Quebec stated that federal subsidies
were intended to be sufficient to meet local expenditures. In the field of education we are moving farther and farther from this implied condition of confederation. In 1900, according to the dominion bureau of statistics, the total enrolment in the publicly controlled day schools of Canada was 1,086,381, while in 1944 it was 2,056,743, or roughly double the enrolment at the beginning of the century. By provinces this figure is divided as follows:
1900	1944
Prince Edward Island	21,289	17,179Nova Scotia	
100,129	114,879New Brunswick	
67,159	89,797Quebec	
311,253	620,106Ontario	
494,217	645,308Manitoba	
50,460	119,974
Saskatchewan and Alberta were not separated in 1900, the provinces not yet having been formed, but for 1900 the combined figure for the two provinces was 20,343, and for 1944 the figures were 179,372 for Saskatchewan and 151,985 for Alberta. The table continues:
1900	1944
British Columbia ....	21,531	119,043Total	
1,086,381	2,056,743
Figures for high school enrolment, while not available for 1900, show an even greater expansion than do those for elementary schools in the figures available for the period from 1921 to 1944.
The dominion bureau of statistics indicates that in 1921 the number of students in secondary schools, above grade 8, in Canada, excluding Quebec, for which no statistics for 1921 are available, were 86,156, and in 1944 had almost trebled, the total being 241,215.
With the consent of the house I should like to put on t'he record a summary prepared by the dominion bureau of statistics, showing the number of students in secondary schools of Canada for the years 1921 and 1944:


The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr. Golding):: Has the hon. member leave to put the table on Hansard?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Agreed.


John Oliver Probe: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The
table is as follows:
1921	1944
Prince Edward Island ...	1,737	2,548Nova Scotia	
9,705	14,341New Brunswick	
2,863	9,735Ontario	
42,551	111,448Manitoba	
8,615	18,831Saskatchewan	
5,917	31,202Alberta	
7,509	28,285British Columbia	
7,259	24,825Total (Excl. Quebec)...	86,156	241,215
The two sets of figures that I have thus far presented indicate the expansion in enrolment
3092	COMMONS
Vocational Training Co-ordination Act
since the turn of the century. The cost of this expansion has been met almost entirely by local school district taxation and provincial grants, the amounts for each province or for each district depending largely on the sense of public responsibility of the citizens, and limited by the relative financial strength within the district or within the province.
The dominion bureau of statistics has prepared a table indicating the revenue of the public schools of Canada for 1944 by provinces, which, with the consent of the house, I wish to place on the record.


William Henry Golding: Has the hon. member consent to place the table on Hansardf


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Agreed.


John Oliver Probe: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The table is as follows:
Revenue of Public Schools 1944 (By provinces)
	Gross	Per
	Revenue	Pupil
Prince Edward Island ..	. * 612.488	$35.65Nova Scotia	. 5,277,299	45.94New Brunswick	. 3,468,361	38.62Quebec	. 30,337,234	48.92Ontario 	. 55,268,313	85.65Manitoba 	. 9.293,887	89.05Saskatchewan 	. 15,316,030	85.33Alberta 	. 12,803,060	84.24British Columbia 	. 11.159.456	90.39
When this is broken down on a per pupil basis the provincial expenditures fall into two well-defined groups. In the one group are the provinces of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec, in that order, with Prince Edward Island spending in 1944 $35.65 per pupil.
In the other group are found Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia, in that order, with Alberta having a gross revenue per pupil of $84.24, and British Columbia $90.39.
One could argue that the two groups of provinces I have mentioned attach lesser or greater importance to the nedd for education, depending on the group in which the province falls. I feel that this argument is fallacious and is not necessary for the purpose of demonstrating the need of much-expanded federal grants. With various exceptions, the brunt of bearing even the limited costs of education, as indicated in the table just presented, has fallen, and will continue to fall unless the federal government assumes its rightful role in providing finances, upon the teacher in the class-room. And strangely enough, where the need for exceptional teaching qualifications is greatest, namely, in the one-room rural school, there the remunera-

tion in every province is below that of the unskilled farm-hand working in the same district.
Unfortunately the dominion statistics are not up to date with respect to this matter, but I have here a table prepared by the bureau to show the average salary, by provinces, excluding Quebec, for the public schools of Canada, for the year 1944. This table gives the average salary for all teachers in the public schools, of each province mentioned, for the city schools and for one-room rural schools. With the consent of the house, I should like to place these figures on Hansard.


William Henry Golding: Has the hon. member the consent of the house to place these figures on Hansard?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Agreed.


John Oliver Probe: 
Mr. C. E. STEPHENSON (Durham):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the minister if an opportunity will be given to those who start vocational training to complete their courses. If not, there will be no value in this plan. The minister knows quite well that there were many ex-service men who had to wait until they were old enough to enlist. They enlisted late in the war and served for only five, six or seven months. The amount of training the}' were able to take was based upon their length of service.
Many of these young men wanted to take their junior or senior matriculations, but they found that at the end of five, six or seven months their training period was over and they had to leave school. I brought this matter to the attention of the minister and I think some consideration should be given to these young men.
I consider this resolution a step in the right direction. Above everything else, we need vocational training in this country. The trades have lost dignity. Many of the younger people feel that they should have a university education and I think this move to give dignity to the trades is in the right direction.


Humphrey Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, one hon. member said something about my making only a short statement. I am a great believer in short statements as long as the information is there. A long speech is like a long letter. A long letter is rarely read and a long speech is never read and rarely listened to. I sometimes think that if we took out the desks in this chamber and had it only half as large as it is we would get through in three months rather than six. I am a great believer in debate in the conversational manner as takes place in the House of Commons in Great Britain. There the members have a few notes in front of them and they make their speeches so that everyone can hear. That being as it may, I simply make the observation in the light of what was said by one hon. member.

Vocational Training Co-ordination Act__
When a minister makes a statement I do not think it is his business to read a report which every hon. member can get. I am speaking to the resolution and am dealing with the principles of the resolution. Most of the information that has been asked for this afternoon by hon. gentlemen could have been obtained from the report on vocational training if they had taken the trouble to read it.
Other hon. gentlemen have referred to the responsibility of the federal government in connection with vocational training and education generally. The hon. member for Regina City (Mr. Probe) developed the history of technical education from the federal point of view. A royal commission was appointed in 1910 by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and one of the members of that commission was a personal friend of mine. The sum of ten million dollars was voted and spent in co-operation with the provinces in establishing technical training schools throughout the dominion. Even up to this day there is at least one province which has not spent its portion of that ten million dollars.
It is quite easy to rise in one's place in this house and talk about spending millions and millions. I have a vivid memory of a little Scotch town. A man who had been born in that town came to North America and made a fortune in the steel industry. He gave his home town a magnificent library, a swimming pool and a vast park but he gave them so much that he impoverished the community which tried to maintain them.
Whether we like it or not, the provincial governments have jurisdiction over education. I wonder what some hon. members would say if it were suggested that, because of the money being spent by the dominion, we should take over education in the provinces. It is quite easy to get up and say what we should do for education as a federal government, irrespective of the party in power, but the fact remains that the provinces are jealous of their prerogatives.
I do not know of any provincial government that is in destitute circumstances today. I know of no time in the history of this country when the provincial governments have had greater surpluses than at the present time. One hon. gentleman referred to the need for this type of education. I want to say that I have never seen a man who could handle a hammer, saw or file who was destitute under normal circumstances.


Mr. CAMPBELL:: What is the file for?


Humphrey Mitchell: To file some sense into the brains of some hon. members. I have tried

to express myself in simple language. If I had made my remarks complicated so that the hon. member for Regina City could not understand them he would have thought it was wonderful. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) says that I could not.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I interrupt sometimes, but this time I did not say a word.


Humphrey Mitchell: I was greatly impressed by the observations of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) about the placement of these people after they have been trained. I think we have made great strides in connection with the special placement department of the unemployment insurance commission which handles handicapped people. We are considering setting up vocational guidance departments in the communities in which we have offices established. Technical education is a slowly growing thing. Rome -was not built in a day and neither will this scheme come to full fruition in twenty-four hours after the foundation has been set.


Major James William Coldwell: Are you giving special training to placement officers in view of the large number of classifications that exist?


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes, and I will tell you where I got the idea from. They did it when I was a youngster in England. I do not know that there is much more I need say until we are in committee on the bill.
Someone referred to the hardships suffered by veterans. I am not talking about the married veteran. I think that even a veteran-like many hon. members I was a veteran myself of the first great war-in order to obtain a university education should make some contribution and sacrifice for that education. The best students are those who do so. If the state provides a measure of support during the school term, it is the obligation and the duty of the student during the vacation period at least to endeavour to augment the amount of money provided by the state.
Let me say that my department has a special division for finding employment for veterans who are attending university. It has been very successful. Only yesterday I received a letter from a student in the United States. He said that his American friend said that he wished the employment service in that country had the same kind of organization. We all know that there are not enough universities in this country to permit all the men and women who were engaged in the last war to avail themselves of a university education, notwithstanding the generous assistance rendered by the

____________Vocational Training Co-ordination Act
Canadian people. Many of the men who came back from the war went into industry. Had they not done so, the manpower situation that exists at the moment in a broad and general way would have been much more difficult than it is. I repeat, I think that a university education is worth a little bit of sacrifice and struggle to obtain.
Basically this bill rounds out the policies which have been set in motion since I have been in the ministry to make provision for the training of youths and adults. It was found that there was a missing link in the chain in the Unemployment Insurance Act. You can refer people who are enjoying and receiving unemployment insurance benefits to training; but once these benefits run out, the assistance lapses because there is no legislative provision to maintain it. Then, of course, there are other people who are not within the four walls of the legislation, people who are not at the moment paying unemployment insurance.
I have always felt that it is far better to train a person to earn a livelihood than for the state to support him. This is a simple amendment. The idea behind it is the training of men and women who, through circumstances over which they have no control, are unable to earn a livelihood. The machine is more or less in the process of being set up. In the very nature of things, consultations must be had with the provinces with respect to any advisory group or placement group that will be responsible for deciding who shall and who shall not be trained. It is the joint responsibility of the people who supply the money and the equipment, and they, of course, are the provincial and the federal governments. It is my intention to set up advisory committees in the different regions, composed of employers, employees and employees' organizations. That is a vital necessity in a training program of this kind.
When we go into committee I shall endeavour to answer all questions that hon. members may ask.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Is the minister going to answer the questions I asked him?


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes. The hon. member asked about oil drilling and building dams.
I touched on that lightly. Before any classes are established in a province it is necessary to get co-operation, not only co-operation but also support of the provincial governments to join with us in establishing these classes. If there is any province in Canada where that can be done I am sure the dominion government will co-operate.


Charles Elwood Stephenson: I made reference to-
Z8i9-197


James Horace King: Order. May I suggest to the hon. member that if he wants to ask questions he should wait until we get into committee.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Golding in the chair.


Mrs. STRUM:: A few moments ago the minister made the statement that it was easier to train people and permit them to earn their own living than to support them. Will this amendment cover people who are physically incapacitated or partly incapacitated, people who need sheltered employment?


Humphrey Mitchell: When I was speaking I thought I mentioned that we have a division in the unemployment insurance commission to deal with the placement of physically handicapped people. I have not the figures under my hand at the moment, but I think it will be found that we made a very good start in that regard in the last twelve months. If the provinces wish to co-operate I see no objection to setting up classes in that regard.


Major James William Coldwell: The minister thinks that it would come within the four corners of the resolution?


Humphrey Mitchell: We must have the co-operation of the provinces.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: I wondered Whether there was any particular clause or section in the bill in which it was definitely stated.


Humphrey Mitchell: No; the bill is broad in its terms, as the hon. member will see when she gets it. It will take in almost anything.


Charles Elwood Stephenson: When I spoke a few moments ago I mentioned the possibility of those who start their courses being permitted to finish them. Will some guarantee be given by the minister that they will be allowed to complete their courses, so that the training will be of some value to them and not like the courses which were given to some veterans based on their training of five or six months? That is all they were entitled to when they came out of the armed forces, because they had been only five or six months in the forces.


Humphrey Mitchell: There is no intention whatever at the moment to provide university courses by this bill. The question raised by the hon. member had to do with the amount of training based on the length of service.


Charles Elwood Stephenson: That is right.


Humphrey Mitchell: The hon. member will have to talk to the Department of Veterans Affairs about that. My department does the
Vocational Training

Co-ordination Act
training; they do the choosing. They lay down the rules and the principles.


Charles Elwood Stephenson: It was apparently your department.


Humphrey Mitchell: We do the training.


Charles Elwood Stephenson: My point is this: what is the use of training a boy for five months and then kicking him out in the middle of the course, telling him, You are finished?


Mr. COLD  WELL@: I do not think the minister quite understood the question I asked when I interrupted him during his last remarks about the placement officers. With the complicated and complex industrial system we now have, there are a very large number of different types of jobs. The point I was interested in was this. Is the department doing anything either to provide for or to encourage special training for placement officers so that they will understand the differentiation of the jobs? I saw a report, I think from a United States source, a year or so ago. I have forgotten the figures, but they ran into several thousand job classifications, all the way down. I have not heard lately, but in former days, I heard of persons who had applied for a job and been offered something quite unsuitable, largely because the man behind the desk was .perhaps not as well trained in placement as he should be in these days. In the appointment of officers, in the exchanges across the country, is some attention being given to the qualifications of persons for the placement of applicants or, on the other hand, are any steps being taken by the department to give some specialized training to officers so that they may be adequately equipped to deal with the placement of applicants?


Humphrey Mitchell: We are continually
training people. Of course the engineering of material things is an exact science and is entirely different from the engineering of human beings.


Major James William Coldwell: Certainly. Psychology is an important factor.


