OFFICIAL REPORT


[Stage Direction]
House of Commons Debates
[Stage Direction]
Friday, March 29, 1935

[Stage Direction]
Hon. C. H. CAHAN (Secretary of State) moved the first reading of Bill No. 48 (from the Senate) to amend and consolidate the acts relating to patents of invention.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

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On the orders of the day:
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Leader of the Opposition):: Yesterday I mentioned to my right hon. friend the acting leader of the government (Sir George Perley) that I would inquire to-day of the government as to the possibility of this house concluding its sittings by Easter, and in the event of it not being able so to do, what the plans of the government might be. I expressed the hope that if anything in the nature of an adjournment were necessary because of not having the business completed, it might be a very brief adjournment and that we might reassemble as soon after Easter as possible.


Right Hon.   S@: It seems to me quite evident that we cannot get through the session before Easter.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: Why?


Sir GEORGE PERLEY:: If hon. gentlemen will allow me I propose to give the reason.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: I would like to know.


George Halsey Perley: The report of the *mass buying commission has not yet come in, nor do we know exactly when it will oome in. We also have a committee that is discussing the housing problem, one of the most important questions in this country, something in which we are all interested. When these reports come in, the mass buying commission report is handed to the Minister of Trade and Commerce and then has to come before council for consideration, and I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the house, that we certainly expect them to make recommendations 92582-142
of importance that will need careful consideration by the government and afterwards by this house, and in order to have time to consider the report and prepare legislation I feel sure that we cannot in an orderly manner get through the business of parliament before Easter.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend has answered part of the question; unintentionally no doubt he omitted to answer the other part, that is, whether in the event of having to continue the session after Easter we may expect to have just the customary recess and reassemble as soon as possible thereafter.


George Halsey Perley: I am unable to give an answer to the question today, but it will be carefully considered, and I shall speak to my right hon. friend on the subject as soon as possible.



ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE


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On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: In the Montreal Gazette of March 28, I notice a dispatch from Halifax dated March 27, which reads:
Bloodhounds Will Aid Police in N.S. Woods So many people are getting lost in Nova Scotia's woods that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are going to bring in bloodhounds to help track them down.
The announcement is made in the annual report of H division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, tabled in the legislature to-day, which notes that more persons get lost in the Nova Scotia woods than in other sections of Canada.	.
Besides helping find them, the report says the bloodhounds will be used to trail escaped criminals.
I would like to ask whether, since we are beginning to prohibit the hunting of deer with dogs, the full cabinet have given their consent to this method of tracking down criminals.


Hon. HUGH GUTHRIE (Minister of Justice) :: The answer is in the negative.

Interim. Supply


James Shaver Woodsworth: Then I ask if the cabinet will consider whether or not they sanction this proceeding on the part of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. May we hope for an answer within a few days? May we hope for an answer as to whether the government sanctions this proceeding?


Hugh Guthrie: It does not.


James Shaver Woodsworth: It does not. I thank the hon. member.



MERCHANT MARINE ACT

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On the orders of the day:
Mr. GEORGES BOUCHARD (Kamou-raska) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. Minister of Marine (Mr. Duranleau) whether the government has given effect to the Canadian Merchant Marine Act of 1934, according to which captains of ships of more than ten tons must have a certificate and such ships must have an engineer on board?


Hon. ALFRED DURANLEAU (Minister of Marine) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, as I have already stated in the house, the Merchant Marine Act, adopted at the session of 1934, has not yet been promulgated and is therefore not yet in force.
Mr. PIERRE F. CASGRAIN (Charlevoix-Saguenay) (Translation): Mr. Speaker, on the same subject, could the hon. Minister of Marine make a statement or give instructions to the customs officers at seaports in order to remove the fears that exist regarding the putting into farce of the act to which the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Bouchard) has just referred?
I myself have received, during the last few days, numerous petitions from all parts of the constituency of Charlevoix-Saguenay. All the seamen are up in arms and are wondering if they will be able to obtain their certificate to go to Quebec, this act having been adopted. As there is some doubt, I should be obliged to the hon. Minister of Marine if he would supply the necessary information in that regard.


Alfred Duranleau: I am surprised that the hon. member has received so many petitions on that subject.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: I can show them to you.


Alfred Duranleau: All the seamen who have addressed inquiries to the Department have received a satisfactory answer, and I am told that at present they are all aware that the act of 1934 is not yet in force.
	:	;



INTERIM SUPPLY


Hon. E. N. RHODES (Minister of Finance):: I would like to ask for unanimous consent to secure interim supply. Unless we do secure it, much, inconvenience will be caused to the public service, because we shall have no money available to pay salaries for the month of April, According to the well established practice I asked the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) if we might secure a vote of one-sixth, which was the amount of the first interim supply granted last year. My right hon. friend did not concur in the suggestion that I should ask for one-sixth, but did intimate his willingness to concur in the granting of one-twelfth, plus an additional one-sixth in the case of certain items where the heavier expenses come in the early portion of the year, and those particular items I would be glad to indicate to the house if it so desires.
I might point out that I would have preferred one-sixth for the reason amongst others that we have this year a condition that has not obtained hitherto. Our estimates were set up this year, as the house was advised in the earlier stages of the session, upon the basis of ninety per cent of the normal vote, and the reason was explained at the time. It is proposed early next week to bring in a bill which will have the effect of restoring five per cent of the ten per cent deduction, but in the meantime when we get out one-twelth, that one-twelfth will have to provide not only for one-twelfth of the estimates as they stand to-day but also for the additional money which will be required to pay the additional five per cent in salaries which begins on April 1. As I say, I would have preferred the one-sixth, but inasmuch as we can secure interim supply only by unanimous consent, I have drafted a bill upon the basis of a general vote of one-twelfth plus one-sixth in the case of certain specific items which I shall be pleased to indicate to the house if it so desires.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend, the Minister of Finance has just said that he had asked me if I thought it would be possible to secure unanimous consent to the government being given a measure of interim supply. Being desirous as always to be as helpful as possible, I told him that we might manage one-twelfth, but I doubted very much whether it would be possible to secure unanimous consent with respect to granting one-sixth. My hon. friend saw I think the force of the reason I gave; at any

Interim Supply
rate he has acquiesced in it to the extent of haying had prepared a bill granting interim supply to the extent of one-twelfth of the total except in the case of a number of items for services which require at this season of the year outlays which are somewhat unusual and for which iwe are prepared to grant one-sixth.
The Minister of Finance has spoken about a condition existing at the moment which has not obtained hitherto. I might say the same with respect to the situation as it presents itself at this session of parliament; this is the last session of a parliament that is already in its sixth session. As my hon. friend knows, we on this side have been of opinion right along that the country should have an early opportunity of expressing itself on the question of who it wishes to continue to govern this dominion. We had rather hoped that expression would have been given before this, but at tlhe beginning of the session we were told that the voters' lists would not be ready until April 15. In speaking on the address,
I said that being tihe case, we naturally would seek to do all we could by way of furthering such legislation as might be introduced in the interval, but we hoped that just as soon as the lists were available, an appeal to the people might be had. I think that was and is still the correct position to take. There is no doubt that it being known a general election is to take place this year at some time, the uncertainty of the date is having its effect upon conditions throughout the country generally, and we cannot expect a return to a beginning of normal conditions or the revival of industry and trade until the country knows what administration is to be in office the next few years. For that reason we hope the government may find it possible to bring on a general election just as soon as it can. It is clear that the government will wish to carry on at least until the Easter recess, and possibly a day or two after. If a twelfth is given by way of supply at the moment that would be sufficient to carry the administration up to the end of the month of April. In the circumstances there would be no objection, so far as I gather, from the official opposition to giving unanimous consent for the twelfth. But I do hope my hon. friend will not find it necessary to ask for another twelfth later on.
Mr. RHODES; Even, if I were in order I would not propose to traverse the ground covered by my right hon. friend respecting the date of the election or the date of the closing of this house, for the very good reason that it has no bearing upon the question of 92582-142i
our asking for interim supply. If the house had concluded its session and prorogation had taken place before Easter it would still have been necessary to ask for interim supply. Otherwise there would be no money available from the first day of April to pay for salaries and for other governmental services.
I merely wTish to make that distinction here to indicate that it has no bearing upon the question of the election or the date of prorogation.
With respect to the last point raised by my right hon,. friend I can give no undertaking that we may not have to call again for interim supply. I would indicate to him only that we would have to be moved by the necessities of the case, relying in all instances, as we must in this one, upon unanimous consent before we can, secure interim supply at all.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say to the minister that once prorogation has taken place the government will have the supply bill in its entirety and there will therefore be no necessity to ask for further interim supply. If this house should prorogue before May 1, there would be no need to ask for interim supply at all. That is what I hope may be possible. The question of dissolution is of course a matter for the government itself to decide.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: To clear the situation, at least so far as I am concerned, I must take exception to the statement of my right hon. friend. Certainly with prorogation we would assume that supply in its entirety would have been voted. In the meantime however we cannot look in any event for prorogation until after the fifteenth, or in the neighbourhood of the fifteenth, and in the meantime we would have to have interim supply. That is the only point I raise.


Mr. G. W. McPHEE (Yorkton):: I thought the Minister of Finance in asking for unanimous consent would have settled the current rumour that there will be a six weeks adjournment at Easter. If that is the intention of the government then I say he will not get unanimous consent to such a proposal. Some hon. members come from western Canada at considerable expense, and if we are going to be held up for six weeks at great expense then we will have to assert the only authority which we have, namely, our rights as members of this house.


Mr. GOTT:: What part of the party is the hon. member speaking for?
Interim Supply


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: This is Friday, and in the ordinary course Mr. Speaker would leave the chair without question put. I take it however that he asks unanimous consent for the purpose of considering the resolution. I move that the house resolve itself into committee of supply.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Morand in the chair.
Mr. RHODES	moved:
Resolved that	a sum	not	exceeding
$16,058,114.05, being one-twelfth of the amount of each of the several items to be voted as set forth in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1936, laid before the House of Commons at the present session of parliament, be granted to His Majesty, on account, for the fiscal year ending the 31st March, 1936.
Motion agreed	to.
Mr. RHODES	moved:
Resolved that	a sum	not	exceeding
$3,914,063, being one-sixth of the amount of each of the several following items to be voted, as set forth in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1936, laid before the House of Commons at the present session of parliament, be granted to His Majesty, on account, for the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1936, namely:
Votes Nos. 35, 36, 37 and 38, Legislation;
Vote No. 44, Experimental farms;
Vote No. 65, Pensions;
Vote No. 155, Geodetic survey (Control operations) ;
Vote No. 159, Fisheries;
Vote No. 163, Fish culture;
Vote No. 164, Oyster culture;
Vote No. 170, Geological survey;
Vote No. 185, Pay of force (R.C.M.P.);
Vote No. 193, Unemployment relief;
Vote No. 196, Sheltered employment;
Vote No. 226, Miscellaneous unforeseen expenses;
Vote No. 235, Chief Electoral Officer;
Vote No. 236, Dominion Franchise Commissioner;
Vote No. 267, National Revenue (Ports, Investigation, Audit and the Preventive Service, administration of the Income War Tax Act, 1917);
Vote No. 275, Trade and Commerce (Canadian coal);
Vote No. 277, Commercial Intelligence Service;
Vote No. 280, Electricity and Gas Inspection;
Vote No. 288, Weights and Measures.


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Motion agreed to.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: 
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Motion agreed to.
Resolutions reported, read the second time, and concurred in.


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Mr. RHODES moved that the house go into committee of ways and means.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Morand in the chair.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Resolved, that towards making good the supply granted to His Majesty on account of certain expenses of the public service for the financial year ending 31st March, 1936, the sum of $20,250,290.38 be granted out of the consolidated revenue fund of Canada.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Resolution reported, read the second time, and concurred in. Mr. Rhodes thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 49, for granting to His Majesty certain sums of money for the public service for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1936.
Motion agreed to, bill read the first and second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Morand in the chair.
Section 1 agreed to.
On section 2-$16,058,144.05 granted for 1935-36.
Mr. POULIOT:: Mr. Chairman, I should
just like to point out how our attitude shows the spirit of conciliation that animates the opposition side of the house. Any member of this house could have spoken several times on the resolution preceding the bill, and then again on the different readings of the bill, and several times again when the bill was in committee, but we are dispensing with all that. So I do not see how members on the other side of the house can afterwards complain that they have received no cooperation from this side of the house.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: They will never understand that.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Mr. Chairman, it will be
apparent in the first instance that unanimous consent was asked, without which we could not proceed. While I am willing to concede to my hon. friend the truth of the statement he has just made, I might point out that so far as I can recall this has been the practice almost from time immemorial.

The Budget-Mr. Anderson (Halton)


Jean-François Pouliot: But the unanimous consent that was given corroborates what I have just said about cooperation.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 3 to 5 inclusive agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Preamble agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and
passed.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Thursday, March 28, consideration of the motion of Hon. E. N. Rhodes (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and the proposed amendment of Mr. Ralston, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Coote.
Mr. R. K. ANDERSON (Halton):: Mr. Speaker, at eleven o'clock last evening I was about to say that the trade agreements negotiated in 1932 have consolidated the empire on a lasting basis of mutual benefit and security. A consolidated British empire is the world's best guarantee for universal peace, without which there can be no well-ordered advance or security. The Prime Minister in negotiating those agreements laid the best foundation that he could for his policy of reform of the capitalist system in this country and he has since then taken progressive steps to bring that about.
In 1933, for instance, a committee was set up of members of this house to investigate the spread between the producer and the consumer in the price of milk. That investigation revealed a deplorable condition in and around the city of Montreal. The middleman had extorted an unusual toll for his services. He had exploited the consumer and cheated the producer of milk.
Another committee was set up to investigate conditions in the tobacco industry. This industry was found to be in a somewhat similar condition. The manager of one of the companies had exacted the highest toll that the trade would bear. Two of these capitalist companies, with their long tenuous Shylocklike fingers, took their pound of flesh without regard to the misery or want of their victims, and it is no wonder that the people of this country are making a demand that the capitalist system should be remedied and its abuses corrected.
In 1934 a further step was taken in the passing of the Natural Products Marketing Act. This act was for the purpose of controlling and stabilizing the marketing of natural products from the land, from the sea and from the forest. That act has been in operation now for about one year, and many industries have taken advantage of it and have found it to their benefit. It could be of great assistance to the farming community, for whose benefit it was designed, if they would take advantage of it. The hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Spencer) mentioned yesterday that it was a good bill but that the farmers in western Canada had been rather dubious about asking for its benefits. Up to the present time it has not been in operation in the province of Ontario, but I believe that at the present moment a board has been set up in this province so that the benefits of the act will shortly be available to the farmers of Ontario.
The Canadian Farm Loan Amendment Act was also passed in 1934 to provide greater facilities for credit for the farmer who needed money to improve his stock or his buildings or his implements, the better to work his land. It is intended that this would make credit easier and that the interest rate on farm loans would be reduced. The Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act is now in operation in Ontario and other parts of the dominion. It is giving very general satisfaction so far as I am aware, and I speak more particularly for my own district. It brings the benefits of the Bankruptcy Act to the farmer. Official receivers have been appointed to assist the farmers in getting their creditors together in order to make mutual arrangements for the scaling down of mortgages and debts and the arranging for lower interest rates. This legislation has proved quite beneficial in those eases where a farmer is unable to pay his debts. It has given general satisfaction in Ontario. I might mention that the expenses of administration, so far as the debtor is concerned, are borne by the government.
In 1934 the government introduced the Bank of Canada Act which brought into being the Bank of Canada which commenced operations this year. The bank will control currency in the dominion and will facilitate trade throughout the empire as well as with foreign countries. It is to be hoped that under this legislation the different countries of the empire will be able to trade on a parity of exchange. I am quite sure it will prove to be beneficial in bringing about further rapprochement between the various parts of the empire. I hope the
2226	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Anderson (Halton)
day will soon come when exchange will be stabilized not only throughout the empire but throughout the whole world. When that occurs we will be relieved of the vexatious differences of exchange and the necessity for the payment of discounts and premiums.
This year the government introduced the Unemployment Insurance Act. In my opinion the introduction of such legislation is a little late as it should have been brought forward some ten or fifteen years ago. If that had been done then the legislation would have been on a sound basis to-day. This act received considerable criticism from hon. members in the opposite corner but I contend that it is a step in the right direction and is as far as the government could go at the present time. After it has been in operation for a year or two, any defects which may develop can be remedied. The number of people brought under the act is quite large and represents about as many as the government can look after at the present time.
A royal commission was set up by the government to inquire fully into the methods and practices of big business. The report of this commission will be brought down to the house very shortly and legislation based thereon will be introduced. As the administration of the legislation will devolve largely upon the next government I think it is essential that that government should be in full accord with it For many years the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) has been watching the trend of events. He has taken careful note of what happened during the reestablishment period after the war and during the days of frenzied finance when merger after merger was brought into being. Many changes occurred in the period from 1921 to 1930. I contend that the Prime Minister is the logical man to be in charge of the enforcement of the legislation which he has introduced. This question will be soon placed before the highest court in the land, the electorate, and I have no doubt that the verdict will be in favour of the Prime Minister. I have a firm and abiding faith in the good sense of the electorate of this country.