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes. In the unemployment insurance commission, dealt with under the other bill I am introducing, people are being continually trained. In a broad way, we have not done too badly in Canada.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I know that in Toronto the heads of the department have been for some time sending out to various plants members of their personnel to see for themselves just what goes on in this and that line of manu-

facturing. I have come in contact with this work, and I was pleased to see that the department was training its officials so that they might more intelligently answer applicants coming to their desk. I cannot speak for other parts of the country, but I know that in Toronto an honest effort is being made to train personnel so that they can answer applicants intelligently.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: There is one phase of this work which, so far as I know, has not been considered. I refer to the rehabilitation of persons coming out of tuberculosis sanatoria. In almost every province there is free treatment for tuberculosis, but we would be appalled if we knew how many people come out of these institutions only to find themselves forced back into them for the simple reason that they have to compete with others who are well, and under these conditions try to do a full-time job. There is a field for research in order to find out whether light and part-time employment can be provided for persons coming out of sanatoria. We must make sure that they do not overdo it and thus become repeaters.
I have had a good deal of experience with tuberculosis sanatoria for a number of years, and I am thinking of one lad who in the end went out and committed suicide because he had found readjustment so difficult. He had been a repeater on a number of occasions and had to go back and live in a home where conditions were impossible if he expected to remain well. There is an important field here.
Treatment in tuberculosis institutions is costly, and it involves hospitalization not for weeks but for years. I have known people to come out of these institutions after having been in for fourteen years. The cost of treatment is as high as it is because we give not only medical care but special housing and special diet. I am sure the provinces would be only too glad to co-operate with the federal government in investigating the kind of training required, and then the employment service that goes with placement, with a view to helping these people to stay well, instead of leaving them to face the terrible discouragement and heartbreak that such people invariably experience.
Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in. Mr. Mitchell thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 202, to amend the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act, 1942.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

Unemployment Insurance Act



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour) moved that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution!:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940, to enlarge the scope of the act, to clarify certain provisions thereof, more specially in relation to contributions, procedure, offences and penalties, and to provide further for modification in the rates of contributions with the object of equalizing, to some extent, the total contributions payable by employers and employees.
He said: The bill which is to be introduced for your consideration provides for a number of important amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act, which was passed by parliament in 1940 and became operative on July 1, 1941.
Our purpose is to keep this social security measure up to date so as to assure maximum usefulness in the public interest. Regulations passed under the act from time to time do permit certain changes in application but alterations in rates of benefits and contributions must have parliamentary approval.
Whom the act ivas passed, the insurance coverage applied only to those earning up to $2,000 a year. Higher wartime salaries and wages made it desirable to amend the act at the session of parliament in 1943, when the maximum ceiling was fixed at $2,400 a year. Other changes were made which are on the record and which I do not think it necessary to deal with at this time.
It was originally estimated that 2,100,000 persons would be brought under the act. The war was on at that time and gradually, as more became employed in munition industries and other essential activities, the coverage expanded. By the time the act was amended in 1943, an additional 676,000 workers had been made insurable employees.
The act was again amended at the 1946 session of parliament at which time a great many more workers were brought under its provisions. Since then, there have been other additions and the information which is given to me by the unemployment insurance commission is that a gross total of 3,357,984 have been covered by the act, that is the number of insurance books issued.
There is a certain duplication in this total with respect to the issuance of books and there is also included a number of persons who entered insurable employment for temporaiy 5849-1974
periods. However I think that a figure of around 3,000,000 persons benefiting under the act is about right.
The present bill is important from several angles. It provides for increased benefits to an insured person with a dependent. The maximum becomes $18.30 weekly instead of $14.40, or $3.05 per day instead of $2.40. For the person without a dependent the maximum benefit increases from $12.30 to $14.40 per week, or from $2.05 to $2.40 per day.
It will be appreciated by members of the house that the unemployment insurance fund must be maintained on an actuarial basis. We cannot gear the rate of benefits to fluctuations in the cost of living index. An upward change in wage levels, however, puts the wage earner concerned in a higher class for insurance purposes and in that way he gets a higher rate of benefit should he become a claimant.
The rates of contribution provided in the original act (1940) were so arranged that the employers and employees contributions would be equal in the aggregate. The employer paid the greater contributions in respect of employees in the lower wage groups, and the employees in the higher wage groups paid a larger contribution than did the employer, but in the main the gross contributions of each class were approximately equal. With the increases in wage levels, the employees moved up the ladder for the purposes of contributions and benefits. Whereas we have had seven classes of contributions, the wage adjustments made from time to time have had the result of placing a substantial percentage of workers in class seven, the top class.
For that reason, the employers' weekly contribution for employees in that class is to be raised from twenty-seven to thirty-six cents, the employee contribution remaining at thirty-six cents. There has been upward adjustment in employer contributions in other classes but no increase in employee rates. The bill also adds another class, No. 8, for persons earning $34 a week and more, employer and employee contributions being the	same-forty-two
cents weekly.
The bill changes the insurable annual ceiling from $2,400 to $3,120 for monthly rated employees. There is no ceiling for hourly rated people. This change for monthly rated employees was made effective January 1 last, oni the recommendation of the unemployment insurance advisory committee, and approved by the governor in council. The shift of so many workers into the higher earnings brackets made this essential. It is significant to note that in less than eight years the earnings ceiling under the act has been raised by $1,120 per year for monthly paid workers.
Unemployment Insurance Act
[Stage Direction]
The higher benefits, of course, are not yet in effect. As indicated, they require the approval of parliament. There are a number of other changes in the act, and one that will be of great interest to employers is that of exempting them from the payment of twenty-four cents a week for each person holding a certificate of exemption. We have had many complaints about this and decided that it was a provision that should be deleted from the act.
To speed up the payment of benefits, there is an amendment which will authorize the local insurance officer to pay a claimant a maximum of thirty-six days' benefit upon the production of an unemployment insurance book showing 180 consecutive contributions. Up to now the requirement has been that a claimant must show 180 contributions in the preceding two years, and then the insurance officer had to check back for five years to find out the benefit position of the claimant. This proposed change will speed up the payment of claims.
Hon. members will note, when the bill is distributed, that the increase in benefits is less in the lower earning brackets than for those in the higher earning brackets. The explanation for this is that the benefit rates for the lower earning brackets have always been based on 80 per cent to 90 per cent of earnings and so any non-actuarial raise would threaten the safety of the fund. The increase is greater in the higher earning classes in which a very large proportion of claimants are found. In 1946, 77 per cent of all claimants were in the two top earning classes.
Mr. Speaker, the bill has been drafted with the realization that the Unemployment Insurance Act can only be successfully administered on actuarial principles. I know in recent years there has been a demand from various parts of this country for the payment of higher benefits than can be approved. It must be remembered that this is a social security scheme of a tri-partite nature. contributions by employer and employee, plus one-fifth of the total by the dominion government.
There is no one in the house who would be more strongly in favour of higher benefits than myself. But we have to be reasonable. This is a great social measure. Its effectiveness easily can be destroyed by paying out more than is justified by contributions to the fund. I know, and the members of the house generally know, that the benefits provided for are not related to approximate earnings. The purpose of the act is to provide allowances to persons temporarily unemployed, sufficient to take care of their most necessary needs.

Unemployment insurance is not a substitute for a salary or a wage. I want to make that clear. If we have benefits pushed up to a point where the amount is sufficient to provide normal expenses, then we are going to have, on the part of a percentage of our workers, a disposition to avoid work and live as long as they can on unemployment insurance.
I want to emphasize at this point that I believe the vast majority of the workers of Canada are honest, decent citizens. There is, however, as in all countries, a minority of would-be idlers. They are the ones threatening the stability of social measures such as the Unemployment Insurance Act.
The safe level for benefits varies with wage levels. Thus a benefit rate of $6 may be reasonable for a person earning $7.50 weekly- a rate of 80 per cent of wages. But 80 per cent for a person who has been earning $40 weekly would be $32 and that, in our opinion, would be too high.
Unemployment insurance is long-term insurance. Should wages and prices recede from their present levels, it would then be very important that benefit rates be on a sound basis. I might add that reductions in earnings do not become fully reflected in a worker's benefit rate until he has made 180 contributions at lower rates, for the average of 180 contributions is taken. In the meantime, his benefit rate is based on a higher average of earnings.
At the present time we have about $441,000,000 in the unemployment insurance fund. On the surface this appears to be a large fund, but a period of major unemployment would whittle the total down very quickly. Personally, I am happy to see the fund so big and I hope it gets larger for this means continued high employment. It is nice to know that we have such a back-stop for the workers. I do not know when we shall have a period of serious unemployment, and, Mr. Speaker, I do not think any other hon. gentleman in this house could predict that. I am an optimistic individual who feels that, provided that we keep our feet on the ground and act rationally, I shall not live to see the day when we shall go through what we did in the thirties.
Joseph Henry Harris: I hope the minister is right.


Humphrey Mitchell: I hope I am right too. Some people hope I am not right.


Joseph Henry Harris: Oh, no.


Humphrey Mitchell: I am not reflecting on my hon. friend opposite.

Unemployment Insurance Act


Joseph Henry Harris: No. I hope you are right.


Humphrey Mitchell: We have to be guided by past events and we all know that there have been serious fluctuations in employment in the past fifty years. Even a moderate amount of unemployment would have an adverse effect on the insurance fund.
I do not want to say that we were fortunate in that a wartime period brought enactment of the Unemployment Insurance Act. The act itself is good; the war was the most terribly unfortunate and disastrous occurrence that ever could have happened to the world. However, parliament passed the act in 1940 and, as we organized our war efforts, more and more people became gainfully employed and came under the provisions of the act.
I should like to say this in passing, Mr. Speaker. I think we planned and builded better than we knew. My hon. friend laughs.


Joseph Henry Harris: I am not
laughing.


Humphrey Mitchell: These people get a
satanic delight out of misery.


Joseph Henry Harris: We	are
fortunate.


Major James William Coldwell: The minister himself is laughing.


Humphrey Mitchell: I am laughing at the hon. member who is laughing.


Mr. MacINNIS:: The hon. member is
laughing at the minister who is laughing.


Humphrey Mitchell: These people get a
satanic delight out of depression and misery.


Major James William Coldwell: No, do not say that.


Humphrey Mitchell: No. The phrase I used was not addressed to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar but to the hon. member who laughed.
I just want to make this point and, in doing so, I am speaking for the Canadian people; I do not take all the credit for the government, although the government had, of course, to give leadership. The establishment of unemployment insurance in 1910, and particularly the creation of an employment service such as we had, made possible the organization of a war effort generally conceded to be, on a per capita basis, the greatest of the democratic nations engaged in that great struggle.
With regard to the post-war period, our minds go back to 1919. Those of us who came back from the first great war know something of the confusion that existed in that demobilization period, and when I say this I am not being critical of anyone who had any part to play at that time. I think, however, that the employment service made possible the smoothness with which we were able to demobilize our men and women of the armed forces after the second war, on a scale and in a way that, I believe, surprised even the most optimistic among us in this House of Commons and throughout the country generally.
We are now passing through the period of reconstruction, when immigration is beginning to move on a wider front and at an accelerated rate. Here again we have the employment service rendering a distinct service to the people of Canada in the placement of persons from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales; people from the displaced persons camps of Europe and others, bringing us the finest blood streams of Europe. Nearly all these people are being moved through the employment service; and I think it is to the credit and reflects the common sense of the Canadian people that we have been able to create, in such a short space of time, a machine of this kind which has rendered yeoman sendee to the dominion.
My mind goes back to the establishment of unemployment insurance in Great Britain, I think it was in 1911. They started off with just seven trades. Today, of course, it covers around 14,000,000 people. That act has been amended thirteen or fourteen times in a major way. As I said to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) this afternoon, the engineering of men in a social way is more or less a virgin field into which the world has not moved, except in the last generation. I believe it is to our credit that we have been so successful in this country, and I hope, in the light of practical experience, we may move forward in this regard.
I spoke of the development of the fund. For the year ended March 31, 1942, roughly nine months after contributions became payable, the balance in the fund was about $44,000,000. A year later it was $114 million. In 1944 it was $190 million; in 1945 it was $268 million; in 1946 it was $317 million, and in 1947 it *totalled $372 million. These, of course, are net totals. We have paid out benefits every year.


Joseph Henry Harris: I suggest that the minister should be very conservative as to the net totals.


Humphrey Mitchell: Oh, yes. I think
$441 million is only chicken feed.


Mr. CASSELMAN:: Where do you get that chicken feed?


Humphrey Mitchell: My mind goes back to the experience of Great Britain. Those who
Unemployment Insurance Act

have followed the-course of this sort of legislation will recall that in the twenties the fund was absolutely bankrupt. There they had the advantage of a high level of employment during the war, as we did; then they had that collapse or recession, whatever you want to call it; and they had the same revolutionary condition in Europe at that time. There was the Russian revolution, the putsch in Germany, the trouble in Hungary and so on, and had it not been for unemployment insurance, I sometimes wonder what might have happened even in Great Britain.
I am not very much impressed by people who, when they have $10 in their pockets, think they are millionaires and want to get rid of it, and when it is spent lean on the other fellow. I believe this unemployment insurance money belongs to the good people who paid into the fund. By the very nature of things, thousands of people who have paid into this fund will not draw a copper from it. I believe this parliament, not necessarily the government, but parliament-is charged with some responsibility with respect to the proper administration of that money because, as I have said before, I will take my chance on the working people of the country. They are the backbone of every country and of civilization itself; they always have been, and I hope they alw'ays will be as far as this dominion is concerned.
To the end of February of this year, that is in the past six years and eight months, benefits paid to workers under the act have totalled $111,000,000; but in passing I might make a reference to that figure, having in mind the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis). At one time, through circumstances over which no government had any control, we had 16,000 people in the city of Vancouver drawing unemployment insurance. They had a bad snow condition there this winter. My mind goes back to the thirties, when there were many people in the same position in Vancouver, and we had a great deal of trouble. This gives [DOT] some indication of the cushion this form of legislation can provide under conditions of that kind.
The outlay of benefits naturally has been greater in the last three years because we had maximum employment during the war, and following the end of the war there were necessary lay-offs because of the change-over from the wartime to a peacetime economy. Then, of course, a great many more persons are covered now.
Not all the money' to the credit of the fund has been contributed by employer, employee and the government. Since the act became operative, a total of more than $34,000,000 has

been earned from interest on investments and profit on sale of securities. The gross revenue of the fund to the end of February of this y'ear was $552,000,000.
It is our desire to bring as many as possible under coverage of the act. The bill to come before the house gives the unemployment insurance commission more authority in this respect. The idea is to reduce the number of excepted employments to the very minimum.
As instances, in 1943 it was provided that certain employees of hospitals and charitable institutions and employees of public utilities, owned by municipal, provincial and dominion governments could come under the act.
In 1946 we included lumbering and logging workers in British Columbia and employees in transportation by water. Recently, stevedoring has been added. The industries which remain excluded are those which are particularly' difficult to insure.
There is another point I want to mention to the house. Hundreds of letters have come to my office in recent years and I know many more have been received by the unemployment insurance commission, suggesting that persons in insurable employ'ment, who have been forced to give up work because of illness, should receive benefits. That, of course, is impossible on the present actuarial basis. It would require very much more substantial contributions on the part of employer and employee and the government. In any event, this was intended to be an unemployment insurance plan, not a combination of unemployment and sickness insurance.
Apart from those I have mentioned, there are other proposed amendments to the act which have been drafted to ensure better administration and to enable the unemployment insurance commission to deal more effectively with problems that have come up in the past trvo years. An act of this kind necessarily is subject to periodical change. In Great Britain their unemployment insurance act was passed in 1911, and during the succeeding quarter of a century fifteen amending bills were brought before parliament.
When members have studied the bill, I know the government will have the benefit of much in the way of constructive suggestion and criticism.
That will be welcomed because it is our desire to have an Unemployment Insurance Act which will function in the interests of the public to the highest possible degree.


Angus MacInnis: The minister has made a fairly comprehensive survey of the amendments he intends to bring in and of suggested improve-

Unemployment Insurance Act
ments, as I understood from his reading of
them,	to the Unemployment Insurance Act. I realize the difficulties, but I am sorry that the minister and the government did not find it possible to make some extension of unemployment insurance to cover sickness, particularly when it occurs to the recipient of unemployment insurance. I drew attention to this earlier this session; and I cited a typical case, using a fictitious name of a person who was insured and became unemployed for several weeks and drew his unemployment benefits under the act. Then, while still unemployed, and when there was no employment available for him, he became ill, and certainly, if he needed an income when he was unemployed and well, he needed it still more when he was unemployed and ill. But his income stopped and no provision was made for him. I appreciate that the Unemployment Insurance Act is based on actuarial considerations and that if its provisions are to be extended in any large measure in certain directions the amount of the contributions will have to be increased, but since the purpose of the act is to provide an income for a person when he is involuntarily unemployed, I think we should go a step farther and provide insurance or an income when he is ill, because illness is also involuntary.
The minister referred to the fact that the Unemployment Insurance Act came into effect in 1940, and he left the impression that it was the designed policy of the government to bring the act into force at that time. As a matter of fact it was purely a matter of expediency.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The minister is smiling.


Humphrey Mitchell: I was not in the house
then.


Angus MacInnis: He realizes the truth of what I am saying. But I will accept his apology.


Humphrey Mitchell: My hon. friend and I went through all this in the 1930's.


Angus MacInnis: it from the government anyway? That is the wrong outlook and governments themselves have been largely responsible for people getting into that frame of mind.
I suggest to the minister that his public relations in connection with unemployment insurance leaves much to be desired. Persons contributing under the act do not realize that the act provides only for unemployment, that it is not designed to pay benefits when a person has reached the age when he is no longer able to carry on or is retired. I do not know what the unemployment insurance commission would do in that case. It is possible that they may pay some benefits, I do not know, but those who contribute should know exactly what they are entitled to because of their contribution. I do not believe the department has made that clear, and consequently there is a great deal of misunderstanding.
Perhaps it is too late, but I hope the minister and the government will take into consideration the broadening of this act. What is really required is a comprehensive social security program that will take care of the individual through all the hazards of his industrial life.
Mr. JOHN R. MacNICOL (Davenport): Mr. Speaker, the minister did not mention it, but he knows that we passed an unemployment insurance act in this house, I think in 1935. It was during the administration of the late Viscount Bennett. At that time the minister sat in this corner to my left. He may remember my going to England to inquire into the matter, after which I delivered a speech in the house in support of the principle of unemployment insurance.
I compliment the minister upon bringing in amendments to the act. It was well understood that amendments would be required as the years went by. As he said, the British act has been amended many times and this act may have to be amended again. I rose merely to state that the 1935 act was not put into operation because of the controversy in the country at that time as to dominion and provincial jurisdiction.
I have only one word to say in addition to what I said a few moments ago. If the act does not call for it I hope that provision will be made for the education of the personnel of the unemployment insurance offices throughout Canada, so that they may deal more intelligently with the unemployed who come before them to register when they are unemployed.
It may be through the instigation of the management, but I know that in the offices in Toronto members of the personnel have

been sent to various plants so that they can observe what goes on in the plants and what is done by the various work people. They become better equipped to deal with unemployment in that line when it comes into the office. I realize that the number sent out may not be very large, but I heartily support any program which leads to the education of the office personnel so that they may become better qualified to deal with unemployment problems, in the many trades.
I know of one young woman in the women's branch in Toronto who has visited many plants where women are employed in order to acquaint herself with what women are doing. She told me that this has been of great benefit to her when dealing with unemployed people coming into the office. She knew what qualifications are required for different jobs and she was able to send applicants to jobs. I hope that the minister will give instructions to his managers or superintendents in Toronto and elsewhere so that this field of endeavour may be expanded.
When a young woman-and this would apply to men as well-comes into an unemployment insurance office and registers as being unemployed, if the person she talks to is familiar with jobs for girls generally she may find on her files a position that is open which would suit the applicant, even though it is not exactly the same type of work she has been doing. I may not have made myself quite clear, but if the act does not call for something like that I hope arrangements will be made to have it included.
I will support anything that will lead to the better operation of the Unemployment Insurance Act. The success of the act depends large!}' upon the intelligence of those employed in the different offices. This is one line of endeavour which, I think, would result in a greater success of the act.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Clarence Gillis: Mr. Speaker, I was a little in doubt about rising at this time because I was not sure whether you had put the motion before recess. I am heartily in favour of the resolution if it means what it says, the extension of the act and its clarification.
I wish to make just a few observations for the minister's benefit before he brings in the bill, and that is why I make them at this time.

Unemployment Insurance Act
I want to say first to the minister that my relations with those who administer the unemployment insurance and selective service regulations have been very happy. The administration, from the maritime director down to the local offices, with whom I have had to deal have been very co-operative and efficient, and while they had the selective service regulations under their administration they regulated manpower to a large extent.
I was sorry to see that phase of the unemployment insurance office set-up abandoned. The employer used to put in his requirements and the officials could direct the employees to suitable employment and so forth. But today that phase of the work has been discontinued. The employers no longer use it for that purpose, and about all the unemployment insurance officers can do is to register the man and tell him where he may go and get employment. It has been difficult, because the average person who comes in and registers for employment often blames the unemployment insurance officer for not being able to secure employment for him when in reality such officers have nothing to do with the direction of employees into any particular industry.
There is one thing I wish to bring forcefully to the minister's attention. I have written him on this subject and I have had his reply. I have always argued that social legislation in Canada should be reciprocal with similar legislation in any other part of the British empire. In the matter of unemployment insurance it is not reciprocal with British unemployment insurance, and this has created difficulties for Canadians. I have had cases come to my attention of seamen in particular. I can think of one seaman who served in the British merchant marine all during the war and up to the end of 1947. These men paid unemployment insurance in Britain. The British government then repatriated them. They were sent home. When they landed in Canada they were of the opinion they could apply for unemployment insurance and have it paid in Canada. They believed they could register for employment. I was reasonably sure, after looking at their books, and finding them paid up to date, that there would be sufficient administrative latitude granted to the commission to take care of cases of that kind, but I was advised by the minister's office that there was no reciprocal arrangement with Britain with regard to unemployment insurance.
If the act is to be amended and the scope broadened, that is one particular phase of unemployment insurance which should be considered by the minister. We shall not have very many cases of that kind, but where there 5849-198
is even one case or there are two or ten cases the individuals are as badly affected as if there were hundreds. To the individual it is the most important thing in the world. I suggest that the minister should consider this matter before the bill is introduced.
Another matter that I brought to his attention and tried for some considerable time to have ironed out is the problem of the veteran who came back and took employment in some given industry, but who did not work there long enough to make the 180 contributions which would qualify him for benefits. He may *have made 80, 90 or 100 contributions; I think it was 107 contributions in the case that I brought to the attention of the department. The individual to whom I have reference then left his employment-he was on the railroad- and took a course, under the regulations laid down by the government in the rehabilitation set-up. After completing the course, he came back but could not secure employment in the field for which he was trained. He applied for unemployment insurance and was told by the officials that he could not secure unemployment insurance because he had not made a sufficient number of contributions to establish the benefit year. He then applied for his armed services credits, which would have qualified him under ordinary circumstances. He was told then that, because he was taking this course, they could not give him the armed services credit, with the result that the boy was unemployed for a long time and, as far as I know, he may still be unemployed. I know he was unemployed in November, 1947. To meet that particular case would require only a slight change.
I have always contended that one cannot make these rules and regulations so rigid that the people who apply them are merely automatons who read a book. There is no latitude given them which permits them to exercise any discretion where there are extenuating circumstances. I think any parliament or any government which brings in an act and makes it so rigid as that has very little confidence in the people appointed to administer that act. I know the officials of the minister's department; I know the minister himself, and I suggest that the deputy minister or someone at the top of the administrative staff should be able to say: This is a small problem; very little money is involved in it; therefore we shall use our discretion. I know they are borderline cases; nevertheless they affect people. By the attitude that has been taken in the past you have created in the mind of this individual a resentment which will be aired in every circle in which he travels. Why not give the deputy minister or someone in the department the
Unemployment Insurance Act

power in the act. to say, We shall take care of that. It is a borderline case. I know you cannot cure them all, but when we are passing legislation we should at least have some confidence in the people who are administering the act, so that in eases of that kind they will have sufficient power to correct any difficulty that may arise.


James Horace King: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member. May I call the attention of hon. members to the fact that we have before us a money resolution preceding a bill to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act. The question before the house is a motion-I want to emphasize these words-to go into committee of the whole to consider this resolution. The hon. member will remember that it has been decided by the House of Commons that a money resolution cannot be amended, I would ask hon. members to confine their remarks to the merits of the question and not go into details, but to wait until the resolution has reached the next stage of committee of the whole. After the committee of the whole has dealt with the resolution, it will be reported. Then the minister will introduce the bill which will be given first and second readings, and then the house will go into committee of the whole on it. At that time the committee will have an opportunity of discussing the several clauses of the bill.
On a resolution this afternoon I made the mistake of permitting the minister to answer questions, which he is not allowed to do. I am not calling the hon. member who has the floor out of order at the present time, but I make these remarks so that we shall not discuss the same matter two or three times, but only once and thereby save the time of the house.


Clarence Gillis: I had nearly finished anyway, Mr. Speaker. Under ordinary circumstances I would wait for the bill so as to have a look at it, but in my opinion this resolution opens up a broad discussion. The intention is to enlarge the scope of the act, to clarify certain provisions of it and so on. I rose at this time in anticipation of the minister looking into the bill once more before he brings it into the house, because the spots on which I have put my finger are sore spots, and he may have a chance to amend the measure he is bringing in, so as to take care of the problems I have been discussing with him. These are real problems in my part of the country.
There are many other aspects of the matter to which I should like to refer, but I wish to have a look at the bill and I shall have more to say on the second reading.


Lawrence Wilton Skey: Mr. Speaker, I am another member who is pleased with this excellent piece of legislation which is brought down for the purpose of enlarging the scope of the act and clarifying its provisions. My remarks this evening will be quite brief, but I did wish to second what the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) said this afternoon with regard to sickness benefits. I am of the opinion that people who are unemployed as a result of sickness should be entitled to draw some benefits, because that is the time they need this help most.
The hon. member also spoke of the lack of public information so far as this legislation is concerned, and in this connection I should like to refer the minister to a recent public-opinion poll which found that only 40 per cent of the people insured under this act knew anything about the benefits to which they are entitled. This information was published in the Literary Review. Perhaps the minister's attention was drawn to it.
There is an almost scandalous lack of information on the part of those who are making contributions; and I suggest that the minister's department would serve the public very well if, in sending out the new books as these unemployment insurance books come due, they would also send an information card with them to those who are contributing, so that these people would know exactly what should be paid in case of unemployment, what their benefits are, and how they can realize those benefits.
There are two classes of people who come under the Unemployment Insurance Act and for whom particularly I should like to speak. In the first class we find young women and, in the second, the men and women in the older age group.	.
As regards the first, the young women, a great many of these girls come into employment in industry or office work and, after five or six years, they pass, we hope permanently, out of the labour market through marriage. During their time of employment they have perhaps been working continuously and contributing continuously to the unemployment insurance fund, and they have never drawn any benefits from it and never will. The contributions they make are lost to them entirely.
I would suggest to the minister, if he has time to reconsider the legislation before it is brought down in the form of a bill, to take into account the position in which these young girls find themselves; and perhaps he might find some way, through the Unemployment Insurance Act, to make them a nice wedding present of their own contributions.

Unemployment Insurance Act
The second class comprises those of the older age group who perhaps have to pass permanently from the working population of the country. The same argument I have made with respect to the young girls applies to the older men and women who will be passing permanently out of the labour market. Perhaps they have an unbroken record of contributions to the unemployment insurance fund and in their old age they will need every help they can get. They will never receive any benefits from the unemployment insurance contributions which they have made.
I would say again to the minister that in this legislation he might see his way clear to giving this older age group of workers a nice retirement benefit.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I rise to say just a few words with respect to this measure at this time. My colleagues the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. MacTnnis) and the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) dealt with a number of the points in which I am interested, and I should like to support in particular the plea of the member for Vancouver East that the minister give further consideration to the question of enlarging the scope of the act to provide for sickness coverage, at least in the case of those who become ill while receiving unemployment insurance benefits. We can go into that matter again at a later time and I intend to do so. In fact, at some stage I intend to quote from the remarks of the present Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) when at the Liberal convention in 1919 he moved an important resolution which called for a number of things, some of which have not yet been put on the statute books, even though twenty-nine years have since gone by.
Tonight I wish to speak about two matters which I had hoped would be included in any measure the purpose of which is to enlarge the scope of the Unemployment Insurance Act. The two points which I desire to bring to the attention of the minister are those which the Winnipeg and district trades and labour council has come to the conclusion are the most important ones so far as the making of changes in the act itself is concerned.
First of all, there is this difficult question of suitable employment. We have had a number of discussions about it from time to time during the past few years when the administration of this act has been before us in the estimates, and I must confess that the minister can point out that there are provisions in the act which give the administration the authority to make the definitions of suitable employ-
5849- 198i
ment which have caused the trouble. Because that authority is in the act, it seems to me that some change should have been made with respect to that matter at this time.
May I sum up the situation- by reading a couple of quotations from a brief on the matter, prepared by the Winnipeg and district trades and labour council:
In the long run, it is more advantageous to let a person draw benefits a little longer, and put him into a job where he will be satisfied, where he will work to the best advantage; than it is to harry him, under penalty of losing benefits, into a job for which he is unsuited, and with which he will never be content.
Further on, there are a couple of short paragraphs which I should like to read. The first has reference to a number of cases that have already been cited in this brief where the suitability angle is referred to in relation to wages. I quote:
The cases here referred to concern only "suitability" with respect to wages. There are many other factors, such as distance from home, nature of work, domestic responsibilities and union agreements, all of which affect the suitability of employment.
It is the opinion of the Winnipeg and district trades and labour council that no pressure whatever should be placed on a man who is sincerely seeking employment, to compel him to accept work at a lower rate of pay than that to which he has been accustomed.