Hon. R. B. HANSON (YorkiSunbury):: Mr. Speaker, at the outset I desire to congratulate the Minister of Finance (Mr. Rhodes) on the 'budget speech which he delivered in this house just a week ago to-day. I want to congratulate him with respect to both its contents and its form. We have had four budgets from the hon. gentleman and I think I can safely say that in so far as the budget system under British practice is understood, these budgets have been models which future ministers of finance may follow. This budget was in marked contrast to the Dunning

budget of 1930. The hon. member for Shel-burne-Yarmouth (Mr. Ralston) has referred to this as a make believe budget, but I submit that if there ever was a make believe budget, it was the Dunning budget of 1930, the budget which the people of this country rejected and threw out of the window. I have studied the public press and other organs which have expressed an opinion on this budget and they have been almost universally favourable in their comments. I think it could be termed a prosperity budget as it definitely signalizes the return to this country of normal conditions and the return of this party at the next elections.
I	should like to make a brief reference to the illness of the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) : We are all delighted to know that his progress has been excellent and that he will be about his apartment in a day or two and back in this chamber before prorogation to resume his duties as leader of the government and the country. In due course he will make his appeal to the people. I do not doubt the bona fides of the right hon. the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) in the expressions of regret and solicitude for the health of the Prime Minister which he made a few days ago in this house, but I should like to refer to the malicious and mendacious statements with reference to the health of the Prime Minister which have been made to certain parts of the public press by parties unfriendly to him. These statements have been calculated to raise a false impression in the minds of the people of this country.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I hope my hon. friend is not insinuating that any one on this side is responsible for anything of that kind.


Richard Burpee Hanson: 
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Why not put the whole speech on?


Jean-François Pouliot: No, sir, I object. Let the hon. gentleman proceed. I do not wish to be discourteous-


Mr. HANSON (York43unbury):: If objection is taken I will read it over hurriedly.
With respect to cream, which had been 5 cents a gallon, in 1922 it was raised to 20 cents and under the tariff of 1930 to 56-6 cents per gallon. Butter, raised from 6 cents to 8 cents per pound and in 1930 to 14 cents. Cheese, from 23 per cent ad valorem to 5 cents per pound but not less than 25 per cent ad valorem, and then up to 7 cents per pound but not less than 35 per cent ad valorem.
With respect to France, we all remember the inefficiency of the French treaty entered into by hon. gentlemen opposite in 1922-23, when after lowering tariffs in this country as against French products they went to Paris and negotiated a tariff with their hands tied behind them, and succeeded in getting what? In getting the French minimum tariff without any guarantee as to what that should ever be. What were the tariff increases against this country by France with respect to wheat? From 11 cents a bushel in 1924 to 85 cents a bushel in May, 1930. Wheat flour increased from 24-34 cents a hundredweight in 1924, to $2.28-83.29 per hundredweight in 1930; oats from 4 cents a bushel to 18 cents a bushel; barley from 3 cents to 18 cents a bushel; boxed apples from 5 cents to 27 cents per hundredweight; crude zinc, free in 1921, to 25 cents per hundredweight in 1928; agricultural implements from 48 cents-$1.14 per hundredweight in 1926, to $1.07-81.43 per hundredweight in 1927.
The same statement is true with respect to the tariffs of Germany, Italy, Belgium and Finland. If time permitted I could place on Hansard specific articles, which would show that the time hon. gentlemen opposite were in power was the time that Canada lost her markets for her exportable surplus, and that it was not due to any action of this government. During the nine years hon. gentlemen

The Budget-Mr. Hanson (York-Sunbury)
opposite were in power this country paid for American purchases no less than three billion dollars in excess of what they purchased from us. How this little country ever maintained its solvency in face of that adverse trade condition is almost beyond our comprehension.
I want to say this further with respect to United States tariff increases: Canadian wheat had been entering the United States duty free on a reciprocal basis during the Wilson administration, up to May 27, 1921. On that date the United States imposed a duty of 35 cents a bushel. The tariff act of September 21, 1922, reduced the rate to 30 cents, but on April 6, 1924, under the same flexible provision of the tariff, the duty was advanced to 42 cents a bushel, and the present tariff act of June, 1930, confirmed the rate. During the fiscal year, 1920-21, the last year of the old Conservative administration, the last year that Canadian wheat entered the United States free of duty, our exports to that country were $91,442,298. Under the tariff of 1921-22 our exports dropped to $23,335,277 and by the fiscal year ended March 31, 1930, under the 74 cents per bushel tariff, exports had fallen to $7,487,000. That market for our wheat was lost during the regime of hon. gentlemen opposite. And the story is true all along the line with respect to the exportable surplus of our natural products.
What is the position with respect to wheat flour? During the fiscal year ended March 31, 1921, the last year wheat flour entered the United States free of duty, Canadian exports amounted to the huge sum of $12,000,000. The tariff was raised against us in 1922, 1924 and 1930 and the trade dropped after 1924 to $300,000 and the next year it was less than $100,000. In whose regime and in what period of time was the market for our wheat flour in the United States lost to Canada? The same thing is true of oats. Prior to March 31, 1921, we exported oats to the United States to the value of $4,694,519. The tariff was raised on September 21, 1922, to 15 cents per bushel, and increased to 16 cents on June 17, 1930, and by the fiscal year ended March 31, 1930, the export of oats to the United States had dropped from nearly $5,000,000 to a trifling pittance of $20,000. '


Mr. RALSTON:: On account of the one
cent increase?


Richard Burpee Hanson: No, the
increase was to 15 cents first and then one cent afterwards. The total of 16 cents made it impossible.


James Layton Ralston: But the 15 cents was 1922.


Richard Burpee Hanson: September 21, 1922, after hon. gentlemen opposite came into power, and so far as we know they made no protest against it.


James Layton Ralston: But the decrease was after the one cent was added in 1930.


Richard Burpee Hanson: There was no decrease, there was a further increase of one cent.


James Layton Ralston: But the decrease in exports.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I do not
know what the hon. gentleman is talking about


James Layton Ralston: I am talking about the
decreased exports.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I have
only forty minutes; the hon. gentleman had unlimited time.


Mr. BRADETTE:: He did not Tead his
speech, though.


Richard Burpee Hanson: 
Richard Burpee Hanson: But it
has been said. I think the hon. gentleman's own leader said it; he says almost anything that comes into his head. What happened is this: We have been selling to England primary products which practically sell themselves so far as immediate sales in the English market are concerned, while they have been wanting to sell us manufactured goods that in many cases have not hitherto been on our market; that requires high class salesmanship and requires time. That is one reason why they have not done quite as well as we have, but we have done our full duty in the premises, and in this budget we have enlarged, at the specific request of the British government itself, the number of articles on the free list. The hon. gentleman made a play on words the other day with respect to mechanical toys. I wonder whether he
made any investigation with regard to that item before he made that statement.


James Layton Ralston: I mentioned toy construction sets.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I thought he did. I want to tell him if he does not know it-and I am sure he does-that is an important article of commerce in the United Kingdom. We annually import large quantities of that sort of thing into Canada.


James Layton Ralston: How much?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I cannot give the hon. member the figures, but I shall get them for him; they are readily available. I am not a walking encyclopaedia and I have not taken four days including Sunday in the preparation of this speech, either.


James Layton Ralston: Apparently somebody
else has.


Mr. EULER:: It is not as good a speech, either.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That item was put into the budget at the specific request of the British government, and is evidence of the good faith of this country towards the motherland. I have no doubt it will . redound to their advantage.
Then the list of agreements continues as follows:
Country	Date
Irish Free State.. ..August 20, 1932..
Union of South Africa. August 20, 1932.. Southern Rhodesia.. .August 20, 1932..
Terms of Agreement
. Canada concedes British preferential tariff in return for most-favoured-nation treatment in Irish Free State. Formerly each country exchanged. British preferential schedules without agreement.
. Agreement extends list of preferences formerly exchanged in absence of written agreement.
. Confirms exchange of British preferential rates and provides for stated preference on some goods.
Germany	December 27,	1932.	By exchange of notes Canada grants her inter-Renewed March 31, mediate tariff in return for most-favoured-1933, and again on nation treatment in Germany. Canada thus December 23,	1933,	escaped a German super tariff 2 to 10 times
for indefinite period, higher on many items than the normal general tariff and also secured benefit of such German treaty rates as exist from time to time.
France	May 12,	1933. In Canada as regards scheduled goods grants
force June 10, 1933. either her actual intermediate tariff or Enlarged by addi- reductions from intermediate. France grants tional protocol, mostly her minimum tariff on scheduled goods or in effect from percentage reductions from her general tariff. October 1, 1934, and France also removes an 11 per cent ad approved by a Cana- valorem depreciated currency surtax against dian act, assented to Canada and reduces to 2 per cent an "import March 21, 1935.. .. tax" which was 4 per cent on some goods and 6 per cent on others.
Austria	July 5, 1933. Renewed Canadian intermediate tariff is exchanged for
December 29,	1933, most-favoured-nation treatment in Austria,
and again on Jan- which_ secures for Canadian goods entering uary 14, 1935, for Austria guarantee of treaty rates existing indefinite period.. . between Austria and other countries.
2234	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Hanson (York-Sunbury)
These agreements extend the list of preferences formerly exchanged in the absence of written agreements.
In addition to these ten new trade agreements, the government has been actively engaged in the negotiation of others. Negotiations which have been in progress between Canada and Poland for a trade agreement with that country are now far advanced. Negotiations are also in progress with the United States and with some other countries, notably two in Europe, with which Canada does extensive trade. When the whole program is completed we will be in a position to say that Canada has the most extensive and most favourable trade agreements with the whole world she has ever had. It is a program greater in extent than ever attempted before ny any Canadian government.


James Layton Ralston: And less trade.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I propose to discuss that point in a moment; possibly I might as well deal with it now. In the course of his speech the 'hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth stated that we had done a great deal less trade; I believe that is the effect of his observations. Apparently he is content to ignore the fact that since 1929 Canada in common with all other world trading countries has been going through the worst period of depression the world has ever known, whereby not only prices but also volume of commodities have greatly decreased.


James Layton Ralston: I mentioned it.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well, if you did, it must have been, during the time you put us to sleep. I never heard the hon. member mention it, except-


Mr. ELLIOTT:: "Stunned" I think, not "asleep."


Richard Burpee Hanson: I have only forty minutes in which to speak, and I would ask hon. members opposite to allow me to proceed.
In the course of his arguments the hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth made the statement, as reported at page 2103 of Hansard, that the average annual trade of this country for the five year period ending March 31, 1930, the time hon. members opposite were in power, was $2,372,192,198, and that the total trade in the same period was $11,860,960,000. On the other hand he stated that for the five year period ending March 31, 1935, the annual average was $1,190,985,038, and that the total during that five year period was only $5,954,925,194. I have not had an opportunity to verify those figures, but I assume they are

substantially correct. No doubt the hon. member obtained them from the bureau of statistics.
My first observation in reply is that in the last five year period to which the hon. member referred world trade fell from 66 billion dollars in the year 1928-29 to just about 25 billion dollars, representing a decline of no less than 62 per cent. During the same period the trade of Canada declined only about 50 per cent, so that the statement made from time to time that Canada has come through the depression better than most countries has a real basis of fact.


James Layton Ralston: Is the figure of 66 billion dollars for the five year period?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I understand figures issued by the League of Nations indicate that world trade fell from 66 billion dollars to 25 billion dollars.


James Layton Ralston: In what period?


Richard Burpee Hanson: In the second five year period.


James Layton Ralston: The 66 billion dollars is for the first five pear period?


Richard Burpee Hanson: No, I do
not think that is correct. There was a general decline of trade from 66 billion dollars to 25 billion dollars, representing a fall of 62 per cent, while in a comparable period the trade of Canada fell only 50 per cent. It must be borne in mind that the value of commodities during the previous period, on a dollar basis, was in many cases more than double.


James Layton Ralston: What is that?


Richard Burpee Hanson: The value on a dollar basis, prior to 1930, fell by about 50 per cent.


James Layton Ralston: Did the dollar fall?


Richard Burpee Hanson: No, but
the value of commodities fell. The hon. member knows very well what I am trying to indicate, and the interjections are quite unworthy of him. The real reason however for the apparent great decline in our foreign trade is based on two important factors, namely (1) the great decline in the dollar value of commodities; and (2) the closing of the doors to nearly all our products by reason of the action of our neighbours to the south in placing practically prohibitive tariffs against us in the Hawley-Smoot tariff which went into effect in June 1930. When we consider these two elements we may well congratulate ourselves that our foreign trade came through as well as it did.

The Budget-Mr. Pouliot
I should like to speak very briefly respecting the question of trade arrangements with the United States. I submit any extended statement as to the negotiations for a trade treaty with the president and the executive of the United States would be neither advisable nor desirable at this particular juncture, when representations and briefs have just been filed with the United States authorities under the terms of their legislation and are now under consideration. But it will do no harm at this time to restate briefly the position of the Conservative party as outlined by the Prime Minister in his speech in the session of 1933, found at page 2261 of Hansard, where he reviews the whole position, beginning as far back as 1879 when the national policy was introduced into this country, and in which he traced the history of the movement, including the legislation of 1888, 1890 and 1894 under the old Conservative government, and the legislation of 1897 under the Laurier administration, and again in 1923; in all of which there were standing offers of reciprocal trade arrangements on the part of the parliament of Canada. In the face of all these offers the tariff of the United States was steadily raised against Canada, with the exception of a brief period during the democratic administration of President Wilson. During which time we enjoyed practically all the advantages of the proposed agreement of 1911. I would particularly call the attention of the house to the language of the Prime Minister at page 2267, in which he uses the following words:
We must concede the absolute right of the United States Congress to determine what it conceives to be best in the interests of that country. That is clear. In my judgment all we can do is follow the course that has been followed by successive governments and indicate clearly our willingness to negotiate on terms that are fair and reasonable, to quote the words that have been used by both Liberal and Conservative prime ministers and ministers of finance. We can only be ready and willing to avail ourselves of any proposals that are fair and reasonable and are not of such a character as will involve injury to this country if they are speedily terminated. I regard that as a factor of the utmost importance, and I believe I always shall, because I never have seen any answer to that argument, whether it be the notice that terminated that reciprocity agreement in 1864 or 1865, or the more recent termination of the Wilson tariff statute.
The negotiations are going on and in my opinion no good purpose will be served by continuing the discussion here.


Jean-François Pouliot: Mr. Speaker, speaking to the subamendment may I say that on February 3,
1933, as appearing at page 1805 of Hansard the following question was put to the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote):
Mr. Pouliot:	If the tariff is lowered will
there be any further necessity for inflation? If trade becomes normal will not our currency also return to normal?
Mr. Coote:	The more tariffs we remove
the sooner our money will return to its proper level.
The same matter was referred to on March 27, 1933, at page 3427 of Hansard, and the hon. member did not object to it. At page 4459 of the Hansard of May 1, 1933, the same matter was referred to by the member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot), and the hon. member for Macleod spoke as follows:
I do not think my hon. friend has quoted me correctly. Although we might have free trade, I think this country has been deflated to such a point that we must have inflation to correct the situation. I was in error if I gave the answer which the hon. gentleman attributes to me.
But he had said, "The more tariffs we remove the sooner our money will return to its proper level." That is very clear, Mr. Speaker, and I shall not insist any more about it.
In his speech this afternoon the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Hanson) said that it was when the Liberal government was in power that Canada lost her markets. I have a few remarks to make on that same subject of markets but with this difference, that I shall submit that the time when Canada lost her markets was from 1930 until the present under this Conservative administration. The hon. minister was kind enough some time ago to give me some information about the proportion of the United Kingdom's trade with empire countries to total world trade for the calendar years 1929 to 1933, and I find there that the proportion is as follows:
Proportion of United Kingdom Trade with Empire Countries of Total World Trade (Calendar Years, 1929 to 1933)
Imports	Exports	Total tradeYears	%	%	%1929.. .	. .. 4.9	4.8	4.81930.. .	. .. 5.1	4.6	4.81931.. .	. .. 5.4	4.1	4.81932.. .	. .. 6.2	4.5	5.41933.. .	. .. 6.6	4.6	5.6
I am not making any point about the percentage of imports and exports because they are about the same, but the figures in the above table that I wish to stress are those showing the United Kingdom's empire trade as a percentage of total world trade, namely, in 1930, 4-8 per cent; 1931, 4-8 per cent; 1932, 5-4 per cent, and 1933, 5-6 per cent. But that
The Budget-Mr. Pouliot

does not represent the whole empire trade because it does not also include the trade of all other British countries between themselves.
It has already been put upon Hansard that the total British empire trade amounts to 9-1 per cent of world trade. Therefore the total empire trade, including the United Kingdom's trade with empire countries, is about 9-1 per cent of the total world's trade. That means that in accepting the Ottawa agreememts this government has sacrificed the chances of Canada in 91 per cent of the total world's trade for 9-1 per cent of that trade. It shows that Canada now has opportunities in only a very small fraction of the world's trade.
In sessional paper No. 127 B, of February 4, 1935, the hon. Secretary of State (Mr. Cahan) answered as follows for the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Hanson) :
Imports from the United Kingdom and other British countries were less for the twelve months ended August 31, 1931, 1932, 1933 and 1934 than for the same period in 1930'; while exports to the United Kingdom were less for the twelve months ended August 31, 1931, 1932, 1933 than for the twelve months ended August 31, 1930, but greater for the same period in 1934 than in 1930; while exports to empire countries were less for the twelve months ended August 31, 1931, 1932, 1933 and 1934 than for the same period in 1930.
That means that Canada's empire trade has been much less since this government has been in power than under the previous Liberal administration. The answer of the hon. Secretary of State was to a question about exports to the United Kingdom, and his answer refers only to domestic exports and does not include Canada's exports of foreign merchandise. If the latter were included, as it should have been, it would have shown that in fact our total exports to the United Kingdom were not greater but less for the twelve .months ended August 31, 1934, than for the same period in 1930.
Now I am going to give Canada's imports from and its domestic exports to the United Kingdom and other British countries for the years 1930 to 1934 inclusive, from the official return, sessional paper 127B, and others tabled the same day:
I.-Canadian Trade with United Kingdom United Kingdom-
Twelve
months ended	Less
August 31	Imports from than in 1930
1930	$172,473,524	.1931	
132,094,882	$40,378,6421932	
94,374,040	78,099,4841933	
90,915,897	81,557,6271934	
112,760,992	59,712,532

That shows that the total loss in Canada's imports from the United Kingdom from August 31, 1930, to September 1, 1934, was $259,000,000 in round figures. That is the loss sustained in our imports from the United Kingdom. Here are our domestic exports to the United Kingdom:
Domestic Exports to United Kingdom
Less
than in 1930
1930	$258,980,455	.1931	
195.414,843	$63,565,6121932	
168,674,283	90,306,1721933	
197,634,504	61,345,9511934	
259,015,456	35,001*Less	
$215,182,734
* Increase.
There was an increase of $35,001 in 1934 as compared with 1930, but the above table does not include the export of foreign produce from Canada, or the figures would have been considerably different. The total loss in Canadian domestic exports to the United Kingdom from 1930 to 1934 was $215,000,000 in round figures.
Let us see for the same period Canada's trade with other British countries:
II.-Canadian Trade with other British Countries excluding United Kingdom
Other British	Less
countries	Imports from than in 1930
1930		 $66,465,042
1931	
45,413,713	$21,051,3291932	
36,448,736	30,016,3061933	
33,214,572	33,250,4701934	
41,050,621	25,414,421

That shows a total loss in Canadian imports from other British countries than the United Kingdom of $109,000,000 in round figures.
Now our domestic exports to British countries other than the United Kingdom are as follows:
Other British Countries
1930..	.
1931..	.
1932..	.
1933..	.
1934..	.
Domestic exports to . .	$90,391,007
. .	60,243,107
..	41,471,154
..	39,950,609
. .	61,107,113
Less
than in 1930

That shows a total loss in domestic exports to British countries other than the United Kingdom for those four years of $158,000,000 in round figures.