James Horace King: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but I must ask him to confine his remarks to the merits of the resolution which is before the house.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I call your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the resolution which we shall be asked to consider in committee? The resolution- reads:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940, to enlarge the scope of the act, to clarify certain provisions thereof . . .
And so on-. As a matter of fact, I had concluded what I intended to say on the particular point that I was discussing-


James Horace King: Order. I do not wish to be disagreeable to the hon. member or to any other hon. member, but he will understand that I have a duty to perform and that is to keep the discussion relevant to the resolution before the house. That resolution is:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1949, to enlarge the scope of the act, to clarify certain provisions thereof, more specially in relation to contributions, procedure, offences and penalties, and to provide further for modification in the rates of contributions with the object of equalizing, to some extent, the total contributions payable by employers and employees.

Unemployment Insurance Act
I do not think hon. members should discuss employment, whether salaries should be increased on account of the fact that people live far away from the place at which they work and so on.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It so happens, Mr. Speaker, that I had concluded, before you interrupted on the point, the matter I was discussing. But I must insist on my right to do so under the provisions of the resolution before us. It proposes to amend the act "to clarify certain provisions thereof", and I was complaining about a provision in the act that is not clear-"more specially in relation to contributions, procedure, offences and penalties". As the minister knows, this whole question I am talking about is one of the most ticklish and difficult procedures that the unemployment insurance commission has to deal with under the act. It is under this section that the penalty of being denied benefits causes a loss of confidence on the part of workers. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that a careful reading of the act itself, and perhaps a closer acquaintance with the administration of the act, would convince anyone that what I have said bears directly upon the resolution.
I just want to conclude by saying that I am sure the minister has received these representations from bodies like the Winnipeg and district trades and labour council; and I hope that even yet, before the bill is introduced, he will see to it that one of the things it clarifies is that particular provision.
The other important point which the Winnipeg and district trades and labour council-along with other labour bodies-felt it wanted to make representations on had to do with the fact that the act, as it now stands, provides for only one umpire in the whole of Canada. At another stage I shall go into some detail as to the difficulties that arise because of this fact; but I ask the minister to give consideration to the request of bodies such as the council to which I have referred, for an amendment to provide for at least three umpires in a country of this size. I am sure he will agree with me that those two amendments to the act which have been asked for would add a great deal to the usefulness and the value of a piece of legislation which, we all admit, is already of great use and value in the life of this country.


Frederick Davis Shaw: In keeping, Mr. Speaker, with the examples set by previous speakers I propose to be brief. In fact, what I have to say may occupy less time than I expect, because I found it virtually impossible to hear what Your Honour said when directing words of advice to the previous

speaker. However I shall proceed, believing firmly that you will stop me if you deem it advisable to do so.
It is to be observed that the resolution before the house indicates that it is expedient to introduce a measure to do, among other things, a bit of clarification. It is about that feature, Mr. Speaker, that I wish to make a few observations. Under the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1940, we find a section, namely section 31, dealing specifically with persons eligible for benefits under the act. I have found that there is a rigidity of interpretation which is hardly justified and which, in my estimation, hardly carries out the spirit of the act. Whether or not clarification is possible remains, of course, a matter of conjecture. Possibly if we were provided with copies of the various directives which are sent out to the regional officers, we might be in a better position to know exactly why they make certain decisions. Let me hasten to observe that I am not speaking critically of those who administer the Unemployment Insurance Act. My limited relationship with them has been pleasant indeed. However I know they are human beings and as such must err upon occasion.
Interpretations under those sections establishing eligibility have aroused the indignation of at least one organization within the province of Alberta, or at least the branch of it within Alberta, namely, the brotherhood of maintenance of way employees who have had several bitter experiences with cases with which they were associated and which affected persons who belonged to their organization. While I do not dare to endeavour to cite too many details of a specific case, I shall give just one or two facts to try to bear out what I had in mind with respect to the spirit of the act.
For the moment I shall use a fictitious name, that of John Brown. I do that for this reason. I shall hand this particular case to the minister. because I feel that he believes we should not allow every case to stand with the decision of the lone umpire functioning under the act. Here is a man, John Brown, for example, who is employed for thirty-six years as a section foreman and who retired at the age of sixty-five. He is a man drawing a salary of $6.75 a day. He owned his home in a small hamlet and had living with him his wife-an aged lady who was badly crippled by rheumatism- and her aged sister eighty-four years old.
This man became unemployed and made application for benefits under the act. For a time he received benefits. He was advised that a certain position was open to him and that he

Unemployment Insurance Act
must apply for it. This position was in a tiny mining centre, and the employment to which he was directed was in the kitchen peeling potatoes and washing dishes at $80 a month, plus his board. It would have required $2 a day, plus board, to hire a man to look after his home and take care of the two adult ladies there.


James Horace King: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but I would point out to him that at this stage he should not discuss particular cases. The hon. member should confine his remarks to the general principle of the resolution which is before the house. When the bill is introduced he will know what is in it; and if what he is interested in is not in the bill, he can make representations accordingly.


Angus MacInnis: I think that ruling, Mr. Speaker, cannot be allowed to go unchallenged, because we are dealing here with proposals made for amending an act. Those proposals are wide open; as a matter of fact, there is more scope than -when the bill is before us for second reading. The bill will contain definite principles, but in this resolution the terms used to describe the principles which will be in the bill are very wide. During the time I have been in this house I have not seen discussion at the resolution stage limited to any particular point, as long as it had some relation to the subject matter involved; and I should be glad indeed if Your Honour would cite the rule or standing order that provides for the limitation of debate at this stage of a measure.


Mr. GREEN:: I should like to support the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Mac-Innis), and I trust Your Honour is not endeavouring to cut down our right of debate at this stage. The resolution itself is in very broad terms. It refers to "enlarging the scope of the act", which is a general statement, and "to clarify certain provisions thereof." You really could not have a resolution more broadly worded than the one now before the house. I think it is admitted that we would have full freedom to discuss the question of unemployment insurance during the committee stage of the resolution, and I submit that we have just as much freedom of discussion with Your Honour in the chair. I submit that there is nothing in the rules which would permit Your Honour to restrict debate as you are endeavouring to do at this time.


James Horace King: I tried to make it clear to the house that I was not making a ruling when I drew attention to the fact that some hon.
members were discussing individual cases. They may be relevant; it is always possible to find words in a resolution which may cover some cases, but I pointed out that if each hon. member decided to discuss individual cases during the resolution stage, instead of discussing the merits of the resolution itself, it would take a very considerable time. If it is the wish of hon. members that this should be done, well and good; but I thought it my duty to call attention to the fact that the motion before the house is for the Speaker to leave the chair for the house- and I want to emphasize this again-to go into committee of the whole to consider this resolution.
As I stated a moment ago, it has already been decided that these resolutions cannot be amended except in committee, and the minister is not permitted to speak twice on the resolution at this stage. So I thought it only fair to suggest to hon. members that they discuss the merits of the resolution now and go into the details when we are in committee. Then, if they have some further provisions they are anxious to have in the bill, such provisions may be brought forward when the bill is under consideration.


Howard Charles Green: Surely an hon. member has the right to cite a case as an illustration of the point he is trying to make, and I believe that is what the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Shaw) was doing. If we are not to be permitted to do this our discussion may be seriously curtailed. The question of amendment has really nothing to do with our right to debate this resolution. No one is asking for permission to amend the resolution, but surely wTe have the right to debate it.


James Horace King: I would call the attention of the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) and other hon. members to the fact that I did not intend to suggest they could not debate the resolution now before the house. Of course it is their privilege to debate it, but there is a difference between the privilege of debating the matter, and not confining their remarks to the principle of the resolution now before the house.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I ask Your Honour to consider one other point in connection with the matter?


James Horace King: Order. I suggest that the hon. member for Red Deer proceed.


Frederick Davis Shaw: Speaking broadly and in a very general way, I have endeavoured to emphasize the fact that the administrative officers operating under this act, being normal
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people, are bound to err, especially when the terms of the act are such as would tend to bring about that natural result. I was not quoting facts relative to a specific case; I took a case which was generally typical of conditions which have aroused the ill-will, Shall I say, of a particular labour organization, the brotherhood of maintenance of way employees. I suggested that it surely could not be argued that the spirit of this act is being followed when an individual who has been employed in a position which enabled him to be home every night to look after his aged wife and aged sister-in-law, a position which paid him $6.75 a daj', should now be obliged to leave his home and travel sixty miles to take a job in the kitchen of a mining camp, peeling potatoes and washing dishes, for $80 a month and board, more particularly when it would become necessary to hire someone at a minimum of $2 a day and board to look after his dependents at home. That is a situation which has developed under the act, a situation which has led the assistant general chairman of the brotherhood of maintenance of way employees to state:
, . . I feel that labour should not be required to accept such a decision as given in this case, -without lodging a strong protest in the highest quarters and the arbitrary powers of the umpire, if not used with discretion and a sense of fair play towards labour, should be curtailed.
That is the feeling of the assistant general chairman. It might also be of interest to note that they say a rank injustice has been done not only to the individual or individuals but to those dependent upon them, and in this communication they refer constantly to a strong feeling of resentment which has developed at what they call these arbitrary tactics. Possibly that expression is rather strong. I want to emphasize that I think the men who are administering the act are endeavouring to do a good job, but I wonder if they are plagued by directives which countermand their desires, so that generally they are placed in an unfortunate position, as a result of which their actions under the act may take on the appearance of arbitrary action.
Then, of course, they go on to point out that surely the welfare of the workingman Should be taken into account, and in fact they say it should be the primary object under the act. They say the maintenance of way employees have been aroused wherever this case has been discussed.
The point I want to make is this. During the consideration in committee on the bill which will follow this resolution, I hope that more than merely passing consideration will

be given to the sections relating to eligibility under this act, and that we may find out whether or not this situation, which evidently prevails in certain parts of Canada, is general across the country. I have not desired to be critical in what I have said, but I think the duty rests upon us to remove conditions which result in cases of this kind.
May I point out that under the act this case was carried right to the top so far as the act goes; it was carried to the umpire; and, so far as the employee is concerned, he is finished at that point. But I fancy the minister, if he were so disposed could assess the facts of a case like this and, if he finds that a rank injustice has been done, he can take the necessary action to render justice to this poor old fellow, who believed that he had complied with all the regulations, and who, I believe, did and who certainly deserves better consideration than to be told to go out washing dishes, even though there is a difference of some hundreds of dollars a month in the rate of pay.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to give general support to this resolution. When I first came to parliament I introduced on the first or second day a motion in the house, along with the then member for Winnipeg North Centre, Mr. Woods-worth, in favour of unemployment insurance and old age pensions. I happened to be the president of the Union of Canadian Municipalities when we were urging this thing in the early 1920's and before. We had hundreds of employees in the various departments in the city of Toronto, with a payroll running into millions of dollars. Some of them went to the first war and afterwards returned to their old positions in the city's service. Then we had the school board, public utilities, the harbour board, and hydro, and later on, the transportation commission, all with a large number of employees and a big payroll.
Before the present government introduced the Unemployment Insurance Act in 1940, some of the municipalities in Ontario went to Queen's Park, Mr. Hepburn then being premier, and we were told that under the municipal act we could not legally pay our employees on retirement $12 a week, and were recommended to come to Ottawa. The result was that this act was introduced, and it has been a blessing not only to the employee but to the employer.
I do not want to impose any undue burden on the employer; far from it. Unemployment insurance has been a splendid thing for the country. There are certain defects in the present law, and I believe that the minister has already received representations from the public utilities of the province, from employees

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and employers, who recommended certain amendments. Is that not right?


Humphrey Mitchell: That is correct.


Thomas Langton Church: I wish to support this resolution. The more a person pays in, whether it be employee or employer, the better the results will be. I have seen a good deal of the working of this act and it has been a great thing for the country. Long may it continue. I believe that the amendments now proposed will clarify the existing regulations which are issued by the minister and his officials. I want to say that he has some very good men in that department. I know because I have seen a good deal of them. I shall await the bill with interest and in the meantime give general support to this resolution.


Joseph Henry Harris: Mr. Speaker, I should not like this occasion to pass without my word of commendation for this resolution. I think earlier today the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) was perhaps a little dubious on which side of the fence I leaned.


Humphrey Mitchell: Never.


Joseph Henry Harris: Thanks so much. I am firmly convinced that legislation of this kind is good for the weal of Canada. I remember so well reading what the late Mr. Lloyd George had to say prior to the introduction of his unemployment insurance measure in the British house and before he made that great speech on the subject of wastage-the wastage of manpower, the wastage of the energies of the British people, the wastage of waterpower, waters tumbling down a mountainside, leaping from rock to rock, but grinding no corn. We of the present generation have learned how to harness that waterpower, and my imagination was gripped by his words. When in this honourable assembly we had to wait until 1940 for unemployment insurance legislation, I thought we, too, had waited too long.
I do not want to be confined in my remarks, Your Honour, to the individual clauses of the bill which will come before us in a day or two, but rather I want to make a few observations in a broad general way, as one of this chamber who is privileged to see, on the one hand, a couple of hundred employees contributing each week to this unemployment insurance fund, another 350 in another place, and another forty out west. The fund today amounts to $450 million. I ask the Minister of Labour if that is not the correct figure.


Humphrey Mitchell: Close to it.


Joseph Henry Harris: It is earning $30,000,000 a year. It is like a snowball going
down hill growing in magnitude. But when the July sun of unemployment finds its place in the changing of things that snowball will melt away. The day may yet come when this fair Canada of ours will be short of funds wherewith to pay back to those who have subscribed to the unemployment relief fund, and we shall find ourselves-pray God not for a while or in our time-borrowing money with which to provide the funds necessary to pay unemployment relief. I hope that day will not come. I am thinking of those with whom I am associated when I say that I hope that for a long time no one of them will find himself unemployed and unable to contribute to unemployment insurance.
I must from the Conservative point of view ask the minister when bringing down his bill to give consideration to this: Do not be carried away with the requests for the enlarging of the provisions of this bill which you propose to introduce. You have been asked to give consideration and to grant benefits which do not belong to this bill. I heard mention this afternoon of sickness insurance and whatnot. That is the responsibility of all of us, but it is not the responsibility of those with whom it has been my privilege to associate who have contributed each week, out of their pay envelopes, a mite for unemployment insurance for the time when they are unemployed. That mite is not for sickness but for unemployment only.
I charge this administration, or any administration which follows it, to take full responsibility for all these other features of social welfare. They should be considered individually. Let every herring hang by its own tail. Since 1940 this administration has extracted from the people $450 million, for what? For unemployment insurance. Put that S450 million into the category where it belongs and do not be carried away by any socialistic ideas of putting it elsewhere.
That strikes a common note with the Minister of Labour. Without reading the resolution which is in front of me, I say to him not to be tempted to dabble into this large reserve created by payments made by honest employees for one purpose and one purpose only. Keep it where it belongs. We will rise in our places and vote, if we are in power at that time, for sickness insurance and whatnot, or if someone else happens to be there we will support any measure of social security which is reasonable and right. Speaking for myself, I will not support any resolution which expands the payment out of this fund for sickness insurance, as was suggested this afternoon, or for any other kind of insurance.
Unemployment Insurance Act

When these things come along in their right order and in their right place they will receive sympathetic consideration. I say to the Minister of Labour and to the administration which surrounds him: Do not in any way dissipate the funds which have been paid in by employees whomsoever for any purpose whatsoever. Keep the fund inviolate and by itself.
Those of us who have been privileged to make up substantial payrolls are concerned when we see the pay envelope being desecrated by demands of provincial and dominion administrations. In common with the minister I am British and I consider that a man's pay envelope is something that is almost sacred. I consider it to be almost sacrilegious for any administration to go into a man's pay envelope and take out unemployment insurance and a dozen other things.
When the man comes home to his wife he brags that he is making $30 or $40 a week. He then hands her his pay envelope, and I hope the Canadian workman will always hand over his pay envelope to the woman who knows how to spend it and how to conserve it. He thinks he has earned $40 a week, but when she opens up the envelope she finds only $30. There have been deductions of $10.
I may be Victorian and old-fashioned, but really and truly I cannot bring myself to the point where I believe that that is fair, decent or right. I think every dollar a man earns should be in his pay envelope, so that his wife can receive it. Even if you have to come along and collect it afterwards, collect it as best you can and God help you. I think it is wrong to interfere with a man's pay envelope, especially a workingman.
There has been such a continuity and extension of this practice during the last two or three decades that some of us who have the privilege of filling pay envelopes throw up our hands in holy horror. We cannot explain to our employees what has happened. These men could not tell you on their oath how much has been taken from their pay envelopes for unemployment insurance. If the Minister of Labour told them that $450 million had been extracted since 1940 they could not understand it. All they think about is their take-home pay. Their wives can spend only 80 per cent of the money their husbands have earned. That is all that is contained in the pay envelope. This may not be parliamentary, but I think it is a sneaky way to take it away. They do not even know it is gone. All they know about is what is left in the pay envelope.
Let us be honourable. Let those who are charged with the administration of Canada's

affairs see that that fund of half a billion dollars is not dissipated. It should be reserved and conserved so that it can keep on earning $30,000,000 a year as it did last year. However, the rate of interest has gone down from four per cent to three per cent. We should save it for these people for that day which will come when they will need it.
History will repeat itself, but I hope it will be a long time before we have difficult times. We are getting so used to good times that it is going to shock a lot of people when the difficult days come. I hope the Minister of Labour will listen not to the ideas of some of our socialist friends, and I am thinking of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), who bewails the fact that there is nothing in this for sickness insurance. Leave the blessed thing alone. We will tackle sickness insurance when sickness insurance needs to be tackled. Leave the unemployment fund intact because it may be needed. Lloyd George lived long enough to see it needed in England. I hope the minister will live long enough to see this party on this side of the house administer it in Canada on behalf of him and his friends.


Humphrey Mitchell: That is the only time you will need it, when you are over here.


Joseph Henry Harris: Thank you. I turned my deaf ear so that I could not get it. I do hope that this fund will not be dissipated in any way whatsoever, and that the minister will not listen to the blandishments he may receive from the left particularly, and perhaps the odd one from the right. Leave the resolution intact as it stands, inviolate. Put it through this house and it will get some support in the years to come, and this administration which is looking after it in our interests will receive the endorsation of the people of Canada along with the endorsation of those who have the privilege of sitting on this side.


Mr. G. K. FRASER (Peterborough West):: Mr. Speaker, on March 23 I asked the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) a question and I should like to read it now. It was prompted by a resolution that was passed by the city council of Peterborough and forwarded to me, a copy of which I showed the minister. The question may be found on page 2504 of Hansard, and reads as follows:
Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. As municipal welfare departments are receiving many applications each day for public assistance from unemployed persons during the time that these persons are waiting to receive their first cheque from the unemployment insurance commission, and as the minister knows this welfare is charged one hundred per cent to the munici-

Unemployment Insurance Act
pality, this is the question: Will consideration be given by the commission to shortening the delay in the payment of the first cheque to a waiting period of six days instead of the present waiting period of nine days, during which time no payment is made of unemployment insurance benefits?
The minister said:
Mr. Mitchell:	The hon. member has stated
the position correctly. Of course, the responsibility for unemployment relief is that of the municipalities and the provinces. At the moment amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act are being studied by my department and an announcement of government policy will be made in the usual manner.
When the minister made his statement today I do not think he said anything about shortening the waiting period. I do hope that, when this bill is brought down, consideration will be given to this point because it is certainly unfair to the workers today and to the municipalities.
On the same day I asked the following question:
I have another question. Has the dominion government considered increasing these unemployment insurance benefits owing to the increased cost of living?
The cost of living today, as the minister knows, is sky-high. With $450 million- in the unemployment insurance treasury, I see no reason why, for the time being, these benefits cannot be increased. I hope that the minister will give consideration to that.


Mr. D. G. ROSS (St. Paul's):: I have not the command of voice of my colleague, the hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris). I was entertaining some of my friends from my own riding in Toronto who are very important people, and I said to them that I was sorry, that we would probably miss the wonderful speech which has just been made by the hon. member for Danforth. However I must say that we did hear the speech because, as we came down the hall, we heard practically every word that the hon. gentleman said. It was a very able speech, and I agree with everything that he said.
I have only a few remarks to make in connection with this matter. The minister said that he had had a letter from some man in the United States who told him that he wished the Unemployment Insurance Act was as well administered in the United States as it is in Canada. I think it is well administered in Canada, but I think it is well administered in the United States also. I find that it is well administered there.
I should like, in passing, to point out to the minister that it is most important that he should have the best people that we can
possibly get to administer this fund in Ontario so that we do not make communists. That is my point about it, and I think it is very important.
The minister said that this act was actuarially sound. I do not know whether it is or not; I do not know whether we have had sufficient experience to tell us whether it is actuarially sound or not; I hope it is, and I hope that we administer it in that way.
There is just one thing that appeals to me in this matter. I have had a little correspondence with the minister in connection with a certain case, and I know he has had correspondence along the same line. When a person has been paying into the unemployment insurance fund for years and all of a sudden meets with a terrible accident which incapacitates him, it seems very difficult when nothing can be done for him. The minister said that there are lots of people who have been paying into this fund who will never get a dollar out of it. I do not think this fund goes far enough. Any person who has done an honest day's work for years and meets with an accident which incapacitates him should have some recourse. We know there are opportunities for insurance against such casualties; but, after all, if a person pays a premium into this fund for years he has the idea that if he meets with an accident he will be taken care of.


Humphrey Mitchell: How about car insurance and fire insurance? What do you want? Choose your weapons.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Perhaps I should get busy and find some insurance to compensate the minister when his government goes out of office not so very far from now. There should be some extension of this act to take care of a person who meets with an accident. I am speaking of the person who becomes absolutely incapacitated through no fault of his own and has paid into this fund for years. I know the act says a person is entitled to insurance so long as he is able and willing to work. Is that not what it says?


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: There is an opportunity here to do something with this act so that it will assist those persons to whom I have referred if they are not able to work. I am not talking about people who are sick. There are certain classes of sickness which may incapacitate; but where a person is incapacitated by an accident, something
Unemployment Insurance Act

should be done to compensate him for all the money he has paid into the insurance fund.
That is all I have to say, but I would ask the minister a question which I should like to have him answer. He said, in this letter to me, that the premium which would have to be paid by the individual would be consider-tbly greater than it is now. As far as sickness is concerned, possibly that is so. I am asking, however, about people who have accidents of one kind or another and not people who suffer in the ordinary course of employment. That is taken care of by workmen's compensation. How much more would such people as I have in mind have to pay? How much would the premium be increased to take care of that situation?
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Golding in the chair.


Mr. PEARKES:: There is one matter which I would bring to the minister's attention and on which I would ask him a question. I refer to a group of employees in the coal mines on Vancouver island, known as fire bosses. These employees are hired on a monthly salary, and from time to time their salary has been increased as a result of increases in wages paid to miners who are working in their gangs. Quite recently there has been an unfortunate cessation of work in the Nanaimo coal fields. The result has been that wages were increased to the miners, but it has also resulted in a corresponding increase in the monthly wages paid to the fire bosses. As a consequence, the fire bosses are no longer eligible for unemployment insurance, owing to the ceiling of, I believe, $3,120 a year, which is the maximum salary a monthly employee may draw if he is to obtain unemployment insurance.
I should like to read a paragraph from a letter I received from the secretary of the fire bosses' union, because I think it explains the case very well. I quote:
We have been in and out of the confines of this act at various times since it came into operation. For example, we contributed continuously from June 7, 1941, until December 23, 1943, when an increase in our monthly salary placed us in an exempted class. Since that time we again contributed for a short time in 1946. Then again in November, 1947, to present date. Since our monthly salary rises with miner's wages, any increase granted to end the present strike will again place us in the exempted class.
Now our complaint is, that although at present out of work due to the miner's strike we have been denied benefits for what we paid in between 1941-43. In 1944 we made strenuous efforts to continue our payments but were ruled out because we were on a monthly salary basis and were above the yearly ceiling set by the government.

My question is this. Do the amendments now being introduced raise the monthly ceiling?


Humphrey Mitchell: The amount has been raised from $2,400 to $3,120 per annum.


George Randolph Pearkes: In these amendments?


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I should like to ask the minister to comment on three points which were raised at a previous stage of the debate. First of all, I would ask him to say a word about sickness, but in raising the matter now I would ask him to follow me closely and to realize that I am not now asking him about the broad issue of an over-all scheme which might be called health insurance in general. I am asking now with specific reference to the kind of case which the hon. member for Vancouver East brought up and which is fairly common, the case of an insured person becoming unemployed, qualifying for benefits and becoming the recipient of benefits, but being taken ill later while in receipt of benefits. The minister knows that when that happens the recipient's benefits are cut off, even though there is still no employment for him. I am not asking the minister to go into the broad picture of health insurance at this time, but I hope he will comment on this point.
It seems to me that some amendment might have been made to the act at this time to provide that such a person who is receiving benefits shall continue to receive them, even though he may be taken ill during that period of time.
The second matter on which I would ask the minister to comment is that concerning which representations have been made to him from time to time, particularly the representations from the Winnipeg and district tirades and labour council to which I referred earlier this evening, having to do with suitable employment.
Again, I am not going into details such as we have gone into before with respect to the directives sent out, such as those referred to by the hon. member for Red Deer. I am referring to the general fact that there is a section in the act covering the matter.
The third point I would ask the minister to comment upon is the request from labour bodies for increasing the number of umpires from one to at least three.


Humphrey Mitchell: My hon. friend says he does not want me to cover the broad question of sickness insurance. You have to do so.

Unemployment Insurance Act


Stanley Howard Knowles: All right; go ahead.


Humphrey Mitchell: On the present basis,
this legislation cannot provide for sickness. A fresh actuarial basis would, in my opinion,
be necessary for that purpose.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: That is right.


Humphrey Mitchell: As regards suitable employment, I do not think it is possible to state in the English language what is suitable employment. I do not think it is possible in the drafting. However we have applied checks and balances. The hon. member for Red Deer raised a question, the details of which I do not know, but in such cases there is an appeal to a court of referees composed of employer, employees and an impartial chairman, with the right of appeal to an umpire.
My hon. friend has suggested three umpires. I have an open mind on that point; but he will agree with me, I believe, that it is far better to have one umpire and at least have some uniformity of decision such as is ensured by such a provision.
When we are speaking of suitable employment, it occurs to me that in Great Britain they have had unemployment insurance for thirty-seven years and they were never able to define the term in English. By the very nature of things, it is like a board of conciliation. It is like this House of Commons. Each case must be dealt with on its merits. If my hon. friend has the language, I should like to take a look . at it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I proceed for just a moment longer, Mr. Chairman?


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I wall just ask the minister the questions again. First of all, the minister mentioned the question of actuarial soundness.


Humphrey Mitchell: Certainly.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I should like to know a little bit about that, just how he knows about the fact of actuarial soundness. The other thing was this. I had a little bit of correspondence with the minister in connection with one case; that was with regard to accident. I said I did not think it would cost a great deal more to put that into the act, and the minister, m his letter to me, said the premium that was paid would not be nearly sufficient to cover the thing. What I should like to know is how much more the premium would have to be in order to cover the case of accident which created a total disability.


Humphrey Mitchell: I am not like some members of this House of Commons, who are
experts on everything and masters of nothing. I am not an actuary and I do not intend to try to be an actuary this evening.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Who are your
actuaries?


Humphrey Mitchell: I do not krow. I am
informed that they were the best we could get in the dominion at the time the act was drafted.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: That does not answer mv question.


Humphrey Mitchell: It must answer it.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: It does not. Who are your actuaries?


An hon. MEMBER:: Do not embarrass the minister.


Humphrey Mitchell: You cannot embarrass me. Do not worry about that. May I say that if I have the choice of having to take the advice or opinion of an actuary or having to take the advice or opinion of the hon. member for St. Paul's on the actuarial soundness of this legislation, I will take the actuary's advice every time.


Mr. ROSS (St. Paid's):: The minister makes a statement. The minister says they had the best actuaries there were. There are just 245 members in this House of Commons. The minister said he does not know who the actuaries are. My point is this. I think the House of Commons is entitled to know who those actuaries are, so that the House of Commons can judge them for themselves.


Humphrey Mitchell: The actuary was Mr. A. D. Watson of the Department of Insurance, who is recognized as one of the outstanding actuaries in the dominion.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: How much more would it cost to have accident included. I am not talking about sickness but rather of accident. The minister said it would cost a great deal more. I doubt that it would cost a great deal more. As I said before, a person who had been paying into this fund for years and who becomes totally incapacitated as a result of an accident through no fault of his own, should certainly be protected. He has a recourse of course; the minister knows it and I know it. He himself can take out insurance. But how much more will it cost to put it into this thing?


Humphrey Mitchell: I do not know.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: That is a good answer.


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes, It is a good answer. It is a correct answer. If my hon. friend knows how much it would cost, I wish he would
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tell me. I have made the point, I think, with the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre that sickness insurance by itself must stand on its own feet. In Great Britain sickness insurance was entirely separate from unemployment insurance. In New Zealand it is the same way. But when we are talking about sickness insurance-and I have advocated it all my life pretty' well; ever since I was in the labour movement, anyway-I wish sometimes the people who advocate it-and I am not opposing it when I make this observation-would tell the men and women of this country what it will actually cost. The hon. member for St. Paul's talked about deductions in connection with unemployment insurance.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That was the hon. member for Danforth.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I am talking about the premiums that are paid.