The Budget-Mr. Pouliot
Canada's empire trade, that is our trade with all empire countries, including the United Kingdom, was as follows:
Twelve
months ended	Less
August 31	Imports from than in 1930
1930		$238,938,566
1931	
177,508.595	$ 61,429,9711932	
130,822,776	108,115,7901933	
124.130,469	114.808,0971934	
153,811,613	85,126,953

Domestic	Less
Exports to	than in 1930
1930		$349,371,462
1931	
255,657,950	$ 93,713,5121932	
210,145,437	139,226,0251933	
237,585,113	111,786.3491934	
320,122,569	29.248,893

Imports
and Domestic Less Exports than in 1930
1930		$588,310,028
1931	
433.166.545	$155,143,4831932	
340.968.213	247,341,8151933	
361.715,582	226,594.4461934	
473,934,182	114,375,846

It would appear that Canada's domestic exports to the United Kingdom were 835,001 more in 1934 than in 1930; but Canada's
total exports, including foreign produce, to the United Kingdom, were in fact less in 1934 than in 1930. This is only a fraction of Canada's British trade. Canada's domestic exports to other British countries were 829,283,894 less for the same period. Canada's empire trade, including imports, in 1934 was $114,375,846 less than in the last year of the Mackenzie King government.
What benefits have been derived from the Ottawa agreements? The results of the general policy of this government and the increased tariffs it has put into effect are contained in an official return made on February 4 by the Secretay of State. This document states that Canada's monthly imports and domestic exports from September 1, 1929, to August 31, 1934, were less than for each month from September 1, 1929, to August 31,
1930.	Ever since this government has been in power the monthly figures for our trade, both imports and exports, show a decrease for the corresponding month in the last year of the Liberal government. I should like to quote some figures which give a comparison between the monthly imports and exports in 1934 and in 1930. Mention will have to be made of the last four months in 1929 because these were included in the figures of the last year of the Mackenzie King government. These figures are:
Decrease in 1934
compared with
Monthly imports-	1930	1934	1930January	
$ 84.662,377	$32,391,424	-$52,270,953February	
80,922,161	33.591,884	- 47,330,277
113.025.526	47.519.291	- 65,506,235
71.401.839	34.814.498	- 36,587,341
101.544.817	52,886.861	- 48,657,956June	
91,543.981	46,185,892	- 45,358,089July	
84.550,935	44,144.509	- 40,406,426August	
77,960,294	43,507,331	- 34,398,9631929	1934	September	
99.379.848	42,207,602	- 57,172,246October	
116.271.197	47.228.804	- 69,042,393November	
108,733,697	49,884,153	- 58,849,544December	
84,365,155	39,107,248	- 45,257,907Domestic exports-	1930	1934	January	
73,507,327	46.652,017	- 26,855,310February	
66,689.817	37,842.403	- 28,847,414March	
89,595,317	57,637,721	- 31,957,596April	
50,744.139	31,581,881	- 19,162,258May	57,899,511	- 19,361,046June	58,045,528	- 20,657,753July	56,121,112	- 20,286,394August	
69,290,228	55,249,375	- 14,040,8531929	1934	(September	58.135,136	- 31,288,458October	67.747,809	- 51.517,749November	65,124,512	- 45,943,820December	60,850,223	- 27,670,132
The Budget-Mr. Pouliot


Mr. SAMUEL GOBEIL (Compton):: At
the outset of my remarks may I extend to the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Rhodes) my congratulations upon the very able manner in which he presented the budget for this fiscal year. It is not a political budget, not a budget to mislead the people of this country but the budget of a business man setting forth the facts as they are, and one which the future will justify.
Until I heard the speeches of hon. gentlemen opposite, especially that of the hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth (Mr. Ralston) and the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Ger-shaw) I was undecided whether or not I should participate in this debate. But as they have repeated the assertion that this government and the Conservative party have strangled the external trade of our country and, as they are constantly doing, have claimed that this party is a party of high tariffs, and as I come from a constituency bordering on the United States I felt that I could not let this occasion pass without stating once more the actual facts in regard to the tariff. Before going into that, however, I should like to say a few words concerning the speech made by the hon. member for Medicine Hat. At the beginning of his speech he said:
I am of the opinion that the people of this country want a general election at the earliest possible moment.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Samuel Gobeil: I hear some hon. gentlemen saying "Hear, hear."


Mr. GERSHAW:: That is right.


Samuel Gobeil: Are hon. gentlemen opposite as anxious as they seem to be for a general election? Have they confidence in the judgment of the electors? I hear nobody saying, "Hear, hear." I can only conclude that they
The Budget-Mr. Gobeil

are not as confident of the result of the coming election as they would try to lead people of this country to believe. I see two principal reasons for that. One is not only a reason but a proof that my hon. friends are not at all anxious to have an election noWj "without delay," as they say. If that be true why should they want to disfranchise a couple of hundred thousand electors? If they were so confident of the verdict of the electors why should they be clamouring to have an election now or within a couple of months, thereby disfranchising all the boys and girls who have come of age or will come of age between the date of the making up of the list last year and the next revision in May? If my hon. friends were as confident as they claim to be they would want to have these boys and girls vote so as to enlarge their majority. But they know that these boys and girls are not going to vote for the Liberal party. They know very well that the youth of to-day are thinking seriously, that they realize that the civilized world is at the parting of the ways and that this government has done all that could possibly be done. The youth of this country do not overlook, as my hon. friends opposite always do, that we have been passing through a depression for six years. They are aware of that, and they also realize that this government has done everything that could be done to minimize the seriousness of the depression, and that it is now passing legislation which will give the youth of the country a chance. Of course I can only speak for myself, but personally I would urge the government not to dissolve parliament, or at least not to have a general election, before all those young people, who will probably number around two hundred thousand, have their names put on the lists and have a chance to have their say in the election of the next parliament.


Mr. BEAUBIEN:: Is it the intention of
the government to defer the election until the Dionne quintuplets are able to vote?


Samuel Gobeil: I said that I was speaking
for myself. At all events I am not aware of the intention of the government, but even if parliament were to prorogue before Easter-and every hon. member knows that is impossible-we could not have a general election before the end of May or the first part of June. This would mean that the electorate would be called upon to cast their votes while the revision of the lists was in progress, with the consequence that all the boys and girls who should have an opportunity to express their opinion at the polls would not be able to do so.

I want to refer to another remark made by the hon. member for Medicine Hat. In the course of his address he said: "The farmers are submerged." I am not going to dispute those words, but I am afraid many people forget that the farmers have not got into debt since 1930. I do not think there is one farmer out of a hundred who since 1930 contracted a new mortgage or went into debt heavily. My hon. friends opposite claim that the farmers are in a desperate plight, and we agree with them in that. But if the farmers are in a desperate condition, it is because they went into debt during the supposed prosperity from, if you like, 1925 to 1930; that is the time when, as every hon. member knows, the farmers contracted their debts. Since 1930 they have not been able to repay their debts, but those who did not have any, have managed to live fairly well. The troubles from which the farmers are suffering to-day were contracted under the previous administration; no one can dispute that.
To come to the main remarks I intend to make, the hon. member for Shelbume-Yar-mouth (Mr. Ralston) at the beginning of his speech said:
At long last the government had come to realize that the trade and tariff policies which had been nearly the ruination of this country for the past four years had been futile.
Those are the words that caused me to decide to make a few remarks in this debate. I have absolutely no apology for saying that I am a party man, that I believe in the party system. Under our system of government we must have parties. I believe also the role of the opposition is perhaps just as important and necessary to good conduct of the affairs of the country as is the role of the government of the day. The duty, the role of the opposition is to criticize the government when it deserves criticism. But in order to fulfil its function, the opposition must make honest criticism, criticism that will not mislead the electorate. I say very definitely that my hon. friends opposite know very well that the tariff changes that have been made since 1930 have not been the cause of the ruination of this country in the last four years.
I want to put on Hansard some actual and specific figures. My notes are pretty well along the lines of the remarks of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Hanson), so that as I do not want to duplicate his observations, I shall have to be careful and cut down some of mine. In view of the repeated declarations of hon. gentlemen opposite-and they make declarations in a general way;

The Budget-Mr. Gobeil
they do not point to any specific rate of duty raised by this government as being the cause of loss of trade-it is necessary that we dot some of the i's and cross some of the t's. I am going to mention just a few items, but before doing so I want to repeat in a general way what has already been said by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, namely, that almost every country in the world during the regime of hon. gentlemen opposite raised its tariff duties against Canada, in such a way that in many cases the tariffs were absolutely exclusive. Let me cite a few items of the French tariff, as follows:
Commodity	When tariff imposed
Wheat	January, 1924	
May, 1930	
Cheese	April	7,	1926	
1928	
Butter	April	7,	1926	
June 3, 1930	
Refined	lard	April	7.	1926	
July 19, 1930	
Fresh apples (in boxes of 44
pounds)	April	7.	1926	
March 2, 1928	
Tariff
11 cents a bushel 85 cents a bushel 45 cents per cwt. $1.78 per cwt.
40 cents per cwt. $3.55 per cwt.
60 cents per cwt. $4.45 per cwt.
05 cents per cwt. 27 cents per cwt.
So much for France. I could keep on mentioning pretty nearly every natural product in Canada where tariffs of foreign countries
against Canada have been almost prohibitive. Let me now quote a few items from the German tariff duties, as follows:
Commodity Wheat	
Butter	
When tariff imposed
May 1. 1922	
April 25, 1930	
May 1, 1922	
July 15, 1929	
Tariff
Free
98 cents per bushel Free
$ 5.50 per cwt.
(or 5J cents a pound)
Free
$ 2.90 per cwt.
$ 7.61 per cwt.
$22.70 per cwt.
Free
44 cents per bushel
Cattle	May	1,	1922..	..
December 21, 1929
Rubber footwear (unvarnished) 1921	
^	October	25. 1923..Oats	Mav	1,1922..	..
March 27, 1930..
Then we have the figures for the following countries:
Commodity Wheat	
Ham	
Cheese	
Evaporated milk.. .. Condensed milk.. ..
Wheat	
Oatmeal	
Douglas fir	
Bacon and ham.. ..
Butter	
Condensed milk.. ..
Italy
When tariff imposed
1921	
May 4, 1929	
1921	
April 20, 1927	
Belgium
1921	 ,
1926	
1921	
June 7, 1926	
1921	
June 7, 1926	
Japan
1921	
1930	
1921	
1930	
1921	
1930	
China
. 1921	
1930	
. 1921	
1930	
. 1921	
1930	
Tariff
Free
73J cents per bushel
Free			
$2.19	per	cwt.	81	cents per	cwt.97	cents per	cwt.Free	40	cents per	cwt.$1.01	per	cwt.	$1.68	per	cwt.	18	cents per	bushel34	cents per	bushel$2.00	per	cwt.	$3.57	per	cwt.	Free	$4.55	per	1,000	feet$1.02	per	cwt.	$5.14	per	cwt.	$1.54	per	cwt.	$5.88	per	cwt.	55	cents per	cwt.
$1.96 per cwt.
The Budget-Mr. Gobeil


John Campbell Elliott: Then why aren't you willing to give them a chance?


Samuel Gobeil: This government is willing
to give them a chance, and they will have full opportunity to decide whom they want to govern dui'ing the next four years, but at the same time it is only fair that this government should have the opportunity to pass all the legislation that has been brought down and that was broadcast by the Prime Minister, and my hon. friend knows very well that that legislation cannot be passed and an ejection held in a month from now. But, Mr. Speaker, I say that this government will have the full support of the people because it is a government of action, and what this country wants now, and more especially the youth of this country, is a government of action.


John Campbell Elliott: Yes, not a government of words.


Samuel Gobeil: My time is nearly up, Mr. Speaker, or I should have liked to mention a few of the bills that have been passed this session, but it is not necessary because my hon. friends know what has been done, although they may not know all that is going to be done. Unless they are absolutely insincere when they speak in this house, it must be that they do not feel the pulse of the people, or they would not have opposed many of the bills which this government has brought down. I will mention the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act. That was a good law, and my hon. friends opposite should have realized that since it has been passed it has been very well looked upon and has rendered invaluable service to the farmers of this country although
The Budget-Mr. Gobeil

it is just beginning to operate. When we hear hon. gentlemen opposite making statements about that act such as we heard a few days ago, it simply means that they are not aware of what the electors are thinking or they would not make such statements. Only yesterday a Liberal member of the legislature of the province of Quebec made a speech in the provincial legislature praising the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act. That was a Liberal member of the provincial legislature, Mr. Lamoureux, representing the county of Iberville. He said that that law was very advantageous to the farmers of the province of Quebec and to the farmers of Canada generally. I might also mention the marketing act, the amendments to the Farm Loan Act, and the legislation that has been brought down this session, the minimum wage law, the eight hour day law, and so on. Again I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that it is absolutely necessary in order to do justice to this government as well as to the electors of this country that all the legislation that has been brought down by this government should be passed before there is an appeal to the people. It is also necessary that everyone entitled to vote should foe given the opportunity of voting at the next elections. The electors should have the opportunity of forming an opinion as to the effect of the legislation passed by the present government and I do not think this government should be in a hurry to have the elections. Personally, I am not.