Humphrey Mitchell: That is a small amount in comparison with the deductions which will be necessary to have an over-all plan of health insurance.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: That is not what I am talking about.


Humphrey Mitchell: Sometimes the hon.
member does not know what he is talking about.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Wait a minute. The minister cannot say that. I take exception to that. I do know what I am talking about. I know more about it than the minister thinks I do.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: Or more than the minister does.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Or more than the minister does either.


Humphrey Mitchell: If my hon. friend would just stop interrupting, that is all I ask. I did not interrupt him when he was speaking.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: That is all right.


Humphrey Mitchell: I did not interrupt him when he was making that masterly oration just now. As I say, you should be frank with the people. There is no free nation on earth that I know of which has been able to combine health insurance and unemployment insurance.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I did not ask about health insurance.


William Henry Golding: Order.


Humphrey Mitchell: Does my hon. friend not see that by its terms this resolution has to do with unemployment insurance? He is talking about sickness insurance-


Douglas Gooderham Ross: No, I am not.


Humphrey Mitchell: -and accident insurance. Then what are you talking about?


Douglas Gooderham Ross: The minister has not answered my question. I am talking about something which is entirely different. I am talking about accident insurance. Perhaps the minister did not understand what I said. I will apologize for him for not understanding. I am talking about accident insurance. The minister says he does not know how much it will cost to have the kind of thing I am talking about put into this bill. I think it is a good suggestion that it should be put in. I would suggest to the minister that he get good people to find out what the cost would be.


William Henry Golding: Order.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I could find out how much it would cost; I could get, through people I know, how much it would cost; and the minister, through his connection, ought to be able to do the same thing.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I appreciate the minister's comments in reply to the questions I asked a few minutes ago. I want to say right now he is perfectly right in pointing out that if we are to have in this country-as some day I hope we shall-an over-all social insurance scheme, we shall have to pay for it. There is no doubt about that.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: We are glad to hear that.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The minister need not suggest that any of us think social security can be pulled off trees somewhere, but it will be worth paying for. As the minister knows, whenever the occasion arises I am doing my best to press the government to move in that direction. But what I asked him about tonight was not, I submit with all respect, the broad question of health insurance, but rather cases of the restricted kind that the hon. member for Vancouver East drew to the minister's attention. The minister did not deal with cases of that kind. He just replied that, by the very nature of the thing, you had to go into the whole broad story.
I again ask the minister to face this question. I accept his statement that he is not an actuary. I am not one either. It seems to me, however, that it is a fair question for me to ask him as to whether it would upset the actuarial soundness of the unemployment insurance fund to continue paying benefits to the kind of person about whom we are talking. We are not talking about a person who is on the job and who becomes sick and therefore

Unemployment Insurance Act
asks that he be covered out of his unemployment insurance; that is another question, equally important, but not now before us. We are talking about John Doe who became unemployed because there was no job for him. John Doe subsequently qualified for unemployment insurance benefits and began to receive them. But while he was unemployed, during that period, he became ill. His wife went to the unemployment insurance to collect the benefits, but when she reported that he was ill, he was cut off. There was still no job for him. Had he been well, and had he been able to go and draw his benefits, there being no job for him, he would have drawn them. The only point I am asking the minister to consider just now is the question: would it upset the actuarial soundness of the plan to enlarge its provisions to cover a case of that kind?
I repeat that I am quite prepared, at the proper time, to argue and press the claim for complete health insurance, indeed for overall social insurance, covering all the things which happen to us, which are beyond our control; but for purposes of my present argument I accept the minister's statement that we are dealing with something that has an actuarial basis, and within that framework I have asked him to deal with a particular kind of case.	.
While I am on my feet I should like to ask the other question, so that I shall not have to quarrel again with the hon. member for St. Paul's for the floor.


Mr. SINCLAIR:: Let us have that question answered.


Stanley Howard Knowles: All right; the hon. member for Vancouver North suggests that we have this question dealt with.


Humphrey Mitchell: In the first place, I never heard of this case until it was mentioned this evening by the hon. member for Vancouver East, and I should like to take a look at it myself. From the mere fact that a person writes a letter, it does not necessarily follow what is in the letter is a statement of fact. I should like the hon. member to give me the letter privately so that my officials in Vancouver, if it is in Vancouver, may look at the case. Most of these matters go over my desk, but this is the first I have heard of it. In view of the discussion which we have had this evening and the number of complaints which have been expressed by hon. members here, having in mind that we have three and a quarter million people insured, I think that is a pretty fair batting average. However I would be grateful to my hon. friend if he
could give me the correspondence confidentially so that I can have my officials look at it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Both the hon. member for Vancouver East and I will do so.


John Ewen Sinclair: I can tell the minister it is not an unusual case. I know of several such cases in the shipyards of North Vancouver, where men went on unemployment insurance and then became ill. There was still no work for them, but their benefits were cut off. Whatever minute saving might be made cannot compare as against the distress to such a man w'ho, if he needed the benefits when he was well, certainly needed them far more when he was sick. I suggest that it is not a case for the exercise of ministerial discretion so much as a case for a ruling on the general principle of whether, when a man becomes ill while in receipt of unemployment insurance, and still no employment presents itself, he should not continue to draw his benefits.


Mr. MERRITT:: In making his statement this afternoon, the minister referred to the situation which occurs in Vancouver almost every winter, when large numbers of unemployed come to town looking for jobs. As the minister knows, that creates quite a difficult situation for the Vancouver authorities and the community chest. This year that body carried out a survey and found that fifty per cent of those unemployed at that time came from out of town. They thought part of the trouble, part of the reason the relief for these unemployed falls upon their shoulders so heavily, is that unemployment insurance benefits are, as a rule, not paid during the nine-day period.
I want to ask the minister three questions, of which the first is this. If I understood him correctly, this afternoon he mentioned that a thirty-six day advance -could be made on production of the unemployment insurance book. Does this mean that a person coming into the unemployment insurance office in Vancouver, though he did not work or make his contributions there, on production of his book giving the proper information can get an advance of thirty-six days, from an office where his records are not kept?


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes, that is being provided for in the bill. I will go into that later, but at the present we are still at the resolution stage.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: The minister mentioned the thirty-six day advance this afternoon; that is why I asked.


Humphrey Mitchell: That is right.
Unemployment Insurance Act


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: In other words, the
advance can be made without reference to some other office?


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I think that is a very good provision, which undoubtedly will do a great deal to relieve the situation.


Humphrey Mitchell: I should like to make a point, if I may. The man must have his book with him, you understand.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: Yes, that would be
necessary. I suppose the commission will take steps to let people know the importance of having their books with them, in view of this provision. I repeat that I am sure this will be very useful in relieving the situation in Vancouver.
The next question is the one asked by the hon. member for Peterborough West. Will the minister tell the committee whether it would be possible to reduce the nine-day period to six days, as suggested by the hon. member? A reduction of this kind would take the responsibility for unemployment relief further off the shoulders of the municipality and private agencies, and would be a great help.
My last question-perhaps the minister can deal with these two at once-is whether he will make a statement on what can be done under the Unemployment Insurance Act or by his department to relieve the strain on a municipality caused by a seasonal influx of unemployed persons?


Humphrey Mitchell: As to the first question my hon. friend raises, I have had it looked into by the actuaries, and they think it would be too great a strain on the fund on the present basis. I consider it fair to say that unemployment conditions being as they are, I do not think nine days is too long. Take a single fellow in Regina, Calgary, Edmonton or Winnipeg who picks up stakes and goes to Vancouver. A waiting period of nine days is no hardship, in my judgment, if that fellow has been steadily employed.
The other question is more difficult. The hon. member spoke of the migration to the west coast.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: Yes, though I understand it takes place in other cities as well.


Humphrey Mitchell: I may tell my hon. friend I should like to live in Burrard myself during the winter.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: We should like to have
you.
 '


Humphrey Mitchell: But someone has to stay in the cold climate and produce some of the wealth, though you understand I am not suggesting that you do not produce your share in British Columbia. It is like the birds, and you will remember the story about the seagulls in Victoria. The birds like to fly south for the winter, and under ordinary conditions those of us who can afford it like to go south as well. There is not much difference between that and a fellow jumping on a freight or getting on a train and going to Vancouver or Victoria. That is one of the penalties you have to pay for living in that sublime climate; and it would not be so bad if you did not brag so much about it. In that case perhaps fewer people would want to go there.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: We might have the first two months of the session out there.


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes, of course.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Be careful; there are a couple of by-elections being held out there.


Humphrey Mitchell: We will be there, too. I have watched that movement for a good many years. We have advised against it. We did so last fall, and I think it was the hon. member for Cape Breton South who spoke of the power my department and particularly the minister had under selective service. I believe in the basic principles of freedom. While it may be logical to push people around in wartime when men and women are in uniform and there is a tremendous shortage of labour, I question the wisdom of telling anyone he cannot go anywhere he likes in this country on his own responsibility.
In my quieter moments during the war period I often used to say to myself that I hoped all the "shalls" and "dos" and "don'ts" I had to enforce then would not impair the basic freedom of the Canadian people. It is so easy to slip into a form of what might be called dictatorship, though some people call it planned economy, to make it sound good. I think it is a dangerous thing for the state to have the right over a long period of time to move people around against their will, so that young people in the formative stage will come to take it for granted. That can lead to only one thing.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Communism.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I never suggested that the minister should direct labour or anything like that. His analogy of the bird was a nice one, but what we are concerned with is who keeps the bird's nest, and we would much prefer

Unemployment Insurance Act
the minister to keep it rather than the municipal authorities and' private social agencies in Vancouver. I suggest to the minister that the condition is a chronic one and that it does not prevail only in Vancouver, but I have heard it said that there is a similar migration into Windsor. The services for these people who are unemployed through no fault of their own have to be provided by some agency, dominion, provincial or municipal. When such a large percentage of the unemployed come, as shown by this survey, from outside the municipality it does not seem to me to be fair that the municipality or private agencies should bear the cost. The difficulty may not be easy to solve, but it should be studied by the unemployment insurance commission with a view to the dominion assuming its responsibility.


Mr. ARCHIBALD:: The Prince Rupert labour council several months ago inquired as to the possibility of placing an officer in the northern area of British Columbia to settle the cases up there, because they have to wait so long to be cleared through Vancouver. Has the department come to any conclusion on that point?


Humphrey Mitchell: As far as my memory serves me, we did send a man out there; it is an administrative question, as my hon. friend knows, but I shall be glad to look into it. We have endeavoured to decentralize the adjudication of claims both in the western provinces, Ontario and Quebec, and the mari-times so as to speed up payments.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: I think we should at this time try to impress upon the minister the necessity of helping the worker to insure himself against illness as well as against unemployment. I believe the government was wise in bringing in unemplo3-ment insurance at a time of high employment and when wages were good, although, of course, its action was long overdue.
I have in my hand a document brought out in 1919. It is called the National Liberal Convention, held thirty years ago, and here is one of the things it proposes:
And further resolved:
Effective legislation for the conservation of human life and health.
Dear knows how many people will have died in the meantime before we get around to doing that.
And further resolved:
That in so far as may be practicable, having regard for Canada's financial position, an adequate system of insurance against unemployment, sickness . . .
And so on. I wish to draw to the minister's attention that even thirty years ago the Liberal party put beside unemployment insurance, insurance against illness. When we talk of how much it would cost, what the actuarial basis would have to be, and how much more the worker would have to pay to insure himself against illness, I suggest to the minister that the worker is paying for illness now and that it costs a great deal more for him to do it on an individual basis than through a group. Illness may cripple you for years, and what is even worse you may go without treatment; you may shorten life itself and leave a dependent family because you could not face the cost of treatment in time. So I urge the minister to think of the family whose breadwinner is ill or whose breadwinner is dead because he did not get medical care soon enough. I urge upon the minister and the cabinet to take into consideration the merging of unemployment insurance into a larger plan of social security.
The minister gave an impressive figure a few moments ago; I think he said three million people were now covered by unemployment insurance, and I am very happy to hear that. But there are many categories who cannot be insured against unemployment. There are also many people who are self-employed. They have the hazard of unemployment and the greater hazard of illness, too common uncovered.
Some mention has been made of New Zealand. I had the benefit of spending almost four months in that country a few years ago, and I found that there they had merged their unemployment insurance into a social security .plan. True, the people pay for it; but you never get anything without paying for it; you pay less for insurance within a group than you pay as a private individual, and when you have covered illness too you have covered almost every emergency. I would remind the minister that we are very much more able to do this than New Zealand because we have so very much more in the way of natural wealth.
I tvas surprised to find that in New Zealand they have no oil, no metals, little timber and hardly any coal. They have an extremely limited economy. They have an agricultural economy and are just beginning to develop secondary industries, and so they have tied their social security to citizenship, not to small industrial groupings as we have done with unemployment insurance. In Canada we have so many people excluded by category and so many people living on farms that we should tie our social security to citizenship rather than to industrial groupings, as Great Britain tried to do at the outset. So I plead with the
Unemployment Insurance Act

minister, and particularly now when the cost of living has risen so tremendously and when it is hard enough, even with a pay envelope, to keep a family together, the children clothed, and food on the table, that he and the government take into consideration insurance against illness, because it is a tragedy if illness strikes and, through illness, the unemployment insurance becomes not payable, so that the family has illness, plus unemployment.


Humphrey Mitchell: I have listened several times today to references to the Liberal platform of 1919.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: Would you like to see it?


Humphrey Mitchell: Certainly; will you pass it over.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: Yes; it is time you read it again.


Humphrey Mitchell: I think it is safe for me to go back with my hon. friend in a diplomatic way to 1919. It is all very well for a political party, even the C.C.F., to say we will socialize this and socialize that when we get into power, but if they give the impression that they can do it all within twenty-four hours they are just fooling themselves and fooling the people.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: We never said that.


Mr. McKAY:: You have not done it in twenty years.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: You have broken your
promises.