Mr. CHARLES BELEC (Pontiac):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to associate myself with other hon. members in congratulating our exceedingly able Minister of Finance (Mr. Rhodes) upon the presentation of such a splendid budget. This budget has been described as a poor man's budget and I think that is the proper description, because it goes further than any other budget in the history of Canada in redistributing the wealth of the country and in placing the burden of taxes upon those most able to pay them. I want to emphasize the fact that the reform policies started last year by this government have helped the country through these very trying times. I should like to outline a few of the achievements of the Bennett government.
This government introduced the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act which has saved and will save thousands of farmers from the foreclosure of the mortgages against their properties. Many farmers in the county which I have the honour to represent have already taken advantage of this legislation. By means of the official receivers who have
[Mr. Gobeil. 1
been appointed an effort is being made to arrange for settlements between the farmers and their creditors. It	has been felt
essential that any feeling of distrust which may now exist between the two groups should be 'dissipated and that simple machinery has been constructed for the purpose of providing a better understanding between the farmer and his creditors and to bring about a feeling of renewed hope in the rural sections of Canada.
The Bennett government passed the Natural Products Marketing Act which has been of great assistance in raising the prices of agricultural products. I would remind hon. members who come from rural constituencies that the value of our field crops produced in 1934 was $544,975,000, a gain of $91,377,000 over 1933. It might be interesting to note that we are again exporting cattle to the United States.
It must be admitted that conditions in agriculture still leave much to be desired but a decided improvement has been effected in the last year and I am sure it will continue Enhanced world prices have reflected the increasing prosperity and greater purchasing power of the important centres of the world. This fact greatly benefited Canadian producers last year and should be of benefit again in 1935. Last year an increase of twelve cents per bushel occurred in the price of wheat as compared with the prices for the preceding year and this added nearly $32,840,000 to the value of our wheat crop. There was a similar increase from twenty-five cents a bushel in 1933 to thirty-three cents a bushel in 1934 in the average price of oats which netted the Canadian farmer an additional $25,197,000. More than $10,000,000 was added to the value of the barley crop and over $500,000 was added to the value of the rye crop because of enhanced world prices.
Not only has the government endeavoured to aid the farmer by such legislation as the marketing act and the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act but it has passed various amendments to the Canadian Farm Loan Act which are designed to provide agricultural credit at low rates. The government has also taken action to promote a general reduction of interest rates. These things have helped the farmer and that is why I am proud to support the Bennett government, an administration of achievement.
I should like to recount some further achievements of this government during five of the most trying years in the history of our country. This government has spent $175,000,000 in relief, for public works, to assist the provinces and the municipalities, to

The Budget-Mr. Belec
build a trans-Canada highway and maintain relief camps. It is with considerable regret that I report that relief works expenditures in my county were curtailed because I could not secure the cooperation of the two local provincial members, Mr. W. R. McDonald and J. E. Piche. In 1933 I advocated the construction of the Sheenboro highway and could have secured an appropriation from this government for that purpose. However, the two provincial members would not join me in getting the Taschereau government to help to build a road which would have provided a new means of communication with the north country. Not only would the building of this highway have provided work but it would have been an all-Quebec road. At present we must leave our province and reach our rich mining centres by way of Ontario. I am sure there are many hon. members on both sides of the house who do not realize just what the building of this road would have meant to this particular district. On May 11 of last year I placed on Hansard the whole situation with regard to this highway and how the county of Pontiac had lost this means of communication because of lack of cooperation by the provincial members. I place the blame for this road not being built squarely upon the Taschereau government and its two lieutenants in my county. I would like to have these two gentlemen look up Hansard of March 22, 1934, and read the following remarks of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Gordon) with respect to this highway. He said:
As far as the trans-Canada highway is concerned I do not think the hon. member wants to be understood as saying that in his judgment the trans-Canada highway should go up to Senneterre and out to Manitoba in that direction. And I do not think he means that the road from Sheenboro to connect with Kipawa in Quebec is not being built because of any neglect on the part of the dominion government, because the fact is we have received no schedule and no request for any contribution to that road which would connect with the Ontario road's passing through Rouyn down to Ottawa and Montreal. The Sheenboro-Kipawa-Ville Marie road is the one break which has necessitated the people in the north end of Pontiac and the Rouyn mining country coming down to Montreal and Toronto by the Ferguson highway in Ontario. I do not think the hon. member wants to be understood as meaning that the province of Quebec has given the lead to Ontario as far as opening up that part of northern Quebec is concerned, as compared with the efforts of the provincial government of Ontario in opening up roads in Ontario, which has been going on steadily and to an increasing extent each year. The Ferguson highway has been the outlet to the front, both Toronto and Montreal, for all of that north part of Pontiac to the present time, and still is as far as vehicular and motor traffic is concerned.
Let me tell the house that the government has preserved the credit not only of this dominion but of the provinces and the railways as well, and it has looked after 300,000 people and is taking care of about 150,000 in the drought areas of Saskatchewan. Furthermore, the government negotiated the British empire trade agreements which gave Canadian farmers an assured market in Great Britain. This all' tended to increase the prices of farm products. These trade agreements, it is said, have saved Canada from bankruptcy. Let me give the trade figures for 1934. Canada's trade in the calendar year 1934 exceeded the billion dollar mark for the first time since 1931; the total was SI .173,373,000 compared with $939,000,000 in 1933; in 1932 it was $954,454,000; in 1931 it was $1,245,341,000. This was an increase of 24-9 per cent over 1933 and 22 per cent over 1932.
Domestic exports increased from $493,808,000 in 1932 to $531,751,000 in 1933 and $652,887,000 in 1934, a gain of 22-8 per cent over 1933 and 32-2 per cent over 1932. Domestic exports were $605,336,000 in 1931, so that 1934 showed a gain of 7-2 per cent over that year.
I do not think I have emphasized sufficiently what the government has done for the farmer. The measures which have been enacted and to which I have made reference have been of the most vital importance to the agriculturist. The government has helped him- in every way-by reducing interest rates and in other ways. In all the nine years of Liberal government no efforts were made to reduce interest charges.
The Prime Minister's reform program has been received with great enthusiasm by the people of my county. The five major pieces of legislation presented were unemployment insurance, the eight hour day bill, the six day week, minimum wages and the economic council. Besides, there is the price spreads committee's report, which will mean new legislation to protect the consumer and primary producer against unfair trading practices and to regulate concentration in production and distribution. There will also be measures to protect the investing public against exploitation. This is a very important question in my riding.
There was a tax on gold and this will be abolished at the end of next May. Of this action I heartily approve. My county, the county of Pontiac, produced 390.052 ounces of gold in 1934, valued at $13,456,749. The silver produced reached a total of 455,021 ounces, valued at $215,957. Copper production amounted to 69,057,942 pounds, valued at $5,123,616. It will be seen therefore that the
The Budget-Mr. Belec

removal of the tax on gold will mean that our great mining industry will advance by leaps and bounds in the coming year. There will be no restrictions, but this industry, which has done so much to stabilize distressed conditions during the depression, will continue to new heights of prosperity. In my county there is no depression in the mining centres. I wish the other parts of Pontiac could be equally prosperous.
In the budget there is also a reduction in the taxes and duties on liquor, and this will reduce the price about 50 cents a quart. I think we all agree that the price of liquor has been too high, and the reduction in the tax will lower the price and thus drive the bootlegger and smuggler out of business.
The budget, as I see it, is essential'y a poor man's budget and is therefore worthy of support and high commendation Let me say in conclusion that the county which I am proud to represent is diversified in its wealth. It has gold mines, silver mines and copper mines, it is the cradle of the lumbering industry, and possesses some of the finest farms in Canada. We have not escaped the plague of distress and unemployment, but the lumbering industry I am glad to say seems to be advancing after having been at a standstill for the last four years. In order to help the unemployed among my constituents I have done everything in my power to initiate public works. In this connection I would reiterate the fact that the Bennett government- has expended1 more than SI,000,000 in Pontiac county since 1930 as compared with $534,090 spent in the county in the nine years of the Liberal administration. I am amazed that our opponents should be so anxious to hurry the election, especially when our leader (Mr. Bennett) is recovering after a serious illness. I am also amazed that our Liberal friends, while opposing our reform measures, vote for them just the same. Our Liberal friends want an early election. When the time comes they will realize that the people of Canada want a government of action- and not one of laissez-faire. I am certain that the Prime Minister will be given a mandate to continue his progressive administration for the benefit of all classes of the people.
On motion of Mr. Beynon the debate was adjourned.
At six o'clock the house took recess.

After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 28, for the relief of Mary Wynifred Bayford Bennett.-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 29, for the relief of Lillian Gurden McIntyre.-Mr. White (Mount Royal).
Bill No. 30, for the relief of Minnie Elizabeth Lyons Dafoe.-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 31, for the relief of Trevor Eardley-Wilmot.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 34, for the relief of Marie Philomene Florence Maher McCaffrey.-Mr. Heaps.
Bill No. 35, for the relief of Stuart Lewis Ralph Henderson.-Mr. Moore (Chateauguay-Huntingdon).
Bill No. 36, for the relief of Charles Henry Campbell.-Mr. White (Mount Royal).
Bill No. 37, for the relief of Maria Elphin-stone Hastie Kinnon.-Mr. Belle (St. Antoine).

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 33, for -the relief of Ray Leitman Aronoff.-Mr. Garland (Carleton).-E.F.
Bill No. 44, for the relief of Agnes Mabel Potter Brockwell.-Mr. Garland (Carleton).- E.F.
Bill No. 45, for the relief of John Henry Ley.-Mr. Garland (Carleton).

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Morand in the chair.
Salaries, $402,692; contingencies, $45,948.
Mr. MacINNIS:: When adjournment came on Friday last I was discussing under this item the unemployment relief camps. I had stated that while in the regulations the foreman in the ca-mp was asked to have some of the other persons in charge with him when interviewing the men on matters of discipline, the same right was not allowed to the men in the camps. I think the minister did not agree with me on that point, and I would like now to ask him whether he can assure me that a man when appearing before the foreman or anyone in charge is entitled to have someone with him if he so wishes.


Hon. GROTE STIRLING (Minister of National Defence):: I am not aware of any
regulation which prevents a man being

Supply-Dejence-Relief Camps
accompanied by a companion when he wishes to discuss a complaint he wants to make to the foreman.


Angus MacInnis: Is there any regulation
that allows this? As the matter stands now and as it is definitely stated in the regulations, anything savouring of combination in the presentation of grievances is disallowed; the rules are very emphatic on that point. One of the first things that must be done, if we are to administer the camps with any degree of satisfaction to the men in them, is that they should be allowed to organize in such a way that they can properly present their grievances to the foreman. Moreover, after they are discharged from the camp they are never called before any board or committee to state their case. The superintendent, if the case comes before him, gets only the foreman's side of it; he never gets the man's side


Grote Stirling: Can my hon. friend
prove that?


Angus MacInnis: Supply-Defence-Relief Camps
"Personnel will be free to leave the work to accept other employment offered; they may be discharged 'for cause' and if so discharged will subsequently be ineligible for reemployment under the scheme."
That is one of the conditions for which some remedy must be provided.
"Free transportation will be given from place of engagement and return thereto on discharge-except for misconduct.
"The standard of rations shall be that prescribed for the army.
"No military discipline or training will be instituted; the status of the personnel will remain civilian in all respects.
"Officers in charge of projects are responsible for the care of the men placed under their supervision and it will be their object to ensure that their efficiency-mentally, physically and at their trades-is improved so that when conditions permit they may be returned to the economic life of the country well able to again take up their usual work. To assist in this, educational and instructional classes will be organized; recreation, amusements and games will be arranged'; every possible opportunity will be given to men to work at and to become proficient in their own selected trades.
"All concerned are reminded' that the funds are limited and that it is desired to care for the maximum possible number of men in need; that the possibility of obtaining additional funds depends to some extent on the value of the _ work done and, in consequence, that efficient direction and' strict economy in all matters are, therefore, of great importance."
A. McNaughton,
Major-General, C.G.S.
The committee finds that the first part of this arrangement has been lived up to by the Department of National Defence, that is in the matter of providing food, clothing and shelter for the men, but that the second part, that is of seeing to the psychological side of the men's lives, has not been lived up to. I will read from the report:
A period of eight months has elapsed since this policy was put into operation, and during that period your committee has kept in close touch with conditions in the camps and the difficulties confronting the administration. It has through direct personal contact with officials administering relief, as well as with men in the camps, obtained a great deal of information which has been carefully considered.
The conclusions 'arrived at are submitted as suggesting a constructive policy .acceptable both to the government and to the men, which whilst practical would not necessitate heavier financial outlay. In general we find that in the matter of accommodation, clothing, food, medical care, work and 'allowances, the Department of National Defence on behalf of the Dominion of Canada has fulfilled its obligations and carried out its promises and we are particularly impressed with the high standard of living in the camps and the moderate cost of the ration maintenance.
There is, however, a broader and, in the opinion of this committee, a more important aspect to the whole situation which cannot longer be ignored and must in any plan for
[Mr. Maclnnis.l
unemployment relief be recognized as the most important factor in the whole situation-we refer to the maintenance of morale and the recognition 'by the government that food for the mind is as important as food for the body and that healthy recreation in addition to the daily work is so essential as to need no further emphasis.
I quite appreciate the fact that the present Minister of National Defence has been administering his department for only a short time, and that even if he were anxious to do something towards reorganization he may not have had the time to give the matter the consideration it merits. I find however that speaking in this chamber on Friday evening last the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Sutherland), formerly Minister of National Defence, made this statement:
If the men are warm, if the clothing provided is good and the food substantial, I do not think there can 'be anything to complain of.
I wonder if the hon. member ever, heard the saying that man cannot live by bread alone. He requires something more than food, shelter and clothing. Animals can get along with limited requirements, but even with respect to animals, if we wish to obtain the best results we must treat them kindly and give them attention. Then, the minister went on to say:
The camps are not permanent; it is not as though the men were going to be there for some time and had to build up some system of rights.
As a matter of fact, so far as we can see at the present time the camps are permanent. That is one of the difficulties. The men feel when they go to the camps that there should be written over the doors of the camps the words: All hope abandon ye who enter here. There is no hope for the man going into a camp to-day; he may be in there for the next five years or possibly for the rest of his life. The minister cannot say, the government cannot say, and no hon. member in this chamber can say when the camps may be abolished. Continuing the report says:
It is our considered opinion that there are classes of single unemployed men for whom more or less permanent provision will have to be made and that failure to recognize this fact and plan accordingly will have serious effects on the whole situation. The presence of 5,000 single men in the city of Vancouver registered as unfit and homeless seems to justify this statement.
We 'believe that the whole situation should be surveyed throughout the dominion by a commission competent by reason of the experience of its personnel to advise the government as to the policy to be pursued.
When we were advocating a committee to investigate camps I was not aware that this report existed. I believe it goes considerably

Supply-Defence-Relief Camps
farther than the suggestions we made, and indicates that the whole governmental policy should be considered. The report continues:
The main points we desire to emphasize are as follows:
(a)	A work and wages scheme in lieu of the allowance system.
(b)	Coordination between the government employment services and the camp authorities.
(c)	Organization of recreational activities.
(d)	Regular periods of leave.
(e)	Segregation of age and youth within the camps.
(f)	Welfare committees of the men elected by the men in each camp.
(e) The necessity for suitable personnel.
Your committee has urged in the past the necessity for a work and wages scheme and is still of the opinion that this would largely diminish the present unrest in the camps, without extra cost to the government.
There are many problems due to the present basis of administration, connected with clothing, tobacco and snuff issues, and transportation which we think could be obviated by a wages system, and, most important of all, we think that such a system would help to preserve a man's self respect.
To arrive at a satisfactory basis of pay, it is suggested! that men should be required to work for a sufficient number of hours each week to enable them to earn at the minimum wage rate for unskilled labour enough to pay for theiT board, clothing, lodging and issues, an actual cost basis plus a cash surplus of not less than twenty cents per working day.
The committee feel that when skilled tradesmen or mechanics are used at their trades, the rate of pay should be increased and the hours reduced if necessary.
On several occasions complaints have been made to me, more particularly during the last session of parliament, to the effect that the department was using men skilled in various trades and giving them relief camp allowance pay.
Then a section of the report is headed "Coordination between the government employment services and the camp authorities." I shall not read the suggestions in detail, but would state briefly that the committee recommended very close coordination between the government employment service and the camps, because the men in the camps are away from the cities and for that reason are not in a position to look for work for themselves. Then the report continues:
There is no organization of games and recreation; books and magazines are circulated regularly to all camps, but this does not suffice, and proper supplies of recreational equipment such as footballs, soft balls, fishing gear, etc., should be provided. We are of the opinion that a sum of $4,000 annually would be sufficient for the men's needs in this respect and would go far towards preserving the morale of both old and young. Any expenditure of this character should be very carefully laid out; as there are miany articles such as softball bats and cricket bats which can be made by the men themselves. The cam-p visitors for
the iChureh Cooperative Camp iGouneil have reported the pleasure derived by the men in the camps and their gratitude for issues of sporting goods which were distributed in fifty camps of this province during the summeir of 1933 from private funds, and this committee regards the recognition of this need by the government as one of the most urgent problems in the administration of camp relief.
A man sent to camp tends to lose hope and to become resigned to his fate. He feels that he is forgotten as "disposed of." Before he reaches this mental state and as an outlet for his dissatisfaction he makes trouble and is a fruitful field for "red" propaganda. If a short period of leave were granted every two months to the nearest town, conditional on good behaviour, despondency would he diminished and the men would have something to look forward to. Periodic leave is necessary for the maintenance of morale.
More consideration might be given, by the camp management to the effect of unemployment and isolation in camp on the mental life of the men.
As a matter of fact may I say that my experience was that this factor was overlooked in the camps, the management feeling that if they supplied reasonably good food and sufficient clothing to keep the men warm, that was all they were required to do. I quote further:
Segregation of youth and age within the camp. In certain of the camp areas it has been stated that the blending of age and youth has been adopted with the idea that the older men would have a steadying effect on the younger. This is, in the opinion of the committee, an unwise policy.
I am told, but I have no proof of it, that there are rather unfavourable moral effects arising from the mixing of old and young men in these camps. Continuing:
Welfare committees of the men elected by the men in each camp.
That is what I would like particularly to impress upon the minister because I feel quite satisfied that no group of self respecting men can submit to discipline and accept orders in regard to matters over which they have absolutely no control and in which their opinion is not asked. Continuing to quote:
Committees or organizations of men within the camp areas are not officially recognized as they are considered to be subversive of discipline and order. Committees, however, do operate within the camp areas with or without tacit approval, and we ask the question: Is it better to have a properly constituted camp committee operating in the open, or a bush committee acting under a sense of grievance?
We recommend that more trust and confidence be placed in the men and that grievances are better ventilated in the open than suppressed. It should not be a difficult matter to devise a scheme whereby grievances may be heard, examined and dealt with in a satisfactory manner.