Humphrey Mitchell: I am sure the hon. friend for Vancouver East has read Engels and Marx and knows what Engels laid down as the ultimate goal of a socialist state. Since 1919 I think this dominion, federally, provincially and municipally, has made more progress in a social way than at any other time in its history. Let us be nice about it. Do not let us all take credit for it. We have all played' our part. These Latter Day Saints who think they have an answer for everything are not willing to give credit to those people who went before them.
I remember as a young man after the first great war that I used to read of how they laid the basis for the hospital scheme in Saskatchewan. I think they called1 it the municipal doctor scheme. During our lifetime we have seen the development of workmen's compensation, of old age pensions, of widespread hospitalization in our communities on a voluntary basis, of mothers' allowances, of unemployment insurance and the raising of the school age. Those things did not fall as the gentle rain from heaven; they were placed in operation by

responsible people. Give credit where it is due; do not take it for yourself after it has already happened.
At this very moment $2,000,000 is being spent every day on social services in Canada, 80 per cent of which is paid by the federal government. I stand to be corrected, but at the outbreak of this war the total budget of the dominion was not $600 million. Today we are spending $750 million on social services.
Reference has been made to 1919. I used to be an active member of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada and I still carry a card in my pocket. The trade unions have played an active part in connection with the social legislation in this country. Like the farmer organizations, they were the type of organization that could take steps ahead of the average political party which has to wait for public opinion. Even socialist governments have to do that, as do Conservative and Liberal governments. They must wait for the development of public opinion before they introduce legislation of a social character.
Just in passing, I might mention that the trade unions always fought the introduction of family allowances because it was felt they would be used as a substitute for wages. The principle of family allowances was first adopted in Belgium, if I remember rightly, and from that country it spread to other countries like Australia and this Dominion of Canada. Right up to the passing of the legislation, there were powerful trade union bodies in this country which were opposed to family allowances. I think, upon reflection, all in this house will agree that it was one of the greatest social policies ever placed in operation in any country in the world.
If the house will permit a personal reference, my father died when I was eleven years of age and, since I was one of nine children, I know something about the struggles in raising a family under those conditions. People said that this money would be spent in beer parlours or taverns, that it would not be spent on the children. However I do not think any section of the community has a first mortgage on that sort of thing. I believe it is generally agreed that 99 per cent of the moneys paid for family allowances is spent for the benefit of the children of this country.
I think many of us will live to see it in the proper perspective and see proper credit being given to the Liberal administration of this day for placing upon the statute books this piece of humane legislation. We are hearing about 1919, but take a good look at it. Thirty years is merely a heartbeat in the life of a nation. My hon. friends know that.

Unemployment Insurance Act
They had their manifesto in Regina in 1932 and it is still a manifesto in the blueprint stage.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: How can we be blamed for not carrying it out when we have not been the government?


Humphrey Mitchell: My hon. friends will have to do w'hat every political party has had to do, convince the people and the nation that they are on the right track.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: We are.


Humphrey Mitchell: It is just as simple as the fact that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. I am not saying this in a critical sense; it is just a passing observation.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Just in a kindly way.


Humphrey Mitchell: I thought I would just make these one or two observations because we have heard so much about 1919. Probably we shall hear a good deal about 1932.


Mr. CROLL:: May we get back to 1948? I am rising to support the statement made in the house by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre and the hon. member for Vancouver North with reference to what I think is an unreasonable interpretation of the regulations. The act never contemplated that a man must go to the office in order to draw his unemployment insurance; that is simply an administrative regulation. It appears to me that to deprive a man, who is unable to go to the office because of illness, of his unemployment insurance benefits, is to increase the fund by a method almost tantamount to chiseling.
The minister should take action immediately with respect to this sort of thing. Many cases have been brought to my attention which have been handled in the way indicated in this house. I repeat that it was never intended that the act should be carried out in that way. I know it is easy from the point of view of administration, but on the other hand the act does not depend for its improvement on that sort of administration. It is a good act and, because it is, there is no purpose or reason why it should in a small way incur the anger of people and bring upon itself a certain amount of discredit. This ought to be corrected at once.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I should like to say a further word with respect to one other matter the minister was good enough to comment on. I was glad to hear him say that he had an open mind with regard to this question of having three umpires instead of one. I admit
that the points he made have some validity, but I know also that in trade union circles there is a strong feeling about this matter. The minister knows that when the Unemployment Insurance Act is discussed in trade union circles it is discussed among its friends.
I am going to give the minister an example of the kind of thing that bothers these friends of the Unemployment Insurance Act. I ask the minister not to get warm under the collar because I refer to this kind of thing. I do not intend to imply that there is any miscarriage of justice or anything of that kind.
According to information put out by the unemployment insurance commission, a certain number of appeals were made to the umpire during the period April 1, 1947, to October 31, 1947. This is the disposition of the appeals dealt with during that period. Of the appeals made to the umpire by the claimants, namely by the persons who were trying to secure their unemployment insurance benefits, two were upheld and thirty-six were denied. On the other hand, in the case of appeals taken to the umpire by the insurance officer, thirty-six were upheld and only eight were denied. I ask the minister not to get hot under the collar because I mention that. I am not trying to make it out as a case of the miscarriage of British justice. I know the minister may say something about the fact that when an insurance officer takes a case to the umpire he is a little better acquainted with the facts, perhaps; but, even after you introduce all these extenuating circumstances, the fact is that that sort of result adds to the feeling of the trade unionists, who are friends of this act, that it would be much better to have these decisions made not by one umpire, but by a board which might consist of at least three umpires.
' This is only one of the arguments, but for the others I refer the minister to the brief which I have already quoted from tonight, which I am sure has been submitted to him by the trades and labour council of my own city. I just want to say I am glad that he indicated he has an open mind on this question, and I hope he will pursue the matter and see whether this is not a change which ought to be made.


Frederick Davis Shaw: I have one question. There has come to my notice a number of cases where so-called suitable employment could not be found or where the applicant who was residing in a small hamlet where there was no emploj'ment, was ordered to move to take a job in some other place. That has happened in a number of cases, even though the individual may own his home and may have

Unemployment Insurance Act
resided in the place for twenty or twenty-five years. My question is this: is it a hard and fast rule that if suitable employment cannot be found for the applicant in the community in which he is domiciled he cannot secure unemployment insurance benefits if he refuses to move from that community?


Humphrey Mitchell: The answer is no.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: Does the minister mean to say that if a man resides in a certain community such as the town I come from, Collingwood, and there is no employment for able-bodied men in that town1 and there is a position offered him in some other part of Canada, that man can live at the expense of the taxpayer simply because there is no work for him in Collingwood?


Humphrey Mitchell: That is not what I said. I said there was no hard and fast rule. That was the implication I gave.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: Where does the discretion lie? Does it lie in the hands of the manager in that particular community?


Humphrey Mitchell: Discretion lies at the first level, and then there is an appeal to the court of referees and then to the umpire.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: I am sure that the gentleman who does not want work except in his bailiwick does not appeal to your board if your manager is generous with the taxpayers' money and gives the loafer unemployment insurance. Who has the say? Surely there must be some rule. I am astounded to find that a man may refuse work, remain at home and still draw unemployment insurance.


Humphrey Mitchell: I think I made that point earlier in the evening.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: I am not looking for votes.


Humphrey Mitchell: It is difficult to put in language what is suitable employment. What may be suitable employment fo.r my hon. friend would not be suitable employment for me. Does the hon. member get my point? It may not be suitable employment for the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. That is the reason we have the checks and balances to regulate the administrative organization in the insurance offices. Then there is an appeal to the referee and, after that, to the umpire if necessary.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: What I am getting at is this. There is a regulation which says, "If suitable employment can be obtained." The man cannot simply say, "I will refuse to take it because I own my own home in this com-

munity," if there is no suitable work for him in his community. If there is work some place else in Canada, surely he cannot sit back and draw unemployment insurance.


Humphrey Mitchell: He can be told to go to
the other place.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: If he does not go, you can then tell him to go where?


Humphrey Mitchell: Suppose you are the insurance officer or a member of the court of referees and a man comes to you who is unemployed. He may have a young family, and his wife may not be very well. I may be living in Collingwood and I may not want to go to Toronto to work-I do not know why I would not want to go there.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You have lived in a lot of places tonight.


Humphrey Mitchell: In a case such as that, you have to use common sense and judgment. As I said earlier in the evening, the British who have had nearly forty years' experience with this legislation have not yet found language that will cover every case in point. It is pretty difficult to put it all down in English.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: They have ended up with a socialistic government in England.


Ernest George Hansell: The minister has been at bat all night and has been knocking out a few grounders.


Mr. BRYCE:: Mostly foul balls.


Ernest George Hansell: He thinks it is just about time that he took his base. I should like to ask him a question with respect to part-time employment. I will give him a hypothetical case. A man is employed by several different companies or persons. He may be the janitor of a bank; he may be the fireman in some other building and he may be a janitor in a store. As I understand it, the first person for whom he works is the one who pays the employer's part of the insurance; but the hypothetical case is that the man does not have to work any particular hours in these particular cases. He may work for one person first for one day and for another person first the next day. I am told that there are cases where the three employers are paying their share of the unemployment insurance when only one employer should be paying it. Can the minister clarify that situation for us?
While I am on my feet, may I say that I have no serious criticism to make of the administration of the Unemployment Insurance Act. I have a constituency where unemployment insurance has to be administered carefully and properly, and I wish to say that

Animal Contagious Diseases Act
I have had fewer cases of complaint in that regard than of almost any other department of government affecting my constituency. Generally speaking, I think the Unemployment Insurance Act functions smoothly. Can the minister clarify the position I have mentioned?


Humphrey Mitchell: I do not want to read the regulations; I shall put them in a few words. Where a man works for several employers each day, the commission can make arrangements as to who shall be assessed for the payment. Failing that arrangement, the first employer pays the assessment.
Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in. Mr. Mitchell thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 203, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



ANIMAL CONTAGIOUS DISEASES


[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) moved the second reading of Bill No. 149, to amend the Animal Contagious Diseases Act.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Golding in the chair.
On section 1-Short title.
Mr. CHARLTON; Will the minister make a statement?
James Garfield Gardiner: This bill has been considered in the Senate, passed by the Senate, and is now before us in the form of Bill No. 149 of the Commons. The bill is to provide protection for the considerable trade that has been built up between this country and the United States in purebred and dairy cattle. We had an export of dairy cattle to the United States, just prior to the war, of about 9,000 head per annum and about the same number of purebred cattle. That export has grown from the figure of around 9,000 to 68,000 in dairy cattle in 1946, which dropped to 45,000 in 1947, and of purebred cattle the trade was built up to 28,000 in 1947.
It will be seen from these figures that this is a considerable trade and probably one which brings a great deal of wealth to the farmers in certain sections of Canada, particularly to the group who raise this type of cattle for sale.
We have experienced some difficulty in connection with the export of these cattle, partly perhaps because of the profits which can be made from the sale of cattle of this type in that market, and we feel that we require heavier penalties than those provided for in the act as originally drawn, in order to make certain that we can maintain this trade.
Cattle cannot be exported to the United States without a certificate of tuberculin test, blood test and freedom from contagious disease, signed or endorsed by a veterinarian inspector under the health of animals division.
In the second place, stock owners can employ accredited veterinarians at their own expense to take such tests and issue such certificates. The certificate of the accredited veterinarian is taken to the veterinary inspector for endor-sation. He endorses the certificate, relying on the integrity of the accredited veterinarian.
We have had some difficulty in the matter, in that there appears to have been, and in some cases has been proved, a certain amount of conspiracy in connection with the issuing of certificates. It was found when the cases were heard, that there was great difficulty in securing conviction and the kind of penalty we feel ought to be provided. Complaints during the past three or four years have been received from the United States department of agriculture, as well as from different state departments of agriculture, indicating that tuberculosis cattle and cattle affected with Bang's disease were arriving there from Canada, covered by proper certification.
On investigation it was found that there were infractions of our regulations. In the first place, there had been removal of the ear tags which mark cattle, and there had been substitution of animals; that is to say, the tag would be taken from one animal and put on another. Then there had been inadequate and improper tests for disease. There had been false certificates by accredited veterinarians.
In order to meet these cases and to prevent their happening in the future, this act is being amended to provide greater penalties. The time limit under the code was previously six months and the period is being made longer. The limit must be increased to give time to make full investigation and to have reports made back with regard to the stock.
To overcome this difficulty, conspiracy charges were laid, some of which were dismissed because the offences under the act were not indictable. The solution which is being suggested under the act is to extend the time limit for prosecution. This removes the
Animal Contagious Diseases Act

difficulty of prosecuting, but recent investigations also indicate serious conspiracies to defeat the whole act. We therefore feel that a more severe penalty should be provided for infractions. One method would be to make offences against the act and regulations indictable offences, but this would be too *severe in the case of many minor infractions. Therefore this amendment creates a distinct offence with heavier penalties. This is done by changing section 50 of the act, and the bill is to provide for that change.


Mr. CHARLTON:: How many convictions have there been in the last couple of years?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am not able to say how many convictions there have been. There would probably have been more started if this particular clause had been drawn as now proposed. In a number of cases we had great difficulty in obtaining convictions, and in some where convictions were obtained, it was thought the penalty was not sufficiently severe to prevent their happening again.


Mr. WRIGHT:: May I ask the minister if the same types of tests are used in both countries for Bang's disease and tuberculosis? There was some indication a year ago that different types of tests were used, and that was partly the reason why the cattle were going down that were exported.


James Garfield Gardiner: Until about two years ago the tests which we were using in Canada were somewhat different from those being used recently in the United States. Some change has been made in order to make the tests more nearly conform in the two countries. The same is true with regard to Bang's disease. We have now accepted the calf vaccination practice which has been going on in the United States for a considerable time so as to prevent Bang's disease.


Charles Elwood Stephenson: Is there an improvement in the situation with regard to the number of veterinarians available to make tests? In my county, cattle shipments to the United States are held up unduly through lack of veterinarians to test the animals. In some cases there is no veterinarian in the county and the exporters have to send out and bring one in to do the work. Is there any improvement?


James Garfield Gardiner: The situation has not improved greatly up to the present, although we have made arrangements under which third-year students and up are accepted as internes, so to speak, to go and work under the direction of veterinarians. But there are 500 veterinary students in the colleges at present who will 
graduate within the next four years. The number that will graduate this year is not as great as the number that will graduate in the last two years of that period, but there are approximately 500 whom we expect to graduate within that period of time. That is not nearly enough to take care of the situation which now exists, and we hope that it will be found necessary and possible greatly to increase the numbers as the years go along. I think the only condition that will make it possible to encourage men to go into the practice of the treatment of animals is a continuation of the fairly good prices that are now obtained for livestock, which makes it possible for men who are raising livestock to call in veterinarians in many more cases than they were able to do a few years ago.


Charles Elwood Stephenson: I do not think the remuneration which is being paid to veterinarians by the department at the present time will attract veterinarians into the department for this work. I understand that the remuneration paid is $2,800 a year. I think any veterinarian could go out today and earn a good deal more than $2,800 a year. Has any consideration been given to raising the remuneration of these veterinarians in order to attract them to the department?