Supply-Defence-Relief Camps
I suggest to the minister that he give this particular section of the report his very serious consideration, as I am convinced that the carrying out of these recommendations would overcome many of the difficulties that now exist in the camps. I am convinced of that because I have worked with men and I know men, and I know how easy it is to get their cooperation when you go half way to meet them. Again quoting from the report.
The necessity for suitable personnel. We are of the opinion that the whole atmosphere of a camp depends on the personality of the camp foreman.
Your committee knows one camp where the foreman issues no restrictive orders, where the men have supported him in refusing to allow communists to come into the camp, and where no "bush'' committee exists.
In this camp the foreman leads his men in recreational activities, plays with them; he listens to their requests even though unable to grant them. In this camp there has been little or no trouble at any time.
This foreman has proved under two systems of relief, provincial and dominion, over a long period in one camp, that the human factor is all-important, and that men can be controlled and even made happy in adverse circumstances by the exercise of humanity, fellowship and tact.
We submit that what is needed in the camps is a positive program of work and welfare activities for the men in preference to a list of prohibitive orders.
We think that camp foremen as well as supervisors should be chosen as far as possible from men who have proved their worth in subordinate positions in camp administration.
This is along the line I suggested to the minister the other evening, that the man who makes a good foreman in a construction camp does not necessarily make a good foreman in a camp of this kind, which requires a different type of man altogether. Again quoting from the report:
Men expelled from camp. Under the regulations laid down by the Department of Militia and Defence a man may be summarily discharged for cause, and neither the department nor any other relief authority appears to have any further responsibility for his care.
Furthermore, it appears that there is no court of appeal to whom such a man may refer his case for reconsideration except this same department.
The committee is of opinion, in view of the possibility of unfair action by a camp foreman being sustained by his higher authority, that there should be set up an independent board to review such disciplinary action and make a final judgment on such cases.
I would also ask the minister to give his attention to that. I shall pass over the next part of the report, which refers largely to men in the cities, and come to the two concluding paragraphs:
[Mr. Maclnnis.l
In conclusion, this committee desires to place on record its considered opinion that a commission representative of the governments concerned should be appointed to coordinate the work of the various relief authorities at present caring for destitute persons, both married and single, as only by such means can some of the present anomalies and injustices be avoided.
The issues are so vast and so far-reaching in their effects on the men and women of future generations that nothing less than a complete control of the whole field of relief administration can prevent incalculable harm from being done to the moral and physical stamina of the nation.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
Then follow the names of the committee which I have already given. This I believe is a very reasonable repdrt. It has been issued for over a year now, since March, 1934, and yet the conditions in the camps, as far as the subject matter of this report is concerned, are worse than they were a year ago. I know that you cannot abolish these camps in a day or at a moment's notice, but until such time as the camps can be abolished I think this government and parliament should not rest until they have made conditions in the camps where the men now are, and may be for some considerable time, just as good as they can possibly be made. I hope the minister will give this matter his consideration and be able to report in the very near future that he has found it feasible to put some of these long-needed reforms into effect.


Grote Stirling: Mr. Chairman, I cannot say that I have in front of me the report from which the hon. member has been reading,, but if it has been received in the department it certainly has been considered and considered most carefully.
I notice that one appeal the hon. member made was that we should keep in close touch with the Employment Service of Canada. I may inform him that we receive the men into the camps through the agency of the Employment Service of Canada.
My hon. friend read out a list of names of the people on the committee that produced this report, and I noticed there were several clergymen thereon. In the course of my remarks I shall draw the committee's attention to the report of another clergyman who has spent the last two and a half years travelling up and down British Columbia visiting these camps, because I think the committee may be interested in hearing his account of what he finds.
On a previous occasion when this matter was before the committee several statements were made by hon. members which I undertook to

Supply-Defence-Relief Camps
investigate. One of them was made by the hon. member who has just spoken (Mr. Mac-Innis). He referred to the ease of a cook in a camp who quit when told that he was exceeding the per capita allowance and instructed to cut down, and said that this cook had made reference to a still being operated by the supervisory staff, using camp supplies.


Angus MacInnis: May I correct the minister? I did not say this cook referred to it. I said that a cook came in after this man quit, and the men in the camp found the still. That had no relation to the first cook at all.


Grote Stirling: Then it was two different people, one cook who was discharged for having given the men too much to eat, and another who made a statement with regard to a still in the camp.


Angus MacInnis: No, it was the men themselves who made the statement in regard to the still.


Grote Stirling: Well, a man made a statement with regard to a still.


Sir EUGENE FISET:: Amen.


Grote Stirling: As these charges were vague I wrote to the hon. member a day or so after the incident was mentioned in the committee and asked him if he would be good enough to give me closer information so that the charges could be investigated. On March 7 the hon. member replied that the statement had been made by one of the relief camp workers by the name of Cumber. The hon. member went on to say that regardless of whether or not the statements were true, they were of such a nature in his opinion as to warrant an investigation. An investigation was made and it was found that this man Cumber has something of a record in British Columbia. He first came to the attention of the department when a request was received from Robert Macnicol, secretary of the provincial command, Canadian legion, under date of December 5, 1934, that Cumber should be reinstated. The case was fully investigated at that time and on January 4 the following report was made:
He was in project 25 from 23rd August, 1933, to 22nd September, 1933, when he was discharged for refusing to work. A week later he was sent to camp 227 where he stayed from 1933 to 7th March, 1934. While in camp 227 be was prominent in three strikes, but worked in the background, not giving the foreman of the camp any specific grounds to discharge him until he finally came into the open in a strike on 7th March, 1934, when he was discharged 'as one of the ringleaders. The activities of the
leaders in this strike unfortunately resulted in the discharge of between 30 to 40 men. The superintendent of the group to which camp 227 belong considers Cumber is one of the most dangerous types of agitators, and were he readmitted to any camp he would make trouble by his clever undercover methods.
After his discharge on 7th March, 1934, Cumber applied for reinstatement twice, but his applications were not approved. His second application was made on 23rd October, 1934, and' this headquarters made further enquiries into his ease before refusing his application again. However, Cumber did not wait for a reply but applied for relief under an assumed name (E. Tuckett) at the same time making a false statutory declaration that he had not previously been in any relief camp, and was sent to camp 209 on 6th November, 1934, and was later recognized as Cumber. Apparently he realized he had been recognized for he left at his own request on 20th November. Action is being taken to institute proceedings against him for obtaining relief by false pretences.
In the March 7 issue of the Relief Camp Worker appeared the following:
Acting Secretary out on bail. Huge campaign to bring pressure on the authorities launched.
Vancouver, March 5th.-Comrade E. Cumber, the acting secretary of the union, appeared in court yesterday at New Westminster where he had been transferred from Hope. He is charged with obtaining relief under an assumed name.
It appeared to me to be useless to endeavour to get any more information that could be relied upon from that source, and the investigations were discontinued. I think it is quite evident to hon. members of the committee that agitators of this description exist in all these camps.


Eugène Fiset: Not all.


Grote Stirling: With very few exceptions.


Eugène Fiset: Except Quebec.


Grote Stirling: I think I will be able
to show the hon. member that they are pretty widely spread. They appear to exist only for the purpose of agitating and it is interesting to note that in communication after communication appears the statement that the majority of men in the camps do not want to be bothered with the agitators. They want to be allowed to continue to do what work they can do and on frequent occasions they have intimated to the agitators that their presence in the camp was not wanted. Considerable correspondence has been received on this matter by myself and by hon. members. Different citizens who have paid voluntary visits to these camps inform us that the conditions are good. They state that they do not consider the complaint of the agitators that grievances should be handled by a committee is a valid one. The

Supply-Defence-Relief Camps
statement has been made on the last two occasions on which this matter was discussed, particularly by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Maclnnis), that these men would not make complaints because they dreaded being discharged, but I submit that this statement is not founded on fact. There are a number of instances on record where individuals in the different camps across Canada have made complaints to the foremen. Some of these complaints have been carried to the superintendent but they have all been handled in a sympathetic and tactful manner. Time and time again certain things have been adjusted and methods have been altered to the entire satisfaction of the man complaining. But the agitators still exist.
I should like to direct the attention of the committee to a statement which appeared in The British Columbian of March 13. The Reverend G. H. Finlay has devoted himself for the last two and a half years to the spiritual needs of these camps. He has visited many of the camps and has made short stays in some of them. The article reads:
In the two and a half years I have been visiting the camps, I have never found the food served disappointing, either in quantity or quality, despite whatever criticisms has been offered by speakers or wild statements appearing in the press.
The men in the camps are well off. The camps are comfortable, sanitary conditions are well looked after, there is first aid equipment and each camp is vieited by a medical man twice a week. In fact the provision made for the men in the camps is immensely better than for many families on relief in New Westminster and Vancouver.	_
Men accommodated in the relief camps in the Fraser Valley, Mr. Finlay said, come from every province in Canada, with scores of others from the British Isles. They represent a crosssection of the average citizenship of British Columbia or any other part of Canada. The troublesome element is in just about the same proportion as in a city of a similar number of inhabitants.
The relief camps were not started with the idea that they were a solution of the present economic difficulties. They are not permanent, but are just a "port in a storm", a temporary shelter, established to save men from dying in the ditch and to give them a chance to take care of their health.
There is dissatisfaction in the camps. But the dissatisfaction is purely a mental trouble, caused through discontent and the lack of any apparent hope for the future and the inability of the men to find an outlet for their ambitions. The dissatisfaction is not with the camps themselves, but with the system which brought the camps into being.
The work the men are called upon to perform is merely exercise, Mr. Finlay said. No attempt is made by the officers in charge "to push them". Speaking of the officials he said:
"I have never seen a better class of men than those in charge of the Fraser Valley camps. They are men who know how to handle men and some are more like fathers than bosses."

Referring to the malcontents, Mr. Finlay asserted that much of the trouble in the camps was caused by only two per cent of the total number of men accommodated. This minority believes that revolution is the only solution of the present difficulties and are determined to make the camps impossible. They refuse to work and no camp officials can tolerate them under their care; hence the blacklist. It is impossible for the average citizen to form an opinion on any debatable question that arises in the camps unless both sides are heard. In the past, Mr. Finlay said, only the disgruntled men have been heard, as the officials do not make a practice of stating their side of the case.
"Any stories of downright unfairness or ill-treatment have been grossly exaggerated and in many cases are wholly untrue," the speaker declared.
When a strike was called during the winter, only fifteen per cent of the men in the valley camps participated. The remaining eighty-five per cent, although discontented over economic conditions, had no complaint about the camps and refused to take part in the strike.
The statements made by this reverend gentleman and published in The British Columbian are statements which could well have 'been made by officials of the department. But surely they come with added force to hon. members of this committee as coming from a clergyman who has made it his duty to visit these camps for the purpose of studying the welfare of the men in the camps and so reporting. There is no question that the agitators exist. I think it would be desirable for me to draw the committee's attention to one or two pieces of information out of many which have come into the department in recent weeks.
I have under my hand a copy of some propaganda which has been circulated through the camps by subversive organizations whose one object is the destruction of law and order in this country, and who see, in the breaking up of the camps and the return of the men to the conditions of misery in the larger centres of population, a means through which their destructive purpose may be achieved. This is a copy of a sheet published in Calgary, head office given, the name of the secretary given, dated March 3. It is headed: "Relief camp workers' union, Alberta section." It was picked up in one of the Ontario camps. It begins:
To all workers in relief camps.
I will not read it all, but the first sentence reads:
The time has come to take some action to improve the position of the single unemployed workers.
It goes on with three or four inches like that, and then comes to the setting up of the camp committees:
On arrival in camp it should be the duty of all workers who realize the need of organization to set up a camp committee, in case

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one does not exist. This committee would comprise a small group of active workers. They would make a survey of camp conditions, note the immediate grievances and the attitude of the men toward organization. After a plan of work is decided upon, the committee can draw others around it.
And so on. That apparently is circulating in the camps throughout Canada. This circular describes the method of organization of these camp committees. The camp committees desire to find out which of the men are useful soil in which agitation can be seeded so that at a given time when the opportunity is ripe they may act in a concerted fashion in the direction they desire to go. There is nothing particularly new about this method; for I would remind hon. members that it is extraordinarily similar to other documents which we read in 1917 at the time of the breakup of Russia, and they were used again in extraordinary similarity at the time the German fleet went to pieces and bloodshed ensued. Further than that, there is evidence in the department of a widespread and well organized plot, that on a given date in the near future these subversive organizations will attempt the destruction of the camps throughout Canada. Needless to say the necessary steps to safeguard against any such contingency have been taken.
It is interesting to note that definite instructions have been sent by the organizations to their agents in our camps, that when the uprising takes place it will be possible to accomplish their end. I have in my hand a copy of the Relief Camp Worker, which was published on March 19 and is the organ of the relief camp workers' union, British Columbia district. The address of its office in Vancouver is printed and at the top of the page is "Conference Number" and at the bottom of the page, "Not a man left in camp, April 4." Again, I will not read it; there is a good deal of it-four pages of it. On the front page I note that it says:
On April 4 British Columbia and Alberta will be the scene of the greatest attempt by the camp workers to emancipate themselves from the yoke that predominated in the dim past.
And lower down:
Let us go forward in the coming struggle with the only weapon that gets results; that is, organized militant action; no dallying with these political heelers whose promises are not worth the paper they are written on, but forward with a determination to show the people of B.C. that the camps are a menace to the youth.
Further on:
Start by building such a solid organization on a district basis that there will not be a 92582-144
man left on April 4. Cooperate with your district organizer and look to your mail contract.
I think that is evidence sufficient to demonstrate that we are face to face with a definite organization of men who are desirous of raising trouble so considerable that it may be handled but with difficulty. I need not repeat the arrangements under which the dominion government came into this relief picture; I have stressed them again and again. When the dominion government came into it, it was for the purpose of assisting the provinces to handle a certain load which they had to carry, and it was arranged that the Department of National Defence should be given the task of carrying out the work. The reason that was done was that under the Department of National Defence Canada is divided into certain districts. In each of these districts there is a certain organization including engineer services. There are store services and supply services. It was not necessary therefore to set up a whole piece of new machinery throughout Canada to carry out this rather extensive piece of work, and so it was handed to the Department of National Defence. That department has carried it out, always with that idea in view, that we were there to give the assistance laid down by agreement with the provinces in connection with work arranged with the provinces and with machinery lent by the provinces, in order to give food, shelter and certain other things to the single, homeless unemployed in need of relief and who were physically fit.
Certain criticism was made-rather strong criticism-on the last occasion these estimates were being discussed, of the wording of certain regulations. But let me remind the committee that regulations are enacted for the purpose of handling the work carried out in these camps. The law abiding man in the camp does not fall foul of the regulations. If he has complaints to make he makes them and they are handled to the best of their ability by the several ranges of authority, from foreman up to headquarters. But as we know that we are dealing with agitators and as we know that we have to make arrangements that law and order shall be preserved not only in the camps but in the countryside, it is necessary that regulations be formulated to direct the foremen and superintendents how to handle anything in the nature of roughness or revolution which may crop up. I have to assure hon. members of the committee that we have knowledge what I have read here is actually extant in our



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midst to-day, and proper regulations and arrangements have been made to cope with the difficulty.
Mr. MaeINNIS: After I made the statement about the evidence given in regard to the still in the camp, the minister wrote to me asking for further information. I gave him that information, furnished him with the name of the person who made the statement, and described the circumstances in which the statement was made. I now find that he tracked down the individual who made the statement but did not track down or try to track down the still or those who were operating it. The reason he gave for not doing that was that the man was supposed to be an agitator. Evidently everyone who disagrees with conditions in the camp is an agitator. But let me tell the members of the committee that the world owes a great deal to agitators. Without agitators there would be no progress, so let us put its proper value on agitation.
The article that the minister read from The British Columbian is not essentially different from the report I read; in fact it is practically the same thing. They agree that conditions in the camps are in some respects all right, but more is required than mere food, clothing and shelter. Then the minister says only two per cent of the men are agitators or have leanings that way. Surely then if there is proper organization in the camp the other ninety-eight per cent will not follow the misguided two per cent. The fact is that there is no agitator but injustice. Do away with injustice and agitators will find nothing to thrive on. I have information in regard to the agitation that was carried on in the summer of 1930 before this government came into office, what was said about the government of that day, comparing the present leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) to Judas. Who organized the unemployed in Regina?


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: Who referred to him as Judas?
Mr. MaeINNIS: The present Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) when he was an agitator. Who organized the unemployed at Regina and gave them buttons to wear in the lapels of their coats?


Mr. DONNELLY:: The Tories.
Mr. MaeINNIS: Chickens will come home to roost. Now we are not going to meet this situation by suppression. We should meet it by removing the injustices, and then, as I have said, agitators will find nothing to do.
[Mr. Stirling.!


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


Mr. HEAPS:: Before the item carries I should like to ask the minister if it is the policy of his department to send around officers to investigate conditions in the camps, not merely those in British Columbia but in other parts of the dominion. Also, assuming these investigators are making rounds of the camps, whether their reports are submitted to his department, and if he has any such reports with him at the present time.


Grote Stirling: Officials of the department are constantly travelling around to the camps. I have not any collected reports here. Their reports come in from time to time and close check is kept on them. But as Canada is divided into districts the reports are made to district headquarters, which in turn report to the department. There is no book of reports like this that I can refer to, but the reports are continually coming before us.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Has the department made
any investigation of the camp at Lac Seul?


Grote Stirling: Yes, there have been
rather extensive reports on Lac Seul.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I would like some information in regard to conditions in that camp. I have had complaints in regard to the inefficiency of the whole administration there. I would like to know the total cost of the work done in that camp and also something in regard to what has been accomplished.


Grote Stirling: My information is that
up to some months ago there was a considerable amount of trouble and disaffection at Lac Seul, but for the past five or six months the camp has quieted down to a very considerable extent, and since I have been in this position I have not had reports of any unfortunate happenings at Lac Seul.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Could the minister inform
the committee What the official reports were in regard to the cause of the dissatisfaction and trouble in that camp?


Grote Stirling: Total expenditures to September 13, 1934, were $664,373. I am not in a position at the moment to answer my hon. friend's question, but I shall be glad to report to him by letter.


Abraham Albert Heaps: My information which has
come to me from more than one source, is that this is a most extravagantly conducted camp, and that the work, although done by the cheapest labour available, could have been done for a very small proportion of the amount that has been spent by the department. The

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reports I had, which came from a reliable source, included for example the statement that four carloads of beef were destroyed; they had been there so long that they were totally unfit for human consumption. Does the minister know anything in regard to that?


Grote Stirling: No, I cannot corroborate or deny that statement, but it certainly will be looked into. We must remember that Lac Seul is an isolated place. The work was undertaken in accordance with the views of both province and dominion, to achieve a certain purpose, the clearing of the shore at the present water level of Lac Seul and to the height to which the water will rise. It will be a feeder for a future power plant, a work that will be of advantage to that part of Canada at a later day. If men are placed in camp in an isolated place like that, however desirable the work that may be accomplished, it is probable that it will not be done as economically as if it were close to centres of supply. I think I can meet the contention of the hon. member with regard to enormous extravagance, and I shall be happy to do so if he wishes it.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Can the minister say how
much land was cleared there?


Grote Stirling: No, I am afraid I have not that detail here.


Abraham Albert Heaps: How many men are employed at the present time?


Grote Stirling: I am reading from the list which I tabled earlier this month. In the Lac Seul camps there were the following labourers on February 28:
Number of
Camp-	labourers
Sawmill	 147
No.	3	
110No.	4	
94No.	5	
105No.	6	
100No.	10	
78No.	16	
36


Abraham Albert Heaps: Besides clearing land, what other work are these men doing?


Grote Stirling: They are clearing the land around the lake.


Abraham Albert Heaps: What other work are they
doing?


Grote Stirling: That is the main workclearing the foreshore.


Abraham Albert Heaps: So far, then, almost two-thirds of the million dollars has been expended in clearing the land at that point.


Grote Stirling: I can describe the work in much greater detail on a later occasion. I could not even tell the hon. member offhand the size of Lac Seul. If it is a big enough lake, the sum is not very large.


Edward Joseph Garland: Have regulations been passed recently, especially with regard to the relief camp at Trenton, that the men employed there shall be deprived of their twenty cents a day allowance on wet days or days on which they do not work?


Grote Stirling: : The regulation hitherto has been that the allowance of twenty cents is paid on days that some work is done.


Edward Joseph Garland: Only on days that work is done?


Grote Stirling: Yes.


Edward Joseph Garland: In that case may I inquire of the minister why it is called an allowance? Evidently, according to the statement of the minister, it is money paid for work done, but on several occasions he has referred to it as an allowance. I do not suppose there is very much use in pressing these objections, since the minister has declared himself satisfied with the relief camps, their function, operation, the personnel running them, and so forth. I also regret that he has seen fit to olass all those who object to conditions in relief camps as agitators. In any representations I have made to him I have been very careful to see that they were based only on facts presented to me by respectable and responsible bodies of citizens, one of them, for example, the Calgary city council. I sincerely trust the minister will not describe that body as inspired by agitators. I also hope he will not suggest that the board of the Vancouver council of social agencies is to be described as a radical, agitating body, or one inspired by motives such as those implied in the letters, pamphlets and statements the minister put on record in the closing part of his remarks. I have had complaints from many sources in regard to these matters, but have refrained from taking up any except official complaints. Interestingly enough, the official complaints registered coincide identically with those presented in this house by other hon. members and all of them ask exactly the same type of redress. They ask first for permission to the men in camps to have their own government, as it were, such as I suggested to the minister is the practice in universities, of course always subject to the general regulations of a superintendent which are necessary for proper procedure. Further, they should have a complaints committee. I would suggest that if the government were

Supply-Defence-Relief Camps
wise, they would go further and inaugurate sports committees. In other words, there would thus be a devolpment of self respect and self government in those camps; that would be the finest protection against the danger that the minister attempted to place before the committee, the danger of organized revolt.


Grote Stirling: May I interpose a remark at this point? The hon. member surely does not want to suggest there are not sports committees and social committees in those camps?


Edward Joseph Garland: All I have to say is this: I read from the regulations. By the way, I may say that I do not hold Brigadier-General D. W. B. Spry responsible for them; they quite clearly emanated from headquarters, but these are the regulations that went out under his signature:
(a) One of the fundamental and most necessary rules for the administration of unemployment relief camps is to forbid anything bearing the appearance of combination to obtain redress of alleged grievances. Appeals for redress by means of any document bearing the signature of more than one complainant, or by organized committees combining to make a complaint are strictly forbidden.
That is quite clear; there can be no dispute about that at all. Furthermore, since that point has been raised again, I would like to know upon what authority even the Department of National Defence, merely because it has the function of operating what is normally a civil camp, a relief camp, has undertaken to take away from those people their civil liberties. Note regulation (f):
No application or complaint should ever be made to the civil power, except through the camp foreman or with his sanction.
Frankly, that is going just a bit too far, as I said the other evening. However I do not want to strain the point or continue this discussion unnecessarily, but I, would like to point out to the minister that in the Calgary Albertan of March 23, that is of Saturday last, there appeared the following dispatch:
At its last two meetings Calgary city council has expressed opposition to the relief camp regulations which drew fire in the House of Commons Friday night.
The council passed a motion requesting information on the following four points:
1.	Rescind "vicious" regulations regarding appeals to outside sources.
2.	Permit group organizations and grievance committees.
3.	Send no men to camps which were not fully ready for occupancy.
4.	Provide additional recreational facilities.
Organizations opposed to the relief camp
principle, and protesting alleged grievances, have called' a convention in Calgary April 5.

It is not of much use, but I would again raise my voice in protest against these regulations.
I also ask the minister to take into serious, nay, into more than serious consideration, the effect on character, on morality, on the general fibre of the people in these camps. I have complaints that I intend to send to the minister in writing-they are not the kind that I care to give expression to on the floor of the house-with regard to the moral conditions in those camps, where 'teen-age boys and older men are all mixed up together, where because of distance from centres of population they are separated entirely from the normal enjoyment of an ordinary life. They are not permitted to go into those places for more than two days in, I think, a month. They have therefore no opportunity to hunt for jobs for themselves or to seek relief from the oppressive routine of camp work. I want to be accurate on this point; is it two days a month?


Grote Stirling: I think it is two days a
month.


Edward Joseph Garland: I have complaints on that point, and also complaints that the comfort funds, as they call them, in some camps are not being properly administered. I am told the dormitories in the Trenton camp are overcrowded. In the dormitories occupied by the air force men there are only five beds, the men in the employment camp having sixteen. The communication I have before me indicates that sixty-four men on one floor use one bathroom. The correspondent states:
I think that we should receive more assistance in trying to get a job. As it is, the government seems to put every possible obstruction in our way, the chief of which is the limited time allowed for leave. We can only take a maximum of two days. If we go for longer than that we must check out. How can we hitch hike and look for a job in two days from a place as isolated as this? If we check out we have no certainty of getting back. In any case we lose any and all of the provileges and position we may have worked into and up to during our original term. If we return we are set back right at the beginning at the pick and shovel, without any precedence or prestige to our name.
Of course under present conditions I do not know where the poor beggars would find jobs, but still we know that hope springs eternal in the human breast, and I suppose they will continue to drift in the hope that conditions may have improved and that they may have an opportunity to do something.
I have received another complaint to the effect that skilled labour is being paid no more than unskilled labour on relief work. I believe the minister knows this fact. Truck drivers,

Supply-Defence-Relief Camps
mechanics, carpenters, machinists, stenographers and so on are all paid the same, namely twenty cents per day. That is bad enough where there is no comparison possible between that rate of pay and other rates, but unfortunately in the camp at Trenton there is an intermingling between relief project men and air force employees, with the result that anomalies are inescapable. The correspondent states:
We have seen first class mechanics taken from our ranks to work side by side with air force mechanics for twenty cents a day. while the air force mechanic doing less work and being less skilled received his full stipend. We have had carpenters working for twenty cents a day beside carpenters brought in from outside working for forty cents an hour. Last summer while we were constructing a cement sidewalk from the camp to the village three different systems of relief were in operation side by side: the provincial highway scheme paying twenty-five cents an hour, the municipal scheme paying (I believe) forty cents an hour, and the project gang, doing just as much work as the other two, getting twenty cents a day.
Obviously under those circumstances the minister must not be surprised if there is some dissatisfaction and if indeed there may even be some British citizens there who have enough of the old British spirit in them to resent such treatment and to agitate against it. He continues:
The twenty cents a day wage and several of the routine and disciplinary injustices inflicted on us are due to the fallacy of calling us unemployed. Obviously when a man works eight hours a day he is no longer unemployed.
They are really in the camps and employed. It may be that they are employed only for their clothing-or part of it-their board and twenty cents a day.
I do wish we could arrive at a solution of this problem. In spite of the minister's endorsation of these regulations I am convinced that in his heart of hearts he does not endorse them. I believe he is as much satisfied as any hon. member in this committee that there has to be an improvement of conditions. Some action must be taken to stimulate the self respect of these men and to help them to hold themselves steady until conditions improve, if ever. I would ask the minister at this stage not to harden his heart against the necessity for speaking strongly about the rigidity of the military discipline originating at headquarters in Ottawa. These people in Ottawa doubtless have their place; the type of man in question is necessary for certain kinds of work, but certainly their work is not that of governing a body of civilians who, through no fault of their own, are placed in a position where at least
temporarily they are subject to the Department of National Defence. I suggest that there be a complete relaxation of disciplinarian measures to a degree where these men may be allowed their complaints committee and given greater recreational facilities. The purchase of footballs or softballs would not require a great deal of money, and I believe the government could make the expenditure without endangering its financial standing. I am sure an expenditure of that kind would be appreciated. A little greater cooperation between the superintendent and the men might be recommended by the minister.


Grote Stirling: Certainly these matters
will be looked into. But the minister who could give a ready answer to the pages of criticism which have been read would have to be a superman. I cannot do it; it is impossible for me to do so. Consequently I am driven to ask this question:	Is it
quite fair to read stuff of that sort, to reel it off in committee where an answer cannot be made, when it would have been quite possible to hand the information to the minister, in which event he would have had an opportunity to make inquiries? Three or four weeks ago I paid an interesting visit to Trenton upon which occasion I was shown everything. I did not consider that the men were crowded in their dormitories. My very clear recollection is that nothing like the condition described by the hon. member existed, and that nothing like the number of men mentioned by him had to share one bathroom. The air force employees and relief men were not working side by side. There were at least half a dozen carpenters, more electricians and more men in other trades who were receiving the ordinary trade wages obtaining in the neighbourhood, and who were assisted in their operations by the men on the twenty cent allowance. My hon. friend made the statement on the authority of a person who had communicated with him that the men were all jumbled together and that all received an allowance of twenty cents per day. That certainly is not the case at Trenton. However I shall be happy to have the matter looked into and a detailed reply given to the hon. member.


Mr. MULLINS:: It happened to be my privilege to go through these camps, and I am at a loss to understand hon. members opposite. If they have never been through relief camps I would advise them to go and observe the conditions. The statement I am about to make can be borne out by the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River who, I believe, is in his seat. While in his section of the country I visited a camp at Vermilion Bay, and I can
225S
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assure hon. members that the conditions in that camp were better than the conditions which existed in Camp Hughes from 1915 to 1918. I would like to tell hon. members opposite that when I entered the cookhouse door I saw a huge pan of doughnuts of the very best quality sitting on the stove and being prepared for supper. The hon. member for Vancouver South took exception to an article I read a short time ago. This evening I should like to make a correction concerning that letter which, on that occasion, I indicated was from a young man in one of the camps. The letter I have before me at this time states:
You can certainly tell Mr. Maclnnis that everything the boy said was perfectly true and I have been away from there six months or more. Apparently after reading Mr. Maelnnis's speeches he could never have had much experience with the interior decoration of a bunk-house. The boy was mistaken in so far as the horse blankets are concerned. They are not horse blankets; they are regulation army issue.
The family said after I came back to Winnipeg that I was spoiled in so far as my eats are concerned. When I read the speeches in there I simply could not stop sending you this letter. I hope you are in the best of health.
I have another letter here from the superintendent of a park that has 650 men in one of these camps; they get nothing but the very best. There must be something wrong with my hon. friends over on the other side of the house. They must be saying these things for some purpose. At the camp at Vermilion, for instance, and I am sure the hon. member for that district will bear me out in this statement, the men are fed the very best, are housed the very best, and are living under the very best conditions. Of course it is a camp; it is not the Royal York hotel or the Chateau Laurier. What do you expect? If it is any information for the hon. gentleman, personally I would turn these men loose and tell them to go out to work. There is plenty of work for them on the land. The farmers in my constituency are asking for them. I just got a letter to-day from a farmer in my constituency who offered one of these men 830 a month. I know that farmer very well, and I know he would treat the man well, but the man stayed with him just one day. He left because the farmer called him for breakfast at six-thirty in the morning. These men are spoiled, and if you keep on pampering them and feeding them with the very best of food, such as the minister gives them, you will never get rid of them. Turn them out and let them work the same as we had to do as pioneers. Those of us who were out

west in the early days never got such pampering nor lived under such good conditions. I do not know the object of hon. gentlemen who are making these complaints, but I have my own idea. If they will go into the camps and see the conditions I am sure they will change their minds. I have been through the camps at Vancouver and New Westminster, and I did not see anything to complain of. The hon. member for New Westminster is in his seat, and he knows very well that these men are well fed and that everything is all right. There is nothing wrong in the camps. They are comfortable and everything is of the very best, unless conditions have changed since I visited them not long ago. I certainly would recommend that hon. gentlemen go through the camps and look at them for themselves unbiased, and then I am sure they will come to the same conclusion that I have come to.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I have a communication dated March 23, 1935, and if the minister will assure me that the person who sent me this letter will not in any way be discriminated against for doing so I shall be glad to hand the communication to the minister. I ask for that assurance, because sending this letter is directly against the regulations of the department.


Grote Stirling: I shall be delighted to do what the hon. member suggests.


Abraham Albert Heaps: On that understanding I will let the minister have the communication. In reply to the hon. member for Marquette, I may say this correspondent states that the meal allowance is seven cents, or twenty-one cents per day for the three meals. I know from my own little experience in providing meals, not exactly in camps, that seven cents will not provide a very sumptuous sort of meal. This man further complains about the diet, and there are other complaints worse than that. One is that they have found in these camps a shortage of food. I do not know whether the shortage of food is due to the insufficiency of the meal allowance of twenty-one cents a day for the men who work in the camps, or whether it is due to a certain amount of pilfering that may be going on in the camp, but this man writes that there is a shortage of sugar, and he believes it is due to the fact that it is taken away in order to make home brew for the camp staff. There have been many complaints along that line. But the most important complaint this man makes is that there is a smouldering resentment against what is termed the slave conditions in the camp. I am going to hand this

Supply-Defence-Relief Camps
communication to the minister and I would ask him to look into these complaints. There is a large number of men, I believe, employed in this camp, and the complaints are along the line of those that have already been brought to the attention of the committee.
There is one further question I would ask of the minister. The last time this matter came before the committee, a week ago to-night, the minister said that he would deal sympathetically with the request that had been made by the hon. member for Vancouver South that the men employed in these camps should receive their indemnity of twenty cents a day for their services whether the weather is fine or not.


Grote Stirling: The hon. member asks
me whether I will deal sympathetically with the request that he has made. I may inform him, Mr. Chairman, that I have begun to deal.