James Garfield Gardiner: In recent months there has been adjustment of payment which has been made under the direction of the civil service commission. All I can say in regard to it is that we are informed that our veterinarians are being paid on a level which the civil service commission thinks is sufficiently high to compare favourably with salaries being paid in other departments. I cannot go any farther than that at the moment. We have one or two vacancies on the staff of the department at the present time, which would indicate what the hon. member says is true, namely, that most veterinarians can make more outside the department at present than they can in it. I should just like to say that condition is rather a new development over the last five or six years.


William Scottie Bryce: When a complaint is received that there has been infringement of this act, or when there is a complaint about an animal going to the other side of the boundary, does that matter come to the minister's department? Do the Department of Agriculture and the minister set the prosecution afoot, or is that done by the Minister of Justice?


James Garfield Gardiner: We have an arrangement with the United States authorities under which they accept certification from our veterinarians under the conditions that I outlined

Prairie Farm Assistance Act
a few moments ago. Of course, if we get reports from there that cattle are arriving in the United States which are not in accordance with the certification, then we may give a warning. If it is not a serious case or if it is not a repeat of something that has happened before, we may give a warning. But if there is any repeating of the offence, of course prosecution will be started.


William Scottie Bryce: Is that the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, of the Department of Agriculture.


Percy Ellis Wright: I should like to find out a little more about this matter of prosecution. It would be mostly a matter of cases of United States buyers who are here and pick up cattle, and who are endeavouring to get them across, in which the offences would occur; or at least I would suppose it would be in their case that most of the offences would occur. What jurisdiction has the minister to prosecute in those cases where the offences may have been committed by someone outside the country?


James Garfield Gardiner: The cases I know of are not cases of United States buyers. They are cases of Canadian sellers; that is, they are buyers from the farmers who sell into the United States. The conspiracy is, in some instances, between the veterinarian who gives the certificate and the buyer who is buying the cattle; and in other instances, it will be as between the veterinarian and the owner of the cattle who wants them cleared, to be shipped to the United States.


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


[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) moved that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to 'bring in a measure to amend the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, 1939, to provide that the act may apply to areas surveyed as settlement or river lots, to provide also that where a farmer has land in an eligible township and land in an ineligible township payment may be made to him to the full amount of his eligible land, and for the purpose of clarifying certain provisions of the act.
Percy Ellis Wright: Will the minister give an explanation of just what are the implications of this resolution?


James Garfield Gardiner: Hon. members who come from the area along the Red river, and those who come from areas in Saskatchewan along the Saskatchewan river, will understand that the first settlers in those areas settled on the system of land ownership which prevailed at that time in the province of Quebec; that is, the}' have river lots which ran back from the river. The river was then the means of transportation as between these various farms, and they have a system of river lots that run from the river back into the country. Under this resolution we provide that payment shall be paid on the basis of a township; and the township, as we understand it and as it is defined in the act, is the local survey unit six miles square. No provision was made in the original act for taking care of these river lots. It has become necessary, as a result of experiences during the last year, to make such provision. These lots are now in areas which should draw under this act, and there is no special provision for them. So this gives us authority, under the regulations, to define, within the district in which the river lots are, an area which bears a reasonable relationship to the six miles square that prevails in other sections of the three western provinces.
The other matter which is mentioned in the resolution specifically has to do with an amendment we made last year. Hon. members will recall that when I brought in the legislation last year I suggested that no material change was being made in the principle underlying the payments which were to be made. But after we started to administer the act, we found that in one of the sections we had provided something which did make a material change. Where a farmer was on land in two different townships, and where one piece of land was removed from the other by four or five, or maybe ten miles, part of the land would be in a district where there was an average crop of less than eight bushels to the acre, while the other would be in a district where the average would be perhaps more than eight bushels, which meant that the one piece of land would come under the act while the other would not. Last year we provided, I think inadvertently-I did not understand at the time that this change would be made, and certainly it was not explained to other hon. members-that this land would be dealt with proportionately, as between the two areas, as though it were one farm. It has been found that this does not deal fairly with farmers in the different areas, and we are simply asking to have the act put back as it was before. There will be no change now from the provision which was in effect prior to last year,
Veterans Rehabilitation Act

and the payments for 1947 will be made as though the act had not been amended at that time. It will result in some additional amount going to th'e fanners as compared with what they would get under the amendment of last year; and, since the act has been administered on the other basis ever since 1939 and has given general satisfaction, we do not think this change should be made. Therefore we are asking to have it amended in order that payments may continue to be made on the old basis.
These are the chief amendments being made. As is indicated, the others are for purposes of clarification, and I think they can be better discussed when we are considering the bill in committee.


Thomas John Bentley: Last year the act was amended to permit the payment of prairie farm assistance to those operating co-operative farms. Has that been carried out this year?


James Garfield Gardiner: No change is being made in that connection. It is left as it was last year.


Thomas John Bentley: I ask the question because today I was informed that the Matador cooperative farm is not receiving those payments, on the ground that it is a co-operative. I should like the minister to verify that, if he will, because it is a serious situation.


James Garfield Gardiner: I can get that information before the bill is brought down, and we can discuss it then.
Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in.
Mr. GARDINER thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 204, to amend the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, 1939.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



VETERANS REHABILITATION ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. MILTON F. GREGG (Minister of Veterans Affairs) moved the second reading of Bill No. 200, to amend the Veterans Rehabilitation Act.
Mr. BROOKS:: Will the minister give a short explanation of the bill?


Mr. GREGG:: I do not wish to add anything to what I said on the resolution Friday evening, except that, following second reading, I shall move that it be referred to the committee on veterans affairs.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: I do not propose to say very much on this bill at this time, since it is to be referred to the committee on veterans affairs. When the minister was speak-

ing the other day I understood him to say the bill was intended to correct certain anomalies and conflictions; I think those were his words.
At the outset I may say I am in agreement with the principle of the bill in practically all its aspects. There is one anomaly, however, that I think should be dealt with briefly tonight. That is the situation of members of the merchant marine as far as educational benefits are concerned. On numerous occasions we have urged that the young men who served in the merchant marine should receive the same benefits as those who served in the other branches of the services, and I believe that this is an anomaly which the minister and the veterans affairs committee might very well deal with when the bill is under consideration.
Another anomaly, as I think I may call it, has to do with the South African nurses. We remember that at first these nurses were not given the benefits which were granted to the other nurses who went overseas, as the result of a certain situation that arose in South Africa. Later they were granted those benefits; but 1 have been informed that certain nurses who served in South Africa did not return home but married in England and other parts of the world. Because those nurses did not return to Canada they have not been able to obtain benefits under either the War Service Grants Act or the rehabilitation act, and I think this is something which should receive consideration.
Then I have a letter before me from a Canadian doctor who was in the United States when war broke out. He came back to Canada desiring to join the Canadian forces but was rejected on physical grounds. He returned to the United States and served with the United States forces in the south seas for nearly three years. He then returned to Canada, but not being able to set up a practice, returned to the United States and took out his first citizenship papers, but not being satisfied again returned to Canada. Because he served in the United States army and took out papers as a United States citizen he cannot obtain rehabilitation benefits from our Department of Veterans Affairs. Because he was a Canadian citizen during the period of his service with the United States he cannot obtain benefits from the United States department, and I think this is an anomaly. In his letter the doctor says he knows of other cases of the kind, so that I think this is another matter which should receive some attention.
As I said, Mr. Speaker, this bill will be before the veterans affairs committee, so it is

Veterans Rehabilitation Act
not my intention to deal with it at any greater length this evening.


George Randolph Pearkes: Mr. Speaker, I should like to bring to your attention one amendment which will work great hardship on a certain group of veterans. I refer to the statement made by the minister on April 16 concerning the veterans of the permanent force who will be deemed to have been discharged or retired from the force as of September 30, 1947. When we were discussing this amendment during the resolution stage, at one time the minister was under the impression that I was referring to the younger men who were joining the permanent force. I want to make it quite clear that I refer to the veterans who served during the second world war and who decided to remain on in the active forces of this country. When a man joins the active forces he enlists for a definite period of time, for five years in the Royal Canadian Navy, five years in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and from three to five years in the Canadian army.
These men on the 30th day of September, 1947, were discharged or, I should say, ceased to be in the interim forces, and many of them on that day or on the following day or at some subsequent period decided to enlist in the active forces. They entered as it were into a contract with the government to give their services in the active forces and to receive in return certain pay and allowances. At that time, as they knew, rehabilitation allowances were then being granted to men who were being discharged from the army, navy or air force at the time they took their discharge. Those are the allowances which veterans coming within the army, navy or air force have been entitled to, provided that they make application within twelve months of the time of their discharge.
I submit that the men who remained on did so in some cases fully realizing that they would be eligible for these allowances when the period of their service was terminated. The justice of such a course would seem to be illustrated by subsequent remarks made by the minister when he said, as reported at page 3068 of Hansard, in the discussion.
If by any chance he is discharged-*
That is, one of these veterans.
-now or next week or next year he will, of course, come under whatever remaining benefits there may be related to the last war.
Again on the following page he said:
As they come out from month to month, they will certainly be entitled to such rehabilitation benefits as gratuities, Te-establishment or Veterans' Land Act benefits.
We are discussing at the moment rehabilitation allowances, awaiting business returns and education allowances in the main. I submit that at this stage when men are through their term of enlistment, and when they have in good faith carried out the terms of the contract which they made with the government, it is a gross breach of contract to say now that they may not get those benefits to which it was agreed or understood at the time they would be entitled, and which the minister on Friday night thought they would be allowed to get as they came out from month to month, or this week or next week or some time next year.
I feel that the bill as it is presented to us establishes a cut-off line, the 30th day of September, 1947; and twelve months after that, which I suggest is the 30th day of September, 1948, these men would not be entitled to the allowances to which I have referred.
The only fair way to deal with this matter would be to say they would be entitled to these allowances until the termination of their enlistment contract; that is, until the end of the three or five years, as the case may be, for which they have entered into a contract with this government to serve under the terms decided upon in 1946 or whenever they joined. A man decided, perhaps at the end of 1946, that he would stay on in the permanent force because he would realize at that time he was not ready to start up in business or he was not ready to take that course of training which he desired in order to complete his re-establishment into civil life. So he entered into a contract with this government for a term of three or five years' service, and I submit that it is a gross breach of faith to break that contract at this time.
I hope the minister will consider an amendment to the amendment so as to enable the veteran who is now serving in the active forces to complete his first term of enlistment and, at the conclusion of that term of enlistment, to receive all the allowances which are now in force under the rehabilitation act.
Mr. HOWARD C. GREEN (Vancouver South): Mr. Speaker, as the house knows, it is under this act that assistance is given to veterans attending university. On Friday evening we had a short discussion with regard to these particular veterans, and on Saturday morning, as luck would have it, I received a brief on the "Financial Problems of Student Veterans at the University of British Columbia," submitted by the university branch of the Canadian Legion. That branch is very strong and well run, and in the past its summaries of situations faced by the student
Veterans Rehabilitation Act

veterans have been accurate. I have no reason to doubt that the present brief is also carefully prepared and well worthy of study.
They deal with several points, but this evening I should like to emphasize two to the minister. The first is the position of the single veterans. There has been no increase in the amounts paid to them, and this brief states:
A sample poll taken among single student veterans at University of British Columbia in March, 1948, showed that 32 per cent of those answering said they could not complete their courses on their present income, and an additional 12 per cent said it was doubtful. Further, 99 per cent of all students polled worked during the summer vacation.
That is their review of the situation of the single veteran.
They also deal with the question of permissible earnings; that is, the amounts which students are allowed to earn before their grants are reduced. The brief sets out:
In the case of all groups the present regulations limit the earnings of a student veteran or his wife to $75 a month or alternatively reduce his grant by any amount over $75 earned. We know of no case where the husband and wife have been able to earn $75 a month each thus making a combined "other income" of $156. Under the existing regulations where the wife earns nothing the husband who earns over the $75 a month has his grant reduced by the amount he earns over the $75. While the possibilities of a man earning more than $75 and still succeeding with his studies are limited, nevertheless, some possibilities exist. For example, some students have been able to obtain jobs as night watchmen under circumstances where they can study during the greater part of their working hours. In order to take such a job the student veteran must work the number of hours per month which the job calls for. If the job pays, for example, $99 a month his grant is reduced by $15. If he accepts only $75 a month for a job which would normally pay $90, in order to avoid reducing his grant, the net effect of the government regulation is to subsidize the employer, and often entails breaking minimum wage laws in the province of British Columbia.
In the case where the wife earns over $75 like restrictions apply. Should a man's wife be earning more than $75 per month the husband's grant is reduced to the single rate, hence if a wife is earning $86 a month her husband's grant is reduced from $90 to $60.
And later on:
We are firmly of the opinion that the overhead cost of enforcing this regulation is far greater than the amount the government could possibly save by whittling down the grants of student veterans in this manner.
It is difficult to reconcile the present restrictions on earnings with the government's attitude towards self-help on the part of the student veteran and, therefore, we urge that all restrictions on earnings of student veterans be removed.
They go on to point out that this business of reducing the grant to student veterans is solely within the discretion of the minister
under the terms of section 13 of the act. No amendment would be required in order to enable the minister to change these regulations, because apparently they are ministerial. I suggest once again that the minister and his department give careful consideration to doing away with this restriction on veterans earning what they can get. I do not think it is helping the government; I do not think it is helping the country, and it is hard on the veterans themselves.


Thomas John Bentley: When the minister spoke a few minutes ago he did not speak loudly and he was not facing this way. Did he say he was going to ask that this bill be referred to the special committee on veterans affairs?


Milton Fowler Gregg: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the special committee on veterans affairs.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. LIONEL CHEVRIER (Minister of Transport) moved the second reading of Bill No. 201, to amend the Railway Act.
Howard Charles Green: May I suggest to the minister that this bill be allowed to stand since it is now five minutes to eleven?


Lionel Chevrier: I am perfectly satisfied to move the adjournment of the debate.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Lionel Chevrier: Tomorrow we shall resume the debate on the amendment of Mr. Coldwell to the motion to go into supply and the subamendment of Mr. Bracken. It is hoped that we shall be able to complete the debate on the amendment and subamendment before six o'clock, but if that is found to be impossible the debate will be adjourned until Wednesday at three o'clock in the afternoon. From eight o'clock until nine o'clock tomorrow evening we shall take public bills. After nine o'clock we shall take the second reading of the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act amendment, which is No. 6 on today's order paper. Then the second reading of the Unemployment Insurance Act amendment, which is No. 15 on today's order paper. Then the second reading of the bill to amend the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, No. 14 on the order paper, and the second reading of Bill No. 201 to amend the Railway Act, No. 7 on the order paper.


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

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