Mr. MacMILLAN (Saskatoon):: I have
visited two of these camps. One of them is located in my own constituency. Prior to the establishment of these camps the city in which I reside operated a camp at the exhibition grounds, and they were quite unable to run it as efficiently as the camp is being run today under the department. As a result a lot of agitators and communists got into the camp in the city. The police tried to take fifty of them out one day and send them to another camp, but they refused to go, and as a result a riot broke out and Captain Sampson, who had bottles and bricks and everything else thrown at his horse, was killed. That was in the city of Saskatoon. Now there is a camp being operated by the department at Dundurn, thirty miles from where I live, and it has been my privilege to be there on several different occasions. I have talked with the men, and by and large they are all very well satisfied. They are well housed and well treated; there is no question about that. One day three men were thrown out of the camp because they refused to abide by the regulations. They were agitators trying to create trouble and a disturbance among the men in the camp. There were some fourteen hundred men in the camp at the time. These three men came back to Saskatoon and placed their troubles before some citizens, and a delegation of these people came to see me. They had not made inquiries as to the offences for which- these men were thrown out; they simply came to me weeping and wailing because of the so called bad treatment these men had received. A day or two later these three men who had been thrown out of the camp called on me and told me a great tale of woe. I
must say that I did not receive them with outstretched arms or anything of that kind. Then these three men went to the chief of police and demanded beds in the police station. They did not get them. Finally they went to the Salvation Army, where they stayed. The next day I succeeded in getting a friend of mine who had a contract to take out railway ties in the constituency of my hon. friend from North Battleford to give these three men a job. I telephoned the chief of police and said, "You had better round them up and see if they want to work." He rounded them up and informed me that they did not have proper clothing. I asked him to inquire how much it would cost, and he bought sixty dollars' worth of clothes for them, which I paid for. They were sent out to the tie camp and given a job, but three days afterwards the mounted police were called in and these men were taken out of the camp, and eventually one of them found himself located in the gaol at Prince Albert. They were just communist agitators. They did not want to work.
There is another camp I have visited in Prince Albert national park. Several hundred men have been located there for a number of years. I went through the bunkhouses, the dining rooms and kitchen, and found them all in excellent condition. Two or three other men and myself spent a day or two at this park. We were in bathing at a spot some distance from the beach where most of the people live and three men came down to water some horses. We got talking to these fellows and they told us how delighted they were at having been able to get in the camp. The camp was about to be closed for the summer. They said they had been very well treated by the officials. It would almost seem as if British Columbia has a peculiar type of citizen, they have so much trouble out there with these agitators. There does not seem to be the same trouble in other camps. If these men would abide by the rules of the department I think they would find everything all right. Generally speaking, they are architects of their own misfortune. I think the department is to be commended for the manner in which they have handled this very difficult task and, on the whole, the men in the camps are to be commended for the manner in which they have handled themselves.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Administration, $359,000.
Eugène Fiset: What is the explanation for the increase of $41,000?
Supply-National Defence


Grote Stirling: This is made up of pay and allowances for defence headquarters which are necessary because of a change in bookkeeping. Seven officers are being transferred from the permanent force, one of whom is employed on unemployment relief. There will also be allowances for the extra day for leap year. Instead of these staff officers being paid under the vote for the permanent force, they will now be paid from this vote, which is considered the proper place. That accounts for $30,700 of the increase. Transportation, travelling and removal expenses incidental to completion of staff appointments account for $5,000.


Eugène Fiset: I notice the vote
for the permanent force is increased from $4,910,034 to $4,964,700. If the minister is taking $30,000 from the vote for the permanent force and transferring it to the vote for administration, the permanent force vote should be reduced by that amount.


Grote Stirling: Shall I deal with that
now or wait until we reach the permanent force vote?


Eugène Fiset: I think this would be the proper place to deal with it.


Grote Stirling: The explanation is as
I have given, that these officers are now paid under administration. When we reach the permanent force vote I shall be glad to give an explanation then or I can give it now if the hon. member desires.


Eugène Fiset: It would save time to give it now.


Grote Stirling: This estimate is based
on a strength of 332 officers and 2,988 other ranks, also six officers of the non-permanent active militia attached for duty and 31 civilian employees.


Eugène Fiset: May I interrupt? The minister is simply giving a general explanation of the vote. I do not want him to go to that trouble because that is not what I want.


Grote Stirling: If the hon. member will permit me, I am just reaching the explanation he wants. The increase over 1934-35 is iix officers and eight other ranks.


James J. Donnelly: Is that an increase in the permanent force?


Grote Stirling: Could we stay on the vote for administration?


James J. Donnelly: How many officers?


Eugène Fiset: I do not understand the explanation given by the minister. A

minute ago he told us that seven officers of the permanent force had been transferred from the permanent force to administration. 'If the vote for administration has been increased by $30,000, the vote for the permanent force should 'be reduced by the amount necessary for the salaries of these officers who have been transferred.


Grote Stirling: That is the explanation I have given. It has been considered necessary to augment the permanent force by that small number and the staff officers will in future be paid from the administration vote.


Eugène Fiset: I am sorry but I do not understand the explanation. The minister stated that seven or eight officers of the permanent force, whose salaries had been paid from the permanent force vote, were being transferred and their salaries would now be paid out of the administration vote. The salaries for these officers cannot be provided for both in the administration and in the permanent force votes; if one is increased the other should be decreased.


James Layton Ralston: Is the minister making a further explanation?


Grote Stirling: No.


James Layton Ralston: Can the minister state the officers who are being transferred?


Grote Stirling: The increased amount is to cover the following appointments now being paid from permanent force vote:
Staff officer, medical services,
Assistant director, personal services,
Assistant director, organization,
G 2 training,
Assistant director, intelligence,
A.A. & Q.M.G. (unemployment relief),
Artillery liaison officer, R.C.A.F.
These positions are usually held by a major or senior captain and the units to which these officers belong are without the services of their corresponding ranks. The result is that other officers of lower rank are carrying out their regimental duties but cannot receive the appropriate rank or pay for the responsibilities they are forced to assume.


James Layton Ralston: Do I understand that this is really an addition to the staff?


Grote Stirling: These are transfers from the permanent force to administration.


James Layton Ralston: An addition to staff by transferring regimental officers to staff appointments; is that it?


Grote Stirling: Hitherto these officers have been paid out of the permanent force

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vote and it has been considered more desirable that they should be paid out of the administration vote.


James Layton Ralston: And they will perform the same duties which they performed when they were paid out of the permanent force vote?


Grote Stirling: Yes.


James Layton Ralston: Is there an addition to the staff?


Grote Stirling: No, except that one now working on unemployment relief.
Sir EUGENE FISiET:	I am afraid both
the minister and even my colleague, the former Minister (Mr. Ralston), are under a misapprehension. In the past these officers were paid from the permanent force vote. They were acting in a certain capacity, perhaps on the staff, but I understand that the payment of their salaries will now be made from the administration vote and that new staff appointments are being created for them. The minister has just stated what they were and he adds that they were transferred from tihe permanent force vote to administration because the department could not pay them adequate salaries for the work they did. I submit therefore that new staff appointments are being created.


James J. Donnelly: I must protest against this militia vote which has appeared in the estimates year after year. I have protested against it before and I do so again. Here we have an increase of 8117,000. This week there was in Ottawa a meeting of all the mayors from the Atlantic to the Pacific protesting against the expense of keeping the unemployed in their cities. They told us it was impossible for them to continue handing out relief after the first of May; the taxes were so high that they could not raise sufficient money to support the unemployed. Yet here we find the militia service with an increased allowance of $117,000. Year after year the same thing happens: there is an increase in militia services, in police and in all forms of protection throughout the dominion. It is impossible for me to justify this vote. When we think of the number of people out of employment, when we think of the poverty and want throughout the country, on the farms and in the cities, when we remember that our boys last summer were going to militia camps on a holiday, drawing $1.10 a day, and furnished with new equipment, clothing and so on, while their fathers at home were not able to earn $1 a day, it seems to me that we are all wrong; we have gone astray-yes, as someone says,
we are all wet. This vote ought to be
reduced substantially year by year, and, I repeat, I cannot justify it on any ground. Those in the permanent service are being advanced every year just as if conditions were normal. The thing is ridiculous.


James Layton Ralston: Do I understand the
minister clearly to say that there has been no creation of any new staff positions by this operation, except the creation of one new A.A.Q.M.G. for a particular purpose?


Grote Stirling: That is my information; there have been no new staff appointments.


James Layton Ralston: I take it that the position of staff officer, medical services, has always existed.
Mr. STIRLING He is performing this service but under a different name. That is the man.


James Layton Ralston: It is not the man I am
talking about but the post.


Grote Stirling: The post is the same.
The officer is no longer called deputy director general of medical services; he is now called staff officer, medical services. The same man is doing the same work.


James Layton Ralston: A new post is created
and the old post abolished?


Grote Stirling: Yes.


James Layton Ralston: Will tlhe minister go
through the list and show us what the previous post was that is now represented by the post paid for under the administration vote?


Grote Stirling: That is the only one in the list that is changed.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Cadet services, $150,000.
Eugène Fiset: How many cadets
were trained in the province of Quebec last year?


Grote Stirling: There were 320 units, the same as the year before.


Eugène Fiset: I mean the number that actually underwent training.


Grote Stirling: As far as I am aware, that is the number that did train-320.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Will the minister give the number of cadets trained, by provinces?


Grote Stirling: As at August 31, 1934, they were: Nova Scotia, 2,282; Prince Edward Island, 754; New Brunswick, 3,491; Quebec, 51,337; Ontario, 21,126; Manitoba, 2,095;
Supply-National Defence

Saskatchewan, 2,669; Alberta, 1,792; British Columbia, 1,800. That makes a total of 87,346, a reduction of 46,986 compared with the year before.


Mr. WOODS WORTH:: In what provinces were there reductions?


Grote Stirling: In all the provinces.


James J. Donnelly: In what school are the cadets training in Saskatchewan?


Grote Stirling: I have not got it divided up according to units within the provinces. In Saskatchewan there were forty-one units on the last day of last year compared to forty-three the year before.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Contingencies, $31,500.
Eugène Fiset: Why are there, practically speaking, three votes for contingencies? We have civil government, $45,000; we have contingencies,-I take it, for the permanent force-$31,000; and over and above that, in the vote for administration, there is provision for printing and stationery. I understand that the contingencies vote, so far as civil government is concerned, pays for expenses of civil printing in the department, and in the past it used to cover all printing and stationery expenditures for the whole department. Provision is being made here for the same kind of machinery in the administration vote. What is the purpose of these three different votes in one department?


Grote Stirling: The desire is that within each department the expenditures should fit with the work of that department. Shall I give the subdivisions?


Eugène Fiset: I know them by heart, thank you.


Grote Stirling: The printing referred to
amounted to only $75.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Engineer services and works, $297,500.
James Layton Ralston: I call the minister's attention to what is a very small matter as far as the total vote is concerned; I refer to the armoury accommodation at Yarmouth in my own constituency. The minister was good enough the other day to bring down a return showing the correspondence in connection with that matter. Summing up the return I think this is the situation: negotiations have been on foot for some time with the authorities of the United Church of Canada as to the possibility of utilizing a United church
TMr. Stirling.]
property there by way of either purchase or lease'. A definite price has been fixed as far as purchase is concerned, but as the correspondence discloses, no proposition has been received from the church authorities in response to a request for such proposition by way of lease. I do not know whether the minister has in mind continuing negotiations along that line or not. Pending that and pending some better general armouries accommodation there, I hope the minister will consider favourably a suggestion which is made in this return by the officer in command of No. 3 company, 6th Division Signallers, for some better accommodation for that unit. That does not mean that the 84th Field Battery, which is the other militia unit down there, does not need better accommodation, but it would appear from the correspondence that the commanding officer of the 84th battery is not particularly enthusiastic regarding the United church property; he indicates that it does not provide the fireproof accommodation which the battery would wish to have. But he does intimate that the signals in his opinion require better accommodation. There is a proposition on the file whereby signals may get separate accommodation outside the agricultural building-which is now being used by both units-in a building owned by E. H. Spinney at what appears to be a very small rent. At the present time the room for signals in the agricultural buildings is being paid for at the rate of $5 a month. The Spinney proposition would involve $10 a month instead of $5, and an expenditure of probably $500 in all to fit up the building. It would apparently give the signals very much better accommodation, as at present they have only one room in the agricultural building. I would ask the minister to go into the matter carefully, in the hope in the first place of providing better armoury accommodation all around, but in any case of providing at least better accommodation for the signals if it is found that there is no building sufficiently attractive to the military people to justify their recommendation.


Grote Stirling: I recall the matter that the hon. member has outlined. We are continuing to explore the possibilities of leasing.


Mr. BOTHWELL:: I understand that
representations have been made to the minister in connection with armoury accommodation at Swift Current, Saskatchewan. Have any steps been taken towards furnishing better equipment along the lines of the suggestion that has been made?


Grote Stirling: All that I can say is
that the Swift Current armoury suggestion is being given consideration along with all the other armouries which have been suggested throughout Canada.


James J. Donnelly: Is there at present an
armoury at Calgary, and when does the minister expect to build that million dollar one which was passed in the public works program last year?


Grote Stirling: If the hon. member will
recall, there is armoury accommodation at Calgary, which has been used for a considerable time by the permanent force. The barracks project which has been started on the plateau outside Calgary is for the purpose of restoring that armoury to the nonpermanent active militia, for whose purposes it was built.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
General stores, $837,800.
Charles Edward Bothwell: This item shows that
the total last year was the same, whereas last year's estimate show that the vote was only $667,800. Was there some supplementary vote last- year, or how is it the estimates this year show an increase over last year?


Grote Stirling: The difference is that
the hon. member has not added to the figure printed in last year's estimates the amount voted in the supplementary estimates of that year.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Non-permanent active militia, $2,000,000.
James Layton Ralston: Would the minister tell
us what this item provides for as to the number of men who will be trained?


Grote Stirling: The estimates provide
unit training for the total 29,803 all ranks for a period of ten days.


James Layton Ralston: Is it the same number
as last year?


Grote Stirling: Very much the same as
last year.


James Layton Ralston: I see a $6,000 increase.
What is that for?


Grote Stirling: The increase for salaries and wages is necessary to cover adjustments in salaries of individuals who are exempt from the ten per cent deduction under the Salary Deduction Act. Provision for such adjustment was not made in the 1934-35 estimates.
Supply-National Defence


Mr. REID:: I should like to draw attention to a matter in connection with the militia department of this city, the 79th Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. I ask the indulgence of the committee and the minister for doing this. As will be well understood, the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders should have as their foremost band a pipe band. Surely the pipe band should be the premier band of a kiltie regiment, especially the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. My complaint concerning the Ottawa regiment is that all preference has been given to the bugle band in the matter of dress. I am asking the consideration of the minister because I know the pressure that has been brought to bear in this city that the bugle band shall stand out prominently, but I am in a position to offer practical criticism. This regiment has a tradition behind it, going back to 1710, I believe, or even further.


Grote Stirling: I shall be very glad to give consideration to anything relating to such a matter.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I suggest that the band be transferred to the sixth floor.


Thomas Reid: If there was as much sense on all floors as comes from the sixth, this house would be all right.


James J. Donnelly: I understood the minister to say that this increase of $6,000 was to provide for restoration of cuts in certain salaries. Would the minister explain more fully who are exempt from this ten per cent cut and why?


Grote Stirling: I bad begun to read the explanation of the increase as it appeared in the general statement. There have been increases and decreases this year compared with last year; the $6,000 is the balance. I shall continue to read the note that I have.
Eleven new positions are included, three of these having been taken over from the public works department, and the balance for new armouries recently completed or at present under construction. When an armoury is completed the caretaking is taken over by national defence; while it was building it was in the hands of public works. Offsetting the eleven new positions are five which have been abolished. This is a plus and minus proposition, a give and take, but the balance is an increase of $6,000. The amount of training will 'be affected by restricting certain activities and limiting the number in attendance at instructional schools.
Supply-National Defence


James J. Donnelly: I understood the minister to say that there were some men who were exempt from the ten per cent cut. Who are they?


Grote Stirling: I am afraid I have not with me the details as to who they were. If the hon. member wishes, I will obtain the information for him.


James J. Donnelly: Are there any exempt and, if so, why are they exempt from the ten per cent cut?


Grote Stirling: Those that receive less than $1,000 had salary deductions made and then, if the hon. member will remember, those were restored to them. Provision has to be made to replace that which was taken from them before the legislation was changed.


James Layton Ralston: A very small portion of the $6,000 is for adjustments. Apparently the larger portion is for the creation of new positions, is it not?


Grote Stirling: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Permanent force, $4,964,700.
James Layton Ralston: There is a substantial increase in this item. Will the minister explain the increase, keeping in mind the fact that apparently, as pointed out by the hon. member for Rimouski, there should be reflected somewhere a $30,000 reduction owing to that amount having been transferred to administration.


Grote Stirling: This increase is divided up as follows: there is an increase of $5,850 in connection with training, to enable training which has been extremely limited in the past to be carried out in a rather more extended form, so that the efficiency of the units will not foe impaired. I may say that running right through these estimates are evidences of the fact that this year we do not find the same necessity for drastic curtailment that existed for the last two years. During those two years when estimates were cut to the very bone, it is obvious that in matters such as stores and in other directions we have let stocks down pretty far. That applies to stores; it applies even to training; it applies in many directions. A slight effort has been made in most directions in these estimates to endeavour this year to catch up a little bit on what we had to let slip for purposes of economy in the past.
The seoond portion of the total increase comes under the heading of maintenance. This is another case where there are some increases and some decreases; for instance as

regards the allowance made for freight, express, cartage, we consider $1,000 will be sufficient. But for food and ice an increase of $8,000 is anticipated due to increases in prices of commodities. The same applies to forage; it also applies to fuel and gas, chiefly due to increased prices for coal and coke. There is an increase in laundry costs due to an increase in contract washing rates. There is an increase in cost of water due to an increase in rates. The decreases are based on expenditures for the coming year. It is anticipated that the amounts estimated under the several headings will meet requirements for 1935-36. In other words, the provision made for those particular items last year was a little more than the actual requirements.


James Layton Ralston: What is the total increase under maintenance?


Grote Stirling: The increase is $22,249.
The third portion of the increase, $26,567, comes under the category "general." There again there are increases and decreases. The increases come under the heading of pay and allowances, due chiefly to an increase of six officers and eight other ranks in the strength of the permanent force over that for the fiscal year 1934-35, an additional day's pay having to be provided for leap year, also an increase in the number of married officers. Perhaps I should point out to the committee that for a good many years, I mean since the reorganization after the war, a certain establishment has been looked forward to in Canada. In the last year or two nothing in the nature of reaching out toward that establishment was possible. This year a little reaching out toward it has been considered possible, hence this small increase in the number of officers and other ranks.


James Layton Ralston: Is the increase in the
number of regimental officers?


Grote Stirling: Yes.


James Layton Ralston: Does this mean another
major or another captain or another lieutenant per battalion?


Grote Stirling: They are junior officers
brought in. I cannot give the hon. member the exact units to which they are attached; I have not those details with me.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Royal Military College, $359,500.
James Layton Ralston: What is the explanation
of the increase?


Grote Stirling: This starts off with a
decrease of $1,990 in pay and allowances of military staff due to change in appointments

Supply-Defence-Naval Services
with replacements being made at lower rates of pay and allowances. As regards salaries of civilian personnel, sufficient funds are included to cover the restoration of one-half of the current ten per cent deduction, also statutory increases for the civilian members of the staff.


James Layton Ralston: Are there any increases
in pay?


Grote Stirling: No.


Eugène Fiset: Does the Minister of Finance concur in the statement made by the Minister of National Defence? I understood the estimates represented only ninety per cent of the total amount that was to be provided for salaries and that a special bill was to be introduced to provide for tihe five per cent increase, so I do not think the minister's explanation can be correct.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The general set-up was
that the estimates were prepared on the basis of last year's, which included the ten per cent deduction. There may be some exceptions in connection with this department.


Grote Stirling: No doubt my hon. friend heard me read a portion of-


Eugène Fiset: Never mind; I am satisfied.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Naval Services-	.
To provide for the maintenance of the ships and establishments of the naval service, including the Royal Canadian navy, the Royal Canadian naval reesrve and the Royal Canadian naval volunteer reserve, $2,250,000.
James Layton Ralston: Would the minister give an explanation of the increase?


Grote Stirling: The increase is for the Royal Canadian navy, no increase being provided for the other naval services. In order to meet the increased cost of pay and allowances for the Royal Canadian navy it has been necessary to increase their vote by the sum of $39,750, and the medical vote has also been increased by $3,000. The vote for miscellaneous effective service has been increased by $8,050 and for non-effective by $800. So that the net increase authorized may not exceed $28,000. The stores and allowances vote has been decreased by $23,600, bringing the net increase to $28,000.
The explanation of the reason for the increase in this year's estimates is that there are three engineering midshipmen doing courses at Keyham while last year there was only one. Additional officers in this branch, as the hon. member will recall, are badly needed. There is another cadet under training, there
being six instead of five. There is a long torpedo course for 1935-36, there being no such course in the past year. An additional torpedo officer was urgently required, there being no officer available until the present year. Other courses were estimated for last year and are to be carried out in the present year.


James Layton Ralston: The minister has said there is an increased cost for pay and allowances amounting to $39,750. Are there any increases in individual amounts of pay?


Grote Stirling: Only in cases where promotion would carry with it the pay of a higher rank.


Eugène Fiset: Would the minister inform me if there is any possible way for a young French Canadian, for instance, of about sixteen or seventeen years of age to join the Royal Canadian navy or the cadet school? What steps must be taken if he desires to follow that course?


Grote Stirling: Does the hon. member refer to an executive rank?


Eugène Fiset: To start from the bottom as a cadet, if necessary.


Grote Stirling: As an officer?


Eugène Fiset: As an officer, if possible, or even as a seaman.


Grote Stirling: Two different answers would be given, and I should like to know which the hon. member wishes.


Eugène Fiset: As an officer.


Grote Stirling: There are two ways of getting into the Royal Canadian navy, one after being accepted in the Royal Military College at Kingston where the cadet would spend two years and if successful would be chosen for entry into the Royal Canadian navy, and the other by taking a naval examination open to all Canada.


Eugène Fiset: When and where do the examinations take place?


Grote Stirling: They take place in
different Canadian centres. The applicant must not be older than eighteen and one-half years or younger than seventeen years.


Eugène Fiset: I know that
graduates of the universities and seminaries of the province of Quebec with the degree of bachelor of arts or bachelor of science are admitted to the Royal Military college without further examination. Would the same apply to our naval academy?

Supply-Defence-Naval Services


Grote Stirling: No, the applicant would have to take an examination, if I follow the hon. member correctly.


Eugène Fiset: At what time of
the year would he apply?


Grote Stirling: The application ought
to be sent in by this time for the examination to be held in May.


James J. Donnelly: Of what is the navy
composed at the present time? Where is it? Do you ever get it out of the garage?


Grote Stirling: There are two destroyers on each coast.


James J. Donnelly: What are their names?


Grote Stirling: The Skeena and the
Vancouver on the Pacific coast, together with the Armentieres, a mine sweeper, and on the Atlantic coast we have the Saguenay and the Champlain.


James Shaver Woodsworth: What services if
any have been performed by these cruisers during the past year?


Grote Stirling: Torpedo boat destroyers?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes.


Grote Stirling: At the present time
their services are largely those of training. They take the trips necessary to keep the ships' companies up to the mark in training. Also at this time of the year they join with the home fleet when the fleet of Great Britain comes into West Indian waters. To that point our two destroyers from each coast proceed. The destroyers on the Atlantic coast proceed directly to one of the more northern West Indian islands, and the two destroyers from the Pacific coast come down through the Panama canal to that rendezvous. They spend so many weeks together carrying out tactical exercises, gunnery, torpedo drills and manoeuvres, both by day and by night.


Thomas Reid: Do the ships passing through the Panama canal pay the tolls, the same as the liners?


Grote Stirling: Yes, the destroyers pay the usual toll.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Have they any
specific duty in connection with patrolling the coast?


Grote Stirling: There is what is known as the Bamfield patrol on the western coast. I do not know that I can outline any specific duties; as a matter of fact I do not just know what the hon. member means by the term "sipecific duties." Undoubtedly they do

patrol the coast and if they were to discover something which was not carried on properly they would make adequate report to the authorities.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Is there any connection between the work of these ships and the work of any other department? For instance, on the Atlantic coast we have the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Is there any specific work in connection with the defence of the coast which they are regularly called upon to perform?


Grote Stirling: There is no police or
detective work. I can only repeat what I said formerly, namely, that if trouble existed or an occasion arose they would act. Instances have occurred where ships of the Royal Canadian navy have been able to render considerable service to isolated dwellers along our coast. They have been able to give service also to distressed shipping. But with regard to definite patrols for a certain purpose other than just patrolling the coast and carrying out the training, I know of no such definite operations.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Royal Canadian Air Force-expenses in connection with the general maintenance and training of the permanent and non-permanent active air force, and provision of facilities therefor, $2,630,000.
James Layton Ralston: I think the minister should make a statement with regard to this item, because there is a very substantial insr-ase.


Grote Stirling: There is an increase of $700,000 in the Royal Canadian Air Force vote. I think it is obvious that in the national defence force which Canada indulges in, the three branches of the service take their certain place; they are proportionate one to the other. There has been a considerable increase of interest the world over in the force in the air, and these forces in the air have modulated their operations in conjunction with the forces of the sea and the forces of the land. Aviation, and particularly the air forces of the various nations, has developed with very great rapidity not only as a result of the experience of the war but as a result of aviation experience generally since the war, and consequently increases for aviation, provided the force which is being considered is to be kept really up to date, are in some ways more considerable than those for the sea service and the land service. Some few years after the war, reorganization of the Royal Canadian Air Force was planned. It has not been possible in these years of difficulty to keep up the: increase which was

Supply-Defence-Air Force
started prior to the depression for the purpose of obtaining that nucleus development which in, the interests of national defence it was considered desirable that the forces should have so far as the air was concerned. This year an attempt is being made to catch up some of that slack, to move a little further towards the attainment of the desirable quantity of machines and personnel which are required to put the Royal Canadian Air Force into its proper relation to the other defence forces in the country.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Would the minister give us some idea of what he considers the desirable force? He mentioned a little earlier plans for a certain establishment that was thought desirable. What has the minister or the department in mind as to the force considered desirable in this country?


Grote Stirling: This estimate provides for a strength of 969 permanent and 526 nonpermanent air force personnel, compared with 785 permanent and 399 non-permanent provided for the previous year. I do not know if that answers the hon. gentleman's question.


James Shaver Woodsworth: No, it does not go far enough. If I understood the minister aright, he said he had larger plans in view and that this was a step in the direction of that larger plan. I should like to know what is that larger plan. What is considered the desirable air force that we should have in Canada?


Grote Stirling: I am not in a position to lay down here to-night what perhaps the hon. gentleman is thinking of, the ultimate aim of Canada in the air. I cannot give it. Probably plans and arrangements will have to be modified as the years go by.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am just taking the minister's own statement a few minutes ago when he said that the department had a certain force in view as desirable for Canada. I take it that there must foe some plan, some definite establishment which the minister would like to see created, and that this is one step in that direction.


Grote Stirling: I am not aware that that is in the form of a list which could be read off. Certainly I have not got it here.


Thomas Reid: Has the minister information before him regarding the number of sites that have been or are about to be purchased for airports and landing fields? In a return that I received the other day I was very much surprised to see the number of sites purchased in British Columbia. Is that policy being carried out throughout the whole of Canada?


Grote Stirling: To answer the hon. member in detail would take a little time.


Thomas Reid: I do not want it in detail, but has the minister the amount that has been expended or is to 'be expended on sites for airports and landing fields?


Grote Stirling: I cannot pick that out now, certainly, but of course in regard to the sites which have been worked on under relief measures, for instance, a very considerable number of them have been acquired without the expenditure of money. Some have been transferred from the interior department and some have been taken over by arrangement with the province concerned. I think that comparatively few pieces of land had to be purchased for the purpose.


Thomas Reid: Perhaps an answer to this question will serve my purpose. Is the department carrying out a policy of purchasing sites for airports and landing fields throughout Canada?


Grote Stirling: Yes, the department certainly is making a gesture towards the day when Canada will have dotted right across this country from coast to coast aerodromes, airports and emergency landing fields. But that is in the future, certainly not in the present.


James Layton Ralston: Is the department paying for airports in cities? I do not think so.


Grote Stirling: No, but the department is endeavouring to see to it that there are emergency landing fields right across Canada, the total distance being divided up, if I remember rightly, into distances averaging thirty-five miles apart. The problem of a trans-Canada airway has been engaging the study of the aviation branch of the department for several years, and its development was commenced in 1927. In 1930 thirty landing fields had been established and equipped for night flying, the section traversing the prairie provinces being practically completed. Lack of funds prevented further development and necessitated the discontinuance of the inter-city air services of Winnipeg-Leth-bridge-Edmonton and Toronto-Winnipeg. In anticipation of improved financial conditions the aviation branch is continuing to watch closely the development of air transportation in other countries in its various forms.
Supply-Defence-Air Force


James Layton Ralston: The minister has indicated that he is not able to state the objectives which are sought to be reached in connection with personnel and machines. Could he tell us the present personnel of the Canadian air force, that is officers and other ranks, and then tell us what addition to this personnel is contemplated?


Grote Stirling: There will be an increase of seventeen officers and 167 men.


James Layton Ralston: And the number of
machines?


Grote Stirling: The purchases which will be required under this estimate are four fighter type, ten training type and seven bombing type machines.


James Layton Ralston: Is it expected that these machines will be purchased in England?


Grote Stirling: If the requisite machines can be obtained in Canada, it will be desirable to obtain them here. This is a matter of close examination of all factors.


James Layton Ralston: I think the force and
the country are primarily interested in training machines. There is much difference of opinion as to what type of training machine is desirable and I should like to know if the department has arrived at a definite conclusion as to what type will be purchased.


Grote Stirling: In the past we have
kept in close touch with the Royal Air Force and many machines have been purchased from that organization. Others have been purchased from other sources. I am not in position to say that a definite decision has been arrived at as to the type of training planes to be purchased.


James Layton Ralston: Does the minister contemplate taking on at least some of the men who were dropped two or three years ago at the time the drastic reductions were made in the force? I believe about eighty officers were let out.


Grote Stirling: It is the intention of the department to consider the applications of those men who were let out for purposes of economy, but it must be remembered that a younger type of man is coming along ready to start at the bottom.


James Layton Ralston: There used to be a system of summer courses for college students carried on at Camp Borden. Are these being continued, either at Camp Borden or at Trenton? How many students are expected to take these courses?


Grote Stirling: In ab initio flying, eleven officers and four other ranks; instrument flying, Trenton and Ottawa, three officers and three other ranks; air pilotage, Camp Borden, three officers; army cooperation Camp Borden, ten officers; for army officers, fifteen officers; flying instructors, Camp Borden, four officers and squadron armament, Camp Borden, four officers and three other ranks.


James Layton Ralston: What I was asking about were the Camp Borden courses. I should like to know how many will be taking those courses.


Grote Stirling: Eleven officers and four
other ranks.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Civil Aviation-
Expenses in connection with the control of civil aviation, airways, government and public air ports and grants to aeroplane clubs, $250,000.
James Shaver Woodsworth: I notice that the British government has decided recently to separate civil aviation from military flying. I should like to quote an article which appeared in the Spectator of December 21, as follows:
Recent decisions show that the government is now fully alive to the necessity of freeing civil aviation from the dominance of military aviation, and of a more vigorous policy in conjunction with the dominions for the development of commercial air routes within the empire. The air council henceforward will be concerned exclusively with the military side. The Director of Civil Aviation will become Director-General, and will take decisions in conjunction with the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary. Expenditure on civil flying will have to be judged independently of military expenditure, and on its merits. The hope must be that international agreements will admit of the enlargement of the civil vote through the reduction of the military. If we are to hold our own in competition with foreign countries, ground organization must be improved and regular services must be quickened. To no small extent the future cohesion of the empire depends on the air-not on the air force, but on the efficiency of civil services.
If such a decision has been arrived at in England, it seems to me highly desirable that we should proceed along somewhat similar lines. Perhaps this would be even more desirable in Canada than in England because we are so closely in touch with the American air routes. If civil flying is to be developed to the extent to which it should be developed, we should not be tied up with military operations. Has the minister's department given consideration to this matter, and is it prepared to recommend to the government action along these lines?

Supply-Defence-Radio


Grote Stirling: I do not consider that any division other than exists at present is required in this country. There is no connection between civil aviation and the Royal Canadian Air Force; they are two separate branches. True, they come under the one minister, but they are entirely separate.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Is it necessary that they should come under the military arm? I do not see how the minister can say that they are quite separate, because a few minutes ago he suggested that there should be the closest cooperation with regard to landing fields and so on, and in the training of pilots I think the two are closely connected. At any rate, that is my information.


Mr STIRLING:: I am afraid I do not follow the hon. member. One might as well argue, it seems to me, that a man who drives a taxicab is not the same type of individual as the man who drives a motor ambulance. They are the same type of individual, they have to perform the same sort of operation; but there is no connection between the two. Both types might have to use the same airfield or seadrome and they both fly airplanes. They both know something of the design of machines and engines, but I do not see how they are connected.


James Shaver Woodsworth: In the first place, this comes under the military department. That is the first and essential thing we are discussing to-night.


Grote Stirling: They happen to come under one minister but they are not related in any other sense.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Are we not discussing the affairs of the Department of National Defence, or have we passed entirely from the Department of National Defence?


The CHAIRMAN:: This is civil aviation.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes, but it comes
under the Department of National Defence.


Grote Stirling: It comes under this minister, who happens to be Minister of National Defence.


James Shaver Woodsworth: If I understand
rightly, in England there will be provision to take it completely out of the Department of National Defence, making some other arrangement.


Grote Stirling: Perhaps Canada will do the same some day.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I have asked the
minister whether consideration has been given to the idea of taking it out of the Department of Defence.


Grote Stirling: I cannot say that I
have given it consideration. Obviously the day may come when all sorts of changes will be made within these departments, but at present I am not giving consideration to civil aviation doing anything but remaining where it is.


James Layton Ralston: To emphasize the fact
that there are civil activities in this military department, may I as a last word bring to the attention of the minister the matter of having, if possible, an airplane located on the eastern coast of Halifax for the benefit of navigation during the winter months?


Grote Stirling: At Dartmouth?


James Layton Ralston: Well, that is-across the
harbour. I have already brought it to the minister's attention, and other repn-a stations have been made to him. It is well worthy of consideration. It would have done valiant service if it had been located there last winter during the excessive storms; it would have assisted in locating a ship that was adrift for between twenty-four and I'oriwi . hours. Has the minister come to any conclusion in the matter?


Grote Stirling: It has not been definitely decided, but it is under close oh- muon and a decision will be arrived at. shortly.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Radio services-For the maintenance and operation of the northwest te>
dories radio system, $199,425.
James Layton Ralston: There will not be a
department of communications this year?


Grote Stirling: I am not in a position
to make a statement at the moment.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Battlefields memorials, $86,789.
James Layton Ralston: The Vimv memorial
comes under battlefields memorials?


Grote Stirling: Yes.


James Layton Ralston: Will it be finished in
time for the pilgrimage which is planned for July?


Grote Stirling: It is anticipated it will
be ready.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Questions
[Stage Direction]
Monday, April 1, 1935.